Rogue One The Battle of Scarif -- How It Compares

Scarif does benefit from having more advanced FX of course meaning it can show us some shots that Endor era SW couldn't have but to me it feels like an attempt to get something between the battle of Yavin in ANH and the latter battles of Hoth and Endor. I think Yavin is very much a battle driven by personal actions of a handful of characters and especially of course the lead and the villian, Hoth and Endor on the other hand feel much more like epic battles driven by ebb and flow rather than just a few moments. Scarif I think has both of these elements within it.

I think that kind of matches the story as well, in ESB and ROTJ afterall the wider Rebellion is something a bit more distant with Luke/Han/Leia clearly being the main driver of the story. Rogue One though obviously looks to put us dramatically closer to the Rebels so having someone like Rabbus carry out more specific tactics in the battle makes sense as he's a bigger part of the story dramatically.

 

It's actually quite comical to read the comments on this thread. I understand that everyone's got their opinion, but come on, the entire Scariff battle scene is hands down the best battle sequence in the entire trilogy.

For me, I saw ROTJ opening weekend as a kid and had always compared all other space battles to ROTJ's battle. For over 30 years, all other sci-fi movies would come short to the space battle of Endor.

Until Rogue One. I walked out of the theater after seeing R1 and thought to myself, "Gareth Edwards did it." Everything about the space battle was epic in scale and creativity. From the rebel fleet emerging from hyperspace with squadrons of fighters diving into the shield gate, to the Y-wings dropping ion bombs on the star destroyer, to seeing the hammer head ram the crippled star destroyer and to see the star destroyers split apart after ramming the gate, and to see Darth Vadar's star destroyer appear from hyper space to cut off the escaping transport carrier.

On the surface fighting, how epic was it to see the AT-ATs mow down the rebels and in return, to see the X wings take them out too.

Objectively, I just don't see how this is not the best sci-fi battle scene ever put to film. Think about it, the last 40 minutes of the movie is so good that it essentially carries the entire movie. There is no other star wars movie that does this. This is why the Battle of Scariff is the best battle sequence in the entire trilogy and is also arguably the best as compared to all other sci-fi movies.

 

While I love the scale and staging of The Battle of Scarif, there is never really any point in which the outcome of it feels in doubt, unlike parts of the battles of Yavin, Hoth, Endor and even Naboo.

 

In as much as they were always going to get the plans out I would agree with you, but in terms of the wider battle it felt pretty realistic in the back and forth - the Rebels using surprise, the AT-ATs and superior weapons of the Imperials taking back the initiative and then the intervention of the X-Wings, countered in turn by Imperial fighters and so on - it always seemed that the Empire had the advantage on the ground with the Rebels having a last stand feel to their fight. If you take the battle as a separate entity to the mission with the designs I found it very tense indeed.

 

come on... I agree with you on Hoth, 1st time watching and not knowing what happens there is a lot of ways that could have ended (Vader could have capture one of the heros then, etc). But Yavin? You knew they were going to win, I mean what would be the point if the entire rebellion was wiped out and then the movie ended. Naboo? Only surprise I guess was Qui Gon dying, but we know Obiwon, Padme, and Anakin had to live.... Endor? Maybe, they definitely could have had Luke die up there or one of the heroes on the surface, but you never thought they would actually do it... at I did not.

 

I think he meant during the space battle there isn't a time where it feels like the Empire has an upper hand. From beginning to end it feels like the Rebels have the advantage.

 

I felt that the empire had the upper hand when the death star and vader showed up. It was a surprise attack which gave the rebels the upper hand until the empire counter attacked.

But even before that you had the rebels pinned down on the ground and the fleet unable to break the shield until Raddus the Baddus improvised (which is the main advantage the rebels always have against the empire. Their decentralized command structure allows for greater flexibility where as the empire has a plan they stick to). You never felt like the rebels were routing them, at best they were holding their own until Vader and Tarkin arrived.

 

The Rebels never seemed on the verge of outright victory at all - the best they could realistically hope for was to retrieve the plans then get the heck out of Dodge before the Imperials turned up with extra forces to crush them (which is exactly what happened in the end, fortunately after the plans had been retrieved.) Raddus and co. managed to keep the Imperials off balance long enough to not bring overwhelming firepower to bear, on the ground the battle kept moving thus the whole ''ten men feel like a hundred'' as Cassian put it... but again, the Rebels were never realistically going to actually WIN the battle.

 

I'm going to have to wait for the Blu-ray to give a definitive comparison and ranking for the Battle of Scarif, I think. It's up there though, for sure.

 

No, but I did always feel like the Rebels in the space battle had the upper hand. That doesn't mean they were downright routing them, only that they had the advantage throughout the battle. Which when I say advantage I do not mean outright victory or routing the enemies. Just means the Empire wasn't making significant headway in fighting them off.

 

I've only seen it once, but as I recall, it seemed to me that the rebels in space were holding on to the upper hand by their bloody fingernails. It was what Winston Churchill described as "a damn close run thing" right up to the moment Vader came crashing in.

 

The space battle was pretty much a stalemate until Vader showed up. I do have to wonder if Raddus and his crew survived after Vader boarded the ship, however. My gut says any survivors would have been taken captive aboard the Death Star, and died when Luke blew it up.

 

For me, how I rank space battles comes down to a few things but there is one really big differentiator - choreography. Can I follow how the ships are moving and do they point to goals with large and small skirmishes going on around each other.

I like Scariff and it has a lot of that going on. But I just rewatched ROTJ and the choreography of that battle is just beautiful, with smaller ships dancing around and between capital ships, showing clear paths between those ships - I'm thinking particularly of the shots where the Falcon pursues and is chased by TIE fighters. For me, ROTJ is still the best.

It's not all about speed, changes in direction can show movement just as well. On a tangent, look at the final battle in THE WRATH OF KHAN. Still the best battle between capital ships put on film, again because the choreography did something different with the ships that had not been done before.

 

For sure in the top 3. Endor in ROTJ after viewing Rogue One twice is still #1 but after that Scariff is right there as far as space battle goes. Which I have been waiting for a good space battle since Endor. As for the ground battle and stealing the plans, it seemed a lot of getting by with the Empires best already alerted to what was going on. This and no lightsaber battle, just Vader in action (which is fantastic), puts it in a category below the great emotional endings of the OT, but above the PT battle scenes. But the overall battles in TPM, AOTC & ROTS fall below Rogue One.

 

The space battle was bad. The Star Destroyers didnt do anything though the whole battle, i think they were shown shooting maybe one of two times. The Shield station has turrets hitting everything and they release several squadrons at the same time. The stationary target had more fighting scenes than the war ships. And why didnt they move at all through the whole battle? They were just there next to each other on the opposite end for no reason.

And why weren't the ion torpedoes used before on the shield station? Given that the Star Destroyers weren't doing anything, there's no reason to use them on the SDs

 

I guess I don't mean it in the sense of predicting the outcome of the battle overall, but there didn't seem to be a low moment where the odds felt completely stacked against the heroes, and the film communicated it as much. So not so much of "will they win," but more of a "how are they going to get out of this?"

Yavin - Red leader's failed trench run and subsequent death
Hoth - Luke's crashed snowspeeder
Endor - Death Star firing on the Rebel fleet
Naboo - Qui-Gon's death / Gungans surrounded by droids / Padme's crew surrounded / Anakin crash landing in the control ship

 

Agree with this. The ion torpedoes seemed random, albeit looked cool. I was happy that scarif had the FIRST live action footage of Y-wings conducting bombing runs--something made popular by video games and comics, but never seen in the movies. I just wish the bombing runs had been EFFECTIVE...

 

I think its very comparable to some of the other classics, I think before I can rank it I'll need to watch the saga again and see how it fits in and feels. I think it may have been the best battle in the series just individually. I think I need to watch again to see the flow of how it works with the other films and how rogue one itself fits in. I also think that Rogue One enhanced the other films and made the death star and Vader more scary which will enhance everything, Rogue One was great!. Individually it might be the best inside the whole saga it still it going to be ranked very high. My favorite is still the climax in episode 6 with the endor forest fight, space battle and Luke vs Vader with the emperor looking on.

 

Remember of course that the main story is whats happening on the ground and that does have more twists and setbacks in it with the actual arrival of the Rebel fleet being a big turning point. There are a few more minor ones during the fleet battle though plus of course a major one with Vader at the end.

I would also say that dramatically that battle is a little different from previous SW ones we've seen in that the focus is more on self sacrifice.

 

1. Yavin - the best space battle in the SW Universe. No, it does not have the effects available today. But, it had the most emotional impact for me. Things cannot get worse. The Death Star is about to destroy the Alliance. Rebel pilots dying left and right. Luke is the only one left. He just lost his droid! His targeting computer is off. It's up to him now. The emotions and stakes are what make this the best.
2. Endor Space Battle
3. Hoth
4. Scarif (very impressive)
5. Starkiller Base (great visuals but a retread of ANH)

The bottom of the list are Episodes 1-3. None of the battles in the prequel trilogy held much emotional weight for me.

 

It was a Y-Wing that killed Gallen Urso, watch that part again. It is X-wings moving in 1st, then the Y-wings did a bombing run.

 

Don't worry, that part will be added in digitally for the upcoming Empire Strikes Back Special Edition #2...

 

LOL Can't say that's a bad thing tbh... Vader going HAM Is always entertaining.