Dull and unmemorable characters in an otherwise great movie

Rating: Null/10 (9 January 2017)

It's effortless to say that Rogue One is a good movie and that most of its elements are worthy of praise. I was very impressed by the visual execution; given that it takes place immediately before A New Hope, the movie had to incorporate pieces of the 1970 sci-fi look while simultaneously keeping it fresh, a task that succeeded very well. Neither was there nothing wrong with the main plot, with a coherent and thoughtful story from beginning to end. Acting was flawless, the underlying dark tone powerful. The list of merits of the movie are clear.
However, there is one major weakness with Rogue One: poor character development. During pretty much the whole movie, I felt like I didn't care squat about the fate of any of the main characters. The fact that the background of Jyn Erso, the main protagonist, is only briefly explained might have been acceptable, but simultaneously seeing her character develop from uncooperative and quite emotionless to a highly enthusiastic, initiative taking leader of a rebel squad just like that was too much. While most of the rebels expressed their doubts as to her plans to steal the Death Star schematics on screen, none of Jyn's weaknesses had really been conveyed to us in the audience. And the more you only focus on portraying someone's strengths, the more that character becomes a mere object; like a robot that cannot be symphatized with. This was particularly true of the blind Chirrut Îmwe who, based on his fighting skills, might just as well have been the inventor of the Jedi order. I mean, even my garden gnome has more soul than that character! And truth is, it's hard to have emotions towards characters without souls.
Of course, my lack of sympathy for the characters might not all be the fault of Rogue One; given that Disney's revival of the SW universe has led to a horde of new characters having been introduced to the Star Wars universe in a short amount of time, maybe it's just too much to process for a brain that is rarely exposed to the world of Star Wars. I recognize this might be true, and don't therefore want to be to hard on the movie. But still, I feel that SW would greatly benefit from characters that are fallible and imperfect, whose skills and fates are unreliable and unknown and therefore have a soul (ironically, the droids C-3PO and R2D2 are my favourite characters precisely because of this).
It's unfortunate that Rogue One despite its many merits failed to deliver such characters.