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

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brandonh83 said:
Tarkin was really well done.

Here's the problem though. It was a well-done attempt at a CG human character that shared screen space and interacted with real people. That's what makes it look completely awful-- there's no doubt it's very impressive effects work, when you put impressive effects work in the wrong context, it can crumble.

Tarkin in Episode III looked terrible, but you saw him in the distance. He wasn't front and center talking to live actors. I can handle lame CG aliens and robots and even situations like that all day, but when you do something like this, it just completely takes me out of it. Same with Leia. It's not shitting on the work the effects company put into it, it's criticizing the general execution and decision-making.
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The argument about whether or not these digital characters look fine now is almost a moot point, because in five years they most certainly will look terrible. It's only a matter of when this technology progresses far enough that all of us will recognize how phony that old Tarkin CG looks - just like TPM and AOTC look like dog shit now, even though they were - mostly - super impressive when they came out.
 
Yeah the soundtrack has completely grown on me. Maybe it was just where I wasn't into the movie, but listening to it separately makes a world of difference.

Guardians of the Whills, absolutely gorgeous, on Williams level IMO.

TheXbox said:
The argument about whether or not these digital characters look fine now is almost a moot point, because in five years they most certainly will look terrible. It's only a matter of when this technology progresses far enough that all of us will recognize how phony that old Tarkin CG looks - just like TPM and AOTC look like dog shit now, even though they were - mostly - super impressive when they came out.
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Well yeah, but in this case I already think it looks bad. But it's not that black and white for me. I still think some things in TPM and AOTC look fantastic, other things nope.
 
bob_arctor said:
I could not believe that last Vader scene. I just couldn't believe it. After all these years, the most badass cinematic villain of all time was finally let loose. I lost my shit, not gonna lie.
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Yes it was absolutely awesome. You totally understand why folks fear him that much after that scene.

The main space ship battle scene was also incredible. Perfect Star Wars.

I liked TFA but this felt much better to me.
 
I can't believe all the hate for the CGI faces. I was in a theater that just opened with a laser sharp screen and I thought they looked fantastic. I knew they were CGI so I was paying very close attention, and only in very small telltales could you tell it was fake. Like how Mof was moving a bit stiff and alien. But Mof Tarkin is almost a skeleton, so thought it only added something to it. (Same as how Whitaker was hamming it up, but this is Star Wars so that's allowed IMO).
 
brandonh83 said:
Yeah the soundtrack has completely grown on me. Maybe it was just where I wasn't into the movie, but listening to it separately makes a world of difference.

Guardians of the Whills, absolutely gorgeous, on Williams level IMO.
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Yeah, Jyn's theme has seriously grown on me, too. I dunno why it took me as long as it did to I guess, *get* it, but it's great.

Maybe Williams' score for the next film will have everyone jump on it 100% instead of what we've seen these past two films where it's taken time for it to really grab hold of people.
 
spekkeh said:
I can't believe all the hate for the CGI faces. I was in a theater that just opened with a laser sharp screen and I thought they looked fantastic. I knew they were CGI so I was paying very close attention, and only in very small telltales could you tell it was fake. Like how Mof was moving a bit stiff and alien. But Mof Tarkin is almost a skeleton, so thought it only added something to it. (Same as how Whitaker was hamming it up, but this is Star Wars so that's allowed IMO).
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To me it just looked like an animated character interacting with live actors and I'm by no means that hard on CGI lol. Guess it's a subjective thing.
 
BlastProcessing said:
It doesn't seem like a film that will have super strong holiday legs. It's not really a movie for the whole family. The kids at my screening where pretty shellshocked.
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Yeah, I mean, none of the heroes live. Color even me surprised, I would have figured at least one would make it, heck maybe droid k-2so, just anyone off the planet to know how it all went down on the front lines. But seeing everyone die one by one, and the last beautiful shot of Cassian and Jyn holding each other before the shockwave, yeesh....I'm sorry kids.
 
brandonh83 said:
Yeah the soundtrack has completely grown on me. Maybe it was just where I wasn't into the movie, but listening to it separately makes a world of difference.

Guardians of the Whills, absolutely gorgeous, on Williams level IMO.



Well yeah, but in this case I already think it looks bad. But it's not that black and white for me. I still think some things in TPM and AOTC look fantastic, other things nope.
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No, I agree with you. I thought Tarkin looked lame. And in a few years everyone will think Tarkin looks lame. Which is why I think the decision to digitally recreate these characters was short-sighted and misguided.
 
bob_arctor said:
I could not believe that last Vader scene. I just couldn't believe it. After all these years, the most badass cinematic villain of all time was finally let loose. I lost my shit, not gonna lie.
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At first I was thinking "wait, are they retconning the start of ANH just to make Vader more badass?" when he boarded the first ship. I'd have been totally fine with it with what I saw. But then I realised he chases the next one with Leia on it and boards it.
 
Tarkin looked awful. His eyes were uncanny. Immediately I was like... would recasting him really have been so bad? Leia I thought was better but that was limited exposure and only one line. Tarkin felt like watching Killzone 2...

Movie was awesome though, even if it felt a little like replaying CoD:
Infinite Warfare
with its conclusion. Seeing an unhinged Vader for a few seconds was like my 13 year old Battlefront-loving fantasy as he straight murders the rebels on the ship. In the OT you don't get a great sense of his power outside of lightsaber dueling and choking and seeing his brutality here was just perfect fan service .
 
Toa TAK said:
Maybe Williams' score for the next film will have everyone jump on it 100% instead of what we've seen these past two films where it's taken time for it to really grab hold of people.
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I immediately loved The Force Awakens score. Rey's theme, Resistance theme, Kylo's theme, Jakku chase, the thematic track for the final duel, the Xwing trench run (Scherzo for Xwing), and the Jedi Steps track were phenomenal. But I was into that movie, and had already heard the score prior to going in. I hadn't heard this score, and wasn't into the movie, so I'm sure that's all the difference.

TheXbox said:
No, I agree with you. I thought Tarkin looked lame. And in a few years everyone will think Tarkin looks lame. Which is why I think the decision to digitally recreate these characters was short-sighted and misguided.
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Absolutely. And a better director would have found a way to make it work; putting them front and center was a mistake. The framing was a mistake. Having them clearly interacting with live actors was a mistake.

A wide shot of Leia receiving the plans with her further back would have been totally fine to me.
 
Fliesen said:
of course it was CG

i guess 'de-aging' works a lot more convincingly, because they have the same actor with the same facial features doing the mo-cap and digitize and use as a starting point, instead of having to shape the face from the ground-up, matching it to another actor's mo-cap.

I found young Hank Pym to be rather convincingly done as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaz6nxyQA28
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I forgot how good young Michael Douglas was in Ant-Man.

......

I mean his CGI body double.
 
As someone who had no idea Tarkins actor had died, I didn't realize he was CG during the film. I think if you had knowledge of that then of course it won't look real to you. Your brain has already made that decision. Now with Princess Leia I felt like it was uncanny valley but tbh it's because I know what Fisher looks like now so my knowledge of that skews my perspective. What they did with Tarkin was a feat of cinema.
 
As hard as they worked on Tarkin and they didn't bother to find a voice guy that REALLY sounds like Peter Cushing? 'Just find an older English guy...'
 
The One and Done™;226807731 said:
What they did with Tarkin was a feat of cinema.
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you're free to think what you want but

zUh33hA.gif
 
The One and Done™;226807731 said:
As someone who had no idea Tarkins actor had died, I didn't realize he was CG during the film. I think if you had knowledge of that then of course it won't look real to you. Your brain has already made that decision. Now with Princess Leia I felt like it was uncanny valley but tbh it's because I know what Fisher looks like now so my knowledge of that skews my perspective. What they did with Tarkin was a feat of cinema.
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For some reason this made me laugh. Peter Cushing died over 22 years ago!
 
George Oscar Bluth II said:
I would've been fine with Leia if they didn't show her talk.
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I think Leia's scene could've even been very emotional and poignant. Something like instead of even seeing her face, just keep it on that shot of her from behind getting the plans and giving some kind of brief but powerful voice over maybe to the Rebels leaving Scarif along with shots of the destruction from the air. I dunno there's like a hundred better things/ways they could have handled it IMO. I know speeches are cliche and it sounds like a bad idea but I think something like that would've worked better, Leia acknowledging Rogue One's sacrifice without a dollface CG shot.

But eh, it is what it is.
 
CreepingFear said:
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.
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This, too, is pretty much where I come down. Star Wars doesn't SUCK anymore, and I really never thought I'd see that.
 
brandonh83 said:
I immediately loved The Force Awakens score. Rey's theme, Resistance theme, Kylo's theme, Jakku chase, the thematic track for the final duel, the Xwing trench run (Scherzo for Xwing), and the Jedi Steps track were phenomenal. But I was into that movie, and had already heard the score prior to going in. I hadn't heard this score, and wasn't into the movie, so I'm sure that's all the difference.
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It took a couple of listens of the soundtrack and a second viewing of TFA (with much better sound) for TFA's soundtrack to really connect but, now, I just adore it. I think it's better than the soundtracks to AotC and RotJ.

Really hope that Williams can carry on with scoring Episode 8. Really want to hear him build off of these themes.
 
brandonh83 said:
I think Leia's scene could've even been very emotional and poignant. Something like instead of even seeing her face, just keep it on that shot of her from behind getting the plans and giving some kind of brief but powerful voice over maybe to the Rebels leaving Scarif along with shots of the destruction from the air. I dunno there's like a hundred better things/ways they could have handled it IMO. I know speeches are cliche and it sounds like a bad idea but I think something like that would've worked better, Leia acknowledging Rogue One's sacrifice without a dollface CG shot.

But eh, it is what it is.
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The ending definitely felt off. Like within a minute of each you have Vader doing his thing, quick calm moment, Leia's "Hope" and then to credits. All that happened so fast and close to each other it just didn't feel right.
 
sparky2112 said:
This, too, is pretty much where I come down. Star Wars doesn't SUCK anymore, and I really never thought I'd see that.
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I wasn't hesitate after they announced Kathleen Kennedy and the rest of Lucasfilm would be in charge. I really respect Kennedy and have always felt good about her steering the ship. I may not think highly of Rogue One, but it's not enough to deter me and I seem to be in a minority anyway. I have a lot more faith in Episode VIII and even the Han Solo film as I think those are better filmmaking teams than what we had here.

RyanW said:
The ending definitely felt off. Like within a minute of each you have Vader doing his thing, quick calm moment, Leia's "Hope" and then to credits. All that happened so fast and close to each other it just didn't feel right.
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Yep, it was haphazardly strewn together, without reflection or anything, just "let's show badass Vader and CGI Carrie Fisher as fast as we can to make everyone shit themselves in fanboy glee!" Looks like it worked for most.

Say what you will about Abrams, but I didn't have any problems of this sort in TFA. It had fanservice for days, but I thought it was respectfully handled. Here, not so much. The Vader scene was awesome though.

I think Star Wars will always feel like "fanservice" though. Like I thought TFA was in the right for bridging things and bringing back those familiar elements, it made sense as it was episode 7.
 
TheXbox said:
The argument about whether or not these digital characters look fine now is almost a moot point, because in five years they most certainly will look terrible. It's only a matter of when this technology progresses far enough that all of us will recognize how phony that old Tarkin CG looks - just like TPM and AOTC look like dog shit now, even though they were - mostly - super impressive when they came out.
Click to expand...
Nah don't agree with this. Jar Jar only ever looked good 'for a computer character', and the Naboo battle looked mightily shifty even then. Most of the prequels were considered too CGI heavy, meaning people could really see it. The only thing that surprised me was that shot where Obi Wan slides off the platform on Kamino, that he was computer generated. I see it now, but didn't notice it during the film, the rest was super obvious though. With Tarkin and Leia, I'm 100% sure most people won't notice it, assuming they don't know Cushing died.
 
Killer Queen said:
The only problem I had with Leia was that she looked really grainy, as if she was actually in ANH.
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My only problem was her standing perfectly still, as if the person was waiting for a cue to turn around or be interacted with. With all the shit that's going down, you'd think she'd be on the bridge shouting out orders and strategy or something.

Instead, she's a old mannequin stuffed in a closet until someone decides to give her something.
 
Gabriel_Logan said:
Huh I thought the exact opposite, Tarkin looked dicey and Leia looked great.
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They both looked like video game characters to me. It was so distracting that I couldn't even follow what Tarkin was saying. They just aren't there yet with the tech to be including it in a AAA movie like this.

And was Mon Motha CGI too? If so, they did a better job on her.
 
Dang Disney knocked this one out of the park. Different structure that still felt star warsy enough. The production values were still high tok so gives me hope for more spin offs
 
spekkeh said:
I can't believe all the hate for the CGI faces. I was in a theater that just opened with a laser sharp screen and I thought they looked fantastic. I knew they were CGI so I was paying very close attention, and only in very small telltales could you tell it was fake. Like how Mof was moving a bit stiff and alien. But Mof Tarkin is almost a skeleton, so thought it only added something to it. (Same as how Whitaker was hamming it up, but this is Star Wars so that's allowed IMO).
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I agree.
 
Lifejumper said:
Nah. Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren are all great additions to the SW franchise.
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Yeah I don't get how people think otherwise. VII is a natural bridge from VI. It had leftover elements that I felt deserved to be addressed. It's an episodic series. The old characters and things are there, but it has new protagonists and conflicts. The old characters are supporting characters here.
 
Killer Queen said:
I'm not saying use the models.
I'm saying use the technology they use to map the actors facial movements on to the CG model so it's movements look more realistic since instead of an animation it's real human facial expression.
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They certainly mocaped the facial expressions of the actors. The problem is always the same: they tend to capture the face separately from the body, so there are oddities in how the face expresses itself VS the body's movement. On top of that, if your 3d model is different than the mocaped actor, then the movement of the facial structure will look slightly off. Add to this shading and post-processing that isn't quite on par with reality and you get enough issues to end up exactly in the state those two characters were in this movie. The technology is just not that good, even less so when the actor and the 3d character aren't 1-1.

Bobby Roberts said:
Neither was Lord of the Rings.
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Yeah right, full of hobbits and elves.
 
Parmadillo Marshmallow said:
And was Mon Motha CGI too? If so, they did a better job on her.
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Afrocious said:
she was *gasp* an actual actor.
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Which I thought was hilarious. Like, they go to the painstaking work of putting the CGI faces on Tarkin and Leia (I agree that they looked "off"), but when it comes to Mon Mothma, they were like, nah, just recast.

At least with Dr. Cornelius Evazan, he's got such an effed up face that it didn't matter under those prosthetics, but it's really strange that they felt Mon Mothma should be treated differently than Tarkin and Leia.
 
Afrocious said:
SW doesn't suck anymore. But instead, it's no longer exciting outside of cameos and references to older movies.
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They need to make a spinoff that deals with high adventure that isnt beholden to the timeline of the main trilogy. Expand the world/universe building.
 
TangoAlphaLima said:
Which I thought was hilarious. Like, they go to the painstaking work of putting the CGI faces on Tarkin and Leia (I agree that they looked "off"), but when it comes to Mon Mothma, they were like, nah, just recast.

At least with Dr. Cornelius Evazan, he's got such an effed up face that it didn't matter under those prosthetics, but it's really strange that they felt Mon Mothma should be treated differently than Tarkin and Leia.
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They didn't recast Mothma. It is the same actress they cast for her from Revenge of the Sith.

Mon+Mothma.jpg
 
The One and Done™;226807731 said:
As someone who had no idea Tarkins actor had died, I didn't realize he was CG during the film. I think if you had knowledge of that then of course it won't look real to you. Your brain has already made that decision. Now with Princess Leia I felt like it was uncanny valley but tbh it's because I know what Fisher looks like now so my knowledge of that skews my perspective. What they did with Tarkin was a feat of cinema.
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I saw it right away and I don't follow Star Wars at all. I didn't even know there was a new movie until last week.
 
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