Join Dr. David West Reynolds On His Hero’s Journey
Set out with Dr. David West Reynolds on an adventurous odyssey through ancient civilizations of East and West
- Text by Wendy Guo
- Photos Courtesy of Dr. David West Reynolds
Forty years ago, in a dimly lit museum room in Washington, D.C., a 10-year-old boy stood spellbound before a captivating display. Before him was one of the most iconic symbols of ancient Egypt—King Tutankhamun’s death mask. To the boy, the intricate craftsmanship of the ancient royal artwork was nothing short of dazzling. Shaped of glowing polished gold, inlaid with flawlessly cut lapis lazuli, the portrait of the youthful, regal, long-dead pharaoh radiated a mysterious compelling quality.
As the boy peered up, he felt an almost mystical sense of hidden meaning, of some grand design stretching across some 3,000 years. A question took overpowering hold of him: “How could such a glorious culture, with its astounding technical mastery and economic power, fall into ruin? And—will the same thing happen to us?”
At that moment something was sparked deep within the boy, filling him with awe, curiosity, and determination to seek an expansive perspective in years that lay ahead. That boy is now Dr. David West Reynolds, a renowned archaeologist, #1 bestselling author, and keynote speaker.
Reynolds has lived a remarkable life ranging widely across time and space: from excavating dinosaur fossils to creating the lightsaber crystals of the cinematic Jedi Knights; from rediscovering forgotten Star Wars filming locations in the desolate Sahara to chronicling the epochal Apollo moon landings with NASA.
Through it all he has drawn inspiration from the monomythical Hero’s Journey, an archetypal narrative present within the tales of East and West, from the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh to today’s performances of Shen Yun. This unconventional “21st century Renaissance man” demonstrates the magnificent potency to be found at the convergence of fiction and reality, ancient ruins and modern wonder, mythic heroes and living mentors.
Join us as we delve into the unusual journey of Dr. David West Reynolds.
The journey with Star Wars
It all began at the Falls of the Ohio, where rapids surge against a 400-million-year-old coral reef, revealing traces of prehistoric life. This is the place where Reynolds was born and raised, where his young mind puzzled over fossils concealed in the rocks, and where he learned invaluable life lessons from one close to his heart.
“‘Look closely,’ my mother taught me. ‘Even the rocks have a story to tell.’ She gave me a sense of wonder—and a love of adventure,” he recounts with a warm grin.
These early experiences sparked a lifelong passion for exploring the past, motivating Reynolds to earn dual degrees in paleontology and archaeology. His ardent curiosity has taken him on thrilling adventures in caves, mountains, and jungles. While tracing ancient Roman caravan routes from the Nile to the Red Sea, he learned archaeological skills that inspired him to embark on an extraordinary expedition in 1995—one that would change his life forever.
Reynolds’ bold quest was to set foot on Tatooine, home planet of Luke Skywalker in the 1977 film Star Wars. This Hero’s Journey story had powerfully inspired Reynolds as a child. But in those days before GPS, the filming sites had become lost. Not even Lucasfilm knew where they were anymore.
“Everyone told me that finding the Tatooine locations would be impossible,” he recalls. “But Star Wars told me that if you have the courage to believe in yourself, you can accomplish more than you or anyone else thought possible. I felt the truth in that myth, and it gave me courage.”
By making brilliant use of the tiniest details and learning the obscure tribal dialects of the local Berbers, Reynolds traced down one location after another, eventually leading him to far-flung expanses of desolate dunes and barren salt flats where there were no landmarks at all.
Despite all his hard efforts, the dunes’ location remained elusive until one day, when a tribal leader’s young son led him to a high dune, where the archaeologist looked down in pure wonder. Partially buried in the shifting sands were the bones of a giant fiberglass dinosaur skeleton—the same one he had seen in Star Wars in his youth.
His ultimate goal was the site of Luke Skywalker’s lonely homestead. After relentlessly following decades-old tire tracks left on the salt flats, Reynolds finally found himself standing one evening on the very crater ring where Luke had once stood, gazing at his planet’s twin suns. For Reynolds this quiet scene was the heart of Star Wars—devoid of space battle action but full of universal human yearning.
In that transcendent moment, in the very footprints of his hero, Reynolds felt some strange and profound change taking place. “I had stepped into a new existence. Anything was possible now.” Indeed, fate was about to deal the young archaeologist an unpredictable twist.
Reynolds returned to begin his teaching career, little realizing he had become the only person in the world who knew the precise locations of all the lost Tatooine sites—right when director George Lucas needed that knowledge to plan his upcoming Star Wars prequel trilogy. Reynolds got a momentous call from Lucasfilm. Soon he was unexpectedly offered a permanent position. Hollywood would be a maverick detour from academia, but Reynolds wanted to learn how to transmit inspiration, not just information. He joined the Star Wars creative team at the fabled Skywalker Ranch, where he would create wonders.
With George Lucas as his mentor, Reynolds learned the power of narrative—the influence of storytelling. He redesigned the official Star Wars website, and launched a feature that Steve Jobs hailed as “the biggest download event in internet history.” He expanded the Star Wars universe by writing seven new guidebooks that turned into international bestsellers. He even transformed the iconic Jedi lightsaber into a crystal-powered extension of a Jedi’s Force sensitivity. Where did such ingenious ideas come from?
“Star Wars isn’t just a fictional universe; it’s a mythical one,” Reynolds reveals. “In science fiction, you can make up anything and get into very esoteric problems, but mythology must deal with real human struggles. Myth, for me, is fiction used to carry truth, wisdom in an appealing wrapper. That was George’s vision for Star Wars. I understood that, so I drew on reality, myth, and history when developing new ideas for Star Wars. I think that’s why George approved nearly everything I proposed.”
The journey with Apollo
The standout success with Star Wars gained Reynolds a special opportunity to work with NASA and pen the definitive popular account of one of the most monumental events ever to take place in human history: the 1960s Apollo program that landed the first men on the moon.
It was a wondrous moment etched deep in the world’s collective memory: astronauts in white spacesuits making slow, dreamlike movements on the surface of the moon, as faraway static fizzed with Armstrong’s iconic words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Reynolds set out to illuminate Apollo with the storytelling expertise he had honed at Lucasfilm, determined to inspire a new generation with this historic milestone.
Approaching the project like an archaeologist, Reynolds sought to recreate many of the Apollo crew’s experiences. Only when he tried on spacesuit components did he realize how tough it was: “It felt like wearing football armour with a wetsuit on top, all strapped tightly under a loose white cover layer. It was incredibly awkward. A wrong move could damage your equipment, ruin your mission, or strand you in space. That’s the kind of pressure they’re under.”
Reynolds arranged to make his own descent from a lunar module, the spacecraft designed to land on the moon’s surface. “It was while backing down that ladder that I realized how limited your vision is inside the helmet—you can’t even see your feet. Neil Armstrong had to make a nearly four-foot jump to the surface. You’ve got to trust every single rung the engineers designed, every piece of the whole system, to get you back home.”
Today, in his office, Reynolds treasures a complimentary letter from Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. Gene Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, told Reynolds, “You know, I never met anyone who could talk like they’d been right there beside me—before you.”
At the end of this NASA project, Reynolds found himself deeply moved by the ‘Unbroken Chain’ of trust that pervaded Apollo. Even the engineer who secured the hatch on the Apollo spacecraft knew that his every action was critical, that the astronauts’ lives depended on his work. “Every technician knew ‘This $24 billion program is counting on me to turn every bolt correctly.’”
While most people marvel at Apollo as a triumph of scientific prowess, Reynolds reflects on a more human dimension: “It was the sense of responsibility, integrity, and self-sacrifice that made Apollo possible. People were not just focused on their individual jobs; they were united by a noble goal, committed to the mission as a whole. That’s what makes wonders possible.”
Reynolds compares the majesty of Apollo with monumental landmarks like the pyramids of Egypt, the cathedrals of Europe, and the Longmen and Yungang Grottoes in China. “These are works that reflect the power of inspiration. They show us that nothing is impossible when a culture comes together around a vision that expresses their finest values.”
The journey with Shen Yun
“Historically,” Reynolds says, “great cultures rendered their most valuable insights and beliefs entertaining through plays, dance, music, sculpture—all the arts at their command. They devoted their finest talents to dramatizing the stories they felt were most important. As entertainment has become focused on profit today, that tradition has largely been lost. So it felt miraculous to see it vibrantly alive in the performances of Shen Yun. If you want to see the great union of spectacle and significance today, I know of nothing that compares to Shen Yun.”
The groundbreaking show by Shen Yun Performing Arts brings to life the rich heritage of 5,000 years of Chinese culture through unprecedented artistry in dance, music, and costumes.
“This isn’t a show about selling tickets,” he says. “This is about creating something wonderful. For me, as an archaeologist who has worked in Hollywood, seeing Shen Yun’s blend of cutting-edge technology and traditional heritage was incredibly powerful. This is the same potent combination George Lucas used to create Star Wars. Shen Yun shows us this approach in its purest form.”
As the curtain rises, Shen Yun transports audiences to a forgotten culture through beautiful art. “Before my eyes, the stage was transformed by the colossal three-dimensional screen into vistas of majestic snowcapped peaks on the Tibetan Plateau, fierce battlefields veiled in smoke and dust, splendid heavenly corridors aglow with golden hues, whimsical dragon palaces hidden under the sea, and more.”
Set against the breathtaking backdrops came dancers dressed in ancient Chinese costumes that Reynolds had never encountered before, performing in a manner he had never witnessed. “Women glided as though drifting on clouds,” he says, “their flowing sleeves moving through the air like rippling water. Men leaped and spun with power and finesse, jumping with the valour of warriors or moving with the poise of learned scholars.”
Accompanied by a live symphony that blends the grandeur of Western orchestra with exotic Eastern melodies, the choreography, three-dimensional animations, vibrant costumes, and masterful movements all come together to create a truly immersive experience. “Shen Yun touches a deeper part in you,” Reynolds says. “You can feel it, even if you can’t quite describe it. This is what art is meant to be.”
As evident from the poignant perspective with which he views the accomplishment of Apollo, Reynolds possesses a rare gift for seeing deeper meanings beyond the surface. “What I saw in Shen Yun was an act of true courage,” he says. “In a dark time when speaking the truth is dangerous, when you witness these dancers and producers saying things that are dangerous to say, and you realize we’re seeing not a story about courage, we’re seeing what actual courage looks like.”
What Reynolds refers to here is the tragic portrayal of the persecution endured by Falun Dafa adherents in today’s China under the communist regime—made even more emotionally stirring by their compassion and perseverance. “When today’s historians look back at the Third Reich and ask Germans of that time, ‘How could you let this happen?’ I wonder, what are we doing in our own time? There are terrible things happening now, and yet we’re busy criticizing those who would have faced persecution for speaking out. Every purchase is a form of vote. Why don’t we care about what we’re supporting?”
To Reynolds, great works of art carry the power to hold truth, to inspire, and to transmit higher values, such as courage, nobility, integrity, and self-sacrifice. Just as stories of the Hero’s Journey offer modern readers insight into classic virtues, he notes that, “The mission of great art has always been to illuminate these timeless ideals. It’s exciting for me to see in Shen Yun many abandoned traditions come alive again, to witness the blending of values with beauty.”
The journey comes full circle
These very ideals resonate deeply in Reynolds’ own popular keynote program, “Live Your Hero’s Journey,” which champions the transformative power of myth in everyday life. Asked repeatedly to relate accounts of his adventures, Reynolds saw in the eager gaze of his audiences that his own story had taken on the power to inspire. He has lived a Hero’s Journey, and in sharing his experience as a speaker, he makes it possible for others to do the same.
An innovative museum exhibition honoured these themes this year, when the Floyd County Library Cultural Arts Center mounted Star Wars meets Indiana Jones: The Hero’s Journey of Dr. David West Reynolds. It’s a retrospective of Reynolds’ colourful career—with a deeper message.
“In this exhibition,” Reynolds explains, “visitors can be entertained by my dinosaur skeletons and NASA artifacts, my Indiana Jones bullwhip and original Star Wars movie props, but all of these are just symbols. I don’t want my audience to dig up dinosaurs, I want them to live their own dreams, do the thing that they felt they could never do. This exhibition has got my name in the title, but it is really about illuminating the path to your journey. The stories that speak to you can help you discover strength and purpose within you that you never knew you had—just as my myths and mentors taught me.”
“The real Hero’s Journey is not in some far-off glorious place,” reads one of his quotes on the museum walls. “It is here and now.”
“You must become the hero of your own story,” Reynolds tells us in one of the interview videos playing among the exhibits. “You must find the courage to believe that you can become the person you dream of being.”
On the last day of the exhibition, Reynolds came in to close things down and saw a sight that took him back 40 years: A 10-year-old boy stood spellbound before a captivating display—of the artifacts of Reynolds’ own adventurous, extraordinary life. What seed of inspiration was planted in that young mind?
“Great stories can be more than entertainment when they inspire us,” Reynolds concludes. “I lived the truth of the Luke Skywalker myth as told in Star Wars. I have seen that inspiration can take us anywhere.”
It’s this belief that catapults Reynolds into a life of wonder, a Hero’s Journey that is within the reach of every one of us. “In so many cases, wonderful things don’t happen only because people don’t believe it’s possible. I want you to see one door after another—and that they are open all around you.”
Inspired for a Beautiful Life
Related Articles
Wholesome Walnut Dessert
The ancient walnut is valued in Traditional Chinese Medicine as a “long-life nut”
Chef John-Vincent Troiano Explains Cooking as Selfless Hospitality
Chef John-Vincent Troiano synergizes culinary traditions from the East and West, giving Toronto’s uptown guests an entirely new dining experience.