Is Star Wars based on the US War of Independence?

Why is it the "rebels" have american accents, and the evil Imperial Empire(british) all have english accents?

Was Luke Sky Walker a farmer by accident?

Are the Star Destroyers named after british warships on purpose?


Hmmmm most Interesting.....

What do you think?

I think this thread will be sucked into BTS any minute.

Why should it, could there be a deeper political mindset behind the movie?

It's based on a 'journey of the hero' which is most popular theme of all folklore. That's basically boy goes to the world, saves the princess, battles evil forces, becomes a hero etc. Why the british referenses are there is a mystery to me. Ask Lucas

I'll humor ya.

Eddie Izzard explaining because of the Revolutionary War, British actors play the bad guys in hollywood films

We play bad guys in Hollywood movies. Take, for example, "The Empire Strikes Back" from the Star Wars trilogy. The Death Star is just full of British actors opening doors and going, "Oh... I... oh..." "What is it lieutenant Sebastian?" "It's just the Rebels, sir... they're here." "My God, man! Do they want tea?" "No, I think they're after something a bit more than that, sir. I don't know what it is, but they've brought a flag." "Damn, that's dash cunning of them."

Knew ya would play along!


Suppose it is better than american actors with slight german accents, all the time.

hehe

Obi Wan had an English accent too, so I don't think there's anything to this theory.

While it's not based on the American Revolution, it certainly has facets that reflect it. That's not really surprising, though. As has already been mentioned, Lucas drew a lot on Joseph Campbell's work when putting the series together, so it will have a lot of myths (and meta-myths) found in it.

The American Revolution is one of the more powerful myths present here in the US, and shades of it show up all through our popular media.

The idea of the farmer/soldier goes farther back than that, at least to Roman times.

Okay, HERE'S one for ya! The Rebel Fighters fire red pulses, while the TIE Fighters fire green pulses. NATO uses red tracers in their weapons...and WARSAW Pact nations use green tracers!

[edit on 3-5-2005 by Toelint]

good job jack.....

www.folkstory.com...




Nobody paid $7 to hear Homer read The Odyssey, or lined up to buy Thomas Malory's 15th-century version of King Arthur's legend. But, when Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace opens at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, George Lucas' epic of galactic good and evil will be seen by more people in one day than Homer or Malory ever dreamed of reaching in their lifetimes.

Different eras, different heroes, yet Lucas' film series contains the same mythic qualities those ancient storytellers and others used to fuel imaginations throughout the ages.

Lucas always claimed that his lucrative Star Wars saga blends mythology and technology. Instead of a Scylla, he has Darth Vader. Luke Skywalker and Thor have more in common than you may think.

Indeed, Lucas' fascination with mythology led to an enduring friendship with the late Joseph Campbell, perhaps the best-known expert in the field.

Lucas blended archetypes of legends and visionary cinema into three Star Wars chapters between 1977 and 1983. Star Wars (known to Jedi disciples as A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi have grossed billions of dollars in worldwide ticket sales and merchandising.

The reason goes beyond state-of-the-art special effects and studio hype. Lucas' film series isn't merely a hit, it's a myth.

“Star Wars is an example of what Joseph Campbell called the Monomyth, which reaches a broader audience and is more enduring,” said Shanti Fader, editor of Parabola magazine, a publication of the Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition.

“The stories speak to something inside us that wants to know how our world lives, that wants to make order of it and find some meaning. Myths fulfill that in a way that science and facts don't always do, because science and facts don't always give us meaning.”

Campbell -- known to mass audiences through The Power of Myth, the PBS TV series based on his books -- was an expert in the construction and cultural resonance of mythology. His books Masks of God and The Hero with a Thousand Faces are considered the ultimate guides to what has enthralled the world for centuries.

Campbell defined the Hero Cycle, a course of events that occurs as a rite of initiation in every myth, pinpointing the need for mentors, villains, elixirs and jesters along the way. Each step can be traced in the adventures of Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker.

Before Campbell died in 1987, the scholar and Lucas became friends. A storyteller needs a mentor as much as a hero does.

“Yes, I consider him a mentor,” Lucas said at a recent New York press conference. “He was an amazing scholar and an amazing person. When I started doing Star Wars, I re-read Hero with a Thousand Faces. After Return of the Jedi, somebody gave me a tape of one of his lectures. I was just blown away by that. He was much more powerful as a speaker than he was as a writer.”

A short time later, Lucas loaned his studios to PBS to produce the Campbell series. Letters and gifts exchanged by the two visionaries are on display in the Joseph Campbell Archives in Santa Barbara, Calif.

The founding curator of that museum, Dr. Jonathan Young, said Campbell compared Lucas to the masters.

“Campbell was very grateful that Lucas presented the elements of Luke's initiation so clearly,” Young said. “The idea of a calling, of being drawn away into a place of wisdom, finding allies and mentors, accomplishing the ordeals, and then returning.”

In Campbell's teachings, myths inspire both awe and recognition. They communicate a sense of universal order and show how people should live.

Sound like Star Wars? Campbell thought so.

“Campbell was impressed that Lucas had so diligently presented this large mystery in a way that was so accessible to large numbers of people,” Young said.


The hero and the quest
“Luke fulfills a number of the characteristics that you see in mythic heroes,” Feder said: “A royal lineage that he grows up ignorant about in a simple, obscure way, and he has special powers and abilities that are brought out by a series of teachers.
In classic mythology, the hero reluctantly leaves the homeland (in Luke's case, the planet Tatooine) on a quest that takes him over a supernatural threshold into a strange land. A helper/co-hero such as space jockey Han Solo lends a steady hand through a series of ordeals. Comic relief is provided by tricksters such as the Greek muse Thalia or C3PO and R2-D2.

Ultimately, the hero must stand on his own, face the darkness and conquer it before returning to reality, stronger and wiser.

For Luke, the darkness was the evil side of the Force, a cosmic spiritualism that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda taught him to harness for good purposes, another element of the Hero Cycle. Luke and Han, by association with the Force, both evolve from self-centered people into crusaders with a grand purpose.

“No one becomes much in this life without powerful mentoring experiences,” Young said. “These are both universal and precious. It is a rare and beautiful thing that everyone knows on some level is of great, great value.”

A series of obstacles must block the hero's path to an enchanted land where final victory -- the elixir of a golden fleece or galactic peace -- awaits. Threshold guardians constantly interfere with the hero, whether it's the terror of Medusa, Mordred, or the Empire's stormtroopers and a conniving Jabba the Hutt.

Even after defeating the guardians, mythological heroes can't breathe easily.

“The seeker has to go through a death and rebirth experience,” Young said. “When Luke is trapped in the garbage dump in the first movie, or Han Solo is turned to stone in that carbonite block, these are experiences equal to Jonah being swallowed by the great fish.”

"They are being completely overwhelmed by defeat, a near-death experience, and then they're revived and are able to become new people. That's a challenge that every human being goes through.”

After the hero prevails, the final showdown with the villain, either real or psychological, can begin. Psychologist Carl Jung, a mentor of sorts to Campbell, called this antagonist the Shadow archetype. Darth Vader's black cloak and helmet, or his estranged conflict with his son certainly fit that description.

This pattern of myth appears in plenty of books, TV shows and films. Consider Dorothy's trek to OZ or Rocky Balboa's heavyweight boxing career.

“Every culture has them, and they're essentially the same story,” said Liam Neeson, who plays Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace. “We immediately recognize them in some way, and we feel the need to have them told.”

“We're living in such a complex world, with so much confusion each time we turn around, that we want to see something that makes the world more palatable. (Myths) just remind you of those basic pillars of wisdom that everybody should have.”

I was thinking of posting a thread like this myself but I was going to wait until folks have seen the third prequel. This subject has been on my mind.

I'm a lifelong fan of the Star Wars universe having been raised on the stuff as a kid in America. It has been suggested that Lucas is an alien or has some sort of alien connection. I am not one to doubt anything or believe anything based on conjecture, but doesn't anyone think it's odd that Lucas' Star Wars saga is drawing to a close at the exact moment that the world is threatened with a power-play just like the character of Chancellor/Emporer Palpatine is doing in these movies?

Palpatine (masterfully played by Ian McDarmid --you might have seen him briefly as the butler in 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels') becomes chancellor by his own subtle influences, but he is also in league with the 'seperatists', who are threatening the Republic (READ: Terrorists). In Episode Two (Attack of the Clones), we saw Palpy arrange to have himself voted 'emergency war powers'. At the end of the most recent film (Episode Two in the saga), Palpatine is Supreme Chancellor, and he has the grandest army ever created at his fingertips.

Notice that Ian McDarmid plays both Emporer Palpatine (The craggy old wizard from Return of the Jedi) and Senator Palpatine (the smooth guy who's taking over the government in the prequels we've recently seen). Are you making the connection yet?

Star Wars is not about the American War of Independence at all, but there are interesting parallels between the events of the movie and the events of recent American/World history:

1: Palpatine is voted Chancellor of the Republic before the terrorism starts (Bush is elected just prior to 9/11)

2: Terror event happens (Episode One) which allows Palpy to create a seperate army to fight terrorists (Bush fights his 'terrorists' with mercenaries)

3: Palpy does not relenquish power when he should and stays on as Emperor, destroying all Jedi until finally it's just him and his enforcer, Darth Vader, who remain. (Bush... Well?)

I am not sure it is just a coincidence that this story is being told on the world's largest stage (the movies) at the EXACT time when it is being played out before us in real life. I find that to be particularly amazing.




[edit on 3-5-2005 by smallpeeps]

In real-world political terms, the Star Wars Saga -- or, at least, the story of the rise of Emperor Palpatine -- closely mirrors how Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to take over Germany in the 1930's.

I just watched the documentary DVD that comes with the Star Wars Trilogy DVD Box Set last night, and here's what George Lucas had to say:

He wanted Star Wars to be a modern retelling of the classic stories "The Odyssey" and "The Illiad". He wanted Star Wars to be the modern mythological equivalent to how the ancient Greeks viewed Homer's plays. (He seems to have succeeded!) From that basic template, Star Wars evolved.

Also, his choice of having Imperial officers speak with heavy British accents was merely a convention. He's not anti-British or anything (most of the on-set footage of all six Star Wars movies was shot in England, UK, just to know); he just wanted there to be an easy way for the audience to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys (since the good guys all speak with American accents). Also, in the prequel trilogy, the only reason the Neiomodians have Chinese accents, the Gungans Jamaican accents, etc. was as a simple convention to help the audience distinguish between species/political groups. (Star Wars would be pretty boring if all characters and all species spoke in American English!)

I agree with Thundercloud, I believe the starwars series were based on WWII, the empire looks very much simliar to german officers.

Not only does it look like nazi germany but the bible also. Hence REVELATIONS.

No, it wasn't. I have one of the early versions of the script/story soewhere (it's just awful, too.) He has said repeatedly that it's the Hero's Journey and has also said (frequently) that his inspiration for a nuber of things in Star Wars was Akira Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress."

Well Im glad the subject gerated a bit of interest, good to see some other see the similiarities I do and Im not completely paranoid......too often