Five Movie Genres That Belong in ‘Star Wars’
The classic Star Wars genre is fun, but these are a few of the genres we’d like to see Star Wars explore in future movies and TV shows.
Star Wars is almost its own genre of film at this point. Sure, it’s sci-fi with elements of a western and the classic fantasy-hero’s-journey. But those have all merged into the very recognizable Star Wars™. If we go to watch a star war, we usually know exactly what we’re getting.
There have been a few exceptions. Rogue One was more like a gritty war film or spy thriller than anything else, and The Mandalorian has been full western through-and-through. And both were generally well received by viewers and critics alike. Meanwhile, when we get a classic Star Wars, they’ve recently been underwhelming at best. It feels like Star Wars is trying to play it safe and give us what they think we want. But personally, if I wanted Star Wars exactly what I wanted and expected, I’d go find that exact fanfiction. No matter what it is that I’m thinking, it’s probably out there. Is the writing quality or style to my taste? Maybe or maybe not. But let’s be honest about the official writing quality lately…
Instead, I think Star Wars should start going in another direction. Or, many different directions. It’s a great big galaxy and I think we should start exploring more parts of it. And with that can come a huge variety of genres outside of “Star Wars.”
Horror
There are so many ways go to about this one and every single one has potential. A slasher film featuring Jedi on the run from some inquisitors or even Darth Vader? A monster movie featuring any of the huge, terrifying alien creatures we don’t know enough about yet? A zombie flick with the Night Sisters on Dathomir. We’ve seen bits and pieces of this concept strewn about the TV shows and video games. But there is untapped potential in leaning hard into this theme and seeing how scary the Dark Side can really get.
Heist
Solo: A Star Wars Story came sort of close to this one, but I think we deserve better. I think we deserve a fun, Oceans Eleven-style movie, but in space. The Marvel MCU managed it with Ant-Man, and it could have a lot of potential in a Star Wars set as well. Unfortunately, Solo missed the mark a little and I don’t see a sequel being likely, but if it were to happen I’d want to see them go full-blown heist.
Romance
If you’ve been reading the books, you know that this isn’t an entirely unexplored genre for Star Wars. The Princess and the Scoundrel is coming out later this month to take us on Leia and Han’s honeymoon, and Lost Stars, one of my favorite guilty pleasure books, is just a romance novel targeted at teens. And while I can’t speak for the former yet, Lost Stars is good. We could stand to see more love in Star Wars that doesn’t include weird monologues about sand.
Crime or Mobster
Once again, I think I can say that they came close in the past, but we can do better. The galaxy is full of gangs, drug cartels, and crime syndicates, and we’ve spent very little time with any of them. Boba Fett trying to take over Jabba’s old territory was one attempt at an introductory point into this world, but I think another could be Qi’ra and her affiliation with Crimson Dawn. But maybe this time we could have fewer flashbacks and more actual crime-bossing.
Political Thriller
This is another one of those genres that Star Wars has tackled already…. in books. The prequels came close to being political thrillers at times with Palpatine’s republic takeover, but there is potential for this genre to stand on its own. Especially within the new-republic era or the “senate” under Imperial rule where we have seen relatively little of the inner workings so far and stakes have the potential to be the highest.
What genre would you like to see Star Wars break into? Do you like the direction the galaxy has been going in recently, or would you like to see them play it a little less safe and classic? If you could write your own, original Star Wars story, what genre would it be? Let us know in the comments!
May the Force Be With You, Adventurers!
