At least they kind of balanced it out by pairing him up with another Asian guy who just likes shooting stuff with big-ass guns.
So what, then, is the genre of laser guns and space ships? Surely not Fantasy, as these are theoretically possible future scientific advancements.
I get that you don’t want to qualify these as “Science-fiction”, and appear, from your comments, to only want to consider something like Hard science fiction as SF, but what, then, is this genre to you/
bonus fact: the one included among the pilots in that scene is an ORIGINAL one from the first movie. they used old, unused footage of some of the pilots to add authenticity to the scene. she was one left on the cutting room floor until now!
I still think Star Wars counts as Fantasy more than Science Fiction. We don’t classify Lord of the Rings as “historical fiction” just because the story includes some non-magical elements that really did exist in the Middle Ages.
When your story is about Knights, Wizards and Evil Sorcerers battling each other with swords and magic then you’ve got yourself a Fantasy film. Space is just the setting.
Wiki is calling it a space opera, a sub genre of science fiction.
It can be two things!
What about Action movie?
There were several references to the Senate, so it’s still knocking around in a form that the Empire is somewhat restrained by. When you think about the remark in Ep. IV about it finally being dissolved, it looks like Krennic’s incompetence and the events of Rogue One forces everyone’s hand:
- The Senate (and public) learns that the Empire’s military has secretly constructed the Death Star.
- The Empire is forced not only to dissolve the Senate immediately, but use the Death Star in a naked show of force.
- But as a result, there’s no time to properly audit the Death Star for technical flaws. Or, indeed, to upgrade the decades-old fleet, left to rot while the Death Star was being constructed at astounding expense.
- So when the rebellion retaliates, it is able to destroy it.
Moral of the story: never promote engineers into management.
I suppose, if you think a 65-year-old man who never trained in swordplay knocking sticks with a boxer who could barely see out of his helmet counts as an “action” scene.
Space Opera.
Edit: oops, didn’t read all the way down
Heck yeah, I do!
makes laser sword sounds
Giving Disney $7.00?? What theater are you going to, and why don’t I know about it?
Oh, I suppose Space Adventure seems appropriate. But I don’t know.
Space Opera always seems too ponderous and heavy.
I understand H.G. Wells suggested to call the genre “scientific romance”.
I hear the next one will be even better, somewhat more realistic, and will finally answer some questions that all the films so far have evaded.
Agreed. If nothing else it could have given their reunion some weight and more tension – but instead we get a bunch of exposition. At that point in the film I had completely forgotten that Jyn was rescued by Saw in the beginning. There were a lot of times throughout the film I wish they had gone with a “show not tell” approach rather than break to have an extended monologue about why we are where we are right now.
I also agree with @SenorSchaffer’s comments about Jedha. All I pretty much knew from the movie was that the Empire was mining magic crystals from there and there’s a Jedi temple or some such. And, well, that’s pretty much it. It’s just yet another instance of the “superweapon kills massive amounts of anonymous citizens” trope which is practically old hat at this point. Jedha’s destruction felt like little more than a warm up to Alderaan. When the Death Star was used at the against Scarif, that carried a hell of a lot more weight – not just because it killed our heroes, but because it showed the Empire was ruthless enough to scuttle one of their critical R&D facilities as well as its sizeable population (whom I would imagine to primarily be Empire employees). That’s hardcore.
I consider Star Wars to be fantasy. It has some trappings of science fiction, but they are purely incidental. My test is to ask myself if the story would really have been significantly different if it was set in some other fantasy background, and if so, those elements are mere window dressing. The droids may as well be golems and the vehicles flying carpets for all of the science offered to explain their operation, which isn’t relevant to the story (of other Star Wars movies I have seen, I haven’t seen Rogue One).
My big complaint was that they went back to the crutch of a planet destroyer, except they couldn’t very well destroy planets, so they just mostly damage them. I couldn’t believe they did this after doing it AGAIN in ep 7. There’s a rich set of stories in the cartoons and the expanded stuff that do not involve planet destroyers. I don’t know why they feel it always has to be the death star in the movies.
Also, they made Krennic out to be a mysterious badass in the trailer, and I wish he was something more than what he actually was.
And Vader’s scene was awesome, but it did not live up to the scenario I had created in my head before seeing the movie. I was picturing arcing light sabers thrown by the force against full garrisons of rebels. FOrce choking and using them as shields. Single handedly wiping them out.
I enjoyed the movie. These were minor issues for me.