In the Star Wars movies by George Lucas, is anything ever mentioned about Earth and the Milky Way Galaxy?
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18The very first line in the film's iconic crawl is "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... " why would the Earth be mentioned?– CatijaCommented Jul 13, 2016 at 13:38
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11A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...– Johnny BonesCommented Jul 13, 2016 at 13:38
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2by the way Guys Gorge Lucas Saying When starting a Star wars Movie "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." where is it mentioned its from Earth or Milky way Galaxy? he should start like this "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away from Earth & Milky way Galaxy...– user34693Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 13:56
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5The opening titles are obviously addressing the audience (on Earth). It would make zero sense that it would be in relation to a third, unknown galaxy that's never mentioned in the films.– MoyliCommented Jul 13, 2016 at 18:54
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2What if earth just does not exist yet? After all, it is a long time ago. For all we know, earth ends up getting created from the remains of obliterated death star victims. Jk of course. The death star isn't that powerful.– user64742Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 20:25
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7 Answers
Famously from the opening credits of Star Wars it is set...
Essentially this is an equivalent to the fairy tale 'once upon a time' opening. It tells us that it's not really important where or when the story is set.
There are however exceptionally tenuous movie links to the Earth - in that you see creatures like E.T. in the Republic council meetings:
However this is barely more than an 'easter egg' than a true linking to Earth in the Star Wars universe. So I would have to conclude that the answer is 'no'.
answered Jul 13, 2016 at 13:54
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Related question for E.T. , Why E.T. moves towards Yoda like kid calling “Home Home”?– Ankit Sharma ♦Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 13:59
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25Ironically, that intro kinda is an implicit mention of Earth and our own reality. ;) ["A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." from us.]– WaltCommented Jul 13, 2016 at 15:02
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14@Walt Well, the intro crawl doesn't exist in-universe. It's part of our extra-diegetic narrative. Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 17:37
Yes, although in all fairness more as a gag than as a serious canon fact. Then again, Jar-Jar Binks is a serious canon fact, so who am I to judge canon? :)
I have discussed the links in detail in my answer to "Are E.T. and Star Wars in the same universe?" SFF Q&A.
I shall now shamelessly borrow from that answer the way J.J. Abrams borrowed from Episode IV :)
TL;DR: Yes.
As a gag/easter egg/cross-merchandizing/friendly jest/whatever, Spielberg and Lucas have placed enough canon information in their universes to imply that E.T. really is an alien from a species in a Star Wars Galaxy.
E.T.'s species were officially called The Children of the Green Planet, their planet was called Brodo Asogi.
In addition, as documented in my SFF answer to "Are Star Wars and Indiana Jones the same Universe?", there is a second mention: somehow, Indiana Jones's The Ark of the Covenant is strongly implied to originate fron... Han Solo's Episode VII cargo ship "Erevana":
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4It's probably worth noting that it would have been on the Millennium Falcon first and then end up on Earth. Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 14:50
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6@Mystagogue: Yes, people forget that Star Wars is ancient history rather than futuristic Commented Jul 13, 2016 at 14:55
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5I don't think the Ark connection works as anything more than an Easter egg/numerical coincidence, since the Ark isn't found in a numbered crate. That's only what it is placed in at the very end of the movie.– KevinCommented Jul 13, 2016 at 21:40
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Theres a decent Star Wars comic titled "Into the Great Uknown" that has Han and Chewie end up on Earth and meet Indy. Although this comic is given as non-canon so it doesn't count, it's basically another neat easter egg that goes to show more of the connection between the two series.– GorpCommented Jul 15, 2016 at 15:17
Another "easter egg" type instance of things related to earth being included in the movie is the person in the potential Gemini/Mercury spacesuit in one scene.
Thread discussing it here: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/80002/what-evidence-is-there-that-proves-disproves-there-was-a-gemini-earth-astronaut
But of course since this is a galaxy far away and a long long time ago this is more of a costume budget issue than an in-universe reference to Earth.
While the Battlestar Gallactica series did make reference to Earth that they didn't know if it existed or not, in Star Wars, never is Earth mentioned at all. That is different than saying that in the opening text it says "A long time ago, in a Galaxy far far away." One might say that at some other point earth is mentioned, but no, it is never mentioned.
Curiously, by saying "A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away..." it does imply an audience that is being addressed. So, it is told to an audience on Earth and the events happened a long time ago from our point of view and a Galaxy far from us. Still, in no way does the movie ever make reference to Earth at all.
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Well, yeah... You never know where in the universe the narrator is and to which audience he's narrating to and to which far far away galaxy he's referring to.– HansenCommented Jan 21, 2017 at 14:57
Several characters in Episode I refer to humans - C3PO ("human-cyborg relations"), Anakin ("I'm the only human who can do it"), and a pod race announcer ("that little human being is out of his mind"). This is not a direct mention of Earth but Earth may well be an origin of humans.
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2Since Star Wars takes place "a long time ago", wouldn't that make it more likely that humans came from elsewhere in the universe, and later settled Earth? Commented Jul 14, 2016 at 4:09
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3Or maybe the Star Wars humans are descended from the ancient humans that Stargate's Goa'uld stole from Earth and populated other galaxies with as slave labor. Some of those humans fought independence and spread out, so who is to say some didn't populate the Star Wars galaxy at some point. Just saying... :-) Commented Jul 14, 2016 at 4:34
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9And they're talking English. But ... wait ... no they're not! Everything's translated for us, including the word "human". I wouldn't take it literally. (BSG excellently lampshaded exactly this by taking what the characters called "human" and "Earth" and turning them on their head.) Commented Jul 14, 2016 at 11:48
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What makes you think humans necessarily have to originate from Earth? What else should they call these guys, Migorians? Of course they're humans. Commented Jul 14, 2016 at 12:05
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1@PeterHofman The Eidelons took ancient humans from Earth to make the Peacekeepers from, of course humans are from Earth in Farscape. Commented Jul 15, 2016 at 12:23
In the movies, there was no direct mention of earth. So the answer to your movie-related question is "No".
But in the expanded universe, there were mentioned, that the Rakatan Empire found humans on some planet and spread them around the whole universe, but it was not the earth. So in the movies, there is no direct answer where do humans come from, but in the extended universe, it is clearly stated, that humans are not from earth.
Implicitly, yes.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
This pins the events of Star Wars as occurring "a long time" before 1977 and in the same universe as Earth, albeit in another galaxy that is "far, far away." A long time and far away are both subjective measures, but we can at least infer that the events are occurring in a different galaxy than the Milky Way. This could well be the nearest galaxy to us: the Andromeda Galaxy, which is about 2.5 million light years away. Certainly that is far, far away... though by galactic standards, it's our next door neighbor. The farthest known galaxy is 13 billion light years away, which by comparison makes 2.5 million light years not so far.
In any event, the very first words on the screen reference the events of the film in relation to Earth and the year 1977.
