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

Grade the movie.


  • Total voters
    222
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.
 
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.
I rather liked the score. It compared quite favourably to Williams rather sub par effort on The Force Awakens.
 
I thought the CGI Tarkin was pretty good. Only seemed slightly off in a few shots. For the most part I it worked well.

Loved the inclusions of Gold Leader and Red Leader as well as Artoo and Threepio.
 
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To be fair with the music it is kind of hard to follow Williams given that his music for the SW films is so much part of the films. But at times you could her undertones of Williams music in some of the new music for the film.
 
One of the recurring motifs sounded (in my mind at least) a lot like an incomplete version of the "Across the Stars" love theme from the prequels. It was one of the more memorable bits of the score, but not necessarily good.

I liked most of the music I can recall though. A few were definitely less than what I would expect out of Williams but asking someone to replicate another composers style and do it as well as they do is a pretty big expectation.
 
I watched the film again. What I like most is the glimpses into the galactic civilization, both civilian and military.

For a battle that was the first major victory for the Rebellion Alliance, it nearly broke the Alliance. This Pyrrhic victory was not how I imagined the battle.

Each time I see the Death Star being used for destroying a planetary target, I am reminded of deleted scenes where Moff J. was tasked with destroying Endor. Unlike the Imperials in this movie, he was hesitant in destroying Endor.

I found the music jarring. There were times when the compositions felt interrupted and there was no flow between musical pieces. The worst piece of the use of music came during the interrogation between the Imperial pilot and the Partisan leader.

I am sensitive to editorial "hiccups", and I felt several in this movie. The biggest came in the final third act. When Jyn was attempting to align the dish, I felt a jarring edit. This was where the original intention was replaced by the rewrite.

The film has beautiful aesthetics.
 
I was wondering about that myself, as many of the great trailer scenes wound up not being in the final version.
 
I agree that the disk being taken onto Tantive IV is at odds with the "Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by Rebel spies" line from ANH, but who knows what transpired between R1 and ANH? :shrug:
I just watched A New Hope and I would say the line works fine with what we saw in Rogue One. The actual line in A New Hope is "Where are the transmissions you intercepted?" Darth Vader could simply be using the royal you, referring to the Rebels because he knows someone in the Rebel fleet at the battle intercepted the transmission as we saw in Rogue One. I don't see any problem there.
 
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Thinking back, the film created a major continuity error, if I have the chronology correct.

If I remember correctly, as the battle was raging on Scarif, the admiral's fleet was on its way. His ship contained the Tantive IV. Soon afterwards, the star fighters are launched to assist the admiral's fleet. As the fighters leave, we see C-3PO and R2-D2 on the planet. When did the Tantive IV have the time to pick up the droids? And, if they did return to Yavin 4, why did they not drop off the plans to the Rebel Alliance Council?
 
Good article analyzing the unused footage from the trailers and speculation on what the original cut of the movie may have been like:

http://www.slashfilm.com/rogue-one-missing-trailer-footage/

I gotta say, I'd have liked to see that version of things.
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.

Thinking back, the film created a major continuity error, if I have the chronology correct.

If I remember correctly, as the battle was raging on Scarif, the admiral's fleet was on its way. His ship contained the Tantive IV. Soon afterwards, the star fighters are launched to assist the admiral's fleet. As the fighters leave, we see C-3PO and R2-D2 on the planet. When did the Tantive IV have the time to pick up the droids? And, if they did return to Yavin 4, why did they not drop off the plans to the Rebel Alliance Council?
I did think of this while watching A New Hope and I'm not sure how to resolve that one. What really bugs me about that error is it happens because of the random cameo for the two droids when they could have just as easily shown up in the ending aboard the Tantive IV.
 
I assumed the Droids left Yavin with Bail. AFter that my memory is iffy. He obviously communicated with Leia. Did he return to Alderaan and sent Leia and the Droids off together? All of unseen of course
 
I rather liked the score. It compared quite favourably to Williams rather sub par effort on The Force Awakens.
:wtf:

No.

Just ... no.

Giacchino managed to work his way up to Williams' incidental flourishes. But that's about it. He does have one easily recognizable theme (first heard at 0:36 of "He's Here For Us") which pops up relatively frequently. There are some others, but they leave little impact. And there is nothing close to, say, Rey's theme. Much less the symbolic significance of Ren's theme. His use of the Force Theme felt awkward and clumsy. He barely used the Rebel theme. And there was very little to tie this score to the rest of the Star Wars films - a significant shortcoming, seeing as how this film fits so critically into the events of ANH.

The score is a lot of Williams-influenced stylized, but forgettable, wallpaper.
 
Did anybody else see Stuart Baird in the credits as an editor? IMDB and Wikipedia make no mention of him ever working on Star Wars, but I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine seeing his name.
 
Visually I thought the movie looked amazing, and I really liked most of the characters, but I have to admit I still had a hard time getting as emotionally engaged with it as I wanted, and it even seemed to drag at times. But then the volume in my theater was also way too low (which always takes me out of a movie that way), so I'll need to see it again to properly judge.

I did notice that the editing wasn't always as smooth as it could have been though. And while I thought the CG Tarkin worked surprisingly well (despite being obviously CG), the CG Leia at the end was absolutely cringe-inducing, and I'm really really wishing the movie had ended before she turned around (just hearing her voice would have been more than enough).
 
In "A New Hope", Tarkin said the following to his command staff:

I think it is time we demonstrate the full power of this station.

Well, doesn't that contradict what had occurred in "Rogue One"?
 
One of the recurring motifs sounded (in my mind at least) a lot like an incomplete version of the "Across the Stars" love theme from the prequels.
Yep.

And there is nothing close to, say, Rey's theme.
Giacchino is a solid composer, but Rey's Theme is way above his talent level.

A few weeks ago I went to see Dr. Strange without knowing who did the score. The music actually sounded like a rehash of Star Trek to me, so I assumed it was Giacchino, and laughed my ass off when the end credits confirmed it.
 
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In "A New Hope", Tarkin said the following to his command staff:

I think it is time we demonstrate the full power of this station.

Well, doesn't that contradict what had occurred in "Rogue One"?
The firings in Rogue One were single reactor only, and did not destroy the planets. Alderaan was its first use at full power.
 
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