The entire Star Wars universe—everything from Ewoks and the Force to Jabba the Hutt and lightsabers—came from the mind of the franchise’s creator, George Lucas. He has claimed several intriguing inspirations for the movies over the years, incorporating the likes of early sci-fi legends, such as Flash Gordon, and even Akira Kurosawa’s samurai epics into his own now legendary “space opera.”

But beside pop culture touchstones like these, the Star Wars movies are also at least partly based on, and make allusion to, a number of real-world inspirations, too, lifted from history and mythology. 

1. THE JEDI 
2. THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 
3. TATOOINE 
4. THE REBEL ALLIANCE 
5. THE STORMTROOPERS
6. SENATOR/SUPREME CHANCELLOR/EMPEROR PALPATINE 
7. POD RACING 

THE JEDI 

Lucas not only borrowed heavily from Kurosawa’s Japanese epics in his storytelling and filmmaking in producing Star Wars, but leaned heavily into samurai history and culture in piecing together the mythology of the Jedi too. Inspired by Japanese period films and television shows, known as jidaigeki, Lucas is said to have been inspired by the culture and code of conduct of the samurai when it came to creating his own band of righteous and courageous warriors. Even the word “jedi” itself has been theorized to be based on the word jidaigeki. 

THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE 

The shift from Star Wars’ Galactic Republic to the darker, bloodier, and more oppressive Galactic Empire parallels that of the shift from the Republic of Classical-era Rome to the Roman Empire in 27 BC, when the Roman Senate granted supreme power to a single individual, Octavian (known as Augustus Caesar). And nor was that the only Roman influence on Lucas’ movies: the Senate itself is of course a Roman idea too, but even some of the buildings and robe-like costumes on display in the Star Wars films have a distinctly Roman flavor. 

TATOOINE 

When it came to inventing a suitably barren and sparsely populated home planet for Luke Skywalker’s desert home planet in Star Wars, Lucas turned to the real-world region of Tataouine, in southern Tunisia. Not only did he take the region’s name, however, but its history, architecture, and native Berber culture inspired much of the films’ portrayal of Luke’s (and his father’s) home world. 

THE REBEL ALLIANCE 

Resistance against oppression is an underlying theme of much of the Star Wars universe, and has been an underlying theme throughout much of human history too. When it came to the Rebels fighting the Empire, though, Lucas has gone on record to say that he had the Vietcong in mind—not least because of the time at which he was writing the original stories in the early-to-mid 1970s.

In a conversation James Cameron in 2019, the fellow filmmakers discussed how the heroes in Lucas’ films are essentially terrorists fighting a regime, with Lucas admitting that he had the Vietcong’s fight against the South Vietnamese and US governments during the Vietnam War in mind at the time.

THE STORMTROOPERS

As any history buff will tell you, the word stormtrooper itself was coined in Nazi Germany, where it originally referred to the elite troops, or Sturmtruppen, of the German Army; the term first found its way into the English language somewhat later during the interwar period, in 1931.

It’s not just these notoriously aggressive, heavily armed soldiers that Lucas lifted from the 20th century history books though, as the colors, iconography and even uniforms of Nazi Germany inspired much of the imperial aesthetic of Star Wars, too. 

SENATOR/SUPREME CHANCELLOR/EMPEROR PALPATINE 

When it came to finding inspiration for an amoral autocrat who would stop at nothing when it came to ensure unlimited power for himself (hence the evermore grandiose string of titles there), Lucas understandably had more than a few characters from history to turn to—and the likes of Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler, and even Napoleon Bonaparte have all been attached to Star Wars’ sinister and devious Emperor Palpatine over the decades.

According to Lucas himself, however, he had a different person in mind when he created the character. “Richard M Nixon was his name,” Lucas explained in an interview in 1981. “He subverted the senate and finally took over, and became an imperial guy. And he was really evil. But he pretended to be a nice guy.”

POD RACING 

The central pod race in 1999’s The Phantom Menace was inspired by the chariot races of Ancient Rome, and the vast arena in which the race takes place is said to have been based on the Roman Circus Maximus. Not only that, but the filmmakers in turn intentionally (and rather shamelessly) took inspiration from the epic chariot racing scene in Ben-Hur when it came to filming it. 

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