Especially since they continue praise The Force Awakens, which has an invincible protagonist, her morally pure sidekick, and a curated plot that chaperones the audience through a film devoid of any real tension or conflict as Rey learns to be an flying ace, a starship engineer, an escape artist, an Instant Jedi, and masters lightsaber dueling over a trained opponent by having a vision and thinking "The Force!" That was better than Rogue One? Please.

Mind you, I think it is (more than) implied that she is already a naturally good flier, tinkerer and rogueish character. She is far from a Jedi and (as we have seen knowledgeable people post here as a criticism) her saber form is terrible. It's only because Kylo Ren is injured and emotionally distraught that she stands a chance at the end.

Also after a few rewatches I feel Kylo has never really had to be in a proper duel either. He's trying to be all Vader-y and toy with his opponent but he doesn't have the skill. It's a duel of two people just banging sticks together

And yeah, from stuff she says and assumptions of her upbringing on Jakku, she's already a pilot and knows how to fix stuff. I'd put her on par with Luke. Is a pilot but no formal training, can repair stuff but again no formal training and has known about and used his force ability for about a story day. No one moans about Luke being 'invincible' or a PS8 pilot in the game though

Next time you watch it, pay attention to everyone who ISNT Krennic on Scarif.

"ARE YOU BLIND!? DEPLOY THE GARRISON!" and everyone starts moving. The base commander has no idea what to do and continually defers to his guest. And the garrison itself goes down like chumps until Krennic sends his personal bodyguards into action.

Krennic wasnt in orbit, so I have no problem with the Destroyer captians being even more paralized.

It's a backwater station, remember Tatooine? "If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from"? Scarif is right next door.

You don't send the best and brightest out there.

If Tatooine was so close, then can we assume Leia was being escorted to pick up Kenobi when the call to attack Scarif came in. This would explain why her ship was in the launch bay, to land on Tatooine and pick up the Jedi for his ride to Alliance HQ in style in the Rebel Flagship.

(...)

Next time you watch it, pay attention to everyone who ISNT Krennic on Scarif.

"ARE YOU BLIND!? DEPLOY THE GARRISON!" and everyone starts moving. The base commander has no idea what to do and continually defers to his guest. And the garrison itself goes down like chumps until Krennic sends his personal bodyguards into action.

Krennic wasnt in orbit, so I have no problem with the Destroyer captians being even more paralized.

Oh, I am definitely going to watch it another time, and trying to see how paralysed they were. Also keeping an eye out for some of the easter eggs I might have missed.

All the more reasons for Tarkin to just light the place up: besides containing the leak before any planetside rebels escape, eradicating all rebels on site and eliminating Krennic, getting rid of the incompetent deadbeats garnison?

Still for creditability's sake it would have been good to have some small hint before going there, just how backwater this Scarif is, if incompetence and lack of battle training is the reason for inactive ISDs.

(Rule in films: Show, do no tell! Respectively do not try to reconstruct afterwards or not tell in extra stuff you have to buy (looking at you, TFA, amongst others)).

Probably on the cutting room floor, there was enough happening anyway.

Next time you watch it, pay attention to everyone who ISNT Krennic on Scarif.

"ARE YOU BLIND!? DEPLOY THE GARRISON!" and everyone starts moving. The base commander has no idea what to do and continually defers to his guest. And the garrison itself goes down like chumps until Krennic sends his personal bodyguards into action.

Krennic wasnt in orbit, so I have no problem with the Destroyer captians being even more paralized.

It's a backwater station, remember Tatooine? "If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from"? Scarif is right next door.

You don't send the best and brightest out there.

If Tatooine was so close, then can we assume Leia was being escorted to pick up Kenobi when the call to attack Scarif came in. This would explain why her ship was in the launch bay, to land on Tatooine and pick up the Jedi for his ride to Alliance HQ in style in the Rebel Flagship.

No, she left after the Admiral left to fight. All ships were diverted to Scarif and when the X-Wings launch you see 3P0 and R2 standing around and they were aboard the Tantive.

It's more likely the droids were late for their own ship (as usual), the Tantive arrives, they dock with the disabled MC75 to take the received file (the MC75 being the only one to receive it as they were directly above the installation, the movie makes a point of that by having the admiral looking straight down) and try to get it out to the rest of the galaxy through a Jedi Master.

Especially since they continue praise The Force Awakens, which has an invincible protagonist, her morally pure sidekick, and a curated plot that chaperones the audience through a film devoid of any real tension or conflict as Rey learns to be an flying ace, a starship engineer, an escape artist, an Instant Jedi, and masters lightsaber dueling over a trained opponent by having a vision and thinking "The Force!" That was better than Rogue One? Please.

Mind you, I think it is (more than) implied that she is already a naturally good flier, tinkerer and rogueish character. She is far from a Jedi and (as we have seen knowledgeable people post here as a criticism) her saber form is terrible. It's only because Kylo Ren is injured and emotionally distraught that she stands a chance at the end.

The problem is, when you create a character who is supremely competent, it diminishes the impact of anything that goes on in the film. And ultimately, the problem isn't that Rey is good at one or two things. It's that she is good at everything , and even learns new skills on the fly as she needs them. It's easy to dissect each individual thing she is good at and say "Well, she could possibly do that because 'X'". But it doesn't address the fact that she's good at so many things that the rest of the characters in the film are irrelevant to her unless she needs a space ship to fly in, and it ruins any tension in the film around her character. For example, she gets captured, and then Ren tortures her. Seems like conflict? Nope. Eventually Ren walks off, and instead of having to make choices, or problem solve, or even just be rescued, she learns a new skill and escapes on her own. Which is fortunate, since if Finn and Han had had to take an extra fifteen minutes to rescue her, the attack on Planet Death Star would have failed when they destroyed the shield generator too late, lol. This is the kind of characterization we expect from James Bond or one of those Schwarzenegger movies from the 80s. Fun, sure. But nobody is chalking up Commando as a great movie, lol. None of this is present in the original movies. Leia has to be rescued. Luke has to be rescued (going on like six or seven times, lol), Han has to be rescued. Rey's character feels far more like a fan film creation than anything Rogue One ever could. She gets to do all the cool stuff and be a Jedi.

As far as her "saber form", I mean, that runs the gamut from the Alec Guinness/Blind David Prowse lurching, to the Maul,/Jin/Kenobi techno dance-off. The choreography of the scene is meaningless. just like I don't expect all of my movie Navy SEALs to have perfect form when clearing houses, I don't really care at the end of the day how well an actor or stunt double can swordfight so long as they do a passable job. The context of the scene is the only thing that is important. She literally goes from losing one minute, to winning the next minute after she has a Jedi epiphany. The injury to Ren is irrelevant, as he handily defeats both Finn and Rey right up until the point where she learns how to Force. People have brought up his injury as an excuse after the fact, but can never explain how it doesn't seem to actually impact his ability to win until Rey has a sudden kendorevelation.

Next time you watch it, pay attention to everyone who ISNT Krennic on Scarif.

"ARE YOU BLIND!? DEPLOY THE GARRISON!" and everyone starts moving. The base commander has no idea what to do and continually defers to his guest. And the garrison itself goes down like chumps until Krennic sends his personal bodyguards into action.

Krennic wasnt in orbit, so I have no problem with the Destroyer captians being even more paralized.

It's a backwater station, remember Tatooine? "If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from"? Scarif is right next door.

You don't send the best and brightest out there.

If Tatooine was so close, then can we assume Leia was being escorted to pick up Kenobi when the call to attack Scarif came in. This would explain why her ship was in the launch bay, to land on Tatooine and pick up the Jedi for his ride to Alliance HQ in style in the Rebel Flagship.

No, she left after the Admiral left to fight. All ships were diverted to Scarif and when the X-Wings launch you see 3P0 and R2 standing around and they were aboard the Tantive.

It's more likely the droids were late for their own ship (as usual), the Tantive arrives, they dock with the disabled MC75 to take the received file (the MC75 being the only one to receive it as they were directly above the installation, the movie makes a point of that by having the admiral looking straight down) and try to get it out to the rest of the galaxy through a Jedi Master.

Sounds like it was a sneaky docking during the battle then. Makes more sense than the Tantive IV being docked during the whole battle. Get in, get the stuff, get out. Blockade Running for the win!

Rogue One was... okay, at best.

The beginning was very slow and overly complicated. Even as a Star Wars geek for years with an encyclopedic knowledge of trivial SW-related information I felt bored and lost during the first portion of the movie as it jumped rapidly and pointlessly across planets/locations.

It lacked any real characters, as partly an effect of its ensemble cast. While TFA had some decent characters and dialogue between its protagonists, but utterly lacked interesting plot or world-building, Rogue One had great world-building and a clear plot but lacked characters and emotion.

K2SO was likable, but they slipped into overusing him as comedic relief far too much. I didn't really need to see Vader make a pun, either.

I still can't fathom why Galen Erso didn't just send the message about the weakness. I mean, did he? He already told them the reactor had a weakness. Was that all he knew? If so, why did the Rebels so desperately need the plans? Did he know about the exhaust port? If he did, just put it in the message. If the message got intercepted, the Imperials could have just removed/reviewed the file from Scarif archives anyways, so all would be lost regardless. If they didn't get the message, boom instant success. This was an unclear and distracting point.

Oh, Walrus Man and Dr Evazan? Hmm, that's a gratuitous use of six seconds to merely nod to my nostalgia and ability to recognize things I already know.

Why the hell did Krennic and his Death Squad insist on holding a meeting out in the open rain on a precarious balcony? Just go the f#&$ inside like everyone else, Why did Cassian Andor not snipe Krennic? I can understand why he would not go through with killing Daddy Erso, but why not take the easy kill shot on a high ranking Imperial target while you are there? It's like being sent to assassinate an Nazis Sgt and having Hitler show up, yet not taking the shot. Some assassin Andor is...

Speaking of, Krennic's uncanny ability to just so happen to be going to the same places at the same time as the Rebels felt really contrived and as silly as Batman's ability to always just so happen to be right he needs to be at the right time.

Storm Troopers are still ridiculously ineffectual, as evidenced by one blind man's ability to take out a half a dozen in an open field with just a muttering of the force, or how another dozen could all be shot down by a single rifleman before any of them managed to kill the blind guy. It's like the storm troopers sometimes forget they have their own guns.

Were Chirrit and Baze friends? Brothers? Lovers? The movie sure took a totally ambiguous and utterly unbold attempt to take a stance about it.

How has the Imperium not utterly crumbled from their complete incompetence at verifying codes and inspecting ships? No one realizes that the guy who walks out of a shuttle two minutes later is an entirely different human being (and the only Imperial in the entire service with an unshaven beard...)?

So, you can send signals through the shield to tell the ships above you need them to drop the shield so you can send a signal? Ok. I mean, I get "file size" was the justification...but groan.

The Space Battle was overall quite nice, even if the TIEs and Imperial Star Destroyers seemed utterly unthreatening (until the Devastator arrives and obliterates a few frigates...did the other ISD captains forget they had batteries?). The ramming scene was a total low-point for me. The animation and execution made it look terribly silly and implausible as the first ISD just shatters and shreds the second ISD. that's not how physics work...and all while the Hammerhead corvette seems unaffected. Equal and opposite reactions, anyone? Oh, one Hammerhead can pulverize an ISD by slowly pushing another ISD into it BUT a GR-75 with the momentum of hyperspace-speeds just explodes on the bow of an ISD without doing any damage to it? We're like in the Spider-Man realm of physics now.

Oh look, Cassian Andor climbed up while wounded to save Jyn Erso from director Krennic. Gee, I bet no one saw that old trope coming, especially since we never got any sort of clear confirmation that Andor was killed when Krennic shot him. Oh, and Krennic was not dead but the heroes decide they can't spare the 0.03 seconds it would take to just execute him? Of course. Classic horror movie / thriller logic at play now.

Ashame Vader forgot that his lightsaber can cut through a simple bulkhead.

So, why was Leia on the Tantive and not Bail Organa? We know that Bail ordered Raymus to get his ship ready because they were leaving, and Bail's droids (Threepio and R2D2 were there). Yet suddenly Leia is on the Tantive. Did Bail take an Uber back to Alderaan so he could be there in time for it to be blown up?

Rogue One was an okay movie. It could have been executed a lot better, and perhaps before all of the Disney-mandated reshoots it was a much better film?

Next time you watch it, pay attention to everyone who ISNT Krennic on Scarif.

"ARE YOU BLIND!? DEPLOY THE GARRISON!" and everyone starts moving. The base commander has no idea what to do and continually defers to his guest. And the garrison itself goes down like chumps until Krennic sends his personal bodyguards into action.

Krennic wasnt in orbit, so I have no problem with the Destroyer captians being even more paralized.

It's a backwater station, remember Tatooine? "If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from"? Scarif is right next door.

You don't send the best and brightest out there.

If you were an Imperial beurocrat and wanted to fund a project that you would personally oversee, wouldn't you build a library on a tropical paradise planet with a global shield and a fleet protecting it? Dream job! That data center could have been built anywhere, even on some asteroid, but they built it on Space Hawaii...no wonder Tarkin blew it up, he was jealous that he didn't think of building Club Med with the Empire's money.

Rogue One was an okay movie. It could have been executed a lot better, and perhaps before all of the Disney-mandated reshoots it was a much better film?

By comparison of the trailers and the final product the reshoots changed the fate of the Rogue One operatives from survival to being wiped out. Also took out that "this is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel" line.

Next time you watch it, pay attention to everyone who ISNT Krennic on Scarif.

"ARE YOU BLIND!? DEPLOY THE GARRISON!" and everyone starts moving. The base commander has no idea what to do and continually defers to his guest. And the garrison itself goes down like chumps until Krennic sends his personal bodyguards into action.

Krennic wasnt in orbit, so I have no problem with the Destroyer captians being even more paralized.

It's a backwater station, remember Tatooine? "If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from"? Scarif is right next door.

You don't send the best and brightest out there.

If Tatooine was so close, then can we assume Leia was being escorted to pick up Kenobi when the call to attack Scarif came in. This would explain why her ship was in the launch bay, to land on Tatooine and pick up the Jedi for his ride to Alliance HQ in style in the Rebel Flagship.

Why they need Obi Wan anyway? The old man can't even remember of his droids.

I saw Rogue One three times in the space of 48 hours last weekend (I had stayed spoiler-free except for trailers, and was very excited that Krennic's guards might have been a nod to Dark Troopers, which could mean we'd get more of that storyline tied in to this movie), and it's in my top 3 Star Wars films (which do not include prequel trilogy or TFA, for those of us keeping score at home).

After finally finishing reading through this thread, most of my points have been made, so I'll just mention them briefly -

Cameos were great (especially Ponda Baba & Dr. Evazan, and then the Probe Droid behind them, but my favourite had to be Red & Gold leaders, though Jimmy Smits was a nice touch)

CGI Tarkin & Leia were distracting but not awful (in 2D; I may try IMAX 3D later this week)

Continuity issues have been resolved to my satisfaction (i.e., as much as Star Wars' physics can ever make sense)

I thought the Vader-Krennic scene was extraneous, disliked Vader's jaunty swagger, and was completely thrown off by his use of a pun. (I'm a great fan of puns, but not from the Dark Lord of the Sith!)

Vader at the end, however - that was greatness. I loved that the troopers have been struggling to open the door, and Vader not only stabs the guy who's been struggling with it, but he nonchalantly opens it and relentlessly continues to pursue the poor troopers.

Characters, I thought, were great - by no means perfect, but exactly what they needed to be: the dirty dozen who we needed to care about enough to have catharsis when their missions succeeds and they die.

Outstanding question: whose was the air-traffic controller's voice when Bodhi decided to be "Rogue one?" It sounded vaguely familiar.

Also, what is this fetish with making bow-based laser weapons the ultimate power in firearms?

e.g. Han's suprise and praise of Chewie's bowcaster in TFA
e.g. Chirrit's laser-bow which is capable of blasting a TIE Fighter right out of the air


Do you need a super laser? Just make a thirty-foot long laser crossbow and mount it on the prow of your destroyer. Heck, it'd have the power of three Starkiller Bases, probably...

Also, what is this fetish with making bow-based laser weapons the ultimate power in firearms?

e.g. Han's suprise and praise of Chewie's bowcaster in TFA

e.g. Chirrit's laser-bow which is capable of blasting a TIE Fighter right out of the air

Do you need a super laser? Just make a thirty-foot long laser crossbow and mount it on the prow of your destroyer. Heck, it'd have the power of three Starkiller Bases, probably...

Clint Barton confirmed for Ep 8.

Rogue One was an okay movie. It could have been executed a lot better, and perhaps before all of the Disney-mandated reshoots it was a much better film?

By comparison of the trailers and the final product the reshoots changed the fate of the Rogue One operatives from survival to being wiped out. Also took out that "this is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel" line.

Quite a lot was changed, it seems. The TIE rising up on the walkway. Saw's "what will you become?! what if they catch you?!" warning speech. Almost half of the trailer content was gone/altered in the final film. I think it still remains to be seen if the operatives were supposed to survive. I suspect, and have always suspected, they were all always fated to die, though the manner in which they found their deaths was probably quite different. (it's the best way to account for their absence in ANH and beyond, and it adds the price/weight/cost/significance to the whole Rebellion that has always been lacking because of the Skywalker Family & Friends plot armor).

I liked Vader's quip. As someone else said he is fresh out of the Bacta and full of energy. Anakins in the PT besides being totally "ugh" had a fair few similar types of comment if I recall?

Rogue One was an okay movie. It could have been executed a lot better, and perhaps before all of the Disney-mandated reshoots it was a much better film?

By comparison of the trailers and the final product the reshoots changed the fate of the Rogue One operatives from survival to being wiped out. Also took out that "this is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel" line.

Actually them living vs. dying has nothing to do with the reshoots, as per a few articles. Edwards originally planned on a script where they lived, figuring Disney wouldn't let him kill them off, but they ended up getting the go ahead and the 'they survive' version of the ending was never shot.

Reshoots almost certainly changed a lot of other stuff though. Take for instance Saw in general. In the first trailer, there's two shots of him, one that appears to be his Jedha hideout and another in some ship. In both he's bald, where as in the movie on Jedha he's got hair. Either the opening sequence, where he is also bald, was meant to be much longer(and that one shot isn't actually Jedha), or there were substantial reshoots concerning his character. And then there's the Yavin IV briefing scene. All of the interactions between Jyn and Rebel command in that first trailer point towards a very different story than the one we got. Compound that with all of the action shots we didn't get (mostly Krennic and Jyn's bits on the beach) and I'd be interested to see what the pre-reshoot version of the movie looked like.

I still can't fathom why Galen Erso didn't just send the message about the weakness. I mean, did he? He already told them the reactor had a weakness. Was that all he knew? If so, why did the Rebels so desperately need the plans? Did he know about the exhaust port? If he did, just put it in the message. If the message got intercepted, the Imperials could have just removed/reviewed the file from Scarif archives anyways, so all would be lost regardless. If they didn't get the message, boom instant success. This was an unclear and distracting point.

If he put it in the message and the message was intercepted, the weak point would be gone, not just the plans. Knowing there is a weak point is enough to go and find it. Maybe not that week, but certainly given enough time.

Why the hell did Krennic and his Death Squad insist on holding a meeting out in the open rain on a precarious balcony? Just go the f#&$ inside like everyone else, Why did Cassian Andor not snipe Krennic? I can understand why he would not go through with killing Daddy Erso, but why not take the easy kill shot on a high ranking Imperial target while you are there? It's like being sent to assassinate an Nazis Sgt and having Hitler show up, yet not taking the shot. Some assassin Andor is...

Did Andor know who Krennic is? And the mission is more important than targets of opportunity. What would be gained by killing Krennic? Just makes room for another to step in, while giving everything about you away. Your presence, the knowledge that the Rebellion has of that base and that Erso is there, etc. etc. etc.

Storm Troopers are still ridiculously ineffectual, as evidenced by one blind man's ability to take out a half a dozen in an open field with just a muttering of the force, or how another dozen could all be shot down by a single rifleman before any of them managed to kill the blind guy. It's like the storm troopers sometimes forget they have their own guns.

Walking across unscathed was like 3P0 walking across the Tantive. You tend to shoot at the people shooting at you, that kinda focuses your attention.

And they were all dead thanks to Baze before they knew what hit them

Were Chirrit and Baze friends? Brothers? Lovers? The movie sure took a totally ambiguous and utterly unbold attempt to take a stance about it.

Does it matter to the story?

The Space Battle was overall quite nice, even if the TIEs and Imperial Star Destroyers seemed utterly unthreatening (until the Devastator arrives and obliterates a few frigates...did the other ISD captains forget they had batteries?). The ramming scene was a total low-point for me. The animation and execution made it look terribly silly and implausible as the first ISD just shatters and shreds the second ISD. that's not how physics work...and all while the Hammerhead corvette seems unaffected. Equal and opposite reactions, anyone? Oh, one Hammerhead can pulverize an ISD by slowly pushing another ISD into it BUT a GR-75 with the momentum of hyperspace-speeds just explodes on the bow of an ISD without doing any damage to it? We're like in the Spider-Man realm of physics now.

Read back a few pages, the ramming scene has been done to death now.

Ashame Vader forgot that his lightsaber can cut through a simple bulkhead.

Who says he forgot? It doesn't cut stuff away instantly and the Tantive dropped away almost immediately after his saber punched through a door, undeterred by a body in the way.

I liked Vader's quip. As someone else said he is fresh out of the Bacta and full of energy. Anakins in the PT besides being totally "ugh" had a fair few similar types of comment if I recall?

I find your lack of faith... disturbing.

Apologies accepted... Captain Needa

I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

I want that ship, not excuses.

The guy was a walking one liner in every movie.

After letting Rogue One simmer and reading several reviews, I wish they'd just make a 3 hour Star Wars movie of nothing but action and minimal plot. Just make beautiful explosive dogfights and space engagements that cuts between guerilla warfare and ambush/counterattack scenes between the Rebellion and the Empire.

I still can't fathom why Galen Erso didn't just send the message about the weakness. I mean, did he? He already told them the reactor had a weakness. Was that all he knew? If so, why did the Rebels so desperately need the plans? Did he know about the exhaust port? If he did, just put it in the message. If the message got intercepted, the Imperials could have just removed/reviewed the file from Scarif archives anyways, so all would be lost regardless. If they didn't get the message, boom instant success. This was an unclear and distracting point.

If he put it in the message and the message was intercepted, the weak point would be gone, not just the plans. Knowing there is a weak point is enough to go and find it. Maybe not that week, but certainly given enough time.

I don't buy it. The message was an all or nothing, as it were.

IF the Rebels get the message without Imperial interception, they're told to go to Scarif and get the plans. This forces them into a near impossible mission.

IF the Rebels get the message with Imperial interception, the Imps will just remove the file from Scarif and do their own analysis. They may or may not find the weakness (but if the Rebels could find it in a few hours surely the Imps would too), but the Rebels will never find it because they'll never see the plans.

So sending an ambiguous "go look" message accomplishes nothing, because even if it is intercepted the hope is entirely lost. So you might as well go for an "all or nothing" message and just pray it's not intercepted, because even the interception of a guarded vague message would have killed the mission.

Especially since they continue praise The Force Awakens, which has an invincible protagonist, her morally pure sidekick, and a curated plot that chaperones the audience through a film devoid of any real tension or conflict as Rey learns to be an flying ace, a starship engineer, an escape artist, an Instant Jedi, and masters lightsaber dueling over a trained opponent by having a vision and thinking "The Force!" That was better than Rogue One? Please.

Mind you, I think it is (more than) implied that she is already a naturally good flier, tinkerer and rogueish character. She is far from a Jedi and (as we have seen knowledgeable people post here as a criticism) her saber form is terrible. It's only because Kylo Ren is injured and emotionally distraught that she stands a chance at the end.

The problem is, when you create a character who is supremely competent, it diminishes the impact of anything that goes on in the film. And ultimately, the problem isn't that Rey is good at one or two things. It's that she is good at everything , and even learns new skills on the fly as she needs them. It's easy to dissect each individual thing she is good at and say "Well, she could possibly do that because 'X'". But it doesn't address the fact that she's good at so many things that the rest of the characters in the film are irrelevant to her unless she needs a space ship to fly in, and it ruins any tension in the film around her character. For example, she gets captured, and then Ren tortures her. Seems like conflict? Nope. Eventually Ren walks off, and instead of having to make choices, or problem solve, or even just be rescued, she learns a new skill and escapes on her own. Which is fortunate, since if Finn and Han had had to take an extra fifteen minutes to rescue her, the attack on Planet Death Star would have failed when they destroyed the shield generator too late, lol. This is the kind of characterization we expect from James Bond or one of those Schwarzenegger movies from the 80s. Fun, sure. But nobody is chalking up Commando as a great movie, lol. None of this is present in the original movies. Leia has to be rescued. Luke has to be rescued (going on like six or seven times, lol), Han has to be rescued. Rey's character feels far more like a fan film creation than anything Rogue One ever could. She gets to do all the cool stuff and be a Jedi.

As far as her "saber form", I mean, that runs the gamut from the Alec Guinness/Blind David Prowse lurching, to the Maul,/Jin/Kenobi techno dance-off. The choreography of the scene is meaningless. just like I don't expect all of my movie Navy SEALs to have perfect form when clearing houses, I don't really care at the end of the day how well an actor or stunt double can swordfight so long as they do a passable job. The context of the scene is the only thing that is important. She literally goes from losing one minute, to winning the next minute after she has a Jedi epiphany. The injury to Ren is irrelevant, as he handily defeats both Finn and Rey right up until the point where she learns how to Force. People have brought up his injury as an excuse after the fact, but can never explain how it doesn't seem to actually impact his ability to win until Rey has a sudden kendorevelation.

That's the Force's entire schtick. Like some religious predestination theory, the force allows all things to happen, good or bad, and at the right moment, reveals its secrets to those who can capitalize on it. The whole mysticism is defined by tide turning epiphanies.

Ashame Vader forgot that his lightsaber can cut through a simple bulkhead.

Who says he forgot? It doesn't cut stuff away instantly and the Tantive dropped away almost immediately after his saber punched through a door, undeterred by a body in the way.

False, I've seen enough Revenge of the Sith to know that lightsabers in the hands of Anakin can pretty instantly cut portholes into bulkheads.

Justification:

Vader was being profoundly lazy . He wanted the plans to fall into Rebel hands. Hence his half-ass pursuit of the plans on Tatooine. Hence his allowing the Falcon crew to putz around the Death Star (instead of using the Force to sense the stowaways). Hence not shooting down Luke in the trench. Vader wanted the plans to escape, he wanted the Rebels to blow up the Death Star. It eliminated Tarkin, his only real threat to control. And what use do you have for a single man with a lightsaber as an enforcer when you have a station that can destroy an entire planet?

Vader was trying to remain relevant. It was all part of his ploy to thwart and move against Palpatine.

Rogue One was an okay movie. It could have been executed a lot better, and perhaps before all of the Disney-mandated reshoots it was a much better film?

By comparison of the trailers and the final product the reshoots changed the fate of the Rogue One operatives from survival to being wiped out. Also took out that "this is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel" line.

Actually them living vs. dying has nothing to do with the reshoots, as per a few articles. Edwards originally planned on a script where they lived, figuring Disney wouldn't let him kill them off, but they ended up getting the go ahead and the 'they survive' version of the ending was never shot.

Reshoots almost certainly changed a lot of other stuff though. Take for instance Saw in general. In the first trailer, there's two shots of him, one that appears to be his Jedha hideout and another in some ship. In both he's bald, where as in the movie on Jedha he's got hair. Either the opening sequence, where he is also bald, was meant to be much longer(and that one shot isn't actually Jedha), or there were substantial reshoots concerning his character. And then there's the Yavin IV briefing scene. All of the interactions between Jyn and Rebel command in that first trailer point towards a very different story than the one we got. Compound that with all of the action shots we didn't get (mostly Krennic and Jyn's bits on the beach) and I'd be interested to see what the pre-reshoot version of the movie looked like.

The problem is, when you create a character who is supremely competent, it diminishes the impact of anything that goes on in the film. And ultimately, the problem isn't that Rey is good at one or two things. It's that she is good at everything , and even learns new skills on the fly as she needs them. It's easy to dissect each individual thing she is good at and say "Well, she could possibly do that because 'X'". But it doesn't address the fact that she's good at so many things that the rest of the characters in the film are irrelevant to her unless she needs a space ship to fly in, and it ruins any tension in the film around her character. For example, she gets captured, and then Ren tortures her. Seems like conflict? Nope. Eventually Ren walks off, and instead of having to make choices, or problem solve, or even just be rescued, she learns a new skill and escapes on her own. Which is fortunate, since if Finn and Han had had to take an extra fifteen minutes to rescue her, the attack on Planet Death Star would have failed when they destroyed the shield generator too late, lol. This is the kind of characterization we expect from James Bond or one of those Schwarzenegger movies from the 80s. Fun, sure. But nobody is chalking up Commando as a great movie, lol. None of this is present in the original movies. Leia has to be rescued. Luke has to be rescued (going on like six or seven times, lol), Han has to be rescued. Rey's character feels far more like a fan film creation than anything Rogue One ever could. She gets to do all the cool stuff and be a Jedi.

Have you seen Luke running and jumping like a full action hero, fresh from the farm? Swinging across chasms like Errol Flynn? Leia is rescued, once. Luke is rescued, once, after fighting off the dark lord of the Sith thanks to a training montage with a muppet. Rey can fly, but then, so can Luke, all because of Anakins blood. They are both strong in the Force, thanks to Anakin. Both are tinkerers, thanks to Anakin. Luke and Rey are very much alike, it's just harder to admit because Luke was when you were a kid, and Rey is now.

The only character never in need of rescue is Lando.