Nope. It’s fantasy set in space. It has no science or logic to WTF tech is going on. It’s the age old Star Trek vs, Star Was argument…hard to believe how many SW fans don’t get this.
Maybe in a binary discussion. Well then let's go this way...
Thank of Fantasy as a spectrum with magic on the left and science (Sci Fi) on the right. It' def left of the middle toward the magic side compared to Trek, Blade Runner, Terminator, Aliens, WotW etc.
IMHO it had more in common with LOTR then it does with those items listed above. It would have been a slam dunk if they didn't try to explain The Force away with midi--chlorians!
EDIT: I would argue it's even a better discussion to figure out where you favorites are on the spectrum I have discussed. My brother and I have agreed this for years as I tell him even Star Trek has magical elements in it that might in fact be science that 24th century humans cannot image...so just like to cavemen our current tech would look like science.
This is an age old argument discussed on the level of the great scholars. Don't boil it down to ones and zeros.
Terminator, WotW, Aliens aren't any more in depth or sciency than star wars.
There are plenty of sci fi that mixes fantastical elements and religious themes, like star wars with midi chlorians. Aliens, especially how it has evolved over the decades is also a great example of this.
SW shares some structural elements to fantasy, but it also robs from other genres as well. It robs from ww2 and samuari movies. Does that mean it's not fantasy and actually a war movie or something? No,That doesn't make it NOT sci fi. It's a modern retelling of classic circumstances through the lens of science fiction.
I argue that most of what we call Sci Fi is actually fantasy and then you define on the spectrum if it leans more toward magic or science. SW very much borrows (even steals) from othe genres as do most such as Dune, Firefly, etc.
Alien/Aliens at its core is pure Sci Fi, but later versions do get a bit away from that goal.
We can agree to disagree. I think SW is closer to LOTR than purse Sci Fi. We have no clue how any of their magic works, so much defy physics in our known world...it doesn't even try because George was creating a space western and set that standard for much of modern sci fi so it just continues on with it's FU to so much.
Again, it's all on a spectrum. Agreeing to which side on the scale is the real debate.
I think it's not even a fantasy/scifi dichotomy, fantasy has the same split too.
Both fantasy and scifi are subcategories of speculative fiction, which is the umbrella genre about stories set in alternative worlds, which have something that doesn't exist in ours, be it technology, magic or other things.
However, this something can be just field dressing/background for the story, or the story can be about how that something fundamentally alters and restructures how that world works.
Whether a story falls in either category depends on the answer to the question: "could you tell essentially the same story without the magic/technology/whatever?". If the answer is yes, it's field dressing, like Star Wars for scifi and Conan for fantasy, if it's no, it's load-bearing, like the left hand of darkness, the dispossessed, the expanse, etc. for scifi and Earthsea, Malazan, Broken Earth, etc for fantasy.
Star trek is actually in the middle, some episodes could perfectly work in any other setting (i.e. 1700 pirates), others could not. Tolkien is also kinda in the middle as in The lord of the rings the whole world and its mythology (and language) is absolutely load bearing, but the hobbit (being a children's book) is just an adventure where the magic is field dressing. Harry Potter has some exploration of the consequence of a magic world (the secrecy laws, wizard racism, etc), but also not really, as it doesn't explore at all all the weird consequences of how the magic is described (how the hell does the economy even function in the wizardly world if you can make basically anything except food out of thin air? Why are the Weasleys even poor? Why is Ron wearing ill fitting hand me downs when they could magically repair and tailor them to look new and fit him perfectly? The house elves are an engineered race of willing slaves that like being slaves but that's mostly played for jokes?).
In any case, whether the speculative element and its consequence on the world is explored or not is a very meaningful difference on the vibe of the story, that's why people differentiate between "space opera" and "hard scifi". Some people (or even the same person at different times) just want the adventure in a cool different setting without thinking too hard on its ramifications, others enjoy thinking about how society would function with such a difference more, as it's a mental exercise that informs on human nature.
I don't really get why other people reject this subcategorization so vehemently, almost as if it offends them personally.
I work with a few buddies who have basically turned me into the guy who insists on putting everything on a spectrum, and this is why. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan. I love a few parts of it, like a few more, and I’m pretty critical of others. But when we talk about their love for all of it, and I start questioning things like continuity, story quality, or internal logic, they honestly don’t seem to see much difference between space opera and hard sci-fi.
I do agree that Star Trek sits somewhere in the middle. But because the “hard” part of its sci-fi can be pretty strong (especially TNG, I tend to put it around a 7 or 8 out of 10 overall — much farther to the hard sci-fi side thanStar Wars. With Star Wars, I don’t really see much hard sci-fi at all, and what is there often doesn’t make much sense or line up with current science or physics. Granted, that may not matter for what Star Wars is trying to be.
So I developed this whole spectrum approach as a way to simplify the conversation for people who are fully bought into Star Wars. It gives us a clearer framework, even if I sometimes rant about it in a pretty low-brow way.
Your write-up is much more eloquent and accurate than how I usually explain it. I wish I had that kind of insight and the right words to express it.
Oh, yes all 3 of those are far more sci-fi than Star Wars.
To me sci-fi takes a scientific concept (could be speculative, not necessarily grounded in reality) and explores that on some level. Terminator is great sci-fi in that respect. It starts with the idea of AI sentience and extrapolates what could happen from that event. Sure it’s a great action movie foremost, but it has some layers. I could say the same for the others too, which both explore what happens when humans meet an alien species, or human colonisation of space. Not the main point of the movies, but solid sci-fi foundation.
Star Wars says “what if space wizards?” and that’s about as deep as it gets. It’s fantasy with futuristic trappings, no more than that.
Terminator, Aliens, etc very much adhere to science way more...no magic going on there at all. Now the Matrix, that's a fun debate since they exist much of in a virtual/dream state where the construct includes magical elements.
Star Wars isn't science fiction because there is no science. They don't even attempt to explain how their engines work, their shields or weapons, what their source of energy is or its limitations.
The Force is prioritized more than the technology. It is explained many times. It has rules and internal logic that is somewhat consistent throughout the franchise more so than any of their tech. It's pretty much a hard-magic system, which makes Star Wars fantasy.
I think the reason people are confused about this is because it's set in space and they think that automatically makes it sci-fi.
Most movies or shows don't do that or create some random made up words. How does anything work in any sci fi universe? Does.
Blade Runner explain what batteries the replicate use? Does terminator explain how the time travel machine works? What type of fuel does the flying cars in 5th element use? You can pick part almost every franchise because typically, none of that is explained. It's just "scienec".
Star Wars has the force, yes, but how is that any different than 1000 things that happen in Star Trek?
It is well known that Star Wars is fantasy (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away) not sci-fi ("possible" extrapolation of science and technology into the future)
I too used to believe that any futuristic movie with robots and spaceships must be scifi and only movies with swords and magic are fantasy. But it's not like that. Others are right.
It's really more about how much is the imagination of the author running free and his willingness to explain stuff and making it grounded or based on something real or even something scientific.
You got scifi that is straight up using scientific concepts and is written by a scientist like idk Andromeda strain or even Dune and you also have scifi that just uses known real concepts and stays grounded like Terminator or Alien.
But when you start getting straight up magic and magical creatures and other stuff it's fantasy. Be it modern day like Harry Potter, medieval like Lord of the rings or future like star wars.
And it's not even about the story having concepts similar to magic but more like how it approaches them. Scifi should try to explain stuff, make it make sense and appear plausible and realistic or based on something we know now. That's a big difference between Dune and Star wars for example. Despite Dune being a huge inspiration for star wars, their abilities are explained there and it's not magic while the Force in star wars essentially is and Jedi are kinda like space wizards.
I'm sorry, but you totally contradicted your own points.
What as magic really? An unexplainable element in stories? Your telling me no "real" sci fi has that? No hand wavy stuff that just uses a sciency made up word for magic?
An alien shows up and mind controls a human, is that not magic? Or is that OK because its some made up telepathy thing..which is also just a made up concept. How is a phaser different from a staff with lightning bolts? How is a transporter different from a wizard teleporting? Its all just made up mumbo jumbo nonsense using different words to describe something. There is no real science there.
When you really start to analyze elements of all these famous works based on that criteria, you see it all kind of falls apart.
Throughout history Unexplained or unknown elements of nature and science were often see as magic or dark arts.
Um I didn't say that scifi can't have any "hand wavy" stuff or whatever. I even said that there is scifi that's directly based on science but there is also scifi that just uses well known concepts and all. I also said that the biggest difference is how the story approaches these hand wavy things. That scifi usually tries to explain and somehow make it seem plausible and grounded somehow while fantasy usually is happy with leaving it as vague mechanic and focusing on more important stuff like moral decisions and heroism and all. Notice that in scifi the story often dwells on technicalities much more and the explanations and hand wavy concepts are pretty often central to the story while fantasy goes on vibes and often focuses on "higher concepts" it's more poetic so to say.
Like even in your example. Can you see the difference in when we have an alien from a distant Galaxy from a solar system with blue and more radioactive sun. Because of that the alien isn't carbon based lifeform but silicon based lifeform who doesn't see visible light and colours but radioactive ways and would see humans as kind what you see under an X-ray. Also because of that and because of how the culture in this alien world developed this alien doesn't speak but has much higher neurological capacity and communicates with telepathy. And yeah this alien is much older and more advanced than humanity and travelled to earth and mind controlled a human.
Then we can have also an Orc who is an unholy amalgamation resulting in breeding of humans and elves in the land of Mordor by Sauron and Morgoth created to be a perfect servant of the dark lord. And this Orc was able to mind control a human warrior because he held a magical ring. Why was he able to do that ? Well because the ring was created in the fires of mount doom by the dark lord Sauron who poured all of his malice and will to dominate all life into it and as a result this ring amplifies the ambitions desires of the ones wearing it giving them control over other beings.
Both of these are like a made up mumbo jumbo right. But one kinda tries to explain where it all comes from and tries to at least make it seem kinda plausible while the other just rolls with poetic sounding concepts and just rolls of the vibe of old legend or myth turned to one hundred.
Like don't focus on specific details like a phaser or lightning bolt but look at the story as a whole and how it treats it's world building.
Sure - what do George Lucas, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamil know? They must all be wrong about the movies they made being a fantasy space opera but some random Redditor knows better
This topic has been well and truly settled for decades lmao
Saying something is a fantasy opera in space doesn't mean it's not sci fi. It's a way to describe the structure of the story and frame the narrative.
There are plenty of movies and books based on previous works or concepts. You are basically saying nothing from a different genre can't be adapted to another. That is absurd.
I never looked at it that way and would have died on the hill that Star Wars was sci fi but when you break it down it really is fantasy compared to blade runner. Thanks. I have a whole new way of looking at a bunch of movies I’ve seen that honestly makes them make more sense when you put them in the fantasy category than sci fi.
Thanks for being the ONLY person I have ever met that seems to agree with me. I'm pretty much been downvoted to hell and even an attempted dox one time because SW fans are like that...I guess.
In the absolutely loosest sense when can argue it's Sci Fi...but it's not in any other consideration. Sure it's fiction, sure there is space...and from there it has about as much in common as LOTR on the Sci Fi spectrum.
Sure there is a ven diagram of overlaps out there that some will share...I get that. Do some google searching on this and you find people way more nerdy and articulate then me explaining the pro and con of my POV.
Well it's true that the abilities you get in Dune are basically like a magic. There is a huge difference in how Star Wars and Dune treats it's magic even tho Dune was an obviously huge inspiration for star wars.
Star wars basically just operates on vibes. Takes Inspiration everywhere and creates this vivid and creative fantastical world and doesn't stop to ask if any of it really makes sense or to explain how any of it works.
In Dune everything is explained tho and based on real concepts trying to appear as somewhat plausible. In Dune you got Mentats who are basically human computers cause Real computers are forbidden and these people have been trained since childhood to have an incredibly analytical mind that calculates probabilities and processes a lot of information. You also have all those fighters with inhuman speed and strength or people who can make others do what they say or know if you are lying. And it's basically again explained by intense training since childhood in being able to read body language into the most insane detail or being able to train your voice to have the perfect pitch and strength so that it influences somebody's mind. It's still a fiction obviously but it's not like Dune explains it's abilities by just being one with the Force. They have a root in something "real".
What do you mean, Dune is freaking scifi. One of the most typical examples. Herbert was an actual ecologist and the way Arrakis is created, the concepts on the planet but also all the factions and dune universe, the way it is devided into smaller ecosystems that Influence each other and how it all kinda makes sense and is explained into detail you can absolutely tell that this is based on ecology and systems science when you read it. Hell some phrases from the later books could be straight up taken out of the book and used for a system science lecture.
What do you mean, you can't say the same about star wars. Even if dune was a huge inspiration. Star wars is a mix of all sorts of differents themes and stuff from other media which make up a super cool and original world that's really fun to watch and all that but nothing is really thought through all that much and it isn't supposed to be very in depth or anything.
This isn’t a new take, Upstairs is right—because they’re so soft on the science and is basically “wizards in space,” the Episodes are often referred to as space fantasy (or space opera). They have sci-fi dressing but genre-wise they slots closer to fantasy films!
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u/Upstairs-Balance9846 May 02 '26
star wars is space fantasy not sci-fi.
sci fi doesn't go full bullshit on science like star wars.