2001
Silent running.
If you watch the early James bond series you can see how in influenced Lucas and Spielberg.
General / Off-Topic Let's Have A Debate: The Best Star Wars Film - Empire Strikes Back vs Rogue One
- Thread starter Alien
- Start date
2001
Silent running.
If you watch the early James bond series you can see how in influenced Lucas and Spielberg.
Empire Strikes Back is my favourite of those two.
I don't care much about prequels, as we know how they will turn out so why bother? Unless the later story is built on some sort of tension or divided opinions, say, if Stephen Donaldsons Gap series was ever made into movies. In that case, The Real Story could probably be made at a later point and still be interesting. In case of Rogue One, we just had to see how everybody got killed really. It would be as exciting as making a movie about Bothan spies getting slaughtered to bring the plans for the second Death Star to the rebels. That made for a fun mission in the best Star Wars game ever - X-wing Alliance. But it would be a pointless movie plot.
One movie may be better than Episode V though, and that's Episode VIII. I absolutely adore The Last Jedi. Finally a fresh take on the Star Wars universe, and I am deeply worried that Abrams is back at the rudder for Episode IX considering what a mess he made of Star Trek.
S
I don't care much about prequels, as we know how they will turn out so why bother? Unless the later story is built on some sort of tension or divided opinions, say, if Stephen Donaldsons Gap series was ever made into movies. In that case, The Real Story could probably be made at a later point and still be interesting. In case of Rogue One, we just had to see how everybody got killed really. It would be as exciting as making a movie about Bothan spies getting slaughtered to bring the plans for the second Death Star to the rebels. That made for a fun mission in the best Star Wars game ever - X-wing Alliance. But it would be a pointless movie plot.
One movie may be better than Episode V though, and that's Episode VIII. I absolutely adore The Last Jedi. Finally a fresh take on the Star Wars universe, and I am deeply worried that Abrams is back at the rudder for Episode IX considering what a mess he made of Star Trek.
S
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To me, Rogue One is a very interesting product. It looks very nice and has some good ideas about the main characters. I was not bothered about the CGI-revival of Peter Cushing or the de-aging of Carrie Fisher, even though I think they could have made their job easier with more shots from behind, in the shadow or just voice-over.
I read or heard somewhere the idea that this is more like a war propaganda movie than a sci-fi serial with fairy tale elements, which, if that is what was intended, they achieved it.
My main issue is, that the movie tells the story about an event that didn't need a detailed explanation, which is an issue with many prequel / sidequel stories. It looks backwards while the main series (except the Lucas prequels, kind of, even though each movie followed on what happened previously) look forward, no matter how the movies turned out. Some describe it as the most expensive fan film that just happens to have been made by Lucasfilm. And I get it, if one enjoys a secondary world, there is a drive to add to it (as an author) or read/watch as much as possible (as the audience), that is kind of how the (original) expanded universe started.
Therefore I say The Empire Strikes Back is the superior movie of those two.
(It helps that, at least right now, Empire has the "true nostalgia" bonus, compared to the let's call it "borrowed nostalgia" of Rogue One, but that might be different in a few years from the perspective of the following generation - look at how the discussion about the prequels changed, when they became nostalgic memories for many.)
I read or heard somewhere the idea that this is more like a war propaganda movie than a sci-fi serial with fairy tale elements, which, if that is what was intended, they achieved it.
My main issue is, that the movie tells the story about an event that didn't need a detailed explanation, which is an issue with many prequel / sidequel stories. It looks backwards while the main series (except the Lucas prequels, kind of, even though each movie followed on what happened previously) look forward, no matter how the movies turned out. Some describe it as the most expensive fan film that just happens to have been made by Lucasfilm. And I get it, if one enjoys a secondary world, there is a drive to add to it (as an author) or read/watch as much as possible (as the audience), that is kind of how the (original) expanded universe started.
Therefore I say The Empire Strikes Back is the superior movie of those two.
(It helps that, at least right now, Empire has the "true nostalgia" bonus, compared to the let's call it "borrowed nostalgia" of Rogue One, but that might be different in a few years from the perspective of the following generation - look at how the discussion about the prequels changed, when they became nostalgic memories for many.)
Yeah and a 'quality' fan film for sure. But it also has all the fan-film failings (too many nods to star wars stuff in general, shoe-horned into a story they didn't need to be in etc). I agree with you that Empire is just a better work of art and film creation, and thus the better film (by a long mile imho). This new stuff just misses 90% of why the original films were so good and genre defining in their day. But they do get some good box office numbers, so that must mean they are good or something?
So i had a few days off work with flu and decided to watch the original films again, with an eye to paying the most attention to The Empire Strikes Back.
Still there is a 'best practice' process for all purist Star Wars fans to follow and that involved watching the original versions of A New Hope and Return Of The Jedi as an essential part. This way you avoid some of the worst decisions Lucas made when remastering the trilogy, so as a purist you see that Han does indeed shoot first (in A New Hope) and you avoid the appearance of Hayden Christensen who replaces Sebastian Shaw as the 'redeemed' Force Spirit of Darth Vader (in Return of the Jedi), as the two most important obvious issues.
So my process was to watch the original un-remastered version of A New Hope, then the remastered version of The Empire Strikes Back and then the un-remastered version of Return of the Jedi.
Honestly any one of these films is just orders of magnitudes better than anything that took place in Star Wars since, and i won't go into those details here, but really the no:1 obvious reason why The Empire Strikes Back is as good a film as it is, is because of A New Hope before it.
All the reveals in it, all the super strong story telling work so well because we have already been introduced to the characters and situation so well in A New Hope. It was a perfect 'reflection' of the first film, which was all about triumph over evil, and in Empire we are shown that one victory does not win a war, and the forces of Evil will and do strike back.
If A New Hope had been of the 'quality' of the prequels (for example) we would not have cared so much about what happened to the characters, in-fact there would be no characters to care about, and certainly The Empire Strikes Back could not have been the film it ended up being.
And each time i see the original trilogy, it just reinforces just how 'lost' Star Wars has been since they were made.
The people that make and produce Star Wars today are either out of their time in relation to the original trilogy or just did not get them and their near-perfect plot and story telling (for the medium of film). The quality of the scripts vs what we get today is the obvious culprit, but then a huge slice goes to bad direction (which comes from disconnect with what Star Wars was) and an inability to edit everything together in a way that can tell a good story. Star Wars is not the only problem in terms of modern movie production, see Star Trek and about 90% of what Hollywood churns out these days.
So really in relation to the OP, on further viewing and repeated re-viewing it just seems like a no-contest. The Empire Strikes Back is not only so much better a film than Rogue One, from the script to all the technical aspects of film making (perhaps bar special effects?), but ALL the original trilogy films are also. Yes even Return of the Jedi with it's Ewok's (great story arcs and a proper resolution).
RIP Star Wars.
Still there is a 'best practice' process for all purist Star Wars fans to follow and that involved watching the original versions of A New Hope and Return Of The Jedi as an essential part. This way you avoid some of the worst decisions Lucas made when remastering the trilogy, so as a purist you see that Han does indeed shoot first (in A New Hope) and you avoid the appearance of Hayden Christensen who replaces Sebastian Shaw as the 'redeemed' Force Spirit of Darth Vader (in Return of the Jedi), as the two most important obvious issues.
So my process was to watch the original un-remastered version of A New Hope, then the remastered version of The Empire Strikes Back and then the un-remastered version of Return of the Jedi.
Honestly any one of these films is just orders of magnitudes better than anything that took place in Star Wars since, and i won't go into those details here, but really the no:1 obvious reason why The Empire Strikes Back is as good a film as it is, is because of A New Hope before it.
All the reveals in it, all the super strong story telling work so well because we have already been introduced to the characters and situation so well in A New Hope. It was a perfect 'reflection' of the first film, which was all about triumph over evil, and in Empire we are shown that one victory does not win a war, and the forces of Evil will and do strike back.
If A New Hope had been of the 'quality' of the prequels (for example) we would not have cared so much about what happened to the characters, in-fact there would be no characters to care about, and certainly The Empire Strikes Back could not have been the film it ended up being.
And each time i see the original trilogy, it just reinforces just how 'lost' Star Wars has been since they were made.
The people that make and produce Star Wars today are either out of their time in relation to the original trilogy or just did not get them and their near-perfect plot and story telling (for the medium of film). The quality of the scripts vs what we get today is the obvious culprit, but then a huge slice goes to bad direction (which comes from disconnect with what Star Wars was) and an inability to edit everything together in a way that can tell a good story. Star Wars is not the only problem in terms of modern movie production, see Star Trek and about 90% of what Hollywood churns out these days.
So really in relation to the OP, on further viewing and repeated re-viewing it just seems like a no-contest. The Empire Strikes Back is not only so much better a film than Rogue One, from the script to all the technical aspects of film making (perhaps bar special effects?), but ALL the original trilogy films are also. Yes even Return of the Jedi with it's Ewok's (great story arcs and a proper resolution).
RIP Star Wars.
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I agree with most that ESB is the best, I do like Rogue one though...pretty much agree with all the positives mentioned about that film. But personally the reveal of the AT ATs was just so fricken coooool as a 9 y/o. Me Nan bought me the AT AT toy and I had an AT ST as well....memories! I sort of like RotJ but the Ewok just kill it for me, that's the moment SW died for me (then Jar Jar after that)....The Emperor says "An entire legion of my best troops awaits them" BEST troops? Killed by sodding teddy bears......eff orf!!
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Yeah all that fancy Imperial armour had a bad design flaw, rocks thrown by teddy-bears! The original script had that is was to be Wookies not Ewoks, so we were to visit the Wookie home world rather than Endor, but Spielberg had been whispering in Lucas ear for a while about the merchandising aspect and targeting the children demographic etc, and there were some issue sourcing enough really tall people to play Wookies and costume concerns with that. So yeah, primal savage wookies (that could indeed have given the imperial troops a serious run for their money) became 'child bait' for future merchandising opportunities. The Ewoks don't upset me now as much as they did (in part because i've witnessed so much worse in all the prequels and the total fail in the New stuff), but it would have made Return of the Jedi a much better film if he had gone with Wookies.
Oh and as added punishment i've also forced myself to re-watch Revenge of the Sith (i watched Episode I in the cinema, and that scar was enough to never own it, and Attack of the Clones ended up in the bin after a few views) to get the full flavour of Lucas personal fall (and fail as film-maker and director) and next up is The Force Awakens to cement what i already know. I did get Rogue One on DVD, not that long ago (xmas iirc?), and it annoyed me enough that i just could not carry on despoiling Star Wars by watching it again (so soon!) on top of Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens.
RIP Star Wars, and thank the gods i actually have original versions of the original trilogy, so i have them 'untainted' by Lucas-as-fallen-director
Oh and as added punishment i've also forced myself to re-watch Revenge of the Sith (i watched Episode I in the cinema, and that scar was enough to never own it, and Attack of the Clones ended up in the bin after a few views) to get the full flavour of Lucas personal fall (and fail as film-maker and director) and next up is The Force Awakens to cement what i already know. I did get Rogue One on DVD, not that long ago (xmas iirc?), and it annoyed me enough that i just could not carry on despoiling Star Wars by watching it again (so soon!) on top of Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens.
RIP Star Wars, and thank the gods i actually have original versions of the original trilogy, so i have them 'untainted' by Lucas-as-fallen-director
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Yeah all that fancy Imperial armour had a bad design flaw, rocks thrown by teddy-bears! The original script had that is was to be Wookies not Ewoks, so we were to visit the Wookie home world rather than Endor, but Spielberg had been whispering in Lucas ear for a while about the merchandising aspect and targeting the children demographic etc, and there were some issue sourcing enough really tall people to play Wookies and costume concerns with that. So yeah, primal savage wookies (that could indeed have given the imperial troops a serious run for their money) became 'child bait' for future merchandising opportunities. The Ewoks don't upset me now as much as they did (in part because i've witnessed so much worse in all the prequels and the total fail in the New stuff), but it would have made Return of the Jedi a much better film if he had gone with Wookies.
Oh and as added punishment i've also forced myself to re-watch Revenge of the Sith (i watched Episode I in the cinema, and that scar was enough to never own it, and Attack of the Clones ended up in the bin after a few views) to get the full flavour of Lucas personal fall (and fail as film-maker and director) and next up is The Force Awakens to cement what i already know. I did get Rogue One on DVD, not that long ago (xmas iirc?), and it annoyed me enough that i just could not carry on despoiling Star Wars by watching it again (so soon!) on top of Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens.
RIP Star Wars, and thank the gods i actually have original versions of the original trilogy, so i have them 'untainted' by Lucas-as-fallen-director
Yup i knew about the "wookies" that would have been SO much better and believable, I really hate all this "targeting kids"....I loved ESB and I was 9, kids want to be adults and as long as it's not too gorey etc then its alright IMO. Kiddyfying things does my head in....I was mortified Alien V Predator wasn't an 18 and when I saw it, I was just...."WUT? where's the blood'n'gore".
Empire is my Fav.
Rogue one is my Fav Disney Wars. Given that ive hated every Disney Wars movie so far except Rogue one. That doesnt say much.
Rogue one is my Fav Disney Wars. Given that ive hated every Disney Wars movie so far except Rogue one. That doesnt say much.
As far as the Original Star Wars (New Hope) goes there just isn't any going back once you've seen the best ever version.
http://www.starwarsuncut.com/newhope
http://www.starwarsuncut.com/newhope
George (and now Disney) should have just done that for the new stuff imho
Empire. Empire chilled my spine. Star Wars still felt big.
Rogue One eventually became entertaining when it gave me my big space battle fix but the characters weren't likeable, well acted or memorable.
Personally, I hate the twirly style of "melee". Ironically, "wushu" technically means martial skills but even within china it's understood to be "flower fist" by serious combat martial artists. The wushu practitioners will be the first to tell you that real combat looks more like Sanda and spinning will get you killed in a fight (especially with lightsabers).
Kendo...kendo gets across the invisible battle between the 'tagonists as their respective force powers probe each other for weakness. You should only need one or two precise lightning cuts and you either succeed or fail. If you fail you either die or standoff and use the force to probe for that perfect strike/defense once more. Think along the lines of Morpheus asking Neo, "You think that's air you're breathing now?". The flashy, spinny crap just kills my suspension of disbelief to keep the short attention spans interested with a quicker beat: fz-fz-fz-fz-crackle. Use force speed and twirl around, wasting your energy and keeping yourself open. Not only is it kinda like brute force (uncharacteristic of the Jedi) but also a poor representation of brute force, combat sense and force sensitivity. By ROTJ the kendo was adequate, almost believable and felt more actiony and entertaining without getting (too) silly.
While the part where Vader throws stuff at Luke and Luke makes that weird exhausted face while trying to pointlessly chop debris didn't age well, that Vader was just playing with him and slowly advancing on him, sapping Luke's hope so he could turn him...and then the big reveal...that aged well. Jones' voice is absolutely timeless. That you could be so corrupted as to be willing to corrupt your own son and doom him to a life of pain because your master wishes it, even going as far as to lie that they would overthrow the Emperor to appeal to his good nature. That he could only be brought back to his senses by watching his son tortured in front of him in ROTJ...a pitiably damaged pawn too bitter to kill himself. Yet he redeemed himself in the end. But we don't know that yet. We still think he's just a necromancer's thrall who will stop at NOTHING to please his master.
Empire was significant story telling, Rogue One was a 2 hour distraction.
Rogue One eventually became entertaining when it gave me my big space battle fix but the characters weren't likeable, well acted or memorable.
Personally, I hate the twirly style of "melee". Ironically, "wushu" technically means martial skills but even within china it's understood to be "flower fist" by serious combat martial artists. The wushu practitioners will be the first to tell you that real combat looks more like Sanda and spinning will get you killed in a fight (especially with lightsabers).
Kendo...kendo gets across the invisible battle between the 'tagonists as their respective force powers probe each other for weakness. You should only need one or two precise lightning cuts and you either succeed or fail. If you fail you either die or standoff and use the force to probe for that perfect strike/defense once more. Think along the lines of Morpheus asking Neo, "You think that's air you're breathing now?". The flashy, spinny crap just kills my suspension of disbelief to keep the short attention spans interested with a quicker beat: fz-fz-fz-fz-crackle. Use force speed and twirl around, wasting your energy and keeping yourself open. Not only is it kinda like brute force (uncharacteristic of the Jedi) but also a poor representation of brute force, combat sense and force sensitivity. By ROTJ the kendo was adequate, almost believable and felt more actiony and entertaining without getting (too) silly.
While the part where Vader throws stuff at Luke and Luke makes that weird exhausted face while trying to pointlessly chop debris didn't age well, that Vader was just playing with him and slowly advancing on him, sapping Luke's hope so he could turn him...and then the big reveal...that aged well. Jones' voice is absolutely timeless. That you could be so corrupted as to be willing to corrupt your own son and doom him to a life of pain because your master wishes it, even going as far as to lie that they would overthrow the Emperor to appeal to his good nature. That he could only be brought back to his senses by watching his son tortured in front of him in ROTJ...a pitiably damaged pawn too bitter to kill himself. Yet he redeemed himself in the end. But we don't know that yet. We still think he's just a necromancer's thrall who will stop at NOTHING to please his master.
Empire was significant story telling, Rogue One was a 2 hour distraction.
While technically, Rogue One was probably the best of all the prequel movies in the franchise so far, it's not on same level of a classic that ESB is. Many who saw ESB for the first time often saw and felt the inspired wonder, creativity and shock and chills that further solidified the saga post ANH. Until 2000 going forward, when CGI started to finally become truly effective, ANH & ESB still held up well in the effects for the time for many years. One could just enjoy them again like after the bad taste upon seeing the "Wing Commander" movie. ANH also had that defining blockbusting epic quality with successively ramped up set pieces culminating in one of the best final acts ever seen and it's still no. 2 in all time domestic grosses adjusted for inflation. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
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Yeah all that fancy Imperial armour had a bad design flaw, rocks thrown by teddy-bears! The original script had that is was to be Wookies not Ewoks, so we were to visit the Wookie home world rather than Endor, but Spielberg had been whispering in Lucas ear for a while about the merchandising aspect and targeting the children demographic etc, and there were some issue sourcing enough really tall people to play Wookies and costume concerns with that. So yeah, primal savage wookies (that could indeed have given the imperial troops a serious run for their money) became 'child bait' for future merchandising opportunities. The Ewoks don't upset me now as much as they did (in part because i've witnessed so much worse in all the prequels and the total fail in the New stuff), but it would have made Return of the Jedi a much better film if he had gone with Wookies.
Oh and as added punishment i've also forced myself to re-watch Revenge of the Sith (i watched Episode I in the cinema, and that scar was enough to never own it, and Attack of the Clones ended up in the bin after a few views) to get the full flavour of Lucas personal fall (and fail as film-maker and director) and next up is The Force Awakens to cement what i already know. I did get Rogue One on DVD, not that long ago (xmas iirc?), and it annoyed me enough that i just could not carry on despoiling Star Wars by watching it again (so soon!) on top of Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens.
RIP Star Wars, and thank the gods i actually have original versions of the original trilogy, so i have them 'untainted' by Lucas-as-fallen-director
Yep. The Return of the Jedi started great with the rescue of Han Solo, but then the quality fell right off when they went to the planet of the teddy bears. That was a portent to the following prequels.
And it's the prequels that are making me leap to the defence of Rogue One. At least they ignored all that silly "midichlorians" nonsense
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No, there's a lot wrong with Luke's plan at the start of Return of the Jedi ...
He sends Lando in alone.
C3P0 says "Lando and Chewbacca never returned from this awful place" so while Lando was in Jabba's palace, where was Chewie? Pulling arms off of people in a bar in Mos Eisley?
Then C3P0 and R2D2 go in ... just to smuggle in Luke's lightsaber?
Then Leia goes in, tries to rescue Han and fails ... what if she succeeded? Do C3P0 and R2D2 stay there? Do they then need rescuing?
Then Luke uses the force to get into Jabba's palace ... why not just bring his lightsaber with him at this point?
Then he didn't know about the Rancor, so that was all luck.
Then they all get taken to the sarlacc, and Lando nearly falls in, how did Luke know everyone, including the droids would be there? What if R2D2 had been put to work somewhere else and wasn't on the sail barge?
THEN ... they go to Endor
There's a lot wrong with Return of the Jedi.
If you'd been 10 none of that would have bothered you because "star wars".
5,6,7 are the only SW movies to me, Rogue one was good, but what follows is just mindless garbage, I’m sorry but it really is junk.