Did star wars rip off the new gods?

[colonyofcells]

Star Wars is pretty much a samurai movie or kung fu movie in space. I grew up watching kung fu movies (masters, disciples, rebels and the evil empire) and I see many similarities with Star Wars.

[batnbreakfast]

The last good SW movie is now 36 years old so who gives a Banthashit? Invest your time and money into something new when you come across it. Well, at least that's what I tell myself.

[MyriVerse]

And Obi-Wan Kenobi was a feeble ripoff of Castaneda's Yaqui sage don Juan.

Gee, I hope I haven't popped anyone's bubble here.

The reason you say feeble is that Obi-Wan was extremely different. There was no higher purpose to Castaneda's Don Juan. No "Jedi order." The similarities were only cursory.

[Flash Gordon]

Obi Wan isnt really a rip off of anyone. There are characters like him all over legend and folklore, from Merlin on down.

[SXVA]

Star Wars ripped off Japenese cinema especially Akira Kurosawa and his film The Hidden Fortress. C3PO and R2D2 were directly lifted from the movie just made into robots.

These are the real C3PO and R2D2
5-hidden-robot-fortress1.jpg

The lightsabers and Jedi are modeled after Samurai and katanas.

They basically took Japanese movies/samurai themes and applied them to space operas.

[codystarbuck]

This really isn't about influences on Lucas. It's about things that he flat-out stole, and not only got away with it but became a much-honored billionaire from it.

One man's "Theft" is another's "inspiration." To claim he stole something from a work that rehashed something that preceded it is rather simplistic. Castaneda was hardly original, either. He did as all writers do, took ideas and inspirations from what came before, which took its ideas from what came before. Theft implies wholesale copying, which Lucas didn't do. he tweaked things to fit his story, some more than others.

[Carabas]

This really isn't about influences on Lucas. It's about things that he flat-out stole, and not only got away with it but became a much-honored billionaire from it.

It's only theft if it is leglly owned by somebody who is not you. And that isn't the case here.

[Trey Strain]

Castaneda was a vastly greater creator of fiction than Lucas was. The difference is that Castaneda lied about it and claimed it was all real, while Lucas depicted the ideas as fictional but his own.

Once Lucas had nothing else to copy, he went poof.

[Trey Strain]

Now I will say that nobody writes any modern fiction without picking up many pointers from writers he admires. But what you take from other writers has to be so small and subtle that nobody would guess where it came from unless you told them. And you can't take it all from one or two people.

Bruce Springsteen admitted that he took the tune of Badlands from Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by the Animals. That's the right way to do it. You change it so much that it becomes yours and it's not just a stupid theft.

[ed2962]

How about Tarantino and Ringo Lam's City on Fire? I'd say Q lifted a few scenes for Reservoir Dogs.

[Lightning Rider]

Now I will say that nobody writes any modern fiction without picking up many pointers from writers he admires. But what you take from other writers has to be so small and subtle that nobody would guess where it came from unless you told them. And you can't take it all from one or two people.

Bruce Springsteen admitted that he took the tune of Badlands from Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by the Animals. That's the right way to do it. You change it so much that it becomes yours and it's not just a stupid theft.

You're distinctions between inspiration and theft are seriously arbitrary. The concepts used in Star Wars were not invented by any one author in the 20th century. The concept of The Force combines the dualism of the Abrahamic traditions while embracing the Universalism of Asian religious philosophies like Buddhism. A concept as general as the force can be identified in virtually any fictional piece involving magic or mysticism.

[Carabas]

Once Lucas had nothing else to copy, he went poof.

No, he was always like he is now.

It's just that back in the day he had people around him who he respected and took advice from regarding what bits and pieces of his sprawling story work and which really do not.

[Wally West]

I'm sure there was some influence as Lucas was an avid comic reader

[Trey Strain]

You're distinctions between inspiration and theft are seriously arbitrary. The concepts used in Star Wars were not invented by any one author in the 20th century. The concept of The Force combines the dualism of the Abrahamic traditions while embracing the Universalism of Asian religious philosophies like Buddhism. A concept as general as the force can be identified in virtually any fictional piece involving magic or mysticism.

Go read Journey to Ixtlan. It's a great work of fiction, much better than what Lucas derived from it.

[GammaRayThrill]

maybe copied, inspired but there is enough originality, not a rip off

did someone say Kimba? what makes a story unique

https://www.hooktube.com/watch?v=UfJvKIDS9n8

Star Wars is pretty much Flash Gordon with some mythological elements.

yeah Gordon is there