Star Wars: The Last Jedi is scheduled to come out in December. As a result, it should come as no surprise to learn that discussion of the movie has become more and more frequent, which in turn, means that some old topics have been revived as well. For example, there are now more people wondering about whether The Last Jedi will be a remake of The Empire Strikes Back in much the same manner that they believe that The Force Awakens was a remake of A New Hope.
Is The Last Jedi More-or-Less a Remake of The Empire Strikes Back?
The belief that The Force Awakens was patterned on A New Hope is not wholly without reason. After all, it is not difficult to see some of the similarities between the two movies. For example, The Force Awakens featured the Resistance fighting the First Order, which has constructed a super-weapon called the Starkiller Base that has to be destroyed in a daring assault, whereas A New Hope featured the Rebellion fighting the Empire, which has constructed a super-weapon called the Death Star that has to be destroyed in a daring assault. Furthermore, The Force Awakens boasts a masked enforcer in a black costume paired with a red lightsaber called Kylo Ren, whereas A New Hope boasts a masked enforcer in a black costume paired with a red lightsaber called Darth Vader.
With that said, it is important to note that the people behind The Force Awakens seemed to have been aware of these similarities, with the result that they went to some effort to play with them. For example, Kylo Ren is not the same imposing figure as Darth Vader. Instead, his threat comes from his unstable personality, which might not make him as impressive as his predecessor but nonetheless makes him a serious threat in a separate manner. Furthermore, he looks similar to his predecessor because he patterned his look on his grandfather, which is a rather amusing nod to the connection between the two movies while still striking out on its own way in the process. Overall, while the connection between The Force Awakens and A New Hope is clear, to say that the former was a remake of the latter is a rather ungenerous interpretation.
As for The Last Jedi, suggesting that it will be nothing but a remake of The Empire Strikes Back is more than a little bit ridiculous at this point in time. After all, nothing is known about the upcoming movie save what has been revealed, which is to say, some footage from the trailers as well as some other examples of marketing material. Granted, there are some scenes that look similar to scenes from The Empire Strikes Back, with examples ranging from Rey training while Luke looks on to a scene involving the First Order’s new AT-M6 walkers. However, there is no real proof that these seeming similarities will result in real similarities once the movie has been released. Never mind that a lot of people suspect that the trailers for The Last Jedi have been edited for the sake of fooling the viewers, not least because a lot of trailers use edited footage from its scenes to create misleading impressions. Summed up, it is possible that The Last Jedi will be a remake in all but name of The Empire Strikes Back, but there is no reason to believe that position at this point in time.
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