# Star Wars Is Called a "Space Opera." Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 3, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567 "2016-11-03T23:35:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/21 "2016-11-04T14:17:25Z")
I think one of the components of “space opera” is that the technology is in the background and not necessarily plausible. Need a spaceship that can fly between star systems? It’s yours. Need a space station the size of a moon? Here you go. None of that messy “But, but, how do you _even_ build something that big?” which is the staple of “hard” science fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/22 "2016-11-04T16:31:22Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > That’s why you enter the movie in the “middle” of what’s going on, with the crawl telling you what has gone on before, and with the rebel ship fleeing the pursuing star destroyer. I’d disagree with that explanation. Lucas is using the principle of beginning his epic “_in media res_” (“in the middle of things”), a dramatic device that dates back to the _Oddessey_ and which was first mentioned as a dramatic technique by Horace. > **[In medias res](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res)** > > A narrative work beginning in medias res (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}Classical Latin: \[ɪn ˈmɛdɪ.aːs ˈreːs\], lit. "into the middle of things") opens in the chronological middle of the plot, rather than at the beginning (cf. ab ovo, ab initio). Often, exposition is initially bypassed, instead filled in gradually through dialogu Wo... ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/23 "2016-11-04T16:42:51Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I’d disagree with that explanation. > > Lucas is using the principle of beginning his epic “_in media res_” (“in the middle of things”), a dramatic device that dates back to the _Oddessey_ and which was first mentioned as a dramatic technique by Horace. > > [In medias res - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res) Doesn’t mean that it can’t be both. Lucas did deliberately borrow from past movie tropes. Some of those may be older than movies. This particular reference is pretty clearly to movie serials, even though serialized stories in general are far older. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/24 "2016-11-04T17:20:54Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > I think one of the components of “space opera” is that the technology is in the background and not necessarily plausible. Need a spaceship that can fly between star systems? It’s yours. Need a space station the size of a moon? Here you go. None of that messy “But, but, how do you _even_ build something that big?” which is the staple of “hard” science fiction. Not really. There’s plenty of hard science space opera. Stephen Baxter and Jack McDevitt are doing some good work in it these days. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/25 "2016-11-04T17:37:31Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Space Operas deal with Galactic Empires, heroes, villains & **Bug Eyed Monsters**. Hey! I resemble that remark! ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/26 "2016-11-04T17:57:52Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Hey! I resemble that remark! No you don’t. Your eyes aren’t multi-faceted at all. The less said about the xmex snout, however, the better. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/27 "2016-11-04T18:10:56Z")
Oh come on now. How could it not be called a Space Opera when it is filled with such massive operatic song and dance numbers? Or did I just dream those? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/28 "2016-11-04T18:16:15Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > The less said about the xmex snout, however, the better. You seemed to like my xmex snout just fine, that night in Palm Springs . . . ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/29 "2016-11-04T19:34:43Z")
The music John Williams wrote for the movies was operatic in every sense but the lyrics. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/30 "2016-11-04T19:59:59Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Not really. There’s plenty of hard science space opera. Stephen Baxter and Jack McDevitt are doing some good work in it these days. Could you specify a story, and what is “hard,” and what is operatic about it? For clarity on terms. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/31 "2016-11-04T20:32:33Z")
Jack McDevitt’s “Academy Series.” Hard science – based upon scientific speculation and alien civilizations, and deals very much with the physics of space. The Engines of God Deepsix Chindi Omega Odyssey Cauldron StarHawk I’d also argue that _Mission of Gravity_ – the seed of all modern hard SF – is space opera. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/32 "2016-11-04T20:53:44Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > The music John Williams wrote for the movies was operatic in every sense but the lyrics. More from Holst than from opera, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/33 "2016-11-04T21:00:15Z")
> [@MN\_Maenad](#): > > Wikipedia has a whole entry on what [space opera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera) is, plus a bunch of examples. Not a bad definition. Space opera almost always has at least one space battle in it. I agree with them about Skylark of Space being the first. Brian Aldiss’ anthology, which is quoted in the article, predates Star Wars which proves space opera is not tied to movies at all. BTW I just watched the MST3K version of 12 to the Moon. The extra on the DVD had someone describing it as space opera - which it isn’t. Not everything set in space is space opera - for instance Marooned sure isn’t. But Star Wars is almost pure space opera. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/34 "2016-11-04T21:08:19Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Jack McDevitt’s “Academy Series.” Hard science – based upon scientific speculation and alien civilizations, and deals very much with the physics of space. And what is the operatic part? Is it romantic, melodramatic? To me, it seems that if the story _relies_ on the science–my standard for “hardness”–then it can’t be transposed into other settings, the way _Star Wars_ easily could. ---
**Author:** ![Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Backwater_Under_Duck)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/35 "2016-11-05T00:58:58Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > The music John Williams wrote for the movies was operatic in every sense but the lyrics. There were lyrics? Oh wait, of course there were. [This one’s for you and the Cubs, Bill.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53DQgbj2mIc) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/36 "2016-11-05T01:50:31Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > To me, it seems that if the story _relies_ on the science–my standard for “hardness”–then it can’t be transposed into other settings, the way _Star Wars_ easily could. Well, take _Outpost Mars_, a 1951 novel by “Cyril Judd,” a collaboration between Cyril M. Kornbluth and Judith Merril. It ran in _Galaxy Science Fiction_, the same magazine that ran the “you’ll never see in Galaxy” house ad I linked to earlier claiming that you’d never see a lazily transmogrified western in Galaxy. _Outpost Mars_ is hard science fiction. It preceded Clarke’s _Sands of Mars_ as the first novel to present a plausible Martian colony according to the science of its day. (Heinlein’s \*Red Planet \*was earlier and has some colony-building, but it mostly dodges the subject.) All three books present a Mars with generally similar breathable atmospheres and survivable temperatures, though otherwise are wildly different. _Outpost Mars_ lives up to its title. Its Mars is essentially a mining colony with a small number of settlers trying to make a go of an independent colony. There is one glaring oddity to modern eyes. Even though virtually all of its supplies come from Earth, there is no communication with the planet and even the spaceships land almost without warning until they hit the atmosphere. In short, the outpost’s social environment is built entirely on an an analogy with an American 19th century mining town with only the weekly stagecoach bringing news and supplies from the civilized world. It is a western with the hardest of hard 1951 science. Of course, nobody at the time saw it that way. They assumed that space would be like early frontier settlements; isolated, dangerous, full of hardship and deprivation, but eventually full of riches and rewards on a par with earthly experiences. This was the norm for classic sf. _Star Trek_ is an update on that basic premise, pre-moon landing. _Star Wars_, probably inadvertently, reduced it to camp only a decade later. If you were brought up in the modern world I don’t think you can appreciate how seriously the “space as America” vision was taken. Those people believed to their very core. Lucas’ tie fighters in a WWII dogfight eventually dropping a bomb on an aircraft carrier is exactly their sensibility, even if Clarke would have known better. 1977 audiences loved it. But they never for a second thought it resembled the universe they lived in. That Future has vanished. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/37 "2016-11-05T02:48:36Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > More from Holst than from opera, actually. Actually, more Wagner than Holst. Indeed, leitmotiefs abound in the Star Wars music. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/38 "2016-11-05T03:37:15Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Actually, more Wagner than Holst. Indeed, leitmotiefs abound in the Star Wars music. At this point leitmotiefs are so commonly used that I’d hardly call them Wagnerian. I think Williams has acknowledged his debt to Holst. [You Tube comparison](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pM2SozsyPE) of them. [Here is an article](http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/throwback-thursday-classical-music-influences-inside-john-williams-star-wars-score/) with others. Not Holst here, but not Wagner either. [And here](http://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2015/10/20/star-wars-john-williams-influences) is one which does mention Wagner. But Korngold seems to have had even more of an influence. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/39 "2016-11-05T05:05:00Z")
Tried to tie it all into SF, but they are too obvious. For decades SF hasn’t been about the potential, but about what an intelligent person sees before herself. OTOH, Star Wars is about the 1940s and '50s, as seen by a kid who dropped 15cents at the flicks. Kids, as anyone who has raised one, are into spectacle. Star Wars is all about spectacle, despite what Joseph Campbell thought. SF has, for decades, been a different market. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567/40 "2016-11-05T06:29:56Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > At this point leitmotiefs are so commonly used that I’d hardly call them Wagnerian. I think Williams has acknowledged his debt to Holst. > > [You Tube comparison](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pM2SozsyPE) of them. > > [Here is an article](http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/throwback-thursday-classical-music-influences-inside-john-williams-star-wars-score/) with others. Not Holst here, but not Wagner either. > > [And here](http://www.classicalmpr.org/story/2015/10/20/star-wars-john-williams-influences) is one which does mention Wagner. But Korngold seems to have had even more of an influence. While one obviously would want to follow up the quote that follows with some legwork, here is the paragraph in Wikipedia on the score that discusses leitmotif use and Wagner (as well as Stein): > [@](#): > > Star Wars often is credited as heralding the beginning of a revival of grand symphonic scores in the late 1970s. One technique in particular is an influence: Williams’s revival of a technique called leitmotif, which is most famously associated with the operas of Richard Wagner and, in film scores, with Steiner. A leitmotif is a phrase or melodic cell that signifies a character, place, plot element, mood, idea, relationship or other specific part of the film. It is commonly used in modern film scoring as a device for mentally anchoring certain parts of a film to the soundtrack. Of chief importance for a leitmotif is that it must be strong enough for a listener to latch onto while being flexible enough to undergo variation and development. Leitmotif use these days is common; at the time, not very common at all. **Star Wars** was so obvious in its use of the technique that anyone who knew Wagner’s work immediately recognized what was going on. AND, apropos of the thread, it was the use of the OPERATIC technique of leitmotif that helped give the movie an “opera” feeling. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-is-called-a-space-opera-why/770567.md?page=3)