How Star Wars Borrowed from Akira Kurosawa’s Great Samurai Films

http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/how-star-wars-borrowed-from-akira-kurosawas-great-samurai-films.html

by elmar • 11 years ago

52 29 11 years ago

openculture.com

visakanv2• 11 years ago

Check out Everything Is A Remix for a powerful exploration of these ideas and more, in 40 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ryPC8bxqE

Everybody borrows from everybody!

miralabs• 11 years ago

wow, I know Led Zep's lemon song was from Killing Floor. What I didn't know that Killing Floor wasn't attributed. For the other Led Zep songs, it was new to me that it was from other songs. Awesome video btw.

visakanv2• 11 years ago

Yep! I find that it has very philosophical implications for me. Prior to learning about Everything Is A Remix, I would agonize over how to create great work, great writing.

I've since come to terms with the fact that everything is indeed a remix– so the best way to create good work is to consume as much high-quality work as possible, and then make as many remixes as you possibly can.

Higher quality input, broader range of inputs, maximum volume output (without too much judgement about what "quality" means with regards to output– you don't always know in advance what will work and what will not.)

wglb2• 11 years ago

According to Frank Herbert in "Maker of Dune", The plot line of Star Wars is based on Dune. Apparently they considered suing, but decided not to.

elmar2• 11 years ago

I didn't read "Maker of Dune", but Starts Wars plot as litle in common with Dune, i think the similarities with Akira Kurosawa films is right on. By the way the Dune movie from 1984 is a much better plot than Star Wars, it's really a shame that didn't come to fruition it got lost on the directors cut, it should have been cut in 2 or 3 movies.

thret• 11 years ago

I'm sure a Dune remake is in our near future.

maxerickson• 11 years ago

A chosen (by fate), mystically empowered son on a desert planet becomes a core player in the revolt against a galactic empire.

rsync• 11 years ago

"I didn't read "Maker of Dune""

I highly recommend the book. It was quite good. I am not a fan of the latter Dune books, but this biography was a very interesting and illuminating one.

leejoramo• 11 years ago

I remember being at the 1983(or about) World Science Fiction Convention where Isaac Asimov was asked if he was upset that Lucas had ripped off so much of the Foundation Trilogy. Asimov replied he was a flattered. And in any case, Asimov said he used Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" as source material for Foundation

cydonian_monk• 11 years ago

I've also not read "Maker of Dune," so this is the first time I've heard that. I can understand where he was coming from with regards to Luke vs Paul, but the common story they share is generic enough that I'm not convinced any court would find in Herbert's favor.

It does make me wonder if Biggs Darklighter is the Duncan Idaho parallel. Could you imagine an endless clone army of Biggs? Is Biggs the perfect man?

wglb2• 11 years ago

I cannot locate my book, but the article therein listed about 14 similarities in the plot.

informatimago• 11 years ago

http://www.core77.com/posts/27528/From-a-Galaxy-Where-Credit...

http://thingummery.blogspot.fr/2012/01/did-french-invent-sta...

camperman• 11 years ago

There is a funny - and damning - remix of the end of 633 Squadron with Star Wars audio here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZq-tlJTrU

chr15p• 11 years ago

That's really awesome!

Although the nitpicker in me has to point out that the film is heavily edited to fit the dialogue (there's a shot at about 3'25" where you can see them bombing a paper cross pinned to the cliff which is taken from earlier in the film when 633 squadron are training in the Scottish highlands).

I remember reading somewhere that many of the dog fights in Star Wars were copied from the film The Battle Of Britain, but then that, 633 Squadron and many other classic British war movies were made by people who actually fought in the war. If you want a film to look realistic, and you weren't there yourself, copying from films made by those who were is probably the next best thing.

alricb• 11 years ago

Also an obvious inspiration for the storm troopers, the Teutonic knights in Eisenstein's Alexander Nevski: https://youtu.be/mr3S6ItLMTo?t=21m9s

corysama• 11 years ago

And, Kurosawa himself borrowed heavily from old American westerns. His famous samurai standoffs a were basically gunfights-at-dawn but with swords.

In turn, Kurosawa influenced many later westerns to the point that some of his samurai movies were remade as cowboy movies.

hackuser• 11 years ago

And he borrowed from Shakespeare: Ran was based heavily on King Lear, Throne of Blood on Macbeth, and maybe some others too. And Shakespeare borrowed from others. That's the way creativity in art (and science and technology) work; hardly anything is made from whole cloth.

Is the concept behind our intellectual property system, that there is a single creator who owns the work, realistc?

huxley3• 11 years ago

The story behind the remakes is pretty interesting all by themselves:

John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960) was based on The Seven Samurai (1954)

When first released in America, the title for Kurosawa's film was "The Magnificent Seven", it created a stir and the rights for "The Seven Samurai" were bought for US$250 from the Toho Corporation, Toho entered into the contract under the pretense of being the sole copyright owner. Over the following 30 years, several lawsuits followed since Kurosawa hadn't received royalties and hadn't given consent to remakes, the end result of which was that Kurosawa and other principals were paid back royalties, but were countersued and Toho Corp ended up having to pay $50000 to MGM (who also gained the rights to any future remake of The Seven Samurai set as a Western). I guess in the real world, the Bandits end up winning after all.

Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was based on Yojimbo (1961).

Leone didn't acquire the rights to Yojimbo, he just went ahead and made the film, which was surprisingly successful. Kurosawa reportedly said, "I’ve seen your movie. It’s a very good movie. Unfortunately, it’s my movie." Leone is supposed to have settled out of court for 15% of worldwide residuals plus $100,000.

hauget• 11 years ago

... and they both borrow from Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces"

huxley3• 11 years ago

I don't think there is any evidence that Kurosawa borrowed from Joseph Campbell

nonamemanemo2• 11 years ago

Most human stories of any sort can be tied to the monomyth, as described in Joseph Campbell's The Hero of a Thousand Faces [0], which George Lucas has directly credited as an inspiration for his storytelling. The cinematographic aspects of the movie likely have similar inspirations, as do the acting styles of the cast, the arrangements of the set designers, of the paintings of good ol' Ralph McQuarrie... and so on. As life is, so art too is recursive.

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Fac...

canjobear• 11 years ago

I was into this idea until I actually read The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The book's template for the "monomyth" is extremely vague and has many optional elements, so many that any given pair of myths might consist of entirely disjoint elements. Campbell's evidence only comes from a few myths, which makes me worry about cherry-picking. I was sad to realize Kurt Vonnegut's summary of the monomyth is probably correct: "The hero gets into trouble. The hero gets out of trouble."

nonamemanemo2• 11 years ago

Vonnegut's summary is a good one, and I agree that the entire book could have been fully summarized in so few words - the hard question is what are those select few words capable of seeding all other possible stories? For me, the book made many good cases that there is something deeper and quite simple about all storytelling, without ever specifically defining it. I guess that is why storytelling is still such an interesting practice.

huxley3• 11 years ago

Not to mention that Campbell's monomyth borrows liberally from Otto Rank and Lord Raglan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank-Raglan_mythotype

How Star Wars Borrowed from Akira Kurosawa’s Great Samurai Films

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