Rogue One – The Most Anticipated Film of the Year

Rating: 7/10 (17 December 2016)

This is the first standalone film in the franchise, though with familiar 'Star Wars' references. Rogue One is about a group of rebel spies who band together in order to steal the plans to the Death Start from the Galactic Empire. This is the story just prior to the original 1977 Star Wars 'A New Hope'.
Anyone who remembers the original 'crawl' at the beginning will appreciate that Rogue One owes its premise to a single line from that opening crawl. Rogue One is designed to fill the gap and explains why the Death Star had such an exploitable weakness.
I found the film to be very similar to the 2016 'Magnificent 7' remake, where a diverse set of mercenaries unite, bond and head into action.
Rogue One starts well with good scenery and effective 3d depth. I found the middle draged a little but then picks up again during the battle heavy sequences, which I found to resemble a modern computer war game. There's an emotional scene towards the end where the two main characters (Jyn and Cassian) are caught in a gigantic bomb blast and die in each other's arms. In fact every one of the new characters dies in one way or another.
At the very end we see the rebels' handover the Death Star plans to a CGI Princess Leia. The plans are on the familiar small computer disk. The perfect set-up for the next instalment.
There was loads of hype behind this film, designed to maximise the money making potential (and why not!). I hope the next instalment doesn't try to make too much of a plot out of 'nothing'. For instance; Chewbacca gets a haircut or Vader gets the best shine from using windolene.
In conclusion, not bad but not great. This is an entertaining film with some good new characters, especially the reprogrammed sarcastic droid K-2SO. Probably aimed at hard-core fans though more casual fans (like myself) found enjoyable.