Just ignore his podcast / interview type videos. This would be a good start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXU7xzYhiiQ&list=PLrsgFKqTmu...
Well worth the watch: https://youtu.be/OI2iOB8ydGo?si=hDUzjVXIzjI9zR0V
We now know Lucas wasn’t really a good storyteller. He was just really great with visuals, but was surrounded by great storytellers. His first wife Marcia and people like Irvin Kershner and Campbell were the ones who were able to convince Lucas that the story mattered more than the visuals. They were noticeable absent in the prequel production.
https://www.amazon.com/Voyage-Space-Beagle-van-Vogt/dp/07653...
And Campbell knew a good thing when he saw it, happy to agree that Lucas' film represented a hero's journey.
This was a time when Campbell's writing was entering broad pop consciousness and his speaking engagement schedule was starting to grow: the massive popularity of Star Wars was a great ship to catch a ride on.
People wanted to see a depth in Star Wars that caught Lucas off guard (remember that he just wanted to replicate the exciting, cliff-hanger kids serials of his 1950s childhood). He decided to go with it, saying it was all part of a big plan, "I have ten movies with their stories all plotted out" etc. The reality is he cobbled things together ad-hoc and kind of quickly, with no real overarching intent - something he only decades later finally admitted.
I feel for him: in his mind, he was just a nuts-and-bolts technology guy who loved the "how would I make that?" questions and work far far more than the story he had to come up with to tell. He freely admitted he hated writing. If he had it his way, he would have merely been the head of ILM, excitedly figuring out ways to use new technology to solve film making problems, but Star Wars blew up on him, becoming an over-the-top ultra-success.
The real connection between Lucas and Campbell was nearly non-existent, but it was a useful thing for each of them to strategically latch on to as their popularity began to rapidly grow.
Finally from what I know Cambell ended up living on Skywalker Ranch. I see no reason to minimize connection.
Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if Campbell was the one making the connections—between Life of Milarepa (which, in my opinion, is the closest pre Campbell example of the hero’s journey to Campbell’s original framing) and The Wizard of Oz. Meaning the stories all have the parts of the journey but the Life Milarepa has a 1 to 1 correlation.
Or you could say 'I should stop drinking milk, because I'm somewhat intolerant' and he'd say, 'ahh, yes, you're in the middle of the hero's journey, on the precibus of learning to set your desires aside for the betterment of your health'
Any story with conflict becomes the hero's journey, and what stories worth telling don't have some kind of conflict. 'Proto-story' nonsense.
Well, that wasn’t to be, unfortunately.
> The monomyth is Campbellian imperialism. It's an appropriation of things he despises -- 'dreamlike mumbo jumbo', 'mystic[s]', and 'bizarre Eskimo fairy tale[s]' -- normalising them in an effort to make them tolerable
Jung, who is as associated with dreams as anyone, was one of campbell's greatest influences. Campbell deeply revered dreams, and you could probably find 1000 references of him talking about that's where myths come from.
I think Campbell is the pop version of The Golden Bough. I have only read a little of the The Golden Bough but is so immense, alien and unrelatable. I have also read how James George Frazer was also "wrong". As if the conclusions of a 19th century Victorian somehow negates the 12 volumes of collected mythology. Independent thought and reasoning though is not a strength of those prone to scientism.
I don't know what Jung has to do with anything. But if helps, I also think he was a crank, and the collective unconscious is a neat metaphor and nothing more.
neilv•1mo ago
"George Lucas in Love" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ49Smi2SLQ