For me TFA was a cynically constructed marketing exercise with great acting and nice art design and those scenes are parallel to each other.
Hasn’t Star Wars always been a marketing exercise on some level?
ANOTHER WAY TFA RIPPED OFF THE ORIGINALS
I think George saw the potential to sell stuff where others didn’t but I don’t think even he saw what would happen once Star Wars came out.
The first film was designed to evoke nostalgia for the serials that George (and indeed I) watched as kids just as American Graffiti was designed to provoke nostalgia for the 50s but the plot doesn’t ape a previous film to the same extent.
The second film is designed to push the characters forward not to ape the first film (though the Hoth battle is sort of the first Death Star battle with the location and sides switched).
The rot set in with ROTJ and then the scene and plot steals and all the references get even worse in the PT.
The acting, directing and art design is much better with TFA
ANH has got bits of Dune, Flash Gordon, 633 Squadron, Hidden Fortress, The Searchers etc, etc but it’s not a plot transplant from any one of those sources.
Not to the extent that Poltergeist is lift from Jaws and certainly not the extent here.