The 501st Legion and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – Spoiler Free Review

If you are a Star Wars fan you would have heard of the 501st Legion. In universe they are a garrison of Stormtroopers that later became known as Vader’s Fist. In the real world they are a fan group who dress up as Stormtroopers and promote/attend Star Wars events.

The 501st descended on London last Thursday to visit some of the locations used to film Rogue One and to watch a special screening of the film. They passed through Canary Wharf tube station shocking and thrilling commuters (I wish I had been there) before crossing the Millennium Bridge and posing for photographs. ( I’ve written about Superfans before which you can find here.)

Rogue one is something new to the Star War series in the fact that it is a stand alone film and not linked to either the prequel, original or sequel trilogy. The CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, has described Rouge One as an experiment to see if people like this style of film. When Disney brought Star Wars in 2012 they announced they were going to try new ideas, for example expanding the story passed Darth Vader’s death, this idea was used in Episode Seven. (You can read my review of  Star Wars Episode Seven: The Force Awakens by clicking here). The inspiration for Rogue One came from a sentence in the original crawl screen of Episode Four.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Is Rogue One a great idea or does it fall flat like The Phantom Menace?

Spoiler free review

If you are asking yourself, will I like Rogue One then the answer depends on what you expect from the film. Rogue One is a Star Wars film but not STAR WARS with capitals. It doesn’t add to the main plot of the series but it does tell a neat self contained story. The main problem that Rogue One faces is that the audience knows where the film will end, at the start of Episode Four.

I don’t have any major problems with Rogue One, only nit-picks. There are a lot of references to the other Star Wars films which is nice but at times they do feel shoehorned in. The pacing of the film could be improved and the word “Hope” is said far too often. The secondary characters don’t have a lot of back story, I wanted to learn more about them but I’m sure they will be expanded on in other mediums. Many people are commenting that Darth Vader doesn’t have a lot of screen time which I agree with but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment from the film.

I’ll give Rogue One: A Star Wars Story 8 lightsabers out of 10.

A big thank you to the Taylor Herring company for supplying me with the pictures and for asking me to write about the 501st. If you haven’t seen Rogue One I suggest watching it as it’s an excellent film. If you have seen it, what did you think? Leave your comments down below (be careful not to post spoilers) and I’ll see you next time.