A Decent Holdover For Those Who Waited For TLJ

Rating: 7/10 (15 April 2018)

I saw The Force Awakens opening night. The moment the film started with the iconic Star Wars title crawl, the theater erupted in cheer and applause. Wide smiles were all around and everyone was finally about to see what happened to our favorite characters after a lackluster prequel series, and the original trilogy's last film having came out over 30 years prior. I was among the excited film-goers. As the as of yet untitled eighth film does not arrive until next year, Rogue One would have to tide us over in the meantime. So how does it fare?
It starts with a complete absence of a title crawl.
Now this might seem somewhat of a silly complaint, but hear me out. Not only is this the first Star Wars film to ditch the title crawl, but seeing it in The Force Awakens made me realize that we had something to look forward to. We would get a three decade long closure. Rogue One features a cast of characters the likes of which we have yet to see. As the film takes place after Revenge of the Sith but before A New Hope, nobody featured in Rogue One really matters aside from the fact to serve as a reminder that we are watching a spin-off. Does that really lead to something overly thrilling if it does not really add to the main film series? Something about the lack of a title crawl served as a harsh reminder that unlike The Force Awakens, I didn't feel I was looking forward to much. But onto the rest of the film.
After the aforementioned odd absence of a title crawl, I found myself, unfortunately, incredibly bored during the first half of the film. I found myself not connecting with the characters, not caring about the mission the characters were undergoing (which takes a long time to really get going), and overall just sort of "meh". Many of the characters are not very developed and generally the script seemed "okay" at best. Aside from a few notable parts of the Star Wars score appearing throughout, John Williams was also replaced as the films composer as well, with the new composer unfortunately not bringing in the same "oomph" as Williams. Overall It wasn't particularly bad in the sense of "this film is total rubbish", but rather that the film was just sort of there, not really serving a purpose.
However, there comes a lovely silver lining to all that I had wrong with Rogue One in the end. And that is that luckily, the second half is much better than the slow first half, with the last quarter of the film being worth the cost of admission on it's own. The finale was a highly enjoyable powerhouse and I found that all my previous complaints began to drift away. Slowly, I came to appreciate Rogue One more and more. Among some of the films higher points include: The beautiful scenery and sets. The Force Awakens pulled this off as well, and for a spin-off, I was glad to see Rogue One was able to look as good as it did. Some characters of the previous films also return for varying levels of importance as well, which was a welcome surprise, as well as tons of cameos of other known characters throughout the series got a few smiles in as well.
Overall, what started as a dull and worrisome entry of the franchise (in my non-professional opinion), turned out to be decent hold-over for the upcoming episode eight. Just make it through the first half, and you will probably come to find that in the end, Rogue One is a fairly welcome entry to the franchise.
(THIS REVIEW WAS WRITTEN BACK WHEN THE MOVIE WAS FIRST IN THEATERS)