Transcript
[0:06] Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy.
My name is Julia Golding. I'm the Director of the Centre and I'm also a novelist and get involved in many other forms of writing as well.
And today I'm joined by my frequent podcast partner, Jacob Rennaker.
Jacob, for those of are watching this, you can see that Jacob has got a different background.
You're actually in what looks like a very exciting Santa's grotto or something.
CB. Yes, right. Exactly. It's gearing up. It's the holiday season.
Those elves are hard at work.
LW. Yeah, so Jacob's at work. So, Jacob, tell us a little bit about where you are and what the connection to that behind you is to fantasy.
CB. Yes. So, I work at Robinsburger Games and Puzzles.
And behind me, you have Wizard of Oz, looks like we have Marvel, we have Hocus Pocus, we have Disney and non-Disney properties represented here.
So, I am a narrative manager and writer at Robinsburger Games.
So, yeah, this is, can we get a peek behind the curtain to where your games come from?
[1:24] Excellent. Now, that, strangely enough, is a wonderful introduction to today's theme, because we've been excited here in the UK because Doctor Who has come back.
And the reason it came back is it's celebrating 60 years as perhaps one of the longest running television series in the world. Is it the longest running sci-fi series?
I'm not quite sure about that, but it's certainly going to be up there.
[1:51] And it gave me the thought that one of the things that have changed recently the landscape of fantasy and fantasy programming is the way streamers, program makers are developing their own universes.
[2:06] And I think where this started was with Marvel and Doctor Who, since the BBC has linked up with Disney, is now going into a similar kind of idea, which they're calling the Hooniverse. I think I've got that right.
And I thought it'd be worth having a look at what's going on as creatives, as fantasy creatives, when these universes are stretched like that to become a whole sort of brand.
Now obviously it can be.
A way of expanding your imaginations in a wonderful way that you can keep thinking there are more and more stories to tell in this intellectual property that I love.
But it also carries with it the risk of a glut or an exhaustion of the audience.
And here I think perhaps a more helpful simile is it being a bit like an oil well that gets played out.
But the people running that oil well keep going back to it and pumping in more CO2 at high pressure, even though they're getting oil out at quite a low yield.
And sometimes you do wonder, looking at places where that is the feel, if they may not be wiser to wait and come back after a break like they often do with the James Bond films.
They have quite a few years in between. Anyway, so let us turn first to Marvel.
Discussion on the state of the Marvel Universe
[3:31] What's your feeling about the state of the Marvel Universe at the moment, Jacob?
[3:36] JC Yeah, great question, Julia.
[3:39] It seems to be in a tenuous situation right now with the expansion.
We had, in terms of the cinematic universe, you had three, I think a fairly successful several year arc. It was a long year, wasn't it?
It was the Iron Man through to Endgame, really. Right, yeah.
So it's, yeah, so you had, yeah, so you had a long stretch, three separate kind of, not quite self-contained phases, but kind of described as kind of arcs.
So three phases or arcs that kind of made up a overarching story that then ended in a two-part finale, right?
So I think, and that was, that one was really, it seemed to be well planned out and pieces fit, I think, fairly well together.
And I think it was relatively, relatively accessible, right?
So even so, some of the movies could be entertaining on their own, but were carrying the story forward still in some ways.
So the movie was entertaining enough, there was enough character work that even if you hadn't seen other films, you could jump in and oftentimes they had different feels to them, right?
So say Winter Soldier is kind of a spy thriller, it was kind of the genre that they were taking the superhero genre and kind of moving into a sub-genre of spy thriller.
[5:04] You had Ant-Man, the original Ant-Man, which was a superhero put into a heist genre type of story.
And you have the first door was essentially a fish out of water story, right?
With a god from another realm coming and what would that look like on earth?
So they're taking superhero genres, tropes, and then kind of reimagining them.
Or kind of translating them into different kind of subgenres.
And I think that made the individual watching experience enjoyable.
So for somebody like my mother, she hasn't watched all of the films, but there were a few of them that she really liked.
And so she could go in there and watch it and not feel like she was hopelessly, you know, drowning in references, connections, didn't understand what was going on.
And that's become more difficult with the beginning of phase four of the Marvel universe, which is where they've introduced a streaming series, limited series, to the entire universe, right?
So this was kind of a cinematic in terms of like cinema, actual theater, theater going experience was essentially what the first three phases were.
But now, with the introduction of streaming services, in part thanks to COVID and kind of changing dynamics with how people are viewing their media.
[6:30] You have now, it's more sprawling and it seems to be more difficult to create individually satisfying viewing experiences.
So at this point, you have to kind of know, already know what's going on and it's presupposing a larger body of knowledge in order for the show to be worth kind of sitting through.
And I think that those are some of the challenges.
I think the dynamics have changed in a bit when you bring in longer form storytelling versus individual films, which are essentially short stories on the screen to kind of expand it to something that's more novella length, if you will.
And how difficult that can be when the premise if the primary premise is to move a larger story further down the field, rather than a self contained words, it's I feel like it's easier, in a sense to focus on a story, a single self contained story, it's harder to get away with just throwing in a whole bunch of other information than it is when you have more space and more room for exposition. Yeah, they did.
Yeah, they did have, of course, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, TV series running alongside the, sort.
Marvel Films: Television Level Production Value
[7:49] Of the, arc, of films, but it always felt at television level, you know, the production value, it felt like a series you could watch as well as instead of, though there were connecting characters, it largely was doing its own thing. Right.
I think that one of the worries I have about the current state of Marvel is that they've obviously gone for a more diverse representation in this arc.
And I don't think it's that that's the problem. I think it's that their stories aren't very good.
Because even some of the older films that have moved on, like the last Thor film, was not regarded very highly.
And they had a couple of mishits with the Ant-Man series as well.
So I wouldn't put it down to the fact that we've got a female-led Eternals or anything like that.
I think it's more to do with them running out of really good, surprising concepts that make you want to watch it again.
And also, I think there's too much.
I know that the money people don't want to hear this, but I think I'd be much more eager to see a Marvel film if I hadn't seen one for five years.
[9:04] We're not allowed a little break. CB Yeah.
And I think Marvel's actually trying to, I think, remedy that in the most recent miniseries.
There's an excellent piece in Variety magazine recently that kind of chronicled some of these challenges with because it's getting too, like you mentioned, and they're kind of too much story.
Kevin Feige, who is kind of has his finger in all of the different films and projects.
He's the kind of executive producer for all of it.
With the increase in demand.
[9:39] Required by long-form storytelling on streaming, he hasn't been able to be in there and help in the editing process and to make sure that you have a singular vision that's being used.
So with that multiplied by time constraints, schedules, scheduled releases in the cinema, and what the requirement of CGI, the reliance on CGI and how much extra time that takes to longer form storytelling just makes it really difficult.
So what they're doing now, trying it with this newest series that we'll be starting called Echo.
It's essentially kind of a Hawkeye spinoff, but it's being released both on Hulu and Disney Plus.
[10:33] And it's under a, I believe it's a spotlight is what they're calling it.
So it's supposed to be, I think they're trying to brand it as a series that you can jump in without having familiarity with the past decade or so of Marvel, you know, cinematic storytelling.
Making Marvel Stories More Accessible
[10:50] But I think they want to, they recognize what the problem is with the audience, from where the audience is sitting.
And they're framing this particular series as one that you can come into and enjoy for itself.
And it will have references and tie in, but it appears they want to try to make sure that this is a story that is more accessible and doesn't require essentially a bachelor's degree in Marvel history in order to get in and to enjoy.
Well, that's interesting. I'm sure they're very aware of audience feedback.
I've not been excited about a Marvel film for a very long time.
And I do wonder if there's more of a challenge here, that actually maybe we're over superhero tales.
Spider-Man: A Refreshing Choice in the Superhero Universe
[11:39] The only one I really would probably go and see at the moment is Spider-Man.
And that's partly because I like Tom Holland, he makes me laugh.
And I've enjoyed the cartoon spin-offs, which have been doing some really interesting, things with the whole idea of film and cartoons.
And going back to the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., what was interesting about that was they were able to tell a story about the ones who aren't the superheroes within that universe.
So, I don't know, maybe there's something in that material which would be more interesting for them to go away and think about.
I mean, the one exception, of course, which I haven't touched on is Loki, which has been a success for them.
And I think that's a lot to do with the fact they've got a really good actor heading it up.
And they've also nicked a lot of the sort of Doctor Who-esque ideas of the time travel.
It feels like a sort of American Doctor Who really.
So that has gone off and found its own niche and its own different genre, which doesn't feel like the superhero standard fare of, we've all known what the arc is going to be.
We know it's going to be a battle at the end and they're going to learn on a journey.
All of that seems to be rather not what Loki is interested in doing.
[13:00] Right, so we've got a lot of universes to travel through. So let's move on to DC because DC is the one that sort of stuttered a bit.
It's had its moments of brightness and its moments of disaster.
[13:11] So, where are we with DC? Are they still trying to churn out films or are they retired from the field?
[13:18] CB Yeah, no, it's very much alive and kicking.
And I think one of the challenges with comic book material, and this is really fascinating because it mirrors so much the history of the comics that they're the source material upon which the shows are based.
So in the beginning, we've had, right, Marvel and DC, starting at about the same time, in America, in the middle of the middle of the century.
And Marvel is really the first that seems to be intentionally crossing over characters from one title to another.
And they had several different titles at a time that included horror, medical procedurals.
So you had the stories about the starring nurses, largely, so which is which is fascinating, and then superhero as well.
And so you had certain of these characters in the Marvel line that made an appearance in the others sooner than you did with the DC comics. They had, you know, Superman was its own thing, Batman was its own thing.
And then only after a while, did you have this kind of epic crossover event where one would appear in the other, but they weren't seen as essentially existing in the same universe, whereas that happens a lot earlier.
There's a fascinating book. If you are at all interested in the history of the development of Marvel.
[14:47] Comics and DC and how this is all kind of playing out, this book called All the Marvels was a journey to the end, to the ends of the biggest story ever told by Douglas Wolk, W-O-L-K.
This person, so he has, he's a journalist and a historian of comics, and he's read every single Marvel comic from beginning in.
He has some arbitrary beginning point that's before the actual label of Marvel up through about 2016, I think is when he stopped, with the main titles that weren't tie-ins to other properties outside of Marvel specifically.
And there's so much, so he's argues that this is the longest continual story that has been told across humanity in general.
And so- Hang on, no, sorry.
[15:42] What about King Arthur, just for one?
Right, well, in terms of printed material of continuous building works under the same.
So yeah, so, and I definitely want to talk about the like Arthurian, Greek, uh, yeah, no, we're doing, yeah, let's circle back on that.
But in terms of like contemporary, like printed, if you're talking about printed, what you can have in front of you, that's all under a particular brand, right?
A particular, um, mode of delivery, a consistent mode of delivery under this like Marvel title. This is.
What he's what he's arguing is this kind of like large largest amount of total words that have been produced in all of the spinoffs.
It's just massive, like you cannot begin reading if you were to start now and try to read all of the Marvel books that have been written since it began.
That would be the enormity of that is staggering, to be able to keep up with that.
So So, all it is to say that you have an earlier idea of interconnectedness from the outset.
And so you have that with the Iron Man film, with the kind of teaser at the end with Nick Shield, or sorry, Nick Fury talking about Shield.
[17:00] That kind of opens the door to the possibility of something larger in that one standalone film.
But it was originally conceived of as a standalone film with aspirations of expanding, but without the certainty of expanding.
So that made the story itself more self-contained, circumspect.
[17:19] And including kind of a possible jumping off point with ideas for what that could look like.
Whereas in DC, they're going with, you know, Batman, like they did in the comics, Batman is its own thing without really taking into consideration others with several different Batman reboots, right?
And then, then after the success of Christopher Nolan's Batman films, you have Christopher Nolan being tapped to help with a new Superman film with the idea that they could then increase the scope and create an interconnected story.
But their timetable is they're kind of coming up against Marvel, who's already for several years have already put out separate movies and have their machine running.
You have now DC that's trying to catch up and essentially kind of short circuit, take shortcuts through the process to try to get the effect of that without going through the legwork of individual character driven films that then culminate in a team film, whereas DC kind of like throws people together and kind of trying to.
[18:27] Put everybody in immediately, or as quickly as possible, put them in a box, shake them up, and then see what happens.
It was, I think certainly that it was something that was accelerated, and you see the strains that happen when the storytelling doesn't have enough room to breathe and get invested in individual characters to then bring them all together.
So they've tried, to their credit, right, so they've recognized that this has been a problem, And now, they will be kind of essentially rebooting the entire DC universe for screen with James Gunn, who was the writer-director of the Guardians of the Galaxy films.
[19:12] He is one of the two that is presently overseeing, put in charge with kind of designing a larger interconnected DC universe on the film and streaming.
So DC is certainly aware of the issue and we're trying to replicate that, but doing it, it seems like they want to do it differently, recognizing the stress and strains that put on the storytelling in doing it more rapidly than the story demanded.
DC's Darker Superhero Films vs Family-Friendly Man of Steel
[19:50] So... superhero, haven't they?
Because you don't want two studios doing exactly the same kind of thing.
What would be the point of that?
But certainly the Dark Knight series and then the Suicide Squad.
I'm right, these are all DC, aren't they? I get confused. So many films.
But it does seem like they've got this kind of nastier edge, which is quite popular to it, less family friendly as a result, more in the sort of teens and upwards area.
Anyway, so though I did, in contrast, I did actually very much enjoy Man of Steel, the original.
Version of the reboot of Superman, which obviously was very family friendly.
Though I never did understand why it had to be Kevin Costner rather than Superman, who went and got the dog. Never got that bit.
[20:47] It's always worried me. Anyway, if you've watched the film, you'll know what I mean.
So moving away from superheroes, let's think about outer space.
And there are two big universes out there.
One of course is Star Trek, let's give it in its order of appearance, and then the other is Star Wars.
Star Trek, I think, wasn't conceived of as a universe in the same way of interlinked stories because it existed as a series on its own for quite a time until the next generation came along.
And then you got in the 90s, the off.
There had been some films obviously up to that point, but then you got the spin offs with Deep Space Nine and all the other ones that we've had since, which has made it qualify for this idea of being a universe.
[21:41] Which is funny because of course that's what they're exploring.
What do you think about the interconnectedness of the Star Trek world?
I think it seems simpler in many ways because you've got the basic idea, which they do again and again, but in different ways of you have a crew in some kind of space vehicle, be it a space station or a spaceship.
And then after that, you've got lots of options which way you want to go.
[22:09] Yeah, it's interesting because it's based more on a procedural genre, right?
So, and it's going kind of in an opposite direction than you have Marvel, that we talked about earlier, that was starting with individual films, and then kind of expanding into television series.
Here you have a series that's meant to be a stand like its own, its own thing, television series that then you have films that kind of get interspersed within there rather than the than the reverse.
So yeah, it is fascinating. And that's, you know, in terms of storytelling in general, right?
Procedurals are, you need something that has a engine that drives it, right?
So, right, so like doctors, there's there's medical procedurals, right?
So there's, they're, they're usually not set in, you know, a personal practice in the countryside, although that can be interesting.
The ones that are current and long running are in emergency rooms, right?
So anything that's like doctor related, or if it's somebody that's in the countryside, they're the only doctor for however long.
And so there's constantly emergencies that are coming up, right?
Police procedurals, right? So there's police, because police are.
By nature of their job are having to cease to deal with problems frequently, and they're large problems.
A courtroom procedures, right? Procedurals, right? So you have these challenges, a clear winner, loser, new cases being thrown every week.
[23:36] So this is the same thing with this exploration, right? So you have a crew, a core crew, who then goes to different worlds and allows them to solve a different problem each time and explore different questions with some overarching character development that continues from episode to episode, but largely you can jump in at any episode of Star Trek and you kind of get a sense for what are the kind of the character archetypes, who these characters are, how they kind of bounce off of each other, and you can watch one half hour episode of Star Trek, the original series, and you don't have to watch two whole seasons earlier to see, okay, so this is what Kirk is really working through from his past and Bones is angry about this, because of something that happened two years ago, you can sit, you can sit down and have a satisfying, experience of that story.
And then it's even more satisfying if you're following these characters from episode to episode.
So I think the fact that they started as the medium was kind of a television ongoing series that that allowed it to explore more, to have a longer run, and ultimately to be able to explore characters in different settings that then made it possible for films.
So if you love this TV series, come see a film where it's gonna be bigger, you know, bigger budget.
But again, like a kind of a short story, kind of a super concentrated episode of the series, here's something that you could look at.
[25:06] They have gone more to like kind of serialized storytelling in the films themselves.
[25:13] In a sense so There has been some, Especially with the original Star Trek where the movies kind of pick up Start picking up after the series and so this is kind of the continuing adventures of the Starship Starship Enterprise and its crew Then it kind of becomes a film with first film with then sequel a sequel to the ongoing series But then now you have kind of a proliferation of Star Trek's where you have animated and live action and crossovers between animated and live action.
So they're definitely Star Trek moving from initially kind of series based with occasional crossovers like you had with Next Generation Voyager Enterprise that it didn't necessitate seeing the other shows to one show to understand what was happening in the new one It was kind of a Easter egg of sorts for fans of both series But now and I think they're doing more of that with the development of kind of the Star Trek the larger Star Trek universe.
Star Trek's Universe and Serialized Storytelling vs Star Wars' Challenges
[26:18] But you do see more I think perhaps there might be creeping toward a little bit I think there's always the temptation to be telling one large story, through all of these different stories, but I think Star Trek does it well and has done it best when they focus on individual stories with kind of occasional glances against the other properties and other characters that people know about.
Yes, I think that they feel quite secure in what they're doing.
I don't know if they're all going to implode next week, but at the moment I feel they're able to poke fun at themselves with the Below Decks animated series, and also do sort of more serious stories like the Picard, the three seasons of Picard.
I like the first season, about the second season, but I thought the last season actually, they did the right thing to gather everybody together and finish it off.
I felt that was a very satisfying bow on that particular actor's, Patrick Stewart's involvement in that particular universe.
[27:29] I think Star Trek has done it quite well and I've also enjoyed the reboot of the original series with the Chris Pine and so on.
I thought that was really...
It was fresh because there was a long enough gap between watching the original crew do it and then seeing it in the early 2010s.
It felt like, yeah, this is the same story, but this is our version of it.
And I thought that worked really well.
In contrast to which, I'm going to move us over to Star Wars.
Star Wars, I've had quite a few problems with the film versions of Star Wars.
Obviously, hooray for the original ones.
I'm that generation. Though, you know, they're not perfect films, but they were landmarks in their time.
The Return was famously disappointing, mainly because of script.
Let's face it, it was just a crash of a script and the acting was problematic.
Disappointment with The Rise of Skywalker
[28:28] And then I was very disappointed in The Return, because I can't even remember what it was called, but the one with Ren when And they came back.
Rise of Skywalker. Yeah. So yeah. So Force Awakens, Last Jedi and yes, the Rise of Skywalker.
So I was very disappointed that particularly I was sitting in the cinema watching the first of this batch.
I thought, my goodness, I'm watching the first film again.
We've got a Death Star to blow up again. So I've not actually enjoyed the film so much.
I think that they've been doing more interesting things in their TV offerings with, Oh, I'm forgetting, but there's been Obi-Wan Kenobi hasn't there. There's been...
Mandalorian. Thank you. And then there's the more recent one about the rebellion, Andor.
So it does seem to me that their extensions in that way have been quite interesting, because they've changed genre, doing that thing you were saying.
[29:43] But I don't know, I've never really particularly warmed to the Star Wars universe.
Maybe it's because I'm more of a Trekkie and perhaps you can only love one of them. I don't know. What do you feel?
Yeah. So, Star Wars was my kind of third parent growing up. Okay. So, you speak on behalf.
Part of my DNA is Star Wars, right?
And so, yeah. So, it is really interesting to see kind of the evolution of those stories.
And this is, I think it's important to bring into the conversation, the role that the corporations that are funding these play in the production of these and the sort of constraints, expectations and constraints that puts on storytelling in general, right?
So you have, and there's, these things have been documented several places with the evolution of the original Star Wars trilogy to then the prequels, who are still done by having the same kind of singular vision of George Lucas.
[30:51] With less constraints, with more independent funding, more freedom to do the sort of story that he wanted to do in the prequels.
And then with the sequels, beginning with J.J.
Abrams' Force Awakens, and kind of a fallow period between Star Wars films, you have Lucasfilm being acquired by Disney.
Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm and the rebooting of Star Wars
[31:14] And so, there, you had essentially kind of almost a rebooting.
So in the flowering of Star Wars stories, you have initially, from after the original film, you have comic books that were incidentally published by Marvel.
So the first kind of expanded Star Wars stories happened in comic books that were produced by Marvel.
And that was a way to kind of expand things that were happening between films.
And then there were, of course, a series of novels that were produced.
But then once Disney acquired Lucasfilm, then there is this kind of directive of, similar to what you have in Loki, which is kind of a pruning of timelines, so alternate realities of declaring this previous timeline interconnected group of stories as declared as a legend.
[32:04] As being not officially canon to the ongoing story with what's going to be picked up starting with The Force Awakens.
So the series, you had, you know, animated series as well that were happening with the Clone Wars animated series with Star Wars.
You did have Rogue One, which is a fascinating, it was fascinating because there you had a film that is, it is telling a tragedy, right?
Usually, with the simple exception of Emperor Strikes Back, Emperor Strikes Back is kind of shape wise ends up in a sense being a tragedy ending with heroes not achieving their goals, right? And kind of everything is bad.
[32:47] But Rogue One is you have a self-contained cast of characters that you've never seen before with hints at something that's larger.
You do see characters that you had seen from previous movies, but it's kind of taking space.
It's taking place in between the spaces between two films, right?
Before the first Star Wars film, after the last prequel.
And you have an entire crew that I don't want to give spoilers, but I mean, that's Felicity Jones, isn't it?
Yeah, exactly. I thought that was one of the best films, even though it's not really one I'd want to watch again, because it's very sad.
Right, right. No, exactly. So it's different. It's a different feel.
And so that's and so because they were able to tell a story that had to connect to the overarching story, right, to connect the two to bridge the two episode three and episode four, but they had to, that they had the certain space that they could tell an original story that hadn't been told, introduce characters and create a compelling story on its own because they couldn't take those characters necessarily and have them appear in, they had to have a reason for why those characters didn't appear on the next film.
So that gave them, I think, a really, a really.
[33:59] Creatively fruitful sandbox to be able to play in, right? So they had certain borders on, you know, fences, right?
That they had to work within, that then allowed them to be creative in a certain way.
And you see that happening again with Andor, right?
So it's taking one of the characters from that film and exploring the world again from a different angle.
Like you said, the agents of SHIELD was kind of looking at the non-superpowered, people, at least in the earlier seasons, right? the non-superpowered folk, what does this world look like through their eyes?
And so you have in Andor, what does the world look like through the eyes of somebody who's not a force wielder, right? Somebody who doesn't have super natural powers and gifts.
So you see that, I think, yeah, as a way where they are able to, and that one is kind of essentially a kind of like a political, it seems more tone-wise.
[34:51] More like an HBO show with Andor in terms of the pacing, right?
So it's longer, you have a longer period to breathe.
And these again, are characters that aren't expected to appear in other films, because it's taking place in this very particular period.
[35:08] And so I think that, so that allows for some freedom, whereas kind of going back to the original point of the sequel films, with Disney restarting Star Wars, essentially.
[35:19] They wanted to give people because everybody, everybody wants more of the same, but different, right?
Everyone's more of the same, but different somehow.
So they wanted so so it was able, I think it did a good job of capturing the sense of like wonder and it followed it followed the same beats because they wanted to like have the people who were fans have some sort of familiar ground have new have new fans could come in and experience the same sort of things.
They know it's a successful formula.
They have a lot riding on it financially uh and reputation wise and so they're wanting to mirror that.
Ryan Johnson does something different in The Last Jedi, which I actually like from the storytelling perspective of what they're trying to do Star Wars.
So he's trying to break up that expected story, story arc and the story beats that you had, as well as kind of try he attempts to kind of democratize the force in a way that like hints to at the end.
And so I think a lot of reason a lot of people didn't like it was because it did veer so far from the traditional expected Star Wars story where you had a beloved character who ends up as the grouch of Luke Skywalker, beloved hero, champion of good, who ends up the next time you see him, he's a grumpy old guy on an island, he's a hermit.
[36:41] Which is some really interesting things that put me off at first, but then trying to see it from a storytelling perspective and what you're doing and the possible character arcs that are available when you radically change people's frame of reference and their experiences.
But one of the things that I think the problems, one of the problems that you see right now with the Star Wars expanded universe, I'd be interested to hear where you see that there are some opportunities with, you know, Obi-Wan, which is essentially trying to be a film.
So it's a very, Obi-Wan is radically different from Andor in tone.
You wouldn't watch Andor with the same people that you would with, with Obi-Wan.
So I don't know. So what do you see as the challenges of the Marvel, or not Marvel, sorry, Star Wars universes that exist?
I think that they've, they've gone in the direction of minor characters, haven't they? And I'm afraid I can't even remember the name of the character with the extraordinary makeup.
That's Ahsoka. Yeah, there we go.
[37:41] I think the challenge is, I think that they have a script problem in that some of their big, even their big films, muff it up on a very basic level.
So, things like, who is Ren?
That's totally a fumbled pass in the last three big films.
The pacing in Obi-Wan, I thought, going to the TV programs, I thought was very uncertain.
There's a lot of everyday, I do this at the beginning, which is, you have to be a very loving Star Wars watcher to stick with it until you actually got going.
And I guess that I don't know that the material stretches is my personal feeling.
I don't feel it stretches.
[38:38] But then, as I said, I'm more of a Star Trek person than a Star Wars person.
And there'll be people out there shouting at their podcast or whatever saying, no, no, it's got...
They haven't, for example, done a really good story that establishes something new about their universe.
They haven't moved on from the sort of the Empire versus the Jedi, as far as I can see. that that seems to be the only story.
So, but I'm not, I'm not actually the, I'm not the expert. I haven't watched all of them.
No, I think, I think, I think you're right there that that's, I think one of the challenges is you're finding it, it makes, it makes the universe seem, it's, it's a gala, it's an entire galaxy.
Well, yes. Which is supposed, it's supposed, it's supposed to feel expansive, but when you're following the same characters or the same family line, that can feel more claustrophobic at times, right?
So that's why I think the Andor films, or they're essentially films, long form.
[39:47] High production value on that is that it's not following, it's taking the idea of what does this, you know, a rebellion with an oppressive governmental regime with military power, what does it look like?
What does a, you know, a fighting against an established abuse of power look like?
So that's the question that they're able to answer and explore it through different people and not just have that as a simple good versus evil.
You have time with different characters who have motivations and challenges, and they're put in impossible.
Family Dynamics and Tensions in the Star Wars Universe
[40:23] Situations, tensions between the rebel and empire and their own family life.
This is something that like that you don't see elsewhere is what does that what does family life look like you in and or you have one of the characters and they're threatening him and usually you would just either off a imperial general.
But what happens when or you just you know, talking white, but what happens when the white when that general's wife and child are in the same room.
[40:51] That changes the dynamic, right? So it's exploring how this impacts.
It's not just about these, you know, the high flashy people in these positions, which is what films kind of have to do is take these high powered individuals and put them against each other in a short, compact, a kind of combustible story.
But when you have longer form and more people that you can bring in, you can do a different type of story and explore different questions that I think get at broader human interests, and explore the human predicament in different ways.
And so that's why I think they're doing it well, is in Andor.
But Obi Wan is more difficult, because there's more constraints on this character, this weblob character and story that he's already been involved with, with the Clone Wars series, and the film and, and nine in films, essentially, right?
So you have six films, but with his shadow looming over the sequels.
That's a lot to have to put on one person so that narrows the sorts of stories and the expectations that having this story from this type of film, you couldn't have, I think it would be a difficult sell to have Obi-Wan in a series like Andor.
[42:03] Because people are expecting the swashbuckling space fantasy that Obi-Wan is part of and I think that affects the tone that is possible or acceptable from a budgetary financial constraint there from Disney's perspective.
I guess maybe what I'm thinking of is I'd like a really different, a total rethink.
So I would be interested for them to say, okay, this isn't a galaxy a long, long time ago. what would happen if for some reason that galaxy then intersects with us?
So you've got a story of a Jedi Knight turning up in New York, really rethinking it all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just having fun with an unfamiliar where you say, okay, what would happen if this.
[42:55] The outline of this then, so what is being, anyway, that's what I would do.
But and they're doing it and they're actually planning on doing that.
So you have so Yeah, right. So after so after the star wars, so after yeah, the last jedi, um, ryan johnson began working on a trilogy of new films set in a separate corner of that universe storage universe So it'd be with completely different characters completely unattached and connected to tell its own set of stories in this world, but completely detached from that.
They also had the game of Thrones showrunners set to do a similar thing with a series of films taking place somewhere else doing whatever they want to with the idea and world of Star Wars, but not but but, expressly not attached to the Skywalker is both of those have kind of.
Fizzled and kind of gone on a hiatus, but they have confirmed this most recent slew of film announcements.
[43:52] They're going to be announced three new Star Wars films. One is going to be a continuation of the current story set kind of centered around Rey because, you have to apparently so that's I've been getting her name wrong, which shows you how little I've said.
Rey not Ren. Okay, sorry. Yeah, Kylo Ren.
And that's and as an author, right? You know, the challenges of Yeah, yeah. you do not cardinal sin of character naming, do not have them sound similar.
Yeah, so you have Ray as kind of, it's gonna be the protagonist that they'll follow a separate film, but not announced as like a trilogy of new films.
So a separate film with them.
A new, so a film that's taking place kind of in between these two periods between the original trilogy and the follow-up trilogy, which is going to tie in with the Mandalorian and Ahsoka and those.
So it's a standalone film, but connecting all these parts between the two major trilogies.
And then one by James Mangold who did, directed the Logan X-Men series, right?
So again, like a really interesting standalone film as a character exploration that's kind of detached from the regular timeline, looking at a character in Logan, looking at a character who's old, past his prime, his like last story.
But this, and he also did the newest, Indiana Jones.
[45:09] So he's going to do a film that is like, the Jedi and Sith begin. So this is like the very first story.
So he's billing it as kind of like the 10 commandments of the Star Wars universe.
So this old, early, early, early story.
So there's a different playground that you can use exploring that world.
Balancing Interconnected Stories and Fresh Narratives in Star Wars
[45:28] So they recognize that there are people who like the interconnected stories, but then also there's a need for telling new, fresh stories as evidenced by Andor and the critical success the Andor is receiving from the Academy.
[45:45] And with the introduction of this new film that takes place a long time ago in a galaxy that already exists a long time ago.
This is an even longer time ago in a galaxy even farther away, perhaps, for that.
So, but I think you're absolutely right. So you need to have something new, something fresh, that's allowing you to rethink and reimagine these ideas rather than going back to the well and just kind sucking it dry and trying to squeeze the last drops out of something.
They're still not that excited about that, but let's see. I hope they can change my mind about that.
Okay, we won't be able to touch on every universe out there, but we're just going to sort of hop over some others.
I think that we've noticed that the Harry Potter universe is building because it's got its fantastic beast side.
And it also, of course, has its adventure worlds, you know, the wizarding worlds that you can actually visit in Atlanta and elsewhere. Is it just Atlanta?
I think there's another one planned somewhere else. It's Florida.
There's Florida and Los Angeles. Oh, okay. Well, there you go.
[46:47] That is obviously in trouble, the Harry Potter screen versions, because the Fantastic Beasts film series lost its way.
And that's, I think we've discussed that before, it's a longer discussion and partly to do is some problematic casting, partly to do with the stories not being that child friendly, really, and not having the charm.
But I noticed that they are going to go back to Harry Potter and turn it into a TV series. So a reboot in that way.
I think that's the current plan.
So watch this based on that. And of course, there's the added element here where it's very associated with the fortunes and people's attitudes to JK Rowling.
So we have to see how that all sort of pans out.
The universe has got its own peculiar dynamics at the moment.
And then of course, we've got something we've discussed at length, the expansion of the Tolkien universe, Middle Earth into the Rings of Power, but we have discussed that elsewhere.
So, let's go back to Doctor Who before we move on to the last section, which will be further back in time.
With Doctor Who, what I think is really interesting is that.
[48:04] The whole idea of creating a Hooniverse. Everybody in the UK and increasingly in America and elsewhere has known that Doctor Who exists as a sequential program a bit like James Bond. You wake up and there's another Doctor Who.
The actual apparatus of rebirth is part of what happens.
And there are certain things in it that show it is a certain kind of thing.
So it has a TARDIS, it has a Doctor, Doctor.
It has the idea of traveling in time and space.
He is or she is largely not violent.
So a bit more like Superman, i.e. not blasting people apart.
Though occasionally some stories have done that where there's been a fighting doctor, but that's rare.
[48:51] And mainly it's been a TV series. There has been one film, which was like a test to see if it could come back in the late 90s.
And there has been spin-off comics and books that came along after.
The Age Problem in Retrofitting the Hooniverse
[49:06] One of the problems about this now retrofitting of a Hooniverse is it has an intriguing problem of age, because most of the Doctor Who's I know were done on BBC TV budgets, which means the wobbly the scenery and you go to a quarry in Wales for your planet.
I don't think Star Wars, which has a similar longevity, and even there is a bit of a problem about the original Star Treks, which feel a bit homemade now.
Star Wars, because of the budget, it still stands up.
You don't watch the original version and think, Oh, that's just, you know, that's embarrassing. whereas you do watch some of the documentaries and think, oh dear, that's a man in a seat, in a rubber seat.
So, is this the first time someone's tried to retrofit a universe?
Yeah, the first time. No, there isn't. So, there's some fascinating... So.
Universal Films' Failed Attempt at an Expanded Universe
[50:09] Universal Films tried doing this. Not the first, but they tried doing this with taking disparate elements of, if you remember the Tom Cruise, The Mummy film, so that was supposed to be the first in an expanded where they took original, you know, their universal, some of their original films were, you know, Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, The Mummy, and say, we're going to.
Kind of reboot those, but put them into the same universe, and have an interconnected story with shared characters.
But after the mummy failed to meet the studio's expectations, then they canceled that.
So there's been recent, fairly recent, in the past 10-ish years, attempts to take different pieces and put them together.
Tarzan Alive: Treating Tarzan as a Real Person
[51:01] But it's challenged, there's one, there's a fascinating, and this is maybe it would be good another time to talk about these sorts of kind of transmedia storytelling, to expand past just cinematic or on the screen, large or small, but there's a book that takes the, It's called Tarzan Alive, a definitive biography of Lord Greystoke, and it's treating Tarzan essentially as a real person and saying this person that was written of as a fictional character was actually a real person, here's their background, and they're actually tied to the other people that were in your favorite stories, like Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, Solomon Cain, Scarlett Pembernell, the time traveler from H.G. Wells, Alan Quartermain. These Victorian-ish.
[51:56] Era heroes, they were all based on real people who were tied together by a single event that was this meteor that happens, the Wold Cottage meteorite, late 1700s was the actual meteor that hit and you have, people that are put, treated as kind of fictitiously real.
They're all affected by this meteor, Tarzan is one of them, Sherlock Holmes, and they're all kind of created a story of families that these people were kind of tied into.
So it was an attempt to take all these preexisting characters that had no connection to each other and kind of create a network of relationships between them, which is really fascinating.
[52:41] So there have been attempts to do that in literature and you have it, Alan Moore does it in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in comic form, which then became a film, but then didn't form well, but it's based on the comic, right?
So it's taking these kind of- Jules Verne and others.
Yeah, a justice league, a Victorian justice league, essentially, of Victorian heroes.
So you do have some attempts like that to happen, but nothing that's been really sustained and successful.
So there's certainly reasons for that, but I think therein lies, we even talked a bit about people being in the public domain, certain characters, that that's something that there are opportunities for with increasing characters being put in the public domain for new creatives to play with some of those existing universes and perhaps mingle them and create some sort of new shared universes in their own screenplays, right, in their own.
[53:40] Novels, otherwise, yeah, maybe going back to the Doctor Who, I think maybe it was always a universe, just not labeled as such because it had its fandom. And I think one of the, marks of something which is big enough to be the Star Wars universe or the Harry Potter universe is it has its fan base.
And I think those two things walk in step. Okay, so just towards the end, let's just sort of give this the long view.
So we're talking about it as a modern phenomenon. And yes, I totally agree with you that it's, I mean, it's about money. It's about marketing.
So it's much easier to get an audience in to see something they feel they've sort of seen before.
And that means it's easier to get funding when you're thinking of doing a big budget film or TV series.
[54:37] But in a sense, it was ever thus, because there have been looking through the world literature, been certain stories which would get published again and again and again.
And the two obvious ones that fit in with this genre and have become their own films are Robin Hood, which has had its many treatments, and King Arthur, which was a mainstay of medieval periods through the Victorians up to the present day.
We do have another podcast on King Arthur if anyone's interested, where we look at the historical roots of that and the phases it's gone through.
And it seems as though what they share, particularly King Arthur is the way that it pulls in the stories, the folk tales of Cornwall, Brittany, elsewhere to actually suck in these characters and the Holy Grail, of course, which is a bit of a spin off of the the Christian story.
So, you've got this sort of sucking into the center of the character of King Arthur, all these other stories which do create a kind of Arthurian world.
If I say Arthurian world, everyone knows what I mean.
And you've got little images of knights in shining armor and round tables going on in your head.
[56:06] And of course, you've got the side characters who were like Merlin, who have their own little storylines that carry on through history, even down to their own TV series.
So it does seem to me to qualify as a pretty excellent early example of a universe which is still ongoing.
[56:25] Yeah, and it's organic, and it's more organic. See, that one, yeah, is more it seems like it that the idea of Arthur and drawing upon some of those myths and connecting some of those separate originally disparate myths, kind of created a sort of story magnet that the pull kind of gravitational pull of the these characters that hit on, you know, really important and resonant archetypes that it's pulling kind of sucking in other related stories to it.
And I think that's That's why you have, yeah, like you said, there's more reworkings of the Arthurian story because there's something about it at its core with those characters and the tensions that you have with, you know, political aspect of it, right?
With what Arthur's doing there, with the relational aspect with Arthur, right, Guinevere and Lancelot.
So you have that, you have a kind of military sense, right?
With the Knights of the Round Table and enforcing law. There's all sorts of different, and then magic is, sorry, Merlin and magic, and there's all these different dimensions.
[57:29] That are essentially building blocks of story in and of themselves.
And so that they're kind of baked into those core cast of characters in the situation, I think allows for really rich re-imagining, reinterpretation, I think continued fascination with that.
So it's almost, it's a universe that wasn't created as such, necessary, like you're saying, like, from the beginning, so I don't think was sitting down and say, like, I want to make this expansive network of stories that and pull in this, this, this list, but they kind of like evolved organically with oral, probably largely oral storytelling.
[58:06] And then continued storytelling in print, that it's kind of the creation of the universe from the, you know, inside out, rather than from the outside kind of in creation and see that kind of the staying power, that that more kind of organic sort of interconnected storytelling.
[58:26] Certainly the staying power that that, that mode of storytelling has and how it continues to be relevant and significant.
MS. We haven't got time to treat it to the depth it needs, but there is also, of course, the different pantheons like the Greek pantheon, the Norse pantheon, the Egyptian pantheon.
I'm thinking particularly of the Greek one with its poetry, its plays, its reinterpretations through millennia, literally, which are doing a very similar interesting thing of doing lots of different comedy, tragedy, global history and the tiny micro story of individual relationships.
[59:12] Which in a way is another example which we're building on when people start thinking of these expansive universes.
Loki, of course, coming from the North Pantheon has been sucked into, and Thor, been sucked into Marvel already.
But you could have perhaps imagined that maybe others might be too at some point.
[59:30] So just thinking, it's a huge thing.
But do you think that this fascination of universes in fantasy at the moment is a good thing or a bad thing for our creativity, writing, filmmaking in the world of fantasy?
Yeah, it's that's that that that is a great question.
There's like we've we've gone through with each of these there's certain in thinking in terms of a expansive universe, or an idea of certain things treating it as an IP, or as an intellectual property, and then seeing the different ways that can emerge and, and, and be imagined in.
There's certain, yeah, constraints, certain problems, certain opportunities there. I think right now it is, I don't like necessarily saying it, but like that's the way things are, is that people are geared towards that.
So the people with the money, the almost the, it's an easier sell to have a project that has interconnected pieces to say like what you're going to do this year, it's an investment.
Yeah, no, Jake, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sort of challenge you there though, because I can, I agree.
And I can see how when you click on the streamer service, they've got their little lozenge of this, this world, this world, you go here for star Wars here for something else.
But is it good creatively? That's what I want.
Right. Creatively. Yeah. Are we, do we stop being original?
[1:00:58] Um, there's always room for originality, I think.
And that's, yeah, and so I think it's, it can be there, there are more constraints on the stories you can tell.
And as I think, we tell, like, Shakespeare, right, had certain constraints, but flourished in the stories that he was able to tell, right, he was telling stories that have been told, repackaging stories, but doing so in a way that was compelling and injecting them with life and bringing in certain dimensions and attitudes and raising certain questions that weren't necessarily raised of the source material.
So I think that's still, yeah, so there's still opportunities.
There's certainly opportunities for that.
But if you get, but you can, I think you can unnecessarily, you can put unnecessary constraints on yourself by thinking about your story in terms of intellectual property.
So, I think it's a valuable exercise for any of the creatives that are listening to, somebody told me this once when I was talking with them.
[1:02:00] Imagining your story, whatever kind of work in progress, as an intellectual property and not just as a story.
Exploring Different Modes of Storytelling
[1:02:06] So, what are the different modes of stories that this could be told in?
Would it be like a radio drama, like Doctor Who, in addition to the television series and novels and comics, you also have radio dramas, right?
So you have several different media that these stories are taking place in.
And so, yeah, so I think that that's valuable to do as a creative to imagine, okay, so are there opportunities, is this story, perhaps are there modes of storytelling that could fit the story I'm wanting to tell even better than what I actually have it in?
Or if it does become popular, if it does become successful and pitching it as something that has different moving parts that you could connect to could be valuable.
But like we've talked about before, in doing so and thinking so much about the forest, losing sight of the trees has a considerable cost from a storytelling perspective, right?
Yeah, that's what I agree. And I think that perhaps, I know it doesn't quite work like this in terms of when they've booked out studios for decades, but actually going away and coming back so there's enough time pass so that your version is different from the earlier version is also a worthwhile thing to do creatively.
[1:03:25] Okay, right. Because it's a universe, we've obviously talked at length and that was appropriate, but we always finish with two little things.
First one is, do you have any fantasy tips for us that you'd like to share?
And then we're going to think where in all the fantasy worlds is the best place for something.
So do you have a fantasy tip that you'd like to share?
Yeah, I think I mentioned it earlier, the book, All the Marvels, a journey to the ends of the biggest story ever told by Douglas Wolk.
I think that one is really fascinating and demonstrating the sorts of challenges and opportunities that exist in this kind of like large scale interconnected storytelling.
[1:04:09] So yeah, I would wholeheartedly recommend that and give you kind of jumping off points to show how different artists and different creatives, different authors have worked together to create these rich imaginative worlds.
It's certainly inspiring for me to read, teaching me, like bringing to my attention certain stories, storylines, authors that I hadn't been familiar with in the history of Marvel that kind of gave me, that has given me, continues to give me kind of some fun rabbit holes to go down that are related to my own, uh, kind of personal, uh, you know, literary, um, and authorial interests. So, yeah.
So all of the marvels by Douglas Waltz is what I'm going to recommend.
Uh, my, my tip is not surprisingly, um, to watch the new season, the short three program series with David Tennant.
[1:04:57] Um, I've watched the first one. Uh, which was fun. And I, they've, I've understood, I understand that they've purposely made them different flavors.
So the first one is like family fun.
The middle one is scary and the last one is kind of bonkers apparently and sort of huge.
[1:05:14] So I'm quite enjoying the fact that even within a short season they're doing three different things.
So if you can get hold of that wherever you are, it's worth watching.
If you've given Doctor Who a miss for a little while, might be time to dip back in and just enjoy it.
I think for me, Doctor Who is a blend of the domestic and the intergalactic and that's what like about it.
So my question to finish, Jacob, is where in all the cinematic universes in fantasy is the best place to be a minor character who might be worth their own series?
Have you got an answer for us?
The Best Place to be a Minor Character
[1:05:52] Um, see, yeah, this is a big question.
I think, just because I know of the sprawling source material that in the Tolkien cinematic universe, knowing how deep the well goes on some of these, the richness of characters.
I think if I had to be there personally, then that's probably... That's where you'd go.
A minor character in a Tolkien cinematic universe, I feel would be where I would want to end up.
No, I think I agree. That's my first pick. So I've got to go for something different then.
The Challenge of Spin-Offs and Alice in Wonderland
[1:06:36] Yeah, I think it might be quite fun to, there's some that you can't do.
Like I was thinking it'd be really hard to do Alice in Wonderland because the flavour of Alice in Wonderland is so connected to the mind of the creator.
It's hard to imagine a spin-off unless it's a sort of Tim Burton film.
So I'm not sure, so I don't think you can do that.
So maybe if you're going to go Tolkien, I'll go C.S.
Lewis then and I will, I think it would be quite fun to do a different, not The Horse and His Boy, but something like that, that's somewhere else in the Narnian world where you could actually tell a backstory, like in Archenland or somewhere like that. That would be fun.
So thank you very much, Jacob, for joining me on our tour around the universe.
And yeah, it's been really fascinating. I will have to look up that book that you've mentioned, I'll put a link in the show notes.
But thank you very much for talking with me and thank you, everybody, for listening.
