Still Passionate and Confused

I adored Rogue One. I went in pretty much unspoiled and felt that the darkness and sadness was in no way out of character with the rest of the Star Wars world, it was just more detailed. I mean, when Alderaan was destroyed in A New Hope (a pretty freaking dark thing) , we didn't see extended scenes of Alderaanians going about their business, or any of the denizens/leaders resisting the Empire on their homeworld. In Rogue One, we saw those things. In Star Wars, we never saw the inevitable fissures between factions that would arise in a motley Rebel Alliance because everybody that advocated different strategies was no longer part of the Alliance, and in Rogue One, we saw how it got to that point. I think what made Rogue One an ultimately hopeful movie for me that we actually saw the characters struggle with figuring out the right thing to do and whether or not they felt it was their job to do it. I felt it was like the very best fanfiction: it took what we knew about the Star Wars world and interpolated an absolutely cracking story with interesting characters from what was already there, but unexplored. And the best part? Rogue One made me laugh while it tugged on my heartstrings, and for me, that's what makes the difference between a movie that's showing you the dark side of what's already there and a movie that's being dark for darkness's sake.

Plus... heroes of color! A blind gay (or so says the actor playing him) Force ninja! Alan Tudyk's hilarious turn voicing a droid! Darth Vader being effing terrifying! Definitely plenty there to make it Star Wars, IMHO.