Azrael Tay

As a Star Wars fan, a lot of things in this film pander to my nostalgia and, on normal occasions, would fill me with excitement and joy. Darth Vader, the X-Wings, the Y-wings, the Yavin IV base, the Death Star, the TIEs, the Stormtroopers, the production design and music to name a measly few. Pretty much all these things are handled really well, and add on Greg Frasier's gorgeous cinematography and you've got something that's aesthetically wholly unique to the Star Wars canon, which is the best praise I have for it. Gareth Edwards and his unique vision bring something new to the table here and he is able to craft new, iconic imagery for the franchise, like the AT-ACTs on the beach, the Star Destroyer over Jedha City, the Death Star over Jedha City (that eclipse!) and much more. It's just...I don't like it. The editing is really choppy and jarring at points, some of the music feels out of place, but by far the biggest sin this film makes is in its construction (or lack thereof) of its characters. Not a single one of the new characters introduced here stood out to me, I didn't care for a single one of them because the writing behind their characters is just so, so shallow, which is disappointing coming from a franchise full of great characters! Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Finn, Rey, Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren, Cal Kestis, Cere. I could go on and on and on. Though the prequels had some awful dialogue, at least the development and journey of Anakin was intact! If you showed Rogue One to a general moviegoer, and asked him or her the names of the characters that Felicity Jones, Diego Luna and Jiang Wen play in this film, I bet you they would have more than a little trouble. Their characters' names are Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor and Baze Malbus, and I only know because I'm a huge fan and have taken the time to memorise their names because that's how much I loveloveLOVE Star Wars. This film should have been amazing. It should - and it could have - blown my socks off. But thanks to the characters, I'm not invested one bit. Everything feels stale as a result. Easily the most compelling one was Director Orson Krennic and that's not even because his character was great (it's not) - but Ben Mendelsohn is clearly relishing his role more than anyone else since they mostly all look bored anyway - so it's really hard not to! Mads Mikkelsen is wasted, Forest Whitaker is really wasted and why do I even care about what the other characters are doing besides the fact that it leads to the events of Star Wars?? All the incredible action scenes in the world wouldn't save this film from that fact. I'm genuinely angry just thinking about it! It really makes this film seem more like an assembly line product and less like an actual film with a story and characters. (Side note, some of the dialogue here is also terrible, being really expository and/or out of place.) I don't want to talk about this movie for a while. And I'm sad about it.

Luke Skywalker has never been better, the story is original and refreshingly subversive, and the action scenes are some of the best-looking in the entire saga.