ST Does TFA Have A 'Thin' Plot?

As I have said elsewhere, I not worried so much about the plot of TFA being "thin" as about it being too similar to ANH, if the spoilers are to be believed.
So far, we have:

ANH: Vader attack rebel ship in search for Death Star plans. Interrogates and kills rebel soldier.
TFA: Kylo Ren attacks village in search for lightsaber. Interrogates and kills the vicar.

ANH: Leia hides the plans inside R2
TFA: Poe hides the saber inside BB-8

ANH: Luke meets Obi-Wan who tells him that he is special
TFA: Rey meets Maz, who tells her that she is special.

ANH: Vader interrogates Leia
TFA: Kylo interrogates Rey

ANH: Leia gets rescued, Obi-Wan dies after confronting Vader
TFA: Rey escapes. Han dies after confronting Kylo.

ANH: Rebel pilots destroy Death Star. Tarkin dies.
TFA: Resistance pilots destroy superweapon. Hux dies.

ANH: Rebel celebration at base
TFA: Resistance celebration at base.

 

Don't forget:

ANH: group meets someone in a bar/cantina that can help them
TFA: group meets someone in a bar/cantina that can help them

I just assume that the parallels, even as very close as they are, are on purpose. But DAMN they are almost exact to a tee. Not to mention the parallels that come from the other movies as well.

ROTJ: Han and Chewie set charges on Endor to blow up the shield to a superweapon.
TFA: Han and Chewie set charges on SNOW planet to blow up shied to the superweapon.

ESB: Luke confronts Vader...finds out about the family relation
TFA: Han reveals himself to Kylo...probably discuss family relation.

Etc, etc, etc.

 

I find it amusing to watch people argue about a plot, which hasn't been made public yet. Everything is based purely on rumour.

 

It's like poetry.

 

8 PAGES!!! /doublefacepalm! we dont know anything!

 

While the parallels are obvious, everything seems like it'll have a different enough coat of paint on it to set it apart.

Finn is a defecting stormtrooper, the wise mentor isn't a Jedi, the good guys are "on top" so to speak, at least, in terms of galactic control. Rey might already have previous experience with the Force/Jedi.

Yes there are parallels, but to me, it seems that everything is sorta rotated 90 degrees.

 

No, not exactly. The Millenium Falcon has a square radar dish.

 

Those similarities don't have me worried. Some like mirroring.

 

The trouble is, JJ is notorious for aping great stories and calling it "mirroring". I feel this isn't about thin plots, but about JJ's consistent behavior of riding on the coattails of greats. Why watch Super 8 when you can watch E.T.? Why Watch Into Darkness when you have Wrath of Khan? The truth is, people aren't worried that TFA will have a thin plot, they're worried that JJ's gonna do what JJ's done before: shiny surface, hollow inside. And saying Kasdan's gonna cinch this isn't really cutting it. A Kasdan/Abrams partnership is not the same as a Kasdan/Lucas one. The trouble is, we don't know what sort of results the former pairing will bring.

 

It's poetry! It rhymes.

 

Exactly. People shouldn't jump the gun.

 

I say they shuffled character abilities, traits, starting positions around a bit although some broad strokes remain dead mentor, jedi master in seclusion, evil skywalker. But the overall universe is basically locked in to the OT Framework Empire v Rebellion, Super Weapon drives plot, Start on Desert Planet, Escape on Falcon, Final fight at Super Weapon, rebel gets saved, etc.

 

Where is the line between mirroring and rehash, though?

Unless MSW have posted complete trash over the last year, I assume we know quite a lot.

 

So you know what Kylo's, Rey's, the First Order's history are? what Luke, Han, Leia, etc have been up to since Jedi? Plus Snoke's origins, Hux, Phasma and how ALL that fits into the core narrative of what will be central to the story and plot of TFA?. How all these characters will intertwine?? You know nothing. You may THINK you do. But believe me, you don't.

 

There are so many 'rhyming' patterns between the prequels and sequels that you literally could spend an entire day listing them. I don't think I am going to get too upset about them now. Mark Hamill himself said something along the lines of 'you know this story, but you don't know it.'

If the story doesn't feel familiar, JJ/Disney are going to get CRUSHED for veering too far off the spirit of Star Wars, a complaint that many had about the prequels -- specifically that they were too much talky-talk politics and not enough adventure/fun -- in the first place.

 

just wanna go on record here:

I kind of feel weird having a few hundred posts on a star wars forum. but right now I am sad and don't have much of a life and this is the biggest, most active forum I know of and the alert system makes it addicting in a sad click bait kind of way. other forums with a wider variety of real life topics are dying and outdated lol. nice forum. :y:

anyway, by itself I'd agree. this plot is way too similar to a new hope. but from what we know I actually really like the world building, backstory, and what they are doing with the characters (most important). the plot itself seems to have enough twists on familiar ideas to at least differentiate it a bit, but it's those other things that I think are going to make it feel fresh/new even if on paper you can be like 'lol same **** different movie'.

 

Perhaps change the title of the thread to "Does TFA Have a Thin Rumored Plot?"

 

If Lucas made the movie, everyone would be saying it rhymed.

 

Don't worry. I'm sure the plot will be great.

This movie is gonna be epic, for sure.

 

The purpose of Rey finding Luke isn't to return his old saber to him. She needs to find him so she can fulfill her destiny, which is to help Luke restore the Jedi order once and for all. The saber itself is just Luke's symbolic way of getting Rey to realize this (assuming he was the one who sent it out to her) and is also his way of encrypting his location so that such information couldn't be intercepted (I guess).

I admit though that it still doesn't explain how he got it back from Bespin in the first place. An alternate explanation is that Luke had nothing to do with it, and that The Force itself put the coordinates of his current location into the saber and guided it to Rey, so that when she shows it to him he can have an "oh, ****!" moment and realize that he must come out of his shell to start training pupils again, beginning with her.

But regardless of who sent the saber and why, we still don't know how The First Order found out about it. Clearly they want the saber so they can use it to find Luke and kill him, thus ending any chances of the Jedi order ever regrowing again, but how did they find out about the saber and it's hidden message in the first place? Did Snoke somehow learn about it through the dark side of the Force?

My guess is Maz will explain all this, hence the rumored line "I know why the weapon came to you." That flashback montage is definitely very important. The visuals as explained to us by MSW don't really make much sense at the moment but I feel like there will be a voice-over there that will answer all these questions.

Didn't mean to get off on a tangent, just trying to emphasize that we still don't know enough yet to assume things like "she needs to find him just to give him back his old saber because the plot says so." More on-topic; of all your descriptions, I actually find ROTJ to be the thinnest, due to that film's redundancy.

The Empire builds a Death Star AGAIN
Luke's destiny pulls him in a different direction from his friends AGAIN
Luke needs to confront Vader AGAIN
Not to mention revisiting Tattooine and Dagobah...that movie is more of a check-off list IMO.

I know the same argument can be made for TFA cause of the apparent "rhyming," but my gut-feeling is that I will enjoy TFA more than ROTJ regardless of plot, but I probably still won't enjoy it as much as ESB or the original SW.

 

I think the issue is the plot about the lightsaber doesnt really seem to have strong connection to stop the super weapon. whereas saving Leia and beating the death star seem to flow much better

 

http://makingstarwars.net/2015/05/a-compiled-synopsis-of-star-wars-the-force-awakens/

I hope the plot synopsis linked above is way off because if that is really what happens then this will be a totally underwhelming and disappointing movie.

 

TFA's plot is as thin as this..



THIS movie will be like Prometheus..but without the depth of a story. It will raise more questions than answer them (like what happened the last 30 years).