Oh I'd go further because the characters are so distinct from each other.

You stick a pair of thick head phones on a woman and she's Princess Leia even though she only had that hairstyle on in one film and then not for the entire duration of that one film.

In that form she is recognisable even in silhouette, if you went to the added expense of a metal bikini once again almost anyone would get the reference and probably know at least the name.

R2D2 and C3PO are also instantly recognisable.

In fact most of the characters in the first film are embedded culturally.

Each film of the original trilogy added at least one on top of that.

Yoda, Boba Fett, Jabba (who's name has practically become a byword for corpulence).

I think the only one from the PT which has the same degree of instant recognition is Jar-Jar (probably not for the best of reasons).

People who haven't seen a prequel trilogy film would probably recognise him and even know the name.

It's not just the characters, most people would recognise the giant wedge of a stardestroyer as being from Star Wars without knowing what the ship is called.

If you drew a circle with a line through it with an ellipse over to one side in the upper semicircle it's the Death Star.

I imagine by Canterbury Zombie meant to say Chaucer or The Canterbury Tales.

Star Wars is more like Malory in the sense that Lucas distilled lots of other tales and influences into a compendium addition.

The names are his but the archetypes and some of the key visual influences are from all over the place.