Rogue One (2016)
I'm so glad I got to see this movie before my health made watching movies basically impossible again. SO GLAD.
* AAAH I ENJOYED THAT MOVIE A LOT.
* LOL at this movie being a "tentpole" for the Star Wars universe. Sorry, I still don't care about Star Wars, except when they give me leads who are not white straight dudes. As long as they're able to do that? I'm there with bells on. The young Han Solo movie? Could not give less of a fuck.
* A movie with a foregone conclusion lives and dies by its characters. Here, I felt like the characters worked in theory but not in practice. In a spreadsheet they all had the right beats. In practice something felt... flat.
* Like, the scene where Jyn sees a hologram of her dad for the first time and falls to her knees, that should have been SO impactful, instead it felt like the actress was trying to drag the writing up to where it needed to be. Same with the scene where Cassian says "I've been in this fight since I was 6 years old". That should have been a really powerful moment, and instead it felt like exposition.
* I didn't know everyone was going to die, but I could have guessed, and it still annoys me on a meta level as much as I think it's a valid story choice within the narrative. Basically this movie was Battlestar Galactica: Razor.
* I really enjoyed having a female protag be the star of a movie like this, guys. Like, this was such a taking-itself-seriously action movie, and Jyn was not a Special Little Girl, she was someone with trauma who was a cynic and a criminal and just. JUST. She was on the Jessica Jones continuum and I heart that whole continuum SO MUCH.
* Let's not even mention how much this movie was ABOUT MY LIFE, lolol. What's that, female protag loses her dad as a girl, through no fault of her own (or the dad's), is raised by a step dad only to be reunited with her biological father who she's not been in contact with for a brief time as an adult? WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST USE MY BABY PICS FOR THE OPENING CREDITS, MOVIE.
Seriously though, I am SO EASY for dad angst and this was a PERFECT DAD ANGST MOVIE, even with the characters feeling flat. Like, I spent most of it thinking "yep, Jyn, I've felt that feel" and "the fic for this movie is literally just MY LIFE." MY GOD.
* I thought this movie had an unusually good plot that made sense and added up and didn't have any glaring holes or inconsistencies. Partially I think it's good writing, partially the fact that it was such a small story. It wasn't about saving the galaxy - just about getting this One Thing to a certain spot.
It was annoying though that I felt like the plot had been workshopped to death, in the best way, but the characters had somehow lost their shine in the same "mechanical" process.
* I've never in my life gotten the "Darth Vader is so cool!" thing, but in this movie I could see why he was perceived as a badass. There are no jedi knights but here's this dude waving a sword and engaged in the kind of desperate, personal, hand to hand combat we don't really see from anyone else.
* I really loved the main pairing and wish they hadn't died so I could write a billion fics. SPIES AND OUTLAW GIRLS WITH DADDY ISSUES. THESE CHARACTERS WERE SERVED UP TO ME ON A PLATTER.
Seriously though this romance really worked for me, and it's weird for me to see stuff about it was ~feminist~ for Jyn not to have a love interest or a kissing scene? Both because I DEFINITELY think it was a straight up romance, and because this was actually the one way that I enjoy romance being! With the woman being the focus, with both of them being on more or less equal footing, with both of them working desperately for a cause they both believe in. Like, that's good romance! I'd gladly take it.
* The stuff about the imagery in this movie mirroring Vietnam war imagery... I mean, yes, but also it was very muddled in terms of making any kind of statement. Ultimately both the Alliance and the Empire had planes in the air and forces on the ground, so. Not exactly a political statement, imo.
* Overall: I enjoyed, it was a little too thin on the characters and a little too heavy on the foregone conclusion of the final battle, but if all Star Wars movies were like this from now and featured zero white men in leading roles, I'd watch every single one.
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* AAAH I ENJOYED THAT MOVIE A LOT.
* LOL at this movie being a "tentpole" for the Star Wars universe. Sorry, I still don't care about Star Wars, except when they give me leads who are not white straight dudes. As long as they're able to do that? I'm there with bells on. The young Han Solo movie? Could not give less of a fuck.
* A movie with a foregone conclusion lives and dies by its characters. Here, I felt like the characters worked in theory but not in practice. In a spreadsheet they all had the right beats. In practice something felt... flat.
* Like, the scene where Jyn sees a hologram of her dad for the first time and falls to her knees, that should have been SO impactful, instead it felt like the actress was trying to drag the writing up to where it needed to be. Same with the scene where Cassian says "I've been in this fight since I was 6 years old". That should have been a really powerful moment, and instead it felt like exposition.
* I didn't know everyone was going to die, but I could have guessed, and it still annoys me on a meta level as much as I think it's a valid story choice within the narrative. Basically this movie was Battlestar Galactica: Razor.
* I really enjoyed having a female protag be the star of a movie like this, guys. Like, this was such a taking-itself-seriously action movie, and Jyn was not a Special Little Girl, she was someone with trauma who was a cynic and a criminal and just. JUST. She was on the Jessica Jones continuum and I heart that whole continuum SO MUCH.
* Let's not even mention how much this movie was ABOUT MY LIFE, lolol. What's that, female protag loses her dad as a girl, through no fault of her own (or the dad's), is raised by a step dad only to be reunited with her biological father who she's not been in contact with for a brief time as an adult? WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST USE MY BABY PICS FOR THE OPENING CREDITS, MOVIE.
Seriously though, I am SO EASY for dad angst and this was a PERFECT DAD ANGST MOVIE, even with the characters feeling flat. Like, I spent most of it thinking "yep, Jyn, I've felt that feel" and "the fic for this movie is literally just MY LIFE." MY GOD.
* I thought this movie had an unusually good plot that made sense and added up and didn't have any glaring holes or inconsistencies. Partially I think it's good writing, partially the fact that it was such a small story. It wasn't about saving the galaxy - just about getting this One Thing to a certain spot.
It was annoying though that I felt like the plot had been workshopped to death, in the best way, but the characters had somehow lost their shine in the same "mechanical" process.
* I've never in my life gotten the "Darth Vader is so cool!" thing, but in this movie I could see why he was perceived as a badass. There are no jedi knights but here's this dude waving a sword and engaged in the kind of desperate, personal, hand to hand combat we don't really see from anyone else.
* I really loved the main pairing and wish they hadn't died so I could write a billion fics. SPIES AND OUTLAW GIRLS WITH DADDY ISSUES. THESE CHARACTERS WERE SERVED UP TO ME ON A PLATTER.
Seriously though this romance really worked for me, and it's weird for me to see stuff about it was ~feminist~ for Jyn not to have a love interest or a kissing scene? Both because I DEFINITELY think it was a straight up romance, and because this was actually the one way that I enjoy romance being! With the woman being the focus, with both of them being on more or less equal footing, with both of them working desperately for a cause they both believe in. Like, that's good romance! I'd gladly take it.
* The stuff about the imagery in this movie mirroring Vietnam war imagery... I mean, yes, but also it was very muddled in terms of making any kind of statement. Ultimately both the Alliance and the Empire had planes in the air and forces on the ground, so. Not exactly a political statement, imo.
* Overall: I enjoyed, it was a little too thin on the characters and a little too heavy on the foregone conclusion of the final battle, but if all Star Wars movies were like this from now and featured zero white men in leading roles, I'd watch every single one.
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