8 Major Cinematic Influences On Star Wars: A New Hope

Star Wars has never really gone away. The franchise made a spectacular splash upon the first film’s release in 1977 – so spectacular that director George Lucas went on to make two sequels and millions of dollars in merchandising deals across the 70s and 80s. Then the prequel films happened, to the general disappointment if not outright contempt of all, and the public began to wonder if Star Wars had finally run its course. That assumption has been soundly disproven with the dawn of a new trilogy, set to become bigger and perhaps even more popular than the first. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has already achieved both fan and critical acclaim, securing the future of the franchise and bringing a new generation of fans into the fold. But Star Wars didn’t start out as a multi-million dollar franchise. It started out as a film about a farm boy, a princess, a smuggler, a wise man, and a couple of bickering droids who took on an evil empire. The original Star Wars, eventually renamed Episode IV: A New Hope in recognition of its place in the franchise, didn’t just spring fully formed out of George Lucas’s mind. Like all great films, it stood on the shoulders of cinematic giants and incorporated other, equally great films into its mythos, referencing everything from old serials to the samurai epics of Akira Kurosawa. So, let's take a look at some of the films that influenced the form, aesthetic, characterization and plotting of the original Star Wars: A New Hope. The Hidden Fortress This is the big one, the one that gave George Lucas much of the basis for A New Hope’s plot. Akira Kurosawa’s energetic adventure film tells the story of a Japanese general bound to protect a rather self-sufficient and sarcastic princess (and her fortune) after her family is attacked and her home destroyed in the midst of a clan war. The story is told largely from the perspective of a pair of bickering peasants who, after missing the battle they’d planned to fight in, unwittingly stumble upon the general, the princess, and a whole lot of gold. Lucas has openly acknowledged the debt that A New Hope owes to The Hidden Fortress. The opening of The Hidden Fortress starts with the two peasants Tahei and Matashichi, their constant, comedic insults setting the tone and explaining the backstory before we reach the plot proper. Tahei and Matashichi are the prototypes for R2-D2 and C-3PO, although the latter pair are a bit more altruistic in their goals. But the parallels do not stop there: Princess Yuki, self-centered and sarcastic even in the midst of great danger, reads as the basis for the equally independent Princess Leia, while her protector General Rokurota is Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and a touch of Obi-Wan rolled into one – including the initial conflict that leads to nascent romance between him and the Princess. This is not to say that A New Hope is a straight remake of The Hidden Fortress – rather, the Star Wars film takes certain elements from Kurosawa and blends them into the space epic. The lack of certainty about whose side which characters are on and often sardonic humor further means that A New Hope owes quite a lot to its samurai forebear. The Dam Busters A New Hope has a lot in common with World War II action films in general, but the British-made The Dam Busters provides the basis for one of its most spectacular and memorable set pieces. The Dam Busters tells the story of an engineer working to find a way to destroy German dams in an effort to damage the Nazis’ heavy industry and thus cripple their weaponry. This winds up involving the creation of a “bouncing bomb” that can be dropped into the water from low-flying airplanes, thus avoiding Germany’s protective torpedo nets. The climactic scene of The Dam Busters involves RAF bombing crews finally attacking the dams using the bouncing bombs; bombs that must be targeted with great accuracy or they’ll burst too early and fail to achieve their aim. Lucas lifts this element of the film for the Rebels’ climactic attack on the Death Star, where the fighters attempt to fire photon torpedoes into the unprotected center of the battle station. There are even sections of dialogue lifted from The Dam Busters as the pilots communicate with one another. All signs point to this homage to The Dam Busters being deliberate, especially considering Lucas’s purposeful depiction of the Empire as Nazi-esque overlords and the Rebels as plucky Allied fighters. The general tenor of Star Wars as an extended riff on World War II aerial dramas will be borne out during the prequels, in which all those boring Senate negotiations begin to sound like the League of Nations prior to World War II. Metropolis Practically every major sci-fi film owes some kind of debt to Fritz Lang’s original dystopian movie Metropolis. The visual aesthetic of Blade Runner wouldn’t exist without Metropolis – and many of the images in the Star Wars prequel trilogy directly reference Lang’s dystopian but indulgent world. While A New Hope will take more of its visual aesthetic from other sci-fi films, it does reference Metropolis in the construction of one key character. The design of C-3PO is a clear homage to the robot Maria in Lang’s Metropolis. The big eyes with pinpoint pupils, the stiff, silent-film movement, cantilevered joints, and even the extremely oval shape of the head, all have their aesthetic based in Maria’s design. The similarities end there: C-3PO is not exactly meant to act as a messianic distraction or a creator’s fevered dream of rebuilding his dead wife, but it’s a neat little homage to one of the original sci-fi epics. The Wizard Of Oz Given its wide-reaching influence and long plot arc, it’s easy to forget where Star Wars actually began. It didn’t start out with the epic tale of epic heroes, but rather with a distress call and a farm boy whisked away on an adventure. While there’s a wide gulf between the Technicolor drama of The Wizard of Oz – and while Luke certainly doesn’t sing “Over the Rainbow”– there is more than a hint of the Oz plot in the A New Hope. It might be weird to think of Luke Skywalker as Dorothy, but he does fulfill a similar role: trapped on a small farm in the middle of the dustbowl, he dreams of escape to the wild blue yonder. And he gets his wish, whisked away to do battle with an evil witch Sith lord with the help of an odd hodge-podge of friends, including one who moves and acts like he’s made of tin and one as hairy as a lion. The foundation of A New Hope is a magical journey for a young man from the sticks into a world of danger and adventure, a far cry from his home life. Like Dorothy, Luke longs to go home, but he’s also not allowed to – and when he does, too much has changed. Yojimbo There’s no secret that Kurosawa’s films heavily influenced the making of Star Wars, as did their spaghetti western counterparts. A New Hope contains some direct, and some not so direct, references to Kurosawa’s original “wandering samurai” film Yojimbo. Toshiro Mifune plays the samurai Sanjuro, who arrives in a small town in the midst of a gang war. There, he’s accosted by crime lords from both sides, who offer to pay Sanjuro to fight for them. The cantina scene in A New Hope references Yojimbo, as several men who brag about being wanted by the authorities threaten Luke and then wind up being seriously injured for their trouble. But the biggest influence is Mifune’s performance as Sanjuro, the wandering samurai, whose characterization closely parallels that of Han Solo. A hero insistent on accepting money for his services, rather than out of any loyal or altruistic motive, Solo’s apparent cynicism conceals a good heart. He’s a scruffy, sarcastic hero, apparently at odds with the samurai-esque culture of the Jedi, but equally capable of behaving altruistically in an effort to protect the innocent. The sardonic anti-hero proves to be smarter and more useful than he appears. It does well to mention here that Lucas actually wanted Mifune for the part of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the role eventually filled by Alec Guinness, but Mifune turned it down. If you think Lucas wasn’t attempting to draw parallels between his film and Kurosawa’s, then you don’t understand movie brat culture. 2001: A Space Odyssey As with so many sci-fi films, Star Wars owes an aesthetic debt to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just as Metropolis set the aesthetic standard for indulgent and dystopian societies, so did 2001 set the standard for grand space epics. Even if you have difficulty sitting through the extended establishing shots and long spates with no dialogue, to fully understand the development of the sci-fi genre in the 1960s and 70s look no further than 2001 – it made contemporary sci-fi possible. A New Hope’s opening shot, as a spacecraft looms into view in the upper part of the frame, is a direct reference to Kubrick’s introductory shot of the Discovery One spacecraft. More generally, Kubrick’s film brought Star Wars many of its design images, from hexagonal rooms and space-stations to the docking bay of the Death Star, oddly reminiscent of a docking bay in 2001. Simply watching the two films side by side shows just how visually alike they are – the interiors of rooms on the Death Star and the Rebel base reference 2001, while the costuming of the Rebel fighters are reminiscent of the “indoor” clothing worn by Dave and his fellow astronauts. Even the way that the spaceships float through space was established as a matter of course by 2001. Of course, Lucas made his space opera into an action-adventure, which 2001 decidedly is not – a testament to Lucas’s ability to take an aesthetic and develop it in a different direction. Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey share something else in common, too: both are products of the participation of Stuart Freeborn, the designer of both the humanoid apes in 2001’s “The Dawn of Man” sequence, makeup supervisor on A New Hope, and the designer of Yoda. The Searchers If 2001: A Space Odyssey gave A New Hope the aesthetics of outer space, the films of John Ford donated the aesthetics of the earth. Lucas has cited Ford’s The Searchers in particular as influential on the design of the desert planet Tatooine, where Luke is raised. As with 2001: A Space Odyssey, simply watching the two films back to back with a view to the aesthetic will establish just how influential Ford was on Lucas’s vision. The Searchers lends its expansive desert vistas to Tatooine, as well as the contrast between the close, interior environments of Luke’s family farm and the external wasteland without. The journey around the desert wasteland further references westerns in general and The Searchers in particular, as when R2-D2 is set upon by Tusken raiders, who are none too subtle in their parallels with the stereotyped Indians of Ford westerns. The death of Luke’s aunt and uncle also reference the destruction of the homestead in The Searchers, Luke’s rage paralleling the rage of John Wayne when he discovers his friends murdered. Flash Gordon Serials In addition to The Hidden Fortress, the original plot of Star Wars credits the old Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s. The use of the opening title crawl to explain the current plot – or, in the case of the sequels, what went on in the interim – is a direct reference to the serial style, which used title cards or narrators to remind the audience of what had happened in the previous chapter. The use of ray guns, and much of the sci-fi imagery comes directly from Flash Gordon and its fellow serials, including Buck Rogers. Just as the Indiana Jones films will reference the adventure serials of the 1930s and 40s, so did Star Wars give homage to the sci-fi ones. The plot of the Flash Gordon serials was even more influential on the overarching plot of A New Hope. In the Flash Gordon story, Flash (Luke) and Prince Barin (Han) fight the evil Ming the Merciless (the Emperor) on a hostile planet (the Death Star) in a battle between the rebel and imperial forces. The use of technology alongside traditional "magic" in Star Wars represents a further development of Flash Gordon-style sci-fi. Prior to the making of Star Wars, Lucas even tried to gain the rights to the Flash Gordon serials, but was unable to secure them and so went on to create Star Wars as a sort of version of Flash. Nevertheless, the basic plot is still there, recalling the fact that Lucas managed to combine any number of influences into the production of his grand, and unique, space opera.