I'm going to assume you wouldn't even be at least a casual fan had you not clicked on an article with such a title (and correct me if I'm wrong there), but nonetheless I'm warning everybody: my nerdiness/Asperger's is about to go into overdrive (or, rather, hyperdrive), though I'm not even remotely ashamed of either of those characteristics. Star Wars is many things: a cultural phenomenon, a monomyth (to quote Joseph Campbell), a merchandise brand, an Internet meme-inspirer. But there's one angle to it that I don't think has ever been directly explored: it's a family saga.
I'm going to run through it chronologically, rather than follow the films' release order; I think that will make this more coherent. It starts with Shmi Skywalker, who as a young girl was sold into slavery on the desert planet Tatooine after she was orphaned. Years later, a virgin birth resulted in her son Anakin, an intuitive and very talented boy who longs for a life in the stars and has that wish granted when he meets Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi and the disguised Queen Padme Amidala of Naboo. As he reaches adulthood, Anakin grows rather arrogant and headstrong, falling in love clandestinely with Padme, before marrying and finally inadvertently murdering her after he has converted to the Dark Side of the Force. She tragically dies while giving birth to their twins, Luke and Leia.
And now, of course, we're into the classic trilogy. Luke and Leia have grown up on opposite sides of the Galaxy; he as a Tatooine farm boy with his adoptive Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, she as the adopted daughter of Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan. They have been separated for their mutual safety, but after Luke intercepts a message Leia records for Obi-Wan Kenobi in the memory of R2-D2, one of the Droids he acquires, they are about to be reunited - but not as brother and sister, they realise, for two more movies. Meanwhile, let's face it, for now there's sexual tension between them (until Leia thankfully falls for Han Solo), and their father, now known as Darth Vader, cements his place as one of the worst cinematic dads ever, before, by killing his Emperor Palpatine, he redeems himself and acquires his son's love and sympathy.
And now, 32 years later, the Force has awakened (pun intended) with the rise of the First Order. Its leader, Kylo Ren, is Leia and Han's son, but he is bent on filling Granddaddy Darth's evil boots. Then there's the new heroine, desert scavenger Rey, whose own connection to the classic trilogy I'm convinced of, but I don't think I should reveal here quite yet. I hate having movies spoiled for me anyway.
Even when it's lush with far more planets, species and languages than our own, in a Galaxy far, far away, family is always family.
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