Star Wars: every scene from I-VI charted

Updated

Star Wars has been called a "space opera" or a "space western" — but what's the true shape of this cult story that happened "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"?

In the lead-up to the release of new Star Wars movie The Force Awakens, we set out to log and map out every scene from every Star Wars movie. Yes, we even watched the prequels.

We were inspired in this endeavour by xkcd's hand-drawn movie narrative charts, but our mission was to write code that could adequately replace artist Randall Munroe's illustrations.

The charts below show all the scenes from the first six Star Wars movies, mapping out interactions between the characters. The horizontal axis represents time and vertical groupings are based on how regularly characters interact.

If you're having trouble understanding them, use the force.

A New Hope

Star Wars director George Lucas has cited the samurai movies of Akira Kurosawa, as well as the Flash Gordon series, among his inspirations for Star Wars.

Our storyline chart suggests, as you might expect, the original film has a relatively simple structure: it centres on a few key characters and follows their plight as they fight 'the dark side'.

The humble droids R2-D2 and C-3PO feature prominently in many scenes: much of the story is told from their viewpoint.

The Empire Strikes Back

The Empire Strikes Back largely sticks to the first movie's winning formula: the key protagonists are introduced early and the movie tracks their journey, culminating in a string of confrontations with the Empire.

Notably, Star Wars fan favourite Yoda first appears only about halfway through the second film.

Return of the Jedi

The Return of the Jedi chart highlights the fact that for a movie about the battle between good and evil, there are surprisingly few scenes where characters from the 'light side' and the 'dark side' actually come across each other.

Instead, large sections of the start of the movie are given over to scenes involving Jabba the Hutt, who was introduced briefly in the original movie; here, he appears in almost all of the film's first 10 scenes.

Yoda, on the other hand, gets just two scenes after featuring heavily through the middle part of The Empire Strikes Back.

The Phantom Menace

The first of George Lucas's prequels sees an explosion in the number of characters, reflecting a change in movie-making styles from the original trilogy.

The storyline chart also suggests a much more complicated structure.

Queen Amildala and the much-loathed (by fans) Jar Jar Binks are the most prominent characters, featuring in more than every second scene.

The droids R2-D2 and C-3PO become bit-players here.

Attack of the Clones

The second Star Wars prequel again sees a proliferation of characters, and complexity.

The structure this time suggests much of the middle of the movie is made up of parallel scenes with just a couple of characters appearing in each, rather than the ensemble featured more often elsewhere.

Jar Jar Binks becomes less prominent, appearing in just six scenes compared to 34 in The Phantom Menace.

Revenge of the Sith

Revenge of the Sith completes Jar Jar Binks's fade to obscurity, with on-screen time virtually non-existent.

The chart again reinforces the prequels' tendency towards complexity, rather than the simplicity of the original series.

A couple of familiar names appear right at the end of the final prequel - Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.

Credits

Topics: film-movies, united-states

First posted