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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.
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.
The music of Holst's "The Planets", if we want to complete our list of things Star Wars superficially plagiarized.
Kings Row. Music by Korngold.
So, an original work then.
Good artists copy, great artists steal
Bad ones copy and paste into the completely wrong context
Sounds like an AI prompt
For fun I put it into ChatGPT. Response is below.
That's an insightful summary! George Lucas was indeed inspired by Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" when developing the plot for "Star Wars," particularly the perspective of the story being seen through the eyes of two lowly characters. The universe of "Star Wars" shares many thematic elements with Frank Herbert's "Dune," such as the desert planet of Tatooine resembling Dune's Arrakis and the concept of a galactic empire. The stylistic influence of Flash Gordon can be seen in the serialized adventure feel and the distinctive, retro-futuristic aesthetics. Lastly, Lucas's groundbreaking use of special effects and meticulous attention to detail in production set a new standard for filmmaking, much like "Jaws" did for the thriller genre.
And a producer who worked magic.
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
There isn't a Luke equivalent. That's kind of a big change.
No Han or Chewbacca equivalents, either.
I often wonder if anyone who says this even seen The Hidden Fortress.