CT OT only fans - Thoughts on Rogue One, and will you add it to the collection?

And I'm just shallow!

 

To thine own self be true, MVD.

 

This to a T. I'm so glad I've found another poster who seems to just be genuinely underwhelmed by R1. I didn't exactly dislike the movie, it still is SW afterall, but I felt the characters were extremely underdeveloped and one dimensonal. As I posted in another R1 thread, I left the theater without knowing most of their names, and feeling pretty damn disappointed by the overall content (or lack of) over the overall movie. It just...didn't feel like proper SW to me, and seemed over saturated with pointless, flashy action scenes to compensate for the lack of detailed plot/ character development.

 

^ I felt like that after my first viewing. Second time around was much better; I knew the characters, where they came from and where they were going, and got a lot more invested in them. If you've only seen it once, give it another chance.

 

It was a damn good commercial though wasn't it? You're telling me you didn't feel the urge to watch ANH the moment you left the theater? I know I did.

Do I think the movie could have been a lot better? Sure, for the same reasons you do. Does it rank next to the OT? No, not even close. But if you had a good time watching it and you walk away from the movie it with an even greater appreciation for the franchise then I would consider that a success.

 

I certainly enjoyed it, but I wouldn't like to see future spin-offs following the same path. I really hope we will see original stories set in this universe, that can really stand on their own.

 

Loved it. Its my third favorite movie in the series, after ESB and ANH. Ill definitely be adding it to my collection.

 

Going into my first viewing of Rogue One, I ranked the SW films thus:

1. SW
2. TESB
3. ROTJ
4. TFA
5. ROTS
6. AOTC
7. TPM

After seeing Rogue One the first time, I was ambivalent about it. I ranked it above TFA and below ROTJ. I kept thinking about the movie, though. I therefore watched it a second time a week later and found...magic. I sat there with a little grin on my face the whole time. I hadn't had that much enjoyment watching a Star Wars movie in the theatre since the 1970s. A week after that I watched it a third time. Still magic, and better than ever. My ranking of the SW films now is:

1. SW
2. RO
3. TESB
4. ROTJ
5. TFA
6. ROTS
7. AOTC
8. TPM

I look forward to owning Rogue One on blu-ray. I plan on setting aside a 4-hour block of time and watching Rogue One followed immediately by the 1977 Star Wars film (not the Special Edition, natch).

 

Binary_Sunset

Remembering from your older comments you were essentially a Star Wars (ANH) only fan, so I'm glad that after almost 40 (!) years you got a Star Wars film that got you excited (technically you waited the longest of all of us, so I'm happy for you).

 

Thank you very much. In my view, Rogue One fits better with the 1977 Star Wars film than do any of the others. It's the closest a movie has come for me to feeling like the original Star Wars. Yeah, it's been a long wait!

 

I will now watch RO & ANH together as one long film and ESB & ROTJ together as one long film!

 

It took me a few viewings to come around to R1, but now I can say I genuinely like it. Did it leave an impression on me to where I can say it was a profound, memorable experience? Not really. But...

You either need a compelling story, or compelling characters. The story, in screenplay format, has good legs. But R1 faced a unique problem; most all of its characters were ill-fated and we pretty much knew it in advance. When that's the case, I think you subconsciously seek an even deeper yearning for character construction through history. While we got exposition to fill in the blanks (in particular, the 15 year blank between the first scenes), I get more tingly looking at Jyn's wiki page; the comprehensive depth of it. To some extent, I needed to see some of that - the Erso/Krennic/Gerrera dynamics - played out on-screen; as flashbacks or whatever.

Cassian was great - but oh, I just needed a bit more of who he was! Jyn was great - but again, just a smidge more! I know that's often the case with characters, and sometimes it even plays out better with some mystery, but not here, not as a stand-alone (IMO). I feel like there was time and opportunity, but it just wasn't a priority. That's cool; it still worked and did what it needed to do. Just reading that wiki backstory before another viewing made it an infinitely better experience for me.

There are still some geeky things with the space battle that irked me, but they're pretty inconsequential with my overall enjoyment of the picture.

Apples & oranges, but the movie did make me appreciate the construction of TFA's Kylo Ren as a character, with how his scenes were framed. I feel like we didn't see him much, but when we did, the scene always hit you with a sledgehammer of emotion. I wanted to feel more emotion in R1, but again, knowing where we were headed before we started had something to do with that, I'm sure.

 

My first comment was me playing along. This is me not playing along.
Does any one know if Galen Erso is based on any historical figure that answers to a highly placed espionage agent who personally alters the fortunes of that country's military machine? I am not talking about Oppenheimer; don't mention him. Is there any such thing as a German agent or Japanese at Los Alamos who sabotages the outcomes of Little Boy or Fat Man. Is there any such thing as a German agent who infiltrates Bletchley Park and hampers Alan Turing's work. Was there any British agent that infiltrated and sabotages the outcomes at Peenemunde. (And was there a British architect that designed a secret flaw into the Ruhr dams.) (No.) (There was not a British agent who designed a secret flaw into the Ruhr dams.) (The Ruhr dams were destroyed by outsmarting, outplanning, outtraining, outpiloting, outflanking the anticipations and preparations of the enemy.) (Not by being given a special game key to proceed to an unearned level.) (And what it took to win a war such as that did not depend on the deus ex machina of a fantastically highly placed spy sabotaging strategic weapons.) (Unless someone knows of an excellent precedent for something like the modern, wishful, self-back-patting trophy that is the character or concept of Galen Erso.) (I am able to yield to a view of overpowering wisdom, and such things require time {hysteresis}.)

 

I can't think of anyone in history that wielded a lightsaber either hmmm

 

Hernalt

I assume you are referring to Gareth Edwards' statement that Star Wars was 90% about history and 10% about science fiction? Based on the examples you provided, I believe we don't really know that much about people who were involved in sabotage (because they had moral concerns) which constituted some kind of betrayal (and therefore went unnoticed in history).
Regarding Germany the ill-fated 20 July plot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_July_plot - comes to mind, and the actions of Oskar Schindler - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler - who tried to save as many Jews from the gas chambers as possible.

 

As an OT fan i did enjoy Rogue One it managed to take characters out of the originals who have previously very little screen time Mon Mothma & Bail Organa etching more detail about them. The way the story unfolded the universe of Star Wars also gave me a smile. The use of Jedhi being under Imperial occupation the reference to events in the Arab world was a nice touch IMO. All in all no real complaints. For Star Wars it had action, aliens + visuals so yes i would include it with the OT.

 

The Norwegian chemist Leif Tronstadt was an unsung hero in the Allied effort to stop the Nazi atomic weapons program. He was the designer of the heavy water plant that was going to be a critical component of the program, and he passed on this information to British intelligence. His gallant story was recounted in a recently published book by Neal Bascomb (author of Winter Fortress and Hunting Eichmann), which is due to be made into a movie.

http://collider.com/sabotage-michael-bay/

 

Oh, I was responding to the inquiry above about the historical basis for Galen Erso.

Tronstad's story mirrors Erso's in that he warned the Allies about German intentions, and provided them with information on where to attack the facility.

I'm with those who think Rogue One is a worthy addition to the Star Wars saga, and definitely plan to acquire the Blu-Ray when it comes out.

 

There's an old movie called Heroes of Telemark that was loosely based on that incident. IIRC, Burt Lancaster starred. I don't know much about the true story so I can't say how accurate it was, but yeah, it is an interesting historical precedent for Galen's choices in R1.

 

This unlocks a wealth.

Lt. Hija. Worthy leads. I tried on Jacques Stosskopf for size, as well. They still do not have the amplitude of resonance I set for Disney. This Leif Tronstad is hammering on all cylinders. I still have to go through the top soil of information on him and the German nuclear program. At least for now, this is an excellent seed value for the conceits of Galen Erso. I won’t elaborate on the resonances. Thank you, Dr_Cthulhu.

 

I can't wait for RO to come out on DVD. It's the Star Wars film I've wanted to see since 1995. And if anyone thought Vader's "choke on your aspirations" line was too sarcastic, check this out.

 

I liked RO waaaaay better than TFA, but not enough to add it to my collection just yet. I would need to see it a couple more times before it gets purchased.