An interview from December 2018
 
Why do this?  Why put your stories online?
I won't lie... I'm really hoping certain individuals from Lucasfilm will read and enjoy them.  Best case scenario, they accept a couple of my stories into the official cannon and interview me for a writers position.  On the flip side, I hope they don't send me a cease and desist order from their lawyers (laughs).  

All kidding aside, I like writing Star Wars stories.  It's my strange hobby.  I'm in my mid-40's and at a comfortable place in life.  I've got a pretty good imagination and freedom of speech.  If this talent of mine has any value, now's the time to discover it.  At the very least, I hope anyone reading my stories will find them entertaining and inspiring.


Would writing Star Wars stories be your dream job?
(Concept artist) Ian McCraig and (author) Pablo Hidalgo already have my dream job …or jobs.  However, it's one thing to write for yourself and your own entertainment.  It's something else to do it as a profession.  Especially when your words could break a multi-billion dollar franchise.  That's a lot of added pressure!

But there's been a lot of new [Star Wars related] story development over the past few years.  Maybe there's a place for me in that machine.  That's another reason why I've created this site.  I'm about as far removed as a person can be from Hollywood and I don't think a standard resume would cut it.


Do you think your stories could be turned into feature films?
Ah... no.  It's not that my stories can't be movies, but my stories are not "marketing department friendly" and that has become a huge factor in the success or failure of a film in recent years.  After all, if a film featuring a young Han Solo, written by the man who wrote [The] Empire [Strikes Back], fails to meet expectations at the box office, a film about an old Jar Jar Binks, written by a nobody, doesn't stand a chance (laughs).

And I think they are a little too ambitious for anyone to do as a fan film.  Well, unless George Lucas comes out of retirement.


Is that supposed to be some kind of a hint?
Maybe.  I don't think anyone else could afford to do it (laughs).

But when it comes to fan films, there are some very talented people out there doing some very cool things.  And I have to, somewhat shamefully, admit that I've only seen a fraction of the fan films out there.  One thing I would like to see is some sort of "fan alliance" where you have independent, amateur filmmakers working from a centralized source.  Be that something that ties into one of the feature films or a Rashomon type thing where different films tell different sides of the same story.

Do you think your stories could work as other media such as novels or comics?
I don't know.  I've always felt that Star Wars works best as cinematic media -- you know, movies or TV.  Let's be honest, the sound effects and music score are so ingrained and every bit as essential, if not more so, than the story and visuals.  If they are missing, as they are in printed media, the story and experience as a whole suffers, I think.  

It's possible they could work as radio dramas.  I think that would be interesting.  But, like fan films, that's something beyond my scope of creativity.


Why did you revise scenes from Revenge of the Sith?  How did that come about?
I don't know why but every time a new Star Wars movie comes out, relatives and co-works will come up to me and tell me what they didn't like about it; as if I can call George Lucas and convince him to make changes.  Revenge of the Sith stood out as the one I received the most criticism on.

I was watching the film a few years ago and remembered some of the criticism I received on a particular scene.  So I thought to myself: "How would I do this scene differently?  How would it play out if I could do my own "special edition" of the movie?"  That's really where the idea to re-write the scene came from.  It was a fun exercise to revise the one scene and so I decided to revise a couple of other scenes as well.  

But to be very, very clear on this, I didn't revise theses scenes because I didn't like the movie.  Revising the scenes was just a fun writing exercise for me and helps me get into the right headspace for writing [original] Star Wars [stories].


Both A Fool's Crusade and The Liberation of Naboo feature Jar Jar Binks-
Why Jar Jar?

Why Jar Jar?
My most frequently asked question (laughs).  The answer is, why not?  Jar Jar is the most relatable character to me.  There's a lot of me in him.  No one understands a word he says, he's a social outcast, he's a klutz.  Looking at myself, I'd say I'm more Jar Jar Binks than Han Solo or even Luke Skywalker.  I think that's why most fans don't like him, too.  Who wants to dress up as a character that embodies all the things you hate about yourself?

Also, I can't screw him up, you know?  I can't make people like him any less.  If I give him a larger purpose, put him through the wringer a little bit, maybe it'll change some opinions.  And if I can write a good story involving Jar Jar, I should be able to write a decent story involving anyone else.


Do you think you'll ever release the full scripts for A Fool's Crusade and The Liberation of Naboo?  Or will you just stick with the excerpts?
Probably not.  One fear I have is that someone will copy and paste these stories onto some other website and claim they are official scripts they somehow acquired from Lucasfilm.  So by putting out excerpts, I'm trying to defend against that.

Also whenever you put something online, you're opening yourself up to criticism, some of which can be deeply unjustified.  If you don't believe me, just ask Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best, Hayden Christensen, Rian Johnson or Kelly Marie Tran.  It's really sad to hear about the abuses they've suffered at the hands of parasites claiming to be Star Wars fans.


Another of your projects has the working title "A Bigger Fish."  How did that story come about and where are you with the project?
When I started this project, my objective was to write something a little bit different from other Star Wars stories.  When you talk about the Star Wars trilogies, you're talking about generational stories.  Anakin's generation, Luke's generation, Rey's generation.  This story takes place two generations prior to Anakin's [generation] and lays some of the groundwork for what will become the Clone Wars.

This story has been a long haul and it's appropriate that the word "bigger" is in the title because the story just keeps growing on me!  That's the thing people don't often realize is, when you start [writing] a story, sometimes you let it grow organically.  Ideas come to you as you're writing and you just have to explore them.  Before you know it, things are out of control and you sit back, look at the thing as a whole and say "how am I going to have this all converge towards an ending?"  Game of Thrones is, seemingly, an example of that kind of writing and storytelling.

I got to a point where I needed to break the story into two parts; similar to the last Harry Potter or the Hobbit films.  I was able to complete part 1 at the end of 2018.


Are you planning to post more excerpts from "A Bigger Fish: Part 1"?
My intention is to make the full part 1 publicly available.  I'm not as "guarded" with this story as I am with the Jar Jar stories.  However, I want to make it available in the right way and be sure it's not misrepresented as something it's not.   Once I find an adequate way of doing that, it will be available on the site.

And I do want to temper expectations with part 1.  It does have some really good character development moments.  There are a few unexpected moments, a few echoes to previous Star Wars films that ought to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  Part 2 is where all of "the big stuff" happens.  The deeper thematics of morality, right and wrong, consequences of actions, that sort of thing.

[Editor's Note - The working title "A Bigger Fish" is in reference to a line of dialogue spoken by Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace]


When do you plan to write part two of "A Bigger Fish"?
I took a break from writing to get material gathered and edited for the website.  I also have some other projects I've been putting off that I want to give some attention to.  Honestly, I'm not sure when I'm going to go back and start work on part 2.

Compounding that is some recent news that Lucasfilm had been developing a standalone Boba Fett film but decided to cancel it.  That got me thinking: "What would a Boba Fett film be like?" and I started gathering ideas.

Right now I'm debating as to which story [Part 2 or Boba Fett] I should devote my attention to.  I don't think it would be smart to work on both at the same time.


One character notably missing from your stories is Luke Skywalker.  Is there a particular reason for that?
Well, all of the stories [on the site] were written in the last five years or so.  But I've been writing Star Wars stories for forever.  I wrote an outline that was intended as a revision for Shadows of the Empire* back in the late '90's.  I believe that was the only time I ever wrote [a story involving] Luke — or Darth Vader for that matter.  But lots of stories have been written about [the two of] them.  I'd rather focus more on the "second tier" characters like Jar Jar and Count Dooku.

Going along with that, there is one type of story I've always wanted to write.  Call it a "reverse hero's journey."  The idea is to take the classic, Joseph Campbell hero's journey and turn it on its head.  With Luke, I think it might be neat to explore what happened to him after Ben [Ben Solo/Kylo Ren] betrayed him and before Rey discovered him.  How he went from this legendary savior of the galaxy and became an island dwelling hermit.

In The Force Awakens, we see a map showing his journey.  I've got some pretty mind blowing ideas as to what he was doing at each of those stops.  Was he really looking for the original Jedi temple?  Or was that a cover story to hide another purpose, another mission?

[*Editors Note - Shadows of the Empire was a novel and video game released in 1996.  The story detailed events that happened to Luke Skywalker and the Rebels between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi]