SPOILERS : The star wars movie you wanted when you were 10!

Rating: 9/10 (16 December 2016)

I didn't have the greatest expectations when i entered the theatre for rogue one. Rumors of re shoots, a half empty cinema and memories of the cynical sequel last year suppressed my enthusiasm. The director was not someone i knew much about and the premise sounded like a cliché. 'Spunky bad girl attacks the empire with nothing but a sassy attitude and ragtag bunch of forgettable Tagalogs' sounded too much like the post modern marvel dominated media that is starting to grind.
Then the opening shot came in. No scroll. Camera angle up then down. To most people no biggie. To the star wars aficionado it's a deceleration of rebellious intent and make no mistake, this is a film directed squarely at the super-geeks.
The motives are set out in rapid fashion but never feel contrived. There is a reason for Jan's mother's death, she can't bear to lose her husband. The imperials don't just kill her, there is an air of reason in their speech to contrast the psychopathic tendencies of later scenes. It is a mirror of the first act of the force awakens, yet shows it's reflections' sloppiness. Everything makes sense within the films' own logic, everything informs the main characters in the explicit.
The story moves between locations in Dune-esque style, setting up the pieces on the board. The locations will feel vaguely familiar, some straight out of McQuarries' sketches, others from the various expanded universe sources. The imperial research base was so familiar from the opening level of Jedi knight 2 that i instinctively knew parts of it before they appeared on screen. This gave the film what the force awakens desperately sought, true credibility.
However, where the force awakens used these throw backs as the whole basis of it's story, rogue one never seams to drown in it's references. This is exemplified in Ponda Baba and Dr Evazan's cameo (i only had to look one of them up to confirm the spelling, i hang my head in shame!) that is literally shrugged off as the story rolls on.
The story is quite remarkable as well. It seems like a dark retelling of the previous year's low-lights. The Syrian war, the rise of the far right and drone warfare are a subtle but unmistakable presence throughout the film. There is a reason that the daily mail and other right wing media outlets are pumping out 'controversial' reviews of the movie. I wouldn't be surprised if a 'too dark for kids' furore arose at some point, even as early reports suggest that the 12 year old demographic have lapped it up.
The plot, whilst slightly opaque at the beginning, pushes you through at lightning pace until you come to the third act. The best third act since Return of the Jedi. The land battle is tight and thrilling. The space battle blows away the mediocrity of the last 30 years. If you have ever played x wing alliance, the tactics and weaponry will seem like second nature. Of course the way to take down a star destroyer is to destroy the shield tower and then bombard it with a y wing ion torpedo raid. The end is bittersweet, Return of the Jedi as it should have been without the rewrite that replaced the Wookies with a cannibalistic Ewok celebration ending (how else did they get rid of the bodies?).
To the trained eye the references are obvious. There are flaws; the dark lord's pun stands out like a sore thumb and the repeated shots from a new hope will likely grate in years to come. However, this is more than the copy of a copy presented by the force awakens, a film that seemed like a cynical grab for fan support with it's replicated plot and it's callback fanfare. It think rogue one's genuine care for it's source material translated into how i felt during and after the film. It rekindled the love i had for the original films that were so tarnished by the prequels. I started looking into what was next, what other people though about the film, writing this love letter to it on IMDb. It's done something the prequels and sequels have failed to do, it's made the original films better.
And Darth Vader is bloody scary again too!