In light of the new (and apparently quite good) Star Wars game coming out, I decided to finally check out Rogue One. A year or so back, I commented on how much I dislike The Force Awakens, and someone (Adrock, I think) commented that I would probably like Rogue One. Well, I've now seen it and...yeah, I actually do quite like it.
Something I find somewhat curious about this film is that the big thing I always heard about this movie over the years was that it was "Pandering: the Movie." Yeah, I can definitely see that with a few things like the blink & you'll miss them cameos by the "You'll be Dead" Guys; Artoo & Threepio (seriously, what the **** were they doing on Yavin 4?); and the entirety of CG Tarkin & CG Leia. Still, other than that I really didn't see anything particularly eggregious. Characters, ships, & factions were pretty much where you would expect them to be at this point in the timeline, so their appearance in this film was pretty fitting.
What I like about this film is that it doesn't pull it punches, something I had serious issues with in both the Clone Wars & Rebels animated series, shows that were supposed to take place during violent warfare. If a character should die during a particular sequence, they generally do and usually not in a particularly heroic way. The film also has easily the best vehicular battle sequence (counting the planet & the surrounding space) since Return of the Jedi, and that is quite the high water mark.
And yes, everything about that final sequence with Vader was fucking awesome. But you knew that already.
I really only had a few issues with the film:
1. The really shitty editing of the 1st half of the film, where there's a LOT of jumping around from planet to planet without really establishing anything. The battle sequences in that part of the film are also very confusingly shot so it's not entirely clear what's going on and where characters are in relation to one another.
2. The entire existence of CG Tarkin & CG Leia. I agree with the comparison that Tarkin looked like he'd stepped out of that CG Jim Carrey Christmas Carol movie, with a very rubbery face and gigantic nose. Leia looked like a bobblehead after a few seconds.
3. Diego Luna's acting as Cassian Andor: I've seen a lot of complaints about the acting in general in Rogue One, but for the most part I thought it was fine for the kind of movie this was. The one actor I can't excuse is Diego Luna as Cassian. He spends 9/10 of the movie staring out blankly into the middle distance, and good god is he **** at it. Yeah, the guy playing "The Pilot" does a lot of that, too, but he actually manages to convey expression while he's doing it. There's an actual performance there.
I could nitpick & complain about all sorts of little issues throughout the film (like the entire existence of the U-Wings, considering the Rebels never use them again after Rogue One, or WHAT THE HELL WAS EVEN THE POINT OF THE GIANT MINDREADING SQUID), but overall that was a solid film and probably the lone good Disney Star Wars film.