Decided to watch Rogue One tonight.
About a third of the way through, I was thinking "wow, this film has some funky discursive and artistic tensions both deliberate and unintentional and I kind of want to parse them out more."
But by then end I was basically only thinking "well, that sure was a movie. Definitely a film product all right."
I feel like Rogue One exists to be like...The Perfect Star Wars Iteration For 30something Fans Who Want To Take The Franchise Very Seriously In All The Ways The Prequels Prevented Them From Doing So.
@DensetsuNoGomez It was trying to be too many things at once and kinda half-assed all of them.
@DensetsuNoGomez I was about to say that at least it was well-shot, but then immediately started thinking of a scene that didn't land at least in part due to the cinematography.
@starkatt I just really don't remember a whole lot of anything that happened in it and, perhaps relatedly, the whole thing was too dour and grim and self-serious until the veeeeery end so. Yeah.
@DensetsuNoGomez huh, funny, I felt like it would have been improved by focusing more on some of the heavier themes that were hinted at.
It was trying to be too many things at once, and trying to split the difference between fun light action movie and dark moody film made it not really work as either.
@starkatt I'm not sure where, if anywhere, I felt it being fun and light tbh =/
@DensetsuNoGomez my gf also said I was asking it to be heavier than Star Wars ever has been or ever would be, so maybe it's just me.
I think another major issue I had with it was the whole "the rebel alliance is paralyzed and doing nothing about the Death Star" plotting, if only because it felt like it had no context. Like I get that it can't be a Full Scale Star Wars Movie but it all just felt so small and unmoored until that final battle scene.
Ideally I would have really liked like, a first act major battle scene where the rebellion, at its freshest and strongest, fueled by widespread rage about the direction that galactic politics is going, goes for the Death Star, but they're thoroughly trounced because they have no idea what they're doing. That would not only set up the final act of the movie better, it would also set up New Hope better as well.
But then its a completely different movie in the sense that that's time you're not setting up the whole character-centric stuff about Jyn Erso so...yeah.
@DensetsuNoGomez I'd totally watch that. Most of the character- centric stuff just didn't quite land for me.
@starkatt yeah same tho. Jyn was...kinda nothing-y. Like she's supposed to have Dad Pathos and whatnot but I got the sense they were trying to create a Katniss Everdeen for Star Wars of sorts and I just...eeeaaahhhh????
@DensetsuNoGomez yeah the whole "we're not gonna act on this intelligence at all, then decide to deploy our entire fleet after like 20 guys charged in" thing didn't make any sense to me.
"there were some stars and some wars."