Via Starwars.com:

There’s no denying that the films of Japanese film company Toho have always inspired George Lucas and the world of Star Wars. They produced many of Akira Kurosawa’s best films (Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress, and many others) but they also produced the Godzilla films. Godzilla was a science-fiction response to the nuclear testing and culture that came to Japan in the years after World War II. Godzilla is a massive, pre-historic monster resurrected by nuclear tests that rises up from the water and levels cities.

The original film from 1954 (released in Japan as Gojira), ushered in a new wave of monster movies, creating a phenomenon out of “Kaiju” and films that featured massive monsters laying waste to everything in their path. And in the wake of that wreckage was a bit of inspiration for every era of Star Wars.

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