SLAB_ROCKGROIN t1_iuhw0c8 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:40 PM

Reply to comment by TheLateHenry in In your opinion, which is better? The original Star Wars Trilogy, or Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy? by Absuridity_Octogon

Its WWII in space with most of the themes taken from older serials and japanese movies. It didnt start from nothing, it took massive inspiration from tons of stuff. Its a classic tale told multitude of times before and theres nothing wrong with that, just saying.

Chen_Geller t1_iujxhlx wrote on October 31, 2022 at 10:04 PM

Star Wars kinda of changed through the script drafts. At some points, it was very deeply indebted to Edgar Rice Burroughs, at other points it was more indebted to Kurosawa, but some of those influences kind of got watered down as the scripts were worked on.

I would say the biggest influences on Star Wars were, by descending order of significance, Flash Gordon, EE Smith's Galactic Patrol, Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, and Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars.

There are other influences like Dune, a whole bunch of World War II movies and, would you imagine, Tolkien's The Hobbit, but they're much more minor.