December 2015 will be remembered as the month of Adele, Donald Trump and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The first of these I’m fine with in small doses, the second in no dose at all, and the third…well, it’s hard to quantify what makes one a “fan” of Star Wars. Yeah, I’ve seen Episodes IV, V and VI multiple times each, and the sub-par subsequent entries, uh, fewer times. But there are those who think you’re not a fan unless you can name Greedo’s cousins in alphabetical order. I’m more of the “I know Chewbacca’s home planet” variety. So I was totally fine with waiting a week to take part in this cultural phenomenon (Christ, it’s a movie). Everyone in the free world has been offering up their assessment of Force, and I’m no different than any other jerk with Internet access. However, I don’t care enough about Star Wars to compose a formal review. So here are some disorganized thoughts I had upon my first viewing.

-Overall, I liked Force. I wasn’t sure just how much to trust the glowing reviews it received, because if there’s one movie franchise that will cause critics to toss aside their objectivity and turn into fanboys and fangirls, it’s this (okay, maybe I could include the Ernest series here). As for myself, I wasn’t expecting a great movie, but rather hoping that director J.J. Abrams wouldn’t screw it up royally. While Force falls way short of being a masterpiece, he proved himself to be a worthy steward of the series.

-The good-guy new blood is fine. Daisy Ridley, John Bodega, and Oscar Isaac, as Roy, Finn, and Poe Dameron, respectively, capture the sense of wonder and adventure that was notably missing from the dull slogs that were the previous three entries. Isaac especially brings a ton of charisma to the role, treading that line between brave and cocky without ever crossing over to the latter. Unfortunately, the film abandons Dameron about a quarter of the way in and we don’t see much of him for awhile. Boyega’s Finn exudes an at-times frenetic energy as the galaxy’s worst-trained stormtrooper hurtling from one scrape to another. Ridley, as Rey, is all steely resolve. This could’ve been one of those showy “girl power” roles — of course she’s able to dispatch two henchmen with her staff and fix the Millennium Falcon with relative ease — but Ridley underplays her character’s prowess nicely.

-Adam Driver, as the new baddie Kylo Ren, does what he can with his character. People seem to be losing their shit over how evil and intimidating this character is, but I just saw Vader Lite. The tortured villain thing has been done roughly a billion times. Nevertheless, he summons the appropriate gravitas for his big, showy moments — in the hands of a lesser performer, they could come off as almost comedic. And a cool-looking light saber can go a long way, apparently.

-This being a J.J. Abrams production, it features a ton of actors from his various television projects. His movies sometimes look like weird Felicity/Alias/Lost mash-ups. Abrams probably should’ve invented a planet populated solely by Abramsites where he could’ve steered the action momentarily. Bam! He could’ve knocked out all those cameos in one or two scenes.

-I was disappointed by the lack of new “alien” characters. A big part of the fun with Star Wars is watching all the diverse species parade across the screen. Although there are a bunch of creatures in the scenes on Jakku and the bar scene on Takodana, there are no new major non-human characters.

-There’s a new R2-like droid that everyone seems to find cute. If everyone has so much affection for robots, why didn’t everyone buy those mechanical dogs Sony tried to peddle for years? Also, C3-PO has a red arm now. That may be symbolic of something, but I’m not insightful enough to know what that is.

-The special effects are spectacular. The level of realism achieved by the CGI is simply top-notch — a standard that all other effects-heavy films should aspire to. While the aerial and ground battles aren’t rise-from-your-seat exciting, everything is seamless. That is all.

-Man, Harrison Ford is just old. There’s a fine line between the grizzled, seen-it-all interplanetary smuggler and a guy who needs to go down for a nice, long spacenap. It is strange that so many fans made a stink about how decrepit Ford looked as Indiana Jones in his last outing and we hear nary a peep here. And yes, Carrie Fisher has been embroiled in a minor controversy about comments made regarding her looks, but she can’t move the upper part of her face. Not sure if Fisher took one too many Botox injections, but Captain Phasma has a more expressive visage. And yeah, Fisher should expect some criticism when her performance is clearly affected. On the plus side, Admiral Ackbar looks like he hasn’t aged a day.

-Humor abounds in TFA, which is more important than we often realize. The movie would probably collapse under the weight of its self-seriousness without the lighter moments, but they never interfere with the sense of foreboding and danger. Gotta love the interrogation scene. The stormtrooper is Daniel Craig!

-Speaking of stormtroopers…I found myself wanting the story to follow them after the opening scene. They’re fascinating. What’s daily life like for them? Do they have personalities? What do their living quarters look like? Did they ever follow through on that class-action lawsuit against their armor manufacturer?

-I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie, because the plot is a retread of A New Hope. Rey is the Luke Skywalker character desperate for more out of life, Han runs afoul of a client, the Millennium Falcon has mechanical trouble (holy shit, enough with that plot crutch!), and there’s a bigger, badder Death Star…with a weak spot. Always with the weak spot. Some might call it an homage; I call it exploiting the considerable good will I have for Star Wars.

In truth, it seems like we often judge these movies on their quality in relation to the other films in each trilogy. So, it’ll be a few years until we know how we truly feel about TFI.