Star Wars / Tropes M to R

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M

• 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 and swords...there wouldn't be much left to this 'verse if you subtracted the Phlebotinum.
• Magic A Is Magic A: The films largely limit force users to telekinesis, precognition, empathy, and spirits. The expanded universe, however, tends to make up New Powers as the Plot Demands, giving us witches and voodoo and zombies and... pretty much anything you can name.
• Magic by Any Other Name: The Force is probably the most famous example.
• Magitek: Jedi and Sith Holocrons cannot apparently be duplicated by regular technology alone and instead require the powers of a Force-user to operate.
• Manipulative Bastard: Palpatine uses a variety of manipulative political tactics to gain influence and power and engineer distrust in a protected group, painting them as malicious rebels and himself as a victim, earning wide praise across the Republic and turning it into an empire over which he has absolute power, while Padme laments that "liberty dies, with thundrous applause."
• Master-Apprentice Chain:
  • The Jedi: Yoda > Count Dooku > Qui-Gon Jinn > Obi-Wan Kenobi > Anakin & Luke Skywalker > Ashoka Tano for Anakin, and Grogu, Ben Solo and Rey for Luke.
  • The Sith: Darth Bane > Thousands of others > Darth Plagueis > Darth Sidious > Darth Maul, Darth Tyranus(Dooku), and Darth Vader(Anakin) > Savage Oppress (first for Tyranus, then Maul) and Asajj Ventress(for Tyranus).
  • Becoming a Force spirit: Qui-Gon Jinn > Yoda > Obi-Wan Kenobi > Luke Skywalker (implied in the movie, spelled out in the novelization)
• A Master Makes Their Own Tools: Technology abounds everywhere, and yet the Jedi are asked to acquire all of the parts for and assemble their own lightsaber by hand from scavenged parts they find over their travels and are expected to have a personal connection with the crystal specifically.
• Matching Bad Guy Vehicles: The Rebels have many different, distinct designs for their starfighters and capital ships. The Empire's Star Destroyers are all wedge-shaped, though, differing only in size, and their TIE fighters are all ball-shaped with panels on either side. This uniformity is carried over into the sequel trilogy's First Order.
• Meaningful Name: Ever notice how some of the Sith names take a sinister word starting with "in" and just chop the "in" off? (in)vader, (in)sidious? Coincidence? I don't think so!
  • Most/all Sith names are some form of a sinister word.
  • Also, "vader" is Dutch for "father".
  • And then there's Darth Maul...who has no personality to speak of and is a blunt instrument...
  • It's not just the Sith. The smuggler who at first wants the war to leave him alone is named "Solo," Leia is Assyrian for "ruler," and the kid who wants to leave his hick planet and travel the galaxy is named "Skywalker." And later, we get the gambler named Lando — on Earth, a shortened form of Orlando, meaning "Land of Gold."
  • Given the Biblical overtones of the franchise (desert setting, virgin birth etc.) perhaps it's not surprising that the main character is named Luke.
  • The Venator class star cruiser from the prequel series: "Venator" means "hunter".
• Medieval Stasis:
  • The Republic was a cultural and technological paradise in the prequels with more diverse cultural life, flying cars, and greater urbanity, but under the Empire, with its focus on heavy militarization and authoritarian control, the Galaxy has decayed into the Used Future of the Original and Sequel Trilogy, where space ships all look worn out, gray and black.
  • In the Expanded Universe, there is little technological advancement in tens of thousands of years (e.g. Knights of the Old Republic is set four thousand years before The Phantom Menace).
  • Endor and Dathomir are prominent examples, as while they do contain incriments of high technology, they fall far behind compared to the rest of the galaxy. Tatooine somewhat fits into this trope, Justified being a very hot world. Also Justified with Dathomir, as they dont need it due to the awesome power of magicks.
• Men Act, Women Are:
  • Inverted in The Phantom Menace. Queen Padmé's planet is under attack so she pleads her people's case to Chancellor Valorum and the Galactic Senate, goes home and leads the charge to take back her planet while Anakin merely follows and then accidentally saves the Gungans.
  • Revenge of the Sith is all about how Anakin turns into Darth Vader while Padmé is merely his pregnant wife who dies of a broken heart. She originally had a political role in helping set up what would eventually be the Rebel Alliance, but it all ended up on the cutting room floor.
  • In The Force Awakens, despite being a General in the Resistance and her long history of diplomacy and strategic thinking, Princess Leia makes no useful contributions to the planning or prepping session to bring down Starkiller Base and spends most of her screen time being Han's jaded ex-wife, while Han himself is still going into battle.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: The franchise is now 3 for 3 in having a mentor archetype die towards the end of the first film in a trilogy — Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Original Trilogy, Qui-Gon Jinn in the Prequel Trilogy, and Han Solo in the Sequel Trilogy.
• Merchandise-Driven: The franchise may not have started that way, but it definitely ended up there. There are about six different versions of the medical droid that works on Luke at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.
• Merchant City: There's a reason why Mos Eisley attracts scum and villainy of all types.
• Mesodiplosis: The iconic Jedi and Sith creeds employ Anaphora and Mesodiplosis.
  • The canonical Jedi Code is composed this way, with "There is" as both the Anaphora and Mesodiplosis:
    There is no emotion, there is peace.
    There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
    There is no passion, there is serenity.
    There is no chaos, there is harmony.
    There is no death, there is the Force.
  • The Sith Code is less blatant about this, with "Through" Anaphora, but also features mesodiplosis in its middle section, with "I gain":
    Peace is a lie. There is only Passion.
    Through Passion, I gain Strength.
    Through Strength, I gain Power.
    Through Power, I gain Victory.
    Through Victory, my chains are Broken.
    The Force shall free me.''
• The Metric System Is Here to Stay: A two-meter target.
• Mile-Long Ship: Star Destroyers. Even the smallest kind (gladiator-class) were 500 meters long.
• The Milky Way Is the Only Way: Even with the ability to travel through hyperspace, the prospect of intergalactic travel is never considered, not even by the Emperor.
• Mind over Manners: The 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.

• Model Planning: The Death Star attack planning sessions in both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi are holographic versions of this trope.
• Modern Stasis: Technology and culture has been the same in the galaxy for over 10,000 years. The only thing that's changed are political boundaries and some forms of technology.
• Monochrome Apparition: Force spirits are blue.
• Monowheel Mayhem: The Wheel Bikes.
• Mood Whiplash: Only applicable if you watch the films in chronological order: Revenge of the Sith is a dark tragedy in which an already-tainted hero turns evil, kills children and is mutilated by his former best friend while A New Hope is a straight-up action adventure with wisecracking heroes. Going from the former to the latter is a bit jarring. Even more so when one considers that The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are nowhere near as campy.

• More Diverse Sequel: A New Hope had an all-white human cast^note although Darth Vader was voiced by the African-American James Earl Jones, he was played by the white Sebastian Shaw when unmasked and Princess Leia as the most prominent female character in a largely male cast. Later works add more women and minorities to the mix and also become more diverse when it comes to non-humans; in A New Hope the Rebels seem to be almost exclusively humans, whereas the sequels and prequels add more and more aliens to the mix. In the case of the latter, more alien species within the Rebellion is also indicative of increasing galactic support for the movement, which was founded mainly by humans.
  • The Empire Strikes Back added token black character Lando Calrissian to the mix; the prequel trilogy added Mace Windu.
  • The Disney-produced films go for an even more racially-diverse cast, resulting in a lot more visible minorities and women onscreen.
• Muggle Foster Parents: The Organas and the Larses for Leia and Luke respectively.
• Muggles Do It Better:
  • Despite the prominence of the Jedi, Sith and The Force in the story, it could easily be argued that ordinary people and advanced technology can get as much done as Force-users, especially if limited to the power levels from the films, as opposed to the Munchkin stuff from the Expanded Universe.
  • Luke and Anakin are touted as awesome pilots because of their Force powers, and they are. But so is Han (who can navigate an Asteroid Thicket) or Lando and Wedge (who flew a high-speed chase through the inside of the second Death Star) without any Force intuition to guide them. Poe Dameron beats everyone, at one point destroying ten TIE fighters in a single pass!
  • In Attack of the Clones a huge group of Jedi is taken completely by surprise and quickly slaughtered by battle droids. Also, Jango Fett is able to give Jedi Master Obi-Wan a real run for his money thanks to his armor and weapons. General Grievous, a cyborg, apparently killed quite a few Jedi using their own preferred weapon and fighting styles.
  • The Force is not a replacement for technology, even among its most powerful practitioners. Rather than Telepathy, Jedi and Sith alike rely on commlinks and the HoloNet to communicate. In Attack of the Clones Obi-Wan plants a tracking device on Jango's ship so that he can follow it. In Return of the Jedi, when Leia goes missing Luke does not even try to use the Force to locate or communicate with her, instead insisting that they will need Artoo's scanners. Palpatine clearly does not believe that his powers will allow him to maintain control of the galaxy, which is why he gathers a massive Standard Sci-Fi Fleet and orders the creation of the Death Stars.
  • Also in Return of the Jedi, when you pause to consider it, the climatic battle between Force-users on the Death Star served little purpose beyond redeeming Vader. It was the Rebel Alliance that actually brought down the shield, flew ships inside the Death Star and blew it up — an outcome that would have happened regardless of whether or not Luke had been successfully seduced to the Dark Side.
  • This tends to be the result of Force Users constantly forgetting to use their powers against Non-Force Users and failing to use them very effectively when they do use them.
• Multiple-Choice Chosen: In the original trilogy, there are only two Force-sensitive individuals among the younger generation: Luke Skywalker and his sister Leia. But Obi-Wan chooses to send Luke to Yoda for training, and does not seem to consider the other. Yoda is mindful of the other option though, just in case Luke falls to the Dark Side or dies.
• Multiple-Choice Future: The Force can give its users precognition in the very short term, but the future gets foggy if one tries to see farther than that. As Yoda explains in The Empire Strikes Back:
  Yoda: It is the future you see.
  Luke: The future? [beat] Will they die?
  Yoda: [closes his eyes for a moment] Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.
• Multiple Demographic Appeal: The franchise has many elements to appeal to people of all ages, including action scenes, comic relief characters and some of the romantic storylines, plus some of the actor casting choices.
• Multiple Government Polity: The Old Republic appears to be a parliamentary republic and the Galactic Empire is a dictatorship, but member states take multiple forms: Alderaan appears to be a hereditary monarchy, while Naboo is some form of presidential republic that uses the titles and regalia of a monarchy.
• Multi-Stage Battle: The climactic lightsaber duels in — coincidentally enough — all the odd-numbered movies.
• Myopic Architecture: The Death Star, with the two-meter-wide chute straight to instant death and self-destruction.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: The Essential Guide To Warfare implies that the reason several of the citizens in The Empire, while not liking its policies, remain sided with the Empire was because they feared that the Alliance to Restore the Republic was no different from the Separatists.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Anakin says this after he cuts off Mace Windu's hand, leading to Palpatine blasting him with Force lightning then throwing him out of his broken window.
• Named After First Installment: The first three films in the Star Wars trilogy were titled Star Wars (now at A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. It wasn't until the prequel trilogy began with The Phantom Menace that the first film was retitled Star Wars: A New Hope, with the moniker "Star Wars" elevated to a blanket term for the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy, plus spin-off productions such as Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian.

N-O

• National Weapon: The Jedi Order uses lightsabers. The various incarnations of the Sith Order also use lightsabers, universally colored red.
• Nemesis Weapon: Both the heroic Jedi and the evil Sith wield the iconic lightsaber. A lightsaber can only be constructed precisely enough to function with the aid of The Force, and in the hands of a Force-user it's the ultimate personal weapon. The core element is the focusing crystal; Jedi usually use natural crystals of various kinds, producing a variety of different colors and blade forms. The red blades of the Sith are the result of them using the Dark Side to force a stolen Jedi crystal to submit to them; a process they call 'bleeding'.
• Never Recycle Your Schemes: Averted. In three of the films, the central plot is to destroy whatever huge planet-destroying weapon the Empire (or their successors, the First Order) has cooked up. The Empire is really bent on destroying big things.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: At the end of Return of the Jedi Palpatine torturing Luke, which drives Vader to intervene and kill Palpatine to save his son's life.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: From the original trilogy, Luke (nice), Han (mean) and Leia (in-between).
• Noble Male, Roguish Male:
  • Han is the Roguish Male and Luke the Noble Male.
  • In the prequel trilogy, Anakin is the Rogue and Obi-Wan is the Noble.
• No Body Left Behind: Obi-Wan, Yoda and Luke fade away when they die, leaving behind empty robes. Notably, Vader's body does not disappear. However, it's implied that while his body was in the funeral pyre, Vader learned from either Obi-Wan, Yoda, or Qui-Gon (the latter who learned the trick years after his own death) how to become one with the Force, so his burning body might have simply faded away during the funeral pyre instead of turning into ashes (though a trailer for The Force Awakens implies that he managed to leave at least his helmet behind, similar to how Obi-Wan's robe didn't fade away with him when he was bisected). This theory is supported when Anakin's Force spirit appears with those of Obi-Wan and Yoda.
• Nominal Villain: While the Galactic Empire is indisputably an evil organization, some of its members have various sympathetic reasons and do not act villainous in any way despite being brought into conflict with the Rebel Alliance. For some, their allegiance carried over from the Clone Wars, but for others, there's little information on their motivations.
  • A New Hope: ISB Chief Wullf Yularen firmly believes the Empire are the good guys in the Galactic Civil War and acts the part in stark contrast to everyone around him, being nothing short of unfailingly courteous to everyone he meets and treating all of his men with respect.
  • The Empire Strikes Back:
    • General Maximillian Veers serves the Imperial military and is ambitious, but he is a devoted family man and even tries to defend his fellow Imperial leadership when he senses what Vader has in store for them.
    • Captain Lorth Needa is merely doing his duty as an admiral under orders to capture the Millennium Falcon when it outmaneuvers his Star Destroyer. On a demand from Vader to give an update, he voluntarily delivers the news himself to spare the crew a worse fate.
  • Rogue One: Galen Erso is coerced to work on Imperial Project STARDUST, and does so, though he installs a weakness in the project as a way of fighting back from the inside.
  • Star Wars Rebels: Grand Admiral Thrawn willingly serves the Empire because he believes the Empire are the best hope of the Chiss Ascendancy of surviving the oncoming threat of the Gryssks. While serving as a member of the Empire, he is ruthless, but he shows respect to Phoenix Squadron and treats his subordinates well, even when they fail him.
  • Grand Admiral Rae Sloane is portrayed differently between adaptations, but is generally shown to be one of the few good Imperial commanders, typically seeing the Empire as a means to the greater good in the galaxy.
  • Lost Stars: Ciena Ree started out having a rose-colored view of the Empire when she joined as a pilot. However, as she witnessed the atrocities committed, her view changed until she began to view working for the Empire as a Fate Worse than Death.
• No OSHA Compliance: We've lost count of how many catwalks and platforms lack safety rails of any kind. Combined with the fact that Bottomless Pits are the most popular feature of galactic architectural design this probably makes vertigo or poor balance life-threatening medical conditions in the galaxy.
• Not So Omniscient After All: Despite a lot of boasting about their precognitive abilities, Jedi and Sith alike are quite prone to be as surprised as anyone else by events. The Jedi never saw the Clone Wars coming, much less their own fate under Order 66. Palpatine failed to foresee his own demise or the destruction of either Death Star. In Last Jedi, Snoke claims to "see [Kylo Ren's] mind" and can see him turning the lightsaber and using it to kill his greatest enemy without noticing that he's using the Force to turn a different lightsaber than the one in his hand and that the "greatest enemy" he kills with it is Snoke himself.
• Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The Galactic Senate, both past and present. In the prequels they are paralyzed by infighting and the only thing they manage to accomplish is to voluntarily elect the Supreme Chancellor (secretly a Sith Lord and leader of the Separatists) as dictator. In The Force Awakens they are no better, actively shouting down anybody who tries to warn them about the threat of the First Order — until most of them are killed when their current capital gets obliterated by Starkiller Base.
• No Transhumanism Allowed: In fact, it's kind of considered to be evil or at the very least repugnant.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Palpatine lectures Anakin about the similarities between the Jedi and the Sith.
• Obliviously Superpowered: Force Sensitives are often detected and conscripted by the Jedi in infancy, but it's not unheard of for Sensitives to occasionally slip through the cracks, especially in regions beyond Republic control or in eras where the Jedi are rare. As such, such Sensitives may unconsciously tap into the Force and never realize it - as was the case with young Anakin Skywalker, who didn't realize that his reflexes as a podracer were due to his connection to the Force until he met Qui-Gon Jinn.
• Off with His Head!: Several characters are decapitated in battle, notably Jango Fett, Dooku and the apparition of himself as Darth Vader that Luke fights in the cave on Dagobah.

• Ominous Latin Chanting: The lyrics to "Duel of the Fates" are actually in Sanskrit, but it fits this trope in spirit.
• Omniglot: Many characters seem to understand a bewildering array of languages, although due to physiological differences they may not actually be able to speak all of them.
• Once an Episode:
  • Every film features a gigantic space battle and at least one lightsaber duel, which is usually around a pit of some sort.
  • True beyond the films and into virtually every Expanded Universe work out there, someone will always say "I've got a bad feeling about this...", to the point one may get sick of the phrase if they try to marathon Star Wars: The Clone Wars (where it comes up in several episodes).
• Once Upon a Time: The opening card is this, just in its own words.
• One-Man Army: Subverted in The Last Jedi when Luke comes to the aid of the remaining Resistance forces during their final stand against the First Order; though it starts out with Luke facing down all of the First Order's forces, it transitions into a one-on-one duel between Luke and Kylo Ren.
• One-Product Planet: As with any good space opera, Star Wars provides plenty of examples of this: Coruscant is a Capital, Bespin and Kessel are Mines, Endor houses a Superweapon, the First Death Star itself was a Superweapon, Genosis is a Factory world, Tatooine is a minor Underworld, and Yavin and Hoth were Strategic locations. Naboo was Blockaded for a while.
• One Riot, One Ranger: How the Jedi knights tend to be deployed, often acting as singles or pairs (usually a Master and his Padawan apprentice), at least in the Prequels. This is Justified in a number of ways.
  • They act as Ambadassadors for situations where force is not yet required, and that the local authorities are more often than not willing to provide their own manpower to support them. Starting from the end of Attack of the Clones, the Jedi will often scout out the situation before calling in The Cavalry.
  • Jedi, depending on how skilled they are, can go One-Man Army on normal soldiers and brigands. Obviously context and situation play a very important role here as the one time the Jedi deployed as a large unsupported force, they got slaughtered before Yoda showed up with the Clone Troopers.
• Opening Scroll: Trope Codifier. All nine numbered films begin with a yellow, upwards-scrolling text wall that explains the situation the galaxy is in during the events of the film. They're all accompanied by the same bombastic theme that has become synonymous with the franchise.
• Opposed Mentors: Anakin Skywalker has to choose between following the wise monk Obi-Wan Kenobi and the powerful Sith Lord Palpatine. Eventually, he chooses power over peace and turns to the Dark Side with Palpatine as his master.
• The Order: The Jedi Order, naturally. The Sith may count as an evil Order depending on how cooperative they're feeling at the moment; sometimes they're gathering in huge armies, sometimes there's only one or two of them working together. In the Disney films, there's the First Order, which is basically a retitled version of The Empire (with a "Supreme Leader" instead of an Emperor).
• Orwellian Retcon: One of the most famous examples — beginning with the 1997 Special Edition versions, the creator has made ever-more-extensive changes to each subsequent release of the films — even the Prequel Trilogy received notable changes when released on video. The only time that the unaltered Original Trilogy was ever released on DVD, it was neither restored nor remastered in any way, and thus of extremely poor video and audio quality — every restored version has been altered.
• Our Doors Are Different: Indeed, they seem to vary in size, shape, and mechanism even within a given movie.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The Force spirits. Only the most wise and powerful of the Jedi are capable of manifesting as Force spirits. They can talk to the living and also affect the mortal world if they so choose.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions:
  • Belief in the Force has this status by the start of A New Hope with average joes like Han Solo seeing it as a "hokey ancient religion" while within the Empire, Vader's "sad devotion to that ancient religion" is mocked (at least until Vader finds the lack of faith disturbing).
  • Interestingly, the Jedi and the Sith themselves approach the Force scientifically, measuring force levels by midichlorian counts in the bloodstream at the time of the prequels, while in the originals, Luke largely rolls his eyes at the Ewoks' more simple animist faith, using his powers to humor them about C-3P0 being a god, and the Jedi feel similarly about the Gungans and their traditions. In other words, Force-users feel that their belief is real and tangible enough for them to feel indifferent or dismissive of other religious beliefs, but anyone making fun of the Force as "hokey" exists to be put in their place.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: AT-ATs have thick armor impervious to the blasters on rebel fighters. However, due to their being very top-heavy, a simple harpoon and tow cable can bring them down with ease.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Pretty much anybody when compared to a trained force user regardless of whether they’re Jedi, Sith, or unaffiliated. Command of the force on even a basic level gives force sensitives such an advantage over other people it's basically unfair. Even people with only basic skills using the force gain Combat Clairvoyance, Super-Reflexes, Improbable Aiming Skills, surface level Mind Reading, and minor Mind over Matter powers. When compared to a battle hardend and skilled warrior like a Jedi or Sith with a strong connection to the force, even elite Badass Normal fighters get taken down like a Mook.

P-Q

• Palette-Swapped Alien Food: A feature of the universe is blue milk, which makes notable appearances in A New Hope and Rogue One. In Last Jedi Luke is shown milking an alien creature, and the milk it produces is noticeably greenish.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: Darth Vader/Anakin and Darth Tyranus/Count Dooku.
• Passion Is Evil: The Dark Side of The Force embodies passion—specifically rage, lust, and similarly selfish desires. But, this trope is subverted according to Lucas. Contrary to how some writers portray it, the Light Side does NOT embody stoicism and cold logic. Jedi can feel positive emotions like love, duty, honor, and joy, but must be careful not to let them overcome them and twist them into the darker emotions that lead to the Dark Side. This only makes sense, as an order of protectors so superior as to somehow never go through the same feelings, motivations, temptations, etc. as the people they're meant to protect would make them too detached and unrelatable to be very uplifting as heroes either in-universe or out.
• Patricide:
  • Luke's original mission in the first trilogy, was to train with Obi-Wan and Yoda, so that he could eventually fight and kill Darth Vader and then the Emperor. It's strongly implied that Obi-Wan and Yoda had planned to get Luke to unwittingly kill his father, by deliberately distorting Anakin's past. Once Luke finds out the truth, he's appalled at what his masters set him up to do, and even more so when they insist he do it even after learning the truth. During the throne room confrontation both Vader and Palpatine push his buttons to do it, but he rejects it at the end, and in the process Vader betrays Palpatine and achieves redemption.
  • Kylo Ren in the sequel trilogy sets out to undo the legacy of his parents and uncle, and fulfill Vader's destiny. He does so by crossing lines that they they never would, most notably when he kills his father Han Solo at the end of The Force Awakens. This seems to have been a difficult thing for him to do and it causes continuous mental breakdown and at the end of The Last Jedi, Luke affirms that Han will always haunt Kylo for the rest of his life.
• People Jars: The B'Omar monks specialize in cutting out their most enlightened members' brains and putting them in these so that they escape the "distractions of the flesh." But hey, a brain has to get out once in a while, so they also create giant mechanical spider droids that they can use to walk around occasionally.
• Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements: Lightsabers can be effectively wielded only by Force-users, with very few exceptions. This is explained by the weapon's very counter-intuitive balance and preternatural quickness needed to wield it. Only one such exception is in the film canon, General Grievous, and he's a cyborg, with his mechanical precision of movements preventing him from julienning himself with the energy blades. The other film canon non-Force user who tries to handle a lightsaber, Han Solo, is wise enough to only use it as a tool (cutting open a dead tauntaun). Although true for the original six movies, this rule seems to have gone out the window in The Force Awakens, since Finn and Rey (neither of whom are Jedi and only one of whom is Force-sensitive) both use a lightsaber with no training. The canon explanation is that lightsabers are really only useful as a weapon for Force-wielders who can use their precognitive powers to block blaster bolts. For anyone else, while it's still a powerful weapon, you're still bringing a sword to a blaster fight and will just end up getting shot. The reason everyone doesn't have one anyway as a "universal lock pick", since they cut through just about anything, is because it requires the Force to properly align the semi-sentient Force-attuned kyber crystal that focuses the power into a blade. Attempting to align the crystal without the Force to guide the process typically results in a rather large explosion.
• Phlebotinum-Proof Robot: Zig-Zagged. On one hand, Jedi mind tricks don't work on droids because they aren't "living things" that have a connection to the Force. On the other hand, physical Force powers such as levitation and telekinesis can still affect them, as demonstrated when Luke Skywalker levitates C-3PO in front of the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. In addition, in The Last Jedi, it's never explained how C-3PO could see Luke Skywalker on Crait, because that "Luke" was only a mental image projected through the Force.
• Photoprotoneutron Torpedo: Proton torpedos as well as the ion cannon from Empire Strikes Back.
• Physical Religion: The Force. It's not exactly a deity, but it is treated as a semi-divine, mystical presence revered by an order of warrior monks. Anyone dismissing it as superstition had better hope they never meet Darth Vader.
• A Planet Named Zok: There are surprisingly little of these throughout the franchise, but there are a few. Most notably Kashyyyk.
• Planet Baron:
  • In The Phantom Menace, the rulers of the planet of Naboo are elected monarchy that change office every few years.
  • A New Hope has the Organa family, the rulers of the planet Alderaan.
• Planet Spaceship: The infamous Death Star is a moon-sized superweapon which is the original source of the That's No Moon trope. The Starkiller is an actual planet housing an even more powerful superweapon.
• Planet Ville: With some exceptions, like Naboo, the vast majority of planets tend to each have a very specific cultural and environmental gimmick dominating them.
• Points of Light Setting: The Galaxy tends to function like this, with civilized planets often being distant and isolated from each other, with long stretches of wild space and savage worlds between them. This is more pronounced in the Outer Rim compared to the Core Worlds, as the Core Worlds are physically closer together and the Galaxy's governments tend to be based there and thus have better control and enforcement there than they do further away. On a smaller scale, sparsely-populated planets like Tatooine also work this way, with a few spots of civilization here and there and harsh wild environments, often home to barbarians, outlaws and dangerous alien predators, everywhere else. Most people in the Galaxy spend their entire lives on one planet or even one town, as they deem it too dangerous or otherwise not worth the effort to travel.
• The Power of Love: Love, be it romantic, familial or platonic is often the good guys' greatest weapon. In one of the most notable examples, Darth Vader's love for his son Luke, and Luke's love and faith in him, helps him have a Heel–Face Turn to save him and defeat the Emperor.
• Practical Effects: Though the prequel trilogy would be somewhat infamous for its reliance on green-screen (even the vehicles being rendered after the fact) and some of the recent live-action shows have gotten flack for flatness of their digitally rendered backgrounds, the original trilogy was famous for its Off-the-Shelf FX and innovative techniques. More recent productions have also added some practical innovations, too.
  • Using models for space ships was common, but Lucas innovated by keeping the model in place and moving the camera, resulting in smoother and more natural "flight".
  • The original lightsabers were wooden rods covered in highly reflective movie screen material, with a motor in the handle making it spin so the reflection would appear uniform. Under bright movie set lighting, their reflection overwhelms the camera and provides the lightsaber its impressive glow. Unfortunately, you you hold it at the wrong angle or out of the appropriate lighting, it just looks like a spinning wooden rod covered in cloth. However, the actual sword also has a realistic heft for the actors, though Lucas told them to act like it was even heavier, like a broadsword. The only effect added after the fact was using rotoscoping to add color to the blades.
    • The prequel trilogy switched to plastic rods with all the lighting added afterward by animators. The benefit here is that the lighter, more durable rods were better suited to the fast-paced choreography of the prequels and you never had the problem of trying to keep the blade in its light.
    • The sequel trilogy took this a step further by having lighted plastic rods, meaning the lightsabers finally cast their own light and shadows, which is especially noticeable in dark scenes, like the fight between first Kylo and Finn, then between Kylo and Rey. The light from the swords moves entirely naturally, so the creators didn't have to worry about hours of animation to get every frame right so as not to distract the audience. The swords have more heft than in the prequel trilogy, too, making the actors' movements more natural as well, easing the burden of asking the actors and audience alike to pretend something is heavier than it is. This also makes the sequel's swordfights feel more brutal, as the actors are finally able to slam at each other with blades that are durable enough to take the choreography and have the weight to give the impacts meaning.
  • Unlike the prequel trilogy, the original created all its aliens as costumes and puppets, producing some of the most memorable aliens produced to that point, including the very inhuman Ithorian in A New Hope and Yoda in the following films. There were some Rubber-Forehead Aliens, but Lucas was able to stretch costuming to the limit, even on a budget.
• Precision F-Strike: Star Wars has mostly clean language, which is why its few moments of swearing are so special.
  • A New Hope has the following conversation between Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi:
    Han: Even if I could take off, I'd never get past the tractor beam.
    Obi-Wan: Leave that to me.
    Han: Damn fool, I knew you'd say that.
  • Obi-Wan himself gets his only profanity in the entire series in the same film when he uses the term "damn fool idealistic crusade" to describe what Uncle Owen thinks of his mission as he introduces Luke to the Jedi religion.
  • Also, Han to Leia: "What the hell are you doing?!"
  • The Empire Strikes Back also has the following between Han and a rebel technician.
    Rebel technician: Sir, your tauntaun will freeze before you reach the first marker.
    Han: Then I'll see you in hell!
  • Finn utters the strongest language in a Star Wars film to date in The Last Jedi, when he calls someone who betrayed them a "murdering bastard".
  • Andor has one character say "shit" for the first time on-screen in the franchise.
• Precursors: Most prominently the Celestials who built Centerpoint (as well as the entire Corellian system) and the Maw, and the Rakata who created the first true galaxy-spanning civilization with Infinite Empire and are responsible for modern galactic civilization having the hyperdrive. Many other lesser examples such as the Killiks, who we now know were one of the slave races that the Celestials used to make Centerpoint Qolaraloq and the Maw.
• Prequel: The Prequel Trilogy, which is a prequel to the Original Trilogy, is one of the most famous examples of this trope in film. Rogue One and Solo are also prequels, specifically to A New Hope.
• Prequel in the Lost Age: The prequels are set before and during the Clone Wars and the downfall of the Old Republic, and feature the Jedi Order as it was before the Purge.
• Product Displacement: After Disney acquired digital distribution rights to Episodes V, VI, and the prequels in 2015, the 20th Century Fox Vanity Plate disappeared from the opening, and what little remained of their fanfare was replaced by an excerpt of Empire Strikes Back end credits music. A New Hope retained the Fox logo on its digital copies, since Fox owned perpetual distribution rights to that. After Disney's acquisition of Fox in 2019, the Fox logos and fanfare were reinstated onto the digital copies for the remaining five films.
• Psychic Powers: The way that the Force is generally depicted, especially in the films.
• Psychic Radar: The Jedi and the Sith both get to use their mental powers to look for people; usually each other. The most famous example is Darth Vader sensing the presence of Obi-Wan on the Death Star. Actual range varies depending on the medium. In the films this actually plays far less of a role than in the Expanded Universe, and only seems to work at very close range, if at all.
• Psychic Strangle: A reasonably common use of telekinetic Force powers, primarily by darksiders (especially Vader).
• Putting on the Reich: The Empire, including Fantastic Racism, jackbooted stormtroopers and planetary-level genocide.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The Clone Wars result in a military victory for the Republic... but in the process, Darth Sidious seizes total control of the government and reforms it into his own personal Empire, subjecting the galaxy to 24 years of tyranny.
• Quality over Quantity: The good guys tend to subscribe to this philosophy: a highly trained and well-equipped clone army in the prequels, and better-armed and -defended fighters in the original trilogy and EU.

R

• Radar Is Useless:
  • Exaggerated in Attack of the Clones. Not only is Mace Windu able to infiltrate Geonosis with approximately a hundred Jedi and take the Separatist leaders completely off-guard despite them having a whole droid army stationed there (which would presumably merit some defences), but Yoda is able to follow shortly after with an entire invasion force of clone troopers, complete with air support, armor, and artillery.
  • Zigzagged in the opening of A New Hope. The Imperial Star Destroyer crew are able to detect C-3PO and R2-D2's escape pod as they escape from the Tantive IV down towards the surface of Tatooine, but then opt to let it go because "no lifeforms aboard" were detected. Apparently, the Star Destroyer's sensors cannot detect droids, in a setting where they are commonplace (even aboard Imperial vessels).
  • In The Empire Strikes Back, the Millennium Falcon does not detect Boba Fett's Slave One pursuing it to Bespin, despite said ship being in visual range. This is even more questionable considering the Falcon is traveling at sublight speed so the trip may have taken anywhere from days to months.
• Randomly Gifted: Force sensitivity can run in families but is essentially random.
• Rated M for Manly:
  • One of the most famous examples in fiction is Darth Vader in the original trilogy and especially in Rogue One, with his deep voice, hulking build, sleek armor, and overwhelming strength and intelligence. Vader's ideal of manliness is a factor behind his success as a villain and as a franchise icon, and he inspired a slew of expies that tend to follow this trope as well, some of which can be found on this very page.
  • And from the prequels, we have Mace Windu, who's played by Samuel L. Jackson and uses a power-focused lightsaber style with a purple lightsaber because Sam Jackson wanted it that way.
• Ray Gun: Blasters and the turbo lasers.
• Raygun Gothic: Certain aesthetic elements of the ships and various other technologies of the Prequel Trilogy fit this.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: Throughout the franchise, Chewbacca and R2-D2 are usually only comprehensible to their counterparts, Han Solo and C-3PO.
• Recurring Element: The Prequel Trilogy has several intentional call backs to the Original Trilogy in terms of character dynamics and events.
  • The first movie has Old Master Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan's convictions about the Force lead to recruiting an untested Skywalker and training him to be a Jedi, only to die before the training is complete. They later master an ability to retain consciousness after death.
  • The pure-hearted hero Obi-Wan/Luke watches the old master get struck down in a lightsaber duel in the first movie. Spends most of the second movie on a solo mission, and ends up confronting a Sith, Dooku/Vader that pleads with him to join the Dark Side, the temptation stronger as in another life they could've been a mentor to them anyway, and duels and defeats Darth Vader in the third movie, but can't bring himself to deliver the killing blow.
  • The pure hearted hero Obi-Wan/Luke and the Old Master Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan rescue queen/princess Padmé/Leia in the first film, and she ends up falling in love with The Lancer Anakin/Han in the second movie.
  • Other general parallels, Jar Jar to Chewie as an odd alien from a Proud Warrior Race that owes another character a life debt. 3PO and R2 to themselves. The closing ceremonies in Episodes I and IV, etc. etc.
• Red and Black Totalitarianism: The antagonists for all three trilogies are designated as red and black:
  • In the Original Trilogy, the Galactic Empire.
  • In the Prequel Trilogy, the Sith Empire.
  • In the Sequel Trilogy, the First Order.
• Red Is Violent: The Sith advocate giving in to emotions such as rage and hatred, and wield red lightsabers.
• Red Right Hand: The yellow eyes of the Sith, and Palpatine's epithelial deformity.
• Restrained Resistance, Reckless Rebellion:
  • Ancillary material in both the old Legends continuity and the current Disney canon show that the Rebel Alliance is an example of the Restrained Resistance, an alliance of various groups that recognised there was no way for them to oppose the Empire on their own and that direct confrontation wouldn't be possible due to the vast difference in resources. Other, more reckless groups sometimes feature (e.g. in the Tarkin novel), but they're normally destroyed once the Empire brings its full might to bear against them ^note  This is why in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back the Rebels scatter following the Empire's attack on their base on Hoth: the only way they can survive (and have survived) is to scatter and avoid gathering their forces in one place until it's time for an attack . The Rebellion is actually viewed as the Reckless in-universe by the larger galaxy, especially the Internal Reformist senators who oppose the Empire via the Senate and think that armed resistance is futile. It doesn't end well for the senators.
  • This is a point of contention in Rogue One with three different factions arguing and the Rebel leadership having to try and balance all three parts. The film shows that none of the three factions are entirely wrong, nor entirely right.
    • Saw Gerrera and his supporters are extremely aggressive and violent in their resistance, and that turned off a lot of even relatively active resistors because he was seen as reckless, heedless of casualties (his own, the enemy's, or noncombatants), and thus little better than the Empire itself. There was a justified fear that if the Alliance went all in on his methods, it would have fallen apart.
    • Then the moderates themselves are seen as too risk-averse, such as declining to authorise a raid on Scarif since it involves risking all their resources being destroyed, or bringing the wrath of the Empire down on their worlds.
    • The final faction is the loosely engaged malcontents, who are happy to talk about how bad the Empire are without actually doing anything about it, if they even care at all. Main character Jyn Erso fell under this category until the events of the film convinced her to take an active stand.
  • The Last Jedi: Admiral Holdo orders her Resistance fleet to remain calm and stay at their stations, seemingly not doing anything about the First Order ships chasing them and their dwindling fuel reserves meaning it's only a matter of time before they're destroyed. Not down with this, Poe hatches a daring secret plan that will let them escape the First Order's hyperspace tracking, and as that is taking too long, finally mutinies against Holdo to attempt something to save what's left of the Resistance. It's then revealed that Holdo did have a plan (prepared in advance by General Leia) and Poe's attempt actually results in several shuttles filled with Resistance members being shot down with all hands. In an example of Poor Communication Kills, once he's actually told the plan he agrees with it: the problem was that, even when outright asked if there was a plan, Holdo refused to say anything, leading him (and a good chunk of the crew) to believe she had no idea what she was doing.
• Restricted Expanded Universe:
  • Writers of the old Expanded Universe, besides following the regular continuity, had to abide by a certain set of rules established by Lucasfilm. Among those revealed to the fans are, firstly, that the protagonists (Luke, Han, and Leia) cannot be killed. Secondly, members of certain alien species cannot become Jedi. Even though several Wookiee Jedi characters already exist, no new ones should be introduced. The Star Wars: The Clone Wars series does so but makes mention of Wookiee Jedi rarity. Thirdly, Yoda's species and homeworld cannot be revealed. And fourthly, before the prequels, writers were told by Lucas to avoid writing in that era. This was solved by creating the Old Republic stories set long before the prequels.
  • Vector Prime, the first novel of the New Jedi Order series, is notable for having killed Chewbacca for real. According to the author, the higher-ups wanted to kill off a major Canon character in order to set up an Anyone Can Die atmosphere. The call eventually comes down that Chewie is to be the Sacrificial Lamb based on his sidekick status and lack of dialogue. The original plan was to kill off Luke, which Lucasfilm understandably objected to.
  • Star Wars Infinities: The graphic novels are, from the beginning, set in an alternate universe of the original movie trilogy. As such, the authors are free of killing Luke in the The Empire Strikes Back equivalent and have him come back as a ghost in Star Wars: Legacy (one In-Universe century after)
  • Star Wars (Marvel 1977): The series isn't allowed to have the heroes meet Darth Vader in case it upstaged anything from later movies.
  • With Disney's takeover of Lucasfilm, all new Expanded Universe stories are overseen by a committee to ensure full continuity with the established canon is maintained. However, there are still oversights mostly caused due to the films being made with little to no input from the Expanded Universe's creatives (most notably, all the worldbuilding tie-in material for the sequel trilogy was ignored in the films due to being written by people outside their production).
• Retcon:
  • The majority of the expanded universe got hand-waved into Legends and no longer canon after Disney purchased the franchise and introduced the sequel trilogy. However, even before the Disney purchase retcons weren't uncommon in vast, old expanded universe, with new works often conflicting with and taking precedence over the older, established canon. Lucas was infamous for changing his mind about canon he wrote himself and for not caring about canon established in works outside the main canon he wrote himself. This led to "tiers" of canon, descending from things Lucas wrote himself to more and more distant works, and even saw authors competing and disagreeing over established facts.
  • Before the prequel trilogy, or even Return of the Jedi, most of what we knew about characters' histories or life before the Empire came from books and the movie novelizations approved by George Lucas.
    • Luke and Leia were originally four years old when their mother died and their father turned to the dark side and Anakin wasn't even aware that his wife was ever pregnant.
    • Lightsabers originally enjoyed widespread use by the public, not just the Jedi Order.
    • Darth Vader originally was said to have lost his hand, and nearly his life, during a brutal punishment by the emperor for the Death Star's destruction.
    • Jabba the Hut was originally described as a shaggy, bipedal creature.
    • That members of the Jedi Order were prohibited from having long-term relationships, and especially from marrying, was not explicitly stated until Attack of the Clones, and many people, including Expanded Universe authors, had assumed that Jedi could marry and that there were entire Jedi families.
    • Virtually every single line of Obi-Wan's first conversation with Luke in A New Hope would later be directly contradicted by the events depicted in the prequels. This caused a lot of turmoil among fans because it made Obi-Wan look like he manipulated Luke.
  • Order 66, the Clone Trooper protocol that initiated widespread Jedi assassinations in Revenge of the Sith, was initially portrayed as a Manchurian Agent type of programming, with Clones being only one step above actual machines and acted without question. Once turned against them, numerous Jedi don't hesitate to defend themselves with Obi-Wan and Yoda showing little regard for the soldiers they were just fighting with the other day. Star Wars: The Clone Wars reimagines the nature of Order 66 in a story arc as chip implants in the brain that overtakes their own consciousness, making them not in control of themselves. This was done as individual clones were heavily fleshed out in the show and Jedi relationships with the Clones were similarly more personalized.
  • Han's infamous "less than twelve parsecs" was eventually fixed by making the Kessel Run an incredibly dangerous trip through a region of space around a black hole. The typical trip was 20 parsecs, but Han and his ship were capable of cutting that short by getting closer to the black hole.
  • Han Shot First.
• Rival Dojos: While technically not Eastern martial-arts academies, the pacifist Jedi and the thuglike Sith do function this way.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Anakin slaughters the whole Tusken tribe that tortured his mother to death in Attack of the Clones.
• Robotic Torture Device: The interrogator droid in A New Hope, and the device used on Han in Empire.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Ostensibly in the Prequel Trilogy with live-action actors sharing scenes with countless CGI characters. Downplayed with the re-released editions of the Classic Trilogy.
• Royal Mess: Naboo has an elected queen.
• Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Twi'lek, Cereans, Chevs, Zabrak, Khommites, etc.
• Running Gag: There are quite a few running jokes throughout the franchise.
  • One of the characters saying "I have a bad feeling about this." This pops up in almost all of the films except for Rogue One (where the line is deliberately cut off for a gag). The line technically shows up in The Last Jedi, but its spoken by BB-8. The gag is notably subverted in Solo with the line "I have a really good feeling about this!" It also pops up a lot in Legends and Expanded Universe material. The line is famous enough to have its own Wookieepedia article!
  • The famous Wilhelm Scream, which shows up in all of the films sans Rogue One, The Last Jedi and Solo.
  • C-3PO constantly pissing off other characters by showing off his intelligence in situations where it doesn't actually help, leading to him being cut off mid-sentence at least once in every movie in the Original Trilogy. In A New Hope, he gushes about his language and programming skills to Uncle Owen until he finally buys him just to shut him up. In The Empire Strikes Back, he's always calculating the characters' probability of surviving dangerous situations, culminating in Leia loudly shutting him up while the Millennium Falcon engages the Avenger. And in Return of the Jedi, EV-9D9 cuts him off in Jabba's palace before he can even finish saying his signature line "I am fluent in over six million forms of communication!"
• Running Gagged: The famous and recurring "Wilhelm Scream" has been officially retired from use in the Star Wars film series, starting with Rogue One, The Last Jedi and Solo, since it's now considered an overused and cliche sound effect to use, and it has been replaced with a new (as yet unidentified) recurring stock scream.

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