Having lived through the insanity of the original three Star Wars movies,

and through the unfortunate disappointment of the recent, forgettable “prequel” movies that most Star Wars fans choose to pretend DON’T exist, my husband and I held our breath as our family braved the crowds and a packed theater at 9:00 AM Sunday morning during opening weekend.

After the huge disappointment of the 1999 Phantom Menace movie, we didn’t really expect much from The Force Awakens.

But wow, were we in for a delightful surprise!

The Force Awakens brings back everything that we all loved about Star Wars. Action, adventure, a touch of romance, and believable, not-forced comedy. The Force Awakens is also filled with characters that you can actually care about.

These are the things that were missing in the prequels. I didn’t care what happened to those people, and I didn’t believe that the romantic leads were in love (or ever would have fallen in love in those circumstances) The prequels were also jam packed with ridiculous tries at humor that instead of being funny, ended up annoying.

But let’s get one thing straight: the Force Awakens will leave you laughing just as hard as you will be clinging to your chairs during the action scenes. But the comedy here is not forced.

Things are funny, because life is funny.

Think about Han and Lea in the Millennium Falcon, and the hyper drive doesn’t work while they are trying to run for their lives.

Leia says, “Would it help if I got out and pushed?”

And Han responds, “It might.”

Very funny, and very believable. The Force Awakens is filled with stuff like this.

We are also treated to the same roller coaster ride plot that made the original Star Wars great: the underdogs fighting for what’s right, up against a more powerful enemy that they can’t possibly beat.

You will also see history repeating itself in many ways.

And we loved every minute of it.

I will admit that I was skeptical when I heard Disney now had their hands on the reigns of Star Wars. Now, I can’t help but think The Force Awakens might be the best thing to happen to Star Wars since the franchise exploded into the theaters in 1977.

Well done, Disney. May The Force be with you.

Have you seen The Force Awakens? What did you think?