Spoiler content appears below this post (and don't circlejerk against TFA)
[/size]So, what did y'all think of Rogue One? I managed to get a showing for the 15th despite being in Canada, and wow, was it ever fantastic. I've been thinking about a lot of the things that they did in that film really well, and here are my main points of praise:
Spoiler!
The first thing I noticed about the film was how well they managed to make the world feel lived-in and authentic. Just as with The Force Awakens, but even more so in this case, I found myself truly believing in these worlds.
Another important point for me was the scale of the ships and locations. The shots of the Star Destroyers resting over Jedha City almost brought a tear to my eye - the oppressive weight of the Empire was suddenly, truly real in the physical presence of a city-sized warship hovering over that city. And the explosion that annihilated it was beautiful, terrifying in its destruction. I've never seen an explosion which really felt like it deserved the description "vaporized" until now.
Jedha actually highlighted something really important to me about the Star Wars universe that I was pleasantly surprised to discover. When I was waiting for the film to begin, I told my friend that it would be nice to see a film from an imperial perspective. After all, one man's rebel is another man's insurgent, or worse, terrorist. There were plenty of people who lived in the shadow of the empire and went along with life as normal and were perfectly okay with that. They would have thought of the rebels as little more than troublemakers. Sure enough, it was highlighted just how separated the Rebels truly were - not only were they divided in the council but also there were splinter groups, like Saw's men. Cassian points out that the rebels aren't necessarily good people or that they do good things, but that it's how they know to fight against the Empire. That distinction really made the rebels feel less like a bastion of moral light and more like a group of militant, well, rebels.
The film featured a lot of considerations I hadn't thought of in the context of the films until now, really. I have to give y7h65 credit for this, because he's always pointing out to me how stupid imperial design is and how the rebels have weirdly strong technology, etc. There's an awful lot of Expanded Universe respect in this film that I really liked. Rogue One demonstrated, among others:
Another important point for me was the scale of the ships and locations. The shots of the Star Destroyers resting over Jedha City almost brought a tear to my eye - the oppressive weight of the Empire was suddenly, truly real in the physical presence of a city-sized warship hovering over that city. And the explosion that annihilated it was beautiful, terrifying in its destruction. I've never seen an explosion which really felt like it deserved the description "vaporized" until now.
Jedha actually highlighted something really important to me about the Star Wars universe that I was pleasantly surprised to discover. When I was waiting for the film to begin, I told my friend that it would be nice to see a film from an imperial perspective. After all, one man's rebel is another man's insurgent, or worse, terrorist. There were plenty of people who lived in the shadow of the empire and went along with life as normal and were perfectly okay with that. They would have thought of the rebels as little more than troublemakers. Sure enough, it was highlighted just how separated the Rebels truly were - not only were they divided in the council but also there were splinter groups, like Saw's men. Cassian points out that the rebels aren't necessarily good people or that they do good things, but that it's how they know to fight against the Empire. That distinction really made the rebels feel less like a bastion of moral light and more like a group of militant, well, rebels.
The film featured a lot of considerations I hadn't thought of in the context of the films until now, really. I have to give y7h65 credit for this, because he's always pointing out to me how stupid imperial design is and how the rebels have weirdly strong technology, etc. There's an awful lot of Expanded Universe respect in this film that I really liked. Rogue One demonstrated, among others:
- Prominent, poorly-defended command centers
- Rebels using obviously stolen imperial technology - I'm talking K2SO and their ships and a few guns, I think
- Stormtrooper armour actually being useful
- Why to not make your capitals ships in stratified layers lest they be sheared off
- Ring bases are stupid (but I'm glad to see them. The imperials just have no clue.)
- Kaiber Crystals (renamed from Kaiburr) as the second New Canon method of powering weapons and focusing lightsabers
- Force Adepts who lose their faith in the wake of the silencing of the Force
- Imperial-I Star Destroyers instead of Imperial-II Star Destroyers.
Spoiler!
I don't have much to say really, but again, the explosion was good. I was afraid of how they'd treat Tarkin and Leia when I realized they would show their faces, but they did an amazing job of recreating Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing. K2SO was also fantastic. A shame we don't get to see his model later on.
Spoiler!
The new context provided puts the original STAR WARS into a whole new light. For example, consider this:
Also consider the following as you rewatch:
Think of the intense pressure in that closing scene where they're desperately trying to get away from Vader as he mows through Corellian troops trying to get at the plans. Now apply that pressure to the Tantive IV as they run from his Star Destroyer at the start of the saga - They're not running from some big vague evil, they're running from that nightmare of a man, and they're punching it, just having come from a battle which diminished their forces down to almost nothing , in a last-ditch attempt to save themselves. When you consider that the entire movie was a bunch of lucky calls and narrow scrapes, all the while losing good soldiers, the opening scenes of ANH feel much more pressured. It's a lot like Halo: Reach. Everyone dies and Reach is glassed, and once you know just how much it took to get a few hundred people off-planet, it makes you realize just how serious of a threat the name "Covenant" carries in the first game. The scene where they too are running away feels much more fraught.Me to a friend on facebook wrote:Why the [censored] would you go to Tatooine if you were trying to get rid of the imperials? You wouldn't; it's the scum pond of the galaxy, so it's remote, yes, but it's also a heavy hitter in intergalactic trade, legal and illegal. Lots of money flows through that planet, blood money. The perfect place to fortify if you're looking to control the underground of your nation. As such, the Imperials had a pretty strong presence there. So why send the Tantive IV there? In Rogue One, Bail Organa said he was going to seek out his old Jedi friend. He hurried back to Alderaan to deal with politics and sent Leia and the droids to Tatooine to give the message to Obi-Wan. It was neither an accident that they were there nor a real escape plan when they got out in that escape pod. R2 had been planning to get down there to deliver the message all along. If anything, the fact that they just barely made it out of the Tantive IV is made even more harrowing and time-pressed when you consider their escape from the Corellian capital ship and all the close calls it took to get that far.
Also consider the following as you rewatch:
- Tarkin took control of the battlestation knowing of its power but also believing that its core was impenetrable. Unstable perhaps, but not possible to damage. The plans said nothing about the exhaust vent. But he still took on the role knowing that it was susceptible. Why?
- Consider the fact that Tarkin knew he was commanding a station with a weakness. It makes much more sense now to build a second weapon, more powerful and without the imbalances in its core. Sadly, the Death Star 2 was even less stable than the first, in no small part due to the death of Galen Erso, one of the only men who knew how to build such a thing.
- Leia lies to Vader and tells him they're on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan. While that is potentially where they were headed, consider that Tatooine is an Outer Rim planet. Yes, so was Scarif, but passing so close to a well-fortified imperial-owned planet for no reason on their way to the Core Systems seems rather odd. In light of their theft and the immediately preceeding battle, Leia's lie isn't just obvious to Vader, but it's now obvious to the audience. She didn't think it would actually do anything - she's just playing the game.
Let me know what you thought, what your theories are, etc.