SPOILERS BELOW

My expanded thoughts:

Overall I loved it and thought it was one of the most enjoyable films I've seen in a long time. I'm super invested in the Star Wars universe though so I got a massive boost out of the copious fan service in this film.

The story was decent, though I felt a lot of the bits with Forrest Whittaker were unnecessary and I'd rather have had more time with our main crew. The actors were all up to muster, and I particularly enjoyed the performance and characters of Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk and Ben Mendelson.

The way the combat was portrayed was amazing, across the board. The firefights were incredibly visceral, especially towards the end with the AT-ACTs. It was like the Battle of Hoth turned up to 11. Completely and utterly epic. The space/fighter combat was also amazing. In the same way that the land battle on Scariff was like the Battle of Hoth turned up to 11, the space stuff was like the Battle of Endor on roids.

I actually enjoyed CGI Tarkin, though the execution wasn't perfect by any means. One of the main problems is that I felt that the first scene he was in was the weakest from a technical point of view. Later scenes seemed better, and a few of them in the ANH enclosed Death Star control rooms were almost flawless. It was a bold choice to have him so involved but I feel it mostly paid off even if it wasn't completely perfect, though again as a long time fan a large part of that for me might have been the OMG TARKIN factor.

Darth Vader's two scenes were absolutely incredible. The bit where he went postal in the rebel ship was the most enjoyable and cathartic two minutes I think I've ever seen in cinema, mainly because I fully expected the scene to cut after he ignited his saber. I didn't mind the 'choke' pun - Vader was making puns way back in 1977 so it's not like it came out of no where.

The copious amounts of fan service brought a grin to my face each time. Aside from Ponda Baba and Dr Ezavan (the two guys who bullied Luke in the cantina in ANH) it was all reasonably in context and smoothly integrated. I especially loved seeing Gold Leader and Red Leader from the Battle of Yavin pop up.

I don't think I'm in a position to judge whether it was an objectively good movie just because of how invested I am in Star Wars and it's associated lore. However, I can say I've not got as much enjoyment from a movie in ages.