The Best Disney Star Wars Movie.

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2019)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story does the unthinkable. It makes an already amazing film (A New Hope) even better by fixing decade-old plot holes. The reason for the simple destruction of the infamous Death Star is finally explained. We finally get a movie about the heroes which quietly get pushed away on the sidelines. This movie is essentially the first paragraph of Episode IV's opening crawl. Gareth Edwards proves that he has the eye to produce A-level blockbuster action. Effects are always top notch, acting is good (even though Forest Whitaker seems to be overacting as an older Saw Gerrera), but the movie does tend to jump from place to place. A great tie-novel to read aside seeing the movie is Catalyst by James Luceno. The characters of Jyn Erso and Galen Erso are fleshed out very well in both the book and the movie. It is unfortunate that Bodhi (the Imperial pilot-turned Rebel), Baze (heavy weapons specialist), and Chirrut (blind man who's one with the Force) are somewhat treated like throwaway characters. The relationship between Jyn and the leader of the group, Cassian, left me wanting to see more. Having K-2SO in the mix was a perfect addition to the group and provided rewarding moments. The CGI used to recreate the late Peter Cushing as Tarkin does not always work and seems to be given too much screen time rather than use Darth Vader more. The recently deceased Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia is also brought back to the big screen via CGI and is so brief, yet her 10 seconds on screen may leave you feeling misty-eyed or possibly even in tears. Back to Darth Vader however, his voice does sound a bit off as James Earl Jones does seem to indicate his age. Despite this, Darth Vader's final scene in Rogue One is arguably one of the best Star Wars moments of all time. I have seen the movie three times in theaters and find the pacing improves each time. The music mostly works, but given that the brilliant Michael Giacchino was only given 4 weeks to produce the score (after Alexandre Desplat left the project), it's not very memorable. Overall, this is a great movie (not quite as good as A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back in my opinion) that deserves to be re-watched again and again.