OT: Sci-Fi Founders

[Captain Kwok]

Jules Verne was certainly one of the earliest Sci-Fi pioneers.

[Thermodyne]

For those who have yet to read the Foundation series, do so ASAP.

For thoes who have read them, ever get the feeling that Lucas read them too.

[geoschmo]

I'm not sure I see any reseblance between The Forbidden Planet and Star Trek other than they are both sci-fi and both had similer visual styles. (At least if you are talking about TOS, which I assume you are.) There's not much connection in the story. Forbidden planet is also not an original story. It's a sci-fi telling of Shakespears "The Tempest". Of course Shakespear probably stole it from some Italian folk tale or something.

Here's a website that shows the connection between the two stories. LINK

[Baron Munchausen]

wildcard06 said:
Unfortunately (or fortunately) you will find in pop culture, literature and all other forms of art, that imitation and re-invention are common.

An example is Shakespeare whose works were inspired by "historical" documents of his day and the folk history of people. Many of his stories were lifted directly from their historical source. The plays were considered trite and plebian in their day, but still stand today as some of the greatest ever written.

I guess there's no real point to this other than to say that disappointment in an unoriginal idea shouldn't lessen your enjoyment of the "copy". But Lucas himself has always admitted that he used a lot of sociology and myth sources to generate his saga.

And it turns out that Shakespeare was the inspiration for Forbidden Planet. Compare The Tempest where an old 'wizard' (Prospero) and his daughter are rescued by an arriving ship. But not before a good bit of trouble with 'spirits' and such. Yes, there is nothing truly original.

[Baron Munchausen]

Atrocities said:
Your school english teacher needs to read the Dune series. Once that is done, all the peaces fall into place. Lucas was deeply inspired by dune.

Gene R. said that Star Trek is like a wagon train in space. I always thought he used that anology to sell the show because it really is far more like Forebiddon Planet than any western I have ever seen.

There are also clear references to The Lord of the Rings in Star Wars. Lucas admitted somewhere or other that Obi Wan Kenobi is a Gandalf derivative, for example. And some other SciFi like Asimov's Foundation novels also seem to have influenced him.

[Atrocities]

RudyHuxtable said:
I don't want to be a party pooper but I do think the Dune/Star Wars comparison is wrong. Dune is written very much as an allegory to the problems and cultures of the current middle east. The spice is characterized by oil (which really does rule the known universe), and the Emperor is basically the British Empire, since at the time they still had a great command of the region. The Fremen are sometimes compared to the Bedouins, but it is more likely Arabs in general were the basis for the Fremen. Once the first book was written, he eschewed the original tenor a bit and made the series stranger and stranger, but nevertheless his initial inspiration was the effects of oil on the international community.

Star Wars was made with the old west in mind, and he included magic to help build his myth, since so much of our past includes tales of miracles and other "magic" occurrences.

I'll go with you on Forbidden Planet, though.

I agree with you 100% with the exception that Lucas was inspired by Dune. I have been listening to the series on audio cd and they share a lot of common threads.

Paul would be Obi Wan, while his son Leto, a twin no less just like Leia and Luke, turns into something like Vader, (God Emperor) as an example.

The seeing into the future, the ability to move before things happen, all of this sings of the Jedi and their force powers.

In dune the Empire is very old, as was the Rebublic in Star Wars. In Dune the Emperor had his dreaded Sadacar (sp) while in Star Wars the Emperor has his Stormtroopers.

Instead of fighting over the spice and a single planet the rebellion becomes the spice and the battle become a fight over good vs evil.

I guess you have to be in the right frame of mind to see the simularities that stood out to me. Star Wars is on its own, one of the greatest sci-fi epics of all time. To bad it was tanted with PM, a good movie that could have been far better, and by AOTC, a horrible movie that at times reminded me of Star Wars.

[Atrocities]

geoschmo said:
I'm not sure I see any reseblance between The Forbidden Planet and Star Trek other than they are both sci-fi and both had similer visual styles. (At least if you are talking about TOS, which I assume you are.) There's not much connection in the story. Forbidden planet is also not an original story. It's a sci-fi telling of Shakespears "The Tempest". Of course Shakespear probably stole it from some Italian folk tale or something.

Here's a website that shows the connection between the two stories. LINK

There are so many simularities that I could scaresly post them all. Watch it again and think Star Trek as you watch it. Things like the viewing plat, "speeds many times faster than the speed of light," 1701, Engineer, the primary three actors, a Doctor, a Captian, and his first officer.

The Captain getting the girl, laser guns, or as Robby said, "A simple blaster." The uniformes, albeit not red or gold do set a presidence. They use a rector, wireless communications, even a small tri-corder device.

The ship is a saucer shape, as is the primary hull of the Enterprise. THey have a United Planets compared to the United "federation" of planets. Yes indeed Star Trek has many of the characterstics that Forbidden planet had.

There is nothing wrong with this, I am not complaining or trying to make an issue, I am simply making the comparisson and saying hey this is kinda cool.

[geoschmo]

Forbidden Planet was a watershed moment in science fiction. It had a tremendous influence on jsut about everything to come after it, so it's not unusual that Rodenberry would insert little homages to it in Trek. The 1701 thing, and the United Federation of Planets are probably something along those lines.

Most of the other stuff you mention are things you will find in many many movies. It's more of a case of both having similer influences than one being based on the other.

Wireless communication. Faster than light travel. Saucer shaped space vehicles. The Captain getting the girl. None of these things are unique to the Forbidden Planet.

The Captain/First Officer/Doctor relationship exsists in almost every naval themed picture ever made. And if you change the ranks a bit you could extend that to most military movies and westerns too. The three-character dynamic is a classic form in literature. Heck, you could, and many have tried too, make the case that it's a platonic form of the love triangle. That's a little wierd for me though, so I'll stop right now.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

SW IS a Dune ripoff. Two people (I believe Frank Herbert was one of them, though I could be wrong) have watched SW and read/watched Dune and noticed at least 17 similarities between the two. I believe that even Lucas himself once said that Dune was a great source of inspiration for SW.

[rdouglass]

Thermodyne said:
For those who have yet to read the Foundation series, do so ASAP.

For thoes who have read them, ever get the feeling that Lucas read them too.

I agree completely. Also, I don't think that any movie maker that has ever read a good sci-fi book or series was NOT influenced somehow by those books.

If they never read anything than maybe it was original.