# Rogue One is on Netflix **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 5, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855 "2017-08-05T17:41:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gordon\_Urquhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/41 "2017-08-15T19:21:39Z")
> [@Marlonius](#): > > I’ve contemplated why Tarkin looked wrong to me and I can’t put my finger on it, but I have a theory. I know they did motion capture on the actor’s face and translated his muscle movements as he spoke/emoted to the CGI model’s movements. Perhaps the actor doesn’t move his face when he talks the same way that Peter Cushing did, which threw it off. The motion capture was based on key points on his face, say 50-100 of them. A real person’s facial movements are much more analogue and so even if the digital resolution of the image was good, the digital resolution of the movement was not. In any case, it didn’t look good to me. I saw _Rogue One_ a couple of times in the theater and then again just last week to test our new TV and Netflix’s HD streaming. Neither Tarkin nor Leia looked especially realistic to me upon my first viewing in the theater, and I was somewhat surprised that people (not knowing, perhaps, that Cushing had been dead for more than two decades and Fisher, while still alive at the time of _Rogue One’s_ filming, looked nothing like she did in 1977) thought they were real people. To me, the eyes are an immediate giveaway. Humans (and many other mammals) perform a lot of emotive communication with their eyes, eyelids and brows. It’s why, until Spider-Man’s appearance in _Captain America: Civil War_ and his own \*Homecoming \*movie, superheroes and villains with masks that cover their face spend a good time of their movies with their masks off or partially damaged so the audience can see their eyes and overall facial expressions. In print, comic book artists can draw the emotional expressions in the masks (look at what Batman does with his eyes and eyebrows behind a supposedly rigid mask, for instance), but that can’t be easily translated to the screen (until Spidey and, to a lesser but still impressive extent, Deadpool). While the CGI Tarkin and Leia are light years better than the dead-eyed CGI folk in, say _The Polar Express_ (2004) and \*Beowulf \*(2007), there’s still a long way to go. In _Rogue One’s_ case, simply reducing the size of the CGI characters’ eyes by maybe 5 percent would’ve helped a lot. Tarkin also moved very stiffly (Leia’s character didn’t walk around); as it was, though, both were a little too close to a Margaret Keane production to be realistic. In the video comparing the digital Tarkin to the real one linked above, you can see that just the coloration in the area immediately adjacent to Cushing’s eyes in the original is incredibly complex, because it’s natural and organic – CGI can’t quite capture that effect, let alone what the eyes and muscles around the eyes can do. Based on the improvements in CGI facial characteristics in the last 10 years, though, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to be completely fooled by an entirely CGI character in another five years or so. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/42 "2017-08-16T02:09:53Z")
Dreadfully bad movie. I just hope Peter Cushing’s family (if he had one) got some money from Disney using his image. Every Star Wars movie since “Return” manages to be worse than its predecessor ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/43 "2017-08-16T02:18:52Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Dreadfully bad movie. I just hope Peter Cushing’s family (if he had one) got some money from Disney using his image. Every Star Wars movie since “Return” manages to be worse than its predecessor You’d rank them from best to worst like this? Phantom Menace AotC Revenge of the Sith The Force Awakens Rogue One Wow. I’d rank them(from best to worst): The Force Awakens Revenge of the Sith Rogue One AotC Phantom Menace ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/44 "2017-08-16T02:21:41Z")
The Cushing wasn’t bad except for being a bit dark. The Leia was incredibly bad and unrealistic. I couldn’t believe it made the cut. That being said, Rogue One was a perfectly fine movie. ---
**Author:** ![Art\_Rock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/art_rock/32/525_2.png) [@Art\_Rock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Art_Rock)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/45 "2017-08-16T04:44:47Z")
Saw it on DVD (from the library) this weekend. Gave up after half an hour. It totally failed to get me interested. ---
**Author:** ![ganthet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@ganthet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ganthet)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/46 "2017-08-16T06:41:44Z")
> [@Art\_Rock](#): > > Saw it on DVD (from the library) this weekend. Gave up after half an hour. It totally failed to get me interested. The most interesting character in the film who had the strongest on-screen motivation, Galen, was barely in the movie. Galen, or Jyn in Galen’s position as chief scientist and played by an older, more distinguished actress, should have been the main character so that there could have been an actual internal conflict to go along with the external one. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/47 "2017-08-16T13:05:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Marlonius** : > > I’ve contemplated why Tarkin looked wrong to me and I can’t put my finger on it, but I have a theory. I know they did motion capture on the actor’s face and translated his muscle movements as he spoke/emoted to the CGI model’s movements. Perhaps the actor doesn’t move his face when he talks the same way that Peter Cushing did, which threw it off. There might be something to this. To the people who thought Tarkin looked wrong, was it that he didn’t look like Cushing, or that he didn’t look like a person? Leia, I did wonder about (though her appearance was too brief for me to reach any conclusions), because I’m more familiar with her, but I was never particularly invested in Tarkin, nor in any of Cushing’s other work, so I didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/48 "2017-08-16T17:28:47Z")
> [@Art\_Rock](#): > > Saw it on DVD (from the library) this weekend. Gave up after half an hour. It totally failed to get me interested. I have a feeling people feel this way because, despite what the screen says at the beginning, Rogue One is not a _Star Wars_ movie. It’s a straight-up war movie along the lines of the Dirty Dozen. Meanwhile Force Awakens is just a weak remake of the original Star Wars. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/49 "2017-08-16T18:01:44Z")
I liked the movie, but both Tarkin and Leia fell into the Uncanny Valley for me. Better if they had recast Tarkin, and just showed Leia from behind, using the one-word soundbite from Carrie Fisher. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/50 "2017-08-16T23:13:40Z")
When I saw it, at the end, I was actually thinking “So are they just going to show Leia from behind?”, and was then a little surprised when they showed her face. At which point I started thinking to myself “Huh, I wonder how they did that”, and roll credits. Which makes me think that making the first shot of her from behind like that was the wrong choice, because it distracted me by causing me to think outside of the movie. Granted, I wasn’t distracted for very long, but you probably still don’t want your audience’s last thought as the movie is ending to be distracted. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/51 "2017-08-16T23:57:28Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > You’d rank them from best to worst like this? > > Phantom Menace > AotC > Revenge of the Sith > The Force Awakens > Rogue One > > Wow. > > I’d rank them(from best to worst): > > The Force Awakens > Revenge of the Sith > Rogue One > AotC > Phantom Menace Rogue One wasn’t _bad_, it just mostly bored me. I’ve watched it three times and I still barely remember anything other than the Vader slaughter at the end, which was awesome. The Force Awakens looked great and maybe even \*was \*great for the first half. But it took me 6 viewings to realize I do in fact hate hate hate it as a whole. I don’t remember anything much about the prequels except that i don’t need to see them again. The original trilogy I still watch fairly regularly, Empire of course being the best. So best to least: Empire New Hope Jedi . . . Rogue One . . . Force awakens … . . . . . Who cares what order the last 3 are in. ETA: as for Tarkin, I barely remember him in Rogue One, so I certainly don’t remember any issues with the CGIedness. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/52 "2017-08-17T00:06:45Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > Rogue One wasn’t _bad_, it just mostly bored me. I’ve watched it three times and I still barely remember anything other than the Vader slaughter at the end, which was awesome. K-2SO had his moments. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855/53 "2017-08-17T00:20:11Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > K-2SO had his moments. I…I don’t even remember…was that the reprogrammed droid? I may have had a few titters, I guess. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rogue-one-is-on-netflix/792855.md?page=2)