These aren't the strains you're looking for

Word on the street#

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, someone named a cannabis strain after a farm boy from Tatooine, and the rest of the galaxy followed. Skywalker, Skywalker OG, Jedi OG, Death Star, Ewok: the shelf looked like a cantina. The stories travel with the names. Skywalker OG is OG Kush crossed with Skywalker, itself a Mazar × Blueberry from Amsterdam [1]. Death Star is Sensi Star × Sour Diesel [2].

Good stories, all of them. But if you went looking for those strains today, the names on the label might not match, and in one case the plant might not either.

What the record says#

On 4 May 2018 Leafly reported that Skywalker had become Mazar x Blueberry, Skywalker OG had become Mazar x Blueberry OG, and Ewok had become Alien Walker. The Star Wars names, it said, "went up in smoke in a preventative measure" as strain names faced trademark scrutiny [3]. That is the whole claim. The article names no studio and describes no lawsuit about these strains, so we call it what it was: a precaution. Think of a nervous neighbour who repaints the fence before anyone has complained.

As for where the names came from, nobody agrees. One strain page says the creators picked Skywalker for its "forceful" effects [4]. Another source says the leading grower during its early spread was called Luke [5]. A third says there is "no official connection" to the films and that the name only "likely refers" to them [6]. No dated record settles it. We can't tell you which story is true, only that none of them is documented.

Ewok is the odd one out. Several strain guides credit it to Alien Genetics, a cross of Albert Walker and Tahoe Alien, which at least explains the new name: Alien plus Walker [7]. Those guides also say it was the hybrid winner at the 2013 High Times Cannabis Cup in Seattle [7][8]. So the strain won a trophy under a name it later had to drop.

Death Star has its own origin tale, and it comes from the breeders. Weedmaps (10 May 2019) reports that Team Death Star, who now live in Nevada, first grew it in Ohio in the early 2000s, building on East Coast Sour Diesel and, in the "winning" cross, a local cut of Sensi Star [2]. The name, as one breeder recalls it, came at a Bonnaroo festival, where an older woman remarked that the weed "is the Death", and a friend suggested the rest [2]. We have only his recollection, and the article doesn't verify it either. Fun story, one witness.

The trophies kept their old names#

Renaming a strain doesn't rename its résumé. In CannaLib's cup records, Death Star took 2nd for Best Hybrid at the 2014 High Times US Cannabis Cup, 1st for Best Vape Pen Cartridges in both 2017 and 2018, 1st for Hash at the 2019 Oregon Growers Cup and 3rd for Best Hybrid Flower in 2020. Ewok's 2013 hybrid win is in the trophy cabinet, and the label has since been swapped. If you've read our trophy check, you know why this matters: an award is only useful if you can match it to the plant that won it, and a rename makes that harder.

Are they as strong as their names?#

The Death Star lives up to its mass, at least in the middle. Across 811 flower lab samples its median THC is 19.8%, and the middle 80% of results run from 9.3% to 26.4%. (The median is the middle result: line up every test from weakest to strongest and it's the one in the centre.) Skywalker OG is a hair stronger at a median of 20.1% across 946 flower tests, with the middle 80% running from 12.1% to 26.0%. These are solid, ordinary-strong numbers, nowhere near the mythical stuff the names suggest.

The spread matters as much as the middle: a jar of either could land well below 20% or a good way above it. Jedi OG sits on the same shelf, but we have left its numbers out here because we couldn't confirm them on cannalib.org. For the bigger picture on label numbers, see The number on the pack.

What the DNA says#

In the public Phylos genotype panel of 2,264 cannabis samples [9], three samples were sold as Skywalker. You would hope they are one plant. They are two. And one of the two measures as the OG Kush plant, the plant behind a whole family of OG names (more on that family in One plant, fifty names). In other words, one of the samples sold as Skywalker looks like OG Kush wearing a Jedi robe.

That doesn't mean Skywalker OG is fake. Some sources describe it as an OG Kush phenotype, meaning one plant picked out of a batch of OG Kush seedlings [5], and an OG Kush cross would be expected to sit near OG Kush. But it does mean the label alone can't tell you which of the two plants you're holding. The family trees are thinner than the stories. On cannalib.org, Skywalker OG lists six recorded parents (Blueberry OG, Girl Scout Cookies, Mazar, Mazar X Blueberry, OG Kush and Skywalker) with one source each. Death Star lists Sensi Star and Sour Diesel, also with one source each (seedfinder). That is a record of what people have said, not a DNA test. The DNA panel result above comes from a public dataset; CannaLib's own DNA results are an upcoming release.

So are these the strains you're looking for?#

Mostly the names are real and the plants are fine. The trouble is the paperwork.

Here is our read. The Star Wars strains are real plants with fragile names. The renames in 2018 were a precaution rather than a verdict on anything, but they left a trail of old and new labels that don't always point at the same jar. The DNA adds a twist: even the label "Skywalker" doesn't guarantee one plant, because at least one sample sold under it measures as OG Kush. If you want a Star Wars strain to be what you think it is, the name is the least reliable part. Bring a lab report. These are not the droids, and sometimes not the strains, you're looking for.