This book is a more in depth look at why I dislike it.
However in my opinion Star Was is a very dull and tired universe. George Lucas basically ripped from Joseph Campbell's the Heroes Journey mythos for his entire narrative structure. On top of that IMO it is a very egocentric universe where an elite few control the power of many, the Jedi being the worst offenders. The ship in Star Wars, the Millennium Falcon is like a WW1 fighter plane whose sole purpose is to fight on the good fight. While in a franchise like Star Trek the Enterprise carries the spirit of Humanity with it, and is sent to explore. The Enterprise also uses diplomacy as much as it can, and unlike Star Wars uses force only when all other options have failed. Halo is certainly walking a fine line between combat and the essence of humanity for sure, but Halo also does not bog itself down in one narrative thread. In Halo you have a lot of sub plots such as AI as a unconscious being and soldiers has human beings not hardware. In Star Wars, you have the force, and the empire and that's it. I'm not sure how Star Wars handles it's extended universe so it may make up for it there. I am just basing my thoughts off the films.
Nope, it's commonly referred to as a sci-fantasy or space opera.
If you Google "Star Wars science fiction," you'll get literally thousands of hits for articles, blog posts, message boards, etc. discussing whether it's actually sci-fi. There are even entire books discussing whether it's truly science-fiction.
I mean, sounds in space? Midi-chlorians and the Force? Prophecies? Some concepts are closer to supernatural and religion than science.
You aren't the only one who really dislikes Star Wars. Far from it. From science fiction authors to fans disenchanted by the prequels, there are many people who dislike the franchise.
The Trial against Star Wars
If you're interested, please check out the book Star Wars on Trial. Here, science fiction authors and fantasy authors debate like lawyers as to whether the thing George Lucas created is something to celebrate and revile.
The "attorney" who argued against Star Wars was respected science fiction author and futurist David Brin. This man has never hidden his fervent dislike of Star Wars. Here is a quote from Mr. Brin, taken from this 2012 interview with Wired.
> I make a very big distinction between [J.R.R. Tolkien] and George Lucas, who has been given everything by modernity, who has been treated fantastically by modernity, and who has spent the last 20 years relentlessly pissing in modernity’s face, preaching Romantic claptrap about how demigods and mystic warriors are better than democracy. He never once shows the Republic ever functioning at all, at any level, in any way. And for those who think that this wasn’t deliberate, he told The New York Times in an interview that he despised democracy and he considers the best form of government to be a benign dictatorship … and strongly hinted that someone like him would probably make the cut.
> I consider Yoda to be just about the most evil character that I’ve ever seen in the history of literature. I have gotten people into tongue-tied snits unable to name for me one scene in which Yoda is ever helpful to anybody, or says anything that’s genuinely wise. “Do or do not, there is no try.” Up yours, you horrible little oven mitt! “Try” is how human beings get better. That’s how people learn, they try some of their muscles, or their Force mechanism heads in the right direction, that part gets reinforced and rewarded with positive feedback, which you never give. And parts of it get repressed by saying, “No, that you will not do!” It is abhorrent, junior high school Zen. It’s cartoon crap.
My Personal Opinion
I find Star Wars to be entertaining, and at the same time I acknowledge that it is a deeply flawed setting. There's a certain similarity between Star Wars and comic books: as long as you don't look too closely at the details, you can enjoy them.
Because boy howdy, if you look closely at Star Wars, you see that's it's an incredibly silly thing.
I think my biggest gripe with Star Wars is how nothing ever changes. Everything in Star Wars is either stagnant or blatantly cyclical.
Take Star Wars tech, for example. Blasters, lightsabers, hyperdrives, droids, and all the tech we associate with Star Wars remains the same for millennia. If you were to take an astromech droid from the time of the Jedi Civil War - which occurred about 4,000 years before the events of A New Hope - and compared it to R2D2, you'd find that the two droids are awfully similar in functionality.
Now take a cellphone from 1993 and compare it to the latest smartphones, and tell me those two devices are the same.
It's not just the tech. Society in Star Wars remains the same, too. There is over 10,000 years of history covered by the Star Wars expanded universe. During most of those 10,000 years, the (Old) Galactic Republic existed in a more-or-less unchanging state. The Jedi Order stuck around in an unchanging state. Humans were always the dominant race in terms of prevalence and political power. The Hutts were always in charge of their interstellar crime syndicate. The Mandalorians were always a culture of warriors. And the Sith were always skulking somewhere in the far reaches of the galaxy, planning evil things just for the sake of being evil.
And almost every single war in this universe boiled down to the same old thing: Force-sensitives disagree on how to use the Force, and their dispute sets the galaxy ablaze. The Great Schism, the Great Hyperspace War, the Old Sith Wars, the Jedi Civil War, the Great Galactic War, the Second Great Galactic War, the New Sith Wars...the set-up for all of these wars was the same.
Followers of the Light Side vs. followers of the Dark Side locked in perpetual conflict. Meanwhile, the non-Force-sensitives throughout the galaxy get caught in the middle, apparently powerless to stop the bickering of these superpowered cultists.
There's a lot to dislike about the Star Wars universe. I've barely scratched the surface. But like I wrote earlier: the setting can be entertaining as long as you ignore the details. Just shut your brain off and enjoy it.