Pretty soulless. Even the crappy prequels you could tell were made by someone who really really cared, even if they were ■■■■ at movie-making. This was paint by the numbers, filmmaking-by-committee stuff. Star Wars has always been basically a soap opera with lasers, and though I could see what they were trying to do, trying to lever grim and gritty into the Galaxy Far Far away is a really awkward fit.
I got home from the movie 5 minutes ago and I’ve already forgotten the male lead’s name. I was remembering even the frigging main characters as ‘pilot guy’ and ‘blind stick guy’ and ‘big gun guy who is obviously coded as gay married to blind stick guy to make the fangirls happy, but the marketing guys and execs refused to let them actually make this unambiguously clear’. When the most I remember about a character is their weapon of choice, then the movie has done a sucky job of characterisation. File off the Star Wars touchstones and easter eggs (handing out a sequence of Vader kicking butt at the end of the movie like a reward for sitting through it all) and look at it as a movie on its own merits, and it would have been utterly forgettable. This is a parasitic movie - everything good about it, it sucked from the originals.
Not a patch on Force Awakens in my book (nobody forgot Finn’s name, or Rey’s, or Kylo Ren’s). I was pretty wary of the upcoming Young Han Solo film already, and this is exactly the reason why. An utterly cynical cashgrab made for all the wrong reasons, right up there with the worst of the licenced novels and similar crap they churned out in the early 90s.
Yeah, there were dumb plot bits at times and architecturally needless bottomless pits and the like, but star Wars has always had that stuff and i can live with it. But a Star Wars film being un-fun and un-funny and drearily serious and stuffed full of people i don’t give a damn about? That’s more of a problem…
Booooo.
I thought cassian was one of the more interesting, morally ambiguous and conflicted characters we’ve seen in a star wars film. Certainly since Han in anh.
I’m a sucker for daddy/daughter day movies too.
Krennick was a different take on your standard imperial stooge, sociopath frustrated by internal politics. Probably slightly underdeveloped though.
The rest were window dressing but all the same force monk’s death got me in along with his mates sense of loss.
The characters probably aren’t helped by being given multi syllable, obtuse names.
if we are going to complain about franchise entertainment being a cynical cash grab then we may as well shut Hollywood down.
At least this film tried to be something different in the star wars universe even if it was damn bleak.
All the same there was plenty of squeeeee in it for me. I’ll take some subtle (and not so subtle) fan service any day over brazen plot rehashing.
Yeah, nah.
That’s a crap argument.
You can still have a franchise movie and make it great. Your argument is built from straw there, man.
Except that I think r1 was great and trying to do something new a different for star wars and tfa was a tired rehash. You can make the same cynical cash grab argument about tfa is all i’m saying
Why do need to make characters memorable if they all die?
Because when you don’t, when they die, you don’t give a ■■■■.
You mean like when they telegraphed Han’s death from light-years away.
One mans telegraphing is another mans tragic inevitability.
Han’s death is the final culmination of his character arc. When we meet him in anh he cares about nothing and nobody besides making a quick buck, and his development is all about his finding something bigger than that. His death is the end of that journey. He knows Ren won’t turn back, and he knows he’s going to die, but he tries anyway because he loves his son and he loves Leia and he promised her he’d try. He walks into death willingly, out of love and for others, and that shows how far he has come from the man he was when we met him.
On the other hand, Jin and whatshisname and theotherguy and so on, they die because someone wanted rogue one to be ‘darker and edgier’ and because if they lived, then there’s all these questions about where these people were during ANH.
Han died because of decisions Han made. Everyone in Rogue One dies because of decisions the scriptwriters made. And that’s why I liked TFA better.
Yes you are right that is what Han’s death represented. Sadly, for me a least, tfa didn’t capture that significance. Maybe I was just so frustrated by the anh retread by that point and was thinking and now they will kill kenobie. In fact I know that is exactly what I was thinking.
Han’s death should have been epic and shocking. The audience should have been given a moment to grapple with it, we should have seen the light go out of his eyes. instead he fell into a bottomless pit and chewie snarled and shot the place up.
I get that we are at cross purposes on this too just in terms of tfa.
Why do need to make characters memorable if they all die?
Because when you don’t, when they die, you don’t give a ■■■■.
You mean like when they telegraphed Han’s death from light-years away.
One mans telegraphing is another mans tragic inevitability.
Han’s death is the final culmination of his character arc. When we meet him in anh he cares about nothing and nobody besides making a quick buck, and his development is all about his finding something bigger than that. His death is the end of that journey. He knows Ren won’t turn back, and he knows he’s going to die, but he tries anyway because he loves his son and he loves Leia and he promised her he’d try. He walks into death willingly, out of love and for others, and that shows how far he has come from the man he was when we met him.
On the other hand, Jin and whatshisname and theotherguy and so on, they die because someone wanted rogue one to be ‘darker and edgier’ and because if they lived, then there’s all these questions about where these people were during ANH.
Han died because of decisions Han made. Everyone in Rogue One dies because of decisions the scriptwriters made. And that’s why I liked TFA better.
Yes you are right that is what Han’s death represented. Sadly, for me a least, tfa didn’t capture that significance. Maybe I was just so frustrated by the anh retread by that point and was thinking and now they will kill kenobie. In fact I know that is exactly what I was thinking.
Han’s death should have been epic and shocking. The audience should have been given a moment to grapple with it, we should have seen the light go out of his eyes. instead he fell into a bottomless pit and chewie snarled and shot the place up.
I get that we are at cross purposes on this too just in terms of tfa.
Yeah, its a matter of taste of course. I do get why some people would like this better than TFA, it’s just that those people are clearly and obviously wrong The filmmakers were trying to see what other sort of story they could tell in the SW universe, different in tone, & not focused on the Jedi & the various generations of the extended Skywalker family. I think the people who see Star Wars as a setting will be more likely to enjoy r1, while the people who see it as a genre are more likely to get rubbed the wrong way.
I stand by my comments about character development though. R1 did an incredibly bad job of that. Dialog was all exposition, all the time. Boooring.
Why do need to make characters memorable if they all die?
Because when you don’t, when they die, you don’t give a ■■■■.
You mean like when they telegraphed Han’s death from light-years away.
One mans telegraphing is another mans tragic inevitability.
Han’s death is the final culmination of his character arc. When we meet him in anh he cares about nothing and nobody besides making a quick buck, and his development is all about his finding something bigger than that. His death is the end of that journey. He knows Ren won’t turn back, and he knows he’s going to die, but he tries anyway because he loves his son and he loves Leia and he promised her he’d try. He walks into death willingly, out of love and for others, and that shows how far he has come from the man he was when we met him.
On the other hand, Jin and whatshisname and theotherguy and so on, they die because someone wanted rogue one to be ‘darker and edgier’ and because if they lived, then there’s all these questions about where these people were during ANH.
Han died because of decisions Han made. Everyone in Rogue One dies because of decisions the scriptwriters made. And that’s why I liked TFA better.
Yes you are right that is what Han’s death represented. Sadly, for me a least, tfa didn’t capture that significance. Maybe I was just so frustrated by the anh retread by that point and was thinking and now they will kill kenobie. In fact I know that is exactly what I was thinking.
Han’s death should have been epic and shocking. The audience should have been given a moment to grapple with it, we should have seen the light go out of his eyes. instead he fell into a bottomless pit and chewie snarled and shot the place up.
I get that we are at cross purposes on this too just in terms of tfa.
Yeah, its a matter of taste of course. I do get why some people would like this better than TFA, it’s just that those people are clearly and obviously wrong The filmmakers were trying to see what other sort of story they could tell in the SW universe, different in tone, & not focused on the Jedi & the various generations of the extended Skywalker family. I think the people who see Star Wars as a setting will be more likely to enjoy r1, while the people who see it as a genre are more likely to get rubbed the wrong way.
I stand by my comments about character development though. R1 did an incredibly bad job of that. Dialog was all exposition, all the time. Boooring.
I thought they did enough with cassian and jyn. The monk and his mate needed more but there are a few whisps of information here and there.
One mans telegraphing is another mans tragic inevitability.
Han’s death is the final culmination of his character arc. When we meet him in anh he cares about nothing and nobody besides making a quick buck, and his development is all about his finding something bigger than that. His death is the end of that journey. He knows Ren won’t turn back, and he knows he’s going to die, but he tries anyway because he loves his son and he loves Leia and he promised her he’d try. He walks into death willingly, out of love and for others, and that shows how far he has come from the man he was when we met him.
On the other hand, Jin and whatshisname and theotherguy and so on, they die because someone wanted rogue one to be ‘darker and edgier’ and because if they lived, then there’s all these questions about where these people were during ANH.
Han died because of decisions Han made. Everyone in Rogue One dies because of decisions the scriptwriters made. And that’s why I liked TFA better.
I hate to break this to you HM, but Han is a fictional character, and in fact Stars Wars is not really real.
Back to seriousnessness - it’s an art-form, and people will see it differently. Trying to convince people to like something they don’t and vice versa is futile.
My big mistake with tfa was watching the original trilogy in the week before release while on paternity leave. Pretty much as soon as poe put the Intel in the droid I was like, ah wtf…
Back to seriousnessness - it's an art-form, and people will see it differently. Trying to convince people to like something they don't and vice versa is futile.
Like efcrobbo trying to convince everyone that Iron Man 3 was actually good.
Back to seriousnessness - it's an art-form, and people will see it differently. Trying to convince people to like something they don't and vice versa is futile.
Like efcrobbo trying to convince everyone that Iron Man 3 was actually good.
Back to seriousnessness - it's an art-form, and people will see it differently. Trying to convince people to like something they don't and vice versa is futile.
Like efcrobbo trying to convince everyone that Iron Man 3 was actually good.
HEY! Iron man 3 was good!!
Captain america civil war sucked. Come at me haters!
Back to seriousnessness - it's an art-form, and people will see it differently. Trying to convince people to like something they don't and vice versa is futile.
Back to seriousnessness - it's an art-form, and people will see it differently. Trying to convince people to like something they don't and vice versa is futile.
Like efcrobbo trying to convince everyone that Iron Man 3 was actually good.
I always freak out how people say Iron Man 2 was so much worse than 1. Iron Man 1 sucked.
(Haven’t seen 2; the point is many people treat 1 as worthy.)
Back to seriousnessness - it's an art-form, and people will see it differently. Trying to convince people to like something they don't and vice versa is futile.
Like efcrobbo trying to convince everyone that Iron Man 3 was actually good.
HEY! Iron man 3 was good!!
Captain america civil war sucked. Come at me haters!
The filmmakers were trying to see what other sort of story they could tell in the SW universe, different in tone, & not focused on the Jedi & the various generations of the extended Skywalker family. I think the people who see Star Wars as a setting will be more likely to enjoy r1, while the people who see it as a genre are more likely to get rubbed the wrong way.