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Galvatron wrote: I agree. I can't help but wonder what the deleted scenes featuring Constable Zuvio might have told us about her backstory, if anything.

JJ is a shit film editor. It's not the first time he messed up a scene or undermined important character motivations because he cut out too much stuff.

Or leaving it in may have ground the entire movie to a crawl like all the Wormie and Biggs scenes that were cut out of ANH. If the Zuvio scenes didn't really contribute much to the story, then I'm glad they were cut.

Galvatron wrote:Or leaving it in may have ground the entire movie to a crawl like all the Wormie and Biggs scenes that were cut out of ANH. If the Zuvio scenes didn't really contribute much to the story, then I'm glad they were cut.

The movie is moving at such a frantic pace that it actually needs time to slow down and breath for a few seconds. Having some exposition and building up of Rey's relationship with the other residents of Jakku would have helped things massively.

Even ANH moved at a rather slow pace till they got onboard the Death Star.

I don't know, I thought the film had enough pauses in the action, though the pacing was, as I recall, a little uneven.

Though I do think a bit more backstory on Rey, and cutting or altering the contrived Force vision scene in Maz's castle, would have probably helped the film quite a bit.

eMeM wrote:

Noble713 wrote:

ray245 wrote:
Since when has SW fans ever complained about grimdark being a bad thing?

RedLetterMedia's Rogue One video is pretty negative, IMO. I think they are crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc2kFk5M9x4

This honeslty sounds like they didn't even watch the movie, just the trailers and read a few spoilers.
How could anyone not understand Saw's death?

Having not watched Rebels or read anything about him in any novels, or RLM's take, even I sort of thought it was clear that he wanted to die because he realized his time has come with his state of mind and I assume whatever drug he might be taking inhaling from that respirator.

Which reminds me, I would've figured that mind reader creature would have told him the truth...
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Overall, it was a good film with its buildup at the beginning and crescendo. 85% of critics and 90% of fans like it on RT and I would agree with that. I think the main thing I saw was how shallow the characters were, but the pacing of keeping things moving made up for that and frankly, I don't really want to truly dive into a five minute story of people like the freighter pilot defector anyway. Jyn is the daughter of an imperial scientist who turns pivotal in bringing her father's defection to full effect. Bam, that's all we need to know. We don't need a backstory of where she's been all this time and all that.

The Romulan Republic wrote:I think that in a way Rey's ignorance may have actually helped her. She grew up with legends of the Force, but no real understanding of its limits, and once she received unambiguous proof that she could use the Force, and had time to get over the shock... she probably had a lot more self-confidence than a man who'd spent a decade or so stewing in his own inadequacy.

The decisive moment, I think, was when Ren tried to break into her mind, and she forced him out. I bought that scene more easily than some, because it wasn't some over the top stunt or plot contrivance- it was a straight contest of wills, and to some extent, I think, experience and training didn't matter- personality did, and Rey is ultimately a stronger person than Kylo Ren.

I figured that the implication was that when Rey turned Kylo Ren's mind probe back on him she got a quick and dirty introduction to how to use the Force in general in the process thanks to the glimpse she got inside his head. I don't think it's a coincidence that it occurs to her to start casting Suggestion on stormtroopers left and right immediately after that. She was copying him.

The characters are all archetypes which is typical of a war movie, which this is. We don't reaĺly get to know all the characters beyond a few surface traits like 'this is the family man' or 'this is the malingering barrack-room lawyer that comes good'' in, say, Zulu or the Guns of Navarone.

Jynn Erso was a child soldier raised by Osama Bin Laden whose father is a reluctant war criminal. That's all you need to know.

I'll put my Rogue One comments in the main Rogue One thread a little bit later (and may end up repeating a little here). I haven't seen any consistent backlash that makes sense to me. "I fell asleep"? Really? Is that the new hipster complaint about movies? "Yeah, that movie was so lame I fell asleep during the action sequences." How did these people ever make it through any of the movies made in the 20th century?

Lack of character development? But the lack of character development in, say, Casino Royale or The Bourne Identity wasn't a problem? Movies don't always have the same level of character development as TV series do. And Star Wars isn't exactly an exception to that rule. I'm not sure why it's considered a special problem here. They got enough across. (Seriously, what was Han Solo's backstory in ANH? A smuggler in debt. And that's a major, beloved character. A side character like Chewbacca? Nothing.)

The conversation in this thread seems to have shifted to Rey from TFA, so I'll chime in on that topic.

First, the apparent Mary Sueness of Rey is probably an artifact of editing. Based on the behind-the-scenes pieces from the DVD, there had been some additional scenes filmed and other edits that would have given Rey more limitations. In particular, Finn would have gotten a nice chance to shine on Starkiller Base during some kind of speeder scene, helping Rey out. I forget the details. I think he would have been manning the weapons or something. But the scene was cut. I'm not sure where the scene would have fit originally (seems like it was after they escaped the facility, since Rey and Finn were together). Perhaps it was cut as the ending was reworked, or because the timing didn't make sense.

In any case, I don't think Rey was intended to come across as being the best at everything. But various edits managed to keep the stuff where Rey is good at stuff and removed the less interesting scenes where she wasn't, or that gave her more background.

It's unfortunate, and the complaints do make some degree of sense. That said, I do think that barely enough hints did manage to make it into the movie to explain things (at least, on roughly the same level as the explanations we received for Luke from ANH), though more would have been appreciated. (I will point out that nobody seems to complain when Luke Skywalker or James Bond seem to succeed at almost everything they do. And Jason Bourne is just good at everything literally without trying.)

BTW, for Rey reading Kylo's mind: I took it to be that he was extra vulnerable to a counter-mind reading while opened up and attempting to read her mind. His mental defenses were down because he was focusing on reading her mind and perhaps wasn't expecting her to be Force sensitive herself.

Mad wrote:I'll put my Rogue One comments in the main Rogue One thread a little bit later (and may end up repeating a little here). I haven't seen any consistent backlash that makes sense to me. "I fell asleep"? Really? Is that the new hipster complaint about movies? "Yeah, that movie was so lame I fell asleep during the action sequences." How did these people ever make it through any of the movies made in the 20th century?

Lack of character development? But the lack of character development in, say, Casino Royale or The Bourne Identity wasn't a problem? Movies don't always have the same level of character development as TV series do. And Star Wars isn't exactly an exception to that rule. I'm not sure why it's considered a special problem here. They got enough across. (Seriously, what was Han Solo's backstory in ANH? A smuggler in debt. And that's a major, beloved character. A side character like Chewbacca? Nothing.)

The conversation in this thread seems to have shifted to Rey from TFA, so I'll chime in on that topic.

First, the apparent Mary Sueness of Rey is probably an artifact of editing. Based on the behind-the-scenes pieces from the DVD, there had been some additional scenes filmed and other edits that would have given Rey more limitations. In particular, Finn would have gotten a nice chance to shine on Starkiller Base during some kind of speeder scene, helping Rey out. I forget the details. I think he would have been manning the weapons or something. But the scene was cut. I'm not sure where the scene would have fit originally (seems like it was after they escaped the facility, since Rey and Finn were together). Perhaps it was cut as the ending was reworked, or because the timing didn't make sense.

In any case, I don't think Rey was intended to come across as being the best at everything. But various edits managed to keep the stuff where Rey is good at stuff and removed the less interesting scenes where she wasn't, or that gave her more background.

It's unfortunate, and the complaints do make some degree of sense. That said, I do think that barely enough hints did manage to make it into the movie to explain things (at least, on roughly the same level as the explanations we received for Luke from ANH), though more would have been appreciated. (I will point out that nobody seems to complain when Luke Skywalker or James Bond seem to succeed at almost everything they do. And Jason Bourne is just good at everything literally without trying.)

BTW, for Rey reading Kylo's mind: I took it to be that he was extra vulnerable to a counter-mind reading while opened up and attempting to read her mind. His mental defenses were down because he was focusing on reading her mind and perhaps wasn't expecting her to be Force sensitive herself.

We did show some of the more negative side of Luke. He can come across as a slightly whiny, and someone that really needed older figures like Han and Obi-Wan to guide and help him from time to time. Whereas Han really didn't teach Rey about anything in particular in Ep 7. Neither did Leia, Finn or any other supporting characters.

ray245 wrote:We did show some of the more negative side of Luke. He can come across as a slightly whiny, and someone that really needed older figures like Han and Obi-Wan to guide and help him from time to time. Whereas Han really didn't teach Rey about anything in particular in Ep 7. Neither did Leia, Finn or any other supporting characters.

As I recall, Rey's main flaw was wanting to return to Jakku. She was the opposite of Luke in this regard. Luke wanted so badly to leave Tatooine, but was held back by his family who were intentionally trying to keep him under the radar.

Rey refused to do anything but return to Jakku as soon as she could, as she had a belief that her parents would return and find her. She refused the lightsaber, too. It wasn't until the end of the movie (in the fight with Kylo at the earliest), where she finally let go of Jakku.

Luke's whining was the most immediately noticeable negative trait, and I agree that Rey didn't have something as apparent. (Um, I guess she's not the best at having negative traits? ) It would have made more sense for her to be rougher around the edges. But to say she didn't have any flaws is incorrect.

And, as I already stated, Rey originally was to receive more help from others but those scenes unfortunately didn't make the final cut and we ended up mostly with Finn giving her tactical advice from his knowledge of the First Order. But they didn't set out to make her the best at everything.

It would have been better if they realized what was happening with the final cut and gave Finn another moment to shine and help out Rey. I'm not really sure where that would go. They should have made her worse with a blaster, as that is the main skill she showed that had no bearing on the story. (The others were setups for beats that would happen later and cutting them out would have unraveled that narrative.)

INTERESTING BACKSTORY TIEM

Maybe Rey was educated by the orphaned child of Greedo and the widowed wife of Greedo. Like, they did it with music and dance, to the tune of the songs played by the band of the Mos Eisley cantina. Because after Greedo died, his wife and his child realized that his life was full of errors and wrongness... because he was living a life of... doing greed! That was why he was called Greedo! Thus.. the wife and the child decided to life a life of doing... glee! They renamed themselves the Gleedos and traveled the galaxy teaching children through musicals and songs in school!



EDIT:

Yes, the only green in the galaxy Rey saw before leaving Jakku was obviously the local Greendale Community College. This is my head canon. And less lame than many suggestions others brought up in this thread.

Or the Greedo descendant who became known as Gleedo has siblings, half-siblings or cousins because Greedo was also greedy for the secks and those siblings also reformed and name themselves...

Greedon't

And travel the galaxy telling all who'll listen: don't be greedy. And Rey learned this too during her youth!

So when she is faced with some Dark Side temptation to do evil, she just remembers some profound lessons from her INTERESTING BACKSTORY!

And she tells herself those sagely words: Just Greedon't do it!

I wonder if Shroom ever reads his own posts after he sobers up.

He's constantly on a mixture of cocaine, alcohol, and rocket fuel. He never sobers up.

I re-read them all the time and TBH I think they're a cut above what usually passes for "interesting backstories" people usually propose in all sorts of places.

The interesting backstories are already there. All I do is chip away the rough edges.

Mad wrote:As I recall, Rey's main flaw was wanting to return to Jakku.

Her parents promised to return and she wants to be there. That's not even a flaw, it's just common sense. If there's a flaw it's in that she's perhaps still naive enough to believe someone is coming. Unfortunately for the movie, Rey never has to come to that understanding on her own. She flees Jakku under fire, not by choice. She is then captured and taken to the next set piece again, without her choice. Which is what makes it all the more perplexing for her to choose not to go back to Jakku, but instead to lead the mission to get Luke. Ok fine she wants to develop her powers but where the fuck is Leia or anyone of note in the Resistance? It's all about finding Luke- the whole damn plot- and when they find him they send someone they literally just met. It's as weird as the whole Leia hugging Rey thing- oh have you two met before? No, you're complete fucking strangers to each other. Go hug poor Chewie for fucks sake.

And, as I already stated, Rey originally was to receive more help from others but those scenes unfortunately didn't make the final cut and we ended up mostly with Finn giving her tactical advice from his knowledge of the First Order. But they didn't set out to make her the best at everything.

The problem here is that they make Finn look like utterly incompetent. His one shining moment is when he doubts the FO and turns but event that is completely out of left field. After that he's a joke. He needs Poe to pilot for him, the Rey to pilot for him, then Rey to fix the Falcon, then Rey to save him from the tentacle monster. Then he needs saving from TR-8R, then again by Poe when captured. He needs Han to get him to Starkiller where he is utterly useless, again needing Rey to bypass security and culminating in his third melee loss of the film where Kylo whoops his ass. And Rey again saves the day. There's no doubt about it, Finn gets the short straw in demonstrating ability/competence.

As an irrelevant note, I loved the episode of Community in which they had the events of Glee play out as if it were Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That show was amazing.

Kojiro wrote:Which is what makes it all the more perplexing for her to choose not to go back to Jakku, but instead to lead the mission to get Luke.

I have a feeling we'll discover that Rey's compulsion to remain on Jakku was due to a Force mind trick. Maz Kanata then broke the "spell" after Rey discovered Anakin's lightsaber. If you don't recall, here's the dialogue:

Maz Kanata: Dear child. I see your eyes. You already know the truth. Whomever you're waiting for on Jakku... they're never coming back... But... there's someone who still could.
Rey: Luke.
Maz Kanata: The belonging you seek is not behind you... it is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes... Feel it... The light... it's always been there. It will guide you. The saber. Take it.
Rey: I'm never touching that thing again. I don't want any part of this.

It also wouldn't surprise me if Maz Kanata turns out to be one of the Lost Twenty or some shit.

Galvatron wrote:I have a feeling we'll discover that Rey's compulsion to remain on Jakku was due to a Force mind trick.

I feel like if that was the case- and a young child would certainly be vulnerable to such a trick- we wouldn't have seen her so upset at the leaving. Plus it would all but cement Luke as her parent because who else could do that?

Mad wrote:I'll put my Rogue One comments in the main Rogue One thread a little bit later (and may end up repeating a little here). I haven't seen any consistent backlash that makes sense to me. "I fell asleep"? Really? Is that the new hipster complaint about movies? "Yeah, that movie was so lame I fell asleep during the action sequences." How did these people ever make it through any of the movies made in the 20th century?

A good film will make you at least vaguely interested in the characters who are presumably in peril, or make the action itself interesting. Highlander has so-so action, but one cares because the characters are likeable to varying degrees, so you want MacLeod to kill Kurgan. On the other end of the scale, am I particularly interested in the characters in The Raid? No, but that action is worth it.

For me, Rogue One filled neither of those criteria.

Kojiro wrote:

Mad wrote:As I recall, Rey's main flaw was wanting to return to Jakku.

Her parents promised to return and she wants to be there.

Honest question: did they really? Or was that an assumption on her part? It's been a while. (And, of course, if they did, we have yet to learn if they were lying or are even still alive to return.)

That's not even a flaw, it's just common sense. If there's a flaw it's in that she's perhaps still naive enough to believe someone is coming. Unfortunately for the movie, Rey never has to come to that understanding on her own.

Yes, she has to be told by Maz (to be fair: how does Maz know? Does Maz know? Or is she just making a reasonable assumption?). Rey was never going to come to that realization on her own.

She flees Jakku under fire, not by choice. She is then captured and taken to the next set piece again, without her choice. Which is what makes it all the more perplexing for her to choose not to go back to Jakku, but instead to lead the mission to get Luke.

Why is that perplexing? It's reasonable that either she took what Maz said to heart. Or that she hopes that training with Luke will enable her to find her parents in some fashion.

but where the fuck is Leia or anyone of note in the Resistance? It's all about finding Luke- the whole damn plot- and when they find him they send someone they literally just met. It's as weird as the whole Leia hugging Rey thing- oh have you two met before? No, you're complete fucking strangers to each other. Go hug poor Chewie for fucks sake.

Yes, that's weird and I agree. You'd think Leia would want to go. Siblings, go figure. Chewie at least went with her, as I recall.

The problem here is that they make Finn look like utterly incompetent. His one shining moment is when he doubts the FO and turns but event that is completely out of left field. After that he's a joke.

Yes, I would have preferred if his cut scene was compensated with another scene to let him shine.

He needs Poe to pilot for him, the Rey to pilot for him, then Rey to fix the Falcon,

These make sense. A stormtrooper isn't going to specialize in those things.

then Rey to save him from the tentacle monster.

Yes, this could have been redone to let Finn shine. Rey had the expertise needed to release the creature, but the exact nature of the action sequence that followed had no bearing on the plot. There was no plot reason that required Rey to be the hero there. I'm sure the scene could have been reworked to show him using his training to contain the threat.

Then he needs saving from TR-8R

That could go either way. Either Finn can somehow be superior to other stormtroopers, or we can see that these stormtroopers are proficient with melee weapons but the one using the weapon he's trained with will have the advantage over the one using an unfamiliar weapon. Considering the type of movie this is, either way works.

then again by Poe when captured.

It wasn't just him that was rescued, though, as I recall.

There's no doubt about it, Finn gets the short straw in demonstrating ability/competence.

Which is why it's a shame what could have been his biggest chance to shine was cut and that its removal wasn't compensated for elsewhere. I do hope he gets his chance more than once in the Episode 8.

Gandalf wrote:A good film will make you at least vaguely interested in the characters who are presumably in peril, or make the action itself interesting. Highlander has so-so action, but one cares because the characters are likeable to varying degrees, so you want MacLeod to kill Kurgan. On the other end of the scale, am I particularly interested in the characters in The Raid? No, but that action is worth it.

For me, Rogue One filled neither of those criteria.

And I found the action to be more than worth it. Some of the best in Star Wars. It did what the prequels forgot to do: show the flow of battle and give context for individual scenes. The OT was always better than the PT on this (the Battle of Coruscant in RotS, for example, was just a muddled mess even if it looked pretty, and even then it squandered so much time on the buzz droid shenanigans), but I think this did even better than the OT.

The characters were varying degrees of okay to great, similar to other movies with an ensemble cast. No, these characters mostly didn't have the same level of charisma as the TFA cast, but that didn't bother me. In particular, figured that a few of them were definitely going to bite it and that there was a small chance there all of them could.

Of course, liking a film is a matter of opinion and I don't expect to change yours any more than you can expect to change mine.

streetad wrote:The characters are all archetypes which is typical of a war movie, which this is. We don't reaĺly get to know all the characters beyond a few surface traits like 'this is the family man' or 'this is the malingering barrack-room lawyer that comes good'' in, say, Zulu or the Guns of Navarone.

Jynn Erso was a child soldier raised by Osama Bin Laden whose father is a reluctant war criminal. That's all you need to know.

Preach it, Brutha!

I was about to mention those movies, along with Von Ryan's Express but you beat me to it. When the mission or battle is of such great importance, you don't really need detailed character studies. If this had been a 60-plus episode series like Game of Thrones then that kind of thing would be great, but in a 2-hour movie it bogs things down. I know everything about the Ersos, Cassian Andor and the rest that I really want to know.

Kojiro wrote:

Galvatron wrote:I have a feeling we'll discover that Rey's compulsion to remain on Jakku was due to a Force mind trick.

I feel like if that was the case- and a young child would certainly be vulnerable to such a trick- we wouldn't have seen her so upset at the leaving. Plus it would all but cement Luke as her parent because who else could do that?

Snoke? Kylo Ren? Possibly Leia or any of the Knights of Ren?

Or even Luke doing it to Rey because he sensed that she was a powerful Force user and wanted to keep her hidden.

Plus, it would make ST Luke seem like even more of a dick than he already does if he did that to anyone, much less his own daughter.

Meh, computer has been on the fritz and I missed a lot. Anyway to back up a bit, Rey was young but not an infant when she was delivered to Jaku. It's entirely possible her base education at that time had her with basic reading and writing skills. The SW galaxy is a tech driven place where small kids would have to have some semblance of literacy on the tech at an early age. A freak'n 9 year old was making droids for crying out loud. I'm not saying Rey should have a degree in basic, but she would have had some education that would have served as a base.

I also agree that out of all of them, the character of Finn got screwed over more than Rey.