At the same time, it turned those characters into fan avatars who thrilled at the chance to hang out with their heroes Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) - even as those older heroes were in the process of moving on. Fans and critics alike were generally positive about the film, which set out to hand Star Wars over to a new generation of young heroes. Half sequel, half stealth remake, The Force Awakens introduced a reskinned Empire and a new Darth Vader, a gender-swapped Luke Skywalker and a modernized R2-D2, and a whole lot more familiar elements.

The Force Awakens embraced fan nostalgia by re-creating A New Hope for a new era.

While some audiences embraced the changes, others bridled at them, and openly wondered what Star Wars would look like if Abrams tried to give it an equally frat-boy-minded mentality.īut Abrams took a different tack. His alteration of the Trek canon included some major rewrites of beloved characters and a newly revved-up tone. He had previously resurrected the Star Trek film franchise in a sleeker, younger, much more foul-mouthed and smart-assed form. It’s more like Abrams is obsessively hiding behind it.īack when the final Star Wars trilogy was about to launch with 2015’s The Force Awakens, fans were vocally nervous about what Abrams would do to their beloved franchise. Abrams’ finale, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, with its aggressive, relentless copycatting of the past, should fit thematically into Lucas’ vision.īut it doesn’t feel like it’s respecting the series’ past. Aping the past while revamping it into the future has been built into Star Wars’ DNA from the very beginning. Lucas drew heavily on classic Westerns and Akira Kurosawa films to shape his galaxy far, far away, but he gave the setting a fresh and highly specific new face and tone. The film was an instant hit, in part because it was such an original take on familiar material. It’s been more than 40 years since George Lucas launched an entire universe with 1977’s Star Wars, later styled as Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope.

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