JJ Abrams Responds To Claims The Force Awakens “Ripped Off” Original Star Wars

Having become the biggest hit in box office history in both the US and the UK barely three weeks after release, ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ is clearly going down very well with a lot of people.

However, some viewers have been quite vocal in slamming the film as a mere imitation of what went before, noting it follows basically the exact same structure as 1977′s original ‘Star Wars’ (AKA ‘A New Hope’) - though, for the sake of those who still haven’t seen the movie, we won’t explain just why here.

Now, director JJ Abrams (who also co-wrote the film with original trilogy screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan) has addressed this charge - and he doesn’t necessarily disagree.

Abrams tells The Hollywood Reporter, “I knew that, whatever we did, there would be a group of people — and I was just hoping and praying that it would be smaller than not — that would take issue with any number of things.

“But I knew we weren’t making the movie for any other reason than we believed that it could be something meaningful and special and entertaining and worthy of people’s time.

“I can understand that someone might say, ‘Oh, it’s a complete rip-off!’ [But] what was important for me was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new — to go backwards to go forwards.”

Online debate amongst those for and those against ‘The Force Awakens’ has grown somewhat heated, as online debates are wont to do. In one notable instance, The Huffington Post published an editorial listing what they deemed to be 40 major holes in the film’s plot - and, in response to this, Facebook user Matty Granger wrote an in-depth response trashing every single criticism.

But once again, none of this is hurting ‘The Force Awakens’ at the box office, as the film is almost certainly set to become the third biggest hit of all time worldwide - though it’s still some way off beating ‘Titanic’ and ‘Avatar.’

Picture Credit: WENN, Lucasfilm/Disney

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