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

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firehawk12 said:
If people think it feels extraneous/gratuitous, then certainly it becomes an argument. Like having Benedict Cabbagepatch be Khan in that Star Trek movie just because everyone recognises the Khan scream.
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Then I disagree about the "just because" part. The Vader-Leia scene is there to drive home the point that their sacrifices aren't for naught, for it directly kickstarted a chain of events told through a whole trilogy that ends with the Empire's fall.
 
Sanjuro said:
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Ezalc said:
Vader ripping those rebels a new asshole was so fucking good to watch though I do lament the lack of him killing anybody in the main cast.
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At a certain point I was expecting Vader to swoop in and wipe out most of the Rogue One crew, but they were all dead before he showed up. Probably better for them to die over the course of the mission than just massacred all at once.
 
Cassian is a better character than Han Solo was in A New Hope.

The hologram message between Jyn and her father told me everything I needed to know about their relationship, though more of it couldn't have been a bad thing.

Rogue One would be amazing with an EE blu-ray.
 
firehawk12 said:
If people think it feels extraneous/gratuitous, then certainly it becomes an argument. Like having Benedict Cabbagepatch be Khan in that Star Trek movie just because everyone recognises the Khan scream.
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Not comparable to the story of Rogue One. Rogue One is a story set up in the first movie. It's portraying a battle in detail. Just like a WWII movie portrays a specific battle/event in detail. Is Dunkirk a movie that needs to be made? A tale that needs to be told?

EDIT: I think I'm misunderstanding what you're arguing about.
 
I was really expecting them to dive more into the "they let us go" remarks from ANH.

Like the Empire planned the whole thing from the beginning to let the plans slip through their fingers so they could track them and wipe the Rebels out. Only for Luke to show up and foil that plan.

Slightly disappointed, but only slightly. I enjoyed the film.
 
JDHarbs said:
I was really expecting them to dive more into the "they let us go" remarks from ANH.

Like the Empire planned the whole thing from the beginning to let the plans slip through their fingers so they could track them and wipe the Rebels out. Only for Luke to show up and foil that plan.

Slightly disappointed, but only slightly. I enjoyed the film.
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That was only something thought up of on the fly by Vader once they caught the Falcon in the Death Star, they didn't plan it from the start, that wouldn't make any sense.
 
Scrooge McDuck said:
Then I disagree about the "just because" part. The Vader-Leia scene is there to drive home the point that their sacrifices aren't for naught, for it directly kickstarted a chain of events told through a whole trilogy that ends with the Empire's fall.
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I guess that's the real question though. Is that sequence there for fans of ANH or does it serve any function to someone who is completely unfamiliar with the films? I guess I'll never know since I can't divorce this film from the greater context of Star Wars as a whole, but as someone who has seen A New Hope more times than I can count, all of the Vader/Tarkin/Leia/etc stuff just felt like reference for reference's sake.

Like, I assume the young Han Solo movie will have a scene where he "steals" the Falcon from Lando in a poker game... but do I really need to see that in order to make Empire Strikes Back a better film?
 
Ether_Snake said:
Just because we didn't need to know more about her relationship to her father doesn't mean the movie shouldn't have spent more time on it. Like they said, it's about making you care about the character. By speeding through that first scene, just to tell us "she was girl, mom dead, dad gone" (another Star Wars orphan btw, AGAIN), it basically said "we don't care, you got it, moving on". Just showing her interacting with her dad, building her character (not personality; building the character in the viewer's mind), would have been great. If not that, then at least build up her character before she gets "freed" by the rebels. Her dad teaching her something, her being hard-headed, whatever, build her up as a person.

It's basic story-telling and they failed doing that. They did the same with Rey in TFA. It's poor story-telling, done to speed through the checklist and leave it to merchandise and such to fill the gaps.
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I cared. Nothing about her felt rushed to me. She's not an orphan, so that AGAIN is weird. Her feeling of abandonment was a recurring point - Her family, Saw and then subversion through Cassian. I don't feel like they failed to do anything with her story. I think there was plenty for what her character needed. Again the characters in this film get about as much development as most characters get in any Star Wars film. Why is that level of characterisation not enough here?
 
3D worth it or not? Going to see it on Wednesday where my local theater has a $6 ticket deal on those days, or $9 for 3D showings. I don't really care for 3D usually, but I probably could dive in for Star Wars if it decent enough like when I went to see VII.
 
It's like folks don't know that main characters in Star Wars will ALWAYS be orphans

I'm like 99.9999% positive that any negative internet reaction is just gonna be folks nitpicking a movie to death to find fault in it taking place five minutes before Star Wars. Shit ain't that serious
 
Wanderer5 said:
3D worth it or not? Going to see it on Wednesday where my local theater has a $6 ticket deal on those days, or $9 for 3D showings. I don't really care for 3D usually, but I probably could dive in for Star Wars if it decent enough like when I went to see VII.
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I didn't like the 3D.
 
Wanderer5 said:
3D worth it or not? Going to see it on Wednesday where my local theater has a $6 ticket deal on those days, or $9 for 3D showings. I don't really care for 3D usually, but I probably could dive in for Star Wars if it decent enough like when I went to see VII.
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3D wasn't very impressive. Barely noticed it at all, unlike TFA where certain sequences looked great with it.
 
golem said:
This is what I mean by the old overshadowing the new:

Forest Whittaker does nothing in this movie. He is just there to make the 10 viewers of Clone Wars nerd out. He literally just stands there, hits play on a USB stick, and dies in this movie. What would have been different if the pilot went straight to Cassian, a character that actually matters in the whole movie and we could have gotten further insight into? They still would have needed Jyn to verify the message.
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This is an interesting point. I thought Rogue One had one beat too many. Primarily the imperial station where Galen was (Edu?). Just seemed an unnecessary stop. Like they got 3/4 of the info they needed from Galen's hologram but just needed that one little bit more.

Edu was the low point of the movie to me- everything there was predictable. Of course Mads was going to bite it, but only after a brief moment of connection with Jyn, I never thought Calrissian (forgot his name) would snipe Mads so no suspense there, and the X-Wing raid seemed superfluous considering the spectacle we would get on Scarrif.

I think the movie would have been better off concentrating the first half on Jedha (?) and cutting Edu entirely. In the final cut at least, Saw really was uselesss so his character should have been cut entirely.. Instead put the Imperial Research Station there. Then move on to Scarrif.
 
This ongoing discussion of whether or not Jyn was developed enough or not reminds me that Mike commented in the RLM review that Cassian should've had a moment where he tells Jyn what happened to him to get involved with the Rebel Alliance after his "You're not the only one that lost someone" (paraphrasing, sorry). My question is, why? Isn't knowing that he experienced the loss of his family at the hands of the Empire enough? Why do we need to know more? It's the old "show, don't tell" with film-making. Telling rather than showing is what got George in trouble in the prequels with long scenes of characters talking at each other to progress the plot.

It also goes with Saw's demise. We see him hobbling around on rudimentary cyborg legs, wheezing as he talks and using an oxygen mask, it's clear he's physically unable to run with the main characters to escape the Death Star's blast. Why do we need to know more than what was shown? As an audience member, I applaud Gareth Edwards and his crew for respecting me as a viewer to put two-and-two together on my own based on the visual story-telling being presented.
 
Rydeen said:
This ongoing discussion of whether or not Jyn was developed enough or not reminds me that Mike commented in the RLM review that Cassian should've had a moment where he tells Jyn what happened to him to get involved with the Rebel Alliance after his "You're not the only one that lost someone" (paraphrasing, sorry). My question is, why? Isn't knowing that he experienced the loss of his family at the hands of the Empire enough? Why do we need to know more? It's the old "show, don't tell" with film-making. Telling rather than showing is what got George in trouble in the prequels with long scenes of characters talking at each other to progress the plot.

It also goes with Saw's demise. We see him hobbling around on rudimentary cyborg legs, wheezing as he talks and using an oxygen mask, it's clear he's physically unable to run with the main characters to escape the Death Star's blast. Why do we need to know more than what was shown? As an audience member, I applaud Gareth Edwards and his crew for respecting me as a viewer to put two-and-two together on my own based on the visual story-telling being presented.
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People get mad if you tell them every detail, people get mad if you tell them nothing but allow them to figure shit out via context clues
 
Rydeen said:
This ongoing discussion of whether or not Jyn was developed enough or not reminds me that Mike commented in the RLM review that Cassian should've had a moment where he tells Jyn what happened to him to get involved with the Rebel Alliance after his "You're not the only one that lost someone" (paraphrasing, sorry). My question is, why? Isn't knowing that he experienced the loss of his family at the hands of the Empire enough? Why do we need to know more? It's the old "show, don't tell" with film-making. Telling rather than showing is what got George in trouble in the prequels with long scenes of characters talking at each other to progress the plot.

It also goes with Saw's demise. We see him hobbling around on rudimentary cyborg legs, wheezing as he talks and using an oxygen mask, it's clear he's physically unable to run with the main characters to escape the Death Star's blast. Why do we need to know more than what was shown? As an audience member, I applaud Gareth Edwards and his crew for respecting me as a viewer to put two-and-two together on my own based on the visual story-telling being presented.
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I get their point where it's weird that he just decides to stay around and it's not really clear why he's resigned to die other than he's too old for this shit.


SuperStiltzkin said:
Not comparable to the story of Rogue One. Rogue One is a story set up in the first movie. It's portraying a battle in detail. Just like a WWII movie portrays a specific battle/event in detail. Is Dunkirk a movie that needs to be made? A tale that needs to be told?

EDIT: I think I'm misunderstanding what you're arguing about.
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I'm just referring to the ending. Although I already said that the whole film itself feels like an official fan film. lol
 
Tarkin could have just been a hologram, threatening to take over the Death Star if the other dude fucked up, and in the later scenes he'd say he's on his way or whatever. Heck he could be aboard, just elsewhere, the place is big.
 
firehawk12 said:
I guess that's the real question though. Is that sequence there for fans of ANH or does it serve any function to someone who is completely unfamiliar with the films? I guess I'll never know since I can't divorce this film from the greater context of Star Wars as a whole, but as someone who has seen A New Hope more times than I can count, all of the Vader/Tarkin/Leia/etc stuff just felt like reference for reference's sake.

Like, I assume the young Han Solo movie will have a scene where he "steals" the Falcon from Lando in a poker game... but do I really need to see that in order to make Empire Strikes Back a better film?
Click to expand...

Films where the characters are fighting for something, then all die in the process, have a "celebratory aftermath" part (at least, if it isn't a nihilistic movie). It's where we get to see the effect of their struggles.

When I see a war movie about a group of soldiers saving a baby, I don't want them to just end with the main character bleeding to death while someone on the radio says "we got your baby, he's save". I want to see the dang baby arrives safely on his parents hands.

The Leia scene is that for me. For people who are not familiar it serves as an assurance that something is already in motion to put that Plan to good use. For people who are familiar, it carries the weight of the entire Original Trilogy. It's win-win.

The Lando poker thing, also, is not necessarily gratuitous. It's the context surrounding it that matters.
 
Just saw it. The big fight at the end would have blown my mind as a kid but everything leading up to it didn't click with me the way I thought it would. Parts of it just felt...messy? Things like jumping over to Mustafar dragged everything down and the characters didn't do much to balance things back for me.

I thought some of the smaller nods to the old EU (like the design of the ship from KOTOR) was neat but the bigger ones are starting to wear on me after loving them in Force Awakens. Did we really have to go to Mustafar for the scene with Vader? Think it would have been better to have just seen him at the end.

Either or, that third act was visually fantastic. Hopefully Battlefront 2 will be able to capture some of that action.
 
The Librarian said:
Cassian is a better character than Han Solo was in A New Hope.

The hologram message between Jyn and her father told me everything I needed to know about their relationship, though more of it couldn't have been a bad thing.

Rogue One would be amazing with an EE blu-ray.
Click to expand...

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
pppppppppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
 
dancrane212 said:
Either or, that third act was visually fantastic. Hopefully Battlefront 2 will be able to capture some of that action.
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I was enjoying the movie more than most up to that point, but as soon as the Rebel Fleet comes out of hyperspace, the fan-fare plays, and we cut to the Mon Calamari bridge straight out of Return of The Jedi and Admiral Raddus is all "This is Admiral Raddus of the Rebel Alliance, begin your attack formations" I was like a goddamn kid in a candy store, the most Star Wars scene for me since the OT.
 
Upon the movie ending, my first thought was linking Rogue One to Halo Reach in that I just saw pretty much all the protagonists die one after the other to service the mission. I wasn't expecting that from this movie.
 
Rydeen said:
I was enjoying the movie more than most up to that point, but as soon as the Rebel Fleet comes out of hyperspace, the fan-fare plays, and we cut to the Mon Calamari bridge straight out of Return of The Jedi and Admiral Raddus is all "This is Admiral Raddus of the Rebel Alliance, begin your attack formations" I was like a goddamn kid in a candy store, the most Star Wars scene for me since the OT.
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God, I was grinning like an idiot when that happened.
 
The Librarian said:
I can't really respond to this if you just flat out lie about things.
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You're the one who said this paper-thin schmoe is a better character than one of cinematic history's most well-known and beloved heroes. Like, how? In what way? Han Solo had more presence and personality in his first couple of scenes in the Cantina than this dude did in the entire movie.
 
Rydeen said:
I was enjoying the movie more than most up to that point, but as soon as the Rebel Fleet comes out of hyperspace, the fan-fare plays, and we cut to the Mon Calamari bridge straight out of Return of The Jedi and Admiral Raddus is all "This is Admiral Raddus of the Rebel Alliance, begin your attack formations" I was like a goddamn kid in a candy store, the most Star Wars scene for me since the OT.
Click to expand...

Return was my favorite film growing up because of the Battle of Endor. I'm sure I would have lost my mind back then seeing something that both called back to and topped the scene in terms of visuals and scale. It was pretty spectacular.
 
The Librarian said:
Cassian is a better character than Han Solo was in A New Hope.

The hologram message between Jyn and her father told me everything I needed to know about their relationship, though more of it couldn't have been a bad thing.

Rogue One would be amazing with an EE blu-ray.
Click to expand...

what the fuck
 
The Librarian said:
Cassian is a better character than Han Solo was in A New Hope.

The hologram message between Jyn and her father told me everything I needed to know about their relationship, though more of it couldn't have been a bad thing.

Rogue One would be amazing with an EE blu-ray.
Click to expand...

All we know about Jyn is that she's bitter about the entire conflict and cares about her father.
 
Dermee said:
Upon the movie ending, my first thought was linking Rogue One to Halo Reach in that I just saw pretty much all the protagonists die one after the other to service the mission. I wasn't expecting that from this movie.
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Reach didn't invent that type of story. This movie did a much better job of it too. It's harder to feel bad about the deaths of emotionless super soldiers than people with some actual personality and backstory.

Sorry if I'm coming off harsh. I just hate Reach lol. Your point isn't wrong.
 
matrix-cat said:
You're the one who said this paper-thin schmoe is a better character than one of cinematic history's most well-known and beloved heroes. Like, how? In what way? Han Solo had more presence and personality in his first couple of scenes in the Cantina than this dude did in the entire movie.
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Not that I necessarily agree with that statement, but characters who are more likable and memorable do not necessarily have deeper characterizations.
 
Just got back from seeing it - I loved it and it was basically the movie I wanted Force Awakens to be. K-2SO was definitely the best character, although I really liked Chirrut & Baze's bromance. And every time Jyn and Cassian looked at each other I was expecting them to start kissing, so I'm glad they didn't end up doing that.

The scene with Vader and the Director was completely superfluous and fanservice - I think the movie would have been so much better if the first (and only) time you saw Vader was when he appeared and started wrecking the rebel's shit at the very end. That would have been a powerful image of the rebels pretty much succeeding and then Vader showing up and completely dismantling all of them by himself.

Overall, though, it was an A+ movie. All the planets felt unique and different as opposed to "oh, great, another desert planet with scavengers barely scraping by." The fight on the beach was spectacular, and goddamn if I wasn't grinning like an idiot when the X-Wings showed up.
 
Man Giacchino's music was incredibly underwhelming, I mean TFA didn't have an impressive soundtrack but it was far better than this.

Disney either needs to pray that Williams can keep on working or let future composers stray from the established Star Wars motifs more.
 
Ghostmaster said:
Disney either needs to pray that Williams can keep on working or let future composers stray from the established Star Wars motifs more.
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I felt like half the problem was that he strayed from the motifs. His use of instrumentation and using familiar cues but not themes was quite good. Whenever Giacchino indulged in the Imperial March or main Star Wars fanfare it immediately injected some adrenaline back into the movie. His personal riff on the Imperial March was underwhelming.
 
Ghostmaster said:
Man Giacchino's music was incredibly underwhelming, I mean TFA didn't have an impressive soundtrack but it was far better than this.

Disney either needs to pray that Williams can keep on working or let future composers stray from the established Star Wars motifs more.
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John Williams is still bringing his A game and he's gonna live forever so we're covered.
 
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