Rogue One Rogue One Reviews/Reactions thread

It is a click bait site. Whenever something is hugely popular, some sites want to look cool and attract views by being radically different for the sake of... more clicks and more ad revenue.

As I said, a click bait.

 

I just came from my 2nd Rogue One viewing.

I am more than thrilled to report that I loved it even more the 2nd time. Some of the things that bothered me the first time round did not at all the during the second, or they did but very little. For example, the fact that there were too many side-characters became very minor for me on second viewing. It simply works, since this was a mission for an extended squad, not just a couple of heroic individuals. The point of Rogue One is that these are ordinary but heroic soldiers, not larger-than-life Jedi or charming smugglers and princesses. So, it works. I am also not that bothered that Vader is so economically used. He is in there for just a little bit, but it's definitely efficient and thrilling. The score is OK, not a major problem.

But all the great things that I loved the first time round, were even greater the 2nd-time round. Rogue One is easily the most beautiful Star Wars film to date. Many and awesome locals, beautiful and epic scenery, and astonishing special effects. The climatic scene in which Jyn Erso climbs up that tower and we can see the air-battle in the background as well as the blue ocean below is simply breathtaking. And that is just one of countless beautiful scenes. Everything in this film is just purposefully and skillfully crafted. Rogue One really achieves a similar feat as that of the first Lord of the Rings movie, it really immerses the viewer into an imaginary world.

This time round, I came to appreciate some of the side-characters even more, Jyn was awesome from the first viewing (even though I did not much like her in the rather weak trailers) but second time, I loved the Donnie-Yen dude, his buddy and the droid. C3PO and R2D2 are mostly comic relief and there to please the kids. BB-8 is fun and cute, but maybe too cute. K2SO is a droid that simply makes sense and is an integral and equal-to-the-humans character. Andor is still meh though.

I also just love the first scene of this film. It must be one of the best in the entire Star Wars universe, probably only outdone by the Vader/Luke duel in TESB. The kid they chose to play young Jyn is just perfect, it looks so much like Felicity Jones, it's amazing! In fact the entire Erso family is so believable as a family, they all look alike! Too often movies these days are very lazy with their casting when it comes to on-screen families, which is quite distracting.

I also came to appreciate Krannic much more as a villain this second viewing. He is a good foil with any other character, with Vader, with the Ersos and even with CGI Tarkin.

An awesome movie, that may very well climb in my all-time rankings. Star Wars is on a roll again!

 

Rogue One is a Cadillac Star Wars movie IMO.

Talented actors, entertaining story, well put together. They do an amazing job of recreating an OT-era Star Wars atmosphere in this.

Potentially groundbreaking CGI with Tarkin; hard to believe they pulled that off. Nice that they brought advances and pushed boundaries in special effects like the previous sagas..

Off Topic on Tarkin: kind of scary to think they can take video and make anyone say or do anything that convincingly....

 

I still think a Williams score would have lifted R1 from my 8/10 upwards, or perhaps more use of original SW music. It's so iconic it seems silly not to have used it.

 

This is so true and is something TFA failed to do. Rogue one definitely pushed the boundaries for special effects.

 

dick rodgers

As great as TFA was, it was indeed a very conservative Star Wars film. Rogue One took serious risks on all counts and we can debate whether it pulls them off or not, but risks were taken across the board. Not having the iconic crawl, forfeiting on some classic music, using Vader very sparingly, no Jedi, revolving around merely mortal and secondary characters, being a spin-off/prequel, having all your protagonists kick the bucket by the end.

We should all be grateful to Gareth Edwards for creating an all-new dimension in the Star Wars universe.

 

Went to see it again (third viewing!) today. Now I have a good amount of pros and cons. And my head is not spinning as crazy.lol
Cons:

C3po and R2d2! And if my attention to detail is so good I'd say r2d2 was the one used for TFA. (Not that its a bad thing, just bugs me. )
Krennic's

Spoiler

death

was just a lil anticlimactic..
No emotion for Jedha's destruction.

Nitpicking at its finest. But that's about all I could come up with TBH..

PROS:
Originally/taking risks
Music (Krennic's theme, and the music playing while they are climbing the wall to get the plans was SO intense..)
Darth Vader's scenes..
The ending was maybe my fav of any SW movie..
Very emotional.
Some beautiful shots.
The grittiness.
Connecting to the whole SW universe. Not just the OT.


I'd probably give this film a 8/10!

 

I agree. Jyn , cassian, bhodi, these characters had arcs and yes there could have been more development but they are real characters who progress. Rey finn and poe just have no arcs at all and none of them progress really. Rey believes in the force? Accepts her family isnt returning? Otherwise they are all paper thin. You care when the characters in rogue one die and there's a reason for that. I lacked that feeling when han died. The themes in rogue one are so prominent and that is what most important to star wars IMO.

 

I saw R1 yesterday and totally loved it! Jyn and Andor were great.I think this movie tops TFA very easily JJ played it safe while Edwards took some risks.The rest of the R1 crew is wonderful.Let's talk villains: Krannic the wanna be Grand Admiral was the perfect swarmy scum bag he's such a prissy bastard that when Tarkin took over management of The Death Star he went to Castle Vader and whined to Vader about it.Who rightfully forced choked him and turned out to be right about him he did choke on his own ambitions.And how about Admiral Raddus! When the council were too busy politicking He just like the crew of R1 decided to go down to Scarif to fight in one of the 1st major battles of The Rebellion.The final scenes tie in beautifully with ANH.

 

Can i get an amen! Kick out Trevorrow and give 9 to Edwards!

 

That's what I been saying!!!

 

Alright. Have a photo people:



It really something else when you see it in a still-photo form. Its no less impressive, but it a lot more terrifying.

 

Yes, although how do we evaluate the reshoots & Gilroy's contribution?

Either way, I'd love to see Edwards direct another SW movie. He won't get IX but give him another spin-off. R1 was so good & Edwards is such a mega-fan that I feel sure this will happen. Also, let's not forget the writers. This film was very well written.

 

might that have been the extent of the re-shoots, or at least some of it, Disney didn't want to kill off all the characters? If that was the case it looks like Gareth Edwards won that argument with Disney.

 

Just saw the movie tonight. I haven't read any reviews or comments, so I went in cold. In short, I thought it was good. Not perfect, but good.

On the plus side, I thought it had a lot of action, good photography and VFX, and good performances. The story was interesting, even though we all knew where it was going. I diverged a lot from the previously established canon, but I didn't really mind that too much.
On the minus side, I thought it ran somewhat too long. I also thought two "comfort the dying person and hear their last words" scenes was a bit much, along with maybe one too many rousing speech scenes. And while putting in all the "Easter Eggs" for fans was a neat touch, I think maybe they put in a few too many. (For example, I figure only the most knowledgable of the First Generation fans would recognize the few seconds of Vader's original theme from ANH playing during the shot of him in the bacta tank.)

As for a few details, I thought the CGI for Tarkin looked kind of creepy, but it worked since Tarkin himself was creepy. On the other hand, the shot used for Leia looked...off, somehow, from my viewpoint.
Whoever did Tarkin's voice did pretty well, and it was a nice touch to credit Peter Cushing, OBE. And James Earl Jones was good, as always, as Vader. And it was nice to see Jimmy Smits back as Bail Organa.
I thought the scenes of Krennic getting thoroughly owned by Tarkin and Vader, respectively, were great. It would've added too many complications, but it would've been even better if they'd gone for the trifecta and had the Emperor done it, too.
I thought Michael Giacchino's music was good, while not using the original Williams themes too much. I thought using the finish from the ANH score, followed by a brief, sad coda, worked well.
I was surprised at how abrupt the movie's finish was. It just slams to a stop, then roll credits, leading more or less directly into ANH.

One more point, and I may be wrong on this. I'm a bit worried that younger viewers might watch "Rogue One", then watch ANH and think, "What's the big deal?" They went to great lengths to make the heroes in the former look like total bad***es, and some might think that the Big Three in the OT don't measure up. And, after seeing Vader in action, I'm sure it'll fuel the push by some fans to revisit the OT and, somehow, put in a lot more business into the duels so they'll match up. Now, if I'm wrong about my worries, feel free to correct me; I'm not completely certain, myself. I might be just acting like the aging curmudgeon I'm gradually turning into.

Over to you...

 

Crap, where did you get that screencap? trailer?

 

Yeah, I really liked the effect of the DS destructo-beam. It tore things up in the most interesting way. And in that scene I loved seeing all the debris ascending into space above the planet's surface. Very cool imagery.

 

It's been mentioned here before, but with a Williams score, R1 would be far and away better. The score wasn't by any means bad, it just lacked the leitmotifs that define the Williams score and the Star Wars film scores. The music wasn't bad, but every Star Wars film has a cue that can be made into a moving concert piece. This film didn't have anything like that.

RO had less ups and downs in quality than TFA. There were no heroes I liked as much as Rey, but there were no scenes I disliked as much as the Rathtar seen.

As dumb as it sounds, though, it was great to see classic Star Wars ships battle in a new adventure again.

 

I don't know, I think I prefer that Giacchino or whichever composer they settled on had gotten more time to compose.

After my 2nd viewing, several pieces stood out

Star-Dust
Your Father Would be Proud
&
Guardian of the Whills

Imagine if he had more time and was onboard from Day1 instead of replacing Desplat.

I don't think Williams would have done better and we'd all be tired of him by Episode VIII, his work on TFA wasn't that great outside Rey's theme.

 

Giacchino did extraordinary work, IMHO. The cues not found on the OST make a big difference.

Anyway, I saw R1 for the second time today, and I now think this stands shoulder-to-shoulder with ESB. If I had to rank the five films, from R1 to TFA, I'd say that ESB and R1 are top tier, ANH and TFA are mid-tier and ROTJ is bottom tier.

 

John Williams does so little right now, I think every film he does is a treasure now. I'm not sure I can get tired of him at this point.

Disney did the right thing going with Giacchino over Desplat, but none of is it quite the caliber of John Williams.

 

Early buzz is that Rian Jonson is also going for something similar to what Edwards has done. Less bubbly, more realistic. He has all the material he needs to deliver an amazing film. I do hope he watched R1 and let what Edwards did sink in. We want realism. You can still have laughter and the fun of Star Wars without pandering to 6 year olds so they can go buy toys.

 

the rathtar scene really threw me off too, for some reason. Seems a lot of people had a problem with that scene lol

 

It was out of Abrams' Star Trek universe. It felt too wacky. They could have cut that scene and the film would have been better.

That being said, comparing original characters, TFA had a leg up on RO. Having the heir apparent to Luke Skywalker tips the scales for me. Rian Johnson will hopefully cut some of the goofy fat from VII to make VIII better streamline the series.

TFA was the inverse of all the prequel films. The prequels were like "_______ was really cool, but the rest of the movie was wacky", where as in TFA, the rathtars were stupid but the rest of the movie was great.

 

Edwards has certainly earned the right to a main SW movie.I knew it was a hit when some people leaving the theater who wanted another R1 movie.