After seeing a few references to the other movies, I began a game of Hey! That… 

Hey! That is Governor Tarkin! Nice CGI work there on Peter Cushing. How about a CGI Hammer film? 

Hey! That is the guy from the Mos Eisley Cantina who tells Luke I don’t like you either! I have the death sentence on twelve systems! 

Hey! That is Yavin 4, the rebel base! 

Hey! That is Red Leader! Hey! That is the Mon Calamari fleet. (They must be the backbone of the Rebel Alliance Navy.) 

Hey! That is Artoo Deetoo and See Threepio! 

Hey! That is Princess Leia! (She just died! Whoa, she looks fake.) 

And so on. I am not sure how many Star Wars references are in there, but someone will count them all soon enough. (https://www.inverse.com/article/25273-star-wars-rogue-one-easter-eggs-death-star-blue-milk) 

There are a whole lot of other Hey! That moments in the movie. When it is time to raid the library on the planet Scarif, all of a sudden, the Dirty Dozen assemble to take the Guns of Navarone on the Longest Day. They have World War II American GI helmets on. One of them even has three white cylindrical objects in his helmet band, which in a World War II movie would be cigarettes. By the way, why do so many of the characters have pockets with space pens in them? There is even an ambiguously gay duo on set, Chirrut (Donnie Yen) and Baze (Jiang Wen) straight from the Hidden Fortress. 

http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/star-wars-rogue-one-gay-baze-chirrut.html

 http://www.looper.com/34950/theories-chirrut-bazes-backstory/  

I have to believe that the movie executives easily greenlighted this movie. X-Wing battles? Darth Vader swinging his lightsaber and force choking? Shut up and take our two hundred million dollars! The plot of this movie has one goal, get the plans to the Death Star to the rebellion, which leads to its demise in Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode IV). Since you ought to know that going into this movie, it really becomes a Ken Burns documentary, perhaps dramatized to make it watchable. 

Seriously, could this film work if some guy just rolled up the blueprints into his briefcase and mailed them to Princess Leia on Alderaaan? {BB}