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- Writer/Director John Milius Introduced George Lucas to Kurosawa’s Films
- R2D2 and C3PO Mimic Tahei and Matashichi as Our Entryway to Star Wars
As a film enthusiast and a self-proclaimed student of Akira Kurosawa, I can attest to the profound influence his work has had on my own cinematic journey. The first Kurosawa film that graced my eyes was none other than the timeless masterpiece, “The Seven Samurai.” However, it was not until I stumbled upon “Hidden Fortress” that I truly felt a kinship with the visionary director.
George Lucas, who hailed from Modesto, California, deeply appreciated the work of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Despite Kurosawa creating around 30 films over a half-century, only a handful of his movies reached Californian cinemas by the 1960s. With Modesto situated centrally in California and distant from cultural hubs like San Francisco and Los Angeles, the local cinema didn’t show foreign films during Lucas’ formative years. As such, Lucas’ initial film education was shaped by movies such as “The Blob” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Still, Lucas was clamoring for more artistic input, consuming many films from Canyon Cinema, a Bay Area nonprofit that distributed independent, avante-garde films. Lucas had developed a taste for artistic cinema by the time he had reached film school at USC, and a friendship he made there led to his discovery of Akira Kurosawa. His love of Kurosawa, in turn, led him to incorporate the Japanese auteur’s work into his own. The most notable example of that appropriation is the beloved droids that Lucas created for his generational film Star Wars —R2D2 and C-3PO — who were drawn from a very unlikely source within Kurosawa’s film oeuvre called The Hidden Fortress.
Writer/Director John Milius Introduced George Lucas to Kurosawa’s Films
In 1965, Lucas joined USC, where he had previously created short films about car racing using an 8mm camera during high school and had limited exposure to significant films. Fortunately for Lucas, his classmate was John Milius, a renowned screenwriter who would later direct “Conan the Barbarian.
As a devoted cinephile, I recall the days before VHS, when Blockbuster Video hadn’t yet graced our screens and the only way to catch obscure foreign films was at visionary movie houses or film festivals. The first Kurosawa movie that George Lucas laid eyes on was undeniably “The Seven Samurai“. In terms of ranking Kurosawa’s works, Lucas places “Hidden Fortress ” fourth— but it was Kurosawa’s innovative storytelling technique in that film that captured Lucas’ heart. In an interview about his Japanese cinematic idol, Lucas remarked, “What I took from Hidden Fortress was indeed a significant influence on Star Wars“. As I delved into writing the screenplay and piecing it together, I found myself reminiscing about “Hidden Fortress” and realized that what truly stood out to me was the narrative being told from the perspective of the two most humble characters… This approach, in fact, had the greatest influence on Star Wars.
R2D2 and C3PO Mimic Tahei and Matashichi as Our Entryway to Star Wars
In Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress, Tahei and Matashichi are sort of the Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne of feudal Japan, trying to cash in big when they sell their homes to become soldiers — only to strike out in comical fashion when they’re trapped in a lowlier outfit. Still, the politics of Kurosawa’s film and the black and white severity struck a chord with Lucas. He absolutely loved the idea of a serious story about tyrannical overlords ruling a peasant class — only told through the eyes of the comic relief — the very slapstick duo of peasants.
In the world of Star Wars, droids are the oppressed part of society. However, George Lucas was inspired by the film The Hidden Fortress to make these mechanical characters more relatable, hence the development of C-3PO’s dramatic Salisbury accent (thanks to Anthony Daniels) and R2D2’s emotive sound effects. Unlike C-3PO, who communicates in a way humans can understand, R2D2 is more like a beloved pet. Lucas employed a clever trick by having C-3PO interpret for the audience what R2D2 expresses, similar to how Han Solo and Chewbacca communicate with each other.
It’s surprising that old Obi-Wan, known for his “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” line, could have pulled it off, considering how unique and relatable the droid characters became in the Star Wars movies and pop culture. They are the only characters to appear in all six original Star Wars films, and that’s no coincidence – George Lucas intended for us to experience the story through their seemingly unchanging perspective. Despite being the most artificial characters in Star Wars, they were the most human-like to us moviegoers on Earth. Stream Star Wars now on Disney+.
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2024-09-16 00:31