Every generation has a legend. Every journey has a first step. Every saga has a beginning.
Why it is hard sci-fi
Soft. Star Wars sits on this list because it is the cultural anchor for cinematic science fiction, not because it engages the science. The Phantom Menace introduces midi-chlorians as a microbiological substrate for the Force, which is the closest the saga has come to claiming a biological mechanism, and most fans wish it had not.
Science inside it
No working physics. Hyperspace, blasters, droid sentience, and pod racing all run on cinematic grammar rather than physics. The midi-chlorian count is the films single empirical claim and is treated as a blood test, which makes it the only quantitative measurement in the film.