Rogue One [Official Info] Donnie Yen (Chirrut Imwe) in Rogue One (incl. Force sensitivity discussion)

I'v not read any new canon novels so perhaps they touch on it but I think the force religion and how it was viewed by various people in the galaxy is an interesting subject. The way characters like Han and Admiral Motti are dismissive of the Force to me suggests that in the more developed core systems the religion really isn't that strong, granted the Jedi existed in living memory but you could argue they could be painted more just as elite warriors, certainly we don't really see them espousing the force to the general population much in the PT. So perhaps its stronger in a lot of the less developed systems where Imperial control isn't so strong?

As has been mentioned it does seem like the force religion could well be a big part of the story of the ST. Beyond giving the impression the Jedi became a bit disconnected from it one thing that seems notable to me is the way Chirrut talks about the force, I don't believe he mentions the "darkside" or "lightside" at all, he says the force is moving darkly around Cassian but he doesn't mention that he's in opposition to the darkside himself. Perhaps this might play into the idea that Luke has potentially rejected the light/dark dictamony by studying the ancient temples? maybe give the impression that this was more of the original view of the force? that the darkside had to be acknowledged in order to be controlled?

 

I pre-ordered 'Guardians of the Whills' novel. That's the only new novel material from Rogue One that interests me so far.

 

Completely agree. I like him more than some of the Jedi characters they created for the PT.

 

More than "some of them?" He's miles better than all of them, IMO. And, personally, I prefer him to both PT Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, despite those two being my favorite characters in the prequels.

 

Actually, you're right. I am underselling just how good of a character Chirrut is with that language. I was trying to convoy that he's not a Jedi but he's better than the Jedi characters they created.

 

I like to think this was done a bit on purpose. The Jedi had lost their way, this is most exemplified with their inability to relate to non-Jedi. They had formed a very insular culture that had lost most of its connection to the outside world. They were more concerned with politics, and enforcing how a Jedi should act instead of listening and following the Force. This is why Qui-Gon wasn't on the council, he didn't act how the council thought a Jedi should act even though he probably had a better understanding of the Force than all but maybe Yoda.

 

I wonder how many Guardians of the Whills there were at this point in time in RO...? It's probably nothing but you clearly see Baze talking to someone off camera when Jyn first meets Chirrut. You can see the end of another persons weapon in the archway Baze is standing under.

 

Either way, that other person would be dead when the Death Star hit Jedha.

 

Chirrut Imwe thread bump

 

You just bumped the thread and then immediately knocked it to the ground.

 

The most disappointing character in the movie for me, the only one I really noticed and took an interest in during the build up (I'm completely non-spoiler). I thought, "at least it has Donnie Yen, he'll be cool".

Well, he wasn't. He was completely dull. The guy's dialogue is somehow less interesting than fortune cookie wisdom, which is far more colorful. He's nothing but repetitive dogma.

He's far more dull than any of the PT Jedi, who were at least capable of an original thought. Chirrut Imwe had nothing but the most uninspiring, generic philosophy quotes. I never anticipated that such a cool idea for a character could turn out so bad, it's the worst version of this sort of character I've ever seen. I've never seen one written with so little charm.

One thing I did not anticipate at all was that he would struggle with English. I didn't know. I've seen many of his movies, but they're mostly in Cantonese, I believe. I guess I just never wondered whether his English was any good. It's not. He struggled to get through the lines, he was very awkward and it killed just about everything he was supposed to be going for.

 

You like melodrama (and seem to conflate that with "charm"). Edwards didn't make a melodrama. Deal with it, deliver your criticisms in the complaints thread, and stop trolling every other one.

 

EHT
TCF-1138
Pro Scoundrel

You guys want to deal with this? Are you gonna let this go until I'm harassed out of this forum, too?

You see what I'm talking about here?

 

Not sure why you're appealing to the mods to defend your thinly-veiled trolling of nearly every thread in this forum.

 

Got it. Apologies.

 

So what exactly did he need to be a "cool" Star Wars character?

Why is "The Force is with me and I am one with The Force", or "May the Force of Others be with You", somehow more generic than the oft-repeated "May the Force be with you"? How is "Trust the Force, Luke. Let go" any better?

His English is fine, on par with yours.



Perhaps you just weren't paying attention.

 

Entertaining? Interesting, in any way? He wasn't, imo. I find him utterly uninteresting, which is really shocking, because I love the blind Zatoichi characters. The spiritual warrior monks. It's not hard to make one that I will enjoy.

I don't have some sort of metric he needs to score high on. I didn't have some bar he had to hit. I was totally ready to be entertained by him, he just didn't deliver any entertainment. (well, I thought the hood joke was funny, probably the best joke in the movie)

I don't know why you're setting up a straw man. I never said any of these things, so why are you asking me to defend them?

"May the Force be with you" doesn't do anything for me, either. Never really did, but it's certainly not doing anything for me now after all these years. That's something layman say, people who don't know anything about the Force. It's almost a fancy goodbye, like saying godspeed.

"Let go" worked, not just because of the words, but because of what he was asking, and what had been built up over the entire movie. He was asking Luke to turn off the computer and trust the Force instead, which played back to his earlier lesson on the Falcon. "Your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them." (I like that line, it works, like a koan) "Let go of your conscious self, and act on instinct". I know Imwe is really doing the same thing by stepping out into the open and walking to the switch, but it's different, for lots of reasons. The words, the set up. Doesn't do anything for me. Luke is a newb and a pov character. He was being introduced to the Force just as we were. Imwe is not a newb, he's a monk, part of an order. It meant more to me to watch a newb do it. I can go on with the differences.

It might have been better if he had said nothing at all when the time came to take a leap of faith. If he really believes his mantra, just take a deep breath (and close his eyes? lol) and go. But that's just a guess based on personal taste. Not anything serious. He might need the mantra to help him concentrate on the Force. Maybe he needs it to reassure himself.

It worked for me when Indiana Jones, who never struck me as a religious man, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and stepped into the abyss. Why did The Last Crusade and A New Hope work, and Rogue One didn't, when they have similarities? The devil's in the details, that's why.

He's supposed to be some sort of wise character, right? Well, he didn't do anything for me in that regard. He didn't blow my mind or anything close. His mantra, his dialogue, did absolutely nothing for me.

What's generic? They're not specific. They're meaningless. They're like pleasantries or small talk. At least, imo.

One thing that makes it more generic is simply how often he repeats it. Phrases often lose their originality, and sometimes even their meaning, the more often you repeat them. Well, it didn't do anything for me the first time he said it, so it definitely wears thin the more he says it. "The Force is with me and I am one with the Force" is meaningless to me and has no flavor to it. That's just my opinion. I know it's like a mantra, it's something he really believes in, to the point that he is willing to trust in the Force and make a leap of faith, but none of it works for me when the words themselves do nothing for me.

The words, the meaning of them, have to provoke something in me, like a koan, or any good piece of wisdom. They have to set something off in my brain and make me go "whoa" like Keanu in The Matrix (this is an exaggerated illustration, relax). There is no spoon. (maybe not the best example, I'm not actually a big fan of The Matrix) Ben and Yoda were able to do that a few times. "Do or do not. There is no try." "No, no, there is no why". The PT was able to do it, too.

"The Force is with me and I am one with the Force" says nothing. It's not advice. I can't learn anything from it. It's meaningless reassurance. It does nothing for me. It has no value to me, personally.

Would you like examples I find better?

"There's always a bigger fish." It's a maxim to remind you of perspective and humility, and of course it works perfectly for the scene.

OBI-WAN : I have a bad feeling about this.
QUI-GON : I don't sense anything.
OBI-WAN : It's not about the mission, Master, it's something...elsewhere...elusive.
QUI-GON : Don't center on your anxiety, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration here and now where it belongs.
OBI-WAN : Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future...
QUI-GON : .....but not at the expense of the moment. Be mindful of the living Force, my young Padawan.

There's a lesson about living in the moment, and it tells you exactly who Qui-Gon is. He lives in the moment.

"Who's the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?" I thought this was really cute the first time I heard it, when I was four. It still holds up pretty well.

And so on and so forth. These are the kind of interesting lines I'd like to hear, these are the lines Imwe's lines should be compared to. I don't think Imwe has anything that compares. He didn't have anything that resonated with me.

Opinion noted.

 

But we learn early on (in response to an inquiry from Cassian) that Chirrut is not a Jedi, so his ability to manipulate the Force to help him accomplish the impossible isn't certain. A little later we find him quite helpless in jail. When he chants his mantra and exposes himself to enemy fire in that pivotal scene, we are arguably witnessing a greater leap of faith than Luke's in A New Hope because he has not had contact with a Jedi who could show him what the Force can do. He is operating purely on faith. Maybe you should give that scene another look.

What we got is more interesting than what you suggest since it dsitnguishes Chirrut from the Jedi or Force Users. The Rebels, including Chirrut, are pinned down by withering fire. It's not the blind monk who is the first to jump up and make a dash to the communications unit, but another trooper who is cut down almost as soon as he stands, establishing to everybody just how dangerous the situation is. We then see Chirrut sit up and consider the risk - a moment's hesitation that mirrors Luke's in A New Hope - and then decide to make the sacrifice. But it is an act unlike that which he undertook in the Jedha market (where "I am as the Force wills me" sufficed before he took on the Imeprials) or anything else during the story because this time he needed his mantra. There is a perceptible joy on his face after accomplishing his task, as if his faith had been rewarded: this is not the behavior of a Jedi who is supremely confident about what the Force can accomplish, and is many times more interesting than having a monk who is just another version of a classic character in the Saga.

It's not meaningless, it's a statement of what he believes and defines his attitude in the current state of affairs. It's also an encouragement to others to find harmony with the stuff that makes the universe tick. Chirrut's role in the film was to provide the light of optimism in an otherwise grim milieu, where the Jedi are nowhere to be seen and cynicism reigns, even among the Rebels. It's very poignant when you consider the strength of his faith in light of this reality.

Well, each to his own. Personally, I find some of the aphorisms of the prior films (including the one you quoted) trite and boring. Chirrut's words, on the other hand, add mystery and flavor to the milieu. Some of it was a nice tribute to the early years of Star Wars: the Force of Others and the Kyber Crystal were, if I'm not mistaken, Lucas conceptions.

 

Ultimately it's still Star Wars, And in Star Wars Fortune Cookie/cheesy dialogue is the order of the day. I'd say Chirrut is perfectly inkeeping with the long line of wise space sages that preceded him.

IMO Rogue One is a bona fide melodrama in true Star Wars tradition. Infact I'd say of the eight existing movies its the only one that can rival ROTS for sheer levels of said melodrama.


BTW I don't think Donnie Yen's English was an issue, but I think his is the first Star Wars character with a Chinese accent, so maybe that confused people a little?

 

I thought the Trade Federation people in The Phantom Menace had a thicker accent, and I recall having a harder time understanding everything they were saying on my first viewing. (I had the same trouble with Bane/Tom Hardy in the Dark Knight Rises).

 

Honestly my feelings are almost totally the reverse, whilst obviously I expected Yen to give some good action sequences I did fear the character would end up as a rather cheesey "mystic" and as dull as the PT Jedi.

The reality for me though is that he actually came closer to capturing the kind of feel that Alec Guinness's Obi Wan brought than anyone else has since. Yen has actually IMHO become a good dramatic actor down the years with stuff like the Ip Man films rather than just someone who could deliver fight sequences and I think he and the writters give Chirrut a very believable offhand charm to him. The way for example he says to Cassian "theres more than one kind of prison, I think you carry yourself wherever you go" doesn't just sound like the crude moralising of the PT to me nore overly cheesey, very much reminded me of Guiness delivering lines like "who's the more fool, the fool or the fool who follows him?".

Added to that as well I felt his friendship with Baze was also a thrownback to the realistic offhand nature of Han and Luke's frenship in the OT, obviously it wasn't as prominent in the film but still it was great to see this kind of thing back in SW after so many years.

He does obviously have a very noticble accent but I don't think that interferes with the performance at all and fits with the characters exotic nature.

 

There are different human cultures in the GFFA. Some of them have accents when speaking basic. I actually thought it enhanced his performance.

 

I'm a fan of Donnie Yen but this character really bored me. I didn't even recall his name after watching the movie. I expected a lot more, both in terms of an emotional arc and the character as an action scene presence. Very disappointing.