Easily beats Episodes 1 and 3.

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2016)

Rogue One has many good things in it, and also some important flaws. Still, overall it is a good film.
The story explains how the Death Star could have been built with a design flaw that would allow a single torpedo fired by Luke Skywalker to bring it down: its chief engineer Galen Erso hated the Empire, and made sure the rebels would catch wind of the design error he planted. The story revolves around an ensemble cast led by Galen's daughter Jyn Erso, first tracking down Erso, then finding out where the plans are stored, and finally retrieving them to get them into Princess Leia's hands. The movie gets my kudos for explaining this all in a pretty reasonable way.
Some of the stretches in the story line are not all that bad. For example, the idea that a sophisticated data library would require mechanical retrieval of data may seem a bit silly. But then, we all know that voting machines are decoupled from the internet for good reason, and if you really want to store secrets, you will do it in a way that requires mechanical retrieval and other layers to insulate it from remote data theft.
The appearance of well-known characters like Grand Moff Tarkin and Princes Leia Organa is also welcome, and was pulled off quite well . Some viewers find this creepy (the real actors who first played these characters in 1977 are deceased), and thus imagine all kinds of bad CGI or acting, when in fact these were nicely done. It's one of those cases where, if you know something is fake, your mind is going to come up with reasons why it is fake, even if it looks almost perfect. In fact, if you showed Tarkin and Leia from Rogue One to a person who's never heard of Star Wars, they would perfectly well accept them as somewhat heavily makeup-covered actors from a science fiction movie. I'd say their acting was better than that of many longer roles in this film! I commend the director and special effects people for daring to do it, even if it's only 95% perfect.
The final 'Battle of Dubai' is nicely done, with mayhem contrasted with idyllic gardens and blue skies, a welcome change from the usual deep space battle that is de rigeur in Star Wars films. It kills off the ensemble cast after their mission is completed, and Disney is to be commended for making a film where not everyone lives happily ever after.
The female heroine is just there. She's not played up in any way, and it's a true sign of emancipation when you don't think "Oh look, they put in a female heroine to be politically correct." Perhaps this is why the actress was instructed to play a bit bland and 'just be there.' It works, but of course, it also doesn't work.
But there are also many problems. The 'fan service' is a little too heavy-handed, and sometimes disturbs the flow of the story. Why do we need to see R2-D2 and C-3PO for 3 seconds? Why does a rough character from a bar on Mos Eisley from the original 1977 movie have to walk down a city street on a different world? The list goes on.
A major corollary of this problem is that the film spends too much time rushing to multiple locations, showing nuggets from the original, and rushing the ensemble cast along, denying its characters the time needed to become well-developed and thus likable. I honestly could not remember the names of many of the ensemble cast of rogues who steal the plans, and still did not know when they died. I would say at a minimum, you need to introduce your characters well enough that I know their first name when they die! The rush prevents the actors from building up their characters properly, so there's not much of a lump of sorrow in the viewer's throat when they give their lives. The film was not quite sure whether to spend some time (like the original), or rev up the pace (like I, II and III) for the generation of viewers with short attention span. In the end it did neither, boring those with little attention span, and puzzling those who wanted to understand what the characters are about. Basically, this film either needed to be cut by a half hour, or lengthened by a half hour, but the in-between approach does not quite do the story line and characters full justice.
Finally, the dialogue is sometimes cringe-worthy, in particular the great declamations. To be fair though: Jyn Erso's speech at the rebel headquarters was awful, BUT they did turn her request down! So what do you want? She's totally inexperienced as a leader, gives a bad speech, they say 'sorry, we can't.' It's actually quite realistic and moves the story into act III. The android made up for it by having some dry English humor quips just at the right times in the film.
To make up for any flaws, there are many beautiful locations, grand battles, the overall concept is sound, and the intentions are good, so I'll give this film a 7. I'd see it again at some point, if for no other reason than to discover the more subtle fan service that I surely missed, so I can bemoan some more how Disney overdid it. For people who played the Star Wars video games and got a completely different story of how the Death Star plans were captured, it must be quite jarring, and I doubt many of them would go above a 5/10. However, they can take solace in the fact that even real history is never self-consistent because alternative views of events persist, and the winner who writes history one day may be the loser another day and have it rewritten over their grave.