- Aging Jedi master hanging out in a remote location, waiting for someone to seek him out.Pointedstick wrote:Secret data hidden in a droid… expert pilot on a desert planet… Millennium Falcon is a hunk of junk… gotta blow up the spherical planet-destroying superweapon before it blows up the planet the good guys are on…dualstow wrote: Ooh! Did Primus do 'Jerry was a race car driver"? I used to have a kind of personal connection to Mr Bungle. From there I got a cool Primus t-shirt that I wore proudly in college, but never actually got to see them.
I felt that way through the whole thing. (Don't look, ZedThou!) Cantina, porky guy in an x-wing fighter going after round planet destroyer, and so on.(MedTex) It was only in the parking lot after that it hit me that the plot was basically identical to the first movie
- Stopping at a destination for transients who may have something to hide that is run by a stylish, but shady, personality.
- Brave young X-wing pilots seemingly from the upper midwest finding success on a suicide mission.
- Child on desert planet who doesn't know his/her true ancestry or true destiny. Droid with secret information lands there and child must help droid make its escape.
- Millenium Falcon is used to make escape from desert planet.
- Millenium Falcon finds itself parked on a ship that is full of rampaging monsters, and is only able to get away at the last second (remember MF landing on the rock in Empire Strikes Back that turned out to be some kind of space monster?).
- Han Solo and Chewbacca goofing on each other.
- Princess Leia having relationship static with Han Solo.
- Evil apprentice to leader of Empire uses dark side of Force to draw close family member nearer for showdown. Family member arrives and tries to talk evil apprentice out of being so evil. Family member fails. Leia senses the failure.
- Evil apprentice to leader of Empire wears dark face cover breathing apparatus, even though this time it's for no apparent reason.
- Young Jedi-to-be from desert planet is assisted in her escape by shady person who is running from his past, and his commitment to her cause is questionable.
***
It's more than just a few plot twists. It's like the whole structure of basically the first two movies has just been tweaked a little and freshened up with a woman and a black guy in leading roles. Talk about playing it safe. Geez.
But even with all of its flaws, I thought Abrams did a great job with the look and feel of the film, and it seemed far more human-oriented than the prequels.
