I think the value of Rogue One was always in its approach to the galaxy, that Andor then took the ball and ran with to its full realization. Andor doesn’t happen without RO and not just as a parent film to the spin-off.

Like, all the fanservice and Fated Plot were just grist for a film that dared to look at the classic lived-in OT aesthetic, and conceive of it as lived in beyond the visuals. It gets a wrap for being “slow” in the first half but the geopolitical texture it establishes for what’s usually been a pulpy backdrop was enticing IMO. Even the characters being unremarkable and thinly sketched added to that sense of scale; the conflict of the time as tangible “historical” incidence, not genre theater inhabited by larger-than-life figures.

It’s cool in that sense! I think all of that is overlooked because Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba show up on Jedha, but there’s a lot of stuff in the film’s storytelling language that originated what Andor is now. It took Star Wars as a lore seriously, which for me was a lot coming off the heels of TFA which clearly conceived of Star Wars as a brand more than anything.