Monday, February 11, 2008
Gandalf with a Lightsaber
A while back, we talked about the similarities between LOTR and Star Wars. It's obvious that George Lucas was a fan and was inspired by LOTR. One noticable similarity is the chacters of Gandalf and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Both are the wise old men of their groups. And both are martyrs to save their friends. Also the scene in the Prancing Pony where the Hobbits meet Strider is a lot like the scene where Luke and Obi-Wan hire Han Solo. Any more similarities you can find.
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5 comments:
I see the connection between the two. I think the power of the ring and the force are kind of similar. Fordo and the others conncected to the ring like golum and gandolf can "feel" the ring and much like the case of darth vader can be seduced by the power of the force and use it for evil. Like the ring can easily turn it's own into an evil person
darth vader is probably saruman who was once good and then became corrupt with the power of the force. Its kind of interesting since i never really made a correlation between the two up until i took this class, but i can definitely see the parallels between the two stories.
I liked what we talked in class today about how Gandalf was like Obi-Wan Kenobi. How in Lord of the Rings, Gandalf protected the fellowship from the balrog and dies so they can escape, and in Star Wars, Obi-Wan dies to Vader so that Luke and them can escape. I would have never compared the two before this class.
i think another simularity is the concept of unconditional loyalty. Even in the faces of danger everyone is willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, for the preservation of a way of life. the fellowship is loyal to frodo and frodo to the ring and its destruction. i know this is an obvious comparison but something we as americans cant really grasp since we've never had a monarchy or lived in a hierarchical society.
One question to consider here concerns the nature of the connection between Star Wars and LotR:
1) Do Star Wars and LotR share similarities because LotR antedates Star Wars and Lucas incorporated themes from the trilogy in his movie?
or
2) Do the themes and motifs shared by the two works exist because these are elements of (for lack of a better term) "good story telling"?
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