Rogue One

[King Bob]

Finally saw this on Netflix. Was kind of surprised that everyone died. It was fairly entertaining, but everything that happened seemed to deliberately echo something from the first trilogy. I thought that made it much weaker, and sort of like big budget fan fiction.

[Drunk Monk]

Star Wars Rebels is better, and that's a feckin Disney cartoon.  It is the same time period - the Ghost (SWR's Falcon) and Chopper (SWR's R2) have cameos in Rogue, and Saw Guerrera is better developed.  It's the final season and they've been working towards the building of the Death Star (last ep involved a massive Kyber crystal - what powers lightsabers for you non-SW-nerds - which is surely to power the Death Star).  I suspect the series will end right about where Rogue is.

[Greg]

Hmmm.

I saw this again on Disney+ last night. And it was much more enjoyable. There was a lot more risk taking with the story than I first spotted. Especially when you look at it in the light of JJ Abrams takes. I thought the director of Rogue, Gareth Edwards was supposed to make The Rise of Skywalker and was replaced by JJ. It would have been interesting. Especially looking at all the chances Rian Johnson took with The Last Jedi that were negated by JJ.

But it was fun. I do still love Donny Yen as Chirrut Emwe and his partner Baze Malbus. They need their origin story or at least an adventure. Do they appear in Rebels or Clone Wars?

It was a nice diversion. The race to push the button so the thing can happen didn't bug me nearly as much. Plus, watching it on Disney+, I get to see all the extras. There was a bit about Chirrut and Baze. We saw Tudyk as K2. It was very enjoyable.

[Drunk Monk]

But it was fun. I do still love Donny Yen as Chirrut Emwe and his partner Baze Malbus. They need their origin story or at least an adventure. Do they appear in Rebels or Clone Wars?

Chirrut & Baze only appear in R1. They have some presence in the novelizations and comics, maybe even Lego Star Wars but not R or CW to my knowledge. Saw is in R.

[Drunk Monk]

Watched this again after finishing Andor and wound up liking it a lot more. I suppose because I knew where it was going and had no expectations, I could just enjoy it.

There’s one odd line though. When Cass is imprisoned by Saw, he makes a comment that he’s never been in prison. We know that’s not true now. 

R1 is supposed to be about 5 years after Andor. Of course, we don’t know what planet those years are measured on but let’s not quibble astronomy with space opera.

[Greg]

Parsec. That's all I'm saying.

[Drunk Monk]

Why do we need to assassinate Galen? Isn't the Death Star already built? So, killing him will accomplish what?

The Death Star is built but not perfected. It’s only a city killer at the stage of Rogue 1, not a planet killer. The whole point of calling him back was about finishing it. The gap is that there’s not much time between R1 and ANH so how they completed it remains a mystery.

[Drunk Monk]

Seen again and felt better about it. It’s an odd stitch between the original and the prequels. 
Bail Organa is the main connecting thread at first. Then there’s the brief R2 & 3PO cameo and the mention of General Syndulla over the intercom. Of course there’s Darth and the cgi Tarkin and Leia. 

It struck me that Andor says it’s his first time being incarcerated when they’re all held by Saw. That was prior to Andor (the series). 

Also, Mon tells Bail to contact his Jedi friend but then he says ‘she’ so did she mean Leia? 

Then there’s the collection of khyber crystals as in the plural, but a major plot point of Rebels was the empire acquiring the biggest khyber crystal ever for the Death Star - and it’s like the size of a bus. So what happened to those smaller crystals? 

I always forget Krennic’s name which is funny because I have a T-shirt where he’s quite prominent. Maybe I’ll remember this time.

Galen’s death is almost as conveniently timed as Shmi’s.

[Greg]

Seen again after watching Andor.

I kept thinking why are they focusing on so much on Jyn Erso when Andor is right there? I did get a lot more resonance from the characters now that I have a lot more backstory. Saw Gerrera needs his story told. As do Donnie Yen and his partner. Although their story would just be Temple guards, right?

The story feels a lot more solid after the Andor TV show. Tony Gilroy, the creator of Andor and writer of Rogue One, was on Colbert and talked about his bit in Rogue One. He's the tower control voice you hear asking for Rogue One's call sign as the group heads off from Yavan. It was funny to hear it. Gilroy hates it because he was overacting, thinking they were going to replace his track with a real actor. The producers just left his voice in.

Peter Cushing still looks terrible.

[Drunk Monk]

 Saw Gerrera needs his story told. 

Saw's story is told in Clone Wars & Rebels.