You Know What? You Were Right to Stay a Star Wars Fan All Those Years

You know what movie is seriously pretty fun? You no doubt saw it last year--probably multiple times--and your initial reaction was likely either "OH MAN, BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME, FINN HEART POE 4-EVA" or "Enh, it's totally fine, too many New Hope nods, Rey is cool tho." Those were the prevailing online attitudes about the movie throughout its winter-long, record-disintegrating box-office run, and they made perfect sense: This was the first Star Wars movie in a decade, and it needed to not only restore what had become a robotic-feeling franchise to greatness, but to also re-energize the base of (admittedly somewhat older) Star Wars devotees who felt the series had already peaked decades ago. The Force Awakens had to be a million different things to a gazillion different fans, including myself, and that may be why, on first viewing, I wasn't overjoyed or underwhelmed. But after a bunch of re-viewings, and a few scene-specific replays upon last week's home-video release, it became clear that, when removed from the suffocating context of huge expectations and attention, The Force Awakens is all it needs to be: Namely, a really good Star Wars movie, with zippy dog-fighting sequences and sly Solo one-liners and some really dope menswear.