10 Prequel Movies That Improved The Original

The Star Wars franchise is going through considerable growing pains at the moment, but eight years removed from its release, Rogue One has proven itself to be one of the finest pieces of Star Wars media from the past decade.

A prequel to A New Hope was an incredibly risky proposition on Disney's part, with the danger that it'd find a way to undermine the magic of the movie that started it all, but against considerable odds, Rogue One actually makes A New Hope even better.

For starters, it found a clever way to sew up its predecessor's most nitpicked contrivance, by making the Death Star's vulnerable exhaust port a literal, intentional contrivance cooked up by one of the heroes. And beyond that, Rogue One also fleshed out the Rebels considerably, far beyond what we saw in any of the original trilogy, painting them as complicated and at times morally dubious characters in the pursuit of the greater good.

And of course, it slots into the beginning of A New Hope note-perfectly, even with a shamelessly fan-serving - yet totally awesome - Darth Vader cameo.