You didn't mention Akira Kurosawa and the Hidden Fortress (and other of his films, but especially that one). If you haven't watched it yet, do so. You'll see how much of it Lucas 'borrowed'. Lucas's best bits mostly were 'sourced' from other people, IMHO.
I have, and you’re right. In fact, in my last viewing of A New Hope, I noticed somebody used the phrase “hidden fortress” when referring to the secret Rebel base. And IIRC, there were a couple of bumbling comedy relief characters that are a closer fit to the personalities of R2 and 3PO than any of the characters played by Laurel & Hardy or Abbot & Costello.
Is it true that in an original, early workprint, Lucas wasn’t intercutting the impending destruction of Yavin IV with the rebel attack on the Death Star? Supposedly, someone like Brian De Palma or Martin Scorsese told Lucas to do the intercutting.
I’m also reasonably sure that in the original “The Art of Star Wars” book, the protagonist who later became Luke Skywalker was clearly drawn as female.
You got John Williams right. Spot On! My favorite soundtrack composer of all time. There are other greats (Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin) but John Williams was knocking it out of the park even back in the 1960s when he was creating the theme music for all of Irwin Allen's sci-fi shows.
I, too, have a wealth of opinions on Star Wars (by which I mean the 1977 movie that I refuse to call “A New Hope”) and one of these days I’ll get around to putting ‘em “on paper.”
In the meanwhile, I’ll strongly second your take on John Williams’ score. It’s beyond brilliant from that first chord to the end credits. Seeing it at 12 in its second week of release was a mind-blowing experience and the music was pivotal to that.
But I’ll add this. In a roughly 18-24 month period, the man composed the scores to all of these:
Black Sunday
Star Wars
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Fury
Jaws 2
Superman
Admittedly, Black Sunday and The Fury are somewhat lesser efforts and Jaws 2 a sequel, but SW, CE3K, and Superman are all masterworks and any composer would be proud to have composed even one, let alone all three, let alone all three in such a short period of time!
Wow, that’s an incredible portfolio build in just a couple years. The Superman theme was sort of piggybacked off the theme from the old Max Fleischer cartoons IMO. But also IMO that was an outstanding foundation to tweak and build on.
You didn't mention Akira Kurosawa and the Hidden Fortress (and other of his films, but especially that one). If you haven't watched it yet, do so. You'll see how much of it Lucas 'borrowed'. Lucas's best bits mostly were 'sourced' from other people, IMHO.
Place names and concepts were also borrowed from Asimov’s Foundation series. I’m thinking about Han Pritcher and Bail Channis.
I have, and you’re right. In fact, in my last viewing of A New Hope, I noticed somebody used the phrase “hidden fortress” when referring to the secret Rebel base. And IIRC, there were a couple of bumbling comedy relief characters that are a closer fit to the personalities of R2 and 3PO than any of the characters played by Laurel & Hardy or Abbot & Costello.
Is it true that in an original, early workprint, Lucas wasn’t intercutting the impending destruction of Yavin IV with the rebel attack on the Death Star? Supposedly, someone like Brian De Palma or Martin Scorsese told Lucas to do the intercutting.
I’m also reasonably sure that in the original “The Art of Star Wars” book, the protagonist who later became Luke Skywalker was clearly drawn as female.
You got John Williams right. Spot On! My favorite soundtrack composer of all time. There are other greats (Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin) but John Williams was knocking it out of the park even back in the 1960s when he was creating the theme music for all of Irwin Allen's sci-fi shows.
I, too, have a wealth of opinions on Star Wars (by which I mean the 1977 movie that I refuse to call “A New Hope”) and one of these days I’ll get around to putting ‘em “on paper.”
In the meanwhile, I’ll strongly second your take on John Williams’ score. It’s beyond brilliant from that first chord to the end credits. Seeing it at 12 in its second week of release was a mind-blowing experience and the music was pivotal to that.
But I’ll add this. In a roughly 18-24 month period, the man composed the scores to all of these:
Black Sunday
Star Wars
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Fury
Jaws 2
Superman
Admittedly, Black Sunday and The Fury are somewhat lesser efforts and Jaws 2 a sequel, but SW, CE3K, and Superman are all masterworks and any composer would be proud to have composed even one, let alone all three, let alone all three in such a short period of time!
Wow, that’s an incredible portfolio build in just a couple years. The Superman theme was sort of piggybacked off the theme from the old Max Fleischer cartoons IMO. But also IMO that was an outstanding foundation to tweak and build on.
We have to do an Alan Moore episode.
I’m game. But all I’m very familiar with of his is Watchmen.
I can’t recommend it, but you should at least look at Moore’s dialog in From Hell.