With the Star Wars machine churning out a slew of new films, the roller coaster of nostalgia is running off the rails. While some fans are extremely satisfied with the way Rogue One mixed the new film with cameos from A New Hope, others aren't quite as happy about the one off taking so many liberties with the characters. You're never going to make everyone happy, but even the writer of the film Gary Whitta says he had to keep the movie under control because the throwbacks may have gotten out of control. When EW asked about using cameos in the film, he had this to say:
“We did have some other characters but the reason why they’re not in the film is because any time we did something like, where I’m wearing the fanboy hat and not the professional writer’s hat, someone would come along and say, let’s not do that character again. We don’t have to be winking at the audience all the time.”
Considering how many side characters they had to pull from, we're lucky that they tried to keep the movie in check. As much as I personally liked Rogue One, the few cameos they did have were distracting and at some lengths took away from the experience of the movie.
-CG