Star Wars: Rogue One - 9 Ways It Actually Improves The Original Trilogy

4. Blurs The Lines Between Good And Bad

Star Wars has always been a very black and white film. There are good guys and bad guys, Empires and Rebels, the dark side and the light. Even the visual devices echo this - Skywalker is the farm boy dressed all in white, Vader the military commander in the black armour. The good guys (mostly) use blue lightsabers, the bad guys red. Not the most subtle.

However if the good/bad dynamic in the originals is on a simple on/off switch, then in Rogue One every character is on a dimmer. Jyn Erso is a criminal who was raised by an extremist, Cassian Andor murders an informant in his opening scene, General Draven overrules a rescue in favour of an assassination, and orders a bombing run on a facility full of non-combatants.

Even on the Empire's side we have Galen Erso - the man who constructed the deadliest weapon in the galaxy and is thus responsible for billions of deaths - enjoying a tearful parting scene as he's finally reunited with his daughter. Few films could perfectly have a character tread the line between being history's greatest monster and the man who secretly saved the galaxy. This murkiness changes how you view both sides of the conflict in the rest of the franchise.