Going again tonight for the 5th time

Well, what is Captain Antilles supposed to say there? "You caught us! man, you're good! Is that a new engine upgrade or something?Thought we got away, darn... Best 2-3?" ? I mean they tried to fight off the attack instead of surrendering (which is what a real diplomat would do) so really it was pretty obvious what was going on. But, the captain has to waste time for Princess Leia to hide/ get plans into R2-D2. Don't really think its a plot hole at all.

Watched A New Hope straight after Rogue One, and you do notice things - the ending does give a more extreme feel to the opening of Episode VI - both the "we tried to get away and failed", but also little details that you notice more:

• The stormtroopers in that very opening scene are competent. The airlock explodes inwards and the rebels, despite being dug in in cover get the worst of it. The next time you see them, three of the crew are absolutely pegging it away from the stormtroopers whilst under fire. The next time you see them, four of them are being marched as a column of prisoners back up the ship.
• When Vader steps aboard, he looks down at the rebel corpses. I can almost hear him muttering " where's that badsack who ran off with the disc " as he checks their faces.
• Vader is even angrier than normal in the rest of the series. He's not making sarcastic comments or using the force to prove a point. You know Darth Vader is pissed off when he feels the need to strangle you with his actual hand ...

Exactly. One reason we all think that stormtroopers are utterly useless is that they have a special '-10 against plot armour', and we only see them shooting at people with Plot Armour.
Plus, all the games have continued the theme by making them the basic cannon fodder (except the PC game Rebellion/Supremacy, where they were the second best Imperial troops).

Try the P&P RPGs if you want effective Stormtroopers. In the WEG version PCs would go through Army and Navy troops like a hot knife through butter but as soon as the guys in white armour showed up it was time to cut and run. They are properly effective in the FFG version too.

TIL that the Jedha Imperial hovertank is not a hovertank, it is a regular, tracked tank.

Wow.

This is gotta be the worst tank design ever. The firing arcs, weak armor, very limited crew situational awarness and protection, and complete lack of protection for the cargo could be justified if the tank was intended to hover at some respectable attlitude (but then why would it be be so low in the movie?), but apparently it is just a tracked vehicle.

Maybe it isn't actually intended to be a tank. Maybe it is just an armoured transport. Something intended to provide some protection for cargo but not actually designed with front-line fighting in mind.

This doesn't justify the terrible weapon arrangement and crew protection/awareness.

Who said it's a combat tank? Maybe it's a mining vehicle. The easily accessible cargo tubes would make sense if you need to be able to drop mined materials in easily as you're working, you don't want to have to crawl all the way into some sort of armored vault. The treads make sense in a narrow low-clearance mine, and you don't need speed or high energy consumption for mining. The cannon on the front may be primarily used to blast open new sections of the mines (the concussive force of such explosions in mind shafts wouldn't be such a problem if we granted that Imperial armor and helmets insulated against such concussive forces). Or, perhaps, the cannons were retrofitted onto work vehicles when Rebel resistance on Jedha increased, as a slight stop-gap insurance against attacks even if the retroffitted armaments didn't make it an ideal combat vehicle.

Jeez, just use your imagination a bit and have fun. Why dislike everything? A lot of the goofy aspects of Star Wars can be explained away in a satisfactory way if that sort of coherence is so important to you..

We've seen Imperial combat tanks. They're those big wheeled things and AT-STs and AT-ATs amd those Clone walkers.. This little thing strikes me as a more of a work vehicle that they happened to mount of a few guns on after the fact..

I liked the ending, it's nice to see rebel scum actually take losses! MWUAHAHA. Which has been my only issue in Star Wars Rebels, well other than episodes such as space whales. The lack of losses endured on the rebel side. They always make it unscathed,only ever losing the worst pilots known in the SW universe (phoenix squadron). It gets rather tiresome to see them win all the time with little to no consequences. Rogue One was a welcome surprise to this, hoping for it to come to Rebels.

I know that I am almost a parody of myself wishing for certain characters to die, but so this.

To me, apart from the whole "DUDE, I WAS RIGHT THERE" at the ending I had mentioned previously I think Rogue one is the perfect Star Wars movie. Effective Stormtroopers, which only serve to highlight the rebels bravery, great new characters. It was a great movie that actually made me root for the Rebels. I give it a perfect 7/5.

(also, its supposed to be 5/7 for a perfect score)

Thank you. Stormtroopers are not incompetent at all until it comes to characters with plot armor and Ewoks (Endor is a crap ground battle anyways). I would agree as well that A New Hope feels much more exciting, if that's possible, because of Rogue One.

I also watched a New Hope right after Rogue One and the latter really supplements the former. Rogue One to me is sort've an expansion pack to A New Hope and both really can be seen as one continuous movie.

I'm sorry, it's a perfect 5/7. :-) You guys are right though. Either way, I love this movie.

It just proves what I have said over and over in the past:

Heroes are defined by their villains. Jyn, Cassian etc are amazing heroes because they died, because of what they did.

I feel them not dying would have cheapened the ending a bit.

Contrast to rebels, where they have yet to come up with a threat that is capable of bypassing their plot armour.

TIL that the Jedha Imperial hovertank is not a hovertank, it is a regular, tracked tank.

Wow.

This is gotta be the worst tank design ever. The firing arcs, weak armor, very limited crew situational awarness and protection, and complete lack of protection for the cargo could be justified if the tank was intended to hover at some respectable attlitude (but then why would it be be so low in the movie?), but apparently it is just a tracked vehicle.

Maybe it isn't actually intended to be a tank. Maybe it is just an armoured transport. Something intended to provide some protection for cargo but not actually designed with front-line fighting in mind.

This doesn't justify the terrible weapon arrangement and crew protection/awareness.

Who said it's a combat tank? Maybe it's a mining vehicle. The easily accessible cargo tubes would make sense if you need to be able to drop mined materials in easily as you're working, you don't want to have to crawl all the way into some sort of armored vault. The treads make sense in a narrow low-clearance mine, and you don't need speed or high energy consumption for mining. The cannon on the front may be primarily used to blast open new sections of the mines (the concussive force of such explosions in mind shafts wouldn't be such a problem if we granted that Imperial armor and helmets insulated against such concussive forces). Or, perhaps, the cannons were retrofitted onto work vehicles when Rebel resistance on Jedha increased, as a slight stop-gap insurance against attacks even if the retroffitted armaments didn't make it an ideal combat vehicle.

Jeez, just use your imagination a bit and have fun. Why dislike everything? A lot of the goofy aspects of Star Wars can be explained away in a satisfactory way if that sort of coherence is so important to you..

We've seen Imperial combat tanks. They're those big wheeled things and AT-STs and AT-ATs amd those Clone walkers.. This little thing strikes me as a more of a work vehicle that they happened to mount of a few guns on after the fact..

It's a "TX-225 GAVw "Occupier" combat assault tank".

Even ISIS terrorists manage to mount weapons on their Toyota trucks in a way that makes infinitely more sense that what we see in Rogue.

Turrets are the key, as our civilization realised during WW1.

I had loads of fun watching this movie three times, Rogue One is up there tied with the Original Trilogy occupying the first place of the prestigious eMeM's Greatest Star Wars Movies of All Time list. But that doesn't mean I have to just swallow everything with no critique or try to come up with convolued explanations of why this design kinda sorta would make sense if... This tank looks bad and works even worse, if it is a transport truck with guns welded on they were welded by someone who has no idea about any kind of fighting.

Reminds me of the child of a Jagdpather (body), a T-34 (placement of fuel/cargo), and a 2K22 Tunguska (weaponry). It's a reeeeeally ugly child but there's at least hints of tankiness in it.

The tank is literally a British Alvis Stormer with side panels and cannons placed on. I mean I think they actually used the Stormer for the tank. Some stormers have a flatbed in the back that matches up with our boy and the front looks identical.

I get the sense they are armored transport vehicles more then they are combat tanks.

Turrets in tight city streets... hence the reason mobile assault guns were created. I kind of like the design though. In reality, any tank in city streets is a bad idea, but it's not a big deal for me even with me being a military/history enthusiast. I think it adds to star wars lore,I don't feel it's a bad thing. And remember, Star wars has a ton of WWII based weapons, themes and names, so a turret less tank fits with that. Though I totally get why people still don't like it.

I continue to wonder about the proclivity of the Empire to put important technological controls in incredibly dangerous places. Like the tractor beam controls on the Death Star. Seriously, doesn't the Imperial Office of Safety at least require hand rails? Or better yet, put the controls in a ROOM with a FLOOR. How many innocent Imperial technicians fell to their deaths simply turning the tractor beam on or off for routine maintenance? Then there's the comm tower on Scarif. OK, sure, I can see the transmission controls being at the top of the tower, but why put the dish alignment controls at the end of a completely unnecessary catwalk (albeit, with handrails this time)? Why not put them RIGHT NEXT TO THE COMM CONTROLS?! You know...where they're needed?

Don't get me wrong. I LOVED the movie, and I know it's all for dramatic effect. Just a bit illogical.

I thought the space battle at the end really brought back something Star Wars needed. Easily the best space battle since RotJ (and, IMO, possibly better). The ground battle rocked as well, but the space ships are what made me really fall in love with Star Wars.

Then there's the comm tower on Scarif. OK, sure, I can see the transmission controls being at the top of the tower, but why put the dish alignment controls at the end of a completely unnecessary catwalk (albeit, with handrails this time)? Why not put them RIGHT NEXT TO THE COMM CONTROLS?! You know...where they're needed?

... Then there's the comm tower on Scarif. OK, sure, I can see the transmission controls being at the top of the tower, but why put the dish alignment controls at the end of a completely unnecessary catwalk (albeit, with handrails this time)? Why not put them RIGHT NEXT TO THE COMM CONTROLS?! You know...where they're needed?

...

Perhaps it isn't safe to stand too close to the dish when trying to reposition it. I just get a kick out of it being out of alignment to begin with. Part of me wonders why you'd have to go all the way to the top and stand outside to send a transmission. Maybe that was just a secondary, but perhaps direct, connection location which most communication issues were handled elsewhere.

Kinda like the deep chasms they put in the throne room for the ruler of the galaxy? Once again there are rails, but at least put some grating over the pits leading all the way to the core of the station. Also the tower itself is just begging to have the flaming hulk of a Mon Cala cruiser smash into it while the Emperor is making a smug speech.

... Then there's the comm tower on Scarif. OK, sure, I can see the transmission controls being at the top of the tower, but why put the dish alignment controls at the end of a completely unnecessary catwalk (albeit, with handrails this time)? Why not put them RIGHT NEXT TO THE COMM CONTROLS?! You know...where they're needed?

...

Perhaps it isn't safe to stand too close to the dish when trying to reposition it. I just get a kick out of it being out of alignment to begin with. Part of me wonders why you'd have to go all the way to the top and stand outside to send a transmission. Maybe that was just a secondary, but perhaps direct, connection location which most communication issues were handled elsewhere.

We clearly see a classic imperial "walkway and big windows" control room, so I'd guess you're supposed to manage communications from there; the controls at the top of the tower are just a backup.

The dish alignment controls being out on an arm sort of make sense - if you're using the backups, then presumably stuff is being damaged or you're doing something non-standard - in which case putting the controls out where you can see which way the dish is pointing as it moves (rather than being underneath with the transmitter controls where you can't) makes a certain amount of sense.

Seriously, doesn't the Imperial Office of Safety at least require hand rails?

Wierdly, one of the only time I can think of seeing safety rails in other star wars films is the bridge of Grievous' ship when they rescue palpatine. It's like, a four foot drop, tops. And.....inevitably.....someone gets slammed into the rail with sufficient force to render them unconscious. Railings are clearly dangerous!

I continue to wonder about the proclivity of the Empire to put important technological controls in incredibly dangerous places. Like the tractor beam controls on the Death Star. Seriously, doesn't the Imperial Office of Safety at least require hand rails? Or better yet, put the controls in a ROOM with a FLOOR. How many innocent Imperial technicians fell to their deaths simply turning the tractor beam on or off for routine maintenance? Then there's the comm tower on Scarif. OK, sure, I can see the transmission controls being at the top of the tower, but why put the dish alignment controls at the end of a completely unnecessary catwalk (albeit, with handrails this time)? Why not put them RIGHT NEXT TO THE COMM CONTROLS?! You know...where they're needed?

Don't get me wrong. I LOVED the movie, and I know it's all for dramatic effect. Just a bit illogical.

I thought the space battle at the end really brought back something Star Wars needed. Easily the best space battle since RotJ (and, IMO, possibly better). The ground battle rocked as well, but the space ships are what made me really fall in love with Star Wars.

i agree with Bojanglez in that the controls up at the top were probably manual overrides/emergency controls. meant as backups in the event the links to the controls in the command center were non-functional. like most hardware, you don't need fancy hacking to get control of it if you have direct physical access to it.

as far as the catwalk is concerned, the reason for placing it so far out would be so you can see the dish. you'll notice the catwalk extended past the rim of the dish. from the control position, you could see the movement of the dish, and visually verify that the dish is actually responding to the instructions your inputting via the console. if the controls were under the dish, you could not be sure that it is responding correctly.

in fact, i would not be surprised if the dish mounting (in setting at least) didn't have some sort of markings that a trained operator could use to manually aim the dish without any computer assistance. you see this sort of thing in real life a fair bit.

I continue to wonder about the proclivity of the Empire to put important technological controls in incredibly dangerous places. Like the tractor beam controls on the Death Star. Seriously, doesn't the Imperial Office of Safety at least require hand rails? Or better yet, put the controls in a ROOM with a FLOOR. How many innocent Imperial technicians fell to their deaths simply turning the tractor beam on or off for routine maintenance? Then there's the comm tower on Scarif. OK, sure, I can see the transmission controls being at the top of the tower, but why put the dish alignment controls at the end of a completely unnecessary catwalk (albeit, with handrails this time)? Why not put them RIGHT NEXT TO THE COMM CONTROLS?! You know...where they're needed?

Don't get me wrong. I LOVED the movie, and I know it's all for dramatic effect. Just a bit illogical.

It's actually quite common in large dishes to put the control unit a bit away, for two reasons:

1. so you can actually see what's going on with the dish

2. if something fails, you're away from the large moving object that might hit you on the head.

Aaand I should read the topic to the end before replying...

That does actually sum up some of the issues I had with Rogue One rather amusingly.

Turrets in tight city streets... hence the reason mobile assault guns were created. I kind of like the design though. In reality, any tank in city streets is a bad idea, but it's not a big deal for me even with me being a military/history enthusiast.

So you are saying that it's hard to turn a turret in tight city streets but it's easier to turn not only the whole wehicle, but the whole vehicle but a few meters longer because the gun is in front and not on top?

Assault guns are completely useless in tight city streets, to the point that it's hard to even drive without damaging the barrel or getting stuck, let alone fight.

Tanks are at a disadvantage in a city fight, but they are still much better than any other vehicle, maybe except are purpose built city fighting vehicles, like the BMPT:

(note it has a turret like almost every gun-armed vehicle since the 1950-60s)

And the Americans were successfully using Abramses and Bradleys in cities in the middle east.

Two different eras. I also said all tanks are useless which includes assault guns. However assault guns don't have long barrels, they are short high calibre barrels that don't protrude far from the hull or in case of rear mounted guns at the rear. Dont confuse assault guns with tanj destroyers. Abraham weren't used effectively in cities because they couldn't operate in tight corridors which I mentioned. Where they were used was in open space and large open roads even in cities where they did operate it was on wide wide wide roads. So yes an assault gun in a tighter space doesn't have to worry about a turret or lengthened barrel. And assault guns were not completely useless in WWII which is what I made my original points on, not modern times where they are almost completely fazed out. Picture an alley with a tight corner, sure you can get a hull around but with a long barrel it can easily hit the wall the tank is facing or if it tries to rotate the turret gets caught along the walls it's already sandwiched between.

Like I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. What I stated was factual and historical and even mentioned they're still not good in urban terrain like any other tracked vehicle. Didn't really need all that for one or two short sentences

Two different eras. I also said all tanks are useless which includes assault guns. However assault guns don't have long barrels, they are short high calibre barrels that don't protrude far from the hull or in case of rear mounted guns at the rear. Dont confuse assault guns with tanj destroyers. Abraham weren't used effectively in cities because they couldn't operate in tight corridors which I mentioned. Where they were used was in open space and large open roads even in cities where they did operate it was on wide wide wide roads. So yes an assault gun in a tighter space doesn't have to worry about a turret or lengthened barrel. And assault guns were not completely useless in WWII which is what I made my original points on, not modern times where they are almost completely fazed out. Picture an alley with a tight corner, sure you can get a hull around but with a long barrel it can easily hit the wall the tank is facing or if it tries to rotate the turret gets caught along the walls it's already sandwiched between.

Like I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. What I stated was factual and historical and even mentioned they're still not good in urban terrain like any other tracked vehicle. Didn't really need all that for one or two short sentences

Assault gun and tank destroyers have a significant overlap and not every assault gun has a short barrel. StuG is an assault gun (it's even in the name):

ISU-152 is also an assault gun and it's massive.

I'm not saying that assault guns were useless, I'm saying they were useless in places in which a tank turret couldn't turn, because to aim an assault gun you have to turn the whole vehicle instead of just the turret.

I'm arguing with your statement that it's stupid to use a turret in city fighting vehicle, which is a ridiculous statement in general, unless you can provide me with examples of assault guns that are shorter than a T-34, PzKpfw IV or Sherman turret, and especially in the context of the Rogue One tank, which doesn't have a big gun requiring a superstructure to house, and wouldn't require a long turret.