Replying to other people:
Yep that was a nice little nod with the Squad Leaders. Poor Red 5 though.
Well, obviously, Red Five couldn't make it out of the movie. He had to get replaced.
The CGI Tarkin and Leia didn't quite work, her especially (his had the advantage of darkened imperial lighting) but were nonetheless impressive.
I thought hers was fortunate to be so brief. When Tarkin wasn't talking, it looked spot on to me. It's in animation that it could sometimes falter. Still, while it obviously was CGI, it's some of the best CG portrayals of humans I've ever seen. I thought Tarkin would be in for three seconds and he ended up being a fairly important character that, to me, was essential for understanding Krennic and Imperial politics. So, as much as I don't like seeing the sausage made or knowing reaction shots are to hide the CG, I absolutely applaud what they did.
Just saw it, and loved it. The story had depth, tied in neatly with ANH (although I'd still like to know what happened to that Death Star frame at the end of RotS - was that a prototype or *the* Death Star and it took just 20 years to finish it... because it looked close to finished back then...)
Eh, it was just a frame back then, not a superweapon. They specifically mentioned at the start of this movie that the work had stalled. Apparently Galen started the work back then, then he left. At that point, they reached a dead end.
One thing I forgot to mention that bothered me: What was that weapon the Rebels used against the Star Destroyer in order to disable its systems? Pretty damn useful weapon...pity we never saw it again.
Ion Cannons. They had a planet-based one in The Empire Strikes Back, which was used to disable the Star Destroyers so the rebel fleet could escape Hoth. In almost every Star Wars video game I've played, Y-Wings come equipped with them.
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.
Has to be Mustafar (either that or Barad-Dur). It's the only explanation for why they didn't name the planet (they wanted to keep Vader's appearance a secret for a few additional seconds).
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.
It works close enough, but the original movie specifically said that transmissions were beamed aboard the ship directly from rebel spies.
Wellya know, now we know that Giacchino is not up to the task of helming the main series after Williams passes. Hopefully Disney starts looking for a new composer soon.
While I wasn't a fan of the score, he had four weeks to make it, so I can't entirely fault him. To me, it was really just generic - neither good nor bad. I think he could have used John Williams a bit more as a crutch and used some more of the original music.
I noticed some of that footage missing (most notably the TIE Fighter and Jyn's interaction with Mon Mothma and General Draven) but I hadn't realized this much footage was missing. What's weird is the amount of footage that was shown so late in the marketing campaign, which was clearly after the reshoots.
The Tie-Fighter scene was cut because, immediately after the Tie appears, a rebel ship blows it up. They felt it was too similar to the scene with the AT-AT earlier.
Two points I have thought about:
1.) Why did the Rebel fleet not consider sending a retrieval ship to pick up the surviving members of Rogue One? They had area control - they were able to smash two destroyers without Imperial interference - in space.
Well, they may have had control at one point (although things looked far from certain on the ground). It's clear they did not have control by the end. Once Vadar showed up, things turned south quickly.
But I feel there were a few narrative beats that got lost in the edit. The rebel flagship(which should have had a name mentioned) should have been showing taking damage to beat the Star Destroyers and bring the shield down(it would have worked a lot more if that cruiser had pushed the Star Destroyers into each other rather than the corvette for example). Thus showing why the rebel cruiser is disabled instead of mentioning it with a throwaway "its disabled" line.
Two things here. The Hammerhead Corvette is a reference to both old non-canon Star Wars and Star Wars Rebels. Including it is a nod to things (and shows the Rebellion has a weapon they can use on point). Second, The Rebel Cruiser was shown being disabled, it was disabled after Darth Vader arrived. I'll address more thoughts below:
Second, the Deathstar should have nailed at least one of the rebel capital ships to help explain why the rebels do not use any capital ships in Episode IV during their attack.
Finally there is a rather glaring plot hole there at the end. The rebels go back to Yavin(Red and Gold leaders obviously) but the Deathstar plans get sent to Obiwan, who then decides that the plans have to go to the rebels on Yavin. So essentially all of Episode IV is now someone getting some mislabeled mail and taking it to the right address, when it could have been taken straight there by the rebels themselves.
Unless we saw different things, I think they addressed both your concerns. Ships from the fleet made it out, but quite a few were hit when Darth Vadar showed up. It was only the ships that jumped out before he arrived that made it back to Yavin. None of those ships had Vader's plans.
They also didn't use any capital ships in the Battle of Yavin because they would have been useless against the Death Star. That's the whole thing about a small one-man ship might be able to slip past the Death Star's defenses. The Empire specifically designed its defenses around a large-scale assault.
