Star Wars: Rogue One Discussion SPOILERS AHEAD!

[Charlie_Quinn]

I saw Rogue One yesterday and absolutely loved it. I didn't see an existing thread discussing the film, so I thought I'd start a thread so people can discuss the spoilerific stuff openly.

 

 

MANY SPOILERS AHEAD!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!! IF YOU DON'T WANT THE FILM SPOILED OR WANT TO GO INTO IT BLIND, TURN BACK NOW!!!

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

As I said above, I absolutely loved it, but I did feel that the beginning was a little clunky. It took a little while to get started and I didn't really see the point of Saw Gerrera's role. But once it got going, wow! It's been a long time since a Star Wars movie made me feel this emotional. I loved TFA but it didn't hit me in the heart nearly as much as this film did. As much as the end nearly had me in tears, I'm glad they didn't shy away from killing the main characters. Darth Vader butchering rebels was brutal, I like that they've portrayed him as someone to be feared again.

 

Of course, I have to mentioned CGI-Tarkin. I have to say that seeing Peter Cushings face did pull me out of the movie slightly in a kind of "wait, what? Is that? No way!" kind of way, but it in no way detracted my enjoyment of the film. Incidentally, does anyone know who did the voice acting for Tarkin? I assume it was a voice actor and not put together from Cushing's previous work (as it was too fluid for that)? Because it was spot on. There were a few other, very tiny, things that bugged me, like how the actor portraying Vader was a little....off. Not sure what it was but some of his movements didn't seem quite right - Such a nerd nit-pick, I know! - but again, it's such a little thing that it didn't ruin anything for me.

 

So, what did everyone else think? 

[mightstone2k]

I agree wholeheartedly about Vader. He was finally the unholy terror he was always made out to be, but never quite was (in direct combat, anyway). His swordplay finally matched his Force power.

And the commandos who attack Scarif were phenomenal. The unheroic team vibe - contra the few heroes saving the day with a bunch of schmucks dying around them - was what made the Rebellion. Luke, Han, and Leia were not the Rebellion. The Rebellion was a lot more Cassian Andors.

So, I loved it. It was a different look into the Star Wars universe that made me miss the EU.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Some of the stuff I really liked: The reddish glare on Vader's lenses, just like in ANH. The awesome space battle. The cameos from ANH characters. The depth of the universe portrayed. The edge of my seat action. That they made a great film without a Jedi in it. That it was compelling story telling. That the commandos on Scariff looked like WWII soldiers, especially with the helmets. The internecine jockeying for position between Tarkin and the ISB Director. That they showed Death Star destruction from the victim planet's perspective. The perfect way it ties in to ANH. Alan Tudyk as K-2S0. Captain Andor and the grittiness of what he had to do as Rebel Intelligence. Captain Andor's accent. 

 

One of the little things I dearly loved was one of the tiniest details. All the 70's stache's the rebel men had. They nailed the look of the rebels to make it look like they had filmed in the 70's but with better technology than was available back then.

 Also, I saw it in IMAX 3D, which I recommend. 

[Charlie_Quinn]

2 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

The cameos from ANH characters

 

I didn't see the point of the C-3PO and R2-D2 cameo, though. It felt shoe-horned in just for fan service. 

 

2 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

One of the little things I dearly loved was one of the tiniest details. All the 70's stache's the rebel men had. They nailed the look of the rebels to make it look like they had filmed in the 70's but with better technology than was available back then.

 

Yes, this was great. And integrating previously unused footage of the X-wing pilots from ANH was just wonderful.

 

I loved the little Easter eggs for the Star Wars Rebels TV show too. 

 

I really wish 3D would die already. I love seeing a film in IMAX, but my dodgy eyes really struggle with 3D.

 

EDIT: I'm calling dibs on using "I am one with the force; the force is with me" for the theme of the next challenge!

[mightstone2k]

One bit of continuity they dropped: "many Bothans died to get those plans." I saw zero Bothans. It's possible that I'm mixing up which Death Star the Bothans died for, because I haven't watched the original trilogy in a while. But that was the only thing I caught as dropped continuity with the other movies.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

42 minutes ago, mightstone2k said:

One bit of continuity they dropped: "many Bothans died to get those plans." I saw zero Bothans. It's possible that I'm mixing up which Death Star the Bothans died for, because I haven't watched the original trilogy in a while. But that was the only thing I caught as dropped continuity with the other movies.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It was for DSII in ROTJ.

[Bullroarer Took]

I too was thinking I was going to see dead Bothans.  Wrong Death Star.  Perhaps that will be Anthology III. Just a Bothan Snuff film with enough John Williams behind it to keep it classy. It started with a cold open and most everybody dies.  I felt like it was still a Star Wars movie but it wasn't so Formulaic as TFA.  TFA has not aged well through 20-30 viewings.  I also agree this was very restorative for Vader.  It didn't feel like Hayden Christianson was in that suit.  Something about the neckline of the helmet seemed off somehow.

 

 

[mightstone2k]

It was for DSII in ROTJ.

Ah, gotcha. In that case, Rogue One gets a smidge better for no Bothan continuity drops [emoji39]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Raincloak]

This was the first SW film with someone other than John Williams writing the music.  I thought the new composer did a great job, had the same brassy feel as Williams and echoed a few themes, but without being a copycat.

 

Gorgeous starfighter battles, oh my god.  That was one thing TFA didn't give me enough of.  R1 did.  Easily the best space combat scenes since ANH.

 

The first half of the film was confusing and felt rushed.  Seems like they tried to cram too much in and then cut holes in the story for time, as DisMarvLuc has been doing a lot lately.  I couldn't find anyone I liked enough to be interested in, and by the end of the film, I still hadn't learned most of their names.  The second half was better, once the plot settled down and the characters started behaving like people.  I'm sure sure I would have liked them more if we'd actually gotten to know them.  Jin's "rally the troops" speech was pretty lame though.

 

 

[Raincloak]

Vader's boarding at the end was cooool.  That scene with the Tower of Sauron on the other hand was kinda silly.

[Elastigirl]

Finally can join the thread. Watched it today, and was not disappointed. I loved the feel of the movie. Just like in the original Star Wars, the Rebels looked gritty and realistic. The story line was amazing.

[SkyGirl]

I definitely agree that the beginning of the movie was clunky and hard to get into - skipping immediately from Jyn's childhood to the shot of her in the paddywagon made me feel a little cheated. I would have liked to have had more information about her adolescence and what made her become hardened and distant instead of just wounded and frightened. I also thought the character introductions were jarring - jumping between unrelated places was confusing until I figured out that it was the people we were supposed to be paying attention to, not the locations - and I didn't feel like we got enough backstory to really know and relate to the other characters.

 

However, those were my only complaints with the movie, and overall I loved it! The storyline was fresh and compelling; I got more and more invested in the characters as the movie went on; I thought Galen Erso's character was so creative and his relationship with Jyn was sadly sweet; the action scenes were bright and exciting; and Michael Giacchino's soundtrack was beautiful. I loved how they wrapped the story into the opening of "A New Hope"!  :-)

 

Regarding the CGI characters, I agree that they still didn't look quite natural, but I was perfectly happy to suspend critique and accept them as part of the movie, particularly Tarkin - there just isn't anyone else in the world who could play Tarkin like the great Peter Cushing did. My brother told me that his voice was indeed Cushing's - that they took words and phrases from his entire filmography and painstakingly stitched them together to sound natural. That made me so happy!

 

Who was your favorite character?

[SkyGirl]

On 12/25/2016 at 10:09 PM, Raincloak said:

Gorgeous starfighter battles, oh my god.  That was one thing TFA didn't give me enough of.  R1 did.  Easily the best space combat scenes since ANH.

 

 

This was my favorite aspect of the whole movie! The end battle had me on the edge of my seat!!

 

On 12/25/2016 at 10:09 PM, Raincloak said:

Jin's "rally the troops" speech was pretty lame though.

 

I took issue with this as well - I definitely think it would be possible for someone as guarded and suspicious as Jyn to turn into a passionately committed Rebel, but we as the audience weren't given any real reason why she should do so, or any inside look at her changing thought processes. Was it her father's death that changed her mind? Cassian's example? Did she find she really agreed with the Rebels' cause? I don't think we were clearly shown what exactly changed her mind, and that made it feel a bit incomplete.

[mightstone2k]

I definitely agree that the beginning of the movie was clunky and hard to get into - skipping immediately from Jyn's childhood to the shot of her in the paddywagon made me feel a little cheated. I would have liked to have had more information about her adolescence and what made her become hardened and distant instead of just wounded and frightened. I also thought the character introductions were jarring - jumping between unrelated places was confusing until I figured out that it was the people we were supposed to be paying attention to, not the locations - and I didn't feel like we got enough backstory to really know and relate to the other characters.

 

However, those were my only complaints with the movie, and overall I loved it! The storyline was fresh and compelling; I got more and more invested in the characters as the movie went on; I thought Galen Erso's character was so creative and his relationship with Jyn was sadly sweet; the action scenes were bright and exciting; and Michael Giacchino's soundtrack was beautiful. I loved how they wrapped the story into the opening of "A New Hope"!  :-)

 

Regarding the CGI characters, I agree that they still didn't look quite natural, but I was perfectly happy to suspend critique and accept them as part of the movie, particularly Tarkin - there just isn't anyone else in the world who could play Tarkin like the great Peter Cushing did. My brother told me that his voice was indeed Cushing's - that they took words and phrases from his entire filmography and painstakingly stitched them together to sound natural. That made me so happy!

 

Who was your favorite character?

During the movie, I kept expecting to see Tywin Lannister in Tarkin's place. Charles Dance would have been a pretty solid replacement had they not gone the CGI route.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SkyGirl]

1 hour ago, mightstone2k said:

During the movie, I kept expecting to see Tywin Lannister in Tarkin's place. Charles Dance would have been a pretty solid replacement had they not gone the CGI route.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Hmm, yes, I can see both of them working pretty well ... neither of them has those fabulously dramatic pinched cheekbones, though.  :-)  We need to wait for some of the young bony-cheeked British actors to get old, I guess ...

 

 

[Raincloak]

I would've been fine with a new actor playing Tarkin (and Leia for that matter).  They got new actors for several other roles.  The "Star Trek" reboot featured all new actors (with one glorious and spoileriffic exception), and they were just great.  Nobody expected carbon copies of the originals.

 

Clipping Obi-wan's lines from ANH so it sounds like he's calling Rey's name in TFA was all right.  That was like an Easter egg.  Making a pivotal role out of motion capture animation isn't new either.  CG is fine for stunts a live actor cannot do.  But using it to completely replace a real person who lived and had a name is going too far imo.

 

The CG trick is neat and it did look pretty smooth, but making puppets of celebrities like that is just a little too creepy in this "post-truth" society we live in.  Sooner or later that trick will be used to frame suspects in court, blackmail politicians, and start wars.

[Dilnad]

29 minutes ago, RandMart said:

I don't know how D'Kid & I got started thinking about this, but ...

At the end of Revenge of the Sith, we see the Death Star being built



How far along would you say that is? Barely started right? Maybe 10%???

When Rogue One/A New Hope take place, it's finally finished after 20 years



Then BOOM!



When we see the NEW one in Return of the Jedi, it look much further down the road than just 4 years old [if they started it as soon as DS-1 was destroyed]



That looks, what, 40% complete?

So, we figured that if it took 20 years to build ONE, it would proceed at perhaps 5% per year? DS-2, being 40-50% done before it was destroyed in Jedi, should have been under construction for 8-10 years already ... Meaning: They were building TWO of them AT ONCE

Maybe they built a spare at the same time. Worked in Contact ;>

[maegs]

On 12/19/2016 at 9:51 AM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

One of the little things I dearly loved was one of the tiniest details. All the 70's stache's the rebel men had. They nailed the look of the rebels to make it look like they had filmed in the 70's but with better technology than was available back then.

 

Apparently there was a theory going around before R1 came out that Diego Luna would be playing Biggs based on the 'staches

 

On 1/5/2017 at 1:01 PM, RandMart said:

So, we figured that if it took 20 years to build ONE, it would proceed at perhaps 5% per year? DS-2, being 40-50% done before it was destroyed in Jedi, should have been under construction for 8-10 years already ... Meaning: They were building TWO of them AT ONCE

Also, Galen was delaying the DS1 as much as possible, for at least part of the construction time, so presumably the DS2 would be a faster build because 1) they had already built one and weren't developing something completely new and 2) someone in a fairly important position wasn't causing trouble 

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

On 1/5/2017 at 1:01 PM, RandMart said:

I don't know how D'Kid & I got started thinking about this, but ...

At the end of Revenge of the Sith, we see the Death Star being built



How far along would you say that is? Barely started right? Maybe 10%???

When Rogue One/A New Hope take place, it's finally finished after 20 years



Then BOOM!



When we see the NEW one in Return of the Jedi, it look much further down the road than just 4 years old [if they started it as soon as DS-1 was destroyed]



That looks, what, 40% complete?

So, we figured that if it took 20 years to build ONE, it would proceed at perhaps 5% per year? DS-2, being 40-50% done before it was destroyed in Jedi, should have been under construction for 8-10 years already ... Meaning: They were building TWO of them AT ONCE

 

 

 

From an engineering perspective, the first one probably took so long because it was the first one. First articles always take pretty long, especially if you start building before a design is fully fleshed out to try to save time. There were probably all sorts of construction delays due to figuring out the various technologies of 1) making a super laser and 2) building a structure as large as a moon. Rogue One addresses this by showing that the Death Star scientists are still hard at work at the secret base, even when it's neared completion. True construction time once the entire design is 95% baselined would be much shorter.

 

For DS2, they already had those things figured out and proven, and could MOVE on the build. Also, there were probably a bunch of spare parts already in production for DS1 that could be used on DS2. My true suspicion is that you are correct though and that there were always plans for a DS2 and the parts were already in production for it when DS1 was destroyed.

[CheshireCrab]

20 hours ago, Gainsdalf the Whey said:

For DS2, they already had those things figured out and proven, and could MOVE on the build. Also, there were probably a bunch of spare parts already in production for DS1 that could be used on DS2. My true suspicion is that you are correct though and that there were always plans for a DS2 and the parts were already in production for it when DS1 was destroyed.

 

I always wondered where they are getting the parts to construct such a massive device, not once, not twice, but three times!(Although technically the third one was actually a planet.). I understand that they are a huge empire and have overtaken many planets, but how many planets are they specifically using for mining resources? Are they just targeting few planets with a lot of sustainable resources and bleeding them dry or is every planet they conquer used for mining/resource gathering?

 

I imagine the planets that have a lot of resources for the Death Star are not going to be close to one another, meaning they have to do a lot of transportation. Wouldn't that itself  take a lot of time to accomplish? It just feels like the DS2 would have to have been constructed simultaneously to have that much progress completed in such a short amount of time.

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

2 hours ago, CheshireCrab said:

 

I always wondered where they are getting the parts to construct such a massive device, not once, not twice, but three times!(Although technically the third one was actually a planet.). I understand that they are a huge empire and have overtaken many planets, but how many planets are they specifically using for mining resources? Are they just targeting few planets with a lot of sustainable resources and bleeding them dry or is every planet they conquer used for mining/resource gathering?

 

I imagine the planets that have a lot of resources for the Death Star are not going to be close to one another, meaning they have to do a lot of transportation. Wouldn't that itself  take a lot of time to accomplish? It just feels like the DS2 would have to have been constructed simultaneously to have that much progress completed in such a short amount of time.

 

 

"The Galactic Empire's territory at its peak consisted of some one and a half million member and conquered worlds, as well as sixty-nine million colonies, protectorates and puppet states spread throughout the entire galaxy, stretching from the borders of the Deep Core to at least Wild Space." -wookiepedia

 

plenty of places to get resources and concurrent subcomponent construction. On a galactic level, completely doable.

[Raincloak]

Yeah, galaxies are REALLY big.  One moon sized space station amid all that (or, hell, two of them) doesn't seem out of reach.

 

So the new movie this winter (last one with Leia in it, RIP) is titled "The Last Jedi.'  Whatcha think?  I think that means Luke's gonna die, which is ok with me, and Rey will inherit his lightsaber.

 

 

[Gainsdalf the Whey]

10 hours ago, Raincloak said:

Yeah, galaxies are REALLY big.  One moon sized space station amid all that (or, hell, two of them) doesn't seem out of reach.

 

So the new movie this winter (last one with Leia in it, RIP) is titled "The Last Jedi.'  Whatcha think?  I think that means Luke's gonna die, which is ok with me, and Rey will inherit his lightsaber.

 

 

 

I think it means Luke dies, and that Rey never becomes a Jedi. It's an end to the Sith/Jedi structure of black and white, good vs evil.

 

I'll be disappointed if she inherits his light saber as her main weapon. A milestone in any jedi training is the building of one's own. Luke does it in a deleted seen in the very beginner of episode VI. I personally hope she constructs her own and integrates it into her staff, as that is what she is used to fighting with, vs training her from scratch in saber combat. A light staff would be this trilogies new take on the lightsaber. I doubt it happens though. I think we've already seen clips of Daisy Ridley doing stunt work that looks like standard saber combat.

 

edit: On the topic of giant galaxies, yeah, they're huge. I'm currently player No man's Sky and with their procedural generation system, there are trillions of worlds. The entire galaxy would take the entire human race at least a few thousand years to explore if we all played every day, we're never going to see it all. So, a group of people are all heading to a small region of the galaxy to try to complete the exploration of that one. It's going to take me near 40 hours of gameplay (grinidng fuel and traveling) just to get there I'm estimating.