I'm not going to get to see it until the night of the 22nd, so if anyone posts spoilers outside of a spoiler tag, I reserve the right to go crazy-admin and ban you.
But man, the good reception from critics so far is looking crazy good. Seeing 125 of 129 reviews being positive on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment. Not bad not bad.
Okay, at home and can type. Initial impressions will be spoiler-free, but I'll spoiler them anyway in case you want to see it blank-slate:
I enjoyed it; I wasn't blown away by it, though. It was approximately as good as I had been expecting: as good as, say, the Star Trek reboot.* There were a lot of nice homages, but it also felt very different (to me) from the originals, or even the prequels, very J.J. Abrams and a little Disney. I like the new characters; Finn (the man) is funny and Rey (the woman) is at once capable and not sexualized, which is cool, and they're both just likeable. The new villain, Kylo Ren, is interesting and has real character (I'm not so sure about the other two or three main villains, who are kind of under-explained and/or under-utilized). The film is fairly fast-paced, but the action scenes are largely purposeful, unlike in, say, Episode III. This film is focused on its characters and story, not its action or its trappings, which is very good (and I didn't notice any lens flare!). Unfortunately, while I like the new characters (and they use the old ones well), the story doesn't grab me emotionally as well as the classic films or many other movies I've seen. This is in part on account of the plot itself and partly its execution. I won't go into further detail, to avoid spoilers and because I don't know what I'm talking about when discussing film technique, only how it makes me feel - and you may feel differently. Less central criticisms: for all that was made of the use of 'real' effects and physical sets and props in the run-up to this film, this movie is very blatantly CG. Some of the aliens in particular really pop out as computer-generated in a way that even computer-animated characters in the prequel films did not. Also, some of the line delivery of the minor (i.e., one-scene or one-shot) characters was a little flat - thankfully, this didn't apply to the mains, unlike in Episodes II and III. But there was a lot of good 'little stuff', too. Overall, this movie reminded me, in terms of visual and emotional feel, like, again, the Star Trek reboot, the first Avengers movie (I haven't seen the second yet), or Guardians of the Galaxy: less believable and immersive or emotionally compelling than the classic Star Wars films, but well-done, featuring interesting characters, and a fun cinematic experience. Nice, light sci-fi, though not quite science fantasy - yet. I'll look forward to seeing how the series develops!
* I think I probably liked the first Star Trek movie more; I'll put this one on the level of the second, Into Darkness, which I likewise enjoyed but wasn't blown away by.
I have a real decision to make: DC is one of the few cities with both IMAX 70mm film and IMAX 3D laser showings.
70mm:
+Best format for the small portion of IMAX filmed material
+Maybe the last film IMAX release
+Not 3D
-Smaller screen (55' high vs 66')
-Worse quality on non-70mm portions (most of the film)
-Worse location
Laser:
+Best theater quality for most of film
+Biggest screen
+Better location
-Generally don't like 3D
-Analog film loyalty
Since both of us dislike 3D, I'm inclined to recommend the 70 mm. Also, I'm not sure this film is meant to/is capable of stunning us visually the way past films (in the franchise and not) have, so I don't know if perfect visual quality is of the utmost importance - unless that is something that is very attractive to you about watching a movie.
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