The Rogue One Thread

[onejayhawk]

We don't have any family in town this year, so Judith wants to see this Christmas Day. Once upon a time, she had a signed program from the premier in Salt Lake City (George Lucas was so broke he could not afford a Hollywood premier). She has been a devoted fan ever since.

J

 

[Zkribbler]

Once upon a time, she had a signed program from the premier in Salt Lake City

cool!

 

[Gori the Grey]

I found the first third muddy. Besides Jyn, I wasn't sure which of the characters I was supposed to identify with/regard as significant. A New Hope just seems cleaner on that front. Droids. Luke. Obi-Wan. Han and Chewy. Each introduced gradually enough to feel what his contribution to the plot is to be. With RO, I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to think about that blind quarterstaffsman and his machine-gun toting friend.

But once they got involved in the core mission, everything fell into place. And the plot development that we've had to spoiler here, that made it feel like something genuinely significant was happening. Added gravitas even to the original trilogy to realize that that effort was behind the starting point of ANH. So my final impression was very favorable.

Tarkin worked for me, Leia didn't. I saw it in 2-D.

 

[Zelig]

I had low expectations, and was pretty happy with it. Especially with Vader and the fates of everyone else in the movie.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Low expectations may have played a role for me too. I was pretty well done by the end of the first trilogy. By the end of the second trilogy I was waiting for them to come out on cable and I'm not sure I even saw the last of that. The latest regular installment I was enthused enough to see at the theater and ranked it okay at best. So I was definitely easy to impress.

 

[CavLancer]

I think the heroes always making it through the normal Star Wars flicks built up a positive karma in the force which needed some serious balancing.

 

[Kennigit]

Solid. I thought the middle was a bit slow but definitely good overall. Really appreciate the ensemble of characters they had.

spoiler:

Spoiler :

I thought it was a bit slow to have the main girl climb up that imperial base thing just to hug her father as he died. I don't see what that adds to the movie. But, since all of star wars is a very familial relations tale, I understand people want the characters to have a little face to face

 

[Hygro]

I didn't even notice Tarkin was animated at all. My cousin pointed it out later and it blew my mind. I was like damn this guy aged fantastically!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I enjoyed it enough that I can't decide if I like it or The Empire Strikes Back the most.

The ending was my favorite part and it was brilliant.

Spoiler :

A hero's death is a pretty bold way to end a Star Wars movie. I loved it and the fact that I didn't want the characters to all die really spoke to how they all came to life. None of the wooden dialogue of the prequel trilogy and all that.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Odd. I saw it in IMAX 3D and the facial sculpting for both Tarkin and Leia were perfect. I really want to see it on a normal screen now so that I can understand what people are talking about when they say it was weird or out of sync.

I agree, in IMAX 3D the facial animations were fantastic and very realistic. No uncanny valley whatsoever.

 

[Hygro]

I saw it in 2D. Leia was terrifying tho.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That phrasing - 10/10 would read again

 

[tetley]

It was stronger on the cinematics than on the screenplay, which the series has always been ever since the old ones were done. Return of the Jedi is still my favorite, because it had both. If I shared my issues with R1's screenplay, I would have to spoiler tag it.

 

[Synobun]

It was stronger on the cinematics than on the screenplay, which the series has always been ever since the old ones were done. Return of the Jedi is still my favorite, because it had both. If I shared my issues with R1's screenplay, I would have to spoiler tag it.

We have spoiler tags, so spoiler tag away!

 

[Ajidica]

Just saw it, and loved it. The beginning could have used some tighter editing as there were a lot of Star Wars names getting throw around* which got a bit confusing but once the movie hit its stride I loved it. We got a nice space battle, lots of visual references to the original films, and the little Easter Eggs were well integrated into the film.

*Or as Conan O'Brian called them, names that sound like dishes at a bad Armenian restaurant.

I'm not a big fan of the OT, to be honest. I like the universe they create but the films themselves are pretty meh for me. ESB had too much Alice in Wonderland Yoda and superfluous content for me. If they removed the wampa scene, the Yoda scenes, and the Cloud City scenes, then it'd be great. My problem with the superfluous content is that it's not entertaining. The pointless stuff in the prequels was good for a laugh and took up less time than the pointless stuff in the OT. In the OT my thought process throughout all three films often goes: "Can I skip this?" Some flashes of brilliance but they don't connect well to each other and they're muted by the bad stuff.

I'm fairly young but I did see the OT first before ever watching the prequels.

I, along with most people, are completely the opposite. I agree the OT has some issues but by and large they are far tighter and just overall better films than the prequels. The acting was better, the effects held up better (once a bit of CGI was used to clean up some optical compositing issues), the space battles were way better, the writing had a clear idea of what story it was trying to tell, and even at its worse the dialogue was less inane than most prequel scenes. Off the top of my head there are only a handful of scenes in the prequels that stick out to me as being amazing, while the original trilogy have so many more.

EDIT: I am a little grumpy they didn't cast Wayne Pygram (played Scorpius from Farscape) as Tarkin. He bears a strong resemblance once some makeup/prosthetic work is done and knows how to be a terrifying villain.

 

[warpus]

Back to Rogue One, I've noticed a trend: Those who saw the movie in 2-D (myself included) seemed to find Tarkin much more tolerable than those who saw it in 3-D.

All the movies I have ever seen in 3D distract me from the story. My eyes get dry, the contacts lose focus when the movie jumps from one type of shot to another, I have to readjust my eyes, some parts always seem blurry, I feel less comfortable, etc. I saw the last Star Trek movie in 3D it was alright but still distracting

Anyway, for this reason I really wanted to see the regular version of Rogue One and convinced my friends to go along with it.

Anyway, that is an interesting observation that you have made - Because I have been confused by people saying that Trakin looked weird. I didn't even question anything during that part. I saw him and thought to myself "Didn't that actor die and/or at least age a lot?" but it didn't bother me at all because it looked normal. So I figured they got an actor who looked similar and used CGI to fix it up or something. I didn't really stop and think about it and just continued paying attention to the plot and action, Tarkin didn't pull me out of the movie at all. In hindsight, after I learned that it's all CGI, I would have to say they did a really good job.

Leia looked a bit fake but it looked almost normal as well. It almost sort of looked like a very good hologram. It was a bit too bright or something. I can't quite put my finger on what was off, but it did take me out of the movie a bit. But at the same time I was smiling about Leia being on screen and obviously she's now older and obviously they had to use CGI and I'm glad that they did because it's a great way to end the movie.

 

[tetley]

I, along with most people, are completely the opposite. I agree the OT has some issues but by and large they are far tighter and just overall better films than the prequels. The acting was better, the effects held up better (once a bit of CGI was used to clean up some optical compositing issues), the space battles were way better, the writing had a clear idea of what story it was trying to tell, and even at its worse the dialogue was less inane than most prequel scenes.

I find the "Use the force, Luke" scene hilarious now. You know, don't trust your ship computer, trust your instinct. Well yeah...did you see the computer? It's an Atari 2600. No wonder you should put your computer up.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Am I the only one rooting for the Empire the whole movie?

Jedi and Rebel scum so dumb.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Am I the only one rooting for the Empire the whole movie?

Jedi and Rebel scum so dumb.

You perhaps played a little too much TIE Fighter. Not that I blame you; one of the all time great games.

 

[Kaitzilla]

You perhaps played a little too much TIE Fighter. Not that I blame you; one of the all time great games.

Oh ya, all those hidden bonus objectives for the Emperor ^_^
Hard to capture the feeling after all these years.