Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

[TheLastBaron]

So I'm assuming that this thread is in spoiler territory so I'm not going to use tags, but just in case THERE ARE GOING TO BE SPOILERS IN MY POST.

 

 

I'm going to expand on this, but for the mean time I'll throw some random thoughts down just to see how it compares to other peoples' experiences and maybe also help me process my reaction to this movie. 

 

 Looking at the movie from a big picture view the third act was the only one I really liked at all.  I thought the first and second acts were somewhere between weak and just bad.  There was so much stuff that just didn't need to be there that could have been cut.  The thing with the pilot getting the tentacle thing?  What purpose did that serve?  It'd be one thing if he wasn't totally fine a little later, but he was.  The first act really did nothing to build any sort of emotional connection to the characters, which brings me to my next point, I had a big problem with most of the characters.  I liked Donnie Yen and the droid, but other than them I didn't enjoy being around any of the other characters.  Also coming out of the film I totally don't remember anyone's name like I did with The Force Awakens.  Also Forest Whitaker totally had a shitty role that served no purpose other than to give the main girl a hologram or whatever and that makes me sad.

 

I hope the other "spin-off" movies don't all do this (and I have my suspicions that they will), but for me the movie got incredibly close to prequel territory.  By that I mean It felt way to interested in explaining something specifically briefly mentioned in the original films for pedantic, detail oriented, nerds of Star Wars canon.  This is totally in the realm of "this just isn't for me" rather than an actual criticism, but this basically just felt like watching an 

 

The movie was basically something for me to add to the list of things that I think I totally want, but in the end don't.  On paper if you were to propose the idea of a Star Wars movie that's a straight up war movie (especially if it were presented as "The Dirty Dozen, but it's Star Wars") I'd be all for it.  I like intelligent and morally ambiguous characters for sure, but either the execution in this movie or maybe just when put in the 1977 Star Wars world where everything is black and white did not work for me.

 

Also as far as the whole CG Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher, I was totally taken out of the movie by the levels of uncanny valley going on.  I watched The Polar Express less than a week ago and I'd go as far as to say that bothered me less (I'm probably being overly dramatic) because Tom Hanks wasn't standing right next to a bunch of real people so it didn't stand out as much as Tarkin did.  I get that Peter Cushing died 22 years ago so there aren't a lot of options, but it distracted me a ton and I just wish they had just made him face away more of the time or something.  Maybe if he was a hologram?  Honestly they could have just downplayed or removed his role entirely because he was a very minor character in the movie.  Also Carrie Fisher in the movie could have totally just never turned around and faced the camera so the fact that she did means it was 100% just a "look what we can do" kind of thing.

 

As far as totally stupid on my part nit picks, for me not having an opening crawl, not having a John Williams score (I normally love Michael Giacchino, the score to Up is probably my favorite score of the last decade, but I found the movie in Rogue One distracting), and things like the lower third location indicators really took away from any sort of "man I'm totally watching a Star Wars movie!" feeling for me.  I know the music thing especially is a super unfair criticism, John Williams can't and won't do every Star Wars movie (and some day he'll be dead and Disney will still be pumping these out) and I get that, but I'm just giving my experience and these things stood out to me.

 

For what it's worth I had absolutely no expectations going into this movie.  I saw the very first teaser when it came out and nothing else after.  I went in knowing nothing.  I didn't know Darth Vader was going to be in it, I just knew the basic premise and that there had been some reshoots and that's pretty much it.

 

I'll try to end this positive.  Things I liked:  the actual 1977 film footage from Star Wars (Red Leader and Gold Leader).  Loved it.  I like Ben Mendlesohn as an actor so that's a plus, and I guess I actually would add him to the list of characters I liked, or at least his cape.  I could have done without Darth Vader being in this movie, but accepting that he's in it it was cool to actually get to see him so something cool since previously it was just a couple of awkward light saber fights which is all you actually get in the original trilogy.  I liked that there were lot's of little girls in the theater even if this movie wasn't made for them and they probably were kind of freaked out by it.

[Gwardinen]

I couldn't agree more that Tarkin and Leia would have been just as effective if they had been mere glimpses or just hadn't turned around. I genuinely thought that's what was going to happen! When you first see Tarkin, you just see a CGI reflection in the window and I actually thought in the cinema "ha, that's a clever trick to get a nice cameo in" and then he turned around and was directly on screen for a super long time and I wondered what the fuck was going on.

 

I also agree that the first part of the film is bizarrely rushed. They legitimately have flyovers with text of planet name on screen for at least 4 or 5 different locations within the first 10 minutes, many of which are never returned to. It's incredibly weird. In an odd sort of way the ending is also in a rush - but this time it's in a rush to tidy up continuity by murdering all of the main characters. It's not like I didn't see that coming, but actually watching it was a little strange. It's kind of like how player character death in the Call of Duty series started out surprising and affecting and by this point is de rigueur. Which is obviously a problem when you leave the deaths of your primary protagonists until the very end, ie. the least surprising and affecting spot.

 

All of that said, though, in overview I did enjoy the film. The performances were good, the writing was at least decent and the set & costume design and CGI (apart from Tarkin and Leia, who in fairness were very accomplished pieces of CGI, it's just we're not there yet) and all of that stuff was excellent. Also, while the "everyone's a shade of grey!" stuff was a little in your face, particularly early on, it was nice to see a Star Wars film that isn't just pristine demigods fighting despicable demigods.

[eot]

Saw this yesterday so I'm catching up on the discussion.

I agree about Tarkin, I found his face quite distracting (Leia much less so), however in terms of fidelity his voice work was much further off the mark and that bothered me more. Not sure how noticeable it was to everyone else (I like to think I'm fairly good at 'spotting' voices), but Tarkin had a very particular way of speaking; his line delivery is seared into my brain and this was not that. Maybe it's a problem that hasn't had enough money thrown at it yet, but I could imagine it being quite a hard one as well. We spend our entire lives training our brains to pick up on the most subtle differences in people's voice, just like faces.

 

Anyway, this was a strange movie. I liked it, however I'm not at all sure if watching it again will make its flaws stand out even more, or if it'll make the movie better. I don't know what's going on. There isn't a lot of characterisation, yet I still have a feel for the characters. So while I think that they should have, for example, given more scenes with Chirrut (blind guy) and Jyn is still worked. An extended version of this film could maybe make me care more about them at the end though. I mean, I liked the characters but I also wasn't super upset that they all ate it. The only one in the main cast I didn't care for was Cassian. Didn't like the guy playing him and didn't really like his character and for someone taking up that much screen time he needed to be better.

 

Not sure if I like it more than TFA. The best parts of TFA are on Jakku in my opinion, and after that it's a little hit and miss. The part with the tentacle monster bored me even the first time, the pacing is a little off and the Starkiller Base battle felt too much like a retread of ANH. Rogue One's final battle scene was more enjoyable, even though it tries to evoke the battle from RotJ a little too much in my opinion. Flying down through the shield is a bit like flying into the Death Star, the Star Destroyer that loses engine power and crashes into another ship, all those Rebel cruisers joining the fight (I know they're shown in Empire too, but having them fight is very RotJ) etc.

[Problem Machine]

I liked the sassy robot.

To sum up all of my previous points: It was alright. Not the best or the worst star war. Maybe like 5>4>7>R1>2>6>1. I haven't seen 3.

[eot]

One thing I forgot to add:

I think they should've cut the scene with Vader on Mustafar(?). Completely pointless if you ask me.

 

The bit where Jyn meets her dad didn't add much either (I mean the whole sequence on that planet). It did remind me of the opening of Goldeneye though, just the way the place looked. In the end I kinda liked that it wasn't about Jyn's vendetta with Krennic. Maybe it's unsatisfying that she doesn't get the catharsis of killing him, but we've had that story enough times. The only problem is that her character motivation isn't strong enough.

 

Also, I went into this more or less blind. Had no idea this was even about the Death Star plans. Seems like people who followed the movie already knew most of it. I think I prefer not having a ton of expectations going in.

 

edit: last thing, I was hoping we'd get a movie without any light sabers. I guess this was close enough. Too many light sabers was one of the bigger problems with the PT.

[TheLastBaron]

Really good point about the fight being a repeat of RotJ, it was something I thought of too while watching it.  I also agree about Tarkin's voice.  It seemed like the main part of Peter Cushing's performance they tried to mimic was the fact that he rolled his r's, but I didn't really think the cadence of how Tarkin talked was the same at all.  Like I said before though, he's dead, there's only so much you can do I guess.

[Twig]

I didn't know who Tarkin was so all I got was bad CG and otherwise a fun evil dude being extra evil to other evil dudes.

 

Also Vader just mercilessly killing dudes was fuckin rad and y'all know I don't give a FUCK about this pointless light side dark side nonsense. It was very Bad Guy in a way that lots of (main/canon(??)) Star Wars stuff just isn't. I think it sold Vader to me in a way that he'd never been sold before, because he always just came off as cheesy*. (Including his other main appearance in this movie!)

 

*Note that "cheesy" is not a mark against him, as that's... Star Wars in a nutshell, and whatever. Just saying this was a Vader like I'd never seen and it was cool. If horrifying. Many humans died!

 

 

EDIT: I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really want to see some Big Budget Star Wars Films that have nothing to do with light side vs dark side. Please let the Han Solo and Boba Fett movies be that. Please please please. The universe is so fun. It's so big. There's so much more to it than the Force!

[twmac]

Went to see it last night and about halfway through the film I leaned over to my partner and said 'this is a bit shit, isn't it?'. She gave a sigh of relief and went 'yes!'

 

There was so much fan service in this film and, to be honest, noting the stuff was about the only thing that got me through the film.

 

All of the characters were bland and it wasn't helped by the fact that Felicity Jones is pretty terrible. I've now seen her in 4-5 films and she is always the lowest point in them. After this film I am making a mental note to avoid films with her as the star. Diego Luna is also going to be one to avoid as he just did nothing with his role (such as it was).

 

The film presents two interesting ideas at the beginning and then does a hard pivot away from them almost immediately. In the opening Ben Mendelsohn's character talks about bringing peace to the universe, and that seemed cool, what if the empire was littered with guys like him that actually thought he was working towards something good under the guise of tyranny. But no, he is a big bad who delights in watching a whole city get wiped out.

 

On the other side, Diego Luna's character (I cannot remember any of the characters' name so have had to stick with the actor names, sorry) murdering an informant because he wouldn't be able to escape also gives an interesting twist. The alliance's hands are also stained  with blood in a quest for the greater good. Luna could have been a tragic pseudo-villain. But no, he can't snipe Mads at a pivotal moment in the film because all of a sudden he has to do the 'right' thing. Of course the guy he was going to assassinate died anyway because of 'Hunger Games' logic where heroes don't have to be sullied. It would have been a way more interesting film if had killed Jones's father and then the film would have had to go to some dark places in reconciling that for the final scenes in the film.

 

Like many have already stated, I just didn't care about any of these characters so as they got picked off one by one I just shrugged.

 

Also, fuck that stupid fucking robot, I found it deeply irritating.

[Problem Machine]

3 hours ago, twmac said:

Also, fuck that stupid fucking robot, I found it deeply irritating.

I liked the sassy robot

[twmac]

24 minutes ago, Problem Machine said:

I liked the sassy robot

 

Horses for courses I suppose.

 

I sort of liked the gay couple played by Donnie Yen and the dude with the beard.

[TychoCelchuuu]

14 hours ago, twmac said:

On the other side, Diego Luna's character (I cannot remember any of the characters' name so have had to stick with the actor names, sorry) murdering an informant because he wouldn't be able to escape also gives an interesting twist. The alliance's hands are also stained  with blood in a quest for the greater good. Luna could have been a tragic pseudo-villain. But no, he can't snipe Mads at a pivotal moment in the film because all of a sudden he has to do the 'right' thing. Of course the guy he was going to assassinate died anyway because of 'Hunger Games' logic where heroes don't have to be sullied. It would have been a way more interesting film if had killed Jones's father and then the film would have had to go to some dark places in reconciling that for the final scenes in the film.

Eh, I dunno. You're right that for the Luna character specifically, the turn from "dirty hands" to more classic hero happens when he refuses to shoot that dad, but remember that it was the Rebels who killed the dad anyways (via the bombs), which continued the overall arc of "the Rebels are actually basically terrorists" up through the soldiers who volunteered to go on the mission because, if the Alliance didn't succeed, all the horrible shit they'd done was for nothing. Thus part of the arc of the film is the Alliance going from what it is here, which is a bunch of terrorists whose main claim to legitimacy is that they're not as much of a terrorist organization as Forest Whitaker, to the Alliance that we know from the original trilogy, which is more focused on being good guys. That transition happens later than Luna's character's transition, which maybe is less interesting for Luna in one way, but which also puts him in the neat position of being somewhat at odds with the Alliance or at least at the forefront of the change the Alliance undergoes.

 

Another reason this works is that it's all contrasted with Whitaker, who's the legit unrepentant terrorist who tortures Riz Ahmed and then dies for no apparently good reason (something I wasn't very thrilled with). So, I don't really see it as a Hunger Games "heroes don't have to be sullied" thing so much as a spectrum: we have Whitaker way off the deep end, the Alliance which takes the whole movie to come around, Luna who comes around earlier, and then the weird outliers, like the robot who is snarky but I guess ultimately good and Felicity Jones who is pretty much all about herself and her dad the entire time, insofar as completing the mission represents fulfilling her dad's last wish and also messing with the Empire which she sort of hates.

[Badfinger]

We saw this on Monday, and I think this is now an irrevocably locked and important part of Star Wars. Outside of the completely ludicrous against canon omg!!! way that there was a corvette attached to a Mon Cal cruiser as an escape ship, the way it weaves this story into the literal moments before A New Hope is brilliant. I disliked Darth Vader being sassy in his volcano fort, but his Darth Vadering right at the end of the movie was peak Vader and one of the best linking moments to the original trilogy. It felt very right and on tone. There's some contrived stuff in there- they play pretty fucking fast and loose with Star Wars' own admission of how hyperspace communication works, and the tension ratcheting of "our secret mission covert ship didn't respond for 35 whole seconds SCRAMBLE THE FIGHTERS" was weirdly out of place in retrospect.

 

All in all though, great movie.

[jennegatron]

I saw this on Christmas Eve and I liked it! I enjoyed watching both Diego Luna and Felicity Jones. I want to buy Jyn's badass leather jacket and steal all your girlfriends.

[itsamoose]

I just saw this movie, and had very much the same reaction to it that I did episode 7--I liked it at first but it quickly became grating to me.  I'm not sure how much of that is just my nostalgia for star wars hyping me up, but I feel like ultimately the new movies don't really have the direction or perhaps the courage to strike out on their own.  I don't see a button for spoiler tags so hopefully the ones I added are actual spoiler tags, and if not SPOILERS BELOW!

 

 

 

Somewhat after seeing episode 7, and more so after seeing this, I really dislike the idea of "fans" making sequels and adaptations of things from their past.  For all their faults, at least the two trilogies had a focus, the most recent movies just seem to be every other forgettable action movie set in the star wars universe.  Episodes 1-3 were a search for immortality, 4-6 were a family drama, and the new movies are "ooh!  I remember him!  ooh! look he's like C-3PO!". Perhaps some of this is down to focus testing, and generally the result of the Hollywood machine, but it feels like the way to make a new star wars movie, or more broadly a movie based on some cherished property (ew, gross, I know, but it fits) is just to make a facsimile of those things down to the staging of the scene and dialogue.  I don't know for certain, but it feels like the whole "red 1 standing by" stuff in the battle scene was the exact same dialogue from episode 4.  I know that seems like a weirdly specific criticism, but it felt lazy as hell when the rest of the movie was so engrossed in that same thing.  I get it, dudes in planes talk to each other, move along.  Anyway, rant over.

 

A far as the movie itself goes I agree mostly with the criticisms of Whittaker's character, and his whole "the only difference is how you spell the name" angle, but even then they didn't do anything with it, including the pilot being basically unaffected by the space octopus.  In the same vein, The male lead killing the informant he just met felt cheap to me more than a meaningful action.  With regard to the villains, I thought the main antagonist was serviceable and well acted, but with him, Tarkin and Vader I felt they had entirely too much dialogue.  Vader didn't have the presence he had in previous movies, Tarkin felt like a bit of a pushover or almost goofy more than intimidating, and the puns didn't help.  I quite enjoyed how the ending was wrapped up, and the cloak and dagger sequence where the group is infiltrating the base leading up to the final battle, but in most other scenes the beats they were going felt obligatory more than earned.  I think the most noticeable mark against the movie is that I can't remember any of the new character names except for Galen and Jynn erso, and that's only because people said them so much.  
 

 

[Ben X]

Just saw this, and didn't enjoy it very much. I'm repeating a lot of points that others have made, here, but:

 

It never gets around the fact that it's a prequel based on a single goal which we know from New Hope is achieved, and it also makes the same mistake as Force Awakens of being far too complicated - too many characters, too many locations, too many things going on in a single sequence so things have to be constantly explained throughout - he has to press this button and they have to shoot that shield and we have to get that disc and then broadcast it from that dish. Films like New Hope and Back To The Future know that you need this shit set out beforehand so when stuff goes wrong the viewer immediately understands with no explanation.

It reminds me of the Marvel movies that want to be a spy thriller or war movie or whatever but don't have the balls to step away from the standard franchise beats, so everything gets diluted. Here we have to watch the same rebels vs star destroyers battle that we've seen so many times, and the stuff like the Empire bureaucratic wranglings, Alliance politics and team-gathering don't have any time to breath and end up feeling very mechanical.

Also, agreed on too much Tarkin and Vader. That last scene with Vader was fucking magnificent and pointed to the movie I was hoping for - Rebels scrabbling around in the face of this terrifying and brutal regime, snatching small victories by the skin of their teeth. Too much fan service in general, same as the Ghostbusters cameos - stopping for 10 seconds to gaze at the droids or *Googles* Ponda Baba and Dr Evazan does not serve the film at all, and they wouldn't do it for unknown characters. No restraint. And yes, that Tarkin voice was completely off, I don't understand it. 

[twmac]

On 28/12/2016 at 11:12 PM, TychoCelchuuu said:

Eh, I dunno. You're right that for the Luna character specifically, the turn from "dirty hands" to more classic hero happens when he refuses to shoot that dad, but remember that it was the Rebels who killed the dad anyways (via the bombs), which continued the overall arc of "the Rebels are actually basically terrorists" up through the soldiers who volunteered to go on the mission because, if the Alliance didn't succeed, all the horrible shit they'd done was for nothing. Thus part of the arc of the film is the Alliance going from what it is here, which is a bunch of terrorists whose main claim to legitimacy is that they're not as much of a terrorist organization as Forest Whitaker, to the Alliance that we know from the original trilogy, which is more focused on being good guys. That transition happens later than Luna's character's transition, which maybe is less interesting for Luna in one way, but which also puts him in the neat position of being somewhat at odds with the Alliance or at least at the forefront of the change the Alliance undergoes.

 

Okay, that is a fair take on it, I like that take on it. However, it doesn't work for me on the basis that they make the bombing run and shooting pilots faceless (unlike later in the film when you see the X-Wing and Y-Wing pilots faces when they are being heroes). This is cake and eat it stuff, also there i nothing to indicate Diego Luna's conflict in crisis. So instead, you just have two uninteresting characters doing something because a script dictates that it must.

[itsamoose]

5 hours ago, Ben X said:

It reminds me of the Marvel movies that want to be a spy thriller or war movie or whatever but don't have the balls to step away from the standard franchise beats, so everything gets diluted. Here we have to watch the same rebels vs star destroyers battle that we've seen so many times, and the stuff like the Empire bureaucratic wranglings, Alliance politics and team-gathering don't have any time to breath and end up feeling very mechanical.

 

This perfectly sums up my thoughts on the movie--it and the new star wars movies don't seem willing to break from the traditional formula.  I'm not sure why the story needed the lead scientist's daughter to be the one to take it down, it seems done that way because of the emphasis on family from the prequels.  As entertaining as that final battle was, it painted a picture of the alliance as almost an equal match for the empire, which is why I think the final scene with Vader was such a great one in that it showed the overwhelming might of the empire that the rebels were facing.  For those that haven't seen the film yet, I don't think it's a bad movie, it's simply a passable one that would likely have been forgotten were it not set in the star wars universe.  For those looking for something new to happen in that scenario, it's death by 1000 cuts.

 

Basically, this:

 

[sclpls]

I thought this movie did a good job of fleshing out the stakes of how "a lot of people died to get this information" alluded to in Episode 4, and basically it was satisfying as a mini-story about that. So the fact that the characters were one dimensional didn't really affect how I thought about the movie, and frankly I ended up enjoying it quite a bit more than Episode VII which felt much more disjointed and uncertain of itself.

[Ben X]

4 minutes ago, sclpls said:

I thought this movie did a good job of fleshing out the stakes of how "a lot of people died to get this information" alluded to in Episode 4

 

Arrrgh! People keep thinking this is the story about many Bothans dying to get the information! That was regarding Death Star II (Mon Mothma says it in ROTJ).

 

itsamoose - that video takes 6 minutes to say one thing, but the splitscreen of all the movies with the exact same fakey emotional moment was v good.

[sclpls]

Ehh okay, a mixup. Still good.

[Brannigan]

Clearly that will be the plot of Rogue Two

[Nappi]

I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, despite it being all over the place.

 

The two main characters were more interesting to me than Rey and Finn, because they felt so much more "real" to me, with their human faces and non-chosen one storylines. I liked many of the side characters as well. I would have preferred to see the team of rogues do actual rebel stuff - espionage, stabotage, etc. - instead of being the catalyst for one of the most epic battles in the Star Wars movies so far. Then again, parts of that battle looked pretty cool, so hey...

 

I like the idea of these side movies filling in the plot holes and inconsistencies of the Star Wars universe. I can't wait to see the one where it is finally explained why the helmet lights in this movie were positioned so that they light up the wearer's face and nothing else (the movie culminating in an epic space battle of course).

 

Related to that, I'm intrigued by the process by which the buildings, technologies, cultures, etc. are created for the Star Wars universe, because it is clear that no one ever stopped to question "What is the purpose of this? How did this come about?" or at least went as far as to try to answer those questions. I mean, even Jorge Luis Borges would have thought the library system of the imperial data bank is a bit ridiculous, and the architect of that tower would have had to be on space acid to place the antenna adjustment unit at the end of that stupid skybridge. It is incredible how much I'm willing to forgive in this kind of an action spectacle.

 

I probably wouldn't have minded that the central characters got killed, had it not been so convenient in terms of the earlier Star Wars movies, which, I admit, is a bit weird. I can't get over the feeling that instead of a meaningful sacrifice, their deaths served to keep the Star Wars plotline "consistent" (ha ha ha), by making sure that no one wonders why we never saw these heroes later. It is not as bad as how the ending of Fast and Furious 6 set the stage for Tokyo Drift, but it still bummed me out a bit, especially since I would much rather see more of Jyn and Cassian than Rey and Finn.

 

Come to think of it, what I would actually love is a Commandos style video game featuring the rogue team of this movie.

 

[Roderick]

I actually love the architecture of Star Wars (or more specifically the empire). It's an utterly vertical building style full of endless pits and steep climbs and precarious ledges. It's one of the things that visually ties the universe together and makes for excellent video game levels. I think it'd be a mistake to try to figure out why this was built the way it is. It's pure fantasy in the way that weird elven towers are. Star Wars is full of blast pits and chasms and steel chutes, which is a visual language without much coherence if you try to piece it together in a real world sense, but boy is it exciting to watch.

[Nappi]

I agree. The stuff looks cool and helps create tense action sequences. But it is interesting how little sense everything (architecture, technology, aliens) makes, once you stop for a second to think about it.

[Roderick]

Oh certainly, and we all laughed at the random aperture up top that slices shut every few seconds. The most murderous ventilation system ever.