A beautiful, gritty missed opportunity

Rating: 7/10 (20 December 2016)

To put things in perspective, i have grown up with Star Wars, watched the movies still in my early teens.
This movie brought me back to that time, and is in my opinion best of the "new" series of the movies, Prequel trilogy included. It bridges the gap between the Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, and explains how the plans for Death Star ended in Rebel hands. However, it's not the execution that bothers me, it's the idea...
*** Warning, spoilers ***
This movie is by far the darkest of the franchise. All main protagonists are tainted by their past: Galen Erso signs a deal with the devil (Empire), Saw Gerera is considered too extreme even by Rebels, Cassian assassinates informer in cold blood. Yet they redeem themselves and die as heroes in the end. But what about the Jyn? She decides to clean up her father name, and consequently to redeem him by stealing Death Star plans and enabling Rebels to eventually exploit it's weakness, put there by her father.
They succeed in stealing the plans, yet the movie feels incomplete. There is no great confrontation in the end with the man that destroyed her family. Krennic is unceremoniously shot, and two main protagonists die after they transmit the plans. There are rumors about alternative endings, even shots showing Jyn with the data disk running across the Scarif beach amid explosions. This leaves bad taste in mouth, and a feeling that the film was cut to be more grittier, in GoT style: everyone dies in the end.
Would it not have been better to allow Jyn to escape, transmit the plans from the orbit and leave, having cleaned the father's name and just maybe, live to fight another day. Or maybe end up having a daughter... What has Bodhi Rook, a pilot and defector from Empire got for trying to follow his conscience: wiped mind and a death. I know that it is ungrateful to doubt the artistic experience and idea of the scenarist(s) and movie director, but this is Star Wars we are talking about.
To see a gritty story, all you have to do is to tune to news and watch what is happening in the world. Star Wars was meant to be a fairy tale in space, with princesses, knights and baddies. Although i understand the movie industry has moved, I still feel we lost an opportunity to reach to younger generations to carry the message. After all, which kid would want's to be a hero that dies in the end.