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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story |OT| They rebel - SPOILERS

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I think this movie proved beyond a shadow of a doubt for me that SW is so much more compelling when Jedi are a part of the universe, not the center of it
 
So +10 Midi-chlorians?

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I think this movie proved beyond a shadow of a doubt for me that SW is so much more compelling when Skywalkers are a part of the universe, not the center of it
While I didn't enjoy Rogue One, I would agree if you replaced Jedi with Skywalkers.
 
Leia's didnt seem too sad about thousands of Rebels perishing around her, it felt weird for her to be in that exact spot in that moment.

I can't figure out why she was there at all except that they decided the movie didn't already have enough fan service
 
I think my main problem with it is that the inspirational stuff ends up feeling waaaaay too cloying. Its incredibly impressive he did it in four weeks, but I think a slightly more subtle touch, even for Star Wars, would have done wonders

Yeah, again, Giacchino's done this sort of thing before (and better in a couple instances) so I understand people being like "I've heard you do this shit, man." But I always dig it - there's a lushness to it that I think just works on me.

I thought for sure he'd go with the sad plinky piano at some point, but he never did do that.

However, I'm not sure subtlety and Star Wars scores is a mix that works all that well together. Even its quieter moments tend to get big in a hurry (Yoda raising the X-Wing, Leia's theme). So "Your Father Would Have Been Proud" spiraling up the way it does fits, for me. Especially as the primary score for something as climactic as the close of the Rebellion's first victory.
 
I know what you mean. I saw The Force Awakens 5 times in theaters and it was only a drag about when Han showed up and they had to run away from scary space monsters. Rogue Squadron oddly enough felt too long before Act 3 even hit. Probably because it felt like it dragged ass too much with getting to the actual act of stealing the plans. However, once Act 3 hit I enjoyed it enough that I stopped feeling like the movie was too long, except for Jyn getting the hard drive. That whole sequence, the act of climbing to the top, was a bit long for me. Anytime a naval battle is about to break out though I'm all:
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the movie. I'd say it's at least of decent quality, just a personal 6/10.

I also had various in-universe logic gripes. I'm normally not bothered in movies. Magic? No problem. Star Wars? Awesome. But this movie, for some reason I was bugged by things like:
  • Stormtroopers instantly fall over from a single blaster shot. They're wearing armor. K-2SO is this big industrial armor-looking robot, and a blaster shot burns a melting hole right through it. The Death Star director? He's wearing what looks like a padded shirt, gets shot basically in the heart, and is merely injured if I recall correctly. Maybe it was a really weak pistol, fortunately?
  • In a universe where advanced, human-intelligence, sarcastic robots can be created, the giant tower of important engineering data has a human-driven arm. Careful manual operation is required to send this claw thing up and manually select the SUPER IMPORTANT VALUABLE DATA TAPE. What if it's on the back side of the tower and a pain to see? Why is there manual control at all? Maybe it's supposed to be an emergency backup and they didn't know about automatic control, even though K-2SO was hooked into the system and knew exactly where the target tape was.
  • I thought Cassian had the data tape hooked on him before he fell down the tower, but that's probably my mistake and it was hooked on Jyn. (Also, Cassian did the thing where he falls a large distance, crunches on the floor, and yet is fine enough to climb all the way back up shortly afterwards, but that's a minor gripe.)
  • It was super convenient that on top of the giant tower of valuable data, there is an OPEN AIR computer terminal exactly compatible with all the tapes underneath, complete with manual controls for the giant dish. Only a few buttons are needed to transmit the thing into space.

Nitpicks aside, I want to reiterate that I loved K-2SO (like a less evil version of HK-47) and Chirrut was awesome (neat martial arts stuff, though the repeated force line was a little annoying).

And my favorite part was the final act with the battles, Vader being badass, and so forth.
 
I always felt Vader needed more than just a force-choke to imbue the fear everyone had of him in those Lucas movies.

They FINALLY let him go full Sith in this movie.

It was spectacularly horrifying watching that slaughter.

Just got out of the movie 15 mins ago. Mindblown at that final hallway slaughter.

They made Vader scary again. I hadn't been that scared of Vader since I was a kid in the 80s.
 
It's funny in a way.

Lucas tried to "science" the Force in the Prequels with that midi-chlorian shit. But Rogue One makes it seem almost divine again with Chirrut being so pious and borderline zealous.

I always thought it was more fascinating as an "ancient religion" than some biological thing.
 
"ormtroopers instantly fall over from a single blaster shot. They're wearing armor. K-2SO is this big industrial armor-looking robot, and a blaster shot burns a melting hole right through it. The Death Star director? He's wearing what looks like a padded shirt, gets shot basically in the heart, and is merely injured if I recall correctly. Maybe it was a really weak pistol, fortunately?"

He gets shot in the shoulder. You can see the burn mark when he leans back up.
 
I forget is Leia's scene before or after the ship leaves from Vader? If it's after, she may have boarded it later. If not, they had just joined the fight, no big deal.
 
I said this in the other Rogue One thread:

They're very different films. They do different things well and has different aims. TFA was meant to bring back Star Wars for a mainstream audience. RO is meant to show how flexible the concept and universe is.

I think they both succeed and which one you enjoy depends on what you want out of Star Wars.

TFA creates a strong emotional connection to the involved characters. RO is more about their mission and the overall meaning of that sacrifice. TFA is about Rey and Finn. RO is about the Rebellion and its third act tension is seeing everyone pitch in against overwhelming odds.

I don't fault those that preferred one to the other. I think RO has one if the strongest third acts on the franchise.

To use an Extended Universe example, some prefer the Rogue Squadron books to something like Traitor or the rest of the New Jedi Order. Different story types.

TFA is all about the fact that you want to be on a journey with these characters. What happens if less important than how they react to what happens. If you don't connect with them, the movie will fall apart for you.

RO is about the mission and the losses required to make that work, which is why the third act works. It commits to the death and desperation of soldiers, just to beam some data into orbit. It's nearly a heist film, in that everyone fills in their predetermined slot. They do what's need to and then they die. You don't necessarily need to know the characters, because the mission is the point.

When RO falters is in missed opportunities and lost characterization. Everyone is a bit of a cypher with rather board motivations.

Like Jyn's turn to heroism isn't really the fact that she believes in the cause now, it's that getting that data to the Rebellion justifies the entire craphole that was her life. She's searching for meaning. If the Rebellion has the Death Star plans and destroys the station, than the fact that her dad defected, her parents died, and she was left a wartorn orphan all matters. It wasn't the universe being shitty, it all lead up to that moment. But they never really dive into that on film. (The closest they get is when the castoffs say 'Without this, everything we did was just evil shit.")

I think they're both great films. Just with different needs and central points. Some people will like one more than the other, because they want different things out of the franchise.

In a universe where advanced, human-intelligence, sarcastic robots can be created, the giant tower of important engineering data has a human-driven arm. Careful manual operation is required to send this claw thing up and manually select the SUPER IMPORTANT VALUABLE DATA TAPE. What if it's on the back side of the tower and a pain to see? Why is there manual control at all? Maybe it's supposed to be an emergency backup and they didn't know about automatic control, even though K-2SO was hooked into the system and knew exactly where the target tape was.

I'd argue that Star Wars as a whole is a series of contrivances in the name of in-the-moment drama. Not the best answer, but it's true. As a further example in RO, why is the alignment model out on a catwalk? Because it's more dramatic for Jyn to have to go out there to fix the dish.
 
It's funny in a way.

Lucas tried to "science" the Force in the Prequels with that midi-chlorian shit. But Rogue One makes it seem almost divine again with Chirrut being so pious and borderline zealous.

I always thought it was more fascinating as an "ancient religion" than some biological thing.

The thing is though. People had issue with the word "midi chlorians". Yoda pretty much tells Luke the same concept in ESB, and Obi wan told Luke in ANH. The force is everywhere. It's in all living beings.
 
It comes after. I believe it is the very final scene, then cut to black.

So people are freaking out over nothing. She could have been at the battle, or joined the fleet later. There's no reason to think that Vader's destroyer IMMEDIATELY catches up to them, otherwise why even escape.
 
So people are freaking out over nothing. She could have been at the battle, or joined the fleet later. There's no reason to think that Vader's destroyer IMMEDIATELY catches up to them, otherwise why even escape.
Her ship is inside of one the bigger ships, so she is presumably with the battle the whole time. Once Vader shows up and wrecks some noobs, her ship disembarks from the larger one with Acbkar-look-a-like inside giving commands. Unless I miffed that and she was with a different ship. Can't quite remember.
 
The thing is though. People had issue with the word "midi chlorians". Yoda pretty much tells Luke the same concept in ESB, and Obi wan told Luke in ANH. The force is everywhere. It's in all living beings.

I think its more that a blood test can put a numerical measure on one's midichlorian count. Quantifying the Force to the number of things in your body is pretty much the opposite of a Tao-like force that everyone talks about in the OT.
 
I really liked the Halo: Reach vibe. It's a suicide mission against overwhelming odds, and you know how it's going to end, but finding out how it all happened is still gripping. All the characters contribute to mission, and get a heroic send off, and the main character does that one important thing that sets everything in motion.

And then the setup into the next title is absolutely jigsaw perfect.
 
So people are freaking out over nothing. She could have been at the battle, or joined the fleet later. There's no reason to think that Vader's destroyer IMMEDIATELY catches up to them, otherwise why even escape.

Even still. When has Leia known to shy away from battle? Maybe she wanted to be there during the battle. She was essentially on a command ship and if shit got too damn rocky she could have left just like she did at the end of the movie.
 
I think its more that a blood test can put a numerical measure on one's midichlorian count. Quantifying the Force to the number of things in your body is pretty much the opposite of a Tao-like force that everyone talks about in the OT.
Putting numbers to it really made me think of Dragon Ball Z power levels. And while I love Dragon Ball Z....that isn't the connection I wanted invading my Star Wars.

"His midichlorians are over 9000!"
 
The thing is though. People had issue with the word "midi chlorians". Yoda pretty much tells Luke the same concept in ESB, and Obi wan told Luke in ANH. The force is everywhere. It's in all living beings.

Yea, but it wasn't conveyed as a biological presence in those later movies as much as it was a spiritual embodiment.

I never looked at it biologically until Phantom Menace.
 
I definitely dug it. I think I might've enjoy it more than TFA. I pretty much got what I expected, a slightly different take on Star Wars.

Didn't read up about the movie at all, so was really surprised how it hooked into ANH. Seeing the Taintive IV at the end, Gold Leader...

Honestly, we all knew this was about a suicide mission. But man, that last act still had me on the edge of my seat.

Same here. It was definitely thrilling, even though we all know what happens.
 
I think its more that a blood test can put a numerical measure on one's midichlorian count. Quantifying the Force to the number of things in your body is pretty much the opposite of a Tao-like force that everyone talks about in the OT.

but see I personally never had an issue with it. Of course the Jedi of the republic had to have a way to measure who to train. Midi Chlorians were just used as a gauge of who was more attuned with the force. That's all. But this is a different discussion for another day.
 
Even still. When has Leia known to shy away from battle? Maybe she wanted to be there during the battle. She was essentially on a command ship and if shit got too damn rocky she could have left just like she did at the end of the movie.

Right I agree it doesn't matter either way.

Man this movie was good. VIII has a lot to live up to, TFA is for aunties and grandmas compared to Rogue one.
 
The last 5 minutes of Rogue One somehow found a way to add to the lore of the most famous villain in cinematic history.

It's amazing what that scene does for the character in 300 seconds that the 6 hours of prequels couldn't do.

I feel this in such a big way. I remember my friend describing a time he was playing the Star Wars table top RPG and Vader showed up. It seemed so much like what that scene felt like.
 
Right I agree it doesn't matter either way.

Man this movie was good. VIII has a lot to live up to, TFA is for aunties and grandmas compared to Rogue one.

Eh TFA is good and do still like it more than this one. RO was great as well. TFA is expanding on something. RO is just adding to ANH. Both great imo, but I loved TFA a bit more.

IMO episode 8 will do better than this. Simply because the hype machine is more in its favor.
 
I really liked the Halo: Reach vibe. It's a suicide mission against overwhelming odds, and you know how it's going to end, but finding out how it all happened is still gripping. All the characters contribute to mission, and get a heroic send off. And then the setup into the next title is absolutely jigsaw perfect.
Damn, this really was Halo: Reach the movie, wasn't it?

Fine by me.
 
Just saw it in a Dolby Cinema and we all loved it. Was definitely a little slow in the beginning and the CG characters were slightly at the edge of the uncanny valley for me but overall it was one of my favorite Star Wars movies. Glad my wife didn't come as she would probably have teared up at a few of the death scenes.

The ending with Vador showing how of a badass he is as it transitions right into the old film was awesome...they did a great job with that.
 
Just saw it, I didn't care too much for it when it was announced and such but being a star wars fan I was obligated to see it...and I ended up not regretting it
 
Eh TFA is good and do still like it more than this one. RO was great as well. TFA is expanding on something. RO is just adding to ANH. Both great imo, but I loved TFA a bit more.

IMO episode 8 will do better than this. Simply because the hype machine is more in its favor.

What I mean is in terms of how the movie is directed and the story is told, Rogue is better than TFA. TFA had a lot of unintentional mysteries and oddities about the plot (people thinking the map was Luke's location, that Luke or Han is Rey's father, and a bunch of other stuff), and some scenes were really not up to par for the kind of movie it was (Rankars and Maz Castle's). It had some serious issues that Rogue doesn't have. Rogue feels a lot less like it was heavily edited or went through major rewrites unlike TFA.

Hopefully VIII doesn't end up with the same issues as VII, but I doubt it will anyway.
 
What I mean is in terms of how the movie is directed and the story is told, Rogue is better than TFA. TFA had a lot of unintentional mysteries and oddities about the plot (people thinking the map was Luke's location, that Luke or Han is Rey's father, and a bunch of other stuff), and some scenes were really not up to par for the kind of movie it was (Rankars and Maz Castle's). It had some serious issues that Rogue doesn't have. Rogue feels a lot less like it was heavily edited or went through major rewrites unlike TFA.

Hopefully VIII doesn't end up with the same issues as VII, but I doubt it will anyway.

Have you read this thread? Plenty of confusion and clarifying going on.
 
I said this in the other Rogue One thread:



TFA is all about the fact that you want to be on a journey with these characters. What happens if less important than how they react to what happens. If you don't connect with them, the movie will fall apart for you.

RO is about the mission and the losses required to make that work, which is why the third act works. It commits to the death and desperation of soldiers, just to beam some data into orbit. It's nearly a heist film, in that everyone fills in their predetermined slot. They do what's need to and then they die. You don't necessarily need to know the characters, because the mission is the point.

When RO falters is in missed opportunities and lost characterization. Everyone is a bit of a cypher with rather board motivations.

Like Jyn's turn to heroism isn't really the fact that she believes in the cause now, it's that getting that data to the Rebellion justifies the entire craphole that was her life. She's searching for meaning. If the Rebellion has the Death Star plans and destroys the station, than the fact that her dad defected, her parents died, and she was left a wartorn orphan all matters. It wasn't the universe being shitty, it all lead up to that moment. But they never really dive into that on film. (The closest they get is when the castoffs say 'Without this, everything we did was just evil shit.")

I think they're both great films. Just with different needs and central points. Some people will like one more than the other, because they want different things out of the franchise.
I feel like I have to write something up in response since you had a great write-up that you obviously put time into.

Really good points. I'm one that falls in the camp of not liking Rogue One, and loving The Force Awakens. Honestly, when Rogue One first got announced I was kind of hoping for an Ocean's Eleven style story in Star Wars. After the first trailer though, I got really hyped that we were about to get our first taste of what down and dirty war feels like, which we haven't really gotten in a Star Wars film yet. I wish we had more time seeing how the war affects civilians, but Rogue One still succeeded here better than other Star Wars films. Just not as much as I had hoped.

If there is one flaw I could fix with Rogue One, it would be Jyn. Take her off the fence or give me a much better reason why she is apathetic to a war that took her mother's life in front of her, and kidnapped her father. My personal choice would have been to show Jyn living in a worn-torn city---something like Aleppo comes to mind. Get a view of what life is like for civilians stuck in the middle of a war. We could understand then why the empire doesn't ping on her radar too much. All she sees are those who are suffering from the war---men, women, and children. At the end of the day both sides causing the devastation are just as evil. Something like this would really get me behind her character.
 
Oh, speaking of Giacchino and his decision to score Vader's rampage like the horrorshow it is:

He actually synced the chorus to Vader's lightsaber at the beginning of the cue up until he pins the guy to the ceiling.

So you can listen to the soundtrack and basically HEAR when Vader starts cutting people the fuck up.
 
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the movie. I'd say it's at least of decent quality, just a personal 6/10.

[*]In a universe where advanced, human-intelligence, sarcastic robots can be created, the giant tower of important engineering data has a human-driven arm. Careful manual operation is required to send this claw thing up and manually select the SUPER IMPORTANT VALUABLE DATA TAPE. What if it's on the back side of the tower and a pain to see? Why is there manual control at all? Maybe it's supposed to be an emergency backup and they didn't know about automatic control, even though K-2SO was hooked into the system and knew exactly where the target tape was.

I loved this actually. This is the natural progression of the sort of galactic fantasy Star Wars always was, in which things are hyper advanced in some magical ways but haven't actually been used to like, dramatically overhaul the way people live or interact with the world. Like, no-one in Star Wars ever has a smartphone
 
In the end, I enjoyed The Force Awakens more. It was probably because of the 10 years absence, returning beloved legends, and new characters that we will see grow over 3 films. Rogue One was very good and gives me hope for these standalone anthology films. It's fucking great to be alive and to be a Star Wars fan.
 
Leia's didnt seem too sad about thousands of Rebels perishing around her, it felt weird for her to be in that exact spot in that moment.

She's also an Olympic level bad liar. Her ship blasts off from a warship as it explodes after attacking an Empire base and then when they catch up to her she's all like, "Yeah, we're on a diplomatic mission. I don't know what to tell ya!"
 
There is no unintentional confusion or things that need to be clarified about this movie.

And yet there are pages of discussion on who Bail was referring to when talking to Mon Mothma or why Leia was present during the final battle.

Personally, I understood all of that just fine just as I understood everything you cited from TFA just fine. But you can't read this thread and think that Rogue One was 100% clear to everyone who saw it.
 
I love it. It retroactively makes her give even less of a fuck. The lie is so baldfaced now it's obvious she's basically just flying double birds at Vader, and so is everyone on that ship.

He's got em dead to rights and they're not giving him shit. It's great.
 
She's also an Olympic level bad liar. Her ship blasts off from a warship as it explodes after attacking an Empire base and then when they catch up to her she's all like, "Yeah, we're on a diplomatic mission. I don't know what to tell ya!"

Shit just remove RO for a second. ANH opens with the Tantive IV and the Star Destroyer literally firing shots at each other.

But Leia like "We're on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan."
 
I love it. It retroactively makes her give even less of a fuck. The lie is so baldfaced now it's obvious she's basically just flying double birds at Vader, and so is everyone on that ship.

He's got em dead to rights and they're not giving him shit. It's great.
Well yeah, you have to not give a shit when you're god awful at lying.
 
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