[Movies] Rogue One: The Thickening (SPOILER THREAD!)

Frank

Frank

Just got back from seeing it. I really dug it. It had some silly shit that could've been avoided but it was super exciting and fun. That last act was baller as fuck.

At least this Stars War had a space battle in it.

BUT HOLY SHIT, we get it, it's a Star Wars movie. This one had way too many memberberries in it. Ball face and angry guy. Yup. Blue milk? Yup. MEMBER WHEN THAT GUY SAID HE WAS STARTING HIS ATTACK RUN? Yup. ETC. ETC. ETC..
 
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phil

phil

plus you're telling me that the whole city gets destroyed but those two assholes escaped to go to a random cantina on a different desert planet to get drunk and yell at the guy who is gonna blow up the big super weapon that destroyed the place they were just at like, two days ago.
 
Frank

Frank

Reading about the extensive reshoots (it's almost impossible to find any shots from the first trailer in the theatrical movie), I wanna take a shot in the dark and say a SHIT TON of those MEMBER THEEEEESE bits from Rogue One were added in after the fact. They're all so fucking jarring and out of place.[DOUBLEPOST=1482309606,1482309476][/DOUBLEPOST]It makes the beginning of A New Hope kind of silly too.

"Sir, we're on a diplomatic mission from Alderaan!"

"I fucking literally just watched you escape with the Death Star plans."
 
Terrik

Terrik

Frank said:
Reading about the extensive reshoots (it's almost impossible to find any shots from the first trailer in the theatrical movie), I wanna take a shot in the dark and say a SHIT TON of those MEMBER THEEEEESE bits from Rogue One were added in after the fact. They're all so fucking jarring and out of place.[DOUBLEPOST=1482309606,1482309476][/DOUBLEPOST]It makes the beginning of A New Hope kind of silly too.

"Sir, we're on a diplomatic mission from Alderaan!"

"I fucking literally just watched you escape with the Death Star plans."
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I dunno if it makes it silly. A New Hope literally starts with a Star Destroyer running the ship down. There was no ambiguity whether or not the ship was on a "diplomatic mission". They blasted through the doors, cut everyone down, and Vader practically said 'Cut the shit, you know where I'm here". I think Leia simply threw out an explanation because, what else was she going to do?
 
Null

Null

Also, in reference to "stormtroopers can't hit anything", it's worth remembering that in Korea and Vietnam, the ratio of rounds of ammunition expended to confirmed hits for American soldiers was 250:1. Granted, that's using a lot more automatic weaponry than we see in the SW universe, and a doctrine of using suppressing fire and hosing an area rather than making called shots. In Rogue One, the stormies aren't especially poor shots, considering half the time they're shooting to keep the other side's heads down, rather than to kill. The Death Troopers, however, have significantly better armor and when they arrive on scene, people are going down quick. In short, if you're not a Legendary character, troopers are really fucking bad news.

If Darth Vader shows up, you're completely fucked.

Making the baddies competent and dangerous really ups the stakes of the entire conflict, which was missing in the Prequels.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Null said:
Also, in reference to "stormtroopers can't hit anything", it's worth remembering that in Korea and Vietnam, the ratio of rounds of ammunition expended to confirmed hits for American soldiers was 250:1. Granted, that's using a lot more automatic weaponry than we see in the SW universe, and a doctrine of using suppressing fire and hosing an area rather than making called shots. In Rogue One, the stormies aren't especially poor shots, considering half the time they're shooting to keep the other side's heads down, rather than to kill. The Death Troopers, however, have significantly better armor and when they arrive on scene, people are going down quick. In short, if you're not a Legendary character, troopers are really fucking bad news.

If Darth Vader shows up, you're completely fucked.

Making the baddies competent and dangerous really ups the stakes of the entire conflict, which was missing in the Prequels.
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I think it's been well established again by this point that Stormtroopers are only bad shots when they're under specific orders to let the good guys escape.
 
Null

Null

GasBandit said:
I think it's been well established again by this point that Stormtroopers are only bad shots when they're under specific orders to let the good guys escape.
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That doesn't cover the Emperor's Legion on Endor's Forest Moon, though that may have been a legion chosen for prestige, not warfighting ability.

But otherwise, yeah. Stormies were plenty dangerous on Hoth and Bespin.
 
Telephius

Telephius

Frank said:
Darth Vader was all about the dickish sarcastic one liners in the original trilogy.
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Agreed. Though I was little off put by the cover girl head fling he did when delivering his one liner. Would have been better if he had only moved his head a tiny but noticeable amount
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Just got back so I can finally join this thread.

I liked it but didn't love it. I know that's been said, but it's how I feel. I didn't really notice the CGI except in a couple of parts like when Jyn was running to realign the dish. Very CGI. And there were a couple of plot holes, like when Jyn's dad was being talked to and she climbed the big fucking ladder to get to him, yet the other characters got there very easily from a greater distance.

But it was a good enough movie that I'l probably see it again at some point.
 
phil

phil

I just loved how big everything felt. The star destroyers ramming into each other, or the death star looming over the horizon and especially the ATAT coming over the trees. It felt scary and hopeless and overwhelming like fighting the empire, especially in that situation would feel. The swarm of tie fighters coming from the shield gate thing was great.
 
blotsfan

blotsfan

I saw it for a second time yesterday, and on rewatch it really dragged up until the whole sequence on Scarif. Might just be because I saw it twice so close together.

Also, I really hate how Forest Whittaker dies. He was way more compelling on my rewatch. I really felt bad for him when he asks Jyn if she was sent to kill him. Just seems stupid to have him decide "ok, I'm just gonna die now."

Still good, and maybe when I give it more time I can enjoy it more, but I had a similar gap for the second time I saw The Force Awakens, and that didn't have this issue.
 
strawman

strawman

blotsfan said:
I saw it for a second time yesterday, and on rewatch it really dragged up until the whole sequence on Scarif. Might just be because I saw it twice so close together.

Also, I really hate how Forest Whittaker dies. He was way more compelling on my rewatch. I really felt bad for him when he asks Jyn if she was sent to kill him. Just seems stupid to have him decide "ok, I'm just gonna die now."

Still good, and maybe when I give it more time I can enjoy it more, but I had a similar gap for the second time I saw The Force Awakens, and that didn't have this issue.
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Yeah, they built him up to be this super angry, difficult to find resistance leader who would throw everything and everyone under the bus if it meant getting closer to his goal, and suddenly he's tired and old and decides to give up?

They could have done a little more to convey the, "if I die then she will take up the cause" angle which is what I think the movie intended, but it played very weakly.

There was a bit of "failed parent" there as well, and perhaps he decided that he needed to pay for his misdeeds, but if they really wanted to play that song they would have had him do something critical to allow her escape.

Alternately the Death Star was built and perhaps the magnitude of his failure to stop the empire left him feeling that the fight was over.

Whatever they intended to convey was poorly done.
 
IronBrig4

IronBrig4

One thing I noticed was they didn't have cartoonish, kid-friendly characters that Lucas would have shoehorned in for the obvious Christmas merchandise opportunities. I didn't see anyone like BB-8, Jar Jar, or the Ewoks. This is a nice change.

SPOILER:

It also just occurred to me that the crying child Jyn rescued in that ambush probably died when the city was destroyed.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

IronBrig4 said:
One thing I noticed was they didn't have cartoonish, kid-friendly characters that Lucas would have shoehorned in for the obvious Christmas merchandise opportunities. I didn't see anyone like BB-8, Jar Jar, or the Ewoks. This is a nice change.
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K2 is a little bit cartoonish with his long arms, and marketable, but indeed, by far not as bad as some of the others have been.


What annoyed me most was that, even *more* than TFA, this movie just doesn't care about distance and speed. The Rebel Base can intercept a message that Rogue is attacking Scariff, organize an attack, and intervene, all in, what, 15 minutes? You can travel from "a remote, isolated base" on Eadu to an important Core planet in hours? Heck, when they leave to assault Rogue One, we see them sitting in the ship troopship-style, maybe two dozen people in a small cargo compartment. Yes, you can launch a ship across the Channel like that, troops can sit for a few hours. You can fly out a squadron behind enemy lines to drop them like that. Nice visual reference and all, but a planet-to-planet trip should take hours - see: the Death Star is coming into view slowly, we've got time to evacuate half the base and launch an offensive to take it down - and a system-to-system trip is days. Dagobah is specified as being fairly unknown but pretty close-by - and even so it takes days to get there. Scariff, Eadu, Jeddah - they're all mere hours, if not minutes, apart.
 
CynicismKills

CynicismKills

I think my only complaint was, like Frank said, the plethora of HEY LOOK IT'S A REFERENCE moments. Ponda Baba/Evazan, 3PO and R2, the watchman in the tiny crow's nest shot on Yavin IV, Bail Organa's offhand mention of an Antilles as he left the scene at one point, etc.

Almost every single one of those moments took me out of the movie for a moment, instead of making me feel more connected to it.

Outside of that, though, I really loved the movie and look forward to getting another viewing in soon.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

So I saw it again with my brother last night, and holy shit that last line of the movie with Leia suddenly hits a different note and I got all misty eyed and it's forever going to feel like that now.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Frank said:
It makes the beginning of A New Hope kind of silly too.

"Sir, we're on a diplomatic mission from Alderaan!"

"I fucking literally just watched you escape with the Death Star plans."
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Way worse is that the opening crawl says the Rebel Alliance just scored it's first victory... and i for one would not call losing your flagship and like half the fleet "a victory".

IMO what they should have done is have the fleet actually escape before Vader gets there, but get chased by the imperial fleet so they can't actually stop to give the rebel leaders the plans, but Leia's ship was waiting for them at their 1st jump stop and they transfer the plans to her so she can sneak them to the council.

Except that Vader gets a feeling about it and has the fleet keep following the main rebel force while he goes off to Tatooine where he spots Leia...

And maybe the flagship gets engine trouble along the way and gets destroyed way after the Rebel victory when it can't jump with he rest of the fleet, so there's no double of the plans.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
@Li3n said:
Way worse is that the opening crawl says the Rebel Alliance just scored it's first victory... and i for one would not call losing your flagship and like half the fleet "a victory".

IMO what they should have done is have the fleet actually escape before Vader gets there, but get chased by the imperial fleet so they can't actually stop to give the rebel leaders the plans, but Leia's ship was waiting for them at their 1st jump stop and they transfer the plans to her so she can sneak them to the council.

Except that Vader gets a feeling about it and has the fleet keep following the main rebel force while he goes off to Tatooine where he spots Leia...

And maybe the flagship gets engine trouble along the way and gets destroyed way after the Rebel victory when it can't jump with he rest of the fleet, so there's no double of the plans.
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A pyrrhic victory is still a victory.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
A pyrrhic victory is still a victory.
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Yes, a Pyrrhic victory is a victory... you know, where you drive the enemy off and actually beat him, but you lose enough men or resources that you might not recover.

This wasn't a victory in battle, it was a successful heist.
 
IronBrig4

IronBrig4

The Rebels were able to inflict much higher casualties on the Imperials, and on one of the Empire's home planets no less. To make things worse, the Imperials wiped out one of their own garrisons with that low-yield Death Star blast. The blow to morale and prestige probably shook the Imperial Navy to its core.
 
Null

Null

The Empire couldn't reveal that their own weapon wiped out their garrison and the archive of all their special project's plans. Since the end result was the Rebellion gaining schematics that showed them an exploitable weakness that allowed them to destroy the superweapon, and exposed the Empire as mundicidal tyrants in the process, it was also a strategic victory. They lost a major capital ship and some smaller ships and transports, as well as a fighter squadron and maybe a company of infantry, while the Empire lost 2 Star Destroyers, a space station, all the spacecraft in transit, and a major installation. Whether or not it was a tactical victory or not, it cost the Imperials dearly and proved that the Rebellion *could* fight the Empire in the field without being rolled over.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

IronBrig4 said:
The Rebels were able to inflict much higher casualties on the Imperials,
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Maybe if we're talking infantry... but they got 2 star Destroyers and a shield gate generator. Vader's ship took out more then that when jumping in.

And while we're at it, why did no rebel capital ship go for the gate generator?

Meh, i guess between B5 and BSG, i'm a bit spoilt when it comes to space battles.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Just got back. I thought it was excellent. Only the cameos bugged me, but not so much as to ruin any scene; I'm just glad they were brief. Radar dish guy felt so unnecessary because it's not even a marketable character, so it was just there to poke at fans who've watched the first movie too many times.

But I really enjoyed the movie overall. That BIG feeling was all over this, where mechs and ships just had this enormous presence in places, even with simple stuff like takeoff and landings. It's a shame Edwards is stepping away from big budget movies; I'm glad we have a Star Wars movie that captures this sense. It's a very different movie from the adventurous main Star Wars films and it's cool that we'll be getting these side movies that can get into other kinds of Star Wars material.

I figured everyone on the planet and around the planet was going to die, since it's only Leia's ship with the data at the start of the original movie. Kinda makes Luke's whining more annoying :p. He stumbles into all this, while Leia knows what the rebels went through and sacrificed to make a shot at the Death Star possible. Doesn't detract from the other movies. It adds to them in a satisfying way, like a prequel is supposed to do.
 
Zappit

Zappit

Staff member
Saw it today, and I really enjoyed it. The pacing was good, and I thought the characters were pretty well fleshed out. The cameos got to be a bit much, though. Couple things...

Tarkin's "resurrection" did feel a bit odd. You could see the CGI in some shots.

Vader was fucking VADER in that corridor battle. He was finally portrayed as the unstoppable Force-monster he was always reputed to be. Seriously, have any of you read the new Marvel Vader series? It's terrific, and that was the Vader in this movie.

The Jedi temple guards have minor Force abilities? Nice touch.

The Scariff battle finally felt like a war. Sure, the other movies had some short battle sequences. This was brutal.

No forced romance? Thank you! There was no romantic chemistry between the leads, and having it build to that moment where they accept their deaths? That was the best way to do that.

I thought Jyn was a stronger lead than the new Episode 7 main cast, and probably the best new character from the new movies. She was trained by a dangerous, increasingly-paranoid fanatic rebel, abandoned the cause because of what it cost her, and basically threw herself back in for revenge. She didn't suddenly develop Force powers, had no Jedi ties, and was a competent soldier. There was an established history.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
I fucking HATE the Wilhelm scream. HATE it. Takes me out of the movie every fucking time.

And I didn't notice it in Rogue One, either, so I guess they hid it well.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
And most of these so-called "easter eggs" are stupidly obvious and are not easter eggs at all.
 
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