STAR WARS, INDY , HOWARD THE DUCK DEUCE; AND MORE

[Martin]

YES YES YES YES YES

[Anderson]

We'll start with Rogue One. Less spy reports, news leaks, etc makes this easier on my brain to assemble.

  Spoiler: Episode 3.5 

Rogue One opens on the heist. Remote Imperial Military Installation gets attacked by the Rebels. Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler) is the man on the inside helping them out.

Shit goes bad. Imperials are all dead, most of the Rebels are dead. Felicity Jones takes leadership of what's left and they haul ass out of there while trying to make contact with the Rebellion.

On Yavin IV, General Dodonna and the rest of the Alliance tries to find a way to safely hide the surviving Rebels and get the plans to back to Yavin. Leia's consular ship (Tantive IV) is on a diplomatic mission and provides a perfect cover.

The problem is the Tantive IV and the Rebels with the Plans are on opposite ends of the Galaxy. Thus, starts the main thrust of the movies. As I like to call it "The Warriors" in Space.

Ben Mendelsohn is an underling Moff working under Tarkin, but on equal footing as Vader. The Emperor himself has ordered his trusted advisors to bring back the plans and kill the Rebels by any means necessary. Youngling Moff takes out the new Super Star Destroyer to hunt them down, as they try to hide.

Vader has other plans, but works in secret.

The Rebel crew is a motley bunch, most are techs or other non combat types fighting for the first time in their lives. Donnie Yen is a blind former Mandalorian strategist. Diego Luna is a mechanic, etc, etc.

The crew hides out on various worlds, as they try to find a way to pinpoint where Leia's ship is in the Outer Rim. Meanwhile, the Empire has placed bounties on all of them.

Aboard the Super Star Destroyer, the Moff gets mad at the bounty news. Vader has decided to deploy bounty hunters to kill the Rebels and capture the plans. As far as I know, get ready to see some familiar faces, new OT takes on them and Tudyk's CG character. Tudyk is mocapping it and I'm hearing a wide mix of what he's doing. I'm going with earlier spy reports that suggests he's playing one of the hunters.

Various action scenes, but ultimately Youngling Moff keeps fucking things up as they get away. The Bounty Hunters are also fucking each other up to keep the competition away from the bounty.

Vader eventually kills the Moff and blames it on the Rebels. He seizes the Moff's ship and has it sent to a private base to be augmented. Heavy rumor suggests that this is what becomes the Executor. But, I don't have anything past that to reference.

Vader rejoins the hunt in a standard Star Destroyer, while the last bounty hunter (Fett) closes in on the plans. By now, most of the Rebel crew has died off while trying to keep the plot going.

Felicity Jones and Fett have a battle, but she escapes mortally injured. She finds the Tantive IV and gives Leia the plans to take to Yavin IV. Leia accepts, as Jones dies.

Film ends on Leia taking command getting ready to return to the Rebellion. It's implied that Vader is right on her ass.

Fin

[Anderson]

  Spoiler: Just consider this a giant spoiler compilation of what's out there, what might not be and the general scuttlebutt of this Internet thug life. 

Film opens on a crawl, but not the leaked crawl from that online game.

Luke's Cloud City lightsaber aka Anakin's last Light Side lightsaber is falling through space until it impacts on a remote world. A local farmer/villager finds the saber and ignites it. He's clumsy and doesn't know what he's doing. He takes it to town to sell for easy cash.

The First Order lands, as we meet Kylo Ren for the first time. He orders his squad to execute the villagers, burn the village and seize the lightsaber. The local General (Max von Sydow) hides the lightsaber in the BB-8 droid and sends him to hide.

Sydow and the others try to fight, but they are easily cut down. Meanwhile, Finn is having grave concerns about being a merc stormtrooper and is getting sick. His weakness allows BB-8 and a few others to escape, so Kylo Ren beats him and orders him to be imprisoned for later execution.

The Resistance (our new Rebels) sends in a stealthy patrol to recover BB-8, as Kylo Ren rages through the Village. Poe Dameron takes the lead, as they skid across a lake to cover their tracks. They find the wrecked village and recover BB-8. They try to escape, but the wingman are blown out of the sky and Poe is downed.

Poe and Finn are both captured and taken back to Ren's Star Destroyer. Finn and Poe bound over their hatred of the Empire while in captivity. From there, they seize BB-8 and steal a black Tie Fighter to escape. They flee, but Ren has them shot down over the nearby Jakku.

Captain Phasma and Kylo Ren depart for Jakku to recover them. On Jakku, they are discovered by Rey and taken in to be nursed back to health. Rey has a natural way with BB-8 and the two bond ala Luke and R2. She gets an idea of what's going on, as Poe's distress signal notifies the Resistance of his location.

Meanwhile, Han and Chewie are nearby trying to recover the Falcon from a gang that believes they rightfully own it now. The two try to make peace, while The Resistance tries to summon them. Realizing that negotiations are going to be short, they blast apart the gang (these guys are the Raid people). They seize the Falcon and split to find Poe and BB-8.

Meanwhile, our new trio of heroes and BB-8 head into town for supplies and to figure out what's going on. That's when the Constable (I'm strongly lead to believe this is Pegg's bit role) spots them and rats them out to the First Order. The crew meets up with Han and them, but it's too late as the First Order has found them. Fearing death, they all haul into the Falcon as Rey takes command.

Cue IMAX sequence of flying around the planet and through the Star Destroyer. Eventually, they get off world as we delve into First Order business.

[Taking a break here, as I need to look at a few things to get details right]

[BillyG]

I had no idea it was set as a prequel to the OT.

[Anderson]

I had no idea it was set as a prequel to the OT.

Rogue One? Yeah. Imagine it as the shit that happened in the opening crawl of A New Hope...THE MOVIE.

[Anderson]

  Spoiler: More of 7 stitching Part 2. 

Back on Ice Planet Zebra, the First Resistance is amassing their full power. We get the first taste of their superweapon The Starkiller existing as they want to find a way to demonstrate its full abilities. First big scene for General Hux, as he comes across a meaner version of Tarkin. Ren stays quiet, then we get a scene of him talking like a crazy person to burned up Vader mask.

Supreme Leader Snoke comes into play here, but every bit of info is on lockdown about the character. Disney reps suggest that the public won't even see what he looks like until the film debuts. Same for Moz Kaneta.

Back in space, the Falcon is damaged from the Jakku escape. The crew lands on the Pirate Planet aka Tandoora aka I think that's the name, but it sounds close enough.

Here is where they meet the various cantina Pirate aliens, robo barmaid, etc. They also meet Moz Kaneta (Lupita N'Yongo) who is an older Jedi that trained under Luke at some point. She's not strong in the Force, but has abiities that allow the crew to get an idea of the saber's history, where Luke is and how the First Order came to power. This is also the first Luke scene in Flashback.

The visions both Rey deeply, as something in them upsets her. Meanwhile, Kylo Ren has tracked the crew to the planet. He invades with some new troopers, but gets overwhelmed. So, he calls in General Hux and decides to use the Pirate Stronghold as the first target for the Starkiller weapon.

Starkiller charges up and fires. Our heroes barely manage to take cover in time, as the Pirate stronghold is leveled. Dead bodies everywhere, as Moz Kaneta joins up with them to stop Kylo Ren and the others.

They plan on leaving, but Kylo Ren returns to fight and manages to kidnap Rey before escaping.

There is a bridge scene here where we see Kylo Ren try to use the Force and not succeed. The Falcon reaches Yavin IV and they land. They exit the ship to be greeted by Queen Leia. She's the Mon Mothma figure now, as she recognizes Moz Kaneta and accepts the saber she bestows upon her.

Leia greets Han and Chewie, then takes possession of BB-8. We're also given a comedic moment where the droids meet BB and they bond. The rest of the scene is a tour of the remade Rebel base from ANH. General Brance (Ken Leung) briefs Poe on their plans to attack Ice Planet Zebra with the BB8 plans. He introduces him to his new wingmen. Catfish head guy whose pic I posted a few weeks ago on FB and Greg Grunberg.

There's also a hot chick pilot introduced as the new Wedge. She's a hotshot that's kind of a fangirl over Luke and Leia. She wants to hold the lightsaber since it was Luke's and desperately wants to help find him.

Leia forms the plan via the BB 8 schematics of the Starkiller base on Ice Planet Zebra. Poe will leads the three full squadrons of fights over the planet as a distraction to destroy the First Order's aerial support. Han and the others will take the Falcon to slip onto the planet and rescue Rey.

We also see here that Nien Nunb and Ackbar are still high ranking officers/generals in the Resistance army. The C Wing fighter makes its debut alongside familiar vehicles.

Everyone gets ready for the attack and breaks off. Han and the Falcon arrive first, as they realize that the planet is shielded. Han and Chewie kill the engines and let the Falcon fall into the planet, so that the shields can't detect it. It works, but the old piece of shit won't start back in time. So, they crash land into the snowy forest near the base.

This alerts the guards, who go to investigate. Everyone exits the ship, as they have a plan to rescue Rey and blow up the Starkiller device.

Over the planet, Poe and the new pilots give the familiar Star Wars call sign check in and then lock S Foils to attack. Space battle craziness, as the First Order TIE fighters are getting blown out of the sky.

Snoke is angered by this and orders Hux to fire a missile array into the fight. The plan is to kill their own men alongside the Rebels. Hux literally fires everything they have at the fight. All of the First Order pilots die alongside 80% of the Resistance pilots. Poe's ship is damaged, as he tries to get it functional again. He's effectively drifting dead in space.

Meanwhile, Finn has snuck into the detention center to rescue Rey. We learn that Rey has learned messed up shit about Kylo Ren that is messing with her mind. They try to escape, but they are stopped by Kylo Ren.

Meanwhile, Han and Chewie have just beat up a ton of Stormtroopers and have started planting bombs Endor style throughout the Starkiller weapon mount and energy cells.

The duo leaves, as they find Finn outside awkwardly trying to use the lightsaber to fight off Kylo Ren. Han and Chewie serve up as a distraction to get Kylo Ren off his bearings. Kylo recognizes Han and is enraged to see him. Everyone fights, as Rey starts to realize that she has a strong connection to the Force.

She takes the saber from Finn and fights Kylo Ren to a standstill. Ren rages in anger, nearly killing Rey. He goes for the final blow, but Han gets in the way. They all freak as Han is ran through.

Kylo Ren seems bothered by this, but gets shot by Chewie. Han is left behind, as everyone escapes as Stormtroopers descend on the scene en masse.

Kylo is injured, Han is dead and shit's going bad. Chewie and Rey get the Falcon off the ground and back into space, as Poe fixes his ship and joins them.

The Falcon and a few fighters begin to leave, as the familiar sound of the Starkiller starts up. The weapon fires, but we get the old OT issue of mechanical issues. The bombs go off, as the Starkiller back fires into the base.

This starts a chain reaction that leads to the ground imploding underneath the base, thus destroying the weapon. Snoke and Kylo Ren escape, while Hux is left to go down with the ship. Final image is a giant crater where the First Order used to reign.

Movie ends on the Resistance reuniting in a bittersweet victory. Rey takes the lightsaber and Artoo to fly to an unknown world. She exists the Falcon and walks up a deserted temple's stairs to find Luke.

She hands him the saber and begins her training.

Fin

[Martin]

Am I the only one surprised Rogue One has nothing to do with Rogue Squadron?

[Abraham Smashington]

I'm annoyed that it doesn't to be honest.

[Anderson]

Am I the only one surprised Rogue One has nothing to do with Rogue Squadron?

There are going to be X-Wings and Y-Wings in it. If that helps. Plus, those cool Imperial lander ships from the opening of ROTJ.

[Anderson]

Here's another rumor that I can't get anyone to kill just yet.

  Spoiler: Not in my wheelhouse, but still cool. 

Mads Mikkelsen is supposed to be Boba Fett in Rogue One. This is done more for future plans, but it appears to be a done deal.

[BillyG]

Am I the only one surprised Rogue One has nothing to do with Rogue Squadron?

Yup. I am kind of less excited knowing it's a prequel to the OT now.

And they confirmed Mads, but he wasn't in the cast shots so Anderson's rumor makes total sense.

[Anderson]

Yup. I am kind of less excited knowing it's a prequel to the OT now.

And they confirmed Mads, but he wasn't in the cast shots so Anderson's rumor makes total sense.

What I know that backs it up for me is that Disney is pushing that character super fucking heavy. Plus, Kasdan has an immense distaste for how he's been handled over the last 30 years.

Given that most plans for that character involve Kasdan in the immediate future, it goes without saying that it's going to be brought closer in line with his vision.

Plus, they supposedly offered it to Fassbender first, but he wanted to go do Assassin's Creed.

[Abraham Smashington]

Yay, now let's get a SUPER RE-RE-REMASTERED version of all of the past movies with his unintelligible voice dubbed over.

[Martin]

I'm annoyed that it doesn't to be honest.

Same here.

Here's another rumor that I can't get anyone to kill just yet.

  Spoiler: Not in my wheelhouse, but still cool. 

Mads Mikkelsen is supposed to be Boba Fett in Rogue One. This is done more for future plans, but it appears to be a done deal.

Now THAT would be cool. A Moff casting is way too easy.

Yup. I am kind of less excited knowing it's a prequel to the OT now.

And they confirmed Mads, but he wasn't in the cast shots so Anderson's rumor makes total sense.

Yeah, but I'm still happy about it.

[Abraham Smashington]

I thought they were going to do some cg trickery for Moff?