Re: SW v. Kurasowa

In message <Im1gaDO00iWVEABo5m@andrew.cmu.edu> Aaron P Teske writes:
> 
> Excerpts from FT: 5-Aug-96 SW v. Kurasowa by RMMDC@jazz.ucc.uno.edu 
> > I'm not saying that Lucas' scripts are totally original--nothing is
> > anymore, but I'm afraid that I must disagree that just because there
> > are some plot similarities that his movie _must_ either be an homage
> > or a rip-off.
> 
> Given that Lucas has *said* that he was strongly infuenced by The
Hidden
> Fortress, however, does tend to indicate it's something of a
homage.... 

I saw "Hidden Fortress" on the premise that it was the model for Star 
Wars and was roundly unimpressed. Certainly there are elements in 
common, but no one-to-one correlation as in "The Magnificent Seven"
or "A Fistful of Dollars".

Let's face it, Star Wars is one of the great manifestations of, well, 
I'm sure there's a name it for it, I'd have to check some works by 
Joseph Campbell, let's call it the Archetypical Hero Story.

1. The hero, a man of somewhat interesting birth, lives on the fringes
of a society who are oppressed by some force of selfishness.

2. He becomes aware that he is a hero at much the same time that shit
happens to him, throwing him into adventure. Things will never be the
same again.

3. With the appropriate sacrifices and an unselfish motivation, he 
(eventually) reaches the "Heart of Darkness", recovers the necessary 
panacea, and returns to his society.

4. Everything comes out the way it should, the panacea is used to 
defeat the forces of selfishness... and yet somehow our hero will
remain apart from his society. How poinient. He has in the process
changed fundamentally.

This is Star Wars, and a thousand other stories. It's all a sort of
metaphor for growing up I s'pose. Another fundamental archetype is 
the quest for identity. All that Return-of-the-Jedi-"Hero-(Luke)-
goes-to-the-Underworld-(Death-Star)-to-redeem-his-Father's-
(Vader's)-Soul"-sort-of-thing (other than this altered motif RotJ
is basically an inferior re-make of Star Wars).

SW is a heroic *fantasy* story just as much and more than anything 
Tolkien provided us. Heroism. Magic. Monsters. Towering source of 
Evil. Anybody who insists on dividing this from fantasy because it 
has a futuristic vaneer is on some other planet to Yours Truly. 

There's a part of me that says the best way to re-edit the SW
trilogy is to ditch the second two films. Star Wars as a stand-
alone film is perfect. I never bought into that "It was all planned
as a trilogy of trilogies" rubbish.

May the Force be with you all.

-- 
David Brewer