
How Star Wars Borrowed from Akira Kurosawa’s Great Samurai Films - elmar
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/how-star-wars-borrowed-from-akira-kurosawas-great-samurai-films.html
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visakanv
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ryPC8bxqE)

Everybody borrows from everybody!

~~~
miralabs
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.

~~~
visakanv
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.)

~~~
throwaway43
I think you'll find this interesting then : [http://www.psmag.com/books-and-
culture/triumph-of-the-cyborg...](http://www.psmag.com/books-and-
culture/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-8507)

Basically , a professor created an AI composer and he claims all great works
are made by subconsciously splicing together bits of other works and a machine
that does this can be truly creative.

Here it's imitating Mozart :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vctssFH-M5c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vctssFH-M5c)

It's quite lacking in overall structure but there's definitely something
interesting going on here.

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nonamemanemo
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...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces)

~~~
canjobear
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."

~~~
nonamemanemo
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.

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camperman
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZq-tlJTrU)

~~~
chr15p
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.

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corysama
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.

~~~
huxley
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.

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informatimago
See also:

[http://strangeplanetstories.blogspot.fr/2007/04/long-time-
ag...](http://strangeplanetstories.blogspot.fr/2007/04/long-time-ago-in-
galaxy-not-so-far-away.html)

[http://www.core77.com/posts/27528/From-a-Galaxy-Where-
Credit...](http://www.core77.com/posts/27528/From-a-Galaxy-Where-Credit-is-
Far-Far-Away-The-Unsung-Work-of-Jean-Claude-Mneacutezinegraveres)

[http://thingummery.blogspot.fr/2012/01/did-french-invent-
sta...](http://thingummery.blogspot.fr/2012/01/did-french-invent-star-
wars.html)

------
wglb
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.

~~~
elmar
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.

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

~~~
modfodder
Sounds like the New Testament. Which is probably why they didn't sue Lucas.
You need more than a similar plot to win a lawsuit.

~~~
elmar
The story of a Saviour born in a shitty place to free it's people from
oppression is a recurring model on human history.

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

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

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

