A couple days ago a piece by N.Y. Post contributor Johnny Oleksinski lamented the absence of the spiritual undercurrent that he recalls from (choke, gag, loogie) the prequels. A ballsy thing to say and yes, I understand what he’s half-getting at but still…yeesh. The overwhelming mantra during Monday night’s post-premiere party was “definitely better than the prequels,” and already Oleksinski is trying to spark nostalgia sentiment for that godawful trilogy? It wouldn’t matter to me if holograms of Jesus, Buddha and Krishna were to issue a prequel endorsement manifesto. The presence of Jar-Jar, Hayden Christensen and Jake Lloyd automatically erase any spiritual currents, now and forever. End of discussion.

“[While] watching director J.J. Abrams’ smug revamp of one of the highest-grossing movie franchises in history, I found myself missing the loathed prequels,” Oleksinski writes. “Or, at least, thinking of them in a more positive light than before. Like an ex after midnight. Sure, they had problems — Jar Jar Binks, midi-chlorians, staid dialogue, Count Dooku. As movies they fail, often spectacularly. But the scorned prequels got one big thing right — the intangible Star Wars spirit. They oozed mythology, gravitas, nonstop momentum and unwavering earnestness — hallmarks of the series at its best. With The Force Awakens, Abrams has made a slight, self-aware, low-stakes movie [that] borrows from the original trilogy with abandon — but in all the wrong ways.”