I thought it was interesting that in the Catalyst book, they mentioned that the dish had a telescoping feature to allow better aiming. That is, it could extend out from the sphere and adjust its angle. You actually see this feature in the movie very briefly in an establishing shot, but for some reason it never comes into play when actually firing the laser.
Makes me wonder if it was one of the many things cut from the film. In the context of the film they play it off like something to do with superlaser construction, but I wonder.
Just got back from seeing it, I have a lot of thoughts but the main one is that the score is terrible. It's generic "Star Wars Music", which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the visual tone of this movie is different from other Star Wars films and the score should reflect that. There were a number of scenes that were fairly dark and more downbeat but have a bizarrely triumphant score clumsily trampling over them. The music honestly knocked this film down a peg for me. If it had an appropriate score I could easily see it being in my Top 3, but right now I don't think it rises above RotJ or TFA for me. It really, really pulled me out of so many scenes.
Just got back from seeing it, I have a lot of thoughts but the main one is that the score is terrible. It's generic "Star Wars Music", which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the visual tone of this movie is different from other Star Wars films and the score should reflect that. There were a number of scenes that were fairly dark and more downbeat but have a bizarrely triumphant score clumsily trampling over them. The music honestly knocked this film down a peg for me. If it had an appropriate score I could easily see it being in my Top 3, but right now I don't think it rises above RotJ or TFA for me. It really, really pulled me out of so many scenes.
I think they were too proud of the CGI recreations. They should have just kept them to a minimum and/or showed them from really far away, tbh. Same with the callbacks. You don't need to run into the HE DOESN'T LIKE YOU guy and have him go with a variant on his line or whatever.
Just got back from seeing it, I have a lot of thoughts but the main one is that the score is terrible. It's generic "Star Wars Music", which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the visual tone of this movie is different from other Star Wars films and the score should reflect that. There were a number of scenes that were fairly dark and more downbeat but have a bizarrely triumphant score clumsily trampling over them. The music honestly knocked this film down a peg for me. If it had an appropriate score I could easily see it being in my Top 3, but right now I don't think it rises above RotJ or TFA for me. It really, really pulled me out of so many scenes.
I need to listen to the entire score but I know early on, some of it sounded like knockoff John Williams. As in, they couldn't use the original score for licensing reasons so had to change a few notes. It was weird.
My biggest problem with the score is the placement of iconic tracks. Some don't belong, some are in the wrong spot, none serve a purpose. Darth Vader's theme being the most notable obviously.
I felt like it was a giant missed opportunity. Would have loved to hear Desplat's take.
Maybe I need new glasses because Tarkin and Leia both looked great to me. Tarkin looked slightly out of place, but I didn't think anything of it until other people brought it up.
Okay, now that I had some time to let my thoughts gather, I feel I got a handle of how I feel about the movie.
It was good, as a whole. I would have given it a low C on the first 2 acts, because I feel Gareth Edwards just doesn't know how to pace scenes at this point, but the final third of the movie escalated it up to a solid B. Unfortunately, my biggest problem with the movie is there, at the most important moment of the movie no less. But overall, it was a worthy addition to the franchise.
More than that, I'm glad that it was established that films could do this. I now hope to see more franchises expand beyond their initial premise and do minor stories. I always felt there was little reason for big name franchises to do this and...well, now star wars has paved the way for studio's to consider it.
But I need to point this out because it cannot be ignored: Gareth Edwards is a fucking master of shot composition and an fucking joke in terms of pacing a movie or giving those scenes narrative meaning. That may sound harsh, because Rogue one has problems with this regard, but I'm fully convinced this was the issues that Disney had that they went back and re-edited the film. I remember watching Godzilla when Godzilla first shows up. The enemy kaiju was wrecking the airport, suddenly you see godzilla's foot, pan up to see Godzilla arrive....only for the camera to pull back to the boring human characters while your desperately trying to get a glimpse of the monsters fighting on the tv's in the background. When I first saw that, I was dumbfounded because I didn't think a director even could make that kind of mistake. There's nothing that severe in rogue one, but I feel crucial scenes are missing, like Guy Serrera's entire journey from surrogate dad to Star War's che guerrra, while instead including that bizarre scene of the monster mind sucking the pilot even though that lead nowhere and had no lastingo on impact. This is a problem that I felt Disney tried to minimize with whatever edits they made (or, to be more generous to Edwards, maybe he just got better at it since Godzilla), but for the first 2/3 of the movie, there was this kind of bizarre back and forth where I'd get pulled into the story, only to have some pacing issue bring me out of it. Edward's has a gift when it comes to putting pieces in a shot to make it look interesting, and it's what stopped Godzilla from being a complete wreck, but his editing and scene placement and prioritization needs some serious work.
Fortunately, unlike Godzilla, the film has a pretty stellar cast of characters. In fact, the side characters felt like to me like they outshone the main 3 (Jyn, Cassian, and Krennic). Kaytoo was fucking hysterical. The monk dude was awesome. In fact, the Monk felt like he was the most traditionally Star Warsian character of the cast, making antics and jokes in serious situations, which is appropriate as he's the one with the connection to the force. I also felt there was a gay vibe between him and his badass buddy, which I applaud for diversity, even if it's not outright confirmed or explicit. Cassian's moral conflicts were intriguing too. He honestly felt like a guy who's been through some shit. You definitely got a sense of history off the guy when Jyn confronts him on the things he does (or doesn't do).
Unfortunately, that leaves Jyn and Krennic to be kind of blah positions. Krennic is like an extreme MCU Loki archtype. A lot ofrpeople try to argue that Loki isn't a great villain because he gets his shit kicked in all the time, or that he is great because of his snappy oneliners and so on. But, particularly in the first marvel movie, his strength as a villain is that he is dude with an inferiority complex propped up by forces way stronger than him. As a result, while the Avengers always take him as a serious threat, each avenger in turn gets to knock him down in some way. This culminates in that classic scene of him just losing his shit and trying to shout down Hulk, only to have Hulk smash him. It's a constant tension of his that he is overconfident and powerful, while simultaneously being insecure and weak, which builds and builds through the movie. In this way, Krennic the same archtype and it doesn't really succeed. He's repeatedly undermined and humiliated, from start to finish. Mrs. Erso shoots him in the opening scene, he gets chewed out and threatened by Tarkin who then takes over his operation, he gets almost killed when Rogue one tries to rescue Jyn's dad, he tries to suck up to Daddy Vader only to be choked, his base on Scariff is blown up under his watch, he gets shot in the back by some rando (from his perspective) then he gets blown up by the death star he helped build. But his breakdown scenes are limited to him going off on Tarkin and then later yelling at his subordinates when Rogue One starts blowing shit up.
Which all ties into Jyn's problem. Unlike the other members of Rogue One who have both specialized skills and conflicts with the empire, Jyn's story is defined by her relationship with others. She only is of aid to the Rebellion because of her social connections. She knows Serara, her father is the death star builder to whom she gets the message of how to destroy it, and her purpose in the death star plans capture is to figure out which disk holds the data, which she knows because her father nicknamed her stardust. As a result, Jyn feels like she's the least of all the characters, who have more visible skills and specialities and connection to fighting the empire. Jyn's suffering feels like it's only ever by proxy of a loved one. Which ties into the biggest problem I have, the very end.
But first, some Moana ending spoilers. I bring this up specifically because it feels like that big problem is specifically one Moana avoided. In the movie,
Moana is the one who ends Te Ka's rampage by resolving and restoring the life stone where it needed to be. But in an earlier draft of the movie, she couldn't do it and Maui was the one who showed up and saved the day. This was changed because they realized this was Moana's story and by having Maui resolve the ending of the story, they were robbing her of her climactic resolution.
Unfortunately, That's exactly what they did to Jyn here. Because, even if see Jyn's lack of direct investment as a negative, I thought the story was well told. People do, after all, suffer because of their loved ones and seeing Jyn trying to make a life out of rescuing her father, it wasn't a badly written. But this all comes back to Krennic and how he's the source of it all. The empire as a whole is the real source, of course, but Krennic is the presence in her life that made it hell. He killed her mother. He kidnapped her father. And now, he's personally trying to stop her from completing her mission.
So having Cassian shoot him in the back is a disservice to both Jyn and Krennic. I have to emphasize how completely anticlimactic this. Krennic comes up, has Jyn at the business end of his laser pistol, and Jyn stares him down, and he goes "uh...do I know you?" And then she says "I'm Jyn Erso" and he goes like "Oh." And then he gets randomly shot in the back. This is two fold. One, he doesn't get his catharsis where he tries to assert how awesome he is before losing, and Jyn does nothing to the man whose most directly responsible for ruining her life. Cassian with who he has never had any interaction with, is the one who shoots him by a "oh, you thought I was dead but I'm not" cliche. They don't even get to say anything to each other. It's just a very lame way to do the single most significant part of your movie.
Okay, I bitched about it for like the last 4 paragraphs, so let me emphasize again that I do like this movie. The characters, awesome moments, well placed humor, very impressive and careful continuity ties all work very well. I will always think Darth Vader looks goofy as fuck, but in that final scene, he was utterly terrifying. The third act was very, very well done aside from it's one major blemish. The everyone dies aspect of it was genuinely well done. And I hope to see stories more like this again. But more than anything, I hope people follow Star War's lead here. Make more side stories. Make more anthology movies. Expand universes all over.
I'm in a pretty tiny minority on this, but I've never really much liked Giacchino's film scores. His work on Lost is astounding and instantly memorable, but outside of maybe the Star Trek theme (which I can't even hum on command but would recognize if I heard it) I don't know if I've ever really remembered any of his film tracks.
My biggest problem with the score is the placement of iconic tracks. Some don't belong, some are in the wrong spot, none serve a purpose. Darth Vader's theme being the most notable obviously.
I felt like it was a giant missed opportunity. Would have loved to hear Desplat's take.
Disney just doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about movie scores. Even TFA, despite having Williams, I felt fell very flat and was a far step down from his previous work including the prequels. Besides Jedi Steps/Rey's theme nothing really stuck out or felt really fresh. Then you look at the prequels and you've got amazing tracks like "Duel of Fates" and "Across the Stars." It really makes you wonder what the hell Disney is doing to these composers to produce such bland scores.
This is also why I love God-tier Nolan, when he teams up with Zimmer he lets that dude let loose to produce some amazing, original scores.
Just got back from seeing it, I have a lot of thoughts but the main one is that the score is terrible. It's generic "Star Wars Music", which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the visual tone of this movie is different from other Star Wars films and the score should reflect that. There were a number of scenes that were fairly dark and more downbeat but have a bizarrely triumphant score clumsily trampling over them. The music honestly knocked this film down a peg for me. If it had an appropriate score I could easily see it being in my Top 3, but right now I don't think it rises above RotJ or TFA for me. It really, really pulled me out of so many scenes.
I'm in a pretty tiny minority on this, but I've never really much liked Giacchino's film scores. His work on Lost is astounding and instantly memorable, but outside of maybe the Star Trek theme (which I can't even hum on command but would recognize if I heard it) I don't know if I've ever really remembered any of his film tracks.
I agree with a lot of the complaints here about the score, but I typically like Giacchino.
I think the ultimate problem is that, without exaggerating, John Williams' Star Wars score is probably the most recognizable piece of music in all of cinema. And we've been listening to iterations of that classic for decades..
Maybe I need new glasses because Tarkin and Leia both looked great to me. Tarkin looked slightly out of place, but I didn't think anything of it until other people brought it up.
Agreed, there was only one scene where it really felt "uncanney valley" to me, but it was easy to overlook seeing Tarkin back on the big screen. I was so thrilled to see him and Leia.
I really enjoy Gareth Edwards' films, and this is no different. I loved Monsters, so I had no doubts that he could pull a movie like this off.
I do think there was too much Tarkin, and even though I didn't mind him in the first reveal scene, they did tend to overuse him a lot. Of course, there was a reason for it, but what can you do.
I loved the movie.
PS: The Leia reveal had me more urked than Tarkin's. Something was wrong with her eyes lol
It was mentioned that he had to see the whole project through because he knew that the Empire could replace him and finish the project without him. Any mention or leak early on that he had created a defect in the reactor would've just ended up with the Empire killing, replacing him, and fixing the problem.
Maybe I need new glasses because Tarkin and Leia both looked great to me. Tarkin looked slightly out of place, but I didn't think anything of it until other people brought it up.
I agree with a lot of the complaints here about the score, but I typically like Giacchino.
I think the ultimate problem is that, without exaggerating, John Williams' Star Wars score is probably the most recognizable piece of music in all of cinema. And we've been listening to iterations of that classic for decades..
I'm still waiting for a new piece (or even a good remix) from the movies to move me as much as the Jedi Enclave theme for KotOR II. Rey's Theme is probably the closest. I wonder how strict Disney is on what you can do with a film score.
Nothing was as good as the remixed piece from the end of the first trailer.
I thought it was interesting that in the Catalyst book, they mentioned that the dish had a telescoping feature to allow better aiming. That is, it could extend out from the sphere and adjust its angle. You actually see this feature in the movie very briefly in an establishing shot, but for some reason it never comes into play when actually firing the laser.
I loved the parallels between Saw and Vader. Pretty deep. The movie made greats steps in making both sides of the war more human, and this was part of that. The rebels aren't angels, but violent insurrectionist guerrilla fighters.
Good post. I had a huge problem with the big showdown between Jyn and Krennik too for some of the same reasons. Felt incredibly unbelievable the way it unfolded.
Could have done without that entire sequence personally.
Despite the crazy amount of stuff cut that we saw in the trailers I have a feeling that the Disney reshoots made the film better. We know the third act got the most extensive reshoots and I don't think it's a surprise that it also happens to be the best part f the film. This makes me think that the original cut was more in line with what we saw in the first third of the movie, odd pacing and editing, and likely would have been a worse movie.
What's funny looking at those early trailers is that those reshoots must have been expensive, and thus sorely needed, as it seems a lot of the effects work was already done (TIE Fighter at the transmission tower). Thus, there clearly had to be serious problems with the original cut to scrap all that time, money, and effort that went into crafting those scenes.
Best CG zombies were the X-Wing pilots like Gold Leader. They looked perfect but the shots were so quick it was hard to pick out flaws.
I didn't mind Tarkin although he was far from perfect.
Leia looked horrible to me.
It's interesting to see how everyone has a different eye for these sorts of things. Even if I don't think Lucasfilm pulled it off completely I'm still glad they went for it.
Also I feel that they could have at least tried to escape the planet, maybe stole Krennic's shuttle, at the end rather than making their way to the beach to die, but I realize that is nitpicking.
It worked on Avatar, and it worked for Robert Downey Junior in Civil War. Don't get why they didn't go the extra extra mile for this film and use some of that tech instead of making them look like CGI characters.
I really enjoy Gareth Edwards' films, and this is no different. I loved Monsters, so I had no doubts that he could pull a movie like this off.
I do think there was too much Tarkin, and even though I didn't mind him in the first reveal scene, they did tend to overuse him a lot. Of course, there was a reason for it, but what can you do.
I loved the movie.
PS: The Leia reveal had me more urked than Tarkin's. Something was wrong with her eyes lol
Yeah, it was the eyes on Leia that felt false to me, how they looked upward during her line. Visually, though, I'm super okay with both Leia and Tarkin.
This is true. I had no idea Tarkin was "in" the movie because I haven't read anything or even watched the trailer. I had no idea the actor was dead. Going in not knowing that made it easier to accept the character wasn't CG. The only thing "off" about him to me was the purpling under the eyes.
Also I feel that they could have at least tried to escape the planet, maybe stole Krennic's shuttle, at the end rather than making their way to the beach to die, but I realize that is nitpicking.
It worked on Avatar, and it worked for Robert Downey Junior in Civil War. Don't get why they didn't go the extra extra mile for this film and use some of that tech instead of making them look like CGI characters.
Time. The same reason they gave Giacchino like a month to compose the score, not that I think Giacchino could produce a truly great score given all the time in the world. But, this is SW they could have easily delayed the film a little bit to polish these things up, however, Disney wants that December release date and they ain't budging for nobody.
So having Cassian shoot him in the back is a disservice to both Jyn and Krennic. I have to emphasize how completely anticlimactic this. Krennic comes up, has Jyn at the business end of his laser pistol, and Jyn stares him down, and he goes "uh...do I know you?" And then she says "I'm Jyn Erso" and he goes like "Oh." And then he gets randomly shot in the back. This is two fold. One, he doesn't get his catharsis where he tries to assert how awesome he is before losing, and Jyn does nothing to the man whose most directly responsible for ruining her life. Cassian with who he has never had any interaction with, is the one who shoots him by a "oh, you thought I was dead but I'm not" cliche. They don't even get to say anything to each other. It's just a very lame way to do the single most significant part of your movie.
For a lot of the film, I felt like they were using too much Tarkin and it was cannibalizing Mendelsohn's performance as Krennic... until the very end, when we see Tarkin fire on Scarif and the look on Krennic's face as he sees his creation come up over the horizon to destroy him. I think that retroactively justified all of the Tarkin screentime for me.
Disney just doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about movie scores. Even TFA, despite having Williams, I felt fell very flat and was a far step down from his previous work including the prequels. Besides Jedi Steps/Rey's theme nothing really stuck out or felt really fresh. Then you look at the prequels and you've got amazing tracks like "Duel of Fates" and "Across the Stars." It really makes you wonder what the hell Disney is doing to these composers to produce such bland scores.
This is also why I love God-tier Nolan, when he teams up with Zimmer he lets that dude let loose to produce some amazing, original scores.
I don't know what Disney has to do with it; it's not like Bob Iger is sitting in the edit bay giving notes on the sound mix. Williams' TFA score sounds better on its own than it did in the movie, imo, and I think that comes down to JJ just not making great use of what he was given outside of a few sequences. Not sure if it's a similar issue with Rogue One too, though Giacchino having to write the score in just a few weeks likely didn't help either.
Yeah that works in-universe. However from a creative point of view, you don't give it this new feature, model it, animated it, show it off, and then just never actually use it for anything.
Just got back from seeing it, I have a lot of thoughts but the main one is that the score is terrible. It's generic "Star Wars Music", which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the visual tone of this movie is different from other Star Wars films and the score should reflect that. There were a number of scenes that were fairly dark and more downbeat but have a bizarrely triumphant score clumsily trampling over them. The music honestly knocked this film down a peg for me. If it had an appropriate score I could easily see it being in my Top 3, but right now I don't think it rises above RotJ or TFA for me. It really, really pulled me out of so many scenes.
Yeah though I liked it a lot, the score was not good and a big sticking point and this is from someone who tends to like Giacchino's other works. It reminded me of Lucasarts 90s Star Wars games where composers try to emulate what Williams did without ever reaching what made the original scores so memorable and timeless.
I need to listen to the entire score but I know early on, some of it sounded like knockoff John Williams. As in, they couldn't use the original score for licensing reasons so had to change a few notes. It was weird.
I need to listen to the entire score but I know early on, some of it sounded like knockoff John Williams. As in, they couldn't use the original score for licensing reasons so had to change a few notes. It was weird.
One of my main problems with the new themes. I'm sure they can use the old themes, just seems like Giacchino was shooting for "similar feeling but goes different" and kinda failed with it.
Would be better to just go totally new with it. Maybe that's why they ditched Desplat.
I don't know what Disney has to do with it; it's not like Bob Iger is sitting in the edit bay giving notes on the sound mix. Williams' TFA score sounds better on its own than it did in the movie, imo, and I think that comes down to JJ just not making great use of what he was given outside of a few sequences. Not sure if it's a similar issue with Rogue One too, though Giacchino having to write the score in just a few weeks likely didn't help either.
When EVERY Marvel movie has a shit tier score, TFA sounds incredibly underwhelming for a Williams score, and Rogue One is about as generic as they come then someone has to question why ALL of these Disney properties have such terrible scores. I think they have a set idea for what they want in a film soundtrack and that is for the score to just blend in with the background and not stick out like it would in say a Nolan film.
