What a mess... Incredibly disappointed.
Although Rogue One successfully captured the feel of the Star Wars universe (and much moreso than TFA in my opinion), the first half was ruined by some of the worst pacing I've seen in a movie. Although the opening scene with Krennic and the Erso family was fine, immediately following that scene and leading up to the final battle was complete discombobulation. Shortly after that opening scene was a period of 5 minutes where the film jumped around to different events happening on 3-4 different planets. This was the worst example of this. While I was trying to process what was happening on one planet (let alone trying to remember the name they displayed on the screen), it already jumped to another and a new scene. Many of these quick scenes throughout the first half ended up being quite pointless as well. What was the point of Bodhi and that truth telling monster or whatever it was? Did that do anything? Throughout the first half, they rarely built a scene or let some tension and suspense grow naturally through the drama. Action alone and by itself does not create tension and suspense, but rather some decent writing would.
What I dislike the most about this is that it detracted from some parts I really enjoyed and would have liked to see more fleshed out rather than jumping to something new every 30 seconds. The moon Jedha was fantastic, yet everything happening on it was going by so fast that you could barely enjoy anything happening in the moment. They brilliantly brought back Tarkin, yet he ended up being wasted as a glorified cameo. How about taking out that pointless jump between 4 different planets in the beginning that could have been summed up in one sentence in the rebel briefing room, and replace it with some more drama between Krennic and the imperials? I would have loved to see more from his character.
While the second half was much better regarding pacing, it still suffered from its own issues. That technical blabber they were spouting was unneeded and overly complicated to the point that I couldn't follow why anyone was doing anything during the battle. Why couldn't it have just been a simple grab the plans and get out with some extra scenes of them sneaking around the base?
Although the last two minutes of the film were pure guilty fan pleasure, I'll admit I did love it and found that to be my favorite part of the film. Yet that's not saying much as I have no idea what I just came back from seeing. It was pretty, and they clearly put a lot of love and work into recreating the Star Wars universe while capturing the feel well. As a film however, it was absurdly messy and disorganized. On top of it all, the music was empty. Absolutely nothing stood out from it. The music in Star Wars might as well be a character in and of itself, and it was sadly missing.
