BLOG QUESTION ADV: HOW SAMURAI FILMS INFLUENCED THE CREATION OF STAR WARS

How did Kurosawa influence George Lucas? What parts of the samurai film did Lucas incorporate into Star Wars? What is the most interesting thing that you learned in this video?

 George Lucas was heavily influenced by Kurosawa's samurai films. George Lucas was heavily inspired by the film "Seven Samurai". He based character titles such as "Jedi" on Japanese terms like "jigeki.". Character design for the Empire is modeled after samurai armor. Mentors such as Yoda are modeled after characters from Seven Samurai, and so are the main characters, such as Luke. The fight scenes also mirror classic samurai fights, but instead of a katana, they used light sabers. The most interesting thing that I learned in this video was that America had forced Japan into censorship, which prevented them from making Samurai films until after the end of World War 2. As America fell out of its golden age in cinema, Japan was finally able to enter its own, now that the censorship was gone.