Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards, December 16, 2016) Movie • Page 48

Nathan · Dec 17, 2016

Anyway there was a really awesome movie called the Congress about the literal dehumanization of actors and entertainers where Robin Wright signs away her likeness rights to be used by a massive corporation to use her image however they like, and there was an arc on Bojack Horseman about it studios using digital recreations of actors. Eerie to see it play out in reality.

St. Nate · Dec 17, 2016

jkauf said:

I can't stop thinking and laughing about how when Jyn was giving her speech to the rebels someone in the background said "WHAT IS SHE PROPOSING?" -- it was jarring and corny and bizarre. It reminded me of "NO MORE DEAD COPS!"

Also curious as to some of the accent/voice choices for certain characters: the way Yen, Naz, and Whitaker talked was weird/distracting.

It's only distracting cause mostly everyone else in Star Wars talks with a western white person accent other than Lando and Fin, both black dudes, and aliens.

jkauf · Dec 17, 2016

St. Nate said:

It's only distracting cause mostly everyone else in Star Wars talks with a western white person accent other than Lando and Fin, both black dudes, and aliens.

I've seen other movies/shows with these same actors and they don't sound how they do here, there's definitely some weird inflections/accents/etc. at times. I think some of the takes they used with these ones had awkward dialogue/delivery as well -- maybe it was coincidental or a cause of it.

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

So fucking good.

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

I just can't believe how amazing that whole last act was....

Dirty Sanchez · Dec 17, 2016

This might be the first Star War that I see.

St. Nate · Dec 17, 2016

jkauf said:

I've seen other movies/shows with these same actors and they don't sound how they do here, there's definitely some weird inflections/accents/etc. at times. I think some of the takes they used with these ones had awkward dialogue/delivery as well -- maybe it was coincidental or a cause of it.

They definitely put in accents. Maybe it's cause you know they're normal speaking voices?

Either way in glad there are more humans with different accents, cause for a while I've been side eyeing the fact that mostly aliens have "foreign" accents.

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

I don't understand the "characters weren't fleshed out/clear motivation" at all. What was hard to understand about their motivations?

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

When/where would we have needed more fleshing out of their actions?

gonz (Alex) · Dec 17, 2016

Those questions were clearly addressed already, so you either just ignored it or disagree, which is fine. Just say you disagree and maybe even explain why.

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

I disagree because I'm apparently going to see SW movies for a different reason than others. I'm going to be enveloped in this world, and to see a different side of the main trilogy. I'm not looking for Mad Men/ The Sopranos level of character development.

Also I haven't read the whole last 6 pages. I just got back, and skimmed. So I apologize for just jumping in if it's been cleared up. I'll go read.

EngineDown · Dec 17, 2016

i saw someone tweet it last night, i forget who, but jyn was unfairly undeveloped. we know who luke, leia and han are from the moment we see them and don't need much to be spelled out for us to understand their character. without jyn, saw, galen or krennic telling us something about her character, we have no clue who jyn is

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

DarkHotline said:

I do agree that the characters could have been fleshed out better. What was the Director's true motivations? What was the true reason Baze and Chirrut joined them?

ok yes I do agree with this here tho

gonz (Alex) · Dec 17, 2016

Would love to live in a world where people didn't feel the need to say "well I'm obviously looking for something different in [thing]" or "What do you expect!? It's [thing]!" in response to criticism. Obviously people are going experience things differently. What worked for you? What didn't? Those are interesting things to share, not exasperation at what worked or didn't for others.

Ferrari333SP · Dec 17, 2016

If you haven't seen Gareth Edward's film "Monsters", the film that got him noticed in the first place, you totally should

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

Like the Director's personality/motifs we're definitely foggy, but again I just don't know where we would have fit more scenes to show us this. Or for any of the other characters. Nor do I think we needed them.

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

Don't know why you're taking it so personally. I was just confused where they would have fit more character development in, and why it was needed. I'm not trying to attack anyone. I just really enjoyed it, and was confused by those critiques in particular. The movie does have some things I don't like as well. The uncanny valley, and some of the dialogue.

gonz (Alex) · Dec 17, 2016

Cameron said:

Don't know why you're taking it so personally.

Here die my dreams of elevated critical discussion.

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

Jesus

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

I very clearly spelled what kind of discussion we could have...where, and what would you have wanted to see in terms of more character development? If you don't want to discuss it then fine.

Nathan · Dec 17, 2016

Cameron said:

I don't understand the "characters weren't fleshed out/clear motivation" at all. What was hard to understand about their motivations?

Cameron said:

When/where would we have needed more fleshing out of their actions?

This is a lot of what I think. As for when it could be fitted in, maybe cut all the unnecessary fan-service (we didn't need to see R2 and Threepio. We didn't need Organa talking about Obi-Wan. We didn't need to see the ruffians Obi Wan confronts in Mos Eisley. We didn't need a lot of it). Cut out Tarkin completely, let Mendelsohn be his own villain and answer to Vader if he has to answer to someone. That saves a lot of screentime. Anyway, as for character issues:

Nathan said:

Storytelling hinges on emotional investment in characters. We should understand what they want, what they fear, what's most meaningful to them, how their psyche influences their actions, what it would take for them to change, etc. Do these characters have complete and fleshed out psyches?

Jyn - What drives her? We first meet her as a kid and are led to believe she joins the rebellion, then there's a time jump and she's in prison. What changed? What drove her away from the one thing her father and surrogate father held most dear? We're told Forest Whitaker abandoned her during a battle in expositional dialogue, but that fills in literally no blanks as to what kind of person she is when the rebellion finds her. We're kind of told that she's a criminal who's priority is self-preservation, but that's not really dramatized or delved into. She has no questions of moral character. In her first moment of crisis, she sees a helpless child amidst a battle, and she puts herself in harms way to save the kid. Has she always been this kind of person? What does it mean that she's this kind of person and also a criminal? As the movie presents it, she's a selfless person who, upon learning her dad's intentions, is completely 100% into helping the Rebels. That's not exactly an interesting character arc. She's unchanged from who she was when she was a kid, helping out her dad. If this is a film about redemption, she should have to fight back to being that person from the hardened criminal she's turned herself into. She was abandoned by her dad, then Forest Whitaker, so naturally she should have trust issues and a hard time letting people get close to her. But none of that is explored in the film, again, once she learns her dad's intentions, she buys in. Even when Diego Luna, who she knows was ready to kill her dad in literally the last scene, says he's changed his mind, she accepts it and they go out to save the day. So who is Jyn? What drives her? How did she change? There are glimpses of an arc here, but it's not a dramatically earned one.

Diego Luna's character - Same questions for him. When we first meet him he's willing to kill a wounded ally to follow orders and help the rebellion. Outside of his dutiful soldier mindset, what does he care about? What is his flaw? How do his convictions come into conflict with what the story needs him to become, and how does he grow and change? He's directed to kill Jyn's father, and from what we've seen of him, he would have no trouble doing so. Except he doesn't pull the trigger. Why? Because he met Jyn and likes her? Even that isn't really sold in the moments leading up to his having to make that choice. Once he decides not to kill Jyn's dad, he becomes who he is the rest of the film, and there's really not much there. What tough choices does he have to make? He's just giving orders to rebels and helping Jyn. He's not actively doing much that plays into a conviction different than he had at the start - that he's going to serve the rebels and fight the empire. He makes mention of refusing to follow bad orders, but that doesn't seem to weigh on him. He just changes his mind and goes rogue and things play out basically the same from then on.

Donnie Yen - What does he want? Aside from having religious conviction in his faith in the force, why does he help the rebellion? What is he giving up by going with the rebels? Why does he believe the empire is wrong? What character drive does he have independent of Jyn? Does he have any personal desires for his own life, his own reasons for wanting to topple the empire, or is he an Asian prophet archetype?

Wen Jiang's character - Same questions. He and Donnie Yen have pretty good chemistry, but what in their dialogue and actions bonds them? Why is he willing to put himself on the line for the rebellion when he seems completely disinterested in doing so for most of the film? What does he want independent of Jyn and Diego Luna? Is there any hint as to who he was before the film started, or his he just a mercenary who is buddies with Donnie Yen and follows him everywhere with no independent agency?

Forest Whitaker's character - What turned him from rebel to extremist rebel? Why would he abandon Jyn, when apparently he was good friends with her father and was the one her father trusted to take care of her in his absence? What does he want independent from helping Jyn? He's willing to die for the rebellion and redemption, but what is he redeeming? What did he do that makes his death significant? Are we just supposed to care because he's Jyn's oldest friend?

Riz Ahmed's character - I actually really like Riz Ahmed's character and am more or less fine with how he's portrayed, though it would have helped a lot to know why he defected and what it means to him to give up his entire Imperial life and risk death to help the rebellion, outside of "they have a weapon that can blow up planets and that scares me" because that's not really telling us much about him as a character.

So there's the main protagonist crew. How do their wants and needs conflict with each other? What will it take for them to come together as a team and get the plans? What does their sacrifice mean, why does it resonate? We don't really have any personal reasons as to why it matters that they all willingly gave their lives for this. If the film is about them being a motley crew of a bunch of ragtag misfits with nothing to lose, make the film about that. Show us that they have nothing to lose and hate the Empire enough to give their lives to topple them. Or show us how they do have lives and relationships and goals and dreams to lose, and they're still willing to die to defeat the Empire. Make it meaningful that they come together and overcome their troubled pasts and the selfish people they once were to be a team strong enough to turn the galaxy upside down by defeating the Empire. As it stands, these characters are serviceable at best, but I'd argue uniformly underwritten. To return to your initial question, I understand them fine on a surface/plot level, they're rebels fighting the Empire. What I don't understand is who these people really are and how their actions speak to their characters and the theme of the film. There's nothing wrong with simple characters, the original trilogy had those. But I got what Han Solo and Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia wanted, what their flaws were, how they grew to understand each other and themselves better and overcome their flaws, and what it meant for them to come together and triumph at the end. That's what makes A New Hope resonate. Rogue One... I don't think will age well at all, partially due to poor/lacking characterization and partially due to CGI that will date the film and speak larger to recapturing nostalgia for the original films rather than letting Rogue One be its own, meaningful story.

Cameron · Dec 17, 2016

Nathan said:

This is a lot of what I think. As for when it could be fitted in, maybe cut all the unnecessary fan-service (we didn't need to see R2 and Threepio. We didn't need Organa talking about Obi-Wan. We didn't need to see the ruffians Obi Wan confronts in Mos Eisley. We didn't need a lot of it). Cut out Tarkin completely, let Mendelsohn be his own villain and answer to Vader if he has to answer to someone. That saves a lot of screentime. Anyway, as for character issues:

Thanks for the response I appreciate it. I agree too there could have been fat removed.

Greg · Dec 17, 2016

Craig Ismaili said:

technically speaking the rebel he killed was not an ally. It was part of Forrest Whittaker's characters radical rebel band which had broken from the rebel alliance. So he really had no allegiance to them. Just an allegiance to keep himself and Jyn alive

Yikes. Note to self: don't ever make contact with Craig in real life Hahahaha

Ps: he didn't know about Jyn yet

Edit: I just realized you were taking about the SECOND time he killed an ally.

Nathan · Dec 17, 2016

Bringing back some further thoughts, I feel especially strongly about Mendelsohn because I adore him as an actor and think his potential was overwhelmed by dead-eyed CGI Tarkin (and he and Mads dynamic was poorly written/developed in that bad rainy scene)

Nathan said:

I wish we could have seen more of her life.

And I wish we could have seen Galen wrestle with it more. He should be despondent, just destroyed, about what he did. The scene where he sticks up for his engineers wasn't a meaningful exploration of it. Would have loved if he and Ben Mendelsohn could have been one on one and just really had a face off about what they created now that they've seen what their weapon can do, and know what it can further do. Not only would two of the best actors on the planet get to have a philosophical and moral debate, but you could explore the "just following orders" concept more and develop both their psyche's a little more. Then you could have Mendelsohn lead him out onto the platform and then you still get all the same stuff with Diego Luna considering killing him and Jyn coming to save him and the Rebels attacking, and you don't have a scene where a guy who, intentions aside, is still responsible for accelerating the construction of a weapon that can and does kill literally billions, defending a bunch of other people who helped him build that weapon. I might be alone in that being such a roadblock into accepting Mads' character arc/the point of the movie, I get that.

Overall I did like it. The dogfight at the end was fucking thrilling, maybe the best in the series (though why include Not-Admiral-Ackbar? He looks a lot like him and sounds exactly like him... either have it be him or do something a different). Edwards did some of the best action direction Star Wars has ever seen, maybe THE best, with a Hitchcockian understanding of stakes and tension (which Abrams lacks) and the technology and skill to make it look absolutely exhilarating.

Nathan said:

The review I posted touches on Tarkin and Vader, and how their presence takes away from Ben Mendelsohn's character. He gets no payoff because he dies unceremoniously and without realizing a thematic vision. He has helped create the Death Star and Tarkin takes all the credit, but that idea doesn't turn into anything. His last actions should be about ensuring the Death Star, his legacy, lives on. Which is there in its bare essentials, he tries to stop Jyn from uploading the plans, but his psyche isn't there in the writing. He's just shooting at the good guys. He was friends with Mads, he knew Jyn, why doesn't that play into anything that happens? What if he had a serious conflict of character? What if, instead of the scene where Vader lives in the tower of Barad-Dur on Space Mordor, where Mendelsohn gets force-choked, he instead accompanies Mendelsohn to question Mads? You could have Mendelsohn have that one on one scene with Mads I want so much where two amazing actors debate morals, Mads lamenting the death they're directly responsible for, Mendelsohn lauding their unprecedented scientific accomplishment and what it means for them and the empire, trying to convince his longtime friend to confess to Vader so that he won't be killed. Then you could have the same scene of Mads sticking up for his fellow Nazi engineers, and Vader gets to be the ruthless one, executing them all, stabbing Mads so he lives long enough to see Jyn, and Mendelsohn is horrified and devastated by the loss of his friend. Then in the final act you have some really interesting pathos, in the face of his biggest challenge, he's got to choose to serve the ruthless Empire having a weapon he built that can blow up planets, or he can try to help Jyn, the daughter of his old friend, and help her realize his friend's vision. And honestly either choice would be dramatically intriguing. But no he gets some fodder bad guy lines before being shot. Seriously he's one of the best actors currently working in the world, and you're going to make him endure that horrific Darth Vader pun?

gonz (Alex) · Dec 17, 2016

Cameron said:

I very clearly spelled what kind of discussion we could have...where, and what would you have wanted to see in terms of more character development? If you don't want to discuss it then fine.

I have no issue with the rest of your subsequent responses, just wish you started there I guess. I was very clearly only responding to the "why are you taking it so personal, bro" part, hence why I only quoted that section.

What does that even mean? Was it my own personal opinion on critical discussion? Sure. But the insinuation is always "why are you getting so worked up over something undeserving of such a reaction, faceless Internet stranger". You might as well have just started off your post with the U Mad gif.

It's not helpful in trying to convey a thought, it's just rhetorical manipulation.

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