Saw it today with Jacqueline & Joe. The trailers looked good, so I was feeling anxious to see it . . . but I still had a really nasty taste in my mouth from The Force Awakens, so I had that working against me.
Speaking of which . . . in the interests of full transparency, here-- with absolutely no explanation or attempt at justification--is my list of the previous seven episodes in qualitative hierarchical order:
1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. The Phantom Menace
3. A New Hope
4. Return of the Jedi
5. Revenge of the Sith
6. Attack of the Clones
7. The Force Awakens
And, just for the hell of it, here's Rotten Tomato's qualitative hierarchical order, including Rogue One:
1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. The Force Awakens
4. Rogue One
5. Return of the Jedi
6. Revenge of the Sith
7. Attack of the Clones
8. The Phantom Menace
So some obvious differences, but actually more similarities than differences.
Okay, just one or two words of explanation: yes, there were some shit moments in The Phantom Menace, but (1) Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn was the baddest ass Jedi to come along until that movie, (2) Darth Maul was a great villain, (3) the music, especially during the climactic fight scene, was superb, and (4) Natalie Portman is super hot. And as for The Force Awakens . . . that whole movie depends upon a stormtrooper breaking his training (programming) to act conscientiously. With no precursor, nothing. Just . . . "Oh, wait a minute, this is WRONG." What bullshit. And seeing Han and Leia in action again wasn't nostalgic, it was pathetic. (Although Luke totally kicked ass in his three second scene.)
Okay, now that I've gotten that off of my chest . . . I think that Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie ever. I am heading back to the theater to see this one again, and this time I'm going to spring for the heavy duty 3D version, just in case they make that work. You'll get no spoilers from me, but let's just say that Alan Tudyk as K-2SO, Donnie Yen as Chirrup Îmwe, Jiang Wen as Baze Malbus, Forest Whitaker as Saw Gerrera, and Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso were all absolutely superb in their roles. And the title of baddest ass Jedi no longer belongs to Qui-Gon Jinn.
The music was most excellent, with just the right number of notes. Michael Giacchino did some great work here, with some interesting riffs on John Williams's music, but (for the most part) without the syrupy stuff that often crept in to JW's work.
There were some actual laugh out loud moments in the movie. And there were a couple of really moving scenes, too.
It just seemed more REAL, ya know?
And there are some very nice surprise cameos along the way to the end of this story . . . there are some amazing action scenes--with a rougher edge to them than I've seen in the previous Star Wars movies . . . and best of all, everything in this story actually makes sense. And it looks fantastic. That $200 million budget actually shows here. Which is funny, because the budget for The Force Awakens was $106 million more, and it, too, looked great . . . but it didn't look greater than Rogue One, for sure. I think this Gareth Edwards fellow knows what he's doing.
Did I forget to mention, forget to mention Darth Vader? Well, I do wish that it could have been David Prowse inside of the suit again, but that's the only way I could have enjoyed the DV scenes more. He was fierce.
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