I've never been totally convinced when I hear that "Star Wars is all about family". Yes, it is a major theme in I-VI, but I feel like "I am your father" moments and character relationships are part of a more intricate picture. Others maintain that they are just goofy spaceship films.
Some fans also often claim that others don't 'understand' Star Wars, or that some movies aren't 'real Star Wars'. Whilst I don't like gatekeeping, it did get me thinking about what concepts are really central and inseparable to Star Wars. I made this diagram to map it out:
There is one idea that really makes Star Wars unique from other space/adventure movies: The Force. Then there are the themes of good vs evil, and the idea that one has a destiny - and these have directed all Star Wars stories so far. Light and darkness are the embodiment of good and evil, as are the Sith and the Jedi. But it is much easier to imagine a new Star Wars movie with no Jedi than one without broader notions of good and bad.
There are also bigger ideas that come before the ancestry and relationships seen in Star Wars. These 'family' stories are really guided by the idea of belonging to a cause, doing right by your loved ones, and offering them hope - not that they're any different.
Of course, it would be hard to do Star Wars without spaceships, droids and different planets etc. - but it is theoretically possible given that these ideas are not entirely unique to Star Wars. Lightsabers are unique to Star Wars, but a movie can easily be set in the same universe and not include them.
Finally, there is the question of whether Star Wars can really be separated from its creator, since these are George Lucas' ideas and stories, and he truly understands what Star Wars is even if everyone does not always like his vision. Other creatives build their own interpretations that are based on Lucas' world.
I also added the Whills, because these and midichlorians are arguably highly central to Star Wars and 'destiny', even if they are less fleshed-out on screen.
This is not to say there cannot be any Star Wars movies without the Force, but they would be closer to other movies set in space or concerned with galactic power, for example.
For me, this is important because the recent movies seem to work inwards on this map, rather than outwards. They prioritised getting the desired aesthetics such as lightsabers and vague notions of Rey's family - and called it Star Wars - whilst the intricate concepts such as the Force and character development were handled inconsistently. Lucas expanded and built upon his central ideas with new ones, creating the world we have today.
That is not to say that the sequels do not tick some of the boxes. You could argue:
It was never about ‘who’ Rey’s parents are, but that she finds her belonging in her friends and a new cause (The Resistance). "The belonging you seek is not behind you, but ahead."
Rey picks up the baton dropped by Luke. The Force calls upon her to continue his legacy.
The Force is still a key theme in the sequels, which introduced new concepts (e.g. Force 'skyping') that were consistently applied.
The character relationship between Rey and Kylo is still interesting and is at at the heart of the sequels.
These are definitely among the most interesting notions introduced in the sequels. They match some of the concepts I previously mentioned: the Force, destiny, and family.
However, these concepts are mostly superficial in the movies themselves, and are not actually at the heart of Star Wars anymore. They are checked off the 'How to make a Star Wars' list, but not fulfilled or explained in depth. Watching the sequels does not make the concepts significantly more interesting than they sound on paper or originally were in the trailers. In fact, there are a lot of distractions that prevent them from receiving on screen development.
For example: Rey finding ‘her place in all this’. For me, the most memorable thing about this aspect actually first appeared in the trailers we saw before the films, and from equally small snippets of dialogue in the movies. You hear that line in the trailer, “Who are you?”, and it evokes lots of ‘Star Warsy’ feelings, but once you watch the movie you feel the same - you didn’t actually get anything more. That is because I think the creators took a central pillar of Star Wars: “family”, and inserted a placeholder question mark about who our main character is.
There was less intention to actually make Rey's belonging the real focus, than there was for presenting the aesthetics of the original trilogy or having action scenes. There was also a desire to make the movies funny, but the humour often came at moments where real serious development into these interesting concepts could have happened instead.
The notion of the Force bringing friends and adversaries together is certainly interesting, and will go down as one of the main plot points in canon, but it really isn't a big deal in the actual movies. That’s why I argue that the sequel creators worked inwards on my first map to Star Wars. They wanted to make a Star Wars movie, so they made sure there were bad guys, rebels, X-wings, Star Destroyers, Jedi, new Force powers, and the famous lightsaber, but there was little room left to squeeze in some big ideas about the Force and Belonging. The ancient Jedi temple is a great idea, but the development of it into more than just a setting is never fulfilled. If they had first made sure they nailed the key concepts, all the secondary stuff could have neatly fitted around the story.
I actually think the following video is a great way to illustrate it. The larger objects are the Force; the key messages. The medium-sized objects are the Jedi etc., and the smaller parts are the X-wings and aesthetics. People often see Star Wars as just a spaceship movie because that is what's most obvious when you look at it, but hidden underneath it are lots of more important aspects. If you fill Star Wars with peripheral objects first, there will be little room for your bigger story:
The Force dyad stuff, and Rey and Kylo’s binary relationship is also a great idea - but how much of the movie was actually dedicated to it? There's a few lines of dialogue, a big fight scene at the finale where they work as one - but what those movies were still mostly about was defeating another Death Star-like weapon, confronting a mysterious villain with no backstory, beating Palpatine again for some reason, and providing gags and dialogue that reminded us of the classic films. All of these were exciting in and of themselves, and the ideas behind the characters were interesting and touched on the core of Star Wars, but they were not actually the essence of what we saw happening on screen.
The canon of the sequel trilogy has hardly been the real problem. It matches and innovates core Star Wars concepts on paper. The problem is how effectively these ideas were presented and explained, and I think their story and development was nullified by other creative objectives. The idea of the First Order/Empire still being all powerful after Return of the Jedi is jarring because it was not effectively justified, not because it is unjustifiable.
The original 6 movies, in contrast, did a pretty good job of taking some really deep storylines about destiny, Jedi lore, and the light/dark side - and built all the space battles, space travel and galactic politics around that core. The result it that the secondary concepts such as politics, spaceships, and different planets all have a lot of meaning behind them, rather than just acting as scenery.
Some honourable mentions that may be integral to existing movies, but aren't integral to the wider story possibilities in Star Wars:
The Skywalkers
Darth Vader / The chosen one prophecy
The music - OK, this is pretty essential to Star Wars, but it is a device to tell the story.
'Hope' - I'd say this is part of family, heroism, and the light side of the Force. As with 'family', there as been too much fawning over emotional concepts without the detail on what it means.
Growing up - see 'heroism'.
Love? This is actually a major theme, but could probably go into the belonging category.
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