George Lucas and his past Science Fiction influences!!!

For Christmas, I bought my dad Forbidden Planet on DVD. It had been years since I saw it and dad and I also watched TPM and AOTC. What I was blown away by was how close the design was for both the Star Wars movies and Forbidden Planet. Even the introductions, same space background and scrolling yellow lettering. The interior of the planet was much like that of Naboo. Very odd, where did George get his ideas? Hmmm

Then several days ago, I went to the Internet Movie Data Base and discovered something more bizarre.

The Day the Earth Stood Still, two of the characters in that film have the same names as characters in RTOJ.

Klaatu and Nikto are some of Jabbas goons on the skiff and sail barge.

What other moveis will George use as references?

 

'Klaatu Barada Nikto' is the code word to communicate with Gort the robot in 'Day The Earth Stood Still'.

If you've never read the 'Lensman' series by EE 'Doc' Smith run out & get a copy of 'Triplanetary' asap. Not only is it loads of fun but here's what GL got from it:
- The Death Star (aka 'Roger's Planetoid')
- The Gungans (aka the 'Neivians')
- The submarine sequence
There's much more in the other books. You can get these in nice, inexpensive facsimile editions. They really are scource #1 for SW. Look at the first of Lynn Hale's doco's on the TPM DVD - there's a shot of Lucas's bookshelf and you can actually see a copy of 'Galactic Patrol' book #3 of the series.

There's 'Dune' of course (the originals by Frank Herbert). GL got alot out of them, even small details like the shield-walls (which repel fast moving objects but can be passed through by a slow moving one). 'Dune' 'Dune Messiah' and 'Children Of Dune' are essential reading for any SW fan.

Don't miss Edgar Rice Burrough's 'A Princess Of Mars', 'Gods Of Mars' and 'Warlord of Mars' for lots of influences. Lucas acknowledges these books as inspirations.

There's Alex Raymond's 'Flash Gordon' of course. Some bound editions of this classic comic strip are still in circulation. All of the 'Republic' serials are on DVD as well. My fave is the original 'Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers'; the DVD is nice too.

Also check out Jean 'Moebius' Gerard's 'Air Conditioned Garage' a surreal, stream of consciousness sci-fi comic from France circa the 1970s which Lucas acknowledges as an influence.

Roland Topor's 'Fantastic Planet' is also on DVD; Lucas sites Topor as an inlfuence as well.

You can get a great new restoration of Fritz Lang's silent epic 'Metropolis' on DVD now from 'Kino International'.

The Korda Bros. 'Things To Come' written by HG Welles also yields some influences. Of course the tripod cannons from AOTC are straight out of 'War Of The Worlds'.

 

Just off the top of my head,
I know GL was heavily influanced by the old FLash Gordon seriels so much that he tried to buy the rights to them, had he been successful, we might all be on FlashGordon.net. Interesting to note here is that in the Flash Gordon movie there is an evil Emperor with a masked second in command.

Asimov's Foundation series had a galaxy spanning empire, a supreme ruler, a planet-wide city that was the center of government, planet smashing spaceships etc etc.

Dune as said above is an easy one. Not only is a desert world of importance, but the spice was originally going to be more important in the affairs of the GFFA.

 

Some great references there. I might have to hire out a few of these movies to see for myself. I know that GL was influenced heavily by Flash Gordon.

 

Any screen captures or pictures of these influences?

 

Some of George Lucas's influences for STAR WARS came from other than science fiction sources. THE DAM BUSTERS a WWII action film George Lucas based the assault on the Death Star battle on, (he cut footage from the film into the rough cut of STAR WARS as moving storyboards) Kurosawa's THE HIDDEN FORTRESS as well as YOJIMBO probably--lots of swordplay and you always suspected the Jedi were a form of Samurai, didn't you? The idea for the Force came right out of Carlos Castaneda's books, particularly THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN:A YAQUI WAY OF KNOWLEDGE which is a book about Toltec Indian mysticism and Shamanism. Everybody knows about Joseph Campbell and THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, George Lucas used Campbell's monomyth as the structural paradigm for STAR WARS, the sequels, and the overall story arc of the series.

 

DUNE.

 

Thanks guys for the information with regards to some of George Lucas' reading habits and influences. I was reading an article on GL and he had mentioned that he was a major fan of Joseph Campbell. Has anyone seen the multipart series "The power of myth" ? It is highly recommended. Frank Hubert's "Dune" is another good influence as is the very old "Flash Gordon" serials.

Besides SW what are your other interests, do you see any simularity in what George has used in the SW universe?