and plot holes.
Spoilers alert!
I just watched Rogue One: a Star Wars Story this morning. It had been ten days since the release date and the movie theater was not that full. I liked it. In fact, I liked it way more than Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. First, the characters were way more believable and not whiny like Kylo Ren. Second, the characters have good backstories: a scientist who must hide his daughter for fear that his daughter would be a hostage to compel him, an Alliance Intelligence captain who receives a kill order and wonders whether carrying out that order also meant killing his own soul, and the daughter growing up with the knowledge of her father going away and even bearing the reputation. The mission: steal the Death Star’s plans.
Not a spoiler: that’s the plot for Star Wars IV: A New Hope. There is a tie-in to Star Wars Rebels. So what then is this post about?
When it comes to gathering data and sending it out, intelligence agencies in the Real World use cutouts. There is at least one courier involved.
This is probably what should have happened:
- Rebel Agent accesses the Imperial database. Agent puts the data on a data module.
- Agent 1 passes the module to a courier.
- Courier 1 goes to courier 2. At no point does courier 2 know the identity of Agent 1. Courier 2 goes to courier 3.
- Courier 3 takes the module home. No transmission is necessary. No need to trust or configure anything (and why is the antenna control at the end of the gantry? Shouldn’t you want all the controls on one panel?)
There was a chain: surface to ship, ship to disk, disk to the Tantive IV. Tantive IV jumps to hyperspace.
And why is the VIP in the battle zone? I remember the connection between this movie and the opening scenes of A New Hope. But without the cutout then the VIP is in danger; anyone who has ever done any VIP protection knows to keep the VIP safe and that means getting him or her OUT as quickly as possible, not ride inside the Rebel flagship.
However, I did predict correctly that the final shot is the Tantive IV going into hyperspace long before I saw the trailers and the movie and after I heard Rogue One was in the making. And I did like this movie – enough to buy it on Blu-Ray when it comes out next year.
amicusveritae 