SomethinSomethinDarkSide

Vladius said:

So I tried out watching Rogue One immediately after the show. I know I said it improves it before and it does, but it had strange results.

The first half of Rogue One, which I think is weak, is greatly improved. Knowing Cassian, K2, Saw, Krennic, etc. helps it flow very naturally and helps you to care a lot more about what’s going on. Same with the rebels generally. Since the pace of the show is so slow, Rogue One, which normally feels slow early on, feels much faster by comparison. Almost too fast. Cassian almost rises to the level of secondary protagonist because you know him so well by this point. When he decides not to snipe Galen Erso it’s much more meaningful. You know his modus operandi under Luthen was to gun down anyone who could potentially be a problem, and you see that at the beginning of the movie with his contact on Kafrene. The theme toward the end of the show where he starts to embrace the Force a little bit carries through pretty well.

The part where he tells Chirrut that “this is a first for me” when he’s in Saw’s jail is hilarious because they either forgot about it or he’s lying, given that there’s an entire arc in the show about him escaping a hell prison.

There’s also an interesting dynamic with Krennic’s character. We saw him as the intimidating upper manager figure in the show, but when we see him next to Tarkin and Vader he’s in the junior leagues. There’s a feeling that everything has gone up a level and there’s a natural progression from spies running around to open conventional war.

Then the other half of the movie, which people generally see as much stronger because it has most of the action and the big battle, actually gets weaker. The idea that Jyn steps up and becomes a leader figure right away looks even more absurd because we’ve just seen how paranoid and distrustful the rebel command is and how long it’s taken them to trust Cassian. There’s some of that discussion in the council with some of the worst senators ever but it’s still odd. Then they naturally defer to her to give an inspirational speech to the soldiers on the landing craft, when Melshi is clearly their real leader. The way she suddenly becomes the most important figure in the universe with the ability to single-handedly take out a dozen stormtroopers in melee comes across as more Mary Sue-ish next to the more grounded feeling of the show where everyone receives a lot more development. Baze and Chirrut similarly feel a little more out of place.

The ending feels even more abrupt. There’s no real breather where you take in that everyone died, it just slams right into CGI Leia and credits with little explanation. This was more understandable when this was just a fan film prequel for the original movie but now it feels almost insulting, for lack of a better word.

I have yet to re-watch Rogue One now that Andor is over but you bring up some points that will probably ring true for me as well.

G&G-Fan said:

One of the most hilarious scenes to me is when the inquisitors chastise Reva for harshly interrogating the citizens of Tatooine. Did they forget that they’re evil? For Vader, their boss, that’s a Tuesday when he’s in a good mood (though obviously without the yelling and overly wordy speech).

Haha. Did not even think of that.

I honestly don’t understand how it looked as low budget as it did at times. The first fight between Obi-Wan and Vader in that quarry literally looked like a fan film. Like, how do you get Ewan McGregor back and not give this project all you’ve got? If they could do it for Andor they could have done it for this.

Also, while we all know that the prequels and the OT don’t line up perfectly, the events of this show take it way too far. Leia having a whole adventure with Obi-Wan as a kid is ridiculous. In ANH she only knows Obi-Wan by name and reputation. She’s really not upset at his death in ANH because she never knew him.

And Obi-Wan fighting Vader between the PT and OT makes Vader’s line about only having been a pupil when they last saw each other even more ridiculous. I guess you could say that it never made sense in light of the fact that in the PT Anakin already saw himself as a master, and in many ways, superior to Obi-Wan but still.

This show needed to have way smaller stakes. Obi-Wan having to find his faith again was a good angle to take and it humanized him a lot. Throwing Vader in there was a total overkill. If they had to have a big villain then it should have been Maul but Rebels prevented them from doing that. And if anybody had to have a duel with Vader then it should have been Ahsoka but again, Rebels already did that as well.

Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

I’m not convinced this movie is ever coming out.

This goes for basically every Star Wars project nowadays. It’s amazing how they go on stage with stars and directors to announce these films and even that doesn’t mean anything.

This is almost as specific as this haha:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul-aswQQHRc

To answer the question in the OP, I think I still haven’t fully come to terms with how the ST turned out. I was so excited before TFA and it didn’t disappoint. It was the movie I never thought I would see and I couldn’t wait for more. But TLJ and Carrie Fisher’s death pretty much wrecked me and TROS may very well be the biggest film-going disappointment of my life. I’m not going to regurgitate points that have already been brought up a million times but the sequel trilogy kind of turns the whole saga into one giant tragedy. It all ends up feeling so nihilistic and pointless and that’s not what I want Star Wars to be but it is impossible to undo it now. Thinking about the ST mostly just makes me sad. I haven’t re-watched any of the ST since 2019. Maybe a fanny and sad comment coming from a 35-year-old-man but that’s how I feel about it.

Oh man, this brings back some memories. Watching this on YT as a teenage was an experience onto itself.

JadedSkywalker said:

I thought that too except about Phantom Menace until i saw the awful redone colors and DNR on Attack of the Clones, a digitally shot movie. The 4K is a mess. The 2011 blu has more detail in places. Lucasfilm keeps making these ridiculous mistakes with releases going back to 2004.

The 4K of Phantom Menace looks waxy and smeary in places like a 1080P HDCam and not a movie shot on 35mm motion picture film.

Wow. So the 2011 Blu-ray release is actually preferable to the ¤k release when it comes TPM and AOTC?

Wow, the TESB and RoTJ special editions look amazing.

Finally joined. Haven't been to these parts for a while but I decided to once again google for the 1997 special editions and it seems that they're being worked on over here. I must say that I'm excited because those are the versions I grew up with (I also enjoy the theatrical versions, the 2004 special editions and the Blu-ray versions I don't really care about).