Last year's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story tested the audience's love of Star Wars and the willingness of viewers to entertain stories in that universe that do not feature the same characters people already know and love. Rogue One passed this test with flying colors, succeeding at both the box office, with some fans considering it a better film than Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The success of this A New Hope-adjacent film set the stage for future standalone films and retroactively made Episode IV a bit more logically cohesive. But Rogue One is far from perfect and has a few spots that simply don't make sense. Watch the video below to see all the problems with Jyn Erso and the Rebel's plans.
Man how do anyone start a video on this topic and not cite the egregious sin of that lame, cheap-looking title font? This video absolutely skewers any plot hole, logic flaw or deus ex machina in the film as it always does in its own humorous way. One of the biggest points CinemaSins hits on is how terrible Galen Erso's plan is. Instead of sending the plans or even a rough outline with Bodhi he counts on the Rebels making their way to Scarif and stealing plans marked 'Stardust', a name that only Jyn would know. Meaning if she died or was handling some other objective, they would have been screwed.
I love that the video cites how obvious this flaw was if anyone from the Empire was competent enough at their jobs to find it Although the flaw was obvious, that doesn't mean it was easy to exploit. The flaw Galen built in to the Death Star was so difficult to take advantage of that it took a prodigy space wizard making a one in a million shot to achieve success. That's relying on a lot of chance with the fate of the galaxy at stake.
In addition, the Rebels are also pretty bad at thinking things through, planning to kill Galen without even interrogating him first. Their battle tactics are also lacking as the X-wings above Scarif bunch together to make for a nice compact target for the Empire. The video also makes fun of the much debated, uncanny valley, CGI depictions of Princess Leia and Tarkin. Then of course there is Jyn Erson monologuing to Director Krennic at the end of the film. Come on Jyn, that's something villains do. All in all this video shows how the Rebel's plan comes apart at the seams when put under a microscope. But like all videos of this ilk, it's in good fun and shouldn't take away from your personal enjoyment of the film.
Frankly, it is somewhat surprising that Rogue One turned out as well as it did. The movie had its fair share of production trouble with some much-publicized reshoots. Also, in what is sadly becoming a trend with Star Wars films, save Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi, there was a behind-the-scenes creative change as director Tony Gilroy came in to help with reshoots and post-production. The massive changes from the original vision of the film are evident with the large number of shots in the trailers that didn't make the final cut of the film.
You can see the latest film in the proper Star Wars saga, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a film that hopefully has nothing wrong with it and commits no sins, in theaters this weekend. Pre-order your tickets now.
