Your First Step Into a Larger World
How ROGUE ONE beat the odds to deliver a near-perfect STAR WARS prequel
Birth.Movies.Death. Star Wars: The Last Jedi Commemorative Issue
By Jim Braden @jbraden6
When Michael Giacchino was tapped to compose the ROGUE ONE (2016) soundtrack, he was challenged to not only mesh with John Williams’ intricately constructed scores for the previous seven STAR WARS films, but to do so without relying on any of the character-specific leitmotifs that form the familiar musical shorthand for the series. Even the classic opening fanfare and text crawl were absent. To make it work, Giacchino had to find the sweet spot between the recognizable and the unexpected.
He took a novel approach. If you line up the ROGUE ONE main theme with the classic STAR WARS fanfare, then put them in the same key and eliminate repeated notes, you’ll find that Giacchino uses the exact same notes as Williams does, but to form an entirely new melody. The score subconsciously communicates to the audience that this is STAR WARS, but with a decidedly different flavor. In this sense, Giacchino’s score is perfectly representative of the film itself. Though ROGUE ONE clearly shares DNA with STAR WARS, it’s a distinct variation on a theme. On its own, it’s enjoyable space opera. As a prequel (and a STAR WARS prequel, no less), it’s an absolute revelation.
After all, creating a successful prequel is hard. Though they share all the advantages of sequels – a built-in audience, a recognizable universe with established rules, known characters, thematic tone and visual style – prequels present unique problems. An overreliance on familiarity makes for a lazy script and, as evidenced by a multitude of failed prequel attempts, complacent filmmakers step on the same narrative land mines time and again.
So how did ROGUE ONE get it right? It avoided five key prequel traps.
TRAP #1: Telling a new story that distorts the original
While striving to breathe new life into an existing franchise, it’s tempting to introduce new ideas that fundamentally change our understanding of the universe established in the source film. PROMETHEUS (2012) turned the “Space Jockey” from the original ALIEN (1979) into an extraterrestrial God. In doing so, it redefined H.R. Giger’s iconic xenomorph as nothing more than a biological weapon, a reductive plot point that irrevocably altered the entire ALIEN franchise. ROGUE ONE adds some new information – who knew that the Death Star’s exhaust port was a deliberate design flaw? – but it does nothing to detract from or alter our understanding of ANH.
TRAP #2: Repackaging the same story in a different setting
It’s far too easy (especially in genre) to apply an existing plot formula to a new setting or time period, and expect it to pass for something new. Films that retread familiar narrative beats quickly yield diminishing returns, regardless of changes to the set dressing. THE THING (2011) was intended to be a soft reboot of the 1982 original while also serving as its prequel, and it failed on both counts. Both films featured an isolated cast of characters brought down by alien paranoia, and the prequel added nothing novel to the scenario.
By contrast, ROGUE ONE tells an entirely new story, featuring completely different story beats and character arcs, building toward a surprisingly downbeat conclusion for a STAR WARS film.
TRAP #3: Over-developing crossover characters
Every filmmaker wants BIG characters. The problem is, prequel films generally have to work with characters established in previous films. This puts filmmakers in a box – how does one make an existing character cooler when that character was already at maximum cool in the first installment? This issue presents itself in character-centric films like HANNIBAL RISING (2007), in which a young Hannibal Lecter systematically hunts down his sister’s murderers, butchering his way across Europe in such over-the-top fashion as to make his killings in the original SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1992) seem almost quaint by comparison.
The earlier STAR WARS prequels grappled with this; Darth Vader’s duel with elderly Obi-wan Kenobi in A NEW HOPE (1977) was positively anemic compared to their dynamic, lava-drenched battle in REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005). In ROGUE ONE, Vader is portrayed as an animalistic killing machine, but because he dominates the original trilogy based largely on his fearsome helmeted presence, seeing him in action here serves to justify his terrifying reputation. How much ballsier does Princess Leia seem now in her initial tête-à-tête with Vader in A NEW HOPE, given that she just saw him shred two dozen rebel soldiers without breaking a sweat?
TRAP #4: Mistaking backstory for story
Prequels are often used to expand on backstory that informs the original narrative. This rarely works, since backstory doesn’t typically warrant much elaboration. EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING (2004) is a prime example of a film that employs character background to build a new narrative that lacks the integrity of the source material. It’s enough to know that the elderly priest brought in to save Regan in THE EXORCIST (1973) had performed a dangerous exorcism at some point in the past. A film dedicated to this plot point is unnecessary. ROGUE ONE doesn’t rely on franchise backstory at all, and in fact presents loads of backstory itself. Rather than shrinking the world through over-explanation, it instead blows it wide open with new questions and endless possibilities.
TRAP #5: Delivering predictable outcomes
ROGUE ONE could only end one way – the Death Star plans would be stolen – but the path to that eventuality was unclear, the characters’ fates unknown. Many surmised that the absence of these characters in the original trilogy meant that they’d all die in ROGUE ONE, but that was hardly a foregone conclusion. ROGUE ONE’s characters were written for those of us who grew up with STAR WARS action figures, but who passed over boring old Han, Luke and Leia in favor of playing out the adventures of Hammerhead, Lobot, and Teebo the Ewok. The central franchise characters wear impenetrable plot armor. The real adventure lies in the blank canvas presented by unknown characters and unpredictable fates.
ROGUE ONE works because, while it builds on existing architecture, it also goes in new, unexpected directions. Against the kind of odds that would make C-3P0 blow a circuit, the filmmakers deftly avoid all the usual prequel pitfalls to deliver a brilliant stand-alone film. ROGUE ONE is stitched seamlessly into the grand tapestry of Star Wars, with the requisite franchise elements firmly in place but a voice entirely its own.