A review of The Force Awakens is inherently a review of the films that came before it. The long-anticipated follow-up, or any Star Wars film for that matter, simply cannot occur in the vacuum of space. The series holds too much cultural and personal significance to not draw comparisons to its predecessors. Enough time has passed for our nostalgia of the original trilogy to outweigh its flaws: wooden dialogue, callow acting, too many white people in space, all pale (heh heh) in comparison to the epic, melodramatic Western we’ve come to love (though we still haven’t had enough decades since the prequels to recognize them for what they are: unnecessary but entertaining flicks, that are, yes, also abominations-that-should-be-killed-with-fire). As such The Force Awakens is put in the tough position of competing with the wistfulness of the past and concurrently correcting its mistakes. Luckily, J.J. Abrams hits the perfect chord to satisfy all of our requirements, deftly mining the original trilogy…