Oh it’s ON, baby!!
Nah, it’s mainly just a silly goof-con, in which case almost every sci-fi series one might possibly imagine has plainly borrowed from earlier ones in one way or another. At least, I THINK so.
That said, I seem to recall Mézières being pretty upset about this at some point. In any case, he passed on a couple years ago, so hmm…
EDIT: Whoops, pardon. This specifically appeared in the annex of the Cinebook edition of v2, The Empire of a Thousand Planets. There was a text accompaniment that I could post, if necessary. It was pretty rubbish, frankly.
The bronze bikini is all inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Scary Helmet, Fucked-Up Face, and Winged Tapir aren’t all that original in their own rights.
I definitely see inspiration for the Millennium Falcon and Carbonite freezing, though.
If I remember correctly, in Light & Magic they talk about how they came up with the design of the M.Falcon (and George Lucas wasn’t much involved). In fact, let me check… Ah ha:
Johnston was also tasked with redesigning the Falcon when the original design was deemed too similar to another ship on television. Under pressure and mentally blocked, Johnston was sitting in the kitchen when he spotted plates on the counter. He imagined sandwiching two together like hamburger buns to create a saucer-like ship. The Millennium Falcon started to take shape.
The carbonite thing feels like more of a straightforward copy, though.
I feel like there were saucer shaped space ships in other things previously.
If it were an asymmetric design with the cockpit off to the side, then sure there’s a real connection. But a spaceship being vaguely saucer shaped? Nah it’s just a common design for a spaceship.
The bronze bikini is all inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Ooh, that’s right!
Hail to the princess Dejah Thoris, pleasantly bronzed by yon inspirational Martian sun. ^^(they warn’t no vanishing Ray Bradbury Martians, neither)
I feel like there were saucer shaped space ships in other things previously.
G-e-n-t-l-e-m-e-n… (voice of Charles Winchester from M*A*S*H)… please.
Valérian, Kurosawa, Dune… Lucas borrowed from pretty much everything.
But then again, that’s how culture worked for tens of thousands of years until Disney and other “intellectual property” trolls got their filthy rotten claws on it and started doing everything possible to kill what makes us human, so, eh, good for him, they were good films, at least the first three.
The first two, for sure.
The third one kind of limped in without Marcia Lucas’ touch, but we still embraced it. ^^
Man, look at the line work in those original comic panels then compare them to pretty much any modern comic (book or gag), where almost all line work gets filtered through Apple or Adobe Corps. Real shame.
EDIT: I didn’t mean to shame digital artists. Digital artists are amazing pioneers doing things artists fifty years ago could only dream of.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our modern idea of illustrative brush strokes being filtered through those two corporation’s algorithms, how those algorithms were originally intended to imitate the real thing, and how artists actually use them in practice. That’s what I was eluding to really poorly.
My bad for sounding like a rude dick.
You’re cool with me, brother.
On the one hand, we’ve come so spectacularly far in terms of digital tools, while OTOH, AI is getting so good that it’s even scary. For example, if you scroll down to “Girl by X” in this sub…
Tbh, I’ve rearead the comics way more often than I rewatched the films…
I recently got the French omnibus edition and I completely forgot that magic was a thing in those comics. Maybe because the ones I read as a child’s were the ones about the disappearing earth and the holy trinity and not the first books or the finale with the Wolochs.
if you’re interested in how everything borrows from everything: https://youtu.be/UP468k1u_Mk
Good stuff to know.
Hopefully, in terms of SW, The Hero’s Journey and Kurosawa were mentioned at some point?
it talks about how some of the xwing vs tie fighter scenes were copied shot for shot from old wwii dogfighting scenes, also campbell’s hero with a thousand faces, among other things–definitely worth watching
Excellent, thank you.
In regard to the Shinguz, Episode IV had a species called Kubaz with a similar snout.
