Rogue One: A Star Wars Story <Spoilers>

[Squee]

Did no one else watch this yet? Holy shit.

 

The first quarter of the film I was a bit skeptical. Then I started to warm up to it. The third quarter I was like ok this is quite good, and then the last quarter just grand slammed it out of the park.

 

I won't go into spoilers, but damn, this turned out epic, imo.

Yeah, I thought it was good. Not as good as TFA but super entertaining and everyone did a pretty good job - eeeeexcrpt for that new Han Solo guy. I don't know if it was his accent or what but he annoyed the shit out of me.

 

 

And oh gawd cgi burn victim Leia! Why?!

 

 

But apart from that it was solid

[chim]

Miles better than TFA. Last act was Empire-levels of Star Wars greatness.

[Hail Sagan]

this was sooooo bad. weirdest pacing i've ever seen. every scene is thirty seconds long. no attempt to build the characters or the team as a whole, instead compartmentalizing each character off in a pair so when the final battle happens there's no sense of unity. forest whitaker doing his best frank from blue velvet before he gets incinerated on a planet that definitely isn't tatooine (how many desert planets are there in star wars where main characters happen to live?). extremely creepy cgi peter cushing. random cameos of various original trilogy characters to fill some imaginary quota that i guess some redditor will make a cool video about explaining all the references for true fans. "badass" vader going apeshit in the last minute of the film (pretty lol) followed immediately by horrendous cgi carrie fisher saying the cheesiest line in the movie, which is a feat in a movie filled with horrible dialogue. no sense of impending doom or peril despite the entire movie hinging on that for it to work. seriously this was on the same level as revenge of the sith but faggot star wars nerds are going to say it's a classic. might as well drip feed diarrhea into my bloodstream.

 

 

lol. I hate to admit but as far as criticism goes this is pretty legit, though I wasn't driven to the brink of madness as it appears you were. The dialogue was pretty fucking atrocious at times, especially that Vader line. Yuck. And the uncanny valley shit going on with that old, evil Tywin Lannister looking' motherfucker from the original trilogy and princess Leia was probably the most irritating part of the movie for me. At least they tried I guess, the technology is getting closer no doubt, but it still creeped me out big time and will be some time before it comes across as legit. Just get some other, younger actors that are somewhat similar in appearance. The C3P0 and R2D2 appearance was the most worthless cameo and line ever. Too many worlds and characters (new Battlefront DLC on the way?), not enough character development, etc.

 

I do however like the fact that the story was a little darker than usual and showed that heroics in battle are usually produced that are willing to sacrifice their lives to save others. I've never been a fan of Diego Luna as an actor but I liked his character in this film for whatever reason, and my favorite character overall had to be the repurposed imperial droid. The battles looked cool, which was a plus, but for fuck's sake PLEASE stop making every rebel character a +96 ATK invincible Tyson and Bruce Lee in their prime hybrid with special moves that rag doll storm troopers around like a professional MMA fighter in a room full of toddlers.  Please at least have some close quarters combat where the storm troopers pin someone in the mud and pummel someone or something, you know, perhaps make them seem like trained soldiers for once?

 

all that criticism aside, and there is a quite a bit of it, I still enjoyed it. Writing all of this it seems kind of inexplicable as to why I enjoyed it still but I did. Maybe it's just my sentimental attachment to the franchise, or the fact that I've been happy with everything based on the fact that it seems way better than Lucas' episodes I and II (III was decent). It's no Force Awakens (if you didn't enjoy that I'd advise to just avoid this one) but, on a personal level for whatever reason, it was still fun to watch. Just prepare yourself for some PG-13 Sci-Fi cheese going in.

[dr lopez]

this was real shit. bought a ticket for the 10:30 showing after leaving day for night wanting to be alone from hipsters and glowsticks. I hate 3D movies and this one made absolutely 0 attempt to even try to care about it except mess the color correction and make it worse while charging me more for it. Small private lol because my job largely centers around the frustration of transmitting architectural files, which was what this movie was actually about.... in space. a super dramatic plot!!

 

read keanu's review before seeing this and had an audible lol at the first time forest did the frank air thing. why was he in this movie? also audible lol at rubber dingy rapids musulman riz ahmed "I MUST GET TO JEDDAH." lol do they not think jeddah is already a place? alan tudyk horribly miscast as the annoying robot. is he doing an english accent? sort of? i just looked this up and he's from el paso. it's very bad and all his shitty clunkers fell even more flat. 

 

i do sorta believe there is a fun movie hidden in there.but with bad casting (the main girl was horrible) completely befuddling pacing and a bad script... well you've got yourself a bad movie.  that director should not be working in hollywood anymore. 

 

oh yeah and also the martial arts, koan repeating, ancient chinese secret, yah ok thirty minute asian character was some racist fucking bullshit

[Blir]

If this wasn't a Star Wars movie would everybody be raving about it as much? I'd say no. It's the definition of fan service.

[Guest Chesney]

I liked it, my hopes were not high though. Lots of bullshit that if you don't care to care so tenderly about any star wars film then you can let it wash over you like an enjoyable blanket of nostalgia. It is what it is. Not sure how legit anyone could make a star wars film and still be in keeping with the originals?

However the final few seconds did unravel any enjoyment and warm nostalgia I had and smashed it all into the ground. I could let go the Tarkin (they could have hidden that a little better I think, and kept it to a minimal) and some destroyer pans looked very modely. So yeah, ignore the above, i'm a walking contradiction.

[chim]

Of course the film is fan service. What's even the point of saying that? It's like saying Titanic wouldn't have been as good if it was set on some random, modern boat. Other than the bad CG characters and shaky first act, it's the first actually good Star Wars film since forever, it feels like a proper EU story and there's no walking and talking Mary Sues for miles. The fact that it provided an angle to the Death Star's vulnerability gave it a point as well, although I've seen a lot worse redundant sequels. The visuals were utterly amazing. Everything had a sense of weight and age.

 

Some of the critique is kinda valid but a lot is just dumb nitpicking. How is that Vader line any worse than "Apology accepted, captain Needa"?

[Perezvon]

I found the pacing very laborious, especially the first half. Jesus all these locations stuffed in a couple of minutes. Characters in general were also half-cooked. Can't say I ever cared for any of them, which made their death very anecdotal when they should have felt more like the end of Private Ryan at least, for example, on top of my head, if we're talking about war movies.

 

Speaking of war though, yeah the action was great. I also liked how the rebels were shown planning and doing shady shit as well. Movie was pretty too but kinda butchered by the fast editing.

[Blir]

Star Wars is not a biopic. Comparing it with Titanic is absurd.

 

I never said it was a bad film, it's just not the great film everybody is making it out to be. Maybe I shouldn't have said fan service either because of course it is. It is also a masterclass in playing to the widest audience possible, the movie just ticks all the boxes required to sell a film without actually having a good story or characters with arcs that you care about.

I feel like having some familiarity with how movies are made and sold these days has made it really frustrating for me to watch blockbuster movies anyway, but I really didn't give a solitary fuck about any of the characters. I can remember two names of original (ie non SW recurring) characters in it. Jyn and Krennic. Everybody else? Who knows. Who cares.

 

I don't think it's dumb nitpicking to want to care about the characters. I cared about Rey and Finn in VII and that was enough to make it an altogether superior film, while also being fanservice. It was clear (although obviously a little bit of a clone of Luke) that Rey is a lost soul, being dragged into bigger circumstances than she's necessarily ready for. Over the course of the film she grows into her destiny and finally accepts that there are larger things at play. Jyn though? She's a rogue who was abandoned as a kid... she sort of goes around a bit, sees a test of the Death Star and is now the new inspiration rebel hope all of a sudden. There's hardly any growth there, it just changes scene and she's different. They might as well have brought another actor in, called her Jyn and pretended like nothing changed.

 

The same goes for the rest of the group. Mexican guy, he starts off interesting with his darker edge, but then is just sort of there. I feel like they missed a trick there by having him

Not kill Mads Mikkelsen. That would have created some great tension with Jyn and him while they go about stealing the plans and having to somehow get along. Instead he changes his mind and says "Sometimes people change their minds." Okay then.

 

 

Ip Man did some kung fu to bring in the Chinese audience. Otherwise he's light comic relief and he mumbles that force mantra and does nothing else.

His mate did even less. Actually he had some development, he decided that the force might not be mumbo jumbo. Changed man.

 

Sarcastic comedy robot was in there for the kids. Actually he was more likable and human than a lot of the humans in the film, I was a bit sad when he carked it (spoiler alert: it's a suicide mission). I did chuckle at the off hand comment by one of the guards that his series is being retired. Nice touch.

 

Oh and the pilot! Again, like Mexican guy, he started off going somewhere interesting. He had his brain sucked by Forest Whitaker's slimy mate and seemed catatonic. Then somebody called him the pilot and he was back to normal so didn't need to do anything.

 

I don't mean to bang on, I just want to make it clear that there are reasons this film didn't work well for me and they were all down to not managing to emotionally invest in the characters or the action. The effects of course were excellent (uncanny valley aside), but all big budget films look excellent. It's par for the course now, I can't put that down as something that improves a movie. Sadly just seeing things from Star Wars isn't enough to make me think it's a great movie. Big robots on a tropical beach is kinda cool I guess? Not seen big robots there before, but it's all so hollow.

 

If you think that criticism is nitpicky or invalid then fair enough. I'm not trying to convince people it's objectively a bad film by any means. It's still better than Prometheus.

[Guest Chesney]

Not sure what story you're asking for though? The story is how the rebels get the plans, they did that. I guess your argument should be whether they should have bothered illustration that narrative at all?

The prequels were flimsy as shit and were only there to develop the dark side. There was three films to do this. And rightly so. Shame they were garbage but hey ho.

[Blir]

I'm asking for story within that framework. I know it's about stealing the plans, I'm fine with that. But they squandered the opportunity to go something interesting within that premise. That IMO is mostly down to the characters not being very good. I'm looking forward to finding out exactly what the film was supposed to be before all the reshoots, because it does seem like there are chunks missing in the film.

 

The story of The Usual Suspects is a heist that went wrong. That in itself isn't too interesting, but the characters and their motivations are what make that film interesting. Actually that's not too terrible a comparison, if you want to compare two films that feature a rag tag group of people thrown together, The Usual Suspects gets it right in all the ways that Rogue One doesn't.

 

The Usual Suspects isn't a biopic, either.

[dr lopez]

Some of the critique is kinda valid but a lot is just dumb nitpicking. How is that Vader line any worse than "Apology accepted, captain Needa"?

there are like a thousand reasons and they have to do with how films are a visual medium and not just lines in a book and if you don't understand this then all hope is lost

[Psychotronic]

I really hope they never do a Darth Bane movie.

[doublename]

[chim]

This is interesting because they acknowledge the difficulties with making a movie like this, while shooting it down for trying to be different. They obviously don't like the Star Wars universe. Their main gripes all revolve around it not being a four quadrant adventure movie, the reason I liked it so much. The fact that it didn't have a bunch of heroic, lovable, charming and witty characters made it more believable. Why would some random rag-tag splinter of the rebellion have all that? And God forbid a war movie doesn't have a sappy love story. It may not make for another character-driven mastodon like Usual Suspects, but it's fine for what it is, a good EU story, call it fan-film, fan-service, whatever you want. The fact that neither Lucas or JJ could really pull that off in recent years should tell spades.

[Blir]

Mate, you're talking about the same people that put out feature length reviews of the Star Wars films. They do like the Star Wars universe, passionately. Otherwise they wouldn't waste their time. Because you love the film doesn't mean other peoples views have no value.

[chim]

There's a difference between the films and the universe. Jay and the crew are competent film reviewers but like the guy in the hardhat says, they're not that interested in the expanded universe or tapping into its potential - because they don't think it has any. They're more interested in what makes a good film, like the original trilogy (and for some reason, TFA). I respect that opinion (so stop giving me crap about opining freely on this) but having grown up with expanded universe material, I think otherwise. I would gladly take a film set in the seedy underbelly of a place like Nar Shaddaa, without a mention of the Force, stormtroopers or whatever. Of course it would never be done right because it wouldn't sell or fit into Disney's vision or whatever. The current onslaught of crappy SW material that has lasted more than a decade has all but killed my interest in this franchise, but this film showed that some stuff could actually be done properly and rekindled my interest. Few people are more disgusted about the current plans of yearly SW films than I, and I walked in with no reason to like Rogue One, but I did. That doesn't make anyone's critique worthless. If you want to sit in the smug corner and talk about this character or that line being poorly written, go ahead.

[pyramidpanes]

[doublename]

lol

[Blir]

There's a difference between the films and the universe. Jay and the crew are competent film reviewers but like the guy in the hardhat says, they're not that interested in the expanded universe or tapping into its potential - because they don't think it has any. They're more interested in what makes a good film, like the original trilogy (and for some reason, TFA). I respect that opinion (so stop giving me crap about opining freely on this) but having grown up with expanded universe material, I think otherwise. I would gladly take a film set in the seedy underbelly of a place like Nar Shaddaa, without a mention of the Force, stormtroopers or whatever. Of course it would never be done right because it wouldn't sell or fit into Disney's vision or whatever. The current onslaught of crappy SW material that has lasted more than a decade has all but killed my interest in this franchise, but this film showed that some stuff could actually be done properly and rekindled my interest. Few people are more disgusted about the current plans of yearly SW films than I, and I walked in with no reason to like Rogue One, but I did. That doesn't make anyone's critique worthless. If you want to sit in the smug corner and talk about this character or that line being poorly written, go ahead.

 

Well I respect your opinion and think you're a lovely lad.

[dr lopez]

It just hurts when the mind runs wild with "sneak in and steal the plans" and this is what they came up with

[Rpeg]

Would have been more realistic had they argued over which protocol to transmit with leading to their deaths and a failed mission.

[caze]

[goDel]

He's got a Dennis Hopper thing going. Would have been cute if he had an oxygen tank like in Blue Velvet. ;D

[chenGOD]

Finally saw this. Very enjoyable. Great to see Vader let loose at the end and fuck some shit up.

 

Saw it in 3D and honestly didn't realize that Tarkin was CGI until I read that the day after. Leia on the other hand....

Anyways it's probably jumped the queue and is my third favourite Star Wars movie.