Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 10 Moments Everyone Misunderstands

by James Hunt

1. The Reason The Plot Is Similar To A New Hope

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The Force Awakens is just a reboot of Star Wars (A New Hope). It's too derivative. It basically amounts to fan-fiction. There's nothing new or original. You can't go two pages into the internet without seeing stuff like that thrown around like criticism's going out of fashion.

There's a couple of things wrong with those criticisms, which have been pretty constant and commonplace since the film was released. One is that it's too harsh on what J.J. Abrams has created. Yes, it follows a lot of similar beats (and I'll get to that reasoning soon) but there's plenty of new stuff in here too. For example, Kylo Ren is the most fully-formed and interesting villain to be introduced in a Star Wars movie (I'm not saying he's better than Vader, but on the basis of one movie he's much more layered). Star Wars has always been about family, but this delves deeper into the meaning and importance of marriage and parenthood. There are battle sequences in this film which look incredible, and unlike any other. We've got a Stormtrooper who actually becomes a proper character. A female Jedi. New characters, new relationships, new adventures.

Now, as for the stuff that's similar... Yes, The Force Awakens does hit extremely similar beats to Episode IV. That much was obvious long before the film was released, and it's absolutely intentional (and not in some sort of fan-fiction or copying kind of way either). That's Star Wars. As George Lucas said (for better or worse), "it rhymes." Hell, before Star Wars, there were the Flash Gordon serials and The Hero with a Thousand Faces and all the other stuff that George Lucas lifted liberally from. So of course the structure of this film (especially as it's the one charged with 'bringing Star Wars back), and the beats it hits, match-up closely with that very first film. It's not a bad thing. It's just doing what it's supposed to. It's being Star Wars.

Which criticisms of Star Wars: The Force Awakens do you think miss the point? Shout out any more down in the comments.

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Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.