Star Wars: Rise of the Rebellion - A Rogue One Edit

Great editing, but too conservative a cut for me - its still hard for me to care for these characters. I may be biased after just watching The Coaxium Heist, which was such a fun ride. No fault to Dig here, but this story is still just a bit of a drag for me.

Very well crafted edit. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, more so than the theatrical cut (which I really liked). The CG monstrosities looked better, the new scoring in places was excellent and the worst character in the movie for me is mercifully trimmed. Forrest Whitaker is great but I don't know what was going on with his acting or character in this one. Chirrut didn't bug me in the theatrical but I think I like him a bit more here. Removing Cassian's intro scene is a double-edged sword for me. I prefer it cut because it seemed contrived and started him a bit too harsh of a place IMO but then we don't meet him until a good bit later. I like that his arc was internal because Diego Luna is fantastic but I wished I had a bit more to start with. That being said, I would like that to be something other than the original scene we got, so...overall it's a positive. I'm fine with the Vader trims. It was a bit fan-servicey but honestly everything since the OT involving Vader is a bit fan-servicey. Really great technically, this edit replaced the theatrical cut for me.

Rogue One: a Star Wars story came out December 2016 with a slew of, well mixed reviews. True no one I knew hated it but most felt disappointed with the film nostly due to not caring or knowing much about our main heroes, dodgy CG recreations of two classic characters, and a supposed lack of Darth Vader. Without the aid of deleted scenes, a lot of that can be quite a challenge to tackle, and yet here comes DigModification taking that head on with some pretty good results. That dodgy CG people talk about? It's made a little better through clever recoloring in various scenes. What about our heroes? Imo, trimming down or even cutting out there backstories early on gives a sense of mystery they never really had. Darth Vader, ok nothing could be really done about that but then again he's in the film long enough (it's called having restraint). Even a few of those forced easter eggs are taken out for a smoother experience, giving us and even those on the other side of the fence something closer to that galaxy far far away

Pros:
- 3rd act is the best part of the film, and it is mostly intact from the original.
- The re-scoring! Editor feels the moment, and adjust it as such.
- Color correction is well done. Although some might prefer the original.

Cons:
- Boring character stories and arcs mostly left intact.
- Saw Gerrera... just his character... ugh!
- The Rebellion/Resistance comes over as a bunch of whiners.

Conclusion:
In my honest opinion, the Fan Edit "The Battle of Scarif" is a better fit for this movie. I just can't get through the first 2 acts of this movie. This is not the fault of the Editor, but of the Creators of the movie itself. The characters are bland and boring, the story is to convenient and nonsensical, and last but not least, this movie didn't need to exist. It's a badly explained plot that just derails the Epic Battle in the final act. The editor did his best to make the movie watchable, and for some it has become just that... watchable. That is not enough for me.