Essentially, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
I own a lot of Star Wars action-figures. I spent pretty much every Christmas between 1999 and 2005 opening those vaguely L-shaped boxes under the tree to reveal the 4”-tall likeness of Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill or “battle-damaged Jango Fett” or who-have-you. Action-figures are a particularly interesting breed of toy because they encourage, as should all play, a sort of imagination. But the imagination incentivized by action-figures is not the limitless, unfettered imagination of pretend play. Action-figures encourage imagination via narrative. They give you the characters, fully-formed, complete with all associated backstory and familiarity. I even remember little blurbs printed on the back of each box, like trading-card biographies. So having seen the Star Wars films or, if they happen to have been a particularly obsessive fan like me, having read all of the Expanded Universe novels and played all of the video games, kids are only asked to provide narrative context for the miniature stage-players in their hands. Meaning a child-development psychologist would have a field day explaining my dream of becoming a screenwriter.
My favorite Star Wars action-figure was Bespin Luke Skywalker. He was decked out in that tawny drab jumpsuit from the film, complete with a small holster for his blaster-pistol and a lightsaber for his immortal duel with Darth Vader. He had a detachable hand — a macabre bit of film-fidelity. I would spend all sorts of time on Sunday afternoons catapulting him into adventures far wilder than those in The Empire Strikes Back: forays into abandoned spice-mines, run-ins with Stormtrooper squads on Dathomir, dogfights with TIE-Advanceds over the grasslands on Dantooine. But my favorite part about Bespin Luke was how poseable he was. You see, sometime in the late 1980s, action-figures experienced a sort of renaissance during which manufacturers realized that they had to start marketing more to collectors and geeks than they did to little kids who simply enjoyed slamming C-3PO against a wall. So they gave these little toys more moveable joints. When the first Star Wars toys launched in the late 1970s, mini-Chewbacca could swing his arms and legs forward and backward like a tin soldier, but that’s about it. By the early 2000s, action-figures could bend at the elbows, the knees, the wrists, the neck, etc… These plastic joints were known in industry-lingo as “points of articulation.”
Bespin Luke had many points of articulation — I’d say at least 14. So did his Darth Vader counterpart, and of course Han Solo. But an interesting thing happened when you went further down the billing order. Maybe Chewbacca and Princess Leia had a decent number of articulation points — let’s say 10–12. Lando would get 8–10. Boba Fett would get 10–12, because despite taking up less screen-time, he was a more prolific character, as was your average Stormtrooper (14ish). But the gas-masked TIE-Fighter pilot, whose only purpose was to sit behind the yoke and get blown to smithereens by Our Heroes? 8. And the Sullustan male arms dealer Nien Nunb? He got 6. Tops.
The reasoning behind this articulation-hierarchy is fairly obvious. Collectors are more likely to contort the great Star Wars heroes into convoluted poses for their display shelves than they are to proudly showcase Salacious Crumb doing a handstand. There is no point in wasting resources on manufacturing multi-jointed figurines for the galaxy’s most minor players. And even for me, a child who actually played with the toys, it made perfect sense to have a Luke Skywalker avatar that I could twist into a lightsaber-fighting stance. Who cares if Lobot’s legs didn’t bend at the knees? He was the playtime equivalent of a background character.
Another favorite of mine was about as far from the top-tier 14+ points-of-articulation as they could get. It was the lowly Rebel Soldier, clad in his Endor forest-camo and equipped with nothing but his trusty blaster rifle and removable helmet. He didn’t even have a name — he didn’t even get his own box. He came packaged in a pack that included a speeder-bike and Endor Leia (12 points of articulation).
As I mentioned, the Stormtrooper was stacked in terms of POA. These faceless foot-soldiers are perhaps the most recognizable characters from the franchise after Darth Vader, so Hasbro took care to give Stormtroopers the same number of joints they would a series protagonist. I’m talking Bespin Luke levels, 14+. But the Rebel Soldier? A measly 6. You could move his arms at the shoulders and his legs at the hips, and you could twist his torso 180° and his neck 360° [which made for some gruesome Force-Choke moments when I busted out my Darth Vader (16 POA!!)]. His helmet popped off, revealing a ruddy smear of hair, and his flak-jacket was molded to appear windswept, permanently billowing out from his hip as if caught in the shockwave from a distant explosion. His face was twisted into a battle-hardened grimace, rigid and absolute, as if it could know no other expression. His right hand was permanently contorted into a firing-grip, with index finger crooked to receive the trigger of his blaster rifle. His left hand was extended with the palm cupped upwards and I could slot the rifle-barrel directly into his grip. One couldn’t imagine better weapon discipline.
I only owned one Stormtrooper and one Rebel Soldier. My parents weren’t about to buy me duplicates of figurines just so I could create properly-sized firefights. So I learned to substitute one soldier for an army. While Skywalker and Chewie skirted the edges of the battlefield, searching for a way to disable the shield generator, the stalwart Stormtrooper and determined Rebel would stand in firing poses in the center of my star-patterned carpet, each representing the whole of their respective armies, like little plastic synecdoches taking pot-shots in the lamplight.
Modern blockbusters such as Man Of Steel (2013) are the most gratuitous offenders, killing millions of the on-screen peasantry in the name of evoking a genuine fear for the safety of the hero.
No matter how long I traipsed around my room, finding new nooks and crannies within which to stage pivotal battles between Luke and Vader, I would always make sure to periodically check in on my Stormtrooper and my Rebel.
Deep-seeded introversion kept me at home most weekends, conducting space-operas of my own in my bedroom. The stories that unfolded during those quiet afternoons were for no one’s benefit but my own. Even at six-years old, some instinctual part of me understood the basic elements of narrative. My Stormtrooper and my Rebel existed for the sole purpose of fulfilling one of those fundamental parameters: the need for stakes.
Mathematically, the audience’s rooting interest in a story is directly proportional to the severity of the stakes imposed upon its characters. This is especially true for Star Wars, the most formulaic of all master narratives. “Severity” also need not mean physical trauma or death. It can be emotional, or relational, or filial or whatever. But regardless of subject matter or medium, engaging character conflicts are born from invoking the terrifying consequences of failure. In more complex stories, these consequences can be as nuanced as the ability to maintain a healthy relationship, or the acknowledgement of apostasy, or the fear of dying in obscurity. In our grandest stories, the ones Joseph Campbell would have termed “monomyth” (Luke Skywalker even graced one cover of The Hero With A Thousand Faces), the stakes need to be more universal. They need to tap into an inexplicable primacy shared by all potential audiences. And there is no greater and no simpler stake available in storytellers’ toolkits than the fear of death.
After spending some time working through my main plot, I would leave little Luke posed midway through some daring maneuver; let’s say dangling off my closet doorknob by a reappropriated bit of shoelace. As he hung precariously over some hypothetical lava-pit below, I’d dart back over to the lonely two infantrymen in the middle of the room, each of whom had been strategically positioned near a coloring book or stapler to use as cover. I’d mimic top-tier SFX with my tongue, pursing my lips together and letting spittle fly as I attempted to reproduce the sound of blaster bolts pinging off metal. The Rebel would dart courageously out from behind his stack of “Discovery Kids!” magazines with his weapon primed. I’d cock one eye, shadowing him as he aimed down the sights of his rifle. I’d inhale sharply, imagining his burst of adrenaline. I’d clench my hands tightly around his miniature torso, anticipating the squeeze of the trigger. But just as he was about to fire — FOOM — laser right to the chest! Down he went.
Mathematically, the audience’s rooting interest in a story is directly proportional to the severity of the stakes imposed upon its characters.
And then I picked him right back up again! He took position once more, this time with a new name, a new homeworld, and maybe even a new reason to fight. My Rebel would rise from his own ashes like the world’s smallest plastic Phoenix. In my mind, he had become a different soldier, a new representation of the hypothetical battalion sprawled across my floor. Perhaps, if I was feeling romantic, he would even take revenge on the Stormtrooper, shouting some war-cry for his fallen comrade as he shot down the faceless enemy across the battlefield. And then I’d do the same with the Stormtrooper — replacing him with himself — knocking them each down like pins before standing them right back up again to continue the fight.
Piling up these high mounds of casualties doubtlessly feels like an overplayed ploy to rack up suspense. Modern blockbusters such as Man Of Steel (2013) are the most gratuitous offenders, killing millions of the on-screen peasantry in the name of evoking a genuine fear for the safety of the hero. Nowadays, I would balk at such shoddy plot structuring. But as a child, I was more than content to construct my stories around these simplistic devices.
As my single soldiers rose and fell ad nauseum, I imagined each death and each kill heightening the tension, raising the stakes of the battle.
After a few moments of this, I’d reposition the two toys behind ‘cover,’ give them a nod of approval, and return to Luke Skywalker, who had by that point slipped out of the sloppy knot I had tied around his arm, leaving me to desperately try to explain to myself why he hadn’t instantly disintegrated in the lava below.
And now we must ask ourselves two questions:
I) Why did I need to do this?
I could have easily imagined some large-scale conflict going on in the background, while Our Heroes conducted their galaxy-saving business. The Star Wars films are famous for cross-cutting between battles great and small. But having seen these battles on screen need not have translated into an urge to replicate that feeling of simultaneity. If there were multiple battles happening during my playtime reveries, as there always were, why couldn’t I have just resigned the supplementary ones to my imagination, and focused my full attention on my favorite heroes? Why did I need those two stand-in soldiers in my periphery? Did having tactile representations of the battle make the thrill more palpable? Did it, perhaps, feel less faithful if I didn’t address the supporting cast in my own fantasies? Did it feel disingenuous? Possibly. But I believe it had to do more with my knowing, even at that age, what it took to craft a compelling narrative.
Since the beginning of time, storytellers have had to manipulate their craft to captivate and entertain their audience. In my playtime bubble, there was no such obligation. I authored these stories by my own hand for my own benefit. And yet, even though I had no one to convince, I still went out of my way to prove that my heroes faced the ultimate consequences. I kept Death present on the battlefield at all times, to guarantee that the dangers faced by my characters never felt false. This is a fairly common technique among children during playtime. They will infuse imaginary scenarios with dramatic tension, because ultimately all learning is done through some form of narrativization. For the relatively unfettered minds of 7–12 year-olds, who think and act on pure cause-and-effect rationale, the primal fear of death provides an innate motivator for the principal consequence of failure. If I was to be captivated by my own play, I needed to create stakes. People must die, even in the stories we tell ourselves.
Rogue One expanded a beloved franchise in a way no other film has ever done.
Of course, there was also a predetermined reason these two particular action-figures begat this sort of treatment. The Stormtrooper, despite his high POA count, was explicitly designed by the franchise to be cannon fodder, so of course I treated him as such. The Rebel Soldier, although not as recognizable, was explicitly designed by Hasbro to be cannon fodder. His paltry 6 points of articulation confirmed this. He was designed to stay put in a display case or a playroom, taking hits for the team in the name of immersing a child or a collector in the densely populated world of Star Wars.
Even the etymology of the jargon hints at the manufacturer’s’ true intentions. “Points of Articulation.” Merchandising draws a parallel between the importance of a character and their ability to articulate, or actualize, their goals. Our heroes are Agents of their own fate. They can articulate themselves in whichever way they please. They are physically more complex, more variable, more nuanced. Whereas our supporting players, like my darling Rebel Soldier, are eternally confined to one pose, one role, one purpose, for their entire short lives.
There is a sinister bit of essentialism at play here. Essentialism, or the reduction of any entity down to its most basic characteristics, is a serious problem in storytelling. It eschews complexity in favor of rote classification, and dismisses otherwise meaningful characters as pigeon-holed monotypes. Female characters in film, for example, are often portrayed in a purely “essentialist” manner. Look no further than Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) or Entourage. Even famous, so-called ‘strong’ female characters suffer from one-dimensionality. Disney’s Pocahontas (1995) is one of the most nefarious culprits; Pocahontas is the protagonist, yes, but her entire character is driven by mawkish sentimentality and a need for male attention, both classically misogynistic motivators attributed to women in film. Essentialism is the worst kind of reductio proof.
For example:
His Girl Friday (1940) = Strong, Non-Essentialist Female Protagonist.
Frozen (2013) = Strong, Essentialist Female Protagonist.
The issue extends beyond women, of course. One need only look at all the awful characterizations of supporting players based on race, gender, religion, culture, et cetera in 20th century film, where (on a 10-scale) a 5 is Morgan Freeman’s character in Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and an 11 is Mickey Rooney’s yellow-face in Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961).
The design of my Rebel Soldier was also guilty of a different sort of essentialism, one that rejects the potential diversity of roles and presumes them under the guise of a single identity. In this case, my “Rebel Soldier” was a white male. He was not given a name or any unique character traits. He was just a “Rebel Soldier,” which meant a “Rebel Soldier” was just him (that’s the Commutative Property for you, folks). By Star Wars logic, any “Rebel Soldier” looks like a grim, hard-jawed white dude. This sort of essentialism is a lot more rampant, but tricker to describe. It’s best to offer an example:
Picture a Wall Street stockbroker. I’ll give you a second.
Now let me guess — you saw these guys, right?
That’s what we’re talking about with the Rebel Soldier. If you asked six-year old David, “What do the Rebels from Star Wars look like?”, I would have asked you to Google a picture of Chris O’Donnell.
When I flippantly sent my Rebel Soldier to his grave over and over again, all in the name of deepening the richness of my narratives, I was partaking in a system as old as stories themselves. The faceless masses are so often killed, or subjected to the pitfalls of failure, as a means of conveying to audiences the ostensible dangers faced by their heroes. And it makes sense: what elicits a greater emotional response? Telling a crowd that their hero will die if she sips the poison, or showing the fool drink it first, only to keel over and breathe his last?
II) Isn’t this supposed to be about Rogue One?
I saw Rogue One twice in as many days. After the first viewing, I was taken aback by how much I cared about the protagonists on screen, to the point where their deaths were deeply upsetting. By film standards, none of the ensemble cast had been given an inordinate amount of development. In some ways, aside from the two leads, their characters were entirely informed by their reasons for fighting the Empire — a lazy screenwriter’s trick in building character ‘in opposition to’ an antagonist, rather than for its own sake. So I thought it strange that I should walk away from the theater with such a profound emotional response. After the second viewing, I began to understand why.
The faceless masses are so often killed, or subjected to the pitfalls of failure, as a means of conveying to audiences the ostensible dangers faced by their heroes.
Rogue One expanded a beloved franchise in a way no other film has ever done. Strangely enough, the only other movie I can think of with a remotely similar conceit is Disney’s The Lion King 1 ½. Both attempt to examine a tale-as-old-as-time from a unique vantage point. They do not break new ground so much as they shine light on the old one. But while The Lion King 1 ½ is probably one of the worst films ever made (for a slew of reasons that would require another 8-page treatise, which nobody wants to read), Rogue One not only succeeds, it thrives.
Star Wars fans who were fed a diet of the original trilogy once a week during their formative years, like me, might consider Rogue One a watershed moment. The galaxy that we have thus far only seen through the eyes of its greatest legends is suddenly populated. It’s filled with ethnic diversity and multifaceted cultures. The very nature of the central conflict in the original trilogy, with the Rebel Alliance as the Good and the Empire as the Bad, is called into question by the blatant portrayal of dangerous radicalism on behalf of the Rebels. The philosophy of the Force is imbued with a sense of real spirituality, as the main characters pray and struggle to connect to an energy that they, unlike the Force-using heroes of the saga films, cannot control. The protagonists speak of hope, in a sly wink-at-the-camera sort of way, while also openly acknowledging that the New Hope we are promised in Star Wars IV does not come without a great cost. Now, forty years later, we are witnessing the price paid for Luke Skywalker to have his beloved Hero’s Journey.
These revelations are not coming from a casual fan, by the way. For my entire childhood, I consumed every bit of Star Wars-content publishers could throw at me. I read the dozens of Expanded Universe novels. I played the lauded Knights Of The Old Republic game series, which takes place 4000 years before the rise of the Empire. I watched all of the animated expansions on Cartoon Network and I tore through dozens of graphic novels and comic books about the various corners of the Star Wars galaxy. Most of these extraneous offerings indeed provide much-needed glimpses into the world and characters beyond the saga films. But none of them feel sanctioned the way Rogue One does — they are all, truthfully, glorified fan fictions, penned by writers who grew up loving the movies just as I did. But Rogue One is as official an entry into the Star Wars canon as we’ll ever see from now on. And it chooses not to focus on the Skywalkers and their operatic struggles, but instead on the lowly Rebel Soldier.
None of Rogue One’s protagonists die knowing that their sacrifice will have been worth it. Even the two leads, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), only live long enough to transmit the Death Star plans to the Alliance Fleet in orbit. Andor even quips, “Do you think anyone is listening?” But for all they know, no one is. And even if the Rebels do successfully obtain the plans, who is to say that the Alliance will succeed? Who is to say the Death Star will be destroyed, and the sacrifices of Jyn and her father and all her friends will not have been in vain? We, as audiences, know the answer; of course the Alliance will triumph, and the heroes of Rogue One will be victorious, albeit posthumously. But we are also acutely aware that those very same heroes have no knowledge of this, and go willingly to their doom on the slim promise of hope.
Jyn Erso saves the galaxy because she wants to. Not because of destiny or the Force, but because her character is imbued with enough agency to act independently of her circumstance.
Rogue One flings our perspective to the sidelines of Campbell’s monomyth. It makes us consider the suffering of our fictions. It grants us an intimacy with the minor players who struggle and die knowing they need to die for the larger story to unfold. And in doing so, the film makes us feel guilty for having ever preassigned them to the peripherals in the first place. Rogue One aims an unflinching lens at the fuel of our narratives. It left me questioning whether the high price we assign so casually to these characters, so that our stories might conclude the way we expect, is worth it.
I walked down the toy aisle at a Target a couple of weeks ago, shopping with my girlfriend for her godson. I stopped for a moment and let my eyes wander to the Star Wars section, where sure enough there hung those vaguely L-shaped boxes of my youth. The packaging hadn’t changed much, but the contents sure had. Where once hung Obi-Wan Kenobis and Clone Troopers and countless Darth Vaders, there now hung… soldiers. Not the background soldiers that comprised combo-packs and battle-sets, but characters. Soldiers with real expression on their faces; different genders and different skin-tones. This year’s Star Wars heroes are as diverse and well-represented as the ensemble cast of an independent film: two veteran Chinese actors, a Mexican heartthrob, a British-Pakistani rapper, and an up-and-coming English actress in the lead. None of their characters have the Force. They aren’t responsible for determining the fate of the galaxy. They aren’t “Chosen Ones” or “Heroes of the Republic.” They’re soldiers — each of whom makes the ultimate sacrifice, in the world of the story, for an outcome that was foretold forty years ago.
So after stepping out of the theater a second time, I thought again of my action-figures.
Little Luke Skywalker was falling. Little David was running back across the room to save him, his small hand transforming into the open cockpit of Luke’s trusty X-Wing before his very eyes, swooping in at the last moment before Luke plummeted from the doorknob. All the while, in the center of the room, I watched while my loyal Rebel Soldier waited patiently to die. Even though I wanted to walk away, to join my younger self as he blissfully carted Skywalker toward his inevitable triumph, my camera-eye was forced to linger on the Rebel. To sit with him as he grappled with the cold reality of his place in the Universe. Eventually, I saw him realize that although he was put here to die, he would do it well; not because he knew it would make a difference, but because he hoped it would. Hope was enough.
Luke Skywalker saved the galaxy because it was his destiny — because he had to — not just in the world of Star Wars, but in our own world, where we would have accepted nothing less than the ultimate triumph of our Hero. But Jyn Erso saves the galaxy because she wants to. Not because of destiny or the Force, but because her character is imbued with enough agency to act independently of her circumstance. Her choice might be presaged by the death of her parents and by her father’s legacy, but she still has the option to refuse that choice. In true Hero’s Journey fashion, she refutes the refusal of the call, but does so knowing her decision will not lead to the predictable triumph of Heroes, but to death. Erso voluntarily starts down the Hero’s path even though she knows it will mean sacrificing herself for a victory that she will never see.
Does that make Jyn Erso more of a hero than Luke Skywalker?
Maybe not. But when I glanced at the little trading-card bio on the back of her box, and scanned down to the fine print at the bottom, some small part of me felt a twinge of pride:
14 points of articulation.
