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* BigGood: There are quite a several of the heroes who fulfills this role.
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* BigGood: There are quite a several of the heroes who fulfills fulfill this role.
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* BigGood: There are quite a several of the heroes who fulfills this role.
** Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in the classic trilogy are opposed both thematically and in characterization to Darth Vader and The Emperor respectively, the last remnants of [[AncientTradition the Jedi Order]], and are both TheMentor to Luke.
** Yoda and Mace Windu in the prequel trilogy, being the leaders of the still extant Jedi Council.
** The Rebels have Mon Mothma leading their political side, and Admiral Ackbar leading their military side.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' has General Leia Organa serving as the leader of the heroic Resistance.
** Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in the classic trilogy are opposed both thematically and in characterization to Darth Vader and The Emperor respectively, the last remnants of [[AncientTradition the Jedi Order]], and are both TheMentor to Luke.
** Yoda and Mace Windu in the prequel trilogy, being the leaders of the still extant Jedi Council.
** The Rebels have Mon Mothma leading their political side, and Admiral Ackbar leading their military side.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' has General Leia Organa serving as the leader of the heroic Resistance.
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* AllowedInternalWar: By the time of ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', the Galactic Republic has become so mired in political corruption (not to mention the fact they abolished their regular military after the end of the last Sith Wars, leaving the Judicial Forces to basically bring SpacePolice cars to a {{Battlestar}} fight) that {{megacorp}}orations like the Trade Federation and Intergalactic Banking Clan are able to control vast armies of droids and mercenaries, which they wield in CorporateWarfare against planetary governments that displease them. The plot of the film series is set off when [[BigBad Senator Sheev "Darth Sidious" Palpatine]] covertly pushes the Trade Federation to escalate this to using its droid army to extort policy changes from the Republic Senate itself, in order to create a political crisis he can exploit to get himself elected Supreme Chancellor.
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Catchphrase is now a disambiguation page.
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* CatchPhrase:
** In addition to some version of "May the Force be with you", you can pretty much count on each film at least once having a character drop the line [[OhCrap "I have a (very) ''bad'' feeling about this..."]]
** "There's too many of them!" by any Rebel pilot.
** Palpatine is fond of declaring things to be "Good...".
** In addition to some version of "May the Force be with you", you can pretty much count on each film at least once having a character drop the line [[OhCrap "I have a (very) ''bad'' feeling about this..."]]
** "There's too many of them!" by any Rebel pilot.
** Palpatine is fond of declaring things to be "Good...".
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* CharacterCatchphrase: Palpatine is fond of declaring things to be "Good...".
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* AllForNothing:
** The prequel trilogy sees the Jedi Order fight in the Clone Wars in order to protect the galaxy from evil. Unfortunately, all of their struggles only end up furthering Darth Sidious' designs; Sidious seizes more and more power before turning the Republic into the fascist Empire, the Jedi are wiped out, the Separatists are thrown out like used toilet paper, and all the surviving heroes can do is slink off into the shadows and wait for a new hope to arise.
** By the beginning of ''The Rise of Skywalker'', all of the accomplishments of the original trilogy have been rendered meaningless. The New Republic that replaced the Empire turned into a dysfunctional farce that was easily decapitated in ''The Force Awakens'', Luke's new Jedi Order was wiped out by Kylo Ren, causing Luke to go into self-imposed exile, and even Palpatine is back more powerful than ever.
** The prequel trilogy sees the Jedi Order fight in the Clone Wars in order to protect the galaxy from evil. Unfortunately, all of their struggles only end up furthering Darth Sidious' designs; Sidious seizes more and more power before turning the Republic into the fascist Empire, the Jedi are wiped out, the Separatists are thrown out like used toilet paper, and all the surviving heroes can do is slink off into the shadows and wait for a new hope to arise.
** By the beginning of ''The Rise of Skywalker'', all of the accomplishments of the original trilogy have been rendered meaningless. The New Republic that replaced the Empire turned into a dysfunctional farce that was easily decapitated in ''The Force Awakens'', Luke's new Jedi Order was wiped out by Kylo Ren, causing Luke to go into self-imposed exile, and even Palpatine is back more powerful than ever.
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* DeagedInDeath: The series usually averts this, with the Force ghosts of various characters (Obi-wan, Yoda, Luke, and Leia, for example) looking the same age they were when they died. However ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' had a downplayed example in Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader specifically--which was then turned into a completely straight example via OrwellianRetcon. In the 1983 cut of the film, Anakin's Force ghost looks the same age as the unmasked Darth Vader (both were played by Sebastian Shaw) but his spirit lacks the extensive burns and scars of his physical body (from injuries he'd received decades ago). For the 2004 DVD cut of the film (and all subsequent releases), Anakin's Force ghost instead looks like he did just before his fall to the Dark Side, twenty years prior (and he's portrayed by Hayden Christensen, Anakin's actor from the prequel films). See the page image above for comparisons.
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* DecoyBackstory:
** {{Enforced}} with Darth Vader in the original trilogy. In ''Film/ANewHope'', Luke Skywalker is told that his father Anakin Skywalker was killed by Darth Vader. However, during their battle in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' it's revealed that [[LukeIAmYourFather Vader IS Luke's father]]. [[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi When Luke confronts Obi-Wan about it]] he admits [[MetaphoricallyTrue he was being metaphorical]] [[ThatManIsDead about Vader "killing" Anakin]]. Obi-Wan ''was'' in fact originally meant to be telling the literal truth, but scriptwriting needs during preproduction on ''Empire'' led to Anakin and Vader being {{retcon}}ned into the same person.
** In ''Film/TheLastJedi'', Rey confronts Kylo Ren, who tells her that [[ParentalAbandonment her missing parents were "nobodies" who sold her as a baby for drinking money]]. In ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'', Rey is told -- once again by Kylo Ren -- that [[spoiler:she is actually the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine by a son of his (explained in tie-in material to have been a clone).]] Needless to say, she does not take it well. Again an {{enforced}} example, this time due [[ArmedWithCanon multiple writing teams with competing visions]]: Creator/JJAbrams reportedly decided to try to one-up the shock that Creator/RianJohnson had given Rey in the second film of the trilogy.
** {{Enforced}} with Darth Vader in the original trilogy. In ''Film/ANewHope'', Luke Skywalker is told that his father Anakin Skywalker was killed by Darth Vader. However, during their battle in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' it's revealed that [[LukeIAmYourFather Vader IS Luke's father]]. [[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi When Luke confronts Obi-Wan about it]] he admits [[MetaphoricallyTrue he was being metaphorical]] [[ThatManIsDead about Vader "killing" Anakin]]. Obi-Wan ''was'' in fact originally meant to be telling the literal truth, but scriptwriting needs during preproduction on ''Empire'' led to Anakin and Vader being {{retcon}}ned into the same person.
** In ''Film/TheLastJedi'', Rey confronts Kylo Ren, who tells her that [[ParentalAbandonment her missing parents were "nobodies" who sold her as a baby for drinking money]]. In ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'', Rey is told -- once again by Kylo Ren -- that [[spoiler:she is actually the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine by a son of his (explained in tie-in material to have been a clone).]] Needless to say, she does not take it well. Again an {{enforced}} example, this time due [[ArmedWithCanon multiple writing teams with competing visions]]: Creator/JJAbrams reportedly decided to try to one-up the shock that Creator/RianJohnson had given Rey in the second film of the trilogy.
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Articles like "a", "an" and "the" aren't counted for alphabetization.
* AnAesop: Lucas always intended several.
** Original Trilogy - Fascism is bad.
*** The Empire is modeled on the United States, the Rebels on Vietnam.
** Prequel Trilogy - War is dehumanizing: clones vs. droids. War leads to fascism - Sidious's plan. War is bad - both sides claimed to be righteous, but were led by corrupt, greedy elites and, ultimately, by the Sith.
*** The conflict was modeled on the Civil War, with the Grand Army of the Republic vs. the Separatists. The victorious and reunified Republic then immediately collapsed into the Empire of the Original Trilogy.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' took this even further, stating an aesop at the head of each episode as a clue to the theme of the episode.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' - The spark that ignites the rebellion can come from anywhere, and and anyone can become a FamilyOfChoice.
** ''Film/RogueOne'' - Rebellions are built on hope.
** ''Series/{{Andor}}'' - Fascism sows the seeds of its own destruction.
** Original Trilogy - Fascism is bad.
*** The Empire is modeled on the United States, the Rebels on Vietnam.
** Prequel Trilogy - War is dehumanizing: clones vs. droids. War leads to fascism - Sidious's plan. War is bad - both sides claimed to be righteous, but were led by corrupt, greedy elites and, ultimately, by the Sith.
*** The conflict was modeled on the Civil War, with the Grand Army of the Republic vs. the Separatists. The victorious and reunified Republic then immediately collapsed into the Empire of the Original Trilogy.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' took this even further, stating an aesop at the head of each episode as a clue to the theme of the episode.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' - The spark that ignites the rebellion can come from anywhere, and and anyone can become a FamilyOfChoice.
** ''Film/RogueOne'' - Rebellions are built on hope.
** ''Series/{{Andor}}'' - Fascism sows the seeds of its own destruction.
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* AnAesop: Lucas always intended several.
** Original Trilogy - Fascism is bad.
*** The Empire is modeled on the United States, the Rebels on Vietnam.
** Prequel Trilogy - War is dehumanizing: clones vs. droids. War leads to fascism - Sidious's plan. War is bad - both sides claimed to be righteous, but were led by corrupt, greedy elites and, ultimately, by the Sith.
*** The conflict was modeled on the Civil War, with the Grand Army of the Republic vs. the Separatists. The victorious and reunified Republic then immediately collapsed into the Empire of the Original Trilogy.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' took this even further, stating an aesop at the head of each episode as a clue to the theme of the episode.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' - The spark that ignites the rebellion can come from anywhere, and and anyone can become a FamilyOfChoice.
** ''Film/RogueOne'' - Rebellions are built on hope.
** ''Series/{{Andor}}'' - Fascism sows the seeds of its own destruction.
** Original Trilogy - Fascism is bad.
*** The Empire is modeled on the United States, the Rebels on Vietnam.
** Prequel Trilogy - War is dehumanizing: clones vs. droids. War leads to fascism - Sidious's plan. War is bad - both sides claimed to be righteous, but were led by corrupt, greedy elites and, ultimately, by the Sith.
*** The conflict was modeled on the Civil War, with the Grand Army of the Republic vs. the Separatists. The victorious and reunified Republic then immediately collapsed into the Empire of the Original Trilogy.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' took this even further, stating an aesop at the head of each episode as a clue to the theme of the episode.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' - The spark that ignites the rebellion can come from anywhere, and and anyone can become a FamilyOfChoice.
** ''Film/RogueOne'' - Rebellions are built on hope.
** ''Series/{{Andor}}'' - Fascism sows the seeds of its own destruction.
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** The First Order, the Empire's successor, is no better in this regard. Kylo Ren rose to Supreme Leader by killing Snoke, General Hux was willing to betray the First Order and sell out information to the resistance to spite Kylo, and Captain Phasma betrayed her own mentor so she could have it cozier in the organization.]
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** The First Order, the Empire's successor, is no better in this regard. Kylo Ren rose to Supreme Leader by killing Snoke, General Hux was willing to betray the First Order and sell out information to the resistance to spite Kylo, and Captain Phasma betrayed her own mentor so she could have it cozier in the organization.]
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* TheBeastmaster: ''Revenge of the Sith'' establishes that Jedi can at least control animals when Anakin tames the Reek Bull, while ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' shows that it either is or can be a rapport.
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* AnAesop: Lucas always intended several.
** Original Trilogy - Fascism is bad.
*** The Empire is modeled on the United States, the Rebels on Vietnam.
** Prequel Trilogy - War is dehumanizing: clones vs. droids. War leads to fascism - Sidious's plan. War is bad - both sides claimed to be righteous, but were led by corrupt, greedy elites and, ultimately, by the Sith.
*** The conflict was modeled on the Civil War, with the Grand Army of the Republic vs. the Separatists. The victorious and reunified Republic then immediately collapsed into the Empire of the Original Trilogy.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' took this even further, stating an aesop at the head of each episode as a clue to the theme of the episode.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' - The spark that ignites the rebellion can come from anywhere, and and anyone can become a FamilyOfChoice.
** ''Film/RogueOne'' - Rebellions are built on hope.
** ''Series/{{Andor}}'' - Fascism sows the seeds of its own destruction.
** Original Trilogy - Fascism is bad.
*** The Empire is modeled on the United States, the Rebels on Vietnam.
** Prequel Trilogy - War is dehumanizing: clones vs. droids. War leads to fascism - Sidious's plan. War is bad - both sides claimed to be righteous, but were led by corrupt, greedy elites and, ultimately, by the Sith.
*** The conflict was modeled on the Civil War, with the Grand Army of the Republic vs. the Separatists. The victorious and reunified Republic then immediately collapsed into the Empire of the Original Trilogy.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' took this even further, stating an aesop at the head of each episode as a clue to the theme of the episode.
** ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' - The spark that ignites the rebellion can come from anywhere, and and anyone can become a FamilyOfChoice.
** ''Film/RogueOne'' - Rebellions are built on hope.
** ''Series/{{Andor}}'' - Fascism sows the seeds of its own destruction.
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* ConnectedAllAlong: The original trilogy of course gives us the now famous connections between Vader and his children. However, as the canon has continued to grow, we get the following meme: On the Death Star, Vader ran into his old master, his son, his daughter, the Wookie who [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS3E21PadawanLost helped Ahsoka survive being hunted by Trandoshans]] and [[Film/RevengeOfTheSith met Yoda during Order 66]], the protocol droid he built as a child, and the astromech that served alongside him for the entirety of the Clone Wars! You have to wonder what was going through his head.
-->'''Vader:''' Who in the Mustafar was that dude in the vest?
-->'''Vader:''' Who in the Mustafar was that dude in the vest?
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* BrokenAesop:
** WordOfGod from Lucas says that the Sith are evil and suffer for their constant desire for more, while jedi are accepting of the world as it is already. But not only does that contradict the actions of the sith and jedi in many of the film (jedi going out to fix a problem, by hunting sith or a criminal, etc, and helping the rebellion, while Palpatine had rested on his laurels when he had built his empire), it also doesn't reflect the setting we see, in which Palpatine gets everything he wants, and runs a galactic empire for decades, as the jedi have all but died out, with the few survivors living out their days in hiding in a desert and a swamp, dwelling on their past mistakes, until new jedi arise to help overthrow the empire.
** ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' reveals Rey [[spoiler:was the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine]] leading to the Aesop one can come from the worst background imaginable and still become a hero. But it also reveal's Rey's parent's weren't nobodies who sold her off for drinking money as presented in the prior movie, but GoodParents who [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou did that to protect Rey]] from [[spoiler:Palpatine's]] and their influence, even [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificing their lives to do so]], which helps motivate Rey to oppose [[spoiler:Palpatine]]. So Rey actually came from a pretty good background, all things considered, which played a critical role in her becoming a hero.
** WordOfGod from Lucas says that the Sith are evil and suffer for their constant desire for more, while jedi are accepting of the world as it is already. But not only does that contradict the actions of the sith and jedi in many of the film (jedi going out to fix a problem, by hunting sith or a criminal, etc, and helping the rebellion, while Palpatine had rested on his laurels when he had built his empire), it also doesn't reflect the setting we see, in which Palpatine gets everything he wants, and runs a galactic empire for decades, as the jedi have all but died out, with the few survivors living out their days in hiding in a desert and a swamp, dwelling on their past mistakes, until new jedi arise to help overthrow the empire.
** ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' reveals Rey [[spoiler:was the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine]] leading to the Aesop one can come from the worst background imaginable and still become a hero. But it also reveal's Rey's parent's weren't nobodies who sold her off for drinking money as presented in the prior movie, but GoodParents who [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou did that to protect Rey]] from [[spoiler:Palpatine's]] and their influence, even [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificing their lives to do so]], which helps motivate Rey to oppose [[spoiler:Palpatine]]. So Rey actually came from a pretty good background, all things considered, which played a critical role in her becoming a hero.
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* BlueIsHeroic: Blue is one of the two most common lightsaber colors of the Jedi Order, the other being green. Naturally, the main protagonists of all three trilogies primarily wield Anakin's blue lightsaber (with the exceptions being Luke's green saber in ''Return of the Jedi'' and Rey's yellow saber in the final scene of ''The Rise of Skywalker'').
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* BlueIsHeroic: Blue is one of the two most common lightsaber colors of the Jedi Order, the other being green. Naturally, the main protagonists of all three trilogies primarily wield Anakin's blue lightsaber (with the exceptions being Luke's green saber in ''Return of the Jedi'' and Rey's yellow saber in the final scene of ''The Rise of Skywalker''). Most of the Jedi who are main characters also favor blue lightsabers (just to name a couple examples, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Kanan Jarrus, and Cal Kestis).
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!![[Franchise/StarWars Go back to the main franchise page]]
'''Tropes A-D''' | [[StarWars/TropesEToH Tropes E-H]] | [[StarWars/TropesIToL Tropes I-L]] | [[StarWars/TropesMToR Tropes M-R]] | [[StarWars/TropesSToZ Tropes S-Z]]
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:A]]
* ActionFigureFileCard: Some of the 1990s toys had them.
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: Each of the final films in the original three trilogies start with an "R": "'''R'''eturn of the Jedi", "'''R'''evenge of the Sith" and "'''R'''ise of Skywalker".
* AdvancedAncientHumans: Excluding the non canon legends material which had a lot of this, you'd probably have to wonder how seriously long it took for this galaxy to be so big.
* AerithAndBob: Compare fantastical names like "Qui-Gon Jinn," "Beru" "Kylo Ren," and "Poe Dameron" to average Western names like "Jessika", "Luke," "Orson," "Owen," and "Finn." There are also cases where non-English, but equally real and normal names are used, like the Indonesian "Rumi Paramita" and the Japanese "Jun Sato."
* TheAestheticsOfTechnology: Over the two film trilogies nearly every variant prevalent in sci-fi is applied:
** The architecture of Coruscant and the fleet of Naboo are in RaygunGothic style, featuring elongated buildings and ShinyLookingSpaceships with sleek curved outlines.
** The Trade Federation and the Separatists go for the darker take on RaygunGothic with vessels such as [[EldritchStarship shark-like assault frigates]] and hover tanks, and droids mostly looking like [[StarfishRobot arthropods]], [[SkeleBot9000 skeletons or zombies]], [[SpiderTank tanks walking on four legs]] or just evil-looking {{Killer Robot}}s with red eyes.
** The Grand Army of the Republic goes mostly from the [[EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture sleek, modern style]] (in ''Attack of the Clones'', owing to a strong [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas Kaminoan]] influence) to the more [[OurWeaponsWillBeBoxyInTheFuture blocky and rectangular]] one in ''Revenge of the Sith''. However, the vehicles and ships still maintain a segmented, "[[StandardHumanSpaceship trustworthy, built by humans like us]]" look and are colorful and friendly-looking. At the end of the film, the ships are repainted gray, becoming fully this trope.
** The Galactic Empire maintains the interior sleek and shiny, while on the outside it retains the basic shape the ships had at the time at the Republic, only making it more [[BigDumbObject streamlined and monolithic]], composed of [[SinisterGeometry basic geometric shapes]]: triangles, hexagons, rectangles and spheres (reminiscent of Soviet and, even more so, Yugoslavian brutalist architecture). Note that The Death Star was of Separatist design and their [[SpheroidDropship Lucrehulk ships]] are a visual call-back/foreshadowing to it. They also change the color scheme to dull gray, sinister black and bone-white.
** The Rebel Alliance mostly has [[UsedFuture worn-out equipment]] at their disposal. A notable example are the Y-Wing bombers which are stripped of their plating and in much worse shape than they were at the time of the Clone Wars. The Alliance's (and later the Resistance's) capital ships have every bit the same amount of futuristic polish that the Empire uses, but paired with a [[EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture more rounded, less-threatening exterior style.]]
* AffectionateParody: The popularity of the franchise has led to [[MayTheFarceBeWithYou many parodies and spoofs]], including:
** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlFOiFLLd0g Hardware Wars]]''
** ''Webcomic/BlueMilkSpecial''
** ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids''
** ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuyPresentsLaughItUpFuzzball''
** ''VideoGame/LEGOStarWars''
** ''Webcomic/OldRepublicPaintAdventures''
** ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' (a parody by Creator/MelBrooks)
* AgonyBeam: One of the most powerful abilities someone can gain from using the Dark Side of the Force is Force Lightning, a continuous lightning bolt used for extreme torture and painful executions.
* AirstrikeImpossible: The Rebels and their successor the Resistance sure love flying into extremely dangerous spaces to destroy anti-planet weapons:
** In ''Film/ANewHope'', Luke and his wingmen dive into the Death Star's trench to fire proton torpedoes into the exhaust port, with the explanation for the tactic being that the port's shielded from above.
** In ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', the Rebel's snow speeders lack the firepower to take down the [[HumongousMecha Imperial AT-AT walkers]], so they opt for firing tow cables and flying circles around the walkers (which are trying to shoot the speeders down, mind) to trip the walkers.
** In ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', Wedge in his X-Wing and Lando in the ''Millenium Falcon'' fly through ventilation ducts to reach the core of the Death Star II and destroy it.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' uses a combination of the above two, with Poe flying through the trench of Starkiller Base with his wingmen and then flying into the weapon itself to destroy the oscillator and destabilize the weapon and [[EarthShatteringKaboom the planet it's built into]].
** ''Film/RogueOne'' has Blue Squadron diving through an opening in a planet's forcefield, in order to provide air support and reinforcements for [[spoiler:Rogue One's commando raid on the Imperial data storage facility. The entire squadron is destroyed in the battle.]]
** ''Film/TheLastJedi'' opens with [[AcePilot Poe Dameron]] clearing the way for a combined fighter/bomber strike on a First Order dreadnought that's about to destroy The Resistance's base and fleet. They succeed, but at the cost of all the bombers and most of the fighters.
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Subverted. Many aliens speak their own languages, and it is not unusual to see multilingual conversations where a human speaks English and the alien speaks a different language. This is also why C-3PO is fluent in over six ''million'' forms of communication.
* AllAccordingToPlan: Many bad guys throughout the franchise use this phrase, most notably the Emperor.
* AllGravityIsTheSame: Ubiquitous. For example, [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mustafar Mustafar]], where the climax of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' takes place, is six times larger than [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ilum Starkiller Base]] from ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', and yet characters move as freely on Mustafar as they do on Starkiller Base despite the much higher gravity.
* AlliterativeTitle: Not within themselves individually, but the titles of all three trilogy cappers (''Return of the Jedi'', ''Revenge of the Sith'', ''The Rise of Skywalker'') start with a word that has "R" as first letter.
* AlternateContinuity: Lucas's [[WordOfGod personal]] vision or "{{Canon}}" of ''Star Wars'' only includes the six films and ''The Clone Wars'', making "the films + the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse" an alternate continuity from a certain point of view. Following their acquisition of the franchise, Lucasfilm declared that all of the Expanded Universe comics and novels (along with the micro-series and video games) released before April 25, 2014 are [[CanonDiscontinuity non-canon]], and all future material and the six films and ''The Clone Wars'' are canon. But the old content will still be available, in effect falling into an alternative continuity known as Star Wars Legends.[[invoked]]
* AlternativeCalendar:
** [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Standard_Calendar The Galactic Standard Calendar]] consists of a year being 368 24-hour-days. Calendar eras used are BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and ABY (After the Battle of Yavin) since the Battle of Yavin marked a crucial turning point in the galaxy's history. ''Revenge of the Sith'', for example, took place in 19 BBY (19 years before the Battle of Yavin) while ''Return of the Jedi'' took place 4 ABY (4 years after).
** Many additional calendars exist as well, most of which are only used by one planet or at most one solar system. Wookiepedia lists over ten.
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Anakin's fears for (first, his mother's, then his wife's) safety take precedence over everything else, including his loyalties to the Jedi order and in the end his attempts to save her dooms Padmé. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Yeah, nice going there!]]
* AmusingAlien: Many appear in the various works, but Jar-Jar Binks is the most known and most visible example.
* AnachronicOrder: ''Star Wars'' could qualify as the ''king'' of this trope.
** First, we have the Prequel Trilogy, which were released 16 years after the Original Trilogy.
** Then, we have ''[[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars The Clone Wars]]'', which was released after the Prequel Trilogy but takes place between ''Attack of the Clones'' and ''Revenge of the Sith''.
*** ''The Clone Wars'' actually qualifies ''thrice'', at least in the first two and a half seasons. The majority of the episodes featured in the aforementioned seasons were aired and released anachronically -- with two of them taking place ''before'' [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsMovie the pilot movie]]. Then there's the installment's revival season, which is produced after the conclusion of ''Rebels''.
** ''[[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Rebels]]'' takes place almost fifteen years after Episode III but a few years before Episode IV -- and was released in 2014.
** The sequel trilogy -- probably the only entries in the franchise post-OT to be aired in proper order (both in their numbering scheme AND in RealLife time) were released in 2015, 2017, and 2019... and then a couple of ''Anthology'' films which serve as prequels to the original trilogy, released in 2016 and 2018.
** And ''then'', shows like ''The Mandalorian'', ''The Book Of Boba Fett'', and ''Ahsoka'' started filling in the gaps between the Original Trilogy and Sequel Trilogy, set between ''Return of the Jedi'' and ''The Force Awakens''. ''Mandalorian'' began airing between ''The Last Jedi'' and ''The Rise of Skywalker'', with other shows coming well after the Sequel Trilogy is complete.
** This isn't even getting into the novels, comics, video games, and other media that the franchise has spawned -- not to mention future material.
* AnArmAndALeg: Jedi and Sith frequently lose limbs in lightsaber combat due to their AbsurdlySharpBlade quality. Also happens to various other characters for non-lightsaber related reasons.
* AncientAstronauts: Ancient Ewok legend recalls them being visited by a "golden god", who is implied to be a protocol droid, and certainly not C-3PO.
* AngerIsNotEnough:
** This is the whole philosophy of the old Jedi Order, who believe that while anger (and TheDarkSide of TheForce in general) is a [[EvilIsEasy quick and easy]] way to a lot of power, true mastery of the Force (which far exceeds the potency of the Dark Side) requires [[TheFettered temperance and self-control]].
** Even for the Sith, and Dark Side Force-Users in general, pure anger (and other raw emotions) only take you so far. True masters of the Dark Side have to learn to yoke the raw power of their emotions with a clarity of thought. A [[TheBerserker berserker]]-esque Darth Maul type might be a physical threat to two or three Jedi at a time, but a [[TheChessmaster cold, cruel, calculating]] Darth Sidious type can bring the galaxy to its knees without ever touching a [[LaserBlade lightsaber]].
* AnimalThemedFightingStyle: The Jedi teach distinct forms of lightsaber combat, each named after a creature whose overall nature it emulates.
** Form I, called Shii-Cho or the Way of the Sarlacc, is the oldest and simplest and employs a stubborn and direct approach to combat, emulating the ambush predator's great patience.
** Form II, called Makashi or the Way of the Ysalamiri, is primarily used for lightsaber duels and employs deliberate, precise and elegant strikes over power and strength, seeking to disarm and tire out foes. It is named after creatures know for, among other things, their stubborn tenacity.
** Form III, called Soresu or the Way of the Mynock, is primarily defensive and especially effective against blaster fire. It is named after the creatures' skill in avoiding attacks.
** Form IV, called Ataru or the Way of the Hawk-Bat, is a very aggressive form useful against single opponents and which makes extensive use of acrobatics and jumps, emulating the swift aerial predator it's named after.
** Form V, called Shien, Djem So or the Way of the Krayt Dragon, uses a combination of powerful attacks and defenses immediately followed by aggressive counterstrikes, emulating the ferocious reptilian titans that rule the deserts of Tatooine.
** Form VI, called Niman or the Way of the Rancor, is a JackOfAllTrades form that combines the previous ones into a synthesis that lacks strong advantages but also significant weaknesses.
** Form VII, called Juyo or the Way of the Vornskr, is an extremely aggressive form that uses a constant barrage of ferocious, erratic attacks to unbalance opponents; it is named after a species of cunning and vicious pack predators. It has a variant, Vaapad, that employs attacks that are too fast, furious and omnidirectional to count or react to; in the ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' continuity, this is named after an eponymous predator whose tentacles strike too fast to be countered unless the creature is dead.
* AntiGravity: Arbitrarily employed with wanton abandon, yet seemingly at random. Things as small as camera drones and as large as entire cities float around and nobody seems to find it weird that, for example, there are floating landing platforms for spaceships which you need yet another repulsorlift-equipped vehicle to get to and from.
* AnyoneCanDie: If the franchise wants you dead, no matter who you are, you die. This is especially prevalent with a character from a previous trilogy.
* TheApprentice:
** The Jedi Order is founded on the concept of apprenticeship, with students (Padawan) trained primarily by a single Jedi Master before taking on the rank of Jedi Knight, then going on to take an apprentice themselves. The Sith use a variant: there is always a single master and a single apprentice in the Galaxy at any time, with the principle that the apprentice will eventually seek to overcome his master and will either succeed or die in the attempt.
** Though if the Expanded Universe is to be believed, there have been certain eras throughout Sith history where Sith apprenticeship mirrored that of the Jedi counterparts to an extent. Multiple masters trained apprentices, though the Sith ideology remained the same
* ArbitrarilyLargeBankAccount:
** Exactly how the Jedi Order is funded is a complete mystery. Their temple on Coruscant was quite spectacular and they have lots of cool starships and other toys. Also, for some reason, nobody seems to question how the late Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas was supposedly able to order up an entire clone army and fleet of warships without anyone noticing some kind of budget appropriation.
** For that matter, the Empire itself. Legions of stormtroopers, the largest warships seen in the galaxy up until that time, thousands of disposable TIE Fighters, orbital weapons platforms, and ''two'' moon-sized planet-killing space stations. What budget crisis? Deleted scenes, such as the one with Luke and Biggs at Tosche Station, implies that the Empire seized several businesses and nationalized whole industries to build a permanent war economy. And considering they rule over an entire galaxy of multiple inhabited planets with all its resources, they were able to tap into a big pool. Lando Calrissian in ''The Empire Strikes Back'' when expositing about Cloud City, describes it as a neutral hub of businessmen trying to escape the Empire's policies.
** Skeptics in the New Republic doubt that the First Order is threat because they are supposedly nothing but a bunch of poorly-funded fanatics -- who hollowed out a ''planet'' and turned it into a weapon whole orders of magnitude more powerful than the ''Death Stars''!
** ''Film/TheLastJedi'' does provide some explanation in the Canto Bight sequence. It's a playground for the oligarchs of the galaxy who are revealed to have funded the First Order ''and'' the Resistance.
** Averted with the Separatists, who are able to put up the kind of fight they do against the Republic because they are primarily made up of massive tech conglomerates and trade guilds, and (in Legends at least) their leader Count Dooku is the most wealthy man in the galaxy.
* ArchaicWeaponForAnAdvancedAge: Lightsabers. As noted by stunt coordinator Nick Gillard in a DVD featurette for ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'', "[the Jedi have] chosen a sword in a time of, you know, [[SlowLaser laser guns]], so they'd better be damn good with it." Jedi and Sith get away with it because the blade goes through anything and reflects blaster fire, and because the wielder has limited precognition along with a variety of other powers and is extensively trained to handle the weapon and its very bizarre weight and balance characteristics. Anyone else who tries to use a lightsaber is more likely to dice himself into neat chunks.
* ArcWords:
** "I've got a bad feeling about this."
** "May the Force be with you."
** As well, over/underestimating the power of something/the Force/the Dark Side.
** And, of course: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."
* ArmoredCoffins:
** Basic TIE fighters have neither ejection seats nor shields. ([[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Expanded Universe]] material somewhat justifies this in that the TIE is extremely cheap to manufacture, and the Empire is depending on their overwhelming numbers rather than their sturdiness. Pilots are also relatively easy to come by in a galaxy this well-populated). Later versions modeled after Vader's TIE Advanced prototype did get shields, after the TIE corps sustained massive losses at the hands of shielded Rebel craft.
** The First Order have rectified this as it appears their TIE Fighters are equipped with ejector seats.
** A more serious problem though is how, exactly, do Rebel/Resistance pilots eject? Unlike their Imperial/First Order counterparts, who have what look to be vacuum-sealed flight suits, all the Rebel pilots wear open-face helmets and jumpsuits. This can be inconvenient in space...
* ArtifactAlias: In the original trilogy but especially in the first film, even after Luke learns that the hermit "Old Ben Kenobi" is really the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke continues to call him Ben. An odd example as it's unclear where the name "Ben" comes from; [[PaperThinDisguise it's certainly not likely to fool any Imperials who come knocking.]] The EU stated that he once used the disguise of Ben and liked it so much he kept using it. Later, Han and Leia name their son Ben Solo, after Obi-Wan's nom-de-guerre.
* ArtificialScript: [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aurebesh Aurebesh]] is a fictional alphabet used to transcribe "Galactic Basic," which is ''Star Wars''' equivalent to spoken English.
* AscendedExtra: With how much ExpandedUniverse material is being written, we're well on our way to ''every single background character from the films'' getting names and thorough backstories. The winners for this are Wedge Antilles and Boba Fett.
* AscendedFridgeHorror: Although ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' vaguely seems to imply that defeating the Emperor defeated the Empire (see [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16570_the-6-most-depressing-happy-endings-in-movie-history.html this]] article for why it wouldn't) the both the non-canonical ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' and the distant sequel ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' make it clear that the Empire left behind strong remnants that continued to wage war on the Alliance to Restore the Republic.
* AsteroidThicket: The asteroid chase from ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''; revisited in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' with the rings of Geonosis.
* AttackPatternAlpha:
** In ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', during the snowspeeder battle on Hoth, Luke orders "Attack Pattern Delta" -- which appears to be flying in a single file line. Although if you keep watching, you'll notice that the four snowspeeders line up in a straight line, curve to the right as a group, and then split into pairs to take out two walkers. Presumably the split is where they get the name "delta".
** The Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse portrays "Attack Pattern Delta" in this context as referring to advancing in single file and then peeling off at the last minute, to present a smaller target to the AT-AT's relatively clumsy weapons. See [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Attack_Pattern_Delta the article on Wookieepedia]]. The [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] has [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Tactics quite a collection of these]].
** One of the ''Star Wars'' arcade games treats Attack Pattern Delta as an offensive action, where three snowspeeders concentrate their fire on a single point in an enemy's armor.
** Repeatedly parodied, usually taking the form of [[HollywoodTactics "Attack Pattern Delta consists of flying straight at the enemy in the only direction they can actually shoot back"]].
* AuthorAppeal: Much of the film with its fondness for cool spaceships which can be tricked and tuned up like hot rods is a result of Lucas' own passion for fast cars. The Jedi and its mystic nature, as well as the Empire and their battleships are a result of his own passion for war movies, samurai movies, and Eastern mysticism.
* AuthorCatchphrase: Characters will frequently utter "I've got a bad feeling about this" right before a situation goes south.
** ''A New Hope'': Luke says it before entering the Death Star, and Han Solo repeats it just before the walls of the trash compactor start to crush him.
** ''The Empire Strikes Back'': As Leia and Han walk out into a dark meteor to investigate a loud noise, Leia mouths off the phrase just before an alien pest attacks her.
** ''Return of the Jedi'': C-3PO says it just before he and R2-D2 walk into Jabba's Palace to be held captive. An act later, Han Solo repeats it as the Ewoks carry him off to be burned alive.
** ''The Phantom Menace'': This is Obi-Wan's first line, as he feels something unusual and elusive vaguely related to the mission he and Qui-Gon are sent on.
** ''Attack of the Clones'': Anakin mentions the bad feeling he has as three giant monsters are released into the arena to eat him and his chained friends.
** ''Revenge of the Sith'': At the end of the opening dogfight scene, Obi-Wan repeats the phrase as he and Anakin fly into a spaceship as it's doors begin to close.
** ''The Force Awakens'': Han Solo gets another shot at the phrase when the Rathtars are released on his ship.
** ''Rogue One'': SubvertedTrope. K2-SO gets halfway through "this" before his friends tell him to shut up, on account of the fact that they're trying to sneak into an enemy base.
** ''The Last Jedi'': A SubvertedTrope as far as the audience is explicitly aware, but [[TheUnintelligible BB-8]] says it in the opening scene. Poe's reply of "Happy beeps, buddy! Happy beeps!" is the only clue that it was said.
** ''Solo'': {{Inverted|Trope}} as Han says "I have a very good feeling about this."
** ''The Rise of Skywalker'': Finally played straight once again when Lando has a bad feeling upon hearing the roar of First Order TIE fighter engines on Passaana.
* AuthorUsurpation: With the exception of ''Franchise/IndianaJones'', ''Star Wars'' was so successful that most people don't know or care about any of the other movies George Lucas made.
%%* {{Autodoc}}: Bacta tanks.
* AwesomeButImpractical:
** Super Star Destroyers. They're very powerful, but they can still be destroyed by a less expensive fleet. It's outright stated that their purpose is psychological warfare; you can build a bigger fleet for the same cost, but nothing inspires the same amount of terror as a Super Star Destroyer showing up on your doorstep.
** Regular Star Destroyers certainly make a strong impression, but they fall into being a warship version of MasterOfNone. Part battleship, part fighter carrier, and part troop transport, they aren't a proper match for most ships that are dedicated to a specific area of focus. EU works explain that this is because conventional Imperial military thinking viewed Star Destroyers as mobile fortresses. They're overbuilt like they are because the intent was that they operate independently and police entire star systems singlehandedly. As the Rebellion moved more into open combat against the Empire rather than an insurgency, the flaws in the Star Destroyer design became more apparent.
** Any planet-destroying superweapons may it be a Death Star or Starkiller Base definitely isn't worth the time and resources. While a superweapon can instantly wipe out an entire planet, the charge times for the main weapon is lethargic, the movement speed is slow, and the cost in manpower and supplies is expensive. Not to mention the significant loss in personnel and resources if destroyed (the first Death Star had a complement of ''2 million'' on board). Even their psychological potential is considered ineffective as the destruction of Alderaan by the first Death Star only ''increased'' Rebellion support by inciting outrage instead of fear. The worst part is that a destroyed planet can't even be harvested for its resources, whereas a orbital bombardment or planetary occupation would avoid unnecessary collateral damage and ensure that the intact planet is still usable. Starkiller Base has the impracticality cranked up to eleven, as it can destroy an entire star system with a single shot, but has a lengthy chargeup time and needs to drain a sun to do so, effectively killing another star system in the process.
** Lightsabers, deliberately so. While deadly in the hands of a Jedi or Sith, to anyone who lacks a Jedi or Sith's discipline, training, and command of the Force, they're too difficult to use and dangerous to their user to make them practical. The Jedi use them precisely because of the great amount of skill needed to wield them effectively, it serves to heighten their discipline and control. The Sith like them because they're good at cutting things. Though that really only applies to the prequels. Luke uses a lightsaber before being properly trained, and so do Finn and Rey. In the OT, they were just treated as a unique weapon of the Jedi and there was never any indication that the force was needed to wield one -- it helped, but it wasn't required.
** It's commonly assumed that only Force Sensitives have used lightsabers, but that isn't true. General Grievous wasn't Force Sensitive yet used them competently, and there are also a few Legends characters like this. However, these are rare exceptions.
** Doubly so for Maul's double-bladed lightsaber: its range is embarrassingly short, since extending an attack with one blade past a certain point would cause the other end to injure the user, forcing short range thrusts and parries. Additionally, its defensive capabilities are nearly non-existent; since it can only (barely) block attacks from the sides, it leaves the user wide-open in the front.
** The Gaffa Sticks wielded by Tusken Raiders sure look awesome, and Boba Fett wields one to great effect in ''The Mandalorian'', season two. However, the curve at one end would throw the weapon's balance off and make it twist in your hands every time you hit someone with the spike at the end of that curve.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:B]]
* BadassArmy: The Jedi and Sith, and the Grand Army of the Republic, when they aren't being put through ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy.
* BadassFamily: The Skywalker lineage begins when Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One who becomes the most feared man in the galaxy, marries Senator Amidala, a planetary monarch since age 14 who fights her way out of war zones. Their two children go on to become a Jedi Knight greater than Anakin and a military leader, princess and senator who took down a Galactic Empire with the help of her husband, one of the galaxy's best pilots. Then there's their son, who slaughtered the Jedi and forced Luke into exile.
%%* BattleCouple: Han and Leia, and Anakin and Padmé in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones''.
* TheBattlestar: Most large capital ships carry fighter squadrons as well as their own heavy armament. Star Destroyers and their counterparts, the Mon Calamari Cruisers, are the basic examples.
* BeingWatched: Jedi can detect this.
--> "You feel like what?"
--> "Like we're being watched!"
%%* BelligerentSexualTension: Han and Leia.
%%* BestFriendsInLaw: Since Han and Leia get married, Luke and Han become this.
* BigBad: Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine manipulates the conflicts of the galaxy from ''The Phantom Menace'' until ''The Rise of Skywalker''.
* TheBigBadShuffle: The Sequel Trilogy goes through a few different Big Bads. In ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', Supreme Leader Snoke is presented as the overarching villain. Then in ''Film/TheLastJedi'', Snoke gets killed by Kylo Ren, who [[DragonAscendant declares himself]] Supreme Leader and is set up as the new Big Bad. And then in ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'', it turns out Emperor Palpatine is BackFromTheDead and was running things from behind the scenes all along. Kylo ends up having a HeelFaceTurn and Palpatine is the trilogy's FinalBoss.
* BigDamnHeroes: Han's return to save Luke in ''Film/ANewHope'' is probably the best-known example, but there are many.
* BigNo: The franchise is famous for this trope, and uses it often.
** ''Film/ANewHope'': Luke after Obi-Wan is killed by Vader.
** ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'': Luke after [[LukeIAmYourFather the big]] [[TheReveal reveal]].
** ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'': Luke during their final duel, after Vader [[AndYourLittleDogToo threatens to turn Leia to the Dark Side]], although that's more of a "Big Never". Also, in the Blu-ray re-release, Vader utters "No... NO!" [[PapaWolf just before killing Palpatine]].
** ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'': Obi-Wan after Qui-Gon was killed by Darth Maul.
** ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'': Yoda hearing Qui-Gon's voice after Anakin's RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the Tusken Raiders.
** ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'': Darth Vader upon learning that Padmé has died, as well as three [[LargeHam hammy]] ones from Palpatine while cornered by Mace Windu.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'': Continuing the tradition with style, it features no less than ''three'': first, from a young Rey in a flashback, pleading for her parents to come back; second, Finn's progressive "no!"s after witnessing Kylo Ren abducting [[DamselInDistress a knocked-out Rey]]; and finally, the [[SkywardScream more primal, anguished roar]] of Chewbacca witnessing Han Solo murdered by Kylo Ren, his own son.
** ''Film/TheLastJedi'': Two: Luke's reaction in a flashback when a young Ben Solo thinks Luke is trying to kill him and brings the ceiling down on them using the Force, and Kylo Ren's reaction when he realizes Luke hadn't come in person to face him on Crait, but had sent a Force projection to delay Kylo while the remnants of the Resistance escaped.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Skywalkers. They may be [[BadassFamily badasses]], for sure, but as the saga proves time and again, sometimes ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne. Most of the family have serious [[ParentalIssues Parental]] / DaddyIssues and emotional problems, spend a lot of time disagreeing on politics and religion, trying (and sometimes succeeding) to kill each other, going to drastic measures to protect each other, and generally causing near-constant drama and {{Angst}} for one another. As if that weren't bad enough, their family drama also has a habit of spilling over into other people's lives...and by that we mean ''everyone else in the galaxy''. Despite this, they do get several AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther moments, though.
* BilingualBonus: This happens due to the "alien" languages being often pieced together from various obscure Earth languages.
** Polish-speaking fans will noticed that C-3PO asks "Chee too mishkah Jabba du Hat? (czy tu mieszka Jabba the Hutt)", which means "Does Jabba the Hutt live here?" in Polish.
** One of the most famous examples was in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' where Lando's Sullustan co-pilot, Nien Nunb, was actually speaking an obscure Kenyan dialect with lines that were ''perfectly'' in context.
** Anyone who speaks Sanskrit will understand [[OminousLatinChanting the chanting]] in Duel of the Fates.
* BilingualDialogue: Han apparently speaks (or at least understands) a variety of languages, including Huttese, Rodian, and Wookiee. Lando and Nien Numb communicate this way in ''Return of the Jedi''. [=R2-D2=] does this constantly, since he only speaks Binary.
* BittersweetEnding: A staple of the franchise.
** ''The Phantom Menace'' -- The Battle of Naboo is a success, but Qui-Gon Jinn [[SacrificialLion is killed in a duel]] that only proves the Sith still exist, leaving Obi-Wan to train Anakin by himself.
** ''Attack of the Clones'' -- The Republic wins the Battle of Geonosis, but now has a galactic-scale war on its hands. Anakin and Padmé get married. [[VillainExitStageLeft Count Dooku escapes]].
** ''Revenge of the Sith'' has a full-on DownerEnding. The Empire takes over the galaxy, most of the Jedi are slaughtered, Padmé dies, and Anakin becomes Darth Vader. Obi-Wan and Yoda [[SealedGoodInACan go into hiding.]] The only hopeful part is that [[UntoUsASonAndDaughterAreBorn Luke and Leia are born]] [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture and will become powerful opponents of the Empire someday]].
** ''Solo'' -- Han not only splits ways with [[UnluckyChildhoodFriend Qi'ra]], but ends up betrayed by [[TheMentor Beckett]], [[spoiler:the latter of whom he is forced to kill in a duel]], and both Qi'ra and Beckett end up shattering Han's idealism and turn him into the cynical smuggler he is in the Original Trilogy. On the other hand, the events of the movie are why he and Chewie are friends in the first place, and making him acquaintances with Lando Calrissian, who provides him with none other than the ''Millennium Falcon'', the ship that will go on to save the galaxy time and time again.
** The finale of ''Star Wars Rebels'' -- [[spoiler:On the sweet side, Lothal is saved and ultimately freed; Zeb returns to Lira San with Kallus treated as one of their own; Hera, Chopper, Rex, and the rest of the cast continue to fight for the Rebel Alliance and survive the events of the Original Trilogy; and Hera has Kanan's son. Unfortunately, they could not prevent the threat of the Death Star, and Gregor is killed along with a substantial amount of the city's populace. Ezra has also left to unknown places with Thrawn in tow, but Ahsoka and Sabine embark on a journey to find him once the Empire is defeated.]]
** ''Rogue One'' -- The Death Star plans are successfully stolen and acquired by Princess Leia, which will eventually lead to its destruction, [[spoiler:but the entire Rogue One team is killed in action to get them, along with numerous other Rebel soldiers and pilots.]]
** ''A New Hope'' has the closest to a HappyEnding, but even that wouldn't have happened without the HeroicSacrifice of both Obi-Wan and the X-Wing pilots. As well, while the Death Star is destroyed and the Rebel Alliance is safe (for now), billions are dead after Alderaan was destroyed, Darth Vader has escaped, the Empire still has its entire starfleet, army, and stormtroopers, and as soon as Vader can make a phone call, the Empire knows where to find the Rebels. In the ''ComicBook/StarWarsPrincessLeia'' comic, the Rebels went directly from the award ceremony to arranging the evacuation of the base.
** ''The Empire Strikes Back'' -- The heroes escape from Cloud City, but Han is still frozen in carbonite and they are unable to stop Boba Fett from taking him to Jabba the Hutt. Luke learns Vader is his father, casting doubt on everything he knew.
** ''Return of the Jedi'' -- Darth Vader does a HeelFaceTurn and [[RedemptionEqualsDeath dies killing the Emperor]], leaving Luke feeling like he failed in some way and all alone as the last Jedi. Mitigated significantly by destroying the Death Star, which will pave the way for the Empire's downfall, along with a victory celebration, but Luke's story does have a somber tone.
** ''The Force Awakens'' -- Starkiller Base has been destroyed and Rey finally finds Luke, but the Republic senate and starfleet have been destroyed, Finn is injured, Kylo Ren escapes, Snoke is still out there, and Han is dead.
** ''The Last Jedi'' -- The core leadership of the Resistance has escaped, but their fleet has been wiped out and they're still being pursued by the First Order, even though they were able to take out some of their capital ships. Luke Skywalker came out of his exile to help the Resistance one last time, but then became one with the Force, leaving Rey without a Master. However, the Supreme Leader is dead, the Resistance is determined to rebuild, and Rey took Luke's collection of Jedi texts to continue her training on her own.
** ''The Rise of Skywalker'' -- Palpatine, and the Sith are finally destroyed for good, the First Order is being destroyed by the Resistance and various other people launching uprisings around the galaxy, and freedom is restored to the galaxy at long last, Rey has found a family to call her own through the Skywalkers, and Kylo Ren is redeemed and embraces his true identity as Ben Solo; after his mother gave her life to reach out to him, and also soon after at the cost of sacrificing his own life to revive Rey after she perishes to destroy Palpatine. Palpatine's legacy ends while the Skywalker legacy endures.
* BizarreAlienBiology: Several near-human or rubber-forehead species, as described in the Expanded Universe. There's some even more bizarre stuff in the EU.
* BizarreHumanBiology: Humans, as well as all other living species in TheVerse, possess "midi-chlorians", mysterious organelles which have some intricate connection to TheForce.
* BlackAndWhiteMorality: With the exception of those games where you play for ([[HeelFaceTurn or start for]]) [[VideoGame/TieFighter the Empire]], [[VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic the Sith]] [[VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed or both]]. Helps that most villains are ObviouslyEvil.
* BlockingStopsAllDamage: Justified by the lightsabers. With their lack of a physical blade and weight confined to the device itself, they wouldn't have that much in the way of momentum to stop outside of the amount from the user's arm swinging.
* BloodbathVillainOrigin:
** Anakin's first task after being christened Darth Vader is to lead an attack on the Jedi Temple that massacred several Jedi, including the younglings (the small child novices). His first sign of falling into the Dark Side happened when he massacred an entire village of Tusken Raiders in revenge for his mother's death, sparing not even the women and children, who he "slaughtered like animals".
** Ben Solo's turn to the Dark Side happened when he attacked Luke in fear that he was trying to kill him, and after leaving him in the rubble of his hut, he and a few other students, massacred the other students of Luke's Jedi Temple.
* BloodlessCarnage: The franchise shows virtually no blood, thanks (in canon) to blasters and lightsabers instantly cauterizing the wounds they make. The prequel trilogy also has a large number of droid combatants who obviously can't bleed.
* BlueIsHeroic: Blue is one of the two most common lightsaber colors of the Jedi Order, the other being green. Naturally, the main protagonists of all three trilogies primarily wield Anakin's blue lightsaber (with the exceptions being Luke's green saber in ''Return of the Jedi'' and Rey's yellow saber in the final scene of ''The Rise of Skywalker'').
* BodyguardingABadass:
** The Imperial guard are the sign-of-office type, since their bosses are Sith Lords.
** In ''The Last Jedi'', Supreme Leader Snoke has the Praetorian Guards who are obviously based on the Emperor's guards, and unlike them they get to do some fighting as well.
* BootstrappedTheme: Would you believe that the iconic {{Fanfare}} was originally called "Luke's Theme"?
* BottomlessPits: Every single movie shows how greatly beloved these are by architects throughout the galaxy. Whether in private quarters, underground power plants or moon-sized killer space stations, expect to see a ''lot'' of these. For added fun, FloatingPlatforms and a [[NoOSHACompliance complete absence of safety railings]] are added in. The outdoor equivalent is the SkyscraperCity, often with open balconies (and no railings). Entire cities have been built in bottomless pits. The Emperor is particularly fond of them and dies when Vader throws him into one.
* BroadStrokes: The entire saga was built upon having millions of stories being told while we are only seeing a few.
** There was a [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Canon tier-based system]] of how ''Star Wars'' {{Canon}} works: The films and anything created by George Lucas (eg. production notes, WordOfGod, ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', etc.) '''>''' Television '''>''' Original story ComicBooks / {{Literature}} / VideoGames / Other material '''>''' Older material (subject to be ignored) '''>''' WhatIf stories, alternate endings and items not meant to be taken seriously.
** Following Disney's acquisition of the franchise, the approach now is that everything released after April 25, 2014 is presented as canonical unless it obviously does not fit in (like the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb: Star Wars'' Special).
** Material previously released is still being distributed under the "Legends" banner, and being treated as an alternate continuity.
* BrokenBird:
** Anakin's reaction when he found out Padmé died speaks for itself.
** As for Padmé herself, she was not the same when dying at the birthing table.
** Summarizes Rey's life on Jakku in The Force Awakens.
* BromanticFoil: Naive farmboy and cynical drug smuggler turned mercenary? Naturally they'll be the two guys competing over Leia.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:C]]
* CallForward: Stories set before the first ''Star Wars'' film made, ''A New Hope'', can't help but make references to it and foreshadow its events. There are so many examples of referencing future events that ''Star Wars'' [[CallForward/StarWars has a page dedicated to these references]].
* CanonDiscontinuity:
** ''[[CreatorBacklash Lucas himself]]'' disavowed ''Film/TheStarWarsHolidaySpecial'', saying that he would smash every last existing copy with a sledgehammer if he could. Despite this, some of the elements from it, such as Chewbacca's relatives, Life Day, and Kashyyyk's architecture have still remained part of the canon, although the events of the Special itself haven't been referenced anywhere else.[[invoked]]
** Since Disney's acquisition of [=LucasFilm=], they retroactively declared any previously established ''Star Wars'' media that was not created by George Lucas to be non-canon. To enforce this, existing properties were filed under the banner "Star Wars Legends".
** [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Various]] [[Literature/FromACertainPointOfView canon]] [[Film/RogueOne media]] work to remove the special edition changes from the canon, thus restoring the Unaltered Original Trilogy as canon.
* CanonImmigrant: Nearly thirty years of Expanded Universe stories have left quite an impression on fans all over the world. Even with the recent story reboot by Lucasfilm, a number of places, people, ships and events from the now non-canon Expanded Universehave become official canon. Examples of this go on ''Star Wars''' [[CanonImmigrant/StarWars Canon Immigrant page]].
* CartesianKarma: The realization of this was the most likely factor in Darth Vader's [[RedemptionEqualsDeath acceptance of his death]] at the end of the trilogy. He had already had the majority of his body burned off and was encased in an armor that as well as being his life support, was also a symbol for tyranny and fear for people everywhere. It's also hard to imagine the rebels or improvised government not trying or condemning him after.
* CasualInterstellarTravel: ''Very'' casual. TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot in fact. Depending on what's going on, a trip between the Core Worlds and the Outer Rim of the galaxy can take mere ''hours'', in ships the size of private jets!
* CatchPhrase:
** In addition to some version of "May the Force be with you", you can pretty much count on each film at least once having a character drop the line [[OhCrap "I have a (very) ''bad'' feeling about this..."]]
** "There's too many of them!" by any Rebel pilot.
** Palpatine is fond of declaring things to be "Good...".
* CategoryTraitor: Characters are accused of being traitors [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvXWqGcyoxo many times]].
* CentralTheme:
** The difficult line of good vs evil.
** Corruption and Redemption.
** [[GoodRepublicEvilEmpire Democracy vs Autocracy]].
* CessationOfExistence: Unless you undergo a specialized training and learn the actual technique to become a force ghost (which allows you to temporarily exist within the force after death), your soul will literally dissolve within the Force (or "become one with it" euphemistically speaking).
* CerebusRollercoaster: You have a relatively lighthearted first film with some tense action scenes, a sequel that does a total 180 in tone, a third installment that takes a best of both worlds approach to the tone of the previous films, a prequel that is even more lighthearted than the first film, and then two more prequels that get both as dark, and in some cases, even darker, than ''Empire Strikes Back''. This is followed by a distant sequel that continues the dark trend, and an even ''darker'' standalone prequel to the first movie. And then it moved into outright CerebusSyndrome with ''Film/TheLastJedi'' and ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker''.
* CharmPerson: The Jedi Mind Trick allows Jedi to influence weak-minded people (like stormtroopers, who are used to following orders) to leave them alone or do their bidding. They use it sparingly though, and [[NoSell it doesn't work on everyone]].
* CheatedAngle: The Death Star is ''always'' shown so the superlaser dish is facing the viewer. The only exception is the occasional view from behind when the superlaser is firing, but it's never shown without the laser visible in an establishing shot.
* ChekhovsGun: Han's debt to Jabba is brought up in ''A New Hope'', only to pay off ''The Empire Strikes Back'' when Boba Fett takes Han Solo in order to pay Jabba the Hutt's bounty. The whole conflict gets resolved in the first act of ''Return of the Jedi''.
* ChildSoldiers: Types One and Two. The Jedi and the Clone troopers are trained from ''birth'' to [[{{Tykebomb}} have a single-minded devotion to their duty]], forbidden or discouraged from any "attachments" deeper than casual acquaintances or work colleagues, handed massive amounts of planet-destroying weaponry, and sent off to "save" the galaxy. (And they ''wonder'' why so many Jedi go insane and fall?!) The films gloss over this big time. The ExpandedUniverse treatment of this [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer.]] While the clone troopers themselves appear to be adults when sent into combat, they have been genetically modified to reach adulthood in half the time of a normal human. So while they are supposed to be at most, 18-20 in appearance and ability, their actual biological age is half of that, and they are in reality 9-10.
* ChokeHolds: The Force choke is a slow, unpleasant, unstoppable choke from a distance that uses the telekinetic power of the Dark Side of the Force.
* CivilWar: In the Original Trilogy of ''Star Wars'', a Galactic civil war that pits the all-powerful, diabolical Empire against a small alliance of Rebels who want to restore freedom and democracy. However, the Clone War in the Prequels is a better example of a civil war, with the Separatists seceding from the Republic and the two sides waging a war with each other for control of the galaxy.
* CivilWarVersusArmageddon: The prequel trilogy shows that the Galactic Republic has significant problems with political corruption and congressional gridlock, and ExpandedUniverse materials show that the Separatist worlds had many legitimate reasons to want to secede. Unfortunately both sides were manipulated to this point by Darth Sidious, a.k.a. Senator/Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, who manufactured the crisis with the assistance of various {{megacorp}}orations to create a means and pretext to seize absolute power and destroy the Jedi Order.
* ClingyCostume: Darth Vader's armor is also a life-support system, and cannot be removed outside a special chamber.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Vader's torture of Princess Leia in the first movie, Han Solo and Chewbacca in the second and the Emperor's use of electrical torture on Luke in the third. Kylo himself tortures Poe Dameron and Rey. Snoke tortures both Kylo and Rey in ''The Last Jedi''.
* CollectibleCardGame: Four of them, the most successful being the ''TabletopGame/StarWarsCustomizableCardGame''
* ColonCancer: As described on the page, this franchise is known for subtitles.
** The ''Star Wars'' Omnibus titles are running into this issue. Consider the first one released, which is ''Star Wars: Omnibus: X-Wing: Rogue Squadron: Volume 1''.
** [[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Kyle Katarn's series]] receives the most attention, with the latest installment being joked as needing the full title ''Star Wars: Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy''
** The original proposed title for the first movie was "''The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, As Taken From the Journal of the Whills, Saga 1: The Star Wars''"!
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience:
** In space battles, Rebel lasers are red, and Imperial lasers are green. In the prequels, Republic shots were blue, Separatist shots were red.
** ''Rebels'' seems to codify the colors for Lightsabers to: Green or blue = Jedi, Gold = Jedi Sentinels, Red = Sith, White = non-affiliated, Purple = Creator/SamuelLJackson.
** For the trilogies, green sabers also seem specifically to be for Jedi ''teachers'' while blue ones are for Jedi ''students''. While Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Luke all use blue sabers while training, Qui-Gon has a green one while training Obi-Wan and Luke later gets a green one in ''Return of the Jedi'' when his training is complete and he's ready to face Vader. Anakin getting a green saber while Obi-Wan gets a blue one near the end of ''Attack of the Clones'' therefore seems to provide a {{Foreshadowing}} of the bad things to come from Anakin's arrogant belief that he's surpassed his teacher.
* CombatClairvoyance: How Force-sensitives can perform seemingly impossible feats of SuperReflexes -- they're already reacting to things ''before'' they actually happen. At least when the Force is feeling like giving them a heads-up...
* CombatParkour: This technique is used mainly by Jedi when they duel, each dueler trying to gain the upper hand by attacking from a different angle or trying to throw off their opponent by leading or chasing them into a new battleground. For smaller Jedi like [[PintSizedPowerhouse Yoda]], all the jumping around is necessary for him to fight larger opponents (in other words, everybody else).
* CommonTongue: Basic for humans (and by extension the Republic/Empire) and individual languages for each species.
%%* ConstructedWorld
* ContinuityDrift: Concepts such as Luke's parentage, Obi-Wan's master and Leia's relatives. The events of the films and their novelizations don't match up all that well; rife with EarlyInstallmentWeirdness from early drafts (dogs on Tatooine, Luke's wingman on Hoth performing a HeroicSacrifice to stop the shield generator from being blown up, and Yoda being blue instead of green, for example).
* ContinuityLockout: Not too bad with the first six films, but an issue if you came in late to the party for the novels, which now number into the many dozens.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: The Confederacy and The Empire may be evil, but they're as different as night and day.
** The Confederacy of Independent Systems is largely backed by [[CorruptCorporateExecutive greedy businessmen]], is [[EqualOpportunityEvil very racially diverse]], and most of its combatants are droids of some kind. It chose to fight against the Republic in open warfare.
** The Galactic Empire is a fascist regime run by professional politicians and military men. It is [[FantasticRacism almost exclusively run by humans]], and uses flesh and blood beings as ground troops. It gained power by [[TheCorruption slowly eroding the Republic's democratic mechanisms]] rather than through seizing it through brute force (some [[ThePurge purges]] notwithstanding).
* ConvergingStreamWeapon:
** The Death Star is the TropeCodifier, since it uses nearly 27 smaller lasers to power it's central, planet-destroying laser.
** Several Republic ships in ''Attack of the Clones'' had similar weapons, like the turrets on the Republic gunships that appear during the battle of Geonosis.
* CoolStarship: Each film introduces at least one, most notably the ''Millennium Falcon'', but also Luke's X-Wing, Vader's TIE Advanced, Jedi starfighters in the prequels, Darth Maul's ''Infiltrator'', and Kylo Ren's TIE Silencer.
* CoolSword: Lightsabers, a weapon treated with reverence for both their symbolic value and usefulness. Being able to use one well means being practically invincible, since they can block gunfire, counter any melee weapon, and cut through almost any material in the galaxy including metal armour and solid rock if need be.
* CorporateWarfare: The prequel trilogy showed that many mercantile organizations such as the Trade Federation, Banking Clan, and Techno Union had massive droid armies.
* CosmeticallyAdvancedPrequel: The galaxy has sleeker and more elaborate technology in the time of the Prequel Trilogy than it will have thirty years later, during the time of the Original Trilogy. This is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] as Lucas wanted to illustrate a cultural and intellectual decline within the Empire as opposed to the more plural and open society of the Republic. The Republic owing to its decentralized nature also allowed for more local variations on aesthetics and styles, whereas under the Empire there's greater centralization and standardization, and everything looks same-y.
* CreepyCleanliness: The Empire's ships are always spotless and shiny, emphasizing their coldness and sterility. The Alliance's are always used and lived-in. (George Lucas had fights with the unionized cleaning staff, who kept trying to clean the Alliance sets up for contractual reasons after he had them deliberately dirtied.)
* CrystalDragonJesus: The Force. Although it's the Crystal Dragon Tao (or Dao, depending on which transliteration you prefer). The Force, the Jedi, and the Sith are space-Taoism. The Jedi become one with the Force, and live in Harmony with the nature of the universe. The Sith reject this and disrupt the harmony of the Force. Thus, Anakin was to restore balance by restoring harmony, by eliminating the disruption of the Dark Side.
* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: The prequels run with this aesthetic, showing a more diverse, colourful, and grand aesthetic as compared to the run-down UsedFuture aesthetic of the OT, ST eras.
** Notable examples include the CityPlanet of Coruscant which has UrbanSegregation on elevation, looking like every major megalopolis from the past to the present (Rome, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Los Angeles) and coming across as a more utopian rendition of LA in ''Film/BladeRunner''. The planet Kamino with its weird interiors and cold environment, run by a special technological species of aliens, also conveys this.
** Lucas in making the prequels intended it to [[FisherKing communicate visually the decline of society]], in aesthetics and style, from the earlier eras to the more rundown and totalitarian world of the Empire. Although even in the originals, Cloud City in ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (pointedly not under the domain of the Empire, and a neutral hub) rocks this aesthetic, as compared to every other setting ([[SingleBiomePlanet Tatooine, Dagobah, Hoth, Endor]], [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Yavin]]). The sequels returned to the UsedFuture look of the originals (albeit without any visual explanation as to why the Galaxy in the twenty years or so of peace before the revival of the First Order hadn't found a new aesthetic) with the exception of Canto Bight which is intended to be a subversion of the trope, insisting that all the crystal spires and togas were paid for by enslaved child laborers.
* CultSoundtrack: The most famous composition from Music/JohnWilliams. Considering that John Williams has a career based around this trope and is one of the most famous film composers ever, that's saying ''a lot''.
* CuteMachines: Primarily, R2-D2 and BB-8, but many of the franchise's droids can exhibit this from time to time.
* TheCycleOfEmpires: The prequels cover the decline of the Republic and its transformation into the Empire. The original trilogy covers the fall of the Empire. Much of the ExpandedUniverse is dedicated to the Long Night. The Sequels deal with a more modern version of reconstruction, i.e. trying to rebuild institutions while still plagued by TheRemnant of the old regime, who actively contest and compete against your view of the events that happened.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:D]]
* DarkerAndEdgier: Since the prequel trilogy was following [[VillainProtagonist Anakin,]] ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' had to be darker by default. As such, it was the only film in the franchise to garner a PG-13 rating. ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' is also noticeably darker in tone than its predecessor. There's a brief scene in ''Film/ANewHope'' that's darker than the rest of the film, [[AvoidTheDreadedGRating and the darkness of that scene was deliberate on the part of the director]].
%%* DarkAndTroubledPast: ''Star Wars'' LOVES this trope, billions of years will have passed if we began to list them all.
%%* DataCrystal: Holocrons.
* DeadpanSnarker: Before the Marvel films could entertain us with witty lines, the Star Wars films had some impressive sarcasm.
* DeathActivatedSuperpower: How "Force spirits" are created.
* DeathlyDiesIrae: Composer Music/JohnWilliams references ''Dies Irae, Dies Illa'' throughout his scores for the trilogy films, and non-trilogy film composers reference it as well.
* DecadeDissonance: A bit of a clash between the prequel's and the original trilogy's styles for technology.
* DeceptiveLegacy: Obi-Wan tells Luke his father is dead. It all depends on your point of view. The audience knows he turns out to be Darth Vader; but from Obi-Wan's point of view, his friend Anakin died (and was mourned) after the events of ''Revenge of the Sith''.
* DeckOfWildCards:
** The Empire is built upon the backs of the fallen Republic, and is made up entirely of ambitious individuals willing to screw each other over to gain favor with Palpatine. Grand Moff Tarkin, for example, used his personal connections to Palpatine to rise to a prominent position, subsequently [[Film/RogueOneAStarWarsStory hijacked Orson Krennic's Death Star project]] [[spoiler: and then killed him with his own weapon]], and was that respected enough he was able to keep [[TheHeavy Darth Vader]] himself on a leash.
** The First Order, the Empire's successor, is no better in this regard. Kylo Ren rose to Supreme Leader by killing Snoke, General Hux was willing to betray the First Order and sell out information to the resistance to spite Kylo, and Captain Phasma betrayed her own mentor so she could have it cozier in the organization.]
** The Sith "Rule of Two" was specifically created to ''prevent'' this. The Sith encourage {{Klingon Promotion}}s; the Sith master embodies power while the Sith apprentice craves it. However, Darth Revan refused to take more than one apprentice because he realized that it was likely they would team up to kill him before either of them were strong enough, negating the [[SuperiorSuccessor entire point]]. Darth Bane later heeded Revan's advice and created the "Rule of Two" that the Sith would follow from then on, barring a few exceptions. Note that Darth Bane did what he did as much out of disgust with the Brotherhood of Darkness having partly ''abandoned'' this tendency as anything else: Lord Kaan demanded greater cooperation of the Sith in order to more effectively fight the Jedi and Republic, even eschewing the use of the title "Darth" as an attractive nuisance, which Bane viewed as having abandoned the essence of being Sith.
* DefangedHorrors: Each movie gave us a new, different creature for our heroes to go up against.
** ''A New Hope'' had the Dianoga, the monster in the trash compactor scene.
** ''Empire'' had the Wampa, as well as a brief glimpse of some swamp creature, ''and'' the space slug on the asteroid. Deep-freezing Solo could also be considered unsettling.
** ''ROTJ'' had the Rancor and the Sarlacc, two man-eating monsters that are used in two failed executions of the heroes.
** The Jedi faced three underwater beasts in ''The Phantom Menace''.
** The arena scene in ''Attack of the Clones'' also had three creatures, each trying to kill one of the heroes.
** ''Revenge of the Sith'', oddly, had no creature feature, unless you count the lizard-dog Obi rode during the attack on Grievous. There was originally supposed to be something waiting for Obi-Wan after he fell into the canyon during Order 66, but the idea of interrupting the most heartbreaking and emotional scene in the whole movie with Obi-Wan sneaking past a Loch Ness monster probably came off as a bad idea to George Lucas. All that aside, the way Anakin becomes Darth Vader (being mutilated and burnt almost to death while screaming to Obi-Wan "I hate you!") is definitely disturbing to watch.
** ''The Force Awakens'' introduces us to the Rathtars, who are [[BlatantLies delightfully charming creatures.]] How did Han and Chewie get three on their freighter? [[NoodleIncident They used to have a larger crew.]]
* DemocracyIsBad:
** By ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', Palpatine has been granted greater and greater political power by vote of the Senate. When he finally goes all-out and proclaims that he is "reorganizing" the Republic into a [[TheEmpire Galactic Empire]], the response from the Senate is thunderous applause. Never mind that when they first started granting him emergency powers, he specifically promised to give them up when the Separatist crisis had passed. Instead, he proclaimed himself [[GalacticConqueror Emperor]].
** It only gets worse in the [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]]. It is virtually a trope in its own right that the post-Imperial governments of the New Republic (which lasts only a single generation) and the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances which succeeds ''it'' are so absurdly dysfunctional that they cannot respond adequately to any crisis, collapse under the slightest pressure and can easily be taken over by any moderately organized Sith Lord. While this provides a backdrop for the heroic actions of individual characters, it nevertheless leaves the impression that the galaxy simply cannot be run by any kind of representative government because politicians are just inherently unreliable. The Galactic Federation seems to eventually reach a middle-ground with the Triumvirate, which holds ultimate power and consists of a Jedi Master, an elected official, and the Fel Emperor. While they need to reach a consensus to make decisions, they are at least capable of enacting those decisions.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' carries on the tradition by having New Republic senators ignore the looming threat of the First Order, forcing Leia Organa to form her own private army, the Resistance, to fight them. This results in the First Order using a superweapon to destroy the star system containing the Republic's capital.
* DemocracyIsFlawed:
** Then-Senator Palpatine uses the political mire of the Galactic Senate to ignite his scheme of overthrowing the Jedi and Senate to establish a Sith Empire.
** The ExpandedUniverse works set prior to the prequels use this. The Republic means well, but is trying to balance the needs and desires of hundreds of species, thousands of worlds, and a ton of competing interests. This would be hard enough without TheEmpire breathing down its neck at every opportunity.
** This trope explains how the New Republic let the First Order thrive right under their noses. The Republic thought the war was over, and wanting a "peace dividend," disbanded much of the Republic military, over Leia's strong warnings that another power base was rising.
* DependingOnTheWriter: The movies try to have some sense of balance and limitation to the technology and the abilities of Force users. In the ExpandedUniverse, you will find all sorts of battleship weapons [[SequelEscalation more powerful]] than the Death Star, and Jedi of either [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars the current time period]] or in the distant past who could be considered forces of nature with what they are able to do.
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: A common thing that all ''Star Wars'' protagonists share, and something that is treated as a flaw more than a virtue:
** Luke Skywalker longed to get off Tatooine, initially wanting to be pilot and going to flight school. Yoda {{Lampshades}} this critically in Episode V:
---> '''Yoda:''' All his life has he looked away, to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, what he was doing.
** Anakin Skywalker has this worse. Born a slave, he was taken into the Jedi for reasons he never fully understood (namely the Prophecy to bring balance to the Force), and felt stifled and unrewarded by his friends and colleagues. Eventually Palpatine uses this as FlawExploitation:
---> '''Chancellor Palpatine:''' Ever since I've known you, you've been searching for a life greater than that of an ordinary Jedi. A life of significance, of conscience.
** Both Kylo Ren and Rey long for some purpose. Ben Solo was raised to be follow in his uncle's footsteps but was manipulated by Snoke to follow in his grandfather's footsteps, leaving him confused about whether he's doing what he wants or following in someone else's purpose. Rey on the other hand is an orphan who confesses to needing someone to "show me my place in all this". Eventually Kylo voices latches on to this in FlawExploitation as well as ranting about how he hates being burdened by legacy:
---> '''Kylo Ren:''' It's time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels let it all die. Rey. I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.\\
'''Rey:''' Don't do this, Ben. Please don't go this way.\\
'''Kylo Ren:''' No, no you're still holding on! Let go! Do you want to know the truth about your parents? Or have you always known? You've just hidden it away. You know the truth. Say it. Say it.\\
'''Rey:''' They were nobody.\\
'''Kylo Ren:''' They were filthy junk traders who sold you off for drinking money. They're dead in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert. You have no place in this story.
* DespiteThePlan:
-->'''Han:''' So, how we doin'?\\
'''Luke:''' Same as always.\\
'''Han:''' [[LampshadeHanging That bad]], huh?
* DeterminedHomesteader: Pretty much all the moisture farmers on Tatooine. The planet lacks a centralized government, being effectively ruled by a Hutt crimelord who has no interest in settlers. The environment is so harsh that it prematurely ages humans. Finally, they are subject to the constant threat of attacks by [[AlwaysChaoticEvil native Sand People]]. Yet only the most recent generation seems to have made a serious effort to seek lives offworld.
* DigitalDestruction:
** The 2004 DVD set, despite being billed as "restored", received terrible color alternation, desaturating the soft, fantasy like colors of the original films into darker, more realistic lighting in vogue with the Prequel Trilogy, and much of the clarity and detail of the original prints is lost in the process. This was the result of Lucasfilm ordering this to be done in a breakneck page of ''30 days''.
** The 2011 Blu-rays have the brightness turned up a teeny bit, and a few lightsaber fixes- mostly in ''Return of the Jedi''- but that's about it. Colours are still all over the shop, lightsabers in ''Empire Strikes Back'' often look terrible, and a lot of the detail in the darker parts of the picture are still lost.
** Averted with the 2019 4K restorations on Creator/DisneyPlus, which fixed the color correction issues and restored film grain that was previously present on the DVD and Blu-ray releases. Notably, ''The Phantom Menace'', which suffered from heavy DVNR on the Blu-ray set which led to a more "pink" presentation, has had its colors fully corrected.
* {{Disneyfication}}:
** ''{{Averted|Trope}}'' with Creator/{{Disney}}'s buyout of the franchise. Disney has notably and purposefully avoided giving the Star Wars movies the "Disney treatment.", to the point where they distinctly ''don't'' show the Disney castle logo before each movie. In fact, ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' and ''Film/RogueOne'' are both rather dark films, as is ''Film/TheLastJedi'', with the latter being perhaps [[DarkerAndEdgier the darkest film in the entire franchise.]]
** Even ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'', which is intended to be a LighterAndSofter follow-up to ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' and is saddled with a TV-Y7 rating, has dark episodes that push the absolute limit of what you can get away with in a cartoon of that demographic in terms of violence and content.
** The ancillary material has gone through a bit of this though, as Disney has understandably discontinued all merchandise of Leia in the [[GoGoEnslavement controversial slave bikini]] from ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''.
* DivineChessboard: The Light Side versus the Dark Side of the force, through the Jedi and Sith.
* DoingInTheWizard: Midichlorians, which a lot of fans perceived as an attempt to introduce a scientific explanation for why some beings can use the Force and others cannot.
* DownerEnding:
** ''The Empire Strikes Back'' has the lowest point in the original trilogy. The Empire storms the Rebellion's hidden base and drives the entire Rebel fleet into hiding, Luke gets his hand cut off and finds out that Darth Vader is his father, and Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite after confessing his love to Leia. Of course, Darth Vader fails in his plot to pull a coup on Palpatine with Luke as his minion, and the rebellion gets new allies, so it's not a complete bust.
** ''The Phantom Menace'' might have one. As stated above, it could be considered a BittersweetEnding with Qui-Gon dead, but the battle of Naboo having been won. Though the purpose of Naboo's invasion was to make Sidious Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. The Good Guys celebrate their pointless victory, not knowing that the BigBad has actually succeeded and is standing there among them as Palpatine. TheBadGuyWins, the Good Guys just don't know.
** ''Attack of the Clones'' -- Featured a Jedi massacre and the start of the Clone Wars.
--->'''Yoda:''' Victory? Victory, you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun, the Clone War has.
** ''Revenge of the Sith'' -- Drops a ton of bombs on us. The purge of the Jedi Order. Anakin fully becomes Darth Vader after sustaining grievous injuries and burns in a battle with his closest friend, Obi-Wan. Padmé dies, orphaning newborns Luke and Leia Skywalker. Palpatine takes over the galaxy and forms the Empire.
** ''The Last Jedi'' -- Kylo Ren, more deranged than ever, has usurped control of the First Order, which has whittled the Resistance's already scant numbers down to no more than a mere few dozen people aboard the ''Millennium Falcon''. Luke Skywalker is now [[TheHeroDies one with the Force]], leaving Rey with only the original Jedi texts for guidance.
** While all of the above are listed under BittersweetEnding, ''The Clone Wars'' ends on an absolutely depressing note of most of the Jedi dying at the hands of their own allies who have been brainwashed into becoming servants of the new Empire while Maul escapes execution. Ahsoka is able to save Rex from being brainwashed, but they fail to save anyone else as the entire conflict that they fought in proved to be AllForNothing.
* DramaPanes:
** The concluding scene of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' has Emperor Palpatine and newly-built Darth Vader gaze out the command windows of an Imperial cruiser at the skeletal construction of the first Death Star. The Jedi Knights have been eradicated, the Empire has a massive fleet, and the Separatists are in shambles: the EvilOverlord and his [[TheDragon right-hand man]] can afford to gloat.
** ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'': Luke Skywalker stands at the window of Palpatine's throne room, watching the Battle of Endor unfold. Palpatine is deliberately trying to goad Luke to anger, in order to push him to the Dark Side of the Force. But Luke keeps returning his attention out of the window. Shortly after Palpatine reveals with a practical demonstration that the new Death Star is armed and operational, Luke finally gives in, turning from the window and summoning his lightsaber from Palpatine's side, only to find the Emperor defended by Darth Vader.
* DressCodedForYourConvenience:
** The Jedi wear brown robes while the Sith wear black.
** In the prequels, Anakin, the deeply conflicted Jedi Knight, wears black to {{foreshadow|ing}} [[ForegoneConclusion his fate]] of becoming Darth Vader.
** Stormtroopers wear distinctive white armour and Imperial pilots wear black uniforms, emphasizing their sterility and lack of humanity, while Rebel soldiers wear various green, grey, tan and blue tones, and Rebel pilots wear orange jumpsuits.
* DropPod: Many factions use these, and some video games let you do it yourself.
* DueToTheDead:
** The Jedi burn their dead in funeral pyres, with few exceptions (including, but not limited to, Jedi that [[NoBodyLeftBehind become one with the Force]], most notably Obi-Wan, Yoda and Luke).
** Also, as a minor background event, C-3PO helps Obi-Wan burn a bunch of slaughtered Jawas in a funeral pyre in one scene in ''A New Hope'' as Luke returns from discovering his aunt and uncle's charred remains.
** In ''Revenge of the Sith'', we only see Padmé's funeral procession to the amphitheatre where Qui-Gon's funeral was held, though as inferred from Yoda's dialogue before the scene her body is subsequently buried along with a keepsake of her husband Anakin following the funeral proper.
** In ''Attack of the Clones'', after recovering her remains from a Sandpeople village ([[IDidWhatIHadToDo and leaving the village in shambles in his wake because of the torture they had put her through]]), Anakin lays his mother to rest in a small cemetery in the Tatooine desert, with Padmé, Cliegg, Owen, Beru, C-3PO, and R2-D2 in attendance at the small funeral.
%%* DullSurprise: Although there are arguably some instances of it in the original trilogy too, this is taken to new levels in the prequels.
* DuringTheWar: Well, it's right in the title. And they're [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Conflicts a lot of different wars]], most notably the Galactic Civil War (original trilogy) and Clone Wars (episodes II-III).
* DubNameChange: The French and Italian dubs of the original trilogy changed many of the character, location and ship names. This became [[InconsistentDub more inconsistent later on]], even more so in French Canada where they got their own local dubs of material from ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' onwards.
* DubPronunciationChange: In some foreign dubs, the term "Jedi" is pronounced according to the local phonetics. For example it's "Ye-dee" in German and "Jay-dee" in Italian.
[[/folder]]
'''Tropes A-D''' | [[StarWars/TropesEToH Tropes E-H]] | [[StarWars/TropesIToL Tropes I-L]] | [[StarWars/TropesMToR Tropes M-R]] | [[StarWars/TropesSToZ Tropes S-Z]]
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:A]]
* ActionFigureFileCard: Some of the 1990s toys had them.
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: Each of the final films in the original three trilogies start with an "R": "'''R'''eturn of the Jedi", "'''R'''evenge of the Sith" and "'''R'''ise of Skywalker".
* AdvancedAncientHumans: Excluding the non canon legends material which had a lot of this, you'd probably have to wonder how seriously long it took for this galaxy to be so big.
* AerithAndBob: Compare fantastical names like "Qui-Gon Jinn," "Beru" "Kylo Ren," and "Poe Dameron" to average Western names like "Jessika", "Luke," "Orson," "Owen," and "Finn." There are also cases where non-English, but equally real and normal names are used, like the Indonesian "Rumi Paramita" and the Japanese "Jun Sato."
* TheAestheticsOfTechnology: Over the two film trilogies nearly every variant prevalent in sci-fi is applied:
** The architecture of Coruscant and the fleet of Naboo are in RaygunGothic style, featuring elongated buildings and ShinyLookingSpaceships with sleek curved outlines.
** The Trade Federation and the Separatists go for the darker take on RaygunGothic with vessels such as [[EldritchStarship shark-like assault frigates]] and hover tanks, and droids mostly looking like [[StarfishRobot arthropods]], [[SkeleBot9000 skeletons or zombies]], [[SpiderTank tanks walking on four legs]] or just evil-looking {{Killer Robot}}s with red eyes.
** The Grand Army of the Republic goes mostly from the [[EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture sleek, modern style]] (in ''Attack of the Clones'', owing to a strong [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas Kaminoan]] influence) to the more [[OurWeaponsWillBeBoxyInTheFuture blocky and rectangular]] one in ''Revenge of the Sith''. However, the vehicles and ships still maintain a segmented, "[[StandardHumanSpaceship trustworthy, built by humans like us]]" look and are colorful and friendly-looking. At the end of the film, the ships are repainted gray, becoming fully this trope.
** The Galactic Empire maintains the interior sleek and shiny, while on the outside it retains the basic shape the ships had at the time at the Republic, only making it more [[BigDumbObject streamlined and monolithic]], composed of [[SinisterGeometry basic geometric shapes]]: triangles, hexagons, rectangles and spheres (reminiscent of Soviet and, even more so, Yugoslavian brutalist architecture). Note that The Death Star was of Separatist design and their [[SpheroidDropship Lucrehulk ships]] are a visual call-back/foreshadowing to it. They also change the color scheme to dull gray, sinister black and bone-white.
** The Rebel Alliance mostly has [[UsedFuture worn-out equipment]] at their disposal. A notable example are the Y-Wing bombers which are stripped of their plating and in much worse shape than they were at the time of the Clone Wars. The Alliance's (and later the Resistance's) capital ships have every bit the same amount of futuristic polish that the Empire uses, but paired with a [[EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture more rounded, less-threatening exterior style.]]
* AffectionateParody: The popularity of the franchise has led to [[MayTheFarceBeWithYou many parodies and spoofs]], including:
** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlFOiFLLd0g Hardware Wars]]''
** ''Webcomic/BlueMilkSpecial''
** ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids''
** ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuyPresentsLaughItUpFuzzball''
** ''VideoGame/LEGOStarWars''
** ''Webcomic/OldRepublicPaintAdventures''
** ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' (a parody by Creator/MelBrooks)
* AgonyBeam: One of the most powerful abilities someone can gain from using the Dark Side of the Force is Force Lightning, a continuous lightning bolt used for extreme torture and painful executions.
* AirstrikeImpossible: The Rebels and their successor the Resistance sure love flying into extremely dangerous spaces to destroy anti-planet weapons:
** In ''Film/ANewHope'', Luke and his wingmen dive into the Death Star's trench to fire proton torpedoes into the exhaust port, with the explanation for the tactic being that the port's shielded from above.
** In ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', the Rebel's snow speeders lack the firepower to take down the [[HumongousMecha Imperial AT-AT walkers]], so they opt for firing tow cables and flying circles around the walkers (which are trying to shoot the speeders down, mind) to trip the walkers.
** In ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', Wedge in his X-Wing and Lando in the ''Millenium Falcon'' fly through ventilation ducts to reach the core of the Death Star II and destroy it.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' uses a combination of the above two, with Poe flying through the trench of Starkiller Base with his wingmen and then flying into the weapon itself to destroy the oscillator and destabilize the weapon and [[EarthShatteringKaboom the planet it's built into]].
** ''Film/RogueOne'' has Blue Squadron diving through an opening in a planet's forcefield, in order to provide air support and reinforcements for [[spoiler:Rogue One's commando raid on the Imperial data storage facility. The entire squadron is destroyed in the battle.]]
** ''Film/TheLastJedi'' opens with [[AcePilot Poe Dameron]] clearing the way for a combined fighter/bomber strike on a First Order dreadnought that's about to destroy The Resistance's base and fleet. They succeed, but at the cost of all the bombers and most of the fighters.
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Subverted. Many aliens speak their own languages, and it is not unusual to see multilingual conversations where a human speaks English and the alien speaks a different language. This is also why C-3PO is fluent in over six ''million'' forms of communication.
* AllAccordingToPlan: Many bad guys throughout the franchise use this phrase, most notably the Emperor.
* AllGravityIsTheSame: Ubiquitous. For example, [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mustafar Mustafar]], where the climax of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' takes place, is six times larger than [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ilum Starkiller Base]] from ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', and yet characters move as freely on Mustafar as they do on Starkiller Base despite the much higher gravity.
* AlliterativeTitle: Not within themselves individually, but the titles of all three trilogy cappers (''Return of the Jedi'', ''Revenge of the Sith'', ''The Rise of Skywalker'') start with a word that has "R" as first letter.
* AlternateContinuity: Lucas's [[WordOfGod personal]] vision or "{{Canon}}" of ''Star Wars'' only includes the six films and ''The Clone Wars'', making "the films + the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse" an alternate continuity from a certain point of view. Following their acquisition of the franchise, Lucasfilm declared that all of the Expanded Universe comics and novels (along with the micro-series and video games) released before April 25, 2014 are [[CanonDiscontinuity non-canon]], and all future material and the six films and ''The Clone Wars'' are canon. But the old content will still be available, in effect falling into an alternative continuity known as Star Wars Legends.[[invoked]]
* AlternativeCalendar:
** [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Standard_Calendar The Galactic Standard Calendar]] consists of a year being 368 24-hour-days. Calendar eras used are BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and ABY (After the Battle of Yavin) since the Battle of Yavin marked a crucial turning point in the galaxy's history. ''Revenge of the Sith'', for example, took place in 19 BBY (19 years before the Battle of Yavin) while ''Return of the Jedi'' took place 4 ABY (4 years after).
** Many additional calendars exist as well, most of which are only used by one planet or at most one solar system. Wookiepedia lists over ten.
* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Anakin's fears for (first, his mother's, then his wife's) safety take precedence over everything else, including his loyalties to the Jedi order and in the end his attempts to save her dooms Padmé. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Yeah, nice going there!]]
* AmusingAlien: Many appear in the various works, but Jar-Jar Binks is the most known and most visible example.
* AnachronicOrder: ''Star Wars'' could qualify as the ''king'' of this trope.
** First, we have the Prequel Trilogy, which were released 16 years after the Original Trilogy.
** Then, we have ''[[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars The Clone Wars]]'', which was released after the Prequel Trilogy but takes place between ''Attack of the Clones'' and ''Revenge of the Sith''.
*** ''The Clone Wars'' actually qualifies ''thrice'', at least in the first two and a half seasons. The majority of the episodes featured in the aforementioned seasons were aired and released anachronically -- with two of them taking place ''before'' [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsMovie the pilot movie]]. Then there's the installment's revival season, which is produced after the conclusion of ''Rebels''.
** ''[[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Rebels]]'' takes place almost fifteen years after Episode III but a few years before Episode IV -- and was released in 2014.
** The sequel trilogy -- probably the only entries in the franchise post-OT to be aired in proper order (both in their numbering scheme AND in RealLife time) were released in 2015, 2017, and 2019... and then a couple of ''Anthology'' films which serve as prequels to the original trilogy, released in 2016 and 2018.
** And ''then'', shows like ''The Mandalorian'', ''The Book Of Boba Fett'', and ''Ahsoka'' started filling in the gaps between the Original Trilogy and Sequel Trilogy, set between ''Return of the Jedi'' and ''The Force Awakens''. ''Mandalorian'' began airing between ''The Last Jedi'' and ''The Rise of Skywalker'', with other shows coming well after the Sequel Trilogy is complete.
** This isn't even getting into the novels, comics, video games, and other media that the franchise has spawned -- not to mention future material.
* AnArmAndALeg: Jedi and Sith frequently lose limbs in lightsaber combat due to their AbsurdlySharpBlade quality. Also happens to various other characters for non-lightsaber related reasons.
* AncientAstronauts: Ancient Ewok legend recalls them being visited by a "golden god", who is implied to be a protocol droid, and certainly not C-3PO.
* AngerIsNotEnough:
** This is the whole philosophy of the old Jedi Order, who believe that while anger (and TheDarkSide of TheForce in general) is a [[EvilIsEasy quick and easy]] way to a lot of power, true mastery of the Force (which far exceeds the potency of the Dark Side) requires [[TheFettered temperance and self-control]].
** Even for the Sith, and Dark Side Force-Users in general, pure anger (and other raw emotions) only take you so far. True masters of the Dark Side have to learn to yoke the raw power of their emotions with a clarity of thought. A [[TheBerserker berserker]]-esque Darth Maul type might be a physical threat to two or three Jedi at a time, but a [[TheChessmaster cold, cruel, calculating]] Darth Sidious type can bring the galaxy to its knees without ever touching a [[LaserBlade lightsaber]].
* AnimalThemedFightingStyle: The Jedi teach distinct forms of lightsaber combat, each named after a creature whose overall nature it emulates.
** Form I, called Shii-Cho or the Way of the Sarlacc, is the oldest and simplest and employs a stubborn and direct approach to combat, emulating the ambush predator's great patience.
** Form II, called Makashi or the Way of the Ysalamiri, is primarily used for lightsaber duels and employs deliberate, precise and elegant strikes over power and strength, seeking to disarm and tire out foes. It is named after creatures know for, among other things, their stubborn tenacity.
** Form III, called Soresu or the Way of the Mynock, is primarily defensive and especially effective against blaster fire. It is named after the creatures' skill in avoiding attacks.
** Form IV, called Ataru or the Way of the Hawk-Bat, is a very aggressive form useful against single opponents and which makes extensive use of acrobatics and jumps, emulating the swift aerial predator it's named after.
** Form V, called Shien, Djem So or the Way of the Krayt Dragon, uses a combination of powerful attacks and defenses immediately followed by aggressive counterstrikes, emulating the ferocious reptilian titans that rule the deserts of Tatooine.
** Form VI, called Niman or the Way of the Rancor, is a JackOfAllTrades form that combines the previous ones into a synthesis that lacks strong advantages but also significant weaknesses.
** Form VII, called Juyo or the Way of the Vornskr, is an extremely aggressive form that uses a constant barrage of ferocious, erratic attacks to unbalance opponents; it is named after a species of cunning and vicious pack predators. It has a variant, Vaapad, that employs attacks that are too fast, furious and omnidirectional to count or react to; in the ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' continuity, this is named after an eponymous predator whose tentacles strike too fast to be countered unless the creature is dead.
* AntiGravity: Arbitrarily employed with wanton abandon, yet seemingly at random. Things as small as camera drones and as large as entire cities float around and nobody seems to find it weird that, for example, there are floating landing platforms for spaceships which you need yet another repulsorlift-equipped vehicle to get to and from.
* AnyoneCanDie: If the franchise wants you dead, no matter who you are, you die. This is especially prevalent with a character from a previous trilogy.
* TheApprentice:
** The Jedi Order is founded on the concept of apprenticeship, with students (Padawan) trained primarily by a single Jedi Master before taking on the rank of Jedi Knight, then going on to take an apprentice themselves. The Sith use a variant: there is always a single master and a single apprentice in the Galaxy at any time, with the principle that the apprentice will eventually seek to overcome his master and will either succeed or die in the attempt.
** Though if the Expanded Universe is to be believed, there have been certain eras throughout Sith history where Sith apprenticeship mirrored that of the Jedi counterparts to an extent. Multiple masters trained apprentices, though the Sith ideology remained the same
* ArbitrarilyLargeBankAccount:
** Exactly how the Jedi Order is funded is a complete mystery. Their temple on Coruscant was quite spectacular and they have lots of cool starships and other toys. Also, for some reason, nobody seems to question how the late Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas was supposedly able to order up an entire clone army and fleet of warships without anyone noticing some kind of budget appropriation.
** For that matter, the Empire itself. Legions of stormtroopers, the largest warships seen in the galaxy up until that time, thousands of disposable TIE Fighters, orbital weapons platforms, and ''two'' moon-sized planet-killing space stations. What budget crisis? Deleted scenes, such as the one with Luke and Biggs at Tosche Station, implies that the Empire seized several businesses and nationalized whole industries to build a permanent war economy. And considering they rule over an entire galaxy of multiple inhabited planets with all its resources, they were able to tap into a big pool. Lando Calrissian in ''The Empire Strikes Back'' when expositing about Cloud City, describes it as a neutral hub of businessmen trying to escape the Empire's policies.
** Skeptics in the New Republic doubt that the First Order is threat because they are supposedly nothing but a bunch of poorly-funded fanatics -- who hollowed out a ''planet'' and turned it into a weapon whole orders of magnitude more powerful than the ''Death Stars''!
** ''Film/TheLastJedi'' does provide some explanation in the Canto Bight sequence. It's a playground for the oligarchs of the galaxy who are revealed to have funded the First Order ''and'' the Resistance.
** Averted with the Separatists, who are able to put up the kind of fight they do against the Republic because they are primarily made up of massive tech conglomerates and trade guilds, and (in Legends at least) their leader Count Dooku is the most wealthy man in the galaxy.
* ArchaicWeaponForAnAdvancedAge: Lightsabers. As noted by stunt coordinator Nick Gillard in a DVD featurette for ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'', "[the Jedi have] chosen a sword in a time of, you know, [[SlowLaser laser guns]], so they'd better be damn good with it." Jedi and Sith get away with it because the blade goes through anything and reflects blaster fire, and because the wielder has limited precognition along with a variety of other powers and is extensively trained to handle the weapon and its very bizarre weight and balance characteristics. Anyone else who tries to use a lightsaber is more likely to dice himself into neat chunks.
* ArcWords:
** "I've got a bad feeling about this."
** "May the Force be with you."
** As well, over/underestimating the power of something/the Force/the Dark Side.
** And, of course: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."
* ArmoredCoffins:
** Basic TIE fighters have neither ejection seats nor shields. ([[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Expanded Universe]] material somewhat justifies this in that the TIE is extremely cheap to manufacture, and the Empire is depending on their overwhelming numbers rather than their sturdiness. Pilots are also relatively easy to come by in a galaxy this well-populated). Later versions modeled after Vader's TIE Advanced prototype did get shields, after the TIE corps sustained massive losses at the hands of shielded Rebel craft.
** The First Order have rectified this as it appears their TIE Fighters are equipped with ejector seats.
** A more serious problem though is how, exactly, do Rebel/Resistance pilots eject? Unlike their Imperial/First Order counterparts, who have what look to be vacuum-sealed flight suits, all the Rebel pilots wear open-face helmets and jumpsuits. This can be inconvenient in space...
* ArtifactAlias: In the original trilogy but especially in the first film, even after Luke learns that the hermit "Old Ben Kenobi" is really the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke continues to call him Ben. An odd example as it's unclear where the name "Ben" comes from; [[PaperThinDisguise it's certainly not likely to fool any Imperials who come knocking.]] The EU stated that he once used the disguise of Ben and liked it so much he kept using it. Later, Han and Leia name their son Ben Solo, after Obi-Wan's nom-de-guerre.
* ArtificialScript: [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aurebesh Aurebesh]] is a fictional alphabet used to transcribe "Galactic Basic," which is ''Star Wars''' equivalent to spoken English.
* AscendedExtra: With how much ExpandedUniverse material is being written, we're well on our way to ''every single background character from the films'' getting names and thorough backstories. The winners for this are Wedge Antilles and Boba Fett.
* AscendedFridgeHorror: Although ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' vaguely seems to imply that defeating the Emperor defeated the Empire (see [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16570_the-6-most-depressing-happy-endings-in-movie-history.html this]] article for why it wouldn't) the both the non-canonical ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' and the distant sequel ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' make it clear that the Empire left behind strong remnants that continued to wage war on the Alliance to Restore the Republic.
* AsteroidThicket: The asteroid chase from ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''; revisited in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' with the rings of Geonosis.
* AttackPatternAlpha:
** In ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', during the snowspeeder battle on Hoth, Luke orders "Attack Pattern Delta" -- which appears to be flying in a single file line. Although if you keep watching, you'll notice that the four snowspeeders line up in a straight line, curve to the right as a group, and then split into pairs to take out two walkers. Presumably the split is where they get the name "delta".
** The Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse portrays "Attack Pattern Delta" in this context as referring to advancing in single file and then peeling off at the last minute, to present a smaller target to the AT-AT's relatively clumsy weapons. See [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Attack_Pattern_Delta the article on Wookieepedia]]. The [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] has [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Tactics quite a collection of these]].
** One of the ''Star Wars'' arcade games treats Attack Pattern Delta as an offensive action, where three snowspeeders concentrate their fire on a single point in an enemy's armor.
** Repeatedly parodied, usually taking the form of [[HollywoodTactics "Attack Pattern Delta consists of flying straight at the enemy in the only direction they can actually shoot back"]].
* AuthorAppeal: Much of the film with its fondness for cool spaceships which can be tricked and tuned up like hot rods is a result of Lucas' own passion for fast cars. The Jedi and its mystic nature, as well as the Empire and their battleships are a result of his own passion for war movies, samurai movies, and Eastern mysticism.
* AuthorCatchphrase: Characters will frequently utter "I've got a bad feeling about this" right before a situation goes south.
** ''A New Hope'': Luke says it before entering the Death Star, and Han Solo repeats it just before the walls of the trash compactor start to crush him.
** ''The Empire Strikes Back'': As Leia and Han walk out into a dark meteor to investigate a loud noise, Leia mouths off the phrase just before an alien pest attacks her.
** ''Return of the Jedi'': C-3PO says it just before he and R2-D2 walk into Jabba's Palace to be held captive. An act later, Han Solo repeats it as the Ewoks carry him off to be burned alive.
** ''The Phantom Menace'': This is Obi-Wan's first line, as he feels something unusual and elusive vaguely related to the mission he and Qui-Gon are sent on.
** ''Attack of the Clones'': Anakin mentions the bad feeling he has as three giant monsters are released into the arena to eat him and his chained friends.
** ''Revenge of the Sith'': At the end of the opening dogfight scene, Obi-Wan repeats the phrase as he and Anakin fly into a spaceship as it's doors begin to close.
** ''The Force Awakens'': Han Solo gets another shot at the phrase when the Rathtars are released on his ship.
** ''Rogue One'': SubvertedTrope. K2-SO gets halfway through "this" before his friends tell him to shut up, on account of the fact that they're trying to sneak into an enemy base.
** ''The Last Jedi'': A SubvertedTrope as far as the audience is explicitly aware, but [[TheUnintelligible BB-8]] says it in the opening scene. Poe's reply of "Happy beeps, buddy! Happy beeps!" is the only clue that it was said.
** ''Solo'': {{Inverted|Trope}} as Han says "I have a very good feeling about this."
** ''The Rise of Skywalker'': Finally played straight once again when Lando has a bad feeling upon hearing the roar of First Order TIE fighter engines on Passaana.
* AuthorUsurpation: With the exception of ''Franchise/IndianaJones'', ''Star Wars'' was so successful that most people don't know or care about any of the other movies George Lucas made.
%%* {{Autodoc}}: Bacta tanks.
* AwesomeButImpractical:
** Super Star Destroyers. They're very powerful, but they can still be destroyed by a less expensive fleet. It's outright stated that their purpose is psychological warfare; you can build a bigger fleet for the same cost, but nothing inspires the same amount of terror as a Super Star Destroyer showing up on your doorstep.
** Regular Star Destroyers certainly make a strong impression, but they fall into being a warship version of MasterOfNone. Part battleship, part fighter carrier, and part troop transport, they aren't a proper match for most ships that are dedicated to a specific area of focus. EU works explain that this is because conventional Imperial military thinking viewed Star Destroyers as mobile fortresses. They're overbuilt like they are because the intent was that they operate independently and police entire star systems singlehandedly. As the Rebellion moved more into open combat against the Empire rather than an insurgency, the flaws in the Star Destroyer design became more apparent.
** Any planet-destroying superweapons may it be a Death Star or Starkiller Base definitely isn't worth the time and resources. While a superweapon can instantly wipe out an entire planet, the charge times for the main weapon is lethargic, the movement speed is slow, and the cost in manpower and supplies is expensive. Not to mention the significant loss in personnel and resources if destroyed (the first Death Star had a complement of ''2 million'' on board). Even their psychological potential is considered ineffective as the destruction of Alderaan by the first Death Star only ''increased'' Rebellion support by inciting outrage instead of fear. The worst part is that a destroyed planet can't even be harvested for its resources, whereas a orbital bombardment or planetary occupation would avoid unnecessary collateral damage and ensure that the intact planet is still usable. Starkiller Base has the impracticality cranked up to eleven, as it can destroy an entire star system with a single shot, but has a lengthy chargeup time and needs to drain a sun to do so, effectively killing another star system in the process.
** Lightsabers, deliberately so. While deadly in the hands of a Jedi or Sith, to anyone who lacks a Jedi or Sith's discipline, training, and command of the Force, they're too difficult to use and dangerous to their user to make them practical. The Jedi use them precisely because of the great amount of skill needed to wield them effectively, it serves to heighten their discipline and control. The Sith like them because they're good at cutting things. Though that really only applies to the prequels. Luke uses a lightsaber before being properly trained, and so do Finn and Rey. In the OT, they were just treated as a unique weapon of the Jedi and there was never any indication that the force was needed to wield one -- it helped, but it wasn't required.
** It's commonly assumed that only Force Sensitives have used lightsabers, but that isn't true. General Grievous wasn't Force Sensitive yet used them competently, and there are also a few Legends characters like this. However, these are rare exceptions.
** Doubly so for Maul's double-bladed lightsaber: its range is embarrassingly short, since extending an attack with one blade past a certain point would cause the other end to injure the user, forcing short range thrusts and parries. Additionally, its defensive capabilities are nearly non-existent; since it can only (barely) block attacks from the sides, it leaves the user wide-open in the front.
** The Gaffa Sticks wielded by Tusken Raiders sure look awesome, and Boba Fett wields one to great effect in ''The Mandalorian'', season two. However, the curve at one end would throw the weapon's balance off and make it twist in your hands every time you hit someone with the spike at the end of that curve.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:B]]
* BadassArmy: The Jedi and Sith, and the Grand Army of the Republic, when they aren't being put through ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy.
* BadassFamily: The Skywalker lineage begins when Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One who becomes the most feared man in the galaxy, marries Senator Amidala, a planetary monarch since age 14 who fights her way out of war zones. Their two children go on to become a Jedi Knight greater than Anakin and a military leader, princess and senator who took down a Galactic Empire with the help of her husband, one of the galaxy's best pilots. Then there's their son, who slaughtered the Jedi and forced Luke into exile.
%%* BattleCouple: Han and Leia, and Anakin and Padmé in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones''.
* TheBattlestar: Most large capital ships carry fighter squadrons as well as their own heavy armament. Star Destroyers and their counterparts, the Mon Calamari Cruisers, are the basic examples.
* BeingWatched: Jedi can detect this.
--> "You feel like what?"
--> "Like we're being watched!"
%%* BelligerentSexualTension: Han and Leia.
%%* BestFriendsInLaw: Since Han and Leia get married, Luke and Han become this.
* BigBad: Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine manipulates the conflicts of the galaxy from ''The Phantom Menace'' until ''The Rise of Skywalker''.
* TheBigBadShuffle: The Sequel Trilogy goes through a few different Big Bads. In ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', Supreme Leader Snoke is presented as the overarching villain. Then in ''Film/TheLastJedi'', Snoke gets killed by Kylo Ren, who [[DragonAscendant declares himself]] Supreme Leader and is set up as the new Big Bad. And then in ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'', it turns out Emperor Palpatine is BackFromTheDead and was running things from behind the scenes all along. Kylo ends up having a HeelFaceTurn and Palpatine is the trilogy's FinalBoss.
* BigDamnHeroes: Han's return to save Luke in ''Film/ANewHope'' is probably the best-known example, but there are many.
* BigNo: The franchise is famous for this trope, and uses it often.
** ''Film/ANewHope'': Luke after Obi-Wan is killed by Vader.
** ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'': Luke after [[LukeIAmYourFather the big]] [[TheReveal reveal]].
** ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'': Luke during their final duel, after Vader [[AndYourLittleDogToo threatens to turn Leia to the Dark Side]], although that's more of a "Big Never". Also, in the Blu-ray re-release, Vader utters "No... NO!" [[PapaWolf just before killing Palpatine]].
** ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'': Obi-Wan after Qui-Gon was killed by Darth Maul.
** ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'': Yoda hearing Qui-Gon's voice after Anakin's RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the Tusken Raiders.
** ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'': Darth Vader upon learning that Padmé has died, as well as three [[LargeHam hammy]] ones from Palpatine while cornered by Mace Windu.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'': Continuing the tradition with style, it features no less than ''three'': first, from a young Rey in a flashback, pleading for her parents to come back; second, Finn's progressive "no!"s after witnessing Kylo Ren abducting [[DamselInDistress a knocked-out Rey]]; and finally, the [[SkywardScream more primal, anguished roar]] of Chewbacca witnessing Han Solo murdered by Kylo Ren, his own son.
** ''Film/TheLastJedi'': Two: Luke's reaction in a flashback when a young Ben Solo thinks Luke is trying to kill him and brings the ceiling down on them using the Force, and Kylo Ren's reaction when he realizes Luke hadn't come in person to face him on Crait, but had sent a Force projection to delay Kylo while the remnants of the Resistance escaped.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Skywalkers. They may be [[BadassFamily badasses]], for sure, but as the saga proves time and again, sometimes ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne. Most of the family have serious [[ParentalIssues Parental]] / DaddyIssues and emotional problems, spend a lot of time disagreeing on politics and religion, trying (and sometimes succeeding) to kill each other, going to drastic measures to protect each other, and generally causing near-constant drama and {{Angst}} for one another. As if that weren't bad enough, their family drama also has a habit of spilling over into other people's lives...and by that we mean ''everyone else in the galaxy''. Despite this, they do get several AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther moments, though.
* BilingualBonus: This happens due to the "alien" languages being often pieced together from various obscure Earth languages.
** Polish-speaking fans will noticed that C-3PO asks "Chee too mishkah Jabba du Hat? (czy tu mieszka Jabba the Hutt)", which means "Does Jabba the Hutt live here?" in Polish.
** One of the most famous examples was in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' where Lando's Sullustan co-pilot, Nien Nunb, was actually speaking an obscure Kenyan dialect with lines that were ''perfectly'' in context.
** Anyone who speaks Sanskrit will understand [[OminousLatinChanting the chanting]] in Duel of the Fates.
* BilingualDialogue: Han apparently speaks (or at least understands) a variety of languages, including Huttese, Rodian, and Wookiee. Lando and Nien Numb communicate this way in ''Return of the Jedi''. [=R2-D2=] does this constantly, since he only speaks Binary.
* BittersweetEnding: A staple of the franchise.
** ''The Phantom Menace'' -- The Battle of Naboo is a success, but Qui-Gon Jinn [[SacrificialLion is killed in a duel]] that only proves the Sith still exist, leaving Obi-Wan to train Anakin by himself.
** ''Attack of the Clones'' -- The Republic wins the Battle of Geonosis, but now has a galactic-scale war on its hands. Anakin and Padmé get married. [[VillainExitStageLeft Count Dooku escapes]].
** ''Revenge of the Sith'' has a full-on DownerEnding. The Empire takes over the galaxy, most of the Jedi are slaughtered, Padmé dies, and Anakin becomes Darth Vader. Obi-Wan and Yoda [[SealedGoodInACan go into hiding.]] The only hopeful part is that [[UntoUsASonAndDaughterAreBorn Luke and Leia are born]] [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture and will become powerful opponents of the Empire someday]].
** ''Solo'' -- Han not only splits ways with [[UnluckyChildhoodFriend Qi'ra]], but ends up betrayed by [[TheMentor Beckett]], [[spoiler:the latter of whom he is forced to kill in a duel]], and both Qi'ra and Beckett end up shattering Han's idealism and turn him into the cynical smuggler he is in the Original Trilogy. On the other hand, the events of the movie are why he and Chewie are friends in the first place, and making him acquaintances with Lando Calrissian, who provides him with none other than the ''Millennium Falcon'', the ship that will go on to save the galaxy time and time again.
** The finale of ''Star Wars Rebels'' -- [[spoiler:On the sweet side, Lothal is saved and ultimately freed; Zeb returns to Lira San with Kallus treated as one of their own; Hera, Chopper, Rex, and the rest of the cast continue to fight for the Rebel Alliance and survive the events of the Original Trilogy; and Hera has Kanan's son. Unfortunately, they could not prevent the threat of the Death Star, and Gregor is killed along with a substantial amount of the city's populace. Ezra has also left to unknown places with Thrawn in tow, but Ahsoka and Sabine embark on a journey to find him once the Empire is defeated.]]
** ''Rogue One'' -- The Death Star plans are successfully stolen and acquired by Princess Leia, which will eventually lead to its destruction, [[spoiler:but the entire Rogue One team is killed in action to get them, along with numerous other Rebel soldiers and pilots.]]
** ''A New Hope'' has the closest to a HappyEnding, but even that wouldn't have happened without the HeroicSacrifice of both Obi-Wan and the X-Wing pilots. As well, while the Death Star is destroyed and the Rebel Alliance is safe (for now), billions are dead after Alderaan was destroyed, Darth Vader has escaped, the Empire still has its entire starfleet, army, and stormtroopers, and as soon as Vader can make a phone call, the Empire knows where to find the Rebels. In the ''ComicBook/StarWarsPrincessLeia'' comic, the Rebels went directly from the award ceremony to arranging the evacuation of the base.
** ''The Empire Strikes Back'' -- The heroes escape from Cloud City, but Han is still frozen in carbonite and they are unable to stop Boba Fett from taking him to Jabba the Hutt. Luke learns Vader is his father, casting doubt on everything he knew.
** ''Return of the Jedi'' -- Darth Vader does a HeelFaceTurn and [[RedemptionEqualsDeath dies killing the Emperor]], leaving Luke feeling like he failed in some way and all alone as the last Jedi. Mitigated significantly by destroying the Death Star, which will pave the way for the Empire's downfall, along with a victory celebration, but Luke's story does have a somber tone.
** ''The Force Awakens'' -- Starkiller Base has been destroyed and Rey finally finds Luke, but the Republic senate and starfleet have been destroyed, Finn is injured, Kylo Ren escapes, Snoke is still out there, and Han is dead.
** ''The Last Jedi'' -- The core leadership of the Resistance has escaped, but their fleet has been wiped out and they're still being pursued by the First Order, even though they were able to take out some of their capital ships. Luke Skywalker came out of his exile to help the Resistance one last time, but then became one with the Force, leaving Rey without a Master. However, the Supreme Leader is dead, the Resistance is determined to rebuild, and Rey took Luke's collection of Jedi texts to continue her training on her own.
** ''The Rise of Skywalker'' -- Palpatine, and the Sith are finally destroyed for good, the First Order is being destroyed by the Resistance and various other people launching uprisings around the galaxy, and freedom is restored to the galaxy at long last, Rey has found a family to call her own through the Skywalkers, and Kylo Ren is redeemed and embraces his true identity as Ben Solo; after his mother gave her life to reach out to him, and also soon after at the cost of sacrificing his own life to revive Rey after she perishes to destroy Palpatine. Palpatine's legacy ends while the Skywalker legacy endures.
* BizarreAlienBiology: Several near-human or rubber-forehead species, as described in the Expanded Universe. There's some even more bizarre stuff in the EU.
* BizarreHumanBiology: Humans, as well as all other living species in TheVerse, possess "midi-chlorians", mysterious organelles which have some intricate connection to TheForce.
* BlackAndWhiteMorality: With the exception of those games where you play for ([[HeelFaceTurn or start for]]) [[VideoGame/TieFighter the Empire]], [[VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic the Sith]] [[VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed or both]]. Helps that most villains are ObviouslyEvil.
* BlockingStopsAllDamage: Justified by the lightsabers. With their lack of a physical blade and weight confined to the device itself, they wouldn't have that much in the way of momentum to stop outside of the amount from the user's arm swinging.
* BloodbathVillainOrigin:
** Anakin's first task after being christened Darth Vader is to lead an attack on the Jedi Temple that massacred several Jedi, including the younglings (the small child novices). His first sign of falling into the Dark Side happened when he massacred an entire village of Tusken Raiders in revenge for his mother's death, sparing not even the women and children, who he "slaughtered like animals".
** Ben Solo's turn to the Dark Side happened when he attacked Luke in fear that he was trying to kill him, and after leaving him in the rubble of his hut, he and a few other students, massacred the other students of Luke's Jedi Temple.
* BloodlessCarnage: The franchise shows virtually no blood, thanks (in canon) to blasters and lightsabers instantly cauterizing the wounds they make. The prequel trilogy also has a large number of droid combatants who obviously can't bleed.
* BlueIsHeroic: Blue is one of the two most common lightsaber colors of the Jedi Order, the other being green. Naturally, the main protagonists of all three trilogies primarily wield Anakin's blue lightsaber (with the exceptions being Luke's green saber in ''Return of the Jedi'' and Rey's yellow saber in the final scene of ''The Rise of Skywalker'').
* BodyguardingABadass:
** The Imperial guard are the sign-of-office type, since their bosses are Sith Lords.
** In ''The Last Jedi'', Supreme Leader Snoke has the Praetorian Guards who are obviously based on the Emperor's guards, and unlike them they get to do some fighting as well.
* BootstrappedTheme: Would you believe that the iconic {{Fanfare}} was originally called "Luke's Theme"?
* BottomlessPits: Every single movie shows how greatly beloved these are by architects throughout the galaxy. Whether in private quarters, underground power plants or moon-sized killer space stations, expect to see a ''lot'' of these. For added fun, FloatingPlatforms and a [[NoOSHACompliance complete absence of safety railings]] are added in. The outdoor equivalent is the SkyscraperCity, often with open balconies (and no railings). Entire cities have been built in bottomless pits. The Emperor is particularly fond of them and dies when Vader throws him into one.
* BroadStrokes: The entire saga was built upon having millions of stories being told while we are only seeing a few.
** There was a [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Canon tier-based system]] of how ''Star Wars'' {{Canon}} works: The films and anything created by George Lucas (eg. production notes, WordOfGod, ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', etc.) '''>''' Television '''>''' Original story ComicBooks / {{Literature}} / VideoGames / Other material '''>''' Older material (subject to be ignored) '''>''' WhatIf stories, alternate endings and items not meant to be taken seriously.
** Following Disney's acquisition of the franchise, the approach now is that everything released after April 25, 2014 is presented as canonical unless it obviously does not fit in (like the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb: Star Wars'' Special).
** Material previously released is still being distributed under the "Legends" banner, and being treated as an alternate continuity.
* BrokenBird:
** Anakin's reaction when he found out Padmé died speaks for itself.
** As for Padmé herself, she was not the same when dying at the birthing table.
** Summarizes Rey's life on Jakku in The Force Awakens.
* BromanticFoil: Naive farmboy and cynical drug smuggler turned mercenary? Naturally they'll be the two guys competing over Leia.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:C]]
* CallForward: Stories set before the first ''Star Wars'' film made, ''A New Hope'', can't help but make references to it and foreshadow its events. There are so many examples of referencing future events that ''Star Wars'' [[CallForward/StarWars has a page dedicated to these references]].
* CanonDiscontinuity:
** ''[[CreatorBacklash Lucas himself]]'' disavowed ''Film/TheStarWarsHolidaySpecial'', saying that he would smash every last existing copy with a sledgehammer if he could. Despite this, some of the elements from it, such as Chewbacca's relatives, Life Day, and Kashyyyk's architecture have still remained part of the canon, although the events of the Special itself haven't been referenced anywhere else.[[invoked]]
** Since Disney's acquisition of [=LucasFilm=], they retroactively declared any previously established ''Star Wars'' media that was not created by George Lucas to be non-canon. To enforce this, existing properties were filed under the banner "Star Wars Legends".
** [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Various]] [[Literature/FromACertainPointOfView canon]] [[Film/RogueOne media]] work to remove the special edition changes from the canon, thus restoring the Unaltered Original Trilogy as canon.
* CanonImmigrant: Nearly thirty years of Expanded Universe stories have left quite an impression on fans all over the world. Even with the recent story reboot by Lucasfilm, a number of places, people, ships and events from the now non-canon Expanded Universehave become official canon. Examples of this go on ''Star Wars''' [[CanonImmigrant/StarWars Canon Immigrant page]].
* CartesianKarma: The realization of this was the most likely factor in Darth Vader's [[RedemptionEqualsDeath acceptance of his death]] at the end of the trilogy. He had already had the majority of his body burned off and was encased in an armor that as well as being his life support, was also a symbol for tyranny and fear for people everywhere. It's also hard to imagine the rebels or improvised government not trying or condemning him after.
* CasualInterstellarTravel: ''Very'' casual. TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot in fact. Depending on what's going on, a trip between the Core Worlds and the Outer Rim of the galaxy can take mere ''hours'', in ships the size of private jets!
* CatchPhrase:
** In addition to some version of "May the Force be with you", you can pretty much count on each film at least once having a character drop the line [[OhCrap "I have a (very) ''bad'' feeling about this..."]]
** "There's too many of them!" by any Rebel pilot.
** Palpatine is fond of declaring things to be "Good...".
* CategoryTraitor: Characters are accused of being traitors [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvXWqGcyoxo many times]].
* CentralTheme:
** The difficult line of good vs evil.
** Corruption and Redemption.
** [[GoodRepublicEvilEmpire Democracy vs Autocracy]].
* CessationOfExistence: Unless you undergo a specialized training and learn the actual technique to become a force ghost (which allows you to temporarily exist within the force after death), your soul will literally dissolve within the Force (or "become one with it" euphemistically speaking).
* CerebusRollercoaster: You have a relatively lighthearted first film with some tense action scenes, a sequel that does a total 180 in tone, a third installment that takes a best of both worlds approach to the tone of the previous films, a prequel that is even more lighthearted than the first film, and then two more prequels that get both as dark, and in some cases, even darker, than ''Empire Strikes Back''. This is followed by a distant sequel that continues the dark trend, and an even ''darker'' standalone prequel to the first movie. And then it moved into outright CerebusSyndrome with ''Film/TheLastJedi'' and ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker''.
* CharmPerson: The Jedi Mind Trick allows Jedi to influence weak-minded people (like stormtroopers, who are used to following orders) to leave them alone or do their bidding. They use it sparingly though, and [[NoSell it doesn't work on everyone]].
* CheatedAngle: The Death Star is ''always'' shown so the superlaser dish is facing the viewer. The only exception is the occasional view from behind when the superlaser is firing, but it's never shown without the laser visible in an establishing shot.
* ChekhovsGun: Han's debt to Jabba is brought up in ''A New Hope'', only to pay off ''The Empire Strikes Back'' when Boba Fett takes Han Solo in order to pay Jabba the Hutt's bounty. The whole conflict gets resolved in the first act of ''Return of the Jedi''.
* ChildSoldiers: Types One and Two. The Jedi and the Clone troopers are trained from ''birth'' to [[{{Tykebomb}} have a single-minded devotion to their duty]], forbidden or discouraged from any "attachments" deeper than casual acquaintances or work colleagues, handed massive amounts of planet-destroying weaponry, and sent off to "save" the galaxy. (And they ''wonder'' why so many Jedi go insane and fall?!) The films gloss over this big time. The ExpandedUniverse treatment of this [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer.]] While the clone troopers themselves appear to be adults when sent into combat, they have been genetically modified to reach adulthood in half the time of a normal human. So while they are supposed to be at most, 18-20 in appearance and ability, their actual biological age is half of that, and they are in reality 9-10.
* ChokeHolds: The Force choke is a slow, unpleasant, unstoppable choke from a distance that uses the telekinetic power of the Dark Side of the Force.
* CivilWar: In the Original Trilogy of ''Star Wars'', a Galactic civil war that pits the all-powerful, diabolical Empire against a small alliance of Rebels who want to restore freedom and democracy. However, the Clone War in the Prequels is a better example of a civil war, with the Separatists seceding from the Republic and the two sides waging a war with each other for control of the galaxy.
* CivilWarVersusArmageddon: The prequel trilogy shows that the Galactic Republic has significant problems with political corruption and congressional gridlock, and ExpandedUniverse materials show that the Separatist worlds had many legitimate reasons to want to secede. Unfortunately both sides were manipulated to this point by Darth Sidious, a.k.a. Senator/Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, who manufactured the crisis with the assistance of various {{megacorp}}orations to create a means and pretext to seize absolute power and destroy the Jedi Order.
* ClingyCostume: Darth Vader's armor is also a life-support system, and cannot be removed outside a special chamber.
* ColdBloodedTorture: Vader's torture of Princess Leia in the first movie, Han Solo and Chewbacca in the second and the Emperor's use of electrical torture on Luke in the third. Kylo himself tortures Poe Dameron and Rey. Snoke tortures both Kylo and Rey in ''The Last Jedi''.
* CollectibleCardGame: Four of them, the most successful being the ''TabletopGame/StarWarsCustomizableCardGame''
* ColonCancer: As described on the page, this franchise is known for subtitles.
** The ''Star Wars'' Omnibus titles are running into this issue. Consider the first one released, which is ''Star Wars: Omnibus: X-Wing: Rogue Squadron: Volume 1''.
** [[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Kyle Katarn's series]] receives the most attention, with the latest installment being joked as needing the full title ''Star Wars: Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy''
** The original proposed title for the first movie was "''The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, As Taken From the Journal of the Whills, Saga 1: The Star Wars''"!
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience:
** In space battles, Rebel lasers are red, and Imperial lasers are green. In the prequels, Republic shots were blue, Separatist shots were red.
** ''Rebels'' seems to codify the colors for Lightsabers to: Green or blue = Jedi, Gold = Jedi Sentinels, Red = Sith, White = non-affiliated, Purple = Creator/SamuelLJackson.
** For the trilogies, green sabers also seem specifically to be for Jedi ''teachers'' while blue ones are for Jedi ''students''. While Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Luke all use blue sabers while training, Qui-Gon has a green one while training Obi-Wan and Luke later gets a green one in ''Return of the Jedi'' when his training is complete and he's ready to face Vader. Anakin getting a green saber while Obi-Wan gets a blue one near the end of ''Attack of the Clones'' therefore seems to provide a {{Foreshadowing}} of the bad things to come from Anakin's arrogant belief that he's surpassed his teacher.
* CombatClairvoyance: How Force-sensitives can perform seemingly impossible feats of SuperReflexes -- they're already reacting to things ''before'' they actually happen. At least when the Force is feeling like giving them a heads-up...
* CombatParkour: This technique is used mainly by Jedi when they duel, each dueler trying to gain the upper hand by attacking from a different angle or trying to throw off their opponent by leading or chasing them into a new battleground. For smaller Jedi like [[PintSizedPowerhouse Yoda]], all the jumping around is necessary for him to fight larger opponents (in other words, everybody else).
* CommonTongue: Basic for humans (and by extension the Republic/Empire) and individual languages for each species.
%%* ConstructedWorld
* ContinuityDrift: Concepts such as Luke's parentage, Obi-Wan's master and Leia's relatives. The events of the films and their novelizations don't match up all that well; rife with EarlyInstallmentWeirdness from early drafts (dogs on Tatooine, Luke's wingman on Hoth performing a HeroicSacrifice to stop the shield generator from being blown up, and Yoda being blue instead of green, for example).
* ContinuityLockout: Not too bad with the first six films, but an issue if you came in late to the party for the novels, which now number into the many dozens.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: The Confederacy and The Empire may be evil, but they're as different as night and day.
** The Confederacy of Independent Systems is largely backed by [[CorruptCorporateExecutive greedy businessmen]], is [[EqualOpportunityEvil very racially diverse]], and most of its combatants are droids of some kind. It chose to fight against the Republic in open warfare.
** The Galactic Empire is a fascist regime run by professional politicians and military men. It is [[FantasticRacism almost exclusively run by humans]], and uses flesh and blood beings as ground troops. It gained power by [[TheCorruption slowly eroding the Republic's democratic mechanisms]] rather than through seizing it through brute force (some [[ThePurge purges]] notwithstanding).
* ConvergingStreamWeapon:
** The Death Star is the TropeCodifier, since it uses nearly 27 smaller lasers to power it's central, planet-destroying laser.
** Several Republic ships in ''Attack of the Clones'' had similar weapons, like the turrets on the Republic gunships that appear during the battle of Geonosis.
* CoolStarship: Each film introduces at least one, most notably the ''Millennium Falcon'', but also Luke's X-Wing, Vader's TIE Advanced, Jedi starfighters in the prequels, Darth Maul's ''Infiltrator'', and Kylo Ren's TIE Silencer.
* CoolSword: Lightsabers, a weapon treated with reverence for both their symbolic value and usefulness. Being able to use one well means being practically invincible, since they can block gunfire, counter any melee weapon, and cut through almost any material in the galaxy including metal armour and solid rock if need be.
* CorporateWarfare: The prequel trilogy showed that many mercantile organizations such as the Trade Federation, Banking Clan, and Techno Union had massive droid armies.
* CosmeticallyAdvancedPrequel: The galaxy has sleeker and more elaborate technology in the time of the Prequel Trilogy than it will have thirty years later, during the time of the Original Trilogy. This is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] as Lucas wanted to illustrate a cultural and intellectual decline within the Empire as opposed to the more plural and open society of the Republic. The Republic owing to its decentralized nature also allowed for more local variations on aesthetics and styles, whereas under the Empire there's greater centralization and standardization, and everything looks same-y.
* CreepyCleanliness: The Empire's ships are always spotless and shiny, emphasizing their coldness and sterility. The Alliance's are always used and lived-in. (George Lucas had fights with the unionized cleaning staff, who kept trying to clean the Alliance sets up for contractual reasons after he had them deliberately dirtied.)
* CrystalDragonJesus: The Force. Although it's the Crystal Dragon Tao (or Dao, depending on which transliteration you prefer). The Force, the Jedi, and the Sith are space-Taoism. The Jedi become one with the Force, and live in Harmony with the nature of the universe. The Sith reject this and disrupt the harmony of the Force. Thus, Anakin was to restore balance by restoring harmony, by eliminating the disruption of the Dark Side.
* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: The prequels run with this aesthetic, showing a more diverse, colourful, and grand aesthetic as compared to the run-down UsedFuture aesthetic of the OT, ST eras.
** Notable examples include the CityPlanet of Coruscant which has UrbanSegregation on elevation, looking like every major megalopolis from the past to the present (Rome, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Los Angeles) and coming across as a more utopian rendition of LA in ''Film/BladeRunner''. The planet Kamino with its weird interiors and cold environment, run by a special technological species of aliens, also conveys this.
** Lucas in making the prequels intended it to [[FisherKing communicate visually the decline of society]], in aesthetics and style, from the earlier eras to the more rundown and totalitarian world of the Empire. Although even in the originals, Cloud City in ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (pointedly not under the domain of the Empire, and a neutral hub) rocks this aesthetic, as compared to every other setting ([[SingleBiomePlanet Tatooine, Dagobah, Hoth, Endor]], [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Yavin]]). The sequels returned to the UsedFuture look of the originals (albeit without any visual explanation as to why the Galaxy in the twenty years or so of peace before the revival of the First Order hadn't found a new aesthetic) with the exception of Canto Bight which is intended to be a subversion of the trope, insisting that all the crystal spires and togas were paid for by enslaved child laborers.
* CultSoundtrack: The most famous composition from Music/JohnWilliams. Considering that John Williams has a career based around this trope and is one of the most famous film composers ever, that's saying ''a lot''.
* CuteMachines: Primarily, R2-D2 and BB-8, but many of the franchise's droids can exhibit this from time to time.
* TheCycleOfEmpires: The prequels cover the decline of the Republic and its transformation into the Empire. The original trilogy covers the fall of the Empire. Much of the ExpandedUniverse is dedicated to the Long Night. The Sequels deal with a more modern version of reconstruction, i.e. trying to rebuild institutions while still plagued by TheRemnant of the old regime, who actively contest and compete against your view of the events that happened.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:D]]
* DarkerAndEdgier: Since the prequel trilogy was following [[VillainProtagonist Anakin,]] ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' had to be darker by default. As such, it was the only film in the franchise to garner a PG-13 rating. ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' is also noticeably darker in tone than its predecessor. There's a brief scene in ''Film/ANewHope'' that's darker than the rest of the film, [[AvoidTheDreadedGRating and the darkness of that scene was deliberate on the part of the director]].
%%* DarkAndTroubledPast: ''Star Wars'' LOVES this trope, billions of years will have passed if we began to list them all.
%%* DataCrystal: Holocrons.
* DeadpanSnarker: Before the Marvel films could entertain us with witty lines, the Star Wars films had some impressive sarcasm.
* DeathActivatedSuperpower: How "Force spirits" are created.
* DeathlyDiesIrae: Composer Music/JohnWilliams references ''Dies Irae, Dies Illa'' throughout his scores for the trilogy films, and non-trilogy film composers reference it as well.
* DecadeDissonance: A bit of a clash between the prequel's and the original trilogy's styles for technology.
* DeceptiveLegacy: Obi-Wan tells Luke his father is dead. It all depends on your point of view. The audience knows he turns out to be Darth Vader; but from Obi-Wan's point of view, his friend Anakin died (and was mourned) after the events of ''Revenge of the Sith''.
* DeckOfWildCards:
** The Empire is built upon the backs of the fallen Republic, and is made up entirely of ambitious individuals willing to screw each other over to gain favor with Palpatine. Grand Moff Tarkin, for example, used his personal connections to Palpatine to rise to a prominent position, subsequently [[Film/RogueOneAStarWarsStory hijacked Orson Krennic's Death Star project]] [[spoiler: and then killed him with his own weapon]], and was that respected enough he was able to keep [[TheHeavy Darth Vader]] himself on a leash.
** The First Order, the Empire's successor, is no better in this regard. Kylo Ren rose to Supreme Leader by killing Snoke, General Hux was willing to betray the First Order and sell out information to the resistance to spite Kylo, and Captain Phasma betrayed her own mentor so she could have it cozier in the organization.]
** The Sith "Rule of Two" was specifically created to ''prevent'' this. The Sith encourage {{Klingon Promotion}}s; the Sith master embodies power while the Sith apprentice craves it. However, Darth Revan refused to take more than one apprentice because he realized that it was likely they would team up to kill him before either of them were strong enough, negating the [[SuperiorSuccessor entire point]]. Darth Bane later heeded Revan's advice and created the "Rule of Two" that the Sith would follow from then on, barring a few exceptions. Note that Darth Bane did what he did as much out of disgust with the Brotherhood of Darkness having partly ''abandoned'' this tendency as anything else: Lord Kaan demanded greater cooperation of the Sith in order to more effectively fight the Jedi and Republic, even eschewing the use of the title "Darth" as an attractive nuisance, which Bane viewed as having abandoned the essence of being Sith.
* DefangedHorrors: Each movie gave us a new, different creature for our heroes to go up against.
** ''A New Hope'' had the Dianoga, the monster in the trash compactor scene.
** ''Empire'' had the Wampa, as well as a brief glimpse of some swamp creature, ''and'' the space slug on the asteroid. Deep-freezing Solo could also be considered unsettling.
** ''ROTJ'' had the Rancor and the Sarlacc, two man-eating monsters that are used in two failed executions of the heroes.
** The Jedi faced three underwater beasts in ''The Phantom Menace''.
** The arena scene in ''Attack of the Clones'' also had three creatures, each trying to kill one of the heroes.
** ''Revenge of the Sith'', oddly, had no creature feature, unless you count the lizard-dog Obi rode during the attack on Grievous. There was originally supposed to be something waiting for Obi-Wan after he fell into the canyon during Order 66, but the idea of interrupting the most heartbreaking and emotional scene in the whole movie with Obi-Wan sneaking past a Loch Ness monster probably came off as a bad idea to George Lucas. All that aside, the way Anakin becomes Darth Vader (being mutilated and burnt almost to death while screaming to Obi-Wan "I hate you!") is definitely disturbing to watch.
** ''The Force Awakens'' introduces us to the Rathtars, who are [[BlatantLies delightfully charming creatures.]] How did Han and Chewie get three on their freighter? [[NoodleIncident They used to have a larger crew.]]
* DemocracyIsBad:
** By ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', Palpatine has been granted greater and greater political power by vote of the Senate. When he finally goes all-out and proclaims that he is "reorganizing" the Republic into a [[TheEmpire Galactic Empire]], the response from the Senate is thunderous applause. Never mind that when they first started granting him emergency powers, he specifically promised to give them up when the Separatist crisis had passed. Instead, he proclaimed himself [[GalacticConqueror Emperor]].
** It only gets worse in the [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]]. It is virtually a trope in its own right that the post-Imperial governments of the New Republic (which lasts only a single generation) and the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances which succeeds ''it'' are so absurdly dysfunctional that they cannot respond adequately to any crisis, collapse under the slightest pressure and can easily be taken over by any moderately organized Sith Lord. While this provides a backdrop for the heroic actions of individual characters, it nevertheless leaves the impression that the galaxy simply cannot be run by any kind of representative government because politicians are just inherently unreliable. The Galactic Federation seems to eventually reach a middle-ground with the Triumvirate, which holds ultimate power and consists of a Jedi Master, an elected official, and the Fel Emperor. While they need to reach a consensus to make decisions, they are at least capable of enacting those decisions.
** ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' carries on the tradition by having New Republic senators ignore the looming threat of the First Order, forcing Leia Organa to form her own private army, the Resistance, to fight them. This results in the First Order using a superweapon to destroy the star system containing the Republic's capital.
* DemocracyIsFlawed:
** Then-Senator Palpatine uses the political mire of the Galactic Senate to ignite his scheme of overthrowing the Jedi and Senate to establish a Sith Empire.
** The ExpandedUniverse works set prior to the prequels use this. The Republic means well, but is trying to balance the needs and desires of hundreds of species, thousands of worlds, and a ton of competing interests. This would be hard enough without TheEmpire breathing down its neck at every opportunity.
** This trope explains how the New Republic let the First Order thrive right under their noses. The Republic thought the war was over, and wanting a "peace dividend," disbanded much of the Republic military, over Leia's strong warnings that another power base was rising.
* DependingOnTheWriter: The movies try to have some sense of balance and limitation to the technology and the abilities of Force users. In the ExpandedUniverse, you will find all sorts of battleship weapons [[SequelEscalation more powerful]] than the Death Star, and Jedi of either [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars the current time period]] or in the distant past who could be considered forces of nature with what they are able to do.
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: A common thing that all ''Star Wars'' protagonists share, and something that is treated as a flaw more than a virtue:
** Luke Skywalker longed to get off Tatooine, initially wanting to be pilot and going to flight school. Yoda {{Lampshades}} this critically in Episode V:
---> '''Yoda:''' All his life has he looked away, to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, what he was doing.
** Anakin Skywalker has this worse. Born a slave, he was taken into the Jedi for reasons he never fully understood (namely the Prophecy to bring balance to the Force), and felt stifled and unrewarded by his friends and colleagues. Eventually Palpatine uses this as FlawExploitation:
---> '''Chancellor Palpatine:''' Ever since I've known you, you've been searching for a life greater than that of an ordinary Jedi. A life of significance, of conscience.
** Both Kylo Ren and Rey long for some purpose. Ben Solo was raised to be follow in his uncle's footsteps but was manipulated by Snoke to follow in his grandfather's footsteps, leaving him confused about whether he's doing what he wants or following in someone else's purpose. Rey on the other hand is an orphan who confesses to needing someone to "show me my place in all this". Eventually Kylo voices latches on to this in FlawExploitation as well as ranting about how he hates being burdened by legacy:
---> '''Kylo Ren:''' It's time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels let it all die. Rey. I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.\\
'''Rey:''' Don't do this, Ben. Please don't go this way.\\
'''Kylo Ren:''' No, no you're still holding on! Let go! Do you want to know the truth about your parents? Or have you always known? You've just hidden it away. You know the truth. Say it. Say it.\\
'''Rey:''' They were nobody.\\
'''Kylo Ren:''' They were filthy junk traders who sold you off for drinking money. They're dead in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert. You have no place in this story.
* DespiteThePlan:
-->'''Han:''' So, how we doin'?\\
'''Luke:''' Same as always.\\
'''Han:''' [[LampshadeHanging That bad]], huh?
* DeterminedHomesteader: Pretty much all the moisture farmers on Tatooine. The planet lacks a centralized government, being effectively ruled by a Hutt crimelord who has no interest in settlers. The environment is so harsh that it prematurely ages humans. Finally, they are subject to the constant threat of attacks by [[AlwaysChaoticEvil native Sand People]]. Yet only the most recent generation seems to have made a serious effort to seek lives offworld.
* DigitalDestruction:
** The 2004 DVD set, despite being billed as "restored", received terrible color alternation, desaturating the soft, fantasy like colors of the original films into darker, more realistic lighting in vogue with the Prequel Trilogy, and much of the clarity and detail of the original prints is lost in the process. This was the result of Lucasfilm ordering this to be done in a breakneck page of ''30 days''.
** The 2011 Blu-rays have the brightness turned up a teeny bit, and a few lightsaber fixes- mostly in ''Return of the Jedi''- but that's about it. Colours are still all over the shop, lightsabers in ''Empire Strikes Back'' often look terrible, and a lot of the detail in the darker parts of the picture are still lost.
** Averted with the 2019 4K restorations on Creator/DisneyPlus, which fixed the color correction issues and restored film grain that was previously present on the DVD and Blu-ray releases. Notably, ''The Phantom Menace'', which suffered from heavy DVNR on the Blu-ray set which led to a more "pink" presentation, has had its colors fully corrected.
* {{Disneyfication}}:
** ''{{Averted|Trope}}'' with Creator/{{Disney}}'s buyout of the franchise. Disney has notably and purposefully avoided giving the Star Wars movies the "Disney treatment.", to the point where they distinctly ''don't'' show the Disney castle logo before each movie. In fact, ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' and ''Film/RogueOne'' are both rather dark films, as is ''Film/TheLastJedi'', with the latter being perhaps [[DarkerAndEdgier the darkest film in the entire franchise.]]
** Even ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'', which is intended to be a LighterAndSofter follow-up to ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' and is saddled with a TV-Y7 rating, has dark episodes that push the absolute limit of what you can get away with in a cartoon of that demographic in terms of violence and content.
** The ancillary material has gone through a bit of this though, as Disney has understandably discontinued all merchandise of Leia in the [[GoGoEnslavement controversial slave bikini]] from ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''.
* DivineChessboard: The Light Side versus the Dark Side of the force, through the Jedi and Sith.
* DoingInTheWizard: Midichlorians, which a lot of fans perceived as an attempt to introduce a scientific explanation for why some beings can use the Force and others cannot.
* DownerEnding:
** ''The Empire Strikes Back'' has the lowest point in the original trilogy. The Empire storms the Rebellion's hidden base and drives the entire Rebel fleet into hiding, Luke gets his hand cut off and finds out that Darth Vader is his father, and Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite after confessing his love to Leia. Of course, Darth Vader fails in his plot to pull a coup on Palpatine with Luke as his minion, and the rebellion gets new allies, so it's not a complete bust.
** ''The Phantom Menace'' might have one. As stated above, it could be considered a BittersweetEnding with Qui-Gon dead, but the battle of Naboo having been won. Though the purpose of Naboo's invasion was to make Sidious Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. The Good Guys celebrate their pointless victory, not knowing that the BigBad has actually succeeded and is standing there among them as Palpatine. TheBadGuyWins, the Good Guys just don't know.
** ''Attack of the Clones'' -- Featured a Jedi massacre and the start of the Clone Wars.
--->'''Yoda:''' Victory? Victory, you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun, the Clone War has.
** ''Revenge of the Sith'' -- Drops a ton of bombs on us. The purge of the Jedi Order. Anakin fully becomes Darth Vader after sustaining grievous injuries and burns in a battle with his closest friend, Obi-Wan. Padmé dies, orphaning newborns Luke and Leia Skywalker. Palpatine takes over the galaxy and forms the Empire.
** ''The Last Jedi'' -- Kylo Ren, more deranged than ever, has usurped control of the First Order, which has whittled the Resistance's already scant numbers down to no more than a mere few dozen people aboard the ''Millennium Falcon''. Luke Skywalker is now [[TheHeroDies one with the Force]], leaving Rey with only the original Jedi texts for guidance.
** While all of the above are listed under BittersweetEnding, ''The Clone Wars'' ends on an absolutely depressing note of most of the Jedi dying at the hands of their own allies who have been brainwashed into becoming servants of the new Empire while Maul escapes execution. Ahsoka is able to save Rex from being brainwashed, but they fail to save anyone else as the entire conflict that they fought in proved to be AllForNothing.
* DramaPanes:
** The concluding scene of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' has Emperor Palpatine and newly-built Darth Vader gaze out the command windows of an Imperial cruiser at the skeletal construction of the first Death Star. The Jedi Knights have been eradicated, the Empire has a massive fleet, and the Separatists are in shambles: the EvilOverlord and his [[TheDragon right-hand man]] can afford to gloat.
** ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'': Luke Skywalker stands at the window of Palpatine's throne room, watching the Battle of Endor unfold. Palpatine is deliberately trying to goad Luke to anger, in order to push him to the Dark Side of the Force. But Luke keeps returning his attention out of the window. Shortly after Palpatine reveals with a practical demonstration that the new Death Star is armed and operational, Luke finally gives in, turning from the window and summoning his lightsaber from Palpatine's side, only to find the Emperor defended by Darth Vader.
* DressCodedForYourConvenience:
** The Jedi wear brown robes while the Sith wear black.
** In the prequels, Anakin, the deeply conflicted Jedi Knight, wears black to {{foreshadow|ing}} [[ForegoneConclusion his fate]] of becoming Darth Vader.
** Stormtroopers wear distinctive white armour and Imperial pilots wear black uniforms, emphasizing their sterility and lack of humanity, while Rebel soldiers wear various green, grey, tan and blue tones, and Rebel pilots wear orange jumpsuits.
* DropPod: Many factions use these, and some video games let you do it yourself.
* DueToTheDead:
** The Jedi burn their dead in funeral pyres, with few exceptions (including, but not limited to, Jedi that [[NoBodyLeftBehind become one with the Force]], most notably Obi-Wan, Yoda and Luke).
** Also, as a minor background event, C-3PO helps Obi-Wan burn a bunch of slaughtered Jawas in a funeral pyre in one scene in ''A New Hope'' as Luke returns from discovering his aunt and uncle's charred remains.
** In ''Revenge of the Sith'', we only see Padmé's funeral procession to the amphitheatre where Qui-Gon's funeral was held, though as inferred from Yoda's dialogue before the scene her body is subsequently buried along with a keepsake of her husband Anakin following the funeral proper.
** In ''Attack of the Clones'', after recovering her remains from a Sandpeople village ([[IDidWhatIHadToDo and leaving the village in shambles in his wake because of the torture they had put her through]]), Anakin lays his mother to rest in a small cemetery in the Tatooine desert, with Padmé, Cliegg, Owen, Beru, C-3PO, and R2-D2 in attendance at the small funeral.
%%* DullSurprise: Although there are arguably some instances of it in the original trilogy too, this is taken to new levels in the prequels.
* DuringTheWar: Well, it's right in the title. And they're [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Conflicts a lot of different wars]], most notably the Galactic Civil War (original trilogy) and Clone Wars (episodes II-III).
* DubNameChange: The French and Italian dubs of the original trilogy changed many of the character, location and ship names. This became [[InconsistentDub more inconsistent later on]], even more so in French Canada where they got their own local dubs of material from ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' onwards.
* DubPronunciationChange: In some foreign dubs, the term "Jedi" is pronounced according to the local phonetics. For example it's "Ye-dee" in German and "Jay-dee" in Italian.
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