I'm going to start with the hero's journey.

Let's look at what that is and how it relates to the first trilogy.

Act 1 - The Departure

The call to adventure - Leia's Message

Refusal of the call - Help with the harvest

Supernatural Aid- Obi-wan rescues Luke

Crossing the first threshold - escape from tatooine

Belly of the Whale - Trash compactor

Act 2 - Initiation

Road of trials - Practice with light

Meeting with Goddess - Princess Leia

Temptation off path - Call of the dark side

Atonement of the father - Vader and Luke reconcile

Apotheosis - Luke becomes a Jedi

The ultimate boon - Death star destroyed

Act 3 - Return

Refusal of the return - Luke wants to stay to avenge obi wan

Magic flight - the Millennium Falcon

Rescue from without - Han saves luke from Darth

Crossing the return threshold - Falcon destroys tie fighters

Master of two worlds - victory ceremony

Freedom to live - Rebellion is victorious over empire.

Now, we know that Lucas wrote the first movie with this journey in mind as Campbell was his mentor. When the rest of the trilogy was green lit, the first movie became act 1 and the second and third became 2 and 3.

With this newest movie, people are commenting on how similar it is to the old movies. It's only because it so closely follows this hero's journey. What makes these new movies interesting is how well they follow that Journey.

I've only seen it once, but so far Ren, Rey, and Finn are all following the hero's journey. Rey's is pure good, Fiin is light to dark, and Rey is pure dark. I have a hunch that Poe will have his own hero's story but I wasn't ticking off the list.

What's also interesting is the fact that, while this first movie hit all 17 steps in the hero's journey for three characters, the larger story only covered the first 5 steps of the first act in the larger story.

They are building a very neat tapestry of journeys and nested journeys and I'm interested to see if they stick heavily to all points, diverge to tell a better story, or comment on how neatly history repeats.