Let’s dispense with the important information directly, since establishing geek credibility is extremely important when discussing anything having remotely to do with “Star Wars”: I still have all of my toys, including my Landspeeder, which is currently perched on my bookshelf next to a copy of “The Rhetoric of Fiction”, and my full-sized Boba Fett doll which, as I’m sure you’ll all recall, had an eye you could stare through, as well as a very soft cape. On a rather frigid night recently, I almost ordered a sleeping bag that is shaped like a Tauntaun, but was ultimately dissuaded from doing so when I grew concerned that I would sleep in it to the exclusion of my own bed, which is where my wife sleeps, too. I think Greedo deserved to die. I think among the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life is Princess Leia in that gold bikini number. I have a better relationship with Lando Calrissian than with my father. I have seen the first three films approximately 500 times each. I have seen the second three films more times than I’m comfortable admitting, even though I dislike them thoroughly. And when Disney land recently opened their new “Star Wars” ride…well…I was planning on going to the park that day, anyway. Really.  So, basically, I am your average 42 year old male constantly grasping for the dying shreds of his childhood.  With that established, I view the news that J.J. Abrams will be helming the Disney-revival of the “Star Wars” franchise with both joy and fear. Last night, Disney officially announced that Abrams (co-creator of “Lost,” and the director of the rebooted “Star Trek” movies) will direct “Star Wars: Episode VII,” the first of a new series of films in the relaunched movie franchise (Michael Arndt will write the screenplay).  The truth of the matter is that no one ever slept out in front of their local movie theater waiting for the release of the latest “Star Wars” film because they couldn’t wait to hear George Lucas’ dialogue or to witness his deft direction – in both arenas, Lucas always had a clunky hand, which wasn’t important to me when I was a kid, but which the latter three films highlighted in often cringe-inducing fashion (three words: Jar Jar Binks). The longer Lucas stayed in the universe he created, the less emotionally sophisticated his movies became, to the point that they began to feel like little more than infomercials for the video games and cartoons that came next, both of which contained complexity and depth far beyond the embarrassment of Anakin Skywalker’s wailing cries.  Abrams proved with his reboot of “Star Trek” that there was a place for complex drama amidst the CGI, that the fantastical world of space is still just a place, and in that place are humans (or humanoid like creatures, anyway)with problems that can’t be solved with just a laser. If anything else, “Star Wars” has always been about people fighting against oppression of one kind or another, and what’s more complex than that? I don’t suspect Abrams is going to go against everything else he’s ever done and move “Star Wars” into overtly dark terrain (unless he’s been hiding a Christopher Nolan-like desire to make every toy I’ve ever owned into a mess of psycho-sexual pain and suffering), but I do have a slight fear of the winking earnestness of “Super 8,” though that may be more about Steven Spielberg than Abrams himself. Nevertheless, the “Star Wars” franchise has always been a little goofy, which lines up well with Abrams ability to find rakish humor in the midst of otherwise otherworldly events – he did this exceptionally on “Lost” but it’s one of many things missing from his latest show, the Abercrombie & Fitch -in-dystopia “Revolution” – and I can only hope that Abrams, unlike Lucas, creates characters more for their ability to enhance a scene dramatically than to fill the coffers of Hasbro .  “Star Wars” is nearly a public trust at this point; it belongs more to the people than it does to any director or screenwriter and in that way the film Abrams makes will be in the same unenviable position Lucas’ final three films found themselves: compared not to the original movies, but to our romantic memory of sitting in the dark and seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” for the first time, the rousing score, the lumbering hull of a spaceship, the feeling that you were seeing something that you’d never seen before. Replicating that sense of astonishment is impossible, of course, so hopefully Abrams will just make a damn good movie. One thing I know for certain: I’ll be there.  Tod Goldberg is the author of a number of books including “Living Dead Girl.”  [Correction: An earlier edition of this post misspelled Lando Calrissian. Our sincere apologies to the good people of Cloud City.]
J. J. Abrams, co-creator of "Lost," and director of the rebooted "Star Trek" movies, will direct the new "Star Wars" movie. He may be just what the franchise needs to survive.