I know I'm late to the party, but, oh, Backstroke of the West. Amazing. And the Padme meta is... interesting.
Reviving this thread so I can YELL TEARFULLY ABOUT ROGUE ONE (Coherent thoughts to follow tomorrow probably but ahhhhhhhhhh)
Spoiler: rogue one it was intense and all the main characters died and i'm not sure what i thought about it. other than, "wow, i really didn't expect everyone to die but... it makes sense that they did."
The prequel trilogy wishes it was as elegant as this. I'm still kind of reeling from how intense that was, but I'm pretty sure I loved it. I was trying to compare it to episode vii, which I also loved, and I want to say... Maybe I loved the characters in the episode vii more than this, but I loved the star wars here more than I did in episode vii. (except for K-2SO. he is absolutely flawless) Also I was quietly geeking out over a few details I noticed that were pulled from the earliest episode iv drafts, like a mention of the whills, and 'the force of others be with you.' I'm not familiar enough with those drafts or the extended universe to catch all the cute details they probably included, but I really loved the ones I did catch.
ROGUE ONE OH MY GOD ROGUE ONE AHHHHH I just got back from seeing it and am still really, really hyped up, but I'll do my best to make some coherent commentary. Spoiler: here goes nothing @unknownanonymous I, too, appreciated the commitment to death. like you said, it makes sense, and even though I was so not going into that expecting a "literally everyone dies" movie, I kinda figured that was gonna happen roundabout the time Blind Force Guy (I do not know anyone's name aside from Protagonist Girl (Jin), Hardbitten Rebel (Cassian), and Droid (K2), and those are probably wrong somehow) bought it, so. and I liked how egalitarian they were about it, honestly. like, it coulda gotten real sketchy real fast if they, say, killed off only characters of color, but no, EVERYONE DIES. they are DOING THIS. they are MAKING THIS HAPPEN. if they're gonna be that movie where a bunch of people die, by God, go ahead and have ALL THE PEOPLE DIE. WHY THE FUCK NOT. on a related note, this is sort of a weird thing to say, but I appreciated what a Good and Wholesome death Jin and Cassian had. like, hugging! so tightly!!! holding hands!!!! I was goddamn waiting for them to hug that whole goddamn movie and man did they hug. man. I'm also really glad that they did not kiss (I also appreciated that in Episode VII with Finn and Rey), because, like, I am really sick of Compulsory Heterosexuality, especially how The One Dramatic Action Movie Kiss implies that the only way men and women can grow to care for one another is through romantic attraction. no!! be friends, dammit!!!! platonic dedication!!!!! hell yeah!!!!!!!! I was also so excited that they kept up the whole "acknowledging there are people who are not white" thing, mostly because FUCK RACISM but also because, I gotta admit, I have a hell of a lot of trouble keeping track of which actor is which character based on faces and voices alone, and usually there isn't too much variation in hairstyles, ao having actors with a range of skin tones meant that I knew who everyone was. :P the accents also helped with that, tbh, although I'm terrible with accents and couldn't figure out what most of them were? did anyone recognize Cassian's or Blind Force Guy's? @spockandawe agreed, K-2 is indeed flawless, oh my god. I probably said "same" after every single line he had, honestly. although now I see his full name, I'm slightly angry that they didn't name him, like, K-2SO4 or -SO3. (K2SO4, anyone? potassium sulfate? excellent chemistry jokes???) so yeah, talk to me! please! so I don't start accosting random strangers and dumping my opinions on them!
Oh my god, I was reading through your post and trying to figure out why my brain kept trying to extend his name to K2SO4, and I couldn't figure it out (i am the worst at chemistry), so thank you for that. I've been going back through the at4w comic review archive while I cross-stitch, and I'd just recently rewatched the reviews of The Star Wars, which is a comic series based on the earliest unused drafts from the original movie. And it was already kind of trippy, because the canon series already reused lots of this stuff in other places (like this leia has shades of padme amidala, or the original star destroyer designs were meant to be small fighters), but I really loved seeing the bits and pieces this new movie was able to use. One thing I didn't mention in my other post was the old hardbitten warrior where there's nothing left of him but his head and right arm, which was slid in there so neatly I never would have guessed it was a recycled detail. Also, in addition to the multiethnic universe (not only Diego Luna as a lead, but Diego Luna with his accent as a lead!), I rally appreciated the... cultural variety, if that makes sense? Variety in clothing that felt natural, not as much like costuming as some of the other movies have pinged me. Plus stuff like seeing people who are into 'trust the force' or are force sensitive, but aren't part of the jedi temple structure. It feels much more cleanly integrated. (i know some of this was in the extended universe, but I never really got into that stuff). Also, WOMEN AS FIGHTER PILOTS!! WOMEN soldiers!!!! Not on the ground, which is kinda :T, but I didn't realize how badly I wanted those woman pilots until I got them. (also, literally the only two things I knew going into this movie were 'diego luna' and 'mon mothma', and I was always disproportionately fond of her as a child, so even though it was a minor role. I was really excited to see her here) Oh, and the fight scenes. I don't think they did anything revolutionary in terms of fight scenes in general, but the two big fight scenes felt nice and fresh in terms of star wars fight scenes, the same way the winter forest did in episode vii. I really enjoyed watching them. And I love all the leads, but I would particularly like to express my love of Bodhi. Originally I thought he'd be a boring background pawn, but then he was interesting and sympathetic and I enjoyed his later scenes a LOT.
Spoiler: R1 I really liked this movie. It felt unpolished compared to TFA and the pacing was a little off, but I did really love that they went ahead and killed off all of the main characters. It definitely added so much weight to the story that they went in knowing they were all going to die and then they didn't get saved at the last minute.
always happy to oblige when scientific trivia is involved! [bows] oh, yeah, it didn't at all feel shoehorned in! I just figured it was part of his whole I Have Devoted My Life To Fighting The Forces Of Evil thing. :P ...man. he's from Mexico, right? that was a Mexican accent? shit, I thought it was, like, Eastern European or something. I am really bad at accents. yeah, I really liked the cultural variety too! one of my biggest quibbles with the Star Wars 'verse is its tendency for every planet to have, like, one city max on it (putting aside the fact that plANETS HAVE MORE THAN ONE BIOME EACH AUUUUGH), and the main characters' tendency to all seem like they came from the same planet, on which most people have English accents with the odd American thrown in. before this I hadn't noticed any acknowledgement that this is, like, an interstellar civilization aside from various aliens thrown in for background flavor. YEAHHHH HELL YEAH did I not mention that in my first post? I was psyched about that too, although not in a "NEW THING WELL DONE" way but in a "YOU FOLLOWED THROUGH FROM EPISODE VII" way. I sort of chalked up the general lack of women in Rebel crowd scenes (including Rebel ground troops, but also, like, in the crowds at the base, etc.) as their trying to not make continuity errors? there weren't any women soldiering for the Rebellion in Episode IV, after all, so if half the Rebel soldiers in Rogue One were women, that would be kinda odd. what would they do, say that all of them were out sick during Episode IV? it's like how the ships have to use the same terrible targeting graphics they had in Episode IV, even though that kind of technology doesn't look spacefaring at all now. looking back now, though, it does seem odd that they didn't have any women on the ground... :/ Star Wars fight scenes (and everything to do with space ships, honestly) always seem kinda unrealistic to me in terms of tactics and weaponry and things like that. most of it is just aerial dogfighting transplanted into space, with the occasional navalesque battle cruiser thrown in. don't even get me started on how the fuck any of those ships would be able to maneuver in atmosphere. I mean, the Millennium Falcon? flipping over? without any maneuvering jets?? and all the hangars/cargo bays/etc. just like casually open to space. and it seems that there wouldn't be nearly that many explosions in vacuum. I mean, how much oxygen does an X-fighter even have? ...but yeah, they looked real cool. I was laughing the entire time Spoiler: I mean this is p minor but that "hammerhead cruiser" pushed those massive ships into each other and the gate. PRICELESS. ...which one is Bodhi again
see ok the lack of women ground troops makes me mad BECAUSE IT COULD HAVE BEEN WHY THERE WAS SUCH A DEARTH OF FEMALE HEROES IN THE 70's TRILOGY. LIKE 90% OF THE WOMEN THREW THEMSELVES INTO THIS ASSAULT AND BIT IT. it would resolve the lack of women in the original movies by making it into something badass and tragic, not just 'men suck at casting'. leia isn't the only girl, she's just one of the last ones left. girls can go to war, and girls can die en mass in war, and not just as fridge moms but as soldiers. BUT NO. MEN SUCK AT CASTING.
(waugh, sorry, this is all out of order, I started in the middle and worked my way down and up) Spoiler I think I worked out what about the fights I liked so much. NO JEDI. Jedi are cool and junk, but I think I'm still burned out on the prequel trilogy's fights. The fight in the city was a chaotic mess in fairly cramped quarters. And the fight on the archive planet felt very... I can't pin down a war, but classic war movies, like wwii or something, but with the sci fi additions that go with star wars. There isn't any Glorious Central Showdown, it's a bunch of small, squishy men running and hiding from an overwhelming opposition that brings more and more heavy machinery to hear on them as the battle stretches on. Taking down the at-at walkers is still a HURRAH moment, But it's not like Hoth, it... doesn't even really buy them much time. I really like tat there was only the one force sensitive dude in all this, and he WASN'T in the standard Jedi mold. The way his fight scenes were framed was straight out of a kung fu movie, which isn't FRESH-fresh, but it's fresh for this franchise, especially with laser sword physics-defying acrobatics. Plus the hammerhead cruiser was GLORIOUS. I liked the setup for that fight, with the assault on a single vulnerable point, but more sweeping than the original death star attack (can't blame them, with forty years of advancement in) and less cluttered than the prequel trilogy. Also, despite the lack of ladies, I still appreciated that there were definitely female casualties. Even movies with lady soldiers seem to stay far away from that one :T It wasn't as overt as the dying dudes, which is ALSO :T But the little kid Jyn dramatically risked her life to save died hours later, with her mother. The lady pilot dropping off ground troops was shot down, low enough to survive, but then... death star. I appreciated those more than the dead mom (it would have been nice if she'd just gone straight for surprise-shooting the asshole without the showdown thing) He's the deserter pilot! I only know that one because a buzzfeed quiz told me I'm him :V I believe so! I only know him because of The Book Of Life, which is very Mexican, so I think that's what he is I liked how subtle it was! You get a look at mismatched robot legs early on, but that's disconnected from seeing the rest of him. And then his upper body is very layered, and you get half a line about how there isn't much of him left. If I hadn't watched that review literally a day before I never would have caught the reference. And now I'm fighting the urge to go consume all the other star wars media looking for more easter eggs, this is not a good use of my time ............son of a bitch, that would have been so perfect. Having that grizzled force be mostly ladies instead? One, amazing. And two, what an elegant way to edge closer to the demographics in the original. Shoot, that would have been fantastic.
I was so excited to see Donnie Yen in a Star Wars movie, holy shit (Chirrut Îmwe was the character's name, thanks wiki)
Children of a Dead Earth may have ruined me a bit, but more spacey spaceships/space battles would be nice. The Millenium Falcon is at least disc shaped, which isn't an awful shape. And you don't need oxygen to have an explosion...
see, this right here is why people should pay Roach money to write things and lavish her with praise. what plot! what dedication to continuity! (I'm not sure if I'd call it a casting issue so much as a writing/storytelling one, since the casting directors are not choosing roles' genders most if not all of the time.) what badassitude!!! although I'm not sure how much of the Rebellion's forces ended up fighting on Imperial Archive Planet. having the core group of deserting soldiers who go in with Cassian and Jyn be mostly women would 1) be perfectly plausible and 2) fucking sick as hell, as you have already said. but I think the Rebel troops that fought and died on IAP were less than 50% of the Rebellion's total forces—probably more like 25%, if that. so for the Rebellion to have a decent proportion of female soldiers who almost all get killed on IAP, pretty much every Rebel who fought at IAP would have to be a woman, and I dunno how they could justify that narrative-wise, since not everyone who went to IAP had a choice in the matter, unless Rebel squadrons, etc. were gender-segregated and mostly female squadrons went, but that would open up a whole 'nother can of worms. STUPID RESIDUAL 70S SEXISM. as a guy who has casted and directed several amateur theatrical productions, I can personally confirm this. :P Jedi fights (particularly lightsaber ones!!! WHY DOES NOBODY EVER TAKE ADVANTAGE OF LIGHTSABERS' VARIED AND DEADLY CAPABILITIES) also mildly enrage me, so I'm definitely with you there. Spoiler: discussion of Star Fights man, I loved the hell outta that city fight. realistic urban warfare is good shit and not something I see in sci-fi, like, at all. I was getting sort of an American "Wars" In Iraq/Afghanistan vibe offa it, both because that kinda thing constitutes most of my exposure to, like, guerrilla urban warfare, and because of the sorta dusty desert vibe of the city and some of the fighters' costuming, which seemed a little stereotypical to me. :/ it had a lot of Middle Easterners Are Radical And Violent And Blow Things Up potential, and I was kinda on edge throughout because of that, but it didn't turn out too badly, I think, especially once you got a closer look at some of the fighters and hey, whaddaya know, they're not all Middle Eastern, just dressed sensibly for the climate. YES!!! THIS!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!! ahem. both the whole classic war movie thing and the fact that that was, like, a fight, a real fight fought the way that kinda weaponry is best fought with. (can you tell that I'm kinda angry about glaring military tactical errors in movies? I'm kinda angry about glaring military tactical errors in movies. totally my dad's fault, though, since 20th-century military tactics are a special interest of his and I've absorbed a lot just from proximity.) I was getting 'Nam vibes off of it, actually, what with the sandy beaches and palm trees and so on, but the only movie set during the Vietnam War I've seen is Apocalypse Now (thanks, comparative analysis assignment! that sure was some light entertainment!), so take that as you will. I also was reminded of the D-Day assault in Saving Private Ryan somewhat, but again, I'm not a war movie connoisseur. oh man, definitely. like, in the parts of the franchise I've seen, there's hardly any of the Force as, like, a religion, to use that term somewhat loosely. just a Force, permeating the universe for you to feel, like in Daoism or Unitarianism. (Blind Force Guy was definitely on the Daoist model, but then again, as you pointed out, he's also on the derivative Kung Fu Movie model.) it seems to me that there would be a lot of people who would be with the Force like that, but pretty much the only people immersed in the Force we see are the Jedi, and they aren't so much regular believers as they are holy crusaders, á la D&D paladins. it was nice to see people caring about the Force even though they couldn't use it for telekinesis or whatever. and yeah, the Klassic Kung Fu thing plus the actor being Asian was kinda :/ and, as you said, not fresh, but, I mean, at least he didn't bust out the karate chops and spinning kicks or anything. I always appreciate demonstrations of how efficiently a quarterstaff can fuck shit up, and I also liked the conversion to a blaster-crossbow. what an excellent weapon. yup, so did I! like I said, death egalitarianism. I was also dissatisfied with Dead Mom, although, y'know, at least she did actually shoot the guy. would've been nice to see evidence of the injury later in the movie, though. ...care to link that? oh, was that supposed to be subtle? I noticed he only had the one flesh arm, and once he did the respirator mask thing (and especially when he unhooked it) I figured his torso was probably not doing so good, either. didn't know exactly how much of him was missing, admittedly. ...that being Blind Force Guy, I'm guessing? good to know the character's name so I can stop calling him Blind Force Guy. :P yeah, as aerodynamics go, you could do a lot worse. [looks pointedly at those Imperial ships with the stupid giant uplifted wings] but, like. no maneuvering jets. or flaps. or a n y t h i n g. oh, right! that many combustion reactions, I should say, since you do always need oxygen for those. I guess I automatically think of combustion when I think explosions, especially vehicular explosions, since you typically need a detonator to set off explosions that aren't combustive, whereas hydrocarbon + heat + oxygen = BOOM. I can't think of anything ships might reasonably use as fuel that would explode anoxically, though, plus the explosions in the movie definitely looked flaming to me.
Antimatter? That'll explode anoxically pretty darn good. (Canonically, SW ships generally employ 'hypermatter annihilation' as a power source. I have thoughts on how that works which are fairly involved.) Another possibility is that the 'explosion' is an expanding cloud of molten metal... To be fair to the shuttles, they only put their wings up when landing, and then they have repulsors... I spent a maybe undue amount of time working out a saner Star Destroyer design that included, among other things, actual reaction thrusters. I mean... it does explain why they can't seem to turn worth anything!
