Star Wars fans, which is seemingly everyone right now (except for a few Fox News anchors), are super-excited about the release of The Force Awakens , as well they should be. The movie looks like it's going to be the one fans have been waiting for, but what if it's just one giant reference to the original trilogy? It's obvious that fans want the new movie to capture the look and feel of those beloved first three films (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi), something the prequel films famously failed at, but what if instead of capturing, The Force Awakens instead ends up copying?
I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer here, and I personally think The Force Awakens is going to be incredible, but there are numerous theories out there suggesting that the film's story could end up being a retread of the plot seen in the original trilogy rather than something new and creative. And since the original trilogy is renowned for its creativity, then wouldn't The Force Awakens fail to live up to its legacy if its story doesn't prove to have the same inventive force (pun intended) behind it?
A lot of the most popular theories floating around have to do with secret family members. Obviously, the Skywalker family drama was at the heart of the original trilogy, with Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa learning that they were twins and that Darth Vader was their father. For The Force Awakens, one popular theory suggests that Rey is the secret daughter of Leia and Han Solo, while another believes that she's actually the daughter of Luke Skywalker. Both theories typically round in villain Kylo Ren as Rey's secret sibling. Her twin, in some cases.
Another prevailing fan theory, one that's sometimes also tied to the parental drama, revolves around Luke Skywalker. A lot of fans believe that Luke has gone over to the Dark Side, making him the true villain in The Force Awakens. If this is the case, then he will have basically turned into his father, who was good guy Anakin Skywalker before the Dark Side overtook him and he became Darth Vader.
Then there's the whole basic plot of the Resistance, a group of rebels, taking on the evil First Order and their Stormtroopers. Sounds a lot like the Rebel Alliance, a group of rebels who took on the evil Empire and their Stormtroopers. Are these organizations more or less the same as their predecessors, just with different names? Or are there actually significant differences that have yet to be revealed? There's also the bad guys' weapon of choice. The Empire had the Death Star, capable of destroying entire planets, while the First Order has the Starkiller base, which can destroy whole star systems. So there's been a power upgrade, but the plot will still likely involve stopping a weapon of mass destruction. Plus, the Starkiller base looks an awful lot like a Death Star.
So there's a group of rebels, some of whom may be destined to take on the bad guys due to a secret family connection to them, out to stop a totalitarian regime, possibly led by a corrupted former hero, from deploying a moon-like weapon of mass destruction. Sounds awfully familiar. Then you have to take into account some other smaller details, a lot of them visual, that recall the original trilogy. While Luke Skywalker grew up on the desert planet of Tatooine without knowing his parents, Rey grew up on the desert planet Jakku without knowing hers. Kylo Ren's costume is clearly influenced by Darth Vader's. Luke's old blue lightsaber is being used again. The Millennium Falcon is back. The original cast is returning. And there's been a conscious effort to focus on practical effects over CGI to try to better emulate the original films. All of these add up to a movie that sounds like a carbon copy of the original Star Wars trilogy.
And while it's true that pretty much every Star Wars fan wants The Force Awakens to feel like the original films, nobody wants a remake. Thankfully though, I think Episode VII will have just enough new pieces added to the mix to make it feel fresh. There's never been anyone like Finn, who's a reformed Stormtrooper fighting for the Resistance. There's never been a female villain like Captain Phasma (or this many women, period), who looks like she's going to kick all kinds of butt. And the big baddie, 25-foot-tall Supreme Leader Snoke, doesn't sound like any kind of alien seen in a Star Wars movie before. These aspects, along with probably several others that have been deliberately kept from the public, should be enough to allow The Force Awakens to stand on its own without leaning too heavily on the original trilogy. At least I hope so anyway.
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Images: Disney/Lucasfilm; giphy.com
