Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

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NFometer: 77%
Based on the Ratings of 28 Members
Average Score: (7.5/10)





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Alright, so this isn't as good as TFA, but it still surpasses it in certain areas, such as world building and story.

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Knight_White/Dark wrote:Alright, so this isn't as good as TFA, but it still surpasses it in certain areas, such as world building and story.
Agreed.

I enjoyed the movie and will see it one more time. I'm probably older than most of you, so I actually did grow up with Star Wars, so I loved all the throwbacks in this movie. And a million times during my viewing I felt sad that George Lucas didn't have today's special effects technology back when he was making the first trilogy. The visuals in R1 were stunning. That upward camera angle on the walkers at the beginning of that scene was wonderful.

I enjoyed all the characters and, of course, applaud Michael Giacchino's score. If anyone is worthy of scoring a SW movie, it's Michael. He is one of the few modern-day composers who consistently sticks with live orchestration, ala John Williams. Don't get me wrong, I love Zimmer, etc. but nothing can beat live orchestration. Too many composers go for the synthetic these days. Call me old fashion, if you want.

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Disappointed overall. Admire the fresh take but the first two acts are horrifically paced. The third act has a few saving graces. Obviously Vader is a blast. 6/10

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Not trying to throw shade or something, we all see the world differently, but can those who say that first two acts are horribly paced explain it a bit? I can understand the first act, they literally jump from planet to planet in a matter of seconds, but second?
I thought the whole crashlanding scene, with sniper and drama that follows, was one of the best scenes of the entire series.
Even the first act has so much interesting stuff to work with.
Cassian, Jyn and K-2, Jedi temple, Chirrut's intro, sense of scale and place.

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m4st4 wrote:Not trying to throw shade or something, we all see the world differently, but can those who say that first two acts are horribly paced explain it a bit? I can understand the first act, they literally jump from planet to planet in a matter of seconds, but second?
I thought the whole crashlanding scene, with sniper and drama that follows, was one of the best scenes of the entire series.
Even the first act has so much interesting stuff to work with.
Cassian, Jyn and K-2, Jedi temple, Chirrut's intro, sense of scale and place.
Yeah, I completely get the complaint the first 20 to 30 mins...after that, not at all.

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9/10

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m4st4 wrote:Not trying to throw shade or something, we all see the world differently, but can those who say that first two acts are horribly paced explain it a bit? I can understand the first act, they literally jump from planet to planet in a matter of seconds, but second?
I thought the whole crashlanding scene, with sniper and drama that follows, was one of the best scenes of the entire series.
Even the first act has so much interesting stuff to work with.
Cassian, Jyn and K-2, Jedi temple, Chirrut's intro, sense of scale and place.
The first 30 minutes are basically just set-up (which in a well-paced film would probably at most be 15 minutes). It has a lot of stuff to work with but instead of dealing with one or two things in detail, it tries to deal with all of these things but ends up doing so in a superficial manner, resulting in me not caring a whole lot. The fact that we're not given much depth in terms of characters makes the film hinge on the plot and we also know the overall plot from the get-go: they want to steal the stupid plans. Everything in-between is basically just trying to get you to care about the characters and the film struggles heavily with that. Even with the crashlanding scene the ensuing emotional drama fell flat
because it is such an obvious and cliché motivation for the main character and it devotes so little time to her emotional response that you recognize the trope and it takes you out of the film. It kinda killed the exciteent for me for a while tbh because Mikkelsen is a better actor than any of the leads and it once again felt like he was not given enough screentime for me to feel the tragedy of that situation because I was not given enough time to get to know hat character and how much he meant to the main character
. The resulting lack of engagement makes the film feel longer than it should and without a lot of action to make us at least think that something exciting is going on, we're just stuck with bland or clichéd characters for the majority of the film. Maybe the second act isn't actually that long but it definitely felt long because the character development and personality were missing, just because the film needed character X to get from emotional point A to point B for the plot to move from point A to point B. Throw in some obvious references that don't serve the plot but are there solely for the hardcore fans to gush over and the casual fans are starting to wonder when something interesting is finally going to happen in this picture.

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Thanks, I can see that being a problem for some. Since I was genuinely invested (aside from the whole Whitaker subplot before they meet him), it really wasn't for me.

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I agree that on a pacing level both 1st and 2nd act are problematic.

I'm not as bothered because I dig the content. Then again if I was still doing reviews I would have stepped away from this film.

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