How The Force Awakens Remixed A New Hope

In the latest installment of Everything is a Remix (previous coverage here), filmmaker Kirby Ferguson explores Star Wars: The Force Awakens and how it uses remix techniques to, uh, borrow from previous Star Wars films (mainly Episode IV: A New Hope). While this isn't news to anybody who's seen the movie, it leads us to wonder: How intentional was this?
Ferguson has long discussed a creative process that involves three primary steps: "Copy, Transform, and Combine." In Ferguson's explanation, this is a general model for how creativity works...but perhaps in The Force Awakens, one of those three steps was practiced more than the others. Got ten minutes to geek out over Star Wars and the filmmaking of J.J. Abrams? I thought so.
If you've never seen Everything is a Remix before, you're in for a treat.