What was the first thing in R1 you liked?
The first frame of the actual film. It just sucks you in almost as well as the opening shot of STAR WARS did.
Heck, the film starts without the familiar crawl, rousing operatic music or awesome starship… I was still sceptical during those first minutes.
…but then:
Krennic: We were this close to providing peace, security for the galaxy.
Galen: You’re confusing peace with terror.
Krennic: You have to start somewhere…I thought “if they keep giving us such memorable lines, maybe this film won’t be bad?”.
Think about it. This exchange could be about most of our real-world revolutions etc. “Oh, we do it for the people …and peace… but first we need to put those guillotines to use!”.
R1 has better political talks than anything from the Prequels. (And Prequels had to have some political talks, because they were to show us how a republic transformed into an empire.)
The exchange between the two is amazing and I would have loved to see Krennic try to bring Galen to his side of thinking in a couple of flashback scenes. This also could have given the film more time to develop Galen as a character so that his death would be more impactful.