I am really late to the party on this, but I have finally seen Rouge One. It was released back in December 2016, and it is meant to fill in the gap between Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith - and Episode 4 - A New Hope.
Overall, I enjoyed the piece. It is a nice filler story in the saga that is Star Wars. I adore Felicity Jones - first saw her in an adaptation of Northanger Abbey and she is wonderful in this film.
I did feel like they didn't balance Jyn's story with the rest of the story. I loved Jyn's story, but there were moments that didn't look like they fit in with her story - but it fit in with the overall story of obtaining the Death Star plans. After watching it, I felt like it was a 80-20 split on the Jyn's story-Get Death Star Plan story. Don't get me wrong, Jyn's story fits in really well and I think it enhanced the over all story of how the Alliance obtained the plans, but I don't think it was evenly split - if the goal was to tell the story through more than just Jyn's story. And maybe I just connected with that character more, therefore I saw the events through her eyes over the others.
We didn't get a whole lot of character backstory/development (because in my opinion the backstory helps the development) for other characters that appeared to be important. We got a little for Cassian, but there could have been a little more. I felt like there was no character development for Chirrut or Bohdi. And minimal for Baze. They could have done more, but they focused more on Jyn.
Let's address the obvious chemistry between Jyn and Cassian. I'm really okay with the fact that they didn't explore that more than the obvious moments they had. There was no actual, verbal discussion of what was between them. And it was fantastic! I don't know if that was because the writers wrote it that way or if Felicity Jones and Diego Luna were just that on-screen compatible. But the no verbal beauty of that side to Jyn and Cassian's relationship was absolutely beautiful!
The CG of people's faces... I understand why it was done. I just wish it wasn't so obvious that it was done. They honestly could have gotten away without showing Leia's face at the end, which I think was the worse of the two CG faces in terms of obviousness. But I don't know if they could have gotten around Tarkin as he seemed to be crucial to the dark side of the plot line.
I wouldn't say that this is crucial to the Star Wars experience, but it is an enjoyable film and storyline.