rogue one did a lot of things i never thought they’d let a star wars movie do, in terms of: being a movie about Sacrifice and what that means and also

letting people into the club. 

like, rogue one opens star wars to people in a way i wasn’t expecting. american voices and american accents are not nearly so prominent in this movie in way i’ve never seen before in a work of science fiction– diego luna and donnie yen and jiang wen all speak english and they also speak it with their accents and there’s something to that, that opens ownership and possession and interaction with this movie to people who don’t speak english natively.  

and so much of the plot, the thrust, of this movie focuses on 

fathers and daughters in a way that left me just breathless. motherhood is still essentially absent in this movie, but

opening star wars to women who feel themselves as daughters feels so big to me, as someone who loved and loves star wars with her dad, this was so validating. 

and also: rogue one gives a view into the rebellion as a military network; cassian andor is a soldier and a spy and he knows soldiers and spies and he does things, terrible things, in the name of the rebellion, because war makes you do terrible, ugly, violent things in the name of things you believe in. there’s a very real weight to the violence that happens in rogue one that meant So much to me. living your politics means sacrifice in such a big way in rogue one, and it opens the narrative of loss in force awakens so much more clearly. leia and han falling apart makes so much more sense now

but just also

rogue one is a movie about hope. and i mean that, not in some corny cheesey way but in a Real! Tangible! way. and because rogue one is a movie about hope, it’s a movie about sacrifice. 

just

it is an audacious, beautiful thing and 

it is a thing about hope.