What Would You Die For?

Image Source: IMDb

I recently rewatched the Star Wars movie Rogue One. It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since it was released. It experienced a rather mixed reception because its development was fraught with setbacks and it was the first Star Wars story of its kind (i.e. no Jedi except for a couple “mystics,” no lightsaber battles except for Darth Vader laying into some Rebel redshirts, and probably the darkest tone of a Star Wars movie since Revenge of the Sith).

I rewatched it because I also recently finished Andor Season 2, the second half of a story that told of the rise of the Rebel Alliance and led directly into Rogue One. How ironic it feels now that when the Andor show was first announced, most Star Wars fans scratched their heads and wondered, “Why?”

Rogue One is fascinating to me now that I’ve watched Andor and witnessed the backstory of some of the characters. But it’s also fascinating because most of the significant characters die at the end—and you know that in advance. The one thing you don’t know when watching it for the first time is how each character lives right up to the moment of their death. Rogue One is perhaps one of the most poignant and philosophical Star Wars movies out there because it dares to ask an important question:

What would you die for?

Each Rebel character has their own motivations for their actions, and they each die a different way after playing a meaningful role that defines their character arc.

A radical, who we now know thanks to Andor was probably high as a kite, dies rather melodramatically after barely allowing the main character to view the whistleblowing message her father sent to her. Because he was so paranoid, he thought the truth that was staring him in the face was a lie until it was almost too late.

The father who created the message dies in a tragically unnecessary bomb blast after successfully revealing his sabotage of the Death Star and seeing his daughter one last time.

The pilot who delivers the father’s message dies in a grenade explosion after ensuring the Death Star plans could be transmitted off the planet where they’re kept.

A droid “dies” giving his master crucial extra minutes to steal the plans.

Whole teams of Rebel soldiers and spies, along with the two aforementioned Force mystics, die while causing the distraction that allows the plans to be stolen in the first place.

The two main characters die together in a Death Star-caused inferno after having successfully transmitted the plans to a waiting starship.

Another group of nameless Rebel soldiers die at Darth Vader’s hands to ensure the plans can escape on the ship we see at the beginning of A New Hope.

There are many other deaths, including that of an Imperial officer who realizes at the last moment that his self-preserving leaders are sacrificing him as a loose end. Andor has even more deaths like these which are just as heartbreaking, if not more so.

All the Rebel characters’ deaths are connected in a smart stroke of storytelling that reminds us how seemingly insignificant details and sacrifices can add up to huge impact. If just one had quit the mission early instead of playing their role all the way up to death’s door, the whole thing would’ve failed.

I even got a little emotional watching the key droid character, a reprogrammed Imperial security droid, sacrifice himself. He topples to the floor next to the control panel he was guarding, his armor riddled with smoking holes caused by the squadron of Stormtroopers he was holding off with a single borrowed blaster. As the white lights that serve as his eyes slowly dim to black, you feel like his sacrifice was equal to those of all the human characters (nice job with the mo-cap and voice acting, Alan Tudyk, you legend). Star Wars has always humanized its robot characters or likened them to beloved pets, but watching one be dramatically destroyed in a last-ditch effort of loyalty is particularly touching.

However, the most emotional and gut-wrenching part of all the characters’ deaths is that they have no clue if their ends will amount to anything. “Rebellions are built on hope,” both main characters assert at different points in the movie, and they live this truth to the end. They’re each giving up their lives for a noble cause they’re destined never to see succeed, á lá Luthen Rael’s passionate speech from Andor Season 1.

Source: Tenor Gif

For all they know, the mission they gave their last breath for could fail at the last moment. We the audience know it won’t, which is a hefty piece of dramatic irony that hits deep. But they die knowing only that they gave one last act of rebellion to shake their fists in the face of a tyrannical force.

Rogue One’s rhetorical question has been stuck in my head since I finished both it and Andor Season 2. What would I be willing to do if I knew that thing was most assuredly going to get me killed?

It’s the same type of question one feels when reading the final chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as the story lists the victorious dead of the Battle of Hogwarts (many of them young), and as Harry himself speaks one last time to the shades of his deceased parental figures before facing Voldemort.

It’s the same type of question that emanates from a true story like The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, who narrowly escaped Nazi execution because of a miraculous paperwork mix-up.

Sure, I’ve had moments of make-believe where I imagine doing a heroic thing that might seriously injure or slay me. These daydreams then make me question how strong my survival instinct is, because I won’t know until the day it’s tested in real life.

But at the end of the day, this question isn’t even about death: it’s about what we value and love most. Those things shape our lives in subtle but significant ways each day, whether or not they end up being the reason we meet our Maker. Most moments are mundane, not life-or-death, but remembering our physical mortality tends to magnify questions about what we believe and how we live.

To me, this question is a challenge to shake off, wet dog-style, the apathy and complacency that has become commonplace in our compound-fractured and pleasure-obsessed world. It compels me to follow the words of the Book of Hebrews and, throwing off every hindrance (even the ones that seem good but are still just distractions), run the race my Lord has marked out for me.