Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
After viewing Rogue One, a prequel to George Lucas’ original trilogy, you might find yourself wanting to binge watch the first three films. Rogue One fills in the blanks, specifically how the Rebel Alliance learned about the Empire’s Death Star. Without giving anything away, we know that Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker, eventually help to destroy that weapon of mass destruction. Now we learn the backstory, namely the identity of the scientist who helped to create the Death Star and how the Rebel Alliance exploited the design flaw that left the device vulnerable to destruction.
Diego Luna, Felicity Jones, K-250 (voiced by Alan Tudyk)
There’s a world of difference, however, between the first three films and Rogue One. While all are rated PG-13, younger children may find Rogue One’s action too violent and intense and both the heroes and villains a little scary. (The director, Gareth Edwards directed Godzilla.) There are no Muppet-like aliens that once populated the venues visited by Han Solo and his crew. While the new characters in Rogue One are engaging, it remains a challenge to top the original cast, particularly because after last December’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, they remain fresh in our minds.
Mads Mikkelsen
Felicity Jones, last seen running around Italy with Tom Hanks in Inferno, is Rogue One’s female lead. Her Jyn Erso is every bit as brave and smart as The Force Awaken’s Rey, played by Daisy Ridley. Jyn’s story serves as the film’s centerpiece. As a child, she watches while her mother is killed and her scientist father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsen), is taken away by an Imperial force led by Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). The Empire needs Galen to finish the Death Star. The young Jyn flees to a pre-arranged hiding place where she is rescued by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker).
While Jyn has a vague memory of her father being captured, rumor has it that he has gone over to the dark side. But when she’s shown a hologram of her father speaking to her, she learns that he is being coerced into working for the Empire. He’s managed to program into the Death Star a weakness that can be exploited. The organized Rebel Alliance, led by Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) doubts Jyn’s story. (Blink and you’ll miss Smits appearance, it’s so brief.) However, a rag-tag group of fighters enlists to help Jyn find her father.
Donnie Yen
Jyn’s new crew is certainly diverse. We have the leader, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a very tall droid, K-250 (voiced by Alan Tudyk he gets all of the film’s best lines), a blind swordsman (Donnie Yen), a warrior (Jiang Wen), and Riz Ahmed, as a pilot who defected to help the Rebellion. Once the organized Rebellion realizes Jyn’s group has a chance to succeed, the much-needed air support arrives. The battle scenes are exciting, although the demise of some characters may be upsetting to younger viewers.
Darth Vader, once again voiced by James Earl Jones, makes an appearance towards the end in a scene that sets the stage for what is to come next. While Jones’ voice delivered the expected jolt, it was nowhere near as shocking as the appearance on screen of Peter Cushing, who died in 1994, and was resurrected courtesy of CGI as the Imperial leader Grand Moff Tarkin. (There was an audible gasp from the preview audience at my screening.)
While the Lucas prequels failed to catch fire with fans, Rogue One should live up to expectations. Connecting it so closely to the trilogy works in its favor. And the musical score, from Michael Giacchino, includes enough of John Williams’ original themes that audiences will certainly tap into memories of all those galaxies that came before.
What is it about space? The idea that there might be other life forms out there continues to captivate young and old and provides filmmakers with plot lines that excite and, at times, frighten us. Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival invites comparison to Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a seminal work about extraterrestrials. But Arrival’s time-shifting also recalls Memento, directed and written by Christopher Nolan. You will spend time afterwards fitting together all the pieces.
Forest Whitaker
Amy Adams plays Louise Banks, a linguistics professor whose college class ends abruptly with news that 12 spaceships have landed in various locations around the world. Fueled by sensational TV coverage, citizens begin to panic, believing a war of the worlds is about to start. Army Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) shows up at Louise’s house – she worked with them previously on translations – asking for her help. They need to communicate with the aliens, who can be heard on a recording sounding like what they are – creatures from another world. Also recruited by the federal government is Dr. Ian Connelly (Jeremy Renner), a theoretical physicist.
There’s no obvious connection between the landing sites, which include spots in Russia, China, Pakistan, Australia, the Sudan, and others. In the U.S., the spaceship, a tall, black oblong object with a flat back, hovers above the ground in a large, grassy field in Montana. A formidable military installation has sprung up a safe distance from the ship, a series of tents housing work areas, sleeping areas, and a medical facility. Computer monitors are linked to foreign governments so that the countries can share whatever information they gather, hoping that working together they will discover what the aliens want.
Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams
Shortly after Louise and Ian arrive in Montana, they are given physical exams and immunized against any viruses or bacteria they might be exposed to when they enter the ship. As additional precautions, they wear bright orange hazmat suits and carry oxygen. (When a caged bird they have brought on board shows no ill effects, Louise ditches the protective gear to better relate to the outsiders.)
What’s inside the spaceship? What do the visitors look like? Villeneuve skillfully builds the suspense. Louise and her team enter the ship through what looks like an empty elevator shaft. There’s no gravity, so they gradually rise to the top, finding themselves facing two aliens, who appear behind a glass partition. Rather than the vicious predator Sigourney Weaver encountered in Alien, these creatures appear more benign, resembling large, upright octopi.
Amy Adams
Louise begins by writing simple words on a tablet. The aliens form “words” by extending a tentacle and shooting a black inky substance that forms any number of circular ink blots. Each is a word, and Louise begins to collect and translate them. In succeeding meetings, she uses this new vocabulary to talk with the creatures, dubbed Abbott and Costello by Ian.
But something gets lost in translation when the word “weapon” shows up in the conversation. Agent Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg) views the communication as a threat and, with China already poised to strike, he also wants to take military action. Louise must race against time to obtain more information.
Not only is Louise operating on little sleep, she’s also experiencing visions about her daughter, who died from a serious illness. Are these flashbacks or flash forwards? And how are they illusions related to what is happening with the aliens?
Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner
Arrival is not Independence Day or a War of the Worlds, where extraterrestrials land on earth and begin to blow up buildings and kill people. Anyone expecting an over-the-top action film will be disappointed. We do eventually learn more about the aliens, but rather than threatening, they appear earnest, eager to have Louise understand their purpose.
The supporting actors – Renner and Whitaker – are fine, but this is Adams’ film. Her performance as a brilliant and dedicated linguist may spark an interest in the scientific study of language. While we know we’re watching fiction, the steps she takes to establish a connection, then to decipher a totally new, and yes, alien language, are fascinating. She’s intense and is at her best when in these scenes, approaching the aliens not as monsters, but as a puzzle to be solved. But when the frightening dreams of her daughter descend upon her, she loses control, the panic registering on her face. It’s not until the credits begin to roll that we understand what has transpired and how that close encounter has wound up affecting her life forever.
