.
There’s not much to go on beyond basic hero’s journey stuff, unless you consider TLJ to be part of the rise/fall/rise cycle of the Excalibur/Lightsaber story. But since Ben Solo isn’t Luke’s child it doesn’t really fit in the usual sense. There are other vague parallels but the prequels decided to go with politics instead of magic and myth. A lot lot missed opportunities all round.
Halagad Ventor
I like that “Halagad” is an anagram of “Galahad”, one of the more famous Knights of the Round Table at King Arthur’s Court. Cool story for the character too.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Halagad_Ventor
Jake Bartok did some cool ‘Olde Republic’ Medieval Knights art for 12 of the Original Trilogy characters a couple of years ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/iz5x6y/olde_republic_medieval_original_trilogy_by_jake/
“Don’t tell anyone… but when ‘Star Wars’ first came out, I didn’t know where it was going either. The trick is to pretend you’ve planned the whole thing out in advance. Throw in some father issues and references to other stories - let’s call them homages - and you’ve got a series.” - George Lucas
Anakin probably is closer to Uther Pendragon, and Luke maybe Arthur or Gawain. Ben Kenobi is probably equal part Lancelot, Merlin.
But its kind of a stretch. I think there are more parallels with the Wizard of Oz than Le Morte D’Arthur.
What parallels do you see with the Wizard of Oz?
What parallels do you see with the Wizard of Oz?
Luke is our innocent farmboy protagonist with dreams of leaving home like Dorothy, we could even compare the binary sunset with somewhere over the rainbow.
Obi-Wan is Glinda the good witch, who guides the hero to their quest, and Vader is the wicked witch who is after the stolen plans, making R2D2 a combination of Toto and the ruby slippers (the mean woman who becomes the Witch in the pre Oz beginning also really wanted toto too).
3P0 is another mix, he’s sort of a combination of all three companions, with the metal of the tin man, the demeanor of the cowardly lion, and the structural integrity of the scarecrow who’s always falling apart in some way.
Chewie is also like the lion… plus his own personality quirks, if you put Han and Chewie together you could draw a comparison with the Lion who acts cocky before backing out, before finding their courage.
Alderaan is the emerald city they never make it to, Vader blows it up as a threat instead of flying over the city to terrorize and demand the surrender of the plans, later our protags are pursued by flying monkeys in the form of tie-fighters.
Closer towards the end of Oz and the middle of ANH, the gang has to infiltrate the castle to rescue Dorothy (who is now Leia I know I said Dorothy was Luke but for this Leia is also Dorothy), how do they do it? They steal stormtrooper outfits to sneak inside.
Not everything is going to be 1:1, they’re both their own thing, but the fantasy sense of pure good and evil, good witches and dark wizards, and the way the group comes together along the road of the journey is all very reminiscent of Oz.
Any other connections I’ve missed? I’m sure there’s lots of little things especially if you stretch, like comparing the talking trees to mean cantina patrons or tusken raiders or something. I didn’t want to compare the jawas to the munchkins for just being short, but they are both at the near beginning of both movies and sort of assist in starting the adventure as well.
“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” - DV
That’s very interesting. Thank you.
For shits & giggles, I used an AI generator to make an image of Mark Hamill as Dorothy Gale.
Still can’t make good hands.
Gods for some, miniature libertarian socialist flags for others.
*no comment*
I want to see Dorothy and the Wicked Witch get into a serious lightsaber battle, while the Tin Man and Lion pilot the Falcon.
Superweapon VII said:
Still can’t make good hands.
Skynet’s main weakness is hands.
2003 Clone Wars still has that ‘Jedi are similar Arthurian Knights’ vibe to me.
Especially the pockets of other Jedi we saw in the series, like on Hypori. RIP Sir Sha’a Gi & co.
“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas