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A game-changing blockbuster, A New Hope launched the epic and expansive Star Wars franchise.
Here are 32 movies that inspired Star Wars creator George Lucas, as well as his many successors.
The Dam Busters (1955)
George Lucas wasn’t just a sci-fi fan.
He was also an aviation enthusiast who admired World War 2 planes and especially World War II films.
Actually, we’re talking about Coruscant.
(Lucas, as well as Francis Ford Coppola, are credited as executive producers.)
George Lucas is easily among them.
They are also both prominently set in exotic deserts, and star one Sir Alec Guinness.
633 Squadron (1964)
The iconic trench run scene in A New Hope didn’t come from nowhere.
Watts further named Sea Hawk and Captain Blood.
Star Wars is no exception.
Ben-Hur (1959)
Now this is… chariot racing?
However, film scholars concede that the movie fundamentally shaped the cinematic language for depicting powerful regimes.
That influence is none more apparent than in George Lucas' Star Wars.
But Kurosawa wasn’t the only filmmaker to make masterpieces of samurai cinema.
The Godfather (1972)
What do Anakin Skywalker and Michael Corleone have in common?
But it’s underscored as a tragedy when they both finally accept their fated destinies.
We referenced that relationship over and over again," Headland said.
Heat (1995)
Even Star Wars can’t resist the mastery of Michael Mann.
We wanted this movie to have that flavor and that swagger."
If that sounds like Star Wars to you, good!
At its heart, Star Wars is a swashbuckler, and few swashbucklers are as seminal as Sinbad.
“In ‘Clerks’ they talk about who’s cleaning up the Death Star, right?
Like, who’s building all these ships?”
“The amount of material that the Empire has is just epic.
Where does it come from?
Where does all that stuff come from?
the lowly smuggler Qimir (played by Manny Jacinto) took many Star Wars fans by surprise.
Besides the story parallels, Filoni intentionally mimicked the visual composition of Yojimbo for several key shots.
“That was my model.”
“It was an interesting challenge, portraying luxury and wealth in this universe,” Johnson said.
“I was thinking, O.K., lets go ultra-glamour.
Let’s create a playground, basically, for rich assholes.”
Metropolis (1927)
To say Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is an influential sci-fi movie is an understatement.
But one look at the “Maschinenmensch” and it’s hard to deny where C-3PO came from.
But C-3PO is the most direct echo to Lang’s masterpiece.
In fact, Lucas originally sought the rights to make a Flash Gordon movie.
When he couldn’t, he went off and made his own sci-fi adventure.
A story from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
1.
The Hidden Fortress (1958)
George Lucas has never been shy about his admiration of director Akira Kurosawa.
