There are a LOT of similarities. It definitely blurs the line between "reboot" and "homage", but I'd argue that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I think it will take a few years for me to digest and figure out where I think it ranks in my personal assessment of the Star Wars movies.

That being said, I'm excited about the future of Star Wars again -- the prequels came very close to destroying any optimism that I had in that regard.

For the moment, consider Episode VII but ignore the plot and parallels / homage / blatant copying between it and A New Hope. In all three prequels combined, there wasn't a single character that was interesting; that we could identify with. Anakin was annoying -- in kid form and adult form. Ewan McGregor did OK with the material and directing he was given, but the script and writing in general did NOTHING to connect prequels Obi-Wan with the original trilogy. Padme, Jar-Jar (ha!), Palpatine, Dooku, etc. -- not a single memorable, interesting character that made me want to learn more about them. Sam Jackson's Mace Windu was probably the closest, but didn't get enough screen time or depth to really establish interest.

Already I feel confident in saying that in terms of characters, Episode VII is massively, overwhelmingly better than the prequels. Rey, Finn, and Poe are each individually far more interesting than every character from the prequels combined. AND, I want to see how those new faces interact with the old stars also. Luke, Leia, even Chewbacca (my personal favorite of the OT) all seem like they will continue to be very important to the story moving forward -- and continue to develop their own story arcs in addition to the new cast.

The Force Awakens wasn't *perfect* -- I tend to think it leaned a bit too much on revamping A New Hope also -- but it was very good and very entertaining. And I am definitely excited about the future of Star Wars again.

You know what?
Samuel L Jackson does kinda look like Laurence Fishburne. They've also played some similar roles (Morpheus, Mace Windu?)

Guess what else? Elijah Wood looks a bit like Tobey Maguire.

And Summer Glau looks like Olivia Wilde.

And Reese Witherspoon looks like ... well, pretty much every hollywood blond apparently.

People look like other people, and funnily enough, a huge defining factor in your look is your skin tone. I personally have often been compared with a young Harrison Ford*..... Billy Dee Williams.... not so much....

*not actually true.

My understanding of star wars lore is that Sith use red lightsabers because the grow artificial crystals for their lightsabers, which only grow red (or red hues). Jedi use crystals that grow naturally, and thus have a much larger variety of colors (with some being rarer than others). Their is no logical restriction that says a Sith MUST use a red crystal, or that Jedi MUST use blue or green. I'd imagine that by lore, you would have to say that purple crystals are just super rare and that Windu being such an influential Jedi managed to get one of the rare few.

I can attest, I worked at lucasarts around that time. for a game we were making, we had made a light saber color generator that let the player pick their own personal color. George sent an email to us that said we had to nix that and that there were only red for bad, green or blue for good and purple for Mace Windu. we had to kill the whole system and remove it from the game. it was a bummer for us, but I guess it kept things consistent so that's ok.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Mace-Windu-kicks-ass-in-Star-Wars-Clone-Wars

2 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

This video has been declared a duplicate by the original submitter; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by notarobot.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Mace-Windu-kicks-ass-in-Star-Wars-Clone-Wars

You latest hit sift inspired me to try to find a lightsaber fight that wasn't lame. I found this instead:

http://videosift.com/video/Star-Wars-Clone-Wars-Mace-Windu-does-Not-Need-a-Jetpack

I blame George Lucas, "Master" Windu.

Grievous in the movies was a huge disappointment after seeing him take on around six Jedi and a squad of clone troopers in the animated Clone Wars series, by artist of Samurai Jack fame, Genndy Tartakovsky. Supposedly he was greatly weakened by a Force Crush from Mace Windu before appearing in Revenge of the Sith, hence the constant coughing and wheezing, his hunched over sickly look and toned-down fighting style and the apparent ease with which Obi-wan Kenobi took him out (with a fucking blaster of all things! UGGH). He really deserved better. But that movie was a crapfest in general so I don't know how much having an at full-strength Grievous would improve that whole situation. Dirge would've been nice to see too but Kenobi had already had his way with him by then.

Actually, now that I think about it, the Clone Wars was the best thing to happen to Star Wars since the original trilogy by far.

I like the scene where Cameron stops Mace Windu from killing Ray Comfort, and then Windu gets knocked out the window.

No, because Mace Windu dies in the end...

Tags for this video have been changed from 'star wars, palpatine, windu, duel, lightsaber, samuel l jackson' to 'jules, star wars, palpatine, windu, duel, lightsaber, samuel l jackson' - edited by swampgirl

Tags for this video have been changed from 'star, wars, palpatine, windu, duel, lightsaber' to 'star wars, palpatine, windu, duel, lightsaber, samuel l jackson' - edited by kronosposeidon