SW and metaphors

[DSLuke]

I think he did had a avaue idea for ep 1-3

after all he named the other ep 4-6

[Rosbjerg]

I thought SW was partially an autobiography of GL, like, naive farmboy grows up and learns the harsh way of the real world?

Furthermore it is a story about the continuing battle between good (light) and dark (evil) and about redemption. This sounds actually pretty biblical to me

 

As for names: Luke = Lucas IMO (I'm called Lukas and people call me Luke all the time) Vader = Dutch for father.

 

Perhaps this means GL is Pensylvanian Dutch 

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kind of pulling a "H.C andersen Ugly duckling" .. yeah if GL was a farm boy? don't know anything about him actually ..

And the good vs evil isn't particularly biblical, stories from before christianity deals with the same issues .. also the metaphor of a simple farm boy that rises up to defeat the evil that plauges the land..

[Laozi]

As some one who writes, as with most writting I'm sure it comes from an amalgamation of many sources. Once a friend told me about a movie in the early 70s I believe that was about these Ice Pirates that was surely an inspiration for Lucas. I've never seen it but I can believe it one of my favorite movies Reservior Dogs was stolen almost scene per scene from a japanese movie

[DSLuke]

Everything is coping something else.

 

Very rarely something is completely original.

[GarethCarrots]

hmmm that is quite a large generalisation, i would call sum1 wearin retro clothes original, but that was done for a whole decade........

[Rosbjerg]

hmmm that is quite a large generalisation, i would call sum1 wearin retro clothes original, but that was done for a whole decade........

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well its still copying .. and you won't find anything!! today thats' human made which isn't inspired by something.. everything has been done before!maybe "this" concept or idea is new, but it will always have parallels to something the inventor saw earlier .. it will borrow aspects from his universe of references.. Humans cannot invent new things, but the can expand on and develop old ideas .. which isn't such a bad thing!

then you might think "well what about the first idea, by the first human?" I would say s/he copied nature and what s/he saw around him/her .. improved and reinvented..

[Nartwak]

Star Wars is a modern fairy tale that follows Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey.

[Rosbjerg]

Star Wars is a modern fairy tale that follows Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey.

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yeah, but all great stories follows this form actually .. the simple form is "from childhood through errors and mistakes to adulthood"

[Laozi]

Ya and Lucas was taught by Joseph Campbell at USC I believe

 

I think his book Hero of a 1000 Faces was more course literature

[Planar Jedi]

Well from what i can see star wars is a story, that cannot be trully comprenhanced, since GL had nothing in his mind when he created the world of sw, only the force seems to be reffering to the inner power everyone has. if you want something really badly, the universe helps you to achieve it. and since the force bonds everything, Buddism is closely rellated to that. i don't think that the chinese elements reffer to life. And since through the force life is preserved, gl satisfied our eternal need to think that our existance continues after death. The ls and the ds are somehow conciousness and personal gain, and they act as excuses for our choices. The prophesy of the chosen one is marked from christianism, mainly, because he represents the perfect state we want to reach. And the jedi code represents the inner laws that everyone should follow, for a state of freedom to exist. SW also satisfies our need for not being alone out there. it is terrifying to think that we are the only entity of the world with reasoning, logic. The lightsabre for me is the purity,complete purity, which can be used for both good and evil.

[Laozi]

I totally disagree with the christian angle, the ideal is not to become perfect, the very idea is somewhat blasphemous. Ther idea of christianity is to accept Jesus as your lord and savior specifically, or perish in an underworld of unspeakable agony, hardly the same idea of the force.

 

Jedi master/ apprentice is quite similiar to the Rinzai Buddhist tradition, but most know that mostly all Buddhist tradition has its roots in Taoism.

 

Specifically the bulk of Luke's journey in the force would seem to be a solo act, which after receiving the doctrines of truth one must seek answers alone to truely find the truth, quintessentially Taoist.

 

Incidentially, this is where I think the biggest mistake of the NJO books is not exploring this method in the least.

[anakins revenge]

i believe GL said himself that he got the jedi from samuri's and stuff, just look at their beliefs and whatnot

[Sabahattin Dere]

I think SW is an arbitrary brew of references which often gets over-interpreted. Lucas's only concern is to ensure the flow of his light-epic-entertainment; none of his references or allusions are meant to have any 'depth' or anything. I repeat that SW is 'looking' at cool space apparel against a simple -I would say banal- theme, and to get *pure entertainment* -and that's it.

 

If you look at his sketches: The lightsaber was at first he weapon of the imperial stormtroopers -then he thought sword fighting harkens to an age of 'nobility' and decided to assign that only to the Jedi. Add on top of that the other allusions: The robes look Japanese; Yoda is certainly the parody of a taoist monk. It reminds us of the Samurai. Perhaps Lucas reads on the Samurai so he added another detail or two, 'inspired' by that -fine. What we have is the already obvious similarity. On to watching the sword duel -now that Lucas has better fight scene coreographers, he can borrow more from eastern sword styles; not due to any deeper affinity with samurai values, but because those are the ones that look coolest.

 

'The Force' appears to derive superficially from Taosim -but we need not look for any mythical references to 'understand' the light-dark schism -it's only a banal theme.

 

If you look at the ep.III behind the scene videos, the character designing stage goes like this: Long before he has finalized a first draft of the script, he tells the art department "Design for me the most fearsome guy in the galaxy". The folks work day and night, make their drawings and post them on a board waiting for GL to show up at the deadline date. He comes with a stamp in hand; and stamps 'approved' on the designs that he likes. Eventually he comes to like one design better than the others and invents a back-story to it: He likes the fact that the design for Grievous has 'animal eyes on a robot' and decides that it's an alien cyborg. Then he goes on to elaborate slightly on that idea, and once he knows how the fights will take place, the desired effect is rapidly produced. ---Only later do fans begin to wonder what this choice of an 'alien cyborg' means and since they are able to associate everything within this so-called 'universe', they can rapidly make up very systematical accounts of what that "meaning" could be, coherently within the 'universe'. That is it's only the fans' craving for coherence that things get attributed on Lucas's arbitrary signs.

 

So what I'm saying is that SW isn't science-fiction; let's just enjoy ourselves with things like the buzz of lightsabers, Yoda's funny language, etc.

[Rosbjerg]

well .. they still exist, and if they are intented or not doesn't really matter! because this thread was about was inspired the different cultures, races, themes etc of SW .. Maybe GL thought it was cool, but this doesn't neglect the fact that the parallels does exist! it was not at effort to praise Georges creative genius .. but to give an understanding of the Universe through the inspirations of the existing myths it draws its meaning from (and the sources) .. when he created the Jedi on the samurai, one will also better understand the Samurai if you are inspired to read about them through SW .. And this was actually the meaning of this thread .. to inspire people to search, think and draw parallels to develop their understanding of Earth mythology! through a universe which already held their interest ..

[213374U]

On Jedi and Samurai:

 

When Lucas first created Star Wars, he was a Samurai buff. Literally. Star Wars itself is almost entirely based off of the samurai film "The Hidden Fortress".

Look at the religion of the Samurai (Zen Buddhism). If it seems a little bit like the Jedi, don't worry. It is!

The lightsaber, weapon of the jedi, is probably a take off of damascus steel used by the samurai. The samurai's katana was said to be so sharp that it could cut a normal sword in half (apparently they never discovered cratosis weave.).

 

As time has gone on, Lucas' stories have gotten less and less like the honourable samurai stories he based the OT off of. Sadly, it shows. 

 

*insert excuse for sarcasm and lack of more detail here.*

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Yes, only Lucas chose to portrait only the 'positive' side of samurai culture, if there was any at all. He didn't use as an inspiration the constant political intrigues in which samurai warlords were involved, and he certainly didn't consider the state of quasi-slavery that ruled feudal Japan, whose pinnacle were the samurai. In fact all that would apply much better to the Sith...

 

About the swords, samurai would only get down to swordfighting as a last resort. A samurai's basic skill was supposed to be marksmanship, and they relied heavily on lances, a much more efficient weapon for mounted knights. Their swords were more of a symbol than anything else. I believe the word samurai itself has something to do with either 'rider' or 'archer', I just can't remember how exactly.

[Rosbjerg]

On Jedi and Samurai:

 

When Lucas first created Star Wars, he was a Samurai buff. Literally. Star Wars itself is almost entirely based off of the samurai film "The Hidden Fortress".

Look at the religion of the Samurai (Zen Buddhism). If it seems a little bit like the Jedi, don't worry. It is!

The lightsaber, weapon of the jedi, is probably a take off of damascus steel used by the samurai. The samurai's katana was said to be so sharp that it could cut a normal sword in half (apparently they never discovered cratosis weave.).

 

As time has gone on, Lucas' stories have gotten less and less like the honourable samurai stories he based the OT off of. Sadly, it shows. 

 

*insert excuse for sarcasm and lack of more detail here.*

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, only Lucas chose to portrait only the 'positive' side of samurai culture, if there was any at all. He didn't use as an inspiration the constant political intrigues in which samurai warlords were involved, and he certainly didn't consider the state of quasi-slavery that ruled feudal Japan, whose pinnacle were the samurai. In fact all that would apply much better to the Sith...

 

About the swords, samurai would only get down to swordfighting as a last resort. A samurai's basic skill was supposed to be marksmanship, and they relied heavily on lances, a much more efficient weapon for mounted knights. Their swords were more of a symbol than anything else. I believe the word samurai itself has something to do with either 'rider' or 'archer', I just can't remember how exactly.

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Since Wikipedia explains it perfectly .. I will quote them:

 

Samurai is a common term for a warrior in pre-industrial Japan. A more appropriate term is bushi (lit. "arms-man") which came into use during the Edo period. However, the term "samurai" now usually refers to warrior nobility, not, for example, ashigaru or foot soldiers. A samurai with no attachment to a clan or daimyo was called a ronin (lit. "wave-man").

 

Samurai were expected to be cultured and literate, and over time, samurai during the Tokugawa era gradually lost their military function. By the end of the Tokugawa era, samurai were civilian bureaucrats for the daimyo, with their swords serving only ceremonial purposes. With the Meiji reforms in the late 19th century, the samurai class was abolished, and a western-style national army was established. The strict samurai code called bushido still survives, however, in present-day Japanese society, as do many other aspects of their way of life.

 

Etymology:

The word samurai has origins in the pre-Heian period, being derived from the classical Japanese verb saburau, meaning to serve or attend. It was not until the early modern period, namely the Azuchi-Momoyama period and early Edo period of the late 16th and early 17th centuries that the word saburai became replaced with samurai. However, by then, the meaning had already long before changed.

 

During the era of the rule of the samurai, the earlier term yumitori (

[Laozi]

click here!

 

 

to learn more, this is easily the most awesome site you'll ever find, be sure to answer yes and if you have speaker be sure they're on

[Planar Jedi]

I didn't mean that christianism is about perfection. i said that the chosen one in sw is inspired from jesus. He had no human father, and there were prophecies about him. of course lucas changed the motive a little bit, and he presented the chosen one as the perfect human being

[Sabahattin Dere]

Besides the idea of the Christ is so deeply engraved in western culture and art that one may find himself making allusions to Jesus without even being aware of it; anything which barely touches upon the themes "the chosen one", "self sacrifice" or in a roundabout way "redemption" will eventually end up drawing a lot from Jesus.

[lumen11]

I totally disagree with the christian angle, the ideal is not to become perfect, the very idea is somewhat blasphemous. Ther idea of christianity is to accept Jesus as your lord and savior specifically, or perish in an underworld of unspeakable agony, hardly the same idea of the force.

 

On the contrary. Christianity is all about aspiring to perfection, provided, however, that you realize it's quite impossible to truly reach it on this earth (keep turning that other cheek people ). Still, trying to do so can only be good.

 

You will find that biblical themes return in virtually every story, expecially in fantasy (I choose to classify SW at least as much as fantasy as it is SciFI).

 

 

I'm still waiting on the metaphors from the title of this topic though. Or did I miss something?

[Barzarel]

Think the force actually taken from Faith in real world and the occult.

 

For instance:

 

The Force=Cosmos

 

LS=Yin/Yan

 

DS= Anton Levay Satanismem(Worship of Dark nature of universe)

 

Vader= ?Lancelot(he betrays his king yet in the end he side with him in his battle against his evil son)

 

Think where i see the link is Lancelot Betray his knight code/king, like Vader betrays his code and his order, but he yet still turn back to what he believes in the end like lancelot.

 

But however lancelot betrayel is more a act of love than Vader, which is more a act of hate as far as i gather.

[213374U]

click here!

 

 

to learn more, this is easily the most awesome site you'll ever find, be sure to answer yes and if you have speaker be sure they're on

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[Barzarel]

click here!

 

 

to learn more, this is easily the most awesome site you'll ever find, be sure to answer yes and if you have speaker be sure they're on

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Now we know where Darth Maul got his cloth :D

[Laozi]

click here!

 

 

to learn more, this is easily the most awesome site you'll ever find, be sure to answer yes and if you have speaker be sure they're on

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Now we know where Darth Maul got his cloth :D

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Ya my friend would have had a hard time committing seppuku if he hadn't found this site

[Kitch]

*mumbles something about Dune*