Star Wars episode 1: The Phantom Motif

Foreshadowing, motifs, and symbolism- all the little details that your English teacher LOVES to insist mean something. While it's true the curtains being blue might mean absolutely nothing, these literary devices are the thing that can make a good book great and a great book LEGENDARY. They're what you don't notice the first time, but when you think back you go "how did I not see that coming??"

Star Wars is chock-full of symbolism, motifs, and foreshadowing. I was planning on doing all three here but it got way too long, so we'll just cover motifs in this post.

Motifs are recurring little details that highlight the theme of the story. It's easier to think of in terms of music- for example, the main force theme/Luke's theme is played in all of these scenes:

Unsurprisingly, you can find this theme in the John William's song "Binary Sunset" he wrote for A New Hope. If you want to look it up, that is.

Binary Sunsets- there's another motif right there.

Here's another one. You have the light side theme, here's the dark side theme:

Vader and the Empire show up for the first time in The Empire Strikes Back. 

The Emperor arrives aboard Vader's shuttle in Return of the Jedi.

Snoke compares his apprentice Kylo Ren to Kylo's grandfather, Darth Vader.

Sensing a recurring theme? THE IMPERIAL MARCH IS DARTH VADER'S THEME. I've only given you three examples here, but it shows up a LOT. Especially in Clone Wars anytime Anakin makes a very questionable decision.

Here's another example: the visual design of the Empire/the First Order.

The Empire/the First Order have long been compared to Nazi Germany. An oppressive government using brute force to take over countries, committing genocide, and stifling religion, run by a guy who used his position of chancellor to become an evil dictator? Even the word "Stormtrooper" was originally used to describe a specific type of Nazi soldier. The name "Vader" even sounds similar to the German word for "father." The Star Wars sequels took this one step further:

Yeah... that was no coincidence. We were never supposed to root for the Empire

Here's an interesting example of when George Lucas used motifs to his advantage. By now, audiences have seen enough movies (Star Wars and otherwise) to know bad guys wear black, good guys wear white. So in Return of the Jedi, one movie after Luke goes against his master's wishes (bad) and finds out he is the son of Darth Vader (double bad), how does Luke make his first appearance?

This dramatic little punk rolls up looking like he just raided the Emperor's closet.

Of course, Luke has no idea he is a character in Star Wars. He has no idea his choice of black is an ominous hint to the viewer that Luke is drawing closer to the dark side than ever before. So for anyone watching Return Of The Jedi for the first time, there's a real chance Luke is going to turn evil.

Except SIKE! After Luke has proved his allegiance to the light side by refusing to kill Darth Vader, the inside flap of his jacket opens to reveal the white inside. Luke was good all along. Huzzah!

I'm having way too much fun with this. Here's one last example. "May the Force be with you." Obi-Wan says it, Luke says it, pretty much all the Jedi do at some point. Han is initially skeptical, thinking the Force isn't real and the Jedi are some "hokey old religion." But by the second movie? Han can't deny the Force exists anymore. He's saying it to Luke as if he means it, a sort of "good luck."

I could go on and on, but that's all for now. Stay tuned for parts two and three!

May the Force be with you,

Julia