Regarding the “Imperial Flags flying above” line…it was in the movie, and said by Saw Gerrera. I remember because I remember the response which was Jyn saying “It makes no difference if you don’t look up at them”
I think the lack of additional female alliance characters makes perfect sense. It had to be made that way. It had to match the Alliance shown in 1977, and Leia was the only female showed. I’ve read people saying “Holy Shit that Vader scene was amazing…but it doesn’t match his fighting style against Kenobi” Most of the people in the fighters were either made up, or actual footage of the characters from the 70’s. If there were a bunch of females and then suddenly none in Star Wars…it wouldn’t match up.
I seem to remember when Krennic was talking to Vader, (and I’ve now come to agree that this was most likely Mustafar…reason why they wouldn’t show the name of the planet was because it would spoil the Vader reveal in the tank) Krennic stated the test was a success. Vader responded saying something like “No…There was no test, it was reported as an accident at one of the facilities.” So who knows how many people in the Empire even know about the Death Star
Who is the Han Solo like character? It can’t be Cassian Andor, he is the exact opposite of Han Solo. He sacrificed his values for the greater good…while Solo was so laid back about everything he had no interest in being a Rebel, and spent his life avoiding the conflict. He expected to be well paid.
It doesn’t matter…as stated, it was a call back to the “Help Me Obi Wan Kenobi” message from Episode 4. “General Kenobi…years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars”
After digesting it overnight i think my only real complaint about the movie is with the Rogue One itself. The ship was very uninspired, without any distinctiveness charm or personality. It was even a downgrade from the OT imperial transports. They can’t all be Millennium Falcons, but they could have at least put some effort into it.
Mrs. Mahaloth and I saw it with our 6 and 8 year olds.
Good. Not amazing or even great, but really good. Not bad by any means, but never rose to greatness for us. We did like it though. We might even like it more on DVD, etc. Time will tell.
Fine for a 6 and 8 year old in our family, and we have very sheltered kids. However, it was a bit too talky for them. They did enjoy it, though.
On the topic of ship design, I do enjoy the ongoing effort to make sure new ship designs fit with the existing universe by sharing certain design elements. The Imperial fighters that Blue Squadron got into a dogfight with over the Imperial Base were clearly relatives of the TIE Fighter, but with their own unique design. Ditto the AT-ACTs clearly being close relatives of the big AT-AT walkers from Empire Strikes Back.
Rogue One (the ship) was a bit bland, but it clearly bore a relation to other Imperial shuttles we’ve seen, to include the bog-standard two-wings-and-a-tail design and Krennic’s own Pyramid-esque shuttle. Kylo Ren’s shuttle in The Force Awakens also appears to be related, though it omits the vertical tail in favor of bigger folding wings.
And then you have the Rebel Alliance’s U-Wing (I had to look that up, that’s the swing-wing shuttle the Rebels haul around in when they’re not stealing Imperial transports), which clearly is related to the X-Wing fighters, and by extension the more advanced X-Wings in TFA and the Hex-Wings flown by the Clone Pilots in Revenge of the Sith.
I liked it quite a bit. It ended pretty much exactly as I envisioned but I didn’t mind that (in the sense that I knew all the major characters would die and it would transition into the beginning of Star Wars). Some thoughts:
I enjoyed all the cameos from ANH. It was also a nice touch that they made a point to show Red 5 getting blown up leaving the so open for Luke. The one exception is it felt a little weird seeing R2 and CP0 at the Yavin base.
I have to admit I did not expect an all out rebel attack and Space Battle. I excepted something much more cloak and dagger from beginning to end. From the clues dropped in A New Hope what I envisioned the plans would have been on Coruscant (or somewhere else Leia would realistically have been). They were beamed to her ship surreptitiously but Vader finds out. She takes off heading to Alderaan. Vader gives chase and catches up. Leia calls an audible and sees tatooine is nearby so decides to head there to dump the plans with Ben. I didn’t expect a huge fight with a fleet of Rebel ships etc. but it was still pretty awesome to see.
Another Nitpick, since I’m nitpicking, I find it heard to believe the Empire would have needed to torture Leia and let the Falcon escape to find the Rebel base when they had just captured their flagship. Seems like they cold gleaned that info from the ship’s data banks or something.
To get back to the positive, it was also interesting to see the Empire in action and a taste for what it is like to live under its rule. In the original Trilogy you saw very little of the empire’s rule over the populace (in fact I always find it funny when the Stormtroopers are searching for the droids in Mos Eisley the commander says “If the door’s locked, move along to the next one.” What kind of oppressive regime says that? :)). Here the disregard for day to day citizens is on display.
One thing that bugged me late in the film was when they were going on about the Rebel Fleet and the Rebel Ships. Started to sound like a brand rather than a description.
This actually fits with my modern Navy experience – every US Navy ship has a ship/information destruction procedure, for use just in case the ship is captured by the enemy – it’s easy to believe that Rebel ships would have easy self-destruct capability on their databanks for similar reasons (it’d be criminally incompetent, militarily speaking, not to do so, in fact).
Especially since we actually see the Rebels pulling data from the ship’s databanks briefly before the film turned into a horror film. It’s not hard to imagine that they purged the system after pulling what they needed.
It was good to see Vader and have him be similar to the Vader from ANH, versus the overly choreographed Jedi/Sith garbage from the prequels. This Vader was just a brute. Again, great to see.
I also really liked the rest of the actors and their characters and the dialogue. Not really many (any?) plots holes that pulled me out of the film, unlike TFA, which for me is unwatchable dreck after the second viewing.
I just saw it, and just skimmed the thread, so apologies if this was mentioned. But did anyone else think that the costumes on the rebels at the end looked like the uniforms worn by WWII soldiers? The helmets in particular looked familiar. And I was amused by the robotic tape backup system that seemed to occupy an entire skyscraper.
Yep, I noticed the rebel helmets and how they had a bit of a GI feel to them (though that may have just been the loose chin strap so common in WWII movies).
You beat me to it. I loved the movie but felt this was the biggest hole - there’s no way they evacuated the whole ship, and even if they did, there would be enough information on it to be traceable to the Yavin base.
I loved the space battle at the end - would have liked to see more of a capital ship vs capital ship battle to see how well a Mon Calamari cruiser could fend off Star Destroyers, but it was good.
My opinion of its kid-friendliness is if a young kid was really upset by the end of TFA (or Sith or dead ROTJ ewoks), skip this one for now and wait till they get older, or at least till you can watch it at home on dvd to talk them through it, push pause and take a break.
My kid was a mess, but wasn’t traumatized… just barely.
I knew no spoilers going in and I took a chance on it being PG 13. I don’t regret it, but I’m not going to enthusiastically encourage it for all kids still in elementary school.
I hated it. Can’t think of more than 60 straight seconds of “good movie”. Everything fell flat.
I was so bored, I even made a list. Some may be too nitpicky, but it just kills the fun, for me.
I saw it in 4D, not even that made it good.
Battles/Soldiers: I simply can no longer watch laser-armed soldiers with futuristic weapons marching like Napoleonic soldiers or at most, WWII. How does any soldier no get killed by aiming technology? The tank-through-the-narrow-streets, à la Private Ryan, is just silly. also, at some point they want to take cover behind some sand.
Goggles: I’m really going to go on a murder rampage if I see a single more character with useless goggles.
Aside from specifically “colorful” characters, everyone is dressed in beige/brown/gray/black.
Blind Asian mystic?
Apparently, putting lights on the ceiling is impossible.
When Jyn is captured in a slave/prisoner transport, she’s clean, hair is combed, clothes are good.
Moffat’s CGI was really bad. Leia’s was OK.
The whole space-shield thingy is idiotic.
The scene when Jyn becomes the leader of the rebel Rebels is too tired.
Storm Troopers missing in close-quarters is just ridiculous. I know it’s part of the movie, but there’s a scene where Cassian is runnign down a narrow street and four or five storm troopers shoot and they all miss.
AT-AT and AT-ST, which look great, are amazingly stupid combat vehicles.
I know it’s part of the “retro look”, but there is so much technology that would be dated today, that it is annoying. Screen suck, the guns have unnecessary shapes, binoculars with less zoom than my P&S camera, transmissions that have glitches for no apparent reason.
…
and some more, but you get the gist.
I’ll never watch a Star Wars movie in the cinema again. Two lemons in a row, cuz TFA also sucked, is enough.
