One of the biggest complaints lobbied against ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ was that the film too closely resembled the plot and story structure of ‘Star Wars: A New Hope.’ Which isn’t a complaint that director JJ Abrams and company necessarily shied away from, as the powers-that-be behind the film certainly did admit that they “played it safe” to a degree in creating the new “first installment” of the trilogy to model itself intentionally after the first installment of the original trilogy.
So, the question is now begged: do fans think that the upcoming ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi,’ the second film in this newest trilogy, might resemble the second film from the original trilogy, ‘Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back?’ Writer-director Rian Johnson has been fielding this questions about his new film, and at D23 Expo last month, he had this to say:
“The automatic temptation is to say, ‘Well, it’s a middle chapter, so it’s got kind of that ‘Empire’ thing.’ But at the same time, I really wanted to maintain the same sense of fun that J.J. had in ‘The Force Awakens,’ that to some extent in ‘Return Of The Jedi,’ which I was like 10 years old, that was prime for me when that came out – and the sense of playfulness, I think. So when I say ‘Empire,’ I guess I don’t want to give the impression that it’s kind of a dark, gloom, and doom. It was also really important to me that this was a fun adventure. I don’t know, it’s a mixed bag of a lot of different stuff. And, hopefully, some unique stuff, too.”
In a more recent interview with EW, Johnson tried to elaborate on and clarify his previous statement:
“I just tried to kind of ignore that aspect of it and have the story take the shape that it needed to. But look, Rey is off in a remote location with a Jedi master, and the Resistance is in a tough spot, and we’re intercutting those stories. By its very nature, there are some structural parallels. But these are new characters, they’re dealing with new things, and that ultimately is what defines the movie. So I think that’s going to be unique.”
As to whether this will be of major concerns to fans, only time will tell, but we don’t have much longer to wait until we find out.
‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ will premiere in American theaters on December 15, 2017.
