Star Wars: The Force Awakens tried to distance itself from the prequels as much as possible, but the first of Disney’s Star Wars movies still shared a lot of similarities with Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. The long-awaited “Episode VII,” The Force Awakens was designed as the big Star Wars project that would reignite the franchise after a decade without live-action Star Wars on the big screen. As a result of how negative the perception of the prequel trilogy still was, The Force Awakens tried to emulate the feel and aesthetics of the original Star Wars film.
The Phantom Menace, on the other hand, felt almost part of a different franchise compared to the first three Star Wars movies. Suddenly, there were thousands of Jedi across the galaxy commanded by the Jedi Council, the Emperor was a senator from a planet that had never appeared in the original films, and the Force could now be explained with the Midi-chlorians. Despite being opposite takes on the Star Wars universe on almost every level, The Force Awakens and The Phantom Menace mirror each other in many ways.
