In 1971, George Lucas made a terrific science fiction film about fighting an oppressive society at all costs, featuring a mixture of new stars and veteran actors along with “metal faced” villains. The film was THX-1138. A remake of a student film he had directed at the University of Southern California, THX-1138 was a challenging and thought provoking debut film inspired by great Science Fiction works such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It was also a box office disaster. Warner Brothers, upon viewing the film, completely pulled the plug on not only future Lucas projects, but also cancelled projects from the production company that Lucas was a part of; the Francis Ford Coppola run company, American Zoetrope Pictures.
Upon coming to grips with his first film being a failure, George Lucas took advice from Coppola to just do a crowd-pleasing film. Taking his experiences from his youth, Lucas produced a good old fashioned street racing film. American Graffiti became Lucas’ first bonafide hit. Though not backed by studio bosses, audience reaction to the film was immensely positive and allowed Lucas to expand on another idea to make a bigger film.
Lucas’ idea would of course become Star Wars, which would go on to be the highest grossing film of all time. Lucas took several sources and brought them together to create his own myth which then became the most successful franchise of all time. From classic science fiction, to other literary works to the cheapest of cinematic escapism, Lucas crafted his own story carefully, loading it with action, humor and fantasy elements seldom seen at the time. Lucas chose carefully to take the correct elements from each to bring his vision to light.
Literary Influences
The biggest inspirations for Lucas on the literary front are probably the works of Joseph Campbell. Lucas has cited both The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth as the two books that gave him the most direction when trying to write Star Wars. Campbell’s books are about how there is a certain model in myths that are universal when trying to create a great story. Lucas used several of the archetypes that Campbell describes in his books to hone his story. For example, Campbell describes one archetype as “The Call to Adventure”, in which the hero first learns of the quest he must take. This is usually followed by the next archetype entitled “Refusal of the Call”, where the hero decides that there is too much to lose by going on this adventure. This is seen in A New Hope as Luke Skywalker first receives the message from Princess Leia and then his subsequent reluctance to leave his farm when asked by Obi-Wan to help him.
Three other influences on Star Wars are seen in three of the most popular book series in the history of Science Fiction and Fantasy. The first is Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series. The series involves a Civil War captain thrown into an alien war on the planet Mars. The books feature huge battles between large floating crafts, and tons of swordplay. The stories are very simplistic and very whimsical, featuring swashbuckling twelve foot aliens and strong female characters. Burroughs was also the author of the Tarzan series, but the John Carter of Mars series is a much more action packed read.
Lord of the Rings is also a huge contributor to the Star Wars myth. While there are its obvious contributions, with its older mentors, dark emperor and beautiful, strong princesses, the biggest influence it has on Star Wars is the struggle between good and evil. While Lord of the Rings did not invent the notion of the struggle, it is the subtlety with which the books show Frodo’s fight to stay good that influenced Lucas. Luke Skywalker’s struggle with temptation is a driving force for the Original Trilogy, making him a very compelling and human character. After losing the guidance of his mentor, Luke must find the strength to journey on and destroy his personal demons. Frodo’s struggle mirrors this.
The last major book series to have an impact on Lucas was Dune. Taking place on a barren desert planet, Dune is the story of Paul Atreides, the son of a feudal lord who is exiled and then returns heroically as Muad’Dib, the leader of the native people of the planet known as the Fremen. Paul learns the ancient techniques of the Bene Gesserit, a sect of female mystics. The Bene Gesserit use a skill to both control the minds and actions of those around them called “The Voice”, and also a discipline called “The Weirding Way” which gives them complete control of their entire body and allows them to anticipate the actions of their opponents in battle. An obvious comparison can be made with Luke’s study of Jedi ways and his rise to destroy the Empire. Other influences can be seen in Lucas’ emphasis on ancient weaponry in the choice of light sabers . In Dune the preferred combat is knife fighting. The main villain is also later revealed as Paul’s grandfather, just as Darth Vader is the father of Luke Skywalker.
All of these literary works together exact a heavy influence on Star Wars, with Lucas mixing and matching what he wanted from each. While Dune and Lord of the Rings have a tone that is perhaps to heavy to be associated with Lucas’ series, the John Carter series has just the right “flight of fancy” type of feeling to it. This “mixing and matching” gave the films a timeless feel, and Lucas would also use cinematic influences to further this universal appeal.
Cinematic Influences
During the director’s youth, Lucas became enamored with adventure serials and most notably the exploits of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Flash was an American football star who got entangled in a galactic war with an evil villain named Ming the Merciless. Buck Rogers was an astronaut that got thrown into the 24th century, and fought evil and performed similar daring-do. Both series starred Larry “Buster” Crabbe and were high action sagas of rebels and evil empires. Both were episodic in nature (primarily because each installment was 10-12 minutes long) and begun with an opening crawl to keep audiences informed to the story’s progression so far. These adventures were instrumental in providing Lucas with a cinematic template with which to strike the right tone in Star Wars just as the Burroughs’s Mars were a literary template.
The second cinematic influence comes from the film maker Akira Kurosawa, most notably Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. Fortress tells the story of a princess, stuck behind enemy lines with only her most trusted general and two smalltime thieves at her side. Star Wars owed much to The Hidden Fortress in its inception. Lucas’ original script was basically just a remake for Fortress, although even in the final edit many concepts from the film still remain.
What Lucas found most interesting about the film is that although it tells a sweeping tale of medieval civil war, it is told from the perspective of the movie’s two most common characters. Tahei and Matakishi (Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara) are two peasants that joined the army to find adventure. After their side is defeated in battle, the two decide to pack it up and go home. On the way home, they fight and bicker and eventually split up. The two are captured separately by enemy forces, but luckily end up back together. After a huge prison break, the two stumble across a hidden cache of gold. What is not known to them is that the gold belongs to a princess named Yukihime (Misa Uehara) and her faithful bodyguard, General Rokurota Makabe (Toshiro Mifune) who are both evading capture by living in a mountain hideaway. The two agree to help the General and Princess across enemy lines to their homeland. Along the way the band of heroes face hordes of enemies, the General’s arch nemesis, and several villagers that help them on the road home.
While Lucas strayed away from much of this plotline in the later drafts of his space saga, much of the opening scenes remain as Tahei and Matakishi become R2-D2 and C3PO. Just as the two thieves encompass much of the plot of The Hidden Fortress, much of what happens in Star Wars has the two droids as its focus. This allowed Lucas to throw his audience into this world without a great deal of exposition, due to the fact that the droids are essentially the least important characters in this universe they inhabit. The audience can identify their struggle to survive and not be too bogged down with politics and maneuvering. Just like the thieves, the droids are separated and captured, then thrown back together and proceed on their incredible adventure.
Much of Obi-Wan Kenobi comes from both General Rokurota Makabe and another Toshiro Mifune character, Sanjuro from the Akira Kurosawa directed Yojimbo. In a rousing scene, General Makabe chases down enemies on horseback, but his forward momentum carries him straight into an enemy camp. The scene is duplicated by Lucas as the Millennium Falcon entering the Death Star. While in the camp, Makabe must face down his arch nemesis, in a very ritualized-style spear duel. The fight is very similar to the light saber combat that takes place on the Death Star between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader in Star Wars. One scene from Yojimbo features several mercenaries mouthing off about their crimes, before Mifune’s Sanjuro ends the proceeding by cutting down his would be attackers, leaving a severed arm on the ground. This scene is paid homage to in the Mos Isley Cantina, where Obi-Wan shows his light saber skills for the first time.
Lucas also took much of the look from Hidden Fortress‘s barren wastelands. One can see the similarities in the cinematography from the opening shots of Hidden Fortress and the desert shots of Tatooine. Also Lucas takes Kurosawa’s style of cutting scenes and Fortress is full of “Soft Wipes” as the film goes from character to character.
All These different elements helped to create the highest grossing film of all time. Star Wars has gone on to be more than just a film series. Lucas has created an empire of his own by using the pieces of other great works and standing on their shoulders to create his own masterpiece. By understanding the essential power of each piece, Lucas was able to harness each of their best attributes and combine them for maximum effect. Other space operas have tried to follow in Lucas’ footstep, but none have been able to capture the pure screen magic of his Star Wars films. With Lucas’ saga finally coming to an end, hopefully someone else will step up to the plate to show audiences the next great adventure. Lord of the Rings showed that a fantasy series could step through the door that Star Wars opened, hopefully others with take the same route.
