* To me it seems rather obvious that Star Wars was a modern
take on the old Edgar Rice Burroughs "John Carter of Mars" books.
Written between 1914 & 1941 by the Chicago-area author of Tarzan,
the John Carter stories had some stunning concepts and several obvious
items were taken from it by Star Wars, either consciously or not.
1. Barsoom: A chief is a Jed. A king of chiefs is a Jeddak.
2. Barsoom: A Sith is a large flying beast with the head of a lion and the tail of a scorpion.
3. Barsoom: John carter was the best swordsman / fencer on
Mars – a dying desert world…and every Jed became so by being the best
swordsman in his domain. Sound a little like Tattooine and Jedi knights?
4. Barsoom: The Jed of a large city had a flying party boat
from which he would drop people into the sand pit of a great beast that
ate them. Hello, Jabba.
5. Barsoom: Another Jed in another city on Barsoom had a
pit with a large lumbering beast in it that he would drop captives in
for the entertainment of the crowd.
6. Everyone on Barsoom (Mars) flies around in metal ships that are lighter than air.
7. John Carter and some companions took a flying ship with a robot pilot to the moons of Mars.
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To me, it’s quite obvious that Lucas read these stories at
some point and added modern technology and some additional characters.
They would’ve been quite popular in his childhood – and Marvel even
published some of them as comic books / graphic novels in the 1970’s.
These books are available on e-readers for a couple of dollars each at
most. I re-read the entire series just prior to the movie release a few
years ago. I had read them in Junior High, but didn’t make the
connection to Star Wars until the re-read in the 2010’s.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Star Wars. It’s a great fit for
modern culture, as opposed to the John Carter stories that were more
suited to the previous century’s culture. But I also think that the
movie was given too little credit, and the books certainly weren’t
credited with being an inspiration to Star Wars. If those stories didn’t
lead to the Star Wars we know, it is one INCREDIBLE coincidence.
Thank you for reading,
Dan
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