Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a great film. No one can deny that. It introduced a whole new generation to that galaxy far, far away and also relaunched the franchise on the big screen in a very satisfying manner. However, longtime fans will have no doubt noticed the many similarities between the J.J. Abrams-directed flick and A New Hope, especially when it came to the general plot beats and themes running throughout the movie.
Now, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi looming on the horizon, people are starting to wonder if Rian Johnson will follow a similar path and draw heavily from The Empire Strikes Back. After all, it’d be tempting to do so, given that film’s status as one of the greatest sequels ever made. Not only that, but a lot of what we’ve seen from Episode VIII so far does seem to echo certain things from Empire. Still, we’ve been assured on numerous occasions now that the movie will forge its own path.
We certainly hope that’s the case, but this new video you’ll see below is only making matters worse, as it essentially recuts the preview for The Empire Strikes Back in the style of the recent Last Jedi trailer. In other words, it very clearly highlights just how similar these two films are. You can check it out for yourself to see what we mean, but it really is hard to deny that they have more than a few things in common, with a lot of parallels existing between them.
For obvious reasons, The Last Jedi was never going to be able to escape the comparisons to Empire Strikes Back, but even despite what we see here, we’re fine with giving Johnson and his team the benefit of the doubt. You’ve gotta believe that he was aware of the issues people had with The Force Awakens and wouldn’t be foolish enough to make those same mistakes.
While there might be a few similarities between his film and the iconic 1980 sequel, we still expect it to stand very much apart from previous Star Wars movies. Not least because Johnson is a visionary director who’s going to put his own special and unique stamp on things.
One way or another, we’ll find out for sure quite soon, as Star Wars: The Last Jedi will be with us on December 15th. It’ll be followed in relatively quick succession by Ron Howard’s Han Solo spinoff, before J.J. Abrams brings the curtain down on Disney’s rebooted trilogy with the release of Episode IX on December 20th, 2019, placing it right alongside Warner’s Wonder Woman 2.
