Of everything Lucas has been accused of borrowing, this is the one he names himself, repeatedly and in detail. The graph already holds Flash Gordon and Barsoom as his acknowledged sources; Kurosawa is the third and the most structural of the three.
- The story is told from the point of view of the two lowliest characters, Tahei and Matashichi, who bicker their way across a war they do not understand. C-3PO and R2-D2 open Star Wars doing exactly that
- A princess is smuggled through enemy territory disguised as a commoner, escorted by a warrior of the old order, which is the shape of the whole rescue
- The gold hidden in firewood becomes the plans hidden in a droid
- The horizontal wipe between scenes is a Kurosawa signature, and Lucas kept it as the film's punctuation