Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

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  • #91
    Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

    Originally posted by sixridgeroad View Post
    Exactly -- "when you're used to privilege equality feels like oppression."
    Depends on if you want tell a story or make a political statement.

    I don't like in your face "message" movies, even when I agree with the message.

    Blatant propaganda is not entertainment.
    Last edited by StoryWriter; 12-28-2016, 08:01 AM.
    "I just couldn't live in a world without me."

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    • #92
      Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

      Originally posted by StoryWriter View Post
      Depends on if you want tell a story or make a political statement.

      I don't like in your face "message" movies, even when I agree with the message.

      Blatant propaganda is not entertainment.
      Nor do I, and there is no overt political message/sermonizing in Rogue 1.
      Last edited by sixridgeroad; 12-29-2016, 06:26 AM.

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      • #93
        Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

        I liked Rogue One way more than TFA. I liked the serious tone. And how they killed all the heroes, showing a great sacrifice went into trying to defeat the Empire. I hope more Star Wars films take a darker and more serious tone.

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        • #94
          Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

          Originally posted by sixridgeroad View Post
          Nor do I, and there is no over political message/sermonizing in Rogue 1.
          Good.

          I liked the first Star Wars (I don't know anyone who didn't). I lived in Oxnard, CA, when it was released -- around 70 miles from LA -- in the age of limited reels. It seemed like it took three or four months before it made it that 70 miles to Oxnard.

          I didn't really care much for the next two -- everyone started getting related to everyone else and there were the damn Ewoks. Really? Walking Teddy Bears?

          I haven't seen any of the newer ones.

          I think it was the late or middle 90s when they re-released the original Star Wars, so I took my young sons. I remember it bugged the hell out that Lucas dinked around with it.

          But my youngest son and my daughters like the newer ones, so they probably weren't made for old farts like me, after all.
          "I just couldn't live in a world without me."

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          • #95
            Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

            Rogue One was pretty decent. My limited 2cp.

            CGI is getting better but Tark still looked CGI and not real.

            Dialogue was a bit "Meh".

            Character depth was lacking "Oh dang, everyone dies but I don't feel a real emotional attachment to any of them".

            The music sucked. Made an effort to see if classic Williams themes made it in and there were a couple of instances but the rest of the score was just meaningless repetitive notes.
            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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            • #96
              Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

              Finally caught up with this yesterday and thought it was a solid and entertaining SF flick - as I expected - but pretty forgettable once I left the theatre. My only criticism is that it was a bit too ernest and lacked humour.
              TimeStorm & Blurred Vision Book info & blog: https://stormingtime.com//

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              • #97
                Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                Originally posted by LauriD View Post
                [SPOILERS BELOW, BTW....]






                Thinking about why I loved TFA and hated this...

                I know the TFA script had "issues." (Seriously? the MacGuffin is a map to Luke Skywalker? Which someone created because...??? And the third act battle is just a repeat of New Hope.) But somehow I didn't care.

                For one thing, I found the main actors in TFA wonderfully appealing. Didn't care for any of the ones on Rogue.

                For another thing, we saw the main characters in their "ordinary lives" at the start of the story in TFA (just as in New Hope).

                In Rogue, we see Jyn already in prison. We don't know what she's done or why. OK, we know her mom got shot and she lost her home and we feel bad for her... but we don't know who she IS in her ordinary life. We don't have any particular reason to like her or find her interesting or want to spent time with her.

                Compare to Luke (stuck on the farm, wants to go to the Academy, lives with his aunt and gruff uncle, nice, responsible but dreamy, romantic (falls in love with princess on first view)) -- there's a lot we know within 10 minutes of meeting him.

                Compare to Rey -- a scavenger, brave, resourceful, hand-to-mouth existence, saves a droid, even when she could cash it in for food she needs ("pat the droid"), counting the days (we want to know why), dreams of being a pilot (the helmet bit -- still a little kid in a way), very much alone.

                Also, I found the Rogue dialogue very speechy. A movie can get away with one St. Crispin's Day speech, but not 10.

                No subtext, hammering the theme. Every other line in the third act of Rogue was "hope this, hope that."

                The robot had the only halfway decent lines, but telling everyone the odds was done to death in Empire, and the dead horse was taken out and repeatedly beaten.

                The "I am one with the Force" mantra got tedious SO fast.

                As one reviewer mentioned, it's just "they went to the place to get the thing"... over... and over... and over. It felt like levels of a video game.

                Possibly the world's most boring villain.

                The "tragic ending" should have been moving but wasn't because I didn't give a damn about these people.

                And I thought the resurrected actors were creepy.
                I agree 100%.

                I also asked myself:

                - Why did the pilot wear what looked like WWI aviator goggles on his head?

                - Why did every one of K-2SO's jokes fall flat? Was it his delivery? Or just unoriginal jokes? C-3PO conveyed essentially the same information but made us laugh too.

                - Why did Jyn display exactly one emotion throughout the entire film (anger)? Why did she have zero sense of humor? Would a woman on the 5-man writing team have made a difference? Reminder: Princess Leia was also a kickass female lead, but she had a range of emotions.

                - Did the 1970s cheesiness of Star Wars really need to be retained? Though the movie came out about two weeks ago, it felt dated to me.

                On the positive side, the graphics (stuff happening in space, views of planets, etc.) were pretty awesome.

                This movie was frustrating. If only they had spent some time on character development, I might have actually given a f**k during the long, action-packed final act.

                My website:www.marjorykaptanoglu.com

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                • #98
                  Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                  I actually liked the fact that most actors where diverse ethnically. It worked with the rebellion ragtag group thing. I liked the movie and almost all of the characters were good.
                  Forest Whitaker, one of my facourite actors since Ghost Dog, was a joke. He was like this poor man's frankenstein's monster jedi darth vader type. He was just tonally strange.

                  My main problem is however the main character, Jayne Erso. Not that she is a woman, but that she is a tomboy. She is a bore. Why can't they allow her to be vulnerable? She had no emotions. How can we care about her struggle if she barely shows any sympathy for others? The only moment is when her father dies, but it is totally not earned. The other is on the ship right after when she tells Diego Luna she is super disappointed in him. Except that she have to tell it in an angry way. Hollywood still thinks a strong woman is one who can kung fu and don't require help from anyone.

                  I think audiences just want a main character that is sympathetic. Rey from the last one was at least this, even though she also was this now hollywood cliche of a female lead. Luke was likable, but he was basically a puss y. Just a normal guy/girl without issues. What's so wrong with that?

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                  • #99
                    Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                    Originally posted by Margie Kaptanoglu View Post

                    - Why did Jyn display exactly one emotion throughout the entire film (anger)? Why did she have zero sense of humor? Would a woman on the 5-man writing team have made a difference? Reminder: Princess Leia was also a kickass female lead, but she had a range of emotions.
                    Interesting... Of course, there weren't any women involved in creating Leia.

                    Leigh Bracket (female) only came in for Empire.

                    I thought all the characters were flat as copier paper... not just Jyn. And it's surprising because the writers on R1 have done great work on other movies. One reviewer called the script "surprisingly mediocre."
                    "People who work in Hollywood are the ones who didn't quit." -- Lawrence Kasdan

                    Please visit my website and blog: www.lauridonahue.com.

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                    • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                      Originally posted by sixridgeroad View Post
                      Nor do I, and there is no overt political message/sermonizing in Rogue 1.
                      I think there's TONS of overt sermonizing in R1 -- but it's not about diversity, it's about "hope."

                      I don't have anything against hope. I do object to dialogue that consists almost entirely of exposition, platitudes, and "inspirational" speeches.
                      "People who work in Hollywood are the ones who didn't quit." -- Lawrence Kasdan

                      Please visit my website and blog: www.lauridonahue.com.

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                      • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                        Originally posted by LauriD View Post
                        I think there's TONS of overt sermonizing in R1 -- but it's not about diversity, it's about "hope."

                        I don't have anything against hope. I do object to dialogue that consists almost entirely of exposition, platitudes, and "inspirational" speeches.
                        Well then by that measure a romance that explores love is sermonizing about love. Wolf of Wall Street is sermonizing about greed. Apocalypse Now is sermonizing about the vagaries of war. Iron Chef IX is sermonizing about cooking. Clearly at this stage the definition of "sermonizing" is so broadly defined as to lose its meaning. I'd define your objections above as being related to theme and (your personal experience of) weak writing.

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                        • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                          Originally posted by sixridgeroad View Post
                          Well then by that measure a romance that explores love is sermonizing about love. Wolf of Wall Street is sermonizing about greed. Apocalypse Now is sermonizing about the vagaries of war. Iron Chef IX is sermonizing about cooking. Clearly at this stage the definition of "sermonizing" is so broadly defined as to lose its meaning. I'd define your objections above as being related to theme and (your personal experience of) weak writing.

                          By "sermonizing," I mean that a script takes a theme (hope, love, whatever) and has characters give multiple SPEECHES about that theme.

                          It's OK (in fact, somewhat expected) to have ONE speech about whatever the theme is. But if you have multiple speeches about the abstract concept at the heart of the movie, it becomes preachy and repetitive (IMHO). And I think R1 is guilty of that in its third act.

                          The problem isn't that there's a theme. Of course movies have themes and there's nothing wrong with hope as a theme. The problem is pounding the theme to death via dialogue that overtly STATES the theme, as opposed to developing the theme via subtext and action.
                          "People who work in Hollywood are the ones who didn't quit." -- Lawrence Kasdan

                          Please visit my website and blog: www.lauridonahue.com.

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                          • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                            I liked Rogue One much more than TFA.

                            A lot of people talk about Jyn's character as if it's objectively wrong or a screenwriting error. Not every hero needs to check a list of pre-defined boxes. With some stories, too much character can get in your own way.

                            Sure, she doesn't show the widest range of emotions. You know who also doesn't? Every 90s male hero ever. James Bond. Ethan Hunt.

                            Sometimes it's as simple as a hero is called to duty, and they answer the call. Jyn was the only one who could have succeeded in multiple cases, not because of character, but because of circumstance (being the daughter of Galen Erso). And she took it on because the fight was personal to her. Same reason why most rebels became rebels - everyone recognizes injustice, but the ones who take up arms against it are those who have been personally wronged. When others said let's give up, they refused to, and their sacrifice and odds-defying mission made the entire rebellion possible.

                            Works for me. It's fine if you wanted more, but I'd push back on anyone who thinks it's a prerequisite. As a spin-off film, the audience comes already invented in the universe, not just the characters. Plot becomes hero more than the average film - like learning how, decades later, that stupid fatal flaw in the Death Star was actually by design. That delivers a unique satisfaction that your stand alone film can not.

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                            • Re: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

                              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?"

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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?"
                                Don't forget the exhaust port in question is three meters in diameter. Roughly the same size as the reactor exhaust port in Passengers. Must be standard code for reactor driven spaceships.

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