Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Review

I have to admit I am pretty new (read: late) to the Star Wars fandom. To be clear: I did watch the original trilogy as a teen, I also saw the prequels, but I wasn't caught yet until last year when The Force Awakens came out and my beloved boyfriend (oh such a Star Wars super-nerd) got me all hyped up - and Tumblr as well, admittedly. We went to see TFA, I loved it, I didn't stop talking about it for weeks, we went to see it again in English because we saw this video the night before and really liked Adam Drivers actual voice, I made Rey and Kylo Ren cosplays for my boyfriend and me (and spent the week before the convention in complete desperation), long story short: It got me. Which, really, wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for the hype beforehand.

In comparison, Rogue One almost sneaked up upon me. To be fair, I was pretty lazy when it came to watching teasers, trailers and so on in 2016. Honestly, I haven't even seen the most recent trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 yet. I remember watching the first teaser in April but only because my friend who I was staying with at that time watched it and I was a bit hyped back then, but that's it. It all just went down a bit more quiet.
Still, because I am my boyfriends girlfriend, we went to see it the weekend right after it came out. And again a week after that in English (because this is how we roll).

In case you don't already know: Rogue One is set between the prequels and the original trilogy and tells how the plans of the Death Star are stolen and brought to Princess Leia. The team doing so is Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), the daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) who worked on it's developement, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a Rebel Alliance Captain, the droid K2-SO (Alan Tudyk), the ex-Guardians of the Whills Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen), Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), a former Imperial cargo pilot, and a small squad of other rebels who choose to come with them even though the idea to steal the plan is rejected by the Rebel council.

I'm starting with the (very few) negative remarks I have because why not?
I missed the intro text. I really, really missed being greeted by a wall of yellow text descending into space. Yes, we know what happened before, we even know already what happens afterwards, but the intro text just belongs to Star Wars movies, ok?
The second point I have is the timing. I was kind of looking forward to see more of Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron and was now confronted with an entirely new team inbetween. That is not inherently bad, but I think I would've enjoyed it more if Rogue One came out first or after the sequels, not inbetween. But well, this is complaining about first world problems, really.

...and that's everything negative that I can say about Rogue One. Isn't that telling? Except for those two points, I loved Rogue One. The characters had great dynamics with each other, their motives are completely legit, the story made complete sense and actually, it was pretty nice to see only "normal" people act for once instead of once again crying inside because I'm not force-sensitive. That's something, right?

Tbh, I can't write much more without spoilers, so I'll leave it as it is right now and have nothing more to say than: I can't wait for Episode VIII.