Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Adding to what Unsung said; When Mace confronts Dooku, the latter says the Jedi are impossibly outnumbered. Mace says with a smirk, "I don't think so."

In the novel he adds that the Geonosians aren't warriors, indicating that he wasn't aware of the huge number of battle droids ready to fight. The way the Jedi are scattered about the arena makes it seem that the plan was to simply scare off whatever Geonosian military elements were among the audience.

Jedi don't seem to work in groups any larger than four on a given mission. Mace probably doesn't even know how to properly utilize the numbers he brought with him. It wasn't even a properly put together strike force, Mace just rounded up whatever Jedi happened to be at the temple at the moment.

The Jedi in general are inefficient as an army by themselves. They are too specialized in a particular area of combat and too skilled to do the necessary grunt work that is needed to keep an army functioning. A squad of Navy Seals, Army Rangers, SAS, etc are devastating when deployed on tactical missions, but you put them on the front lines of an open battle and you simply have highly trained cannon fodder.

Windu's mistake was believing Geonosis was a tactical mission to retrieve hostages and capture Dooku and other Separatist Leaders. The fact there was a fully functioning war engine on Geonosis made it very clear this was a battle they were not prepared for, the arena battle was minuscule compared to the open valley confrontation that ignited afterward.

How do we think the combat angle is going to be handled in Rogue One? I'm sure I've heard it pitched as essentially the first Star Wars movie to qualify as an actual war movie, though from who I forget. From the trailer we have our heroes going on a raid with a larger battle in the background, possibly as a deliberate diversion.

I would presume that the Rebels are going to be portrayed as using guerrilla tactics as they've always been pretty consistently depicted as outgunned in raw firepower and numbers than the Imperials - nothing to match the likes of AT-A Ts in a straight up fight.

I expect it to be akin to The Dirty Dozen. Most combat will probably be distraction air strikes and some ground gorilla warfare with a full retreat to a transmitter once they have the plans.

I do not expect big battles of a standard war movie.

edited 22nd Oct '16 12:53:37 PM by Memers

Yeah, it's shown in a lot of trailers that on Scarif they'll likely be in a running gun battle with various Imperial patrols that they'll have to take down until Krennic says "Okay, shut this down now and they send an army and walkers after them. I'd imagine before then there'll be a space battle as the X-wings supporting the platoon try and punch a hole through Scarif's orbital defenses.

Databank just got updated with a lot of Rogue one entries.

Guess who's back?

SPOILER: Grand Moff Tarkin himself will make an appearance in Rogue One. Tell your friends.

(Or don't, if they don't want to be spoiled).

edited 28th Nov '16 5:46:45 PM by higherbrainpattern

Might want to fix that spoiler tag there.

Could've sworn that was one of the earlier bits of news they released on the film, including how they would use voice banks and the most advanced CG of its time to try to recreate Peter Cushing's likeness.

Is the guy playing him the guy that plays Tarkin in Rebels?

edited 28th Nov '16 9:39:11 PM by theLibrarian

I thought we were spoiler tagging this.

Fight scene clip. I get the feeling that other K2 units getting shot might turn into a rather dark joke by the end of the movie.

edited 1st Dec '16 8:17:52 AM by theLibrarian

http://www.themarysue.com/donnie-yen-on-asian-representation/

Good interview on the whole but I'm confused. Is Chirrut Force Sensitive or not? He's definitely not a Jedi, that's for sure, but I'm still not sure whether he's a Force-allegiant Muggle or actually Force-sensitive, just not one of the Jedi.

He's probably just Force-sensitive, but not enough to become a Jedi. Likely he's only Force-sensitive enough to sense things around him and be aware of his surroundings.

It's also possible that he is fully Force-sensitive, but for one reason or another he never had the opportunity to become a Jedi - or he follows a different school of the Force. Galaxy's a big place, after all. The Jedi can't possible find and recruit every single Force-sensitive kid out there, after all.

I do wonder if they are changing how the force works a bit so people who aren't "force sensitive" in the traditional sense can still feel the Force with extensive training, they just can't affect it.

It's just that doing it on a level that matters, let alone the level Chirrut does (where he's basically a Jedi-lite) demands a level of dedication far beyond what the average person is capable of.

Even in the 'real world' there are certain people who can achieve fantastic things with their bodies beyond the human norm, but it takes pretty much an entire lifetime of constant practice and dedication. Add a smidge of the force into the mix and you could get something a bit like Chen's character relatively believably.

I seem to recall a fanon theory that certain characters (Wedge and Han come to mind amongst others) were indeed force-sensitive but only in very specific ways that mostly manifested as being incredibly good/lucky in certain fields but well short of being actual Jedi.

From what I've heard, one of the traits that made Wedge and Han so popular was the fact that in a setting where space wizards were the movers and shakers, they were pretty important people in their own right. I feel like giving them any degree of Force sensitivity above the norm would take away from that, so that theory doesn't really sit well with me.

So how long do you guys think the Battle of Scarif will be? There'll be an infiltration, probably, I bet in the same method as Endor (send a crew down to get the shield taken offline then the fleet exits hyperspace and we go from there), then the ground battle, then the evac...

I can see it being akin to modern battles (such as Mosul) that actually go on for several weeks or months - the fighting has been going on for some time with our heroes' mission in the background of the actual battle. Whilst we focus specifically on Jyn and her little band there's fighting going on throughout the whole movie, with the big finale being where it all comes together.

@Endless Sea

I think this is a big part of why I don't want Finn to become a Jedi, and am ambivalent on him being Force-sensitive. I think it's more meaningful when he's just a Muggle whose strongest asset is his strength of character.

I think that's already flown the nest when the books decided to make Finn some top of his class and super-badass.

I tend to picture Force-sensitivity as sort of a sliding scale, with training and dedication ultimately trumping raw ability - per the first Kenobi-Vader fight, at least. I wager the outcry over midichlorians wasn't so much about demystifying the Force, as it was about turning it into a genetic superpower rather than a martial art. TFA was ambivalent on the issue, but both canons have ways of acquiring similar if not outright identical abilities externally - Shadow Armor in Legends, and Dathomir ichor in The Clone Wars, for instance.

For that matter, I think Chirrut and Lor San Tekka belong in a category of their own - what may be called the Force-faithful. It would be for the best for this line of thinking to be continued, with the Force returning to its mystical roots as something beyond just the physical abilities of its practitioners.

I would presume that literally everyone is force sensitive inasmuch as they have Midichlorians, but only a few have a strong enough connection to become Sith or Jedi, there are a few who seem to have oddly good luck or exceptional abilities in certain fields, everyone else is a muggle.

Those without the ability to actually use the Force remain able to observe and worship it as a real, existing thing.

That's my view too. The comments about how the Force connects everyone wouldn't make sense unless everyone was attached to it. However only a select few can manipulate it.