Hot take: Star Wars is not sci fi. It’s space western at best.
The originals were fantasy. I’s not a hot take, it’s fact - Swords, wizards, castles, knights, the heros journey. Some of the other shows and media since departed from that. Mandelorean is a western, solo was a heist movie, and most the shows don’t fit the fantasy tropes that well. None of Star wars, to my knowledge, fits sci fi at all.
The Thrawn book trilogies are probably the closest I’ve found to Star Wars being sci fi. There is a specific focus on real world physics in a way that is very absent from everything else Star Wars especially when they write about space battles. Only things that stay firmly fantasy and require that suspension of disbelief are, of course, the Force and Thrawns preternatural ability to read an enemy’s battle tactics from their species artwork
It’s funny/weird that Dune is much more “more fantasy than sci-fi” than Star Wars, but somehow it’s still considered one of the greatest sci-fi stories of all times.
maybe, just maybe, there actually isn’t that big of a difference between sci fi and fantasy
Well, Dune at least does a half-assed attempt at explaining how this is a projection of a possible human future. Star Wars didn’t.
That being said, I wouldn’t call Dune “crunchy” sci fi at all. It’s a perfect example of why fantasy gets lumped in with sci fi so much (which, honestly, I hate)
Dont know what that is, tbh. I lost interest in the series after Disney kept doing their thing. I can’t speak for any of the new stuff from the last few years.
It very much sci-fi fantasy. It’s the tech level, availability, and the fact that universe used is literally a galaxy where people actually travel to other galaxies (using spaceships with some very fictional abilities). Kamino is in a minor galaxy that is close by and you see Luke and Leia on a ship with a unspecified galaxy out the view port in the background.
Other tech that puts it into sci-fi: controlled plasma blades, neurally connected prosthetics, bacta, droids, weapons with stun and kill, repulsors, reactors for personal ships, energy shields, hyperdrive, industrial cloning.
I’m sure there are other good examples as to why it qualifies as science fiction. If Star Wars isn’t in a sci-fi genre, then Star Trek is a political drama.
