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Rogue One (with SPOILERS)
First of all, the big thing that I alluded to before; the Tarkin/Leia CGI choice. When they come up behind Tarkin and you hear him and see his reflection, that was awesome. I was thinking what a great way to include his character in there a little bit, and whether they had a stand-in or used CGI or whatever didn't matter. But then he turns around and starts talking... and he's a fucking Polar Express character. Okay, I'm exaggerating. It *almost* looked real. But it didn't look real, and that was such a kick in the nuts. And then they bring him back a few other times. Oy. And then Leia at the end! Awful. And totally unnecessary. We could have seen the back of her, she takes the plans, boom, we're out. But really, why not just recast Tarkin? Peter Cushing was wonderful, but I don't think his particular image needs to be tied to that character. Imagine the guy who plays Tywin Lannister in that role... pretty darn close in looks, and the performance would have been solid.
Vader's scenes were great, especially at the end with him cutting through everyone. Within the canon that almost felt like a bit much, as he doesn't really do anything quite that viscerally nasty in 4-6, though I think we always assumed he could. Regardless, it was fun to see. But for me, the first scene with Vader was better not for Vader but for the performance and reaction of Krennic. He was in our place, there, and it felt as intimidating as it should. The first shadowed glimpse of Vader in costume was very cool.
The trailers displayed some wonderful cinematography, and there definitely was a fair amount in the film, but also not used as effectively as I'd hoped. Compared to shots in TFA like the crashed star destroyer on Jakku, nothing visually had that kind of scope or impact. Still, some of the action shots were very effective, like the AT-ATs on the island and the star destroyers crashing into each other.
Donnie Yen's martial arts were fun to see in a Star Wars film, but I'm not sure if it added anything more than "hey, let's do some martial arts in a Star Wars film." His character was good, and as I said before, the robot is great as some comic relief, but otherwise the characters are pretty bland, especially compared to Rey and Finn from TFA. Someone on Reddit replied to my comments about that and said that the Force Awakens characters had to be more memorable and interesting because they are leading a trilogy, whereas we knew everyone would be killed off in Rogue One. I say bullshit... I still need a memorable character in any film, even if I know they'll die. Much as I enjoyed looking at Felicity Jones any time she was on screen, I didn't get much of a character from Jyn Erso other than pissed off and determined. And they didn't even use a clip from the trailer that I liked, where they are listing her crimes and she responds with, "This is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel." Good line for her character. Not in the final film, though.
The pacing of this felt off or weak. The first act took quite a while to get going, the second act was okay but kind of labored a bit at that scene at the outpost facility, and the third act was generally really great. And it's good to have the third act be the best, except that by the time it even got to the second and third acts, it felt a little bit dull going in. That concluding sequence on the island base was really great, though.
More later.
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I'm not sure how I feel about the characterization. In one sense, this movie had a lot harder job than TFA because it's introducing an almost entirely new cast; and TFA had the benefit not only of familiarity but also having more archetypal characters. On the other hand, the getting-the-team-together trope is a pretty well-worn one, and Rogue One could probably have nailed it a little better. I didn't expect depth, but even by those standards things were a bit sketched in. Rey certainly felt to me more three-dimensional and memorable.
My wife had the exact same reaction on the CG characters. They should've recast Tarkin and given us just a from-the-back shot of Leia. I wouldn't object to a "special edition" that did the latter. (Of course, I'm still waiting for a TFA special edition where Leia at least acknowledges Chewie after Han's death.)
Visually, Rogue One seems head-and-shoulders above TFA to me. There are some memorable bits in TFA for sure, and it's by no means ugly, but TFA for the most part seems to stick to fairly conventional visuals shot in predictably Star Wars ways. Rogue One felt like a much more contemporary film to me in its sensibilities.
I wasn't as ecstatic after Rogue One as I was after TFA, but credit is due for trying something new-ish, which, for all its merits, TFA barely does. Rogue One is no soft reboot, and it also shows how prequels can work.
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I think it's hard to overstate how much better a prequel this movie is than Episodes I-III. I think the fact that Rogue One is a single film is a big, structural part of that, since both films/series are, in a sense, only filling in gaps. But it's more than that. Episodes I-III were basically just a (much weaker) recapitulation of the same story as that of Episodes IV-VI, whereas Rogue One showed something different with different kinds of people filling different kinds of roles in different situations. Rogue One's nods to continuity were also much cleverer. The inclusion of Smits's Bain Organa stands out to me in this respect. It was, I thought, a nice acknowledgment of the "original" prequels without being heavy-handed. In Episodes I-III, by contrast, we're constantly being reminded of who or what so-and-so/such-and-such is in relation to much superior movies--a conscious but nevertheless deadening product of Lucas's often-mocked belief in the desirability of the two series "rhyming" like poetry (which itself may just have been a justification for rushed, lazy writing and rustiness as a filmmaker).. Moreover, whereas Episodes I-III created a lot of continuity issues with IV-VI, I felt like Rogue One meshed a lot better. Without really needing to, it neatly explains, in a nondisruptive way, why the "Rebel fleet" in Episode IV seems to consist entirely of a few squads of X-wings.
I really also liked in Rogue One how the Force could be a part of the movie without the Jedi. Having a "Force-sensitive" character or characters (to borrow an RPG concept) meant that we could preserve a central idea in a way that respected the narrative situation and without hammering on the idea. Largely of necessity, and because it's a different kind of film at a different narrative spot, even Abrams's TFA is rather obsessed with the lightsaber (though surely not as much as Lucas was in the prequel trilogy). The one time you see one here reminds you of how cool they can be, and how intimidating, when they're not omnipresent and used like magic wands.
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- ChristopherMD
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I thought the CG characters were well done and if I didn't know better I probably wouldn't have noticed. But since I know that's not really 1977 Peter Cushing my mind wants to look for the flaws. Not perfect but definitely well done and after next week I'll only rewatch this movie on my TV where the flaws won't be as noticeable as in a giant theater screen. Then again I am an optimist. Also I wouldn't kick CG Leia out of bed.
Vader felt tacked on but I loved seeing him so that's okay. I thought all of the new characters were good and overall the movie did feel like it expanded the galaxy beyond the Skywalker family.
I'm going to see it again with a friend next week and looking forward to it.
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The weird thing that keeps jumping out at me is that when people list the easter eggs in the movie, no one has mentioned my favourite one that made me gasp when I saw it: the wooden version of Dejarik (the holographic chess on the Millennium Falcon) that some guys are playing in the background.
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- hotseatgames
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Even as a war movie, I failed to see any semblance of combat tactics. I mean... shooting at an AT AT when you're in a totally open beach? It's cool as hell, but the later part of the movie (the BEST part) falls apart to me when:
1. Rebels are killed, but there always seems to be more of them (I REALLY hated this kind of stuff back then in Age of Ultron).
2. The Master Switch. FREAKING master switch. And the one who knows about this is a cargo hauler.
I totally cheered when the rebel armada warped in though. Rogue One is Star Wars Porn (with very long and boring foreplay). If you ever thought you want more battles and dogfight in a Star Wars movie, this is it. I also like how the rebellion is depicted in Jedha (I almost cried mujahedin! if I hadn't remember 90% of the people in the theatre are probably moslems).
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- Michael Barnes
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Even though I am firmly in the "SW is for kids" camp, I did like how the movie played out quite a bit like some of the more serious episodes of Clone Wars, where motives and morals are in question. The Rebellion is an insurgency, and they are shown using some very real-world insurgent tactics...and justifying them afterwords. That was really pretty daring stuff for a high profile, mainstream SW movie, that kind of material has traditionally been off in the EU or more fan-facing content.
The biggest problem I thought, as mentioned here, was that the pacing and characterization wasn't the best. It was slow to get rolling and the connectivity between characters was sort of sloppy. The writing and directing wasn't on par with something like The Dirty Dozen where you get a solid sense of character and motivation from little screen time. Jyn was cool, but cutting her million dollar line from the trailer was just a tragic mistake. I liked all of the characters (especially Chirrut) and all were really quite different than the usual SW characters at least as far as the films go. But no one "popped", really, and only Chirrut really had a moment- shooting down a TIE fighter with a fucking bow ranks as one of the coolest things in SW ever.
But from Scarif on, it was exhilarating and I am able to forgive all the bits where it get saggy or the structure wasn't really doing the script any favors.
Fan notes:
- HOLY SHIT, Vader. That scene at the end was terrifying! I actually really liked how brutal and horrorfying it was- it was a reminder that this isn't Hayden Christensen or some dying old man who is suddenly sorry for being such a heel. It is motherfucking LORD VADER. I couldn't breathe during that scene. Also loved how it went right to the Tantive IV.
- Vader's Castle- HELL YES, at last.
- CGI characters- my wife didn't realize they weren't real. I thought they were quite convincing but the Peter Cushing was just a little too animated- he was such a great, subtle actor and they didn't quite capture that.
Doesn't help that he was on the screen long enough for me to notice.
- Great to see the Ghost on the tarmac in Yavin IV as well as other references to Rebels.
- Red 5- ha ha!
- Hammerhead Corvette- I'll take two please when they hit Armada. What an awesome scene.
- What a fumble that Chirrut didn't disappear when he died...what a powerful scene that would have been if had been "rewarded" by the Force for keeping the faith, so to speak.
- Jyn reading off the names of other Imperial projects...exactly that, an ellipsis...
- U wings are great- a kind of ship we've not really seen yet. More like a Huey or something, really
- The Khyber crystal thing was interesting...does it mean that the Death Star beam is a big ol' light saber?
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The problem with Tarkin is that there was too much of him and too close up. If they'd just stuck with the opening scene where his face is reflected, that would have been enough - you've created another tie from this movie to Star Wars. And, you could have some other manner of providing the exposition re his relationship with Krennic if it was that important. As it was, the more you saw his face, the more "off" it seemed. It's not terrible, but it did take me out of the movie. I joked afterward that the actor who played Tarkin appeared in another Disney movie this year. He played the BFG.
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- Michael Barnes
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"Negative TK-464- I need more time for my cape to billow as we approach."
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Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: During the first half of the film I was just not sure about it, and was thinking that I needed to watch it a second time to appreciate it and decide whether I liked it or not. But then the final third happened and that is possibly the best thing ever in the star wars movie, up there with the Hoth battle.
The weird thing that keeps jumping out at me is that when people list the easter eggs in the movie, no one has mentioned my favourite one that made me gasp when I saw it: the wooden version of Dejarik (the holographic chess on the Millennium Falcon) that some guys are playing in the background.
I liked the cameo from the disfigured thug who bullied Luke in the Mos Eisely cantina.
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- Michael Barnes
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The C3PO/R2D2 cameo wasn't quite as successful because of that really powerful moment that they had in TFA.
Interesting note- this is the first SW film to have things from ALL canonical SW films and shows. I kept thinking "if Asohka shows up, I'm going to stand up and scream"
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Also, NO Bothan spies died! Total letdown. I was expecting complete Bothan carnage.
Over it was okay. Agree with the criticisms of the shaky plot and the flat characterizations. Things felt rushed, going from one set piece to another without giving the story or the characters time to breathe.
The CGI of Tarkin and Leia didn't bother me.
The last third was really good. At first I was a bit shocked when everyone started dying, but of course that's the only way you can do it. You can't introduce all these heroes and then have them conspicuously absent then rest of the movies.
Anyway, solid 7.
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