I think they both frame the original trilogy nicely? Rogue One is the hopeless desperate suicide mission that directly causes the first movie. Gives you a look at what Annikan is like 19 years later as your boss, gives you a look at what sort of dude Tarkin is, sets up the Death Star and has it do some shit it's never done onscreen (single ignition fire was sweet) and it plays with tropes the original trilogy does.
Darth Vader walking towards you is scary as shit. Rogue One showed like ten guys get in his way, and then the rest of the movies have him get cut off right when he starts towards the crew a few times. Yes it's playing off nostalgia, but it makes the part in episode 4, for instance, where Vader turns towards the falcon in the Death Star and starts just... walking towards them quietly before a door gets shut in his way.
Watching the original trilogy got off rogue One is cool. The tone of the movie is way different, and they don't have nearly as many quippy character interactions, but Jyn and Cassius kept bumping into each other, but it meant something different each time. I like it, I can see why people don't.
I don't despise the existence of 1/2/3. I like the Anti-Cheese edits a whole lot, and I liked seeing Senator Organa and Imperial Corsuscant. I liked the way Bail set up Leia being in the right spot to smuggle the plans and getting them to Obi Wan on tatooine. I think it's a nice buffer between the two trilogies. It takes the focus away from the skywalkers to the rebellion at it's worst hour. Then it nicely passes the series to the skywalkers. They didn't NEED the vader scenes, but I liked them! He's had good comics lately and Disney has been handling him well.
TFA is a great sequel to 6, especially if Rey is han's kid. It plays with some similar ideas, but it's not a direct retread of anything imo. 1, 2, and 3 set up weird things that retroactively make random shit in 4, 5 and 6 direct references. All the Jedi have those utility belts that they force use, that luke also just has and uses perfectly with no training.
Like, there's another whole political drama between 6 and 7. It's in books and shit, but no one in real life would want the big return of Star Wars to be Leia debating why the republic needs a standing army to the senate on coruscant. So they fast forward to the point where the actors have aged to, and the much more overtly evil empire II is firing their 20x Death Star.
I hated finn for awhile, but I've rewatched everything since then. The storm troopers are dudes. They're chatting and shit the minute their bosses backs are turned, so finn acting like a dude doesn't bother me: especially because he's fucking clueless about random shit. Rey is a neat blend of good annikan, Han, and Leia, and she immediately digs Han because people who are related in Star Wars are immediate friends if they meet by chance.
I think Kylo Ren accidentally made Rey incredibly aware of the force when he tried to force probe her brain. "But that's dumb!" But Leia absolutely just resisted a probe droid at around a similar age. Rey has also heard legends about the Jedi and when the legendary smullger Han tells her "oh all of it is true" she thinks "oh shit I should try a Jedi mind trick" when she gets in some deep shit, especially since she just accidentally read some scary sith's mind and fucked him up
Han dying tragically is foreshadowed constantly in 4/5/6, so his son stabbing him and killing him the same way luke killed palpatine to go full Jedi is super fitting.
I would've liked more time with the orange yoda woman whose name I forgot, but it sounds like she'll be coming back. If that's true this movie dumps her in the universe nicely without her taking too long.
It was quick, but this movie kill coruscant. That's a huuuuuge deal, especially since the new order is an empire and the resistance isn't big. In ANH they kill the death star but have to relocate the rebellion, in TFA the resistance is pretty unharmed but the substantially more important republic capital is wrecked. Depending on how many senators were there and how important those people were on their homeworlds, the first order could have just cut the head off the galactic republic and many worlds' individual leaders.
It's similar, but the implications are entirely different. I feel like TFA set up a ton of shit that sets up an entirely different trilogy.
I don't see why you can't like both movies for different reasons?
