The Star Wars Thread

[stokeriño]

Okay, time for spoilered remarks.

In trying to pick my favourite bit of the movie, although the likes of...

Spoiler

a) the part where Vader is decimating a corridor of Rebel soldiers while they're desperately trying to pass the disc with the Death Star plans through a gap in the door, and b) absolutely everything K2 does

...are very, very strong contenders, I can't help but keep coming back to...

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when Jyn was watching the holo-message from her father, who she hasn't seen or heard from since she was a little kid, and pretty much breaks down in happy tears. That was the moment for me when she moved from being Miscellaneous Scowling Action Girl to being a character I positively wanted to invest in.

 

[Hellraiser]

Watched it a couple hours ago. Enjoyed it a lot. Great performances all around. And I've read about how Disney made them shoot extra scenes to make it more light-hearted like "The Force Awakens" but personally I didn't notice anything.  

Spoilers for the movie

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I was disappointed though that we didn't get to spend more time with Forest Whitaker's character. I though he was interesting and I really wanted to find out what it means to be an extremist in the context of Star Wars and the war of the Rebel Alliance against the Empire. But unfortunately they killed him off pretty early on and he wasn't as integral to the story as the trailer would lead you to beleive.

And I get what they were going for with that ending but wasn't there technically enough time for Jyn and the other guy to get hold of a spaceship and flee? After all the people in the archive had no idea about the incoming Death Star attack so they probably didn't try to evacuate the place. I'm pretty sure the ship that Krennic arrived in was still there.

And I enjoyed Krennic much more than that General Hux guy from "The Force Awakens". And while I am on the topic of imperial officers: they did a great job of re-creating Grand Moff Tarkin with CGI. It really looked like Peter Cushing somehow came back to life and reprised his role.

 

[Noah]

For those that have seen it, I started reading an article complaining about the gender imbalance in the movie, that there were only 7 women with speaking roles in the whole thing, as opposed to dozens of males.

They said it disappointed them because the movie was being touted as ground-breakingly feminist and they felt it was more like it had gone backwards from the promising Force Awakens in that respect.

Just another case of people needing an excuse to complain about something that will make millions happy?

 

[Lint]

 

[stokeriño]

7 hours ago, Noah said:

For those that have seen it, I started reading an article complaining about the gender imbalance in the movie, that there were only 7 women with speaking roles in the whole thing, as opposed to dozens of males.

They said it disappointed them because the movie was being touted as ground-breakingly feminist and they felt it was more like it had gone backwards from the promising Force Awakens in that respect.

Just another case of people needing an excuse to complain about something that will make millions happy?

Well...I mean there are fewer major female parts than Force Awakens so if anyone is using a simple 'backwards'/'forwards' measure based on that then technically that would be true. It also, IIRC, only barely scrapes a pass in the Bechdel Test (thanks to two short exchanges between Jyn and Mon Mothma, which are the only ones I can think of).

I don't think it's really something that's complaint-worthy though. The only point in the entire film when it crossed my mind is when...

Spoiler

the 20 or 30 rebels volunteered to joint Jyn et al on their mission to Scarif, it did strike me that they appeared to all be men and, with them all stood together on-screen in front of Jyn, it looked a touch ridiculous at that point.

 

[Maxx]

Loved it.  

Of course since I hate myself, I've gone off and started reading fan complaints.  The stupidest one?

Decrying the cameos of Red and Gold squadron leaders, Tarkin and Leia as nothing more than pointless fan service.  Sure, that's all it is, just fan service, its not like the movie takes place right before A New Hope or anything, and its completely understandable that those characters would be present.

[stokeriño]

17 minutes ago, Maxx said:

Of course since I hate myself, I've gone off and started reading fan complaints.  The stupidest one?

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Decrying the cameos of Red and Gold squadron leaders, Tarkin and Leia as nothing more than pointless fan service.  Sure, that's all it is, just fan service, its not like the movie takes place right before A New Hope or anything, and its completely understandable that those characters would be present.

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The only ones I would call fan service were the appearances of Evazan and Baba on Jehda (to the point of even using the same "you just watch yourself" line), and perhaps also those of C-3PO and R2D2. The rest all have a purpose.

Tarkin played a crucial role in pressuring Krennic throughout the film, while Leia was the final piece in the 'tying up to A New Hope' puzzle. As for Red/Gold Leaders, obviously someone has to play them and you just KNOW that if they were random new faces, the same silly fans would be asking annoying questions about what happens to them in the brief few days before the Battle of Yavin.

 

[Maxx]

12 minutes ago, stokeriño said:

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The only ones I would call fan service were the appearances of Evazan and Baba on Jehda (to the point of even using the same "you just watch yourself" line), and perhaps also those of C-3PO and R2D2. The rest all have a purpose.

Tarkin played a crucial role in pressuring Krennic throughout the film, while Leia was the final piece in the 'tying up to A New Hope' puzzle. As for Red/Gold Leaders, obviously someone has to play them and you just KNOW that if they were random new faces, the same silly fans would be asking annoying questions about what happens to them in the brief few days before the Battle of Yavin.

 

I'd agree for sure.  And I think its ridiculous that people decry stuff as fan service, when like you said, its exactly the kind of shit they would be annoyed about if it wasn't included.  And yet there they are, complaining about a shot of blue milk.

While I like C-3PO and R2D2's appearance, weren't they on board Leia's ship when A New Hope starts?  

[stokeriño]

Just now, Maxx said:

 

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While I like C-3PO and R2D2's appearance, weren't they on board Leia's ship when A New Hope starts?  

 

 

 

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Yeah, but they had plenty of time to end up there between their appearance and the Rebel fleet heading to Scarif.

 

[Alex.]

I enjoyed the movie quite a bit

[Hellraiser]

2 hours ago, stokeriño said:

 

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Yeah, but they had plenty of time to end up there between their appearance and the Rebel fleet heading to Scarif.

 

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Did C-3PO complain about not being told that they are about to head out to Scarif? I took that to mean that they were probably on the Rebel flagship during the mission and then managed to get on the small ship that got away with Leia and the message when the Empire captured the flagship.

And I've read some fan complaints as well. People seem to complain about CGI-Tarkin. Is he really that terrible and I just somehow didn't notice it? I thought they did an incredible job with him.

Also I'm happy that people were actually showed an emotional reaction when the Death Star was used. That is the main thing that always drives me insane about "A New Hope" as well as "The Force Awakens". In both films the Death Star and the Starkiller respectively destroy a planet. In "A New Hope" and two sequel nobody seems to be  from Obi Wans "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced." line nobody seems to be that shaken by it. Not even Leia despite the fact that when it happens she still believes it is her home planet. Billions of people just died! Show some emotions! And they don't even bring it up again in the next movie.

Same with "The Force Awakens". It's even worse in that case because the planet that was destroyed is not just any other planet. It was host to the government of the New Republic. The republic is pretty much fucked. Yet nobody seems to care about it all that much. It was the one area I thought they could improve on compared to "A New Hope" and they made the same mistake. I hope they get into that more in Episode VIII.

 

[Ruki]

Just got back from seeing it....holy crap, that movie was wonderful! I knew going into the movie that

 

everyone was going to die (just based on what the mission was/where it took place in the timeline)

But it still hurt. It felt very much like Guran Lagann. 

[gunnar hendershow]

It was a blast. Like all the fun EU books I read as a kid put in movie form. Some of the stuff that was reshot I think helped make it feel disjointed early, and I suspect they might have rewrote a little too based on what was in the trailer.

The CGI Tarkin was glaring to me, I know a lot of people didn't notice but I did. It's one of those effects that in 10 years won't age well. There were a few pointless nostalgia grabs, but outside that one scene with Vader in the middle there's nothing that really felt unnecessary to me. It's a scene that was supposed to develop Krennic's already established character. Meanwhile, Red and Gold leaders were great inclusions especially since it was unused footage from A New Hope.

The start was so jumpy. There's probably a ton of it that was left on the cutting room floor that would have made it more fluid (albeit a lot longer). But the climax was spectacular.

[Hellraiser]

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Someone please tell me what is supposed to be so bad about CGI-Tarkin. I'm watching review-vlog by the Walker brothers from Ahannel Awesome right now and they also talk about how bad it supposedly is but I don't see it. I thought he looked perfectly fine. What are they seeing that I didn't see when watching the movie?

 

[stokeriño]

31 minutes ago, Hellraiser said:

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Someone please tell me what is supposed to be so bad about CGI-Tarkin. I'm watching review-vlog by the Walker brothers from Ahannel Awesome right now and they also talk about how bad it supposedly is but I don't see it. I thought he looked perfectly fine. What are they seeing that I didn't see when watching the movie?

 

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I did think he slipped in and out of looking a little 'uncanny'. Whether it was the changes in lighting or his movement or something else... Sometimes he looked perfectly normal. Sometimes he looked like an obviously CG thing.

Probably the only reason this happened for him and not the other characters is because he was on-screen for the longest and had more varied stuff to do.

 

 

[Ruki]

I honestly didn't know it was CG until the wife pointed it out to me afterwards. I just figured they had someone who looked like him + really good make-up

 

Was there an after credits scene by chance? Didn't end up staying for the credits.

[Hellraiser]

2 hours ago, Ruki said:

 

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I honestly didn't know it was CG until the wife pointed it out to me afterwards. I just figured they had someone who looked like him + really good make-up

 

 

Was there an after credits scene by chance? Didn't end up staying for the credits.

There wasn't.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Hellraiser

[Adam]

Spoiler

 

The Cushing effect for me was brilliantly done, considering how difficult that must be with that amount of screen time and how impossible it would have been to pass off credibly a few years ago.

 

I'll give more thoughts tomorrow but I loved it, the last third was especially spectacular.

 

 

[GoGo Yubari]

It was decent!

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I liked a lot of specific elements of it while thinking the overall product was a liiiiiiittle dodgy. Pointing out the dirtier sides of what the Rebel Alliance had to do to fight the Empire was great, really added some dimension to the war. K-2SO was for sure the audience favorite where I saw it, pretty much every other line of his drew huge laughs. I'm definitely in the "CGI Tarkin will not age well" crowd, but I do like how they inserted him into the story. A lot more natural than, say, the C-3PO and R2D2 cameo which I quietly groaned at. The Darth Vader scene in the middle wasn't great but I'll allow it because of Vader making a "choke" dad joke. And watching Vader slaughter the Rebellion crew members at the end was pretty phenomenal.

In a way, going into sort of a straight-up gritty war movie at the end except with Star Wars stuff wasn't really what I was up for that evening, so I felt like they could have gone a little bigger with some of the character deaths. Baze especially. Should have taken out like ten more Stormtroopers than he did.

 

[Skummy]

I really, really liked it. I thought it was at least twice the movie Force Awakens, and was a far better prequel than any of the previous prequels were - one of the many problems with those prequels was that you already know the parts of the story that matter, and they just try and fill in the blanks with a bunch of fluff, which makes the mythology and backstory of the original trilogy less enthralling, and all while conspiring to make the universe smaller, by drawing connections between characters that really didn't need to be drawn (Darth Vader built C3PO! Yoda and Chewbacca are friends!). This film did the opposite; it fleshed out a comparatively minor bit of the backstory into a compelling narrative of its own, and actually added a layer or two to the original film in the process. 

While, stylistically, it felt less like "a Star Wars movie" than Force Awakens did, it felt like it belonged in the Star Wars universe more than that movie did - does that make sense? It was less of a space opera romp, but it felt like it made better use of Star Wars' strengths; the mythos and the imagery that the universe allows them to have at their disposal. The numerous references and callbacks felt so much less forced, and - with only two exceptions I can think of - less of a nod and a wink than anything in Force Awakens, and there was nothing as cringeworthy as some of Han Solo's dialogue in that movie, or the big dramatic reveal of R2D2. Just hearing "Captain Antilles" over a PA in the background was a more pleasing nostalgic moment than forced references to trash compactors in Force Awakens, and contrast Leia's brief appearance to say one significant line to the ending of Force Awakens and the seemingly endless panning around a motionless Luke Skywalker in case you haven't figured out that this is important yet.

I love that they depicted the Rebel Alliance as flawed, and a little bit more morally ambiguous - in all the previous films they had always been whiter than white virtuous and always on the side of good, whereas this showed them to be human and fallible which, again, adds moral weight to the later films, not just to this one. The role of a prequel should be to add to the original text, which the Star Wars prequels had never managed before, and I think this movie just about does that.

 

I did have a couple of criticisms, though...like many, I wasn't overly fond of CGI Peter Cushing. The CGI itself was ridiculously impressive, but that he appeared as often as he did meant that the initial sense of being impressed gave way to more "uncanny valley" stuff just because you had to look at him for rather too long. Things like the lighting were off, so I agree that it's an effect that will likely age badly. It's a shame, because it could have carried so much more weight if they just used it more sparingly. Tarkin's role didn't necessitate him being on-screen all that much - he could have been referred to or, as he appears a couple of times, only seeing the back of his head, and a glimpse of his reflection. If you only got to see him in full once, the effect would have been more impressive, and his role in the film felt more significant. It didn't help that, outside of one or two lines, the voice actor didn't sound enough like Peter Cushing for my liking, which was distracting.

Speaking of overused....I didn't like Darth Vader in this movie at all. I think him making a rubbish pun quip belongs in the same category as "NOOOO~!" as far as unforgivably rubbish Darth Vader moments go. And him residing in a Sauron-esque supervillain tower was just ridiculous - it's Darth fucking Vader, you don't need to give us a big old visual cue that he might be the baddy. I also felt that the depiction of Vader as the Emperor's right hand man was, while in keeping with Vader's role in most of the franchise, at odds with how he's depicted in A New Hope. In A New Hope, he's clearly subservient to Tarkin, he follows orders, he pilots his own TIE Fighter into battle, and an admiral even feels he can get away with mocking him openly - you don't get the impression that he's a figure of authority, he's a samurai, he's the dragon. It's only in the subsequent films that he's presented as being in control. Admittedly, I've always assumed that's a case of George Lucas making it up as he went along, rather than a conscious narrative in which Vader rises up the ranks, and how Vader is used in this movie probably fits the overall character arc, it just disappointed me as the rest of the movie seemed to try so hard to fit its place in the timeline. Like Tarkin, again, I think Vader would have been better utilised if he had appeared less. He really didn't need to show up at all until the closing few minutes; his introductory scene serves very little narrative purpose whatsoever.