J.J. Abrams responds to criticism over TFA being a rip-off of A New Hope

[Landguy]

sabvre42 said:

Dr.Henry_Killinger said:

In the movie canon, the only one that matters, both Anakin and Luke are displaying force abilities before being trained. Midochlorians be damned.

You are still wrong. Both Luke and Anakin demonstrate force affinity by having higher than natural reflexes and "luck."

Luke at least gets SOME training from Obi-Won before he demonstrates anything more.  Anakin was essentially the same.

Again Rey goes super sayain/jedi with NO training. She demonstrates force powers that ONLY masters have demonstrated before. Abrams only threw this in to make it feel more like the Original Trilogy and it didn't freaking fit.

I mean how did she even know that she COULD force suggest people? She lives 18-20 years never doing it... never witnessing someone doing it... and then just randomly does it?

"Shes discovering her powers." FUCK DISNEY.

I basically agree with you that the whole idea that Rey has such strong powers out of nowhere is not matching anything that came before this movie.  But, if you throw out the prequels and non-original trilogy canon, what you are left with is an increasing use of force abilities in episodes 5 and 6 by yoda and Darth Vader.  In Star Wars (ANH), the force is only a minor influence on things or people.  In Empire, Vadeer now shows an abiity to move object of considerable size (Yoda too) and to even use the force to talk to Luke out in space.  By ROTJ we move up to the emporer having lightning shoot from his fingertips.

Because Abrams was following the escalation that was demonstrated in episodes 4-6 and then later overused in episodes 1-3, the door was now wide open. 

I was 7 years old when Star Wars(ANH) came out.  That movie was pretty cool back then.  But, one thing we weren't all talking about after it, was using the force.  It was such a small part of the movie, it was hardly even talked about.  The "cool" thing from Star Wars was Lightsabers.  BUT, right after Empire came out, what was everyone talking about?  The Force.  The super powers of it.  By the end of ROTJ, the force was now a big element in the Star Wars mythology.  Thats why Lucas overused it so much in the prequels.

Point is, Abrams was forced to make it a major part of the new film and the whole "it takes lots of training" to gain the abilities was simply discarded as it wasn't convenient to the story.  I agree with you that this is a major plot hole to the die hard fans, but to most people it is simply irrelevent.  Becasue we have yet to see the next movie, we don't yet know if their wil be some explanation given or if this is what it seems now, weak story telling or just a simple change in canon.  By the ned of the next movie, we will know.  Today we wil have to be "disgruntled".