pamela-amidala

[pamela-amidala]

was just rewatching rogue one, and i noticed some stuff i kind of wanted to talk about

i think like andor, rogue one explores themes to do with not having the energy to care about a movement, even when you know and believe it's the right cause. this is manifested in andor in cassian wanting to just keep doing small thefts and jobs against the empire so he can live a comfortable life, *technically* hurting the empire but never really doing any real damage. in rogue one it manifests with jyn not seeing the rebellion as worth fighting for. that she'd rather just live her life and deal with the empire, as she expressed when she said "it's not a problem if you don't look up". i really really love cassian and jyn's character development with this.

the galactic empire to me, in some ways feels like how america would be viewed if it had less effective propaganda. grand moff tarkin ordering the destruction of the city on jedha, and then planning to tell the senate that it was because of a mining incident, resembles the CIA's various crimes against humanity, and the fact that the american government, which claims to be trustworthy and for the protection of the people, to this day has no problem with letting the CIA cover up horrific things as if they never happened. as long as it serves the interests of the american empire to keep things covered up, there's nothing wrong with doing so.

this is much much more minor, but i did enjoy the fact that even though chirrut was able to use the force to fight opponents and dodge attacks extremely effectively, he is still very much blind, and the force, while useful and while keeping him alive, doesnt just straight up counterract his blindness. we can see this on scarif when he walks through the direct fire of deathtroopers unharmed, and then struggles to find the master switch. a lot of blind characters in fantasy often have abilities that greatly aid, and sometimes almost completely negate their blindness. for example daredevil, at least in the show, his only real weaknesses are patterns on completely flat surfaces, like writing or computers. quite literally everything else, he can see even better than anyone else. it was really cool for a change to see a badass blind character who still was very much blind, and still required a lot of assistance from his friend baze.

this is a less developed thought i have, but i have mixed feelings about the way the movie seems to try to portray saw gerrera and his crew as "as bad" as the empire, because of their methods. it feels very idealistic rather than based in reality. yes, saw and his followers have done some horrendous things for the cause, however, the fact that they're fighting against the empire ALONE means they could never be as bad as them in my eyes. sure they're doing bad things, but the real issue with the empire is in my opinion, the sheer amount of power the empire holds in the galaxy, but also their intent. the intent of the galactic empire, is total control and power of the galaxy, through any means necessary. the intent of saw and his followers, is FREEDOM from this fascist regime, through any means necessary. sure he may use some extreme methods, but compared to the empire he's a saint.

i absolutely adore the soundtrack of this movie, it's been stuck in my head since my rewatch today. it makes me very happy to see a star wars soundtrack not composed by john williams, that holds up so well. the soundtrack is one of the things about filmmaking that always stands out to me, a good soundtrack can make an ok movie, into one of my all time favourites. movies like the batman, batman 1989, dune 2021, spiderman 1-3 (tobey), and of course any star wars movie, always stand out to me and are much more memorable than movies with an uninteresting orchestral soundtrack that you'd see in a lot of action movies. i had a big fear that once john williams stops working on star wars the soundtracks could majorly fall off, but i now feel confident that as long as the studio picks the right person, it can still be an iconic soundtrack (the mandalorian is also a great example of this).

great movie, sobbed at the end, loved all of the costume design as per usual with star wars, perfect casting, conclusions suck, blah blah blah. pls don't come at me for spelling of grammar mistakes bc proofreading is for nerds who can read. if you want to add something or disagree with something here feel free to write something!