As far as I'm concerned, this was as good as a self-contained story in this universe could get. I felt that they captured the tone of what it meant to be a rebel for most of the war beautifully: completely and utterly helpless save for some tiny amount of vindication at completing a mission. I'm rarely a fan of cheesy lines about hope, but I really think they were well struck given the overall tone of powerlessness that pervaded the movie pretty much from start to finish.

The final battle scene was phenomenal and handled realistically given the character deaths. I was terrified they'd find a way to make all the crowd favorites live despite them never showing up in any other movies, and was so happy when they didn't. It made the movie and what the characters represented that much more significant.

I fanboy'd like a motherfucker when Vader went off on the rebels at the end.

My nitpicks were small and don't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. Hope they make more stand alone films.

 

Went last night, had fun. It easily surpassed TFA (for reasons mentioned in this thread, most notably the IV-VII similarities), and I'd argue it's probably better than RotJ as well. (Which reminds me that I need to rewatch the OT for certainty.) Details under the spoiler.

Spoiler

Pluses:

• The surprisingly competent comic relief characters. Chirrut had the audience in stitches, K2 drew less laughter but was my personal favourite.
• The permeating hopelessness. Sure, I was aware that they weren't going to survive (I'd been spoiled but really, I knew that before being spoiled anyway), but even without it, there was this feeling of struggle on a larger scale. The OT (and the Prequels to a lesser extent) always had more of a hero's journey feel to them, whereas this did a better job of showing scale and the might of the Empire as it's about to reach its zenith.
• A well-balanced cast. I felt Jyn and Cassian played off each other well, as did Krennic and Tarkin, and the secondary cast (Saw, Bodhi, Baze) fit in well in the grand scheme. Not as top-heavy as some other films, which is good.
• The Hammerhead attack. Loved it.
• The ending. I will confess to have hoped for a direct blow-up of the base instead of the approaching doom, but gotta get the 'ten seconds to die' montage in there, so that's fine. Also Vader doing Vader things.

The 'okay, sure?':

• Tarkin was ever so slightly off. Uncanny Valley was mentioned upthread, not sure it was that completely, but his cheeks were weird.
• While I respect Mikkelsen's acting, I don't think he came off great.
• The opening was a tad chaotic at times - I didn't mind, but I can see why people wouldn't like it.
• Vader's voice needed more modulation.

The 'meh':

• C3PO and R2 were shoehorned, completely and utterly so. I like my references, but this was too blatant.
• The dark-and-rainy-fight trope is overused, though I do appreciate them blowing up bloody tropical beaches for a change.

Overall, at least 8.5/10, worth the price of admission and possibly worth going to see a second time if you're with someone who hasn't seen it yet. Not sure if it's straight up worth a rewatch.

Also, location question...

Spoiler

Was Vader's summer getaway on Mustafar? Looked like it...

 

That ending man. I was hoping they would do something like that when the rumors of the movie cropped up.

 

Yup.

/10char

 

Huh, so weird, I guess I am the only one who was genuinely disappointed. I saw the movie yesterday (in English), and I have to say, I was completely underwhelmed and my expectations weren't exactly high to begin with.

The first two trailers had be believe this would go down a completely different path, and even though the 3rd trailer was relatively accurate, it just wasn't a story I ended up terribly invested in.

Spoiler

-Jyn I had imagined to be a completely different character. I had thought she was an outright criminal, someone who was definitely not a good person, who wasn't helping the rebellion because they were doing the right thing or because she believed in the cause or whatever but because she was captured and the rebels made a deal with her, because she had specific knowledge or a set of skills that were absolutely necessary. Free her now, she helps them with the death star plans, and then they give her money and freedom and whatever. A bit like Han Solo, only without the heart of gold. A heart of silver at the most.

There are definitely shades of that character in there, but ultimately she was just a nice, generic woman, who had been disillusioned by her life but found hope again and started making hope speeches. There was nothing really distinguishing about her outside the fact that she missed her father. That connection was just absolutely unnecessary to me. That personal investment, ironically, ruined the movie to me. The whole subplot was just meh. We get one line on how she was the best soldier in Withakers unit and how she did some crimes but nothing of that really shined through in her character outside of the fact that she was good at killing Stormtroopers who still insist on wearing that absolutely useless armor.

-The main villain was meh from beginning to end. He wasn't particularly threatening, didn't really have anything memorable to set him apart from most military villains, just being a power and glory hungry jerk character basically. Tarkin and Vader completely overshadowed him and he didn't really manage to carve a place for himself.

-Whitaker's character was so utterly wasted like nothing else. He barely had a role in the movie. And when we first met him and we saw him inhale with that breathing apparatus you know I was so sure that we would get a bait and switch scene later on. Like he would be a major part of the movie, and later on when the rebels are in a tight spot, they would hear that breathing once, being relieved that was Whitaker coming to save them but instead it's Vader, ready to fuck them up. Or something similar. But no, it was just a random gimmick to make him more Star Wars-y and it had no pay off.

-Vader himself had one amazing scene in the hallway but that's it. The previous scene with the director who for reasons I'm unable to understand was wearing the uniform of a grandadmiral, was just terrible. Honestly, that "hope you don't choke on your aspirations" line was beneath him and on the same level as a cheesy Arny one-liner. Same category as "what killed the dinosaurs? THE ICE AGE! Or "let off some steam". That kinda line. The famous "NOOOOO" of his was more dignified than that.

He was also wasted really. That scene aside, he didn't really do much. I mean, we saw a glimpse of the unstoppable killing machine that Vader could be in the halfway but that was just really him carving through a bunch of random alliance mooks. I really had hoped that most of the main cast would perish at Vader's hands. That a unit of elite rebel soldiers and specialized mercenaries/criminals who we had grown to care about get absolutely slaughtered by Vader as they tried to stand their ground in a tragic and valiant way, making us care more about them, about the rebellion, about the stakes at hand and at the same time giving us more complex emotional relationship to Vader as the killer of those characters we have grown to love and how Luke being able to turn that person later on became such an achievement.

-The Rebel captain was also...generic. Like, he had nothing memorable or interesting to him. He wasn't even all that likeable to me. The quasi romantic atmosphere that was kinda there didn't work for me at all.

-I did like the droid, he was funny and consistently the best character of the movie. I did like the old temple guardians/monks and the more spiritual focus on the Force.

-There were some great shots in this movie and the space and ground battles were cool to watch. The pilot they rescued was alright.

-The soundtrack was overall rather disappointing as well, imo, at least when it wasn't using the tracks from earlier movies.

-It still has that problem with time, where we don't really get to have a feel how long this all took. It honestly felt like everything could have happened over one day but that seems unlikely but it probably wasn't more than one or two days. Switching locations so often didn't exactly help. I know the hyperdrive was always a bit vague but this is ridiculous. It might as well be an instant teleportation device at this point.

-CGI Tarkin and Leia were well done, although I was a bit confused at the end, was the ship that Leia was on in ANH actually physically present during that end battle or did that escaping ship that looked similar upload the plans on that via some long distance link? Because I didn't have the impression of the latter but the former seems kinda unlikely as to what Leia was doing on that battle armada what with her still being an official senator and thus having a completely different set of responsibilities than sit around during naval warfare.

All in all, it wasn't a terrible movie or anything but I felt completely underwhelmed. I was disappointed, most of the main characters didn't work for me, I didn't build up much of a connection to most of them so their deaths weren't exactly hard hitting.

Quite a few characters felt absolutely wasted and dunno, disappointing is really the best way to describe the way I feel like now. If I had to grade it, I would be giving it a C-. There was effort there and good scenes here and there but dunno, it was just lacking over all.

I would probably even put it below the prequels, tbh. I realize that it's not supposed to be a classic Star Wars movie, but if I had the option of watching either this movie again or any of the prequel movies, would probably go for one of those. At least as badly handled as those were at times, I still cared about the characters and story there.

Rogue One was enjoyable when it was giving us what everyone knew we wanted, sci fi space battles, star wars stuff like Star Destroyers, X-Wings, AT-ATs, At-STs, TIE-Fighters, things like that, and yeah, I loved those moments but that's because I would love those things in anything, not because the movie used them particularly well. Rest of the time it was just underwhelming, with the droid being the stand-out character.

 

So, just came back from the movie. Three things instantly stood out to me after seeing it.

1. It (arguably) suffers from the Avengers effect. An explosive and fast-paced second half makes people forget how fucking boring the first part was. Like in Avengers, however, you leave the room with such excitement that it's hard to muster any real feeling towards the first part.

2.

Spoiler

I'll agree that Vader, while his scene was awesome, was wasted with not even getting ONE kill on the main cast. If they were all slated to die, why not have Vader himself take down a few? Feels like a missed opportunity.

3. So, I counted, but I must not be getting the math right. Can you guys tell me if I missed anything, because it seemed to me that no Bothans at all died to bring the Alliance this information.

 

Because they're saving that scene for Rogue 2, about the plucky band of bothans stealing the plans for the second Death Star.

 

Ah. Wrong Death Star. Honest mistake, there's so many of them.

 

Band of Botans? what are you talking about IT was Manuel(Manny) Both-Hanz that got the plans.

I mean it is a common mistake

Also saw the movie and I liked it better than TFA. It felt more down to Earth rather than these larger than life heroes.

K2 was funny. Liked how Vader flattens the mooks in that corridor. And action was nice in that battle.

All in all 4/5.

 

Watched it yesterday. I thought it was pretty good -- better than Episode VII in a lot of ways, though I have to agree that the speed at which they're going from place to place and the rushed character development dock some points against it.

I did like them showing the Rebellion to not be quite as clean-cut as the OT might have implied, and though it wasn't quite as badass as "All I am surrounded by is fear and dead men," Vader's scene at the end (and earlier scene too) helped put things on track a bit after the Prequels. As for the CGI faces for Tarkin and Leia, I thought they were actually pretty good. I mean, I noticed that they were fake (besides the fact that Peter Cushing's dead and Carrie Fisher looks like a lizard now), but I still thought it was pretty impressive. And they could probably touch it up a bit for the home video release as well.

EDIT: Uh, I hope disparaging Carrie Fisher's looks didn't give her a heart attack. :|

 

To be fair, the non-technicality of "hyperdrive" in Star Wars has always made this a problem. There were several places in the OT and prequels where people planet hop in virtually no time at all.

 

It would get kind of boring though if you had to wait a month before the rebels could reach another planet. Sometimes you have to sacrifice realism for entertainment.

 

My single favorite moment of the movie is Vader's extreme dad joke pun.

I saw it with a bunch of friends, and terrible dad jokes are a running thing among us, and me and the dude next to me just looked at each other and started laughing so hard at it the people behind us gave us dirty looks.

K-2S0 is definitely best droid, and every character I felt was pretty good, except Cassian, but he came together near the end.

 

No it wouldn't. You just don't write your story so that people need to be everywhere instantly.

If that means some planet gets subjugated because you couldn't get there in time, so be it.

 

Well at this point they're not going to rewrite all 7 or 8 movie scripts just to remove this one problem in the script.

 

Well I can't say I remember every movie well enough to remember how they went, but I didn't think that the new movies had deviated from time skips.

 

Yeah, hyperdrive has pretty much always moved at the speed of plot. And to be fair to Star Wars, a lot of other sci-fi series are guilty of the same thing, even when their settings do have actual rules for FTL travel.

 

Just saw it, finally.

It's a good not great movie, but I am happy to have seen it.

Spoiler

What ruined my experience was the score. Right away, I could tell it wasn't John Williams. It was extremely jarring, and the music never felt right. Egregiously so during the space battle - shitty horns all about.