Todd Phillips: Since when have comedies been about plot?

If "The Hangover Part II” sounds remarkably similar to the original “Hangover," it's not because it's a rehash of the hit 2009 film - it's because they're based on the same "blueprint," says director Todd Phillips.

“The blueprint of the ‘Hangover 2’ is very similar to the blueprint of ‘Hangover’ one,” Phillips tells CNN, adding that “it's a special thing that the ‘Hangover’ sort of owns that blueprint.”

But that doesn't mean that it's the same movie all over again, he says.

“We talked a lot about ways to make a sequel,” Phillips explains to CNN, and “the freshest way is in embracing that template that existed but spinning it.”

“The Hangover” delivered laughs with the drunken, outlandish predicaments a group of guys - Stu (Ed Helms), Phil (Bradley Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) find themselves in after traveling to Las Vegas before Doug's nuptials, while “The Hangover Part II” focuses on Stu's impending wedding with the antics taking place in Thailand.

Says Phillips, "There's not one joke that's the same in the movie. It's essentially a comedy, every joke is different. And, since when have comedies really been so much about the plot?”

However different “The Hangover Part II” is from its predecessor, we do hope that it’ll be just as funny as the first one – and the cast’s imagining of how Oprah Winfrey should bow out on May 25 is keeping that hope alive.

“I think what should happen is she says goodbye and then the set closes and you realize, it's a spaceship and she launches up into outer space,” says “Hangover” star Ed Helms. “And then parachutes back down to earth.”

Helms’ co-star Zach Galifianakis countered that it "would be amazing" if Winfrey “just peels off her face and it's Sally Jesse Raphael the whole time.” Or, Bradley Cooper chimes in, if it was really “Phil Donahue.”

But Galifianakis wasn’t done yet.

“Another way that would be great is if she just says her goodbyes and looks right into the camera and goes, ‘You know what, after all these years, I don't give a s- about any of the things I talked about,'” he suggested.

We’ll find out if Winfrey heeds any of the “Hangover” crew's ideas when she wraps her show on May 25. “The Hangover Part II” arrives in theaters on May 26.