I love RLM, but I think they are so wrong about RO and the level of scrutiny they level at it, no adventure movie would really live up to, even the original trilogy.
I love RLM, but I think they are so wrong about RO and the level of scrutiny they level at it, no adventure movie would really live up to, even the original trilogy.
I haven't bothered to watch any of their other videos because I don't give a shit, but the short like 7 minute Plinkett one is dead on and the OT would easily pass the tests they set there.
I'm not sure Vader knew anything about the data disk thing in the hallway. He was just boarding the damn cruiser, and he's probably pretty used to at least a few enemy soldiers breaking at the mere sight of him and doing things like scrambling at the mostly-closed door.
Unless he's reading every mind in the room at the same time, while blocking blaster bolts and force choking people, I doubt it seemed that important to him until later.
I was thinking about this very thing earlier today, in fact, and I came up with the dorkiest explanation possible:
Being a highly-trained Jedi is like having a goddamned huge Reflex save. But that doesn't save you from attacks of which you are not aware or not concentrating on. Vader, as powerful as he is, isn't indestructible, and blasters will fuck him up as badly as any other armored target in the Star Wars universe. The trick is getting the blaster bolts to him without a dodge. And that's the important thing: he could just as well grab the data disk off that guy in the back. But in the moments when he's concentrating on that, the other redshirts open fire. So that dude in the back is comparatively safe so long as Vader still has a few extra guys with guns to care about first.
Also, Vader/Anakin has never struck me as particularly intelligent. He maybe just didn't notice the door was partially open or thought he'd get to the plans first before they could escape or didn't realize exactly how important it would be, etc.
Yeah I figured this was also a Dark Side thing... the battle rage takes over for a moment, he's arrogant anyway... I mean some of those dudes he is killing in dramatic ways because he knows it's terrifying the rest of them before they also all die.
Vader doesn't think he can lose. It doesn't occur to him to prioritize the plans - he's not even aware that there's an especially valuable flaw on them. The only people who knew for sure on the Empire side were killed by Tarkin's strike.
I'm not sure Vader knew anything about the data disk thing in the hallway. He was just boarding the damn cruiser, and he's probably pretty used to at least a few enemy soldiers breaking at the mere sight of him and doing things like scrambling at the mostly-closed door.
Unless he's reading every mind in the room at the same time, while blocking blaster bolts and force choking people, I doubt it seemed that important to him until later.
I was thinking about this very thing earlier today, in fact, and I came up with the dorkiest explanation possible:
Being a highly-trained Jedi is like having a goddamned huge Reflex save. But that doesn't save you from attacks of which you are not aware or not concentrating on. Vader, as powerful as he is, isn't indestructible, and blasters will fuck him up as badly as any other armored target in the Star Wars universe. The trick is getting the blaster bolts to him without a dodge. And that's the important thing: he could just as well grab the data disk off that guy in the back. But in the moments when he's concentrating on that, the other redshirts open fire. So that dude in the back is comparatively safe so long as Vader still has a few extra guys with guns to care about first.
Also, Vader/Anakin has never struck me as particularly intelligent. He maybe just didn't notice the door was partially open or thought he'd get to the plans first before they could escape or didn't realize exactly how important it would be, etc.
Yeah I figured this was also a Dark Side thing... the battle rage takes over for a moment, he's arrogant anyway... I mean some of those dudes he is killing in dramatic ways because he knows it's terrifying the rest of them before they also all die.
Vader doesn't think he can lose. It doesn't occur to him to prioritize the plans - he's not even aware that there's an especially valuable flaw on them. The only people who knew for sure on the Empire side were killed by Tarkin's strike.
Also, Vader thinks the whole Death Star thing is a bit overhyped
I love RLM, but I think they are so wrong about RO and the level of scrutiny they level at it, no adventure movie would really live up to, even the original trilogy.
I haven't bothered to watch any of their other videos because I don't give a shit, but the short like 7 minute Plinkett one is dead on and the OT would easily pass the tests they set there.
Name a character from ANH only, that is deeper than Cassian. Whiny Luke? Sassy princess? Generic, reluctant hero, from a western, Solo? I thin Jyn could have more screen time to flesh her out, sure, but I also don't want an adventure movie to be 2.5 hours plus. K2 does better humor than 3p0, while being tragic at the same time.
Plinkett says RO doesn't check the story box, he reduces the story to steal the thing to blow up a thing. How does that not apply to ANH, it's even more simple, just blow up the thing. RO covers what it's like to be an insurgent against the overwhelming authority of the Empire. Cassian even shoots a good guy to prevent him from falling into the enemies hands and giving up information/being subject to torture. RO covers the hesitation, the fear, the chaos that rebel leaders have to face when trying to put together an illegal alliance. It shows one mans struggle when having to work for an evil organization, with his only hope of revenge, a far flung sabotage. Chirrut and Baze's backstories... the rebel traitor. This movie's story really IS the characters, even more than the plot about revenge and espionage.
Plinkett says RO doesn't check the character box, Name a character from ANH only, that is deeper than Cassian. Whiny Luke? Sassy princess? Generic reluctant hero from a western Solo? I thin Jyn could have more screen time to flesh her out, sure, but I also don't want an adventure movie to be 2.5 hours plus. K2 does better humor than 3p0, while being tragic at the same time. Even Chirrut has more going on as a secondary character than someone like Chewy had.
Then he hits on emotion. This is extremely subjective, but this is the only Star Wars movie where I felt a lump in my throat by the end.
They also complain whenever the movies have something new, but bitch and call it fan service when you see something from the previous movies such as Vader, or an AT-ST. You literally can't win. I like RLM but they aren't Star Wars fans (fine) that are stuck having to review stuff they don't like because their video that made them internet famous happened to be about Star Wars.
The thing that bothers me the most about it, I think, is that there's such an obvious avenue for a more interesting way to end the Luke/Vader plot and Lucas just completely whiffs it.
Without backing this up, I'm gonna treat this statement like one of those clickbait headlines.
The thing that bothers me the most about it, I think, is that there's such an obvious avenue for a more interesting way to end the Luke/Vader plot and Lucas just completely whiffs it.
Without backing this up, I'm gonna treat this statement like one of those clickbait headlines.
Ten Obvious Plot Endings Lucas Never Thought Of (You Won't Believe Number 7!)
Saw it. Only character that had any, well, character to them was K-2. He was the only one I was actually sad to see die. Blind guy fight was cool. Porcullis (sp?) the mind reading alien was neat. The first DS shot was incredible, the way the earth just curled up like a carpet from the shock wave. Pew pew action stuff on the last planet was unbelievable in how good it was. It's pure Star Wars but mashed up with war movie and heist movie stuff.
Having seen Monsters, Godzilla, and now this, Gareth Edwards is a known quantity to me now. His characters may as well not even exist. Action stuff, especially large scale, is expertly done, well framed, well paced, creative and engaging. His signature is that the climax of his movies features a moment of high grade, pure and uncut badassery. Pair Gareth with a good script and writers and I think you'll see some motherfucking magic on the screen.
I was spellbound during his take on Godzilla, but that is only because Godzilla is one of the main foundational elements of my pop culture psyche going back to childhood. Star Wars is not. I judge Rouge One as "kinda OK", which is not quite fully "OK". If it was not Star Wars I would of been legitimately bored during most of it.
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I enjoyed the movie quite thoroughly. No amount of internet vitriol is going to kill that for me. As much as the haters want to deny it, this movie was exactly what it needed to be and it's got people talking about Star Wars.
Saw it. Only character that had any, well, character to them was K-2. He was the only one I was actually sad to see die. Blind guy fight was cool. Porcullis (sp?) the mind reading alien was neat. The first DS shot was incredible, the way the earth just curled up like a carpet from the shock wave. Pew pew action stuff on the last planet was unbelievable in how good it was. It's pure Star Wars but mashed up with war movie and heist movie stuff.
Having seen Monsters, Godzilla, and now this, Gareth Edwards is a known quantity to me now. His characters may as well not even exist. Action stuff, especially large scale, is expertly done, well framed, well paced, creative and engaging. His signature is that the climax of his movies features a moment of high grade, pure and uncut badassery. Pair Gareth with a good script and writers and I think you'll see some motherfucking magic on the screen.
I was spellbound during his take on Godzilla, but that is only because Godzilla is one of the main foundational elements of my pop culture psyche going back to childhood. Star Wars is not. I judge Rouge One as "kinda OK", which is not quite fully "OK". If it was not Star Wars I would of been legitimately bored during most of it.
For me it's a combination of the best and the worst. The writing is plain dreadful, especially the Emperor's lines are repetitive as fuck, though McDiarmid makes it work because he's just so much fun when he chews scenery. Nonetheless, having loved the films as a kid, I remember cringing at the cinema during some of the RotJ SE and the throne room scene, because so much of the dialogue was way more terrible than I remembered. I'm just glad the film wasn't also directed by Lucas, because he would've killed that shit dead. As it is, it largely works in spite of the writing.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
My biggest problems with the movie:
It feels as though the opening crawl was hastily edited out. You know that very first shot would have come right after a post crawl pan down. So they just randomly inserted a loud sound instead. It was jarring and clunky. Then the still in space for some reason Rogue One logo shows up at a random point.
For a movie without one goddamn Jedi the phrase "the force" is spoken more times than all the other movies combined.
The first 1/3 or so bounced around between new characters and locations so frequently it was hard to keep up, and if you didn't give a shit about star wars you had little incentive to try.
Why does Darth Vader live in Barad-dûr? That actually took me out of the movie for a moment.
It feels as though the opening crawl was hastily edited out. You know that very first shot would have come right after a post crawl pan down. So they just randomly inserted a loud sound instead. It was jarring and clunky. Then the still in space for some reason Rogue One logo shows up at a random point.
For a movie without one goddamn Jedi the phrase "the force" is spoken more times than all the other movies combined.
The first 1/3 or so bounced around between new characters and locations so frequently it was hard to keep up, and if you didn't give a shit about star wars you had little incentive to try.
Why does Darth Vader live in Barad-dûr? That actually took me out of the movie for a moment.
I actually loved that there's no opening scroll, that always kinda annoyed me about Star Wars movies. I understand it was needed back in the day to remind people of what exactly is going on, but these days whenever I watch these movies I skip the scroll. I also love how the shadow on the ring of the planet was shaped like the nose of a Destroyer in a nice nod to ANH.
The first 30 minutes take place on Jedha, an obviously sacred site for Jedi and the Force. And while Chirrut might not be a Jedi, anybody who can whoop ass like that while being blind is basically a force wielder.
I don't really know a ton about Star Wars lore but I was able to keep up with the sequence of events pretty well, and I was 5 beers deep.
Vader living on Mustafar is badass and I won't hear anything about it
Has there been any discussion about the stupid force field/planet gate thing in the final battle? Because it was so bad.
Other than that the movie was mostly fine, though it suffered from some of the things that annoyed me about force awakens. Mainly that it felt like 5 hour movie that was cut down, leaving no room for actual narrative or emotional impact to take up space, particularly towards the end and peaking with one of the weakest final-confrontation-with-antagonist scenes I have ever seen.
But overall I enjoyed it a lot.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
For me it's a combination of the best and the worst. The writing is plain dreadful, especially the Emperor's lines are repetitive as fuck, though McDiarmid makes it work because he's just so much fun when he chews scenery. Nonetheless, having loved the films as a kid, I remember cringing at the cinema during some of the RotJ SE and the throne room scene, because so much of the dialogue was way more terrible than I remembered. I'm just glad the film wasn't also directed by Lucas, because he would've killed that shit dead. As it is, it largely works in spite of the writing.
It's not just the dialogue. The throne room set feels really...set-ish, if you know what I mean. It doesn't feel like a lived-in space. The chair and the big window look nice, and the big pit pulls the room together, but there are catwalks that don't go anywhere, consoles that are placed in odd locations, and that big empty space under the throne where Luke is supposed to hide from Vader but looks like it has almost no hiding places. Compare this to the ESB battle. It starts out in the iconic carbonite freezing chamber and then moves around a lot, throwing new scenery at you and keeping the fight fresh, with more distinct setpieces.
It's also shot better. There are a lot of very tight scene compositions and weird edits in the Jedi fight. Closeups are frequent, often showing Vader and Luke just from the shoulders up, even when they're in mid fight, and it obscures a lot of what's going on. For example, there's a bit where Luke and Vader are circling each other, with Luke refusing to fight and Vader not talking. You're supposed to be uncertain of whether Luke is getting to Vader, and what the Sith Lord will do. The camera focuses on Vader's upper body. Luke's barely in the shot. You'd think a wider shot, showing their body language, giving the character a chance to express themselves a bit more might have been better. The fight even includes a lot of the shot-reverse shot stuff Lucas uses in conversation scenes. Here's a wide shot. Here's a close shot of Luke. Here's a close shot of Vader. Back and forth, back and forth.
A lot of this is easy to gloss over and ignore, but it stands out like a sore thumb compared to the more competent shooting of the ESB fight. One of my favorite shots in the whole series is the bit in the Bespin duel where Luke is out on the catwalks, not sure where Vader is. He enters a doorway, and suddenly Vader is right there. He starts hammering at Luke, driving him back, and the camera positions itself with Luke crouched in the foreground and Vader looming beyond him. It's an excellent use of space; Prowse was a really big guy, which is easy to overlook in some scenes where he's just standing around next to other actors. Here, the hallway is narrow and Prowse just fills it completely, the cloak adding to the effect. He looks massive. It really invokes this classic bit of Ralph McQuarrie concept art. The angle of the camera behind Mark Hamill is low, making Vader look even bigger. Irvin Kershner knew he was filming two actors who weren't really competent swordsmen, one of them hampered by a heavy costume and vision-limiting helmet. So he takes a lot of care in how he shoots the sequence to make the aesthetic override the mechanics.
In fact, the hallway is so narrow that as Vader swings his lightsaber it catches on the walls, sending down showers of sparks, another good use of the space, before he lunges out of the smoke right at the camera and forces Luke back out onto the catwalks. That last bit is something Lucas copied in Revenge of the Sith, by the way, where Anakin and Obi-Wan are fighting. They pass through a narrow hallways and their sabers strike the walls, showering sparks, but the way it's shot makes it just a cool effect. In Empire the way it's shot helps tell the story: Vader has lost patience, has stopped toying with Luke, and now this unstoppable black juggernaut is just smashing him aside like a fly. It immediately raises the stakes right before the climactic loss of Luke's hand and the big reveal.
For me it's a combination of the best and the worst. The writing is plain dreadful, especially the Emperor's lines are repetitive as fuck, though McDiarmid makes it work because he's just so much fun when he chews scenery. Nonetheless, having loved the films as a kid, I remember cringing at the cinema during some of the RotJ SE and the throne room scene, because so much of the dialogue was way more terrible than I remembered. I'm just glad the film wasn't also directed by Lucas, because he would've killed that shit dead. As it is, it largely works in spite of the writing.
It's not just the dialogue. The throne room set feels really...set-ish, if you know what I mean. It doesn't feel like a lived-in space. The chair and the big window look nice, and the big pit pulls the room together, but there are catwalks that don't go anywhere, consoles that are placed in odd locations, and that big empty space under the throne where Luke is supposed to hide from Vader but looks like it has almost no hiding places. Compare this to the ESB battle. It starts out in the iconic carbonite freezing chamber and then moves around a lot, throwing new scenery at you and keeping the fight fresh, with more distinct setpieces.
It's also shot better. There are a lot of very tight scene compositions and weird edits in the Jedi fight. Closeups are frequent, often showing Vader and Luke just from the shoulders up, even when they're in mid fight, and it obscures a lot of what's going on. For example, there's a bit where Luke and Vader are circling each other, with Luke refusing to fight and Vader not talking. You're supposed to be uncertain of whether Luke is getting to Vader, and what the Sith Lord will do. The camera focuses on Vader's upper body. Luke's barely in the shot. You'd think a wider shot, showing their body language, giving the character a chance to express themselves a bit more might have been better. The fight even includes a lot of the shot-reverse shot stuff Lucas uses in conversation scenes. Here's a wide shot. Here's a close shot of Luke. Here's a close shot of Vader. Back and forth, back and forth.
A lot of this is easy to gloss over and ignore, but it stands out like a sore thumb compared to the more competent shooting of the ESB fight. One of my favorite shots in the whole series is the bit in the Bespin duel where Luke is out on the catwalks, not sure where Vader is. He enters a doorway, and suddenly Vader is right there. He starts hammering at Luke, driving him back, and the camera positions itself with Luke crouched in the foreground and Vader looming beyond him. It's an excellent use of space; Prowse was a really big guy, which is easy to overlook in some scenes where he's just standing around next to other actors. Here, the hallway is narrow and Prowse just fills it completely, the cloak adding to the effect. He looks massive. It really invokes this classic bit of Ralph McQuarrie concept art. The angle of the camera behind Mark Hamill is low, making Vader look even bigger. Irvin Kershner knew he was filming two actors who weren't really competent swordsmen, one of them hampered by a heavy costume and vision-limiting helmet. So he takes a lot of care in how he shoots the sequence to make the aesthetic override the mechanics.
In fact, the hallway is so narrow that as Vader swings his lightsaber it catches on the walls, sending down showers of sparks, another good use of the space, before he lunges out of the smoke right at the camera and forces Luke back out onto the catwalks. That last bit is something Lucas copied in Revenge of the Sith, by the way, where Anakin and Obi-Wan are fighting. They pass through a narrow hallways and their sabers strike the walls, showering sparks, but the way it's shot makes it just a cool effect. In Empire the way it's shot helps tell the story: Vader has lost patience, has stopped toying with Luke, and now this unstoppable black juggernaut is just smashing him aside like a fly. It immediately raises the stakes right before the climactic loss of Luke's hand and the big reveal.
I actually like the feel of the Emperor's throne room. It's like that poor Imperial commander got a message that the Emperor was coming and wanted a window room to watch the battle, then panicked, scouring the plans trying to find some empty storage closet big enough not to be insulting.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
edited January 2017
Goddamn, now I'm just thinking about how much I love the Empire fight and how it's put together. Like that bit when Vader walks out of the shadows and Luke spins around, snapping his lightsaber on and going into a fighting stance, while Vader's seems to come on more slowly, as he just stands there unmoving, casually holding his weapon in one hand. Immediately establishes Luke's nervousness and Vader's confidence.
Fakefaux on
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AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
Has there been any discussion about the stupid force field/planet gate thing in the final battle? Because it was so bad.
Other than that the movie was mostly fine, though it suffered from some of the things that annoyed me about force awakens. Mainly that it felt like 5 hour movie that was cut down, leaving no room for actual narrative or emotional impact to take up space, particularly towards the end and peaking with one of the weakest final-confrontation-with-antagonist scenes I have ever seen.
But overall I enjoyed it a lot.
The force field / planet gate thing was a callback to
In fact in the original draft of the script
the rebels infiltrated the planet Shwartzha to find the combination that unlocks the planet gate, only to find the combination was 12345.. the same combination Director Krennic uses on his luggage!
Has there been any discussion about the stupid force field/planet gate thing in the final battle? Because it was so bad.
Other than that the movie was mostly fine, though it suffered from some of the things that annoyed me about force awakens. Mainly that it felt like 5 hour movie that was cut down, leaving no room for actual narrative or emotional impact to take up space, particularly towards the end and peaking with one of the weakest final-confrontation-with-antagonist scenes I have ever seen.
But overall I enjoyed it a lot.
The force field / planet gate thing was a callback to
In fact in the original draft of the script
the rebels infiltrated the planet Shwartzha to find the combination that unlocks the planet gate, only to find the combination was 12345.. the same combination Director Krennic uses on his luggage!
Dang it. You guys talking about the problems with the emperor's throne room made me realize the geometry of the pit doesn't make sense. If we assume the pit is toward the center of the death star, then why is the window on a wall, and not a skylight. You could resolve that by saying the throne room is near a pole, but then you would see the surface of the death star when you looked out the window. If the pit wasn't toward the center, then why was there gravity? Did engineers really design a pit with deadly artificial gravity?
Dang it. You guys talking about the problems with the emperor's throne room made me realize the geometry of the pit doesn't make sense. If we assume the pit is toward the center of the death star, then why is the window on a wall, and not a skylight. You could resolve that by saying the throne room is near a pole, but then you would see the surface of the death star when you looked out the window. If the pit wasn't toward the center, then why was there gravity? Did engineers really design a pit with deadly artificial gravity?
How the hell does gravity work on the Death Star anyway?
Dang it. You guys talking about the problems with the emperor's throne room made me realize the geometry of the pit doesn't make sense. If we assume the pit is toward the center of the death star, then why is the window on a wall, and not a skylight. You could resolve that by saying the throne room is near a pole, but then you would see the surface of the death star when you looked out the window. If the pit wasn't toward the center, then why was there gravity? Did engineers really design a pit with deadly artificial gravity?
There's one cut in the movie, right before it shows the throne room, where it strongly implies that this tower on the surface of the Death Star is where the room is located. It certainly has the big windows in the right spaces.
Which means, presumably, the pit in the room is just in that tower, and actually gets nowhere near the main reactor in the time it takes the Emperor to fall.
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Would be interesting to watch but probably insufferable as well
Only funny part of their podcast parody video is when they mock Loot Crate
Also, honestly I think they dislike the movie less than they rabidly hate the Star Wars/nerd fandom
They didn't say it was a bad movie in their half in the bag, just not a great movie
I haven't bothered to watch any of their other videos because I don't give a shit, but the short like 7 minute Plinkett one is dead on and the OT would easily pass the tests they set there.
Yeah I figured this was also a Dark Side thing... the battle rage takes over for a moment, he's arrogant anyway... I mean some of those dudes he is killing in dramatic ways because he knows it's terrifying the rest of them before they also all die.
Vader doesn't think he can lose. It doesn't occur to him to prioritize the plans - he's not even aware that there's an especially valuable flaw on them. The only people who knew for sure on the Empire side were killed by Tarkin's strike.
Also, Vader thinks the whole Death Star thing is a bit overhyped
Name a character from ANH only, that is deeper than Cassian. Whiny Luke? Sassy princess? Generic, reluctant hero, from a western, Solo? I thin Jyn could have more screen time to flesh her out, sure, but I also don't want an adventure movie to be 2.5 hours plus. K2 does better humor than 3p0, while being tragic at the same time.
Plinkett says RO doesn't check the story box, he reduces the story to steal the thing to blow up a thing. How does that not apply to ANH, it's even more simple, just blow up the thing. RO covers what it's like to be an insurgent against the overwhelming authority of the Empire. Cassian even shoots a good guy to prevent him from falling into the enemies hands and giving up information/being subject to torture. RO covers the hesitation, the fear, the chaos that rebel leaders have to face when trying to put together an illegal alliance. It shows one mans struggle when having to work for an evil organization, with his only hope of revenge, a far flung sabotage. Chirrut and Baze's backstories... the rebel traitor. This movie's story really IS the characters, even more than the plot about revenge and espionage.
Plinkett says RO doesn't check the character box, Name a character from ANH only, that is deeper than Cassian. Whiny Luke? Sassy princess? Generic reluctant hero from a western Solo? I thin Jyn could have more screen time to flesh her out, sure, but I also don't want an adventure movie to be 2.5 hours plus. K2 does better humor than 3p0, while being tragic at the same time. Even Chirrut has more going on as a secondary character than someone like Chewy had.
Then he hits on emotion. This is extremely subjective, but this is the only Star Wars movie where I felt a lump in my throat by the end.
They also complain whenever the movies have something new, but bitch and call it fan service when you see something from the previous movies such as Vader, or an AT-ST. You literally can't win. I like RLM but they aren't Star Wars fans (fine) that are stuck having to review stuff they don't like because their video that made them internet famous happened to be about Star Wars.
I was not emotionally prepared to see this movie last night.
it was really great!
Without backing this up, I'm gonna treat this statement like one of those clickbait headlines.
Ten Obvious Plot Endings Lucas Never Thought Of (You Won't Believe Number 7!)
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Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Having seen Monsters, Godzilla, and now this, Gareth Edwards is a known quantity to me now. His characters may as well not even exist. Action stuff, especially large scale, is expertly done, well framed, well paced, creative and engaging. His signature is that the climax of his movies features a moment of high grade, pure and uncut badassery. Pair Gareth with a good script and writers and I think you'll see some motherfucking magic on the screen.
I was spellbound during his take on Godzilla, but that is only because Godzilla is one of the main foundational elements of my pop culture psyche going back to childhood. Star Wars is not. I judge Rouge One as "kinda OK", which is not quite fully "OK". If it was not Star Wars I would of been legitimately bored during most of it.
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Thank you for getting this thread back on track.
This might look like a moon to many people when they see it on a pedestal in the tower at Isengard but surprise! In reality it's a palantir!
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"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
It feels as though the opening crawl was hastily edited out. You know that very first shot would have come right after a post crawl pan down. So they just randomly inserted a loud sound instead. It was jarring and clunky. Then the still in space for some reason Rogue One logo shows up at a random point.
For a movie without one goddamn Jedi the phrase "the force" is spoken more times than all the other movies combined.
The first 1/3 or so bounced around between new characters and locations so frequently it was hard to keep up, and if you didn't give a shit about star wars you had little incentive to try.
Why does Darth Vader live in Barad-dûr? That actually took me out of the movie for a moment.
I actually loved that there's no opening scroll, that always kinda annoyed me about Star Wars movies. I understand it was needed back in the day to remind people of what exactly is going on, but these days whenever I watch these movies I skip the scroll. I also love how the shadow on the ring of the planet was shaped like the nose of a Destroyer in a nice nod to ANH.
The first 30 minutes take place on Jedha, an obviously sacred site for Jedi and the Force. And while Chirrut might not be a Jedi, anybody who can whoop ass like that while being blind is basically a force wielder.
I don't really know a ton about Star Wars lore but I was able to keep up with the sequence of events pretty well, and I was 5 beers deep.
Vader living on Mustafar is badass and I won't hear anything about it
Other than that the movie was mostly fine, though it suffered from some of the things that annoyed me about force awakens. Mainly that it felt like 5 hour movie that was cut down, leaving no room for actual narrative or emotional impact to take up space, particularly towards the end and peaking with one of the weakest final-confrontation-with-antagonist scenes I have ever seen.
But overall I enjoyed it a lot.
It's not just the dialogue. The throne room set feels really...set-ish, if you know what I mean. It doesn't feel like a lived-in space. The chair and the big window look nice, and the big pit pulls the room together, but there are catwalks that don't go anywhere, consoles that are placed in odd locations, and that big empty space under the throne where Luke is supposed to hide from Vader but looks like it has almost no hiding places. Compare this to the ESB battle. It starts out in the iconic carbonite freezing chamber and then moves around a lot, throwing new scenery at you and keeping the fight fresh, with more distinct setpieces.
It's also shot better. There are a lot of very tight scene compositions and weird edits in the Jedi fight. Closeups are frequent, often showing Vader and Luke just from the shoulders up, even when they're in mid fight, and it obscures a lot of what's going on. For example, there's a bit where Luke and Vader are circling each other, with Luke refusing to fight and Vader not talking. You're supposed to be uncertain of whether Luke is getting to Vader, and what the Sith Lord will do. The camera focuses on Vader's upper body. Luke's barely in the shot. You'd think a wider shot, showing their body language, giving the character a chance to express themselves a bit more might have been better. The fight even includes a lot of the shot-reverse shot stuff Lucas uses in conversation scenes. Here's a wide shot. Here's a close shot of Luke. Here's a close shot of Vader. Back and forth, back and forth.
A lot of this is easy to gloss over and ignore, but it stands out like a sore thumb compared to the more competent shooting of the ESB fight. One of my favorite shots in the whole series is the bit in the Bespin duel where Luke is out on the catwalks, not sure where Vader is. He enters a doorway, and suddenly Vader is right there. He starts hammering at Luke, driving him back, and the camera positions itself with Luke crouched in the foreground and Vader looming beyond him. It's an excellent use of space; Prowse was a really big guy, which is easy to overlook in some scenes where he's just standing around next to other actors. Here, the hallway is narrow and Prowse just fills it completely, the cloak adding to the effect. He looks massive. It really invokes this classic bit of Ralph McQuarrie concept art. The angle of the camera behind Mark Hamill is low, making Vader look even bigger. Irvin Kershner knew he was filming two actors who weren't really competent swordsmen, one of them hampered by a heavy costume and vision-limiting helmet. So he takes a lot of care in how he shoots the sequence to make the aesthetic override the mechanics.
In fact, the hallway is so narrow that as Vader swings his lightsaber it catches on the walls, sending down showers of sparks, another good use of the space, before he lunges out of the smoke right at the camera and forces Luke back out onto the catwalks. That last bit is something Lucas copied in Revenge of the Sith, by the way, where Anakin and Obi-Wan are fighting. They pass through a narrow hallways and their sabers strike the walls, showering sparks, but the way it's shot makes it just a cool effect. In Empire the way it's shot helps tell the story: Vader has lost patience, has stopped toying with Luke, and now this unstoppable black juggernaut is just smashing him aside like a fly. It immediately raises the stakes right before the climactic loss of Luke's hand and the big reveal.
I actually like the feel of the Emperor's throne room. It's like that poor Imperial commander got a message that the Emperor was coming and wanted a window room to watch the battle, then panicked, scouring the plans trying to find some empty storage closet big enough not to be insulting.
The force field / planet gate thing was a callback to
In fact in the original draft of the script
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How the hell does gravity work on the Death Star anyway?
Which way is even up?
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There's one cut in the movie, right before it shows the throne room, where it strongly implies that this tower on the surface of the Death Star is where the room is located. It certainly has the big windows in the right spaces.
Which means, presumably, the pit in the room is just in that tower, and actually gets nowhere near the main reactor in the time it takes the Emperor to fall.