I have been chomping at the bit to see Star Wars: Rogue One  for myself. Never saw it in the theaters and somehow I managed to avoid all spoilers for the flick that I wasn't able to do with The Force Awakens to some extent. As for Rogue One, I really tried to downplay my expectations because I've been burned before with unrealistic expectations of what I want from a Star Wars film. So, having just watched Rogue One, did it meet...or exceed them...even if they were tempered somewhat? Absolutely. This is everything I have wanted from a Star Wars film. It had a lot of moving parts and they all worked extremely well with each other. Where The Force Awakens wasn't what I remembered it to be the second time around (I dropped it from 5 Stars to 4 Stars) and not being as great as I originally had it out to be, I can easily see myself liking Rogue One even more with successive views.

So, where do I begin? So much to pick and choose from. I guess I'll start with the main cast. I loved all the characters and the actors that played them. When the Trailer first dropped and the story was laid bare that this would be in the vein of The Dirty Dozen, I expected there to be a few casualties along the way. What I didn't expect to see was the entire group destroyed. Figured that Jyn would definitely live through it all given that this is now a Disney Product and they wouldn't dare shoot themselves in the foot if it meant sabotaging any future Rogue One Sequels....even if they really couldn't based on the story being told. At least they would put Jyn into another story-line in future Star Wars Spin-offs. Guess not. Anyway, shout out to Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Jiang Wen and Forest Whitaker for doing a great job in their respective roles. LOVED hearing James Earl Jones as Vader again!

....and this brings me to Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher being computer-generated to bring them back to tie into Star Wars: A New Hope. I was stunned and very impressed with the likeness for Cushing. Really impressed. Yes, I get that people will sh*t all over this as being morbid bringing back a deceased actor. Maybe it is...but in this particular case...in this movie....I loved it. As for Carrie's CGI cameo...she looked good....just not as impressive as Cushing. I don't find fault with those that worked on the FX. I just think it's much harder to get away with something like this on a female character because of her age at the time (19 years old) and the skin tone. You have to be very precise and I think within a couple of years, the technology will be there to nail it. With Peter, there was so much character already in his face that it would be easier to replicate digitally.

There were a handful of cameos that made me giddy. Gold Leader and Red Leader were the LAST people I expected to see here. It was awesome to further tie this movie into A New Hope. I also didn't expect to see Jimmy Smits return as Bail Organa. This was a nice surprise as was Genevieve O'Reilly returning as Mon Mothma. I kinda expected....well, I was hoping to see C-3PO, and R2-D2 pop up for a few seconds and I got it. Loved it. But it was Darth Vader that I was waiting to see more than anyone else in the movie. I knew he would be at best a walk on, walk off cameo. But when he returns at the end of the flick, wielding his Light Saber trying to retrieve the stolen Death Star Plans, I nearly lost my sh*t! I was grinning ear to ear. This scene was F*CKING AWESOME!

So, this is definitely a Buy for sure. Personally, I bought the Best Buy Steelbook which comes with a DVD, Blu Ray, 3D Blu Ray, Digital Download and the Bonus Disc of Behind the Scenes stuff. I watched the Blu Ray tonight. I'm saving the 3D version for later.....maybe a few months down the road. I will however tackle the Bonus content over the next couple of days for sure. There's more to talk about, but I'm still processing it all.

Just watched the Bonus Disc with the BTS Documentary and it was fantastic. Watching the Doc made me want to turn around and watch Rogue One immediately. Couple of things I wanted to mention here that I didn't in initial post. I absolutely loved the look and feel of Rogue One from the Sets to the Color grading, they did a phenomenal job in creating a Bookend to go with Star Wars: A New Hope. I love the Star Wars: Rebels "cameo" with Hera Syndulla making an "appearance". Kinda. You only hear her name over the Intercom. It was cool. Wold have been awesome if we got a Live Actor to portray her. I'm sure that Rebels will be turned into a Live Action Film down the road. So, cast her then.

after the movie I would have banged the pain away

I think it's a legit reaction. I've watched plenty of reaction clips to know when one is real and one is fake. If this turns out to be fake, then hats off to her for the performance of a lifetime.