Star Wars, Dune, Taiji and the Condor Heroes

I was watching Episodes 1 to 3 yesterday. Phew, spent the whole day going through the DVDs, and was I tired after the movie marathon. Well, here are some more thoughts about the Star Wars series.

First, to do with taiji. "Fear of losing is a path to the dark side." This seems to be quite in line with what I have written in my taiji blog about being afraid to lose. And the more powerful you get, you become more afraid of losing what you have. This is something that we have to watch. The better we become, the more we must be careful not to guard what we have too closely. I recently learnt a lesson from observing a colleague. He was afraid to lose, and ended up losing because his plan was basically one to prevent himself from losing, rather than to bring about victory.

Okay, enough about taiji, if I need to say more, I will talk about it in my other blog.

A similarity with The Return of the Condor Heroes was found in Star Wars. Anakin Skywalker fell in love with someone older than he was, just like Yang Guo. They met when he was still a child, and she was nice to him, just like Little Dragon Lady (aka Xiaolongnyu) was nice to Yang Guo. And similarly, their unions were viewed to be wrong (a Jedi marrying a senator, compared to a student marrying his teacher). And of course, Anakin had his right arm cut off, just like Yang Guo. And both were proud, knowing that they were good in their skills.

And the Kamino that created the clones were like the Tleilaxu of Dune, specialising in making clones. The assassin sent to kill Padme was a "changer", like a doppleganger from Dune, able to shapeshift.

Seems like the movie really does draw a lot of inspiration from different places.