SPOILER ALERT! This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It's in your best interest to see the film before reading any further. Don't say we didn't warn you.
So, you enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Awakens - of course you did. But could it be because it's essentially a remix of the original Star Wars, aka A New Hope?
If you haven't already spent some quality time scratching your chin and wondering about the similarities, allow our 13-strong pictorial list to help.
Bear in mind that we really do love Star Wars: The Force Awakens - just take a look at our review over in this direction for proof...
1. A young orphan, fascinated by stories of the Rebels, lives on a backwater sand planet, landspeedering around, feeling they should be doing something else
2. Droid turns up carrying a message that it must get back to master
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3. Young orphan rescues robot from traders and sets off to help find said master
4. A huge, spherical megabase is looming, with an over-elaborate weapon threatening everyone
5. Trio of baddies who want the droid's plans: big and obscured, only ever seen in holograms; masked middle management with link to goodies; Nazi-esque human played by a Brit
6. A father figure steps in to guide our orphan's quest
7. A shootout breaks out in an enemy hangar, prompting a daring escape
8. An anti-hero is born as a no-gooder turns good to help the cause
9. Yay, a cantina to hide out in!
10. Boo, full of bounty hunters to grass us up!
11. Middle management masked baddie kills orphan's father figure with a light saber ("Nooooo!")
12. Final hurrah of X-Wings exploiting flaw in big base surprisingly easily with a plan devised on the fly from disabling defences
13. Where our pilot hero is the one who succeeds in blowing it up despite overwhelming firepower against him
Matt is a journalist, audience strategist, editorial director and workflow consultant with over 20 years' of experience in the industry.
A former director of audience development and content strategy at Hearst UK, Matt was previously Editor-in-Chief of Digital Spy. There, he contributed features and reviews on TV, movies, consumer technology, video games and Lego sets, won BSME Digital Editor of the Year, and led the team to numerous awards including Campaign Consumer Media Brand of the Year and PPA Digital Content Team of the Year twice.
As Digital Development Director of the Hearst UK portfolio, he oversaw the central digital editorial teams including SEO, video, e-commerce and design, contributing to digital acceleration across all Hearst UK brands from Cosmopolitan to Good Housekeeping.
Before joining Hearst in 2015, Matt edited Future’s consumer technology lifestyle brand T3 and the UK arm of Gawker’s tech culture website Gizmodo, and was deputy editor at ShortList, the then biggest men’s magazine in the UK, interviewing the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Lord Sugar and Sirs Ridley Scott and David Attenborough in the process. LinkedIn
