Post #2022060 · Elektrine

2026-05-04 21:48 UTC

I don't know if George Lucas was meaning to tap into parallelisms with the Vietnam War with the original Star Wars movie. I mean, the plot follows the Campbellian "Hero with 1000 faces" storyline to a T. But I also acknowledge that the Vietnam War was a major event that was going on when he was writing it and filming it, so it most likely had influence at the very least, but I believe it can be argued that Lucas was not attempting to insinuate the Empire was the United States at that time. At the same time, though, I can see a very clear slant in the storyline that an independent society has every right to consider themselves heroes when going up against a larger, seemingly indomitable force that is doing evil while proclaiming themselves to be the good.

Replies (6)

@ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2026-05-04 21:56

[He did intend it to be a Vietnam allegory, with the Rebels as the Viet Cong](https://screenrant.com/star-wars-george-lucas-vietnam-war-inspiration-explainer/). He was explicit about it, but for obvious reasons Disney doesn't make a huge deal out of that. But you're also right that [the Campbell stuff was intentional, too](https://www.starwars.com/news/mythic-discovery-within-the-inner-reaches-of-outer-space-joseph-campbell-meets-george-lucas-part-i).

Open ##2022062
@Forester@pawb.social 2026-05-05 02:59

https://youtu.be/fv9Jq_mCJEo Or you know you could just take the Creator's opinion directly instead of imagining your own parallel universe.

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@FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-05-04 21:51

He’s mentioned it in interviews, it was intentional.

Open ##2022065
@aaa999@lemmy.world 2026-05-05 01:13

there's a (rightly, it was bad) deleted scene from the first one with Biggs where it explains that he is leaving to DODGE THE DRAFT it was going to tie nto his brief appearance at the end of the movie, but in the final version we just get to be like "ah yes, Biggs, a character in this film"

Open ##2022066
@not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-05-05 05:59

this was way more obvious to everyone at the time since it was on everybody's mind, I would imagine

Open ##2022067
@zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 2026-05-05 17:20

> I mean, the plot follows the Campbellian "Hero with 1000 faces" storyline to a T. That's a pretty funny thing to say since the whole point of *The Hero with a Thousand Faces* is that all these hero stories have elements in common. Lucas was just explicitly using that book as a source. What's far more obvious is a big chunk of *A New Hope* was cribbed from EE "Doc" Smith's book *Triplanetary* (where the Darth Vader character is named "Roger"...which is far less impressive). I've heard that Kurosawa's movie *The Hidden Fortress* has a lot of the same plot, too.

Open ##2104262