Rogue One What would you change about Rogue One?

[Spider-Who?]

There seems to be a lot of divisiveness about many aspects of the film. This thread isn't meant to be a "I hate Rogue One" thread, but a conversation on things you might wish they did differently. I'm curious on people's thoughts about this, so please share, however trivial!

Note: debate on any proposed change is welcome, but "I'd change nothing" adds zilch to the conversation.

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I'll start:

I would have either removed the character of Saw completely, or made him an established part of the team from the beginning. I really liked the concept his character brought to the table (not all rebels are "good"), but that notion just didn't have enough room in the film as it is.

His character only served to get Jyn in with the rebels, but in doing so, it added a lot of unecessary scenes, convoluted the first half of the movie and took time away from other characters.

I think they should have just condensed that whole set up by having the defector go directly to the rebels. They could still add in Jyn by having daddy Erso being paranoid of being caught, so he only trusts Jyn to relay the message (i.e.: he's worried an imperial could claim to be a rebel sent to get the info). This forces the rebels to find Jyn, and the rest of the plot stays largely the same, but with more time dedicated to the main characters. Even the major events at Jedha could remain intact by moving it near the beginning of the film and having that be where Jyn is held prisoner.

 

[scarlet-witch]

I would just expand on the characters. I felt like the writers didn't put a lot of effort into them because they were all going to die at the end. I just wanted to know more about them.

 

[Tony Stark]

^This, they had the right idea, but the characters were too thin. Especially with Jyn, there was this huge gap between when she was rescued by Gererra, to when she ends up as an Imperial prisoner.

 

[scarlet-witch]

^Exactly. And what made Cassian join, what happened when he was six? Why did Bodhi decide to defect? I wish we could've seen Erso talking to him.

 

[_Superman_]

Personally if it were me I wouldn't have made this movie at all and instead made the force unleashed.

 

[Drizzle]

For starters, I would have included an opening crawl. I'm kind of hoping the other spinoff movies have them because it really did feel like a glaring omission in the beginning. The crawl is supposed to get you pumped that you're about to watch a Star Wars movie.

 

[Brother Jack]

I would have kept Desplat on and let him finish the score. Giacchino just didn't have enough time to do it justice.

Flesh out some of the characters, namely Cassian and Chirrut. It's alright to have one or two in an ensemble that don't have much depth but there was a lot of interesting stuff going on with those two that should've been explored.

Cut out the unnecessary references. A lot of them made sense and were integral to the story, others were not. In that same vein, I'd do more to camouflage the CG effects on Tarkin and Leia. With Tarkin, he needed to be in the film but not with such blatant closeups. And I didn't need to see Leia at all really. It would've been enough just to see her back or her profile. The inclusion of these elements weren't bad on paper, they just pushed too hard on them on screen.

 

[haephestus]

Just a significant amount of character work, especially for Jyn, Cassian and Bodhi.

I'd be sorely tempted to completely remove the old married couple to give more screen time to those three characters. Or maybe limit their screen time to providing assistance on Jedha, although since that scene only seemed to exist to demonstrate Chirrut's abilities, it's probably best to be removed.

I'd also remove Tarkin, except for extremely limited appearances by hologram, CP30, R2D2 and as blasphemous as it sounds, even reduce Darth Vader's screen time. I don't think Krennic got a real chance to showcase his villainy, possibly due to the presence of Tarkin and Vader.

I would also streamline the plot. Bodhi works closely with Galen. Krennic suspects Galen of treachery and kills him. Galen's murder spooks Bodhi who flees with a secret message for Jyn given to him by Galen. Somehow finds Jyn, maybe with behind the scenes assistance from Imperial agents who are tracking him because they want to know what the message contains. Or maybe Cassian could have been a double agent within the Empire who uses his rebellion connections to help Bodhi find Jyn (preferably actually doing something other than just rotting in prison).

The secret message is about the plans, Galen asks Jyn to help him atone for his past by stealing the plans. Jyn approaches the rebels, who she had some dealings with when working as a separatist for Saw. Asks them for help in stealing the plans, but they're reluctant. Jyn manages to win over Cassian (and his droid), Bodhi and maybe four other "red shirts" (including at least one other female solider, ideally two). They steal a rebel vessel to retrieve the plans.

With further arguments by Senators Organa and Mothma, the rebels eventually decide to send some assistance to Jyn and her crew. Big battle (but smaller than the one in the film), in which Jyn successfully transmits the plans to the rebels, defeats Krennic and avenges the deaths of her parents, but dies (along with everyone else) when the Death Star blows up the base.

Finally, it's a minor quibble, but I'd ensure that there are plenty of female actors in the background scenes, especially all of those taking place at rebel headquarters. Highlighting the contributions of female pilots and commanders in the final battle scene would have also been welcome.

EDIT: Thinking about it further, I'd make Cassian a double agent at the same facility as Bodhi and Galen to streamline their stories. Maybe Galen had even reached out to the rebels who sent Cassian to the facility to see if their information about a high level scientist looking to defect was accurate. Galen is killed, Bodhi decides to flee, but is almost caught, except Cassian reveals himself as a rebel and they manage to escape.

I'd consider making Jyn an information broker - someone who trades in information, whether it's about a missing person or troop movements. I'd show that she's ruthless (i.e. she won't help a man looking for his wife who was taken by Stormtroopers without expecting something in return), but that she also anonymously feeds information to the rebels, all while searching for information about her father and Krennic.

 

[Galactus123]

I would tell more about the main characters. We don't know much about them.

 

[writer0327]

The music didn't fit in certain cases.

The characters were okay, but I would have maybe beefed up a couple of them.

I think I wanted to see Vader on the battlefield taking on the Rogues.

Give Jyn more emotional moments with Cassian.

 

[j0ke5ta]

Change the opening sequence. Put the crawl back like every other Star Wars movie with brief summaries of the characters & what is going on (maybe pieces of info from the book Catalyst) before the movie like every other Star Wars movie before it.

This way general audiences know when this movie takes place, and the main characters better. Also you feel like your at a Star Wars event film and not some random movie because the crawl has that kind of meaning to these films. Not trying to separate what has been a Star Wars tradition and keeping some things the same would have helped the first half of this movie and the background of characters a lot.

Then do away the that hard cut to the title from the flashback and instead just let the flashback flow to the scene of Jyn in her cell. Would have helped the flow of the first part of the movie a lot by not pulling us out of the story your telling to give us the title.

Especially with the jarring cold open and title sequence which played a part in the choppy first sequence of the movie.

Lastly I would have added more classic score from the original trilogy especially to the empire stuff. Given the timeline they sure missed an opportunity to use that score throughout the film. I was fine with what they used but I think that nostalgia kick would have added a little more to the film with that music.

 

[j0ke5ta]

I would just expand on the characters. I felt like the writers didn't put a lot of effort into them because they were all going to die at the end. I just wanted to know more about them.

I suspect their stories will be filled in during the novels down the road. Much like how a lot of stuff is left vague in every other Star Wars film ever made but then later expanded on in that way.

 

[writer0327]

Yeah the more I think about it, less characters would have made this a better film in many ways. More screen time for other characters and beefed up roles.

 

[scarlet-witch]

I suspect their stories will be filled in during the novels down the road. Much like how a lot of stuff is left vague in every other Star Wars film ever made but then later expanded on in that way.

I hope so. I'd certainly purchase those.

 

[Erzengel]

Remove the cameo of R2, and Threepio and have them be passed by on Tantive IV while bringing the plans to Leia.

 

[Steyin]

For starters, I would have included an opening crawl. I'm kind of hoping the other spinoff movies have them because it really did feel like a glaring omission in the beginning. The crawl is supposed to get you pumped that you're about to watch a Star Wars movie.

This x100

 

[marcvader]

Include more of Williams iconic score. His music is almost a character in itself in anything Star Wars. Big misstep. The opening crawl could of helped the dense non SW fanatics.

 

[Tony Stark]

I don't think they need an opening crawl, they just need some contextual scenes.

 

[P Supreme]

I would have liked a little more info on the temple on Jedha
I would have like for c-3po and R2 be with Princess at end
a little bit more of Vader in his Castle

 

[mikeboydus]

I would not have changed much, I liked the dramatic structure used and pretty much all of the characters.

I would have added a crawl and proper title shot.

Would not have brought in Michael Giacchino and gave him only 30 days to rescore an entire film. Either used the original score or tweaked it way earlier with someone like John Debney or Alan Silvestri adapting William's scores as needed.

Those are the only changes I feel would be necessary. There are a few things I would have liked to see: More scenes with Bail Organa and some scenes on Alderaan, show the beauty and prosperity of the world, so its hits you in the gut like a Mack truck when the planet is destroyed in ANH

 

[Vincanws]

Things I would have changed:
Added the crawl as there was one in the first script apparently
Changed the font they used for the title, it looked surprisingly indistinctive and boring
Added the scene transitions
Lose the planet titles and have characters name them in conversation
More creative use of Tarkin. Don't make his big CG face front and centre and fully lit as it only emphasises that this is CG animation. Or replace Tarkin with Vadar or with a look alike character. It seemed to work out ok with Mon Mothma.

Likewise Leia, a shot from the side would have worked best, or just shot of her in the hood from behind.

Why are they promoting CG humans when it's still not perfected? Leave it another 20 years if that's what it takes. I don't get it. It'll only look really dated in a few years when they can do this sort of thing more seamlessly.

A hair more characterisation & back story for the most interesting two side characters, i.e. Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen's. A little more explanation as to why Donnie's character was not classifiable as a 'Jedi' seeing as he acted a lot like one.

The score was largely unremarkable (to me), definitely nothing memorable of the likes of the original Star Wars score. It was fine as a generic sci-fi score.

Lastly I would have had C3PO / R2-D2 show up on board the escaped Rebel ship rather than on the Yavin 4 base.

Pretty good movie, not much else to change really. And some of the things everyone wants like the crawl included director Gareth Edwards. Unfortunately a lot of these decisions came from the SW 'story group' from the sounds of things in wanting to make it 'not Star Wars', i.e. differentiating it ..

 

[hopeless]

As I have yet to watch this my response is on what I've read so far.

Galen passes Bodhi information on an old family cryodex that needs the crystal Jyn was given by her mother to decode it.

Krennic learns about this and realises he needs to locate Galen's errant daughter before his superior's learn that Galen had smuggled out something that could easily contain a copy of the Death Star plans.

Saw seeing the danger strands Jyn for her own safety and is eventually captured by the Empire but not before releasing Bodhi and the Cryodex to contact an old colleague from the Clone Wars.

Jyn on the other hand is captured by the Empire and is being transported eventually to the complex where Krennic killed her father and where he is desperately searching for anything that might reveal what Galen smuggled out.

The rebels intercept the transport and eventually Bodhi is able to deliver the Cryodex and using Jyn's crystal they discover its the codes necessary to pass the Shield Gate on Scarif and access the Archive on that world where the only copy of the Death Star plans are located.

They make use of a captured Imperial shuttle and sneak in with a deadline as the rebels plan to attack the system to allow them to transmit the plans out to minimise the obvious danger this mission poses.

Krennic learning of Jyn's escape and finding nothing heads to Scarif at Tarkin's request as the Death Star is almost ready for active use and its here that Krennic discovers someone has used his codes to access the Archive.

He alerts his troops and calls in reinforcements trying to avoid alerting Tarkin but Darth Vader notices and alerts Tarkin who orders the Death Star to jump to Scarif.

The rebel fleet attacks and demolishes the Shield Gate with Jyn getting locked inside the Archive forcing Bodhi to scale the Archive to reprogram the transmitter so they can transmit the plans to any rebel ship in orbit.

The Death Star turns up shortly after the plans are sent, but unaware Tarkin leaves engaging the rebel fleet to Vader whilst he attempts to demolish the Archive taking out the transmitter and Bodhi as the resulting blast kills anyone caught outside of the Archive.

Most of the rebel fleet present when Vader turns up are nearly all wiped out but a few escape its purely accidental that the ship Vader pursues is the one that transmits the plans to the Tantive IV although there's no evidence that anything was transmitted Vader elects to pursue the diplomatic courier because through the force he perceived something familiar with the ship unaware he is sensing C-3PO because he hand built the droid which is also why in ANH he believes they ditched the plans in an escape pod if it wasn't for his dislike of Tatooine he would have found out before ESB what it was he sensed!

Meanwhile back on Scarif the Archive reopens still a mite flooded because of the destruction but K-2SO walks out carrying a badly wounded Caspian and an unconscious Jyn all of whom survived because they were safe deep inside the Archive which was that tough because of its purpose to contain highly sensitive Imperial records and Tarkin after all didn't hit it directly barring the transmitter.

Stealing an arriving transport since no one is going to question a working Imperial droid since no one left alive knew one was working for the rebels, K-S2O flies off with the Imperials unaware the trio jump out of the system...

That's my idea of a Star Wars Guns of Navarone movie!

 

[Jedi-Spirit]

Very Little, less dialogue by Vader in the Krennic scene, tweaking of the score in places, and the cameo of the droids would have been of them boarding the Tantive IV...

And my original idea for having the film start with the original prototype of the Death Star, malfunctioning on its first test firing, destroying the original & illustrating the need to bring Galen in to do the work...

 

[Patchwork Man]

The very first thing I'd done is gotten rid of those silly AT-ATs, and then omitted some of the throwback dialogue and cameos.

 

[Smilodon]

Didn't Desplat leave because he didn't have enough time to score due to the extensive reshoots? There couldn't be anything done about that, Giacchino must not sleep with how many blockbusters he's scoring these days (to diminishing returns I feel like as well, besides his Trek work)

I did feel like an opening crawl was missing though. It would've provided more context to the settings and characters involved and also made it feel more Star Wars-y.

The main thing that was jarring was the Saw-Jyn relationship. That could've either been removed entirely or reworked better within in the constraints of the film. I don't know what they originally were doing but Forrest Whitaker was wasted and the idea of extremist rebels fell flat. I think one conversation between Bodhi and co. about his motivations would've been perfect in terms of fleshing everyone out.