Books A/V STAR WARS: ROGUE #$^$%&ING ONE: A STAR WARS STORY

So you want a literal character shield, huh?

 

Rogue One stat, probably almost end of box office run, it's one of the few blockbusters, and certainly a rarity in a billion dollar grosser (looks like only Dark Knight has matched that), that has made more in North America than overseas. Sure, it's a razor-thin margin, 50.3% N.A. to 49.7% worldwide, but that's interesting if you look at the spread in worldwide 2016 highest grossing movies flicks like Captain America: Civil War, Zootopia, Jungle Book, Doctor Strange, BvS made only 30%ish of their gross in North America. Hell, stuff like Fantastic Beasts only made 27% on N.A. and further down the list there's the wacky outlier of Warcraft which made only 10% in North America.

Looking back on Force Awakens, it's still 45% in N.A. Or really the Star Wars series in general while it still makes gobs and gobs of money, it's more of a North America taking in 50 to 40% of the take when, by contrast, most modern blockbuster franchises are in the 30% range for N.A.

 

I've read speculation that Americans have been growing somewhat more intolerant/snobbish of big blockbusters as compared to other parts of the world, especially China. No idea if it's true (though that kind of sweeping generalization rarely is), but if it is, I can well imagine Star Wars being an exception to the rule.

 

I don't know if they are more snobbish but I do think most North Americans are a little less inclined to pay theater dollar prices these days for anything but real event movies. And Star Wars is about the biggest event movie American culture has to offer. Unless it is something that people are really looking forward to seeing many are willing to wait to see it on netflix or other streaming services.

 

Hear that sound? That is the sound of Michael Bay crapping himself.

 

Deflection would have then destroyed the Death Star, in which case Luke would have never left Tatooine...
What if scenarios are dangerous!

 

Sounds fine to me.

 

Wrong thread

 

On the Databank we get this image form the film: http://i.imgur.com/KUo6bkV.jpg

Those long-legged animals with Stormtroopers on!

 

The building on the right with the golden dome reminds me a bit of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

 

FINALLY! Databank update on starwars.com for Rogue One!

http://www.starwars.com/databank

http://www.starwars.com/databank/admiral-raddus

http://www.starwars.com/databank/alliance-high-command

http://www.starwars.com/databank/the-profundity

And so much more!!

--Adm. Nick

 

Does anyone enjoy the How it should have ended Youtube Chanel, they do some funny animated spoofs of films including all of the star wars films.

Well they have just released the video for Rogue one. Not the funniest one but still good.

 

See how I predicted that the exhaust port was an intentional flaw due to the Bloodline reference months ago (before Rogue One came out), and how many people knocked that theory down: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/star-wars-rogue-ing-one-a-star-wars-story.50028181/page-170 . But I was right

 

No you weren't. The exhaust port is not the intentional design flaw. The exhaust port is just there to vent thermal exhaust. The chain reaction that destroyed the system was the intentional design flaw. The Rebels at Yavin still had to figure out how to set off that chain reaction.

 

They have a point there with Eadu...

 

That "be careful not to choke on ur aspirations director" line really does sound like a "Dad Joke"

 

Orson Krennic himself seemed to think otherwise, according to the canon novelization of Rogue One--

'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' novelization by Alexander Freed, pgs. 310-311: "Krennic squeezed his eyes shut and used the last glimmerings of his mind to see the station... as he envisioned the cataclysmic energies building within the vast station, he saw it--a detail he had overlooked and forgotten, some trivial adjustment of Galen's: a single exhaust port leading from a narrow trench..."

"Orson Krennic, advanced weapons research director and father of the Death Star, died alone on Scarif, screaming in fury at Galen Erso, at Jyn Erso, at Wilhuff Tarkin, and at all the galaxy."

 

Fair enough, I haven't read that yet.

It's a really weird detail to add, though, since the movies indicate that Galen only worked on the weapon, that he built it to suffer a catastrophic chain reaction, but he did not work on the superstructure. Basically, he rigged the thing to blow but didn't know how the Rebellion was going to light the fuse. That's the whole point of the mission to Scarif; Galen can't give them the Death Star plans because he has never had access to them. He only has the pieces he worked on. That's the whole reason why they have to analyze the data in Artoo, because they don't have the entire answer yet. And it is impossible, desperate! Ninety percent of the Rebel starfighter pilots in that battle were killed. Galen doesn't know they have Anakin Skywalker's kid to make that shot, it makes no sense for that to be the weakness he built in, in addition to contradicting the text.

I'm guessing this is the result of him working from an earlier draft?


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Galen is aware of the exhaust port as a potential access point to the reactor, but the flaw he engineered is the reactor itself. In the novel he uses a sort of reverse psychology to get them to add extra exhaust ports to compensate for it, but without the unstable reactor itself the ports aren't a weakness.

It seems like the reactor is a thing he seeded very early on, then when the stability problem finally raises a red flag he pretends to want to go back and redesign the thing from scratch--but by then Imperial bureaucracy has taken hold and they're just like **** it, add more exhaust ports".

 

Yeah, that part in the novelization (which is otherwise very good) is a bit of a misstep, in my opinion - thematically as well as continuity-wise. One of the big aspects of the climax, in particular, is all of these different people's efforts and sacrifices building upon each other; not just the "main" Rogues, but Melshi and Pao and all the other ground troops, and Merrick and Raddus and the fleet and fighters, and Bail and Mon Mothma, and the literal human chain of guys sacrificing themselves to get the plans onto the Tantive IV - all of it adding up, together with the heroes of ANH, to finally bring down the Empire's ultimate weapon. In that light, I think it's more appropriate for the death of the Death Star to come from Galen building in a general weakness that other, unnamed rebel technicians or the like then built upon in figuring out how to specifically exploit it, then for him to have meant to engineered the exact (unlikely) circumstances we see at Yavin.

 

For those who haven't read the novel, this entire exchange is covered in a series of memos preceding one of the chapters. It's pretty great. Orson realizing later on that the exhaust ports are an exploitable weakness is something he determined on his own at the last possible second, for added irony.

"You were going to make out with her? Do you know where she's been?"--great line, perfect for the character. Is that another Firefly reference, or did HISE come up with it?

I think the most unintentionally funny thing about the first strip is that even though it's about a movie from 2016, the idea that Jason would have to kick Paige off the family computer to look up something on IMDB is very 2003.

TC

 

I heard online that Jedha was originally conceived as Mimban (Circapous V), complete with the Temple of Pomojema, anyone else hear anything like that?