Just saw Rogue One. Some random disordered thoughts.

Prior to going in, I asked Mal what he was expecting (his Star Wars is mostly Clone Wars; he hated the prequels and doesn't really remember the originals). He said "A Disney Princess movie."

It had the WWII-movie feeling that ANH had, and that worked much better than JJ "I am such a hack" Abrams' beat-by-beat reworking. The pre-title opening was a waste of celluloid. I would have preferred it cut down by about 75%.

Neither of us knew who voiced K, but when he died Mal said "It's like Wash all over again" so we must have recognized it on some level. That combined with the "we have to get the tape to transmission dish" made it feel like a lot of Serenity in there.

Forrest Whitaker. Good lord. Didn't he used to be an actor? Everyone else was good, even the CGI. I felt both Tarkin and Leia were too "Polar Express" for comfort, but so many characters in SW movies have been CGI that it was sort of fun for human characters to be so.

So many Easter Eggs. SO MANY.

ETA: Oh, and it failed to answer the ONE QUESTION I was sure it was entirely built around: WTF is a Bothan?

Here's a really good piece by Anne Helen Petersen (natch) about the differing reactions to the Casey Affleck and Nate Parker allegations:

[link]

Volans: "Many Bothans died" was for the second Death Star. This was the first one.

Yep. I believe Mon Mothma was in Return of the Jedi, nsm A New Hope .

Thanks for the link, Fiona. That's as measured a response as we'll get on the matter, I think. (I keep confusing Anne Helen Petersen with Karina Longworth, who does the terrific "You Must Remember This" podcast.) Ugh, I've been wanting to rewatch Manchester by the Sea since I saw it in TIFF and have now lost much of the desire to do so for fear that this grossness would taint the memory of the emotional response I had to the film the first time around -- which is probably the strongest emotional response I've had to any films this year.

On a different note, what about them stills from Blade Runner 2049? [link]

My main takeaway is... if Deckard has aged normally over the 30 years, does that now settle the whole "is Deckard a replicant??" question or not?

If I were a replicant in a society that hunted them down, you can bet I'd make sure my appearance aged appropriately. So, probably not.

Replicants were physically indistinguishable from humans, right? Otherwise why would there be a need for elaborate psychological testing to find them? I'd assume that ones without the "die early" countdown would age like regular folks.

Gris and Calli - you're right!

Just seen Rogue One. Liked it a lot (albeit would have enjoyed it more if I'd seen it with fellow fans rather than bored family members). The CGI was boggling, and is an interesting & disquieting window into the future of cinema. I agree that i really would have liked more women throughout especially on the Strike Team - I was really jarred by their absence, and pissed off about it. But at least there were a couple of women flying X wings.

Okay, though, absolutely my favourite part was blind nearly-a-Jedi and his boyfriend. I want to see Arthur-and-Eames level ficcage of these two. I want swashbuckling adventures and coffee shop AUs and superhero AUs and just ALL THE FIC because I super loved them, and although I didn't foresee EVERYONE DYING I was getting gradually more worried throughout the final battle that one of those two was going to die and was frantically willing them to be okay.

My reaction to Rogue One is basically Fay's reaction, with an addition of DAMN, that was the most heavy-handed WWII movie that wasn't actually set in WWII that I've ever seen.

I totally didn't expect the ENTIRE main cast to die. That was a ballsy move.

I love Chirrut Imwe SO HARD. As well as Baze Malbus, Chirrut's boyfriend. (God, that was AWESOME.)

My quibble -- and this may be way more my fault that the movie's fault, is that I didn't catch about half the characters' names at all. Like, Chirrut and Baze and Bodhi.

The CGI characters were just creepy as hell and pretty damn distracting.

Not sure where I'd rank this one. I'd say ANH, Empire, TFA, and then Rogue One.