As I See It | Star Wars, The Force Awakens: how to impress your colleagues when they ask what you think of the latest instalment

And so when the wait for a sequel trilogy is finally over, the question is not whether you should watch it – of course you should to stay relevant and not appear completely uncool – but what intelligent thing to say when asked about it at the office Christmas party. When it comes to the biggest movie event since perhaps Titanic, a generic response like “It’s not bad” just won’t cut it.

First thing first, you should know that The Force Awakens (a.k.a. Episode VII) is not a George Lucas production. Disney purchased Lucasfilm three years ago for an eye-popping US$4 billion, and was said to be “not that keen” to involve the franchise’s creator in the new project. Still raw about the way Lucas alienated loyal fans and bored non-believers with his tedious and miscast prequels (Episodes I to III) a decade ago, studio executives rejected his stories for the new films and sidelined him from the set.

Instead, Disney entrusted the world’s most lucrative franchise to J.J. Abrams, and gave him US$200 million to play with – compared to the paltry US$11 million (or US$43 million in 2014 dollars) that Lucas received to make A New Hope (Episode IV) in 1977. With a CV that boasts Mission Impossible III, Super 8 and the Star Trek series, Abrams is the Steven Spielberg of the 21st Century and the most bankable Hollywood director after Christopher Nolan.

Episode VII is set some 30 years after Return of the Jedi (1983), when the Resistance led by an ageing Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) is fighting a losing battle against the evil First Order – a cross between the Third Reich and modern day China that inculcates young minds from birth with state-sponsored propaganda. The rebellion is trying to track down Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a Jedi-in-hiding whose reclusiveness has only added to his Messianic myth.

Meanwhile, scavenger girl Rey, much like Luke in the original trilogy, chances upon a droid BB-8 that, much like R2-D2, escapes from a Stormtrooper raid with a secret message to be delivered to the good guys so that Starkiller Base, much like the Death Star, can be destroyed. There is so much cinematic déjà vu between A New Hope and The Force Awakens that the line between tribute and re-make, between familiarity and similarity, begins to blur. The balancing act between old and new is a tricky one – but when in doubt, choose the power of nostalgia over the temptation to chart a new path, because no one will fault the studio for doing the former. In fact, watching X-wings and TIE fighters shoot at each other, the Millennium Falcon slips into hyperspace in the nick of time, and drunken aliens revel in the smoke-filled cantina, is everything that fan boys ever want. If the old formula ain’t broke, don’t fix it.