Rogue One

[Houston]

Just finished watching the main 4 films, my ranking:

The Force Awakens
The Empire Strikes Back
A New Hope
Return of the Jedi.

I give The Force Awakens the slight edge over Empire because Empire doesn't feel enough of a complete film to me. Luke is the only character with any real goal or objective, to train with Yoda. Leia and Han basically just spend the entire film dodging the Empire. At no point are they really doing anything proactive or helping the resistance.

 

[Burque]

David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glen Frey, Merle Haggard, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Gene Wilder, Arnold Palmer, Leonard Cohen, Fidel Castro, Rick Parfitt, George Michael and now Carrie Fisher. Don't recall a year with so many high profile deaths.

This trend is going to get worse every year.... Many more famous people with the proliferation of movies and television. We will see 20 famous people die a year easily soon.

 

[SilenceS]

Just finished watching the main 4 films, my ranking:

The Force Awakens
The Empire Strikes Back
A New Hope
Return of the Jedi.

I give The Force Awakens the slight edge over Empire because Empire doesn't feel enough of a complete film to me. Luke is the only character with any real goal or objective, to train with Yoda. Leia and Han basically just spend the entire film dodging the Empire. At no point are they really doing anything proactive or helping the resistance.

The Force Awakens is basically A New Hope redone. Empire is the greatest Star Wars movie ever made.

 

[Houston]

It's a redo with more effective storytelling and it actually sets up the sequel in a way that A New Hope didn't. But with Rian Johnson at the helm, I'm pretty confident the next film will be the best anyway.

 

[Houston]

Watched late late last night in an empty theater. The beginning was clunky and everything you don't want to see in sci-fi (introducing like 5 planets/moons in a 10 minute span). Also, Forest Whitaker's character was a drag on the story and almost a waste. For instance when he brings out that creature that reads/steals the mind of the imperial pilot...only for him to imprison the guy anyway, before he eventually gets his mind back...anyway. That whole chain of events was pointless. The story telling could've been a lot more efficient. Things don't really pick up until Orson Krennic meets up with Jyn's dad in that rainy scene.
The ending was very good though, I liked the idea of them all dying.

Ben Mendelsohn was really good as Orson.

I probably place this above A New Hope, because it got me to do something that I could hardly do with the first Star Wars, actually care about the characters and what they went through. The dark tone was great for this.