I really don’t think Rogue One was a good movie. But most of it was things like every single character falling flat, or some weird decisions with the script, or distracting CGI characters, or too much wink-wink fan service. A lot of problems of execution, or judgement in the smaller aspects.
Listening to the podcast, I get the impression you don’t like what it is or what it was aspiring to be.* For all the flaws in execution, it sounds like the fundamental un-Star-Wars-ness of it from your perspective was going to be a deal breaker for you even if it hadn’t screwed up.
And after watching it a second time, it reinforced everything I thought about it. That includes all the flaws that kill it for me, but I also really enjoyed the final battle at the end. Even with the video-gamey nonsense about flipping switches and communication arrays, I enjoyed a very Star Warsy battle both on the ground and in the air. I was surprised the first time and reassured the second time to find that I really enjoyed how tightly integrated it turned out to be with Star Wars (A New Hope, for you youngsters). That could be seen as fan service too, but for me, that was very satisfying. And knowing that was coming made the first two thirds of the movie more bearable. Not better, but more bearable.
So anyway, I would like to join you on the hate train. Rogue One is not a good movie. I’m stunned at how many people around here are so quick hold this up as superior to The Force Awakens—it doesn’t even sound like they’re saying “The Force Awakens was great but this is even better!” It sounds like I missed a memo and suddenly no one even likes The Force Awakens at all.
But I can’t get behind all of your problems with the film either. Is there a disappointment train leaving from another platform I could catch?
Saw Rogue One, enjoyed it for what it was: A Dirty Dozen/Guns of Naveronne/Saving Private Ryan type war movie.
The rest of the family… I’m not so sure of their opinions. I got reserved reclining seats at the local, newly-refurbished Multiplex dead-center… the trade-off being that it was a 10 AM show. All three of the Wisdom women napped though some portion of the film while I was pretty much rapt the whole time.
Annoyingly, the entire theater was FULL of little kids. Like 5-12 range; I guess their parents figured it was Star Wars and neglected the PG-13 rating. None of the little vermin knew what the fuck was going on, and every. single. one. of. them. had to ask their daddies: “Daddy, what the fuck is going on? What the shit just happened daddy? Daddy, why is that dipshit mad at that motherfucker?” It was maddening, but they mostly shut up when the space pew-pew started.
I may have drank a little too much “spiced” eggnog before posting this.
I didn’t mind CGI Leia or Tarkin too much, but personally thought that CGI Leia was less-uncanny.
I’m with you on this one. Tarkin did a lot of moving, which looked unnatural, and something about the sunken cheeks seems less plausible on a CGI model than a real person. Plus aged skin is hard technically since it’s so variable. They didn’t move the Leia model nearly as much, so she just looked sort of oddly 70s-film in an otherwise modern movie.
This nailed the look, feel, and sense of Star Wars place for me in a way that TFA didn’t. It felt rooted, and the way the script visited some characters while others were traveling really helped to nail down the, “It takes a little while to get places” feeling, which feeds into my sense of, “This is a large universe,” which TFA utterly lacked. I wasn’t a big fan of the choice of plot, but I thought it was executed with as much competence as I expect from a holiday tentpole. Not great, not terrible; a different kind of story for a Star Wars movie. It’s my third- or fourth-favorite Star Wars movie, I think.
Saw this last night with my dad who never wants to see movies so how could I possibly say no? I really enjoyed it. I won’t say more or less than TFA, which I also enjoyed, because they felt like completely different kinds of movies. I am just thrilled overall there we’re getting these kinds of movies.
I will say that Rogue One managed to draw me emotionally to characters that had very little screen time in a way the other films never did, not the orignal, prequels or TFA.
[spoiler]The destruction of the base, the cities hell even Eadu felt more impactful than the one, two or heck even the dozen of planets destroyed in the other movies. The destruction of the fleet felt more meaningful too. I mean I barely knew the admiral or the leaders of the squads for more than a few minutes and I felt each death.
As for the CGI … one felt like a character ripped right of Polar Express, stiff and weird. The other was just completely unnecessary and like an old video game character. Actually that’s how i felt about both of them, unnecessary. They could have achieved what they wanted without it.[/spoiler]
I’ll be buying this on sale so I can watch it again. I might need to watch the first star wars movie again because there was a disagreement in our party about the status of the Death Star at the beginning of that movie.
While I agree that they could have done the movie without Tarkin, I do understand his purpose in the movie. It establishes Krennic in the empires hierarchy, a mid/upper level bureaucrat with delusions of self-importance. His importance to the empire firmly defined by the end of the movie. Leia, on the other hand, played a far more important and necessary part in the movie. Even though she had a very small bit in the film, she was the direct tie between Rogue One and A New Hope. I think her presence was absolutely necessary for them to tell the story they wanted to tell.
Leia, on the other hand, played a far more important and necessary part in the movie. Even though she had a very small bit in the film, she was the direct tie between Rogue One and A New Hope. I think her presence was absolutely necessary for them to tell the story they wanted to tell.
[/quote][/spoiler]
You misunderstand. I felt the CGI was completely unnecessary, not necessarily the characters. For the last one they could have done the same thing with just a profile shot and a hairdo, no face or talking even necessary.
Tarkin they could have chosen other options too. Sometimes it seems like we use new toys and gizmos just because we have them when old tricks of the trade could work and maybe even do the deed better.
Got it. I did misunderstand. I do agree, they had other options. They managed to do great with Mon Mothma without resorting to CGI. Myself, I didnt have the issues with the CGI that some did. I knew it was CGI and accepted that it wouldnt be perfect but I felt that it was very well done and good enough for me. Clearly other feel differently about it.
We just saw this today, and found it to be a mixed bag. Parts of it(mostly the action sequences and tropical ATATs) were really fun to watch, but the rest of the movie was so…talky.
Just about every scene with dialog went on for 2 minutes longer than it should have, or ended in a speech. Even when they were building to an action scene, the movie had this habit of over-explaining all the steps in advance, or focusing attention on unimportant minutia. The speed that the planets explode was a good microcosm for this movie.
Also I agree that too much of this movie looked like a compromise. Even the music felt like the “is Pepsi ok?” version of Star Wars music. The CG characters seemed like someone stopped at “we could”.
TFA was head and shoulders above this. This movie seemed stocked with mopey fun-vacuums, to a point where the two leads have a mope-off, and the only character with any charisma was a droid. There’s an excellent 30 minute movie buried in this, and I’ll probably buy a 4k copy of this and just skip to the action sequences.
I was disappointed with the film in that I thought it was marketed as a new stand alone story in the SW Universe, where in the end it is really just another film in the old story, the really should have called it Episode IV and bumped the first SW up to V.
[quote=“Dave_Weinstein, post:638, topic:76559”]
Those are taken directly from the original film. For that matter, so are the rank tabs.[/quote]
Yep, and they fit neatly into that movie’s consistent production design, didn’t they? It never once occurred to me while watching Star Wars that the officers had pens in their pockets or plastic nametags with squares glued onto them pinned to their shirts.
If you want to see a movie that knows how to look like a 70s sci-fi movie without, well, looking like a 70s sci-fi movie, check out Force Awakens.
[quote=“Dave_Weinstein, post:638, topic:76559”]
And Vader’s outfit looks, well, pretty much exactly the same.[/quote]
Not to my eyes. It looked like something someone bought for $70 from one of those shops that’s only open for a few weeks before Halloween.
Exactly. For all I know they used the archived costume from 1976 or whenever it was, but it looked cheap and horrible this movie, where it only looked kinda weird the first time around. Maybe they just shouldn’t have used well-lit close-ups.
I think this is a purposeful act, because they are capable of doing so much more. I suspect they believe the Star Wars fan set is a nostalgia based group. Since the budget of the original was so low, they feel it will be more appreciated if they recreate that motif in the subsequent films.
It maybe didn’t occur to you because you weren’t looking at such details back then? They are certainly very visible and not any more or less consistent than in Rogue One and I’m not sure what in your view makes TFA a 70s Sci-Fi movie. Neither a lot of the design (the Apple-Troopers) nor anything else gives me a 70s vibe in particular. They of course use the standard SW style but apart from that a lot of stuff from TFA could just as well be from Guardians of the Galaxy.
