If only Palpatine knew of Vader’s deep hatred of sand, he would have made him build his fortress on Tatooine. Just imagine how different that would have made the franchise!
But yeah, Yoda and Obi-Wan’s plan had a lot of problems from the get-go, and this was clear even in the OT, where they kept leaning on Luke to kill Darth Vader, and kept some fairly relevant information from him, leaving him to get blindsided by Vader when he decided to reveal the nature of their relationship. The dudes don’t have flawless judgement, and that’s pretty central to the prequel trilogy as well.
I had a thought today (yeah, it hurt): Chirrut (blind monk) liked to use a blessing that went “May the Force of others be with you!” At first I just figured it was a nice little twist to a well-known phrase to show how big the universe, that even familiar things have variations throughout the galaxy, but it occurred to me that it can be taken alternately to mean that he’s literally wishing the Jedi’s protection on the other person (since the Jedi use the Force, while the Guardians of the Whills merely follow a religion based around it and protect the Temple), or more generally he’s saying that he hopes the other person benefits from the help/support of others (friends, family, comrades-in-arms thrown together by the scriptwriters, whatever have you).
I’ll try to add my 2¢ rather than just restate what others have said.
I find the different takes on the two CGI characters interesting. It’s almost as if we were seeing different prints of the same movie. (OK, I guess we actually were, but I hope you can see what I’m trying to say.)
I was pretty sure Cushing was dead, and assumed it was a CGI resurrection. I thought it was well-done, but not completely believable. It did take me out of the movie in that every time he appeared onscreen I was studying his face and pretty much missed whatever he was saying — but I don’t mind that, somehow.
CGI Leia, to me anyway, looked like crap. I’m not a gamer, but I’d guess she looked like video game characters did five years ago. If she’d stayed completely still it probably would have been passable, but when she spoke and then smiled — or tried to smile, anyway — I cringed. That said, I think what they did was preferable to only shooting her only from behind (which was what I’d thought was going to happen) or using another actress altogether.
As for the everyone-dies thing, my daughter’s first comment upon leaving the theater was to plaintively wail, “They deserved better.” I agreed with her then, but having slept on it, I think there’s a kind of beauty in having had everyone give their all for the cause.
ETA: Lest anyone get the wrong impression, she wasn’t traumatized or anything. She’s 13, she understands the concept of fiction, and the plaintive wail was acting. But it shows that I wasn’t the only one who cared about at least some of the characters.
“We are speaking Rigellian, which coincidentally sounds exactly like English.”
-Kang and Kodos, The Simpsons
At some point you have to accept the conceit that many of the Earth terms are describing something that is roughly equivalent in a galaxy far far away. A “falcon” is a large bird of prey (well…large by Earth standards.) A “saber” is a sword used for slashing and thrusting. A “corvette” is a small, fast warship. A “hammerhead” can refer to any creature or ship with a wide head in the shape of a common tool used for pounding stuff. For all we know, Luke, Han, Leia and all the other humans aren’t speaking English. They may not even be homo sapiens. They are just presented that way so that we can relate to them.
Otherwise you just get a bunch of CGI characters speaking gibberish the entire time.
I thought it was amazing. This movie really worked as a proof of concept for how they can pretty much do any part of this universe’s history and make it work.
I really think they should take the opportunity to revisit the prequels, which I guess having a young Han Solo does. Lots of opportunities for cameos or even prequel characters to get involved. Much as the prequels are dlsliked, they are apparently still canon(especially with Jimmy Smits appearing in Rogue One), and good movies set in that period can help redeem that trilogy. I don’t mean remake them of course, just movies set during that period. I’d love a Mace Windu movie.
The movie was OK, for what it was. Enjoyable in parts.
What really struck me was the CGI Peter Cushing. Wasn’t expecting that, and I found it startling and amazing. I wonder if his family had to give permission for that, and how they felt seeing him on the screen?
That may be the best comment you can make about the film. Your daughter saw (though it was fiction) that sometimes people have to make choices where the outcome isn’t fair, that they deserved better, but they had to make the sacrifice for the benefit of many.
Kind of what most all WW2 films depict. Which Rogue One felt like to me.
Which is a good thing.
I didn’t believe that they were really going to go through with killing everyone until the shockwave was approaching the last two folks. I can’t even begin to imagine what that pitch meeting was like that led to the Disney execs OKing an ending like that. Seriously stupendous.
But my favorite part of the whole movie? The explosions. Sparks flying everywhere, as if ILM just picked up the special effects manual from 1977 and rolled with it. This is a movie that stands with the original trilogy and elevates - something I didn’t think was possible. Blows Force Awakens out of the water, IMO. Not even a contest.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
To orient yourself: Expect a scene at the end of Rogue One that will immediately lead into the beginning of the first Star Wars (Ep IV, A New Hope).
[/QUOTE]
Just before Episode III was released, I didn’t so much predict this as thought it should have happened. I wanted the last scene of Episode III to be the first scene of Episode IV. Rogue One sates me in that regard.
Yeah, stuff blew up real good in this one. Sci-fi explosions are kind of a hobby horse for me: it always bothers me in a movie or video game with lots of space combat the way ships that are shot down just sort of disappear in a flash of light, like they’re constructed of flash paper, or something. I liked how often in Rogue One a destroyed ship didn’t transform into sparks and burning gasoline, but instead turned into a burning multi-ton wreck still traveling at a high velocity. The best little detail like this was when the X-Wings darted through the shield gate just before it closed - when the last couple don’t make it in time and hit the shield, you can see the wrecks skitter across the energy field for a split second before it cuts away.
Their plan worked very well - send a few people in disguise to sneak around, then start setting off bombs to get all the stormtroopers out of the main fortress. Sure, it fell apart at the end, but there’s only so much you can do. Sneaking all 25ish rebels into the fortress wouldn’t have worked nearly as well.
Gareth Edwards said they did plan to allow some to live because they also figured Disney would not allow everyone to die. They told Disney and Disney agreed that it would make sense for all of them to die. So they did. And they never received a note from Disney to change that aspect of the movie.
Disney is really handling Star Wars really well. I don’t think Rogue One is a perfect movie, but Disney did not screw it up. In fact, it’s possible their suggestions for reshoots improved the movie. We’ll never know now, I guess.
SWMBO and I just got back from seeing Rogue 1. This is an excellent movie, fits right into the canon between Episodes 3 and 4. It answered a big question; I’ll leave finding out what the question is as an exercise to the reader. I don’t want to give out any spoilers.
One big mystery for me is why the awesome shot of the TIE figther just coming up in front of Jyn wasn’t included. I’m guessing that there was no outcome to that situation that would have been plausible that didn’t involve Jyn dying right there, but it sure was an amazing shot.
My WAG is that Crennic originally died somewhere else, and they decided to tighten things up by making him the thing that menaces Jyn on the tower, instead of the TIE.