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Delving into Star Wars REVENGE OF THE SITH with Jessika | 006
17 Plays2 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 sixth episode we're joined by our fabulous friend Jessika, as we celebrate "Revenge of the Sith", the monumental finale to the prequel trilogy. We have theories and details galore, and a couple of big, fascinating tangents!
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, and at www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Favorite Star Wars Lines and Impressions
00:00:15
Speaker
Hey Bramwen. Hi. What is your favourite line from Revenge of the Sith? Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?
00:00:29
Speaker
Why is your Palpatine impression really good? I don't know, but the bigger question is, why are all my favourite lines from Palpatine? All of your favourite lines from Palpatine? I don't think I've done a line that isn't him yet. I don't think you have either. I'm getting worried.
00:00:43
Speaker
Sia, have you got a favourite line from Revenge of the Sith? Yes, mine is. Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!
00:00:53
Speaker
Just because at that point you're like, come on, this is so obvious. Why we why is he even having to state this? Come on.
Introduction to Sisters of the Force Podcast
00:01:03
Speaker
LAUGHTER Love her ah You are listening to Sisters of the Force, where Sia and i talk about Star Wars and our favourite moments. And this week, we are lucky enough to have another amazing special guest.
00:01:19
Speaker
The wonderful Jessica. Hiya. Hi, welcome. Thank you for having me. ah You are more than welcome. Jessica, do you have a favourite line? i do. Go then.
00:01:32
Speaker
Once more Sith shall rule the galaxy. And we shall have peace.
00:01:42
Speaker
It's the code switching. That's the best line delivery of favourite film we've had yet. Oh, thank you. Yeah, impressions are my jam, so expect more.
00:01:54
Speaker
I'm here for that. I'm so here for that. Excellent. It's the code switching. I love, like, there's so many brilliant moments where Ian McDiarmid manages to to portray all the aspects, yeah not just a narrow dogmatic view.
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah. and in a line like from when he when he tells Anakin, do it, after he's saying, kill him, kill him now, in his Chancellor voice, to like, um there's no time, leave him, about Obi-Wan. When he turns around at the opera, leave us, to like the rest of them, when he's been electrocuting Mace and he's like, only I have the power to save the one you love, like the manipulation and it it's all that code switching.
00:02:38
Speaker
Like I know you two are...
Jessica's Star Wars Journey
00:02:40
Speaker
all about the audio design. And when I was making my notes for this, I was thinking about, because I've done a lot of performance, that the audio I listen to is is the the actor's delivery. And I think Revenge of the Sith, like, I know the phrase chewing the scenery gets used about movies that are where people play these big characters.
00:03:04
Speaker
But there's times when it's done so well. yeah yeah Like, Sia, your line that you chose is a perfect example. like that moment is just it's it's the moment obi-wan finally gives up yeah and it's the moment he stops holding back with his battling as well yeah yeah well you are lost and it's like you and oh amazing so good i just feel like that about you and anyway
00:03:31
Speaker
and So then Jessica, tell us about your like Star Wars connection. like What brought you to Star Wars? What is it that you love about it? I was listening to, because as we're recording this, the very first episode has gone out. I was listening to the first episode of Sisters in the Force.
00:03:46
Speaker
And I'm very similar to you, Branwyn. I don't remember a time. I'm not quite old enough to have seen it in the cinema. i was born in 84, so a year after Jedi. But I don't remember not having seen Star Wars.
00:03:59
Speaker
It was yeah that my mum had like either a taped-off TV or a VHS copy, and they were on at Christmas quite often. yeah My dad is... really funny guy and quite a wind-up merchant and I spent a lot of years of my childhood convinced Star Wars was a documentary because he told me that they couldn't legally put a long time ago in a galaxy far far away unless it was factual he said it's historical would have had to put once upon a time if it was just a fairy story wow so yeah thanks dad um
00:04:33
Speaker
Okay, so that makes Star Wars officially real. yeah Yeah, I mean, yeah, I i loved it from my childhood. I enjoyed Phantom Menace in the cinema and then went through a phase because I was 15 when it came out.
00:04:49
Speaker
yeah So I was like, oh, yeah, this is great, loads of fun. And then once I was rewatching, I went through a phase of being sick of Jar Jar. But I've gone over that now. I think everyone goes through that phase at some point. And I found a Attack of the Clones.
00:05:03
Speaker
I enjoyed some bits of it in the cinema, but I didn't have the same feeling that I really wanted. so I was nervous about Revenge of the Sith when it came along, and I remember seeing it in the cinema and being blown away.
00:05:16
Speaker
yeah like it Ever since then, until Rogue One came along, Empire and Revenge contested for my favourite out of the films.
Star Wars as War Allegory
00:05:28
Speaker
Because for me, I think...
00:05:30
Speaker
Star Wars has been since it first began an allegory of war, like in the real world, like George Lucas wrote the first one looking at Vietnam. And obviously there's all the parallels of stylistic choices for the Empire with the Second World War. Yeah.
00:05:46
Speaker
yeah Nazi look um and seeing, yeah, seeing the the darkest episodes, like when the heroes win, when it all comes together, when Luke's just the right guy in the right place at the right time. It's just a bit too, the older I've gotten, it's too schmaltzy, I guess. It's too like, yeah, but that's not that's not how, you know, Star Wars wars. Like, you know, they're supposed to be bleak and awful. And Revenge of Sith, for me, is the beginning of the bleak, awful period. yeah
00:06:25
Speaker
George, basically, you know, the the original trilogy, especially New Hope, it very much plays into, um you know the the the classic plot, the hero's journey? Yeah, yeah, we have that. So New Hope plays into it, and then the actual whole first trilogy is then an extended version of it, really. Yeah. Like Empire just becomes the low, middle, the difficult, central point.
00:06:46
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And then he had this challenge with the prequels, which like i I utterly agree that you know with a lot of people's view that if he'd got more help Maybe if he'd just done the writing and someone else directing, then some things would have gone better.
00:07:03
Speaker
But it's interesting what he tried to do. Like Phantom Menace almost plays into Voyage and Return out of the classic Greek plots. If you look at it as um more of Padme's story than anyone's, sort of plays into that. But it's a bit of a hot mess.
00:07:19
Speaker
um We do get Star Wars Fast and Furious, which is great. Star Wars Fast and Furious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is what we spent most of the time talking about, I think, when we did Phantom Faces. We just talked about the pod race. Pod race is great. Sebulba's pod noise. You'll like who you As someone who's a petrol head, that was so enjoyable in the cinema.
00:07:45
Speaker
Hang on a minute. You saw Revenge of the Sith in the cinema? Yeah. You're a bit older than I think you're literally bang in the middle of me and Bramwood, actually. Yeah, i was 20 when it came out in the cinema because was 21 later that year.
00:07:56
Speaker
Okay. And it it came out in May and yeah. What was it like seeing it in the cinema? Um... It hit everything I wanted it to hit. Like, I struggled with the writing in clones.
00:08:10
Speaker
Anakin needed to be more fleshed out. Like, when you look at what he went through, like hey um was growing up a slave, then um this guy comes along to offer a way out for him and his mom. And then all of a sudden, no, your mom can't come.
00:08:26
Speaker
yeah And then it's like, oh, the guy who's really, really believing in him and no one else seems to believe in him. Oh, he's dead. um And then there's this is other guy who's going to train you, who's going to be hypercritical of you the whole time. Oh, you're finally going to get a chance to go and get your mom. Oh, no, she's dead. yeah yeah like And this whole time people are going, you should be the best. You're the best there ever was, but everything you're doing is wrong.
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah. light yeah That didn't get fleshed out enough in the first two movies for me. And it's there if you you if you watch with an analytical eye. And there's a wonderful um content creator pair that I watch on YouTube called Cinema Therapy.
00:09:02
Speaker
And they're a therapist and a movie maker. They're really great.
Character Analysis and Psychology
00:09:08
Speaker
And they did an episode on Anakin, villain theory, talking about the therapist said he would diagnose Anakin with BPD, yeah borderline personality disorder, which is something that I've been diagnosed with.
00:09:18
Speaker
And watching it through that lens, watching Sith through that, Revenge of the Sith through that lens, that the Like i say, the the seeds are laid in what he's been through, if you actually look at what he's been through.
00:09:30
Speaker
But then when you watch Revenge of the Sith, the moments that people found unbelievable, like him switching on Obi-Wan, him switching on Padme, they are so believable when you think about he's never been able to trust anything.
00:09:45
Speaker
And these are the two people he trusts the most, along with Palpatine. Sure. And Palpatine, throughout... the whole trilogy has been telling him what he wants to hear. Yeah. Yeah. And as someone who has been manipulated by people doing that to me, it's quite harrowing to watch bits of Revenge of the Sith because oh one of the reasons I think it's the best prequel and one of the best of the whole the whole set of movies is there's not filler, there's not padding.
00:10:14
Speaker
No. But every scene, every moment from the first Oh, they never would have brought us back from the Outer Rim sieges unless the Chancellor had been kidnapped. Yeah. Yeah, that's because he wants you back.
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah. ah We will continue the war. or The Senate will vote to continue the war until Grievous is captured. So it's like ah everything, everything feeds into him separating Anakin from Obi-Wan and him convincing Anakin that he is the only one who can help him and the only one who can he can really trust. yeah He knows that the Jedi must start sensing the dark side no matter how much he's been cloaking it.
00:10:55
Speaker
So he knows that they're going to ask Anakin because of his closeness. Again, this is a thing that I can really identify with with my past trauma and mental landscape and neurodivergence.
00:11:08
Speaker
Palpatine knows that's coming so as soon as Obi-Wan one of the people that Anakin trusts asks him hey can you spy on this other person that you trust yeah if someone did that to me if one of my like really close friends i said to me hey can you find out stuff about my other really close friends I would freak the hell out yeah I would and I would be drawn to the other person inherently Yeah.
00:11:29
Speaker
And that, it it's it's grooming what Palpatine is doing throughout all three movies. I've always felt like he's contriving to get the Jedi to do that as well. Like it's part of Palpatine's plan because for exactly the reasons you're saying, that he knows it will be probably the last push push that will bring him to fully kind of connect to Palpatine. He basically positions himself as the only one left that he can trust, which is why in that moment where he says...
00:11:56
Speaker
um what was the old line, Sia? Anakin, the Chancellor is evil. From my point of view, the Jedi are evil. And like lots of people found that line ridiculous. How can you think the Jedi are evil? and it's like he's been yeah Because Palpatine's never asked him to do anything.
00:12:12
Speaker
yeah He begged him to save his life. When he looks like Mace is going to win. R.I.P. Mace. yeah Or maybe not. The rumours go forever. Mace rumour mill is strong. There's rumours of um Disney doing the the what if concept that they've done in Marvel. But for Star Wars and a what if Mace survived is a rumoured thing.
Personal Viewing Experiences and CGI Impact
00:12:41
Speaker
Okay. That's very interesting. Interesting. Okay. I was thinking about this when I was watching it because I was 12 when this came out, I think.
00:12:52
Speaker
yeah So I've got a slightly different experience of it in that i this is kind of the one that I was most disconnected from watching. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think because ah because of your age? yeah Yeah, I think partly because of my age, partly because of things that were going on for me just meant I was kind of drifting away from Star Wars at that point yeah of my life.
00:13:11
Speaker
And shout out to Theatre Muldan, if you know about Theatre Muldan. West Wales. It's a tiny, tiny little cinema in West Wales. And I remember being in there and watching it probably with, it would have been Gwen and my mum and like loving it because it's Star Wars, but also being like, oh, I'm struggling with this one more.
00:13:35
Speaker
And I've just had a really, really stupid realization, which you're going to laugh at me about because oh Jessica's just very rightly pointed out that it's Star Wars and I kind of disengage from the ones with too many wars. oh like, wait, the clue is in the name and I genuinely haven't connected that until then.
00:14:00
Speaker
but To be fair, I think a few episodes ago you were talking about why you love Star Wars. I think it might have been in the first episode. And you were saying, oh, it's like the kind of aesthetics of space and the stars. So you like that half. I like that bit of it. I'm less into the wars part.
00:14:19
Speaker
I like the stars bit.
00:14:22
Speaker
But yeah, I remember watching it and i remember being really affected by it as well and just kind of, and like coming away quite unnerved, yeah um but not being able to put a finger on it.
00:14:33
Speaker
And then I was too young, I think, really to kind of understand it from an adult perspective. it's It's quite dark. There's so many dark layers to it. And like Jessica was just saying, like the um momentum of it is pretty...
00:14:45
Speaker
The Jedi are relentless. yeah It's like it keeps going and going and going. as we yeah It's like each move that Palpatine makes on his chessboard is becoming more and more apparent as we get towards this flashpoint.
00:14:57
Speaker
yeah um Which, yeah, I can't imagine watching it at 12, actually. Yeah, that would be quite brutal. It was brutal. I was like 20, so I was quite... like a fairly nihilistic and self-destructive point of life. I was like, yeah, Order 66, let's go.
00:15:15
Speaker
like I'm sick of these arrogant idiots who know everything. Yeah. Oh, actually, this is quite tragic. I think it it caught people out as well a bit because like episodes one and two,
00:15:28
Speaker
were much more like comedic and light in a way. One, definitely. Yeah, definitely one. um There is all like the political intrigue we've been talking about, but a lot of kids, just that would just go for their heads and they yeah yeah they're there for the droid comedy and you know all of that stuff.
00:15:46
Speaker
But Revenge is very, it's much more serious. It's got a much more serious tone. It still manages to have droid comedy. It does still manage to have droid comedy. Did either of you, when you were watching for for your note-taking, notice ah there's a certain battle droid who I've labelled Sassle droid.
00:16:03
Speaker
sassel tro who is bringing the lightsabers to Grievous on the bridge with the invisible hand as he goes past Anakin and Tensler Palpatine hands the lightsabers Grievous does not acknowledge him and then he goes you're welcome to Grievous the guy's name contains something that implies serious harm he's just smashing him on his own shit I love that droid. I had lots of like notes around the droids because we this is something we've been tracking over this podcast series is like droid behavior. And I had in my notes that a lot of the battle droids have got so much sassier and they've got a lot more back chat since the first one.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but they've been in years of war. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have, yeah. I tell you what, watching, that's something about the Clone Wars, which, like, my relationship with battle droids has changed through watching the Clone Wars to the point where, like, I'm enjoying them way more now. The first time I saw Phantom Menace, I was an adult in inverted commas. Yeah. There were so many things about the battle droids that didn't resonate with me, compared to like the original trilogy and so on and so on. Maybe it's because they're CGI, I don't know. um
00:17:21
Speaker
But thought by this point, there are loads of Clone Wars episodes where we see loads of sass. Okay. It's like Sass overload. You know, it just becomes something that you love somehow. I've always loved them.
00:17:35
Speaker
I think the Star Wars droids, like you say, have got so much character. R2 and 3PO, it should, yeah like people name it the Skywalker saga. I would like to put an argument it should be the Palpatine saga, but it could be argued that it's the R2 and 3PO saga. okay They are consistently through all of it.
00:17:52
Speaker
I think one of the funniest moments in hindsight in Sith was is Bail Organa's have the protocol droids mind wiped. Oh, cackle. Yeah. He does. But then the the moment you come to years down the line when you think, wait, so r two was like present with Palpatine.
00:18:15
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Knew all these details, knows all along who Luke's dad is. yeah like Luke understands droid, so R2 could have told him any point. I think R2's behaviour is probably the most curious out of all of the droids, mostly because of those reasons that you're just yeah like breaking down. Because...
00:18:35
Speaker
Yeah, he does he doesn't know it all, but he just doesn't reveal. and And even into the sequel trilogy, that continues. yeah like yeah He's just holding on to information. just the biggest egomaniac? Well, I wonder if it's egomania, I wonder if it's...
00:18:50
Speaker
if it's He knows everyone will assume he's just a damn little asteroid. So like, true he's like, well, no one's asking me. So I can solve it all, but just let mess around. I'm just going to watch. Yeah, go on.
00:19:05
Speaker
You have to fly halfway across the galaxy to find out information that I've got sent here. ah you a Rebels watcher, Jessica? I watched virtually all of it and then watched virtually all of it again on a rewatch. I've never actually finished it, although I know the ending and of watched I've had to watch a recap because, yeah, and no spoilers. But yeah, I know i love Rebels. And yes, Chop is definitely a war criminal.
00:19:29
Speaker
But I love him. We've had that conversation. I'm just sort of living for like Chopper R2. Like they've never met as far as we know. have they? No, they must have done. they both They both would have been on Yavin, yeah.
00:19:41
Speaker
Oh. There are episodes of Rebels with R2 and 3PO and the Ghost Crew. I said to someone the other day, because I was discussing on my gaming Discord that I was coming on this podcast, and we were actually discussing the droids. And um I was saying, if you if I had to assemble a team, L337 from Solo,
00:19:59
Speaker
R2, Chop and K2SO from Andor are the, we need to go and f*** up the Empire s*** and if a war crime needs to be done, it needs to be done and we're going to have to deal with the matter. That's the crew for that. That's the droid, the droid boy band. Yeah, that's like, you know, stuff's going to get done and you're going to read about it later and think, oh Christ.
00:20:20
Speaker
I'm not sure about it. Yeah, that probably wasn't okay. Yeah, going back to the behavior of the droids, there's definitely like fear, which we know 3PO does, but seeing the battle droids, like their different expressions of fear were making me laugh quite a bit. It's not just them, R4, when his head is torn off. It'd be sad.
00:20:42
Speaker
It's like, no. But then he gets a funky new bronze one, which I really love. and Which, you know, super cool you know the line in A New Hope of, I don't recall owning a droid. Like, is it that he's going a bit senile?
00:20:56
Speaker
Or is it that he just, like, is horrible and doesn't class droids as people? Or is it that he's really, really equality-based and he would never own droid?
00:21:07
Speaker
Oh, I like that really. Yeah, I'm going to go with that one. I like that one. I feel the second one is a thing. Like re-watching Phantom Menace. um kind like Come on, Obi-Wan. Just like get your humanity together. He's very young in that one, though, isn't he? He is.
00:21:23
Speaker
But I guess he's got the two influences of individually Qui-Gon, his master, but also his like dedication to the Jedi. And those two things are quite different. And one of them would feed his like humanity equality vibe, Qui-Gon, and the other one would feed his like dismissal of droids, which would be the je Jedi one. And it does seem to come through in the odd line, like, um ah flying is for droids.
00:21:46
Speaker
There's times when he almost, it's not quite a derogatory tone, but it's definitely an othering tone that he has. A hundred percent, yeah. Turns out no one's perfect, not even the negotiator. Not even Obi-Wan.
00:22:01
Speaker
Although I would argue that he is, but that's just me. It's a perfect performance. I can't fault you. It's a perfect performance. Like, especially, like, all three movies are great and his show is great.
00:22:11
Speaker
But Revenge of the Sith is, yeah, everybody, no one phones in their performance in this movie. No. Like, even really small roles really nail what they're doing. But, yeah, the main characters are just, oh, I can't fault them.
00:22:26
Speaker
I'm glad you said that because I wrote that note down and then I sort of like pondered whether to to delete it because, yeah, it's a larger than life movie. yeah And like you were saying earlier on about Ian McDiarmid, if he just went 1% more, it would all collapse kind of thing. But I felt like they all took it to that level. Yeah.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah. Of like, how far can we go with the drama of this, but not quite take it into pantomime territory. yeah, sure. They absolutely nailed it. And absolutely borders on it at points. Like him just screeching, unlimited power when he's frying mouth. It's like... Where does that line even come from? There's nothing that prompts you to reply with unlimited power. But all right, yeah, cool. Fair enough. accept it. It's a pretty brave script writing. I mean, like, I hate you. You know, like, that's a bold line to write in a script by any standards.
00:23:19
Speaker
But, yeah, pulled it off on this one. i yeah I think... The bit for me that I still struggle with, week we we talked about this last time. I wrote in my notes, I like both Padme and Anakin separately, but I cannot stand them when they're on screen together.
00:23:37
Speaker
It makes me physically recoil. I really struggle. But that's George Lucas writing women. Yeah. that's like oh no it's because i'm so in love with you be ah we're back to this like weird i noticed it before in the in attack clones and i think we talked about a little bit but there's like this weird kind of shakespearean way that she speaks and she only speaks like that with anakin in kind of big declarations and i'm like yeah you don't talk like that But yeah, I think that's writing more than Natalie Portman. Yeah, it is writing, yeah.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's not the performance. The performance is she was working with something quite tricky. like I can't wait until we watch Clone Wars. I can't wait to see how you... How I respond to it and that. Yeah, because there's different writers in Clone Wars all the time, like... different people write episodes. um I mean, obviously there's like a story group or like a writing room or whatever, but we do see different aspects of all of these characters. and And I know lots of people like, well, it's not good enough to say, well, yes, but we've now got this animated series that explains it all. or like yeah But it is there. is there know It is a thing. It's part of the way Star Wars works. Yeah.
00:24:43
Speaker
yeah I was going to ask something earlier on Jessica you were talking about the idea of like the prequels and yeah like going back in time I was trying to remember that had that been done like were there any other instances where films have been made or trilogies or just individual films and then after the fact of that did somebody go back and write a prequel like
Prequels Narrative and Socio-political Parallels
00:25:02
Speaker
a it's it's quite an unusual storytelling i mean Star Wars has just become a mess of storytelling in that sense because we're jumping all over the place all the time No, everything's post that. Everything's post that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:14
Speaker
I can't think of... I mean i suppose Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, then he wrote The Lord of the Rings. Yeah, he did, which, yeah. And then did he write Silmarillion? Yeah, and come but Silmarillion isn't... It wasn't publish it wasn't published until after he passed away, was it? Because it's really a post-tune... It's not essentially... Like, Unfinished Tales is truly unfinished, but Silmarillion is...
00:25:40
Speaker
various stories that he hadn't put the connective tissue through. That he'd probably written along the process Frank Lord of And that's, again, like in a literary form, like um someone writing a prequel. I think some of the Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes stories aren't chronological, if I remember rightly.
00:26:01
Speaker
um And it had they had, oh, I can think of a prequel from the eighty s Young Indiana Jones, the TV show. oh It was dire. It was so bad. I maybe watched two episodes as a child and went, where's Harrison Ford? What is this?
00:26:16
Speaker
Where's Han Solo? My dad told me they're the same person. yeah i In this documentary as well. Well, there's a bit in, is it Raiders? yeah Where there's there's a hieroglyphics of 3PO and Arty. My dad pointed that out to me. He'd spotted that. So that was proof.
00:26:35
Speaker
That's proof that it's in the film. Yeah, that added in. And I'm like, okay, cool. Thanks, Ed. It got even worse when in the prequels they put ET aliens in the Senate. i was like, okay, so that one's real too now. Is everything Spielberg did is real? Have we got like Egyptian so something, not Egyptian, in Luthan's shop in Andor? Ooh, is there? There's raised- Yes, there is an Easter egg, isn't there? Yes, there's so many eggs in that shop. but So many eggs in that shop.
00:27:01
Speaker
Fuck. oh yeah oh I can't wait to re-hush that I love Andor We'll have to you back on five to give it back all theboard for People be clamouring to get on that one I mean, touching back on what I said earlier This is this movie begins like If you look at this the Skywalker saga like Obviously that we have some stuff that's outside of that time frame But that's where most Star Wars stories take take place And across that span, the darkest time is from Order 66 to the destruction of the first Death Star, yeah arguably the second, um the Emperor's period.
00:27:38
Speaker
And that period, like, watching the end of Revenge the Sith, when we were talking about Padme's lines being much better when Anakin's not there, one of the best lines in the film. and So this is how liberty dies, how liberty dies yeah with thunderous applause.
00:27:52
Speaker
um That was my second choice. No real world comparisons to be drawn at all right now. Who's building a ballroom? i did I did think about this as well. I'm going to briefly touch on the real world thing because there was the the attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed. Which made me think of, you know, bullets that probably didn't hit any ears. Bloody ears. Yeah, yeah. But it made me think, it's kind of like if you said to your mum, can we go out and get Palpatine? And she says, we have Palpatine at home.
00:28:25
Speaker
Like, Trump's like Teemu Palpatine.
00:28:31
Speaker
it's my view anyway it's just none of the style it's not yeah it's just dribbles rather than this says epic lines you know so is it okay if we just like briefly walk through the film i say briefly yeah i mean we can try just like walk through the film and talk about things because i love we did we originally didn't do that on this podcast but we've we've started kind of doing a little bit yeah like just dipping into the different eras of the film I had a question.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah. We start off with the rescue mission, which yeah I loved and was so thankful for by the middle when it starts getting really dark.
Plot Analysis and Key Moments
00:29:06
Speaker
My notes just start going, oh God, geez. Oh no.
00:29:11
Speaker
Like about halfway through. and I've just kind of kept going back to that. Oh, that rescue at the beginning was great. Like that whole, it's really is a amazing kind of light. It's so cinematic and ridiculous. It's one of the best space battle sequences in the whole franchise. yeah It's right up there. Yeah.
00:29:26
Speaker
but Of all times, like a venue cinema. yeah I do have a question, and both of you will probably be able to answer this, but General Grievous, what is he? My mum asked the same question when we rewatched it the other day.
00:29:39
Speaker
I'm going to let Bramwin answer because you've watched The Clone Wars and I've only seen bits of it. And I think it gets a lot better explained in there than my knowledge. don't know that it... As I remember, I've only watched it once, Clone Wars. um And as I remember, it's the same thing. It's just like, oh, he's there. He's just he's just a thing. Because he's not a droid. Well, he was he was a... Go on, you go. You're going to say exactly the same as me. He was kind of some A species. I can't remember. Yeah, alien species. Can't remember the name of.
00:30:04
Speaker
And... I don't know if he was already training to be a Sith acolyte or it was after he was injured and got given the, yeah, the cyborg body.
00:30:19
Speaker
He's like cyborg gone up to 11. Yeah, yeah. yeah i love I love all of his movements. I love the way that he like the way bow moves i love the way it clanks I love the way that he just transforms his himself. Yeah, he can turn into like that spidery that moves himself and, yeah, scuttling grievous. The voice actor as well. I'm not sure his name as well, but like, and what what a character.
00:30:42
Speaker
What a character. and Also in that opening sequence, almost in the opening sequence, we get a Wilhelm scream. Yeah, yeah, I spotted it. you know where it is? I'm terrible at spotting the Wilhelms.
00:30:55
Speaker
Is it one of the droids? There's a moment, and to be honest, this moment segues into, I have a small section of things that do annoy me about this film. There is a line where one of the, um oh, I've forgotten what race they are. Viceroy Gunray. What's their race? Nemoidians. Nemoidians, that's it.
00:31:11
Speaker
One of them says, all batteries fire. um And it annoys the hell out of me whenever that's in a movie because that's not how battles work. You don't tell your gun. It's like in Lord of the Rings when they go no knock, draw, and then they wait for the order to fire the arrow. That's not how archers work. They don't wait for an order. They just shoot the enemy.
00:31:32
Speaker
That's not how guns on the side of a battleship, or in this case, the size of the invisible hand, Grievous' ship, would work. They'd already be firing. But just after he says, oh, battery's fire, there's an explosion. And that's where I believe the Wilhelm is.
00:31:46
Speaker
no Is that right, Sarah? I think you i think you are right. Yeah. it's a It's one of the clones. Yeah. Because that's the ship with the Nimodian fires at the other ship. Yeah.
00:31:57
Speaker
And then you see the impact of the barrage. Of that. but ra yeah But there's there's one right at the start, which might be that one, but then there's one there's a much clearer one in a hat in the hangar as they're escaping. Oh.
00:32:10
Speaker
There's a much clearer one, and that's one of the clones as well. Oh, I didn't know that. So, yeah, there is there's two. But the first one's like quite a muffled one. You know remember when... in in the attack of the clones when i said that's not a real wilhelm scream yeah yeah it was kind of like that but that's the one i heard the slightly will help nuance yeah yeah and then the second one is the proper wilhelm scream and that's when they're when they're in the hangar trying to escape yeah um one of the clones gets blown up and he does it So yeah, that was also right at the beginning. Well, we're talking about sound. I'm going to give a shout out. First shout out for John Williams on the Grievous theme.
00:32:47
Speaker
yeah but um boom but but but They use it all the time in the audio books for all different things in Star Wars.
General Grievous and Continuity Challenges
00:32:54
Speaker
And like it just keeps coming back. It just keeps giving. It's so brutal and nasty and evil.
00:33:00
Speaker
it is a good theme. His laugh is just incredible. Yeah. It's great, isn't Do you know about the hilariousness of his line Anakin? Oh, about the height? Yeah. your I expected someone with your reputation to be a little older. then when they did the Clone Wars, they then had to come up with all these contrived reasons reasons why for this four or five year war, Anakin and Grievous have never encountered each other. The writers were like, we hate this line so much.
00:33:33
Speaker
It's written in stone. I have it? You can't go for it. I loved um the opening shot of Palpatine as they enter his room and it's like that amazing Jedi callback.
Palpatine's Manipulation Techniques
00:33:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:45
Speaker
Spins in the chair. He's coughed. but he's yeah there. He's in control. The coughs are a ah decoration. yeah looks so sinister all the way through this film. But I'm just like...
00:33:55
Speaker
Except when he's looking at Anakin in the caring mentor look. yeah yeah now that you've said it, now I feel like i can't take looking at him. the the opera's the best example. He's looking down at him and he' hes said about general grievous and
00:34:14
Speaker
join us. And then he turns and he goes, leave us, leave us. yeah And just the face, everything, just in one, he goes, well, join me, well, join us. to leave And it's perfect, the perfect example yeah of him putting the Anakin, I love Anakin, I'm this kindly dad for you, yeah face on. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
00:34:34
Speaker
Have you read the novelisation? listened to it a few years ago, but I want to re-listen to it. And there's that new version that's just come out. um I read it years back and I really enjoy how much it fleshes out yeah things that... I agree with what you were saying before about Star Wars. There's an argument to be made a film you shouldn't have to do anything extra the film should be able to deliver it all but that's not always possible within the frame of people's attention span and with how movies made and movies are marketed and think that people expect Star Wars to tell the story on the nose I think a lot of things that are outlined completely in the expanded whether it's the novelisation or the Clone Wars or whatever I think they are there in the film
00:35:18
Speaker
yeah You just have to notice them. you have to notice it, yeah. Well, we had this with The Phantom Menace as well, didn't we? Because there was like one line that explained something that I was really confused about and I've just missed it yeah every single time for years.
00:35:30
Speaker
There is a lot of detail. I think it's is' the detail that draws a lot of us to Star Wars. We're kind of treasure hunting always, not just for Easter eggs, but for just like deeper explanations about things that we feel are a thing. But it's like a nice confirmation when you're like, oh, yeah, this really is why such and such happens.
00:35:49
Speaker
yeah And we all love speculating as well. There's definitely a speculation thing among Star Wars fans. this that This, going back to this rescue at the beginning, my other favourite line was there, but i didn't I didn't go for in the end. But again, it's Obi-Wan. I'm just in love with him. I love him.
00:36:07
Speaker
But it's the it's the whole, wait a minute, how did this happen? We're smarter than this. i have this written down. It's directly after one of my favourite Grievous lines, which I can't explain why it's favourite line of, activate ratios. I don't know why I find that so funny, but then the reaction. Ray Shields, wait a minute, we're smarter than this. How did this happen?
00:36:27
Speaker
It's so funny. And there's a line he says earlier than that when is when the buzz droids are attacking. He says, my cockpit's foggy. And there's something about that that makes me die laughing every time. He's just like, he's so calm all the time. I also noted there's like, there's a thing that he does.
00:36:44
Speaker
Obi-Wan's very stoic a lot of the time. And he doesn't necessarily like, he's not always incredibly stoic, but he's got this thing, his little tail is he like holds his hand across his face.
Character Traits and Nostalgia
00:36:54
Speaker
Yeah. Whenever he's like, doesn't want to kind of show that he's having trouble. Yeah. and Yeah. It's like his coping mechanism. coping that Yeah. He just hides his face and it happens like three times. must learn to hide your emotions, my young apprentice. Put your hand on your face. Just put your hand on your face.
00:37:11
Speaker
I cannot learn this from Master Yoda because he has so small hands. yeah i' quite a big face. yeah yeah Shout out to Obi-Wan's Jedi skills. that i absolutely freak out when we see, like I mean, I've forgotten how much Anakin shoots up his ship. like He totally trashes Obi-Wan's ship and he crash lands in the hangar. And before the ship has stopped, he's out the cockpit, like hitting battle droids.
00:37:39
Speaker
His somersaults out yeah and the and the ship is still coming to a stop and he's like, swish, swish, swish. and the battle droids are so cool like it made me feel like oh I love the Jedi I do love the Jedi that was a great moment I remember feeling that in the cinema but I remember bizarrely the moment that its we swoop in on the battle and they're flying along and it's just a couple of minutes in the bit that made me when I was first in the cinema go oh was the callback. Obi-Wan radios Oddball, the clone who's flying the Ark fighter, and Oddball responds, but then it's the clone behind, unnamed clone, behind Oddball, who says, set S-foils to attack position. Oh. Because those arc fighters the predecessor of the X-Wing.
00:38:26
Speaker
They still have the little opening. And they go like that. And it's just hearing that line in the cinema when I've grown up hearing that line repeatedly on TV. But I went to see the special editions in the 90s in the cinema. So I'd seen, you know, I had seen them in the cinema. But there was something about that callback that that was where I was so straight away edge of the seat. I'm invested. yeah But yeah, the Jedi flip.
00:38:48
Speaker
I noticed doing these notes, because I'm i'm a big fan of R2, as we've mentioned, but I'm especially a big fan of his sound effects and the scream. yeah We get six R2 screams in the first 24 minutes of this movie. There are no more for the other.
00:39:07
Speaker
Sorry. No, no, no, that's great, because you've given me an opportunity to do my impression now. on, do it, do it, do it. Woo! Oh, look at the waveform.
00:39:19
Speaker
I'd just like to point out that although we're in separate rooms, me and Jessica are in the same house and I got that twice. I got that through the wall as well. Amazing. amazing Yeah, it it makes me so happy. ah The same as you see, a couple of them are not full R2 Screams. No. same but There's not a full Wilhelm.
00:39:36
Speaker
But yeah, I love him. I love him so much. I love the whole sequence at the start of this film. with the the escape, with him being on the other end of Anakin and Obi-Wan, being increasingly like pissy in different ways about him working an elevator yeah while he's having to fight off two super battle droids. They are called that, so yeah. We had this the other day, we were talking in voice note form and i was like, are they actually called Super Battle Droids? Are they B2 Yeah, something like that. yeah The big Super Battle Droids. Chromie grey ones.
00:40:12
Speaker
It's another one of those things we've been spotting loads of instances where things in Star Wars have two names, like which gives a better sense of like a kind of lived in world, I guess. yeah Some people call them like by their slang name almost. Yeah. Well, like the clones call them all clankers.
00:40:28
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And droidacers and... Destroyers. Destroyers, that's it. Destroyers, yeah. I'd say the wrong droid name, terrible. It's all right, we're well-versed in those ones now.
00:40:40
Speaker
We sound like we're just pulling that out the air, but we've actually repeated it. so yeah I think it's interesting, you mentioned the lived-in, like it feels lived-in and it feels real. I think Revenge of the Sith is...
00:40:53
Speaker
It's a movie that it's at its core, one of its main themes, like it doesn't follow really any of the traditional story plots. Yeah, yeah. Like it's kind of a tragedy, I guess.
00:41:05
Speaker
But yeah it doesn't follow that because normally the villains rise and subsequent power isn't like so focal. The tragedy is about the fallen hero or the failure. yeah But a lot of the themes in this movie, or the main theme of this movie for me, is about change and transformation.
00:41:20
Speaker
It's about we're going from the status quo of the first two to we need to be ready for ah new hope. And I think one of the best ways this is done is through the visual language of the film. Star Wars is really good.
00:41:31
Speaker
And the prequels do this in such an amazing way. Like we just mentioned how the X-Wing and the arc fighter have that evolution that's easy to see. Like trooper armor is another great example. If you look at Clone Wars through Sith into where they lose their individuality, but the armor is advancing into different types. um The walkers.
00:41:54
Speaker
The walkers, yeah. The the the speeder bikes. yeah um the The Jedi fighter. And then the little fighters near the end credits. And then the TIE fighter. There's a line there.
00:42:05
Speaker
yeah We talked about Grievous, Grievous to Vader. Yeah, yeah. Barely any human, mostly droid. Yeah. Mostly human bits cyborg. Bits of droid, yeah, sure. The super battle droid to K2SO is another one, but I think one of the best examples is the Star Destroyers.
00:42:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I want to include Grievous' ship in this because at the start you have the the the Republic Star Destroyers, the ones with the big red sections and they've got cutout and like a rear wing. It's not a full triangle.
00:42:33
Speaker
And Grievous' ship has that middle point. And when it's crashing, that's the weak point that breaks. ba In the post-credits, the pre-credits scene when we see the Death Star and Tarkin and everyone, those same Star Destroyers from the start are now all grey.
00:42:47
Speaker
So we've got one stage of the evolution. But by the time we're at a New Hope, they're purely triangular. A purely triangular ship doesn't have the same weak point. Because Palpatine's playing every side.
00:42:59
Speaker
yeah It's able to feed Cynar fleet systems or whoever it is that builds yeah um the the actual Star Destroyers. I think they built TIEs, actually. I can't remember. It's been a long time since I've read the Guides of Vehicles and Vessels.
00:43:11
Speaker
and I'm just out here going... But learning, you're learning, you're learning. i'm learning, I'm learning. It sinks in eventually. It makes sense to me that like that crash, how that ship broke apart.
00:43:22
Speaker
It's like, well, we'll get rid of that weak point. Yeah, yeah, no giant triangles. ah Yeah. And I love that it's it's a very good movie for showing that evolution and showing that visual language that makes it all make sense. It doesn't seem out place.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And also the things that cease to exist in this movie. This is the last time we see a beautiful chrome Naboo spaceship. yeah Yeah. Because that old Republic era is gone. Yeah. And then also the contrast to the things that last.
00:43:51
Speaker
Like, i'm as I've said, I'm quite a petrol head. I love vehicles that keep going. One of my friends is driving a Ford Focus in the late 90s and I'm like, you bought the right car because you around the We've got, in this film, we've got R2, who we've seen from the start. The astromech droids are consistently good at what they do.
00:44:08
Speaker
We don't fix something unless it's broken. yeah And the Corellian Corvette, the Tantive IV. Like, that's been around all this time, and it still continues on. And I think that contrast of some things that don't evolve, that have always been there, that are old Republic era and just keep going, but some things that have that that evolution in visual style to become either the Empire's visual style or the Rebellion's visual style,
00:44:32
Speaker
yeah I think it's really interesting and it's a really key part of Star Wars. Ever since the first movie, you've just been dropped into this existing galaxy. yeah There's no like, here's a big guidebook or here's a load people giving exposition.
00:44:44
Speaker
yeah Like there is a bit of exposition in A New Hope, but not a lot. no um It's mostly just, hey, you're here. The Empire sounds bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think Sith is really good at...
00:44:58
Speaker
when it's a movie that has to do with the transformation of various characters from Palpatine from apparently benevolent, I'm forced into this leadership role, leader into Emperor, from Anakin to Vader, from Obi-Wan being Jedi Knight to an altcast, same with Yoda.
00:45:15
Speaker
We have to deal with all these character transition transformations and transitions.
Character and Galaxy Evolution
00:45:19
Speaker
But think it's really good that they didn't skip showing the evolution of the galaxy itself, its technology, its design and its feel.
00:45:27
Speaker
yeah Again, I'm going to say again, like I'm so looking forward to doing Andor because Andor fleshes that out even further. Andor really makes you feel that change.
00:45:38
Speaker
Like, especially when you compare it to Sith, there was no ISB in Revenge of the Sith. yeah And then and you look at A New Hope and we have that line really early. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the Senate. Yeah.
00:45:51
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like, you can see the threats. Such giant thing, yeah. but Yeah. But it's just a dismissive line by Tarkin at that point. The imperial planetary governors will have full responsibility or whatever. It's just like, wow, okay. Okay, I guess the Senate didn't matter or whatever. And then it's not so you see the prequels and you're like, whoa. Whoa. He did what?
00:46:10
Speaker
You got rid of all those big floaty disc seats. They were really cool. They were really cool. What is that? Oh, okay. Music. I've got a music thing for you that I would like. We've already talked about it a tiny bit um in terms of like, ah we've talked about it in terms of the whole Palpatine performance thing, but the music in the, I've written giant bubble theatre,
00:46:37
Speaker
you've since said opera true Water opera bubble thing. Water opera bubble thing. ah I also was like, ah what is this? But also there's this there's this drone that starts happening that just makes you feel really uncomfortable.
00:46:53
Speaker
yeah And like throughout that entire conversation, these drones are running through it. They're kind of vocal drones, aren't they? They are vocal drones, yeah. yeah it's all It's all like voices and it gets a bit chanty at some points. and then yeah But it's like...
00:47:06
Speaker
I was like, oh, this is beautiful, but really mysterious and quite uncomfortable. I think Williams assigned like choir to Palpatine, like male voice choir, particularly in Jedi.
00:47:16
Speaker
It's the first time we hear it properly, his theme. yeah ah Whatever it is. yeah um And I think even though that isn't, he it's like a diegetic piece of music, the opera, yeah but it is...
00:47:31
Speaker
It's a reference to Palpatine, I'm sure. it's like Yeah, yeah. But like definitely a link to his theme, which interesting because we hear his theme at various points. i yeah we Did we hear it in Attack the Clones? A little bit, yeah. When he was telling Padme about the Tuscan Raiders yeah and we heard like a version of but not with the choir yet. like Yeah.
00:47:50
Speaker
yeah That was my favourite piece of music. I love the way John Williams has built and layered throughout all of the films. Have you come across the the like theory about Ray's theme?
00:48:01
Speaker
No. um There's a great YouTuber who breaks down Star war's music. I can't remember the channel, but I'll try and find it for the next episode so that we can let our listeners know and find it. It was quite easy to find. But he did ah ah just a sort of one episode on Rey's theme and how melodically it's Palpatine's theme.
00:48:21
Speaker
And this is before Rise of Skywalker came out and we knew about the whole Palpatine-Rey thing. Yeah. um But I think that suggests that like the writer, like JJ.
00:48:35
Speaker
Yeah. People have always speculated, did did they have a plan about Ray? they have a Yeah, yeah. Because it kind of jumped backwards forwards. I think they did because I think John Williams knew that and I think that's why he wrote... did did it it do did it ah did it ah did it do Because if you slow that down, I think it follows...
00:48:50
Speaker
The same harmonic shape as Palpatine's theme. What? I mean, I'll never underestimate John Williams. it major and minor or something like that? Something like that. I can't remember the the thing I need to rewatch that episode because it blew my mind. It wouldn't surprise me because JJ did.
00:49:07
Speaker
force awakens and yeah razor skywalker it wouldn't surprise me if that had been the plan all along and it was last jedi's departure from that that kind of made it well lots of people have problem with rising skywalker i love rising skywalker i'm a palpatine fangirl i was the one person in the cinema that they said somehow palpatine returned i was like thank god yeah brilliant yes he's back Oh, come be happier. Give us all of the Bab team. The thing is, I argue this all the time. He's the one vital character. Without him, it's not Star Wars. It'd just be stars.
00:49:41
Speaker
He's the one who started the whole wars. You can take out any other character and it's still going to have a story that's going to be a war because he's there. I love it I love it.
00:49:54
Speaker
He's brilliant. So we do, after this initial, which we could talk for the whole episode about, which is that opening scene, but there is this kind weird intrigue thing like intrigue thing It's kind of a weird part of the story where there's nothing much like obviously happening. There's no action, i suppose, is what you could say.
00:50:17
Speaker
um But it's the bit where the Jedi and Palpatine are both trying to manipulate Anakin. They're both trying to out-Anakin each other. Out-Anakin each other. Which you mentioned at the beginning, Jessica. It's like, yeah. like how How much of it is... Because that we're we're gradually seeing how...
00:50:36
Speaker
completely befuddled the Jedi are. Yeah. How they've really lost the plot of what's going on. And yeah and they're like having their abilities dampened somehow. um Somehow. It's through their arrogance. It's because yeah they can't imagine that if they were stood in front of someone who was a powerful Sith, they wouldn't just be able to tell. They would turn to tell, yeah.
00:50:59
Speaker
So because they are so sure that they can find any problem, Palpatine was able to just walk in and go, yo, everything's fine, guys. it doesn't matter that you feel a bit foggy when I'm in the room. Don't worry about it. yeah that you You talked about him playing chess earlier and he is like the ultimate chess master. He's thinking so many moves ahead.
00:51:18
Speaker
yeah when they first rescued him and he says, oh, but the Senate will vote to continue the war as long as Grievous is free. And Mace literally says, well, we'll make hunting him down our top priority. yeah yeah Then he's like, I want to appoint Anakin as my advisor on the council. And he knows the council will hate that.
00:51:35
Speaker
yeah And then he knows Anakin will hate the council hating that. yeah But then he knows that the council will use that to ask Anakin to spy on him. So then he knows all he has to do is go, they asked you to do something that made you feel dishonest, didn't you?
00:51:47
Speaker
didn't they? They asked you to spy on me, didn't they? And that's it. That's all he needs to just be in there. And Anakin is like, oh, this guy gets me. yeah yeah This guy understands. This guy's actually here for me.
00:52:01
Speaker
Obi-Wan just criticises me all the time. Which, i mean, he doesn't do it as much in this film, but Attack of the Clones is basically Obi-Wan telling Anakin, you're crap, yeah over and over. And it's not surprising that like he's not had a positive...
00:52:16
Speaker
role model who is uplifting him since his mum. Yeah. Yeah. yeah It's no not surprising that Palpatine's grooming works so well. Yeah. True. The Jedi are stretched at this point. and Yeah. I had written something about the the fact that every time you see...
00:52:32
Speaker
a meeting of the the kind of High Council, more than half of them aren't there. Polograms, yeah. Obviously, like the Clone Wars is this amazing masterstroke of, yeah let's just get them all spread out across the galaxy and surround them with clones. It's a false flag of war. It's like every single one of those battles, he can control where it happens. Because he knows that if the Jedi were together en masse, he's probably going to have too much of a challenge to take them out. but but yeah distributing around and surrounding them by clones that are pre-programmed with chips to turn on them at a moment's notice. Yeah. And I think this is interesting because this is a thing that without the Clone Wars, I don't know if this is in the novelization, I feel like I watched this in a few episodes of the Clone Wars,
00:53:17
Speaker
Order 66, there's the Order 65 and 67 on either side of it, one of which is, like Order 66 specifically says if the Jedi turn traitor on the Republic, they are to be executed.
Order 66 and Jedi Downfall
00:53:30
Speaker
And I think 67 is if the Chancellor does and 68 is if the Senate does. And the Jedi requested those rules be built into the clones. to avoid any one person being able to take any one element, be able to take. yeah So then all it takes is Palpatine having a valid enough reason to issue that order.
00:53:52
Speaker
yeah And the Jedi agreed to because people, again, have argued over the years, oh, why would the clones have that programmed in? yeah but The Jedi wanted that in. yeah They had to have the caveat to protect in case the c Senate tried to seize control of the clone army or in case the Chancellor. But obviously, as the Jedi, we also need to protect in case one of us goes rogue or whatever, never thinking, oh, he could just use that.
00:54:12
Speaker
yeah Yeah, to wipe us all out. Although it does, one of my little greatre gripes is the fact that some clones seem to have just been waiting for the moment. Like the one on the speeder bike gets his little hologram, drops back level with his mate and his mate just goes, just nods at him. It's like, oh, is it that moment been waiting to shoot this Jedi, I swear. I've been doing my head in, meditating every day. Right, bang, pfft.
00:54:34
Speaker
It's so harrowing. It's brutal. Absolutely brutal. yeah I'm now pondering, and I definitely need to re-watch The Clone Wars and Bad Batch. I've started watching re-watching The Bad Batch.
00:54:45
Speaker
yeah But they do have a chip, like a physical chip in their brains. they? Yeah, that's what makes them switch. Fives, isn't it? There's a clone who tries to have comic called Fives or something. Yeah.
00:54:56
Speaker
Well, and the Bad Batch themselves, because of their that kind of like clones that have been built in different ways is experiments. okay And as a consequence, the chips don't um operate them in the same way.
00:55:08
Speaker
They still have them. um and I think they have them removed, but they they are... Anyway, beside the point. Spoilers. We will do batches at some point. We will do bad batches at some point, yeah. Are the chips remote controlled? Is the kind of holographic Palpatine execute order, is that just like a kind of for show thing? Hmm.
00:55:33
Speaker
Or can't just go to it? Yeah. Is is that Palpatine just flipping a kind of emergency switch on his thing? Maybe, yeah. He just needs to radio the commander. Maybe, yeah. And then the commander, it'll trigger all of their subordinate. Yeah, that's an interesting theory. right Yeah. That makes me less annoyed.
00:55:50
Speaker
It's another great like tweak that the Clone Wars and and Bad Batch and Rebels have all done, these amazing little tweaks. slashing Because they're so long form, you have yeah yeah extra time to be able to go into these topics, which in the course of a two hour, 20 minute film, yeah you just haven't got time to explain all that without feeling clunky.
00:56:11
Speaker
I did note, so this is before Order 66 is
00:56:16
Speaker
During the intrigue section. Yeah, I'm in the intrigue section. Well, there's kind of lots of subplots going on. There's like the intrigue, there's Obi-Wan's off doing his General Grievous thing. Oh, the Utapau, yeah. Shout out to the Utapau leader. I've got him written down because they're bringing so much to a little role. I loved him. He's great. the his When Obi-Wan says, the war, and he goes, there's no war here. Yeah.
00:56:40
Speaker
Like, it's very like, how dare you? And then when he's walking off with the, book and they're like, did he, did he say, did he, what does is he going to bring help? And he goes, he didn't say. And it's just, he has like four lines and i'm like, i can feel this guy's frustration at his being a bureaucrat and his fear so well delivered whilst this race gives off this like,
00:57:03
Speaker
um composed nature. Yeah. yeah Like detached. Yeah, I wrote him down as one of the little roles that ah was like, wow, no one phoned it in. No one phoned it in. Yeah, and I don't think we've had any more on him.
00:57:16
Speaker
Like we've obviously there's a lot of background characters are always getting explored in greater detail. We haven't had um the from a certain point of view books of the prequels yet. Like we've got those three books which go with the original trilogy which flesh out all of the backgrounds. I've loved it. You're loving that you mentioned this because I've just heard you talk about this on the first episode. I don't know about these, but I remember the old Tales from Jabba's Palace, yeah Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina books. yeah And they are very dear to me. they The guy who raised the rancor. Yeah.
00:57:48
Speaker
Oh, bless him. Well, the certain point of view are very much that. Excellent. thing I shall have to look into them. There are many, many, many short stories in each one. They're very long, which I love. yeah yeah Cantina was quite a lot of shorter ones, but Jabba's Palace was like four or five longer ones, wasn't it? yeah yeah like it the um The beautiful thing about the certain point of view ones is that they're all stylistically different and unique. yeah I think I mentioned it on another episode. that like Visions?
00:58:15
Speaker
yeah Yeah, where they've all got their own writer that goes off. like The the ah Max Rebo one is a amazing. it's like He's a kind of speakeasy jazzer. you know it's Love that little blue elephant guy. so It's such a stylistically different one to say Yoda in his reflective period on Dagobah, what he's doing there. Being an apex predator, seeing as what we've seen of Grogu.
00:58:37
Speaker
yeah yeah Yoda went somewhere where it's all swamp. yeah like Just like readily available food. yeah But yeah, I want to find out more about this Pound guy. like who yeah Do we know his name? Probably. i mean, I don't personally, but I'm sure there's a name. There'll be something. Oh yeah, there will be.
00:58:56
Speaker
He'll have had an action figure. yeah He's slightly theatrical yeah and he's loving the kind of the intrigue that's going on there. Yeah. So while all that's happening as well, while we've got Utapau happening, we've also got um Yoda's gone to Kashyyyk at that point. Yes.
00:59:14
Speaker
So then there's the whole Wookiee battle going on and there is a callback to Return of the Jedi. There is another Tarzan Wookiee. was about to say, there's a Tarzan moment. There's a Tarzan moment and oh God.
00:59:29
Speaker
ah yet like I didn't particularly connect to that sequence the first time i've watched it, but now I've played Jedi Fallen Order, the game. And there's a big level of that, which is on Kashyyyk, and like I've now fallen in love with it again. So when I'm watching the film now, I'm like, okay, no, I love Kashyyyk. There's bits about it like. I really liked, when I was little, I really liked Scout Troopers' aesthetic. I like their helmet and their goggles. And then on Kashyyyk, we get camo Scout Troopers. And I was like, yeah, these guys look awesome. um but it's it has the same
01:00:01
Speaker
Kashyyyk has the same problem that I have with the end of Attack of the Clones, where it's it's a CGI thing. image. There's no emotion capture. There's no scene.
01:00:12
Speaker
I don't mind CGI being used. Lots of my favorite movies have a lot of CGI, but they mesh that with model work and they mesh that with real actors and they mesh that with mocap when it's just a cgi image like a cgi video which is what kashique is and it's it's basically an animation yeah yeah it's and it it still very animation it slips out of what i want from star wars yeah yeah i get that that makes sense like i don't mind you know there's plenty of modern star wars that's got loads of cgi in it yeah that i don't mind because it still has you can still see the physical elements you can still you know there's someone in mocap
01:00:49
Speaker
yeah Like I have no problem with Kato So being a CGI character and I've seen Alan Tudyk doing the mocap. So, you know, that droid's movements. But then when I see Yoda on Kashyyyk, someone's drawn a Yoda and just animated it. Yeah, yeah. And the clones are all CGI. Yeah. And probably most of the Wookiees, I don't even know if they use real physical Wookiees.
Critique of CGI and Iconic Scenes
01:01:09
Speaker
I don't think so, no. It doesn't look like... Chewbacca looks weirdly slender compared to denshed-up Tar 4 and other Wookiees because, obviously, he's based the original Chewbacca, which was a guy in a suit, whereas they're all, oh, we can make Wookiees hench now. We can make them bigger. That's cool, but...
01:01:27
Speaker
There's like that whole sequence. You've got the Kashyyyk stuff going on. You've got the Utapal stuff going on. And you've got bits of Anakin and Coruscant manipulation stuff going on. Yeah, Anakin Padme, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But then there's like this whole... I love Obi-Wan. Shall I say it one more time? Shall just keep... Yeah, we know you're in there.
01:01:49
Speaker
We know you're a team, Obi. This is my favourite. But they... um His whole chase scene that he does with General Grubus, love all of that.
01:02:01
Speaker
But the the lizard that he rides, the sound design is very, very similar. I can't do that. I can't do that. ill have go i can't do that that was good I love that. liz I've got lizard noises with three exclamation marks yeah down here because I just love that lizard. Do what it reminded me of?
01:02:16
Speaker
I was was thinking about it. i was like, I know that sound. I know that sound so deep in my soul and I don't know why I know it. And then I was thinking about it a bit more and I was like, it's really, really like the Thompson gazelles from the really original Zoo Tycoon games that I used to play when I was really young. I don't know that. That's a deep cut.
01:02:35
Speaker
It's a deep cut. I mean, it's probably, the foley is probably multiple animals because Chewbacca is four animals, isn't it? Chewbacca is a cow. and a walrus i think walrus and i think it's like a bear i can't remember the last one but yeah like i know he's a mashup yeah it probably is but i think there's definitely some crossover between that sound design there's like ah there's a there's an elephant filter getting on it geeky sound now yeah but yeah the kind of wobble is like on it a filter kicking in so so it's almost electronic which is super weird because it is like gonna work on it yeah Yeah, like when you come Verandor, we want like a varactyl.
01:03:16
Speaker
Varactyl, is that what they call it? love that you know them. and amazing I have to confess I did look that last night because I was like, I need to know what this thing is called. I know it's got a name. I'm actually picking up a toy of an Ackley later today, which is the mantis thing, which makes me very happy. i love those. When you're mentioning how much you love everyone, I just wanted to touch on, when when Grievous first meets him on the bridge, and he says, ah, General Kenobi, the negotiator. Okay.
01:03:42
Speaker
it's Like, at this point, Kenobi's reputation, like Kenobi, the negotiator, like, we've had Naboo and we've had Geonosis. Yeah. Like, imagine how those droids must feel about this this particular Jedi who goes into places that he should just die and walks out the only survivor. Well, not the only not the only on Geonosis, but the only on Naboo. Like, Maul, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan. dead hey he's the survivor is that not like a ah deep like sass from I mean everything Grievous says is sass but like his sass right back to our first encounter with Obi-Wan he and Qui-Gon were supposed to be negotiated and it lasted for two minutes yeah ever since then and that's what I love like it feels like yeah Grievous is mocking him but I thought of like Grievous is saying it but he's just made every droid in that room go oh shit it hurts that guy oh no Oh my gosh.
01:04:39
Speaker
It's that guy. How many droids is this guy beheaded? That's so funny. That's why Grievous has to shout at them, stay at your stations, because they're all like, I'm getting out of it. That's Obi-Wan, mate.
01:04:50
Speaker
Roger, Roger. out and i think I said last time, the hello there. Hello there. but The Grievous hello there is my favourite. Favourite one. so good. It's just his expression on his face, and it's quite weird framing. It's like we're in close-up on him, and then on Grievous, which is bit weird for that.
01:05:05
Speaker
I guess it's like, there what eyes meet you know kind of encounter but it's hello there is so yeah it's in that sort of like bracket of we're nearly going into pantomime but yeah is fun of it that it's it it's great but it it's followed by a real inconsistency in the movie that i really dislike oh he jumps down he says hello there grievous's bodyguards step forward he drops the thing onto them yeah right and then As the bodyguard that's got one foot pinned, one foot, yes reaching for its staff, he beheads it and it goes down like that.
01:05:39
Speaker
At the start of the film, he beheaded one of those bodyguards on the bridge of the Invisible Hand and it continued whirling and was ready to fight. yeah So like what does beheading mean for Reavis' bodyguards? Is it a lethal mover, isn't it? I just can't tell.
01:05:53
Speaker
Are the droids learning? Because again, going back to our like tracking of st droid behaviour. That was just pretending to be dead. Yeah. I'm not firing the negotiator. off Screw this. I'm not dealing with Obi-Wan. think this is where our ah chat about droid behaviour started with something like this. Yeah, I think it didn't it? I remember would have been. of like ah Was it with the droids in Jabba's Palace being tortured? It might have been.
01:06:16
Speaker
Like, are they feeling pain? Sometimes they seem to feel pain and sometimes they don't. And it's very like... I mean, R2 feels pain. Have you not heard that? Yeah. R2 definitely feels pain. Yeah.
01:06:30
Speaker
It was asked for, was asked for, it was given. Wait, he does it when crashing in the hangar. He does it when he's kicked into the hallway. Yeah, the says the third time he does it.
01:06:42
Speaker
Oh, no, no, no. There's two one the there's two when the the ship's going crazy kilter before he gets... oh yeah oh But the fourth the fifth time he does it is when they're on the bridge and it's how he gives, he shocks a load of the crew. It's when R2 now.
01:06:54
Speaker
And he sticks out all these attachments and he shocks a load of the crew and that's how the Jedi get their lightsabers. But then he screams and I'm like, did that hurt him? yeah Like extending all those at once? Was that like, you know, if I was like, oh, poor little guy.
01:07:08
Speaker
This is the tally chart of a woman who's watched this three times this week. Well, yeah. Yeah.
01:07:15
Speaker
Commitment to the podcast. We are here for it. i mean, I probably watch it like twice a month on average anyway. It's a background movie for me. It's a comfort movie. Yeah. my My comfort movie when I was a kid, this might explain some of my attachment to Obi-Wan, but my comfort movie for years was Moulin Rouge.
01:07:33
Speaker
So I'm like... Obsessed. but yeah It was on twice a day in my house. I'm not even joking. Me and Rai, both of us, like completely obsessed. That definitely explains a lot. How wonderful life is, now the negotiators in your world.
01:07:49
Speaker
So then I was quite confused, but also like, yeah, no, this tracks for me. It's no accident that one of the Star Wars TV shows that you've watched all the way through is... Oh, yeah, no, I i fully admit that it was a conscious decision was that i started with everyone because I was like, I need more Ewan McGregor in my life. Which, to be fair, is valid. ah Yeah.
01:08:10
Speaker
but I was like, I need to start small with some of these. So I went and it's only like, what, eight episodes? was like, that's easy. I can do that in an afternoon. I think it's six. Six. There yeah you go. Even easier. Have you ever watched his Travelling Round the World show with on his motorbike Long Way Round?
01:08:25
Speaker
I've seen bits of it, yeah. Because he did some wonderful Star Wars references in that. They're pulled over on the side of the road in, I think, Russia or the Ukraine or somewhere. a And some cops or some cars go down ah go by and slowing down looking. And he just goes, these aren't the bikes you're looking for.
01:08:43
Speaker
Which was just wonderful. It's not even his line. Yeah.
01:08:48
Speaker
Okay, big Obi-Wan shout out that i want to give. yeah but As we watch Rebels, well he does that thing when he's done his hello there. yeah And then ah Grievous says, you're a bold one, whatever it is. And like he does the lightsaber thing with his fingers pointing. I'm doing it, you can't see it on the screen. The two finger point and the pose. It's an iconic like stance, a ready position that Obi-Wan can only pull off. Yeah.
01:09:15
Speaker
I loved it. It's so funny that when I first watched the film, i probably wouldn't have noticed that. But then obviously in the intervening years, having watched Rebels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um Clone Wars, because I'm sure he does it in the Clone Wars as well at various points.
01:09:27
Speaker
It's like a trademark Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan stands. There was another... um This is like going back to we've we've got the whole Grievous battle going on. We've got the Khajiit battle going on. And
Anakin's Transformation and Foreshadowing
01:09:38
Speaker
we've also got like, there's a beautiful like music moment, but also like cinematography moment where we've got Anakin's alone in the Jedi Council.
01:09:47
Speaker
Padme's alone in yeah her rooms or wherever she is. i'm not entirely sure. And they're looking out at each other. And they're looking out. But like the music in the background of that and the framing of that whole scene is just like, it's beautiful. I'm just getting goosebumps thinking about it. That's just before. That's just when he's told Mace and Mace has left.
01:10:04
Speaker
And you hear Palpatine's voice say in his mind, um you know that only art through me can you save your wife or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And vo that line, you hearing Palpatine speaking in his mind, that's why I get quite defensive when people are like, it doesn't seem believable, his fault. I'm like, this guy is literally so strong in the dark side and so connected to this kid that he's able to just talk into his brain.
01:10:29
Speaker
yeah Like if you think the dreams that Anakin were having were accurate force predictions of the future, the fact that they came true is irrelevant. They were put there by Palpatine. And again, another thing the novelization deals with And we've started touching on in most Star Wars media is for um Force Healing, but he's doing the Sith version. It's like a life siphon.
01:10:51
Speaker
ah Like the reason, oh we can't explain, but we're losing her, which again, people got really annoyed by. and he's told Anakin all through the film, between us, we can find a power to cheat death.
01:11:03
Speaker
He literally is pulling Padme's life force and putting it into Anakin so that he can be reborn as Vader. No one survives that level of burn and amputation yeah without the fourth force. beat And that's why she is dead.
01:11:19
Speaker
yeah That's why he says, how she was alive. I felt her. Yeah, you felt the last of her life going into you. ah Because he's vampired out of her and flung it into you.
01:11:30
Speaker
And you've just answered one of my later questions. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I think I know the bit you're talking about. Yeah. That music is stunning.
01:11:40
Speaker
It's so good. It's just like a drone. It's like voice. It's just like a kind of really ethereal voice improvising. i love a vocal drone. Yeah.
01:11:52
Speaker
It's visual arrangement of their isolation. Yeah. Like it really. They're both in towers. You really feel for both of them, even though at this point you're already angry at Anakin and like you can see the manipulation because we're the viewer.
01:12:05
Speaker
But like you feel for both of them in that moment. Mm-hmm. I've got to say their performances as well, like yeah Natalie and and Hayden just absolutely no. I think Hayden got slated a lot and I think it was all unfair. I think it's brilliant performance. I think he's like, clone suffers from a very bad
Anakin's Mental State and Betrayal
01:12:21
Speaker
script. And like you said, say ah the the moments that Anakin and Padme have dialogue together, we get some pretty dross stuff even in this film, you know, like, oh, it's no, it's because I'm so in love with you. Like, it's, oh God, it's...
01:12:33
Speaker
That makes me go away. Yeah, it just makes me crawl inside myself. I think there's one of the things that the script really lacks, because we're just touching on, we just we just mentioned the bit, it is relevant, I'm not going off on another thing.
01:12:47
Speaker
The bit where Mace has gone off. and Like, he says to Anakin, just before he leaves, if what you have told me is true, you will have gained my trust. Now, going back to what I was saying right at the start about Anakin's mental health, like,
01:13:02
Speaker
That's supposed to be Mace reassuring him. Yeah. But I'm sure from Anakin's point of view, all he's heard is, oh, Mace never trusted me. Yeah. all along Never, ever has trusted me. Yeah. yeah It's true. Like that's not going to inspire you to be on Mace's side when you turn up and your mentor looks like he's, you know, on the grill.
01:13:22
Speaker
Yeah. um Sure. And I really, I'm sad because, that moment, that little bit of dialogue between them, I think it's important to show Mason's reaction. A Sith Lord is again on my list of your favorite quotes. but online delivery One of the things that annoys me, I know a lot of people wanted A Pulp Fiction reference of Pass Me My Lightsaber, if the one was written on it.
01:13:46
Speaker
and But what I really wanted was them, you're able change the dialogue quite a bit, but we could have got in this section, we could have got a, does he look like a Sith?
01:13:58
Speaker
Which I would have personally preferred to the lightsaber line. What does Senator Palpatine look like? Love it.
01:14:08
Speaker
love it The murder of Mace Windu really breaks my heart. but He's on a knife edge. He's elie on a knife edge. And you could see, like, you really are with Anakin. You know, this kind of, like, you understand why he's going to do what he's going to do, but, like, you just can't bear it. The whole scene that proceeds there is just incredible, that that when they come to arrest Palpatine, like, they are still, even though he's just been told he's a Sith Lord,
01:14:36
Speaker
This is one of the moments we have the arrogance of the Jedi yeah really shown. They stand there, they announce their intentions in the name of the Galactic Republic of the Senate. You are under a arrest.
01:14:47
Speaker
I am the Senate. yeah Not yet. um It's treason then, which again is another one of his incredible lines. yeah And then I know it's, again, this is a CGI, but I don't mind. Ian McDowell twirling through the air,
01:15:03
Speaker
whilst giving such a wonderful screech. They are so unprepared for him being ah lord able to attack a Sith Lord, having a lightsaber and using a lightsaber style that they're not used to because they don't train in dark side lightsaber use, which is why, can you remember their names, the three Jedi who get cut down?
01:15:21
Speaker
Kit Fisto as well. Kit Fisto, yes. I love Kit Fisto. Shout out Kit Fisto. Kesshan's favourite character. Kesshan's favourite character, yeah. But yeah, the way they get sliced down so quick and Mace is backing up with Palpatine having this blade right yeah in his face.
01:15:39
Speaker
yeah It's just such an incredible moment because in this if it felt for me the same as when I saw Attack of the Clones in the cinema and for the first time I saw Yoda use a lightsaber. Yeah, it's the same. Seeing Palpatine do that, I was like... I see how weird it was as well, like the way his style is so unusual. The blade's just coming at you like a snake. ya Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:15:59
Speaker
It's a stabby,
Palpatine's Combat Style and Jedi Failures
01:16:00
Speaker
stabby one. If you watch... Rey in The Force Awakens, the first time she uses the lightsaber on Starkiller Base, she fights with a very similar style. It's a stabby style, which we don't see Jedi using. They're much more graceful and they're pulling on like martial arts and fencing and all of the other kind of more graceful styles. This is just...
01:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, stop. Stop, stop, stop. it And he does it with his entire body. Like you said, he kind of spins through the air. Yeah. And it throws them all off guard. They have no idea what's going on. novelization has a wonderful expansion on that whole scene where the the vases, the huge black vases that dominate his room, they're like they're like soaked in dark side energy. They're what have been, they're a major part of him nulling the Jedi's senses is these huge vases. And his lightsaber that he flings out of his sleeve, obviously that one gets flung out of the window. And he has another one hidden in his black desk that like it slots out.
01:16:54
Speaker
And that's how he has another one later on to fight Yoda. And like yeah the whole scene, like there's lots of from his perspective in the novelization, there's lots of him, like how he like is sensing the Jedi coming. And it just really fleshes it out. The whole, the whole, the Jedi never had a chance at this point.
01:17:14
Speaker
Yeah. Like they had a chance maybe two movies ago, but at this point, like, they don't. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's, it's all over. He's playing four games of chess ahead. Nevermind four moves i ahead. Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:24
Speaker
I did have a note. It's a slightly rude note, not a rude note, but like,
01:17:31
Speaker
I, I wrote around all of this. was like, I get where Anakin is coming from. He just wants no war. He's an angsty little rat. And now he's got creepy eyes. Yeah. Oh, bless him. Bless him in his little red eyes. Yeah. its So it's a actual thing that happens with like humans, isn't it? Like once you've committed to a thing, it takes a lot more, I guess, drive, a lot more like self-awareness, a lot more ability to admit you were wrong.
01:18:00
Speaker
Yeah. To say, okay, I was wrong to do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's why when people can get into really negative points of view, whether they be like bigoted or political viewpoints or whatever, it can be very difficult to help them unpick it, especially if you're just labeling them what they are. Yeah, yeah. yeah because unpicking it and taking a step back would involve, in Anakin's case, going, yeah, you're right, you know, actually, the Jedi are right, and I killed a load of kids, what can we do to fix this, Obi-Wan? Whereas instead he's going to go, no, no, no, no I see through the lives of the Jedi, mate. Don't lecture me. It's like apex radicalisation by Palpatine.
01:18:34
Speaker
Yeah. But then Obi-Wan does do the whole... we failed you. We were wrong. Yeah. yeah Because he's the, he's the representation of pureness and yeah he acknowledges the force. He's the moral compass.
01:18:47
Speaker
Yeah. He's not perfect, but he's yeah doing the right thing. I did also have another note. um We talked a little bit about this ah on the last one, talking about attack of the clones, because there was the whole Geonosis villainous villains meeting.
01:19:00
Speaker
Yeah. And we kind of have another villainous villains meeting. That's even more villainous villainous villainous. And that contains my favourite... No, no, the one before that on Geonosis. No, i I'm sorry, on Utapau. Utapau, yeah. Contains my favourite Grievous line of the film, which is on my favourite, which is, be thankful, Viceroy, you have not found yourself in my grip.
01:19:22
Speaker
Like, there's just something big like, because the advice was criticizing him for letting Chancellor Palpatine slip out. And Grievous is just like, no, look, I will kill you if you give me any grief. There's just that underlying thing of like, oh, I'm really annoyed I have to work with the Trade Federation anymore. i think I've got four lightsabers. Why do I have to listen to this guy?
01:19:41
Speaker
But yeah, you're talking about the Mustafar. The Mustafar meeting, which is cut very short. Very short meeting. I started to feel suddenly feel unaccountably sorry for Nemoidians, who so far have always been annoying, but suddenly you're like, oh no.
Iconic Lightsaber Battles
01:19:54
Speaker
Oh no. This is fruit brutal.
01:19:56
Speaker
Murder them all. Lord Sidious said we would have peace. Yeah. yeah And that's that's more than killing the Jedi kids. Yeah. That's what turns Anakin's eyes. Because at that point, Anakin is fully aware. How would Darth Sidious, how would Palpatine know to send him to Mustafar unless Palpatine was in charge of that side of the war too?
01:20:18
Speaker
Yeah. like So Anakin must know. And he goes there. And therefore, he's like, well, he is aware on a certain level that these are pawns of Palpatine. Yeah. Essentially, at that point, they're not, and innocence is a strong word to use because everyone's been involved in this war, this conflict, but they are victims.
01:20:34
Speaker
Yeah. And instead of finding any solidarity in that, overcoming what he's been through, he slaughters them in cold blood when they're unarmed. And that's when his eyes change. Yeah. Yeah.
01:20:45
Speaker
And then we've got like this, my notes just go, ah we've got dramatic. ahead and But then we've got um kind of the two lightsaber battles going on side by side. We've got the Yoda lightsaber battle and we've got the Anakin versus Obi-Wan.
01:21:02
Speaker
Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot. Going back to what you said about music. Yeah. I wanted say this at this point, but this is the right point to say it. The music during that battle, he uses elements, Williams uses elements of the classic theme.
01:21:15
Speaker
He uses lot of Jewel of the Fates, which I love. yeah He puts new stuff in which is specific for Revenge of the Sith, and has the Imperial March in it. That whole section when we're cutting back and forth between the two fights. Yeah. Yeah.
01:21:29
Speaker
It's incredible. You don't notice the cut from like the Imperial March booming straight into a Jewel of the Fates because he just, I don't know how he does what he does, but, and I've never tried to pay so much attention to the sound in this film before. these yeah But it blew my mind. love Jewel of the Fates. I love the Imperial March. They're two of my favorite bits of all the Star Wars music.
01:21:50
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, the, the, the, is it leitmotifs? Is that the right word? the yeah Yeah. Yeah. The little audible elements that are used to key into each character involved or each battle.
01:22:02
Speaker
And Jewel of the Fates, like the name of that. Yeah. Like to the end, use that piece again when Anakin and Obi-Wan are fighting. Cause it's not really used when the Emperor's on screen. It's not really used when it's Emperor Yoda. We get the original themes, but when we cut to Mustafar, we go. do Yeah. I can't do you all the fates, but yeah. We almost got it.
01:22:29
Speaker
Good luck editing that, Brumman.
01:22:35
Speaker
If you could just move us in sync, that'd be great. I'm going to orchestrate the whole thing. Just throw some strings and stuff in there. Amazing. there's There's a bit at the end of the Palpatine um Yoda fight, which for me now jumps out as a meta line, which probably wasn't intended, where there's a clone and he says, there's no sign of his body.
01:22:58
Speaker
And then Masamida says, then he's dead. That means he's not dead. Then he's not dead. Then he's not dead. That means he's not dead. Which is like the the biggest Star Wars truism of all time. Yeah, which ends true for Palpatine. You have to see body. We're still going to cling on to Mace.
01:23:18
Speaker
ah Well, and from the news, you'll be listening to this in five weeks' time, so it probably is all changed by now, but we just had this news about Adam Driver announcing yeah that he was developing a film about Ben Solo and like the return of, and like we did see the body.
01:23:34
Speaker
yes. but But there's a way. That could be the wattage, I suppose. could do yeah I heard a great theory, um because obviously I've been listening to podcasts ever since that news broke, um about the idea of...
01:23:48
Speaker
Her finding him through the force somehow, like that the way they've been... but You know, the force connection
Force Healing and Continuity
01:23:55
Speaker
communication. Yeah, the dyad thing. but And also the way Luke Skywalker did the projection, force projection, which we'd never seen before. But there's something in there. Something there, I don't know.
01:24:07
Speaker
One of the sad bits of the continuity changing that has really affected Revenge of Sith in hindsight is force healing. like If anyone had told Anakin that that was a skill, yeah then Palpatine's whole plan would have been Yeah.
01:24:21
Speaker
Undermined because he would have been like oh, if Padme's suffering, I can heal her. We'd still have Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon would still be with her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah I mean, we don't necessarily have Qui-Gon because not every Jedi would have learned Force healing. It's not everyone's a knight at that point. So I don't know if it was a skill.
01:24:38
Speaker
Grogu does it inherently. I mean, have you heard the Grogu and Anakin Force dyad theory? No. Oh. Obviously, we don't know Grogu's exact birthday, but we've got a rough idea of his age and it winds up roughly with Anakin's birth um and the whole Force dyads, like Force being split between two, like we saw with Rey and Ben.
01:24:58
Speaker
um There's a theory that obviously obviously people have talked a lot about. It was Palpatine's manipulation of the Mimidichlorians and the Force that created Anakin. Yeah. Like ah the Darth Plagueis book, I think, explores him and Plagueis doing it together or whatever.
01:25:13
Speaker
But then there's a theory that doing that to create a being powerful in the dark side would also create the opposite. ergie And Grogu being able to do things like force healing instinctually.
01:25:24
Speaker
Yeah. Which, yeah, there's a lot of, there's people saying that that might be a thing. Interesting theory. I love that little green guy. So I'm happy with that idea. Yeah.
01:25:34
Speaker
going back to uh sound design moments some some of my favorite sound design other than the lizard creature who i do like yeah um there's this amazing little bit of sound design during anakin and obi-wan's duel where they jump onto this weird power line thing and they're like balancing and it goes the crackling of yeah yeah crackles and then it goes woaawa who and it's like and theyve They've got different pitches for when they're moving. Oh, wow. It's like one of them slightly heavier than the other, so it makes a slightly different noise.
01:26:08
Speaker
Amazing. Shout out to those, what did I write them down as? Oh, the collecting arms, like the lava collecting arms is what they are. The shielding goes off of them in the earlier fight in the little control room where I think Anakin smashes into the controls and it turns off the shielding. Yeah. The siren that blares at that point. The classic Imperial siren. It's now become, yeah, like it's a meme of its own in all of the trailers ever since. That one. I think, is it in the Mandalorian and Grogu trailer? Yeah. not sure. But it's like in all of the trailers. Do you know where it first turns off?
01:26:43
Speaker
That's so good. Where did we first hear first turns, New Hope. Is it? It's on the Death Star. Wow. So it is that old. Yeah. It's a classic. Yeah, it's the Imperial Siren.
01:26:53
Speaker
I love it. Wow. I think it was also the same sample, ever so slightly sped up, was used as the siren in GoldenEye 64. Oh, really? Which I played extensively as a teenager. Me too, yeah. And I know that siren noise, and I'm like, I swear it's the same siren, just slightly pitch shifted.
01:27:10
Speaker
Yeah. Very likely. From the Lucasfilm Archives. I mean, everyone stole Foley from Star Wars. like One of my comfort films growing up was Transformers, the animated movie.
01:27:20
Speaker
And it is just filled with like all their spaceships, the TIE Fighters and Millennium Falcons. At one point, there's a spaceship ramp that unfolds slowly to the noise of Luke's lightsaber retraction. like like It's just filled with them, yeah.
01:27:36
Speaker
ah The Skywalker Sound Library is... Extended everywhere. So I do have a couple of timeline questions. Yeah. Before we get any further. ah Timeline, how pregnant is Padme at the start?
01:27:55
Speaker
How long does this go on for? What's the timeline here? I mean, I guess at some point in the Clone Wars, ah can't remember there being an episode because the Clone Wars basically leads us up to Order 66. Right. Like the end of the series is Order 66. And it's a beautiful reframing of Order 66. We see it from a different perspective, which really cool.
01:28:16
Speaker
ah So somewhere along that, there must have been an episode where the magic happened. Right. Because at the very start of this film, there's when she tells him she's pregnant and he's like, oh, it's the happiest day of my life and blah, and all that stuff. But she's not showing at this bit she's not really showing.
01:28:34
Speaker
and then... And he says he's been away for months at that point. Yeah, he say he's been away for months. He doesn't state months, but he says they never would have brought us back unless the Chancellor had been kidnapped. i thought we' were going to be in the outroom suges.
01:28:44
Speaker
ah So it's implied that he's been away for a while. Yeah. So I would say it's supposed to be at least three months. But then she'd start showing not long after that. But there's no way Revenge of the Sith takes six months.
01:28:57
Speaker
I guess in in the, yeah, like the intrigue section, which, you know, is just a bunch of scenes where we're seeing the manipulation of Anakin is potentially then happening ah across a couple of months.
01:29:10
Speaker
Yeah. It feels like it's just minutes because it is, but yeah in story terms, but like in the chronological truth of the story, yes months have gone by.
01:29:20
Speaker
I also feel like it's very likely that Luke and Leia were a premature delivery. Well, yeah, she's not full term, is she, necessarily? Yeah, no. Because they they say, we need to get the babies out now if they're going to if they can survive. you do yeah It's It's her idol.
01:29:37
Speaker
So they're like, they are very much... Maybe Nabooian humanoids from another galaxy only have a shorter pregnancy. Short gestation, yeah. Could well be. yeah Definitely. All right. All right, I'll it. There's a cool detail relating to the pregnancy, which I think is dealt with in either the comics or some other branch of the Star Wars storytelling about how they keep Padme's belly in the funeral to try and conceal the fact that she's had the babies. okay like the Jedi, well, Bale, not the Jedi, Bale and the kind of that tiny little yeah branch of resistance that we've got there.
01:30:18
Speaker
They obviously were part of the Naboo family. kind of clique. I really like the fan theory that like in the years between Sith and New Hope, everyone knows it's a well-known secret that Obi-Wan is on Tatooine. Yeah, yeah.
01:30:31
Speaker
like Because he only changed his first name to Ben Kenobi. But everyone knows it, but Vader just won't listen to it because he hates the planet so much and he hates sand so much. like yeah Canonically, Ever since his cyborg upgrade, he can't go on Tatooine because the sand is so coarse it will get in his joints.
01:30:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That was an old comic that had that. He hates Kenobi as well. I mean, he just doesn't like Kenobi. I mean, even in New Hope, he says that line that you said, Sia, about, felt depressed. I felt sick. He can't even bring himself to... He just runs off. No, I was doing the wrong way then. He just strides out. Yeah, he does.
01:31:08
Speaker
Yeah. and And I also love the fan theory that, because Luke doesn't obviously have the surname. I love the fan theory that Skywalker is like Smith in the Star Wars galaxy. um It's just like, oh, there's like 20 million Skywalkers.
01:31:22
Speaker
Have you um read any of the news on um novels about the Oh my gosh, my brain is breaking on the characters. Thrawn, yeah, like the new Thrawn. No, I read Heir to the Empire trilogy when I was, what, 13?
01:31:35
Speaker
and and I haven't read them again since. So Timothy Zahn has written new two trilogies about Thrawn. And in the Chiss
Expanded Universe and Cultural Significance
01:31:43
Speaker
ascendancy, which is like yeah the the kind of nation that that he belongs to, they don't have Force users, but they have...
01:31:52
Speaker
they use children to navigate hyperspace because hyperspace in the the kind of unknown regions where the Chiss live, like it's really hard to navigate. We see it in The Rise of Skywalker. You can only navigate through it with the the little Jedi travel thingamabob.
01:32:08
Speaker
um And so the Chiss get around that because there's a whole load of civilizations out there. But travel between those systems is really difficult because of the kind of maelstrom of the unknown region. So they use these kids who I think they're Force sensitive. Yeah, makes sense. And they call them in their language Skywalkers.
01:32:27
Speaker
And there's bit where Thrawn actually meets Anakin, like in the Outer Rim somewhere um on the edge of wild space. And they do a little mission together. And like, he's really curious about the fact that Anakin is called Skywalker.
01:32:40
Speaker
And Anakin's really curious about the fact that they call their like navigators Skywalkers. Interesting. It's so interesting. And the whole culture of the kids and how they're like you know basically being enslaved to fly the ships. It sounds like a riff on the navigators from Dune and Warhammer 4000. It's definitely that kind of vibe. yeah so They go into a trance um and the whole ship is reliant on them to get them through hyperspace.
01:33:05
Speaker
um I hope he does more. He's already done loads in these six books, but it's really ripe for for a bit more storytelling. Maybe we'll get more in the whole Ahsokaverse. Maybe. We've got the whales. Yeah, yeah, we love them. Pergils. Yeah, Pergils. All these different ways of like traveling through different ranges of hyperspace beyond the galaxy and everything else.
01:33:27
Speaker
I remember having my vehicles and vessels guide in the 90s that meant that as a teenager, I knew the answer to why the Kessel Run is measured in parsecs because of the gravity wells, because you've got to have fast and enough ship in hyperspace to not get sucked into a gravity well. That makes perfect sense you go when you think about hyperspace. And I love how they've then, ah like you say, with these regions that's more difficult to travel through, they've really expanded on that concept of like how you would...
01:33:55
Speaker
travel faster than light whilst being a and how that how you would be affected by the bodies external to that yeah like i think it's really great and i love that there's still enough like they fleshed it out enough but it's still it's still such a uh a concept where there's so many routes through the galaxy there could be so many ways that you could hyperspace that the continuity from the end of rogue one to the start of a new hope leia going no this is a consular ship nah nah i wasn't anywhere near scarif it really actually worked because how does he know that's the same Corellian Corvette blockade runner?
01:34:29
Speaker
Like, could be another one, to be fair. There's a lot of them knocking around. like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just because you've gone the same direction and you've come out and there's a ship there doesn't mean that it didn't come from another way. from somewhere else, yeah. They've been exploring that in the High Republic novels as well, where...
01:34:44
Speaker
in this era of the High Republic, which is like 250 years before. And they're talking about the hyperspace prospectors, um which is the San Tekka family are one of them. We see Law San Tekka at the beginning of Force Awakens as one of the older like um generations of them. But they they were like forging hyperspace routes.
01:35:02
Speaker
And it was the whole plot of the High Republic, especially phase one, is based around this idea that there are specific hyperspace routes between systems and taxation of the trade routes and stuff like yeah we have like particular routes that people go on so I think in the early days I just always imagined when I was playing the role-playing game and back in the original trilogy era you just think you can jump from anywhere to anywhere yeah and you have to think about where but of course it takes you on like you say to avoid gravity wells and And you could go anywhere. You could go any route. But how much fuel is that going cost you?
01:35:32
Speaker
Yeah. How much oxygen is that going to take? Is there any way you can refuel on that route? Because otherwise you're going to be like between two systems on the edge of the outer rim going, God, I wish I'd taken the main motorway. Yeah. Yeah. 100% that happens in the High Republic. That's like a big story point of...
01:35:48
Speaker
okay Wow, what a tangent. what yeah I
Speculation on Anakin's Legacy
01:35:51
Speaker
love that. So i was I had a question which you've kind of answered a little bit and with the whole Skywalker thing, and this came up for me when we were doing the original trilogy as well, but if you're trying to hide a baby from its father, why do you give it the same surname and put it on the planet where the father comes from? Because he doesn't want to go there.
01:36:10
Speaker
It's filled with sand and he hates it. It's dry, it's coarse, it gets everywhere. Yeah.
01:36:18
Speaker
yeah i think we've i think you have covered it yeah it's absolutely true yeah enough right i'll accept it also i guess there's the refuge in audacity thing like isn't that also the last place he's gonna think he'd do hiding in plain sight if he hears a rumor oh yeah obi-wan kenobi's gone to tatooine and given you your son actually survived despite the pregnancy fake on the on the funeral and um he's with your stepbrother um you know vader would be like have this person executed for wasting my time like that's ridiculous like there's no way everyone would do that yeah oh my goodness my last note of the whole thing was there's the tie fighter scream right at the end and i found it so satisfying was just like
01:37:00
Speaker
ah We're back to this sound. Yeah, because the Jedi fighters, when they sweep in at the beginning, it's almost a TIE fighter noise. And then they flick their little side panels up and it almost looks like a TIE fighter. And then at the end, you get the TIE fighter noise, but it's got a pointy nose, the ship.
01:37:16
Speaker
And it's that what I was talking about, there the visual language evolution. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I really, really love that like observation of transformation, um and which even ties into your question, Sia, about timelines. It's like, yeah, this is a multiple transformations and they're happening across like half a year or whatever it is. It's really cool. like Every time you think we are, you know, at one point, Obi-Wan jets off to Utapau, that's in the outer rim.
01:37:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's going take a while together. yeah, he's hyperspaced there, but it still takes a while. We've seen many scenes set in hyperspace, where people are just wandering around chatting while it's doing the hyperspace thing. So it's not an instant, it's not a wormhole.
01:37:52
Speaker
It's not wormhole. We don't need a piece of paper and a pencil and a bad example of space-time continuums to demonstrate it. Yeah, just draw a line, it's fine. I've come round to this film.
01:38:04
Speaker
Yay! We love that because I know for a fact that me and Jessica are very much team Revenge of the Sith. We both love it. You're both team Revenge of the Sith. The thing is, c yeah if one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the narrow dogmatic view of the nicer episodes.
01:38:24
Speaker
That is the perfect response. I love her I love it. I have got a page of Palpatine quotes here to and find the right one for any given situation.
01:38:36
Speaker
Jessica, thank you so much for coming on our podcast. Thank you for having me. You've been an amazing guest. I love the deep dives and the tangents that we've gone on in this episode. It's been so Yeah, it's been great. It's been great. I hope I didn't take up too much of the airtime. I know have a tendency to talk at length about things that love. You are for that.
01:38:55
Speaker
That's what we've brought you on. Yeah, 100%. Can I do a final? Because I bet there's a thing I have written here, which is the most awesome bit that the pair of you missed.
01:39:06
Speaker
Oh! oh So the move that Anakin pulls off to disarm or dishand, I suppose, Dooku. It's so fast. I watched it over and over and freeze-framed it to see. What?
01:39:20
Speaker
Dooku's coming in and Anakin hits his saber. Anakin's holding it. Anakin releases one hand and moves his saber sideways.
01:39:31
Speaker
So Dooku is falling across his body. So then he can put his hand round. He lets go with one hand and he lets Duk... If Duker had reacted correctly, he would have been beheaded.
01:39:42
Speaker
And when you watch the the test footage when they were doing the practice, it's even more pronounced. It's like a drop of the saber almost in the test footage. But in the actual film, yeah, he just releases one hand from the block.
01:39:54
Speaker
There's lots of moments in lightsaber fights that are very reminiscent of martial arts. um like Obi-Wan and Anakin kick each other a couple of times in the final fight. But this is very reminiscent of specific martial arts like Aikido and Judo, where you are using the other person's strength against against them. yeah And it's that, the quickness that he does it that allows him to have his hands, essentially Dooku's hands are within his grasp.
01:40:17
Speaker
He's got them there and he can take both hands off and catch his lightsaber. And it's so quick, it's blinking, you'll miss it. Mm-hmm. And the reason it catches Dooku off guard is because it's the first time that Anakin hasn't matched one of his attacks with a similar attack.
01:40:33
Speaker
Because Anakin is a very offensive fighter. Yeah. And this is the one time that Anakin gives. And Dooku's not expecting that because Anakin comes across as this reckless fighter. And it actually takes calculation to be able to do something like that.
01:40:50
Speaker
And it's just such a beautiful blink and you'll miss it moment. Shout out to the fight choreographer. The other Blinkton you'll miss it what's great is Bail Organa's look when Anakin says, excuse me to go and see Padme.
01:41:02
Speaker
Bail has a little side look where it's like, I'm like, you know, he is fully aware what you two are up to. is this like Yeah, okay. Yeah, sure. We'll pretend that's not happening. harry um but What an ending.
01:41:17
Speaker
This is going to be a mammoth. It's going to be a mammoth episode. It's good. It's good. We love it. All right. Thank you again. yeah Thank you for having me. joining everyone It's been great fun. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you're listening. If you want to give us a review, that would be amazing as well.
01:41:33
Speaker
And you can find us on all the social media. We're on Facebook and Instagram as Sisters of the Force Pod. um I've recently started Blue Sky. I think we're Sisters of the Force there. And YouTube, Sisters the Force.
01:41:44
Speaker
You can find us. Find us. Just Google us. You'll find us eventually. Just find us. um Tell your friends to listen. We will be back next week where we're entering a completely new era of Star Wars and leaving forward in time to the sequel era, which I'm very much looking forward to revisiting.
01:42:03
Speaker
um We will see you there. But until then, bye for now. Bye.