Page 45 - Star Wars Insider #188

THE GALACTIC ARCHIVIST

SHARING
THE LOVE

“It’s always been
about enthusiasm
for a subject, and
wanting to share
that feeling with
people,” Duncan
explains when asked
about his route into
being a writer and
editor. “It started
with Star Wars, and
becoming interested
in watching other
science-fi ction
movies. I was very
enthusiastic about it,
and I wanted to write
about it.”
Only 15 years old,
and still at school, the
young Duncan wasn’t
sure how to go about
this until some friends
introduced him to
early Doctor Who
fanzines (fan-made
magazines) from the
1970s. They decided
“What would it be like to look over George Lucas’ shoulder as he walks to produce a fanzine
of their own. “We put
onto the set of Star Wars in Tunisia? What’s going through his mind? What’s together a magazine
called Arken Sword,”
going wrong, and what is he compromising? That became my mantra for recalls Duncan. “It
was a mixture of
everything in the book.” Doctor Who, science-
fi ction, and comics.
All the things I was
interested in. I did
that magazine for
sheets for A New Hope when they were in to actually write them? Then from the writing,
10 years, during
Tunisia. They include the slate number on the the vision he had to get them made! That was which time it went

very first day; exactly who was in it, what was what interested me, and that became my focus. from 100 copies to
selling 5000-plus
happening, what the lenses were, what was said, What would it be like to look over George Lucas’
copies, worldwide.”
how many takes they took. You think, ‘Wow, shoulder as he walks onto the set of Star Wars in In 1995, Duncan
that’s it! That’s what I want: to feel as though Tunisia? What’s going through his mind? What’s created the crime
I’m actually there, experiencing it in the present going wrong, and what is he compromising? and mystery fi ction
magazine Crime Time
tense. And these documents are my gateway That became my mantra for everything in the
before founding the
to that experience. But they’re so completely book. What is George doing and why?” Pocket Essentials
functional, they have no personality, they just tell This key realization led to Duncan venturing series of pop culture
guidebooks in 1999.
you what happened. They are part of history, but out of the low light and cold of the Archives to
That led to major
history is about people. It dawned on me that the conduct a once-in-a-lifetime, three-day interview editing and writing
person I was most interested in was George Lucas.” with George Lucas. “That was extraordinary,” assignments for
Taschen. “It’s about
This was the moment during those initial Duncan recalls. “The reason for meeting George
what excites me,
archival expeditions—which Duncan describes as was because the who, what, where, and when is what interests me,
“the most fun you can ever have in your working very easy to uncover from documents, but the what perplexes
life,”—when The Star Wars Archives crystalized in why of something is impossible unless you can me,” adds Duncan.
“Then trying to
the writer’s mind. address it directly. I didn’t want to ask the same
communicate that to
questions that other people had asked, but what an audience, to tell
Meeting the Maker interested me was why he wanted to make Star them a story about
my experience, or
“I realized that there have been a lot of Wars in the fi rst place.
the experience of
biographies of George Lucas, but there hadn’t “In talking with George, it became very the people that I’m
really been a book about his creative process,” clear that his own life experiences and interests writing about.”
he explains. “What was it like for him to make fuelled Star Wars,” says Duncan. “His discovery
these movies, to get people interested, for him of anthropology in college, the origins of