As 'Star Wars' returns, a new generation quakes

Long before I was a movie writer and critic, I was a teenager driving up the Garden State Parkway in a Storm Trooper helmet, asking toll booth attendants if they had seen two droids.

I don't know what this means for my relationship with Star Wars' and the coming sequel, The Force Awakens, which is some mix of boyish excitement and adult despair. I do know that it's difficult to operate a stick shift with a Storm Trooper helmet on and that New Jersey toll booth attendants are a hard bunch to faze.

As The Force Awakens makes its way into theaters, moviegoers and critics of generations old and young will again have to wrestle with a cultural force as colossal as the Death Star, whose cinematic firepower is alternatively seen as the vile source to today's franchise-mad blockbuster-crazy Hollywood or the ultimate expression of a glorious movie passion that spans time, galaxies and dreadfully disappointing prequels.