As the new trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens sends the internet into meltdown today, longtime Force fan Ian Midgley takes a look at the teaser and wonders what the movie has in store. Scroll down for a link to the trailer.
It's 1999 and I'm a 25-year-old man who should know better. It's Sunday morning and there's a rumour that Channel Four has the exclusive rights to premier the trailer for the new Star Wars movie.
It's called the Phantom Menace, which is kind of goofy, but it's growing on me and – after 16 Star Wars movie-free years I wouldn't have cared if they'd called it Obi Wan's Big Yellow Fun Bus of Quorn Death, I'd still be glued to the screen.
I'm sat in my old Star Wars pyjamas, drinking from a Star Wars mug and toying with my old Greedo, which isn't a euphemism. I'm even toying with getting the Millennium Falcon out of the attic. God I loved that old hunk o' junk.
The VHS tape is loaded and ready to record and there's an air of excitement and expectation in the air.
For those who have no idea what a VHS is, it's sort of like a big black brick full of tape that we thought was the cutting edge of technology before we all thought DVDs, then Blu-Rays, then downloads, then Clouds were the cutting edge.
The internet didn't yet exist. Or if it did it was mainly used by nuclear physicists to very slowly download j-pegs of naked women sent by other nuclear physicists in Russia. Back then, normal people didn't have iTunes trailers, downloads or wi-fi. They made do with lives, friends and conversations.
But there's a frisson in the air. This was a bright new dawn, because this was the day that we all first clamped our eyes on the first new Star Wars film since 1983 and Return Of the Jedi.
It was an amazing feeling of being part of a vast, sentient nerd army whose time had come. We were legion, sat there in our Wookie underpants waiting for a peek of Obi-Wan Kenobi in his prime and Anakin Skywaller before all that business with the asthma inhaler.
And then ... Jar Jar Binks happened and it all went a bit sour.
And yet. and yet. Today that feeling has returned as the world caught its first glance at the first in a new trilogy of Star Wars movies.
Directed by JJ Abrams, the man who almost made Star Trek good, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens is set to reunite the original "legacy characters" of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, and faith in The Force has been rekindled.
There's a new hope that The Force Awakens will finally live up to the great original movies which preceded it.
The fear that we're set for another George Lucas-inspired CGI snore fest is for now at bay, which is a good thing because as Yoda told us: "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to sufferingggggg."
So now the trailer is online what do we make of it? Well, there's no sign of a bearded Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford or Carrie Fisher as those pesky fan forums has lead us to believe.
Instead we get the new generation of heroes lead by Brit John Boyega, interestingly wearing a Storm Trooper uniform without the helmet, waking up looking confused and sweaty in a desert.
He's quickly followed by new star Daisy Ridley, looking very much like a young Carrie Fisher (hint, hint) riding some sort of speeder, and a football-shaped RD-D2-ish droid burbling away like a chimp in a gin factory.
Then there's the voice.
A low, intimidating, voice that sounds like a cross between Lemmy from Motorhead and a world champion smoker eating gravel for breakfast. That's got to be the baddie.
He/It says: "There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?"
Cut quickly to the rear view of said baddie, wearing black Sith robes, stalking through a wintery forest before lighting up a flickering red lightsaber. "The Dark Siiide", says the voice. "And the light."
And then we get treated to about 20 seconds of Oscar Isaac piloting an X-Wing, kicking up spray as it skims across a lake. And then the big OMG moment. Oh yeah, it's back.
We're sent spinning through a 360 loop as The Millennium Falcon roars into screen, levelling out to take on two Tie-Fighers screeching towards it across a desert landscape. That's the money shot right there. A million credits' worth.
And that's it. It doesn't feel like the 88-seconds we were promised. It felt like eight.
But the adrenaline's pumping and all's right with the world again. Star Wars is back and, for now, we can dream that the galaxy far, far away will transport us back to our childhoods once again.
For now, I'm not just the 25-year-old sat in front of his TV watching, rewinding and wearing out his new VHS tape, but I'm the six-year-old sat in row G at The Odeon watching Darth Vader, wheeze: "No Luke. I AM your father" in the Empire Strike Back. And feeling a little wee escape at the excitement of it all.
Now all we've got to do is bid our time until next Christmas 2015 to see if the whole film can generate such feelings.
I can't wait. But I have a feeling The Force is strong with this one.• Watch the Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens teaser on iTunes' trailers site.
