I'll bite. (needless to say, spoilers)

The characters certainly had motivation.

Jyn's motivation, much like Rae in FA, is simple, daddy issues. She isn't so much invested in the rebellion as she is in enacting vengeance for her father. She is stunted emotionally and is not idealistic, but I think she uses that as a vehicle to push other characters along with her. Her last moments with Cassian aren't driven by any great romance, just the solace of two people who don't know if what they did will make a difference, but they succeeded in what they set out to do. I suspect she understood before she left Yavin that she was not going to get out of it alive, which sort of fits with her fairly nihilistic view of the universe.

Cassian was entirely driven by the fight against the Empire. He was willing to do anything, and was completely ruthless at the start, but he does mellow towards the end as Jyn makes a point of saying that he was like a stormtrooper. He is a zealot, a true believer, and is willing to sacrifice everything, even his humanity, for the cause.

Orson, the imperial commander, is a mixture of patriotism and self interest. He's a fervant believer in the imperial ethos of bringing order to the galaxy, but he is also deeply interested in recognition and commensurate rise in rank. He is so motivated that he risks his life directly to try and stop the rebels (not something you typically see bad leader types do outside of superhero movies, that's what henchmen are for) at the end.

The droid is all programming, but his comedy relief is explained by the dialogue that slicing an imp droid can affect it's personality. He is the one of the few light hearted notes (and consequently gives us a pretty poignant note when he says goodbye and get's shut down) in what is a fairly depressing movie. His bluntly honest statements are perfectly ironic and as such really do deserve the laughs they get.

The monk and the warrior were guardians of a temple but are now displaced. While it's couched in the monks mysticism, I think honestly they were happy to stand up to the big bad guys who wrecked their temple and extract some form of revenge. I think it would please both of them to know that it was worth it in the end.

The imperial defector seems to have little motivation, but he has already taken the dangerous step of defecting and getting the ball rolling for the entire plot etc, he's obviously completely displeased about the empire and willing to risk his life to do something about it.

Saul has been driven mad by the fight. The rebel leadership all seem to fit well within their established roles in the canon, as do Tarkin and Vader. Random rebel and imp personal are placeholders and who really gives a fuck what their motivations are? X D

/shrug As far as character development goes, it's certainly not a work for the ages, but to say these characters are going to get a thing because they need to get a thing seems to be nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking.

Oh yeah, and in regards to AT AT's, it's a strategic imperial world and heavily garrisoned. Likely a staging point for excursions around the galaxy as well. It has major shielding, AA and fighter complements, Star Destroyers standing guard etc. Sure, fan service is a thing (although the homages in R1 are far less clunky than FA, including things like the Hammerhead, references to the cartoons etc), but as an imp commander, I would certainly release AT AT and AT ST vehicles against an attacking force of unknown size, particularly when you see a whole bunch of landing pads explode simultaneously. Are their 10 commandos or 1,000? 10,000? Yeah, go lowball and wait for them to walk out in the open right? \= |

It's not like the AT AT's were stomping all over the archive looking for a guy hiding behind valuable Imp data infrastructure, they are roaming the outer regions and are fairly proof against ground troops. Makes sense to me.

Dunno, I think the RLM reviews are generally entertaining and thoughtful, but in this case whoever writes Plinkett has let his acerbic dislike of "new" Star Wars cloud his objectiveness imo. It was an enjoyable flick and certainly one I intend to own. I don't think it's anywhere near the best sci fi (although I kinda like it on par with Empire) movie out there, but it's far better than RLM gives it credit for, imo.

Oh certainly, there are definitely glaring flaws with Rogue One.

The biggest problem for me was how every character conveniently dies IMMEDIATELY as soon as their narrative purpose is done with. And strangely, every character seems completely ready to die in a way that makes the deaths fairly laughable.

Saw: "I'm gonna stare out this window and not even try to escape."

Bodhi: "I'm gonna close my eyes and not even try to toss that thermal detonator back out of the shuttle."

Baze: "Welp, my best friend is dead so I'm just going to Leroy Jenkins those Deathtroopers."

They missed major dramatic opportunities for each character death. Think "Saving Private Ryan" where each character death is meaningful. Caparzo disobeys a command to do something decent and gets himself killed. Wade dies because Tom Hanks wanted to do the right thing and clear the machine gun nest. Fish dies because Upham is too cowardly to climb the steps and fight. And none of those guys resigned themselves to death--they all wanted desperately to live.

A couple of other things that bothered me about Rogue One:

Why did Admiral Raddus take Princess Leia--a Galactic Senators daughter--into a major battle with the Empire, one which most Rebels were convinced was a trap designed to draw out the fleet?

Why didn't Vader just Force pull the Death Star plans out of the escaping rebels before massacring them all?

Why did the Death Star "miss" Scarif base and hit the ocean instead despite them showing it had pinpoint accuracy when blowing up Jedha?

All that being said, TFA disappointed me big time. It was just trying waaaaaaaay too hard to evoke the original trilogy. If I wanted to watch the original trilogy again I'd, you know, watch the original trilogy. And don't even get me started on Kylo Ren. I haven't wanted to punch a character in the face so hard since whiny Anakin from Attack of the Clones.

EDIT: To keep this on topic, I'm annoyed that Plinket didn't point out the actual flaws in the movie and instead focused on the "they didn't explain the Force" bullshit.

I felt like the movie was a bit of a structural mess.

So Cassian rescues Jyn so she can persuade Gerrera to hand over Bodhi so he can give her the message from her father who can tell them about the weakness in the death star.... that just feels like one step too many.

And what was with the Gerrera's weird mind squid thing? That scene felt completely unnecessary and was also the worst looking part of the movie (almost exactly like the tentacle ball things scene in TFA).

That said, the last third was great, and seeing the death star destroy part of a planet from the surface really brought home the horror of the weapon.

I'd put it very slightly behind TFA in terms of ranking it (Empire, New Hope, Jedi, TFA, Rogue One). While I admire that they tried something different and didn't just retread old plots like TFA, I just didn't enjoy it as much as TFA. The characters in TFA were just better and it was just more fun.

Huh, this criticism feels more like a Zero Punctuation-type review to me in that it grossly exaggerates actual flaws to make them sound far more problematic than they actually are. He's asking us to view the movie from the perspective of someone who has never heard of Star Wars and that's just so preposterously stupid that I had a hard time getting through to the end of his video. The whole point of this movie is that the lore and the world has already been established--there's no need to re-tread everything and explain every connection. It's not meant to be a "stand-alone" film--nor were Empire or Return of the Jedi, which also rightly assumed that people watching the movie had seen (or at least understood the major plot points) of the previous films.

Personally, I find his criticism of the characters wholly lacking as well. Why did he not like the characters? Why did he not find them compelling? I personally loved them all. One flaw in the movie is that there are so many things going on that most of the characters don't get enough screen time for us to get really deeply attached to them, but then again none of the characters are meant to survive the movie so that could be intentional? Certainly a few of the characters (Baze, Chirrut, and Bodhi) suffer from being one-dimensional as a result of this.

Fair enough if he doesn't want to check the character box because of that, but he never explained why the story and emotion boxes weren't checked. I mean, my wife cried both at Jin's father's death and Jin and Cassian's deaths. They were the three characters that were the most fleshed out of the cast. We understood their motivations and their internal conflicts (Jin's father between protecting his family and helping the Empire, Jin's struggles with trust after the feeling of betrayal at being left behind by both her father and Saw Gerrera, Cassian's struggles with duty and morality further complicated by his growing feelings for Jin). And their deaths were meant to underscore the harsh reality of the rebellion for the common foot soldier.

For me, this movie is probably the 4th best Star Wars movie to date after the original trilogy--much better than The Force Awakens, in my book. It's fine if Plinkett disagrees, but his video is completely disappointing as it doesn't really explain or give examples of how he came to this opinion. He just makes a blanket statement and then proceeds to monologue as if we should take his opinion as fact without him offering any evidence.

First of all passing law to allow pedophiles and perverts in opposite sex bathrooms is wrong.
I'm not rooting for a team. Democrats are just worst. buy an ultra small margin.. They approve low moral standards.

Both are woefully disgusting and hence the ultra low approval ratings and Trump getting in.

I would much rather see more States stand up for States rights and actually limit the FEDs power to 1/2 or more of its current size.

Even better is for News to actually report truth and for the people to stop watching stupid mindless shows ( ie 99% of them) and tune to to what the heck is going on and VOTE. The people represent the "4th" branch of government in a sense. We need to kick out the Harry Reid's and john McCain's of government. They are the truly rich 1% and they did not build shit, they just bought and sold favors at the peoples expense.

With respect to chaos does nto matter where he lives on tihs issue. He was given a video of what is going on and still stood on the side of perverts.


With respect to Trump. Who knows what will unfold. But I do see a bright man who built an empire. That takes skill and ability. Hopefully he will use it to the betterment of the world.

Clinton is and utter disaster of a pick. Corrupt to the core.

The POTUS selection was a no brainier.

Bernie and my pick Cruz would have been an choice. True opposites. One one cheated and one was bullied.


No I am not a republican.. The Bushes were the final straw.

Sadly are only 2 teams and we must pick... Jill Stine No

I have 2 theories.....
1. They are seeing the mass conformity and allegiance to the empire as antithetical to freedoms of choice and expression, or
2. They looked at the helmet as a stand in for a burka, and had a problem with it.

Of course, I could easily be wrong, maybe they're just being douchey.

Your video, "SEAGULLS! (Stop It Now)" -- A Bad Lip Reading of SW's ESB, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Moving this video to EMPIRE's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

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@Mordhaus, you're not understanding the point I'm making here. I didn't say mankind in general isn't shitty to each other, it is very much. What I'm talking about is how as soon as Europe reached a technological tipping point (gaining an advantage), we started to fuck with every continent on the map. Our culuture shaped how we treated the rest of the world, which meant wiping out every other culture we could dominate.
Look at the Mongols, sure, extremely violent assholes. But what happened to those that didn't oppose them? Did they try to eradicate conquered cultures? Here's the funny part, the Mongols we're known for their religious tolerance. They didn't give a shit about your culture, as long as you surrendered and accepted their rule, you had a chance to be ok. Basically, the Mongols are Negan.
Say, what happened to those cultures that came into contact with the spanish Empire or the british? Oh right, we pretty much destroyed them as well as we could. We did this in the Americas, Africa and tried it in Australia. Europeans aren't Negan, they're the Wolves.
That's why I mention Zheng He. He shows up in Africa with a giant fleet and says "Gimme some of your shit!" and fucks off right home. Comes back a couple off times and the new chinese Emperor goes "Eh, it ain't worth it!"
I'm sure ol' Zheng could be quite the bastard but he didn't set up shop in Africa and he didn't start slaughtering people because they refused to embrace Buddha.
You're absolutely right, there are mad men to be found everywhere, there's genocide and slavery all around the globe all through human history. However, there's only one group of people that made all of it an export article. Our ancestors left their neighbourhood to mess up everybody else's. We're special in that regard.
With the exception of the Mongols of course. But they've always been exceptional. I mean, they're the only empire to successfuly invade Afghanistan. You gotta respect that.

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I would say that Stalin, the Kin Jong's, Various African Tribal Genocides, and Pol Pot might disagree with your account of wholesale slaughter being reserved for the 'white' Europeans and their descendants. That is just to name a few. Also, what is a 'white' European? I mean the southern Europeans have quite a bit of Moorish blood in them, do they still count as 'white'?

All sarcasm aside, your argument is extremely flawed. Conquerors tend to lay waste to the societies they conquer, not always in terms of total lives lost, but in terms of cultural death. The reason why 'white' people are vilified for this lately is because for the past several hundred years they have been the ones expanding and taking over the regions you speak of. This is not exclusive to a skin color or originating locale, it is absolutely a core of our human nature.

I gave some examples earlier of non-European conquerors, but they are fairly recent. If we look in history at other groups, we find the same meme. The Steppe Horse Tribes were BRUTAL to cities and countries that did not capitulate. Look up "Measuring against the linchpin". That saying came from the fact that if you resisted Mongol rule, they would slaughter every male taller than the linchpin of a wagon wheel. The Aztecs and Mayans ruled southern American empires through great brutality, including human sacrifice for 'religious' purposes. Recent discoveries even indicate that it was considered a good omen if the sacrifices were crying in pain before they were to die. Remains recently found showed "All shared one feature: serious cavities, abscesses or bone infections painful enough to make them cry."

Slavery originated as early as human recorded history, if not sooner. Slavery can be traced back to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BC), which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations. Mass slavery requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Although slavery in some form or another existed in most European countries, it wasn't until after contact with the Arabic African slave traders that it soared in the 15th and 16th centuries.

tl;dr

You are referring to recent history to make an example while completely ignoring THOUSANDS of years of similar history. All humanity is flawed, narrowing it down to a singular group with cherry picked data is not going to persuade anyone with a brain.

You're kidding, right?
Do I have to make a list? On every continent white people visited (if you can call showing up and not really leaving a visit) we fucked up the lives of a good portion of the people living there.
Sure, mankind has always been cruel, in every corner of the earth. However, white people are to murder, theft and slavery what Coca Cola is to refreshing diabeeetus (yes, that's how it's spelled). A fucking international enterprise whose traces can be found everywhere. On every fucking continent.
I hope we can agree on that. Otherwise, here's a short list: Gippsland Massacres, Nagasaki, Opium Wars, My Lai Massacre, fucking Iraq, Crusades, Apartheid, Herero and Namaqua genocide, that whole Columbus mess, Trail Of Tears and transatlantic slave trade (because why the fuck not?). Oh, my bad, I forgot the freaking Holocaust and starting 2 World Wars.
Who does this? Who? White people, that's who. Europeans and their descendants.
Would you like to argue that level of evil is genetic? I won't.
It's cultural. We europeans (and later our emigrated offspring) always thought we're better than everybody else, we had god on our side (and the Pope agreed!). Probably a leftover from the Roman Empire. And that's why everywhere we go, we steal, murder or occupy the shit out of every place. No other collection of ethnic groups has so much blood on their hands and it's not because we're worse DNA constructs than the others. All humans are capable of evil, it just takes a certain way of thinking to go that far.
Thankfully, we wrecked our own continent so badly during WW2, that we finally started to improve our ways. But here's the problem: we just started. We're far from being done.
Orban, LePen, Farage, Putin, Petry and last but not least Trump.

"Podesta's emails, and Podesta himself, show that the so-called progressive wing of the establishment is really just a neoliberal insider's club of the rich and powerful, who loyally serve their corporate masters. Podesta's emails are more than just a window into one man, but a window into how the empire's political machine is actually run."

That's one of those bits of info that are shrugged off as lunacy first by those who profit from it, only then to be shrugged off as having been known all along by the same people.

Again, back to Carlin: it's a big club, and you're not in it.

"YouTube is walking a fine line here, their empire is built on all these small creators as much as it's big ones advertisers and their willingness to pay for ads. Piss them off enough and they may decide it's no longer worth it and either quit or take their content elsewhere. The less diversity YouTube has in it's programming and the more it just looks like another TV network, with all the same safe boring advertiser-relevant bullshit."