It sounds like I enjoyed this a little more than other detractors here, but not by much—there are individual sequences that are impressive or entertaining, and a few of the ensemble characters are endearing as well, but
Rogue One is really inconsistent in tone and pacing. And the main characters somehow come off as both overwritten and underwritten at the same time, in the sense that I don't really feel I ever learned much about Felicity Jones' or Diego Luna's characters despite how often they seem to be trying to spell out their motivations in speeches. I thought it was just bad writing or poor editing when Richard Brody said this movie was "half-baked and overcooked"—how could it be both?—but after seeing it I now understand exactly what he means.
And yeah, as xoconostle said, I've seen lots of early trailers that had alternate takes and maybe an occasional shot that didn't show up in the finished product, but in
Rogue One's case it really is abundantly clear the early teaser was selling a completely different film, and there's an abundance of material even in the later trailers and promos that's nowhere to be found. I mean, there were only four brief shots of Darth Vader used in all of the promotional material, and even two of those shots didn't show up, when you'd expect Disney would want to milk every second of Vader fanservice they had.
There are frustrating hints of interesting ideas here that go unexplored. E.g., it seems like Forest Whitaker, with his largely robotic body and breathing apparatus, was probably supposed to be some kind of counterpoint or mirror image to Darth Vader on the rebel side, and there was one very brief, interesting moment when Whitaker first uses the oxygen mask and the sound of his breathing seems to trigger some kind of post-traumatic response (or at least a terrified look of recognition) in Riz Ahmed's character. But the film doesn't even seem to acknowledge the comparison it has set up and does precisely nothing with it.
Michael Giacchino's score has all the same problems as the movie, trying really, really hard to go for big, broad, impactful gestures built on very thin and sketchy material. Like the film itself, there are individual sequences that are very well done...
he knocks it out of the park during the
final Vader scene, conjuring up all the gothic horror it requires to be suitably "epic"
...but overall Giacchino just doesn't have the right touch for this material, even allowing for the fact that he was hired very late and had only four weeks to put this together. Worst of all are his
new title theme and the
new theme he wrote for the Empire, both of which sound like cheap knockoffs of Williams' material, like the kind of thing you'd find in a parody that couldn't afford the rights to use the real thing. The fact that he also uses Williams' themes only makes the knockoff versions sound worse in comparison (and makes their very existence kind of baffling). Most of it isn't bad, just mediocre; none of it rises even an inch above the film it was written for, as Williams' prequel scores did.
Of course, none of this matters. Judging by the responses I've seen so far, it seems like the movie could have been absolutely awful in every conceivable way and most of the audience would still love it as long as they pulled off that one scene at the end.
