We live in a world that ignores its past. “Everything old is new again” is a kinder way to say it. Even Science Fiction does this. I was reminded of this when I finally got around to reading Jack Williamson’s The Legion of Space. Written in 1934 as a serial novel for F. Orlin Tremaine’s Astounding (the one in between the BEMs of the Clayton Astounding and the Golden Age of John W Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction). The novel offers a roller-coaster ride of wonders, fights, and escapes, as you would expect before things got serious (and frankly often dull) in that “Golden Age.” What I hadn’t expected was the blueprint for hit after hit of Science Fiction’s most popular films.
Star Wars is the most obvious. You have a democracy (The Green Hall) guarded by a small corps of elite warriors (The Legion) who are supplanted by devious means by an evil empire (The Purple Hall). The character of Adam Ulnar is Palpatine, trying to get his weaselly nephew on the new throne. His other kin, John Star, is Luke Skywalker, who refuses to join the dark side and falls in with the Three Musketeers of the tale: Jay Kalam, Hal Samdu, and the ever annoying Giles Habibula. Their job is to rescue the princess from an impenetrable base where she is being tortured for information. The scene where John Star enters her cell is hauntingly familiar. The only thing missing is the line, “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” The bunch escape through the sewers and everybody gets medals at the end.
Read the rest:
https://www.michaelmay.online/2015/01/the-legion-of-space-lest-we-forget.html
I always saw Habibula as derivative of Falstaff