Star Wars: Rogue One - 9 Ways It Actually Improves The Original Trilogy

8. Gives Us A Real Look At The Galactic Civil War

War is hell, but it's often difficult to quite get that across in a series of films that are largely (not completely, don't call me names) aimed at a younger audience. Star Wars presents us with the story of an entire galaxy at the point of self-destruction, with two warring factions fighting hand-to-hand at street level, destroying entire planets from orbit, and everything in between. Yet, by and large, you don't feel the weight, or the horror, of the conflict.

It's a joke often made that Luke Skywalker essentially murdered thousands of people on a space station because a voice in his head told him to. Cheering and celebrating with his friends afterwards instead of stopping to consider the blood that was now on his hands from a war he'd barely even heard about a few days ago. Rogue One looks long and hard at the human cost of war, and doesn't blink.

If for no other reason than our heroes aren't afforded a Hollywood escape in the final act - instead dying very unglamorous deaths as the odds gradually turn against them - Rogue One feels like a proper war movie. By extension, it makes the war at the core of the other films feel that much more real. While Episodes 3-6 concern a small band of heroes taking on a big bad, you now know that across the galaxy people are fighting and dying for this cause.