TFA ripped off Star Wars; the overall plot,
It remixed the plot. In STAR WARS the overall plot was to destroy the Death Star; in TFA the overall plot was to find Luke.
The movie “remixes” most of the plot points from the OT, from another droid on another classified mission, to the destruction of the Nth DS-alike. That’s much more ROTJ dared to do back in the days with DSII.
Though, after all that it borrowed, it still managed to be an original film, because of it’s design.
No, it seems like one because of it’s design when it wasn’t wholly original.
It took a whole lot from older sources, and then built on them.
One can argue TFA does exactly the same things in a lot of regards. Especially when it comes to scenes like Maz’s Castle or the Han and Kylo Ren confrontation.
You can’t give one specific thing that Star Wars was ripping off, because it wasn’t a ripoff.
Did you see the Dam Busters video I posted?
There’s a world of difference between:
-trying to make something unique by building on different sources and putting them in a new context;
-building mainly on itself, especially when recreating the same plot points.
because straying too much from the original films makes it hardly a SW film, but being close makes it feel unoriginal.
That’s a difficult line to walk across. Even if Episodes VIII and IX are mostly original there will be people who will not like it because they think it doesn’t feel enough like Star Wars. But there’s no way to make everyone happy. Not in this day and age anyway and especially not with the fandom in question.
Stopping remixing events from earlier films from the same series would be the first step into the right direction for most of us: I remember asking about this here sometime ago, and people said they don’t want Disney/LF to keep remixing for the next episodes.
P.S.:
Are we still on this discussion?
Bitching about the merits of TFA is sooooo December 2015.
“Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don’t turn it off! It wasn’t my thread! You asked me, I didn’t ask you!”
😄 jk