Rogue One: Yarr, here be spoilers

[Vanger Chevane]

If you haven't seen the move yet do not, repeat DO NOT, read this thread!

Failure to stop reading now will likely ruin the experience.





Just saw it, very impressed with Disney's first original SW storyline & characters. I'm also a fan of Firefly & loved Alan Tudyk's (Wash in Firefly & the Serenity movie) work in the film. Characters & storyline were unique & engaging, I'm still absorbing all the SWey goodness of the type we Original Trilogy Era fans grew up with.

I absolutely loved how the ANH characters were revisited. Not only were the CGI faces true to the legacy, someone put a lot of time & effort into getting the voices & speech patterns for new dialog right. Granted some bits were ANH dialog and/or re-backgrounded original footage, but a fair amount was not in the final cut. Whether the dialog for characters other than Tarkin was from ANH alternate dialog reels / scenes or completely new material I don't know.


The one annoying bit for me was the very end scene. The Ending itself was well done IMHO & while I would've liked to see some of the major characters survive to at least the EU, sacrificing the lot worked for me as the original EU had the just-before-ANH transmission of DS1's plans from the Holonet Relay on Toprawa being a very-against-the-odds Suicide Mission. IIRC there are other points in Lucas EU between the initial acquisition of the tech readouts & Toprawa that were also high risk, death is acceptable but failure is not, missions.

Getting to see Darth Vader as the Massive Threat he really should be was great.


Destroying cities with the Superlaser did add great effects & impetus to the story, but is IMHO strategically deranged. It moved DS1 from Top Secret to Top Newsflash / Scandal. In both cases leaving just about everyone else on the planet able to reveal important details about Palpatine's Secret New Megaweapon to the general public and placing Tarkin's relationship with the Emperor in extremely hazardous territory.

Granted, it could be a move by Palpatine to generate a healthy fear of DS1 amongst the planetary leaders of the Empire prior to the extreme example of vaping Alderaan, and may show Tarkin to have some power-mad & power-hungry capriciousness. I have no doubt that if Tarkin could overthrow Palpatine & place himself sercurely atop the Imperial Throne (either with or without Vader as an Enforcer), he bloody well would have.





It really seems to me that while trying to finish the final scene, writers and staff were faced with major running length & budget pressures. It struck me as if that trivial answer was chosen mostly because a lot of the Decision Makers were really tired & just wanted to go home, and the Lazy Choice tied R1 to ANH in a childishly simple to follow manner.

I think there were several odd Strategic/Tactical choices there. Why wouldn't the Imperial Fleet present intercept, disable, or destroy anything leaving the Rebel Command Ship instead of letting them just sail off completely untouched? It seems highly implausible that, like the ANH Falcon leaving DS1, they simply let them go & are tracking the fleeing ship to the Rebel's Secret Base.

IMHO there was also a failure in the Rebel Command Ship's Comms Department. Info that critical should have been simulcast to every ship in the fleet so that at least one surviving copy, or enough parts of it for a reconstruction & analysis of the data, would survive to Yavin 4.

After the escape of the Tantive 4 I can see a quick and brutal purge of Imperial personnel (possibly by Imp Intel or clandestine agents close to the Emperor, as Vader will be busy hunting Leia Organa. Thrawn may be a lovely choice to oversee the operation.) whom allegedly allowed the Rebel ship to escape Vader's grasp, as well as a dressing down of Vader by Palpatine himself. In an echo of Vader's conversation in ANH: "Find the ship, its crew, and the data. None of it shall reach the Rebels. See to it personally Lord Vader."

It would also help to bolster the Imperial Crew's rather genial level of comfort around Vader in the beginning of ANH. After all, their loyalty & efficiency is effectively unquestionable post-purge.





Now for some fun!


Were I to tweak the Movie Canon a bit & RPG the aftermath, I'd have everyone unaware that the Tantive IV received a copy of the data and/or survived. But have several pieces arrive at Yavin 4 from other ships that jumped away from the battle at Scarif except one, leading to one or two Treasure Hunt adventure arcs for my group.


Scene: Yavin 4's briefing room (from ANH) filled with ground troops and General Dodonna, possibly Madine or Rieekan. On the Big Screen is the Imperial Logo with the 10-12 o'clock portion flashing.

"We've analyzed what were were able to recover of the data from Scarif, and it's unfortunately incomplete. First is the final portion of the Decryption code, Colonel (spy), your team will infiltrate a (place) on (planet) to secure this portion if not the complete code. Failure to secure & deliver this section of the code at the very minimum means we cannot analyze any of the ultra-security sections of the Emperor's Megaweapon for a weakness we can exploit." A high-stakes Stealthcloak & Vibrodagger thriller arc.

"Major (commando), your team will assault the (shipyard / Ubiqtorate base / other major Imp Installation) on (other planet) to retrieve this section of (damaged/destroyed Rebel ship's or Isk-Isk high-security's) Data core for the missing section of the readout. Our sources indicate what we need is there, and we need it intact. Bring back as much of the transmission as you possibly can so we'll have a complete set of data." A more combat oriented capture-the-flag / raid & run arc.

If the group is capable of handling both types of missions competently (opposition will be very difficult), then the missions would be assigned in sequence instead of simultaneously to different teams, or the Heroes being handed the latter mission after someone else's disastrously failed attempt likely somewhere different than the Heroes' target. ("Botched that one, going back would be suicidally stupid. Where else can we send a team?")



To blend the seam with the ANH opening, either mission can fail, the handlers of either or both the Decrypt Code or Tech Readout gets intercepted, or the relay transmission cut off or garbled by successful Imperial hunters. Leaving Princess Leia with the only surviving intact copy. IMHO this need not be Vader, but other teams of Imperial Military & Intelligence.

I personally prefer the Tech Readout as it's got a bit more drama to it. There's the victory of securing & delivering the Decrypt intact is dashed by the missing data. I like giving the Rebels a clean read from the reactor to the exhaust port, but missing the location of The Trench itself, possibly that it's ray-shielded as well.

Intel Analyst to Senior Leader: "We know there's an exhaust port we can hit to destroy the Death Star, but where is it?"

Leader: "If by some miracle we could sustain such an attack, we could spend hours or days hunting for it."

Droid: "We have isolated eighteen thousand, six hundred, and two surface trenches that could potentially contain the port in question."

Leader or Analyst: "How long will it take to narrow it down to a single digit?"

Analyst or Droid: "Longer than you'll live."
(Begin the desperate search for another potential copy and possibly reaveal Tantive IV's "current" location and/or possession of the last Intact Copy.)




Input from anyone else?

Mods Can you change the thread icon to an Exclamation Point or some other Danger Signal & erase this line please?

[Grimace]

I felt it was a very good show. They did a very good job melding it to the time period it was supposed to be set in! The inclusion of character and situations was a wonderful touch which add so much when you think about it.

Things of note:
You see Red5 get blown up, making way for Luke to go into that position in Star Wars.

I could have sworn, but I will have to wait until I see it again, that I saw Biggs in Blue Squadron. He was in one of the fighters which didn't make it through the shield before it was closed. The bulk of Blue Squadron was destroyed on the planet, so it would make sense that Biggs would have been left in the remnants of Blue and be reassigned to Red Squadron to fill in the losses they took in the battle. Thus why Biggs is also in Red Squadron in Star Wars.

You got to see the tenacity and determination of Gold Leader, and why he was on the bombing run in Star Wars.

Vader's Castle! MAN that was good!

The emphasis on "hope". How, without hope, there would be no rebellion. Seeing how fractured and unwilling the rebellion was early on was neat, but it definitely emphasized how they didn't have hope at that time. Thus, even though Star Wars didn't originally have the name, the subtitle of "A New Hope" carries extra weight in shows how things changed in Star Wars.

And now you really see why there is a squadron named after Rogue One! Rogue Squadron now holds a lot of extra impact as you realize what it signifies for the rebellion to use that name. Rogue Squadron, like Rogue One, is willing to attempt the impossible, and willing to put it all on the line if the need is required.

Man, you really get a sense of what an Imperial Garrison can do!

[wolverine]

I do wonder, did they change the name of red squadron to Rogue in honor OF these troops.. AND man was the film a blast to watch.
Krennik was a good sleezeball character. LOVED the CGI tarkin (awesome) but not so much the whole 3 seconds we got of leia.. The team was well done, but its a pity they were all TPKed.... I would have liked to see 2-3 of them make it out for a sequel...

[Ash DuQuennes]

YES!! ION TORPEDOES!!!

We had those in our group in 1989!!

[Ash DuQuennes]

Okay, now that I got that out of my system...

Very much liked this; much much better than The Force Awakens.

I may need multiple viewings to really get a proper "sense" of this movie, but, unfortunately, I still got a strong sense of the "Lindelof/Abrams Effect;" things happened because they needed to happen to advance the plot, and not as a natural consequence of the narrative flow.

Or, as I like to put it: "Good character acting, with a series of awesome action/fight scenes, loosely draped over the skeleton of an actual plot."


Then again, this movie was so much more fast-paced, things happening so quickly that I almost feel I'll need the movie to watch at home, to pause, slo-mo, even backup and re-watch certain sequences multiple times just to make certain of what I'm seeing.

Vader was a totally awesome; makes his and Kenobi's duel on the Death Star seem kind of anemic, now; makes all of the OT LS duels seem kind of anemic, now.

[coldskier0320]

Saw it last night.

While "Star Wars Afterglow" is something I even experienced with TFA...liking it when I walked out of the theater, then 3 days later thinking it was very nearly tied for the bottom of the SW barrel with TPM...I think that this one was a very enjoyable movie.

I'll sum up more thoughts later, but a quick response to a few points here:

the original EU had the just-before-ANH transmission of DS1's plans from the Holonet Relay on Toprawa being a very-against-the-odds Suicide Mission. IIRC there are other points in Lucas EU between the initial acquisition of the tech readouts & Toprawa that were also high risk, death is acceptable but failure is not, missions.

This is true, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm willing to accept simplification of that story to get a good movie about it instead of a few parts of a few books. Maybe if there was a duology or trilogy of books that were 1) good and 2) strictly focused on this specific plot I might feel differently...but where TFA replaced lots of established lore with nothing but weak storytelling and a re-hashing of the plots of existing movies, it seems R1 did a better than decent job with the material and timeframe it covered.

Destroying cities with the Superlaser did add great effects & impetus to the story, but is IMHO strategically deranged. It moved DS1 from Top Secret to Top Newsflash / Scandal. In both cases leaving just about everyone else on the planet able to reveal important details about Palpatine's Secret New Megaweapon to the general public and placing Tarkin's relationship with the Emperor in extremely hazardous territory.

Granted, it could be a move by Palpatine to generate a healthy fear of DS1 amongst the planetary leaders of the Empire prior to the extreme example of vaping Alderaan, and may show Tarkin to have some power-mad & power-hungry capriciousness. I have no doubt that if Tarkin could overthrow Palpatine & place himself sercurely atop the Imperial Throne (either with or without Vader as an Enforcer), he bloody well would have.

This is one area that I actually had very little problem with as it plays very well with most of Tarkin's dialogue in ANH, and indeed his reputation in the old EU. This also makes the DS1 conference room scene all the more important in the greater context of the overall story.

The DS was kept a secret, but with a guy like Tarkin calling the shots for it, it's only a matter of time until word is going to get out. With vague rumors turning into isolated reports, turning into verifiable evidence, the DS would be one of those things that you could never actually use to it's full potential without those reports...it's a fear weapon. But the natural check to that is the Imperial Senate...sooooo before word can spread too far into the core, Palpatine simply just does away with the senate. With a guy like Tarkin, he feels that this will give him carte blanche to do as he likes with the DS, leading to the destruction of Alderaan in ANH. Unfortunately for Palpatine, this pushes the people of the galaxy around a bit too much, and, with the DS's destruction, of course, causes a surge in the ranks of the Rebellion.

Also, while Tarkin was certainly power hungry and ruthless, I never picked up any vibe of him seeking to supplant the Emperor, and he was clearly seen as the superior of Vader (though behind the scenes this was certainly not likely the case)...so rather than tangling with such a dangerous individual as Palpatine, he seemed to view the Palpatine era as his time to grab up all the power he could, perhaps to put himself in a position to take over when Palpatine's time was eventually up. Until then, he seems to give all indications of a very loyal subject.

I think there were several odd Strategic/Tactical choices there. Why wouldn't the Imperial Fleet present intercept, disable, or destroy anything leaving the Rebel Command Ship instead of letting them just sail off completely untouched? It seems highly implausible that, like the ANH Falcon leaving DS1, they simply let them go & are tracking the fleeing ship to the Rebel's Secret Base.

I saw that one as more a case of the battle being over, more or less, and the Tantive IV keeping the bulk of the rebel flagship between itself and Devastator...you know...the rebel flagship that their boss is currently on...so that they'd be very hesitant to shoot. With the Devastator as the only Imperial capital ship left in the sky, I think that the CR90 would be reasonably able to shrug off some TIE potshots and get to hyperspace.

IMHO there was also a failure in the Rebel Command Ship's Comms Department. Info that critical should have been simulcast to every ship in the fleet so that at least one surviving copy, or enough parts of it for a reconstruction & analysis of the data, would survive to Yavin 4.

I think this is an area where we need to make it clear that SW tech and Earth tech have significantly diverged. While they've got hyperdrives and lasers, I think it's clear that Earth communications and data processing are likely superior to most of what they have in the SW universe. We live in a world where a common handheld device can be used to transmit live, real time video to and from orbit, and is so unremarkable as to be taken for granted by nearly everyone. Contrast this to a SW setting where a top data center for the dominant force of the galaxy needs a massive dish up top to send data up to ships in orbit. This in mind, I think that the notion of the flagship simply streaming the data out to other ships or uploading it to the HoloNet is simply an impossibility given their tech. A weird thing to be saying about Sci-fi/Space Fantasy, but an interesting commentary on how far we've come here, that there are technological capabilities we take for granted that the folks in our high tech fantasies from 4 decades ago still haven't thought of.

[wolverine]

YES!! ION TORPEDOES!!!

We had those in our group in 1989!!

I have seen some fan designs for Ion torps over the years, but None that powerful to where 6 can neutralize an ISD..

Vader was a totally awesome; makes his and Kenobi's duel on the Death Star seem kind of anemic, now; makes all of the OT LS duels seem kind of anemic, now.

I agree. Seeing how fluid he moved here, and compare it to the stick figure fighting he seemed to show in ANH, it makes that duel with Obi-wan, WAY sub-par. BUT that's also after seeing the LS duels in the prequels too..

[Vanger Chevane]

Originally Posted by Ash DuQuennes
YES!! ION TORPEDOES!!!

We had those in our group in 1989!!I have seen some fan designs for Ion torps over the years, but None that powerful to where 6 can neutralize an ISD..

I loved thosae as well.


I recall using an Ion Torpedo in a game here on the Holonet to take down an IIRC VSD in a game run by the Legendary Ronin many years ago..but the launch tube was basically 2 55-gallon oil drums with the ends cut off & welded together. An Ion Torp more on the scale of the missiles launched by the Falcon at DS2's reactor.

Not exactly a Capital Grade Torp, but much larger than a snubfighter could carry in Internal Stores.


The X-Wing Computer Games had in the Arsenal a Mag Pulse Torpedo that had about the same sort of effect.

IMHO Ion Torpedoes make a decent amount of sense, but a Y-W can pump as much Ion into a target as its shields, hull, and the pilot's skill allow instead of the one-shot payload a missile has.

[Ash DuQuennes]

IMHO Ion Torpedoes make a decent amount of sense, but a Y-W can pump as much Ion into a target as its shields, hull, and the pilot's skill allow instead of the one-shot payload a missile has.

True 'dat. The only thing I can think/suppose/postulate is that perhaps the ion torps deliver their ion damage in an extremely narrow/focused/concentrated manner, versus the more haphazard "spray" of several different fighter's ion cannons, from a "strafing run."

Just a WAG; not wedded to it.

[coldskier0320]

I took that scene as the culmination of a concerted effort to bring down that ISD's shields by several fighter groups and capships...and those ion torps were the "knockout punch" so to speak, that, with shields gone, were able to hit home and incapacitate the ISD's ability to recharge her shields...or anything else.

I also think that as far as practicality, it was likely more that in a given "run" the cannons can only point (more or less) where the craft is aiming, and a strafing run would hit pinpoints all across the surface. A more indirect projectile allows a skilled pilot/bomber to "stack the deck" and aim & time launches so that all the boom hits more or less in the same region & timeframe.

[wolverine]

Also, why didn't we see much if ANY fire from any of the cap ships towards one another, just fighter's strafing one another, and the large ships, TIL Vader showed up?

[Grimace]

I just got back from seeing it a second time. A couple things I noticed:

Gold Leader calls to his squadron "See that hole? Hit it!". That is when the Y-Wings fire their ion torpedoes. So they had managed to drop the shields of the Star Destroyer, allowing the Ion torpedoes to impact the hull. The disabling of the Star Destroyer was a concerted effort. We just saw the last bit that actually disabled the large craft.

I watched closely, and the Hammerhead Cruiser that pushed the one Star Destroyer into the other, also pushed the Star Destroyer down into the station. It was still pushing the big ship when the whole thing went up in an explosion. Thus, that cruiser and all the people aboard it died performing that job.

This one I saw in non-3D, and I must say that the Tarkin CGI face didn't look nearly as garish as it did in 3D. The Princess was still pretty bad, even in non-3D. But Tarkin you could almost believe Peter Cushing, because the guy nailed the voice and mannerisms so darn well!

There was fire from the two Star Destroyers during the battle. What there wasn't a whole lot of was TIE Fighters.... at least until the station launched their massive wing of fighters! One must assume there were other fighters they were fighting against, because one pilot makes the mention "We've got even more fighters coming in!" so there must have been a quantity of fighters we just never saw in the battle that had been keeping the Rebels busy.

[wolverine]

But i thought ion weapons ignored shields anyway.. SO why do the "see that hole, hit it" if he was mentioning the hole in shields??

[Grimace]

Ions ignoring shields is an on-again off-again sort of rule. Sometimes throughout the years in Star Wars, they ignore shields. Other times they don't. It would appear that in Rogue One they don't ignore shields.

[Ash DuQuennes]

Ions ignoring shields is an on-again off-again sort of rule. Sometimes throughout the years in Star Wars, they ignore shields. Other times they don't. It would appear that in Rogue One they don't ignore shields.

WEG d6 had ions ignoring shields; WotC (RCRB, at least; can't recall OCRB rules on it) had them ignore Hull DR. Don't know about EU novel stuff, or computer games beyond X-Wing, which had shields effective against ion cannons.

As far as movies go, it seems to be plot driven; I don't know if the ImpStar over Hoth had shields up or down when that Planetary Ion Cannon cut loose on it; game stats make that cannon very powerful, so the ImpStar's shield status may have been a moot point.