Mongolia in Star Wars
There are a few Mongolian influences in the series of Star Wars Movies. First of all there is Queen Amidala of Star Wars Episode I, her senate costume was inspired by a Mongolian traditional garment worn by noble women.See a comparison of her dress with traditional Mongolian noble dresses. For more information on Mongolian traditional dresses see this article in Mongolia Today.
Another Mongolian influence is to be found in the language of the Ewoks, supposedly a blend of Mongolian, Tibetan and Nepali languages. I didn't have any luck hearing Mongolian words however....
Not so much related to the movies is the visit of one of the actors to Mongolia on a motor trip, where he wanted to adopt an orphanage.
Labels: women
posted by Guido V @ 17:13
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3 Comments:
The name of Queen Amidala sounds also similar to Mongolian names, though the spelling is different. For example, there is a Mongolian name Amindalai.
The costume that Natalie Portman wears in Episode One (from 1999, was it?) is quite clearly Mongolian; the hair alone distinctly and unquestionable Mongolian. I actually have a picture of a woman in a red deel with that hair-style that I keep next to a toy model of the Amidala character as a curio to show people -- gets a surprised reaction every time!
I belive the Ewoks at one point in Return of the Jedi tell C-3PO, the gold-colored robot, "Odoo ta manai navch." And the translation they write-in on the film is something like, "Now you are one of us." This is the scene where they hoist him up in a chair and carry him around as their new leader, towards the end. What they said is "Now you are our leaf." Probably, what they meant to say was "Odoo ta manai khamaatan" or something along those lines -- "Now you are our relative." The mistake being: leaf-branch-relative... or perhaps I'm mistaken and its some other garbling of the words. But George Lucas has a penchant for including obscure languages and references in his films and has a definite affinity for eastern culture and traditions. Actually in the original "Star Wars" (A new Hope, epsiode 4 from the late 1970s), there is a scene in a bar -- the Mos Eisley Cantina -- where a certain alien character is speaking to Harrison Ford's character about a space ship. One of my friends who served in Peace Corps Guinea-Bisau said she was startled at watching this scene again after many years, because that alien was speaking a dialect of Swahili that they used in Guinea-Bisau!
I am a mongolian boy study in Beijing, and my major is fashion disign, I didn't pay much attention on the Star Wars before, but after I read your bolg, I found there are some likenesses between the Star Wars and our traditioanl mongolian gown, I'm proud of that, you know a lot about mongolia. I didn't watch the star wars, so I do not know if there have some likenesses between mongolian and the language of Ewoks, but I will check it..
you are located in Mongolia, right? so why you didn't hear monolian words?
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