Lucas based the trench run on WWII movie?
 

Did anyone watch the History Channel special on Air Raids? The show was about the Lancaster Dambuster bombers. At one point during the show, they showed a clip from a movie about the bombing. The dialogue and actions were exactly the same from the Trench run in Stars Wars!

Say on target!

I'm on the leader!

They're just too...many...of them...*bang*

It not really news that Lucas borrowed from tons of oustide crap. He just managed to do a really good job with his "stolen goods"

Bah! Next you'll be telling me The Matrix wasn't original either.

Hey Groucho, we get it!

You do realize that Lucas opening has admited that the trench run was story boarded by editing (he is a great editor and studied the craft) Old World War II air clips together and creating a story board so the special effects crew could prepare a sort of flying partner and the such.

So yes, the trench battle and x-wing battles were based off WWII clips edited together.

Its on the Episode II DVD....

OMG! Matrix is a half assed wannabe Terminator!

Rise of the Machines man! Rise of the Machines!!

(let's not mention the Highway battle in reloaded either)

I believe the film in question is an old Cliff Robertson film, 633 Squadron?

It's pretty common knowledge that Lucas was heavily influenced by WW2 dogfighting when he made Star Wars. He's said it himself.

So, then all this begs the questions..what was Lucas' influence when making pod-racing? Street racing?

Pod racing was an idea he stole from some movie called "American Grafitti". Can't that bastard think of any original ideas himself??? Man, talk about unoriginality.


Lucas has had a life long love for racing growing up. so of course Pod racing would be a side of that love for "racing" in general.

That would have been The Fast and the Jedi Knight. I think the pod race was influenced more of the chariot race from Ben Hur.

The movie, as I understand it, is The Dam Busters from 1954. Sadly the movie never made it to LD/DVD and has long been out of print on VHS - so I've never actually confirmed this. But it's suppose to be just about the same.

He lifted it, scene for scene, from Biker Boyz :(

If legend has it right, the work print of Star Wars that Fox executives first saw actually had WW II-era fighter combat sequences edited into it, because the trench run FX hadn't been completed yet.

The pod race is of course a direct, often shot-for-shot rip- er, homage to Ben Hur, as is the whole slave-racing-for-his-freedom thing.

So here's a question, prompted by the jlib remark - where do you folks consider the homage to end and the ripping off to begin? I've heard some folks say that the Pod Race was ripped off (just one more strike against E1 in their mind) note for note from Ben Hur.

However these same folks have no problem with New Hope, and the Flash Gordon scrolling text, the Hidden Fortress bickering pair lost in the desert, or the Dam Busting climax.

Why do folks come down on one but not the other? I mean aside from the desire to rip Lucas a new one over every little detail in the new trilogy.

eh it's not half as bad as his EP1 theft from 5th Element

:whofart:

Really? TDB has Lancaster bombers, which are fairly huge.

Also, you can get the DVD in r2. Chocks away, old boy, and tally-ho!

:whofart: x2

The difference between the text crawl in Flash Gordon/Star Wars and the races in Ben Hur/Episode 1 is that the text crawl is a couple of minutes at the beginning, while the race sequence is a lengthy sequence at the pivotal point of the movie.

The text crawl in Star Wars is a brief wink to the audience saying, "You remember those old serials? This is going to be like that." With the pod race, though, the sequence goes on for quite a while, and you can practically hear Lucas saying, "Well, this whole setup worked in Ben Hur, so I'll just do it faster and flashier and the audience will eat it up."

So an homage is like a brief little footnote that aknowledges your influences, while a rip-off is like trying to cut and paste a big hunk of your influence and hoping that the audience will take it as your own. (Mind you, Lucas has always been forthcoming about his influences in print. But it's not like you were handed a set of detailed footnotes when you entered the theatre to see Episode 1.)

Re: Episode 1 and 5th Element. The futuristic cities in both had a similar vibe to them, what with the zillions of flying vehicles and everything. Though they're both firmly in a tradition of mondo-gigantic fururistic cities that goes back at least to Metropolis, and includes things like, say, the Jetsons.

So if any movie, comic or anything does a futuristic city with flying cars they are ripping it off of The Fifth element? this idea of the city of tomorrow has been around for ages. the only thing you can really say Ep 1 ripped off of the 5th element is it's ability to suck so badly. ;)