It has transcended every other Star Wars movie for me. Such a wonderful film. My new rankings are:
1. Rogue One
2. Revenge of the Sith
3. The Force Awakens
4. The Phantom Menace
5. Empire Strikes Back
6. The Clone Wars
7. A New Hope
8. Return of the Jedi
I love that they included a character from the Clone Wars TV show, as well as characters and assets from the Star Wars Rebels TV show. They perfected facial CGI for calm scenes, to the point that in IMAX 3D the characters with CGI faces may as well have been real faces. Not even uncanny valley. Just... wonderful. I have not seen it on a standard screen, however, so maybe it's noticeable in the normal version.
@Lillefix, it's still very Star Wars but it's a much darker approach to it. The good-bad morality system is muddied. Rebels are doing bad things, Imperials are acting like ordinary people. There's terrorism, witnessing acts of atrocity on the ground instead of seeing it from afar in space (i.e. the destruction of Alderaan in Episode 4). Character development is good, by the end of it you like most if not all the primary characters.
Darth Vader is not in it much but his presence is certainly memorable. Excellent performances by everyone in the film except for Forest Whitaker. However, I'm 75% certain that's my personal bias against him as an actor and not about his actual performance.
Nobody gets their "hero death". It's gritty. Death is just a thing that happens. There's no song or dance about it. People die and the story moves on because
there's no time, they have to hurry.
Wonderful film. I'm pleased, very pleased.