The Hidden Fortress 1958 vs Star Wars 1977
The mother of all remakes, George Lucas, loosely based his story around Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. Without the erm robots, aliens, and ewoks, The Hidden Forteress told the epic tale of two peasants in feudal Samurai Japan. Unfortunately the comparisons stop there, but Lucas was directly influenced by Kurosawa’s telling of the tale from the perspective of the two lowly characters, whom in turn became C3PO and R2D2. So no Star Wars without The Hidden Fortress, period.
The Thing from Another World 1952 vs The Thing 1982
Presented and written by Howard Hawks, the cultural significance of the Thing From Another World represented a new age for sci-fi, taking the genre into darker territory. Upon stumbling into a space ship buried deep in the ice in Alaska, a crew slowly discovers that they are not alone in the ice. John Carpenter’s The Thing, a financial flop at the time, adapted and took the original story by John W Campbell by the neck and literally shook it up, creating some of the most badass and impressive special effects ever.
