Star Wars: Rogue One *spoilers from post 1195*

Tony EH

Deleted User wrote: »

It's mad. If you swap the two film titles here (R1 and TFA), that's my opinion on them.

Except that 'Rouge One' is its own film - albeit directly tied to the original 'Star Wars' - whereas 'The Force Awakens' retreads 'Star Wars' almost beat for beat, even to the point where they couldn't even be bothered to come up with a new super weapon for the baddies.

Tony EH

Tony EH wrote: »

Except that 'Rouge One' is its own film - albeit directly tied to the original 'Star Wars' - whereas 'The Force Awakens' retreads 'Star Wars' almost beat for beat, even to the point where they couldn't even be bothered to come up with a new super weapon for the baddies.

I knew how R1 was going to end before it began. I couldn't say the same for TFA. I was hoping R1 could turn around a somewhat mundane story but it completely failed to deliver. I walked out thinking I shouldn't have got my hopes up. I walked out of TFA thinking that star wars is back.

Exeggcute

Anyone else find Vader's voice a bit...off?

Maybe it is just James Earl Jones being 85 I don't know but it sounded strange to me.

PhiloCypher

Deleted User wrote: »

Tony EH wrote: »

Except that 'Rouge One' is its own film - albeit directly tied to the original 'Star Wars' - whereas 'The Force Awakens' retreads 'Star Wars' almost beat for beat, even to the point where they couldn't even be bothered to come up with a new super weapon for the baddies.

I knew how R1 was going to end before it began. I couldn't say the same for TFA. I was hoping R1 could turn around a somewhat mundane story but it completely failed to deliver. I walked out thinking I shouldn't have got my hopes up. I walked out of TFA thinking that star wars is back.

You didn't know that There was going to be a heroic death ala Ben/Han and that they were going to find the same weak spot they always find on these superweapons , or that the map that everyone was looking for the entire film would lead us to a Luke bases cliffhanger ? Seriously , you couldn't tell where it was going ??

PhiloCypher

Doublepost

Tony EH

Deleted User wrote: »

I knew how R1 was going to end before it began.

What exactly did you "know" about the ending of 'Rogue One'. Other than the fact that is tied directly into 'Star Wars', I didn't know how it was actually going to end and I certainly did not expect what I saw.

Deleted User wrote: »

I couldn't say the same for TFA. I was hoping R1 could turn around a somewhat mundane story but it completely failed to deliver. I walked out thinking I shouldn't have got my hopes up. I walked out of TFA thinking that star wars is back.

You can't say the same for 'The Force Awakens' because it's the first part of a trilogy. So, it hasn't really ended yet.

And maybe you came out of 'The Force Awakens' thinking "star wars is back", because it was a simple rerun of...um...'Star Wars'.

david75

Tony EH wrote: »

Except that 'Rouge One' is its own film - albeit directly tied to the original 'Star Wars' - whereas 'The Force Awakens' retreads 'Star Wars' almost beat for beat, even to the point where they couldn't even be bothered to come up with a new super weapon for the baddies.

I don't think we can fairly and clearly review force awakens without the context of the two films to follow it. As part of a trilogy. It's also an inverse of a new hope not a retread. Rey makes the opposite decisions to Luke she not interested in the heroes journey at all. The rest is just details. We've gone over often enough

david75

Exeggcute wrote: »

Anyone else find Vader's voice a bit...off?

Maybe it is just James Earl Jones being 85 I don't know but it sounded strange to me.

He's just out of the bath. Literally. All relaxed.

Tony EH

david75 wrote: »

I don't think we can fairly and clearly review force awakens without the context of the two films to follow it. As part of a trilogy. It's also an inverse of a new hope not a retread. Rey makes the opposite decisions to Luke she not interested in the heroes journey at all. The rest is just details. We've gone over often enough

Agreed, the full story has yet to play out. However, the first part of the trilogy is almost the exact same film as the first part of the trilogy from 40 years ago and that's a big problem for a lot of people when they saw it first and for others when they reassessed it honestly. There are articles galore comparing them.

This, of course, doesn't mean that Ep VIII and XI will follow the other parts of the original trilogy and I think that because of the vocal complaints at the, quite unnecessary, similarities between 'Star Wars' and 'The Force Awakens', Disney will (should) be quite loath to make that same mistake again.

PhiloCypher

david75 wrote: »

Tony EH wrote: »

Except that 'Rouge One' is its own film - albeit directly tied to the original 'Star Wars' - whereas 'The Force Awakens' retreads 'Star Wars' almost beat for beat, even to the point where they couldn't even be bothered to come up with a new super weapon for the baddies.

I don't think we can fairly and clearly review force awakens without the context of the two films to follow it. As part of a trilogy. It's also an inverse of a new hope not a retread. Rey makes the opposite decisions to Luke she not interested in the heroes journey at all. The rest is just details. We've gone over often enough

Whether she yearned to leave Jakku as much as Luke did Tatooine is neither here nor there . The fact is she went on the same hero's journey

orubiru

Tony EH wrote: »

Why bother?

If you're not entertained, then you're not entertained. Why make excuses?

Personally, I thought it was the best Star Wars film since 'Return of the Jedi' and I liked the build up to the final battle. It made sense to spend the time with these people to help the ending make an impact.

But, if you don't like something, why try to convince yourself or anybody else otherwise?

Good question.

I guess the answer is because I'm a Star Wars fanboy. So are loads of people I know. I was going into Rogue One wanting it to be awesome and, from seeing the trailers, fully expecting it to be so.

So looking back on it I am thinking yeah, the final battle was cool and the scene with Darth Vader was cool but I was pretty damn bored for the first two thirds of the film.

I just felt like the characters were uninteresting and that there was a lot of messing around to just bring us to "are we gonna steal the plans for the Death Star... yeah let's do it".

So many people are raving about it but they are raving about the last 30 minutes. In some cases people are just raving about the last 5 minutes.

I'm just asking myself "am I missing something here".

I'd say it was better than the 3 Prequels but not nearly as good as IV, V, VI and VII.

david75

Excellent episode of talk Star Wars interview with Anthony breznican from EW.
Loads of insights into rogue one and the future of the franchise, stand alone and saga films. This is a great podcast by the way. Well worth subscribing to.
https://itunes.apple.com/ie/podcast/talk-star-wars/id1052706566?mt=2#episodeGuid=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtalkradio.com%2Ftalkstarwars%2F2016%2F12%2F22%2Ftalk-star-wars-bonus-episode-going-rogue-with-anthony-breznican

orubiru

yourdeadwright wrote: »

Its star wars, its suppose to be a fun adventure movie of kids and that's what it was,
People looking for an amazing plot are never going to get it, its Star wars after all,
The originals had loads of plot holes, for a start trying to hide Luke from his dad and still calling him Luke Skywalker is retarded but guess what there still a fun movies and that's all there suppose to be.

I think this is an identity crisis that Star Wars has had for a long time.

On one hand it's trying to be a fun movie for kids, on the other hand it's trying to please 30-something fanboys.

Maybe this is why the movies that came after Empire Strikes Back never really managed to capture people in the same way? It's trying to be everything for everyone?

Return of the Jedi seems to just be every single idea in the world crammed into one movie. You've got everything from Leia in a bikini to little teddy bears to space battles to serious high stakes lightsaber fights. As a result it is probably the weakest of the originals.

They never really moved away from that attitude of having something for everyone and as a result they never managed to make another Empire Strikes Back, even though it seems that what we all really want is another Empire Strikes Back.

I wonder what kind of movies we'd have if the philosophy was "how can we make something better than Empire" rather than "how can we make more money"?

david75

orubiru wrote: »

I think this is an identity crisis that Star Wars has had for a long time.

On one hand it's trying to be a fun movie for kids, on the other hand it's trying to please 30-something fanboys.

Maybe this is why the movies that came after Empire Strikes Back never really managed to capture people in the same way? It's trying to be everything for everyone?

Return of the Jedi seems to just be every single idea in the world crammed into one movie. You've got everything from Leia in a bikini to little teddy bears to space battles to serious high stakes lightsaber fights. As a result it is probably the weakest of the originals.

They never really moved away from that attitude of having something for everyone and as a result they never managed to make another Empire Strikes Back, even though it seems that what we all really want is another Empire Strikes Back.

I wonder what kind of movies we'd have if the philosophy was "how can we make something better than Empire" rather than "how can we make more money"?

It definitely isn't either or for lucasfilm or Disney.
They want to produce the best films/shows/books etc they can. It's in their interest to make hem as good as they possibly can be. As above you can see people saying force awakens was a repeat. Well it relaunched the entire franchise better than they could have hoped. So now they have carte Blanche. It'll get better and better.

ZV Yoda

I saw this last week. Overall, I enjoyed it.

For me, the Jyn character is too similar to Rey. They seem almost interchangeable.

The first 50-60 mins dragged a bit - it felt a bit like an inter-galactic geography lesson with all the planets we visited. It reminded me of the ridiculously convoluted trade federation rubbish in TPM. The scene where Krennic arrives to take Galen back to work on the Death Star was the highpoint of the first half. After that, I lost interest till the action picked up in the 2nd half.

Like others, I felt CGI Tarkin would have been more effective if he’d been in the shadows / via hologram. I can't make my mind up whether the CGI wasn't up to scratch or whether my brain chooses not to believe it because I know it's not really Peter Cushing. I suspect the latter.

There was really no need to have a close up of Leia. I’d have preferred a distant shot of her being handed the plans - similar to ANH where we saw her giving the plans to R2 in the corridor. Would have been a nice nod to ANH without having to reincarnate a youthful Carrie Fisher.

As others have said, the 2nd half was much better. Great action sequences, although they really did regurgitate a lot of scenarios / set pieces we’ve seen in the other movies.

It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a much better prequel than ROTS. The way R1 dovetails into ANH is really clever and really made me want to go home & watch ANH.

I also liked TFA, but let’s be honest, it wasn’t exactly overflowing with original ideas. I was a nipper when the originals were released, so I still remember the magic of seeing ANH on the big screen for the first time.

To be fair, Disney haven’t done a bad job of bringing SW back to life. TFA & R1 are infinitely better than the prequels. My personal favourite is ANH. Unlike others, I like ESB & ROTJ equally and I'd probably rate R1 & TFA fairly close to them.

I watched TPM a couple of months back. I can’t understand how a Star Wars move with such great actors / characters as Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and Darth Maul can be so awful. In some ways, I'd love Disney to eventually redo/reboot the prequels. On the evidence so far, I think they'd be much better movies than what Lucas came up with.

johnny_ultimate

david75 wrote: »

It definitely isn't either or for lucasfilm or Disney.
They want to produce the best films/shows/books etc they can.

I think artistic integrity and ambition is far from the core motive of Disney's Star Wars films to date - and I say that as somebody who liked The Force Awakens :pac:

Sudden Valley

Whatever the problems it had in the first half it was about time they had the good guys being killed in war.too many Marvel/DC/Star Wars movies have shied away from killing any of the main good guys

Wheeliebin30

Are these the plans also used in return of the jedi to destroy the death star?

david75

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I think artistic integrity and ambition is far from the core motive of Disney's Star Wars films to date - and I say that as somebody who liked The Force Awakens :pac:

That's not really fair. If you're reading the books/comics the way the story group is weaving characters and threads across the platforms is brilliant. And if you're a casual fan you're not losing anything by not tapping into that stuff but if you're a hardcore fan there's so many layers and extra levels being added to the stories and characters and their arcs.
That's some impressive feat and very difficult to pull off successfully but they're doing it in spades.


On a basic level a lot of people are saying Rogue One I the most visually stunning of Star Wars films. Every shot is frames beautifully. I'd call that a dedication to making it great art.

Osmosis Jones

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

Are these the plans also used in return of the jedi to destroy the death star?

Nah different plans, the Death Star 2 plans are the ones many Bothans died for.

Not Propaganda

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

Are these the plans also used in return of the jedi to destroy the death star?

No that's separate, Bothans found out about the second Death Star

Edit - woops, already covered sorry

Not Propaganda

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I think artistic integrity and ambition is far from the core motive of Disney's Star Wars films to date - and I say that as somebody who liked The Force Awakens :pac:

Ha, I'd actually agree but I think they realise that just churning out the same old won't work in the long term, and seeing as they've said they plan on releasing a Star Wars movie every year for the forseeable, they'll pretty soon turn towards more ambitious stories I think.

BMMachine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc2kFk5M9x4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukk5TJL27pE

both of these accurately portray how I feel about this film

Arne_Saknussem

BMMachine wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc2kFk5M9x4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukk5TJL27pE

both of these accurately portray how I feel about this film

Couldn't get more than a couple of minutes into that first video.

Insufferable *****.

david75

Ah here

mikhail

Arne_Saknussem wrote: »

Couldn't get more than a couple of minutes into that first video.

Insufferable *****.

david75 wrote: »

Ah here

I quite like their stuff normally, but I gave up watching this one part way through. They had nothing to say. They didn't like it, which is fine, but insufferable is not an unfair description.

david75

This is the greatest thing in all Star Wars ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9t-slLl30E

BMMachine

yeah I should put a spoiler for the start of the first video, it is quite annoying

Not Propaganda

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/12/21/rogue-one-film-crit-hulk-the-slippery-sloping-story-of-rogue-one

Really interesting review because it's the first one I've seen that puts the first part of the story above the final act. And reading it, it all makes sense to me. I still really enjoyed the movie but a review like this is why I'd hesitate to say it's a classic or anything, I think after a while and another viewing a few months down the road I'll come at it with a different view maybe

The big thing I get from that review is "missed opportunities" - which I totally get. I can see all the missed opportunities in Rogue One and that is frustrating, but I still liked what we ended up with

BMMachine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sych2UPAvg0

also accurate