Star Wars: Episode 8: 7 Things We Want From The First Trailer

3. Shows Us The Film Is Not Just Retreading Old Ground

Star Wars The Force Awakens Rey Remake
Lucasfilm

One major part of The Force Awakens that drew a lot of negativity was how incredibly similar it was to A New Hope, and for the most part, these criticisms carried validity.

There's the fact that both center around a heroic trio (Luke, Han, Leia/Poe, Finn, Rey), both feature a loner from a desert planet who is strong with the force, both have a baddie who dresses in all black with a booming voice, and both have a cute robot who holds an important plot device - and that's not even all of them.

And from that, there's a very real worry that Episode 8 could crib from Episode 5 in a similar manner, or in a broader sense, crib from the Star Wars franchise as a whole. Imagine if this new trailer showed us another Death Star, or revealed that the film will feature an ice planet, then a swamp planet, then a gas planet... just like The Empire Strikes Back did.

Hopefully, the film tries its best to avoid coming across as a flashy, modern remake of an older episode - like The Force Awakens - and focuses on being as wholly original as it can possibly be. If the trailer takes the time to lay out a basic plot premise and that premise does indeed appear to be a departure from what we've seen before, any 'remake' fears will be allayed early on and the trailer will feel all the more fresh and intriguing as a result.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!