Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: Review

• This is a NON-Spoiler review for "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story." I want you to know going into this review that I think if you haven't been anticipating all the events of this movie I think you'll really like it.

• Plot Summary: "Set right before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope - In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire's ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves."

• Guys, I'm very sad to say that I was disappointed. I've now had some time to process and I have let it sink in and I now like the movie and I'd like to see it again. But I was disappointed that it wasn't what I wanted it to be. I was going in expecting the Saving Private Ryan of Star Wars. If you think of it as a pure war movie, then it's probably going to be underwhelming. There are so many ways this movie could have been way better. For example: Darth Vader! They missed out on that opportunity. There wasn't NEARLY enough Darth Vader. Now I knew going into it that Vader wasn't going to be the main villain but I figured they would show a lot more than they did of him mowing people down.

• I blame the director Gareth Edwards (director of Godzilla) for my disappointment, because there are similarities between Rogue One and Godzilla. Like having the camera cut away every time the fun starts. Every time a bunch of stormtroopers would come out and I would think we're about to have a big battle scene, he cut away. I really like his Godzilla movie but I didn't at first. Godzilla had a much bigger payoff in the end. And any time we weren't watching the monsters we were feeling fear from the humans on the ground. This movie is not any more riveting than the original trilogy or Episode 7. I probably sound like I'm ranting but it's because I know what it could have been.

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• All but a couple of characters were kinda forgettable. The way we're introduced to the new characters isn't very good because I don't have a reason to get invested in them in any way. I don't really know anything about anyone but Gyn Erso really at all past what we actually see. I loved Alan Tudyk's character K-2SO. He was hilarious and an awesome droid. It's like if C-3PO became a battle droid and started shooting people. Alan Tudyyk was born to play a C-3PO type droid.

• Another big problem with this movie is that they didn't even make me feel like I was going back to the times of the original trilogy. Not nearly enough scenes with the classic stormtroopers. I heard the classic blaster sound effect a handful of times. And the new blaster sound effects aren't even better than Star Trek. I think the worst thing of all was crappy CGI versions of characters we've seen before. I'm not gonna say which ones but I don't know why they had to make them CGI, especially since they're going to have Alden Ehrenreich play a young Han Solo. It looked pretty rough. Are they going to CGI Han Solo's face for the whole Han Solo movie? NO! That part was a little bit offensive to me. And during the final battle scene I was just sitting there waiting and waiting for Darth Vader to come and rip people apart. Gareth Edwards had the opportunity to make a war movie with Darth Vader and he chose to only have a few minutes with Vader and cut away from the action a lot. This guy has a priority problem. Vader should have been kept a surprise. We do get to see a little bit of Vader. One scene was incredible. The best Vader scene was very exciting and a modern version of Vader killing people but it again wasn't much time. I kinda relate it to the Joker in Suicide Squad. I don't understand why we couldn't have more of Vader. And I don't understand why they couldn't just make this movie as good as it sounded. I was more thrilled by the trailer for War of the Planet of the Apes. Which looks absolutely incredible!

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• I'm gonna try to end positive. I loved K-2SO, I liked Saw Gerrara (Forrest Whitaker) even though he was severely underused. I liked the blind space ninja (Donnie Yen). But everyone else wasn't that special or new to the Star Wars universe. The action is fun. Fun action is there but it's not anything like Saving Private Ryan or Mad Max like I was expecting, Not even close. But there is fun action. And it's cool to see some Darth Vader and to see how this event happened and they did an awesome thing to compliment the original trilogy that I won't spoil. I'm disappointed but I still enjoyed it. You probably think that I hated this movie, I didn't. It's kinda like how I felt about Doctor Strange but it's harder because it's Star Wars! I enjoyed it but when you are going to see a Star Wars movie you expect more. There is a long list of directors they should have picked. So the grade for "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" is a B