Well worth the money to see in the theater

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2016)

Rogue One is definitely a well-made movie, very good acting, and is absolutely worth your time and money to go see in the theater. This film proves without a doubt that George Lucas left his baby in good hands. This is a great movie to take the entire family to see. I'm pretty sure that the kids will love it. Go see it, you'll be glad that you did.
This was, at least in my opinion, the most realistic Star Wars film. It just seems real in many respects. It might have helped that there aren't any Muppets or Ewoks but whatever.
The story takes a decided turn in perspective to the guy who actually made the Death Star happen. A sort of Oppenheimer-esque plot, as it were. And the goal of the Alliance becomes acquiring the plans to the Death Star that were integral to the original Star Wars movie.
Of course, there are aspects of the movie that cause it to not shine quite as brightly as it could have. In the first place, it's one of many films that are built on a formula that made the original movie so memorable. This makes it somewhat predictable and, well, boring in places. For instance, I could see the requisite three-part epic battle coming a mile away. That is, the big special effects battle in space, the battle going on down on the planet with the troops who landed with our heroes and the third battle going on in the center of the action between the heroes and the bad guy.
The other problems, there are two, that are pretty much built in to the movie are that:
1) Since we learned that the plans were successfully transmitted to the alliance at the beginning of A New Hope, the filmmakers had to pin the suspense on to how they did it rather than 'if'. It's sort of like watching a historical movie like the American Revolution. You know how it turns out.
2) Since none of the principles in this movie are in A New Hope, I was virtually certain that they'd have to all be killed off before the end. This is something that occurred to me almost immediately so if I can tell, probably everyone else can too.
So, the movie is a little boxed in with these restrictions. There's very little surprise in the movie and that's more than a little bit of a let down.
Still, as I said previously, it's a very well done movie that kept me entertained for the most part. There are plenty of homages to A New Hope and, of course, they found a way to slip a C3P0 and R2D2 cameo in towards the end. They were also able to bring Princess Lea, Governor Tarkin and some of the alliance fighters from A New Hope in to this movie with the use of CGI. Putting the faces of Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing on other actors was a little creepy but it took me by surprise how good it was. The only real issue I had about it was that Peter Cushing (original Tarkin) was only 5' 11" and The Rogue One Tarkin is 6' 4" so Guy Henry (new Tarkin) kind of towered over the other Imperials. That might not be noticeable to a lot of people but it really stood out for me.