Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Fun Star Wars movie. Plenty of homages and nods to the original trilogy throughout the film, Andy plenty of cameos as well. Has amazing action sequences and enough thrills to keep any true Star Wars fan hooked right from the beginning. No opening crawl at the start for a change and a great score by Michael Giachinno, but still includes the original end credits with John Williams' original music. K-2SO is a show stealer and is very funny as a character. Overall the best Star Wars film since Empire Strikes Back in my opinion. The force is with this one.

On the surface, this is a well-made action movie set within the Star Wars universe filled with nods and homages to "A New Hope" that will make you tingle with warm nostalgia. The reappearance of sets, costumes and characters from our favorite childhood movies might make you say "Now, THIS is a Star Wars movie!"
However, nostalgia and making copious amounts of money on that nostalgia seemed to be Disney's primary strategy with this movie. It's mimicry, plain and simple. The CGI recreations of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher felt very dirty and a flagrant disrespect to the departed actors, not to mention jarring, for a first time viewer. The digital appearance of Grand Moff Tarkin disengaged me from the frail story and made me settle my stomach with a handful of antacid tablets.
The story, writing, characterization is on-par with what you'd expect from modern cinema and the movie serves it's primary purpose of being entertaining. But, as a long-time Star Wars fan, I just couldn't help but feeling pandered to while watching this movie.