10 Reasons Why Star Wars: The Last Jedi Is Better Than The Force Awakens

3. Prior Movies Are Referenced To Make A Point

While The Force Awakens was criticised for playing things a little too safe, it took even more flack for pretty much outright ripping off key scenes from A New Hope. Between Han's death directly paralleling Obi Wan's to the climax boiling down to pretty much destroying yet another Death Star, a lot of fans complained that Abrams' films essentially just remade the original Star Wars.

Johnson's sequel isn't free from scenes that riff on familiar scenarios, of course, but the key is that the director only ever recreates prior scenes to make a point. The showdown between Kylo, Rey and Snoke in the throne room, for instance, is ripped straight out of Return of the Jedi, but the familiarity of the situation is all in service of highlighting how both the Jedi and Sith are stuck in a cycle where the past repeats itself.

These scenes pay homage to previous movies not only because it's cool, but because it's thematically important to the story, and fundamentally results in The Last Jedi forging a distinct identity for itself in a way that The Force Awakens never did.