I saw the original Star Wars when it came out in 1977.  For those counting, I was 11 years old.  At that point I had already started loving Science Fiction and Fantasy.  I was almost finished or finishing Grade 6 and was going to start HS that fall in Montreal, far away from the suburb I grew up in.

Like many people, watching that first Star Wars film was magical.  It had space battles, a small group of rebels fighting and winning against a massive and powerful empire, and sword fights and magic.  I was captivated by the movie and swept away.  I am sure that it was a big influence on me and one of the reasons why I joined the SCA (I wanted to be a knight).

Like most people who fell in love with Star Wars via the original trilogy, I was very unsatisfied with the prequel trilogy. In particular, the Phantom Menace was so terrible to me that I almost quit going to the films.  It was mainly a sense of stubbornness that made me complete the prequel trilogy.  Years later after several more viewings of the prequel movies I still think they are poor, but they at least have some decent lightsabre battles.

So I went from a childish sense of wonder from the first trilogy to an adult disappointment with the second trilogy.  For The Force Awakens, I decided I would not go see it until I had heard that it was not terrible.  So I made no effort to get tickets on or near opening day and then I waited to hear what people thought of the new movie.

The verdict was pretty much the new movie did not suck.

So I went to the movie.  I went with my 18 year old daughter who only watched the Star Wars films in the past few years and liked them but was not a fanatic.

We both liked it.  Sarah was even much more enthusiastic than I was, but I left the theatre happy that the movie actually was competently made and did not make me feel sad and dumb for liking the series.  However, I was not completely sold on the film and had quite a few reservations bouncing around in my head as I thought about it.  The main one was that it followed too many things from the first film and I thought it was too tied to redoing that story.  The other was dealing with Harrison Ford being so old.  I loved Hans Solo.  He was young and cocky and full of life.  A much older Harrison Ford who had almost died in a plane crash just could not walk and move like the Hans Solo of old.  Finally, I thought that the lightsabre battles just were off and not that exciting.

I went to see the movie again.  I enjoyed it a lot more the second time.  Afterwards, I tried to track down what was different the second time around.  It was so obvious that I am surprised I did not realize what was so different the second time around.  I saw the movie without being afraid.

The first time I went, even though enough people had said it did not suck, I was very worried that I would leave disappointed again and another little bit of childhood magic would slip away.  So I could not relax and just watch the film.

The second time I knew that the movie was good.

And this time I left with a smile on my face and the memory of dancing around at 11 holding a stick and wielding a lightsabre firmly in my mind.