‘Rogue’ one of series' strongest entries

Just one year from the re-energized "Star Wars" franchise installment comes "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," a standalone film that takes place within the same universe and chronology, but focuses on characters not included in the main narrative.

As much as I enjoyed J.J. Abrams' installment "The Force Awakens," I was more than dubious of "Rogue One," fearing it could oversaturate the franchise and have the potential to inflict the same damage George Lucas had to the name with his ill-conceived prequels.

This fear was further stoked by the news that the film, after completion, headed back into the studio for additional reshoots, which is seldom a good sign. Also, once the film's first trailer was released, it did not seem to embrace the look and feel of an authentic "Star Wars" film (something Abrams stuck the landing on, with precision).

Despite all this, after I witnessed "Rogue One," not only were my fears unfounded, but director Gareth Edwards has created perhaps one of the strongest entries into the franchise to date - bold and confident in ways we have not seen since the days in which the Empire struck back in 1979.

The film opens (sans the usual expository crawl) focusing on a young Jyn Erso as she sees her mother killed and her father Galen (played by Mads Mikkelsen) captured by the vengeful Orson Krennic (played by Ben Mendelsohn) who wants him to return from his self-imposed exile to assist the Empire in the completion of its Death Star.

Flash forward a few years, and the now-adult Jyn (played by Felicity Jones) is a prisoner who is sprung by members of the Rebel Alliance who hope she can assist in getting them further into the Empire's hive to take it down from the inside. You see, Galen is rumored to still be alive, the destructive "star-killing" weapon is almost complete, and the rebels feel she could perhaps lead them right to him.

But first, she must visit with family friend Saw Gerrera (played by Forest Whitaker), who has splintered off from the Rebellion to pursue a more aggressive approach to fight back and may know Galen's exact whereabouts.

Along the way, she will befriend and amass an intergalactic posse that will assist her in her mission, on which will rest not only the fate of the rebels but the allegiance of the audience, as we have learned from the dark "Jar-Jar and Child Anakin Years" that this can make or break the picture.

Her crew consists of embittered pilot Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna with Han Solo-like swagger), a reprogrammed Imperial droid named K-2S0 (voiced by Alan Tudyk), Chirrut Imwe (played by Donnie Yen), a blind swordsman - much like the legendary Japanese cinematic character Zatoichi - who is an impassioned believer in the Force, and his traveling partner Baze Malbus (played by Wen Jiang), a burly brute who lets his munitions do the talking.

And while the initial scenes bounce around from planet to planet to establish the story, it soon settles onto our hero's journey and rewards us greatly for our time spent with them. Director Edwards is not as concerned about maintaining the franchise's feel, but does manage to make it all mesh flawlessly (with a few strategic cameos along the way). He ditches the galactic glitter that plagued the prequels and settles for a more personal approach before launching into an all-out war movie by its conclusion.

Jones provides yet another strong female lead, without eclipsing Daisy Ridley's Rey, but the film's strengths come from Yen's serene-yet-resolute warrior and Tudyk's sarcastic droid. He invokes the computational superiority of Anthony Daniels' C3P0, but adds to it a level of snark that provides the film with legitimate laughs when they are most needed.

And while the film focuses more on human drama for its thrust, it's not without technical wizardry, which is most reserved for its spectacular battle sequences and one very impressive cameo.

What could have spun off into the "Joanie Loves Chachi" of the "Star Wars" franchise has easily become one of the series' strongest entries.