Rogue One *Spoilers*

Docfoster

I'm a Star Wars fan, so a big deal for me.
Saw the movie on Friday. Thought it was good overall. Especially the 2nd half. And, since Friday, I've found myself wanting to enthuse about most of the movie. Always a good sign!
Positives for me: Several engaging new characters, enough strong performances from a pleasingly diverse cast, very effective tying-in with episode 4 narrative and characters, Tarkin best human CGI I've seen, fairly grown-up atmosphere, evocative war action scenes in final act, and superb Darth Vader menacing and murderous rampage scene towards the end. One of my all time favourite Star Wars scenes.
Negatives for me: First half a little ponderous / long, Forest Whitaker's character didn't feel flush to the surface of the film - I wanted him either more or less developed / used, I'm not a Felicity Jones fan (tho she was fine), Tarkin CGI, despite being cutting edge, sometimes still not quite good enough, and hence distracting.
Overall I'd give it 7.9/10. Certainly maintained the standards set by The Force Awakens last year, and I'll probably try to see Rogue One again over the festive period.

I'm intetested to get the impressions of others.

cj66

I'm pretty interested to see this despite being disappointed by The Force Awakens. Episode 5 still stands tall as the best of the 7 episodes for me. The Rogue One trailers look promising.

Docfoster

Yup. Episode 5 my fav too.
But I did enjoy 7 as well (except the blobby monsters scene).
If you do get to the flics for this one, I'd like to read about how you experienced it!

AntiCrap

From Helen for Docfoster.

Ok, ok, Doc. Hush your nagging ;-) Went to see it last night and I wanted it to be good. It IS my Xmas present (bit skint round these here parts this year!). And I have to say, I did enjoy it. My flicks buddy (who is THE harshest critic in the world) enjoyed too. I have scored it 6/10, which is pretty good for me. And from a living room not so far away, I will explain my thinking......

...I went in to the film as blind as Chirrut Imwe! I like to insulate myself as much as possible from the media generally, so had no idea what the premise of the film was. So it took me a while to get my head round the story being pre-New Hope and not post-Force Awakens. There were some fab little references to guide me there tho. My favourite being the ugly alien who bumps into both Luke in the cantina in episode 4 and Jyn in the marketplace in Rogue One. Anyway, I spent the first 15 mins jumping too rapidly between too many moons, planets and prison colonies, until I settled in and felt I knew where I was, put my eagerness to catch up with Rey, Finn and Kylo, and committed to new characters.

ANd the characters were worth committing to. There were some great little scenes, and I was particularly struck by the dynamic of a team coming together and not knowing who was trustworthy, especially in Bodhi Rook (who was rather disappointingly only "mad" for about 10 minutes after the mind scan). I find Alan Tudyk's comic approach endearing in almost everything he does (best, of course, as Wash in the fabulous Firefly) and K-2S0 pretty successful as comic relief.

Action was the +++ for me. Donnie Yen's Chirrut did seem in some ways to have stepped out a completely different genre. But, let's face it, that guy can fight! He stole the fight scenes by a lightyear.

So, to CGI-ing actors back to their prime. Hm, it's v clever. But its cleverness maybe sometimes a distraction for me. Takes me out of the moment and just gets me imagining the high-fiving of the cunning buggers behind the scenes who pulled it off. Maybe the most distracting aspect though, in some ways, was that the plot, evidently, came from the single line in New Hope "Many Bothans died to bring us this information", It was a story well deserving of the telling, but from the outset could be nothing other than a death watch as we met, grew to like, then anticipated the varied demise of all of these new characters.

Lots of stock StarWars iconic images though. Lots of small scale and large scale action. A good old gantry scene always goes down well :-) A good Xmas pressie all-in-all.

Oh, and fyi: 5,7,4 my current order of preference.

Suzy6toes.

Docfoster

Colin, you appear to be acting as Forest Whitaker's "Saw Gerrera" character here...
:P
Thank you!
Suzy, 6/10 from you is probably more praising than a 7.9/10 from me...! So I'll take that as fairly praising. :-)
I'd forgotten the "I don't like you!" cantina alien cameo. =D>
I agree about the jumping of settings in the opening act. Not sure what that was all about. It seemed almost deliberately OTT. It didn't seem to matter, and I am easily confused / lost by anything more than the simplest plot.
Suzy, your bigging up of the action is I think the same point I made with regard to "evocative war scenes". I don't think I've seen Mr. Yen before, but his was one of the characters that engaged me. (Also his "Are you kidding me?! I'm blind!" was for me the 2nd funniest line of the film.)
You sound troubled by an alleged making a mountain of a movie out of molehill of a sentence in an intro-crawl. In answer I can only refer you to Family Guy's observations of The Death Star's previously inexplicable design flaw...

Spev

Has there ever been a film with Forrest Whitaker in where he doesn't die?  He must read scripts and just be waiting for his demise.   It's pretty clear Disney have got their claws in this one, far too heavy on the cheesy emotion.  Probably go with a 6 out ten as well.  Bummer for the cast - probably the only star wars film where there's no hope of any of them being in the sequel!

cj66

I actually can't stand Forrest Whitaker as an actor so am usually quite pleased when he's killed off! In fact I tend to avoid films he has a major role in. Haven't seen this yet so .......

Docfoster

Spev said:

Has there ever been a film with Forrest Whitaker in where he doesn't die?  He must read scripts and just be waiting for his demise.   It's pretty clear Disney have got their claws in this one, far too heavy on the cheesy emotion.  Probably go with a 6 out ten as well.  Bummer for the cast - probably the only star wars film where there's no hope of any of them being in the sequel!

Spev, thanks for that. Sounds like you feel Disney have spoilt things. How would you compare R1 with other Star Wars films?

Docfoster

cj66 said:

I actually can't stand Forrest Whitaker as an actor so am usually quite pleased when he's killed off! In fact I tend to avoid films he has a major role in. Haven't seen this yet so .......

Please give us a shout when you do!

Brumjam

I went last night to watch Rogue One at the IMAX in Brum.  Unfortunately my mate booked a 3D showing - when will the studios stop persisting with 3D films?  It just doesn't work.  The projector was akin to a CRT TV in comparison to the IMAX at Leicester Square.  The depth of field is entirely unconvincing whether you're focusing on the foreground or background - I'd rather have 2D with everything in focus thanks.  Anyway, I digress....

The film scores a 7 out of 10 for me.  I agree there was too much flitting between planets/solar systems in the first 20mins with not enough time spent in each location for my brain to keep pace.  Some of the airborne fight sequences were a little lengthy as well - like they were being used as stocking fillers in between the main plot-forming scenes.  I thought the last 30mins were rather excellent.  The fight sequence as the rebels battled to setup a comms link and retrieve the Death Star plans was fab.  You can never have enough 'storm troopers wading through water with AT-AT's being felled by rebel fighter' moments.

Great acting on the whole if a little soppy in parts.  Overall I felt it was darker/edgier than The Force Awakens - for some reason I keep expecting a stormtropper-esque Mickey Mouse to make an appearance now that Disney has its hands into the franchise.

The end scene could not have been more poignant given Carrie's untimely exit from this world.

Does anyone know the release schedule for the next films?  Please don't say it's 24 months away!

Docfoster

Release date is Dec 15th 2017. Possibly a couple of days later in the UK...?
Thanks for your thoughts. Also pleasing that I agree with your opinion on last 30 mins. Top notch action / war stuff.
In fact, your overall experience seems similar to my own from what you write. A kindred spirit!
Additionally I enjoy the way you sum up the general 3D experience. I saw The Force Awakens in 3D last year, and felt disappointment that the "3D" effect was still a bit shit.
I'm off for a 2nd viewing of Rogue One next Tues.

Docfoster

I took much enjoyment from my 2nd viewing today.
Also fair to say that my opinions seemed to polarise: I enjoyed the 2nd half of the film even more, but the 1st half slightly less. It felt a bit ponderous, and I could see even less need for Forest Whitaker's character. May be I just like my films to be single-track and efficient.
I paid particular attention to my reactions to the multiple settings in the opening half an hour or so. They made me feel a bit messy, disorientated and dispersed. I wondered whether that was the intendion of the film makers...? Perhaps to give convey the notion that the situation (especially with regard to the rebels) was yet to coalesce around the sense of strong cause provided by "hope". Further to that, I was left feeling a bit embarrassed that I hadn't on the first viewing picked up many of the the implicit and explicit references in the film to retaining faith and hope in one's core values / beliefs / purpose. Having latched on to these today, and given that I am an old softie generally, and love this franchise specifically, I sat with tears in my eyes for most of the last 45 minutes.
Finally, absolutely loved the Dath Vader rampage scene at the end. Realised that it's not only one of my top 10 Star Wars moments of all time, but one of my top 10 film moments of all time.
Probably would score the film slightly higher after a second viewing. Up an iota from 7.9 to an 8 or 8.1.
Current order of preference for the franchise is 5, R1, 7, 4, 6, 3, 1, 2.

Docfoster

Since typing that, it's occurred to me that:
1. I agree with Spev that R1 had more emotional content than previous Star Wars films (tho I'd disagree that it was "cheesy", I loved it :P )
2. CGI Tarkin bothered me much less on the 2nd viewing. Not sure why exactly. Tho I still think that it would have been better to avoid facial close-ups.

Spev

I'd like to give it a 2nd viewing as well, and no doubt will.  I'd agree with all the above that the first 20-30 mins felt aimless and confusing, and the characters not strong enough to hold interest.  I guess my issue with the increased emotional content is that the film starts to feel more like a big business templated audience manipulation machine than something of actual interest.

Docfoster

Spev said:

I'd like to give it a 2nd viewing as well, and no doubt will.  I'd agree with all the above that the first 20-30 mins felt aimless and confusing, and the characters not strong enough to hold interest.  I guess my issue with the increased emotional content is that the film starts to feel more like a big business templated audience manipulation machine than something of actual interest.

Regarding Forest's character, I was speaking to a friend the other day who said that originally Forest's character played a much larger part, but was heavily edited out.
Emotional content, well I'm a sucker for that I'm afraid. And, I quite enjoy being manipulated / stimulated I suppose, as long as it's done well enough, is safe and practically inconsequential, and focussed on feelings that I "enjoy" experiencing.
I've actually been relieved that Star Wars has retained a grown-uppedness about it through the Disney puchase. I'd actually go as far to say that to my mind, the 2 Disney Star Wars outings are less "Disney" than at least 4 of the previous Star Wars films.
I fully accept that I may be less cynical / more naive than you! 8->

cj66

OK, here we go....




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Docfoster

#-o

uglymusic

X_X

cj66

Finally got around to watching this.

What did I think of it? Hmmmmm, I quite liked the initial skip about the planets to tie the threads together, more was not needed as the story had little meat on its bones so this succint approach was on the money. The first half of the film seemed unnecessarily drawn out with not much to say. The characters had very little development which i suppose was OK as most were killed off anyway.
The standout character was "K" the robot! He also had the best line;
Security guard "Can we help you?"
K "That won't be necessary" bangs guard on head.
That made me chuckle!

I had feelings of the Dirty Dozen meets any vietnam war movie but with none of the panache that those have offered. The film generally was much faster moving than Force Awakens but lacked the presence that any of the SW films have had in the past.
Overall I found it had too much common ground from previous SW films, too many ideas obviously borrowed ideas from other films generally, poor scripting and lacked the weight of most SW movies that have preceded it. I was left at the end thinking that it had failed to properly entertain, which is my main requirement from any film, therefore, only a meagre score. I'd place it roughly even with Force Awakens but for totally different reasons.

Again, a disappointing outing.

Docfoster

Thank you, Mr Meldrew.

cj66

X( In full effect!