My thoughts immediately jumped to

That was my first thought too. But I've been wondering a lot about it since.

I thoroughly enjoyed TFA...thoroughly. Perhaps precisely because it was so reminiscent, but I also loved the new characters. All of them. Not a Jar Jar in sight, thank goodness.

I wish the youngsters with me liked it more but apparently the predictability bothered them.

In regards to R2's coma, it made me think that he was doing 'deep space searching' for Luke. Not sure what made me think that.

The plethora of cameos by some of my favorite actors gave me a great idea. JJ should pick a charity he loves and then tell his casting directors that anyone who commits dollars or acts of service and who 'just wants to be in Star Wars' can have any background part they want...to the highest bidder baybee!

They might solve world hunger!

BB8 reminded me so much of my beloved Cagney (What? He's short, sweet, white & orange) that I immediately fell in love with him even deeper than I ever loved R2, and that is a LOT.

Yes, I'm easily manipulated emotionally.

TFA was highly enjoyable. I got a little misty when the Falcon took off for the first time....

I'm going to whitefont this because I don't want to spoil it for anyone else, but I was trying to figure out why Rey looked so familiar, and I finally realized it's because she looks just like Harry Styles. Can't unsee it!!

I admit that I had to laugh after it was all over, because of all the theories/rumors about why Luke wasn't in any of the previews, when the answer is that he only had like 60 seconds of screen time.

And I was assuming going in to the movie that Han was going to die, and as soon as we found out that Emo Kylo Ren was his kid, I figured that would be how it would go down, but it was still a gutpunch.

I thought R2 had been silently hacking the First Order, trying to stitch all the maps together, and woke up when he had them done. (The fact that "a map to Luke Skywalker" doesn't actually make sense...well, it wouldn't be JJ without a healthy dollop of handwavium.)

I had such a great time! Super-fun, lots of callbacks, (okay, it was basically ALL callbacks) and some awesome spaceship chases.

Best part was when Rey gets the light saber, the entire audience cheered, and just as it was dying down, Aeryn shouts out "AWWW YEAH!"

Yeah, I was pretty sure Han was going to die as soon as Ren was revealed to be his son, and certain of it the minute he stepped out onto that catwalk.

I was glad that the "Luke isn't in the previews because he turned to the Dark Side" rumors were unfounded. Though I agree the map to his location seemed really goofy.

The giant red ball for me, though was the Star Killer weapon. Giant energy beam that can apparently travel through hyperspace (since it would have taken years upon years to get anywhere otherwise) and is bright enough to be visible through the atmosphere during the day on other worlds yet not permanently blind all the First Order troops staring at it when it fires. Plus, I'm not sure how blowing up a handful of planets destroys "The Republic".

I'm with Kalshane.

I could swear I heard Harrison Ford sigh with relief as Han Solo toppled into oblivion. Or maybe a quiet, "I'm too old for this shit."

Not that he hasn't been a sport and all, but I don't think he'll be crying in his beer over this chapter closing. And, of course, there can always be flashbacks but perhaps not a lot of long shooting days .

The only part of the movie I didn't like was the soap opera length stares at the end. I suppose Luke needed a certain amount of screen time for contractual reasons but it felt weird to me .

I'm with Steph about the Kylo Ren tantrums. Not sure why there had to be so many, unless that will be significant later. And, while I get all the emo jabs, I like that actor in this role. I've never seen Girls but apparently he's award winning in that.

Best part of the viewing experience was the huge cheer from the crowd for General Leia.

As we'd just watched the Honest Trailer for the last of the prequels, I admit that I laughed and laughed at the bratty slashing of the room with the lightsaber because, wow, such Anakin. It clearly skips a generation.

I love that Rey is like what would happen if Han and Luke had a kid (dear JJ, don't listen to me about that, though that would be hilarious, please no Jedi mpreg), and that Finn got so enthusiastic when he did something right, and oh, the poor boo latching on like a baby duck to the first two people who are actual people to him.

I loved it all. Even the ridiculous parts. Except for Han dying, but I wasn't surprised by that.

Having gone into it almost completely unspoiled and knowing nothing, I especially loved the fake-out on who the real hero was going to be. It started out with Poe's daring escape with the special droid, and then whoops, he's dead, the real hero is the brave former Stormtrooper escaping his bondage! Except whoa, no, the REAL hero is the scavenger from the desert planet (should've been a clue, right there) and how happy am I that the new Jedi is a girl? A girl who seems like an awesome combination of Luke, Han, and Leia rolled into one? Hell yeah, I'm in for this ride, and it looks like Chewie is too. Bring all the handwavium you need, we've got a spaceship.

I went in completely unspoiled, and as a result I gasped and whimpered when Han died. I was NOT prepared. I think I figured that if they were to kill him, they'd do it later in the series. Ah, well.

Over/under on whether Ren could ever be redeemed, since he's gone and done the one thing that Luke nearly died to avoid doing in RotJ? Also, Ren probably has a higher body-count to his name than Vader, given the populations on five planets. (Were they all in the same star system? How does that work?) (But then no one never accused JJA of having much understanding of astronomy.)

Man, I loved Rey. For one thing, every time someone showed up to rescue her, she'd already rescued herself. Every friggin' time. It was great.

She called out the stupid thing where the guy drags the girl along by the hand while they're being chased, which has always bothered me--all it does is slow him down, and throw off her balance.

She really is Leia's spiritual heir, in a lot of ways.

That said, why did Luke never train Leia in the Force?

For myself, I really don't want Rey to be a Skywalker or related to any of the old cast. I want her to be just some random kid who was abandoned on Jakku. I'm tired of dynasties.