It's been easy to smirk at the nostalgia-laden campaign for J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But in our franchise-heavy movie universe, Star Wars is unique in that it has always been a product of nostalgia. For all its forward-thinking technical effects, the original trilogy was George Lucas remixing westerns, World War II movies, and sci-fi serials; screwball romances and Kurosawa films. It was a series of stories inspired by and paying tribute to a childhood love of other stories. In that sense nostalgia has been the perfect lens — perhaps the only true lens — through which to revive the series. If A New Hope was made by people who grew up loving Flash Gordon, it's only fitting that The Force Awakens is a movie clearly made by people that grew up loving Star Wars.

With Abrams bringing in Star Wars veteran Lawrence Kasdan to co-write The Force Awakens, and putting such vocal emphasis on the practical effects and characters that made the originals so memorable, there's been no doubt that he's been using his own personal passion, trying to reboot the franchise by taking it back to its origins.