I’ll admit, I may be a born-again Star Wars fan and the newly released The Force Awakens trailer may have been the difference.

Watching the prequels and the proliferation of merchandise, fandom and commercial saturation has soured me on the whole venture. Granted, the Star Wars franchise invented the blockbuster/merchandise machine we’ve become so used to, but in recent years Star Wars entered its nadir for me because it is built on inferior films. If the prequels were actually good movies, I might not begrudge the increased excitement, but I’ve felt for a long time that this generation wasn’t getting the ‘truest’ Star Wars that I knew from my childhood. 

That is until the last few moments of the trailer for the first Star Wars sequel  when an aged Han Solo says to Chewbacca, “Chewie, we’re home.” It’s hard to describe the exhilaration that came with that (you probably felt it too) but with those words and those beloved characters, JJ Abrams’ Star Wars did a lot to heal my disillusionment.

I’m on board. I’m on board the Millennium Falcon and I imagine I sit behind those two wherever in the galaxy they may take me because with them, I am home.