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Star Wars
Are you hearing the Fanfare just looking at this?

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. It is a juggernaut of a franchise, making creator George Lucas one of the most powerful men financially and in entertainment.

The Original Trilogy (1977-1983)

Opening with a tale of a brave rebellion fighting the evil empire, the story centered on Luke Skywalker, a simple farm boy who finds himself drawn into that conflict when some robot buddies show up at his doorstep with some important information. As he embarks on The Heros Journey, it encompasses three films and meets many now-legendary characters like Princess Leia, the Lovable Rogue Han Solo and the Old Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

With guidance from Obi-Wan and later Yoda, Luke learned the mystic powers of the Jedi and brought down The Empire. Along the way, he discovered that Darth Vader, The Dragon of the Emperor, was his father, and the love-interest Princess was his sister.

Episode IV, due to executive meddling, wasn't given the title card of A New Hope until its first home video release, and as a result many casual fans refer to it as simply Star Wars even though all the films carry the same title/subtitle pattern now.

The Prequel Trilogy (1999-2005)

The second trilogy to be released was chronologically the first. Essentially an extended prequel, it centered on Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker, and his growth from a young slave on a remote planet into a powerful Jedi Knight. It showed how Senator/Chancellor Palpatine (the Big Bad of the Original Trilogy) gained supreme power through complex schemes, and Anakin's corruption at his hands. It also showed Obi-Wan's story in training Anakin and the fall of the Jedi Order, with Obi-Wan and Yoda becoming the last of their kind.

As part of the marketing for the prequels they were refered to more often by episode number rather than the episode name. In fact many did not catch on to the name of Episode One being The Phantom Menace. Episode Three is an anomaly, where fans refer to it equally by both episode number and the name Revenge of the Sith.

Lucas has long argued that the prequel's story existed in some form or another from the beginning of the saga, as the films featured the subtitles, Episode IV-VI (although the subtitle "Episode IV" wasn't in the first Star Wars film until its 1981 video re-release). A New Hope and a few elements of the original trilogy also make slightly more sense when seen against the backstory in the prequels, though others... don't. The original trilogy was released to theaters again in 1997 for the 20th Anniversary, featuring a few new special effects, cleaning up a few perceived Special Effects Failures, added some deleted scenes and tweaked some original scenes.

A third trilogy, consisting of Episodes VII, VIII and IX, was reportedly planned, but Word Of God claims it won't happen. Unless George Lucas should change his mind again. They wouldn't make sense from a narrative standpoint, though; even though IV, V and VI spent more time focusing on Luke, Leia and Han, Darth Vader was still their central character, just as he is for the Prequel Trilogy. Ultimately, the saga is about Anakin Skywalker: his growth, his fall from grace, and his eventual redemption by his son.

Expanded Universe

As expected for a film series this popular, the Expanded Universe is immense. Made-For-TV films, Animated Adaptations, Video Games and a large series of novels cover this. Even with how massive the project is, Star Wars has one of the more elaborate, and internally consistent canons. TV Tropes has a very incomplete list of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. 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. It was particularly inspired by Asimov's Foundation, most manifested in the Imperial capital of Coruscant and the concept of the Empire itself (generally, the influence is visible in the original trilogy, to which Asimov was an adviser). 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.

George Lucas was also highly influenced by Asian cinema including Akira Kurosawa films, The Hidden Fortress in particular. Using the point of view of the two lowliest characters as part of the narrative; Lucas based R2-D2 and C-3P0 off of the bumbling peasants in The Hidden Fortress.
The popularity of the series has led to many parodies and spoofs. These are some notable ones:

Tropes This Franchise Named:

Other Tropes featured in the Star Wars universe:

  • Aerith And Bob: Qui-Gon Jinn to ... Luke.
  • Adaptation Decay: A lot of the EU books and games and even most of the films are arguably this, depending on who you ask.
  • Aliens Speaking English (well, Basic)
  • Alternate Universe: the Infinities series
  • Anti Hero (Han in A New Hope. He is mostly self-serving until he comes through for them in the end.)
  • 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 (It's happening to force users left and right, you think someone would find a way to get rid of them.)
  • Attack Pattern Alpha
  • Author Appeal (A society of warrior-sages who can have all the sex they want so long as they don't get too attached? Sign me up!)
    • Where the hell does it say Jedi can have all the sex they want? They never explicitly say that it isn't forbidden, but I thought that was because it didn't need to be spelled out
    • Scroll down to the G-Rated Sex section.
  • Author Catchphrase ("I've got a bad feeling about this.")
  • Badass (lots and lots of characters)
  • Badass Army (The Jedi and Sith armies when they aren't being put through Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.)
    • Also the Grand Army of the Republic.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Many characters in different ways.
  • The Battlestar
  • Being Watched (Jedi can detect being watched)
  • BFM
  • Big Damn Gunship (Attack Of The Clones has one of the archetypical depictions of this, but it is certainly not limited to any single movie, show, comic or book.)
  • Big Damn Heroes (Han's return to save Luke in A New Hope is probably the best-known example, but there are many.)
  • Big No (Practically a third of all dialogue.)
  • Bilingual Dialogue (Han and Chewie, R2 and everybody else)
  • Bizarre Alien Biology (Several near-human or rubber-forehead species, as described in the Expanded Universe)
  • Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism (Devaronians in the EU; males are bald and have horns, females are hornless and furry)
    • Don't forget X'Ting, who change gender every three years.
  • Body Horror: (If you want to picture some seriously messed up stuff, research the Bo'Marr Monks and what they did to Bib Fortuna.)
  • Broken Base (There is a schism between fans who insist that the original trilogy is the best and that the prequels can piss-off, and the fans who believe that the entire series is good. )
    • More generally, there is a related but not identical schism between pro-Lucas and anti-Lucas fans.
    • And then there's the schisms between fans who love/hate this or that era of the Expanded Universe ...
  • Canon Fodder (despite the Expanded Universe, or maybe because of it)
  • Captain Obvious: Admiral Ackbar, and his utterly needless exclamation of "Its a trap!"
  • Casual Interstellar Travel
  • Charm Person (the Jedi Mind Trick.)
  • The Chessmaster: (Their are a number of these in the Star Wars Saga, most obviously Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine in the films, and Grand Admiral Thrawn in the EU)
  • Circle Of Extinction (Reversed, somewhat. Anakin circles Palpatine as the latter tempts him to do a Face Heel Turn)
  • Civil War
  • Clingy Costume: Darth Vader's costume is also a life-support system, and can never be removed outside a special room lest he die.
  • Cloning Gold: Star Wars is variably described as either being loosely inspired by or blatantly ripped-off from Dune. It cloned the source so well that Dune was forced into a niche fandom.
  • Cold Blooded Torture (Vader's torture of Princess Leia in the first movie, and later Han Solo in the second. The Emperor's use of electrical torture on Luke would also count. It gets worse, if you weren't intimidated by the sight of an interrogator droid (from the first movie) before, look them up. Apparently all their fancy little implements have names, and these droids are specifically programmed to analyze physical and chemical weaknesses in their victims in order to better torture them.)
  • Collectible Card Game
  • Colour Coded For Your Convenience (In space battles, Rebel lasers are red, and Imperial lasers are green. In the prequels, Republic shots were blue, Separatist shots were red. Also, only Sith are allowed to carry red lightsabers.)
    • Last time this troper checked, neither Adi Gallia nor Leia Solo were Sith.
      • The lightsaber thing only applies in the movies, the EU, especially the games don't follow it
      • The in-universe explanation is that after Order 66 most of the traditions and specific practices of the Jedi were forgotten. So the blue/green standard was a time-period thing. (But also of course used thematically.)
    • And, of course, only a bad motherfucker gets to use a purple lightsaber blade.
  • Continuity Drift
  • Cool Old Guy
  • Cool Starship (Each film introduces at least one.)
    • Ep. I: N-1 Starfighter
      • ...and the Republic Cruiser.
    • Ep. II: Republic Gunship and Jedi Starfighter
    • Ep. III: Jedi Interceptor and Invisible Hand
    • Ep. IV: X-Wing and Millennium Falcon
      • ...and the Death Star.
      • ...and Darth Vader's TIE.
    • Ep. V: Executor and Slave I
    • Ep. VI: Lambda-class Shuttle
      • ...and the other Death Star.
      • ...and the B-Wing.
      • ...and the A-Wing.
      • Also, pretty much every Star Destroyer, from the Imperator, to the Acclamator, to the Venator, to the various Super Star Destroyers, to the EU-only Victory.
      • Don't forget the Errant Venture on the EU-only S Ds. It's a combination Star Destroyer, Death Star, Jedi training facility, and casino. The only thing it isn't is attractive-looking.
      • It does, however, get a red paint job.
  • Cool Sword (light sabers)
  • Crouching Moron Hidden Badass (compare Yoda as we first meet him in Episode V and his duel with Palpatine)
  • The Crown: Princess Leia.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus (The Force)
  • Crystal Spires And Togas
  • Crowning Moment Of Awesome (too many to list here, check out its page.)
  • Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming (too many to list here)
  • Crowning Music Of Awesome (Lucas has frequently made it clear that the movies are not exactly as he envisioned, but he was never disappointed with the music.)
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy (Palpatine)
  • Death By Sex (The H'nemthe)
  • Death Of The Author (There is a significant portion of the fanbase that simply ignores every word George Lucas says.)
  • Decade Dissonance (A bit of a clash between the prequel's and the original trilogies' style for technology)
  • Delayed Explosion
  • Deleted Scene (Scenes restored in the Special Editions of the Original Trilogy and finished in the DVD releases for the prequels.)
  • Designated Hero: (Anakin is very unheroic in the prequels, even well before he falls.)
    • ... except when he's saving the Gungan army from the Trade Federation army in The Phantom Menace and—aside from murdering Dooku—all through the opening sequence of Revenge Of The Sith. He does have his moments.
  • Development Gag (Usually shows up in character names.)
  • Disney Villain Death: Palpatine, Darth Maul, Mace Windu, and a score of EU characters all went out this way.
  • Doesnt Like Guns (Obi Wan, who considers blasters inelegant and uncivilized)
  • Downer Ending: All six films had something to be depressed about in the end-
    • A New Hope- Darth Vader gets away. Only three fighters out of dozens survive the final battle, although this is not commented on; the finale is a celebratory march.
    • The Empire Strikes Back- The Empire storms the Rebellion's hidden base and drives the entire Rebel fleet into hiding, Luke gets his hand cut off after finding out that Darth Vader is his father, and Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite after confessing his love to Leia.
    • Return of the Jedi- Darth Vader does a Heel Face Turn and is then killed, somewhat eclipsed by the Empire going belly up and the galaxy being freed.
    • The Phantom Menace- The protagonist Qui-Gon Jinn is killed in a climactic fight that only served as proof that an ancient evil still existed, also eclipsed by an ending celebration.
    • Attack of the Clones- Featured a Jedi massacre and the start of the Clone Wars. Also lets the viewers see a 10 year old Boba Fett pick up his father's decapitated head after the Jedi Massacre.
      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. Palpatine orders the clone troopers to turn on the Jedi, and the genocide begins. Anakin falls completely to the dark side and becomes Darth Vader after sustaining grievous injuries in a fight with Obi-Wan. Padme dies, orphaning newborns Luke and Leia Skywalker. And Palpatine takes full control of the government and declares the Empire in one of the most chilling speeches in cinematic history.
    • And when it comes to the Expanded Universe, well, knowing they've got Legacy Of The Force and Star Wars Legacy to look forward to turns the entire franchise into one big Downer Ending.
  • The Drag Along (C-3P0 fills this niche like a glove in every movie)
  • Due To The Dead (Jedi practice cremation.)
  • Dull Surprise (Although there are arguably some instances of it in the original trilogy too, this is taken to new levels in the prequels)
  • 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.)
  • The Empire
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: With the amount of time Star Wars has been around, there have been many, but fewer so than Boba Fett, whose death in Return of the Jedi was eventually changed so that he survived falling into the Sarlaac Pit.
    • Also, Wedge Antilles, who went from a single appearance in the first film to appearing in all three of the original trilogy and considerable EU following. The X-Wing series, anyone?
  • Everythings Better With Princesses (Leia)
  • Evil Counterpart (Tarkin is this to Obi-Wan. Vader is Luke's counterpart. And Papatine is Yoda's)
  • Evil Overlooker (many Star Wars posters)
  • Excuse Me Coming Through (In The New Jedi Order, one of Han Solo's security droids invokes this trope almost by name while carrying a live thermal detonator.
  • Expanded Universe (One of the first major ones)
  • Famous Last Words (Too many to list)
  • Fan Nickname (For Luke, Farmboy or Wormie. For Palpatine, Sid, Palpy, Palps, or Palpidious)
    • I've also heard "Vaderkin" to refer to Vader between taking the name Darth Vader and Mustafar incident. The Expanded Universe introduces us to Jimmy, JINO, Darth Chicken, and a few others.
  • Fanfare (The iconic opening music)
  • Fast Roping (The clone tropers in Episode III employ this trope.)
  • Fetish Fuel (it has its own page)
  • Feudal Future
  • First Installment Wins (for two decades, almost three, there were no prequels)
    • Wouldn't that be second installment wins, since Empire is everyone's favorite?
  • Fish People (Kit Fisto and the Gungans in the prequels, as well as the Aqualish, Mon Calimari, and Quarren)
  • Five Man Band (Luke is The Hero, Han's The Lancer, R2 and 3PO trade off being The Smart Guy, Chewie's The Big Guy, and Leia is The Chick. Well, sometimes. Threepio is sometimes The Chick, Leia can be very proactive in some scenes.)
  • Flaw Exploitation (Anakin/Vader's love for his family)
  • Floating Head Syndrome (on the most recent DVDs)
  • Follow The Leader (Inspired so many)
  • Good Old Ways
  • G Rated Sex (Word Of God specifically says a kiss represents sex.)
    • Ummm... Okay...
      • And right in front of Han, no less.
      • George has a history of creepy pronouncements. This troper distinctly remembers him mentioning in an interview that Wookiees have six breasts. In another interview, he specifically said Jedi have sex, but relationships are forbidden. Probably to make it so the Jedi are still "cool".
      • At least it's not as bad as what happened to Oedipus, which was probably an inspiration.
      • If this applies to the prequel trilogy too, this means that Anakin and Padme were in the act on the way to being executed in Episode II.
      • What's so creepy about an alien species having six breasts?
  • The Greatest Story Never Told (Every year there is an additional story in the Expanded Universe set during or around the movies, lately The Clone Wars.)
  • Harmony Versus Discipline (The Force = The Way of Harmony and The Dark Side = The Path of Discipline, in theory with Jedi trying to be one with the Force and the Sith trying to control it by channeling their desires. In practise the Jedi believe in only using The Force with a helping of self control, while The Sith wants domination through Discipline, which they practice through unchecked desires and rage)
  • Have A Gay Old Time - There's a whole page of lines that sound sexual but aren't on Wookieepedia. My favorite?
    Nute Gunray: My lord, is that legal?
    Palpatine Darth Sidious: I will make it legal.
  • Highly Conspicuous Uniform: White armored Stormtroopers on Endor. 'Nuff said.
  • Hold Your Hippogriffs: The books are notorious for this.
    • "Out of the frying pan reactor core and into the fire supernova."
    • "Like a hot knife neutrino through butter plasma."
      Gabe: I get it, man. It says Star Wars on the cover. I know I'm reading about Star Wars. It's like, do they not have butter in space? Or hot knives to cut it with?
      Tycho: Listen, don't get your mynocks in a... sarlacc.
  • Hollywood Tactics (it's made of this trope.)
    • To be fair, the Rebel's tactics (in the films anyway) weren't that bad, and when they did apparently stupid things like attacking a massive battlestation with a few dozen fighters, it was usually because they had grossly inferior forces to begin with and really had no other options.
  • Homage
  • Ho Yay (very little outside the Expanded Universe, but Luke and Han have a few longing stares in Episodes IV and V.)
    • Obi Wan loved Anakin (like a brother, but that doesn't stop the Yaoi Fangirls)
  • Human Aliens (aka near-human aliens, some of which have a common ancestry)
  • Humanoid Aliens
  • Humongous Mecha (the AT-series walkers in the films, and various types of droids such as EVS Construction Droids in the Expanded Universe.)
  • Hydrospanner In The Works
  • Iconic Logo
  • I Know That Gun (Many examples.)
    • Han Solo's blaster is a WW 1 Mauser C96 handgun with bits stuck on.
    • Rebel soldiers are armed with prop weapons the body of which is a cast of a WW 2 Sturmgewehr-44 assault rifle.
    • Stormtroopers tend to carry heavy blasters which are MG 34 machine guns without magazines, and rifles made from British Sterling SM Gs.
    • Jawa blasters are made from British Lee-Enfield Mk. III bolt-action rifles with tin cans stuck on the end.
    • The body of Boba Fett's blaster is an Enfield No. 1 Mk. 1 flaregun.
    • You can take this all the way to I Know That Tank and even I Know That Battleship with the vehicles; the models built for shooting were detailled using parts of dozens of model kits of tanks, ships, aircraft and vehicles haphazardly arranged over their surfaces.
  • Impossibly Cool Weapon (About half the weapons in the movies, but the lightsabers and the Death Stars get special note.)
  • Impractically Fancy Outfit (Amidala's clothes.)
  • In The Blood (In this case, it's Midichlorians and Evil)
  • Internet Backdraft (Depending on what SW forums you go to, mentioning the prequels could start a war)
  • Its A Small World After All
  • Jacob Marley Warning (Vader to Luke)
  • Jonas Quinn (Dash Rendar from Shadows Of The Empire was created to present a Han Solo character without actually using Han Solo, who was frozen in carbonite at the time.)
  • Large Ham (Just about the entire cast at times, but primarily Palpatine, Jabba, and of course BRIAN BLESSED.)
  • 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.)
  • Laser Blade: Lightsabers
  • Lego Crossover Game
  • Made Of Phlebotinum (Star Wars could nominally be considered this trope, especially a planet like Coruscant, for example. Hyperdrive, the force, levitating vehicles, laser weapons...there wouldn't be much left to this 'verse if you subtracted the Phlebotinum.)
  • Master Apprentice Chain (Even without getting into the Expanded Universe we have:)
    • Yoda > Count Dooku > Qui-Gon Jinn > Obi-Wan Kenobi > Anakin & Luke Skywalker
    • Darth Plagueis > Darth Sidious > Darths Maul, Tyranus, and Vader.
    • Qui-Gon Jinn > Yoda > Obi-Wan Kenobi > Luke Skywalker (Implied in the movie, spelled out in the novelization)
  • Memetic Mutation (Just about everything. The original trilogy alone has easily the highest degree of quotes per movie ever. The prequels slightly less so.)
    Admiral Ackbar: "It's a trap!"
    Darth Vader: "DO NOT WANT!"
  • Magnificent Bastard: Palpatine in the Prequel Trilogy. In the original trilogy he's more of a Smug Snake.
  • A Million Is A Statistic
    • Possibly averted with regards to Alderan, and the shock and horror various characters express at its destruction.
  • Mind Over Manners (Jedi's responsible use of their suggestion and telepathy powers)
  • Mini Mecha (Some of the walkers, such as the AT-RT from Revenge of the Sith)
  • Misguided Missile
  • Monowheel Mayhem (The Wheel Bikes.)
  • Narm (Various scenes, sometimes Your Mileage May Vary)
  • Neck Lift
  • Nice Hat (Padmé has a few)
  • Nightmare Fuel: Each movie gave us a new, different creature for our heroes to go up against.
    • A New Hope had the dianoga 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.
    • ROTJ had the rancor and the sarlacc. Ewoks don't count.
    • The Jedi faced off against 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. However, Word Of God says 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 probably came off as a bad idea.
    • The way Anakin became Darth Vader (being mutilated and burnt almost to death while screaming to Obi-Wan "I hate you!") is something definitly disturbing to see.
  • Not Now Bernard: C-3PO, especially in the EU.
  • Not So Different (Luke and Vader)
  • Not Wearing Tights (The Jedi Order)
  • Old Master: Of course, being a sci-fi film that borrows heavily from classical myth, it isn't surprising that Homer's creation made its way to Star Wars.
  • Old School Dogfighting
  • Pintsized Powerhouse (Yoda)
  • Planet Ville
  • People Jars
  • Pet The Dog: In an book of short stories about the various denizens of Jabba's palace, the poor rancor keeper just wanted to leave Jabba's palace with his dear pet rancor and find a nice play to live with his bloodthirsty friend. Until that damned Jedi had to show up and ruin everything...
  • Pimped Out Dress: Amidala has loads of them.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain: Much of the Imperial Brass. Palpatine himself is not necessarily, if only because he probably sees everyone as pawns.
  • Promoted Fanboy (Nearly two generations has grown up with Star Wars, almost anyone working on modern projects is one of these.)
  • Putting On The Reich (Many officials of The Empire.)
  • Ray Gun (Blasters and the turbo lasers)
  • Rebel Leader (Princess Leia)
  • Red Shirt (Luke's wingmen in the original trilogy seemed to get killed if an Imperial so much as sneezes.)
  • Refuge In Cool: Most of the franchise is loaded with Rule Of Cool.
  • Retired Badass (Yoda and Obi-wan)
  • Right In Front Of Me (Luke and Yoda; also Qui-Gon and Amidala)
  • Rubber Forehead Aliens (Twi'lek, Cereans, Chevs, Zabrak, Khommites, etc.)
  • Rule Of Cool (Lightsabers are the epitome of this trope.)
    • Rumor has it that this trope is the main reason why Mace Windu has a purple lightsaber, because Samuel L. Jackson thought it looked cool. (Also so that he would be visible in a huge lightsaber battle.) Also note that said lightsaber is the only one used in the movie canon that is not red, blue or green.
      • This fact is lampshaded by General Grievous in the Revenge of the Sith video game.
      "Who fights with a purple lightsaber anyway?"
  • Samuel L Jackson (since he asked...)
    • This is best exemplified in Shatterpoint.
  • The Scrappy: Jar-Jar
    • And the Ewoks.
    • And midichlorians.
    • A lot of the main characters in the prequels, unfortunately.
  • Sequelitis (technically, 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 on the Teddy Bear tribe.)
    • I thought they were based on Hopi hair.
  • Sidekick Ex Machina (Chewbacca)
  • Single Biome Planet (Justified for Bespin but not so much for the others)
  • Sinister Geometry (The Death Star, the Imperial Star Destroyers.)
  • Slave Mooks: The Clones, in some people's Point of View, and the Insane Selkath.
  • Starfish Aliens
  • 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)
  • Strange Syntax Speaker (Yoda)
  • Summer Blockbuster (the Trope Codifier, along with Steven Spielberg's Jaws)
  • Supernatural Martial Arts (a lot of the Force powers)
  • Survival Mantra
  • Tactful Translation (the most prominent example being how Threepio translates Jabba the Hutt's discussion with a disguised Princess Leia)
  • Target The Audience: The posters for A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.
  • Tenchi Solution (how George explains Jedi attitudes toward monogamy)
  • Terms Of Endangerment
  • Thicker Than Water
  • The Three Faces Of Adam (Anakin and Luke both start out as the Hunter, with each trilogy detailing their evolution to Lord.)
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works (especially when you have telekinetic powers)
    • subverted in its first appearance (episode VI), when Vader totally misses.
  • Thirty Xanatos Pileup (innumerable)
    • Return of the Jedi exemplifies this trope. Everything Luke or Palpatine does is a Xanatos Gambit, coincidentally making Luke the greatest assassin ever. Leia also pulls one off at the beginning.
  • Took A Level In Badass (Luke, once on Dagobah, again between episode V and VI. Anakin in the prequels.)
    • And after he blows up the Death Star, Luke is much more confident than he was in most of A New Hope.
  • Too Much Of A Good Thing
  • Tragic Hero (Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is a textbook example of this trope)
  • Training From Hell
  • Tree Top Town The Ewok village on Endor and the Wookiees' dwellings on Kashyyyk.
  • Twincest (averted, at least in Fanon)
  • Unfortunate Names
  • Undercrank (Used in the early movies where CG would be used in the later ones. The alarmingly fast doors on the Death Star 1 are almost certainly undercranked.)
  • Unto Us A Son And Daughter Are Born: Luke and Leia in Revenge of the Sith.
  • Visual Effects Of Awesome (The original trilogy still stands up well today and for the prequels show that whatever flaws Lucas has as a writer, visually he knows his stuff.)
  • Voice Of The Legion
  • We Are As Mayflies (Yoda)
  • 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.
  • The Wookiee Has No Pants, at least in regard to some concerns of meddling executives...
  • Wuxia : One of the genres that inspired the franchise.
  • Xanatos Gambit / Xanatos Roulette (Palpatine)
  • 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!"
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