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Comment by fifteenth | Hacker News Reader

So the original Star Wars, which has spawned so many copycat movies, is itself a copycat movie? Let's see. The formula seems to be: take two successful old movies, such as Battle of Midway and Hidden Fortress, and create a mashup set in a different genre to make it seem new. Has someone created a machine learning application that applies this mashup/genre switch on old movie scripts to make new ones?

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To be fair, Akira Kurosawa was influenced by spaghetti westerns[0] and one of his films (Throne of Blood) is just Macbeth in feudal Japan, so the copying goes both ways.

[0]https://www.thebubble.org.uk/culture/film/kurosawa-and-the-w...

Star Wars is a little closer IMO.

The Tahei and Matashichi sequences towards the beginning when they split up are basically exactly the same and R2D2 and C3PO in the desert. Even the musical score is very close. Ditto on the space scenes and Midway.

Personally, I didn't have a problem with it -- many of the themes are universal and influence is fine... if anything adding the SFX and different storyline really honors the influencing films. I did get a little jaded when I saw a George Lucas interview on one of the DVD releases where he downplayed the similarities in what was in my opinion a disingenuous way.

Also, I've never read mention of this, but Yoda seems to me in many ways like Dersu Uzala from...Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala! (I think my favourite K movie) - e.g. forest-dwelling, short, benevolent, wise, and they speak similarly.

I believe Lucas helped with the financing of several of K's later films.

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