J.J. Abrams addresses criticism that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a rip-off of A New Hope

While Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been shattering box office records left, right and centre – and repairing much of the damage caused by the Prequel Trilogy in the minds of many fans – the film has come in for some criticism for its similarities to the original Star Wars, particularly in terms of its plot and structure.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, J.J. Abrams has responded to critics who feel the film is a “rip-off” or “remake” of A New Hope, stating that:

“It was obviously a wildly intentional thing that we go backwards, in some ways, to go forwards in the important ways, given that this is a genre — that Star Wars is a kind of specific gorgeous concoction of George [Lucas]’ — that combines all sorts of things. Ultimately the structure of Star Wars itself is as classic and tried and true as you can get. It was itself derivative of all of these things that George loved so much, from the most obvious, Flash Gordon and Joseph Campbell, to the [Akira] Kurosawa references, to Westerns — I mean, all of these elements were part of what made Star Wars. I can understand that someone might say, ‘Oh, it’s a complete rip-off! What was important for me was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new — to go backwards to go forwards. We inherited Star Wars. The story of history repeating itself was, I believe, an obvious and intentional thing, and the structure of meeting a character who comes from a nowhere desert and discovers that she has a power within her, where the bad guys have a weapon that is destructive but that ends up being destroyed — those simple tenets are by far the least important aspects of this movie, and they provide bones that were well-proven long before they were used in Star Wars.”

“What was important for me was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new — to go backwards to go forwards,” he continues. “So I understand that this movie, I would argue much more than the ones that follow, needed to take a couple of steps backwards into very familiar terrain, and using a structure of nobodies becoming somebodies defeating the baddies — which is, again, I would argue, not a brand new concept, admittedly — but use that to do, I think, a far more important thing, which is introduce this young woman, who’s a character we’ve not seen before and who has a story we have not seen before, meeting the first Storm Trooper we’ve ever seen who we get to know as a human being; to see the two of them have an adventure in a way that no one has had yet, with Han Solo; to see those characters go to find someone who is a brand new character who, yes, may be diminutive, but is as far from Yoda as I think a description of a character can get, who gets to enlighten almost the way a wonderful older teacher or grandparent or great-aunt might, you know, something that is confirming a kind of belief system that is rejected by the main character; and to tell a story of being a parent and being a child and the struggles that that entails — clearly Star Wars has always been a familial story, but never in the way that we’ve told here.”

Source: Flickering Myth

unfortunately, but true

Not true at all, but merely a bunch of BS to justify what is an absurd, illogic and outright stupid repetition of previous storylines. Thousands of fans around the world, game modders, novel writers, every Star Trek (SciFi for the intelligent) fan or ST screenwriter, most readers of Science Fiction novels could easily have produced something more interesting. With emperor Palpatine and his lap dog Vader gone, dozens of different factions within the Empire would try to grab power, some worlds would try to become independent, others would try to get revenge or their piece of the cake. The same on the rebels' side, which, no longer united by a common enemy, might have to deal with several different points of view about the best course of action to re-establish a democratic senate, punish war criminals, and so on.

Another robot with another map falling on another desert planet where another rookie with no idea of being carrier of the force catches it? Another father-son drama between light and darkness? Blowing up the death star for the third time (does the Empire never learn?)? Then all the smaller nonsense: Han Solo's son being faster than light and stopping a laser beam in the opening scene, after years and decades of teaching and training from both the good and the evil side, as all Jedi and Sith can only develop their abilities with such dedication. Nevertheless, some greenhorn chick who just fooled her first stormtrooper out of desperation can close her eyes, meditate in the middle of a fight and then kick his butt? The only believable detail in the movie is that Leia's son wears a helmet like his grandfather -- because he obviously inherited his mother's «beauty». And these are just the most obvious discrepancies between logic and story, there are dozens more.

By choosing J.J. Abrams as not only the director, but also the screenwriter of Crapisode VII, the film was doomed from the start. The guy makes nice popcorn distractions for braindead teenagers with attention dificiency syndrome caused by the instant gratification obsession of the trivial crapworks age, films that accompany McDonalds toys «free with your fries», but no decent movies for people with an IQ over 75, ever. Abrams and Lucas had 30 years since The Return of the Jedi, plus 10 years to heed the feedback from the community after Episode I-III -- and this is what they come up with? They deserve to be condemned to Sumo wrestle Jabba the Hut and subsequently serve as his pillow for such an easily avoidable, utter failure and disappointment. The lame statement above won't fly even five yards, let alone to a galaxy far, war away.

Of course they made truckloads of money, any Star Wars movie will -- which is exactly why they can allow and afford to produce something worthy of the expectations and developments over the last thirty years, something better than a stupid garbage in comparison to which the Lord of the Rings series appears like an intellectual masterpiece for scholars.

^ This! After hearing all the rave, I was so suprised when I saw the actual movie and wasn't sure why no one else was disappointed to basically see A New Hope 2.0.
That being said, I personally do love a lot of J. J. Abrams' work, I just didn't get the direction he chose for Star Wars at all.

Let's hope the next SW movie won't be anything like what we've seen before. It's such a big universe, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with something completely fresh and new.