Movie Details
| Title: | Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | |
| Director: | Gareth Edwards | |
| Year: | 2016 | |
| Genre: | Fantasy | |
| Times Seen: | 2 | |
| Last Seen: | 05.23.25 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (2)
- Godzilla
- Monsters
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 05.23.25 | Internet | I watched this again after finishing season two of Andor. I've only seen this once at release and I can remember how differently we as a culture approached this movie when it came out. Just ten years ago, Star Wars was newly aquired by Disney and a whole slate of releases were announced and Force Awakens was somewhere between decent and good and this represented a new direction: the first movie that didn't have anything to do with the skywalkers (even though several of them appear). Reading my previous note, I was pretty gushing back in 2016. It felt like a sign of things to come, that there was now plenty of interest and talent to bring multiple multiple genres and stories to the star wars universe. Looking back now I suppose that was technically correct, it's just a shame that almost all of those genres and stories are either cheaply-produced animated shows or super-safe projects aimed at children. Andor is the exception of course. Maybe the least interesting premise for a show turned out to be the best, mostly because it was intended for adults with attention spans. The first season was amazing in my opinion. They packed two or three seasons worth of story into one and showed us what life was like under Imperial rule. It also showed the first seeds of rebellion and represented the start of Cassain Andor's journey to the hardened killer we see in this movie. In an ideal world, Andor would've run for 4 more seasons continuing in the manner of the first where we gradually see all these threads come together in an unbelievably audacious and impressive climax, but I can't begrudge Tony Gilroy for being like "yo this shit is hard I'm only doing one more" so instead season 2 is more like snapshots across time, a cliffs notes version of the story that hits a couple major beats to tie into this film. I still liked it very much, but the formal 3-episode clusters with year jumps in between did feel a little rushed to me. I would find myself wondering why we were spending so much time on any given topic knowing there was just so much running time left. But still, I do think it was still a success, maybe not quite fulfilling the promise of season one but the best longform star wars content that Disney's produced. But now that Andor exists, it can't help but change the context of this film. The character of Mon Mothma changes from "oh cool, they got a lookalike and included her" to little more than a cameo considering she was one of the central characters of the show. On the flip side, Forest Whitaker's character got precious little time in the movie so his appearances on the show serve to finally flesh his character out. The biggest change, as expected, is how I saw Andor in the movie. On release, he was second lead but he and Jyn Urso have swapped thanks to the show. Now it's Erso's character that feels second fiddle, and really any spotlight the movie gives her, for like a speech or something, feels taken away from Andor. And the rest of the ragtag group feel like strangers hopping a ride and falling into this mission by happenstance. I'll never know, but I can imagine that in the world where Andor ran four or five seasons, we'd see appearances of more of these characters, explaining how Andor knows about the... what are they called, ghosts of whatever... whatever Donnie Yen's playing. Maybe Andor doesn't run into Donnie Yen specifically, but he runs into other jedi followers and we see Yen somewhere else, i dunno. So it's an odd effect watching this again. It definitely feels like, in the wake of Disney's last decade of handling Star Wars, this is the one good thing that got made, and I still liked it, but the things that felt novel and exciting before like matching the tech level and production design of episode 4 go without notice now that star wars projects have popped up all over the timeline, and mostly after two dozen episodes following one character, the movie itself feels very rushed and short. Even the move of using that corvette to push one star destroyer into another was somewhat lessened for me by the kamikaze light-speed jump in The Last Jedi. I still enjoyed myself though. This never felt long even with a runtime of over two hours. CGI Tarkin and Leia are less jarring knowing they're coming. The Vader scene at the end is still super badass. I've totally flip-flopped on my feelings about the death star being specifically designed with a vulnerability, meaning I'm totally for it now. I think before I thought it de-valued Luke's connection with the force or something but logistically having this decade-long project blow all the way up thanks to one lucky shot makes way more sense as a symbol of rebellion's resilience against tyranny. There are many many brave heroes of the rebellion not just two pilots from the first film. This movie touched on that with a few lines from Andor but the show drove it home with the character of Luthen. This now feels like a third season, or maybe a Christmas special to Andor the show, but I'm fine with that. I think a re-watch of both seasons and this movie make as good a time as watching the OG trilogy, at least for those of us who grew up with the OG trilogy. Leave the rest of it for the kids. |
| 12.17.16 | Bullock IMAX | Is this maybe the only movie I saw in a theater this year? ugh... Relatedly: Why does the Bullock only screen this in 3D? It was a pretty ideal theater-going experience except I had to wear dumb glasses that forced me to move my head to pick and choose where to focus. Also: The extended trailer for Dunkirk was great. I feel like anytime your musical score is made up of different clocks and timers, you could show a kettle on a stove and people would subconsciously start to feel anxious, but the actual footage shown was also great and gave a great sense of the dread and tension that the film will probably deal in. And the dogfighting footage scaled up to 70mm was downright amazing. You could see the ripple of the ocean and the glare of the sun and a tiny plane right in the middle as the horizon tilts and a little sparkly line appears with a BRRRAP of machine gun fire. Nolan is bringing it. I hope the movie follows suit, this footage was excellent. Now on to Rogue One: I really really liked it. It was pretty much everything I was hoping it would be. Yes, I could sometimes tell when the reshoots kicked in and I did miss a few notable shots from the various trailers, but for the most part I feel like the story never faltered or disappointed me, the ragtag group of soldiers on a mission were suitably ragtag and great, everyone got some good moments... once again Alan Tudyk kind of steals the movie, the battle sequences were stellar - at once fresh because of the scenery and totally calling back to the feeling of episode 4 - and the connective tissue that puts it between episodes 3 and 4 were mostly well done. I was surprised to see a few characters show up. Molly didn't notice the first CG character until I mentioned it at the end, so I guess that means it was well done. I couldn't help but notice it, but feel they did a good job. It was a little video-game-y at times, but that's also the writing a little bit. This is maybe the best space battle that we've had in a long time. Super thrilling. and man oh man that last scene was satisfying, like you finally get a taste of why that character has his reputation. I thought it was great. I feel like half the fun of making these movies would be coming up with new worlds based on where you want to shoot. I feel like we got to see quite a bit of the universe here. I think they did a wonderful job of matching the level of technology. All those old school 70s-era vector displays and cheap holograms fit seamlessly. gush gush gush. So I guess you could argue that this fits the men-on-a-mission genre pretty closely - to which I wouldn't argue - but watching a genre picture set in the Star Wars universe is EXACTLY what I wanted. It really opens the doors to tell any kind of story in the universe, even some side mission type stuff that doesn't have the weight or pressure of an "official" episode. I did feel like the changes in formula were very deliberate (especially the way the film opens), to which I'm a bit conflicted about, but if dilution of some of the formatting of the series like the score and the opening crawl is what I have to give up in order to see more facets of the universe then so be it. That said, I AM excited for Episode 8. Bring it on! |
