The new elements of Episode VII that have been revealed so far are objectively awesome-lookingand, also, extremely familiar. The new Tie designs, the apparent villain wearing a Vader-esque helmet, and the costumes for new actors John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Daisy Ridley all appear to be lightly tweaked versions of original-trilogy items. This, too, might be a corrective to the mistakes of the prequels, which were set a few decades before A New Hope and yet featured technology that seemed of an entirely different universe than the one that fans had come to know. Viewers couldn't help but wonder: Why weren't there any glimpses of junked Naboo fighters or pod racers somewhere in the original trilogy? By putting in a downed Star Destroyer, an upgraded Storm Trooper, the Millennium Falcon, etc., Abrams is in one way being a more conscientious storyteller than late-90s/early- aughts George Lucas was.
But: You could argue that what defines Star Wars isnt merely the specific items like lightsabers and X-Wings. It's the fact that each film showed you something completely bizarre and fabulous. The Star Destroyers so familiar in this trailer were shocking and bold to audiences in 1977. Each subsequent film had similar moments of inventive brilliance, whether it was the image of Cloud City or Emperor Palpatines lightning fingers. The prequels, if nothing else, kept this part of the DNA; the Gungans and their underwater cities, for example, may not hold a high place in the cultural canon, but they were, at least, attempts at innovation. Episode VII, by contrast, has only shown us attempts at remixing, with soccer-ball R2-D2s and crucifix lightsabers and a new season for Imperial fashion. Maybe Abrams has a bold, new vision we've yet to see. Or maybe it will turn out that the galaxy far, far away has finally, in spirit, been conquered by the pandering, fan-servicing, sequel-obsessed universe of today.
