Star Wars. Yes, it's the must see this Christmas isn't it? So basically, it's the beginning that, you know, obviously, everybody's very worried about plot spoilers, so let's try to avoid giving away anything about the plot. Let's just say, obviously, this takes place sometime after Return of the Jedi, episode 7. At the very beginning, there is a scroll which sets up a battle between Good and Evil, and all I'll say about the story is that it involves a scavenger rape, played by Daisy Ridley, who teams up with a renegade stormtrooper, played by John Boyega, on an adventure which reunites friends old and new. Now we don't even have a clip what we have is a montage of stuff which was available from the trailers, so even this is going to be spoiler free. Who are you? I'm no one. I was raised to do one thing, but I've got nothing to fight for. Nothing will stand in our way. I will finish. What do you start? There are stories about what happened. It's true. I'll do it. Come a long way since George Lucas, isn't it? It has. Now, here's the thing. I never clicked with the original Star Wars films where the first ones came out. I was very wedded to the idea of, you know, darker science fiction, like Slurice and a silent running to some extent, and so I couldn't quite get on with this butt-rodger stuff. When the prequels came out, I was old enough to think, well, they're nothing like as good as the original, and they had that kind of weightless digital quality, and I think even the original Star Wars fans were disappointed by the prequels. So I went into this as somebody who really isn't a Star Wars effesionado, and I have to say the great victory of it is, is that it made me feel for the first time, like a 12-year-old, watching a Star Wars movie. I thought it was really exciting and engaging and dramatic and tragic. I mean, one of the things I like very much about it is it has a feeling of physical heft. It shot on film 35 millimeter and 65 millimeter, and there are certain sequences in it, particularly the sort of desert scenes in which you get a sense of that sort of Lawrence of Arabia, Grandier, which was so absent from the Lucas prequels. You also have characters who are, you know, you're interested in their story, you're interested in what they're doing, but they ride that very, very fine line between, on the one hand, your interstellar adventure and the other hand humour. There are jokes in this movie that are genuinely funny in a way that so many comedies don't manage to have. Now, the thing that really surprised me was I watched it in a packed cinema with people who were really sort of Star Wars effesionados and you could feel the anticipation and the minute the opening thing had long gone, Galaxy Fireway, everybody was really excited, but there was also a sense they didn't want to be disappointed. The best thing about the film was not only did it not disappoint them, it really captured my imagination, and suddenly I found that I was surrounded by crowds of people who were laughing, who were cheering, who were gasping, and I suddenly realized I was one of them. And I have to say it was a very, very strange experience and it comes down to JJ Abrams for me. I mean, I've always thought he was a fine director and he does hear what he did with the Star Trek movies, which is that sense of taking it back to the original, taking it back to the roots, but also going back to the future, using that as a way of looking forward. There's really John Wagner with terrific, really good, it's a holding attention and new characters that you really engage with. And as I said for me, it was like finally going, oh, I see, I get this and I confess, I've seen it twice. Twice in 24 hours and the second time round, the first time I saw it was when I'm X2D and I thought it was, you know, thoroughly immersive, I didn't feel any need for Stereo Oscar Pier tool, but both times round, I thought this is really satisfying, it has that JJ Abrams sense of heft. You know what I mean by heft, you feel that the dog fights have weight, you feel that there is some actual physicality about them, which was so lacking from the over-negidised pre-qual. You will hardly be surprised, I just saw that $57 million in the opening night, which was a record and people are talking about $3 billion in total, including the merchandising, which George look is very craftyly. The one thing that made sure he got it. The one thing I would say about that is it's very easy to assume that something like this is going to be a massive hit, okay, but it's also really, really difficult to make a movie that will play with the fans and also play to the audience who aren't completely invested in it. And if it does end up doing Titanic business, no pun intended, sorry, if it does end up doing that, it will be because of repeat viewing as because both groups of people really like it. And for me, as I said, for somebody who was never a star, I mean, I really wasn't on the side of Star Wars before I kind of just thought it was a distraction. I was sold on it, I was completely sold on it. Sure, yeah, totally totally