Rogue One and Star Wars: The difference between not sucking and great · 5:52am Dec 18th, 2016
I previously expressed my displeasure at The Force Awakens. Rogue One was not as much of a retread of previous movies. True, it started with the protagonist growing up on a remote farm that gets visited by stormtroopers, and had her team up with a pilot and a wise-cracking droid, and it had a vaguely mesopotamiam ancient temple scene, a catwalk scene, and two why-does-the-empire-build-everything-with-giant-ladders-over-infinite-chasms scene. But instead of reworking the story from earlier movies, it fit nicely into the continuity of those movies.
The robot--my favorite character--was a lot more interesting than the last movie's beach ball. Saw Gererra, the extremist rebel, was a little interesting; he was whacked-out but still a little sympathetic. I liked Chirrut Imwe, the Southeast Asian guy, not because he was a mysterious sage and force-fu master, but because he was a mysterious sage and force-fu master who had such great faith only because he was terrified most of the time. That's a combination you don't see much. The other characters were forgettable to me.
It's all right as a contemporary action flick. There are a few rotten parts in the script where the writers were rushing through what they saw as just the glue between the 3 acts (Jynn's origin story, the mission to find her father, and the final section on Scarif.) The cliched inspiring revolutionary speeches, and the bizarrely democratic yet polite meeting of the entire Rebel Alliance in that same badly-lit rebel base--seriously, just use flashlights or cell phones, guys--were the worst of those. There are a few "why are they doing that?" moments, like "why is the whole rebel fleet suddenly joining this fight they all just agreed not to join?". But not too many. R1 keeps moving, it keeps things interesting, it keeps the main characters in play with each other. It doesn't suck.
There are some really clever parts, like how it explains the Death Star's poor engineering, the tactic the rebels use to open the shields, and some of the jokes. I especially liked that Rogue One touches several times on something really creepy about the other Star Wars movies: The Alliance has lots of droids fighting with them for freedom from the Empire, but the droids are their slaves and property, and nobody sees a problem with this.
And that ending warmed my heart. My cold, cold heart.
Aside from its merits on its own, it makes the original trilogy better instead of worse. That might be reason enough to see it.
So I don't want to be harsh on it. But I think it's worth comparing it to a great mythic adventure, like the Star Wars trilogy, to see what makes the difference between good and great.
One big difference is that Star Wars has a philosophy. It's a hokey New Age philosophy, but it's got one, and it's not just window dressing. The battle for Luke's soul, and similar choices made by Han and Lando, are major plot points.
Another theme of the trilogy is skill, experience, connectedness, and just plain old-fashionedness versus technology and "modernism". The Alliance relies on skill and training: Luke's & Han's piloting skill, extensive Jedi training. The Empire relies on technology and superior production: the Death Star, millions of stormtroopers in robot uniforms who've never had target practice. Everything the Empire builds is clean gleaming metal. Luke's music is played on wood instruments; Darth Vader's, on brass. The rebels win because of their friendships; there are no friendships in the upper ranks of the Empire. The rebels have to keep turning off technology: turn off the tractor beam, turn off the targeting computer, blow up the Death Star, turn off the shields on Endor, take off Vader's mask.
Notice no place in the Star Wars universe looks like a modern city or suburbs? There are only sterile metal Empire bases, versus either farms, or jungles and deserts where trade is done by barter, in cramped streets like in Old Jerusalem or in open-air bazaars, everything is made from mud brick, and everyone needs a bath. The Empire oppresses only very, very old-fashioned people. The Alliance recruits only from those old-fashioned people. They are the colonized, the people who on Earth would not be white. They wear robes you might have seen in Sumeria 3,000 years ago and live in dingy hobbit-holes, and their spaceships could use a hosing down. The rebels use technology, but they don't make it. In contemporary "intellectual" thought, that makes them more virtuous. They aren't infected by the rationalistic authoritarianism that any art critic since 1920 would assume is associated with technology.
Rogue One inherits the idioms from Star Wars, but they aren't worked into the plot. There's no training, no struggle for anybody's soul, no targeting computer to switch off. The only character confronted with a decision is Jynn, at the beginning of the third act, and we never see it. In one scene, she's scoffing at the Alliance; a few scenes later, she's pleading for a chance to throw her life away for it--and we never see her struggle, never know why she changed. All we know is that she liked Cassian's line about hope [EDIT: No, I'm wrong; see comments below by Morning Sun and Glitter Hamburger]. That's kinda thematic, but it's just one line, repeated twice, and awfully predictable and on-the-nose the second time. Contrast that with Star Wars, where Luke's skepticism over the Force slowly dissolves over the course of maybe four entire scenes, and that's just one of his decisions to make.
Also consider the cast of characters. I like Dramatica's analysis of Star Wars--not their "storyform", but the one in their videos. One of the basic ideas of Dramatica is that each story is an argument, and the different characters and roles in the story all represent different parts of one person's mind as he or she works thru an argument. In this case, Luke is the person deciding; the Empire is his opponent. Hans represents skepticism; opposing him is R2D2, the faithful optimist and supporter. Leia represents reason; Chewbacca, emotion. Ben acts to help him; Vader, to hinder him.
I wouldn't drink the Dramatica Kool-Aid and accept that these are the characters you always need, but we can see how they all relate to the main character, and combine to collectively represent a great many different perspectives on Luke's ongoing decisions. In Rogue One, by contrast, except for Saw, the secondary characters have no special relationship to the main character. They knew each other before-hand, or at least were in the same Alliance; she is the one along for the ride. We could say Chirrut is the faithful and Baze is the skeptic, but they don't direct those attitudes towards or even in front of Jynn.
Maybe the biggest difference is the pacing. Rogue One, like Awakens and the new Star Trek movies, follow the scene-sequel theory of movie writing, in which every scene is an action scene. The viewer--and more importantly, the protagonist--never gets a chance to stew in her own emotions, form ordinary human relationships, or reflect on what's happened. Imagine if, instead of opening with Luke working on the farm, showing impatience, fighting with his uncle, finding the droids, it had opened with the stormtroopers marching into the house. And if, instead of having that happen off-screen, and showing Luke coming back and suddenly finding them dead, the movie had thrown away that moment of impact on the main character's psyche in order to shoot it as an action scene. That's how Rogue One and every other modern action movie plays it.
Remember all those scenes in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that got cut from the movies? Like the scene where Bilbo is in Mirkwood, and he climbs to the top of a tree and sees above the darkness of the forest:
In the end he poked his head above the roof of leaves, and then he found spiders all right. But they were only small ones of ordinary size, and they were after the butterflies. Bilbo's eyes were nearly blinded by the light. He could hear the dwarves shouting up at him from far below, but he could not answer, only hold on and blink. The sun was shining brilliantly, and it was a long while before he could bear it. When he could, he saw all round him a sea of dark green, ruffled here and there by the breeze; and there were everywhere hundreds of butterflies. I expect they were a kind of 'purple emperor,' a butterfly that loves the tops of oak-woods, but these were not purple at all, they were a dark dark velvety black without any markings to be seen.
Why does Tolkien talk about butterflies in the middle of the Mirkwood adventure? Because the adventure isn't all about stabbing things and running away from things. The adventure is also about the slow grinding dark and dreary forest, and the mounting fear and despair, and then finding strength in the remembrance of beautiful things. Mirkwood could represent the trenches Tolkien lived in during World War I, and the butterfly could represent--a butterfly.
This is what's lost in today's adventure movies.
If we compared Rogue One to a great action flick, like Rocky or Seven Samurai, we'd find the same basic differences, only not as obvious. Both Rocky and Seven Samurai have overriding themes and focus on the characters making personal decisions. Both have supporting characters whose different perspectives bear directly on those decisions. Both have slow, thoughtful scenes where the protagonists reflect on what's happened. That's why they're great, instead of merely entertaining.
I know! Shocked the hell outta me too. My dad and i went to see it last night and, WOW. It was just really good. and it was tying everything together so well. and that new droid. He was hilarious.
i loved every scene he was in. and the ending... oh, man. i got chills... though that might have been due to the theater's aircon being on so high when it wasn't that warm of a night.
Whatever the case, an amazing movie tying the time between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope perfectly. I will definitely be getting it on dvd when it comes out.
I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE THIS MOVIE! Your not hating it confirms that I will PROBABLY LOVE THE SHIT OUT OF IT!
I didn't let my expectations exceed "there will be reasonably well CGIed explosions." I wasn't disappointed, but I wasn't impressed either.
Props: Explosions. The droid was kinda funny. Demolition Star Destroyers scene was a good use of Star Destroyers. Not-Quite Admiral Akbar was involved. Fits into the beginning of New Hope like a glove.
Slops: Stormtroopers being beaten unconscious with sticks without their armor suffering any visible damage. Why even bother? I want to say there was a forced MC romance which ended in a hug on the beach, but the writing was so noncommittal and the subplot so underdeveloped that I am not sure it actually happened. I cannot call the chop job on the first half hour of the movie "editing" with a straight face.
Worth seeing with friends at the theater, but I couldn't justify owning it except to have another disk to keep the kiddies distracted.
"why is the whole rebel fleet suddenly joining this fight they all just agreed not to join?"
I understood this as Admiral Raddus saying 'fuck you cowards, we're trying it anyway' and taking every ship that was willing to volunteer. Note (what I recall as) the timing: when the comm officer gets the message from the team on Scarif, the Admiral is already off-world. He was going to mount his own attempt on the plans, because he considered that the only option open to the Rebellion, no matter how remote the chances.
I enjoyed myself quite a bit, but I think you're right about the difference between Rogue One and an enduring movie. It needed more time to breathe and make its philosophical point in several places. It already runs 2h13--how far out do you think it would have to be pushed in order to work?
Actually I am reasonably certain I saw exactly the one you mention in the theater. Good point, but I feel like nitpicking. :)
My own experience is that it didn't suck and was an entirely agreeable action-adventure flick with some neat moments and a really funny robot. I saw no great resonance in it, but then again, I never really liked Star Wars to begin with. I thought I did, but then I met people who really liked Star Wars and realized that, no, I didn't.
The Pirates Of The Caribbean movies were big hits (not entirely without reason I admit), but it seems, and I'm guessing boards of soulless suits make these decisions, that filmmakers are ordered to take cues from them movies. A bit too many. (When the action starts getting tense, be careful with where you put those Loony Toon-moments)
Lame rousing speeches are lame, and there are like three of them in this movie. (Also, the Hitler-like speech in Awakens was strange and very out of place. Are you emulating the nazis, or trying to draw attention to how they were evil and stuff? The later is redundant and kinda weird)
I agree with most everything here. Also, on playful and teasing banter between the heroes: It's fun, but it's kind of a reward for the heroes having gone through and overcome stuff together. When tango-mustache agent and wise old machine-gunner & stoic staff-man (I see them as one unit. One very bromantic unit) started rolling their eyes at each other's quirky quirks, I just went 'you guys first met each other less than twenty seconds of screen-time ago. A clandestine field agent, a grumpy dude with a machine gun, and an aloof mystic. Normal people aren't even easy around each other at this point, much less people like you. You guys are not friends yet.'
Kinda neat action, overall kind of exciting. Not a bad movie in the end. And listening to James Earl Jones is always a treat. If they just don't make it obvious that they have a checklist of story-points to work through when making the next movie, that might be the next step on the road to something great.
On a different note: there's several years of my childhood that were just a blur of X-Wing games and X-Wing novels. The space battle above Scarif... speaks to me. I have absolutely never been so excited while watching a movie. So right there, it really succeeded where TFA failed. The X-Wings in TFA didn't move right at all. It's a very specialized criterion, but it's one that's very important to me, for a Star Wars movie.
I have the good fortune of never having to watch Rogue One, because I'm never going to see another Star Wars movie as long as I live.
I really liked Rogue One. I guess the main reason for our different opinions is that I didn't like the original Star Wars. Yes, it did have all that stuff you mention, but the "save Luke's soul" thing felt like a boring cliché and many of the non-action scenes were cringe-y. So I prefer imagining those things over having them shown in a bad way.
About Jynn's reason to join the Alliance: wasn't she pretty clearly inspired by her father's message and Saw?
My expectation of each new Star Wars Movie has been the same since right after I saw The Phantom Menace:
"You-sa think it-sa gonna suck?"
"If you're a Jedi, and a woman, you know there are times when your body needs extra mitochloridians, That's why I take VITAMITOCHLORIDIANS, so I can 'spoon my way to health!' "
"...it's...it's so tasty...too..."
Really?
I mean, who picks these names?
But hobbit holes mean comfort!
Didn't bother going to the theater. I may watch it one day, if it's convenient. But eeeeh, watching things...
The more I write and think about writing, the more I come to the conclusion that cohesion - which I think usually means well-done thematics - is what separates the 'good' from the 'great'. Being able to bring something together into a whole that's meaningful on every level, from the highest to the lowest, is what creates the best stories.
4344410 Huh. I found the battle boring compared to the original Star Wars. The difference was that in Star Wars, they chose maybe 8 people and stayed with them throughout the entire fight. It was much more personal, and there was some emotional impact each time one of them died, instead of it just being more special effects. I had no feeling when most of the fighters in the Scarif battle died; we saw most of them for 1 to 2 seconds before they died. If you're gonna go in that direction, I'd say go all-out, like Saving Private Ryan.
4344410 This was me too, and I think I know the disconnect we have re: Bad Horse there - to me, the space battle scene was almost memory come to life; I saw that and just thought 'I've flown stuff like that before in the game' and it was super awesome.
I really really loved Rogue One; it takes a bit to get going, but where they finally go with it? It worked really well for me.
The one thing I disagree on? Her decision made sense to me - the difference is that in the intervening time, her Dad died - and begged her to finish what he had started. That's where the inversion came from.
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I liked it a lot. I liked it enough that I don't think I can be objective about whether it's "great" or "just okay," and I think the reason for that is that I am the person this film was made for. Let me explain, and I'll try not to bore you with my severe nerd cred.
In the old expanded universe, the rebel infiltrator who retrieved the Death Star plans from the imperial base on Danuta was Kyle Katarn, with the help of the female pilot and operative Jan Ors. Their stories were told through the Dark Forces series of video games, which started as a modest but well-structured Doom clone, and developed into their own very unique (for the time) style of FPS games as Kyle learned about his Jedi heritage, sought the man who'd murdered his father, and eventually joined Luke Skywalker in training the next generation of Jedi. Kyle was an unstoppable mary sue badass by design, since he was meant to be a player avatar foremost, but the stories told around him were something I adored growing up.
So what does this have to do with Rogue One? Well, you might have noticed Jan Ors and Jyn Erso sound a bit similar. That's because both Cassian and Jyn are essentially expies of Kyle and Jan. They have their backstories and place in the spotlight switched, but they are functionally very, very similar characters, especially at this point in the timeline.
vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/d/d5/JanOrs1_DFSftE.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20071128184520
There's a bit more to it than that. Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, had a full set of FMV cutscenes bookending the gameplay, about half an hour's worth. The writers of that game were inspired heavily by The Seven Samurai and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and while they certainly don't make a "great" movie (taken alone, it might be closer to "actually sucks"), it was surprisingly well-acted and well-budgeted, and more importantly was some of the first real new Star Wars footage shot since 1983. And sans context, I felt some of the moments in Rogue One were almost shot-for-shot comparable.
Rogue One is full of little nods to these games and some of the rest of the expanded universe, mostly in tone but some more overt. The marchy, percussion-heavy theme music is something you could have done in midi back in the 1990s. I note that the other guy in here who liked the space battle was also a fan of the books and video games. This movie draws on enough that I believe it legitimately couldn't exist without them.
So, what does this mean for the rest of you, who were more casual enthusiasts? I really don't know. Like I said, I'm a bit too close to this to really take an objective look at the other merits. I had gripes, of course. I found the "Snark Vader" scenes to be uncharacteristic of the dark monolith that he was in the original trilogy. Actual assassination missions also seemed kind of outside of the Rebellion's original idealistic wheelhouse, and though they provided Saw for contrast, they didn't show him crossing much in the way of lines comparatively. And I do have to agree that I wish we had another scene to compare to Luke looking up at the twin suns and wondering where he was meant to be. But I guess there's a reason it's "A Star Wars Story" and not "Episode 3.5." This wasn't about the mythic heroes. This was a look at the ones who didn't have a destiny or a guiding force, but tried anyway.
Here's a link to the FMV cutscenes of Dark Forces II. It's meant to follow about five years after Return of the Jedi, if you want to compare notes. I'm sure you won't find it to be the worst use you've ever put 30 minutes to.
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Once you point it out, I see what you mean, Bad Horse. It didn't bother me at the time, though, and I don't think it will bother me in the future. There's a couple levels of extra context I'm getting from my childhood obsession, I think.
For one, thanks to the X-Wing novels, anyone in a Rebel flight suit is automatically sympathetic. I paid attention when Wedge talked about being part of the tiny group of pilots on Yavin. He didn't give any names beyond the guys who got named in ANH, but he described the atmosphere and the attitude--the bravado and the fear. I have pre-existing emotional context to slot these nameless faces and not-even-faces into[1].
For two, I played X-Wing vs Tie Fighter and X-Wing Alliance, uh... a lot. I probably racked up 2,000 hours across those two games, over the course of some years. Mostly in A-Wings, but plenty of time in X-Wings. What this means is that I can watch an X-Wing on the screen, never see the pilot, and still be putting myself in the pilot's shoes and relating to him or her. When they show a forward view from inside the cockpit my hand wants to reach for the stick, automatically.
So I guess my brain is filling in even more than I thought it already was.
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Dark Forces II was the thing I played in between rounds of X-Wing vs Tie Fighter. You're coming through loud and clear to me.
[1] This is not the only part of the movie doing this, it turns out--just the only one I had the structures in place for. Saw Gerrera is a character from several episodes of the Clone Wars CG animated series, apparently, and I have heard fans of that show be very enthusiastic about his inclusion and portrayal. There is also a novel out, Catalyst, that is a prequel to the movie, and apparently adds a bunch of context to Krennic and Galen Erso's relationship, plus the relationship between Krennic and Tarkin, plus it shows off Saw some more.
4344435 4344980 You're right about her father's message. I forgot that while writing my review.
... the quietly horrifying similarities between TheJediMasterEd and Bad Horse is making me have nervous fits.
Carry on, don't mind me.
4349086 We're not the same person. Look, here's a photo of us together.
s25.postimg.org/yjffrgjdr/Bad_Horse_The_Jedi_Master_Ed.jpg
Er, wait. Forget you saw that.
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If one were look closely at Ed's avatar pic, they'd make out a blurry framed picture in the background depicting what APPEARS to be YOUR picture WITHOUT a TOP HAT! OH MY GAWD!
i.ytimg.com/vi/TCQ-RO00mhk/maxresdefault.jpg
My family - or at least, my dad - was less than enthusiastic about it, walking out of the theater (my brother bought the whole family tickets to Star Wars again, as he did last year). He said that the first third of the movie was disjointed, and that it didn't really come together.
Listening to people in the theater, everyone liked the robot. He got lots of laughs at his lines. The only other laughter went to the blind monk complaining when they put a bag over his head, which was, admittedly, quite funny.
There was no applause at the end of the movie from the audience, just people standing up the moment the credits came to vamoose.
The movie felt unnecessary.
I agree that it did not have any sort of coherent thematic ties. Worse, the movie's beginning felt like it was going to examine the moral dubiousness of some of the rebels; Saw Gererra seemed like an interestingly ambiguous figure, and the start of the movie promised conflict with him, or at least him to be a pain in the ass. Hell, he even made the Darth Vader sucking sound as he was breathing out of his mask, which seemed like it was going to imply that he was going down the same sort of path. Instead, he pretty much just gave them what they wanted, and then randomly decided to die instead of leaving the planet with them.
Likewise, there was the immorality of the plans to assassinate the scientist, and our "rebel" hero "just following orders", that frankly didn't ever feel like it went anywhere. He ultimately chose not to follow the orders, but it didn't matter, and the real lesson there seemed to be "Don't listen to the Rebel leaders, they're a bunch of tossers" rather than him coming to a more genuine understanding of "doing the right thing".
Them dragging in all the black ops people only further underscored the lack of real examination of this theme. A bunch of basically unforgivable criminals help them out at the end, which again could have played with the whole "maybe some of the rebels really are terrorist scumbags" angle. In a different movie, the desperation of these people to take huge risks because they're going to be sentenced to death for being terrorist garbage and for doing awful, unforgivable things that maybe were even wrong (like, you know, assassinating people) could have been interesting. Hell, he even said that all those things would have been pointless if the rebels just surrendered, transforming it from "Well, we need to save the Galaxy" to "We are terrorists."
And indeed, this idea - that these terrorists who were "on the side of good" might be motivated to do more bad things because they wanted to prove that the bad things they'd done in the past weren't actually bad could have been neat.
Instead... nothing.
I dunno. It felt almost like there was a theme of that somewhere in the writing process, and then it didn't actually show up in any real complete form in the final product, in favor of just a bunch of action scenes vaguely strung together.
Hell, the planet where they go to assassinate the scientist felt pointless. They suggested just going to the final planet first - heck, the leading lady suggested going there instead of going to retrieve her father. What the hell was the point of even going to that planet? The necessary character development had, apparently, already happened; they could have cut out that entire planet, just gone directly to the final planet, and the movie's plot wouldn't have really appreciably changed.
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I agree. I didn't feel a strong enough connection to the characters there to care.
Moreover, I felt like the Death Star sequence in the first Star Wars did a good job of showing us the characters and gradually narrowing down the team. It wasn't that I really cared about them (though they did have some memorability - everyone seems to remember Porkins, possibly because of the funny name/body type combo) but it felt significant that they were gradually being whittled down as they kept trying, and so when it was all down to Luke at the end, that felt very significant.
That being said, I think that scene actually shows us an important bit of plotting in action scenes - make your characters' actions all matter.
I think part of the reason why there wasn't a strong connection there was because a lot of the deaths just sort of happened. Someone did something, and then died a bit afterwards - or, in the case of laser machine gun guy, his death literally didn't matter at all, because he was accomplishing absolutely nothing of value whatsoever at that point. The blind monk and the pilot both died after they did their things, rather than while doing something important, so their deaths also felt a bit less meaningful as well - if someone dies while striving for success, that's not only meaningful, but it is also tragic. If someone dies after they did their thing, what's the point? Crap, they just sort of felt like they were arbitrarily killed off after they completed their part, to tie up loose ends. The pilot's death was the worst in that way, as the bad guys just throw a grenade into his ship for whatever reason.
That's why the death of the droid actually felt meaningful - he died in a critical rear-guard action, while trying to complete their plan. His death forces them to do something else. He can't help them anymore, but he could have had he lived. He sacrifices himself in the back and is dying while he helps them out.
His death, therefore, felt more meaningful and more tragic.
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The problem is that she actually suggested going directly to Scarin (the final planet) after getting her dad's message - in fact, she argued with the male lead that they needed to go to Scarin instead of to grab her father.
4356861 after getting her dad's message => before getting her dad's message
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She got her dad's message on the first planet, in the hologram. That told her to go to Scarin, the final planet, to go get the design plans - which is what they do at the end of the movie.
Them going to whatever planet her dad was on didn't do anything to advance the plot - they already knew where they needed to go, she wanted to go there (and actually argued that they should go there), and in the end, they ended up disobeying the Rebel leaders anyway and going to that final planet on their own. So what was the point of them going to see her dad?
Or did I misunderstand what you were saying there?
4357073 Oh, right. I was thinking "tearful goodbye" and whatever it was he said on that platform = message.
That's clearly not the whole rebel fleet, just the member states who wanted to fight from the start.
4417656 There was no indication I can recall that it wasn't the whole rebel fleet, or that anyone or any ship was staying behind.
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Why would you think it's the whole rebel fleet when the Mon Calamari were the only guys raring to go on the mission? It's clear there were a lotta leaders there who didn't give a fuck.
4419947 That was why it didn't make any sense. Everyone on the flight deck was readying their ships; nobody was arguing or staying behind, and the fleet that showed up at the battle was at least as large as the fleet in Episode 4 that was said to be the Rebel fleet.