Rogue One (Spoilers)

[Shroom Man 777]

@Galvatron

*twitches*

Sure. Blearghs. I just find that even worse than secret clone army buildup. Somehow. Just the reference to the last war of the Sith.

My god. I bet if Chewbacca gets lactose intolerance from blue milk and shits all over the Falcon, that will also be backstoried as due to some ancient Sith holocronstipation.

HOLOCRONSTIPATION! YES. Thanks, I made a new word to shit people with, which I can use in our Fantasy Flight SW RPG. Thanks. This whole discussion on shitty backstories is now worth it.

[Galvatron]

Just the reference to the last war of the Sith.

Does this mean you'll boycott Darth Bane: A Star Wars Story?

[Shroom Man 777]

Is that an actual thing?

Depends on how lame it can be. I mean the idea of "all these weapons to be used in the current Sith-orchestrated war were all in warehouses for ONE THOUSAND YEARS and were last used in the last Sith-orchestrated war" is like horrible.

Not everything has to be a callback or a callforward!

It's like as bad as one of those INTERESTING BACKSTORIES were apparently once upon a time young Han Solo didn't pay young Jabba the Hutt for the lemonade he bought from Jabba's lemonade stand so Jabba sent his best friend, young Greedo, to badger Han over it and possibly soak him up with a water gun, but turns out Han Solo was cleverer and shot Greedo first with his own water gun and so Greedo went home crying to his mommy.

Tails of the Moose Easy Can't In A

[ray245]

Is that an actual thing?

Depends on how lame it can be. I mean the idea of "all these weapons to be used in the current Sith-orchestrated war were all in warehouses for ONE THOUSAND YEARS and were last used in the last Sith-orchestrated war" is like horrible.

It's like as bad as one of those INTERESTING BACKSTORIES were apparently once upon a time young Han Solo didn't pay young Jabba the Hutt for the lemonade he bought from Jabba's lemonade stand so Jabba sent his best friend, young Greedo, to badger Han over it and possibly soak him up with a water gun, but turns out Han Solo was cleverer and shot Greedo first with his own water gun and so Greedo went home crying to his mommy.

Tails of the Moose Easy Can't In A

Darth Bane is canon thanks to the Clone Wars cartoon. But the actual details of the war isn't known thanks to the great EU purge.

There is also no evidence to suggest the Republic pulled the ships from mothball. The only thing they did was to convert the Republic diplomatic frigates we saw in TPM into actual war frigate.

[MKSheppard]

I'm sick of the sith/jedi backstory. it makes everyone in the SW universe into pawns of the Jedi and Sith in their millennia long battle for supremacy.

[Gandalf]

I'm sick of the sith/jedi backstory. it makes everyone in the SW universe into pawns of the Jedi and Sith in their millennia long battle for supremacy.

This.

One of the best ideas I had ever head for a change to SW involved making Palpatine just a really good politician. No Sith magic whatsoever. Instead of being a space wizard, with a space wizard sidekick, running an Empire, he's someone who bent a space wizard to his will and used him to help run that empire.

[Galvatron]

One of the best ideas I had ever head for a change to SW involved making Palpatine just a really good politician. No Sith magic whatsoever. Instead of being a space wizard, with a space wizard sidekick, running an Empire, he's someone who bent a space wizard to his will and used him to help run that empire.

I seem to recall proposing that idea around here years ago, but it didn't go over very well at the time. Too many Wankatine fans.

[Gandalf]

One of the best ideas I had ever head for a change to SW involved making Palpatine just a really good politician. No Sith magic whatsoever. Instead of being a space wizard, with a space wizard sidekick, running an Empire, he's someone who bent a space wizard to his will and used him to help run that empire.

I seem to recall proposing that idea around here years ago, but it didn't go over very well at the time. Too many Wankatine fans.

Yeah, I think that's an unpleasant legacy of people too invested in "my sci-fi universe can beat up your sci-fi universe" as opposed to "compelling story."

I think it's a gender politics thing too, like the guys who go all "milsim" with their Nerf guns to feel like big tough manly men. Except here it's pictures of space wizards and HARD CALCS.

[Shroom Man 777]

Darth Bane is canon thanks to the Clone Wars cartoon. But the actual details of the war isn't known thanks to the great EU purge.

There is also no evidence to suggest the Republic pulled the ships from mothball. The only thing they did was to convert the Republic diplomatic frigates we saw in TPM into actual war frigate.

Like I said, which might have been unclear due to my incoherent rantings and shitpostings, my problem isn't the fact that there is a milennia-old Sith conspiracy or conflict between the Force faiths. My problem is that it is so lame for the Republic weapons and kitchen sinks and trooper underwear used in this war orchestrated by the Sith to be... the exact same ones used one thousand years ago in another Sith-related war... the very same ones mothballed and removed and reused!

What next, will the Star Wars Legacies stories with Darth Shao Khan also involve Rockstar Album Cover Hero Squad finding THE LEGENDARY X-WINGS USED BY LUKE SKYWALKER AND WEDGE AND PORKINS AT YAVIN and using those exact same starfighters to cram proton torpedoes up Darth Crate's ass exhaust port?

Christ's sakes.

Guys! It was already lame enough when The Force Awakens *had* to reuse entire acts from A New Hope, digressing from the pretty cool Rey and Finn and even Kylo character arc plots!

Yeah, I think that's an unpleasant legacy of people too invested in "my sci-fi universe can beat up your sci-fi universe" as opposed to "compelling story."

I think it's a gender politics thing too, like the guys who go all "milsim" with their Nerf guns to feel like big tough manly men. Except here it's pictures of space wizards and HARD CALCS.

Yep. God. What lameness. MILSCIFI HARD DICKS!

[Darth Yan]

+ I think Krennic had to go hands on and do counter-espionage despite being a director of weapons design, a freaking tech development dude, because of the social darwinism of the Empire, which is counter-productive.

I mean why is the guy in charge of the weapons development doing something that ISB or COMPNOR should be doing? Because the rest of them would rather he fail so they can advance up the ladder or secure their asses - ala Tarkin. He literally can't get any help or radio other departments for shit the only ones he could trust fit in that wicked looking shuttle he flew around in.

I think he was trying to save his own ass at that point. His job was done, Tarkin snatched the DS right out from under him, and Vader was unsympathetic, too. He was fucked.

Any sane organization would put aside petty personal feuds, be it for ass-covering reasons or getting-over (and commanding a death station) reasons, to work together and stop the opposition from getting their goals and prevent allies and co-workers from dying.

Man the Empire's Byzantine politics is preposterous. So predatory.

That kinda nonsense occurred in real fascist governments. What a lot of people don't like to admit is that hitler's nazis were in some ways rather incompetent.

[Ender]

It was an extremely fun bad movie. So fun that you don't really catch on to how bad it is until afterwards.

Character arcs for Cassian and Jyn were a complete wreck. Really the entire second act was a mess, but what it does to them is really rough. Jyn's characterization hops skips and jumps around (apparently from cuts and reshoots) which means that Cassian's reaction and growth from it doesn't really happen. You are left that he disobeyed orders and didn't kill her father because.... why? Hints of romance sure, but "I didn't kill your dad" is not kind of grand romantic gesture that wins fair hearts.

The Shield Gate ends up a bit of a plot hole. We see that it makes the hole by sticking the arms into the shield and disrupting it, when it retracts them the shield springs to full integrity. So wouldn't they want to seize control of the gate, as blowing it up would mean there is no way to open a hole?

Really, in terms of a film telling a story, this is probably the worst Star Wars movie yet. AotC did a better job on that.

Fortunately, in terms of badass entertainment and cranking of the tension, holy fucking shit, they did so well you excuse everything else with it. The 3rd act is amazing, but those final 5 minutes, my god. It was legitimately horrifying. That is what Lucas wanted the Burning of the Temple and the Massacre on Mustafar to be, but his sanitized violence and sticking the actors in masks and under cgi stopped it. Here, the way the red of the sabre made it look bloody without showing blood, the pain and terror on the actor's faces, and coming on top of all the tension that has built up for the past 40 minutes, the complete inversion that no those above aren't getting away, NO ONE is getting away, because the demon has been unleashed.

This was showing, not telling, the "more machine than man" line. He was a bulldozer, just unstopable, and brutal, with palpable anger coming though from the body language.

Gareth Edwards made Darth Vader scary again.

the previous 2 hours could have been George Lucas talking about "white slavery" and counting the money he stole from his animators, and that last 5 would have been worth it. Fortunately they were preceded by an amazing 3rd act that kept ramping up the tension despite the fact we knew how it was going to end.

Other notes:

Loved Cherruit and Blase. Complete opposite of Cassian and Jyn - they were given very little time on screen, and not time to talk emotions or worldview like those two were, yet you were able to pick up their relationship, what they believed, and their motivation very easily. Excellent job.

Krennic was in my mind an effective villain. Yes, he wasn't the scary threat like some have complained, but to me I think that was the point. Krennic was showing the banality of evil, that it was the day in and day out of the Empire that drove folks to be evil, not that they personally were bad. The guys motivation was " I want to not be embarrassed and get credit for running this engineering project" and look what it drove him to do. It shows why it wasn't enough to kill Tarkin or Vader or the Emperor, but that the Empire itself needed to fall.

Not nearly enough Mads. He got screwed by lack of screentime.

Saw has the same problem that Grievous had in RotS. Most of his story and background comes in the additional material. If you had watched or read all that, then him showing up, his influence on the plot, and his death had great significance. If you hadn't, he is just another part of the poor storytelling around Jyn's development/Anakin's fall

Looking at the SFX with the old analysis eye, I'm betting this film ends up being extremely problematic for working into a larger sketch of how things operate. I'll bet a dollar that the propagation rate for the shockwaves from those superlaser blasts is way off. That said, who gives a flying fuck


So yeah. Kinda like the Harry Potter films - by #4 of those the story in the film itself stops making sense and instead it is showing you on film cools scenes from the books. And since that's what everyone wants no one cares and it is a ton of fun. Same here. What did Jyn and Cassian learn, what motivates them, how did they change? Who knows. Let's watch it again because the battle of Scarrif is amazing to watch.


بيرني كان سيفوز

[Darth Ruinus]

The Shield Gate ends up a bit of a plot hole. We see that it makes the hole by sticking the arms into the shield and disrupting it, when it retracts them the shield springs to full integrity. So wouldn't they want to seize control of the gate, as blowing it up would mean there is no way to open a hole?

I think they were trying to destroy the shield itself inside of the Gate, not the Gate itself. Capturing it would probably take more time than they had.

[Vympel]

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.

The AT-ACT isn't an AT-AT and is not intended for combat, which is another point of difference.

[Ender]

That kinda nonsense occurred in real fascist governments. What a lot of people don't like to admit is that hitler's nazis were in some ways rather incompetent.

"Fascism is the means through which crack-brained doughy-faces dolts can use modern science as inelegantly as a monkey" - William Shirer

The line about trains on time aside (which was literal fascist propaganda) most fascist regimes tend to be incredibly inefficient, it is what comes from the pursuit of enforcing ideological goals and a national mythos over getting shit done.

we will be getting a new lesson in that shortly.




بيرني كان سيفوز

[Shroom Man 777]

I'd imagine being a cargo vehicle in a beach/coastal region... (Was it meant to wade into watery parts? Watery parts where planetary shield functions made repulsorcraft unwieldy? ) meant it had to compromise some of the armoring...

[Lord Revan]

I think he was trying to save his own ass at that point. His job was done, Tarkin snatched the DS right out from under him, and Vader was unsympathetic, too. He was fucked.

Any sane organization would put aside petty personal feuds, be it for ass-covering reasons or getting-over (and commanding a death station) reasons, to work together and stop the opposition from getting their goals and prevent allies and co-workers from dying.

Man the Empire's Byzantine politics is preposterous. So predatory.

That kinda nonsense occurred in real fascist governments. What a lot of people don't like to admit is that hitler's nazis were in some ways rather incompetent.

It wasn't just that the Nazi goverment was predatory it was intentionally so, since Hitler was paranoid that his underling would ally to over thrown him, he made it so that various departments in the goverment were outright hostile towards each other (since they were fighting for the Hitler's favor) to prevent that, though obviously that negatively effected the performance of the german goverment.

[Adam Reynolds]

Watched it again earlier today. I still thoroughly enjoyed it, but several plot holes really begin to appear at this point. I'm sure that would be even more apparent on a third viewing. I always try and like a movie on my first viewing.

As was mentioned, Jyn and Cassian definitely had problematic character arcs, though I still rather liked the idea of both characters. In particular you could definitely tell that there were rewrites to both characters. I suspect there were not as many for Chirrut and Baze, which is why their character arcs worked better. I wonder what the original direction was with the deleted lines like her "I Rebel" as it is not like her general hostility to the Rebel Alliance really left. You can also see that they used the textbook save the cat character concept, in which Jyn saves the girl when Saw's rebels attack the Empire. At least it was justified by her own experience and her seeing a reflection of herself in that girl.

Cassian by contrast seems drawn to Jyn for no reason. Initially his protection of her makes sense in that she is needed to meet with Saw, but especially on Eadu it seems to happen for no reason. The mutual attraction leading up to the finale also seems odd, though I suppose it can be explained by the dramatic circumstances. Actually, now that I think about it, none of the romantic relationships in Star Wars are healthy and lasting. Even Han and Leia break up, and they are the most healthy of the major relationships we see.

The most obvious change was with the beach battle, in which Jyn and Cassian were originally outside. I can see why they changed this, as it really didn't make any sense for them to steal the plans and move to a different transmitter, which is presumably why they dropped it. It likely also was that they originally wanted the two main characters to show up on the beach against the AT-ATs, before realizing that it made more sense otherwise.

Another change from the trailers was the scene with Jyn on the comm tower, in that she originally walked to the control to realign the dish with a TIE fighter rising in front of her. Now the platform is instead strafed by a TIE striker as she turns back, allowing Krennic to catch her off guard. In that case they seemed to have added the TIE Striker design and changed it to a strafing scene.

Something that struck me about the scene on the platform is that Jyn reasonably could have taken down Krennic on her own without being rescued by Cassian. I wonder if this was a correction to the criticism of Rey in TFA being a Mary Sue, or that Cassian was originally intended to die while Jyn would live, but when both were slated to die it felt odd for her to die alone.

One other major plot hole I noticed this time was 3PO and R2 showing up at Yavin as the fighters launch, even though they appear on Tantive IV in ANH, which evidently was already docked with the main Rebel cruiser. Because they appear in different movies, it is not immediately obvious.

Not a plot hole, but I wonder what happened to the Ghost in that battle, as I didn't notice it jump to hyperspace with the rest of the fleet. Also, it is interesting that the Hammerhead seemed to explode along with the star destroyer it was shoving into the shield, serving as another heroic sacrifice. Also, why did the second Star Destroyer explode while the disabled one did not? I guess you could say it had something to do with the fact that it was disabled and thus the reactor was presumably unpowered.

Another random note is about just how accurate the Death Star laser was on Scarif, it actually chopped the dish off of the tower before hitting the water.

[J Ryan]

Another random note is about just how accurate the Death Star laser was on Scarif, it actually chopped the dish off of the tower before hitting the water.

It didn't just hit to top of the dish it hit Krennic directly. That's some vindictive targeting on Tarkin's part

[Abacus]

My one nitpick with the movie as a whole, is that they had Leia and the Tantive IV at the Battle of Scarrif. The end scene with Vader should have had him chopping his way to the bridge to deny the rebel flagship from transmitting the Death Star plans *beyond* Scarif -- failing to get there in time, but noting the system or direction that the transmissions were made.

[Galvatron]

Looking at the SFX with the old analysis eye, I'm betting this film ends up being extremely problematic for working into a larger sketch of how things operate. I'll bet a dollar that the propagation rate for the shockwaves from those superlaser blasts is way off. That said, who gives a flying fuck

Versus debaters. I imagine that some of them hated this movie simply because it undermined their precious calcs.

The AT-ACT isn't an AT-AT and is not intended for combat, which is another point of difference.

Even so, I imagine T-47s would have been similarly ineffective against AT-ACTs.

Cassian by contrast seems drawn to Jyn for no reason.

She was hot. Isn't that reason enough?

[Ender]

BTW, I did notice an easter egg in the space battle. No, not the Ghost - the mystery endor corvette shows up again!


https://s12.postimg.org/l48idi9n1/ghost.jpg


bottom right

[eMeM]

There were at least two of those in the battle.

Question: why was this ship so unpopular? Was it just that it's ugly? Looking at the wookie legends page, it appeared it RotJ and a single comic issue. What the hell, a movie ship and not even a videogame apperance? Not a single one in some space sims or RTSes?

One other major plot hole I noticed this time was 3PO and R2 showing up at Yavin as the fighters launch, even though they appear on Tantive IV in ANH, which evidently was already docked with the main Rebel cruiser.

Maybe it docked when the Mon Cala ship was disabled.

[Galvatron]

Gareth Edwards Confirms ‘Rogue One’ Completely Scrapped the Script’s Original Ending

If you’ve seen Rogue One by now, you’ve probably noticed a lot of the moments featured in the trailers didn’t actually make the final cut of the movie. We even published a whole run-down of all the lines and shots that are nowhere to be found in the finished product — suggesting that the film originally had a much different ending (Felicity Jones’ contract corroborates this). And according to Gareth Edwards, that’s definitely the case. (This article focuses on the end of the movie, so if you haven’t seen it yet, SPOILERS abound.)

The Rogue One reshoots, which undoubtedly tinkered with the final act, were a subject of intense scrutiny months before the movie even came out, but as Edwards tells it, the ending of the original script wasn’t even shot. In a recent interview with Empire, which has since been taken down (via io9), Edwards was asked whether the somewhat grisly ending of the movie (most, if not all, of the main characters die by the time the credits roll) was always intended. As it turns out, the original finale was completely different:

The very first version, they didn’t. In the screenplay. And it was just assumed by us that we couldn’t do that. ‘They’re not going to let us do that.’ So I was trying to figure out how this ends where that doesn’t happen. And then everyone read that and there was this feeling of like, ‘They’ve got to die, right?’ And everyone was like, ‘Yeah, can we?’

We thought we weren’t going to be allowed to but Kathy [Kennedy, President of Lucasfilm] and everyone at Disney were like ‘Yeah it makes sense. I guess they have to because they’re not in A New Hope.’ And so from that point on we had the license.

I kept waiting for someone to go, ‘You know what? Could we just film an extra scene where we see Jyn and Cassian, they’re okay and they’re on another planet?’ And it never came. No one ever gave us that note, so we got to do it.

It’s a very dark move, especially for a Disney property, but it suits the overall tone of the film itself. Where the core Star Wars episodes show the impact of war on our main characters, Rogue One shows us the war itself, in all its deadly glory. After all, in Return of the Jedi, Mon Mothma tells our heroes, with a far-off look in her eye, that “Many Bothans died to bring us this information.” It would feel like a cop-out for the original Death Star plans not to come with a high price.

Rogue One is currently in theaters.

So glad we have Kathleen Kennedy steering this ship now.

[Iroscato]

Between this and TFA, I've become even more convinced that Disney's acquisition of LucasFilm was one of the best damn industry/business deals of the decade.

[KraytKing]

The Shield Gate ends up a bit of a plot hole. We see that it makes the hole by sticking the arms into the shield and disrupting it, when it retracts them the shield springs to full integrity. So wouldn't they want to seize control of the gate, as blowing it up would mean there is no way to open a hole?

No. The Shield Gate is completely physical. Because the arms are in place when the shield was first activated, they blocked the beams from filling that space. Once the arms lift, they can't go back. This is why the Imperial officer had to double check that the Shield Gate should be closed when Krennic ordered to lock down the base. In order to open it up again, you would probably have to turn off the entire planetary shield, lower the arms, and turn the shield back on again. That's why the Rebels didn't just board in the first place.

It didn't just hit to top of the dish it hit Krennic directly. That's some vindictive targeting on Tarkin's part

How would Tarkin have known Krennic was up there? He probably targeted the entire base, and missed, thanks to the angle, by several hundred miles.