SPOILERS - Rogue One - SPOILERS

[Golden Girl]

Some thoughts:

It's a fun movie, but also one with problems - like The Force Awakens, it's not weighed down by Lucas' flaws, but also like TFA, it's not elevated by his genius either.

There are quite a lot of pacing and editing problems, which are to be expected from having such extensive re-shoots, and a lot of bits from the trailers aren't in the final cut.

The late change in composers also makes for a rather rushed and flat score, even weaker than TFA's score.

Lots of fun references to the other movies, and some slightly hit and miss CGI work to bring back a couple of very familiar faces.

Character development is close to zero for most of the cast - it's a larger ensemble than other SW movies, so there's not as much time to flesh out characters, so some of them come off as 2-dimensional even for an SW movie.

The recreation of the style of ANH is very well done, and links up almost seamlessly with the original movie by the end.

Darth Vader is pretty much just a cameo, but his short amount of screen time will very likely still please all fans of the Empire.

The re-shoots affect the tone of the movie, as it seems caught between trying to be a darker and grittier take on the SW universe and fitting in with the tone of the other movies.

[saipaman]

Character development is close to zero for most of the cast - it's a larger ensemble than other SW movies, so there's not as much time to flesh out characters, so some of them come off as 2-dimensional even for an SW movie.

Given the ending, would there have been any actual point to more characterization?   

[Golden Girl]

Given the ending, would there have been any actual point to more characterization?

Well, making the audience more invested in the characters would help with the emotional impact of the ending.

[saipaman]

Maybe we'll get a prequal to the prequal and then we'll get some characterization.

[Angel Phoenix77]

While, I agree there has been next to no character development. And this is coming from someone who HATES episode 7 (me); this movie had many great things in it as well as some stupid parts. Such as the sharkhead ship slamming into the star destroyer and how the At-At's looked. Overall, it had relatable characters where in episode 7, there was not one that I could not relate to. No one was overpowered (is Rey), everyone was just a regular trooper; which I liked.

[Blondeshell]

this movie had many great things in it as well as some stupid parts. Such as the sharkhead ship slamming into the star destroyer and how the At-At's looked.

Minor nit to pick: They were actually AT-ACTs, which were different from AT-ATs.

http://www.starwars.com/databank/at-act-walker

[eabrace]

I suppressed a "squee" when they came over the intercom in the hangar.

"General Sindula, please report..."

[saipaman]

I've always wondered why Imperial war doctrine places no value on combat air (space) patrols.

[doc7924]

Spoiler alert -

They get away with the plans and give them to the Rebels.

[hurple]

Spoiler alert -

They get away with the plans and give them to the Rebels.

Oh, jeez, man... Way to ruin the whole movie for me.  Now that the ice and snow have cleared here, I was planning to go see this.

[CG]

Shouldn't the cast be all Bothans?

[saipaman]

Shouldn't the cast be all Bothans?

Would any prior definition of 'Bothan' be in canon now? 

[Vee]

Shouldn't the cast be all Bothans?

I was thinking that too, but someone more of a Star Wars than me reminded me it was the plans to the second death star that the Bothans died getting.

[Golden Girl]

Shouldn't the cast be all Bothans?

Only if the movie was set just before ROTJ :P

[CG]

What can I say?  Death Stars all look the same...  ;)

[FatherXmas]

You didn't really need much character development.  The most developed character is the droid.  Well the most personality. 

I do like all the throwbacks to a New Hope including the angry duo that ran into Luke and Obi-wan in the bar.

I really wanted to see the Death Star exit hyperspace.  The resurrected and de-aged characters looked a little odd.

Since I didn't follow any production gossip I have no idea what or why they did re-shoots but I rather believe they found it necessary as they were editing it together.  But lately the news of re-shoots, which isn't a new thing, is now always attributed to the film being diddled with by the studio or it got panned in a test screening.

Overall I thought it was a good film.  Nice job expanding a single line from the story roll of A New Hope into a movie.

[Blondeshell]

Here's some insight into how the reshoots might have altered the tone/direction of the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3DkQehtt04

[eabrace]

Here's some insight into how the reshoots might have altered the tone/direction of the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3DkQehtt04

On the bright side, the trailers didn't give too much of the movie away because a lot of footage from the trailers didn't make it into the final version of the movie.  :)

[saipaman]

On the bright side, the trailers didn't give too much of the movie away because a lot of footage from the trailers didn't make it into the final version of the movie.  :)

That's a lot of money to spend on a disinformation campaign.

[eabrace]

That's a lot of money to spend on a disinformation campaign.

I don't even think that was intentional.  The director isn't usually involved in cutting the trailers.  The people putting the trailers together don't always have the final cut of the movie to work from, either.  Normally that doesn't make a huge difference, but I recall reading that the reshoots for Rogue One were unusually extensive.  They didn't just go back to get better angles on scenes they'd already shot, there were re-writes of the script involved to get from

Spoiler for Hidden:

running on the beach with the data cartridge

to

Spoiler for Hidden:

transmitting the data directly to the fleet from the comm tower.