If you had some issues with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, director J.J. Abrams hears you.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Abrams addressed the complaint that The Force Awakens is too similar to the original Star Wars.
"I can understand that someone might say, 'Oh, it's a complete rip-off!' " he said. "What was important for me was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new — to go backwards to go forwards."
So although The Force Awakens does call back to A New Hope pretty heavily, it seems clear from Abrams' comments that was an intentional choice to reestablish what's great about Star Wars before the series moves on to what lies ahead.
Speaking of that, Abrams talked about handing off the franchise to Rian Johnson, mainly because he didn't want to commit so much time to this series and be away from his family for so long.
"I realized when I was working on [The Force Awakens], the amount of energy that was required to tell the story, and do it justice, knowing when Episode VIII would start shooting, there was no way — if I wanted to still have my children talk to me in my old age — that doing that would make any sense," Abrams said.
Abrams and Episode VIII director Rian Johnson did collaborate on ideas for the remainder of this trilogy.
Before Episode VIII, though, the next Star Wars movie will be Rogue One, which follows a group of rebels and their mission to steal the Death Star plans. According to a recent Fandango poll, it is the most anticipated movie of 2016.