As good as the original trilogy!

Rating: 9/10 (26 December 2016)

Like many others, I had lower expectations going into this given J.J. Abrams' Ep. VII and Gareth Edwards resume. But I too was pleasantly surprised. I had read Catalyst: A Rogue One story before seeing this movie, which I believe definitely enhanced my enjoyment of the movie. The book gave a lot of great background on the characters, especially Krennic. Krennic was a much better developed character in the book - very ambitious, clever, and having no morals or values. His character falls a little flat in the movie or rather just goes along with the story - this, however, is my only real criticism of the movie. The other characters, the art direction (I loved the 70's/80's retro look to a lot of it), the story, action, etc. are all very well done. I had a few other minor criticisms as well - I didn't like the computer generated faces for Tarkin and Leia, the movie jumped around a bunch of worlds initially, which was confusing, and it was too big of a coincidence that the Empire chose the same planet than Jyn was on to go after. But those are minor complaints of an otherwise amazing movie. The movie not only ties in well to the other Star Wars movies, it actually helps make them even better than they were originally (e.g. explaining why the Death Star was built with a flaw that allowed it to be destroyed so easily). Darth Vader and Governor Tarkin were really well done (despite Tarkin's face). Vader has a small part but nearly steals the movie - definitely left me wanting more, but Gareth gave him the right amount of time. And Felicity Jones does a tremendous job as the lead (and thank you Gareth for including more females in this movie not only with Jyn but the X-wing pilots and other roles too). My favorite characters other than Jyn and Vader were definitely the droid K-2SO played by Alan Tudyk and Chirrut played by Donnie Yen. They both in their own separate ways helped balance out the dark side of this movie making it a perfect balance and near perfect movie. I can only hope subsequent Star Wars movies are this good. But for now, thank you Gareth and team for delivering a most amazing movie and experience. It was awesome!