Star Wars – The (familiar) saga returns

Just saw the new Star Wars movie. It was AMAZING. This is the movie the fans have been dreaming to make, yes you read that right, and it’s the movie I would've made if I directed it.

It's definitely hits all the marks, cool light saber fights? check. Chilling aerial battles? Check. Cute droids? Check. Emotional scenes? Check. Enthralling speech about the Force? Check. Han Solo's rouge magnetism? Check. Princess (sorry, General) Leia? Check. Luke Skywalker? Check. Dark Lord of the Force? Check. If you are getting tired of my checklist you got that right.

This is a movie carefully crafted to satisfy older generation geeks like me and to reboot the franchise to engage the newer generation audience like my kids. I have to say they got everything right. If a diehard fan like me finds stuff eerily familiar it's by design at the same time even if you are unfamiliar with the canon you'll still like it, it has the same familiar FX and legendary score by John Williams and of course old favorites and tongue in cheek references are peppered throughout the enterprise.

I am a little jealous of the director JJ Abrams, he did a commendable job rebooting the Star Trek franchise and paid tribute to Spielberg in "Super 8", here he carefully handled the fan favorite and delivered a blockbuster without fault. Could it have been greater? Of course, but it's very satisfying.

I have to say Disney achieved what they were aiming for and found a new fan base, and came up with a blockbuster to unseat avatar from its perch and justified their Lucas film acquisition. In my opinion, you have to see it in IMAX and that sentiment definitely helped the box office collections so far given the hefty price tag of the IMAX tickets. I also liked that the new protagonists in the movie are a girl and an African American signaling the transition to a new generation. The music, FX, story arc is all top notch and the narrative definitely holds the original trilogy in reverence. If you think sci-fi is a subculture, then movies like the Martian set the high bar of what's possible, but every culture needs its soap operas and Star Wars is the best space opera there is. So, my recommendation to and enjoy the spectacle to your hearts content and introduce your kids to the grand adventure with the same reverence that you and I hold it.