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Delving into Star Wars THE PHANTOM MENACE | 004
22 Plays14 days ago
Join Branwen and Seah as they deep dive into all things Star Wars! This season, we're on a rewatch of the OG Trilogy, Prequels, Sequels and maybe a cheeky spin-off! Follow along as we fly off exploring all the wonders and geekery of a Galaxy Far, Far Away, chatting nostalgia, worlds, lore, music, story, behind the scenes, and much more with each other and some very special guests.
In our fourth episode we celebrate "The Phantom Menace", the film that in 1999 brought some exciting new Star Wars into our cinemas. How does it feel for us to revisit the new beginning of the Skywalker Saga? Listen and find out!
Sisters of the Force is a weekly, UK-based, Star Wars podcast, produced with joy and love by Seah and Branwen.
Follow us on instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, or at www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Favorite Quotes and Musical Moments
00:00:15
Speaker
Hey Brahman. Yo. What is your favourite quote from The Phantom Menace? A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. Which Sheev, my favourite, Sheev Palpatine being an absolute creepy creep.
00:00:32
Speaker
He is a creepy creep in this, isn't he? He's so funny. Sia, what's your favourite quote from The Phantom Menace? ah I'm cheating. My favourite quote isn't a quote. It's just... I
00:00:48
Speaker
i love that. It's a musical quote. It's a musical quote. We can allow that. That's not a cheat. I mean, as regular listeners to the podcast will know, we are quite into our sound of music. So I think it's only It's and it followed quite swiftly by, whoa this is tense.
00:01:07
Speaker
Is that Anagin? Yeah. When does he say that? can't remember that. When he's in the cockpit of the fighter and he's yeah everything starts blowing up around him. He just goes, oh, he's dead. He's just playing a computer game.
Introduction to 'Sisters of the Force'
00:01:20
Speaker
Yeah. But he's sick like,
00:01:22
Speaker
You are listening to Sisters of the Force, a podcast where Sia and Branwen delve into Star Wars content. um This week, we are delving into The Phantom Menace, Episode 1. Oh my god. Are you confused by the episode numbers?
00:01:40
Speaker
Everyone is. It's the dawn of time. and So this is our episode four, but it's Star Wars episode one. Excellent.
Anticipation for The Phantom Menace Release
00:01:49
Speaker
And I can tell you the hype around this film coming out was some of the most hype I've ever experienced.
00:02:00
Speaker
I wanted to ask you about this, actually. It's wild. like We'd had Return of the Jedi, 1983, and then nothing. And then the role-playing game came out. Then some books started to come out, novels written by different authors. yeah ah We thought Star Wars was done as far as the screen went.
00:02:18
Speaker
All of a sudden, in the mid-90s, there's like rumours. Lucas is going back into Star Wars and everybody's like, what? um And then the gradual build, i think it was about two years of like knowing about it and then and then seeing trailers and like this is obviously pre-internet.
00:02:34
Speaker
Well, internet was there, but nobody was really using it. Nobody was using it yet. So all the hype was like actually in cinemas and on TV and stuff like that. Okay. and With merchandise and all that.
00:02:46
Speaker
like I've never been so excited going into a film. I met with my friends, my Star Wars friends, of which I suddenly seem to have loads because we we're all back in the Star Wars mix. Went to Marble Arch, Odeon, which I just really like as a cinema.
00:03:03
Speaker
And we were so hyped and, yeah, so amazing. what was the What was the feeling straight afterwards? Just ecstasy. Okay. Loved it. All with the stuff about, you know, because if you follow Star Wars and the fandom at all, you'll know.
00:03:18
Speaker
And I presume this is why you asked that question. Yeah. um Poor old Jar Jar got a lot of hate. Poor Jake Lloyd got an awful lot of hate, which I want to talk about later. ok There were some issues that people had with the film, but I don't remember them becoming evident right until at least after Attack of the Clones. like i think because they're you know a lot of the hate is directly linked to online behavior like social media. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, sure. And of course, in 1999 or whenever this, I think it was in 1999? 98, I think. 98. There wasn't, that didn't exist. yeah There were no social media platforms. So people as friend groups who loved Star Wars just were so happy to be getting
First Impressions of The Phantom Menace
00:03:58
Speaker
more Star Wars. Yeah, yeah.
00:03:59
Speaker
And so I really loved that time. Like we all came out of and we like, that was amazing. And it just so good to see. Like having only had, I'm sure we're going to talk about the lightsaber fights because that's one of the things that we're tracking. Oh yes, I've written that down. Yeah, we will talk in detail um later on in the show. Yeah, like seeing anybody other than Luke having a lightsaber fight for starters, and one of them being a young Obi-Wan and the calibre of lightsaber duelling in this film is yeah arguably the best we've ever had. It is great. So yeah, we came out of it all abuzz, I'm happy to say. Excellent. How about you? Like when did you first, did you see it I saw this one in the cinema.
00:04:41
Speaker
Woo! Yay! I was seven. Awesome. That perfect. That's the perfect age. Yeah. So this was made like, I don't remember the hype around it because I'm kind of too young for that, but i do remember going to the cinema to see it.
00:04:58
Speaker
And I remember it all being really, really exciting. And yeah, I was the perfect age for it, really. so yeah Yeah, yeah. Like bang in the middle of that. It was all incredibly exciting. But you were already into Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
00:05:13
Speaker
So I was already very interested and already had been into all of the prequels, but then...
The Phantom Menace in the Star Wars Narrative
00:05:20
Speaker
i don't I don't remember waiting for I just remember it coming out and going to see it. I don't remember a build-up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:05:28
Speaker
Did it kind of make sense? did you Could you put it together, like having seen the original trilogy? No, probably not. just It's just more Star Wars. It's just more Star Wars. I think I had like a vague understanding and obviously... like We've got Yoda, we meet 3PO, we've got R2-D2 and Obi-Wan and we know that all of them are in the other one. So I yeah could link it that way, but it wasn't.
00:05:54
Speaker
There's a lot of politics in this that I have blanked from my memory.
Political Themes in The Phantom Menace
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I don't think that side of it was made for seven-year-olds. I think this is i this why I love this one. Like this one has got a lot of politics. um I know they all all the prequels have a lot of politics, but this one feels like it has an awful lot of almost like tedious politics. yeah yeah But I love that George went there. You know, he did that. yeah I mean, he's showing you how fascism built. Like it's wild. And watching it
00:06:26
Speaker
Yesterday, as I did, like it feels very specific watching it now, like and talking about taxing the trade routes and all that. And you're thinking, hmm, this is all very... This is familiar. Very applicable to like what's going on. But you did all ah that for the adults. and I mean, even I think I was like 20-something, 25 whatever,
00:06:45
Speaker
something twenty five or whatever I don't remember the politics
Jake Lloyd's Performance as Anakin
00:06:49
Speaker
particularly. i think I was more interested in the pod racing and the lightsaber duels and seeing Obi-Wan Kenobi young and all of that kind of thing.
00:06:56
Speaker
And I think i was just so excited to see Ian McDiarmid playing Palpatine that it didn't... I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying or what Padme was saying or any of that stuff. yeah yeah um But it's great how it works on multiple layers levels for me. I really love the way it does that.
00:07:14
Speaker
I think I've probably seen this one... This will be one of the most the ones that I've seen most yeah just because it came out when I was seven and it was over and over again because yeah I was seven.
00:07:29
Speaker
so Did you get like the VHSs or Blu-rays or something? It would have been DVDs, I reckon. yeah Well, it would have been VHS to start with and then DVD a little bit later of all of them. But again, I don't remember. There was only bits of my life where we had a TV, so I don't remember what it was. But I do remember watching this one a lot and Attack of the Clones. I've seen that one loads of times.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah. Just for being the right age for it. And the other thing I noticed in this was when I was watching it, I watched it this morning in true Seer fashion. woke up really early, made a coffee and watched Phantom Menace before work. The best way to start the day. Yeah.
00:08:08
Speaker
But um I was watching it and going, oh, I remember a toy of this and a toy of this and a toy of this. I had so many toys from this film. Wow.
00:08:19
Speaker
That's so cool because I was going to say that when I... talked about my experience of watching it, the excitement was there.
Podracing Scene and Sound Design
00:08:25
Speaker
But i I guess I was living in London and I was working all hours in studios and what have you.
00:08:30
Speaker
I didn't connect with the merch side of it at all. I didn't buy any toys. I didn't know there were any to to buy. yeah um I've since restarted collecting action figures and like discovered that they're all there. yeah at the time, i didn't think I didn't even think of it, which I guess being a 25-year-old professional,
00:08:50
Speaker
um It's not something that you're likely to do, but I'm i'm really happy to hear that you got that. So what did you have? Oh my goodness. Okay, I need to tell you the story about my favourite one first, that I completely blanked from my memory until I was watching it.
00:09:04
Speaker
We had a little figure of Darth Maul. ah I don't know whether he belonged to me or Rai, potentially Rai, but we shared everything. And we had a little figure of Darth Maul and he had a magnet inside him so you could chop him in half. Oh my gosh.
00:09:18
Speaker
but That's wild. What kind of toy designer decided that that was like... And then obviously we lost his legs because seven and five. but like Yeah, yeah.
00:09:30
Speaker
That's going to lead nicely into one of our my questions for later. Well, okay, let's do it now. Let's do it now. Okay, you may I don't know whether you know this, but Maul survived.
00:09:41
Speaker
What? So that is a spoiler, sorry. just spoiled it. i think i that before but also how do you survive being chopped in half well he was a strong dark side 40s i mean oh my god okay i won't go into the full details of how he survived and because we'll see that when we eventually watch the clone wars probably um okay he pops up in quite a few different places in the aftermath and he is he's awesome like he's become a beloved yeah character but considering he appeared in like not very much of one film
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah. Obviously, he was cool. You know, he's like one of the coolest Sith characters we've ever seen. yeah And everyone was devastated that he didn't survive the film. Yeah. So, yeah, they retconned him dying. No, they retcon him, but they figured out a way of keeping him going. Keeping him going.
00:10:32
Speaker
And in fact, Disney are currently working on an animated series called Maul Shadow gosh something or other about his life in the underworld because he becomes like this amazing... underworld boss, like merging all of like Black Sun and you know Crimson Dawn and all this.
00:10:48
Speaker
like He's awesome. So the other thing that I hadn't remembered about him at all was that he speaks. I didn't know that he had any lines. And I spoke to ah very, very old friend of mine who today, after I'd watched it, who flat out went, he doesn't speak.
00:11:08
Speaker
Oh, wow. And I was like, he does speak. And we're like, oh, we're remembering this film all wrong. I mean, he doesn't have many. He's only got about three lines. Yeah, but I just remember him being silent. I didn't know he spoke. Yeah, i mean, so much of what he does, he's on his own or he's standing behind Palpatine or he's fighting. So he doesn't have a lot of dialogue, to be fair.
00:11:27
Speaker
And he said what he said. says he says with his body language and his like choreography and everything because I think Ray Park the guy who plays him don't know I'd have to fact check this but I think he does lots of the physical and stuff like that's partly why he got the job I think I may be wrong sure But in the ongoing world of Darth Maul, it's mostly animated so far.
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah. And it's a different actor, like a voice actor doing him. Yeah. But he takes on a whole other, like, he's amazing. Okay. He's so, like, lovable, hateable, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like, he's just awful, but he's also brilliant. Okay. He's a brilliant character, in
Darth Maul's Impact and Survival
00:12:10
Speaker
which is why they're now investing in a new animated series, yeah. Maul lore.
00:12:14
Speaker
We will get more and more. Cool. I'm sure we'll be able to. So then my question was, what happened to his legs? What happened to his legs? Because we know what happened to his upper body. So the other part, we don't know. So if you find your legs. We've genuinely lost his legs. I don't know.
00:12:31
Speaker
with We did lose the legs. And I remember there being a lot of upset about it. Yeah. That's pretty devastating for poor old. oh But on brand, you know. on brand, exactly. We did lose the legs. We also... so What else did we have? We had Naboo blaster.
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah. The ones with the grappling hooks. Love them. We had one of those. And we had lots of we had a couple of lightsabers. There were more lightsaber battles. Yeah. Although we quite soon found out that ah whoever's got Darth Maul's lightsaber tends to win.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. it's bigger it's bigger i've recently treated myself to a lightsaber for the first time since i was like four and you can get them which are double-ended or at least you can get them that can attach and become double-ended because his gets chopped in half doesn't it and then he just uses one half of it yeah yeah i think qui-gon does qui-gon cut it in half or i can't remember one of them does yeah yeah anyway that's Jumping us straight into the end. Love that. So have you got any favourite moments or should we do like we did last time and just go through it in chunks? Yeah.
00:13:44
Speaker
ah One of my contenders for favourite line was, there's always a bigger fish. And yeah I can trace back my irrational fear of dinosaurs to watching this in the cinema. Right. I was watching it and I was like,
00:13:59
Speaker
Oh, that's where that fear comes from. Okay, good. Yeah, because they do just keep getting bigger and bigger. It's genuinely terrifying. The one that draws that comment from Qui-Gon about there always being a bigger fish is like a dinosatyur dinosaur, as you It's dinosaur that's got hands, yeah. It's kind of a Godzilla. I think it's like Lucas is into his you know far eastern cinema, yeah um as we know you know, Hidden Fortress being the influence of New Hope and loads of that kind of That kind of Far Eastern film culture feeds into Star Wars and you know Godzilla is definitely yeah part of that.
00:14:33
Speaker
yeah And it just looks like a Godzilla. It doesn't even look like a Star Wars creature or a fish or anything. It's just literally a Godzilla eating a fish. But that whole sequence, I love that sequence. And I love the yeah i love the Gungan City just because it looks beautiful. it is beautiful.
00:14:50
Speaker
I do wonder what the Gungans do every day because they're just milling about. Yeah. You know, P Street. The ILM budget didn't go as far as like, you know, given the living accommodation. Yeah. yeah I absolutely adore the music when they first dive and they're following him
Senator Palpatine's Rise to Power
00:15:09
Speaker
swimming and then we come into view of the Gungan City domes and there's this kind of choral stuff and it's just like Neptune from Holst's The Planets, which yeah Neptune is obviously about the sea, um but the chords and the way Williams is using like the choir is very much in that vibe of Holst's choral arrangements. Yeah.
00:15:32
Speaker
It's very like mythical and yeah otherworldly, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. yeah That did go in one of my options for favourite musical moment, but nothing's going to quite beat. but Yeah. Yeah. but the thing i think I think it was going to be my, I mean, Jewel the Fates is ridiculously good. um But i'm i am going to, yeah, we'll jump to that then. Favourite musical moment. Yeah. As you brought that up. So yours is... but dignitylyively And the big choir going... It's so dramatic. It's so good. Have you ever sung that in a choir?
00:16:12
Speaker
I'd love to. I was thinking that this morning because I went to a big all groups choir rehearsal last night and I'm just like, I'd love to hear that many people sing this. Yeah, you have to persuade them to do it.
00:16:23
Speaker
I'd have to arrange it because we do everything acapella, so we don't have backing. I bet there's an acapella arrangement of it out there. It's quite popular among choirs, I think. as a Yeah, yeah.
00:16:34
Speaker
It would be fun. I'll put it forward. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, i think mine is that is the Gungan City. It's so goosebumps and weird. It is gorgeous.
00:16:45
Speaker
So yeah, this whole opening sequence is all on Naboo. like We get to see all these different bits of Naboo, which I love. I think ah something my mum said last night when we watched it, that i think a lot of people misunderstand how much in the way of practical sets and effects there were in this one. yeah like he Although, of course, there's a lot of CGI.
00:17:09
Speaker
um The whole kind of Gungan droid battle at the end is just like watching ah an animation. But yeah a lot of the other stuff is filmed on locations and built in
Lightsaber Battle Choreography
00:17:19
Speaker
spectacular sets. And Naboo is such an an ambitious planet yeah to to kind of create. but Yeah.
00:17:24
Speaker
They found that place in Italy, think it's near Milan or somewhere. that where it is? That's where all the external stuff is yeah yeah um for the most part. And then i guess the internal stuff, they probably built sets.
00:17:37
Speaker
Wow. Which is quite wild. Yeah. Actually, I yeah don't know, the kind of the corridors and the big room where the Naboo-like leadership are having their meeting, I think that probably is a real place in Italy. It's probably all part of the same yeah space that they went to.
00:17:55
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, it's a really interesting combination of like enhanced sets where you've got like a real place, but you just prop up some blue screens yeah and then computer animate the backgrounds, which is what goes on all the time now. you know People just use that technology. It's cool.
00:18:11
Speaker
That was one of my notes. ah This is not particular to just Naboo, but also when they go off to Coruscant as well. Yeah, which is an equally challenging. Equally challenging place. Yeah. And then they're all, i was it it was the chairs. I really like all the chairs. Yeah. The throne room in Naboo and the Jedi Council, they've all got personalized chairs.
00:18:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's like, these are great. i guessing the Jedi Council is a set probably with actual, but with blue screen windows probably. Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah. ah Yeah, I love all of the Coruscant, like in the later films when we see more of Palpatine's world, you know, his like um office and stuff.
00:18:49
Speaker
And they, yeah, they're definitely sets that were built with blue screen windows, which is amazing. So cool. That must be a fun job building all of those as well. Definitely. And just hanging out in them. Yeah. Yeah. We've got to talk about the battle droids at the beginning. like As soon as I saw a battle droid, I was reminded of that meme that I shared with you the other day, that their design is like the Geonosians who built them, like the insectoid Geonosians, who have got that kind of head shape The same head shape
Design of Battle Droids
00:19:17
Speaker
as the world. I'd never realized it. yeah Only the other day i so i saw a meme about it and was like, oh, wow, why did I not realise that?
00:19:24
Speaker
yeah um I assume that's intentional. Maybe um he designed the Geonosians later. I don't know which way round. Which way round it goes. I'll try and find out. I did write that they seem very flimsy.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, they're not very good. but They're not very robust as st droids go, are they? But to be fair, I think this is part of Palpatine. Like, everything we're seeing can be traced as like Palpatine's plan.
00:19:51
Speaker
Spoiler alert. So I have a feeling that he he didn't really care whether the droids were any good or not. Yeah. I mean, in later films, we see like the bigger one, the B2s, whatever they are, yeah which are a bit more but more robust.
00:20:07
Speaker
and then And there were the droidekas, which was another thing. You remember last time, or was it the time before, we were talking about um the Tuscan Raiders yeah and sand people having two names and their weapons having two names. And this thing of giving things local names. And and the proper names, yeah.
00:20:23
Speaker
Droidekas and... Destroyers, they're called. Destroyers, yeah. Obi calls them destroyers, but the Neimoidians call them droidekas, which is maybe from their language or whatever. Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker
But I love that detail. And they are awesome. They're so cool and very difficult to beat by the looks of it. So we had a game. and This comes from growing up in the countryside in West Wales, but we had a game where we try and be those.
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah. And it usually involved getting inside a car tire and with your arms and legs sticking out and then like rolling down the hill. Yeah. um Yeah, quite a dangerous game. Many injuries occurred.
00:21:03
Speaker
We used to do it all the time. But also it's quite fun to get inside tyres and roll downhill. But then like it was trying to perfect the roll and then standing up in the tyre, which I don't know if any of us ever managed. maybe yeah It was quite quite an ambitious manoeuvre to put off. Yeah.
00:21:20
Speaker
Maybe if any of my West Wales crew remembers doing that and remembers if any of us actually managed If only you had video phones. Well, we definitely didn't.
00:21:32
Speaker
But all of our most dangerous stunts happened in times when no one had video phones. Yeah, probably probably for the best. yeah I mean, the B1s are pretty pathetic, but yeah there is something incredibly satisfying about watching them being like sliced up by lightsabers.
00:21:51
Speaker
i I don't know if it's a sound design thing or a visual effects thing, but I mean, partly it's just the choreography of Qui-Gon and Obi. They're just doing this dance. Oh my God, they're incredible. It's so good. The first thing we see Obi-Wan Kenobi do is an incredible straddle kick. Yeah, yeah. He just jumps up and straddle kicks to him. Takes out a droid or two.
00:22:14
Speaker
And then, yeah, like the slicing. I mean, they lean lean into that as we go on and and the Clone Wars animation is full of of slicing slicing of v one we We discover their character and and the whole Roger Roger thing, which is yeah definitely like, it's so annoying, it's funny to me. yeah like and And the more you watch Clone Wars, the more you fall in love with with Roger Roger.
00:22:38
Speaker
say um In a kind of twisted way. There was something that made me laugh so hard when I realized there's a clip near the beginning um where Newt Gunray, the head Neimoidian, wants to order the battle droids to move in on the city or something. I can't remember what the order is.
00:22:59
Speaker
yeah And he does a little hologram call with the droid commander, like the one that's got the yellow head or whatever it is. And I'm like, why is he having a Zoom with a B1 battle droid? He's in the droid control ship, I think. can literally
Destruction of Astromech Droids
00:23:14
Speaker
control them. You can just go, press the button, and off you go. But he has a little chat with him face to face.
00:23:20
Speaker
Better do it so they really understand you're trying to get them to do. I didn't clock that at all. I only did this for the first time this time around. It just made me chuckle. You can just program them. You're literally pressing the buttons.
00:23:34
Speaker
You're on a droid control ship. yeah I'm not sure if he is on that ship, to be honest. But um yeah, I mean, it's it's quite funny. um I love the Nemoidids. They're so like they so out of their depth. yeah like They're just constantly making excuses.
00:23:53
Speaker
And imagining they're going to get away with it. And, oh, no, now there's two of them. You know, all of that stuff. They're so good. I did feel a bit sorry for them, ultimately, I think, just because they were absolute pawns. Yeah, they were just being completely used by...
00:24:09
Speaker
There's a little bit of a gap in my notes from basically from Incredible Straddle Kick from Obi-Wan right up until Darth Maul appears, full drama. Oh my God, yeah, the drama of Darth Maul appearing major.
00:24:23
Speaker
um In the meantime, there's... I wasn't sure I quite liked. I think this is intentional, looking back on it now and having okay like retrospectively thought about the Jedi.
00:24:35
Speaker
yeah I don't think I was a particularly a fan of how like they're quite racist. They are. I had that as well. The way they talk about Jar Jar in front of Jar Jar yeah is horrific.
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah. There is a lot of like thinly veiled racism in this film. Yeah, it's like kind of white supremacy or Jedi supremacy, I guess you could call it. yeah But as I say, I think that is slightly intentional because the whole...
00:25:04
Speaker
arc of these three films of the prequels is ultimately going to a place where the jedi have failed yeah especially when you look at the high republic stuff which has come out in book form over the last five years where they've gone into the history of the jedi well not the history but like the recent history of the jedi 200 years 100 years before and where the jedi were at that point yeah and they're doing some really interesting like prequel to the prequels if you like of um showing how the Jedi were just complacent and they were so smug and so they just thought they were above everybody else. yeah And by this point it's become so toxic. yeah
00:25:44
Speaker
and like Although I love Qui-Gon, he's like the best Jedi that you can ever have. He's so cool and Obi-Wan is brilliant in all his iterations, but they were just awful to Jar Jar. They were awful.
00:25:57
Speaker
And later on as well, when we meet the the rest of the council, they're just like... Yeah. They're just... Yeah, they're not nice. They're just not nice people at all. And they're very rude to to Anakin. They're quite abusive to him. They're rude to Qui-Gon. They're rude to Anakin. They're rude yes ruode in general.
00:26:13
Speaker
I mean, like Sam Jackson, we love him. He can get away with it in a way, but it is still pretty brutal yeah how they're being. But I think, i as I say, when we saw this the first time around, our only experience of Jedi is Luke Skywalker, who's very pure and very like ah idyllic as a Jedi. So we just assumed they were all going to be that and more. Yeah.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah. But they're actually terrible people. But that explains why Anakin, you know, it's another yeah reason why Anakin turned because he was being treated badly and yeah from day one.
00:26:46
Speaker
So kind of feeds into the story. Yeah, it's bit hard to watch sometimes, um but kind of interesting storytelling for all of that. Yeah. It's a bit of a flip. It's a complete flip.
00:26:57
Speaker
And like, obviously the last time, the only time we've seen Yoda before is with Luke. And then like, to have him in this context where he's yeah actually really quite harsh and horrible.
00:27:09
Speaker
like yeah Also, I didn't like, I don't like CGI Yoda. No, no, me neither. like puppet Yoda. But I'm glad in you know the late of it, like the sequels and so on, they've gone back to Puppet Yoda. And and I'm glad with Mandalorian that they've made you know the baby character yeah and Puppet as well. It's very much like part of Star Wars as we know and love it Better aesthetic.
00:27:32
Speaker
yeah i guess I guess he was, i mean, let's not forget Lucas was absolutely pioneering. Yes. um I think this is one of the first films to use digital cameras. They don't use it, mostly it's shot on 35mm like all films have been up till then, but there's a couple of shots apparently. There's one when they're in the hangar on Naboo where if you watch it with the knowledge, you can spot, oh yeah, that was shot on a digital camera. It's got different like white...
00:28:01
Speaker
like the way it handles white and stuff is different. And the depth of field is a bit different. on what I don't know how it really appears, but yeah. So, ah but he was like nothing. Nobody had made a film with a full, fully interacting CGI character like Jar Jar. Mm-hmm.
00:28:18
Speaker
And he's very in it as well, like the reactions yeah to him. and it's yeah It definitely doesn't feel like Roger Rabbit. It's like very tactile. you know yeah He comes into contact with things and people. and yeah that Like him playing with the pod racer when the mannequin's getting it going and things like that. And when Paul's the food.
00:28:40
Speaker
like I know Ahmed Best was on set. Yeah. You know, with the green thing on his head to sort of show where his eyes were and all that. um He was there physically, so they did do that. I mean, the mind boggles about how you... i How they do it, yeah.
00:28:53
Speaker
Like watching Gollum in Lord of the Rings. This is wizardry. Yeah. It is so good. um So considering it was ah pioneering film in that sense, it is incredible. Yeah.
00:29:08
Speaker
The character design as well. Yeah. There's so many, especially on Tatooine when they go back to Tatooine and you're like, yeah, I say back to, I only say back to, cause we've been there before, but yeah we haven't yet.
00:29:19
Speaker
ah yeah my brain that time like sorry
00:29:24
Speaker
Timelines. So the first time we go to Tatooine, um, Yeah, all of the all of the creatures and all the characters there yeah are just like wild some insane design that's got on there.
00:29:37
Speaker
Absolutely brilliant. It really is. I think it's mostly led by Doug Chang. who is He wasn't involved in the original trilogy, but he absolutely inherited the baton yeah and became the new designer. But they late leaned into Ralph McQuarrie, who did all the original original Star Wars designs.
00:29:55
Speaker
They did light lean into his style. Doug Chang really understands that style. yeah And Doug Chang is still there now. you know He's still designing like the stuff that's happening ah in current you know Disney Plus era.
00:30:07
Speaker
yeah But yeah, I'd written about down about the design of the ships and yeah the sets and everything, like the costumes of Naboo. yeah Like, Padme Alone Her Handmaidens is like incredible.
00:30:21
Speaker
um remember going, ah think it was about 2000... Not long after Phantom Menace, there was an exhibition in London in the Barbican or somewhere like that. And I went with some friends and my mum and we just sort of went around and there was like the pod racer. oh wow. You could see how they'd actually made it. and This is where I started realise, oh, wow, they actually built all this stuff. yeah There's a little miniature, a miniature of the Mos Espa like Boonta Eve like audience thing, which is like a model. It's not like you imagine it's this CGI kind of audience. And I mean, yes, the people in the audience have been CGI'd in a bit.
00:30:53
Speaker
But there was an actual physical miniature of it, which is so cool. and part of the exhibition was the Naboo costume stuff and like the attention to detail and the hair.
00:31:07
Speaker
and yeah ah It's just gorgeous. Incredible. mum was laughing last night because every time she comes on screen, she's wearing another another thing yeah another outrageously complex costume and hair design.
00:31:20
Speaker
Did you play the game of like, when is it Natalie Portman? Spot when it's Natalie Portman and Spot when it's Keira Knightley. I still can't. I can. i can You can. Yes. Right. I need to watch it with you. We have watched it together once, I think.
00:31:35
Speaker
Did we watch them in order or did we watch them... we did ah I think we did 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3. Did we do 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3? ah That means Phantom Menace was after lunch. Maybe I napped at that point. If I do that order, I often nap in Phantom Menace. Okay.
00:31:50
Speaker
And the day I went to see the whole thing, which I'll talk about when we do Revenge of the Sith, when I went to the cinema to watch all six, I was hallucinating because we had to get up so early to get into central London.
00:32:01
Speaker
i'm by... 2pm and I've been out in Leicester Square to buy some terrible junk food and there's like stormtroopers everywhere and an X-Wing and an orchestra and you're just like, what is going on? And then you come back in to watch Phantom Menace and and you're just like, I have no idea what's going on.
00:32:18
Speaker
I don't think I actually fell asleep, but did enter a state of delirium yeah at some point. I remember being coherent enough for the moment when Jar Jar, this was in Must have been 2005, I think, when Revenge of the Sith. Was it 2004? I can't remember. Terrible with the dates. But when Revenge of the Sith premiered, it was then. So Phantom Menace had been out for two or three or four years. yeah And as soon as Jar Jar appears on screen, the thousand people, there was literally a thousand seats in the cinema, yeah everybody went, boo! And then everyone went, yay!
00:32:54
Speaker
And laughed and cheered. It was so funny. Yeah. It was like, yeah, we love him, really. yeah we We feel like we've all got to be in like a pantomime villain kind way. Yeah, it was so good. and then everyone cheered waved their lightsabers in the air. It was so affirming. Like, I wish I'm at best to be able to see that.
00:33:12
Speaker
I know he's had like that since. Like, he went through hell after the film came out of... racist abuse and all sorts of horrific horrific stuff but he has been to celebration in the meantime Wars celebration and walked out to like standing ovation like he's been welcomed back in yeah and yeah anyway we're going way off topic we're way way off topic yeah So I loved, yeah, we'll move on to this Mos Espa thing. Because yeah that whole, seeing Tatooine again was so cool, but seeing like a different city and it's like, it is a bit like Mos Eisley, but it's it's not quite the same. Not quite, yeah.
00:33:48
Speaker
And we've got different species, a few different species around. Yeah. I particularly like Sebulba. Sebulba's great. The dog. I remember finding Sobolba quite scary when I was a kid. He's pretty, yeah, he's nasty. He's pretty intense, isn't he? He's very sly and like sneaky and and and not unpleasant to look at as well. Like walking around his hands is kind of a bit, almost a bit exorcist-ish, you know? It doesn't feel all right.
00:34:11
Speaker
A bit creepy. It's me being a bit xenophobic of aliens that they behave in different ways. um I'm going to give a shout out to Jake Lloyd because like I mentioned at the beginning, he received awful, well, he had a really awful experience after um and struggled with lots of mental health issues. And he's only just beginning to come out of that now.
00:34:33
Speaker
yeah But I've got to give it to him. His performance was like, I thought it was really outstanding considering he's having to play a character that everybody is going to have to root for in a particular way. Anakin Skywalker was a myth at this point that we'd all thought about so much for like nearly 20 years.
00:34:56
Speaker
um and He was also playing in blue screen rooms a lot yeah you know and Most of his interactions, well not most of them, but a good amount of his interactions are with either Watto Sebulba, who are not real people, or even Jar Physically there.
00:35:13
Speaker
Like, he did an incredible job. And not only that, he was speaking Hatties like a boss. Yeah. Like his pronunciation of Hatties, not that I'm an expert, but like, it sounds like the Hatties that we know yeah yeah from Jabba and Greedo and anybody else that we've heard speak it.
00:35:30
Speaker
And how old was he? He was nine. i thought No, I think he was ten. The character's nine, but he was ten when i made that. Yeah, I mean, the pressure of that. And he delivers like wild some really great performance moments like yeah ah in terms of like excitement and fear and like you know the the emotional bit with his mum. Yeah.
00:35:51
Speaker
When Pernilla August as his mum is... yeah is incredible anyway but like the scenes where they had together when he has to realize you know there's a thing that actors do the moment of realization which is like a key point in a scene where you understand what this scene is about yeah and the bit where he goes to tell his mom that he's going off with you know Qui-Gon and that he's freed as a yeah slave and everything and he's so excited and his timing when he run he goes away to pack and he stops and And like he gives himself so much time to like sit with that realisation, on a minute, and then he goes back to his mum and like really, really good. Yeah, yeah.
00:36:28
Speaker
and And knowing that Lucas is not the best director of actors, it's kind of fairly widely known. Ask Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, they'll tell you all about it. Yeah. um But yeah, considering that he was directing and he's having to direct a kid, that he's probably not... like Directing kids is is a very specific skill. Specific thing, yeah, for sure. So we can only kind of imagine that Jake Lloyd was just smashing out of the park on his own steam, because he really was.
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah. I did write... I wrote a list of things that annoy me in this film. Yeah. And Anakin is top on there, but also like by the end of the film, I was like...
00:37:07
Speaker
ah do you know what? I do like him. yeah But it was the same with everything on my list of things that annoyed me about this film. Yeah. Yeah. They were all incredibly annoying until you're like, ah, actually it's fine.
00:37:19
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I mean, I i have had times when I've watched it and I've, yeah, I found him to be a bit annoying. And that last bit, the last bit where he is he goes in and he's like accidentally blown up the droid control ship.
00:37:36
Speaker
and ah And then he starts bantering with R2 as that's all happening. And that is like, that's almost my favorite some of my favourite dialogue from the whole thing. yeah Because we're back to that kind of R2.
00:37:49
Speaker
r to and He's having in dialogue with with not even not only is it not a person, but it's not even speaking a language that we can... It's incredible. But it's so good and all of that. And that was one of my other favorite lines was, Qui-Gon told me to stay in this cockpit, so that's what I'm going to do.
00:38:07
Speaker
So was Qui-Gon, we're jumping around again. Yeah, we are. It's our podcast. We can do what we like. Was Qui-Gon intentionally telling him to fly the ship? Oh, interesting. i Because he knows he knows he's a badass light podracer.
00:38:24
Speaker
ah That feels like child endangerment. I don't like that. ah but We've already said that the Jedi were pretty. I mean, they go around collecting babies. you know They the child catchers. That's what they do.
00:38:36
Speaker
ah So I think he trusted Anakin. I mean, the fact that he made him do the Padre. you know we're doing that Yeah, I also have that written down like, hang on. yeah Talking about child endangerment, that is pretty hardcore.
00:38:47
Speaker
I think he knew like the force potential of of anekin and yeah whatever you threw Anakin and that would do. And that's how the Jedi training unfortunately goes. It's pretty brutal. it's not He says it's not an easy life. um I mean, he's lucky that he's already nine. you know He's had some of his life to be normal.
00:39:07
Speaker
Most Jedi were taken as babies and exploited as warriors. It's brutal. As you'll see, you watch the Clone Wars as well. It's pretty hardcore. Yeah. I don't know.
00:39:21
Speaker
I've never read it like that, but yeah, go on. I think part of the whole reason for the pod race, apart from to to make the the gamble, you know, with Watto, is giving Qui-Gon a chance to see Anakin action as a pilot.
00:39:39
Speaker
And then knowing that Naboo fighter pilots, there's not many of them. They're not very well trained. It's fairly a fairly peaceful planet up until this point. Yeah. They're not going to do it. It's a doomed plan. i need to watch it again and see when when they're in the woods with Boss Nass and they're talking about the plan um and Padme spells out the plan. And Qui-Gon says something like, it's a well-conceived plan.
00:40:05
Speaker
He says many Gungans may... lose their lives. That's pretty horrific. Classic Jedi. Just send them in Who cares? and They don't count. They're not Jedi.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah, that was pretty grim. i But I think, I can't remember what he says about the fighters' Because they kind of know it's like a doom to failure thing. Yeah. And maybe, i mean, Qui-Gon is very much in touch with the living force. He is in the moment more than most of the other Jedi. He doesn't project into the future or into the past like a lot of the Jedi do in a bad way.
00:40:39
Speaker
He's very true to the moment. And I think he saw Anakin go there and was like, well, Anakin's gone there because he's comfortable in a cockpit. That's what he does. you know yeah He's at his most zen when he's flying at 500 kilometers an hour yeah around Mos Espa.
00:40:55
Speaker
So yeah he saw him gravitate towards a ship and made a kind of like connection. Oh, of course. Yeah.
00:41:06
Speaker
He's going to save the day. okay i feel he says it with such intention he's all but winks at the camera yeah he's like you just stay there boy and do your thing i mean don't go anywhere yeah he doesn't say stay in this hangar he says in the cockpit and he knows r2 is in the astromech you know slot yeah okay oh well that changes things slightly Something to consider. I'm not saying it's definitely that. But it's a very like viable interpretation, I think. yeah
00:41:42
Speaker
and Speaking of R2, I want to A, say he's a badass. He's amazing. But also B, how brutal the scene when the astromechs go out. Oh my God, that was awful. and they're getting I was traumatised.
00:41:56
Speaker
picked up And they're screaming. Yeah. like ah Just wailing in terror as they get blasted off the ship into oblivion. It was horrible. was like, oh no, can't do R2 like this right at the beginning.
00:42:10
Speaker
What's happening? I was going to say um at some point, um which I think, you know, this is our podcast. We can do whatever we do we like. One of the best things about this film is the sound design and watching it yes last night on our surround sound. All right, show it up. The whole, sorry.
00:42:30
Speaker
The whole conversation, you need to come around. um The whole conversation about the pod race is another bit of this podcast altogether, I think. But generally the ships, like the opening scene when we see the Jedi, that kind of like ceramic colored Jedi craft fly into um free to the tra Trade Federation ship.
00:42:51
Speaker
um The sound of that is like, whoa, what is this? And it was it made me remember that in the Star Wars universe or in the Star Wars galaxy, the rules of physics are different.
Podracing Intensity and Engagement
00:43:02
Speaker
Yeah. um Because in our space, you can't hear anything. Yeah. But in Star Wars space, you can hear. And I say, yeah thank goodness for that. It would be so boring if you couldn't. you Just silence.
00:43:16
Speaker
But on the flip side, you also get to hear droids screaming. Yes. As they die. Which is unpleasant, yeah. Very unpleasant. We hate that. That's not good. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:29
Speaker
I was going to ask you, speaking of screaming, do you know where the Wilhelm scream is? No. Really? This is something, if you're new to the podcast, we track Wilhelm screams. Oh my goodness. And eye'd is it Jar Jar? No.
00:43:43
Speaker
no No, it's not one of the droids then. No. Okay, spill the beans. Where is the Wilhelm scream? It is the Naboo pilot who doesn't get in the fighter. Is that the one that Anakin ultimately... Anakin ends up taking his place. So as they're all jump going to their fighters, one of them gets shot.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yes. And he does the Wilhelm scream in the hangar. Amazing. Amazing. We're tracking it. We're tracking the Wilhelm screen. We need to get a little sound effect button of the Wilhelm screen. Yeah. My pew, pew, pew, kind of a button. Okay, you know what you're getting for Christmas. Yes. We're going to make one.
00:44:28
Speaker
Oh, my friend, this is this brings us back to pod racing, but yeah my friend JJ today reminded me of, ah we built a pod racer in my living room what was it?
00:44:41
Speaker
It was like a little talky book thing that had lots of the sound effects on it. yeah So we could make the sound effects of it, we built it out of junk, anything that we could find. ah Which how pod races are. Which is how pod races are built.
00:44:55
Speaker
yeah But sound design-wise, that is my favourite bit. It's just unbelievable. It's so It's about the same point of the film, actually. It reminds me of the T-Rex paddock in Jurassic Park, where sound design plays an equally important and incredible role. Because in both those scenes...
00:45:14
Speaker
there's no music. Yeah. And yeah like, there is a bit of music at the end of the pod race towards the end. But it doesn't come in until right at the end. Right at the end Most of it is just sound. And like the cuts, when it cuts to close-ups and then it cuts back to the stadium and then it cuts to somewhere out, you know, in in the canyon or whatever. Yeah.
00:45:33
Speaker
Like, the way the sound jumps is so intense. Yeah. And so fast. I've never watched it with the sound turned down, but I bet it's pretty lame. Yeah. Like...
00:45:43
Speaker
I can imagine it really not making the same kind of impact without sound. It is. All the kind of... vo fu fu That kind of like... That Sebulba's podracer makes that particular noise.
00:45:56
Speaker
Yeah. It's like a fast LFO. Yeah. They've all got their own kind of engine noise. Yeah. And as as they drop out and you end up only having the engine noises of Sebulba and Anakin at the end.
00:46:08
Speaker
And that's when the music comes in when all of the other podracers have gone... Yeah, it is brilliant. I mean, I'm i i'm not going to say that the the cinematography isn't incredible because it is. like I love all of the different camera angles and there's so much detail I noticed this time um of particularly what Anakin's doing, the way he's flying and what comes up on his like little screens and stuff. Like when his one side engine stops working and he has to like manually patch with a patch cable like to connect one to the other and then flip some switches.
00:46:38
Speaker
um And he's like leaning out and thick when he has to grab the the kind of binder thing that's broken free yeah and he uses like a wrench to get it or something. He's like, there's all this detail. And poor Jake Lloyd must have done day after day after day in that light in that car thing, um being shaken around. Yeah.
00:46:57
Speaker
I covered in soot and all sorts, you know. um But the way that whoever visualised that, I mean, I presume it was Lucas and whoever the cinematographer was, I should have checked that.
00:47:09
Speaker
They must have like worked together storyboarding it meticulously. yeah. yeah But it is like an absolute feat of everything. Like everything just comes together. Yeah. um I noticed that Ben Burt is one of the editors of the film. like he He moved a bit from sound into like video editing. yeah So he was one of the two editors, but I'm assuming he still did loads of the sound design as well. I couldn't find that information. um But the fact that he is a sound person yeah and the fact that he probably edited that scene, it's kind of got his fingerprints on it, I think, in terms of the way the sound makes such a difference to the to the way we perceive the scene. Yeah.
00:47:52
Speaker
It's really, really cool. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. And I still watch it like... clenching. ah yeah I know what happens. I've seen this film so many times. Yeah, it's the best car chase you've ever seen. yeah Kind of thing.
00:48:06
Speaker
So good. Slight geek moments. I'm going to do some little geeky Easter egg things. One of them is that one of the pod racers, I don't know what his name is, but he's a gran. And we were talking last week about Riyiz with the three eyes yeah yeah Yeah. His species name is Gran.
00:48:21
Speaker
G-R-A-N. Which is nothing like Riyiz. Yeah. They're also in the Senate, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some in the Senate and there's some, ah they meet a few on Tatooine. Well, not meet, but they're in the background. yeah they're in the background.
00:48:33
Speaker
So he's one of the pod racers. And earlier on in the film, Qui-Gon says that he's heard that pod racing on Malastare is um really good. can't remember he describes it.
00:48:45
Speaker
And Malastare is the planet where grands come from. from, okay. So like the attention to detail that one of the pod racers was a gran. yeah. presumably from the Malastare races, is super cool. Yeah.
00:48:57
Speaker
I like the implication as well that humans are not good. no good, yeah. Yeah. Like they don't have whatever it takes. mean, the fact that dugs walk on their hands is a big part of why Sir Bulba is so good pod racing. Yeah.
00:49:10
Speaker
I think like his limbs are almost like ambidextrous and yeah um very like prehensile. Yeah. Definitely. They've all got their own like specific... physical attributes some of which are an advantage and some maybe not so yeah so much um there's a moment when we watch a attack of the clones next week look out for it when they go to the bar oh yeah um and that guy tries to sell that um obi-wan uh anakin some death sticks or his own obi-wan on the background there's like a load of like sports screens okay and i've got a feeling one of them is pod racing from last year
00:49:45
Speaker
nice think I may be wrong. i kind of want it to be even if it isn't. Okay, second attention to detail, Aura Singh, who in the Star Wars trivia game that we have on a daily basis, which i don't think our listeners know much about yet.
00:50:00
Speaker
ah We'll have to tell them about that at We'll have to get into that. Yeah. That was a question quite recently in the trivia of like, which bounty hunter is it that, I can't remember what the question was, maybe who brought Boba Fett into the kind of underworld. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:50:16
Speaker
Aura Singh is that bounty hunter and she's like a white, bald, white-skinned, like pure white. And she is on the canyon wall with her rifle.
00:50:27
Speaker
Because I know we get the bit with the Tusken Raiders shooting at them. I think she's just watching Okay. Presumably when they made Phantom Menace, she didn't have a name. Yeah. Or they might have come up with a name or a thing and just like forgotten all about her.
00:50:40
Speaker
Yeah. But she's got a whole arc in the Clone Wars. Okay. Of like her as a bounty hunter training Boba Fett. It's really cool. Oh, wow. Okay. So she's important later.
00:50:50
Speaker
Yeah. Watch out for her next time you watch the pod racing. And Gardula the Hutt, who was mentioned as the original owners of Anakin and Shmi. She is the female Hutt that we see behind Jabba. Okay. had to Google that one. so did um'm I'm gradually finding out more about the Hutt. I've never really been down the rabbit hole of of the Hutt cartel. yeah But because the new Mandalorian and Grogu film that's coming out next May has got... Oh, my brain's blanking on his name. The actor from The Bear, is beloved, um Jeremy Allen White. yeah He is playing Jabba's son, I think it is, okay who so cool with Stinky in The Clone Wars.
00:51:39
Speaker
um I can't remember what his real name is as a hut. So there's a hut thing. And when we watch Book of Boba Fett, you'll see there's and some hut stuff in that as well with two other huts, like some hut twins yeah um that visit Tatooine. And...
00:51:53
Speaker
So I'm starting to like try piece together ah the hut. Piece together the hut thing. Yeah. Okay. There's a load of huts that we haven't really... Because it's easy to assume they're all like Jabba, but they're not. Some of them are more physical. The one that Jeremy Allen White's playing in The Mandalorian and Grogu is a fighter. Like he's a kind of pit fighter type guy. Yeah.
00:52:17
Speaker
hut so he's got big muscles no they're not all like lay about so i mean he's slugs around yeah um he's still like you know a gastropod or whatever yeah gastropo um yeah and then there's in the there's an amazing novel trilogy which i've probably mentioned already and if i haven't i will repeatedly mention yeah an amazing trilogy of books that's set after Return of the Jedi. It's like the in-between Return the Jedi and... Well, it's just the first few years after Return the Jedi. Yeah. And there's a sequence in... I think it's in the third book where some of the characters go on this like journey through the underworld of Jakku...
00:52:58
Speaker
Well, not the underworld, but literally under the ground of Jakku. Yeah. um With a hut called Nima nima the Hutt. Yeah. And Nima the Hutt is like Okay. More worm-like. Like a worm.
00:53:10
Speaker
Yeah. I've never seen any concept art for her, but like I think she's like very different from Jabba. Yeah. um She speaks with like a translator box rather having translator droid. Yeah. She speaks with this like little box thing that's attached to her.
00:53:27
Speaker
Mark Thompson, who reads the audiobooks, does a brilliant job of voicing the name the Hut. So yeah, Hut. Incredible. This is our first like connection with any other Hut than Jabba. Other Huts, yeah, yeah.
00:53:40
Speaker
Easy to assume it's just Jabba to start with. Yeah, Jabba the Hut. Jabba the Hut. Two Huts, yeah, otherwise they're more. Yeah, definitely the Hutts. I mean, we see a bit of them in the Clone Wars. and And I was talking about Maul early on. yeah He unites a lot of the underworld factions and the Hutt cartel is one of the part of the galactic underworld people. yeah Makes sense.
00:54:04
Speaker
I noticed ah Warwick Davis is just in the crowd the Podras as well. Yeah. He plays the character Weasel with a Z. Weasel. That's his name. yeah he's hanging out with Watto, isn't he? Yeah.
00:54:15
Speaker
part of Watto's gambling clique he's in every style I think he plays multiple characters in the Phantom Menace actually probably yeah in costume because he's so good at like physical acting as like in dressed up in latex or whatever yeah yeah every time I see him it just makes me smile and he always is smiling yeah he just he puts so much joy into whatever he's playing um I love Sebulba's like, poodle when he crashes. there's just like this And it reminded me, I think that's the first like proper swear. I mean, we've heard Jabba say poodle in Return the Jedi. Yeah. um I mean, it's not really a swear word, but I guess it's the sort of Star Wars equivalent of shit. It's kind of equivalent, yeah.
00:54:57
Speaker
Yeah. There are other Star Wars swear words that have become... Yeah. um In Rebels, Zeb uses carabast as a swear word. I mean, it's a kid's animated show, really. so it's not like an awful swear, but it's a good way of getting around it. I think I remember seeing in the role-playing game that it said something about Star We don't swear in the Star Wars galaxy, yeah but not using swears that we know. yeah There have been a few like English swears in The Mandalorian, I think. Not major ones. but Look out for them. Yeah, there was going to be one Andor season one.
00:55:35
Speaker
at the end and they filmed it yeah with with an f-bomb like it was literally f the empire was the end of this speech that um one of the characters gives and they changed it to fight the empire okay i think they had to do like a re-shoot or at least a re um adr you know like an audio yeah pick up um because i think you can't see the character's face when they say that line yeah yeah which and And there's a lot of debate about, well, it would have been quite good to have an F-bomb in that sense, because it's like a real resistance-y moment. Yeah.
00:56:10
Speaker
But equally, I'm quite glad that they changed it. They changed it, decided not to. And we'll keep carabassed. Mando dank ferric a lot. nobody's been able to give us a satisfactory and translation of what Dank Ferric is, it gets said a lot.
00:56:25
Speaker
yeah um I've noticed other characters saying it. And definitely Karabast has spread from Zeb. yeah Other characters in Rebels start saying it as you go through Rebels. I think i have a feeling it's appeared is going to appear in the future because Zeb's going to be in Ahsoka. Well, I think he's going to be in Mandalorian and Grogu. Okay.
00:56:44
Speaker
It feels a bit like bastard. but Yeah, it's a little bit like that. Yeah. I think bastard is one of the swear words that might be in Andor. Okay. I think. Yeah, which is, you know, borderline swear word kind of thing. Almost as swear word.
00:56:59
Speaker
I'm going to jump through it again. Yeah, we need to skip forwards. because We need to skip forwards. It's all good. Lightsaber battles. So I wanted to ask you your a question. What are the shields things? What's happening?
00:57:12
Speaker
ah What what are the things? Oh, the magnetic shields. Yeah, the shields that stop Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and Darth Maul getting to each other. so good. What are they?
00:57:24
Speaker
I can't remember. I did know. I mean, where they are, they're entering into the city's reactor chamber, yes um which is what powers the whole of Thied City. okay So it could be something to protect another area of the kind of The infrastructure of the and how the power distribution works. Maybe it's like some kind of safety thing. I don't know.
00:57:51
Speaker
i I seem to remember knowing, I think in the novelization, they might say, maybe I should listen to that again. Okay. Back to me on that one. Cool. I mean, it makes the whole thing incredibly dramatic and it is great. It's so good. great Like the way Qui-Gon kneels, I wrote down the fact that he kneels on one knee in like a meditative posture yeah when he's one thing away. Yeah.
00:58:14
Speaker
And poor Obi is just being driven bananas. Miles away, yeah. It's really awful. Qui-Gon doesn't get his lightsaber out until the second yeah it yeah he's able to get at Maul, whereas like both Maul and Obi-Wan,
00:58:30
Speaker
ah straight away as soon as any side movement oh my gosh the hype of that when when maul is pacing in front of obi-wan and like he obi-wan has just watched his beloved master like he's almost his father yeah be stabbed like by this monster I had that in my notes that that is one of the first times we get like a proper reaction to something happening because Obi-Wan reacts like how you'd expect.
00:58:57
Speaker
Like we've had Luke's absolutely terrible reaction to seeing his family decimated in ah New Hope. then like open Everybody grieves in different ways. Yeah.
00:59:09
Speaker
Yeah. Fair enough. But yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. As a visceral response, yeah it is it's way more likely. And then I did also have that Obi-Wan, couple of times, falls prey to the lack of safety rails. Yeah, definitely. Like, why is there not a safety rear rail around that pit, whatever it is, that exhaust port or something? Why is there a pit? Why is there not a rail around it? Yeah. but And there's all those walkways. um as As we'll see when we do Rebels, there's similar fight scenes in similar like reactor cores in multiple things. It happens again and again.
00:59:48
Speaker
Borrowing from the Phantom Menace, I'm sure. um But the way that they can just jump from walkway to walkway, yeah like up and down, is really cool. Yeah. yeah the The choreography is so phenomenal.
Intense Lightsaber Duel
01:00:00
Speaker
Even just like the little first moment where Qui-Gon first encounters Darth Maul when he comes flying down the the desert at and he has to fight him before. On Tatooine. Yeah, just for a moment before he leaps up onto the ship's ramp.
01:00:15
Speaker
yeah Just any time we see them fighting, it is definitely peak lightsaber. So good. Yeah. there There are some animated lightsaber fights which are pretty stunning. Yeah. But obviously it doesn't feel as it earned when it's like, you know, drawn you can do anything with characters. Yeah, yeah. If they're animated. The computer domain.
01:00:34
Speaker
But um yeah, it's so good. It's so elegant. It's got bits of all sorts of things in it. Yeah. I remember having, ah I think I spoke about this last time.
01:00:46
Speaker
I spoke about going to the the Dan Sheridan School of Star Wars, which is how I've got my knowledge, but he also had all the lightsabers. And that's where we we used to duel in their living room. And I distinctly remember having, there was a green, a blue, and the double-ended red lightsaber. And I remember being told to give the red lightsaber to Rai because it wasn't fair. come on. taller me and jess were taller than rye so you know he got to have the double-ended lightsaber but i remember like having battles that felt as epic as that but they wouldn't have been because again we would have been eight seven and six at that point so
01:01:29
Speaker
that's so funny i'd love to have seen i would to be able to leap back in time i know
01:01:35
Speaker
Can we talk about the politics a bit, that the whole yes Senator Palpatine? Yeah. Partly because I want to get in another little geeky Easter egg moment. Do it. Which is in in one of the Senate building scenes. Yeah. um I can't remember which one it is, but there's like a wider shot of various different species, is like you know the little Senate bubble things that they sit yeah And there's one which is um from Ryloth, which is where Twi'leks come from, you know with the with the head tails.
01:02:06
Speaker
And there's this rotund Twi'lek senator yeah who's there like with a couple of female Twi'leks behind him. yeah And I was like, I did the Leonardo DiCaprio thing where you point at the TV.
01:02:21
Speaker
And he is a guy called Orn Free Tar, who is in Clone Wars, and he's also in The Bad Batch, and we see a lot more of him. So he obviously stays as the senator for Ryloth for some time.
01:02:36
Speaker
Anyway, completely pointless trivia. LAUGHTER I did find that I, even at to the much older age of 32, didn't understand a lot of what they were saying. It's pretty deep, isn't I kind of disengaged a little bit. I think I get a little bit more each time I watch it.
01:02:55
Speaker
Yeah. Like you, that that I've never quite fully understood. I think... but it's Obviously, it's all Palpatine's design. He's so clever. like i I absolutely love him. I think this is my favorite film of him. yeah There's a line he says, it's it's almost phantomime, where Padme's decided to go back to Naboo.
01:03:15
Speaker
yeah And he's like, oh, don't go, Yes. ah Yeah, I noted that one down as well. So good. He just nails that right delivery. So funny. But yeah, I think what it is, is he he knows he has to overthrow Chancellor Valorum. He's got to become the Chancellor yeah for his plan to work. And he knows he can do it because he's already manipulating stuff all the time. yeah yeah So he sets up this massive trade dispute where Naboo happens to be on a trade route through the galaxy. Yeah. Because although you kind of imagine with hyperspace that you can just leap anywhere at any time, but there are sort of like set routes yeah that people follow through hyperspace just to avoid like hyperspace disasters. yeah Check out The High Republic for yeah for um horrific hyperspace disaster. No, it's not a spoiler. It's the very first thing that happens in the whole series.
01:04:06
Speaker
um So yeah, he knows that Naboo, which is his planet you know that he's from conveniently, is on this trade route. yeah So he somehow manipulates the Trade Federation who are in charge of like trade routes and the way that um commodities are shipped and sold across the galaxy.
01:04:26
Speaker
yeah um And so somehow, I don't know how he's done it, we don't ever get to really know. He's like created this situation where the Trade Federation are protesting yeah because the tariffs are so high.
01:04:37
Speaker
Yeah. that Sounds very familiar. um Between systems that it's preventing trade or it's causing damage to like keeping the trade flowing. yeah So their way of protesting is to blockade one of the key planets in the route, which is Naboo. And he knows because he's the senator from there, yeah that that will be sympathy for him and hell he's more likely to be able to replace. And he also knows that Naboo is run by a queen who is always young.
01:05:08
Speaker
Yeah. Like she's supposed to be 14 or something. it Yeah. It's like ridiculous. um Check out the trilogy of um queens. thiss They're all called Queen something book trilogy about Naboo. Okay.
01:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, so he knows that she is going to be a bit manipulatable. Right. And he's the senator of that planet. Yeah. So he'd be able to negotiate that whole situation and get her to she calls for a motion of like... um Oh, she he asks her to call for a vote of no confidence. No confidence, yeah, in Chancellor Valorum.
01:05:42
Speaker
So he sort of gets her to do that. Do that, yeah. knowing that then they've got to choose a new chancellor from all of the systems. And because Naboo is like this kind of, you know, struggling system at the time because of the trade thing, that he'll use that as an advantage to make sure he becomes chancellor, which he does.
01:05:59
Speaker
okay So the whole film... politically speaking, is his method of making sure he becomes Supreme Chancellor of the Galaxy. sure Because from that point, he can then infiltrate the Jedi yeah and get rid of them yeah and all of that stuff, which he's already sown those seeds. you know Yeah, he's already sown all Cipherdeus is already buying the clothes, or about to. you know It's all like happening around this time. So it's it's very much the beginning of him putting his plan into...
01:06:27
Speaker
but So basically all what's going on is just him manipulating this whole trade route dispute thing. Yeah. um Which is all a bit dry. Yeah. But when you put it in the context of his underhanded... Tactics.
01:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, he's awesome.
Palpatine's Manipulation and Influence
01:06:43
Speaker
Like the way he's doing it is absolutely cunning. And he's so well, I shall follow your career with great interest. yeah yeah He's so jovial. And I think he's already twigged that Anakin is like going to be his, his next apprentice, but like an apprentice down the line. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:07:03
Speaker
He's already spotted him. yeah I didn't quite get that then, because I i kind of thought they were using Naboo partly because, yeah, it's on the trade route, but also because they have a young queen who they could manipulate.
01:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's I think that's why the New Orleans... I didn't realise it was his... I knew he was the senator for there, but I didn't necessarily clog that it was his... but Yeah, well, he because he's manipulating the Trade Federation, like he's appearing to them as Sidious.
01:07:31
Speaker
Yeah. um Like, and scaring the living daylights out of them and sending his new apprentice. Yeah. Now there are two of them. yeah
01:07:40
Speaker
So he's using his Sidious-like persona. Alias, yeah. To do all of the like underhanded stuff yeah with the Trade Federation initially, but it's obviously going to lead on to the separatists and Dooku and Grievous and all of that in the next couple of films.
01:07:58
Speaker
Ah, okay. <unk> It's all a big scam. It's all a big scam. Have you got anything else for us? um Oh, yeah. My last little bit was and like, there's this kind of rush at the end where they've blown up the thing.
01:08:18
Speaker
Everything goes boom. Droids push them over. Great. They don't work anymore. so funny. It is funny. We have that whole sequence of Jar Jar being completely fegless but ending up like doing... He's the best general.
01:08:33
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Managing to do things. And then like there's a tiny little bit ah where Yoda's talking to Obi-Wan. Oh, yeah. And somewhere between all of that, Obi-Wan becomes a fully fledged Jedi.
01:08:50
Speaker
Yeah. um Yoda gets really, really cross, but then gives in to him really, really quickly. ah What is going on with his trials? Yeah. So what's happening? And also, why didn't Qui-Gon vanish? Why did he have a Vikring funeral?
01:09:05
Speaker
Two valid questions. So the Yoda stuff is, i think Yoda is giving him, ah he was nearly at the trials anyway. Right. And what he's just been through yeah fighting a Sith basically, yeah or a suspected Sith, is enough of a trial. I think that's the thing. And the council just say, you've done enough, boy. You can now be a Jedi Knight. Right. So he's been given like the moniker of Jedi Knight.
01:09:31
Speaker
Which does happen, I think, that Jedi, although the traditional thing is they go through their training as a Padawan, and when their master thinks they're ready, they send them to have their trials, which are just a series of tests to like you know find out how good they are as a Jedi. But I think in certain circumstances, you can not do the trials if you've done an amazing job. It's like giving them an honorary doctorate or whatever so kind of thing.
01:09:57
Speaker
Yoda is a bit unclear. like It's not the best bit of dialogue in the film. But Yoda says that he doesn't think Anakin should be trained. Yeah. like He's standing by his and Mace's earlier light judgment. And Ki-Adi-Mundi also was like, he's too young.
01:10:14
Speaker
He's too old. We can't train him. Yeah, sorry. Too old, yeah. um But in light of like the new ah events that's happened, for some reason, Jedi Council have changed their mind. Right. And they say that he can be trained.
01:10:29
Speaker
But Yoda says, I don't but i don't think it's right. But they say, yes. And I'm only one voice in many. like The Council, do you know they vote democratically for things
Jedi Training and Yoda's Dissent
01:10:40
Speaker
like that. Yeah.
01:10:41
Speaker
And I think that's what's happened is that the Council have had a vote and said, okay, yes, he can be trained. But Yoda still stands by his like no vote. His no, yeah. If that makes sense. Okay.
Qui-Gon's Unique Force Connection
01:10:52
Speaker
In terms of Qui-Gon, at the end of Revenge of the Sith, we see that sequence with Bale and Yoda and Obi-Wan. Yeah. And Yoda gives Obi-Wan the training to go.
01:11:04
Speaker
um Yoda says, I've recently been become in contact with Qui-Gon Jinn from beyond the the grave kind of thing. Yeah. And I think the idea is that Qui-Gon is a very special Jedi. like He's very different from all the other Jedi.
01:11:17
Speaker
yeah his ah We were talking about earlier the the living force. um And he's also like interested in the cosmic force. he's He's got a very good all-round understanding of the force. And in many ways, he's the purest of the Jedi that we see in the whole yeah of the films. In the whole film. Yeah,
Force Ghost Transformation
01:11:35
Speaker
yeah. Prequels to sequels. Sure. um So I think the idea is that he...
01:11:40
Speaker
from after death has figured this out, how to come back. So when he actually dies, i don't know if this is an actual thing, but the way I've always seen it, if you're going to become a false ghost and be able to communicate with living people again, you do the fade out, disappear thing. youvan Right, okay. So if...
01:12:00
Speaker
you're not, then you're not going to be able to do that. So technically, Qui-Gon shouldn't be able to be a Force ghost, except that he's somehow done it. yeah And then he teaches Obi-Wan and Yoda how to do it, and so they can both disappear and become Force ghosts.
01:12:17
Speaker
I think that's what's going Okay, so he becomes like the first Force ghost. Yeah, effectively, yes.
Obi-Wan's Training and Qui-Gon's Return
01:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, which we see at the end of Obi-Wan Kenobi in that very last scene. Because all through Obi-Wan Kenobi, the TV series, he's trying to reach out to Qui-Gon. And I think he's yeah he's doing that training that Yoda gave him.
01:12:36
Speaker
Like, while you're in isolation, I can't remember the line that Yoda says. while you're Yeah, he goes, while you're in isolation, go do Training I have for you, yeah. yeah And Obi-Wan's like, what? i just thought I was going on a beach holiday.
01:12:47
Speaker
um and And so throughout the Obi-Wan TV series, we see him calling out to Qui-Gon and yeah like asking for his guidance and then like being a bit disillusioned because it's not he's not getting that contact. It's not working. And then in the very, very last scene, spoiler alert for Obi-Wan Kenobi, he sees the false ghost of Qui-Gon.
01:13:05
Speaker
And I think... like And now is in a position to learn how to do that himself. And Yoda's learned how to do it.
Rarity of Jedi Force Ghosts
01:13:13
Speaker
And I don't know how what happens with Anakin, because Anakin does it. yes because then he does it as well. But we don't see
01:13:23
Speaker
Yeah. Do we see him vanish? We don't. I don't know if you do we do. No, we see him but we don't see him for very long after that. But he could be doing a Qui-Gon and like figuring it out because yeah he's a very, very good Jedi.
01:13:35
Speaker
He's very powerful as well, yeah. In that sense. Kind of makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So not all Jedis just fade out of existence and become Force ghosts. I don't think so. I don't think so.
01:13:46
Speaker
Right. Yeah, to be confirmed. Got it. Yeah.
Reflections on The Phantom Menace
01:13:51
Speaker
That's quite a good way to end. The fading out of Jedi as we fade into the distance of your podcast until next week. We can do that. I loved watching. I do love it.
01:14:05
Speaker
For a while, it wasn't one of my favorites, but the more I've watched it lately, the more it's become one of my favorites. And I've discovered that I know a lot of it much better than I thought I did. Yeah.
01:14:16
Speaker
i I enjoyed revisiting it. yeah There was like bits of it that I still just still don't understand. And I may never understand and I'm just going to be okay with that. It's a gradual curve. I think every time I watch it, i find out something wrong.
01:14:34
Speaker
I'm like, oh, yeah it's a good one that. There is the beginnings of some truly terrible dialogue in this one. Yeah. Yeah. That starts to sneak in, that sneaks in more to the next one. Definitely. yeah I think it's George Lucas, sadly, was on his own. He was writing it and directing it. And by this point, nobody was brave enough to tell him that's not good. Yeah.
01:14:55
Speaker
you know yeah know When very famous people get into that position where everyone's a yes person, as I think that's what's happening. A good film in terms of writing and directing is a collaborative thing and it needs yeah and people to bounce off and so on.
01:15:09
Speaker
and He didn't have any of that um for this whole trilogy really. yeah and It kind of shows, but like I think some of the reason why there's bits of Phantom Menace that are a bit difficult to figure out yeah is because of the dialogue writing.
01:15:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, sure. But equally, it's because it's very, very deep. You know, there's a lot in it. it's There's a lot going on. It's laying a lot of ground. And I think that lightsaber battle is never going to be iconic. Yeah,
Character Appreciation: Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan
01:15:34
Speaker
it's unbelievable. And the pod race is never not going to be iconic. It's true.
01:15:37
Speaker
I look forward to watching it just for those two things. And then I'm like happy to discover that there's lots of it I love. I like a lot of the emotional stuff with Anakin and his mum. I think that's really cool. And I love Qui-Gon.
01:15:49
Speaker
um Yeah, Qui-Gon's great. He's just really good.
01:15:54
Speaker
Obi-Wan's a bit of a wet blanket in this but he gets better. He's an annoying, like I don't know, he's supposed to be about 18, 19 I think. um Is he? Yeah, I think so. Aw, he's cute. But Ewan does a great job, like to be fair, of being that in the same way as Mike Campbell does a brilliant job of being whiny.
01:16:12
Speaker
Yeah. ah But yeah, Qui-Gon, Liam Neeson. I mean, some of it's Liam Neeson, some of it it just is a great character. He's a good character. It's like, here's what Jedi should be.
01:16:25
Speaker
And yeah now we're going to kill him. We're going kill him off just when you've got attached. Yeah.
Thoughts on Attack of the Clones
01:16:33
Speaker
Well, I can't wait to watch Attack of the Clones.
01:16:37
Speaker
i don't know how i feel about this next one. It's going to be interesting. Me too. Like on a scale of nine films, it's probably my least favourite, but it has got some outstandingly good bits, which I can't wait to see.
01:16:52
Speaker
So we'll we'll enjoy It's Star Wars. It's fun. We'll go for that. Yeah. There's so many cool things.
Podcast Outro and Engagement Invitation
01:17:02
Speaker
Can't wait. All right. We will see you next time. Thank you for listening to Sisters of the Force. Next time. Follow us on Instagram, sistersoftheforcepod, and like, yeah, send us some DMs.
01:17:13
Speaker
I won't be able to answer any of your questions, but Bram will.
01:17:18
Speaker
Any of your questions? I can answer some questions, but not... ah We'll tell you about the trivia one day. Yeah, we will. Maybe next week. Maybe next week. Maybe next week. Okay.
01:17:30
Speaker
We'll see you then. Cool. Bye for now. Bye.