Who wrote Star Wars? Was it Shakespeare?

Who wrote Star Wars? Was it Shakespeare? The Force was undoubtedly with Shakespeare! Myths and Heroes et révision bac en ligne sur grand écran avec Val, notre E-prof de soutien scolaire anglais.

Here you will see a table showing some parallels between Star Wars stories and the plots in Shakespeare’s plays. Ici tu verras une grille montrant les parallèles entre les histories de Star Wars et les intrigues des pièces de Shakespeare.

De plus, cet article t’inspirera peut-être pour choisir des héros pour la notion, ‘Mythes et Héros’ pour tes examens oraux du bac. Moreover, this article might inspire you to choose heroes for your notion of ‘Myths and Heroes’ for your A level oral exams.

Star Wars	Shakespeare
Obi-Wan’s ghost appears to Luke on Dagobah In ‘ The Empire Strikes Back’, Luke experiences his moment of crisis: he has seen a dark prophecy of the future, when Obi-Wan’s ghost rises to counsel him. Luke ignores Obi-Wan’s advice and stays alive contrary to Hamlet.	Luke is luckier: In  ‘Hamlet’,  the character tortures himself into doing everything the ghost says, and he ends up dead as a result.
Han thinks Leia’s in love with Luke A love misunderstanding: Han thinks that Leia is in love with her brother. He offers to sacrifice his love so that they can be together!	In ‘Twelfth Night’, Shakespeare bases his play on love misunderstandings: Olivia is in love with a woman, (Viola),  disguised as a man. Then Olivia marries, Sebastien, Viola’s twin brother!
Luke and Leia are secret twins! Luke and Leia are unaware of each other: they don’t know they are twins.	Shakespeare loved  secret twin stories He has at least two plays entirely based around twin confusion: The ‘Comedy of Errors’ with two sets of twins and Twelfth Night with Viola and Sebastian
Darth Vader rebels against the Emperor and kills him. Darth Vader has been obeying his Master for decades. He has become a super monster. The tyrant pushes Darth Vader too far and gets killed by his own star pupil!	Similarly in Julius Caesar, Brutus stabs and kills the emperor.
Lucas’ droids: Shakespeare’s bards Lucas’ droids and everyone’s favorite Wookie plays the part of ‘bards’. C-3PO falling to pieces on Cloud City, every time R2 beeps, his indignant golden friend, they all provide us with excellent quotes and classic misunderstandings. It’s the light the audience needs to get through the darkness.	Droids are similar to bards in Shakespearean plays. Bards can make clever remarks; they can distract the audience from the main plot or simply bring pure absurd relief. Even if we’re already in a comedy, some of the funny may be of the more cerebral sort.
The part where Luke and Leia’s mum dies of “heartbreak”	It sounds a lot like the failings of Shakespearean ladies like Hero in Much Ado about Nothing. (Hero is an idyllic version of a sweet and innocent girl who is wronged in love).  and Hermione in Winter’s Tale.(Hermione, Queen of Sicily is the lovely wife of King Leontes. She unfairly accused of cheating on her husband and she is thrown into prison)
Luke is seduced by the Dark Side Luke gets caught up in the heat of the moment and is about to fall for the Dark Side.  Jedi Master and some cave visions scare him away from Evil.	A recurrent theme in Shakespeare’s plays is “looking at the dark side of human beings”. Some characters like Othello and Macbeth, cross over to the Dark Side very quickly. Some others think about it for a long time and finally choose Good over Evil, like Prospero in ‘The Tempest’.
The big party at the end of Return of the Jedi Lucas’ celebratory Ewoks and X-wing fighter pilots playing the drums on stormtrooper helmets gives the audience a real party enjoy!	Shakespeare loves ending his plays with a big ‘party’. In his comedies, it even means ending with a literal dance party.

A series of books has even been written combining Star Wars and Shakespeare.

The American Ian Doescher published his first novel mixing his two passions: Star Wars and Shakespeare in 2013.

This series has brought many fans of Shakespeare to Star Wars and vice-versa.
To find out more about themes appearing in Star Wars have a read of this article illustrated by photos and videos. (Pour en savoir plus sur les thèmes qui apparaissent dans ’La Guerre des Etoiles’, lis cet article illustré par des photos et des vidéos).

You will most probably find even more similarities between Shakespeare’s plays and George Lucas’ Star War stories.