Rogue One (Spoilers)

[Darth Ruinus]

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?

Probably just a very skilled shooter. Of the two, Chirrut was the implied Force sensitive.

[Alkaloid]

I got the impression they both were, Dark side and Light side respectively.

[Lord Revan]

I'd say Chirrut and possibly Baze were force sensitive but not aware of the fact themselves they can drawn/use the force but only in "ritualized" fashion. So the mantra Chirrut repeats isn't just some random babble but his way of accessing the Force without knowing, this isn't without precident Anakin Skywalker was able to "use" the Force to have quicker reflexes as a pre-teen without knowing he was force sensitive.

Also in legendaries most if not all of the sith "magic" was just (unaware) Force use in form of rituals and primitive alchemy, the Damthomir magic was the same as well.

That said I wouldn't say either of them really was a light side or dark side user per say, you aren't aware of just one aspect of the Force after all but whole deal or nothing at all.

[Gandalf]

I thought the idea was that neither were Force magical or whatever, but that they just had faith in the higher power. This faith was amply rewarded.

[Anacronian]

Or the stormtroopers could just be really bad shots - it's not like that haven't been a thing in the movies before :p

[ray245]

I'd say Chirrut and possibly Baze were force sensitive but not aware of the fact themselves they can drawn/use the force but only in "ritualized" fashion. So the mantra Chirrut repeats isn't just some random babble but his way of accessing the Force without knowing, this isn't without precident Anakin Skywalker was able to "use" the Force to have quicker reflexes as a pre-teen without knowing he was force sensitive.

Also in legendaries most if not all of the sith "magic" was just (unaware) Force use in form of rituals and primitive alchemy, the Damthomir magic was the same as well.

That said I wouldn't say either of them really was a light side or dark side user per say, you aren't aware of just one aspect of the Force after all but whole deal or nothing at all.

The force is something that will set events in motion. Which is why the Jedi constantly said trust in the will of the force.

[Imperial Overlord]

I thought the idea was that neither were Force magical or whatever, but that they just had faith in the higher power. This faith was amply rewarded.

The fact that a blind man who can shoot down a TIE fighter with a single shot from a portable blaster is a good indication that the Force is with him.

[bilateralrope]

Were there any named characters that Rogue One introduced who survived the movie ?

Red 5 gets the prize for being the character who most obviously wouldn't survive.

I didn't like the theory that Erso engineered the Death Star weakness, but the movie pulled that out well - Erso designer the reactor so it would destroy the station in case of an explosion inside - but he didn't prepare any way for this explosion to occur.

I liked that because having the exhaust port as the weakness seemed very obvious, raising questions about how it escaped the Empire's notice. The reactor being intentionally unstable while the Empire thinks that it could take a hit from anything that makes it down the exhaust port, makes a lot more sense.

Chances are that the exact route of the exhaust port was handled by one of the lesser engineers, or maybe a computer system. All Erso could do without raising suspicion is specify how much exhaust it needs to handle.

The number of actors who are dead/too old to play thmselves and were in this movie is.. surprising. But it actually works. Not perfectly, but give it a few years and Wwe won't need actors anymore.

If Disney wants someone, not even death will stand in their way

I don't like how they handled Tantive recieving the plans. So Leia is trying to pull off the "diplomatic mission" BS after taking part in a battle and Vader doesn't call her out? And when she got the plans she first jumped to Tatooine?

Were there any distinguishing features of that ship that would let the Empire tell it apart from all the others of the same design ?

A city ship should have the ability to broadcast the plans.

Using radio, probably. But radio is limited to c.

What kind of bandwidth does SW ftl communication have ?

[Lord Revan]

Well we know they can transmit holograms in real time for fairly long distances (the emperor was able to have hologramic conversation with Vader in TESB while most likely being at Corusant, while Vader was somewhere at outerrim). Also that scene also comfirms that ships have FTL communication capabilities.

That said it took several seconds (I dunno exactly how long and Rogue One isn't out on DvD so I can't time it) transmit the plans just to the ships on orbit using that large dish, so it would probably take at least as long for the city ship to transmit that data, giving the empire time to jam or intercept that transmission.

[Galvatron]

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.

Which reminds me: unless I'm mistaken, this movie showed us just how effortlessly the Death Star's superlaser can breach an otherwise impenetrable planetary shield.

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

Indeed. I think Obi-Wan's disdain for blasters was more of a personal opinion than it was Jedi doctrine.

[bilateralrope]

Well we know they can transmit holograms in real time for fairly long distances (the emperor was able to have hologramic conversation with Vader in TESB while most likely being at Corusant, while Vader was somewhere at outerrim). Also that scene also comfirms that ships have FTL communication capabilities.

Your home internet connection can probably handle real time video communication. How long does it take you to transfer a terabyte ?

That said it took several seconds (I dunno exactly how long and Rogue One isn't out on DvD so I can't time it) transmit the plans just to the ships on orbit using that large dish, so it would probably take at least as long for the city ship to transmit that data, giving the empire time to jam or intercept that transmission.

I agree that the ship could restransmit the plans using the same communication method that was used to receive them in about the same amount of time. But I see no evidence to suggest that the transmission was FTL.

[Lord Revan]

a 3D image will take more bandwidth then a 2D video though.

Also while the transmition of the death star plans to the city ship was probably not FTL, seeing that Obi-wan's fighter had decent ranged FTL transmiter in AOTC, don't see why that antenna dish that was probably bigger then the whole of Obi-wan's fighter wouldn't have that capability. Also I don't see why the city ship wouldn't have FTL communication capabilities.

edit:my internet speed is 100mb/s but honestly I've not tried to transfer anything that was 1 or more TB so I wouldn't know.

[Lord Revan]

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.

Which reminds me: unless I'm mistaken, this movie showed us just how effortlessly the Death Star's superlaser can breach an otherwise impenetrable planetary shield.

The Scarrif shield was down when DS1 arrived and as far as I know Jedha had no shield.

[Galvatron]

I thought it was only Scarif's shield gate that was destroyed.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Scarif

I didn't think Jedha had a shield of its own.

[Lord Revan]

I thought it was only Scarif's shield gate that was destroyed.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Scarif

I didn't think Jedha had a shield of its own.

the shield collapses (or at least that's what it looked to me) when the 2 ISDs crash into it. You can see the shield retract even from areas outside the shield gate.

[Galvatron]

Ah, then I stand corrected.

[Soontir C'boath]

Paid $8 this morning to watch it. Overall, it was good. Definitely better than Force Awakens. Maybe it was the theater I was at, but the lighting seemed a bit bad at least at the beginning of the film.

Let me start with the negatives since they are fresh on my mind and no, I am not going to read 10+ pages or whatever it is:
-Film industry related. I find it problematic that the movie, not having the usual prologue scroll, doesn't have the actors and what not listed. No need to go 007, but give credit.

-Cassion, ok look you don't want to shoot her father, but you could've shot the Director, damn it. Also Erso was the one that sent out the warning in the first place, so you rebels want to shoot the defector?

-The destruction of the shield gate relied on the incompetence of the commanding officers of the Imperators and how those two don't just annihilate the fleet from the start but Vader's lone Imperator does, broke my suspension of disbelief there. Again, Star Wars space battles are disappointing in their choreography. Their positioning also didn't exactly protect the gate from the rebel fleet either. And no, this is not like Endor where the Emperor ordered the fleet to hang off to show off the Death Star. This was an attack on what should be a heavily secured Imperial facility that needed to be quelled. The lack of turbolasers smashing those medium transports and Nebulon-Bs like flies as Vader did at the start just pissed me off instead. Also, the gate was exposed, what was that Mon Calamari vessel doing there except to hold a corvette in its hold? They needed to ram an Imperator to destroy it, but not blow it up via turbolasers? Huh? Was this a play on particle/ray shielding going on?

-Perhaps it was just sarcasm in the heat of battle, but I don't like that fighter pilot felt a planetary shield should be easy to disable. It implies a non-strategic/Imperial facility may have shields that could be taken down with a concerted effort of a squadron of fighters and if so, what's the point of the Death Star again?

Positives:
-+1 for Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang. However, I'll bet a trillion dollars that the Chinese box office had something to do with that.

-I thought the pacing and direction of the story was on-point. It didn't really dilly dally too much that would make even the quiet scenes boring. I definitely enjoyed Cassien's first location scene. I would love to see more of that than some isolated desert town.

-I thought the infiltration (including the disinformation) and the Imperial response in turn was executed pretty well. It's almost as if they had a military advisor from the army, but not the navy on set...

-I do like that the Imperial Archive is not directly link to anything and must be retrieved manually. Though changing the position of the dish hanging out in the sky was a bit much.

-Whatever Guerrera went through in the intervening years, he broke as a person. So at least we had character growth! Even if it's the wrong way and we never really got to know him.

-Seeing Gold and Red Leader, Tarkin, Leia etc there. Just wish someone could've voice acted Tarkin's voice more accurately instead of saying fuck it.

-The reason why I wanted to watch in a relatively empty theater was because I didn't want to be coloured by other reactions, so I'm not sure about K2 as I had someone behind me who laughed out loud every time he opened his mouth, but overall he's definitely better than 3PO.

[Soontir C'boath]

Addendum: I suppose my criticism should be directed to "let's spend less money on the space battle", because I do remember the part where the Mon Cal ship was close to losing its shields so there was certainly weapons being traded, but it would be nice to see it visually.

At the end of the day, even if it's not critical to the story (as I finally read the whole thread and saw someone commenting about it), for all the warfare geeks and of course kids, it would be cool to see.

[Gandalf]

I thought the idea was that neither were Force magical or whatever, but that they just had faith in the higher power. This faith was amply rewarded.

The fact that a blind man who can shoot down a TIE fighter with a single shot from a portable blaster is a good indication that the Force is with him.

But does that mean he's "force sensitive?"

[MKSheppard]

The destruction of the shield gate relied on the incompetence of the commanding officers of the Imperators and how those two don't just annihilate the fleet from the start but Vader's lone Imperator does, broke my suspension of disbelief there. Again, Star Wars space battles are disappointing in their choreography. Their positioning also didn't exactly protect the gate from the rebel fleet either. And no, this is not like Endor where the Emperor ordered the fleet to hang off to show off the Death Star. This was an attack on what should be a heavily secured Imperial facility that needed to be quelled. The lack of turbolasers smashing those medium transports and Nebulon-Bs like flies as Vader did at the start just pissed me off instead.

Pretty much yeah. What the hell were the ISDs doing during this entire battle? Playing porn on the holonet? Why does it take Darth Vader showing up to start unfucking shit at a supposedly high security facility?

[Iroscato]

I thought the idea was that neither were Force magical or whatever, but that they just had faith in the higher power. This faith was amply rewarded.

The fact that a blind man who can shoot down a TIE fighter with a single shot from a portable blaster is a good indication that the Force is with him.

But does that mean he's "force sensitive?"

Who fucken cares. The Force willed him to flip the switch, that is what he did.

[The Romulan Republic]

The destruction of the shield gate relied on the incompetence of the commanding officers of the Imperators and how those two don't just annihilate the fleet from the start but Vader's lone Imperator does, broke my suspension of disbelief there. Again, Star Wars space battles are disappointing in their choreography. Their positioning also didn't exactly protect the gate from the rebel fleet either. And no, this is not like Endor where the Emperor ordered the fleet to hang off to show off the Death Star. This was an attack on what should be a heavily secured Imperial facility that needed to be quelled. The lack of turbolasers smashing those medium transports and Nebulon-Bs like flies as Vader did at the start just pissed me off instead.

Pretty much yeah. What the hell were the ISDs doing during this entire battle? Playing porn on the holonet? Why does it take Darth Vader showing up to start unfucking shit at a supposedly high security facility?

The films and TV shows do rather give the impression that their are maybe three competent people or so in the Empire.

[MKSheppard]

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.

“we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”
-Recommendations on the Immediate Use of Atomic Weapons, June 1945

“Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration.”
-Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin.

The big issue is that George Lucas fucked things up with the Prequels, which are still canon.

The Separatist Supreme Commander [Grevious] is an abomination of nature, a fusion of flesh and droid- and his droid parts have more compassion than what remains of his alien flesh. This half-living creature is a slaughterer of billions. Whole planets have burned at his command.

The Clone Wars was earthshatteringly brutal, to the point that it made men like Wilhuff Tarkin appear the sane and rational choice to a galaxy shocked by three years of high-intensity galactic-scale warfare.

If you told a man in 1913 that within fifty years, humanity would be armed to the teeth with enough weapons to cause hundreds of millions of deaths and destroy known civilization in the space of a few hours after being sent on their mission(s), he'd have thought you insane.

[Ender]

Addendum: I suppose my criticism should be directed to "let's spend less money on the space battle", because I do remember the part where the Mon Cal ship was close to losing its shields so there was certainly weapons being traded, but it would be nice to see it visually.

At the end of the day, even if it's not critical to the story (as I finally read the whole thread and saw someone commenting about it), for all the warfare geeks and of course kids, it would be cool to see.

Apparently the entire 3rd act got an overhaul and only bits and pieces of it are left from the original shoot. Pretty safe guess that is the cause behind the more sfx part being less dynamic than, say, the raid on coruscant. Less time and money available to do it

[Ender]

I thought the idea was that neither were Force magical or whatever, but that they just had faith in the higher power. This faith was amply rewarded.

The fact that a blind man who can shoot down a TIE fighter with a single shot from a portable blaster is a good indication that the Force is with him.

But does that mean he's "force sensitive?"

good question. I mean previously the space magic was something you were born with, and if you were a space muggle, nothing to be done.

Here the film really lays out the case that it is more like an abrahamic religion, where anyone with sufficient faith whose actions are consistent with the divine will ends up seeing their faith rewarded.

Its pretty clear this film treats the force differently, but who knows what the larger background will say