Star Wars: Rogue One (Spoilers!!!)

[Robotengineer]

Just saw it today. It was better than I was expecting, having read some rather negative reviews of it (A. O. Scott's NYT one especially). It was still a bit derivative, and I hope VIII and the next 'anthology' don't take from ANH (directly, like R1, and indirectly, like TFA). I love the original trilogy and what Disney has done with Star Wars so far, but I want to see something new! 

I saw it at my local theater (it's crappy) and I thought the CGI was rather good, if I had not known it was CGI before I might've been fooled. It wasn't so much the image itself that looked CGI, but the movements which gave it away, IMO. 

I give it a 9/10. Well done, if a bit off at times. I hope the next 'anthology' is truly standalone. 

 

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

"Be careful not to choke on your aspirations, Director."

I didn't think Vader was that into puns, but whatever...

He hung around with C-3P0. At least he didn't force-push the Director and say "what a drag" or slice him in two and say "you're quite beside yourself."

[tg626]

I will say whoever was in the Vader suit did not have David Prowse's strut.  Also, James Earl Jones' voice while still striking, has definitely aged.

3 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

 I hope the next 'anthology' is truly standalone. 

 

I'm hoping the Han Solo movie lets us see him and Lando and maybe lets us in on Lando's "little manuver in the battle of Taanab"...

Edited December 19, 2016 by tg626

[cubinator]

One thing Rogue One does is it makes Leia's whole little "diplomatic mission" spiel completely moot, as that blockade runner was in the rebel fleet fighting for their lives five minutes earlier, and Vader knew it, and everyone on both the runner and the Destroyer knew it. 

[Superfluous J]

I figured out why Leia was at Tatooine! They took the blockade runner to a chop shop to get a new VIN plate.

[pTrevTrevs]

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

One thing Rogue One does is it makes Leia's whole little "diplomatic mission" spiel completely moot, as that blockade runner was in the rebel fleet fighting for their lives five minutes earlier, and Vader knew it, and everyone on both the runner and the Destroyer knew it. 

https://i.imgur.com/qTPPsOD.png

Warning: Vulgar language

[insert_name]

Science wise the thing that bugged me most was when the hammerhead Corvette had shock diamonds in space

 

[Wjolcz]

I was actually fairly impressed by the CGI faces. It took me a few seconds to notice Tarkin not actually being the real Tarkin, but then I forgot to take my glasses. CGI is obviously not there yet, but I liked the fact that he was there nevertheless. The relation between Tarkin and Krennic really enhanced the plot in a way.

EDIT: Oh, whooops! I didn't notice there was a third page to this thread. I'm obviously referring here to the discussion that's taken place on the second page.

EDIT2: As @Robotengineer said: if it wasn't for the lack of head and body movements it would be pretty hard to notice it's CGI.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Veeltch

[monstah]

On 17/12/2016 at 8:51 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

going back to "Han shot first!"

Or better, "Han shot, period".

On 18/12/2016 at 1:08 PM, GoSlash27 said:

The one thing that really stood out to me was how seamlessly this movie transitioned into episode IV at the end. Not just the storyline, but the actual sets, lighting, and effects. It was like the whole movie climbed into a time machine and temporally displaced back to 1976. It leaves off at the exact moment Episode IV begins, and it *feels* like it was shot the same way in the same places.
 I felt a sense of actual deja vu as the movie came to a close. It was *that* convincing.

Ah, yes! When the first corridor appears, and there are two rebels in very distinctive uniform, one with that funky helmet, and for one second I thought it was remastered footage. So seamless. I think they could have done the entire scene a bit shorter, it felt like they trying too hard to get the point across. But Darth Vader killing off the rebels is just so awesome I can forgive that. Because Darth Vader.

As for the CGI characters, I'm on this camp: 

On 18/12/2016 at 4:06 PM, tg626 said:

On the CGI characters, there was just a hint of artificiality to them, but it's so damn close I don't care! It was amazing.

On 18/12/2016 at 4:27 PM, GDJ said:

The CGI on Tarkin and Leah wasn't perfect, but I thought the team that did the CGI for Tarkin did a phenomenal job.

When I first saw Krennic, I thought it would be a young Tarkin, until they mentioned his name. But then, there was an actual Tarkin, and I was very surprised! And he was an actual character on the film, even with his not-so-perfect CGI. I thought it was awesome. Liked it very much.

And the death of the characters was very well done. They don't kill of characters as the movie goes, but when you realize they will die they all start doing so one by one, and each one of them dies heroically after having fulfilled their purpose. It's beautiful. Specially K2SO and Chirrut; their deaths really highlight the heroic sacrifice the entire team was pulling off.

I enjoyed the movie very much. I think Star Wars is the only franchise I can turn off the physics part in my brain and simply not care about how space works (the tiny orbit-achieving ships is my favourite) and just have fun.

[ProtoJeb21]

I really liked this movie. It almost kind-of reminded me of "Guardians of the Galaxy" when they listed the planet names. I also really liked all the references and cameos from "Star Wars Rebels." However, I did NOT expect two planets and every new main character to be destroyed/killed. Technically, Jedha is a moon (reminds me of Galatea from Interstellar Adventure Revived), but whatever. Still turned inside-out. But seriously, killing the ENTIRE main cast? I kind of expected most of them to survive but either flee from the Rebellion or be captured by the Empire.

Spoiler

If this is the way they're going to go for all anthology films, well...

I've got a bad feeling about this.

 

[razark]

Ok, did I miss something?

Spoiler

 

They can't transmit the plans through the shield, so they have to destroy the shield gate to get the message through.  So they transmit a message through the shield, telling them to destroy the shield so a message can get through?

If they can get message A (Destroy the shield) through the shield, what prevents message B (Death Star plans) from getting through?

 

 

[Superfluous J]

25 minutes ago, razark said:

Ok, did I miss something?

  Hide contents

 

They can't transmit the plans through the shield, so they have to destroy the shield gate to get the message through.  So they transmit a message through the shield, telling them to destroy the shield so a message can get through?

If they can get message A (Destroy the shield) through the shield, what prevents message B (Death Star plans) from getting through?

 

 

Almost daily at work I tell someone on the phone to email me something. In theory they could read me the stuff over the phone, but in all cases email is so much better that if email was down, almost any effort to get it back up would be better than reading the stuff over the phone would be.

[razark]

8 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Almost daily at work I tell someone on the phone to email me something. In theory they could read me the stuff over the phone, but in all cases email is so much better that if email was down, almost any effort to get it back up would be better than reading the stuff over the phone would be.

So, when email is down, you email that person to tell them to fix the email so you can email them?

 

Point is, if they can send a transmission through the shield, why do they need to get rid of the shield to send a transmission?  If we can send a message on channel X, why can we not send another message on channel X?  If the shield gate were being closed (but was still open), a quick "keep the gate open" message would make sense.  But if the shield blocks transmissions, then the message to open the gate would never arrive, since the gate was already closed by the time the message was sent.

[Kerbart]

10 minutes ago, razark said:

Point is, if they can send a transmission through the shield, why do they need to get rid of the shield to send a transmission?  If we can send a message on channel X, why can we not send another message on channel X?  If the shield gate were being closed (but was still open), a quick "keep the gate open" message would make sense.  But if the shield blocks transmissions, then the message to open the gate would never arrive, since the gate was already closed by the time the message was sent.

It was explained in the movie that while a short voice message would get through, the amount of data required for the plans to transmit would not make it through the field.

[Superfluous J]

13 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

It was explained in the movie that while a short voice message would get through, the amount of data required for the plans to transmit would not make it through the field.

..which is exactly what I was talking about.

In my example, there are two methods of getting a message out, phone or email. One is good for data transmission, the other works with the shield up.

[razark]

28 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

It was explained in the movie...

So the answer was "Yes, I did miss something."

 

13 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

In my example, there are two methods of getting a message out, phone or email.

That's where I had a problem with your example.  As far as I could remember, there was nothing in the movie that indicates the two transmissions are different in any way except size.

Edited December 24, 2016 by razark

[Superfluous J]

8 minutes ago, razark said:

So the answer was "Yes, I did miss something."

 

That's where I had a problem with your example.  As far as I could remember, there was nothing in the movie that indicates the two transmissions are different in any way except size.

That could be all that's different. Shield down, 10 second transmission. Shield up, who knows how long it'd have taken?

How's this for an example? Before I had "real" Internet and had to use a modem to dial up to an ISP, the last thing I ever downloaded was 2 gig. It took 3 days to download. Let's say there was a shield between me and the ISP, and the shield being up or down was the equivalent of going from dialup to DSL (which is what I first went to. It was dark days indeed). Same physical connection, but with the shield up (No DSL) the battle would have been over for 70 hours before the message was uploaded. One quick phone call to the rebels (the ISP) telling them to take down the shield (Activate DSL) and bam, fast enough connection to get the job done.

[Elthy]

Protojeb21: They didnt destroy the planets, they used "low power" shots. I would say it was comparable to a 1km asteroid impact...

[Josh IN SPACE]

I found myself excited to see Jimmy Smits return as Bail Organa. I liked his small parts in the prequels.

[Superfluous J]

39 minutes ago, Josh IN SPACE said:

I found myself excited to see Jimmy Smits return as Bail Organa. I liked his small parts in the prequels.

I did as well though it was odd that in 30ish years he'd not aged a day while Obi Wan aged 50 years

[tater]

Liked it a lot. The diplomatic mission bit from real Star Wars (aka Ep IV) is an issue, but then again, perhaps IV isn't 30 minutes later, but after some cat and mouse in nearby systems (assuming the corvette is a standard type, and could plausibly be a different ship). 

As for the CGI people... I didn't notice Tarkin except one shot, be we saw it in imax 3d, and it was sort of dark. Leia was very, very obvious, OTOH, and looked instantly fake to me. Had Tarkin been in the same, high-key lighting, I'm sure I would have said the same thing. There were others as well, though, right? Like the general in the rebel HQ, for example. The solution (aside from better CGI) is treating it like animatronics. A couple friends work in that industry, and the key is short camera shots, and switching angles. Dwelling on them always looks bad.

Edited December 27, 2016 by tater

[monstah]

On 17/12/2016 at 8:51 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

Yeah, I noticed the Bothans got shut out of it too. You could fly a Star Destroyer through that plot hole, but it is just one line that is easily forgotten about.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if one more "Definitive Edition" of ANH was released, deleting/modifying that line and adding in the chase coming out of hyperspace at the very beginning. Not sure what else could be tweaked to make the effort worthwhile, aside from going back to "Han shot first!"

@tater I think you meant "short camera shots". I get what you mean, tho, and you're right. I didn't notice any other CGI humans except for Tarkin and Leia, tho.

[PakledHostage]

I saw it last night. I liked that it didn't seem to be written to sell video games and other merchandise, and that there were no "hi, I'm Godot, I understand that you've been waiting for me" moments.

[FunnelVortex]

On 12/20/2016 at 8:03 PM, insert_name said:

Science wise the thing that bugged me most was when the hammerhead Corvette had shock diamonds in space

 

It sure looked awesome though. 

 

19 hours ago, tater said:

Liked it a lot. The diplomatic mission bit from real Star Wars (aka Ep IV) is an issue, but then again, perhaps IV isn't 30 minutes later, but after some cat and mouse in nearby systems (assuming the corvette is a standard type, and could plausibly be a different ship). 

I think it enhances that moment actually. It makes Leia look even more desperate that she resorts to a lie that Vader will almost certainly not buy at that point.

 

12 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

I saw it last night. I liked that it didn't seem to be written to sell video games and other merchandise, and that there were no "hi, I'm Godot, I understand that you've been waiting for me" moments.

Yep. It's refreshing to see a Star Wars movie where plot armor is removed, it puts another perspective on things in the SW universe.

[Kerbart]

On 12/20/2016 at 9:03 PM, insert_name said:

Science wise the thing that bugged me most was when the hammerhead Corvette had shock diamonds in space

 

How about Vader and his buds standing in the gaping open hole watching the corvette take off? Even if they can survive a vacuum in those suits wouldn't there be a lot of wind blowing out? Or do the shields seal off openings in the hulls automatically?  Then why even bother with a hull?