Episode 1635 Talkback - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Movie Review
Adam_Murdough
Posts: 506
Looking for a little something to ease your transition from holiday hyperspace back to the workaday world? Listen to Murd, Chris, and Shane opine about this season's #1 blockbuster, the first in the new 'Star Wars Anthology' series of films. It's like a bacta-tank treatment for those post-holiday blues! (46:34)
Listen here, and may the Force be with you!
Listen here, and may the Force be with you!
Comments
The biggest takeaway for me was how much the movie celebrated the more "ground level" members of the Rebellion...mere background elements or expendable drones in the previous Star Wars movies, but here living, breathing people with their own stories, dreams, and contributions. Granted, we didn't get to learn much about them, but the movie still accomplished putting a more human (for lack of a better term) face on the Rebellion rank and file. This is the story of an uneasy coalition of spies, fighters, mercenaries, traitors, zealots, killers, and….worst of all…politicians...in a cause none of them completely agree upon or understand the scope of. That's the true power of the movie, which now serves to make the original 1977 "Star Wars" all the more compelling upon re-watch.
Though I hadn't considered it before, Adam's point about the final two minutes undermining the sacrifices of the ragtag Rebel squad we'd just watched...was a great one. I agree...it would have been better if the Vader rampage and the (ill-advised) "Leia" cameo had taken place earlier. Speaking of the Leia CGI "puppet", not a great moment. Not only was she firmly in "Uncanny Valley", but the character's demeanor and dialogue was all wrong for the tone of scenes around her. Sure...I get the winky reference to "A New Hope" by her saying "Hope"....but considering everything happening around her at the time (slaughter on her ship, decimation of a huge portion of the Rebel fleet, Vader bearing down upon her), I wouldn't think she'd be grinning ear to ear and talking about "hope". Kinda corny in an otherwise very gritty, down-&-dirty movie.
Great job guys! Happy New Year!
A New Hope is about 20-25 years after Revenge of the Sith. They began building the Death Star then, so it took about that time to complete. How far along was Galen brought into the project? How long after did he retire? We know Jyn hadn't seen her father in 15 years. Conservatively, she was 10 when he was taken from the farm.
Would a seasoned central character still be indifferent with the war?
M
Rogue One are unsung heroes of the war. They are essentially footnotes that might've never gotten their stories told. Sure the movie was their story, but the epic isn't.
I didn't take Leia's "hope" as a nod to where the story continues, but rather the sentiment of what the Rebellion was about. "Hope" will represent different things to the Rebellion & its individual fighters. Here it's the plans, later Obi-Wan, then destroying the Death Star, then Luke. "Hope" can be something, someone, or some notion held onto to justify the struggles. The "light at the end of the tunnel" so to speak.
Looking ahead, do we know when Han quit the Empire? We we see his spinoff interject in some way with Rogue One? Perhaps he was the pilot who brought Krennic to "collect" Galen at the movie's beginning.
Ugh.
As for the logistics of Jyn's age...yes...I know she wasn't literally a teenager...but my larger point being after last year's Rey-centric Force Awakens, yet another plucky young girl seemed a bit calculated in light of all the recent film franchises starring Plunky Teens & Twenty-Somethings leading rebellions, bringing down evil dystopias, etc. Just because you don't watch them (or read the popular YA novels they're based upon) doesn't mean they're not a thing.
Star Wars-wise, I just expect it because that's what they gave us with Luke & Anakin.
I mean, you could argue that, when troopers are shooting at you, and you have a deep chasm to swing across, it is an odd time to kiss someone on the cheek and say, "For luck", you know what I mean? Sometimes a movie is just going to be a movie. And be cinematic rather than pragmatic. Sometimes, in situations where you or I in the real world would just grunt or run for our damn lines, people are going to say things that writers were proud of right before the music swells. Because, movies.
And that is the scene that literally rockets us into the saga. It is the metaphoric and literal handoff to A New Hope. So, it worked for me. It felt justified. And "hope" is a motif of the entire preceding movie. "Rebellions are built on hope" could have been a tag line for this, given the weight of how that line passes from Andor to Jyn, and then from Jyn to the council, and then in the "until our chances are spent" speech Jyn gives the squad as they are landing on Scarif.
If it didn't work for you, then it didn't. But for me, it was not at all out of place. Rather, it was the earned reminder of what the whole cast of characters you watch die, died FOR.