I sat there last night, watching the credits scroll, and I felt the absence of a stress that I hadn’t really noticed building for months. Star Wars was such a monumental part of my life growing up, from the literally hundreds of times I watched the movies to the thousands of hours I spent reading the Expanded Universe books, that I didn’t even process just how anxious I was about this movie.

I’d been long saying “I’m cautiously optimistic”, but that didn’t really hit the mark. I think, in some deep part of me, I was ready to be furious at what they did in The Force Awakens. I was ready to hate it, and to go home and immediately crack open Heir to the Empire while angrily thinking “this is what it should have been.”

But when that movie ended last night, and I sat there in my seat, all I could think* was, “We’re in good hands.”

They did this one right, people.

*A more in-depth review will be coming next week, once I’ve had a chance to see it again and process some more stuff.