Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Two shared plot threads does not reliance make. TFA has significantly more adherence to ANH's story beats than that.

And even so, yes. You're actually right about that: the similarity in Return of the Jedi was very clearly intentional. Bookends to Luke's journey, with the end being a reflection of where he ended.

Though evidently the repetitive nature of the "screw it, let's just do the Death Star again" bit was also in part due to Lucas needing to condense his original plans for a hypothetical sequel trilogy into a single movie.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Can you please name them? Because all of the story beats I've seen repeated are repeated with a twist to make them subtly or significantly different from ANH.

"By that logic, you could say that Return of the Jedi was a remake of A New Hope. Hey, it started on Tatooine and the climax involved destroying the Death Star, so that makes it a remake, right?"

Not to the same extent, since ROTJ follows a different phase of the Campbellian prescription that Star Wars is overall too wedded to, so while the desert planet-superweapon space battle combo in ROTJ is extremely derivative of ANH, it's placement as set pieces of the denouement rather than the beginning make it less worthy of this particular criticism than TFA, while still deserving criticism for its general reuse of the Death Star concept.

If Star Wars 9 begins with a journey to Jakku and ends with a battle around a new superweapon, then you could make a direct link and level the same criticism.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Dec 20th 2018 at 4:03:05 AM

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

I mean, there's the basic plot of "lone nobody from desert planet who wishes for something more winds up on the Millennium Falcon after being dragged into the conflict of the Empire vs. the Rebellion (I'm sorry, First Order vs. Resistance) by happenstance when an Astromech droid that escaped an Empire massacre and happens to be carrying a holographic McGuffin meets and befriends that nobody. The nobody winds up with an older, more experienced mentor from an earlier conflict in the universe who is killed by the Darth Vader Clone whom he had a deep connection to while the nobody watches and can do nothing. There is a new superweapon of never before seen scale and even though it gets fired once, in order to make a statement and take out one of The Empire's most overt enemies, it gets destroyed before firing again. The climax of the movie sees the nobody confront the Darth Vader Clone just outside the superweapon and their surprising Force Sensitivity helps win the day though the help of the scoundrel they met on the desert planet (admittedly, Finn and Han Solo comparisons are weak, but I digress)."

Aside from plot beats, there's the superficial ones. The Resistance being known as, well, the Resistance is a callback to the Rebellion. They only use X-Wings. The First Order is all stormtrooper-y and only uses TIE Fighters even though there are so many more ships they could be using.

Like, I get why it was done. They were playing it safe, and "ANH, but with modern special effects and sensibilities" is actually a good idea. And I was incredibly dismissive of the It's the Same, So It Sucks complaints, until I actually saw the movie when it came out on home media. And I was... honestly floored by how the same it was. I'm not saying It's the Same, So It Sucks. But I'm saying it's shockingly The Same.

Edited by Larkmarn on Dec 20th 2018 at 4:31:23 AM

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Given that that very statement and your previous posts in this conversation already note that you consider minor differences to be equal to major differences in this regard, and given how this line has gone in previous run of this exact same conversation, I don't from experience see that going to go in anything close to a positive direction. I'm not just going to list things for you to say "no it isn't to." That's unproductive, and furthermore we've been down that literal road before so I know it's unproductive.

Instead of making people adhere to ultimatums in which you're already disposed not to agree, why not exposit about the things in TFA that you think make it so distinct from ANH? Your previous argument was "well, ROTJ did it too" which would imply that you're aware of the similarity and think it's alright because it was previously done in the series, which is somewhat contradictory to what you're claiming now.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Dec 20th 2018 at 1:21:20 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Alright, here goes:

• Luke is a farmboy with a family. This is the main difference between him and Rey — his motivation to join the Rebellion is the murder of his family by stormtroopers. Rey, on the other hand, was abandoned by her family and wants to stay on Jakku and wait for them to return, even knowing that they are never coming back for her. She is much more lonely than Luke — hell, Luke even had friends on Tatooine, Rey has nobody until she meets BB-8.
• Finn has no equivalent in the OT — he is a stormtrooper who defects because he can't stand the violence, but ends up meeting Rey and connecting with her so much that he wants to save her when she gets caught by Kylo Ren. His mission is never to help the Resistance — he has no stake in that fight until the next film — he only wants to save Rey and get as far away from the First Order as he can.
• Poe is a dashing Han Solo-type, sure, but he hardly gets any character development in the first film. The second film shows him as not just overly arrogant, but to almost to Blood Knight levels, and he has to learn to be a more positive leader.
• There is no Leia-character, as I've stated before.
• Kylo Ren is almost the opposite of Darth Vader. Vader shows no emotion; Kylo Ren has a temper tantrum when he learns that BB-8 got away.
• Han is definitely not Obi-Wan. The only way he's similar is that he becomes a kind of mentor to Rey and that's it. He doesn't die to distract Kylo Ren from the others — and he doesn't get the cool send off that Obi-Wan gets. No, Han's death is just pure tragedy.
• And these aren't just superficial parts of their characters — these are their characters.
• The initial Tatooine escape is different in both films — in ANH, Luke and Obi-Wan want to find a vessel to get them to Alderaan. In TFA, Rey and Finn just want to get the hell out of there and only later decide to give BB-8 to the Resistance.
• There's no equivalent of Maz Kanata's casino in ANH. TFA is also the first Star Wars film, I believe, to have a non-Jedi character (Finn) wield a lightsaber.
• It's also the first to really make stormtroopers into dangerous, deadly mooks. The "Traitor!" stormtrooper nearly kills Finn.
• Meeting the Resistance is much more bittersweet, since it includes Han and Leia seeing each other and talking about Kylo Ren. Again: no equivalent exists in ANH.
• The assault on Starkiller Base involves Han and Finn sneaking in to turn the shields off, something that didn't happen with ANH's Death Star. They are also there to save Rey, who, it turns out, doesn't need saving. In fact, the TFA Starkiller battle is vastly different from the ANH one, since the entire X-wing battle is done in cut-aways, while the main action is the battle between Finn and Kylo and then Kylo and Rey. Again: much, much different than ANH.
• The ending. ANH ends with the story essentially complete. If you wanted to stop there, you could. TFA ends with a cliffhanger for the next chapter in the trilogy.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 20th 2018 at 1:46:13 AM

"Turning off a vital system in the superweapon while rescuing someone held captive aboard" is absolutely something that happens in ANH, man.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Agreed with this. I like Force Awakens, but the copying is very evident and splitting hairs is just going to drag out the debate without actual progression.

And now this point is underway.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Dec 20th 2018 at 1:48:37 AM

This takes up about an hour in ANH — in TFA, turning off the shields takes two minutes and Rey doesn't even need saving at all. Again, similar motifs, with enough subtle and significant twists that they are different. And the battle with Kylo Ren had no equivalent, again.

Mentor Man gets killed by Evil Man while Hero Man, Hero Woman, and Chewie look on absolutely happens in ANH, my dude.

As for the duel — yes, no direct equivalent exists, but what of it? The entire rest of the film hews extremely closely to the model.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Dec 20th 2018 at 4:52:37 AM

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Mentor Man gets killed by Evil Man — see: the Hero's Journey. Hero Man (Finn isn't Luke), Hero Woman (Rey is not Leia), and Chewie (okay, Chewie is Chewie). Also, in ANH, nobody sees Obi-Wan die except Luke, so that bits not even true, they are all busy rushing towards the Falcon.

The escape from the Star Destroyer in a stolen TIE Fighter, the meeting with Maz Kanata, Finn's fight with the stormtrooper, Rey's vision of her past and Kylo's past. Please tell me where these were in ANH.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 20th 2018 at 2:00:53 AM

This feels like the filmic equivalent of sea-lioning. A movie does not have to mirror every single scene each-by-each to be derivative of another film. It’s like insisting “Eragon isn’t a copy of A New Hope because the MacGuffin is a dragon not a droid.”

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Dec 20th 2018 at 2:34:25 AM

See, but Eragon is a copy of A New Hope, because it's characters do mirror ANH almost exactly, with only small things off. TFA has much more significant things different.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 20th 2018 at 2:35:22 AM

Yeah, but the point isn't that TFA is an exact mirror of ANH, and no one is saying that it is. Just that it feels derivative. Yes, there are differences, but — I feel like I say this about everything — things aren't that binary. There are degrees.

Edited by Unsung on Dec 20th 2018 at 3:41:05 AM

Ahem and I quote: "Let me put it this way, if you had told me that TFA was a reboot with a gender-swapped lead and not a sequel, I would have believed you." There are lots of people who say "It's just a remake of A New Hope" when, again, it isn't. There are significant differences.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 20th 2018 at 2:41:35 AM

It's called a joke, alliterator.

I'm pretty sure they weren't joking. They repeated it several times.

Anyway, I've already proved that they have different characters, different motivations, and differing plot beats, even if they have similar ones, too.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 20th 2018 at 2:43:32 AM

Maybe you don't need to die on every hill. There's such a thing as exaggeration for effect, and if we're just trying to have a casual conversation, maybe allow people their opinions and give them the benefit of the doubt that they're not speaking in absolute terms.

Edited by Unsung on Dec 20th 2018 at 3:45:22 AM

I think you misunderstood my tone. I'm not desperately trying to convince people, I'm also just having a conversation. But I also tend to take people at their word when they write something.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 20th 2018 at 2:49:35 AM

Listing every single difference between TFA and ANH is not going to change people’s feelings and impressions they got from the film. It varies from person to person.

Personally, I thought TFA was somewhat original (i.e. Search for Luke) until they reached Starkiller Base. That’s when the story went too much ANH copying for me.

I don’t care what differences people will point out about Starkiller Base compared to the Death Star; it is what Han said:

“So what? It’s just bigger.”

Honestly, if I was in charge, I would have gotten rid of Starkiller entirely.

Edited by Shadao on Dec 20th 2018 at 3:06:21 AM

I think it generally comes across as more confrontational than that, even if you don't mean it to, when you call out multiple points in quoteblocks rather than just replying in a more conversational way.

Yeah, I feel something similar. I did mostly like everything up to Takodana, other than the Guavian Death Gang, and I think most of it did feel distinct enough in a setting that is defined by balance and cycles. But I do wish they'd done something other than Starkiller Base. And just on a personal note, it felt really weird to have that, but no follow-up space battle.

Edited by Unsung on Dec 20th 2018 at 4:09:07 AM

By the way, "A young boy joins with an older, Jedi mentor to leave a desert planet. He ends up helping rescue a female member of royalty with the help of two droids and participates in a space battle that gives a decisive victory while his mentor is killed by an evil Sith."

What movie am I talking about? It's The Phantom Menace.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 20th 2018 at 3:24:48 AM

I mean, that's derivative/repetitive, too. Intentionally so, as it was for TFA, and KOTOR and The Sith Lords and just about every tabletop home game at one point or another, and how Dash Rendar and Kyle Katarn and Carth Onasi and Atton Rand and Cassian Andor started out as Han Solo expies, and so on and so forth. Star Wars runs on archetypes. The line between homage, knockoff, and Follow the Leader is a fine one, but it's not inherently a bad thing or necessarily a criticism in and of itself. It's just a matter of whether it works for a given troper personally. Tropes Are Not Bad, and all that.

Phantom Menace is a bit like if they went to Alderaan and it didn't explode. I say that with love.

Edited by Unsung on Dec 20th 2018 at 4:41:09 AM

We were criticizing the Prequels using OT imagery, plotlines, and archetypes years ago. This realization of yours is not unknown to us.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Oh, I know. I'm just saying that, like TPM, TFA homages A New Hope while also being something different. It's not a remake, that's all I'm saying.

Or, as Lucas would say, "It's like poetry, it rhymes."

To me, the prequels are bad because of the way the dialogue and characterization is written and directed, not because of any of the plot beats.

Edited by alliterator on Dec 20th 2018 at 3:33:34 AM