Shigeru Miyamoto, famed creator of some of Nintendo's greatest game franchises, says his favorite movie of last year was the newest Star Wars film, The Force Awakens.

Shigeru Miyamoto is talking a lot about Star Fox Zero these days, but it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to his fans that he is also a big Star Wars fan. Miyamoto has said many times that Star Fox was inspired and influenced by the space battles found in George Lucas' original trilogy.

In a recent interview, Miyamoto was asked about his favorite movies and games from the last year, and he said his favorite film of 2015 was The Force Awakens.

"There were a lot of good movies last year. One movie that I would have to talk about is Star Wars. It was a movie that I was very worried about. I really enjoyed the original three movies. But as they started to rely more on CG and computer graphics, I gradually stopped watching the Star Wars movies."

"I felt that for the people who were taking that on that it was a very big challenge for them. My expectation is that they’d maybe find a way to barely meet that challenge. But when I saw that movie, I was very impressed with what they were able to do."

"As a creator, I really respected their ability to take on the challenge and bring back some of the feelings that people had the first time they watched the movies. I really liked that some of those actors from Episode IV came back after all these years, and you can see how they had aged. As a fan, it was a really great movie."

Interestingly, Star Fox Zero is a return to the franchise that saw its last home console release since 2005. In a similar way, last year's The Force Awakens was also a return to the Star Wars franchise since 2005's Revenge of the Sith. To take the comparison further, just as many Star Wars fans overlook the prequels and consider The Force Awakens to be a more faithful continuation of the original trilogy, many Star Fox fans might count Star Fox Zero as a proper return to what made the franchise great, appearing to be a more direct sequel to 1997's Star Fox 64 than the more non-traditional entries in the series since then.

Miyamoto was also asked about his favorite games of the last year, and he didn't stray from the Nintendo catalog saying his favorites were Splatoon and Super Mario Maker. His time with Super Mario Maker may have also influenced his decisions on Star Fox Guard, the new Tower Defense game coming out alongside Star Fox Zero. That game features a multiplayer component that allows players to create custom challenges to upload for other players to tackle.

What do you think of Miyamoto's favorite movie and games from 2015? What were your favorites?

Star Fox Zero and Star Fox Guard launch on Wii U on April 22, 2016.

Source: Game Informer