Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

[Shradow]

 

So in case you haven't heard, we got a new Star Wars movie recently.

 

[spoiler=Thoughts (SPOILERS)]The movie was really awesome, I think I like it more than Episode VII, and it's at least in my top 3 for Star Wars films, but I'm not sure where.

 

This movie probably has my favorite party of characters, even if most of the other characters ended up more interesting than the main heroine. It's a shame they all died at the end. K2 is also definitely my favorite robot companion out of them all, his lines were so great and his last stand was very amazing. The blind guy and his friend that joined them on Jedha were both also incredibly awesome, and I also really liked the pilot. We didn't get a ton of backstory on them but even so when they all had their dying moments they still got to me.

 

The action was definitely my favorite part of the movie, too. The epic space battles, the ground warfare on Scarif, all of it was incredible. At times it almost felt like a war movie reskinned with Star Wars elements, and overall I feel like the movie is more serious than the others in the series.

 

The parts of the film that connected it to the rest of the series were quite neat, too. Seeing Bail Organa there and them mentioning Obi-Wan was neat, and I like the little cameos of R2 and C3PO, as well as the two dudes from the bar from the original trilogy. I also really liked seeing Tarkin again, I love Tarkin, and while I knew he had to have been CGI because his actor has been dead forever, I never really noticed it and it never took me out of the movie or anything. Leia's CGI was spot on as well, though we only saw her for but a moment. The way it led up basically right to the beginning of Episode IV was unexpected and cool.

 

Also, that scene near the end with Darth Vader going ham on those rebel soldiers was totally kickass, definitely my favorite part of the movie. And speaking of Vader, after stuff like "Apology accepted, Captain Needa." and "We would be honored if you would join us." while he's standing at a freaking dinner table, I don't see what was wrong with his "Be careful not to choke on your aspirations, Director." pun. He does that dark humor sheet all the time.

 

Very enjoyable movie, great addition to the list of Star Wars films. 9/10

 

[Johan Liebert]

I watched it one week ago. For all the praise it was getting early on, I was underwhelmed. I'd maybe give the movie an 8/10. I really liked how the movie filled in some holes between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, but pretty much every character was fairly forgettable and I really didn't shed a tear when (SPOILER) all of them died. The Darth Vader scene at the end was a highlight, the visual effects were extremely good, and I was pleasantly surprised by the dark ending, but I just didn't give a funk about the characters. Some were stereotypical/generic (the blind monk, although he was alright), some felt just thrown in there (Forest Whitaker's character), and most were very forgettable, even if they were well-acted (the main character, her father, etc.). I enjoyed the movie, but it definitely wasn't anything amazing or groundbreaking. I appreciate that it tried something different and it (mostly) worked, but it was hard for me to care. I still haven't watched The Force Awakens, but I've seen every other Star Wars film and I'd probably have the entire original trilogy and maybe Revenge of the Sith ahead of this movie. And maybe it was just me, but the main female character and main male character kinda seemed a bit too much like Han/Leia near the end of the film.

[Shradow]

I'm glad they finally explained why the Death Star had such a glaring weakness, too. That bugged me forever why anyone would build such a thing into it.

[Fusion X. Denver]

Rogue One was fun! I also liked how it felt tonally different from the other SW movies, but still organically felt like part of their universe. Helps emphasize the War in Star Wars.

Rogue One makes me feel more excited and motivated to see other spin-off stories in the future.

 

My favorite scene has to be at the end with Darth Vader. You know the one.

[Shradow]

One thing that definitely set it apart was the lack of the opening crawl or iconic screen wipes.

[Fusion X. Denver]

Oh, they nixed the opening crawl? I was a few minutes late; I came in for the end of Jyn Erso's flashback. That's kind of a bummer. 

[spoiler=But considering]

This movie takes place right before Episode 4 and everyone knows the general premise going in, I suppose it's not really necessary. But still missed.

 

[Shradow]

[spoiler=Since I'm not sure if him being in the movie was in any of the trailers.]I must say, the guy who was under the CGI Tarkin did a phenomenal impression of his voice.

 

[Makο]

I'm glad they finally explained why the Death Star had such a glaring weakness, too. That bugged me forever why anyone would build such a thing into it.

I heavily disagree on it being a "glaring" weakness. Hell, hardly a weakness at all. The only reason why the Rebellion knew about the weakness in the first place was because they poured over the schematics that were stolen from the Imperials in the first place.

 

In all likelihood, that exhaust port was one of hundreds of thousands dotting the surface, and just so happening to have the benefit of being in a trench. Remember, this is a gigantic moon-sized space station with a super laser capable of destroying entire planets. That amount of heat must be ludicrous. It's a miracle that the entire station didn't have gigantic heatsinks sitting on it at all times, cutting it down to small, 2-meter wide exhaust ports. Remember, most people can PISS farther than two meters; hardly glaring, and it took force intervention to even get the proton torpedoes in at all.

 

It may be questionable as to why the port lead directly to Reactor, but such an attack was so unlikely that like ???.

 

 

...twas a good movie. I enjoyed it a bit more than TFA.

[Shradow]

Ok maybe "glaring" was the wrong word, "fatal" was more what I was talking about.

 

Also, the first Death Star isn't all that gigantic, relatively speaking. Its diameter is about 99 miles, while our moon's is 2159 miles.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Having seen all the SW movies so far, I found there were a lot of places this one dragged for me and certainly don't think it was as good as Episode 7.

 

[spoiler=Thoughts]

The intensity of the main protagonist and her child soldier-gone-criminal background did not mesh well with the generally corny Rogue One protagonist crew (looking at you, force monk and sassy droid). There was a lot of hype surrounding Darth Vader, whose ~3 minutes of screen time were upstaged by hologram-Tarkin's ~1 minute, keeping in mind this is a 133 minute film and the main antagonist is some forgettable lackey. There were long drags where a whole lot of lasers are being blasted (more often missing that not) without much else happening until the whole crew eventually dies just to transmit a message, which felt like rather a pyrrhic victory. Sure, Luke now has more pre-text to do his thing, but he had plot magic in abundance anyway in The Force. The force monk being as devout a believer in The Force as we've seen in the franchise but still not enough to get a lightsaber and/or survive also does a number in undermining The Force. It seemed like this movie was having trouble deciding whether to be a Star Wars movie or a war movie.  

 

I'd give it a 6.5/10 or so, couldn't give it more.      

 

 

[Agro]

5

4 

Rogue

6

7

3

2

1

 

imo

 

I thought it was very good. The droid, monk, and vader's scene at the end stole the show, but I really liked it from start to finish.

 

It's the Empire Strikes Back of Star Wars

[spoiler=Since I'm not sure if him being in the movie was in any of the trailers.]I must say, the guy who was under the CGI Tarkin did a phenomenal impression of his voice.

 

Only his face was CGI. Actually the actor beneath him looks kind of like him too... wonder what they could have done with makeup alone.

[Shradow]

My list right now is probably something like:

5

6

R1

4

7

3

1

2

Though I haven't actually watched 1-6 in quite some time.

 

I know only the face was CGI, I was just saying that his voice was spot on. And yeah, it would have been interesting to see how they'd do with just makeup/prosthetics, but I thought the CGI was very acceptable.

 

EDIT: Needed to change my list around because I misremembered some sequences of events and what was actually in what movie.

[Tentacruel]

Well the only problem with such a weakness is that anybody advanced enough to build a planet-killing super weapon would likely be smart enough to develop redundancies to avoid one missile funking the entire thing. 

 

Still, it's a nice nod.  I just wish [spoiler spoilerz"]Vader had more screentime, I wanted some EU-level asskicking but I liked what we got

 

[Johan Liebert]

I guess I'd rank the movies I've seen (I still haven't watched The Force Awakens) like this:

 

1. A New Hope

2. The Empire Strikes Back

3. Return of the Jedi

3. Rogue One

3. Revenge of the Sith

6. The Phantom Menace

7. Attack of the Clones

 

(Yes, I know I'm the strangest person in the planet for enjoying A New Hope the most, but it's extremely close. Return of the Jedi, Revenge of the Sith, and Rogue One are all about the same for me, although out of those three films, Revenge of the Sith had the worst acting, Rogue One had the most uninteresting characters, and Return of the Jedi had the Ewoks (which were pretty stupid). To be fair, I enjoy the characters and timeline featured in the prequels a lot more, but the original trilogy was done so much better in virtually every way. The 2008-2014 Clone Wars show was fantastic, especially with everything after the first two seasons; this show is what truly got me into Star Wars.)

 

Anyway, Rogue One was still good, despite that I enjoyed it less than most people. It definitely made me more enthusiastic about the possibility of having more spin-off films. I kind of wish Ewan McGregor would come back in a standalone Obi-Wan movie somehow. I really liked him as Obi-Wan and he was one of the few good acting performances in the prequels.