George Lucas har gått på skivan för att beskriva den som en slags kombination av genrer - inklusive science-fiction, jämfört med några av de "hårdare" science-fiction som han växte upp med.
Från en intervju ingår som en del av introduktionen av Star Wars: A New Hope novelization:
"As a kid, I read a lot of science fiction. But instead of reading technical, hard-science writers like Isaac Asimov, I was interested in Harry Harrison and a fantastic, surreal approach to the genre. I grew up on it. Star Wars is a sort of compilation of this stuff, but it's never been put in one story before, never put down on film. There is a lot taken from Westerns, mythology, and samurai movies. It's all the things that are great put together. It's not like one kind of ice cream but rather a very big sundae."
Men i de antecknade skärmbilden erkänner han att det han skapat aldrig var "science fiction", i sig.
I knew from the beginning that I was not doing science fiction. I was doing a space opera, a fantasy film, a mythological piece, a fairy tale. I really thought I needed to establish from the start that this was a completely made up world so that I could do anything I wanted."