Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) · 7:41am Dec 22nd, 2016
Tis the season for all sorts of stuff. Whether it's shopping, shipping or heading to church there's something that you're going to be doing. I can't offer much in the way of advice as to what to do at church though if I followed the rules set forth for me it was, "Sing when they sing, don't talk or fidget and drink what they give you."
"But dad," I'd say, "It's blood!"
"You're a vampire now son! Drink up!'
"And the cracker?"
"That's his flesh."
"How BIG was this guy?"
"The biggest there ever was."
Then of course there is going out shopping for gifts. Plenty of people these days like to go online and do a bunch of their shopping. Others go to nice expensive stores where two ounces of fancy pants cologne. Me I go where the real action is. I go to places like Bargain Hunt!
Now I know what some of you are thinking, "Hey... wait... don't they get all the weird stuff?" Darn right they do! For one kid I got her a Rainbow Rocks stage that was, according to the sticker a K-Mart exclusive, that came with a Pinkie Pie Equestria Girls doll. It originally cost almost forty bucks but, thanks to the fact that Nicky and Vinny took it out back and kicked the crap out of the packaging it cost fourteen (which after looking at the contents inside... 14 bucks was all it was worth). I also found a pristine power ponies pack and a monster high doll that had a name that was quite punny.
By the time I was done bouncing around that place and few other places with dim lighting and no standards I was done. I got tacos and called the whole thing complete. Another holiday completed the old fashion way.
Speaking of things that happen around Christmas, the winter blockbuster has reared it's head. For awhile it was all about the hobbits, then it became about Y/A books that reminded us of more entertaining Japanese movies and now it's Star Wars via Disney. Last year The Force Awakens made a ton of money. This year promises the same with Rogue One. It's a shame box office receipts don't equal quality.
Now I'm not saying Rogue One is a bad movie. The last third of it is fantastic with it's large scale battle and all. The special effects are pretty and Darth Vader has a great moment in there as well. The empire is sufficiently empire like and the rebels are appropriately desperate. The problems with the movie really lie within the first two thirds of the movie.
The movie is basically about a girl named Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) who is the daughter of an imperial scientist/engineer who is forced to help build the Death Star. Through a series of events she winds up with the rebellion and more or less teams up with one of their agents Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and his robot K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). In the end it's a race against time to get the Death Star plans to the rebels so they can exploit its weakness.
It sounds interesting right? The problem is that this is lost in the execution. For a large chunk of the movie it felt more like a, "You are here," piece rather than a film. We're on Planet X where they talk. We're on Planet Y where they talk. Cut to planet Alpha where the empire is chit chatting, Cut to a prison, cut cut cut. Now some of this wouldn't be so bad if the leads weren't so bland in their roles.
Jones takes up the mantle of the bored brunette that Jennifer Lawrence and Daisy Ridley held before her in their big Sci-fi movies. It doesn't help that Jones is playing opposite Luna, who is probably most notable as the whiny bad guy from Blood Father (then again the girl in that was whiny too) who tries to be hard but comes off as a guy pretending to be hard most of the time. The two of them lack real chemistry but it isn't all their fault, the story/script betrays them as well.
Things are said that ultimately mean or lead to nothing. Scenes happen that could have been scrapped. Characters show up that have little to no bearing on the overall story. Jyn as a character is entirely too passive and bland. In spite of the fact that we're told she's important she never really seems or does anything until the movie decides to do something that is actually important and even then it's not amazing. It's just a thing. The story should have focused on Cassian (and been recast with a more interesting actor).
But, that's not the movie we got. We got a movie from the director of the American Godzilla and the writers of movies like The Cutting Edge, Antz, Nutty Professor Two and the Bourne movies. Take from that what you will.
Rogue One isn't a bad movie. The last third of it is great. The problem is that the entire thing could have been truly great and instead it just has an occasional moment here or there that are neat. Most of it just left me wondering where my copy of Spaceballs was so I could watch the fourth best Star Wars movie.
Stats: Dead Bodies Clone Wars level, Breasts 0, laser blasting, ion torpedo shooting, light saber to the head, force slam, force fu, kung fu, space battle fu, gratuitous cgi character that looks cgi but has more chemistry with the humans than most of the humans do with one another.
Shout outs:
Donnie Yen as Chirrut Imwe for saying, "Are you kidding me? I'm blind!"
Wen Jiang as Baze Malbus for shooting stuff.
Darth Vader for getting his balls reattached.
Before I start, I liked the movie... a lot. This is less me complaining about a bad movie and more me saying "the movie was an 8, it could have been an 11."
I agree that the pacing is glacial until suddenly everything happens. I wish the buildup had been more like a Guy Ritchie film, where everything building to the tipping point was interesting versus the way this one went, from slooooooow build to falling down the mountainside fast.
They could have condensed Cassian's intro to 15 seconds and then had him answer a communicator, they drew that scene out much farther than needed.
As for Jyn Erso... yeah she seems like nothing at all is interesting until it's time to get interesting.
Why was Forest Whittaker in this movie?
The ending... Weren't the plans supposed to have been beamed directly to the corvette? The way they ended it doesn't change what happens in episode 4 at all, but it vastly changes the meaning of what happened. "I don't know what you're talking about, we're on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan." This statement changes from a plausible lie to a bold faced one when you know that Vader saw your ship leave the docking bay of the ship he had just single-handedly boarded and wrecked. I'm not sure if I like that they did that or not, it is kinda nifty and explains the outburst of "Take her Away!" since she blatantly lied to his
maskface and they both knew it.Those were my main complaints
The lurves:
I love that damn robot. Damn you robot for making me cry!
K-2SO and Chirrut Imwe should NOT have been the most lovable characters, but they were. They were both serious in their devotion to what they believed, they both had damned hilarious moments ("are you kidding me, I'm blind" made me inhale Fanta), and they both gave their lives, without hesitation, to give their comrades a fighting chance. I felt the pit growing in my stomach when he closed the vault door, but the water works came as he tried to keep giving them information to the last. I haven't cried at a damned movie in over 10 years...
Vader is a slasher flick monster in this... Maybe even worse. That corridor scene...
Brutal, freaking brutal. Vader's back, baby! 
Ending. Everyone dies. They did not shy away from this. It was brave and they deserve kudos for making me cry for one death and get misty eyed at another. Oddly enough, the deaths that felt the least significant were the two main characters... Odd.
4351350 See if I were doing it first off, I'd have begun with Cassian doing something spy/agent like. I'd have had him playing off his K-2SO and have had the robot run some interference. Cassian meets with the contact stuff goes sideways he shoots him he and the robot get out of
Knowhereer... the floating place. They get new orders to save Jyn because of the reasons we already know. They do so. K-2SO has his line.Things proceed for a little like they did. Maybe you make her more hopeful and a little more of a go getter who doesn't get it yet. Luke was that way. It's a good trait and makes the character more interesting and then can play off your more grizzled/cynical vet easier.
Also, by focusing on Cassian most of the loose ends and weird dialog choices go away. For example, Jyn is told to, "Trust in the Force," by her mother. Why? It never comes up. She never uses it. Other than what her necklace is made of it too is meaningless. All it served was to make her mom out to be a moron which she doubles down on later. All of that's gone. But if you wanted to keep the necklace thing in there, Jyn can just have a little story about her father and how he gave her the necklace and called her a certain name etc and Cassian could be like, "That's nice." She could ask about his family and he could cut her off by saying they died in a raid by imperials.
Also I'd have recast Luna for someone who can deliver an edgier performance.
The ending: She doesn't know Vader knows was there. Truthfully he may not know it was her specifically there. He may however, know the type of ship and then had his subordinates check on who has that type of ship and out of them who has ties to rebels. Then based on prior knowledge narrows it down to her and begins monitoring.
I'm willing to bet that Princess Leia couldn't go directly back to the rebel base due to fear of pursuit and needed to develop a cover story. She is acting as an agent after all. She also probably had communication with the rebels who probably told her to basically try and back channel the info. The empire was listening. Then, once they know it was her based upon various pieces of evidence, (Plus who knows maybe one of those guards didn't die right away) Vader goes after her straight out. She evaded the empire for a bit but was unable to hand off the info to the rebels hence her actions on the ship and C-3PO saying, "There's no escape for the princess this time," even though he doesn't really know what she's carrying.
Her lie is mainly to buy time so that R2-D2 can get away. However, she also may hope that Vader isn't quite in the know and that due to his previous brutal/bold history that she may be able to persuade some of Vader's subordinates to stand against him if/when he goes before the senate.
I'm not saying it's a bad movie but, man... it could have been phenomenal.
4351566
I think the necklace could have gone places. I imagine the scene where Jyn and Chirrut meet going differently:
"Jyn: "How did you know I had a necklace?"
Corrupt: She told you to trust in the force when she gave it to you, didn't she?"
Jyn: "HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT??" *gets pulled away*
Cassian: "We don't have time for this!"
Ending: She knows. The screams of the dying mixed with the occasional "Oh horseapples, it's Lord bucking Vader!" probably gave it away. Plus he was standing in the hole and personally watched the ship leave. It makes the lie ridiculous. Like force suggestion ridiculous. "This is totally not the ship that you were 10 feet from boarding before it decoupled!" It is reminiscent of True Lies, when they ask Ah-Nold to ID the very obvious nuke and he says " I know what this is. This is an espresso machine."
I'm not saying that it's bad, it's just they could have not been docked to the cruiser, they could have done a drive-by on the transmission is all.