Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 6 Things That Were Perfect (And 3 That Were Disappointing)

4. The Rhyming Works

This is probably going to be the biggest point of contention amongst the fans; Star Wars rhymes. Back when developing The Phantom Menace, George Lucas described the saga "Like poetry. They rhyme," referring to how he intended the prequels to narratively mirror the originals (which they do to quite an impressive extent). It has since been mocked heavily - mainly thanks to RedLetterMedia's scathing prequel reviews - as a emblem of the simplistic, ill-informed approach Lucas took with those movies, but that seems a little off; not only does it give the whole saga a greater, epic quality, it provides an underlying implied structure to the expanding roster of episodes. Once you accept the rhyming as part of the series, it becomes one of its integral charms, and for me much of the thrill of the hype for The Force Awakens came from seeing this new story slot into the broad strokes of the saga. And the finished film does it really well - while its plot with Starkiller base obviously mirrors A New Hope, there's a lot of extra-narrative elements introduced (a rogue stormtrooper, a premature family connection reveal, a more mystically driven plot) that make it still feel fresh and exciting.