Rogue One The Battle of Scarif -- How It Compares

How do you think the Battle of Scarif compares to each of the other films' major engagements? To get things rolling, here are my thoughts on them in in-universe chronological order.

Naboo (The Phantom Menace)
Simple to follow, pretty much seen it all before. Droid ships against sleek starfighters in space was decent, but a ground battle with a tad too much comic relief...I'm looking at you, BomBAD General Binks. Possibly the best lightsaber duel of the bunch though, so it has that going for it. Can't get past a child--no matter who it is--turning the tide.
Rank: 6 of 8

Geonosis (Attack of the Clones)
Very busy, often too hard to tell what's going on once Yoda shows up with some new friends. No space component, and the ground location is dull. Dooku versus a dual-saber-wielding Anakin doesn't last long enough. Great to see Yoda throw down for the first time, but a little silly on repeated viewings.
Rank: 7 of 8

Coruscant (Revenge of the Sith)
All action, all the time. Unfortunately also too hard to follow much of anything going on. Anakin's even more cocky against Dooku, and Obi-Wan again gets removed from the fight so that the audience can focus on Anakin. At least there's the Wilhelm scream.
Rank: 8 of 8 (worst)

Scarif (Rogue One)
Gorgeous location, with gritty ground action that includes Walkers versus X-Wings. Rebel ships pushing Star Destroyers into other Star Destroyers into shield gates, it's as if a capable director with a huge budget finally gets the chance to really play with his boyhood toys. Vader lighting up his red saber in a dark hallway was all kinds of cool, but unfortunately no blue or green to challenge him. Meaningful sacrifice abounds and gives gravitas to the little R2 unit on Tatooine.
Rank: 2 of 8

Yavin (A New Hope)
Easy to understand, not much harder than bullseyeing womprats in the T-16 back home. Good TIE on X-Wing action, and the trench runs are thrilling. Just enough action and complexity for wide-eyed audiences at the time, and sets the standard for everything to come.
Rank: 4 of 8

Hoth (The Empire Strikes Back)
Imperial AT-ATs were and still are the coolest ground vehicles in the Star Wars universe. The overmatched Rebel snowspeeders can only hope to slow them down enough for everyone to escape, which they do.
Rank: 3 of 8

Endor (Return of the Jedi)
Terrific action on three fronts that doesn't get much better. Huge space battle that doesn't get too crazy, flying inside a Death Star ups the trench idea from Yavin. Like at Naboo, unexpected help from a too-cute force is pivotal to the outcome on the ground and in the sky. Luke's last saber battle with dear-old dad as the haunting music swells puts a chill down the spine every time.
Rank: 1 of 8 (best)

Starkiller Base (The Force Awakens)
In my opinion a bit too derivative of Yavin, right down to a trench run. Poe is pretty awesome however, and the reveal of Rey over Finn as the legit saber-wielder just works for me. All of it in a wintry locale adds to the atmosphere, but takes away some of the clarity of what's going on.
Rank: 5 of 8

 

The Scarif Battle is my number 3 after the Hoth Battle and Yavin battle. Those two are very iconic. But the Scarif battle was no joke. It was real and gritty, a first for star wars. I love how the ion beam from the U-ship took out the walker. It was a quick snippet but a very exciting one.

 

Scarif battle was so satisfying ! Amazing thing to witness on the BIG screen!!

 

Scarif battle was good except the ending, so I would put it at 4th place after ROTJ as number 1, Hoth as number 2 and Yavin as number 3.

 

What didn't u like about the ending?

 

The Vader part, where he goes through rebels like a hot knife through butter? Just curious, I liked that fine.

 

I meant everyone of the heroes group dying. That's just too depressing for me.

 

I get that. Like many, I wondered from early on if any of these people would survive. At least their deaths had meaning, and with just this one film to familiarize myself I wasn't terribly attached to any of them.

 

I think Scarif set the bar on Star Wars battles. Real, gritty, scary, chaotic, violent.

The Jedha insurgent ambush was pretty amazing too. Close quarters, explosives everywhere, militant literally tags stormtroopers with sticky grenades. Civilians caught in the chaos. Just, wow.

But I'm concerned that Scarif was just Endor. Imperial shuttle gets past security. Small commando force infiltrates Imperial base. Overwhelming odds. Rebel Fleet shows up and goes punch for punch with Imperials. Ends with backdrop against the Death Star itself.


But I'm ok with it because Darth Vader's Star Destroyer clotheslined a GR-75 that was making its escape.

 

Space Battles
1) Endor
2) Coruscant
3) Scarif
4) Yavin
5) Naboo
6) Asteroid Field
7) Geonosis
8) Starkiller Base

Land Battles
1) Geonosis
2) Utapau
3) Hoth
4) Scarif
5) Death Star
6) Endor
7) Naboo
8) Takadona

 

As a setpiece, there is only 1 battle in Star Wars that comes close to R1s ending and that is ROTJ,
The parallels are unmistakable.

Space & Land battles plus character driven plot drama onthe surface

Spoiler

Battle for Endor (Space) > Scarif (Space)

Scarif (land) >> > Endor (land)

Endor leads subplot > Scarif subplot

Scarif in-planet air battle > no comparison

It's an amazing ending for Rogue one and don't let ROTJ 2 for 1 win over R1 give the wrong impression.

The Scarif land battle is much much better than ROTJ and what happens there I felt had more of an emotional impact. And the space battle is only slightly less strong than ROTJ mainly because ROTJ had much more at stake and was the grand finale of the OT so it had a lot of built in advantages.

None of the prequel battles rank in the top 5 to be honest, Geonosis battle has aged horribly and the opening to ROTS has gotten worse with repeat viewings because Anakin was never easy to relate to and his banter with Obi-wan was so forced and the effects, especially the droids that latch on to the ship, has not aged well

 

I disagree. Both battles have aged remarkably well consider how early their CGI was, IMO. And the banter showed the progress in their relationship, to me it didn't feel forced at all.

 

1. Yavin
2. Endor
3. Hoth
4. Coruscant
5. Scarif
6. Geonosis
7. Starkiller Base
8. Naboo

 

Geonosis battle is phenomenal still. Amazing action sequence especially the arena and has war machines, infantry, Jedi, Sith and monsters all in one. Scarif is up there with it too. Utapau is also a great battle.

TPM is the most complex battle. There's a space battle, an urban battle, a field battle and a lightsaber duel and it ups the ante compared to the first infantry battle which was ROTJ. The land battle there is.....um...less than stellar. Hoth is pretty good but I wish there was infantry vs infantry as the soldiers are the most interesting aspect of combat to me.

 

What I wanted from Hoth was Vader to actually fight, like in Rogue One

 

That's definitely in my head canon. I always imagined Vader and the snowtroopers took out many rebels in that base.

 

Star Wars battles are hard to compare really- some are in space, some on ground some are both like Scarif. Surely Scarif was good though. I was bit disappointed that there were not that running towards walkers scene it looked so epic in the trailers. Overall one of the best battles together with Endor, Hoth, Coruscant, Kashyyyk, Naboo, Yavin, Utapau and Geonosis arena(jedi against droids is cooler than droids against clones IMO since arena has a lot of extras which were real actors- clones should've been too). I think that walkers were not that epic as in Hoth which was bit disappointing, but action overall was great both on surface and in space.

Me too- if I would be Lucas I would have added something like that to special edition instead of pointless changes like adding weird CGI Jabba to ANH or changing Obi-Wan's Krayt Dragon scream many times over.

Maybe that rebel in Echo Base who sends the radio message that "imperial troops have entered the base..." is actually impaled by the red blade before he can repeat that completely...

 

It was so good that I am afraid it set the benchmark for any further battles in the ST.

I loved TFA but I found the last battle over SK Base (and especially the bits with the fighters all getting prepped) to be very stilted on firstt viewing. Moreso now.

 

They clearly held back the space battle in Scarif to intentionally not make it better than Endor's space.
Land battle was another story. This was R1's call to arms. And it destroyed ROTJ's land battle.

I think comparing the Scarif sequence to anything else in the Franchise save for Battle of Endor would be unfair as Scarif had the same moving parts essentially as Ender. A surface battle paired with space battle and personal drama as a third layer.

Most of the other SW battles only operated on 2 layers. A larger battle *could be in space or land* and a personal drama/fight/duel

 

I did not feel that way, the rebel force on the ground was simply a decoy for infiltration. Endor was a sabotage mission where as Scariff was Espionage. If anything it mimic the death star in ANH, fool the inspection crew sneak around in imperial base in disguise.

 

Thanks for the listing.

Taking the entire sequences from beginning to end into account:

Endor (Return of the Jedi) The Luke, Sidious, Vader/Anakin scenes put this over the top.

Naboo (The Phantom Menace) Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan vs Maul plus Anakin, Padme and Jar Jar elevate this to near perfection.

Coruscant (Revenge of the Sith) So utterly EPIC then Anakin and Obi-Wan vs Dooku and Anakin's dark decision.

Scarif (Rogue One) Really made by the detailing in executing the plan plus Jyn's story.

Yavin (A New Hope) Nothing really wrong here but of course this is far simpler in every way with Luke's story the center.

Geonosis (Attack of the Clones) Again utterly EPIC. Nothing outside of ROTS come close to this scale. The only thing holding it back is that Anakin's most important biggest moments aren't tied into (nor do they need to be).

Starkiller Base (The Force Awakens) Simply too small scale for what it should have been. I think they transferred a lot of this to Rogue One.

Hoth (The Empire Strikes Back) Terrific sequences but nothing really character impacting going on.

 

At Celebration Anaheim, Gareth Edwards was telling us that it would be like Star Wars meets Saving Private Ryan. I was hoping for something on par with the Battle of Scarif and I was pleasantly surprised with what was shown here. I imagine if similar technology was available then Hoth and Endor would have looked similar.

 

What I love most about The Battle of Scarif is that it wasn't shy about going big on scale. The space battle was certainly on par with Coruscant and Endor, and I'd say the ground assault was in between Hoth and Endor.