Boring characters and piss poor characterisation - for a film where you know everyone is going to die, you sort of have to go out of your way to make the audience invest in the characters. There wasn't enough invested in the backstory for anyone to really give a shit about anyone. Jyn was one dimensional, Cassian harped on about "you're not the only one to have lost everything" although there's no fucking scene or backgrounding where we actually learn why. Figuring out character motivations and why they do the things they do is extremely hard, and really poor characterisation. Compare that to a New Hope where we know exactly why people are doing things, Luke wants to escape and have adventure, Ben needs to deal with his past, Han wants money, Leia has her obligation. Here characters aren't fleshed out and are so inconsistent in their actions it's painful to watch.
Lazy writing - there were a number of times throughout the movie where characters spoke to themselves, to move the plot along. It's a pet hate of mine in a lot of movies. Who sits there talking to themselves in real life? No one really, so why put it in a movie? It's because we haven't written it well and need to move the plot along by having a character say something.
Hammy dialogue - "we have hope!" - worst. "Don't choke on your ambition..." - how is that for subtlety? Blind guy annoyed at them putting a hood on his head. Anything the droid says. Just shitty comic relief.
Unnecessary fan service - to what end did having R2D2 and C3PO cameo add anything? Or all the other bits of fan service? Absolutely nothing.
Marketing - why, when in the original trilogy we really on had three types of stormtrooper (Normal, snow, jungle) we now had so many in the one movie. We went from two types of Tie fighters in the original, to having a heap here. A stupid excuse to sell more plastic tat. We don't see any of this in the original trilogy which starts when this ends, so why see them here?
Inconsistencies - there are so many instances where there are inconsistencies
- Jyn shoots a droid and kills it with one shot to the shoulder. The same type of droid then gets shot about 50 times when he's hold off about 20 stormtroopers and is still functional.
- Rebel council man "This guy attacked an imperial station directly, we don't want war. Lets retreat" Five minutes later "We have news, Rogue one has decided to attack an imperial station directly" councilmans response "Lets go to war!"
- Darth Vader when chasing down the plans decides to force pull all the rebels weapons from their grasp. Decides against doing the same for the bloke who is holding the plans right in front of him.
- One expendable Rebel sticks half his head around the bunker wall, gets shot. Blind dude walks out in the open for about 20 metres to flick switch, not a scratch.
- Tarkin chastises Krennic all movie for security breaches and underestimating things, then proceeds to underestimate things when given the opportunity to destroy the fleet with the death star.
- The complete shift in tone between how this movie ends, with Vader going nuts, to how he treats the exact same rebels when he boards the blockade runner in a new hope, which is hours/days/maybe a week after this movie ends.
