0:00 - That's no moon. It's a space station.
0:04 - ArTorr videos are made possible by contributions on Patreon.
0:08 This video contains disturbing images presented in an educational context.
0:12 This video also contains spoilers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
0:49 - George Lucas remembers the Cold War.
0:56 He remembers proxy conflicts around the globe, from the Korean War to Vietnam.
1:01 He probably remembers the duck-and-cover drills he had to take in school.
1:05 He remembers the threat of communist espionage; or at least the movies made about it.
1:10 And he remembers that which was impossible for so many to unremember:
1:15 the fear of all-out nuclear war. Mutually-assured destruction.
1:20 Death from above.
1:26 Did he fear it himself? Maybe not.
1:29 But like so many of his generation, Lucas grew up in a world that had been
1:33 utterly reshaped by the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
1:40 Not only the most destructive weapons in the history of the world,
1:43 but the most effective psychological weapons too.
1:46 The fear of nuclear force alone played a vital role in securing peace in Western
1:51 Europe after World War II, and it was a fear that America alone could inflict.
1:56 For about 4 years anyway.
1:59 In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully exploded its first atomic bomb. Soon after,
2:05 the United Kingdom, France, and the People's Republic of China
2:08 followed with their own successful weapon tests.
2:11 The gun that once only America could point at the world could now be pointed back at them.
2:16 A reality that would grow terrifyingly apparent for all Americans by the Cuban
2:21 Missile Crisis of 1962, where the presence of Soviet-deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba
2:26 led to a tense confrontation between the two world powers and their respective leaders:
2:31 President John F Kennedy and First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev.
2:35 "Cease the delivery of weapons to Cuba, or we will cease them."
2:39 "Oh yeah America? Deactivate the missiles you have deployed in Turkey, and then we can talk."
2:45 In the end, America withdrew its naval blockade of Cuba,
2:48 and the USSR its nuclear weapons. Armageddon was averted.
2:52 Even still, the legacy of the crisis lived on in the American mind. A fear that,
2:58 in the words of "Star Wars and Politics" essayist Nick Desolage,
3:01 "people had almost no influence over the fate of the world..."
3:10 From these nuclear fears, the Death Star was born. An intergalactic superweapon
3:15 capable of destroying entire planets, in the hands of a tyrannical Empire.
3:20 Just as George Lucas drew inspiration from westerns,
3:23 samurai movies, and mythology, Star Wars was also inspired by history.
3:29 The dog fighting of World War II; the asymmetrical warfare of Vietnam; and the nuclear weapons
3:35 that defined the Cold War. An era that, in itself, was too ongoing to even be history.
3:42 It's by no mistake that the first on-screen victim of the Death Star
3:45 was a world visually reminiscent of Earth. Star Wars may very well have
3:49 been a silly space opera, but that didn't mean it couldn't be relevant.
3:53 - I consciously set about to recreate myths and the, and the classic mythological,
4:01 uh, motifs. Uh, and I wanted to use those motifs to deal with issues that existed today.
4:14 - That even in a world engulfed in nuclear tensions and imperialist aspirations,
4:19 there was still hope for a better tomorrow.
4:22 Some, such as President Ronald Reagan,
4:24 might have interpreted that hope in the building of more weapons.
4:28 His strategic defense initiative, announced in 1983, called for a
4:32 missile defense system that could destroy nuclear weapons from space.
4:35 Critics argued it recklessly flew in the face of established nuclear policy
4:39 and would reignite an arms race. Some even called it the "Star Wars" program;
4:44 a name with pop culture cache that Reagan would wield to glorify his endeavors.
4:49 But Star Wars was not about wielding weapons, building thermonuclear bombs,
4:53 or beating your opponent with even deadlier technological force.
4:57 It was about turning the technology off, destroying the nukes,
5:03 and by the end of the Original Trilogy, learning to lay the weapon down.
5:09 Of course Lucas was no politician-- and barely a historian.
5:14 The idea that any first world power would just give up the nuclear arsenal for the
5:18 sake of humanity was a childish one, but not a serious suggestion either.
5:23 At its heart, Star Wars was a mythology; designed to assert the value of trusting
5:29 in something deeper and more powerful than any weapon. The Force. A mystical energy field that,
5:35 of course, bound the universe together, but also represented a steady conviction in moral,
5:40 selfless, and at times, nonviolent action.
5:44 In a wider sense, it represented faith.
5:47 Whether or not that meant anything to the audiences of 1977, what the force
5:51 allowed Luke Skywalker and his rebel allies to accomplish certainly did.
5:56 For a brief, magical moment, they were allowed to forget the gun pointed at their heads...
6:03 In time, we'd all forget. By the decades following the Cold War,
6:07 anti-nuclear movements like Nuclear Freeze helped reduce weapon stockpiles
6:11 and established treaties banning nuclear weapon testing around the world.
6:15 The genie never went back in the bottle,
6:17 but the age of nuclear fear, relatively speaking, was over.
6:21 Some of those who were children during the Cuban Missile Crisis, or even just the duck-and-cover
6:25 drills, grew up to make films about the threat of nuclear apocalypse. So much so, it practically
6:30 became a trope, normalizing, or even fantasizing, the idea of nuclear threat for newer generations.
6:37 Arguably, even Star Wars did this by building another Death Star.
6:41 The real world significance of Lucas's mythological super weapon
6:44 got lost in pop culture and buried by time...
6:53 Until... they dug it back up...
6:58 Almost 40 years after Lucas first introduced the world to the Star Wars galaxy, a pitch
7:03 for a new kind of Star Wars story passed through the company halls of Lucasfilm, recently acquired
7:08 by Walt Disney Pictures. And surprisingly, it didn't come from a writer or a producer.
7:14 It came from Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll, who may have been too young
7:17 to experience nuclear fear in the same way Lucas did, but not duck-and-cover drills at
7:22 school. Or even how he felt reading the words of the Star Wars opening crawl for the first time.
7:27 In 2013, he'd present his pitch to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy
7:31 and Senior Vice President of development Kiri Hart as a seven-page story treatment.
7:36 It was called...
7:38 Star Wars: Destroyer of Worlds.
7:43 A World War II-inspired heist film about the Rebel spies that stole the secret plans to the Death
7:48 Star. Something like Mission Impossible meets The Hunt for Red October, but with Rebel pilots,
7:53 a double agent, two very tall aliens, and a battle-hardened captain named Jyn Erso.
7:59 Many things would change about The Destroyer of Worlds over its months-long pre-production period,
8:04 but Jyn would change the least. She was the heart of this story.
8:08 One that sought a new perspective on the most iconic superweapon in cinema.
8:13 After a months-long search, Knoll and Lucasfilm would find that perspective in Gareth Edwards.
8:19 As the writer, director, cinematographer, and one-man VFX crew of Monsters,
8:24 his directorial debut in 2010, Edwards was no stranger to intensely visual filmmaking.
8:30 His sense of scale, already signature to his work,
8:33 was ultimately rooted in grounding things from the most terrifying perspective possible.
8:38 But Edwards had also worked as a digital artist on the BBC docu-drama about the Hiroshima bombing,
8:43 and-- at the time Lucasfilm hired him-- was nearing the end of post-production on 2014's
8:48 Godzilla. A story about the monstrous repercussions of abusing atomic power.
8:54 If anyone could put the nuclear fear back in the Death Star, it was Edwards.
8:58 - When it came to this super weapon metaphor of the Death Star, which is really like,
9:02 nuclear bomb, right? Oppenheimer-- like who's Oppenheimer, right? Who's the
9:06 Oppenheimer? Especially because we couldn't have Tarkin necessarily the way we wanted.
9:10 So it felt like the designer of the Death Star was someone that should be in our movie,
9:14 or could be in our movie. And then he became the dad, and-- and that felt right.
9:20 - Though Edwards and his team were essentially making a prequel to the original Star Wars,
9:24 they never had to play by the same rules as George Lucas's saga.
9:28 Something that screenwriter Gary Whitta would
9:29 take and run with right from the start of breaking Knoll's story.
9:33 Destroyer of Worlds begins without an opening crawl, and instead with a flashback.
9:37 Told from the perspective of ordinary people in the Star Wars galaxy,
9:41 it's the first Star Wars movie without Jedi and without direct evidence of the Force.
9:45 There isn't a single wipe or fade cut in the entire film.
9:49 And where the parentage of other Star Wars heroes is typically shrouded in mystery, Felicity Jones's
9:54 Jyn Erso knows who her father is... - Whatever I do,
9:59 I do it to protect you. - And condemns who her father is.
10:07 Most crucially, Destroyer of Worlds defies the thematic
10:10 clarity of Star Wars iconography and the moral binary it often presents.
10:15 The hero is not a plucky, aspiring adventurer dressed in white, but a
10:19 grime-covered, world-weary survivor with an impressive criminal record.
10:23 - Possession of unsanctioned weapons, forgery of Imperial documents,
10:27 aggrivated assault, escaping custody, resisting arrest...
10:31 - Rebel Captain Cassian Andor, played by Diego Luna, is not some altruistic rebel Robin Hood,
10:37 but someone willing to put the Rebellion above everything... even his own soul.
10:47 His co-pilot is not the familiar protocol droid or astromech, but a reprogrammed Imperial security
10:53 droid: K-2SO, played by Alan Tudyk. - Doesn't sound so bad to me.
11:01 - The most heroic act this early in the film is carried out by, of all people,
11:06 an Imperial pilot: Riz Ahmed's Bohdi Rook.
11:09 Conversely, the Rebels he meets-- the first we see in the film-- are all alien or wearing helmets;
11:16 unlike the Rebels of the original Star Wars, who were not just human,
11:19 but were immediately sympathetic to the audience because of their humanity.
11:24 These are the Partisans, an extremist Rebel cell led by Forest Whitaker's Saw
11:28 Gerrera. Someone who was trained by Anakin Skywalker, encased in a suit of armor like
11:34 Darth Vader, and equipped with a breathing apparatus that sounds just as familiar...
11:41 At just about every turn, Destroyer of Worlds blurs the line between good and evil,
11:46 portraying a version of the Stars universe that is less mythological and more in-line
11:50 with what production coordinator Neil Lamont called a "docu-war film."
11:54 Down to its DNA, this was a war movie. Like The Guns of Navarone,
11:58 Where Eagles Dare, or even The Dirty Dozen.
12:01 The film's intro was inspired by Inglorious Basterds,
12:04 while Saw was reimagined as a Colonel Kurtz-type character from Apocalypse Now.
12:09 Director of photography Greg Frasier, fresh off of Zero Dark Thirty,
12:12 opted for a more improvised shooting style than the franchise's traditionally composed imagery,
12:17 combining handheld camera work with 360° sets to achieve a more neutral,
12:21 ground-level perspective of the Star Wars universe; almost like a documentary.
12:26 The soft focus and lower contrast of every frame amplifies moral ambiguity, where
12:31 the difference between right and wrong either never comes into focus, or is lost in the gray.
12:36 There's something noticeably different about the way the characters move
12:39 through the frame or even just the way they breathe. As if there's an extra
12:43 layer of humanity now weighing down on them in this ultra-realistic Star Wars setting.
12:48 No actor ever hams it up for the camera nor leans into cartoonish
12:51 villainy. These are people; every bit as complicated as you and me.
12:57 - Any idea where he's been all that time? - I like to think he's dead. Makes
13:02 things easier. - Easier than what?
13:04 That he's been a tool of the Imperial war machine? - I've never had the luxury of political opinions.
13:09 - Of course injecting realism into a franchise lauded for sci-fi worldbuilding had inherent
13:15 appeal. But Edwards and Whitta's intentions ran deeper than curiosity.
13:19 In bringing Star Wars "down to earth," It also brought Star Wars closer to
13:23 its historical influences, and thus to the realities of war.
13:28 The Imperial garrison on Jedha becomes a colonialist occupying force,
13:32 extracting the raw natural resource of Kyber.
13:35 The armored tanks rolling through the streets evoke a Nazi-occupied Paris in 1940,
13:40 while the officers and generals commanding these forces are cut
13:43 from the same cloth as the Nazi and fascist commanders of World War II.
13:48 Meanwhile Rebels become unkempt guerilla terrorists-- at least, in the eyes of the Empire.
13:54 The bouts of street warfare seen early on evoke the fighting between IDF and Hamas
13:59 forces in the 2014 Gaza War, which occurred at the time of the film's development.
14:04 And Saw Gerrera lives up to a little bit of his namesake in Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.
14:11 There's no righteous path to victory, no morally-convenient acts of resistance,
14:16 and no consensus on even the validity of these ideas. Especially among the Rebellion.
14:21 - Galen Erso is vital to the Empire's weapons program. Forget
14:24 what you heard in there. There will be no extraction. You find him-- you kill him.
14:30 - These characters are made to feel the boot of living
14:33 under an oppressive Empire. And through Edward's direction, the audience does too.
14:39 Optimism is in short supply. Trust, even less so.
14:43 For the consequences of misplacing your trust could get you shot in the back.
14:48 - Why does she get a blaster and I don't? - What?
14:52 - I know how to use it. - That's not the point...
14:56 Where'd you get it? - I found it.
14:58 - I find that answer vague and unconvincing. - Trust goes both ways.
15:03 - While a single act of bravery, no matter how courageous could cost you your life.
15:10 - What's wrong with him? - I brought the message I'm the pilot.
15:14 - If your aim is long-term survival, there's only one logical course of action: compliance.
15:21 Do as the Empire says, stay out of trouble, and find enough scratch to get by.
15:26 If setting up a meeting between Saw Gerrera and the Rebellion achieves that for Jyn,
15:30 then that's all that truly matters. It's not much of a life but it beats living in a cave.
15:35 The boot isn't so bad.
15:37 - You can stand to see the
15:39 Imperial flag reign across the Galaxy. - It's not a problem if you don't look up.
15:45 - But that's where Jyn is wrong.
15:48 This isn't a life at all, and it never will be. The power to negotiate her level
15:53 of agency with her oppressors is-- as it is for everyone-- not even limited,
15:59 but nonexistent. A complete illusion.
16:03 One that will soon be shattered.
16:06 - If you are watching this then perhaps there's a chance to save the Alliance. Perhaps there's a
16:13 chance to explain myself, and though I don't dare hope for too much, a chance for Jyn.
16:18 - When the Death Star is complete, it will yield the same psychological power
16:23 as the atomic bomb in the years following Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
16:27 A gun pointed at the world, capable of inducing as much fear as firepower.
16:33 It will realize the fears of our Cold War,
16:35 and absolve whatever democratic power remains within their Imperial Senate.
16:40 Rule not by force, but by the fear of force.
16:47 What Jyn and the Rebels do have is that which is so insignificant to the Empire,
16:52 massive and indomitable in its scope, that they couldn't possibly think to
16:56 notice. A resource they can't mine, can't exploit, and can't hold at gunpoint.
17:02 Hope.
17:03 - It's just so hard not to think of you... think of where you are... my stardust.
17:12 - Hope that compelled Galen Erso not to take his life,
17:17 but to push through pain and suffering and anguish to give the Galaxy a chance.
17:23 A wager on faith in the daughter he raised that she too will push
17:28 through inevitable torment to save the Galaxy from eternal oppression.
17:32 A sacrifice that will cost everything ,but will save everyone.
17:37 That's all she has.
17:40 Not something you can pick up and fire, and not a mystical energy field. Not a knight in
17:45 shining armor, and much less a Jedi Knight. Only that which she cannot see nor touch.
17:52 No one else is coming.
17:54 The institutional safeguards against corruption, greed,
17:57 and the consolidation of power already failed a long time ago.
18:03 All that remains is yourself.
18:34 - Get us out of here!
18:47 - Come on!
19:05 - Oh. It's beautiful.
19:21 - Destroyer of Worlds would go by many names over the course of its production.
19:26 Gary Whitta would suggest titles like Shadow of the Death Star or
19:30 Star Wars Rebellion while breaking the story.
19:32 On set, the movie went by the code name "Los Alamos,"
19:35 referencing the site where J. Robert Oppenheimer built the atomic bomb.
19:40 But when the script reached writer Chris Weitz in early 2015,
19:43 it had a name that would last longer than most.
19:46 Star Wars: The Dark Times. A title that may have not reflected the mission to
19:50 steal the Death Star plans, but did reflect the grounded story that Edwards was crafting.
19:56 In a galaxy of broken trust, how did the normal person find the strength to survive?
20:01 This was one of many questions Weitz wanted to answer when
20:04 Edwards and Lucasfilm hired him to write the first screenplay-- along
20:08 with how Lucasfilm could simplify the story to reign-in the budget.
20:11 Very quickly, he would find that all his dilemmas could be solved by the same answer: Jedha.
20:26 In Whitta's story, Jyn began her journey on the planet of Ord Mantell,
20:30 looking for an arms dealer that would take her to Saw Gerrera, who was on a moon named Yared.
20:35 Eliminating a whole planet from the script, Death Star style, would save development time
20:39 and money. And thus the story of both planets were combined into a single new planet. Jedha.
20:45 A cold desert world where the Jedi themselves are gone,
20:48 but conviction in the faith they stood for, The Force, is not.
20:52 Stripped of the mystical power seen so often in the rest of the Saga,
20:56 the Force now serves the same purpose faith would serve us.
21:00 Lending a sense of meaning to the plight of the common man or woman.
21:04 A candle in the darkness, where the adage "there are no atheists in
21:08 foxholes," resonates with the armed insurgents making violent skirmishes against the Empire.
21:13 - Is he a Jedi? - There are no
21:16 Jedi here anymore. Only dreamers like this fool.
21:19 - Chirrut Imwe, a blind Zatoichi-inspired nomad played by Donnie Yen was Weitz's
21:25 way of confronting the characters-- and the audience-- with the value of faith.
21:30 As Jyn struggles to earn Cassian's trust, Chirrut places his in Jyn seemingly on a whim,
21:36 viewing her as something of a "Chosen One" to his religious order, the Guardians of the Whills.
21:41 - The strongest stars have hearts of Kyber.
21:44 - Conversely, while Jyn questions the value of hope,
21:49 Chirrut fully embraces the will of the force. Essentially, the will of God.
21:54 Both resources that can neither be seen nor touched,
21:57 rejected at every turn by our most agnostic characters.
22:00 - We give her your name and hope that gets us a meeting with Saw.
22:04 - Hope? - Yeah.
22:07 - I'm beginning to think the force and I have different priorities.
22:11 - Especially Jiang Wen's Baze Malbus, the C-3PO to Chirrut's R2-D2. Or vice versa.
22:18 - The Force did protect me. - I protected you!
22:21 - This is the challenge of the Dark Times's second act.
22:25 The challenge of faith itself. Is it even real?
22:29 - How could a candle in the darkness ever compare to the power of a thousand suns?
22:35 If the "Force" Chirrut blindly puts his faith in has no tangible evidence or utility in the fight,
22:41 how much more valuable are the ramblings of a thief One who's no doubt desperate
22:46 to redeem the one and only connection she has left in the galaxy after Saw Gerrera?
22:51 - Where's the message? - It was a hologram.
22:54 - You have that message right? - You don't believe me.
22:59 - I'm not the one you gotta convince.
23:02 - Of Cassian, The Dark Times also asks similar
23:06 questions. Not about the religion he places his faith in, but the cause:
23:11 the Rebellion. And whether or not his faith in it would be better placed in Jyn.
23:16 - Tell him my orders still stand. We have no idea what he's building for
23:20 the Empire. We have to kill Galen Ersa while we have the chance.
23:24 - The tension at play doesn't just make for more interesting
23:27 character dynamics. It underscores the difficulty of nurturing a belief
23:31 in anything to begin with. The strain of authoritarianism on collective action.
23:37 - What autocrats and authoritarians want the most is for citizens to be uninformed and to
23:44 control critical thinking, appeal to humans worst traits, and offer lies and opaqueness.
23:50 They do not look out to improve the lives of others and they fear so much humans desires
23:56 to join together to express their views and preferences and demand accountability.
24:01 Out of that fear emerges repression as a way to control the flow of information,
24:06 and to ensure that there is a hyper asymmetry of information. And if they can get away,
24:11 opt to be opaque rather than transparent.
24:15 - How much farther? - I don't know,
24:18 I'm not sure, I never really come this way!
24:22 - While our characters drown in their uncertainties,
24:26 a feeling exasperated by Eadu-- clouded with rain, fog,
24:30 and darkness-- the Empire unleashes firing squads on their most dissenting elements.
24:35 For as long as they can pit people and movements against each other,
24:39 the Empire will accumulate even more control.
24:42 If they can pit people against the truth, even better. It will only
24:46 further enshrine the Emperor as the sole voice of reason in the galaxy.
24:50 The only "force" anyone should believe in.
24:53 - There is no Death Star. The Senate has been informed that
24:58 Jedha was destroyed in a mining disaster.
25:00 - Some might believe otherwise. That the Emperor's authority is brittle.
25:06 Some men, like Director Orson Krennic,
25:08 played by Ben Mendelsohn, might have the ambition to rival Palpatines's eminence.
25:14 But the story Edwards's team was building challenged this notion as well, and again,
25:19 hearkened to real world dictatorships.
25:22 To Krennic, the Death Star never matters for its firepower, psychological power,
25:27 or how it'll be used at all. Only how it will advance his career and standing with the Emperor.
25:33 A goal that, by design of the Empire, is shared by each and every bureaucrat moving up the ranks.
25:38 Including Grand Moff Tarkin, played by a robot.
25:42 Tarkin not only threatens to snatch supervision of the Death Star from Krennic, but wisely
25:47 withholds the intel that allows him to continue calling Krennic's authority into question.
25:51 - I'm afraid the recent security breaches have laid bare your
25:54 inadequacies as a military director. - The breaches have been filled.
25:58 - You think this pilot acted alone? He was dispatched from
26:02 the installation on Eadu. - We'll see about this.
26:06 - By the time Krennic confronts Darth Vader, the Emperor's personal enforcer,
26:10 Krennic's sense of control or authority is still intact.
26:14 But by the end of their encounter, Vader shatters this too. This is not how the Empire works.
26:21 - Be careful not to choke on your aspirations Director.
26:28 - Authoritarian regimes may actively inflate internal rivalry in government
26:34 processes to prevent complex policy actions from being coordinated from the bottom up.
26:39 As the system grows more fragmented, the autocrat becomes the only actor powerful
26:44 enough to cut through turf wars and strategic bargaining to direct
26:48 ambitious policy initiatives from the top down.
26:51 - In this way, the bureaucracy of the Empire keeps men like Krennic
26:55 from ever obstructing its competitive design; always seeking the Emperor's
26:59 approval rather than dismantling the very system that pits director against Moff;
27:04 and much further down the social ladder, spy against thief.
27:08 - I'm coming with you. - No. Your father's message.
27:11 We can't risk it. You're the messenger. - That's ridiculous, we all got the
27:15 message. Everyone here knows it. - One blast to the reactor module
27:18 and the whole system goes down-- - Get to work fixing your comms!
27:22 - If Jyn can't rally the support to rescue her father, then maybe she can lead by example.
27:28 Where she previously resisted all attempts to connect with anyone or anything beyond herself,
27:33 Jyn now charts a path of her own through Eadu. Both to recover her relationship with her father,
27:38 and to get that much closer to destroying the weapon that first spawned their rift.
27:43 - Get back down there and find us a ride out of here.
27:46 - What are you doing? - You heard me.
27:48 - You said we came up here just to have a look. - I'm here. I'm looking. Go!
27:52 - Cassian too is devoted to a mission of his own, but there's nothing noble about his intentions.
27:57 From a distance, he sees Galen Erso: the Death Star scientist and creator of nightmares to come.
28:04 But through the scope of his rifle, Cassian sees something... different. Something familiar.
28:11 Something we can't see, but understand perfectly--
28:19 as a crisis of faith.
28:23 That maybe his cause is not a candle in the darkness, but a loaded gun, ordered to carry
28:28 out something he knows is wrong. The myth that shattered for Jyn slowly shatters for Cassian.
28:35 And all the same, there's nothing he can do about it.
28:41 - Jyn. No!
28:45 - Fear divides, encourages distrust,
28:48 and pushes two armed factions ever closer to war. All the while, the fight for individual
28:55 freedom that Cassian first enlisted for gets lost in the flames and fog on Eadu.
29:01 This is war. And unlike the one we see in Lucas's fairytale, faith has no place in it.
29:08 The grim reality that Edwards, Whitta and Weitz were so keen to
29:11 capture about the Star Wars galaxy is brought closer than ever before.
29:16 And as ever... it's not fair.
29:25 - I have so much to tell you...
29:34 - Jyn believed in her father, and she was right to do so.
29:38 Even still, that belief wasn't strong enough to stop the Empire from taking him
29:42 away. From stealing all their time, and all the memories they could have made together.
29:48 In many ways, there was nothing they could have done. There was never a chance at all.
29:54 Why suppose that's any different now?
29:57 - Risk everything based on what? - What chance do we have?
30:00 - "Death Star," this is nonsense! - Because maybe, there's always a chance.
30:06 - What chance do we have? The question is what choice! Run,
30:12 hide, plead for mercy, scatter your forces!
30:15 You give way to an enemy this evil with this much
30:18 power and you condemn the galaxy to an eternity of submission.
30:20 - Democracy was never bulletproof. Something that the senators present on Yavin 4,
30:26 unable to reach consensus and disillusioned by 19 years of Imperial lies, perfectly illustrate.
30:32 That even in the face of impending doom, liberal arrogance prevents them
30:36 from accepting that the Empire will soon abandon democracy altogether.
30:42 But people on the other hand? There's something about people that defies expectation.
30:48 People that, when joined together, could be capable of moving mountains.
30:54 That might be worth believing in... if not giving a shot.
30:58 - And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget,
31:03 I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in.
31:07 Without that, we're lost. Everything we've done would have been for nothing.
31:14 I couldn't face myself if I gave up now.
31:16 - They may not have the Force-- not with its magical powers anyway. But what does
31:22 flow between them speaks to an idea present in Lucas's original draft of Star Wars;
31:27 exactly where Weitz got The Whills from.
31:30 The Force of Others. The original name for the Force,
31:34 suggesting that a Jedi's power came from their connection to the people around them.
31:38 Even in his mythology, Lucas was championing the power of collective action. Now in its more
31:44 grounded iteration, it is the galaxy's only hope.
31:48 - May the Force be with us.
31:52 - There's one more thing of note that emerged from Weitz's draft.
31:55 Or rather, something that emerged after it.
31:58 Dozens of names, if not more, had been thrown out during the pre-production
32:02 period of the first Star War spin-off. The Dark Times had its gritty, honest appeal.
32:07 - That's an impounded Imperial ship! What's your call sign pilot?
32:11 - But by the start of production, Edwards and Lucasfilm elected for something shorter,
32:16 more hopeful, and more faithful to the spirit of the film...
32:20 - Rogue....
32:23 Rogue One! - Rogue One?!
32:25 There is no Rogue One! - Well there is now!
32:29 ["Rogue One Theme" Plays]
32:38 - Rogue One kicked off its globe- trotting production on August 8th, 2015.
32:43 Over the next 6 months, the crew would travel from Iceland, to Wadi Rum in Jordan,
32:47 the Masada Fortification in Israel, the London Underground,
32:51 and the islands of the Maldives, where the final act of Rogue One was filmed.
32:55 The Battle of Scarif.
32:57 - This shuttle should be equipped with an access code that'll allows us through. Assuming the
33:01 Empire hasn't logged it as overdue. - And if they have?
33:05 - Then they shut the gate. Then we're all annihilated in the cold dark vacuum
33:09 of space... - Lovely.
33:11 - Ever since his story treatment,
33:13 John Knoll wanted to see things that he had never seen before in a Star Wars film.
33:17 On Scarif, Edwards and his crew would deliver.
33:20 The film's final battleground would be shot in broad daylight on a tropical beach;
33:24 an uncommon theater for sci-fi warfare.
33:26 It both evoked the World War II battlegrounds in the Pacific or luscious jungles of Vietnam,
33:31 and conveyed a renewed clarity of purpose for Jyn and her allies, after the uncertainty of Eadu.
33:37 Thousands of designs new, old, and iterated upon would finally converge on one multi-planed
33:43 battle directly inspired by the multiple planes of action in Return of the Jedi.
33:47 But different outcomes and versions of the battle would also emerge from
33:50 filming. Both out of a desire for wiggle-room in the editing stage,
33:54 and because of what happened after Lucasfilm saw Edwards's first cut of the film.
33:59 Sometime after the end of principal filming in February 2016,
34:03 Lucasfilm reached out to the man who would become Rogue One's fourth-credited writer.
34:07 Scribe of Michael Clayton and The Bourne Ultimatum, Tony Gilroy.
34:11 His task, along with his brother's-- editor John Gilroy-- in so many words
34:16 was to "fix Rogue One." A process that involved five weeks of re-shoots and
34:20 enough script touch-ups to score Gilroy a screenwriting credit in the final film.
34:25 He streamlined the plot, reworked the mechanics of the final battle,
34:28 and added in scenes that redefined characters in subtle, but meaningful ways.
34:33 Nowhere was this more apparent than with Cassian Andor.
34:36 The double agent in Knoll's original story treatment? That was Cassian.
34:40 His decision to back Jyn before the final battle was originally a moment of redemption,
34:44 rescinding his Imperial loyalty to go after the Death Star plans.
34:48 Instead, Gilroy wanted to emphasize the toll of the Rebellion on Cassian,
34:52 amplifying his ideological conflict with Jyn Erso.
34:56 He even wrote a new introduction scene for Cassian at the start of the film.
35:00 Something about Andor compelled Gilroy. Something that stirred a lot of thought,
35:04 but also engaged even more directly with the historical and political nuances of the film.
35:11 - Are we blind?! Deploy the garrison!
35:18 - Though rumors circulated that Edwards's original cut was a mess and that Gilroy was
35:23 the savior of Rogue One, Edwards would be the first to acknowledge that this
35:26 wasn't true-- and was always contrary to how he wanted Rogue One to be assembled.
35:31 Since the beginning, Rogue One was a relay race.
35:34 Each writer passed the baton off to the next writer to expand the story.
35:38 Each artist passed off their art to the next artist, who would then iterate
35:41 and iterate until an all black C-3PO became a new Imperial Security Droid.
35:46 Even composer Michael Giacchino had to take up the reigns of writing the
35:49 score after Alexandre Desplat dropped out for a scheduling conflict. Giacchino then
35:54 miraculously wrote his score in a single month.
35:57 It may have not been part of the plan, but it was nonetheless fitting that
36:00 Rogue One reached its completion how it began in its inception:
36:04 as a widely collaborative endeavor, touched by as many hands, and expressed
36:08 in as many voices as possible, but always under the oversight of Gareth Edwards,
36:13 who was present all the way to the very last scene of re-shoots.
36:16 There was no other way Rogue One would succeed.
36:19 - If we can make it to the ground, we'll take the next chance. And the next.
36:25 On and on until we win... or the chances are spent.
36:29 - It aligned perfectly with what Rogue One themselves were about
36:33 to embark upon on Scarif: uncertain odds, the possibility of failure,
36:37 but also windows of opportunity that could only be afforded by mutual help.
36:42 At every turn of the final battle, Edwards and Gilroy are keen to reiterate these very obstacles.
36:47 - You're only way out of here. - We will make it no more than 33%
36:51 of the way before we are killed. - This isn't working K!
36:53 - Right hand! - They've
36:54 closed the shield gate. - What does that mean? We're trapped?
36:58 - Every inconvenience; every force in the universe feels like it's working
37:04 against these characters. As if the Death Star plans are not meant to be stolen,
37:08 like the nuclear genie that never went back in the bottle.
37:12 Rogue One shows a stubborn refusal to accept the odds all the same.
37:16 All traces of doubt and distrust were left behind on Yavin. And before long,
37:20 the Rebellion itself learns to leave it behind too.
37:23 Their greatest challenge now is no longer what it will take to believe in Rogue One,
37:28 but how in the world the Rebellion's collective forces can finally and fully come together:
37:34 in the Citadel, on the beach, and in orbit.
37:37 - What's going on down there Lieutenant? - Unknown sir. We can't reach them. All
37:42 rebel frequencies are blocked!
37:44 - Where the Empire has never been more successful than when they could divide
37:47 people with fear, the key to stealing the plans to
37:50 the ultimate terror weapon is embodied in the mechanics of the final battle.
37:54 Every switch, plug, misaligned antenna and climb is set up for the sake of restoring communication.
38:01 - We just have to get a signal strong enough to get through to them and let
38:04 them know that we're trapped down here. I can patch us in over here, the landing pad,
38:08 but you have to get on the radio, get one of the guys out there to find a master switch.
38:12 - If people are free to link arms, fear can be overcome.
38:18 But as Edwards and Gilroy have reminded us, time and time again, the Death Star plans are
38:25 not meant... - K!
38:26 -- to be stolen. - Goodbye.
38:30 - There was no version of Rogue One where K-2 survived. Not in
38:34 The Dark Times, and not in Destroyer of Worlds.
38:37 Someone had to die, and the droid-- never keen to do as he was told-- was not long for this Galaxy.
38:43 But sometimes, unspoken ideas also pass from one person to the next.
38:48 An idea so cruel for Star Wars, Whitta and Edwards hesitated to put
38:52 it in their first run of the story, convinced that Disney would say no.
38:56 But when Weitz wrote his draft, he'd have the same exact instinct. And this time, he would act on it.
39:03 This was not a story where the main characters survive.
39:06 Rogue One is a story where the main characters...
39:09 perish.
39:16 Our Rebels believe in hope, but are they willing to die for it? Are they
39:20 willing to put all worldly ties aside even if it doesn't pay off?
39:24 - I'm going!
39:26 - As the prospect of sacrifice moves beyond its mythical connotations,
39:31 where it is often met with reward, sacrifice now becomes real and lethal.
39:36 The tone of the battle shifts. The skies and beaches gray with smoke and laser scorches. The
39:42 deaths of Rebel soldiers we've followed across the battle take an unglamorous and destructive turn.
39:50 Having faith used to be hard. Now...
39:53 - It just hurts. - Cassian!
39:56 If Rogue One is to restore communication, it's going to take a miracle.
40:00 The kind you read of World War II veterans who felt they survived
40:04 the battles they did because God was watching over them.
40:07 The miraculous conditions that allowed for the evacuation of 330,000 French
40:12 and British soldiers from Dunkirk in World War II.
40:15 Every once in a while in war, something happens to make one re-evaluate their place in the universe.
40:21 In Baze Malbus, Chirrut is about to inspire the same wonder.
40:30 - I'm one with the Force, the Force is with me. I'm one with the Force, the Force is with me.
40:34 - Maybe the Force is real, cloaking Chirrut in a protective field. Maybe not,
40:40 and he's just unfathomably lucky.
40:43 But the courage that inspires anyone,
40:45 blind or not, to brave overwhelming danger, is not found in the Force.
40:52 It's found in something greater than anyone's self.
40:56 The Force of Others.
41:00 - Through the Force, you will always find me...
41:04 - At the closing of Rogue One's last few windows,
41:08 Gareth Edwards demonstrates the full power of belief.
41:12 It's not a mystical energy field, nor is it something you can pick up and fire.
41:16 It can't rewind time, nor prevent impending doom.
41:20 But it will push you to extraordinary lengths, and it will never--
41:26 --run out.
41:41 ["Your Father Would Be Proud" plays]
41:54 No one is coming to save you.
41:57 These days of darkness have no prescribed ending, and could very well stretch on forever.
42:03 Corruption, greed, and the consolidation of power could threaten to rip everything apart,
42:09 and no knight in shining armor could ever come along.
42:12 Life is not a myth.
42:19 But for all these reasons, and all we've witnessed Rogue One overcome,
42:23 the power to reshape the world is in your hands. All of our hands.
42:30 Joined together, there's genuinely nothing they can't accomplish.
42:34 It won't be a pretty process, fraught, as it was for Rogue One,
42:38 with no short amount of fear, distrust, and uncertainty;
42:42 the forces of oppression always at work to divide more and more
42:46 like-minded people against each other and their own morals.
42:51 But there is a way forward. A candle in the darkness, and it's kept alight by the collective
42:57 action of those who believe in something deeper and more powerful than any weapon.
43:02 It might be God, but it could just be people.
43:07 And for the first time in Jyn's life, that's not such a bad thing.
43:12 - You think anybody's listening? - I do. Someone's out there.
43:21 - For Orson Krennic, who put his own ego above the livelihood of an entire galaxy and its future,
43:27 the full repercussions of a life lived in service of oppressive power now stare down on him.
43:34 Galen Erso's revenge resigning him to a painful, lonely death.
43:40 The blast that kills him circles one final time on
43:43 the ambiguity with which Edwards wanted Rogue One to be crafted.
43:47 The blast will also kill Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor.
43:52 Two characters that, in another life, may very well have had some romantic future.
43:57 But like Galen, Jyn will never get to know Cassian, what he survived,
44:02 what he's lost, and how he once stood in her exact same shoes.
44:06 A tragedy that is far more compelling than a final kiss ever could be.
44:11 Their final moments spent in each other's embrace are then an act of
44:15 defiance. No longer will they let fear divide them from the people they love.
44:20 They can only hope the Rebellion has learned to do the same, never again forsaking the importance
44:25 of helping one another, regardless of what evil forces step in their path.
44:31 They can only hope that they will be as willing to stare doomsday in the eye,
44:36 forbid that day ever arrives.
44:39 Because however terrifying death from above could be--
44:43 -- they'd brave it all again, knowing exactly how it would all come to an end.
45:00 From a distance, it's hard not to feel like tyranny triumphed on Scarif.
45:06 That the rare sacrifices of heroes have already been
45:09 erased and will soon be forgotten, never having the chance to pass into legend.
45:14 At best, they'll be a footnote in an opening crawl. At worst,
45:18 they'll be overshadowed by something far more meaningless or controversial.
45:22 But to those who've learned to read between the lines of history, as Edwards, Whitta,
45:27 Weitz and Gilroy did with our own history, the outcome is always more nuanced and complicated
45:32 than it will seem to those who either mystify the past, or devise ways to weaponize it,
45:38 twisting and defacing its truth to secure power in the present.
45:42 The Empire will call Scarif a victory. But for the rest
45:45 of the Galaxy, the Myth to come will be written in the blood of Rogue One.
45:50 They'll never know what they sacrificed, but that's not the point.
45:55 A war has just begun. And the fatal flaw in the Empire's vast
46:00 and indomitable apparatus has just been exposed. If--
46:06 --you can believe it.
46:11 ["Never Mess With Sunday" by Yppah plays]
47:05 Hey everyone welcome to the end of yet another ArTorr video. Congratulations on getting here and
47:10 thank you so much for watching the whole thing. It really means a lot. Um, I worked really hard
47:15 on this video and in fact I made the conscious decision about halfway through the editing process
47:20 that when this would go up on YouTube, I would not be monetizing it. Um I made that decision
47:25 for a variety of reasons, but the biggest one being, um, I just don't love having to deal
47:30 with copyright issues every-- with every single video. Um, it gets really annoying and uh, a bit
47:37 of a headache to try and find all the creative workarounds or make the appeals that I have to do
47:42 just to get the video seen and monetized in the way that I want it to. Usually it's worthwhile,
47:47 but for this one I decided-- don't want to deal with that. So the video has gone up demonetized
47:51 and with that, hopefully no ads on it. Hopefully that has made for a pleasant video experience.
47:55 And who knows I might do this again with future videos. But that really depends entirely on how
48:01 many of you are supporting me on Patreon, because this video was made possible entirely because of
48:06 contributions on Patreon from awesome members like Davie Karczewski, Gearless Mo[ta], Matt Hansen,
48:12 Michael OrionCC701, and The Art of Interactive Entertainment. Thank you so much y'all. If you
48:19 join today for just $2 a month, you get access to a whole slew of behind-the-scenes goodies
48:23 and bonus content, including a monthly podcast, a monthly newsletter, and a weekly vlog from yours
48:30 truly. Most of all, uh, you support the dreams of a small creator-- that would be me-- and
48:36 uh you help support each and every new video that comes out. Uh, normally at the end of these videos
48:42 I beat around the bush about what the next thing is, "oh you know it could be a video game--" I'm
48:47 just going to tell you straight up because I've already announced what the next video is. Y'all,
48:51 the next video is about Andor. We're going-- we're going to Andor Town on the next ArTorr video. Um,
48:58 it won't be out soon. I mean, not in the next two months anyway. But my goal is to get it out
49:03 to you this summer-- uh, sometime this summer hopefully. Sooner than later is always the,
49:07 the-- the hope. And then after that I'll also just say this too, uh, for all the viewers out there
49:12 who are patiently waiting for me to talk about a video game again on the channel. Um, after Andor
49:17 I'm doing a video on Ghost of Tsushima. So that's hype as well. I'm working on both of those kind of
49:22 in tandem right now. I also want to shout out, uh, my good friend Arken the Amerikan who just put out
49:27 a new video a lot like this one called Thus Always To Tyrants: The Politics of the Star Wars Original
49:33 Trilogy. Uh, if you know about Arken, uh, and you watch my videos it's probably because you saw
49:38 his video from a couple years ago called, uh, How Liberty Dies: The Politics of Star Wars. He is an
49:44 awesome guy, very talented creator, and I've seen a little bit of his new video, and it's awesome.
49:48 It's really rad, I-- I can tell you if you enjoyed watching this you're going to enjoy that video. If
49:53 any of you are over here from Arken's video, yo, you rock. Thank you. And if you're here and you
49:58 haven't watched Arken's video yet, go over there and watch it. Um, he deserves all the kudos. And
50:03 yeah man, uh, go check it out. The link to his channel and his video is in the description below.
50:08 Couple more things before I get out of here. Uh, I'm going to do something I don't usually tell
50:12 y'all to do and that's subscribe. We're a little over 70,000 subscribers right now on the channel
50:17 and uh we're inching ever closer to 100K. That is my goal for this year, to hit 100,000 subscribers.
50:22 Don't know if it can happen but right now wishful thinking is taking me very far. So please hit
50:27 subscribe. And if you're already subscribed, hit the like button. It's the easiest thing you
50:30 can do to get this video out into the algorithm, other than just clicking on it and watching it,
50:34 which you've already done, so thank you for doing that. Uh, other than that you can follow me on
50:38 uh, social media @ParkesHarman on Instagram and BlueSky and now on Twitch: twitch.tv/parkesharman.
50:45 Yeah that's pretty much everything, uh I'll be at uh, C2E2 in Chicago here in a couple of weekends.
50:50 I think that's like April 13th or so. So if you're in the area, uh, find me, say hello, I'd uh love
50:55 to uh, uh say hi back. And, uh, yeah I'm about to move actually as well. That's a random thing.
51:01 So this is the last kind of Outro you'll see from this location. Um, yeah so wish me luck on
51:06 that. Thank you all for watching one last time and I'll see you on the next video. Bye-bye everybody!
