What's your favorite?

[Chang Style Novice]

Star Peace
Star Peace II: The Empire Minds Its Own Business
or
Star Peace III: The Return of the Jedi From the Microeconomics Summit
?

[MasterKiller]

Actually, SP is Episode IV (and subtitled BUSH: A NEW HOPE FOR WAR), TEMIOB is Episode V, and RotJFtMS is Episode IV. :rolleyes:

[Chang Style Novice]

That's all revisionist history. There was no "Episode IV" at the beginning of the original release of Star Peace.

[MasterKiller]

Star Peace was always intended to be a trilogy. The Episode IV moniker was added on the second theatrical release, once the media convinced everyone there was a 'hidden' deathstar somewhere, and the producers figured out how to exploit this belief by allowing the director to make the next 2 installments.

[Chang Style Novice]

Exactly.

[Chang Style Novice]

And as long as I'm jabbering offtopic silliness, I may as well note that for today, I consider the spear duel between General Rokurota Makabe (played by Toshiro Mifune) and General Izumi Nagakura (played by Takashi Shimura) in Kakushi Toride No San Akunin (English title The Hidden Fortress, and a major influence on Star Peace;)) to be the greatest cinematic fight scene of all time.

Rent it today!

[MasterKiller]

I agree. It's a good fight, and kudos to Kurasowa for the realism of his battles. I especially like how people cry and bleed to death for a little while before they die after being gutted.

I would venture to say that Hidden Fortress was more than an influence. Lucas almost had to buy the rights to it because the original script of SP was so close to HF. A rewrite of the script allowed for enough changes that the studio felt they could aviod a lawsuit.

Did you know Mifune was almost cast as Obi-Wan Kenobi instead of Alec Guiness, but the languange barrier kinda got in the way.

[Chang Style Novice]

Well, there are some important differences between the two, but of course you're right: Lucas borders on plagiarism there. And I understand almost all the elements of Star Peace not present in The Hidden Fortress can be found in Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, another Kurosawa flick. One that lies - for the moment - outside my experience, I'm sorry to say.

[MasterKiller]

Actually, there are a lot of SW "influences" in Yojimbo and Sanjuro as well. The whole Mos Eisely cantina scene comes straight out of Sanjuro.

You see a lot of Hidden Fortress in EP I as well, especially the 'young queen in hiding' theme.

[Chang Style Novice]

Interesting take. I love Yojimbo and Sanjuro (the first one especially,) probably most of any of the Kurosawa samurai flicks I've seen, on account of the abundant black humor in them. But I never really considered them antecedants for Star Peace, since they so obviously were the inspiration for Clint Eastwood's spaghetti westerns. Natch, a Dashiell Hammett crime novel, Red Harvest, is the source for Kurosawa's Yojimbo script, so it all comes full circle in a funny west meets east meets west kinda way.

[MasterKiller]

Next time you watch Sanjuro (I may have the two movies confused, but I'm pretty sure it's Sanjuro), pay careful attention when he wanders into the town and he's confronted by the gang. One man says "You better watch yourself. I have the death sentence in 12 counties" which mirrors Dr. Evazian's comments to Luke in the cantina: "You better watch yourself; I have the death sentence in 12 systems."

The ensuing slicing off of the guys arm is scene for scence what happens when Obi-Wan takes off Ponda Baba's (Walrus man's) arm, except for when the dog runs off with the samurai's hand in Sanjuro. Lucas left that part out. :D

Mifune's performance in those movies was the inspiration for Obi-Wan's character. His name is Makabe in HF -- very similar to Kenobi.

[Chang Style Novice]

It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure the scene you mean is in Yojimbo. Well, I know what I'm getting at the video store next Tuesday anyway. (Tuesday is 2-for-1 day, and I'm a cheap bast@rd.)

And it's important not to forget the HYOOOOGE influence John Ford's The Searchers had on Star Peace as well.

[MasterKiller]

The Searchers had a major influence thematically, but it wasn't until Attack of the Clones that Lucas bothered to rob some scenes from it. When Anakin tracks down his mom, and is overlooking the camp of Tusken Raiders, it is almost identical to the scene from The Searchers where Joh Wayne looks down on the Indian camp.

[Chang Style Novice]

Same goes for when Luke finds his Aunt and Uncle snuffed, actually. And the whole fact that Lucas shot Tunisia to resemble Monument Valley as much as possible. And the way the Jawas resemble the 'nice' indians and the Tuskens the 'mean' indians. And Luke getting started on the whole thing by chasing after a woman he's infatuated with but hardly knows. And...

Well, I've made plenty of case, I think.

[MasterKiller]

In The Searchers, they are looking for his family. I don't think infatuation is involved. All those others are good examples, though, which I never really thought about.

But when it comes to scene robbing, I believe Attack of the Clones is the first example of him mimicing Ford's shots.

[Chang Style Novice]

The way I remember it, the older kidnapped girl was the young guy's fiancee whom he hadn't seen in years, but it has been a while since I watched that one, too.

[MasterKiller]

Nope. The young girl is essentially his sister, though not related by blood, and John Wayne's niece, I believe. The guy has a fiancee in another settlement that provides some comic relief when he comes to stay with her.

It's been a while since I last saw it, too, though.

[Chang Style Novice]

No, the comic relief wife happens when he thinks he's buying a blanket from some injun traders, but he actually was buying a girl.

Or maybe that's from another movie.

Consarn this imperfect memory of mine!

[MasterKiller]

Yeah, he gets the Indian wife, but he also has a Swedish chick back home whom he writes letters to. She wants him to stay, but he keeps on looking with John Wayne. At the end, he returns to her and fights her new suitor.

[MasterKiller]

http://www.filmsite.org/sear.html

Lucy (the stolen girl) is enganged to Brad Jorgensen, the brother of the girl Marty later gets involved with.

[Chang Style Novice]

The rifle duel at the end of Winchester '73 between James Stewart and Stephen McNally is another of the greatest movie fights ever.

[MasterKiller]

Which Star Peace did that appear in?

[Chang Style Novice]

Didn't, so far as I know. I don't think Lucas was ever interested in ripping off Anthony Mann the way he was into robbing Kurosawa and Ford.

[Kristoffer]

I give this thread: :confused: :confused: out off :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[Chang Style Novice]

Kris -

We're talking about movies that don't have Jet Li, Keanu Reeves, Bruce Lee, or Jackie Chan in them. Believe it or not, such movies really exist.:cool: