Film Junk Podcast Episode #592: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Posted by on December 20th, 2016   Filed under: Featured, Film Junk Podcast

podcast592

0:00 – Intro
14:15 – Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
1:01:20 – Spoiler Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
2:28:10 – Headlines: Transformers: The Last Knight Trailer, F8 of the Furious Trailer, Baywatch Trailer, Spider-Man: Homecoming Trailer, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2 Trailer, Blade Runner: 2049 Trailer, The Mummy Trailer, Dunkirk Trailer
3:06:13 – Feature: What Makes A Christmas Movie
3:39:25 – This Week on DVD and Blu-ray / Outro

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  • Sloth

    YES! Also will there be reviews of Manchester by the Sea & Nocturnal Animals on the podcast at any point?

  • stinker

    Nice Greg. Nice Greg. No Reed, hope he has a nice Christmas with many SW presents.

  • Sean

    Probably next week.

  • Indianamcclain

    Merry Christmas everybody!

  • devolutionary

    “Happy Life Day” to you too.

  • pcch7

    Seems like I enjoyed Rogue One a lot more than you guys. It’s not perfect at all but I had a better time with this than Force Awakens, and that last scene is just awesome.

  • Colin

    #velcroshoes

  • Christopher PK

    I feel like we watched completely different movies. Rogue One was a very enjoyable experience for me, maybe I had different expectations going in. Nonetheless I enjoyed the episode. Thanks guys!

  • Sloth

    I can’t believe i was the only one digging Rogue One. I thought it was great.

  • Nick

    Only an hour in, but this is already a classic episode. Great to hear Greg again! And Dax, too, of course.

  • EricD

    I thought Rogue One was great on a highly entertaining level, and I thought it brought me back into the Star Wars ‘universe’ with ease, similar to Force Awakens. I honestly think the last 10 mins tie-in to a New Hope was perfect, making the whole movie worth the IMAX trip. Altogether 4.5/5…. but then again, I mindlessly threw my real glasses in the bin and kept the 3D ones, so that shows where my head was at after seeing the movie.

    Great show guys!

  • Reed Farrington

    Merry Crimbo to you, stinker! And I’d prefer ST presents.

  • Reed Farrington

    When I see Rogue One four years from now, I’ll probably like it because peeps say I’m a contrarian. Can’t wait to see the last scene!

  • Sloth

    If Jay says that Gremlins and Black Christmas are Christmas movies because they have so many Christmas elements, Then Die Hard MUST BE A CHRISTMAS MOVIE.

  • Jameson

    Great episode! Greg and Dax were fantastic. And at least Reed is here in comments spirit.

  • parapa

    Absolutely hated Rogue One, for all the reasons the junkers rightfully pointed out. Great cast guys!

  • frankw35

    Great episode. Loved having Greg back, reminded me of what an assho..I mean asset he was to the show back in the day. The stuff he says usually cracks me up and hearing him laugh at what someone else said is also great. SPOILER: As for the CGI cameos, like Dax,.I thought Leia was the weaker of the two, looking sort of like a video game character. But I thought the Peter Cushing resurrection was fantastic. The techinical aspects did not pull me out of the movie at all..to me it looked real. What pulled me out of the movie is THIS IS A DEAD GUY!

  • Indianamcclain

    I agree. It seems like Jay is taking a Frank stance on this issue where it’s more about the people that think Die Hard is a Christmas film, the memes that come with that.

    Also, I personally don’t consider Batman Returns to be a Christmas movie but I think a case could be made that it is.

  • iammattz

    Been awhile since the welfare card was brought up, amazing

  • Jr

    Totally. There’s a nostalgia/fanboy fog over everyone that applauds this without hesitation. It’s too plot heavy, has underdeveloped characters and is generally uninspired. It relies too much on pandering to fans and re-uses character tropes and story moments we’ve seen in multiple other Star Wars films. Take out everything Star Wars and you have a barely competent sci-fi action film. It shouldn’t even get a pass.

  • Jake

    You better see it sooner than that. I expect a review on episode 600.

  • Bill

    I think the Vader stuff was completely in line with A New Hope. He kicked that one off by constantly screaming at everyone and choking a guy to death with his fucking hands before throwing him into a wall. Rogue One reveals that he’d been having a really shitty day from being surround by incompetent underlings and the empire probably being dealt the worst blow to date by the rebels. The Rogue One hallway scene seemed like a perfectly Vader-y scene and it looked pretty incredible as well.

  • kent88

    Complaint first: I really dislike when Junk Mail and Other Stuff We Watched are dropped in favor of the damn spoiler discussions.

    Great episode aside from that. Frank was the MVP this time, I think. Comparing Giacchino’s score to Adrian failing to properly hum “Take Me Back” and claiming Jesus will be forgotten and replaced with John McClane Day were particular highlights.

  • stinker

    Thanks Reed!!!! Let´s all hope that next year a nice Lego Star Trek model wil appear, a 5.000 Part NC-1701. Or A, B, C or D. Or a cool DS9 model, all in grey. Otherwise Merry X-mas to all Filmjunk maker and and listener.

  • pcch7

    I think the spoiler discussions are the best part on the show personally

  • pcch7

    yeah I was about to say that. Having listened to the podcast again, I don’t get half of Jay’s criticisms. And whoever says the Vader scene is like Yoda needs to go to an optician right now and then watch the movie again. It’s nothing like that at all, he’s not jumping around like a bouncing ball and he’s not running. He’s methodically going through them one by one, completely in line with Vader of the old movies. Of course the moves look a bit cooler now than they were able to do back then but what do people want? Him to just stand still and send one object at them at the time? Or strangle them one by one as they hand over the plans? The scene is perfect

  • pcch7

    yeah it seems like Jay, as he so often claims Frank does, is just going against the grain here haha. Die Hard is definitely a christmas movie, but that doesn’t mean you can’t watch it outside of christmas. Die Hard 2 is on my christmas movie watching list as well.

    Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Batman Returns are also christmas movies for me

  • pcch7

    maybe we can have a Reed Retro Review segment =)

  • pcch7

    Always great to have Greg and Dax on the show, or any guest for that matter. It seems like everyone in the Film Junk friend circle have fun personalities

  • benvernel

    Agreed! Although I love it when we get it all.

  • Jameson

    I mostly enjoyed Rogue One but agree the characters were surprisingly weak. This is the first Star Wars movie where I didn’t know the main characters names by the end.

    But I absolutely hated the CGI Peter Cushing. At first I thought we’d only see him in reflections which would have been okay but they show him a lot and whenever there’s a shot of him and an actual human being it’s super obvious. And I do think it’s unethical. Cushing died over twenty years ago and this feels like cheap exploitation. A lot of his acting was in his subtle mannerisms and to try and replicate that digitally feels disrespectful.

    Can’t wait to see other deceased actors get digitally resurrected.

  • schizopolis

    You guys are nuts. I almost loved this film, if it weren’t for the last few minutes. Most of the “Star Wars” callbacks were the weakest parts for me, especially the CGI humans. I found the tone, the look and the entire concept all refreshing. There are nitpicks for sure. But, it seems that the detractors of this film are too precious with the Star Wars anthology. I completely embraced this as a homage to WWII classic films, but slightly darker like Army of Shadows and Hell is for Heroes.

    The characters were pretty damn good and each of them had their moments. SPOILER: I suspect part of the reason some people are down on these characters is because they all die at the end, which is again a first for Star Wars. The franchise has always been about its heroes that triumph and live to be great at the end, which is why we buy the action figures. What kid wants to buy figures of a bunch of characters that die at the end? Also, these characters are not as humorous or charismatic as previous Star Wars characters, which is obviously by design because of the film’s tone.

    I could now see why I disliked the final minutes and others loved it. That’s pretty much the dividing line between to two “love it” or “hate it” camps.

  • Reed Farrington

    The spoiler you mention is one of my criteria for loving a film. I think it’s brilliant for Star Wars. Too bad it won’t surprise me when I see the film. In retrospect, maybe I should have seen Rogue One instead of Arrival.

  • Reed Farrington

    I assume Cushing’s estate was paid a fee for using his likeness. I wish I could get paid for someone using my likeness while I’m alive.

  • Reed Farrington

    To paraphrase or quote exactly (not sure) from Donald Trump’s victory song: “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.”
    (Someone ought to take Frank’s idea and have peeps celebrate John McClane Day in a film.)

  • Reed Farrington

    To quote Pikachu (or from my generation) Chuck Berry: “You Can’t Catch Me.”

  • Reed Farrington

    With all due respects to the inimitable Peter Cushing, I always thought he looked like a corpse while he was alive.

  • Reed Farrington

    This is the same problem with the recent Star Trek movies.

  • Reed Farrington

    As mentioned before, nowadays, I enjoy talking about movies more than watching them.

  • Reed Farrington

    Our parties are somewhat dull though.

  • Reed Farrington

    Mega Bloks has the Star Trek franchise, but I don’t think any retail stores carry the Star Trek stuff. The cost of the Enterprise is my annual food budget.

  • Scot

    Apparently he did not have an heir when he passed. His secretary of 35 years is now in charge of the estate, and gave Lucasfilm the permission. An article I read this week said she cried when she saw the digital re-creation.

    http://variety.com/2016/film/news/rogue-one-peter-cushing-digital-resurrection-cgi-1201943759/

  • Mable

    Were you against digital Paul Walker in Furious Seven?

  • Sean

    Different situation in my opinion. He had already shot part of the movie and the whole thing was geared toward paying tribute to him.

  • Jay Cheel

    Well I can speak for myself and say that the fact that everyone died was not a problem for me. In fact, it was a positive.

    The problem was that I didn’t care that everyone died.

  • devolutionary

    That movie The Congress, while woefully uneven, seems quite prescient.

  • Jay Cheel

    Although that might be a factor, it is not the deciding factor.

    The first step is defining what a “Christmas Movie” is.

    I’ll use music as an analogy to try and explain this in somewhat broad generalities:

    A Christmas Album is a record that is comprised entirely of Christmas songs. Example: Mariah Carey’s “Merry Christmas”, featuring the hit single “All I Want For Christmas Is You”.

    Then, there are standard albums that feature one Christmas themed track. Example: Weird Al Yankovic’s Polka Party! features the track “Christmas at Ground Zero.”

    The fact that Polka Party! features a Christmas song does not make it a Christmas album. You might throw “Christmas at Ground Zero” on a Xmas mix or pop the album on for that song during the holiday season, but you can also listen to Polka Party! any time of the year without feeling odd.

    Mariah Carey’s album is clearly a proper “Christmas Album”, and is likely to only be listened to at Christmas as the entirety of it’s themes and melodies are holiday oriented.

    So, generally speaking:

    Die Hard = Weird Al Yankovich’s “Polka Party!”
    Scrooged = Mariah Carey’s “Merry Christmas”

  • Luke

    I have to say, I kinda enjoy Jay´s tireless pursuit of his weird agenda de jour/du mois/de l’année like his nonsensical fight for horrible CGI or the cheerful promotion of his notorious “stranger technique”, so driving everyone mad with intellectualizing what justifies a Cheel-approved christmas-movie label is a welcome new addition.

  • pcch7

    well given how Episode 4 starts it’s not really a spoiler

  • The more i think about Rogue One, the more i hate it.

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