Rogue One and Star Wars

Not very impressed.  I don't see many movies, so perhaps there are more intricate and interesting battle sequences, but it was by far the best that I have seen.  However it is attached to a plot that doesn't excite me much. The moral ambiguity is played up rather intentionally.  We skip from locale to locale, character to character, in the first part of the movie, and I pretty much root only for the little girl, and then again for her later when she has grown.  It is cool when Inigo Montoya falls in love with her.  The droid has a personality we haven't seen before, that's nice.  The blind oriental Jedi and his sidekick were over-the-top but more refreshing than not.

We went to my son's afterward and his daughter Emily wanted to watch Episode IV immediately to connect the pieces.  I am surprised at how little I like any of it now, given how taken I was with the originals as they came out. Perhaps the Hero's Journey had been neutered too much in the 1970's, goodness only appearing tongue-in-cheek or in antihero form, so Luke and Leia seemed more inspiring than they do now.  The weak effects and fake scientism are more obvious now.  The original movies may have relied more on the novelty of the effects than I realised at the time. Luke whines. Too many plot inconsistencies and inexplicable actions.

I watched IV-VI avidly.  I disliked Episode I, and understand that it is eliminated altogether in the watching of the series in the Machete Order IV, V, II, III, VI. But I'll have none of it anymore.