joe_b

I may be in the minority, but I do wish the movie would have given at least a passing reference to the Geonosians. They did design the Death Star, after all. We can assume at some point Palpatine or Krennic cut them out of the picture and brought in their own technicians to iron out kinks in the schematics. Still, a brief mention of that would have been appreciated.

We see a brief flashback from Jyn's POV of Krennic having drinks with Galen and his wife. I assume that was when he was recruited to come aboard the project. I wonder if that was ever a proper scene with dialogue that filled in the gaps.

Kal-El

I know you're not gonna like this answer, but that happened in the lead-up novel Catalyst.

dex14

There is a book that explains their backstory. They were classmates.

fumanstan

I thought it was ok, while it seemed like all of my coworkers came away thinking it was amazing and awesome. I was fairly bored through the first third of the movie, and even dozed off a little bit. My main issue is just finding most if not all of the characters fairly boring and uninteresting. Jyn was fine, but besides her the only character I enjoyed was K2, who's antics still got a little repetitive at the end.
Donnie Yen was great, but wish his "force" stuff went somewhere. Forest Whitaker is also the worst character in Star Wars after Jar Jar.

That said, loved the action at the end and how creative they got with ramming the Star Destroyer. Also enjoyed that everyone died and they went there - kept thinking someone might get away, but i'm glad it didn't happen. I just wish I cared more about the characters to make their deaths more substantial. Vader was great, and I enjoyed seeing him in action. Didn't like Tarkin's CG, it just wasn't good enough to show him that much.

joe_b

Quoted for truth. It's his most nuanced performance since Battlefield Earth... has future internet meme written all over it.

Mondo Kane

On a somewhat-related note, I was 100% expecting that Vader's "Big horror moment" meant that one of the Rogue members was going to be on the receiving end of it. Unfortunately......

Mabuse

I liked it very much. They're giving me what I want, films that hue very close to the original trilogy in style, design, even performance. The second act could have been streamlined. Everything about their crash landing on the Kyber refining planet (I can't remember the name) was mishandled. It wasn't clear why they were there, what they were doing, and where'd they get that stolen ship from? It just showed up.

It definitely has all the markings of a project that's been reshot. The seams really show. Having to resort to onscreen text was kind of sad.

Not only is the third act very similar to ROTJ, I'm pretty sure they used an early draft of the script. I'm going to get my big ROTJ book out this weekend and research.

Mabuse

More thoughts.

-I am not taking my 5 year old to this. Way too intense. I'm thinking about my 9 year old. Haven't made up my mind.

-This might be the most tinkered with movie ever. The teaser and trailers are filled with stuff that didn't make the final cut.

-Tarken looked awesome. I wasn't sure if it was effects, make-up, a look a like with a little CG touch up. Very well done. Who did the voice?

-Let's talk about Red Squadron. That was the same Red Leader from Star Wars right? I think they just reused some footage from the original film. I really liked that. Then we see Red Five die. Poor guy. Wonder if someone will fill his boots?

-Brace yourself for the blogs about religion and terrorism. This movie borrowed heavily from real world insurgencies through the ages: Algeria, Israel, and the like. The final battle, with the rebels amongst the palm trees, looked like the Cuban Revolution! Jerusalem was clearly the inspiration for Jedah City, I even saw a golden dome, and the idea of looting the temple equates to the real Temple Mount.

Kal-El

It's said pretty clearly that they're near a shuttle depot and Cassian instructs Bodhi to go there and see if there are any ships left.

And while on Jedha, Cassian asks Bodhi while still in his PTSD state "where's Galen Erso?". We never hear the answer but the next time he sees Jyn, he says "I know where your father is". Not sure why it's not clear WHY they're there. It's another thing that was pretty spelled out and emphasized before they got there (one of the Rebel commanders tells Cassian), when they're there (Cassian's orders are re-confirmed and even Chirrut senses it) and even after they left (Jyn confronts Cassian about it)--Cassian had orders to kill Galen.

Joe Schmoe

Good movie, but not great. I liked Episode VII more because of its fun tone. This movie was more serious than I thought it'd be, and unfortunately, most of the humorous moments were given away in the commercials and trailers. I thought Peter Cushing looked great even though his lips looked out of sync a couple of times. Carrie Fisher looked good until she moved and spoke. Then the trick became really obvious. (Did Disney run out of time/money when they started working on Leia?) Did I spot a couple of rebel pilots from Episode IV in the last battle? I didn't mind Ponda Baba & his cohort making a cameo. I wish Vader had been in it more. Didn't like Forest Whitaker's character or the blind guy. (I hate blind characters in movies and TV shows who can kick everyone's ass in a fight and dodge bullets/laser beams.) And really, the blind guy in this film should have been shot while he slowly walked through the battlefield at the end to flip that switch. Didn't the enemy see him or were they all such bad shots that every one of them missed him? Or did the Force shield him just because he kept repeating "I am one with the Force." Like Han said in last year's film: That's not how the Force works. Liked the classic look of the ships, costumes and computer panels and graphics, but the score did not impress. 3 1/2 stars.

By the way, the 3D wasn't impressive. A few overhead shots had a sense of added height, but nothing leaped off the screen. Still waiting for a 3D Star Wars movie with in-your-face laser shots and spaceships.

Mabuse

It's clear he is using a very primitive version of the force.

Mabuse

Everything in Rogue One's prologue could have been told to us in an opening crawl and saved us a lot of time. That's what the crawl is for. So you can get to the meat of it.

Joe Schmoe

But if it were that easy to make enemies not shoot at you, why haven't we seen full-fledged Jedi knights use the Force that way in the other films?

Mabuse

About the time that creature was reading Bodhi's mind I realized R1 is as much inspired by Lynch's version of Dune as by anything else.

dex14

With a little Blue Velvet thrown in.

CPA-ESQ.

I took it to be that this was his kamikaze mission and he was using every bit of his force "energy" to get to the switch - that is why he was walking very slowly and not a mad dash. They even show the trooper's point of view and how the blaster bolts were almost going through him. I take this to be the equivalent of a religious "miracle" and not a jedi power.

I loved how the Force was set up as some kind of "religion" - helps add to to episode IV when they speak of it.

Mabuse

Indeed, Frank Booth too.

I'd like to see Rogue One and the original Star Wars shown consecutively, with an intermission between the two. It could be its own little 4 1/2 hour sci-fi epic. If you disregard all the other films the two work perfectly together.

Kal-El

So now that the movie's out, how did everybody who's seen it feel about the lack of a crawl. It was a little jarring for me. Because "a long time ago..." is basically the calm before the storm of people cheering in a Star Wars movie so the whole experience was missing that "oomph" for me.

Mabuse

As I said: They probably should have done a crawl and saved a lot of time.

Joe Schmoe

For me, it wasn't the missing crawl that felt weird, it was the missing SW score. It just began so quietly.

Mike86

Not sure if I agree here. I feel like that added a bit more to Jyn's character and while we could have gotten a lot of the information about her from a crawl the prologue made her easier to care about in my opinion. People are already complaining about the lack of characterization so I think to take away from the main character's backstory would have been a mistake.

joe_b

Yup. What little emotion I felt for that character came from the prologue. Having her holding Galen as he's dying wouldn't have had the same impact if it was the first time the audience is seeing them together.

CPA-ESQ.

I didn't miss the opening crawl.. but did miss that big booming music.

I read that the music and the crawl were reserved only for trilogy or 'core' films.

However this could have easily been integrated with episode 4 and make a long movie.

Mabuse

It did start with a very loud sting of music, but then it went silent. My question is will the Han Solo movie and the other non-Episode movies all start this way, or will they leave it up to the individual directors and they get to do whatever they want?

OldBoy

i wavered between 3 and 3.5 stars, but i just wasn't that entertained. it is a well made, very competent movie. i liked the story and how it unfolded. it fits into the canon and nice bridge to A New Hope, but i was underwhelmed. like many have said the score really sucked and i really missed Williams presence. it hardly bared a resemblance. the CGI Tarkin and Leia were really disturbing. at least with Leia they could have done something like Marvel did with RDJ and Michael Douglas given Fisher is still alive. but, too much Tarkin that looked so phony to me. i really didn't feel anything for any of these characters. they did there jobs well, but didn't make an emotional connection with me at all. i really didn't feel too bad when they all bought it. that Jyn and Cassian scene just reminded me of Deep Impact with Tea Leoni and her father in the movie.

just didn't resonate at all. i didn't have fun with this one. i had fun with the OT and Force Awakens. but, it's well done and i do like the bridging the gap aspect and for that it worked, especially the last sequence with Vader and then Leia. But, Vader also reminded me of Kylo Ren in his hand gestures.

anyway...