As the slavish recreation of the first Star Wars aesthetic made clear, Rogue One was intentionally rooted in fan service and an overwhelming nostalgia for the original trilogy. Worse yet, the downbeat tone of the movie speaks to the same “grim and gritty” attitude that saw multiple comic book heroes placed in “realistic,” depressing storylines in the wake of the success of Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in the mid-1980s.

It was a time when audiences and creators alike attempted to justify their nostalgia by trying to inject the genre with weight and complex morality it was never intended to withstand. It was, very clearly, a movie made by and for fans who’d grown up with the first three films.