SPOILER TALK: Rogue One by Gareth Edwards

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

OMG!!!

 

Oh wait, isnt that Vaders seat?

 

Never mind...

[Quintus 5,399]

1 hour ago, KK said:

TFA's Starkiller really is a dumb plot device. The more you think about it, the more stupid it seems.

 

I'm not thinking about it, I've already stopped thinking about this movie, and I'm looking for something else to think about. When's the Breaking Bad guy's proper Star Wars installment out? 

[Jay 37,364]

December 15, 2017.

[Quintus 5,399]

It got pushed back til Xmas, huh. For the best! Everyone loves a great franchise sequel to look forward to at Christmas time! 

[Uni 306]

1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

It's actually quite messy story telling to have the two droids ending up back on the same planet they apparently were. Adds to the whole small universe issue that Star Wars seems to have at the moment. Instead of expanding outwards it's only adding to it's existing storyline by cramming in stuff between the established episodes.

 

Nailed it. It also undermines, once again, the need to go to Alderaan at all, since even the droids know where the Rebel base is located, yes. . . ?

 

 

1 hour ago, KK said:

TFA's Starkiller really is a dumb plot device. The more you think about it, the more stupid it seems.

 

Indeed. I've spent too much time thinking on it, and the entire thing unravels once you give even a slight tug on it. To summarize: The Starkiller requires the consumption of an entire star to power its weapon. So where did it get the power to fire on the multiple planets in the middle of the movie? When it fires, they're all standing outside on the surface in the sunlight. Even if you toss it a mulligan and grant that they were in a binary system, it would've used up the second sun to fire on the Rebel base . . . leaving them with a completely useless weapon. Forever. Of course, the Death Star could travel at hyperspace between worlds, but it was basically a gigantic ship that was ultimately only the size of a "small moon," not a retrofitted planet. There's no conceivable way an entire world with an atmosphere, foliage, etc. could travel through hyperspace. An organization that would expend the kind of resources necessary to construct a superweapon that could only ever fire twice does not present that much of a threat to a thinking Resistance.

 

 

49 minutes ago, Cerebral Cortex said:

One little nitpick I have about this film that bugs me a bit more than it should is how it seems to show the Rebellion being quite a bit better off than in A New Hope. In A New Hope, you have the striking imagery of just a couple X-Wings taking on the massive Death Star. In Rogue One, you see a ROTJ level of ships observed in the final act of Rogue One. Maybe they all retreated to Alderaan after the attack on Scarif or something. 

 

Except, of course, that the weakness built into the Death Star could only be exploited by small fighter craft. The larger fleet would be literally of no use except to give the Death Star target practice. There's no need to send up the big ships, even if they were still in decent shape following the battle at the end of R1, because the X- and Y-wings were the only utilizable weapons in play.

 

 

33 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Obi-Wan on the other hand... I'd love to see McGregor back in the role, but what would he do? Sit around in the desert for two hours? Perhaps have an argument with Owen once a year until he gives up and goes full hermit?

 

My thoughts exactly. I'd love to see how Ewan would bridge the gap between his middle-aged Obi-Wan and Old Ben, but . . . what the hell would the movie be about? Kenobi stayed on Tatooine to keep an eye on Luke, who aptly elucidated the location's central problem: that nothing ever happens there.

 

 

[Jay 37,364]

If they do make an Obi-Wan movie set during that time frame, they'd absolutely come up with a reason to get him off Tatooine and have various adventures on other planets no question.

[leeallen01 2,136]

They could have him going to Alderaan to meet with Organa, as he says in Rogue One that they're friends, so they must have seen each other a few times. We could have the obligatory fan service of seeing a young Leia growing up, perhaps at 10+ years old. It could be a story about him regretting not killing Vader, because of him surviving his injuries, which he probably thought he wouldn't. And Kenobi could even go and see Yoda, who knows.

 

I can imagine the final shot of the film perhaps being Ewan stood at dusk,  distant from Luke's house, watching as Luke walks out of the door at roughly aged 10 like Leia who he saw earlier. Luke, looking sad and kicking some dirt, then walks over to stand and watch the binary sunset.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

That sounds ghastly, to be honest 

30 minutes ago, Quintus said:

 

When's the Breaking Bad guy's proper Star Wars installment out? 

 

Vince Gilligan? Star Wars? When? Where?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Brilliant!

[Jay 37,364]

I know its been said already but these scenes look cool and I wish hadn't been removed from the movie!

 

 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The film needed more than these cool scenes, it needed a heart. I have no idea if it had any before it was massively restructured.

[Jay 37,364]

The amount of planning that must have gone into that first shot alone must have broken Edward's heart!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Meh...

 

Any news on Episode VIII? How's Rey?

 

 

[edit]

 

Just checked Box Office Mojo. Rogue One has done $388,125,599 world wide, on a budget of 200 Million. Yikes!

It's the holiday season, and it's Star Wars so it will have some longevity, but this will not make anywhere near to TFA money.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

20 hours ago, mstrox said:

One thing that the "new canon" has been pointing at, especially in Star Wars Rebels and Rogue One, is that a lot of weight in the Rebel Alliance should fall on the word "Alliance."  It's not a big, unified militia taking up arms against the Empire - it's an agreement between numerous small cells (such as the Lothal/Ghost crew from Rebels) to fight the Empire.  Rebels has done a good job planting the seeds of these things coming together - we've only seen two brushes with Alderaan's crew, for instance.  But we see more groups taking up the cause.  That's why we see the council in Rogue One with different planets'/groups' leaders disagreeing on how to proceed.  I haven't read any of the accompanying media to Rogue One yet, but it's possible that Mothma's rebels alienated the large dissenting group of rebels from that council scene, and they took off to go somewhere else. 

 

Since the Rebels suffered significant losses, and Star Wars takes place days or weeks later at most, I think it's also reasonable to say that lots of ships are out of commission

It's a little sad that they did create dissent within the rebel alliance, yet nobody thought of including Garm-Bel Iblis, the Corellian senator.

 

I suppose it is lucas' fault for not unclidung him in ROTS (deleted scenes)

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Question for Blume, if he's still following this thread.

 

Regarding the CGI on Tarkin and Leia. If Disney or Lucasfilm had written ILM (or whatever company was responsible for it) a blank cheque, and told them to go away and not come back untill they had created absolutely photorealistic versions of these characters. 100% indistinguishable from how the real actors looked in 1977.

 

Would they have been able to accomplish this technically?

 

I think CGI is a lot further than most of us probably realize, but that in films it's often limited by budget and schedule.

[Cerebral Cortex 3,357]

I would be curious what the results would have been like if, say, Weta had done the effects for those shots. Not to say ILM is anywhere near incompetent or anything, but Weta just seems to have done more extensive work involving that sort of photorealistic humanoid CGI with the new Planet of the Apes films and such. 

[Quintus 5,399]

1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

The film needed more than these cool scenes, it needed a heart. I have no idea if it had any before it was massively restructured.

 

By the end, I felt there was some heart at least in there. I liked how they all died, it was bold and bittersweet. But maybe I was 'feeling' and appreciating the ambition of the filmmakers there rather than the demise of the characters, I don't know. 

[KK 3,307]

I don't think it was an entirely heartless movie either. It's just still kind of cold by the end.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The way the two asian characters died was well done. Didn't care about the droid and didn't feel anything when that lady and whats his face died.

[leeallen01 2,136]

I seriously thought Tarkin was brilliantly done. The only problem was only his mouth I think. No one has done convincing human mouths before, simply because you cannot effectively mimic someone's mouth movements, because it isn't predictable. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I was thinking. Disney will have to remove the title crawl from Star Wars (1977). Rogue One made it redundant.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

26 minutes ago, Cerebral Cortex said:

I would be curious what the results would have been like if, say, Weta had done the effects for those shots. Not to say ILM is anywhere near incompetent or anything, but Weta just seems to have done more extensive work involving that sort of photorealistic humanoid CGI with the new Planet of the Apes films and such. 

Creating a photorealistic human is much more difficult than creating any kind of other creature or animal so its not an indication of what they could have done. Many people can believe in an invented alien or thingy. Most dont give a crap if the animal is correct or not. But we all share our lives with humans so we are very sentitive to the defects of human CGI.

 

Both companies have done photorealistic creatures anyway.

Just now, Stefancos said:

I was thinking. Disney will have to remove the title crawl from Star Wars (1977). Rogue One made it redundant.

 

Even ep VIII is having one so...

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Manuel, where are you on the first Vader scene?

 

Didnt James Earl Jones speak too slowly compared to the Vader in Star Wars (1977)?

 

He seemed more like TESB Vader.

[Quintus 5,399]

For me, the weak link in the cast was the guy who played the male lead. I thought he was seriously lacking in presence and charisma. Miscast. 

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

1 minute ago, Stefancos said:

Manuel, where are you on the first Vader scene?

 

Didnt James Earl Jones speak too slowly compared to the Vader in Star Wars (1977)?

 

He seemed more like TESB Vader.

JEJ voice in SW is so different from the other films, isnt it?....

 

But please, i saw the film dubbed, with a new voice actor because the old one died a pair of years ago. So it was an agony.

 

So i take JEJ anytime....

22 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Obi-Wan on the other hand... I'd love to see McGregor back in the role, but what would he do? Sit around in the desert for two hours? Perhaps have an argument with Owen once a year until he gives up and goes full hermit?

As the novel 'Kenobi' showed, you can make a decent western-like film with obi-wan in Tatooine.

 

Jedi are Jedi, they cant help helping people in need...

[Uni 306]

2 hours ago, Stefancos said:

I think CGI is a lot further than most of us probably realize, but that in films it's often limited by budget and schedule.

 

I think they had plenty of budget and schedule here. I doubt a blank check would've made much of an improvement. The technology's still not quite there yet. 

 

I do agree that it's stunning, and it's come so far it's incredible. The entire battle sequence at the end—on the planet too, but especially in space—was so photorealistic that it didn't need to be in 3D to seem absolutely immersive. But they just can't get human faces right. There's a sheen to the skin, that too-obvious deficiency in the movements of the mouth, a practiced, robotic flow to the movements, that all makes it unreal. 

 

I would qualify that, too, by saying that the context matters. For instance, when I saw Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within 15 years ago, I was blown away. I still think it's an amazing piece of work, and within its own boundaries it's a complete success. But when you put a CGI model among other actual humans in a filmed scene, it fails by immediate comparison. It's no longer an amazing recreation among other amazing recreations; it's a wax figure trying to blend in with real people, and it doesn't work.

 

 

55 minutes ago, Quintus said:

For me, the weak link in the cast was the guy who played the male lead. I thought he was seriously lacking in presence and charisma. Miscast. 

 

Can't help but agree. The accent was too sharp, the performance too meh. As a central character, he needed to be stronger.

 

 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

A poor man's Poe Dameron.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Quintus 5,399]

There is no doubt I'm my mind that a longer period of production time and possibly a different digital effects house would have resulted in a much less uncanny Peter Cushing. 

 

With that said, I still think the Tarkin CG character we have is passable enough for this movie. I enjoyed his inclusion.  

[KK 3,307]

44 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

 

Yep.

 

Plus, having a CG human among real humans makes you go: "Why didn't they simply hire an actor instead of making the character CG?"

 

Well what I believe they did was hire an actor and digitally alter his face.

 

29 minutes ago, Quintus said:

With that said, I still think the Tarkin CG character we have is passable enough for this movie. I enjoyed his inclusion.  

 

Agreed.

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

3 minutes ago, KK said:

Well what I believe they did was hire an actor and digitally alter his face.

 

I don't think so, because it seemed, to me at least, that the whole body was CGI. *Why* it was beats me. It should have been possible to just replace the head and at least have a normal moving body. But I agree, despite the oddness it works well enough for the film.

[KK 3,307]

Ah I think I read that somewhere.

 

Oh there's this:

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

To be fair, they mainly talk about how it *can* be done, and seem to have a rough confirmation that technology like this was used for R1, but it doesn't seem to clearly confirm whether only the face or the whole character was CGI.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Both leía and tarkin had body stunts i think.

 

The Also usted a real body for the Terminator last year

[leeallen01 2,136]

My favourite use of CGI face is Benjamin Button. It was 8 years ago, and looks glorious, and was very tastefully done. Old and young Brad Pitt and young Cate Blanchett look fantastic.

[Quintus 5,399]

I just assumed both Leia and Tarkin were fully CGI creations, albeit 'mo-capped'. Tintin style - real actors whom are then digitally painted over in post. Seems likely enough. 

[karelm 2,913]

8 hours ago, Jay said:

I know its been said already but these scenes look cool and I wish hadn't been removed from the movie!

 

 

 

I heard that the tie fighter shot was never in the movie, it was made for the trailer.  Basically, the shot is in the film without the cgi tie fighter that was added later.

[Quintus 5,399]

Did the Vietnam style overhead shot of the ties make it into the final movie? I can't remember. 

[karelm 2,913]

I think CGI characters can look convincing.  They should have gotten Carrie Fisher for that cameo.  I think this is the best looking CGI character, a young Michael Douglas performed by Michael Douglas:

...totally convincing.  This is what he looked like in the rest of the film:

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

11 minutes ago, karelm said:

I heard that the tie fighter shot was never in the movie, it was made for the trailer.  Basically, the shot is in the film without the cgi tie fighter that was added later.

 

According to what Gareth Edwards said, the finale was always in flux. Shots were made without fixing the finale, and then thrown out again or changed. They were fully conscious of that when the teasers came out, but the marketing department said they'd use them anyway, because they're cool.

 

If that's true, and the reshoots and changes weren't as controversial as all the conspiracy theories claim, then I suppose there might be a good chance for a shitload of deleted scenes on the Blu-ray... or perhaps the special edition if there's one a few months later as with TFA.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

That sounds like a spin doctors explanation.

 

Special effect shots cost money. You don't essentially waste money by doing shots that are cool, just for a trailer.

 

Also, Stuart Bairds credit as "additional editor" suggests he was brought in to restructure the film after a heavy rewrite.

[Jay 37,364]

4 hours ago, Quintus said:

Did the Vietnam style overhead shot of the ties make it into the final movie? I can't remember. 

 

Are you talking about the Apocalypse Now shot from TFA? Or something else? 

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Quintus 5,399]

Yeah the Apocalypse Now one, looking up at the tie fighters through the trees. 

 

7 hours ago, karelm said:

I think CGI characters can look convincing.  They should have gotten Carrie Fisher for that cameo.  I think this is the best looking CGI character, a young Michael Douglas performed by Michael Douglas:

 

 

Holy crap that's amazing. There's no way someone who didn't know who Douglas was beforehand would notice anything out of the ordinary about that scene. Very impressive stuff, and about where I was expecting the tech to be by now. 

 

Which effects house was responsible? 

 

An Indiana Jones sequel using this technology could be awesome. 

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

According to this, LOLA FX

 

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Most-Terrifying-Visual-Effect-Ant-Man-According-Director-72631.html

 

But i think it's the actual michael douglas acting and i suppose, motion capture. So it is not creating a head from scratch (or archival fotage...)

 

Still, i suppose tarkin or leia should have been mocapped for eye and mouth movements, if not, grave error.

[Quintus 5,399]

Those two will almost certainly have been motion captured using really performers. It's standard practice in video games so there's no reason to think it'd be any different for movies. 

 

Tarkin only fails because the eyes aren't good enough to convince. His mouth we wouldn't have noticed had they got the eyes right. Compare it to Michael Douglas and it's night and day in that regard. His eyes sparkle with believable life behind them, it'd really remarkable. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I wonder if the CGI Tarkin and Leia werent part of the reshoots? They would have had less time to work on the CGI.

[Jay 37,364]

4 hours ago, Quintus said:

Yeah the Apocalypse Now one, looking up at the tie fighters through the trees. . 

 

So your asking if a shot from The Force Awakens was reused in Rogue One? 

[BloodBoal 7,538]