May Shinto Be with You: Examining Japanese History’s Influence on George Lucas’ Star Wars

Jesse Jordan, Verrazano Class of 2019, earned a degree in History with a concentration in adolescent education. 

Not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, Star Wars (1977) shocked American audiences and inspired a myriad of filmmakers to pursue a career in Hollywood, causing a paradigm shift in America’s film industry. The importance of George Lucas’ Star Wars and its subsequent prequels and sequels on American popular culture cannot be overestimated. Neither can Japanese history’s influence on Lucas’ storytelling be overlooked, which is a relationship not many Americans recognize.

Jesse hitting the books!

Yet, this relationship serves as a perfect reminder of syncretism in American culture despite the general assertion that Star Wars is known as an original American film franchise. As my paper argues, I learned that this assertion is not true; Lucas was inspired by several facets of Japanese history including its religion, social classes, and even its film industry in the twentieth century. I wanted to highlight this similarity to show how Star Wars is a perfect metaphor for American culture, a mixture of different ideas and customs that ultimately creates a work of art.    

            I was fortunate enough to create a Capstone project based off my two favorite topics—Star Wars and history. Although the two topics may not be synonymous with one another, I discovered that the two had striking similarities, especially in relation to Japanese history. Luckily my advisor, Professor Richard Lufrano, encouraged me to research the Sengoku period of Japanese history to emphasize its influence on Lucas’ film franchise. I learned that the most important part of academic research is the work’s evidence. Therefore, I set out to find as much primary source material as I could to strengthen the claims made in my paper. Even though secondary sources were helpful, I noticed that documents written during the historical time period under analysis greatly bolstered the comparisons I was making between Star Wars and Japanese history. In other words, nothing surpasses using the words of an eighteenth-century Japanese scholar writing about Shintoism to compare Jedi Master Yoda’s teachings of the force. Luckily, I was already familiar with the research process since I studied history as an undergraduate student. However, the most difficult part about my Capstone project was conducting research across multiple disciplines. At times, I felt like I was both a History and a Communications major, but that made the experience more interesting for me. Fortunately, I could recite all of the Star Wars films word-for-word and I took a course on Japanese history prior to writing this paper, which made the execution of the process less-daunting of a task.

Shinto + Star Wars = Scholarship

            If I were to continue this work in the future, I would add a section in my paper on World War II’s influence on the Star Wars films. I originally planned on writing about the allegory between the “Death Star” and the atomic bomb, and the similarities between the cinematography of World War II serial films and the actual cinematography of Star Wars. However, I wanted to keep the focus simple, discussing the three most important reoccurring comparisons I found across my research. Overall, I found the Capstone project to be a valuable academic experience. I was fortunate enough to work on topics that I am deeply passionate about, and I would like to acknowledge the support of my mentor and my advisors for this project. Specifically, I would like to thank Richard Lufrano, Gerry Milligan, Cheryl Craddock, and Cynthia Palumbo for their help on this project and for their help with numerous other academic matters throughout my career as an undergraduate student.