The new Star Wars: it is not a sequel, it is an “awakening”

The concept of a sequel usually means that a story and/or characters that are related to the previous movie appear in what is essentially a new film with a distinct plot. The original Star Wars movies were that, as well as the horrible disasters that George Lucas created later under that name. Indeed, this is the trivial format that all sequels normally follow. At least I thought so.

The new Star Wars is something different. Abrams has shamelessly recycled (awakened?) so many central story line elements from the original movies that it is really hard to say that it is a new movie: the main character, who lives in the middle of the desert and comes across a beeping droid carrying vital information to the rebellion soon becoming the next best Jedi; handing over of a lightsaber of an old Jedi master, which has been in some kind of a box for ages; a handful of X-Wings destroying a huge spherical space station that can destroy planets; father and son issues; a bad guy with a black helmet and low voice; an old Jedi master living in the middle of nowhere; one of the main characters in some kind of a “coma” at the end of the movie. I am sure there are more that I do not recall now.  And countless small details and elements to make sure that those who liked the original movies would feel comfortable.

Is Abrams the next stage in this sequel making business — you do not even have to make a new movie anymore, just wait when enough time has passed and then you make the old movie again, using much of the original story?

I did enjoy it, though. But probably because I liked the old ones so much and not because this new movie added anything. The most notable things that it did change in comparison to the original three was that it doubled the amount of female characters (from 1 to 2) and more than infinitely increased the number of black people (from 0 to 1). Maybe there will be three women in the next movie. And hopefully they are able to pump Mark Hamill enough into shape by the next one so that they can actually trust him to say a word.