Movie Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

[annathepiper]

Rogue One

I now get to say this twice in a row: that? That was a goddamned Star Wars movie.

Dara and I went to go see this thing in 3D IMAX today, and when the credits rolled, we took off our glasses and looked at each other. We’d both been crying. And we nodded knowingly to one another as we realized that, and came out of the theater talking about how we both had ALL THE FEELS.

Because yeah, even more than The Force Awakens (which, let me remind you, I quite adored), this movie grabbed hold of everything I loved from A New Hope and brought it roaring back to life.

Open the shield for transmission because I am about to broadcast SPOILERS.

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Comments

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I really didn't have the same reaction as you did. I thought the film was fine as an entertaining action-based flick, but nothing special. The massive problem for me was that because there was such a large cast of characters, and because the plot was so event-driven, there was very little character development time, so I didn't connect with any of them at all. You want to kill everyone off at the end? I'm good with that, because this is a rebellion, and they do tend to have high attrition rates. I liked the principle of a darker, more realistic take on the Star Wars universe. But emotionally it didn't affect me at all, because I didn't care about any of these people. Everyone felt to me like a plot device, not a person. I was sitting in the cinema writing (totally unrelated) fanfic scenes in my head during part of the film, that's how involving I found it.

I thought Donnie Yen was great, Chirrut was my favourite character. I liked Rook the pilot a lot too.

I actually found the Leia shot at the end there really convincing, mostly because it was so short. I wasn't expecting them to write so much Tarkin into the script - the digital effects really aren't up to that yet, and his face looked fake and creepy the entire time. It was way too ambitious to try and make that work.

I agree with you on Vader invading an entire ship basically solo. That was fantastic.

Mads Mikkelsen is having a wonderful time cashing in on all the critical kudos and exposure that Hannibal brought him, and more power to him :-)

[annathepiper]

You aren't the only person I've seen saying that the character development felt thin--and honestly I can't really argue with that, even though I really did quite like the film. There are definitely places where I feel like we got just the barest basic sketches of motivation, even for the primary characters.

That said, they did still work well enough for me that I was in tears at the end, so!

I want to see the movie again, hopefully while it's still in the theaters (Paul hasn't seen it yet), and I'll want to give Digital Leia another look and see how I react to her.

I have never watched Hannibal but I've certainly seen how you have been posting about it, so I'm delighted you've got Mr. Mikkelsen's glory here to root for with this film. :)