Unpopular Opinion Thread

[Leviarex]

I pretty much hate April Fool's Day.

[Zarm]

I think people who are fans of The Room are just doing it to be cool like their friends.

But are their friends just doing it to be cool like their friend? And are their friends just doing it to be cool like their friends? And are their friends just doing it to be cool like their friends?

Somebody has to have actually enjoyed watching it for any of this to start.

There's one flaw in that theory. It requires something that could never actually happen.

[Ryguy]

He can craft some pretty cool and imaginative scenes (in G'14, the epic reveal. In Rogue One, the Death Star/Vader), but when it comes to actually stringing those scenes together and creating an actual movie, he falls flat on his face. Both G'14 and Rogue One were boring and uninspired with characters that are less charismatic than a bag of frog spawn and plots that moved at the pace of a tectonic plate.

Phew. Finally somebody who shares my opinions about Rogue One! Been looking all over for someone like you.

However, I do love G14 with a passion. Yes, the characters were boring and the cutaways were annoying, but the monster scenes in that film are some of the best I've seen. I liked that film's aesthetic way more than the flashy in-your-face tactic of KSI

Meanwhile the only aspect I liked about Rogue One was Darth Vader

[eabaker]

He can craft some pretty cool and imaginative scenes (in G'14, the epic reveal. In Rogue One, the Death Star/Vader), but when it comes to actually stringing those scenes together and creating an actual movie, he falls flat on his face. Both G'14 and Rogue One were boring and uninspired with characters that are less charismatic than a bag of frog spawn and plots that moved at the pace of a tectonic plate.

Phew. Finally somebody who shares my opinions about Rogue One! Been looking all over for someone like you.

However, I do love G14 with a passion. Yes, the characters were boring and the cutaways were annoying, but the monster scenes in that film are some of the best I've seen. I liked that film's aesthetic way more than the flashy in-your-face tactic of KSI

Meanwhile the only aspect I liked about Rogue One was Darth Vader

Wait, aren't there a lot of people who recognize that Rogue One was an awkward set of compromises that never coalesced into a meaningful story with clear, coherent characterization?

[Ryguy]

^I guess not, at least in my experience

I've scoured the internet, and all I see is undivided praise for Rogue One. For some reason, I can't find anybody else who hated the characters as much as I did

It's quite ironic: people shit on Godzilla 2014 yet give Rogue One a pass because they can't control their Star Wars boners. It's even stranger when you consider that they both follow the same exact formula: boring-ass characters and very little action in general with a lot of teasing, but great payoff at the end

[UltramanGoji]

The characters of Rogue One are the best example of "all tell but no show". None of them have any motivation or real character (aside from maybe K2-SO, Chirrut, and Bodhi) and they just kind of move on from one scene to the next.

[eabaker]

^I guess not, at least in my experience

I've scoured the internet, and all I see is undivided praise for Rogue One. For some reason, I can't find anybody else who hated the characters as much as I did

It's quite ironic: people shit on Godzilla 2014 yet give Rogue One a pass because they can't control their Star Wars boners. It's even stranger when you consider that they both follow the same exact formula: boring-ass characters and very little action in general with a lot of teasing, but great payoff at the end

To be fair, I thought Rogue One had some pretty interesting supporting characters, but mostly they weren't that well explored. Whereas we spent a bunch of time with Jyn and Cassian, but both of them were very flat characters who experienced big, important changes of perspective with little-to-no external motivation. They just change when the plot needs them to change.

Jyn, for me, is that movie's greatest failing.

[Ivo-goji]

Given its reception in this thread, I guess my opinion that Rogue One has a better developed cast than any other Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back is pretty unpopular. I really cannot wrap my mind around the criticism of Rogue One at all. What movie did you guys watch?

[UltramanGoji]

Reposting my old mini-review from when we ranked the SW films in the SW thread:

6.) Rogue One - A visually stunning movie that hits the right note between "brand new" and "familiar" that Star Wars did in 1977. Ironically, all the scenes with the legacy characters (bar a certain cameo) are the highlights of the film. Enough praise has been given to the magnificently shot and executed Darth Vader scene at the climax of the film and I can't begin to praise the digital effects artists responsible for Tarkin enough. It's problems lie heavily in characterization as the protagonists are never given a personality. Jyn Erso is Galen Erso's daughter and that's all that's ever said about her. Cassian is a Rebel pilot who reprogrammed an Imperial Droid and that's all that's ever really said about him. The only three characters given anything resembling a personality are Bodhi (whose relationship and apparent idolization of Galen Erso goes unexplained), Chirrut, and K2SO. Saw Guerrera's arc of being an extremist Rebel was a very interesting idea and one that would've worked wonderfully as an antagonist, but ultimately his role in the film is meaningless besides giving Jyn a way to learn about the Death Star flaw (which could've easily been arranged with just Bodhi but alas...). Krennic is also a woefully underutilized character who never seems to be the film's central villain despite being clearly framed as such.

I don't think R1 is terrible per se, but it's not really a SW film I'll be watching as often as I will the OT.

[Zarm]

Phew. Finally somebody who shares my opinions about Rogue One! Been looking all over for someone like you.

However, I do love G14 with a passion. Yes, the characters were boring and the cutaways were annoying, but the monster scenes in that film are some of the best I've seen. I liked that film's aesthetic way more than the flashy in-your-face tactic of KSI

Meanwhile the only aspect I liked about Rogue One was Darth Vader

This post is very correct. Definitely not alone in either of these.

[Ivo-goji]

Jyn Erso is Galen Erso's daughter and that's all that's ever said about her.

Jyn is the daughter of Galen Erso, who narrowly escaped being captured with him by the Empire, and was taken in by Saw Gerrera to fight alongside his rebel cell. Jyn hates the Empire for taking her parents away, and hates the Rebellion because she's seen the ugliest side of it within Saw's extremist group, and she hates her dad a little bit for starting all this (as well as selling out to Krennic, as far as she knows at this point). The galactic civil war robbed Jyn of her childhood, and as an adult she wants no part in it. She doesn't care what atrocities the Empire is committing; she just keeps her head down and looks out for herself.

Her attitude doesn't change when the Rebellion strong arms her into helping them contact Saw, seeing them all- with good reason- as being no better than he is. Jyn wants to get the mission over with and wash her hands of the whole cause. It takes two things to shake her out of this mind set:

1- Witnessing the Death Star's destructive power first hand, which leaves no doubt that the days of "keeping your head down" in the Empire are now over
2- Learning that her father didn't sell out to the Empire, but has been struggling to subvert their super weapon this whole time, and if she doesn't act on this information immediately to discover the Death Star's weakness everything Galen did will be for nothing

Cassian is a Rebel pilot who reprogrammed an Imperial Droid and that's all that's ever really said about him.

Cassian isn't a Rebel pilot. He's a Rebel assassin.

Our introduction to Cassian has him literally shooting a man in the back to save his own skin/protect The Mission. He's given orders by his superiors to assassinate Galen Erso, and gives every indication that he's done this sort of thing before. In his own words, he's been serving the Rebel cause since he was a child, and he's willing to do the dirty work if it will bring them closer to defeating the Empire.

To Jyn, Cassian embodies everything she hates about the Rebellion. Cassian is who Jyn would be if she had stayed with Saw. Cassian can't stand Jyn's indifference to the war he's been fighting his entire life, and at the same time feels immeasurable guilt that he's tricking this woman into helping him murder her father.

When Galen died in the Rebel strike on Eadu, Jyn had a choice to turn her back on the Rebellion once again, and had good reason to. But she knew if she did, it would mean her father died for nothing. She saw in the Alliance council that it was too divided to stand up to the Death Star, and resolved to carry on that fight herself if she had to.

Cassian had made a choice too, when he refused to shoot Galen. There was still blood on his hands, but Cassian had a conscience. He pulled together others willing to take the risk of stealing the Death Star plans, knowing it was a suicide mission; they'd all done horrible things in service of the Rebellion, and this was as much about atoning for those sins as stopping the Empire. Jyn sees this, and realizes there's more to Cassian than she thought at first.

Chirrut and Baze live on Jedha, a planet steeped in the legacy of the Jedi- now a hellhole torn apart by the struggle between Saw's rebels and the Empire's mining operation. Chirrut still holds faith in the Force and clings to the Jedi's teachings; Baze is totally disillusioned with his city's old spirituality. Chirrut is willing to fight, but remembers the conflict they're facing is between a light and dark that's in everyone, and their goal is peace; Baze's philosophy is to kill all Imperials on sight. Chirrut is blind, but claims to see the reality of the Force all around him; Baze is more grounded and skeptical, and finds Chirrut's attitude less than pragmatic ("But the Force did protect me." "I protected you!"). The two of them are as different as night and day, but they've managed to survive the constant violence on Jedha by looking out for each other, and are inseparable companions.

Chirrut follows the crew because he believes the Force is strong with them. Baze follows Chirrut because he'll go where ever his comrade goes- and if they kill some Stormtroopers along the way, that's good too. Chirrut isn't afraid to die because he trusts the Force- and because he trusts Baze. Baze's story is about him learning to believe in the Force again because he never stopped believing in Chirrut. When he does, he discovers he isn't afraid to die either.

Bodhi is a severely shaken Imperial pilot whose contact with Galen Erso catalyzed his defection to the Rebellion- if there's any wonder why, the fact that Galen is working on a planet destroying super weapon probably has something to do with it. If Bodhi had any questions about what kind of people he was working for, that would have answered them. Bodhi has the opportunity to run once Cassian rescues him from Jedha, and given his treatment in Saw Gerrera's hands (and the obvious distrust of every other Rebel he encounters), he has every reason to do so. But like Jyn he knows that not stopping the Death Star now will doom uncountable billions of people, and betray the trust Galen put in him to help this fight.

Honestly I'm baffled at how other fans interpret this movie. There's way more to the characters here than what these half hearted criticisms make of them. The disconnect is utterly mystifying.

[UltramanGoji]

I'm going to leave the heavy dissection to folks like Zarm who have a lot more patience than me (this isn't a diss at all, I just don't care enough about Rogue One to go ham on it), but I will say in regards to Jyn that while "uncaring about either side" is a character trait, it's an extremely boring and difficult one to make very interesting. Unfortunately for R1, it doesn't.

[Ivo-goji]

Jyn's self-centered outlook stems from basically every authority figure in her life either abandoning her or screwing her over massively, and this has left her burnt out on trusting others. Cassian comes from a nearly identical background, but he went in the opposite direction, throwing everything he has into the Rebellion. Their conflicting views challenge each of them to grow as people and look at things from the other side. Jyn's relationship with Cassian and how it reflects her gradual reconciliation to the Rebellion is easily one of the most fascinating character arcs in the Star Wars franchise, so this kind of reaction still totally confuses me.

[Zarm]

The fact that the Rebellion is seen as 'for good reason' no better than Saw, and employs an assassin, are precisely my first (or possibly second) complaint against this film. The morally murky, skullduggerous organization in this film is not the Rebellion from the original trilogy. It's an attempt to graft 21st century political realities and failings onto an intentionally heroic and far simpler, morally positive organization from a fictional universe that operates on simpler and, I dare say, far superior principles of Good and Evil to our shadowy own. That they portrayed the rebellion in the way that they did in this film infuriates me.

[Ivo-goji]

That just seems like an extremely silly thing to feel upset about, and frankly I think it mischaracterizes the OT to assert things were ever that simple. There were always bad apples in the Rebellion and honest people in the Empire. Maybe that was more visible in EU materials than the films, but it was still something that fans had known about for years. It's not like any of the Rebel leaders from previous films were shown to be morally compromised; Bail and Mothma are as heroic as ever.

I cannot tell you it's wrong to want a Star Wars that runs on black and white morality, but I do think it's enormously unfair to hold Rogue One in contempt for not doing so, given that this was decidedly not a new development for the franchise. Especially if you brush aside all of the film's other merits merely because of that.

[Maritonic]

Sorry, I am also in the camp that found Rogue One's characters rather boring. I thought the ending was truly the best part. Krennic was a cool addition to the story, though, and his performance felt like it would have fit in the OT. But all the Rebellion characters were extremely forgettable for me.

[Zarm]

That just seems like an extremely silly thing to feel upset about, and frankly I think it mischaracterizes the OT to assert things were ever that simple. There were always bad apples in the Rebellion and honest people in the Empire. Maybe that was more visible in EU materials than the films, but it was still something that fans had known about for years. It's not like any of the Rebel leaders from previous films were shown to be morally compromised; Bail and Mothma are as heroic as ever.

I cannot tell you it's wrong to want a Star Wars that runs on black and white morality, but I do think it's enormously unfair to hold Rogue One in contempt for not doing so, given that this was decidedly not a new development for the franchise. Especially if you brush aside all of the film's other merits merely because of that.

Bail and Mon Mothma were kind of useless ditherers until Jyn gave the quibbling rebellion the gumption to actually do something. Sure, they didn't seem to be party to the assassination plot.

And after eating, sleeping, and breathing the EU for the last thirty years... I am wondering what elements you are referring to. Because I don't recall any airstrikes against civilian targets or assassins that took out innocent contacts. In fact, I'm having a hard time recalling any assassination missions at all. Han was the morally edgy character, and even the majority of what he did could be classed in self-defense.

Vrad Dodonna and Tyler Lucien were both a bit cowardly post-Yavin, near-deserters. Certainly, the politics of the New republic from Borsk Fey'lya to Viqui Shesh left much to be desired, and any GFFA that could elect Dalaa as their leader demonstrates questionable intelligence and survival skills (though she was rather a war hero appearing out of nowhere to save the day, so I can forgive that one a bit; she'd had a long absence and some really good publicity, and by that point probably no one remembered the massacre of the Eol Sha colonists). But for the Rebellion itself, during the Galactic Civil War, before they settled down to civilian life and petty politics and repeatedly trying to impeach Leia for no reason? I don't remember them going that direction at all.

I'm sorry if you find it silly, but I find it kind of striking at the literal heart of Star Wars to drag the Rebellion through the mud; the same way TFA did to Han and TLJ did to Luke. Each of them took something that was supposed to be noble and heroic and sullied them, and to me, there's not much worse you can do to Star Wars than that. (Especially after the prequels got through doing the same to the Jedi). To me, the rebellion, Han, Luke, and Leia (adn vader and Palpatine as villains) are Star Wars. they're the core, the center; the nexus around which everything else is either backstory being filled in or a continuation of their story. There is room for other eras, other characters, new series- but those that reflect badly on the originals are instantly on my bad side. (Which is why Star Wars films from 2002-onward haven't been a great experience for me, despite containing elements and characters and scenes that I do find enjoyable in isolation.) Not enough to sink a film entirely on their own... but a major enough strike that there has to be a whole lot of good to counteract it. TFA comes close enough to break even. TLJ actively compounds the problems for me. And Rogue One... just kind of has nothing. It doesn't engage, doesn't inspire; and thus, there's nothing to counteract that major strike against it.


And no, I definitely don't brush the other merits aside- I don't see many merits. Yes, that issue alone is nail in the coffin enough for me, but I also find conceptual issues, agree with the characters of Jyn and Cassian being uninteresting, found most of the deaths at the end to be contrived for killing-everyone's sake than were well-executed (K-2S0's is about the only one I have no quibble with at all, and Chirrut's was poorly executed but at least made sense; the others could have worked but needed another pass through the script to make organic and motivated by the story). Plus, the film seemed to lack an indefinable something that prevented any of the pieces of either the narrative or the score from ever gelling together into a coherent, involving whole. I find the movie bland and uninteresting for a number of reasons- the treatment of the rebellion is just the one part that I find actively noxious.

I mean, give me a montage of just Chirrut's and K-2SO's scenes and the Vader fight at the end, maybe a little of that red and gold leader action, I'll watch the heck out of that... but those moments/characters do not an involving film make.

[eabaker]

the others could have worked but needed another pass through the script to make organic and motivated by the story

This gets at the movie's core failing, for me: nothing in it is organic. It's the work of a committee batting around ideas for what the movie might be, and never settling on a cohesive vision. It's very clear from interviews that they simply didn't know what movie they were making, at any stage, and the result feels predictably piecemeal and incomplete.

[Zarm]

the others could have worked but needed another pass through the script to make organic and motivated by the story

This gets at the movie's core failing, for me: nothing in it is organic. It's the work of a committee batting around ideas for what the movie might be, and never settling on a cohesive vision. It's very clear from interviews that they simply didn't know what movie they were making, at any stage, and the result feels predictably piecemeal and incomplete.

And it's a shame, because I can see the potential in the concept. It's just the execution.

It's everything I want Solo not to be, and everything I fear that it also will. Because, man, those trailers give me the same vibe...

(Say what you will about Disney-era Star Wars; they muster some amazing trailers).

[Maritonic]

(Say what you will about Disney-era Star Wars; they muster some amazing trailers).

Agreed. Except the Solo trailer. Extreme disappointment was felt upon seeing that.