30 Minutes of Awesomeness

Rating: 5/10 (15 December 2016)

I think a lot of these 10 star reviews are from people who are still feeling the 'exhilaration' from just leaving the theater. If you let the novelty wear off, I don't think you'd see as many 10 star reviews.
Assuming Empire Strikes Back is 10 stars and Phantom Menace is 1 star, this movie is a solid 5 stars. I'm a Star Wars mega fan; I've been watching the movies since I was a kid and I can go on for hours about parsecs, kyber crystals, and Chewbacca's home planet. Now, the movie wasn't bad, far from it -- in fact, I applaud Disney for making a gritty, dark film after the kid-friendly 'The Force Awakens'.
The problem is that there's no Star Wars magic until the end of the movie. When I saw the 'A long time ago ...' come up on screen, I got ready for the yellow screen crawl and the John Williams 'da da da dahhh' -- but I got nothing but some CGI planets. That's when I knew things were going to be very different.
You got about an hour of setting up the characters and the backstory and, honestly, I was kind of bored. You don't know any of these characters and they have ridiculous names so, unless you're taking notes, it's hard to understand who/what they are talking about.
As a Star Wars fan, I'll admit it was nice seeing Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia on the big screen again. The problem is the way it was done -- slapping CGI faces on live actors. CGI has a LONG way to go before it can trick the human eye. Tarkin's CGI was so distracting I don't think I even heard what he was saying -- I just kept staring at his unconvincing face and thinking 'no they didn't'. The ending of the movie was great except for CGI Carrie Fisher -- they could have kept her back toward the camera or done something with a reflection in a window, but no they show us a huge, full screen shot of her poorly computer generated face.
Lightsabers. Star Wars movies need light sabers. Yes, there is one in the movie for about 30 seconds -- and it's an AWESOME 30 seconds. Yeah I understand there are no Jedi in the movie (and only one Sith) and that limits what you can do with the light sabers. Why not give the blind guy a lightsaber instead of a stick?
Speaking of the blind guy, I think he was the only memorable character in the movie. Everyone else was pretty bland. Forest Whitaker's character seemed to have potential in the trailers but he doesn't have much of a role in the actual movie and we really learn nothing about him (why was he protecting Jyn? why did he have mismatched metal legs?). Jyn was decent as well -- I find her less irritating than Rey and can respect her for sacrificing her life for the sake of the rebellion. The new droid was trying way to hard to be the next C3PO with his constant stream of witty sayings. Make him darker, more robotic and he would have fit in better with the rest of the movie (again, I respect the way he went out).
We need to talk about Jimmy Smits -- I don't understand why this guy keeps appearing in Star Wars. I assume he has some nasty pictures of George Lucas, that's the only logical explanation. I suppose they were using him to tie this movie into the prequels, but no one cares about his character and all it does is remind people of the awful prequel trilogy. The part where he says he's going to Alderaan to send Princess Leia is cringe worthy and not needed.
Now, I will say when they go to the Imperial Base in Key West, I started enjoying the movie immensely. This last 30 minutes or so the movie started to actually feel like Star Wars, The X-Wings blasting the crap of the AT-ATs, the blind guy using the force to reach the control panel, the Star Destroyers crashing into one another and then knocking out the gate- - this was AWESOME. And the scene where Darth Vader turns on his light saber and starts killing everyone with the force -- A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. It's hard to believe the people who made the last half hour of the movie made the other 90 minutes. Speaking of Darth Vader, he's got maybe two minutes of screen time but he's extremely evil in his brief appearances. I like the red tint they added to his eyes--you can feel the hate flowing through him. Seeing him mercilessly go after the Death Star plans is incredible and really makes guys like me feel the nostalgia -- knowing he's going to be breaking through the door of the Tantive IV shortly and 'start' the movies we know and love is chilling.
I usually see Star Wars movies multiple times in the theater. Yes, I'll probably go back to Rogue One one more time to see the ending, but I'll be sleeping for the first hour and a half.