"This isn't a Star Wars movie," - my 5 year old son one hour into Rogue One.
I finally got around to watching Rogue One. Plenty of ink wasted on this film. MPC has ripped it to shreds via various posters reviews. It's a script that would have been better as simply a 'terrorism' or modern warfare film, not Star Wars. A military heist film is always fun. Strip the film of the goofy sci-fi stuff, and this would be a nice film about using a third party or mercenary group to pull off something that ol' Uncle Sam doesn't want his fingerprints on for blame. Here are ten observations:
1. Hard to like any of the protagonists. Ip Man (Donnie Yen) is pretty interesting as the blind kung fu guy, but there is no one to really root for in the film. Hollywood should greenlight an "American cop goes to Shanghai and is a fish out of water" film with Donne Yen as his Chinese police liaison. With all the Chinese kleptocrat immigrants coming to America, this would be an easy script to write and have the CCP approve production of "Shanghai Surprise".
2. The girl power action lead casting has to stop. I know this is a directive from up on high to destroy toxic masculinity and empower women, but it is laughable. Akinokure has a point on the trans nature of it all, but all this does is force young boys to search for a different favorite character to identify with, and as they diversity cast the protagonists, white kids will seek the bad guys. At least this female in Rogue One was cute and less androgynous than "Rey, the boy with tits" in Force Awakens but at the average female height, the idea of her being an action tough guy is already weak. It crumbles in the shot where she wears the Imperial pilot gear and is standing next to the muddled accent Spanishy guy and robot, and you see that she is a head shorter than the guy. She looks like a kid yet we had an older character commend her how as a teen she was already a great warrior. She is a wee woman. Stop this insanity.
3. There are CGI versions of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher. They also spliced in video of original A New Hope rebel pilots. They look good enough that one could see how they reboot things in the future. Why use actors anyway? Could they remake the originals of films but with prog approved changes? Sure. Can 'live' events be faked? Sure. I found this more frightening than cool.
4. Forest Whitaker plays some too rough for the Rebels type of rebel leader. It's cartoonish. His voice throws it over the top though as it sounds like he is the bad guy (Baron Silas Greenback) from "Danger Mouse". I had to suppress laughter when he was onscreen. Fortunately, that is not for long.
5. Here's the genius to going after State Farm interracial pedo ads, attacking academics that wish for White Genocide and going after Star Wars diversity casting or all white bad guys framing: it forces the issue in the open. Had the Star Wars writer NEVER said that he had made the film to be a strong woman leading a diverse group over evil white males, a lot of normies would have just taken the imagery in and had their minds massaged to equate white as bad and diverse as good. The Disney employee idiotically mentioned it. He should have stayed silent. Trump's win triggered these fools that hard. By the AltRight reacting to it, it made people see the unspoken message. it couldn't be covert or subconscious anymore. By pointing it out too, just like the State Farm ad, it makes the people aware but unsure of things suddenly realize that many others see it and dislike it. This now means normies will see the same "diversity vs white group" set up and know the messaging, not just suspect that it is on purpose. Isn't the easier political analogy due to desert setting,jihadrebellion and fascism Israel vs Palestinians?
6. There is a comical bit to all of these Star Wars films where we have to pretend that the magical energy or power weapons of the prequel trilogy somehow do not exist in these newer movies. If they have access to exotic aliens, why didn't they call up some aliens to design interesting weapons for them. They still have to transfer data plans on a floppy disk? Come on Disney, they can transmit plans through space from giant towers but need a goddamn floppy disk, and the plans can fit on a disk?
7. The gritty imagery combined with illogical plot and story bits means we have a movie designed for adults that don't want any consistency or thinking... a film for liberal adults. Star Wars isn't a kiddie or teen escape anymore; it's gritty, man, like real, man. This also makes the completely cliché "rebellions are built on hope" garbage seem so forced. To match the gritty take, an angry, vengeful rebel would have pitched the 'steal the plans' mission far differently.
8. The Rebellion isn't pitched as the idealistic good guys fighting the evil Empire anymore. Nope, the ol' Buck Rogers stark contrast stuff is gone. This is the age of the anti-hero after all, and the age of authenticity. There outfits are all dingy and dirty. The original films portrayed a "used universe" not a 3rd world humans walking around in shitty clothes in a used universe. They can fly through space, I'm sure they can have clean clothes and faces. This is about us. Even our fictional galactic space wars need to be grey (again, this would be a great modern warfare flick). How am I going to like a protagonist when he shoots his informant/spy dead in the first 3 minutes like the guy was meaningless? Notice that the gritty and grey Rebel thing would NOT be the old, black edgy rebel turning on the female lead like some false opposition figures do. Think back to Total Recall; they had Bennie the black mutant turn on Arnold at the end. Would never happen today unless Bennie was white.
9. Star Wars and Star Trek have been put into the hands of directors who can't build simple life or death tension so they have characters dangle from ledges often. It's like having Helen Hunt run in the rain to have a wet t-shirt when talking to Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets" because she couldn't generate any sexual tension normally. You know what would have been a tense scene without the need for dangling over bottomless chasms? Have Vader be 1-on-1 searching for the female lead through a space station, ship or building. A rip off of sorts of the Terminator or Jurassic Park "hunt scenes", but imagine it with a Vader taunting her like a perverse, winner take all hide 'n' seek.
10. Darth Vader shows up, and since they did reshoot over a third of the film after test audiences panned it, I wonder if his scenes were added in. Vader's dark hallway killing spree was pretty intense. It conveys the horror of his power and capabilities. There was no stopping him. If Disney wanted to make a billion profit, not box office, pure profit, it would make a "Vader Kills Everything" movie. Set up: Vader and the Empire goons go to a planet to investigate some lost squad. Their planetary guide betrays them, and Vader couldn't Force-feel it since it was a droid guide. The squad is killed and Vader is basically left alone on the planet to fight his way off. It'd be like the old Conan stories where Conan would have his back to the wall and would have to kill 200 men. Just have Vader kill beasts, aliens, men, droids, ships, etc. as he made his way off the planet. I'd pay $10 to see it.
My son did not care for it. These are not even kids' movies anymore. I was a bit bored with it as well. Star Wars movies have made the same transition that comic books did. They are no longer for kids but for the guys who never grew up. Disney gotta print them dollars though!.... Hey look a trailer for the new fast + Furious film where the diverse group is betrayed by Vin Diesel because the evil, white, blonde haired and blue eyed Charlize Theron seduced him!!!!