Rewatching "Rogue One" at home is a much better experience. For one that strange "where is the other film I saw in the trailers " sensation has totally gone. Secondly its frequently stunning visuals are so much better, with the CGI'd figures ,particularly Leia, looking overall much improved and very realistic, though Tarkin occasional suffered by being over worked and too detailed ,though it varied from shot to shot.
What was even more rewarding was to watch "A New Hope" immediately afterwards. The exciting ,adventerous and "hopeful" tone of that movie was heightened for me and set against what happens in "Rogue One" it had an even fresher and more optimistic feel that really surprised me. It also brought out the strengths and weaknesses of both movies,making a couple of the rather blunt cameos levered in to R1 feel worse ,the most obvious being the canteena pair. Compared to the subtle glimpses of the Ghost they should have learned that less is sometimes much more. Don't do it again ,we won't love you for it. And they should have kept the crawl, it would have worked to fill in the detail much better than some of the earlier scenes. Afterall , seen together its basically two halves of the same movie anyway.
But these are really minor gripes. Kudos to the production teams for getting the old look of the OT so well regenerated in terms of design and cinematography. Not much of it felt out of place or odd and that more than anything else made it seem like a proper SW movie to me, though again I would implore them to declutter some set and effects shots, there is simply just too much up there on the screen. Not half as bad as the prequels or TFA and alot closer to the OT.
It IS a minor miracle this movie turned out as well as it did. Considering how much was reshot and modified so far along in the filming timetable and ultimately changed completely its virtually impossible to see the joints. And theres no doubt that the addition of that Vader scene at the very end is an iconic moment in SW history.
I have to say it because of that and the overall care they took with this film its knocked ROTJ out of third for me. Now its TESB ,ANH and RO. Bravo..
MY deepest wish now is now that the pressures on Disney and Lucas to bang something swiftly out in the early years have largely disappeared, the stories can now be developed and finalized well BEFORE shooting the scripts, so only the lightest of finishing touches need to happen afterwards. And please, if you can get somebody to design better space ships do it, although the U wing and Walkers worked well , Krennics shuttle still looked dafted.
Personally I think they have plenty of great opportunites left out there if they really think about it. Not only with one or two of the older characters (and what I wouldn't give to see Tom Hardy cast in the role of Boba Fett in a couple of movies) but also the newer ones as well.
At the very least I can say that Disney and Lucas film have succesfully brought one new thing back into the franchise for me about the future of SW..........
They brought hope.
There was at least one X-Wing parked there though.
