When Disney and Lucasfilm first signaled their intentions to release a new Star Wars movie on an annual basis, the news was greeted with a mixture of enthusiasm and skepticism. Longtime fans and newbies alike were more than happy with the idea of a steady stream of fresh content, but there was the very real danger of oversaturating the market and franchise fatigue lurking in the background.

Despite a troubled production, though, that saw Tony Gilroy assume command from director Gareth Edwards and helm a series of extensive reshoots, the Anthology experiment got off to a fantastic start with Rogue One. The concept took a single line of text from the opening crawl of A New Hope and spun it off into an action-packed adventure that tied into the events of the Original Trilogy without focusing too heavily on nostalgia, bringing in a vibrant roster of brand new characters for good measure.