Films The Official bit-tech Movie Thread - What have you seen lately?

Not reading Krikkit's post until after 6pm tonight (I have tickets for 2pm!)

 

Darth Vader and the rebels all kiss and make up at the end of the film, and then enjoy a nice cup of tea on the bridge of the death star. Enjoy

 

We hadn't had it yet because it wasn't an entry in the saga (and cos I've been ill). If it had been, I'd have been there for the midnight showing on Wednesday night and would have hit up these pages shortly afterwards.

But I've not been at all hyped for Rogue One - the previous trailer things weren't doing it for me, except for the brief Vader flashes which I fear are just there to bait us. The characters and the way they delivered their lines wasn't really working for me.

But I'm pleased to see it's been warmly received and I'm planning to see it tonight.

 

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - 9/10

For any Star wars geek its Fabbie

 

So Rogue 1 is Star Wars 3.5 (i.e. just before Episode 4), wheras the previous new new Star Wars film was Episode 7?

I'm quite confused.

 

The order they were filmed in was 4 5 6 1 2 3 7 3.9999 <- Rogue One

Spoiler

I enjoyed the nods to the rest of the Jediverse, from blue milk to "Paging General Sendula" and "I have a bad feeling about..."

TL;DR - These ARE the rebels you're looking for!

 

Rogue One

Heaven knows what the state of my pants would have been if this had come out in late 80s - this is just the kind of film I dreamed of seeing back then.

As others have said, if you're a Star Wars fan you will like this film. It's like a fan film done right, and on a big budget. Much better than the trailers led me to believe.

There are one or two minor quibbles (one concerning a pretty pivotal plot moment, regrettably), inevitably, but overall, as a cinematic experience, watching this for the first time was a real treat.

Part of me feels it was a bit cheap of them to end the film the way they did, but at the same time by golly it was a fun way to do it.

But did anyone else get a bit distracted by

Spoiler

Fat Vader? The first scene he's in, when he's talking to the Director chap, he just looked fat, somehow even his mask made him look fat - I was so distracted by that, and listening to how Earl Jones performed, I didn't properly listen to his dialogue.

And I was really surprised they chose to show Leia's face. I didn't mind with Tarkin because that served as a useful experiment for the effect, but for a character as integral as Leia, the tech isn't quite ready for that yet IMO.

As much as I am not a hater of the prequels (had all three of them on today, as it happens) and respect the approach George Lucas took with them, Rogue One does kinda make me yearn for the prequels to have been made more in this style - i.e. more action adventure, less classical.

 

Rogue One - 9/10

Right from the start I could tell that the tone of this film was quite different from the rest of the SW films. Personally I really liked it for its gritty realism add in the quite superb visuals, the throwaway cameos, the return of some old characters and you get a truly great film.

BTW, the dark corridor scene was simply awesome, short but awesome. If you've seen it you'll know the one I mean.

 

Rogue One 9/10

First ten minutes 3/10

Spoiler

Park the ship at least 2km away. It's OK we'll walk very slowly in very windy weather across his farm and give him time to see us.

"They're coming! The day we knew would happen is here!" Let's not rush around that panicked. Just mill around quite casually.
I'm more stressed getting my son to the bus stop at 8am everyday than they are about Empire soilders hunting them down.

"Come with me I need your skills desperately!" No. "Kill his wife" Oh, OK then, I guess.

Setup needed to be solid in order to drive the emotion of the whole film, but it was especially weak.

2nd half 11/10. I was fantasizing about what it would look like in VR.

 

Will it be bearable to watch this movie with Star Wars fanatics? Or is it all plot holes and Jedi BS again like the prequels?

 

It depends on the level of fanatic, there are a lot of nods and tips of the hat to A New Hope that will produce either squeals of delight or outrage at tarnishing the memory.

Its a good solid stand alone story, lots of action, good fun and for me more of a war film than any of the others in the collection.

 

Enjoyed the ever-loving hell out of Rogue One. Better than Ep7 for sure. Hope the rest of the sequel trilogy learns from this.

 

Spoiler

From what I've read elsewhere, that was NOT a CGI Leia, that was SW:ANH leftovers (ie - it really WAS Carrie Fisher from 1977) from Lucas' vault.

 

Whilst I've not seen it and can't comment on the scene in question -

Spoiler

I was told it was Carrie Fisher 'de-aged' through CGI a la RDJ in CA: Civil War rather than full on 'A young Carrie Fisher's face CGI'd onto someone else's body' like they did with Cushing/Tarkin.

I'm told both cases fall into the uncanny valley a bit, but not quite Tron Legacy's 'that is clearly not Jeff Bridges' face... that's not even a good CGI Jeff Bridges...' level wrong.

 

Where did you read that? I've only seen it once, so am prepared to admit a mistake on future viewings, but from first glance I wasn't in any doubt that

Spoiler

it was a CGI performance. It might have been put on top of some original footage, and the dialogue might have been from 1976/7, but for now I'm certain it was a CGI face

.

 

Spoiler

Tarkin had quite a few scenes. Once or twice, briefly, I thought it was 'good enough', bearing in mind the circumstances, but most of the time it was still very obviously CGI. To me, at least, but then, I knew it had to be from the outset - noobs may not have clocked it as easily.

With Leia it's very fleeting, and kind of unexpected, but very noticeable to me. If it had been an entry in the main saga I might have been a little mortified that they'd stooped to that, but for a spin-off I'm prepared to accept it as a bit of fun. I've not seen Tron Legacy so can't compare

.

 

Upon further research it appears that

Spoiler

it was a CGI'd Princess Leia's face superimposed on another actress [Ingvild Deila], in the same way Guy Henry was transformed into Peter Cushing/Tarkin.

Rogue One didn't interest me that much after the steaming pile of meh of TFA but I kinda wanna go see it now, just to see

Spoiler

how well [or not] the CGI is done in the relevant scenes - here is the not at all convincing [imo] CGI from Tron Legacy, it looked even worse in motion, particularly when the character spoke.

.

 

Not quite as extreme for me but I agree in principle, overall really enjoyed it (but I'm also someone who likes the prequels and TFA so feel free to ignore my opinion )

 

Tarkin was really well done imo but Leia, you knew she was CGI and she was in really bright light and really close to the screen, so it was very much uncanny valley.

 

Spoiler

Leia's

scene was so minimal why waste the money on the CGI, it was enough to just include the character, I was half expecting just a back shot and voice acting