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 #154348  by Frog
 
So it's been awhile. The film has been released, many people have seen it. 85% of the Critics upvoted it, and 88% percent of the audience enjoyed it. The film grossed $1,055,155,555 dollars worldwide. It got a 29.2% return.
But why is no one talking about it anymore?
First, a little rundown. Rogue One: A Star wars Story was directed by Gareth Edwards and starred Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, and Ben Mendelsohn. The movie, as will all future anthology films, was designed to tell a contained story set inbetween Star wars movies. It'd tell a tale of a gap or glossed over event.

Despite being massively successful, the majority of critics and audiences agreed that it had a few shortcomings.

Let's compare this to the Force Awakens.
Star wars: The Force Awakens was directed by J.J Abrams and starred Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Harrison Ford. The film grossed over $2,068,223,624 dollars worldwide, with 92% of the critics upvoting it and 89% percent of audiences enjoying it. It got a 26.5% return.
It could be argued that the Force Awakens had the advantage of being the first Star wars film in nearly thirty years to universally please. This could and probably is true, but even now it is still being visited in theaters, bought on Bluray DVD, and is still being talked about.

Rogue One on the other hand grossed far less, with a minor but considerable less appeal to audiences and critics alike.

I now want to share with you my opinion of Rogue One and how it compares to the Force Awakens.

Characters vs Action
A huge part of the movie going experience is the payoff to the inevitable hype. People all over the internet and in real life will talk about what the film will be like, what they think it should be like, and so forth. Over hyping a movie can be extremely dangerous to the film and your experience with it. Our expectations can lie to us and make us think things that will happen but sometimes don't.

When we leave a theater, we tend to discuss it with whomever we went to see it with. Or, we go home and talk about it on the internet. With large titan films like Star wars, this is almost inevitable. What tends to be the number one thing that people talk or remember? Well, I'd think it is the characters.

The Original Trilogy is famous for it's well defined, likable and memorable characters. When the Prequels were released, this was primarily the reason the majority disliked them. They didn't have good characters. Nobody remembered the characters present in the film, at least, not the majority.

Now onto the Force Awakens. What many enjoyed about the film was the extremely well defined and relateable characters. Many walked out the theater remembering the names, definitions, and moments of characters such as Rey, Finn, and Kyllo Ren.

However, with Rogue One, very unfortunately, I couldn't recall " Bodhi '''s name to my brother. I couldn't remember " Cassian Andor " or " Baze Malbus ". He had to tell me the names. If I had to throw my biggest issue with Rogue One, it's exactly that.
Now, I could end my opinion piece on the movie by doing just that. I won't, because I appear more intelligent if I fart out walls of text.
If you needed proof that Rogue One was good but ultimately underwhelming as a character-piece, ask anybody who has seen it to recount all the names of the characters and what defines them. Now, ask the same people about the characters of the Force Awakens and what defines them, and you will probably get a more detailed response.

Let me talk about what I enjoyed about it. The visual effects, the score, the callbacks, and the way it fit snugly in the Star wars franchise was enthralling. Nothing in Rogue one is definitively 'bad'. It's just not that everything in Rogue One is particularly 'good' either.
Visual effects and action should be the 'celebration' of the characters, so to speak. If we watched Force Awakens, even the entire Original Trilogy, and the characters weren't on par, the most we'd get is a fun sci-fi flick with revolutionary visual effects and great music. Unfortunately, that runs the big risk of it not being memorable. Bad characters is like having no backbone or spine. It'll flop down.

I'll close this up because huge walls of text irritate me. Rogue One is, in my opinion, the coolest star wars movie ever made. But it is flat, somewhat shallow. the Force Awakens is a good movie with problems. This is all in my opinion and I'd be interested in what you all have to say.
 #154349  by Yama
 
I think you have hit the nail on the head with the character development.

I think the big thing for me is TFA had so many new star wars memorable lines.
'I will show you the Dark Side'
'I will finish what you started'
'that's not how the force works'
'that's one hell of a pilot'
'not that one its garbage....the garbage will do'
'Droid please'
'Chewie...were home'


It had those memorable lines that you take home with you to discuss with friends and family.

Roguels One did not have a huge amount. Funny thing is the lines I do remember are the ones from the trailer and for some reason they were cut

'this is a rebeliion isnt it, I rebel'
'the power of this station is immeasurable'

the only real tagline i remember is forrest whitttikers
'save the rebellion save the dream'

The big difference also for me was two moments, as a full fledged star wars nerd

'chewie..... were home' this moment brought tears to my eyes and pleasure bubble to my tummy

Simply a Jedi master who gets ten million dollars for one long searching look is not only a pimp of the verse but one of my favourite moments in cinema.
I have re watched TFA 7 times and still love it.
I have re watched rougels one 3 times and probably wont pick it up again for another year or so.
 #154351  by Frog
 
I didn't realize you were such a film buff, Yama :)

Like I said, I have a lot to say about filmmaking and the star wars films, but I really hate posting long walls of text and I flow a lot better when I actually use my voice to talk.

Just to reiterate, I did enjoy my time in the theater watching Rogue One, but I really doubt it'll stand the test of time.
 #154352  by John
 
Idk. I watched rogue one the other day fully expecting it to be as bad as vii and was surprised at how good it was. I still had some issues with it; krenicks stupid white cape, blind asians with sticks, animated tarkin with acne, and darth vader with strep throat. I get it didn't have all stuff kids these days love like cheesy dialog and characters that survive for a sequel but it more then made up for it with originality, which is more then can be said for vii.
 #154353  by Frog
 
John wrote:Idk. I watched rogue one the other day fully expecting it to be as bad as vii and was surprised at how good it was. I still had some issues with it; krenicks stupid white cape, blind asians with sticks, animated tarkin with acne, and darth vader with strep throat. I get it didn't have all stuff kids these days love like cheesy dialog and characters that survive for a sequel but it more then made up for it with originality, which is more then can be said for vii.
Well, like I said, you can do the character test to anybody. I hate walls of text as much as the next guy, but please read what I said in my OP. I put a lot of work into it!

I can describe, for instance, Rey's character, without mentioning her profession, skills, or appearence. A wide-eyed, humble self sufficent youth, scared of facing the truth. Finn: A cowardious, but good hearted man who hates cruelty.

But what can I say about Jyn Erso? Cassian? Baze? B - Bodhi? Jyn Erso seems to be the only character given setup and time. But when the first act skips to her adulthood, that really screws with the opportunity to let us care about her!
 #154354  by John
 
Just giving my opinion...I find it hard to believe you can't describe jyn and cassians character. I can describe them for you if you want me to "fart out a wall of text." But to say they didn't have any character...really? As for remembering names, I think it is a well known fact the humans can remeber one syllable names like ren, fin, rey, po, and snoke better then they will longer names.
 #154356  by Mnsomc
 
Yama wrote: I have re watched TFA 7 times and still love it.
I have re watched rougels one 3 times and probably wont pick it up again for another year or so.
5 times for TFA and 2 times for Rogue One here. I didn't like Rogue One any less, just that knowing how the story ends made it (emotionally) difficult to watch it over and over. This also happened to me for Ep 3 - I watched Ep 2 countless many times, but only a handful of times for Ep 3. Also for TFA, I wanted to watch more to catch any clues that I might've missed for Episodes 8 and 9. In this sense, I was eager to watch it more simply because there will be Episodes 8 and 9.

Sure there are other attributes, but for Rogue One there weren't much to look out for that would unfold in upcoming stories, regardless of my opinion of Rogue One.
 #154357  by MasterM
 
Frog wrote: I can describe, for instance, Rey's character, without mentioning her profession, skills, or appearence. A wide-eyed, humble self sufficent youth, scared of facing the truth.
You misspelled "poorly-written deus ex machina"

Also about what Yama was saying with the memorable dialog lines...tbh I had forgotten almost all of the ones you mentioned. I didn't think any of them were particularly memorable or powerful -- most of them were just good for a quick chuckle. To be fair, I can't recall any lines from Rogue One that blew me away either. I don't think any film had any lines that were as memorable as some of the greats from the OT, or even the prequels frankly. But that's just my opinion I guess
 #154359  by Frog
 
MasterM wrote:
Frog wrote: I can describe, for instance, Rey's character, without mentioning her profession, skills, or appearence. A wide-eyed, humble self sufficent youth, scared of facing the truth.
You misspelled "poorly-written deus ex machina"

Also about what Yama was saying with the memorable dialog lines...tbh I had forgotten almost all of the ones you mentioned. I didn't think any of them were particularly memorable or powerful -- most of them were just good for a quick chuckle. To be fair, I can't recall any lines from Rogue One that blew me away either. I don't think any film had any lines that were as memorable as some of the greats from the OT, or even the prequels frankly. But that's just my opinion I guess
Thanks for your constructive criticism :) At my first showing, I also thought likewise, that the Force Awakens was just a string of 'moments' and laughs. It was only after my second viewing that I'd like to think I saw a different layer to it.

I highly recommend viewing it more than once, because the movie's pacing is very fast. Details can be missed. For instance, did you all know that the Tumbler, aka the Batmobile from Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is actually located on the bottom of the Millennium Falcon? It's very tiny and easy to miss!
 #154360  by MasterM
 
Frog wrote:
MasterM wrote:
Frog wrote: Thanks for your constructive criticism :) At my first showing, I also thought likewise, that the Force Awakens was just a string of 'moments' and laughs. It was only after my second viewing that I'd like to think I saw a different layer to it.

I highly recommend viewing it more than once, because the movie's pacing is very fast.
Coming out of the theater, I had absolutely no desire to go back and watch it again though. I think a lot of that had to do with the ending, which I really, really hated, so I left with a bad feeling. Rogue One on the other hand, I enjoyed watching and I went back and saw it again a few days later.
 #154383  by Buffy's Shadow
 
Rogue One, imo, isn't a typical Star Wars movie. In my mind, it's more so like the Ewok movies from the 80s (all joking aside) in that it deals with characters that really don't have anything to do with the Jedi or Sith, aside from the usual conventions of being in a war that involves the latter groups. We're given a look at what life is like outside of the two Force-driven groups, and it makes for an entertaining movie, even with the ending that makes me wanna hurtle myself off a cliff. I think that's what possibly made it a bit more unappealing to the average going crowd, since it doesn't have the usual lightsaber duels and Force-flair.