A Ranting Review.

Rating: 4/10 (10 June 2018)

Do not read this if you liked this movie. I cannot fathom why people liked this over the last Jedi. Yes, Last Jedi had a lot of issues, but it had a lot of good stuff in it too. But I thought this whole movie was a problem in itself. I am at least thankful, like I was for Last Jedi, that whoever was fighting for a good story picked the right battles to win. I'm happier that the actual new Star Wars movies are decent and that this one is bad instead of the other way around.
This was one of the most overall generic movies I've ever seen. There's nothing compelling about it. We have a flat heroine, flat supporting characters, a flat villain, if you can even call Krennic a villain, generic dialogue and there's not even any suspense because everyone know how it ends. What was really annoying about it was that I could tell that the writers (or whoever was giving them orders) were trying to make the movie cool and fun and interesting at a lot of points. But when you don't give your characters respect, there's only so much you can do. Jyn Erso doesn't make any active decisions, which is basically the litmus test for a weak protagonist. And none of the other characters don't really help her out at all. Seriously, I only finished watching this to say that I had seen it and to see the Darth Vader scene at the end that I'd had hyped up for me (to which I say "Mediocre").
Also, the whole premise of the movie is not that good. There is a reason that A New Hope did not detail how they got the Death Star Plans: it's not that important or interesting. It's just a thing that happened. Any conflict that came up in the movie felt completely contrived and fake. The characters basically get mad at each other to make it seem like tensions are high, but it's fake. None of them really have distinctive points of view, so the conflicts are only as interesting as the subject of each argument, which is pretty weak to begin with. Anyone in the Rebellion that doesn't think they should destroy the Death Star or try to steal the plan and stuff is just wrong, and we as the audience know that, so there's nothing interesting about seeing them argue about it. This made the one debate scene near the end possibly my least favorite scene in any Star Wars movie. It could have been good if it had been a character moment for Jyn. Had I written this movie, I would have made Jyn be more reluctant to join the rebellion and go along, just doing things because she had to. Then when the rebellion realized that they needed to go get the plans, they would ask for volunteers and that could be the moment when Jyn decides she's in. The supporting characters could have reflected the different sides of her internal argument, with one fully believing in it, another feeding her apathy and influencing her throughout. I think that would have been a much better movie. Cassian's line at the end "Your father would be proud of you" really put the last nail in Rogue One's coffin for me. First of all, that line should be banned from movies along with "we got company" because it's been used so many times and is basically just tacked on nowadays. More importantly, Jyn was never looking for approval from her father. Yes, she completed his mission, but that's not the same thing and a line about her doing that would have been much more thematic.
I don't particularly think that this movie should have been made, but it could have been much better than it was. Like it if you want, but I don't see a whole lot to like. I haven't heard great things about Solo, but I think it will probably be better than Rogue One because it contains characters that the writers know they have to do a good job with. But if this is the way that the spinoff movies are going, count me out. Overall Rating: 4.5/10.