J.J. Abrams' "Force Awakens" & Werner Herzog's "Herz aus Glas": Skellig Islands Connection

I do wonder if the end of Herzog's Herz aus Glas with its outward spiraling camerawork and back shot of a man in robes atop Skellig Michael was an influence on J.J. Abrams' end of The Force Awakens. The set-up is remarkably similar. Watch this old YouTube video, which, I am very thankful, is still available as of Christmas 2015.

Without giving away anything of the latter film, it's interesting to note that both feature a painterly shot of a solitary, long-haired man looking out onto the water from nearly exactly the same point of the same island as the man portrayed in Herz aus Glas. Their dress and stance, the camerawork, and the shared sense of futurity seem either to spring from the same inspirational source, or else the later film deftly quotes in homage the 1976 German film.

As Jeffrey L. High in Who is This Schiller Now has pointed out, Lucas was probably influenced by Schiller (I had the privilege of hearing a talk he gave on Star Wars and Don Carlos a few years ago in Heidelberg). Maybe Abrams is, in a way, following in Lucas' footsteps and citing another – contemporary – German source: Werner Herzog's film – which further, as giulianocinema showed, echoes that famous Caspar David Friedrich painting every student of German Romanticism and the long 18th century knows so well. I'm using giulanocinema's image here:

Happy Holidays. And may the birds be with you.