J.J. Abrams Reveals Why Star Wars: The Force Awakens was So Similar to A New Hope

With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker coming out this week and J.J. Abrams returning to direct after he did this same job in The Force Awakens, fans are curious about how he will make this movie feel different. Many of us were critical over the fact that The Force Awakens was fairly similar to A New Hope, even though it was a functional and well-done movie in its own right.

During Popcorn with Peter Travers, the director revealed why The Force Awakens was so similar to A New Hope. Since there was a huge gap between Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens, Abrams felt that it was appropriate to pay tribute to the Star Wars film that started it all. Abrams also suggested that it would be the best way to introduce these new characters, which worked for the most part.

Here's a full quote from Abrams:

"Is there a big, giant, planet-sized weapon in Force Awakens? Yes. And does it blow up? It does blow up. And there are undeniable parallels, but in a way, because there had not been a Star Wars movie in a long time --the prequels were the ones that preceded it --I very purposefully wanted to sort of revisit the old in order to start and tell the new. And that was the challenge."

As someone who thinks The Last Jedi is much better than The Force Awakens, I still think the opening salvo from Abrams was pretty good. Yes, the movie did get a lot of its story beats from A New Hope but there were enough differences to make this its own film in the franchise.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now available on Blu-ray and Disney+, while Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters this Friday, on December 20.

Read:The Rise of Skywalker Director on Whether or Not the Sequel Trilogy Will Get Special Editions