Re: Dune and Star Wars
Posted: 04 Sep 2014 11:50
I was tired of Ewoks before that movie had finished rolling.
DUNE DISCUSSION FORUM FOR ORTHODOX HERBERTARIANS
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That's something I've tried to tell my brethren, too. He is totally indebted to Akira Kurosawa for the way Star Wars is made, and it just boggles my mind how he combined the material of Flash Gordon with Kurosawa's film style.georgiedenbro wrote: As others have mentioned, it seems that Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress" was the main story plundered to make Star Wars, with Flash Gorden, pulp serials and other sci-fi space-cowboy material providing the style. I don't believe Dune was much of an influence on Lucas to speak of, other than occasional minor things like moisture farming.
Joseph Campbell would disagree. In Bill Moyers' interview with Campbell in The Power of Myth, Campbell found Star Wars to be a "perfect" cinematic embodiment of mythology. He noted in all the little things, such as Luke's coming to Mos Eisely, the escape from the garbage chute, Luke being told to "use the Force," and the unmasking of Darth Vader. Lucas was an avid student of his, and he did know his mythological archetypes. I agree that Lucas' original ideas don't translate so well, and that he needs editing to make his dialogue sound reasonably human. Just because not all his ideas come out right doesn't mean he doesn't know his mythology. Because of Lucas' expertise, he has been called upon by friends for advice, such as Jim Henson who needed story advice for Labyrinth.... Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good example.... But the Indiana Jones films are other good examples of mythological archetypes implemented well on film.I also don't really believe any of the stuff claimed about Lucas studying Campbell or any study of mythology. I don't think Lucas studied much of anything in the making of Star Wars.
Luke's character didn't come from The Hidden Fortress. Obi-Wan, Leia/Padme, R2D2, C3P0, and Darth Vader did come from that film, but the rest came from other avenues. The spear duel between General Makabe and the Vader-character is so inspired, I wish Lucas took pointers from that scene for the lightsaber duel between Obi-Wan and Vader. As a side note for my Jacurutu brethren: watch the beginning of The Hidden Fortress: you'll realize what R2 was really saying through his bleeps through his greedy stupid peasant counterpart.The original scene breakdown for Star Wars was a scene-for-scene copy of Hidden Fortress. Scene for scene. R2 and 3PO were copied off the two protagonists of that film, the other characters (Obi-Wan, Leia, Luke, etc) copied one for one from the characters in the Kurosawa. If Lucas had proceeded with that film he would have been sued for everything and been ruined.
Yep. Lucas has a lot of trouble getting his ideas out right by himself. Because he surrounded himself with yes-men who thought everything he wrote was freaking brilliant, the writing for the prequels was not as good as the original trilogy's.Luckily he was saved by a cadre of famous people he knew who helped him to change and develop his script, including Francis Ford Coppola. After all the editions, rounds of his friends giving him 'feedback' (see: "Dude, you can't publish that. Here are some ideas. Change it."), and working on it, a draft resembling the movie was finally made. None of the iterations resembled Dune or really borrowed anything from it that I could see.
The only thing that embarrassed me about the Ewoks was their song at the end of the movie. Still, they're far more preferable than the Gungans (which is ironic, because the Gungans were originally said to be more badass than the Ewoks: they were wrong).Omphalos wrote:I was tired of Ewoks before that movie had finished rolling.
It might be worth pointing out that Flash Gordon was first of all a comic strip. Not that I know to what extent Lucas was influenced by the film serials vs. the comic version. (The comic has recently been rebooted, by the way, and the new version is supposed to be surprisingly good.)Jodorowsky's Acolyte wrote:In speaking of Flash Gordon, I just collected the complete film serials. They're campy, stiffly acted, and perhaps not too cheap, but it was entertaining in the way it was awkwardly carried out. In the original version, Flash was a polo player, so I wish they had Flash fighting Ming's hordes with an alien-forged polo mallet.
Yes, and the influence is well documented and acknowledged by Lucas:Joseph Campbell would disagree.I also don't really believe any of the stuff claimed about Lucas studying Campbell or any study of mythology. I don't think Lucas studied much of anything in the making of Star Wars.
Lucas repeatedly has claimed (even recently) that he's not a writer. At the time of dreaming up Star Wars he said he didn't know how to write a screenplay and needed help. He got it. I don't mean to give him zero credit for Star Wars; I think he is a man of wonderful imagination and with a terrific will to solve technical problems in film-making. But he's no writer. No one who knew how to write would think to copy another screenplay scene by scene; it's just unthinkable. Lucas knew the kind of movie he wanted, knew the setting, and knew the genre, but didn't know how to make up a story of his own with his own ideas in it; so he took one from someone else. Remind you of any other hacks? But Lucas was a hack only as a writer; he was great otherwise.Capt. Aramsham wrote:As for the claim that "no one really wrote Star Wars" and that it was a kind of group project, there's a big difference between providing feedback, even suggesting ideas (which is routine on any major writing project), and actually writing a script, scene by scene and line by line of dialog.
I'll gladly admit that Lucas' primary talent is not screenwriting, but let's not forget that by the time he was developing Star Wars, he'd already written two movies that had been produced, one of them a cult film, the other a major hit. Saying he's "not a writer" and "didn't know how to write a screenplay" are relative statements. We should all be so incapable. (And yes, he had co-writers on those movies, but they were both essentially his.)georgiedenbro wrote:Lucas repeatedly has claimed (even recently) that he's not a writer. At the time of dreaming up Star Wars he said he didn't know how to write a screenplay and needed help. He got it.
First of all, I question whether he really did copy it "scene by scene." Does your book actually say that, or is it your inference? Second, that's not at all unthinkable. Artists pilfer and copy all the time. A Fistful of Dollars is practically a scene-by-scene remake of Yojimbo. Disney's Beauty and the Beast copies vast swathes of Cocteau's version. Avatar and Dances with Wolves are eerily similar. Assault on District 13 is closely based on Rio Bravo. Etc. etc. And these are just (famous) movies that got made, mind you. There are undoubtedly many, many more that started out using a favorite film as a template but evolved from there.I don't mean to give him zero credit for Star Wars; I think he is a man of wonderful imagination and with a terrific will to solve technical problems in film-making. But he's no writer. No one who knew how to write would think to copy another screenplay scene by scene; it's just unthinkable.
I don't really see your point here. Even if some particular element of the movie was "lifted from" (i.e. inspired by) something else, Lucas still had to decide that yes, this was something that belonged in the movie, something that fit. (He didn't make Luke an Earthling polo player, or R2D2 a would-be rapist.) To say that part of what went into those decisions was Campbell's myth pattern is not to proclaim Lucas some sort of scholar in anthropology.I still don't believe any of the anthropology stuff made that much of a difference for Lucas. Sure he may have read it and taken classes, but at the end of the day he just wanted a grand space opera. I think that very little in A New Hope could pass muster for Lucas having taken mythology theory and crafted its structures into his film as an artisan. Most of what was in that movie was lifted from elsewhere, and even if Luke was his own idea I still don't give Lucas much credit for being some kind of theorist.