Well, Duh! Did no one read Man, Myth and Magic by Joseph Campbell?
Westerns are just a modernized version of old heroic sagas. The Icelandic Sagas were some of the original heroic tales, along with other ancient myths for that matter, but the Norse and Icelandic Sagas are probably the best known for high drama and tragedy, and for memorable heroes and villains. The Greek would be equally well known of course, at least in the western world.
Of course the Eastern Myths are just as moving and dramatic in their context, it's just that Star Wars was not based upon an Eastern Myth. It was based upon good old Western Heroic Opera: The Greek Opera, The Romantic Hero and Troubadour, The Baroque Cycle, the Enlightenment Epics, and the modern Horse and Space Opera.
OH! DUH! Stupid me… Wyatt the Odd has already commented upon Campbell… Way to go Wyatt, Campbell was a genius of mythology and religious history.
BTW, other students of Campbell's (aside from myself: 1983 at an exchange program from Texas to England where he was a guest lecturer for three weeks) have been Larry Marder (Tales of the Beanworld) and I believe that Greg Stafford was acquainted as well. Marder's work with Beanworld can be said to parallel much of Star Wars as well, as a young hero comes to terms with his journey outside of his comfortable little world into the great-big outside of everything.
Which is pretty much what Luke does… He leaves his comfortable little world when he recieves the "Call to Adventure" in the form of a talking Oscar statue and a bleeping vacuum cleaner, which lead him to the venerable sage, who bestows upon him a boon, which leads to the confrontation with the horrible devouring father figure whom Luke must eventually conquer, only Lucas gives us an excellent twist and throws in the Emperor as the father of the father (Uranus or Saturn to the Jupiter or Zeus of Vader) which it turns out that Luke must really defeat in order to free his father's true form, which has been devoured by the elder father figure in order to enslave him to his will… Which was what Luke was trying to do as well.
Also, if you will recall in the Fifth episode (the Empire Strikes back). Vader's plea to Luke to join him to overthrow the Emperor was a genuine and hopeful call for help, and had Luke Chosen to join Vader, he could have achieved his ends much faster, and without much of the deception by Yoda and Kenobi. remeber, Luke's job was to bring balance to the force. To Unite the Dark and Light side, and Vader knew this, probably more than anything, and realized that if he could get Luke to join him, that he could thwart the Emperor's plan to remove Vader and have Luke take his place (which Vader probably knew at the cloud city, yet pushed out of his mind, or tried to deny it, as it turned out that Anakin had the immaturity of doing just this: Denying the obvious)….
Anyway, enough of my rant… Star Wars is a marvellous set of movies and I cannot wait for Lucas to die or move on so that they all can be re-imagined.
Destruction, Purifying, Creation, Flowering, Vitality, Decay, Death, and Destruction, only to do it all over again… That is the cycle of things.
again George."