It’s been over a week since “Rogue One” came out, so I’m assuming most of the diehard fans have seen it by now, but just in case you haven’t – there are many spoilers ahead!!! Don’t read this unless you want to have the whole movie ruined for you. You’ve been warned...

Another year, another “Star Wars” movie. Disney is making good on its word to release a “Star Wars” movie every year, and the question on my mind was: is that a good idea? In order to continually release these movies, Disney needs to diverge from the main “Star Wars” films by adding additional, stand-alone movies, and that idea seemed a little difficult to accomplish to me. I was really curious to see how the first of these stand-alone movies would hold up in the context of the rest of the franchise, and while it will remain to be seen how long Disney can keep this up, I actually really enjoyed almost everything about “Rogue One.”

I'll start by saying I went to see this movie on opening night without ever watching a single trailer for it, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I’m going to begin with some of the things I didn’t love about the movie. There aren’t many, and I wanted to get them out of the way.

One thing that kind of got me was the fact that they didn’t start with the scrolling backstory at the beginning of the movie. That’s something we all look forward to in a “Star Wars” movie, and we just didn’t get it in this one. I also really missed John Williams’ score (no offense Michael Giacchino, you’re a great composer too). However, I can kind of see why they would break away from these two iconic “Star Wars” components – this was the first stand-alone “Star Wars” movie, and it wanted to make sure from the get-go that you understood this movie was going to be its own thing.

Another minor issue – a lot of people have had an problem with the CGI humans in this movie. To be honest, I didn’t even realize I was looking at a computer generated person till I realized it had to be because the actor passed away. That said, once I realized it, there were some giveaways. It was like 90% believable, 10% obvious the technology isn’t quite there yet. I don’t really have a huge problem with it right now, but I think I will have a problem with it in twenty years when special effects have gotten that much better, and these scenes won’t hold up. (That said, Gollum still holds up after all these years, so that remains to be seen).

One thing to kind of bug me was right off the bat: Jyn. She’s not a bad character at all, it’s just that yet again, the main protagonist of the movie is a strong, badass female. I have nothing against strong, badass females, but come on. We don’t need one in every single movie. Four years ago when the first “Hunger Games” came out, I was excited to see Katniss. But that was 2012, and we’ve had nothing but strong, badass female protagonists since then. It’s feeling more and more like a cliche and a marketing strategy than a feminist statement. I mean…Jyn even looked like Katniss:

More than anything, I was surprised that Jyn would be the hero of this movie when we just had Rey as the hero of the previous "Star Wars" movie – who coincidentally is also a brunette, essentially an orphan, and someone who gets wrapped up in a rebel plot she initially had nothing to do with. It kind of felt like, huh, didn’t we just do this last year? With these two movies being released in such close succession, it’s hard not to compare Jyn and Rey, and the comparison is really not fair. Jyn has a leg up in some areas – for instance, she was raised by a fanatic rebel militant, so it makes sense that she’s such a great fighter, whereas there is absolutely nothing explaining why Rey is so skilled at it. But the fact of the matter is, while Jyn is one of the few characters in “Rogue One” to receive any kind of backstory, her movie will never get a sequel, so it was not necessary to give her the same amount of character development Rey got. Jyn is a perfectly fine character, but when compared to Rey, she simply just isn’t as fleshed out.

On that note, one thing that initially had me scratching my head was the complete lack of backstory for just about all the characters. We do get some background information on Jyn, but even at that, there is a good 20 years we just kind of skip over – yet it’s still more backstory than anyone else gets. Cassian gets a few sentences that elude to why he is the way he is; we learn that he has been working for the Rebellion since he was six, and that he “lost everything,” but we don’t get anymore specific than that. We learn that Bodhi was inspired by Galen to help the Rebellion despite being an Imperial pilot, but we never learn why. As for the rest of the cast, the only information we get is their professions. Two of the more compelling characters, Chirrut and Baze, were hardly given any context at all, which did sort of feel like a let down. Honestly, I felt a little bad for the actors for having to portray these characters, at least judging by the script, with so little to go on. And that kind of bothered me at first. Why should we care about these characters we know so little about?

Well, that gets answered at the end of the movie. Literally everyone dies. And since we were never given an emotional connection to them (save for K-2SO, he’s the best), we aren’t left feeling heartbroken at the end of the movie despite literally every character dying. Maybe this can be viewed as a failure on the part of the movie for not building enough of a connection, but ultimately, I actually liked it. Can you imagine a “Star Wars” movie ending with you bawling your eyes out because every single character dies? It would be a terrible way to end it. Instead, we don’t feel horrible, and we are left literally with “a new hope.”

Another reason I ended up liking the fact that we don’t get a lot of backstory is because in the end, we don’t really need it. We got to watch a story unfold, start to finish, without all the extra fluff. Minimal flashbacks. Minimal exposition. We get enough to see how things fit into place, without all that filler, and it works perfectly. It makes it feel more realistic, as if we are looking through a window at this particular time and place, and we don’t need to understand anything that came before it. If you were thrown into this situation in real life, you wouldn’t hear the backstories of all these people, all that would matter is the now – and the now is all that really matters in “Rogue One.”

We get so few movies like this nowadays, as it seems like every movie that gets released only exists to promote the next movie in a series. We basically just watch 90 minute commercials, and call them films. What makes “Rogue One” unique is that is still follows this format to some degree – it exists to set up another movie – but that movie came out 40 years ago. “Rogue One” will never get a sequel, because the sequel came out in the 1970’s. And for that reason, there is no open-ending to this movie. We know exactly what happens from here, and that gives “Rogue One” closure. We seriously need more movies like this: a beginning, middle, and an actual ending, that gets the point across and doesn’t leave us feeling unfulfilled.

I also love the fact that there is no romance in this movie. Not every movie needs a romance. At times, it feels like there might be something between Jyn and Cassian, and throughout most of the movie I did expect them to kiss or something, but I wasn’t necessarily routing for it. I mean, the dude tried to kill her father, that’s a bit hard to forgive. But regardless, a romance in this movie would have just taken away from the bigger storyline. It would have been an unnecessary diversion. Even when it gets to the ending and it seems like perhaps they will kiss, they don’t. The feelings between them are less romantic and more of a shared emotional and situational connection, something they understand in each other after going through the horrific events of this movie together. And I think that was a much smarter decision on the part of the filmmakers. In this movie, there are more pressing matters than falling in love.

Obviously, another great thing about “Rogue One” is how it answers the question: why the heck would the Empire spend so much time building the Death Star, only to leave it with such a huge Achilles heel? As a prequel, “Rogue One” is very successful not only at setting up “A New Hope,” but at filling some plot holes in the process.

However, what I ultimately think makes “Rogue One” a great movie is the fact that it’s so realistic, and so unexpectedly dark. Okay, okay, the whole idea of “Star Wars” is not realistic, that’s why we call it science fiction. But the underlying themes of this movie do a great job of portraying the realities of war. This movie also surprised me with how dark it is in this portrayal. Most people go into a “Star Wars” movie thinking they’re going to get something which is for the most part light and kind of kitschy. “Rogue One” is anything but, and that’s what makes it so good.

First and foremost, we finally see the Rebellion has a dark side (no pun intended). The Rebellion has been presented as a fairly pristine group in every other “Star Wars” film, but the fact of the matter is, no group gets as much stuff done as they do without pulling some questionable stunts in the name of the greater good. Despite being the good guys, they have to be a little shady from time to time. And we get that right away with Cassian killing a guy who did absolutely nothing wrong after this guy leaks some information to him. Cassian, under commands from the Rebellion leaders, also misleads Jyn so he can locate her father, Galen, with the secret intention of assassinating him. He even goes so far as to pull a sniper on the guy, and while he decides at the last minute not to pull the trigger, Galen is still shot down by another group of rebels. If one of the intentions of this movie was to make you as a viewer feel a little conflicted by taking a mostly neutral character like Jyn and putting her in a position where she has to decide which option (the Empire or the Rebellion) is the lesser of the two evils, it does a great job.

And again, I love the fact that every character dies. Not because I’m mean and wanted to see them die, but because they realistically would have. The movie was about a suicide mission, and as soon as you realize that, you have to expect the ending to be what it was. Now, I did expect at least Jyn and Cassian to make it, and as their final scene began and I realized they were essentially giving up, I was actually very surprised. I suppose you can only outrun an attack by the Death Star so many times in a film. (That scene was quite beautiful visually, by the way). There is something very powerful about the way they hug each other as they come to terms with their demise, and how Cassian turns at the last moment to face it head on. “Rogue One” pulled no punches – there were no token deaths. Everyone died, because this is war. Considering the franchise is called “Star Wars,” this was perhaps the first time I saw a realistic portrayal of war in one of these movies.

I suppose some people might criticize the darkness of this movie. “Star Wars” isn’t known for being so dark, and I’m sure there were people who didn’t appreciate the tone of “Rogue One.” But I think it was a necessary addition to the franchise. Yeah, let most of the “Star Wars” movies keep their lightness, but sometimes you need to throw in a dark movie to make the light movies more plausible.

In conclusion, “Rogue One" is successful as a stand-alone movie, but also easily fits in with the other “Star Wars” movies. Even though it was a prequel and you know what’s going to happen, it managed to keep me in suspense and question whether or not the mission will work out. If you haven’t seen it already, I highly suggest it (although I basically told you the entire movie, so hopefully you have seen it if you read this).

What are your thoughts on “Rogue One?” How do you think it compares to 2015’s “The Force Awakens?"