I used to watch the old black and white Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers TV serials from the 30s when I was a kid in the 70s. The black and white, the scrolling plot summary, the dinky bullet shaped spaceships and firework rocket engines, flying around saving space princesses were a bit naff, but we lapped it up anyway.
That opening scroll, but in full colour on a 'modern' cinema screen, with the latest sound systems of the day was stunning. I immediately got the reference, it was obvious to anyone of the time. But the way it was used with full colour and up to date projection technology, having the text recede into the distance yet still remain readable due to the high resolution film stock, the opening scene of the staggering huge battle cruiser seemingly taking forever to fill the screen was just awe inspiring.
George Lucas was speaking directly into your subconcious saying "You know those old TV shows you love? I love them too. So I made this".
My children love Star Wars, but not the way I do, and they can never have quite the same relationship to it. You just had to be there at that time and have those formative experiences to prepare you for it.
The one thing I made absolutely sure of - I made certain my girls didn't know Vader was Luke's father and let them see it on the screen. That was really important to me.
He may not have been inspired by this particular magazine, but it's likely he was inspired by similar opening crawls that existed in cinema as early as the 30s, such as Flash Gordon: http://i.imgur.com/XNzi7.jpg. There are a whole bunch of things that Star Wars can be reasonably said to have copied and reused, and if you're at all interested in this you should definitely check out Kirby Ferguson's excellent ‘Everything is a Remix’ series, which looks at Star Wars in more detail here: http://vimeo.com/19447662
The phrase "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." is suspiciously similar to the one in the ad, though. But maybe that, also, was borrowed by the ad from previous material?
And more to the point, is that previous Intellectual Property still under copyright? It seems that the most diligent respecter of Intellectual Property, Disney, may have bought a pig in a poke - someone else may legitimately be entitled to some compensation for the unauthorized use of their property.
To elaborate on kapowaz comment: Star Wars was directly inspired by an earlier era of space opera. Most likely, so was this ad in Vogue.
Even the idea of starting at "Episode 4" makes Star Wars feel like one of the older serials -- they were presented as shorts, split into multiple episodes.
Another similar homage that went way over my head as a kid is Indiana Jones. The whole concept is a deliberate remix of adventure serials of the 30s and 40s.
Exactly. In fact, Spielberg and Lucas tell where they got their inspiration for Indiana Jones character on the Extras of the IJ Trilogy collection: old adventure movies and comic books from the 30s and the 40s.
That opening scroll, but in full colour on a 'modern' cinema screen, with the latest sound systems of the day was stunning. I immediately got the reference, it was obvious to anyone of the time. But the way it was used with full colour and up to date projection technology, having the text recede into the distance yet still remain readable due to the high resolution film stock, the opening scene of the staggering huge battle cruiser seemingly taking forever to fill the screen was just awe inspiring.
George Lucas was speaking directly into your subconcious saying "You know those old TV shows you love? I love them too. So I made this".
My children love Star Wars, but not the way I do, and they can never have quite the same relationship to it. You just had to be there at that time and have those formative experiences to prepare you for it.
The one thing I made absolutely sure of - I made certain my girls didn't know Vader was Luke's father and let them see it on the screen. That was really important to me.