Rogue One: A Star Wars Movie

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Dogfish
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Reviews, opinions and possible spoilers to follow over the course of the thread. Fairly warned ye be says I. Thought I'd make a separate thread for it so we could be clear about those risks, aside from the trailer thread.

So without further ado, here's my brief thoughts:


HOLY SHIT THIS IS AN AMAZING FILM.

I would suggest that it might be the best Star Wars film since Empire. I would further suggest that it might be the best Star Wars film that it is possible to make.

What holds it together for me is that it is a very tight war movie first and foremost, that's the structure of it. It's plot driven and the plot is a hard, lean, unforgiving sumbitch. The tightness of the plot is such that end of the movie dovetails almost perfectly into the start of A New Hope and it barely misses a beat to do it. It's an amazing bit of film making. It looks the part, it sounds the part, the characters are solid, everything is just spot on.

Much, much better than Force Awakens. The loose and floppy storytelling of Force Awakens is nowhere near this. Everything makes sense, everything is neat and tidy and wrapped up.

If you're like me and you feel a bit like you've been waiting for a big, proper, Star Wars movie your entire life that could really justify your love for the series, this is the one.

Anybody else seen it yet?
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So... would you say this is A Good Star Wars Movie or A Good Movie that's only incidentally a Star Wars movie?

Maybe it's just me, but I've grown to expect some measure of cheesiness and badness with my "ideal" SW.
Dogfish
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I think it's both. It's certainly not a movie you have to love Star Wars to enjoy. It's a better movie than any of the others just on its own merits I think, but I also think it's very much one for the fans. Less so for kids though, it's a war movie, so I would argue it's no more for small children than something like The Longest Day would be (modern war movies tend to be gorier, its not got that, it's more akin to a classic from the 60s or 70s).
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I liked Rogue One just fine but prefer The Force Awakens.

As you say the ending was masterful from the moment the team commandeers the ship and calls it Rogue One to the end- superb stuff! As you say it dovetails expertly into Episode 4 with lots of nice little touches along the way- and that Vader battle was the stuff of legend! I also liked Ben Mendelsohn as the villain and thought the CG resurrection of Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin and the younger Princess Leia were master strokes in VFX history.

That all being said, I had concerns with it from a story standpoint and not just because it was "dark" (which I still don't think is quite the right word for it tbh). As much as Episode 7 meandered, this one was all over the place for me at the start too, only more so. It doesn't truly start until they steal that ship for me. Also, Forest Whitaker' character was set up to be so much more than he ended up being and I found it hard connecting with any of the characters as well as I did with the new ones in The Force Awakens, even K2SO. It just felt very obvious about halfway through that they were going to be left for dead and I didn't need to care for them in the end. To this point, I wanted more emotional drama between Jyn and her father as setting him up as a good man from the start took away any turmoil she might have endured in tracking him down. I would have loved to have her doubt his character/hate him only to realize in the end that he laid that brilliant flaw in the plans for the Death Star that rendered it destructible. And not only that but that he did it for her when she uncovers that the key to unlocking the plans is his nickname for her, a name she hasn't thought of in years until her father breathes it with his dying breath- Stardust.

All to say, I thought Rogue One was fine. But it's no better than The Force Awakens. They both have their positives and negatives to me and I just happen to like the positives of The Force Awakens more.
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Abductorenmadrid
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I have mixed feelings over Rogue One but the balance comes out as mostly positive. I hope that the reception Rogue One gets encourages the powers that be to go on to cherry pick at other interesting stories we know exist along side the main Star Wars films.

From the technical side ....the film has a Force Awakens look - a "real" look, the fake CGI feel of the EP I-III prequels has been stomped out. My only niggle is that I think they pushed the envelope a little too much regarding digital work bringing Tarkin to life. Had they kept his shots to mid and longer ranges they would have sold me more on his actual presence but the closer shots were too ambitious I think. Leia for a brief moment of closeup worked for me.

Musically - I dont know what the brief was to Micheal Giaccchino but the deal is this ... the music backdrop certainly says "Star Wars" but Ive come out of the cinema and I cant hum anything from Rogue One. I remember remembering as a kid all the little flourishes from Star Wars - the storm trooper theme - "The Force" - Luke's little theme - Leia's - the Tie Fighter attack on the Falcon as they flee the deathstar - the strained strings as Luke closes in on the exhaust port and the drums beating their warning as primary ignition commenced. God - The Throne Room - Iconic stuff !! So, sigh, the soundtrack for this has left me a little uninspired. I feel I have little way of recreating the magic of seeing the film like listening to the OST for A New Hope does for that film.

Story wise I'm happy - it was a little twisty to start but once settled was ok. There were nice crossovers that hinted at Episode IV and of course the ending ensured a sensible continuity. It didn't seem to me that anything got damaged or broken when it came to the treatment of the overall Star Wars world, this is a film I would happily recommend including in a playlist of star wars films.

Notable Mention - VADER! Oh god - he's as bad ass as ever ! Forget the lame Lucas "Nooooooooo" revision bullshit this is Vader set to Empire Strikes Back levels. His appearances are short but well measured and when he is there .... :gulp:

As a film this is an eighty-percent'er - not stellar but certainly a contributor and not a detractor to the Galaxy.
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WARNING! SPOILERS!

CGI Tarkin was BAAAAAAD! In his first appearance in R1, he was facing a window. His silhouette was recognizable by the reflection. Upon seeing that I thought; 'what a PERFECT way to use "him" in this film!' Then he turned around, started talking and the audience was magically transported to the lounge car on the POLAR EXPRESS! >:(

The brief CGI Leia would have worked if we hadn't had to endure SOOOO much of the 'Jim Carrey in the animated re-make of SCROOGE' version of Tarkin!

Don't get me wrong. I LIKED this movie! THOSE were my ONLY gripes!

The BEST part was VADER! I LOVED how EVERYONE cowered in HIS presence! The final scene with VADER slaying trembling rebels was total SITH GLORY! Time for a 'Chronicles of VADER' stand alone film, (as long as Disney doesn't mind a spinoff outselling the 'new' originals!)

8.5 out of 10!
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Mr. X
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I didn't get the uncanny valley thing with Grandma Tarkin. Why bother other than to prove some tech. Instead just find an actor that looks like Peter Cushing and have him do the part. Its not like people will freak. Same with Princess Leia. Just get a girl who looks like a young Carry Fisher. I'm sure Hollywood is filled with girls like that. Or just not have the characters in the movie. It didn't need Grandma tarkin or the princess. And in this day and age Vadar seems like that quirky guy who dresses up like Batman and walks around cosplaying. It just doesn't fit in a dark movie. The whole movie really didn't make any sense since any espionage would have been cyber. If there are bizillion construction workers making the death star the plans have got to be all over the place. One bribe and a hacked terminal and they are done. Or grab a worker droid and download the plans there. What is it they are looking for? An off switch in a closet somewhere?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agcRwGDKulw
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See I didn't mind Tarkin being a bit off, but then I've been so burned by the terrible CGI everythings over the years in various sci fi movies that one weird looking guy can't ruin a movie for me. Could have been Roger Rabbit for all I care. Plus I think the whole internal struggle for control of the Death Star, and the credit for implementing it, was an interesting sub plot. Everybody in the Empire basically exploiting each other to get the credit and to get the power, and ultimately, as we know, everybody loses. Whereas the Rebels, who trust each other and who help each other eventually win, even in death. That's the sort of moral-of-the-story that I can get behind.

It's why I don't get a lot of the criticism about the movie lacking characters or not feeling Star Warsy, it's Star Warsy as fuck, and sure the characters aren't detailed, there's not exposition and backstory, but I don't need that, I don't think most viewers do, I think it's something we've come to expect from overlong movies, or needless trilogies, or expanded universes. That's not cinema, cinema is efficient, cinema is poetry. If you can't explain a character in a single shot or a line of dialogue you've no business making movies in my opinion.

I think Vader was great in it too because he is weird. He's a weird guy who lives in a fishtank and everybody's scared of him but they also want to impress him because he's the Alpha Dog.

Regarding how they get the plans, it's important to remember how fast events happen in the movie. The rebels go from finding out the Death Star exists to destroying it in a matter of days. I've heard that the timeline for A New Hope is about six days. Excluding flashbacks I think Rogue One is maybe even less, depending on transit times? So it's not like there's time for a masterplan and some proper heisting. Everybody is making it up as they go along.
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Mr. X
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Yeah not knowing about the death star as a rebel group only days before is pretty absurd to me. Its the size of a small moon. That's not something you just build in a garage somewhere. Things aren't magically built. It takes resources, man power, finances etc. That would be like the US military building a giant aircraft carrier and no one noticing a 100 bil hole in the budget. Or like in Star Gate them building warp capable battle ships and no one notices or leaks the info. If anything there would be at least one guy trying to make a buck selling info. That's some pretty crappy rebel-ing right there.
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Mr. X wrote:Yeah not knowing about the death star as a rebel group only days before is pretty absurd to me. Its the size of a small moon. That's not something you just build in a garage somewhere. Things aren't magically built. It takes resources, man power, finances etc. That would be like the US military building a giant aircraft carrier and no one noticing a 100 bil hole in the budget. Or like in Star Gate them building warp capable battle ships and no one notices or leaks the info. If anything there would be at least one guy trying to make a buck selling info. That's some pretty crappy rebel-ing right there.
Space is really big. Really, really, really, really big. You can hide something the size of a moon almost anywhere. Can you finagle the resources, manpower and expertise to build it without getting discovered? Well, it turns out, not quite, as evidenced by the fact that the information was leaked.

The closest thing to an historical precedent would be the Manhattan Project. Thousands of workers, billions of dollars (back in old timey times when dollars were bigger), many of the great scientific minds of the USA committed to the same task for years. An absolutely huge undertaking of biblical proportions carried out in secret yet during wartime, when plenty of people would be looking to find out about this kind of thing. And you know what the Japanese, Germans and Soviets said when the first atom bomb was dropped? "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?"

So, yeah, I can buy the idea of building a Death Star in secret. I'm a lot less convinced by the Super-Mega-Force-Awakens-Awesome-Multi-Ball Star from Force Awakens than I am by the original Death Star. That one really was silly.
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Mr. X
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Manhattan project wasn't that big. Neither was the SR71. And the Russians and Japanese and Germans all knew about it. Heck they all had their own nuclear research. SR71 was a very small project.

"And you know what the Japanese, Germans and Soviets said when the first atom bomb was dropped?"
No they had their own projects as well. Nuclear fission wasn't unknown to them. Germans were acquiring yellow cake. Even the Japanese had research into making a nuclear bomb. And its not like you can cover up a detonation in the desert.

We can quibble about it but I find it difficult to believe something that size with literally millions of workers wouldn't get leaked somewhere. Its the empire that built this not the original corporate alliance that planned it. They had to go through the senate at some point for finances. Heck I remember back in the 2000s some model company had made a model of the new secret US fighter that no one was supposed to know about and they got it 90% right.
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It's not that hard. The Empire controls the galaxy, that includes all of the Star Wars universe's hyperspace routes. All they'd have to do is map out a new system and not inform anyone but the construction crew about it, then start construction there. It's certainly probable the Rebel's would realize some big 'project' was occurring somewhere where they couldn't observe, but certainly not at all difficult to imagine that the scope of the thing was beyond their imaginations, or that the empire could not have invented a convincing enough cover story for the movement of those resources that perhaps, with their limited resources and galactic presence, the rebels decided to ignore in favor of factors they had a better grasp on.

And yes, I'm aware that it's 'the future' (Or rather the distant past of a seemingly significantly more advance galaxy) and that 'the interwebz' and 'cyber' information should travel speedier... but this IS still Star Wars we're talking about. This is Science Fantasy, not Science Fiction. There have always been technological quirks that don't always add up to perfect logic in Star Wars. Light Swords to battle slow inaccurate light blasts sure, why not fire a swift and accurate projectile instead? Why has the state of technology basically remained the same for seventy years? Why do droids have to plug into everything instead of getting information via wireless access... or wait does that mean there isn't an Interwebs? Maybe internet can't travel fat enough through space to make it anything more than a planetary scale tool? These are 'logical' questions from a science-fiction point of view, but don't necessarily translate to Star Wars more 'swords and sorcery mingled into futuristic space fiction' themes where the story, characters and emotion matter far more than the facts. We can still go and watch all but the last fifteen minutes of 'Interstellar' if we want to watch a film about the physics of space.
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I see it as like the Brits building Mulberry in WW2 . TWO FULL SIZE HARBOURS FFS! The Germans knew something was up, but in a war something always is. They had photographed the individual concrete casements in Scotland but had no idea what they were as the concept was literally inconceivable to them.


Britain rules when it comes to crazy ideas that might just work.
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[Dogfish wrote:"Everybody in the Empire basically exploiting each other to get the credit and to get the power, and ultimately, as we know, everybody loses. Whereas the Rebels, who trust each other and who help each other eventually win, even in death. That's the sort of moral-of-the-story that I can get behind."]

- I hadn't thought of that particular dynamic within the respective adversaries. GREAT POINT! Much can be said for that type of unity in ANY organization! THANKS!
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