Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 8 Things We've Learned Since Release

8. Even J.J. Abrams Thinks It Ripped Off A New Hope

I'm not a fan of the claims that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was basically a rip-off of A New Hope. While there are plenty of obvious similarities between the two movies, it feels more to me like J.J. Abrams was simply showing his love for the original Star Wars movie rather than just lazily copying what George Lucas did decades earlier. However, there's still been a very vocal backlash against The Force Awakens because of it. In an interview following the release of the movie, Abrams actually acknowledged those accusations by admitting that he fully understands why people might call the movie a "complete rip-off" of A New Hope. "What was important for me," he adds, "was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new €” to go backwards to go forwards." When you look at it that way, it's easy to see why Abrams decided to turn to the original movie that did such a great job of introducing audiences to this world in order to put the series on a new path. Regardless, it's a good job that the filmmaker decided to weigh in on this, because him making it clear that the similarities were all intentional led to a dramatic decrease in tedious think pieces pointing them out!