1.
Rip Off: Within the Saga TFA is the least original and creative entry by far; this in a series primarily known and famous for its imagination:
I see Star Wars as derivative from the beginning. Lucas took from Flash Gordon, The Hidden Fortress, Westerns, World War 2 fighter dog fights and the main ideas from the Hero's Jouney which Tolkien had used in The Lord of the Rings.
- TFA rehashes 90% of ANH's plot beats, the rest is OT (father-son conflict; Emperor etc) and some former EU elements;
It is the nature of Star Wars live action movies after Empire to borrow from the franchise.
Lots of the dialogue is famously repeated.
Plot ideas are repeated in Star Wars. Some examples include;
- The Death Star; Return of the Jedi has destroying a Death Star. Preventing the building of a Death Star is also in ROTJ and Rogue One.
The planning of a Death Star is in Revenge of the Sith.
- The lone hero in the desert; that repeat is with young Anakin in The Phantom Menace.
- Lightsaber duel increase. What was a brief part of a Star Wars movie became long lightsaber sequences in the prequels.
The main story line is broken: first it's about getting a map and finding Luke, then it's suddenly about destroying Death Star III
The problem with this criticism is the expectation that TFA's story is 90% from ANH. When TFA does not follow the ANH script, then it's incorrectly seen as a flaw.
- Instead the many differences between TFA and ANH imo should just be seen as what they are; differences.
The result to me is that the theory that 90% of the story in TFA being a duplicate of ANH should be abandoned.
* So, the first thing that should be established are all the differences between TFA and ANH to get away from this 90% story similarity idea so that when TFA is different, it hopefully will not be viewed as a flaw.
- First my criteria about similarities;
- A vague similarity is not a rehash.
- Things imitated in other Star Wars movies do not count.
- A similarity between ANH and TFA needs to be unique. Many Star Wars films have common elements with ships, story ideas, props, costumes.
If another live action Star Wars film has the same/similar idea, then it does not count.
* Rey has several similarities to young Anakin in The Phantom Menace.
In the beginning Rey is more similar to young Anakin than young Luke.
A. Young Anakin is a slave.
Rey is under some kind of financial relationship with the junk boss Unkar Plutt. While not exactly slavery, it is a similar relationship where the workers are economic slaves to Plutt.
- Rey's situation is similar to Young Anakin who is under the control of Watto.
B. Both Rey and young Anakin gather and fix junk parts.
C. Young Anakin has great natural piloting skills with no training.
Young Anakin has never flown a Naboo ship and he instantly becomes so good that he gets past the blockade and is able to land on the Droid control ship and destroy it.
Rey unlike Anakin is a pilot. But her quickly flying the Millennium Falcon like an expert is similar to young Anakin though it is not as amazing as what Anakin did.
* Finn; The story of a storm trooper who deserts from his masters is a completely new addition to the SW franchise.
Finn's plot thread, which goes through the entire movie, alone imo blows away the argument that 90% of TFA's story was just a copy of ANH.
* Kylo is much closer to older prequel Anakin than anything else in Star Wars.
A. Older prequel Anakin praises Palpatine several times. He talks about how great Palpatine is.
B. Kylo has this kind of relationship with Snoke and the memory of Vader put together.
- But Kylo at the end of TFA has a character moment which which is not similar to ANH. Kylo is seriously wounded before his light saber fights in the woods which greatly hurts his fighting skills. Obi-Wan and Anakin get seriously hurt in AOTC. Vader is seriously hurt when he gets his hand chopped off in ROTJ.
The Kylo in the woods fight is nothing like ANH.
* Solo goes beyond the OT. It is a growth of the character.
He is no longer the bad boy looking for love with Leia.
He is man with a failed marriage and a son who has become a criminal.
Solo's concerns are different from those of Jedi since he's a husband and a father.
* Leia as the female general is a role seen before in bits from ROTJ.
But the new thing is that Leia is a mother concerned about her son who has gone bad.
Shmi Skywalker wasn't connected with her son's fall to the dark side.
Leia's character in TFA is new territory for a Star Wars movie.
* Poe is a hotshot rebel pilot and there are those in the OT.
The new thing is that there is more depth with his story than any previous secondary character rebel pilot.
* In the second act of TFA once off the desert planet, has Finn and Rey meeting Solo and Chewie and dealing with the Rathtar monsters.
- There is no monster in ANH. But there are monsters in ESB and ROTJ.
* The final climax of TFA includes a light saber duel and finding a Jedi.
A. A light saber duel is not part of the climax of ANH. That is in the middle act of ANH.
- What happened between Rey and Kylo superficially resembles the fights between Vader and Luke in ESB and ROTJ which are at the climax of the films.
But that is only a surface similarity.
The Kylo / Rey fight at the end of TFA is a new variation of the climax fight idea in the SW franchise because wounded Kylo can barely beat Finn and Rey and then Kylo's poor judgment leads to his defeat.
* As for finding a hidden Jedi. That is at the end of TFA, in the middle of ESB (Yoda) and the beginning of ANH. Not the same plot structure as ANH.
* Now, usually at this point someone gives me a long list of similarities between ANH and TFA.
But to keep the 90% claim going would take 10 times what I've presented where there are unique similarities between ANH and TFA.
Some have tried but it has not been successful.
- When large parts of TFA are not like ANH, to me that means that the 90% story similarity does not work.
Imo at least, BB ;-)