Star Wars

The dark side of the Force

Iconic science-fiction space opera series Star Wars has been referenced in Homestar Runner. It started with the 1977 film and became a film trilogy with a prequel trilogy and expanded universe.

References

The dark side of Free Country, USA

• Character Cards — The hooded, glowing-eyed Unguraits resemble Jawas.
• Hairstyle Runner — "Padawan dork" refers to the traditional hairstyle — a short cut with a single long, tight braid behind the ear — of a padawan, a Jedi in training.
• Strong Bad's Message Bored — The page title for when the board was overloaded was "There's Too Many of Them!!!", a quote from Return of the Jedi uttered by a pilot realizing the fleet has flown into a trap.
• Email Greeting Cards — Strong Bad's card for web cartoonists reads, "Thinking of you...And how terrible your stupid Star Wars spoofs are."
• Email video games (DVD commentary) — Matt Chapman compares the vector look of StrongBadZone to the 1983 arcade game Star Wars.
• Email for kids (DVD commentary) — Jonathan Howe remarks that "the new Star Wars episodes [are] not suitable for children," referring to the then-recently released Episode III – Revenge of the Sith earning a PG-13 rating, compared to the PG rating of all previous Star Wars movies.
• Biz Cas Fri 2 — The shareholders' mug has a picture of Mike Chapman as a child dressed as Luke Skywalker, holding an oversized Marvel Star Wars comic.
• Halloween Potion-ma-jig — Homestar Runner mistakenly assumes that Bubs is dressed as Lando Calrissian (as portrayed by Billy Dee Williams).
• Email myths and legends — One of the fence drawings is a TIE fighter.
• The Municipality's logo resembles a stylized depiction of Darth Vader's mask.
• Email what i want —
  • Strong Bad asks the sender, Talon Jendro, if George Lucas came up with his name. He stylizes the name as Ta'lon J'en-dr'o, referencing how apostrophes and hyphens are commonly used in Star Wars names (e.g. the Twi'lek species, the character Obi-Wan Kenobi) to give them an "alien" feeling.
  • He also suggests that J'en-dr'o came from a "computer-generated planet", in reference to the abundance of CGI effects in the Special Editions and prequel trilogy of Star Wars.
• Email the movies (DVD commentary) — Homestar and Mike mention the ASCII re-creation of the original Star Wars.
• Email Accent — Strong Bad's "mesa" joke is a reference to the distinctive speech patterns of Jar Jar Binks, who would say "meesa" rather than "I am".
• Strong Badia the Free —
  • Using the glowstick on the katana causes Strong Bad to say, "Glowing swords used to be cool, until someone ruined my childhood."
    • The "glowing sword" refers to lightsabers.
    • The mixed reception of the Star Wars Special Edition and prequel trilogy releases in the 90s and 00s led to outspoken negative reactions from some fans, many of whom blamed George Lucas in particular. A common hyperbolic phrase from fans was that Lucas had "ruined their childhood", as they had become fans of the original trilogy as children.
  • When Strong Bad talks to Strong Sad about leaving his job as King, Strong Sad tells him he has to rule because "It is your DESTINY!" much in the same way Darth Vader said the same thing to Luke Skywalker while inviting him to rule the galaxy with him in The Empire Strikes Back.
• W00tstock - 18 Jul 2013 — Strong Bad talks about fans wearing costumes of Jango Fett, Boba Fett, and Princess Leia, and Homestar references Lobot.
• Fan Costumes 2015 — Strong Bad references how one fan is accompanied by someone dressed as an X-Wing pilot, using one of Luke Skywalker's lines from the Death Star battle scene.
• Haunted Photo Booth — Homestar waves his glowing bat around and imitates the distinctive lightsaber sound effects.
• PAX East - 8 Apr 2018 — Matt shares a machinima fan film he made in Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, titled Star Wars: Mechanics of the Force.
• Halloween Hijinks — Strong Bad, imitating Homestar's usual costume compliments, compares Homsar's costume to BB-8 after having been run over by a sandcrawler.
• @StrongBadActual tweet (18 Dec 2019) — In response to a fan editing a Star Wars poster featuring Coach Z and Marzipan, Strong Bad ruminates on "senate meetings about trade embargoes," leading to a gag about an expanded universe character named "Trade Embargo", hailing from the planet Lankosh T'wive, who fought in the Battle of C'Baoth's Abs.

See Also

• George Lucas
• LucasArts
• Star Trek
• Disney