Episode 3.5 is a 3.5 (Out of 5) Star Film

Rating: 8/10 (22 December 2016)

Rogue One is a YouTube fan-fic film with a budget. That's not (totally) dismissive; fans are often so invested as to not want to screw up what they love. Generally, director / fan Edwards and crew have brought this first "Star Wars" spin off by giving us what we love. It's a fully lived-in world, set on cool new planets, starring a group scrappy rabble-rousers partnered with a funny droid, and plotted to answer questions we have about the larger legend. Through all this, we are given some pretty fantastic star wars. So why is it below the best of the series? Because an action-packed, franchise-filling second half has to carry a humdrum first half. In both quality and genre, it's most similar to 1983's Return of the Jedi, a covert-operation used to battle the establishment. Taking place directly before 1977's Star Wars, this group of rebels is led by Jyn Urso (Jones) must steal the structural plans for the Death Star to learn its weaknesses. Visually faithful to the original trilogy, it fits nicely into its place. Edwards (Godzilla) continues to broadcast his skill for giant but coherent action, both in the epic destruction and the hand-to-hand combat (a martial-arts-focused jedi, a crowd-pleasing, effectively scary Vader scene). Otherwise, there are some issues. While Jyn has some nice motivations and stakes, much of the characters feel less like people and more like ways to push the plot. The dialogue is dull, the beats are predictable, the emotions are shallow, and the fan service is often egregious. At the end of the day, however, the building it does on the lore of "Star Wars" is believable and engaging to warrant seeing more from these spinoffs.