PhilKimbo

I'll get my only problem out of the way first - I absolutely disagree about the score, as good as it was. But that's by and by. I generally agree with the rest.

But what I really liked about your review, is that the characterisation point you made has helped me with something here.

Since December, I have been trying to work out why, objectively I know Rogue One is the better film but my heart prefers The Force Awakens. It's not that the latter has similarities to A New Hope, because I am too aware of that (albeit it's nowhere near as bad as some people would have us believe) and thoroughly enjoyed that Rogue One had an overall different feel. No, it's because at the end, I too cared more about Rey than Jyn, and so on.

Looking at it from the flip side though - as I often try to do in pretty much everything in life - I suppose I always suspected that the characters wold die at the end of Rogue One. Whereas with Rey and co, I am excited to see where their journey is headed, so death held little fear for those characters; other than the almost anti-climatic yet oddly enjoyable random return of Poe Dameron, of course!

Ultimately I love both films and I'm not even sure it's entirely fair to compare them, as the restrictions on Rogue One and the inevitable nostalgia of The Force Awakens (albeit some of it didn't need to be there; I don't suppose Rey needed to be on a sand planet, and I'm really not convinced there needed to be another super weapon) create their own advantages and disadvantages. But yes, your point about characterisation definitely helped me sort that out in my head, so thanks for that.

Bottom line is that Star Wars is darn exciting again for many of us :)