Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 8 Reasons It's Better The Second Time

7. The Similarities With A New Hope Don't Seem Anywhere Near As Jarring

The first time you watch The Force Awakens, you can't help but notice how similarly the plot echoes that of the original Star Wars. As the movie goes on, it becomes more and more apparent just how much influence J.J. Abrams took from George Lucas' original sci-fi classic. And it proved kind of jarring to watch that, actually. Both movies start with a droid - embedded with an important artefact - on a desert planet teaming up with a future Jedi, who both end up escaping their humdrum lives for one of adventure to a group of Rebels and face off against an Evil Empire. Both movies even end with an attack on a giant, planet-sized space station, which subsequently explodes. Those are just a few of the surface level similarities in order to highlight the initial comparison, but you get the idea: The Force Awakens very nearly feels like a remake or a rebooted version of A New Hope the first time you watch it. This feels like one of The Force Awakens' biggest failings; its insistence to rehash elements of the 1977 film. Weirdly, though, none of this seems anywhere near as apparent the second time you watch the film; for one reason or another (and it's presumably because you're less-inclined to be so attentive to it), the New Hope-esque aspects of the plot fade into the background. The just don't feel as prominent the second time around, which - in turn - leaves the film feeling far more original than you might have given it credit for during that initial viewing.