John Flynn in costume for Dragon Con
Josh Bernhard, a huge Star Wars fan who operates the Podcast “Trash Compactor” for other Star Wars fans, invited John L. Flynn to participate in an hour-long interview to discuss his script/story treatment for Star Wars Episode 3: Fall of the Republic. In 1982, when Flynn was a budding author/writer, being published regularly with the various sci-fi magazines, like Starlog, Cinefantastique, and Fangoria (to name a few), he wrote a script/story treatment for one of the future Star Wars movies as Christmas gifts to a number of his sci-fi fan friends. “I was too poor to purchase a traditional holiday gift at the time.” One of the people who received his “gift” was a wheeler-dealer vendor at one of the sci-fi conventions who thought his story was good enough to print, and arranged to print hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of copies of Flynn’s story for sale at the conventions. At his vendor table, he told everyone that he had obtained a copy of the script for the next Star Wars movie and sold innumerable copies. Other vendors, not wanting to be left out of the potential sales, bought a copy themselves, and they reproduced hundreds of more. Like most urban legends, his story sprouted legs, and it was suddenly available in every venue where there were Star Wars fans anxious to get a sneak peek at the next Star Wars movie. His script/story treatment for Star Wars Episode 3: Fall of the Republic went the equivalent of “viral” in those days, with fan groups discussing, debating, and spreading the word. Nearly everyone who encountered Flynn’s story thought it was a terrific, well-written with great characters and set pieces, and that it was the “real” basis for one of the next Star Wars films. Yet, Flynn never made a dime on the story. Having produced it for his friends, he had no way to know what would eventually happen. Therefore, John L. Flynn was a household name with Star Wars fans for a very long time.
Flynn eventually started publishing his own stories, apart from Star Wars, and made a career for himself as an author of science fiction and mystery stories. He has written over 20 books and has been nominated for 3 Hugo Awards. Josh Bernhard used his investigative skills as a journalist, tracking Flynn down several months ago, and invited him to record a podcast with him. In the hour-long podcast, they talked about how his script/story treatment for Star Wars Episode 3: Fall of the Republic took Star Wars fandom by storm—deeper into the origins of the story—and how many fans, even to this day, feel his story was far superior to the one George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, produced on his own. Lucas’ Episode 3 was criticized when it finally came out on the big screen, whereas Star Wars fans wished that Lucas had used Flynn’s. The interview had Josh and Flynn comparing versions, talking about the various sequels and prequels, and then came back around to Flynn’s current works as a professional writer.