Hi,

I remember reading somewhere that before they made star wars (the
originial) that they did immense research into what people remembered
from the last few decades. Images such as nazi troops marching etc
were common. They then used these images in star wars to hook people
deeply. Is there evidence for this?

Hello zulu500,
I believe the website below has all the answers you need:

Star Wars Origins: Where did the ideas Star Wars come from?
http://www.jitterbug.com/origins/

This site touches on everything you could think of on Star Wars
origins: References to world war 2 objects as inspirations; parallels
with other stories such as Beowulf, Lord of the Rings and Dune;
inspirations from Japanese culture; origins of ideas for vehicles and
weapons; inspirations for characters like Yoda, Han Solo and Princess
Leia, and anything else about the Star Wars world. Click on the links
of the left of this page or the "next" link at the bottom to bring you
to the different topics.

A few other analyses I found:
Mythology in Star Wars article
http://www.folkstory.com/articles/petersburg.html

Star Wars - Nostalgia Central 
http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/movies/starwars.htm

Google search terms:
star wars origins
star wars mythology

I hope this has been a helpful answer. If there's any problem, please
feel free to post a request for clarification. Thank you.

GREAT THANKS!

I have heard that George Lucas was favorably impressed by the work of
Joseph Campbell ("The Power of Myth") but I have never heard of
extensive research of the kind that you describe.

I believe that Lucas originally spoke of "Star Wars" in terms
comparing it to the old Sci-Fi low budget serials, which would suggest
that "immense research" probably was not on the agenda.

I'm pretty sure that all of the "high analysis" of "Star Wars" has
occured *after* the movie became such a success.  (I could be wrong
about this, it would be interesting to check what terms people used to
describe the movie over the years.)

Here's an interesting article about the origins of "Star Wars" which
includes a list of its influences, from "Flash Gordon" to Akira
Kurosawa:

http://www.wondersource.com/episodeIV.html

A quote from George Lucas:

"Well, when I did Star Wars, I did consciously set about to recreate
myths and the classic mythological motifs. And I wanted to use those
motifs to deal with issues that exist today... I knew that I was going
to attempt to do something that hadn't been done before...I was very
interested in creating a modern myth to replace what I'd seen had been
occupied by the Western. The Western was sort of a modern American
mythology that helped to explain the mores and values and the way
things work in our society. And so I started working on this and
realized that it had to take place 'somewhere over the
hill'..somewhere outside people's known realm of awareness...


...And the only area like that that we have now is outer space."

"Lucas had read The Hero with a Thousand Faces while working on the
script of the first of the Star Wars movies, and had gone on to read
the Masks of God and other writings. When Star Wars debuted in 1977,
it followed the Hero very closely. Lucas said at an award ceremony in
1985, "It is possible that if I hadn't run across him I'd still be
writing Star Wars today."
http://www.online.pacifica.edu/cgl/lucas