'Star Wars: The Force Awakens': A triumph for the rages

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.

Stormtroopers fly coach.

They're cooped up in seats that are even more cramped than those in a rickety old MD-80.

No wonder they're so annoyed.

This was one of my abiding memories after going to one of the first public showings of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."

Astonishingly, the theater in Miami's South Beach wasn't full. There were several rows in front of me with no one in them. Which made me wonder whether the force hadn't, by some miracle, awakened everyone.

And then there were the previews. A fulsome 20 minutes in which the only ones that didn't portend global menace and disaster were cartoons.

It's little wonder, then, that this new Star Wars movie enjoys so much rage and absolutely no sex.

Just as the nation is raging about everything that it sees, here are a bunch of characters who get so mad -- at themselves as well as others -- that they want to thump and kill people and even blow up whole planets.

Even the animals emit strange sounds last heard in the latter stages of an evening with WWE.

I understand that Star Wars occupies some sort of venerable podium toward which one is supposed to bow and genuflect.

I couldn't help, however, noticing that -- as in many religions -- tradition and anachronism danced a difficult pas-de-deux.

The sci-fi part is a touch troubling. One minute these spaceships are flying around, but the next there seems to be a failure to install surveillance cameras just where they're needed most.

Then there's the stormtroopers. Perhaps it's the discomfort of those coach seats, but they waddle about as if it's their sciatica that's trying to kill them, not the good guys.

Even the new fiend Kylo Ren has a face like a disgruntled museum armadillo. With his mask on, that is.

What's best about the movie is how beautifully it moves along, not allowing you to dwell on a plot that's thinner than a chiffon serviette or on some of the locations, which seem to have been recently abandoned by the minor league British actors of "Game Of Thrones."

Don't worry, you get your fair share of minor league British actors here too. Was that the voice of Downton's butler I heard, playing some contorted being? I think it was. Even he was not a happy soul.

And then there's the new droid known as BB-8 -- and previously known as the World Cup soccer ball of 2006. He rolls with the punches, alright. It's not quite rock 'n' roll, however.

It all feels so familiar, a theater revival that's completely faithful to the original. Some might say, too much so.

The audience loved it. They laughed at the genuinely funny moments. They applauded wildly at the beginning and the end. Yes, it was a little like a reverential night with Celine Dion at Caesar's Palace.

I'm not very good at remembering movies at the best of times. I see them, I ingest them, and then they're gone.

When I went to see the original Star Wars classics, all I remember is thinking them very pleasant entertainment, a highly enjoyable Friday night out. They never seemed important in any way. I never thought this would become some sort of allegory of our existential infirmity, worship-worthy in 30 years' time.

Walking out of this one, what stuck in my mind were the contorted faces of so many fine actors, each expressing their anger that things were really quite dire.

In that, I suppose it's a metaphor for our times. We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.

Then we do. Cue Episode VIII.