It completely falls apart when you think about it though because it's given no context. What is the Republic's objective in that fight? You have no idea because you have no grasp of the geography either, they're just trying to advance into an ill-defined void.
On top of that it's just two armies walking at each other shooting in an open field, which is a problem with the battles that they partially addressed in Revenge of the Sith but not completely. There's an awful lot of clones just standing around (or running at droids) waiting to be shot in those movies.
I think Clones actually has the worst and ugliest-looking action of the whole prequel trilogy. CGI and obvious green screening that has aged really badly, and Christopher Lee, bless his heart, was too old to be doing any convincing lightersabering. Even some neat ideas, like the light of Anakin and Dooku's blades illuminating the frame, are kind of fucked up because the camera is pulled in way too close.
Unlike a lot of people, I don't mind Yoda being a lightsaber god, and that reveal in the theater the first time was a pretty cool experience. But overall, the action in Clones doesn't have shit on the lightsaber duels of TPM and Sith.
I JUST got done watching it. My mind is racing so I'll just say HOLY FUCKING SHIT at that ending. From the moment Darth Vader turned his lightsaber on to Princess Leia turning around was the hypest I've ever been in a movie theater.
If there's one thing you can count on Star Wars to do, no matter the quality of the films... it's taking stupid names and running with them. It's amazing, really.
I think my favorite name has to go to the Clone Wars show, though. Savage Oppress just cannot be beaten as a villain name. And do note we have a Darth Tyranus, Darth Sidious and a General Grievous in the same series.
Legitimately surprised how people are ranking this with the best of star wars, or even giving it a favorable comparison to TFA. This movie was straight up bad. The first half-hour was a jumbled mess, the characters were cliche if not bland, and by the time the final battle comes none of it bears any weight because you don't care about anyone. 2/5.
I've seen all the movies and played a couple of the games but the lore of it never really captured me beyond that. How strong would Anakin be if the suit wasn't keeping him alive? It is what's basically keeping him alive right? When he threw the rebel to the ceiling then casually sliced him...crazy lol. Just wish I enjoyed the saber scenes in the previous films as much as I did during this 15 seconds of carnage.
It was at this moment that I completely checked out of the movie when I saw it in theaters. I just could not give a fuck. Looks like a bunch of extras from the crew playing dress-up and running in front of obvious green screen. Absolutely zero impact
I really enjoyed this movie and strongly recommend it even there are certain things as I was watching I would've changed immediately.
Saw Gerrera pointlessly dying is fine. Pointlessly dying on Jeddah wasn't fine. his hate for the Empire should've overrode his desire to die at Jeddah because he was giving in to their cruel destruction once they used up the planet he didn't even come from. Saw should've died at the same time as Galen did.
CGI Tarkin needed to emote less. That's essentially what made him seem off most of the time.
R2D2 and C3PO should never have been introduced with speaking parts. In fact the way the scene played out some people immediately watching ANH would wonder why the droids tagged along onto that hastily planned fight. C3PO per his functions had no business being there and R2 as an Astromech technically should've been elsewhere if he was used at all.
Do only 1 speech not 3. When those guys volunteered to get the plans there should've been more banter between the main characters and these throw away characters. This movie went out it's way to portray the conflict of the Empire and Rebels in a more realistic manner and that scene with Jyn and Cassian speechifying to each other was inappropriate. In moments like those the entire group would be talking with greater deference to the leads. Think back to ANH and how there was banter while discussing attacking the Death Star and shooting womprats with a T16. It wasn't simply Luke and the field commander talking. Everyone wasn't even as fully invested in having this fight like the Rogue One crew but they showed hashing out their differences with their reasons for being confident and concerned in a humane way. Rogue One totally mishandled that opportunity.
If they had made those changes the movie would be a lot more effective and their weakness with character portrayal could've been solved neatly.
Saw it today. Meh, for me it's maybe slightly better than the prequels. Just boring all around to me. I liked when Vader showed up at the end. Forest Whitaker's character dying was about as stupid as Pa Kent in man of steel.
"Apology accepted" points to how cold and calculating he is. How he won't tolerate failure.
"I hope you don't CHOKE...on your aspirations" is the equivalent of Arnold saying, "Stick around" after throwing a survival knife through an enemy as if he were a dart board.
Or saying "You're fired" before launching a bad guy hanging from a rocket on his plane.
You explain well why it's different and I say Vader isn't perfect. We all say stuff that doesn't stick correctly. Vader flubbing like that still means he's in character.
I got the impression that Saw had gone loopy from all the years of the war. He's losing his mind and humanity, which they demonstrated by making him a pseudo Vader with his cyborg body and breathing apparatus.
The thing is, I never actually felt like he did anything wrong morally. They talk about how he's an extremist but all his forces did was ambush a bunch of fascists. If they wanted to make it more morally ambiguous, they should have bombed people in the market for being collaborators or something. Cassian came off like more of a shady guy than Saw.
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.
This is a fair point to make. I'm inclined to agree the movie should've been changed to have them shoot at each other. We didn't need another Krennic gets punked punchline.
Legitimately surprised how people are ranking this with the best of star wars, or even giving it a favorable comparison to TFA. This movie was straight up bad. The first half-hour was a jumbled mess, the characters were cliche if not bland, and by the time the final battle comes none of it bears any weight because you don't care about anyone. 2/5.
Legitimately surprised how people are ranking this with the best of star wars, or even giving it a favorable comparison to TFA. This movie was straight up bad. The first half-hour was a jumbled mess, the characters were cliche if not bland, and by the time the final battle comes none of it bears any weight because you don't care about anyone. 2/5.
Saw it today and kinda agree. But 1.) I'm insanely tired and had trouble staying awake through parts and 2.) I don't think I'm the target for StarWars anyway. i.e. I always have trouble paying attention when people decide to sit around in rooms and speech about pretend politics, and there was just way to much of it in this for me. Its a movie for fans.
Are we comparing the looks of a painting of a character for a novel cover that isn't even canon against real characters portrayed by actresses in movies?
If I recall, the licenses only allowed the artists to illustrate likenesses of the actors as they appeared in the films, so they had to be a little reserved on how to age characters.
Are we comparing the looks of a painting of a character for a novel cover that isn't even canon against real characters portrayed by actresses in movies?
I do agree with this one thing a Reddit user pointed out. The scene with Vader actually solidifies that Anakin is Vader. I know that maybe a dumb 'no duh', but in terms of prowess I guess? Cause while Vader wasn't all acrobatic like Jedi were shown in the Prequels, TCW, and Rebels, he showed a lot more power and strength then he ever did in ANH ~ ROTJ. He comes across more as a inbetween. Not so over the top of the prequels but at the same time he's not nearly as stiff and wooden as he was in the originals.
Not a single new theme in the score came even close to Rey's theme. I'm generally a fan of Giacchino's music, but after listening to the TFA and R1 soundtracks back to back, R1 is really poor in comparison. I'm sure it's due to the tight deadline to a large extent.
I do agree with this one thing a Reddit user pointed out. The scene with Vader actually solidifies that Anakin is Vader. I know that maybe a dumb 'no duh', but in terms of prowess I guess? Cause while Vader wasn't all acrobatic like Jedi were shown in the Prequels, TCW, and Rebels, he showed a lot more power and strength then he ever did in ANH ~ ROTJ. He comes across more as a inbetween. Not so over the top of the prequels but at the same time he's not nearly as stiff and wooden as he was in the originals.
I do agree with this one thing a Reddit user pointed out. The scene with Vader actually solidifies that Anakin is Vader. I know that maybe a dumb 'no duh', but in terms of prowess I guess? Cause while Vader wasn't all acrobatic like Jedi were shown in the Prequels, TCW, and Rebels, he showed a lot more power and strength then he ever did in ANH ~ ROTJ. He comes across more as a inbetween. Not so over the top of the prequels but at the same time he's not nearly as stiff and wooden as he was in the originals.
