(CNN) "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" answers the question of whether that galaxy far, far away is big enough to sustain multiple offshoots with an emphatic yes, delivering an extremely muscular and satisfying expansion of what had been, under George Lucas, a rather underdeveloped universe.

Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm came with a pragmatic mandate to churn out "Star Wars" fare, including stand-alone stories separate and distinct from the primary trilogies.

And "Rogue One" does feel different from the main movies, darker, grittier -- much closer in tone to an old war movie. Indeed, the production notes draw appropriate comparisons to the 1961 World War II classic "The Guns of Navarone," another film about a team of strong-willed individuals thrown together to undertake a secret mission against a malevolent empire.

Still, this is essentially the real long-lost prequel to "Star Wars," just 39 years later, and director Gareth Edwards has the advantage of being able to incorporate plenty of crowd-pleasing callbacks to the original.

The ways in which the filmmakers managed to forge and realize some of those connections -- even with modern technological conveniences, which include the ability to seamlessly replicate settings from the first film -- will surely leave many audience members agog, and occasionally elicit whoops and hollers. And while some flourishes, like Darth Vader's sinister presence, have been revealed in advance, there are enough small touches thrown in to keep fans happily consuming the movie to collect them all.

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