Enjoyable, but overrated. So much potential lost.

Rating: 5/10 (12 February 2017)

In layman's terms, I feared this movie would be Jurassic Park 3, an unnecessary sequel that adds nothing to the series. But it turned out to be like Jurassic Word, a fairly entertaining sequel that does add something, had bland characters, and an exciting new world that became unexplored scenery, but it did end with a pretty entertaining climax. Rogue One was better than I feared, but not as good as I hoped. It had so much potential and wasted nearly all of them.
It tried to be a war movie in Star Wars, but fell into that trap of trying to be serious but just coming off boring. Ironically, when the real war started in the climax, it became less the "war movie" it's been trying to be, and more a standard Star Wars movie, where battles were fun and exciting to watch, not horrifying and grim. The ending was a mistake. The main characters died, and the movie rushed forward and pushed the rest of the movie behind it, diminishing the movie as a standalone movie with its own ending. It was just a big set up for A New Hope.
This movie has too many new planets. It jumps from one planet to another, hoping to make the universe appear bigger, and tried less to make each location actually interesting. The Phantom Menace had a beautiful planet that needs to be protected, a desert planet with chariot races, and a city planet, capital of the Republic. Each location plays a role in the main characters' actions. All other Star Wars movies did this too. Rogue One did none of this. On Jedha, the only interesting planet, the giant statues and remnants of an old Jedi-like culture were pushed to the background and became nothing but scenery. No exploring ruins, no interacting with the culture, nothing.
Most of the characters had some pretty good story ideas, but also fell short. Like many movies before, this movie had too many new characters, and struggled to make all of them interesting.
In A New Hope, Han Solo was a self-serving outlaw antihero, and this personality echoed throughout everything he did in the movie. Unfortunately, in this movie, the characters introduce themselves, and then audiences have to carry this first impression with them throughout the rest of the movie.
Jyn Erso lost her family, yet there was little to show she missed her family and hated the Empire. The scene with Jyn in prison, suggest that she is rebellious and antisocial, but in the movie, she showed little memorable attitude.
Cassian shot an innocent man out of necessity, introducing himself as an antihero who represents the dirty side of the heroic rebels. This is the only controversial act we see him do in the whole movie. He had a chance to assassinate Jyn's father on orders, and he ultimately chose not to. There was so little prior character development for him, that it's hard to tell if he was a changed man, or merely adapted to the changing situation.
K2SO, the reprogrammed imperial droid, was arguably the only character with an interesting personality. I could close my eyes, and he was the only character I enjoyed listening to. He was the only one who provided some much needed attitude.
Chirrut Îmwe, AKA the Asian guy, was unfortunately a token stereotypical Asian guy. He used martial arts against the bad guys, never does it again, and just mutters one quote about the Force throughout the movie, establishing himself as deeply religious. The movie never used him as a teacher/mentor-figure to the others, or anything. We don't know why he followed the other main characters. He got swept up for the ride, and never left.
Baze, Chirrut's friend, whose name I had to look up, was just there to grieve for Cirruit's death at the end.
The ex-Imperial pilot who defected from the Empire, well, there's really nothing else to say about him. We don't know why he defected, and I never did remembered his name.
Saw Gerrera was an extremist in the Rebellion. Like Cassian, he could have represented the murderous side of the rebellion. And yet, the most grim things he did was put sacks over people's heads (like terrorists?), and interrogate the pilot with a silly tentacled creature that reads minds(?).
And the main villain had more personality than most of the cast. Unfortunately, the film did very little to show how evil and menacing he could truly be. He was responsible for the death of Jyn's family. And yet, when these two enemies finally face each other for the first time, the villain was swiftly shot down by somebody else besides Jyn, and the confrontation ended with no real climax.
This movie started a lot of bold and innovative ideas, but stopped after barely dipping in. It was a serious war movie that dragged for the first half, then became a standard Star Wars movie with an exciting climax. It created a bigger but less interesting world. It introduced the main characters and made them interesting quickly, and then forgot to actually KEEP them interesting. And it couldn't decide if it was a standalone film, or an overly long introduction to the next movie.
Much of the genuinely deserved love and praise for the movie depends on the exciting climax, where most of the content was less original and more familiar. And it really was a pretty damn good climax. Whether or not the audience can take the excitement of the epic climax and walk away from the movie with that same impression is up to each individual viewer. As for the rest of the movie, if anybody finds the characters and story just as strong, interesting and compelling to watch, I would really need an explanation why.