Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards, December 16, 2016) Movie • Page 71

You should try to avoid his videos. He is one of the worst of the newer young YouTube film reviewers.

 

This is fucking comical. I swear this is like, verbatim, what Red Letter Media said in their parody podcast review.

As for Stuckman goes, I used to watch him fairly regularly but he's so incredibly inconsistent and his review for Get Out was cringeworthy. He basically stated that he doesn't understand racism because he grew up in a diverse neighborhood. The irony of course being that Get Out deals with subtle forms of racism and white people overcompensating. But I agree mostly with what he has to say about Rogue One.

 

When I first saw Rogue One I enjoyed it enough as a Star Wars fan, I guess, but I certainly couldn't recommend it to someone who isn't big into like Star Wars ships and weapons and stuff like that cause, let's be real, the characters kind of suck ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Which is fairly ironic as it's supposed to be the first stand alone film and it felt so dependent on having seen A New Hope. No one would care about this story or these characters remotely if it wasn't tied to that movie. I think this is my fear for the stand alone movies in general. I think Star Wars has a pretty cool universe that could be explored but instead they're just pumping out stories about characters we already know. And frankly, I don't want to know anything about Han Solo or Boba Fett's past, I like the mystery. I wanna see some KOTOR era shit or something

 

So like basically ... everyone?

You don't need to have seen ANH at all for this movie to work.

I call bullshit on that. None of these characters are in that movie. If this was "random space movie" I'd still enjoy it, the final 10 minutes raises it into a good Star Wars movie territory.

This was literally about characters we'd never met before.

 

I don't think you can make an argument that translates into better art just because it works for them. They also both made some stinkers doing that, and many directors that shoot dialogue differently, or do 1/2 as many takes, also have created great art. My entire argument is there's no correlation.

Again, that's irrelevant to what I'm saying, I'm not saying their process doesn't work for them or they're wrong; I'm literally saying the opposite. I'm saying there isn't one true way.

 

Then amend my statement to say characters/situations we already familiar with. My point is it is still HEAVILY tied to the original trilogy and is not truly "stand alone". That is something you can't deny, and if you're okay with that then, awesome! I take issue with it though. Let's pretend for a minute that Star Wars didn't exist and Rogue One came out. It would probably feel like it ended mid movie. Wait what about those plans they stole? What the hell is the force? What wut, who is that guy in the last five minutes who hacked down hella people? Who the fuck were those droids they cut to? I dunno, but they looked cool I guess.

Don't you feel somewhat cheated as a Star Wars fan? I sure do. I feel like they are banking on my nostalgia to overshadow the fact that their story was poorly written. Don't you want to see characters/stories that are entirely separate? That just sounds like more fun to me.

Double Edit: I read your first comment wrong. Yes, basically everyone. My mother and sister both love the OT and TFA but I would never recommend this to them cause I know they would get zero satisfaction out of it. Why? Because it's Star Wars porn. Like, I get enjoyment out of the space battles cause I like x-wings and all that Star Warsy shit but I know the casual Star Wars fan probably doesn't

 

I don't know what that has to do with anything, it's not a stand alone movie ... it's a Star Wars story. It's right there in the title.

If Star Wars didn't exist, they would have made a different movie and ended it differently. This argument makes no sense at all. The reason you can use Darth Vader in this way is because we have 6 other movies of him.

Nope.

I'm sure in time we'll get just that. The first in this series of movies wasn't entirely separate, and I doubt any ever will be entirely separate, the entire purpose of world building is to tell stories within that world. Rebels works so well for that very reason.

They love Star Wars, but you wouldn't recommend what you describe as "Star Wars porn" .... feel like you're kind of a dick if that's the case.

 

I would love to see a study that takes groups of film students and makes them shoot the same story with competing processes.
let's see a brad bird excessive story boarding approach vs whatever the hell Mike bay does.
By your argument, the end result would be random. I'd bet we'd see correlation.

I do think you are right that there is always an exception to a rule. there is not ONLY one right way.
But. I do think we see the wrong way play out constantly and it seems fairly obvious that the process of the project from inception, to direction, to actor selection, to production timeline; all are easy predictors for a shitty end product.

Either way. I liked this movie. Not sure why I'm talking on this thread beyond that.

 

I mean, you can find phenomenal improved movies all over the place. Some of the best scenes in cinema were unscripted. Some of the most iconic scenes were put together the day of due to weird circumstances. And you can find horrific movies that were planned out in intense detail. You don't need any study, these movies and stories are throughout film history.

I disagree. Look at David O. Russell's string of garbage, and he's known as one of the biggest control freaks in film. And then there's the genius of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

 

(Also god damn did Tomorrowland suck.)

 

These arguments get so tiring to read. I just can't wait to own the movie on Blu-Ray soon

 

Lmao. No, I just understand the difference between someone like me, who has nerded out with people over the fact that guns in Star Wars aren't actually shooting lasers but instead liquidized crystals, and people like my mom who love those movies for the characters, and that's about it. If anything my lack of recommendation is me being the complete opposite of a dick, as I'm saving them two hours of their life that I don't believe they'll enjoy. My classification of it at "Star Wars" porn is with the intended negative connotation as I found it to be all tits and ass with very little that was interesting beyond that. Like, I can put on on Star Wars goggles and jerk off to the hammerhead ship crashing into the star destroyer, that was fuckin dope, but that's about as deep as my enjoyment goes.

Sooooo what you're saying is that it's dependent on pre-existing movies? Or did I just read that wrong?

Look dude, I don't care if you liked this movie, but I'm just trying to do my best to explain why I felt it fell short. Nothing we say will convince the other in either direction ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

There we go! We can agree on this.

 

You're both right IMO. I got my wife into Star Wars but she's not even close to as into it as I am. I thought RO was amazing. My wife was disapointed ,a little lost (even though she's seen all the movies) and thought the characthers were mostly thin.

 

I think the world wide box office returns and viewer reviews says I'm right, but whatevers, I'm not interested in talking to anyone that writes the words "tits and ass" in a post so I'm way out on that convo.

 

It was overtly crass on purpose but ok

 

Some of these arguments seem like people actually stretching to hate the movie. If I disliked it as much as some of these quotes, I wouldn't even want to be on a forum discussing it. Maybe that's just me though. I think I'm done with Internet forums, breeding ground for negativity!

Loved the movie, loved the characters. Great and very worthy addition to the Star Wars story.

 

My wife has only seen TFA and she loved Rogue One.

Not recommending it to someone who enjoys the original trilogy and TFA, as someone above outlined, makes no sense to me.

I agree with this.

 

I could tell after 2 minutes. Then I scrolled through his video upload list. good lord lol

 

Got a feeling it will prob be one of the best. unless they start grabbing some good directors

 

But it's a Star Wars "STORY" and most people that went to see this movie, had seen previous Star Wars movies. I too, wouldn't recommend this as the first SW movie for someone new to the series to see, but as a standalone, it's a damn good movie that fits in beautifully to the films as a whole.

Your argument in the first paragraph can easily be flipped about A New Hope when it first came out. So many unanswered questions and mystery when the credits roll. But isn't that part of the attraction?

 

Red Letter Media dunked on him a few months ago.

 

I don't think I understand why connecting to other films is a weakness. The point of shared universes is that seeing multiple films enhances the experience of each film. If you don't like that, well, that's just your taste, not a shortcoming of the film.

I mean, I know people who saw Rogue One before the OT and still liked it, so clearly it's not completely dependent on the other films. The movie clearly communicates that Vader is evil and powerful; additional information isn't important for this movie. You also don't have to understand the Force (which no main characters fully understand in this film anyways).

I personally don't care to debate the overall quality of the film, lol. I thoroughly loved it but also understand some of the critiques and don't necessarily disagree. I just think criticizing a Star Wars film for connecting to other Star Wars media is really lame.

 

I also disliked that video and their Prequel reviews so there's probably a correlation there somewhere, but glad my admittedly way too long rant provided a good laugh for people. Didn't realize how long it was until I hit post, but it is what it is.

 

No love for Bodhi Rook in this thread