alt title(s): Return Of The Jedi; The Empire Strikes Back; A New Hope
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
— Star Wars opening card
A classic tale of
good and
evil,
corruption and
redemption,
hi-tech super-weapons and
swordplay,
Star Wars brought
Space Opera to
the big screen.
The first trilogy released centered on Luke Skywalker, a simple
farm boy.
With guidance from
Obi Wan and Yoda, and help from his
robot buddies and
Han Solo, Luke learned mystic powers and brought down an
evil empire. Along the way, he discovered that the
emperor's
dragon was his father, and the
love-interest Princess was his sister.
The second trilogy to be released was chronologically the first. Essentially a prequel, it centered on Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker. It showed how
Senator/Chancellor Palpatine gained supreme power through
convoluted schemes, and Anakin's
corruption at his hands.
A third trilogy was originally planned, but won't happen. Unless
George Lucas should change his mind again.
There have been several TV shows set in this universe, with more planned; in addition,
Star Wars has one of the more elaborate, and internally consistent,
Expanded Universes. See
Star Wars Expanded Universe for a very, very incomplete list of spin-offs that have their own pages on this wiki (or see
Wookieepedia
for a
really complete list).
Star Wars was itself inspired by 1930s serials and comic strips such as
Flash Gordon and
Buck Rogers. Most of its tropes are thus
Older Than They Think, but the film did
popularise them, and many modern
Space Opera or
Sci Fi shows and movies contain
homages to
Star Wars.
Tropes where the
Star Wars films had a significant impact include:
- Adventure Rebuff (Yoda's initial response to Luke)
- A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away (Trope Namer)
- Always Save The Girl (Anakin, you well-intentioned idiot!)
- The Apple Falls Far (It's a long way down from Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back; and a lightsaber goes a long way down a shaft in The Phantom Menace.)
- Archetype: Luke is literally a textbook hero, designed right out of the book The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
- Ascended Extra (With how much Expanded Universe material is being written, we're well on our way to every single background character from the films getting names and thorough backstories.)
- Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence
- Attack Pattern Alpha
- Author Catchphrase: "I've got a bad feeling about this."
- Badass (lots and lots of characters)
- Balance Between Good And Evil (though it's not entirely clear which theory of this the movies subscribe to)
- The Battlestar
- Being Watched (Jedi can detect being watched)
- Big No. Practically a third of all dialogue.
- Bilingual Dialogue (Han and Chewie, R2 and everybody else)
- Canon Fodder (despite the Expanded Universe, or maybe because of it)
- Casual Interstellar Travel
- Charm Person: the Jedi Mind Trick.
- Circle Of Extinction (Reversed, somewhat. Anakin circles Palpatine as the latter tempts him to do a Face Heel Turn)
- Collectible Card Game
- Colour Coded For Your Convenience
- Continuity Drift
- Cool Old Guy
- Crystal Spires And Togas
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome - too many to list here, check out its page
- Dangerously Genre Savvy (Palpatine)
- Death By Childbirth (Padme)
- Decade Dissonance (A bit of a clash between the Prequel's and the original trilogies' style for technology)
- Designated Hero (Anakin was supposed to be a good guy before he became Darth Vader, however he is cocky and arrogant at his best points in the second and third movie. And don't forget his advocating a dictatorship and mass-murder from the second movie)
- Died Happily Ever After (Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi, along with Yoda and Obi-Wan)
- The Dog Shot First (That damned Cantina scene...)
- Doing In The Wizard (Midichlorians? What the hell are those?)
- Dont Think Feel
- The Dulcinea Effect (Luke, that is - he opts to rescue Leia on the strength of little more than her hologram image.)
- The Dutiful Son (Or daughter in this case. Luke seems to think Leia is this, being in the Rebellion while he was on Tatooine)
- Elite Mooks (The Storm Troopers, and the Super Battledroids from the prequel trilogy)
- Emotions Vs Stoicism (Why Jedi are good and Sith are evil, though in the Expanded Universe, stoicism is treated a bit less kindly, as the New Jedi Order by Luke is less rigid.)
- Everythings Better With Princesses (Leia)
- Evil Overlooker (many Star Wars posters)
- Expanded Universe (One of the first major ones)
- Famous Last Words (Too many to list)
- Fanfare (The iconic opening music)
- Field Promotion: Darth Vader's iconic scenes.
- Finger Poke Of Doom: The first clue to how Badass Vader is.
- First Installment Wins (for two decades, almost three, there were no prequels)
- Floating Head Syndrome (on the most recent DVDs)
- Follow The Leader
- Friendly Target: Biggs.
- Fungus Humongous: The planet Felucia.
- Gang Of Critters (Ewoks)
- George Lucas Throwback - all of the films
- Go Out With A Smile - Anakin's farewell to Luke.
- Honor Before Reason - Played straight and without irony: When it was the logical thing to do to to not even entertain the possibility of decency in Darth Vader, Luke did the honorable thing by loving him, having faith in him, and thus saving him.
- Humongous Mecha (the AT-series walkers in the films, and various types of droids such as EVS Construction Droids in the Expanded Universe)
- If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him - One of the few cases of this done well, because this time it's actually true.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: About half the weapons in the movies, but the lightsabers and the Death Stars get special note.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy (Trope Namer)
- Impractically Fancy Outfit (Amidala's clothes)
- In The Blood (In this case, it's Midichlorians and Evil)
- Inferred Survival (Boba Fett)
- Is That What He Told You
- Its A Small World After All
- It Was His Sled ("No. I am your father.") Which is something almost everyone knows.
- Jacob Marley Warning (Vader to Luke)
- Jedi Mind Trick
- Karma Houdini (Vader)
- Kick The Dog (the destruction of Alderaan)
- Also, Order 66, which crosses feels like it the line even further (despite actually being a few orders of magnitude less severe) thanks to excellent editing. And the fact that the victims were actually seen, while the destruction of Alderaan killed off nameless masses that were never seen by the viewers.
- Kill Sat (the Death Star)
- Large Ham - Just about the entire cast at times, but primarily Palpatine, Jabba, and of course BRIAN BLESSED.
- Laser Blade, of course.
- Least Common Skin Tone (There are precisely two black people in the original trilogy: Lando, and Grizz Fix, an X-wing pilot who gets a quarter second of screen time (dying) in Jedi. The prequels are slightly better about this. Slightly. Blue skin is still more common than black, but at least there's Mace Windu, the galaxy's biggest badass, among the black characters.)
- Love Makes You Evil (Anakin)
- Love The Show Hate The Trope: Love The Empire Strikes Back, hate the Big No.
- Luke I Am Your Father (Search your feelings, you know it to be true!)
- Luke Nounverber (the Trope Namer)
- Mentor Occupational Hazard
- Mind Over Manners (Jedi's responsible use of their suggestion and telepathy powers)
- No Mr Bond I Expect You To Dine (dinner with Vader in Cloud City)
- Obi Wan Moment: The Trope Namer
- Old Master
- The Obi Wan (Take a wild guess...)
- No OSHA Compliance
- Not So Different (Luke and Vader)
- Not Wearing Tights (The Jedi Order)
- Ominous Latin Chanting: Variation: John Williams' Duel of the Fates is not actually Latin, but definitely ominous chanting.
- Planet Ville
- People Jars
- Pet The Dog (The Rancor keeper's inconsolable reaction to Luke killing the monster in Jedi, although more played for laughs)
- Pimped Out Dress: Amidala has loads of them.
- Plot Driven Breakdown (The hyperdrive on the Falcon always fails just in the nick of time in The Empire Strikes Back)
- Power Levels (The infamous "midichlorian count" for measuring Force talent introduced in The Phantom Menace.)
- Pursued Protagonist (Leia in the opening of A New Hope)
- Putting On The Reich (Many officials of The Empire.)
- Right In Front Of Me (Luke and Yoda)
- Retired Badass (Yoda and Obi-wan)
- Rule Of Cool: Lightsabers are the epitome of this trope.
- See The Whites Of Their Eyes
- Sequelitis (well, prequelitis)
- Serkis Folk (In the prequels.)
- Shout Out: There's actually a few shout outs to the Oz books. Namely Princess Leia's hairbuns which are based on Princess Ozma's hair poppys and the Ewoks are based Teddy Bear tribe.
- Sinister Geometry (The Death Star, the Imperial Star Destroyers.)
- Space Opera
- Spirit Advisor
- Standard Time Units
- Stealth In Space (cloaking devices in the Expanded Universe; Han's successful attempts at hiding from Star Destroyers in The Empire Strikes Back)
- Storming The Castle (the assault on both Death Stars)
- Survival Mantra
- Tastes Like Friendship (Leia and Wicket the Ewok)
- Tear Jerker: Revenge Of The Sith contains the most heartbreaking use of John Williams' "The Force Theme", as the Greatest Warrior in the Galaxy could only watch helplessly as a young mother dies, holding her orphaned babies in his arms. You do not have a heart if it didn't break at this moment.
- Thats No Moon (it's a space station!)
- The Dark Side
- The Purge (Palpatine's infamous Order 66)
- The Scrappy (Jar-Jar, even if not everyone hates him)
- There Is Another (Leia)
- There Is No Try
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works - especially when you have telekinetic powers
- Token Evil Teammate - Han in Episode I.
- Training From Hell
- Unfortunate Names
- Used Future (The trope namer. Well, Lucas is the trope namer)
- Vader Breath (The trope namer.)
- Wave Motion Gun (the Death Star superlaser)
- Well Excuse Me Princess (Leia)
- With Friends Like These (R2-D2 and C-3P0, though the Bilingual Dialogue means we don't know just how much hostility R2 reciprocates, though occasionally C-3P0 quotes him: "Don't call me a 'mindless philosopher'...")
- In the EU, when R2 communicates by comlink, we find out that yes, he hits back just as well as he takes it.
- Wretched Hive (The Trope Namer, Mos Eisley)
- Wuxia (the Jedi fighting style)
- Xanatos Gambit or Xanatos Roulette (Depends on how much you think Palpatine actually planned out the events of the films)
- Your Eyes Can Deceive You
- Zerg Rush - The Empire's TIE Fighters, at least in the Expanded Universe.
- In the films as well. They are described as "short range", get killed in one hit and "There's - Too many of them!"
