Star Wars: ROGUE ONE December 16, 2016

[Gwangi]

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

The Oscar-winning composer only had four and a half weeks to write the score.

[Ultraseven]

[Dai]

I was concerned by the talk of extensive re-shoots for this movie, but thankfully it hasn't been turned into a fashionable witty banter action adventure; Rogue One is almost 100% the war movie we were told to expect. It doesn't get off to a good start, with an opening scene packed with tired tropes, but once the pace starts to pick up it just gets better and better. The cast turn in generally strong performances, though the main villain is a disappointment, being a bit hammy in his delivery and not terribly interesting. The characters aren't a loveable bunch like Episode VII's, but they aren't meant to be; they have an edge, but it's not edginess for its own sake. Humour is--appropriately for this story--thin on the ground, but there are a few good laughs to be had. On the whole I thought it was great, and a good change of pace after last year's excellent (but overly conservative) entry. Gareth Edwards is proving to be a consistently reliable director on most fronts.

I'm glad that Disney didn't de-claw it in the editing suite, but it's clear that significant changes were made. I can't remember any movie diverging so far from its trailers, even Godzilla 2014, which did so quite a bit. Almost none of the dialogue from the first two trailers (the only ones I watched) is in the movie, several of the most iconic shots are missing, Jyn is generally less snarky, and certain scenes play out differently. If you're the type who goes through a first viewing mentally ticking off shots from the trailer, this may prove an odd experience, almost like an alternate universe take on the same story.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW

[Dr Kain]

The sequels to the prequels that is a prequel to the originals is here at long last. Is this first stand alone story worth the wait or did Jar Jar Binks sink his tongue into this one Watch to find out.

[mr.negativity]

SPOILERS

BMD:

And why their absence doesn't really matter.

[Henry88]

[Dr Kain]

[mr.negativity]

[Dai]

[mr.negativity]

[Rodanex]

Overall, I really liked it, but I thought there were a touch too many fan-service moments. However, when this movie is doing its own thing, creating original moments with new characters in the familiar Star Wars univers, it's damn good.

[canofhumdingers]

I really liked it. The story was quite good and does an excellent job fleshing out the original film's opening crawl. I feel like the opening scenes of ANH will have so much more weight the next time I see them. It's not perfect though. I think this film suffers the same major flaw that all Gareth Edwards films I've seen suffer from: bland, unlikeable, joyless main characters. But the rest of the film makes up for that huge problem enough so that I came out of the theater quite happy and eager to see it again asap!

Random thoughts:


Lots more to say, but I think that's a good start

Ultimately, the more I think about it, the more I love what this film does and how it does it. The one thing really holding it back from reaching its full potential is Edward's continuing inability to create engaging characters that illicit any real emotional reaction or investment from the audience.

[Dr Kain]

Okay seeing it for the second time fixed nearly every issue I had with the first half hour of the movie. My only complaint now is in its music, which still wasn't bad, it's just that the dude who did it tried to copy John Williams instead of doing his own thing. Why not just get John Williams to score the movie instead of a copycat? Nevertheless, this definitely is the second best Star Wars movie ever. This is what Lucas should have done with Return of the Jedi as far as tone goes.

[Dr Kain]

[canofhumdingers]

I agree that K2SO and Chirrut Imwe were probably the two best characters in the movie, but that doesn't speak too highly of the quality of the characters in the film, IMO. Because, while those two were the best, they still were only decent. They didn't achieve the engaging likability of someone like Rey, Finn, or Poe from The Force Awakens. I will concede that this film has the best characters I've seen from an Edwards film, and he's gotten a little better with each one (the characters in Monsters SUCKED, in Godzilla they were either terribly bland, or incredibly poorly utilized, and here they were just generally kinda bland) but he still has a long way to go still to actually making truly GOOD characters.

[O.Supreme]

Loved the film. Really well done.

There were quite a few nice callbacks to other films I caught, but I'm sure I missed some. I'll probably see this one again in the theater before it's Blu Ray Release. One thing I will say, after seeing this...it would have been the perfect realization of an EU novel. It still just saddens/frustrates me that because of Disney, we'll never get a film of this caliber for much of what they have removed from canon and deemed "Legends"

Also the reference, while not shown, of the Death Star traveling through hyperspace to me raised an eyebrow. In the original film we see it only cruising at sub light speed. I mean I know to travel between planetary systems within a reasonable time frame I'm sure it had to have some sort of propulsion, but since we had never seen it, I guess I just never thought about it. I mean yes I know Star Wars is fantasy, not physics, but how do you even explain something like that

[Dr Kain]

[canofhumdingers]

[Dr Kain]

[canofhumdingers]

And yet, with only beeps and whistles (or maybe because of them), R2 is a more rounded, complete, emotive, and engaging character than K2. Don't get me wrong, I liked K2 a whole lot. But he's kinda a one trick pony and doesn't hold a candle to the awesome, far more fleshed out character of R2...

I'm really looking forward to hopefully seeing this again sometime over the next 2 or 3 days. I think Chirrut and Baze will probably emerge as the standout characters for me. Their role as protective force sensitive monks and the implications that has on the force, the Jedi, and all that is really intriguing. And the film's finale is worth the price of admission alone!

[Dr Kain]

[canofhumdingers]

Eh, I'd say that based soley on his appearance in ANH, but yes, his other appearances certainly help secure it.