'Last Jedi' director: I'm not copying 'Empire Strikes Back,' but I'm also not not copying it

Back in the innocent days of December 2015, some critics of The Force Awakens believed the movie to be a "remake" of the original 1977 Star Wars. 
These people were wrong — one desert planet orphan does not a remake make — and we obsessives at Mashable took the time to prove this with a shot-by-shot comparison.
SEE ALSO: 'Star Wars' vs. 'The Force Awakens': The ultimate comparison
Still, as is often the case with reductive reasoning, the "remake" label stuck in the mind of many