Is it a Remake? Star Wars Episode IV and VII
When the heavily anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens (episode 7) came out it was received excellent scores from critics and fans alike. One thing that some people noticed was that the plot for episode 7 was eerily similar to the plot of the first Star Wars movie released, Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. How true is this? Is it really that similar? In this article I will look at the validity of these claims and come to my own conclusion about the claim.
So to start off let’s look at the plot of both episode IV and VII.
Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope’s Plot
The galaxy is in a civil war. The Galactic Empire is under constant attack from the smaller Rebel Alliance. Princess Leia has received stolen plans to the Empire’s newest and deadliest battle station: The Death Star. On her way to give the plans to the Rebels, her ship is captured by Darth Vader, a Sith apprentice. Leia gives the plans to a astro droid named R2-D2, who with a protocol droid, C-3PO, use an escape pod to the planet Tatooine.
The droids are eventually purchased by Luke Skywalker, a man who wants to get off of Tatooine and become a pilot. Luke accidentally see the message Leia put on R2, in which she wants help from an Obi-Wan Kenobi. R2 leave to find Obi-Wan and Luke has to go after him. Kenobi, after meeting Luke, tells him about his father, Anakin Skywalker, a padawan of Kenobi’s during the Clone Wars. He tells Luke that his father was killed by Darth Vader and gives Luke his fathers lightsaber, the weapon of a Jedi knight.
The message Leia gives to Kenobi is that she had the plans to the Death Star put inside R2 and Kenobi needs to bring them to Alderaan, so her dad can get them to the Rebellion. Kenobi wants Luke to come with him and learn the ways of the force, but Luke declines since he had promised his aunt and uncle that he would stay one more season. When Luke returns home he finds his parents killed by stormtroopers and decides to go with Kenobi, since there is nothing for him on Tatooine anymore.
Obi-Wan and Luke hire Han Solo, a smuggler, and Chewbacca, a wookie, to take them to Alderaan in his ship the Millennium Falcon. The Empire uses the Death Star to destroy Alderaan while trying to get Leia to give up the location of the rebel base. Luke and the crew get pulled into the Death Star and have to find a way off of it. They rescue Leia and as they are leaving Obi-Wan is in a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. Obi-Wan puts away his lightsaber and allows Vader to strike him down, to the dismay of Luke.
Once off the Death Star, the group gets the plans to the Rebels who find a weakness in the station, an exhaust port that connects to the main reactor. A well placed torpedo would destroy the whole station. A space battle ensues and Luke uses the force to blow up the Death Star.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Plot
*This movie takes place thirty years after Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
The Galactic Empire has been destroyed and from there ashes the First Order has been born. The conflict takes place between this First Order and the New Republic. Luke Skywalker has disappeared and Leia is leading the Resistance, a group backed by the Republic, who are searching for Luke.
Poe Dameron is a resistance pilot who is on the sand planet of Jakku retrieving a map of Luke’s location. Poe is captured by Kylo Ren, a lightsaber wielding member of the First Order. Poe puts the map in his droid BB-8, who runs away from the battlefield. BB-8 is eventually found by Rey. Poe escapes from the First Order with the help of a stormtrooper, who Poe names Finn, that cannot bring himself to kill for the Order. They crash onto Jakku and it is unknown whether Poe survives. Finn and Rey meet and escape on the Millennium Falcon.
The First Order has created a new base called the Starkiller Base, they use it to destroy the capital of the Republic and a large portion of their fleet. Rey is drawn to the basement of a planet Han takes them to where she finds Luke’s old lightsaber.
The First Order is now targeting the Resistance base with the Starkiller Base. The Resistance comes up with a plan to destroy the base, by attacking a crucial facility. Rey, Finn, and Han go onto the base to blow up the facility, while Poe leads the fleet that will attack it from the air.
Han has a confrontation with Kylo Ren, who is reveled to be his son. Ren kills his father in front of Rey, who saw Han as the father she never had. Rey and Finn have a confrontation in the forest where Finn is seriously injured and Rey uses the force. Rey beats Ren and when back at the resistance’s base finds out where Luke is located. She goes to his location and presents Luke with his lightsaber.
What are the Similarities?
There are some pretty glaring similarities in the plots of the movies, but are they enough to make VII a remake of IV?
Both of the movies involve a beginning scene where a main character while trying to retrieve important information. They both give the information of their droids to protect it:
- Leia is captured by Darth Vader, but not before she gives the plans to the Death Star to R2-D2.
- Poe is captured by Kylo Ren, but not before he gives the map to Luke’s location to BB-8.
They both have a main character who is force sensitive and come into possession of the droids mentioned above:
- Luke Skywalker gets possession of R2-D2 after his uncle purchases it. He is the son of a Jedi Knight and Obi-Wan tells him, the force is strong with you.
- Rey gets possession of BB-8 after finding him in the desert. She feels connected to Luke’s lightsaber and uses the force with ease.
Both Rey and Luke have an older mentor who dies in front of them at the hands of a Sith apprentice:
- Obi-Wan Kenobi was mentoring Luke in the ways of the force when he allowed Darth Vader to strike him down. Luke watched before escaping from the Death Star.
- Han Solo is killed by Kylo Ren in front of Rey. He was like a father to Rey and giving her the knowledge he knew about the force.
The Empire and First Order both have a planet destroying weapon at their disposal and use it to eliminate some planet.
- The Death Star is used to destroy Alderaan.
- The Starkiller Base is used to destroy the Republic’s capital.
There are other similarities, but these are the largest and most glaring out of them.
What are the differences?
The major difference between the two movies is the main characters of Luke and Rey. Luke is a kid who wants nothing more than to get off of the planet Tatooine. He is itching to starts his adventure away from that rock. Rey wants to stay on the planet Jakku because she was abandoned by her parents and is waiting for them to return. She constantly declines the call to action and states that she has to go back to Jakku to wait for her family. Rey is also strong headed than Luke and more gifted in the force, at least in the first movie.
Episode VII also has a faster pace and spends more time developing the characters than IV does. VII throws in more humor than IV as well.
The role of the side characters is different in the movies as well. The backstories of side characters is more prominent in seven. We learn where Finn is from and get to know the side characters a little bit more than we do in four.
Is it a remake?
A remake refers to a film that uses an earlier movie as its main source. While episode seven does take a lot of influence from episode four, I think there is enough of a difference that it is not a remake. It took the ideas that worked from four and put them in a new setting. J.J. Abrams, the director of seven, knew what fans of the series wanted, since he was/is one, and delivered on that.
