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

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Padme isn't even a character. She's the tool by which Lucas is clumsily maneuvering Anakin into position. Nothing about her makes any sense as a character outside of her utility as a lever for Anakin's character.

I liked the character. I didn't like Natalie Portman. Like if the acting were actually good I would have really been into her.

Basically I can see that, at least for me, I like the character on a surface level but Portman's performance tanked it.
 
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.



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Naughty Dog has seemingly alleviated this issue judging by their tech demo for TLOU2
 
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.
Mon Mothma is a weirder case because its the same actress that played the younger version of the character in RotS just having aged into playing the older version.

They did have a younger Tarkin in RotS but he looked kind of bad then and never actually spoke.
 
Nah. The final raid on Scarif was pretty damn nerve-racking.

I don't think I found anything in this movie 'nerve-wracking' outside of Vader slaughtering Rebels and the space battles (which were cool).

Again, it boils down to me how we knew the characters would get the death star plans sent anyway. And there's no investment in the characters, so when they die, I'm like *shrug* oh well.

I honestly want to know why anyone thought these characters would live and then suddenly disappear for 30 years.

Exactly. Which is funny because you'd think that the characters' individual stories would've been interesting enough to where you'd feel something for them in their inevitable deaths. Movie had two jobs to accomplish with them: 1) get them to retrieve and send the plans and 2) make the audience care for them. They did 1, which ended up to making 2 harder i think.
 
They didn't recast Mothma. It is the same actress they cast for her from Revenge of the Sith.

latest

Okay, but that was a recast from the original RotJ actress, Caroline Blakiston, who would be way too old to play a younger version of Mon Mothma.

I guess they kept some continuity in a way.
 
I liked the character. I didn't like Natalie Portman. Like if the acting were actually good I would have really been into her.

Basically I can see that, at least for me, I like the character on a surface level but Portman's performance tanked it.

Yes this is me too.

Padme's character works much better in the Clone Wars without Portman's performance
 
You're tripping me up.

Maybe it doesn't make sense. I'll backpedal a bit: I think the character would have been a lot better, even fine, if Natalie's acting weren't such dire shit. I don't really have a problem with how she was written or developed, just performed.

Padme's character works much better in the Clone Wars without Portman's performance

For sure. They gave her a lot more to do there, granted, but when I'm watching her in 1-3 I'm like, I want to like Padme, but dat acting...
 
Naughty Dog has seemingly alleviated this issue judging by their tech demo for TLOU2

No they didn't, not enough so that it would have made a difference here. It would have looked exactly the same or worst.

Okay, but that was a recast from the original RotJ actress, Caroline Blakiston, who would be way too old to play a younger version of Mon Mothma.

I guess they kept some continuity in a way.

She looks enough like the same person. Luke, Han, Leia, they all look a bit different by RotJ's time anyway.
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They would have been hard pressed to find someone who looks like Cushing.
 
I liked the character. I didn't like Natalie Portman. Like if the acting were actually good I would have really been into her.

Basically I can see that, at least for me, I like the character on a surface level but Portman's performance tanked it.
As a curiosity, what specifically do you like about Padme that you'd be willing to throw the blame for her deficiencies on an actress people generally regard highly?

Because a recurring thing for the prequels was having very good actors play characters who weren't great. At some point a pattern starts emerging and its not a bunch of well regarded actors suddenly deciding to phone it in.
 
I dont understand why this movie should have legs through the holydays. Because its about a couple of spys and there is a bit more space fighting? Its still super harmless, ROTS was way more brutal when Anakin got burned.
 
Okay, but that was a recast from the original RotJ actress, Caroline Blakiston, who would be way too old to play a younger version of Mon Mothma.

I guess they kept some continuity in a way.

I think part of it is the fact that Mon Mothma was a minor character in RotJ and isn't all that distinct looking, while Tarkin was the main antagonist of ANH and had a very distinct look to him. Dance would've been their best bet, but even then it still wouldn't seem right. Not to mention, in the case of both Leia and Tarkin, recasting would've seemed odd given that this is moments before the start of ANH.
 
As a curiosity, what specifically do you like about Padme that you'd be willing to throw the blame for her deficiencies on an actress people generally regard highly?

I'm going to save myself a lot of trouble by respectfully declining your request :p

If I were to make a solid case if even just on a personal level as to why I was fine with the character, no one's going to agree anyway. And it doesn't matter if they regard her highly. She won a fucking Oscar. I'm talking about her performance in these movies.
 
Just getting into A New Hope again, and I want to point out:

It was 30 years from an actual Nazi regime to Star Wars.
It's been 40 years from Star Wars to now.

We are further past Star Wars to now than Star Wars was to 1940s Germany
 


LoTR is fantasy and less gritty. Most importantly it exists inside of a tried and true archetypal framework. It has very easy to understand sides of good vs evil. There is a pervasive sense of hope and adventure. It's a part of the same Joseph Campbell combines mythos that powers most mainstream western stories. Children respond strongly to that stuff because it's safe territory.

Rogue One drifts away from that safe ground considerably.
 
There is no one that could make this scene anything less than total dogshit. The writing was atrocious

Yes there's bad dialogue in the prequels, more news at the top of the hour :p

I think Ewan is mostly great but even he has bad lines and a few bad deliveries here and there. Most of the lines would have been rough to act, but I thought Natalie was considerably worse than everyone else.

I also thought they were joking around with each other in that scene, at least that's what it's always felt like to me.
 
As a gaming/tech crowd we're far more aware of CG characters. I saw the movie with my parents who had no idea that Tarkin was CG.
 
Maybe it doesn't make sense. I'll backpedal a bit: I think the character would have been a lot better, even fine, if Natalie's acting weren't such dire shit. I don't really have a problem with how she was written or developed, just performed.



For sure. They gave her a lot more to do there, granted, but when I'm watching her in 1-3 I'm like, I want to like Padme, but dat acting...

Its funny, the Latin dub actress I grew up with really does her best with the character so I never really understood the hate for Padme. It was only when I experienced Portman 's original performance that I noticed how much she sucked.
 
LoTR is fantasy and less gritty. Most importantly it exists inside of a tried and true archetypal framework. It has very easy to understand sides of good vs evil. There is a pervasive sense of hope and adventure. It's a part of the same Joseph Campbell combines mythos that powers most mainstream western stories. Children respond strongly to that stuff because it's safe territory.

Rogue One drifts away from that safe ground considerably.

Star Wars is also fantasy. And I don't know that I'd agree that Rogue One is somehow more "gritty" than most of Fellowship of the Ring. Definitely not as much in Two Towers or Return of the King.

How are the concepts of good and evil so muddied in Rogue One? And where is the sharp divergence from Campbellian roots in Rogue One as opposed to Lord of the Rings? I'm not saying one didn't do it better than the other (because Fellowship is obviously a much better fim than Rogue One) but I'm not seeing how it is one is so wildly different, tonally, than the other.

You were initially arguing that you think legs would be bad because Rogue One isn't very family friendly. Neither was any Lord of the Rings movie. I'm pretty sure at least one of them almost got an R before cuts were made, if I remember right.
 
She looks enough like the same person. Luke, Han, Leia, they all look a bit different by RotJ's time anyway.
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They would have been hard pressed to find someone who looks like Cushing.

They do look really similar. Not perfect, but damn close.

I think part of it is the fact that Mon Mothma was a minor character in RotJ and isn't all that distinct looking, while Tarkin was the main antagonist of ANH and had a very distinct look to him. Dance would've been their best bet, but even then it still wouldn't seem right. Not to mention, in the case of both Leia and Tarkin, recasting would've seemed odd given that this is moments before the start of ANH.

I agree. Mon Mothma wasn't important enough to waste the resources on, but Leia and Tarkin were (especially given how distinctive-looking Peter Cushing was).
 
im actually curious now about how disney will go forward because of him. him showing up is disney acknowledging the prequels.

You just saw a movie with Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa,a character from The Clone Wars TV show brought to life, Mustafar front and center as Vader's lair...

And you still think "Disney" is not acknowledging the prequels?
 
Showing Mustafar was an even bigger acknowledgement than Jimmy Smits showing up.

I give Rogue One bonus points for having Mustafar.

I deduct points from Return of the Jedi not having Mustafar and another Death Star instead.

Yep, bur dialogue is a part of it, and as you concede, it's a problem. Soooo

I was wrong to say that I loved every single aspect of Padme Amidala.

Shit, wait, I didn't.
 
Padme is a very poorly written character no matter what dialog they put in Portman's mouth, and no matter how listlessly she let that dialog dribble back out.

Padme could have been mute and she still would have been a fundamentally broken character.

They did her dirty, and it's one of the biggest missed opportunities of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
 
All right. Back after a good sleep. What I miss.
Yes there's bad dialogue in the prequels, more news at the top of the hour :p

I think Ewan is mostly great but even he has bad lines and a few bad deliveries here and there. Most of the lines would have been rough to act, but I thought Natalie was considerably worse than everyone else.

I also thought they were joking around with each other in that scene, at least that's what it's always felt like to me
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I took the scene the same way. Not a great scene by any means, but they seemed like they were having fun with each other at the end.
 
I'm wondering if Lucasfilm is going to use this technique to bring Ehrenreich and Glover closer to Ford and Williams for the Han Solo solo film. I know they did a bit of de-aging clean up on Ford and Fisher for Force Awakens (which wasn't needed for me, but hey), and of course we got CG Cushing and young Fisher in this one.

The technology obviously isn't there yet for a full CG Harrison Ford model to take the lead role in his own movie, and the two actors obviously already look close to the characters they're trying to portray, but I can imagine Lucasfilm wanting to try and alter it slightly just to get that little bit closer.

I think the better solution would be to simply let Ehrenreich do his thing and play his version of Solo, even if it doesn't end up being 100% Harrison Ford. They'll never cross that border into it looking like reality in that time, especially since we're all so familiar with the original actors and the fact that they have aged.

I still don't now how I feel about them resurrecting Peter Cushing like this. From a plot perspective it was cool, and even though the effect immediately took me out of the movie (to the point where any scene with him was a bit hard to focus on for me), I do like the balls it must have taken to go ahead with that attempt. People often accuse Lucasfilm (or rather Disney for some reason) of taking the easiest route with these movies, but I don't see that at all. You could argue for that with the plot of TFA, but R1 takes a couple of twists that really are a bit of a gamble when it comes to a franchise this big - not the least of which killing off your entire cast. I honestly admire them a bit for that.

But yeah, philosophically I still feel incredibly uneasy about the whole thing, although I do know that the Cushing estate was consulted on this. I'm seeing surprisingly little discussion about it, because it was almost the first thing everyone in my group started talking about when we walked out of the theatre. That article about Robin Williams making some copyright assurances that they couldn't do it with his likeness after his death really got me in a weird way - especially because all he could do was make sure they couldn't do it for a set number of years. After that people would be free to throw a CG Williams in their movie. It's weirding me out a lot.

(about the movie itself: loved it, with all its flaws. I was never into the expanded universe but this felt like what the expanded universe at its best should feel like. I want more smaller scale one off stories about nobodies (relative to the Skywalkers and Kenobi's of that world). The market scene was magic, and really brought me back to the kinds of worlds I would imagine as a kid. It was quite striking).
 
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