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Christian Gossett and Kurasawa's Seven Samurai
38 Plays2 days ago
The lads are joined by writer, director, comic book artist and creator Christian Gossett.
Christian is on the show to champion the groundbreaking Akira Kurosawa film, Seven Samurai (1954). But first, because it's near the holidays, they discuss their favorite Christmas movies.
Christian got an early chance to design for the Star Wars universe Old Republic, and, as part of that process, created the double-bladed lightsaber. As he did this work, he did a deep dive into George Lucas's influences. One of those was Seven Samurai. The movie has had a huge influence on Christian's work.
Christian is more than a fan of Kurosawa -- he's deeply engaged with the director's process and history and is knowledgeable about both.
If you enjoy the Star Wars universe, the work of Kurosawa, and how those two worlds tie together, don't miss this episode!
For more information, check out the show notes for this episode.
Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with MonkeyJoy Press.
Contact us at joemahoney@donovanstreetpress.com
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Transcript
Podcast Schedule Break
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, Mark. Joe, you magnificent bastard. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. How are you doing tonight? I'm good. I think this is our last episode before we take a break. Is that correct? Yes, it is. After how many? How many have we done this season? I think it'll be 30 something. Yes, and we normally do like 20 or something, but we got carried away because we just had so many excellent guests this season. That's it, yeah.
00:00:36
Speaker
So I have a question that's related to that because I think we're gonna end up, our last podcast is gonna launch about the 19th or 20th of December, which is yeah really close to Christmas.
Top Christmas Movie Picks
00:00:48
Speaker
So I think this is my only chance to ask you okay what your favorite Christmas movie is. You know, the funny thing is I actually made a list just today.
00:01:00
Speaker
of my favorite Christmas movies because a friend was posting and he posted his list. And then so I had to respond with my list. exciting The short answer to your question is my all time favorite is it's a wonderful life. Okay. And what's two and three?
00:01:17
Speaker
Two and three would be, uh, Alice or Sims Christmas Carol. Okay. Would be in the number two position. All right. Yeah. And then I got to put, and maybe this is just because I saw it last night, but, uh, Chevy Chase's national Lampoon's Christmas vacation. Okay. Directed by.
00:01:35
Speaker
Jeremiah Chechek, I believe, who only did one or two movies. Now, I'm always like, why? He did such a fantastic job with that movie. Why didn't he direct like 30 more? It's probably because he had to work with Chevy Chase in that moment. Well, you'll listen to the commentary on that on that movie, and they're all very kind to Chevy Chase. Oh, okay. Well, that's okay. That's good to hear. because yeah Okay, so my list would be Die Hard.
00:02:01
Speaker
Number one with a bullet. I know. like horr My wife refuses to accept that as a Christmas movie. And then this is going to be even more controversial. Batman.
00:02:12
Speaker
What? Which Batman? Well, the one, the Michael Keaton Batman that said at Christmas. That's a good Christmas movie. Ooh, okay. I'm going to try to sell that to to my wife. I don't think you're going to be successful if you can't manage that hard. You're dead. And then a third, i this is going to really put me out there. Love, actually. I love that as a Christmas movie.
00:02:35
Speaker
You know, that is one of those movies and I've had this experience a lot recently where I'll have a guest over to the house watching a movie and it's a guest where we have to be a little bit careful about the content. And then I recommend some movie and we put it on and then the in the first three minutes and everybody's embarrassed and I have to take it off and pick a different movie. And what I forgot about love actually is that one of the plot lines is porn stars, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah And so yeah so that's i yeah, I have to be very careful. You can't use that one. ah so yeah So I think we should show this to throw this to Christian. I think yeah ah he would have some answers to this. He obviously had opinions about my choices.
Interview with Christian Gossett
00:03:21
Speaker
Christian Gossett, welcome to the podcast Recreative. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. Yeah, Alistair Sims Christmas Carol was a is really a deep cut and fantastic. I was surprised and and pleasantly so by that one. that's one of my That's probably my favorite. Other than Albert Finney's musical of Scrooge in the late 60s, which my family loved. Now, that's a deep cut, I think.
00:03:47
Speaker
Because yeah I'm surprised that you would describe the Ellershire Sims ones as a deep cut, because isn't that a conventional pick for? You know, it's funny, i I don't know a lot of people who know that one. Really? Yeah. Now, maybe we should explain. So you, ah you're we're talking to you from what, Paraguay? where no i mean like Where are you that nobody would know that movie? My movie buff friends know it for sure.
00:04:12
Speaker
Okay. Your average Joe on the street might not know the Alistair Sims, Christmas Carol. But I think that's a Canadian thing. It's a Canadian thing because it was played by this. I think the CBC had the rights. So that's why it's not on my list because I saw it so many times. Same for A Wonderful Life. It's like I saw it so many times. I'm just tired of that movie. And I and i love A Wonderful Life. I absolutely am obsessed with it. Yeah, it's a great movie. Yeah. And Miracle on 34th Street is another one of favorite of mine.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, that would have been like, yeah, like number five or six on. Yeah. Because another one that like just made the list recently, if you guys know this one, the man who invented Christmas, that's a relatively new movie, but it's, it's great. It's destined to be right up there. I would say elf is on my list though. It's like probably four and and coming up with a bullet. Like it's, it's one that I keep going back to and I keep enjoying so much. There's so much to enjoy about that movie.
00:05:05
Speaker
I love Elf. Elf is a great one. And I even enjoyed last year, I just went ahead and went for it. You know, modern Christmas stories are hard to tell. So it's why Elf is such a triumph. And I really enjoyed the first Kurt Russell Christmas movie where Kurt Russell plays Santa Claus. I think it was a Netflix original. I really enjoyed it. But the sea mars but the first one was fantastic. i don't Oh yes, right, yeah yeah yeah, it's not a bad movie. yeah I love how this is gonna segue into when we start talking about Christian's pick for this episode, yeah which is another classic Christmas movie. They're
Gossett's Career Beginnings
00:05:41
Speaker
all Christmas movies, as far as I could start.
00:05:43
Speaker
Sure. but But first, I think we should talk about you, Christian, and and do the classic thing in this on this podcast where we get you to tell us who you are. All right, great. my Christian Gossett, where did it begin? I started As a creative professional at 19, I was internationally published, doing an and in an anthology magazine, writing ninja stories, The Tales of the Ninja Warriors, and really a fun first foray into fiction. I got to create my own characters and write the stories, draw the stories, letter the stories, and that was my first professional experience. And I went from there to doing Star Wars comics.
00:06:25
Speaker
ah Thanks to a friend who recommended me, Frank Gomez. And Star Wars comics was really the thing that really started everything. It was in my early 20s, and this is the 90s, so the prequels are being written as I'm doing these books. And there hadn't been any Star Wars in so long.
00:06:42
Speaker
that everyone was just kind of starved for it. Tim Zahn's novels had come out, but other than that, there were no Star Wars films in a long time. And I got to basically be the original designer of the Old Republic. Back in the early 90s, I was the guy. There were no other designs of the Old Republic. Yeah, so this would have all been canon, right? And still considered canon to this day. Right, that's right. In fact, so many of my designs are still canon, including the double-bladed lightsaber and all alternative lightsabers.
00:07:09
Speaker
They gave me this crazy, wonderful opportunity, Lucasfilm licensing did. They said, listen, you've got to design the Old Republic and it takes place 4000 years before Luke Skywalker. That's that's when your story takes place. And I said this to me in my early 20s was just the greatest thing ever you could have done. Absolutely. Yeah, of course. Yeah.
00:07:27
Speaker
child And I said, okay, well, 4,000 years, I was also, you know, I've always been a lover of history of military history, social history, I just love history. So I was like, okay, I'm a historian, I love Star Wars, I'll put peanut butter and chocolate together. And I will make sure that these stories really authentically have a feel of when you look at them, you go feel like, yeah, that could have been the Star Wars galaxy. And In order to do that, I did this deep dive into
Kurosawa's Influence on Star Wars
00:07:53
Speaker
Lucas's inspirations. What inspired George Lucas to make those movies in the first place? i'm sending a second One of the things I discovered was, of course, the work of Akira Kurosawa. Yes. Yes. Awesome. Nice job. You did our work for us, Christian. Thank you.
00:08:11
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so talk about that. Tell us more about how Akira Sawa inspired your work and and then your work. Yeah, it was so there, right? I watched all the films and I had been introduced to Seven Samurai thanks to Cisco and Ebert and at the movies on public television here in the States.
00:08:28
Speaker
And they always waxed poetic about Akira Kurosawa's work, and they loved Toshiro Mufune and Takashi Shimura. So I had seen the films on VHS as a kid with my dad. And dad loved history and and any kind of war movie he loved. So I saw Seven Samurai and immediately made the connection to Star Wars. And then again on public television, we were a very public television kind of household. I saw Joseph Campbell being interviewed by Bill Moyers on The Power of Myth.
00:08:58
Speaker
And there was this fantastic episode where they actually had footage from Star Wars. And again, in the you know in the late 80s, we didn't see things a lot. right was You didn't have this kind of culture right now where you can just tap on your keyboard and come up with any clip from any movie any in all of time. So back then, seeing Star Wars on PBS, even just clips of it during the Death Star fight, it was very, very impactful.
00:09:23
Speaker
and Joseph Campbell connecting Star Wars to the ancient myths and to the samurai and the Jedi, of course, being like samurai and the lightsaber being like the katana, it all became really clear. And I based my Star Wars, the Old Republic, very much on feudal Japan. That's really what led to my designs and why they're still being used by Lucasfilm licensing today is because they're so rooted in the same inspiration that Lucas used for the Jedi. In fact, the word Jedi could be said to be a derivative of Jedi Geki, which is samurai story in Japanese. Oh, I never heard that before. I did not know that. That is new information. Thank you. It's hard to separate, you know, samurai story, Jedi and Jedi. It's hard to separate them.
00:10:07
Speaker
Now, I had thought that the the actual inspiration or one of the main inspirations for Star Wars was the Hidden Fortress from Kurosawa. Did that factor into your your influences and and work as well?
00:10:19
Speaker
Seeing Hidden Fortress the first time was a serious revelation because in retrospect, it is very easy to look at Hidden Fortress and see the connections. Stan Sakai I met at a convention back in my Tales of the Jedi days and he was very adamant that I had to see Hidden Fortress. I told him I'd seen Seven Samurai and and some other Kurosawa films and he said, you have got to see Hidden Fortress.
00:10:41
Speaker
And yeah, there's some amazing connections there. I actually did. I still have it in my sketchbook from the time. I watched Star Wars, and then I wrote down, and I i watched In Fortress, and i one after the other. And I wrote down the connections. And and where Lucas was could be said to have been inspired, whether he was conscious of it or not, a lot of times that happens in creativity, right? You're like, oh, you don't really know where where all the things come from.
00:11:05
Speaker
But then there were these wonderful diversions that he takes from Hidden Fortress. I mean, Hidden Fortress and Star Wars are really, you could really map them together in incredible ways, even to the point where at the end, one of the samurai that had been an antagonist in the in the film, Hidden Fortress,
00:11:21
Speaker
at the last moment, turns coat and saves the heroes just like Han Solo does. So it's a there's lots of really fun connections. Anyone who wants to see Hidden Fortress. That is so cool. Is it true for you that um the way that Kurosawa frames things actually like frames his pictures had an impact on how you draw things when you're thinking about you know,
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, very much so. And not only in my Star Wars work, but in everything I do even to this day, I'm constantly being asked by my collaborators to make it and just not so big. I think it's Ralph McQuarrie, Akira Kurosawa, just gigantic scale. And sometimes that's just, you know, especially on a live action film, they're like, that is too huge. Like, we can't make that. That's way too expensive. You need to make this a room instead of a stadium. The scene needs to take in a closet, not not the Grand Canyon. I heard a story about Kurosawa. Somebody asked him, why did you frame this particular shot this way? Because it's such a singular. And he said, well, the you know the movie was set in the 1600s.
00:12:30
Speaker
And if we moved over to the right a little bit, there was a factory. And then if we moved over to the left a little bit, there's a highway. So that's why we framed it that way. That's your shot. yeah He is so from that old school, that that John Ford school, right? We're we're making pictures here. You know, we're not making art, we're making pictures. and Curacao is definitely, strangely enough, you could put him in that same school of of practicality. Okay, so you get into doing the Star Wars comics early in your career, and how long did you do that for? it
00:13:01
Speaker
I did Tales of the Jedi from the early 90s until i i did a I did Tales of the Jedi, the first series, issues one and two, and then I did Dark Lords of the Sith, and I did Golden Age of the Sith, which is about, you know of course, the Sith. And then I left to go work on PlayStation games. I did some PlayStation games at Activision. Oh, really?
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, and then Dark Horse called me back and said, hey, will you please come back and do some more Star Wars comics? And I went back and with Kevin Anderson did Tells the Jedi Redemption, which is all about Ulukeldroma, this Jedi master who dies. And it was wonderful because again, I had i'd been able to design this character from the very first moment he'd ever been seen in Tells the Jedi issue one, I was able to take him all the way to his death, which is rare for a comic book creator.
00:13:43
Speaker
Kevin was very generous when we were making Tales of Jedi Redemption. And I said to him, look, I really want to do this one. I really want to go back to the source on the whole Kurosawa thing. And so there's a scene where Uliq, the old Jedi, he's at this point, he's killed his brother. He's all of his dreams of what he was hoping to ah achieve as a Jedi or dashed. And he's at the end of his life. And he just wants to be forgotten. he's ah He's a war criminal. And this young Jedi finds him and says, I still believe in you. I'm going to learn from you. And he has this scene that is very much very much asked Kevin if we could make this moment and give him this monologue. That was a lot very ah much an homage to Kanbei Shimada, the mentor samurai from the film, speaking to Katsushiro, the young samurai. Samurai Jedi. Samurai Jedi.
00:14:30
Speaker
And he said, yeah, I know. you want to eat that The young samurai is like, take me with you to fight these brigands and save this village. And I'm so into it. And you're so great. And he he knows nothing. He's just a baby. And Kanbei Shimada, the mentor, is like, oh, I know. I understand. Yes, you come from a noble line. And I know you want to be a big hero. And you'll find fun fight these wars and make a name for yourself. But let me tell you what really happens as a samurai. And he just lays it out for him. And all the other samurai, all the experienced warriors are just like,
00:14:56
Speaker
They just go deep and and they remember all the defeats and the reality of what Shimada is saying. And so I put that in exemption. So it's, yeah, i've I've been connecting Star Wars to samurai. I've got like a really nerdy question and i I'm afraid of asking this question because Shimada is technically Ronin though, right? He doesn't have a master.
00:15:17
Speaker
That's right. yeah That's right. Okay. It's kind of implied that he did at one point. Yeah, have a master and he was quite loyal to him and then something happened. And yeah, I just recently read this fantastic book. It's called Musashi. Are you familiar with that? Sure, sure.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I'm not. Yeah. Tell me about that, Mark. Mark. Joe. I'm Mark. that's okay I can reverse names if you like. I'll be Joe. I'll be Mark. Yeah, sure. ah No, Misashi is, um it was done as written as a serial in Japan by a Japanese writer, I.G. Yoshikawa. So he wrote that it was like serialized in, I think, that the 30s and 40s and eventually compiled into book form. It's like set in 16th century Japan. Japan is completely closed off from the rest of the world.
00:16:01
Speaker
And and this this samurai, who eventually comes to be referred to as Musashi, the name is chosen for him, Musashi. and his exploits from before he was a samurai to being ah an accomplished samurai. And yeah, it's just an amazing story. Kurosawa, I'm sure, had to have been influenced by by this book. and He was a actually samurai family Kurosawa, so it was in his was in his family. Yeah, he's a descendant of the samurai, which he was very proud of and informed all his work. And one of the things I love about Kurosawa is there's always this sense of plausible procedure, narrativized in a really exciting way, whether it's the fact that the way that they dress, the way that they speak, the the relationship between them and the peasantry, there's all this plausible procedure. And, you know, I saw that in Star Wars when I was when i was studying Star Wars and and watching Kurosawa in order to make my Star Wars stuff.
00:16:59
Speaker
a true contribution to the canon of the Star Wars galaxy because that was my mission really, right? I wanted to make an adaptation that people saw it and they were like, wow, this really feels like a Star Wars story. It's not just it's not just a licensed opportunity from some public, but it actually feels like I'm in the Star Wars galaxy.
00:17:14
Speaker
And one of the things that Lucas really did well, and another thing, I mean, he is one of the most famous students, of course, our him, Coppola Spielberg. And one of the things Lucas really did well was he was also a student of procedure coming from documentary, the very fact that the very first time most of us saw a working computer network was R2D2 plugging into the Imperial Network. Right? Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. And how was your work received by the community at that time?
00:17:43
Speaker
Oh my goodness, it was really well received. My first royalty check and my apologies to modern day comic book creators, but my first royalty check from Tales of the Jedi issue one, I bought a pickup truck, a brand new Ford pickup truck. Wow. me and least you At least you didn't say Lamborghini. Yeah.
00:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, I was blown away. It was really well received. And it was it was a real blast working in Star Wars at that time. And and it was a real affirmation of the method of going into Lucas's sources, ah becoming a student of Joseph Campbell, becoming a student of Kurosawa, and just watching all the films, not just the samurai ones. I watched Ikiru, which is this another wonderful film with Takashi Shimura, where he plays the lead. It was just remade ah to great success in in ah in a British context.
00:18:32
Speaker
with a Bill Nighy as ah playing Shimura's part. It's amazing how many films are made from Kurosawa's films, right? Whether it's Clint Eastwood remaking Yojimbo, or it's Lucas making Hidden Fortress, or it's people making Akira again. Of course, the Magnificent Seven in the 50s. But nothing compares to the original. No, no, definitely not.
00:18:52
Speaker
So i do want to talk about the seven samurai more into sure mafuni's amazing performance in that one but i there's so much gold to be mind with your star wars work because this is relatively not too long after start like star wars seventy seven and you were doing this work in the nineties so.
00:19:10
Speaker
Was there any association between you and the rest of the Star Wars team at that time? did you you know Did you meet Lucas or any of the rest of the gang? My work met him, not me. As I said, when I turned in my designs for the Old Republic, they were met with trepidation because they were very bold. i did As I said, I wanted to make this an authentic Star Wars experience. I didn't want to make it just a licensed adaptation.
00:19:35
Speaker
with no authentic connection between the source material. So I really got into it. Hence my Kurosawa and Campbell work and and early Lucas films like THX-1138. Really, I watched that, right? I watched the filmmaker before Star Wars and not to dive into the connection between that and Andor for now, but they're definitely the obvious connection. i just got to Yay. Yay. You mentioned Andor. Yay. Because I want to talk about Andor. yeah When I was studying this, I saw, sorry for the digression, but when I saw THX 1138, it was like, oh, this is like a planet that makes people hate the empire, right? You could easily see. Yes, it's exactly. Sure, for sure. when he did When he was a little, when he was a young man, he was like, oh, this is just planet Earth gone bad, dystopia. But you could absolutely put that in the Star Wars galaxy as a slave planet and Andor did so in a really cool way. And so wait, your question was,
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, go go to go to Andor, Mark. I want to talk about Andor because that's one of the things that's come out of the Star Wars world that I love the most because it's less mythic. It's so much less mythic.
00:20:38
Speaker
But it does seem like Kurosawa to me. Like it's it's got that feeling to it, which is like, here's peasants. Here's what this looks like on the ground. I'm so glad to bring that up because one of the things that's so great about Seven Samurai is the class issue aspect.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yes, I was has that to you write you've got your farmers, you've got your you've got your empire and they've got their nice slick well polished boots and crisp uniforms and then you've got you know these people down in the dirt and Tatooine and then you've got a princess who's who's literally royalty and there's class issues in this galaxy and that's another thing that course I would does incredibly well hidden fortress, it's all class issues 7 samurai, it's all class issues. Kurosawa was again, being from a samurai family could not help but look at the peasants in his work with a mixture of pity and disdain because again, he was samurai, right? So his family knew the pain of the Meiji Restoration when the samurai were abandoned and and replaced and lost their advantages societally. And then these peasants who of course hated the samurai because they were a lot of the time policed by them,
00:21:43
Speaker
You know, we're more than happy to take up these rifles and put on uniforms and be all of a sudden be this martial class all of a sudden ascend from just being beaten up by the samurai to putting on uniforms and feeling like warriors themselves and and It's an incredible transformation. So again, these class issues is a massive aspect of Star Wars and Star Wars at its best remembers that and I love Endor as well because it does have that right those guys making when when Cassian is imprisoned and is building the Death Star. I'm sorry spoiler.
00:22:18
Speaker
and spoiler um it weather alert yes spoilers That actually is probably a spoiler, the way that the media stays. We talk about class issues, right? I mean, there he is on that planet and and you've got the, oh my God, I can't even go into it. The empire that he's fighting against and the reason he's been captured, now he's forced to produce weapons for the same empire. And it's it's and it's so horrific.
00:22:48
Speaker
Star Wars history, right? Luthan, is it Luthan? Stellan Skarsgard plays Luthan, who is kind of the hidden rebel leader at this point in the and the Star Wars world. And that's one of the things I loved about Andor was it it was a return to what I think is one of the most important aspects of Star Wars, which is the class issues. It's not upfront, but it is there. It's ah it's and it's one of the things that connects it to Kurosawa.
00:23:16
Speaker
So now I have to ask you, before we get back to Kurosawa, are you up to speed on all the other Star Wars properties? And what do you but do you think of them, like the Mandalorian and? I mean, I loved Mandalorian season one and season two wasn't too bad. But, you know, then Star Wars is a high difficulty routine, right? You can be a great filmmaker and not be able to make a great Star Wars piece because it's its own thing. Just because you're good at movie making doesn't mean you're going to make a great Star Wars film. I love the fact that A lot of the people who love the original trilogy, like me, their favorite Star Wars film is Empire Strikes Back, and it was made by Irvin Kirshner, who was a teacher at USC. I think those who can't teach, I'm like, oh, shut up. What's your favorite Star Wars movie, Empire Strikes Back? Yeah, a teacher. me
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, and that is absolutely my favorite as well. And actually, that's where we started this podcast, was Star Wars. Yes, that's true, we did. That was my pick. Just because I was trying to tap into the 10-year-old Mark who watched Star Wars and had his mind blown. So yeah, as for the other Star Wars stuff, again, getting back to my effort during Tales of the Jedi, when as I said, I was like, this can't just be Star Wars by virtue of the fact that some licensing department is paid to have that logo on the cover.
00:24:32
Speaker
It has to feel like Star Wars. And what does that mean? And how do we find that? How do we create that? Andor is a great example of that. Mandalorian season one is definitely a home run in that regard. And there are other hits and misses. But you know it's it's a fascinating and difficult thing to do. And we did an interview when Disney first bought Star Wars. And I don't want to get into this too much. But there was a science fiction magazine.
00:24:57
Speaker
called Geek Magazine. And I was part of a a roundtable of great sci-fi creators, Ashley Miller and some others. I was, who wrote X-Men first class, Thor for Disney. And it was this wonderful
Disney's Impact on Star Wars
00:25:12
Speaker
roundtable. We're talking about what's going to happen. What is going to, Steve Melching was there, Steve Melching, who wrote a lot of the greatest episodes in the Clone Wars series.
00:25:19
Speaker
And we're talking about, what do we think? What do we think? And we were all very optimistic. Disney was on a great run with the MCU at the time, and we thought, this is going to be wonderful. And it it really always kind of was a Disney movie, right? You've got your princess. It's it's like the Wizard of Oz, as ha as Harrison Ford likes to point out. You've got your cowardly lion in Chewbacca, and you've got a princess like Dorothy. You've got the Tin Man in 3PO.
00:25:40
Speaker
And you you know it's it's like ah it's a fairy tale. It's a space opera. And so we thought this is going to be amazing. But again, just because you're great at making entertainment doesn't mean you're great at making Star Wars. I would argue that C-3PO is the cowardly lion and the tin man. Yes. yeah In one.
00:25:57
Speaker
So, okay, so you finished your your run doing the Star Wars comics, and then and then where did your career take you after that? So, I had this crazy experience, right? Where, like I said, George Lucas saw my work and approved it. ah The licensing department was really kind of trepidatious about my designs.
00:26:17
Speaker
and And I said, well, look, i was in my early 20s, I had nothing to lose. So I said, look, just do me a favor. I know these lightsabers are scaring you because you're a licensing person and your you know your job is to manage this brand. But I assure you, I assure you, this is authentic Star Wars stuff. And just show it to George. If he agrees with you that my designs are too radical, I will abide.
00:26:42
Speaker
But I guarantee you, he's going to like them. They presented him the double-bladed lightsaber, which I still have on my wall in my kitchen. hey and so I sent the original because I really wanted George to see the original. I didn't want to send a Xerox. Xeroxes were great, terrible at the time. So I sent the original. It's it's still in the archive up at Skywalker Ranch, thanks to my good friend, Steven Sansui, the great Steven Sansui. And he saw it and he said, yeah, this is cool. This is great.
00:27:06
Speaker
and ah Later, years later, this was in 93 years later, when they're looking for a weapon for Darth Maul, my good friend Ian McCaig, he presented Darth Maul to George and said, Hey, George, here he is. What do you think Darth Maul and George said, This is great. He's great. And Ian said, But um unfortunately, George, we haven't come up with a weapon yet. and And George said, Oh, you know what, there's something from the comic books. That's great. Years later, I met Ian, we told me this story. And I thought, Wow, that's how that happened. Because I had no idea because I had left by that point. I had left to go make more video games. and And having that experience of having, you know, the the man himself ah approve your work, it was really a quite ah affirming for me. So I went off and and decided that I was going to tell my own story. And so I did this comic book series called The Red Star. Again, it was this kind of epic, historic, martial-based story. So it was very much like I took my love of Kurosawa,
00:27:59
Speaker
ah Thanks to Star Wars, I had you know really and done a deep dive and I was now completely in love with Kurosawa. He remains my favorite director to this day on the top of ah ah of the list. So I had Kurosawa, I had Star Wars, and I had something else that I added in, which was Soviet history. I took Soviet martial history, which is fascinating in and of itself, that fight of versus of them versus the Nazis. It's so fascinating. Yes, that is.
00:28:21
Speaker
And so I said, I'm going to take, that's a pretty epic, epic
The Red Star Comic Series
00:28:24
Speaker
struggle. I'm going to take Soviet martial history, my love of Kurosawa and Star Wars, and I'm going to combine them in this thing. And also, on top of that, I'm going to throw in some personal stuff from me and my brother, you know, my brother and my relationship, and make this kind of, you know, use that as the personal element to hold this all together. And I made the Red Star, which is this, when I wanted to jokingly describe it for people in a nutshell, I would say, it's Star Wars meets Dr. Zhivago.
00:28:50
Speaker
yeah oh well you sold me those are two my yeah movies yeah i mean i i sure Well, I'm glad that you got the light, I got the double lightsaber up in your kitchen because it probably paid for your kitchen, if not your whole house, right? You know, it has been a great resume enhancer. of Like many, like like many, many, many great artisans who've worked on the Star Wars galaxy, you know, none of us, very, very few of us get bonuses or royalties. but Like I did from the comics, thank goodness. But, you know, but being able to show that drawing in a resume, being able to show that drawing and claim that drawing,
00:29:26
Speaker
is is wonderful and has been a great resume answer. So yes, in a way it it did. yeah That's great. Now, so you're, you're writing these comics and you're drawing them, you're doing and an awful lot of work, work I think that is frequently done by multiple people, right? I should correct you. I didn't write the Star Wars comics. I didn't. But your later work, you were writing and drawing it. That's right. That's right. Yeah.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah, and so that is, um I mean, that's that's a lot of work, isn't it? especially Thank you, it it especially because in the Red Star, I was writing it, doing designing all the characters, drawing it, and I decided, thanks to my experience at Activision and making PlayStation games, that this was going to be a revolutionary comic in that I was going to innovate and bring 3D CG models onto the page. I was going to integrate traditionally drawn characters onto backgrounds that looked like a video game and make it work. And so that took a year of R and&D that I paid for myself thanks to my video game money.
00:30:28
Speaker
and and we came up with this look. it You know, you can imagine back in the 90s, that would have been, ah it would have looked very jarring, right? You've got your kind of traditional comic book inking, your muscle characters, and then you have this CG, which at the time was was still in its infancy, and those two worlds are not gonna really mix. So we took a year, myself and the creators on the book, and found a look, and it was very, very popular. The the book was one of the,
00:30:54
Speaker
It came out like ah with ah with ah like a rocket. It was revolutionary. um Marvel Comics contacted me and and and basically said, oh my gosh, how are you doing this? Please come work with us. DC wanted to buy the Red Star from me for a long time. And forgive me, who who was the publisher of the Red Star? what sure The Red Star was Image Comics. Yes, Image, of course. Image Comics. And it was a great place for us at the time.
00:31:18
Speaker
And thanks to Jim Valentino, who accepted our book, and Larry Martyr, who were the heads of what was called at the time Image Central. They accepted the book. And we published, and and it was a huge hit. And we went on for years and got nominated for Eisner's. and And that book really introduced me to a lot of people. That book really opened up a lot of avenues. My my forays into film and television were opened up because of the work on The Red Star, for sure.
00:31:44
Speaker
And so did you then go on to work for um for Marvel? And so yes, in fact, I've got a I worked on a show that's coming out this in August of 2025 called Eyes of Wakanda. That's for Disney Plus. I was a a story artist and I'm happy to do you guys are you familiar with the concept of story art? Forgive me. Yeah.
00:32:05
Speaker
I am, yeah yeah but maybe explain it for the listeners. ah So for your listeners who aren't quite familiar with story art, they're definitely familiar with storyboards. And the difference is, story art is storyboards, except for the fact that a story artist has autonomy. If you were to classify them, you'd say that a storyboard artist is someone who is taking a piece of material and visualizing it as verbatim as possible, right? The idea is that you don't deviate, you just visualize what's there in written form. A storyboard artist, different. Sometimes you don't have any written words, you have a prompt that is given to you by a director in what's called a launch. You're launched by the director on a sequence or a scene, and then you are expected to make that scene interesting. And so some of the greatest scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been made by story artists and then later transcribed into a written form because the storyboards were the story art, the reels, as we say, was powerful. My analogy would be like it's like a graphic artist is married to
00:33:04
Speaker
an actor and they get prompted by the director, make this happen, make this look real. I realize now that the correct answer to your question should have been no, I'm not familiar with it. Thanks for explaining it. Walt Disney said we don't write our stories, we draw them and that is really the greatest.
00:33:23
Speaker
That's really, you're you're literally, you are directing in all but name. You're writing in all but name. You're really coming up with sequences. Sometimes, ah here's another way to look at it. you You know, and there's this famous thing among screenwriters is, you know, when you read the script of Ben Hur, it says, Chariot race.
00:33:38
Speaker
yeah That's a lot of the time what a story artist has to deal with. It's like Spider-Man fights Doc Ock. That's it. And then yeah the story artists are for the ones who you know make it wild and give the director all these options. And then the director decides, and the you know and whatever production team, whatever confidants he has above the line, look at the reels and they say, yeah, but this, yeah, but that. And then editorial has its say, and it all goes back and forth. and and you You create is there some tension between the writer and the story artists then because this is a the great secret of Hollywood is, you know, ah another I want to say to your listeners, if they haven't seen the documentary, Harold and Lillian, I highly recommend it. I can't remember his last name, but Harold was an amazing story artist, and he was a great innovator. At this point, he's we're talking about 50s, 60s here. Now, at that point in the history of a story art, story artists were
00:34:32
Speaker
really, really no one knew they existed. No one knew. They knew that Alfred Hitchcock had storyboards. They didn't know that Harold also did some. You look at some of the frames from the birds that were drawn by Harold and you're like, oh, Hitchcock got credit for this, but But wow, Harold really had some say in here. There's a wonderful – Mike Nichols is one of my favorite directors. And oh yeah there's a famous Anne Bancroft shot of Dustin Hoffman being seen in that triangle of her leg. ah That's a Harold shot. Now, I would love to go back and find out how detailed Mike Nichols' direction to Harold was to make that shot happen, or was that something that came out of Harold's mind that Mike Nichols gets me for?
00:35:09
Speaker
So these are the kinds of deaths. It's a very controversial thing. yeah A lot of studios are like, no, no, no, it's story artists. ah Yeah. there It's the director that figured that out. yeah on tours They're just doing it out of the magic of their mind.
00:35:25
Speaker
But yeah, no, there's a lot of great story art that is that is actually writing that should be that should be WGA or even DGA ah because yeah I've had it happen to me and all my story artists friends have had it to happen to them where you you have a scene, you augment it, you make it something cool, you plus it as we as we say in story art, which is ah again, one of Walt Disney's favorite terms.
00:35:46
Speaker
He would get a storyboard from one of his writers or story artists, and he'd say, oh, you know, this would make it funnier. This would make this moment even more funny, and this would make this moment even more sad, or this would make this moment even more mysterious. So that's plussing it? last Yes, plussing it. Okay.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's well used to like a great term. Yeah, yeah, it really and we still use it to this day, every day. And, you know, a lot of the time, there's some great moments that that are happening on the story art in the story art process that then get transcribed in the script that that are essentially written in pictures, but we don't get WGA credit.
00:36:21
Speaker
So it's a bit of controversy there. But now, so when you're getting back to The Seven Samurai and Akira Kurosawa, we do celebrate him as a great filmmaker and that these films are you know the result of his vision, but they were created by ah by a team. And when I watched that movie, one of the things that struck me the most about that movie was the performance of Tashira Mafoni. Like it just leaps off the screen. Like he's absolutely incredible. And I can't imagine the movie without him.
00:36:51
Speaker
He was originally cast as the mentor. He was originally cast as. Oh, really? Yeah, Kombay, sorry.
Upcoming Comic: Cthulhu Town
00:36:59
Speaker
And at one point, of course, I would just realized he was like to show me when you play this one, you play the Jack Sparrow.
00:37:06
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah. Now, are you um are you still doing any comic work or so you're doing the work in in television and film? yeah What about your first love? and said ah you i My first love is actually movies. My father was an actor and I ended up doing comics because you know i i just that was the that was something i those were movies I could make on my own on paper. right I didn't need anybody else. i I couldn't afford a camera as a kid so I could make these movies on paper, which is how that kind of went that way.
00:37:36
Speaker
And but then so comics is kind of a, you know, me chasing movies is me ending up in comics. perfect But but yes, I am actually in addition to the stuff I'm doing on television these days, I am also I've for the first time in a long time, I'm writing not drawing but writing a new comic series called Cthulhu Town. I'm a big age. I'm fascinated by Oh, wow. Okay. I almost I almost did Lovecraft for this instead of Seven Samurai, but ha i wanted it to be i don't want it to be like a promotion for this company but i want to be like hey that's like yeah that would have been fine we may have to have you back on to talk about that cuz we haven't actually done love craft really. and this No we have not and we should yeah for yeah it's fascinating it's it's i'm i am nine hundred pages into his nine hundred and ninety nine page can.
00:38:26
Speaker
I have read every thing he's written from his juvenile all the way to to hit the end of his career. And it's a fascinating deep dive. I recommend it for anyone. And so Cthulhu Town, the book I'm writing now is, so it takes my love of Dungeons and Dragons and Lovecraft and my love of movies. And I put them together because most Lovecraft stories, as you know, take place in in his hometown. He's writing what he knew, which is Providence and and the the Upper, the Northeast.
00:38:55
Speaker
and New England. Well, I'm not from New England. I'm from New York. And I was raised in l LA. so i And I love movies. So I thought, you know what? It's the 1920s. I love silent film. What if there was a cult of Cthulhu that realized the power of cinema and decided that they would make an attempt to awaken Cthulhu using this new technology of cinema? And so this cult, they they pitch it. They pitch it to their fellows back in New England and who are like, no way. Are you crazy? That's going to expose us?
00:39:23
Speaker
do not do this, we will kill you. And they're like, um well, we're going to do anyway. So they go rogue. And so they are this rogue fugitive cult of Cthulhu. They arrived in Los Angeles. They're very well funded because they're industrialists. you know They made cannons in World War I, and they made trains during the age of industry. So they're very well funded. They land in l LA, and they're going to learn how to make movies. And in so doing, their goal is to hopefully use cinema to corrupt ah the minds of populations, mass control that cinema you can do, right? And hopefully, Cthulhu will awaken by poisoning the dreams of man.
00:40:02
Speaker
That's awesome. Wow. Does Yogg-Sothoth make an appearance? Yes. Everybody makes an appearance. okay I have to ask a question ah about one of the other things though. Is the prelude to Axanar? Is that right? Axanar? Axanar, yes. Yeah. I feel like this is the answer for Joe to all of the Star Wars, right? It's a it's a Star Trek story, right?
00:40:25
Speaker
Yes. yes yeah did you know Have you seen Prelude to Axanar? I haven't seen it, but ah i I bet Joe has. ah No, I haven't actually. oh okay it's a it's a that That could be its own. If you ever wanted to do an episode that was about the difference between people who should be in entertainment and people who should not be in entertainment, we could do a story about Prelude to Axanar because it's a very crazy story that is you know, about ah this, this, this very like Rupert Pupkin type character. You guys have seen King of Comedy, right? Yeah, yeah, I, yep. Yeah. type dude Who was an acquaintance of mine, and he wanted to make a Star Trek fan film, and he really
00:41:08
Speaker
you know, thought he could do it. But you know, everybody wants to be in entertainment, but very few people actually should be in entertainment. His own breed of people, man, and yeah went in there and we made this amazing thing. And then he really went masks off and blew the whole deal and CBS had to CBS Paramount and had to sue him. And I did a deposition on their behalf, which which Oh my God, it was a crazy story. It really is like the king of comedy, but with Star Trek as opposed to late night television. yeah and And it's also a little bit like the disaster artist, um right? It's this guy who he wants entertainment so bad, but he just isn't show folk. You know, there's, there's- Wow. It's funny, our our last guest, ah Lauren Lou Grasso,
00:41:53
Speaker
basically had the same premise that there's a lot of people that should not be in the entertainment business. They're in there for the wrong reasons, and they all need to have some kind of serious training before they're actually- Yeah, yeah. So that's really what that story is. And so in and of itself, it was a pretty cool little short film, but with a lot of the people from my network brought in to make it- I was going to say, how did you make that? Because you won a lot of awards for that too. Like it was- We did, we did. The Rupert Pupkin guy, he was very good at, he was very much a Trekkie. And he was really good at making sure all the Trekkies knew about it. And then I brought a lot of the expertise of the actual producers.
00:42:34
Speaker
And the the the camera team was all from my network. And we made this very slick-looking professional thing. But we all we would do we trusted Rupert, the Rupert Pupkin character. um I'm going to not use his real name. ones Yeah, no, I like that you're doing that. like the That's perfect. He is so Rupert Pupkin. It's crazy. he We trusted him to to grow and evolve and and you know actually you know prove whether or not he was show folk, as we as we say. And he failed the test.
00:42:58
Speaker
even yeah know Okay, so what what is in your conception, what is the criteria for actual show folk? You know, you're all about the show. You are all about the show. you care ah Your heart is with the picture or the video game or the play or the piece of paper you're writing. That is what you are about. Self-aggrandizement,
00:43:22
Speaker
It is a part of it, but if you were to identify a pie chart, a pie graph of your love for what you were doing, you are, at the end of the day, you are 100% about trying to make the best thing possible. And I've been very fortunate in this. When I did the reds, getting back to the red star, that got me connected to, thanks to my dear friend, John Gallard, I got connected to the filmmakers down in Wellington, New Zealand. And they really appreciated the red star and took me in. And I worked on Peter Jackson's King Kong with them.
00:43:51
Speaker
And I would have worked on Halo, except for Universal pulled the plug in a really bad move on their part. Neil Blomkamp was set to direct Halo, that version of Halo. Oh, that one was so fun. Yeah, it would have been really cool. And it ended up becoming District 9. When Universal pulls the plug on Halo, Jackson and Blomkamp make District 9. That's a great movie. Great movie. Great movie. Halo would have been a good movie.
00:44:16
Speaker
It would have been a great movie. It would have been fantastic. And when and down there, one of the things that you know the reason why we all admire the Wellington film community is because they are all about the show. They are show folk. They will bleed for it. In the middle of the night at one point, i was I was on the wardrobe team and the concept design team for a short time. I wish I would have gotten a more of a bite of that movie. I was just ah a cog in a massive machine. and But I loved every second of it. And at one point, I am literally sweeping out this this these stalls where they had to hose off the extras at the end of the night.
00:44:46
Speaker
Yeah, right. At one point, we had to hose off extras on this on this peninsula. It was freezing cold, you know, next stop Antarctica. Okay, this is way down south. And I'm hosing out this this stall. And who comes in?
00:45:01
Speaker
who is who comes in to help this effort, but none other than multiple Academy Award winner, Sir Richard Taylor. He wasn't Sir Richard Taylor at the time. He was just Richard Taylor. But there he is, working as hard as anyone else with a broom in his
Dedication to Podcasting
00:45:12
Speaker
hand. And that's the Wellington Film Community. That's Shofo. Okay. Wow. Jeez. I think we would be Shofo, Mark. We're Shofo on this podcast for sure. I think right show folk i think so.
00:45:25
Speaker
You are, dang it. Now, okay, I have to ask you, this is a tough, tough question. I'm sorry to pose it, but I have to. You've worked hard on the on the Star Wars franchise.
Star Wars vs Star Trek
00:45:37
Speaker
You owe a lot to that. Tell us the truth. What what do you really prefer, Star Trek or Star Wars? So it's Star Wars by a mile.
00:45:46
Speaker
OK. Yeah, I really I did appreciate Star Trek. One of the things that I that did happen and I'm i'm an original show, the original series fan. yeah You know, I'm Generation X. I grew up with the original series. And I love the fact that during the making of that that Star Trek short I mentioned, I i again, this is the same guy that dives into Kurosawa, right? So if I'm going to make a Star Trek short, I'm going to dive right into Gene Roddenberry, the source of his creativity. Yeah. And oh my god I had no idea he was a bomber pilot in World War II. Yeah. he's a bomb yeah He survived a plane crash. bob yeah He literally had red shirts. He knows what it's like to be a captain and have people die on his crew, right? Yeah, yeah. Flew what, 40 missions, 40 plus missions? I had no idea. So Star Trek is literally a fantasy memoir of his life as a bomber captain. And I thought that was amazing. And that really, that gave me a new appreciation for Star Trek, the original series. And so that's kind of what I used to float myself through that, creatively through that process.
00:46:44
Speaker
but I did appreciate that. But yeah, no, it's still it's Star Wars by a mile because because of the class issues because of the the history because of the epic scale because of that what I call a just trembling honor. I love Seven Samurai because it it's like It's like a Twilight Zone episode. It's like an ESOP's fable. It's a guide. Seven Samurai is this amazing ensemble piece. And in this ensemble, you have everyone. You have the heroic models who are literally going to die for the good of these villagers.
00:47:17
Speaker
You have the villagers themselves who are just trying to get through the day. And they're praying that there's rain, but not too much rain. And they're praying for good weather, but not too much good weather. And you've got these brigands who literally have just, for one reason or another, they have they're just at this point psychopaths. They have no regard for the social agreement whatsoever. They're just going to take what they can. Life isn't fair, and and they don't care who they kill. As they say, there's a wonderful quote in the movie. They kill even babies in the womb.
00:47:45
Speaker
That's the lowest of the low. That's the lowest of the low. And within the factions, you have hierarchies. You've got the rookie. You've got the veteran. You've got the clown. You've got the veteran who knows how to support the others. You've got the sword master in Kyuzo who has just literally dedicated his life to mastery of his body and soul and this weapon that he lives with. And then you've got this...
Character Arc in Seven Samurai
00:48:13
Speaker
this aspirant, the Mafune character who is born of nothing but wants to prove himself among the samurai and ready to die and does die. And it's kind of a buffoon, but still. Yeah. And he, you know, it's beautiful the way he that that arc from just drunken buffoon to literally the man who kills the last brigand. It's just it's just beautiful.
00:48:37
Speaker
So yeah, Star Wars by a mile. Wasn't it in Seven Samurai? the You know the classic Western shot of the Indians appearing on the ridge against the skyline? Isn't that the first instance of that shot in Seven Samurai?
00:48:54
Speaker
wonderful I wonder if it is. That's great to – I mean he – of course I don't – I would doubt that seriously but because they're making westerns in the 20s. I'd love to do some homework on that because he definitely does love to use but what we call shadow side in cinematography. yeah He loves to shoot shadow side against the sky and silhouette his characters against the sky.
00:49:15
Speaker
And it's a great effect all throughout Seven Samurai. What what year was it made, actually? 1954. Two years after the Allied forces, the Allied occupation forces, allow the Japanese to make films about their feudal community. The occupied forces did not allow them to make samurai stories until 1952. And two years after that,
00:49:35
Speaker
Seven Samurai is released to great, to great effect. Yeah. Another great instance of that is the two towers when Gandalf appears with all this. Yes. Speaking of the keys. Reversing it, making the good guys.
Podcast Closure
00:49:50
Speaker
Christian Gossett, thank you very much for being on our podcast. We're creative. My pleasure, Joe. Thanks, Mark. Thanks to both of you. Thank you so much, Christian. This was wonderful. That was a fantastic conversation. My pleasure.
00:50:23
Speaker
You've been listening to Recreative, a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it. Recreative is produced by Mark Rainer and Joe Mahoney for Donovan Street Press, Inc., in association with Monkey Joy Press. Technical production of music by Joe Mahoney, web design by Mark Rainer.
00:50:42
Speaker
You can support this podcast by checking out our guests' work, listening to their music, purchasing their books, watching their shows, and so on. You can find out more about each guest in all of our past episodes by visiting recreative.ca. That's re-creative.ca. You can contact us by emailing joe mohoney at donovanstreetpress.com. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.