The Jedi: Lucas' Influences and Inspirations When Creating the Jedi Order

Ah, thank you for the clarification. I was not aware of that aspect of Chinese history.

 

The Knights Templars were a holy monastic order of Knights, but at certain times in their history, were well-known for their corruption and their rather liberal interpretations of their vows and rules. They were also anti-Semitic and treated non-Christians like *****.

The views of the Templars were constant. The churches view of them was not. The "corruption" charges were almost all a result of the Popes struggle for better PR.

As for you second claim; well duh. That's what they existed for.

I suggest the chapter in Shining Sword. It covers this thread topic very well.

 

One very clear inspiration that occurs to me is the Templar Knights. Like the Jedi, the Templar were fighting monks. They were an order created, amongst other things, to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land. The Templars were dissolved as a monastic order when it was feared that they had become too powerful. Thoughts about this?

^Definitely-the purge of the Templars seems to be very identical to the Jedi, to me at least. Seeing how the Pope of the time had a lot to do with it, and Sidious can be seen as a sort of reverse Pope-the embodiment of evil and highest member of his religious group.. Sidous, IMO, is the Pope and King Phillip of France rolled into one. Religious & political power.

 

I know George definitely got some sort of inspiration from the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Also the basic principles for what they stood for: honor, justice, compassion, loyalty, etc.

 

Excellent point Dashy. I had actually never thought of that. Which is weird with me being a literature scholar.

Me smatr.

 

eventually, the vedic, the gods who once walked the earth....

 

Check out this thread:

Random symbols (total ivory tower stuff)

 

I watched a program on the History Channel the other day about Saumai. It was interesting in and of itself but especially because of some of the obvious parallels to Jedi. More on this later.

What I found even more interesting, though, was when they started talking about Ninjas. Because many Samurai became Ninjas and worked much more covertly, forsaking the old ideas of honour in exchange for a subversive kind of power. It was because of the rise of the Ninja largely that the Samurai died out.

Sounds remarkable like the Jedi/Sith conflicts.

Again, I want to look into both of these possible influences more closely later but just wanted to bring it up and see if anyone else thought of it that way.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Mace Windu seems to be fighting with the samurai "code" in mind: "There is only the sword in the air, nothing else" or something to that effect.

 

in book 5 or 6 of the dune series by frank herbert the names of r2d2 and c3po are in it. there are a lot of similiarities between the two books. in fact when sw came out herbert was pissed because he saw lucas as stealing all his best stuff. dune came out in 66.

 

I also feel that the sith are at least partialy based on the ninja. The ninja wear black, they were outnumbered by the samuri, and they used stealth as there major tactic.

 

I like the similarites between master martial artists and Yoda. Just like the old martial artists, Yoda appears old and frail, barely able to move. However, once provoked, he is as good if not better than his younger adversaries.

Lucas also seems to take bits and pieces from different religions that believe in peace and tranquility and are prepared to defend others to have these rights, too. Asking for nothing in return, keeping nothing of value except their weapons and their teachings.

The ying/yang of chinese religion obviously plays a major role in the explanation of the Force and the development of practicing it by the Jedi.

 

Interesting stuff on the Jedi-Samurai/Sith-Ninja parallels. I wonder if Lucas really did think at all about the Samurai-to-Ninjas transition when developing the Sith.

 

I think samurai would have to be named as THE major contributor to the Jedi image. It was a Samurai movie that inspired A New Hope.

Also wizardry...

But, I think the Templar Knights thing is a little off. The Templar/Teutonic/Hospitaller/Order of St. John/Knights were there to protect pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to assist in Crusades. They were not some armed force roaming Europe trying to instill peace and justice. Its a superficial similarity at best.

I think the Jedi are very much a fusion of Samurai/Shaolin Monk. That seems to fit best.

 

Samuri were allowed to marry and have family.


Knights Templars took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. there order also became corrupt and the Pope eventually had many of them declared heratics and burned at the stake. "Revenge of the Pontif"?

 

I think we're all missing a very important detail. Tell me, where did the culture of Samurai and Monks evolve from? What was the starting root for all of Asian culture?

Indian Culture. From Buddhism to meditation to martial arts, all these can be attributed to have sprung from India. The most amazing though, were Yogis, who were claimed to, and many Indians still claim, capable to amazing feats. Many include being able to walk on water, to move objects with their mind, and in some cases control the weather. Unlike Samurai and Knight, Yogis weren?t a special class of people when it came to politics.

Some people may doubt their existence, since the only country to claim such people exist is India. But many merchants and traders who visited Ancient India remarked on Yogis, and in fact Marco Polo met a few, and said that they managed to live 150 to 200 years because of their inner peace. (Did Yoda live so long because his race could, or because he was a Jedi?)

Jedi and Yogis are remarkably similar. The only big difference is that Yogis usually did not fight. In fact, they never fought till an Indian monk, I forgot what he was called, Da Mo I believe, went to China to teach his fighting style and breathing techniques. His breathing techniques have been attributed to actually make a person stronger, though I'm not sure what has happened to the knowledge.

So, if we?re gonna say Samurai and Monks were Lucas?s inspiration, we should go a little farther to see where those evolved from as well.

 

Enzuru, I agree and I believe, like I stated before in this stopic, that the people you refer to are known as the Vedic. A civilisation, which was way ahead of it's time, based in the northen part of India. The whole idea of the ubermensch (Nietschze) is based upon ideas which were put into practise by the Jedi ehhh i mean Vedic. They lived in love and peace and in tune with nature. Not beeing emotionally attached to anything made this way of life possible.

 

There ya go:

http://www.google.nl/search?q=cache:KXvB_9tn92gJ:www.hrafn.btinternet.co.uk/StolenOnes/essays/hindujedi.html+jedi+vedic&hl=nl

 

Nice. That was a fun read!

 

I have always made connections between the samurai of ancient Japan and the Jedi, but never did a comparison between the Sith and ninjas occur to me. They seem to be very closely related, especially the points on being outnumbered and stealth tactics being their strength.

 

Well, I'm Asian and don't know too much about Western Culture. Anyway, I've always seen the Jedi/Sith and Samurai/Ninja parallel for long long time. I mean when thinking about Jedi,the Samurai is the first idea coming in my mind.

 

Wonderful comparisons indeed. I recently read the Bible for the first time and was amazed to find how much GL had take from it. 12 familes of Isreal = 12 members Jedi counsil. Also somewhere (Revelations I think) there is mention of a place called Abbadon, in the original screenplay for ROTJ, GL named the place where Vader & Luke duel in front of the Emperor Had Abbadon.

 

I once read Lucas once liken the events in the PT to be inspired by the events of the Roman Empires demise.
I believe he said the Roman Empire began to be unaffective at thier hieght, so eventually it fell apart. It's been years since history class so I really can't back alot of this up, but this is what i read somewhere.

There are obvious biblical allusions, or parallels,
but I also see a hints of the Arthurian legend(perhaps the first non-religious story of it's kind, with the scope of SW or LOTR), I see the Jedi as Knights of the round table, Arthur could be seen as Anakin or Luke at different times (someone who is meant and even chosen to do great things).

Obviously Jedi though based on many religions and fables, are based off of Samurai's. Don't really know about thier history, but kurasawa's Samurai movies were a huge influence. ANH at one time was so close to The Hidden Fortress that GL considered buying rights to the movie. Then you have The Seven Samurai, think about it, these seven hero's sacrifice themselves for the good of the whole (in this case farmers), only to be hit harder that the village was. The Clone Wars I believe will be directly linked to the events in TSS.
Also as a bit of info concerning Akira Kurasawa's influence over SW. C3PO and R2D2 were modeled after to peasants in The Hidden Fortress who served as the films eye's(for lack of a better word) he made them driods because like peasants in 1500's(guess) Japan they were the lowest form of society. Further more, in Seven Samurai a line is spoke by one of the disatisfied peasants. It is, "We seem to be made to suffer, it's our lot in life,"(of course in Japanese, this is what the subtitles read anyway).

Don't forget Flash Gordan though, GL tried to buy the rights to that as well before he even wrote Star Wars, when they wanted to much he said "I can do this with something different".

Then of course there are the things that very well could have influenced him but he won't admit to, because they are just to similar. Such as Jack Kirby's The New Gods comic book, which has dark helmeted figure with a similar name(Darkseid I believe) who is the Hero's nemises, and eventually reveals that he is his father. (I've got the article tucked away somewhere?, it was short lived and came out just a few years before SW). Or Dune, which has quite a few similarities as well. Or from what I understand Isaac Asimov's Foundation series( there's another thread on this somewhere).

Then there's Joseph Campbell who goes over how all fables and religions, are copied and retold again in a different way. And If GL used his writing as a guide, there's no telling where else he saught influence.

Great post keep em coming, curious if anyone has anything to lend to the Roman Empire theory.

 

So we all know how Lucas got his physical aspects of Jedi, but where did he get his inspirations for the Jedi's telekinetic force powers?

In the mid '60's, Marvel comics printed X-Men #1, a story about people born with special powers. After over 10 yrs of X-Men comics, Lucas made SW-A New Hope. Yep, the X-Men were a huge influence for Lucas's Jedi Knights & Sith Lords. There isn't anyone else in literature or movies that uses their powers the same way force users do, except Mutants.

 

You should check out www.jitterbug.com, pretty interesting