NationStates Jolt Archive

So I was doing a little leisure reading yesterday and I have found yet another example of an utter lack of originality on the part of Mr. Lucas.

Mind you, I wouldn't make such a big deal out of this sort of thing except for a little incident in which Lucas sued the producers of the original Battlestar Galactica for plagiarism, because he felt the Vipers were too much like X-Wings and so on.

This from the guy who ripped off Dune. See if you can guess which movie I'm describing, Dune or Star Wars:

This movie is the tale of an interstellar Empire that spans a huge number of worlds. The Empire is loosely based on a feudal system. On one world, a desert planet, there is a young man who has discovered he has the ability to use a very special and rare power that enables him to glimpse the future.

My latest gripe: Han Solo = Rhett Butler. Don't believe me? Which character am I describing:

This character is a lovable scoundrel. He is captain of his own ship, used for smuggling in a chaotic setting of a Civil War. He doesn't really choose sides at first but later joins the rebels. He persues a strong willed but emotionally lonely woman throughout the story and ultimately wins her love in spite of her assertion that he is, in fact, a scoundrel. He's brave and kind, and on occasion uses his shady connections to get himself and his friends out of trouble. He had a brief career with the Government military but left that behind him long ago.

Forgive me if I seem petty. I just have a low tolerance threshold for hypocrisy.

Most of the original trilogy came straight from Joseph Campbell. All of those archetypes running around in the series are bound to be similar to archetypal characters in other stories, and never mind that the "hero's journey" is as close to a universal human story as there seems to be. Shoot, they were probably telling stories with similar characters around campfires on the African savannah 30,000 years ago.

The reason Star Wars is so successful is because it's basically the classic medieval hero-defeats-evil-and-saves-the-girl story in sci-fi dress up. That's what humans want.

Well, the scoundrel story is a lot, lot older than any of the both story arcs you are quoting here. We could say both are rip offs, but actually, the stories we commonly see in TV or movies do not show any measure of creativity.

Most of the original trilogy came straight from Joseph Campbell. All of those archetypes running around in the series are bound to be similar to archetypal characters in other stories, and never mind that the "hero's journey" is as close to a universal human story as there seems to be. Shoot, they were probably telling stories with similar characters around campfires on the African savannah 30,000 years ago.

My point exactly. Quoteth for Truth

Most of the original trilogy came straight from Joseph Campbell.

Also, some of Jack Williamson's musketeers-in-space.

And the Lensmen series...

Good points, all... But like I said my main gripe is the hypocrisy :mad:

If you'd make a truly unique story that has never been heard of before then nobody would understand and like it. You have to build on familiar concepts that people can recognize and identify with. Creative work is to modify old ideas in new ways, not to come up with something truly new which has no similarities with anything anyone has imagined before.

If you'd make a truly unique story that has never been heard of before then nobody would understand and like it. You have to build on familiar concepts that people can recognize and identify with. Creative work is to modify old ideas in new ways, not to come up with something truly new which has no similarities with anything anyone has imagined before.

Tell that to Marcel Duchamp and his urinal...

There are only so many stories, they have all been told. Sometimes someone comes a long and retells the story differently... you can compare Star Wars to Legend or Willow, and compare those movies to any two other fantasies. You can compare any two hero stories and come up with an amazing amount of simularities, in characters, concepts, and anything else you can think of.