… he even said in the book icons he never wrote the whole story and these drafts show only the Ot http://starwarz.com/starkiller/category/star-wars-scripts/
Good link! Thanks for that resource!
But be certain to follow a link within for “The Star Wars (Story Synopsis)” and go to comments at the bottom of the page to a more telling link …
Film Club: Star Wars Episode IV (Lucas, 1977) - Akira Kurosawa News said:
Although Lucas had already created a fair amount of background material by the time of the first film, the characters and the overall story kept evolving as he worked on the films. … It is in connection with this constant creative evolution of Star Wars that Akira Kurosawa comes into the picture. It is often pointed out that the first film of the series, Episode IV, which we are watching this month, has clear connections with Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, our last month’s film club title. …
When we compare The Hidden Fortress and Star Wars Episode IV, it is clear that calling the latter a remake of the former is a stretch. Yet, the two films certainly share common elements: they are both set at a time of civil war, Lucas’s two robots are clearly based on Kurosawa’s two peasants, both films feature a princess who is central to the story, and the jedi seem to have been modelled after samurai. …
In fact, in order to discover the real Kurosawa in Star Wars, we need to go back to Lucas’s 1973 story synopsis, which was one of the first written treatments of what was to become Star Wars. In Lucas’s synopsis, after a space fortress is destroyed, a general is escorting a princess into safety in a civil war torn 33rd century galactic empire. They are disguised as farmers and in possession of valuable spice. When two bickering bureaucrats discover some of that spice, the general captures them and makes them join the escape. In their journey home, the group has to overcome a number of obstacles. In the end, they successfully arrive at their destination, and the princess’s true nature is revealed to the bureaucrats, who are also rewarded for their help. …
A year later, by the time Lucas had finished the original 1974 rough draft, much had changed. … Yet, it can be said that Lucas continued to keep Kurosawa at the back of his mind. Some clear influences can in fact be spotted also in the later films. Episode VI for instance has a speeder bike chase similar to the horseback chase in The Hidden Fortress. Meanwhile, Episode I makes use of the idea of the princess having a double who gets sacrificed to save her. Many of the costumes and designs are also heavily inspired by Japanese motives, and supposedly Lucas was even hoping to cast Toshiro Mifune as either Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Vader.
Do you dare cross over to the dark side of Lucas revisionism/homage? Then they even recommend a “proper order” to watch all GL’s Star Wars films. “With Kurosawa influences spread across the two trilogies, one may actually feel compelled to watch the whole saga, … I actually followed exactly this order this week, and having never seen episodes II, III or V, and remembering almost nothing of the rest, this order worked pretty well.”
But, then again, you knew all about those “samuri swords” from the beginning …
