I just got back from seeing
Rogue One. It was very cool. It has lots of cameos which I assume were done by cgi. But they might restored lost/previous footage and audio for some. I don't want to give all the cool surprises away, but Red Leader and Gold Leader from
A New Hope are two such cameos. Tarkin is in it as well. I am not sure how they did him. I am assuming they did some cgi on top of a real actor for his parts. Stephen Stanton did his voice (he did a lot of voices in
Clone Wars and
Rebels). Vader is in it as well. But both are only in small parts. Vader looked odd, as his neck seemed a lot thicker than normal. Jimmy Smits also appears in the flesh as Bail Organa, and I wanted to cheer when I saw him.

I have to say I cannot imagine anyone other than him playing the role.
In other cameos, I am sure I heard the voice of the same guy who does Zeb in Rebels - Steve Blum - doing the voices of several stormtroopers. But I don't see his name in the credits on the IMDB. And I am sure I caught a glimpse of the guy who played Stiffler in the American Pie movies go past in the Rebel base, when the X-Wing pilots are being driven to their fighters. But I could be wrong on both.
The original characters all shine as well. They are very cool. My favorite was Donnie Yen. He was pure awesome!

Felicity Jones is good. as are a bunch of other actors whose names I don't know. It is basically a team movie, and the rebels are really cool to see in action. In spite of having about six people on the team, each member is unique, and has something about them that makes them stand out. One warning, do not get too attached to anyone.
Time to eat. I'll be back later to add more interesting tidbits.
Back with some tidbits that won't spoil anything.
First off, it starts with the classic Lucas traveling shot. But unlike all the other SW films, there is no opening crawl. Perhaps that is to distinguish the ancillary films like
Rogue One from what we have to now start considering the "core" movies?
The feel of the movie is definitely different from the other Star Wars movies. They are all adventure stories set in space, with wars happening around the story.
Rogue One is a war story all the way. It may sound like I am nitpicking, but there is a big difference in the events and overall mood. From beginning to end
Rogue One is a story about sacrifice. People give their lives for what they believe in. In contrast the older films are a wild romp through space by characters we know are going to live. This is what I meant about when I said in the Now Reading topic that
Rogue One is much more gritty and harsh. Do not get attached to anyone, and I mean
anyone.
The costuming is great. The rebels are dressed in a wide variety of gear that looks like it was collected from every corner of the galaxy. Rebel Spy Cassian Andor has a brown outfit with a jacket that reminded me a lot of the original Battlestar Galactica warrior uniform. The black stormtroopers we saw in the trailers are Orson Krennic's personal bodyguard. There is also a new kind of stormtrooper we meet on the final planet of Scarif (which is a beautiful tropical atoll). I think they are called Shoretroopers.
Here is an article with some pics of both.We get to see both a massive space battle and a ground battle in this movie, and neither disappoints. On the ground we have Imperial walkers of both the elephant and chicken varieties. The Empire has a cool new fighter that looks to be atmospheric only, given the look of its wings. Another neat addition is a space station in orbit of Scarif that acts as a doorway through the planetary energy shield. It is formed in a ring, and any ship trying to land on the planet or rise to orbit has to pass through its ring. This way the Imperials never have to lower the entire planet's shield so ships can come and go. They just lower the shield inside the ring to allow passage. Or raise it to block anyone in or out.
The Rebel fleet is in full force as well. And I do mean full force. The flagship is named Home One, but even though it is crewed by Mon Calamari, it is not one of their ships. It looked like a
Providence class CIS destroyer. In many SW behind the scenes features I have often seen people say that the Rebel Alliance ships were basically an outgrowth of the CIS fleet. In
Rogue One this is really hammered home when we see this old CIS ship surrounded by the
Rebel Transports and
Nebulon B Frigates we first saw in
Empire Strikes Back. Finally, the rebels have a really cool new shuttle called
a U Wing. Its wings fold forward to make a U when in space, but fold out sideways like standard wings for atmospheric flight.
Another cool cameo I just remembered was a chance run in with the two hoods from the Mos Eisley Cantina who picked with a fight with Luke, and met the business end of Obi-Wan's lightsaber. We bump into them briefly, and they are just as unpleasant!