It’s like coming home 30 years later.

Minor spoilers – nothing you won’t see in other reviews.

The Empire is gone, but the First Order has risen to menace those who would live free. A young woman named Rey lives as a scavenger on a barren planet, waiting for her family, taken by First Order when she was a child, to return.  She has little else to live for until a mysterious droid, bearing a critical message for the Resistance, appears in the desert, followed closely by Finn, a First Order defector, with storm troopers hot on his heels. The pair make a narrow escape on the Millennial Falcon, which had been sold for scrap.

Sound familiar?  It is, down to such elements as a bad-ass intergalactic bar and a woman of Yoda’s race, but it works, for the faces and circumstances are fresh, and the story of young people waking up to their courage never grows old.

And there is plenty for those old enough to have seen the original Star Wars in theaters. Leia and Han have split up, and the latter is back with Chewie in his familiar role as a rogue, sought by intergalactic bad guys for non-payment of funds. Necessity calls him back to the aid of the Resistance, however.

The Death Star is gone but a new, bigger and badder planet-killing weapon threatens all that is good.  Vader is gone, but Kylo Ren, son of a pair we know and love, has gone to the dark side and wears a mask.  The battle is joined. Rey and Finn team up to battle Kylo, but this is only the start of their fight.

In the end it is Rey who finds Luke, last of the Jedi, in exile and brings him the message, “You are needed.”

To be continued:  serious cheers for that!