It’s no secret that Star Wars is a huge boiling cauldron of influences that George Lucas dosed together to create something new, original, and fresh. From the Samurai movies of Akira Kurosawa to the legendary structure devised by Joseph Campbell, nearly all of it has been extensively analyzed and explained – but not everything! One of the key aspects of the making of Star Wars was Lucas’ friendship with a clique of young and ambitious filmmakers like him. You may have heard of them: Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian de Palma. And one of them inspired the creation of none other than Han Solo himself.
