I saw a Star War: Rogue One
I don't usually go to see a movie for a variety of reasons, but as a Christmas present--they can call it for the holidays all they want, but everyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas knows what it really is--the vice president of our unit gave everyone two free tickets to an AMC movie, and when softlykarou mentioned wanting to go see Rogue One, so I told her I would go see it. And today, we did.
Further comments in the spoiler below:
[Spoiler (click to open)]
Let me start with a story.
A long time ago, a friend was running a D6 Star Wars game where our characters, generic space pilots out to make a quick credit in a modified YT-1300 freighter, ended up rendezvousing with the Rebel Alliance. The rebels treated us almost with contempt, were incredibly suspicious, and were not of high moral character. Our GM pointed out that the Rebel Alliance doesn't exactly have a rigorous screening process and mostly has to take what they can get, and anyway, they were fighting a war, and wars are not nice. At the time, we were incensed, and the game fell apart.
I think he'd have loved this movie.
The parts of Rogue One that I loved were the parts that would have made a fantastic D6 Star Wars game. The only "Jedi" is a Force-sensitive with no training who occupies the blind monk archetype and is basically Zatōichi. Everyone else is a card-carrying member of the hive of scum and villainy, Local 1138, and if you gave me a moment, I could probably flip through my D6 rulebook and assign everyone an archetype. Jyn is the pirate, and Baze Malbus is the bounty hunter, and...
It definitely made me want to crack my books and start up a D6 Star Wars game, and in that, it's a definite success.
The parts I hated were the parts where they were apparently not confident that people would understand that this was a Star Wars movie so the movie had to constantly remind us through callbacks. If there had been one or two, then I wouldn't have been bothered so much, but after a third of the movie it was like nails on a chalkboard every time. Blue milk. "Never tell me the odds." That guy and his partner in the Tatooine bar that Luke bumps into, apparently running some kind of bump-into con on multiple worlds (no wonder he's wanted in twelve systems) R2D2 and C-3PO showing up. Red 5 dying so that Luke has an open spot he can fit into on red squadron. It's pandering and was totally unnecessary.
The movie can stand on its own merits. It doesn't need to have a death grip on its older siblings. Though softlykarou mentioned that since I know more about Star Wars than she does, I picked up more of the references and probably was more annoyed by it.
The one bit of pandering I liked was Darth Vader. There's one lightsaber in the movie, and it's Vader using it to kill people.
I did like that they had the courage to kill off everyone. It was a suicide mission to a fortified Imperial stronghold that still succeeded. It evokes the memory of "Many Bothans died to bring us this information" without having someone mention it. Just Admiral Raddus looking down at the planet and saying, "Rogue One...May the Force be with you," when he realizes that there's no chance of a successful extraction. And most people just died without a big scene, because this is war, and people die.
I didn't really have an attachment for any of the characters, but I did get attached to their mission as a whole. I mean, that's war, right? Some sacrifices need to be made for the mission to succeed?
It's a pretty good movie with some flaws that annoyed me, but not enough to ruin my experience.
Further comments in the spoiler below:
[Spoiler (click to open)]
Let me start with a story.
A long time ago, a friend was running a D6 Star Wars game where our characters, generic space pilots out to make a quick credit in a modified YT-1300 freighter, ended up rendezvousing with the Rebel Alliance. The rebels treated us almost with contempt, were incredibly suspicious, and were not of high moral character. Our GM pointed out that the Rebel Alliance doesn't exactly have a rigorous screening process and mostly has to take what they can get, and anyway, they were fighting a war, and wars are not nice. At the time, we were incensed, and the game fell apart.
I think he'd have loved this movie.
The parts of Rogue One that I loved were the parts that would have made a fantastic D6 Star Wars game. The only "Jedi" is a Force-sensitive with no training who occupies the blind monk archetype and is basically Zatōichi. Everyone else is a card-carrying member of the hive of scum and villainy, Local 1138, and if you gave me a moment, I could probably flip through my D6 rulebook and assign everyone an archetype. Jyn is the pirate, and Baze Malbus is the bounty hunter, and...
It definitely made me want to crack my books and start up a D6 Star Wars game, and in that, it's a definite success.
The parts I hated were the parts where they were apparently not confident that people would understand that this was a Star Wars movie so the movie had to constantly remind us through callbacks. If there had been one or two, then I wouldn't have been bothered so much, but after a third of the movie it was like nails on a chalkboard every time. Blue milk. "Never tell me the odds." That guy and his partner in the Tatooine bar that Luke bumps into, apparently running some kind of bump-into con on multiple worlds (no wonder he's wanted in twelve systems) R2D2 and C-3PO showing up. Red 5 dying so that Luke has an open spot he can fit into on red squadron. It's pandering and was totally unnecessary.
The movie can stand on its own merits. It doesn't need to have a death grip on its older siblings. Though softlykarou mentioned that since I know more about Star Wars than she does, I picked up more of the references and probably was more annoyed by it.
The one bit of pandering I liked was Darth Vader. There's one lightsaber in the movie, and it's Vader using it to kill people.
I did like that they had the courage to kill off everyone. It was a suicide mission to a fortified Imperial stronghold that still succeeded. It evokes the memory of "Many Bothans died to bring us this information" without having someone mention it. Just Admiral Raddus looking down at the planet and saying, "Rogue One...May the Force be with you," when he realizes that there's no chance of a successful extraction. And most people just died without a big scene, because this is war, and people die.
I didn't really have an attachment for any of the characters, but I did get attached to their mission as a whole. I mean, that's war, right? Some sacrifices need to be made for the mission to succeed?
It's a pretty good movie with some flaws that annoyed me, but not enough to ruin my experience.