If R1 didn’t even attempt it, why blame it for not being character-driven? Or does every movie need to be character driven?
“At least The Phantom Menace tried to make a step-in-the-poop joke that isn’t completely tasteless, they horribly failed, but at least they tried. I can’t say the same of Citizen Kane.”
R1 barely attempted to have characters at all.
I kind of felt that way about Jyn and Cassian at first, but I have found them to be more interesting on subsequent viewings.
But most of the other characters are fantastic. Baze, Chirrut, K2SO, Krennic, Galen Erso…I enjoyed all of them right from the start.
I liked the Chinese monks a lot and I think that Jyn bordered on being a good character but was held back by the writing and some pretty stoic acting, which I think was probably the fault of whatever the executives were trying to enforce during the reshoots. The imperial characters, like the officer and the Death Star builder, also bordered on good but they were overshadowed by the film’s attempt to shoehorn in classic Star Wars stuff. The CGI Peter Cushing and the Vader stuff got in the way.