Wolfsheim posted:Has anyone pointed out yet that this movie ending like five minutes before ANH doesn't make sense? It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy.... ????????????????
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Dec 19, 2016 08:00
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Got back from it about an hour ago... I have to say that while I really wanted to like it going in, I just... didn't like it that much. The ending was really strong, as people have said, and K-2SO was fantastic, but the lead-up to that ending was pretty weak, the other characters fell varying degrees of flat for me, and there were some line reads that were just bad. Like, blind monk guy. He's an interesting character concept--someone who's force-sensitive, and aware of the force, but completely untrained. I can really appreciate that! But he (and heavy weapons guy whose characterization is meant to be "Used to be fervently devoted to the faith, lapsed in his faith, finds it again at the end of the movie"; this gets like two lines in the entire movie, and isn't really shown either). But his character doesn't get nearly enough time to breathe. He gets introduced, appears in a fight, has the jail cell scene for a bit of characterization, and from there he just gets sucked up alongside the main characters because plot until he gets his death scene. After the movie I can pick bits and pieces up and cobble them together into an interesting character, but that's just not possible to do while watching in a movie this packed with action. Fury was a movie with a very similar plot, and even a similar character (played by Shia LeBeouf, who does a pretty good job). But that movie has way more downtime before it builds up into its action scenes, and that lets you care so much more when its cast starts dying (and their deaths all had purpose as well). Regarding CGI Tarkin: I didn't know about Tarkin showing up going in, and didn't even realize it was meant to be Tarkin at first (because I hadn't been listening closely enough, not because it was bad), but my first reaction was "Wait, that guy can't possibly be real". It was GOOD CGI, and it was less obtrusive later on because they handled its presentation better, but it was still noticeable. Leia on the other hand showed up briefly enough and in favorable enough conditions that I didn't realize it wasn't just a lookalike until I came here. Also, for a minor nitpick: It felt like Force worship was waaaaaaaaay more prevalent in this movie than in the OT. It felt like a bunch of people said "May the Force be with you", when I had always thought it was way way way less generally known than that.
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Dec 19, 2016 08:03
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Milky Moor posted:It is a period of civil war. Ehhhh its ambiguous but I always took it to mean they had grabbed the plans and handed it off to Leia after the fact. ANH definitely portrays it as a covert mission gone wrong, not the space equivalent of a guy robbing a bank then having a shootout in the street with the cops. Also, did this movie have serious reshoots or cut scenes? Forest Whitaker's character seems like most of his arc was missing and the first trailer basically presents a completely different movie.
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Dec 19, 2016 08:22
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Do y'all think we'll ever see the first cut of the movie?
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Dec 19, 2016 08:25
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Wolfsheim posted:Also, did this movie have serious reshoots or cut scenes? Forest Whitaker's character seems like most of his arc was missing and the first trailer basically presents a completely different movie. I think it's easy to read too much into trailer differences though. Take a look at the trailer for the original Star Wars for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP_1T4ilm8M It's all (or almost all) from the theatrical release but it seems quite different tonally, partly because of the different music.
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Dec 19, 2016 08:31
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AdmiralViscen posted:Maybe my own upbringing lets me see her point of view more than you can, but I really had no problem understanding her development as the movie went on. She does have a narrower scope than Luke does but I say that is okay You can have all my lunch money but please elaborate. Edit: I'd like to say that I really liked R1 but the characters were super thin. It's an unfortunate side-effect of a larger series where people who won't linger are basically set pieces that exist only to die. I enjoyed the movie but the characters and characterization was really thin and that is a pretty legit criticism of the movie. The only person I was really invested in is the Imperial bureaucrat. Shbobdb fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Dec 19, 2016 |
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Dec 19, 2016 08:52
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Philip Rivers posted:Do y'all think we'll ever see the first cut of the movie? Probably not. Oh well. As bland and generic as Jyn is in this cut, Cassian at least has a bit more dimension to him. While his character doesn't really get a satisfying arc or resolution, I do like that he embodied a side of the rebel alliance we've never seen before. I was legit shocked to see him kill his twitchy informant when we first meet him; didn't expect that at all. I was like "Alright, this guy doesn't gently caress around. Can't wait to see how his part in the story plays out." and then the rest of the movie goes on and he's just all 
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Dec 19, 2016 10:21
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I strongly suspect that the trading post we saw for 5 minutes at the start will feature in the Solo movie.
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Dec 19, 2016 10:49
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I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more to that character. He started out with some interesting scenes (killing the informant) and made it clear that he was dedicated to the Rebellion, but it didn't really go further than that. I do like that 'hunky latino man' is becoming code for 'hero' in the SW universe.
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Dec 19, 2016 10:50
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teagone posted:Is this just a polite and passive-aggressive way of calling me a stupid simpleton raised by idiots? Haha. If we were introduced to adult Jyn with a scene that shows us why she's in prison, that scene could have been used as a platform to establish her motivations and who she was to get her narrative arc rolling. In the final cut, Jyn is just... there. I have no problem understanding what Jyn went through in the narrative, it's just my issue is that what she goes through in the entirety of Rogue One has no emotional impact because of her lack of a well defined arc. Yeah, she has does have some kind of an arc in the film (more like a slight bend heh), but like you said it's more narrow in scope and to me it's poorly developed. I liked her, no muss no fuss, Just do the plan, merk the Empire. "I'm a woman of few words and even less patience. Any questions?"
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Dec 19, 2016 11:18
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SeANMcBAY posted:If I actually cared about any of the new characters in this movie, it would probably be close to A New Hope and Empire as my favorite. It has pretty much the opposite problems I had with Force Awakens. A shame since it has an amazing cast. The final 3rd is amazing though. That's a good way of putting it. Force Awakens has excellent character writing but the story felt flawed to me. The story in this one I thought was very compelling and fun but I didn't really feel like the characters who were in it were fleshed out enough. The difference is that TFA is the first part of a story and there's time to fill in the holes. There isn't going to be any expansion on Rogue One so I feel more critical of it dropping the ball on characterization. That said I still thought Rogue One was fine. Flawed but enjoyable and I think it sets a fine precedent for the anthology films. When I was watching it I felt in the moment it was cheap how it kept dragging out all these little cameo scenes, like the film hadn't really earned the right to do it, but retrospectively, the film did pay off or otherwise need the Vader, Bail and Leia scenes. The most obnoxious and inorganic one is R2D2 and C3PO but I guess it's necessary to have them show up. I wish they had done it better if they've really gotta be in every film though. EDIT: My other gripe: the character names really didn't stick with me. Is that weird? For me it was "Jyn, Galen, Rebel Man, K2SO, Monk Dude, Monk Dude's Friend, Oh Yeah The Clone Wars Cartoon Apparently?, Ex-Imperial Pilot, Grand Moff Tarkin" rather than committing who they were, exactly, to my memory. Some of these, like Saw and Bodhi, I don't really have an excuse with because they were addressed frequently, but I still don't remember what Monk Dude and Monk Dude's Friend's names are supposed to be. nerdbot fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Dec 19, 2016 |
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Dec 19, 2016 11:43
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I don't know why R2 and C3PO couldn't have just been in the hallways of Leia's ship - cutting to them was a bit over the top. Maybe Anthony Daniels' contract says he needs lines or something? Not enough to take major points off for me, but a bit of a distraction. There was a lot of reference to other fringe SW stuff. The movie has blue milk in it for god's sake.
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Dec 19, 2016 11:55
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well why not posted:There was a lot of reference to other fringe SW stuff. The movie has blue milk in it for god's sake. I liked that in Saw's hideout, the guys are playing Dejarik with actual figures rather than holograms, because they're just that destitute. (Or maybe because the hologram projector is being used by the guy watching the dancing Twi'lek girl.)
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Dec 19, 2016 12:00
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I wonder what the most stupidly minor SW/EU reference they put in was. I didn't spot a G0-NK anywhere, so I'm actually on the phone with the cinema for a refund at the moment.
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Dec 19, 2016 12:04
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well why not posted:I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more to that character. He started out with some interesting scenes (killing the informant) and made it clear that he was dedicated to the Rebellion, but it didn't really go further than that. I can't wrap myself around how I'm supposed to see Cassian. Vengeful angry orphan I get yeah but clearly by the end of the movie the narrative expects me to find the guy whose establishing moment is murdering a seemingly innocent man and whose character development entails "I didn't murder someone this time so you should praise me" a hero and I just struggle with it.
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Dec 19, 2016 12:08
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Dec 19, 2016 12:16
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Nina posted:I can't wrap myself around how I'm supposed to see Cassian. Vengeful angry orphan I get yeah but clearly by the end of the movie the narrative expects me to find the guy whose establishing moment is murdering a seemingly innocent man and whose character development entails "I didn't murder someone this time so you should praise me" a hero and I just struggle with it. I think the scene where he kills the informant is meant to show that he's able to kill but isn't necessarily ruthless. Later on, when he's talking to Jyn about how he didn't headshot her dad, it just comes across as he spared Galen because he knows or likes her, rather than he actually chose not to shoot someone of his own moral choice. I don't know why the mission wasn't to extract Galen rather than blow him away.
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Dec 19, 2016 12:25
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Nina posted:I can't wrap myself around how I'm supposed to see Cassian. Vengeful angry orphan I get yeah but clearly by the end of the movie the narrative expects me to find the guy whose establishing moment is murdering a seemingly innocent man and whose character development entails "I didn't murder someone this time so you should praise me" a hero and I just struggle with it. I think the point is that he's morally complicated, and that's okay by me. I think the culmination of his character development is assembling the team/volunteering for the suicide mission, it's not 'he didn't kill Galen', the film rightfully calls him out on expecting credit for that. well why not posted:I think the scene where he kills the informant is meant to show that he's able to kill but isn't necessarily ruthless. Later on, when he's talking to Jyn about how he didn't headshot her dad, it just comes across as he spared Galen because he knows or likes her, rather than he actually chose not to shoot someone of his own moral choice. The rebellion is very risk averse, it seems like. They probably expect this entire thing to be a trap somehow.
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Dec 19, 2016 12:30
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well why not posted:I think the scene where he kills the informant is meant to show that he's able to kill but isn't necessarily ruthless. Later on, when he's talking to Jyn about how he didn't headshot her dad, it just comes across as he spared Galen because he knows or likes her, rather than he actually chose not to shoot someone of his own moral choice. It's strange because Saw is supposed to represent dangerous extremism and paranoia in the story but that same role is on Cassian's CO who orders the assassination but never really gets a comeuppance. Extracting Galen for interrogation was the logical course of action to begin with since even without the information that he's against the Empire the likely scenario is that he's replacable in the superlaser development by now.
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Dec 19, 2016 12:34
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I mean, the Rebellion has his daughter. If they really wanted information out of Galen that's a hell of a bargaining chip. There is no way Lucas/Disney/Anyone would sign off on the heroes of the film doing anything nearly that dark, however.
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Dec 19, 2016 12:37
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well why not posted:I mean, the Rebellion has his daughter. If they really wanted information out of Galen that's a hell of a bargaining chip. There is no way Lucas/Disney/Anyone would sign off on the heroes of the film doing anything nearly that dark, however. Well, again I think you can probably buy this decision process if you assume some paranoia. The entire thing could be an imperial sting operation - Jyn, the pilot, and all.
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Dec 19, 2016 12:47
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It was a 7/10 to the Force Awakens 9/10. People saying it's the best Star Wars movie yet just don't watch that many serious non-franchise movies so anything with any level of "grit" blows their socks off.
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Dec 19, 2016 12:54
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"Young Freud" posted:CG Concerns Agreed. I think people are really nitpicking the movie's flaws. The internet didn't savage the prequels like this over such minute details (mind you, probably because there was too many glaring ones). Edit: wrong quotation! Dishwasher fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Dec 19, 2016 |
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Dec 19, 2016 13:05
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Internet was a lot smaller in those days, though. I'd also like to register a 'lol' at the parents + young kids at the Rogue One screening. I saw some kids get pulled out during the scenes where the rebels are wearing turbans and attacking the occupying troops with guerilla tactics.
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Dec 19, 2016 13:19
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trash person posted:For me personally Rogue One was weighed down by the Star Wars trappings. I think Fury did this premise in a much more engaging way, and part of that I think is because they didn't have to deal with including Star Wars lore. Like, if we're going to do a movie about the grunts on the front line, make it about that. Like imagine if Jyn and company were just rebel soldiers from the get go, and the movie was about a company of rebel soldiers who are working toward the goal of discovering information about the Death Star. Forget the whole dad poo poo. What's it's doing is saying that the Rebel soldiers aren't an organized army, but a group of people with separate backgrounds and ideologies that just happen to come together. Including characters like Saw highlight that even more since we see that it even includes Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. Most people thought of the Rebels as an organized group of faceless soldiers as compared to a bunch of groups of the Magnificent Seven who just happen to come together at the time for their own reasons, which actually adds a little weight to stuff like the Hoth scene - as people tend to think of enlisted soldiers differently than a group of misfits.
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Dec 19, 2016 16:08
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Shbobdb posted:You can have all my lunch money but please elaborate. I disagree, because its a conceit of the genre. It's complaining that Saving Private Ryan has thin characters as compared to E.T. Ensemble war movies are different than adventure movies.
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Dec 19, 2016 16:12
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Darko posted:I disagree, because its a conceit of the genre. It's complaining that Saving Private Ryan has thin characters as compared to E.T. Ensemble war movies are different than adventure movies. Saving Private Ryan has protracted sequences of defining the characters, to the point where comparing R1 to it is completely absurd. The scene in the church before they all sleep, matt damon telling the story about his brothers while they're around the record player--hell, even when they're all just walking through the countryside right after they set out establish every character in a way that lets us get a stake in one of them. R1 didn't even attempt to do any of that. It just assumed people were going to like the characters because they're star war characters--the worst part is that they were largely right. It's insulting. Turns out if you put an extraneous scene of vader yet again slaughtering people the whole movie gets a pass
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Dec 19, 2016 16:15
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Saw it yesterday, thought it was just fine. Jyn was a little bland, but I did like the duo of Blind Monk and Heavy Weapons guy, and sassy robot.
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Dec 19, 2016 16:21
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wins.
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Christmas shopping with my son at Toys r us. "Do you want this K2SO action figure?" "No daddy, he's dead."  Out of all of the U- Wing and Tie Striker toys he wants the ship I can't find a single toy for in stores. "The one with the two engines!" gohmak fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Dec 19, 2016 |
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Dec 19, 2016 16:38
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it's super cool that the last third of Rogue One was essentially Dieppe Raid: The Movie
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Dec 19, 2016 16:57
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They really needed to just chop the whole father storyline entirely. It was a giant waste of time on a character that was just completely flat(Jyn, I mean. Mads is charisma incarnate. Probably should have just given him the lead role.) Give that time to the other characters who are desperate for SOME kind of characterization. I love Forrest, but chop all that poo poo out, too.
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Dec 19, 2016 17:16
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Mads had that hologram monologue which was the worst part of the movie full stop
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Dec 19, 2016 17:19
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Zikan posted:Mads had that hologram monologue which was the worst part of the movie full stop Worse than the speech at the Rebel base? I dunno. The writing in general was very amateur hour in places.
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Dec 19, 2016 17:21
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AlternateAccount posted:Worse than the speech at the Rebel base? I dunno. The writing in general was very amateur hour in places. WHAT IS SHE PROPOSING?!
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Dec 19, 2016 17:23
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Thinking about it more, I wish the film had pushed futher into either 7 Samurai mode or Political Espionage area. Middling between the two is what lets it down - the stuff with Mon Mothma etc is fine and all, but I'd happily trade it for more character interactions to build the team. Someone brought up Fury, and while that's a very different movie, it does illustrate that there's very little depth given to the characters in Rogue One. Even the 'lesser' characters in Fury, like Gordo or Old Man get moments that underline what they're about early on and by the end we understand the characters so much better. Inversely, I'd be happy with the team stuff being abbreviated even more for some deeper espionage stuff, like seeing Galen leak the intel, more stuff with Cassian and the informant etc. I'd also like to mention that I have found trace of G0-NK in this film, so my ratings will need to be readjusted.
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Dec 19, 2016 17:56
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Starwars is the movie people give as an example when they want to explain what the concept of archetypes are to someone. Yoda isn't explained at all in the original movies but he never needed to be because the concept of "ancient master" is a thing we already know and just establishing he was a ancient master was enough to inform us about pretty much everything he'd ever do in the movies ever.
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Dec 19, 2016 18:16
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Jyn: "Rebellions are built on hope!" Voice from back of room: "OH GO gently caress YOURSELF!" The End.
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Dec 19, 2016 18:36
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When they were listing all the project codenames, were those from extended universe stuff or just invented for that scene? I know only vague outlines about the EU being full of superweapons and doomsday devices, but no names.
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Dec 19, 2016 18:45
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When the empire needs things backed up, they rely on Western Digital, it seems, based on that Hard drive backup, but the rebels copy it all to a floppy drive. Really makes you think how far tech has gone in 40 years. I also like the Empire, thinking: where should we put our tech backup? Stormtrooper running by: SPRING BREAK!
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Dec 19, 2016 18:57
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PassTheRemote posted:Saw it yesterday, thought it was just fine. Jyn was a little bland, but I did like the duo of Blind Monk and Heavy Weapons guy, and sassy robot. It was nice because those two got characterization despite no overt focus. A man of faith and his ex-believer best friend who accompanies him out of friendship instead of matching ideologies makes for an interesting setup and is enough to make their end feel touching. They're more like cool side characters than actual main characters but what they have going on works. Jyn was kinda bland and I can't bring myself to like Cassian so the former duo and K2 carried the movie character-wise for me.
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Dec 19, 2016 19:18
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