'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' spoiler-free review

[MUSIC] There are stories about what happened. It's true, all of it. The wait is over, the verdict. is in. With me is my c|net colleague, Rich Trenholm, he has seen The Force Awakens and he's here to offer his expert opinion. Now, we are avoiding plot spoilers here, and Rich is well aware of the consequences of giving too much away. Oh, that reminds me, actually, there's this really good bit right at the end [SOUND] So Force Awakens puts Star Wars back on our screens, but decades after the original and with a new director, Rich does it still feel like Star Wars?>>Well the force is strong with this one you'll be glad to hear. It very much goes back to the original trilogy, the original Star Wars Trilogy and the kind of the classic DNA. In fact, it's almost like a A greatest hits of Star Wars really. It starts off with a young dreamer on a desert planet, and a plucky droid entrusted with important information. And even though the empire was destroyed at the end of Return of the Jedi, you still got armies of storm troopers and you've got snooty aristocratic officers and then the bad guys are led by this masked [MUSIC] Black clad, denizen of the dark side. It feels very much like classic Star Wars. So in the prequel trilogy, there was perhaps an over-reliance on computer effects that didn't go down terribly well with lots of Star Wars fans. Tell me Rich, about the look and the feel of the new film. Well, I mean obviously there is a lot of CGI in them, but, again, they have gone back to the classic feel of the original trilogy. So that this cavalcade of great creatures and aliens and monsters and robots were all done in a very physical way in camera, with lots of great prosthetics and makeup and all that kind of thing. It looks absolutely fantastic. It's got a real old school feel to it. It feels really real. You're really in that of world. With one unfortunate glare exception. I can't tell you too much because it's something that's not been in the trailers but there's a very major character who done entirely in CGI and it really, really stands out from the crowd of the other creatures that's done so well and so kind of so physically. Which is a real shame I think. The Force Awakens introduces new characters alongside old familiar faces from the original trilogy. What are the new characters like and could they ever be beloved as Han, Chewie, and the gang? Yeah I think so. Yeah. It's absolutely fantastic to see the old faces again. It's great to see Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher step back into their old roles. It's almost like they've never been away but at the same time yeah the new characters they're really really interesting, they're fun and they're compelling and they've got interesting stories of their own and I think it's gonna be really interesting to see how those stories unfold and kinda carry this new trilogy forward into the future. Okay Rich so to sum up having seen Force Awakens how are you now feeling about a new trilogy and a new generation of Star Wars films? Well, I've got a good feeling about this. So that's what Rich thought. You can catch the Force Awakens in theatres galaxy wide. And when you have seen it, do let us know what you thought. All right that's all for now, and stay tuned to cnet.