The embargo on reviews is now over and those who saw the Premiere can report.  Here is one from a site I enjoy (Latino Review) which somewhat minor spoilers that most people already know (a couple of cameos):

http://lrmonline.com/news/film-review-rogue-one-a-star-wars-story

So...should we treat this thread as a spoiler thread for those of us that see the film this week?  I will be seeing it Thursday...

Edited December 16, 20169 yr by The Unknown Poster

Star Wars benefits from essentially having their own studio in care and control of the franchise. Despite Lucas screwing up the prequels, the people at LucasFilm love the franchise 

Trek is split in two between Paramoint & CBS. And while CBS seems to love Trek and treats it pretty well, Paramount doesn't have a clue. They saw Trek and decided they could remake it in Wars' image. 

Hiring Bad Robot was their first mistake. 

Hopefully CBS gets it right with Discovery and the next film series is produced by the same people. 

The difference is that Star Wars has always been movie friendly where as Star Trek was an episodic TV show with a minimal budget so the focus of the show had to be different than the focus that a movie would take. That's why there's damned few actual good Star Trek movies period. Too hard to take what makes a show great and condense it into a movie format that everyone is going to want to watch. 

But I enjoyed Rogue One the only negative things I could talk about were minor quibbles. There was too much jumping around at the start, I didn't like Princess Leia's ship being at the battle like that at the end, you know small things, but overall quite enjoyable. 

Loved the movie but thought Forrest Whitaker was garbage

Saw this on Reddit and thought this was the most relevant place to share it:

The prequels are quite tolerable when you only have to watch 5 seconds at a time.

On 12/14/2016 at 10:22 AM, The Unknown Poster said:

Oh yes, I originally was going to call it *SPOILERS* and realized I changed it to "potential".

As a spoiler junky, I've been fighting the urge to read details.  I've seen a few things if people want to know...

We all know Vader is in it (he's in the trailers), but how much is he in it?

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Not much, apparently.  Doesnt do anything save for a reportedly spectacular two minutes

Any cameos besides the one we saw a hint of in the trailers?

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We saw Bail Organa in the trailers.  And there are CGI re-creations of Tarkin and Leia which have divided the audience into the "it was so fake" and "It was amazing" camps

Any connection to the sequel saga?

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Reportedly, not at all.  So dont expect Snoke.

Im seeing it tomorrow...will dissect it thoroughly on Frday! ;-)

 

It had a bunch of tips and nods to the EU, and the clone wars and rebels tv series. You see the ghost twice, hear general syndulla paged etc.

 

I was disappointing when they looked like they were gonna do Grand admiral thrawn but as a human, yet some how more disappointing when it wasnt him.  Over all I liked it, much better then the 3 other prequels. Not nearly as good as the top 3. 

On ‎1‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 3:13 PM, Atomic said:

Loved the movie but thought Forrest Whitaker was garbage

Whittaker's character while a minor one was still important. It's hard to keep track of all the names. Especially in this movie.

9 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Whittaker's character while a minor one was still important. It's hard to keep track of all the names. Especially in this movie.

I saw that they just introduced the character in Rebels.

Saw Gerrera

On 1/7/2017 at 10:47 PM, SpeedFlex27 said:

Whittaker's character while a minor one was still important. It's hard to keep track of all the names. Especially in this movie.

It was supposed to be a much greater role but they didnt have time to do it. Thats why hes being pushed down to rebels to get the rest of the story arc done.  The voice was messed up in the movie, and it was a waste of a great actor. 

I didnt find saw gerrera that memorable in clone wars. But it was such a deep series. Fixing anakin, bringing in the likes of asajj and ahsoka. It still didnt do a great job with general grevious though. I guess they couldnt throw in ahsoka though. Thatd blow what ever they are gonna do with her in rebels. 

Maybe Im in the minority but I liked his voice in RO.  I liked the character.  I thought his ending was a waste though.  It felt too neatly wrapped up for the story.  Like, they couldnt fit him in so he decides, for no good reason, to just die.  Silly.  Should have been a greater sacrifice.

the only thing i took away from Whitakers role and his men was they were the "Rebels"  while characters like Cassian were part of the Alliance, 2 separate factions both opposed to the empire. basically to further the point that it was everyone vs the empire. although now that i think of it, i would have rather seen Jabba the hut capture the pilot and sell the plans to the rebels/alliance. give him a little more relevance and showcase he was always just looking out for his own interests

12 minutes ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

the only thing i took away from Whitakers role and his men was they were the "Rebels"  while characters like Cassian were part of the Alliance, 2 separate factions both opposed to the empire. basically to further the point that it was everyone vs the empire. although now that i think of it, i would have rather seen Jabba the hut capture the pilot and sell the plans to the rebels/alliance. give him a little more relevance and showcase he was always just looking out for his own interests

I think the intent was the Alliance and Rebels were the same.  Saw was more guerrilla warfare, more terrorist in nature, which raised an interesting ethical question.  Is it okay to be a terrorist for a good cause?

4 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

I think the intent was the Alliance and Rebels were the same.  Saw was more guerrilla warfare, more terrorist in nature, which raised an interesting ethical question.  Is it okay to be a terrorist for a good cause?

Terrorists rarely see themselves as terrorists, they see themselves as fighting for a cause they believe in.  Definition of good in those cases is relative to how you were brought up and what your belief system is, and how oppressed you feel.

 

3 minutes ago, Rich said:

Terrorists rarely see themselves as terrorists, they see themselves as fighting for a cause they believe in.  Definition of good in those cases is relative to how you were brought up and what your belief system is, and how oppressed you feel.

 

Exactly.  It wasnt explored beyond maybe one line in the film.  But the idea was Saw was so terroristic in method that the Alliance didnt want him anymore.  In fact, I cant remember the exact line but it seemed to imply he caused them problems.  So one could extrapolate that his methods were so harsh that it caused a greater than proportional response by the Empire in return.  Up until the end of this movie, it seemed the Alliance was more of a political opposition and werent committed to an actual war, whereas Saw and people like him saw the Empire as something worth fighting and dying to oppose.

RO would have been better as a two partner that could be fleshed out.  But I understand why they didnt want to take that chance.

3 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Exactly.  It wasnt explored beyond maybe one line in the film.  But the idea was Saw was so terroristic in method that the Alliance didnt want him anymore.  In fact, I cant remember the exact line but it seemed to imply he caused them problems.  So one could extrapolate that his methods were so harsh that it caused a greater than proportional response by the Empire in return.  Up until the end of this movie, it seemed the Alliance was more of a political opposition and werent committed to an actual war, whereas Saw and people like him saw the Empire as something worth fighting and dying to oppose.

RO would have been better as a two partner that could be fleshed out.  But I understand why they didnt want to take that chance.

Yes they did say that and you could also see that Saw was more "ruthless" than the typical Good guys when the pilot was initially captured.

I thought Whitaker's lines were really forced and not convincing.  In particular when he rescued the girl in the beginning and said "Come my child" and when he thought she was coming to kill him.  I get that he was supposed to be kinda crazy at that point but I just didn't really "get" the character as a whole.  And I like Forest Whitaker, I have no problem with him in other movies.

Just thought I would mention it because it really stood out to me in a bad way.  I haven't read many reviews so not sure if others share my opinion.  Overall loved the movie.

2 hours ago, Atomic said:

Yes they did say that and you could also see that Saw was more "ruthless" than the typical Good guys when the pilot was initially captured.

I thought Whitaker's lines were really forced and not convincing.  In particular when he rescued the girl in the beginning and said "Come my child" and when he thought she was coming to kill him.  I get that he was supposed to be kinda crazy at that point but I just didn't really "get" the character as a whole.  And I like Forest Whitaker, I have no problem with him in other movies.

Just thought I would mention it because it really stood out to me in a bad way.  I haven't read many reviews so not sure if others share my opinion.  Overall loved the movie.

part of the turn off for me with the Saw character was that he is an old jalopy of a man-robot. When you look at Anakin/Vader or even general grievous they had kinda cool new suits to keep them alive, whereas Whitaker was just a walking junk pile with a respiratory mask. I dunno maybe i expected more from the "robotics" in this far away galaxy, but even K-2SO was little under whelming

11 hours ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

part of the turn off for me with the Saw character was that he is an old jalopy of a man-robot. When you look at Anakin/Vader or even general grievous they had kinda cool new suits to keep them alive, whereas Whitaker was just a walking junk pile with a respiratory mask. I dunno maybe i expected more from the "robotics" in this far away galaxy, but even K-2SO was little under whelming

Think of it as someone with lots of money getting the best cybernetic parts vs someone who has to scrounge for age old parts because he doesn't have the resources.  Luke was part of the alliance, so their resources were greater.

If you look at Vader though, his cybernetics were not state of the art.  But that was more because his suit was apparently designed by the emperor to cause him pain.  I'm guessing for his failure.  Hence why he wasn't put into a bacta tank as soon as the emperor got him back to Coruscant.  He just had them install the parts right over his burned skin.

20 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Maybe Im in the minority but I liked his voice in RO.  I liked the character.  I thought his ending was a waste though.  It felt too neatly wrapped up for the story.  Like, they couldnt fit him in so he decides, for no good reason, to just die.  Silly.  Should have been a greater sacrifice.

His death was really weak. Especially for such a gritty character. 

19 hours ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

the only thing i took away from Whitakers role and his men was they were the "Rebels"  while characters like Cassian were part of the Alliance, 2 separate factions both opposed to the empire. basically to further the point that it was everyone vs the empire. although now that i think of it, i would have rather seen Jabba the hut capture the pilot and sell the plans to the rebels/alliance. give him a little more relevance and showcase he was always just looking out for his own interests

That would have been awesome. But I feel like they are going away from the various alien races more. 

Whitaker was terrible, his voice was terrible.  He was over acting big time. 

14 hours ago, Logan007 said:

Think of it as someone with lots of money getting the best cybernetic parts vs someone who has to scrounge for age old parts because he doesn't have the resources.  Luke was part of the alliance, so their resources were greater.

If you look at Vader though, his cybernetics were not state of the art.  But that was more because his suit was apparently designed by the emperor to cause him pain.  I'm guessing for his failure.  Hence why he wasn't put into a bacta tank as soon as the emperor got him back to Coruscant.  He just had them install the parts right over his burned skin.

While I get that, I guess it came across as at one time Saw was a part of the alliance, but later shunned due to his ruthless and likely wreckless ways, but it didnt seem like the other alliance members were hurting for a bit of luxury in their outfit and gadgets.  I think the point was to make him look like a battle worn vet, but instead looks like "Saw, leader of the reject robot castaways"

I got the impression that the trouble Saw caused was more like some systems or potential allies were put off by his actions and so didn't join the rebellion. Be interesting to see if they do anything with him in Rebels one way or the other.

And don't forget, the British thought American soldiers were terrorists some 250 years ago.

44 minutes ago, tacklewasher said:

I got the impression that the trouble Saw caused was more like some systems or potential allies were put off by his actions and so didn't join the rebellion. Be interesting to see if they do anything with him in Rebels one way or the other.

And don't forget, the British thought American soldiers were terrorists some 250 years ago.

Also, the so-called Alliance seemed like a bunch of wussies.  They didnt want to fight at the end.

5 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Also, the so-called Alliance seemed like a bunch of wussies.  They didnt want to fight at the end.

ehhhh they all went and fought anyway so I see it more like there were some soft as baby sit types but the doers went and did what needed to be done. 

They're lucky a Jedi came along eventually. Although come to think of it, didn't the A alliance destroy the second death star with both Vader and the Emperor on it with no help from Luke?

Can't say much about Forest Whittaker's acting, but I gotta say I really liked Saw Gererra's look. Dude had some serious mileage on him. He's what Vader would look like if the Emperor had built him in the garage.

I like FW generally, though.  I thought he was great in Arrival, which is a great movie that everyone should see.