Short-short reaction: It Did Not Suck. Disney is a little scared of what you might do to them if they f*ck up this series. Go see it.
Short reaction: it’s a good movie. There’s a basic paradox about Rogue One: on the one hand, it’s definitely not part of the 9-movie arc that we were promised, and that we’re finally getting now that Disney successfully broke George Lucas’ hands off of the franchise. You’ll see that right from the start. In fact, if you were to strip away the Star Wars universe from this movie it’d still be comprehensible in a way that most of the prequels, alas, would not be. But at the same time Rogue One is firmly locked into the chronology of the Star Wars universe in a way that allows them to not waste time telling you things that you already knew, like what ‘Death Star plans’ are and why it’s so important to get them to the Rebellion. This is to the films overall advantage.
Don’t take your small kids to this one, though. The ‘Rogue’ should be a clue; these people are all from that character class. Good-aligned, for the most part, but good luck finding a Lawful Good paladin in the bunch. It’s not a question of Light and Darkness morality, or one of everything truly being Shadow: it’s about a bunch of Shadowy sorts looking wistfully at the Light, and doing what they can to give the middle finger to the Dark, preferably by shoving that finger right in the Dark’s eye. Because sometimes the paladin needs the rogue.
And, yes: Disney is indeed a little scared of torchlight mobs. Turns out the soulless corporation is made up of people with souls who would feel bad if they sh*t all over their own childhood memories. Go figure, huh?
I was afraid they were going to go full-on gritty moral equivalency. Mercifully that failed to develop.
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That valley though. Sure was uncanny.
Did many Bothans die in the movie? Or did that bit of canon get misplaced?
Canon answer – Many Bothans died to bring the information for the second Death Star.
True, but this movie definately puts that line in perspective and gives it greater weight now.
was the main character much of a Mary Sue? I _really_ disliked that in TFA. The whole “women need to save men, not the reverse” trend just grates on me, and what it tells my little boy is not what I wish him to hear.
More of an ensemble piece from the Lady’s point of view. There were issues, but that wasn’t really one of them.
Rey is not a Mary Sue (Spoilers)!
Nah.
She’s just naturally better at everything than the specialists who have spent years of their life focusing on their relevant skills.
While having a special, mystical insight into how the plot is going to work out.
And all the other characters must love her, despite her making them look like bumbling fools.
.
Wait.
What was the definition of a Mary Sue, again?
(Defensible by canon, yes. Slightly less annoying than Wesley Crusher, yes. But very much a Mary Sue.)
You get a sense this isn’t Lucas’s Star Wars when a Rebel Alliance intelligence officer made the snap (but correct) decision to simply shoot his informant who is likely to get captured by Storm Troopers just so he can escape.
We have at least 2 people in this movie who’ve been in this loosing side of the war too long. One of them waaaay to long, and lost his mind a while back.
You see some of old Lucas’ star wars ( particularly the Senate deliberations of the prequel series and the absurd pacifism of certain factions)
When the Alliance’s legislative body vetoes all rational military options to their crisis in favor of something absolutely shameful that I won’t mention in order to avoid spoilers.
If the Alliance spent 20 years like that no wonder they’ve been fighting so long and ineffectually. One has to assume that following the events of this movie and sometime during Ep. IV the Alliance finally decided to figure out they were an insurgency and gave military leaders full control over military decisions. There has to be an explanation for why the Alliance was able to topple the Empire in 4-5 years when they’d gotten nowhere after 19.
The Tarkin Doctrine of Absolute Terror backfired against the Empire when the Death Star destroyed Alderaan, taking with it one of the founding member of Rebel Alliance. I’m pretty sure that Senator Bail Ogana is on the war faction, but his death and billions in one swift move by Empire energized his faction.
Yeah, there are definitely hints of that in the movie, but just really surprising to see the Rebel Alliance struggle with essentially the same red tape bureaucratic mess that the Republic succumbed to, despite it being a illegal paramilitary waging an insurgency. BUT this massive waste of time explains why said insurgency was so ineffective for 19 years ( space between Ep. III and Ep. IV) and why it all of a sudden achieved near complete victory* within four ( EP. IV – VI) years. And it explains it better then “Luke, Leia and Han Solo” considering they spent most of V and VI not involved with the Rebellion.
* This assumes we go with the New Canon that says the Empire more or less folded after Ep. VI as opposed to the old EU and Former Canon that said it took nearly another Decade before the Empire was subdued and reduced into a Remnant. Personally prefer Old Canon as it makes more geopolitical sense.
And in Episode VII, we saw the same problem again in the New Republic. The New Republic military is so unwilling to take on the threat of New Order that Leia have to form what’s essentially a private militia (Resistance) to fight an entrenched enemy that’s more than willing to go to the mattress.