Here's some more grain for the mill. IO9 has a small feature on some of the ideas that were considered for TFA but never used.

They range (imho) from the great to the awful:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/13-story-ideas-that-were-dropped-from-star-wars-the-fo-1749962882

I'm neutral on most of these but both alternative ideas for Supreme Leader Snoke are things I would have liked far more than the Voldermort we got. That Snoke should be female was one suggestion and I like that just for reasons of balance and variety. The other idea, that Snoke should be beautiful to look at, that he should be this perfect to look at man, I also like. I can see him as a Dorian Grey type. (N.b. for clarification, Dorian Grey in the novel is white, but I'm not talking about ethnicity but the idea of the leader just being this beautiful, prince-like figure, yet despicably evil - whether he look like a young Omar Sharif or D.B. Woodside or Jared Leto).

**** it, hydro!

I agree with your criticism for TFA being a generally unoriginal plot structure, but Michael Bay?

Come on, if you're going to advocate for better screenwriting and storytelling you really should pick a hypothetical director who isn't famous (notorious?) for movies that focus on flash over substance. I also want the next two episodes to tell original, powerful stories and I absolutely do not trust Bay to give us that. Of "People to direct Star Wars" Michael Bay is pretty far down the list. I mean, he's above George, but that ain't saying much.

Sorry!

Notice, I specifically didn't say "better", but rather "every bit as good as". Meaning nothing more than having a few really great points and redeeming qualities, but a few really glaring flaws that average out to a general lukewarm reaction to the film, where the best thing I can say about it would be, "That movie isn't a bad one." It'd be visually entertaining, plenty of action and explosions, an overall military/war tone, with decent enough protagonists going about their adventure. What we would trade in a bit of character depth would yield dividends in showing us a movie we haven't seen already in this universe. Maybe not great screenwriting or storytelling, but there's precious little of that going on with TFA to give up anyway. True, Bay wouldn't be my first choice to do a SW movie, but after seeing what Abrams did with it, while he'd have been below Abrams before I saw TFA, now, hindsight being what it is, I'd put them on at least even footing.

It's important not to look at it as "Could Bay have done a better job of making TFA?" but rather, "Could Bay have delivered an overall better Episode 7 ?", and while the answer isn't a definitive yes, it's also not a definitive no...and honestly, the more I think about it, given tight enough reins from Lucasfilm/Disney, the real answer is probably more uncomfortably close to "Probably" than many would like to admit. He probably wouldn't have given us a character as wonderful and compelling as Rey, but as much as I really, truly do like her, one character does not a movie make. In exchange for taking Rey from "wonderful" to "okay", and accepting 3-4 scenes of over-the-top stunts and explosions, we'd have seen the overall plot of the movie maybe not go from "already done, literally, in this series" to "pretty good, and something refreshing and new for the Star Wars franchise".

You said I was over reaching, but how exactly was I?

Probably somewhere around the point where you define the scope of the comparison you're willing to consider as the very narrow window in which the beginning of the two movies are a few minutes out of sync.

Rather than this 8 minute figure you keep citing, let's go to the first 25. Suddenly, your distinction is a lot harder to suss out, generally suggesting that you specifically chose the specific minute mark at which the point you were making wasn't completely invalid. You're the one who keeps invoking this 8 minute limit (citing that it's "often listed"...not sure by whom or what bearing that has on the overall point being made), without accepting that the 8 minute mark means nothing when we're not talking about the two films syncing up (never mind that we do get a lot of film time showing the dropships coming in, and the initial shooting of the settlement with the whole blood-on-the-helmet thing...meaning that the whole ANH-line "put the data into the astro droid and send him off into the desert" thing may occur much closer to the 8:01 mark than you account for).

Basically, your focus on the arbitrary 8 minutes is over-reachingin teh same way it'd be overreaching to say that Starkiller Base isn't a Death Star knock-off because it's actually the size of a planet...and the massive laser is on the equator, not the northern hemisphere...and the blast is orange, not green...so it's clearly, totally different. In short, ignoring the forest of similarity for the one tree that is different.

**Edited for my garbage formatting**

The whole 8 min thing was not a limit I set. It is what is often considered amount of time the Opening is for ANH. I was not referring to that as a defined limit on all movies. So, I got technical in defending my position that the movies did not open with that, but I didn't deny they are part of the first act. If you want to jump to 25 min opening for you point. TFA still might not make it in the opening. So then what? You want to increase it then. 25 min is a third of some movies. Then how do I keep going back to that? If you include the missing post is only listed by me twice? Second time I said it wasn't a limit for all movies. You have just accused me of saying that I am invoking that 8 minutes is the length of an movies opening. When that is not what I said. If you want to claim set the Opening narrowly by it being the Opening Sequence only go for it. That makes more sense. At least it was in line with what I actually said.

You claim I was over reaching when said that Starkiller Base isn't a Death Star Knock off? Oh wait, is that what I said? No, it isn't at all what I said. I did say they ripped it off and evolved it to something better. The post is there to look at. What is with this other nonsense that has nothing to do with what I said. Not even close to the points I was making.

If all you are going to do is accuse me of points I didn't make then we can drop it there.

The whole 8 min thing was not a limit I set. It is what is often considered amount of time the Opening is for ANH.

You brought it up. You used it as the basis for countering my argument that it's an ANH ripoff. You are the one that keeps throwing around the "often considered" line without citing any source for it.

But really, it doesn't matter, because the point I'm making isn't time-gated.

Regardless of the minute mark, both movies set the main plot into motion by having special secret data entrusted to an astro droid which is then sent out into the desert to find a way to get the secret data away from the baddies and to the good guys. Hard stop.

The 8 minute thing is neither here nor there.

You claim I was over reaching when said that Starkiller Base isn't a Death Star Knock off? Oh wait, is that what I said? No, it isn't at all what I said. I did say they ripped it off and evolved it to something better. The post is there to look at. What is with this other nonsense that has nothing to do with what I said. Not even close to the points I was making.

If all you are going to do is accuse me of points I didn't make then we can drop it there.

I think you misread or misunderstood my post.

I wasn't claiming that you said that. I was comparing your fixation on this 8 minute figure as a basis for denying that it's lifted straight out of ANH.

Not that *you* felt that way about the DS3, but rather that your very narrow focus on one minor point to argue a rebuttal, when that point in fact has no bearing on the position your rebutting against is similar to the hypothetical situation of someone making the stated points about the DS3.

I didn't mean to imply that you said those things at all, so I apologize for the unclear nature in which I phrased it, causing some confusion in the process. That wasn't my intent at all, and I apologize for inadvertently causing some extra tension in an exchange where it's undesirable and unnecessary.

The whole 8 min thing was not a limit I set. It is what is often considered amount of time the Opening is for ANH.

You brought it up. You used it as the basis for countering my argument that it's an ANH ripoff. You are the one that keeps throwing around the "often considered" line without citing any source for it.

But really, it doesn't matter, because the point I'm making isn't time-gated.

Regardless of the minute mark, both movies set the main plot into motion by having special secret data entrusted to an astro droid which is then sent out into the desert to find a way to get the secret data away from the baddies and to the good guys. Hard stop.

The 8 minute thing is neither here nor there.

You claim I was over reaching when said that Starkiller Base isn't a Death Star Knock off? Oh wait, is that what I said? No, it isn't at all what I said. I did say they ripped it off and evolved it to something better. The post is there to look at. What is with this other nonsense that has nothing to do with what I said. Not even close to the points I was making.

If all you are going to do is accuse me of points I didn't make then we can drop it there.

I think you misread or misunderstood my post.

I wasn't claiming that you said that. I was comparing your fixation on this 8 minute figure as a basis for denying that it's lifted straight out of ANH.

Not that *you* felt that way about the DS3, but rather that your very narrow focus on one minor point to argue a rebuttal, when that point in fact has no bearing on the position your rebutting against is similar to the hypothetical situation of someone making the stated points about the DS3.

I didn't mean to imply that you said those things at all, so I apologize for the unclear nature in which I phrased it, causing some confusion in the process. That wasn't my intent at all, and I apologize for inadvertently causing some extra tension in an exchange where it's undesirable and unnecessary.

I didn't mean to cause confusion on what I was saying about the openings. I wasn't trying to say you are wrong from where that came from. It was that they happened at different times in the First Act of each movie and that those scenes did not come directly after the crawl, but still happened very early in the movie. Taking that it wasn't a simple copy and paste of from ANH to TFA in the first act. It is something that got out of hand and the point buried with the whole 8min bs. Doesn't matter at this point. Something that probably should have been dropped a while back.

To the point I don't agree with your comments on TFA being a simple cut and past job. To me, representing it that way ignores the creativity put into the new characters and the parallels to the OT. The Parallels seem like an easy out, but that is because they are very well done. It is not about crafting a purely original story, but a good story that relates back to what people love. With that I felt that it needed to shown that the whole "its just a cut and past from the OT" concept doesn't fit it so neatly.

The whole cut and paste concept (not really from you) has gotten annoying, like the Rey is a Mary Sue. It doesn't matter if it fits or not. For some people it has become about it being cool to hate on TFA. (Which, you obvious are not about).

At this point we can just drop it cause we are not going to change either of our minds on how we feels about it.

Honestly the whole Michael Bay directing a Star Wars movie was starting to look interesting and it got lost.

To the point I don't agree with your comments on TFA being a simple cut and past job. To me, representing it that way ignores the creativity put into the new characters and the parallels to the OT. The Parallels seem like an easy out, but that is because they are very well done. It is not about crafting a purely original story, but a good story that relates back to what people love. With that I felt that it needed to shown that the whole "its just a cut and past from the OT" concept doesn't fit it so neatly.

The whole cut and paste concept (not really from you) has gotten annoying, like the Rey is a Mary Sue. It doesn't matter if it fits or not. It is about being cool to hate on it. (Which, you obvious are about).

At this point we can just drop it cause we are not going to change either of our minds on how we feels about it.

Honestly the whole Michael Bay directing a Star Wars movie was starting to look interesting and it got lost.

I think the problem for some of us is that the movie lifts so much from ANH that it's hard to sit back and appreciate the parallels. Yes the movie is well done. Yes the homage is great, but too much of the movies overall plot and structure is lifted from ANH to really set the movie apart as a stand alone entity.

Though it's cute that if you don't love this movie you're just a hater that is hating it because it's cool to hate. Couldn't possibly be the fact that for some people the movie just didn't hit the mark.

Kael, thanks for making me realize I messed up that phrasing. Just fixed it.

It was that they happened at different times in the First Act of each movie and that those scenes did not come directly after the crawl, but still happened very early in the movie. Taking that it wasn't a simple copy and paste of from ANH to TFA in the first act.

So it's not a simple cut & paste because they didn't paste it at exactly the same timestamp in the new movie? That's exactly what myself and others here have responded to in telling you that it's irrelevant to the point I'm making.

I think the problem for some of us is that the movie lifts so much from ANH that it's hard to sit back and appreciate the parallels.

Maybe that was the problem you had...when I saw it, there were so many of these so-called "parallels" that that's all it was. 2 hours of acting out various scenes from ANH. If I wanted that much ANH in a movie, I'd just watch ANH. It's not that it was hard to sit back and appreciate them, it's the fact that, aside from those parallels, there's precious little movie to sit back and appreciate.

I even found myself sitting in the theater thinking, "Okay, I get it, this is supposed to be *like* ANH...you don't have to make it this obvious and knock me over the head with it every ten minutes!" It was just too much...as if his goal was to just give us his own interpretation of the ANH story while slightly shaking up the characters.

The biggest real difference, actually, was the lack of an Obi-wan type character to accompany the protagonists through the movie, but like all the other character roles, it was just split up between a few characters. So you don't have Obi-wan...you replace him in the narrative with Han and Maz explaining the force and introducing the Force sensitive character to their heritage. Need him to rescue new Luke from the dangers of the desert? Eh...let's let new Luke rescue someone else. Need the old man to knock out the tractor beam? Well crap. Hmm...why don't they just jump straight to lightspeed from the docking bay?

The treatment of the Way the Technology Works is another of my Lazy Storytelling gripes, but that's a whole different can of worms.

After having some time to digest the movie, I think my main issue with this movie is that it's not a complete and self contained story. Oh sure you can dangling plot threads to be tidied up later, but all of the previous six had a beginning, middle and an end - even one as open ended as Empire. Even the prequels had A-B-C, with Clones having probably the most loose ending (and even that was "Palpatine secures power - this is how he does it").

Hell, having a huge To Be Continued is part and parcel of the Saturday Morning Republic Serials that embedded in the very DNA of Star Wars.

But E7? Felt way too much like opening chapter and not nearly enough of a "We need to do This Thing. . . . . And now This Thing has been resolved" for my tastes.

An interesting take on the movie. The bit about the politics seems dead on to me:

Critics are going too easy on Star Wars: The Force Awakens

By now, more or less everyone has acknowledged that Star Wars: The Force Awakens closely echoes A New Hope — so closely, in fact, that "echoes" does not quite do it justice. It lifts most of its major plot points from A New Hope (and a few from that film's two sequels), sprinkling in some new characters.

Some reviewers have dismissed this lightly; others have dwelled on it a bit, but ultimately forgiven it. Vox's own Ezra Klein has argued that it is a feature, not a bug , a way of bringing comic-book sensibilities to the Star Wars franchise.

I find it a little weird that this doesn't bother critics more. I'm with Brian Merchant : the movie's "predictable, nostalgia-reliant, repackaged thrills" are "a defeat for what made the trilogy extraordinary in the first place—its madcap sci-fi originality and genre-bending experimentation ."

There's borrowing and then there's borrowing

Obviously these things are subjective. But for me, over the course of the movie, the "borrowing" aspect slowly went from sweet and nostalgic to discordant to faintly ridiculous. It pulled me out of the movie.

When The Force Awakens began with a droid loosed on a desert planet, carrying information vital to the Rebel... er, Resistance, I laughed. I thought director J.J. Abrams was winking at us, having a little meta-fun.

I thrilled at Rey cruising through the desert on her speeder bike, a wide-angle shot that called back to an early shot of Luke in his land speeder. I clapped when the Millennium Falcon was revealed. Okay, the coincidences were getting a little absurd, but it was so well done. And it served to bring in Han and Chewie, which, despite my having seen the moment in the trailer 478 times, made me tear up all over again.

I can mark the exact moment when I finally grew exasperated. Our heroes have made it to the reb... er, Resistance base. There, a very familiar group of pilots, droids, and generals gathers around a very familiar circular 3D hologram of a very familiar Big Weapon, which is posing a very familiar threat to their no-longer-secret base.

Han says, "oh, you can always blow those up," and I laughed again. Abrams must be in on the joke, right?

Nope. Han was serious. In a rushed minute or two of screen time, they determine that the Big Weapon has ... wait for it ... one small vulnerability , if only they can find the right pilot and someone to disable the shields.

Seriously? Three times now the bad guys build a big weapon and the good guys find one small flaw in it and send one party to creep around inside it and another desperate sortie of ships to attack it? At that point, I was outside the movie, thinking about it rather than absorbed in it.

Even then, I thought Abrams must be kidding, setting us up, preparing to confound our expectations.

Yet not a single expectation was confounded. Everything played out along its well-worn path. A swarming attack. A confrontation inside, on a spookily lit walkway. A shocking bit of father-son dysfunction, telegraphed from a mile away. A lightsaber fight, a narrow escape, a heroic bit of piloting, and, yup, the big weapon goes kablooie. Like how it does every time.

It's far too much borrowing to count as mere homage. But the films are different enough that The Force Awakens can't be taken as a retelling or, as Ezra suggests, a "retcon" of the original (to my mind, the presence of characters from the original, still in the original timeline, rules that out).

So what is it? It's just ... peculiar, an unnecessary choice that doesn't pay off.

Mirroring the original Star Wars serves as a crutch

Whatever the motivation for Abrams' mimicry, it made for some lazy storytelling, especially in the last third of the film. By hewing so closely to the source material, he was able to rely on its emotional resonance to fill in gaps.

The scene where the Resistance plans its attack on the Death St... er, Starkiller Base is a good example. In Return of the Jedi *, there was some sense of significance and weight to that planning. As Mon Mothma gravely revealed, in one of several moments in that film that hints at a vast backstory, many Bothans died to secure the information.

The planning scene in The Force Awakens relies on our collective memory of that scene for all its power. Otherwise, there's almost nothing to it — figuring out how to blow up a planet-sized weapon takes less time than most meetings take to get the conference phone working. It tiptoes close to parody.

When the characters were sneaking around inside the original Death Star in A New Hope , it was tense. There were regular encounters with Stormtroopers. When Obi Wan Kenobi slipped unnoticed through the cavernous hallways in search of Darth Vader, it was another clue to the extent of his powers. In The Force Awakens , Han, Chewie, and Finn trot into the base, almost immediately find Rey (in a planet-sized facility!), and plant explosive charges on a dozen pillars, easily mowing down what guards get in their way. Bop, bop, bop, the expected beats are hit. What little tension there is feels borrowed.

And then there's the politics. I realize the prequels went too far with political exposition, but The Force Awakens barely makes an effort. Until I read Zach Beauchamp's explainer , I had no idea who the First Order was. Leftover Empire? A new Empire? It was just some big evil force, run by a wizened evil hologram dude, with Stormtroopers and a Big Weapon, with little backstory or motivation beyond evil. What was the Resistance, and how did it relate to the Republic? It was a muddle, almost totally unexplained.

For the most part, we buy it, because Star Wars fans know all about big evil forces run by wizened evil hologram dudes with Stormtroopers and a Big Weapon. We know all about planning attacks on, and sneaking around inside, giant bases filled with bad guys. We already have those spaces carved out in our collective psyche; we fill in the emotional details unconsciously. Abrams only has to rehearse the tropes and we do the rest.

Best case, The Force Awakens is an extended trailer

This appeal to the collective unconscious is part of any sequel — any piece of art, really. It was certainly part of A New Hope , which was a pastiche of characters and narrative elements from other genres. That was part of its charm.

But where A New Hope 's pastiche drew from a dizzying array of sources, The Force Awakens ' draws mostly from Star Wars itself. There's comfort in that familiarity, a powerful nostalgic satisfaction, but it makes for a closed loop — a cloistered, self-referential product with little of the original's sense of giddy discovery.

Matt Yglesias is right : if Star Wars VIII takes the franchise in a bold new direction, some of The Force Awakens ' sins will be forgiven. It will look, in retrospect, like an extended trailer, meant to reintroduce us to the world and situate some new characters in it. If the second in the trilogy is just a retread of The Empire Strikes Back , The Force Awakens (and Disney) will look much worse. (Signs so far appear extremely positive .)

I fear this review makes it sound like I'm down on The Force Awakens , but I'm really not. It is full of delightful moments and fantastic new characters. The acting is uniformly phenomenal. I already have tickets to see it again.

But let's be realistic: it's not a triumph. It's a solid B, maybe a B-.

It was probably inevitable that Disney's purchase of Star Wars would yield the equivalent of another Marvel, a source of reliable, crowd-pleasing franchise films that satisfy audiences but take few risks. Still, I couldn't help hoping for more, at least from this one.

^^ This guy right here. ^^

Seriously, I've never read a review of anything...movie, tech, book, whatever...that so closely matched my response to the subject in question.

In fact, our opinions are so similar, they're like ANH & TFA.

Nailed it. Especially that part about how it relies on ANH and RotJ to make the scene where they find the weakness on the "starkiller" work. The critic is spot on in saying that if you weren't primed for exactly that to happen by the previous two movies, it would have seemed absurd: walk into the room, look at a hologram, decide that you can blow it all up by targetting this hatch on the side. Length of meeting - 2 minutes.

Great review and good find.

It strikes me as "Star Wars, as Presented by Captain Lensflare."

Given that Lucas freely "homaged" aka stole from the old time Republic serials and Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, not really seeing a whole lot of ground since the only truly "original" thing that ANH did in that context was put the tale of Hidden Fortress in outer space. Everything else about ANH is just as much of a "blatant rip-off" as a small and overly vocal subset of hurt self-appointed judges of all things Star Wars are claiming TFA is to that film.

Lucas only gets a pass because the mainstream American audience had little to no clue that Hidden Fortress existed until well after Star Wars had hit the screens.

But go ahead and crap on Abrams for being "unoriginal" when there were plenty of differences between ANH and TFA, when Lucas was frankly just as unoriginal, and was even more so with the Prequels which really were a complete re-hash of each plot point in the original trilogy (about the only critical difference between Anakin and Luke was the quality of their actors; Hamill can actually act no matter what he's in or who's directing, Hayden not so much). TFA at least spiced a few things up by mixing around aspects of the three central good-guy characters and having the main hero be a woman, something that's generally not seen in most Star Wars media. The masses wanted a film that felt like the old Star Wars they knew and loved, and Abrams delivered the goods in that aspect.

Given the film's raked in over 1 billion dollars, seems there's a large number of folks that simply don't care how heavily TFA borrows from ANH. They were promised a fun Star Wars movie, they got what was promised, and given the number of repeat viewings they're perfectly happy with it.

Psychologically, there's a comfort to be found in the familiar, and TFA was familiar enough in being "Star Wars" that people are enjoying it.

But by all means, continue hating on a film by claiming it's a rip-off when the "original" film itself was little more than a gussied-up rip-off of a pre-existing film.

Lucas created his own setting and gathered inspiration (and sure, even directly lifted portions) from a lot of different places, threw them all together, and made Star Wars.

Abrams went no further than what had been done before in the same series. He didn't draw inspiration from several outside sources or even blatantly lift elements from films far removed from the Star Wars setting.

Surely you can see the difference there.

While ANH might have been a Frankenstein hybrid of Kurosawa and Flash Gordon, if you judge TFA using the same rubric, it's the inbred daughter of ANH and RotJ.

As a viewer, I don't so much mind if you're going to regurgitate your inspiration sources back to me, but at least chew them up and digest them a bit so that it's harder to tell just what it was and where it came from.

The only thing funnier than the nerdrage of those that liked TFA with those that don't for whatever reasons is the nerdrage of those that do not, for whatever reasons, and the camaraderie they get when they find someone else that doesn't as well. I like Shakespeare. I don't like it when its over analyzed. I like Star Wars. I don't over analyze it.

So, who's going to see episode 8 & 9?

Lucas only gets a pass because the mainstream American audience had little to no clue that Hidden Fortress existed until well after Star Wars had hit the screens.

I don't think mainstream America is still aware of this movie yet.

On the original movie debate I see both sides. I thought it was too much homage than I would have preferred but it was still a very fun Star Wars movie.

The only thing funnier than the nerdrage of those that liked TFA with those that don't for whatever reasons is the nerdrage of those that do not, for whatever reasons, and the camaraderie they get when they find someone else that doesn't as well. I like Shakespeare. I don't like it when its over analyzed. I like Star Wars. I don't over analyze it.

And there's no irony at all in someone who is reading/posting on a Star Wars RPG web forum making "you nerds" comments...

The only thing funnier than the nerdrage of those that liked TFA with those that don't for whatever reasons is the nerdrage of those that do not, for whatever reasons, and the camaraderie they get when they find someone else that doesn't as well. I like Shakespeare. I don't like it when its over analyzed. I like Star Wars. I don't over analyze it.

I think a pretty apt description of any of the Star Wars movies is that each one is a very pretty soap bubble that bursts upon a deeper examination Even if the statement was applied more directly to TFA, it applies equally well to all seven films. The all fall apart quite easily if you stop to really examine them.

But since Abrams has a sizeable hatedom, he gets crapped on for making an homage film while Lucas gets a free pass. Nerds, go figure

I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy myself. I'm just saying that it would have been a stronger movie if it had been more clear about the politics of the setting and didn't lean quite so heavily on the nostalgia button.

So, who's going to see episode 8 & 9?

I certainly will. I'm curious to see where Rey, Finn, and Kylo's respective stories each lead to.

So, who's going to see episode 8 & 9?

I certainly will. I'm curious to see where Rey, Finn, and Kylo's respective stories each lead to.

Mostly I'm just curious out of all the dead horse beating that's going on in some of these 9 paragraph posts in regards to TFA's shortcomings in some eyes, how many are still going to go see 8 & 9.

Donovan, please try to be less condescending towards those that disagree with you.

I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy myself. I'm just saying that it would have been a stronger movie if it had been more clear about the politics of the setting and didn't lean quite so heavily on the nostalgia button.

Fair point, but at the same this was a "win back the crowd" film for Disney to justify the 4 billion dollar price tag they paid for the franchise. As for the politics, how much is really needed in the course of the film to tell the story? The opening crawl says there's a Republic, which supports the Resistance, who opposes the First Order, who are clearly the bad guys. That's pretty much what we got in terms of the setting's politics for ANH, that there was an Empire, a Rebellion against this Empire, and not much else. The Emperor was pretty much a throw-away line at that point (can't really have an Empire without an Emperor in what is a dressed-up fairy tale), with Tarkin being the major villain and Vader really just being an impressive looking flunky that chews the scenery in terms of ANH's plot.

Now if this film had only done marginally as well as it has, or worse yet just plain flopped at the box office, then you can bet the hype machine would grind to halt and apart from Rogue One, we probably wouldn't getting any new films beyond Episodes 8 and 9; heck, Rogue One might even have been put into "development hell." Consider how much hype and merchandising there was for TPM (with Maul's face plastered all over the merch), and how much less there was for AotC and RotS. With the price tag attached to purchasing Lucasfilm, it's not surprise that Disney opted to hedge their bets on the initial outing.

And really, aside from the grumblings from a small contingent that really seem more about bashing TFA simply because it's the hot new thing and they want to seem "edgy" or "cool" because they don't like said hot new thing, Disney's decision to hedge their bets is paying off big time , and setting a solid groundwork to let the Star Wars franchise grow out from. It's a similar stratagem to what the Marvel Cinematic Universe did; the first Iron Man was incredibly predictable in terms of its plot, especially if you were even vaguely familiar with the character himself, but it was such an enjoyable and fun film to watch (no small part because of RDJr's performance) that it pretty much gave the green light to the MCU as it exists today, with Avengers being just as formulaic in terms of its plot but also being successful enough to pay the production costs of not only itself but the rest of the Phase 1 films as well.

Donovan, please try to be less condescending towards those that disagree with you.

Tell that those who are just as rude and condescending and all high-and-mighty about why everyone else is wrong and that the film sucks.

Or, feel free to just skip over my posts if you prefer. I've already taken your signature's advice and added hydrospanner to my Ignore list since he's just been trotting out the same dead horse arguments over and over in spite of what anyone says to the contrary.