The Asocial decided to investigate the reason behind an outstanding amount of Star Wars references (1, 2) in other movies and TV series, conversations. and pretty much any other sources of information.
A simple explanation would be that it is what was popular back when plot writers, article writers, and other kinds of reference producers were excitable kids, bringing us echoes of what was popular back in a day (early 80s, that is). In such a case, one would expect it to decline, since a 50 years old writer should understand that things have changed since his or her childhood, and target audience of random popular culture references should not always be the same generation, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.
Another possible explanation is that its plot is really good, characters are interesting and well-played, and so on, which is also suggested by many of those references. Well, let’s finally watch it!
There is an original trilogy, a prequel trilogy, and a spin-off; planned movies include a sequel trilogy, and additional stand-alone Star Wars universe movies. Though it may make sense to watch the original trilogy first, the experience will not be the same as for those who watched it before everything was spoiled, so we will watch prequel and original trilogy, in that order.
The most commonly spoiled parts are:
- Luke is a protagonist, Darth Vader is an antagonist.
- Princess Leia is beautiful, and is particularly attractive in a slave outfit.
- «Use the Force, Luke» is a helpful and somehow outstanding reminder.
- Death Star is built by Darth Vader, destroyed by Luke.
- Darth Vader being Luke’s father is a huge plot twist.
- Jedi are good, and they fight with laser sticks.
- Jedi can become bad, by doing bad things, and probably they become more powerful that way.
- There are some robots.
- There are folks (robots?) in white outfits around Darth Vader.
- Yoda is a little green Jedi, and his speech is weird.
- The Federation March is cool.
Let’s also see whether those are correct.
From the very beginning, we see a clear distinction between good and bad folks: the good ones are pretty, and non-human ones are cute, while the bad ones are ugly, and non-human ones are rather disgusting. If a bad guy pretends to be a good one, he also changes his looks somehow. If a good guy becomes bad, he also becomes ugly.
Atmosphere and gravitation are the same almost everywhere, and any species are fine with that. Except for open space and asteroids, where only some huge worms are shown to live. The climate is also approximately the same everywhere. And there is a planet inhabited by teddy bears.
Lightsabres are said to be traditional Jedi weapons, but they also are good for close combat, as well as to deflect laser rays. Blasters are said to be clumsy and non-reliable, and they indeed are: somehow their rays are extremely slow, so Jedi can reflect them back (to be fair, it is also said that Jedi can predict the future, so one may assume that those rays are not that slow, and are only pictured that way: an ancient version of slow motion). Apparently there is a few kinds of force fields and shields, most of which block blasters and lightsabres, but not regular objects; makes one to wonder why don’t they use powder-based weapons. In big battles, they also use blasters and struggle against force fields: no bombs or rockets, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Some of the robots (Destroyer Droids, which are capable of capturing Jedi, and from which Jedi just flee if they can) use such shields as well, but Jedi do not.
So, the universe does not seem to be elaborate, or to make much sense.
Regarding the plot: Luke and Leia are twins, but they don’t look even remotely similar, and they don’t suspect that until they are told that it is the case.
It is clear that Darth Vader is Luke’s father from the prequel, but even in the original trilogy it is uncovered before Darth Vader says that to Luke (while the latter gets cited in references).
«Use the Force, Luke» sounds among other dull phrases in Luke’s head (dead Obi-Wan communicates with him somehow) while he tries to destroy the Death Star, which is just constructed; apparently it helped, but there was nothing exciting about it. Then there is the second Death Star, which is destroyed right after it is constructed, too – so there is not much action around it.
On the bright side, Darth Vader being Luke’s father makes more sense than one might expect without watching, The Imperial March is indeed nice, Leia is indeed pretty, and Yoda is cute.
It probably is a nice movie for children, and supposedly was even more so in early 80s, yet the image built by references may be considerably better than the one you get after actually watching it. As of references, they probably just do nourish themselves now: since even those who have not watched Star Wars would understand them, they would serve as fillers for popular culture references anywhere.