01.19 - Star Wars Rewatch Project: EPISODE I - THE PHANTOM MENACE
02.19 - Star Wars Rewatch Project: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES
03.19 - Star Wars Rewatch Project: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH
04.19 - Star Wars Rewatch Project: SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY

Next up...

Title
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Release Date
December 16, 2016

Director
Gareth Edwards

Writers
Tony Gilroy, Chris Weitz

This is hands down my favorite Star Wars movie! I love it! Love it! Love it!

Where do I start?

The negative: the first time seeing it, it was a bit tough to follow at the beginning. The planet hopping got me lost at least once. And the music wasn't great.

But other than that.....

This film gives me a lightsaber sized erection with a giant Death Star on the end of it! Here's why in no particular order:

The acting: all new characters that I completely 100% cared for by the end of the film. They were fighting for something bigger than themselves and what makes it better is that we the audience knew it was even bigger. This whole story is the foundation that brings hope to the rebellion to defeat the empire and the actors pull us in from the start.

K2SO: hands down the best droid in Star Wars. Yes, yes I love R2 and BB....BUT you can't understand them. Now, I agree this has an advantage because it leaves their words open to interpretation based on their movements and sounds, which is damn entertaining and cute....BUT....a sarcastic converted empire droid with no inter monologue was so damn unique. And this was the first time a droid showed growth/change in a Star Wars film (doesn't trust Jyn at the beginning, does at the end). And his sacrifice at the end hit me....did not want to lose him.

Grand Morph Tarkin: my jaw hit the floor in his first scene. Holy **** they actually brought THE character back. Yes, the CGI isn't perfect....but this was unprecedented...a milestone one could argue. Loved that they did this (however it was pivotal to this specific story and I hope this doesn't become a trend).

Emotional scene 1: the scene where Jyns dad is talking to her (the message) via hologram...laying out everything about he implemented the weakness, how much he loved her and sacrificed for her.....and watching Jyn see this and the emotion she showed....it was genuinely the first time I got a lump in my throat from a Star Wars film that wasnt triggered by nostalgia from TFA.

The beach battle: about as war-movie epic as Star Wars will ever get without an R-rating. Everyone dies on the beach....literally everyone by the time the Death Star shows. But there's fighters, ATATs, soldiers, bombs, espionage....the whole damn thing is a rush.

I'm one with the force and the force with me: can't remember his name.....but *****...who didn't love this guy? He was such a bad ass. Took out a whole platoon of storm troopers with a stick...shot down a tie fighter with a bow...has strong knowledge of the force (kinda?)....and gives his life for the rebellion when it wasn't his fight. He did it because he could tell the force wanted it........think about it...in the raining planet scene he follows Jyn after she leaves the ship because he senses how the force is moving around her and that "her path is clear."

The space battle at the end: ok....the space battle in ROTJ is great....but this is better! Original actors from ANH...red 5s call sign...following ships individually connecting us with the individuals of the rebellion...the corvette making a Star destroyer crash into another one...the hyperspace ships jumping into each other...****ing epic all of it!

Darth ****ing Vader!: holy balls! I can't believe the hallway scene was a last minute thought. I was losing it during this scene. This was really the first time we saw Vader go ape **** on the rebellion......sure he had scenes showing how evil he was before, but those really consisted of 1v1 with another Jedi or just force choking some dude.......THIS!?.....**** your blasters and I don't care how many of you there are I'm Darth ****ing Vader and I'm going to ruin your ***** He cuts a dude in half! So cool!

Emotional scene 2: right after Darth Vader makes the rebel soldiers in that hallway piss themselves, we get the best...and most perfect ending to any Star Wars movie! First, we see the rebel ship carrying the plans break away from the main rebel cruiser....and then....woah man....we see the obvious back side of Princess Leia and the best lines of, "what did they bring us?" "Hope." I was doing everything I could to not lose it right there. I was hoping they'd do something like that......but didn't know what to expect and was completely nerded out by the end.

I saw this with my dad. We went to the theater in separate vehicles. We ended up talking in the parking lot for over 30 minutes cause there was so much we loved about this film! If I had one wish that pertained to the Star Wars franchise it would be to make it that every time I saw this film it would be as if it was my first time viewing it so I could relive the excitement over and over.

Hell there's probably more I can add but it's late and I probably have made enough typing errors already.....I'm pretty much this girl in this video below except not THAT extreme:

Well said joker. It's a great movie. They do a great job of capturing the desperation of this long shot mission.

Wasn't the director replaced at some point during production? If someone here had some insight into what happened there I'd love to hear it.

100% agree. I wish TFA and especially TLJ were even a 1/10 as good as Rogue One.

"Rogue One" is the most sophisticated of the movies in the SW universe, and the best since ESB. It seems like after ESB until Episode VII, they went from either making movies kids like to trying to make kids movies or making movies like "Solo" that are trying to be more straight up "fun adventure" than an attempt at a drama. I wish all of the films took the tone of "Rogue One."

Loved this film .... personally it's just behind ANH and Empire in the ol ranking debate. A film that truly put the WAR in Star Wars. Loved the new characters (well ... except maybe for Saw ... but the awesomeness of K2SO made up for that) and the film expanded on the inner political workings of the Empire and Rebellion. And the third act .... what the flying flipping &@$! RUSH!!!!! That took me back to the kind of battles I imagined with all the action figures and ships I had as a kid in the late 70s and early 80s!

I really do love this movie. The poster in the OP is one of two SW posters hanging in my house.

During its really bizarre journey through production, it somehow became a product of a group collaboration much closer to what we associate with the original trilogy than some of the divisive single person in charge movies we've gotten in the prequels and the Disney era.

I'll never forget the feeling opening night and turning to my friend and just saying "that was AWESOME!!!" What a great third act with the Vader scene as an exclamation point

RIP Red Five

Mac94 said:

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Loved the new characters (well ... except maybe for Saw ... but the awesomeness of K2SO made up for that)

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I was pretty nervous about Rogue One when I walked into the theater. But once I saw Cassian shoot the informant in the back, I knew it was going to be ok.

First time watching in the theater, I thought it was okay.

After watching another 10 times, I believe it to be one of the best, if not the best, written Star Wars movies. There are really no flaws in the movie.

Glad to see the positive posts.

I thought the plot and interplay with the original movie was absolutely brilliant.

There were a few scenes that were a little disjointed but they dont change the fact that this is the most intelligent of the movies, and overall best star wars movie, i think, other than maybe the original.

Frankly, this movie storyline actually made the original a much better flick.

the final battles of this movie are among the best of any Star Wars movie.

I can't add much more than post covered. It's my #2 SW movie and in my top 10 overall. I absolutely love this movie.

As I have said before, when the rebel fleet comes out of hyperspace over Scarif in the third act, I am 10 years old again. It honestly had/has that effect on me.

Flashdiaz said:

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the final battles of this movie are among the best of any Star Wars movie.

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For me, it's at the top, side by side with Hoth.

Quote:

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What happened 11 days after RO was released that kicked us all in the gut? We lost our princess.

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I saw RO twice in the theater. After the second viewing, I stopped for lunch at Whataburger, and was sitting there chowing down on a big, juicy burger, and happened upon the announcement of her death while scrolling a news site. Got a little dusty that afternoon in that Whataburger, and it wasn't from the copious amount of onions on my burger.

Well said.

The only thing I'll disagree with you is the quality of the score. While it is not John Williams, Michael Giacchino's score was very well done. Especially considering the circumstances of its creation. Another composer was originally hired to do the score for RO, but for whatever reason, his work was deemed insufficient, or he was difficult to work with, or something ... and Giacchino was hired essentially at the last minute to whip up a score for a Star Wars movie. And he did all of that on the heels of a busy 2016 with Zootopia, Star Trek Beyond, and Doctor Strange.

Rogue One is my third favorite Star Wars movie, behind Empire and the original Star Wars.

Regarding the closing act's massive battle sequence, that was balls to the wall awesome. This battle gave us stuff we'd seen before with the Imperial attack at Hoth, and both Rebel attacks against the two Death Stars. Only this time, it was all rolled into one fantastic sequence in the same movie. Imperial Walkers, TIE Fighters, X-Wings, Y-Wings, U-Wings, TIE Strikers, yeah, this was fantastic. I suppose the only thing missing was the Millennium Falcon, but that would have been out of place in Rogue One.

The Darth Vader scene at the end was probably the best appearance the big baddie ever had in any of these movies. He was pretty subdued, for the most part, in his first battle against Luke at Cloud City, and then he was somewhat overshadowed by the presence of the Emperor in the Death Star II duel. This was Darth Vader at his ultimate bad-ass best.

Grand Moff Tarkin. I knew Peter Cushing was dead, but damn, the CGI was so very well done that it was difficult to tell any difference. At the very end, when we first see Princess Leia with her back to the camera, I was actually hoping that would be all we'd see. Now don't get me wrong, I was happy when she turned around, but the CGI didn't work quite as well for her as it did for Tarkin. I think the difference is, Tarkin is an old man with lots of wrinkles and such on his face, which makes it easy to hide stuff that to the naked eye might not look quite right. Princess Leia, on the other hand, was a late teen at the time of this story, and her skin is of so smooth, no wrinkles at all, all of that youthful look stuff. Her face looked like plastic.

The main characters were fantastic in this movie. Despite knowing that none of them would live, I found them to be among the most compelling characters in any SW movie. There was something to like about each and every one of them. And K2S0 was, as stated above, the best droid in any of these movies. He was as much as sarcastic SOB as C-3P0 was a whiny, scared SOB.

Thanks for the reminder that I'll need to watch this soon.

Bruce Almighty said:

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It was good, but I didn't love it like everyone else. The story was good, the action was some of the best in all of Star Wars, but in the end, I just didn't care about any of the characters (except Vader). The movie is at its best when its directly tying into the original trilogy, but at times, I felt the Rogue One to be slow. Second best of the Disney Star Wars, but behind the original trilogy, ROTS and TFA.

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Weird. I cared more for these characters than I have since Luke and Han and Ben back in the first 3. The characters and the story unapologetically showed that it's ok to care about something other than themselves. Just the way Luke and Leia did...before TLJ decided that they weren't woke enough...

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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Grand Moff Tarkin. I knew Peter Cushing was dead, but damn, the CGI was so very well done that it was difficult to tell any difference. At the very end, when we first see Princess Leia with her back to the camera, I was actually hoping that would be all we'd see. Now don't get me wrong, I was happy when she turned around, but the CGI didn't work quite as well for her as it did for Tarkin.

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Exact opposite for me. Leia looked just fine; Tarkin made me cringe each time that I saw him; thought I was watching Polar Express.

This is the only one of the new Star Wars movies that I've watched more than twice. It's just so good from start to finish.

MuckRaker96 said:

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jokershady said:

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Grand Morph Tarkin:

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If I ever change my TexAgs handle, it's going to be to Grand Morph Tarkin

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Gdamnit! 2 edits and I still missed this!

I've re-watched this probably 10 times since it was released. It's climbed from 3rd, to 2nd...and I can say I honestly now consider it my favorite Star Wars movie.

That ending goes down as some of the top five most delightfully surprising movie endings of all time.

And that third act!

I loved this movie. I'm an original trilogy in the theaters girl (see my username to see how old I am lol) and of all the prequels and sequels this was the only one that felt anything like watching the original three. Actual sacrifice that meant something. And getting to see Vadar wreck shop made me feel like an 8 year old again. I turned to my husband and said "THAT's why the entire galaxy was terrified of him." Finally we got to see it.

If I was an imperial storm trooper academy recent grad I would pray to the midichlorian gods that I would get stationed on Scarif.

Damn good movie. Best of the Disney ones and on par with original trilogy.