We can write off Leia's feeble excuses as last-ditch efforts, but they sound really dumb in context, lol.

To me they always came off as someone lying through their teeth... I mean even as far back as '78. She got caught red handed, she knew it, he knew it. It's like when a cop pulls you over and you say you were doing 55, when you were really doing 70.

Yeah, but when your cover is "What? I've just been hanging out here on my way to Alderaan", it's a bad lie.

When your cover is "What? No, I swear that wasn't us blasting away from the battle of Scarif as you tried to mow us down with a lightsaber", it's a different level of feeble. Not to mention Darth Vader doesn't call her on it. And, again, we come back to the fact that the plans weren't beamed. And he didn't trace any Rebel spies to her. And his buddy seemed to have no idea that he had just been at the battle of Scarif chasing this specific ship.

I mean, the guys on the Death Star had heard about the Millenium Falcon and knew the ship matched its description of the one blasting its way out of Mos Eisley. Now they can't identify the Tantive IV?

This be prequel-excuses territory, mateys. Next let's talk about how Anakin Skywalker invented C3PO but never recognized him, and how that was totally cool.

It's okay guys. We can admit Rogue One has flaws. They won't take away your Star Wars license, lol.

The 'rebel spies' trail:

Erso

Rook

Saw

Jyn

Generic rebels on flag ship

Generic rebels on Tantive IV

Leia (only one not dead after other rebels are killed or executed after capture)

Sounds like she really was the last link the imps were looking for to lead hem to the plans and the secret base.

I'm not sure where everyone is coming from with this "Leia could not have been at Scarif". From the script for ANH:

"Don't play games with me, Your Highness. You weren't on any mercy mission this time. You passed directly through a restricted system. Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by Rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you."

Sooo...I mean... she had to be there . (Granted, the bolded part seems to have been cut from the movie, so...*sigh*. ANYWAY...)

We can write off Leia's feeble excuses as last-ditch efforts, but they sound really dumb in context, lol.

To me they always came off as someone lying through their teeth... I mean even as far back as '78. She got caught red handed, she knew it, he knew it. It's like when a cop pulls you over and you say you were doing 55, when you were really doing 70.

Yeah, but when your cover is "What? I've just been hanging out here on my way to Alderaan", it's a bad lie.

When your cover is "What? No, I swear that wasn't us blasting away from the battle of Scarif as you tried to mow us down with a lightsaber", it's a different level of feeble. Not to mention Darth Vader doesn't call her on it. And, again, we come back to the fact that the plans weren't beamed. And he didn't trace any Rebel spies to her. And his buddy seemed to have no idea that he had just been at the battle of Scarif chasing this specific ship.

I mean, the guys on the Death Star had heard about the Millenium Falcon and knew the ship matched its description of the one blasting its way out of Mos Eisley. Now they can't identify the Tantive IV?

This be prequel-excuses territory, mateys. Next let's talk about how Anakin Skywalker invented C3PO but never recognized him, and how that was totally cool.


It's okay guys. We can admit Rogue One has flaws. They won't take away your Star Wars license, lol.

The 'rebel spies' trail:

Erso
Rook
Saw
Jyn
Generic rebels on flag ship
Generic rebels on Tantive IV
Leia (only one not dead after other rebels are killed or executed after capture)

Sounds like she really was the last link the imps were looking for to lead hem to the plans and the secret base.

Exactly. Vader wasn't hunting for the plans when he got down to Leia - he'd been hunting for the Rebellion .

"I have traced the Rebel spies to her. Now she is my only link to find their secret base!"

...IE., nothing about the plans.

Which makes sense. When Krennic was complaining to him, Vader seemed (as he's always seemed) completely dismissive of the Death Star. When he was ordered to track down the plans for it - let's face it - he didn't do a very dedicated job . But what he WAS interested in was the overall Rebellion. And via the Rebel plot to capture the plans, he managed to find someone senior enough that she might know where the Rebel base was.

That is - he 'traced the Rebel spies to her' not in context of who stole the Death Star plans ...he more-or-less didn't care about that. Rather, he 'traced the Rebel spies to her' in context of he's been trying to find someone obviously tied to the Rebellion in a senior position that he can interrogate about their base .

If we thought it was good, it was bad? That makes absolutely no sense.

If you thought it was good, that meant you noticed it. If you noticed it, then it wasn't seamless. If it wasn't seamless, then it was bad.Therefore, if you thought it was good, it was actually bad.

Look at the Tauntaun dying in the snowstorm on Hoth. That scene definitely has not aged well, it was pretty bad from the beginning. So you have the problem already in the OT.

From the script for ANH:

"Don't play games with me, Your Highness. You weren't on any mercy mission this time. You passed directly through a restricted system. Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by Rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you."

Sooo...I mean... she had to be there . (Granted, the bolded part seems to have been cut from the movie, so...*sigh*.

The novelization had even more lines:

"Darth Vader ... I should have known. Only you would be so bold—and so stupid. Well, the Imperial Senate will not sit still for this. When they hear that you have attacked a diplomatic miss—"

"Senator Leia Organa," Vader rumbled softly, though strongly enough to override her protests. His pleasure at finding her was evident in the way he savored every syllable.

"Don't play games with me, Your Highness," he continued ominously. "You aren't on any mercy mission this time. You passed directly through a restricted system, ignoring numerous warnings and completely disregarding orders to turn about—until it no longer mattered."

The huge metal skull dipped close. "I know that several transmissions were beamed to this vessel by spies within that system. When we traced those transmissions back to the individuals with whom they originated; they had the poor grace to kill themselves before they could be questioned. I want to know what happened to the data they sent you."

Neither Vader's words nor his inimical presence appeared to have any effect on the girl. "I don't know what you're blathering about," she snapped, looking away from him. "I'm a member of the Senate on a diplomatic mission to—"

"To your part of the rebel alliance," Vader declared, cutting her off accusingly. "You're also a traitor." His gaze went to a nearby officer. "Take her away."

She succeeded in reaching him with her spit, which hissed against still-hot battle armor. He wiped the offensive matter away silently, watching her with interest as she was marched through the accessway into the cruiser.

And the Hammerhead is actually called Hammerhead Corvette! Next Rebel epic for sure.

Amazing film! That final sequence with Darth Vader is the Star Wars best scene ever!

Anakin was a lot faster and flashier in the other prequels.The whole scene was just CGI fanservice, which is fine, but it was dragged out and unbelievable on the top of it, which was super silly. It was basically a cheap movie trick.

I would like to say "glad it worked for you", but because those cheap tricks work so well, we keep seeing them over and over and over again in passable, but mostly uninteresting movies. So am happy for you, but still would prefer that people would not be so happy, about so cheap fan service scenes.

They make a drama about passing a usb stick through a door slit. Everyone knows that all those rebel troopers are dead. And how Vader kills them is fine, but the cheap drama inducing, trying to make it an emotional sense is cringe worthy. It could have been a good scene of pointless, but enjoyable fanservice.

It is cheap, predictable and boring. And we have seen Anakin doing exactly this kind of stuff by now doing at least a hundred times in other prequels. First time with the mask and on the big screen, ok, but no point to make the scene loaded with artificial tension.

I truly disagree (even dislike) this sentiment. Darth Vader got his big-screen debut for kicking ass, and it lasted a whopping minute - yet it's too much? There's no undue melodrama here. In fact, there's no more appropriate scene than this for what the movie represented: the plight of the average rebel soldier in the Star Wars universe. This movie, more than any in the series, shows what lengths rebels have to go to for their cause and the sacrifices they, as people, have to make. It's not melodrama when you watch soldiers die to Darth Vader's unstoppable rampage, because that's exactly what Darth Vader represents to everyone that isn't the Emperor or Luke Skywalker... he's unstoppable. That scene represents despair.

If this movie was about anything, it was about how these rebels aren't just cannon fodder... they're all people fighting for what they believe is the right cause. Every soldier, regardless of whether or not you've seen their backstory, has a history and a reason for fighting the empire. Watching ten of them die, right before they were about to succeed and escape, should mean far more to the viewer than simply rolling one's eyes over an action scene with a light saber. That's not what the scene was. The rebels just ALMOST accomplished something insurmountable against the empire, and the dark lord of the force almost single handedly stops them in their tracks. That scene is far more than fan service. It was a(n only) minute-long punch to the gut of rebel fighters. He is death-incarnate, and the actions taken on Scarif have caught his attention and drawn him into the picture.

It really boggles my mind how someone can watch all of this movie and still dismiss this scene as fan service - are people really incapable of empathizing with "redshirts"? I just don't get how their plight doesn't resonate with viewers. They're dying, for God's sake! Do you feel nothing for Rebel soldiers after watching the ground forces perish, nearly in futility?

Watched it last night, really enjoyed it. Highlight was lots of epic space battles and vader going mental and the ending was great

Lowlight was No scrolling text at the start of the movie, Ywings being pretty lacklustre, capital ships blobbing around not doing much at all.

That seems a little incongrou?. The Capitals don't do much because the Y wings were so effective though? I thought they stole the show fighter wise.

Meant more the rebel ships, would have been nice to see them shoot a bit

That seems a little incongrou?. The Capitals don't do much because the Y wings were so effective though? I thought they stole the show fighter wise.

They did stole it. And god bless them for that cause in old trilogy they were always cannon fodder and nothing more. And they are described everywhere as sturdy bomber-fighters. High time to show some love for them on screen.

That seems a little incongrou?. The Capitals don't do much because the Y wings were so effective though? I thought they stole the show fighter wise.

They did stole it. And god bless them for that cause in old trilogy they were always cannon fodder and nothing more. And they are described everywhere as sturdy bomber-fighters. High time to show some love for them on screen.

Maybe now we can get a Y-Wing fix with new pilots and Horten with an EPT and more bombs and more turrets etc etc

GODDA LUV DEM Y-WINGS

Ywings being pretty lacklustre

I'm sorry? They finally bombed something! An ISD no less! Disabling it!

That seems a little incongrou?. The Capitals don't do much because the Y wings were so effective though? I thought they stole the show fighter wise.

They did stole it. And god bless them for that cause in old trilogy they were always cannon fodder and nothing more. And they are described everywhere as sturdy bomber-fighters. High time to show some love for them on screen.

Maybe now we can get a Y-Wing fix with new pilots and Horten with an EPT and more bombs and more turrets etc etc

GODDA LUV DEM Y-WINGS

New Y Wing only astromech that adds an EPT slot and replaces the Astro slot?

R1 Astromech: 0 points. Limited. Add an [EPT] and an [Astro] to your upgrade bar. You may not equip unique [Astro] upgrades. (Or, you may not equip an [Astro] upgrade costing more than two points).

Hopefully if they do do a Y Wing in an ace pack they'll include an elite generic for the Scum Y as well.

So when will we se the octopus as crew card?

Octopus (2 pt, 3 crew slots)

"You can ask your opponent anything you want. He has to say the truth or he loses the game."

(Start with the passwords of his bank accounts)

Hopefully never. That's one bit of the movie that just felt completely extraneous and a bit off-tone.

I liked it very much. Generally I like to see that not every alien has to be humanoidic

That part I liked.

The content of the scene less so.

It shows how paranoid and uncaring Saw has become. 10% seems like no price to pay for him.

It also covered the tracks of the rebels so that Tarkin could claim to the rest of the Empire that nothing was stolen and that the rebels were comprehensively defeated. in ANH only he and Vader make reference to the plans, it's entirely possible no one else knows they were even stolen.

"You sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you to conjure up the stolen data tapes..." - Admiral Motti.

Data tapes for what? If only we could examine the facility to see what files had been accessed or delivered...

And remember during Rogue One Tarkin informed Krennic that they would publicly deny existence of the Death Star and blame the destruction of Jedha on an earthquake. In a situation where you aren't 100% sure if your super-weapon is going to become public knowledge or not, covering your tracks seems like a good idea.

A politically self-serving move that demonstrates Tarkin's selfishness and short-sightedness. The Empire had covered up bigger things than that with far less effort, and really it would have been pretty trivial to obfuscate just what the Rebels stole or even to claim that the theft had been for nought.

Quite possibly. It was Tarkins arrogance that doomed him in Ep IV after all.

However, it's easy to armchair general his decision with 20/20 hindsight. From his point of view he didn't know how well the rebels on the beach were doing, if they'd succeeded or not already, what they'd taken and what the future of the battle station might be. The Empire is a vast, galaxy-spanning organisation so I think it's fair to decide, when put on the spot as he was, the destroy the facility. The cost of NOT destroying it could have been much higher than the cost of destroying it might have been. If the rebels had not yet succeeded, then he's averted the destruction of the Death Star in Ep IV and ensured the rule of the Emperor for the forsee-able future. If he doesn't destroy the facility and the rebels subsequently steal the plans, he stands to lose everything. And in a worst case scenario, he has to justify his decision to some kind of oversight committee. Seems like a no-brainer if you ask me. He may have reconsidered if he knew that the plans had already been stolen and transmitted, if Krennic wasn't on the surface, etc. But he was operating with an incomplete picture and made a perfectly reasonable decision, given the situation he was in.

Tarkin probably had no idea how far the rebels got. And the archive contains most probably quite A LOT OF data which better does not fall into rebel hands.

In order to ensure nothing gets out he wipes everything (EPT Ruthlessness? ). That that even takes out Krennic is just a bonus.

Once you get a big boulder rolling, it's pretty hard to stop it.

We've all seen those men pulling jumbojets way back when haven't we? And a tug is much much smaller than the boats it usually pushes. But once a big boat is pushed, it pretty much stays pushed if there's nothing strong enough to stop it.

So yeah, the Hammerhead pushing the ioned SD into another SD made good sense to me. What didn't make good sense was for both SD's to stay so close together they'd block a good deal of their own firing arcs. Split up, get a broadside of each of them on the MC75, or something. That shield platform was in no trouble.

I liked the idea of the ramming. Tactic born from pure desperation. And the corvette is constantly accelerating a disabled ISD for along time.

What actually bothered me was that the ISD were so passive even before ionisation. They should have been constantly firing all batteries and totally wreak havoc with the incoming wall of hostile rustbuckets.

That seems a little incongrou?. The Capitals don't do much because the Y wings were so effective though? I thought they stole the show fighter wise.

They did stole it. And god bless them for that cause in old trilogy they were always cannon fodder and nothing more. And they are described everywhere as sturdy bomber-fighters. High time to show some love for them on screen.

Maybe now we can get a Y-Wing fix with new pilots and Horten with an EPT and more bombs and more turrets etc etc

GODDA LUV DEM Y-WINGS

New Y Wing only astromech that adds an EPT slot and replaces the Astro slot?

R1 Astromech: 0 points. Limited. Add an [EPT] and an [Astro] to your upgrade bar. You may not equip unique [Astro] upgrades. (Or, you may not equip an [Astro] upgrade costing more than two points).

Hopefully if they do do a Y Wing in an ace pack they'll include an elite generic for the Scum Y as well.

this is fun but way to expensive

you just keep barrel rolling Horten keepin as much distance as you can (bombs are optional)

But 38 points you get lots better stuff (this is the typical x/y wing problem in the current meta)

and now we need a rogue on pack to fix it

^the crews of the ISDs were in shock that anyone was attacking them, especially since they were guarding the library instead of a manufacturing facility or other more likely target.

Having plowed 30pages:

C3PO and R2-D2 being there was probably unavoidable. I find it annoying as it creates a lot of consistency problems on many of the occurencies they appear.

Rogue 1 was for me a lot better than TFA. As I was immersed almost all the time. Whereas in TFA i repeteadly did drop out due to so many plotholes, bad cuts and railroading.
The pacing of R1 was much better, the film running quite smoothly.
Great with so many "redshirts", and a lot of characters being shades of grey rather than clear cut good or bad.
The beginning could have had an opening crawl and better musical score, though.

How many kilometers of film did they clip?? Soo many scenes from the R1 trailers missing. Really would like to see some of the material (But actually a TFA re-cut would be much more rewarding, giving the really really bad clipping of that one).

Happy that just everyone died. Cassian and Jyn escaping would have been so Hollywood-flic/Disney-childlfilm cheesy.
Even if K2SO might have downloaded himself into the other K-unit, this one get vaporised as well. Hopefully he never returns (we have already to many returns-from-the-grave in SW lore).

K2SO's end scene was so good.
I also liked the praying Chirrut going unharmed through everything, you see the sure-shot Deathtroppers aiming at him, but still missing suddenly. The Force is strong with this one right at that moment (but luckily he's not some light-saber-wielding jerk cgi-jumping all over the place).
Poor, poor Bodhi, left everything and just gets unlucky all the time.
Same with Baze's end. A bit sad that he as the most devoted guardian gets so little out of the force. He should have gone a little bit farther and then died (note: no super-hero stuff for him either, just a tiny nudge to the story, getting him a tiny little bit more done, before he perishes).

Having plowed 30pages:

C3PO and R2-D2 being there was probably unavoidable. I find it annoying as it creates a lot of consistency problems on many of the occurencies they appear.

Rogue 1 was for me a lot better than TFA. As I was immersed almost all the time. Whereas in TFA i repeteadly did drop out due to so many plotholes, bad cuts and railroading.

The pacing of R1 was much better, the film running quite smoothly.

Great with so many "redshirts", and a lot of characters being shades of grey rather than clear cut good or bad.

The beginning could have had an opening crawl and better musical score, though.

How many kilometers of film did they clip?? Soo many scenes from the R1 trailers missing. Really would like to see some of the material (But actually a TFA re-cut would be much more rewarding, giving the really really bad clipping of that one).

Happy that just everyone died. Cassian and Jyn escaping would have been so Hollywood-flic/Disney-childlfilm cheesy.

Even if K2SO might have downloaded himself into the other K-unit, this one get vaporised as well. Hopefully he never returns (we have already to many returns-from-the-grave in SW lore).

K2SO's end scene was so good.

I also liked the praying Chirrut going unharmed through everything, you see the sure-shot Deathtroppers aiming at him, but still missing suddenly. The Force is strong with this one right at that moment (but luckily he's not some light-saber-wielding jerk cgi-jumping all over the place).

Poor, poor Bodhi, left everything and just gets unlucky all the time.

Same with Baze's end. A bit sad that he as the most devoted guardian gets so little out of the force. He should have gone a little bit farther and then died (note: no super-hero stuff for him either, just a tiny nudge to the story, getting him a tiny little bit more done, before he perishes).

IMHO the pacing was way way better than TFA, and a TFA re-edit directors cut etc would be a great thing.

The Trilogy films always seem to have been target at a certain age group which may be why different generations have different feelings about different films

But his one was set up for OLD SCHOOL with lots of easter eggs for the fan boy

First time I saw it not having a crawler annoyed me, after that I got over it but still wanted a John Williams sound track.

How many kilometers of film did they clip?? Soo many scenes from the R1 trailers missing. Really would like to see some of the material (But actually a TFA re-cut would be much more rewarding, giving the really really bad clipping of that one).

Apparently there were some fairly extensive reshoots to lighten the tone of the film. I would guess that the missing material came from the reshot scenes.

One scene that struck me in particular was Jynn's reunion with Saw. In the preceding scenes we have established that Saw is an extremist, even by Rebel standards. He trusts no one and is willing to potentially brain damage a defector looking to join him out of paranoia. In the original trailer, we hear him challenging Jynn's convictions and asking her what she will become if she fights. Yet the scene we actually get suddenly portrays a cuddly Uncle Saw who feels guilty about leaving Jynn behind for her own protection. We may never know for sure but I would bet good money on this scene being one that they reshot as the change in character is quite jarring.

Apparently the scene of Jynn and the Tie fighter at the end of the gantry ended with the Tie being shot down at the last minute by an X-wing. However the scene apparently mirrored the scene where Baze's missile fails to stop the walker only for him to be rescued by an X-wing a few seconds later.

How many kilometers of film did they clip?? Soo many scenes from the R1 trailers missing. Really would like to see some of the material (But actually a TFA re-cut would be much more rewarding, giving the really really bad clipping of that one).

Apparently there were some fairly extensive reshoots to lighten the tone of the film. I would guess that the missing material came from the reshot scenes.

One scene that struck me in particular was Jynn's reunion with Saw. In the preceding scenes we have established that Saw is an extremist, even by Rebel standards. He trusts no one and is willing to potentially brain damage a defector looking to join him out of paranoia. In the original trailer, we hear him challenging Jynn's convictions and asking her what she will become if she fights. Yet the scene we actually get suddenly portrays a cuddly Uncle Saw who feels guilty about leaving Jynn behind for her own protection. We may never know for sure but I would bet good money on this scene being one that they reshot as the change in character is quite jarring.

Apparently the scene of Jynn and the Tie fighter at the end of the gantry ended with the Tie being shot down at the last minute by an X-wing. However the scene apparently mirrored the scene where Baze's missile fails to stop the walker only for him to be rescued by an X-wing a few seconds later.

I also read that Vader slaughtering the rebel troops was re shoot as the original was to brutal for Disney...... Would love to see that footage

I also read that Vader slaughtering the rebel troops was re shoot as the original was to brutal for Disney...... Would love to see that footage

That scene was brutal enough as it was for a 12A film. I doubt the original footage will be on the DVD and studios tend to retain far tighter control of their material than in the past so we may never see the alternative cut.

There is a lot of unused material.

Gareth Edwards:

“What happened was that I’d say a third of the movie or more has this embedded documentary style to it, and as a result we shot hours and hours and days and days of material. Normally when you put a film together it goes together like A-B-C-D-E and you move on. Whereas we had so many permutations, so many different ways it could be constructed, it took longer in the edit to find the exact version.”

And about reshoots:

“We’d always planned to do a pickup shoot but we needed a lot of time to figure out all this material and get the best out of it. So that pushed the entire schedule in a big way. Then Disney saw the film and reacted really well and they said, “Whatever you need, we’re going to support you.” Our visual-effects shot count went from 600 to nearly 1,700, so suddenly we could do absolutely anything we wanted. To design 1,000 visual effects shots should take a year, so it was all hands to the pump and we never came up for air really until about a week ago.”

I'm sceptical about deleted scenes on BR after the insulting TFA BR release.

Having plowed 30pages:

C3PO and R2-D2 being there was probably unavoidable. I find it annoying as it creates a lot of consistency problems on many of the occurencies they appear.

Rogue 1 was for me a lot better than TFA. As I was immersed almost all the time. Whereas in TFA i repeteadly did drop out due to so many plotholes, bad cuts and railroading.

The pacing of R1 was much better, the film running quite smoothly.

Great with so many "redshirts", and a lot of characters being shades of grey rather than clear cut good or bad.

The beginning could have had an opening crawl and better musical score, though.

How many kilometers of film did they clip?? Soo many scenes from the R1 trailers missing. Really would like to see some of the material (But actually a TFA re-cut would be much more rewarding, giving the really really bad clipping of that one).

Happy that just everyone died. Cassian and Jyn escaping would have been so Hollywood-flic/Disney-childlfilm cheesy.

Even if K2SO might have downloaded himself into the other K-unit, this one get vaporised as well. Hopefully he never returns (we have already to many returns-from-the-grave in SW lore).

K2SO's end scene was so good.

I also liked the praying Chirrut going unharmed through everything, you see the sure-shot Deathtroppers aiming at him, but still missing suddenly. The Force is strong with this one right at that moment (but luckily he's not some light-saber-wielding jerk cgi-jumping all over the place).

Poor, poor Bodhi, left everything and just gets unlucky all the time.

Same with Baze's end. A bit sad that he as the most devoted guardian gets so little out of the force. He should have gone a little bit farther and then died (note: no super-hero stuff for him either, just a tiny nudge to the story, getting him a tiny little bit more done, before he perishes).

What's become clear from the discussion is that different people want different things from their Star Wars films. Personally I give the film about 7/10. It had some great scenes, especially the combined space/ground battle was fantastic (and not an Ewok or Gungun in sight).

But it also had some jarring changes of tone and uneven pacing between the 3 acts (maybe as a result of the reshoots, maybe not). A lot of people wanted to see a darker side of Star Wars and I am sure they are delighted but for me the film went perhaps a little too far in that direction. Don't get me wrong I enjoy dark sci-fi/fantasy in the right setting (where is my Dredd sequel?) but I enjoy Star Wars as a more escapist family adventure.

There were times watching Rogue One when I felt like: "Dude, you spilt GrimDark on my Star Wars" .

And the Hammerhead is actually called Hammerhead Corvette! Next Rebel epic for sure.

Amazing film! That final sequence with Darth Vader is the Star Wars best scene ever!

Anakin was a lot faster and flashier in the other prequels.The whole scene was just CGI fanservice, which is fine, but it was dragged out and unbelievable on the top of it, which was super silly. It was basically a cheap movie trick.

I would like to say "glad it worked for you", but because those cheap tricks work so well, we keep seeing them over and over and over again in passable, but mostly uninteresting movies. So am happy for you, but still would prefer that people would not be so happy, about so cheap fan service scenes.

They make a drama about passing a usb stick through a door slit. Everyone knows that all those rebel troopers are dead. And how Vader kills them is fine, but the cheap drama inducing, trying to make it an emotional sense is cringe worthy. It could have been a good scene of pointless, but enjoyable fanservice.

It is cheap, predictable and boring. And we have seen Anakin doing exactly this kind of stuff by now doing at least a hundred times in other prequels. First time with the mask and on the big screen, ok, but no point to make the scene loaded with artificial tension.

I truly disagree (even dislike) this sentiment. Darth Vader got his big-screen debut for kicking ass, and it lasted a whopping minute - yet it's too much? There's no undue melodrama here. In fact, there's no more appropriate scene than this for what the movie represented: the plight of the average rebel soldier in the Star Wars universe. This movie, more than any in the series, shows what lengths rebels have to go to for their cause and the sacrifices they, as people, have to make. It's not melodrama when you watch soldiers die to Darth Vader's unstoppable rampage, because that's exactly what Darth Vader represents to everyone that isn't the Emperor or Luke Skywalker... he's unstoppable. That scene represents despair.

If this movie was about anything, it was about how these rebels aren't just cannon fodder... they're all people fighting for what they believe is the right cause. Every soldier, regardless of whether or not you've seen their backstory, has a history and a reason for fighting the empire. Watching ten of them die, right before they were about to succeed and escape, should mean far more to the viewer than simply rolling one's eyes over an action scene with a light saber. That's not what the scene was. The rebels just ALMOST accomplished something insurmountable against the empire, and the dark lord of the force almost single handedly stops them in their tracks. That scene is far more than fan service. It was a(n only) minute-long punch to the gut of rebel fighters. He is death-incarnate, and the actions taken on Scarif have caught his attention and drawn him into the picture.

It really boggles my mind how someone can watch all of this movie and still dismiss this scene as fan service - are people really incapable of empathizing with "redshirts"? I just don't get how their plight doesn't resonate with viewers. They're dying, for God's sake! Do you feel nothing for Rebel soldiers after watching the ground forces perish, nearly in futility?

I can't say the heroic sacrifice has ever done anything for me, in a movie where they have to die the deaths mean nothing. Vader tearing them apart was a great scene but it was nothing but fan service, you can't have a character like Vader do nothing nor can you him do everything. So instead you have him do something really cool but largely inconsequential, Storm Troopers blitzing the hallways would have had the exact same effect. As far as mourning red shirts, lets talk about the dozens of gunned down Storm Troopers or the half dozen who were killed execution style.

The best part of this movie was hands down how they made the Rebellion look. Cassian is a murderer, rebel high command is either extremely dickish or cowardly.

These heroic ends though are undercut by Tarkin just moon lasering the base at the end. What difference does it make that k2 died in a last Stand when he already sealed the door, when he'd just be blown up with everyone else. It's harder to care about Tarkins ruthlessness when the people he's killing are already dead.

Did you know Tarkin would obliterate the base in one fell swoop? No. Right up until that point those deaths hurt. Tarkin approached the problem like Alexander approached the Gordian Knot. Few problems remain in the face of hot proton superlasers.