On the Star Wars Episode VII Trailer

Behold.



Okay, so it's not mahoosively spectacular or anything, but when casting my cynical eye over the trailer earlier I was not expecting the kind of gut reaction that came at me. It was a strange tingly blast of nostalgia, something last felt had when I played an old game for the first time in 20 years or have caught an earful of a song that hasn't troubled me for a long time. There was none of this nonsense when the prequels did the rounds in the early 00s, nor did any occasion the special editions upon their re-release back when your author was t'yoof.

Here's the thing. I'm not a massive Star Wars fan. The parents dragged me to the pictures to watch The Empire Strikes Back as a brattish but excitable kiddy-wink. My brother and I were smothered in the toys, and we even had a, ahem, naughty copy of Return of the Jedi before it came out in British cinemas. The simple goodies vs baddies narrative was just the foil for typical boys, which we were, who couldn't get enough of their militarised toys. Though I could never fathom how the plastic rendering of the Rebel Alliance Snow Speeder was half the size of the Imperial AT-AT when the film showed the latter to be many times bigger. But as I grew up the fictive universe never held its appeal. It was all too simple. And besides, as an advocate for sociological realism in science fiction the idea of a Roman-style republic/empire with slaves, magic, spaceships, and sentient robots is complete hooey.

All that said, come Christmas a sad sack collection of 30-something Stokie comrades shall duly traipse to the nearest big screen for the thrills 'n' spills on offer. And among them I will be.