Rogue One is Awesome! Now let's shit all over it!!! (F'n right spoilers)

After preparing myself for a disaster, I came away from Rogue One pleasantly surprised. Mads and K2 carried the show for me. So happy Mads wasn't miscast as an insane follower of Dormommy or Dormamoo or whatever. And K2 was pretty much the Star Wars version of Baymax. It was obvious early one that the Dirty Dozen was going to bite the dust after the f**k-up on rainy-rock planet. The music didn't quite work at times. Tarkin hit the uncanny valley more often than not. The new spaceships kind of sucked (Krennic's shuttle was kind of cool, but ultimately too derivative). Did I mention the Dirty Dozen, you know the movie with Lee Marvin? Star Destroyers crashing into shit, like planetary shield generators, fat X-wing pilots getting blown up, and Vader walking over level one (not Rogue One) rebel idiots was hackneyed. At least the tie-in to the beginning of the original Star Wars was nice touch, and the Asian characters were decent and had good lines. No random Asian pilots screaming before their Y-wings exploded. Glad to see Disney moving on from their caricatures of foreign peoples at the Epcot Center.

C+. Turn off brain and enjoy. Matinee or discount movie ticket pricing recommended.

 

She didn't follow my advice to turn off brain. It's good when you turn off brain.

In contrast, I turned off brain for Transformers 3, and still didn't like it.

 

Hahaha, watched parts I to III with my son after Rogue One. With the new movies now out, those prequels are now not as bad as I remembered. Revenge of the Sith was actually pretty darn good. I've come to the conclusion that the real essence of Star Wars is embodied by George Lucas, not Disney. Yes, the prequel movies suffered from a lot of nonsense like taxation, trade federations, global outsourcing, separatists, repubexit, making the republic great again, etc. All of that would have been forgivable and forgettable had there been better casting, directing, and acting, particularly for Anakin Skywalker's role. It's too bad Disney couldn't have retained Lucas as the overall visionary, but let others more specialized in their fields (directing, casting, script polishing) execute the final product for Rogue One and the Farce Awakens. I also wished that Disney would have used their CGI technology to replace Hadyn Christensen in all of the prequels with a less wooden actor. Tarkin and young Leia in Rogue One could be played by similar looking actors just fine. One thing Disney did right was with the casting of Daisy Ridley in the Farce Awakens. That movie would have been so fucked had she not lent her talents to it.

In terms of the worst Star Wars films, my son ranks Attack of the Clones as the worst. Second worst is the Farce Awakens. And then Rogue One. He didn't like that everybody died in Rogue One and that the characters were weak, with the exception of the K2 and the cool blind Asian guy with the Kung Fu skills.

 

I think it would have worked because this is exactly what Fox did with ESB. They let Lucas still assume the visionary role, but they turned the director responsibilities over to Irvin Kershner. Kershner wasnt well known then, but he was the exact person Fox needed for the job. No way Fox was going to let Lucas screw ESB up given the money riding on it. It was only later with ROTJ that Lucas was able to wrest control away from Fox. But by then, Fox didn't care. SW was already an established franchise.

The story and ideas behind the prequels were not bad, actually quite good, and definitely very Lucas, but the execution of the film: casting, directing, and script polishing should have been taken away from Lucas.

As for your rankings, I roughly agree; but my son would differ with us. It's only now that I truly understand that Lucas really wanted to make the prequel movies for eight year olds. (Jar Jar was still fail. My son though him annoying and wanted him run over.)

The thing I finally realized what was lost in the new movies after rewatching the prequels was the unique Lucas touch (for better or worse) which I felt was truly Star Wars. Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams are mere imitators, pretenders.

Go back and rewatch the prequels and imagine actors on the caliber of Daisy Ridley playing Anakin. I can excuse the heavy CGI given that time period.

 

NOOOOOOOOO!

Also see Mr. Plinkett reviews of the Star Wars prequel movies if you have not. I thought they were an infinitely better use of my time than watching the movies themselves, despite the reviews being movie-length.

 

My son doesn't think too low of the prequels. And he loves the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan song.

Maybe we belong to a different generation. I think the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan duel was a tremendous disappointment. Higher ground my ass. f**k the flashy lightsaber show.

f**k the midi-chlorians. f**k fatherless Anakin and his the-one-ness. f**k Jar Jar Binks. f**k Darth Maul's muteness. f**k the Trade Federation. f**k "are you an angel" Anakin. f**k "only my new powers can do that" Anakin. f**k "Noooo" Vader. f**k the Trade Federation feeble "army". f**k the Gungans. f**k driving impaired Obi-Wan.

I think George Lucas can't direct, and sucks ballz. My son was watching a youtube video about the making of Yoda, and started laughing when they claimed that Lucas wanted a monkey to play the little green man. Folks looked at each other, gave him the finger, and got Frank Oz on the job. I actually dunno what things that made the original SW awesome were Lucas ideas in the first place.

As far as Rogue One, I think it was well executed. Better than all the life sucking prequels. But I also felt that the death of everyone was somewhat forced and not awesome.

Like I said, my son likes the prequels way better than me. I'm senile.

 

Disclosure: I was/am a hard to please SW fan and almost memorized ESB dialogue. I'm pleased to say my son is more normal than me in this respect.

 

The trick is to watch the prequels in your son's eyes. I'm pretty sure Lucas was on record as these movies being for kids.

The scripts actually make sense, just that it was so badly directed (interpreted and executed) by Lucas. I never got the "high ground" thing until I re-watched ROTS it last night. Ewan McGregor was baiting Hayden. This is hinted at earlier in the light sword duel when Ewan said that the flaw of power was arrogance. Ewan knew that it was only a matter of time because Hayden sliced him in half. He was fighting a defensively where he just kept backing up. Ewan had run out of options and needed to end it.

Most people felt that Hayden turning on Samuel L. Jackson lacked credulity. But again, this was because of bad directing (and bad acting, which is usually bad directing). I mean if you had super Force powers and sensed that your wife or your kid might die in the near future, and the only way to save them was to do something questionable, you might do it too, especially if there was a master manipulator behind it all. The story / script just never translated to the screen. Heck, some people I knew in RL did questionable things just to obtain a fricking tube amp.

Besides, a lot of people forget the really cool stuff in the prequels. The pod race was pretty gripping and one the things that Lucas always knew how to do well. Some of the spaceship designs were kind of cool: the Venator class Destroyers, the clone trooper Gunships, the Jedi starfighters with external hyperspace ring, the various shiny Naboo spaceships. Grievous' could have been rendered and voiced in a way more compatible with adult sensitivities, but you have to admit his backstory and four light sword fighting style was pretty wonderous, as my son exclaimed: "No fair! That's totally no fair. Oh wait. Oh Obi-wan won't die. He's old in the other movie." Finally, Christopher Lee was absolutely delightful as Count Dookie, down to his last "Huh? WTF!" look at Palatine when Palps ordered Hayden to kill him.

P.S.

Lucas (after senility set in): Great ideas. Bad execution. Except with racing scenes.
Diney / KK / JJ: Meh ideas. Great execution.

 

The pod race was pretty cool (though I wished they had portrayed Anakin a bit older - son is fine with it). Count Dickhead was well played indeed. Not all sucked ballz that bad.

And yes. Through my son's eyes is all different. He somehow is able to blank out Jar Jar and likes the sea monsters. He also likes the over grown iguana that Obi-Was is riding in one of the prequels (useless/shameless/f**k! in my geek mind, awesome through my son's eyes). If I look through my son's eyes, the whole expanded universe is pretty awesome. He liked the new releases also, but he didn't comment on them as much as he did on the prequels. Order 66 kind of bummed him in a good way. He likes III best. He watches it often. The songs are heard at least once a day.

EDIT: I hate Disney at this point in my life. Rides smell like oil. Too pointless. But through my son's and daughter's eyes they bring some of the most cherished moments in my life. Which is why I felt like shit when they raised the annual pass price. Similar with all the Prequels and stuff.