What are your favorite (and least favorite) Star Wars sequences or scenes?

[Imaculata]

If you feel it (Vader scene in Rogue One) was pandering to fans with special effects eye candy, then you must think less for everything else in the movie loaded with fan pandering and eye candy effects. But the fact is that the sequence stands out, not for what it presents (Vader being a total badass) but how it is presented (through the eyes of the common Rebel soldier).

I DID think less of almost everything else in Rogue One. Its poor screenplay, its poorly written characters, and the fact that I didn't care at all about what was at stake, because of said poor character writing. The final battle looked amazing, but ultimately if you don't care about the characters or the plot, then it falls completely flat. Rogue One was not a Star Wars film, it was a Star Wars fan-film. I understand that a fan-film filled with fan service can still be appealing, and I don't think fan service is bad by default. But this movie had no other leg to stand on, and some of the fan service even undermined the movie itself.

The scene with Darth Vader at the end was a perfect example of the film makers thinking Vader is cool, but not really grasping what makes him work in the classic films. It's not about showing his actual force powers, it's about a looming sense of dread. They could have simply let us hear the screams from behind the door and cut away right there, without showing any of it. But they couldn't leave it alone.

What they really should have done in my opinion, is end the movie with Jynn on the beach. That would have also avoided the creepy CGI Leia. It also would have helped if they showed Jynn being a resourceful tough lady, instead of telling us that she is (The old show don't tell). Additionally they could have given some of the jokes to any of the other characters besides the droid, so they would be remotely likable.

 

[Zardnaar]

I DID think less of almost everything else in Rogue One. Its poor screenplay, its poorly written characters, and the fact that I didn't care at all about what was at stake, because of said poor character writing. The final battle looked amazing, but ultimately if you don't care about the characters or the plot, then it falls completely flat. Rogue One was not a Star Wars film, it was a Star Wars fan-film. I understand that a fan-film filled with fan service can still be appealing, and I don't think fan service is bad by default. But this movie had no other leg to stand on, and some of the fan service even undermined the movie itself.

The scene with Darth Vader at the end was a perfect example of the film makers thinking Vader is cool, but not really grasping what makes him work in the classic films. It's not about showing his actual force powers, it's about a looming sense of dread. They could have simply let us hear the screams from behind the door and cut away right there, without showing any of it. But they couldn't leave it alone.

What they really should have done in my opinion, is end the movie with Jynn on the beach. That would have also avoided the creepy CGI Leia. It also would have helped if they showed Jynn being a resourceful tough lady, instead of telling us that she is (The old show don't tell). Additionally they could have given some of the jokes to any of the other characters besides the droid, so they would be remotely likable.

The characters didn't need to be that likeable.

Goody goody two shoes haven't been overly polular since the 90s. ESB was dark for a SW film and it's generally regarded as the best one and that was 1980.

For people to really embrace characters now you more or less have to do that. Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, MCU perhaps.

Resistance got cancelled and that was more or less aimed at kids.

Average Star Wars fan is probably in their 30s and 40s (46 apparently).

The Mandalorian is getting rave hype and yeah it's gritty.

 

[dragoner]

Han shot first ...

 

[Celebrim]

I DID think less of almost everything else in Rogue One. Its poor screenplay, its poorly written characters, and the fact that I didn't care at all about what was at stake, because of said poor character writing.

I could grant 1/2 of your complaints against the screenplay of Rogue One. There are several scenes that lack clarity and involve hoop jumping, most notably the decision to continue the operation to kill the lead designer (Jyn's Father) when it has already become clear the Death Star is operational. While it made sense to try to assassinate the lead designer when the Death Star was believed to be still in development, the Rebel leadership lost its motivation for that operation once it became clear that the Death Star was complete. The mission should have logically changed to an extraction operation at this point, but that would have meant that Jyn's goals and the Rebellion's goals at that moment aligned and for some reason they screenwriters stuck with a script where they didn't and had the Rebellion ordering a strike on the R&D facility having already learned such a strike was futile. This allowed for certain predictable conflicts between the characters, but weakened the script. And there are several other moments where if you think about it, the motivations of the characters in that scene just don't make a lot of sense.

But on the whole, the script is pretty darn good and makes a whole lot of sense compared to the sheer insanity and madness that is the character motivations in 'The Force Awakens' and 'The Last Jedi'.

Plus, I completely disagree with you about poorly written characters. The stage settings scenes for Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, and Orson Krennic - the three characters that drive the action in the movie - are all quality writing and tell us a huge amount about the characters in a very short order. The supporting characters are also for the most part well done, and while some of the writing around Bodhi is weak, he's eventually well realized as a character. K-2SO, Chirrut Îmwe, and Baze Malbus are well written supporting characters in a franchise known for its obsession over characters that don't get a lot of screen time, and characters like Darth Vader, Bail Organa, Mon Motha, Grand Moff Tarkin, Saw Gerrera and the like benefit from appearing in the context of series but are sufficiently well realized that if you didn't know who they were, you'd at least get the gist.

some of the fan service even undermined the movie itself.

Mostly I would say this is true of characters like C3P0 and R2D2 who appear in entirely fan service cameos, but I would say most of the fan service here is so subtle that you have to be a serious fan to even realize that it is fan service.

As far as your criticism of the Vader scene, it's not like we don't get Vader in overwhelming menace in 'Empire'. I didn't feel that there was any new ground in Vader's attack beyond the fact that he was not going after key protagonists, so he was actually allowed to win. And there is some merit in that I think.

 

[Imaculata]

The characters didn't need to be that likeable.

Goody goody two shoes haven't been overly polular since the 90s. ESB was dark for a SW film and it's generally regarded as the best one and that was 1980.

I didn't say they had to be goody two shoes. I said they had to be likable. As in, characters whom you enjoy watching and who can carry the movie. Rogue One's characters were all severely underwritten.

And if anyone disagrees, I dare you to describe the character of any of them apart from Jynn Erso.

For people to really embrace characters now you more or less have to do that. Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, MCU perhaps.

You are describing characters whose morality is in the gray. That is an entirely different matter from whether they are likable. Any character can be made to be likable, regardless of their morality. Heck, Vader is likable, and he's the villain. But then, so is Luke.

The Mandalorian is getting rave hype and yeah it's gritty.

It doesn't have to be gritty. It CAN be, but it doesn't have to. As long as the characters are fun, the style of the show or movie doesn't really matter. But for that you need to have a strong screenplay and well written characters.

But on the whole, the script is pretty darn good and makes a whole lot of sense compared to the sheer insanity and madness that is the character motivations in 'The Force Awakens' and 'The Last Jedi'.

You can say a lot about The Force Awakens, but Daisy Ridley is charming as hell in that film. She carries that film pretty well, and her character is a thousand times better written than Jynn Erso.

Plus, you don't get to say the script of Rogue One as a whole is pretty darn good, after first pointing out in great detail how it is full of holes. Rogue One's biggest problem, apart from underwritten characters, is a lack of tension, set ups and pay off. For the mayority of the film the characters hop from location to location, while the plot spins its wheels in place. And just as the characters are infiltrating the base, and an opportunity for an exciting infiltration arises, the movie just skips over it. Arguably an opportunity for what would have been the most interesting to see: The characters trying to pass them selves off as imperial officers, is wasted. That is just weak writing, and it is all over this film.

At its core, Rogue One should have been like a heist. But it seems like its writers didn't have a clue how to write one. Various things are set up, and then have no pay off at all, such as Jynn's necklace and her relationship with her father. There could have been some suspense if both Jynn and the audience were unsure where her father's loyalty lied. But they established that her father was a good guy straight away, thus stripping the film and Jynn of any opportunity for conflict and resolution.

 

[Zardnaar]

I didn't say they had to be goody two shoes. I said they had to be likable. As in, characters whom you enjoy watching and who can carry the movie. Rogue One's characters were all severely underwritten.

And if anyone disagrees, I dare you to describe the character of any of them apart from Jynn Erso.



You are describing characters whose morality is in the gray. That is an entirely different matter from whether they are likable. Any character can be made to be likable, regardless of their morality. Heck, Vader is likable, and he's the villain. But then, so is Luke.



It doesn't have to be gritty. It CAN be, but it doesn't have to. As long as the characters are fun, the style of the show or movie doesn't really matter. But for that you need to have a strong screenplay and well written characters.

Jynn Erso was the protagonist. The rest are supporting characters.

There's only so much you can do in a 2 hour movie.

I liked most if the supporting characters. Rogue One tied into ANH reasonably well, and was generally a very good Star Wars film IMHO ymnv if course.

 

[Blackrat]

Ok, as much as I hate episode 2, it has the very best scene in all the movies. That being the Yoda vs Dooku duel. I just love it.

 

[Celebrim]

And if anyone disagrees, I dare you to describe the character of any of them apart from Jynn Erso.

Cassian Andor: Dishonest, charming, conflicted, brave, ruthless. Cassian is marked by the fact that in almost every scene we see him, he's presenting a false front. He pretends to be polite, but we learn he's really a ruthless assassin that will sacrifice just about anyone who gets in the way of his mission.
Orson Krennic: Dishonest, charming, ruthless, ambitious. In many ways, Orson Krennic is who Cassian Andor might be if he was working for the other side. Our introduction to him is similar to that of Andor's - he's a ruthless individual who will sacrifice even friends in the pursuit of what he wants.

This tension is in a lot of ways what 'Rogue One' is really about. You suggest that it is a heist movie, but it's not and never was trying to be a heist movie. It's trying, and I think succeeding, in being a war movie. It's presenting a picture of how war compromises people, even if the cause they are fighting for is nominally just. Cassian is the good guy, sorta, but we know that mostly from the hat he wears. What he does when we are introduced to him looks a lot like what Krennic is doing. This is a dirty war, even if ultimately one side is on the Light and the other side the Dark, from the ground level morass of the war, it's hard to be clear about right and wrong. It's just war. This is pretty cool take in my opinion, because we have in the same movie, black, white, and gray. We're hitting the whole spectrum in a way a lot of movies don't, with the usual being either everything in gray or everything in stark black and white or else nothing really examined at all.

I could go on, though minor characters would of course be less detailed. Bodhi is earnest but inexperience and confused. He's been inspired to do the right thing, but the reality is there aren't any clear choices. K-2SO is cynical and resigned. He's a veteran. Chirrut was once a noble warrior that knew what he was and what was worth fighting for, but he's been left without a cause, orders, or commanders. His counterpart Baze is loyal. Chirrut is all he has left, and so he defines himself in terms of his relationship to Chirrut.

You can say a lot about The Force Awakens, but Daisy Ridley is charming as hell in that film.

When?

Plus, you don't get to say the script of Rogue One as a whole is pretty darn good, after first pointing out in great detail how it is full of holes.

The Force Awakens gives us many more problems than that in the first 30 minutes, and then the script gets truly bad.

I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this. Most of your complaints are IMO really weak and really weakly supported. They come down to, "This isn't the movie I wanted them to make." You want a different movie with different tensions and different conflicts and different tone and in a different genre. I get that. But this isn't that movie. Nonetheless, it does a pretty good job of being the movie that it is. Does it have some pacing problems? Yes. Does it have a few bits of hoop jumping where the motivations of the characters are unclear and they are taking actions to advance a plot that don't really make sense. Yes. But on both counts, it's massively better written than 'The Force Awakens'.

 

[Cyan Wisp]

For me, nothing tops the unmasking/death of Vader (RotJ)

"Let me look on you with my own eyes..."

 

[Imaculata]

When?

From the very first scene she's in.

The Force Awakens gives us many more problems than that in the first 30 minutes, and then the script gets truly bad.

The one big weakness of the Force Awakens, is the Starkiller base plot. It is basically a repeat of the Deathstar in A New Hope, which the movie did not need. Everything else is pretty solid. It is a shame a lot of its open questions were not answered by the abysmal The Last Jedi, but I mostly blame that on that movie.

Most of your complaints are IMO really weak and really weakly supported. They come down to, "This isn't the movie I wanted them to make." You want a different movie with different tensions and different conflicts and different tone and in a different genre. I get that.

NO. That is not my argument at all. I didn't want a movie with different tension, I wanted a movie with tension to begin with. A movie with stakes, likable characters... and actual characters to begin with. I don't mind the tone or the genre, but the screenplay is a mess, and the character writing is none existent. This movie had a horrible screenplay, was rushed and cobbled together. That is blatantly obvious from watching the trailer alone, most of which is absent in the actual movie.