Star Wars: The Modern Tragedy

While doing an interview, the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas, was asked about how he deals with the fact that he had almost completely missed his intended target audience. The movies were supposed to be seen as children's movies but instead they were reaching an older audience due to their excessive violence and their dramatic nature. George Lucas said that he could have made the movie more marketable by changing the characters but he decided not to because “It’s a tragedy. People think of the Star Wars movies as happy movies. What they’re going to do about a tragedy, I don’t know.”
I have never been a big Star Wars fan but after looking further into the franchise I was able to see how Star Wars was in fact a tragedy because it has the characteristics of one such as a story arc and the downfall of the tragic hero due to a mistake that he has made. Let’s take The Empire Strikes Back as an example. The movie opens up with Princess Leia along with her alliance stationed in a new base while Darth Vader is still searching for them. Additionally Luke Skywalker sees the force ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi and it instructs Luke to look for Yoda so that he can teach Luke how to be a Jedi. This would be the Exposition. Later in the movie, Luke lands on the swamp planet of Dagobah where he meets and becomes a student of Yoda. While he is training with Yoda, Luke’s friends Han and Leia get captured by Darth Vader. Luke gets a strong feeling that Han and Leia are in danger. This part of the story would be the rising actions. When Luke decides to disobey Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi by leaving the training to help his friends, this signals the climax of the story. The fight between Darth Vader and Luke represents the falling action. The fight culminates with Luke dropping from a great height that leaves him in critical condition, thus the denouement consists of Luke having his hand cut off, Luke knowing he is the son of Darth Vader, Luke almost dying, and him not having saved Han. His failure at the end was a result of his own mistake. Yoda had told him not to leave but his impatience lead Luke to disobey him and cause his downfall.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjPUVzX-GDU