Lucas Land: The Call

(Previous chapter: The Door)

I have previously recounted how I found myself whisked away to Tunisia on a quest for the original Star Wars shooting locations. It was on that trek that I met our intrepid guide, archaeologist Dr. David West Reynolds, who would take us through the looking glass and back, safe yet sated with blue milk and myriad intergalactic memories. 

And so it was on the road to Tatooine that Reynolds and I discovered that we had much more in common than an abnormal passion for Star Wars. Any unexpected twist in the conversation found us nodding our heads in agreement, exploding in shared excitement, or else grow solemn together in silent contemplation. For one thing, we realized we were both Back to the Future freaks, which gave us three more movies to obsess about together. (Did I mention Reynolds had just purchased a Delorean?) Despite a 10-year age gap that attempted to exert some distancing power over us, we grew surprisingly close over the course of our short two-week stay in that galaxy far, far away. So much so that, as our trip was winding down, I realized that what I imagined as the end of an incredible journey might in fact only be the beginning.

A scant few months prior, Reynolds had landed a job as editor-in-chief of starwars.com, and had his office right in the middle of the fabled Skywalker Ranch, nested in the rolling hills of northern California. Unbeknownst to me, he had since been on the lookout for a right-hand man (or woman, as the case may be): someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Star Wars universe, a sense of adventure, a willingness to jump into a ocean of unknown perils and tumbling dangers—and who also happened to have the chops to serve as lead writer in the coolest place on earth.
Me? I had been writing magazine articles for a couple of years, and published in just enough venues to prove that I was worth my salt when it came to typing stuff. (Some years later, a colleague in Virginia would start calling me “wordsmith”—still one of the very best compliments I’ve ever been paid about my writing.)

So one night, as we were actually huddled around a fire—would you believe it— Reynolds turned to me with a glint in his eye and uttered a few chilling words: “You know, you’re exactly the kind of guy I’d need at the Ranch.” I must have looked too stunned to answer, or else Reynolds didn’t feel like waiting. “I believe I have the perfect job for you,” he continued, explaining that there was a ton of writing to get done in order to feed an official Star Wars website that was still in its infancy, and that finding the right person to accomplish that Herculean task felt like subbing for Sisyphus himself. But his quest might be at an end: if he could arrange it, would I consider a position as web writer at Lucasfilm?

To be honest, it sounded like a pipe dream. I was 23, still in college working on my Masters (literature/philosophy—talk to me about 18^th century thinkers one day), and I hadn’t held a real day job yet. What was this guy selling me?
Sure, it sounded like a position I would have killed for, but perhaps in a parallel universe. Because in order to hire me (a Canadian), Lucasfilm would have to unholster a fistful of lawyers and prove to the American government that nobody else in the U.S. of A. could do the job like I could. Fat chance. And yet, what if that Rube Goldberg machine ended up producing that unlikely result?

Upon our return from our mythological odyssey, Reynolds promised to keep in touch—and that he did. I never once imagined he and I would forget each other, being as we felt like long-lost brothers, but I have to admit that the prospect of a job in California quickly faded from my horizon. I was back from the dream, and reality was calling. Still, once in a while, I would receive an email from my faraway friend saying he was still working on the job description, that our “project” was still on, and that he couldn’t wait for me to get over there.

Time flew like an angry river, with my hanging onto classes and papers like I would a disintegrating raft. About a year down the line, late in the summer of 1997, my inbox chimed the arrival of a message from a Lucasfilm HR lady asking for a copy of my resume. Reynolds had told me two days prior to expect such a communication, but I was still dumbfounded. Could this thing really be happening? I promptly fired an email back, with my resume (groomed to death 48 hours earlier) in tow. I remember looking at the screen after the communication went through, wondering what kind of a rollercoaster I had just boarded.

Less than a week later—on a Monday—I got a call from Lucasfilm. Not an email: a bona fide phone call. That same HR lady was asking if I were available to interview for the position of web writer, at Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, California. They would have a plane ticket with my name on it that very Thursday, and a car waiting for me at San Francisco Airport. That one Reynolds had not prepared me for. (He’d always had a sense for the dramatic, and I would soon discover he wasn’t done yet.)
I somehow managed to stutter that yes, I’d be delighted to go out and meet with them, and that Thursday was perfect. (At that moment I couldn’t recall what my calendar looked like for the near future, but I was pretty sure nothing held a candle to the offer I had just received.) “Great!” the lady exclaimed, as if mortals refused an invitation to Skywalker Ranch on a regular basis. “I’ll email you everything.”

Two minutes later, I had indeed been emailed everything. I would land in San Francisco on Thursday night, sleep at a hotel halfway between the airport and the Ranch, go through five interviews (FIVE?!) on Friday before spending the weekend in the Bay Area, and finally flying back home on Sunday night. Reynolds called me while I was still going through my travel arrangements, and I could hear the devilish smile in his voice, bright like a church bell ringing next door. “So, are we meeting on Friday?” he asked. I replied with a conspiratorial grin: “You bet your ass.”

Try as I might, I can’t remember the handful of days leading to my departure. I know it turned into a peculiar blur of hazy preparations and trying to think of something else (to no avail). I do recall sitting on the plane, en route to SFO for the first time in my life, and being asked by the elderly San Franciscan couple seated on my right where I was going. “Well, I’m going to interview for a job at Lucasfilm,” I replied after a beat, not quite believing it myself.
(Ever seen the movie Sleepless in Seattle? There’s this scene where 8-year-old Jonah, having flown to New York on his own, climbs aboard a cab to try to reach the woman he desperately wants his father to date. The driver asks him where he’s going, to which Jonah replies excitedly, “I’m going to meet my new mother!” I’m convinced I sounded just like him when I told that sweet couple where I was headed, and that for an instant I looked not a day older than that kid.)

The plane touched down a few minutes before midnight. My hotel was just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, so I had to drive through San Francisco at night (remember this is 1997: no smartphones to the rescue), cross the famous bridge with my mouth agape, make it to the hotel closer to dawn than dusk (yeah, I got lost), and then attempt to go to sleep. But Orpheus refused me for what felt like an eternity, and when my alarm clock started yelling in the morning, my face wasn’t sporting a single pillow crease.

Reynolds had suggested he come and pick me up, and he showed up right on time—behind the wheel of his Delorean, of course. As the gullwing door rose up and my friend started walking towards me, I couldn’t help but blurt out “Hey Doc!” Reynolds grabbed my trembling hand with one of his, put the other on my shoulder, and smiled like Doc Brown demonstrating his flux capacitor for the first time.
    “Hey Marty. Ready for the ride of your life?”

I knew he meant both the trip aboard the Delorean and my day at Skywalker Ranch.
But I couldn’t know how right he was.

 

(Next chapter: The Belly of the Beast)

(Full series here)

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