Star Wars : Rogue One

I enjoyed this movie. I can't get into the debates. Wasn't as good as force awakens.

While it lasts ...

Jozu said:

Thats exactly my sentiment I was actually confused about some of the hate toward that final Vader scene. All I heard for years was about how Vader did jack shit when it came to actually being a menace via fucking dudes up in Ep 4.

They obviously went out of their way to display that and quell that very gripe, and now people are reducing it to fan service. It is fan service, but it was also fucking awesome. Like I said one of the best 90 seconds or so in the entire Star Wars saga. They really conveyed Vaders stregnth both with the ease of which he was maneuvering his saber but the way he utilized his force throws, grabs and chokes. Just a really sick portrayal of badassery when it comes to force power and overall devastating attack potential of a skilled saber user.

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yeah, I thought the Vader appearances were on point and tasteful. I don't get the rlm calls for fanboys jerking off, and general cameo fanbait etc.
I think it made sense for Vader to be there and act as he did. The only, issue I had was as noted, it was anticlimatic to the main R1 group, not actually being involved in the climax...

I think Leia shouldn't have shown up at all. or should have been pushed back to haven't not been on site. That was dumb.
I think the Tarkin is a misstep as well.
Like, the Tarkin-Krennic-Erso dynamic could have/should have been a larger part of the movie. Krennic as a character falls apart a bit, as he is presented as more straightforward evil. Him wrangling between politics, bureaucracy, and getting his masterpiece built, could have been fantastic. The problem is, this would have required more face time with Tarkin... and the technology is just no there yet.
As it is now, its sortof there, and ends up mostly just wasted screentime, of a barebones plotline. It should have been scrubbed entirely, and Tarkin only show up as a hologram, to disguise the poor tech even further.

Caliane said:

R1 showed the Rebel alliance on Yavin4, getting an alert for the R1 team attacking Scariff. then sending a fleet in response. notability, this is very specifically shown as a fleet ON yavin4 being sent. r2/c3po, the captain.
Yavin 4 is on the other side of the Galaxy. Scariff is right next to Tatoonie, and Genosha. It should have taken about 7 days to respond. not 10minutes-2 hours.

TFA had it occur several times. The hyperspace lazerbeam from starkillerbase, the visible core worlds, and the attack on Starkiller base as well. the Alliance was attacked, organized and attacked starkiller base in 20minutes. real time. they were trying to beat the sun being depleted for another attack, targeting the alliance base. They left the alliance base and arrived at starkiller basically instantly.

Pacing wise, yes, they should have had flight travel scenes to suggest the passage of time, as well frankly. (there were a few scenes of that too. Rey leaving to find Luke. yes, there should have been a scene with her alone on the ship, instead of instantly cutting to her arrival.)

But, worse, both TFA and R1 had timed elements that removed travel time entirely. we were very expressly shown the Rebels leaving for Scariff AFTER the fighting started. and, we were expressly shown the Alliance leaving for starkiller base, AFTER the countdown clock started.

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First off Starkiller Base and the destruction of Hosnian Prime, yeah that shit was too much. But that isn't really a case of instant travel (which we seem to have different notions of. It seems like you consider it "overly abbreviated" while to me it's more like "Beam me down Scotty"). Unless they wanted to utilize the travel time of the beam as a suspense device there really isn't a point in incorporating it into the movie. And making the system visible to the crowd at Maz's tavern was Abram's bad idea for trying to add emotional impact to the planet's destruction (probably because editing changes eliminated us ever being introduced to Leia's envoy to the Senate, who was present and shown when it happened but was just a nameless face as far as the viewer was concerned at the time).

But otherwise most of what you've mentioned is the downside of trying to tell action oriented stories in a galactic scaled setting. Lucas never really had to be constrained by it in the first movie. That first light speed trip took a little over 5 minutes of screen time and even if you're generous it seemed like the whole thing took less than half an hour of actual time. And if they didn't have necessary exposition to insert into that point of the movie it probably would have been presented as even less than that. But it didn't matter because no one knew how far apart any one place was from another back then. It wasn't until later that Alderaan used to be half way across the galaxy from Tatooine. And it was never dealt with any differently in the next 5 movies. It's pretty much a house rule of the movie setting at this point.

Caliane said:

I think Leia shouldn't have shown up at all. or should have been pushed back to haven't not been on site. That was dumb.

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One of things R1 attempted to do was to answer some of the questions and criticisms surrounding the plot of ANH (such as addressing the whole exhaust port thing and creating a reason for it being there) as well as create context for various elements of the story.

One question that you never really heard as much about as the exhaust port was if Leia's ship traveled to Tatooine at light speed (a likely assumption) then how was the Star Destroyer close on their tail? Did Vader just like hanging out in orbit around his old home and was there when they arrived? R1 creates some context for why he would be able to pursue them. We know from ESB that if a ship is observed jumping to light speed that you can calculate potential destinations along the trajectory. And with Scarif being so close to Tatooine it shouldn't have been hard to figure out.

And it also gives some context to 3PO's line at the opening "There will no escape for the princes this time". They just had a narrow escape at Scarif.

To me having Leia at the battle wasn't a mistake, given what it could add to the overall story. The failure was not conveying a reason why she would be there within the context of the movie.

what? the Empire catching up to leia's smaller/slower ship was a plot hole in ANH? what?

Anyway, he also says the plans were beamed to her ship. By your own logic, the Empire could have simply just followed the ship that rendezvoused with hers. Which is pretty much exactly what is suggested in ANH.

The final Vader scene was nothing but badassery. I could see the earlier scene being corny with the choking on your ambition line, but I personally loved it, felt like original trilogy Vader to me.

I don't think the choking on your ambition line is necessarily cornier than some of his others like 'apology accepted'

The choking line......*cringe*

I think it fits in the established trope of movie bad guys who will mock their victims or whoever they are torturing by throwing a dark humored joke at them.

Rubbing the pain in their face.

Caliane said:

what? the Empire catching up to leia's smaller/slower ship was a plot hole in ANH? what?

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It's not obvious in ANH that a star destroyer is faster than her corvette (it is, but not by much) particularly just because it's bigger when we see later in the movie a much smaller Millennium Falcon outrun 2 of them.

Caliane said:

Anyway, he also says the plans were beamed to her ship. By your own logic, the Empire could have simply just followed the ship that rendezvoused with hers. Which is pretty much exactly what is suggested in ANH.

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I never got that sort of inference from ANH. It's too vague and Vader talks about it in somewhat contradictory terms. One time asks about the plans they intercepted (which implies they received them while they were in transit to another intended target) and another he says that they were beamed to her ship (which suggests her ship was the intended target of the transmission).

But you're right, they could have simply had a different ship docked there and Vader could have followed that. The problem there though is something you mentioned (I think it was you anyway) and that is too much additional action after the point where Jyn and Cassian transmitted the plans makes their final scene anti-climatic. And too many jumps in the process diminishes their act and the sacrifice that came with it by making it a smaller part in a longer process, one that is claiming additional lives every step of the way. I think that is ultimately the reason that they had Leia where she was. I still think it's more a case of them not properly setting up why she was there from a storyline perspective.

But that was only necessitated by their insistence on having the ending of R1 butt up so closely to the beginning of ANH. The whole thing could have been avoided if they hadn't decided to go that route. And maybe they shouldn't have. I do like the way the transition between the two movies comes off, because you just don't see that very often. But once the novelty of it passes I may feel that the issues created to make it possible were not quite worth it. I dunno yet.

Caliane said:

Like, the Tarkin-Krennic-Erso dynamic could have/should have been a larger part of the movie. Krennic as a character falls apart a bit, as he is presented as more straightforward evil. Him wrangling between politics, bureaucracy, and getting his masterpiece built, could have been fantastic.

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If you haven't read Catalyst, this is a good chunk of Krennic's story within the novel.

On the other hand.. haters gonna hate.

Oblio said:

I have not read this thread since the movie came out, nor did I read plot line spoilers etc. Finally saw the movie today, delayed seeing it because I have been sick. Anyway, the movie was okay, not great not terrible just felt like a forced plot to have a female hero to make present day SJWs happy. My big issue is that there was not a single fucking Bothan on screen. Fuck you Disney for CGI Tarkin but not one CGI Bothan, I guess the "many Bothans died" was just a lie. I cannot be alone in this complaint.

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Pretty sure the Bothan line is for the RotJ Death Star plans.

Bothans, everyone remembers they died but nothing beyond that. Maybe they should have went into how they were tortured, force choked, and killed to make it stick.