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Mikel Leiva

ENGW1111

December 4, 2022

Tabitha Clark

The Ever Changing Themes of an Ever Changing Franchise

Ever since its initial release, the name Star Wars has been immediately recognizable.

With its larger than life space adventures, Star Wars’ impact on pop-culture and its

breakthroughs in filmmaking technology cannot go understated. Since the original movie was

released in 1977, there have been an additional 8 installments to the franchise, all split into 3

separate trilogies. In 1983, the first of these trilogies came to an end in Star Wars: The Return of

The Jedi (Jedi). When released, the name Star Wars had already become a household name, and

so expectations for the epic finale were high. However, upon release, its critics were somewhat

disappointed in the result, one going as far as to claim, “neither the writers or the principal

performers are putting in the same effort [as the originals]” (Har). With Mark Hamil, Carrie

Fisher, and Harrison Ford all reprising their roles as Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han

Solo respectively, and George Lucas - the Director for the first two movies - substituted for

Richard Marwuand, it was clear that this film had fallen short of the two that came before it

(IMDb Episode IX). Recently, the conclusion to the third and final trilogy has been released to

fans in the form of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (TROS). Directed by JJ Abrhams and

starring Daisy Ridley as Rey, John Boyega as Finn, and Oscar Issac as Poe Dameron, this film

also promised a great story with higher stakes than ever before (Review). What fans got,

however, was disappointing. Akin to Jedi, this film had also not delivered on fans’ high

expectations, with one review calling it “the worst Star Wars movie ever” (IMDb Episode VI),
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and fans having a more-or-less similar reaction. The dissatisfaction with the two movies is not all

these two films have in common with each other, however. With underlying themes of the role of

gender and family loyalties present in both films, both provide an interesting angle on how the

two themes have changed and evolved over time.

By just taking a single glance over the two films, the difference between gender roles is

already clear. Jedi depicts gender in a very stereotypical way for the time. Women were mainly

depicted as weak or in need of saving and often in much more revealing clothing with men

portrayed as either strong and masculine or weak and pathetic. With the only woman with any

notable screen time being Princess Leia portrayed by Carrie Fisher, the film suffers from a severe

lack of female representation. Other than Carrie Fisher, the next woman on the entire cast list is

Femi Taylor, who, at 23rd on the list, plays a character with less than 3 minutes of total screen

time (IMDb Episode IX). As well as the amount of women depicted in the film, the way these

women are depicted is also important. In the beginning of the film, Femi Taylor’s character

Oona is depicted as an exotic dancer for crime lord Jabba the Hutt. Her costume appears as

revealing as possible and music plays in the background as she dances until Jabba becomes

dissatisfied with her and throws her into the cage of a giant monster like she is nothing but an

object to him. Additionally, when princess Leia gets captured by Jabba’s guards, she is also

given an incredibly revealing costume and then treated almost the same as Oona, seen as an

object by Jabba's side and - not for the first time in this trilogy - as something that requires

constant saving by male characters. In terms of male characters, they are also fairly stereotypical.

Even with a much wider range of different characters to portray, the male characters all relatively

act according to stereotypical gender roles. At the beginning of the film Han Solo, who is frozen

in carbonite, is mocked by Jabba and called his “favorite decoration” (Marquand). As the
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camera pans to his face frozen in pain, everyone in Jabba's entourage laughs, mocking his

apparent lack of masculinity. Throughout Jedi, characters stick to problematic gender roles, with

very little deviation from stereotypical gender depictions.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, portrays gender in a far different

manner. Firstly, there is much more diversity in the way TROS depicts gender, with men not

being caged into their role as strong leaders and women not relegated to objects in need of

saving. With a female main character and multiple other female cast members, TROS already has

leagues more female representation than Jedi. Rey, the main character, is depicted in a

completely opposite way to how women in Jedi were portrayed. She is a strong, independent,

and powerful character, who acts with very little influence from other male characters. In terms

of costuming, her outfits are far less revealing than the costumes of women in Jedi, with robes

that cover her entire body, leaving only her face and arms exposed. Additionally, while Princess

Leia in Jedi was always paired with one or more male characters, Rey spends the majority of this

movie alone, forging her own path and choosing to find/lead the way to Exogal on her own for

the good of the group. Princess Leia, or General Organa as she is known in TROS, has a much

different role. Whereas in Jedi she mainly served as a character who did not have much authority

or power to influence events in the story, in TROS she is the leader of the resistance,

commanding its forces and acting as a spearhead of wisdom and leadership.

Along with the theme of gender roles comes the theme of family, portrayed in Return of

the Jedi through the relationship between Luke Skywalker and his father, Darth Vader. In Jedi,

the Emperor tries to get Luke to come over to the dark side, because despite the fact that he and

Luke come from different worlds, Vader wants to have his son by his side. The Emperor tells

Luke that “It is unavoidable. It is your destiny. You, like your father, are now *mine*”( imdb.com).

Luke refuses to accept this and believes he is stronger than the compulsion of the dark side. He chooses to
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stick to what he knows to be right despite the fact that it may be his downfall. Before Luke’s arrival,

Vader tells the Emperor that he has felt Luke’s arrival along with the Resistance. The Emperor sees this

as a possible clouding of judgement, and that Vader’s head may not be in the right place. This is the point

where Vader starts to let his inner battle shine through on whether he should stay loyal to the dark side or

to his only son. When Vader and Luke finally do come face to face, Luke tries to help Vader and prove to

him that there is still hope for them to be together, but on the side of the Force. Luke says to Vader “I feel

the good in you father. You couldn't bring yourself to kill me before and I don't believe you'll destroy me

now”(Marquand). In Star Wars V, Vader couldn’t bring himself to kill his own son, and like in that

movie, Vader wants Luke to come with him because he knows deep down that he won’t be able to give

him up over his loyalty to the dark side. The Emperor tries to use Vader’s loyalty to the dark side as an

example of the inevitably of Luke’s fate, but that backfires when Vader chooses his son over his craft.

This exemplifies the idea of family over everything and how the power of family is greater than his

ideals. Vader saves Luke from the Emperor and defies his loyalty because he would rather strengthen his

connection with his son than cut it off completely and forever forfeit himself to the dark side. Vader and

Luke illustrate how love for family and forgiveness can overpower a concept of the mind and what we

think we value.

While it can be seen with the previous movie that biological family was chosen over

adopted family, in The Rise of Skywalker Rey does the exact opposite. She thinks that figuring

out who her biological parents are will help her figure out who she is and where she belongs, but

in the end she realizes that Luke and Leia are her true family. In the end of the movie she says

that her name is “Rey Skywalker” (J.J Abrams), this pivotal moment is in contrast to when Vader

chooses Luke because Rey is choosing her art and adoptive family over her roots. While the

Emperor is Vader’s equivalent to Luke, and Leia for Rey, Vader leaves the person that helped

make him who he is, and Rey chooses the people that helped her in her journey. She picks them
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over who she thought was what she needed to belong, when all along she was already where she

needed to be.

While the almost 40 years that separate these movies do nothing to change the loyalty of

the fan base, the Star Wars franchise has continued to create media and progress the values of the

films to match those of society. The stereotypical gender roles that are heavily present in the

first set of films to move along with the modern world, with a heavy use of women

empowerment and vulnerability in their male characters. Family changes in a slightly different

way, exemplifying how family is beyond just what you are born into, it is also the connections

that you make throughout your lifetime. With the franchise staying in possession of Disney, what

comes next will be up to the company. Disney follows very open views and ideas of acceptance

of diversity therefore, Stars Wars will most likely follow suit. Even though this openness to

diversity is a positive direction, Disney needs to make sure they keep the authenticity of the Star

Wars franchise, and doesn’t lose sight of everything it has come to represent.
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Works Cited

1. Har. “Film Review: Return Of The Jedi.” Variety (Archive: 1905-2000), vol. 311, no. 3,

18 May 1983, p. 14.

2. Review: ‘Rise Of Skywalker’ Is The Worst ‘Star Wars’ Movie Ever.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/12/18/review-disney-and-lucasfilms-

star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-is-a-terrible-end-to-the-skywalker-saga/?

sh=434800b2113c. Accessed 4 Dec. 2022.

3. IMDb Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019) - IMDb.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2527338/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2022.

4. IMDb Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086190/.

Accessed 4 Dec. 2022.

5. Marquand, Richard, Return of the Jedi, Directed by Lucasfilm, 1983.

6. J.J Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Disney, 2019.

7. ---. www.imdb.com, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086190/characters/nm0001519.

Accessed 4 Dec. 2022.