Star Wars Rogue One is set between the Revenge of the Sith (Episode 3) and A New Hope (Episode 4). Rebellious individuals try to steal the plans for the Empire’s deadliest weapon, the Death Star. 

For people who didn’t like the Star Wars prequels, this is a more enjoyable prequel and lines up better with the originals. The plot of Star Wars Rogue One fits neatly, but the movie is not one of the originals directed by George Lucas. This was directed by Gareth Edwards, who also directed Godzilla and Monsters. 

Even with all the new characters, I found most of them surprisingly enjoyable. The one character I didn’t particularly like was the main protagonist, Jyn Erso (played by Felicity Jones). She felt like another typical rebellious girl in every other movie, almost copying off of Hunger Games or Divergent. But while Jyn Erso wasn’t my favorite character, senior Jessica Bendler says that Jyn was hers. “She reminded me of Rey and Princess Leia, and I like those characters.”

Before seeing the movie, I was worried about too much Darth Vader but,  Darth Vader’s appearances in the movie were brief but powerful. The scenes with him were easily my favorites, especially when he is standing in the pitch-black hallway and all the viewer sees is the red of his lightsaber igniting at the end of the movie.

Rogue One also added a new droid to the Star Wars universe, K2SO, an imperial security droid. To contrast the darker elements of the film, K2SO added funnier moments. I did not expect to enjoy him as much as I did because of the also new addition of BB-8 to The Force Awakens, but K2SO was definitely superior.

The problem with Rogue One creating so many different characters, was that we knew they would just die in the end to fit with the original series. They spend so much time fighting on the planet Scarif, when it’s almost pointless for us to be shown the fighting scenes, but, they are pretty cool, regardless. It makes Rogue One somewhat sad to re-watch, knowing the fate of most of the characters.

Compared to Star Wars Episode 7: Force Awakens, Rogue One felt more natural to watch rather than TFA. Star Wars Episode 6 wrapped up the series very satisfactorily. It almost was strange that another would be coming out following that timeline. Many people did not like the new story line in The Force Awakens because of that. So for Rogue One to be a movie in between Star Wars Episodes 3 and 4, I really was interested in seeing what they would do.

Jessica Bendler also said that “It’s not as good as the originals and not as bad as the prequels.”

While the movie pushed on, we had to keep track of all the new characters, places, events. It was somewhat challenging to remember all the new planets introduced within the first 10 minutes,

Using just a simple hole in the plot of Star Wars Episode 4, which was not knowing how the Rebels really got the Death Star plans, was such a brilliant idea to create into a movie. I’m excited to see what other sort of movies like Rogue One they can make considering they made a whole great movie with just that.

The next Star Wars movie will be Episode 8, in late 2017. Followed by a young Han Solo movie, Alden Ehrenreich will be playing Han in the 2018 film. Star Wars Episode 9 is being released in 2019. And a Bobba Fett movie is rumored for 2020.