Star Wars: Rogue One (2016)

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

If that's what you took from that, I must have used words I didnt know the real definitions to.

[Calliander]

One thing I can't fucking stand about debating shit with people is everything has to be pushed to extremes.
"oh man, this movie was great"
"it was pretty good, but there were a few story elements that didnt make sense and the cg was awful in spots."
"wtf you asshole, you expect Steinbeck out of a Star War! Turn off your brain and enjoy the ride!"

You're absolutely right here. There's one thing you missed, which is sort of a "from the other side..." thing.

If Vader looks ridic, it should be ok to say so.

It should. He didn't look ridic. He looked fine. Also, the CG wasn't awful in spots. Does it suffer from the typical "no consequence combat" crap? Yes. And they should have recast Tarkin but it didn't ruin it for me. If the way he looked pulled people out of the film then it pulled them out of the film. But those are some high-ass standards for really any film.

The thing you missed is that, inevitably, someone will be like, "YOU'RE STUPID IF YOU THINK VADER LOOKED GOOD. LOOK AT THIS." And a still frame won't look significantly different enough, let alone a moving image. Two way street. (Yes, I've already seen the Vader comparison images. I don't notice a difference.)

If an element of the movie seems to exist for no other reason that fan service and the fact that it exists pulls the viewer out of the film- that's a valid criticism.

Exactly. Rather than put Artoo and Threepio directly in the frame and making a dumb comment, they should have been in the background of a scene, blurred. Like, pan across the hanger and then maybe the faintest hint of Threepio complaining, and you can see him gesticulating in the background as he annoys some random rebel.

Additionally, Tarkin didn't even need to show up until the end, if at all. He could be mentioned in fear/awe/etc. and it would still work - plus, Leia's, "Governor Tarkin..." line in E4 would play off that really well. However, I was reading an article where someone was like, if he's going to be in a few scenes, have him communicate via hologram like everyone else. I liked that idea.

[YellerDog]

If that's what you took from that, I must have used words I didnt know the real definitions to.

That last bit was more to Robot Bit Me than you.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

[Cowutopia]

Jeez sorry I struck a nerve.

Is it derivative? Yeah, as a genre movie and as a Star Wars franchise entry.

I mean, the whole movie is essentially flavor text, but it's good instead of prequel shitty.

The cool thing with the original was how it captured everyone's imagination by giving us a framework to dream up our own stories. Now we have decades of everyone's stories inhabiting the space, realized by lots of different people. All the stories are going to be of a different breed than the original.

In this era of long franchises inhabiting story archetypes this was a good space war movie with a great performance and character by Alan tudyk and strong performances by everyone else. Forest whittaker's character was a bit over the top and obvious but it was still cool in a comic book way. I guess by that I mean cool by the standards I would use as a teen.

It's a different kind of suspension of disbelief we need to bring to the movies for these kinds of blockbusters. A kin where you can ignore all the big budget Disney corporate motivations and processes and just appreciate the talents of a bunch of people doing something fun and doing it well.

This is the kind of movie I wish ep 1 had been. The writing and acting was better than nearly half of the oeuvre, it was real pretty and real entertaining, though the cg dudes really were awkward.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

I guess I should stick to passive aggressive one liners too, instead of trying to actually talk about anything.

[Cowutopia]

Sorry I was working on a response.

Being cynical won't allow for the enjoyment of any of these movies past episode 4 when it was already a toy selling machine.

The prequels shat on the source material and a lot of the eu material and this one does a lot of justice to that stuff instead. I couldn't be happier.

The line between tv writing and movie writing is getting real blurry now and a lot of times this feels like a good tv show with a big budget trimmed to movie length.

[kingoffighters]

I don't have problem with the prequels, other than that they are boring. Who really cares about political machinations when you watch sci-fi pew pew pew?

[bbobb]

Exactly. Rather than put Artoo and Threepio directly in the frame and making a dumb comment, they should have been in the background of a scene, blurred. Like, pan across the hanger and then maybe the faintest hint of Threepio complaining, and you can see him gesticulating in the background as he annoys some random rebel.

Additionally, Tarkin didn't even need to show up until the end, if at all. He could be mentioned in fear/awe/etc. and it would still work - plus, Leia's, "Governor Tarkin..." line in E4 would play off that really well. However, I was reading an article where someone was like, if he's going to be in a few scenes, have him communicate via hologram like everyone else. I liked that idea.

Yep. This is my problem with the movie. There was no point to that scene, or to the fucking cantina guys showing up, or going to Vader palace, or for pretty much any Tarkin. It was just too much fucking horrible fan service that did nothing for the plot.

Vader should have shown up right at the end when that door opens and you see the smoke and then the breathing. That would have been the best reveal and would actually serve the plot while getting a huge pop. They could have cut all that shit and actually given the one General dude some actual development as a villain and it would have been great.

[sleeve]

I would like to see a cut of this movie that is just 80 minutes of solid Star Wars flavored heist hijinx.

The new characters were by and large, really great. Jyn and Galen Erso, the Imperial droid, the nebbishy Imperial pilot, and Forest Whitaker's drug-addicted psycho rebel were the best characters IMO. Diego Luna's conflicted Rebel captain and the monk and the blaster guy were also good, but I think they were a tier below.

I'd really like to know what the reshoots added to this movie. I'm guessing that they added the space battles, the weird scenes with Vader and Tarkin and Leia, and amped up the battles on the ground toward the end. I confess, I really did love the ground and space battles much, much more than I loved them in The Force Awakens. It felt like they were really paying MUCH more attention to established Star Wars physics in this movie (e.g. Y-wings disabling AT-ATs and Star Destroyers, and no TIE fighters flying in-atmosphere).

But the endless call backs and references really did distract from the emotional center of the film. Perhaps more of those rewrites could have been spent boosting the relationships between the characters. Or building up Forest Whitaker's character, who I would have loved to see more of.