Not bad but not good either

Rating: 6/10 (18 December 2016)

I did not know what to expect when I went to see Rogue One. I heard fairly good reviews, notably that this new movie was better than the Episodes I, II and III but that's not hard considering how lame those were. While Rogue One turned out to be not too disappointing, it really lacked originality: you still see stormtroopers walking around all Imperial premises (to kill time I presume), the rebel base sees plenty of activity with ground crew running around the X-wing fighters although there is no battle to prepare for (yet), the characters go from planet to planet at the rate of an organized tour, all of which have a different climate/atmosphere, etc. Another thing which also disturbed me was the amount of new uniforms, spacecraft, all of which will not appear in Episode IV which follows directly Rogue One.
On the positive side, the movie starts without the traditional scrolling text, John Williams' music is not too present although you hear at times themes which were written for the original trilogy (saddly Michael Giacchino's new score goes unnoticed). The story is simple and straight-forward, unlike the prequels which had too much blah-blah and subplots without much to care for. I also like how a few short scenes manage to tie this episode to A New Hope (although they could have been slightly longer and ultimately leave the impression they were rushed in for transition purposes).
To summarize, Rogue One is not a bad movie but it lacks true originality to make it a memorable Star Wars franchise film.