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Mark A. Rayner on Star Wars A New Hope
70 Plays2 years ago
Mark and Joe introduce Re-Creative, a podcast about creativity in which creative people from all walks of life talk about the art that inspires them. Mark gets the ball rolling by discussing the impact the original Star Wars movie had on him as a boy.
For more information about this episode and Re-Creative, please visit: Star Wars: A New Hope on Re-Creative
Re-Creative is a co-production of Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with Mark A. Rayner
Contact us at: joe.mahoney@donovanstreetpress.com
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Transcript
Podcast Concept Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
So mark, do we want to tell people what this show is supposed to be about? Uh, yeah, I think the idea is we're going to have guests on and we're going to have conversations, real conversations. And I think the gimmick is the McGuffin, which we discussed as a title.
00:00:25
Speaker
The McGuffin is we're going to have the guest sort of introduce a piece of art or media that they want to talk about and that's going to be our jumping off point. Perfect. Yeah. And I
Expansion to Various Art Forms
00:00:37
Speaker
think that would, and you're, so the first one is you today. Yeah. And you have no idea what I'm going to say, do you? No, because if I did, then I would be telepathic, which would be cool. Which would be great. That would be like, yeah.
00:00:51
Speaker
But no, I don't, I have no idea. Do you have any guesses? Okay, so we had originally talked about this being about a book, that somebody would choose a book, but then we'd expanded it.
00:01:05
Speaker
to anything. So had it been a book, I probably could have guessed because it would have only been like one out of what, 10 million? But now we've expanded it to any piece of art ever created. So it's like one in billions. So no, I don't think I'm going to be able to guess. I guess anyway. Okay. All right. Sure. Cool. Yeah. I think you're going to talk about the Mona Lisa.
00:01:36
Speaker
Oh, that's a good choice. I've seen the Mona Lisa. I have too. Briefly. Yeah, from a distance. Briefly. Behind like 80 people. Yeah, like there's a lot of Japanese heads that I had to look past to see it, but yes, I did. It was cool.
Historical Figures and Story Ideas
00:01:51
Speaker
What you probably don't know is that I've written the start of a novel that the protagonist is Da Vinci.
00:02:00
Speaker
But you haven't finished this one. I haven't finished that one, no. I've got this, it's part of a trilogy that I abandoned many years ago. And the first one, it takes place in the mythical past, and then the present. And one of the characters is always somebody from the past or the mythical past. The first one, it's Sir Percival of the Grail. And then the second one was going to be Da Vinci, because I'm fascinated by him.
00:02:27
Speaker
And one of the reasons why I wanted to co-host a podcast with you is because like every time you open your mouth, it's like, there's like eight things subjects that I want to pursue that you've just mentioned. You know, so like now you've, now I want to talk about the Mona Lisa. I'm going to talk about your book. I want to talk about the holy grail. I want to talk about a movie I just saw said in a 30 in times, but now I don't know which direction to pursue. Well, let's go back to the original question, which was what's the piece of the object art?
00:02:57
Speaker
that I would like to present to you. Okay, which is not the Mona Lisa. But not the Mona Lisa. That was a really good little alleyway to explore though. And we can come back to it. Absolutely. Because I think you're going to be surprised by what I want to talk about. I really do. Okay. I really do. Because I think we've talked about it before. And you know, it's probably not my favourite thing now.
Star Wars as First Topic
00:03:20
Speaker
But I want to talk about the movie Star Wars.
00:03:27
Speaker
I am surprised. I knew I was going for surprise. You didn't vomit right away. Yeah. It was good.
00:03:34
Speaker
No, well, I love Star Wars. I love Star Wars. But I'm surprised you would pick a movie and then I'm surprised that of all the movies you would pick Star Wars. But you know what, I feel like it's an excellent first subject to discuss. Yeah, because I wanted to get to like, so when we first started talking about this, you said that you wanted to bring people in to just talk about something that moved them.
Cultural Impact of Star Wars
00:03:57
Speaker
And I was going through my head, okay, so what really has moved me? And I've got lots of things that I could list. And then I thought, nah, I really, I should take this back to like earlier in my life. And I think, you know, there's...
00:04:12
Speaker
There's two things that really kind of got me early. One was Edgar Ray Sparrow's books. I think that's like the first thing that I started reading in a serious way. Probably when I was about seven or eight. And then Star Wars, cause I would have been, I think we're probably around the same age. I was 11 when Star Wars came out. Yeah, I think I was roughly the, yeah, I'm 57 now, I think. Yeah, I'm 56. So like it blew my mind.
00:04:41
Speaker
a little 11 year old. Oh, it was such a huge impact on all of us. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so, and I actually, I mean, I wrote, I had, at that point I was still like doodling and I had like a little cartoon strip I did of my dog, Blue, who's a Dalmatian. And so I had a strip of Dalmatian that he flew through the galaxy in a spaceship and he had a lightsaber and he was there.
00:05:04
Speaker
That's the kind of stuff that that movie inspired in me to the point that I actually went to go see the thing, I think 13 times in the theater. I was a kid and I skipped school to go see that movie. Like I never did things like that, but I was like, I got to see that movie again. And another buddy and I figured out a way we could do it. Yeah. And we actually skipped school. We got away with it too.
00:05:34
Speaker
The only bad thing about you choosing Star Wars as the first subject is this will now be a 14 hour episode because there's so much to talk about. And we could get flames so badly. But I just thought it was an interesting entry point in terms of culture and where we're at and like where we come from, right?
Star Wars and Childhood Creativity
00:05:55
Speaker
Like it's hard to underestimate how much that movie would have had an impact on us at that age.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, because it became all consuming. I remember my best friend at the time was Kevin Brown. I haven't seen since we were like 14 or 15. And we were just absolutely passionate about Star Wars. We did a huge project for school together. One of those projects where you draw on bristleboard. Remember bristleboard? Oh yeah, bristleboard. It still exists. It's a thing.
00:06:31
Speaker
Does it? Oh yeah. You're in the educational system, I guess you would know. I teach in a library of information science program and yeah, posters are a thing, man.
00:06:40
Speaker
I haven't touched or even seen, I think, Bristleboard in 40 years, but I remember trying this Star Wars montage with Kevin, and we had the Death Star and Wookiees and C-3PO and this thing, and I was so proud of it, and I couldn't wait to hand it in to the teacher. It was our grade, I guess our grade seven teacher. I came to remember who it was, maybe Percy Magoogan. And we handed it in.
00:07:10
Speaker
And they were like to nothing, you know, like, you know, so important to us and so insignificant to poor Mr. Magoogan. Poor Mr. Magoogan probably had to suffer through 30 Star Wars projects that year. Probably, yeah. But yeah, I could devote actually an episode to Percy Magoogan because he actually inspired my whole writing career, but that's a whole other. Oh, that's a great story. How did that happen?
00:07:39
Speaker
Well, he would assign other projects, and you'd have the option of you could write a story. And I would always choose to write a story when I wasn't doing Star Wars bristleboard projects. And I still have all those stories sitting upstairs in the closet. And I thought I was such a great writer. That's why I always chose writing a story, because I'm like, I'm so good at this.
00:08:06
Speaker
Until I got them out of the closet a few years ago and read them and I'm like, whoa, I guess that's a really important component of being a writer is overconfidence. Yeah, actually thinking that the world needs whatever garbage you're going to throw at it.
Influence of Writing Encouragement
00:08:23
Speaker
Whatever nonsense and drivel. Whatever drivel comes out of your head must be important because you're a genius.
00:08:29
Speaker
But he was so encouraging that he promoted, you know, actually, you know what? I hate him looking back because he took me down this road. You could have had a normal life. That's right. Yeah. It could have been an accountant or something. I don't know. Something sensible. Back to Star Wars. So tell me more about what it means to you.
00:08:51
Speaker
Well, I mean, it really is. It does just go back to that whole sense of wonder and having your mind blown, like, by something. And I think it was about the same time I saw that movie, about the same time I'd kind of gotten through, I think, most of the Edgar I. Sparrows books. And I think I was on Maiden of Mars or the Moon Maidens or whatever one it was. And it occurred to me
00:09:18
Speaker
Wait a minute, this is the same story over and over again. It's just changed the names of the characters and the setting. It's either the moon or the middle of the earth. And I think at the time when I saw Star Wars, it just seemed so different to me from anything else that I'd seen that that was part of why my mind was blown.
00:09:44
Speaker
As an eleven year old i think it was just so original it was just so original it was something that i hadn't seen before and of course it wasn't original is very you know derivative of. Be movies from the fifties but derivative in the best possible words yeah but it was like it was taking the essence of the fun of those movies.
00:10:03
Speaker
and distilling it into one movie. And of course, the other thing that I recognize now, but I didn't as an 11 year old was the story structure was so iconic. I mean, it was using that hero's journey that actually is so critical to telling a good story. I mean, it's not the only way you can tell a good story, but it's one of the easiest ways to tell a good story is to have some kind of hero's journey, which is
Exploration of the Hero's Journey
00:10:30
Speaker
Of course, what Luke goes on and Leia and even Han Solo, where they all kind of do it in their own way. So, one of the things that I would like to accomplish in this podcast is to dig into that kind of thing. So, we talk about the hero's journey, but for those of us, anybody who might be listening who is a creator or is a writer, what is the hero's journey? What does it consist of and why is it so compelling?
00:10:58
Speaker
Oh, I don't know if I can take you through all 14. I think it's 14 stages, but there's, there's basically, it's a- Just, just eight of them. Just give us eight. Yeah. So there's a, I think he's an anthropologist by training, Joseph Campbell. I might be, I'm just talking at the top of my head here. I actually don't have Google open in front of me, which is normally what I would do is check these facts before I said them.
00:11:20
Speaker
Joseph Campbell, an anthropologist, I think, and he studied mythology. What he'd like to do is, what he figured out to do is to look at all of the different strands of Earth's myths and find the commonalities in them. At one point, he wrote this very influential book called Here With Thousand Faces, I think it's the title of the book, and basically looks at this idea that there is sort of really common
00:11:48
Speaker
beats in every hero's journey. It doesn't matter if it's Gilgamesh or Odysseus or the trickster from the Raven character from North American indigenous storytelling. There's these common themes that happen with all of these heroes. And he sort of distilled that down into this sort of
00:12:13
Speaker
journey that they all go through. The journey is really about being separated from normal life. That sort of something starts that you are no longer in your regular world.
00:12:27
Speaker
Then you have to make a choice to either embrace the separation from reality or your normal reality to a more heroic view of the world and engage with this new thing that's happening. And then there's I think there's a couple steps in there where like there's a little bit of
00:12:44
Speaker
do I or don't I accept that this is my father's lightsaber? Do I accept that piece of information? There's usually someone like an Obi Wan Kenobi. There's someone who is like a mentor who introduces the hero to their actual reality. So this is what you've got to do. And then the rest of the story goes from there and there's moments of uncertainty,
00:13:10
Speaker
Things look very bad for the hero at some points. Usually the hero gets some allies or helpers along the way. So if you look at Star Wars, it's actually a pretty faithful representation of that journey.
00:13:25
Speaker
and completely effective. And as you're talking, I'm thinking about the Matrix, which is another classic example. And the thing about it is that you don't watch the Matrix and go, oh, this is so derivative of Star Wars. Oh, this is a hero's journey over again. I'm so tired of it. You don't get tired of it. No, it's Alice in Wonderland.
00:13:44
Speaker
you know, there's Tarzan, it's another one there. I mean, there's always- So yeah, it's like, should we all just be like, to be successful? Should we just be writing variations of the hero's journey in Star Wars or, you know? Well, that's what I said. I think there's other ways to think about telling a story like this and have to be done that way. But there's nothing wrong with going, you know what, I think this is going to be best told through that kind of
00:14:11
Speaker
cycle. Even your latest book is, I don't know if you're conscious of it when you're writing it, but there's Star Wars in there, there's Star Wars DNA, there's Heroes Journey DNA, because it's a guide taken out of his normal reality into this crazy trans-dimensional reality and he's got to save the universe or he's got to save the multiverse. Yeah. I mean, that one is probably the most
00:14:38
Speaker
Conscious time I've done that because I've actually a lot of my other books I've tried to buck this idea of using a given a good given structure so I've always tried to create new structures and I think I just got exhausted and so
00:14:53
Speaker
I was like, why don't I try writing a story with the hero's journey? And Alpha Max is the first book that I pantsed. So for listeners who don't know what that means, that's like, there's two kinds of writers, there's plotters, and there's pantsers, which means you write by the CDR from the CDR pants.
00:15:09
Speaker
And also we should probably warn the listeners that we will be shamelessly plugging our work. Of course, of course. In all of these podcasts. But I think in this case it does apply like because it's it was I was consciously like to the point that I actually had a PDF of Campbell's hero's journey. So I'm like, okay, so where am I now? So I'm like literally looking at the hero's journey. Okay, I think I need to make like I would sort of
00:15:32
Speaker
sense that the story needed to shift and move forward. And I'd be like, okay, so I've done that part of the hero's journey. What happens next for Max? Belly of the Beast. Okay. So Belly of the Beast comes from the Jonah myth, right? Of course. A low point in the hero's journey. And I'm like, oh, I know what that is. I know what happens to the Belly of the Beast. I get that. And so then I would like, right, that part of the story
00:15:55
Speaker
So I actually had a structure just that I didn't have to think about what the structure was. I knew what the structure was. I decided to figure out how Max's journey fit onto that structure. And I think that gave the book, for me, for me writing it anyway, and I can't speak for readers, but for me writing it, it's just like I kind of like it was excited to see what happened next in the story because of the fact that it was the history. It worked. Yeah.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yes, and as someone who's read it recently, it had forward momentum and it had good pacing. You never get the sense that the author, you, doesn't know where he's going because it is going someplace.
00:16:41
Speaker
So yeah, no ineffective use of the hero's journey. Now, do you think that George Lucas when he wrote Star Wars, I guess he did. I guess we know that. I think we know that, yeah. He was aware of Joseph Campbell. Yeah, I think he'd read Joseph Campbell and I think he knew that. So, I mean, I think that's pretty well known. Lots of other people have talked about that. But that's one of the reasons why I thought Star Wars is actually pretty important piece of media for the history of, and I think for the history of where we are now too.
00:17:12
Speaker
Like if you think about popular culture and what's happened to popular culture in the last, let's say 40 years, a lot of it kind of starts with Star Wars. Hmm.
Star Wars and Movie Merchandising
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah. It was, yeah. Right around that time, Star Wars and, and Jaws kind of, you know, they, yeah. Yeah. Transformed how movies were made and consumed and, and commercialized and
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah, the whole because it was George Lucas and Star Wars wasn't it, which really started the whole merchandising. Yeah, exactly. Like, I mean, part of his deal that was so brilliant is that he got the merchandising rights because the studios didn't know they were important yet.
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah. And I would argue that, I mean, for good or ill, that movie changed the way that the studios dealt with creation of their movies. And I think we've gone through a period of really cool movies. Like some of the movies actually I like the most are before Star Wars. Like there's some really cool movies that were made in the 70s.
00:18:21
Speaker
By auteurs, like, you know, by directors who had the power to- What are you thinking of? Oh, I'm thinking of like Taxi Driver and those kinds of movies, you know, The Wild Bunch. What am I missing? Sam Peckhampaw. Sam Peckhampaw is a maniac, but like, those are pretty amazing movies.
00:18:40
Speaker
And there was lots of movies like that. Peter Bogdanovich was making pretty interesting movies at the time. Like there's all kinds of stuff that was happening because this is really interesting period after the collapse of the Hollywood studios, like the traditional Hollywood studios. And then these these auteurs appeared in the 60s and 70s. And it kind of ended after Star Wars.
Impact on Filmmaking
00:19:02
Speaker
So you think like Star Wars kind of drove a stake in the heart of those
00:19:07
Speaker
Movies cuz I'm thinking of those you actually yeah Yeah, I just watched a whole bunch of them as well. Actually like some old Jack Nicholson, you know pieces and you know that kind of and Oh, what's the one I'm thinking of it's Harold and mod. Oh, that's a great movie. I love that. That's so off the wall. Yeah. Yeah
00:19:27
Speaker
And that director, was it Hal Ashby? Yeah, I think that's right. He only did like five movies or something and then he couldn't make any more movies, you know? But was that his choice or was that something that happened? Well, he got relegated. I guess they kind of decided that he was a madman and he was known for consuming recreational pharmaceuticals and that, you know, had long hair and they kind of looked down at us. But now I'm wondering,
00:19:54
Speaker
If I'd have to go back and look at the timing of it, but it, if, if star Wars, you know, helped kill his, I'm sure, I'm sure it did. The other ones just popped in my head was Robert Altman, like mash, you know, those kinds of movies.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yes. Although he did keep making some successful movies past Star Wars. Yeah. I mean, Gosford Park, which was made in the early 2000s, was great. So his career wasn't spiked by Star Wars, but I think a lot of them it was. And I think what happened was that the power they had as auteurs was taken away because suddenly the studio said, well, wait a minute, we can make like a lot more money.
00:20:34
Speaker
a lot by not letting the director have complete control. Well, and here's another kind of related phenomena. So just the other day I watched The Green Knight. I don't know if you know that movie. I did, yeah.
00:20:48
Speaker
Heroes Journey. Have you seen that movie? Oh yeah, Heroes Journey. Yeah, Heroes Journey. Now, I didn't read any reviews, you know, on IMDB or anything before I watched it. I think I'd seen one review in the paper which said this is an interesting movie and it sounded up my alley. So I checked it out and I realized instantly, like within the first five minutes, that this was not a conventional Hollywood movie.
00:21:11
Speaker
And I just kind of was in the right mood and I just kind of settled into the atmosphere of it. And I'm like, wow, this is so unique. It's not like anything that I've seen recently. And I love that in movies, you know, like Fury Road is another movie that doesn't look anything like it's a completely different look. And I love that. It's like, let's get away from let's get something different. And and I'm watching The Green Knight and I'm like, I don't have a clue what's going on. I don't understand.
00:21:37
Speaker
what this is supposed to mean or anything, but I love it. And then he sees like these giants, you know, in the distance and I'm like, wow, what a great image, you know, and that's so Arthurian and I've no idea what it means, but I love it. And then I went back after I saw the movie. I'm just curious to see what people are saying about it because it's such a unique, compelling movie and it's all like one star reviews and two, you know, one out of 10, two out of 10. Really?
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah. And
Audience Expectations in Films
00:22:07
Speaker
you're surprised to hear that. It was also a beautiful movie. Like the cinematography was really amazing in the art production.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yes. Oh, yeah. But it was all subtext. The entire movie was like subtext and nothing was obvious and overt. And then you take a movie to bring it back to Star Wars. There might be some subtext in Star Wars, but it's mostly right out there for you to see. And it just seems to me that there's a lot of the audience these days, they don't want to do the work. Like what, Umberto Eco, the writer once said, there's nothing wrong with asking the reader or the audience
00:22:44
Speaker
To have to do a little bit of work and you watch a movie like the Green Knight, you got to do a lot of thinking there. What that and maybe even some research into the original myth. I was trying to map what I was watching onto like I remember reading the poem in my first year English class.
00:23:03
Speaker
And I'm going like, this doesn't seem to have much to do with the poem. Because if I remember correctly, the poem was like about the clash of the old religion with the new religion, right? Like that's sort of what it represented from what I remember. I mean, I could be totally wrong. Yeah. But I was the same as you. I was like, I don't really understand what's going on here.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah. And I thought, you know, I could, I could watch this again, you know, and maybe understand more each time I watch it. It rewards repeated viewings. I do think that it's a little bit of a fault in the part of the filmmaker. And I apologize, I can't remember his name because I've, I've worked with people as, as a story editor, I've worked with people writing scripts and I've often seen it where it's all subtext.
00:23:53
Speaker
And I'm like, you got to make it a little bit more obvious, you know, to give the audience something to hang off of. That is true. And I think he went a little too far down the subtext road in that movie. I think that's true. I think you can be too clever by half. Yes. Yeah. But I do think there's a place for Star Wars in the Green Knight in our. Yeah. And I don't want to be just totally mean to Star Wars and say it's just surface level because it's like I said, it taps into that sort of mythic
00:24:23
Speaker
storytelling that we all love. The reason that Campbell hit upon that is I think because it's baked into our DNA. We like telling stories. We're the storytelling species, right? So I think there's something to the idea that there's an underlying baked in DNA story framework that we kind of just like.
00:24:45
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, although it does change probably and evolve. But obviously, I mean, you brought up Strowers because you're a big fan. You were a big fan. Are you still this big a fan now? No. I mean, that's the worst part is that everything has happened
Evolving Star Wars Fandom
00:25:04
Speaker
Well, not everything because I think I really, really liked the second one, Empire Strikes Back, right? I really like that one. Yes, which is my favorite. Yeah. I think that's my favorite of all of them. And then I even enjoyed the third one with the Ewoks, which- Oh yeah, Return of the Jedi. Yeah.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, side note, at one point, my nickname was Ewok from Hell. My queens. So I'm a little bit like, well, if they hadn't existed already, then I wouldn't be called an Ewok from Hell. But anyway, so yeah, I think what's happened to the stories since then has kind of gotten muddied and
00:25:46
Speaker
So yeah, I don't really, I'm not a big fan. And I think we've talked about this before. I mean, obviously not on this podcast, because this is the first episode, but you and I have talked about this, comparing this to Star Trek. Yes. And I think I'm kind of with David Brin on which one's better. I do actually think Star Trek in some ways is better in the sense that it's a better thing to aspire to.
00:26:15
Speaker
rather than kind of a medieval backwards culture that exists in Star Wars. The culture is pretty horrible. Yeah, and I think my thinking in that has evolved because I'm careful of dichotomies. Yes, I agree. It's like Star Wars and the Green Knight, Star Wars and Star Trek, the universe is big enough for
00:26:43
Speaker
Oh, of course, everything. For both of them. But I take your point. When I watched the J.J. Abrams Star Wars, and I'm not a fan of them, and to me, the most damning thing I could say about them was, sorry, I'm talking about his Star Trek movies. Oh, sorry. Okay.
00:27:00
Speaker
I'm like, really? We got to give both Star Trek and Star Wars to JJ Abrams? Like, can we share that a little bit? But his Star Trek movies, because I'm such a huge Star Trek fan, I'm like, well, you know, as a Star Trek movie, that was a great Star Wars movie, you know. Yeah.
00:27:18
Speaker
which is not a compliment, but I do love Star Wars. This is where we're going to get into controversial territory. The second of the last trilogy of Star Wars movie, what's his name? Johnson, the director, Ryan Johnson. I thought that was going back in the right direction. I like that one. Can you remind me of which one that was? A lot of fans hated it. Because I only seen the last few once, so yeah.
00:27:47
Speaker
Okay, yeah. That's the one where Luke Skywalker is on his own island and there's that scene where he's running around the island milking alien cows and stuff. Which was pretty disturbing actually. Yeah. The giant bird ladies. Yes. But I more or less enjoyed that one. I thought it was getting back to the flavor and it was, he did some interesting things with him.
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, that was actually, I think that was the one that I liked the most too. Yeah, it was that one of the new ones. Yeah, but a lot of fans hated it because they felt that went against Luke's character, which brings up a whole other subject. See, this is why I said when you brought up Star Wars, we're going to be talking about this for 14 hours because there's so many
00:28:33
Speaker
Well, that's why I thought it was a good starting point, right? It's like, well, there's no chance we're not going to have lots to talk about when we talk about stars. Yeah. No, you hit that one out of the park completely. But the audience, thinking that they have the right to say what characters should do in their favorite stories. Yeah. Isn't it the author that should have the... Well, it's so weird because I don't know if she'd admit this publicly, but my favorite social media is Tumblr.
00:29:04
Speaker
Oh, I don't, I have no familiarity with Tumblr at all. So it's like this little tiny corner of the internet, the kind of the land, the time for God almost in the sense that it's kind of like old school media, like almost pre social media. But what's interesting for me is that it's mostly young people that use it. So and I kind of like it's kind of my little window into the minds of the 18 year olds that I'm teaching in my, my second year class, because I need to somehow connect with them, right?
00:29:33
Speaker
And so I can see what they're talking about, or what the common tropes are, what the sort of discussion is, the discourses they say is about. And there does seem to be this idea that fandoms have rights, that they have control in a sense, or should have some control over what happens.
00:29:53
Speaker
to the characters. There's an ownership there, which I don't think is entirely bad because I do think as a writer you have to recognize that your job kind of ends once you hit the end and the things in the world. It's kind of no longer yours once you've sent it into the world, especially I think novels and prose because so much of what happens happens in the reader's mind.
00:30:20
Speaker
And I can't control that. Completely agree with that. But getting upset, like for one of the things I'm seeing right now in Tumblr as part of the discourse, and again, this is controversial territory because yeah, this is something that.
00:30:33
Speaker
young people especially really passionately care about. The idea that a character would say something or do something that's upsetting to them is a big problem that seems to be coming up. It's like, well, I don't think they should say that or he should say that or they should say that because that's not what I believe that character is.
00:30:56
Speaker
And that's like – okay, so that's a really difficult thing to bring to a piece of artwork, to bring everything that you believe and try to impose that on the characters is really – Well, and what does that do to the creator? Well, it doesn't – I don't think it does anything to the creator to be honest because like I said,
00:31:14
Speaker
We're done. Well, I mean, sure, we're done with that first one. But if we dive into that universe again, if you do a sequel to Alpha Max and like say there was a huge, you were aware of a huge fin reaction, is that going to cripple you or hobble you writing the next one? Yeah, that's actually a great question. That's, I've, I've.
00:31:33
Speaker
I've been writing some trilogies. I've got two on the go. So I will have that experience maybe once I get them published. But part of the reason I'm writing them before I release them is so that I don't get influence that way. So first of all, it's mostly because I need to know what the story arc is.
00:31:56
Speaker
They're connected trilogies at this point, so I want to know what the story arc is before I do my second edits. But partially, that's in my head now as I'm reading Tumblr. I'm going, wow. I think – I mean, I do actually think that my book will connect with the younger audience.
00:32:13
Speaker
uh, because it's the second series especially. But I am worried about like, okay, so she makes some difficult choices in this book. And I don't think that people are going to necessarily agree with her choices all along the way. Have you read Thomas covenant? Oh yeah. I love those books. Me too. Yeah. Huge fan. And the choice that Thomas covenant makes a third of the way into the first one. Yeah. You probably recall. I do. And it's, uh, I don't see, I don't know that
00:32:42
Speaker
I think it'd be really hard to get that book published now because of that. I think it'd be, yeah, impossible with that. Yeah. Yeah. So well, the listeners will have to read the book to know what we're talking about because we're not going to obviously spoil it for them. Yeah. But yeah, I don't think you could get that book published now.
00:33:00
Speaker
I guess we can say, you know, the main character does something quite reprehensible. Yes. And he's the main character in the whole trilogy. And well, actually, I think there's like nine, nine books. I read the second trilogy. The second trilogy is to press the hell out of me.
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's really the first trilogy that people need to read, and then if you're a die-hard fan, then you could, you know, there's some diminishing returns. But he's sort of a classic anti-hero, right? Yes, which is a whole other avenue of discussion, but I almost stopped reading after he did the reprehensible act. I almost couldn't get any further, and somehow got past it, and continued, and then realized that I actually loved the whole
00:33:45
Speaker
character in the book. And then I reread them many, many, many years later as an adult and wondered how that scene would bounce off me and completely got it. I understood what the author was doing. But yeah, he couldn't write that and be second guessing the readership.
00:34:03
Speaker
No, I think that's probably one of the things that's changed right now in terms of how audiences interact with a piece of artwork is that they do feel more entitled. I think there's
Philosophical Impact of Star Wars
00:34:15
Speaker
no question of that. And maybe that's a good thing in some ways, but for the creator, I think it's difficult. Yeah.
00:34:24
Speaker
So, I want to revisit a question that I asked you a while ago. When I asked if you were still a fan of Star Wars, what about the first movie? Are you still a fan of the first movie? I am. I mean, it doesn't hold up as much as I thought it did. I rewatched it not recently, but like probably within the last couple, like during the pandemic at some point, I needed something to make me feel.
00:34:44
Speaker
And I thought, oh, I want Star Wars. And I mean, I saw it so many times when I was a kid, I still knew it beat for beat, basically. Like, there's no surprises at all. But yeah, I still kind of love the movie. I still love the characters. I really enjoyed Luke's character, especially in that movie and the second movie when he starts to come in, like when he starts to accept that he's got these powers and starts to
00:35:12
Speaker
Engage with training and then of course he makes terrible mistake and stops his training before he's ready I love though that the arc of those first two so much and then of course the third one He's you know, a full-fledged Jedi and he's he's come into his own power completely
00:35:28
Speaker
which is nice to see, but it was the first two parts that are the most interesting parts to me. Just the engaging with, what's the force? That concept actually really blew my mind when I was a kid. It actually set me down a pathway. I recognize now that I don't know that I would have gone down if I hadn't seen that movie and taken it the way that I had.
00:35:55
Speaker
I got really interested in Buddhism probably about, it was probably about five years later. And I think that was because of, not because of, but certainly Star Wars kind of made me open to that idea of the interconnection of things and the idea of the force being this thing that we're all part of, which is kind of a Buddhist idea really. Like, well, actually just the illusion that we're part of everything.
00:36:25
Speaker
But yeah, like that kind of sent me down a pathway of mystical thinking that I kind of really got a lot out of. So from that perspective to the movie for me was, was important plus lightsabers. I mean, they're just really cool. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It does. Interesting question though, if something like Star Wars, the movie, you know, hadn't existed or been made, you know, would, would we feel like a gap and,
Hypothetical Cultural Impact
00:36:53
Speaker
Did it add something to culture in our lives that in a wonderful life sense, if it hadn't existed, how would the world be different? Well, I mean, it would exist. We could probably figure it out, right? Because that's what we do. That's true. Have you read Ken Grimwood's replay? No. No.
00:37:17
Speaker
So this is one of my all-time favorite books, Ken Grimwood Replay. The travel book.
00:37:23
Speaker
Kind of, yes. He relives his life over and over again. In some of the realities that he relives, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg did not do their thing. He amasses enough of a fortune in one of his realities to hire them to make a movie.
00:37:48
Speaker
And so they make this like Steven Spielberg Lucas hybrid that does not exist in our reality, but that blows everybody in that reality away. That's awesome. And then, yeah, and then there's another character who's like, okay, how did this guy know to put them together? And it turns out she's from the original reality as well, kind of, and so then they kind of, but anyway, yeah, I reread that book every couple of years. Have you seen yesterday?
00:38:17
Speaker
Yes. Because that's basically the plot of yesterday, right? It's about a guy who gets knocked on his butt and he wakes up in a world where the Beatles never existed. Yes. He's a musician. I loved it. Yeah. I love that movie. And there's like two other people in the world that had the same thing happen to them. And they, yeah, I love that concept, that idea, like what happens when something like this hurt. And it just brings so much joy to the world that
00:38:44
Speaker
that he then recreates the songs. Well, and you are, you know, Mr. Metaverse. So that whole concept of these metaverses, you know, where different realities have different features. Yeah, I mean, it's quite possible that all of these things exist. Yeah.
00:39:07
Speaker
I mean, I don't know, possible maybe stretching it, but I think in terms of theoretical physics, it's not an unreal possibility.
00:39:17
Speaker
It's not categorically impossible. But yeah, that part of writing Alpha Max was so hard. Just like my brain just got hurt sometimes. I'm thinking about infinity in a real way. It's actually impossible to do, right? Because we're just humans. We don't have the capacity to actually understand what infinity is.
00:39:40
Speaker
But it's so fun to try to go there. It is, yeah. And that was, and you're going to think I'm just praising you because you're my co-host, which is not the case. It's like something that I really appreciated about Alpha Max was the marriage of the humor with the deep ideas and the philosophical thoughts. Oh, that's what I liked about your book too.
00:40:07
Speaker
Yeah, we're good. There's lots of goo in it. I don't know if you realize how much goo there was in your book. I may have to go back and I was really like, Oh, that's really gross Joe. That's really gross. Oh my God. That's gross. Yeah. But same thing. I mean, I really liked the idea. Like it was a, it was a really smart time travel book. Like you played with the idea of time travel and the philosophical implications of it really well. And it was still fun. It was interesting and fun.
00:40:37
Speaker
Well, good. I keep waiting for somebody to come up with something that was wrong. You get this completely wrong in it. That was really stupid. It's something that the author David Gerald of Star Trek Tribbles fame once said. He said, I'm so afraid of embarrassing myself in print in public. Yes. Yeah, that's a real thing. One of the books that I've abandoned is a book that includes near relativistic
00:41:07
Speaker
travel, interstellar travel. And I ended up working with a physicist because I'm like, I don't want to get this wrong. And again, it's like really pushed my ability to think to kind of its maximum like, okay, so let me figure this out. If I'm going to half a century at near the speed of light, and then I come back, how much time has passed?
00:41:31
Speaker
What? Yeah. And then I started, of course, taking people farther away and bring them back. And it was like, wow. So it's, you know, Holloman deals with it really well in the forever war, I think, but.
00:41:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So well.
Handling Criticism in Creative Works
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Somebody actually did write a review of a time in a place where they accused me of having got something wrong. And they're like, it's inconsistent. It's, you know, this is wrong. You know, and I went back and double checked and I'm like, no, no, it's not wrong. I don't think so. But you know that thing, but you can't like respond to a review. You have to wait until you'd like launch a podcast several years later and then mention it.
00:42:09
Speaker
That's right. And not by name. That was advice my first editor gave me was like, don't respond to reviews. Just ignore them as much as you can. That's the only one that I had trouble not responding to because I'm like, no, you're putting it out there in print that I got something wrong. And if I did, I would admit it, but it's not wrong. The reviews that I really, really want to respond to are
00:42:36
Speaker
the ones that say basically, well, this was a science fiction book and I don't like science fiction, so it's a one star review. And I'm like, but why did you read the book? It's clearly labeled science fiction. If you don't enjoy it, why would you read it? I don't get it.
00:42:54
Speaker
Well, I've got some that start, I don't normally read this kind of book or I don't normally read science fiction, but these are relatives and good friends in some cases that are saying that. But you're always doing a bit of a facepalm when you read that because it's like...
00:43:12
Speaker
Yeah. Well, one of the one of the gurus that I, the sort of self-publishing gurus I follow, actually, he's got advice about that. He says, don't get your friends and relatives to read your books and review your books, because they're not your audience. They are fundamentally not, if they don't read those kinds of, it's different, of course, if you're friends. I mean, obviously, I'm your friend and I read your book because I read that kind of book.
00:43:34
Speaker
But yeah, like that's okay. Likewise. So like, but if, yeah, don't ask, don't ask friends and relatives to read and review your books if they don't really read that kind of stuff because they're not your audience and they're not necessarily gonna like the book or understand the book. Here's the real key. On Amazon, you don't want, they're also bots.
00:43:56
Speaker
So the other things that they liked and they bought to start intermingling in the algorithm, right? Because for example, my father who does not read science fiction, in fact, we had an argument yesterday about – he was telling me about this show. He thought it was called Black Mirror or something like that. I said, oh yeah, that's a science fiction show. I'm surprised you watched that. No, it wasn't science fiction.
00:44:21
Speaker
Because of its science fiction, you'd have to admit that he likes it. Because it's science fiction, he doesn't like it, yeah. So he reads lots of mysteries and I don't personally read them and they're not my thing, but that's fine. They don't have to be.
00:44:35
Speaker
So, yeah, there's no point in having him read my book because he's first of all not going to like it because it's science fiction, but also what he likes is a different set of things. So, if I'm looking for more people to find my book on Amazon, they don't overlap and there's actually they do the opposite of helping you, they actually hurt you. Well, I never thought of that. No, me either. It's Derek Murphy, his name is. Yeah. And I thought, oh, that's actually really smart.
00:45:04
Speaker
Okay. I'll stop doing that. We could do a whole podcast on marketing and selling books and the thing because there's so many tricks and techniques that I will never master. No.
Marketing Challenges in Publishing
00:45:21
Speaker
There's only so much time and there's only so many things you can do well. That's why people
00:45:27
Speaker
Taking the process seriously and hiring editors and hiring cover designers, et cetera, is the way to go, I think, because yeah, these are skills that are quite specialized and not everybody has them. Yep.
00:45:40
Speaker
Completely agree. Any final thoughts on our subject of the day, Star Wars? Not really. No, I was just, I just literally took you out of your words like here's a launching point for a conversation. As I said, as an 11 year old, I love the movie. I still have a fondness for the first trilogy. I'll be honest, the rest of them don't do much for me. Though I really did like, there's that one scene in Star Wars
00:46:04
Speaker
I don't think this is a spoiler, right? Everyone's seen the last trilogy where he, remember he fights off all the robots or whatever they are at the end of, I think it's the last one, The Rise of Skywalker, right? I think so, yeah. But where he's just a force projection.
00:46:24
Speaker
Yes, yes. That was so cool. And that was actually kind of like, okay, so wait a minute. He's now superseded Yoda. He can do things that Yoda could never do. And you know what? That was the Ryan Johnson. That was the second one. It wasn't the last one. Okay. That was the second one. Okay. So that was the one that I liked tonight. And that for me was kind of such a cool moment. And that was like, yes, that's the promise of Luke Skywalker.
00:46:52
Speaker
He's doing the right thing for justice and the universe and he's using his power with the force to do it. It's just his power with the force, right? He's just, he's projecting himself like from another planet, right? He's, yeah, that was awesome. That was, so for me, like, that was kind of like, that was like the nice bow on the first trilogy, did that moment when that happened.
00:47:16
Speaker
completely. And there was that moment where he wipes the dust off his shoulder. Yes, yes, yes, it's that real. I can make it. I have this much power.
00:47:25
Speaker
Bitch. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. None of that touched me. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. So I just wanted to say for people listening that, um, so that that's the concept is that we will invite a guest. Somebody in
Future Podcast Format and Guests
00:47:41
Speaker
the podcast will come with, uh, a piece of art that they want to talk about, whether it's a film or a book or, or a painting or whatever the Mona Lisa. Yeah.
00:47:51
Speaker
And then we'll just go where the conversation takes us and hopefully everybody will be entertained and maybe learn something. So that's the idea. Oh God, learning something. That's a lot of pressure.
00:48:04
Speaker
Well, we have no pressure to teach anybody anything. It may happen accidentally. The next episode will be me. I will bring something to the table, which hopefully will spark a conversation. And then the one after that, we'll start having special guests.
00:48:24
Speaker
Excellent. I think this is gonna be fun. Thank you for agreeing to do this podcast with me Mark. Oh, thanks. Thanks for suggesting it I think this is gonna be a lot of fun and we're gonna be doing this for 30 years. All right. See you later
00:49:01
Speaker
You've been listening to Recreative hosted by Joe Mahoney and Mark Rayner, a podcast about creativity. Talking to creative people from every walk of life about the art that inspires them. And you're probably wondering, how can I support this podcast? I am wondering, Joe, how can I support this podcast? I mean, apart from being on it.
00:49:19
Speaker
There's no advertisements in this podcast. There's no tip jars. There's nothing about like buying us a coffee or anything like that. But there is a way that you can support us. And what is that? They could buy our books. And how do they find us? Re-creative.ca. Don't forget the hyphen. There's a hyphen in there. Re-creative. I took your line, sorry. Well, because I stole your line. So yes, re-creative.ca. Janks. Oh yeah, I stole your line again.
00:49:47
Speaker
As well, if you like what you've just heard, you could consider subscribing to the podcast. And leave a comment if you like it. Thanks for listening. Spread the word.