Welcome back to the final installment of a summer interview with game designer Henry Audubon. It might be summer 2022, but who’s counting? We have finished a fabulously filling Indian feast. We are making our way out of the restaurant and back to the hotel and convention center for RageCon. And, as true geeks are want to do, we are talking about Star Wars.

Audubon: Are you still watching Star Wars stuff?

DTD: Yeah. It’s, for better or for worse, and I have I know I have a different viewpoint on all of it. Only because, you know my age and what I’ve seen and you know all that. But it feels like the new stuff has an agenda to make the prequels cool again. ’cause the prequels, they kind of flopped.

Audubon: Oh yeah.

DTD: You know, it’s… Most people felt they weren’t great.

Audubon: Yeah.

The mixture of the unbelievable anticipation for The Phantom Menace, with the incredible letdown once it came out was indescribable.

DTD: And some of that is, there was so much hype built up around them. But some of it’s just they weren’t that good. But yeah, most of the TV shows now have brought in elements of the prequels, in cool ways. They’re being successful, but they’re working to make the prequels cool.

Audubon: Yeah.

DTD: Which is weird.

Audubon: Well, I think that you know I… Well, let’s see, there is a young generation of Star Wars fans who do really connect with the prequels, and who watch the Clone Wars show and Rebels and all these things and…

Having seen Star Wars when I was 9, the prequels cooled my verve for new Star Wars. The big exception was the Genndy Tartakovsky‘s microseries of Clone Wars during 2003. I thouroughly enjoyed that, and when The Clone Wars came to television as a regular series, with different art, I was a bit disappointed.

DTD: Oh yeah, I know many of them. Clone Wars was pretty good. I really have a soft spot for animation. I love the way animation has moved over the years, and some of the stranger animated movies and shows. I really dig that. So, Clone Wars and Rebels were quite good, but for every clone wars, you’re going to have an Ewok Adventure. [laughs]

The Ewok Adventure was a television movie that came out in 1984. So say what you like about The Holiday Special… The Ewok Adventure and its sequel are far, far worse.

Audubon: Yeah. I was hearing some interviews with just Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen and just people from the prequels, coming back to work on the new Disney Plus shows. And talking about how dejected they were after the poor reception of the prequels, and just how it’s nice all this time later that they’ve got, you know, people who were really young kids who liked it at the time and..

DTD: The nostalgia has yeah outlived the merit. Is that a really horrible thing to say?

Audubon: Probably, but that’s okay. As long as it’s true.

DTD: Who knows?

Audubon: Yeah, so. But I think it’s gratifying for them to find people who… Really, they do like the prequels, whether for nostalgic reasons or whatever else. And so, I think for the actors who are sad about their reception. Like Ahmed Best, who yeah played Jar Jar. Like he got abused and harassed and yeah.

Ahmed Best received a nice return when he played Jedi Master Kelleran Beq in Season 3 of The Mandalorian.

DTD: He really did. And Jake…

Audubon: And Jake Lloyd got bullied so much, and yeah.

DTD: The poor guy…

Audubon: He quit acting.

DTD: Yeah. It seemed like those movies either made your career purely a Star Wars career, or destroyed you.

Audubon: Yeah.

DTD: I mean, It was so incredibly watched and nitpicked. It had such a huge audience, and expectation that there was no way it was not going to be either completely destructive or just, you know, earth-shattering. But I remember being beyond excited when the announcements came out that the prequels were going to actually happen.

Audubon: Yeah. I mean, I was absolutely just losing my mind when… that was 1999. I mean, yeah, I went opening day, to Phantom Menace, as a 12-year-old. And just “Ahhh”. And I remember liking certain aspects of it a lot as 12 year old. Like for example, you know when Darth Maul busts out his double lightsabers or whatever. As a kid that was just…

DTD: That was so cool!

I think the takehome of The Phantom Menace is that there were amazing scenes, and terrible scenes, and together they made a confusing, not so great movie.

Audubon: That was genuinely like really thrilling.

DTD: And the music fit it so well. It was so weird, but it worked.

Audubon:  Well, that’s one thing you have to hand to the prequels, that John Williams like crushed the score on those movies.

DTD: Absolutely. Sound design and music were out of this world.

Audubon:  Yes, yes.

DTD:  I mean, the Pod Race was remarkable to watch. And the sound design behind it just made it live.

I had the movie on Laser Disc and played the pod race over and over with the bass turned up. Wubwubwubwubwub…..

Audubon: Oh yeah.

DTD: And then you know there’s 400 goofy animated characters in the background, that kind of made it comic relief almost.

Audubon: Or the… In Episode 2, the sound of Jango Fett’s bomb, like Shockwave Bomb in space, which is such an interesting sound effect.

DTD: That’s the big one that the silence effect became really hot. Where there’s just dead silence at the beginning, and then the noise. And they did that again in the newest one. No, in Jedi – in The Last Jedi. With the ship flying through, they did a silence and then a “DOON!”

Audubon: That’s right. That’s right.

The flying of one starship into another through hyperspace is referred to as The Holdo Maneuver. Although it seems like just a ramming maneuver, canon is that it is incredibly difficult, and ultimately suicidal, to pull off.

DTD: And that worked so well.

Audubon: Anyways, to your point – the sound design, yeah is incredible. It was perfect.

DTD: Ben Burtt. He’s done everything.

Ben Burtt was the original sound editor for Star Wars, and among other things is responsible for the infamous and all pervasive Wilhelm Scream. The sound effect dates back to at least 1951, but was named and used as a popular trope by Burtt.

Audubon: Yeah, seriously. Oh my gosh. I love watching the old documentaries and behind the scenes stuff about like his process on the Star Wars movies…

DTD: Yeah.

Audubon: You know, talking about him making like baby noises and like tweaking them and coming up with the sound of R2.

DTD: I love it. Oh, hitting the cable, the taught cables for the lasers.

Burtt created the sound of laser fire by hitting the tought wire cables that held up and stabilized telephone poles. His father reports that the actual first recorded cable slam was in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.

Audubon: The blaster sounds. Yeah, or the I mean the lightsaber getting the kind of moving microphone effects. What is that called? Shoot, I’ve lost it. But anyways, just discovering all those sounds, is so fascinating. Oh! The TIE fighter sound is like… It’s like layered animal sounds, yeah.

The movement of the lightsaber was recorded by swinging a microphone around, taking advantage of the Doppler Effect. When lightsabers clashed, the sound came from rubbing dry ice on metal.

DTD: And he used biplanes for a lot of the engine sounds. Old engines. He would seek out these old two-stroke biplane engines and things. And not two-stroke, but the old clunky unique noise engines, and play with that noise.

Audubon: Gosh, what about the sound of Vader breathing!?

DTD: It’s just become part of the culture.

Audubon: It’s iconic! Vader breath. I mean that… Yeah, it’s so interesting to hear about the actors, like on set working on Star Wars, and how they had no clue like what this was going to be like in the end.

DTD: Oh yeah.

Audubon: And it’s just interesting to imagine like Darth Vader…

DTD: Most of the studios thought it would fail.

Audubon: Yeah, I’m sure. But you know, you got Darth Vader just played by David Prowse, in the suit. and he…

David Prowse was the body actor for Star Wars, and in some original test clips, you can hear Darth elucuting in a very refined British accent. James Earl Jones provided the iconic voice, but interestingly was not credited in the original Star Wars.

DTD: Who had a strange English accent, and he sounded very pomp.

Audubon: Exactly. It’s like, what is this thing?

DTD: I actually just… I saw Prowse in an old British movie recently. So, it’s actually Clockwork Orange. He’s in A Clockwork Orange. Have you seen that movie?

Audubon: No.

DTD: A Clockwork Orange. It’s a Stanley Kubrick. And it’s disturbing. It’s about violence, and impacts of violence – you know the story.

Audubon: I know some things about it, yeah.

DTD: Anyway, there’s a scene with an old gentleman who was beat up and is now in a wheelchair. So, he has a personal nurse, who’s a big… what was considered a bodybuilder in the 60’s. And that was David Prowse. That’s like wow! That’s Vader! [laughs] But yeah, there’s been so many different people who have played different aspects of the Vader character – the voice, the body, the movement, the this, or that.

Audubon: Right.

DTD: That’s fascinating. And then you get like Anthony Daniels, who was hired just to do body movement, and they were going to dub the voice. But it just worked so perfect they kept them.

Audubon: Yeah. So, it’s like this polite butler – nervous and it’s so cool.

DTD: I love that aspect.

Audubon: Yeah, and it’s interesting to… Are you interested at all in like Japanese film, and like the [Akira] Kurosawa, and like precursors to Star Wars?

DTD: Hidden Fortress!

It is pretty well known that Lucas took tremendous inspiration for Star Wars from Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 film Hidden Fortress. It is essentially about two peasants escorting a man and a woman into enemy territory. The woman is secretly a princess and the two peasants provide a type of Greek Chorus comic relief.

Audubon: Yeah, Hidden Fortress… a classic.

DTD: I love classic Kurosawa – Seven Samurai is one of my favorite movies. And then you go out into like Roshomon and things like that.

Audubon: Of course. Yojimbo.

DTD: Yeah, Yojimbo.

Akira Kurosawa is a master of early cinema. 1954’s Seven Samurai is an exceptional film which was remade as the Western film The Magnificent Seven in 1960. Rashomon in 1950 is still one of the best examples of a film exploring multiple characters’ very different telling of a single event. 1961’s Yojimbo is considered the gold standard of single hero samurai movies, and was remade into A Fistful of Dollars in 1964.

Audubon: Uhm, I told you my dad who showed me all these spaghetti Westerns – also showed me their precursors and samurai films, so we would watch Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars, and we’d watch Seven Samurai and Magnificent Seven.

DTD: That’s awesome. And then did you have that like… mind blowing moment when they’re doing Mandalorian, and it’s like – that TV series… like every one of those episodes was based on one of these classic Western based on Japanese tropes. Every one of ‘em was you know… Oh my God, this is Seven Samurai this is…

Audubon: Defend the Villiage. Yeah, yeah I know those.

DTD: And that was done so well.

Audubon: Totally. Yeah, I really love what they did with the Mandalorian.

DTD: And you saw Obi-Wan [Kenobi], right?

Audubon: I have seen some of Obi-Wan.

DTD: So, I won’t spoil anything, but there’s a moment where you realize that every episode is based on one of the movies. So the first episode of Obi Wan is structured on Phantom Menace, and the second episode is structured on Attack of the Clones, and the third episode is structured on uh the third one.

Audubon: Revenge of the Sith.

DTD: Yeah.

Audubon: Interesting, well actually that kind of renews my interest in, you know, going forward.

DTD: And it holds up, it’s 6 episodes long.

Audubon: Nice, that’s interesting.

DTD: So, that I found super fascinating. Wasn’t my idea, I had learned it from someone else. But yeah, I love old cinema. My father is kind of an OCD collector to a certain extent. So, at one point he had created a music compression system, and this was before MP3. And he was under Bell Laboratories, which was AT&T, which was Lucent. You know it was very, very corporate, so they wouldn’t let it get out, they wouldn’t let it release. But he was really into music, and this compression idea, and what can you do with music and how can you compress it, knowing how the ear works and all this stuff. So, he started collecting music and putting it into his system, compressed. And he started by deciding he wanted every song from 1958, ’cause that was his favorite year for music. And he did.

A bit of an obsessive collector mentality.

Audubon: He got every song?

DTD: And then he went out from there. So, he now has… he went until 1999, ’cause he felt that music died. And he felt no attachment to the music anymore.

Audubon: Wow.

DTD: But he went back to Edison wax cylinders, and he bought them and digitized them, and he got crazy stuff. And any list he could find anywhere – a catalog where they sold music in the 20’s, or billboard lists or anything. He got every song on every list he could find, obsessively. And he still… Then he decided he wanted to do that with movies, and so he’s obsessively been collecting movies. I think it’s just something for him to do.

Audubon: Oh.

DTD: And he does his own streaming systems, and he makes them stream over HTTP and all this stuff. And he plays his own games with them. He has his own server structure. He designed his own RAID system for his server structure, and he’s insane. But he watches almost all the movies that he grabs and collects. So, he tells me about these really weird films, and we watch some truly bizarre stuff out there. It’s fun.

Typical father-son things. Very Harry Chapin.

Audubon: That’s cool.

DTD: So yeah, he did bring to me a lot of a lot of weird movies, so… Which I’m glad about.

Audubon: Things like El Topo? [laugh]

Last episode we talked about El Topo, which is one of the craziest movies I have ever seen. Very art film bizarro.

DTD: That one… I went to El Topo. He knew about El Topo and he said don’t watch it. And then I watched it after Jodorowsky [Dune]. And I’m like, “Oh I have to see these things. Holy Mountain, it’s like… alright…” (both laugh) I don’t know what to make of that…

Audubon: You’re right.

DTD: Art films. Yeah, it’s if they’re sufficiently long or they’re sufficiently weird they’re an art film. Like Un Chien Andalou. Really weird stuff. Man…

Un Chien Andalou or The Andalusion Dog is a joint effort between Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel released in 1929. The 21 minute movie is a conglomeration of surrealist imagery, incomprehensible plot and shocking behavior. One of the most famous scenes has a man slice open a woman’s eye with a straight razor. Later, Buñuel claims the film had no planning and was simply made from edited clips randomly put together. But film schools love it.

Audubon: What do you think? Should we…?

DTD: Oh yeah, we probably should. I don’t know – did he take this and go, is it already done?

Audubon: Not sure, he might have missed it.

DTD:  No, I think I probably need to bring it up front.

Although this really seems like dialogue from Waiting for Godot, we are in actuality debating whether to leave the restaurant, now that the food is eaten and the bill paid.

Audubon: OK, I’m gonna use the restroom once more.

DTD: Not a worry at all.

DTD: (To cashier) Oh thanks very much, it was great.

Cashier: Thank you.

DTD: Thanks again.

Audubon: [laughs] I just can’t get over all the decoration.

As a reminder – the restaurant has a light up disco dance floor decorated with colorful flowers. Hard to miss.

DTD: Oh, you want the Chana [Masala]?

Audubon: You know Jonny [Pac] might enjoy some of this.

DTD: From what I could tell, he likes just about everything.

Audubon: Seems that way.

DTD: Which is awesome. Looks quite good. It had a nice spiciness to it.

Audubon: Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed it – thank you so much for the meal.

DTD: Oh, don’t even worry about it.

Audubon: That’s very, very generous. Do you think we got enough… our conversation has the possibility of something good?

DTD: Oh yeah yeah yeah! Honestly, it’s always enough. So, I just like talking. So there is no… There’s no restraints, there’s no limits, there’s no expectations, there’s nothing. It’s so free form and organic, it’s ridiculous.

Henry is such an educated conversationalist, I’m pretty sure I could talk with him all day and continue to learn fascinating new things every minute.

Audubon: Right.

DTD: So no, don’t even worry about that. I can kill it if you want.

Audubon: No, no, whatever you feel like doing. We can chat in the car. Wrap up if you want.

DTD: Sounds good to me. I can talk about Star Wars all day!

Audubon: [laughs] I know! Like, we talked about Star Wars for an hour…

DTD: You wanna talk about Star Wars?!? When’s your Star Wars game coming out?

Giggling like 12 year olds, we walked outside to the car just making laser and lightsaber noises.

Audubon: I told you I changed it into a Western. I went the opposite way, you know? Usually Westerns become Star Wars. Not this time.

Henry had designed Iron Horse originally based on The Phantom Menace, however it was rethemed as a western for 25th Century Games.

DTD: Well, there’s so many arguments out there that the original Star Wars is a western. Which I think is great – I’m all for it. Thank you again for going out it’s uh…

It’s times like these I am glad the audio recording of the interview is in my safe hands. I made long, gruesome old man noises as I maneuvered myself into the car. Henry very politely giggled quietly.

Audubon: It was a lot of fun.

DTD: Oh, absolutely. It’s a delightful surprise. I wasn’t anticipating it, and I’m so excited we did it. Now I’m sad you’re only in town for a limited time.

Audubon: I know, I know!

DTD: I would love to drag you out to California.

Audubon: I know, so how far is your spot from here?

DTD: About 3 hours.

Audubon: 3 hours… OK.

DTD: Well, depends which spot. So, it’s 3 hours to Sacramento and then another two to like Napa Valley.

I had wonderful plans to bring Henry to Napa Valley the following year, after RageCon 2023, but unfortunately they fell through in the wake of illness. I still owe Henry a stay.

Audubon: I see. So, you primarily live in Sacramento?

DTD: I think it’s about 50/50 at this point. I go back and forth, and it’s odd – the Sacramento place, I’m used to it. I’ve been there very long time, so you know, I feel like I don’t want to get rid of it.

Audubon: I see… But you enjoy being up in Napa more?

DTD: Napa… Yes, it’s new and shiny. And honestly, it’s a really, really big house, so it’s fun.

Audubon: Yeah, I imagine.

DTD: It’s goofy. There’s a whole story: So, I had owned a… trying to figure out what street they think I’m on…

The royal “they” refers to the gremlins determining my fate within the mind of the car.

Audubon: Huh.

DTD: We’re gonna explore… So, I had owned a veterinary hospital. And opportunities all lined up the perfect way, and it was time to sell. And I got a much better deal than I deserved. And they were treating me very well. It was all good, so I sold it. And then other investments and other things all looked really, really good. So I was sitting in my office with my wife. She was at one computer and I was at another, and I was reviewing numbers, ’cause it’s fun. And I said “You know, I don’t think I need to go searching for another job or, you know, substitute vet work or any of that. I think we’re good.” And she’s… she was happy she said, “Oh that’s great.” And I said “You know? Maybe we should buy a f***ing mansion.” And I giggled. And I hear her at her computer going tktktktktktktkk, then she stops and says “What about this one?”

Audubon: Okay! She’s into it.

DTD: I’m laughing my butt off. And I look over… “Alright, call them”. And so instantly we turn into 12-year-olds, You know “Hello I am serious adult buyer person. I would like to look at your Mansion House, please.” [laugh] And they wined us and dined us. It was insane, so this house was previously owned by a really eccentric person. Who was the owner of Shelby Cobra, if you know the whole story about the Shelbys and all that.

Audubon: I don’t know the story, I know the vehicle though.

DTD: Yeah, well, Carroll Shelby gave his company to this other guy when he passed. And this guy lived in the house I was living in. So, there was huge amounts of money, and we looked at the house and it was really cool. It had a lot of things that were really unique, and you know, it was one story only. But very large. And it was great for entertaining, which is what I wanted to make it – is he going into my lane!?

Addressing the drivers in Reno hell bent on corralling me into public parks.

Audubon: He’s got his signal on like he is, but maybe but that just was for the turn.

DTD: Okay. I wanted to make this house an entertainment house, to bring board game designers, to play games, to have all this fun.

Audubon: Wow. That’s amazing.

Looking ahead into the future, I have in fact made the house a board game convention house. Publishers are coming to the house for retreats, I have a large library of games and several gaming tables. It’s nearly what I was envisioning.

DTD: So we went and we looked at the house, and we were wined and dined and all this stuff. And at the end I threw an offer out that was insultingly low, ridiculously low.

Audubon: Uh huh…

DTD: And they entertained it! And they wanted to discuss it. And before I knew it, I had bought the house. I didn’t have any intention to buy this house. It just kind of happened…

Audubon: Wow.

DTD: And it’s… It was very lucky and everything lined up just the right way, but it’s a very fun place.

Audubon: Well, I’d love to come out, I mean it…

DTD: It’s an open invite. Anytime you want.

Audubon: I so appreciate that. It’s very nice of you to extend that offer.

DTD: There’s like 5 guest rooms, 8000 square feet, it’s more than I ever need. And I’ve got like 5 gaming tables at the house.

Audubon: Yeah…

DTD: A big old library and all that.

Audubon: Incredible.

DTD: And an enigma machine.

Audubon: I know. And hopefully by the time I get there, a Dune Moebius story board.

Well, the latest copy to go up for auction was sold for $2.9M. A bit out of my price range for a graphic novel. Not saying I didn’t consider it…

DTD:  I’ll tell you if an opportunity arises, if you ever hear…

Audubon: Yeah, I was about to say.

DTD: That there’s one for sale….

Audubon: I’ll message you.

DTD: Oh yeah. ’cause I would put up many digits for that.

I did message Henry. There were just too many digits.

Audubon: And I’ll fly out just to flip through it with you.

DTD: Just to see it.

Audubon: And we can fiddle with the enigma machine, too. [laugh] Those are two bits of history that are pretty exciting to me.

DTD: Ah, they’re cool. And I’ve got pinball machines.

Audubon: Nice.

DTD: And I’ve got a weird hot rod Model T that sometimes runs and sometimes doesn’t.

Audubon: Wow.

Currently doesn’t.

DTD: Wine cellar. So, if you like wine, it’s really… It’s the place to be.

Audubon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, gosh.

DTD: I mean, I had a spoiled childhood. And now, you know, I try to give back as much as I can.

Audubon: That’s cool of you to do. So do you hold like parties, or some sort of event. Do you do something every year, or you just do it whenever you feel like it, or what’s your…

DTD: Circumstances have kind of gotten in our way a lot. So obviously during pandemic, we didn’t do too much. And before pandemic, I had a flood in the house, and so I had construction for a while. So, the plan was we were having a convention called a ShilohCon, ’cause it’s on… the house is called Shiloh. And we had it every year at New Year’s. And Jonny went to one of those. And then we started doing summer Shiloh Cons. In general, I think 20 people stay at the house very comfortably. 30 a little less comfortably.

Audubon: [laughs] Right.

I have started doing retreats for board game publishers and designers at the house. So if you have an interesting group, drop me a line.

DTD: But uh… I’m messing up everything on this drive, I apologize.

Audubon: No worries.

I am pretty sure we were hopelessly lost in Reno. Trying to find our way back to the gorgeous Nugget Resort Hotel.

DTD: So, I try to do as much as I can. I’m actually having a summer ShilohCon in a couple weeks, I think? Mid-July. Having probably about 15-20 people. It’s our tester for the COVID era.

Audubon: Nice. Great!

DTD: And you know, we’re requiring full vaccination. And we’ve gotten a big pile of tests that people have accumulated. We’re going to test everybody.

Audubon: Cool.

DTD: So, we’re trying to do our due diligence on that, trying not to be irresponsible about it.

The summer ShilohCon went spectacularly well, and we had no complications from viral gate crashers.

We had at long last arrived back at the hotel. It was time to return to the real world of gaming conventions, Reno casinos, and other friends.

DTD: This was nuts, okay I’m gonna I’m gonna stop it.

Audubon: Great.

And so, my interview with Parks and Trails designer Henry Audubon came to a conclusion. And after nearly two years, I have managed to post it, hindered by a combination of plague, insanity, apathy, and inertial stall. I can’t thank Henry enough for his superhuman patience, waiting for a promised interview that was forever in coming. The worst part is that Henry and I have become good friends, and it pains me to have left this for so long. I am still looking forward to having more meals, more games, and more philosophical discussions with the puppetmaster of the cult of the great inky one.