Myself and my youngest son are booked for the comfy seats in our local multiplex on the afternoon of 17th Dec. 😃

We’ve chosen a 2d showing as our first viewing, and will see it again a couple of days later with the rest of the family, before Christmas - again in 2d.

At some point during it’s run, some of us are intending to go back and see it in 3D also.

(I had hoped to see it on the biggest screen here for my first viewing, but it’s going to be used exclusively for 3D screenings only, so I’ll have to wait to see it on that - still, our other screens are plenty big too!)

By the way, it’s a nice touch to have a ‘countdown clock’ attached to the site now, and the anticipation is rising. I’ve managed to avoid the last couple of trailers (especially the latest Chinese one, which I believe showed off quite a bit), and was able to dodge a lot of spoiler-ish articles so far. Unfortunately, I was doing some recent Christmas shopping in a local toystore, and inadvertantly spotted something at their ‘Star Wars’ display, which I was trying to avoid - I won’t say what it was, but it was certainly something I hadn’t expected, and I wish I’d seen it for the first time in the movie itself… Never mind, I know very little about it all so far, compared to when ‘The Phantom Menace’ came out.

Also, I wonder how the intro. to this movie is going to play out? - no 20th Century Fox logo (or fanfare either, I guess) this time around. The new Lucasfilm logo is ‘black’ now (I preferred the previous ‘rainbow/golden’ version, personally)…but will we get an additional Disney logo of any kind mixed in?..or a Bad Robot one? And will it even have the standard yellow ‘STAR WARS’ main title, chapter heading, and scroll over a starfield?..or will it be altered somehow? Will J.J. have the main title coming towards us, instead of receding away?..who knows?..but I look forward to hearing the first bars of John Williams’ familiar score boom out on the big screen once again, and can’t wait to hear what he’s come up with for this latest instalment.

Finally…in this age of pre-booking, it’s kinda heart-warming to know this tradition is alive and well - and I take my hat off to these dedicated guys and gals. Don’t let them down J.J. !! - www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/movies/star-wars-the-force-awakens-fans-are-already-lining-up.html