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On a Star Wars rumor site, it was found out that George Lucas based the whole Star Wars saga on an old Japaneses ninja movie. The ending of Episode III is also supposedly told. I don't remember the name of the movie but the site is boards.theforce.net if you care to try to find it. It may not be on the immediate page.

I remember George Lucas saying somewhere that he used a lot of different sources for writing the first Star Wars. He studies different religions and cultures- probaably old movies for fighting techniques as well.

you're probably talking about "Hidden Fortress"
some characters like R2 and 3PO got based on the two farmers there

The seven samurais

dunno.,...al i know is he got the name 'jedi' for'jidai geki' wich are some sort of asian stories.

Yes, the reference is most like 'The Hidden Fortress'. The new films are rather less directly influenced by anything other than the old films.

Interesting. I knew the word Jedi came from a japanese word but didn't know about the old movie you guys mentioned. Sounds cool.

I wouldn't know.

Speaking of old Japanese films, I watched a cool one. They cut off the arm of the statue of liberty.

........seven samurais 1.Obi Wan...2.Anikin....3.Qui Gon....4.___________....5._____________....6.__________....7._______ fill in the blanks

4) Mace Windu 5)Ki-Adi-Mundi 6)Luke Skywalker and 7) Master Yoda (Saving the best for last)

Ki-Adi-Mundi ?

I saw him as the third most powerful person on the Council.

but he doesn't have much significance in the plot.

Plo Koon would be better

GL probably used ideas from that japanese movie. when was the japanese movie first shown?

isn't it from kurosawa?

The inspiration you're referring to was from The Hidden Fortress directed by the late Akira Kurosawa. I rented the Hidden Fortress around Thanksgiving of last year. It was good samurai movie (even though it's B/W). The first inspiration for GL to write SW was Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe.

see, I was right afterall

The Star Wars: A New Hope plot is almost a mirror of The Searchers. Lucas is also into westerns. The Darth Vader helmet is part samurai head gear and a German WWI helmet. There are so many influences that are too numerous to name.

but Hidden Fortress is almost the exact plot to A New Hope. And Lucas borrows a lot of shots from Kurosawa and has said on numerous occasions that that movie specifically was a major influence on ANH. It even has missing plans, a massive fortress similar to the Death Star as far as importance and place in story, obviously there isn't any superlaser. An old samurai (Kenobi) finds a guy (Luke) who's the son of a really famous samurai(Anakin) who is now an evil war lord (Vader). So, as far as the major backbone of the story, yeah, I'd say that's an influence .

and, is the Searchers a western? because a lot of western movies in that time were totally ripped from Kurosawa's movies. The Magnificient Seven is basically the US version of the Seven Samurai. So maybe the similarities to the Searchers is actually the same similarities to Hidden Fortress.

Oddly enough, though, the Seven Samurai was based on a Western, which, as Kurosawa says, is why he did not mind.

Actually Ushgarak I'm pretty sure you have it the other way around. Seven Samurai was filmed in 1952 I think and it was ripped off quite allot by American studios at the time. The magnificent Seven was done after Seven Samurai and pretty much took the whole story and just changed it from Samurai to Cowboys.


OOPs should have read the other posts...already mentioned ...errmm

yeah, what he said. Kurasawa didn't base it on a western. that's definetly turned around.

Sigh... please read what I said. I was specifically referring to that thing, I even quoted the post talking about it.

As I said, Kurosawa did not mind that the Magnificent Seven ripped off his story, because he had already based the original on a Western (in fact several, but most notably 1939's Stagecoach). Same deal with Yojimbo, which he based on Westerns and then got bounced back into Fistful of Dollars (and Last Man Standing, which wasn't a Western but may as well have been)... Everyone was just copying the hell out of each other.

I always thought the prequels where inspired by the Chris Farley epis
Beverly Hills Ninja ...I guess I was wrong