Page 104 - Star Wars Insider (Special Edition 2019)

A HEROINE’S

JOURNEY

REY’S ADVENTURE BEGINS

USING THE OPENING ACT OF REY’S ADVENTURE INTHE FORCE AWAKENS, TRICIA BARR CONTINUES HER
EXPLORATION OF THE HERO’S JOURNEY.

n a January 2013 tweet, Slashfi lm’s Peter audience recognizes because we have
Sciretta posed a question: “Who said the seen it before.
lead character in Star Wars: Episode VII That is how storytelling works best:
Iis going to be a male star?” The internet threading together familiar elements to
reacted. In some circles very enthusiastically, form a new experience that moves us
in other places not so favorably. Speaking emotionally. This is why no words are
shortly after the opening of The Force needed in the early part of The Force
Awakens, screenwriter Michael Arndt Awakens, where Rey moves about in
confirmed that the earliest story pitch from her AT-AT home. A young woman eating

Kathleen Kennedy had been an “origin story alone, countless etchings on the wall to
of a female Jedi.” mark the passage of time, a free moment
Storytelling is an organic process, which spent leaning against the foot of a weapon
often involves running toward an idea you of war: These brief glimpses all suggest
love only to watch it blow up magnifi cently a very particular life, not heroic, but

or fizzle into an ignominious nothingness. completely human, inspiring empathy
Arndt has also noted that his earliest and understanding in the audience.
versions of the script involved Luke joining The earliest storytellers were limited
Rey’s journey earlier in the movie, but that by the amount of time the audience was
“any time Luke showed up, it suddenly willing to invest in listening, and perhaps
became his movie.” And that was not their own ability to keep talking. The earliest
the story he, Lawrence Kasdan, and J.J. writers were limited by resources: immobile
Abrams wanted to tell. Kasdan himself cave walls and stone tablets, then portable
said, in a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair, papyrus, which had to be manufactured
that screenwriting requires a willingness by hand. The dawn of the printing press
to “kill your darlings”—and if Abrams’ saw the first stirrings of mass production,

‘darling’ was a story featuring Luke leading to the explosion of the mass
Skywalker, then the creative discovery that media in the 20th century. Mythologist
brought Rey’s journey into focus was that Joseph Campbell studied storytelling
Luke was not a companion on that journey, across this vast history and distilled the

but the device or “MacGuffin” that drove it. framework of myths down to common
thematic beats in his 1949 book, The Hero
THE ART OF STORYTELLING In Return of the Jedi, C-3PO sits before With A Thousand Faces.
George Lucas made explicit reference
the Ewoks, gesturing with his golden
hands as R2-D2 produces various sound to Campbell’s “monomyth” structure
Though art constantly aspires to break effects. The scene represents the ways in when conceiving Star Wars, and established
the mold, there are fundamental guiding which the earliest stories were told, and— that the concept could be applied to
principles that help make artworks in though we don’t speak Ewok—the droid’s moviemaking in the same way as it applied
any format understandable and relatable. visuals and sounds form a story that the to oral storytelling and prose. Given the

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