The Creators Have a Story to Tell

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2016)

An excellent film!
This film is not all about action; it is very clear the writers and the director have a story they are passionate about. The story steadily builds in tension. I will admit that for the first 30 mins (approximately, I didn't look at the time) I was not too excited, but from there on out I was really hooked and cared a lot about the characters and their goal. The point of the film where I started to get excited and maintained that excitement throughout the movie is the hologram scene (you'll know it when you see it).
One thing that really excited me about this film is that the characters are very down-to-earth. Sure, they have hope -- they have an intuition about the odds they don't want droids to tell them about -- but they don't receive their mission with a speech about how they are destined to reach a goal. And thus they don't act on the request with that kind of attitude. They're just people with a strong intention and a clear goal. They're not trying to be pretentious.
In the last part of the film, where the action reaches its climax, there are also scenes of a different nature to accompany that action, so that the end doesn't become a pure 30 minutes long battle scene. This is very important to me, because it maintains my care for the characters' goal.
There are also several new worlds in this film, which also makes the Star Wars universe feel richer. The reason these worlds are interesting is that the events taking place on these worlds are of interest; the creators didn't just invent some new worlds for the sake of it.
You should be warned that this film is not about lightsaber action and force abilities, which is expected of Star Wars films in general. To like this film, you should be familiar with Star Wars: A New Hope, and have a particular interest in the backstory of the Death Star and the events surrounding this weapon in Episode IV. This is a fair warning to give.
This review is based on the 2D version of the film.