Rogue One A Star Wars Story swiftly brought in a unique story that stood on its own from all of the other Star Wars episodes while tying into Episode Four A New Hope. As I packed into the theater on a stormy winter night in high anticipation for how the first ever anthology Star Wars movie would be like. Amidst the high anticipation and the theater packed with Star Wars fans of all kinds Rogue One did not fail to disappoint.

Directed  by Godzilla director Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones as the titular character of  Jyn Erso who is seen as a rebel that doesn’t really follow the law. One the first shot we even see of her is in a jail cell. She doesn’t believe in the Rebellion but is put on this task force by Mon Mothma lead by Diego Luna’s character Cassian Andor and his droid K2-SO voiced by Alan Tudyk who have to help secure the plans of the planet destroying Death Star from the Empire.

 I have to say the beginning of this movie is a little slow and doesn’t quite find it’s footing right away. It does a lot of planet hopping but once it finally settles Rogue One really finds its stride. This movie of course relies on a ton of special effects and CGI and Edwards really knocks it out of the parking especially with the scaling of the things like the AT-AT and the Imperial ships which  seemed larger than they ever were before because of the scaling he choose to use. The cinematography was of course vivid and realistic which is nothing new when it comes to the Star Wars Universe. Rogue One draws its nostalgia from three things, the score, cgi and the cameos. None of which Rogue One fails to perfectly convey.

Although this is a Star Wars movie, it isn’t a perfect one and there are a few flaws in it. One of them being the lack of character development for everyone else in the movie except for Jyn Erso. This kind of hurts the movie due to the fact that we don’t really care about these supporting  character when really we should. Another flaw was the fact that the pacing of the movie especially in the first half is very slow. But I understand why it is due to the fact that they have to introduce a whole new realm of characters in such a short amount of time.

However of course the huge positives outweigh the small negatives I have with this movie. The whole feel of this movie is really different from what we’ve seen in the others. It’s super gritty and dirty and that all makes sense because they are in the middle of  what seems to be a never ending war. Rogue One felt like I was watching a war movie especially in the 3rd act. Which is non stop full of action and thrills that keep you on the edge of your seat. As much as the other characters don’t have a backstory there are still some really cool side characters in Donnie Yen’s character Chirrut Îmwe who plays a blind shaft wielding rebel who believes in the force and of course K2-SO who provided most of the humor in this movie. Lastly, and arguably the best part of the movie is the return of Darth Vader. Although he isn’t in it much every scene Vader is magical and truly steals the movie.

In the end, Rogue One A Star Wars Story really does a good job of capturing the Star Wars Universe while being something unique on it’s own. With great CGI, some memorable movie moments and great action scenes Rogue One definitely lived up to the hyped and is a great welcome addition to the Star Wars Universe.