Spoilers Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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The trailers where about the only thing I had seen.
Seen it. Loved it. Word of advice - there's no point in comparing it to TFA. TFA, like the other Star Wars films, has the luxury of slow pacing and leaving questions unanswered. Rogue One is a self-contained story so it needs to establish characters, plot, tension and reach a resolution within the one film. It isn't reasonable to compare it to TFA because some of the flaws in this film are unique to a film of this type.
Overall: B+
What I loved:
What I liked but felt could have been done better:
What I strongly disliked:
Overall: B+
What I loved:
- "Guest" appearances by Jimmy Smits and Ben Daniels
- Terrific lead character to drive the film
- Excellent action
- Best final assault mission since ROTJ
- Ben Mendelson
- Lightsabers and force kept to a minimum. In its place, hardboiled militaristic action
- Grittiness ahead of darkness. That is, it is a visceral Star Wars movie without the hellish overtones of ROTS or the dour feel of AOTC. It's a serious Star Wars film but without losing that sense of escapism.
- Not too much Darth Vader. This was the aspect of the film I was looking forward to the least. In actual fact, they handled it REALLY well.
- The ending: utterly bittersweet. It was realistic, true to the gritty story but also with a wink of optimism which leads directly into the opening moments of ANH
- Terrific lead character to drive the film
- Excellent action
- Best final assault mission since ROTJ
- Ben Mendelson
- Lightsabers and force kept to a minimum. In its place, hardboiled militaristic action
- Grittiness ahead of darkness. That is, it is a visceral Star Wars movie without the hellish overtones of ROTS or the dour feel of AOTC. It's a serious Star Wars film but without losing that sense of escapism.
- Not too much Darth Vader. This was the aspect of the film I was looking forward to the least. In actual fact, they handled it REALLY well.
- The ending: utterly bittersweet. It was realistic, true to the gritty story but also with a wink of optimism which leads directly into the opening moments of ANH
What I liked but felt could have been done better:
- The entire first third of the movie. Lots of story exposition, introduction of characters and a lot of jumping around of settings. For what is meant to be a fairly straight forward story, there was a lot of information thrown at the audience.
- Too many characters. Although there are some great characters here, some felt wasted because of the need to give as many characters as possible a decent amount of screen time. This didn't always work (such as Donnie Yen's character).
- The opening credits: i'm glad that they have done away with the opening crawl for the Anthology films, but the opening title felt far too brief. I would have liked a title sequence, kind of like a 007 film.
- Too many characters. Although there are some great characters here, some felt wasted because of the need to give as many characters as possible a decent amount of screen time. This didn't always work (such as Donnie Yen's character).
- The opening credits: i'm glad that they have done away with the opening crawl for the Anthology films, but the opening title felt far too brief. I would have liked a title sequence, kind of like a 007 film.
What I strongly disliked:
- The droid. The screen time on this character should have been used on one of the other characters which could have used more depth.
- CGI Cushing and Fisher. Nope, not one bit.
- CGI Cushing and Fisher. Nope, not one bit.
Saw it earlier. Loved it. Gonna see again sometime in the nex few days. A
Since the thread title says spoilers...........I'll skip the code. I agree with just about everything you said BUT I loved K2SO and I thought the CGI Tarkin was amazing and well done. Having read Catalyst I knew he would have to be a large part of the story. The CGI Leia wasn't as good, but for the few seconds it was worth it to bookend the story. I loved seeing Cornelius Evazan and his sidekick too. Seeing the repurposed squad leaders was a nice tip of the hat too.
Well, I've successfully fended off Jr's insistence on seeing it on the opening day, but I suspect I'll have to go this weekend.
On a positive note, I hope this'll be the movie that rekindles my love of Star Wars. The kid that saw it 13 times at the cinema in 1977/78 has been very hard to find recently...
On a positive note, I hope this'll be the movie that rekindles my love of Star Wars. The kid that saw it 13 times at the cinema in 1977/78 has been very hard to find recently...
I thought I saw it sitting on the ground at Yavin IV but it was so quick. I need to see again ASAP.
It was. Also seen in the fleet during the battle outside the shield.
Pretty sure I also heard a loudspeaker address at the Yavin base asking General Syndulla to come to the briefing room. (Or something similar.)
My daughter returns home from college today and is then promptly going out with friends to see this at midnight... I don't want to be THAT dad and "tag along," especially since work comes early on Friday.. But I want to so bad!!! lol... Ah well, there's always this weekend.
Saw it yesterday, at a special advance screening. I know I'm still buzzing from the thrill of it all, but I found it the best SW movie since ESB: great story, impressive casting, absolutely mind-blowing VFX (somebody has complained about Tarkin and Leia, I thought they looked amazing, even if the former looked a bit odd in certain shots) and sets, top-notch location shooting, fantastic cinematography and direction. And kudos to Disney for, in an era when trailers show way too much of the movies they're promoting, resisting the temptation to throw all the eye candy at us and keeping so many important scenes and locations under wraps. I need to see it again ASAP, there's so much stuff to gaze at!
I'm going to see it next Wednesday, so I want to keep spoilers to a minimum. I have only one burning question at this point. Maybe it was addressed up thread (didn't see it), but can someone confirm whether or not there is an opening crawl? Also, do we get the Star Wars fanfare for the theme?
No opening crawl, no fanfare.
The music, from Michael Gioacchino, is pretty awesome, though
Absolutely loved it. I was a little underwhelmed by TFA on first viewing, though it improved with repeat viewings. But was taken with this at every step. Just enough nostalgia but more innovation (IMHO) than TFA.
The CGI Tarkin and Leia didn't quite work, her especially (his had the advantage of darkened imperial lighting) but were nonetheless impressive.
The CGI Tarkin and Leia didn't quite work, her especially (his had the advantage of darkened imperial lighting) but were nonetheless impressive.
No and No.
I'm thinking on starting a tradition with these Star Wars movies. With TFA, I saw on opening day and then saw a second screening in mid to late January just as it was closing. I'm going to do the same for Rogue, especially as TFA grew on me when seeing it the second time. I want to see if the first third of Rogue can improve with a second viewing.
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...), Jyn was great as was Andor, also that this is kind of the turning point for an alliance (and Andor himself) that doesn't quite know what it's actually fighting for. Really enjoyed that aspect. Even liked the droid - he was funny. *g* The blind guy and his companion could have needed a bit more fleshing out, though.
CGI-Tarkin was well done, could have done without Leia, though. That looked a bit too artificial, and in a way it would have sufficed to see the ship, maybe a comm-officer saying they received the plans, and that's it - because anybody not knowing the story won't care, and anybody knowing what comes next will get the hint, so I didn't need the fully carried out "oh, see, Leia's on board and has the plans now"-message. OTOH, that Leia's even at the battle site doesn't really mix with Organa's intimation that he'll send her to Obi-Wan... by way of being in a deadly battle? The conversation on Yavin didn't indicate that Organa sends her with the plans to Obi-Wan, so no necessity for her to pick them up... again, this ending could have been handled differently, maybe a last-minute alliance-communication that Leia's ship picks up... Overall, Organa could have had a bigger role, especially in that meeting of the council... he was very quiet there.
Loved the actual, quite bleak ending (with the ray of hope, of course, but still). Obvious, since we don't hear from the main characters anymore, but still very well done.
Just one thing that bugged me: Jyn has to reallign the satellite dish so that the message can be sent. But before she can return to the communication device, the dish is destroyed... so she can send the message with the dish destroyed, but not with it misaligned?
About the visuals: Honestly, I think this movie would have worked perfectly without the 3D because I didn't really see any playing with the different levels as in other movies (like Dr Strange where you really had that near/far-impression). And as much as I loved the battle sequence but it was a bit vertigo-inducing, again (but then again, I'm not too good with heights and they played quite a bit with that). I guess I'd tolerate that better in 2D. But I loved the different planets, the Death Star gave me the shivers when it appeared on the horizon etc. There should have been some kind of title-sequence, though... really missed that, perhaps not the crawl because that should be reserved to the main SW-stories, but still... well... something. But I liked that they used the main theme in the end credits (twice *g*).
Overall: big thumbs-up.
CGI-Tarkin was well done, could have done without Leia, though. That looked a bit too artificial, and in a way it would have sufficed to see the ship, maybe a comm-officer saying they received the plans, and that's it - because anybody not knowing the story won't care, and anybody knowing what comes next will get the hint, so I didn't need the fully carried out "oh, see, Leia's on board and has the plans now"-message. OTOH, that Leia's even at the battle site doesn't really mix with Organa's intimation that he'll send her to Obi-Wan... by way of being in a deadly battle? The conversation on Yavin didn't indicate that Organa sends her with the plans to Obi-Wan, so no necessity for her to pick them up... again, this ending could have been handled differently, maybe a last-minute alliance-communication that Leia's ship picks up... Overall, Organa could have had a bigger role, especially in that meeting of the council... he was very quiet there.
Loved the actual, quite bleak ending (with the ray of hope, of course, but still). Obvious, since we don't hear from the main characters anymore, but still very well done.
Just one thing that bugged me: Jyn has to reallign the satellite dish so that the message can be sent. But before she can return to the communication device, the dish is destroyed... so she can send the message with the dish destroyed, but not with it misaligned?
About the visuals: Honestly, I think this movie would have worked perfectly without the 3D because I didn't really see any playing with the different levels as in other movies (like Dr Strange where you really had that near/far-impression). And as much as I loved the battle sequence but it was a bit vertigo-inducing, again (but then again, I'm not too good with heights and they played quite a bit with that). I guess I'd tolerate that better in 2D. But I loved the different planets, the Death Star gave me the shivers when it appeared on the horizon etc. There should have been some kind of title-sequence, though... really missed that, perhaps not the crawl because that should be reserved to the main SW-stories, but still... well... something. But I liked that they used the main theme in the end credits (twice *g*).
Overall: big thumbs-up.
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