Chris Stuckmann teams up with Nostalgia Critic to see if the latest Star Wars spin off is worth being such a hit. Chris and Doug review Rouge One – A Star Wars Story!
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Tagged with: a star wars story channel awesome chris stuckmann doug walker movies nostalgia critic rogue one star wars
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Channel Awesome
Well, it’s my second favorite movie that’s a prequel based on a doomed crusade set before the initial start of the franchise where in a group of scrappy fighters come against an evil empire headed by a tyrant with a specialty for blowing up planets and where in their sacrifice comes with the hope that the next generation will succeed where they failed… And in which the father of the franchise’s main star plays a role and there is a a supernatural power that doesn’t save them… and with a climatic scene against the most famous tyrant of the evil empire even if he isn’t technically in charge due to a lesser seen higher authority. Also where in a currently dead but known villains play a role in killing the main character’s team and still survives to the franchise…
My #1 favorite of that is Bardock: Father of Goku. I don’t think there was any intentional copying, just coincidence made almost unavoidable when a team that was not the original creators look for a self contained story about the events leading up the main franchise.
I’m a Prequel Trilogy apologist. I wish the venomous hate would just stop.
I thought that both Tarkin and Leia looked fantastic.
Malcom’s Forest Whitaker is outstanding.
All I wanna know is: Who was Dancin’ Vader?
This was actually pretty good for a clipless. I felt the film played a little much on the fact you’ve seen the originals and so don’t maintain a sense of preserving things for the originals if you watch them in order. Like how profound is the scene of Gen. Veers catching sight of Vader without his helmet in Empire when you’ve already seen a rather blatant scene of Vader in his bath tube? And then there’s the whole part about having Leia’s ship be at the battle inside the command ship instead of just being a nearby ship that the team broadcast the plans to and not even show Leia with that digital face. Or why did they have to make the hole exhaust port a deliberate act of sabotage instead of just making it something they were fortunate enough to devise after studying the plans?! Only Jyn was told there was a deliberate weakness by her father and in the end they all died so frankly it was up to the rebels on Yavin to figure something out and thus it could be edited out and left exactly as it always was: luck that a weakness COULD be found to exploit.
But at the end, I was kinda hoping they’d at least point out how the final battle sequence felt a bit too reminiscent of the Battle of Endor. Speaking of which, wouldn’t the Ewok films be the precedents for anthology/spinoff films for Star Wars even before that Clone Wars film?
Wow, Doug actually managed to make it through an entire Star Wars movie review without bashing Jar Jar once! I’m impressed!
Say what you will about Jar Jar. I know his name without having to look it up.
Sequel month…LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LOOK FOR THE WORST SEQUELS OUTTHERE!
Boy, talk about a glutton for punishment! So does that mean next week will be a regular review? I can’t wait to find out what he’s gonna do first!
I find it funny how there’s so much complaining about the characters not getting enough backstory in this movie, when most of them still got more than, say, Chewie’s gotten in the entire saga. The vast majority of things we “know” about Han and Chewie’s relation to one another are never even mentioned in the movies proper.
Well, Chewie’s an alien, so his backstory is . . . he’s an alien. Because only humans get to have backstories in Star Wars. Just like the Rebellion is made up mainly of humans . . . the only race the Empire DOESN’T hate.
Of course, according to the Holiday Special Chewie has a wife and son, but we don’t talk about the Holiday Special.
Honestly, it was a bit stupid of them to take the opening crawl out from this movie, since it was the one that needed it the most. I went and saw it with a friend, who went into it not even knowing it was coming out until about a week before we saw it, and he had no idea what it was about or where it was supposed to take place in the timeline until I told him. There are obviously some indicators in the movie in the form of characters showing up and such, but until the obvious ones like Vader show up, even those are mostly of characters that are easy to have forgot if it’s been years since you saw the original trillogy. I can’t imagine how confused newer fans who were introduced to Star Wars by Episode 7 must have been……
As for the Grand Moff CG BS, yea, that was really terrible. It was good CG, but it REALLY stood out as being CG, so it just looked horrible any time the character was on screen. And to top it off, he ultimately served no purpose in the plot aside from being a minor antagonist to the antagonist. The only reason to have him in there was to be fanservice of “here’s this other important character again”, but it turned into fan disservice because it didn’t fit at visually and just made those scenes cheaper, then to top it off, they included it so often for no real reason. I get that the purpose was to be a military leader that was going to take credit for the Death Star and give pressure to the antagonist to make him more desperate, but that role could have been filled by anyone and didn’t have to be a CG revival of a character…..
Still, despite criticizing these two plot points, I have to completely disagree with the NC on the quality of this movie. It was FAR superior than Episode VII. The characters were enjoyable to watch, and they had a lot more entertaining moments when they were discussing plot dialog. Also, the villain was relatable and enjoyable, while Kylo Ren on the other hand was the most whiny and pathetic excuse for a sith lord that I have ever seen across all of Star Wars. The characters had personality beyond being bland generic heroes, the action scenes were enjoyable and not filled with “why the hell is this like this” situations, and the writing was just far superior in general. Honestly, while Episode VII was an “alright” movie and wasn’t “bad”, Rouge One is a good movie that is worth rewatching in the future. I’m aware that there are those that disagree with my opinion on this of course, but personally I can’t really see why people like Episode VII aside from “it’s Star Wars”. Rouge One is the kind of movie that gives me some faith that they can turn out enjoyable theatrical experiences, on the other hand…..
The Opening Crawl
They mentioned in the review how the movie took something like 12 minutes to establish the plot and they summarized it in 1.
That 1 minute could have been the crawl and the movie would have been better for it.
Am I blind or did I honestly think the CGI for grand moff was fine. It did not detract from the experience at all for me.
I very much enjoy these sweeded reviews. Please do more of them.
I like that Stuckman was so willing to poke fun at his format. You all did a great job and this was really funny.
I agree with most of your critiques and disagree with very little of your praise. I am rarely so in agreement with you.
Rogue One – fucking shit.
Another awful clipless review. I was hoping this might be the time you get it right but unfortunately the jokes once again fall flat without the clips to support it. I find it odd that you refuse to give up on this weakness. You moved on from that Film Crew project back to NC but you stubbornly stick to occasional clipless reviews. I’m part of the problem though…I keep giving these a chance in the hopes that it’ll be good and in doing so I directly support that more be made.
I do 100% agree that there can never be too much content. I’ve been sick of Marvel movies since around Iron Man 2 and I felt Force Awakens was a poor movie but that doesn’t mean I think those franchises should die. Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy showed that Marvel could still deliver some fun. Star Wars The Old Republic is proof that there can be excellence outside of the movies. There’s always a chance that something good comes out of the next 10 years of Marvel and Star Wars so why not try? Even if you hate 100% of it then you shouldn’t let it bring you down from the parts of that lore you personally do enjoy.
Honestly I think it’s to this movies credit (and not as a joke) that it didn’t explain all the characters’ backstories. There’s something to be said for simply presenting a character (especially a non-main character) as they are rather than going on a minutes long exposition dump. I really think shooty guy saying why he was so devoted to old man Toph (yeah, I don’t remember their names either) would have detracted from their characters. I much prefer characters who have at least an illusion of unexplored depth to ones who just have their life explained like the show is trying to fill out their wikipedia article.
I’m not saying they did that perfectly, but I do think this show is genuinely better for not going the “explain everything to death” route.
You know, I have to admit, this was one of the better clipless reviews, mostly because you actually spend most of it talking about the film and its problems instead of just acting out every major scene. It’s not like a typical NC review like the first two and Force Awakens were, but it still feels like an actual, honest-to-god review. Not bad after having gone so long without making one.
Yeah, you dedicated it to Carrie Fisher! I was waiting how long until you made a “Phantom Menace” joke. I knew for a fact you would! I personally loved this movie and yes, the Darth Vader scene is awesome. Hey, the Nostalgia Critic died. It’s been awhile since that happened!
Half the chat is saying the same “RIP Carrie fisher” copy paste from facebook, while the other is talking about doug reviewing a movie that’s still in theatres again. Now i have nothing against Carrie Fisher, she was great in the star wars films(regretfully i know her from nothing else, but that will change soon), her mother also passed recently most know her from her work on the classic “Singing in the rain” and while these are two big stars and heroes to many people, when i see everyone thoughtlessly say how sad they are that [CURRENT CELEBRITY] has passed on most people don’t know a damn thing about these people or what they believed in. A big example is Robin Williams, when he passed away from his long running bout with depression a lot of people were saying how sad it was to see him pass, which is understandable we did lose a great icon, but how did they choose to remember him? With pictures of the genie from aladdin…If you know anything about the man you know how much he HATED disney because of how they screwed him over for that role(https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1sdeia/til_robin_williams_voiced_the_genie_in_aladdin/)
Hated disney enough to where his will(http://io9.gizmodo.com/robin-williams-will-prevents-disney-from-using-old-alad-1741421271) prevents disney from using that footage, this is a grievance the man took to his GRAVE, and this is how people remember him. My point is this, since i’m on a bit of a rant at this point. If you’re going to miss a celebrity, do it because you will genuinely miss them, not because it’s the IN THING TO DO RIGHT NOW.
Both angels and Hell predates christianity. Christianity has taken a lot of concepts, symbolism and ideas from other mythology and ancient narratives.
Saw uses the squid to intimidate, and the dude is clearly crazy…
Baze and Imwe knew eachother since they were temple guards together, as explained when they were introduced.
And yea… Mixed feelings about digital Tarkin is only natural.
Rogue One – fuсking shit.
I haven’t watched the review yet because I haven’t watched Rogue One yet, but is there a reason that in the summary/description of this review it says “Chris and Doug review Rouge One”. “Rouge”, as in the word for red in French, instead of “Rogue”. I’m assuming this is a typo. Though a review combining Moulin Rouge and Rogue One would be interesting to watch. 😉
The letters must flow.
@7:55 To be fair… IT’S TARKIN. The Death Star is HIS thing. He is more associated with it than Vader ever was.
I really hoped they would have done something different. Especially with over half of the movies featuring a dogfight scene. I’d like to see a medium paced suspenseful spy thriller (one not so action oriented) done in the Star Wars universe. Hell, even a slow paced philosophical film about the existentialism of the force may work. There’s so many possibilities.
“I wasn’t feeling that..” … Yeah, Critic, you’re too old and don’t feel anything anymore
Who the hell were all those people? I don’t remember there being any characters in ‘Rogue One’. It was like a still life or something, right? Wasn’t it? I’m pretty sure I’d remember if there were any people in it.
I’m not quite sure where the “exact same weakness” misconception comes from. The first death star had a hidden weakness. The second one, you didn’t need to exploit any hidden weakness, it was unfinished (though fully operational, to quote the Emperor) and they just needed to get fighters through the fleet and surface defences to fly inside and blow up the reactor.
In that case, I suppose you could say the weakness was, at least in part, the Emperor’s hubris in laying his trap for the Rebellion, tricking them into bringing their fleet to attack what they thought was a defenceless battle station and then getting clobbered by it, since it was still somewhat vulnerable (i.e. it’s missing half its structure and you can fly a fighter straight in to mess up its reactor causing a massive explosion)
James Earl Jones’ voice is fine. He sounds off because they clearly used the wrong filter on it. This is what happens when Ben Burtt isn’t on the job.