from the Sydney Morning Herald
Star Wars crib notes
By Jon Casimir
May 11 2002
George Lucas's epic bears an uncanny resemblance to a broad collection of other fantasy and sci-fi creations, writes Jon Casimir.
From the moment it became clear that the original Star Wars was as much a phenomenon as a film, pop academia rushed to embrace the work of George Lucas. Sure, they argued, Star Wars was old-fashioned space opera, but any semi-literate cultural studies student could see it was so much more than that.
Since then, culture nuts and movie buffs have tended to examine the film through the prism of mythology. Lucas, you see, studied the work of mytho-historian Joseph Campbell, best known for his 1949 book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, which maintained that there was a single pattern of heroic journey, which all cultures shared. The book, a vaguely holy manual for aspiring screenwriters, outlined the basic stages of the archetypal hero's journey.
The Lucas-Campbell connection - Lucas once referred to him as "My Yoda" - is neat, intellectually attractive and undeniably highbrow, conferring the status of art onto Lucas's popcorn flick.
But the truth is that, even given the contribution made by Campbell's ideas, Lucas pieced together the Star Wars universe from a lot of sources, most at the other end of the cultural totem pole.
He borrowed conventions from western movies (Luke Skywalker vows revenge when the bad guys burn down the frontier home of his parents) and from screwball comedies (the will-they-won't-they banter between Han Solo and Princess Leia). He threw in plenty of swashbuckling and enough pot-boiling melodrama to bring to mind Saturday matinees.
Away from the screen, he plundered pulp sci-fi novels and comics, all in search of the elements he needed.
These borrowings, of course, don't impress academics and cinema buffs, so they tend to escape discussion. What follows is a series of speculations about the origins of the Star Wars universe. Many, Lucas has graciously acknowledged.
Others are merely amateur sleuthing, the deductions of fans and analysts.
None of these suggestions implies that Star Wars is a lesser film. As a wise man once said - actually, now that we think about it, it might have been Tony Bennett - if you steal from one place, it's plagiarism; if you steal from a lot of places, it's research.
Star Wars Element: The scrolling text that opens the movie, a story which rolls upscreen towards infinity.
Uncanny Resemblance To The scrolling text that opens the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s. Lucas originally wanted to remake the Flash Gordon space opera but couldn't secure the rights.
Star Wars Element: A story about a young, female ruler whose people have been overrun by a ruthless invading force. She is being hunted by the bad guys who are armed with a new kind of technology capable of killing at great range. Her allies include a noble warrior, distinguished in combat but also capable of disarming his opponents using the power of his mind.
Uncanny Resemblance To Well, the above paragraph describes the plot of Akira Kurosawa's 1958 film The Hidden Fortress. Lucas has been pretty open about borrowing from Kurosawa.
Star Wars Element: The Jedi Knights.
Uncanny Resemblance To Sci-fi author E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen, introduced in his 1937 novel Galactic Patrol. They were an elite group of warriors with telepathic abilities, trained by alien beings to use their powers to keep peace in the galaxy. In Galactic Patrol the central character flies around the galaxy, gets caught in tractor beams and escapes pursuing bad guys by switching dimensions.
At the end, he blows up the enemy base in a one-man fighter. When his helmet blast shield is down he can still "see", using his special powers.
Star Wars Element: The dashing, manly-yet-sensitive hero, blockade runner Han Solo.
Uncanny Resemblance To The dashing, manly-yet-sensitive hero, blockade runner Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind.
Star Wars Element: The Cantina scene.
Uncanny Resemblance To A bar scene from another Kurosawa film, 1961's Yojimbo, where several men threaten the hero, bragging about the fact that they're wanted by authorities. There's a flash of blade and suddenly an arm is lying on the on the ground.
The hero is offered "25 ryo now, 25 when you complete the mission". He stays with a wizened old man who stews pots of food and could be an inspiration for Yoda.
Star Wars Element: The desert world of Tatooine, home of the young Luke Skywalker.
Uncanny Resemblance To The desert planet of Arrakis in Frank Herbert's Dune.
Star Wars Element: The Jawas. Desert dwellers with glowing yellow eyes - the rest of their faces are hidden by hoods.
Uncanny Resemblance To The Fremen from Dune, desert dwellers with glowing blue eyes - the rest of their faces are hidden by hoods.
Star Wars Element: Coruscant, the capital of the Republic, a single city which encircles a globe.
Uncanny Resemblance To Trantor, a single city which encircles a globe in Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels.
Star Wars Element: Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back.
Uncanny Resemblance To Cloud City in Flash Gordon.
Star Wars Element: The waterfall city of Theed and the dinosaur parade in The Phantom Menace.
Uncanny Resemblance To The waterfall city and the dinosaur parade in James Gurney's Dinotopia.
Star Wars Element: The Ewoks, cute aliens who live in forests.
Uncanny Resemblance To The cute aliens who live in the forests in H. Beam Piper's '60s Fuzzy stories.
Star Wars Element: The Sandcrawler that The Jawas drives on Tatooine.
Uncanny Resemblance To The Sandcrawlers driven by the Arrakins in Dune.
Star Wars Element: C-3PO.
Uncanny Resemblance To Maria, the beautiful robot from Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis.
Star Wars Element: The clanky sound effects when C-3PO moves.
Uncanny Resemblance To The clanky sound effects made by the Tin Man in The Wizard Of Oz.
Star Wars Element: R2-D2.
Uncanny Resemblance To The robot drones of the 1971 movie Silent Running.
Star Wars Element Droid personalities.
Uncanny Resemblance To A couple of bickering peasant farmer characters in Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. The comic bantering of the characters - one fussy, disapproving and anally retentive, one plucky and persistent - also recalls Laurel and Hardy.
Star Wars Element: The lightsaber, a sword hilt which emits a blade of light.
Uncanny Resemblance To The light swords in two earlier science fiction novels: Gather, Darkness! (1943) by Fritz Leiber and Nightwings (1969) by Robert Silverberg.
Star Wars Element: Obi-Wan Kenobi retrieves Anakin's old lightsaber from a wooden box and gives it to Luke.
Uncanny Resemblance To The scene from The Lord of the Rings in which Bilbo retrieves his magic sword from a wooden box and gives it to Frodo.
Star Wars Element: Darth Vader tries to persuade Luke to join the dark side, which would bring order to the galaxy.
Uncanny Resemblance To The scene in Lord Of The Rings in which Saruman tries to persuade Gandalf to join the evil wizards, which would bring order to Middle Earth.
Star Wars Element: The Millennium Falcon is swallowed by a space slug.
Uncanny Resemblance To The Old Testament story of Jonah and the whale.
Star Wars Element: The young Queen Amidala switches places with her handmaiden to travel undetected.
Uncanny Resemblance To Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress again. Princess Yukihime, the besieged ruler, does exactly that.
Star Wars Element: The pod race in The Phantom Menace.
Uncanny Resemblance To The chariot race in Ben-Hur, complete with duelling vehicles that flip over and crash into walls.
Star Wars Element: A rebel fighter destroys the entire enemy base with a single bomb.
Uncanny Resemblance To The Dam Busters, the 1954 film where one bomb does all the work.
Star Wars Element: The jubilant final scene of Episode IV, where the three heroes, Han, Luke and Chewbacca, walk through a crowd.
Uncanny Resemblance To The final scene of Triumph of the Will, the 1934 Leni Riefenstahl film. Adolf Hitler and two generals walk through a vast army crowd.
Star Wars Element:
Sydney Morning Herald article about Star Wars and its influences.
Uncanny Resemblance To Kristen Brennan's excellent Star Wars Origins Web site (
www.jitterbug.com/origins);
Scifi.com's section Influences and Inspirations: The Making of a Saga (
www.scifi.com/starwars/influences);
Salon article, Galactic Gasbag (
www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2002/04/10/lucas/index.html);
and online essay, The Origins Of Star Wars: Evolution of a Space Saga by John L. Flynn, (
www.starwarz.com/starkiller/writings/evolution.htm)
