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Welp, so this was not what I had hoped for.

Listen, it’s been what, 5 ½ years since “Star Wars: Rogue One�� came out, and I still think about Cassian and Jyn like, 3 times a week though I think more about Cassian than Jyn, sorry, girl, I love you. And because RO is one of the best Star Wars films (this is not up for discussion) that does nearly EVERYTHING right even though it doesn’t feature a single person wielding a light stick, and because I absolutely LOVE, CHERISH, CELEBRATE “Andor�� (best live action SW series; also not up for debate), I just had to finally give this novelisation a go.

The thing about me is that not only do I think “Rogue One�� is one of the best Star Wars films, but Stover's ��Revenge of the Sith�� is the best Star Wars novelisation out there. Stover’s story is the BLUEPRINT I will measure every other Star Wars novelisation against. And this, well, this one didn’t hold up to it. In my point of view, a novelisation should always be able to add more to what we were given on screen. It should expand on characters and their motives, locations, and side characters the film didn’t grant enough screen time, and overall build on the film’s original content and expand it.

Unfortunately, that is what I strongly felt this book didn’t do. Sure, it walked us through the whole plot, and we were given a lot of extra insight into Bodhi (my sweet pilot baby), whose imperial-pilot-turned-traitor-turned-rebel arc the film didn’t or couldn’t give justice to. There was also an extra layer added by including chapters from Mon Mothma’s POV (I literally love her SO MUCH since “Andor��) which, alright, don’t need a raison d’être in my eyes because the character is awesome, however, where they really necessary? But everything sort of collapsed like a house of cards because of Freed’s writing. Not that it was bad, but it felt lifeless and void of emotion. In my eyes, he concentrated too much on the mechanics of the plot and the characters, causing the story’s emotional heft to get lost along the way.

“But that ending? What could be more emotional than that?��

Of course I thought the book’s ending was highly emotional, just as it is in the film. But you’d have to be a particularly bad writer to be given *this* ending and not be able to elicit emotion from your readers. The emotion-causing tragicness embedded in the character’s fates naturally lends itself to tears and sniffling whether you’d want it or not. But I don’t want to feel something simply because the plot is telling me to. I want the writing to make me feel something as well.

The book was mediocre and not as good as the film. All that extra space the novelisation has in comparison to the film felt unused. Nothing in here added anything of substance to what the film already gave us. Especially with the magnificent, incredible writing, acting, and directing that Rogue One’s prequel “Andor�� gave us, novelisations like this need to do better to keep fans of the source material interested.

Anyway, stream “Andor��.