Oh yeah, my favorite cameo of the movie was Blue Milk!!! I actually laughed out loud a little at the shot!!

Question. What heavy gun did Baze Malbus use?

Question. What heavy gun did Baze Malbus use?

I imagine it would be a Heavy Blaster Rifle of some description or other. An extensively modified one considering the fuel cell required to power the thing.

So I found chopper when I saw the movie yesterday - he's on the left when the private comes running up to Mothma in a hurry.

At least I think it was Chop - he's only on for a second or two at best.

So I found chopper when I saw the movie yesterday - he's on the left when the private comes running up to Mothma in a hurry.

At least I think it was Chop - he's only on for a second or two at best.

But did we just see the crew of the Ghost die? X_x I didn't see any rebels jump except for the Tantive V. :'( Still, having a good chunk of your capital fleet get trashed does explain they were in such a bind in ANH. And the almost video-game-ish weakness in the Death Star got a halfway decent explanation. And yet, the "victory" felt very pyrrhic as almost everyone got wiped out. I know they needed the layout/plans to find the weak spot, but still. I bet the Rebellion, as weak as it was, was devastated at the end of that film. And they had to run right after ANH. They didn't even get any time to recuperate or rebuild. And, they completely de-canonized Kyle Katarn. He didn't even get a cameo, nor did the Ebon Hawk. I know he's Legends now, but still. I was hoping they'd at least put him in this, even if it was a minor role.

We also did not see the Ghost get shot out of the Sky so it's up to our interpretation until we get official confirmation of their survival or death.

There is no way that they are going to wrap up main character story arcs by shooting them down as a footnote in the background. Zero.

Yeah I believe they can't just off the crew of the ghost without showing them on screen. They could but it would be a bad move story telling wise.

So I found chopper when I saw the movie yesterday - he's on the left when the private comes running up to Mothma in a hurry.

At least I think it was Chop - he's only on for a second or two at best.

But did we just see the crew of the Ghost die? X_x I didn't see any rebels jump except for the Tantive V. :'( Still, having a good chunk of your capital fleet get trashed does explain they were in such a bind in ANH. And the almost video-game-ish weakness in the Death Star got a halfway decent explanation. And yet, the "victory" felt very pyrrhic as almost everyone got wiped out. I know they needed the layout/plans to find the weak spot, but still. I bet the Rebellion, as weak as it was, was devastated at the end of that film. And they had to run right after ANH. They didn't even get any time to recuperate or rebuild...

When I watched the film last night, I didn't get the impression that everyone was wiped out. Rather, most everyone was wiped out. It seemed to me the rebel fleet did make the jump, but that it was already too late for most of them to get out. Some collided with the first incoming star destroyers, while most of the others were disabled by withering fire as Vader's fleet materialized. My impression based on the streaks of transitioning-to-hyperspace ships was that a few smaller ships did get out. I will be seeing it again on Christmas and will watch that scene more intently. In any event, as I saw it, the Ghost could have theoretically gotten out. I agree with your assessment as to why the Alliance was so weak in ANH. Bang on!

Another point I enjoyed: They specifically called out the class of the Hammerhead (the class is Hammerhead ) ship that rammed into the Star Destroyer. That ship has seen a lot of use in the canon since it was brought back by Star Wars Rebels season 2.

There were a lot of moments in which I was the only one in the theater laughing out loud. Vader's quip while choking Krennic was one of those moments.

Another point I enjoyed: They specifically called out the class of the Hammerhead (the class is Hammerhead ) ship that rammed into the Star Destroyer. That ship has seen a lot of use in the canon since it was brought back by Star Wars Rebels season 2.

There were a lot of moments in which I was the only one in the theater laughing out loud. Vader's quip while choking Krennic was one of those moments.

Dark Lord of the Pun.

I laughed at that one, too.

• Forget..... "Let's just hope that when the plans are analyzed that a weakness can be found."
• Vader's body size seemed 'off'. Seemed like a skinny man in an over-sized suit. Bird-chested.
• Never explained why Cassian shot the grenadier in therethe city scene.
• The AT-AT's went down like they were made of tinfoil. Legs blowing apart and everything. I guess they HAD to in order to fit the script. Couldn't put a scratch on those things a few months later on Hoth.

They knew there was supposed to be a weakness with the reactor, they didn't know what that weakness was or if it was real. Remember, only Erso and Saw saw the holodeck.

I think they did something with vader shoulder neck armor.

Cassian shot the grenade guy because Erso was next to the transport and grenade guy was going to throw his grenade at the transport.

They are heavy cargo transport walkers, not front line AT-ATs. They don't need, and likely didn't have the armor of an AT AT.

My favorite scene was Vader Force choking Krennic as he walked away. Total BAMF!

I heard some folks complain about Vader dropping a one-liner as he turned around, but we saw Vader do much the same in ANH with the classic "I find your lack of faith disturbing" line, so telling Krennic not to choke on his ambitions was (for me at least) appropriate for Vader. Even more so with the backstory on Krennic not being a "in the field" commander, but really more of a bureaucrat that did his thing well away from the front lines, making him exactly the kind of officer that Vader as little liking of and even less patience for.

Wow, I have some mixed feelings about this film. It had some great moments, for sure. The Vader scenes, the space battle, K-2SO's lines. I really liked the Rebel's references (I didn't catch Chopper, but I definitely saw the Ghost multiple times in the battle, plus the announcement for General Syndulla on Yavin). But there was a lot more to dislike than I expected. Tarkin was over-utilized, considering the CGI was firmly in Uncanny Valley territory. When they first showed the back of Leia I kept telling myself "don't show her face, don't show her face," and then they go and show her face. Bad move, the CGI didn't look good. They should have kept the camera behind her and just showed her taking off the hood to reveal the buns or something.

After TFA came out it seemed like people fell into two camps. Those who care more about plot didn't like it so much, calling it a re-hash of ANH. Those who care more about characters liked it, because Finn and Rey had such great chemistry. I fall firmly into the "character" camp. The characters in Rogue One, in contrast to TFA, were very underdeveloped, even if the plot did something new for a Star Wars movie. Well, sort of. Sure, it was a grittier war movie, but we still knew how it was going to end, and ultimately the only thing it really added to the overall universe was confirming that the exhaust port was an intentional weakness.

It was visually pretty awesome, but as a movie fell pretty flat for me. I didn't find it too hard to fit into my ranking of the other movies:

1. Empire Strikes Back

2/3. The Force Awakens/A New Hope (tie)

4/5. Return of the Jedi/Revenge of the Sith (I go back and forth on my ranking for these)

6. Rogue One

7/8. The Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones

Oh, so after watching R1 again yesterday, I came home and put on E7. With both fresh in my brain, here's the new ranking:

1) Empire (or perhaps New Hope, depending on my mood)

2) New Hope (or perhaps Empire, depending on my mood)

3) R1

4) Jedi

4) Sith

6) Clones

7) Phantom Menace

8) Being eaten alive by fire ants

9) Force Awakens

Okay, so I'll be honest here, while I did overall like the film, and generally enjoyed watching it, I'm not anywhere nearly as enthused as other folks are.

Though that's largely on me, as one of my most despised plots is the "kill all the mains!" approach that you tend to see in the bleaker horror movies. The trope is usually called Developing Doomed Characters (aka "20 minutes with a$$holes"), and while I expected there were going to be deaths (much as I generally liked her character concept, I pegged Jyn Erso for being a goner), but after the shuttle got blown up, my enjoyment of the film got ratcheted down as it became increasingly clear this was going to end in a total party wipe, and that all these characters we spent time getting to know and like were ultimately grist for the mill.

While I doubt it was the writers direct intent, a part of me can't help but feel that the Rogue One crew was wiped out to a man simply so Lucasfilm/Disney could avoid the "well, what was so-and-so doing during the events of ANH?" Almost as if using their lack of presence or mention in a film made nearly 40 years ago to justify the TPK, which ultimately soured the film for me. As I said earlier, Jyn dying I could see, sort of a "paying for the sins of my father" deal with her giving up her life so that the plans could be passed along to the Alliance.

While I liked some of the cameos (General Syndulla, Chopper, The Ghost), I do agree that the Ponda Baba/Evazan and Artoo/Threepio were completely unnecessary. As far as Saw Guerrara, I really do think they could have replaced him with any other Rebel extremist and not have it impact the plot. Yes, I know that Catalyst had Galen Erso and Saw being buddies of a sort, but Catalyst was being written alongside the film script, so it would have been a trivial matter to replace Saw with some other character.

The CGI for Tarkin and Leia didn't bother me, and I thought they did a pretty good job, though I do agree the Uncanny Valley effect was in full force for Tarkin, but if anything I think that just added to his general sense of creepy malice. Maybe not as smooth as the job they did for Michael Douglas in Ant-Man or RDJr in Civil War, but good enough. I do agree that Vader's look was very much off compared to what we're used to, but then again it was a different guy with a different posture and way of moving. Though seeing him just utterly demolish those Rebel troops as they tried to escape really broadcast just how dreaded he was, and at the same time perhaps highlight just how capable Luke really was that he was able to survive his first duel with Vader and then emerge victorious in their second duel.

In terms of the movies, I'd rate this better than TPM and AotC, about on par with RotS, and well behind the OT and TFA.

Why do you hate TFA so much Desslok?

Though that's largely on me, as one of my most despised plots is the "kill all the mains!" approach that you tend to see in the bleaker horror movies. The trope is usually called Developing Doomed Characters (aka "20 minutes with a$$holes"), and while I expected there were going to be deaths (much as I generally liked her character concept, I pegged Jyn Erso for being a goner), but after the shuttle got blown up, my enjoyment of the film got ratcheted down as it became increasingly clear this was going to end in a total party wipe, and that all these characters we spent time getting to know and like were ultimately grist for the mill.

See, this is where having a crazy diverse history of watching war flicks comes in handy. Something like Inglorious Bastards (the original not the Tarantino version) where nearly everyone on the entire commando team dies getting The MacGuffin is par for course because War Is Hell. So I went in knowing that I would be crazy surprised if anyone but Vader and Leia made it out of the movie alive.

Why do you hate TFA so much Desslok?

Fair question. Here's the bullet point summation of the conversation we had last year:

* I don't like Abrams as a director. I didnt like Star Trek, Cloverfield, Mission Impossible or Lost. Lucas might not be the best at directing people, but it is a very good visual story teller. Abrams . . . not so much. I thought the climax was muddled and lacked focus. It had a couple of well composed shots - the opening moment right after the crawl, but I think he is a very weak director.

* Also Abram's fondness for being mysterious is bull. "Hey, how did you get Luke's saber?" "That's a story for another time." - no Abrams, that's kind of important information. You don't get to handwave something like that away.

* Above and beyond the whole "It's a remake of New Hope", it leaned way too hard on the Nostalgia button, it tried way too hard to be "Look! We're the Star Wars you liked as a child! Please love us!"

* Dovetailing to the "We're the Star Wars you love! There's no politics here!" it went too far in the other direction from the prequels, doing almost no world building. We have no context for what happened to the Empire and the Republic between Jedi and E7, no idea of it's a cold war, a shooting war or somewhere in between - and how the Resistance fits in there. From the context I guessed that it was some kind of french underground analog from WWII, and all of this was fleshed out in the anciliary material - but we needed some of this in the movie.

* The soundtrack was not very good. Williams phoned in a not-very-memorable score that had one good track and was otherwise pretty tepid.

* Rey and Finn were okay, but the bad guy was just dull.

* And yes, the whole beat-for-beat remaking of New Hope bugs me. Why should I watch this when I have a much superior version already on DVD?

Interestingly, on my second viewing, I felt way more sadness at the death of K2, the Kung Fu Master and his buddy - characters I've only been exposed to for a couple of hours - than I did when Han died.

One of the earliest pieces I read was he was inspired by Dirty Dozen. Everyone dying shouldn't have been any kind of surprise imo.

I can see your gripes with TFA now but how did it lose to TPM and Clones? I thought those 2 are safe to say the worst of the Saga.

Why do you hate TFA so much Desslok?

* The soundtrack was not very good. Williams phoned in a not-very-memorable score that had one good track and was otherwise pretty tepid.

This is my biggest gripe with them. I am not feeling it. It's just not timeless emotional evocative music. You look at those fan reaction trailers and before there is any imagery people start losing their sh*t to the music.

Mr. Williams, Mr, Gianchinno.....turn this up loud...more of this kind of thing for me please....

Ok so I loved the movie and bits of nostalgia. Actually there was like 30 minutes of that movie that was awesome. However I felt like Baze,and Chirrut were weak and tacked on characters. I guess they could have been interesting…but we never got to know them and now their dead. I feel like that was 10ish minutes of wasted screen that could have been spent on Cassian or even Mon Mothma….overall I really am thankful they are making these movies with more to come.

Naw, I have never bought into the internet hive mind Group Think that E1-3 were terrible, unwatchable awful movies. At their worst, they're as inoffensive as every other big budget, big hollywood blockbuster these days.

But E1-3 don't bug me. Yeah I could do with a little less Jar Jar at the climax, but I realize why he was there - comic relief for a series that was about to get super dark super fast. And comic relief has always been part of the series, from R2's pratfalls to Yoda as The Trickster. Is the romance awkward? Yes - but you have a slave turned jedi on one side a princess senator since she was 10 on the other - not a lot of time for socialization and human interaction, so of course it's going to be awkward and stilted. That's both backgrounds coming into play.

And lastly, it's a little like Superman 3 vs Man of Steel or Star Trek 5 vs Neo Trek. Superman 3 and Trek 5 are not very good - but quality of the film aside, you look at Superman and go "Yeah, I still see the character amid the bad movie" or "Okay, that's the Kirk and Spock and McCoy triangle that I know from way back". Where with Man of Steel and Neo-Trek, you get the outward appearance of the character, but none of the heart or soul.

Same thing with 1-3 vs 7. Phantom Menace might be a worse film (I disagree, but for the sake of argument, lets say this is so), but it still feels right, feels like Star Wars. Awakens looks like a Star Wars film, but doesn't feel like it. R1, despite trying to be it's own thing, still feels right.

Oh I don't completely hate on Sith, it was a movie that had a potential it was just executed poorly I could see that, TPM and Clones are just a mess and don't really make much sense as to what is going on. TFA for me was a let down for it being to much of both Star Wars and Jedi. (They had to disable the shields on a forest planetiod to destroy the super weapon + Solo was the one doing the shield sabotage.) However I think Abrams while his movie flawed was just there to let Star Wars fans these new movies would not be like the prequels, now whether he went to far overboard is a matter of opinion. To be mad about a story not being new and fresh is to forget that there is nothing new under the sun. The main thing that would have made this a much better film is if they dropped the Death Star 3 or Star Killer base as it was called. Rogue one however is a good film that does justice to my favorite character Darth Vader and only gives him about 3 minutes of screen time but those minutes did more for him than I think the TPM and Clones did for him or TFA with Kylo.