CinemaDome: Rogue One vs. La La Land

One is a heartfelt nod to classic films of yesteryear, an exercise in nostalgia with a fresh, modern twist, and the other is a musical with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone that takes place in Los Angeles and made me cry a little.



At the end of the night, if I had to choose one, it would be La La Land. It had an emotional core that was sort of missing from Rogue One.

Oh what the fuck.... guys it's way too early to do this cuz LA La Land hasn't been out long enough for people to see it and let it sink in. This is going to be a blow out for Rogue One. See, watch this...


La La Land is clearly the better movie. It'll win Best Picture, Best Director and very likely Best Actress. Great date movie for sure and much much more

Rogue One was the ultimate in fan service and was my first movie date with my gf. I was on the edge of my seat and happy beyond words. I absolutely love that someone has taken Star Wars in the complete opposite direction of the prequels yet still put Jimmy Smits out of respect for the franchise.

I'm going against my usual voting motivation and not vote for the better movie. Maybe I've been hanging around this website too long.

Vote: Rogue One, while respecting Cranberries vote more than mine.

I saw both. La La Land is clearly the better film on any metric beyond special effects.

LA LA LAND because you can't sing to anything in Rogue One while in the shower (well, maybe one thing if you're Black Barney).

Rogue One by a wide parsec! Haven't seen Hollywood Jerks To Itself Land yet but no way will I enjoy it more.

CG Peter Cushing deserves Oscar nod. His performance is all anyone talks about.

Vote: LA LA Land.

Jesus-H-Christ-on-a-roman-hurt-stick, Barney. You are a heartless bastard. Your vote smells of desperation. XD

Just how many song and dance numbers do I gotta sit through if I watch this?

There's quite a lot, but you will be enjoying yourself, not "sitting through" them.

La La Land

I don't take wanking to the golden age of Hollywood / golden age of jazz to be inherently worse than wanking to the golden age of Star Wars.

As good as the last half hour of Rogue One was, the last stretch of La La Land was even better. Movie perfection that made my eyes tear up (though that was partially due to a parallel situation of my own that made me relate).

I think both were strong movies over the Christmas season and good competition for Trashdome as I thought both started off a little slower and built to incredible finishes.

La La Land is the better film story wise, but I enjoyed the characters in Rogue One more. La La Land showcased Emma Stone, but beyond her no one else shone (Gosling was good, but it wasn't his story and didn't too many moments apart from his piano playing).

I think Emma Stone has a chance for best actress but I don't think it will win Picture/Director. The first two songs while fun, don't fit the style of the rest of the movie.

For my choice though, I'm going with Rogue One. I've already seen it a few times in the theater and while I want to see La La Land again, I don't mind waiting for it on Netflix.

Jarvis wrote: The first two songs while fun, don't fit the style of the rest of the movie.

This is very true. The movie didn't start to win me over until the number on the road looking over LA's lights at night.

bfkiller wrote: La La Land

I don't take wanking to the golden age of Hollywood / golden age of jazz to be inherently worse than wanking to the golden age of Star Wars.

Movie perfection that made my eyes tear up (though that was partially due to a parallel situation of my own that made me relate).

I'm with you there. I really liked that it ended the way it did but it was really hard for me. I guess that's the mark of good art.

Boom goes the dynamite. Nice one, cran.

La La Land is a better La La Land than Rogue One is a Rogue One. Rogue One ended very very strong, but La La Land, other than some downtime about 2/3 through, remains pretty darn charming. And that audition song near the end, and the end flashback, brilliant stuff.

La La

I don't get this love for LLL, guys. I like musicals quite a lot, I think I've seen every important one, and I didn't find LLL to be that impressive. I mean, it's OK, it's good, I might watch it again sometime if I'm in the mood of watching two VAPs (Very Attractive People) so wanting to fuck each other and dancing instead (which is EXACTLY what these very same VAPs already did in Crazy Stupid Love). And I agree with Mad Dog's comment on "Hollwyood jerks to itself Land" up there - which is spot on. althouth he hasn't even watched the movie.
Is RO better? I don't know, but it is the first Star Wars movie I enjoyed since the Return of the Jedi. Darth Vader and the best Death Star are in it, and - Spoiler Alert - they aren't even featured in LLL, like at all. LLL could use a good death star, because it is a movie with no tension and very little drama (unless you deem the whatever ridiculous obstacles - mainly mental - that prevent two VAPs from having sex to be a drama).
You know what would have been great, though? A La La Rogue movie. Replace the first half of RO with LLL, and finish it off with the second part of RO. Please keep the robot in LLL bits and the flashback in RO.

I was originally tempted to vote without having seen either movie, just as a spite vote against Rogue One. It's very literally decades since I really enjoyed watching a Star Wars movie, and I figured that Rogue One was going to be another disappointment.

But then I saw Rogue One. It's a good, solid action movie with science-fiction trappings. The acting could have been better, especially with several strong actors who only got a few lines each. But I still haven't seen La-La Land, so how can I compare the two? Easy.

Musicals are really not my thing. When people are acting and then suddenly burst into song, it always feels very weird and unnatural to me. Even compared to action movies with special effects. So this comes down to genre versus genre to me, and the genre that I dislike automatically loses to a reasonably good movie of a genre that I prefer.