There’s a confounding disturbance in the holiday release schedule this year. While the critical industry machine does its level best to invest meaning and portent into every seasonal nominating group’s pronouncements, J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan (longtime series screenwriter) have surreptitiously snuck the latest contribution to one of the greatest sci-fi epics of all-time into the Christmas mix. Forgoing the effects-laden bloat of the prequels (which created a striking visual incongruity for the faithful), Abrams seems far more intent on delivering on the promise of the originals as rousing space Westerns where good and evil stood opposite one another and dared the other side to blink. (Opens wide Friday)(PG-13) Not screened in time for review
