Rogue One!

[psocoptera]

I don't know how to do spoiler cuts on Facebook so I'm going to have to talk about this movie here! Spoiler cut!

I think my favorite thing is Vader's house. I have *written Vader between the trilogies* and I never thought about where he lived - I guess I assumed Coruscant? Do they mention him living on Coruscant in the extended universe works somewhere? Palpatine is on Coruscant, right? Anyways, I can't get over the idea of him having this giant pointy castle built for himself *on the volcano planet*, like the data center people at least were clearly like heyyyyy we should put this on the *beach* planet, that sounds nice, but no, Anakin and his manpain have to sit and sulk in his castle on the hell planet where he lost everything, that is the most possible Anakin-from-the-prequels detail and ties that Anakin so beautifully to original-trilogy Vader.

Other stuff: I was *so shocked* when we didn't open with the theme and a title crawl. I can see why they did it but man. In general I thought they did a good job with the music, bringing in the TFA theme, something that wasn't quite the Ep2 love theme but made me think of it, bringing it around to the main theme only at the end, that worked.

I can't wait to read the epic romance backstory of blind Force mystic and gun guy, omg. Sailing, sailing... (And I suppose the Kylux crew will be writing about white cape guy being in love with Dad Eyrso?)

Huh, I did not realize that Tarkin and Leia were CGI? I thought they just found lookalikes and had them in heavy makeup and maybe some special effects distortion or something. I'm not great at recognizing faces. Or, apparently, humans. Welp.

Comments

[glassonion]

Apropos of nothing spoiler thought which is also a spoiler for Serenity if anyone cares: when i was watching Imwe make his final rush for the power switch to reboot the router or whatever, it really strongly brought to mind the "I am a leaf on the wind" scene when Wash is piloting them to the whatever planet. (I'm not sure i could tell you why, just it was tonally very clear that they were doing that thing.) Given that Alan Tudyk was secretly in this movie, is there any chance it wasn't just me?

[glynhogen.livejournal.com]

Some archivists have suggested that really, wouldn't Hoth have been a better choice than a tropical beach planet? I excuse that in light of the Empire being pretty good at structural engineering; if you can handle the environmental controls necessary for living in a vacuum, you can probably make sure your humidity doesn't go too high.

I also love Vader's castle, and I assume the ghost of Leigh Brackett does, too.

[glynhogen.livejournal.com]

Very disappointed in Lyra, however. I really hate the trope of the parent who leaves the kid to their own devices for the sake of the other parent and/or an empty gesture. For one moment I thought she was going to try to shoot Galen, which would have been poor planning but at least a sacrifice I could get behind, if we're all buying into the idea that only he can design a planet-killer. But alas, no.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I know. Especially when there was obviously a plan that they had rehearsed, like, I can see if there's an unexpected emergency just going with whatever seems most urgent, but don't lie to your spouse about your actual plan in an event you've been practicing for, if your job is the kid then take care of the kid. (I also thought for a sec that she was going to shoot Galen rather than let him face Imperial torture, which would have been impressively badass and maybe put an interesting spin on the whole later assassination-attempt plotline. Although aaaaaactually now that I'm thinking about it, what I really want of course is for it to be Jyn's *mother* who's the brilliant engineer and her father to get casually killed off in the first five minutes of screentime, I'm pretty sure the galaxy's most brilliant engineer character in the old expanded universe was in fact a woman, that would have been a nice nod.)

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Seems legit. The vermin problems on Hoth might be worse if wampas can tunnel into your building, too.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Hm, interesting, maybe. I feel like this is maybe a preexisting/more general trope, although I can't offhand think of another example?

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Vader's lava castle was explored in Ralph McQuarrie concept art for Empire Strikes Back, but not used until now. (That was the detail I mentioned being gratified to see on Facebook.)

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! That's neat that it's an idea of long standing like that.