Watched it last night, and enjoyed it

Rating: 7/10 (6 January 2017)

I watched it last night, and I enjoyed it a lot more than The Force Awakens. Here is what I liked about Rogue One (spoiler-free) 1) It is mostly a war movie, and in that sense it is darker/ grittier /more pessimistic than the mainstream Star War movies 2) Within the "war-genre", I would put it in the "bunch of guys on a mission" genre, kind of like a Dirty Dozen in space. A bunch of flawed characters have to work together to pull something a lot bigger than them 3) It is mostly Jedi-free. No lightsaber duels (even though there is a 2-3 mins lightsaber scene with an iconic character of the franchise). I have nothing against Jedis but it is nice to see a movie not relying on their presence/ mythology in the Star Wars Universe. 4) There is no A-list actor involved. Again, it is interesting and refreshing to see a Star Wars movie working with some young- not-so-famous people in the lead, and some very good character actors (Mads Mikkelsen, Forest Whitaker) in the supporting role
Here is what I did not like
1) Some acting in the smaller roles (e.g the X-Wing pilots) seemed a bit stiff (nothing that would ruin the movie for me anyway) 2) This is more a general comment since it was inevitable, being a prequel to a New Hope, that the story revolved around the Death Star. But with the exception of the prequel trilogy, it looks like the plot of every Star Wars movie has to be centred on that thing: find the plans or whoever has the plans/ find the flaws of the Death Star (or a Super Death Star like in the JJ Abrams movie). I hope in the future they will come up with something different