IF DISNEY+ EVER spins off Marvel’s What If…? series into other areas of Disney’s vast entertainment empire, here’s a story pitch they can have for free: what if George Lucas had never fallen in love with the films of Akira Kurosawa when he was a USC film student in the ’60s? We’ll never know for sure, of course, but the legendary Japanese director’s movies – The Hidden Fortress, in particular – were such a big influence on the original Star Wars that there’s a good chance Lucas would never have created his famous galaxy far, far away without them.