I went to see the midnight showing last night - as a consequence, I’m a bit fuzzy this morning.
Overall - good. The first act is a bit clunky, but once things start rolling, it gets very good very quickly. Lots of “easter egg” cameos, but they are logical, within the framework of the overall saga. Bail Organa, Red Leader, Biggs, are all where one would expect them to be. Their presence doesn’t seem forced at all.
I have the feeling it would benefit from a few fewer characters, but I’m not sure who could be cut or combined to improve the overall flow. There just isn’t time to flesh all of them out, unfortunately, especially Chirrut (the blind Force disciple) and his sidekick, Baze. Possibly, if they’d condensed the “fetch quest” aspect of it, they could have spent more time on the people.
Ah, the fetch quest. Go here to find one thing, go there to find another, then end up at the final confrontation. Familiar, especially if you’re an MMO player!
Tudyk as K-2SO is a delight, and that rarest of beasts; a comic relief character who isn’t actively annoying. The others also comport themselves well.
I got a little tired of a bit of cinematography that the director seems fond of, that of things sliding out of shadow into the light. Sometimes effective, but the opening shot used this, and was downright confusing.
Some familiar characters were brought back through digital wizardry. Spoilers, right?
I thought Tarkin was generally well done, but Leia was less convincing; my wife feels the opposite. Darth Vader, of course, was done normally, and is quite chilling.
Overall, well worth staying up until 3 AM, and we’ll be seeing it again this weekend, I’m sure. I’ll give it a 7.5 out of 10.