membadis.membadis: Due Credits

While listening to C2C, I looked up some other information. This is how it is for me. As the Booseman said so long ago, when you learn one thing, it leads to learning about something else, and that to another. And it just goes on and on. I can't help myself. I just want to know. I want to know the origins of things. I want to know the history. I want to know about the things that I don't know about. So when that journalist on Charlie Rose mentioned the term "Rust Belt," I wanted to know what he was talking about.

When C2C had a guest that talked about the science of Star Wars, I wanted to revisit what I had come across a while back: That a lot of what's in Star Wars isn't original. The host and the guest were giving too much credit to Lucas. He did a great job making that first movie, even the second. It was downhill after the third. The recent ones are like underwear: unmentionable. He did a great job putting together all these disparate influences, but he did not come up with these ideas.

I remembered something about The Lensmen, and a science-fiction writer named Smith. I looked it up and found him easily. E.E. "Doc" Smith.

Edward Elmer Smith

That earlier time I came upon him there were many examples given of elements taken from his stories that were straight rip-offs (as that person put it) by Lucas in his Star Wars movies. If the examples are true, then it's obvious there was serious creative borrowing or theft depending on how you want to look at it.

I know for sure there was much taken from Kurosawa. So that leads me to believe he took also from Doc Smith. I am no fan of Smith. I hear that his work is very sexist and racist. (I confirmed this in part when I read the first chapter of this book "The Skylark of Space." He writes of the chemist's "dusky assistant." I have nothing against the words. I kind of like the adjective 'dusky.' It is the fact that this is all that is used to describe the assistant. That, and that he calls his boss "Doctah." The ole, make all the non-westerners foreign.

Truth is, foreign is a relative term. To the Japanese.... To the Koreans, the Chinese, the Brazilians, the Peruvians, the French, the German, and even the Canadians, Americans are foreigners. That's another subject I could go on and on about. But, no, I'm on fan of this author, and I'm a big fan of the first Star Wars and most of the sequel, but I do believe in giving credit where it is due. And this guy seems to deserve much when looking at the creativity in Star Wars. And on C2C they made not even a mention of him. I feel they were riding on the popularity of Lucas. They didn't wanted to kill the energy of the show by talking about some unknown guy from the early part of the last century.

I was very amused to read that EE Smith is credited for being the father of the "space opera." This is the exact term Lucas used to describe Star Wars. He said that it isn't a science-fiction movie, but a space opera. Actually, the space opera is a genre of science-fiction, so his movie is both. I think he was shooting some propaganda to give the movie some false clout.

More proof of who came first is someone's matter-of-fact comment that science-fiction writers are fifty years ahead of science-fiction filmmakers. That's pretty easy to see just considering Asimov and Clarke. During this string where searching for one bit of info lead to another, I found out that the three giants of science-ficiton are considered to be Asimov, Clarke, and a guy named Robert Heinlein.

Heinlein was friends with EE Smith as well as Asimov. When I looked at some titles of Heinlein, I noticed one in particular. It was a book that was given to me that I read a several years back: A Stranger In A Strange Land. I didn't love it, but it was engaging enough for me to want to finish reading it. The thing I remember most was this made up term, 'grok.' I thought it was corny sounding, but found it interesting that a new word was coined in a work of fiction. I later found out that it is well-known in some circles. It was used in Star Trek, if I remember what I read correctly. I've come across a few people who used it while speaking. They took pride in knowing it when others in the group weren't familiar with the word. I knew it, but I would never use it. Like I said: Too corny sounding.

So that's the guy who wrote that book. It was a surprise to make that discovery. And he was buddies with Doc Smith, father of the space opera.

On C2C, they kept hyping in wonder at how Lucas came up with these things. Well, here's just some info on what's out there. It's hard to believe that Noory isn't aware of this. He brags on the show how the audience is a well-informed bunch and they provide a wealth of information that fills in the gaps for the hosts and the guests. More surprising is that the guest for this show, a scientist who wrote a book called the Science of Star Wars made no mention of the many influences Lucas took from. They made it seem like Lucas must be communicating with aliens or time-travelers from the future to come up with this stuff out of thin air. I like the uniqueness of this show, but that's nonsense. It treats the audience like they're wide-eyed gullible little kids.

Here's a page that's cleverly titled "Star Wars Crib Notes" that gives a quick list of "uncanny resemblances" to diverse influences. Some of them are undeniable.

This article compares Star Wars a little too much with Lord of the Rings, but it makes some very good points. It ends by saying:

This is not to criticise Lucas. Star Wars is one of the finest motion pictures ever made. But it was brilliant precisely because it was utterly unoriginal.

I agree. The universal elements applied to the movie is what made it appealing to say many. It also applied influences from many sources from around the world so that it had familiar elements to many more people. If there is genius in this, that is where it lies.

There are some good comments made at the bottom. One in particular (though rushed and scattered) made some strong statements:

What you say is true, but consider the darker side.

These are the tales of the education of kings — the superior man — which we'd all love to be.

The arthurian sagas, pose two questions. "How can you lead free men without enslaving them?" and "What limits are there to power, if any?"

Answers are round table and chivalry — neither of which would be given time of day in a fascist hierarchal society such as is the norm in most human "civilizations".

Nobility has a premise that only nobles carry weapons, which creates inequality and negates nobility. Peasants must be kept ignorant lest they discover they are ruled by men no better then themselves.

It is a given that those who desire and often attain power most are those whom deserve it least.

Such tales are needed because power may at first be an aphrodisiac, but evidence from inherited monarchies is that it also castrates (e.g. — the fisher king, the grail king).

Here's another article that gives good commentary on the universal elements in Star Wars. It goes beyond calling Lucas a rip-off artist. I have to agree. He did do a good job in blending all these elements into a single story. Just don't call him a genius creator of fantasy worlds or say that he had the vision to see what the future was going to be like. That credit goes to the science-fiction writers.

It was Robert Heinlein who wrote in a science-fiction novella about a "remote manipulator." The creator of it was a character named Waldo who was such a weakling that he couldn't lift his own head up. He compensated by making a mechanical device that was many times a human's strength all by moving his hand and fingers. In the story this "remote manipulator" came to known as a waldo. When they were invented in reality, these devices also came to be known as Waldoes.