tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post6740208703688214132..comments2024-03-27T15:16:57.305-05:00Comments on F This Movie!: Review: Rogue OnePatrick Bromleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00771837625286775607noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-45988610801622629722017-05-19T21:01:03.550-05:002017-05-19T21:01:03.550-05:00Dy-no-mite!Dy-no-mite!Brent Petersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17741998097323944343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-12297588513848543212017-05-19T18:22:06.610-05:002017-05-19T18:22:06.610-05:00Insightful and productive review. Insightful and productive review. Chaybeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00696179838579647187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-39967910241978096672017-05-19T16:23:03.336-05:002017-05-19T16:23:03.336-05:00Boring lame movieBoring lame movieAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17652762201597313546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-30366119147960459692016-12-21T22:00:36.979-06:002016-12-21T22:00:36.979-06:00I've heard Rian Johnson might be taking Episod...I've heard Rian Johnson might be taking Episode VIII into a pretty weird direction. Michael Giammarinonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-12445920305365177122016-12-21T05:56:17.719-06:002016-12-21T05:56:17.719-06:00I'd stop short of saying I LOVED it but I had ...I'd stop short of saying I LOVED it but I had a great time with <i>Rogue One</i>. Maybe it was going in with lowered expectations but I thought it was well-paced and though I get that it was light on characterization, war movies are generally filled with archetypes with minimal development so I'm okay with it. Where it really succeeded was fleshing out the Star Wars universe - I mean Jedha was the best depiction of what a galactic society looks like since Mos Eisley in ANH. I thought that felt a little forced in TFA but it seemed really natural in this. I do agree that I never really experienced some of the great feels that I did with TFA but I do think <i>Rogue One</i> is the more solid movie overall.Solhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03114869401584310369noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-46445054886734893392016-12-21T02:35:04.055-06:002016-12-21T02:35:04.055-06:00Yeah, wasn't really big on this movie. The cha...Yeah, wasn't really big on this movie. The characters are dry as hell, on average less interesting than even the prequel trilogy's cast, and I'm incredibly glad that they're only in this one movie. This was hugely disappointing to me because I loved The Force Awakens' characters and am hugely excited to see their stories continue.<br /><br />Was also disappointed by how not weird this movie is. They had an opportunity to make something really out there for the series but they still held firmly to a lot of Star Wars cliches, like ending with a big space fight and keeping a steady sense of humor, even though this film would've hugely benefited from that disconnect from the main saga's tone.Kino Notabihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15852233217962741446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-25084099153760545332016-12-21T01:13:32.634-06:002016-12-21T01:13:32.634-06:00Both K2SO and Jar Jar are meant to fill a comic re...Both K2SO and Jar Jar are meant to fill a comic relief role, but I think most would agree that the similarities end there. One's dry and sardonic whereas the other one is a broad, over-the-top cartoon that is completely incongruous with the tone of the series. I'd argue that K2SO's humor pretty strongly echoes Han's "fuck it" attitude in the original trilogy. If it didn't work for you, it didn't work for you, but painting it as ironic hipster dreck seems like a reach.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-72234657716109129322016-12-20T23:05:23.021-06:002016-12-20T23:05:23.021-06:00I don't agree with you that K-2SO is even one ...I don't agree with you that K-2SO is even one iota like Jar Jar -- he never devolves into those slapsticky pratfalls -- and the CG never took me out of the movie (except for the Leia scene, which may take me some time to come around to), but I do agree with you about the Force Awakens backlash. I don't get it at all. I like Rogue One just fine... but it is not better than Force Awakens. I hate having to bring one movie I like down to hold another movie up, but you brought it up, and it needed to be said. Michael Giammarinonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-70157612484048656742016-12-20T22:57:07.412-06:002016-12-20T22:57:07.412-06:00Just because they don't share (enough) screen ...Just because they don't share (enough) screen time doesn't mean their scenes lack emotional resonance. The actors are playing off of past experience. If actors can bring something emotional to a past we haven't seen and make us feel something, then it works. It did work for me, but I understand that it might not work for everyone. <br /><br />I was using Chewbacca and Tarkin as only two examples. Luke is inarguably the most developed character. As far as everyone else is concerned, we only know as much as we need to know as it applies to the story being told. Namely, A New Hope. I think the same applies with Rogue One. And like the original trilogy, or just ANH specifically, whatever we don't know from the film is going to built upon in the animated series and the expanded universe. <br /><br />The only reason I disagree with your ESB analogy is because it is ESB you're using as your comparison. It's the second film in the trilogy. Of course we're going to have more emotional resonance to Han and his predicament in that film, not merely because we're already comfortable with his character, but because ESB takes his story into a more emotional place than ANH. <br /><br />In ANH, Tarkin is the chief baddie and Vader is just the muscle, and yet in this instance the muscle is more developed than the chief baddie. Michael Giammarinonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-52109306565276980222016-12-20T20:18:25.026-06:002016-12-20T20:18:25.026-06:00You suggested that it doesn't matter if most o...You suggested that it doesn't matter if most of the characters here are underdeveloped because a lot of the characters in ANH were underdeveloped as well but the drama in the original movies isn't built around what happens to Chewbacca or Tarkin. <br />To me the central characters in Rogue One are the ones who are underdeveloped. <br /><br />If those scenes worked as payoffs for you, I can't very well tell you that you're wrong, but they fell flat to me because the only connection between Jyn and Galen and Saw is that one of them is her father, and the other is the guy who raised her. There's not really a relationship built up between any of them as they don't share any screen time for more than a couple minutes so when those characters die we only care to the extent that we can sympathize with Jyn, which personally was hard for me because I never really got a sense of her character.Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05129602094443434975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-72782571323497993982016-12-20T18:38:14.910-06:002016-12-20T18:38:14.910-06:00I'm sorry, I just don't see anything in th...I'm sorry, I just don't see anything in this film comparable to the analogy you make, Lobot switching places with Han in ESB. Michael Giammarinonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-49662360626238555152016-12-20T18:33:42.863-06:002016-12-20T18:33:42.863-06:00I thought there was emotional payoff where it coun...I thought there was emotional payoff where it counted. When Jyn listened to her father's hologram. When she dealt with her past with Saw. When Galen died and Jyn was at his side. Michael Giammarinonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-80807352887480275772016-12-20T18:11:29.268-06:002016-12-20T18:11:29.268-06:00When the emotional payoff of the movie is that we&...When the emotional payoff of the movie is that we're supposed to care about the sacrifice these characters make, I think it's absolutely important that they're developed. ESB would have had much less of an impact if it was Lobot getting the carbonite treatment rather than Han.Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05129602094443434975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-66656488084853246402016-12-20T17:12:34.448-06:002016-12-20T17:12:34.448-06:00Totally agree about the crawls. It's part of w...Totally agree about the crawls. It's part of what makes Star Wars, Star Wars. The movies, video games ... heck, even some of the books ... feature crawls. It's crazy the filmmakers thought it was something that should be pulled.adamarmourhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04361116900351762285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-8959052810223369142016-12-20T14:31:33.643-06:002016-12-20T14:31:33.643-06:00Just chiming in to mention that I really hated the...Just chiming in to mention that I really hated the sassy, ironic, eye-rolling hipster droid. Truly a Jar Jar Binks for the modern age.<br />The CGI horror show is completely unnecessary at best and downright embarrassing at worst. Every time a certain character appeared on screen it totally took me out of the movie. Someone should explain to the writers and the director that the fact that something can be done doesn't mean it should be done.<br />The retroactive backlash against Force Awakens is just laughable to me. That movie had huge problems with its priorites, but at least it was fun and engaging for much of its runtime. Rogue One is just straight up stiff and boring.Adam Ohhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03501063595783109378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-50937370804840699222016-12-20T13:57:25.487-06:002016-12-20T13:57:25.487-06:00You don't need to apologize, Patrick. If you d...You don't need to apologize, Patrick. If you didn't like it, you didn't like it. As far as this whole stand alone thing, yeah, it doesn't seem very stand alone, unless you take into account that these are characters who will never have any connection to those in the saga films. That being said, I enjoyed its connectivity to Episode IV. Plus, although Episode VIII will probably be the film that officially gets the commendation for celebrating the 40th anniversary of the saga, Rogue One is the movie that tries to and nearly succeeds in honoring and celebrating the anniversary of A New Hope. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Here are my minimal issues with the film. 1. No crawl. 2. The logo. 3. No transition wipes. I can deal with #3. <br /><br />The movie needed a crawl. I get Lucasfilm's reasoning for not having a crawl. I don't care. It needed a crawl. They have the "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." They have John Williams' fanfare at the end. There's no reason why the crawl should be the only thing they extract to make it a stand alone film. It's not very "stand alone" when the only thing you pull from tradition is the crawl. They probably felt that by putting in a crawl they may be putting themselves in a box and it would hamper any further stand alones they plan to do that might take place before Rogue One. But there's ways around that. It could've been worded in a way that would still give them an opportunity to create new stories in that timeline. The musical sting that opens the film and the track that follows makes the opening scene feel unfinished. But that's the only thing that really bothered me. Any other issues I had were minimal and I can live with them.<br /><br />I enjoyed it even more the second time. As far as the comparison game goes, for me The Force Awakens was better. <br /><br /><br />As far as the character development is concerned, I really don't think it's an issue. It's no different than, say, A New Hope. Can any of us really say every character in that film is sufficiently fleshed out, or developed at all? Is Chewbacca a developed character in A New Hope? Is Leia? Is Tarkin? There are peripheral characters that don't even have names unless we consult the expanded universe or collect the toys. A lot of the established ensemble depend on the expanded universe to flesh out their characters. <br />Michael Giammarinonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-31295790656197754632016-12-20T00:14:40.834-06:002016-12-20T00:14:40.834-06:00Yes. Yes we can.Yes. Yes we can.Will Bensonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-6029275143284250822016-12-19T21:51:44.198-06:002016-12-19T21:51:44.198-06:00Can we all at least agree that The Vader scene at ...Can we all at least agree that The Vader scene at the end was badass?Luke Cianciohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13341348650523272729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-75809806099112016382016-12-19T20:52:40.968-06:002016-12-19T20:52:40.968-06:00I may have overgenerlized about characters in Moan...I may have overgenerlized about characters in Moana referencing other films. What I found with Moana was that it felt more like a response to other Disney films than it's own thing. <br />I loved the opening of Moana, with the ocean parting around a young Moana, but as soon as the first song kicked in I thought the movie lost most of its personality. The unmemorable (in my opinion) songs and the unfunny animal sidekicks felt like Disney worrying that if they deviated too much from the formula they would lose the audience. The film ended up feeling a bit like Rogue One to me: trying to pave its own way but being too beholden to other films. <br />If Disney had just had Moana be a storng female character, and didn't have Maui reference it, it would have felt much more genuine to me. As is it all felt forced and bland.Andrew Bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-25285135332842651182016-12-19T17:44:15.101-06:002016-12-19T17:44:15.101-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Brent Petersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17741998097323944343noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-14351446907406505282016-12-19T16:01:55.534-06:002016-12-19T16:01:55.534-06:00I agree with pretty much everything in this review...I agree with pretty much everything in this review, the lack of characterization especially. In fact, I still couldn't tell you most of the characters' names without looking them up. The battle at the end is very well done, but ultimately didn't add up to anything to me because I didn't care about the characters and for the most part they didn't really have any reason to care about each other either. We know that the outcome is that the rebels will get the Death Star plans, so the only possible emotional payoff this movie can give us is if we're invested in the fate of this group but then they give us few reasons why we should be. Part of the problem is that once the group has come together, there's very little downtime for them to really interact or bond with one another. There's no calm before the storm moments. I'm not saying they all need deep backstories, but there at least need to be some hooks there to get us to like them.Rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05129602094443434975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-70875603706474936832016-12-19T15:37:46.241-06:002016-12-19T15:37:46.241-06:00Idunno, Stormtroopers were pretty damned accurate ...Idunno, Stormtroopers were pretty damned accurate in this particular entry...<br />Treyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15663853201453171384noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-77739887777728662762016-12-19T13:54:27.014-06:002016-12-19T13:54:27.014-06:00At least this film offers definitive proof of some...At least this film offers definitive proof of something we have all long suspected: Even a blind man is a better shot than the average stormtrooper.Matt Lohrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01375007982506565056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-23530120102784371432016-12-19T13:33:55.945-06:002016-12-19T13:33:55.945-06:00Genuinely curious to hear a take on this because w...Genuinely curious to hear a take on this because we're all just here to talk and be pals and love movies: does Moana rely all that heavily on having its characters reference other Disney films? Does it do that at all? Off the top of my head I can think of maybe one or two brief allusions to the concept of princesses. Other than that I'm having a hard time recalling any direct or even vague references to Disney films, aside from that (SPOILER) post-credits nod to Sebastian.<br /><br />I think that Nerdwriter video was spot on in many regards, but I can't see it applying to Moana. I really thought that film made significant efforts to stray from the standard Disney storytelling model and explore themes of culture, identity, and community in pretty interesting ways.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4217427319662074458.post-25196068334253733862016-12-19T13:10:04.024-06:002016-12-19T13:10:04.024-06:00This review about sums up my feelings (though I th...This review about sums up my feelings (though I think I did enjoy it a bit more than you, Patrick). I think I was more just disappointed that it wasn't the heist movie the people involved in the thing said it would be (the actual stealing of the plans *spoilers* is just sort of "We don't have a plan or know what we're going to do, but we're going to go and do something anyway!"). I would've preferred less time focused on characters finding other characters and more time paid to the different personalities of the group devising a plan to steal the Death Star, erm...plans.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10926546709305128097noreply@blogger.com