You’ve likely heard it before: “THE FORCE AWAKENS Was A Ripoff of A NEW HOPE!“

That’s a common complaint people had about the J.J. Abrams’ first episode of the new Star Wars trilogy. While I don’t entirely agree with that sentiment, I can absolutely understand where people are coming from. But what if I told you there’s now concern that Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII could be unfortunately similar to Empire Strikes Back?

There were already going to be some obvious parallels. For starters, the lead character left to find a guru at the end of the last film. In the new film, we can reasonably assume there’s going to be a lot of time spent on watching the guru train the star on the ways of The Force. And we can all probably expect to see the ensemble cast do a lot of the heavy lifting as their subplot spices things up while the star is busy training.

In Empire Strikes Back it was Luke with Yoda, while Han/Leia/Chewie had misadventures. In Episode VIII it’ll be Rey with Luke, while Poe/Finn/Chewie have misadventures (possibly). 

*Small SPOILERISH Warning*

Some new details about Benicio Del Toro’s villain in Star Wars: Episode VIII may add more to the similarities. MakingStarWars.Net has shared a report that describes Del Toro as a deceptive man in black that’s connected to the casino setting we’ve glimpsed in set photos from the production and seems to be a friend of our heroes at first, before becoming a thorn in their side later.

While it sounds like Del Toro’s character will be more of an outright villain, as opposed to Lando who betrayed them only because his hand was forced, we’re starting to get the impression that his introduction into the festivities is going to be Lando-esque. 

The site cautions that they’re working their sources to get more intel to share with the world, and that some of what they’re hearing will help differentiate Del Toro’s character from Lando, but they admit that- on paper- there are definite similarities for now. 

SOURCE: Making Star Wars