In keeping with this spirit, the very first Star Wars Story film was rumored to be a take on another Kurosawa classic, Seven Samurai . BY: Bryan Young. Seven Samurai (1954) and The Magnificent Seven (1960) The original Star Wars movies drew heavily from the work of Akira Kurosawa, with The Hidden Fortress being a particularly huge influence … An Appreciation – Seven Samurai. By Tres Dean. Seven Samurai shows Kurosawa at the top of his form, demonstrating rigorous control of his medium with an inspired balance of formal precision and kinetic exuberance. But it’s Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai that casts the longest shadow.Desser says Seven Samurai has influenced more films than almost any other. With Stephen Prince, Joan Mellen, Tadao Sato, David Desser. JUNE 17, 2013. The John Sturges directed film was actually a remake of Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, which at the time, was the biggest box office grossing film in Japan. There’s a subtle, pervasive way that Star Wars costumes influence fashion. In turn, the Seven Samurai's own influence has been wide and deep. Star Wars: The Clone Wars Wins Two Daytime Emmy Awards Television. Chronicling The Clone Wars #11 Satine … Seven Samurai, for inspiration for the brown, belted robes and cloaks that Jedi wear. Lucas said of the original: "I think Seven Samurai influenced me a lot more [than Hidden Fortress], in terms of understanding how cinema works and how to tell a very exciting story and still have it be very funny and very human.' Films JUNE 24, 2013. The samurai films of Akira Kurosawa were an enormous influence on Star Wars. Two Kurosawa remakes were particularly important: John Sturges's The Magnificent Seven and Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, deriving from Seven Samurai (1954) and … You don’t need to be a film scholar to recognize that The Mandalorian™ draws heavily from classic westerns and samurai films in crafting its stories, characters, and world. Kurosawa’s influence on Western cinema can’t be underestimated. Considering that Seven Samurai was shot in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, one wonders what Kurosawa would have done in the widescreen format. Blasters and quips came from westerns, while swordfights and ceremony from the samurai. Seven Samurai and Sons. However, his own original style is also quite visible, particularly in the final sequence. August 30, 2017 Print. If there is one word to describe Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Seven Samurai (1954), it is “epic.”. Seven Samurai created the notion of an ensemble coming together to pull of a big mission, in this case defending a village from bandits. When Star Wars fans start researching the movie’s origins, one of the first things they discover is that George Lucas was heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 adventure The Hidden Fortress, which involves a princess whose kingdom has been destroyed, a dashing rogue who’s trying to protect her, and two bumbling idiots—one tall, one short. Like the samurai the superheroes must band together to … Of course, Kurosawa’s influence hardly stops with Seven Samurai, and the wipe transitions of Seven Samurai were not the only Kurosawa influence in the Star Wars films. Seven Samurai's influence continues to ripple throughout the franchise. Specifically, the classic The Hidden Fortress features plotlines that directly parallel the original film. The 1950 film Rashomon, in which a crime is recounted from four very different points of view, made Kurosawa’s name in international cinema.It won the highest honor at the prestigious Venice Film Festival and introduced Japanese cinema to the West. Star Wars picked the best of both genres and baked it all into a space opera setting. Star Wars Episodes IV–VI. Actor … An exploration on the influence of Akira Kurosawa’s masterful Seven Samurai on Star Wars. Summary: Akira Kurosawa's extraordinary tale of adventure, romance, humor, and suspense has been hailed by critics worldwide as one of … With Star Wars Rebels season three now available on Blu-ray and DVD, some of the special features included in the package are being revealed. The Star Wars: The Clone Wars influences include a 1989 samurai action movie that inspired a big part of the show's first adventure. It aired on March 27, 2010 in the UK and April 2, 2010 in the US.1 1 Official description 2 Plot summary 3 Continuity 4 Credits 5 Appearances 6 Bibliography 7 Notes and references Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka Tano form an uneasy partnership with four deadly … This documentary made by the Criterion Collection examines the history of the Samurai in Japan. The Star Wars science fiction media franchise is acknowledged to have been inspired by many sources. Keen Star Wars fans will immediately understand why this news has seeped out with the key influence of Seven Samurai named. This influence extends far beyond the American remake of the film, John Sturges' respectful but hollow The Magnificent Seven, or even warm-hearted homages like Jim Jarmusch's hip-hop samurai gangster film Ghost Dog or the Dogma pastiche Mifune in 1999. These include southern and eastern Asian religions, Qigong, philosophy, classical mythology, Roman history, Zoroastrianism, parts of the Abrahamic religions, Confucianism, Shintō and Taoism, and countless cinematic precursors.Creator George Lucas stated "Most of the spiritual reality … Among the more specific influences that guided Lucas as he made the Star Wars trilogy, one of the most important was the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, it is a film with many ideas but lacks the patience or the craftsmanship to really make them work. "Bounty Hunters" is the seventeenth episode of Season Two of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series. Three Outlaw Samurai (1964) Yojimbo (1961) Kill! Seven Samurai. What The Mandalorian gets right – and what Disney's Star Wars films got wrong Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni's thrilling show steals from the best, respects the past, and gives fans what they crave. Kurosawa drew influence from John Ford and the classic westerns of Hollywood, and this style found its apogee in “Seven Samurai”, particularly in the sweeping landscape shots. Star Wars has always borrowed heavily from the influence of Akira Kurosawa, and even more specifically his film Seven Samurai. One obvious example is the classic wipe between scenes, which adapted by Lucas in the Star Wars series, and in both cases it provides the film with a pulp literary feel. Its story has been riffed on multiple times in the Star Wars -verse -- in the Clone Wars episode "Bounty Hunters," in the fourth episode of The Mandalorian , and even way back in the original '70s Marvel comic book series. No other director has had a bigger influence on Star Wars than Akira Kurosawa, the celebrated Japanese film-maker behind movies such as Seven Samurai (1954), Rashomon (1950), and … Directed by Marty Gross. Lasting influence. Star Wars™ Cinema: 5 Films that Inspired and Influenced The Mandalorian™. Films that take a heavy influence from Seven Samurai while doing something different. The Avengers is remarkably similar in both concept and character archetypes. The Magnificent Seven (2016) The Magnificent Seven is a very loose 2016 remake of the original The Magnificent Seven (see below) from 1960, which in turn was a western remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Lucas has spoken at length about the influence of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai on Star Wars, and it's not hard to see the connection between the lightsabers and traditional katana blades. Star Wars Rebels: How Seven Samurai Influenced the Fight Between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul. Scott Stamper 8 films 1 1. Star Wars in particular was influenced heavily by The Hidden Fortress, but in addition Seven Samurai. George Lucas never hid the fact that he based large portions of the original Star Wars on samurai movies he loved. Also looks at what inspired Kurosawa to make his masterpiece 1954 film Seven Samurai in a post WW2 Japan. I should also mention that Seven Samurai is the granddaddy of all great action films, from Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch to James Cameron’s Aliens and The Terminator series. (1968) The Tale of Zatoichi (1962) Sanjuro (1962) At a meaty two hundred and seven minutes, the film is an adventurous experience in and of itself. A lot of the discussion of Disney+’s The Mandalorian frames the show in terms of Westerns. Seven Samurai. Films like Three Amigos, A Bug’s Life, Django Unchained, The Matrix Revolutions, Mad Max: Fury Road, and – duh – Star Wars have all borrowed elements from Seven Samurai, be … The Mandalorian Is an Akira Kurosawa Samurai More Than a Cowboy. Epic in scale, in ambition, in scope, and in length. Some fans might be surprised that Lucas places Seven Samurai above Hidden Fortress (1958), another Kurosawa film, the plot of which has often been cited as a key influence on Star Wars. By The Credits. 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