Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

[Spaceghost]

So people actually liked the Vader scenes?

The groanworthy pun? The fact that he was desperately shoe-horned in, and served zero purpose in the story other than to upstage the bland actual villain of the movie? The way his hyperkinetic, over the top fight/massacre scene was jarringly in contrast to the lumbering space gangster figure we meet in the original movie?

Shoe-horned in?  I can't see how they could present the film without him - the film which follows directly afterwards starts in the middle of him chasing Princess Leia's corvette!

Only if you need the dots joined between this film and that in the most literal, on the nose way imaginable. Imo it is the (comically overly literal) ending of RotS all over again, except this time people are eating it up rather than ridiculing it.

Darth Vader has nothing to do with the events of this movie*, was reportedly not in John Knoll's original pitch for this movie, as evidenced in the original Star Wars doesn't give two shits about the Death Star and has very little to do with it specifically, and is only in this movie at all so Disney can get bums on seats and shift merch.

*Seriously. Try to describe his role and function in the plot of Rogue One and what would be lost, other than blatant fan service, if he wasn't in it.

hundred times better than the force awakens...

I feel completely the opposite way - in fact, Rogue One felt so utterly flat and characterless to me that it's made me appreciate TFA a little more in retrospect for at least managing to have somewhat likable, memorable characters.

As usual, I find myself agreeing with Radiator. The most alarming aspect for me is that this empty, shallow fan service seems to be what "fans" want from a Star Wars film.

The Force Awakens was flawed, yes, but the interaction between the very memorable characters (the new ones, not the conspicuous oldies) had me repeatedly grinning to myself. Finn and Poe's TIE Fighter escape from the Star Destroyer had me internally punching the air because I already liked these people.

Rogue One's various, expressionless, brown-clothed cyphers left no impression whatsoever and I consequently couldn't have given less of a fuck about what happened to them.

But hey, AT-ATs!!!!!11!!!!! YAAAAH BRUH!!!1!!!1!!!

[Jim_Campbell]

But hey, AT-ATs!!!!!11!!!!! YAAAAH BRUH!!!1!!!1!!!

*shrug* My wife, no Star Wars fan by any stretch of the imagination, said she thought Rogue One was the best film she'd seen this year.* The easter eggs, the fan service, all completely irrelevant to her, and she loved it.

*With the proviso that we haven't seen a lot of films this year.

[TordelBack]

The point of Vader, AT-ATs etc. being in this movie is that Rogue One is what it is - Disney making the most of all that very expensive IP, and turning in an accomplished action movie set in the SW universe, albeit with some overly heavy handed references to the source. The fact that reactions range from adoration to disgust is probably to its credit.

I've seen it twice now, and while I enjoyed it even more the second time (Tarkin and Leia looked better on a more forgiving non-IMax non-3D screen), then watched it back to back with ANH and greatly appreciated the added depth it lends that most remarkable work, it's still not really what I want from a SW movie: but surely that's sort of the point of these off-year films? Doing something different with the familiar toys?

Red Letter Media tear into it with their usual entertaining gusto, but much of their scorn seems to fall on fans uncritically lapping up the familiar imagery and cameos like Pavlov's dogs salivating to the sound of the bell even when there is no meat.  I think this misses the point (apart from there being no meat). Sometimes it's quite nice to be the fan that's being serviced, and Rogue One does that job. If you want to see more of the X-Wing V TIE Fighter glory days of the Rebellion in its most desperate hour and Vader being returned to his rightful place as the stuff of nightmares, this does very nicely. If you want enduring characters, a compelling standalone plot that make sense and fresh visions of the GFFA, it probably doesn't. And if you wanted a bright cheery diversion for for the kids over Christmas, it definitely does not.  But does it have to? Aren't these expectations we should be nervously heaping on Episode VIII instead? I would hope that If nothing else the ability to milk the familiar IP in the anthology movies to please us grognards frees up the 'saga' movies to break new ground.

If you didn't enjoy it despite its shortcomings, that's a pity. But no-one waxed lyrical about sand, no cutesy CGI trolls did a musical number, nobody mentioned midichlorians and instead a lot of cool-looking stuff blew up. Remember when that was the stuff of dreams? Rogue One does exactly what it promises to do, and maybe a bit more. And it's not like we have to wait 3 years for the next one.

[SIP]

Hate to be a total geek, but they aren't AT-ATs in Rogue One, they are AT-ACTs. They are cargo carriers and are not as armed or armoured as AT-ATs. This also explains why the x-wings could shoot them down so easily.

[NapalmKev]

If we're going down the fan-service route I would suggest that The Force Awakens is the bigger culprit. Han, Leia, a new sort of Deathstar, a young desert dweller being called by the Force, a cutesy droid, a new type of Empire!

And as Tordleback, and others have said: Vader actually acts like a fearsome badass, instead of the sulky child he's portrayed as in the prequels.

By my own admission I'm a hard person to please, but (as I've said previously) Rogue One reinvigorated my interest in Star Wars after the disappointing Force Awakens.

Cheers

[Spaceghost]

If we're going down the fan-service route I would suggest that The Force Awakens is the bigger culprit. Han, Leia, a new sort of Deathstar, a young desert dweller being called by the Force, a cutesy droid, a new type of Empire!

You're absolutely right, but it also had great new characters, charm, wit and a sense of fun and adventure. All of these things were absent from Rogue One.

I have to say though, I did enjoy seeing Vader methodically murdering the rebels, and I didn't hate the film. I just found it pretty boring and a big missed opportunity.

[TordelBack]

Hate to be a total geek, but they aren't AT-ATs in Rogue One, they are AT-ACTs. They are cargo carriers and are not as armed or armoured as AT-ATs. This also explains why the x-wings could shoot them down so easily.

"Easy?!? You call that easy?". Your geekhood is acknowledged. May the Force of Others be with you, my son.

Rogue One seems to have pleased a lot of lapsed OT fans who didn't quite gel with TFA's retread/rebootish stylings - my Father-in-law, Brother-in-law and several mates for example. People who are happy to have SW repackaged in glorious -looking more gritty modern style, but firmly set in the world they know from 30 or 40 years ago. This is generally a Good Thing, the more fans the merrier.

While I think TFA did a much better job creating lasting and fun characters, that wasn't R1's job: we did get some endearing Magnificent 7/Dirty Dozen thumbnails in Baze, Chirrut, Bodhi and Potassium Sulphide, and slightly more intriguing figures in Saw and Cassian, but by and large these were just meat for the grinder, and their disparate motivations were subsumed into their experience of Jedha's destruction.  Jyn unfortunately didnt really work for me - it was never really clear which version (of many) of the character we were watching at any one time. Essentially none of them needed to endure or express much beyond their desperation and willingness to give everything to oppose the Death Star and what it represented. And that was enough.

[SIP]

Hate to be a total geek, but they aren't AT-ATs in Rogue One, they are AT-ACTs. They are cargo carriers and are not as armed or armoured as AT-ATs. This also explains why the x-wings could shoot them down so easily.

"Easy?!? You call that easy?". Your geekhood is acknowledged. May the Force of Others be with you, my son.

Thanks you sir! Now I'm a happy geek 😊

[sheridan]

Hate to be a total geek, but they aren't AT-ATs in Rogue One, they are AT-ACTs. They are cargo carriers and are not as armed or armoured as AT-ATs. This also explains why the x-wings could shoot them down so easily.

Great work - I hadn't realised it was a different model - thought it was just the usual one with both windows open

[sheridan]

I've seen it twice now, and while I enjoyed it even more the second time then watched it back to back with ANH

I've only seen it the once, but am lucky enough to live about three minutes away from the local cinema (with no major roads in between) so managed to be sat down watching ANH within about ten minutes of leaving the screen

[TordelBack]

Cool! It is a genuinely seamless transition, and I really appreciated the extra kick I got from knowing just what Leia was fleeing from, and what those plans had cost. I also found myself reinterpreting Leia's actions right before she is captured: it now looks a lot like she was attempting suicide-by-stormy to protect Yavin IV's location, and maybe even Ben's. Her defiance of Vader in the following scene is now even more impressive - she's outright lying to his face and they both know it. Such magnificent disrespect in the face of such a monster! I also really like Sharkie's idea that Vader is troubled by his instinctive reaction to this defiant girl, this unknown connection they share.

Knowing the stakes more clearly in the light of Rogue One, Leia and her Rebellion really move to center stage in ANH, where before they were maybe more of an adjunct to the Luke Skywalker Story. And while it has always got me, every single time, the destruction of the Death Star itself was even more cathartic this time. That awful thing, all the lives it took to destroy it.

So even on those grounds alone, Rogue One has been a success for me, in the way RoTS so definitely was not.

[Bad City Blue]

I thoroughly enjoyed it, as I'm not some fanboy nit picker who thinks Disney should have emailed me the script first so I could told them EXACTLY how to improve it.

This was a perfectly exciting family sci fi film, with humour, drama and action throughout. That, my friends, is exactly what a Star Wars film should boil down to.

Only thing that jarred for me was Moff Tarkin, who gave me the creeps. I think a re casting (even with a dubbed vocal) would have been better.

[Mardroid]

Hate to be a total geek, but they aren't AT-ATs in Rogue One, they are AT-ACTs. They are cargo carriers and are not as armed or armoured as AT-ATs. This also explains why the x-wings could shoot them down so easily.

Great work - I hadn't realised it was a different model - thought it was just the usual one with both windows open

I didn't know what they were called when I watched the film, but I did noticed that the sides were gold coloured instead of grey. And I think a couple might have had a hollow body. (Or that might have been simply because it got broken apart by X-Wing fire.)

When one was destroyed by X-Wing fire, I did wonder about that, but then I remembered that the craft used against the AT-ATs in Empire.. were snow-speeders. I conjectured that since X-Wings are space craft, their cannons might be more powerful than that of craft that are purely atmosphere based, although I think that might be  a bit of a stretch.

[Professor Bear]

I thought it was disappointing enough that this Star Wars film that has Star Wars in the title tied into the Star Wars films, but to my mind it beggars belief that Disney would put one of the most iconic pop-cultural figures of the last four decades into a movie just because it would guarantee that people would come see it.  Makes no sense at all - even less so after everyone started saying those scenes were their favorite thing about the film.  To my mind, that just proves what a mistake it was to include them.

[Fungus]

I thought it was disappointing enough that this Star Wars film that has Star Wars in the title tied into the Star Wars films, but to my mind it beggars belief that Disney would put one of the most iconic pop-cultural figures of the last four decades into a movie just because it would guarantee that people would come see it.  Makes no sense at all - even less so after everyone started saying those scenes were their favorite thing about the film.  To my mind, that just proves what a mistake it was to include them.

Quite