Jedi Knights & Vampire Slayers: The Star Wars / Buffy Connection

By Dave Gross
(Special thanks to Stacey Levine, Tamara Becher, Kern Eccles, Michael Boretz, and Shauna Wegrocki)
Star Wars Insider
Issue Number 65
February 2003

Fans of the hit television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer know that the show has a few things in common with everyone’s favorite space fantasy. Both stories center on a chosen one who fights increasingly powerful villains with help from a colorful band of allies. In both the “Buffyverse” and Star Wars galaxy, good and evil are larger than life, and the action ranges from swashbuckling adventure to dark, internal conflict - with plenty of comic relief along the way. In fact, since early in its run, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has included more than a dozen comic nods toward the Star Wars epic with props, dialogue, and even a furious lightsaber battle. If this evidence doesn’t prove that Buffy-creator Joss Whedon and his writers are big Star Wars fans, note that a band called Nerf Herder performs the show’s theme song.

The characters may know the movies, own the toys, and say the lines, but the show’s writers are the ones who make them do it all. Recently, the Insider caught up with Buffy scribes Jane Espensen, David Fury, Drew Goddard, Drew Z. Greenburg, and Douglas Petrie to talk about just why so many Star Wars references make it into the TV show. To get to the answer, we began by asking about their memories of the first time they visited the galaxy far, far away.

The First Time

“Star Wars opened on Wednesday, May 25, 1977,” says Douglas Petrie, instantly establishing his geek cred. “I saw it two Saturdays after it opened, so I saw it in June of its initial run.”

Not only can he recite the movie’s original release date, but Petrie also remembers the exact instant he became a lifelong fan. “Han Solo coming back to rescue Luke Skywalker after Darth Vader said, ‘I have you now!’ was…” The professional writer runs out of words to describe the thrill.

When he recovers, he explains, “I’d never seen a movie where the cavalry arrived. Those movies had gone out of style. We were too young for Chinatown and The Godfather Part II and Dog Day Afternoon and all the great movies that were coming out then. And then this giant Marvel comic showed up with the oldest tricks in the book, and they were brand-new to us. It was absolutely the best movie experience I’d ever had.”

Drew Greenburg agrees about the reasons why Star Wars is so compelling. “It was the first time I had seen any of this, and it was told with such a deft hand - it was so pure in its telling - that it was almost in a way reinventing the classic myths. I know that now, looking back at it and appreciate in its context what it was referencing, but at the time it was brand new to me.”

The experience was more profound than young Greenburg realized at the time. “I didn’t know that a person could be a writer. In my little seven-year-old brain, I didn’t know how to connect the one to the other. But I knew I wanted to tell stories the way Mr. Lucas got to tell stories. I wanted to be a part of this thing. …I wanted to tell stories in a fun way.”

Drew Goddard was only two years old when Star Wars first hit screens, but his parents assure him they took him to the movie. It was the sequel that would leave the strongest impression on him. “I clearly remember Empire, walking out of that theater with my dad, just stressed out about how we were going to get Han back,” he recalls. “I was so like, ‘How are we going to possibly do this, Dad?’”

Jane Espensen’s family had to drive to Des Moines from central Iowa to see Star Wars. “It was the first movie I saw where there was the long line of people. I was transfixed like every other twelve-year-old.”

Her most profound memory of Star Wars is from the following summer, when her family took her to meet the dark lord of the Sith. “There was a very tall man in a Darth Vader costume who signed a still from the movie with a big loopy D with an ‘arth Vader’ written inside the D. I treasured that for years and years and years. At some point, I read that it was not the guy who’d be in the costume in the movie. It was just some tall guy they’d hired to go hit the mall.

“Being a kid, I thought it was the read Darth Vader. Once I knew that, I didn’t keep the photograph anymore.”

After seeing a trailer for Star Wars, the teenaged David Fury didn’t expect to be enthralled. “Honestly, my first reaction was skepticism. I looked at it and thought, ’Oh, it’s going to be another Logan’s Run or something. It’s going to be something that looks like it’s borrowing elements from Planet of the Apes - I thought Chewbacca looked a little ape-like. And I went, ‘This is going to be another disappointment.’ I’d already grown cynical at that age that all the things I looked forward to and that looked great and should have been great were really disappointing. Star Wars was really the first time I went to see something and was blown away.

“I was hooked from the glorious opening music.”

Favorite Episode?

The writing staff is split on the question of a favorite Episode. “You can make an argument that The Empire Strikes Back is a darker, more mature, better-executed piece,” says Petrie, “but just in trems of the funnest Saturday matinee fastball of all time, it’s got to be the original Star Wars.”

Espensen also holds the original dearest. “I remember my little mouth falling open that there were actual spaceships. I don’t think you can ever recreate the first experience of going, ‘Oh, my god! There are real spaceships!’”

Fury agrees and thinks the original has an advantage over all the later films. “There’s something about the discovery of this world, the introduction to this world, and for all its flaws it’s still to me the most sweeping, romantic, swashbuckling adventure of the whole bunch that gets so much of it right.”

Drew Greenburg prefers The Empire Strikes Back, but he defends his choice with a caveat. “I always consider Star Wars to be hall-of-fame good. You don’t eve put that in the running because it’s a piece of art unto itself.”

Drew Goddard sums up the problem of choosing just one. “Really there’s two, right?” he says. “Star Wars and Empire. This is on of those decisions that, any given Sunday, it’ll change. I have to go with Empire. I think the heart of it has to do with nostalgia, because I remember that so clearly with my dad,” he explains.

Everyone answers the question carefully, because they’ve discussed it before - and not without a certain danger, as Goddard and his boss, Joss Whedon, recently proved on a trip to the San Diego Comic-Con.

“We were driving down in this Winnebago, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to get in the spirit of things. Let’s get into an argument.’ So we were just kind of joking, and someone said, ‘Which one is better, Star Wars or Empire?’ We all started laughing, ‘Oh yeah! We’re going to get into a geek argument!’ And honestly, five minutes later, we’re shouting at each other. We were joking, we were making fun of ourselves, and the next thing you know we became everything we were joking about.

“We were just yelling and screaming at each other,” he says. “It really got violent.”

Favorite Characters

Choosing a favorite character is slightly safer.

Drew Goddard claims Han Solo as his number-one choice, but Yoda is a close second.

“Actually,” he explains, “in a weird way, Yoda has lost points with me because of Clones. I still love him, but I feel like everyone loves him now. It’s not as fun anymore. I used to be obsessed with Yoda, and I have one of those Yoda [sculptures] at home. And now it’s like everyone’s like, ‘I love Yoda, too!’ Well, ‘Yeah, screw you. I loved Yoda long before you did, you jerk.’”

“Yoda was always very special to me when I was a kid,” concurs Greenburg. “So special, in fact, that he went to great lengths to find the action figure. “We had to go on a little hunt because I had the whole collection, and we had [heard] that Yoda was being released in a limited edition. We were actually visiting New York City, and I made my dad drive all around the Bronx and Queens until we found the one toy store in New York City that had the Yoda action figure.”

Doug Petrie has given his answer a lot of thought. “I think that Luke Skywalker is a relatively bland character when you put him next to C-3PO and Obi-Wan Kenobi and Han Solo and these [other] really colorful, dynamic, specific characters. The effect - especially as a 14-year-old-boy - is that you kind of get to cut his face out of the movie and put your own in. The thing that’s really great about Luke Skywalker in that first movie is that the greatest adventure of all time is happening to you.”

David Fury also favors Luke. “His journey is the great classic hero’s journey more than any character. I mean, sure, I love Han Solo, and I probably would have said him. He was my favorite character years ago, just because he was given all the lines, all the funny, all the really cool things to do. But I guess ultimately, working for Buffy, I’ve grown to appreciate the hero’s journey.”

Years after his own first experience watching Star Wars, Fury gets to enjoy it again as his children watch the saga. “I’m seeing their fascination with Luke and their attraction to him. If I missed it now as an adult, if I’d forgotten what it was like, they’re reminding me that Luke is a pretty cool character.”

Unlike most fans, the Buffy writers hadn’t given much though to comparing their character with those from Star Wars. At first, Jane Espensen thinks the problem is that there aren’t enough prominent female characters in Star Wars to match up with Buffy’s estrogen-charged cast. Then she realizes that Buffy and Luke have a lot in common, and the universe has the same message for each of them. “You were always a hero and didn’t know it. You have this lineage that you’re unaware of and a world to which you belong of which you know nothing. And you’re going to be pulled out of your ordinary world and handed this sword and told, ‘Go out and get stuff done.’ And it’s not necessarily going to be a charmed life. There will be hardships there. That’s a very strong parallel.”

Doug Petrie agrees that Buffy and Luke share some similarities, but as a television character with well over 100 hours of story behind her, Buffy is “a much more specifically drawn character,” and “her lover life is a lot darker.”

On the other hand, he add, “Luke does kind of make out with his sister, so it does get interesting.”

If Buffy is the show’s Luke Skywalker, then who are the other characters?

“I would say Xander to me is the most Han Soloish,” says David Fury. “For all the things he takes in terms of being the coward or the guy who’s ineffectual, he’s actually pretty heroic and glib at the same time. And Han Solo was a coward, too. He’d be running away. One of the great shots in the original film is the bravery of Han and Chewbacca chasing the stormtroopers and then turning around and running back again. And that’s sort of, to me, Xander. He’s well aware of the fear factor and the danger, but he’ll step into it and be there with a quip.”

“Giles would certainly be the Obi-Wan,” suggests Doug Petrie, but he agrees that lining up Buffy and Star Wars characters isn’t easy as it might seem at first. “What I think is great about our characters is that any one of them is potentially Darth Vader at any point. I think that that’s the big deal. There’s none of them who couldn’t pull an Anakin.”

Even the seemingly powerless Xander Harris?

“You never know!” he replies. “You never know! It’s not like it’s never been discussed.”

Even though a turn to the dark side might seem like a big leap for the least dangerous member of the gang, Petrie says the same holds true for the greatest villain in Star Wars. “It was a pretty big change for Anakin, you know. Cute little moppet turns into a guy blowing up planets.”

While the writers haven’t spent much time thinking of which Buffy characters have Star Wars counterparts, they quickly assign themselves parts in the space epic.

“Joss is always doing a Lando impression,” says Drew Goddard. “Always. You know, I’ve got to go with Han. I just love Han.”

However, he admits that there’s a catch. “There’s a difference between who I’d want to be and who we’ve all agreed I am. The problem is that we all had to agree… ’cause if Doug gets to be Han, I don’t get to be Han, which is no fun. So then they made me Chewbacca, because I’m tall and I’m loyal. The other Drew was R2 to Jane’s C-3PO.”

Of Nerds and Geeks

When asked why there are so many Star Wars references in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the writers first point to the fact that Star Wars is such a cultural phenomenon. But then Drew Greenburg blows their cover.

“There’s the one answer and then there’s the second answer,” he explains. “The first level is, of course, because that’s what our characters would know. That’s what they would talk about. Specifically last year, when we had our three villains who were very well versed in the genre.

“But then there’s the real answer, which is that we’re just a bunch of geeks, and we love Star Wars. It’s the most powerful feeling in the world where you get to say, ‘You know what? I love Star Wars, and now you’re all going to have to listen to my Star Wars references.’”

At first, David Fury can’t remember his earliest nods to Star Wars in his Buffy scripts. “There are just lines that just come out of my head, and I forget that I make these references,” he says. “That shows you how much it permeates our consciousness. I’m not even aware I’m doing it half the time.”

Like Fury, Drew Goddard doesn’t go out of his way to make Star Wars references. “No, they just come naturally, especially when we’re writing Andrew and Jonathan, or Xander. Star Wars is just such a benchmark for every male that age, so when you’re writing those characters, it’s just natural.”

Writing for the three nerdy villains is particularly easy, he says. “If I need something for them to talk about, I stick my head out of my office, and I listen to whatever Doug and Drew are arguing about, and I just write it down.”

“Yes, we’re giant Star Wars geeks,” admits Doug Petrie. “We’ve all seen Star Wars, between the eight of us, seven thousand times, I believe.”

Their love of Star Wars is not limited to the movies, as Petrie explains. “Joss and Lisa Lasik, one of the editors, came back from Comic-Con with lightsabers - with actual, working lightsabers. And these enormous, very violent fights broke out.”

Despite his reputation as one of the chief Star Wars fans, David Fury avoids the lightsaber battles in true Han Solo fashion. “I don’t feel adept at my lightsabering. I save that for my five-year-old son. I’ll fight with him because I have the advantage, but over here to go against Dough Petrie or Joss wielding a lightsaber… I’ll go make a quip somewhere and run off with Chewie.”

With such obviously fanboy behavior going on in the Buffy offices, the truer of the two answers to the Star Wars references becomes clear. As Doug Petrie puts it, “So, really, you don’t have to go any further than, ‘We’re just a raging bucket of geeks.’”

Drew Greenburg isn’t completely comfortable with the word.

“I can be geeky. I try to be careful about using the term, because it can be pejorative. I’m a geek in the best sense possible. I have an appreciation for some of the things that are a little bit more fun that don’t get a lot of play in the mainstream world, and Star Wars doesn’t necessarily fall into the category. I think anybody can appreciate Star Wars.”

Some say that David Fury and Doug Petrie are the biggest Star Wars fans in the office, but Jane Espensen sets us straight on the hierarchy. “Yeah, they’re very good. But I think Drew Greenburg might be your winner in that constellation of geeks.”

She recalls that her favorite Star Wars moment happened off screen, in the writers’ office. “There was much controversy among the staff about whether there was indeed a Boba Fett figurine from that early on. Drew Greenburg was the one who knew that there was in fact a Boba Fett figurine from that year. And he made sure that it was done correctly.”

Greenburg is proud of his expert knowledge. “Nobody believed me that there was one in 1979!”

We bow to his display of Star Wars knowledge, and he responds like a real fan. “Of course I was right! I had to do a little bit of convincing around this office to reassure people.”

When we suggest he could have proven the argument by bringing in his own Boba Fett action figure, he clams up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

We suppose he wouldn’t want anyone to think he was a geek.

Why Star Wars

Jane Espensen thinks that Star Wars and Buffy fans have a lot in common, even among those folks who normally think they don’t like science fiction and fantasy. “I think they are very much of a kind, and I think it’s because they both have to do with understanding our world through the filter that is metaphor. The metaphor can be space, or the metaphor can be fantasy.”

Drew Greenburg thinks it’s a mistake to generalize Buffy and Star Wars audiences. “But,” he adds, “if there are things in common between the two [stories], I’d like to think that it’s a certain respect for the audience. It’s a certain sense of fun about the story that’s being told.”

David Fury thinks that Buffy and Star Wars fans have a key quality in common. “I think that anybody who can open themselves up to a fantastic world with its own mythology can give a good amount of suspension of disbelief which is required for any real fantasy show.”

Unfortunately, he adds, not everyone is a fan. “There are people who will never get Star Wars, like there are people who will never get Buffy. They just don’t allow themselves to go there.”

“Star Wars is not only a pop culture reference point - and pop culture points are rife in the Buffy universe - but it’s a mythology reference point,” says Doug Petrie. “So if someone turns evil, of course we’re going to say they went to the dark side. There’s a joke we kept wanting to make for Xander: ‘I want to go to the dark side for a minute. You want me to pick up anything for you?’”

Waiting for Star Wars

If there was any doubt in our minds about the Buffy writers’ love of Star Wars - and there wasn’t - it would have vanished when Drew Goddard had an epiphany long after the question about his favorite character. “I’m changing my answer! I’m changing my answer right now. My favorite character is not Han. My favorite character is Palpatine. I love him! I forgot how much I love him. He’s so good. To me, he’s the thing that sticks out the most of Episodes I and II. I love him! His speech where he goes, ‘I love democracy. I love this council.’ I just love it!”

Later while chatting about scenes we hope to see in Episode III, he suddenly blurts out, “Oh, I can’t wait!”

“The way that people wait for Buffy episodes,” says David Fury, “we’re all waiting for the next Star Wars to come out.”

In fact, most of the Buffy writers seem as happy to talk about Star Wars as about their own show. As Drew Greenburg put it, “If you had told me when I was ever that someday I was going to get a phone call from a Star Wars magazine telling me that they wanted to talk to me, I would have been jumping up and down.”

Top 10 Stars Wars References in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

#10 Evil is So Inconvenient
Episode: 3.19 (season 3 episode 19)
Air Date: May 4 1999
Title: “Choices”
Screenplay: David Fury
As her friends discuss what they will do after graduation, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) complains that the trouble in Sunnydale keeps her from going away to college.
Buffy: “Faith’s turn to the dark side of the Force has pretty much put the proverbial kibosh on any away-school plans for me.”

#9 Duel of the Fakes
Episode: 6.13
Air Date: February 5, 2002
Title: “Dead Things”
Screenplay: Steven S. DeKnight
As Warren (Adam Busch) pursues Katrina out of his room, Andrew (Tom Lenk) and Jonathan (Danny Strong) fight with plastic lightsabers. This scene might have been inspired by Joss Whedon’s purchase of a lightsaber at the San Diego Comic-Con.

#8 Ozi-Wan Kenobi
Episode: 4.5
Air Date: October 26, 1999
Title: “Fear Itself”
Screenplay: David Fury
While Oz (Seth Green), the most Zen-like of the gang, checks out his sound equipment and finds something he doesn’t like, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) asks him what’s wrong.
Xander: “Sensing a disturbance in the Force, Master?”

#7 Yoda Man
Episode: 2.33
Air Date: September 29, 1997
Title: “School Hard”
Screenplay: David Greenwalt
In his first episode, smooth British vampire Spike (James Marsters) crashes Buffy’s parent-teacher night and confronts Angel (David Boreanaz). Here he seems to know at least a little something about Star Wars, but later we discover that he’s not a true fan (see #2) When we point out this seeming discrepancy, Drew Greenburg responds, “Yoda’s the classic icon. And [Spike] is 180 years old. He’s got a lot in that little brain of his. He can have access to everything at the every moment. He’s going to forget some things from time to time.” Sounds like he’s telling it “from a certain point of view…”
Spike (to Angel): “You were my sire, man… You were my Yoda!”

#6 Short People
Episode: 5.17
Air Date: April 17, 2001
Title: “Forever”
Screenplay: Marti Noxon
Ben (Charlie Weber) is the human host to Glory (Clare Kramer), an evil god bent on regaining her full powers. Since only one of them can be in their body at one time, Glory’s short, burnoosed minions act as messengers with a striking similarity to so ubiquitous Tatooine scavengers.
Ben: (exasperated) “Tell my sister I’m sick of running into her Jawa rejects.”

#5 You Sir, Are No Yoda
Episode: 4.1
Air Date: October 5, 1999
Title: “Freshmen”
Screenplay: Joss Whedon
In the season-four opener, Xander tries giving Buffy a Jedi pep talk but ends up trapped in his own recursive loop. He might have the right idea, but he’s not ready to cut his Padawan braid just yet.
Xander: “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to anger… No, wait… Fear leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side… Hold on…”

#4 These Aren’t the Nerds You’re Looking For
Episode: 6.4
Air Date: October 16, 2001
Title: “Flooded”
Screenplay: Jane Espensen & Douglas Petrie
An angry demon confronts Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew in their basement lair and demands the Slayer’s death. At first the boys refuse, but when the demon threatens their lives, Warren says, “Whoa, big guy. Let’s back things up a parsec.” Even after the trio vote not to give up the Slayer, Warren slips the demon Buffy’s address while pretending to give him the bad news. Jonathan and Andrew are impressed.
Jonathan: “How’d you make him do that?”
Andrew: “Yeah, what are you, some kind of Jedi?”
Warren: (shrugs) “The Force can sometimes have great power on the weak-minded.”
Andrew and Jonathan nod and go “Hmm” in awe.

#3 Death Star Technicians
Episode: 6.5
Air Date: October 23, 2001
Title: “Life Serial”
Screenplay: David Fury & Jane Espensen
In the opening scenes of this episode, the geek troika check out their new high-tech van and find Andrew painting a giant Death Star on the side of what is supposed to be an inconspicuous vehicle. Warren flips, yelling, “W-what the hell is that?”
Andrew: “Death Star, dude! Wicked, huh?”
Jonathan: (scornfully) “Uh, thermal exhaust port’s above the main port, numb-nuts.”
Andrew: “For your information, I’m using the Empire’s revised designs from Return of the Jedi.”
Jonathan: “That’s a flawed design!”
Later in the same episode, as the geeks are spying on Buffy from the shelter of the van, they fight over a pair of binoculars and set off the car horn - programmed with the Star Wars fanfare.

#2 Mint Condition
Episode: 6.9
Air Date: November 20, 2001
Title: “Smashed”
Screenplay: Drew Z. Greenburg
When Spike needs answers about the chip in his head that prevents him from hurting humans, he goes to the nerds for answers. They balk until Spike snatches up a Boba Fett action figure.
Spike: “Examine my chip, or else Mister… [examines label on the base] …Fett here is the first to die.”
Andrew: “That’s a limited-edition 1979 mint condition Boba Fett”
Warren: “You don’t want to hurt the Fett, ’cause man, you’re not coming back from that. You know, you don’t do that and walk away.”

#1 Sithter Act
Episode: 6.21
Air Date: May 21, 2002
Title: “Two to Go”
Screenplay: Douglas Petrie
In the Magic Box, Xander tries to calm Andrew and Jonathan, who rightfully fear the wrath of Willow (Alyson Hannigan) after the death of her girlfriend. Andrew is unimpressed with the offer of help.
Andrew: “And we’ve got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa-burgers, and not one of your bunch as the midi-chlorians to stop her!”