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What is the main Star Wars Saga about?

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What is the 9 part Star Wars Saga as a whole about? The tragedy of Darth Sidious the wise? The rise, fall, redemption, and legacy of Anakin Skywalker? The rise and fall of fascism?

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I suppose that in a broad meta sense, it’s a commentary on war, it’s orchestration and cyclical nature.

Peace is a lie
There is only passion…

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It’s about family.

“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” - DV

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Star Trek is about the human condition in an ideal world, Star Wars is about the human condition when things go to s**t.

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StarkillerAG said:

It’s about the universe conspiring to make C-3PO suffer.

From this, our Lord and Savior Creepio was born. S I N G U L A R I T Y

It’s about the rise, fall, redemption, and legacy of Anakin Skywalker. It’s also about Luke’s origins, triumphs, downfall, and redemption through others.

Most importantly, it’s a human attempt to write a Cardassian repetitive epic.

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It’s about 19 hours and 36 minutes, not counting Rogue One or Solo. 😉

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Where were you in '77?

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It’s hard to say now with the Sequel Trilogy (particularly The Rise of Skywalker) as it retroactively changed the intention of it being a story of a family, tragedy, and redemption. It’s unfortunate we never got to see the conclusion with the grandchildren.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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I feel like family, tragedy, and redemption were still a big part of the sequel trilogy. They put a lot of emphasis on the concept of heritage and belonging, Ben’s fall to the dark side is a very tragic event, and his subsequent redemption is self-explanatory. Those themes are still there, and in my opinion they’re what the saga as a whole is about.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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I don’t think it’s accurate to say the series is about tragedy. Overcoming tragedy, sure. The “Tragedy of Darth Vader” was always bogus, the films themselves never supported that framing. I don’t see how the ST changes the saga’s meaning in any way, adds on to it sure but it doesn’t really contradict anything.

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It’s pretty simple I’d think: Star Wars as a series is about storytelling, and the act of passing stories down. It’s rooted in a fun genre pastiche, with the original film(s) as a classic monomyth set in a storied world. The prequels then set out to deconstruct the ideals inherent in those stories from a more sociopolitical angle (The Empire rooted in capitalism, the classical masculine ideals are problematic, etc.) then the sequels tr(ied) to make sense of it all from a postmodernist perpsective: why are these stories important to us? How do you apply their lessons to real and imperfect people?

On every level, from Luke’s quest to fulfill his father’s legacy, to George’s borrowing of references, to even its cultural impact thereafter - Star Wars is about legends and how we interpret them. How the Jedi interpet their code, how Luke chooses to see his father, how Rey or Kylo see history, and their futures.

imo

Andor: The Rogue One Arc

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DominicCobb said:

I don’t think it’s accurate to say the series is about tragedy. Overcoming tragedy, sure. The “Tragedy of Darth Vader” was always bogus, the films themselves never supported that framing. I don’t see how the ST changes the saga’s meaning in any way, adds on to it sure but it doesn’t really contradict anything.

I’ll kindly disagree as I find it very tragic as we see a young man lose his way amongst a Jedi Order that suppresses his emotions and doesn’t try to help him overcome any of it. This leads him to having to hide and repress his feelings. All of which leads to the beginning of losing the ones he loves in his mother from his inability to let her go and ultimately his wife as he’s promised what the Jedi refuse to give him by Palpatine as a way of saving Padme from the same fate as Shimi. Even Qui-Gon, the only one who truly believed in him amomgst the Jedi was a significant loss in his life. All of this occurred under the backdrop of a crumbling Republic. By the time of A New Hope he’s a shadow of his former self as he’s become a slave yet again but this time to the Sith and Empire. We slowly see him trying to find his way again when he discovers he has a son and makes a plea for him to join him. Ultimately he is redeemed through the love of his children but not without tragedy along the way.

The Sequels change it from being about the Skywalker family to both the Skywalker and Palpatine family. Making a Palpatine the main hero of the trilogy really misses the whole overarching point of the Skywalker saga as a whole being the story of a family that happens to live in a galaxy far, far away. We can’t say for certain what George would’ve done apart from a few details that have come out but we can be assured it would’ve continued where we left off in a natural direction.

As he told StarWars.com last year for the 20th anniversary piece about The Phantom Menace, “Early on, it was that Anakin had been more or less created by the midi-chlorians, and that the midi-chlorians had a very powerful relationship to the Whills [from the first draft of Star Wars], and the power of the Whills, and all that. I never really got a chance to explain the Whills part.”

His story would’ve followed Anakin’s grandchildren and more than likely would’ve explored his legacy and the consequences of his actions through the grandson who falls to the Dark Side and the granddaughter who follows the Light Side to go along with exploring the more mystical aspects of their family’s existence.

And while the story of family is still there in the Sequel Trilogy it retroactively changes the original intention of it being about a family.

It’s very unfortunate we didn’t get the whole story.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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So basically, you’re saying that you wanted Rey to be a Skywalker by birth? Because if you are, then I don’t really agree with you. I wish they had just gone down the nobody route.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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StarkillerAG said:

So basically, you’re saying that you wanted Rey to be a Skywalker by birth? Because if you are, then I don’t really agree with you. I wish they had just gone down the nobody route.

It’s what George would’ve done, so yes. It fits the estiablished lore and canon of what we learn from the Mortis Arc. In particular from Father, “It is only here that I can control them. A family in balance. Day with night. Destruction, replaced by creation.”

A random nobody doesn’t fit the natural direction the saga was going on but as its own thing away from George Lucas Star Wars it works just fine. I don’t get the thought from some though that say the Prequels change anything about anyone being Force Sensitive or not. We see a bunch of random Jedi and it resides in all living things. There’s nothing contradicting there.

So really there’s two Star Wars franchises for me now. The one from George which consists of the first six films and The Clone Wars and Disney Star Wars which consists of their produced content. It contradicts what we know sometimes but it still can be enjoyed and even loved mostly. For me personally that consists of The Last Jedi, Rogue One, and Rebels.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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But we don’t really know if George would have wanted that. We know that he wanted the protagonist of the sequel trilogy to be a woman, but we have no record of him wanting her to be Luke’s daughter. I would be wary of making assumptions about that kind of stuff. All you have to go on is your own personal opinions, which can be biased.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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StarkillerAG said:

But we don’t really know if George would have wanted that. We know that he wanted the protagonist of the sequel trilogy to be a woman, but we have no record of him wanting her to be Luke’s daughter. I would be wary of making assumptions about that kind of stuff. All you have to go on is your own personal opinions, which can be biased.

Leia is a Skywalker too. So the granddaughter may not have been Luke’s.

Jett Lucas also implied as much after The Force Awakens when he compared it to the animated Anastasia film.

Even Pablo Hidalgo said the starting point of what George left them was about a girl Jedi.

These too.

https://youtu.be/z_nigIbJ9KM

https://youtu.be/viDu9SLvF_E

So it’s not really assuming but going off of what we’ve been told by George and others.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas