Rogue One (Spoilers)

[The Romulan Republic]

Frankly, whatever his own feelings on race or gender, Palpatine strikes me as someone to whom everyone is a tool- if you're useful to him, he'll make use of you. If you get in his way, you'll die horribly.

The bigotry, though, is something I'm sure he'd tolerate, or even encourage, in his subordinates to the extent that it made them more loyal/ruthless, and provided him with political scapegoats. Its probably also a by-product of the culture of the Imperial military to some extent- they want uniformity, and humans are the most populous species, it seems, in the galaxy. So they'll mostly recruit humans, and standardize their equipment for use by humans, rare exceptions aside.

[Shroom Man 777]

Have you changed your mind about the mothballs yet?

No, those are horrible ideas.

[Lord Revan]

It wouldn't surprice me if Palpatine (unofficially) tolerated/encouraged bigotry in some sections of the imperial hierarchy while clamping it down harshly in others, to make certain that these sections would never work together against him since they would hate each other.

It would fit the Sith philosophy of well social darwinism for lack of a better word, not mention that way Palpatine can remain the supreme ruler as only thing these parts of the imperial hierarchy have in common is loyality to the imperial throne (aka Palpatine himself).

[Ender]

Frankly, whatever his own feelings on race or gender, Palpatine strikes me as someone to whom everyone is a tool- if you're useful to him, he'll make use of you. If you get in his way, you'll die horribly.

The bigotry, though, is something I'm sure he'd tolerate, or even encourage, in his subordinates to the extent that it made them more loyal/ruthless, and provided him with political scapegoats. Its probably also a by-product of the culture of the Imperial military to some extent- they want uniformity, and humans are the most populous species, it seems, in the galaxy. So they'll mostly recruit humans, and standardize their equipment for use by humans, rare exceptions aside.

An oppressive political-economy necessitates an oppressive social order because when the negative externalities and mistakes of the powerful get high enough that people will no longer tolerate it, you either need a way to induce change (which is anthems to an oppressive political-economic order) or a way to shift blame so the energy is directed at a new target as the source of the problems that needs to go. Which since that impulse is almost always laden with eliminationist rhetoric, goes really bad when directed at the marginalized of society.

Within Star Wars: even if Palpatine didn't care about bigotry, by 20 years in there will have been enough recessions and rebellions that blaming aliens and undesirables will long Abu have been the most expedient action for him to take and then a violent mentality does the rest

[Ender]

Apparently, the Empire's humanocentrism has also noticeably diminished in the new EU:

Nevertheless, some non-humans were known to occupy lofty roles within the Empire, such as the Chagrian Mas Amedda, who served as the Empire's Grand Vizier, the Pau'an Grand Inquisitor, three other Inquisitors known as the Seventh Sister, the Fifth Brother, the Eighth Brother and Grand Admiral Thrawn.

And that's just so far. We have yet to see any examples besides Mas Amedda in the films, but the TV shows are canon too. Additionally:

According to Jason Fry, the Lucasfilm Story Group had worked out that the Galactic Empire in the new canon universe was not "openly or uniformly" xenophobic. However, he reasoned many staunch Imperials like the Servants of the Empire antagonist Janus Fhurek were also committed xenophobes. In addition, Fry explained that the Empire in the new canon timeline was not misogynistic; citing the presence of female Imperial characters in John Jackson Miller's A New Dawn novel and the Disney XD TV series Star Wars Rebels.

So there you go.

Gotta be honest, the consistent thing these past 14 years of LFL to try and put a happy face on fascism so they can sell more toys to kids has been deeply disturbing. Like I know it shouldn't be - there is way more messed up stuff out there to care about and work at fixing, which I do, but this has always bothered me on a visceral level.

I mean it has been compounded this year, but still, fuck man.

Like take the number they did in the clones. The movies are real clear here. The clones aren't good, they are monsters. They are the foot soldiers of the space Nazis. They wipe out a religious minority, take a new name to make it clear how bad they are, and then torture and murder Luke's aunt and uncle.

Well no we had to make the clones good and cool so now they didn't want to be evil they had brain chips and they all instantly retired when the empire was formed so all the bad stuff was those other guys, so buy more stuff and keep thinking the guys who were VERY BLATENT STAND IN FOR THE NAZI PARTY EVEN BEFORE THEY CHANGED NAMES are actually good and someone to emulate.

[NeoGoomba]

One thing that I like is comparing Vader's hellish crescendo of death against the Rebel soldiers to his slow, cautious battle against Obi-Wan a few days later. Vader will go badass Slasher-film on non-Jedi (and probably even most of the remaining Jedi), but when he comes up against the one Master who handed him his ass (almost literally) when he had his full connection to the Force, he's wary as hell...at first. Age had never seemed to slow down most Jedi Masters when it came to fighting, and Vader knew that Kenobi's fighting style was formidable as hell. So he fights slower and more methodically, with less unleashed anger and more controlled rage. As the duel plays on, though, Vader realizes that Kenobi's skills have eroded, and he begins mocking him for it before the end, intensifying his assault. Though it may have taken him suffering a humiliating defeat and literally decades of pain, Vader has finally learned patience and cunning, making him an extremely powerful and dangerous opponent.

[Steve]

Well no we had to make the clones good and cool so now they didn't want to be evil they had brain chips and they all instantly retired when the empire was formed so all the bad stuff was those other guys, so buy more stuff and keep thinking the guys who were VERY BLATENT STAND IN FOR THE NAZI PARTY EVEN BEFORE THEY CHANGED NAMES are actually good and someone to emulate.

I admit that I didn't watch Rebels, but the gist I got from the trailers was that the brain chip thing only applied to Rex and the other hero troopers from the Clone Wars CGI cartoon? So they could have an excuse to bring them back as allies for the Rebels.

That said, I admit I've always been disturbed by how many in the SW fandom I've seen seem to embrace the Empire. Fan groups dressed up as Stormtroopers, fandom apologetics for the Empire, gleeful attitudes toward the idea of the Empire crushing other sci-fi settings, etc.

I admit that when Rebels was first coming out and people were screaming bloody murder at the "irredeemably evil Imperials" stuff in the trailers, my reaction was to agree with them in the rational points of my mind... while the other points giggled and basked in the schadenfreude of Imperial fanboys bitching like spoiled children.

As for the movie itself... loved it. The heroes' deaths are meaningful and it makes clear their sacrifices aren't in vain; that their deaths won for the galaxy the New Hope. The entire Scarif part is incredible.

And I did so enjoy seeing those ISDs get taken down. The proper state of an ISD is being reduced to burning wreckage after all. It's like the picture of a sinking Bismarck or the burning wreckage of a Tiger panzer; the emblem of an evil oppressive force being stopped.

[NecronLord]

Well Steve, nothing the 'irredeemably evil imperials' in the Rebels show has done, apart from forcibly cyberneticising low level workers, hasn't been done by Stalin's USSR or Nazis, and there's no reason to think those regimes wouldn't have done that if it could. So they're not at all unrealistically evil.

[Galvatron]

Have you changed your mind about the mothballs yet?

No, those are horrible ideas.

And a movie about the last great war against Darth Bane's Sith Empire?

[Iroscato]

Have you changed your mind about the mothballs yet?

No, those are horrible ideas.

And a movie about the last great war against Darth Bane's Sith Empire?

I would quite literally fight a million men in the streets armed only with my grandmother's colostomy bag to see that shit.

Also a KOTOR movie or one set in roughly that era.

[Galvatron]

No, those are horrible ideas.

And a movie about the last great war against Darth Bane's Sith Empire?

I would quite literally fight a million men in the streets armed only with my grandmother's colostomy bag to see that shit.

I'm sure lots of people would.

Also a KOTOR movie or one set in roughly that era.

One big mash-up of old EU favorites like Exar Kun, Revan, Nihilus, Darth Bane and Lord Vitiate all teaming up to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic would make a great story. They could even throw a young Maz Kanata in there to show us the role she played back then.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So, saw it again this evening, still enjoyed it thoroughly.

One thing I did notice that I liked was that pretty much all of the blasters and such were clearly based on real-world weapons, just like in the OT. Makes it feel more real than generic sci fi raygun boxes. Also, I'm pretty sure Jyn's blaster on Jedha is based on a P08 Luger.

EDIT: Also, as I was looking for it this time, we do definitely see one of the ISDs at Scarif firing the forewardmost pair of the dorsal heavy guns. Presumably that's why we hear one of Admiral Raddus' officers announce that "deflector shields are down to 50%!" No way in hell TIE laser fire would manage that.

[Prometheus Unbound]

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.

Because Lucas could have gotten someone else. It's a mask. It didn't have to be Christianson in the suit at the end.

[Prometheus Unbound]

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.

https://youtu.be/FVzc20Bm8Xo?t=10m10s

This is the EU.

This is the reason I refuse to touch the EU.


Watch it from the beginning as well.

[Shroom Man 777]

Have you changed your mind about the mothballs yet?

No, those are horrible ideas.

And a movie about the last great war against Darth Bane's Sith Empire?

Oh that would be pretty cool to see what the Republic and the Jedi and the Sith were like all those eons ago and to see how vastly different things must've been in such ancient times (despite the relatively stratified progression of SW technology), giving people a chance to exercise their creativity and imagination rather than being constrained by lame and contrived callbacks and callforwards, because making a vaguely connected narrative that's linked to the Prequels and to the OT... but yet separated by those eons... would be positively liberating, presenting both challenges and opportunities and chances to just go beyond the narrow myopic minimalism of both galactic affairs and narrative elements some people propose.

[Shroom Man 777]

https://youtu.be/FVzc20Bm8Xo?t=10m10s

This is the EU.

This is the reason I refuse to touch the EU.


Watch it from the beginning as well.

Yeah. I love those Red Letter Media vids though after his Attack of the Clones vid I was pretty satisfied at the breakdown of the shitshow.

When I hang out with friends and talk about this stuff... we pretty sound like the Red Letter Media guise.

[Galvatron]

Oh that would be pretty cool to see what the Republic and the Jedi and the Sith were like all those eons ago and to see how vastly different things must've been in such ancient times

I bet you'd love the Fairwind.

[ray245]

No, those are horrible ideas.

And a movie about the last great war against Darth Bane's Sith Empire?

Oh that would be pretty cool to see what the Republic and the Jedi and the Sith were like all those eons ago and to see how vastly different things must've been in such ancient times (despite the relatively stratified progression of SW technology), giving people a chance to exercise their creativity and imagination rather than being constrained by lame and contrived callbacks and callforwards, because making a vaguely connected narrative that's linked to the Prequels and to the OT... but yet separated by those eons... would be positively liberating, presenting both challenges and opportunities and chances to just go beyond the narrow myopic minimalism of both galactic affairs and narrative elements some people propose.

Sadly, it seems that filmmakers themselves likes to fall into this trap. I'm sick of X-Wings still being the mainstay fighter of the protagonist 30 years later. The only reasons we even got some interesting design was Lucas basically dragging all the artist to design something different instead of recyclying the same old design.

It is not surprising that once Lucas is gone, the artists immediately went back to giving us X-Wing MK 2.0 and etc.

[Elfdart]

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

Why would anyone complain about them?

[Elfdart]

Sadly, it seems that filmmakers themselves likes to fall into this trap. I'm sick of X-Wings still being the mainstay fighter of the protagonist 30 years later. The only reasons we even got some interesting design was Lucas basically dragging all the artist to design something different instead of recyclying the same old design.

It is not surprising that once Lucas is gone, the artists immediately went back to giving us X-Wing MK 2.0 and etc.

That's because Lucas is a creative trailblazer and the others are just riding his coattails.

[Gandalf]

Also, X-Wings sell merch like crazy.

[Shroom Man 777]

It might be partially forgivable due to the whole plot stuff of the New Republic de-militarizing so them turning capship-killing B-wings into transports and resorting to meager stuff kinda works narratively...

But them rehashing with "attack doom station that suddenly appears... tacked into the narrative that was just focusing on the Rey and Finn and Kylo and greater Skywalker plot... just so we can have an ANH-reminiscent setpiece..." was just sucky.

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

Because TIE Strikers and Deathtroopers were organic developments from the TIE fighters and Deathtroopers... they developed from the already iconic designs and aesthetics. And for a one-shot vehicle, even the U-Wing shows progression from X-Wing based designs and A-Wing stuff... even the no-name Larger Lambda-looking transports and Krennic's bitchin mini-Lambdas borrow OT aesthetics...

And the whole deal is that the Prequels were a series of films. Rogue One's a oneshot so that's a bit different... not to mention even then they tried to make their design still flow with the OT style.

Jeez.

I bet you'd love the Fairwind.

That's a bit stupid. Maybe more than a bit.

But Christ, "solar-sailed" or space-sailed things were actually in use by people like Count Dooku. So sure, radically different designs showing more of that stuff may have been cool.

Maybe in those eras, more ships looked like gleaming Naboo-type designs. Maybe Naboo's designs are quaint nigh-antique holdovers of older eras because the Naboo folks like to keep quaint old aesthetics. Or something akin to those Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon-like shows Lucas himself drew from. Gasp, it's actually meta-commentary on the real-world evolution of sci-fi aesthetics.

Maybe really old Republic-era designs had starship hulls dominated by saucers with deflector dishes connected to propulsion systems based in nacelles!

[Darth Ruinus]

But if you *are* going to destroy it in an attempt to stop a broadcast, for the love of Jeff hit the damn thing.

? The superlaser did hit the transmission tower. It sliced through it and continued on to hit the ocean in the distance.

I'm certainly not a fan of the idea that a crashing ISD overloaded the shield, but what I saw was barriers retracting (and X-wings smooshing). I fully admit I don't know the mechanics for reopening the hole, but it seems closing it is as simple as removing the blockage. After all if destroying the gate was the key, you'd think we'd have heard something to that effect or it coming under fire from the cap ships. I could be wrong though, perhaps the barriers are made of some stupidly dense material or something that allows them to super slowly penetrate the shield.

I don't think the Rebels were trying to destroy the Gate to bring down the shields, they were attacking the shields directly. "How much more can those shields take?" one of them asks. They were attacking the Gate because it was releasing TIEs and had anti-fighter emplacements, but I don't think it was critical to the shield's function. Also, I liked how one of the Rebel starfighters that crashes into the shield is pretty much just resting on the shield for the remainder of the battle.

[Alkaloid]

Loved it.

I think the thing the movie did best, better even than Ep. IV, was show how the Death Star is just this terrible, awful thing that simply must be destroyed. That shot of Krennic looking up at it in orbit, seeing the dish pointed at him really drove home the whole terror weapon angle.

I really liked the use of CGI and the footage from A New Hope as well. It wasn't flawless, but I think it lends the story a lot of weight that it wouldn't otherwise have. Up until we see Leia at the end, every protagonist from the film is dead, but I really felt that one scene moved me from feeling quite sad to victorious. I actually grinned knowing what comes after.

Also non Jedi/Sith force sensitives with blasters are exactly as dangerous as KOTOR lead me to believe. Good show Rogue One.

[Cykeisme]

I have a question.. was Baze a Force sensitive (or super highly skilled shooter) using an amazing level of aim and trigger control to blast entire squads of Stormtroopers with a fully automatic blaster firing at its maximum cyclic rate, resulting in, as far as I can tell, no misses whatsoever?

Or did he have some kind of computer-assisted autoaim system that works like Soldier: 76 Tactical Visor from Overwatch?