Saw it last night and loved it, surprise, surprise!! It was pretty much what I was hoping for, and then some.
The original Star Wars i.e.; Episode IV: A New Hope has always been my favorite Star Wars film. Empire gets all the love for being the best, and I'd agree with that, but the only way it's the best is because ANH came before and set the table for it.
This film was the other side of the coin for ANH. It was filled with so many things I had imagined, wondered and thought of happening off screen in that film. I had been wondering how close to the start of ANH this was going to end and how the hand off of the stolen data tapes was going to happen. Well, questions answered!
I was very happy with the whole handling of this not being a saga film, but being a "story" film. There was no STAR WARS theme and logo, no opening crawl and no score by John Williams. All of that turned out to be just fine, I actually felt Giacchino did a great job with the score, he channeled Williams to give it that SW flavor and what I heard of it was great. I'll need to listen to it more when the ST arrives later today.
There were no Jedi and no Sith, no lightsabers, and no Skywalkers. Well... there were actually three out of those four rolled into one with the appearance of Darth Vader, but what I mean is that none of these aspects of the saga films were front and center as they have been across the last seven films. That to be honest was quite refreshing, and I didn't miss them one bit to tell the truth.
While all those things I mentioned that are usually a big part of SW films were were not prevalent in this film, they were all around and always present. There were no Jedi, but we went to Jedha which was an ancient place that was important to the Jedi and their followers. There were no Force wielders but there was Chirrut Imwe who believed in the force with all of his being, and channeled that belief into his fighting abilities. The Sith were almost non-existent in this film save for the appearance of Vader, but in SW The Empire is almost worse than The Sith in the amount of destruction and death they cause. There were no lightsabers, those were weapons for a more civilized time which this is not. A man with a wooden staff can be just as bad ass as any Jedi with a lightsaber. There were no Skywalkers in this film, no Solos or Wookies, but there were still heroes aplenty that we never heard of, that didn't need to blow up the Death Star or kill Darth Vader to become heroes.
There really was so much SW flavor throughout this film, so many easter eggs, but they were never too over the top or heavy handed. There were just enough things to really flavor it, but not overwhelm it. There were things from all over the saga and even from Rebels. My favorites were seeing Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba on Jedha, seeing the probe droid hovering around Jedha, the bacta tank and Royal Guards on Mustafar at Darth Vader's Castle!! Seeing Red and Gold Leader in the final attack on Scarif. Hearing them page General Syndulla (I'm assuming it's Hera) at Yavin base and seeing what appears to be The Ghost with the rebel fleet during the attack on Scarif. And on and on...
The CGI recreation of Tarkin was pretty amazing to be honest. Of course it looked CG here and there but come on! Peter Cushing's likeness back as Tarkin! Wow! Leia was cool as well and I think what bothered me most about her was that she appeared a bit too blonde, other than that I though she was perfect during her two seconds of screen time.
Anyway I could write for hours about this film, but I won't. I'll just say that if you're a fan of SW, especially the OT there will be something for you to enjoy and even love in this film. I myself cannot wait to go back and see it and discover more and more about it. It's an amazing time to be a SW fan. I've waited years, even decades between SW films, and now in the span of a year I've gotten two brand new SW films. Incredible!
Can't wait to see what the future brings to SW.