A spoiler-free review of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

Famed filmmaker Orson Welles had absolutely nothing to do with “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the seventh installment in the venerable intergalactic franchise, which officially opened for business at local theaters late Thursday evening — but that doesn’t make his words any less apropos.

The last fans saw of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa and Han Solo, they were celebrating the demise of the evil Empire at what appeared to be the Ewok equivalent of an outdoor barbecue.

It was a high note to go out on and if this was goodbye forever — and it certainly looked that way — then at least we were leaving them in a good place.

Fast forward nearly 30 years later and things aren’t quite as rosy. Just because you cut the head off of a snake doesn’t mean that the body won’t continue flailing about and the same is true for the Empire, the remnants of which have banded together to form The First Order, an iron fist grasping once more for a hold over the galaxy.

And Luke Skywalker is missing.

Clearly time hasn’t always been kind to the Skywalker clan or to the franchise that propelled them to forefront of the pop cultural lexicon. Creator George Lucas followed his first trilogy with a phalanx of prequels that eschewed the fairy tale fancy of the originals in favor of overly complicated intergalactic politics.

They were — at best — tepidly received and it seemed like the old magic was just a little bit too far, far away.

Nearly a decade later, director J.J. Abrams is releasing a new coda to the “Star Wars” saga, one that is not only a satisfying conclusion to “Return of the Jedi” but proof that the ever elusive happy ending is still a possibility for this brand.

“The Force Awakens” returns the series to its pulpy roots. This is an adventure yarn plain and simple, with enough of the usual suspects — lightsabers, TIE fighters and wookies, oh my! — to qualify for franchise citizenship.

There’s a lightness to the entire enterprise, a joy that radiates from every frame and even the cynical will be hard pressed to suppress a smile when Harrison Ford saunters aboard the Millennium Falcon for the first time in far too long.

Newcomers Daisey Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Issac and Adam Driver are welcome additions to all sides of the force.

The galaxy is once again in good hands.

This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 12:17 AM with the headline "A spoiler-free review of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’."