The Force Awakens – Parallels

TheForceAwakensparallelsJust having watched The Force Awakens, I couldn’t help but notice the almost overwhelming number of parallels it had with previous Star Wars movies, which go beyond the recurrence of familiar characters, machinery and phrases (“I have a bad feeling about this!”. Here’s my initial list:

  • Bad guy in black with a mask in addition to emperor-like figure.
  • Desert/sand planet
  • A junker on a desert planet being called to a higher purpose (Anakin/Rey)
  • Old, bearded uber-Jedi in seclusion on a remote planet (Luke/Yoda)
  • Special light saber finding  its way down to off-spring
  • An old, greenish, tiny, wise creature as spiritual guide for the unexacting future Jedi.
  • Evil superpower is in search of droid(s) containing key information about their good opponents.
  • Breaking good guys out of a evil fortress.
  • Dark bar with riff-raff and music..
  • Kids being separated from parents and hidden away.
  • Han in trouble with other bad guys.
  • Rebel/resistance base is uncovered and attacked.
  • A person with the force in need of completing their training (Luke/Kylo)
  • The main bad guy’s struggle with the light side and being good.
  • Destruction of a death star by X-wing fighters via exploiting a design weakness.
  • The bad guy is punishing people (soldier types) who fail harshly.
  • Torture by the main bad guy.
  • The force awakening in someone who didn’t know about their origins/family tree (duh!)
  • Generational reversal (parent vs. offspring being either good or evil)

Thanks to JJ Abrams, there are also some interesting contrasts with the Force Awakens:

  • The  bad guy tends to take off his mask and show a human/good side early on.
  • Storm trooper defection.
  • The bad guy has a bad sidekick reporting to the uber villain.
  • The evil villain has a terrible temper.
  • And he gets pretty beat up already early in the course of the trilogy.
  • More obvious slapstick humor (“That’s not how the Force works!”)
  • Nobody’s hand has been chopped off yet… 🙂

To stretch this even further, JJ has even brought a little bit of LOST into Star Wars with Ken Leung making an appearance and a theme of “parent issues“.

 

Update 3/28/16: Apparently I’m not the only one noticing the parallels. Check out this UPROXX article!