Since its inception, Star Wars always drew heavily upon mythology for inspiration. When George Lucas first envisioned his now legendary space opera, while he looked to early Flash Gordon serials and Akira Kurosawa's samurai films to inform aspects of his galaxy far, far away, his primary motivation was to tell a modern story that contained all the motifs and ideas of traditional myths and legends. For Lucas, an important element of this was creating an expression of a higher power, akin to God. This would ultimately become the Force, but it started out as something quite different.
Source：https://www.cbr.com/star-wars-the-whills-explained/
