Star Wars The Force Awakens: JJ Abrams responds to criticism about the film being A New Hope 'rip off'
'It was obviously a wildly intentional thing that we go backwards'
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Your support makes all the difference.Star Wars: The Force Awakens may be shattering global box office records and garnering mostly very strong reviews, but that doesn’t mean it is without fault in some fans' eyes.
Fans were quick to point out how Episode VII shares many plot points with the original Star Wars film, later dubbed A New Hope - a criticism director JJ Abrams is well aware of.
Addressing complaints his film is too reminiscent of the original trilogy, Abrams told The Hollywood Reporter: "It was obviously a wildly intentional thing that we go backwards, in some ways, to go forwards in the important ways.
“Ultimately the structure of Star Wars itself is as classic and tried and true as you can get.”
He went on to explain that he can understand people who say it is “a complete rip-off” but knew the importance of “going backwards to go forwards” in order to introduce new characters.
“The story of history repeating itself was - I believe - an obvious and intentional thing, and the structure of meeting a character who comes from a nowhere desert and discovers that she has a power within her, where the bad guys have a weapon that is destructive but that ends up being destroyed - those simple tenets are by far the least important aspects of this movie, and they provide bones that were well-proven long before they were used in Star Wars.”
His thoughts echo those of the very persuasive Star Wars Ring Theory.
Abrams follows up by saying that it was much more important for The Force Awakens to take inspiration from the past Star Wars films in comparison to upcoming ones, putting to rest rumours Episode VIII will be a replica of The Empire Strikes Back.
In other Star Wars news, many of the plot holes from The Force Awakens have been filled in by the novelisation of the film, including how Poe got off Jakku.
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