[Meme] Star Wars is LOTR in space?

[Johne Cook]

*I'll post the article and then ask my question at the bottom.*

http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=364

We and others often talk about sci-fi films. We go to watch them, we buy
the DVDs, we enjoy them immensely. Thing is that most of them aren't *
proper* science fiction. They're space operas or superhero stories or
conspiracy thrillers or, most often, fantasy movies that simply have aliens
instead of dragons or elves. Read a bit of sci-fi - pick up some early Isaac
Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke - and you'll see that real, proper, *hard*science fiction is a very different thing, and it's something that's almost
entirely untouched in Hollywood. Recently, though, there have been a few
promising signs that Hollywood might be thinking about making *actual* sci
fi after all.
Let me explain what I mean a little: in a lot of movie sci-fi, the "sci" is
pretty much irrelevant, just a quick MacGuffin that sets up the plot, which
then turns into a bog-standard mystery or action-adventure or thriller. *Jurassic
Park*, one of the most popular "sci-fi" movies ever to hit the box office,
could just as easily have taken place in Arthur Conan-Doyle's Lost World as
in an artificially created theme park; you don't have to *create* the
dinosaurs to have the same subplot about human arrogance at thinking it can
control nature. In *Jumper* you could call them magicians and nothing
would really change; in *Men In Black* they could be elves and fairies
disguised as humans and it'd pretty much work the same. *And Star Wars is
essentially The Lord of the Rings in space, as we all know. (Emphasis mine
- JC)
*
Real science fiction is defined, roughly (I really don't want to be one of
those people who resorts to dictionary definitions all the time), as
presupposing the existence of a technology that does not, in fact, exist. In
practice, especially in the first half of the 20th century, it often
consisted of having a brilliant idea as a premise and then constructing a
thoroughly average and horrifically dated/ sexist / plain *bad* story
around it.
But it's more than that: good science fiction is often not about science at
all but about what it means to be human (*Blade Runner*;* 2001*; *A.I.*; *E.T.;
The Fly*; *the X-Men* films, which almost alone among super-franchises
have some sci-fi ideas in there). It's a more potent vehicle for social
satire than almost anything else (*Dr Strangelove*; *Invasion of the Body
Snatchers*; *1984*) and it can make magnificent, sweeping, optimistic or
terrifying claims about where we're headed as a species (*Close Encounters
of the Third Kind*; *Atomised*; *The Time Machine*). It's no accident that
many of the abovewere independent films, or were made outside the mainstream
Hollywood fold, incidentally.
But as good as those films are, books have still gone further. There are a
number of truly great science fiction stories looking at the meaning of
life, the universe and everything: Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God;
Asimov's The Last Question; James Blish' A Case of Conscience (part of that
little-known subgenre, Jesuits in Space, which also includes Mary Doria
Russell's The Sparrow); Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos and/or Ilium/Olympus
cycle; and maybe Iain M. Banks' Excession. If you want big, sweeping, epic
stories, forget Gone with the Wind and get your head around Banks' Use of
Weapons or Julian May's Exiles/Intervention/Galactic Milieu series (a story
of redemption over six million years: screw you, War & Peace)
Still, there's hope. A few films lately have tackled actual science fiction
ideas. *The Day The Earth Stood Still*, for all its flaws, is a proper
sci-fi film: what happens if aliens are out there and they disapprove of us?
*Independence Day* doesn't work unless it's aliens (although the superior
*Starship Troopers* maybe could, since it's more about a manufactured war
than aliens per se); *Solaris* and *Sunshine* both explore the
relationship between humanity and the universe, and if that sounds a bit
mystical, perhaps it is, but it's still sci-fi.
This year we've got *Terminator Salvation*, which has the potential at
least to explore interesting ideas about a post-apocalyptic future and
time-travel paradoxes (something TV show The Sarah Connor Chronicles is also
reluctantly having to face), and most excitingly of all James Cameron's*Avatar
*. That's the single most sci-fi film in years: alien world, complex
futuristic technology, and a purportedly devastating culture clash between
the two. Even the (apparently stunning) 3D technology he's used to make it
sounds like something out of an Arthur C. Clarke novel.
Now this to me seems like a good thing. Previously, a lot of great sci-fi
stories (say, The Forever War or Ringworld or Foundation) have been crippled
by the fact that they're either so techno-geeky that they would be
stultifyingly exposition-intensive or, if actiony, prohibitively expensive.
Green-screen technology's addressing the latter problem, to some extent, and
the former *could* be solved by some good scripting and a little trust in
viewers. But will Hollywood do it, or will we still see mainly the same-old
vaguely futuristic or fantasy-tinged action movies that are branded sci-fi
but bear almost no relationship to it?
So what do you think? Can Hollywood do a bit more real science fiction
going forward? It might be too much to hope for a Hyperion or a Nine Billion
Names Of God, but can we one day hope to see a Use of Weapons or a Forever
War*?
*The latter's in development, actually; but I'll still believe it when I
see it. And I bet they'll take out / change drastically the bits about
society becoming homosexual.

Has anyone ever heard of this before? The author casually trots it out there
as if it is an accepted fact, practically a meme, but I've never /ever/
heard of this assertion, and the thought had never crossed my mind. Yes,
both stories are epic stories on the fantasy side of things, LOTR a true
fantasy, and SW a space fantasy posing as space opera. But the plot, theme,
treatment, everything I can think of are as distinct as can be. Am I missing
something? All the reading I've done suggests SW came from Joseph Campbell,
not J. R. R. Tolkien.

[Peter T. Chattaway]

Post by Johne Cook
Has anyone ever heard of this before? The author casually trots it out
there as if it is an accepted fact, practically a meme, but I've never
/ever/ heard of this assertion, and the thought had never crossed my
mind. Yes, both stories are epic stories on the fantasy side of things,
LOTR a true fantasy, and SW a space fantasy posing as space opera. But
the plot, theme, treatment, everything I can think of are as distinct as
can be. Am I missing something? All the reading I've done suggests SW
came from Joseph Campbell, not J. R. R. Tolkien.

Actually, from what I hear, the prime literary (as opposed to cinematic)
inspiration for Star Wars was something called The Lensmen; Lucas began
invoking the Joseph Campbell stuff later on when he saw how everybody was
taking his movie so seriously.

I remember people in the late '70s comparing Star Wars to The Wizard of
Oz, because it had a lion and a tin man, etc., etc.

Also, in Dale Pollock's book Skywalking -- published in 1983, and the only
biography of Lucas produced with his approval, though he has since
disowned it -- there is this account of how Lucas described the part of
Obi-Wan Kenobi to Alec Guinness when he was casting the role:

Lucas described Obi-Wan as a thoughtful, intelligent man of noble
bearing, kind and powerful -- a cross between Gandalf the Wizard in J. R.
R. Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_ and the samurai swordsman often played by
Toshiro Mifune. Ben also was a sort of otherworldly Dr. Dolittle, able to
talk to robots and Wookiees, capable of influencing thought and speech
patterns, and willing to spout aphorisms at the flash of a light saber.
Guinness had no intention of playing a dotty old goat hiding in the sand
dunes. He wanted Ben to have dignity and insisted on toning down his
metaphysical cliches. Guinness helped Lucas focus on the conflict between
Ben and Darth Vader: they discussed ways to make the characters both
symbolic and real. [20th Century Fox studio chief Alan] Ladd was finally
able to give his board of directors a name. "Guinness didn't sell tickets
on his own, but it was nice that he was in the picture," he recalls.

And certainly Peter Jackson's version of LotR, with the young man yelling
"no!" as the old wizard is killed while helping him to escape, hasn't done
anything to dissuade people from linking the two stories.

http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/feature/2002/01/09/lotr_starwars/

"LOTR" and "Star Wars" share a long list of structural and thematic
similarities. They're both mythical creature fantasies hellbent on
rescuing good from the clutches of evil. Both feature circumstantial
heroes who make Oz-like journeys and come of age in the process.

There are also dozens of superficial similarities. Both movies feature
mentors who duel bad guys atop narrow passageways, as well as secondary
villains -- Darth Vader and Saruman the White, both deserters to the dark
side, both fond of telekinetic violence -- who provide the more visible
nemesis. Along the way, both heroes encounter women in white gowns,
cynical older-brother types, sidekicks playing for laughs and faceless
cannon fodder (Storm Troopers and orcs). Both make use of mystical
languages, mystical spiritual beliefs and pivotal scenes in bars and in
watery mucky-mucks (compare the swamp at the gates of Moria with the
garbage chute in the Death Star).

See also:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/avl/lotrsw.html

[Johne Cook]

"The Lensman" series is the classic, prototypical work of space opera by E.
E. "Doc" Smith, and Star Wars is, indeed, as space opera as you can get. But
any 'similarities' strike me as fluff rather than substance. A straw poll
around my social network this morning yielded a gigantic, 'what now?'
Indeed, LotR has far more in common with Dune from a structural perspective.

Aside from a generic hero's journey and good-vs-evil storyline, the
mechanics of the stories couldn't be more different. Star Wars is a classic
Event story with rich characterization, while LotR is a Milieu story where
worldbuilding receives the lion's share of the focus. The primary thing the
two stories have in common are myth, but that's far too broad a thing to
consider the two stories any kind of a close match.



On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 12:35 PM, Peter T. Chattaway <

Post by Peter T. Chattaway

Post by Johne Cook
Has anyone ever heard of this before? The author casually trots it out
there as if it is an accepted fact, practically a meme, but I've never
/ever/ heard of this assertion, and the thought had never crossed my mind.
Yes, both stories are epic stories on the fantasy side of things, LOTR a
true fantasy, and SW a space fantasy posing as space opera. But the plot,
theme, treatment, everything I can think of are as distinct as can be. Am I
missing something? All the reading I've done suggests SW came from Joseph
Campbell, not J. R. R. Tolkien.

Actually, from what I hear, the prime literary (as opposed to cinematic)
inspiration for Star Wars was something called The Lensmen; Lucas began
invoking the Joseph Campbell stuff later on when he saw how everybody was
taking his movie so seriously.
I remember people in the late '70s comparing Star Wars to The Wizard of Oz,
because it had a lion and a tin man, etc., etc.
Also, in Dale Pollock's book Skywalking -- published in 1983, and the only
biography of Lucas produced with his approval, though he has since disowned
it -- there is this account of how Lucas described the part of Obi-Wan
Lucas described Obi-Wan as a thoughtful, intelligent man of noble
bearing, kind and powerful -- a cross between Gandalf the Wizard in J. R. R.
Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_ and the samurai swordsman often played by
Toshiro Mifune. Ben also was a sort of otherworldly Dr. Dolittle, able to
talk to robots and Wookiees, capable of influencing thought and speech
patterns, and willing to spout aphorisms at the flash of a light saber.
Guinness had no intention of playing a dotty old goat hiding in the sand
dunes. He wanted Ben to have dignity and insisted on toning down his
metaphysical cliches. Guinness helped Lucas focus on the conflict between
Ben and Darth Vader: they discussed ways to make the characters both
symbolic and real. [20th Century Fox studio chief Alan] Ladd was finally
able to give his board of directors a name. "Guinness didn't sell tickets on
his own, but it was nice that he was in the picture," he recalls.
And certainly Peter Jackson's version of LotR, with the young man yelling
"no!" as the old wizard is killed while helping him to escape, hasn't done
anything to dissuade people from linking the two stories.
http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/feature/2002/01/09/lotr_starwars/
"LOTR" and "Star Wars" share a long list of structural and thematic
similarities. They're both mythical creature fantasies hellbent on rescuing
good from the clutches of evil. Both feature circumstantial heroes who make
Oz-like journeys and come of age in the process.
There are also dozens of superficial similarities. Both movies feature
mentors who duel bad guys atop narrow passageways, as well as secondary
villains -- Darth Vader and Saruman the White, both deserters to the dark
side, both fond of telekinetic violence -- who provide the more visible
nemesis. Along the way, both heroes encounter women in white gowns, cynical
older-brother types, sidekicks playing for laughs and faceless cannon fodder
(Storm Troopers and orcs). Both make use of mystical languages, mystical
spiritual beliefs and pivotal scenes in bars and in watery mucky-mucks
(compare the swamp at the gates of Moria with the garbage chute in the Death
Star).
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/avl/lotrsw.html
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[Peter T. Chattaway]

Post by Johne Cook
"The Lensman" series is the classic, prototypical work of space opera by
E. E. "Doc" Smith, and Star Wars is, indeed, as space opera as you can
get. But any 'similarities' strike me as fluff rather than substance.

FWIW, this is where I first heard the comparison, seven years ago:

http://dir.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2002/04/10/lucas/index.html

To read the novels of the "Lensman" cycle -- beginning with
"Triplanetary" (1934) and concluding with "Children of the Lens" (1954)
-- is to trip constantly over reminders of the Jedi and their grapples
with the conspiratorial Sith.

Like the Jedi, Lensmen enforce order throughout the galaxy with an
arsenal of paranormal powers that render them virtually invincible in
combat. Where Jedi pay homage to the Force, Lensmen invoke the "Cosmic
All." Lucas' Jedi get their Force quotient boosted by microscopic entities
called midichlorians; Smith's heroes are turbocharged by "lenses,"
collections of crystalline, semi-sentient life forms attuned to their
personalities. An early draft of "Star Wars" revolved around the search
for the "Khiber crystal," which sounds an awful lot like one of Smith's
lenses. There are even hints that Lucas has worked a Lensman-style
breeding program into his saga, judging from the story of Anakin
Skywalker's immaculate conception in "The Phantom Menace."

The scale of the action in the Lensman books is broader than anything
in the Lucas universe -- not content with wiping out whole planets,
Smith's Lensmen detonate entire solar systems without breaking a sweat --
but the quality of the writing is about the same, which is to say awful.
(Everyone has heard the story of how Harrison Ford, during the filming of
the original "Star Wars," groused about the dialogue: "You can type this
shit, George, but you can't say it." E.E. "Doc" Smith goes him one better
-- you can't read it, either.) The series underwent a successful paperback
revival in the early 1970s, when Lucas was sweating out the first drafts
of "Star Wars." Dale Pollock's biography "Skywalking: The Life and Films
of George Lucas" puts the Lensman novels at the top of Lucas' pre-"Star
Wars" reading list, though Pollock clearly didn't realize the extent of
Smith's influence.

Hey, there's a reference to Pollock's 1983 book again! FWIW, here is the
one reference to "Lensman" in Pollock's book, as found through
Amazon.com's "Look Inside!" feature:

Lucas used Ming, the evil ruler of Mongo in the Flash Gordon books, as
another model for his emperor. Alex Raymond's Iron Men of Mongo describes
a five-foot-tall metal man of dusky copper color who is a trained servant
and speaks in polite phrases. From John Carter of Mars came banthas,
beasts of burden in Star Wars; Lucas also incorporated into his early
screenplay drafts huge flying birds described by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
George watched scores of old films, from Forbidden Planet to The Day the
World Ended, and read contemporary sci-fi novels like Dune by Frank
Herbert and E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman saga.

Post by Johne Cook
A straw poll around my social network this morning yielded a gigantic,
'what now?' Indeed, LotR has far more in common with Dune from a
structural perspective.
Aside from a generic hero's journey and good-vs-evil storyline, the
mechanics of the stories couldn't be more different.

Well, one is a book and the other is a film, yeah. :)

Seriously, that *does* account, to some degree, for the difference between
one story being character-driven and the other being all about the
world-building. Movies are too short to engage in a lot of
world-building; you take care of that sort of thing during the
pre-production, not the actual production phase! :)

[Johne Cook]

What's most interesting about The Lensman series isn't the writing as much
as the language. Doc Smith coined many of the words we use today in both
sci-fi and geek tech. His entry at Wikipedia is nothing short of
fascinating:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Smith

The thing about Doc Smith's legacy isn't so much the quality of his writing
as the quality of his mind, the sheer trailblazing genius he applied to his
fiction. Even ardent adherents of his work don't hold it up as an example of
quality prose as much as his expansive ideas. He thought big and wrote
bigger.

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Peter T. Chattaway <

Post by Peter T. Chattaway

Post by Johne Cook
"The Lensman" series is the classic, prototypical work of space opera by
E. E. "Doc" Smith, and Star Wars is, indeed, as space opera as you can get.
But any 'similarities' strike me as fluff rather than substance.

http://dir.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2002/04/10/lucas/index.html
To read the novels of the "Lensman" cycle -- beginning with
"Triplanetary" (1934) and concluding with "Children of the Lens" (1954) --
is to trip constantly over reminders of the Jedi and their grapples with the
conspiratorial Sith.
Like the Jedi, Lensmen enforce order throughout the galaxy with an
arsenal of paranormal powers that render them virtually invincible in
combat. Where Jedi pay homage to the Force, Lensmen invoke the "Cosmic All."
Lucas' Jedi get their Force quotient boosted by microscopic entities called
midichlorians; Smith's heroes are turbocharged by "lenses," collections of
crystalline, semi-sentient life forms attuned to their personalities. An
early draft of "Star Wars" revolved around the search for the "Khiber
crystal," which sounds an awful lot like one of Smith's lenses. There are
even hints that Lucas has worked a Lensman-style breeding program into his
saga, judging from the story of Anakin Skywalker's immaculate conception in
"The Phantom Menace."
The scale of the action in the Lensman books is broader than anything in
the Lucas universe -- not content with wiping out whole planets, Smith's
Lensmen detonate entire solar systems without breaking a sweat -- but the
quality of the writing is about the same, which is to say awful. (Everyone
has heard the story of how Harrison Ford, during the filming of the original
"Star Wars," groused about the dialogue: "You can type this shit, George,
but you can't say it." E.E. "Doc" Smith goes him one better -- you can't
read it, either.) The series underwent a successful paperback revival in the
early 1970s, when Lucas was sweating out the first drafts of "Star Wars."
Dale Pollock's biography "Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas"
puts the Lensman novels at the top of Lucas' pre-"Star Wars" reading list,
though Pollock clearly didn't realize the extent of Smith's influence.
Hey, there's a reference to Pollock's 1983 book again! FWIW, here is the
one reference to "Lensman" in Pollock's book, as found through Amazon.com's
Lucas used Ming, the evil ruler of Mongo in the Flash Gordon books, as
another model for his emperor. Alex Raymond's Iron Men of Mongo describes a
five-foot-tall metal man of dusky copper color who is a trained servant and
speaks in polite phrases. From John Carter of Mars came banthas, beasts of
burden in Star Wars; Lucas also incorporated into his early screenplay
drafts huge flying birds described by Edgar Rice Burroughs. George watched
scores of old films, from Forbidden Planet to The Day the World Ended, and
read contemporary sci-fi novels like Dune by Frank Herbert and E. E. "Doc"
Smith's Lensman saga.
A straw poll around my social network this morning yielded a gigantic,

Post by Johne Cook
'what now?' Indeed, LotR has far more in common with Dune from a structural
perspective.
Aside from a generic hero's journey and good-vs-evil storyline, the
mechanics of the stories couldn't be more different.

Well, one is a book and the other is a film, yeah. :)
Seriously, that *does* account, to some degree, for the difference between
one story being character-driven and the other being all about the
world-building. Movies are too short to engage in a lot of world-building;
you take care of that sort of thing during the pre-production, not the
actual production phase! :)
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