Study Shows Surprising Connections Between Star Wars: The Force Awakens and A New Hope Characters

Thematic similarities between stories in the Star Wars universe are nothing new – that’s actually part of the point of Star Wars. It’s a science fantasy tale, and in fantasy, stories are cyclical, with characters experiencing the ebb and tide of the world around them, finding new ways to overcome similar problems on parallel journeys.

McGill University computer science professor Derek Ruths decided to explore and map out the similarities between The Force Awakens and A New Hope, the most recent and first films in the franchise, respectively, and shows that while they’re similar, it’s not a “copy” or “one-to-one translation,” as Wired explored in the results.

The data analysis maps out the number of interactions characters have, not character attributes. So while some fall in line with obviously character parallels, like BB-8 in Force to R2-D2 in New Hope, or Chewbacca to himself in the two films, others are much different. Poe Dameron is the statistical equal to Luke, and Kylo Ren is Force‘s Obi-Wan Kenobi, while the star of the movie, Rey, maps to Darth Vader.

Those results are shown in a spring layout, a data representation that brings characters who interact with one another closer together, and characters who don’t interact bounce apart from each other. The math of the algorithm, it should be noted, is far from perfect, too: Finn maps to Aunt Beru in this scenario and that doesn’t make much sense outside of anything statistical. That’s probably because they’re different movies with major plot differences, like the stormtrooper who turns to the side of good early in the film being the entire call to action portion of the film. Head over to Wired for the full comparison maps.