Star Wars sources and analogues
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Star Wars, the popular science fantasy saga, is acknowledged to have been inspired by many sources. These may include Qigong, Greek Philosophy, Greek mythology, Roman History, Roman Mythology, parts of the Bible, Confucianism, Islam, Shintoism, and Taoism.
Lucas has said that chivalry, knighthood, paladinism, and such things in feudal societies inspired some concepts in the Star Wars movies, most notably the Jedi Knights. The work of the mythologist Joseph Campbell, most notably his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, directly influenced George Lucas, and was what drove him to create the 'modern myth' of Star Wars. The supernatural flow of energy known as The Force is believed to have originated from the concept of prana, or qi, "the all-pervading vital energy of the universe".
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[edit] Similarities
| Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope | |
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| Triumph of the Will | |
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| The throne room scene from Star Wars Episode IV:, resembles a scene from Triumph of the Will a Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl. | |
[edit] Film
- Star Wars was heavily inspired by Kurosawa's films The Hidden Fortress and Yojimbo.
- Lucas has also cited The Searchers and Lawrence of Arabia as references for the style—if not the story—used in the films. A more direct homage to Lawrence of Arabia occurs in Attack of the Clones, as Padme and Anakin talk while walking around the Theed palace on Naboo. It was filmed at the Palaçio Español in Seville, Spain, which in Lawrence of Arabia was the site of the British Army HQ in Cairo, and was shot in the exact manner as the scene in Lawrence of Arabia where Allenby (Jack Hawkins) and Dryden (Claude Rains) discuss whether to give artillery to Lawrence's Arab troops. In the same film, Padme and Anakin also retreat to an estate called Varykino - the name of the Gromeko family estate in Doctor Zhivago (1965). (Some also have considered Tom Courtenay's Pasha/Strelnikov character from Zhivago as an inspiration for Anakin/Darth Vader, but the similarities are likely coincidental.) A reference to The Searchers occurs in A New Hope, when Luke discovers the burning moisture farm.
- Lucas is also a fan of Sergio Leone's film Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and according to Leone's biographer, Christopher Frayling, he listened to the score from Leone's film while editing The Empire Strikes Back. Many have considered Vader's first appearance in A New Hope as being an "homage" to the introduction of Henry Fonda's villainous Frank in the Leone film.
- The space battles in A New Hope were based on filmed World War I dogfights.
- The attack on the "Death Star" in the climax of the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is similar in many respects to the strategy of Operation Chastise from the 1954 British film, The Dam Busters. Rebel pilots have to fly through a trench while evading enemy fire and drop a single special weapon at a precise distance from the target in order to destroy the entire base with a single explosion; if one run fails another run must be made by a different pilot. Some scenes from the Star Wars climax are very similar to those in The Dam Busters and some of the dialogue is nearly identical in the two films. These scenes are also heavily influenced by the action scenes from the fictional wartime film 633 Squadron. That film's finale shows the squadron's planes flying down a deep fjord while being fired at along the way by anti-aircraft guns lining its sides. George Lucas has stated in interviews that this sequence inspired the 'trench run' sequence in Star Wars.
[edit] Literature
The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov stated on several occasions that George Lucas's galaxy-wide Empire bore a close resemblance to the Galaxy depicted in Asimov's Foundation Series. The greatest differences are that Asimov's Galaxy contains no robots or non-human aliens; Asimov addressed both issues directly in the saga's later volumes, most notably Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth. Since Asimov's death in 1992, the Star Wars cinematic universe has gained new Asimov-esque elements: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace introduced the planet Coruscant, which bears a close resemblance to Asimov's Trantor (Coruscant technically originated in a book from the Star Wars Expanded Universe released in 1991).
[edit] Historical
George Lucas has stated that many historical events have been used in the Star Wars saga, for example, that the Empire was based on Hitler's Third Reich. The storm troopers from the movies share a name with the Nazi storm troopers (see also Sturmabteilung). The imperial officers' uniforms also resemble some (historical) German Army uniforms (see waffen ss). In addition, some World War II terms may have been used for names in Star Wars; examples include the planets Kessel (a term that refers to a group of encircled forces) and Hoth (Hermann Hoth was a German general).
