I think by “market scene” that was the initial one with Cassian and the guy he shot, not on Jedha.
I do think we should have seen the ruins of the Kyber temple, Stormtroopers breaking up a crowd around street preachers, Saw’s group conducting raids, etc. A little bit more leading up to things other than the “it’s a war zone” and “what’s left of it” one-liners.
Sorry, I was confused. Jedha’s the name of the moon that the marketplace is on.
New material. I haven’t had a chance to dork out on it fully yet. 
All of this. 
I went into it knowing literally nothing about the movie that wasn’t on the poster. I didn’t even know where exactly it fit into the chronology. That opening did not work well that way.
There were a lot of zeroes on displays, I noticed. Which made me think about numerals in Star Wars generally being Arabic despite most text being in Aurebesh characters, probably so audiences can recognize that they ARE numbers.
But all the zeroes were sort of weird.
To be fair I have a theatre within walking distance of me that i can see Star Wars for $7.50 on a weekday afternoon. Evening shows are $10.50. However it is pretty old school (none of the modern amenities – expect a numb ass by the end).
Lol! This used to be a marker for whether I liked the movie or not. If i didnt notice the numbness, means i had a pretty good time watching the flick!
If they’d only spent more screen time discussing the socioeconomic history of Tatooine we’d have learned that Mos Eisley was once a THRIVING hive of scum and Villany.
“Sci-fi” and even “science fiction” have also become synecdoche for “fantastic fiction” (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) these days.
A few points that stood out to me:
The first scene was odd, and the stormtroopers gave up searching for Jyn much too soon. Can’t they detect life or metal? Why was Galen and his family forced to join the Empire? Of course he was smart and experienced, but literally the only person who could lead the project, even though he’s against it? If so, he should have killed himself rather than making a hidden fault that required Jyn personally to gain access to the heart of the Imperial security complex, then the Republic to make a suicidal attack on a fully functional weapon with the power of the Death Star.
I love the different planets that seemed more realistic than previous ones we’ve seen, but it was a bit disorientating to see them cut between times and planets so quickly at the start.
The Death Star was back and I wasn’t expecting to appreciate its presence at all after the last film, but I thought it was really good. So were the walkers. I generally liked the one-sidedness of the fights, where the stormtroopers had the upper hand in most cases and lots of rebels died. I’m not sure how this would work near the surface of a large planet and I kind of think star destroyers should only be used in space, but this, the AT-ST and the armoured vehicle are a cool image of the dominance of the Empire in daily life:
For all that though, an unfeasible proportion of the locals are armed, so I guess the Empire isn’t that effective.
It’s good to see a paranoid android – so much better than C3PO too.
I like the scene where Darth Vader walks through all of the Rebel soldiers like they’re nothing.
The last battle – don’t star destroyers have guns? Why aren’t they engaging the rebel fleet? Why release the tie fighters from the hanger so late? How does the freighter manage to shunt one disabled destroyer into another operational one without being annihilated? How is a star destroyer completely disabled by a few Y wings anyway? Having said that, I love the final part where the star destroyer turns up and blocks some of the fleeing Rebel fleet.
As some have mentioned, there were women in the film, but the only prominent one who did anything much was Jyn. Being high ranking or awesome outside of film time doesn’t count to me. Apparently this pilot has at least 80 kills (20 for each V sign on the helmet), but that doesn’t mean much to viewers:
A blind kung fu fighter? Really? I guess this is just another example of the trend to put something Chinese in major films, even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It is a big market.
Bodhi Rook’s PTSD was really interesting, but he “got better” far too easily IMHO. Still pretty cool to introduce it in the plot.
Having said all that, I would say this is easily the best film after the original trilogy, and the most successful at replicating the feel of the original films.
Oh come now, I think we know which party most stormtroopers voted for.
When I said “Star Wars” I meant the enire ball of wax.
I thought someone along the movie said it would have been created with or without him, which does make more sense then him being the only engineer in the entire universe.
And why weren’t the rebels outside of the shield doing anything after the door closed, instead of just waiting to get shot at?
“Hey, could you guys help with the shield? Oh… Oh yes! Destroy the shield!”
Saw this quote the other day… “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, we are still trying to demonstrate that asians are good at martial arts”
Well, if it’s a long time ago, it surely still needs to be demonstrated!
Similarly, this place is far enough away that they should never have heard of Asia!
The Force works in mysterious ways!
At one time I would have agreed with you. I just feel that it takes more than laser guns and space ships to make something science fiction: Science has to be at the core of the story as a way to examine humanity.
Star Wars has never been about science. It’s adventure and fantasy, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I’m not critisizing Star Wars, just the application of this particular term.
Only a very limited number of western films can get screened in China every year, but it’s a huge market. While I doubt a Star Wars film would have been left out, I really suspect this was a populist move intended for Chinese viewers (and particularly anyone in the decision-making process).
Galen addressed this point specifically. He said they didn’t need him, but they didn’t know it. So he played along in order to get the design flaw built into the Death Star. Jyn’s role was due to his desire to reconnect with her. And it’s also possible they would have rescued him from Eadu and so he could have passed on more information (like the Stardust project name).
The Republic no longer exists. They are rebels.
It’s a hammerhead corvette. Perhaps the ability to ram another ship is a part of its design? With the Star Destroyer disabled, it’s guns were probably down and support fighters apparently didn’t think anything of it. If a commander doesn’t tell you to do something, you don’t, so if no Imperial commander saw the impending threat (maybe because they were panicking about a disabled Star Destroyer), then those who could do something like attack the corvette might not do any such thing.
Destroy shield generators so the shields are down and use ion cannons or ion torpedoes to disable electrical systems. That’s the typical method in the expanded universe. It seems to be used here also. Remember the massive ion cannon from Empire Strikes Back? That disabled a Star Destroyer in two shots. This is the same principle except with smaller ordinance.
