I think Forrest Whittaker is often a gimmacky actor, it is not a popular opinion.

I miss CGI in stuff a lot, I think. backgrounds that are greenscreened cityscapes or oceans are what get me.

I thought the acting was better than most SW films. I liked that it was a complete story: beginning, middle, end. I liked that it was messy.

Today I saw Edge of Seventeen and Moonlight. That was a lot of emotional emotion for one day.

I don't think I am ever getting over the end of Moonlight.

The middle part of Moonlight gutted me. Not that it's at all in any way shape the same, but that dead eye no talking - that is my world.

MOST

I thought Rogue One kind of started slow and unfocused, but the ending 45 minutes or whatever are killer.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well Rogue One held together. I thought it was a well-made film, rather better than TFA.

I get why Jessica was weirded out by the CGI. That was freaky. Who needs actors, now?

The action was really well-done: well edited & choreographed so you could follow what was going on. The writing was pretty good, without a lot of clunkers, and the acting was fine. The characterizations were thin, but no more so than in any other Star Wars movie, I think.

I could have wished for more women doing things -- there's no reason the entire strike team would have been male! And maybe fewer battles, with more skulking and espionage. The battles got a bit wearying.

And of course I was super impressed by the ending. That took balls, to kill off ALL THE HEROES. Although I went to a matinee, and I'm pretty sure some of those kids are having nightmares tonight.

I saw Rogue One last night. If I discuss it online enough, I may finally break myself of referring to rule breakers who go off on their own to get it done as a substance for making cheeks pink, so I'm grateful for that.

Otherwise, I liked how they handled most of the main characters, although I agree there could have been more women. We did have a few women as fighter pilots, so that was good (although they were pretty much "blink and you miss it"). It was nice to see a wide variety of races, though. My favorite character was probably the pilot, Bohdi Rook. He was so scared all the time, but he kept trying so hard. I just wanted to wrap him up in a fuzzy blanket and feed him cookies. Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus are my favorite tragic couple. And I liked Jyn Erso a lot. I didn't know why I found K-2SO such a familiar feeling delight until I saw the cast list at the end.

While I thought it helped make the movie strong, killing off everyone did make me sad that we wouldn't see these characters again. The fix-it fic for this is gonna be epic. Which is one of the values of fic, so yay--everyone wins!

I don't think I'll see this movie three times in the theater, but I'm glad I saw it the once.

ETA: it just occurred to me what a nicely structured arc Jyn has. She starts off with her family being taken from her, isolated in her hiding space and then with no support or visible connections as a prisoner. Then she slowly acquires allies and people to care about, until finally she has a squad and a space fleet to help her, and a galaxy of people to help liberate. She blooms outward like a morning glory .

I had a sniffly Rogue One thought:

When we see Bail and Mon Mothma talking about sending a message to his Jedi friend, Bail is heading back to Alderaan. To die. Because it's gonna get blown up soon.

a sniffly Rogue One thought

I know, right? But the look of pride on his face when he says he'll make sure the plans go to someone he trusts, and you know he means Leia, that was nice.

I missed the Williams soundtrack more than I expected.

I saw Fantastic Beasts yesterday. Nice spectacle, but Jacob was the only character I really connected with (and I don't get others' love of Queenie at all; Tina came closer to making me like her, but she still felt like only half a character).