STAR WARS ROGUE ONE - December 16th

[AndyDursin]

Final trailer is out.

Still floors me that, in a universe of endless characters, they've made two movies in a row centered on young, seemingly orphaned British girls who grow up to save the galaxy!

[Paul MacLean]

Still floors me that, in a universe of endless characters, they've made two movies in a row centered on young, seemingly orphaned British girls who grow up to save the galaxy!

Well, we have to make up for generations of "sexist" adventure stories!

This also looks like every other action flick / superhero movie from the past decade -- except it has stormtroopers and X-wing fighters.

[AndyDursin]

Hollywood Reporter story claims Tony Gilroy made up of $5 million for his work on this movie, including extensive reshoots and a new ending (do they steal the Death Star plans in this version or not? LOL)

Whatever this film ends up being, it wasn't what was originally shot or intended.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-v ... ots-951119

The 'Bourne' scribe's pay has grown from $200,000 a week to north of $5 million as work on the Star Wars standalone film expanded to include postproduction and tackling several issues including the ending.

Rogue One might be about a group of rebels absconding with plans for the Death Star, but they aren't the only ones making out like bandits. Tony Gilroy, who was brought in to rewrite and help oversee reshoots for the Gareth Edwards-directed Star Wars film, out Dec. 16, will pocket north of $5 million for his efforts, say sources.

Gilroy, writer of several Bourne movies and director of best picture Oscar nominee Michael Clayton, first was brought in to help write dialogue and scenes for Rogue’s reshoots and was being paid $200,000 a week, according to several sources. That figure is fairly normal for a top-tier writer on a big-budget studio film. But as the workload (and the reshoots) expanded, so did Gilroy's time and paycheck.

Gilroy started on Rogue One in June, and by August, he was taking a leading role with Edwards in postproduction, which lasted well into the fall. The reshoots are said to have tackled several issues in the film, including the ending.
Rogue One, the first "stand-alone" Star Wars movie to deviate from the seven Episodes released from 1977 through 2015, is said to lead straight into the original A New Hope. Separate stand-alone films are planned in alternating years from Episodes, with a Han Solo movie scheduled for 2018 after Episode VIII hits theaters next December.

While the cost of extending Gilroy's work on Rogue One might seem on the high side, that price is a bargain to protect the integrity of the Star Wars brand. Disney paid $4 billion in 2012 to buy Star Wars creator George Lucas' Lucasfilm and its first film after the deal, the JJ Abrams-directed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, made more than $2 billion and jump-started a whole new generation of Star Wars fans.

[mkaroly]

"While the cost of extending Gilroy's work on Rogue One might seem on the high side, that price is a bargain to protect the integrity of the Star Wars brand."

Integrity? Where is that? Lol...

I agree Andy...all the stories that could be told, yet we are still stuck on the Death Star.

[Paul MacLean]

Here's an interview with Michael Giacchino about the score, and brief snippet of the scoring session...

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/12/09/ro ... hino-score

I have to say, he certainly has managed to capture the "Williams sound" very convincingly.

[AndyDursin]

Imitation was always Giacchino's strongest suit, especially early on with the video game scores he wrote in the style of Williams (MEDAL OF HONOR series, some of his strongest work).

Interesting to see Williams getting a prominent credit on the poster and album as well. As he should, really...

[AndyDursin]

Reviews are trickling out, mostly positive with some similar comments about the "messy editing" and lack of chemistry between the actors.

And then there's this in Variety:

"the genuine thrill of hearing composer Michael Giacchino riff on John Williams’ classic score"

Really? Giacchino's music gives him a thrill? Guess he's more excited about that than I am. lol

http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/ro ... 201939299/

[AndyDursin]

Ouch...

http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Ro ... 793755.php

‘Rogue One’: Exhausted, demoralized and no fun'
by Mick LaSalle

With “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” it’s officially time to start missing George Lucas.

This comes as a surprise. After all, last year’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” showed how good a Lucas-less “Star Wars” could be: no deadly earnestness. No flat direction. Actual performances from the actors. And no going down rabbit holes of plot in pursuit of tiny details of concern only to the most obsessive fans.

But now comes “Rogue One” to remind us of the good things that are lost to the series, such as naivete and the sort of loopy sincerity that lent integrity even to the worst elements. You might have been annoyed or repulsed by, say, Jar Jar Binks, but you could still recognize the character as an honest expression of a specific person’s imagination. Jar Jar was not a corporate product, but “Rogue One” not only is a corporate product, it feels like it. The difference is as obvious as the difference between a live dog and a stuffed dog.

Part of the problem is director Gareth Edwards, whose previous big credit is “Godzilla,” which was mostly just spectacle. With the help of four screenwriters, Edwards turns “Star Wars” into a war movie, and that is a fundamental error. War movies are about toil, half victories, moral compromise and self-doubt. “Star Wars” is all about good versus evil, about the hard, rewarding work of bringing the light and casting out darkness.
Yes, it’s understandable that after eight movies depicting the same struggle, filmmakers might feel a certain exhaustion. But to load that exhaustion onto the characters is a huge mistake. It’s the same as shoveling a weight onto the audience.

Still, things begin as they should. We see a little girl running across a barren plain. She’s shot from below, and something in the sight and the angle and the music, which sounds like John Williams but not as good, announces that this is a “Star Wars” movie. And for a while, that’s enough.

The little girl grows into Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso, and Jones makes a good “Star Wars” heroine. She’s young, stern and capable, and she talks with an English accent, because a lot of them talked that way back then.
Jyn finds herself in a tough spot. Her father is a scientist with known rebel ties, but he is working for the Empire, so his true sympathies are unclear. Meanwhile, the Empire is developing a super weapon, a “planet killer,” which we are to understand is the Death Star.

At first, I thought this was another Death Star, but no, this is the same Death Star that was the major focus of the first “Star Wars” movie back in 1977. So “Rogue One” takes place immediately prior to “Star Wars Episode IV,” a kind of “Episode III 1/2.”

Early in “Rogue One,” Jyn is kidnapped by the rebel forces, in the hopes that she can help them contact her father. But it’s not quite like a kidnapping. It’s also as if she has been enlisted into the cause. She is joined in her journey by Cassian (Diego Luna), a rebel officer, but he’s a tortured soul — basically a murderer who feels guilty about it. Everything about their mission is tainted by doubt and moral confusion, just as the rebel hierarchy is a disjointed lot, a bunch of competing factions beaten down by war and ready to give up.

You know that a “Star Wars” movie is in trouble when you start thinking, “Hey, maybe they should throw in the towel. Maybe the Empire won’t be so bad. Maybe it would be better than a war that has gone on for decades, not just for the people on screen, but for audiences since 1977.”

Jyn and Cassian are accompanied by a genuinely funny robot (Alan Tudyk) and by Chirrut (Donnie Yen), a warrior in whom the Force is so strong that he can win gunbattles even though he’s blind. (But then anyone could win a gunfight against the storm troopers, whose elaborate armor seems to be made of white cardboard.)

The last hour of “Rogue One,” like the last hour of “Godzilla,” is nothing but a battle scene. But it can’t be an exciting battle scene, featuring something like the destruction of the Death Star, because that has already happened (or will happen) in another movie. The screenwriters must instead come up with something else, and they do — something bland and undramatic. Without getting too specific, most of the last half of “Rogue One” involves a heroic effort to download and transmit a large computer file. Yes, really.'

It’s a downer. It’s morally tangled. The characters are as depressed as the scenario, and Michael Giacchino’s music can’t make it better. Jones will probably become wealthy from this, which is the only happy thought to take from the experience. But “Rogue One” is strictly for completists, for the type of “Star Wars” fans who hated “Phantom Menace” and yet watched it more than twice.

[Paul MacLean]

Sounds like Rogue One is this year's Jurassic World (right down to "the music which sounds like John Williams but not as good").

[mkaroly]

Reading that review, especially the part about the blind dude, made me think of Zatoichi the Blind Samurai.

I guess for me all I can say is that, while I haven't seen the movie (obviously), I am really not all that interested in the backstory. I don't care how the Rebels stole the Death Star plans. I would be more interested if the franchise went someplace else for a change, with different people being the bad guys (instead of the Empire and Darth Vader or the Emperor); I kind of want Star Wars to embrace a little of Star Trek - new cultures, new locales, etc. That review is depressing...lol...but I guess we shouldn't expect much change with the franchise in the hands of the Empire, Walt Disney!

Looking forward to your review Andy!

[Monterey Jack]

Seeing this with the bro on Saturday morning...got a free ticket from buying boxes of cereal, so I won't be out anything for it.

[BobaMike]

I saw Rogue One last night, and I really did enjoy it. It has some problems, and it really isn't for kids at all, but I was excited, the effects were amazing, Giacchino's score worked well, and had some nice moments (it's closer to his Medal of Honor scores and John Carter than anything else he's done, which is a good thing), the actors were convincing, and the film had a lot of funny moments.

Spoilers:


The bad:

- the opening scenes jumped around a lot, from planet to planet. A bit hard to follow. The opening crawl would have helped.
-the final heist was almost too easy
-could have used more "team bonding" moments.


The good:
-EVERYONE dies. So happy that it turned out to be a suicide mission. When is the last blockbuster where no one lives? There won't be a Rogue Two. I was glad they didn't give it a "happy" ending.
-no Jedi, very little Force. Growing up I loved the Dark Forces game...where you steal the Death Star plans, and you aren't a Jedi. This brought me right back to that.
-Tarkin! Yes, I knew Peter Cushing has been dead, but that really looked like him. My friends, who aren't huge Star Wars fans and didn't know he had passed truly thought it was the same guy in the flesh.
-The last scene with Vader. In books and games we've had a truly terrifying Vader, but never in a movie.
-this was a beautiful movie to look at- probably the best looking Star Wars movie.

I look forward to seeing it again. Everyone I went with and everyone else I talked to was very happy with it.

[AndyDursin]

We saw it this morning. It did not work for me at all, really in any regard. I thought Giacchino's score was awful, perhaps one of the worst things he's ever written -- the complete embodiment of a Looney Tunes approach to Star Wars. No themes, just fragments, underscoring every second and swelling with emotion as scenes would shift from one to another.

It's joyless, depressing and completely pointless. Watchable, sure, but it's not what I want out of a Star Wars movie -- and no, it's not for kids. Seemed completely designed for 40-60 year old fanboys and not even casual viewers.

Expect it to make money, but Disney will never go down this road again with one of these films, I can guarantee it.

[Paul MacLean]

Seemed completely designed for 40-60 year old fanboys and not even casual viewers.

Unsurprisingly, nearly everyone I know who is all over this movie is in that demographic.

Maybe I'll watch this Star Wars spinoff instead...

[AndyDursin]

My review:

6.5/10

STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE is certainly something different in the “Star Wars” series. The first film in the franchise to break from the Skywalkers and tell the story of rebel spies who infiltrate the Empire in order to steal the coveted plans for the Death Star, this standalone prequel made headlines over the summer for its reportedly troubled production history. Ultimately, no matter who was – or wasn’t – responsible for “Rogue One,” the end result is a joyless, depressing affair that’s designed strictly for aging fans of the series and not the broader family audience that’s long been its focal point.

“Godzilla” helmer Gareth Edwards was the first director on “Rogue One,” which tells the tale of how a young woman (Felicity Jones) is rescued by the Rebel Alliance and is immediately asked to find the whereabouts of her scientist father (Mads Mikkelsen), who was coerced into working for the Empire on their new Death Star weapon. Jones’ Jyn Erso is partnered with a no-nonsense Rebel captain (Diego Luna), a reprogrammed Imperial droid (voiced by Alan Tudyk) and, ultimately, a blind sorta-Jedi (Donnie Yen) and an Imperial defector (Riz Ahmed) on a planet-hopping trip to find her father, all the while being pursued by the Empire, including General Grand Moff Tarken (a computerized Peter Cushing) and Darth Vader himself.

Edwards’ penchant for dark visuals and plodding, humorless characters is in evidence in the early stages of “Rogue One,” which eventually shifts gears into a more active second half, complete with X-wing raids over a beach-like planet where the Empire is guarding the plans that Princess Leia comes to possess in the original “Star Wars” (1977). These later sections were supposedly the work of “Bourne Identity” series veteran Tony Gilroy, who reportedly cashed a $5 million check for writing and supervising new sequences that were shot after dismal test screenings of Edwards’ first version.

Though “Rogue One” plays reasonably seamlessly in spite of its post-production woes, and is vividly shot throughout, the question that it never successfully answers is why it exists at all. This is a downbeat, morose film that’s nearly completely devoid of humor and – despite a two hour-plus running time – comprised of a simplistic story line that’s never very compelling. To their credit, the cast is mostly solid, with only Forest Whitaker chewing up the scenery in a bombastic turn, and brief run-ins with legendary “Star Wars” characters are fun for a few seconds.

Yet “fun” is also what this film almost completely lacks. Even its darkest passages, George Lucas’ prequels were never this depressing, as a needlessly down ending attests (in a galaxy so large, couldn’t someone have followed Yoda’s lead and been driven into hiding from the Empire?). For the most part, “Rogue One” simply plays fan service to those of us who were kids when the original trilogy was released, fleshing out a story and connecting dots that never needed to be embellished in the first place. And the heavy reliance on CGI here – from backgrounds to entire characters reanimated from the past – ironically plays to the very contrary of what Disney and J.J. Abrams tried to do in “The Force Awakens” in terms of favoring practical effects whenever possible.

It’s a watchable yet thoroughly disposable enterprise, a road down the Cinematic Dark Side that Disney’s newest cash cow isn’t likely to repeat anytime soon.