ab aeterno Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 If you go looking for ways to pick fault with anything, you'll find them. It's also pretty fatuous to talk about bad reasons for liking something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 6 hours ago, AndrewJ said: Well, I rank The Force Awakens higher. Immediately after watching Rogue One, I posted that I thought the first half was ok and the second half was great. But our YouTuber is very much correct in suggesting that the "great" battle scenes in the second half were still rather lacking in emotional weight. (Great spectacle but lacking in emotion). And, for all its purported failings (some I agree with and some I don't), the one thing Force Awakens wasn't lacking was emotional weight. From Han's death (spoilerz!!!!), to Chewie's reaction, to Rey's fight with Ren, to Rey confronting Luke at the end (and a whole lot more along the way). And for me, that's what raises it above Rogue One and possibly above Jedi. I think this is a fair point. If the Rogue One characters never appear anywhere again they could easily slip from memory with the exception of K2SO and possibly blind monk (because people like blind warriors and/or archers). Finn, Kylo BB8 and Rey were all welcome additions to Star Wars lore but I guess these characters have the advantage of multiple films for them. I enjoyed Rogue One a lot but it wasn't for the characters and that aspect (along with their being a focus on the Force and charting new ground irrespective of its similarity to ANH) is what puts TFA above Rogue One. On the other hand I think Rogue One had a much tighter plot and the big battle sequences were better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbunting Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 10 hours ago, AndrewJ said: Well, I rank The Force Awakens higher. Immediately after watching Rogue One, I posted that I thought the first half was ok and the second half was great. But our YouTuber is very much correct in suggesting that the "great" battle scenes in the second half were still rather lacking in emotional weight. (Great spectacle but lacking in emotion). And, for all its purported failings (some I agree with and some I don't), the one thing Force Awakens wasn't lacking was emotional weight. From Han's death (spoilerz!!!!), to Chewie's reaction, to Rey's fight with Ren, to Rey confronting Luke at the end (and a whole lot more along the way). And for me, that's what raises it above Rogue One and possibly above Jedi. Didn't you just make same argument for why TFA is equal to Rogue? All of the items you list for TFA happened in the last 1/3 of the movie, Han and then the Kylo/Rey battle. TFA beginning dragged out much longer IMO than Rogue did. As to the emotions, was that TFA or was that the original trilogy? If TFA was a stand alone movie would you feel the same emotion when Han died? Not likely because it would be the only film you ever knew him in, just like Rogue is the only one you knew these characters from. To me you can't downgrade Rogue because you didn't feel the emotional tug like with the other movies, you have had 40 years of Han Solo and only 2 hours of these characters, not a fair comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 1 hour ago, dbunting said: Didn't you just make same argument for why TFA is equal to Rogue? All of the items you list for TFA happened in the last 1/3 of the movie, Han and then the Kylo/Rey battle. TFA beginning dragged out much longer IMO than Rogue did. As to the emotions, was that TFA or was that the original trilogy? If TFA was a stand alone movie would you feel the same emotion when Han died? Not likely because it would be the only film you ever knew him in, just like Rogue is the only one you knew these characters from. To me you can't downgrade Rogue because you didn't feel the emotional tug like with the other movies, you have had 40 years of Han Solo and only 2 hours of these characters, not a fair comparison. It doesn't take 4 films and 40 years to make a viewer give a damn about a character. It can be done in a couple of minutes with some skill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sivin Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 1 hour ago, red snow said: It doesn't take 4 films and 40 years to make a viewer give a damn about a character. It can be done in a couple of minutes with some skill. Exactly. The death of Obi-Wan, desertion/return of Solo, and triumph of Luke are all fully realized character moments and occur in a self contained film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 The Force Awakens has excellent character and thematic development and good, well-developed arcs for Rey, Finn and especially Kylo Ren (TFA is the first Star Wars film to give the villain a really satisfying arc, although Return of the Jedi nods at it). Dameron is a great character but his survival was undercooked and under-developed, which was annoying. I liked Han Solo in TFA, but the ease of him and Chewie finding the Falcon was too convenient. Some of his other stuff - reverting to being a smuggler and his emotional struggle over his son - was good but his arc was definitely haphazard. Rogue One doesn't really have much character development at all. That's not entirely necessary - Luke's character arc in A New Hope is so incoherent in retrospect it's quite amusing - but it helps give the story more depth and resonance. As it stands now Rogue One is a great and entertaining war story, but it's not got much else going under the hood. The Force Awakens is massively derivative of A New Hope in its surface storyline, which is lazy and annoying, but the character development and the things it sets up for the next couple of movies is extremely well-handled. Both films have annoyed me with this, "We can jump to hyperspace from inside planetary atmospheres and/or solid objects" BS though. If they can do that, why didn't they in the first six films during one of the several dozen occasions it would have helped avoid a whole lot of trouble? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 4 minutes ago, Werthead said: Both films have annoyed me with this, "We can jump to hyperspace from inside planetary atmospheres and/or solid objects" BS though. If they can do that, why didn't they in the first six films during one of the several dozen occasions it would have helped avoid a whole lot of trouble? And on top of this, in what is now Legends material, wasn't it true that a ship had to escape a planet's gravity well in order go to lightspeed? Not to mention's Han's grumbling about lightspeed calculations requiring to be done carefully because one could end up in a star, or the middle of an asteroid field etc? This annoyed me, too about TFA, and it has Abrams's mark all over it, considering all the shenanigans in the new Star Trek movies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sivin Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 7 minutes ago, Corvinus said: And on top of this, in what is now Legends material, wasn't it true that a ship had to escape a planet's gravity well in order go to lightspeed? Not to mention's Han's grumbling about lightspeed calculations requiring to be done carefully because one could end up in a star, or the middle of an asteroid field etc? This annoyed me, too about TFA, and it has Abrams's mark all over it, considering all the shenanigans in the new Star Trek movies One of my biggest gripes as well with both films. Making a landing approach at light speed is so damn lazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 Quote And on top of this, in what is now Legends material, wasn't it true that a ship had to escape a planet's gravity well in order go to lightspeed? Not to mention's Han's grumbling about lightspeed calculations requiring to be done carefully because one could end up in a star, or the middle of an asteroid field etc? This annoyed me, too about TFA, and it has Abrams's mark all over it, considering all the shenanigans in the new Star Trek movies More than that, in Empire Strikes Back they say they can't jump to lightspeed in an asteroid field, either due to the gravity shadows of the asteroids or the ship needs a clear line of sight to jump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stannis Eats No Peaches Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 11 hours ago, Slurktan said: I could do the same for TFA : "I love Episode 4: A New Hope". See? But there are other reasons for liking that film other than its similarities to the first movie. The point is that I'm struggling to give a good reason why I liked Rogue One, while I have no such trouble with TFA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 1 hour ago, Werthead said: Rogue One doesn't really have much character development at all. That's not entirely necessary - Luke's character arc in A New Hope is so incoherent in retrospect it's quite amusing - but it helps give the story more depth and resonance. As it stands now Rogue One is a great and entertaining war story, but it's not got much else going under the hood. The Force Awakens is massively derivative of A New Hope in its surface storyline, which is lazy and annoying, but the character development and the things it sets up for the next couple of movies is extremely well-handled. Now if they good somehow combine the best elements from both films we'd be on to a winner. I also agree that for the type of film it was going for the characters didn't need to have complex arcs but they could have done with standing out a little more. Diego Luna seemed to be desperately trying to shine through in a way that made me wish they'd given him some more time to shine. K2S0 was also really good in that he delivered all the good lines - he was also the only character where I went "oh no" when he died (odd given he's a robot). 1 hour ago, Werthead said: Both films have annoyed me with this, "We can jump to hyperspace from inside planetary atmospheres and/or solid objects" BS though. If they can do that, why didn't they in the first six films during one of the several dozen occasions it would have helped avoid a whole lot of trouble? At least in Rogue One there seemed to be an element of time passing, via onboard conversations. In TFA at the end it was like nipping round to the corner-shop to find Luke which made the galaxy feel small and also that their attempts to find him had been half-assed before getting the map. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 TFA doesn't really stand up to repeated viewing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: TFA doesn't really stand up to repeated viewing. Really? I noticed most of its problems from the first viewing, but I still found it entertaining enough to watch it about 4-5 times now. I will watch it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljkeane Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 8 minutes ago, red snow said: At least in Rogue One there seemed to be an element of time passing, via onboard conversations. In TFA at the end it was like nipping round to the corner-shop to find Luke which made the galaxy feel small and also that their attempts to find him had been half-assed before getting the map. Yeah, I really fucking hated it in TFA. That and them being able to see planets in another star system blowing up. Space is a big place Abrams you muppet. It's not too bad in Rogue One, the only time it looked a bit dubious to me was when the Rebel Fleet jumps straight to Scarif after receiving the news of the attack but I'll just gloss over it and pretend Scarif is really close to Yavin 4 or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 Abrams fundamentally does not get how big space is. He's never been able to portray it properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ab aeterno Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: TFA doesn't really stand up to repeated viewing. I actually had the opposite experience. I enjoyed it on my first viewing, but I was slightly underwhelmed. On every subsequent viewing however I have enjoyed it progressively more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 22 minutes ago, ab aeterno said: I actually had the opposite experience. I enjoyed it on my first viewing, but I was slightly underwhelmed. On every subsequent viewing however I have enjoyed it progressively more. Abrams inability to portray space as big, really gets on my nerves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stannis Eats No Peaches Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 The only thing regarding the size of space that annoyed me was the part where they could see the other planets being destroyed from Maz's planet. That was really dumb. Other than that, it wasn't an issue. Luke had gone missing, but that didn't have to mean that he'd gone ridiculously far away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ab aeterno Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Abrams inability to portray space as big, really gets on my nerves. I kinda feel that Lucas can be accused of failing on the same issue to some extent. The Republic/Empire alone is supposed to span millions of planets, yet through 6 films we visit 12 of them in total. (Excluding the Order 66 montage). And of those 12 we visit one of them in 5 films, two of them in three films, and the rest once each. Having said that, yes the hyperspace issue is probably my biggest gripe with the new films. I think the biggest thing for me, other than the lightspeed from inside ships/planets thing, is that you don't see the travel time in lightspeed as much. You could make the same criticism of AotC and RotS, but otherwise, the other films did a good job of showing them killing time while in hyperspace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howdyphillip Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: TFA doesn't really stand up to repeated viewing. I watched it for the 51st time two nights ago. I disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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