Spoilers Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Grading & Discussion

It hadn't been fired yet, so they needed to site-in the aim and you can't do that without firing it once, having it miss, and then knowing what adjustments to make.

 

The Force is strong with this one....I honestly enjoyed it more than TFA.

 

It was the Death Star. It took 20 years to complete. Mostly due to problems completing the Superlaser, as it requires rare large Kyber Crystals, and various people kept blowing up shipments of huge ones that would have gone to the Death Star (Obi-wan and Anakin take out one near the end of the Clone Wars, and the Ghost takes out another about four years before the events of Rogue One. The frame was so the construction has something to work within.

 

Wondered about that as well - I mean, the Death Star manages to hit the temple on Jedah without any problems but they can't hit the citadel, are off even by quite a few miles in an important battle? Tarkin specifically wanted the citadel targeted, not the ocean... fortunately for the targeting officer, Tarkin doesn't have the force. *g*

Never saw the Clone Wars, but that makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up.

Agreed. But I'll reserve final judgment over TFA when the whole trilogy is out because it is, after all, only the setup for 2 more films whereas Rogue One is pretty self-contained.

 

Didn't they pretty much hit the dish on point? It's just the angle that resulted in the beam hitting the ocean.
The death star rose just above the horizon.
It could't destroy the base with a 90 degree angle.
But when you have a planet killer you don't have to concern yourself too much with accuracy like this. As long as the beam doesn't just graze the atmosphere.

 

I liked the cameo from the "He doesn't like you. I don't like you either" guy and his friend. But I'm guessing they very quickly left Jedah after that scene though and headed to Tatooine

 

It sure does change the beginning of Star Wars IV. In that film, the plans are transmitted to the Tantive IV. Now, in this movie, the plans are transported to the Tantive IV. Leia Organa's explanation for the ship's mission either suggests now, that she did not know that Darth Vader had boarded the admiral's flagship or that she was playing out the interrogation giving time for R2-D2 to escape.

I was okay to a point with Tarkin. A young Carrie Fisher - there were some issues. The biggest issue for me was the inclusion of Red Leader and Yellow Leader from Star Wars IV. I sensed film clips were lifted from the earlier film and inserted into the newer film.

It was evident that there changes to the film. The most noticeable to me was that Jan Erso was no longer facing a sole TIE fighter. I wonder, what did happen in the original sequence?

What is the name of Darth Vader's world? I was waiting for it to appear - it never did.

The film was a mess for me. It is for me not as cohesive a film as "The Empire Strikes Back", for which I have seen comparisons to, and the characters are not as well defined.

 

I just assumed it's Mustafar, because how many lava planets are there associated wirh Vader?
Kinda makes sense that he would build his vacation resort on his second birth planet.

 

It was decent. Much better than A Stale Hope from last year. It was pretty predictable. The early set-up parts weren't all that engaging. Forest Whitaker was just bad. The battle at the end was really good for the most part. The Corvette pushing Star Destroyers around was silly. Leia sitting on her ship in the docking bay ready to Usain Bolt the final leg of the relay was even cheesier.

Some of the 'member berries they sprinkled in were a bit sour. The standout in that department being the YOU'LL BE DEAD guy happening upon them. Member you'll be dead guy? And his angry friend? MEMBA?!?

They could have done a bit more with I'm a Pilot guy and Inigo Montoya.

But aside from that it wasn't bad at all. The look and feel of the universe was working as well as ever. For a Sci-Fi canon-clogging side-adventure you probably can't expect much more. It felt like it fit in better than the Lucas prequels did, that's for damn sure.

 

I thought I caught "T-16," but it seems they were talking about the discontinuation of the T-15, which recalls a conversation between Troopers in A New Hope, when Obi-Wan takes out the shield generator where they talk about the introduction of the T-16.

 

One other thing on Vader. That final scene with him was almost worth the price of admission alone. We've been told how badass Vader is, but we never really saw it on screen until Rogue One.

 

I have a new prime example for "less than the sum of its parts."

Stop trying to make CGI humans happen. Its not going to happen. Especially when you put them in scenes with lighting that makes it even more difficult to pull off.

Stop winking at me. It isn't cute. You're not clever. I don't want a love letter, I want to engage with a story. Every conspicuously placed pitcher of blue milk, Dr. Evazan or "He served me well in the Clone Wars" just takes me further and further out of the movie.

Pay basic attention to scale for fucks sake. The Death Star kept shrinking and getting bigger depending on the ships around it.

Really? Darth Vader makes a pun? Really? He also looked worse than a lot of cosplays I've seen.

The ending makes no sense with regards to ANH. The Imperials literally watched Leia's ship launch from a rebel battlecruiser in an active battle. There is no subtlety there. No plausible deniability.
Is that early scene with Jyn's mom talking to saw the first time we've seen a video screen like that in Star Wars? It felt out of place.

The whole thing felt cobbled together from several drafts. It's better than the prequels but I expected much better.

C+. . .I guess.

 

Vader's costume did look odd and sort of not quite in line with this taking place literally just before ANH. I wouldn't say cosplay bad but it was close.

 

OK, just out. Roofer putting a new one on our extension cried off today so Mrs Relayer, Jr. who has already finished Uni for Christmas and I grabbed the opportunity and went.

And...a couple of lines of dodgy dialogue apart, I wouldn't change a damned thing about it. It's gone a hell of a long way towards curing me of the jadedness induced by Episode VII.

I welled up towards the end - not because of the sadness, but just because of the sheer Star Warsiness of it. I was simultaneously grinning stupidly !

I'm not quite sure of the grade I'd give it yet, but it'll be high. I'll let it sink in for a while...

 

How is that contradictory with what's seen in ANH? The Star Destroyer is blowing the hell out of Leia's ship, the Stormtroopers board it and kill numerous crew; Vader kills the Captain, takes the Princess prisoner, and will have none of the Captain's or Leia's shit. Vader knows full well what they did.

The only reason Leia and Captain Antilles possibly think they can get away with lying is that neither of them actually saw Vader attacking at Scariff. All of the crew (except one guy) that directly saw Vader taking out the soldiers were killed. Leia and Captain Antilles never saw him and possibly thought they could still indignantly BS there way out of trouble.

 

^ they might have been trying to convince them they were a different consular ship...

 

I would disagree with this. In ANH Leia's cover is that she is on a diplomatic mission from Alderaan. How is that going to work or even be perceived to be real based on the ending we see in Rogue one? How could Leia really say that with a straight face given how Tantive IV (her ship) is shown in this movie? I would say more, but I don't want to spoil the ending.

 

False I.D. - there's probably little to stop the rebels redesignating the ship after it escapes at the end of Rogue One. There are other similar ships in service.

 

She's caught and desperate, what has she got to lose? Remember at this point the Senate had just been dissolved, so she's probably operating under the assumption that diplomatic immunity is still a thing and that she can throw her credentials around and still get some legal cover even after committing a crime. Plus, even if you did commit the crime, why admit to it and incriminate yourself? She might be under the impression that the courts are still a thing too and that she'll get whatever passes for a "fair" trial in the Imperial legal system.

Plus, like Relayer says, the Rebels have lots of Blockade Runners (see below). They probably immediately switched out their previous Imperial ID beacon for a new one, and then made some random jumps instead of hightailing it directly to the nearest Rebel base, hoping that the Imperials lose their track. Maybe even get some other Blockade Runners involved like a shell game. Leia likely doesn't know it was Vader who attacked them previously, so even though it's a long shot, she feigns ignorance.