They gave us enough info to get the idea, I’m fine without all the gratuitous montage scenes to reinforce what we’ve already been told. We were able to accept Luke Skywalker as a hotshot pilot without an extended training sequence set in Beggar’s Canyon.
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I think that’s a problem with the film as a whole, maybe it should have been more about her and that’s the sense i get from the trailers and i would put money on that being the case if the lead actor had been male. What i’m saying is that she seemingly has this reputation leading up to the events of the film but we only get other characters telling us.
Thing is though luke was far more central in a new hope than i ever felt jyn was in rogue one and i simply can’t shake the feeling that it’s because she was a female lead. If rampant sexism didn’t still exist well into the 21st century then i’m sure i could look past it.
If we learned anything from the prequel trilogy it’s “additional unnecessary backstory does not a better movie make.”
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The difference is that the prequel trilogy was largely established characters, except they are younger. Patton Oswalt had a wonderful bit on this:
Rogue One was almost entirely brand new characters and the big gaps in story made it harder to connect with the characters. Some backstory here would have been welcome.
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How much do we really need, though? Most of the characters in the original trilogy didn’t get much backstory beyond “fought with my father in the Clone Wars” or “wanted smuggler” or “Jedi Master who trained Obi-Wan” and they became some of the most iconic characters of all time.
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Wait. Have you seen A New Hope? The audience doesn’t need to know everything. I’m sure it’s in a book if you really must know.
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Wait—they cut the shot of the stormtroopers wading in the surf with obvious 21st-century boats with outboard motors in the background? What were they thinking?
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Wouldn’t be the first time. Did you see the original 1977 theatrical trailer for Star Wars? The voiceover starts with the dialog “Somewhere in Space, this could all be happening RIGHT NOW.” (Clearly false, as it happened a long time ago.) Also, the light sabers were WHITE. How are you supposed to tell who the bad guy is?
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I was it last night it was Ok but more than a bit pointless.
I don’t think you saw the same movie I did.
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not a big fan of everbody dies at the end movies, If you were paying attention to the SW universe you knew exactly what was going to happen, i.e. pointless.
It’s not the destination but the journey.
You get the impression that the eliminated much of the Saw/Jyn backstory. Perhaps some more explanation of why his “radical faction” is on the outs with the main rebellion. Certainly a bit more explanation there could have been left in at the expense of the somewhat complicated “we have to turn on the radio so that we can tell them to lower the shield so that they can get the radio transmission.”
I think if they’d been magically saved at the end it would’ve really undercut the story.
And well, yeah, if you’ve seen Star Wars, you’d know this was its direct prequel. That was… kind of the point of the movie, to show what happened right before A New Hope, and to give it new context. To me, that actually enhanced a movie I’ve seen a thousand times since I was four years old, which is an impressive feat.
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To be honest the obsession that has been laid on these movies has me baffled but whatever floats your boat. Yes the outcome was inevitable or the characters would have to be in new hope and beyond. As a standalone movie I would say l there was the usual SW too much yapping which ruins the pacing as it does in all the series.
They cut the backstory with Jyn and the whole “Don’t become so evil that you can’t tell yourself apart from the Empire” stuff that mirrored the conflict of not going to the dark side.
As people mentioned, they took the focus of the movie away from Jyn and made it more about the rebel task force. It would have been too much like Rey and Luke from prior movies.
I’m also certain that Jyn would have made a snide comment about how she doesn’t believe in the crazy old stories about the force, which would have made her “May the force be with you” comment in the trailers more significant.
Would you happen to have a source on this? Not doubting your claim, only that I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, and love all the production information I can scoop up. This is part of the story I hadn’t heard yet. 
Sure – the original podcast on Empire was pulled, but this story has his quotes about how he went to Lucasfilm expecting them to force him to save the crew, but was surprised that they encouraged him to go with his original plan.
Spoiler alert: Everybody dies at the end in real life too.
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