Star Wars- a battle for creativity
The film industry nowadays is seemingly all made up of sequels or newer versions of the same old movies with films such as The Lion King coming out and all of the Marvel movies that have been coming out for the past 10 years. These movies and others like them are what rule the film industry, is it because people just like the nostalgia? Or is it because Hollywood has officially run out of all original ideas and they are hoping no one will notice?
The Star Wars films that ruled over an entire generation were seemingly all original, one-of-a-kind thinking and pure creativity, but that's not entirely the case. Although that's not to say that George Lucas ripped off other films.
One of the many influences on the Star Wars movies was Akira Kurosawa's 1958 classic The Hidden Fortress. The films are both greatly similar in how they both portray characters as masters of the spiritual arts, a "low ranking bickering duo", a bad guy getting his arm cut off, their usage of soft wipes and more. The films are so similar that if you sat down and watched Star Wars and The Hidden Fortress Back to back you would have no trouble at all picking up on where George Lucas got his inspiration from.
Image retrieved from: Slash Film
Although the films have similar shots and lines, Star Wars contains different elements that had been transformed and recombined such as the portrayal of the characters as aliens and robots. It is no doubt that something magnificent was created with the very first Star Wars film. I believe that George Lucas was able to create a work of creative fiction using his imagination and whatever other references he utilized. Star Wars doesn't infringe on The Hidden Fortress's copyright because although they share similar scenes and character descriptions George Lucas transformed those materials he had collected into something new.
"Creation requires influence". Just as we use different online and text references when writing term papers or essays to further our knowledge and make our writing seem legitimate does not entirely mean we are stealing another person's ideas. If that were the case, if everyone had to be creative without the usage of other sources or things to be influenced by we would all be pretty starved for entertainment.
Image retrieved from: IMDb
I think that creators should ensure that if they are clearly sampling someone else's work they should give that person credit and acknowledge tat a certain idea or scene was influenced by them in order to recognize the source. Creators need to be careful with copyright guidelines and respect the wishes of the original creator in order to avoid "ripping something off".
References:
https://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-and-the-hidden-fortress/
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