Going into seeing Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, I had nothing but the highest hopes for the film after seeing The Force Awakens. I can tell you for one that I was not disappointed whatsoever. A way in which I would describe this film is as a war story set in the Star Wars universe.

There is a lot more of a darker tone in this movie than any other Star Wars movie I’ve seen. It follows a small group of rebels as they try to seize plans on how to defeat the death star. The main protagonists that make up these rebels are Jyn (played by Felicity Jones), Cassian (Diego Luna), the droid K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk), the blind Chirrut Îmwe (Donie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang). All of these are rebels who are opposing a huge force in the Galactic Empire and must find a way to succeed against the looming Death Star that the empire is now constructing.
The movie begins with Jyn having her father, a brilliant scientist name Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), taken from her by the Empire and the evil Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) so that he can help them create the Death Star while she watches the evil members of the empire murder her mother and try to find her.

Jyn is able to hide from the Empire members and is taken in by a rebel leader named Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) but then he eventually leaves her in the face of a battle only to return later in the movie. This sets up the plot as Jyn grows stronger while she raises herself and that Jyn is doing everything she can to reconnect and eventually save her father throughout all of these events. In order to do this, Jyn eventually joins the Rebel Alliance.

The purpose of the movie is to connect the events from the third installment of the movie, 2005’s Episode III, The Revenge of the Sith that left off with the death of Annakin Skywalker and the rise of the evil Darth Vader while Padme gives birth to twins, Luke and Leia Skywalker.  The events of this movie lead into the first Star Wars movie from 1977, bridging the gap between the prequels and the original trilogy.

There are some CGI (computer-generated imagery) moments in the movie that have been heavily criticized because of how they used images from previous movies to bridge the gap between Episode III, IV (A New Hope) and Rogue One.  There are some significant deletions from the movie, such as the soundtrack of John Williams and the scroll at the beginning of the movies that fans have come to know and love.

Overall, Rogue One has to go down as the best Star Wars movie from this generation in my opinion. The only one that rivals it is The Force Awakens but I feel that Rogue One slightly edges it out. If you’re a Star Wars fan and you haven’t seen this movie then you’re doing something wrong. I would definitely recommend this to even those who aren’t fans of the story.