Odyssey of The Force

Michael
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A philosophical exploration of Star Wars as modern mythology — examining its narratives, themes, and storytelling in the tradition of the great myths of human history. For fans who are tired of surface-level discourse and want to explore what this universe actually means.....and what it says about us.

Episodes

  1. Aug 11

    All the Time in the World: Star Wars Beyond the Skywalkers

    Star Wars itself is barely 50 years old. So why do I think this myth is going to outlive all of us, and become one of the great ones? This is the Season One finale of Odyssey of the Force, and I saved the biggest idea for last. Tonight we go beyond the Skywalkers. Beyond the saga. Beyond nostalgia. Beyond even us. We start thousands of years in the future, with a child hearing a bedtime story about a farm boy, a dark father, and a blade of light, who has never heard the name Skywalker. We ask what actually survives when a story becomes a myth, using Homer's Odyssey, a tale nearly 3,000 years old that is filling IMAX theaters this very summer, as our guide. We look at how Star Wars is already outgrowing its own family, from Visions to the far reaches of the timeline. We make the case for going somewhere genuinely new, forward past Rey and back to the Dawn of the Jedi alike. And we land on the biggest question of all: who does a myth actually belong to? The answer is the reason this show exists. A living myth belongs to no one, which is exactly why it belongs to everyone. There is no such thing as a fake fan of a myth, because the table is infinite and the seat is always open. This is the most ambitious episode I've ever made, and the one this whole season was building toward. It's about renewal over permanence, questions over certainty, and why the end of the Skywalker saga was never an ending at all. Pull up a seat at the table. One last time this season. IMPORTANT NOTE: Odyssey of the Force will return Tuesday, September 1st, with Season Two, beginning with The Mandalorian: The Way of the Foundling. Star Wars as living modern myth. No tribalism, no gatekeeping, just the bigger picture.

  2. Aug 4

    Rey's New Jedi Order: Building Something That Lasts

    The old Jedi Order lasted 25,000 years. Then it fell in a single night. This is the story of what comes after, and whether "lasting" was ever the point. In this episode of Odyssey of the Force, we turn from the past and present of this galaxy toward its future. Rey stands alone in the ruins of a tradition thousands of years old, holding a name she chose and a legacy no one alive can teach her to carry. So we ask the hardest question in Star Wars: after everything the old institutions got wrong, is it even possible to build something that lasts? We perform an honest autopsy on why the Jedi really fell. We dig into the reforms a reborn Order might need. We borrow an idea from Isaac Asimov to imagine a bolder shape for what Rey could build. And we chase the most radical possibility of all: that the way to end the endless war between light and dark isn't to win it, but to make it obsolete. This is the most speculative episode we've ever done, because its subject barely exists yet. That's exactly what makes it worth dreaming about. It's an episode about renewal over permanence, questions over certainty, and why a living myth lasts not by staying the same, but by daring to change. Pull up a seat at the table. New episodes every other Tuesday. Star Wars as living modern myth. No tribalism, no gatekeeping, just the bigger picture.

  3. Jul 28

    The Twi'leks: Reading Oppression in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

    Star Wars first showed us the Twi'leks in chains: Dancers, slaves, bodies in the background. This is the story of how a myth learned to see them. In this episode of Odyssey of the Force, we look directly at the people this galaxy spent a long time keeping in the background. We start in Jabba's palace, with a Twi'lek dancer named Oola who appears for less than a minute, is never named by the film, and whose final act is to refuse. And we ask the question underneath her whole people's story: who gets to count as a person? We dig into who the Twi'leks really are.. the lekku that are part of their brain, the sacred family history they carry, the homeworld of Ryloth whose primary export, for centuries, was its own people. We trace the pattern of a people reduced to scenery and appetite, and we look honestly at the sexualization that shadowed their women from Oola to Aayla Secura. Then we follow the myth as it grows a conscience: Aayla the silent image who is finally granted a voice, Loden Greatstorm and the atrocity done to him, and Hera Syndulla.. a General who helped save the galaxy, carrying her whole people from the background to the center of the story. This is an episode about dignity, about mythology as a mirror we hold up to our own world, and about the oldest and most important thing a story can teach us: to widen the circle of who counts as fully real. It's heavier than most, and it ends in the light. Pull up a seat at the table. New episodes every Tuesday.

  4. Jul 21

    The Weight of Expectation- What We Do to Our Heroes: Luke Skywalker

    In this episode of Odyssey of the Force, we sit with the most argued over hero in modern Star Wars: Luke Skywalker...not to re-litigate anything, but to ask a deeper and more universal question: What do we do to the people we put on pedestals, and what does it cost them, and us, when they finally come down? We start with something George Lucas said just this week about vision versus fan service, and the balance a living myth has to strike between the storyteller's vision and the people who love the story. Then we trace the collision at the heart of it all: the flawless Luke we built and polished for thirty years, and the older, fallible Luke the story actually gave us. We go deep on his relationship with Ben Solo, the nephew he loved, feared, and failed.... and what really happened on that hilltop. We take the word "ruined" seriously and ask whether a character who is hurt is the same as a character who is broken. We then turn to mythology itself.... Achilles, Arthur, the whole tradition of the flawed hero, to argue that the flawless hero was never the myth. The fall was always the point. It ends where the best stories end: with forgiveness. For our heroes, for being human. And maybe, underneath, for ourselves. Pull up a seat at the table. New episodes every Tuesday. Star Wars as living modern myth: No tribalism, no gatekeeping. .

  5. Jul 14

    The Acolyte: How A Living Myth Bends

    Everyone said The Acolyte broke Star Wars canon. So I actually checked...every accusation, one at a time. In this episode of Odyssey of the Force, we put the most divisive recent Star Wars on trial...not on whether it was good, but on the specific charge shouted loudest: that it broke the lore. We work through the five biggest "canon breaks" one by one. Ki-Adi-Mundi's timeline. The Sith who supposedly can't exist. The Rule of Two. The Darth Plagueis cameo and whether it betrays James Luceno's beloved novel. And the Force-created twins said to cheapen the Chosen One. Then we go somewhere the arguments rarely do: the Jedi cover-up at Brendok, what it means that the rot reached all the way to the top of the Order...and the question underneath the entire war over this show. Who actually owns Star Wars? The storytellers? The fans? The corporation that holds the copyright? Or nobody at all? This isn't a defense of a flawless show. It's flawed, and we say so. It's a case that a myth which is growing and a myth which is breaking can look identical from the outside, if you loved the old shape enough. And it's about the difference between being a fan and being a fundamentalist. Pull up a seat at the table. New episodes every other Tuesday. Star Wars as living modern myth — no tribalism, no gatekeeping.

  6. Jul 7

    Ahsoka: The Freedom of Walking Alone

    Ahsoka Tano was raised inside the Jedi Order, gave it everything, and was failed by it completely. So she walked away...not to the dark side, not in disgrace, but on her own two feet, still carrying the light. In Episode 5 of Odyssey of the Force, we ask the question Ahsoka's entire life answers: do you need the Jedi Order — its temple, its Council, its Code, to walk in the light? Or is the light something bigger than the institution that claimed to own it? We trace her journey from Padawan to exile to legend: the frame-up that cast her out, the refusal to come back, the white lightsabers she forged from healed kyber, her confrontations with Vader at Malachor and in the World Between Worlds, and the found family that held her up when the institution was gone. Along the way, we explore how a living myth refuses to stay frozen in its first form... how Star Wars grew a hero its original light and dark binary had no room for. Plus: a look ahead to where Ahsoka Season 2 might take her, and why the show's Baylan Skoll parallel matters more than it seems. Pull up a seat at the table. New episodes every Tuesday. No tribalism, no gatekeeping.... just Star Wars as living modern myth.

  7. Jun 30

    Odan-Urr: The Words That Doomed the Jedi

    What happens when you change a single word? This episode goes deep into the Old Republic to explore how a subtle rewrite of the Jedi Code, from "Emotion, yet peace" to "There is no emotion, there is peace," may have shaped, and even doomed, the entire Jedi Order. A story about language, institutions, and how the smallest change can echo across thousands of years. Pull up a seat at the table! *Show Note*- In this episode I incorrectly referred to "yet" as a preposition, when in fact it is a conjunction (or an adverb, in certain cases). Perhaps my archives are incomplete:) On this show, I believe in owning the mistakes instead of sweeping them under the rug. Enjoy! *Show Note#2* I break into my Yoda impression at around 38:00. You've been warned :)

  8. Jun 23

    Andor: The Galaxy Beyond the Force

    No Jedi. No lightsabers. No prophecy. No chosen one. Just ordinary people, choosing to do the right thing. This episode makes the case that Andor might be the most human story Star Wars has ever told; a "myth without magic" about the spies, workers, and grieving families who built the Rebellion with no powers at all. We dig into the staggering scale of the galaxy, the psychology of how an ordinary person becomes a revolutionary, the terrifyingly real fascism of Andor's Empire, and the quiet courage of heroes history forgets. We also tackle a fight that's been tearing through fandom lately: Andor vs. the Skywalker saga, and why you never had to choose. A living myth is a big tent; large enough to hold the grounded war story and the operatic fairy tale at once. Plus: a personal note on what kind of fan I am, a thank you to a friend helping bring the show to life, and a look at where Cassian's road really ends. Contains Spoilers for Andor and Rogue One!

  9. Jun 16

    Episode 2- Maul: Facing The Shadow

    Episode 2: Maul — Facing the Shadow Maul isn't a monster. He's a wound. This episode explores Maul as the Sisyphus of Star Wars: a being made into a weapon, caught in a cycle of pain he never chose , using real psychology to examine generational trauma and whether such cycles can ever be broken. This one gets personal. Then: a deep dive into Devon Izara, why she falls, and a head-canon theory about where she's truly headed. Content note: discusses childhood trauma and abuse, handled with care and hope. Lore note: I describe Maul as taken by Sidious in early childhood. Canon sources actually differ on his exact age — fittingly, even the myth holds more than one version.

  10. Jun 9

    Episode 1: The Living Galaxy- Star Wars as Modern Myth

    What if Star Wars isn't just entertainment, but the mythology of our age — in the same conversation as Homer and Joseph Campbell? In this first episode, I share my own journey into the galaxy far, far away and make the case for Star Wars as a living modern myth: one that can evolve, provoke, and reveal something true about how we live. No rage-bait, no tribalism — just a thoughtful, judgment-free space for fans who want to go deeper. New episodes every Tuesday. Pull up a seat at the table. NOTE: At around the 40-minute mark you might hear a quick airplane flying over — my recording space is at home and this was my very first time podcasting. My editing is still growing, but I left it in because I don’t think it takes anything away from the heart of the conversation. Thanks for listening, and welcome to the Odyssey. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I did recording it.

  • 10 Episodes

About

A philosophical exploration of Star Wars as modern mythology — examining its narratives, themes, and storytelling in the tradition of the great myths of human history. For fans who are tired of surface-level discourse and want to explore what this universe actually means.....and what it says about us.

Information

  • Creator
    Michael
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    10
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Michael
  • Show Website
    Odyssey of The Force