SPOILER TALK: Rogue One by Gareth Edwards

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26 minutes ago, Romão said:

 

The Vader scene is pure fan service. It is unearned. It relies on the work of previous movies to have any sort of impact. And it's totally irrelevant to the plot. This is the sort of the scene that should have been the first to be cut in editing. The further I think about it, the more it bothers me

 

It bothered me from the moment I saw the film. 100% fan service and, as pointed out by many others, felt completely disconnected from the rest of the film. We have our narrative climax and then the film just kind of meanders on for another 5 minutes with this dragged out horror-film-esque epilogue. Vader should have been integrated into the climax of the film as the final hurdle for our heroes to overcome (and ultimately they die but successfully upload the plans in the process).

 

At least his murderous rampage might have had some narrative purpose that way. Heck, even some emotional resonance, rather than watching him slaughter nameless, unrelated rebels we've never seen before. Then again, considering the leads were one-dimensional to the extreme, maybe it wouldn't have made any difference.

 

Time will not be kind to this film, IMHO.

[Wojo 2,453]

This has probably been discussed ad nauseum earlier, but I usually avoided deep conversations here until seeing the movie.

 

Placing Vader on the Rebel mothership at the end of Rogue One undermines his first conversation when he catches up with the Tantive IV:

 

Stormtrooper: The Death Star plans are not in the main computer. 

Vader: Where are those transmissions you intercepted? WHAT have you DONE with those plans?

Captain Antilles: We intercepted no transmissions...This is a consular ship... We're on a - diplomatic mission...

 

Intercepted is the wrong word here because Vader would be able to check the history on the Rebel mothership and know that it received the transmission but did not rebroadcast them to the smaller ship that got away. It was a physical download to the disc that he should have been able to stop from being passed at the end of the hall.

 

His murderous rampage is fanwanking that doesn't mesh well with his much calmer appearance at the beginning of the original Star Wars. I also don't remember Vader's lenses being so red in the original Star Wars, when it's so obvious in Rogue One. 

 

Tarkin's destruction of the archives on Scarif is illogical since it comes after the shield has been destroyed, when it takes no time at all to get the signal out. He foolishly destroys the source of so much information instead of concentrating on the recipients, like when the DS II fires on a capital ship at Endor. This does provide the poetic means to punish Krennic for his unfortunate oversight, since by leaving Jyn alive fifteen years prior unknowingly gave Galen hope to install a weakness. And the blast kills off the rest of the Rogue One team.

 

But it's sloppy scriptwriting. Vader goes underutilized here, because he fails to stop the plans from physically leaving on the blockade runner. 

 

The Empire must clearly have other similar data installations like Scarif so they can build a second Death Star in short order. It was probably already under construction at the time of Star Wars Episode IV anyways. 

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

That's a pretty ropey text, little more that a rewrite of TFA's.

 

The problem I had (though only a minor one) is that the film started in a way it always looked like they had cut off the title crawl at the very last minute. Or like the cinema was playing a damaged print. 

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

https://brorlandi.github.io/StarWarsIntroCreator/#!/AK_PuwhMIOMCEGnhqgmy

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Incomprehensible!

[Quintus 5,399]

Plot twist: the entirety of The Force Awakens is "fan service". 

[Jay 37,352]

6 hours ago, Romão said:

The Vader scene is pure fan service. It is unearned. It relies on the work of previous movies to have any sort of impact. And it's totally irrelevant to the plot. This is the sort of the scene that should have been the first to be cut in editing. The further I think about it, the more it bothers me

 

Yes, thank you, that's a brilliant way to explain what it was that didn't work about the final scene.  I completely agree with you!

 

 

5 hours ago, crumbs said:

It bothered me from the moment I saw the film. 100% fan service and, as pointed out by many others, felt completely disconnected from the rest of the film. We have our narrative climax and then the film just kind of meanders on for another 5 minutes with this dragged out horror-film-esque epilogue. Vader should have been integrated into the climax of the film as the final hurdle for our heroes to overcome (and ultimately they die but successfully upload the plans in the process).

 

At least his murderous rampage might have had some narrative purpose that way. Heck, even some emotional resonance, rather than watching him slaughter nameless, unrelated rebels we've never seen before. Then again, considering the leads were one-dimensional to the extreme, maybe it wouldn't have made any difference.

 

Time will not be kind to this film, IMHO.

 

Agreed!

[Pieter Boelen 740]

I think there is a lot of fair criticism that can be levelled against Rogue One, but I do still quite appreciate it for what it is.

My interpretation is that they tried to do a lot with this film at the same time, some of which are mutually exclusive.

It should be:

1. A Star Wars film

2. A kid-friendly film (that's a big part of the audience, I imagine)

3. A stand-alone film that isn't part of the "main story"

4. A more realistic, "gritty" war film

 

They could have gone to any of the "extreme" sides of any of those four points and the film would have been very good from that specific perspective.

But making it "too Star Wars" makes it "too familiar" and it was meant to also be deliberately different.

But making it too realistic, and "gritty war film" would make it decidedly kid UN-friendly.

So my suspicion is that they have compromised to come to a film that falls somewhere safely in-between.

 

Doing something even slightly "different" is risky by itself, even if it isn't very different.

The prequels showed quite clearly how such risks can lead to the films being decidedly under-appreciated.

Disney so far has indicated very obviously that on the one hand, they do want to make things "new", but not TOO risky.

And so they try to play it safe, even when they do take risks.

 

I'm actually very surprised that they had the guts to kill off EVERY main character in the very first spin-off film they made!

That is actually more risky than I would have expected from them even a year ago, so I'll give them kudos for that.

Even though that is not actually something I enjoy in a film (I like a happy ending, so sue me!).

And apparently even the film-makers themselves did not expect Disney to go for that!

 

But they decided to take that risk, BUT they also needed the film to remain as audience and kid-friendly as possible.

And so they added in a fair bit of extra fan-service that probably would not have been strictly necessary.

These range from small examples such as R2-D2, C-3PO and those two criminals from the Mos Eisley cantina.

But also large examples, such as "Darth Vader being evil and cool at the same time, as well as Grand Moff Tarkin and Leia returning.

 

For the same reason, the story needed to tread lightly despite its heave subject matter.

Hence why the characters may deliberately not make as much impact as they could.

We never get fully invested in them, so we don't feel too bad when they die.

And why Vader does not get pitted against them, because if he did, then it couldn't be dark and evil AND fun to watch at the same time.

 

I'm not saying all of this makes everything automatically OK.

But it does explain, for me at least, why the film turned out the way it did.

And for me personally, it works pretty well.

 

I haven't yet decided yet how it compares against TFA. Both are enjoyable, understandable and better than they could have been.

But they're also somewhat disappointing, since both could easily have been better still.

At the very least, they do add more fun content to the whole Star Wars universe and that is pretty great in itself!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I like the idea of if far more than the execution. 

[Demodex 557]

On 12/31/2016 at 8:37 PM, karelm said:

Because CGI Tarkin said alert Lord Vader of the insurgency so he would control it. 

 

I watched it again today.  Tarkin says to alert Lord Vader after the scene on Mustafar, during the time the Rebels are on Scarif.

 

I noticed today that ader says to Krennic, "You were not summoned here to..."  So Vader requested Krennic come there, but we aren't told why.  

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33 minutes ago, Demodex said:

 

I watched it again today.  Tarkin says to alert Lord Vader after the scene on Mustafar, during the time the Rebels are on Scarif.

 

I noticed today that ader says to Krennic, "You were not summoned here to..."  So Vader requested Krennic come there, but we aren't told why.  

 

Could be a remnant of earlier versions of the sequence, which may have taken place aboard the Death Star (see trailers). Switching the setting to Mustafar might have been a reshoot thing.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

11 hours ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

I think there is a lot of fair criticism that can be levelled against Rogue One, but I do still quite appreciate it for what it is.

My interpretation is that they tried to do a lot with this film at the same time, some of which are mutually exclusive.

It should be:

1. A Star Wars film

2. A kid-friendly film (that's a big part of the audience, I imagine)

3. A stand-alone film that isn't part of the "main story"

4. A more realistic, "gritty" war film

 

Not quoting the whole post, but I agree with most of what you wrote. Well-said, and pretty spot-on regarding why the film doesn't quite work, and could never quite work, given the difficult balance it was trying to achieve between the various aspects it was meant to cover.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

In the end of the day Rogue One is a harmless distraction. Something new to talk about for a while till we can start to focus on Episode VIII. A warm-up act.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

4 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

In the end of the day Rogue One is a harmless distraction.

 

So, just like Episode VII, right?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Yes. But TFA at least ended with the promise of something more ambitious. (which we'll know in less than a year). Rogue One literally ended with nowhere new it could possibly go.

[Quintus 5,399]

I thought that was the whole point of the story. "A New Hope" is the continuation of Rogue One anyway, from a certain point of view. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I guess it was. Do you think they succeeded, Lee?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

And the ultimate internet fan-service pukefest - Luke revealed as Rey's dad to ensure it's all one big, happy Skywalker family.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Pieter Boelen 740]

Indeed! Pretty please. I'll be quite annoyed if that would be the case because it is a twist that is hardly a twist at all.

Her being an actual absolute nobody would be more unexpected by far!

So the twist would be that there ISN'T a twist!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

She's a child of The Force! Like Anakin!

[Quintus 5,399]

5 hours ago, Stefancos said:

I guess it was. Do you think they succeeded, Lee?

 

I do. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I'm still very lukewarm about it (no pun intended)

[BloodBoal 7,538]

 

[Brónach 1,302]

On 2/1/2017 at 1:01 PM, BloodBoal said:

I think/hope Disney/Kathleen Kennedy will be wise enough to avoid that obvious reveal, and give us something different.

 

There's just two simplest and obvious options: one that people refuse to accept because they expect something else from Star Wars, and another they also dislike because they really disliked Episode I.

[mstrox 6,651]

My "theory" is that Rey isn't related to anyone we know, and the real "excitement" lies in the reason that she was abandoned.  I don't think it needs to be a twist/reveal, just informational stuff TBH.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

She's a Vampire Slayer....

[Quintus 5,399]

It's increasingly obvious who Rey is: Jar Jar Binks' illegitimate daughter. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

She's a child of the Force, like Anakin was. But representing the Light side!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Bespin 8,480]

4 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

Anakin was a child of the Midichlorians.

 

And created consciously or not (we don't know) by the experiments of Darth Plagueis with the Force.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

2 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

Anakin was a child of the Midichlorians.

 

Master sir?  I've been wondering. What are Midicholorians?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I feel sick! Please stop that!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Wojo 2,453]

1 hour ago, Stefancos said:

I feel sick! Please stop that!

 

This isn't Rotten dot com. You can't get sick reading the written word here. 

[mstrox 6,651]

The film's editors discuss their process w/ Edwards, the reshoots, etc.

 

https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/rogue-ones-editors-reveal-scenes-added-in-the-star-wars-standalone-reshoots-exclusive-110124381.html

 

Gives a good idea of what some of the reshoots were.  They say that there's not a lot of intriguing stuff left on the cutting room floor.  The Bodhi Rook and Cassian character intros were added to help us w/ the characters.  Some little changes in location snowballed into various other changes that needed to be reshot.

[crumbs 14,310]

That makes sense, some of those introductory scenes were flat-out weird and jarring.

 

The Cassian intro in particular looked cheap and rushed.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Romão 2,274]

 

Actually, after seeing this video, I think Guy Henry with some make up on would've played Tarkin just fine

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Yeah I wouldn't even have minded some minor CG alterations to his face.  Going 100% CG was the mistake.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

I think the problem with tarkin's eyes is that Guy Henry moves them more and differently than Cushing did. So it looks weird, as lifelike as they are.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Another problem apart from the CGI is that you dont really get much of a feel of an actors performance.

 

 

 

Btw. One thing about Krennic in Rogue One that I havent seen mentioned but does rather damage the character.

 

He's supposed to be the villain of this film right. The big, powerfull baddie that the Rebels have to deal with.

 

But he constantly gets ordered about and marginalized by Tarkin. And when he goes to Mustafar Vader treats him like his bitch and chokes him.

 

Not much of a villain. 

 

It adds to the feel that Rogue One was little more then a side story. An interesting anecdote (if that) attached to the main narrative.

[mstrox 6,651]

He was the primary villain to our protagonists.  Jyn had personal stakes with him.

 

Vader was the primary villain to our protagonists in Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, even though he was subservient to Tarkin and The Emperor, respectively.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I know this. Whats your point?

Actually showing Krennic constantly being  put in his place doesn't help the film itself in any way. It shows off the "badass-ness" of the films two secondary villains at the expense of the main one.

 

They made some really bad decisions on Rogue One. 

[Quintus 5,399]

It is a pretty muddled script in that way, and Mendelsohn was completely let down by both it and probably by the constant restructuring of the story. But it still manages to entertain me in spite of the flaws. It still doesn't feel anywhere near as thin as the prequels in that way. It's a shame that the last two movies have suffered significantly from a lack of focus, particularly in the editing room. Because there is probably a couple of really bloody good films in various bits and bobs on the cutting room floor which we'll never see. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Mendelsohn was good. He reminds me of a young Ian McKellen.