As much as I love Kotor, it's still about an evil empire with a superweapon and a ragtag group trying to destroy it. The ragtag group even has a Millennium Falcon and an R2-D2. It's the same kind of story even if the details differ.
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Red Letter Media |OT| of Movies, Murderers, and Pizza Rolls
- Thread starter Skiptastic
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firehawk12
Subete no aware
KOTOR2 is the more interesting story anyway.
Hilarious review, but I disagree with a lot of their points. I don't see how you can harp on this film's nostalgia bait and give it a free pass in TFA where it was more egregious (this is coming from a fan of that movie). They're mad that it has X-Wings and AT-STs in it? That's like being upset that Star Trek has yet another Vulcan. I also think they are letting their theatre experience effect their opinion of the movie. That said, I hope we get a Plinkett review out of this.
killed me
reminded me of the "it was darker and better than the other films" from the revenge of the tshi plinkett review
They touched on this in the video, and the Plinkett reviews, but Star Wars is kinda in a damned if you do, damned if you don't position. The original trilogy are three of the most iconic films of all time. The original Star Wars may very well be the most iconic, memorable, quotable film ever. People remember every scene, every line of dialogue, every piece of music, every stupid alien. It's an absolute classic.
When you stray from the classic too much, you're bound to get backlash. "This isn't Star Wars-y. This doesn't feel like Star Wars." Enter the prequels, that only reinforced this notion ten fold.
Well, Disney saw that and said "Fuck, lets make some Star Wars-ass Star Wars movies." TFA is the ultimate love letter to the original Star Wars. Most loved it, but there is a vocal audience who gave it shit for being "a blatant ripoff of ANH." You know, that iconic classic that everyone loves.
Now that TFA is out, the characters are introduced and established, I do hope they go a different route with episode 8. And I think they will, because they can. After three movies of not Star Wars, everyone wanted some fuckin STAR WARS. TFA was that. Now it's time for something new.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
I was pretty bored the first half of the movie. I didn't care about any of the characters. Who are any of them? I feel like I don't know any of them
It wasn't a fun movie at all. I expect some fun in Star Wars, man! Star Trek is supposed to be the serious sci fi series.
The action was good but I didn't care about anyone dying. I almost felt like I wanted the imperials to win half the time since the rebels had a bunch of jerks in there, and also you already knew what was going to happen.
I thought it was hilarious that everyone died though.
It wasn't a fun movie at all. I expect some fun in Star Wars, man! Star Trek is supposed to be the serious sci fi series.
The action was good but I didn't care about anyone dying. I almost felt like I wanted the imperials to win half the time since the rebels had a bunch of jerks in there, and also you already knew what was going to happen.
I thought it was hilarious that everyone died though.
I liked the movie and thought it was a great movie after coming out of the theater but admittedly after the fact I find myself agreeing with RLM on most of their criticisms.
Right now I would rank the movies 5 > 4 = 7 > RO > 6 > 3 > 2 > 1
Half the RO main cast could be deleted from the script and I don't think anyone would miss them. Especially the man who was there to the end end with the main woman. He was barely a character! And yes, I say "man" and "woman" because I have no idea what their names were.
Right now I would rank the movies 5 > 4 = 7 > RO > 6 > 3 > 2 > 1
Half the RO main cast could be deleted from the script and I don't think anyone would miss them. Especially the man who was there to the end end with the main woman. He was barely a character! And yes, I say "man" and "woman" because I have no idea what their names were.
BassForever
Member
Jin Urso and Cassian
K920 was the robot
No idea the names of the other 3 even after seeing the film twice
K920 was the robot
No idea the names of the other 3 even after seeing the film twice
I liked the robot, he was funny and I like the dynamic of having a good guy droid who looks like a bad guy droid so he can trick them
Jyn had a dad who built the death star with a weakness so it could be blowed up
the rebel with an accent had an accent. i like that he
but then he had basically no other memorable moment in the film.
blind guy is force sensitive and had a cool scene where he beat up stormtroopers with a stick
the other guy had a big gun
forest whitaker did nothing
that's basically what I got out of the new characters. a whole lot of nothing.
HOWEVER
I didn't watch this movie for the new characters. I watched the movie to see an untold story from the Star Wars saga that I've always wanted to see. As a stand alone movie, it's the shits. It really is. However, BECAUSE I care about the rebels (not these specific rebels, but the rebels in Star Wars in general), the empire, stormtroopers, Tarkin, Vader and AAAAATTTTTTTT SSSSSSSSTTTTTTTs, I did enjoy the film.
It stands on the shoulders of A New Hope. BIG TIME.
Jyn had a dad who built the death star with a weakness so it could be blowed up
the rebel with an accent had an accent. i like that he
iced that guy at the beginning
blind guy is force sensitive and had a cool scene where he beat up stormtroopers with a stick
the other guy had a big gun
forest whitaker did nothing
that's basically what I got out of the new characters. a whole lot of nothing.
HOWEVER
I didn't watch this movie for the new characters. I watched the movie to see an untold story from the Star Wars saga that I've always wanted to see. As a stand alone movie, it's the shits. It really is. However, BECAUSE I care about the rebels (not these specific rebels, but the rebels in Star Wars in general), the empire, stormtroopers, Tarkin, Vader and AAAAATTTTTTTT SSSSSSSSTTTTTTTs, I did enjoy the film.
It stands on the shoulders of A New Hope. BIG TIME.
CloudyTuba
Member
I'm mixed on how much I agree or disagree with the RLM guys on this one. There are certain things they're 100% correct about and other things that make me think they're crazy. Like how Jay wanted to delete
You gotta be shitting me, Jay. Learn to feel joy again. And Rich needs to stop pretending all CGI that has ever been created is dogshit by default.
You can argue about varying degrees of success or failure, but Rich was just being Rich as usual. Even the other guys wanted to call him on that but they gave up on him.
On the other hand I agree that they could have cut out some of the random fanwank like
, or made the two droids cameo more natural. Shit like that was distracting pandering. They're totally right about this entire movie being focused on jerking off existing star wars fans. Also the things about the characters, and how half of them should have been cut to focus on development for the remaining half. Stronger elements of a heist movie should have been included, and more focus on making each character have specific goals and feelings. Baze and Bodhi were basically dead weight. Saw was criminally underutilized.
Watching this made me think back to the prequel character test in one of their old videos. Describe the character without physically describing them or talking about their job. With the rogue one characters, you pretty much just have a bunch of one word answers. These are shallow characters.
I think Mike is on the right track regarding Vader's voice. Everyone blames the sound of it in this on his age, but JEJ recently provided Vader's voice for Rebels and he sounds as deep and powerful as ever. It's either got something to do with the different effects they ran his voice through, or something else like poor direction or feeling under the weather that day.
Also, the reason why Vader's suit looked halloweeny was because of the way it was shot. You can't blame the entire look on the neck being a little misaligned.
he is so brightly lit that instead of looking black and deep, he looks grey and plasticy. You'll notice that he looked fantastic as
and that's because the lighting allowed him to appear black again.
Overall I still enjoyed the movie but I consider it a mixed bag, and I enjoyed it more than RLM. This was still a great episode of HITB even if I had to disagree with them at various times.
the entire space battle along with the Vader fight scene.
No, Tarkin was not a complete horrible failure as he'd like to claim.
I still thought it was hilarious that Mike cut Rebels Tarkin into the trailer, though.
On the other hand I agree that they could have cut out some of the random fanwank like
Evazan
Watching this made me think back to the prequel character test in one of their old videos. Describe the character without physically describing them or talking about their job. With the rogue one characters, you pretty much just have a bunch of one word answers. These are shallow characters.
I think Mike is on the right track regarding Vader's voice. Everyone blames the sound of it in this on his age, but JEJ recently provided Vader's voice for Rebels and he sounds as deep and powerful as ever. It's either got something to do with the different effects they ran his voice through, or something else like poor direction or feeling under the weather that day.
Also, the reason why Vader's suit looked halloweeny was because of the way it was shot. You can't blame the entire look on the neck being a little misaligned.
On Mustafar
he watched the Tantive fly away
Overall I still enjoyed the movie but I consider it a mixed bag, and I enjoyed it more than RLM. This was still a great episode of HITB even if I had to disagree with them at various times.
Me too. Much of me liking it more than RLM has to do with the fact that I wasn't so put off by the "references" they kept mentioning. Especially the ending was pretty neat and I'm not even a big Star Wars fan or anything.
But ultimately I do wish Disney starts to move away from the old and into creating more new.
Absolutely, the biggest failure of the film.
And with TFA, I think it's real easy to describe Kylo, Finn, Rey and Poe with the same detail as the OT characters. That's why I loved the film: I cared about the characters, their story and their motivation.
As for Jay, I think he's let the prequel hate blind him into thinking ANY ORIGINAL TRILOGY CHARACTERS OR REFERENCES = CHEAP SOULLESS FANSERVICE MOVIE WOULD BE BETTER WITHOUT IT. Mother fucker, this movie takes place like 4 hours before A New Hope. If there's any movie where it's fine, it's fine here. The whole god damn thing built towards that
Vader moment at the end
GekigangerV
Member
*** Rogue One Spoilers Below ***
The review makes me think that Mike has a legit Plinkett Review in him for this (and it is technically a prequel story as well). I wish they were a bit more articulate with their critiques, but I got the general gist of them.
Visually (outside of CGI faces) the film is fine. The final fight is shot very nice. But outside of that I cannot say I like anything else about the film. Donnie Yen and K2SO were ok characters, but everyone else was a flat line.
The whole thing felt like Wookiepedia filler. Nothing as silly as EM-PAL-SU-RE-CON, but stuff like Vader bathing in a vat in Mustafar while he is doing nothing feel like the foundation for more silly stuff to be made in books/comics in the years to come.
Outside of introducing Vader, what was the purpose of Krennic being there? We know he is upset at being relinquished of his duty at the Death Star. Tarkin told him the defector pilot came from Mads Mikkelsen's base. We could have easily gotten a line from Tarkin saying something like "If you want to regain favor with the Emperor, find the leak" We didn't need to have Krennic asking Vader for a good word.
I wish we saw a 5-10 minute montage of Jyn being raised by Forrest Whitaker's character as a child soldier and build their relationship. Maybe introduce the idea that Mads Mikkelsen's character was testing a variation of the Death Star laser design and the Empire destroy a city where Diego Luna's character lived and set a hatred of Mads' character so you set up the idea that Jyn has to convince Diego that her father isn't a monster so we get more to the scene where Diego decides to not shoot Mads other than nothing. That would also tie into the part where Forest Whitaker mentioning he had to cut Jyn off because his own men were thinking of using her as leverage.
There is a lot of problems with characterizations and it felt like that this concept would have worked better as a Netflix series. Of course you would have to lose big set pieces like the final space battle, but you could have gotten some characterization for each character. Almost an episode/flash back for each of them.
Also, they really jumped to a lot of locations in this film compared to other Star Wars films. We got: Farm Planet at the beginning, planet where Jyn is freed, Place where we are introduced to Diego Luna's character, Yavin IV, Jedah, Mustafar, Death Star, Rainy Planet, Scarif. Even the branching story of Attack of the Clones didn't take them to that many locations. I think it was Coruscant, Kamino, Tatooine, Naboo and Geonosis.
When they brought up the MCU I had the thought that compared to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars has trouble moving the universe forward.
Of course when Lucas renamed Star Wars to Episode IV A New Hope, he set up the "need" to have Episode 1-3 and now with Rogue One we have FOUR movies that take place before the Original Trilogy. And we will be getting that Han Solo movie which will probably be the same and there is talks about the Obi-Wan Movie as well.
Of the eight theatrical movies that are out there (Episode 1-7 and Rogue One) FOUR of them involve a planetary destruction weapon (Death Star in ANH, RotJ, RO and Star Killer in Force Awakens).
Sure we get Infinity Stones in a bunch of MCU movies, but they are shown to do very different things (Mind Control, give life to Vision, Power Zola's inventions, Planetary Destruction, Time Manipulation, whatever happened in Thor 2).
The review makes me think that Mike has a legit Plinkett Review in him for this (and it is technically a prequel story as well). I wish they were a bit more articulate with their critiques, but I got the general gist of them.
Visually (outside of CGI faces) the film is fine. The final fight is shot very nice. But outside of that I cannot say I like anything else about the film. Donnie Yen and K2SO were ok characters, but everyone else was a flat line.
The whole thing felt like Wookiepedia filler. Nothing as silly as EM-PAL-SU-RE-CON, but stuff like Vader bathing in a vat in Mustafar while he is doing nothing feel like the foundation for more silly stuff to be made in books/comics in the years to come.
Outside of introducing Vader, what was the purpose of Krennic being there? We know he is upset at being relinquished of his duty at the Death Star. Tarkin told him the defector pilot came from Mads Mikkelsen's base. We could have easily gotten a line from Tarkin saying something like "If you want to regain favor with the Emperor, find the leak" We didn't need to have Krennic asking Vader for a good word.
I wish we saw a 5-10 minute montage of Jyn being raised by Forrest Whitaker's character as a child soldier and build their relationship. Maybe introduce the idea that Mads Mikkelsen's character was testing a variation of the Death Star laser design and the Empire destroy a city where Diego Luna's character lived and set a hatred of Mads' character so you set up the idea that Jyn has to convince Diego that her father isn't a monster so we get more to the scene where Diego decides to not shoot Mads other than nothing. That would also tie into the part where Forest Whitaker mentioning he had to cut Jyn off because his own men were thinking of using her as leverage.
There is a lot of problems with characterizations and it felt like that this concept would have worked better as a Netflix series. Of course you would have to lose big set pieces like the final space battle, but you could have gotten some characterization for each character. Almost an episode/flash back for each of them.
Also, they really jumped to a lot of locations in this film compared to other Star Wars films. We got: Farm Planet at the beginning, planet where Jyn is freed, Place where we are introduced to Diego Luna's character, Yavin IV, Jedah, Mustafar, Death Star, Rainy Planet, Scarif. Even the branching story of Attack of the Clones didn't take them to that many locations. I think it was Coruscant, Kamino, Tatooine, Naboo and Geonosis.
When they brought up the MCU I had the thought that compared to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars has trouble moving the universe forward.
Of course when Lucas renamed Star Wars to Episode IV A New Hope, he set up the "need" to have Episode 1-3 and now with Rogue One we have FOUR movies that take place before the Original Trilogy. And we will be getting that Han Solo movie which will probably be the same and there is talks about the Obi-Wan Movie as well.
Of the eight theatrical movies that are out there (Episode 1-7 and Rogue One) FOUR of them involve a planetary destruction weapon (Death Star in ANH, RotJ, RO and Star Killer in Force Awakens).
Sure we get Infinity Stones in a bunch of MCU movies, but they are shown to do very different things (Mind Control, give life to Vision, Power Zola's inventions, Planetary Destruction, Time Manipulation, whatever happened in Thor 2).
broncobuster
Banned
Hopefully Star Wars 8 is that. I can buy why Star Wars 7 is same-same to reintroduce Star Wars to a younger generation. But these side stories that we know of are all treading into the old and familiar.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I don't think it's the existence of those things in the movie, per se, but rather that they are used as a crutch.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
But they really weren't. They felt like a natural part of the battle scenes they were in.
BassForever
Member
I feel like most of their complaints about using the same shit applied more to TFA then RO. In RO it made sense for it to be the same of trilogy technology based upon when it takes place in the timeline. 30 years later are you telling me the new republic is still using old as fuck xwings and the first order only has legions of old tie fighters? Just over the course of 20 years in star wars technology rapidly changed there was no reason to not come up with new ship designs for TFA. Generally when people complain about the prequels its not the vehicles or planets its the story and characters that are rightly criticized.
What's even crazier is that more time passed between Return of The Jedi and Force Awakens than between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, and yet almost no ships from the Prequel Trilogy appear in the OT.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
Man I just realized, they never watched Turkish Star Wars. They should really watch it on BotW. Have they ever commented on it? I can't imagine Mike doesn't know about it.
The emperor's first 100 days consisted of building a surgical reconstruction centre and rebranding all Empire materials.
This is the first time I actually watched them and thought to myself okay now they feel like the same type of people they often shit on. So basically yeah couldn't agree with much of what they said at all, if anything I thought their opinions were down right awful.
The only joy was in Rich Evan's laugh which we all know brings happiness the world over.
The only joy was in Rich Evan's laugh which we all know brings happiness the world over.
Not if you imagine it coming out of a clown.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
I think Jay was on point with the movie being frustrated by it trying to be something different, but ultimately still being stuck in that 'Star Wars mold'.
Also, I was shocked to see how obviously poor Tarkin looked when sites where all 'omg so good' about that.
funkystudent
Member
I agree that the death of Forest Whitaker's character really stood out as drama for dramas sake.
Not sure why they wouldn't keep him around until the end and at least kill him in the finale.
I am ok with Rogue One but I wonder how long Disney can keep it up. As Rich said, star wars is pretty limiting and small. They can mine nostalgia now but that might stop working in a few years of yearly star wars movies.
Not sure why they wouldn't keep him around until the end and at least kill him in the finale.
I am ok with Rogue One but I wonder how long Disney can keep it up. As Rich said, star wars is pretty limiting and small. They can mine nostalgia now but that might stop working in a few years of yearly star wars movies.
Admiral Woofington
Member
It's not like their opinion is off base, just condescending. So many regular people I know who don't give a fuck about star wars but watched it because it's the big movie of the moment left disappointed and bored.
They need to stop making yearly movies. Once the new trilogy ends, just license that shit to other mediums. But explore other timelines. I want more kotor, less Skywalker adjacent shit
They need to stop making yearly movies. Once the new trilogy ends, just license that shit to other mediums. But explore other timelines. I want more kotor, less Skywalker adjacent shit
VendettaRed07
Member
Complaining about a movie that takes place basically at the same time as a new hope that used the same ships and vehicles as a new hope was even weirder.
Jay can be such a dweeb at times. "IT'S LIKE DANGLING A TOY INFRONT OF A CAT!"
No it's using Star Wars vehicles in a Star Wars movie. For fucks sake you hack fraud.
morningbus
Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
Look, people. They eventually hate a movie you like.
Just accept the fact that your movie may be the Man of Steel of Star Wars and move on.
Just accept the fact that your movie may be the Man of Steel of Star Wars and move on.
VendettaRed07
Member
This was probably one of my biggest complaints.
They could have given him such a glorious death scene. As he looked at the camera and said "I am sorry I left you behind.. but now.. you're gonna have to leave me behind", as he throws Jyn behind the blast doors and takes out like 50 storm troopers.
Or something. Anything would have been better.
The Scollard
Member
Completely agree with their criticisms. I also thought the original trilogy fanservice was waaaay too much. I get using X-Wings and Tie Fighters, since its from that era, but we didn't need CGI Tarkin or CGI Leia, the guys from the Tatooine bar making a cameo, or C3P0 and R2-D2.
I would have preferred if Krennic was much more of a main villain than he was in the film. When I first heard of RO, I imagined, like the guys did, that it would be a heist-ish movie where they would break into the Death Star to steal the plans. I thought Krennic would be the Head-Of-Security character, who's trying his hardest to stop the main characters from escaping, and is hunting down the plans with ruthless efficiency. Instead, he sort of plays second fiddle to Tarkin.
Also, they are so right on Darth Vader's voice. It sounded so off.
I would have preferred if Krennic was much more of a main villain than he was in the film. When I first heard of RO, I imagined, like the guys did, that it would be a heist-ish movie where they would break into the Death Star to steal the plans. I thought Krennic would be the Head-Of-Security character, who's trying his hardest to stop the main characters from escaping, and is hunting down the plans with ruthless efficiency. Instead, he sort of plays second fiddle to Tarkin.
Also, they are so right on Darth Vader's voice. It sounded so off.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Yeah, it makes sense for the character to be there. Still could have been recast instead of CGI though.
The Scollard
Member
Even if he was in charge of the Death Star, they didn't need to have him show up with the uncanny-valley CGI face. There were a number of things they could have done. Have Krennic meet up him offscreen, and then when he exits the room, someone asks what their new orders are, and Krennic says the Grand Moff wants the plans retrieved at all costs (I know this is going into fanfic territory, but the movie is basically fanfiction already, so I think I'm allowed.)
My problem with Krennic playing second fiddle is that he's basically the same type of character as Tarkin. When I first saw him, I assumed, that since Peter Cushing was dead, he would be the film's Tarkin expy. Vader was okay since he was a very different character from Tarkin. He butted heads with the rest of the imperial command, as shown in the "I find your lack of faith disturbing" scene. His belief in the force and mysticism made him different from the Nazi-Officer-esque air Tarkin gave off. However, Tarkin and Krennic feels more like Tarkin and Tarkin-light with how similar their characters are.
BassForever
Member
Ironically the best solution would have been a cg face tarkin, in a hologram communication.
They've reviewed things I liked and certainly did not like. This is the only time I felt they were whiny like the "fanboys" and "nerds" they mention.
Also your little MoS comment pretty much shows you to be clearly bias on this one.
morningbus
Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
I'll be impressed if you figure out my biases based on that.
My point is that an opinion you vehemently disagree with eventually comes and you realize that, yeah, it's what the do for everything. It usually doesn't rub us the wrong way because we agree.
It's okay to like movies that aren't considered masterpieces by critics.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Admiral Woofington
Member
They said they found her boring as fuck and had zero charisma. And that in Episode 7 the lead actress brought actual charisma to a role that could have been done just ok and it made the film better.
They make fun of pandering, it doesn't mean they can't appreciate good acting. Though I don't recall them mentioning much about the main cast in this film besides how boring they were.
SleepyJohn11
Member
Whenever I hear someone mention the battle scene at the beach planet with all the tie fighters and rebel starships was and how so much is going on, I think of that Rick McCullum quote.
ultracal31
You don't get to bring friends.
well the frame was pretty dense, so many things going on...
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
what i want is a star wars movie that doesnt have fan service in it. and is also fun.
I agree. The uncanny valley was definitely there.
Skiptastic
Member
Okay, you all really need to start using fucking spoiler tags. I've had the CGI dude thing spoiled and whatever, but you are literally talking about character deaths now without tags.
I can't see this movie until after Christmas so thanks a lot.
I can't see this movie until after Christmas so thanks a lot.
Mr. Pointy
Member
I think they could have made CG Tarkin work if they used him more sparingly and not animate him so much. In that first conversation with Krennic, when he's looking out the porthole at the Death Star, don't make him walk around. Just have him look at the Death Star while putting down Krennic. And then have him appear as a hologram for the rest of the film.
CG Leia was a mistake.
Say what you will about Terminator Genisys, but they did CG Arnie right.
CG Leia was a mistake.
Say what you will about Terminator Genisys, but they did CG Arnie right.
Skiptastic
Member
Fuck man, did you read my previous post AT ALL?