Star Wars in the context of "Rogue One"

Jediism (or Jedism) is an online community and philosophy, or, controversially, a religion, mainly based on the belief system of the fictional Jedi characters in Star Wars media. Jediism attracted public attention in 2001 when a number of people recorded their religion as "Jedi" on national censuses, encouraged by an email campaign.

Jediism is inspired by certain elements of Star Wars, namely the fictional religion of the Jedi. Early websites dedicated to bringing up a belief system from the Star Wars films were "The Jedi Religion and regulations" and "Jediism". These websites cited the Jedi code, consisting of 21 maxims, as the starting point for a "real Jedi" belief system. The real-world Jediism movement has no leader or central structure. Jediism, while initially regarded as a tongue-in-cheek joke religion when it emerged in the 2001 email campaign, gained legitimate supporters who now claim it is an actual religion and not merely a Star Wars fan club or spoof.

Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company founded by filmmaker George Lucas in December 10, 1971 in San Rafael, California, and later moved to San Francisco in 2005. It is best known for creating and producing the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as its leadership in developing special effects, sound, and computer animation for films. Since 2012, Lucasfilm has been a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios, who also owns former Lucasfilm subsidiary Pixar.

The company's films Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens (2015), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi (2017), and Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker (2019) are all among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time, with The Force Awakens becoming the highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada. On October 30, 2012, Disney acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in the form of cash and in stock (equivalent to about $6 billion today). Lucasfilm is currently one of five live-action film studios within the Walt Disney Studios, alongside Walt Disney Pictures, Marvel Studios, 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures.

A fictional universe, also known as an imagined universe or a constructed universe, is the internally consistent fictional setting used in a narrative or a work of art. This concept is most commonly associated with works of fantasy and science fiction, and can be found in various forms such as novels, comics, films, television shows, video games, and other creative works.

In science fiction, a fictional universe may be a remote alien planet or galaxy with little apparent relationship to the real world (as in Star Wars). In fantasy, it may be a greatly fictionalized or invented version of Earth's distant past or future (as in The Lord of the Rings).

A fantasy world or fictional world is a world created for fictional media, such as literature, film or games. Typical fantasy worlds feature magical abilities. Some worlds may be a parallel world connected to Earth via magical portals or items (like Narnia); an imaginary society hidden within the Earth (like the Wizarding World); a fictional Earth set in the remote past (like Middle-earth) or future (like Dying Earth); an alternative version of our History (like Lyra's world); or an entirely independent world set in another part of the universe (like the Star Wars Galaxy).

Many fantasy worlds draw heavily on real world history, geography, sociology, mythology, and folklore.

Star Wars (also known as Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm Ltd. and released by Twentieth Century-Fox. It is the first film in the Star Wars franchise and the fourth chronological chapter of the "Skywalker Saga". Set in a fictional galaxy under the rule of the tyrannical Galactic Empire, the film follows a resistance movement, called the Rebel Alliance, that aims to destroy the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star. When the rebel leader Princess Leia is captured by the Galactic Empire, Luke Skywalker acquires stolen architectural plans for the Death Star and sets out to rescue her while learning the ways of a metaphysical power known as "the Force" from the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. The cast includes Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, and James Earl Jones.

Lucas had the idea for a science fiction film in the vein of Flash Gordon around the time he completed his first film, THX 1138 (1971), and he began working on a treatment after the release of American Graffiti (1973). After numerous rewrites, principal photography began in March of 1976 in locations including Tunisia and Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, England. Lucas formed the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic to help create the film's visual effects. Star Wars suffered production difficulties: the cast and crew believed the film would be a failure, and it went $3 million over budget due to delays.

In science fiction, hyperspace (also known as nulspace, subspace, overspace, jumpspace and similar terms) is a concept relating to higher dimensions as well as parallel universes and a faster-than-light (FTL) method of interstellar travel. In its original meaning, the term hyperspace was simply a synonym for higher-dimensional space. This usage was most common in 19th-century textbooks and is still occasionally found in academic and popular science texts, for example, Hyperspace (1994). Its science fiction usage originated in the magazine Amazing Stories Quarterly in 1931 and within several decades it became one of the most popular tropes of science fiction, popularized by its use in the works of authors such as Isaac Asimov and E. C. Tubb, and media franchises such as Star Wars.

One of the main reasons for the concept's popularity in science fiction is the impossibility of faster-than-light travel in ordinary physical space, which hyperspace allows writers to bypass. In most works, hyperspace is described as a higher dimension through which the shape of three-dimensional space can be distorted to bring distant points close to each other, similar to the concept of a wormhole; or a shortcut-enabling parallel universe that can be travelled through. Usually it can be traversed – the process often known as "jumping" – through a gadget known as a "hyperdrive"; rubber science is sometimes used to explain it. Many works rely on hyperspace as a convenient background tool enabling FTL travel necessary for the plot, with a small minority making it a central element in their storytelling. While most often used in the context of interstellar travel, a minority of works focus on other plot points, such as the inhabitants of hyperspace, hyperspace as an energy source, or even hyperspace as the afterlife.

Photonic molecules are a form of matter in which photons bind together to form "molecules". They were first predicted in 2007. Photonic molecules are formed when individual (massless) photons "interact with each other so strongly that they act as though they have mass". In an alternative definition (which is not equivalent), photons confined to two or more coupled optical cavities also reproduce the physics of interacting atomic energy levels, and have been termed as photonic molecules.

Researchers drew analogies between the phenomenon and the fictional "lightsaber" from Star Wars.

Jedi (/ˈdʒɛdaɪ/ ), Jedi Knights, or collectively the Jedi Order are fictional characters, and often protagonists, featured in many works within the Star Wars franchise. Working symbiotically alongside the Galactic Republic, the Jedi Order is depicted as a religious, academic, meritocratic, and military-auxiliary (peacekeeping) organization whose origin dates back thousands of years before the events of the Star Wars feature films. The fictional organization has inspired a minor real-world new religious movement and online community: Jediism.

Within the Star Wars galaxy, the Jedi Order are powerful guardians of order and justice who, through intuition, rigorous training, and intensive self-discipline, are able to wield a supernatural power known as the Force, thus achieving the ability to move objects with the mind, perform incredible feats of strength, perceive events that are distant in time or space, and connect to certain people's thoughts. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, explains that the Jedi are "warrior-monks who keep peace in the universe", avoiding the use of violence except as a last resort, with a mission to "use their power to keep the governments of all the planets in line, so that they don't do terrible things". The Jedi have the "moral authority to do that" since they are "the most moral of anybody in the galaxy". Throughout the franchise, Jedi are often recognizable by their robes and tunics in various shades of brown and their use of lightsabers: sword-like weapons with colorful blades made of plasma.

In some national population censuses which include a question on religious identity, media report numerous respondents giving their religion as Jedi (or "Jedi Knight") after the quasi-religious order in the Star Wars science fiction franchise. While a few individuals claim to practise Jediism sincerely, the answer can also be a joke or a protest against the question. While giving false information on a census form is often illegal, any religion question is sometimes an exception; in any case, prosecutions are rare. The Jedi census phenomenon sprang from a 2001 urban legend spread by chain email before the separate censuses that year in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The email asserted that any religion passing a minimum threshold (given variously as 8,000 or 10,000) would be entitled to some form of official recognition. Other reasons proffered include "do it because you love Star Wars" or "just to annoy people". The 2001 censuses recorded Jedi as 1.5% of New Zealanders, 0.37% of Australians, and 0.8% of Britons. Later censuses there and elsewhere have recorded smaller proportions. In some cases, any "Jedi" responses are collected under "other" rather than reported separately.