Man’s new best friend (Disney)

Fans will see Star Wars: The Force Awakens whether critics like it or not. Moviegoers whose idea of a holiday blockbuster director is Todd Haynes will likewise stay away no matter what anyone says. But what if you’re somewhere in the middle—someone who might have grown up in the middle of Wookiemania but has ignored the franchise for years? If you can forget how awful The Phantom Menace was, come back from the darkness, my child.

I saw Star Wars at the Uptown when it opened in 1977. I was nine years old, and I loved it. Right before Christmas that year, my mom told me they got me a piece of merch that she told me was little and cute and when you pushed a button, it ran! My dreams of an R2-D2 figure were dashed when I opened up what turned out to be a Star Wars digital watch that is now one of my prized childhood possessions. I was excited about The Empire Strikes Back, which I saw at the long-shuttered KB-Cinema. But I never got around to Return of the Jedi, and after seeing the awful The Phantom Menace, I gave up on the series, and never looked back.

So I went into The Force Awakens with less anticipation than trepidation, though I was relieved that J. J. Abrams (who successfully rebooted the Star Trek franchise) was at the helm and not Lucas. The blockbuster pedigree of his co-screenwriters doesn’t hurt: Lawrence Kasdan’s first screenwriting credit was The Empire Strikes Back, and Michael Arndt wrote Toy Story 3, which may be the best film in that franchise. This multi-generational talent pool is significant, and The Force Awakens naturally taps one of TS3’s great themes: the ravages of time on childhood dreams.

I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but a key moment in The Force Awakens has all the poignancy of discovering an old toy in the attic—or in this case, in the middle of a desert—and finding not only that it still works, but it has a role in saving the universe.

As suits a Star Wars movie made in the middle of the technological age, it’s a droid that first sees trouble coming. BB8 is the new R2D2, a mechanical puppy that’s loyal and reliable. As the film opens, resistance fighter Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac, who doesn’t really have much to do) tries to hold back an attack from the First Order, who’s searching for a clue as to the wheareabouts of the missing Jedi Luke Skywalker. One of the Stormtroopers that Poe kills reaches out to look at another, and despite the emotionless masks they wear their body language conveys regret and sympathy. With a bloody hand, the dying Stormtrooper leaves red trails on his friend’s helmet. These dark red lines mark a fighter who we will come to know as …

I won’t tell you anything else. This is entertainment for the young and the arrested adolescent alike, but as a movie about the passage of time, about characters that some of us have known for thirty years, it’s about mortality and the difficulty of watching our heroes growing old and frail. Abrams rescues the franchise from Lucas’ inability to write credible dialogue and shape human performances from his cast, and brings this intergalactic struggle between good and evil back down to earth. I laughed, I cried, I marveled, and I wished I had seen it on a bigger screen. Go see it on the biggest screen possible. May the Force be with you.

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Directed by J. J. Abrams
Written by Lawrence Kasdan, J. J. Abrams and Michael Arndt
With Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Harrison Ford
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence
135 minutes
Opens tonight at a multiplex near you, but go see it at the Uptown or in IMAX.