Paris: It's been worth the wait. That was the verdict from critics on Wednesday as ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’, one of the most hyped films of all time, finally opened.
After months of teasing trailers that raised more questions than answers, and a Hollywood premiere on Monday from which the celebrity audience emerged smiling but sworn to secrecy, some of the franchise's millions of fans finally got to see it for themselves.
And the first reactions were overwhelmingly positive.
"The Force Awakens re-awoke my love of the first movie and turned my inner fanboy into my outer fanboy." wrote The Guardian's critic Peter Bradshaw. "There are very few films which leave me facially exhausted after grinning for 135 minutes, but this is one.
"And when Han Solo and Chewie come on, I had a feeling in the cinema I haven't had since I was 16: not knowing whether to burst into tears or into applause."
Another British critic, Christopher Hooton of the Independent, was equally effusive. "This is the film fans were hoping for, and it's an indisputable improvement on the abhorred prequels...
'Oozes style'
‘The Force Awakens’ oozes the style and composition of the first trilogy, and will not look awkward stood next to your well-worn 'Return of the Jedi' DVD."
Expectation had been high as the latest episode of the space saga opened in France, South Africa and several other countries.
"I woke at 4 am this morning and I have tickets to see it twice today," said Antoine Gerber, who made a five-hour trip from his home in Alsace to the capital Paris to see the film with fellow fans.
Box office records are also expected to tumble across Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Morocco, where the film is also opening ahead of its US launch.
So keen are some American fans to see the seventh episode that a dozen have paid up to $5,000 (4,500 euros) to fly to Paris to see the film 48 hours before it comes out at home.
More than half a million people have pre-booked tickets in France alone for director J.J. Abrams' two-and-a-quarter-hour epic, which returns to the story's roots.
As the first screenings began details emerged of the plot.
‘The Force Awakens’ picks up the intergalactic story of good versus evil 30 years on from ‘The Return of the Jedi’, the finale of the original trilogy.
Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi master, has disappeared and Princess Leia, now a general, sends fighter pilot Poe Dameron to save him from the evil First Order.
Dameron fails to find Luke but discovers a map of how to reach him, which he gives to his robot BB-8. The film turns on the robot's adventures trying to get back to Leia, helped along by Finn, a Stormtrooper who has turned his back on the Dark Side, and young scavenger Rey. 11:12
The trio of heroes who appeared in the first of the blockbusters in 1977 -- the smuggler Han Solo, Princess Leia, the leader of the rebel alliance, and her twin brother Luke Skywalker -- are back being played by the same actors that Star Wars first made famous.
While Harrison Ford, 73, went on to become Hollywood royalty, Tinseltown was not so kind to Carrie Fisher, 59, and Mark Hamill, 64.
‘The Force Awakens’ also brings a host of fresh faces, among them British actors John Boyega as Finn and Daisy Ridley as Rey.
'Ludicrous secrecy'
Disney, which bought the Star Wars franchise from its creator George Lucas for $4 billion in 2012, has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the plot shrouded in mystery.
The secrecy has prompted a backlash against the film's fearsome publicity machine.
The French daily Le Monde boycotted press screenings of the film Tuesday condemning the "unacceptable... and grotesque" demands made by the studio on journalists who wanted to see it.
Ridley, 23, almost unknown until she was cast as the scavenger Rey in the new film, defended the need to keep the plot under wraps.
"Everyone knows we keep it secret for the right reasons," she said.
But other actors in the film expressed their doubts, with Anthony Daniels, who has played the droid C-3PO from the beginning, calling the precautions "ludicrous".
Greg Grunberg, who plays an X-Wing pilot, told Entertainment Weekly such was the security on set that actors only got their lines the morning their scenes were being filmed.
A cinema in Bangkok was also due Wednesday to kick off screening of the film to the general public in Asia.
