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.

Right, I have close relatives that is working in the entertainment industry here in Thailand, some of my friends are in both popular indie/major label bands, and I myself have been involved in producing some independant records. And let me tell you.

Piracy is a pain in the ass.

Spoco2's spot on on this issue. The problem is, many people on VideoSift use BitTorrent to download films/songs to see/hear what they're like before actually going out to buy them. Fine, that's great, but Sifters are normally great in general. But as you have probably come to know, Sifters don't exactly think act like the majority of the public, do we? The majority of people download pirated movies and songs simply for the fact that they don't want to pay for it. That is stealing. That is no different than shoplifting. You don't understand the feeling you get when you're out at your booth selling your CDs to a group of "fans" only for one to buy 1 copy of the CD and turning around to others in a kind of wink and telling their friends, right in front of my face, that "don't buy one...one copy is enough...you get what I mean". Oh yeah, like I don't know what they were going to do with it.

Not to mention the times where a fan would walk up to my friend holding out a CD for him to sign...except it was on a generic CD-RW disc.

And it happens everytime, everyday.

Hey, I'm not saying copyright laws aren't archaic and anarchist. I'm not saying it comes from an old distribution model. There are loopholes and a lot of very good points have been made here on this thread, as always, and I relish reading them. But the main thing is, a majority of people are pirating
simply because they don't want to buy the real copy, and it destroys the creative juice out of so many artists. I am willing to bet that even if a final, new distribution model is accomodated for the internet, most people will still continue to hack. Just think about it: "Download movie from the net for $4.99? Or download for free? Hmm..."

It's not a hard choice, you're going to get the same package no matter if you pay it or not, and people will continue to pirate no matter what innovative business model is thrusted upon them as most people will only think of themselves, not the artists. And it was always the job of corporations to think up business models in the first place, not artists. Why else would artists sign for them and make them what they are now? So, don't expect a "better" model to support artists directly and bypass the evil you all hate any time soon.

Remember, we're talking about the majority of people here, not Sifters. We're not talking about fans of Radiohead, who scarificed oh so much potential profit but can only be successful in doing what they did with the huge amount of fanbase they already have, we're talking more like fans of Britney Spears.

Before I end my tirade, just let me underline what I'm talking about here. Forget plagiarism. Forget the sharing with friends/families. I'm talking about the act of downloading films, products, for personal entertainment without the intention of actually buying the damn thing at all. And this is what most of pirating is. Don't justify it.

And so many people act.all.so.decent.and.proud.like.they.are.the.righteous.ones.for.doing.it.


Rant over. Thank you, and good night.