Star Wars is the plot of Hidden Fortress, in a universe similar to Dune, in the style of Flash Gordon, but with genius special effects and Jaws level care for every aspect of the production of the film itself.
Star Wars and The Hidden Fortress aren't that similar. There's some clear inspiration in some aspects, sure, particularly with the Droids, but the overall plot evolved into its own thing.
Right? I kept hearing this claim so I finally watched Hidden Fortress and now it pisses me off at how much of a huge fucking stretch has to be made. "Oh, two comic relief buddy characters in an otherwise mostly serious film? Must be a Hidden Fortress ripoff!"
Fuck off. You might as well say they're similar because both movies use moving pictures and sound to tell a story.
I mean it’s been a hot minute since I watched hidden fortress but it’s definitely much more than the droids as far as influence goes, unless I’m completely misremembering it there’s also Kenobi, Luke, and Leia equivalents and Lucas hasnt even been coy about how it was a big influence on the original film as far as I know
The music tends to be left off lists like this but without that fabulous score and the genius of John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra, Star Wars would not have had the same emotional impact.
Forget the music it's the overall sound design, music is just a small part of it. Villeneuve's vision for the whole thing was to make it sound like a documentary: The desert sounds like desert, not like music, the ornithopers sound like -- erm, they sound like ornithopters, not helicopters or music, everything sounds natural. As if shot on location, on actual Dune, and that atmosphere is given plenty of screen time, no grand musical scores interrupting the immersion.
EDIT oh wait you were talking Star Wars, not Dune. Yep, completely different beast. Also the THX logo not just the 21st Century Fox fanfare is part of the score I'm ready to die on that hill.
Frank Herbert spent his entire family fortune building his time machine, and even had to sell his family ranch in California and the family's stock in General Electric.
Though you could do an identical meme with Games Workshop and Blizzard. There were so many people back in the day that didn't know Warhammer 40k had been around for over a decade when StarCraft released.
And then the same thing happened again when Dawn of War was released.
Yeah I was one those who grew up playing StarCraft and was in awe of how balanced the game races are and thought the game and lore was the first of its kind. It was only later that I learned of Warhammer 40k.
Not only Dune. GW ripped off so many franchises it made my head spin when I finally read the Foundation series by Asimov. Let’s just say the Mechanicum wasn’t an original idea.
This might be controversial, but the new Denis Villeneuve movies are much better than the book. Maybe watch the movies and read the book or trawl the wiki after for more context.
They're definitely better entertainment pound-for-pound. I'd contend that the book gives you a lot more to think about, so it really depends what you're after. I like them both a lot--I think they complement each other very nicely.
I'd compare it to The Lord of the Rings books vs the movies. The Movies are a great abridged series and they know what pacing is, but the books explain so much more and have several extra movies worth of cut content.
The majority of force abilities is basically that. Voice control isn’t mastery of muscle or nerve, it isn’t magic in a sense, but controlling someone’s mind to do what you want for all intents and purposes is.
Also, where do you think Star Wars got inspiration for most of their force abilities at the start?
Some aspects of it. "The voice" is basically jedi mind tricks. People that are attuned also get visions/senses of foreboding about the future. There's no telekinetic stuff as far as I know.
Hidden Fortress by Akira Kurosawa. It’s still enjoyable today IMO, and you can really see how some of the characters are a direct line to Star Wars characters.
If you watch enough old scifi and adventure movies, you'll learn to welcome the "so that's where Lucas took that idea from" feeling as an old friend. He lifted a lot.
That just is what all storytelling is. You mix and match characters, tropes, settings, and such from other stories and irl and mix it all together to get something "original"
pretty much everything is a rip off of everything.
A fistful of dollars which has become the archetypal western is also just a rip off of yojimbo im addition to the magnificent seven being a rip off the seven samurai which was also directed by kurosawa the same guy who made the movie star wars ripped off.
