I'm in awe over how much I enjoyed
Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I feel awe not because my expectations were low given how bad the three prequels were, and not because I hold the original trilogy in such high esteem that I think nothing can touch it (I don’t). No, my awe is a product of how impressed I am that the new film managed to be so enjoyable while also being so derivative.
The Force Awakens contains so many references, parallels, callbacks, rehashes, and remixes of the first film in the series, and to a lesser extent the second, that it’s not a stretch to say that the plot of
The Force Awakens is essentially a (superior) repetition of the plot of
A New Hope, but with some of the pieces rearranged, with greater immediate emotional investment courtesy of our familiarity with returning characters, and with some of the best bits of
The Empire Strikes Back thrown in for good measure.Yet for all of its repetition, it's still a fun film nonetheless, more so than
A New Hope, which has long seemed to me like a rickety bucket of bolts.
