Star Wars Isn’t Sci-Fi

“How ‘Star Wars’ ruined sci-fi”, by Lewis Beale:

Science fiction is in fact one of the most creative literary genres around. The best of sci-fi is filled with meditations on what’s “out there,” what makes us human, how technology is used and how it is changing us. It takes up issues of race, sexuality and quite literally everything else under the sun. It is essentially about ideas

No arguments there.

“Star Wars” has corrupted people’s notion of a literary genre full of ideas, turning it into a Saturday afternoon serial. And that’s more than a shame – it’s an obscenity.

Star Wars didn’t turn science fiction into an afternoon serial any more than Hidden Fortress did, because neither are sci-fi. Sure, Star Wars has spaceships and lasers, but so what? Ichthyosaurs look a lot like dolphins, but it doesn’t mean the two are related.

Noah Berlatsky concludes his piece “Is Star Wars’ ‘The Last Jedi’ science fiction? It’s time to settle this age-old argument” by saying:

Anything associated with Star Wars is going to be thought of as science fiction by just about everybody. […]

“The Last Jedi” demonstrates that a movie about a mystic order of wizards and their sacred texts can be science fiction, if you call it Star Wars. Though it can be fantasy too, if you want it to be.

Erm, definitive.

Wikipedia does better, citing ‘Father of science fiction’ Hugo Gernsback’s final words on the matter in its definition:

Science fiction is a form of popular entertainment which contains elements of known, extrapolation of known or logical theoretical science

However, it’s still a little vague for my taste; I prefer something a little more concrete. Here’s mine: science fiction is a storytelling form in which the speculative scientific element is critically important to the story. That is, the story could not exist without this element, be it a spaceship, alien race, technology, planet, or all of the above. It’s that one foundational brick that would bring the whole structure crashing down if it were removed.

For example, imagine 2001: A Space Odyssey without the obelisk, Alien without the xenomorph, Planet of the Apes sans-intelligent chimps or Back to the Future minus a time-travelling DeLorean.

Sci-fi is great, but Star Wars ain’t it

Does Star Wars pass the litmus test? Well, it certainly contains elements of speculative science, invention and interstellar travel: it is set in space and on alien worlds, it features hoverbikes, spaceships, laser weapons, alien species and robots. What would happen if you removed these elements? What is the key technology that tells the story of that galaxy far, far away?

Lightsabers? Well, they are undoubtedly iconic and, let’s face it, cool – but swapping them for metal swords wouldn’t affect the plot too much. How about the Death Star? As there was no planet killing weapon at all in The Empire Strikes Back – easily the best film in the series – it can hardly be called essential. The concept of the Force itself? The Force makes Star Wars distinctive from other epic sagas, but Luke Skywalker could still battle Darth Vader and the Empire without it. Ultimately all the ‘futuristic’ stuff is window dressing and not the main event.

Then, what is the key element that our beloved, ahem, Space Opera could not do without?

The Skywalker family. Shmi, Padme, Anakin, Luke, Leia, Han and Ben (Solo). At their heart, the films are about characters – not concepts.

It’s common knowledge that George Lucas lifted the story of Akira Kurosawa’s samurai classic The Hidden Fortress for 1977's Star Wars. Consequently, it would be a relatively trivial exercise to rework any of the Star Wars episodes back into samurai/knights of the round table/sword & sandals tales (or even a John Hughes high school drama).

If Luke Skywalker had been a Victorian street urchin or a Wall Street broker instead of an intergalactic farm-boy then the movies would’ve certainly been a lot different, but the story arcs could’ve survived intact.

Samurai versions of Tron, Babylon 5 or Inception might prove more of a challenge.

They’re pastries Jim, but not as we know them

Sci-fi depends on the fantastical elements, whereas Star Wars just thinks they look neat. If the aliens were omitted from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (also released in 1977) that film would just be a bunch of people driving into the desert.

Blade Runner’s gumshoe protagonist could perhaps be transplanted from the dystopian future to 1940’s Los Angeles, but Rick Deckard would always be a replicant at heart, even if he wore Philip Marlowe’s clothes.

Perhaps the best example is Star Trek: if the Starship Enterprise were deleted and Captain Kirk and Mr Spock boldly sought out new viennoiseries and petit fours in the bakeries of Paris, the show couldn’t have survived the transition. In fact, when the show was ‘rebooted’ decades later, it did not require the services of any of the original characters – only the ship was needed.

Whether you love Star Wars or hate it, it shouldn’t be blamed for science fiction’s woes. Luke Skywalker could get along just fine without his lightsaber.