Exactly.

I liked The Force Awakens though.

Re: Characters in R1. They're flat. The new characters introduced in The Force Awakens aren't. Yes, it's great if you have three movies to flesh characters out in, but as countless movies, including TFA, have shown, you can do it in one. Rogue One just didn't. If you have trouble making interesting characters, maybe don't include so many pointless ones. The only one I kinda felt I liked was Riz Ahmed's character, though the one part was pretty stupid (you know the one), but it's probably because I watched the show The Night Of recently where he plays the main character.

Another point that kinda pissed me off was how we got useless storm troopers again. In TFA they were actually menacing, DOING SHIT and all, and in R1 we're back to them being useless red shirts.

There are many deleted scenes and unused footage seen in the trailers. Also re-shoots and the original ending was changed. Can't wait for the blue-ray to see what we missed.

You don't need to flesh out all the characters so make it work. See the Dirty Dozen, a classic of cinema, with only 3-4 out of the 14 guys that go to the suicide mission that we really care in the end. Same with seven samurai (the leader, the comic relief and the badass outlaw).

I thought the characters acted real enough and the stakes were real. This wasn't really a film that focused on extensive character development. But with what they had, a two-hour film focused mostly on action and plot to drive things forward, they did well.



I didn't think it needed anything else. I thought the actors did a great job at humanizing those goals and making the characters seem real.

Saw it on Sunday and yeah, it's a little disappointing. Fun overall but the lack of well-developed characters really leaves me scratching my head afterwards.



But still, lots of stuff I liked



So yeah, good movie.. but just barely. I was a tad tipsy when I saw it, and I think it says a lot that what I'm gonna remember from the experience of seeing it for the first time isn't excitement of the adventure or being immersed in the world... but rather giggling at all the dumb, bad, shlocky or embarassing moments.
was REALLY REALLY funny so I got a lot of mileage out of that stuff as well. Gonna see it again over the holidays and hopefully appreciate it more.

I guess all the fanboys begging for a dark, gritty, desaturated Star Wars movie where everything is miserable and joyless got what they wanted in the end. Hoping episode VIII stays on track.

Don't want to derail but I need answers from all the TFA fans. How the fuck can you claim Rey developed as a character throughout the movie when her improvement went from "I don't believe in The Force, those are just storie" to "hey look I'm fling stuff only Jedi Masters should be able to do" in less than an hour of movie?

I think they are confusing 'developed characters' with the charisma and screen presence of the actors.

^This.

Well that's a big part of it too. The new generation in TFA killed it with convincing performances, charisma and comedy. In Rogue One, not so much, but I guess you could argue it's supposed to be a grimdark war movie so nobody in this story has significant charisma (therefore a stylistic choice).

But Rey and Finn absolutely had arcs to follow in TFA. Following the whole soft reboot concept, her arc is almost the same as Luke's. When we meet her she is alone, disenfranchised, abandoned. Not only are we told, this but shown it. We see her solitary life firsthand: collecting junk in the desert, playing around with her helmet/pilot stuff, selling barely enough scrap to Simon Pegg to scrape by. We witness firsthand her lifestyle and personality, and use that as a jumping off point for her eagerness to join the Resistance, adventure with Finn, look up to Han as a mentor, and finally defeat Kylo when the time comes. She joins a story bigger than herself (compared to the other major characters who were already involved with the good/evil story in some way) and crosses the threshold, leaving her previous, lonely life behind.

I don't see how her accomplishments with the force are anything out of the ordinary, considering Kylo (and maybe Snoke too?) acknowledges her power. There aren't hard set rules in the movies about how the Force works and who is allowed to accomplish what. Her abilities and victory over Kylo is simply the classic underdog story: the newcomer with moxie and passion is able to defeat the snooty, overconfident asshole at his own game.

But yeah, we don't get anything this rich or developed with Gyn or Cassian. They had lots of opportunities, sure.

So yeah, Rogue One feels like a movie consisting of nothing but BIG moments, sacrificing all the little moments that give the audience reasons to relate to the characters and feel significant emotion when they fail or succeed. Would love to watch it again and be proven wrong and realize I missed a million things, but we'll see.

Um...... well you don't just wake up one day and decide to start believing in the Force and them have enough knowledge and training to defeat a seasoned Jedi knigh. Or be able to mind trick people.

I know this is a bit of a cop-out, but I think the movies intend for us to wait for VIII & IX to explain more about Rey's character.

I went and watched it last night, and I liked it a lot better than Force Awakens. FA felt too much like a rehash, and the only characters I was fond of were Han and Maz. Yes, Rogue One is a bit more simplistic in some ways, but there's very few moments, perhaps Jyn and Saw meeting again as Exodus Attack mentioned, where I wanted a little more. Crennic's not quite Tarkin, but he still worked pretty well as a villain, and there's practically nothing about the last third or so that I'd change, and I was legitimately impressed at how well they were able to work in Tarkin and not toy with the continuity. A couple of posters have pointed out how the prequel trilogy made certain scenes and statements from the original odd or insensible while this flows quite neatly into New Hope and isn't too much of a bridge from Revenge of the Sith. All in all, it's not the best of the series, but it's definitely in the top half as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Stormtroopers sucking.

They didn't in TFA. They were menacing, and shown off in what I think was probably their intended role - not as badass shock troops, but as civilian population control. Looking back at history's fascist regimes, they don't exactly use commandos to oppress the masses. They use stuffed shirt thugs in shiny boots. That's what Stormtroopers are.

Also, in the OT the Stormtroopers were rarely allowed to go wild. In nearly every scene they were in they went up against the main characters, meaning they had to be ineffective, and in some cases were literally being deliberately bad (the Death Star in IV).

being a Star Wars fan since I was four, the First movie Star Wars (which wasn't called a New Hope until later) came out when I was two. So going back to the beginning of that story really excited me, since its always been my favorite part. I can tolerate the prequels, at least part 2 and part 3, Phantom Gayness I can not watch! I really liked The Force Awakens, yeah it was campy and predictable, but it really had that OT feel too it, that 70's sci-fi look. With Rogue One that feel was doubled and it really took me back to the OT! I loved the story and the characters. It was a breathe of fresh air, and it really played out more like a traditional movie, rather than a Star Wars movie. There was barley any camp or bad dialog, and it did A New Hope justice. I would watch this a million times over the Prequels because they just don't feel like Star Wars, Rouge One, however does.

Man, this was infinitely better than The Force Awakens. I'm not a big Star Wars guy and I thought TFA was fine for what it was I guess, but I genuinely really enjoyed this one. Unlike TFA, there weren't useless scenes, I never found the character's motivations unbelievable and this plot wasn't a rehash (you can only recycle a plot so much before it becomes more lazy than a cool homage). I liked how it was basically just a war movie for the most part, the last part was very WWIIish. There were also some pretty hilarious moments. Honestly, the best Star Wars movie I've seen. Oh, and it was awesome there wasn't some cheesy romance shoehorned in. You could definitely see where they could have put that in.

Just saw this tonight, myself. Thought it was pretty great, especially the third act and the ending. I don't really have anything new or interesting to add to the conversation, so I'll just leave it at that.

Every time somebody says that Rogue One is the best of all the Star Wars films, my heart breaks a little bit. Saw it for the second time and it's seriously lacking replay value. Watching Jyn in this is like watching a plank of wood for 2 hours. The more I think about this movie, the more I dislike it :/

I'd chalk it up to Gareth Edward's direction, he's definitely not an "actor's director". Rogue suffers the same problem as Godzilla; the action/monster delivery is on point, but the human element is wooden as fuck and straight boring.

Also RIP Carrie Fisher, I pray to god they don't shoehorn that awful CGI Leia into any future SW movies.

When all the answers are given from above, the world cannot be free... and the universe of Star Wars becomes small.

After a thousand Jedi stories, Jedis don't seem to be that special anymore. Remember: they were.

"if you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you could ever imagine" that could mean many things. It inspires fantastical imagery and has great meaning. However, it does not mean "if you strike me down I will become a powerful force ghost as told in Canon section 25e."

Seeing into the lost wonder of Star Wars again, makes it as Obi Wan says after Luke deflects three blasts of the test remote while unable to see them: "that's good. You've taken your first step into a larger world"

The OT is like "Alien" in one particular Aspect: The worlds are about what you see just as much as about how your imagination fills in the blanks about what you can't see and don't know. Filling in the blanks with additional material doesn't improve the experience because the story doesn't need the blanks to be filled and they contribute to the vastness of possibilities in the star wars universe: this vastness is lost when all the blanks are filled in by so called "official canon".

"I care" - Luke Skywalker, Star wars (1977)

In addition I'd like to say R.I.P. Carrie Fisher. Her greatest and most famous role will live on in the hearts of generations to come.

Nitpick here, but actually that was Carrie Fisher, rotoscoped onto a stand-in actress (whose hands we see) and a CGI background. I actually thought the technical aspects of putting those characters in the movie was phenomenally well-done. I hadn't really read anything about the movie ahead of time so had no idea either character was in it. Actually I wasn't 100% sure Peter Cushing was dead and was startled to see him in the movie. I kept thinking, "what the fuck, he's gotta be a billion years old by now..."

Anyway...I do agree that the characters are flatter than the characters in TFA, but for the most part that's fine since this movie's a one-and-done. It was only really problematic for me because their flatness made the early parts of the movie a bit dragging. The acting was also top notch, even if the characters weren't written as well as TFA's, so it's all just quibbles. The last act was fucking brilliant stuff. I really liked how Edwards tapped into that WWII sense of combat flow in this movie just as much as the OT and TFA did, adding even more of it in the ground combat scenes which were similar in feel to Hoth but even more intense. I just wish they'd had a bit more of an intense opening to the film and much of the ensuing plot advancement stuff and character establishment could have been more easily forgiven for its utilitarian feel. Looking forward to more Star Wars movies, for sure. So yeah, overall assessment is that, much like TFA, the movie is flawed but the fucking badassery of nearly everything about it basically makes none of those flaws matter all that much. Also if anyone has access to a 4D experience I think that it was a great way to watch this movie, though I'll probably watch it again soon in 2D.

Also the movie's been out for a fair while now, so I'm going to edit the thread title to alert would-be clickers that there are open spoilers starting on this page of the thread so that people don't have to bother with them anymore.

I saw it again too and liked it more this time. Super fun, kinetic action movie. It's not the best Star Wars but damn is it fun and awesome. Just a blast to watch.

One one hand, I'd say the first half isn't as good as the OT or VII, but at the same time, the Battle of Scarif is as close to Star Wars climax perfection as we've gotten so far. It's like they made a list of things that would be awesome in a final battle and started checking it off. That's why it's hard to say where I'd rate it. I'd say, if nothing else, it isn't as good as IV or V, but that's unfair to most movies to compare them to something like TESB.

Saw it yesterday. I liked it a LOT more than TFA.

I don't get the complaints about the characters. Jyn is a little generic I guess, but she's got some snark and seems more relatable than Rey, at least. Cassian is cool, probably one of the "darkest" protagonists in any Star Wars yet. And K2-SO is just awesome, my new favourite character. The Asian duo was cool too and had good chemistry. I do wish we had seen more of Mads Mikkelsen (especially because he was, ahem, damn fine looking in the movie xD).

In terms of plotting, this shits all over TFA. The pacing is a lot better (I honestly don't get the pacing complaints, it was perfectly paced for me). It successfully retcons the gaping plot hole (no pun intended) of why there was such a weakness in the Death Star. I also liked the "shades of grey" it had, how the Rebellion can be sketchy at times and not perfect goody two-shoes, and how it's the darkest Star Wars movie yet. Now there are some that argue "but SW has always been a good vs evil fairytale" and to this I say, sure, but Empire is still considered the best of the series, and it's the darkest one so yeah, QED.

And Vader was awesome. Missed the guy. Such a superior villain to the lame-ass Kylo Ren...

Very good! Glad you guys enjoyed it. And very happy to hear you say it shits all over TFA as I seem to remember there being some talk of one of us enjoying that movie. *cough cough not me*

I didn't think TFA was a very good movie, I just don't have the visceral hatred for it that you do because I'm not a Star Wars uber-nerd whining about "canon"

Ahhh, well, yeah. True on both accounts

Just watched it (and then went home and followed it up with A New Hope, the transition is seamless!)

It's a fantastic movie. Better than TFA due to the more interesting pacing and that it goes outside of the box a little bit as well. The desperation of their struggle was truly moving; a fantastic job was done in highlighting that.

And K2-SO is just the best. The Asian pair were awesome as well.

The only thing that bugs me about that movie is the obvious cliffhanger at the end (not a perfect ending since they 'lost' Han Solo to Boba Fett/Vader. Definitely doesn't feel as a complete movie (more like 75% of a good movie, the rest (25%) is divided all over Return Of The Jedi). At least the endings of Phantom Menace/Attack Of The Clones (sinister ending but nonetheless a definite ending to a movie)/A New Hope have everything pretty much wrapped up.

Revenge Of The Sith and Rogue One are in the same league as they roll directly into the next movie if you look at the chronologically, but I don't consider them have cliffhanger end scenes. The Empire Strikes Back and The Force Awakens endings have high dosages of cliffhanger; and I honestly hope that the TFA one was the last time we saw something like that. TFA needed something like Attack Of The Clones, so we at least have a sense of something 'huge' lurking in the background (a glimpse of base command of The First Order maybe ??). I get that for the nostalgia effect we had to see at least a tiny bit of Luke in TFA, but the ending to that movie comes literally MID SCENE. And since I have already seen leaked images of how they continue that same scene for the next movie, I already have my doubts about how they will make it esthetically look good (the fact that chances are high that this scene with Rey/Luke will be one of the first scenes in the movie while traditionally we need to have a space sot first in episode VIII. But I guess getting surprised is one of the best traits of being caught up in this entire Star Wars saga...

Nonetheless, Rogue One fits perfectly within the chronology of Star Wars (and has probably the best cinematically satisfying sci-fi scene of the last 10 years in those last 5 minutes); maybe this is just the beginning of many other great things to come, because if they did this then chances are high we can finally get a separate Star Wars movie for all the other things we've wondered for so long/or things we just wanna see on the big screen (What has Obi Wan been doing in the desert of Tatooine all that time / The Bothan spies getting the plans for Death Star II / the journey of young Boba Fett and his Slave I space ship since they have gone through quite some shit over the years by the look of it, or hell, surpise and give us a Star Wars story taking place right after Return Of The Jedi where the story picks up again with Boba Fett, and where we get to see a flashback of how he got out of that Sarlacc pit / the story of how Chewbacca and Han Solo met up/ they can even go way back to way before The Phantom Menace like this: Palpatine's back story and his relationship with Plagueis etc...). They have so many options available... Damn.. There will always be a lot of things to nag about Star Wars movie, but still it's Star Wars yall, who cares if they throw Star Wars movies every year from now, there's never enough Star wars

I'm really surprised to see the lukewarm/negative reaction to TFA. I think i'd rank it above Return of the Jedi, only beaten by New Hope and Empire. I get that retreading the plot points of the original Star Wars is a bummer.... but at the same time, it was kind of necessary for Abrams and crew to prove that they understand "what Star Wars is really about". It was very necessary for them to distance themselves from the prequels and return to the classic, adventurous, hero's journey style storytelling. The fact that the Ultra Death Star obliterated Coruscant and the Senate was a pleasant little nod to that

Now, if Episode 8 does the same thing and hits the exact same Empire beats... then you can color me disappointed. But for doing the soft reboot/semi remake thing that's all the rage now, it knocked it out of the park. The new series has been established, and if there's any justice the following movies will take it in a different direction. Personally, the extremely strong characters and well-paced emotion of TFA more than make up for the fact that it's a story we've already been told. They take the classic Star Wars foundation and make something new out of it.


Kylo Ren is nothing more than the Anakin Skywalker character of the prequels..but actually done right this time ;P

Kylo Ren is nothing more than the Anakin Skywalker character of the prequels..but actually done right this time ;P[/quote]

Even amidst all these mixed reactions about Kylo Ren, I can say this; the most dangerous villains are the mentally unstable and emotionally unbalanced ones. That's a trait Kylo Ren has inherited from Darth Vader/Anakin ( the RotS version of Anakin) and that's a good thing. Makes it the more interesting since you really don't know what to expect for the next movie(s): is he gonna get more and more evil until he's the ultimate villain, or will he have a moment of clarity like Vader at the end of Return Of The Jedi ? We just don't know... In either case he definitely won't be a standard evil mf like Tarkin/General Grievous/Krennick.

?? No it wasn't, only if you're creatively bankrupt. Then again this IS JJ Abrams we're talking about, so I guess he had no choice...


I don't see how he's "done right". He's got a better actor than Anakin did, but that's about it. He's about as insufferable and lame as Anakin was.

I like Kylo Ren, he's an unstable little piece of shit. I think they can build an interesting arc with him. What's the point of having an established evil force of Sith like Darth Vader or the Emperor were. Adam Driver is an incredible actor too.

I think TFA, despite the remake thing, is a fine movie and doesn't deserve vitriolic hatred at all. I mean, it's super safe, often cute and pleasing to watch. We didn't need to re-establish anything though and I hope episode VIII will be a bit more original and out there. To be honest, I'd be fine with 2 hours of BB8 rolling around in the desert anyway!

I love Kylo Ren. I think he's a very interesting villain, a Dark Jedi struggling with the temptation of the light side instead of the other way around as usual. It's cool to see a bad guy who is struggling and unsure of himself. His arc into a terrifying and capable villain, and probably into a redeemed Jedi who probably dies will be really cool to see.

On paper that sounds like a great character, but I hate how whiny, bratty and lame he is. You can have a struggling/conflicted villain who's also, you know, competent and scary.

We've had this debate before but Kylo Ren rules. His whiny baby bully aspects give him this extra aura of dangerousness. He's like Eric Harris with the Force or something.

Yeah he's super dangerous in his own immature way. I wouldn't be surprised if they make him even more deranged in the next one. I mean he killed his dad, got shot by Chewie's fucking laser crossbow and got his ass kicked by a complete noob, I'm sure he'll be fucking pissed.

Well that's half the point, isn't it? We get this badass build up where he's kicking ass and taking names, slaying Max von Sydow and scorching earth. And when he confronts Rey and takes off his mask... he's a big lovable wimp! It's all a facade, a big front put on to hide the fact that he's in way over his head. Especially in that moment when him and Rey have their first force-off and she realizes "you're scared... that you'll never be as cool and badass as Darth Vader!!" and he gets this terrified "BWAAAH???" look like she just read his diary out loud

He's got all this power without nearly as much discipline as Vader. He's a total brat that you love to hate. You get the feeling that he has no idea what he's doing, and is just trying to keep up appearances and save face with the First Order because he's in too deep. I loved that weird moment before the final fight with Finn and Rey where he's hitting himself in the chest?? Like he's bleeding and scared and desperately trying to pump himself up?? Love yourself, man!

Compare that to Anakin, who was never really humanized in that way. He just gets this hamfisted, impossible love story so he has an excuse to turn evil in the next movie. He was pretty much a bad egg from the start (hating Obi Wan, slaying the sand people, executing count dooku), so when he betrays the Jedi you're just kinda like... well no shit! Both him and Kylo are whiny brats, but Kylo genuinely evokes feeling of sympathy and disgust, whereas Anakin just makes you groan and hope for the scene to end already. Adam Driver really steals the show in every scene he appears in, can't wait to see how much of a dick he is in future movies.

EDIT: random nitpick plot hole I just remembered: we're told that Krennick and Galen design and build the Death Star some 10 years before Rogue One (about the time between the opening scene to when Jyn is older.) BUT...according to the prequels, it was already in construction during the events of Revenge of the Sith! Hell, the plans for the Death Star was already in place at the end of Attack of the Clones. That's what Count Dooku's Wild Ride on the speederbike thing at the end of the movie was about, right? Delivering the plans for the death star? Apparently there's like 25 years between that scene and Rogue One/A New Hope, so I guess we just assume that Galen was able to sneak in the flaw to the design towards the end of it's construction? Unlikely, but hey...

Just more evidence that the prequels are non-canon now?

I'm probably about to mix up a whole bunch of Legends/Canon here, but the main explanation is that Krennic and Galen's work was not on the Death Star itself, but on the superlaser which they couldn't get to work properly in all that time. When Galen figured that out, he snuck in the weakness of the reactor core being incredibly fragile. The Death Star itself was all ready to go.

Also, as far as it construction time, I don't remember if this is Legends or not now, but the Death Star shown at the end of RotS is a prototype Death Star, and the actual one shown in IV is built later. This was their attempt to explain why it would take 20 years to build the first but about 2 to get the second mostly finished.

Yes, there was one scene in the trailer in which you could see Jyn Erso at the top of the comm tower walking toward a tie-fighter that was there to pick her up. I assume that they must have made some kind of alternate ending in which she survives with one of the other guys, probably Cassian Andor.

I really enjoyed the movie myself! It was great and probably took the third spot in my favorite Star Wars movies after The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars (1977).

If I had to rank all the movies it would now have to look something like this:
Empire
Star Wars
Rogue One
Return of the Jedi
The Force Awakens
Revenge of the Sith
Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones

If you look at the woman they cast for the role of Leia in Rogue One, you can tell they didn't have much work to do with her face to make her look like young Carrie Fisher. I'm unsure as to if they even needed any kind of CG to make her look like Fisher so much.