Rogue One

Year of Release:  2016
Director:  Gareth Edwards
Screenplay:  Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, from a story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta, based on characters created by George Lucas
Starring:  Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker,
Running Time:  134 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, action, adventure

Jyn Erso (Jones) is a young convict, who is rescued by the Rebel Alliance.  Jyn's father, Galen (Mikkelsen), is a scientist who has been recruited by the evil Galactic Empire to work on a devastating new weapon known as the Death Star, which has the power to destroy an entire planet.  Jyn is partnered with Cassian Andor (Luna) on a mission to find and rescue her father, so that the Alliance can learn more about the Death Star.  However, unbeknownst to her, Andor's orders are to kill Galen.

If you remember the opening text to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) about the Rebel spies stealing the plans for the Death Star, well this is their story, expanding a scant few words into a two hour plus film.  The Star Wars series made a triumphant return to screens in 2015 with The Force Awakens, and the current thinking is that there will be a new Star Wars film every year for the foreseeable future with a new entry in the ongoing storyline every two years, and in the interim a standalone film set in the Star Wars universe but not part of the ongoing saga.  Rogue One is the first of these standalone films, although it is intrinsically linked to the Star Wars storyline.  This does not open with the Star Wars title, or have the traditional opening text crawl.  It's also darker and grittier, more of a war movie in space.  Set just before the first Star Wars film, it manages the difficult task of combining cutting edge digital special effects, with technology that would not look out of place in that first film back in 1977, for example the Death Star plans are contained in what looks like an old Betamax cassette, which gives it a nice, chunky physical appeal.  It's a film full of adventure, excitement, and entertainment for Star Wars fans old and new, combined with some stunning visuals and real emotional heft at times.   Cutting edge digital effects allow for moving cameos from some favorite characters.  With appealing characters, well-played by the cast, the conclusion of the film has some real weight to it.

Felicity Jones in Rogue One

Firefly

Year: 2002
Directors: Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Vern Gillum, Michael Grossman, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Marita Grabiak, David Solomon, Allan Kroeker, Jim Contner and Thomas J. Wright.
Screenplay: Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Jane Espenson, Drew Z. Greenberg, Ben Edlund, Jose Molina, Cheryl Cain and Brett Matthews. Series created by Joss Whedon.
Starring: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau and Ron Glass.
Running Time: 14 episodes over 1 season. One 90 minute episode, otherwise 42 minutes per episode.
Genre: Science-fiction, western, drama


Summary: In the year 2517 the human race has moved to other star systems most of which are ruled by a brutal regime known as "the Alliance". Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Fillion), who seven years earlier fought on the losing side of a war against the Alliance, is commander of the Firefly-class transport ship Serenity, which travels among the remote frontier planets searching for ny type of work (whether of the legal or illegal variety) that will keep food on the table and the old ship flying. Also on the crew are Reynolds' wartime friend Zoe (Torres), Zoe's husband and the ship's pilot Wash (Tudyk), violent ex-mercenary Jayne (Baldwin), perpetually cheerful engineer Kaylee (Staite), professional "Companion" (a kind of highly respected courtesan) Inara (Baccarin) who gives the ship a level of respectability and social standing, preacher (or "Shepherd") Book (Glass) and doctor Simon Tam (Maher) who is on the run from the Alliance with his genius but delusional and occasionally violent sister River (Glau), who Simon rescued from an Alliance facility where she was being subjected to horrific experiments.

Opinion: The concept of Firefly was suggested to Joss Whedon after he read the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, which chronicles the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Whedon wanted to make a show about people who had fought on the losing side of a war and their experiences afterwards as pioneers on the outskirts of civilization. The show mixes science-fiction with elements from Western movies, with many of the planets visited by the characters being like remote Old West outposts or towns, which I don't think is an unreasonable idea of what those type of worlds could be like. In science-fiction terms, the show is notable for the fact that there are no alien creatures or talking robots or anything like that. Also, refreshingly, they accept the fact that there is no sound in space.
In my opinion Firefly is very possibly one of the best, if not the best, science-fiction shows ever made. The show was well-written, with witty and intelligent scripts. The endlessly quotable dialogue mixed existing slang, invented words, Old West-style dialect and snatches of Chinese (in fact there is a strong Chinese influence in many of the show's set designs and costumes). The look of the show often used highly mobile cameras which in some scenes created a semi-documentary look. The acting was always excellent and helped create many memorable characters with Fillion's Captain Reynolds being the coolest space hero since Han Solo in Star Wars (1977).
So what went wrong? The show was produced by and originally shown on the Fox network who cancelled the show after only eleven of the fourteen episodes that were made had been screened. The network never seemed to care much about the show right from the start. Episodes were screened out of order (although Firefly doesn't really have one on-going story it does have running themes and storylines which run throughout the series) the extended pilot episode, which introduces the shows characters, themes and plotlines wasn't shown until the end of the run because the network wanted a more "action-packed" episode to open the series. Episodes were moved around the schedules and the series was marketed as kind of an "action-comedy" instead of the serious science-fiction drama that Whedon intended (although there is still a lot of action and humour in it). However, after reruns and DVD releases, the show has become kind of a cult series with a hardcore fanbase, known as "Browncoats" (a slang term in the show for the army in which Reynolds and Zoe fought). The show was popular enough on DVD for a movie sequel, Serenity, which was released in 2005 to critical acclaim but sadly not much success at the box office.
This was a brilliant television series which was sadly cancelled far too soon. However what there is of it is totally shiney.