Essay/Term paper: Compare and contrast: "dune" by herbert and "star wars" by lucas

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Literary Essays

Compare and Contrast: "Dune" by Herbert and "Star Wars" by Lucas


The novel Dune by Frank Herbert, and the novel Star Wars by George Lucas
have many comparisons and contrasts. Even though they were written more than 10
years apart, they are both very entertaining.
In Dune the story takes place on a dry desert planet called Arrakis,
where water is very scarce, and only the rich own it. Similarly, in Star Wars
the story starts out on a desert world called Tatooine, where water is very
scarce and expensive.
In Star Wars there is a mysterious power called the force that only a
few people posses. It allows you to move objects, see in to the future, and
communicate with people far away just by thinking it. Similarly, in Dune there
is a power that very few people posses. It let the people that knew how to use
it communicate with their people when they were far away, and let them see into
the future.
In Dune, there are people who live out in the desert called Freemen who
are scavengers and somehow survive without water. Similarly, there is a small
scavenger race called Jawas who live out in the desert in the story Star Wars.
In Dune the main character is a teenage boy whose father was killed by
the evil Vladmir, a powerful leader who he must confront and kill. The main
character finds out that Vladmir is related to him, he is his uncle. He also
starts to learn about a powerful force from someone close to him, his mother.
Similarly, in Star Wars the main character is a teenage boy, whose father was
killed by the evil Darth Vader, whom he must confront. Darth Vader also turns
out to be related to the main character, his father. He also gets his first
teachings in the force from someone close to him, the man that was like an uncle
to him.
In Dune, all the space flights and cargo transportation were done by the
secretive Guild, who don't reveal their identity to anyone. However, in Star
Wars anybody who can buy a space ship can fly it. Cargo transportation is done
by smugglers who do not hide their identity.
In conclusion, there are so many similarities between Dune and Star Wars,
that the reader might wonder if some of the ideas were stolen from Frank
Herbert's novel Dune and used when George Lucas wrote Star Wars.