“May the Force Be With You” Had a Christian Influence

With the success of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” a 2014 interview with producer Gary Kurtz (“Star Wars: A New Hope” and “The Empire Strikes Back”) was making the online rounds again and pointed out the fact that the phrase “May the Force Be With You” had a Christian influence.

Here’s the pertinent part of the interview by Chris Taylor, author of “How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,” which also reveals how the idea of the Force evolved in the storytelling process:

On how The Force evolved through different drafts of the script — with the benefit of Kurtz’s student textbooks on Comparative Religion.

At one time, the energy [of the Force] was all tied up in crystals, in the “Kaibur Crystal.” That was the source of the Force. But we had no time to deal with exposition about esoteric religion. What we were looking for was a simple handle on something that could be explained really quickly.

You know, when you’re out in the real world, religion is identified by handles. You’re either a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew or a Buddhist or Hindu. As soon as you say one of those words, you know what’s behind that, even if you haven’t studied any of those religions. You know kind of what that person might be like.

We wanted something like that with a religion that nobody’s ever heard of. So the idea of the Force is this energy thing. The fact that Ben Kenobi could say in one sentence pretty much what it was all about, and then we move on.

That’s how it got boiled down to practically nothing — and it worked much better that way, much better.

We did have long discussions about various religious philosophies, and how people related to them, and how we could simplify it. “May the Force be with you” came out of medieval Christianity, where “may God go with you” was a symbol that you would be safe. We wanted something as simple as that, an everyday expression that linked to the power of the Force that wasn’t overbearing.