Rogue One Spoilers Discussion: I Am With You, Jyn Erso

[mormont]

Saw it tonight. Very impressed. It's not perfect but it pulls off everything it needed to pull off. It feels different, but not too different. It has a modicum of moral greyness but not too much. It killed off the characters and tied up with ANH strongly. It gave me badass Vader scenes and starship battles. And it pulled off the difficult trick of invoking the Force without a Jedi in the cast.

On the down side I didn't click with K-2SO at all. He was fine, I suppose. I was just not that into it. But the rest of the cast, yeah, they were great. Jiang Wen, Donnie Yen, Riz Ahmed, all did solid work. The visuals were simply stunning.

As previously noted, though, it might have had a female lead but holy heck it was a sausage-fest otherwise. Genevieve O'Reilly had fewer lines than Ben Daniels, and CGI Leia spoke one word and still ranked fourth in the female contribution to the dialogue.

Still, it's a great film. Not as good as ep VII but I'll be watching it again for sure.

19 hours ago, Corvinus said:

The acting was solid all around, and the characters were OK to good. I agree with the general assessment that K-2SO and Chirrut were the best characters, but Baze was also a pleasant surprise, as was Cassian, mainly because they made him a darker character than any of the trailers implied. I also liked Saw Guerrera and the parallels between him and Vader. The scene where the pilot, Bhodi, stares in fear at Saw as he starts breathing in his apparatus sold me on this movie.

That was one of my favourite moments, too. Clever, and sold beautifully.

19 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Why did the meeting between Director Krennic and Galen Erso have to take place outside in the rain?

Well, it was outside because Galen was trying to give his family a head start, which makes sense. To do that he couldn't allow Krennic into the house. I liked the variety of a rainy planet instead of a desert.

 

[Corvinus85]

5 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, it was outside because Galen was trying to give his family a head start, which makes sense. To do that he couldn't allow Krennic into the house. I liked the variety of a rainy planet instead of a desert.

 

I was referring to the other scene, at the refinery where Galen dies.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

Ohhhh lawd I loved this. Went to a matinee this afternoon by myself and going tomorrow morning (10:15, bright and early!) with my buddy who couldn't make it today. 

I thought the pacing was fine, much better than TFA. Never once was I bored. The new characters were fun and original. Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor are heroes in the best possible Star Wars tradition. Chirrut and Baze were a joy every time they graced the screen. Also loved K2, but I get how the super dry humor wouldn't fly with everyone. 

CGI Tarkin was a surprise to me (I purposely avoided spoilers/clips/trailers for the last 6 months or so). It was exceedingly well-done, but still visibly CGI. I found myself getting more accustomed to it with each successive scene. CGI Leia I didn't like as much, but she was only on screen for a few seconds and the scene made for an awesome segue, so I'll give it a pass.

Vader at the end, holy shit. I mean.....HOLY fucking shit. That's one of the best Star Wars things I've seen, anywhere, any time.  

 

[ab aeterno]

10 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, it was outside because Galen was trying to give his family a head start, which makes sense. To do that he couldn't allow Krennic into the house. I liked the variety of a rainy planet instead of a desert.

 

4 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

I was referring to the other scene, at the refinery where Galen dies.

I'm taking this as an opportunity to reference this clip again.

[Bonesy]

2 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

I agree it feels weird that Leia and the Tantive iV were on the flagship. Given how outnumbered the rebels were, why keep a perfectly good ship out of the battle?

 

Expected the characters to die, but might have been cool if Bail Organa rescued a couple and took them back to Alderaan for a well-earned rest...

Possibly because there was a Senator on board. IDK

 

Anyway, what were Krennics gaurds? They sounded alien or droid, yet were as skillfull as regular Stormtroopers but with equally useless black armor.

What were the rainbow armored troopers in one whole scene all about?

And Bothans. Were most of the Rogue One troops Bothans? My only real problem with this movie is that they didn't address this.

[felice]

6 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

Possibly because there was a Senator on board. IDK

The why take the ship with a Senator on board with you into a battle?

6 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

And Bothans. Were most of the Rogue One troops Bothans?

They're the ones who provided the info on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.

[Fiddler]

1 hour ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

 

Vader at the end, holy shit. I mean.....HOLY fucking shit. That's one of the best Star Wars things I've seen, anywhere, any time.  

 

That Vader showed why the rebels were petrified of him.  He was scary in the original trilogy, but he was terrifying in that one scene.  I would love to see a "side" story that was Vader hunting down rogue Jedi. 

[Crazydog7]

Am I the only one that wanted to have a spinoff movie that focused on the militant faction of rebels?  They were really cool. 

Coming soon to a facebook status update near you the new power chant

I am one with the force the force is me.  I am one with the force the force is in me. 

Groupthink isn't prefect buts bond to be better then a few years ago when everyone was putting "we are groot" in the status bar

[Rockroi]

I (along with my daughters and nephew) just saw it.  Now, a bit of a warning- I am a very, very big Star Wars Nerd so my review is peppered with my bias IN FAVOR of Star Wars, rebels the Empire and all things 1977 to 1983.  In the end, I err on the side of Star Wars, 

So, with that out of the way.

I liked it an awful lot, but my opinion is tempered by the fact that the movie gets much much MUCH better as it goes on.  And this is really a product of two things: The first half of the movie being fucking terrible and the second half being amazing. 

I won’t go over the plot of the movie: it’s the early days of the Empire’s Death Star and the rebels want to take it down.  But the point-of-entry into the movie is Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso whose father Gaelin Erso is a science officer building the Death Star.  And that’s a long way to go.  We must get from the Death Star to Gaelen to Jyn and I stopped caring already.  I don’t care about this woman and her father. They do not interest me and the movie cannot QUITE make them interesting. The movie tries.  But Jyn doesn’t care about the Rebellion and so … I can’t care about her or her kind of wussy father.  There are flashbacks in the movie… flashbacks … in a prequel… and the movie does not do a great job guideposting the flashbacks.  So, the movie utilizes a very ham-fisted Father-Daughter relationship, flashbacks AND the Death Star to get me to care about … destroying the Death Star.  But I ALREADY CARE ABOUT DESTROYING THE DEATH STAR!  Why do we have to get me to care about Jones’ Jyn?  The movie tries but I never quite get there.  Jones does a good job with the character but the character is the problem, not Jones.  I would have MUCH rathered the movie START with Rebels who, you know, ALREADY care about the thing I care about.  Insted, we have to jump on this tortured plot-device train. 

This is not true with Deigo Luna’s Cassian Andor.  Andor is a very dedicated and vicious rebel officer who will kill anyone to destroy the Empire.  And its HIS journey from dark-hearted good guy who only wants to destroy into a principled freedom-fighter who wants to preserve that is far more inspiring.  I found his journey more compelling and more fresh … even if I thought Jones was the better actor. 

The duo of Donnie Yeng as Chirrut Imew and Wen Jiang as Baze Malbus were the characters I ended up caring about the most even though their characters were never flushed out.  We don’t know much about them EXCEPT that they are dedicated to one another.  They care for each other and that relationship makes you care about them.  That was huge.

Then we come to the droid – Alan Tudyk’s K-2S0 who is definitely the “comic relief” of the picture.  And that was both needed, but I thought misguided.  The movie TRIES to be fun and funny but for reasons that becomes clear as the movie goes on … it can’t do that.  K2’s quips and barbs are fun and light but don’t help: this movie is VERY HEAVY!  So, for me, K2, while a nice distraction, cannot undo the morose nature of this movie. 

Now, if there was ONE character that I thought was utterly wasted it was Riz Ahmed’s Bodhi Rook who is the Imperial pilot who defects.  Ahmed was TREMENDOUS in HBO’s “The Night Of.”  Here the character has a big part to play and he seems to have a journey in the movie … I just don’t know what it was.  He alludes to making up for something he did in his past and he seems to be kind of a coward who must overcome his fear… but the movie only shows the RESULTS of this, not the internal conflict of it on Bodhi.  What does he have to make up for?  Why is he doing what he’s doing?  How come ANYONE trusts him?  Nobody knows and its never explained. 

Rounding out the cast are Ben Mendelsohn as Imperial Director Orson Krennic and Forest Whitaker as extreme rebel Saw Gerrera.  Mendelsohn is tremendous – he represents the agony and ecstasy of Imperial service in a Fascist state: he must scratch and claw for his very survival- if he succeeds he will possess the ultimate power in the galaxy; if he fails he will be destroyed and not by the Rebels, but by the very Empire he serves.  The character is both incredibly competent and also burdened with the grave stakes of this Empire.  Thus, he ends up fighting this two-front war: one eye on the Rebels, the other on the Empire.  And he seems, for the most part, to be up to the challenge.

If there is one UTTER disappointment in the movie, though, its Whitaker who is fucking terrible as a fucking terrible character who acts as black-hole that sucks the life out of this film.  Gerrera is an ultra-militant rebel (are… are there any other kinds?).  But he gets in the way of both our heroes and the plot of the film.  Gerrera acts a surrogate father to Jyn who has no chemistry with her in the movie; he serves only to slow everything down; his actions are unproductive and counterintuitive (he possesses a message from Galen Erso so… if he HEARD the message he would know it was sincere but he treats the Heroes like an asshole which serves as artificial tension until the Empire shows up).  Saw is difficult and vicious, so everything he does SLOWS down the action, plot, pace and timing of the film.  He is a GIGANTIC road block who I don’t know, don’t care about and the movie seems to think I COULD care about.  The movie is wrong.

Its with Whitaker’s Gerrera that the movie nearly dies.  The pace is slow, virtually catatonic.  Only by injecting the Empire and its Superweapon does it pick up. 

But then the movie detours and not to get the Death Star plans (which would make sense) but to a secret Imperial base where they keep Galen.  At this point the movie is in a crawl and it knows it; it tries to overcome it by introducing some Rebel-on-Rebel conflict but it doesn’t get anywhere.  Again, I don’t care about Jyn and her father so I don’t care that she gets closer to him.  However, its here that the movie introduces the major conflict between Jyn and Andor – how they both view the other as a problem: Jyn sees Andor as a soulless cog in a Rebel machine; Andor sees Jyn as a meaningless drifter who cares about nothing but herself.  Its here that BOTH have to grow in order to survive. 

And they do grow.  As both find meaning in the other’s journey, they come to an arrangement and decide to “Go Rouge” and hit the Imperial facility with the Death Star Plans.  And here, finally and at long last, the movie picks up the pace and the stakes: suddenly the movie hits full throttle.  The decision to attack the Imperial Facility with the plans is the defining moment where both e Rebels AND the film find meaning.  Rough One is, at its heart, a war movie about this war’s Heroes and once the movie gets through the stilted plot, the introduction to vague characters and the meandering in-fighting it hits a huge stride: honor, duty and sacrifice are all on display.  They find a home in the final third of the film.  And its glorious. 

The characters JUMP at the Chance to be heroic and in a war setting where they all find meaning.  The film jumps of the screen once this happens; gone is the indecision and stale characters and in their place is a groping and gritty battle both to find the Death Star’s plans but also stand up to an Empire, win or lose.  Jyn’s speech of “taking the next chance” until they “win” or the “last chance is spent” is a rousing moment and it comes not a moment too soon. 

We care about these characters even as we know what will happen to them.  Unlike Han, Leia and Luke before them, Jyn, K-2 and Baze are not in “the next one” so we feel deep consternation as to whether our heroes will live or die and it’s unbelievable how the movie delivers on that tension.  We discover that we care not just to find out if our heroes will win, but if they find their own salvation.   As the movie builds to a crescendo we see both the true viciousness of the Empire but the stunning bravery and will of the Rebellion.  And that clash is nearly perfect. 

But … Jesus… how fucking incompetent are Storm Troopers?  That fight with K-2S0 is pathetic. 

To me, had the movie started at about the half-way point, it would have seemed uneven, but would have been., overall, a better movie. 

And then there are the call backs. 

There are a few CGI characters who are stand-ins for characters from A New Hope.  At first, I DID NOT like TArkin’s AT ALL!  But I think I got used to it as the film went on.  Leia’s was… pretty great and worked. 

I did not like the scum-bag from the bar and Walrus-Man’s cameos; pointless fan service.  Stop making this vast galaxy seem so fucking small.  BUT… I LOVED the use of Gold and Red Leaders from a New Hope; excellent usage of prior characters during the battle because, well, it makes PERFECT sense that they are there.  But otherwise?  Its almost pointless fan-service.  And the way I look at it is this: if they put in 4 “call backs” and 2 are hits and 2 are misses, the misses are far worse than the “hits” are good.  I wish Star Wars would stop doing that. 

And then there is Vader.  He’s great.  His inclusion added a needed injection of viciousness into the film.  I loved that and thought he properly inspired terror and dread into the rebels who lived long enough to look at him. 

I heard something before going into see Rogue One: that no Star Wars movie WITHOUT Han Solo is better than a Star Wars movie WITH Han Solo.  And this movie likely backs up that assertion.  While I am not certain where Rogue One falls in the rankings, I am pretty sure it will not toss aside any of the original trilogy nor Force Awakens, thus making Rogue One the best Star Wars prequel.

Rank:

First Half: 4/10

Second Half: 10/10

Final Grade: 8/10 (like I said, I err on the side of Star Wars… even in Math). 

 

Tl;Dr: The first half is fairly terrible; the second half is an inspired sci-fi war movie which is what I wanted.  

[Spaßvogel]

10 hours ago, RhaenysB said:

I liked the X wing fighter scenes, the epic star destroyer collision (even though I didn't like how a tiny ship made that happen by pushing one into the other, that was as unreal as The Great Wall - god that trailer will give me nightmares).
 

The Star Destroyer had been hit by Ion blasts and was dead in space.  It doesn't take much to push a dead object in space towards the other Star Destoyer and shove them both into the planet's gravity well. 

The only things that bothered me were: CGI Tarkin, just that I think they showed too much of him.  Completely photo-realistic people aren't not quite there.  It's always the mouth that messes them up.  (although in this case, the voice wasn't quite right always either).  I didn't like the semi-comic, keystone cops bumbling dialogue from the Stormtroopers.  It just sounded weird.  I also didn't like the score. At times it sounded like John WIlliams played sideways.

A couple of the cameos seemed unnecessary.  The splicing in of Star Wars footage to get Gold Leader and Red Leader was...okay I guess.  They also killed off Red Five those cads!  Guess they had to clear a slot.

I totally caught the "General Syndulla" over the loudspeaker.  I like to hope it's Hera.  Did anyone see the Ghost in the final film or was it only in the trailer shot?

I also think they should have explained the need for Vader to get the plans back better.  Ostensibly, they don't have a copy of the plans themselves to analyze for flaws, but why would they think there was a flaw? Who besides Galen Erso (Dead), Saw (Dead) Jyn (Dead) and Krennic (Dead) knew what Galen Erso had done?  In Star Wars, during the attack, the Lt. comes to Tarkin and says that they've analyzed the Rebel attack and there is a danger, but Tarkin blows him off.  Clearly they were able to figure some things out once the Rebels started doing down the trench.

I also think they maybe should have made Jyn a little more damaged than she was, or gave her a death with or something, just to sort of cushion the blow a bit.  I have seen The Dirty Dozen, and it doesn't end well for characters you start to care about, but I still wasn't prepared for them all to perish. This movie reminded me a lot of the tone of the new canon novel Twilight Company.  There are a lot of people who are Saw-style fighters mixed in with people who are more idealistic rebels.  It makes for an interesting ongoing debate.

I am going to read the novelization now that I've seen the movie, and we'll see if there's any additional information there.

 

[red snow]

6 hours ago, Fiddler said:

That Vader showed why the rebels were petrified of him.  He was scary in the original trilogy, but he was terrifying in that one scene.  I would love to see a "side" story that was Vader hunting down rogue Jedi. 

Marvel had a 25 issue comic run that was apparently well received. I think it was set between V and VI. It shows you can make a story work that's focused on the villain.

I was a bit disappointed I never got to hear Mendelsohn's "IMMEASURABLE POWER!" line in the final cut but it seems like there were loads of things that didn't make it from the trailer. The weird thing is that many of these cut scenes looked really cool. I get the impression the trailer was cut from the original cut of the film and that cut featured a lot more of the Mendelsohn villain (maybe Disney weren't happy with the character?). My guess is he was in the TIE fighter and he mortally wounded Jyn with it when she was on the tower and she died there. Krennick then gets to think he's succeeded - walking along the beach only for Tarkin to Death Star the entire planet anyhow.

[DaveSumm]

9 hours ago, RhaenysB said:

All right... So there was one thing I couldn't decide if I liked or not. The new droid. He was supposed to be funny, but not really funny... he wasn't particularly cute or annoying... he was trying really hard to be the funny new droid who combines R2's brains and 3PO's talking and Chewie's strength. A 3in1 super sidekick. 

I thought he was perfect for this film. The type of 'comedy' droid we've seen previously wouldn't have worked here but they still managed to give K2SO some of the funniest lines while keeping with the tone. He was almost half C3PO half Marvin the Paranoid Android. I loved the delivery of the line "shall I tell you the odds on her using it against us? It's high." You could really picture the human face behind that. And all it took was few careful moments of bonding between him and Jyn, and as was said a few pages back, I cared about his death more than many human characters.

[RhaenysBee]

1 hour ago, Spaßvogel said:

The Star Destroyer had been hit by Ion blasts and was dead in space.  It doesn't take much to push a dead object in space towards the other Star Destoyer and shove them both into the planet's gravity well. 

Oh my, you are right. There was so much going on, I forgot the star destroyer was out of control. Like this it does make sense. This is great! 

24 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I thought he was perfect for this film. The type of 'comedy' droid we've seen previously wouldn't have worked here but they still managed to give K2SO some of the funniest lines while keeping with the tone. He was almost half C3PO half Marvin the Paranoid Android. I loved the delivery of the line "shall I tell you the odds on her using it against us? It's high." You could really picture the human face behind that. And all it took was few careful moments of bonding between him and Jyn, and as was said a few pages back, I cared about his death more than many human characters.

Weirdly, I cared about his death too. But somehow I didn't care much about him while he was alive. Maybe on a rewatch. 

[ab aeterno]

1 hour ago, Spaßvogel said:

I totally caught the "General Syndulla" over the loudspeaker.  I like to hope it's Hera.  Did anyone see the Ghost in the final film or was it only in the trailer shot?

So I didn't catch it, but I've read a few reviews that did. Apparently it's in battle above Scarif multiple times. BUT and this is what I'm going to be looking out for on rewatches: I've also seen it reported that you can see the Ghost on the ground on Yavin in the scene where Rogue One leaves for Scarif, and you can see Chopper in the background when the rebel runs to tell Mon Mothma about the attack on Scarif.

[ab aeterno]

1 hour ago, Spaßvogel said:

The Star Destroyer had been hit by Ion blasts and was dead in space.  It doesn't take much to push a dead object in space towards the other Star Destoyer and shove them both into the planet's gravity well. 

 

1 minute ago, RhaenysB said:

Oh my, you are right. There was so much going on, I forgot the star destroyer was out of control. Like this it does make sense. This is great! 

I feel like disabled Star Destroyers can be the new walkways without any railings in SW lore.  

[Maltaran]

19 hours ago, Werthead said:

An alternative choice I've seen thrown around is Charles Dance. He doesn't really look or sound like Cushing, but he has the presence, authority and body language down pat. Although I think I'd rather see him doing an original role.

I was actually reminded of Charles Dance at a couple of points when watching CGI Cushing. I'm curious how they reproduced Cushing's voice - do they feed old recordings of him into a computer so it can generate his lines?

I enjoyed most of it, the only canon tie-in that felt completely pointless was the C3PO and R2D2 cameo. I didn't find the new droid as irritating as some people apparently have - the comic relief worked for me.

Also,, the Star Destroyer over Jedha made me think of a Douglas Adams quote, it was a clear illustration of the concept of hanging in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.

[BigFatCoward]

i liked everything other than Forest Whitaker, who i thought was awful.  Can anyone explain how Vader went from being 'VADER', to being an old man in about 3 weeks in ANH though?

[generalzod]

On 12/15/2016 at 0:46 PM, Pliskin said:

I enjoyed the movie. Hell, I thought it was awesome. But I concur on CGI Cushing. That was really really disturbing, and off-putting. I couldn't follow his scenes.

It worked for

  Hide contents

Leia,

because it was only two seconds screen time, but not for Tarkin.

It didn't work for Leia either.  She looked videogamey.  The biggest problem is the glassy dead eyes. If there was a way to cGI in the actual eyes of the actors from the original films it would have lost the creep factor.

Tarkin could have been brilliant if we'd seen him less.  Some shots were masterful, some shots were too CGI  ish.

Loved the movie.  Third best in the series after Star Wars and Empire. 

[generalzod]

20 hours ago, Bonesy said:

Possibly because there was a Senator on board. IDK

 

Anyway, what were Krennics gaurds? They sounded alien or droid, yet were as skillfull as regular Stormtroopers but with equally useless black armor.

What were the rainbow armored troopers in one whole scene all about?

And Bothans. Were most of the Rogue One troops Bothans? My only real problem with this movie is that they didn't address this.

Bothans died getting the plans to the second Death Star in ROTJ, not the first.

Anyone notice that Gareth Edwards made the villainous asshole's name sound like "critic" and spelled backwards it's nearly "cynic."  Director Krennic

 

[ab aeterno]

38 minutes ago, generalzod said:

Bothans died getting the plans to the second Death Star in ROTJ, not the first.

Anyone notice that Gareth Edwards made the villainous asshole's name sound like "critic" and spelled backwards it's nearly "cynic."  Director Krennic

 

Krennic isn't really all that close to "critic", I'd say; and while "Cinnerk" is moderately closer to "cynic," I don't think there's any meaning intended there. 

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

i liked everything other than Forest Whitaker, who i thought was awful.  Can anyone explain how Vader went from being 'VADER', to being an old man in about 3 weeks in ANH though?

I put it down to expediency. Above Scarif he's trying to stop the Rebels escaping with the plans or transmitting them away. In ANH he has the Tantive IV impounded, transmissions blocked and only needs to search for them. So let the Stormtroopers do their jobs. Otherwise, I think his disposition on the Death Star is little different than on Mustafar.