Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

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  • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

    I found Rogue One to be a boring and poorly made film. It also did not offend me as much as the The Force Awakens or the prequels, so I guess it has that going for it. But wow was it poorly made and I'm honestly shocked at the lack of craftsmanship and effort put into its production.

    First, I noticed the editing. There is a cut, probably on average, every two seconds in this film. One second, cut. Two seconds, cut. Two seconds, cut again. One second, quick cut. Three seconds, cut. One second, cut. Two seconds, cut. The entire film was like that, even when the pace was supposed to be slowing down. Jyn's father dies, the whole film stops and everything in the background disappears for thirty seconds so we can focus on this emotional father/daughter death moment, and yet still there were fifteen camera cuts in those thirty seconds. I can't even...

    From a directing and cinematography standpoint, this was also a very boring and uninteresting film to look at. Pretty much the entire movie consisted of someone just pointing the camera at the actors and recording them and their dialogue or action or whatever was going on. You can tell that not much more thought when into it than that. The camera was often too close to the characters, and there were times when the frame was cluttered and nothing was the focus of the shot at all. There were dozens of shots where the camera focused on something in the background, and then focused on something in the foreground. Focused on something in the foreground, then focused on something in the background. Again, the level of craftsmanship was extraordinarily low.

    And despite all of that, there's no doubt the script for this film was absolutely the worst part of all. The characters were so poorly fleshed out, so meaningless in many cases, many of their appearances contrived or not needed, while others who could have been great were left to die on the vine. Just an atrocious effort all around.

    The only caveat that I can offer is that the original vision for the film might have been much better, and maybe meddling and the reshoots screwed everything up, but I guess we may never find out.

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    • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

      Originally posted by entlassen View Post
      Is there a scene in this film where an Imperial engineer looks at the Death Star plans Mads Mikkelsen made for them and asks, "Hey why did you design an exhaust port that leads directly to our reactor?"
      Yes. It's a deleted scene where he explains it away by claiming it's a poop chute on the lavatories and the real imperial crime is that there aren't any handicap accessible toilets which is a big reason Darth has it out for the Death Star. It's rumored the real Darth dialogue in the choking scene was him questioning the guy regarding their absence. Then they just dubbed it to being some cheesy line about choking on ambition or something...
      You know Jill you remind me of my mother. She was the biggest whore in Alameda and the finest woman that ever lived. Whoever my father was, for an hour or for a month, he must have been a happy man.

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      • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

        I found the unconvincing CGI Peter Cushing and young Carrie Fisher characters to be distracting, not to mention creepy.

        I'd give the rest of the film a solid "meh." This is the first time I've ever been disappointed in a Forest Whitaker performance, however mildly. OTOH, I liked the blind guy. He should've had his own film.

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        • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

          Originally posted by UneducatedFan View Post
          Character depth was lacking "Oh dang, everyone dies but I don't feel a real emotional attachment to any of them".
          Even the the film itself didn't feel an emotional attachment to its own main characters. As soon as they died, the film didn't miss a beat or stop to reflect, instead rushing off to the Vader and Leia scenes to tie in for the next movie.

          Kind of a microcosm about what this film was about anyway.

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          • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

            Originally posted by Ven View Post
            Even the the film itself didn't feel an emotional attachment to its own main characters. As soon as they died, the film didn't miss a beat or stop to reflect, instead rushing off to the Vader and Leia scenes to tie in for the next movie.

            Kind of a microcosm about what this film was about anyway.
            It's a moot point now but I would have changed so many things. So many unanswered questions like why the blind guy is always being followed by the other guy. Why did the Pilot decide to defect? Why did he suffer pretty much no side effects from his brain sucking truth monster (seemed pointless)? What's the backstory of the co-pilot guy who's been fighting since he was 6?

            The whole Vader temple scene was a waste and I would have preferred to see him show up at the end.

            I would have preferred the film be about her being a criminal wanted by both the rebels and empire but she doesn't trust anyone and believes her father is dead and she does something stupid early on that puts her on the radar of both the empire and rebels, maybe her father escapes and sends the message that there's a weapon called the death star and it's sent to her but broadcast throughout the galaxy, then they both seek her, the rebels win finding her and bring her in and add her to an "elite" squad of rebels (their own suicide squad) that are tasked with finding her father and confirming whether the sent message is true. Her part is to help them find her and she takes them to Forrest Whittaker, etc. and during this, she needs to learn to trust those around her as they trust her. etc. etc.

            I've thought too much about it already....
            You know Jill you remind me of my mother. She was the biggest whore in Alameda and the finest woman that ever lived. Whoever my father was, for an hour or for a month, he must have been a happy man.

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            • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

              Peter Cushing cgi fest was uncanny valley to the max for me. It took me out of the movie. Why was he even there? His character was unnecessary.

              Did Peter Cushing's family get paid for his "performance"? How can they just put a dead guy into something like this without his permission?

              The movie should have used Darth Vader as the main villain. Krennic had nothing to do. Think how exciting it would be if Vader was chasing them? I was expecting a heist type of movie, where the rebels had to plan and face obstacles. Like go undercover in some Empire' meetup. Then get exposed. There's so much potential for suspense here. The Vader scene was great. I liked that it was in a closed location where those rebels could not escape. But think about how exciting it would be if the location where the plans were was also a closed location, like a cave. Then having Vader coming closer would be really scary.

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              • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                Originally posted by Bananos View Post
                Peter Cushing cgi fest was uncanny valley to the max for me. It took me out of the movie. Why was he even there? His character was unnecessary.

                Did Peter Cushing's family get paid for his "performance"? How can they just put a dead guy into something like this without his permission?

                The movie should have used Darth Vader as the main villain. Krennic had nothing to do. Think how exciting it would be if Vader was chasing them? I was expecting a heist type of movie, where the rebels had to plan and face obstacles. Like go undercover in some Empire' meetup. Then get exposed. There's so much potential for suspense here. The Vader scene was great. I liked that it was in a closed location where those rebels could not escape. But think about how exciting it would be if the location where the plans were was also a closed location, like a cave. Then having Vader coming closer would be really scary.
                Oh man. Now you've gone and done it. Now my imagination is having the "what coulda beens". I'm seeing the blind Jedi wannabe having his moment against Vader... no match... but maybe it buys just a few more seconds...

                "The Force is strong and the Force flows... GAH!"

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                • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                  Originally posted by ChadStrohl View Post
                  Oh man. Now you've gone and done it. Now my imagination is having the "what coulda beens". I'm seeing the blind Jedi wannabe having his moment against Vader... no match... but maybe it buys just a few more seconds...

                  "The Force is strong and the Force flows... GAH!"
                  Even that character-stituation was bungled. It's never really shown, after repeating that mantra for the whole time he's onscreen, that the dude actually taps into the Force (as we've seen and known it to be used in the other films) at the crucial moment he has to flip the Master Switch.

                  all the fighting he does with the staff is just the same really good kind of fighting that blind guys in every other kung-fu movie do with their staffs (Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury). so you never know if he's actually Force-gifted or just a crazy blind dude who happens to be really good at beating Stormtroopers with a stick because his other senses have developed to compensate

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                  • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                    Besides that, there were eleventy different characters in the movie who say "may the force be with you" or something like it, so the effect of his scene was diminished to the extreme.

                    Think back to the original Star Wars and there were believers and skeptics. All of the other force talk in the movie built to one exact moment:

                    Base: "Luke, you turned off your computer, what's wrong?!"
                    (everyone in the base freaks out)
                    Luke: "Nothing, I'm alright."

                    It's really sad how awful the writing is in so many films we see nowadays.

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                    • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                      Originally posted by JoeBanks View Post
                      Even that character-stituation was bungled. It's never really shown, after repeating that mantra for the whole time he's onscreen, that the dude actually taps into the Force (as we've seen and known it to be used in the other films) at the crucial moment he has to flip the Master Switch.

                      all the fighting he does with the staff is just the same really good kind of fighting that blind guys in every other kung-fu movie do with their staffs (Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury). so you never know if he's actually Force-gifted or just a crazy blind dude who happens to be really good at beating Stormtroopers with a stick because his other senses have developed to compensate
                      Wasn't the blind guy a "of the whills"? the original force users before the jedi, only with a more religious approach. Aside from that, he is certainly Zaitoshi put in star wars.

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                      • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                        Originally posted by Bananos View Post
                        Wasn't the blind guy a "of the whills"? the original force users before the jedi, only with a more religious approach. Aside from that, he is certainly Zaitoshi put in star wars.
                        That stuff was discarded and not considered good enough to be part of the original movies.

                        Someone else 40 years later: let's use it!

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                        • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                          Originally posted by Ven View Post
                          That stuff was discarded and not considered good enough to be part of the original movies.

                          Someone else 40 years later: let's use it!
                          When it comes to something like The Force, less is more, as it is supposed to be mysterious. All I'll say is midichlorians, and I'll drop the mic.

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                          • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                            Late to the party, got the DVD yesterday and watched it with good food -- which nearly got chucked at the TV! I would have been physically thrown out of a movie theater for the number of cat-calls I made as I watched this drek unfold. It really could've been something, y'know? Instead, the same wishy washy writing as The Force Awakens, dozens of missed opportunities for snappier dialogue and less stupid action and less banal characters. And that ending! So unsatisfactory on so many levels. BAH. There, I said it. Not that anyone cares. Certainly not the folks who are making these movies.

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                            • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                              Yeah, it didn't do much for me either. Lackluster story, seems all the good stuff from the trailer wasn't actually in the final cut, and the ending sucked.

                              The Vader scene at the end was kind of cool, but I can't tell if I think that because it actually was cool, or if because the rest of it kind of sucked that it just made this scene seem more awesome than it was.

                              Sort of like a starving person would probably think a can of SPAM was delicious, but only because he/she hadn't eaten in days.
                              "Tact's just 'not saying true stuff.' " - Cordelia Chase

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                              • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                                If you cut spam into thin slices, dip them in batter and fry 'em, they're delicious! All I wanted was some tasty batter...
                                ...or a spunky heroine who snatches the mic out of the idiot pilot's hand and yells, "OUR CALL SIGN IS ROGUE ONE. We're on a special mission for Lord Vader! Any more questions, direct them to him, you gorram Ewok!" (I watched it again, just in case I missed something on first viewing... that annoyingly weak scene stuck with me.)

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