Poe is more of a side character, but still had a lot of charm to him and Isaac is great. Finn was fine for me and had enough scenes/exposition to make me care and had a great connection to the other characters especially Rey. I didn't care about any of these people.
Yeah I agree, both Finn and Poe were saved by the performances of their respective actors imo. I thought Finn especially didn't have a lot of meat to him (for how big the role was), though Boyega did a fantastic job with what he was given.
But for Rogue One I thought the characters did have enough meat to them for what the story needed. Jyn had a decent arc, and Felicity Jones and Mads Mikkelsen nailed the hologram scene, for some reason it resonated better with me than the Han Solo death scene in TFA (though that might be due to the problematic third act of that film). I thought the characters, and the knowledge the viewer was given about them, fit the tone the film required.
Like these characters have made their mistakes, they're a broken bunch of people. As the viewer we literally get introduced to them at the end of their lives. Chirrut and Baze finding their final purpose, Bodhi wanting to make up for his mistake of joining the Empire because of Galen telling him that 'he can still make things right'. Cassian finding something more than revenge and rebellion at the end. For me these characters were anything but empty.
In the finale, one of the rebel soldiers shoots at vader, and he reflects it back not with his sabre but with his hand. Has this been seen before? I remember him negating a blast with his hand in ESB, but I don't recall him being able to send it back.
NOW THAT is a KOTOR movie that could work and be done well. Actually seeing how
Revan disobeying the council and rounding up his troops, getting a vast amount of Jedi to follow him, the battle of Malachor V, meeting The Exile before she became...well the exile lol.
I put it in spoilers just in case. But KOTOR movies about events we never actually seen in the games would be fantastic.
...hell, maybe even a KOTOR 3 movie if we never get the game.
None of the KOTOR material is canon. It has been all thrown out. They will never do anything in continuity with that ever. It was wiped from Star Wars canon completely.
They can't do KOTOR 3 when KOTOR 1 and 2 no longer exist.
In the finale, one of the rebel soldiers shoots at vader, and he reflects it back not with his sabre but with his hand. Has this been seen before? I remember him negating a blast with his hand in ESB, but I don't recall him being able to send it back.
In the finale, one of the rebel soldiers shoots at vader, and he reflects it back not with his sabre but with his hand. Has this been seen before? I remember him negating a blast with his hand in ESB, but I don't recall him being able to send it back.
The scene happened so quickly and there was much going on, that I didn't even see this.
I don't think Vader was ever shown to repeal laser blasts before, but then again, there's no way the OT would've been able to demonstrate this ability anyway.
If McGregor wants it I say give it to him. I don't know how you're going to justify pulling Obi-wan out of hiding for "one last job," but please, do it. The man deserves to be in a good Star Wars movie. (No, the decent parts of ROTS don't count)
Definitely... McGregor was the only bright spot in a shitty series of movies...
I feel bad with the crap dialog he had to put up with, but the dude sold it as best he could...
I like how the one time a stormtrooper has perfect aim, it's when hes shooting at his fellow trooper being used as a human shield by Chirrut. Got a good laugh from me
None of the KOTOR material is canon. It has been all thrown out. They will never do anything in continuity with that ever. It was wiped from Star Wars canon completely.
They can't do KOTOR 3 when KOTOR 1 and 2 no longer exist.
Wasn't Revan mentioned by Yoda in an episode of Rebels or The Clone Wars? I can't remember. They haven't necessarily wiped it all. They can pick and choose whatever part of the EU they want to and implement it into the canon however they want.
Yeah I agree, both Finn and Poe were saved by the performances of their respective actors imo. I thought Finn especially didn't have a lot of meat to him (for how big the role was), though Boyega did a fantastic job with what he was given.
But for Rogue One I thought the characters did have enough meat to them for what the story needed. Jyn had a decent arc, and Felicity Jones and Mads Mikkelsen nailed the hologram scene, for some reason it resonated better with me than the Han Solo death scene in TFA (though that might be due to the problematic third act of that film). I thought the characters, and the knowledge the viewer was given about them, fit the tone the film required.
Like these characters have made their mistakes, they're a broken bunch of people. As the viewer we literally get introduced to them at the end of their lives. Chirrut and Baze finding their final purpose, Bodhi wanting to make up for his mistake of joining the Empire because of Galen telling him that 'he can still make things right'. Cassian finding something more than revenge and rebellion at the end. For me these character where anything but empty.
SPOILERS DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE MOVIES AND PLAYED THE GAMES
When I first played Halo Combat Evolved I could not help but see similarities between the game(at least the beginning) and A New Hope.
-Their stories begin with a spaceship fleeing the enemy
-Their spaceships are taken over by the enemy.
-Master Chief escapes with important information(Cortana)
-R2D2 and C3P0 escape with important information(Message from Princess Leia)
Now lets look at Halo Reach and Rogue One
-Main characters die at the end in a similar fashion.
-At the end, the main objective in Halo Reach was to get Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn
-At the end, the main objective in Rogue one was to retrieve the plans of the Death Star
-Pillar of Autumn barely escapes with Cortana
-Tantive IV barely escapes with the plans.
Do you guys think the Rogue One writers took ideas from Halo just like Halo writers took ideas from Star Wars?
I think the ending is different. Loads of stuff like Jyn running on the beach is out. I would think as everyone dies they tried to lighten it a bit with Jyn and Cassian hugging at the end? Maybe in the original version Vader killed them but was too dark so they only had him kill rebel soldiers. Just a thought.
I watched Star Wars today after seeing Rogue One Wednesday night. Man, it really does add to ANH. It does everything the prequels failed to do. Expands the universe, emphasises the consequences of failing that trench run. Makes Vader more intimidating. Obviously ANH is much lighter, but they really work together even though they are completely different films.
I think Tarkin is so important to the story given how close this is to ANH and the focus on the Death Star they almost had to have him. I do wonder if they'll go the old lucas route of tweaking the home releases, and update the cgi on Tarkin and Leia as the technology improves.
I think Leia shouldn't have turned round, as for some reason her cgi was particularly bad. Maybe they didn't spend as much time/money on it as they did with Tarkin since her scene was so much shorter?
Its not like they could just go home. The empire just blew it up. There could have been more time spent with them grieving the loss of their holy city instead of just that one exchange between Chirrut and Baze, I'll admit.
Sure but...why do they go with in the third act? Wouldn't they want to move on? I mean everyone had really easy motivation to guess for why they were going on the mission. Jyn, Cassian and Bodhi all had their reasons and K-2 is a droid but Chirrut and Baze don't even seem to be out for revenge, they just go because.
But yes, I totally agree. But I'd extend that drab type of character building to everyone in the cast. It's as if this rag tag team had little conflict amongst themselves. Zero dynamics here. You don't know what they want, or what they aspire to, or really their position in this whole galactic war. Our heroine was a troublemaking loner, then a no holds barrel leader; at one moment she's untrusting, and then the next, she's a motivational speaker -- she was the most wildly inconsistent character.
I personally think this had the worst world-building of all the films.
I think every character was really developed badly save for two. Krennec and K-2. Krennec had basically a little arc and K-2 also had his own little arc as well.
Jyn didn't really have an arc as just so much a sudden shift from not fighting the Empire to fighting. Cassian really had no development at all. The Pilot had something that was close to an arc but it probably involved scenes we didn't get. Like why was he so willing to die for Galen?
Two really good Star Wars movies in two years though definitely has me more optimistic about the series than I've been in a long time.
I hope Disney man's the fuck up and does Episodes I-III special editions, in which the thing that's special about them is all of George Lucas's stuff is thrown away and we get a legitimate character arc for Anakin with a believable fall from grace...
I will absolutely let Ewan McGregor reprise his role though.
You could probably pull off a series of movies that do the same thing but avoid Episodes I-III all together.
There's a 10 year gap between 1 and 2 where you could have a proper Obi-Anakin movie. They did an entire animated series between 2 and 3. And if people really want actual Darth Vader plowing down Jedi you don't even need to touch Episode 3.
Not saying they're masterpieces, but why go back and open old wounds when you can achieve what most people really want in a couple of Star Wars Stories?
Obi-Anakin movie, Vader Killing Suckers, Rogue One. There's your new Prequel Series.
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.
Almost 100% agree with you and you actually pointed out something I hadn't thought about —the lack of closure to Jyn's story with Krennic— but, looking back, also lowered the movie for me a bit.
But, the high points of the movie are just so damn high and amazing. Over time, TFA will rank higher for me because of its characters, I believe, even though it's a "safer" movie, but man, Rogue One will probably have the most replayed scenes in my life of any Star Wars movie after ROTJ. The final battle alone is worth it.
I think Tarkin is so important to the story given how close this is to ANH and the focus on the Death Star they almost had to have him. I do wonder if they'll go the old lucas route of tweaking the home releases, and update the cgi on Tarkin and Leia as the technology improves.
I think Leia shouldn't have turned round, as for some reason her cgi was particularly bad. Maybe they didn't spend as much time/money on it as they did with Tarkin since her scene was so much shorter?
No way, that got the biggest reaction of the whole movie.
I wouldn't mind them updating the CGI models in future releases -- they look fine to me now, but who knows, in 5-10 years they may end up looking like Special Edition Jabba. I doubt they'd go the route, seems like it'd be extremely expensive.
how quickly we've forgotten Vader's one liner's from the last film he was in, including "from my point of view, the jedi are evil" and "nooooooooooooooooooooooooo"
You could probably pull off a series of movies that do the same thing but avoid Episodes I-III all together.
There's a 10 year gap between 1 and 2 where you could have a proper Obi-Anakin movie. They did an entire animated series between 2 and 3. And if people really want actual Darth Vader plowing down Jedi you don't even need to touch Episode 3.
Not saying they're masterpieces, but why go back and open old wounds when you can achieve what most people really want in a couple of Star Wars Stories?
Obi-Anakin movie, Vader Killing Suckers, Rogue One. There's your new Prequel Series.
Because I view the prequel trilogy as problematic at best and a slap in the face to Star Wars fans (and people with good taste in movies) at worst.
I want to see the wounds opened and George Lucas have to watch his prequel trilogy dismantled, just like he forced the fans to watch the original trilogy dismantled and erased from existence with constant overalls and special editions... Going so far as to ensure the original films never make it to current media release.
We can't take away the fact that 1970s Lucas was a genius... But like Michael Jackson, the dude went off the rails as time went on...
I feel Star Wars will never be a property that can approach it's full potential with baggage like Episodes I-III still hanging on... Like that racist uncle at Thanksgiving you can't seem to get rid of.
Tarkin. Leia. Vader wrecking fools and his lair on Mustafar. All the characters dying. The shades of grey in the rebel tactics and how they're willing to do the dirty work that we've never seen in the films before.
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.
The upsetting thing about this is how little Saw is even in the movie. He's not even a character, he's basically a Plot Device to make the cast move on to the next act.
Sure but...why do they go with in the third act? Wouldn't they want to move on? I mean everyone had really easy motivation to guess for why they were going on the mission. Jyn, Cassian and Bodhi all had their reasons and K-2 is a droid but Chirrut and Baze don't even seem to be out for revenge, they just go because.
I never got the impression that Chirrut was doing it for revenge. I don't think the audience needs a blatant reason for Chirrut to join the fight. He's a deeply spiritual man who is deeply connected with the force and the ways of the Jedi. The empire is in direct opposition of that and just wiped out his holy city. We can infer a lot from his character without needing to be told it. His first proper introduction is him taking out some stormtroopers to save Jyn. So we know he already is opposed to the empire. It would be jarring if he didn't join the final battle to stop the weapon that destroyed his home and mecca. And Baze just goes where Chirrut goes like Chewy just goes where Han goes. But I wouldn't be surprised if he just wanted revenge.
I actually expect that one or two of the group would survive, but distance themselves from the Rebellion. Glad they went this ending, though. Sad but happy.
I was even more surprised at the movie showing the darker side of the Rebellion.
Tarkin. Leia. Vader wrecking fools and his lair on Mustafar. All the characters dying. The shades of grey in the rebel tactics and how they're willing to do the dirty work that we've never seen in the films before.
The guy I was responding to said there is nothing to be spoiled in this film. There is, I'd argue even more so than in TFA. This is the spoiler thread remember.
If you watched Star Wars celebration you knew donnie yen was gonna die, so I expected that to happen unless it got changed in the re-shoots, and I assume some others would die but I really didn't think they'd kill everyone single main cast member. That took some balls from LucasFilms.
In my theater:
- General chuckles for K-2SO and Chirrut at points
- Vader dad joke got wooos and claps
- Vader lightsaber got nothing
- Murmors for Tarkin (about the same level as when Bail showed up)
- People losing their shit at the Leia reveal
For that last one, I think it's a combo of the direction the ending is heading in finally "clicking" for a lot of people + the Leia CG being an substantial improvement over Tarkin's.
