< Star Wars

Star Wars/Narm

Darth Vader's Big No - hilarious even without the "help" of "Do Not Want".


"George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can't say it."
—Harrison Ford to George Lucas after reading his lines for A New Hope.

There are so many Narmy moments in the Star Wars series in general, and the prequels in particular, that we could almost rename this Trope "The Wisdom of Anakin". To wit:

  • Many of these entries can be filed under That Makes Me Feel Angry. It's the screenplays that make most of the bad Star Wars lines the way they are. For example, Anakin's last words to Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith: If you can't tell how he feels about his old master after the betrayal, the killing of Jedi, the backstabbing of the entire system of government, and his actively trying to KILL him for the last 20 minutes just to get most of his limbs cut off, then DON'T WORRY. Lucas had the foresight to make sure Anakin said "I HATE YOU!" just so everybody in the cheap seats understood the characterization.
    • This still could have worked if not for Hayden Christenson's lack of emotional depth. He yells it with all the inflection of a whiny little kid who's been told that he can't have ice cream.
      • Wait, so a whiny teenager acts like a whiny teenager? This is realism, baby!
      • That would be fine if Anakin wasn't meant to be twenty-three in this episode.
      • In the Spanish dub, at least, it DOES work. Its a bit chilling when he yells "¡TE ODIO!".
  • Say it with us now... "NOOooOOOoooOOOooo!"/"Do not WANT!" at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

"I'll never join YOU!"

"I have waited a long time for this moment, my little green friend!"

    • Was he serious?
      • Yoda replies:

Not if anything to say about it, I have!

        • The above is perhaps the worst, most narmy line ever spoken in all of Star Wars.
        • Palpatine's line is especially silly when you realize than he wasn't waiting a long time for this moment. If Commander Gree had executed Order 66 successfully Yoda would have been shot dead on Kashyyk, rather than making it to Coruscant to confront Sidious.
        • Palpatine could have possibly implied him executing the Order 66. Since his next line after Yoda gets up is "At last the Jedi are no more." Then Yoda narms it out.
  • This was followed by Yoda using the Force to blast Palpatine across the room so he landed upside-down on his office chair, revealing the pants beneath his cloak. The Emperor lost all his menace when we saw his ass in the air and his legs flailing.
  • The creepy "I hate sand" speech in Episode Two. As StickWars puts it:

"I hate sand. It's so...sandy. But you, Padme. You're not sandy. And that is why I love you."

    • Mercilessly lampooned throughout the rest of the 4 subsequent movies in their Riff Trax audio tracks.

"Pardon me, grotesque triple amputee, but I'm looking for someone. Roughly your height, with legs of course, petulant attitude, wanted to rule the galaxy, probably won't find him on any beaches?"

  • Also from Episode Two:

"I slaughtered them like animals! I HATE THEM!!!!"

    • Possibly topped for Narm by Padme's (non)reaction to the revelation Anakin's a mass murderer of native sentients. It borders the territory of Unfortunate Implications.
    • Later in the same scene:

Padme: "You're not all-powerful!"
Anakin:"Well I should be!"

  • ANY scene in Episode Two where Anakin and Padme are alone.

"Hold me, Anakin. Like you did at the Lake on Naboo".

  • Padme's speech to Anakin about how they shouldn't be lovers... while she's wearing a leather, backless dress that shows lots of cleavage and makes her look like a dominatrix. This is what is known as sending mixed signals. So - exactly how sheltered does a girl have to be for her not to know black leather and lace is seductive?
    • Anakin's speech about being in pain whenever he's around Padme earlier in the scene was worse. But... it's a George Lucas love story, so what are you gonna do?
    • Her mixed signals began long before that number. He's not exactly subtle about his attraction to her. She denies liking him like that; then she takes him to a beautiful, secluded lake house retreat with no one else around for miles. What is wrong with this picture?
      • While wearing a semi-sheer, white, backless gown no less. This is lampshaded the Tag & Bink" comics. The titular characters are (non-canon) Padawans who are helping to coach Anakin on how to get Padme. When Anakin strikes out on his attempt to go in for a kiss, one of the boys wonders if maybe she really isn't into Anakin. The other responds by pointing out the dress she's wearing and snarks that she's "playing with a loaded Sabaac deck!"
  • "If into the security recordings you go, only pain will you find."
    • "I can't watch any more." Delivered with Ewan McGregor's trademark phoned-in performance, attempting to rev up Alec Guinness's corpse to 300 rpm, some viewers were in hearty agreement with Obi-Wan at this point.
      • Although ... given Guinness himself despised Obi-Wan Kenobi as a character and gave what was for him a phone-in performance, perhaps this was simply McGregor trying to be faithful to the original trilogy?
  • This romantic little gem:

"You're so beautiful!"
"Well, that's because I'm so in love."
"No, its because I'm so in love with you."
"So love has blinded you?"
"No, that's not what I mean!"

"Are you an angel? Aw, I'm just kidding. That's the worst line I've ever used. Hope some poor kid doesn't start using it."

  • "I wish for a wish that would give me all the wishes that I wish to wish for wishes with which to wish with!"
    • Just for the sake of accuracy, the above is a slight exaggeration of the original...
  • This statement was necessary, but it was still amusing:

"I'm Luke Skywalker and I'm here to rescue you!"

    • Though in that case, the narminess of the line is intentional, in context, and deliberately meant to play up Luke's awkwardness.
  • Luke's Big No when Obi-Wan gets cut down. It sounds more annoyed than angry.
    • How about some fanart illustrating the Hereditary Narm theory?
  • Admiral Ackbar wants to remind you, "IT'S A TRAP!"

"Your tongues can't repel flavor of that magnitude!" --Robot Chicken Star Wars

  • "You're breaking my heart!"
  • "Love cannot save you. Only my new powers can do that." It's the matter-of-fact Anakin says it. He might as well have said, "Santa Claus didn't give you those presents. I bought them all."
  • It was probably supposed to be dramatic, but when Count Dooku asked Obi-Wan to join him against the Sith, the parallels with the Luke, I Am Your Father speech in The Empire Strikes Back were just too much.
    • That there is a villain named "Dooku" is hysterical.
      • Tyranus is a much cooler name, but they only call him that once or twice in either movie.
      • Lampshaded in The Venture Brothers when Henchman #24 said he had to "take a Count Dooku in the bathroom."
      • Do cu is a Portuguese phrase meaning "from the ass" which is pronounced exactly like Dooku. You can predict what happened when the prequels were imported.
        • In the Brazilian release of the movie, Dooku's name was changed to "Dookan" (both in the subtitled and in the dubbed version of the movie). The Jedi named Sifo Dias had a similar fate - when spoken in Portuguese, "Sifo Dias" has a sexual connotation. His name became Zifo Vias. And in Episode I, there is a character named Panaka; "panaca" means "imbecile" in Portuguese. Panaka became "Panacé".
          • Those are... actually a lot cooler than the originally names.
      • The Riff Trax commentary of Revenge of the Sith makes fun of Dooku's name by sniggering and commenting "What kind of clown names himself after a Green Day album?"
      • The name causes some unintentional humor for Finns as well, since in Finnish "doku" is a slang term for an alcoholic.
  • Palpatine is blasting Mace Windu with Sith lightning, and calls him a "traitor". Mace Windu replies with "he... is the traitor... AAAAHH-aaahhh-ahh!", which is supposed to sound like he's using all his effort to repel the lightning, but it just sounds silly.
    • It sounded more like he was constipated.
    • Hell, even Palpatine's angry denial of being called a traiter. "No...Nooo...NOOOO YOU ARE THE TRAITOR!" And has this child like expression that reminds me of a kid saying that he in fact is not a poopy-head.
  • General Grievous declared, "I have been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku!". Not only does calling them "your" Jedi arts make it seem like he isn't that good at them, but also, Count Dooku was killed off approximately three seconds into that movie.
    • In an earlier version of the script, Obi-Wan was supposed to call him out on this with a reply along the lines of, "Well I trained the man who killed Count Dooku." That would have been cool, and so it had to go. It remained in the Novelization of the movie.
    • Grievous' other big narm moment was his declaration early in the film, "Your lightsabers will make fine additions to my collection!" The narm becomes apparent when he opens his cloak and only one lightsaber is properly visible. Silly novice collector...
      • The reason for this was probably that, in a deleted scene of the movie, Grievous kills Shaak Ti in front of Obi-Wan and Anakin. So that would account for the single lightsaber in his cloak, while the rest of his collection would be elsewhere. But they deleted that scene, so it does seem like that one lightsaber is his "collection."
    • Every single time Obi-Wan is around Grievous, he behaves like such a doofus; he succeeds in making Grievous look like a completely incompetent putz. Obi-Wan mocks him openly while cuffed on the Invisible Hand; when surrounded by a thousand battle droids and General Grievous wielding four lightsabers, he has the audacity to do that unbelievably Narm-tastic lightsaber position... where he yanks his lightsaber all the way back away from himself, pointing it forward, and extending his other hand all the way forward, completely undefended and ready to be hacked off if Grievous weren't as much of a putz as Kenobi treats him.
      • It becomes even funnier if you know anything about fencing, and realize that the position he assumes is actually a legitimate position... if his lightsaber was in the opposite hand.
    • His name is GRIEVOUS. And any Card-Carrying Villain needs to ham it up sometimes.
    • His ridiculous order to his Magnaguards (a Narmy name itself): "KEEL HEEM"

Rifftrax: Er, we could "keel" him sir, but wouldn't it be simpler to just "kill" him?

  • "You killed younglings!"
    • The word "youngling" breaks the drama of any scene. Not even the gravity of brutal killing of children could survive the inherent comedy of that word.
    • See this Xkcd strip.
      • Pretty much.
      • You guys might want to check out this Wiktionary link here. "Youngling" is not a made-up word. Perhaps it's not a commonly used word, and maybe it's more for animals than humans, but that's hardly a drama-breaker!
      • Yes, we know - but perhaps using the word "children" would have had far more impact dramatically than a word that is so inherently whimsical and barnyard-ish.
  • When Palpatine and Yoda are duelling in the senate, and Yoda stops Palpatine throwing a hoverthingy at him, then throws it back, Palpatine actually stops in order to flick his hand and growl in frustration.
  • "Only a Sith Deals in absolutes!" Take a close look at that statement. Doesn't it look a little absolute?
    • And then Obi-Wan absolutely insists, "Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is EVIL!" and when Anakin says that from his point of view, the Jedi are evil (which is Narm in of itself, since he uses those exact words), Obi-Wan yells "THEN YOU ARE LOST!"
    • Furthermore, everything the Jedi do is absolute. That's Anakin's problem with them is that there are so many rules, particularly those against marriage and love. Also, "Do or do not, there is no try." is pretty absolute.
  • "This is TENSE!" Tsk tsk. However "realistic" this comment might be coming from a ten-year-old suddenly thrust into a space battle, it's still telling the audience that they should be on the edges of their seats.
    • This troper has always assumed, for what it's worth, that Anakin was saying "This is 'tense," short for "intense". Slang, in other words, which this troper finds totally wizard.
    • It's still better than Qui-Gon declaring earlier in the film that "it won't be a problem", informing the audience how the upcoming fight scene is going to turn out and dispelling any drama it otherwise might have had.
  • "Let's try spinning, that's a good trick!" When one of your characters, who is in the middle of a dogfight in a ship he's not familiar with, sounds more like a kid playing the Episode I Racer Nintendo 64 game than someone in that situation, you might want to consider a rewrite.
    • That line becomes even more amusing when you realize that Anakin just told R2 to do a barrel roll.
  • The Original trilogy has the Force Kick.
  • Grievous was killed by several consecutive blaster shots. Grievous has supposedly killed a bunch of Jedi. Obi-Wan killed him using a less-than-average basic weapon. This made the scene hilarious to think about.
    • Granted, he had already been seriously wounded (if not crippled) by Mace Windu, so he was a lot weaker... but still, that's pathetic.
    • That just proves that hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side.
  • The bit in Episode Three where Palpatine claims to be the Senate might be a little too Louis XIV.
  • Ep IV had the first appearance (by film release) of the now-infamous Skywalker Whining Gene.

"Biggs is right, I'm NEVER gonna get out of here!"

    • "I was going to go to the Tosche Station to pick up some power converterrrrs!" is Narm of the whiny variety.
      • Robot Chicken improved it by showing us that Tosche Station is a strip club and The Power Converters are dancers.

"I thought you said this thing was fast!"

    • "What's that flashing?!" *POINT*
      • Saved when Han slaps his hand away. (Don't touch it if you don't know what it is, kid.)
    • Anakin put the gene through its paces. Luke grew out of it by Return of the Jedi, but Anakin couldn't drop it until he had it burned out of him (literally). Or else the suit kills the whine of a person's voice. Either way, it seems to work.
  • What about "I Have the High Ground" from Ep III? It sounded like this:

"All right, I'm on the higher ground. Forget it. No way you can beat me now. Don't matter what you do."

    • Shortly after, Anakin proceeds to take his chances and has his good arm and BOTH his legs cut off clean in one strike, and it feels like the only reason for this is the higher ground...

"YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!"

    • Obi-Wan also seems to suffer from memory loss. Remember the end of Episode I, when Darth Maul had the high ground?
    • Especially silly considering that attacking a person's legs with a sword is easier on lower ground!
      • Obi-Wan wasn't aiming for the legs, at least not initially. Never mind the fact that Anakin lost his limbs when he was level with Obi-Wan. Having the high ground gave Obi-Wan a tremendous advantage, particularly since Anakin had to either climb or leap up to reach him, putting him off balance. And, unlike Darth Maul, Obi-Wan knew what was coming.
  • Darth Maul's own death can qualify, mostly for two reasons. One, he makes no attempt to defend himself even though he really should have had time to do so (there's even a brief moment when Obi-Wan lands beside him before he swings where Maul is just staring at him) and two, after the slice, we are treated to a nice shot of his body falling apart in midair, the two halves of it flipping over and bouncing off the sides of the bottomless pit while his arms and legs flail about uselessly. His facial expressions during the whole ordeal don't help matters.
  • An Ewok dies; his companion shakes him to try to wake him, and then starts mourning. This was considered hilarious by a large number of fans. The Ewok is now nicknamed 'Corpsey'.
    • "Corpsey"? That actively adds to the Narm.
    • Amusingly, Corpsey was given more sympathy than the entire planet of Alderaan (destroyed two films prior).
      • And yet his passing is traditionally met with more cheering and applause at an ROTJ viewing than the destruction of the Death Star at the end of the film.
  • Chewbacca's impression of Tarzan during the Battle of Endor.

NUUUUUUURRRREEEURRRREEEEEEEUUUURRRNNEEEUUURREEEEEUUUURRR!!

    • That scene could compete with Vader's Big No if it was more dramatic.
  • Yet another exchange between Grievous and Obi-Wan:

"Army or not, you must realize you are doomed!"
"Oh, I don't think so!"

  • "I won't let you die in childbirth."
    • Anakin Skywalker in the third prequel had entire cinemas guffawing during the long-awaited and hammed-up birth scene of the twins. Almost making it to Tear Jerker status was the part where Amidala gives birth to the twins and then dies; but it was wrecked by Darth Vader screaming "NOOOO" in the weirdest voice and intonation, destroying any viewer's investment in the scene.
    • Even before the "NOOOOO!!!", we see Anakin being operated on cut alongside Padme's birthing of the twins. Anakin's pained screams as they operate on him sound exactly like his typical cries of Wangsting. Hearing James Earl Jones saying lines befitting Hayden's version of the character is pretty funny as well.
  • "Master Skywalker, there are too many of them, what are we going to do?" It's supposed to be sad, but the way it was delivered was less than dramatic.
    • How else could it have been said? YMMV, but I can't think of any other way to say it.
    • It's probably the kid's accent, and how he seems to be reciting the lines as properly as he can.
  • The entire dialogue Palpatine spouted during Mace Windu's "assassination" attempt is hilariously delivered at times.

"No...No..."
"POWERRRRRRRR! UNLIMITED...POWERRRRRRRR!"

"Help me! I am weak!" Delivered by a guy who just used a dark side power that proves he's the dark lord.

      • His intonation of, "I'm too weak," makes him sound mildly annoyed rather than afraid for his life. Honestly, he sounds like he's struggling to move furniture or something.
    • Not to mention the face Palpatine pulls after killing Mace Windu, which makes him look like he just climaxed.
    • Palpatine's face post-disfiguration is like this for the rest of the movie. Everytime they cut to his face during the Yoda face-off, he makes a leering crazy old man face and it is hilarious every time.
  • In Attack of the Clones, Anakin's mother lives as a captive of the Tusken Raiders for several months. Anakin randomly comes to Tatooine, finds out where she is, and rushes to rescue her. She dies five minutes after he walks into her tent.
    • She was only hanging on for her son's sake. When she knew that he was okay, her life was complete. Still...
      • It doesn't help that Pernilla August and/or the director chose a death method that inspires unintended hilarity in its viewers. *GLAAACK!* She's gone. When she does her death flop, it's almost slapstick for second or two there.
  • The voices of the Super Battle Droids in Revenge of the Sith destroys any menace they might have possessed beforehand. It doesn't help that it's the kind of dialogue you'd expect from a breakfast cereal advertisement.

Battle Droid 1: "Silly little astro droid."
Battle Droid 2: "That nuthin'!"

  • It could have been much worse; witness the horror of Darth Vader without James Earl Jones.
  • Learning that the cantina band from A New Hope were supposedly called the "Jizz Wailers". Accidental Innuendo? Perhaps. Narm? With a name like that, yes.
  • Generally, Yoda's lightsaber scene in Attack of the Clones gets two types of reactions from people: Some think it's extremely Badass. Others think it's extremely Narmish. (There are reports of whole cinemas breaking into laughter.)
    • It can be both. For some, it was a mix of "Holy shit, that's awesome!" and "Holy shit, that's funny!"
    • It need not even be both simultaneously. The first time through the sheer fanboy glee at the badassitude of Yoda wielding a lightsaber might distract you from the eNARMity of it.
      • The hilarity of the scene is mainly provided by Yoda screaming like Shemp from the Three Stooges throughout the fight. Screw Jedi reserve, restraint, calm, you have to yell louder than Mel Gibson in Braveheart to win a lightsaber duel.
  • One of the scenes before the climactic duel in Revenge of the Sith. While Anakin is getting ready to force-choke Padme, there's a shot of Obi-Wan walking down the ramp of the starship, hands on his hips, sending the nonverbal message "Oh yeah, I am so cool. Time for the showdown, kids." He then proceeds to tell Anakin to let Padme go in the same tone a scolding parent would use to talk their child down from the cookie jar.
  • While Palpatine is leering over Anakin while knighting him a Sith in Episode 3, his actor grunts out his lines like he came in his pants mid-line.

"THE FORCE IS STR-R-R-RONGG WITH YOU!!!"

    • It's made worse by Ian McDiarmid's eyes rolling to the back of his head.
    • The amount of times he creepily says "Gooooooood" doesn't much help either.
      • This isn't entirely Ian McDiarmid's fault. His voiced was altered in post-production to give it a deeper, "more evil" sound.
        • Let's just say there are re-edits of that scene which are NSFW and which put a whole Brokeback Mountain spin on the scene we're pretty sure was unintentional. Then again given this is the same film series that gave us (un?)intentional Brother-Sister Incest due to writing backflips, this troper is not so sure...
    • The rest of the scene makes it sound like Palpatine has an abnormally large loogie in his throat especially the "Oncce more the Sith will rule the galaxy" line.
    • Palpatine seemed to be making-up Darth Vader's name on the spot.
      • What did you expect, Palpatine pulling out a licensed Sith book about Darth names?
      • ...Yes.
      • According to the novelisation that's what he was actually doing -- searching the Force for the name that best reflected Anakin.
  • For a few, Vader's mask and helmet are Narmtastic. Ralph Mc Quarrie's original designs were more skull-like.
  • The Red Leader's death in A New Hope. As he's being shot down, we see him screaming in a forced way. He's smiling!
  • "Medically, there's nothing wrong with her. For some reason, we're losing her."
    "She's dying?!"
    lol wut?

She's lost the will to live?! What is your degree in, poetry?!

      • Truth in Television: People do die when they have no desire to live, especially on the operating table.
    • People can die when they've lost the will to live, but there's generally something else, something physical, helping them along. A girl dumped by her boyfriend doesn't just up and die because she can't live without him and what he's become. There are basically two ways to view this scene. One, as a tragic event based on a fairly ridiculous bit of sentimentality. And two, as an unintentional reveal of Padme as a rather selfish person as she basically decides her kids don't need a mother and dies on them because she can't live a happy life with their father.
  • "The daaark siide of the foorce is a paathwaayy to manyy abilitiiees sommme considerr to beee unnnaturalll."
  • In A New Hope, the heroes run into a squadron of Stormtroopers on the Death Star, they shout "Blast them!" Han fires off a single shot, and the Stormtroopers turn and run.
  • Return of the Jedi, Leia gets shot in the shoulder by a Stormtrooper. Incredibly absurd because she's in plain sight, does not notice him, doesn't move, and he takes the time to pause and aim at her, but he still only gets her in the shoulder. Obi-wan was right, blasters are clumsy and random!
  • The DVD commentary for the original trilogy shows how Carrie Fisher saw the destruction of Alderaan: the planet simply vanishing while a guy on set yelled BOOM! Naturally, it was a challenge for her to restrain herself from laughing.
    • It didn't help that Peter Cushing, playing despicable Governor Tarkin was, in real life, the sweetest tea-and-biscuits English actor Carrie Fisher had ever met. "He smelled like lavender," she'd say in later years.
      • Add to that, he wore bath slippers while playing Tarkin since his boots were too small.
  • Who can forget the Stormtrooper Head Bump?
  • From Episode IV on one of the Death Star attack runs "Allllllmost there" has forever labeled that guy as "constipated X-Wing guy" for me.
  • The 2004 DVD release of the old trilogy gives us Darth Vader, who used to be known as the epitome of evil and just downright badass, with a pink lightsaber. Hilarity ensues. It's either that or you are totally angry at George Lucas for releasing unfinished, half-assed crap like that. Also kind of a Wall Banger, since they had the time to add and change all sorts of stuff, but they didn't have the time to check if the color correction looked good or not.
  • In Return of the Jedi, a Y-Wing pilot in Gray Squadron gets shot down. Before he crashes into the bridge of a Star Destroyer, he screams "I'm hiiiiit!" where "hit" sounds like "heeeeeet".
  • Nobody wants to mention the new version of the Krayt Call in the Blu-Ray edition?
    • OH MY GOD! For unfamiliar readers, in the VHS/DVD version, this used to sound like a high pitched, bellowing roar - no problems there. For the Blu-Ray (inexplicably), this has now been changed to something that can only be described as sounding like an outraged homosexual.
      • But at least its so funny to listen.
        • Once described to this editor by a friend -- who specified that he was not, in fact, exaggerating -- as the sound of "a gorilla having a railroad spike hammered up its ass."
        • How, HOW did this get approved?? You would have thought that at least one of "Uncle George's" minions would have voiced concern. This is right up there with Vader's Big No in terms of utterly baffling sound effect decisions.
  • Surely one of the more chillingly horrific moments in the Episode 1 DVD commentary occurs when George Lucas (pre-cinema release) confidently tells Steven Spielberg that: "Jar Jar is the key to all this"........*gulp*
  • There's (another) one bit in Revenge of the Sith that caused the entire theatre that this troper went to burst out laughing. After Yoda loses the duel to Palpatine, he crawls out a ventilation shaft like a little cat. He's supposed to look really tired and trying to escape, but the way crawled out was absolutely hilarious.

Star Wars Expanded Universe

There's visibly less Narm in the Star Wars Expanded Universe - as far as Unexpected Reactions to This Index go, it much prefers Ho Yay - but it's there all right.

  • One of the Narmiest aspects of the expanded universe is the merciless Planet of Hats box-ticking exercise that is applied to any and all members of the various human and alien races expanded upon. Authors will take the one mention a race or species has in the movies and expand it to be true for all members of that race or species. Leia says Alderaan has no weapons? They're all pacifists. Many Bothans died to get the death star plans? All Bothans are spies. Han says to never tell him the odds? All Corellians hate odds and it can't be referenced - this one being particularly Narmy and based on one line, said in context, very much in keeping with one character's personality, applied to a whole race of people.........cringe-inducing.
  • In the New Jedi Order, Supreme Commander Pellaeon, talking to Leia Organa Solo about his garden, ends up using extremely heavy-handed garden metaphors to demonstrate what looks like the difference between Imperial and New Republic governing styles. Pellaeon is usually not this absurd.

"From a garden one learns to cull the weak and unfit and to encourage the strong and vigorous. An inferior bud soon feels the strength of my pinch!"

    • There's a novel in that series where Pellaeon's Empire has a tremendous victory against the Vong; the Vong commander has a whole rant about retribution which Pellaeon interrupts by saying that the Vong's threats are as empty as their boasts are shallow. How he caps his Shut UP, Hannibal moment is a Crowning Moment of Awesome to most, purest cheese to some.

"You may win the occasional battle against us, Vorrik, but the Empire will always strike back."

  • In Michael Stackpole's X Wing Series novels, viewpoint characters have a tendency to go from thinking about something to suddenly talking about it out loud to themselves. Sometimes, this looks awkward.
    • The Rogues go to the prison planet Kessel to fetch some criminals that they can turn loose on the Empire. This includes one of Corran's personal enemies, a crime lord who Corran sent to Kessel in the first place, who had been taken down in part because his diamond-shaped Hellish Pupils gleamed in the dark. Corran tells him that if he blows his chance and turns against the New Republic, he will be tracked down. Again, not Narm. But again, Corran ruins the moment by how he says it.

"No matter where you go, I'll find those double diamonds of yours. Count on it."

    • Said villain (Zekka Thyne) is an alien with dark blotches across his skin. This earned him the less than threatening nickname "Patches".
    • Stackpole manages to give his Big Bad a bit of Narm too. The Rebels call Madam Director Ysanne Isard 'Iceheart'. She expresses interest in turning one of the Rogues to her side via brainwashing, and her subordinate, who has a history with that Rogue, says that it's a bad idea because playing with Corran Horn is playing with fire. Her response?

"I am Iceheart, I do not burn."

      • Yet again, a reasonable sentiment is phrased poorly.
    • Kirtain Loor, in general, though some of it may be intentional, since it's driven home again and again that he's not as good as he thinks he is. In practically every book that features him, he thinks about how people have said that he looks like a younger, taller Grand Moff Tarkin. In The Krytos Trap, he also puts on a hooded cloak and imagines himself to look like "a pale imitation of Darth Vader" (which itself is problematic). He's hoping to inspire Vaderian terror in someone. He does scare the intended person, but it's clear that this happens because his agents just violently broke into the man's house and threatened him.
    • Stackpole also gives us a few... gems... with his romantic dialogue. "Losing you just ripped the emotional skeleton out of me"?
  • Many, MANY of the more "introspective" parts of the Jedi Apprentice and Jedi Quest series (by Scholastic, naturally) are full of this -- specifically, the parts where Anakin or Obi-Wan Wangst about what their Master thinks of them.
  • The constant references to "lube" in Shadows of the Empire get ridiculous.
    • Continued in the later works: Ben likes to say "lubed" a lot.
  • Open The Glove of Darth Vader on any random page. There will be Narm there.
  • In the video game adaptation of The Phantom Menace, one of the shopkeepers on Tatooine is... very enthusiastic about his trade.

"Better stand back Mister, cause I'm about to slash... ALL MY PRICES!"

    • A large amount of the random background characters in that game could also qualify, many sounded like the voice actors weren't taking their roles entirely seriously.
  • In an early issue of the Tales of the Jedi series, Cay Qel-Droma's arm is cut off in battle, resulting in him yelling "ULIIIIIIIC! THEY CUT OFF MY AAAAARM!"
    • Too bad they didn't cut off his narm.
  • The Boba Fett miniseries Enemy of the Empire features Fett hunting a bounty to a hermitage run by a really narmy group called the Ancient Order of Pessimists, who sporadically cry things like, "Woe, woe and seven times woe!"
    • Actually, to be Narm it has to have been intended to be serious. Your Mileage May Vary on whether or not the Pessimists were serious or pure comic relief (their ultimate fate--complete annihilation just after the leader discovers optimism--suggests the latter).
  • Lumpy in the Star Wars Holiday Special.
    • Seriously, how do you pick out any part of the Star Wars Holiday Special as being more narmy than the rest of it?
      • The entire Holiday Special.
    • Wookies having a conversation for an extended period of time without subtitles. Narmtastic even without having a clue about what it's about ("Love Day" is probably involved). Seriously. No subtitles.
  • In Fate of the Jedi, Luke sometimes goes the Ho Yay route with Ben, always talking about how well-muscled he is. The Brain Bleach is over there if you need it.
  • Dark Empire has a part where Palpatine messes with Luke's dreams. There's a panel with Luke in a Vader mask clutching at it and screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOO!."
    • Hey, I'd be worried, too, if I had a dream that I was acting out a scene from Revenge of the Sith.
  • The recurring Anzati species are a race of genuienly creepy space vampire assassins who have prehensile tentacles which uncoil from pouches in their cheeks and go through their victims' noses to consume their brain matter. Unfortunately, they also eat their victims' luck, which is narmily referred to as "soup". The result is lines like (from the first Essential Guide to Characters profile on Dannik Jerriko):

"Only one employer, his first, ever complained about Jerriko's price. He drank his soup. The man died."

  • The Star Wars Audio Dramas, which are audio dramas of the original trilogy, are overall excellent. Pretty much every bit of the action has to be narrated by someone on the scene, usually playing Captain Obvious. To the writers' credit, they make most of it seem pretty natural - but there are definitely times when it seems forced. One prominent example is during the ESB one, while Luke wanders around Hoth after escaping the wampa.
    • Return of the Jedi's audio drama makes the entire confrontation between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor incredibly narmy in this way. It doesn't help that the voice actor they picked for the Emperor is a cheerful Large Ham, not a malicious-sounding one.
  • The image of Admiral Thrawn with a yslamiri on his shoulder kinda spoils his whole steely cold evil air. It's like how a pirate can't be taken seriously with a parrot perched on his shoulder.
    • Zahn was probably going for something like Right-Hand-Cat, given that Thrawn strokes the ysalamiri more than once.
    • To be fair, in the books he never carries ysalamiri like that. They're in carry-harnesses or in frames over his chair; they have to have something that their fingers have grown into, or they die. Whenever he touches one, it's to quietly remind people like Joruus C'baoth that with it there, Jedi powers can't touch him. The comic and official art of him decided to change things.
  • Star Wars Rebel Assault: There are some interesting moments of Narm, like when Jamison Jones (who played and voiced Rookie One in the second game) says "TIE Fighter" at one point. Some found it hilarious, because he pronounced "TIE Fighter" in the nerdiest way possible. Then again, the character is supposed to be a farm boy from Tatooine, so that probably would make him...nerdy.
  • The Force Unleashed: Sam Witwer as Palpatine is surprisingly good, but sometimes tips into the Narm Side:

You are all traitors to the Empire. You will be interrogated. Tortured. You will give me the names of your friends and allies. Andthenyouwilldie.

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