A Star Wars Joke

Rating: 3/10 (21 December 2016)

1. Predictable, routine action, and far too much of it.
2. Incoherent beginning, comprising scenes that flit all over the galaxy.
3. Jyn Erso is Galen Erso's daughter. So what? For some reason, Jyn's announcing her lineage is supposed to strike terror, open doors, evoke homage, whatever. Who would care after 15 years, which is how long it has been since she has seen her father? Why does her father write his message to her when he doesn't even know if she is alive and the fate of the galaxy depends on the right people getting his message. How stupid can you get? 4. Routine, predictable political correctness permeates the show - Jyn is a bad ass who beats up most men, the leader of the Alliance is a woman, the main characters are women, Hispanics, blacks, and a mystical Oriental.
5. Why does Galen tell Jyn in the opening scene to trust the Force? Neither she nor he has any special connection to the Force. The Force is not strong in either of them. Just routine sloppy writing to force a connection with the Force.
6. Why does Jyn's mother leave Jyn, confront the bad guys, and simply get gunned down for her troubles? How could a man as brilliant as her husband have married such a ninny? 7. The plot gets stupider as it progresses, going from silly to ridiculous. A band of rebels steal an Imperial ship (the Empire's people are so utterly incompetent) in one place and then show up at another station on another planet not knowing where to find the Death Star plans, which turn out to be filed along with the Empire's routine documents including the Emperor's favorite recipes with no special security. Knowing nothing, our heroes almost effortlessly figure it all out, retrieve the plans, and transmit them. In the meantime, the Alliance, roused by our heroes' pluck, attacks the Imperial base to draw attention away from our heroes (isn't that a rather tired plot line?) and have great success doing it even though they made no prior plans and didn't even decide to do it until the spur of the last moment. Yet they carry it off brilliantly. The battle scenes often seem to have been lifted straight from previous Star Wars movies - "Copy that, Gold Leader," flaming X-wings steered by screaming pilots, "I'm on him, Blue Leader," etc., etc.
8. No character development. Who cares about these people? Who could?