[‘The Force Awakens’] was a bridge and a kind of reminder; the audience needed to be reminded what ‘Star Wars’ is, but it needed to be established with something familiar, with a sense of where we are going to new lands, which is very much what 8 and 9 do. The weird thing about that movie is that it had been so long since the last one. Obviously the prequels had existed in between and we wanted to, sort of, reclaim the story. So we very consciously — and I know it is derided for this — we very consciously tried to borrow familiar beats so the rest of the movie could hang on something that we knew was ‘Star Wars.’ - JJ Abrams
So take that quote however you deem necessary.
I see what he means. It makes sense for the audiance, but otherwise there’s no in-universe explaination (which I dislike). It all comes down to whether one accepts this mirroring for what it is. I don’t find his reclaiming the story a solid reason for mirroring in TFA’s plot (especially so heavily) and I strongly hope they’re really going to stop doing this for the next movies (it’s a “deal breaker” for me), but I understand his decision and who agrees with it.
If anything Poe’s story is more similar to Rey’s. Poe is the one who puts the information in a droid. Poe is the one who get’s captured shortly there after. Poe is also interrogated but difference is that he gave in to Kylo’s mind probing. And Poe is the one is is broken out of captivity. Also unlike Leia Rey is actually interrogated about the mcguffin.
😄 50/50 then, I guess. If like J.J. said TFA’s mirroring are scene related rather than character related (like the PT), then I guess it doesn’t need to work specifically to a certain character, so I think it makes sense.