It was a lot of fun. It was a well-crafted carnival ride, returning a venerable franchise to the spirit of its youth after the disastrous Lucas trilogy. But is it a groundbreaker, a movie I’d want to see over and over and figure people will be watching and arguing about decades down the line? Not exactly. If you want that, go re-watch Mad Max: Fury Road.

I was always aware of the clockwork paint-by-numbers plotting. Everything happened exactly as you’d expected it to. We have another Death Star (except bigger) whose designers inexplicably yet again left a vulnerability so that a small bunch of single-seat fighters can blow the whole thing up easily? We’ve seen that twice. It was a grace to miss the teddy bears celebrating, at least. And J.J. is the anti-Lucas, in that he finds and hires really good actors. But he’s got a mixed blessing in being semi-handcuffed by his using the original cast. He does the smart thing and puts most of the focus on Harrison Ford, who growls and barks and glowers in delightful fashion, and that’s a deep pleasure. Much as I think Carrie Fisher is a badass person in general, though, she’s a fairly bland and inexpressive performer, so after the glow of first seeing her again, we’re just left waiting for Leia to do... something. Or seem to care about... anything. Or just do something other than look at her castmates earnestly. He solves the Mark Hamill problem by leaving him out entirely, which was probably the better part of valor.

The younger folks are all very good, though. Adam Driver, Boyega, and especially Daisy Ridley, all leave their blood on the stage. Let’s see them do something unexpected in the next installment, can we please? They would be up for it. The one *gasp* moment for me in the whole movie was when bad guy Driver was light-fencing good guy Ridley, and he did his Force-reach for her light saber stuck in the snow. We watched it wobble, then fly through the air right past his face, into her waiting hand, while John Williams’s wonderful score swelled and the camera burrowed in on her triumphant face. It was a great moment, but in truth I had more of those *gasp* moments while watching the trailers than I did while watching the movie.

And 3-D is stupid and distracting, and distances you from the experience. I’d like to see it again without the stupid 3-D glasses to see if I felt more engaged.

Expectations may have been too high. I was entertained, wasn’t bored for a second. There was a great deal of detail and fun and a clear amount of love gone into it. I do hope that next time there’s a bit less reverence for past tropes and perhaps an angle or a plotline that we haven’t seen many times before.

Those are my thoughts.