I hate to say this, but I like it better than Force Awakens....

Rating: 9/10 (14 December 2016)

I have only written 2 reviews on IMDb, first was Force Awakens, this is my second one.
I watched Star Wars growing up, and was fascinated by it and greatly influenced me since. Besides the cool special effects, the galactic wars, the lasers, the Force, the light sabers, what really touched me was the philosophy behind the story line.
When I saw Episodes I, II, III, I was a bit disappointed as they seemed to have lost the "soul" of later episodes, but I felt that these episodes were acceptable because there was a need to explain what happened prior to A New Hope. Though the first 3 episodes did not have as deep of the philosophy as episodes 4, 5, 6, the dark politics and conspiracies filled the fun.
I watched the reboot of Star Trek and felt great, so when Force Awakens came out, I was so hyped and went to watch it the first day. I was quite disappointed (I wrote a whole review of it on IMDb) because I felt the story was focused on special effect, and did not even have a single line from the movie that I can remember. Unlike episodes 4, 5, 6, there were always many many deep philosophical lines that will make you think about life.
As the whole Star Wars plot heavily revolve around Skywalker family, The Force, and Jedis, it seems almost impossible to have a good Star Wars movie without these basic elements, but Rogue One surprised me.
Besides the fact that the story fills quite perfectly between episodes 3 and 4, there are no Jedis, no training, no deep philosophy! But somehow it is better than Force Awakens simply because it doesn't have these! Reason? Jedis are supposed to be wise, while you follow them in the movies you are supposed to learn certain meaning in life. But since this movie has no Jedis and no learning of the Force, there is no need for deep philosophical lines. It was just a simple but fun galactic war story.
But of course there are SOME things that tells deeper meaning. Like Chirrut (Donnie Yen) kept repeating about the force with him and he is the one with force, but Baze (Wen Jiang) didn't believe in it anymore. Later Baze started believing again when Chirrut died, just like finding your own faith again.
When Darth Vader came out, I was smiling, and when Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia came out, I was WOWed!
Overall I like Rogue One, and I like it more than Force Awakens. I hope JJ Abrams will be able to put more deep meaning and philosophy into the coming Star Wars films. I really like to see similar lines like those awesome lines from episodes 4, 5, 6.