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).

a sniffly Rogue One thought

I actually yelled at him not to go. I didn't get kicked out of the theater, so thankfully it must have been a quieter yell than I thought.

I loved it, except for a few bits that felt like they were trying TOO hard to integrate with Episode IV. And I say this as a fangirl whose favourite of the series is IV.

I must complete another two chapters of class prep before I'm allowed to go see it again...

-Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus are my favorite tragic couple.

Andi and I went to see Rogue One today, and I remarked to her that there is probably already fanfic about them. She replied something to the effect of, "It wouldn't be my fandom if there weren't."

Re Rogue One: I sort of wish that Bail's line had been more towards the end and they hadn't done the CGI bit but that's a minor quibble. I liked the general ending although I was hoping this film would be explicitly linked to TFA via Jyn/Cassian (even if offscreen). I would have preferred that to trying to match it so much to SW.

I can't decide where this falls in my SW ranking. I think below TFA and above Jedi but I'm not sure. I loved that the plot was way more focused than a typical SW movie, and I hate Adam Driver, but something seemed lacking. Characterization maybe? I could have stayed off the Death Star altogether and played up the caper aspects more (getting the squad together, the puzzle of getting the plans, etc).

I could definitely have used more caper and more characterization.

Just saw Rogue One. Some random disordered thoughts.

Prior to going in, I asked Mal what he was expecting (his Star Wars is mostly Clone Wars; he hated the prequels and doesn't really remember the originals). He said "A Disney Princess movie."

It had the WWII-movie feeling that ANH had, and that worked much better than JJ "I am such a hack" Abrams' beat-by-beat reworking. The pre-title opening was a waste of celluloid. I would have preferred it cut down by about 75%.

Neither of us knew who voiced K, but when he died Mal said "It's like Wash all over again" so we must have recognized it on some level. That combined with the "we have to get the tape to transmission dish" made it feel like a lot of Serenity in there.

Forrest Whitaker. Good lord. Didn't he used to be an actor? Everyone else was good, even the CGI. I felt both Tarkin and Leia were too "Polar Express" for comfort, but so many characters in SW movies have been CGI that it was sort of fun for human characters to be so.

So many Easter Eggs. SO MANY.

ETA: Oh, and it failed to answer the ONE QUESTION I was sure it was entirely built around: WTF is a Bothan?