ST The "A New Hope rehash" issue

BTW - I think you are debating/discussing in good faith so I have to apologize for my earlier reply to you where I may have implied otherwise. It sometimes gets hard to figure out who is here to discuss the film and who is here to troll (not that you were being trollish at all BTW, the fault is mine)

 

Well, this IS a discussion board, right? If you want to express a negative opinion of the film where no one can say you are wrong, post in the Cave. Otherwise, if I disagree with you, expect me to say so, and tell you why.

AS for whether or not the "rehashy" opinion is "clearly not a minority view," I'd say you have an opinion you can;t actually support. If you want to say it's an issue for a significant number of folks, I'd say that's right. But "clearly not a minority view" is all spin. I'd agree, for example, that there repeated elements and structure. I do not, however consider it a "rehash" at all, which in my view means that the work doesn't offer anything new, which I think this film. The term is usually used pejoratively, and one that that IS clear (and that there IS evidence for), is that the audience really likes this movie. Perhaps you use the term more broadly than that.

 

We could all devalue each others' opinions, but does anyone really get anything out of that? I enjoy a good debate, but what I'm objecting to here isn't a debate, it's the attempt to shut one side of it down without even engaging on the merits. I get the apprehension to trolling, but I think a fair read of one's post and gaging whether it engages others fairly and stays on topic ought to shake those guys out.

 

No worries, man! I know how it can get. I appreciate the good faith.

 

That I will very much disagree with. there are people who think the moon landing was faked. Their opinions are completely worthless. Not all opinions can be equally supported by arguments and evidence. This subject is a bit more subjective, but it is still a matter of argument and evidence to some extent. But my wife is a literature professor, so I am very familiar with arguments of this sort.

 

When people who love the film and people who don't both acknowledge that it covers the same beats, and generally agree SKB wasn't the best decision, I'd say it's not a minority opinion that the movie rehashes ANH. What probably is a minority opinion is that the rehashing makes it a horrible film, but I'm not arguing it's horrible. I actually said it's enjoyable and the new characters are a credit to the franchise. I find it disappointing that they weren't allowed to strike out with a fresh with them, but again, not saying it's a horrible film.

 

I think it's a little more subtle. SKB is the one thing I will completely admit is a rehashed element and it honestly doesn't work that great for me. Luckily it's just a sub-plot and doesn't ruin the movie for me. I kind of view it as a less bad version of the Ewoks in ROTJ. Honestly the SKB bothers me more because it's not that well thought out.... I don't care that much about it being a rehash. If they had made it some ancient weapon the First Order discovered on the fringes of the Galaxy (and one that they didn't really understand... basically just enough to get it to work) i would have had much less of a problem with it.

I actually don't think most of the other callbacks are that much of a rehash personally... and most of them are quite clever.

In addition, if we are going by story beats the 2nd half of the movie is much closer to ROTJ than to a ANH. In fact thematically TFA is also IMO much closer to ROTJ and TESB than it is to ANH. It's more of a character drama/driven film like TESB and ROTJ as opposed to ANH (which is more narrative driven)

 

That's a good analysis. I'll have to bring this up in convos with friends.

 

Dude, you are STILL expressing an unsupported opinion. That's okay... you can believe what you will.

Like I said before, I think to some extent, the issue is the word "rehash." There is no doubt it repeats some beats, and definitely (and deliberately) follows the structure of the OT films (not just ANH). The use of the word "rehash," however, implies inferiority and to many, implies a lack of breaking any new creative ground, and that I certainly do NOT agree with.

Personally, I think the "going backward to go forward" was a brilliant decision. I think it did everything this movie needed to do. It "re-grounded" the series. Having said that, I think it also established the new characters in a situation the galaxy hasn't really seen before..... chaos. To be, that's not rehashy at all. I can understand that some folks don't find that compelling and can't get past the elements that feel too familiar to them. That's cool. But for me, I feel like we're getting something new, but doing it friends, both familiar and new. For me, the movie would have been a failure if it felt disconnected from the OT.

 

The moon landing? Really? We're arguing whether this film recycles, and there's are strong argument with clear evidence it does. Whether that makes it good, bad, impressive or disappointing is up to subjective interpretation.

 

You can't say the view that the movies rehashes prior film(s) is wholly unsupported, then turn right around and use the evidence that proves it does to suggest it was intentional and brilliant to use those already used elements.

The movie does some great things with the characters. Once again, I'm not arguing it's a bad film, which is what it seems you actually are disagreeing with.

 

No, your opinion that is "clearly not a minority opinion" is unsupported. I think folks here can and DO make the argument that it is a rehash here and support it (though, obviously, I am unconvinced).

 

There's such a massive massive difference between rehashing a new hope, and what they did with TFA. They did not simply retell the story of ANH in any way shape or form. They took intrinsic plot beats not just from ANH, but from the entire OT and changed them in a fresh and engaging way as well as introduce new characters unlike we have ever seen before and used some of those intrinsic elements to tell a brand new story about these characters. They took brilliant themes such as fate, moving on and letting go of the past but not forgetting it, inheritance and incorporated those themes in both the main characters and visually. This is where the similarities end, and how they did it to me was a stroke of genius. History repeating itself is a universal thing that even us in the real world can relate to. But this was not simply taking the plot of ANH and simply copy and pasting it. If you were to describe the plot of ANH and TFA and weren't trying to make them sound similar by absolutely negating the brand new things and putting too much emphasis on things that do match up you would have two completely different summaries. I thought the way they reintroduced us into the world with these new characters was utterly brilliant and so much deeper than some people even realize. If you want to criticize stuff like SKB or "droid with macguffin" that is completely up to you but do not overstate its importance in the film, because they are simply the "incarnation" of one of the many amazing themes presented in this film. Their importance is only on a thematic level and not a storytelling level. The new characters and their journeys are the true guts of this movie and the small references and plot devices that propel them through their journeys could have been anything, however they were using these throwback references as one of many ways to explore these themes, so it's the opposite of being lazy - it's quite clever and brilliant how they incorporated these themes. To brush this off as lazy is doing the film a massive disservice. I'm writing this on my phone so I hope some of this makes sense.

And let's say you don't like how they incorporated these themes into the movie the way I talked about, if you don't that's fine. But when ultimately rating a movie how important do you even see plot devices as? To put more emphasis on that and ignore every other aspect of a movie is comical to me. It's one of a million aspects to a movie.

 

Ah, ok. Apologies then. We agree on that front.

 

One problem in this thread is that there no accepted definition of the term "rehash"

 

No, I agree that we disagree. I still can't take your opinion seriously though. That's OK though, I'm sure you don't value mine either.

Yes. I think it's a pejorative and don't share that view of TFA. Others clearly do, which is fine but Im not about to start agreeing with them that TFA is a rehash, because I don't think it is.

 

Young adventure seeking hero from a desert planet is swept up into a galactic struggle for secret information that could turn the tide of a war, that just so happens to be carried in a friendly Droid that comes into their possession.

The rebel hero responsible for said Droid and the information it carries is captured by the enemy, a massive authoritarian oppressive regime, led by a dark warrior who's derives their power from a mystical force of which they're one of the few remaining users (because they killed the others and betrayed their master) and a military general who relies on technological might. The rebel is saved by another somewhat naive, but brave hero who happens to be "a little short for a stormtrooper".

The rescuer gets drawn into the same galactic conflict as our desert hero by getting involved with the same Droid. Both are taken in by an old hero who by way of a scoundrel in a cantina, deliver them on the path to return the droid and its secret info to the Rebellion/Resistance. They're also both introduced to a legacy of the same mystical force the dark warrior villian uses by way of an old lightsaber. They both initially run from this destiny, until they're left no other option.

After the authoritarian regime's new superweapon is tested on the Rebel's homeworld(s), these heroes are drawn into a series of events that bring them to a mission to destroy the superweapon before it can destroy the Rebel base. During all of this, the two watch the old hero who brought them to this destiny, murdered, cementing them to the noble cause in front of them. Our rebel hero from earlier leads a trench assault to attack the superweapon's weak spot and destroy it.

Give or take some settings changes, and compositing of characters, that's A New Hope. Yes, they were clever about it. No, they didn't follow the original script to the letter, but it's all there.

Rey and Finn are composites of Luke, with a splash of Han.

Poe is a composite of Leia, Luke and Han.

Han and Maz together are composites of Obi-Wan.

You don't have to go into it with a negative preconception to pick up on it all.

 

I just see that as retreading ground that's been covered before. That's not necessarily a bad thing. In hip-hop, it's called a remix and some remixes are incredible.

Most people are on the traits of what it is, we just don't all feel the same about it.

 

People using "rehash" can't simply project that opinion onto other people. The word "rehash" actually means to simply repeat significant parts of a story without either changing it or improving on it. And so the word rehash contains a negative judgement that the opinion "I acknowledge some story beats and moments in the film have equivalents in ANH" doesn't contain; some of us see similarities but think the change of context, motivation, circumstance, character nd execution was interesting, different or better than what came before.

You'll probably find close to a consensus on Starkiller base being a misjudgement to some degree. Personally, I think that the entire rehash issue wouldn't have been as big as it is if they'd gone a different way than Death Star 3.

 

I don't think it bothered me as much. Yes, I had problems with Starkiller Base but it wasn't the main point of the story.

 

rehash - to present (something) again in a slightly different form (simple definition) or to present or use again in another form without substantial change or improvement
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rehash

Some people have called it going backwards to go forwards, or using nostalgia to comfort fans that it's the Star Wars they know and love, but it comes down to the same thing: something presented in a slightly different form, without substantial change. There's no judgement there as to whether that's a good thing or bad, that's up to each viewer, but TFA fits that definition.

A New Hope is a rehash of several ideas and stories, just as Dragonball, if you're an anime fan is a rehash of Journey to the West. In terms of games, The Legend of Zelda's whole schtick is it essentially rehashes the same story told different ways each time.

IMO, those are all great stories that take something done before and use it in a new and compelling manner. As an artist, I'll admit, all artists "steal" or rehash, the question is what you do with what you've stolen and what your audience feels from it.

 

That's where we disagree then. I think TFA is telling a substantially different story than the OT, despite some reused elements.

 

I mean this in the nicest way.

Go away and enjoy your illegal bootleg copy of Star Wars Mr Criminal.

 

Yeah because the prequels were massive box office flops and didnt inspire one of the greatest animated series of all time.

Oh wait a second.....

 

Like in cooking. Take corned beef, potatoes, and onions and chop them up and fry them, you get something new and inventive that is called hash. Reheat it in the microwave and you get 'rehash'. To me, TFA isn't even 'hash', much less a 'rehash'. It's a new dish that happens to have some themes and beats from the overall saga.