The midnight angle reminds me of Dark City…the voyeurism of Hitchcock is already well established…interested to hear more!
After watching this movie on Netflix and giving my novel-length thoughts on it in the review thread, I got to thinking about how this film could be radically improved. It would require some substantive editing. In short, switch the first and second acts.
Begin with a crawl. Here’s something akin to what I’m thinking:
Rogue One
It is a time of oppression. The evil Galactic Empire is secretly building a superweapon which will allow it to crush any rebellion once and for all.
Desperate to halt this construction, the fledgling Rebel Alliance has sent a small team to capture the mastermind behind this terror weapon and destroy his facility.
Unbeknownst to the Rebellion, the daughter of this scientist is hidden in their ranks, and her love for her father may decide the fate of the galaxy…
Pan down to Eadu. The ship (whose only identifiable occupants are Jyn, Cassian, and K2SO) crashes on the planet and the two cloaked figures head out in the rain towards the facility. We see these cloaked figures ascend the ridge and survey the assembled scientists, but when Krennic’s ship flies overhead, one figure (Jyn) disappears. After a while, we see Jyn climbing to the platform. The scene plays out as it does in the movie, sans Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut, and with the dream on Coruscant perhaps interspersed with Jyn’s reunion. They escape on the stolen ship and head back to Yavin 4.
Cue first scene of the Death Star.
Back on Yavin, Alliance brass has learned of Jyn’s real name. They question her, realizing that they now have a potential in with Saw’s Rebels. The quest for Jedha remains largely unchanged. We now see her backstory where the dream was before, and her later imprisonment and rescue in bits and pieces. It is not clear that the Rebellion was the party that rescued her from prison. The hologram gains an added weight now that we know that Galen has just died. There is real tragedy this time.
After escaping the destruction of Jedha, the crew is ambivalent about what to do while Jyn wants to plead her case to the Alliance to head to Scarif. Chirrut mentions that Cassian has the air of a killer about him, which brings back the recriminations about Cassian’s true role in the botched ‘capture’. The scene ends with the same acrimony between Cassian and Jyn.
Tarkin and Krennic spar on the Death Star, but the scene ends without Krennic’s determination to go to Eadu. Instead, he departs to Vader to curry favor with the Emperor.
Meanwhile, on Yavin 4, the conference is the same as in the original. After the team departs for Scarif (sans the R2 and 3PO reference), Krennic meets with Vader.
The final act proceeds roughly the same as the original. It is not necessary to change anything from here on out, but I would shift sections of the battle so that it makes sense from a logistical perspective. For example, the fighting on the beach, up to and including Bodhi’s death, all happens before Jyn decides to transmit the plans using the dish. This way, there can be no rescue in the transport. Similarly, Bodhi’s successful transmission to the fleet is what compels them to ‘begin probing that shield’. The bombing runs on the shield gate and the Star Destroyer decapitation maneuver are both the result of this communication. Krennic is told of the data breach the moment after Cassian fails to use the right hand of the officer, and the waves of Stormtroopers are a result of Krennic’s direct orders.
The film cuts to black after the final shot of Vader staring at the departing Blockade Runner. In this version, with the removal of the R2 and 3PO shot earlier, there is ambiguity as to whether this is the Tantive IV or whether it later beams the plans to another Blockade Runner.
I do concur that Hutt may have been originally a title not a species name, as it would be like calling Vito Corleone Vito the Italian.
Perhaps there are multiple famous characters named Jabba in the galaxy.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/28/16059486/trump-speech-police-hand
This is terrible for the country etc, but all I could think about in the last line was
Aw thanks guys. 😃
Hopefully it will be just another short hiatus until I get settled in the new place.
Status Update:
Reel 1: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 2: Preliminary Grade 95% - Finalized 90%
Reel 3: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 4: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 5: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 6: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Total Preliminary: 99.1% - Finalized 98.3%
And here we are, with only one more scene to go. It is at this point in any story where something needs to go wrong, and in thoroughly predictable fashion it has. RIP my primary graphics card.
I’d hoped to have this finished before moving to a new apartment this weekend, yet with no funds for replacing the card I will need to dust off my old tower and see if it’s still up to the task of rendering these final shots.
Agree that the twist and the Hades battle was the worst part of the movie. Take that out, maybe apply some color correction to lessen the blue tint, and I’d gladly forget any other version existed. 😃
I’m worried about the rise of genuine White Nationalism that’s occurred while people were worrying about “SJWs”. I mean real White Nationalists, not some redneck asshole down the street that goes to Klan meetings every weekend but doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground; but the people who are creating and citing studies that “prove” black people have a lower IQ, or are inferior in some other way; young people who know how to speak convincingly and how to pull people to their side. It seems to me that young people are becoming more and more extreme on each side of the political spectrum, and that probably has something to do with growing up in the internet age. It’s allowed these ideas to grow in isolated settings, where they aren’t ‘softened’ by discourse with opposing ideas. I really hope that these ideas stay fringe and confined to the internet and the public discourse doesn’t become Communists vs Nationalists again; it didn’t work out so well the last time.
One could also say that the internet age has facilitated a departure from herd mentality, for good or ill. Now everyone feels like they can be an expert, and I think this is a large part of why the mainstream media is so vilified. Everyone is way too cool to believe things that ‘the man’ pronounces from on high, but the problem is that nobody is omniscient and many people still can’t see the walls of their ideological prisons. For people like this, Trump’s lies don’t really matter because they know that people have talked down to them all their lives, and they believe that these media gatekeepers often lie to support their agendas so it’s no big deal if someone on their side evens the playing field a little. It’s payback. It’s also nihilistic. It ignores the difficult job of sifting though a torrent of information to cull the truth, preferring to label anything that one disagrees with merely fake news.
The silver lining is that, freed of the reliance on established media sources, more and more people are able to aggregate quality information and discuss methods of minimizing their own biases. The discussion, often taking place in the blogosphere or other less-traveled corners of the internet, is usually technical, sometimes uncomfortable, and designed to minimize aspects of clickbait which make them immediately palatable to the human mind. Here the commenters begin by saying ‘I’m probably wrong…’ instead of ‘I’m obviously right’, and I find myself avoiding them because they may slaughter yet another sacred cow I didn’t know was grazing in my mental backyard.
But we know all that, it’s the informational equivalent of eating our veggies. The latest Trump outrage is a bottomless bag of chips by comparison, and it’s hard for me to refrain from chowing down. Perhaps more discipline is needed…
At the end of the day, this is another example of Trumpy’s rage boner against anything Obama has ever touched. If Obama had signed an executive order barring the kicking of puppies off of cliffs, Trumpy would reverse it.
With the administration obsessed with ‘make one regulation, kill two’, this would be a real possibility.
On an unrelated note, has anyone else noticed that the Onion has been reading more like real news lately?
It’s in my top ten for animated movie soundtracks. Looking forward to his interpretation.
What exactly does Yoda do in the prequels? I’ve been meaning to bring this up, somewhere on this forum, but maybe we could cut Yoda out entirely.
To a dark place this line of thought will carry us. Great care we must take, or remove all characters from the prequels, we will.
watching NPR live stream (on FB) of senate vote for discussion of health bill, and some dude keeps posting the dialog from the prequels about darth plagueis. i don’t know if i should laugh or cry. THIS is how democracy dies. i chuckled.
A reference to these weirdos?
I’d almost forgotten that the Luke/Biggs scene before the big battle was added for the SE.
I like that one.
BUT R2 MAGICALLY TELEPORTS IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE SCENE!
0/10 FAIL
NEVER FORGET!
(What is it with R2 now doing impossible things in the SE?)
It’s quiet…too quiet.
I see.
Best line never on screen: Ben uses a Force distraction to get Our Heroes from the Falcon to the control room. Han says “How did you do that?” Ben replies, drier than the Dune Sea, “Simple tricks and nonsense.”
I like it! I’ve wondered about that bit of unseen action several times before.
This is promising news!
What was plan B again?
I don’t wish to get into a long debate, I write the following just because I want to clarify my earlier statement and hopefully eliminate possible confusion.
For the sake of the example, let’s just assume that Anakin survived the end of RotJ for a minute so that this can be more easily applied to Anakin Skywalker or Ben Solo.
I’ve no doubt that either character would, or should be held accountable in a court of law. And they would likely be punished quite harshly. But judicial process and punishment, in this case, is an entirely different and separate thing than the forgiveness or redemption of which I refer (and I thought other posters referred to as well).
Personal forgiveness is all about the person(s) wronged by or in some other way affected by the bad choices made by Anakin or Ben. Personal forgiveness is about an individual coming to terms with the previous bad actions/choices made by Anakin/Ben and choosing to not hold it against them going forward. This forgiveness thus opens the door to things like Luke possibly getting to have a meaningful relationship with his father, or Leia a renewed relationship with her son. It can also allow things like surviving victims the ability to cope and move forward with their lives without the unbearable burden of suffering, resentment, or hate.
Spiritual redemption (which is CLEARLY what Lucas had in mind for Anakin) is all about a change of heart which results in a change in action. Anakin’s killing the emperor was NOT his act of redemption, it was a physical work that was a RESULT of his repentant heart. No amount of good works can “cancel out” the bad things these characters have done. It’s about them forsaking evil and the dark side, and embracing the light. And yes their actions going forward will reflect that change and likely directly oppose the types of actions they took before the change. But the actions themselves are not, and do not create, the redemption. That is a direct result of a change of heart from evil to good.
For all his faults, anakin’s spiritual redemption is one thing George got absolutely right (in spite of pushback it seems) and I would HATE to see that screwed with in the sequels. Anakin’s ghost should not be conflicted because he changed in his heart and turned away from the dark side forever in that moment.
QFT
Valerian:
1/4 of the way through: Really cool!
1/2 of the way through: Pretty good.
3/4 of the way through: Is this really necessary to the plot?
All the way through: Well that was formulaic.
My recommendation: Watch it in reverse.
I like that they’re not going for an exact imitation of Wiseau. It’s more of an interpretation of the guy than a mimicry.
Oh hai, randomly generated content which feels uncomfortably political.
Perhaps I should just accept it.
That is one of the things I hated about the prequels. I’m all up for redemption and everything, but when you slaughter a school full of kids, I don’t think you get to come back from that.
In The Making of Return of the Jedi, the writers also had a problem with Vader becoming a Force Ghost at the end, but Lucas was adamant that even someone who committed atrocities could be redeemed. I very much agree with this.
Trump 2017:
I’m halfway through the movie and it’s already Razzy material.
Phoned-in acting, cynical plot, literally unbelievable writing, zero forward momentum, gratuitous offscreen violence, and doesn’t know whether it wants to be a crime drama or a farce.
30/50 states.
I like the intentional omission of Yoda.
my opinion is that the electoral college needs changing, and gerrymandering needs to be fixed.
It’s a good start, but this assumes that the majority tends to be right, and while it is true that a minority in control of all the levers of power makes most of the country unhappy, it is also possible that this minority could be in the right. What worries me is that with the erosion of good journalism and education, a con man like Trump could easily get the majority of the votes in an election. If that happens a fair and democratic system would work against us.
I guess I’m saying that good journalism and healthy discourse is just as important as a fair and free voting process.