I started to type a bunch of stuff defending him - I love the film and I also loved The Clone Wars series so it was really cool seeing an animated character brought to life.

But when you really break it down, they could have cut Saw completely out of the film. Maybe even cut out Jedha entirely.

The arguments for him (outside of the animated series easter egg) are that he brought the entire Rogue One crew together - he was the lynchpin connecting Jyn, Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze, the rebel alliance leadership, and all his rebel team that made it out of Jedha and joined the rebellion at large. Another argument for him being there is that his death (from the Death Star) could have been an emotional connection to why they needed to destroy the Death Star. If you think about ANH, Tarkin destroyed Alderaan but we didn't have any connection with people on Alderaan besides knowing it was Leia's home planet. In TFA we had no connection with the people who died from Starkiller Bass destroying Hosnian Prime either. So in RO they could have improved on those prior SW scenes by having an emotional connection to Saw who died from the Death Star. BUT he didn't die in any type of sacrifice. He wasn't running trying to make it to the ship, but then fell and died. They way they played it, Saw was ready to die anyways so you didn't really feel anything for him.

So they could have trimmed down the first part of the film by eliminating Saw and just having the rebellion want Jyn to connect with the Bodhi (imperial pilot) directly because of her being Galen's daughter. He could have played the hologram message for her without Saw.

Again, I loved the movie as is. But that's a legitimate critique.