The second major
direction for Star Wars (used in the 1973 synopsis) was to use the
Flash Gordon "vocabulary" to create an outer-space version of the
Samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, in particular Kakushi toride no san akunin (The Hidden Fortress, 1958), Tsubaki Sanjûrô (Sanjuro, 1962) and Yojimbo (which means "bodyguard," 1961). Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces
eventually gave Lucas a third and final major story direction, but many
elements from Kurosawa's work remain, including the two bickering
peasants (who evolved into the droids), elements of the Obi-Wan/Luke
relationship and the queen who often switches places with her
handmaiden. The Darth Vader-like evil general who has a change of heart
at the end wears a kamon (commonly called simply a "mon", a Japanese
family crest) that looks very similar to the Imperial Crest.
The subtle lesson
Lucas learned from Kurosawa is how to translate movie ideas between
America and Japan. Kurosawa had become famous partially for telling
stories about Japanese samurai using ideas he borrowed from American
Westerns and detective stories. Kurosawa's Yojimbo was based on Dashiell Hammett's 1928 book Red Harvest.
Hammett had been a real-life detective for the famous Pinkerton
Detective Agency, so his crime stories had a ring of authenticity that
readers loved. Red Harvest was Hammett's first novel.
It told the story of an unnamed gunslinger who cleans up a crooked town
mostly by pitting the bad guys against each other, though he wasn't
above killing the bad guys himself when the situation demanded it.
Kurosawa's remake starred Toshirô Mifune as The Man With No Name. Then
in 1964 Italian director Sergio Leone remade Yojimbo as Per un pugno di dollari ("A Fistful of Dollars"), starring Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name. Leone was probably inspired by John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960), which had just earned a pile of money remaking Kurosawa's Shichinin no samurai
("The Seven Samurai", 1954). Leone's "spaghetti Western" (a Western
made in Italy, partially to save production costs) was extremely
popular, earned a lot of money, and made Eastwood a star (though it
also typecast him in Man With No Name-like roles for the rest of his
life). The Coen Brothers borrowed from Red Harvest/Yojimbo again in
1990, combining it with Hammett's The Glass Key (1931) to create the film Miller's Crossing. Yojimbo was finally remade again in 1996, with Bruce Willis playing The Man With No Name character in Last Man Standing.
Star Wars borrows a lot of great stuff from Yojimbo,
including the cantina scene: several men threaten the hero, bragging
how wanted they are by authorities. There's a flash of blade and
suddenly an arm lies on the ground. Mifune is offered "25 ryo now, 25
when you complete the mission." (A ryo is a gold coin.) Jeremy Bulloch,
the actor who played Boba Fett, said the character was based on Clint
Eastwood's version of The Man With No Name. You can hear a little
cowboy-spur jingle when Fett enters the dining room in The Empire Strikes Back,
soft and subtle enough that it's probably meant to trigger our
emotional association with the character without our conscious
awareness.
Lucas' affection and admiration for Kurosawa may have influenced his
decision to visit Japan sometime in the late 1960s, when he scouted for
a potential location to shoot his first feature film, THX 1138
(released 1971). Lucas borrowed the name "Jedi" from "Jidai Geki"
(literally "period dramas", movies about samurai). He may have found
additional inspiration in Leiji Matsumoto's Uchu Senkan Yamato ("Star Blazers", 1974) and movies by Ishirô Honda (the inventor of Godzilla), in particular Uchu daisenso ("Battle in Outer Space," 1959). Webmaster L. Mangue's Reverse References essay makes a convincing argument that Kairyu daikessen ("The Magic Serpent," 1966) is among the strongest influences on the basic story of Star Wars; A New Hope.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS??? STARWARS EPISODE I BLOOPERS Even the great George Lucas will encounter accidents and the occasional and also frequent bad takes. Enjoy! I love the Yoda blooper so funny!
It's a well known fact that the whole Jedi thing is taken off old Samurai movies and Bushido and whatnot. Art, especially movies and music it seems, is a very cannibalistic thing. Inspiration and plagiarism are totally different things though, and there are plenty of directors who sneak in some bits from books, movies or directors they loved, like names of places or characters, some lights or angles in some scene and such. I think it's cute. That being said in the case of a guy like Tarantino, I really have no idea how to categorize his work. But I love it.
Hmm I think it's paying tribute if you admit it when someone says "hey you know this and this looks a lot like this." And would consider it copying if you knew that the person had seen/read/heard the other story before hand but when asked about it says "What? No this is entirely my idea every bit of it came from my imagination and there were no outside influences, especially from that piece you just mentioned." That's a pretty drastic response, but you get the point. Basically as long as someone can admit to it then it's a tribute homage.
It's funny coz I had this discussion with my PA today.
Can we call that copying??? I mean I can name numerous sequences where Spielberg ripped off Alfred Hitchcock (Night Gallery Ep. 01 directed by Stephen Spielberg. I also see a lot of Godard in WKW.)
Thanks guys for your reply. I would like to ask you guys what you guys define as paying tribute to a icon or idol, and what is simply copying? Coz I see a lot of Godard in my films as well.
Hmm I always heard Lucas ripped off Japanese movies and Kurosawa in general, but I didn't know in which ways and or how he did it. Interesting to know.
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