Rogue One

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Myperson54
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Rogue One

#1 Post by Myperson54 »

Spoiler content appears below this post (and don't circlejerk against TFA)
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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:
  • 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.
Now let's talk about the visual effects:
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.
And finally, implications for future watching:
Spoiler!
The new context provided puts the original STAR WARS into a whole new light. For example, consider this:
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.
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.

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.
I probably had more I was going to say, but that's it for now. I found it to be a really good movie on its own, and the only movie thus far to actually make the original better than it already was. It was deep, it was lively, and I would gladly see it again. I had problems with it, sure, but I'll leave that for later.

Let me know what you thought, what your theories are, etc.
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DocCralioc
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Re: Rogue One

#2 Post by DocCralioc »

Saw it yesterday with some friends. Personally, I'm fine with Rogue One.
In the end, I expected it to be way worse than it actually was.
I am fine with this one, and I'll let you people discuss about the universe and the plot twists. Have fun.

Please refrain from making such negative comments like the one you made here. It gives people a rough time and this being a decently peaceful place we'd like to keep things calm- thank you~ Him
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Re: Rogue One

#3 Post by Jonesy »

I thought it was very good, especially coming from the somewhat formulaic (but still excellent) Force Awakens. The pacing early on was a bit iffy as they go from a slow intro scene to bouncing around between planets and perspectives to introduce everyone, but once the team formed on Yavin IV things really came into their own. The battle of Scarif was impressive and engaging, especially once the fleet got involved, scratching my sci-fi combat itch. Even though victory is a forlorn conclusion, I liked how a lot of things still came down to the wire. Darth Vader's appearance is as intimidating as it deserves to be despite a particularly corny line at one point, and even Tarkin gives off a sense of wrongness thanks to his slightly uncanny (but still rather impressive) CGI appearance.

Overall, I'd say I'm impressed. Especially since Star Wars spinoff films haven't done terribly well before now, what with Clone Wars, the Holiday Special and a couple of other obscure made-for-TV movies. Seeing as we've got a couple of other side stories on the way, I'm curious to see if Disney can keep it up.

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Re: Rogue One

#4 Post by Myperson54 »

One person on Reddit mentioned that this Vader reminded them of Anakin - not the goofy, [censored] acting side of Anakin, but the angry, demanding side of him, the kind that has aspirations and decides to fight for them with his sword to get there. I'm not sure how I feel about that, given, well.... the entirety of the prequels, but it's a nice thought. This Vader really does seem like a stepping stone.

Also, I noticed that Tarkin seemed a bit uncanny at the end of his appearance, but mostly what got to me were his cheekbones. I thought they were rather exaggerated, but looking back...
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He had a pretty well-defined face.
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Re: Rogue One

#5 Post by Hayate »

I saw the movie this weekend, I thought it was pretty good. I'm not gonna say I'm a super hardcore Star Wars fan or anything like that so I can't really argue the details. As a movie though I think it was a pretty good story.
Spoiler!
Movies where everyone ends up dying are kinda sad, but I guess it had to be that way...
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Re: Rogue One

#6 Post by Myperson54 »

Hayate wrote:I saw the movie this weekend, I thought it was pretty good. I'm not gonna say I'm a super hardcore Star Wars fan or anything like that so I can't really argue the details. As a movie though I think it was a pretty good story.
Spoiler!
Movies where everyone ends up dying are kinda sad, but I guess it had to be that way...
Spoiler!
I walked into that movie going, "How many people are gonna come out of this alive? There's a reason it's an all-new cast." I left feeling rather satisfied in the assumption they were all gonna die. It really makes you realize just how much they gained to still call it a "victory".
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Re: Rogue One

#7 Post by Jarlath »

I refuse to click the spoilers or even further read this thread until after x-mas!
BOO! on you all who go to see it already... (My kids are chomping at the bit more than I am to see it...)

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Re: Rogue One

#8 Post by Dalenger »

I thought the movie was good, though formulaic.

Things I liked:
There were quite a few clever lines. The script exceeded my expectations.
Expecting nothing walking into the theater... I was actually quite happy how this ties into the original trilogy.
Battle scenes were top notch. I still don't see why the empire insists on using AT-ATs for armor support when they are supposed to be troop transport... but hey, who doesn't like giant elephants with frickin' laser coming out of their eyes?

Few complaints:
Holy hell, plot armor much.
Some of the bad-guy moments were just sooooo easy to see a mile off.
I've seen this in a LOT of movies recently... but the cinematography where everything but EXACTLY what the director wants you to focus on is super blurry. Like, even during conversation, certain characters will blur in and out depending on if they're talking or not. It really drains the depth from the film for me, tbh. Can any cinematographers here explain why this is suddenly a thing that all popular action movies need to do (looking chiefly also at the recent Star Treks)?
The obligatory scene where all of the main characters hate each other for reasons not relevant to the plot, but then they all get over it super quick for no particular reason and are a better team for it. Uuuuugh.

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Re: Rogue One

#9 Post by Myperson54 »

I didn't personally feel like there was that much plot armour. If anything the originals suffered from it a lot more. I sort of saw the Rogue One crew just barely scraping by and getting lucky a lot, but in all honesty, it never felt that forced to me. Perhaps they needed to survive until the end from a writing standpoint, but I never felt like any of them got away with something they shouldn't have. Just my two cents.
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Re: Rogue One

#10 Post by tony1695 »

Myperson54 wrote:Also, I noticed that Tarkin seemed a bit uncanny at the end of his appearance, but mostly what got to me were his cheekbones. I thought they were rather exaggerated, but looking back...
Image

He had a pretty well-defined face.
If you think about it, Tarkin was a man who radiated malevolence. He was a man who was able to boss around Vader with no issue, who ordered the destruction of an entire planet to make a point. In a way, making the man look a little uncanny made sense.
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Re: Rogue One

#11 Post by Phaing »

I think this was the best of all of them, so far.
Cute robots didn't impress me even when I was a kid, and no Jedi-types was fine too.

The funny thing was... it seemed too short. Weird thing to say these days, and it wasn't a short movie, but it could have used a little something more.
Hell, I would have gone with Jyn on that last mission, but I saw what she did. Why did a couple of dozen guys step up when their own leaders were going all wobbly?

Maybe there will be an extended version with a little more character development/background.
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Re: Rogue One

#12 Post by Myperson54 »

There's a few reason, all self-contained in the movie.
- The name Erso was well known for its Imperial connections, not the sort of people the rebels will just trust so easily.
- The idea of taking a potential enemy sympathizer at their word isn't exactly appealing to many diplomats. The soldiers and the politicians have a different approach to this sort of stuff. If Cassian says Jun is trustworthy, they'll follow him. They know he was there.
- I disagree on the point that the rebel leaders were even being wobbly. The ones who spoke up were rather adamant on their own positions, it's just that they also need to worry about security and the danger Jyn could represent to that, in addition to the destruction of the Death Star.

Interesting that you found it short, I actually found it rather long. Weird how that works. And I agree that the character development wasn't the strongest, though I'm not sure it needed "more" so much as "better", but that's just my thoughts.
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