Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards, December 16, 2016) Movie • Page 88

Edwards does have a new film called ‘True Love’ starring John David Washington, Gemma Chan, and Ken Watanabe.

That’s something to look forward to.

 

Yea, I don’t think it’s been publicly said exactly what was changed and for what reasons. I think there is very little fan service here, outside of a few obvious moments. Most of the stuff people call fan service just fits with the timeline of when the movie takes place. And the rumor is that the OG ending has Vader killing the main heroes. Even the early trailers indicated Vader was around the whole project. Sounds like they just changed who Vader mowed down.

As for Andor somehow changing things, we can never know. But given that Edwards had nothing to do with Andor, I don’t know why they’d be more receptive to his take now, especially since we don’t really know what his take actually was. Based on Godzilla, I would hazard that the character stuff was probably lacking in his take. The scope and action scenes were probably handled well. He’s a talented director, but doesn’t come across strong with character work. But I don’t know who did what within Rogue One. So I really can’t say for this film for his work in that aspect.

and he does deserve props for not causing drama or making it about him. It came across as he wanted the best film possible, even if it meant he was hands off at the end.

I would be fascinated with a breakdown of who did what and what changes were made and why. Maybe in 20 years? Haha

 

Yeah! That was something I had wanted to mention and forgot about. I remember a lot of the criticisms of his Godzilla revolved around the character work and how slight people felt it was. Those were some of the same criticisms leveled at Rogue One if I recall correctly so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was an issue for them. Here’s to twenty years from now lol. I genuinely would be interested to know all of that, partially because of the changes we already saw little glimpses of in his original trailer compared to what we got.

 

I liked Godzilla. But I think I speak for a lot of the audience when I say that that killing Bryan Cranston off early and focusing a lot on ATJ being pretty unemotional/bland the rest of the movie was a bad choice. Could see decisions like that not sitting well with Lucasfilm. But we just don’t know what happened.

 

I know that Bryan Cranston is a far more magnetic performer in that movie than Aaron Taylor-Johnson, but his character died exactly where the story needed him to. And, ATJ had great costars in Elizabeth Olsen, Godzilla, Ken Watanabe, and Sally Hawkins.

That whole film is perfectly paced imo and would gain nothing from additional Godzilla screen time earlier or Cranston screen time later.

 

Having more Cranston and less ATJ would make the movie better. Godzilla can stay exactly the same.

 

Sometimes the best thing for a good movie is for a good actor’s character to be in it less!

The movie would probably be better with another actor in ATJ’s role (as much as I appreciate his sexy modern renaissance). From what I recall, his stoic performance dips into “flat” territory. But, I’ve always thought he was serviceable enough for what they needed; he certainly didn’t elevate anything, but was also never distractingly bad for me.

 

I would have enjoyed more Cranston, but in terms of story his character successfully completed his role. The conflict of the film is ATJ trying to make it home to Olsen. His dad dying simply became an early part of that journey.

 

I can’t remember who it was, but someone wrote a really long post back on ap about Edwards’ direction of the film and I really liked their take a lot. Can’t state it as eloquently, but the overall gist of it was that Edwards purposely continues to move further and further away from the literal human gaze we keep getting in close up shots and then medium close ups and then wides, etc. until ATJ’s character looks right in Godzilla’s eye and thereby passes the narrative over to the view of nature in full, allowing it the space to prevail over the folly of man. That really resonated with me.

 

This is the main thing, yeah. Also, Cranston's character is an unhinged disaster in the present day. His personal arc ending in death makes sense to me, with the other pieces of the film where they're at. And, that feels like the most natural place in the story for it to happen, imo.

If people are disappointed he wasn't utilized more... idk, I think there's a long running television series people really liked at its prime? They could always go watch hours and hours of that!

Hm, interesting angle. Next time I watch the movie, I'll have to keep this take in mind.

 

If only the people who made the movie could have changed the script as to not kill off your good actor early. Dang Hollywood for making them use the script as it is. It was impossible for them to rewrite it so the human aspect went bland as hell for the majority of the film.

Agin, I like the movie. But having his story make sense to end early could have been changed. I don’t think this was based on real people and events. I think it’s okay to say that the movie lost quality after Cranston dies, even if it makes sense story wise. Like, change the story. I think ATJ probably did as he was directed and/or as written. He’s good in other films, so nothing against him. Even let Cranston die still, but something should have been changed with the handling of ATJ.

This is just me wanting an even better movie. No hate here. Just think that aspect needed another pass on various levels.

 

Most everything in Rogue One is absolutely fan service*, the very premise of the movie is fan service. But I think it’s a well written movie in the sense that its fan servicey aspect is all plausible within the story, like you’ve said.

I can’t remember which movie the Ponda Boba / Dr. Evazan cameo is in, that’s cringe fan service, most of Rogue One is less tawdry.

*It’s a matter of semantics, but I think fan service, in the TV Tropes sense, is really more explicitly sexual; the kind of fan service in question is more Pandering To The Base:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PanderingToTheBase#:~:text=The%20expression%20%22pandering%20%28or%2C%20less%20judgmentally%2C%20%27playing%27%29%20to,vote%20for%20them%20before%20targeting%20the%20wider%20majority.

 

I would disagree. By that loose of a definition, almost every movie is fan service. I reject that.

The Dr Evazan scene is in this movie and a perfect example of actual fan service.

Rogue One was inspired by a VFX artist bringing up the idea of the movie before fans saw a second of Disney Star Wars. What the base wanted was not really known at that time. You know a good example of Pandering to the Base? The Rise of Skywalker.

 

My heart. It breaks.

The pain. The paaaaaaaiiiiiiiiin

 

But does it break only for me?

 

It was this movie that had that cameo

 

For all of us, Greg! For all of us!

 

What are you proposing?

 

If it was possible to build a time machine and go back and force them to change the final film, well…I’d probably do a lot of other more important things first but I’d get around to it!

As it stands I guess I’m proposing, sigh, that we all just accept that TROS is a thing that happened and carry on with our lives because nothing is to be done and the world still turns…

…it is a pretty shit film though. So apropos of nothing I guess I’m also proposing nothing because nothing has changed and that movie still sucks.

 

In my head, the saga ends with The Last Jedi. And until they continue the story from TROS, that’s the way it’s going to stay for now. When they inevitably do bring back the sequels cast, I’ll have to accept it.

 

This is essentially my head canon as well.

 

wait, what? The stolen death star plans story was well represented at least as far back as the 90s. It’s a plotline in Rebel Dawn, Jedi Dawn, Dark Forces, X Wing among others.

It’s not like the idea came outta left field. Fans had been into that story for 20 years

 

Yes. But it is well known John Knowles (I think that’s his name) was the one who approached Disney with the idea for Rogue One. Fans weren’t clamoring for a movie about it at the time this went down. That’s my point on it not just being some fan service idea.

 

This is beyond the scope of Star Wars, but to the point that by that loose definition almost everything is fan service, that seems like an active part of the conversation about contemporary popcorn movies…

The Inescapable Inevitability of Fan Service Fatigue

The Decade Fandom Went Corporate

 

I’m not sure how you’re quantifying clamor in this instance, but its frequency as a story in other profitable star wars media consistently from the 90s well into the 2000s suggests to me a knowing servicing of a story fans like.

It’s not worth going in circles, but you’re not gonna find many people in showbiz that don’t consider this fan service