Kurgan wrote:Its possible. But isn't it also possible that Dune may have colored George's own work? Why is it so hard to admit this possibility? Again, is it heresy to say that Star Wars has been inspired by other sci fi?
The problem is that it isn't anything except speculation on your behalf. I don't have to admit any possibility, because EVERYTHING is possible. The burden of proof is on you to give convincing enough arguments, instead of giving
exceptionally vague examples.
Maybe they inspired each other, maybe they were inspired by the same thing. You put much more weight in the first possibility and nearly none in the second, and say lots and lots of stuff trying to explain why it's not the MORE likely one.
Did you read my previous posts? I already mentioned some of the similarities.
Yes, and they're so vague, and I said it over and over. Like that both people like water, because it's hard to get and they'd die without it. Real people do it all the time when stuck in the middle of some desert.
Nonono, you've got it all wrong. A work of fiction that borrows from another work of fiction can be considered derivative. Fortunately, a work of fiction that borrows from real-life examples (so, what doesn't?) isn't at all derivative work. Unless you think that we're characters in a novel and the writers are going to sue us.
Your point being...?
That you say that if copying a book is derivative work, then copying real life is also derivative work.
That was not my point at all. I never said it was wrong to borrow anything. I just pointed out that there is plenty of evidence right there of borrowing from another sci fi work (among others). The debate wasn't over whether Dune was inspired by history. It was claimed above that Dune did NOT inspire Star Wars, but both were simply inspired by history. That may be true, but it seems likely that in fact the works inspired EACH OTHER.
You misunderstand. If you read the major part of the paragraph (the part without 'wrong' in it) you'll see that you find it more likely that one author takes a real-life example, adds a lot of stuff, and then another one copies it, except that it removes the extra stuff (thus leaving only the original real-life example) and adds his own stuff - than simply recognizing that neither of them invented the wheel.
They're everywhere, they survive in the deep desert. They're hardy creatures for damn sure. And not only that, they're associated with Tusken Raiders.. hence, they inspire fear (in all but the foolish and naive.. like Luke).
In the movie there are very few banthas.
This is mainly from Outlander. They raid villages and massacre people to take their water. Its obviously highly prized, as it would in any desert-living community, but they put a special emphasis on it even beyond that.
Ok two things:
* there's nothing odd about people who can't invent their own water to pillage for water. Bandits pillage for anything they can't get by other means. Food, women, whatever.
* whatever book it was, I assume it's EU. You don't seem to understand that having some say in what gets published or not DOESN'T MEAN that Lucas writes this stuff and then mails it for other authors to publish. It's ludicrous to assume that.
If you view each characteristic in isolation, yes, it makes them fairly mundane, but if you add them all together, they become remarkably similar. If you just look at one similarity, it could be a coincidence, but the more you look at, the more it looks like it was inspired.
Except that real-life examples already have most of your 'unique characteristics' in them, all at once. Don't nitpick on each of my arguments separately and out of context. I just put the "warriors" part in the same pot with all the other "want water", "protect from elements", "develop kinky feelings for their animals". Not to mention that most of these are in the EU which isn't George's work.
Sci Fi is notorious for being "futuristic." And as we all know, in the future, people use ray guns and energy weapons, because they're... well.. futuristic. Star Wars breaks that mold by bringing back swords, albeit in a futuristic way (by making them "light sabers"). Dune brings back swords, but they're more like Renesainse (sp?) swords, but because shields have become so commonly used.
It's a weaker example, but its still there. In most Sci Fi, swords are of no consequence. Sure, the klingons use bladed weapons, but we all know how well that works out. ; )
It's more common in Sci-Fi to bring back archaic stuff (even in a futuristic way) than you seem to realize. Honestly, Dune's approach is more conservative (people still use combat knifes even when they pack heavy machineguns and other kinds of armament, and there are lots of knife-fighting duels even now). It's a bit like saying that when weaponry gets advanced enough people will stop throwing punches. Star Wars is much more blatantly "medieval swords and sorcery/swashbucklers" than Dune.
Actually, the personalities of the two Emperors are very different, but again, it's just one more link in the chain. And we're not talking about all of fiction here, just SCIENCE FICTION.
Science Fiction, being a branch of regular Fiction, is allowed and even encouraged to borrow from all kinds of Fiction archetypes.
Somehow you are managing to build a 100 km long chain with all those links you got from some evil race we see during 15 seconds in a movie!
You'd have to ask the Jedi Council to get the real specifics of how it works. But I've read stuff that says its more detailed than that. I don't know if EU authors actually HAVE to try not to contradict canon or not. I know they TRY not to, because its always PAST EU materials that are contradictory (like Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Zahn's first trilogy, etc).
No effort has been made to rewrite those old books (except the SW RPG's) that contain errors, they just write NEW BOOKS that attempt to address some of the problems, if that.
Perhaps, the closer the EU guys get to canon events and characters, the less freedom they have to change things. I honestly don't know.
But if they write about Dune, either it's because they just like it, they're going to the original sources, or Lucas pointed them in that direction.
You really really seem to think that EU guidelines are pretty much George Lucas writing all of the novels in advance and then sending it to authors for them to put their name on them and then publish it.
I don't see why authors have to *believe* that Lucas has borrowed from Dune before they try to borrow from it themselves.
They don't have to believe anything, so long as they do what Lucas's lawyers tell them to do if they want to write for the SW name.
It sounds like you think that the lawyers thought of every single word/idea in each novel and then told the author to write it, instead of the author thinking up an idea and then asking the lawyers/Lucas if it's okay.
But, let's imagine you're an EU author. You know that Lucas likes "the Hidden Fortress" and drew inspiration from it when he made Star Wars. So before you write your novel, you sit down and watch THF a few times, to see if you can get some more ideas. Logical?
Let's imagine that you're an EU author. You write a book based on Boba Fett, and start getting inspiration of all Clint Eastwood movies for things for Boba to say and do. Then Lucas says it's not out of character or anything, and you publish it. Then I read your book, and begin telling everyone how Lucas borrowed his idea of Boba Fett from Clint Eastwood.
Maybe if an EU author believed that Lucas was inspired by "King Lear" (even if he wasn't) he still might read KL a few times, in order to get some ideas for his SW book. That's why I said they might "believe" that. Because even if Lucas was NOT inspired by Dune and it was just pure coincidence (which I doubt) he's already confused enough people into thinking that he WAS inspired by it.
In your example, the Author doesn't even NEED to think that Lucas was inspired or not by King Lear! The author might just think that there are a few nifty things in King Lear that he can draw inspiration from, and then put them in his novel! Then you'll go to Lucas and start complaining that he drew inspiration from King Lear!
Hence my example about Flash Gordon, and the Classic Star Wars comics reference.
I think it's more likely that he was inspired by it, rather than he just fooled everybody into thinking he was, even people who work for him.
That, or you draw too many conclusions.
Could be. The way I see it, the original material points to Dune, and the EU material, if anything, points even MORE STRONGLY to Dune, and not just on the subject of the Sandpeople, as I've pointed out in earlier posts.
You make this big leap in logic because in RETROSPECTIVE you can say that everything may strengthen/weaken any argument you want, that this was inspired by that or that F.H. is a Nazi or whatever... You fail to realize that these authors are ADDING to Lucas' stuff, they're making their own decisions and borrowing from anything they want, as long as it doesn't CONTRADICT canon. You believe that contradicting Canon is so easy that it is a requisite to follow a rigid set of exact guidelines to write your stuff (to the point that most of it is pre-written). The easiest way to avoid polluting Canon is to write stuff that won't have any the slightest influence in Canon stories, like making an adventure about Chewie tring to have a zit removed!
Again, it's just a possibility, but if Lucas's stuff feels like Dune, and the EU stuff does as well, why not see a connection?
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