For me, this is what a prequel should be. It holds damn true to the visual style of episode IV-VI, albeit with an HD upgrade. I loved this movie and is the only one in the catalog that actually got me a bit misty eyed. It has a few flaws, the expected cameos and mcguffins, (especially disturbing were the computer aided graphics of certain characters I won't mention) but I think it is an honest and respectful addition to the universe of Star Wars.
In one of the most terrifying scenes in all of star wars, I got to reaffirm my belief that Darth Vader is my favorite villain of all time. This is the sith lord in his prime, and he is pissed.
Did you see it?
Thoughts?
I did and I wasn't so surprised like the majority who write reviews. Since there were no Jedi in this movie, it seems to me like it lost the franchise's usual feel of epicness. It was... too normal. I understand that this... gritty part is what alot of people liked, but Star Wars is meant to be epic, not realistic and down to earth.
It was, however, a very good movie. I love Star Wars.
Second favorite after EBS.
In addition to being a good SW flick, it was also a good film. Cinematography a was underrated but potent. Not perfect, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Saw it last night.
The Good:
- The film overcomes my biggest single annoyance with Star Wars, its quasi-monarchist obsession with aristocratic heroes who are heroic and powerful because of their bloodline and heritage. For movies about rebels, they've always seemed strangely attracted to royalty. There's none of this in Rogue One.
- It's basically The Dirty Dozen in the Star Wars universe, which is a stellar premise.
- I cannot tell you how gratified I was that everyone died at the end.
- Also, added bonus, you actually feel the Death Star's sting as something more than an abstract atrocity.
- Battles feel tense and real and significant, not swashbuckling and occasionally silly excuses for the heroes to run around swinging on things while Stormtroopers consistently miss.
- The movie was dirty and used and visceral in a way that felt very true to the original series, even more so than The Force Awakens.
- The locations really overcame that obnoxious thing that Star Wars usually does which is just cycle through desert, ice, and jungle planets for most of its locations. Though Jedha is a desert moon the city was beautifully represented, and both Eadu's storm-wracked mountains and Scarif's island paradise were excellent.
- The sparing but effective use of Vader was just marvelous and chilling.
- Much of the cinematography was excellent - sweeping and visually arresting. I am particularly enamoured of the shots from the Rebel Command Ship looking down through glass onto the planet below.
- We got actual dogfights that felt somewhat tense, tactile and real.
- K-2S0 as played by Alan Tudyk is by far the standout character - funny in a dark way that Star Wars doesn't normally go for.
- I liked that they resisted the operatic tropes of the main series - no opening crawl, for example. When K-2S0 starts to say "I have a bad feeling..." he gets cut off. This is cool - we're at a foot-trooper's, worm's eye view of this universe.
The Bad:
- The opening itself is great, but there's a section early on that's a total muddled mess of exposition and scenes jammed together that doesn't work well.
- The characters were mostly a very bleak, dour bunch, rather humourless. The obvious exception is K-2S0, but there's no equivalent to Han & Leia's witty banter, or Finn's slapstick, or Poe's sardonic quipping.
- I never got a real handle on Jyn. It wasn't clear what was actually motivating her a lot of the time. I liked Felicity Jones' performance fine, the writing around the character just needed strengthening.
- Despite having a female leader/major member, the Rogue One team was almost absurdly mono-gendered - so conspicuously it was distracting.
- I thought there were far too many human characters. Again, except for the brilliant K-2S0, every major, named character in the Rogue One group was human. Why not give us a few Imperial non-human characters?
- The main villain, Krennic, was monumentally boring, especially compared to the superb villain of Force Awakens, i.e. Kylo Ren, or the colourful villains of the Original Trilogy - Vader, Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett, arguably Lando Calrissian for parts of Empire. Even the prequels had Palpatine, a really strong and well-acted character. Krennic was just dull and sniveling and contemptible. The closest he came to being hate-able was in the scene where he killed the engineers, but those are nameless Imperial guys, not people we care about.
- The X-Wing/Tie-Fighter dogfights were awesome, but we needed to care much, much more about the pilots.
- Bits of plot felt weird to me. If we're just going to go and talk to Galen Erso on Eadu anyway, why bother with all this stuff with holograms and defecting pilots on Jedha? Not a big complaint, but there were moments in the middle that made me go "hrm" to myself.
The Ugly:
- The human CGI characters (Tarkin, Leia) were enormously distracting, unconvincing, unnecessary, and all around a terrible idea.