10 Reasons Rogue One Is The Smartest Star Wars Movie Ever

9. Using Jedha As An Analogue Of Contemporary Conflict

Star Wars Rogue One Jedha
Lucasfilm

Late on in the first act the film ventures to Jedha, a desert planet under the thumb of a heavy imperial presence. It also happens to be home to Saw Gerrera's rebels, whose methods verge on the... unsavoury, to say the least.

It's no surprise that Jedha, then, invokes some of the most visceral images of the franchise to date. One scene, depicting an ambush on an Imperial convoy in a densely-populated area, featured some particularly harsh imagery, shining a light on the impact of the Civil War on the galaxy's civilian populace. The firefights strive not to hark back to the engagements of the Original Trilogy in this case. What they do emulate, however seemingly, are frontline news reports from contemporary conflicts; shots are shaky, chaotic, and violence is directed indiscriminately. There is no adventurous element to be found, because it is, however bluntly, distressing by design.

To the extent that Star Wars can be considered real at all, Jedha is by far the realest it has ever been. Modern conflict, torture, and psychological trauma intersect in a sequence that I've noticed isn't really dominating online conversation. I get that the Death Star kind of lays waste to everything just a few minutes later, but there's a whole lot more to that first act than fancy choreography and Gerrera's creepy tentacle monster-thing.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.