It seems to me IMHO that JJ Abrams didn't so much write a new Star Wars movie for TFA as just re-hash the plot from A New Hope. For example, in both movies...

...a droid is given secret information by a rebel before that rebel is captured by Stormtroopers.

...that rebel is then taken by the Stormtroopers to talk to a Sith lord dressed in black and wearing a cape.

...the droid with the secret information is alone on a desert planet before being captured by a small scavenger.

...the droid is rescued by the hero.

...the hero runs from Stormtroopers and escapes the desert planet in the Millennium Falcon.

...the hero is an orphan from a desert planet and is unknowingly incredibly powerful in the force.

...the heroes have to go to a cantina with weird alien creatures.

...the heroes have to go to a planet-destroying space sphere to rescue a girl.

...an old war veteran and mentor to the hero is killed by the dark lord while the heroes look on.

...the heroes escape the planet-destroying space sphere in the Millennium Falcon.

...X-Wings fight TIE Fighters to do attack runs on the planet-destroying space sphere.

...the planet-destroying space sphere is blown up by an X-Wing doing a last ditch effort just before the evil sphere is about to fire.

...the dark lord escapes the destruction of the space sphere.

Seriously, this was NOT a new Star Wars movie - it is a re-hash of the old one.

Other problems with TFA...

- Rey, a scavenger, can pilot the Falcon, a ship she considers junk and has never been in.

- the Falcon starts after sitting as junk for years in a scrap heap.

- Finn, a sanitation Stormtrooper who cannot bring himself to kill, mows down his own fellow Stormtroopers without a problem.

- untrained Rey can do Jedi mind tricks and defeat a Sith lord in a lightsaber battle.

- Falcon crashlands on Starkiller planet within walking distance of where they need to be.

- Rey is being held prisoner right next to the shield generators that need to be knocked out.

I can go on but this movie sucks so bad just thinking about it makes me want to puke.

Thanks to Disney and JJ Abrams for killing Star Wars for me.

Because you opinion is so important it needs it's own thread.

As for killing Star Wars for you, good bye.

I think your title is already a spoiler. Might want to change it.

The funniest thing about complaints like this?

You folk say "It's too much like ANH!" as if this is some kind of secret the filmmakers tried to slip by you instead of a clear and purposeful aesthetic choice.

I'm sorry you didn't like it, but I would ask that you contain your hyperbolic declarations of subjective quality to a minimum, since you haven't succeeded in doing much more than "Gleaning the director's intent".

I mean, you may as well complain that ANH is just a rehash of The Hidden Fortress. Weak, your cinematic critique is.

95%+ positive reviews suggest your opinion is an outlier, but thanks for taking the time to share your outrage over nonexistant problems.

Also in your signature you use the word "Imperial" to describe your armada twice, which is just kind of silly imo

As someone else said, there are 3 threads on this on the front page, sorry you are hurt so badly by this movie but c'mon.

While I wasn't too happy about the similarities, I believe that the idea is "here's the Star Wars you know and love, we'll take it in a new direction in episode VIII now that we've established that."

Change your title.

The similarities to the OT are undeniably there. Personally I'm fine with it. I thank JJ and Disney for making the first SW movie I'm enthusiastic about since RotJ. I thought episodes 1-3 ruined Star Wars for me until I realized I could still enjoy the OT without watching the prequels. Even if you hate TFA as much as you say, if you let it ruin SWs for you, that's on you not JJ and Disney.

First JJ successfully reboots Star Trek and now he successfully reboots Star Wars. Impressive. I guess a movie can't be liked by everyone and I'm sorry for the OP that he is in the 9% group of viewers that didn't like TFA as opposed to the 91% that did.

Guy, c'mon. Rey had clearly been in the Falcon before. She new who had done what to it and it's chain of owners. And yes, she was crazy good at things. Because of force powers, exactly the same way an untrained teen managed to out fly trained TIE pilots to make a shot that the rebelion's best ace couldn't.

Something that bugged me that I haven't seen others talk about yet, so maybe it's just me, but Poe was too good in combat. He mowed down something like 5 or 6 ties and picked single troopers off the ground in one quick fly by. It's cool that they wanted him to be a great pilot.. but it was way over the top.

When the empire was leaving that planet after grabbing Rey, it showed a bunch of ties and that shuttle heading off.. after seeing what Poe had just done, I was thinking, so that's one "fly by" worth of ties for Poe, big deal.

He wasn't the only one doing crazy stuff like that.. but it was case where I could easily feel how it took all sense of danger or urgency out of the movie for me. And also highlighted when the plot wasn't moving naturally but artificially.

I liked it more when the ship combat was basically WW2 war movie homage.

I apologies for being negative, but I had to vent about that.

Good news to the OP. You can now retire from watching all movies, they all have points of convenience.

- Rey, a scavenger, can pilot the Falcon, a ship she considers junk and has never been in.

Force sensitive (helps immensely, see TPM and ANH) who knows how to fly ships in general. She's also familiar with the thing and its modifications, so she evidentally has been in it before.

- the Falcon starts after sitting as junk for years in a scrap heap.

It was parked.

- Finn, a sanitation Stormtrooper who cannot bring himself to kill, mows down his own fellow Stormtroopers without a problem.

Big difference between being unable to kill and unable to commit war crimes by massacring civilians while in shock from his friend being killed. Also no such thing as a sanitation stormtrooper. He may have been tasked with sanitation work while stationed at the base (the stormtroopers don't just stand around the whole time), but he's still a stormtrooper.

- untrained Rey can do Jedi mind tricks and defeat a Sith lord in a lightsaber battle.

Rey defeated a dark force adept, powerful but hardly Sith Lord level (maybe on par with a SWR Inquistor), who was bleeding out.

- Falcon crashlands on Starkiller planet within walking distance of where they need to be.

Falcon crashlands near where it was trying to go? That's not exactly farfetched.

- Rey is being held prisoner right next to the shield generators that need to be knocked out.

The shield generators were disabled by Phasma. I've no idea where they need to be. Rey is being held in a facility near Precinct 14 (the area that needs knocking out) but not in it.

What I love about this argument is that people complained the prequels were not like the OT and didn't evoke the same feelings, and then people complain that TFA merely rehashes the plot when it attempts to emulate and evoke the same feelings people wanted when they moaned about the prequels.

I feel the movie was them playing it safe, a way to say "Hey...Star Wars is back!" rather than be too crazy. Plus there are elements of the films that are similar, but are they similar because the tropes and callbacks are similar, or that it is a literal rehash?

Now I will do to your argument what you did to the movie, criticize it and say why I disagree with your opinion (and you do have your right to your opinion...just as I have a right to not agree with it):

...a droid is given secret information by a rebel before that rebel is captured by Stormtroopers.

Yes, this was clearly a move to make BB-8 a significant plot point and macguffin. However let's also look at the differences...the rebel was a pilot who was captured in a clearly covert one man operation to Jakku to retrieve and deliver the information, instead of a princess who was on her ship with an entire ship full of men with the intent of secretly smuggling the information she already had to Alderaan.

I can already see you make generalizations about the plot rather than the specifics purely to try and prove how it is the same movie, when the specifics are very different.

...that rebel is then taken by the Stormtroopers to talk to a Sith lord dressed in black and wearing a cape.

For shame! They take a secret operative with important information to be interrogated by their superior who is good at interrogation. I can see why you mention this...but it makes sense to me, why wouldn't they take the prisoner to their leader who likes to operate in the field and get his hands dirty? Furthermore if we go into specifics said leader didn't actually kill the Rebel and the scenes between Leia/Vader, Poe/Ren were very different, Leia and Vader was a very diplomatic discussion with very little actual threatening, when Ren did threaten Poe and physically hurt him.

...the droid with the secret information is alone on a desert planet before being captured by a small scavenger.

Small scavengers who are different scavengers and even their methods are different, the one in TFA was using a net for goodness sake. Plus if we again want to compare notes, the two droids got out of their situations differently, one was rescued, the other was sold...the two scavengers also had different motivation, the Jawas wanted to sell the droid for money, the...whatever he was wanted to sell the droid to a scrap dealer for food.

...the heroes have to go to a cantina with weird alien creatures.

They also went into a cantina in Episode II, I didn't see anyone crying foul then.

I'm going to stop there because I don't have time to look through everything, but I made my point clear, it's one rule for one and another rule for another, you generalize points in the films purely to make people think "uh yeah, they just ripped off a new hope" without considering the differences that alter the plot significantly.

Shall we forget that the hero was doing battle on said death sphere while the X-Wing pilot was making his attack run? Or did I miss the lightsaber battle Luke had with Vader in A New Hope?

As for your problems:

-Rey, a scavenger, can pilot the Falcon, a ship she considers junk and has never been in.

Yeah and I could drive a car that I consider a piece of junk and have never been in. To my knowledge in the entire history of the films we've never seen someone who is a good pilot in one thing go into another vehicle and suddenly lose all competency with vehicles. Luke seemed to know how to fly that X-Wing very well...

- the Falcon starts after sitting as junk for years in a scrap heap.

This is a personal thing, I don't see why there should be a problem with it, yes you cannot really do that with a car unless you want a flat battery, or a refresh of fuel, but the laws may work differently to Starships in a space movie.

- Finn, a sanitation Stormtrooper who cannot bring himself to kill, mows down his own fellow Stormtroopers without a problem.

I saw his lack of desire to kill as more a knowledge of the First Orders evil, rather than his own morals.

- untrained Rey can do Jedi mind tricks and defeat a Sith lord in a lightsaber battle.

The mind trick was to display incredible raw power and that she has knowledge of what Jedi can do...or it could be instinct, didn't stop it from happening. As for defeating a Sith Lord, I would not call Ren a Sith Lord, he lacks discipline and control over himself and displays the qualities of a tantruming child more than he does a Lord of the Sith, or whatever Snoke is training him to be. Vader never displayed these qualities in himself post Episode III, he was calm and controlled, he did kill his subordinates and I see that as a way of showing an example. Ren just goes ape on a console for having a small thing not go his way.

Plus he was shot in the stomach with a bowcaster bolt, I'm sure a shot to the stomach would compromise anyone's ability to duel effectively.

- Falcon crashlands on Starkiller planet within walking distance of where they need to be.

I don't see this as something to be concerned about. Again it is a difference of opinion.

- Rey is being held prisoner right next to the shield generators that need to be knocked out.

We don't actually know how long she was out of her cell or even how far around the facility she went.

95%+ positive reviews suggest your opinion is an outlier, but thanks for taking the time to share your outrage over nonexistant problems.

People only vote when a films good or bad, an average film like we got doesn't warrant the effort, the fan boys voted early and the rest didn't bother.

I'm a perfect example I'm so nonplussed by the movie I haven't voted on any review sites.

There's more than a few people that recognize it's a remake not a new film shouting them down is pointless.

We all are wary of saying a Star Wars movie is good because we were burned three times in a row. Phantom Menace has a 56%, Clone Wars is fresh with a 66%, and Revenge of the Sith is an unbelievable 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. At some point, people liked (or still like) the prequels.

Is TFA a perfect movie? Not by any means. Neither is A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, nor Return of the Jedi. Nostalgia hides its flaws just as hype hides TFA's.

What The Force Awakens is is a simple plot that is well told with good acting and good writing. It gets a B from me.

These days is that you get more attention for being a contrarian, negative or otherwise.

A "serious critic" who thinks Kylo is a Sith Lord, lol.

Get outta here, Trekkie.

95%+ positive reviews suggest your opinion is an outlier, but thanks for taking the time to share your outrage over nonexistant problems.

People only vote when a films good or bad, an average film like we got doesn't warrant the effort, the fan boys voted early and the rest didn't bother.

I'm a perfect example I'm so nonplussed by the movie I haven't voted on any review sites.

There's more than a few people that recognize it's a remake not a new film shouting them down is pointless.

It's obviously not a remake. Claiming it is makes you sound disingenuous and lessens your credibility. The movie is similar to the OT without a doubt and easily seen as such. That is a far cry from a remake.

Just realized the irony of complaining about the movie being a rehash with a thread that is a rehash of many, many other threads.

95%+ positive reviews suggest your opinion is an outlier, but thanks for taking the time to share your outrage over nonexistant problems.

People only vote when a films good or bad, an average film like we got doesn't warrant the effort, the fan boys voted early and the rest didn't bother.

I'm a perfect example I'm so nonplussed by the movie I haven't voted on any review sites.

There's more than a few people that recognize it's a remake not a new film shouting them down is pointless.

Pretty certain he was talking about the critics, not the movie goers. I think you have to get over the fact that people actually really like this movie. You just do not do the numbers this movie is making on pure nostalgia. And to dismiss that fact as people just caught up in the hype, is just obnoxiously condescending. It is okay for you to not love the movie. But on the flip side, it is perfectly fine for others to love the movie.

It seems to me IMHO that JJ Abrams didn't so much write a new Star Wars movie for TFA as just re-hash the plot from A New Hope. For example, in both movies...

...a droid is given secret information by a rebel before that rebel is captured by Stormtroopers.

...that rebel is then taken by the Stormtroopers to talk to a Sith lord dressed in black and wearing a cape.

...the droid with the secret information is alone on a desert planet before being captured by a small scavenger.

...the droid is rescued by the hero.

...the hero runs from Stormtroopers and escapes the desert planet in the Millennium Falcon.

...the hero is an orphan from a desert planet and is unknowingly incredibly powerful in the force.

...the heroes have to go to a cantina with weird alien creatures.

...the heroes have to go to a planet-destroying space sphere to rescue a girl.

...an old war veteran and mentor to the hero is killed by the dark lord while the heroes look on.

...the heroes escape the planet-destroying space sphere in the Millennium Falcon.

...X-Wings fight TIE Fighters to do attack runs on the planet-destroying space sphere.

...the planet-destroying space sphere is blown up by an X-Wing doing a last ditch effort just before the evil sphere is about to fire.

...the dark lord escapes the destruction of the space sphere.

Seriously, this was NOT a new Star Wars movie - it is a re-hash of the old one.

Other problems with TFA...

- Rey, a scavenger, can pilot the Falcon, a ship she considers junk and has never been in.

- the Falcon starts after sitting as junk for years in a scrap heap.

- Finn, a sanitation Stormtrooper who cannot bring himself to kill, mows down his own fellow Stormtroopers without a problem.

- untrained Rey can do Jedi mind tricks and defeat a Sith lord in a lightsaber battle.

- Falcon crashlands on Starkiller planet within walking distance of where they need to be.

- Rey is being held prisoner right next to the shield generators that need to be knocked out.

I can go on but this movie sucks so bad just thinking about it makes me want to puke.

Thanks to Disney and JJ Abrams for killing Star Wars for me.

No use putting the spoiler in the title.

No to bright eh?

Abrams did exactly what he needed to do to save the movie franchise.

"Rehashed Plot" is a spoiler, dude. I'd be getting stink eyes from my whole family if I said even that much (I'm the only one in the house who's seen it yet).

Anyway, the homages were obvious. If you didn't go into the film knowing they were trying to recreate feelings from the OT... Well, you weren't paying attention to anything the cast, crew, and publicity said. Like, at all.

I think the homages worked as a welcome back sort of thing, but I do hope they take the opportunity to break new ground in subsequent films.

Into darkness was a bad movie but it pretty much just rehashed wrath of Khan.

The force wakes up is on okay film that rehashed a new hope.

JJ can't do great he doesn't have it in him we are lucky tfa was as good as it was, he's never going to be on par with Spielberg or Cameron.

He's more on par with bay.

I think the only real problem I had with the movie is Kylo Ren using the force to stop (not bend, not deflect, but stop) a blaster shot in mid air ...

And then go on to do about 20 other things for the next 30 minutes.

Then get back onto his ship, and THEN the blaster shot continues on and finishes its strike.

Sigh. Really?!

Star Wars has always been derivative.

George Lucas originally wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie but he couldn't get the rights. Instead, he mashed together plot pieces from Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, samurai films, and shot-for-shot copies of dogfights from WWII movies, then tied it all together as an archetypal hero's journey from Joseph Cambell's monomyth theory. Even the theme song is a ripoff.

The reason Star Wars works is exactly because it was cobbled together from things people already loved. You can't fault Abrams for following the same path Lucas already tread.

For those interested, here is an excellent breakdown by David Wong (stick through 'till the end.)