'ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY' - Likes/Dislikes

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! 

Everybody got that? Good.

As a fan of the Star Wars films, I was curious and optimistic about the first in a series of Anthology movies based on the Star Wars saga.

'Rouge One: A Star Wars Story' follows a band of Rebels who attempt to steal the plans of a new super weapon built by the Galactic Empire called the Death Star.
Basically the Plot is the opening crawl from 'Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope'. The only other time I've seen that happen was from watching the last few episodes of the 'Star Wars: Clone Wars' cartoon from 2005 and then seeing the events from those summed up in Revenge of the Sith's opening crawl.

And having seen the movie, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. And in trying to come up with a review for it, I figured that I would detail some things I liked about the movie as well as some things that I didn't nessisarily hated, but kinda bugged me about the movie.

Without any further ado...

Not as much Likes:

1. Jyn's Meaningless Crystal

In the opening scene, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is given a Kyber Crystal by her father and it's shown very prominently. You'd think that it would've had some bearing on the plot the way they showed it, but it doesn't.

2. Crawl-less Opening
I know that plenty of Star Wars related media doesn't have the iconic crawl at the beginning, but here's the thing: Rogue One opens with the famous "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." text and then they cut to abrupt music and a shot of a planet, almost as if they cut out a crawl at the last minute.

3. Jyn and Cassian aren't the most interesting protagonists
Rogue One has some fascinating characters in it, unfortunaly our two lead characters, Jyn Erso and Cassain Andor (Diego Luna) are the weakest links. They aren't the worst characters in the movie, far from it, I could follow their character arcs just fine and genuinely wanted them to succeed in their goals. I just liked the other characters far better. It's similar to the 2014 Godzilla film in which Aaron Taylor-Johnson played an OK character but was overshadowed by certain actors who gave a performance that was too good. -cough-byrancranston-cough-

4. I couldn't spot the MUTO's on Saw Gerrera's cave walls.

I knew where to look for them, but the were too blurred out to really see what was on the wall.

Likes:

1. Special Effects
One thing the Star Wars films excel at is it's blend of practical and Digital effects and Rogue One is no exception. Some people would like to overrea-, I mean, criticize some of the digital effects and claim that they look awful, when really they don't.
Speaking of which:

2. Classic Character Cameos
The appearance of characters from the past films really help to tie this movie into the Saga nicely. Such characters include Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits), Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) even the two gangsters from the Cantina in A New Hope make a brief appearance. ("You just watch yourself, we're wanted men. I have the death sentence on 12 systems!") And you simply can't have a Star Wars film without R2-D2 and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) 
But there were 2 character cameos that caught me off guard. One was that of Grand Moff Tarkin (Originally played by Peter Cushing). While being played by a different actor (Guy Henry) who stood in and provided the voice for Tarkin, his face was digitally altered to look exactly like Peter Cushing in 1977, which I thought was pretty cool!

One thing I was wondering about the film was weather or not Princess Leia would make an appearance. Of course, I got my answer! As with Tarkin, Leia appeared as a stand-in actor (Ingvild Deila) with 1977 Carrie Fisher's face imposed on her own.

3. The Side Characters
Like I said before, the side characters are the most fascinating characters that I wanted to know more about.
My favorite might be the droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), he's kinda like if you took C-3PO and gave him the personality of Tony Stark from the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.
A close second favorite would be Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen), A blind fighter who is a strong believer in the force. He might as well be Daredevil if he were a Jedi, every time he was on screen it was an awesome delight! He should have taken Jyn's Kyber Crystal and stuck it into a make-shift Lightsaber to fight with.

4. The ENTIRE Thrid Act!
As soon as the crew of Rogue One land on the Imperial base on Scarif , the action, tension and great character moments are cranked up to 11. We also get a really cool space battle.
How cool is it? How about the moment where one of the Rebel ships rams into a Star Destroyer, then crashes that Star destroyer into ANOTHER Star Destroyer and uses BOTH STAR DESTROYERS to destroy the planets Shield Generator, allowing Jyn to transmit the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance so they can find out how to destroy it?!?!!!

-takes a breath-

And just when you think it couldn't get any better.I have 3 words for ya: DARTH GODDAMN VADER!!!

Yes, even though we knew Darth Vader wasn't going to be in the movie for very long, he steals the show in every scene he is in and James Earl Jones even came back to give him his iconic voice.
He doesn't get a lot of lines, but guess what? He's Darth Vader, he doesn't need to speak to let you know that you really should not mess with him and the last part of this Third Act deals that message in spades. He boards a rebel ship and just slaughters a bunch of Rebels who think they have a chance. I remember sitting there in the theater with my mouth wide open in absolute shock and amazement at how much of a great moment this is.

So overall, I really loved 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story'. I know some people who were actually quite skeptical or cautiously optimistic about seeing this movie, but I can assure you that seeing this movie is well worth the price of admission, and I look forward to seeing what other Star Wars Stories we may get on the big screen.


Now where's the trailer for Episode VIII?!  

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon
and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

And HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

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X-PLUS GODZILLA 1984 (30 CM DIAMOND REISSUE) - Figure Review.

X-Plus, a company who's Godzilla products I've known about for a while but have little to no experience with. I do own a Cold-Cast Resin Chess Piece of the 1968 Godzilla and I used to see their larger Vinyl figures in Comic Book stores.

I would've picked them up if they weren't $100+.

As the years went by, I never thought I would come to own one of the larger X-Plus vinyl figures. But you clicked on the review, so you know that that just changed. I had to help my Grammie fix up her old house so that she could sell it and she was kind enough to pay me for my services. There were a lot of things I could have done with that money, but for some reason, my mind kept fixating on getting an X-Plus figure.

Particularly, the 1984 Godzilla since I knew it was getting a re-issue. Godzilla 1985 (The Americanized version of 'The Return of Godzilla') was the first Godzilla movie I saw and that design of Godzilla has remained one of my absolute favorites and I always told myself that if I was ever to own an X-Plus figure, it would be that one.  
Having the money, I knew I had to leap at the chance!

And I'm glad I did, this is probably one of the coolest Godzilla figures I own know.

This figure has an amazing sculpt. Godzilla's rough and bumpy skin is captured beautifully. X-Plus definitely spares no expense in making sure that their Godzilla figures look exactly the way they do in the movies. If I didn't know any better, I'd think I was holding a smaller version of the actual suit.
The amount of detail in the head alone is something to marvel at. Just look at the eyes, not only are they painted very nicely, but you can see individual veins painted on the pupils, a small detail that I love immensely.

Another great thing about the head sculpt is the mouth. The paint work looks outstanding, Godzilla's teeth and gums are painted without overlapping each other too much and he has a very nice looking tongue. 

The same attention to detail on the skin continues down the rest of the body. The claws and toenails are colored a nice yellow-ish white. I also really like how all the creases and folds all over his body look making Godzilla look big and muscular, particularly in the chest.

The dorsal fins look really great running down to the tail, which is perfectly sized when compared with the body.

If I had to give one little nitpick it'd be that the paint work on the back of the neck looks a little off, like they got a little carried away with the grey airbrushing.
But at the end of the day, this is only a little nitpick and doesn't distract me too much from the rest of this figures magnificence!

Left: Diamond Select Godzilla 1975. Right: Diamond Select Godzilla 1989

Standing beside the NECA 24" Godzilla 2014.

Left: Diamond Select Rodan. Right: Bandai Creation 12" Mechagodzilla

As you can see, X-Plus figures look great standing next to any larger scale Godzilla figures.

I wanna take this time to give praise to the retailer I received this figure from: Flossie's Gifts and Collectibles, a site that sells all manner of dolls and figurines, but has it's own section of Godzilla related merch. This is where most collectors get their X-Plus fix and I knew this is where I need to go.
The journey to obtain this figure has been interesting, to say the least. This figure came out around the time when my card I use to buy things was to expire so I had to find an alternate means of payment till I got a new one. Luckily, John Stanowski, who manages the Godzilla products on the site was able to communicate with and help me square that away, and for that I give major kudos for outstanding customer service.

In the end, I think this is a FANTASTIC figure from X-Plus and absolutely captures the essence of the 1984 Godzilla perfectly. If this is one of your favorite designs of the Big G and you have the extra scratch to spare, this is one figure you should add to your collection right now. 

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and from my lair to yours: Have a Merry Christmas!!! =)

So long...

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