This post is a long time coming. Longer than you might think, because I probably saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens before you did.

I saw it on Thursday, Dec 17th at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History Omni Imax theater. Which, for those keeping track at home, means I saw it before the official release date of Dec 18th—I’m not sure how they pulled that off, but I’m not complaining. My best friend since kindergarten (yes, I have a childhood friend) and his wife got there at 9am for a 10pm showing, for reasons I’m still not entirely clear on. What I do know is that the staff was awesome, we were at the front of the line, and they directed us to the best seats in the house.

As a 6’7″ man in a fully packed theater with about a foot of legroom for each seat, it was nice being one of five people who could prop their feet up on the projector.

(Before you ask, yes, I told you all of that to brag. Do you know how cool it is to see a movie like The Force Awakens in Omni Imax? Pretty fuckin’ cool, that’s how. I highly suggest the experience, with this movie or something else similarly sweeping and epic.)

Anywho, the point is: This post, and the ones that will follow it, are a long time coming. I could have written them the day after, or even the night of, but I wanted to let spoiler territory pass … and before I knew it, I was too wrapped up in RandomC year-end posts, and then RandomC year-beginning posts, to finish it. (Also, writing books.) So you’ll have to forgive me if some of my memory has faded, though I made sure to take notes after the movie ended, because I’m a weirdo like that.

Fortunately, we should be well past the moratorium on spoilers, but if you still haven’t seen it yet, consider this your warning:

Spoilers ahead. (Though not in this post.)

There. We all good? In that case, let me start out with a spoiler-free one-sentence review:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a good Star Wars movie, but it’s not as good as most people are saying.

There’s a lot to unpack in that statement, which is why I’m breaking this up into several posts: What Star Wars: The Force Awakens did right, What Star Wars: The Force Awakens did wrong, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The Conclusion. In that order.

Head to the next post, and let’s get started.