Rogue One * Spoilers * Thread — Page 163

ray_afraid said:

DominicCobb said:

ray_afraid said:

DominicCobb said:

he just says it’s primarily about sacrifice

But it’s not.

It’s not because ultimately it’s not really primarily about anything

I’d say it’s a movie about learning to work together despite differences. I think that comes through clearly.

Like the theme of sacrifice, it’s clear they wanted this to be one of the things it’s about (though I don’t think they really succeeded in making the teamwork feel earned).

I personally don’t see how the sacrifice angle isn’t just as clear. Jyn’s mom sacrifices herself to buy Jyn some time, Galen in a way sacrifices himself to put a weakness in the weapon, Saw sacrifices himself to let the others get away in time, Cassian talks about how his life has been full of sacrifice, Jyn has to make a decision to join that life of sacrifice (rather than ignore the struggle), and of course the whole team and a whole lot of rebels make the ultimate sacrifice in the end in the hope that they can give the others the plans to destroy the Death Star.

Mocata said:

DominicCobb said:
though I certainly would’ve appreciated a better understanding of his impact on Jyn’s character.

Exactly.

I’m just saying this didn’t necessarily have to be done with additional Saw scenes, and that there’s no way for us to know if the additional Saw scenes they originally shot actually did this. It seems like Jyn was originally a very different character.

DominicCobb said:
It seems like Jyn was originally a very different character.

Any character would be nice.

Edit: I’m gonna stop talking about this movie now, it inspires too much annoyance haha.

ray_afraid said:

DominicCobb said:

Mocata said:

DominicCobb said:

Mocata said:

DominicCobb said:

Mocata said:

I’d rather see the version which had more Saw Gerrara as an actual character, and a finale where the group are actually together. It could still be a grey, lifeless marketing exercise but I’m not sure why he thinks this was an improvement.

I’m not sure why either of those would improve it. It sounds like the changes he made were narrowing the focus of the film and making the character motivations clearer. If anything, he didn’t go far enough.

Because those are character moments that are important for making me care about characters in a movie. As it stands I have no idea what Jyn and Saw were motivated by, beyond a few clichéd sound bites.

Well that’s under the assumption that those unused moments with Saw would provide his motivation, and that his motivation is necessary to the overall story. As is he’s ultimately not incredibly important to the narrative, so in my mind it makes sense to streamline his story if he’s out before the halfway point (and when there’s at least 8 other important characters that are still alive and relevant).

Personally Saw and Galen were the only interesting people and they were wasted. They just die and we’re supposed to… be sad? I don’t get it.

Reading Catalyst made me wish we got more of the Galen/Orson dynamic, or at least we saw Orson motivations fleshed out a bit more.

Is Catalyst good? I mean, besides giving some backstory to the characters of R1, is it a good story in your opinion?
I’ve kinda been wanting some new Star Wars in my life, but the few titles I picked up in the 90’s have left me pretty gun shy.

It depends what you’re looking for. I think it’s one of the best SW new books I’ve read. It kind of plays like a Galen/Orson biography, detailing their history together and going through about five years or so of them working on the station right up to the point where Galen finds out about its true purpose and runs off. I think its a good read, mainly to see the actual friendship that was there with those two (and more of the Tarkin/Orson conflict too). But if you’re looking for a wham bang fantasy action adventure, that’s not it. More of an interpersonal sci-fi drama.

ray_afraid said:

Thanks. Sounds good. I think I’ll pick it up and the new book that leads into the Han Solo movie. Or did I dream that one up?

No sir - http://www.starwars.com/news/daniel-jose-older-on-telling-a-han-and-lando-tale-in-last-shot

JEDIT: huh, comes out pretty soon too, April 17.

moviefreakedmind said:

ray_afraid said:

moviefreakedmind said:
Just for the record, I wasn’t being sarcastic with my comment on it being about sacrifice, I genuinely didn’t get any of that from the movie. I thought it’s message was about “learning to work together” and “doing the right thing” or something like that.

Yep. It’s funny that someone who doesn’t even like the film seems to understand it better than some of the people who worked on it. 😉

In his defense, saying it’s about “sacrifice” is a lot more exciting-sounding than saying it’s about “doing the right thing.” As for the rough cut and Edwards’ direction, I just don’t feel judging a product that I haven’t seen and still know nothing about. Like you said, Edwards is a good director (which is what I credit the visual beauty of Rogue One to) so I don’t like the idea of taking some guy’s word that his movie was so bad.

Again, he’s not “some guy,” he’s a director himself (and one I’d probably personally consider more talented than Edwards). Even good directors can make bad movies, and being a good visual director doesn’t not necessarily mean being a good story director. And again, if the movie was bad, it wasn’t entirely Edwards fault. And again, Edwards continued working on the film during the reshoots.

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to believe that maybe if they drastically retooled a movie after it was almost finished that maybe that movie wasn’t turning out to be very good. Occam’s Razor and all that.

ray_afraid said:

DominicCobb said:

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to believe that maybe if they drastically retooled a movie after it was almost finished that maybe that movie wasn’t turning out to be very good. Occam’s Razor and all that.

It’s not that I find it hard to believe, I just wish they’d be more transparent about how things went down. With there seeming to be a gag order on the subject, I don’t fully trust anything that makes it past the guard so to speak.

I wish that they were more open about the process too, but it seems like LFL (or maybe Disney) is trying to make it seem like these are trouble-less productions.

What makes Gilroy seem credible is the fact that it sounds like he’s telling tales out of school (he holds back only when it comes to directly stating things it sounds like legally can’t be said), and what he’s saying doesn’t really reflect well on the studio.

Well he’s talking about how it was a great idea for a newcomer to come in and re-adjust a big budget project after production started. His story comes just one month before a film is released that suffered the same problem. Hmm.

I don’t understand why any of this matters. You liked the film or you didn’t, who cares how it got to the place it did?

TV’s Frink said:

I don’t understand why any of this matters. You liked the film or you didn’t, who cares how it got to the place it did?

Because the creative process is both interesting and important.

Personally, I love the final film but I’m also incredibly interested in what could have been. I’d love to see Edward’s first cut. I’d love a great documentary or making-of book that details the production of this film. I also really want to see all the deleted scenes/unused footage (and there’s evidence that there was a LOT of it).

It’d be awesome if Disney put out an ultimate edition on home video that included all those things…

One thing im particularly curious about is how much of the final film is Edwards, and how much is Gilroy? Too bad we’ll probably never know.

TV’s Frink said:

I don’t understand why any of this matters. You liked the film or you didn’t, who cares how it got to the place it did?

Different people have different tastes and judgement. Some Star Wars fans might not particulary care the direction the franchise is taking or how the movies are produced as long as they’re good. Some others might do. There is no better opinion.

GZK8000 said:

TV’s Frink said:

I don’t understand why any of this matters. You liked the film or you didn’t, who cares how it got to the place it did?

Different people have different tastes and judgement. Some Star Wars fans might not particulary care the direction the franchise is taking or how the movies are produced as long as they’re good. Some others might do. There is no better opinion.

I don’t see what that has to do with what I said.

And as for the rest, I like good documentaries too. I just don’t get arguing over what a director supposedly or supposedly did not intend.

You asked why people bother with how a film was produced. I said some people care about this stuff, or they want to know what has the director in mind before judging the movie in these or those terms.

moviefreakedmind said:

DominicCobb said:

ray_afraid said:

DominicCobb said:

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to believe that maybe if they drastically retooled a movie after it was almost finished that maybe that movie wasn’t turning out to be very good. Occam’s Razor and all that.

It’s not that I find it hard to believe, I just wish they’d be more transparent about how things went down. With there seeming to be a gag order on the subject, I don’t fully trust anything that makes it past the guard so to speak.

I wish that they were more open about the process too, but it seems like LFL (or maybe Disney) is trying to make it seem like these are trouble-less productions.

What makes Gilroy seem credible is the fact that it sounds like he’s telling tales out of school (he holds back only when it comes to directly stating things it sounds like legally can’t be said), and what he’s saying doesn’t really reflect well on the studio.

It does reflect well on himself, and a common criticism of Rogue One (whether you agree with the criticism or not) is that it was heavily reshot and the implication is that it was reshot for the worse. Cynically, it would make sense for him to say something like this. I’m not calling him a liar, I just don’t feel comfortable with taking it for granted that Edwards’s version was bad just because the man who was hired to reshoot it says so.

To be fair, we don’t know what the issues were. For all we know, Edwards’ vision may have been great, but Disney had demands for the final act which Edwards couldn’t easily reconcile with his own vision of the original script. And that may be the ‘trouble’ Gilroy was talking about.

At the end of the day, I don’t think we should take Gilroys comments as a knock towards Edwards or his original version. They certainly could be, but could just as easily be knocks at the producers/Disney, or just the production as a whole.

Humby said:

moviefreakedmind said:

DominicCobb said:

ray_afraid said:

DominicCobb said:

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to believe that maybe if they drastically retooled a movie after it was almost finished that maybe that movie wasn’t turning out to be very good. Occam’s Razor and all that.

It’s not that I find it hard to believe, I just wish they’d be more transparent about how things went down. With there seeming to be a gag order on the subject, I don’t fully trust anything that makes it past the guard so to speak.

I wish that they were more open about the process too, but it seems like LFL (or maybe Disney) is trying to make it seem like these are trouble-less productions.

What makes Gilroy seem credible is the fact that it sounds like he’s telling tales out of school (he holds back only when it comes to directly stating things it sounds like legally can’t be said), and what he’s saying doesn’t really reflect well on the studio.

It does reflect well on himself, and a common criticism of Rogue One (whether you agree with the criticism or not) is that it was heavily reshot and the implication is that it was reshot for the worse. Cynically, it would make sense for him to say something like this. I’m not calling him a liar, I just don’t feel comfortable with taking it for granted that Edwards’s version was bad just because the man who was hired to reshoot it says so.

To be fair, we don’t know what the issues were. For all we know, Edwards’ vision may have been great, but Disney had demands for the final act which Edwards couldn’t easily reconcile with his own vision of the original script. And that may be the ‘trouble’ Gilroy was talking about.

That theory doesn’t really make sense with what we know. For instance, what sort of demands for the final act would they have had? From what we know, Edwards and co. originally had some of the crew surviving because they thought Disney wouldn’t like that, but it turns out they didn’t mind. From the trailers, we can see that the climax was a bit more complicated (two different towers with more stuff on the beach in between). Those changes don’t seem studio mandated as much as trying to improve the pacing and hone the focus. The only other confirmed change to the finale we’re aware of is the Vader hallway scene, which Edwards has said he came up with and directed himself. So I’m not sure how that would fit your theory that Edwards “couldn’t reconcile it with his vision.”

The truth is, movies are constantly evolving. A director’s “vision” for a movie doesn’t mean that they have a rigid idea of exactly how everything with go from start to end, things change the whole way through. In this case it just seems like another filmmaker came in to help Edwards make the movie the best it could be with the time they had. Doesn’t mean they needed to usurp Edwards’s “vision” or whatever.

Gilroy said (paraphrasing) “at that point anything would be an improvement.” Hyperbole aside, that doesn’t sound like he’s describing some secret masterpiece that Disney wanted to ruin or whatever.

At the end of the day, I don’t think we should take Gilroys comments as a knock towards Edwards or his original version. They certainly could be, but could just as easily be knocks at the producers/Disney, or just the production as a whole.

I agree they’re not necessarily a knock towards Edwards and they could easily be taken as a knock towards the production. But he’s very explicitly knocking the “original version.”