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Star Wars / Tropes A to D

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Tropes A-D | Tropes E-H | Tropes I-L | Tropes M-R | Tropes S-Z

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    A 
  • Action Figure File Card: Some of the 1990s toys had them.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: Each of the final films in the original three trilogies start with an "R": "Return of the Jedi", "Revenge of the Sith" and "Rise of Skywalker".
  • Advanced Ancient Humans: 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.
  • Aerith and Bob: 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."
  • An Aesop: 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.
    • Star Wars: The Clone Wars took this even further, stating an aesop at the head of each episode as a clue to the theme of the episode.
    • Star Wars Rebels - The spark that ignites the rebellion can come from anywhere, and and anyone can become a Family of Choice.
    • Rogue One - Rebellions are built on hope.
    • Andor - Fascism sows the seeds of its own destruction.
  • The Aesthetics of Technology: 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 Raygun Gothic style, featuring elongated buildings and Shiny-Looking Spaceships with sleek curved outlines.
    • The Trade Federation and the Separatists go for the darker take on Raygun Gothic with vessels such as shark-like assault frigates and hover tanks, and droids mostly looking like arthropods, skeletons or zombies, tanks walking on four legs or just evil-looking Killer Robots with red eyes.
    • The Grand Army of the Republic goes mostly from the sleek, modern style (in Attack of the Clones, owing to a strong Kaminoan influence) to the more blocky and rectangular one in Revenge of the Sith. However, the vehicles and ships still maintain a segmented, "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 streamlined and monolithic, composed of 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 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 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 more rounded, less-threatening exterior style.
  • Affectionate Parody: The popularity of the franchise has led to many parodies and spoofs, including:
  • Agony Beam: 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.
  • Airstrike Impossible: The Rebels and their successor the Resistance sure love flying into extremely dangerous spaces to destroy anti-planet weapons:
    • In A New Hope, 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 The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebel's snow speeders lack the firepower to take down the 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 Return of the Jedi, 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.
    • The Force Awakens 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 the planet it's built into.
    • Rogue One has Blue Squadron diving through an opening in a planet's forcefield, in order to provide air support and reinforcements for Rogue One's commando raid on the Imperial data storage facility. The entire squadron is destroyed in the battle.
    • The Last Jedi opens with 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.
  • Aliens Speaking English: 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.
  • All According to Plan: Many bad guys throughout the franchise use this phrase, most notably the Emperor.
  • All for Nothing:
    • 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.
  • All Gravity Is the Same: Ubiquitous. For example, Mustafar, where the climax of Revenge of the Sith takes place, is six times larger than Starkiller Base from The Force Awakens, and yet characters move as freely on Mustafar as they do on Starkiller Base despite the much higher gravity.
  • Alliterative Title: 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.
  • Allowed Internal War: By the time of The Phantom Menace, 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 Space Police cars to a Battlestar fight) that megacorporations like the Trade Federation and Intergalactic Banking Clan are able to control vast armies of droids and mercenaries, which they wield in Corporate Warfare against planetary governments that displease them. The plot of the film series is set off when 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.
  • Alternate Continuity: Lucas's personal vision or "Canon" of Star Wars only includes the six films and The Clone Wars, making "the films + the Star Wars Expanded Universe" 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 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
  • Alternative 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.
  • Always Save the Girl: 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. Yeah, nice going there!
  • Amusing Alien: Many appear in the various works, but Jar-Jar Binks is the most known and most visible example.
  • Anachronic Order: 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 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 the pilot movie. Then there's the installment's revival season, which is produced after the conclusion of Rebels.
    • 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 Real Life 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.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Jedi and Sith frequently lose limbs in lightsaber combat due to their Absurdly Sharp Blade quality. Also happens to various other characters for non-lightsaber related reasons.
  • Ancient Astronauts: Ancient Ewok legend recalls them being visited by a "golden god", who is implied to be a protocol droid, and certainly not C-3PO.
  • Anger Is Not Enough:
    • This is the whole philosophy of the old Jedi Order, who believe that while anger (and The Dark Side of The Force in general) is a quick and easy way to a lot of power, true mastery of the Force (which far exceeds the potency of the Dark Side) requires 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 berserker-esque Darth Maul type might be a physical threat to two or three Jedi at a time, but a cold, cruel, calculating Darth Sidious type can bring the galaxy to its knees without ever touching a lightsaber.
  • Animal-Themed Fighting Style: 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 Jack of All Trades 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 Star Wars Legends continuity, this is named after an eponymous predator whose tentacles strike too fast to be countered unless the creature is dead.
  • Anti-Gravity: 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.
  • Anyone Can Die: If the franchise wants you dead, no matter who you are, you die. This is especially prevalent with a character from a previous trilogy.
  • The Apprentice:
    • 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
  • Arbitrarily Large Bank Account:
    • 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!
    • The Last Jedi 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.
  • Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Lightsabers. As noted by stunt coordinator Nick Gillard in a DVD featurette for Attack of the Clones, "[the Jedi have] chosen a sword in a time of, you know, 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.
  • Arc Words:
    • "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..."
  • Armored Coffins:
    • Basic TIE fighters have neither ejection seats nor shields. (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...
  • Artifact Alias: 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; 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.
  • Artificial Script: Aurebesh is a fictional alphabet used to transcribe "Galactic Basic," which is Star Wars' equivalent to spoken English.
  • 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. The winners for this are Wedge Antilles and Boba Fett.
  • Ascended Fridge Horror: Although Return of the Jedi vaguely seems to imply that defeating the Emperor defeated the Empire (see this article for why it wouldn't) the both the non-canonical Star Wars Legends and the distant sequel The Force Awakens make it clear that the Empire left behind strong remnants that continued to wage war on the Alliance to Restore the Republic.
  • Asteroid Thicket: The asteroid chase from The Empire Strikes Back; revisited in Attack of the Clones with the rings of Geonosis.
  • Attack Pattern Alpha:
  • Author Appeal: 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.
  • Author Catchphrase: 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: Subverted Trope. 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 Subverted Trope as far as the audience is explicitly aware, but 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 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.
  • Author Usurpation: With the exception of Indiana Jones, Star Wars was so successful that most people don't know or care about any of the other movies George Lucas made.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • 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 Master of None. 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.

    B 
  • Badass Army: The Jedi and Sith, and the Grand Army of the Republic, when they aren't being put through Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.
  • Badass Family: 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.
  • The Battlestar: 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.
  • Being Watched: Jedi can detect this.
    "You feel like what?"
    "Like we're being watched!"
  • The Beastmaster: Revenge of the Sith establishes that Jedi can at least control animals when Anakin tames the Reek Bull, while Star Wars Rebels shows that it either is or can be a rapport.
  • Big Bad: Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine manipulates the conflicts of the galaxy from The Phantom Menace until The Rise of Skywalker.
  • The Big Bad Shuffle: The Sequel Trilogy goes through a few different Big Bads. In The Force Awakens, Supreme Leader Snoke is presented as the overarching villain. Then in The Last Jedi, Snoke gets killed by Kylo Ren, who declares himself Supreme Leader and is set up as the new Big Bad. And then in The Rise of Skywalker, it turns out Emperor Palpatine is Back from the Dead and was running things from behind the scenes all along. Kylo ends up having a Heel–Face Turn and Palpatine is the trilogy's Final Boss.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Han's return to save Luke in A New Hope is probably the best-known example, but there are many.
  • Big Good: There are quite a several of the heroes who fulfill 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 the Jedi Order, and are both The Mentor 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.
    • The Force Awakens has General Leia Organa serving as the leader of the heroic Resistance.
  • Big "NO!": The franchise is famous for this trope, and uses it often.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Skywalkers. They may be badasses, for sure, but as the saga proves time and again, sometimes It Sucks to Be the Chosen One. Most of the family have serious Parental / Daddy Issues 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 Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other moments, though.
  • Bilingual Bonus: 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 Return of the Jedi 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 the chanting in Duel of the Fates.
  • Bilingual Dialogue: 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.
  • Bittersweet Ending: A staple of the franchise.
    • The Phantom Menace — The Battle of Naboo is a success, but Qui-Gon Jinn 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. Count Dooku escapes.
    • Revenge of the Sith has a full-on Downer Ending. The Empire takes over the galaxy, most of the Jedi are slaughtered, Padmé dies, and Anakin becomes Darth Vader. Obi-Wan and Yoda go into hiding. The only hopeful part is that Luke and Leia are born and will become powerful opponents of the Empire someday.
    • Solo — Han not only splits ways with Qi'ra, but ends up betrayed by Beckett, 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 — 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, 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 Happy Ending, but even that wouldn't have happened without the Heroic Sacrifice 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 Star Wars: Princess Leia 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 Heel–Face Turn and 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.
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: Several near-human or rubber-forehead species, as described in the Expanded Universe. There's some even more bizarre stuff in the EU.
  • Bizarre Human Biology: Humans, as well as all other living species in The 'Verse, possess "midi-chlorians", mysterious organelles which have some intricate connection to The Force.
  • Black-and-White Morality: With the exception of those games where you play for (or start for) the Empire, the Sith or both. Helps that most villains are Obviously Evil.
  • Blocking Stops All Damage: 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.
  • Bloodbath Villain Origin:
    • 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.
  • Bloodless Carnage: 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.
  • Blue Is Heroic: 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).
  • Bodyguarding a Badass:
    • 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.
  • Bootstrapped Theme: Would you believe that the iconic Fanfare was originally called "Luke's Theme"?
  • Bottomless Pits: 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, Floating Platforms and a complete absence of safety railings are added in. The outdoor equivalent is the Skyscraper City, 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.
  • Broad Strokes: The entire saga was built upon having millions of stories being told while we are only seeing a few.
    • There was a tier-based system of how Star Wars Canon works: The films and anything created by George Lucas (eg. production notes, Word of God, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, etc.) > Television > Original story Comic Books / Literature / Video Games / Other material > Older material (subject to be ignored) > What If? 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 Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars Special).
    • Material previously released is still being distributed under the "Legends" banner, and being treated as an alternate continuity.
  • Broken Aesop:
    • Word of God 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.
    • The Rise of Skywalker reveals Rey 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 Good Parents who did that to protect Rey from Palpatine's and their influence, even sacrificing their lives to do so, which helps motivate Rey to oppose Palpatine. So Rey actually came from a pretty good background, all things considered, which played a critical role in her becoming a hero.
  • Broken Bird:
    • 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.
  • Bromantic Foil: Naive farmboy and cynical drug smuggler turned mercenary? Naturally they'll be the two guys competing over Leia.

    C 
  • Call-Forward: 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 has a page dedicated to these references.
  • Canon Discontinuity:
    • Lucas himself disavowed The Star Wars Holiday Special, 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".
    • Various canon media work to remove the special edition changes from the canon, thus restoring the Unaltered Original Trilogy as canon.
  • Canon Immigrant: 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' Canon Immigrant page.
  • Cartesian Karma: The realization of this was the most likely factor in Darth Vader's 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.
  • Casual Interstellar Travel: Very casual. Traveling at the Speed of Plot 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!
  • Category Traitor: Characters are accused of being traitors many times.
  • Central Theme:
  • Cessation of Existence: 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).
  • Cerebus Rollercoaster: 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 Cerebus Syndrome with The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
  • Character Catchphrase: Palpatine is fond of declaring things to be "Good...".
  • Charm Person: 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 it doesn't work on everyone.
  • Cheated Angle: 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.
  • Chekhov's Gun: 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.
  • Child Soldiers: Types One and Two. The Jedi and the Clone troopers are trained from birth to 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 Expanded Universe treatment of this 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.
  • Choke Holds: The Force choke is a slow, unpleasant, unstoppable choke from a distance that uses the telekinetic power of the Dark Side of the Force.
  • Civil War: 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.
  • Civil War vs. Armageddon: The prequel trilogy shows that the Galactic Republic has significant problems with political corruption and congressional gridlock, and Expanded Universe 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 megacorporations to create a means and pretext to seize absolute power and destroy the Jedi Order.
  • Clingy Costume: Darth Vader's armor is also a life-support system, and cannot be removed outside a special chamber.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: 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.
  • Collectible Card Game: Four of them, the most successful being the Star Wars Customizable Card Game
  • Colon Cancer: 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.
    • 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"!
  • Color-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.
    • Rebels seems to codify the colors for Lightsabers to: Green or blue = Jedi, Gold = Jedi Sentinels, Red = Sith, White = non-affiliated, Purple = Samuel L. Jackson.
    • 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.
  • Combat Clairvoyance: How Force-sensitives can perform seemingly impossible feats of Super-Reflexes — they're already reacting to things before they actually happen. At least when the Force is feeling like giving them a heads-up...
  • Combat Parkour: 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 Yoda, all the jumping around is necessary for him to fight larger opponents (in other words, everybody else).
  • Common Tongue: Basic for humans (and by extension the Republic/Empire) and individual languages for each species.
  • Connected All Along: 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 helped Ahsoka survive being hunted by Trandoshans and 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?
  • Continuity Drift: 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 Early-Installment Weirdness from early drafts (dogs on Tatooine, Luke's wingman on Hoth performing a Heroic Sacrifice to stop the shield generator from being blown up, and Yoda being blue instead of green, for example).
  • Continuity Lockout: 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.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: The Confederacy and The Empire may be evil, but they're as different as night and day.
  • Converging-Stream Weapon:
    • The Death Star is the Trope Codifier, 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.
  • Cool Starship: 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.
  • Cool Sword: 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.
  • Corporate Warfare: The prequel trilogy showed that many mercantile organizations such as the Trade Federation, Banking Clan, and Techno Union had massive droid armies.
  • Cosmetically-Advanced Prequel: 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 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.
  • Creepy Cleanliness: 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.)
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: 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.
  • Crystal Spires and Togas: The prequels run with this aesthetic, showing a more diverse, colourful, and grand aesthetic as compared to the run-down Used Future aesthetic of the OT, ST eras.
    • Notable examples include the City Planet of Coruscant which has Urban Segregation 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 Blade Runner. 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 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 (Tatooine, Dagobah, Hoth, Endor, and Yavin). The sequels returned to the Used Future 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.
  • Cult Soundtrack: The most famous composition from John Williams. 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.
  • Cute Machines: Primarily, R2-D2 and BB-8, but many of the franchise's droids can exhibit this from time to time.
  • The Cycle of Empires: 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 Expanded Universe 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 The Remnant of the old regime, who actively contest and compete against your view of the events that happened.

    D 
  • Darker and Edgier: Since the prequel trilogy was following Anakin, Revenge of the Sith had to be darker by default. As such, it was the only film in the franchise to garner a PG-13 rating. The Empire Strikes Back is also noticeably darker in tone than its predecessor. There's a brief scene in A New Hope that's darker than the rest of the film, and the darkness of that scene was deliberate on the part of the director.
  • De-aged in Death: 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 Return of the Jedi had a downplayed example in Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader specifically—which was then turned into a completely straight example via Orwellian Retcon. 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.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Before the Marvel films could entertain us with witty lines, the Star Wars films had some impressive sarcasm.
  • Death-Activated Superpower: How "Force spirits" are created.
  • Deathly Dies Irae: Composer John Williams references Dies Irae, Dies Illa throughout his scores for the trilogy films, and non-trilogy film composers reference it as well.
  • Decade Dissonance: A bit of a clash between the prequel's and the original trilogy's styles for technology.
  • Deceptive Legacy: 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.
  • Deck of Wild Cards:
    • 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 hijacked Orson Krennic's Death Star project and then killed him with his own weapon, and was that respected enough he was able to keep 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 Promotions; 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 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.
  • Decoy Backstory:
  • Defanged Horrors: 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 delightfully charming creatures. How did Han and Chewie get three on their freighter? They used to have a larger crew.
  • Democracy Is Bad:
    • By Revenge of the Sith, 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 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 Emperor.
    • It only gets worse in the 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.
    • The Force Awakens 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.
  • Democracy Is Flawed:
    • 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 Expanded Universe 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 The Empire 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.
  • Depending on the Writer: The movies try to have some sense of balance and limitation to the technology and the abilities of Force users. In the Expanded Universe, you will find all sorts of battleship weapons more powerful than the Death Star, and Jedi of either the current time period or in the distant past who could be considered forces of nature with what they are able to do.
  • Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: 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 Flaw Exploitation:
      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 Flaw Exploitation 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.
  • Despite the Plan:
    Han: So, how we doin'?
    Luke: Same as always.
    Han: That bad, huh?
  • Determined Homesteader: 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 native Sand People. Yet only the most recent generation seems to have made a serious effort to seek lives offworld.
  • Digital Destruction:
    • 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 Disney+, 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:
  • Divine Chessboard: The Light Side versus the Dark Side of the force, through the Jedi and Sith.
  • Doing In the Wizard: 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.
  • Downer Ending:
    • 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 Bittersweet Ending 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 Big Bad has actually succeeded and is standing there among them as Palpatine. The Bad Guy Wins, 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 one with the Force, leaving Rey with only the original Jedi texts for guidance.
    • While all of the above are listed under Bittersweet Ending, 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 All for Nothing.
  • Drama Panes:
    • The concluding scene of Revenge of the Sith 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 Evil Overlord and his right-hand man can afford to gloat.
    • Return of the Jedi: 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.
  • Dress-Coded for Your Convenience:
    • The Jedi wear brown robes while the Sith wear black.
    • In the prequels, Anakin, the deeply conflicted Jedi Knight, wears black to foreshadow 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.
  • Drop Pod: Many factions use these, and some video games let you do it yourself.
  • Due to the Dead:
    • The Jedi burn their dead in funeral pyres, with few exceptions (including, but not limited to, Jedi that 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 (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.
  • During the War: Well, it's right in the title. And they're a lot of different wars, most notably the Galactic Civil War (original trilogy) and Clone Wars (episodes II-III).
  • Dub Name Change: The French and Italian dubs of the original trilogy changed many of the character, location and ship names. This became more inconsistent later on, even more so in French Canada where they got their own local dubs of material from The Phantom Menace onwards.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: 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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