i hate to say this its not the best time for both of you kenedax and athena to argue on the diaolouge on the prequels as a big star wars fan of both trilogy’s there is nothing wrong with the diolouge in the prequels lucas himself said many times that it supose to reparsent the golden film era of the 30s or 40s style of diaolouge its not shakespear after all anyways im also big harry potter fan of both the books and films and i must say those are pretty cool comparsions for both the franchise’s i adore

Well, at least it doesn’t turn out in the end that Voldy is Harry’s father :)) or is he???

I’m guessing the frozen person was Hermione in CS?? after being petrified but the basilisk??

I love this list!!

JK Rowling hates comparisons to Star Wars. I’m surprised this site would post this up. Especially since Stars Wars draws so much from mythology in the first place that Star Wars shouldn’t be the standard for the light vs dark plot line amongst other plot lines. My opinion=Nobody should compare anything to Star Wars until they’ve compared already to old mythology and old literature. Remember George Lucas started this story when he was in college.

hey, what happened to my comment????!!!!!

Didn’t Jo say that she was a fan of Star Wars? Also the Dumbledore character was to Harry what Obi Wan Kenobi was to Luke. When I saw Sorcerer’s Stone I picked up on that right away.

I never could buy Star Wars. The idea that Darth Vader was OK after all made no sense at all—he blew up a planet of 30 million people just to make a point!!! Sheesh…

And after seeing the first prequel, I couldn’t waste anymore precious life energy on the rest of the franchise so I guess I missed the part about what awful things happened to make him evil while leaving a tiny kernel of good somewhere deep inside.

“1o. Orphaned by a Dark Lord”

Uh…. no. Despite Padme dying of whatever crap Lucas claimed she died of, you can’t really say it was Vader’s fault (not to mention that RotJ strongly implies she lived a lot longer than we see in RotS [long enough for Leia to remember her, if only vaguely]... stupid Lucas can’t even keep his own continuity straight).

“2. ‘Size Matters Not’ Star Wars and Harry Potter both featured a wide variety of height-challenged characters and species—and Warwick Davis portrayed many of them.”

I’m not sure if the comment about Warwick Davis is supposed to be funny, but it is. ^_

Epin said: “I never could buy Star Wars. The idea that Darth Vader was OK after all made no sense at all—he blew up a planet of 30 million people just to make a point!!! Sheesh…”

That was Tarkin, actually.

Always in motion, the future is, is it not? Did Dumbledore not say this in OotP to young Harry? Always in a hurry! Looked to the future! AD-VEN-TURE, HEH! A Jedi seeks these not. And as such, so too Master Harry must no; for my ally is much greater.

But the BOY will learn patience. He IS the chosen one. MmmmmmmmMMMM! A prophesy MISREAD, it may have been! “You were right, Master. The negotiations were short.”

No PREQUILS, AND THAT’S FINAL.

I want to be like my father . . . and learn the ways of the force! (Mighty big the force, and that’s no stink of it!)

Bought the DVD yesterday — Poor Fudge looks OLD. Look for Sirius on Batman Begins II

Uhhh the only reason there’s so many similarities is because both draw heavily from mythology. But this was an entertaining list none the less :)

lighten up, William! It’s all in good fun.

Thanks, everyone, for the kind words regarding my feature on starwars.com. As a great fan of both franchises, it was afascinating to explore the parallels between them. This was an assignment that was no work at all-just sheer fun. To the person who mentioned John Williams-good catch! I wish I’d thought of that one when writing it!

Sincerely, Rich Handley

Just noticed fenm’s post about my “Orphaned by a Dark Lord” post. Thanks, fenm, for the feedback. I agree that Padme did not die of a broken heart—in fact, I’d say it’s pretty clear in the film that isn’t what we as the audience are supposed to believe happened.

Everything that happened in the Star Wars prequels did so because of Palpatine’s manipulations of everyone and everything in his search for power. He was the phantom menace, the Sith behind the curtain. In the case of Padme’s death, it was all part of the seduction of Anankin Skywalker to the dark side.

Palpatine (a Dark Lord) not only made Anakin cease to be the man he once was by coercing him into betraying the Jedi, he also apparently killed Padme so that he could then tell Anakin he’d done the deed, thereby breaking his spirit utterly. Therefore, like Harry, Luke was, indeed, orphaned by a Dark Lord. See, it all fits. :)

Oh, and yep—the Warwick Davis entry was purely meant tongue-in-cheek.

By the way, I hope no one here took offense at my article. In NO WAY was it meant to be taken as a jab at either Harry Potter or JK Rowling, both of whom I am a great fan of, as is my editor at starwars.com. When I pitched the story to him, it was after reading book 7 to my daughter and watching Episode III with her. She and I kept discussing all the parallels, and so I mentioned it to my editor—who, as it turned out, had just read all 7 books in a month and was just as excited about it as I was. I love the Potter books, and I love the Potter films. My parallels feature was meant to be reverential toward both unverses, and I hope it was perceived as such.

Sincerely, Rich Handley

the silly thing is, the star wars comparrissions are things lucas basically lifted from pre existing fantasy stories. jk rowling and lucas both independent of each created a proper fantasy and used common elements. what is the strengths of both is that they took those fantasy conventions and manipulated them to suit their own stories.

what made star wars famous was the special effects. the story was familer decades and centuries before lucas placed it in space and jo placed it in a magical world.