Essay Sample: History of Star Wars

The history of Star Wars is often more interesting than we think. Star Wars was influenced by real world events in history. It was thought to be a bust with its low budget, and George Lucas's strive for Star Wars to inspire every family. Star Wars, because of its low budget and angle towards families, was meant to be an unsuccessful film, but many viewers fell in love with the film, which got its origins from real life wars.

First, Star Wars was based on historical war events and people. The German army from WW2 was a huge influence for the Empire in the Star Wars movies. Author Christopher Klien says, “After all the elite assault forces fanatically devoted to the Galactic Empire share a common name with the paramilitary fighter who defended the Nazi Party- Stormtroopers… Imperial officers’ uniforms and even Darth Vader's helmet resemble those worn by German Army members… And the Gradual rise of Palpatine from chancellor to emperor mirrored Adolf Hitler” (Klien). You can notice here with the German army there are tons of similarities. The army is almost identical in the names and the officers' uniforms. Also, both rulers had similar rises from being chancellor to dictator, democracy to dictatorship. Next another influence for Star Wars Lucas used was Ancient Rome. As Klien states in Star Wars history “The architecture of Naboo Resembles that of imperial Rome, and the Pod Racing in The Phantom Menace rivals that of Roman Chariot Race seen on screen in Ben-Hur (Klien). Lucas went as far with Ancient Rome's architectural design in the planet Naboo in the first movie. Also inspired in the fist movie from Rome was Pod Racing, where a series of vehicles line up to race on a massive track for gamblers. It is very similar to Chariot racing. Star Wars has gotten a lot of influence from a lot of historical War events and previous Empires, this shows Lucas trying to make his movie as historically correct as possible

.Next, Lucas’s venture into Star Wars wasn't as easy as people think. He had a small budget but was set to make the movie the best he could. B. Myint states in “Although the final budget was $11 million, the film grossed more than $513 million worldwide during this original release” (Myint). Lucas had a small budget considering movie budgets today are around $100 million dollars. Lucas also did this before and turned a low budget film into a boom. One piece about Star Wars history is that if George Lucas is directing it no matter the budget or resources it will be a hit. Secondly Lucas went through a lot of drafts before hitting the record button. Myint states “But with each draft the story improved… On January 1,1976, he finished the fourth draft of the script, the one eventually used when production began in Tunisia'' (Myint). Lucas wanted to make the film the best he could. Lucas was set on that even if it meant it would take him two years to do. He went through each round and improved from the first draft to the second draft. Ultimately if you look at the first draft today and watch the movie the draft is almost unrecognizable to the movie. Lucas may have had a small budget, but he took his time writing the drafts and it turned out to be well worth it.

Thirdly, Lucas wanted to make Star Wars available for families to watch and children to be inspired. Emma Mason states in History Extra about Lucas, “Its creator, George Lucas, demonstrated that films could be made for families; that spectacular effect could help film crawl back some territory from the small screen entertainment; and profits could be swollen to astonishing proportions though tie-in merchandise” (Mason). Lucas was determined to show that films could be made and enjoyed by families. No other film had been able to do so around Lucas's time, so Star Wars was the first to do it right. In doing so he could sell merchandise for people to wear to make some profits. Lucas also wanted to inspire kids in the Star Wars universe. Lucas states from an interview “The reason I'm making Star Wars is that I want to give young people some sort of faraway exotic environment for their imaginations to run around in”(Myint). He wanted to inspire young kids to be creative. Also, to have their minds always wandering about ideas. Lucas also states in the article that he wants to inspire kids to be able to colonise Venus and Mars. The only way that would happen is if kids fantasise about it and be creative. Lucas was set to reach households and inspire families and young people to achieve many things.

To conclude, A low budget did not stop George Lucas from reaching his film to families. He took his time writing the drafts and was set on making a hit. If you look back today, the first drafts for Star Wars look unrecognisable today. With the extremely low budget Lucas had but the heart he wanted to inspire families and children to be creative, he truly made Star Wars great. If you want to do something no matter the restrictions and you want to inspire people, do it. Since Lucas did it, and he has now inspired millions of people.