Rogue One

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⭐ 6.0/10

(Originally written by Tim)

I did not love this movie when it came out, but I keep hearing the hot take that this is the second best Star Wars movie (after Empire Strikes Back), so I figured it was worth another watch. I can confirm that everyone who says that is wrong and is just trying to get likes on twitter or something.

The story is kind of all over the place to start. We visit like 6 planets in the first 10 minutes to try to introduce us to our team, but all of them are pretty flat and uninteresting. There are some cool elements here, and the explanation of the Death Star's weakness is nice, but the pieces never really connected for me. The Donnie Yen jedi-esque blind guy? Super cool. Riz Ahmed as a turncoat pilot? Yes please. For some reason it felt like they just did not use these characters very well.

That being said, this movie does contain a top 3 Star Wars scene for me, one that had me in awe in the theatres and I still pull up on Youtube from time to time. No spoilers, but its essentially the end leading into A New Hope, where you see how powerful our main villain really is...

Another thing that drives me nuts is the fully CGI people. I get that Tarkin needs to be in this movie, but just cast someone that looks kind of like him and do a voice over or something. It is incredibly distracting, and although they are getting closer to recreating a perfect human face it just yanks me completely out of the movie.

I remember that this movie was plagued by rewrites, and I think it really shows. Just a lot crammed in here, especially with kyber crystals earlier on, but they never really commit to anything. I really wanted to love it, but it just doesn't work for me.

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