Slashdot Mirror

I posted the following in a recent comment about this: "Actually, Frank Herbert himself was the one that originally complained about Lucas ripping off the story. I've read in various places that he considered a lawsuit. He wrote several pages in a short essay within Eye about this topic where he points out that there are statistically too many similarities for this to be mere coincidence."

Actually, Frank Herbert himself was the one that originally complained about Lucas ripping off the story. I've read in various places that he considered a lawsuit. He wrote several pages in a short essay within Eye about this topic where he points out that there are statistically too many similarities for this to be mere coincidence.

I actually finished this book last week. Although, you cannot even begin to compare the writing abilities of father and son, I've enjoyed the new books. Each book has gotten a little bit better and I actually enjoyed this book.. it had good pacing and got you involved in the story. SPOILER??... My only complaint is that it seemed to me that several things that were claimed on the book jacket, like the betrayal that made mortal enemies of Harkonnen and Atreides, were not actually in the story! Maybe I missed something?

An interesting page that talks about some other Star Wars influenced stuff in a far less sensationalist way:

http://www.jitterbug.com/origins/other.html

I still think Star Wars is a fun film. There is no shame it being influenced by the likes of Frank Herbert.

You can continue hating Lucas then, because he borrowed it from Flash Gordon.

I am suprised that I haven't seen anything about Joseph Campbell in this discussion (props to those who deserve, comment #2409457 linked to a good article "Star Wars: A Religious Perspective") One of the items listed in the bibliography is the Joseph Campbell video "The Power Of Myth" which I watched on PBS a "long long time ago...". It was VERY good, and also good related reading would be Campbells book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

The point being that not only did Campbell influence Star Wars, Lucas discussed the relation of mythology to the Star Wars story with Campbell. Campbell being a mythologist, and mythology being religion (Don't want to get involved regarding present day religion, but nearly all of what we call Mythology today was Religion yesterday) the Star Wars saga has all the makings of a religious story. Lucas intended the saga to be mythological, its one of the wonderful things about the first three movies. I should stop now. Go read about Joseph Campbell, it will be much better than my dissemination of the information.

I just found this link, which is about Star Wars origins (also does some matrix comparison) and it looks interesting.

P.S. I've heard it said that the reason Episode I sucked so much was because Lucas listened to his kids advice on making the movie.

1. Joseph Campbell was very impressed with the mythic base for the Star Wars story. Campbell was honored that his books helped inspire Lucas' story. The story entertains more than just the generation that grew up with A New Hope.

• The Blah Witch Project Blair Witch parody
• The Walt Witch Project (RealVideo link close to bottom of page)
• The Mos Eisley Multiplex (which is a collection of Star Wars influenced parodies... very funny stuff)
• Star Wars: Macbeth a Star Wars flavored version of Sheakspeare's Macbeth... or is that a Macbeth flavored version of Star Wars?...)
• My Boot movie theater Some funny videos... my favorite is the 'Soesman Language Institute' commercial...