Dear Bleech,

Cross posted to alt.fan.starwars and rec.arts.starwars.collecting Apologies if this is taken as inappropriate or a 'stupid newbie' question.

Get this in email from a cousin.

'Marc seems to think that you have the book from which 'Star Wars' was adapted. The one before Lucas got control. If you have one by the original author or the set that does not mention Lucas, it is worth $200,000 to $250,000. Good luck

No. Lucas was the originator of the story, although he did source everything from Tolkien to Edgar Rice Burroughs to Flash Gordon in search of ideas when he could not get the rights to Flash Gordon itself.

Arse! Read 'Skywalking'. He may have *recently* cited Tolkien as a source of inspiration but originally (and he has claimed for decades that the story was *entirely* written before ANH was released!) he did no such thing. He has specified 3 books which he used: one was a book on samurai, another was a book on fairytales and the 3rd was something else I can't recall but wasn't anything of Tolkien's or Burroughs'.

I can tell you where THAT story comes from : Lucas' ass. I wonder if it was crowded in there with all the midichlorians.

Ahem.

Got it right here ... in fact, I was in the right chapter this morning, although I was looking for something else.

A souvenir booklet which was available in 1977 has a blurb in the back about the development of Star Wars, and 'John Carter on Mars' (Burroughs) is cited as an inspiration. That information can only have come from George. In any case, when I referred to Tolkien (amongst 'everything from ... blah blah blah' I was not thinking of specifics but of fantasy elements and themes. George's storytelling has been influenced by more things than even he can recall, I suspect, and he has a habit of revising his testimony from time to time.

I know surprisingly little about this, but there's no way that major elements of Star Wars *didn't* come from Jack Kirby's comics (visually, at least.) Vader *is* Dr. Doom.

For someone who condemned another for using the word 'cool,' you're mighty quick to call someone an ass. And regardless of what Lucas said, Tolkien may have been an influence. Despite what many say, Tolkien has influenced EVERY fantasy story in some form or another written in the past 50 years.

:>> Have you ever heard of anyone writing a SW book or story that Lucas bought? :> :>No. Lucas was the originator of the story, although he did source :>everything from Tolkien to Edgar Rice Burroughs to Flash Gordon in :>search of ideas when he could not get the rights to Flash Gordon itself.

: Yeah. It's not so much Lucas taking the series from a book somewhere : so much as ripping o^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H being influenced by about a : thousand other sources.

Back in the early 70's Jack Kirby did a series of extraordinary comics for DC called the 'Fourth World' trilogy, which featured an conflict between an evil dark lord (named Darkseid) and a young superhero who was his son (but didn't know it because in his youth he'd been sent away to be raised on a 'good' planet). The son

That's unlikely, at least according to McQuarrie, who designed Darth Vader. The original concept offered to McQuarrie by Lucas was that Vader would wear a black veil, and look sort of like a samurai. McQuarrie thought he ought to have a protective sealed face mask as well, since he's seen coming through an airlock from space in the first five minutes of the first film. So is born the Vader helmet (semi-samurai shaped) and mask.