Genius Steals!

After much passive investigation I have come up with a few of the sources George Lucas may have unwittingly ransacked in order to foment his mythology:

E. R. Burrough's 'John Carter of Mars: The Princess of Mars' : The first space adventurer, heck the grandaddy of all superheroes, fought creatures called Sambaas (fambaas?) while riding giant mastadon-like creatures. 'Banths' (Banthas?) were common to Princess Thoris' (Carter's wife's) homeworld.

Jack Kirby's New Gods: The immediate storyline seems too obvious - Orion, our hero, turns out to be the son of the arch villain Darkseid (Darth; Dark Side?) But lazer swords abounded in this also. Apoholips, like the Death Star is a manufactured city-planet (like Coruscant).

The Lord of the Rings - this is the comparison that will finally get my sorry ass kicked off of the board, my membership shredded and my Star Wars collection taken from me.
It must be said in Lucs' defence that Peter Jackson has more bent the plot of Tolkein's book to fit the arc and sweep of the Star Wars films - for example having Arwen present in the first film as a Leia-esque character when she is not so mobile in the book and giving Saruman force-powers, a cheeky move - , so I feel that comparisons are unnecessary.

Surely original literature had the clone wars as being fought between the Jedi and Mandalorians in the Clone System, rather than between Jedi and Clones? Anyway, the fact that the mythology of Superman referred to a clone-war that led to the destruction of Krypton - included in material since the 1970s - may have been another reference point for GL.

Just some observations.



'Don't jump to Hyperspace'

 

You forgot the "Wizard of Earthsea".


Ken Kenobi- And you have a nice day

 

um comparing that lucas may of unwittingly taken something from LOTR is like say he unwittingly took something from Hero with a Thousand Faces....

as for the other things... yeah they were around before but don't all stories steal from others?

the formula was taken from the Buck Rogers movies series they did in the early 60s as well... stated blankly by Lucas...

hum.. wondering if this makes any sense what so ever...