Star Wars: Rogue One

[Fixer]

Been waiting to discuss this one

I felt the movie was quite good overall.

Not perfect. The first act is poorly paced and jumps around a lot. Second act is fairly competent. Third act redeems the rest. A great mix of action and fanservice.

What's more, unlike the prequels and TFA that felt they diminished the original trilogy with crappy explanations like "midichlorians" and having main cast's previous accomplishments reset to 0, Rogue One actually feels like it adds to A New Hope. Without being obnoxious in any way it helps fill in the plotholes or little questions about the original Star Wars. Why Luke was "Red 5", why the rebels were so desperate for new pilots. Why the Death Star's convenient weakness existed and how the rebels were able to find it in the first place, why the final battle was so desperate.

The main problems come with the characters. Mostly a matter of motivation. The characters are essentially interesting concepts without complete realisation. There's real questions as to why they would be acting the way they are. Jyn doesn't have as much of a plot arc as she does a plot right angle. She sees a recording and then suddenly she's an entirely different character.

The plot as a whole makes sense unlike TFA which is basically one co-incidences after another to staple a bunch of actions scenes together frankenstein style but questions as to why the characters are actually doing things that way breaks suspension of disbelief.

Though reasonably well acted, it also lacks the chemistry and general charisma of the TFA cast. With the exception of the droid K-2SO who managed to deliver his lines perfectly... though a bit too often. Felt like they doubled up on the droid snark to fill in story gaps.

These flaws stop what is an above average Hollywood flick becoming great. Overall a welcome addition to the Star Wars mythos.

[TheNewTeddy]

Over the past few months, I've come to realize that movies and TV shows really have two phases when settling in my mind.


The first phase is the "walking out of the theater" phase.
In this phase, Rogue One was better than Force Awakens.

However, the phase movies spend most of their time in is "a week later" phase.
After a week to think about the movie, all the plot holes become apparent. I don't have the ability that the good reviewers (IE chuck) has to see the plot holes in the moment; but they do become visible later on when I think back about a work, and Rogue One simply raises too many questions for me to really be as enjoyable.


FTW for me was "not a prequel" meaning it 'does not suck' but also was the worst of the 4 non-prequel star wars movies.
RO for me was "a prequel" but 'the best prequel'

If I was a school teacher, I'd give episodes 4, 5, and 6 an A, episodes 1, 2, and 3 a C (warning: I'm heavily generalizing to make a point) while giving FTW a B+ and RO a B-

Sort of like a venn diagram with the prequels and RO in one circle, the non-prequels and TFW in another, but RO and TFW together in their own circle.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I liked it a lot. Doing prequels (or interquels) well and doing justice to the other movies is obviously tricky. It's tough to find a balance between ignoring what came before and becoming like fan fiction.

For me, ideally a film like this will not only work as an independent piece, but add to and make sense of existing lore in a natural way. To put it another way, it should feel like the movies flow naturally and could have been made in any order.

I thought Rogue One did an excellent job of that overall. Even knowing the origins of Rogue Squadron, the name now makes sense as a tribute to Rogue One as well as making sense in the movie. As mentioned in the OP, the weakness in the Death Star is explained in a way that's plausible enough and adds to the franchise's mythology.

Besides all that, Darth Vader's scene was just awesome.

As far as negatives, I don't think you can avoid the fact that this film is a subsidiary to the great films in the franchise (in a way that TFA didn't have to be). As well as it explained why events in A New Hope happened as they did, it's still setting things up for a different movie. I also agree that the first act was weaker, and not all of the characters were interesting. I take the late rewrites and reshoots as a sign that they were having trouble with the characters all along, in one way or another.

[raiken_]

I've only seen it once so far, but walking out of the theater Rogue One was my favorite SW film. I didn't really like TFA; just felt way too derivative ANH. RO felt like a different kind of story than the film series had so far.

I enjoyed most of the characters. Cassian didn't really work for me. They presented him as the face-level charismatic but do what is necessary / ready to kill to ensure success kind of agent, but when he did kill people it didn't make sense. It either wouldn't achieve anything, or it would obviously make the situation worse later on. And then when he was in position to take out a target and it would have made sense from his point of view, that's when he develops sudden, unexplained hesitation.

When I watched the movie I didn't feel the slow pace I later heard everyone mention. There's was definitely a lot of set up going on, which is indeed going to be slower paced than other things, but I didn't think it was intolerable dull. The bigger issue with the early parts I had was they were quickly switching between so many locations and times without establishing most of them and it got disorienting fast for the first viewing.

[ORCACommander]

I do love this movie but the first half is discordant wit hte second half and a lot of that boild down to Jyn's motives or lack there of. But one big glaring issue is that war council meeting where everyone in the room is like, we can't go to war that would be uncouth! god damn it you are the REBEL alliance. you have been conducting an insurrection for years at this point and now you balk at a little bloodshed?

[Formless One]

There is a bunch of stuff i could say, but at the moment the only thing I feel compelled to say is definitively true: DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE IN 3D. So far I've only seen it once, and it was in 3D, and while I'm pretty sure my thoughts on the story hold up regardless, my opinion on the film as a whole could very well be tainted by how awful the 3D effect turned everything.

Truly. Save your money. It almost certainly cannot look as bad as that in two dimensions.

[Rocketboy1313]

I hated this movie. And I think I might be alone on this aside from my brother whom I watched it with.

I went in with zero expectations, as I thought the trailers were cheesy even by the standards of "Star Wars" "Rebellions are built on hope!" "I rebel". Bleh...

I left the theater unable to recall anyone's name, wondering why characters did the things they did, baffled at the performance of Forest Whitaker, baffled at the opening sequence taking place a decade before anything else and adding nothing to the characters.

The only point I put in its favor was the final space battle. That was fun, but I hated everything else, and the more I have thought about it the more I have disliked it. I don't even understand how people like it, they seem to list several things that stood out to them (like Darth Vader effortlessly killing a bunch of nameless mooks) as positives, and I point to those same things as negatives. I am left shrugging my shoulders.

[The Romulan Republic]

I found it mostly mediocre at the time, but I think its growing on me in hindsight, but I will state four major points in this films' favour:

1. Disney manages to make another female protagonist who is capable, without falling into the usual pitfalls of overtly sexualizing her, or of making a big deal out of "oh look, we have a Strong Female Lead, aren't we daring/progressive". She just is one.

2. Some of the visuals were magnificent, and captured a sense of grand scale in a way I've never seen from a Star Wars film before.

3. One of only three Star Wars films (well, I can't recall for The Clone Wars animated film) to feature capital ship combat.

4. The Vader scene. If you've seen it, you know the one. Just... damn.

As to why I liked that scene, in response to the above post: well, first, because it showed how powerful Vader was in his prime, in an almost horror-movie fashion, and did so effectively. And secondly, because it actually made me care about the struggle of those "nameless mooks", who's sacrifice ultimately determined the success of the entire mission.

[Rocketboy1313]

4. The Vader scene. If you've seen it, you know the one. Just... damn.

As to why I liked that scene, in response to the above post: well, first, because it showed how powerful Vader was in his prime, in an almost horror-movie fashion, and did so effectively. And secondly, because it actually made me care about the struggle of those "nameless mooks", who's sacrifice ultimately determined the success of the entire mission.

See, when watching that, I said to my brother, "So, Vader is what? Jason Voorhees now?" In the most condescending way possible.

This is what I am talking about. Things people liked about the movie I disliked. For the same reasons.

[Wargriffin]

First third was bit shaky with it just trying to get the plot in motion with a little too much setup

2nd third got better

The ending third was hitting its stride.


Maybe its the Fact I've watched the A New Hope Review, and A New hope before watching the movie but trying to Explain the Death Stars Achilles heel... kinda misses the point of it being an Achilles Heel.