"Steal"?

In that light, everything in history has been stolen.

Actually, the new "Death Race" movie blatantly ripped off Death Race 2000, the Running Man, and some say the video game Twisted Metal and the B movie the Condemned.

takeshi kovacs?  what is he, half japanese, half hungarian?

...Hey, how come nobody's mentioned Fallout yet?

Fallout 3's coming pretty soon, and #1 & #2 were among the best PC RPG titles to date. If you're into games at all, find those bad boys and get wandering the wasteland.

Yep.

Well, there's the big evil Space Empire, the desert planet (Empire's the only movie that doesn't have a scene on Tatooine), the esoteric order of mystics that prepare for the arrival of a single, world-changing figure (okay, pretty much every story's got that), the gigantic worm/slug with a humanoid face (two eyes, nostrils and a mouth in the human arrangement, that is to say) and hands, and if that ain't enough, let's remember that Han Solo got on Jabba's shit list in the first place because he dumped his cargo of illicit spice when a few Imperial cruisers showed up.

Dune was one of the definitive sci-fi novels of its time and Lucas would have been the exact right age to be influenced by it.  For that matter, Richard Dreyfuss's character in American Graffitti is described by several other characters as a Tleilaxu Face Dancer.

Do we have to prove that Lucas said to himself, "Self, today, I think I will steal concepts from Frank Herbert?"  Or, is it ok if we just say that Dune appears to have had a major place in his mind, and that consciously or unconsciously, he emulated it in Star Wars?  I don't think anybody's tried to say that Lucas deliberately made a knock-off of Dune.  At least that's not what I think.  Original ideas are really hard to come by in any kind of fiction, and we tend to emulate those we admire.  Whether Lucas was consciously aware of it or not, I think it would be naive to suggest that he didn't get some (or maybe a lot) of his ideas as a result of being exposed to Dune.

I don't think it particularly matters if he said, "Self, since I love Dune so much, I'll make Luke into a messiah figure and have him come from a desert planet, just like Paul."  The fact is, the parallels are striking, particularly to me, since I've read the whole Dune series at least a half dozen times, and am really familiar with it.  Yes, many of the themes in SW and Dune are kind of ubiquitous in this style of story, but the similarities in setting, the time frame, and the thematic parallels seem too striking to me to be entirely coincidental.

{Edit:  Yes, I know Paul was originally from Caladan.  Luke was originally from Naboo, if you assume that's where Annakin knocked up Padme.}

My basis in this argument was that Lucas derived Star Wars from no less than 50-100 different sources, possibly thousands, and focusing on Dune in the manner that it has been focused upon seems lazy at best. Quite frankly, this is the first time I can recall ever hearing of people suggesting such a vast amount of Dune coincides with Star Wars. Comic books(ie: Marvel, DC), certain religions, and mythical stories from our past all have at least as much influence on the Star Wars universe as Dune, if not more. And yet, I agree with most of what you say here, and that which I do not necessarily agree with I don't have much to work with to debate you, so I'm going to have to reluctantly disengage.

As an aside, I would suggest that Luke and Leia do not have a homeworld, as they were born in space. But that would be a debatable point.

I defer to your higher geekdom.  I simply don't have the heart to research this to see if you're telling the truth.

Vastet, I submit to you that it's your turn to pony up some evidence.  So far, here's what we have for Dune/SW:

1) Messiah figures

2) Both messiahs are adopted in new homes

2.1) Both biblical names

2.2) Both related to the bad guy

3) Both new homes are desert planets

3.5) Both old homes (Caladan/Naboo) are suspiciously utopian, with water everywhere and teeming with life

4) Both are taught a secret way of fighting

5) Both are the subject of prophecies

6) Both have younger sisters

6.5) Both fall in love with a woman they've never met

7) Jabba the Hutt/Leto II

Han Solo - Illicit spice drop / Arrakis - spice smugglers

9) Speaking of Han Solo:  Han Solo = Duncan Idaho... ladies man, fighting for the good side, but "bad boys."

9.5) Princess Leia (sister) falls for Han.  Alia (sister) falls for Duncan Idaho.

9.75) Both Leia and Alia (similar names??) are captured and tortured by their grandfather

10) Paul:Gurney Halleck   as   Luke:Obi Wan Kenobi

11) Both Obi Wan and Gurney Halleck return from the dead to continue to aid their apprentices.

12) Yoda and Thufir Hawat were both the best fighters anywhere when they were younger.

12.5) Both have amazing mental abilities.

13) Tuskan Raiders kill anyone who goes into the desert unprotected.  Fremen kill anyone who goes into the desert unprotected.

14) Storm Troopers = Sardaukar

15) Jedi = Bene Gesserit?  Might seem far fetched at first, but both are ancient societies which claim to exist only to serve mankind.  They're both expert fighters.  They both have super powers.  They both detect truth.  They both control minds.  "These are not the droids you're looking for."  -- sounds like Voice to me.

16) Arrakis has two moons.  Tatooine has two suns.

16.5) Arrakis has sand worms.  Tatooine has Sarlacc.

17) Best weapons in the universe:  Light saber, Crysknife.  Both for elite fighters only, incredibly effective, symbols of mystical status.

18) Shields:  In Dune, only slow objects pass through shields.  In Star Wars, only small objects can get through the shield on the Death Star

"[We] had trouble with the fact that Star Wars used up so much of Dune.  We found sixteen points of identity between my novel and Star Wars."  -- Frank Herbert, speaking of David Lynch during the making of Dune.

As a final nail in the coffin, George Lucas had to hire Gary Kurtz to rewrite the SW script because it was rejected for being too much like Dune.  The Herbert Partnership threatened to sue if the original script got made into a movie.

Now, would you, Vastet, please produce and document another sci fi classic that has this many parallels with Dune?  That is your claim, is it not?  That many other films follow the formula so closely that we need not attribute it to Dune?  Please tell us what films you're thinking of, and show us the similarities.

Otherwise, I believe I may also employ the jargon, PWND.

Funny... that's why it says "Vastet" in the quote...

/me wipes glasses off with twenty four vigorous circular strokes for each lens

Ah... that's better.

There are very few things I enjoy more than a sci-fi internet pwning.  Unfortunately, I can't say I'm sure if anyone's been pwned yet (except of course, Vastet, who will certainly be unable to refute my well thought out and thoroughly documented treatise on Dune/SW).

Anyway, there are issues with the asteroid theory, since in sci fi, asteroids are clearly habitable.  In dozens of movies and books, permanent mining settlements are built on asteroids.  Yes, they do have to have all their resources shipped in, but the same thing is true of living on Arrakis.  There was barely enough food on Arrakis to keep a few ragged bands of Fremen alive.  Certainly not enough to keep a population of millions of non-Fremen in standard Empire style living.

However, as I've mentioned before, I don't think we need to demonstrate exact copying to prove thematic copying.  I mean, hell, that's what we're saying -- the themes are copied.  Both Luke and Paul are essentially orphaned in space.  I didn't mention this before, but another parallel just popped into my head.  Very early in both Dune and SW, the messiah figure, largely unaware of his own destiny, is thrust into the belly of the beast (the evil empire) through circumstances quite beyond his control.   Luke, having lost his whole family, and having nothing left on Tatooine, travels in a spaceship, only to be captured by the Empire.  Paul, having lost all legal connection to his home planet, travels in a spaceship, only to be captured by the Harkonnen.

After the initial capture, Paul is aided in his escape by his mother, the most powerful female in his existence at the time.  After the initial capture, Luke is aided in his escape by his sister, the most powerful (the only!) female in his existence at the time.

In all fairness, after going back and rereading the last few threads, I have seen that Vastet did say he was going to extricate himself from the debate for lack of ammunition.  My post came after that, and could be considered a Battle of the Dorks foul.  Anyway, SW = Dune clone.

I'm going to start off commenting on the amount of passion that's gone into this. I certainly didn't respond in this topic with the intention of starting a fist fight, but I can roll with any punch.

I'm glad you'd seen that. I was mostly just coming back to this topic to point it out. And possibly to defend my iron tight point of an asteroid not fitting with the definition of a home world, but fortunately I don't have to drop to such a low standard.

I pride myself on my ability to stoop to any depth in the interest of geekdom.  Maybe one day, you'll learn to be as dedicated.  Until then, I will dismiss you as a slacker!

Again, I will stand by my geekdom when it comes to making Dune look good and making George Lucas look like the hack he is.  I hate Lucas for a number of reasons, not least of which the fact that despite his horrible directing and dialog, and his hyper-frenetic pod race scenes, I still watch the original SW trilogy.  The only way I can console myself is by realizing that I am watching a dumbed down version of Dune, which is still a pretty decent story.

Creepy analogy, but accurate, nonetheless.

Meh. You can think whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is that I don't have any problem stooping to someones level when they want to start slinging around terms like "pwned" on the basis of an extremely stupid suggestion such as an asteroid constituting a homeworld. I wasn't attempting to salvage anything. I was putting an idiot in his place.

Oh, I'm just as dedicated. I simply don't have any reference material in half the subject. One can only read so much in a lifetime after all, and I've only got 30 years under my belt. I'll admit though that this conversation has given me some motivation to read Dune. Something I was lacking after seeing most or all of the movies and thinking they sucked compared to Star Wars and many other sci fi programs and movies

I'm personally going to give Vastet the "Hambydammit Told You So" badge after he reads Dune and admits that it's the best damn thing ever.

I prefer it to be a "pomposity is the mindkiller" badge, but you have mod powers Hamby. Jk Vastet, but you won't get that joke till your halfway through Dune.