I know haven’t been nearly so overwhelmingly enthusiastic this December about the upcoming Star Wars movie as I was last December. But that’s not to say I’m not excited. I’ve had my tickets for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story for a couple weeks now–I’ll be seeing it at 9pm on Thursday Dec 15 at my hometown theater.
Last week at Target I picked up a T-shirt to wear to the opening. They have a whole collection there as part of the Force for Change initiative: for every shirt, Target donates $5 to UNICEF, up to $1 million total.
I picked this one because it was a nice color and had the best slogan: Go Rogue! It reminds me of Rogue Squadron, and there’s even tiny X-wing fighters in the background. It also has the Rebel crest; the letters on the crest are Aurebesh, which is the written form of Galactic Basic. It says “May the Force be with us.”
The early reviews I’ve seen of Rogue One have been overall positive! Here are a few things I’m looking forward to.
- After loving Rey in EpVII, I can’t wait for another awesome female protagonist in Jyn Erso.
- Michael Giacchino’s score. I consider him to be the successor to John Williams’ style of composing, and I can’t wait to see (hear?) what he does building off Williams’ themes.
- Snarky droids! Hopefully K-2SO (whose name sounds sooo close to potassium sulfate or sulfite) will be the heir of HK-47 and his ilk.
- A bit of a darker tone for Star Wars. As terrible as it sounds, I admit I’ll be disappointed if the whole cast makes it out alive.
- Lastly, as a big EU fan, these kinds of stories-between-stories about the “regular” people of the Star Wars galaxy have always been my favorite. Give me the spies, the fighter pilots, the infantry. There have been many EU stories taking place during the time leading up to A New Hope, and many of them are wonderful, so this movie has some big shoes to fill, but I’m excited to see where they go with it.
Jedi by Knight 
Our first viewing was the 9pm Thursday show as well! I was really disappointed with the score. But the other things you were excited about hit the mark for me 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think the score is really going to be love-it or hate-it, maybe because it was so prominent. In any other movie, I think would have felt like a poor copy of Star Wars music, but I thought it was effective, even though to me it lacked any memorable themes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It grew on me a lot. Still not my favorite, especially at the opening title screen, but it works a lot better than I thought it would 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I want to watch this too! I’m eager to hear what you thought of it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I bought one of those shirts at Target too!! I was so, so excited that they’d partnered with UNICEF that I couldn’t resist. Star Wars product? Sure…I’ll happily consider a new t-shirt. Star Wars product that ALSO helps UNICEF?? How much money do I have in my wallet?!?
Also, I’m with you as far as the Expanded Universe goes. I consider myself an “EU baby,” having grown up reading and loving all of those stories. I like your comparison of this film to what the EU so often offered us.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly! I don’t actually have a lot of Star Wars clothing, and I bought a shirt with Rey after TFA, so I figured it wasn’t crazy to buy a shirt for each movie haha. Which one did you get?
I thought the movie felt a lot like an EU story, which made me very happy 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I got the grey one featuring Jyn that says “Go Rogue” above it. Being a guy, I had a lot of trouble finding a t-shirt featuring Rey for TFA (c’mon Disney!!) so I told myself I wouldn’t buy any ‘Rogue One’ t-shirts unless I could find one with Jyn prominently displayed. Victory!
I have an embarassing amount of Star Wars shirts :). Last year, for ‘The Force Awakens,’ we got in line a little after 7:00am for our 7:30pm showing on opening day. (We were first in line!) And I may’ve changed Star Wars shirts every hour in line… Yes, I know…it’s a little nuts.
LikeLike