6. The Hidden Fortress
Its fairly common knowledge Lucas drew on a lot of Japanese culture when writing the original Star Wars; what are the Jedi if not samurai? But there was one film that had such a pervasive influence on A New Hope more than any other, The Hidden Fortress. The focus on the droids, the emergence of former warrior Obi-Wan and his history with Vader, even the horizontal wipe scene transitions all come from Akira Kurosawa's action period drama. However, it wasn't just with the original film that Lucas took direct inspiration from The Hidden Fortress. One of The Phantom Menaces more perplexing plot points, the Queen Amidala decoys, is lifted directly from it. In The Hidden Fortress, the princess leader of the rebellion (another parallel with the original trilogy) poses as a commoner while using a slave girl as her replacement, only to have her die in the process (crossing over into Attack Of The Clones there). In fact, most of Padmés story in the first two films is directly lifted from Kurosawa's film. From the decoy subplot to the character's oriental design, so much of her is Princess Yuki, to the extent where you cant help buy argue Lucas was once again ripping off The Hidden Fortress.