Puhlease! Stop it with the "John Carter is ripping off Star Wars" nonsense…..
Never has a movie release created such a need to stamp out stupid brushfires as John Carter — precisely because this is a situation where the source material for half the sci-fi fantasy of the last 50 years is finally making it to the screen, and those who don’t care to become the slightest bit informed can’t distinguish between the original and the imitator. It gets tiresome to keep swatting this down. Fortunately James Hoare in SciFiNow does it for me, so consider this a a lazy man’s swat down of the ill-advised individuals who are crying foul on behalf of Star Wars.
[Note: I first published this on Dec 17. It needs to ge republished every few weeks as this topic and the accusations resurface.]
John Carter versus Star Wars
by James Hoare
6 examples of John Carter and A Princess Of Mars’ influence on George Lucas’ Star Wars sagaClearly a fan of classic pulp sci-fi, George Lucas shamelessly plundered from all of his favourite sources for not only the three movies of the original Star Wars trilogy, but the three prequels as well, with nods to Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Edgar Rice Burroughs …Of Mars series aplenty across the saga.
With 2012 promising not just an adaptation of the first Barsoom volume, 1917?s A Princess Of Mars as John Carter, but also the re-release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in glorious 3D, let’s examine the six most obvious examples of the former’s influence on the latter – from words George Lucas just liked the sound of, to whole scenes and concepts he plundered to construct his love-letter to the golden age of adventure.
Obviously this doesn’t diminish the greatness of the original Star Wars trilogy, but with the internet awash with people claiming John Carter is “ripping off Star Wars“, it’s worth reminding them that if anything, it’s the other way around…
4 comments
I know how the JC movie is not following the source material, but i still love it because it’s just a good movie! Never understood the people who said that it ripped Star Wars off, i mean – how? Just because the setting is a desert planet, it doesn’t mean anything; Dune’s set on a desert planet too, but nobody flipped an eye.
I’ll be sharing this, thanks! 🙂
you know, the best part of this is . .. that comic book cover, was a comic published in april 1978, that is a bit of time before return of the Jedi!
So you cant even say that this comic was following in the success of star wars!
Please republish all you want! The ignorance out there is ridiculuos. We should all do our part to help spread the truth!