Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Blu-ray Review

By: Lynn Barker

In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) had a rough beginning. Her scientist dad designed the dreaded Death Star planet killer weapon. When he refused to help make it a reality, he and his family were attacked by the evil Empire. Jyn escaped and, with a few exceptions, has survived alone with one thought; get back at the Empire. Does she have the right stuff to be a Rebel leader?

Jyn has hope for the rebellionCourtesy of Disney

Childhood Details

When Empire weapons scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) leaves the job and isolates his family on a remote planet, Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), director of Advanced Weapons Research, wants him back when the superweapon, planet killing Death Star design hits a snag. He finds the family and Galen is taken. Little daughter Jyn Erso goes into hiding but is eventually captured.

Jyn's father GalenCourtesy of Disney

Join the Rebellion?

Fifteen years later, Erso sends defector cargo pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) to sneak a message to the Rebel Alliance. Adult Jyn is freed from Imperial captivity by the Rebellion, which wants to use her to track down her father, and then have Rebel pilot and spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) carry out secret orders against him…anything to stop the Death Star from being finished.

Jyn and Cassian undercoverCourtesy of Disney

Hologram From Dad

After reuniting with Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), the man who raised her, Jyn and her allies, Cassian and very tall droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk in motion capture mode), see a hologram secretly sent to her by her dad expressing his love for her and revealing that he has put a flaw in the Death Star’s design, a reactor vulnerability that will make it easier to destroy. The schematics (blueprints) to find this flaw are kept in a high-security data vault on the planet Scarif.

Jyn's old mentor Saw GerreraCourtesy of Disney

Rogue Mission

With the hologram destroyed, no way of verifying Jyn’s story and unable to agree on risking troops to get these blueprints, the Alliance won’t okay Jyn’s mission to steal them. Jyn, Cassian, K-2SO and other warriors including Rook, Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and mercenary Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) go on their own mission to infiltrate the facility housing the data files so that the Rebels can stop the use of the most dreaded planet killer weapon ever devised. Will they succeed and who will pay the ultimate price along the way?

Cassian and Jyn with droid K-2SOCourtesy of Disney

Special Extra Features

There are many cool extras on a Bonus disc with this set. All are very interesting, entertaining and informative.

• A Rogue Idea tells us how former model builder John Knoll pitched the idea of a backstory movie on how Rebels got the Death Star plans to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy. ILM artists started creating character designs etc. before a director was picked. Really interesting.
• Jyn: The Rebel focuses upon the lead character with Felicity Jones talking about her young memories of Star Wars: A New Hope. She looked up details on Wookieepedia to fill in any blanks she had to understand her character. Cool!
• Cassian: The Spy features actor Diego Luna talking about his connections to the Star Wars Universe and how cool it was to play a complicated “hero” with shades of grey. Neat!

The Death Star looms over a planetCourtesy of Disney

• K-2SO: The Droid is one of the most complete extras as we see how the designs for this reprogrammed Imperial droid evolved and Alan Tudyk talks about the character and his struggle to play him wearing a motion capture suit, face dots and perched on high stilts. We see a lot on set. This is really great to have!
• Baze & Chirrut: Guardians of the Whills – We go deeper into these Rebel characters with the two cool Chinese actors who play them. We see some great slo-mo martial arts fights and learn more than we did in the film about them. Great.
• Bodhi & Saw: The Pilot & The Revolutionary- Riz Ahmed and Forest Whitaker on their broken Rebel leader and Imperial pilot defector characters. Again, you learn more than you knew in the film. A nice extra!
• Another great extra is The Empire which focuses on all the classic “bad guys” in the movie. The actors who play these characters talk about the shades of grey motivations for each character. Bringing Vader back briefly is discussed.

Blind martial artist ChirrutCourtesy of Disney

• Visions of Hope: The Look of Rogue One is the extra focusing on the production design, set building etc. The effort to match the look and era of A New Hope, the next film in the series yet creating new things was difficult for the filmmakers.
• In The Princess & The Governor we see details on the creation of the motion capture scenes involving the young Princess Leia and Governor Tarkin.  The very young Carrie Fisher and classic actor Peter Cushing (Governor Tarkin) had to be recreated with a young actress and older actor in motion capture mode. Getting this just right was really hard for all concerned. A nice tutorial on modern motion capture techniques.
• Epilogue: The Story Continues readies us for all the interesting side story movies coming up like the tale of young Han Solo!
• There is supposed to be an extra involving finding “Easter Eggs” or little tributes and connections to the other Star Wars movies, but I didn’t see it on my disc.

Jyn and Cassian in Rebel headquartersCourtesy of Disney

Wrapping Up

The Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Blu-ray looks and sounds perfect to me. The extras are really entertaining and informative. I always miss that darn Gag Reel or Bloopers when there are none but with the information and on-set action in the extras, we really don’t need an audio director’s commentary.

Imperial star cruiser searches for rebelsCourtesy of Disney

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was a really nice prequel to the classic New Hope movie. There were a few flaws but we gave it four stars. We can do the same for this Blu-ray/DVD/Digital set. A must have to keep or gift.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Blu-ray Rating:

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Blu-ray CoverCourtesy of Disney

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in stores now!

Have Your Say

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