Rogue One Is R1 Your New Favorite?

I watched RO again the other day. It's still getting better with each rewatch.

 

Agreed EHT. My first viewing at the cinema I thought it was great but with a few obvious issues (uncanny valley with Tarkin and Leia, slightly contrived plot devices for getting the plans transmitted like "push this big convenient button to align tower (to where?), pull this big lever to transmit plans (to who? is it just broadcasting it to anyone out there? the whole harddrive or specific files?), many of the characters initially seemed a bit under developed) but once the brain had some time to process it all, going back for a second time was awesome and after the third time I absolutely love this movie despite its few flaws.

Once you have viewed it 2-3 times as well I feel the characters are actually much more solidly developed than you at first realise but you need that time after the first viewing for your imagination to fill in some of the gaps they only allude to, much like your own imagination was allowed to build up your own background picture for Han Solo (and why I'll never watch Solo ASWS as it simply will never work for me) due to the framework the movie builds for the character.

As to the question in the thread title - No, RO is not my new favourite as far as all Star Wars movies go, that position still belongs to TESB and as a whole I don't think anything will ever trump the OT for me. But outside of the OT, RO is definitely my next favourite SW film (as you can probably see from my sig below) and the only Disney era SW film I like to date.

 

The best bit is when Cassian and Jyn jump from the control station onto that storage tower thing to manually retrieve the Death Star plans. As the battle rages outside and overhead, you are really fed the idea that inside, two desperate rebels are doing everything they can to get them.

When I saw it for the first time, I knew, obviously, that they get the plans, but I wasn't prepared for how gritty or edge-of-the-seat it was going to be at the end.

Rogue One was a masterstroke in illustrating just what the stakes are, and how desperate the situation is.

 

^Yeah, I like that scene. When they're climbing that narrow area and Cassian falls, and the sound it makes when he hits the ground, followed by the view of him lying down there. That scene is one of the most memorable to me.

 

It was tough, as ROTJ has been at the top of my list since I was a nipper, but I've officially put RO at the top of my list now. A truly awesome film. IMO, it is the ultimate EU film.

 

Rogue One is the only Disney Star Wars movie that gets better with repeat viewings.

 

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Rogue One is definitely the best Star Wars movie in many respects. Diversity is one of them.

 

RO is a great movie. So great, that we will prob. see some backlash in a few years. It's just human nature, like folk who now say ESB is overrated. IMO neither film is overrated.

 

I agree, Christopher. It is a beautiful tragedy in some respects, at least in immediate terms. But in the grander scale, Jyn and Cassian and their crew gave hope to a Rebellion that eventually upended an Empire.

Yes, Jyn's father would have been proud. But that's not what's most important. She has plenty to be proud of within herself.

 

the score is amazingly retro yet not a rehash. It's all really fresh.

 

Indeed. The score is not in one's face. It's subtle and retro. I appreciate and enjoy it.

 

I listened to it. It is nice.

 

I now think RO is easily the best Star Wars film, and think its reputation will increase significantly with time, not the opposite. I don’t see a backlash in its future as it doesn’t have the divisive ingredients needed for that. It was just a really great film, visually, narratively and emotionally, while also being an absolute world-building juggernaut. Everything about it is good, and the main complaint - its characters not being fleshed out enough - is more due to a subtle style than an actual lack of character development (I think it’s the best and most subtle Star Wars film in that department too). So it has the ingredients needed for greater appreciation over time, due to its subtleties and multi-quadrant appeal, rather than the opposite.

 

It's my fourth favorite SW film. Behind TLJ, ESB, and SW.

 

It was my favorite of the new SW films, until TROS came out. Actually, I wonder if part of the reason I put TROS above it right now is just cos it's shiny and new. It's entirely possible that once the novelty of TROS wears off for me, Rogue One may actually emerge my favorite, underneath ROTS and ESB...

 

I just re-watched Rogue One tonight and I can safely say that it’s my favourite of the Disney-era Star Wars films. It’s one of the most subtle and understated of the Star Wars movies. For me, it’s a movie about real heroism and sacrifice. It’s a gritty movie that shoves the viewer face first into the nasty business of life under the Empire. The heroes are conflicted and not always sympathetic, but they win over the audience with their resolve and acts of self-sacrifice.

The cast is also fantastic. Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen, Ben Mendelsohn and Felicity Jones were real stand-outs.

 

It is, in my opinion, a brilliant film, and incidentally the film that made me decide to take up 'Star Wars' seriously as an adult. It's a tremendously grey story, both in literal staging and shooting and in morality, it deals with reality and has shades and degrees of subtlety that need to be watched several times at least.

I try not to have favourites, but the subtle class-indicators and infighting in the Empire - and the Rebellion - are brilliant. Taking Ben Mendelsohn, his accent is deliberately, I am sure, not quite up to the mark by British standards. Peter Cushing had the most remarkable, precise diction, which is quite uncannily replicated by Guy Henry, as well as a poise and understatement of manner and bearing suggestive of the born gentleman, ''sprezzatura'' if you like. Director Krennic aspires to such status, but it does not quite work. His tailoring is good, but not quite as sleekly perfect, he has outbreaks of rage, of vindictiveness. All I can say is ''not quite the done thing'', never quite ''one of us''. Living under that burden, with a brilliant mind (far more so, I think, than his superiors) is a constant gall and Mr. Mendelsohn is often evidently uncomfortable with how little he matches what he thinks he ought to be.

I am every inch the barrack-room lawyer, my specialities are linguistic, but I suspect you could analyse Rogue One from the Imperial point of view with the methods of analytical political-military history. It reminds me of the thesis of ''working towards the Fuehrer'', as I understand it, associated with Kershaw on Nazi Germany. It's a stereotypical and probably highly ropey analogy*, but I, as a complete and ill informed amateur, I believe I can recognise in both cases a military-industrial-scientific complex with varying degrees of committal, all working more or less independently on dozens of lines towards the favour of an essentially imprecise and hands-off autocrat (in the three OT films, I can think of no direct intervention by the Emperor) and devoting much energy to the Darwinian process of squabbling amongst themselves.

More extremely, the Rebel Alliance on Yavin, who I find reminiscent of a traditional British view of the last War, ''Foyle's War'' if you like, can be contrasted against Saw Gerrera's rag-tag band of species, passing their time gambling and idling like picaresque bandit-heroes. Yet both have blurred lines of morality - I think the Alliance more so than the Partisans. The Alliance combines assassination and stated high principle, which is so characteristic and so morally rich in its shades of grey.

* Just to start with, there is no central ideology, no dogma and no trace of a personality cult of the Emperor or Lord Vader. It's hardly totalitarian, and I cannot think of a political or social programme. Alas I have never read a history of a pure military dictatorship without a party programme.

 

Well said. It's far and away the best Star Wars film, IMO. And the most nuanced.

 

Very interesting.

 

I love R1 so much. Such a strong, gritty, not afraid to get dirty, movie. Excellent characters. Solid development. Chirrut is possibly my favorite character in Star Wars, and if not, he's in the team photo. But, it still does not top Empire. Maybe part of that is my own nostalgia towards the OT, so it becomes difficult to supplant Empire, but I just don't get that same sense of grandeur when I watch R1 as I do with Empire. R1 was #2 on my list until The Last Jedi came along. Now those two tend to flip-flop the #2 spot depending on my mood. R1 is the perfect anthology to A New Hope, and to the OT on the whole. I love the R1/ANH/ESB/ROTJ mini-marathon.

 

I’ve come to believe that Rogue One is quite a bit better than ESB, but that’s just me!

 

I put Rogue One at number two on my list of favourites, behind The Empire Strikes Back. But it's a close second.

The only thing I am not keen on is Saw Gerrera, but it's a minor foible.