“Like Poetry:”  The Story vs. the Franchise

By Anna Heneise

From its origins as a single film released in 1977, titled simply Star Wars, George Lucas’ world and story has grown into a dozen films, half a dozen TV shows, hundreds of books and comics, and several different video game series. Few science fiction franchises have become as visible and influential outside of science fiction circles as Star Wars. 

Star Wars was never intended to be a franchise. Its popularity was not anticipated, and it was only after it became popular that efforts were made to keep it popular, to keep it going. The story was written backwards not because of some narrative genius on Lucas’ part, but because this was the way he was able to bring each disparate portion of his overarching narrative to an audience. Star Wars is a massive money maker for whichever studio controls it, and this more than any aspect of storytelling has determined the story’s fate. 

When a story becomes as widely known and profitable as Star Wars, it becomes difficult to separate financial decisions from artistic decisions. The story is over. We know how it ends. But the world still exists. And as long as the world exists, there will be more stories to tell; more stories to market. But at the same time, the stories being told must be safe marketing bets. In the whole wide galaxy, there are a few characters and a few stories studios and producers know for sure are safe bets, and so these characters and these stories are what is offered to the audience over and over and over. 

The Jedi are foundational to the success of this franchise; the Jedi but especially Luke Skywalker. And so Jedi stories are told, but especially Jedi stories that parallel Luke Skywalker. Luke was the last living Jedi, and helped to end the Empire, but in the forty years since his story concluded multiple series of books, comics, shows and video games have been made about other Jedi who lived during the Empire, and who have to be killed off or misplaced before the events of the original trilogy so their existence does not undermine Luke’s narrative significance. Luke’s character arc was over, but his character was alive long enough to be drawn and quartered for the shock value. 

It could be said that Star Wars has already ended. It could also be said that Star Wars will never be allowed to end. In some ways the rhythm of its central story has been exploited, its affection for parallels and patterns making it possible to spin an overarching theme into a dozen different stories and characters within a larger world. When approaching something like Star Wars with the intent to analyze its construction, this aspect of profit based decision making cannot be overlooked. There are narrative and artistic reasons for every choice. There are also focus group reasons for every choice. 

Part of what makes Star Wars fun and interesting to analyze is the way popularity has shaped it. There are always two layers to media analysis: creator intent and internal logic. Why did the creator make this choice, and why did the character make this choice? What is the creator trying to say, and is it well communicated through the story? The somewhat transparently money-fueled production of the more recent iterations of the central Star Wars story make the process of gleaning the creator’s intent via the story itself wonderfully tricky, and adds another layer of cultural influence to these layers of analysis. 

Within the narrative, a character makes a choice. The choice the character made was decided by a creative team, who were told by a studio what elements to include based on marketing research. An analysis of why the character made that choice will have to contend with both the established characterization, the creative team’s stated and implied intentions for this story, and the cultural norms and media trends that shape marketing decisions. In The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker makes the choice to reject Rey as a student because of how badly things went with his nephew. The creative team went into writing and directing this film with the intention of undermining previously established Luke characterization and the setup of The Force Awakens because the studio knows that grumpy old men sell, and shock value sells, and even bad publicity is publicity. 

While the contradictions and the layers make it fun to analyze, they do not always make Star Wars an enjoyable story to engage with. Part of the reason the original trilogy, and even the prequel trilogy, are so much more fun than their contemporary counterparts is because Star Wars was not quite a franchise then to the degree it is a franchise now. The inconsistencies used to be the result of bad storytelling, and not a marketing scheme. Perhaps this is nostalgia, but rose tinted glasses or no, in almost fifty years the same story has been told in almost every available medium and the current rights holders at Disney don’t seem to be slowing down. 

There is an element of tragedy in the construction and continuation of this franchise. Or maybe irony. Star Wars is a story about breaking cycles, and yet the Star Wars story will never be able to break out of this cycle.