Official Star Wars Thread

The only (some minor) gripes I had with the story of Rogue One:
Tarkin (Cushing) looked older and more evil than the real, "later" one.
And: What I didn't get is where "your highness Leia" came from. She wasn't introduced. We only see and hear of rebels in the film. Suddenly a Queen appears. Why did no one talk about her. This film made her more mysterious, rather than clarifying anything more about her.

So it was pure luck, that this message reached her? It was not meant to be?
 
Actually, she was mentioned, though not by name. The guy in the blue coat who was in the Rebel meetings was her foster dad (Bail Organa, as known from the Prequel Trilogy). When Mon Mothma asked him about someone trustworthy to give the plans to, he answered in reference to her.
 
Saw Rogue One yesterday and absolutely loved it, though I agree with everyone here about the (minor) issues. I think I still prefer TFA, but that might simply be due to the nostalgia factor and the returning characters. You put Han Solo on screen, your movie levels up minimum 5 points.

I watched the prequels in preparation, hoping to be pleasantly surprised: but they are ungodly fucking terrible. Just garbage. There is nothing worth watching other than the last 45 minutes of ROTS, and even that is not very good. It's dark and twisted, though, and directly relates to RO and ANH, so it's worth seeing. If I ever do a full SW marathon I will just skip to the end of ROTS and save myself 8 hours of tripe.

The storytelling was fantastic and truly made you care about the characters. Just like the prequel trilogy, I think the action sequences in RO get a little long in the tooth and I found myself zoning out a bit during some of the battles, but at least those battles looked incredible.

The way this film tied immediately into ANH was outstanding. I really wasn't expecting that as I've stayed away from a lot of spoilers regarding RO. I loved that fatalistic nature of the film and I'd be interested to know what changed during reshoots and whether they were for the better.

As always, Alan Tudyk was a highlight. K-2SO felt like a combination of C-3PO and Marvin the Paranoid Android or, more accurately, the sardonic kind of voice I would expect to hear if R2-D2 spoke in English.

My only real issues with it are:
- CGI characters. I'm glad they did, I'm glad it connects this film to ANH, but they still looked like cartoons. I'm not sure why they couldn't throw more shadow on their faces to mask the CG quality (especially with Leia at the end).
- Forest Whitaker's incredibly over-the-top, hammy performance. I find myself disliking him as an actor more and more. He seems to overact quite a bit.
- Time wasted on characters that were obviously going full Reservior Dogs. Like the two brothers (?) were interesting, especially "Jedi" Daredevil, but I think some of their screen time could have been cut down. The Galactic pilot turncoat could also have been cut down. I would have much rather learned about Diego Luna's backstory.
- The first Darth Vader scene felt weird to me...again, he was in way too perfect lighting inside Bowser's castle and would have appeared far more menacing with some shadow. It looked a little bit like someone wearing a Darth Vader Halloween costume.
 
Saw Rogue One yesterday. Loved it. Absolutely loved it. This time, they got basically everything right - the characters, the story and the atmosphere. A million times better than the awful Episode VII.
 
Wonder if Carrie's death will push back any plans to release a trailer for Ep 8. Disney would not want to be viewed as taking advantage of her death. TFA trailer premiered more than a year prior to film release. Figured we would have seen something by now, but I guess Disney does not want to take any attention away from RO.
 
I wonder if they'll have to change the plot of Episode VIII at all. If they've killed off Leia then it doesn't matter but it might be awkward if they've set up Leia to have a big role in Episode IX.
 
I don't think it will affect the timeline. TFA was the first new Star Wars movie in years and the first direct sequel since 1983. I'm sure Disney won't start the promotion machine until Rogue One has completed it's entire theater and media release cycle. I don't think we'll see a teaser til summer at the earliest.
 
The teaser will come in Spring, my guess is before the Beauty and the Beast remake.

I would be shocked if Leia was slated to have a bigger role in future movies. Her performance had mixed reviews in the last one and it was somewhat obvious that she hadn't acted in a pretty long time. I doubt they're going to have her do anymore than what we saw in TFA, probably less.
 
I bet her role is big both in VIII and IX (some rumours support that assumption) and I imagine Lucasfilm has a tough problem to solve now. Luckily (if we can even talk about "luck" in this situation...) they have a lot of extra time to deal with it. It looks like they're more or less keeping to the original production schedule, according to which the film should be ready by May, so there's a convenient margin to change things. I think there's a strong possibility that they'll try to make Leia's role a bit smaller and set things up in a way that she's not a vital element of IX. It's hard to imagine her not appearing in IX at all if that was the plan for this trilogy, so I'd say CGI is the way to go, as proved in Rogue One (not everyone liked the effect, but I'm cool with it). I really hope no drastic changes will be made to VIII, because I truly believe Rian Johnson is cooking something special and I don't want his vision to be affected.

As for the teaser, I put all my money on Celebration in April. Beauty and the Beast is an option if they'd like the teaser to sink in before Celebration and then show even more stuff, but I think the first scenario is much more likely.
 
Saw Rogue One today (finally). I liked that while my wife hated it.

I think the movie was helped/hindered by the plot. On one hand, it was great to see them connect the dots with the original trilogy, and the explanation of the exhaust port in the death star was satisfying. The general McGuffin of the plans was entertaining. And yes...watching Vader rockin' the rebels like a boss was awesome (and it largely erased my memories of whiny teenage Anakin).

On the other hand....the inevitability of the plot meant that the swashbuckling fun and sweeping hero's-quest mythos of the original trilogy were absent. For some folks who loved the 'WWII movie in space' vibe, this bothered them little, but for my wife, this was simply too different for her tastes. I went into it with an open mind and was willing to mentally take a break from the Skywalker saga, but I know more than a few people who didn't like it for that reason. While I could handle the change in genres, I did think that the characters were really underdeveloped. I thought they were cool, but I really wanted to know more about them.

One of the interesting quandaries about Star Wars in general is that Lucas made the OT for 10 year old boys. Those 10 year old boys are now in their 40s and 50s. If you try to make SW dark and gritty to make it appealing to those grown kids, you lose some of the child-like sense of hope/wonder that was evident in the OT. Though if you make it only appeal to 10 year old boys today, you get...The Phantom Menace. It's a tough line to straddle. I think RO was right at the edge of what you can do in the SW universe without going overboard.
 
I don't think it will affect the timeline. TFA was the first new Star Wars movie in years and the first direct sequel since 1983. I'm sure Disney won't start the promotion machine until Rogue One has completed it's entire theater and media release cycle. I don't think we'll see a teaser til summer at the earliest.

I wonder how they thought they would be able to release VIII in May at first... It seems like it would have taken literally all the spotlight from Rogue One if they'd started marketing that around this time.
 
I don't think they expected Rogue One would be as big as it became originally. I've been excited for it since I heard about it, waaaay more excited than I am for the other two SW stories they've announced.
 
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