Just as one commentator above pointed out that you should sharpen your literary criticism, so am I going to point out that you ought to sharpen your musical criticism.

You claimed that John Williams' Star Wars copied Holst's Mars. You must have got Hans Zimmer's Gladiator confused with Star Wars, or possibly Howard Shore's LOTR. If you had claimed that Williams' score bore an "uncanny likeness" with, say, Neptune, that's entirely plausible.

But Mars? No. The obvious element that most composers borrow from Holst's Mars is the 5/4 time (and rhythm), with the brass playing short bursts of notes (2 notes in a row), accompanied by the strings playing col legno. I can't quite think of anywhere in the score which features that style of music. Williams' music is archetypically late 19th-century German, with him acknowledging the strong influence of Mahler. You might also detect some Strauss (with Zarathusian fifths and such) especially in opening sequence, and Wagner with his leitmotifs.

Joe, Manchester, UK

Yes, yes, keep the anti-Catholic agitprop coming from every orifice. Before there was Obi-Wan there was Charles Darwin, the Merlin of boy-hero Patrick West's little dream world.

Kevin, London,

What you say is true, but consider the darker side. These are the talesn of the education of kings -the superior man -which we'd all love to be.
Tthe arthurian sagas, pose two questions. "How can you lead free men without enslaving them?" and "What limits are there to power, if any?"
Answers are round table and chivalry - neither of which would be given time of day in a fascist heirarchal society such as is the norm in most human "civilizations".
Nobility has a premise that only nobles carry weapons, which creates inequalty and negates nobility. Peasants must be kept ignorant lest they discover they are ruled by men no better then themselves.
& finally amusingly it is a given that those who desire and often attain power most are those whom deserve it least.
Such tales are needed because power may at first be an aprodesiac but evidence from inherited monarchies is that it also castrates.
eg- the fisher king, the grail king

glenn Schaefer, holbrook, ny/ USA

Monomyth? It used to be called a stock plot.

Joe S. Walker, Liverpool,

I'm disappointed that you haven't pointed up that this was also one of the first action films in which a female character actually got to be something other than weak and helpless. Leia too has heroic qualities and demonstrates, courage and calm, cool leadership. Yet your article presents this entirely as a 'Boys Own' story.

Pat Langford, London,

So what if it was unoriginal.

Talent borrows. Genius steals.

Thanks George Lucas for a fantastic movie, and allowing school boys the world over to dream of being Luke Skywalker, before growing older and realising they want to be Han Solo!

Jamie, Wigan,

You also missed that the entire final segment of the film is "borrowed freely" from 633 Squadron and the Dambusters. Narrow valley, enemy guns and fighters, flying low and fast to drop your bomb in *exactly* the right spot to cause an indirect reaction which will destroy your target...

Phil, Sevenoaks, UK

Lucas himself has stated the he used the monomyth freely in the writing of "Star Wars" having read a book on the subject.
Citing it..if memory serves...as the perfect story.

Alex Gregor, Bristol, England

As far as myth goes, I have no real disagreement. However, to suggest that Jesus was the untried boy hero who returns a man and John the Baptist was the wise elder is to fly in the face of the story. I won't argue about historicity or otherwise, except to say that we have plenty of evidence for the historicity of Jesus. My main point is that if, as C.S. Lewis argued, the Myth has become Reality, at least make sure you get the right myth! Yours is a Jungian analysis and the Force is taken from Hinduism. Christ's aim was not personal growth and coming to terms with the Dark side, but the total defeat and ultimate obliteration of the Enemy. This Enemy is an inferior creature and not the dark side of a divine power. Jesus is the incarnation of the Divine Person. It's just not the same thing! Read some Lewis; it will sharpen up your literary critcism.

G. Ian Goodson, Birmingham,

The writer's journey isn't hard to understand, nor is the hero with a thousand faces, please read and inwardly digest before spewing recycled blurb from the back of the book.

I am so fed up with Jung, numerous people were studying this field far more fruitfully than this dilettante fabulist, his ideas may still have currency with the tofu-smoking acid casualties of the sixties, but you don't have to keep on dragging out the corpse, it stinks.

Kidd Garrett, Bristol, UK

Gosh....in 30 years I've never heard that Star Wars borrowed ideas from other sources. Well I never. Perhaps next week Patrick West can write an article on The Magnificent Seven. Rumour has it was based on a Japanese film called The Seven Samurai

Richard Underwood, Shropshire, UK

As noted true, as far as the author went. But not digging nearly deep enough. As well as the Kurosawa borrowings, the final attack sequence is pretty heavily lifted from The Dam Busters, and the Jedi as a kinghthood of law enforcement owes much to "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. By picking only a few of the more tenuous "borrowings", the sheer breadth of vision tends to disapear. The film is like one of its spaceships; an original whole assembled from pieces of a dozen others.

Andrew Dederer, Columbus, Ohio

And, as the story goes, when showing off the rushes to other people, before the motion control sequences had been shot, Lucas replaced these with dogfights from the movie "Battle of Britain" to show what he intended to shoot.

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

Some interesting points but misses the most obvious source of the first Star Wars film. It's a loose remake of Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress. It's not just Vardar's gear that's refers to feudal Japan. The Jedi knights are obviously samurai, and their fights with light beams are samurai sword fights. And just as in Kurosawa, there are many references to Westerns.

Barry Stocker, Istanbul, Turkey

Han Solo is Bilbo Baggins? Nonsense!! Han Solo is clearly Aragorn.

I'd also say that Darth Vader is in fact Saruman, formerly an ally of Gandalf/Kenobi but seduced by Sauron/The Emporer.

Lando is Boromir - betrays our hero but comes good in the end.

The cloned stormtroopers are the Uruk Hai.

I guess that makes the Ewoks the Elves...they live in trees after all.

Ashers, Birmingham,

Some interesting points but misses the most obvious source of the first Star Wars film. It's a loose remake of Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress. It's not just Vardar's gear that's refers to feudal Japan. The Jedi knights are obviously samurai, and their fights with light beams are samurai sword fights. And just as in Kurosawa, there are many references to Westerns.

Barry Stocker, Istanbul, Tuıkety

Indeed Star Wars is perhaps the most fascinating and captivating sci-fiction movies made till date. Besides being unoriginal, anything abnormal, weird and spooky atrracts our human mind. It creates a feeling of inquisitiveness , of the unknown and the unchartered realms of our life and universe. This theory fits well, because more than our real life heros we, especially kids and juveniles are attracted to reel life heros like Spiderman. The movie with three serialed versions have been a blockbuster . Same goes well with the Harry Porter series , with fantasy and fiction ruling over the fact and real life.

Witty, New Delhi, India