Most. Applause-Garnering & Eye-Tearing. Ending. Ever.

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2015)

After the first two scenes — which seemed a bit fumbling & "ice- breaking" — I was astonished, time and again, by how meticulously balanced this film turned out to be; here's something new, here's a reference to something old, here's a dizzying shot reminiscent of Kubrick's effort in "2001" to dwarf the audience, here's a reimagining of Lucas's locating the slum-dwellers on offshore worlds so you can better see the scavenger life and all its travails, here's the Nazi impulse projected into the First Order rally, here's ...
Well.
As a youngster who's birthdays & Christmas's revolved around Star Wars, a unique opportunity forever lost to kids today (trumping GI Joe, Barbie, and Hot Wheels, which all seemed old hat as toys & what child psychologist D.W. Winnicott calls "transitional object") I couldn't wait for the 3rd one — I had been 5, and then 8, for the first two — but, bad rain, family politicking, and odd issues needing spite as an agenda kept me from going that weekend, until the Darbys (with the encouragement of Mrs. Melanson, my 5th grade teacher) spoiled it all for me, since it was Monday and the weekend was well over.
Well.
I didn't know what I had missed — lost youth? — but J.J. Abrams, in a way unique to film culture, obviously had *imbibed* Star Wars as a child, and, oddly, seemed to be "born" to well-serve where this three-trilogy story could go; only a kid could take it in, sinew and bone, and somehow, miraculously, recapitulate it a full generation- or-two later. (Who's counting?)
Kudos, J.J. Can't wait to see the next one!
FAVORITE RANDOM DIALOGUE EXCHANGE: The whole bit, when Finn and Han Solo and Chewie land on the bad place to save the rest of 'em: "Sanitation?"