A pointless and lacklustre addition to the franchise

Rating: 2/10 (18 December 2016)

OK so I had A lot to say about "The Force Awakens" and mostly I pointed out all the plot holes that I could drive a semi trailer through. But after seeing Rogue One I appreciate TFA a lot more because at least it was entertaining and engaging.
Rogue One is boring. Boring, boring, boring, boring and boring. I can appreciate where it sits within the timeline and was actually interested in how to the Death Star plans got into R2D2. However the story is so ludicrously unimaginative that I wish I could unlearn the official story and go back to making up something myself.
The fundamental problem is that the writers forgot this was a Star Wars movie until about 75% of the way in and then went "Oh crap there's supposed to be space battles in this thing." And here begins the rant: spoilers ahead...
Let's start with the main character Jyn. Firstly, I said this in my review of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and I will say it here, killing a main characters parents when they are a small child is not enough to make me give a crap about what happens to them. So she was orphaned when her mother was killed and her father chose to go back to the Empire.. just like millions of other children effected by the war. Secondly this character is so unimpressive and has basically no skills that are helpful to the Rebellion other than the fact that she's the daughter of the genius scientist behind the Death Star. Sure she can fire a phaser but that's pretty much as helpful as she gets. Why a group of committed Rebellion fighters would follow this girl into battle confounds me.
Cassian the rebel fighter assigned to help Jyn is just as unimpressive. We're supposed to feel for him because he lost his family and has been forced to kill people for the Rebellion and feels bad about it but in the end you feel nothing.
K-2SO - ah the generic and expected robot comedy relief that brings a few chuckles but nothing much else (which is no reflection on Alan Tudyk who I love but they didn't give him much to work with) And whilst it was nice to see Darth Vader back in all his glory (and in the voice of James Earl Jones) his cameo was blink-and-you'd-miss-it and really doesn't add to the story in any way.
And then basically all the other characters were so unimpressive that I don't remember any of them and therefore have nothing to say about them.
The 2 stars I've given to this review are purely for the CGI in the final 45 mins of this movie which is pretty bloody spectacular. But once it got to that point I'd stopped caring a while ago. The exception being the CGI young Princess Leia which was just CREEPY.
So to summarise: Boring and unimaginative shouldn't have been made in the first place.