General Star Wars Random Thoughts Thread — Page 227

TV’s Frink said:

I find his stuff to be uneven at best (from moderately entertaining to just plain awful) and he’s now pushing 90. Please don’t make any more movies, Mel.

Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and both versions of The Producers are gold though.

Candygram for Frink! 😉

With all the wretched miserable parody movies we’ve been plagued with the past decade or so, Mel can show them how it’s done.

(This wasn’t really worth it’s own thread so I figured this would be the best place to mention it.)

I was reading up on Buck Rogers on wikipeedia I noticed that the second story published in the 1920’s was called “The Airlord of Han.” So could this be the inspiration for Han Solo’s name? Lucas was a fan of Buck Rogers and even used pictures of the character in his first draft to illustrate what he wanted Annikin Stariller to look like. Han being a pilot, and a tad nobler in the first drafts, may also have been inspired by “airlords.”

Maybe this has been discussed before, but this is the first time I have heard any suggestion to where “Han” comes from.

George also used Buck Rogers footage in THX 1138, so you might be on to something. 😃

SilverWook said:

George also used Buck Rogers footage in THX 1138, so you might be on to something. 😃

Right, I forgot about that.

I’d be kind if funny if Han was based on a Buck Rogers book considering how in the first draft they meet him in a spaceport called Gordon.

The titular country of “The Airlords of Han” was actually Han China – being used in the racist Yellow Peril sense, since the villains in Buck Rogers (both the novellas and the early comics) were the soldiers of a Chinese Empire that had managed to conquer America in a sneak attack.

I don’t deny that this is a possible inspiration for Han Solo’s first name. However, it seems to me more likely that the character of Han Pritcher from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series was more important in this regard.

Pritcher and his partner, Bail Channis (!), are detectives working for the empire of “the Mule,” a dictator who conquered the titular Foundation settlement. Their objective is to find the elusive “Second Foundation,” a group of telepaths seeking to overturn the Mule’s empire and restore the rightful government of the Foundation.

The two operatives eventually succeed in capturing a member of the Second Foundation; unfortunately for the Mule, this doesn’t work out quite as he’d expected.

Also, another inspiration for Han Solo’s name (both first and last) was probably Hansel from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. In this case, the surname “Solo” suggests that, unlike his gingerbread-gorging namesake, Han the space-pirate doesn’t have a sister.

ZkinandBonez said:

SilverWook said:

George also used Buck Rogers footage in THX 1138, so you might be on to something. 😃

Right, I forgot about that.

I’d be kind if funny if Han was based on a Buck Rogers book considering how in the first draft they meet him in a spaceport called Gordon.

Bear in mind that the “Han Solo” of the 1974 rough draft was really more akin to Chewbacca: a tall, monstrous alien who nonetheless is a faithful friend and ally of the human heroes. Albeit instead of being a tall furry Bigfoot-like creature, alien-Han was a green and scaly swamp monster, in the vein of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Be careful. If you cut off his tail it’ll grow into another lizard.

ATMachine said:

The titular country of “The Airlords of Han” was actually Han China – being used in the racist Yellow Peril sense, since the villains in Buck Rogers (both the novellas and the early comics) were the soldiers of a Chinese Empire that had managed to conquer America in a sneak attack.

I don’t deny that this is a possible inspiration for Han Solo’s first name. However, it seems to me more likely that the character of Han Pritcher from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series was more important in this regard.

Pritcher and his partner, Bail Channis (!), are detectives working for the empire of “the Mule,” a dictator who conquered the titular Foundation settlement. Their objective is to find the elusive “Second Foundation,” a group of telepaths seeking to overturn the Mule’s empire and restore the rightful government of the Foundation.

The two operatives eventually succeed in capturing a member of the Second Foundation; unfortunately for the Mule, this doesn’t work out quite as he’d expected.

Also, another inspiration for Han Solo’s name (both first and last) was probably Hansel from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. In this case, the surname “Solo” suggests that, unlike his gingerbread-gorging namesake, Han the space-pirate doesn’t have a sister.

Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. (I also remember Rinzler in The Making of Star Wars book mentioning that Lucas read Asimov as inspiration for SW). Of course that doesn’t mean that Lucas wasn’t aware of the Buck Rogers story though.
I’m not too sure about the Hansel and Gretel one though, seems like an odd fit, especially since the Asimov one fits so well.

ATMachine said:

ZkinandBonez said:

SilverWook said:

George also used Buck Rogers footage in THX 1138, so you might be on to something. 😃

Right, I forgot about that.

I’d be kind if funny if Han was based on a Buck Rogers book considering how in the first draft they meet him in a spaceport called Gordon.

Bear in mind that the “Han Solo” of the 1974 rough draft was really more akin to Chewbacca: a tall, monstrous alien who nonetheless is a faithful friend and ally of the human heroes. Albeit instead of being a tall furry Bigfoot-like creature, alien-Han was a green and scaly swamp monster, in the vein of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

I know, he was according to Rinzler “illustrated” (there was an image attached to the script) with a picture from a comic book of a “swamp creature”. The Dark Horse Comics adaptation of the rough draft made him look practically identical the the Swamp Thing, which debuted in 1972, and I’m sure they might have had access to the Lucasfilm Archives as well.

As a side-note;
Since you know a lot about this subject matterr, what books would you recommend to get a better understanding of Lucas’ inspiration for SW. I intend to have a look at some of the old Flash Gordon serials, if I can get a hold of them, but I’m not quite sure what books he read as inspiration.
(I see on wikipeedia that only a few of the Foundation books were written prior to SW, and that the same goes for the first two Dune novels. Would that be a good place to start?)

There seem to be a lot of public domain versions of the Flash serials floating around. The DVD’s released by Image in 2000 are what I have and are pretty decent although unrestored. AFAIK, it’s the only release that has the blessing of King Features Syndicate, and is probably a port of the 1996 Laserdisc sets.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Flash-Gordon-Space-Soldiers-Trip-To-Mars-Conquers-the-Universe-DVD-3-disc-set-/252280071115

I bought the big box of Flash, but you can find the individual serials on Ebay. There are shorter “movie edits” I’ve never seen that have also been released, but probably chop out a lot and you lose the cliffhanger effect of the originals.

Not sure if Buck Rogers is in the same boat, as there are fewer editions of it around. This is what I have, about the same in quality as Flash.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Buck-Rogers-with-Larry-Crabbe-12-Episodes-DVD-Estate-Listing-/222006409259
Buck initially wasn’t quite as popular as Flash, so Universal only made one serial.

I don’t know if we’re ever going to see an HD release unless somebody pours some money into restoring them. A few Republic Pictures serials have made it to Blu Ray, so anything is possible.

SilverWook said:

There seem to be a lot of public domain versions of the Flash serials floating around. The DVD’s released by Image in 2000 are what I have and are pretty decent although unrestored. AFAIK, it’s the only release that has the blessing of King Features Syndicate, and is probably a port of the 1996 Laserdisc sets.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Flash-Gordon-Space-Soldiers-Trip-To-Mars-Conquers-the-Universe-DVD-3-disc-set-/252280071115

I bought the big box of Flash, but you can find the individual serials on Ebay. There are shorter “movie edits” I’ve never seen that have also been released, but probably chop out a lot and you lose the cliffhanger effect of the originals.

Not sure if Buck Rogers is in the same boat, as there are fewer editions of it around. This is what I have, about the same in quality as Flash.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Buck-Rogers-with-Larry-Crabbe-12-Episodes-DVD-Estate-Listing-/222006409259
Buck initially wasn’t quite as popular as Flash, so Universal only made one serial.

I don’t know if we’re ever going to see an HD release unless somebody pours some money into restoring them. A few Republic Pictures serials have made it to Blu Ray, so anything is possible.

Well, I don’t really too much money to spare on stuff like this at the moment, so I was hoping to find as many of these as I can at the library. I know that they have a DVD set of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, so I’ll borrow that the next time I’m in town. However, from what I’ve read it’s the last serial that they produced, so does that mean that I’ll miss a lot of plot, or isn’t that a problem with these old series? I don’t really know how connected these “seasons” are in terms of overall story-arcs.

Either way, I’ll google that first set you linked to to see if I can find it cheaper somewhere else.

Living in Norway can have it’s drawbacks when I’m looking for stuff like this. I’d imagine it’s already somewhat obscure and forgotten in the US, and in Scandinavia where Flash Gordon never existed outside of comics and the 80’s movie, there really isn’t a big market for these kind of imported DVDs, and shipping costs ca be very expensive.
(I guess YouTube might be a decent option though since these are in the public domain?)

There isn’t a whole lot of continuity between them. (A few supporting actors change as well.) Ming always seems to come back from the certain death he suffered in the finale of the previous serial, starts trying to conquer or destroy Earth, and it’s up to Dr. Zarkov and Flash to take off in Zarkov’s rocketship and put a stop the the evil plans.

Given your location, Youtube is probably your best bet, as they’re probably ripped from a DVD anyway. Start with the 1936 serial. 😃

I think VCI made my old copy. Wonder if they remastered it?

ZkinandBonez said:

(I see on wikipeedia that only a few of the Foundation books were written prior to SW, and that the same goes for the first two Dune novels. Would that be a good place to start?)

Dune would probably be a good place to go for some of Lucas’ literature inspirations. Star Wars was heavily based on ideas from Dune, and that’s why David Lynch’s Dune strayed from the book as much as it did, because if they included aspects from the book that were ever present in Star Wars, audiences that are unfamiliar with Dune (probably the majority of people) would feel it was a ripoff of Star Wars.

ZkinandBonez said:

(This wasn’t really worth it’s own thread so I figured this would be the best place to mention it.)

Wrong, it appears you were.

Besides the Flash Gordon serials, the original 1930s Flash Gordon comic strips by Alex Raymond are also well worth checking out if you want to look for the origins of Star Wars. There are a couple of different series collecting Raymond’s ten-year (1934-44) run easily available on Amazon. (A welcome improvement from when I started checking them out a few years ago, when they were much harder to come by!)

In literature terms, EE “Doc” Smith’s Lensman space-opera series contains a notable forerunner of the Jedi Order in SW, to say nothing of Frank Herbert’s Bene Gesserit. Edgar Rice Burrough’s John Carter series and Leigh Brackett’s Eric John Stark stories are also good examples of the planetary-romance SF which Lucas also read.

Also, don’t forget the films of Akira Kurosawa. (All of them. Any of them. But especially The Hidden Fortress and the Yojimbo duology.)

I really enjoyed the 80’s anime adaptation of Lensman. (Some Star Wars characters were even slipped into crowd scenes.) The rumor is Smith’s estate doesn’t like the film, and has prevented a DVD release though. : /

As we haven’t had a weird clip from an overseas variety show in a while. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GebILWV2d2A

That couldn’t possibly be the background matte painting used for the Bespin gantry scene in Empire could it? Did someone at the BBC raid a dumpster over at Elstree?

Yeah, you’re right Chewbaka, I probably should have made anew thread for this.

I already have a copy of the first Dune novel (*technically a tie in to the Lynch film, but that shouldn’t matter) so I’ll probably start there, I own most of the John Carter novels an have already read the first two, and I’m also a big Kurosawa fan already and I have seen pretty much 90% of his films.
I’ll keep VCI in mind when looking for Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers (although I’ll stick to YouTube at the moment), and I’ll do some more research on Lensman and Eric John Stark (both of whom I’d never heard of before).
Thanks for the help.