The Empire Returns

Our Christmas film this year is Star Wars - the Force Awakens, seen in the Odeon Lounge cinema in Whiteleys .... and it didn't disappoint.

I remember queueing up in Leicester Square at about this time 38 years ago to see the original film not quite knowing what to expect. SciFi films out of Hollywood were not well renowned on the whole. But I was blown away by the opening sequences of the original film where a unbelievably huge Star Destroyer passes slowly overhead. The new film brought the memory back of this in the opening scene showing a Star Destroyer crashed in the desert and being picked over by scavengers. It was an expertly put together story, that held the interest but also full of superb landscapes - scenes of a low-flying venearable Millennium Falcon kicking up spray and dust as it skims the ground and finishing up on a little island off the West Coast of Ireland.

I can't wait to see it again - and also for the next instalment with VIII which is destined to be with us in May 2017. Shame it won't be ready for Christmas 2016!

The photo is one of the lovely domes of the old Whiteleys department store in Queensway, snapped on the way out in its full Christmas regalia.