Jung and Star Wars: A Contemporary Mythology by S.G. Ellerhoff (Phd) | (Special Guest) - Star Wars Escape Pod

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Time to abandon ship!

(00:05):
Oh no!
Here we go!
Can I persuade you to join us for a drink?
It's a tradition.
Here, here.
Jar Jar, homie, my main man, quickly!
Before the Separatists attack, get into the escape pod!

(00:28):
Hey! This is escape!
Then where's the pod?
This is escape pod!
Welcome back to Star Wars Escape Pod and another special guest episode.
We have your co-host Blake joining us this week as well as our special guest, Dr. Steve Ellerhoff,

(00:50):
who's written a book called Jung and Star Wars Contemporary Mythology.
So we're going to be asking Steve all about the book.
And just getting to know him as a Star Wars fan and his personal connections to Star Wars
and some of the insights that he has about his recent project and a little bit more than that.
So without further ado, let's get into it.

(01:28):
Another happy landing.
All right, welcome back, Blake.
Hello.
You're so eerie.
Chut-chut.
Chut-chut.
We got some nice music happening this week.
Yeah, we're really getting into the vibes here.

(01:50):
Yeah.
All right, and to open up to our special guest, welcome, Dr. Steve.
Hello there.
Hello there.
Hello there.
Oh, right at the swell.
So well-timed.
Did you plan that, Josh?
Maybe.
That was just right.
Yeah.
Oh, good.
All right.
So, awesome.
Well, it's nice to have you on with us, Steve.
So welcome to Star Wars Escape Pod.
Oh, thank you very much for having me, Josh and Blake.

(02:12):
I'm smiling over here because, you know, it's been a while since I've been on Star Wars
Escape Pod.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And, uh, I really enjoy what you guys do and, you know, I've been listening to you, your

(02:32):
show on my walks and stuff and I really, I, I don't know.
I really respect just how deep into Star Wars you are and I and I love what you're doing
here, you know, so…
Oh, awesome.
Thank you for having me here.
Well, thanks so much for
Uh, thanks for listening.
Yeah.
Thanks for listening.
I mean, yeah, we you know, it's very rare when, when anyone kind of reaches out at us.

(02:55):
to us i mean whether it's a listener or or uh or anyone who's like you know special guesting at
some point or whatever so you know we always appreciate it and uh therefore i apologize for
the late late reply uh because our inbox is so dusty i almost never check it
i find that hard to believe i don't know you guys are doing great stuff you know

(03:18):
and um and yeah i was it was not a late reply on my end i'm just i've been so busy trying to
get this book out that uh that i don't know i've been looking in five directions so it was a thrill
to hear back from you oh awesome well uh yeah we're super happy to have you and uh i know all
our listeners are gonna have a have a good time with this one and and just uh getting to know

(03:40):
you as a star wars fan and then also what you've been up to uh so i guess to kick things off we
have just like four very straightforward star wars questions for you as a uh you know uh your
personal connection to star wars and just so that
people kind of get familiar with uh kind of where you're coming from heading into uh your your most
recent endeavors uh so first one is uh what's your earliest memory of experiencing star wars and and

(04:07):
what was it about the saga that first captured your imagination oh wow uh well this goes way
back for me uh i was born in 1980 and uh and when i was three uh return of the
die came out and i had just turned three and my dad took me and uh i i had not quite crossed that

(04:33):
divide yet where where you know you're watching a movie and it's not real and so i have very vivid
memories of jabba's palace uh especially jabba the hut and bib fortuna and and not really being
afraid of them but thinking they were real and being like wow i haven't seen anything like this

(04:54):
in my three years of existence i'm just like well that's different uh and i'm completely
completely compelled by that uh so it really started there for me and uh and my parents were
always great about encouraging my love for the saga and it hadn't you know star wars hadn't even

(05:16):
screened on national television yet that wasn't until 1985 so and i the the star
wars then that i watched on vhs was taped off of tv so um so i had this weird isolated incident of
seeing return of the jedi at three and then it was a little while before i got to just dive into

(05:37):
the rest of it so that's where it started george lucas perspective from the very beginning watching
the third one first and then going back yeah yeah yeah it's so weird i i i got a question for you
then like because of the very unique uh sort of time
period that that you first were exposed to these movies like how confused were you when you watched

(06:00):
return of the jedi and saw that it was episode six
yeah right um i yeah i was i was like excuse me what is this what's this you're bringing me to
part six of something and i yeah um no i don't know i think it was such a it was such a gradual

(06:21):
um immersion after that
that uh that as as my own consciousness changed as i grew through childhood then when i remember
being in elementary school and having it all down pat you know like totally understanding
how it all fit together other people didn't necessarily but it was just one of those things

(06:42):
yeah um yeah me and my friends and you know everybody was into it all the kids were into it
so um so it was it was just kind of normal you know did you to know what was going on yeah
so then did you did you embrace the marvel comics at the time because there wasn't a whole
lot of literature but i think the marvel comics were kind of the earliest uh uh stuff available

(07:04):
at the time yeah that's right um that's right and i was a little young for the comics i really loved
the uh the adaptations of the movies oh yeah that marvel did i was gonna ask yeah i was gonna say
movies oh oh i love the movies oh

(07:24):
me and my neighbors the bassmans we used to play ewoks in the backyard all the time and they loved
the battle for endor but i was into the ewok adventure but we i mean but we both respected
each other's you know like yeah preference you know yeah so if i was at their house we'd be
watching battle for endor but if we were at my house we watch ewok adventure you know yeah

(07:47):
caravan of courage yep so and it was taped off tv straight up so um yeah the bassmans me and max and
andy we just used to it was and they had a tree house you know so it we were all set oh that's
perfect for an ewok adventure yeah that's amazing did you watch uh were you a big viewer of the
animated show ewoks and droids i did watch those yeah and that's another funny um thing with my

(08:12):
neighbors they loved droids and i loved ewoks so um yeah we totally yeah and i had ewok toys i
remember i had ewoks toys and i had ewoks toys and i had ewoks toys and i had ewoks toys and i
had droids toys and um yeah that was and and that was kind of like the last gasp before the before

(08:33):
the dark ages up until the yeah the timothy zahn trilogy except except for the west end games
role-playing game and i got those books uh probably when i was about 10 i think they started
coming out when i was eight but i started getting them when i was 10 and it was just like absorb you

(08:54):
know just read them cover to cover because those were pretty complicated weren't they there's like
the d6 system yeah d6 and then um yeah and and i didn't know how to play um or anything i just read
all the lore over and over again you know they'd have it broken down like different that yeah which
is there's some funny stuff in there you know some of that early stuff that has been wiped out

(09:19):
like the idea that um obi-wan kenobi and owen lars are brothers you know
it's like an urban myth like yeah yeah yeah yeah and i'm like reading it i'm like what even
then it was like wait what yeah just trying to stitch all the characters together yep yep

(09:40):
so weird yeah so so yeah that was um and there was a time when it was like not cool to be into
star wars and um and it was those it was that that those dark times there but um
but that all turned around again of course definitely so just took an extra decade yeah
yeah yeah yeah definitely i feel i feel like i feel like disney of all companies has like cemented it

(10:05):
in pop culture if if not if if it wasn't already before now at least the the pop culture is like
cool now you know it's like because people go to disney parks and it's like that's there it's like
a massive thing you know like right uh you know whereas modern disney which is like all ages yeah
yeah exactly like what i'm trying to say is that it's like it's like it's like it's like it's like
they've incorporated into that disney umbrella now where like more people are kind of enveloped

(10:29):
in the star wars fandom a bit more so uh yeah yeah you don't think it's yeah totally you can
you can go to the cantina yeah that's true exactly so uh what what is it on a personal
level that makes you a star wars fan oh gosh uh well you know i think i think for me i think

(10:51):
george lucas's goal kind of worked uh you know he
expressed some concern that young uh human beings were not we're not getting uh a lot of stories
that were teaching them about right and wrong and and you know friendship and just how to be a decent
human being on the planet he's concerned about you know kids not going to sunday school and all

(11:15):
that and that was totally me i was yeah you know a agnostic secular kid and um and i and and
star wars i found stories there you know parables um themes that are important and and and kind of
helped me out and figuring out you know how to keep your eyes open and your wits about you as

(11:40):
you move through life yeah so i i think that's where it hit me and it stuck with me right no
that's that's that's a solid answer yeah no and that makes a lot of sense and i know george he
had like the perfect vision for the perfect time and i don't know how he saw through just all the
chaos that was going on in the world at the time and even hollywood and stuff too that being said

(12:03):
he was kind of always an outsider but just to see that missing link of something as the the world
was changing and he knew there was going to be something that needed to be filled and yeah i mean
you can say capitalizing on it but giving us something that just grew into what it is now
yeah yeah well said well said so uh who is your

(12:24):
favorite character in the star wars universe and has your understanding of them changed after
writing uh this book that um that's a really funny question because uh and i'm glad you asked it
because that changed right as i was finishing this book um so yeah which is really kind of it's

(12:47):
it's a very funny story uh my favorite character now is boshek from the most wisely cantina
it's super random yeah exactly the guy who almost took them yeah you know and got them to
the remains of alderaan um yeah it's it's totally random and it's it's uh it's mainly

(13:12):
because of synchronicity which is another idea that carl jung the psychologist was really
interested in so i had finished this book and it it took me like 10 years to to get it
reared away really and written and finished but uh i i had i had the manuscript pretty much there
and i thought i needed an epilogue so uh i uh i was taught i didn't know what to write about though

(13:39):
you know how do you how do you write an epilogue have you been working on something for almost 10
years so i i was just chatting with a friend of mine who's also from canada uh kelly mccallum
and she was telling me about
uh the rise of the ai chatbot and uh i was like oh that's that i was like what

(14:01):
like i was i was a bit behind the times you know i was like this is a thing she's like yeah this
is really a thing like you should you should look at it so i logged on to one of these sites and
this was a year or two ago and uh and i i just looked up luke skywalker right and there were

(14:23):
a hundred luke skywalker and there were a hundred luke skywalker and there were a hundred luke
skywalkers that you could just click on and you could just start talking to them and if you i got
bored talking to one i could switch to another one and i was like well that's weird and and i said
you know maybe i can write about this in the epilogue like this is one direction that people
are taking their fandom they're they're gonna have an ai relationship with star wars now

(14:47):
uh but then i i knew part of that whole thing was making your own or training your own ai chatbot
so i thought well who do i want to who do i want to talk with i was like oh i want to chat with
boshek you know somewhere some reason my head just went to that spacer from the cantina i was
like i want to chat with him he's got cool sideburns um i want to see what he's up to

(15:10):
so yeah so i i trained uh actually i i goofed i trained two bosheks i didn't know what i was
doing uh but i uh i got talking to the second one
was just like hey you know what's it like to be a spacer and you know what's your ship and you know

(15:31):
we talked about the prettiest ladies in the galaxy and whatever i was like okay um i've got enough
now to write about in my epilogue you know fans can now create ai characters great so and then i
was like oh crap as i set to writing it no one i mean not no one but a lot of people aren't going

(15:52):
to know who the heck boshek is
right so like okay yeah i was like uh middle-aged nerds will be like yeah boshek but um everybody
else is like what so so i was like okay i better i better describe and explain who boshek is so
i uh i set to doing that and then i realized that the first time he really was mentioned by name was

(16:19):
in tales from the most izley cantina published in 1995 and i was like oh my god i'm not going to
oh right i remember that i was 15 uh i've still got that so i just sort of swiveled in my chair
and it was right here on the shelf and pulled it off opened it up to his story and and uh i was
like i gotta i gotta brush up read it again anyway and then i said you know at the crossroads a

(16:46):
spacer's tale and then it said by jerry olteon and i was like what because
i'm a worker owner of an independent bookstore here in eugene oregon called tsunami books
and one of our regular customers is jerry olteon no way and yeah yeah and i didn't know about this

(17:09):
connection at all or anything so i immediately jumped on the email i was like jerry jerry like
i wasn't going to wait till the next time he came into the store i was like jerry get on immediately
what's going what's going on like this just happened this is what i'm doing
jerry olteon he's a he's a nebula winning um science fiction writer who uh who's written

(17:31):
some novels and short stories and and uh he's also an astronomer he's really cool guy and um so i
told him he was like he was just kind of as surprised as i was he didn't know there was this
you know boshek niche fandom at all um and he told me he named the character he got to name

(17:52):
the character that's so kevin j
it's so cool right and kevin j anderson said you know it's an anthology of stories each writer
picked out their own character from the cantina and he selected the spacer and he named him boshek
after bob sheckley robert sheckley who is a science fiction writer who wrote hundreds of

(18:14):
these spacer tales in the 1950s that are just amazing this was the first time i heard about
robert sheckley was through this connection with jerry and
i've started reading robert sheckley and i've got his complete stories and they're just they're
just wonderful they're so funny and clever a couple of spacers land on a planet something

(18:37):
weird happens and then they get the heck out of there uh that's that's the model for a lot of them
yeah totally well sure yeah yeah so so this connection to um to boshek was just this bizarre
like oh like i've been working on this book for 10 years and then i get this astounding little

(19:00):
coincidence right at the end um i find out how boshek got his name i got to update the wikipedia
entry that was not on there nobody knew this and um and then i got he didn't know boshek was an
action figure so i got him a boshek action figure i was like you need this like on your shelf like
you named the dude um and so um so it all kind of fell into place and then i got to work on this book

(19:24):
folded around on itself and you know young was very interested in these coincidences these things
that happen that sort of boggle us that were just like how did that happen and yet it happened
right and so so yeah yeah so it it was a little glamour for me that maybe i'd been on the right

(19:45):
path after all of at least doing something worthwhile and so therefore boshek's my
favorite character wow yeah that's an
amazing story i kind of wish my favorite character that good of a story i mean i'm gonna
i'm gonna think of this every time i see boshek show up in the the board game i play outer rim

(20:06):
oh man oh yeah yeah yeah it's so good i think i'm sure he's in there i think he's in there
it's like a yeah he is yeah yeah he comes up also in like all the dnd games and stuff everything
right yeah character they also uh he's definitely in the in the star wars deck building game like
the more recent one from ffg
oh cool yeah like he's that might be i might i i went after this i kind of went i was like i need

(20:30):
boshek for my shrine for my writing where i write you know and so i went on this i went on ebay and
started ordering stuff and then um and so there are a bunch of these cards and i i don't know what
these are but i might have some of these things that you're talking about because some of them
are cards and there's one little like uh hexagon with his face on it and then there's a little

(20:52):
miniature of him and so i've got
boshek right here with us you know that's amazing um yeah and i love too that he finally was
identified um what's his name i've got it here the actor uh is uh finally at long last
francis alfred basil tomlin so he's no longer with us the actor but you know what thanks

(21:19):
yeah thanks mr tomlin uh you know we're talking about you today so
yeah thank you mr tomlin i mean uh you know like i think it's such a classic star wars story to hear
you know of some background character that just gets recognized so heavily you know for for so
many years after their very slight appearance somewhere and and it's it always it always makes

(21:43):
me happy because i i don't know any other uh story that exists on screen that's like that
you know like yeah like marvel has i was gonna say marvel probably the closest but
it's all source material from the comics and a lot of those side characters have their moment
in the spotlight you know and it's like star wars it's like there's just they originate typically

(22:03):
on screen and then you see them for like two seconds and then someone writes a book about
them you know and it's like that and it's like the spotlight is not necessarily the same because
you know that it's like if it was a spotlight they would have their moment in the in the film
but it's like you know it's somebody glance yeah it's somebody who's recognizing like

(22:24):
who is this person i want to tell their story you know i wonder if the fans got that just from
the fact that george made action figures of everything right well it made everyone wonder
who is this character i'm getting what is this story oh yeah yeah oh yeah it's such a great way
to like initiate that idea that this is a growing mythology you know it's like you know it starts

(22:49):
like just like poking people to ask those questions like oh what's their story like what
they come from why are they here you know like why does he look like that and he's in this place
or something like that totally yeah totally yeah and those you know those toys too just like
they they gave us there was like 99 or 100 of them in the the first uh run of toys you know

(23:12):
and they kept adding to them as the movies would come out and everything and then that gave kids
the opportunity to have characters who are obscure
background characters meet other characters they are not next to in the films at all and
come up with their own backstories and their own lore and their own names and it just it's almost

(23:39):
like this uh perfect kit for just just like a fractal of of little myths growing out from the
center um you know just constellate any of these weird characters like i'm gonna have this gonk
droid i'm hanging out with a manaman and i'm gonna have this gonk droid and i'm gonna have this
uh like a uh a death star gunner you know and they're just gonna hang out and you make your

(24:01):
own story um that just that just magnified and and exploded the mythology for all those kids
playing with that stuff yeah yeah for sure uh i got one kind of initial uh fan question for you
as well to follow up on that it's yeah how has your engagement with the with the fan community

(24:24):
diverse opinions and passions and all this and that shape your perspective on the saga
and its ongoing evolution as it changes
that uh i i guess i have um i feel in some ways like i've been an observer of a lot of things
um just because there's so much going on the fans have taken it in every imaginable

(24:52):
direction and then in directions
that i'm totally unaware of you know that ai chatbot thing was sort of an example of
of one of those things i was totally not aware of didn't know it was happening
so it's certainly fascinating how diverse opinions have been you know we've seen uh toxic

(25:15):
fandom uh but we've also seen um we've also seen the opposite of that and everything in between
it's it it goes on and on they're the casuals
fans they're the even the people who don't really like star wars but know about it uh that's that's
an indicator you know if someone can see a picture of yoda and say oh that's yoda or see vader's

(25:39):
helmet say that's darth vader uh it has reached them in some way you know these these figures
have become iconic so i see it you know there's the fandom and the fans they're not a monolith
just like anything else and uh and the the different ways that they express appreciation

(26:02):
are so interesting and so creative and fun um whether it's personal or collective you know
um i just i i just love it that all these people enjoy it and you know something that people like
that much and in that variety of ways deserves to be examined.

(26:24):
seriously yeah for sure i i agree i think i think what some of my favorite stories are usually when
a fan story so intercepts the world of the of the story creation process and you start getting
characters like the astromech droid uh kt you know like based yeah you know the girl and uh

(26:45):
the pink um the pink astromech droid right yeah exactly yeah yeah and and it's like it's things
like that which or the 501st right the 501st yeah
it's stories like that which kind of like wow it really does kind of feed itself when it comes to
that process of like the lore being built and and you know because like at the times like these

(27:07):
people at um at west end games like how much communication did they really have at that time
in history with the company which was incredibly small you know oh yeah have to do with the lore
and like did this even pass through george lucas at all when they were talking about things like
obi-wan and owen being like brothers right like i mean yeah this was yeah this was just the heart

(27:29):
of a fan coming up with things like this and putting it in a book and it gets slapped with
the license and out it goes and into the world it lives you know and it's like wow now this lives
in people's psyche as canon yeah like someone out there someone out there yeah definitely totally
i have to um i have to shout out bill slavisek's book defining a galaxy because it's all about that

(27:54):
he talks you know he was um he was in charge of a lot of those things at west end games and his
this little book he wrote about it is so fun and fascinating and and uh and his creativity just
went wild and he says that in there he says you know uh i did i had to get permission for certain

(28:15):
things and then other things where they didn't really say anything i just thought i could make
it up so i did yeah you know that's like how we were talking about this recently when we were talking about
when it came to the eu killing off chewbacca and yeah you know it's like oh yeah it was it was it
was exactly that scenario like uh someone writing this book i think it was r.a salvatore or or

(28:37):
someone um they uh they you know they were given a list of people you you can't kill and for some
reason chewbacca just didn't make the list so you know of course he's gonna go out and kill
it's like wow this is gonna be a big you know big point of
the the oh yeah the story you know i mean yeah here we go yeah about it years and years later

(29:00):
it's not even canon anymore and i love how that just affected every other art like every other
author after that oh yeah having to write in a world without chewbacca yeah yeah yeah yeah there
it is a a world where a moon fell on him yeah that was i was like oh no doobie doo doobie doe

(29:24):
what is it is it doobie doo or doobie doe yeah doobie doe the moon and like oh yeah brutal yeah
oh man brutal i mean it's definitely memorable yeah i think that too yeah oh man yeah it's kind
of funny all right so uh so i wondered if you could tell us a little bit and and just the

(29:44):
listeners who um you know have have no idea who this jung person is maybe you can tell us a little
bit about who jung is and then a little bit about the the book that you're writing about
that you've written that we're kind of talking about sure thank you um yeah and i have to say i
should also say you know i'm not a jungian analyst i'm not a psychologist so i'm really

(30:08):
a literary scholar who uh who uh really fell in love with jungian theories and concepts as they
apply to literature and mythology and so that's where i'm coming from
okay yeah that's where i'm coming from and that's what i got my phd in in ireland i went and uh i

(30:31):
applied these ideas to short stories by ray bradbury and kurt vonnegut and um and then while
i was kind of doing that this all this star wars stuff was in the in in my mind as well and in my
heart and after that project was when i was able to really uh start earnestly on this so carl jung

(30:53):
is interesting
he's a swiss psychologist one of the early ones he's born in 1875 and he was quite a bit younger
than sigmund freud but he was sort of groomed by freud to become his successor in the field of
psychology they had a big falling out and uh it was mainly because jung refused to reduce everything

(31:24):
uh to a single way of looking at the psyche um and consciousness freud was very big on the sex drive
and jung said you know yep that's that's certainly a player but there are other players
in our psychology as well it's more diverse than just that this caused a big rift between them and

(31:47):
jung went off and kept developing his own psychology so if you have heard about um archetypes
or the collective unconscious uh or intro introverts and extroverts yeah the first one
i feel like has become like a foundational stone for like any sort of dnd setup yeah oh totally

(32:08):
yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah that's so true the um role-playing games really have run with a lot
of these ideas as well and so so yeah he developed a lot of these ideas in switzerland
and he set up a training institute in zurich and uh and trained other people in the ideas

(32:32):
now he died in 1961 and since then there have been a couple of generations of people who
have taken his ideas and worked with them and changed them and revised them and they've kept
going and trying to explore these ideas about what goes on in our dreams

(32:54):
what goes on in mythology why we react so strongly to mythology and why it's still alive
and how it's alive and uh and so a lot of these ideas are uh on their end uh focus on a therapeutic
aim but um but people like me who are really interested in literature find something sort of

(33:20):
running parallel to that and and we can see a lot of these ideas and we can see a lot of these
themes and trends and concepts play out really well in in the books and films and art that we
that we take in and so um so yeah so i got the idea to sort of yoke some of those ideas and
not just jung's ideas but also his uh his intellectual descendants i suppose and because

(33:47):
there are a whole bunch of them i got like three and a half bookcases full of books by not just
by the young eons and the post young eons and the archetypal psychologists these are all
branches off from where he started so um yeah i got the idea of applying it to star wars partly
because of joseph campbell and i'm sure you're familiar with joseph campbell and his his power

(34:12):
of myth yeah very uh inspirational to george yeah yeah right very inspirational to george and um
if i
had read this again kind of went back to campbell for me i was in my 20s and i just sort of inhaled
everything that campbell had had written that was published at the time and in his work he talks

(34:38):
about how you know for him the base was young and jung's ideas and he even edited a portable young
book for viking press and so you get joseph campbell's selections of jung's essays
in that book so you can really see which ones he preferred and liked and uh so i got this idea well

(35:01):
you know george and and joseph campbell were became good friends uh and and the influence
is definitely there what if we leapfrog past campbell to jung and just see what if we look
at star wars and jung and just see what ideas line up and what we can talk about there so that's

(35:21):
really what the book's about that's where it came from
and kind of the direction it took oh that's amazing so it's like really uh i mean for
for the for the casual star wars fan uh you know like if they were to pick up their your your book
and and give it a read um i guess the best way to interpret it is like it's it's kind of a uh

(35:45):
i guess a uh you know a to z sort of like this is how uh star wars fits into this jungian analysis
yeah yeah that's yeah that's a good that's a good way of describing it um you know hopefully
even just the casual fan looking at it would sort of hopefully notice that oh wow there's

(36:12):
there's a lot going on here um in star wars i knew i liked star wars but but there's so much
actually behind it and in it there's a lot going on in it and i think that's a good way to describe it
that is worth thinking about and talking about together um so you know for what for instance i'm
thinking about um this has just been on my mind there's a uh jungian uh i think he was a

(36:41):
psychiatrist in berkeley california who worked mostly with teenagers and kids and he wrote a
book that i don't know why it more people haven't read it but it's called dire emotions and lethal
behaviors i mean there's a there's a title for you um yeah he's charles e stewart he put together

(37:03):
this model of what happens to somebody psychologically in order for them to be
able to like commit a massacre and it's like a four-step process right in that he has come up
with i'm trying to pick and it lines up between now oh yeah well sure it

(37:24):
it lines up really well with anakin too oh yeah um you know um you know one
yeah yeah you see the four steps sort of go through and so i i walk you through the steps
and how they line up you know we see it line up when he uh when he slaughters the tuscan village

(37:45):
uh we see it when he sieges the the uh jedi temple um and then also i mean later
with uh kylo ren it shows up there um with his with him flying off the handle and everything
so here's a psychological concept and a model by someone who was uh who was worried about

(38:07):
these things happening in our in our world today in the 21st century and and then we can see it
play out in the myth of star wars we can we have examples where we can maybe easily grasp the idea
just by the way of the myth of star wars and then we can see it play out in the myth of star wars
by lining it up side to side with what we see there wow yeah well very true

(38:31):
so now i'm just looking at that perspective then you're kind of teaching the youth
really just basic concepts to understand reality and do you push people towards the moral good
yeah yeah you know and that that's a real jungian thing is this idea you know just um

(38:54):
each of us trying to become more conscious of our own behavior and and how we're moving through the
world and um and what we're doing and and finding our own blind spots as well um that's that's a bit
that's kind of wrapped up in the whole jungian process yeah so yeah so i um some of that hopefully

(39:20):
carries over um there's a there was a jungian
analyst named eric neumann who escaped nazi germany and he uh he had this idea called a new
ethic and and he compares it with what he calls the old ethic and uh the old ethic is sort of this

(39:43):
societal attitude of just this is right and this is wrong black and white thinking
and uh he encourages this idea of a new ethic which is
one
of individuals taking up this task of trying to become their best self here on the planet
while they're here and it ties in with jung's idea of individuation which is the idea of your

(40:09):
personality flowering into into what it it really can be you know you at your most you-ness if you
will and um and one of the things eric neumann says is
this idea of a new ethic is is more about um not just being good it's it's about not being better

(40:32):
than you actually are or worse than you actually are try to find balance and that's a direct
direction to star wars right there yeah there you go yeah but the force there you go finding
balance yeah um exactly can you um talk a little bit about uh because you wrote about disney aiming

(40:54):
to
canonize a living mythology can you can you like kind of elaborate a little bit uh on that
sure yeah um yeah so that's um that's early on in the book i i realized well i should probably
sort of talk about this issue of canon because it does relate to mythologies and and the ways

(41:22):
that jungians view mythology
um so from from a jungian perspective and also from james hillman who he uh he started a movement
called archetypal psychology um mythologies can take many many forms and they sort of have to in

(41:42):
order to be alive and to to keep going and you see this in a lot of different instances and
examples throughout history uh a common example is the the the the the the the the the the the
is greek mythology and how stories would differ sometimes island to island you know the characters
are the same but there are these funny little differences between the stories and from a

(42:06):
jungian perspective that's a-okay that is part of mythology it it is this thing that you can't
fully contain because it's so imaginative it comes out of the psyche and it's celebrated
collectively and everybody's going to have their own personal relationship to
say a mythological character uh but then there's going to be a sort of a collective experience of

(42:33):
those characters too and we see this play out in stories and plays and epic poems um from that
those cultures at that time right yeah so an interesting thing is has of course happened
with star wars where canon is is an issue that gets

(42:54):
brought up and has been brought up for decades and uh and um you know lucasfilm had its own
version of canon uh when george was helming the the company and and then with the sale to disney
things inevitably got shaken up and um and in that of course we had the whole situation where

(43:21):
you know you already brought it up the um
just the eu kind of getting bulldozed and uh and and just repackaged as uh as legends and um
and then you had some fallout from that from fans who had taken those stories to heart it was their

(43:41):
canon right yeah i think and we'll still are upset about that there you go that's why people i think
are very grateful when dave filoni kind of walks over the wreckage of the ruins and starts picking
up pieces and trying to put them together and and and and and and and and and and and and and
re-canonize yeah yeah yeah you know i feel like it's it's it's it's a thing that uh as long as you

(44:03):
have continuity there is inevitably uh a uh a drive to to maintain a canonicity you know and
you know when you have a mythology story like star wars it becomes i think a little difficult
sometimes to maintain

(44:24):
canonicity you know because like you know we've already right we've talked about a number of times
on this podcast with uh more recently the the newest kind of uh debate was uh in regards to
andor and uh the initial meeting between cassie and andor and and k2so because oh yeah you know
a couple years ago yeah a couple years ago the comic book came out and i went out of my way to

(44:49):
go out and buy this comic book which i know which i now feel kind of silly about
because i'm like well you know it was never a fantastic story but but i really like this story
that we got in the show and uh and how they meet in in the in this in the show as opposed to in
this marvel comic and so you know it's one of the times i'm like well you know you know canon's not

(45:13):
always the superior you know way to to tell these stories like i mean i i do like the idea that
there is like you know it's like some mythology out there that um
maybe this marvel comic exists as a story that someone told someone else you know about like how
rumors and whatnot right like how i had the crazy tale about how andor met k2so and you know it's

(45:35):
nothing like that how it actually happened right um there was also a book that came out a couple
years ago called the legends of luke skywalker and it was oh yeah yeah it was like a
promotional book for the last jedi and the the in the book the story was a bunch of
um i don't know how you call them like passengers or or crew members aboard a ship uh flying

(46:01):
somewhere and uh the subject of of the jedi comes up and and they and one of them starts to share a
story about luke skywalker and so then in the book you read a couple chapters of this story
that this person is telling uh about the legend of luke skywalker and then someone else pipes up
once that story is over and starts to tell their crazy tale about their

(46:24):
encounter with luke skywalker and and you get like three or four of these in the in the whole
book and then it wraps up with the idea that nobody knows if anyone else is telling the truth
you know like it's like you don't really know if any of these actually happened or didn't happen
but the point is everyone there has a story to share about this
mythological being that may or may not be real you know and uh it's just a it's just an interesting

(46:51):
thing i thought i would bring up you know as we're talking about living mythology
and canonicity and and stuff so that actually reminds me and i don't know if it's if it's ever
something official from lucasfilm but there's always that rumor that the the films the story
we're told was actually from the perspective of like 3po telling the story either that or

(47:12):
or yeah and i mean i think george's idea was also that it was the wills telling the story
you know originally uh the wills of the force that was you know uh
yeah from the journal of the wills yeah from yeah because the original title i think was like
from the journal of the wills the adventures of luke star killer i believe yeah yeah that sounds

(47:36):
right journal yeah up until the point or and this is funny funny that we talk about this because
um more recently i think mark hamill did an interview somewhere where he actually did talk
about that title change and how they reshot the scene that
introduces himself to leia on the on the death star because the first time they filmed that he

(48:00):
introduces himself as luke star killer and then uh and then he he goes on to do his typical mark
hamill grumble about like what now it's skywalker are you kidding me this is this is you know what
is this yeah it's not nearly as cool
uh but yeah yeah it's uh you know yeah classic george luke is always changing his minds but

(48:24):
he's changing his mind really well with the idea that it's mythology because you know it means that
you know ideas aren't always the most consistent in the storytelling and um i mean look how old
ben kenobi is and that's supposed to be 19 years after he can't see oh yeah mustafar you know what
i mean it's like tatooine's sons are pretty hot yeah it's like what happened yeah yeah and owen

(48:44):
and beru also you're just like jeez how many sandstorms have they been through like that's awful
rough living moisture evaporators aren't producing too much yeah no no yeah but yeah no you're i think
you're i think you're spot on you know this um and and disney has been very clever about about

(49:10):
what they've done and like that book the adventures of luke skywalker and giving us these
competing tales within the galaxy itself uh is is acknowledging that that
mythologies do this they're very plastic and and can stretch and and take different forms

(49:31):
and it's happened with star wars i mean even the choice to uh you know do away with the
the expanded universe tales as being uh canon but reprinting them selectively and acknowledging
that they're there and feloni bringing elements back in uh even that is an

(49:54):
acknowledgment that star wars is all of that as well yeah so you know it's it's this big sorry
wanted to uh just print and produce stuff that was already just easy for them to make some extra cash
yeah well you know well i mean that totally they call it a franchise you know i mean

(50:19):
i call it a mythology they called them a franchise there are shareholders who expect a
dividend every year who own disney stock you know it's it's both you're exactly right
you're exactly right yeah definitely definitely both yeah uh so the the force is a big part of

(50:39):
star wars um can you talk a little bit about kind of what's written about how the force fits into
uh you know young in ideas sure um yeah and that was that was a place where i kind of started
i was like oh like how what would what would young and the unions make of the force uh and they have

(51:04):
there are so many concepts i sort of ran myself through all of these different ideas that the
unions explore about psyche and what is it where does it come from and uh and with young himself
i sort of came around to one of his ideas

(51:24):
he was interested in uh anthropology as well as uh developing psychology and uh and in reading
anthropologists he found you know so-called primitive cultures uh would talk about an idea
like mana and this energy that is around and through everything and there were certain

(51:50):
certain people who anthropologists
had identified who were uh who they called mana personalities these were people who could use
that energy and that and that magic uh to their own aims in in their own ways as they saw fit
and uh you know in in that world of anthropology they were thinking about

(52:16):
sort of application in the real world but also in uh traditional stories that were told
uh about the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the
about you know witches and wise men and and whatever else um so uh so yeah jung and the
unions are very interested in how these things play out in uh in the psyche but largely metaphorically

(52:42):
it's it's all a metaphor for certain things that go on you know people we can have dreams
they they said that dream was the birthing
of mythology and uh and i think a lot of us who dream have and and remember our dreams have had

(53:03):
ones where straight up supernatural stuff happens in the dream you know um and and so there's this
natural tendency within us to you know against our conscious will experience some kind of magic
that ties everything together and they would just say you know what i'm going to do with this

(53:24):
i think would just look at the force and say yeah this is this is in our time uh an expression
of exactly that and um and and it's a metaphorical um representation of the essence the life essence
that is in all of us and and our potential to do all kinds of things great and awful

(53:51):
yeah it uh the force definitely
is there and and you know the unions are very interested in the unconscious
parts of psyche and of of our lives and all of all of the unconscious things that go on
that we just don't know are going on inside of us and by unconscious by unconscious you you

(54:16):
would maybe i guess a way for me to interpret what you mean by that is uh if anyone's seen
the movie inception is that kind of like a way for you to interpret what you mean by that
like you know sure roughly sort of the idea you know the idea of planting an idea in someone's
head without them being consciously aware of that you know is that yeah more closely to like
how you would describe when you say unconscious yeah for sure and and even even the idea of you've

(54:41):
got a dream now there is a lucid dreaming of course where people steer the direction of their
dream as as it's happening right but there's also just straight up dreams which are more common
and a good question is you know who's the author of this like i'm not i'm i'm not choosing for
this to happen this is an experience happening to me so the unconscious is something that we

(55:06):
cannot conceive we it's cut off from our conscious self and and yet it's running in the background at
all times and it tells us stories when we're asleep for sure um so yeah it's that it's that
author that
we can't know uh face to face um yeah and um yeah amazing yeah uh i guess dream dreams is uh

(55:36):
it plays such a big part in star wars storytelling as well because of course that's something that
anakin and both anakin and cypher diaz are plagued by you know oh yeah over the course of their
stories and uh you know in cypher diaz's side of of things like i mean you know his visions
got so i mean i guess you know visions or dreams you know in star wars i guess they could be one of

(55:59):
the same um but uh you know they get so bad that like he he or so so vivid that he you know it
affects his actions and he goes out and creates a clone army you know in response to what he's
seeing about the future and you know with anakin's like his dreams affect his choice
to turn to the dark side um and to make a deal with the devil to try and save his wife the

(56:24):
is not yet dead that he believes wholeheartedly is going to die and uh i guess like you also write
about anakin in this book so like you know does that play into i guess i guess you know they're
kind of connected there um yeah yeah yeah absolutely absolutely and um and you know i

(56:45):
would say the the unions are very interested in dreams and they're also interested in visions
as their own thing uh and
and uh jung said that visions in some way are cleaner than a dream because they happen to
people while they're awake and usually their ability to recall visions are are much stronger

(57:09):
than to recall a dream and so um so yeah there's some of that in the book as well like the power
of visions what characters experience visions sort of how that lines up with jungian thought
but with anakin and
and the dreams you know there's a there's a um a line in attack of the clones who says
you know um jedi don't have nightmares like um you know you don't have bad dreams something like

(57:36):
that um and it's like whoa um okay um that's weird because um i think i think it's another
aspect of the jedi sort of like suppressing stuff that's not yeah yeah
a light you know um but it's really interesting because i was just thinking i feel like in one of

(58:01):
the newer novels uh anakin when he's a padawan or pre-padawan uh i guess no i wouldn't ask you
padawan but still at the temple uh is he has conversations with obi-wan about how he's still
having like really bad uh sleeps and stuff right so that would fit then i think i think it's like
maybe it's just yeah it's just denial right like yeah because he's like always yeah right

(58:24):
all the time yeah yeah right and and from a jungian perspective it's like well you know
nightmares let's not demonize nightmares um there might be something there that's trying to
break through that uh that we need to know about that we need to see
um and let's not fly off the handle because we had a nightmare um let's try to learn from it

(58:49):
instead maybe even um try to draw that nightmare back up and
ask ask it you know what why are you here why are you uh why are you visiting me like this i'm not
enjoying this but but come on in let's have a cup of tea and talk about this what what what's going
on that being said i feel like you kind of backfired on anakin yeah exactly yeah exactly

(59:13):
and that's the that's what's really tricky um and it it star wars does it so beautifully you know
it it shows us it gives us examples of um
some sometimes things with we we don't want to do you know um mythology is full of
characters who have lived lives that are admirable and it's full of characters who've

(59:38):
lived lives that are deplorable and tragic as well um it's uh it's a place where we can kind of
safely have a testing ground of narrative and see how some of these outcomes
might manifest and then what it might look like he's he's suffering anakin suffers terribly

(01:00:01):
in the wake of all of that and um and it just goes on it becomes intergenerational trauma at
that point you know too and and goes on down to the grandkids so um so that's another great thing
that star wars does uh it's very honest about those things yeah no it's a good point i feel

(01:00:23):
like that's something that's a good point i feel like that's something that's a good point
one thing we also just don't really talk about is that trauma that gets passed down the line
because everyone just kind of is thinking within their own bubble so much
yeah yeah and and myths do this you know the greeks had the house of atreus
and um and you know multiple generations of the same family curse and um and this comes up in

(01:00:48):
other stories as well this comes up in um in popular fiction that's entirely realistic
intergenerational stuff um it's it's it's one of the most popular uh themes of storytelling
for human beings probably because it's a lot more common than a lot of people like to admit

(01:01:10):
oh yeah i'm switching gears a little bit here um so something that has always bothered me
and i realize you touched on in in your book and that is
yoda having a a species that we never get to figure out the origin of
yeah what's that about what's going on there um yeah what are your thoughts on yoda's species

(01:01:40):
i'm curious i've always thought that george just left him kind of he's supposed to be so old and so
wise that he he needed to be very unique in the world
i think so uh george was trying to put him somewhat on a pedestal to stand out
yeah yeah yeah yeah absolutely and he's he's ancient so he's he's from this earlier

(01:02:08):
version of the galaxy even you know um 900 years old he's he's seen things that these humans uh
would never be able to see and his perspective is is tempered by all that time
as well um yeah i love it that he's just sort of like he's this uh sacred anonymous

(01:02:34):
species you know where's his home world uh nobody knows and how they've carried that mystery forward
it's uh it's an interesting kind of um kind of situation because it's intentional it's
intentional mystery

(01:02:54):
right um it's that we're never gonna fill this in yeah right yaddle and grogu right and then also
the i think i named the other ones there are a few others from like uh knights of the old republic
there were a couple oh right um in there i can't even remember their names they're they're you know

(01:03:16):
just in there for a little bit but um but yeah that's like it's like into well we're gonna we're
gonna build the
into it and deliberately not tell you these things so you have to take it as mysterious
that is its own interesting conceit um and and it's curious yeah it is curious like i love that

(01:03:38):
the the the fans who are enveloped in this mythology are all you know i think we all kind
of play along with that too like like i think when it comes to assigning names and things like that
like your story and your story and your story and your story and your story and your story and your
story of boshek and um oh yeah like watching phantom menace and you got like the greblebs back

(01:04:00):
there which is just spielberg backwards for all the ets and their little like their little pod
right like you know someone thought of this and yet no one out there is pressing to give yoda a
species name you know and i and i think at least as far as i know and like i i kind of i kind of
appreciate that you know it's like it's surprisingly i haven't to be honest yeah it's like you know

(01:04:21):
what i i wouldn't i wouldn't necessarily care about it i wouldn't necessarily care about it i wouldn't
necessarily care to to know what his species is called because that gives me the impression
that there's a planet full of little yodas running around somewhere you know it's like yeah now we
know they're how slowly they age and grow up right right so we've got a little bit revealed
to the mystery but that almost just raises more questions of how they how they how they yeah how

(01:04:43):
they how they uh yeah how they breed and yeah like yeah i don't know like i i love the idea
that maybe some crazy thing happens and an egg forms in a tree and then it's like oh my god
and then out pops a little green elf yeah something like a traditional like like manifested
by the force or something you know like and it gives there's there's no there's no um a similar

(01:05:09):
alien that we've seen in any star wars story that's of this particular species that isn't
wielding the force they've all been force users right and they've all been very powerful like
we've always been given the idea that yaddle is also very powerful
and we we've been given the idea that dooku yeah and like grogu is very powerful yoda is very

(01:05:30):
powerful but i mean yeah that's true yeah but uh but yeah i think like it adds to this like
this magical kind of whimsical idea that's like yeah the force just you know created them inside
the the the hollowed out tree stump or something like that you know yeah yeah yeah yeah totally

(01:05:51):
it's and and um and like you say we we play a lot of games and we play a lot of games and we
play along with it and we get to and we can speculate about it it opens towers is very good
um is very good at this in terms of uh not answering every single question and yet we've
mapped out all these yeah exactly and yet we've mapped it all out uh but then this is like sacred

(01:06:14):
like yoda's yoda's uh who he is what he is where he's from is is the sacred thing that we play
along with i like the way you put that yeah um
and and that and yeah it's very uh it it encourages playfulness and imaginativeness
right and and that is another one of the key uh key aspects of this being a mythology

(01:06:43):
um yeah totally yeah totally it's and it's fun it's fun uh as well and the and the spielberg
connection is fun too i talk about that in the book as well
because there's that uh there's that part in et where he sees the kid dressed up as yoda on
halloween oh right and and he goes home home yeah that's right and you get and and we're

(01:07:08):
wondering what's his home planet yeah exactly it's like oh like okay and then
the senate floor um man and then there's yeah uh all the star wars references in
indiana
jones as well right oh yeah that's yep that's right yeah the hieroglyphics in there of uh

(01:07:31):
3po and r2 yeah that's how i think we yeah first got the original story it's passed down there
well it is a long time ago right and indy is an archaeologist so that's right anybody's gonna
uncover it um yeah yeah it's um it's just it's just um it's just a playground for families you

(01:07:54):
know people of all ages it's it's not um i know george says i just saw there was a thing that
popped up on social media yesterday of ron howard and he was saying you know the last thing that
george said to him when he was when he took over solo to direct it george said remember uh it's

(01:08:15):
for 12 year old boys um and ron howard was like okay thanks um and and that's an interesting idea
which is is i mean the appeal goes way beyond 12 year old boys those boys yeah and so i'm sort of
i'm sort of on my mind to think maybe that was george directing ron because you know he um he

(01:08:41):
had been his director in american graffiti and um and so people always talk about how like george
doesn't like to work with actors you know he the fun for him is in the editing room but maybe
george sensed that the right thing to tell ron howard was that thing about 12 year old boys
um i don't know maybe also i'm over analyzing it so you know that's possible too

(01:09:06):
maybe uh george could sense change of direction and he was just trying to pass on yeah wisdom
to ron yeah yeah i mean yeah to add on to that too i mean uh there's a there's a great uh quote
from uh from tolkien about uh
about people you know if if um uh if if everyone was able to remember you know the like who they

(01:09:33):
were as a as a kid and embody that a little more that like you know think like everyone would be
in a better place or something like that like i don't enjoy oh yeah oh yeah i i can't remember
i can't remember the exact quote but that's there's like something that he said about
about that and it's just very interesting oh yeah no that's a that's a great connection

(01:09:54):
that's a great connection and you know it kind of goes back uh it's making me thinking of young
as well just the age 12 is a very important age um in terms of or it can be in terms of uh
development and and growing and uh there's something that sort of happens right you know

(01:10:16):
at the end of childhood and the start of adolescence where something clicks in a lot of
people and uh
they suddenly become a lot more aware about who they are and and and what life is like and all
about ray bradbury wrote about it beautifully in his in his uh novel dandelion wine and the moment

(01:10:37):
this kid running across it's the summer of 1928 and this kid is running across his front yard
and uh his forehead just just uh breaks this very thin strand of spider silk that's just
sort of across the yard that he can't even see but he can feel it and in that breaking the kid

(01:11:00):
gets this realization about life and just how beautiful it is how big it is how he's a player
in all of it and um and so that idea is is very popular you know other people have written about
it but um yeah young talked about being that age i think he was 12 and walking down i think he was

(01:11:24):
walking home from school maybe and he was walking down this road with trees lining the road and at
at the start of the walk he was not yet across that threshold but when he got to the end of the
road with the trees he he had realized he was himself and um and so yeah you know um that age

(01:11:47):
is really important so maybe i think george is sort of aware of that as well yeah because i feel
kind of at least for the first movie really what we see uh luke skywalker go through he goes from
being this oh yeah yeah no nothing farmer and then he realized he has a ends up having a big
part to play in the galaxy as a whole i i found the quote too it's uh children are meant to grow

(01:12:12):
up and not to become peter pan's not to lose innocence and wonder but to proceed on the
appointed journey it's ironic that george said that but then the mythology he made
oh sorry tolkien but i'm sure george oh he took a lot yeah took a lot from that yeah but it's funny
that then all these uh i'll put myself in this category maybe didn't grow up entirely because

(01:12:37):
they're still still in love with the mythology of star wars yeah yeah yeah me too
yeah me too i'm in that club yeah um yeah you know we can um we can
do a deep dive analysis on star wars but also it is just really fun there's that too and you know

(01:13:00):
um lawrence kasdan has that funny when the force awakens came out in one of his interviews he was
all like i don't know star wars is just goofy um that is so funny i mean it's true um there's a
you know there's a lot of perspectives of it and like different points to pick up star wars
yeah because i was thinking of like for that like the goofy part like

(01:13:24):
chasing the stormtroopers down the hallway yeah yeah totally totally yeah right yeah it's it's it's
it's something that i think you know some star wars stories that we end up watching some of the
more recent stuff and it's like oh it's missing something and uh sometimes that's that's it that's

(01:13:44):
the key it's like oh it's missing it's missing that that little bit of goofiness about it or
like the the you know something i do feel um a number of the more
recent shows um i feel like they're really trying to try different genres and so yeah
and oh yeah because i don't know how that would fit so well in like andor for example right or

(01:14:04):
like the acolyte like i don't i don't remember really getting oh yeah what was the there's goofy
scenes like the who was the first who was the little oh it's that little gopher creature that
go for yeah i was just like who's the squirrel guy yeah yeah right right okay yeah so yeah i guess
um right but uh yeah yeah but yeah it it that has been part of it since since the first film

(01:14:35):
there's that sort of you know this gentle humor yeah like a childlike childlike humor right a
little bit light slapstick yeah yeah
light uh a bit of a tangent but i actually had a slight follow-up question
regarding the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the
to the yoda part because uh yeah i i read a section of your book that was going on about

(01:15:01):
uh the polarized mana split between um palpatine being an extreme and yoda being the other
that's where this question is coming from here's a question here do you think that yoda and palpatine
were always designed by george to be polarized mana of personalities or do you think that

(01:15:24):
changed when he wrote the prequels by elevating yoda to palpatine's level because i think in the
original trilogy there was supposed to be a power difference between yoda palpatine or else yoda
would have done it themselves well there you go um that's a really good question and um and
something that is definitely worth uh discussing because um yoda is so much older than palpatine

(01:15:52):
right but
um
they have that epic um fight of course in revenge of the sith but yeah the when we first see both
of them when they both show up in empire strikes back um and yoda yoda sort of cops to luke to
being yoda after he's tested him um that scene comes right after we see palpatine for the first

(01:16:16):
time so they're they're paired very closely in that um i think i don't know i mean yoda's
in obi-wan
their exile is so interesting and um you know it's like they roll over in a way after after
revenge of the sith they're just like you know we can't overthrow this together because we're

(01:16:40):
overpowered we have to wait for these kids to grow up um and i've always thought strange move
yeah it's kind of a weird move um yeah absolutely and it it makes us ask you know why
why is why is that the rationale and even what is their rationale because we don't get it played
out so well i like some of the um some of the newer uh stories in the certain point of view

(01:17:06):
um we get yoda and he's all excited about training leia but then obi-wan's ghost is like sorry it's
gonna be the boy and yoda's like like i don't want to i don't want to treat that he that kid
is no it's got to be the girl like the girl's the one who's got it he's too much
and obi-wan's like probably well yeah well and that's the funny thing about

(01:17:28):
leia too she's got plenty of anakin in her um you know strangling jabba the hutt to death
just like yeah you know it's just like that's a classic vader move yeah yeah exactly that's it
it's the choking um so so yeah but um i don't know i don't know what george's intentions were

(01:17:53):
um and i'm not even sure that george knows what his intentions were on some of these things
because he has a record of misremembering facts yeah and um and this is the literary scholar in me
talking and the way i was trained to look at literature
um it goes back to sort of uh something dh lawrence said uh never trust the teller trust the

(01:18:23):
and so you know we we really we've got the texts we've got the the sacred jedi text
and we can we can watch those and read those and take those in and everything
and and this is part of the beauty of all of it it's open to interpretation so we get to talk
about it um we get to turn it over and think about it i do think that there is some intention

(01:18:51):
in terms of you know yoda and palpatine and and and and and and and and and and and and and
they're definitely um sort of you know the the highest jedi and the highest sith
in in the equation at that time and um and one of the things i found looking at it through a

(01:19:14):
youngian lens is that they are the same archetype it's just that they're different poles of that
and um yoda would be the light end of the pole and palpatine of course is the dark end of that
pole and that's something the youngians are really interested in is opposites and how that

(01:19:37):
tension plays out between opposites in our psyche and um and it gets illustrated in stories like
this so um so actually yoda and palpatine have quite a lot in common
and maybe maybe it's the reason they're not able to defeat each other is because they are

(01:20:01):
you know just one end and then the other not as obvious as ray and kylo as a dyad
um that i think is a different thing at play there it's funny that's actually my next question
in regards to that but i'll let you finish oh nice yeah yeah yeah no i just um yeah it's it's
it's i think yeah i think they are two sides of the same coin

(01:20:23):
and um and this sort of goes back to that idea of eric neumann that i brought up earlier of
the new ethic and finding a new way in in your life um he also talked about the old ethic i think
palpatine and yoda both represent that old ethic in that galaxy they are from the ancient lineage

(01:20:48):
of the jedi and the sith these are institutional uh setups
and one of them of course plays out with two um and the other amassed 10 000 in their ranks
but uh but they represent the old ways and the old ways don't work anymore because it throws

(01:21:11):
the galaxy back and forth into a you know now the dark side's got it now the light side's got it and
that is not balanced turning yeah yeah it's way out of balance and
and um and one of the things luke's generation uh brings in is this chance at balance

(01:21:31):
and saying you know um i'm not gonna fight you i'm not gonna play this back and forth
war and um and then of course that that's a that's a new thing that's a different thing
and that's what brings vader back says whoa anakin anakin's still in there

(01:21:53):
and he um and he's got the power to throw this guy down the shaft so um yeah so that's something
yet in to that that i never noticed before until you pointed it out is that luke has that gray
pocket the flap on his the gray pocket yeah i've never noticed that there's a different color
on his black uniform to show as as you described uh him being more of the gray

(01:22:18):
yeah and well he's he's reached kind of more of a middle position
you know he has tasted the dark side and in beating back his father and cutting his hand off
but then he catches himself in this great moment you know his he becomes conscious
of the fact that he could become like him like his dad and he doesn't want that

(01:22:41):
so he consciously decides you know what i'm not gonna do it and he steers back toward the
light side of things and then that bib opens up his little gray pocket and
gray is you know halfway between white and black so it's a it's a symbolic also it's a it's a
triangle that it opens up which is nice it's a shape with three sides it's no longer one side

(01:23:06):
versus another if if you have that it's just a line back and forth back and forth but you've
got a new position something that's not quite totally either or on that back and forth you
suddenly have a third point and you have a triangle that can
open up um and that symbol is is suddenly there and it's not um it's not beaten over our heads

(01:23:33):
like you said you can watch it for years and years and years and not really notice it uh but
they very deliberately put that detail in there and carried it through for the rest of the film
when he's at the pyre when he rejoins everybody at the ewok village that pocket still

(01:23:53):
opens up the front um and so so yeah he's um he's he's touched the dark side he started out
obviously on the light side and now he's more integrated he's he's um he's grown up he's able
to stand as himself so it's interesting that he has to do that by appealing as a son um of of

(01:24:20):
vader in order to to make it there he has to do that by appealing as a son
he has to accept his own place yeah yeah where he could end up yeah so right right and this all
plays out um subliminally but i haven't found anything you know i went through all kinds of
books about the making of return of the jedi and um just everything i could get my hands on

(01:24:45):
and uh and there was nothing really charting that that um costume
change
yeah i know and i forget if we've discussed it before if i've seen something like you know the
the a little bit of a hint as to what's going on there but it's interesting when you watch a new

(01:25:07):
hope and he's in this like white tunic and then the next movie rolls around and he's in this like
kind of beige gray jumpsuit and then he's in this black jumpsuit and then you see him again in the
next movie and he's wearing like white again you know and um yeah but yeah
it is interesting you know like the kind of the almost to symbolize like kind of the the events

(01:25:29):
surrounding his story are kind of progressively getting uh darker and you know as time goes by
and and you know it could be having some effect on him i know maybe people back then were you know
theorizing like the you know the shift in color in his costume could be symbolizing like oh his
his draw or temptation to the dark side you know is it's like uh taking its hold on him or something

(01:25:53):
that but um yeah you know i think like there's definitely some truth in like what he what what
they clothe him in is a you know a reflection of the world around him and uh you know as the galaxy
is becoming a darker place um you know it's kind of visually represented there in in what he's

(01:26:14):
wearing oh yeah yeah absolutely absolutely yeah and uh i mean it's art right yeah so um
so these things can work on us and and um and for the youngians they would say you know the
symbol is a thing that can't really be expressed any other way um in this case we've got a visual

(01:26:39):
symbol uh costume right and uh and it can be symbolic it's uh it it's a chance to uh to to
really see and experience something that isn't just flat out stated
and really maybe that can't really be stated um you know how do you how do you explain um

(01:27:01):
psychological transformation of a character like you're you're telling a story you're not
you're not um you're not gonna bore everybody by saying okay now and at this point in in what
you're watching you know there's no there's no pause to like catch everybody up to be like you
know what this is is that no it's it's a work of art and it um and that's part of what makes

(01:27:23):
it beautiful
works on us and uh and many of these things are very deliberate i know that that detail
was a continuity decision between scenes and shots and um and the the crew and cast followed
it very closely so it means something it wasn't just a mistake they had to just roll with

(01:27:45):
right right yeah but it's the kind of thing where you know lots of people like to say you know star
wars is just you know popcorn
fair whatever it doesn't mean anything but then you get a something like the bib or you know you
take a step back and just like josh is doing looking at his costumes throughout the films

(01:28:05):
suddenly you have something to think about sit with and ponder and talk about you know nope so
true there's something complicated going on there it's um it's art yep yep i think so too
uh just to backtrack a little bit on that uh kylo and ray uh uh you know i think it's it's it's a
you mentioned there so i'm curious because as we know george was uh like really involved in using

(01:28:32):
a lot of these concepts in creating uh star wars so i'm curious um with disney taking over and with
their trilogy if you see that continuation of the the touches of this of the jungian kind of outlook
yeah that's that's um that is a really good question

(01:28:53):
um i do know that um i think i i don't i'm not certain i can't be certain uh i think that there
are people um i think there are people at lucasfilm and making the films and all of that

(01:29:15):
who uh who do have some of this and um and really do get it um but i
don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know
i don't think it's the kind of thing they need to get in order to make some really great mythology
um one of the things this is um there's the mythologist john booker he's the head of the

(01:29:38):
joseph campbell foundation right now and uh one of the things i really like that he says
is about joseph campbell's hero's journey the monomyth and he john booker explains that
the monomyth is not proscriptive it's descriptive so it's not joseph campbell giving you a recipe

(01:30:03):
of how to tell a hero's story what joseph campbell was doing was he was describing the pattern
of hero stories and that archetype through different culture cultures and stories that
they tell traditional stories myths and so on it just describes it um i think a lot of people

(01:30:23):
sort of misread campbell as a recipe when actually he was describing patterns so um i think
george lucas understood this i think he understood that it was descriptive
and um and when he has talked about it in the past he said that reading the hero with a thousand

(01:30:47):
faces showed him that he was already following patterns in what he was trying to do
that were just innate that were there that are natural that come up out of the psyche on their
own if you let them if you follow your intuition so um so in terms of uh disney and what they're

(01:31:12):
doing and all that um i don't know a lot of people have been fed this idea that campbell's
work is descriptor is proscriptive
rather that it's a recipe it's a very popular idea that has been pervasive in hollywood since
the 80s because people kind of misunderstood the influence that had on on george and they

(01:31:36):
wanted to cash in and be like oh well we'll just follow this and we'll just pick much movies and
then we'll just get rich um but that led to a ton of just crap science fiction movies you know
um so so um so i don't know i don't you know
i definitely uh bring in the sequel trilogy in in my analysis because it's part of the

(01:32:03):
nine film saga and um and i i have an interesting relationship with the sequel trilogy just in that
i really really enjoy the first two movies um and then the third movie i didn't like it was
the first star wars movie i ever saw i didn't like um interesting
but yeah but it but in also in a way you know as a literary scholar that doesn't matter like

(01:32:29):
if i like it or not that's not my job my job is to analyze it and um and with that in mind
that episode nine has so much in it that you can analyze it's it's chock full of all kinds of stuff
that is really interesting when you get down to to thinking about it and and looking at it turning

(01:32:50):
it over and um
i know you talked about it a lot but i think it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
on the dyad between ray and kylo so that's yeah right there totally yeah and that's an interesting
instance i'm glad you bring that up because that's an instance where there's that documentary about
the making of the film and um chris terrio who would obviously was the co-writer with jj abrams

(01:33:15):
he's in there talking about how joseph campbell had this idea of a dyad and in his work
and um when i watched that and he said that i was like what like i don't remember that and joseph
campbell um and so i that you know sent me on my little errand to try to track down what he was

(01:33:39):
talking about your own hero's journey yeah yeah and then my hero's journey finally began
you know in 2020 during the pandemic what does chris stereo mean
and and yeah there was you know there's not a lot of great
support for young for rather for campbell i should say um talking about about that

(01:34:06):
about a dyad he did mention do ads in a few places and he did talk about this idea
called the sacred marriage which comes out of alchemy and is also actually related to
things that young were doing in their lives and so i think that's a great way to draw
on so that was interesting that was an interesting moment in working on this book because it was like

(01:34:31):
okay actually jung had a lot more to say about that than campbell did and like jung filled books
about the sacred marriage and what he called the conjunctio of of two becoming one and um and he
got super esoteric about it and for him it was uh an illustration of um of psychological transformation

(01:34:55):
and um and he really didn't wait for you to keep up and what he wrote about it it's just dense uh
and and tricky stuff but uh but that was kind of an interesting idea that was a interesting moment
because i was like okay chris terrio's talking about joseph campbell but actually jung is the

(01:35:16):
one who
who said all kinds of stuff about this so it really opened up what i could do with it you know
yeah oh that's awesome played right into your hand as yeah yeah it worked out it worked out
amazing all right well um we should probably start to close things off uh steve so we i only got we

(01:35:36):
only got one more question for you before we start to wrap things up here uh it's if you could have
a conversation with george lucas about the mythological
mythological
mythological
and psychological dimensions of his creation
what would be one question you would be most eager to ask
oh my gosh that's such a huge yeah because my time would be super limited wouldn't it

(01:36:01):
um i'd be like i only get one question here um introvert yeah yeah yeah yeah but with george if
you get him if you get george going down a rabbit hole though then then you've got him you know
right you got his idea of what's going on and then you're like oh my gosh i'm gonna have to do this
yeah yeah i would probably i think i'd say in your friendship that you developed with joseph

(01:36:25):
campbell what did he say about young in your presence and just see see if see if that ever
came up oh man he might be like nothing he didn't say anything and then i'd be like oh crap i used my
one question nothing never heard of him

(01:36:46):
um young hope
young young ling
for my luck i would ask something and get some like blank answer like that yeah yeah yeah totally
nothing you never brought him up yeah um yeah nope nope uh well i mean i would love to know

(01:37:11):
the answer to it though like yeah i would i would i feel like it would have considering like the
conversation but i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know
the concepts are so related definitely yeah hereditary definitely so yeah yeah i would be
curious i'd love to know and uh i mean i guess you know that being said i guess when when when
this book is available uh you know we gotta mail a copy to george you know oh yeah totally yeah

(01:37:35):
gotta send it into the ranch and uh someone will forward it from there but um you know speaking of
when when exactly is your book available well the nice thing is that it uh
it was officially published two days ago uh as of and it landed in my lap uh physically actual

(01:37:55):
copies yesterday i got home from work and there was a little box on my doorstep and it had the
book in it nine copies and uh that's awesome i was like holy holy moly oh it must be a good
feeling there it is yeah felt pretty good labor and love yeah that's amazing yeah distilled into

(01:38:16):
this book yeah well uh congratulations then and on the launch and uh i guess uh uh for uh just for
documenting the date i guess this would have been august 12th 2025 august 12th that's right
cool yeah young and star wars big day yeah so uh you know that'll end up on the the wikipedia i'm

(01:38:37):
sure oh my gosh i hadn't even thought of that that's right you got to make a page for it
yeah i mean
you know it's amazing i always love the stories where you know a star wars fan uh you know goes
on to sort of almost give back to the fandom in a way you know like making something out of what

(01:38:58):
they love and you know with us it's this podcast you know having these conversations with uh with
amazing people like you and and then there you are making uh books for uh much more intelligent
people than myself uh when it comes when it comes to a lot of this stuff but uh yeah it's it's it's
an awesome thing and and uh so yeah we we wish you the the best congratulations on the book

(01:39:21):
launch and uh that's awesome news so thank you thank you josh and blake for having me i i love
your podcast i love what you do um you bring things up that blow my mind um you know um yeah
you were there were some a couple episodes ago you were talking about just how the sheer

(01:39:42):
preponderance of like star war new star wars material that comes out of the book is just so
like 236 publications in this year blah blah blah i was just like oh my gosh like i'm glad you're on
what on you're on it you're on it and please keep being on it because this is great yeah it's yeah

(01:40:02):
we did try like you said i mean it's a it's definitely a tsunami sometimes full of uh
full of lots of content yeah it's very hard to stay on top of sometimes but uh you know
uh we we do our best yeah well you're doing great
you are doing great thanks thank you appreciate that yeah um i would probably say where can people

(01:40:22):
find yes yeah yeah um there is a link through my website which is www.sgellerhoff.com
and you should be able to order it through bookstores um it it is available for um pretty
much anywhere so all right i'll uh i mean yeah i'll i'll put

(01:40:46):
i'll put a bunch of links in the description and uh if you want to send me any any relevant
links that you want down there too uh we'll uh we'll we'll throw those down as well and
maybe a link to your your bow shack ai yeah
yeah we'll put that down there too if you have it
awesome yeah yeah so uh where can people uh where can star wars fans uh find you on

(01:41:12):
on the uh on the internet when it comes to socials if that's your thing
oh yeah i'm i'm around and about um my my name everywhere is pretty much sg ellerhoff
so um yeah you can find me on instagram on the blue sky on the twitter on the on the threads

(01:41:32):
i'm i'm around awesome so and i and yeah thank you for that and and i i look forward to hearing
from people too perfect that was part of why i wrote the book it's like you said give it back
i want to i want to give this out into the world
and people run with it you know read it like it disagree with it just spark conversation you know

(01:41:54):
yeah engage with it it's what it's all about exactly yeah for many book reports on this book
yeah i want to see people research it yeah use this as a reference that'd be amazing
um all right yeah uh thank you so much steve uh it's been a pleasure it's been such a pleasure
having you yeah thank you so much cheers gentlemen yes thank you

(01:42:16):
may the force be with young may the force be with young as well and uh thank you again to
blake or go it was here thanks for having me good time all righty we'll see you out there keep flying
all righty may the force be with you all of course uh definitely go and go and uh follow

(01:42:38):
steve and uh you know hit him up with a question on one of his socials about uh the conversation
today or about the book go and check out the links in the description below and i'll see you
and as always we will see you in the next episode of star wars escape pod

All Episodes

Jung and Star Wars: A Contemporary Mythology by S.G. Ellerhoff (Phd) | (Special Guest)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jung and Star Wars: A Contemporary Mythology by S.G. Ellerhoff (Phd) | (Special Guest)