Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the seventh live-action film in the epic sci-fi series. It is the beginning of a new trilogy, with familiar faces from the previous movies, as well as new protagonists and evil villains. The question everybody is asking: how good is it?

For those who are unfamiliar with the films, a basic summary of the original trilogy can be phrased as a sort of an evil government versus revolutionaries in space. The universe takes place “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” where the evil Galactic Empire is being throttled by the Rebel Alliance, a group that chooses to side with the Force, the powerful energy that controls all life.

The Force has a dark side the Empire follows and it uses that power to control the galaxy in tyranny. The Rebel Alliance eventually defeats the Empire using the Force and restore peace to the galaxy.

The Force Awakens takes place Several years after the Empire was defeated. A new faction of Imperials wants to retake the galaxy, called the First Order, again with the power of the Dark Side. The Rebel Alliance now calls itself the Resistance and supports the New Republic, a democratic government that was formed after the Empire’s destruction.

New characters include a storm trooper, named Finn. He is a soldier for the First Order, who goes rogue and helps a pilot for the Resistance return information back to his superiors. A scavenger girl, named Rey, who is strong with the Force accompanies Finn and they meet familiar faces from previous films.

Overall, The Force Awakens is a good movie with a fresh start to a new era for Star Wars fans. The acting is convincing, the story is suspenseful and the amount of computer generated imagery or CGI, is minimal in contrast to the prequel trilogy addition to the series.

My biggest complaint would be how much it parallels to the original films, especially with the first one. Not to give out any spoilers, but Force Awakens starts off with characters escaping from an evil organization and landing on a desert planet, only to find out they need to find an important character that will bring balance back to the galaxy.

Nostalgia is kind of a cheap tool to receive more attention from the series’ fans, but to the film’s credit, it does use it in a way to enter into a new era of films that will go down in science fiction film history. It has a lot of promise and I personally can’t wait for the next movie to come out in early 2018.