Great special effects but I think I like "star" more than "wars" nowadays. So many battles, especially dogfights in the air, as a young woman fights to clear her father's name in a plot way too complicated to boil down to one sentence. Felicity Jones (last blogged in The Theory of Everything) gets to kick ass as Jyn, accompanied by Diego Luna (most recently in Elysium), as her sidekick and occasional bodyguard Cassian in a Han Solo leather jacket. Alan Tudyk (last in 42) provides the voice of K-2SO, an R2-D2-type robot. Riz Ahmed (most recently seen in Nightcrawler) is the pilot, and Forest Whitaker (last in Arrival) looks good with a big head of gray hair. I liked the character of the blind monk, played by Donnie Yen, an actual martial arts guy, whose many credits are all unknown to me. I'm going to stop here, because there are over 100 members of the cast.
Gareth Edwards (new to me) directs from a script by Chris Weitz (A Better Life) and Tony Gilroy (Duplicity) with story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta (both new to me), with credit going, of course, to George Lucas for creating the series; the last one was Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens.
Locations are pretty great, including Jordan, Iceland, Maldives, and England, shot by Greig Fraser (Lion). I couldn't get through the 133 trivia items--have fun if you do.
Michael Giacchino (last scored Doctor Strange) channels John Williams' score (with Williams receiving credit) in his soundtrack, available to stream here.
You don't need us to tell you whether or not to see it. Fan-girls and -boys have already made up their minds (Rotten Tomatoes' critics are at 85% and its audiences 85) and the rest of us have the award nominees and winners to watch.
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