The Top 11 Things That Influenced George Lucas' Original Star Wars Trilogy

Dune is an epic science fiction novel well-known and beloved by speculative fiction fans. It tells the story of Paul Atreides, a young man who goes on an epic adventure, gains supernatural powers and eventually heads a new religion. When it first came out it won several prestigious awards, including a Hugo and the inaugural Nebula award. George Lucas’ sci-fi desert aesthetic was probably inspired by Dune. Land speeders rocket across the sands in Star Wars and Dune. The flow of a substance called spice is heavily controlled. Instead of growing food like most farmers, the hardworking folk of Dune and Star Wars harvest moisture from the air. You may have noticed the parallels between Luke and Paul Atreides. Like Paul, Luke has a normal first name yet is surrounded by people with usual names like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Aliea. Paul and Luke's families are murdered and they are forced to flee. Through various plot circumstances they both end up heading a religion, though Luke is much more benign and less culty than Paul is. Of course, Episode VIII could reveal that he wasn’t benign at all, but hopefully that won't be the case.

In A Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell explores the idea of a monomyth. He theorizes that stories from all of the world share the same basic structure. This structure starts with the Call to Adventure and ends with the changed hero returning to the ordinary world to share his knowledge. The sources Campbell draws on range from the story of The Buddha to Ulysses by James Joyce. The term “monomyth” actually comes from another one of Joyce’s book, Finnegans Wake. While some may bemoan the use of the same structure over and over again, reading Campbell’s theory allowed Lucas to tighten his script and focus on the important story beats. Hero of a Thousand Faces influenced Star Wars so much that Luke Skywalker is now on the cover of new editions of the book.

One of the legends in Joseph Campbell’s monomyth was the story of King Arthur and his knights. The Jedi Order could be seen as analogous to the Knights of the Round Table. They’re both warrior peacekeepers who go on adventures, save people and swing swords. The Jedi Council even sits in a circle as King Arthur's knights sat the Round Table. And as George Lucas cribbed from tales of Arthur and his knights, John Boorman cribbed from Star Wars when making the epic film Excalibur which is about King Arthur! The scene where Merlin meets young Arthur and tells him about the mystical sword Excalibur is almost beat-for-beat the same as Obi Wan telling Luke about the Force. Gotta love it when things come full circle like that.

Entire academic papers could be written about the artistic relationship between Akira Kurosawa and Star Wars. George Lucas loved the long shots and wide lenses of Kurosawa films. And as he studied the films for their cinematography, plot elements from films such as The Hidden Fortress began to creep into the script. Like Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress is about a civil war and opens with two bumbling peasants/droids and transitions to veteran general trying to help a princess who is being held behind enemy lines. Lucas also borrowed from the image of the samurai that Kurosawa created. His Jedi wear long robes and carry swords, like Kurosawa's samurai. Real life samurai were more likely to be archers than swordsmen. The word Jedi comes from the word, jidaigeki, which is a genre of historical dramas about samurai, such as, you guessed it, The Hidden Fortress.

The character now known as Buck Rogers appeared in a novella called Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan. It tells the story of Anthony “Buck” Rogers, a veteran of WWI (then known as the Great War) who falls into a deep sleep and awakens in the twenty-fifth century. But the character became truly well known in a comic strip by the same author. The stalwart space hero, the sassy female characters and many Star Wars’ ideas can be traced back to the Buck Rogers comic strip. In one memorable instance, the love interest is captured by the villain and forced into a scantily clad outfit. And like Leia was sassy with Imperial agents, so is she! She asks “What is this, a musical comedy?” But Buck Rogers was to fade from popularity. Some upstart wanted to adapt the comic, but couldn’t get the rights. And so, they took the idea of a spaceman saving the universe and created…

Flash Gordon! Flash Gordon, despite being an almost carbon company of Buck Rogers, quickly outstripped the original in popularity. The titular hero was a little more stalwart then Buck, never cheating on his bland love interest with various stereotypical seductresses. By the time that Buck Rogers got his own feature, many people just considered it another Flash Gordon film, much like Galaxy Quest is considered a another Star Trek movie. George Lucas watched the Flash Gordon film serials and read the comics as a child. When he grew up, he wanted to make an adaptation of the serials but could not get the rights to the property just like the creators of Flash Gordon wanted to but could not adapt Buck Rogers. And just like Flash outstripped Buck, Star Wars steamrolled over Flash Gordon and is far more popular. Flash Gordon was eventually adapted into a film by Mike Hodges and the band Queen providing the soundtrack. 

Image by Diliff

In many stories about the Roman Empire, such as Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare and I, Claudius by Robert Graves, there is a central tension between the Empire and the Republic. This tension is central to Star Wars as well. It’s not as apparent in the Original Trilogy when the days of Republic are long gone.  We hear talk of the senate Leia is a member of, but it’s dissolved with a snap of Tarkin’s fingers. Our heroes are idealists fighting for the senate like the hero of I, Claudius, but that’s about all we get from Rome in the Original Trilogy. But in the Prequel Trilogy, the influence of Roman history on Star Wars comes to the forefront. The bustling, central hub of Coruscant was directly inspired Rome. In Revenge of the Sith, A charismatic emperor takes power from a large, unwieldy Senate just like Julius Caesar took power.  The clash of Republic vs. Empire might not be as strong in the Sequel Trilogy since the First Order eliminated the Republic, but who knows how it might play out.

Image by Jerry J. Jostwick

As one of the biggest conflicts in human history, World War II has influenced all types of media. Star Wars is no exception. The look of the Stormtroopers, the uniforms of the Imperial Officers and the willingness of the Empire to commit horrendous acts parallel the Thrid Reich. Palpatine seized power in a time of crisis during the Prequel Trilogy. By the time of the Original Trilogy, he sits atop the chain of command, overseeing atrocities, like Hitler seized power and oversaw the atrocities committed in his name. The First Order of the Sequel Trilogy also looks like the Nazis since they are trying to mimic the Empire. JJ Abrams also created them by asking  “what if?” questions about Nazi war criminals. He said in an interview with Time “[The First Order] came out of conversations about what would have happened if the Nazis all went to Argentina but then started working together again?”

The conversations about WWII and Star Wars often center around the bad guys, but the Rebellion and the Resistance have parallels to the real-life conflict too. They can be seen as analogous to La Résistance, the anti-Nazi movement in France. The sequences with the good guy’s X-Wings also resemble WWII aerial dogfights. One movie in particular inspired George Lucas. That movie was The Dam Busters. 

This World War II flick starring Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd tells the story of RAF's 617 Squadron. The film focuses Operation Chastise, a concentrated effort to destroy German dams on the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe rivers. This film is based on a true story, though some of the historical details are a little fudged. The film invented some conflict with bureaucrats that did not exist in real life. George Lucas lifted sequences from The Dam Busters shot for shot when creating scenes with X-Wing fighters. Specially, the final trench run on the Death Star in a New Hope mirrors the final action sequence of The Dam Busters. Some might say it’s unfair that Star Wars is more well known in The United States, since it ripped off scenes The Dam Busters. Fortunately, A remake is currently in in the work. Unfortunately, it's stuck in development hell. We can hope The Dam Busters will get the acknowledgement it deserves.

Image by James K. F. Dung

At the time of the Original Trilogy’s release, the Vietnam War was in full swing, and George Lucas created an allegory for the conflict in Return of the Jedi. While many Americans see themselves in Luke, Leia, Han and the rest of the scrappy rebels, many don’t realize that in this allegory, America is the bad guy. George Lucas intended for the conflict on Endor to mirror the Vietnam War with America as the Empire and the Ewoks as the Vietnamese! Which makes a certain amount of sense. America, while not an empire, is a huge industrial power. And one could argue that America's policies towards other countries are violently invasive. It makes sense for us to be represented by an oppressive Empire, invading a land without caring for the sentient beings that already live there. Though Vietnamese people got the bad end of the deal. Instead of being represented by actual human beings, they’re represented by teddy bears. George Lucas probably could have picked a less infantilizing species to represent actual people.