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Just got home from a midnight showing. Will post properly tomorrow, but for now, just be assured - it's incredible. Possibly the best Star Wars film ever made. They get all the details right and the very, very few things that aren't perfect are insignificant in the context of the overall experience.
Amazing. Go see it.
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"The only force at work here is the force of habit." - New York Times.
For balance :D
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After Trump, you should learn not to trust the MSM. :p
Just saw it and slept on it. Still amazing.
I don't know what was CGI and what wasn't aside from the very obvious—I'm fairly certain they didn't actually build a Death Star—but it didn't matter one whit. The CGI was extremely good and well-integrated. The "worst" CGI parts were the instances of "uncanny valley" where they kinda had no choice, although even that was pretty well done. All the rest—awesome.
Story and characters—we all know how it ends, so it's all about the journey, and it's a well-thought-out, sensible journey. Weakest bit was the main lead, not because she was bad at anything, but because she wasn't particularly outstanding at anything. That's not bad, it just wasn't noteworthy. Breakout role was Alan Tudyk as the droid. They modified his voice sufficiently enough that it didn't obviously sound like him and thus wasn't distractingly familiar, but you could spot it if you knew it was him, and he was awesome.
As someone who has kept up with Star Wars Rebels, it was a treat seeing and hearing the little acknowledgements scattered in a few places.
Minor spoilery bits that aren't too spoilery:
Vader's 4 minutes are unforgettable. James Earl Jones IS irreplaceable—he's still got it, in spades. We need to figure out a way to preserve and recreate his voice, cuz daaaaaamn, son!
I admit I was surprised at how they wrapped up most everyone's story-arcs—file under "didn't see that coming", although I guess I should have.
That Hammerhead ram though... O.O I was a bit skeptical of the mass/thrust ratio there, but I guess it was vaguely plausible... after all, T.I.E. fighters have ion engines so advanced from those we know today that they're effective methods of propulsion even in atmosphere, so I guess capship engines can similarly be vastly more effective than we'd expect...
Planetary shield! I believe that's the first time we've seen one in action, isn't it?
Repeating blaster FTW.
Empire: "We have a full-armed and operational Death Star."
Rebellion: "That's cute. We have these two asian dudes—"
Nitpicks:
That opening and closing hatch Jyn has to dart through... what were they thinking? What purpose could that bit of the facility possible have??
The Force mantra that guy kept repeating seemed a bit... odd. Kinda like it was more a Buddhist religion approach for him than a way of life. Which I guess was kinda true, for him. *shrug*
Undeniably worth seeing in theaters. Do—there is no try, and no "do not". Do. ;)
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Undeniably worth seeing in theaters. Do—there is no try, and no "do not". Do. ;)
Guess I'll start looking at the viewing schedule :)
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The promised tomorrow post. I'm going to keep this light on spoilers - nothing specific, but if you want to know absolutely nothing, skip.
Sandwich is right that the uncanny valley stuff is one of the only bad effects in the whole movie, and even that I wouldn't call bad. Actually, what they achieved was incredible, just very slightly... off when in motion. We can;t be more than a few years away from that sort of thing being completely undetectable though, and then say goodbye to ever recasting again. A very small handful of other weak effects and digital makeups (SW has to stop doing tentacly monsters, or at least keep them understated like 70s and 80s effects forced them to - the TFA one was bad, and this one was pretty weak too). The only other weak thing was the hammerhead corvette, which looked a little cartoony, because, ultimately, it came from a cartoon.
Visually though, outside of those minor issues, this was spectacular. The space battle is one of the best ever put on screen, and the destruction effects look incredible. Everything looks incredible actually - the used future aesthetic is spot on, everything looked brilliantly authentic, both to the original SW and to a sense of plausibility and verisimilitude. Little things matter - the interior design of ships not only feels legitimate, but helps convey elements of the storyline - when they're in hyperspace in the U-Wing, you know they're spending time in hyperspace because you can see it. That helps add a sense of travel taking time that JJ Abrams went out of his way to eliminate in TFA.
The storyline is... well, let's be honest, it's a little predictable. It hits the beats you sort of expect in a SW film, but it also goes places I was worried a SW film wouldn't be willing to go, and it does that throughout the film. The attack on the hovertank, Cassian's behavior at key points throughout the film - it really makes you think about what the rebels actually are in the SW universe - terrorists. They're fighting for the right side, but they're brutal when they have to be.
The characters are SW's standards in a lot of ways, in that hey feel a little tropey - the orphan troublemaker, the mystical warrior, the conflicted soldier etc. - but they're serviceable, and several go well beyond their tropeyness - Bodhi Rook, Chirrut and Baze, K2SO (the true standout amongst the new characters) all have moments that I enjoyed. And the returning players were all exceptionally well used. Even without the spectacular last few minutes, all three of the key villains would have been well used - that last sequence is merely the icing on an already pretty impressive villainous cake. I really liked the way they used characters from the original movies and the prequels to tie things together - as much as Disney seems to be trying to minimise the significance of the prequels, they're smart enough to know which bits to hold on to and integrate more tightly into the greater SW mythos. I also liked the bits of the broader SW franchise that they brought in - having little tiny references to Rebels and the old EU (loved seeing TIE Shuttles/boarding craft at the end) felt like Disney living up to their promise to take the best part of the old and merge it with the new.
Fantastic film. It may be my favourite SW film. I'm almost definitely going to see it in theatres at least a second time. :D
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It hits the beats you sort of expect in a SW film, but it also goes places I was worried a SW film wouldn't be willing to go, and it does that throughout the film. The attack on the hovertank, Cassian's behavior at key points throughout the film - it really makes you think about what the rebels actually are in the SW universe - terrorists. They're fighting for the right side, but they're brutal when they have to be.
Just a point of clarification: the Rebels aren't terrorists. Terrorists target non-military targets—civilians—to strike fear and terror among a populace, often with the goal of getting that populace to push for change in their governing body.
The SW Rebels are battling a government (legitimate or not, doesn't matter in this case) by striking at that government's military forces.
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Heh, just found out something: http://imgur.com/gallery/Jgzkl
Not a spoiler, but it's just neater to discover via the link above.
Both Red and Gold Leaders reprise their roles from 1977.
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I picked out Gold Leader's voice immediately, and had my suspicions on Red Leader. It's a nice touch!
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It hits the beats you sort of expect in a SW film, but it also goes places I was worried a SW film wouldn't be willing to go, and it does that throughout the film. The attack on the hovertank, Cassian's behavior at key points throughout the film - it really makes you think about what the rebels actually are in the SW universe - terrorists. They're fighting for the right side, but they're brutal when they have to be.
Just a point of clarification: the Rebels aren't terrorists. Terrorists target non-military targets—civilians—to strike fear and terror among a populace, often with the goal of getting that populace to push for change in their governing body.
The SW Rebels are battling a government (legitimate or not, doesn't matter in this case) by striking at that government's military forces.
I'm sure there were plenty of civilian workers on the Death Star (and especially the second), and before you say that they were just unfortunate collateral damage in a greater struggle, that's precisely the logic McVeigh used when he bombed a building containing both an IRS office and a daycare center.
But that's a different topic; I'd really like to avoid politicizing a beloved franchise more than Rogue One's writers already have (and I'm still hoping it's a good movie).
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I'm sure there were plenty of civilian workers on the Death Star (and especially the second), and before you say that they were just unfortunate collateral damage in a greater struggle, that's precisely the logic McVeigh used when he bombed a building containing both an IRS office and a daycare center.
But that's a different topic; I'd really like to avoid politicizing a beloved franchise more than Rogue One's writers already have (and I'm still hoping it's a good movie).
This is actually an important point, one which even Ep IV delves into. The difference is in who you target, military or civilian. In the case of a military target, there can still be collateral damage to civilian infrastructure or civilians themselves without it being labeled "terrorism". The Death Star was a military target (referred to in Ep IV as a "battlestation" numerous times by the people operating it), and thus "valid" for attack without said attack being labeled "terrorism".
Additionally, the Death Star was itself being actively used to strike civilian targets such as Alderaan (Tarkin to Leia, threatening to use it on Alderaan: "You would prefer another target? A military target? Then name the system!"). Its stated purpose by Grand Moff Tarkin was to be used as an instrument of "fear" ("Fear will keep the local systems in-line. Fear of this battlestation.")
That's lightyears away from McVeigh's distorted perception of reality.
Also, Rogue One was awesome. :p
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Yeah was about to say: regardless of the number of casualties in the battle of Yavin, we are talking about taking out a weapon that was blasting entire planets in a single shot. I'd say there wasn't a moral choice to be made here, the only question was how to do it.
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I'm sure there were plenty of civilian workers on the Death Star (and especially the second), and before you say that they were just unfortunate collateral damage in a greater struggle, that's precisely the logic McVeigh used when he bombed a building containing both an IRS office and a daycare center.
But that's a different topic; I'd really like to avoid politicizing a beloved franchise more than Rogue One's writers already have (and I'm still hoping it's a good movie).
This is actually an important point, one which even Ep IV delves into. The difference is in who you target, military or civilian. In the case of a military target, there can still be collateral damage to civilian infrastructure or civilians themselves without it being labeled "terrorism". The Death Star was a military target (referred to in Ep IV as a "battlestation" numerous times by the people operating it), and thus "valid" for attack without said attack being labeled "terrorism".
Additionally, the Death Star was itself being actively used to strike civilian targets such as Alderaan (Tarkin to Leia, threatening to use it on Alderaan: "You would prefer another target? A military target? Then name the system!"). Its stated purpose by Grand Moff Tarkin was to be used as an instrument of "fear" ("Fear will keep the local systems in-line. Fear of this battlestation.")
That's lightyears away from McVeigh's distorted perception of reality.
Also, Rogue One was awesome. :p
+1 to Rogue One being awesome.
There's another distinction that makes the rebels not terrorists - they're uniformed soldiers. Even when they're carrying out guerilla tactics, they still wear uniforms and can be clearly identified as rebel military. When they went to SPOILER undercover, it was to gather information and make contacts, not for a military operation. They only joined in the fighting when it erupted all around them.
I need to watch it again to be sure, but it's possible the forces of Saw Gerrera were not always uniformed in their attacks in the city. The key point here was that the rest of the rebel alliance broke ties with him and viewed him as an extremist due to his (possibly terrorist) methods.
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Also, Rogue One was awesome. :p
Can confirm!
I didn't recognize Alan Tudyk until I saw his name in the credits, and then I was immediately, "Oh, the droid!"
And I'm surprised that Tarkin wasn't played by Andy Serkis...
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Just came back from the theater. I went in without too high expectations for this standalone/in-between movie, I thought i was going to be mostly fan-service.
But I came out positively surprised, it's darker in tone than any previous SW film and it dares to break the formula in some places, which is a good thing.
I liked TFA, but I feel that story-telling and pacing was actually better in Rogue One.
The space battle was better than anything in the prequels by a wide margin.
And Vader was amazing, at the end when he boards the rebel ship and shows a glimpse of his power, that was terrifying.
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It was... "good" I guess is the right word. Not spectacular, not a disappointment, but nothing much to complain about. Certainly less to complain about than TFA has. Probably partly because it's just a single standalone film instead of a start of a new trilogy, the baggage from which would carry on to other films.
It's hard to outright praise any new SW film, since they still don't pattern-match to the OT which is what my brain is calibrated to (the visual style is too different for that), yet obviously it is SW so that's the only comparison to make. So, I don't know, I find it really hard to try to judge a film like this. If somehow it could have been basically the same movie but in an original setting, then I'd probably have little problem proclaiming it unequivocally awesome. But it being SW makes it really hard for my internal instruments to decide what to make of it.
The CGI was the biggest weirdness. I've only seen it once, but weren't Red and Gold leaders just ANH shots (with heavy editing, obviously)? The millisecond that Red leader popped on-screen my brain recognized it as being not only the same character, but actually one of the exact shots from ANH, and the same with Gold leader (well, I don't recall if it was Gold leader or just some other Gold dude). The shots looked somehow different to the other pilot shots and the overall resemblance was too immediately obvious, plus the spoken lines were mostly exactly the same. That was really jarring and I facepalmed a bit.
Tarkin was still recognizably CGI. I mean, it's good CGI of course and it wasn't distracting as such, but still he had this slightly plastic cartoony look about him in close-ups. Same with Leia, but of course we only saw her for about 3 seconds.
I have a severe dislike of this thing of having lots of scenes in trailers which are nowhere to be seen in the actual movie, though. That's just cheating.
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ok, so just saw it.
gona just say it, better that episode 7.
there, said it.
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That's lightyears away from McVeigh's distorted perception of reality.
I never meant to suggest otherwise--only to advise against dismissing the civilian casualties that the Rebellion undoubtedly inflicts in the course of the war.
One of my favorite bits of the Thrawn trilogy was the New Republic having to cope with the fact that one of their ships, shot down early in the war, poisoned an entire planet, and that the Empire was the one providing aid in the aftermath.
But again, unless this is an issue that comes up in Rogue One, it's an issue that's probably better discussed elsewhere.
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Just returned watching it, and I have to say it was worth watching if your are familiar with Star Wars in general. I don't know what I would have thought had it been a standalone sci-fi flick. I didn't particularly feel enchanted by the new Star Trek, but this one was better. Minor spoilers ahead but don't worry, nothing too much here and nothing related to the plot.
The movie still recycles some of the old Star Wars plot devices, but for once the motives and background of the Rebels has been expanded further so that they are not any more unanimous good guys. It's also good that they have been able to break some trophes, and specifically the ending deserves praise. But the repeat of plot devices doesn't feel as annoying as it did in The Force Awakens. The movie really felt like Star Wars actually. Except that Star Destroyer on Star Destroyer action - I didn't think Hammerhead was actually that big of an exaggeration if it is thought like a tug boat. It's just that the Star Destroyers are made of same material with about equal yield strength...
Now, one has to think about the probabilities this rebellion would have actually had, compared to the number of times the whole Rebel Alliance has been tip-toing on the unstable edge in the caldera of a volcano and one has to admit it does start to look very improbable (just like Kane's plans in Command & Conquer). I started to get annoyed by the repeat of word "hope", as hope and idealism alone really do not carry a rebellion - had it only been mentioned once before and in the ending it wouldn't feel tacked on. So now as a side effect I'm starting to see the strategy of the Rebel Alliance as a series of blunders after blunders. So the Alliance has mostly been saved by insane luck and a few capable tacticians, while the strategical planning is likely non-existent.
All in all, worth watching. And that robot does steal the show. Who wouldn't like manic-depressive robot personalities?
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I saw it earlier today. Very good overall, and much better than I was expecting from the typical Star Wars fare. Most of the characters were fairly standard (with the exception of that droid, who was great), but I like how the rebels were not portrayed as just generic good guys, and it's hinted that they are motivated by revenge as much as anything else and have committed many atrocities themselves. The only thing that was a bit silly was the part with the Star Destroyer and the smaller ship. You would think it would either tear a hole in the Star Destroyer or flatten itself.
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I am back from the showing. And I was plesantly suprised because I didn't expect them to stray so far away from the established iconography and cinematography. Esspecially the change is camera styles and doing away with traditional transitions was very welcome, as it etablishes that some of those are not required to make a Star Wars-film.
The only character I feel like that worked was the Imperial Director "Kennik"(?), the other suffers from the fact that the movie doesn't have space to slow down and develop - which trims the fat but also painfully highlights the cross-media-ness of it all - which would not be problem if an end would be clearly defined, but Disney's procceding foward made it pretty clear that there is no end or respite in sight.
So the verdict is good but not revolutionary. essential.
EDIT: That pun was both unintended and bad. Too tired.
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I have a good explanation for the Star Destroyer scene, which I think you'll find satisfying:
(http://i.imgur.com/3bY8lQt.jpg)
Please excuse the shabbiness of the shopping.
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I have a good explanation for the Star Destroyer scene, which I think you'll find satisfying:
(http://i.imgur.com/3bY8lQt.jpg)
Please excuse the shabbiness of the shopping.
:D
Now that gives me an idea! What we need is Rule The Waves shifted to the Star Wars universe.
Star Destroyer = King George class of its time
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In a sense, the whole movie is about finding the weak spot to hit for massive damage in the Death Star. :D
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Also, don't know which one of the following would be more terrifying from Ackbar's mouth:
This?
(http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/001/384/Atrapitis.gif)
Or this?
(https://i.imgflip.com/1g7n5w.jpg)
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I have a good explanation for the Star Destroyer scene, which I think you'll find satisfying:
(http://i.imgur.com/3bY8lQt.jpg)
Please excuse the shabbiness of the shopping.
As a kid I always wondered why they didn't just shoot the "neck" between the main hull and the superstructure.
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I have a good explanation for the Star Destroyer scene, which I think you'll find satisfying:
(http://i.imgur.com/3bY8lQt.jpg)
Please excuse the shabbiness of the shopping.
Oh how that brings back memories on the easy way to kill a star destroyer on Rogue Squadron 2 after the shields were down. Then also how annoying it was when you missed.
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One of my favorite bits of the Thrawn trilogy was the New Republic having to cope with the fact that one of their ships, shot down early in the war, poisoned an entire planet, and that the Empire was the one providing aid in the aftermath.
Although it's later revealed in The Last Command that said space battle took place something like 50 years prior, which put it firmly into Clone Wars era, not Empire/Rebellion era. But yes, until that revelation, they still had to deal with the concept that the Empire had supposedly actually done some good.
I think I read somewhere that Saw Gerrera, who appeared in The Clone Wars TV show in season 5, was definitely considered an extremist and had had a break-up with the Rebellion due to said methods.
'Nother topic, I just finished (last night) reading the (now-Legends) "Legacy of the Force" novels, and it was really, really neat to see Darth Vader in Rogue One open up a can of Sith on the Rebel soldiers while at the same time reading of similar scenarios performed by Darth Caedus (do NOT Google that name if you don't want massive spoilers).
Kinda looking forward to the day when they make a rated-R SW movie. Lightsabers both cleave and cauterize simultaneously, right? ;7
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Computer generated Peter Cushing had too much subsurface scattering. Part of why he was so scary looking back when he was alive was how his flesh seemed so tight over his bones. His flesh seemed too fleshy in CG.
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Computer generated Peter Cushing had too much subsurface scattering. Part of why he was so scary looking back when he was alive was how his flesh seemed so tight over his bones. His flesh seemed too fleshy in CG.
Ah, that makes sense. And something else I've noticed here and in Tron: Legacy was that the CG faces never look as dry as real skin, and the mo-capped motions always seem just a little off, either in timing or in smoothness.
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Just watched it last night. Two solid thumbs up, IMO. :yes:
I saw it earlier today. Very good overall, and much better than I was expecting from the typical Star Wars fare. Most of the characters were fairly standard (with the exception of that droid, who was great), but I like how the rebels were not portrayed as just generic good guys, and it's hinted that they are motivated by revenge as much as anything else and have committed many atrocities themselves. The only thing that was a bit silly was the part with the Star Destroyer and the smaller ship. You would think it would either tear a hole in the Star Destroyer or flatten itself.
Not really. The corvette did not engage full throttle until after contact, and then basically you would have whatever momentum the Star Destroyer could be pushed up to, backed by its mass, as well as the continued application of thrust from the corvette behind it. What caused the mayhem was the mass and speed of the Star Destroyer, with all of the energy gained by its momentum (in the movie, the Star Destroyer looked close together. In reality, you have to remember Star Destroyers are multiple kilometers long, so you had a distance of probably at least a couple of kilometers to accelerate that mass before impact.
So they finally let 95+% of the main characters and good guys die, like would likely happen if the situation was reality. Also showcased the Empire's brutality that drove the Rebellion to such desperation - can't risk anything escaping, just glass the city from orbit, their side, innocents, and if it's too much trouble to get them out, our side too. Industrial accidents are on an upswing now a days...
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Just watched it last night. Two solid thumbs up, IMO. :yes:
I saw it earlier today. Very good overall, and much better than I was expecting from the typical Star Wars fare. Most of the characters were fairly standard (with the exception of that droid, who was great), but I like how the rebels were not portrayed as just generic good guys, and it's hinted that they are motivated by revenge as much as anything else and have committed many atrocities themselves. The only thing that was a bit silly was the part with the Star Destroyer and the smaller ship. You would think it would either tear a hole in the Star Destroyer or flatten itself.
Not really. The corvette did not engage full throttle until after contact, and then basically you would have whatever momentum the Star Destroyer could be pushed up to, backed by its mass, as well as the continued application of thrust from the corvette behind it. What caused the mayhem was the mass and speed of the Star Destroyer, with all of the energy gained by its momentum (in the movie, the Star Destroyer looked close together. In reality, you have to remember Star Destroyers are multiple kilometers long, so you had a distance of probably at least a couple of kilometers to accelerate that mass before impact.
So they finally let 95+% of the main characters and good guys die, like would likely happen if the situation was reality. Also showcased the Empire's brutality that drove the Rebellion to such desperation - can't risk anything escaping, just glass the city from orbit, their side, innocents, and if it's too much trouble to get them out, our side too. Industrial accidents are on an upswing now a days...
Yeah. I've heard a lot of people complaining about this issue, but it doesn't seem like a problem at all to me. It was acting like a tug boat. Totally plausible, especially in space where it doesn't have to act against friction.
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Hammerhead tugboat was fine, tho quite surprising. My main issue was that spastic hatch Jyn had to clamber through towards the end. Who the hell designs a hatch like that??!? :hopping:
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Hammerhead tugboat was fine, tho quite surprising. My main issue was that spastic hatch Jyn had to clamber through towards the end. Who the hell designs a hatch like that??!? :hopping:
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Hammerhead tugboat was fine, tho quite surprising. My main issue was that spastic hatch Jyn had to clamber through towards the end. Who the hell designs a hatch like that??!? :hopping:
The same guy that decided that imperial ships and stations don't need rails?
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My impression of the hatch was that it was malfunctioning due to the damage caused to the building. Don't ask me why a hatch would malfunction like that though...
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And here I thought Rogue One was to be a standalone film...
George Lucas to direct Rogue One sequel (http://www.scified.com/news/george-lucas-direct-rogue-one-sequel)
*cough cough*
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Hehe, got a chuckle out of that one, thanks :)
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I enjoyed it and would rate it a solid "pretty good." Technically super impressive, everything looks amazing. Plot was mostly coherent, and didn't have too many painful plot holes or obnoxious fanservice. TFA was much worse in this regard. TFA, however, succeeded in making me care about the characters, and R1 did not. Emotionally I found TFA a lot more effective. R1 had a lot of characters that were almost interesting but never got enough development, so they came across mostly as soulless archetypes or one-liner generators.
Both movies are really easy to pick apart and criticize after the fact, but at the end of the day TFA is a movie I'd watch again. R1 is a movie I'd watch again only if I wanted to show off special effects on a new TV or something.
P.S. Darth Vader making a cartoon-villain "choke" pun? Really?
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P.S. Darth Vader making a cartoon-villain "choke" pun? Really?
Yeah, that was super awkward. Dunno how they managed to make it so cheesy.
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IMO this movie was immeasurably better than TFA. This is mainly because it actually tries to do something new (and succeeds), whereas TFA is so painfully formulaic I haven't been able to complete a second viewing. TFA is just ANH with ****tier characters.
It feels like the creators of this movie cared, whereas TFA feels technically competent but passionless (because Abrams is a hack).
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Damnit, 2016!!!!!
R.I.P., Carrie Fisher.
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P.S. Darth Vader making a cartoon-villain "choke" pun? Really?
He always made jokes while strangling people, like the famous "lack of faith" or the "apologies accepted" in the sequel.
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Yeah, I've seen a lot of people complaining about that line, and TBH I wasn't exactly stoked with it myself, but it's hardly out of character for either Vader or Anakin. He's been quipping like that since either 1977, or since he was a padawan, depending on whether you want to take the in universe or IRL timeline.
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Vader also does way more quipping like that in comics.
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Finally got to watching it myself.
I caught the page for General Syndula on Yavin base.
The cameo by that pair from the Mos Eisley cantina was cool. I guess they boarded a flight right afterwards or they'd have been toasted by the Death Star.
The CGI Tarkin & Leia thing seems to me to be mostly in the mouths. The mouth seems to lack depth and the teeth look wrong for some reason. Also, Leia's mouth was too wide.
I read that the footage of the pilots seen in ANH was actually unused shots from that movie that were stumbled upon by accident. I don't recall that "where are you going Red 5" line from ANH.
I've already mentioned seeing the Ghost in the battle sequence.
My concern comes down to the ending and how it ties in with ANH. After boarding in ANH, Vader says "several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies." In this film however, the plans weren't "beamed" to the ship, they were hand relayed to it. Also in ANH, Vader would have said we-saw-your-ship-at-the-battle. You-are-rebel. They should have had the ship manage to retransmit the message after having its hyperspace drive damaged preventing escape. Empire is jamming transmissions so the ship has to try to run on sublight to get outside the battle area and escape the jamming field. It manages to but fighters give pursuit and disable it. Shuttles board her, Vader does his thing, crew runs with data disc to backup transmission room. Vader slices open door and kills the crew member, only to see that the transmission is complete. Aboard blockade runner, crew member races to hand Leia the disc, she delivers the "hope" line, end of movie.
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Finally got to watching it myself.
I caught the page for General Syndula on Yavin base.
The cameo by that pair from the Mos Eisley cantina was cool. I guess they boarded a flight right afterwards or they'd have been toasted by the Death Star.
The CGI Tarkin & Leia thing seems to me to be mostly in the mouths. The mouth seems to lack depth and the teeth look wrong for some reason. Also, Leia's mouth was too wide.
I read that the footage of the pilots seen in ANH was actually unused shots from that movie that were stumbled upon by accident. I don't recall that "where are you going Red 5" line from ANH.
I've already mentioned seeing the Ghost in the battle sequence.
My concern comes down to the ending and how it ties in with ANH. After boarding in ANH, Vader says "several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies." In this film however, the plans weren't "beamed" to the ship, they were hand relayed to it. Also in ANH, Vader would have said we-saw-your-ship-at-the-battle. You-are-rebel. They should have had the ship manage to retransmit the message after having its hyperspace drive damaged preventing escape. Empire is jamming transmissions so the ship has to try to run on sublight to get outside the battle area and escape the jamming field. It manages to but fighters give pursuit and disable it. Shuttles board her, Vader does his thing, crew runs with data disc to backup transmission room. Vader slices open door and kills the crew member, only to see that the transmission is complete. Aboard blockade runner, crew member races to hand Leia the disc, she delivers the "hope" line, end of movie.
Theoretically ... there could still be events between Rogue One and ANH that are offscreen. Yes a flimsy excuse ... but all those Bothans could still die, somehow? lol.
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The bothans do most of their dying between ESB and RotJ though.
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I finally settled on giving this one a miss.
The thing about a prequel--especially one that ends so close to an established chapter of a franchise--is that you know how it ends. When the outcome of the story is known, the plot provides no dramatic tension, and so it falls on the writers and cast to develop some really compelling characters, whose fates and interpersonal conflicts you care about. In the case of Rogue One, even the positive reviews concede that the characters are a weak element of the film.
The sliver lining is that since six years of uninterrupted, annual Star Wars films is something that I foresee becoming pretty tiresome, missing the occasional side-story is going to preserve/build my anticipation for the main series entries. Just as long as Episode VIII isn't a note-for-note rehash of Empire Strikes Back.... You get one, Disney. One.
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BlueFlames, that was the point of Ep VII, afaict. It was an apology. It was Disney saying, "Hey, we're sorry for what Lucas did to the franchise. Now that we've bought it, let us show you that we know what Star Wars is really about. Here, have this movie that will remind you of everything you loved about the original movie."
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I am deeply under-excited for this, so I'll skip it as well. The trailers just don't sell anything remotely interesting to me.
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If/when y'all watch it on bluray/digital download, there's a good chance you'll wish someone had told you to go see it in the theaters while it was still playing. This is that. Go see it. It's not perfect, but it's definitely worth it.
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My concern comes down to the ending and how it ties in with ANH. After boarding in ANH, Vader says "several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies." In this film however, the plans weren't "beamed" to the ship, they were hand relayed to it. Also in ANH, Vader would have said we-saw-your-ship-at-the-battle. You-are-rebel. They should have had the ship manage to retransmit the message after having its hyperspace drive damaged preventing escape. Empire is jamming transmissions so the ship has to try to run on sublight to get outside the battle area and escape the jamming field. It manages to but fighters give pursuit and disable it. Shuttles board her, Vader does his thing, crew runs with data disc to backup transmission room. Vader slices open door and kills the crew member, only to see that the transmission is complete. Aboard blockade runner, crew member races to hand Leia the disc, she delivers the "hope" line, end of movie.
This is an insanely tiny continuity error which allowed for a great Vader scene.
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Saw it today. It definitely held together better and was less derivative than TFA, but while I was entertained, it's totally skippable. It's like any of the Disney Marvel movies, a Star Wars-flavored lightweight genre film, in this case a war movie. You know how it ends and it doesn't do anything particularly interesting getting there, but there is plenty of action and fan service to keep your attention for a couple hours. I found the CG Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher crashed hard into the uncanny valley pretty much as soon as they moved which was quite distracting. Maybe they'll fix it in the special edition?
Don't wanna sound too down on it, it was definitely stronger than TFA (and I found TFA to be totally watchable). The script and characters and editing were all fine. They made a conscious decision to abandon the film serial style of the Trilogy which is too bad, but at least they made it consistently contemporary as opposed to TFA which would have those classic elements like wipe transitions next to a Michael Bay/Avengers style rotating hero shot or some other totally incongruous elements. The music was 100% forgettable :(
It does have some premium X-wing pew pew.
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If/when y'all watch it on bluray/digital download, there's a good chance you'll wish someone had told you to go see it in the theaters while it was still playing. This is that. Go see it. It's not perfect, but it's definitely worth it.
There is a certain departure from most movies that you're used to..
All of the main characters die. I mean, you'd kind of expect that in a situation like this, if it were real. But it's a movie, and we all know how Disney movies end, right? Not this time.
That ^ might be part of why the characters are considered 'forgettable'. I don't quite follow, but then again, it is a departure from most ending that we are used to being spoon-fed.
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Computer generated Peter Cushing had too much subsurface scattering. Part of why he was so scary looking back when he was alive was how his flesh seemed so tight over his bones. His flesh seemed too fleshy in CG.
He also seemed slightly too blue to me.
Interestingly, I'm seeing that there's a number of performances where people playing the opposite role of what they actually are tend to make the best out of it. If off-the-set comments are correct, Peter Cushing was nothing like his character in the New Hope. He couldn't fit his feet to the imperial boots, so he instead wore sandals in the sets which is why they don't show his feet in the movies. Carrie Fisher had trouble acting with Cushing the way she did because Peter was most of the time far too nice a person in real life.
So beware of the people playing the good guys :lol:
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So beware of the people playing the good guys :lol:
Mark Hamill does get pretty enthusiastic about playing the Joker, whenever the opportunity arises....
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Saw it at IMAX and thought it was quite a ride, certainly worth the price of admission. There were a lot of nice touches like using the extra footage from A New Hope for Red and Gold Squadrons and it did a good job of painting the grim realities of the Rebellion plus didn't pull any punches. If I wanted to nitpick at it I could probably find things to gripe about but overall pretty solid effort.
Though it does color certain scenes in A New Hope differently, Leia and Vader's meeting on the Tantive IV takes a new spin and it makes Luke look like a major douche at the briefing on Yavin. Some of those pilots just went through the battle over Scarif and are looking at another Hail Mary suicide mission and here is some yokel talking up shooting varmints in his T-16. :P
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There were a lot of nice touches like using the extra footage from A New Hope for Red and Gold Squadrons
I just... don't... understand how anyone could think of that as a "nice touch". It's the same as if in a prerendered game cutscene you suddenly had a few shots from a cutscene from a previous installment of the series 20 years old which obviously looks entirely different, just so you could feature a recognizable character as fan service. It's bizarre, looks and feels really cheap... one of the worst bits of the movie for me, because it immediately pulled me out of it. :nervous:
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Finally saw it tonight. I liked it. MILES better than The Force Awakens, but then I also think that one's much worse than the prequels and looks like a SyFy channel movie that somehow got permission to use Star Wars IP.
Plot works, except I'm not understanding how *spoilers below*. No massive, unanswered questions or complete lack of reasons for what's going on. Properly paced and reasoned out, allowing for some minor rushing of character development being as how it's a standalone and all.
Space battles. YES. NOW we're back in the SW universe. Ties, X-wings, Y-wings, Imperial Shuttles. Hell, land battles too. Except for the weird **.
The ending for the main characters, BRAVO. If ***
Vader - now THAT'S how you work in old characters. THAT's what a badass sith looks like. (Except in his first appearance he looked to be walking all prissy like, not the lumbering strut from the original trilogy. Anyone else catch that?)
A few things pulled me out of the movie. The worst was the fact that my theater must have had something screwed up because the screen was WAY too dark. It was about halfway through the movie before I stopped thinking "man I wish I could see what was going on." Definitely different than the old "director wants to be edgy with overly dark tones" annoyance, something was clearly wrong. But that's not the movie's fault, so on to other things.
The only one I haven't seen mentioned yet was our old friend shaky-cam action scenes. Why anyone still thinks this is good cinematography is beyond me. The rest I'll just throw my agreement to. GCI Tarkin and Leia were the worst offenders. REALLY creepy. The hammerhead thing made me start thinking about physics in the middle of all the awesomeness. The hatch was a little out of left field, but there was also plenty of that kind of stuff in the original trilogy so it still felt Star-Warsy and didn't really bother me.
*the ending with playing hot potato with the plans disc fits with the beginning of ANH. ANH implied it was a chased down undercover courier ship, not an escapee from a massive space battle almost Battle of Endor scale and Vader himself. What the hell was Leia even doing in the middle of that? The fact that it WAS a BoE level event is also a bit of a discontinuity, but I'll give that one a pass because it was awesome.
**not-quite-ATATs in a part of the timeline where we should be seeing the SAME equipment as the original trilogy, not those godawful 'precursor' types from the prequels. Come to think of it some of the TIEs (what I assume were meant to be interceptors) had the same problem.
***they had survived somehow, that would have been really, REALLY bad. Thank god they didn't try to force it.
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The hammerhead thing made me start thinking about physics in the middle of all the awesomeness.
The only thing that was a bit silly was the part with the Star Destroyer and the smaller ship. You would think it would either tear a hole in the Star Destroyer or flatten itself.
Not really. The corvette did not engage full throttle until after contact, and then basically you would have whatever momentum the Star Destroyer could be pushed up to, backed by its mass, as well as the continued application of thrust from the corvette behind it. What caused the mayhem was the mass and speed of the Star Destroyer, with all of the energy gained by its momentum (in the movie, the Star Destroyer looked close together. In reality, you have to remember Star Destroyers are multiple kilometers long, so you had a distance of probably at least a couple of kilometers to accelerate that mass before impact.
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I thought CGI Tarkin was generally well done; in his first appearance you could definitely tell he was CGI, but in some of the subsequent shots there was considerable realism. CGI Leia, on the other hand, was not well done; I suspect the filmmakers went "screw it, she's on screen for about 3 seconds, good enough."
Things I liked:
- No mumbo jumbo in the plot. It's a Star Wars film stripped down to basics.
- It shows what a disorganized cluster**** the Rebels were, which puts the context of the inefficiencies of the Rebellion in ANH in a greater context. (I read a really great piece from a vet of the USMC on the tactics used in the ground fight and by the Rebel command structure generally that talks about how they were highly adaptable, but also inefficient, whereas the Empire is quite efficient with zero adaptability).
- The characters were generally well done.
- No embedded love story.
- SPACE BATTLES.
Quibbles (spoilered):
The continuity from the end of Rogue One into ANH was generally good but left a few nagging details loose, and it all has to do with the transfer of the data from the flagship to Leia. As it stands, the transition makes no sense - Leia claims in ANH that she's on a diplomatic mission to Alderan, but Vader clearly both saw her ship leave the flagship and tracked it to Tatooine. This is just frickin' lazy writing; once outside the shield, it would have been trivial to have the flagship, after it was disabled, beam the data across space to a Rebel-friendly diplomatic ship. This would have simultaneously explained both why it took Vader a while to track it down, and why Leia could maintain some fiction of plausible deniability. Why no one spotted this or managed to fit that detail in is utterly beyond me, and it was completely possible to do. All that needed to happen was instead of passing the disc from person to person and into the transport, the last person could have been stuffing it into a communications bank to retransmit while Vader mowed everyone down. Utterly lost opportunity, which is why it bugged me.
The only other annoyance to me was why the hell did Vader's mask have bright red eyes? They're black in the OT, and its just distracting.
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The only other annoyance to me was why the hell did Vader's mask have bright red eyes? They're black in the OT, and its just distracting.
They seem to have quite a red tint in ANH, actually, although not necessarily in every release. So that's probably why, although I don't recall how red they were in this one.
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Finally saw it tonight. I liked it. MILES better than The Force Awakens, but then I also think that one's much worse than the prequels and looks like a SyFy channel movie that somehow got permission to use Star Wars IP.
Plot works, except I'm not understanding how *spoilers below*. No massive, unanswered questions or complete lack of reasons for what's going on. Properly paced and reasoned out, allowing for some minor rushing of character development being as how it's a standalone and all.
Space battles. YES. NOW we're back in the SW universe. Ties, X-wings, Y-wings, Imperial Shuttles. Hell, land battles too. Except for the weird **.
The ending for the main characters, BRAVO. If ***
Vader - now THAT'S how you work in old characters. THAT's what a badass sith looks like. (Except in his first appearance he looked to be walking all prissy like, not the lumbering strut from the original trilogy. Anyone else catch that?)
A few things pulled me out of the movie. The worst was the fact that my theater must have had something screwed up because the screen was WAY too dark. It was about halfway through the movie before I stopped thinking "man I wish I could see what was going on." Definitely different than the old "director wants to be edgy with overly dark tones" annoyance, something was clearly wrong. But that's not the movie's fault, so on to other things.
The only one I haven't seen mentioned yet was our old friend shaky-cam action scenes. Why anyone still thinks this is good cinematography is beyond me. The rest I'll just throw my agreement to. GCI Tarkin and Leia were the worst offenders. REALLY creepy. The hammerhead thing made me start thinking about physics in the middle of all the awesomeness. The hatch was a little out of left field, but there was also plenty of that kind of stuff in the original trilogy so it still felt Star-Warsy and didn't really bother me.
*the ending with playing hot potato with the plans disc fits with the beginning of ANH. ANH implied it was a chased down undercover courier ship, not an escapee from a massive space battle almost Battle of Endor scale and Vader himself. What the hell was Leia even doing in the middle of that? The fact that it WAS a BoE level event is also a bit of a discontinuity, but I'll give that one a pass because it was awesome.
**not-quite-ATATs in a part of the timeline where we should be seeing the SAME equipment as the original trilogy, not those godawful 'precursor' types from the prequels. Come to think of it some of the TIEs (what I assume were meant to be interceptors) had the same problem.
***they had survived somehow, that would have been really, REALLY bad. Thank god they didn't try to force it.
Those were a transport variant of the AT-AT, the AT-CT, they are bigger but don't have much armor.
The Tie Interceptors were already in service at the time of Rogue One, but not yet in great numbers, the Striker is meant to be some atmospheric variant and some can double as troop transport.
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I thought CGI Tarkin was generally well done; in his first appearance you could definitely tell he was CGI, but in some of the subsequent shots there was considerable realism. CGI Leia, on the other hand, was not well done; I suspect the filmmakers went "screw it, she's on screen for about 3 seconds, good enough."
Things I liked:
- No mumbo jumbo in the plot. It's a Star Wars film stripped down to basics.
- It shows what a disorganized cluster**** the Rebels were, which puts the context of the inefficiencies of the Rebellion in ANH in a greater context. (I read a really great piece from a vet of the USMC on the tactics used in the ground fight and by the Rebel command structure generally that talks about how they were highly adaptable, but also inefficient, whereas the Empire is quite efficient with zero adaptability).
- The characters were generally well done.
- No embedded love story.
- SPACE BATTLES.
Quibbles (spoilered):
The continuity from the end of Rogue One into ANH was generally good but left a few nagging details loose, and it all has to do with the transfer of the data from the flagship to Leia. As it stands, the transition makes no sense - Leia claims in ANH that she's on a diplomatic mission to Alderan, but Vader clearly both saw her ship leave the flagship and tracked it to Tatooine. This is just frickin' lazy writing; once outside the shield, it would have been trivial to have the flagship, after it was disabled, beam the data across space to a Rebel-friendly diplomatic ship. This would have simultaneously explained both why it took Vader a while to track it down, and why Leia could maintain some fiction of plausible deniability. Why no one spotted this or managed to fit that detail in is utterly beyond me, and it was completely possible to do. All that needed to happen was instead of passing the disc from person to person and into the transport, the last person could have been stuffing it into a communications bank to retransmit while Vader mowed everyone down. Utterly lost opportunity, which is why it bugged me.
The only other annoyance to me was why the hell did Vader's mask have bright red eyes? They're black in the OT, and its just distracting.
It took a non-trivial amount of time for a dedicated high-bandwidth transmitter to beam the transmission to the Rebel ships; I rather doubt any of the Rebel ships had the same capability. As is, "I'm on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan" is still technically correct, since that is where she's heading. It's enough of an excuse to drown Vader in the equivalent of red tape, since there's little he can do to a sitting Imperial Senator without having damn solid evidence, which without the plans he does not. The Senate isn't dissolved until some time later.
Frankly, I think the fact that people are calling this a plothole or lost opportunity is petty nitpicking of the most obnoxious order.
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Uh, Scotty...
Once the shield finally went down and the antenna was aligned, the upload took seconds.
Honestly, it's a quibble, but a legitimate one. There were plenty of ways to conclude the film in a way that makes sense with the early events of ANH, and for some reason they didn't. The way it was done was rather silly, and that's the only reason anyone is nitpicking it.
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Uh, Scotty...
Once the shield finally went down and the antenna was aligned, the upload took seconds.
Honestly, it's a quibble, but a legitimate one. There were plenty of ways to conclude the film in a way that makes sense with the early events of ANH, and for some reason they didn't. The way it was done was rather silly, and that's the only reason anyone is nitpicking it.
Profundity being the largest capital ship present may have been the only vessel equipped with a receiver capable of digesting the transmission, otherwise every ship in the flotilla could have had a copy. Since Tantive IV was docked when Profundity received the plans Vader may have felt like cutting out the middleman, figuratively and well literally.
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Uh, Scotty...
Once the shield finally went down and the antenna was aligned, the upload took seconds.
Honestly, it's a quibble, but a legitimate one. There were plenty of ways to conclude the film in a way that makes sense with the early events of ANH, and for some reason they didn't. The way it was done was rather silly, and that's the only reason anyone is nitpicking it.
It's explicitly mentioned that the file is so large that it requires the use of the ****huge transmitter to get it to the Rebel fleet in the first place, so I think you're watching a drag race and assuming that the 20 year old sub-compact should be able to do that because it is also a car. :P
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Whether or not Ryan's off-the-cuff proposed solution can also be quibbled, the fact remains that the transition was REALLY rough and there's no clear way to get from where R1 ended to where ANH began WITHOUT quibbling, logical leaps and "well they could have done ____ and then it kinda makes sense".
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My question, is how quickly did C-3PO and R2-D2 board the Tantive IV, and how quickly did that dock with the Profundity? Or did the Tantive IV stop by Yavin to pick them up after the battle?
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One unfortunate drawback of Rogue One is that it makes one aspect of TFA appear even more ridiculous: the Starkiller Base. Rogue One specifically paints the construction of the Death Star as a really difficult and monumental task. And that makes the idea that the First Order could build a superweapon several times more powerful seem quite a bit dumber.
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My question, is how quickly did C-3PO and R2-D2 board the Tantive IV, and how quickly did that dock with the Profundity? Or did the Tantive IV stop by Yavin to pick them up after the battle?
**YES**
Thank you for pointing that one out. They certainly wouldn't have returned to Yavin after the battle. Otherwise, with the exception to recovering Kanobi, there would have been no need to go through any of the events from ANH. The plans would already be in the hands of the rebels on Yavin. I can't recall what C3PO said though, whether they planned on boarding the Tantive or not.
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Vader - now THAT'S how you work in old characters. THAT's what a badass sith looks like. (Except in his first appearance he looked to be walking all prissy like, not the lumbering strut from the original trilogy. Anyone else catch that?)
I DID catch that, to the extent that I thought maybe a woman was wearing the costume - there was a lot of swivel in the hips. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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My question, is how quickly did C-3PO and R2-D2 board the Tantive IV, and how quickly did that dock with the Profundity? Or did the Tantive IV stop by Yavin to pick them up after the battle?
*groan*
They simply gave the order on the loudspeaker before they bothered to tell them to come aboard (it's a classic "nobody tells me anything!" gag), it's clear the Tantive IV was already at Yavin otherwise the droids would not have been there since their master was the captain of the damn ship.
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I DID catch that, to the extent that I thought maybe a woman was wearing the costume - there was a lot of swivel in the hips. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I had the same thought about if it was a woman.
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Well the film finally opened in China so I got to see it today!
Definitely miles better than TFA. That droid steals the show though. Minor problems with the ending but in general it's definitely the best Star Wars thing I've seen since RotJ.
Quibbles (spoilered):
The continuity from the end of Rogue One into ANH was generally good but left a few nagging details loose, and it all has to do with the transfer of the data from the flagship to Leia. As it stands, the transition makes no sense - Leia claims in ANH that she's on a diplomatic mission to Alderan, but Vader clearly both saw her ship leave the flagship and tracked it to Tatooine. This is just frickin' lazy writing; once outside the shield, it would have been trivial to have the flagship, after it was disabled, beam the data across space to a Rebel-friendly diplomatic ship. This would have simultaneously explained both why it took Vader a while to track it down, and why Leia could maintain some fiction of plausible deniability. Why no one spotted this or managed to fit that detail in is utterly beyond me, and it was completely possible to do. All that needed to happen was instead of passing the disc from person to person and into the transport, the last person could have been stuffing it into a communications bank to retransmit while Vader mowed everyone down. Utterly lost opportunity, which is why it bugged me.
That's not my biggest problem with it.
According to the film Leia gets the plans for the superweapon that threatens the entire galaxy at the end of the film while she is at the big battle. She knows that these plans are vital to the rebellion and must be delivered safely to the rebels (either on Yavin or Alderan). And what does she do? Well she diverts to Tattooine to pick up a Jedi. WHY? Why in the name of all **** would anyone remotely sane do that?
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Tatooine could well have been closer, and she did have two separate missions to complete, both of which were not on unlimited time.
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No spoiler tags, we're at page four of he Rogue One thread, it's your own fault at this point.
I thought Leia going to Tatooine made plenty of sense. Imagine you're in her position. You have the most important information in the galaxy in your possession, but you're being chased by a goddam Sith Lord, who is watching your every move and shooting at you with a Star Destroyer. You can't go directly to Yavin, because that leads Vader directly to the rebels. You can't go to Alderaan, because there are no Rebel ships there to do anything with the plans once you drop them off. You need to evade one of the most powerful men, and the machinery of the most powerful organisation in the galaxy. In fact, what you need is nothing short of a miracle. So you go to someone who maybe, just maybe, can pull a miracle out of his hat: a Jedi Master.
Makes sense to me, in that context.
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Tatooine could well have been closer, and she did have two separate missions to complete, both of which were not on unlimited time.
And they could have completed the first one much more easily had they actually attempted to do it in the first place. :p Seriously, if the mission is so important, why is Leia not already on her way to Tatooine in the first place? It was discussed early on enough in the film that she should be halfway to Tatooine even before the rebels decide to go help Rogue One out.
But why would Leia's mission to get Kenobi be even remotely as important? Especially when you consider that by deliberately delaying getting the rebels the Death Star plans to pick him up, she nearly doomed the entire galaxy. In ANH it seemed a lot more logical. Leia was on a mission to get Kenobi and then got the plans beamed to her. So she was already close to Tatooine anyway.
I thought Leia going to Tatooine made plenty of sense. Imagine you're in her position. You have the most important information in the galaxy in your possession, but you're being chased by a goddam Sith Lord, who is watching your every move and shooting at you with a Star Destroyer. You can't go directly to Yavin, because that leads Vader directly to the rebels. You can't go to Alderaan, because there are no Rebel ships there to do anything with the plans once you drop them off. You need to evade one of the most powerful men, and the machinery of the most powerful organisation in the galaxy. In fact, what you need is nothing short of a miracle. So you go to someone who maybe, just maybe, can pull a miracle out of his hat: a Jedi Master.
Makes sense to me, in that context.
Not to me.
Why the hell would her message to Obi-wan include mention of him fighting with her father in the Clone Wars and his request for help but miss out the fact that Vader is actively pursuing her (or that he has in fact caught her) at any point in the message? We're only replacing one massive WTF with another one.
And it's not like she couldn't have gone straight to Alderaan. It's where she attempts to send the droids in ANH so it obviously has the ability to send the information to the rebels. And the only connection between the rebels and Alderaan is Leia herself, which is something Vader only figures out when he gets hold of the passengers. Without knowing who was on the ship, how would Vader know that Alderaan was a likely destination?
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Presumably when they caught up to her there, like they caught up to her when they arrived at Tatooine. :P
Imperial cruisers are explicitly described as fast in ANH, it's entirely possible (and supported on screen) that they are faster than a corvette. Tatooine makes a far better hail mary than "our people have no weapons" Alderaan.
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Besides, Vader hates Tatooine; it's full of course, rough, irritating sand that gets everywhere.
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Presumably when they caught up to her there, like they caught up to her when they arrived at Tatooine. :P
Imperial cruisers are explicitly described as fast in ANH, it's entirely possible (and supported on screen) that they are faster than a corvette. Tatooine makes a far better hail mary than "our people have no weapons" Alderaan.
And yet having been captured by the empire and now knowing that her own planet is now definitely a suspect for where she was taking the plans, Leia sends a message saying "Go straight to Alderaan. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200". Even though now it's not a single cruiser chasing her and the entire Imperial fleet has been alerted? Leia's plan makes some sense if she thought she could bluff her way into claiming to be a simple consular ship that has been misidentified as a rebel. It doesn't work if the Empire have tracked her ship all the way from the battle to Tatooine.
And you still haven't answered why Leia is even at the battle in the first place. That blockade runner wasn't helping in the battle at all so why was it even there? Why wasn't Leia already on her important mission to get Kenobi already?
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I can't recall the exact text of the conversation right off the top of my head and would likely have to rewatch it in order to be completely sure, but I know that there was conversation to that topic during the movie. The decision to the Tantive IV to get Kenobi, and the decision that Captain Antilles' ship would be the one to carry the plans to Alderaan are made at the same time, presumably because Bail Organa is (perhaps rightfully) paranoid and doesn't have a large pool of trustworthy couriers. It was definitely a manpower shortage reason.
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The conversation happened on Yavin.
So the only reason to bring Tantive IV along was cause they expected to lose the entire rest of the fleet.
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...which they pretty much did.
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The Tantive IV was after all a blockade runner, exactly the ship to bring if you expected to exfiltrate some data.
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Presumably when they caught up to her there, like they caught up to her when they arrived at Tatooine. :P
Imperial cruisers are explicitly described as fast in ANH, it's entirely possible (and supported on screen) that they are faster than a corvette. Tatooine makes a far better hail mary than "our people have no weapons" Alderaan.
And yet having been captured by the empire and now knowing that her own planet is now definitely a suspect for where she was taking the plans, Leia sends a message saying "Go straight to Alderaan. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200". Even though now it's not a single cruiser chasing her and the entire Imperial fleet has been alerted? Leia's plan makes some sense if she thought she could bluff her way into claiming to be a simple consular ship that has been misidentified as a rebel. It doesn't work if the Empire have tracked her ship all the way from the battle to Tatooine.
And you still haven't answered why Leia is even at the battle in the first place. That blockade runner wasn't helping in the battle at all so why was it even there? Why wasn't Leia already on her important mission to get Kenobi already?
Well, she probably gambled on the ship not having been identified.
Since people in the story group love to put in stuff from the old Totally Games spacesims in (I mean, we got a Tie Defender in Rebels, that's incredibly nerdy even for a Star Wars fan), it makes me wonder if something like the sensor ID process in X-wing Alliance and X-wing would be canon.
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The heat from the guns warms the vacuum tubes in the targeting computers, so that we can ID what we're shooting at.
Storm troopers stopped getting promoted into engineering roles, following that design decision.
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Well, she probably gambled on the ship not having been identified.
That only makes sense if we assume she wasn't running to Tatooine because she was trying to avoid Vader i.e what appeared to be the case before this film came out.
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Well, she probably gambled on the ship not having been identified.
That only makes sense if we assume she wasn't running to Tatooine because she was trying to avoid Vader i.e what appeared to be the case before this film came out.
But she also had to recover the Jedi on Tatooine because daddy said so if I remember correctly.
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"General Kenobi. Years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father's request to you in person, but my ship has fallen under attack and I'm afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed. I have placed information vital to the survival of the Rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You must see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."
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That speech only helps my point that in ANH Leia's original mission was to get Kenobi and the plans fell into her lap later once she was already on-route.
Well, she probably gambled on the ship not having been identified.
That only makes sense if we assume she wasn't running to Tatooine because she was trying to avoid Vader i.e what appeared to be the case before this film came out.
But she also had to recover the Jedi on Tatooine because daddy said so if I remember correctly.
Which brings me back to my original point. Stopping off to pick up Kenobi was a massive, massive risk which nearly cost the rebellion its entire existence. Yeah it worked out well in the end but why would anyone sane do it? Why not deliver the plans first? Why was picking up Kenobi so important that it was worth the risk?
In ANH the reason why she continues the mission makes sense, the transmissions were intercepted once she was already near Tatooine and she continued trying to get Kenobi cause it was the only way to save the plans once the Empire started chasing her. But with the addition of Rogue One it now seems that she decided even at the battle to head to Tatooine, and that simply doesn't make sense to me.
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That speech only helps my point that in ANH Leia's original mission was to get Kenobi and the plans fell into her lap later once she was already on-route.
Well, she probably gambled on the ship not having been identified.
That only makes sense if we assume she wasn't running to Tatooine because she was trying to avoid Vader i.e what appeared to be the case before this film came out.
But she also had to recover the Jedi on Tatooine because daddy said so if I remember correctly.
Which brings me back to my original point. Stopping off to pick up Kenobi was a massive, massive risk which nearly cost the rebellion its entire existence. Yeah it worked out well in the end but why would anyone sane do it? Why not deliver the plans first? Why was picking up Kenobi so important that it was worth the risk?
In ANH the reason why she continues the mission makes sense, the transmissions were intercepted once she was already near Tatooine and she continued trying to get Kenobi cause it was the only way to save the plans once the Empire started chasing her. But with the addition of Rogue One it now seems that she decided even at the battle to head to Tatooine, and that simply doesn't make sense to me.
Because she was already ordered to do it?
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Either the orders were given without knowing that her ship would end up carrying plans that meant the success or doom of the rebellion or they were given knowing that fact.
One way or the other, someone has made a moronic decision.
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Either the orders were given without knowing that her ship would end up carrying plans that meant the success or doom of the rebellion or they were given knowing that fact.
One way or the other, someone has made a moronic decision.
Or they were desperate enough because half the rebellion was going "f*ck this sh*t I'm outta here!" the moment they knew of the Death Star and they needed a Jedi General to rally them in the shortest time possible?
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In which case they should have sent someone to pick up Kenobi straight away! Instead they wait until after the battle and lead Vader directly to him and Luke!
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In which case they should have sent someone to pick up Kenobi straight away! Instead they wait until after the battle and lead Vader directly to him and Luke!
Things happened rather fast and I wouldn't be surprised that very few people other than Leia, Mon Mothma and Bail knew about the Jedi on Tatooine.
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But they discuss the issue and then bizarrely don't actually send Leia off on the mission they literally just talked about! Does that not seem strange to you?
My entire point is that Leia and Tantive IV were obviously crowbarred into that scene at the end even though it would have worked just as well had the rebels transmitted the information to her somewhere near Tatooine instead.
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One more point: why in the name of the force did neither of those big scary star destroyers fire a single turbolaser at the rebel fleet? Even the bulk of the TIE Fighters were launched by the station itself!
And who decides, "Hey let's see if we can punch through this shield that's strong enough to protect a whole planet with fighter-launched torpedoes"?
And Saw, buddy. Just make a backup copy of the message that you can give to Jin. Just throw it at her in the worst case scenario where she needs to leave in a hurry.
So, three points I guess.
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You know, I don't remember getting much sense of capitals trading fire in the original trilogy space battles either.
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You can actually see the star destroyers firing at the fleet. Whether they're putting out the kind of fire they are capable of is another matter.
I agree with PH that they didn't fire that much in the OT either.
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We saw the SD firing in ANH of course, and they were spitting fire at the Falcon frequently in ESB. In ROTJ however, I only recall seeing some fire being exchanged when the two fleets start firing broadside at each other.
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Conserving Tibanna gas! Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes, unless Vader himself is breathing down your neck!
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In ROTJ however, I only recall seeing some fire being exchanged when the two fleets start firing broadside at each other.
One brief scene of a Neb-B broadsiding a freakin small part of an ISD?
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In ROTJ however, I only recall seeing some fire being exchanged when the two fleets start firing broadside at each other.
One brief scene of a Neb-B broadsiding a freakin small part of an ISD?
It's the Executor it's broadsiding, not just any ISD! How it survived that is of course quite a puzzle... but maybe it didn't. Also there's shots where ISD's and Mon Cals are firing at each other in the background, during the final Executor scenes.
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Here is a link that discusses how the official novelization ties up some of the loose threads, such as why the Tantive IV was docked in the Profundity during the battle. I haven't read it all yet and i am going to bed now but wanted to share while it was on my mind.
http://screenrant.com/star-wars-rogue-one-novelization/
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I read it. Their explanation doesn't actually counter any of the issues I raised with why the hell she'd run to Tatooine instead of anywhere else she could have run to. In ANH Leia's actions were simply complete desperation that could have easily gone wrong. If you add Rogue One into the mix you then have her concoct this whole plan to go to Tatooine that could have failed if a single gunner had decided that he might as well do a little target practice with an empty escape pod.
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I decided to pick up a couple of Bandai's new releases for Rogue One. This was my first crack at building a kit of this nature but it went together very easily and was a great base for weathering and detailing.
1/12th Shoretrooper:
(http://i66.tinypic.com/xmo1uf.jpg)
(http://i65.tinypic.com/108balv.jpg)