Second viewing - appreciate this one more and more

I'll grant you that it's better than most of the other Star Wars stuff that's been coming out, it still can't hold a can't hold a candle to the OT. As you say, the script and characters (for me, the foundational aspects of film) are broken, and that really hurts the rest of the movie. It doesn't matter that they spent a lot of money on set design, its foundation is shaky, so the house collapses.

The last half-hour was a well-designed battle, but my problem here is that I don't care about the characters. Any deaths (spoilers?) aren't very interesting or moving to me because of this. I only really liked the negative droid, but not enough to mourn its death, and once they killed him, I kinda figured the rest of the heroes would bite it, too, so the rest of the deaths weren't a surprise. I didn't care at all when Jyn and Cassian died.

As for Vader, again, it's really cool, yeah, but it can't save the movie - particularly as it doesn't serve a story purpose. It's fan service. It would have been better placed before the finale. If Vader had done something like that earlier, then his presence coming closer and closer to the disk would be extremely threatening - perhaps even knowing as we do that they get away with it.

Of the Star Wars/Disney movies, I think this is the best one. I loved the way the ending flowed right into Episode 4. Solo is also pretty enjoyable. Disney kinda dropped the ball on the main movies, cause these side-story flicks are much better.

Agreed. Some beautiful cinematography as well from Greig Fraser who also did great work on a few episodes of The Mandalorian, Dune and The Batman.

Visually this film is incredible and the screenplay, whilst not the best, is good enough I think.

It's a damn good movie! Crackling with life and action, heroes who are flawed enough to be believable but who are still sympathetic and likable, scenes that are absolutely stunning to look at. Everything a person could want in a Star Wars movie... even if the story is much smaller-scale than the trilogies. The heroes aren't saving the galaxy, they don't have superpowers, they're just doing their bit for a cause, and BTW proving that SW heroes can be ordinary human beings. (That was a good precedent for the franchise, as proven by the excellent "Mandalorian"!)

I was expecting the career of director Gareth Edwards to explode after this, I mean first the guy succeeds in making a Godzilla movie genuinely entertaining and then this excellent film? But then his IMDB goes blank after this, nothing but a documentary and something that's "filming now". What happened?

I liked it better the second time as well. It felt a bit truncated in places when I first saw it in the cinema. This may be a rare case where if there is a longer directors cut it will improve on the original release.