There was so much love going around for Star Wars: The Force Awakens – and rightly so. J.J. Abrams’ franchise-reviving spectacular was an enormous commercial hit, taking in $2.06 billion at the global box office, while proving a hit with critics, gauging from the impressive 92% ‘Fresh’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, some fans liked to nitpick and if you were going to level one criticism at The Force Awakens, it would be that it borrowed too much, structurally and dramatically, from A New Hope, writes Squareeyed.
Now, Vimeo user Zachary Antell took it upon himself to put together a side-by-side video showing just how similar scenes from both movies really are, with rather striking results.
The video breaks down a number of scenes from the original theatrical version of A New Hope and The Force Awakens. Admittedly, there are some identical scenes. For example, Poe Dameron and BB-8 bears an uncanny resemblance to Princess Leia and R2-D2. Additionally, the arrival of Kylo Ren on Jakku mirrors Darth Vader and Finn rescuing Poe Dameron is vey similar to Luke Skywalker disguising himself as a Stormtrooper to rescue Leia.
There’s also obvious characterisation parallels between the new cast and their predecessors. Rey is similar to Luke, having been abandoned by her parents, while Poe’s snarky sense of humour is definitely cut from the Han Solo cloth. Watch all the similarities below. Do you think Abrams borrowed too heavily from A New Hope or was it more a skilful homage than outright plagiarism?
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
Nerd Comments