Leo
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I don't believe in the moon, I think it's just the back of the sun.
Posts: 280
Original Join Date: September 30, 2008
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Rogue One
Posted On: Oct 13, 2016 14:13:29 GMT
Post by Leo on Oct 13, 2016 14:13:29 GMT
Trailer #3: I got goosebumps from watching that. EDIT:
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Selena
Admin
Odinsdottir
Posts: 318
Original Join Date: February 13, 2003
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Rogue One
Posted On: Oct 13, 2016 15:40:55 GMT
Post by Selena on Oct 13, 2016 15:40:55 GMT
Hot damn, that was satisfying. Now that we've got to have a better look at it, I'm immensely excited for this movie.
I imagine that spirit of hope stuff was what they added in to make it "less of a war movie and more of a feel-good Star Wars movie," but BOOM, SPACE BATTLES AND TONS OF ACTION.
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Egann
Member
Posts: 124
Original Join Date: Sometime in 2008
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Rogue One
Posted On: Oct 14, 2016 2:25:45 GMT
Post by Egann on Oct 14, 2016 2:25:45 GMT
So a moment to look at the names associated with the top few seats. Gareth Edwards is director. I've never seen either of the Monster movies--which is just as well; they were indy projects on a shoestring budget--and I don't remember anything about Godzilla, good or bad. He seems like a great visual effects director, though (and this definitely shows in the trailers).
Writers? Chris Weitz (Golden Compass and Twilight), and Tony Gilroy (Bourne franchise.)
This is an interesting collection of talent. There's a lot of visual effects people on the list, so I think there's going to be a lot of combat. I think it's interesting they actually reached out to a script writer who has, in fact, done spy movies. Do I think Rogue One will vivisect your humanity? No. But I certainly have higher hopes for it than *shudder* that last Star Wars movie.
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 16, 2016 20:48:07 GMT
Post by SteveT on Dec 16, 2016 20:48:07 GMT
Was good. Anything else I could say would be a spoiler.
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Leo
Member
I don't believe in the moon, I think it's just the back of the sun.
Posts: 280
Original Join Date: September 30, 2008
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 17, 2016 0:18:57 GMT
Post by Leo on Dec 17, 2016 0:18:57 GMT
The humour was on point, my personal favourite was 'Are you kidding me? I'm blind.'
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 17, 2016 18:57:52 GMT
Post by DarkJuno on Dec 17, 2016 18:57:52 GMT
Hey, it's definitely the best prequel.
It was good, it wasn't crazily amazing, but it was good.
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Egann
Member
Posts: 124
Original Join Date: Sometime in 2008
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 21, 2016 21:39:05 GMT
Post by Egann on Dec 21, 2016 21:39:05 GMT
I concur with DJ. Good, but not really warranting some of the raving reviews I've seen.
The ending should have had a lot more emotional punch than it did because that particular ending *must* be paired with solid character development. I won't say that the character development was awful, but it was lackluster for sure.
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Selena
Admin
Odinsdottir
Posts: 318
Original Join Date: February 13, 2003
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 22, 2016 1:49:16 GMT
Post by Selena on Dec 22, 2016 1:49:16 GMT
Saw it today. I thought the opening scenes were a little cluttered and dull. Probably for about the first half-hour. I think they could've used some punchier writing through there -- and they probably should've officially started a little later in the storyline. Apparently Krennic and Galen had been friends during the Republic days. Wish they would have stressed that on camera. I genuinely liked all the characters. They just didn't have a whole lot of room to breathe, you know? Despite all the hype about Jyn, she wasn't a big force in the movie. She was probably the most passive lead character in the entire film saga. Which was disappointing for me. I was hoping for a lot of action scenes with her as the central figure -- fighting in sleazy underbellies of Imperial planets. This article sums up a lot of my feelings on her portrayal. Sounds like a lot of cool scenes were cut when they did reshoots. Would've liked to see the original cut, for curiosity's sake. Apparently there was a big scene where they have to race across the beach with the datatape, battling troopers the whole way back to the shuttle. That battle sequence is included in the latest Battlefront update. Which makes me wonder if the Battlefront team planned their whole Scarif DLC on the original cut of the film. In which case the space battle would've gone differently too. That said, the battles were fucking awesome -- both on land and especially in space. Darth Vader had the optimal level of screen time. Not enough to divert attention away from the main story, but just enough to be a massively intimidating presence. That was some of the best Vader action in the whole film saga. I also didn't find Tarkin's depiction all that awful. Some people were complaining about uncanny valley, but I only really felt his model was off when they wrongly decided to give him a close-up. Otherwise I thought it was relatively seamless. They didn't hold the camera on his face too long. I mean, it was obviously CGI. But it wasn't bad CGI. Same with a few other "returning" characters. Who were all nice to see. Very good representation of the original trilogy era. Initial modern ranking: Better fight scenes than Force Awakens, but I feel like Force Awakens had better overall organization. I still watch Force Awakens every once in a while. Not overly interested in seeing Rogue One again any time soon.
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 22, 2016 4:23:02 GMT
Post by DarkJuno on Dec 22, 2016 4:23:02 GMT
Ah, we're doing spoilers now? No? All right, I'll keep vague.
After digesting it for a bit longer, I think that the first two acts are an okay movie, where honestly, I was still feeling a little sick and I was actually thinking I shouldn't have gone to see it in the theatre or even considered maybe leaving because I felt so bad. But the third act is actually pretty amazing and I happily suffered through because I was pretty well captivated by it.
Everyone was competently portrayed, but ultimately, I think Jyn was just a little too dull to carry the movie, which kinda brings a thud to how Felicity Jones (rightfully!) got paid the most in the cast since she was the main star. Honestly, Cassian wasn't great either but I got a better sense of his character then her. K2-S0 was probably the most memorable character, but even then he's just a less psychopathic HK-47 from KotOR.
I'm a little torn on Tarkin. On one hand, it's pretty amazing that we're seeing a representative of Peter Cushing in a movie in 2016, and it's a pretty great tribute, but on the other, it was just...weird. It's fantastic CG, absolutely, but it was definitely a little off whenever he showed up, and the fact that he kept showing up just felt weird everytime. It would be pretty sweet to have an Original Trilogy game with everyone looking as good as that though. The trickery with a lot of the other old character was pretty clever aster they bring back was decidedly more off-putting in that one scene then Tarkin, despite not being seen for very long. I was pleasantly surprised by how this movie is very much not going to get a sequel, and equally surprised by how Star Wars happens basically the next day.
So, same opinion as before, but I'm actually a bit more confident then I already was that Disney was the right company to handle this. Though I have to say, I'm completely disinterested in seeing a young Han Solo or young Boba Fett movie, I'd rather see more films like this.
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Masamune
Member
Posts: 113
Original Join Date: January, 2002
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 22, 2016 13:20:36 GMT
Post by Masamune on Dec 22, 2016 13:20:36 GMT
My thoughts:
-The main cast were all underdeveloped, but not nearly as bad as it was in Suicide Squad. Jyn was a completely pointless character. Why was she even there?
-Tarkin CGI was very distracting for me, because I immediately was in the uncanny valley with him. It was like staring at a gross canker sore every time he was on screen. Why did he have to be there in person? Star Wars has already established slightly blurry holograms as a completely legitimate method of communication. Why not have most of his scenes by hologram communication?
-The final battle was a perfect delight to watch. It would've been a hundred times better if I had been emotionally invested in any of the characters involved, but it was still incredible to see. I love how well it plays into A New Hope. Character issues aside, this is one of the most amazing examples of prequels I've seen, at least as far as technical achievements go.
-It was DIFFERENT. I won't say this is a better film than Force Awakens, because it isn't. TFA had better writing and characters, but it was such a dull rehash of A New Hope that I left it disappointed. Rogue One was something we'd never seen in Star Wars for me, so I came out of it liking it much more for doing the one thing TFA was terrified of doing: trying.
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 22, 2016 14:48:30 GMT
Post by SteveT on Dec 22, 2016 14:48:30 GMT
One thing that Rogue One deserves a ton of credit for is that it managed to avert the classic Star Wars dilemma: space battles. When Star Wars movies have simultaneous space and ground battles, they have a lot of trouble making a coherent story out of it. This first became a problem in Return of the Jedi. The Battle of Endor had three components:
1. Ground battle to turn off the Death Star Shields 2. Space battle to destroy the Death Star 3. Luke's special ops mission to assassinate the Emperor
Based on the distribution of characters, the space battle felt like it was just there to fill time. Lando was cool and all, but he was still the B-team and it was pretty clear that the real story, the real driving conflict of the whole affair, was Luke's stuff. The three component structure mostly worked, but wasn't perfect.
In Episode I, things really fell apart with the Battle of Naboo. There was a dumb ground battle and a really dumb space battle where a 10 year old destroyed a mothership. Episode II didn't bother. Episode III opened with a completely gratuitous, context-free space battle. Episode VII, I don't even remember that well what the space guys were trying to accomplish at the end because Rey and Finn were the important part.
But Rogue One...Rogue One managed to tie it all together so very nicely. Ground forces trying to collect and transmit data. Space forces trying to break the data blockade while Imperial Forces are playing defense. It worked seamlessly and I never got the feeling of "This is gratuitous" even with all the craziness going on.
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Selena
Admin
Odinsdottir
Posts: 318
Original Join Date: February 13, 2003
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 22, 2016 21:13:18 GMT
Post by Selena on Dec 22, 2016 21:13:18 GMT
Yeah, I'd say Rogue One's final conflict actually topped Hoth as the best large-scale Star Wars film battle. Which means only one thing: 6,000 different versions of the Battle of Scarif in every future Star Wars video game.
I think Jyn would have benefited from being an active member of Saw's extremist rebel faction -- deliberately blowing shit up and acting as a thorn in the Empire's side. Not just a lonely grifter. Her big speech on Yavin would have been a little more convincing, I think, if she really chewed out the Alliance for sitting on their ass for twenty years while smaller factions and mostly independent cells (Rebels TV show) have been doing the actual fighting all this time. The Death Star represents a point of no return for the Alliance waiting game. Which she started to get at, but I think it could have been driven home more.
Cassian was probably the weakest link in the cast for me. He claims to have a dark past full of fighting, but it's never really addressed -- so he just comes off as needlessly broody. My initial impression from the trailers was that Jyn would be the one who walked the line between good and bad, which would have been fitting for someone affiliated with Saw, and that Cassian would be the lawful good officer trying to stress the importance of the mission. I think that would have worked better.
Or just getting rid of Cassian in general, which would make more room for the other, cooler characters. You could just bundle his traits up with Jyn and be fine.
(I'm also very glad they didn't kiss in the end; it would have been gross and unnecessary)
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 22, 2016 21:51:16 GMT
Post by SteveT on Dec 22, 2016 21:51:16 GMT
In order of uselessness to the story, from most to least useless:
1. Cassian 2. Gatling Backpack Guy 3. Jedi Ip Man 4. Fashion Statement Goggles 5. Girl Kyle Katarn 6. Sassy Robot
It is known.
Saw didn't do much for me. I liked him even less in the movie than I did on Clone Wars. He felt a lot like Grievous--a character whose relevance is established better outside the movies, and another member of the Heavy Handed Loss of Humanity Metaphor Cyborgs that Star Wars loves so much. The whole first act was problematic and a little dull, really.
Also, sign me up for all the Battle of Scarif levels. You could almost make a whole game out of it.
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Delphi
Member
Posts: 38
Original Join Date: February 18th 2002
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 23, 2016 3:51:55 GMT
Post by Delphi on Dec 23, 2016 3:51:55 GMT
I think this is a movie that could have benefited from being split into two parts and I present the extremely rushed first half hour of the film as evidence.
I can't really talk about anything without a ton of spoilers and the tag won't work so here's your warning:
SPOILERS BELOW HERE
CAN'T GET TAG TO WORK
BECAUSE I'M SMART
I knew going in that none of the characters in this movie were making it out alive but I think most Star Wars fans knew this. You don't go after the Death Star plans without basically asking to get a blaster bolt through the head. All they needed was a Bothan with them to show they're all gonna die. Yes I know that's the second Death Star but I couldn't resist. Speaking of the call backs, some of the really, really obscure meta stuff was actually kind of fun. I know the Whills was recently worked into canon somehow in the series but that reference goes all the way back to the very first drafts of A New Hope. The blue milk at the beginning made me giggle. The castle in the volcanic landscape referencing the earliest drafts of Empire Strikes Back (the ones where Luke's father was a Force Ghost not associated with Darth Vader. All planned out from the beginning my ass, Lucas). The stormtroopers talking about the T-15 being phased out for the T-16. I kept expecting someone to smack me upside the head in the theater for laughing at seemingly random things.
I think Jyn could have benefited from having a story where she's been trying to save her father over the years and left Saw because he was too interested in blowing shit up instead of saving people. Whole extremist thing. Ideas being more important that people leading the split. So she leaves him for that reason to try to go it on her own to track down and save her dad. That way her multiple identities are the result of being places she's not supposed to and needs to ditch that one so she can follow the next thread. So now she's not a needlessly edgy criminal and she has an end goal in mind and it raises the stakes with the Alliance wanting to assassinate her dad. Then we also get Jyn on the Alliance radar because they know she's looking for him and needs resources. She's still their best bet for tracking him down but now she's not incidental (and disposable) to the process.
Cassian I think would have also benefited from some expanded screen time. Hell I would have loved to see Cassian get his hands on K in the first place. Show me more of his conflicted self with wanting to stop the Empire without becoming them. When he shot the guy at the beginning I was hoping that would have opened up some more avenues for character development but there's just not enough time for all the characters. We got a glimpse of it when he refused to assassinate Galen but it wasn't quite enough.
I was also very happy Cassian and Jyn didn't kiss at the end. It kept the film about war buddies instead of forced romance. At the end it was two people trying to comfort the other knowing they're going to die and no romantic feelings need to be involved. So kudos to that.
As for Grand Moff Uncanny Valley the CGI is still very impressive but I think the biggest issue we have is that we don't really know how to render aged skin with this technique. Most examples we have of CGI over another person's face are of de-aging people like in Tron Legacy. I'm still very much a novice with 3D rendering but getting good skin settings with the shaders is one of my more obsessive parts. Tarkin's skin in Rogue One looks a bit too dewy and young, for lack of better words. Too glossy, too supple. I think adjusting the refractive index if that's what they were using would have helped to make it look more aged. I think the upper layers of the skin were also a bit too translucent but I could be completely wrong. Just my very, very inexperienced observations. But the fact that I am so inexperienced and wondering why they didn't alter the glossy settings and why they made the sub surface scattering around the hollows of his cheekbones transmit and scatter light so shifted towards violet that it almost looks like he was bruised kind of points out that it's probably something they could have been fixed. At least that's what I've seen from my quick and dirty tests with my far inferior models and resources the last few days.
For Leia at the end... She actually had too smooth a skin texture. You might have been able to get away with that in the days before HD technology but now that we can see the small imperfections in the skin down to larger pores you have to add that in even if you think it takes away from the beauty of a character. Features that are too perfect also fall into the uncanny valley. Badly.
Final thoughts, it was nice to see Vader in proper form. That end with him in the dark was shot like a horror movie and I loved it. It was like waiting for the xenomorph to pop out in Alien. You know he's there and you're completely fucked, you just don't know how fucked until the lights are on and it's way too late.
Also enjoyed K having enough at the end and deciding to beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker. Just... Thank you K for existing. If we can't have HK-47 I will take K.
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Selena
Admin
Odinsdottir
Posts: 318
Original Join Date: February 13, 2003
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Rogue One
Posted On: Dec 24, 2016 7:07:01 GMT
Post by Selena on Dec 24, 2016 7:07:01 GMT
Oh, and credit where it's due: Michael Giacchino did an amazing job on the soundtrack. It maintained the Star Wars feel but had just enough unique personality to distinguish itself. I noticed he utilized themes and motifs from the whole film saga -- very subtle, always seamlessly worked into his own stuff. Some of the film scenes overpowered the soundtrack in the theater, but listening to it afterward was very nice. Episode VII had some really great tracks (the final scene, Rey's theme, the First Order suite), but I think the Rogue One soundtrack was pretty strong overall. I've been a fan of Giacchino for a long time, way back when he mostly did video game soundtracks. Two standouts were the very first Call of Duty -- namely this track, which really set the mood for retaking Red Square in a near-suicidal charge -- and Mercenaries. The latter being a somewhat underappreciated game with a stellar soundtrack. If John Williams decides to retire before the new trilogy is done, which would be understandable given how long he's been at it, then I think Giacchino would be a fantastic replacement. Also, here's that track from a certain corridor scene at the end of the film:
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