The Hidden Fortress

Today I saw Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" at The Long Now center. I enjoyed it a great deal. It was the first time I had ever seen it, and I think it was neat that I first saw it on the big screen.

I have heard that the two comic characters in this movie were copied into the Star Wars series as C3PO and R2D2. I don't know if this is true one way or the other, but there were some strong similarities.

When watching a movie like this, you can't help but feel that it is a bit... hmm... conventional. I mean this in the best way possible. When watching a movie like this, you feel that a great deal of the plot elements are things that you have already seen in other movies. My question is, was this movie the first to use these elements?  Was "The Hidden Fortress" a first in film? Perhaps it was only a "first" in popular film? When I watch something like this, I recognize that many things will seem derivative because they have become standards of modern cinema. What I want to know is which elements are original? Unfortunately, I would have to do actual research to determine that. Wouldn't it be nice if the film itself were able to answer those questions?

I don't really have anything intelligent to say about this movie. The most frustrating part to me was my curiosity about whether the elements of the film were first, or were already derivative by the time the film was made. I would really like something like hypertext for movies, where you could pause the film, and maybe there would be keywords relating to the scene you are watching, and you could filter through all films and find similar themes.... I don't know. Sounds like a lot of work. I just often find myself wishing that film was more social, interactive, dynamic. I often enjoy being simply passively entertained, but when something honestly interest me, it would be really neat if the film itself allowed me to explore my interest further.

I think there is probably a real market there. The user interest that isn't strong enough to look something up afterwards, but that might be strong enough to engage the person as they are watching the film. Obviously, I have not thought through this idea very clearly, but I nonetheless maintain that it is a untapped desire of the movie viewing public.