But over the subsequent two weeks, as the movie has racked up historic box-office numbers, critical sentiment seems to have shifted. The essential components of the assessment remain the same: On the plus side, the film’s performances are strong and pleasingly diverse, it boasts many lively sequences, and the overall result is way better than the second trilogy; on the minus side, the movie is ensnared in its own nostalgia and lack of originality. The balance, however, has shifted from emphasizing the former to emphasizing the latter. Even George Lucas has gotten in on the act, complaining that the movie is all recycled ideas, and that his experience of selling the franchise to Disney was akin to selling his children to “white slavers.” (Which mostly raises the question: Who’s worse? White slavers, or the person who sells his children to them?)

The litany of particulars is by now well documented, and I have no desire to add unnecessary spoilers for anyone who has (somehow) managed so far to avoid them. So briefly: The Force Awakens’s chief protagonist, Rey (Daisy Ridley), is essentially a female version of Luke Skywalker (and a marvelously understated feminist one: read our own Megan Garber on the subject here); its chief antagonist, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), is a Darth Vader knockoff in more ways than one; Harrison Ford’s Han Solo fulfills pretty much the role this time out that Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan Kenobi did last time; oedipal issues are once again resolved by means of a light sabre encounter witnessed by young heroes; it ultimately all comes down to an X-Wing assault on the minuscule weakness of an asteroidal, planet-killing super-weapon; etc., etc., etc.

All this has been known and acknowledged from the start. Yet what were once generally considered acceptable flaws are now viewed by some as defining failures. Let me offer a few examples out of the many available. And please be forewarned that this is going to get down into the weeds a bit.

I’ll begin at home, with The Atlantic. I saw The Force Awakens on Tuesday December 15 and wrote my review that day for publication when the embargo broke Wednesday morning. I described the movie as “less sequel than remix,” noted that it was “ensnared in its own nostalgia,” and explained that “much of the enjoyment it provides is by design derivative.” But my complaints were half-hearted at best. Ultimately, for me the movie accomplished two crucial goals: It transported me back to 1977, when I saw Star Wars on opening day as a 10-year-old boy; and it began the task of wiping away all cultural memory of the abominable prequel trilogy. Like most contemporaneous critics, I considered those accomplishments to be more than enough. My thoughts have since evolved somewhat—a second viewing played a significant role—and I’ll return to that evolution in a bit.