Every year or so I watch all of the Star Wars movies with my kids. Empire Strikes Back is likely the best “Star Wars movie”, but Rogue One is the best movie within the Star Wars universe.

I’ve loved Rogue One since my first time seeing it.back in December and January the year it came out was during a slow period at my job where I had a good of flexibility. I would literally bounce from my office to go to the theater and see it a few times a week. I had to have seen Rogue One at least around 15 times in the theater. Yes I’m a huge SW fan, but after the mess that was Rise of Skywalker proved that Lucasfilm/Disney had zero plan for the sequel trilogy, some of the shine has worn off, even for me. But that wearing of the shine has also taken away from how good of a movie Rogue One is.

Let me also mention off top that the Vader scene at the end has also taken away from the movie itself. That scene was so great and so satisfying that I’ve seen all kinds of comments calling it the only good part of the movie, which is crazy. Other criticisms I’ve heard are about the planet jumping in the first act (needed to introduce the ensemble cast and get the audience to care about them) and the CGI for Tarkin and Leia (it’s already dated looking at it now, but that’s always been the case in Star Wars pushing the limits of special effects which then might be dated later, just watch some of the X-Wing effects in the OT.)

The fact that it’s so good is also incredible given the production history, with the third act being almost completely redone from the original plan, and Garett Edwards essentially being taken off the film and Tony Gilroy brought in to fix it. It’s crazy that it ends up being a cohesive story.

All that being said, this movie introduced completely new characters, accomplished a good amount of world-building, gave those characters individual story arcs, with each of the main cast getting their own unique death scene after accomplishing something needed for the rebels to get the Death Star plans, so when they died we actually cared. (The one exception is Saw Gerrera, they wasted Forrest Whittaker in this a bit.) It also incorporated comedy in a way that fit in universe and never took me out of the story. On top of that, by FAR the best space battle in Star Wars. You could argue for Battle of Ensor in ROTJ but that was a 3 way climax that had the Luke/Vader/Emperor fight and the Ewok battle in addition to the space battle, which was just about blowing up another Death Star.

I’ve also seen criticism of the score. I think this is just nostalgia and people wanting to hear all of the John Williams themes. But those are literally themes that represent characters not in this movie (until the end when some of those themes do show up) so it makes sense for Michael Giacchino to come up with new themes that fit the SW aesthetic. Makes a lot more sense than the music in the Obi-wan Kenobi show not using themes that had already showed up in the prequels. Giacchino came up with BEAUTIFUL new music - just listen to “Your Father Would Be Proud” or “Guardians of the Whills Suite” on Spotify or YouTube.

All of this, PLUS the Vader hallway scene leading directly into A New Hope.