Rogue One (Spoilers)

[The Romulan Republic]

Always a safe bet that the DS could fire through a planetary shield, but its nice to get such explicit confirmation.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Always a safe bet that the DS could fire through a planetary shield, but its nice to get such explicit confirmation.

Absolutely, but this is a curious one because a) it's a low-power shot that as others have noted isn't much greater than what full-power heavy turbolaser shots (should) do according to Legends firepower numbers and b) it doesn't overwhelm the shield but pierces it to hit the ground.

[Galvatron]

it doesn't overwhelm the shield but pierces it to hit the ground.

I'm not sure I understand the difference.

[Eternal_Freedom]

it doesn't overwhelm the shield but pierces it to hit the ground.

I'm not sure I understand the difference.

The shield is still up after the shot hits and the results destroy the base, so the shield is still being generated.

Perhaps "overwhelm" is the wrong term. I meant that unlike what we see in Legends stuff the shield doesn't absorb some of the energy and then fail completely, the shot seems to just bypass the shield entirely.

[Galvatron]

Does that mean Darkstar was right about Alderaan's shield?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I've no idea what that thing said about Alderaan's shield, but planetary shields are clearly no obstacle to the Death Star. Which is kinda the point IIRC.

[Abacus]

I've no idea what that thing said about Alderaan's shield, but planetary shields are clearly no obstacle to the Death Star. Which is kinda the point IIRC.

*DING*

"You are correct, sir!"

[Shroom Man 777]

Hmmm... if the shield generator wasn't destroyed, then penetrating the shield won't permanently down it. How many times in SW have ship hulls been damaged without taking down all the shields? Same thing here.

Also I really think the low-power Death Star blast is nothing like a turbolaser. I think it does extreme deep penetration along with the explosion. Like, when that blast is done, there's going to be a HUEG chunk of the planet gone, reaching to the mantle. Like an apple getting a chunk bitten out of it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

More like it was turning the planet inside out. That strike on Jedha must have thrown half a damn continent into orbit near enough, and it was still going on like the Chicxulub impact even when Jyn and co. were hypering out. I expect the penetration power is enough to simply overwhelm a planetary shield in a single point strike, like a sabot round penetrating tank armour but leaving the rest of the vehicle intact.

[Galvatron]

I assume it rendered Jedha entirely uninhabitable then.

Of course, it could have been worse. At least it wasn't like Peak Oil.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well the Rebel comms guys on Yavin did say "Jedha destroyed" so yeah I think at the very least everyone there is dead. So yeah, ok the single reactor ignition is significantly more powerful than full-power turbolasers would be.

Also, that debris plume was flying way beyond low orbit level. At a rough guess based on angles and such I'd say the top of the debris plume was about 1/2 to 1 planetary radius above the surface, and given Jedha has earthlike gravity and atmosphere, is between 3000-6000 km. Or about halfway towards the Death Star's position.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I assume it rendered Jedha entirely uninhabitable then.

Of course, it could have been worse. At least it wasn't like Peak Oil.

Don't make me come over there. That oil will fuel my kicking of your arse, matey.

[Shroom Man 777]

It just looked not as impactful because most of the exploderization was all internal due to the DEEP PENETRATION. Like getting stabbed with an icepick vs. getting an abrasion or a scab.

And again, I like how "horrible mining disaster" is seen as a somewhat believable coverup. In this universe, something like THAT can still be somehow attributed to a non-military industrial-grade catastrophe! Space Bhopal!

[Kojiro]

Honestly none of that is really surprising.

1. The gate was far too small to produce a planetary shield alone.
2. There's probably dozens of projectors equidistantly placed over the planet, though it'd be practical to have one at Citadel. It does beg the question of what else is on the planet worth protecting. Why use a planetary shield that necessitates and orbital gate when a theater shield would suffice?
3. That is was able to punch through on a single reactor is impressive. Might have been nice to see then use 2 for a planetary shielded target.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hmmm... the placement of projectors away from the Citadel might be because... the "beam" the projector... projects...(that goes on to expand outwards inverse-spherically to englobe the planet...) might interfere with flight paths of ships?

[Shroom Man 777]

Also, how can this, by Giacchino, be less than stellar?

[ray245]

Also, how can this, by Giacchino, be less than stellar?

Cause it's pretty much generic Medal of Honor music?

[Shroom Man 777]

Bah. Your FACE is generic medal of Honor music.

I thought it was used well in the film. I think it's better than AOTC or TPM sans Duel of the Fates.

And perhaps the lack of super melodrama or the lack of say epic duels or epic dogfights - because these are mundane people doing mundane things - contributed to how the soundtrack also refrained from super bombastic musics.

I don't know if it is regrettable or not.

[ray245]

Bah. Your FACE is generic medal of Honor music.

I thought it was used well in the film. I think it's better than AOTC or TPM sans Duel of the Fates.

And perhaps the lack of super melodrama or the lack of say epic duels or epic dogfights - because these are mundane people doing mundane things - contributed to how the soundtrack also refrained from super bombastic musics.

I don't know if it is regrettable or not.

There were lots of SW theme that are "mundane", and they are a lot more memorable than this. The Force theme? Across the Stars? Those had notes or motifs that were extremely memorable.

I find Giacchino to be overly bombastic in his scores, including the one you are talking about.

[Lord Insanity]

So after avoiding spoilers for longer than I thought possible I finally saw Rogue One last night. After how mediocre The Force Awakens was I wasn't in a particular hurry. Wow was I ever wrong. Rogue One is everything The Force Awakens wished it was.

I was expecting Rogue One to amplify some of the "oddities" of Ep4 that we just had to hand wave away as "well it was the first and they weren't really thinking in terms of a whole saga back then." Instead it managed to make the original movie better by putting things in context.

No its not perfect. The beginning was choppy jumping around introducing the characters. The rest of the movie more than made up for that. It is pretty damning that Rogue One made a single reactor city destroying Death Star blast have far more (ahem) "impact" than Starkiller base wiping out a whole star system of planets.

My biggest geek gripe with the movie is during the end battle we are told rather than shown twice that a capital ship's shields are down or weakened. Seriously we couldn't get a few seconds of them actually blasting each other. Its kind of sad that the best shot we have of two capital ships trading fire in a Star Wars movie is that few second shot of a Star Destroyer and Nebulon B from Return of the Jedi.

After skimming the last few pages of this thread... The planetary shield only being breached by the gate crash enough to send the transmission through seemed rather obvious to me. Talking to a guy at work today (who was really glad to finally discuss spoilers) he thought the whole shield went down. So I started second guessing myself that maybe I didn't see the shield up after the gate crash and was unintentionally filling in the blanks with old EU stuff. Nice to have confirmation that I wasn't seeing things.

A disabled Star Destroyer primary hull can easily "slice" off the super structure of another disabled Star Destroyer without causing much damage to either ships primary hull. And boy did it look pretty in 3D.

As a final musing... Darth Vader is the best villain ever.

[bilateralrope]

2. There's probably dozens of projectors equidistantly placed over the planet, though it'd be practical to have one at Citadel. It does beg the question of what else is on the planet worth protecting. Why use a planetary shield that necessitates and orbital gate when a theater shield would suffice?

ESB shows the Empire landing forces outside a theater shield and walking through it. My guess is that the Empire doesn't want anyone sneaking into the Citadel that way, so a theater shield would be insufficient.

[Shroom Man 777]

And I guess Scarif was Imperial-held for forever. Gotta keep that runaway defense budget going, cram more infrastructure and ridiculous defenses on it!

[K. A. Pital]

It is pretty damning that Rogue One made a single reactor city destroying Death Star blast have far more (ahem) "impact" than Starkiller base wiping out a whole star system of planets.

Because who cares about a bunch of idiotic and corrupt "New Republic" Senators who more than deserved their fate by basically refusing to go balls-out against the Empire with Leia and her "Resistance" in the face of basically the resurgent Empire? Nobody that I know. On the other hand, most of the audience empathised with both Saw Guerrera and that blindo Donnie Chirrut in "Rogue One". So just two good actors in supporting roles made the imperial attacks have way more impact than the entire fascist salute / planet destruction sequence in Ep VII.

Just underscores the fact a Star Wars movie need not be perfect to be good. But still requires some skill in execution of the plotline, no matter how primitive the plot itself actually is.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Also, how can this, by Giacchino, be less than stellar?

*Snip*

I have a lot of Giacchino scores, but I don't find the R1 stuff to be his memorable stuff. It sounds overly typical of him and with nods to generic SW themes. Given he had less than a month to score the film, I'll forgive this. Alexandre Desplat was down to do it originally, and I have to say I'd much rather have access to the first trailer's Imperial March rendition... which someone just so happens to have replicated in Logic X.

[NeoGoomba]

Man, I would have loved it if Giacchino just slapped his "Arnhem" track from MoH: Frontline into the score as the rebels begin buying farms on Scarrif.

And to touch on an earlier discussion about using younger CGI versions of actors for future movies, I say we go full speed ahead with a Special Edition of the Prequels where Hayden Christensen is digitally replaced with James Earl Jones-as-Thulsa Doom.