Rogue One - Spoiler Free Review

Sorry it's so late in the day. I meant to type this up over the weekend, but got a little side-tracked.Disclaimer: I said it would be a spoiler-free review. And it will be, for the movie Rogue One. However, I am going to assume that most people reading this are already familiar with the major tenets of the rest of the movies... so if you don't know anything about any of the other movies, I recommend you go watch those first. Starting with Episode 4: A New Hope, and working your way through them from there.We went to see Rogue One: A Star Wars story on opening night.If you read my Force Awakens review, you know how much I love Star Wars. You already know how much this story means to me. How much it shaped and inspired my own desire to be a story-teller. So it goes without saying that this is a movie I've been waiting for with bated breath since last December. Hoping. Hoping. Hoping it would be every bit as much fun as I wanted it to be.Well.I'm not going to say it's the best Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back.But I definitely caught myself THINKING that several times throughout the movie.This movie was everything a Star Wars movie should be. It's the movie I've been waiting for and wanting to see ever since the ending credits began to roll the first time I saw Return of the Jedi and felt the pang of finality knowing (at the time) that this was all there was, the story was over.It was everything The Force Awakens should have been, and wasn't.From the moment the movie opened, I could tell this was going to be different. For starters, there is no "title crawl." Which makes sense, as there is really no need for it. This is the story that is told in the title crawl of A New Hope.So, what did I love about this movie?The characters - I loved these characters. I loved how they weren't your typical hero-types. These are real, every day people living in a galaxy filled with problems. I loved that the characters were three-dimensional and were often forced to ask the tough questions and make truly impossible decisions. These characters didn't necessarily make me fall in love with them immediately... it was more gradual. Which I enjoyed, because I felt like I got to know them a lot better throughout the movie than just being endeared to them because they did something cool or said something witty in the opening moments of the film. By the time we got into the meat of the story, I was whole-heartedly rooting for them, hoping they would succeed in whatever it was they were trying to do. I appreciated that every character had their own arc, and some were more delved into than others, but they all ended up where they were for a reason, and those reasons made sense. There was only one character that wasn't as explained as I would have liked, but in the end I decided that he didn't really need to be.The lack of Jedi - it was extremely interesting to go see a Star Wars movie in which there aren't any Jedi. But, remembering that this is after Anakin Skywalker goes all nutso and wipes out the Jedi and before Luke Skywalker has stepped onto the scene, it makes sense. The Force is still obviously a thing that people know about, and talk about (which begs the question of why nobody seems to know it's a thing in Episode 7... but I suppose that's neither here nor there), but none of these characters are "force sensitive" or Jedi in any way. There is a fantastic character who is blind (you may have noticed him in the trailers), but even he is not a Jedi, though he's the closest thing to it in this movie. I liked the implication that the Force is still active, even if nobody around is sensitive to it, it can still use people. Kind of a neat and most likely unintentional Christian parallel there.The story - I loved the complexity of the plot. The interweaving of how everyone in this particular story ends up together or fighting each other, depending on which character you're talking about. There was a depth to it that required some focus, some ability to follow a more intricate web of storylines. I also loved that so much of this movie utilized a more old-school "dialogue-driven plot" approach. There was plenty of action and special effects, but there was also a slowness to the building of the plot, a sense that the writers took their time and wanted to create more of a tapestry of story before just throwing explosions at the audience and hoping it would be interesting enough for everyone to enjoy it. Speaking of old-school story telling, I loved that all the computers and buttons were the big, bulky ones of the 70s, and not made to look "prettier" because "we can." Down to the old Death Star dot-matrix readout that you see in Ep. IV, I loved that they didn't "spiff it up" just because our graphics abilities have progressed since the originals were made.Darth Vader - really, is there anything else that needs to be said here? Darth Vader is AWESOME. I mean, he's truly terrifying. He's everything that has been hinted at in the original series and even the prequels, but in this movie you get a full glimpse of his power, and it is incredible. As an added bonus, his appearance in the movie makes Kilo Ren look even more like a ridiculous temper-tantrum-throwing-angsty-teen... and that is a point I appreciated greatly.The nods - instead of plagiarizing the storyline of a different Star Wars movie, this one included just the right balance of nods to the originals without losing sight of the fact that this was a new story, with a plot of its own. Names and places are mentioned that will warm your heart. Little bits and fragments of stolen glimpses of the originals make their way into the film, but all of them make sense. They aren't just thrown in there randomly because: Star Wars, instead they are woven in with care and grace, and do not detract from the story of Rogue One.K-2SO - he's one of the characters, which I already said I loved, but I feel like he really needs his very own point. If BB-8 is like R2-D2's baby brother, then K-2SO is what R2 himself would be like... if he could talk. I always said they'd never make a droid I loved more than R2... but BB-8 and now K-2SO definitely test that theory. And Alan Tudyk is awesome on any role he plays, even if it's just as a voice actor.The believability - I liked that there weren't random, "Well, they know how to do it because they have to know how to do it for this part of the story to work." There's a point where someone is telling someone else they have to "throw the master switch." And the person on the other end of the com stops and says, "Okay, exactly what am I looking for here?" instead of just "knowing" because: reasons. There is also a part where a character has to "recalibrate a sensor dish" and the instructions for what to do are clearly blinking on the screen. I appreciated the attention to detail.The intensity - this is not a movie I would recommend for young children. It is rated PG-13 for a reason, but it is not because there is any objectionable or "adult" content in the movie. It is because there are some extremely intense and long ground-battle sequences. This has been described as a "war" movie, and in many respects, it is. Parts of it made me think of what life must have been like during the beginning stages of the American Revolution. Parts of it put me in the mind of D-Day or stories like "Band of Brothers." There is no gory stuff, but you do see people get shot with blasters and thrown into the air by explosions. So it is intense, but I appreciated that about it, because it helped add meaning and depth to what the main characters were trying to accomplish, and it showed the odds that were stacked against them.So far as what bits I would say missed the "awesome" mark... that is all incredibly nit-picky, but I'll tell you anyway just for fun:Vader's costume - something about it just seemed "off" to me. I'm not sure if it's because it was attached under his helmet and not with a dark chain... or if it was just that the neck of his helmet seemed like it was fitting a bit big... I'd have to watch the movie again, and then watch Ep. IV again right after to figure it out... but something about it seemed wrong.Vader's cadence - like I said, nitpicking. But despite getting the awesome James Earl Jones to do the lines for this movie, the cadence just wasn't quite "right" for Vader's lines, and of course I can forgive it, because JEJ is a lot older than he was 4o years ago! But it took some getting used to.Saw Gerrera's story arc - this was the one character I would have liked to see a bit more fleshed out. His motivations for helping out the Erso family. Why he went a little insane... but again, after seeing the movie I have decided it doesn't really matter. I don't really need more explanation than, "He helped because he and Galen were friends." and his madness can be attributed to a quite obviously rough life of justifiable paranoia.Missing Trailer Scenes - if you've seen the trailers... be prepared to not see any of that footage in the actual movie. I really dislike it when that happens, especially as sometimes trailers have some excellent lines and it's always disappointing when they don't make it into the movie. So much was reshot over the summer, that apparently very little of what you see in the trailers is actually in the movie. Which makes me glad I only ever saw the first trailer. And... that's all I can think of. I told you the stuff I didn't like was supremely nit-picky.Overall, if this isn't the best Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back, then it's certainly the best one since Return of the Jedi. And really, that's about the highest praise I can give any non-original Star Wars movie. I can't wait to see the sequel!!!!! Oh....... wait..... *wink* Five Dragon Eggs. Best movie of 2016. GO SEE IT!