A Rich, Stargazing Concept with Serious Problems

Rating: 6/10 (4 April 2017)

Feels like I wanted to like this more than I actually did. Behind the dazzling effects work, the colorful character designs and the back-bending efforts to make everything feel at home beside the beloved original Star Wars, the story itself has deep-seated problems. Despite a very long, convoluted setup, most of the cast feels deeply underdeveloped and the plot comes across as overly simplistic and predictable. Even moreso than one might expect from a direct prequel to a film most of the target audience has watched dozens of times. The injection of late rewrites are obvious, too, as the third act flows far more smoothly than the preceding hour-plus. Most of the successful elements fall into the domain of the visual and the atmospheric. The constant attention to detail is impressive, going to great lengths to establish vital credibility, and I was amazed by the controversial, convincing CG stand in for the long-dead Peter Cushing. Another computer-generated character just before the credits isn't nearly as effective, but that's more of an Easter egg than an integral part of the story and I'll let it slide as such. The action scenes sing, particularly when they also twang the strings of nostalgia by dropping familiar forms into a new setting, and the grand climax, while somewhat saccharine-drenched, is nonetheless effective. A good demo-reel for the viability of the extended universe, but some day soon the sentimentality will lose its edge. Better get things tightened up before then.