Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

[TordelBack]

I hated the The Phantom menace when I first saw it and repeat performances haven't really made me love it much more, but I have come to see that it tries in a way that The Force Awakens never does, and for all its callbacks and references to the OT, it never relies on reflected glory and nostalgia to the extent that TFA does.
With hindsight, there is plenty to see there that Lucas has never been given credit for, and TPM tries new things and brings more into the universe it inhabits than it takes away.
For all its faults, it is a sprawling and sumptuous fantasy whose greatest failing wasn't what was onscreen, it was that its audience could never accept that it wasn't the Star Wars they had in their heads.

Precisely my feelings. TPM is a magnificent failure, an attempt to create something genuinely different - unfortunately that ambition, and the superbly rich art and design genius, wasn't matched by success in pretty much every other area of filmmaking. I still love it though, like I love my cross-eyed prickly cat.

Each successive film plays it safer and safer and moves closer to fan expectation, becoming ever more boring in the process. TFA is (hopefully) the culmination (or nadir) of this process, but is largely saved by displaying the very competences and elements that TPM lacked. Fingers crossed future installments can head into fresh territory from this datum level, but retain the basic filmmaking skill that the saga has regained.

[auxlen]

I was disappointed with the phantom menace but after it became my fave of the Prequels after the horror of Attack and the excesses of clones and sith.
but yeah jar jar can fuck off....but to be honest I had more problems with the 'Japanese' merchants ("They've gone into the ventilation shaft" anyone?) and the horrible 'Flying Jew' thing that made me cringe more than having a load of kids in the film. The bloody thing even looked like a Nazi propaganda poster!

It has been suggested that this character is offensive because he resembles a stereotypical Jew:[3] he has a large nose, beady eyes, speaks in a gravelly voice, and is portrayed as greedy and covetous. J. Hoberman of The Village Voice called him "the most blatant ethnic stereotype" due to his hooked nose.[4] Bruce Gottlieb of Slate magazine criticized him as well, comparing his character to the antisemitic notion that the Jewish race is "behind the slave trade".[5] Patricia J. Williams of The Nation stated that Watto was also described as a stereotype of Arabs, but that he was "more comprehensively anti-Semitic—both anti-Arab and anti-Jew."[6] She added that Watto reminded her of an "anti-Semitic caricature published in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century."[2] Jane Prettyman of the American Review noted that after leaving the theater, she heard two young boys describe him as "that weird little Jewish guy with wings". Prettyman described his depiction as "not at all subtle", and said that "it can be counted on to flush out already-formed Jew-haters among young audiences and give them permission to continue their hatred out loud."[7]

[JOE SOAP]

TPM and the Prequels in general feel like they were written by someone who wholly bought into The Hero's Journey myth that had built up around the Star Wars franchise - and Hollywood screenwriting in general - and that to create a successful story/film all you needed were a bunch of incidents that were just a list of Joseph Campbell cyphers/themes strung out in a row.

Utilising mythology as a basis for stories is fine but The Hero's Journey is not a how-to of scene writing - it's an examination of themes commonly found throughout the history of anthropological myths. With the Prequels it seems they'd forgotten what made the originals great - how and why one scene should dramatically connect to another.

Binging on and introducing more disconnected Campbellesque motifs did not make the Star Wars Galaxy a richer place. It just made the creator seem weird and out-of-touch with what he had helped create so brilliantly as a younger man.

[TordelBack]

Never got the Watto = Jew thing. He's a blue flying elephant with webbed feet. He's the avaricious bazaar merchant archetype certainly, and his comeuppance is a bit Merchant of Venice, but how should be have looked/sounded to avoid accusations?

The Trade Federation are a better target for me, since Lucas is very explicitly playing with '30s serials tropes, and Yellow Peril is a big part of that, that he should have drawn a clearer line between his villains and the source of his inspirations.

[auxlen]

TBH i think Lucas is permanently living in the 1930s flash Gordon etc....How can you explain he thinhk Red tails is the first all Black action movie when the cat isn't even all black and it clearly isnt even the first!

[Hawkmumbler]

Red Tails wanted to be Ennis Dreaming Eagles (before said book even saw print by several years!), and failed pretty bad.

[sheridan]

Never got the Watto = Jew thing. He's a blue flying elephant with webbed feet. He's the avaricious bazaar merchant archetype certainly, and his comeuppance is a bit Merchant of Venice, but how should be have looked/sounded to avoid accusations?

The Trade Federation are a better target for me, since Lucas is very explicitly playing with '30s serials tropes, and Yellow Peril is a big part of that, that he should have drawn a clearer line between his villains and the source of his inspirations.

I'm almost convinced by the Watto the Jew arguments, but then I remember that he was created by the most powerful person in the worldwide film industry* (who happens to be Jewish).


*at least he has been at times - before Star Wars people didn't get ushered out of cinemas between screenings and following films forced cinemas to upgrade their sound systems under threat of not getting access to prints.

[JOE SOAP]

I'm almost convinced by the Watto the Jew arguments, but then I remember that he was created by the most powerful person in the worldwide film industry* (who happens to be Jewish).

George Lucas had a Methodist upbringing. He's apparently Buddhist now.

[sheridan]

You can treat Star Wars with the same dramatic tone as contemporary event movies like Transformers or Batman v Superman, but that's as meaningless as lacquering the stormtroopers blue, red, and green, like the Daleks in the Dr Who film.

There were green daleks in the Doctor Who film?  I thought the first green one we saw was the Victory Dalek!

[Hawkmumbler]

You can treat Star Wars with the same dramatic tone as contemporary event movies like Transformers or Batman v Superman, but that's as meaningless as lacquering the stormtroopers blue, red, and green, like the Daleks in the Dr Who film.

There were green daleks in the Doctor Who film?  I thought the first green one we saw was the Victory Dalek!

Yup. The classic scene from the original serial where a covered Dalek corpse briefly extends an arm from under the sheet is a green, webbed arm.

It doesn't matter as it was not canon to begin with!

[Frank]

You can treat Star Wars with the same dramatic tone as contemporary event movies like Transformers or Batman v Superman, but that's as meaningless as lacquering the stormtroopers blue, red, and green, like the Daleks in the Dr Who film.

I thought the first green one we saw was the Victory Dalek!

Yup. The classic scene from the original serial where a covered Dalek corpse briefly extends an arm from under the sheet is a green, webbed arm.

I'm definitely a nerd, but intruding on this conversation makes me feel like a nervous teenager who's walked into his first gay bar and realised it's a hardcore BDSM joint, where everyone's furiously nailing their frenula to the bar top.

Best to admit I'm in over my head and back slowly out of the room ...

[sheridan]

You can treat Star Wars with the same dramatic tone as contemporary event movies like Transformers or Batman v Superman, but that's as meaningless as lacquering the stormtroopers blue, red, and green, like the Daleks in the Dr Who film.

There were green daleks in the Doctor Who film?  I thought the first green one we saw was the Victory Dalek!

Yup. The classic scene from the original serial where a covered Dalek corpse briefly extends an arm from under the sheet is a green, webbed arm.

It doesn't matter as it was not canon to begin with!

Ah, right - I was thinking in terms of their casing (also, I wouldn't have seen that film in colour first time).

In the early eighties, all daleks were grey.

...so was all of The Wizard of Oz - so I didn't get the full effect from that Dredd story when they brought colour* into Tooth.

*other than the centrespread, obviously.

[JOE SOAP]

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story International Trailer

[Goaty]

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story International Trailer

Nice... About Darth Vader [spoiler]as his "The Claw" pose, anyone notice his helmet too big? Was it rush reshoot scenes to add Darth to the film? [/spoiler]

[SIP]

Nope. Without any innuendo intended, he has a big helmet.