Can I even say I’m disappointed by Rogue One when I wasn’t really that excited to see it? As a movie it is just OK, you can watch it and not be upset you spent your time with it. Conversely, you can miss it altogether and not have missed anything (aside from a basic plot detail that nicely ties a question we have all had since A New Hope). As a Star Wars movie though? Man, I don’t even know.

Here we go, I won’t post any spoilers or things you don’t already know from the trailers. It’s going to be tough for me to talk about this movie since I’m so unenthused by it.

The director Gareth Edwards, who made the bad and boring Godzilla 2014, approached Star Wars with a similar style here, and the movie suffers a lot of the same problems Godzilla did. Some pretty poor pacing, undeveloped characters who aren’t memorable, and plot points and details talked about in ways that aren’t exiting or urgent. I was surprised by how many times a character would say, “We’ve got to get THIS to do THAT”, and after a while I stopped paying attention to the dialogue. Maybe that’s my fault, but I think the movie bored me at times to where I began zoning out, only to snap back and realize I either hadn’t missed anything or didn’t even care if I did.

Jyn Erso barely feels like a protagonist to me in this film. I think the movie tries to hit all the beats of one, but ultimately I didn’t find her interesting. I don’t blame Felicity Jones, nor any of the actors in this movie. They are all wonderful to watch in other films and I like all of them. But here it felt to me as if they had no purpose. They all just sort of show up one at a time with no real great scene or action to introduce them. It felt as though the movie knew they were going to be there. It felt like this movie was made BEFORE IT GOT MADE. DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE

The highlight of the entire thing without question is K-2SO (voiced by the reliable Alan Tudyk), who is hilarious the whole way through. I feel as though he was the only thing in the entire movie I had an emotional connection with. He gave me a reason to keep watching. Donnie Yen (cast solely to appeal to the foreign box office behemoth that is China) is awkward at times, funny at others, and overall not much of his own character either. Diego Luna is perhaps the closest human to a character on the crew aside from Jyn. He tried to make the best with what he had. The other crew members, Donnie Yen’s buddy who literally is just “there”, and the pilot are alright. Again, not the fault of the actors, they weren’t given anything to do.

And Forest Whitaker! Who is made to look and sound fairly ridiculous as Saw Gerrera. Soon as I saw him in the trailers I knew something was wrong. His scenes were just so unnecessary and weirdly constructed.

I was shocked at how underwhelming and misused the music was. John Williams did not do it this time (although obviously some of his main themes are used), but Michael Giacchino composed it this time instead. Now, he is an AMAZING composer, but here I sat uncomfortable in the theater at how forgettable the music was. Gareth Edwards doesn’t seem to understand musical cues or how to use them, because the music will abruptly cut during scenes or scenes will abruptly cut the music to wildly different and inappropriate themes (and not to good effect).

The way the force is talked about just seemed wrong to me. Having a character chant it like it’s his religious mantra? The way certain people just say it…I don’t even know. The whole thing felt off and just plain wrong. Subtly took a dive out the window in this script.

There is one scene in Rogue One that should have been uplifting, it should have had me pumped and hyped and excited for what was to come. Instead when this scene happens I cringed at its delivery and wondered how they could mess up something so basic and integral to the very nature of this movie’s plot.

Now, keep in mind, I LOVED The Force Awakens. I’ve been a Star Wars fan all my life as have most of you. I was too young to understand the harm of The Phantom Menace when it came out, but by the time Attack of the Clones hit I was in high school and the pain became all too real. The Force Awakens is a flawed movie, it is flawed to absolute pieces and yet it was my favorite movie of last year. I returned to the theater three times to watch it again and again. I had to see it at least once more. The magic of Star Wars had returned, even if it was covered in a remake of ep 4. I didn’t care, I didn’t want to be hurt like I was with the prequels and it gave me everything I wanted.

So with Rogue One I lowered my expectations. I dropped them way below what I normally walk into movies with. And I was…just meh about the experience. The best thing I can say about Rogue One is that it’s not as bad as the prequels. It doesn’t suck, you won’t be scarred for life. I think it makes an honest effort and has some success. But to me, that success is few and far between for the rest of an uninteresting and nearly unnecessary film (but for that one plot point I mentioned earlier).

The final act of this movie is being praised by literally everyone as some amazing spectacle. I disagree. I found the visuals and cinematography to be fantastic, but I didn’t care about the characters. I didn’t find the action itself to be anything special either. Compare that to Kylo Ren’s lightsaber fight, which had me on the edge of my fucking seat, and this doesn’t even come close. I sat there trying to figure out why I wasn’t enjoying it. What is the point of action and spectacle if there is no one to truly root for? Why would I want to be a part of such a thing? Why would I return to see this again? How can I care about people that aren’t there?

And yes, I am aware I am alone on this. I’m aware just about everyone out there is loving or liking it. And that’s fine. It didn’t move me nor is it inspiring a great analysis on my end. I am having trouble writing about this without spoiling anything. But it’s also because I didn’t really care for it. I feel awful for not loving another Star Wars film but I have to be honest and say I didn’t even really like it. But what does it even matter what I think, the movie is already raking in a shit ton of money and pleasing just about everyone. No doubt solidifying the studio’s ambition to greenlight 15 or 30 or however many more more spin offs. I think decades from now when there are 40 more Star Wars films, and 200 Marvel movies, and 3 more DC films, and 10 more Avatar flicks, and 20 more Harry Potter pictures,  I think Rogue One will be forgotten with the sands of time. That’s just my opinion though.

Oh, another thing. You all knew Darth Vader was going to be in this movie. His scenes provided some enjoyment for me, especially his second one. He is clearly forced in here but I liked his appearances. His was my favorite scene in the entire film so I guess that says something. I wish the filmmakers had taken more time with that script and worked on the dialogue and the characters and given us more reasons to care. I wish the ending had meant something to me. Rogue One is uneven and too middle of the road for me to recommend. But if you’re reading this you’ve probably already seen it hah. Guess I will wait a bit and post a spoiler review later