The Hidden Fortress
1958 filmWikipedia
53
MENTIONS
18
EPISODES
18
PODCASTS
Search complete. 53 mentions across 18 episodes found for "The Hidden Fortress".
Sep 18, 2026
ConorGUEST
You know, like George Lucas came up with Star Wars because...
ConorGUEST
He saw Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, which in that film, you've got the bearded general, the fugitive princess, and instead of two droids, you've got two peasants.
ConorGUEST
But essentially, this is how all sci-fi goes.
ConorGUEST
It's layered on top of each other.
Conor RatliffHOST
I'll be doing a screening hosted by me and Griffin Newman at the American Cinematheque at the Arrow Theater in Santa Monica.
Conor RatliffHOST
The George Lucas Talk Show presents a pre- and post-Star Wars double bill of Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress and Mel Brooks' Spaceballs.
Conor RatliffHOST
These are two films I don't believe have ever been screened back-to-back as a double bill.
Conor RatliffHOST
Hidden Fortress, of course, was one of the inspirations for Star Wars.
DavoHOST
Did he ride a sandworm to work? [laughs]
NealHOST
[laughs] Question two, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, and Yojimbo.
KelsPANELIST
Uh, that is-
TwaiPANELIST
P-U-N-T?
Joe CurdyHOST
You know, you look at Star Wars, and when I was a kid, it was the most original thing I'd ever seen in my life.
Joe CurdyHOST
It wasn't until later on that I got a little older, and I'm like, wait a minute, this has got influences, very overt influences from, uh, you know, the, The Flash Gordon serials or, um, a, Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, um, or, you know, Westerns or, uh, World War II adventure films or things like that.
Joe CurdyHOST
And I don't think anybody in 1977, principally me, I actually saw it in 1977, I was too young to say this, I don't think anybody would've said, "Boy, George Lucas really bombed this.
Joe CurdyHOST
What an unoriginal story idea." No.
Tanner Richard KraftHOST
So there's that.
Tanner Richard KraftHOST
Star Wars is obviously, famously so, heavily influenced by The Hidden Fortress.
Tanner Richard KraftHOST
So much so that George Lucas' original pick for playing Obi-Wan Kenobi was the lead of this movie, Tochiri Mifune, was offered the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Tanner Richard KraftHOST
He said no for two reasons.
6 MINS LATER
Austin ZwiebelmanHOST
And you just established your own production company.
Austin ZwiebelmanHOST
Because you pissed off Toho.
Austin ZwiebelmanHOST
By going like 105 million yen over budget on The Hidden Fortress.
Austin ZwiebelmanHOST
So now, they're making you pony up like 50% of the cash for your next movie.
Harry BaileyHOST
But that's pretty well s- 1960, so it's not that.
Harry BaileyHOST
Hidden Fortress is '50s, I think.
Harry BaileyHOST
I genuinely don't even know if I can come up with a guess.
Harry BaileyHOST
I'm just gonna say... [sighs] Can I ask, are any of these three that I'm missing in English, any of these titles?
Harry BaileyHOST
Oh, well that's stupid
Shane MulvaneyHOST
... that's your s-
Harry BaileyHOST
It's basically The Hidden Fortress-
Shane MulvaneyHOST
Yeah, it's Hidden Fortress
![The P[w]rescription](https://particle.news/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,width=128/https://cdn.particle.pro/url/media/48d08359-d3a6-459a-8bd7-4224a18fd287/763303a37e4abd4a094d0b7973976cdb59497d64773fc16706036bd013c759b2)
WoosterHOST
And so I took my best friend and saw...
WoosterHOST
Saw Kurosawa's 1958 classic, The Hidden Fortress.
WoosterHOST
Which is what Star Wars is based on.
WoosterHOST
And that was a really cool experience.
WoosterHOST
But it was a really neat experience because everybody was like laughing nonstop.
WoosterHOST
And then there's a moment where he stomps on her foot, which would have been funny maybe like, you know, 60, 70 years ago, but everybody just stopped.
WoosterHOST
like the whole theater died for two minutes until the next joke and then they came back out that was that was a really weird experience but so i guess the point of this is if you get a chance and you have old movies classic movies in your name in your area go see them it's a good time
HillaryGUEST
hillary is there anything you'd like to share I'm rereading a book that came out in 91, 96, and 2002 for the upcoming finalization of a series.
speaker_3HOST
Oh, cute.
speaker_1HOST
Star Wars itself was just George Lucas mashing up Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress with old Flash Gordon serials.
speaker_1HOST
Isn't homage just how genres naturally evolve?
speaker_2HOST
It is, but...
DrakeHOST
Oh, okay.
CameronHOST
The Hidden Fortress.
CameronHOST
It's pretty good, actually.
DrakeHOST
Oh, the George Lucas-inspired one.
LeoHOST
Like, he's in Yojimbo, he's in Seven Samurai.
LeoHOST
And he's in Hidden Fortress.
LeoHOST
So he's in a ton of those movies.
LeoHOST
But he's also in a decent amount of monster movies and specifically Godzilla movies.
8 more episodes mention The Hidden Fortress.
Create an account to see the whole feed, search across every transcript, and follow the entities you care about.