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.
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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