Poll: Which Was The Better Post-George Lucas Star Wars Movie?

Dalisclock

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Tanis said:
@Squilookle:
Couldn't put a freaking shield generator to cover a damn hole that could DESTROY YOUR WHOLE BASE?

It's a plot hole, it has to be...nobody building something THAT BIG would accidentally create a 'one hit kill' weakness.

Law of probability alone doesn't account for such a fuck up.

:p
Yep, the 2m wide hole on a base the size of a moon, that required a space wizard to turn the torpedos 90 degrees in order to go in and actually cause a detonation. Because that can't possibly be a legitimate design flaw.
 

Casual Shinji

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Was Rogue One really trying to do something different? Because most if not all of what I saw was Fanservice the Movie. Which The Force Awakens was as well, but at least it had characters that were semi-engaging. Also, no off-putting CG faces.

TFA was a relatively enjoyable space adventure movie, Rogue One was... an uneventful, admittedly well shot, boring slog. I guess it ultimately comes down to the characters for me. The characters in TFA actually expressed passion about what they were going through. In Rogue One the characters expressed little but misery and exhaustion, which I guess is logical since they're being oppressed and are on a suicide mission, but I doesn't exactly make for an enjoyable watch. I mean, I don't remember the rebels being this miserable and dispassionate in the original trilogy.
 

Arnoxthe1

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The success of TFA weirdly depends on TLJ. If TLJ turns out to be good, I'll love TFA. If not, then Rogue One would be the better movie of the two.
 

Kingjackl

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The Force Awakens was derivative, but it was at least fun. Rogue One was just boring.
 

Kyrian007

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I'd have to say The Force Awakens. All of the folks complaining about "fan movie" and "derivative" A: don't know that's the exact reason that JJ was chosen to direct and B: let the entire plot point about history repeating itself and Maz' "eyes" comment go completely over their heads.

But the only reason TFA gets the go ahead from me is that I was expecting way more from Rogue One. After the prequels I didn't have much hope for TFA and I had a blast watching it. But as someone who finds the force and jedi aspects the least interesting things in Star Wars, now that we finally had a non Skywalker movie finally about the "Wars" part of Star Wars... I'm not sure what would have satisfied me. I wanted Wraith Squadron, the Dirty Dozen of Star Wars and what I got was... fine. I liked Rogue One, but I found it more disappointing.
 

Squilookle

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Tanis said:
@Squilookle:
Couldn't put a freaking shield generator to cover a damn hole that could DESTROY YOUR WHOLE BASE?

It's a plot hole, it has to be...nobody building something THAT BIG would accidentally create a 'one hit kill' weakness.

Law of probability alone doesn't account for such a fuck up.

:p
Sure, let's put a shield over an exhaust port.

What's that? no exhaust is being vented into space anymore and the reactor is overheating and melting down?

They didn't even need to have a rebel attack to destroy the station with your brilliant design choices there.

Besides, let's see you design a space station as big as a small moon with absolutely zero flaws against a type of attack the Empire (your financiers and to who's work brief you follow) doesn't even consider a real threat to begin with.

Dalisclock said:
Rouge One. It was at least trying to do something different with a SW movie, even if it was shamelessly playing to the series roots as WW2 in space(or in this case, the WW2 commando movie with lasers).
Except it wasn't. At all. Or if it was, it didn't understand what made those WW2 commando movies popular in the first place.

1) You're supposed to give a crap about the characters, who even at their most stereotyped- always had something memorable about them. Even the B-grade commando films understood this.

2) Your characters are supposed to be professional, hand picked, and good at forming plans. Rogue One had none of that. The fact the whole battle of Scarif erupted because a bunch of amateurs went AWOL and stole their own side's ship just because they didn't agree with their superiors, and the entire Rebellion just fudged their way to victory at massive loss of life is pretty pathetic.

3) The enemy is supposed to be an almost invincible threat- immune to all conventional attacks tried against it so far. This worked exceptionally well with the Nazis in WW2 films, because for a while they really did have the upper hand. Since the Empire are basically Nazis on foot and the IJN in space, this should be a shoe in for Rogue One, yet simply by virtue of the aforementioned fumbled pathetic victory by RO's open-mic-night Rebellion, it makes the Imps just look all the more useless and pathetic by comparison. You saw how many TIE Fighters they launched (all at once, after the Rebels were well into the swing of it). Far more than were at the Battle of Yavin- and they still lost! You want us to care? Make the enemy dangerous. make them technologically advanced and cunning, forcing the heroes to really pull something spectacular out of the bag to beat them. Don't just have a mopey Krennic busting a blood vessel from up in the tower.

4) There is supposed to be a meticulous Plan A. There's a point in the briefing at the start of Where Eagles Dare -one of the greatest men on a mission films ever made- where the mission planners are outlining a castle that needs to be attacked by the commandoes. One starts to question just what's so damned important about this general they're meant to rescue. The Admiral considers the question for a moment, and says this:

"I think if we're sending a man to what may be his death... he has a right to know why."
This illustrates a very important element of commando movies that Rogue One just doesn't get. It's not enough to just be fighting for a 'cause' or because the Force is with you or whatever. There has to be a well defined, palpable target that can cause damage to the enemy by it's destruction, no matter how impenetrable it may seem to be to assault. The Shloss Adler. The Guns of Navarone. A Heavy Water plant. Reinhard Heydrich. The M?hne Dam. Cabanatuan. A key radio transmitter. People aren't going to just up and suicidally enter their Alliance's first ever battle without a plan, a defined leader, cause, or even a brief. It's just utterly stupid. The Death Star is an imposing target, sure. But we know that's protected for the duration of this film. But they really messed up not giving us another target worthy of destruction in it's own right.

After all, A New Hope merely said rebel spies got the plans during the battle. It's not even implied it was the main objective. Like I said, sticking to an ensemble heist format (or hell, even an actual commando movie format) would have been much better. Even moreso if they were after an unrelated-yet-still-important target, and stumbled across these plans so important they had to get them back to the Rebellion at all costs.

What's most disappointing is everything I've just said was delivered on just fine with Return of the Jedi. Now THAT was how you do a commando raid in space.

 

Hawki

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Kyrian007 said:
I'd have to say The Force Awakens. All of the folks complaining about "fan movie" and "derivative" A: don't know that's the exact reason that JJ was chosen to direct and B: let the entire plot point about history repeating itself and Maz' "eyes" comment go completely over their heads.
I didn't miss the Maz comment, but it comes off as more of an excuse to riff off A New Hope rather than some in-depth insight into the Star Wars setting. The idea of the Dark Side operating through proxies (Sith>Empire>First Order) is interesting, but the film barely touches on it. It's primarily worldbuilding done to justify repetitive storytelling.
 

Tanis

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@Squilookle:
Seeing as how it's canon in Star Wars for shield generators to let things leave, like laser beams and smoke, while not letting things in...like missiles and bombs.

It wouldn't be out of character to have something like that.

Also, also...you're right.
It was a government job, should have had someone else do the work.
The government can just take it as a tax write off or something, a private firm would what that ship to be tight AF to avoid lawsuits.
:p
 

bartholen_v1legacy

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The force awakens. Despite it being just a retread, it was still more enjoyable. Rogue One was just grim, dour and dull. Or as much as it could be with its rating. It was also overly long and spammed action scenes like there's no tomorrow, the characters were barely characters and for all its pretense of being dark and mature it was still almost completely toothless.
 

JUMBO PALACE

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Rogue One had issues but I vastly preferred it to The Force Awakens. I didn't enjoy sitting through an inferior version of A New Hope. I could have just watched the original at home for free.
 

Leg End

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Rogue One because it didn't cocktease me and then step on my balls with Fin and Poe being bros only to get blown the fuck out by the walking representation-before-character that is Rey.

Also this.

 

BloatedGuppy

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TFA was a spineless exercise in franchise rebooting necessitated by the prequel backlash. Accusations that it was boilerplate filmmaking are not unfair, but as a monomyth Star Wars was never "original". It was always about Rule of Cool, warmed over philosophical rambling and Big Moments. TFA trotted out the formula, and did it half way competently. Abrams might be blandly competent, but he's competent, which puts him several pegs above Lucas. He was a safe choice, and he made a safe movie, that formed a reasonably sturdy foundation from which to grow their cinematic universe.

Rogue One was a soggy catastrophe. Limp, lifeless characters decorate a go-nowhere script telling a story no one needed or wanted to see. Most importantly, an opportunity to be adventurous with the brand in a stand alone film was utterly squandered. Rather than see a Saving Private Ryan style war film in the Star Wars ouevre, we get...whatever the fuck that was. "At least it's a new story" is as feeble a justification as "George Lucas invented new planets for the prequels". Freddy Got Fingered was an original story. Zombie vs Mardi Gras was an original story. The Sopranos is derivative of the great Mob fiction that preceded it. You don't make a great film out of "originality" any more than you make a great soup out of water and garlic powder alone. Yes, it was unique compared to other Star Wars films. Uniquely shitty, and uniquely pointless.
 

rayman 101

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They were both well made and both completely forgettable and overhyped. Rogue One was especially sterile and lifeless, but its story at least felt more coherent and cohesive than Force Awakens. Force Awakens was a mess but at least I somewhat cared for the characters, even if the whole thing was basically a rehash of a New Hope. Either way, the new Star Wars continuity aways reeks of extreme melodrama and self importance in the way it's advertised, but never live up to their hype since we've honestly seen every single type of Star Wars story done to death, and it's hard to take all this hub ub seriously. I'll watch it in the same lukewarm, tepid attitude that I've had up to now and look forward to forgetting it completely on the next day.
 

KissingSunlight

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Squilookle said:
TFA- at least characters were 3 dimensional and underwent change in that movie.
I am going to disagree with you here. How did the characters change from the beginning of the movie to the end? Rey is still an overpowered know-it-all who missed her parents. Finn is still a stormtrooper with identity issues. Poe is a God of Pilots.

Give me Jyn Erso with her complicated relationship with her father. Cassian who's soul was being destroyed for following his political beliefs. Even K-2SO learn to trust Jyn Erso after a while. Those were interesting three dimensional characters. Rogue One were for adult fans of Star Wars. The Force Awakens are just like J.J. Abrams's Star Trek. TFA is a Star Wars movie for people who don't like Star Wars. Specifically, the prequel trilogy.
 

Sniper Team 4

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Hm...tighter race than I thought it would be.

I like them both, but I enjoy Rogue One more. Perhaps if The Last Jedi completes The Force Awakens, then I'll change my mind, but as it stands, The Force Awakens has too many unanswered important questions, too much, "We're saving it for the sequel!" going on for me to choose it over Rogue one.

Plus the battle scenes in Rogue One were amazing. Just...whoo! Time to blow things up like only Star Wars can!!!
 

Squilookle

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KissingSunlight said:
Squilookle said:
TFA- at least characters were 3 dimensional and underwent change in that movie.
I am going to disagree with you here. How did the characters change from the beginning of the movie to the end? Rey is still an overpowered know-it-all who missed her parents. Finn is still a stormtrooper with identity issues. Poe is a God of Pilots.
Look, you're not wrong. There are some deeply disappointing problems with the way the characters are written in TFA. Rey and Poe are indeed written as overpowerered nigh-flawless beings, which kind of sucks. But at the same time, they clearly care a lot about their goals, and you can sense it. When Rey bites into the food she traded for scrap, you can tell it's the moment she's worked so hard to get to. When Poe and Finn (who is now no longer a stormtrooper, so there's a change) hatch their plan to escape together, and blow up those ventral turbolasers and both yell in triumph in a thoroughly human way, we can't help but smile along with them. Finn pretending to be in the Resistance to avoid getting beaten up- human. Relatable. Kind of funny too considering how bad he is at pretending it. And you want complicated relationship with a father? Kylo has it in spades, across three generations no less.

But Rogue? Nobody new besides K-2SO survives the Qui Gon test.

(This excerpt is the Qui Gon test, by the way).​

Jyn basically just feels abandoned by her dad. Much like Rey. Cassian does have some tragic backstory to explain why he's so involved with the Rebels now, but we never hear what it is. Outside that they're all basically stoic and want to fight for the cause. That's not character depth. If it was you could go ahead and call every pilot in the Death Star battles a main character. Also Cassian is given one job, to assassinate Galen, and he can't even pull that off. Not because an unforseen hurdle is put in his way or the enemy anticipates his move, but just... he decides he doesn't have the heart to do it. And THIS is the guy the Rebels send to do assassinations? Pathetic!

If they wanted him to avoid carrying out an assassination they could have done something... -anything- to make it worth watching. For instance there's a James Bond film where he's ordered to kill a high ranking Russian general for the deaths of British spies. But Bond has evidence to suggest the General may be innocent. He tries to persuade his boss, who threatens to give the assassination assignment to someone else. Bond then takes the job so that he can get to the general himself and find out the truth. It turns out his hunch was right, and the general is being played just as much as the British by someone else. Had he killed him nobody would have ever found the guilty party. Just imagine if Cassian had the depth to think up something like that!

Rogue One were for adult fans of Star Wars. The Force Awakens are just like J.J. Abrams's Star Trek. TFA is a Star Wars movie for people who don't like Star Wars. Specifically, the prequel trilogy.
Give me a break. The cameos alone in Rogue One were designed for kids to squeal at for recognising the character and nothing more. K-2SO lobbing a grenade over his shoulder to wipe out a squad of stormtroopers without looking is something out of a kids cartoon on the exact same level as Poe Rogue-Squadroning his way through those TIEs. Don't even get me started on Vader+lightsaber strolling up the corridor of the ISD Fanservice. The Rebels solving all their problems by straight up ramming two ships together could have been written by an 8 year old.

The rest of the Scarif space battle was pretty mint though, I'll give you that. But don't go pretending Rogue One was in any way more 'adult' just because of the body count. The way the two films deal with the struggles of parenting (despite both films having a golden opportunity to showcase it) are like night and day, for instance.


***
At the end of the day- there's more for people to rewatch throughout TFA. When people rewatch Rogue One they skip straight to the space battle because nobody matters anyway.
***​
 

Silvanus

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Rogue One was brill. Much lighter, more fun escapism there, and a glorious last battle sequence. Loved it.

Enjoyed The Force Awakens when I first watched it, but it's gone down a little in my estimations recently, and I don't like Kylo Ren as a villain.
 

Natemans

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The Force Awakens.

I may be the only guy who seems to think this film is fantastic and doesn't get enough credit it deserves. Its got wonderful characters with a lot of personality and great arcs, solid direction, genuinely subversive and heartfelt. Everyone just shrugs it off as just being derivative of ANH, but never give it a chance to look at it in-depth than the surface.

Rogue One was okay, but man, the characters are so boring and lacking any depth or development to them, the story is incredibly hollow, some of the pacing is inconsistent and just felt nothing when they died. Jyn and Cassian are dull characters, K-2SO is nice and funny I guess, Bodhi Rook is there for some reason, Chirrut is the closest to giving some idea of depth and Baze is cool, but not much else.
 

Natemans

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Squilookle said:
KissingSunlight said:
Squilookle said:
TFA- at least characters were 3 dimensional and underwent change in that movie.
I am going to disagree with you here. How did the characters change from the beginning of the movie to the end? Rey is still an overpowered know-it-all who missed her parents. Finn is still a stormtrooper with identity issues. Poe is a God of Pilots.
Look, you're not wrong. There are some deeply disappointing problems with the way the characters are written in TFA. Rey and Poe are indeed written as overpowerered nigh-flawless beings, which kind of sucks. But at the same time, they clearly care a lot about their goals, and you can sense it. When Rey bites into the food she traded for scrap, you can tell it's the moment she's worked so hard to get to. When Poe and Finn (who is now no longer a stormtrooper, so there's a change) hatch their plan to escape together, and blow up those ventral turbolasers and both yell in triumph in a thoroughly human way, we can't help but smile along with them. Finn pretending to be in the Resistance to avoid getting beaten up- human. Relatable. Kind of funny too considering how bad he is at pretending it. And you want complicated relationship with a father? Kylo has it in spades, across three generations no less.

But Rogue? Nobody new besides K-2SO survives the Qui Gon test.

(This excerpt is the Qui Gon test, by the way.
I can't embed the timecode so skip to 6:46)​

Jyn basically just feels abandoned by her dad. Much like Rey. Cassian does have some tragic backstory to explain why he's so involved with the Rebels now, but we never hear what it is. Outside that they're all basically stoic and want to fight for the cause. That's not character depth. If it was you could go ahead and call every pilot in the Death Star battles a main character. Also Cassian is given one job, to assassinate Galen, and he can't even pull that off. Not because an unforseen hurdle is put in his way or the enemy anticipates his move, but just... he decides he doesn't have the heart to do it. And THIS is the guy the Rebels send to do assassinations? Pathetic!

If they wanted him to avoid carrying out an assassination they could have done something... -anything- to make it worth watching. For instance there's a James Bond film where he's ordered to kill a high ranking Russian general for the deaths of British spies. But Bond has evidence to suggest the General may be innocent. He tries to persuade his boss, who threatens to give the assassination assignment to someone else. Bond then takes the job so that he can get to the general himself and find out the truth. It turns out his hunch was right, and the general is being played just as much as the British by someone else. Had he killed him nobody would have ever found the guilty party. Just imagine if Cassian had the depth to think up something like that!

Rogue One were for adult fans of Star Wars. The Force Awakens are just like J.J. Abrams's Star Trek. TFA is a Star Wars movie for people who don't like Star Wars. Specifically, the prequel trilogy.
Give me a break. The cameos alone in Rogue One were designed for kids to squeal at for recognising the character and nothing more. K-2SO lobbing a grenade over his shoulder to wipe out a squad of stormtroopers without looking is something out of a kids cartoon on the exact same level as Poe Rogue-Squadroning his way through those TIEs. Don't even get me started on Vader+lightsaber strolling up the corridor of the ISD Fanservice. The Rebels solving all their problems by straight up ramming two ships together could have been written by an 8 year old.

The rest of the Scarif space battle was pretty mint though, I'll give you that. But don't go pretending Rogue One was in any way more 'adult' just because of the body count. The way the two films deal with the struggles of parenting (despite both films having a golden opportunity to showcase it) are like night and day, for instance.


***
At the end of the day- there's more for people to rewatch throughout TFA. When people rewatch Rogue One they skip straight to the space battle because nobody matters anyway.
***​
^ This