A Different Take on Star Wars that has Good Points and some Bad Points

Rating: 7/10 (16 December 2016)

So many mixed feelings about this movie right now. Firstly, it's different to the other Star Wars movies, but that's good! I liked the way the film was shot, I like that they took a leap of faith away from the traditional Star Wars canon. It was a bit more serious too, like a legitimate sci-fi movie, instead of just being "jokey' or for kids. There's a downside to the seriousness however, and that is, it often felt TOO serious at times.Even with the humor they threw in (which worked, it wasn't too contrived) it just felt like a massive war movie. It just wasn't fun! With all the shade, the producers should have put more "light" in there to help balance the movie. It was just too much of one thing.
The middle of the movie felt like nothing ever happened and it went on far too long. I am embarrassed to say that I was fighting to stay awake it was so boring. I really liked the concept behind the main group of characters, it had a lot of potential. But bringing in so many new characters in a 2.5 hour movie means that there's not a lot of opportunity to learn much about them. Consequently, I felt no empathy for the characters. Not even the lead character. So much so in fact, I felt like a "female lead" was shoe-horned into this movie just to be politically correct with this day and age. This actually lowers the impact of the point of Daisy Ridley's character being female in the main Star Wars canon. Why does Disney/Star Wars insist on reusing the same character story line (girl loses family, seeks revenge...) and plot (blow up the Death Star!) from every Star Wars movie?!
Trying not to give away any spoilers but the CGI used with some well-known characters was the best movie character CGI I've seen in a long time, it's amazing how far we have come and continues to improve. Credit to the director, I think he made Star Wars look beautiful, really nicely shot, but the story line was just too long and there was too much of the same war battles in the middle of the movie that dragged-on forever. I can see why they decided to try and salvage this movie by rewriting and re-shooting.
I had high hopes in the first third of the movie, I thought it worked well. But the final two thirds left me disappointed. Nice try, I think the intent comes from a good place, but it just missed the mark of being something really good. The most disappointing aspects for me is that (and I know this is a precursor to a New Hope) is that we cannot have anymore Death Star story lines. It has been done to death (and then some). How many Star Wars movies now feature the Death Star? It's beyond silly. If you can split this movie into three parts, I would give 10/10 for the first third, 4/10 for the middle third, and 5 or maybe 6/10 for the final third.
I'm usually first in line to buy a DVD/Blu-ray version of Star Wars after a movie release, but this time around, I don't have the excitement to want to get it when it's released.
Let's not be spoiled however - the fact we get spin-offs like this is what we've been asking for, so we should not come away too dejected or ungrateful. The more spin-offs that are made, the better, because some of them will be great, and we should not have the expectation that all of them will be great. Let me be clear - Rogue One stands head and shoulders above the George Lucas prequels in the 2000s and that's because of a huge improvement of the writing. Rogue One is very well written. Dialog is great, never silly or forced. The special effects were really well done but even they went overboard in places. So much so that it verged on resembling a Michael Bay Transformers movie (you know, one of the bad ones!). The balance needs to be right, and Rogue One just kept missing the mark.
Here's to 2018, hoping that next main Star Wars installment in the main canon can bring that perfect balance back to the force.