Rogue One: Side story chapter I

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2016)

Rogue One is the film that The Force Awakens desperately tried to be and failed miserably. Make no mistake. Both films are short on originality, fall under the same plot schematics and cardboard characters, but where The Force Awakens did it ambitiously, Rogue One does it humbly: and that makes all the difference in the world.
Star Wars is Disney's new big cash-cow milked left and right through expansions on prequels and sequels using as triggers not only major characters but also McGuffins. Don't be surprised if, in years to come, there was a standalone film centered on the Blue Rhinoceros that plays the piano on Return of the Jedi.
Cynicism aside, Rogue one is a return to form on the great Star Wars films of the past; the sheer fun, excitement and engagement with the story grows as the film moves along, amounting to a been-there-done- that-seven-times-before third act, that I ended up not holding myself against at all. The film will go down in history perhaps as the one (or one of the only) case (s) where rewrites and reshoots worked out extremely well despite accentuating this on a much stronger second-half than a limp barely exciting kick-start.