8 Movies That Were Secretly Remakes Of Remakes

4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Original: The Hidden Fortress (1958)

The Remake: Star Wars (1977)

The Remake Remake: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Star Wars was famously inspired by several different previous works, with the idea of a space set serial rooted in Lucas' fascination with Flash Gordon and the characters coming from Joseph Campbell. But when you get down to brass tacks it is essentially a remake of The Hidden Fortress, Kurosawa's historical epic; from the farm boy saving a Princess from a giant evil base to the Jedi's samurai inflections through to the story following two minor side characters for the first act, it's an oft-stated comparison that's impossible to miss. Lucas obviously added a lot himself, but there's no avoiding that this was his primary calling point.

It's almost fitting, then, that J.J. Abrams continued the trend of lifting narrative with his own journey to the galaxy far, far away. Like A New Hope, The Force Awakens wasn't unoriginal by any stretch, but it certainly wasn't above deriving its plot from what came before - as many people pointed out upon release, it's a movie built around echoes. As with taking from The Hidden Fortress though, this inspiration didn't really weaken the story - in fact, going back to the same basic structure made Episode VII a stronger part of the wider mythology.