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There's no doubt that the films of Akira Kurosawa have been very influential in the West, sometimes to the point of all-out imitation. His Seven Samurai was turned into John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven. Yojimbo was turned, virtually shot for shot, into Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. Rashomon was remade in 1964 as The Outrage (starring Paul Newman) and its non-linear storyline has influenced everything from Courage Under Fire to Pulp Fiction.
Yup. The guy was good.
But perhaps the most misunderstood of these influences is the legend of the impact The Hidden Fortress had on Star Wars.
Do these movies have similarities? Sure.
The Hidden Fortress is the story of a general trying to smuggle a load of gold and the princess of his beaten homeland across hostile territory with the help of two lowly goofballs, who as much as the princess and the general are the main characters.
Sound familiar?
The movie is also just a fun romp, with plenty of chases, sword fights and humor. And like Star Wars, it was a huge international hit. The biggest of Kurosawa's career.
But despite all the hubbub, and all you've probably heard, that's really where the similarities end.
For example, let's take the character of the general, Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars and Rokurota Makabe in The Hidden Fotress. Kenobi is very old, almost ancient. More wizard than general. Reserved, patient, with secrets to tell. Also -- and this is a point really worth noting -- he gets killed at the end of the first act.
Makabe is mysterious, but forceful. He always seems on the edge of killing the two goofballs. His duty and shame at being defeated has led him to sacrifice his own sister so the princess could more easily escape, and at one point he nearly sacrifices himself. But above all he is a fierce, strong, youthful warrior. By my count he kills at least 10 people in hand to hand combat by the time the movie is over.
The characters of the two princesses in each story are more of a comparison. Both are young, entitled, well... bitches. But where the princess in Star Wars is captured and has to be rescued, and is a loudmouth, the princess in The Hidden Fortress is merely in hiding (in a hidden fortress, get it?), and has to be smuggled across enemy lines to help restore her kingdom. Also, for much of the movie, she passes as a mute, to hide herself better.
Perhaps the most celebrated similarity between the two movies, and the one George Lucas readily points to, are the characters of the two lowly goofballs. Kurosawa's characters were called Tahei and Matakishi. Lucas made his into robots and called them R2D2 and C-3PO.
"My main influence," Lucas says. "Was Kurosawa's decision to tell his story from the viewpoint of the two lowest characters."
Though not quite this low.
And we see this from the opening shot of both movies. Kurosawa starts with Tahei and Matakashi wandering in the wilderness, complaining and arguing about a war they fought in -- and lost -- and the fact that they haven't eaten in days. As everyone who's seen Star Wars knows (which means pretty much everyone. Except my friend Eric Thelen), Lucas also starts with his bickering robots, wandering the ship during a battle, complaining about those things robots complain about.
But even here, the difference are vast. C-3PO and R2D2 are comic characters who do a bit to drive the plot. But basically, like most movie robots that aren't the villain, they're good natured servants who are basically there to add sci-fi window dressing and make the well-trained actors who portray them feel like idiots.
"I. Will. Get. You. For. This. Compute."
Tahei and Matakishi, though they're amusing fraidy cats, are not good natured or well meaning. They're desperate thieves who take any opportunity to fight with each other, abandon the group, steal the gold or sell out Makabe and the princess, leading of course to Conflict.
The only reason they stick around is because they think they're going to get some of the gold they're transporting, and the only reason Makabe doesn't kill them is because they think of a route to the homeland any idiot should have been able to think of, and because he needs someone to help carry the gold.
None of this sounds like the comparably lovable and loyal R2D2 or C-3PO, and it shouldn't.
So despite all of the myths, calling Star Wars a rip off of The Hidden Fortress really boils down to lazy scholarship of the worst kind. Scholarship that seems to be repeated without end.
The two Criterion Collection essays on The Hidden Fortress refer to it as "the major influence on Star Wars" and owing "much of the scenario" to it, respectively. The second essay even seems to think that Han Solo is the general character comparable to Makabe.
Humbug.
Perhaps most egregiously, this line of thinking completely ignores the fact that Star Wars is not a story about Kenobi, or the princess, or the two droids. It's first and foremost Luke's story, which borrows from a hundred Boy-King legends -- especially the Arthur legend -- none of which The Hidden Fortress has nothing to do with.
The Hidden Fortress doesn't even have a Luke character, for crying out loud. Or an Emperor character. Or Darth Vader. Or Han Solo. Or Jabba the Hutt.
On the plus side, it doesn't have Ewoks, either.
So how about we all (again, not including Eric) stop this totally out of control myth, huh? And get back to just enjoying movies for what they are.
