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

Here's something I've been wanting to talk about for some time: what sort of influence did GL have when he created the Jedi? I want to open this discussion to anything but, remember that the focus of this forum is the Saga movies, NOT the EU. Feel free to use the EU for your arguments but remember to state that you are using EU and, if possible, cite your source.

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?

Another influence is the Samurai. What influences can we see in terms of their weapons, their identities and their philosophy?

These are just a few ideas I have in my head, feel free to discuss any of these or add any you'd like.

Enjoy!

 

I'm sorry that I can't remember the resource, but I think I read in some book that George Lucase thought up the word Jedi by taking the Idej(it was a term that had to do with the Samurai[I think]. I think maybe it was the name for their code of honor or something), splitting the word in half and switching the syllables.

 

OH, and another influence could have come from westerns. I think in my AOTC dvd, during one of the featurettes, George Lucas said that the Jedi were like Marshalls in the old west.

 

Good thread.

The Jedi: a combination of monk, cowboy, samurai.

The monk (both Western and Eastern versions) influence is apparent with the aspects of the "order", the training and learning the elements of the Force, wearing robes, et cetera.

The cowboy and samurai are relatively similar archetypes, so it makes sense that the Jedi have elements of both: dispensing justice and wisdom, acting as protectors and diplomats, being highly-trained warriors.

 

Cowboys, Buddhist Monks, Templar Knights, Catholic Priests, Kurasawas' Samurai , Arthurian Legends, Hong Kong Cinema, Japanese Manga . In the PT, where theres alot of them - you see all the influences.

EDIT: Spike, the Templars are most clearly the main inspiration, as you've said - did you know that on top of the things you listed that another reason that the Templars were dispatched/assassinated/broken-up was that rumors of the Knights acquiring mystical powers had reached all the Goth royalty of Europe and a demand was put upon the royals of England to divulge what everyone thought the Knights had shared with them. Among the rumors were that the Knights had discovered the secret of eternal life - which while acknowledged by all of European royalty in social circles as most likely farce, was taken very seriously behind closed doors. One of the actual, historical threats was to block all trade routes out of the UK. Many detailed conspiracy theories have arisen from the sudden disappearence of the Templar Knights from history. ( And NO, this isnt from Indy3 )

 

Hey, it's nice to finally see somebody else post here besides me. Cool stuff on the Knights Templar. I don't really know much about them. But I do remember in an interview, Christopher Lee himself compared the Jedi to the Knights Templar.

 

I think of Jedi as Shaolin Monks. Certainly Samurai.

The word "Jedi" comes from a Japanese term for a film set during the Samurai period, so something similiar. I'm looking for the answer now.

 

I think Jedi are a influenced not only by Templar and Shaolin monks, but also by Ottoman Janissaries.

Like Janissaries, the Jedi are stolen from their families at a very young age to be trained as elite warriors.


The influence of Samurais is, I think, only for the weapons, not for the organisation or philosophy. Samurai were an hereditary mercenary caste, and certainly not a monastic order. Samurai did marry and have children who inherited from their positions, they served the warlords who paid them, and not "The Greater Good" . Samurai were secular warriors, not religious ones like Templars or Jedi.

 

I didn't know that Yvan. If you can get more info on that, that would be cool!


severian28: I knew some of those things. It makes me wonder whether GL knew about those connections and parallels.

 

The Jedi really have very little in common with the Samurai, although it is a common comparison in the Power of Myth and Magic of Myth books. As popular as Samurai are in our pop culture, they had more in common with our slave-owning plantation gentry than with our Marshalls of the old west. They owned the land, and were harsh with the peasants who worked them and contributed to the feudal houses. The Samurai constantly switched sides between their lords, waged war whenever it was convenient and affordable, and thought only of how to elevate the status of their households. The warrior monks of Japan were closer in comparison, in that they had little possessions, and had a stricter code of conduct (most of what has been written about Bushido was put into text in the waning years of the Samurai, kind of like Victorian writers who wanted to romanticize the brutal life of a knight). However, the warrior monks acted in contrast to the government, whereas the Jedi act as an executive arm of the Republic. Also, the warrior monks were only concered with protecting their huge temples, and often resorted to "spiritual blackmail" to terrify the local authorities.

 

I agree with you, Sith, on the samurai comparisons to be a little over-blown, with the exception of the light-sabers - but I do believe that the fall of the empire was greatly influenced by the legend of how the Takagawa Shogunate fell. The rumor is that the Shogun was killed by his right-hand man because the Shogun, fearing that his closet advisor had grown too powerful, killed the mans wife and put a price on his infant sons head. Being only a legend, this has already been made into a wildly popular Manga and six very well made films ( Lone Wolf and Cub ), and by the way isnt at all true. But the similarities are such that IMO cant be a coincidence at least on how and why Vader kills Palpatine.

 

Daigoro... now HE would have been quite a Jedi!

 

There's obviously a synthesis here of many strands but I detect a particular emphasis on Catholic Priests/ monks and Samurai.

Catholic Priests/ monks: Celibacy; vow of poverty (by some Monk Orders); use of theological terms eg."being mindful of a living Force [God is the normal term in this verbatim substitute].

Samurai: The whole lightsaber style even down to the earliest descriptions of sabers having a polished metal disc at the hilt (emitter end). We know Lucas is a fan of Kurosawa (whose classic Hidden Fortress is often touted as the inspiration for ANH).

Just my two credits.

 

What about his dad?!?! Jedi Master Ogami Itto!!!!!!

 

i've always thought that the downfall of the jedi was comparable to the downfall of the samurai. both used what were considered old-fashioned wepons ("hokey religions and ancient wepons"). also the samurai were killed off by bigger armies w/ modern guns, like the droids takin out the jedi on geonosis

 

I wrote a whole chapter on this in my book Shimmering Sword: Samurai, Western, & Star Wars Sword Fighting.

You can get it for free. See my signature below.

 

Yvan_Solo, that is an excellent comparison to the Janissary Corps in the Ottoman Empire.

The Janissaries were a military force that also had a large ceremonial aspect to them as well. As you mentioned, they were conscripts taken from families of religious minorities as boys and raised in the corps. They were very old-school and eventually became a liability to the Ottoman Empire because their old-fashioned tactics could not compete against the modernizing armies of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Eventually they were supplanted with a more up-to-date army which was trained in modern military tactics and weapons.

The parallels to the Jedi and the Clone army are striking.

 

I think GL based the name Jedi on an old Samurai story called Jedaiki Geki. He just played around with the letters, and came up with Jedi.
For the Force, GL was inspired by several religions. He took out the parts that all those religions have in common, like love/respect for oneother and stuff.
At least, that's what I read...

 

He probably got it from the Jidai Geki, which was an era or civil war in Japan. It lasted until the Edo period, which was peaceful (relatively).

 

I heard a while back that Lucas base dit off an old Japanese Samurai legend or soemthing like that.

 

good intersting analogys there. You may be right about part of it, but one thing is, The Janissaries and the Knights Templar werre never really histories brightest examples of morality. The Shaolin Monks or Samurai, maybe were things that that i would have thought first for the Jedi Order. In fact i think the Shaolin were at one point almost exterminated by the Emperor of China after they refused to be a part of his standing army after they helped him defend himself against an enemy this one time. But then some survived and rebuilt the order. and ahve u ever seen Shaolin Monks in action? i think(they can do some amazing things with their mental discipline,)

 

What's kind of ironic is that the Shaolin monks had a "Return of the Jedi" of their own. During the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, they volunteered to help the Emperor route some bandits in the west. The monks suffered no casualties, and the authorities became suspicious of their power and influence. The Mandarins and eunuchs managed to talk the Emperor into attacking and burning the temple, and the monks scattered (a familiar theme in Star Wars). The Shaolin order was reestablished after the Cultural Revolution, thankfully.

 

In the main, the Tokugawa Shogunate "fell" because of the Meiji Restoration. A large number of samurai came to resent the current Shogun, and helped the young Emperor Meiji to seize power in 1868. The Emperor had held only ceremonial power since the establishment of the Minamoto Shogunate in 1190. Eventually the new regime banned the samurai class and all expressions of identification with it, such as the public wearing of swords and the wearing of hair in the top-knot.


Goth royalty? What Goth royalty? France was ruled successively by the Houses of Capet and Valois during the Middle Ages. Germany was ruled by the Saxons, the Salians, the Hohenstaufens, various elected emperors, and later grabbed by the Hapsburgs.

The Goths were a Germanic tribe in large part responsible for destroying the Western Roman Empire, who mostly settled in Spain, Italy, and Southeastern Europe. After settling into the formerly Roman lands they conquered or migrated to, they disappeared from history as a distinct group.


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 *****. Ivanhoe presents the less savory sides of their Order in some detail.

There were also other orders of monastic knights, such as the Order of St. John (Hospitallers), the Teutonic Knights in Germany (villains of the Soviet propaganda film Alexander Nevsky), and the Portuguese Order of Christ. The Hospitallers would also be a likely inspiration for the Jedi.


Don't you mean Chinese Revolution, as in the Revolution of 1911? The Cultural Revolution was one of Chairman Mao's destructive attempts to force the Chinese people to radically alter their culture and ways of life to fit with his particular brand of Communist ideology.

 

Between the Communist Revolution and the Cultural Revolution, traditional forms of martial arts were banned. Wushu was allowed because it was viewed as somewhat non-practical, and a healthy form of gymnastics and exercise, as was Tai Chi. Things reached their worse during the Cultural Revolution, when Confucian establishments, which had survived into the Communist era, were done away with. Education and the arts suffered the most, and communal farming was highly enforced in order to bring the country out of the famine of the 50's. After the Cultural Revolution, Chinese society began to slowly reinstitute old traditions, martial arts being one of them. Now they are experiencing a golden age, and arts such as San Shou are getting national support (and foreigners are welcome to train at Shaolin).

 

The 'Jedi' are a blatant rip off of the Power Rangers.

Everything else Lucas stole from Dune & LOtRs!