(Warning: This review contains spoilers.)

Star Wars Episode VII was marketed as a continuation of the Star Wars saga. The realization that this film was not truly a sequel, but rather a 2015 remake, has inspired reactions from fans ranging from unbridled joy to seething rage. With nearly every plot point of The Force Awakens taken faithfully from the original 1977 film, there is no doubt that the goal of this movie was to re-create the original story, rather than continue it, with the high-profile returning cast mainly used to inspire nostalgia and draw adult fans of the original trilogy back to the theatres. So the question becomes, with a rich expanded universe of content from which to draw, why did Abrams decide to simply make a reboot instead of a true sequel? And what might this mean for the future of the franchise?

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