Rogue One Plot Holes Too Big To Ignore
There's no denying that Rogue One was supremely exciting, and a great new chapter in the Star Wars universe. But bridging the galactic divide between the prequels and the later episodes through the adventures of an almost entirely new lineup of rebel forces is no easy feat, so it was probably impossible to avoid a few Death Star-sized weak spots in Rogue One's plot. Here are a few inconsistencies that stood out during the rebellion's big stand. Also, spoilers. Duh.
Krennic should've known Jyn was a girl
When Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) first pays his fated recruiting visit to Galen (Mads Mikkelsen) and Lyra Erso's (Valene Kane) rural hideaway, he makes a comment about the fact that the pair have a child together and to find "it"—no physical descriptions or gender mentions to aid her would-be captors in their search.
As much as we might like to think he's just being too woke to identify her by her gender, we're talking about the bad guy here. Plus, Galen only pretends Lyra's dead to fool Krennic, as though he might slip his daughter through the cracks without anyone noticing. But as Jyn's later flashback shows, Krennic has been in her presence before, when they were on a ship together and Galen was tucking her into bed with promises to always take care of her.
Lyra's death didn't need to happen
When Jyn (Felicity Jones) returns home with news of the impending ship's arrival, both her parents are already two steps ahead, packing their stuff and phoning Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) to let him know they've got company. Saw tells them that they "know what to do," which entails Galen going out and pretending no one else is home while his wife and daughter scurry out to a hiding spot. But Lyra breaks the plan before it even begins and pulls a blaster on Krennic in a last-ditch attempt to keep him from taking Galen.
Was this part of their plan? There wasn't any chance of her single-handedly defeating Krennic and his crew, so aside from blind desperation, it's hard to understand what motivated Lyra—especially since she had to know she was dooming her daughter to a life without both of her parents. That cave bunker was surely big enough for two, and Jyn might've had a much better shot a life with at least her mother around. Lyra's death upped the emotional stakes, but there were plenty of more sensible ways to give Jyn reasons for hating the Empire.
Jyn should have had a harder time getting past Saw's soldiers
Okay, so Saw took Jyn in, raised her to be one of his finest soldiers, and then turned her loose while she was still a teenager because, according to him, she was close to being found out and would've been targeted for her relationship to her father. That's all well and good, but then when she does reconnect with Saw after so many years, she reveals her true identity directly to the very squad he supposedly protected her from, and they don't care at all. In fact, they show her deference. If Erso is persona non grata around those parts, why the sudden red carpet roll-out?
Saw shouldn't have been surprised by Galen's transmission
Saw is first presented as a close-knit pal of the Erso family who's in on all their plans, so Galen's decision to sabotage the Death Star's design shouldn't have come as a surprise—but he seemed pretty clueless while watching Galen's hologram message to Jyn. Either he and Galen never really had a plan in place, or they weren't really friends in the first place—or Saw's mind was in the same beat-up condition as his body by that point.
Saw also did not need to die
Did Forest Whitaker have something else to do for the second half of this film's shooting schedule? Because his decision to go down with the Jedha blast simply because he didn't want to run anymore seemed...abrupt. Maybe the screenwriters felt the character outlived his usefulness after giving Jyn a little information and a pep talk, but we can't help thinking his death represents a missed opportunity.
Jyn's wrath subsides a little too quickly
Jyn and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) were obviously supposed to be star-crossed lovers, which means the tension between them was elevated just a smidge, but something still doesn't quite compute. First she jumps down his throat for even thinking of assassinating her dad, even though he didn't. This anger is very understandable. But immediately after that she starts working with the people who actually did kill him. Does she only get mad at people she likes? She knew whose command Andor was acting under, so her failure to even side-eye the officer who issued the order was a bit bizarre.
The Rogue One gets away much too easily
Those rebels were pretty slack about letting an impounded Imperial ship with a rogue captain—and an Imperial defector, Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), at that—just go off with a group of their troops. How they slipped onto the ship unnoticed in the first place is a mystery of Hollywood convenience since Cassian told them to bring "everything that isn't nailed down." But you'd think they'd at least try to stop the breakaways before they shoot off on a mission that completely counters the consensus of the council. Instead they watched them go.
Floppy disks and hyperspeed don't mix
The time period of Rogue One took place before A New Hope, but that doesn't mean they had to be bound to the floppy disk generation. In an era where planet-sized force-field shields and light-speed space travel are a fact of life, you'd think they'd have a better method for sharing information than thick gold floppy disks or thumb drives. The only purpose those physical files really seemed to serve was ramping up the tension as the disk got passed from one hand to the next with Vader bearing down in the background. Which, admittedly, was mighty effective. But still.
Vader just watches 'em go
At the end, once the Rebel forces at Scarif manage to get in their escape pod with the Death Star plans, they depart from their main ship and float off into space ... really slowly. Darth Vader stands there just watching as they go, with his minions firing nary a blaster bolt in the direction of the escapees. They weren't even using hyperspeed yet, and we've just seen the skies going dark with TIE fighters. So why didn't anyone try to take them out before they made their way to Princess Leia with her "new hope"?