Star Wars: Rogue One

Disclaimer: This is outside of my usual D&D-related posts, but I have to comment being a huge Star Wars nerd. 

Go see this movie. Just go. Like right now! 

No real spoilers ahead.

Back before Disney, I was never a huge Expanded Universe fan. Many of the books often read like some authors' Mary Sue (or Marty Sue) versions of Luke, Han and Leia at best, or internet fan fiction at worst.

But there were some exceptions... specifically books that featured other characters in the Star Wars universe outside of the core three (or four, if you include Chewbacca, but he never really got his own novel...). The point is I was more interested in seeing different protagonists in the Star Wars universe aside from the movie characters. Among those novels were the likes of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy and Micheal Stackpole's Rogue Squadron.

So when Rogue One was announced, my interest was piqued. I was pretty sure it would not include Corran Horn, but I liked the idea of a movie that told the story of the Rebellion from a different group of Rebels... and the fact that no one has force powers is HUGE.


There's a lot to digest about this movie. The script is a little rough in spots and jumps around a lot in the first act, but it has plenty of pew-pew-pew which really, at its root, is why we like Star Wars so much. I won't got into any spoilery details. It's a good Star Wars movie because it has a lot of the thing we like about Star Wars, but it also takes some chances and does a few things different.

Micheal Stackpole at Origins 2016

I mean, remember when that dude... Crap. Can't talk about that. Or when the X-Wings flew in... Nope not that either. Or when he showed up for the first time and... Nope, not that. I really need someone to talk about this with off line.

Disclaimer: This next part is a bit tongue-in-check. Take a grain of salt.

My one complaint is that no Bothans died. I mean... I understand this is a new unrelated story, but they totally could have created a "Many Bothans died to get us this information" moment.

Imagine the UBS Furryman (United Bothawi Spaceship) jumping in to a space battle at a key critical moment, sacrificing itself to take out Imperial star ships to enable our heroes to win the day....

So now, not only could they have maintained canon, Furries everywhere have a Bothan cosplay option from just a minute or two of dying Bothans on screen. Win-win!

Where is the Car Wars movie everyone is talking about? I think I'm in the wrong theater...