I haven’t seen the new Star Wars film “The Force Awakens” myself. So I don’t think it’s possible to leak any spoilers, but consider yourself warned. In the new film Director JJ Abrams includes a new planet called Takodana. The name sounds oddly Japanese because, well, it is! At a press conference in Tokyo last week Abrams himself, after much prodding, revealed a fun fact: Takodana was named after the Tokyo neighborhood Takadanobaba.
Takadanobaba station | image courtesy Waseda University
“I can share one thing,” said Abrams. “There is planet in the movie called Takodana. And I named it (as such) because the first time I came to Tokyo, we stayed in a hostel in Takadanobaba.” He continues: “So it was a nod to my favorite city.”(!)
It’s unclear whether the spelling of “Takodana” was simply Abrams’ phonetic interpretation of the town or an intentional obfuscation. But either way, Takadanobaba locals should be proud!
Takadanobaba, or Baba, as it’s known locally, is home to a large student body who commutes to the nearby Waseda University, as well as other vocational colleges and prep schools. It’s also the hometown of the fictional Astro Boy. Waseda even created a video to introduce the “Baba Walk,” a path down Waseda Dori that includes used bookshops, ramen joints and restaurants.
The planet and potential clue to the plot, was first revealed when fans discovered that LEGO was working on a set called “Battle on Takodana.”
December 19, 2015 at 11:05 am
Wow! That’s such interesting information to know how writers or creators come up with fictitious names or plots or characters in their stories. From the age of 20, I have been intermittently working on a series of fantasy/magic/action genre of books for tweens and teens. To create my characters and plots, I always used plots from my random dreams or researched mythologies or obscure stories and came up with names, place traits, personality traits etc. Its nice to know we can also simply use traits of places, people etc. from real life for inspiration. In this case, even a fictitious place name was inspired by a real place name. Awesome. I can’t wait to see the new installment of Star Wars with my hubby. Hopefully, on Monday, when my hubby has a leave from office and the baby will be in the day care .. Yeayyyyyy!! Looking forward to watching the movie 😀
December 21, 2015 at 11:53 am
That’s my local train station!! So happy to read about this and LOVED the movie.