Quick topic to discuss...

[JB0]

Look how close the "r" is to the "e" Lynx7725! 

My mistake.

But yeah, I agree that Lucas borrows heavily from other shows, that's why I was rather reluctant to believe that Star Wars was the first one to invent the light saber.

But they were two of the earliest shows to feature light sabers, therefore I think one or the other must have conceptialised it first.

Actually I *would* like to see a beam sabre. At least one more use -- I can either slice you, run you through, or slap you silly with it. A beam saber's can only do 2 of the 3.

Hard to say about the origin of the lightsaber. It's probably a case of borrowing from each other... Lucas probably saw some poster or show with a energy weapon and refined it to the lightsaber, while Tomino probably saw Star Wars and refined his weapon into the beam saber.

I fI recall, Tomino was inspired by Star Wars to the point where he wanted to do the Gundam in pure white so it would look like a stormtrooper.

Mmmh... If memory serves, I believe Tomino wanted to make the RX-78 looks like the White Knight, the hero from the old traditional legends: I do not think the Stormtrooper design has a real link with this, all the more as imperial soldiers are supposed to be 'evil' and the Gundam on the 'good' side of the One-Year-War...

Yeah, but the Empire had WAY cooler uniforms.

Vader could whip Ackbar any day.

[Gui]

Essentially a matter of tastes IMO: I dislike almost everything coming from the Empire and particularly the Stormtrooper costumes, with only a bunch or so of exceptions... The rest of the visuals into the SW universe are better-looking IMO

And everything Gundam UC is WAY better than anything SW

[JB0]

Essentially a matter of tastes IMO: I dislike almost everything coming from the Empire and particularly the Stormtrooper costumes, with only a bunch or so of exceptions... The rest of the visuals into the SW universe are better-looking IMO

And everything Gundam UC is WAY better than anything SW

I find your lack of faith disturbing...

[Sundown]

Does Lucas ever admit to most of his influences? Though I believe it is documented that he has a substancial fansub collection...

He actually does, the major influences anyway. Although I'm sure neither he, nor most artists, would list every one of their inspirations in detail, no matter how insignficant.

At any rate, I think citing an anime feature as being the probable foundational inspiration of space dogfight battles in Star Wars on the basis of similarity in a non-unique theme is a gigantic reach.

Not to mention that both Space Cruiser Yamato and Star Wars came out in 1977. That's not a whole lot of time to steal ideas for R2 and the Death Star battle, especially with the film nearly done already by the time Yamato was released.

-Al

[bsu legato]

Didn't something akin to a lightsaber appear in the original 30's Lensmen pulp novels?

[Keith]

Does Lucas ever admit to most of his influences? Though I believe it is documented that he has a substancial fansub collection...

He actually does, the major influences anyway. Although I'm sure neither he, nor most artists, would list every one of their inspirations in detail, no matter how insignficant.

At any rate, I think citing an anime feature as being the probable foundational inspiration of space dogfight battles in Star Wars on the basis of similarity in a non-unique theme is a gigantic reach.

Not to mention that both Space Cruiser Yamato and Star Wars came out in 1977. That's not a whole lot of time to steal ideas for R2 and the Death Star battle, especially with the film nearly done already by the time Yamato was released.

-Al

77 my as, try 74. Matsumoto did WWII sci-fi long before Lucas, and when you contrast many aspects, you can definately see the influences. Space dog fights, the great ship battles, and I'll be damned if R2-D2 isn't a direct nod to Analyzer, cmplete with getting the ass end of the repair work.

[bsu legato]

77 my as, try 74. Matsumoto did WWII sci-fi long before Lucas, and when you contrast many aspects, you can definately see the influences. Space dog fights, the great ship battles, and I'll be damned if R2-D2 isn't a direct nod to Analyzer, cmplete with getting the ass end of the repair work.

You speak as if Matsumoto somehow invented WW2. You forget there's a whole generation that grew up after WW2 and shared the same influences. Star Wars was already through its earliest stages of development by the time Yamato began airing in Japan in late '74. The first rough story outline for SW is dated May 1973. By the time the revised first draft was completed in July 1974 (3 months before Yamato would premier) the basic characters were in place including the two droids.

Two construction robots, A-2 and C-3, are blown, slipping and sliding across the hallway floor into some freight canisters. Both robots are rather old and battered. A-2 is a short (three feet) claw-armed triped. His face is a mass of computer lights, surrounding a radar eye.

I'd say that any similarities between R2 and Analyzer would be purely coincidental. As for Lucas and his "substantial fansub collection" I have to say that in all my e-travels to all kinds of Star Wars sites, you are the only person I've seen who has made this claim. Lucas did take inspiration from Japanese works, but you need to go back a couple more decades to the Kurosawa samurai films to find it.

Edited February 14, 2005 by bsu legato

[bsu legato]

For anyone who's interested in reading about the influences of SW, I'd suggest checking out THIS page. Until somebody sits down and writes a book about it, this seems like the best source of info.

[mikeszekely]

Hmmm, I must admit that color scheme is not really to my liking. It almost looks like the paint one would use for a factory only prototype piecemeal. I can understand why decisions were made to jazz up to colors. I was thinking the RX-78-2 Gundam would look good as primarily white with dark accents and dark colored sub-surface features, much like the Ez8.

Another white RX-78 comes from the Mobile Suits Variations, the RX-78-3. Supposedly, it was built from the remains of the two RX-78-2s the Zeons blew up at the very beginning of Gundam, and it was used to test the magnetic coating that the RX-78-2 would get much later in the series.

RX-78-2

[mikeszekely]

Essentially a matter of tastes IMO: I dislike almost everything coming from the Empire and particularly the Stormtrooper costumes, with only a bunch or so of exceptions... The rest of the visuals into the SW universe are better-looking IMO 

And everything Gundam UC is WAY better than anything SW 

I find your lack of faith disturbing...

Hey, I'm with Gui... I'd rather watch, at the least, Gundam TV, Z Gundam, and Gundam ZZ to Star Wars any day.

[Sundown]

77 my as, try 74. Matsumoto did WWII sci-fi long before Lucas, and when you contrast many aspects, you can definately see the influences. Space dog fights, the great ship battles, and I'll be damned if R2-D2 isn't a direct nod to Analyzer, cmplete with getting the ass end of the repair work.

Hrm. Imdb listed Yamato as being released in '77. Perhaps they're referring to the US release. My mistake if that's the case.

Space dog fights and great ship battles is hardly a unique concept. And like others' mentioned, WWII left lasting impressions on the world-- and certainly on more than one lone anime creator who was interested in portraying battles in space, from whom all subsequent similar portrayals must therefore have come from.

Similarity doesn't equal direct influence. Especially when the similarites are both based upon something that's much more resonate in a culture's mind. Both Yamato and Star Wars incorporate WWII-like battles in space. The logical conclusion would be that WWII is the primary influence. Not each other.

It's a huge reach. As much as I question Lucas's sense of aesthetics today, I'm personally wary of unabashedly giving credit of things he did right to some anime director I happen to like, just because their creations happen to bear commonalities-- most of which can be explained much more convincingly by their own admitance to being heavily influenced by the worldwide event known as WWII.

Asserting that similarities must have been due to direct copying tends to suggest agendas either to prop up a particular director or to discredit the other. But yeah, I know, it's hard to imagine an American director of mainstream entertainment could possibly share common thought processes as a Japanese anime director.

-Al

[JB0]

Essentially a matter of tastes IMO: I dislike almost everything coming from the Empire and particularly the Stormtrooper costumes, with only a bunch or so of exceptions... The rest of the visuals into the SW universe are better-looking IMO 

And everything Gundam UC is WAY better than anything SW 

I find your lack of faith disturbing...

Hey, I'm with Gui... I'd rather watch, at the least, Gundam TV, Z Gundam, and Gundam ZZ to Star Wars any day.

*shrugs*

I grew up on the original trilogy. It's always gonna hold a special place in my heart.

As for the new ones... bleh.

[Mr March]

Another white RX-78 comes from the Mobile Suits Variations, the RX-78-3. Supposedly, it was built from the remains of the two RX-78-2s the Zeons blew up at the very beginning of Gundam, and it was used to test the magnetic coating that the RX-78-2 would get much later in the series.

RX-78-2

That is much closer to what I imagined and I like that better. It still looks a little pale, but the combination of colors is better.

[Mr March]

Gundam or Star Wars. Meh, to each his own. Personally, Gundam will never mean that much to me. It's basically like Trek, a franchise that existed to fill fan demand for sci-fi because there was little of anything else at the time. Nowadays, there's simply so much more available of much better quality that Gundam isn't worth the considerable time investment.

Star Wars is basically B-movie fluff with plenty of entertaining eye candy for me to enjoy. More importantly, Star Wars doesn't significantly infringe upon time I use to explore new film, anime, or literature. And it doesn't take 49 hours to watch, just so I can try to justify to anyone who will listen why I just watched so much mediocre anime that "wasn't that bad".

[mikeszekely]

Gundam or Star Wars. Meh, to each his own. Personally, Gundam will never mean that much to me. It's basically like Trek, a franchise that existed to fill fan demand for sci-fi because there was little of anything else at the time. Nowadays, there's simply so much more available of much better quality that Gundam isn't worth the considerable time investment.

Star Wars is basically B-movie fluff with plenty of entertaining eye candy for me to enjoy. More importantly, Star Wars doesn't significantly infringe upon time I use to explore new film, anime, or literature. And it doesn't take 49 hours to watch, just so I can try to justify to anyone who will listen why I just watched so much mediocre anime that "wasn't that bad".

I'm not going to go all out and say anything like "Gundam is the greatest show ever!' or anything like that. I've never really been an "otaku" about anything. I didn't grow up on either Star Wars or Gundam... I grew up on Transformers, He-Man, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, none of which I really follow at all now. Sure, I'd seen Star Wars as a kid, then went outside with a wiffle bat and started wailing on my little brother, pretending it was a lightsaber. But damned if I actually remembered the plot. As for Gundam, I'd actually just discovered Gundam recently.

As an adult, and without the nostalgia that a lot of fans feel... I enjoy both stories. (I can watch Star Trek and be entertained, too, BTW.) Both stories are entertaining, both stories have memorable characters and technology. Both stories spark my imagination. But neither story, to me at least, is worth being an obsessive Comic Book Guy-ish fanboy over.

Push comes to shove, I just like Gundam better. It's like the Apple Jacks commercial... I can't really explain why, I just do. But I still have both the Gundam movie trilogy and the classic Star Wars trilogy in my DVD collection. (Technically, aside from the movie versions of the 08th MS and Stardust Memory, as well as the Turn A and Gundam SEED Destiny series, I have all the Gundam series and movies on DVD, and I have Episode I and II of Star Wars also.)

[JELEINEN]

Does Lucas ever admit to most of his influences? Though I believe it is documented that he has a substancial fansub collection...

Fansubs didn't even exist at the time.

[JB0]

I'm not going to go all out and say anything like "Gundam is the greatest show ever!' or anything like that. I've never really been an "otaku" about anything. I didn't grow up on either Star Wars or Gundam... I grew up on Transformers, He-Man, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, none of which I really follow at all now.

I had those too.

And if the new Ninja Turtles came on at a time where I didn't think the whole world should be asleep, I'd follow it.

[Gui]

Gundam or Star Wars. Meh, to each his own. Personally, Gundam will never mean that much to me. It's basically like Trek, a franchise that existed to fill fan demand for sci-fi because there was little of anything else at the time.

Actually, the very first Gundam serie didn't get a huge audience during its first broadcast: it was more a personal move from Tomino who was 'tired' of the Super Robot genre which dominated the 70s... After that, the Gundam toys and models did have a big succes and this brought Bandai into requesting a movie compilation to exploit a new line of products. It's the success of this movie trilogy which is the main reason behind the Gundam sequels

Also, Star Trek was more a personal project of Rodenberry but it had enough success during its broadcast to be continued into several seasons, so yeah, this one filled some sort of fan demand...

[Keith]

Does Lucas ever admit to most of his influences? Though I believe it is documented that he has a substancial fansub collection...

Fansubs didn't even exist at the time.

Didn't they.....

[JB0]

Also, Star Trek was more a personal project of Rodenberry but it had enough success during its broadcast to be continued into several seasons, so yeah, this one filled some sort of fan demand...

Barely. It almost didn't get the final season.

Lacking season 3, it wouldn't have had enough episodes for syndication, which is where the fanbase really grew.