I had a strange and really fun experience today traveling through a snowstorm with three of my best friends. who have never met each other, to view Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. At almost thirty-seven years old, I take a little longer to process that I've lived long enough to have meaningful people in my life from so many different time periods and situations that they can enrich my life yet have never met each other. I won't make too much of it, I'm just thankful to have good friends.
Rogue One was fantastic. Intentionally avoiding any knowledge of the movie's plot other than that generally it was set before A New Hope and detailed the Rebellion's covert operations to obtain the Death Star plans, I walked into the theater with a subtle feeling of "this could suck" in my mind. Rogue One does not suck. The characters, almost all brand new to us, are memorable and extract empathy from each other on screen and from me in the audience. And the two key legacy characters, Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin, are given very powerful treatments in this movie. The tempo is appropriate. The battle scenes are really well done without being sci-fi porn. I left the theater with a sense of adventure and optimism about selfless heroes. I plan to see Rogue One at least two more times.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story gets a rating of Julianne Moore Null.
My only complaint -- where the fuck is Porkins?