No, they could have easily skipped the space battle. Let’s say they wanted to transmit the message to a covert ship hiding in the orbital facility, and needed some small covert operation to sabotage the force field to do this. This would have made more sense than the plot that they chose.
Other battles made more sense for plots of their respective movies - like a desperate attempt by a small rebel fleet to destroy the Imperial super weapon, or an overwhelming assault by Imperial forces on the newly discovered Hoth rebel base, while the rebels attempt to flee.
In these examples, the battles are a backdrop for the story to unfold. In Rogue One, the battle was a cinematic element gratuitously written into the story.
Edit: I should add that the first Death Star battle was probably the most important of all to the plot, since it was the culmination of Luke’s hero journey from farmer to rebel hero. From the very start, the story had Luke being obsessed with piloting, and was even the son of a legendary pilot (who we didn’t know was Darth Vader at that point). It would not have made sense to complete Luke’s story arc in the first movie in any other way than a space battle.
In contrast, Rogue One was supposed to be the “untold story” of stealing the Death Star plans. Involving the entire rebel fleet in this mission in fact, undermines the story. You’d think that such a meaningful battle would be referenced frequently by future rebels. However, there is no mention of this event in subsequent films. So, it would have been more consistent with the narrative, and the covert nature of the main character team, if the operation had been a small scale mission, which had a critical result, even if only the closest people to the rebel leadership had knowledge of it.
I don’t think so, her/Bail Organa’s support for the rebellion was secret. Her outright admitting that she participated in the Battle of Scarif would have doomed Alderaan (not that it made any difference).
Cloaking devices don’t exist in the star wars galaxy so the covert ship would be discovered. The original plan was to get it and leave on the same shuttle but they were discovered. I agree it was a suicide plan with no Plan B, but they also had no resources or support from the Rebellion. It was an unsanctioned mission. I suppose they could have done a ground forces movie but I’m sure in that alternate universe you’d be arguing that they’d never get off the planet without air and space superiority.
The battle was itself was required and significant in a few ways, the victory showed other star systems that the imperials were not invincible, there was an active resistance (win more allies), and a successful attack on one of their most important facilities was possible. Without this battle there wouldn’t be a Star Wars trilogy… the Death Star would have been impregnable.
All great points, but people don’t pay $18 to watch small scale missions. Just like kitchens and bathrooms sell houses, big space battles sell SW tickets.
Correct. That is why they had to shove in this gratuitous space battle into a story that didn’t need it. From an artistic and story perspective, it did not make sense at all. From a commercial perspective, it did make sense. We’ve had enough Avatar and Transformer movies to know that these spectacular action scenes are worth the money to film makers.
I’ve pretty much given up on Star Wars. EI-III were pretty bad (III had some saving graces), but I forgave those past sins.
I’m actually more unhappy / frustrated with the latest movies. TFA was basically ANH 2.0, but actually worse. R1, as others stated, was not very memorable, had stupid space battles (ramming the ships was completely ridiculous), odd characters (WTF was with the Chinese guys? Plays right into some stereotypes), and feeling that I’m being forced to accept another female lead that somehow gains respect and becomes a leader of the rebels through one speech, but has little credible experience (hard to really feel anything admirable about this character). I don’t care whether the lead was a female, a 9ft Muslim tranny, or whatever. Her character just felt really unnatural and not respectable (i.e. lacks character development). I felt the same with the female lead in TFA; somehow with no training wielding a light saber or the force she is able to defeat Kylo Ren? WTF is that BS. Again not respectable.
By chance, I watched ANH the next day and compared Luke’s experience to Jyn (the female lead in R1); he doesn’t rally anyone and lead the rebels. Really just viewed as another pilot initially (except for putting the smackdown on that one pilot about Womp Rats). Even after destroying the Death Star, you don’t get the sense in Empire (on Hoth) that Luke’s obtained some major leadership role; again just another pilot that did an awesome job.
I realize the original Star Wars always had goofy, unbelievable, and ridiculous aspects, but the overall story, characters, and background universe held up a lot better (except for the Ewoks; that was just dumb and they should’ve kept the original idea of using Wookies).
The new ones just seem really uninspiring and lack originality. I guess that should partially be expected, but I can’t get around how the directors / Disney seemed to have completely wasted the opportunity of having a clean slate with the new movies. What garbage.
I agree that Jyn’s (I forgot her name until you mentioned it, she was so unmemorable) character was poorly written. Her change of attitude from being indifferent to the rebel cause to becoming a willing martyr was bizarre, as was the rebels’ willingness to suddenly take an existential risk on her whim, ignoring some of their most trusted advisors in the process.
I think Rey’s character was underdeveloped as well. The mystery of her background will undoubtedly be a major element of the next two films, but so far, it keeps us from being fully invested in her character. Perhaps this will change as new information is released. To her benefit though, Rey’s actress did a far better job than Jyn’s, and she is cuter as well.
Fortunately, Force Awakens has what I consider to be a very strong set of complementary characters. Finn, Kylo Ren, the pilot guy, Snoke, Phasma, and the blond Nazi general, are all suitably deep, sympathetic, intimidating, or just entertaining when they need to be and when it makes sense to be. The irreplaceable original cast members who returned added further layers of complexity to the story.
To be clear, I don’t consider the Force Awakens to be as groundbreaking or as significant to the genre as the original Star Wars - who could? However, it is still a very good movie with almost flawless execution, and I found it to be thoroughly entertaining.
Logically, “no ship that small has a cloaking device” doesn’t inherently mean that “some ships larger than that have a cloaking device.” Like if I were to say “no man under 6’ tall has 20 dicks.” This is true, but at the same time, it doesnt necessarily mean there is a man over 6’ tall who has 20 dicks.
Cloaking devices have occasionally been mentioned in the Star Wars movies, but never actually seen in operation. In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, when the ISD Avenger loses track of the Millennium Falcon, Captain Needa questions the possibility that his target engaged a cloaking device because a ship that small shouldn’t have one. In Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn asks if Queen Amidala’s yacht has a cloaking device, but Captain Panaka informs him that it does not.
Although I suspect that G and STL spend a lot more time than me conducting research on Star Wars, I differ from their opinion on the lava planet fight. I think it great and helped partially redeem the prequel series. The scene was a good example of using a fight to tell a story, not just to serve as a filler spectacle like the fight scene in the Phantom Menace.
The fact that Anakin and Obiwan finally came to blows shows an important turning point in their relationship. They both believed at that point that their former friend’s opinion had become irreconcilable and that they must be destroyed. Even the way Anakin was defeated made sense. He had become overconfident and drunk with power of the dark side. So, he tried to jump over Obiwan, even after being warned not to do it, resulting in him being chopped. Sure, this could have been implemented in another way. However, the important point was why he made that decision and how it resulted in his defeat. Contrast this to how Darth Maul was defeated by Obiwan through some random acrobatics. There was no point to that choreography. They just had no better way to do it, since there wasn’t really a story to tell through that fight.
Of course, the dialog leading up to the lava scene was kind of silly, and my arguing with el-macca in this thread is probably feeling like how Obiwan felt arguing with Anakin.
“You need to calm down, Anakin.” “You’re evil!”
“Err… look I brought Padme.” “You’re all evil and you are banging Padme!”
“Well, F*ck. I don’t know how else to explain this to you.”
“Anakin, I am getting so frustrated that I literally lost the will to live.”
The underlying theme of this thread is both R1 and TFA are subpar because they feature female leads. That’s the truth and it’s accurate. We want another Luke. Not some bratty chick.
