He must have had one hell of a cold to have to carry lozenges around stuck to his chest like that.
I saw Rogue One last night. I didn’t love or hate it, but I did love the presentation. I caught it in 70mm non-3D IMAX, which was pretty damn amazing.
Still jealous of you guys IMAX theaters and modern theaters that have assigned seating with cushy recliner style chairs that they advertise every time we go but we don’t have. The brown and red coloring of the new cushions at least made the theater feel like it came out of the 70s.
I saw it at the Minnesota Zoo, which is older and doesn’t have reclining seating. It is, however, a full-sized IMAX screen instead of the smaller digital IMAX you get in regular movie theaters.
People probably want to see a movie designed to look like they remember the original looking in their minds (where everything looks better), not a slavish recreation of all the costume choices.
Maybe then Ep 4 will look weird when screened immediately afterwards, but only nerds do that and you’ll never satisfy them anyway.
I just watched this yesterday and obviously haven’t read the whole thread, but I liked it a lot. Maybe it’s the fact that I watched this in a movie theater vs. on my 50 in plasma TV at home, but I liked it better than TFA. I found the story more moving, mostly, and found the characters more three dimensional. It took a while to get going, I will say that–I thought last year’s movie did better on that score.
The lack of the familiar John Williams motifs throughout didn’t bother me quite as much as it did some (and I went and watched the first film in the summer of 1977 at 16, so Star Wars is in my blood–now I didn’t go watch it 12 times that summer either). They score incorporated some of the old cues at critical moments, which was enough for me.
On the technical front I was astounded by how well they digitally recreated Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin. That was right up there with “80’s Michael Douglas” from Ant-Man. I saw Tarkin from behind and was thinking “OK, they got the hair perfect, but the guy is gonna look only sort of like the other guy when he turns around.” When he did turn around I was amazed. They clearly didn’t take the same care with the one short shot of Princess Leia (RIP Carrie Fisher), because she looked a bit Uncanny Valley-ish.
One small question remains though, and maybe someone can clear something up for me:
When we briefly see C3P0 and R2-D2, are they at the Rebel base? Everything was happening so fast that I kind of lost track. That’s the only thing that makes sense though, because if they were at the Imperial base, they would have gotten blown up.
I am under the impression this movie takes place just minutes/hours earlier than the first Trilogy movie. They were at the Rebel base but then the Rebel full out assaulted the Imperial Fleet… so they’re on that ship, the only ship, that raced away from the carnage with princess Leia… right?
Correct. R2 and 3PO are at the rebel base on Yavin just before the big battle. Presumably, Leia’s father takes them with him to the Tantive IV corvette where Leia is waiting for the plans.
Fisher has died. Never regained consciousness.
Speaking of which, NYT has an in-depth article on how they created the CG Tarkin and Leia.
It’s interesting because it explains why there’s this big difference between the two characters when people talk about them.
[spoiler]
CG Tarkin was mostly done with Guy Henry playing the role, and the ILM folks basically sculpted his face to more resemble Cushing’s from A New Hope. They liken it to a “digital makeup” job.
Ingvild Deila played Leia, but ILM basically completely recreated Leia in CG (icluding her costume) on top of her in the front-facing shot. The only part of Deila that survived is her hand in that scene.[/spoiler]
I’m so glad someone else knows the ship’s name.
Some thoughts while I was watching this today:
[spoiler]While I’m not AS opposed to CG-ing actors as others may be, I think it only works well if you use it sparingly. The longer I look at a piece of CG, the more acutely aware I am that I’m looking at CG. So I might be in the minority here, but I thought Leia’s was perfect and Tarkin’s was horrible, only because I had so much longer to look at Tarkin’s creepily-animated face. When I remember Leia’s scene after the fact, I see Leia because my mind didn’t have enough time to study the face and break the illusion. When I remember Tarkin’s scenes, all I see is the animation.
Agree with many others that Darth Vader’s moments (save for his cringeworthy one-liner, which I tried to convince myself was just the last gasp of Anakin sneaking out) were good. Seeing him in action at the end was great. However, I really hope that before James Earl Jones dies, we get a proper Vader movie. Kieron Gillen has been doing fantastic work on the Marvel Vader series, and I would love to see a movie that lets Vader be a badass.[/spoiler]
Ultimately, though, I had a really good time when I saw it, but I don’t feel like I need to see it again. I really enjoyed seeing things that hadn’t been in movies since the 80’s – Y-Wings, Red and Blue Leaders, TIE Fighters, AT-ATs and AT-STs, Imperial officers, Mon Mothra, and so on. It was fleeting, but I just really enjoyed seeing those things on a big screen again. The story and characters completely fell flat for me, though. If there were a twenty-minute cut that just threw all of the nostalgic bits together, I’d probably enjoy that more than having to pay attention to the story and characters again.
Just saw it.
The CGI on both those characters was highly suspect. I’m sure it’s ‘cutting edge’ but it looked badly fake, and is only going to get worse with time - if I ever see the film again that is.
The ending battle was good, particularly Vader cutting loose was fantastic. The rest was loud. Too many characters, too many places, too many rousing speeches - all kind of forgettable.
K-2SO was fun though.
Good story…good movie. Bad acting, bad costumes, the CGI didnt bother me.
Kid loved it…but the first half he was fidgeting a lot as it takes time to get to the major action.
THIS was the Star Wars movie I wanted TFA to be. I loved it. I can understand the complaints about the lead character and story not being super great, but it had all the classics space ships flying in massive battles, a great droid, decent humor, an appropriate level of call-outs, and everyone complaining about Tarkin’s CGI is just way too whiney :)
However - what the HELL was up with Darth Vader’s outfit?! This was Skyrim-level neck seams. Spongebob’s ManRay was supposed to be a parody of Vader, NOT the other way around. I’m not sure how folks can complain about the CGI of Tarkin/Leia and let this pass.
I dont get this either. I thought the CGI was good, both Cushing and Fisher (condolences…).
I daresay think Rogue One is near my fave star wars movies episode 4-6… its as good as those three.
I’m not sure what’s so hard to understand about it. Some people are less/more susceptible to this. I went with my friends, who ended up being impressed by the CGI as you guys were. I, on the other hand, immediately was thrown off by all the imperfections. It’s simply what happens when the uncanny valley strikes, and when your mind keeps telling you that there is something very weird about it, one can’t simply ignore it. Especially when it’s being shown in an extensive close-up on a huge screen.
I didn’t find the Tarkin CGI an issue and I wonder if the unhappiness is over represented in this community which may be more discerning in the area of computer graphics.
Overall I liked the show very much. K2-SO reminded me lots of HK-47 and I wonder if there was any inspiration drawn there.
Anecdotally, my mother (who sees a movie every week, so this wasn’t the only movie she saw all year or anything) didn’t notice that Tarkin was CGI at all and asked me at the end of the movie who was playing Leia.
No I get the uncanny valley argument, and I saw the movie with friends and then with family, and none of them had any problems with the CGI. Maybe you don’t get the ‘whiney’ argument? lol just a movie, you didn’t like it, others don’t have a problem with it. etc etc