Rogue One (Spoilers)

[Mlenk]

I watched it last night for a 3rd time with my wife who hadnt seen it yet. Even after repeated viewings I am of the opinion that this is one of my favorite SW films of all time and am blown away by the fact that this somehow escaped the Disney mediocrity police and was released to the public.

Kinda makes you wonder what the original cut was like, doesn't it?

I've been away from the SW universe for a number of years (with the exception of watching that abomination last December) so I came into this movie not knowing anything at all. Did they do a bunch of rewrites or reshoots?

[Lord Revan]

Most of the ending was reshot, orginally Jynn was down at beach with the AT-ACTs as was Krennic, there's also other stuff that was reshot.

[Galvatron]

Yeah.

Star Wars: Rogue One - What Changed in Those Reshoots?

[Ace Pace]

From another article, I find the most important bit, which is the ending got totally changed to be darker.

Another article, which I currently can't find, mentions that the cast wasn't supposed to be all killed.

[Darth Yan]

Saw it. Kinda liked it but there were problems. In Empire the ATATs waste everything but here the xwings are able to take them out with not much

[Galvatron]

IIRC, X-wing laser cannons are far more powerful than the blasters on a T-47 which could explain why the AT-ACTs seemed weaker against rebel starfighters.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Saw it. Kinda liked it but there were problems. In Empire the ATATs waste everything but here the xwings are able to take them out with not much

X Wings can do serious damage to a Star Destroyer, I'm not surprised they can damage an ATAT. In ESB they had the choice between using the X Wings to stop the ATATs (and thus leave their fleet defenseless) or just buying time against the ATATs with what they had.

[Meest]

Surprised they didn't do a reference to AT-ATs shooting speeders out of the air, needed a General Veers moment.

[GySgt. Hartman]

When I first heard about R1, I knew I was part of a herd of Star Wars fans that were going to be milked every Christmas until the end of time. I avoided the teasers, because I didn't really expect much after the last films. Then this! Right now, for me R1 is the best Star Wars movie after the original trilogy. It is just so Star Wars, without trying too hard. This time, somehow they hit the right chords.

[Iroscato]

I fucking LOVED this movie. Loved loved loved it! I was entertained the entire way through. Still buzzing, just got back from the cinema, in a great mood, in need of a beer, will post longer thoughts as and when they are martialled.

[MKSheppard]

At first, I was all

But then when I realized it was the closest we'll get to a live action WEG RPG campaign...I started enjoying it more.

[MKSheppard]

Speaking of which, why am I not seeing more complaints about the U-wings, TIE strikers and deathtroopers?

Imperial Intelligence would like a word with you, Galvatron.

[MKSheppard]

Why is that so hard to believe? The Imperials were worried that merely detaining Princess Leia would generate sympathy for the rebellion in the Senate (a concern that even Vader heeded). How do you think they'd react to proof of the Death Star's construction?

Also, the Imperial Senate is still exant at that point in time -- Remember that one of the key sequences in ANH is Tarkin entering the DS1 conference room and saying "The senate will concern us no more..."

Also, I seem to recall Krennic and others worrying about the program budget and the Senate poking around there.

Basically, the Empire can't go totally crazy with the semi-independent Senate acting as a backstop to the more ambitious ideas that Tarkin and company have...

[MKSheppard]

I also like how Tarkin's "one reactor only" may have been some plausible deniable thing. According to him, Jedha's obliteration could have been covered up as some mining accident. Which considering the scale of SW, sure mining implements might actually be capable of accidentally dealing such damage. So it's not minimalism - the opposite in fact!

This does multiple things:

A.) It's basically maybe a 75 to 85% stress test of the overall Death Star Superlaser system, and a 100% test of certain crucial components. Remember that before that shot; they weren't sure it was going to work *AT ALL*.

After that shot, Tarkin moved rapidly to take over command of the Death Star, something he wouldn't have done if it wasn't fully capable.

B.) It preserves tactical surprise of the Superlaser. Meaning that Tarkin can get Maximum TARKIN DOCTRINE when he vaporizes a planet at a place of his time and choosing.

C.) It gives us a reason for the Death Star 2 going PEW PEW PEW against the Rebel fleet at Endor. Those were Single Reactor Ignitions.

[MKSheppard]

I mean why is the guy in charge of the weapons development doing something that ISB or COMPNOR should be doing

According to the toys at TARGET, those black stormtroopers are Death Troopers, and they work for Imperial Intelligence.

[Elfdart]

1) Vader. I get the impression he was shoehorned into this movie, even though the movie would have worked just fine without him. I guess he was Villain Insurance in case Krennic was too weak and CGI Tarkin too fake. The actor in the costume had no shoulders, the head looked too small. It's like they got some Baby Huey from a cosplay convention to do the part and provide his own costume. The pun was weaksauce too.

Vader wasn't perfect, but he was a damn sight better than that joke at the end of ROTS. At least they found an actor who fills out the costume.

Because a guy in his late teens/early 20s should have the same physique in his 40s.

[MKSheppard]

From twitter:

"#RogueOne is story of a middle management drone named Orson Krennic who just wants to wear a white cape & get his bosses to respect him."

from the web:

"I actually do like it as "Krennic's horrible middle management experience".

- First, he goes the extra mile to finish his project. Top management set unreasonable expectations and so he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He's good at engineering and the test is the only time he looks happy.

- But then, his manager shows up, decides that the real genius was coming up with the concept, that all of the practical work is for proles, and that he can leave the entire engineering team out of his report.

- He goes to complain to HR. But guess what? The HR management is in another building, likes to spend its time lounging around in bubble baths, is totally out of touch with the common employee, and threatens him with firing for even bringing up the issue.

- Like any good engineer, he decides to work harder to prove himself once and for all. Surely finishing the leftover action items will get him to employee of the month again! So he goes back to the factory floor, to deal with urgent issues. But guess what? Top management decides that they'd rather not deal with him anymore, and fire him. Or, well, at him. With a death star.

Honestly, that's pretty much the story of my previous job. Except for the death star superlaser part "

...

The scene was essentially a guy showing up at his boss's house (while the boss was in the shower) and complaining about his situation/position at work.

...

True, and he almost got fired for it too."

[Galvatron]

Basically, the Empire can't go totally crazy with the semi-independent Senate acting as a backstop to the more ambitious ideas that Tarkin and company have...

Given Leia's open contempt for Vader and Tarkin as an ostensibly loyal Imperial Senator, I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the Senate had damn near reached their boiling point with the Emperor's draconian policies and widespread reports of Imperial atrocities on the Outer Rim.

[Shroom Man 777]

So for both the visual designs and the baddies... they didn't do proper build up. Imagine pro-wrestling if they never built up the rivalries or the streaks or the motifs, if they kept on shifting the roster, if we never end up having a familiar face who has a narrative that gets built up over time. It just falls flat.

As a compromise, I'd have been satisfied with the Republic hauling mothballed Acclamators, LAATs, Torrents, Aethersprites, etc. out of retirement where they've been sitting since the end of the last full scale war. Over the course of the Clone Wars, technology would improve rapidly as it tends to do during wartime, and we'd end up with the newer designs by the end of Episode III.

Errr... I think it would be fucking stupid if the first weapon systems used in the Clone Wars were something unused since the last war waged by a Sith a thousand freaking years ago. That is really stupid. The Sith also looks like a fucking Mortal Kombat character. What the fucking Christ.

God. Yes. Sure. Then each of those stupid thousand-year-old weapons systems can have INTERESTING BACKSTORIES like how this millennium-old mothballed Acclamator dueled with a tattoo-covered Sith murder-frigate covered in spikes, how the Acclamator's powerful shields withstood barrages of spike-covered shoulderpads thrown by the murder-frigate's mass drivers and laser beams made of coagulated baby blood spewed out from the murder-frigate's skull-shaped turrets... skull-shaped turrets that have poles from which flutter enormous banners that are made of human skin tattooed with enormous skulls... skulls that wear enormous shoulderpads like stahlhelms because Nazi symbolism... and those stahlhelm themselves have spikes that have poles with skullbanners... like a pickelhaube... a skullceptioning stalhelm pickelhaube. How the Acclamator's electronic counter-countermeasure systems were modified to withstand Sith jamming that involves broadcasting the wretched Dark Side hymn called Skrawling in my Cin that Darth Bane obtained from a doom-temple full of forbidden holocron-cassette tape records of the blasphemous acolyte cult known as Pinkin Lark! If anyone hears the Pinkin Lark Skrawling in my Cin's foul lyrics, the doomed souls will be doomed to slitting their wrists with their lightsabers. Only true Siths can constipate so hard and survive the ordeal of slitting their wrists with their lightsabers - a tradition passed on from master to apprentice and eventually, centuries later, taken up by all the Kylos of the galaxies.

Ancient Acclamators would counteract this perfidious Sith noise pollution by broadcasting their own heroic tunes - from the Jedi Sevanecense song-singers who were most renowned for chronicling the exploits of this blind Jedi Master who was a daring devil who fought this Mandalorian assassin who had an unerring aim. The blind Jedi Master who fell in love with an electrifying female warrior who tragically died but who was later brought back to life in some horrible event that no one dares to ever utter again.

Fuck that crap. That makes me want to vomit in my mouth and open my mouth and let that vomit come out of my mouth and land inside someone else's mouth.

God that is so lame. Like blind Ben Affleck lame. God. It deserves to get assbeaten by an enormous muscular criminal kingpin played by Michael Clarke Duncan. But he's dead because of the sheer lameness of this.

ANYWAY lot of those weapons systems designs could be pre-existing stuff the Republic's own security forces were using at that time period. Because, what, they never had any warships since the last Sith war because the whole galaxy revolves on the fucking Sith attacks and Jedi drama and all that crap? For fucks sake. Even those hippies at Naboo had decent starfighters! Maybe the Acclamators and the walkers and other proto-Imperial designs incrementally came, either being stockpiled by the Kaminoans or whatever, maybe there really was a huge arms buildup due to the Seperatist tensions... I am not sure the SURPRISE REPUBLIC HUGE ARMY! plot twist was that incredible...

...but the gradual shift from Republic-like designs to Imperial-like designs (ala Acclamator) could be both an in-universe "realistic" development anda meta-fourth-wall thematic iconic aesthetic choice...

Guh.

I mean why is the guy in charge of the weapons development doing something that ISB or COMPNOR should be doing

According to the toys at TARGET, those black stormtroopers are Death Troopers, and they work for Imperial Intelligence.

How does "providing tacticool armed goons but letting the technocrat weapons designer still do all the investigating himself" refute my point?

I mean, sure maybe Krennic said "I'll do this myself!" cause he's a hardass and he doesn't want ISB or COMPNOR taking the glory or gleaning his precious designs, while at the same time ISB and COMPNOR didn't want to do much because they wanted the upstart Krennic to fail. So all sides' Byzantine politicking and ulterior motives bit them in the ass. Sure.

My personal theory is that Agent Kallus from Rebels was probably supposed to be doing this but he was probably too busy fucking Ysanne Isard because that's the only way he could've kept his post despite all his incompetencies and failures.

[MKSheppard]

But if ISB didn't want to do much, comrade Shroom, why did they let him have their black stormtroopers?

[Shroom Man 777]

But if ISB didn't want to do much, comrade Shroom, why did they let him have their black stormtroopers?

For show? Standard protocol VIP protectionings. A dozen tacticool badassessss =/= outright cooperation and synergy.

Also. God. Again, let me just say how much bad EU-style bullshit makes me want to puke.

Thousand year old mothballed crap from THE LAST EVIL DARKSITHLORDWAR. Really? Ugh.

Come on. We just watched Rogue One. Which was great. Don't do this.

[ray245]

I've just gotten the visual dictionary, so if anyone got any question you want to ask, I see if I can find it in the book.

But if ISB didn't want to do much, comrade Shroom, why did they let him have their black stormtroopers?

He was part of the Tarkin project. Apparently, they guard all high ranking officers within the Tarkin initiative.

[Shroom Man 777]

Some of them also get obliterated by superlasers within the Tarkin initiative.

[Galvatron]

Also. God. Again, let me just say how much bad EU-style bullshit makes me want to puke.

Thousand year old mothballed crap from THE LAST EVIL DARKSITHLORDWAR. Really? Ugh.

Come on. We just watched Rogue One. Which was great. Don't do this.

Like I said, it's a compromise. I don't get to disregard the shitty setup that the prequels gave us, do I?

[HortonX25]

Has anybody done any calcs yet on the Star Destroyer tanking a rebel ship to their shields?