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I guess Vader is on Mustafar as it is the site of his defeat by Obi Wan, a kind of self torture or discipline to learn from his past mistakes? And where better for a Sith Lord to reside than a lava planet?

 Manchu wrote:
the problem so much as the film introducing the idea that good guys sometimes must do bad things, temporarily problematizing that (are bad guys and good guys really that different), and then totally brushing it off with empty propaganda.

I am fine with them showing a bit darker side to things and had no issues with them doing so, but then I also find your latter interpretation somewhat facetious so I imagine we are viewing it differently anyway. So in true internet parlance: you're wrong.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Also, why was Vader chilling out in Baradur? I get he rests in a cooling tank for his burns, but why then place that cooling tank on a lava world.

As far as I know Vader has used that as his base of operations for a long time. At the very least Palpatine did as I am sure others will recall that is where he sent Anakin to meet up and deal with the Trade Union and then afterwards he hung out there until Obi-wan arrived and gave him a paddlin'.

About the "Love Scene" at the end...

Man and woman, just went through Hell together, they think they are going to be OK, and then a Super Laser goes off (presumably several hundred KM's away), and suddenly, they know they are going to die. It's human nature to reach out for comfort in those last few moments, and anyone that has ever been in such a situation knows exactly what I'm talking about. I have more than once and the fact that I lived makes me totally understand where that scene came from.

Love scene. Heh.

I think I would like to see the movie that was before all the reshoots, and see how it originally ended. It makes sense that everyone dies, but then again, it would have been nice to see them live and have a tangent adventure to the other Hero's in the franchise. It is interesting to note that Felicity Jones is under contract for another Star Wars film.

Maybe in the Special Edition Blu Ray, we'll see those deleted senses and maybe even an alternate ending.

Maybe her granddaughter will appear in episode 8. Or maybe in Solo or the Fett movies.

I figured it was Mustafa (although the film stopped telling us what planet was what after a while.) But wasn't Mustafa on the edge of the galaxy? Must be annoying if he has to travel.

Embracing in the face of imminent death = a love scene?

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
I guess Vader is on Mustafar as it is the site of his defeat by Obi Wan, a kind of self torture or discipline to learn from his past mistakes? And where better for a Sith Lord to reside than a lava planet?

In Rebels, Mustafar was being used as an internment camp for captured Jedi. It's not explicitly stated, but I assumed it's the HQ of the inquisition.

Luke is quite literally the definition of a Marty Stu. He's quite probably the most well known author avatar ever, with a name that should make that bleedingly obvious. I hold about as much concern over this as I'm concerned about Rey, which is to say, not at all. The thing about Mary Sue's is that the avatar sense is what pulls people into the universe as well and seeing this Halloween the number of girls invested in the SWU the way I was as a kid tells me job well done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Embracing in the face of imminent death = a love scene?

It wasn't just the atomic hug, but also the elevator ride. The fact Cassian survived to that point at all was typically dumb, on top of Krennic needlessly arguing with Jyn rather than just killing her, so the loevy dovey looks and embraces were at that point all just par for the course. It's not just one thing is isolation, like a hug, but a whole web of dumb, prefictable cartoon nonsense that kept getting worse.

I don't think I want any of my future kids to watch the cartoons that Manchu watches...

You don't want them to watch Rogue One?

Just saw it with my wife, I think it was pretty good.
Had some weak points, but overall the action and more grit than in the other Star Wars movies made totally up for it. Looking forward to the other solo movies, as I don't have high hope for Episode VIII after Episode VII.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Embracing in the face of imminent death = a love scene?

That and being terminally injured, as he seemed to be, is not allowed. Being incredibly hurt and fighting through the pain is a "no no" that ruins things.

I will admit their body language suggested slightly more than just comfort to me, especially in the elevator ride down. That said, I'm sure both of them were seeing well past each others flaws at that point.

I'm curious though, being that the base was essentially a bunch of landing platforms, if there wasn't *something* Jyn could have escaped on? There was at least one Rebel U-Wing there which we know can land and drop off/pick up troops so there could be more. Perhaps it'd have been nice to see, post the shield going down, to see a rescue crew try to make it's way down and find them, only to have to pull out as the devastation approached. I suppose though they had their hands full with the Imp fleet.

I really want to know though what was the 'too dark' ending they reshot. I guess we'll have to wait for the Blu-Ray.

 Kojiro wrote:
I will admit their body language suggested slightly more than just comfort to me, especially in the elevator ride down. That said, I'm sure both of them were seeing well past each others flaws at that point.

It's almost like they were releived and happy to have done something really important which could save the entire galaxy.

Spoiler warning!
Ponda Bubba and Dr Evezan survive

So, I saw this even though I'm not really a Star Wars fan. I thought it was pretty solid but there were some things I didn't like.

I agree with Manchu that the movie was tonally inconsistent, in exactly the same way: when that guy got executed, I thought it was going to be a much harder film, but no. I think it was more like when Han shot first - to establish a character's street cred and then shoehorn that character into being a hero anyway.

CGI Grand Moff Tarkin was a huge mistake. It looked terrible and was distracting as hell.

When the intelligence guy looked like he was dead and then suddenly appeared to save that day, that felt a bit weak and contrived.

There was lots of stuff I did like. The scene where the rebels 9/11nd the shield generator was pretty good. The Darth Vader action scene was no gak the best Darth Vader scene in the series. The Imperial Robot guy was pretty good too.

It's probably my favorite star wars movie. I'll watch it again when it comes out on video.

 Breotan wrote:
I think this is easily right behind A New Hope as my favorite, with Empire Strikes Back in third. I really hope Disney/Lucasfilm take note and give us more good, original stories.

I'm right there with you . Can't wait to see it again!

A small thing I especially liked was the pilot call ins from the original movie, sheer genius! And the new pilots blended in great and had that oldschool style. Loved it!

I really enjoyed Rogue One as a film. I thought it was leagues better than Force Awakens. Though, one of the few things I didn't care for was how many Imperials died. It felt like the movie had a "Stormtroopers killed per minute" quota it had to fill. I understand that this is a movie about good guys versus bad guys but the amount of Stormtroopers getting smoked got comical at times.

And they still fought better than the First Order Stormtroopers!

Also, I wish Director Krennic had shot the main character lady at the end instead of just letting her talk and then he watches the Death Star blow blow up the base. It would have fit the dark tone of the ending a lot better. The rest of it was awesome, though. One of my favorite scenes was when Darth Vader was hacking up those rebel troopers. It was one of the most brutal action scenes I've ever seen in Star Wars.

I don't get the hate for CGI Tarkin. He only felt fake to me once in all of his scenes. For the rest of his screen time, I didn't even realize he wasn't really an actor in scary-good makeup (Wayne Pygram played him in his cameo in Ep 3 and I thought that was him the whole movie long).

CGI Leia, on the other hand, was crap. They should've avoided that one, or not had her talk. When her mouth moved was when she looked like a Real Doll somebody wired with animatronics.

This movie was better than TFA, in my opinion, because of how much it tried to be Star Wars, but not be a Star Wars movie.

There was no opening narration crawl. The movie didn't use music from the other films, and even when the soundtrack hinted at established themes, like the Rebel Alliance theme, or the Force theme, or the Imperial March, the music quickly went in a different direction. Actual Star Wars music didn't show up until halfway through the end credits. There were no fancy screen wipes to transition between scenes. There were no Jedi (just a guy who might have some Force sensitivity, or might just be a crazy cranked up martial artist) and the only lightsaber we see is Vader's in the last scene. The movie barely involved anyone from the Skywalker family, and the ones who showed up were ancillary to the plot. It didn't pull from the Hero's Journey, or a Cliff's Notes version of it; this was the Dirty Dozen In Space, or a feature-length Blake's 7 movie.

It was a better Suicide Squad movie than the actual Suicide Squad movie.

It was the prequel we deserved.

I will say that I was disappointed in the cameo of the two guys from the Mos Eisley cantina. That scene was the worst part of the movie to me, because for a moment I thought George Lucas was directing again. It was such a prequel-era George Lucas move, that it detracted from the film. The rest of the cameos made sense (The droids on Yavin would likely be there, as they were owned by Jimmy Smitt's driver; Red and Gold Leaders were obviously based on Yavin and so would be involved in any attack launched from Yavin, Jimmy Smitts was a founding member of the Alliance, so of course he would show up for the meetings, etc, etc) but those two clowns dropping by to get snarly at the heroes was so absurdly unnecessary that it was, to me, the nadir of the film.

The rest of it was pretty decent, though. I mean, apart from CGI Leia. That was some angry Uncanny Valley gak right there.

Definitely not a movie you take your younger kids to, though. Not unless you want to explain to them that sometimes the good guys die, and sometimes they don't win. And sometimes, even when they die, they don't lose.

Oh, and an addendum: There were Y-wings in this movie. Not just that: they *did* stuff. The only thing I wanted from this film was Y-Wings, and the movie not only delivered, but it gave me Y-Wings going on bombing runs, crapping on a star destroyer's day, and actually suffering *fewer* casualties than the X-Wings. I can toss that Viagra prescription my doctor wrote; I won't be needing that ever again.

I really liked the spliced in 70s pilots, too.

A lot of people are sort of turning on FA in the wake of seeing R1 and I'm wondering if in a year's time the flaws of R1 will be more apparent/admittable as well.

I figured R1 would make FA look really bad but actually there are some comparisons where FA comes out ahead. Although FA's plot was totally contrived, it felt like a smoother journey. FA was genuinely fun throughout, whereas R1 leans hard on the droid character for humor and IMO never once felt fun (maybe fun was ejected as too childish).

I also think the First Order comes off as a lot scarier than the Empire as depicted in R1. I liked the "evil radio noises" of the Death Troopers and how precisely drilled they seemed at first. But when it came time to actually fight, they turned out to be no more effective than their ewok-whupped cousins. Contrast this to the fanaticism of the show-stealing FO stormtrooper who goes nuts on Finn in FA.

Which is worse: Mas Kanata and Starkiller Base or the Empire in its prime being absolutely worthless in a supposed war movie? Tough call. Hope Disney will allow the Empire to be somewhat competent in future films.

 Manchu wrote:
A lot of people are sort of turning on FA in the wake of seeing R1 and I'm wondering if in a year's time the flaws of R1 will be more apparent/admittable as well.

I think it will hold up better. TFA was obviously a badly flawed movie about an hour after the nostalgia wore off, and I think people "turned on it" right away. I know I had some very critical things to say in those early days, and didn't have to wait until Rogue One gave an excuse to move on to the next big thing. The most I can see is that Rogue One is good enough for people to finally let go of the idea of Star Wars movies being a spectacular success if they manage to be even mediocre, now that the first decent movie since ROTJ has shown that it's possible, and raise their standards for calling TFA a success. But I don't think that will happen with Rogue One unless a truly great movie comes out and forces a similar reevaluation. I think, short of that, the initial impressions of "good, but not great" will probably stand.

Although FA's plot was totally contrived, it felt like a smoother journey. FA was genuinely fun throughout, whereas R1 leans hard on the droid character for humor and IMO never once felt fun (maybe fun was ejected as too childish).

I don't think this is true at all. TFA didn't just have plot issues, it had massive pacing issues. It's just one giant demo reel for the CGI artists, with a token few characters involved to sell action figures. If it was ever fun it was a really superficial kind of fun, where if you take even a moment to ask what's going on the illusion falls apart. Rogue One stumbles a bit when it jumps around too quickly early on, but once it settles down it feels like a journey and not just a bunch of random explosions. And I don't know about you, but I certainly had a lot of fun with it.

Contrast this to the fanaticism of the show-stealing FO stormtrooper who goes nuts on Finn in FA.

Also got to disagree here, I think that was an incredibly overrated bit if you want to talk about credible opponents. It was so blatantly a case of using stupid tactics to give the hero character an opportunity for a melee fight. IMO it's one of those Boba Fett things, where a character is declared to be "cool" by the fans and gets hyped way out of proportion

I agree about the FO trooper wanting a melee fight just as soon as someone put a lightsaber into Finn's hands. That was straight out of a video game. But that trooper posed actual danger to Finn, something no Imperial managed to do in R1 - short of Vader himself showing up. And that was just as video gamey as anything in FA. Really reminded me of the demo level of Force Unleashed, where you stroll around Kashyyk as Vader overwhelmingly kicking ass.

As far as the "honeymoon," audiences were super generous to FA when it first came out as well; other than the arguments over Rey being underdeveloped/overpowered. R1 could avoid some of the hyperbolic blowback because there just isn't nearly the same level of hype. But I think R1 will suffer once audiences can spend more time with the film and start taking it apart.

I saw plenty of rebels being killed? I mean, they got reinforced with fresh troops by a U-Wing which is why there were so many, but they were showing rebels being killed regularly. I mean, yeah, the Stormtroopers were typically incompetent and died in droves, but that's just Star Wars. But they took those rebels down with them.

The heroes obviously had plot armour, and killed lots of Stormtroopers, but that's just Star Wars as well. Krennicks bodyguard Stormtroopers just cut down all the rebels they came across until Baze and Chirrut had their moments in the sun, and they even took both of them out.

I though the FO Stormtroopers had at least some sort of training to deal with Jedis/they were aware of the danger of shooting a Jedi with a lightsaber, and that<s why he went for the lightsaber proof stick.>

Yeah, I don't get this idea that the Rogue One imperials were never a threat to anyone. There were plenty of no-name rebels getting killed, and every single main character dies. Sure, the heroes are heroic and survive until it's time to die for plot reasons, but that's true of any movie. It's not like anyone actually expected the stormtrooper with the weird stick thing to kill Finn with half a movie left.

Any rebels that landed on Skariff were almost certainly killed. By the Death Star. By AT-ATs. By the Deathtroopers. He'll a dozen odd were killed by Vader in the final minutes. I think it helped to sum up the general futility of war very well, hell even the comic relief droid got destroyed. I think there was plenty of threat evident in the movie. A rarity as well in that grenades tended to do their job rather than being thrown back at the baddies, K-2SO excepted.

Just in case this hasn't been covered yet
Vader residing on Mustifar is an old idea from the late 70's or early 80's. Early drafts of ROTJ had the Emperor living on Mustifar. Much like most of what was planned for ROTJ, it was dumped due to filming complications.

Aside from the main cast superheroes, 30ish Rebels landed on Scarif in the stolen Zeta-class. U-Wings carry 8 passengers, and maybe three or four made it through the gate. So something like 60-100 Alliance soldiers fought groundside against an entire Imperial garrison at a super secure installation, including two elite formations (shoretroopers and death troopers). The Rebels encountered no real obstacles to achieving their operational goals, thanks to tactics like slowly walking in the open while under fire from augmented super soldiers a few dozen yards distant. That happened twice, by the way. I also noted that the two Imperial-class Star Destroyers in orbit never deployed and barely fired any weaponry. Guess the British-accented crew was on a tea break. Thankfully, Darth Vader showed up in time to do with one ISD what two couldn't manage, but of course his brutal scene was yet another empty show considering all the Rebels needed to do was hand a small object past a semi-blocked door.

Fired their weapons through that planetary shield, you mean? Also, presumably firing heavy artillery right next to a critical facility might have caused more damage than otherwise. After all, only Jyn, Cassian and K-2SO got anywhere near the main facility. The X-Wings could have been a serious threat, but the only reason they were shooting anywhere near the main tower was if there was a TIE Fighter near it.

Someone mentioned a few pages ago that it was odd that the AT-ACTs got blown up by X-Wings here, but that the AT-ATs in Empire were immune to the same. In Empire, they were being fired at by snowspeeders armed with blasters, not by X-Wings armed with lasers powerful enough (as we are not shown until Jedi, admittedly) to poke holes in Star Destroyers (and smaller bits of the Death Star).

Regarding the two X-Wings that crashed into the closed shield gate, was there a similar shot in Return of the Jedi? I'm sure I remember seeing a couple of Rebel fighters fail to pull up in time there, but in the version I have on DVD, they all make the turn. Maybe I imagined that.

Through a planetery shield? No - at the Rebel fleet.

Oh, right. Yes, I wondered at that too.