Sign in to your ScreenRant account

Pop culture’s obsession with lore is killing its greatest franchises; Terminator, Star Wars, Star Trek, and more all have the same problem. Each has gotten stuck in a protracted project of obsessively filling in the gaps in franchise lore...which neglects the fact that the gaps were essential to their success in the first place.

Audiences, creators, and often these franchise’s characters themselves have become overburdened by the weight of existing canon, and the pressure to fit into it.

Star Wars, Trek, and Terminator, to varying degrees, have all succumbed to this excessive self-awareness, and it is starting to feel like a fatal flaw for the iconic series.

Pop Culture’s Biggest Franchises From Have Forgotten What Originally Made Them Popular

Star Wars, Terminator, And More No Longer Leave “Gaps” For Fans’ Imaginations

The original 1984 Terminator film is short on exposition. Or, a better way to put it: “bare bones.” The movie tells viewers precisely as little as they need to know to understand the story. Much like *Star Wars *seven years earlier, and its sequels, *Terminator *explained itself so tersely within the film that an opening crawl was necessary to give audiences more context.

And just like Star Wars, the result was a story that fired up generations of fans’ imaginations. The same can be said of everything from Ridley Scott’s Alien, to John Carpenter’s Halloween, and so on. The goal of each of these foundational pop culture “texts” of the past fifty years was the same: to tell a story.

That is, the story wasn’t a pretext, or vehicle for lore. Rather, lore was a byproduct of the story, and more importantly, of the story’s unanswered questions. However, the contemporary versions of all these franchises have flipped this equation. Especially in the comics, Terminator, Star Wars, and other major franchises have become so lore-forward it is becoming tantamount to self-sabotage.

Major Franchise Storytelling Is Under Too Much Pressure To Add To Existing Canon

The Burden Of Pop Culture Mythology

These days, Every Luke Skywalker story *Star Wars *tells is crafted with an intimate awareness of his character trajectory, and must fit itself into that scheme. Or with Terminator, the arc of the war between Skynet and humanity has been well-defined; the franchise’s creators continue to struggle to operate within that framework.

That is because these stories tend to be motivated by the desire to add to lore. To “reveal.” To “recontextualize.” To “redefine.” These types of stories can be great, in their own right ; take for example the high points of the *Star Wars *Expanded Universe. Yet their downfall is that they are exhaustive.

Meaning, once the gaps in a franchise have been exhaustively filled in, franchises like *Trek *and *Terminator *start to double back on themselves, “rebooting,” “relaunching,” or finding any pretext possible to go back and fill the same gaps in different ways. It creates a recursive storytelling vortex these franchises are struggling to escape.

“They Say It Got Smart”: The Mystery Of Skynet’s Origin Reveals How Franchises Have Changed Over Time

A Modern *Terminator *Film Would Never Be So Vague

*Star Wars *has spent the last decade filling in the time between the Original Trilogy films; only in the past year has it moved on to exploring the post-Return of the Jedi era that predominated the original Extended Universe. The current Legacy of Vader series has done similar, chronicling Kylo Ren’s time between *Last Jedi *and Rise of Skywalker.

Dynamite Entertainment’s latest run of Terminator comics brought some novel ideas to the table, but it was a particularly notable example of this “lore vortex” problem. Its greatest moments were about the scary and surreal consequences of the franchise’s core premise, but these always seemed to be in service of adding a piece to a larger puzzle.

There is a line in the original *Terminator *that sums up the lost art of leaving gaps in stories. When Kyle Reese finally explains the future to Sarah Connor, how he describes Skynet is extremely important. “They say it got smart,” Reese explains. This makes it clear that he barely knows anything about Skynet, other than it wants him and all humanity dead.

The gaps that make Terminator, and early *Star Wars *and Trek, exciting also exist within their fictional worlds. They are important to the characters, as much as to the audience. Even Luke Skywalker can only see his part of the larger *Star Wars *picture, just like Kyle Reese only knows his part to play in Terminator.

“Star Wars,” “Trek,” “Terminator” And More Are All In Danger Of Being Consumed By The “Lore Vortex”

Fans Want Immersive Stories, Not More Lore Drops

The “lore vortex” is a problem on screen as much as it is on the page. Again, Terminator is at the top of the list. The franchise’s mythology becomes more convoluted with every passing sequel, more and more detached from the simplicity of the original, its lack of concern with explaining itself.

Whether it’s Terminator, or Alien, or Star Trek, or Marvel and DC superheroes, what comic readers, and film viewers, and video game players all want from franchises is to experience stories set in these worlds. Not stories that are overeager to explain the world. To solve all of its mysteries and then solve them again.

Mysteries and unanswered questions were essential to the rise of every one of these franchises. It is part of what left fans wanting more. Franchises storytelling, by and large, has lost touch with that. ***Star Wars ***can’t let go of its lore obsession any more than ***Terminator ***can, and it has become a legitimate problem.

Created by George Lucas

First Film Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

Cast Mark Hamill, James Earl Jones, David Prowse, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Ian McDiarmid, Ewan McGregor, Rosario Dawson, Lars Mikkelsen, Rupert Friend, Moses Ingram, Frank Oz, Pedro Pascal

TV Show(s) The Mandalorian, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, The Acolyte, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, Lando, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Star Wars: Resistance, Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, Star Wars: Visions

** Movie(s)** Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi, Star Wars: Episode IX- The Rise of Skywalker, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, Star Wars: New Jedi Order

Character(s) Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Rey Skywalker, Emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Grand Inquisitor, Reva (The Third Sister), The Fifth Brother, The Seventh Sister, The Eighth Brother, Yoda, Din Djarin, Grogu, Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, Leia Organa, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren

Star Wars is a multimedia franchise that started in 1977 by creator George Lucas. After the release of Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope (originally just titled Star Wars), the franchise quickly exploded, spawning multiple sequels, prequels, TV shows, video games, comics, and much more. After Disney acquired the rights to the franchise, they quickly expanded the universe on Disney+, starting with The Mandalorian.

Movie(s) The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation (2009), Terminator Genisys (2015), Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

Created by James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd

First Film The Terminator

Latest Film Terminator: Dark Fate

First TV Show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Latest TV Show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

The Terminator franchise, launched by James Cameron in 1984, explores a dystopian future where intelligent machines wage war against humanity. The relentless pursuit of key human figures by time-traveling cyborg assassins known as Terminators is central to the narrative. John Connor, the future leader of the human resistance, is the core target of the malicious machines.

Created by Gene Roddenberry

First Film Star Trek: The Motion Picture

First TV Show Star Trek: The Original Series

First Episode Air Date September 8, 1966

Cast William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Wil Wheaton, Avery Brooks, Nana Visitor, Rene Auberjonois, Alexander Siddig, Cirroc Lofton, Armin Shimerman, Colm Meaney, Terry Farrell, Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Roxann Dawson, Jeri Ryan, Robert Duncan McNeill, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Garrett Wang, Jolene Blalock, Connor Trinneer, Dominic Keating, Scott Bakula, Linda Park, John Billingsley, Anthony Montgomery, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Chris Hemsworth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sonequa Martin-Green, Mary Wiseman, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Wilson Cruz, Oyin Oladejo, Emily Coutts, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Rebecca Romijn, Michelle Yeoh

TV Show(s) Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Short Treks, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Star Trek is one of pop culture’s biggest multimedia franchises, spanning multiple movies, TV shows, books, comics, video games, and various other media. The franchise was created by Gene Roddenberry and started with the 1960s TV series starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Over the decades, several equally popular series have come out since as Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Discovery.