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Rogue One....Brings a New Hope. Full Spoiler Discussion


Suzanna Stormborn

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4 hours ago, ab aeterno said:

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. 

Well, they also nip around the galaxy in really small ships in R1, which kind of annoyed me.  The Falcon clearly has some living space, whereas whatever ship they're in in R1 is either some kind of assault gunboat thing or a cargo hauler, and all of them look flimsy as hell.  Luke might travel around in his X-Wing, but at least it looks suitably large to be a fighter.  Everything in R1 looks tiny.  

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1 minute ago, MerenthaClone said:

Well, they also nip around the galaxy in really small ships in R1, which kind of annoyed me.  The Falcon clearly has some living space, whereas whatever ship they're in in R1 is either some kind of assault gunboat thing or a cargo hauler, and all of them look flimsy as hell.  Luke might travel around in his X-Wing, but at least it looks suitably large to be a fighter.  Everything in R1 looks tiny.  

What about the Jedi starfighters? Or Dooku's sail ship?

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4 hours ago, ab aeterno said:

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.

 

 

Yeah, but that's a scope-of-the-story thing, not a confusion of scale. I don't think it would really be helpful to jump more than he did- you'd have to scattershot the narrative a lot to manage it (that was one of the criticisms of Rogue One, to be fair).

But what he does show quite well is that it takes a long time to get to places, even at hyperspace speeds. Basically, he takes every opportunity to put scenes of exposition or plot-building on a travelling spaceship, thus making it feel bigger.
Whereas Abrams thinks that if a giant space laser fires from one planet, across the galaxy, at another planet, the citizens of a third planet that isn't even in the same system as the one being destroyed let alone in a common orbit with it will be able to see that shit go down (he pulled a very similar 'trick' on Star Trek). And like red snow says, in TFA it fucking never takes any time to get anywhere.

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46 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

Yeah, but that's a scope-of-the-story thing, not a confusion of scale. I don't think it would really be helpful to jump more than he did- you'd have to scattershot the narrative a lot to manage it (that was one of the criticisms of Rogue One, to be fair).

But what he does show quite well is that it takes a long time to get to places, even at hyperspace speeds. Basically, he takes every opportunity to put scenes of exposition or plot-building on a travelling spaceship, thus making it feel bigger.
Whereas Abrams thinks that if a giant space laser fires from one planet, across the galaxy, at another planet, the citizens of a third planet that isn't even in the same system as the one being destroyed let alone in a common orbit with it will be able to see that shit go down (he pulled a very similar 'trick' on Star Trek). And like red snow says, in TFA it fucking never takes any time to get anywhere.

I was going to say the same thing. Lucas maybe doesn't have lots of planets but it does take them time to get there - which may in part explain why we don't see as many planets because they are scattered over large distances.

Even in the prequels we get the sense that it took obi wan a while to get to clone building station and in the original films they talked/trained while sitting in the falcon. And usually cut to another character scene before returnign to the travelling characters to suggest time had passed. In TFA the next scene is them arriving - in the final scene there isn't even a cut they just hyper space and hey presto they are coming in to land.

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I think if they had made a single casting change then I think there could have been a lot more emotional weight than there was.

Drop Baze Malbus (Chirrut's side-kick), and keep Saw Garrera alive as both a good buddy of Chirrut's and Jyn's mentor. Then we'd get more of a glimpse of 2 significant relationships.

The other thing wrong with Jenny's analysis of Chirrut's heroic feat is that this scene showed, or heavily implied that the force works directly not just through Jedi, so it is potentially accessible to everyone in some way, and that it is not just about being able to kick arse. Her critique of this point also seems to suggest she things the Force has some sort of awareness or consciousness in that "it decided to ditch Chirrut as soon as he threw the switch" or words to that effect. To me the point of Chirrut being cut down by Stormtroopers after he threw the switch is that for non-Jedi drawing on the power of the force does not come easily and takes an immense amount of focus. Chirrut's focus was not on preserving his life, but on getting to that switch. Once he completed the task on which he was focused he could no longer channel the Force to prevent him from being the target of Storm Trooper fire.

Either that or the Force did absolutely nothing for Chirrut and the storm troopers seeing some crazy dude just slowly walking into the battle field decided he wasn't a threat and focused their fire on people who were actually shooting at them. And then once they realised he'd flicked a vital switch they belatedly realised the threat he'd posed and decided to take him out. Either way I think the scene works fine. 

Her best and most amusing critique was the email attachment one. Highly contrived and convoluted. But not completely unreasonable in all steps. It does kinda make sense to keep extremely important information off the grid even in secure facilities. So putting the plans for the Death Star on an external hard drive that is not connected to the LAN, thereby requiring the infiltrators to physically retrieve the HDD and plug it in somewhere actually makes sense. People could actually learn a bit of a lesson here about keeping some of their more sensitive stuff (like dick picks) off the grid. However, these days one can plug a HDD into one's smartphone, which could be used to hack into the facility's mainframe, which can then re-position the satellite dish and send the info without Jyn having to climb a high tower and almost fall off. One thing almost everyone already knows is that the Death Star plans get to the rebels, so there's not a great deal of dramatic point in putting Jyn in some kind of jeopardy before the plans get off world. 

And again, getting the plans onto a rebel thumb drive and disconnecting it from the rebel ship's LAN makes sense, because it means the Empire can't just put a virus into the rebel ship'd computer to wipe the data. Why they had to use a workstation exactly where a ship can be boarded by invaders is a head scratcher though. Vader would still have boarded the ship and kicked a helluva lot of arse so that the rebels could slow him down enough to give Leia's ship time to prep and escape, without needing to have the USB stick relay race.

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8 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

TFA doesn't really stand up to repeated viewing.

I'm torn on a statement like this...I've watched it a couple times...and the issues I have with it (Abrams, the repetition of the story from earlier films, the terrible knowledge of general space, Poe)...I can't say I won't watch it again when it comes on television eventually...I mean, I rewatch the prequel trilogy more than I should...

That being said, I still believe Rogue One is the better film...

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I haven't seen this questioned as a plot point. 

Why is it that Vader and company are able to follow the Tantive IV after it goes into hyperspace? It is clearly established everywhere else in movies, books, comics, and TV shows that ships are untraceable after they go into hyperdrive. 

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26 minutes ago, Howdyphillip said:

I haven't seen this questioned as a plot point. 

Why is it that Vader and company are able to follow the Tantive IV after it goes into hyperspace? It is clearly established everywhere else in movies, books, comics, and TV shows that ships are untraceable after they go into hyperdrive. 

If that is an issue for you plot wise, it was an issue long before Rogue One. Unless Vader just happened to randomly drop of of hyperspace by chance and come upon the Tantive IV as it was making its way at normal speeds towards Tatooine (which, after all, is in the middle of nowhere).

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49 minutes ago, Howdyphillip said:

I haven't seen this questioned as a plot point. 

Why is it that Vader and company are able to follow the Tantive IV after it goes into hyperspace? It is clearly established everywhere else in movies, books, comics, and TV shows that ships are untraceable after they go into hyperdrive. 

So you're suggesting Rogue One doesn't end mere moments before Episode IV, that ANH is actually some time after the battle because Vader has to track them down...?

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Just now, Jaxom 1974 said:

So you're suggesting Rogue One doesn't end mere moments before Episode IV, that ANH is actually some time after the battle because Vader has to track them down...?

No, the time gap is unknown. We do know that the ship went into hyperspace and it is in a different location when it is captured though.

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15 hours 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.

I'm coming back to this thread a little late. And others have already responded to the rest of your post quite well. So I don't really have anything further to add there.

 

But just on the bolded... errmmm... no. I've never said any such thing. I think you must be confusing me with someone else :) (In fact, I think my last post on Rogue One until yesterday was when I opened up the Spolier thread that preceded this one)

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5 hours ago, Howdyphillip said:

I haven't seen this questioned as a plot point. 

Why is it that Vader and company are able to follow the Tantive IV after it goes into hyperspace? It is clearly established everywhere else in movies, books, comics, and TV shows that ships are untraceable after they go into hyperdrive. 

Well that's certainly not true.  The Empire tracks the falcon from Alderaan to Yavin 4 in the very first movie.  What you thought they flew there normally?  lol

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1 minute ago, Slurktan said:

Well that's certainly not true.  The Empire tracks the falcon from Alderaan to Yavin 4 in the very first movie.  What you thought they flew there normally?  lol

That is because they put a tracking device on it and allowed them to escape.

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10 minutes ago, Howdyphillip said:

That is because they put a tracking device on it and allowed them to escape.

So we are to ignore that you literally said untraceable in your previous post, which would then mean a tracking device is irrelevant because said object is untraceable?

 

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12 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Abrams inability to portray space as big, really gets on my nerves.

You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

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1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

So we are to ignore that you literally said untraceable in your previous post, which would then mean a tracking device is irrelevant because said object is untraceable?

 

Are you serious? 

I thought the logical steps in progression here is self evident. 

1. Hyperspace of a craft can not be naturally followed.

2. You can however place a tracking device on a spacecraft to discern its location coming out of hyperspace.

3. A tracking device wasn't placed on the Tantive IV because Darth Vader missed the bus.

I did not realize I needed to describe this process step by step. Now, according to these in universe rules that has been established, how did Vader's Star Destroyer find the rebel ship? (I do have one theory upon reflection now though.)

 

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50 minutes ago, Howdyphillip said:

Are you serious? 

I thought the logical steps in progression here is self evident. 

1. Hyperspace of a craft can not be naturally followed.

2. You can however place a tracking device on a spacecraft to discern its location coming out of hyperspace.

3. A tracking device wasn't placed on the Tantive IV because Darth Vader missed the bus.

I did not realize I needed to describe this process step by step. Now, according to these in universe rules that has been established, how did Vader's Star Destroyer find the rebel ship? (I do have one theory upon reflection now though.)

 

Apparently the board ate my first attempt at a reply.  Here's the jist.

You can "track" hyperspace movement by plotting out where they can potentially go as in Star Wars you cannot go from anywhere to anywhere (Until TFA).  It's shown many times in books, video games and such. (This includes the newer Canon ones). So you could manually track them that way by following but it puts them really behind the 8 ball. 

Or you could use the instantaneous galaxy wide video call system that the Empire has that is much, much faster than Hyperspace and call ahead to the potential jump routes from scarif and say hey, there's a corvette potentially coming in, detain it immediately also should it come in immediately radio the Devastator.  As ships cannot immediately jump to light speed om star wars (until TFA) for risk of hitting a star or asteroids.  The Devastator can then plot ahead from whatever system the Tantive goes to and set up traps  and so on and so on.

So to answer your question:  The battle scene at the start of a New Hope is likely the result of an ongoing chase that probably covers a high number of systems before they finally damaged the Tantive enough so it couldn't hyperspace away then the Devastator gets there.  Very similar to the Battlestar Galactica episode "33 minutes" actually.

The real question you should be asking is why didn't the Tantive IV jump straight to Yavin 4 given from Rogue One the jump time is almost instantaneous per Star Wars standards. The answer to that is the same reason why hyperspace is a fun jaunt in TFA:  Disney Idiocy (Or Abrams idiocy if you like).

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