July 11, 2025 • 24 mins
On this week's episode of Holy Snokes MATTY takes over and talks about the connection between Star Wars and the legendary Akira Kurosawa!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A PLD project presents Holy Snookes, the Star Wars Podcast
featuring p L D and Maddy Gun. May the Force
(00:21):
be with you.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Always, Welcome everybody to a new episode of Holy Snow,
(00:44):
what are you doing here?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
It's my channel?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Come on, but that is my episode. It is your episode.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
But I could stop and make an appearance and say,
hi are the folks and my name is on the
ten and expect to see me.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Don't they? I guess, all right, say your piece.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I want to say that I am look forward to
watching this because you're right, I'm not gonna be on
this episode because its quite frankly, if I was gonna
be on this episode, I would have to sit down
and do a very long rewatch of all stuff that
it would make a better sense. I love I love
what you're covering today. I love those films. I just
haven't watched them all in the off time. I didn't
have enough time in between to do a deep dive,
which I would prefer to have done if I was
gonna make any sense in my conversation. So, Mattie, I'm
(01:26):
gonna leave this one to you, and I can't wait
to see what you do with it. Because obviously this
is a very big, very big connectivity here with.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Star Wars and the main man, Kurisawa. So you was proud.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I hope you guys love the show, and maybe you
love the show even without me, maybe you love it
even more without me the other comments and let me know.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Maybe I'll just stay off the show from now on.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
The views are gonna skyrocket skyrocket.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's right. I will see you next time and always
snows when I do the news episode. So Maddie had
a great show. Floor is yours my front?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Okay, I'll see next week. Okay, right now that he's gone, God,
I had enough of him yesterday when we were doing
a class action for an hour and a half. Jeez. Right, So,
as I said, welcome to a new episode of Hoe Snokes,
a Star Wars podcast, I am your host for the week,
(02:20):
Maddie Gunner PLD as I said, he will be back
next week for the news episode. For those of you
who may don't know Ho Snokes, we are a Star
Wars podcast. A lot of the time we do your
general after show discussing the episodes of the week the
themes around them, and we kind of were running a
(02:41):
bit thin on what we could discuss, and we did
a bit of a reshuffle, a little bit of a reformat.
I am a lot better at talking about the connectivity,
the themes, the more artistry side of Star Wars and
just movies in general. And Pod is very much like
(03:05):
he loves to talk about the news and the business
side of things, which is, you know, it's not my
strong suit. So we figured we're going to give this
a try for a few weeks and you know, see
how we like it. And I figured with the fortieth
anniversary of you know, Curisara's film Ran coming up this month, actually,
I believe what better to talk about than the man himself,
(03:29):
a Kirikursauer, a man who is his imprint on not
just Star Wars, but cinema cannot be understated, not only
the likes of George Lucas, but you know, inspired people
like Martin Scorsese, great cinema. It is a great filmmaker
in my opinion, in many people's opinion, but more of
(03:53):
a because this is my episode, in my opinion, the
greatest filmmaker, the greatest storyteller of all time. So had
to get into it. I'm going to start by telling
you a little bit about the man himself, a Curri
Curas hour man whose career spanned god about sixty sixty years.
(04:13):
I believe thirty films in sixty years. He was born
on March twenty third, nineteen ten, in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan.
His father came from a samurai lineage and his mother
from a merchant family. It's a very humble beginnings. He originally,
actually he wanted his early life. He wanted to be
a painter before he got into the world of cinema.
(04:34):
So artistry, creativity, that's always been in his soul. He
always he would practice the art of calligraphy and painting,
but he transitioned to filmmaking due to becoming what's the
right word, I'm looking forward kind of somewhat disillusioned with
the political messaging in art. He was very political with
(04:54):
Cura Curas Hour, so he it's actually quite I couldn't
imagine doing this. It would be like me deleting all
of my music. He burned all of his works, all
of his paintings, all of his art because he wanted
to start his life afresh. He wanted to get into
filmmaking and wanted to get into cinema, and this was
(05:16):
a lot because of a personal tragedy that happened in
his life. His older brother, who he really, really, really
respected and loved. His older brother, who was actually a
narrator in several silent films in Japan, took his own life.
So kur Kurri Kursar then he felt it was his
duty to carry on his brother's legacy, so he got
a job as an assistant director at PCL, which would
(05:39):
later to become to host studios. He found the job
the old fashion where you know LinkedIn didn't exist back
in the nineteen thirties, so he found it in the
newspaper ad and through his career we hear the likes
of Tom Cruise, who will study He studied every aspect
of filmmaking. Kurri Kursa was exactly the same. He learned
every aspect of filmmaking, not just directing, not just screenwriting,
(06:02):
but editing, lighting, setting up a set. He learned all
of it. His two main influences, notably are Shakespeare and
Marx societeology. During the nineteen thirties, Japan was going through
massive social and political change at the time, and we
would see this in the themes that he would cover,
(06:23):
you know, in his works, from class struggles and social inequalities,
which can most notably be seen in Seven Samurai with
the peasants versus the Samurai, and in High and Low
we have the working class versus the elites. It's you know,
it's a big part of his storytelling. And this is
what we see echoed down to the rebellion versus the empire,
(06:45):
the resistance versus the first Order. So when people say, oh,
Star Wars, sty Wars isn't political, Not only is Star
Wars political, but the films that influenced it are very political.
Are we going to hear? Another big theme that he
(07:05):
would kind of bring into his movies is this is
the idea of ethical dilemmas of the individual as opposed
to it the kind of collective personal narratives humanity over dogma.
The biggest of which for Star Wars fans is this
theme of personal redemption and individual moral code. You see
(07:28):
Han solo. He doesn't believe in the force, he doesn't
believe in the you know, the big energy field controlling
his destiny. But he knows what's right, he knows what's
wrong and right. Then you have films like Regrets for
Our Youth, which directly challenges authoritarian regimes, and it critiques
power structures and bureaucracy. So I'm telling you all this
(07:52):
and you're probably thinking, how the hell does this relate
to Star Wars. Well, if you go back to two
thousand and one, Georgia did an interview with the Criterion Collection,
and he once said, I decided that it would be
a nice way to tell the Star Wars story to
take the two lowest characters, as Kurus Starwar did, and
tell the story from their point of view. This is
(08:13):
direct parallel to the narrative structure that used in Hidden Fortress,
a film told from the perspective of the two bumbling fools,
these two idiots. This is mirrored in Star Wars or
a New Hope, how you want to call it, by
telling this story through the viewpoint of C three PO
(08:33):
and R two D two. Continuing on with Hidden Fortress,
it gets it often gets cited as the main inspiration
for Star Wars, but in fact, George has often said
in the past the Hidden Fortress isn't even in the
top of his list of Kurrosawer films. It was in
fact seven Samurai was the one that he favored, and
(08:57):
when we look at the themes that connect the two,
when we look at the themes that can next seven
Samurai with Star Wars, you have the assembling of a
ragtag group of heroes, the banding together to protect the
innocent villagers. This is a director Marge that we see
during the Mandalorian episode Sanctuary where denjar And trains a
group of helpless villagers to defend themselves against a group
(09:18):
of raiders. That is a direct or Marge to seven
Samurai itself. And not only that, but if you look
at the story of Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Clone Wars,
you have these groups that are banded together to combat oppression,
to band together and help each other, be it the
(09:38):
smaller collective or the bigger, greater good. Another theme that's
used is heroes that are flawed and have you know,
they are very flawed and conflicting. With the Samurai code
being the Samurakarta Bushido reflecting that of the Jedi code,
you have heroes such a Obi Wan Kenobi Qui, gon
(10:02):
Jin Ahsokatano. They very much reflect the character of Sanduro
from the movie Yo Jimbo, you know, the lone ronan
who's you know, they act outside of society and even
app sometimes disobey and go outside of their own order.
Han Solo again prime example of this. He's very cynical,
(10:23):
doesn't believe in the force. He has his own moral code.
He's the charismatic yet reluctant hero that has the least
amount of investment in the cause of the rebellion, least
invested in the struggles that other people are facing. You know,
he just wants to get by. He just needs to
(10:45):
get by on his own. He's very much when you
speak to some people about, you know, the events going
on in the world today, a lot of just average
Joe people will say, well, what can I do about it?
There's nothing I can do. I've got to provide for
my family. I've got to provide for myself. And that's
very much be the role that Hans Solo takes on.
(11:08):
And but when he does join the rebellion, he becomes
the biggest disruptor to it. That's why they have him
put in carbonine. Yeah, he's the one that comes in
at the end when it seems like all hope is
lost and he's the one that blows Darth Vader Anakin Skywalker,
the best pilot in the galaxy, blows him completely out
(11:30):
of the trench, sends him flying off this random, scruffy
looking nerve herder. Darth Vader's probably thinking what the hell
is this? And another cool little bit of trivia for you.
If we go to the movie Thrown of Blood, the
character of Sage Ventris was in fact named after the
character of Assage from Throwing of Blood. And when we
(11:53):
got onto Throwing of Blood, if we look at throgn
of Blood and Ran which I just checked, it does
celebrate it's for versually this month. Both of these films
explore the film of of legacy, redemption and a kind
of tragedy of destiny, like a tragic destiny. And you
(12:19):
look at the very concept of a lightsaber fight, right,
a lightsaber duel. It kind of spawns from Currosaur's sword fights,
representing the clashing of not only two different styles of character,
not just two opposing characters, but also two opposing philosophies,
the light side versts the dark, the Jedi versus the Sith,
(12:43):
the themes of you know, different ideologies clashing together almost
like a reflection of curs Hour's ideologies that he took,
that he believed in clashing against the imperial ideology that
he grew to hate so much. Another theme that is very,
(13:06):
very heavily worn on its sleeve. I guess that we
saw in The Acolyte heavily uses the themes of truth
is what is your truth? What is the truth? What
is your truth? You know, we live in a world where,
you know, there seems to be a divergence from the
truth to the point where there's multiple truths, different perspectives
(13:29):
of what truth is. And we see that again, we
see that heavily in The Acolyte that pulls directly from Rashamon,
a film that is the same story told from multiple
different and in fact conflicting viewpoints. But I mentioned before,
just briefly, throign of blood and rad taking on the
(13:56):
the themes of you know, a tragic destiny, a you know,
redem a final redemption, personal redemption of the characters. Sorry,
my moist green just went dark on me for a
second there with me. Okay, there we go, I think
(14:21):
I got it. Yeah, cool, Pod, don't edit that out.
So with this this theme of tragedy, tragic destiny very
directly relates to the story of Anakin, Skywalker and Darth Vader.
(14:42):
So we look to the character of Whathi'su from Chrisau's
Throne of Blood. Beyond the obvious inspiration from the Samurai
armor design, washis who begins. He starts off as this
beloved general who's known for his incredible prowess in battle,
(15:02):
who becomes seduced by these visions of power. You see
and where I'm going right, You see where this is
coming from. You know his he has these destinies. He
has these visions of power, and that his destiny leads
him to betray all that he loves and believes in.
It leads him to kill his or to kill his lord.
(15:24):
Man that he really loved and respected, leads it to
kill him. He's influenced by this forest spirit, which drives
him further into paranoia and ambition, much like Palpatine does
to Anakin. Anakin again, this beloved figure, this respected general,
love by everyone that comes into his life, gives that
(15:47):
up for a personal ambition, allows himself to become twisted.
But he's told of. We look at the idea of prophecy,
which Shizu is told of a prophecy that he will
rule the spiders, where Anakin is part of a prophecy
of being the chosen one. It is these destinies that
bind them to the choices that eventually lead to their downfalls,
(16:10):
and in the end both of them not just losing
what they love, but losing their sense of humanity, which
is reduced to this shell of himself to the point
where he's killed by his own troops. Anakin he becomes
a shell of a man, shell of himself, constantly tortured,
constantly in pain, ultimately leading to his death at the
(16:32):
hands of his own son. So combining these with combining
all these things with Kusaw's personal interpretations of power dynamics
between the oppressed and the oppressors, you know a big one.
If we're looking at more recent projects, you have Rogue
one and or this theme of sacrifice without wanting any glory.
(16:59):
Bet it be from Luther and Rail, you know, you know,
a sunrise that he knows that he'll never see. He'll
burn his life for a sunrise he'll never see. Cassie
and going to Scareff to get these death star plans,
knowing full well he's probably not going to come back alive.
You know, we've seen these in Rogue one and and or,
(17:23):
but this, all these themes are so curs Hour coded
his influences all over the DNA of Star Wars. So
this is just kind of a very surface level look
into the themes of how Kurasawa has influenced on Star Wars.
Maybe one day I'll do a deeper dive into the cinematic,
(17:48):
the more like cinematic and movie making side of things.
It's not really something that I'm you know, very clued
up on. I may need to bring in some bring
in a guest, bring and some friends of mine that
are more clued up on the subject. But you've only
got to look at them. Corosauer's use of wipes going
(18:10):
from scene to scene. You've only got to look at
that and see the filmmaker and his use of weather
to help set tension. You've only got to look at
that and see, Okay, that's where George got that from.
So and I guess I'll end on a funny little
(18:32):
bit of trivia for you guys, a little bit of connectivity.
I pod you will love this. George Lucas actually wanted
to cast to Sharra mffune, who is how can I
how can I? Who can I really compare him to you?
To Sharon mffune is the the Robert de Niro or
(18:53):
the Leonardo DiCaprio to Martin Scorsese. Again, you look at
that having the director and actor combo that you're like, Okay,
those two go together so perfectly. A Curri curs Hour
and to share ane worthy original of that, you know,
Mafurne appeared in countless curros Hour films. George originally wanted
(19:18):
him to play Sara ale Guinness's character of One Kenobi,
but to show him turned it down because he said
it would look to h low budget looking, which is
hilarious looking back at it now because Star Wars essentially
(19:39):
changed how filmmaking was made as much as as much
as Kira curs Hour did. So I think it would.
I think it would have been really cool. Do you
have had him as over one Kenobi? I would love
to go back and think, you know, how, how would
(20:00):
the character have been different? Would he have been a
bit more, you know, a bit more wacky, bit more crazy,
a little bit more he's seen some ship. But then
we also wouldn't have got Ewan McGregor playing Obi Wan Kenobi,
So it would have been vastly different. Yeah, that's kind
(20:21):
of all I've I've got, really, I just wanted to
jump on and do this this quick, I guess, connection
between a filmmaker who I really really love again, who
I believe to be the greatest filmmaker and the greatest
storyteller of all time as much as I love Hideo
(20:41):
Consuma to me, krosauers the Goat, George Lucas heavily heavily
inspired by him. So yeah, maybe maybe one day I'll
go a lot deeper into some character history, how the
more of the filmmaking side of things. But I figured
it a good way to celebrate Ran turning forty would
(21:05):
be to celebrate the connectivity between Kurasaur and Samurai movies
and the and you know it's effect on Star Wars
and it's effect on movie making. So I hope you
guys enjoy it. Please like this video. If you want
to see more of this, let us know, let us
know what you think. Have you seen any a cure
(21:25):
cur of style movies? What are your favorites? Hopefully this
will kind of inspire you to go back and watch
those movies if you haven't. My personal recommendation to start
with would be seven Samurai. That's the one that I
think if anyone is journeying into watching a curacur of
style movies for the first time, start with seven Samurai.
(21:46):
In my opinion, it's his absolute masterpiece. It's very long,
but I promise you it is. It's over three hours long,
but I promise you it is well worth sitting through.
So yeah, please like this video. Let me know, because
I'm going to be kind of the program director of these,
(22:07):
you know, more themed episodes. If you want us to
bring on a guest, let us know. Who, let us
know if there's any other filmmaker that you want me
or Pod or me and Pod to kind of do
more of a deep dive into And who knows, we've
got the Michael Clayton retrospective coming up. Maybe we could
(22:29):
rewatch seven Samurai and do a one to one comparison.
Who knows. Yeah, let us know. Let us know what
you want to see from these episodes that are more
theme based. They're going to be, you know, every couple
of weeks, so I'm probably gonna run short of ideas
at some point. So any contribution that you guys have,
(22:52):
please let us know. Yeah, like subscribe, subscribe to us
on YouTube on the YouTube channel here. Sorry, I'm not
very it's usually Pod that does his part, so I
having an overly without him doing this is it's pretty
near to me. So yeah, I like subscribe all that stuff.
Join us over on Patreon at patreon dot com slash
Pod Projects. We've got a great crew over there. You have.
(23:14):
We have a little Facebook chat going on that gets
pretty lively in debate right now. Check out other shows
on the channel, Class Action two mediocre middle aged dudes
on film. I believe the new title is called You've
Got V where Pod with the Pod and Lego go
(23:36):
through the film the V franchise. You have class class Action.
I think I've already met it, but with me myself, Pod,
Richard Eric Jarvi. Just yesterday we did the Mission Impossible
Battle Royale. It would have been Monday by the time
you're seeing this. Go back and check that out. And
then you have the sister channel, Pod Projects Crown Jewels,
(23:59):
where Pod goes through the entire back catalog of Queen
front to back. I have no idea where he's on
at the moment. Hopefully, hopefully he'll get to headlong at
some point because one of my favorite Queen songs. And yeah,
thank you, thank you very much for watching. I appreciate
you guys taking the time, and I'll see you in
(24:19):
I'll see you in a couple of weeks for the
Michael Clayton retrospective.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
May the Force be with you always.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
H
A PLD project presents Holy Snookes, the Star Wars Podcast
featuring p L D and Maddy Gun. May the Force
(00:21):
be with you.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Always, Welcome everybody to a new episode of Holy Snow,
(00:44):
what are you doing here?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
It's my channel?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Come on, but that is my episode. It is your episode.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
But I could stop and make an appearance and say,
hi are the folks and my name is on the
ten and expect to see me.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Don't they? I guess, all right, say your piece.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I want to say that I am look forward to
watching this because you're right, I'm not gonna be on
this episode because its quite frankly, if I was gonna
be on this episode, I would have to sit down
and do a very long rewatch of all stuff that
it would make a better sense. I love I love
what you're covering today. I love those films. I just
haven't watched them all in the off time. I didn't
have enough time in between to do a deep dive,
which I would prefer to have done if I was
gonna make any sense in my conversation. So, Mattie, I'm
(01:26):
gonna leave this one to you, and I can't wait
to see what you do with it. Because obviously this
is a very big, very big connectivity here with.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Star Wars and the main man, Kurisawa. So you was proud.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I hope you guys love the show, and maybe you
love the show even without me, maybe you love it
even more without me the other comments and let me know.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Maybe I'll just stay off the show from now on.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
The views are gonna skyrocket skyrocket.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's right. I will see you next time and always
snows when I do the news episode. So Maddie had
a great show. Floor is yours my front?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Okay, I'll see next week. Okay, right now that he's gone, God,
I had enough of him yesterday when we were doing
a class action for an hour and a half. Jeez. Right, So,
as I said, welcome to a new episode of Hoe Snokes,
a Star Wars podcast, I am your host for the week,
(02:20):
Maddie Gunner PLD as I said, he will be back
next week for the news episode. For those of you
who may don't know Ho Snokes, we are a Star
Wars podcast. A lot of the time we do your
general after show discussing the episodes of the week the
themes around them, and we kind of were running a
(02:41):
bit thin on what we could discuss, and we did
a bit of a reshuffle, a little bit of a reformat.
I am a lot better at talking about the connectivity,
the themes, the more artistry side of Star Wars and
just movies in general. And Pod is very much like
(03:05):
he loves to talk about the news and the business
side of things, which is, you know, it's not my
strong suit. So we figured we're going to give this
a try for a few weeks and you know, see
how we like it. And I figured with the fortieth
anniversary of you know, Curisara's film Ran coming up this month, actually,
I believe what better to talk about than the man himself,
(03:29):
a Kirikursauer, a man who is his imprint on not
just Star Wars, but cinema cannot be understated, not only
the likes of George Lucas, but you know, inspired people
like Martin Scorsese, great cinema. It is a great filmmaker
in my opinion, in many people's opinion, but more of
(03:53):
a because this is my episode, in my opinion, the
greatest filmmaker, the greatest storyteller of all time. So had
to get into it. I'm going to start by telling
you a little bit about the man himself, a Curri
Curas hour man whose career spanned god about sixty sixty years.
(04:13):
I believe thirty films in sixty years. He was born
on March twenty third, nineteen ten, in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan.
His father came from a samurai lineage and his mother
from a merchant family. It's a very humble beginnings. He originally,
actually he wanted his early life. He wanted to be
a painter before he got into the world of cinema.
(04:34):
So artistry, creativity, that's always been in his soul. He
always he would practice the art of calligraphy and painting,
but he transitioned to filmmaking due to becoming what's the
right word, I'm looking forward kind of somewhat disillusioned with
the political messaging in art. He was very political with
(04:54):
Cura Curas Hour, so he it's actually quite I couldn't
imagine doing this. It would be like me deleting all
of my music. He burned all of his works, all
of his paintings, all of his art because he wanted
to start his life afresh. He wanted to get into
filmmaking and wanted to get into cinema, and this was
(05:16):
a lot because of a personal tragedy that happened in
his life. His older brother, who he really, really, really
respected and loved. His older brother, who was actually a
narrator in several silent films in Japan, took his own life.
So kur Kurri Kursar then he felt it was his
duty to carry on his brother's legacy, so he got
a job as an assistant director at PCL, which would
(05:39):
later to become to host studios. He found the job
the old fashion where you know LinkedIn didn't exist back
in the nineteen thirties, so he found it in the
newspaper ad and through his career we hear the likes
of Tom Cruise, who will study He studied every aspect
of filmmaking. Kurri Kursa was exactly the same. He learned
every aspect of filmmaking, not just directing, not just screenwriting,
(06:02):
but editing, lighting, setting up a set. He learned all
of it. His two main influences, notably are Shakespeare and
Marx societeology. During the nineteen thirties, Japan was going through
massive social and political change at the time, and we
would see this in the themes that he would cover,
(06:23):
you know, in his works, from class struggles and social inequalities,
which can most notably be seen in Seven Samurai with
the peasants versus the Samurai, and in High and Low
we have the working class versus the elites. It's you know,
it's a big part of his storytelling. And this is
what we see echoed down to the rebellion versus the empire,
(06:45):
the resistance versus the first Order. So when people say, oh,
Star Wars, sty Wars isn't political, Not only is Star
Wars political, but the films that influenced it are very political.
Are we going to hear? Another big theme that he
(07:05):
would kind of bring into his movies is this is
the idea of ethical dilemmas of the individual as opposed
to it the kind of collective personal narratives humanity over dogma.
The biggest of which for Star Wars fans is this
theme of personal redemption and individual moral code. You see
(07:28):
Han solo. He doesn't believe in the force, he doesn't
believe in the you know, the big energy field controlling
his destiny. But he knows what's right, he knows what's
wrong and right. Then you have films like Regrets for
Our Youth, which directly challenges authoritarian regimes, and it critiques
power structures and bureaucracy. So I'm telling you all this
(07:52):
and you're probably thinking, how the hell does this relate
to Star Wars. Well, if you go back to two
thousand and one, Georgia did an interview with the Criterion Collection,
and he once said, I decided that it would be
a nice way to tell the Star Wars story to
take the two lowest characters, as Kurus Starwar did, and
tell the story from their point of view. This is
(08:13):
direct parallel to the narrative structure that used in Hidden Fortress,
a film told from the perspective of the two bumbling fools,
these two idiots. This is mirrored in Star Wars or
a New Hope, how you want to call it, by
telling this story through the viewpoint of C three PO
(08:33):
and R two D two. Continuing on with Hidden Fortress,
it gets it often gets cited as the main inspiration
for Star Wars, but in fact, George has often said
in the past the Hidden Fortress isn't even in the
top of his list of Kurrosawer films. It was in
fact seven Samurai was the one that he favored, and
(08:57):
when we look at the themes that connect the two,
when we look at the themes that can next seven
Samurai with Star Wars, you have the assembling of a
ragtag group of heroes, the banding together to protect the
innocent villagers. This is a director Marge that we see
during the Mandalorian episode Sanctuary where denjar And trains a
group of helpless villagers to defend themselves against a group
(09:18):
of raiders. That is a direct or Marge to seven
Samurai itself. And not only that, but if you look
at the story of Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Clone Wars,
you have these groups that are banded together to combat oppression,
to band together and help each other, be it the
(09:38):
smaller collective or the bigger, greater good. Another theme that's
used is heroes that are flawed and have you know,
they are very flawed and conflicting. With the Samurai code
being the Samurakarta Bushido reflecting that of the Jedi code,
you have heroes such a Obi Wan Kenobi Qui, gon
(10:02):
Jin Ahsokatano. They very much reflect the character of Sanduro
from the movie Yo Jimbo, you know, the lone ronan
who's you know, they act outside of society and even
app sometimes disobey and go outside of their own order.
Han Solo again prime example of this. He's very cynical,
(10:23):
doesn't believe in the force. He has his own moral code.
He's the charismatic yet reluctant hero that has the least
amount of investment in the cause of the rebellion, least
invested in the struggles that other people are facing. You know,
he just wants to get by. He just needs to
(10:45):
get by on his own. He's very much when you
speak to some people about, you know, the events going
on in the world today, a lot of just average
Joe people will say, well, what can I do about it?
There's nothing I can do. I've got to provide for
my family. I've got to provide for myself. And that's
very much be the role that Hans Solo takes on.
(11:08):
And but when he does join the rebellion, he becomes
the biggest disruptor to it. That's why they have him
put in carbonine. Yeah, he's the one that comes in
at the end when it seems like all hope is
lost and he's the one that blows Darth Vader Anakin Skywalker,
the best pilot in the galaxy, blows him completely out
(11:30):
of the trench, sends him flying off this random, scruffy
looking nerve herder. Darth Vader's probably thinking what the hell
is this? And another cool little bit of trivia for you.
If we go to the movie Thrown of Blood, the
character of Sage Ventris was in fact named after the
character of Assage from Throwing of Blood. And when we
(11:53):
got onto Throwing of Blood, if we look at throgn
of Blood and Ran which I just checked, it does
celebrate it's for versually this month. Both of these films
explore the film of of legacy, redemption and a kind
of tragedy of destiny, like a tragic destiny. And you
(12:19):
look at the very concept of a lightsaber fight, right,
a lightsaber duel. It kind of spawns from Currosaur's sword fights,
representing the clashing of not only two different styles of character,
not just two opposing characters, but also two opposing philosophies,
the light side versts the dark, the Jedi versus the Sith,
(12:43):
the themes of you know, different ideologies clashing together almost
like a reflection of curs Hour's ideologies that he took,
that he believed in clashing against the imperial ideology that
he grew to hate so much. Another theme that is very,
(13:06):
very heavily worn on its sleeve. I guess that we
saw in The Acolyte heavily uses the themes of truth
is what is your truth? What is the truth? What
is your truth? You know, we live in a world where,
you know, there seems to be a divergence from the
truth to the point where there's multiple truths, different perspectives
(13:29):
of what truth is. And we see that again, we
see that heavily in The Acolyte that pulls directly from Rashamon,
a film that is the same story told from multiple
different and in fact conflicting viewpoints. But I mentioned before,
just briefly, throign of blood and rad taking on the
(13:56):
the themes of you know, a tragic destiny, a you know,
redem a final redemption, personal redemption of the characters. Sorry,
my moist green just went dark on me for a
second there with me. Okay, there we go, I think
(14:21):
I got it. Yeah, cool, Pod, don't edit that out.
So with this this theme of tragedy, tragic destiny very
directly relates to the story of Anakin, Skywalker and Darth Vader.
(14:42):
So we look to the character of Whathi'su from Chrisau's
Throne of Blood. Beyond the obvious inspiration from the Samurai
armor design, washis who begins. He starts off as this
beloved general who's known for his incredible prowess in battle,
(15:02):
who becomes seduced by these visions of power. You see
and where I'm going right, You see where this is
coming from. You know his he has these destinies. He
has these visions of power, and that his destiny leads
him to betray all that he loves and believes in.
It leads him to kill his or to kill his lord.
(15:24):
Man that he really loved and respected, leads it to
kill him. He's influenced by this forest spirit, which drives
him further into paranoia and ambition, much like Palpatine does
to Anakin. Anakin again, this beloved figure, this respected general,
love by everyone that comes into his life, gives that
(15:47):
up for a personal ambition, allows himself to become twisted.
But he's told of. We look at the idea of prophecy,
which Shizu is told of a prophecy that he will
rule the spiders, where Anakin is part of a prophecy
of being the chosen one. It is these destinies that
bind them to the choices that eventually lead to their downfalls,
(16:10):
and in the end both of them not just losing
what they love, but losing their sense of humanity, which
is reduced to this shell of himself to the point
where he's killed by his own troops. Anakin he becomes
a shell of a man, shell of himself, constantly tortured,
constantly in pain, ultimately leading to his death at the
(16:32):
hands of his own son. So combining these with combining
all these things with Kusaw's personal interpretations of power dynamics
between the oppressed and the oppressors, you know a big one.
If we're looking at more recent projects, you have Rogue
one and or this theme of sacrifice without wanting any glory.
(16:59):
Bet it be from Luther and Rail, you know, you know,
a sunrise that he knows that he'll never see. He'll
burn his life for a sunrise he'll never see. Cassie
and going to Scareff to get these death star plans,
knowing full well he's probably not going to come back alive.
You know, we've seen these in Rogue one and and or,
(17:23):
but this, all these themes are so curs Hour coded
his influences all over the DNA of Star Wars. So
this is just kind of a very surface level look
into the themes of how Kurasawa has influenced on Star Wars.
Maybe one day I'll do a deeper dive into the cinematic,
(17:48):
the more like cinematic and movie making side of things.
It's not really something that I'm you know, very clued
up on. I may need to bring in some bring
in a guest, bring and some friends of mine that
are more clued up on the subject. But you've only
got to look at them. Corosauer's use of wipes going
(18:10):
from scene to scene. You've only got to look at
that and see the filmmaker and his use of weather
to help set tension. You've only got to look at
that and see, Okay, that's where George got that from.
So and I guess I'll end on a funny little
(18:32):
bit of trivia for you guys, a little bit of connectivity.
I pod you will love this. George Lucas actually wanted
to cast to Sharra mffune, who is how can I
how can I? Who can I really compare him to you?
To Sharon mffune is the the Robert de Niro or
(18:53):
the Leonardo DiCaprio to Martin Scorsese. Again, you look at
that having the director and actor combo that you're like, Okay,
those two go together so perfectly. A Curri curs Hour
and to share ane worthy original of that, you know,
Mafurne appeared in countless curros Hour films. George originally wanted
(19:18):
him to play Sara ale Guinness's character of One Kenobi,
but to show him turned it down because he said
it would look to h low budget looking, which is
hilarious looking back at it now because Star Wars essentially
(19:39):
changed how filmmaking was made as much as as much
as Kira curs Hour did. So I think it would.
I think it would have been really cool. Do you
have had him as over one Kenobi? I would love
to go back and think, you know, how, how would
(20:00):
the character have been different? Would he have been a
bit more, you know, a bit more wacky, bit more crazy,
a little bit more he's seen some ship. But then
we also wouldn't have got Ewan McGregor playing Obi Wan Kenobi,
So it would have been vastly different. Yeah, that's kind
(20:21):
of all I've I've got, really, I just wanted to
jump on and do this this quick, I guess, connection
between a filmmaker who I really really love again, who
I believe to be the greatest filmmaker and the greatest
storyteller of all time as much as I love Hideo
(20:41):
Consuma to me, krosauers the Goat, George Lucas heavily heavily
inspired by him. So yeah, maybe maybe one day I'll
go a lot deeper into some character history, how the
more of the filmmaking side of things. But I figured
it a good way to celebrate Ran turning forty would
(21:05):
be to celebrate the connectivity between Kurasaur and Samurai movies
and the and you know it's effect on Star Wars
and it's effect on movie making. So I hope you
guys enjoy it. Please like this video. If you want
to see more of this, let us know, let us
know what you think. Have you seen any a cure
(21:25):
cur of style movies? What are your favorites? Hopefully this
will kind of inspire you to go back and watch
those movies if you haven't. My personal recommendation to start
with would be seven Samurai. That's the one that I
think if anyone is journeying into watching a curacur of
style movies for the first time, start with seven Samurai.
(21:46):
In my opinion, it's his absolute masterpiece. It's very long,
but I promise you it is. It's over three hours long,
but I promise you it is well worth sitting through.
So yeah, please like this video. Let me know, because
I'm going to be kind of the program director of these,
(22:07):
you know, more themed episodes. If you want us to
bring on a guest, let us know. Who, let us
know if there's any other filmmaker that you want me
or Pod or me and Pod to kind of do
more of a deep dive into And who knows, we've
got the Michael Clayton retrospective coming up. Maybe we could
(22:29):
rewatch seven Samurai and do a one to one comparison.
Who knows. Yeah, let us know. Let us know what
you want to see from these episodes that are more
theme based. They're going to be, you know, every couple
of weeks, so I'm probably gonna run short of ideas
at some point. So any contribution that you guys have,
(22:52):
please let us know. Yeah, like subscribe, subscribe to us
on YouTube on the YouTube channel here. Sorry, I'm not
very it's usually Pod that does his part, so I
having an overly without him doing this is it's pretty
near to me. So yeah, I like subscribe all that stuff.
Join us over on Patreon at patreon dot com slash
Pod Projects. We've got a great crew over there. You have.
(23:14):
We have a little Facebook chat going on that gets
pretty lively in debate right now. Check out other shows
on the channel, Class Action two mediocre middle aged dudes
on film. I believe the new title is called You've
Got V where Pod with the Pod and Lego go
(23:36):
through the film the V franchise. You have class class Action.
I think I've already met it, but with me myself, Pod,
Richard Eric Jarvi. Just yesterday we did the Mission Impossible
Battle Royale. It would have been Monday by the time
you're seeing this. Go back and check that out. And
then you have the sister channel, Pod Projects Crown Jewels,
(23:59):
where Pod goes through the entire back catalog of Queen
front to back. I have no idea where he's on
at the moment. Hopefully, hopefully he'll get to headlong at
some point because one of my favorite Queen songs. And yeah,
thank you, thank you very much for watching. I appreciate
you guys taking the time, and I'll see you in
(24:19):
I'll see you in a couple of weeks for the
Michael Clayton retrospective.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
May the Force be with you always.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
H
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