Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 3.5- There's No Bras In Space
1 Playsin 6 hours
In part 2 of our discussion of A New Hope, Ryn and Sam tackle misogyny, supporting the girls, the iconic sights and sounds of late 1900s pop culture, courtesy of John Williams and Industrial Light & Magic, and who the hell gave Luke Skywalker a 13-pack in the original poster?
Covers the making of and the cast and crew behind Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope (1977). This can be more or less listened to in any order with our previous episode, but we did record these in the order that they're posted.
Recommended
Transcript
Exploring Mass Effect's Romance and Choices
00:00:00
Speaker
As with many things, I am into Mass Effect because you're into Mass Effect. And I got it very cheap over the holidays. I think I got all three games for six bucks total. It was a ridiculous sale.
00:00:11
Speaker
And I'm enjoying it. There is a steep learning curve. And I did... get a romantic situation sprung on me after I had had one and a half personal conversations with this character and I was like oh I just want to get to know everyone let me have a friendly chat with all the members of my crew to see how they're doing after this mission and then Liara's like you feel the attraction too don't you and then I panicked and I hit yes because what was I gonna do tell her she's ugly like no she's a beautiful blue lady
00:00:43
Speaker
I do think the romance with Liara is one of the more rewarding ones in the game because there aren't too many characters where that you can have a romance with across all three games.
00:00:57
Speaker
And Liara is one of them. So we are picking our relationship up where it left off or I'm just a totally new Shepard? no romancing her separately No, you are the same shepherd. it all The game is a trilogy. it is You have the opportunity to start fresh and just become a shepherd, but like the events of the first game happen.
00:01:21
Speaker
You then will just have to like say, what major choices did you make? Or you can say, import my save file from Mass Effect 1. Oh, that's really cute. And it pulls all of the little choices you've made and everything in. And then like, you can change your class and some minor details. But, you know, all the major decisions that you make are held in consistent through the game.
00:01:47
Speaker
And so I find in the final battle when you have the conversation with your love. And like I've now played through Mass Effect a number of times. I very much enjoyed the time where I had the conversation with Garrus because obviously I had to romance Garrus. He's only an option in games two and three.
00:02:04
Speaker
Okay, that makes me feel slightly better, I guess. Because I was considering him before... I got cornered. Read the romance article on the Mass Effect wiki. Like it's, you know, they, it was very, very progressive for its time.
00:02:21
Speaker
i mean, literally 2007. You could be yes you could be gay o I have a theory, of personal theory in my heart, that Caden and Ashley, both of whom I literally could not give less of a shit about, maybe they become more interesting later, but right now don't give a fuck about them at all. My belief is that they are there so that you have a het human romance option if you're boring.
00:02:45
Speaker
I think that that's their role. Ashley is racist against aliens, so I had to tell her to get the fucking line, soldier. and I think she got the memo and then I had one and a half personal conversations with Caden and he was like are you this friendly with all your officers and I was like pump the brakes kid no I am your boss and I'm just being nice to you shut up oh my god why does everyone ah why is everyone trying to get with me I don't like it No, I did. I did do a playthrough where I it was my playthrough where I um got in a relationship with Garrus, which was I fucked Caden in the first ah game because you can't fuck Garrus.
00:03:26
Speaker
And then it was like, you just can't fuck him at all. You can't you can't have a relationship with Garrus in the first game. They did not make that an option. Oh, OK. Well, I know later. I'm just like imagining that the next two games you do have a relationship that is completely celibate.
00:03:39
Speaker
Oh, no, you can fuck Garrus. Yay! He's pointy. I'm brave. I don't really get the appeal. i do love his voice.
00:03:50
Speaker
I didn't get the appeal at first because you had sent me many humorous clips and screenshots of him and you were like, everybody wants to fuck this pointy man. And I said, I didn't see it. And then you sent me a clip of his voice and that still didn't really do it for me. I didn't fully get it. But now that I've gotten to know him a little bit, I love him. But I do think that he and Rex are gay married. So I'm going to let them have that.
00:04:16
Speaker
There is, if you don't romance either one of them, there does start to be a thing between Garris and Tali. That's cute. Okay, that's cute. I like that.
00:04:27
Speaker
And I do love Tali. I'm forever sad that she's not bisexual. You can romance her as as male Shepard, but not as female Shepard.
00:04:38
Speaker
jump scared when I see the loading image that's just generic muscle soldier man Shepard. Because there's a lot of generic muscle soldier man games. And I just look at that go, why?
00:04:51
Speaker
Of all the choices, you would choose to be generic muscle soldier man? Okay. I'm going to be over here with my blue alien wife, who I've now committed to for several lifetimes, I guess, because we had one and a half personal conversations.
00:05:06
Speaker
U-hauling forever. I mean, i i do think they like they still even did that well. Yeah, we had a bond and yeah, we fucked at the end of the game. But then you talk to each other in later games and it's like, you can see the relationship developing from the like, oh, you the two of you trauma bonded in the first game, but now you're like, actually a relationship.
First Impressions of Mass Effect's Gameplay
00:05:31
Speaker
I jest, but it is cute. She is very sweet. It is cute. Yeah, and I mean, you're not even halfway through the first game. I have no idea what I'm doing. I barely understand how combat works. I just mash buttons and I use the same gun every time.
00:05:45
Speaker
Yeah. I like hitting people with my pistol, just smacking them. That's good. That was my first, like, first-person shooter game. I had to, like, figure it because I never played that sort of game.
00:05:58
Speaker
I mean, I've played plenty of first person shooters. It's just the management of the party and their abilities. i don't get, but it's fine. yeah It does get I think it gets easier in the latter two games because there's a way to like have them auto use their powers. They're much more self-sufficient.
00:06:17
Speaker
That's in later games. a I did accidentally kill Garrus a lot of times in one of the very first fights because I didn't understand how combat worked and it didn't notify me that he had died and I didn't have the ability to like bring him back yet because it was really really early on so i just have I just kept having to leave and then reload my save until I could get him through this objectively very easy fight shu and I do have the game set to easy mode because I'm trying to have fun here
00:06:49
Speaker
Right. And the story is really the thing about Mass Effect that makes the whole game. It is it is a brilliantly written story. Speaking of brilliantly written stories. In space.
00:07:02
Speaker
In space, even. Not Star Wars, but... Yeah, no, to call the writing brilliant is maybe generous. Yeah.
Analyzing Star Wars Through a Queer Lens
00:07:30
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Fandom Apprentice. My name is Rin, I'm one of your hosts. I grew up with Star Wars and a number of other sci-fi and fantasy pieces of media.
00:07:43
Speaker
And as a grown-ass human, I have made it my life's mission to inflict these pieces of media on my friends that managed to escape them in their youth.
00:07:54
Speaker
That sounds like it's some kind of sickness that I've managed not to catch. It is. I would make a down with the sickness joke, but I don't actually know that song very well. So instead I will say, hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. I did not grow up at Star Wars beyond just kind of the cultural miasma, the primordial Star Wars swamp soup, which would be a funnier joke for the next movie, but that's fine.
00:08:20
Speaker
And now I am actually learning what the fuck goes on in these movies. Turns out it's kind of a lot. the Hot take, kind of a lot is going on in Star Wars. There's a whole galaxy over there, apparently. Hopefully our voices are as sonorous as usual. We're both getting over colds.
00:08:41
Speaker
But we're here. We're queer. We're going to talk about space puppets. This is the second of our episodes on Star Wars episode four, A New Hope, or the very first Star Wars movie released in 1977. Last episode, we covered the plot what happened in the plot and Sam's first viewing of the movie and basic visuals and such. And we ran out of time to discuss all of the people involved and the special effects and costumes and all of those things that we like to do as unprofessional media analyzers, which I think is kind of what we are at this point.
00:09:23
Speaker
I had a segue then it broke down and then it only had one wheel and Did you know the creator of Segway died on a Segway? I did. Yeah, i feel like that's a common factoid. I've never actually fact checked to see if that's true.
00:09:36
Speaker
But it's something that I've heard people say and it's kind of funny to imagine. so It's been a long fucking week. but I was about to say it and it's only Wednesday. I don't even know what day of the week it is. It's Thursday. Yeah, we record these on various days of the week, but you are currently listening to it on a Tuesday because that is when we release these episodes.
00:09:56
Speaker
So where the fuck do we want to start? The problem with not starting in a plot place is there's not like a very clear beginning.
00:10:09
Speaker
But I guess we'll start with you as the new Star Wars viewer. Your overall impressions of the movie and sort of any thoughts as an unprofessional media analyzer?
00:10:28
Speaker
So it took me a little while because I don't think that I really fully came out with this thesis statement when we were talking about The Mandalorian or the plot of this movie.
00:10:39
Speaker
It wasn't until you asked me to prepare, what are your thoughts now as an experienced, if non-professional, media analyzer now coming into this bigger property? So I kind of want to put my little thesis statement in here since we're doing things out of order anyway. Who cares? So...
00:10:55
Speaker
Like how we did with Lord of the Rings, I'm approaching this as a queer reading of Star Wars. Reading, viewing, you know, whatever. We're treating the film as a text because we went to liberal arts college and we say obnoxious things like that. And I'm going into it with the intention to see where we can find queerness in these stories, where we can create room for queerness in this, what I'm given to understand is kind of a...
00:11:24
Speaker
occasionally difficult fan environment, to put it nicely. oh yes. And I think part of that is that We're not looking for moral purity within Star Wars and that this is not a quest to prove that because we're finding room for queerness, Star Wars is leftist actually.
00:11:48
Speaker
No. And I'm also not trying to say that the problematic elements of it make it irredeemable garbage because... this is just something that fries my brain is, I don't want to call it a lack of nuance, but I think it's just more a general media literacy problem, especially when people are really hungry for queerness in their media and going into it with this need to find themselves and create space for themselves. And we've all been there, but it can create the thing where like you, want something to be perfect or you want it to be terrible so you can be mad at it.
00:12:28
Speaker
But we are trying to just go into this to enjoy it, analyze it, use our critical thinking skills and be intentional and be aware of the fact that we're having this conversation in a public platform and like trying to say things that we stand behind. But also, i don't really feel the need to prove myself to anyone with this. You know, we're We're in a little cozy corner of the internet with our listeners who like us and to engage thoughtfully and in good faith about the things that we talk about, which I commend them for that because that's not the norm on the internet. No.
00:13:07
Speaker
So I guess I'm trying to just like hold all of these things in my mind that like I do have an intention. I have something that sort of like academically i am curious to get out of this experience.
00:13:18
Speaker
But also we're just having fun and it's Star Wars and not everything is that deep. So that's my disclaimer thesis statement. All of it that I think is kind of summing up how I'm approaching this.
A Closer Look at Star Wars Posters
00:13:31
Speaker
No, and and George Lucas is not the professor.
00:13:35
Speaker
No. and you know And even the professor was not intending to put all of the shit into those books that people have read out of them. for For those of you who are not who did not spend two years nitpicking line by line the lord of the rings series the professor is jr r tolkien and those books are the lord of the rings trilogy i do love kind of referring to them as those books oh you know the books whatever isn short people go on a long walk
00:14:06
Speaker
I do. Yeah, i I feel like I do have to like define that because I know that we get new listeners who come in just for Star Wars and we got some new listeners who were here just for Murderbot. And in addition to the folks who've been with us since the Lord of the Rings days, which was not that long ago, just over a year ish.
00:14:26
Speaker
I don't know when this will come out. i I do the scheduling, but point is. I don't really have anything good to add to that. Star Wars in and of itself is much like lord of the Rings, oftentimes very black and white about good and evil. And that's and that's the point of it. it's It's not a morality tale, and yet it draws from many stories that were. yeah And so you're going to get elements of that.
00:14:57
Speaker
And so when we read in this nuance, we're doing so because, one, we enjoy reading nuance into shit. And when we read nuance into this, it's because we enjoy reading nuance into this. It's not necessarily that the nuance is there. It's not necessarily that the nuance isn't there.
00:15:16
Speaker
Because that's art. That's when art is created and it goes out into the world, it belongs to the people who consume it. And we get to interpret it however we want. This isn't a court of law where we have to prove why we're correct. We like to have sources and cite those sources because we're nerds and we're academic. But, you know, corny about it.
00:15:37
Speaker
So as another sort of exercise in first impressions and frameworks of viewing and thinking about things, I was wondering if we could do a super quick close-ish read of two posters from the original.
00:15:55
Speaker
Yes. promotional run that I have put in our chat and we will put somewhere visible to our friends to go click a link in the description and you can see these as well. Because I was curious thinking, okay, I'm coming into this in 2026 with all of the baggage and nuance and queerness and whatever that that entails. But how was this movie presenting itself? This is the first Star Wars ever, even though the books were released before the movie, whatever.
00:16:24
Speaker
but effectively this is the first star war how are we presenting this what is the impression that this film is trying to present of itself and i found two posters that have really different vibes they barely look like they're from the same movie so the first one is by an artist named tom young I assume that's how you pronounce it, J-U-N-G.
00:16:48
Speaker
And it looks a little different from a slightly more iconic version of the same poster that was reworked later because there were critiques of it.
00:16:59
Speaker
But this first one, you have sort of a big silhouette, sort of a translucent silhouette of Darth Vader's face in the back. Desert foreground.
00:17:10
Speaker
Luke and Leia in the middle. Leia kind of posing sexily, doing a weird knee and shoulder angle with a blaster. You can see she has this flowing cape and she looks very mysterious and elegant.
00:17:28
Speaker
Luke has this wide stance, holding a lightsaber above his head. It's shooting out this T-shaped beam of light and his white robe is open to reveal what looks like a 13 pack it is ah an invention of biology it is a baker's dozen no human body looks like this mark hamill's body does not look like this these characters do not really resemble the actors much at all
00:18:06
Speaker
No, and I was specifically looking at Carrie Fisher's or at Leia's costume. Yeah, who is this? Because this is not Carrie Fisher in the movie. No, with the slit up both legs in the skirt and the super low cut scoop neck.
00:18:25
Speaker
You know, this is actually... Now that I look at this closer, this is even more fascinating to me because the piece of homework you assigned me was to research costumes because listeners for the show will know that I am very into costuming and design.
00:18:39
Speaker
And this woman is for sure wearing a bra, even though there are no bras in space. So your bra in space we'll talk about that later. But okay, so yeah, this is definitely it reminds me of sort of a combination of generic 70s fantasy oil painting book cover.
00:19:01
Speaker
And also kind of romance novel bodice ripper with a literal open shirt and a sexy posing woman. So this is giving kind of like an and there's also the Death Star and some spaceships in the background is fine, but it's overall kind of like a simple, minimal design.
00:19:21
Speaker
But it's giving this sort of legendary epic sexy powerful cool looming darkness are there some robots maybe they're really tiny in the background who cares but it's sort of presenting this epic impression that's what i'm getting from it at least i just talked a lot what is the vibe that you get from this poster Bodice Ripper's about right.
00:19:49
Speaker
70s pulp novel, like fantasy novel cover. that's That's what I read here. There's the the both of them all dressed in flowing white with the light shining on them and they're backlit, superimposed over the like...
00:20:08
Speaker
very evil mask of darth vader that's very clearly calling to like a death's head image we know who our heroes are and also there is absolutely no way you can look at this poster and say that george lucas had planned ahead to have these two be siblings Yeah. yeah This is a poster of two people who are going to fuck at the end. And it just really, i guess we could talk about this more in the second poster.
00:20:37
Speaker
This does not align with their characterization in the movie at all. Luke is a useless twink who I don't even know if he's strong enough to hold a lightsaber over his head like that. Leia is the most competent person in the movie tied maybe with Chewie. And yes, she is very beautiful and wears a cool white dress, but it looks nothing like that.
00:20:59
Speaker
She's not giving sultry bedroom eyes to anyone. She's glaring daggers into Han Solo. Like this is, I think fantasy, like you said, that's the word is it's a power fantasy. It's a sex fantasy. It's a space fantasy. Yeah.
00:21:16
Speaker
It definitely will sell tickets to the movie, for sure. Not really in alignment with what the movie is like. Whereas the second poster, which is by the Brothers Hildebrandt, which there they were referenced that way on the movie poster web website I was looking at, which leads me to believe that they have done many posters because they're the Brothers. I don't know. They just sound kind of important. So maybe they've done other iconic movie posters. I don't know.
00:21:44
Speaker
This one... is a more sort of exciting ensemble shot. You have Luke right in the center looking dead into the camera and he's got some kind of fucking blaster. I don't even know what that is that he's holding, but it's not a lightsaber. It's the um blasters they take from the stormtroopers, except it's like front on.
00:22:07
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. It's a weird angle, but he's obviously holding cool space weapon. And then you have Han and Leia on either side. These portrayals look like all of the actors. Leia, covered up to the neck like she is in the movie. holding leaves And with sleeves. with sleeves.
00:22:27
Speaker
Holding a big fuck-ass gun thing that is shooting this giant red laser thing. the blasts that we see in the movie are kind of these staccato little bursts of pew pew pew but basically it looks like she's holding a flamethrower and it's just one continuous laser blast and then han is doing the same thing on the other side he's in a cool action pose and then behind them you have vader who's holding up his red lightsaber and so you have these kind of three
00:22:59
Speaker
lines of cool epic powerful laser light and then you have little silhouettes of other side characters you've got obi-wan you've got the droids you've got chewy there's rockets flying everywhere in the death star and the colors are more saturated this is giving much more action adventure but taking itself a lot less seriously yeah i agree this this feels more to me like a movie poster than the first one does the first one feels like a pulp fiction novel Mm-hmm.
00:23:30
Speaker
This one feels like a movie poster from the 70s, which it is. The second one feels like a movie I would take my kid to see. I would not take my kid to see the first movie.
00:23:41
Speaker
No. and Well, and I have to wonder, because my dad was saying that when he first went to see the first movie, when he was 15, he hadn't seen like any like previews for it on TV or anything. He thinks he'd just seen a poster.
00:23:56
Speaker
And... Knowing my grandmother, I have to think if it was the first poster, she did not see that poster. you know And if it was the second one, that is still a movie my dad would go see.
00:24:10
Speaker
My dad was a voracious reader of pulp fantasy, was, as if he is not still. ah um As if when they brought all of their stuff across the Atlantic when they moved, his Conan the Barbarian novels did not go with him.
00:24:25
Speaker
He absolutely would have gone to see something like the second movie, or the second poster, and also the first one. like I think both of those are up his alley. But you can see you see what I mean about them looking like they're different movies.
00:24:37
Speaker
Right, but they're they're different vibes. And the way my dad was describing it was, he said, like, he read Lord of the Rings when he was young. He was a young teenager and spent the rest of his teenage years looking for more things that imitated that, like that were at that level.
00:24:54
Speaker
And so if I had to guess if he if one of these two posters was the one that he saw, i would think it's the more saturated one with the full cast. Right.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah. Because that gives a more epic, swashbuckling fantasy vat fellowship vibe. And it does well what a lot of contemporary movie posters, I'm looking at you, Avengers, do badly.
00:25:23
Speaker
Which is the group shot of all the characters to advertise the movie. Because I see so many, especially superhero movie posters, that's just... A bunch of people in costumes standing.
00:25:36
Speaker
And you don't really know anything about them from the way that they're positioned or the composition of the image because it's just such an iconic brand you're just supposed to know. But... I think partially because it was a different media landscape, partially because it was a new movie and they needed to introduce these characters. I think it does a nice job kind of giving a vibe.
00:25:57
Speaker
Luke is brave, but also you can tell he's a little unsure. He's not this big movie. muscle baker's dozen 13 pack haver he's obviously a young guy but he's plucky and han has this sort of serious furrowed brow and he's going into action leia is in the process of killing a bitch vader is sort of darkly presiding it's giving you a sense and even obi-wan is sort of has this weird kind of floating head that works with his sort of mentor, serene Jedi vibe.
00:26:34
Speaker
And it's also just a more exciting poster because you have dimension with the way that all of the ships are more detailed. They're coming into the foreground. They're actively shooting at each other. There's a little combat story happening visually with the ships in this poster as opposed to the other one where the ships are all kind of flat in the background in some kind of military formation, but there's nothing really happening with them. They're just kind of there, which is not to say the first one is a bad poster, but...
00:27:03
Speaker
We are being presented with two different approaches to the story. And I just thought that was kind of a fun way to begin the really nitty gritty analysis by seeing what the movie was trying to say about itself first.
00:27:17
Speaker
That's a good place to start. I appreciate that.
The Influence of George Lucas's Collaborations
00:27:20
Speaker
I think besides the visual, we need to start our discussion of how the movie came to be with George Lucas.
00:27:30
Speaker
Mm hmm. George Lucas is a professional misogynist and shitty writer who has made many incredibly iconic movies. Can I edit that to be the first line of his Wikipedia article? How long do you think that would stay up?
00:27:45
Speaker
ah Oh, not long, but someone would get a kick out of it and someone will send me hate about it. If that happens, it wasn't us. It's a coincidence.
00:27:57
Speaker
Okay. Now, the way this man writes women, there is there is not a single woman this man has ever written who is not an object. there is no There are no women characters in his movies. is this I try to think if it was, I could be completely making this up and I'm going to have to Google it.
00:28:18
Speaker
I feel like it might have been an interview with Carrie Fisher on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, excellent NPR program. talking about the sexy lamp theory of film or was that a tumblr post or something i don't know i've read i read something about the sexy lamp theory but yeah yeah and yeah i'll have to the sexy lamp theory about like yes if you can replace the female character with a lamp and fundamentally not change the story with a sexy lamp and fundamentally not change the story then you've written a shitty character or
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that's good. Something to that regard. He is also, and we'll find this out when we watch the prequels, not a great writer. he is really good at the big picture stuff. When he comes up with the broad overarching stories and the broad overarching universes that he constructs, that shit's good. But he has to have an editor. Mm-hmm.
00:29:19
Speaker
And for this first movie, that was his now ex-wife, Marsha Griffin. And she divorced him after the third movie came out. Good for her.
00:29:29
Speaker
I hope she got a gajillion dollars. I hope so. And then the other person who was responsible for fixing all the fucking scripts was Carrie Fisher. Hell yeah. Who like gained a reputation as a script doctor.
00:29:44
Speaker
As someone who could just walk on the set, read through the script, and be like, yeah, this needs changing, this needs changing. We're going to rearrange these two scenes. We're going to add this line here. This person would not fucking say that.
00:29:55
Speaker
He'd fucking say that, though. And that just became something she would just do. There are stories out there from people who did other movies with Carrie Fisher, both Star Wars and non-Star Wars films, who were like, yeah, no, if she had not taken the script and fixed it, this would have gone nowhere.
00:30:14
Speaker
And Marsha Griffin, George Lucas's ex ex-wife, is a notorious film editor. She won a BAFTA for best editing on Taxi Driver. Damn.
00:30:25
Speaker
She yeah worked on a number of other George Lucas films, obviously, when she was married to him. She worked on THX 1138, on American Graffiti. And then she ended up working also with Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese as well.
00:30:39
Speaker
So this is this is a stupid question, but it's setting up a point that is clicking in my brain. ah People generally, so you said she divorced him after the third movie, right? Yes.
00:30:51
Speaker
And people do not like the prequel movies. Generally, they're not well regarded. They're not as well regarded as the first three, yeah. There was a Tumblr post I saw ages ago where someone was saying, if there is a man who makes media that is consumed by the public and suddenly the quality of his work drastically decreases, go to his Wikipedia page and see if he got divorced around that time or had a major breakup or for some reason a woman in his life left him.
00:31:24
Speaker
You may find that those things align. And I'm not saying that that's the only reason. but it is conspicuous yeah i mean the prequels didn't come out until the late 90s early 2000s and they did divorce in 1983 it was all downhill from there she yeah i'm just being a shit Back to George Lucas in general, he made a number of incredibly well-regarded movies, but you know the Star Wars films, he's responsible for American Graffiti, for all of the Indiana Jones movies, and then a number of other films that I have never fucking heard of.
00:32:05
Speaker
But he also apparently had sort of long running collaboration and friendship with Steven Spielberg. So it's it's also like understood that he also, he and Steven Spielberg, like bounced ideas off of each other.
00:32:20
Speaker
So you've got you've got a couple of Hollywood legends responsible for some of the biggest pop culture names in the last 50 years of American history working together. He initially had come up with the idea for Star Wars as... he he initially had sought out the rights to Flash Gordon, which was a series of pulp action sci-fi novels and a TV show and comics and couldn't get the rights to it but was inspired by that and his love of fantasy to then start putting together a story about a character named Luke Starkiller and his two children and he very purposefully made these characters like built these characters around classic archetypes and spent two years working on the screenplay apparently
00:33:10
Speaker
He very deliberately wanted to make the main character kind of an everyman. He has cited Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces, which is a book about comparative mythology and of sort of the hero figure.
00:33:29
Speaker
mythology in general, George Lucas has often cited that as inspiration for the character of Luke and later for Anakin. And the idea that Joseph Campbell puts forward of the hero's journey, Lucas has also cited that as sort of overall inspiration. And hearing about some of his early drafts and his discussion of like, he was interested for a long time in this idea of the twins particularly in them being foils for each other and the way it's presented when you listen to some of the interviews particularly like on things like disney plus and such which are built around the the myth of george lucas the image of george lucas it almost makes it sound like yes he had planned this from the beginning but you can just watch the fucking movie and see that that's not the case yeah And also somebody mentioned at one point in one of the interview things that I was watching that there was initially a plan for another character to come in and be Luke's twin.
00:34:32
Speaker
Like that hadn't been introduced by the end of Empire. And then that got scrapped in favor of just like, just make it Leia. Because we already know and love Leia.
00:34:44
Speaker
The other piece that I really enjoyed... reading about was the original inspiration for chewy oh was lucas's co-pilot as he describes it his alaskan malamute named indiana oh i have to go look up a picture of this dog even though i know what malamutes look like it probably just looks like a normal fucking dog i want to see it Which, you know, then of course, names a character, Indiana Jones after the dog. And in the third Indiana Jones movie, in Last Crusade, Sean Connery, at one point, who's playing Indiana Jones's father, turns out Indiana is not the character's name.
00:35:24
Speaker
We named the dog Indiana. So Indiana the Malamute has appeared multiple franchises in multiple movies. If I was responsible for making Iconic Media, my dog would be in every fucking one of those movies.
00:35:41
Speaker
I can respect that. For everything that we can blast George Lucas about, the ah quote that I have written down in my notes, my notes are super disorganized, but a quote that I have written down in my notes from Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings films is same as Tolkien, he created memorable characters.
00:36:03
Speaker
You sort of don't remember the special effects, but you remember the characters. And a piece of that is because all of these characters were designed to be these archetypes.
00:36:16
Speaker
you know if If I say, you know if I give you the barest bones description of Star Wars, you can find that story in...
00:36:28
Speaker
Lord of the Rings, you can find that story in King Arthur. This, you know, you have the ancient mentor, you have the poor boy rising up from his circumstances and the evil power that they have to overcome.
00:36:44
Speaker
This is not a new story and yet it still kind of feels new. Mm-hmm. When we dig into this, we can point to all of these archetypes that these characters fill.
00:36:58
Speaker
But they have become so iconic in their own right that now when we're talking about the hero's journey, we point back to Star Wars.
00:37:09
Speaker
you know i've I've talked about other pieces of media, again, with my dad at various points. Been like, oh, he's like Obi-Wan. That's the first descriptor. Not Merlin, not Gandalf, Obi-Wan. Mm-hmm.
00:37:23
Speaker
Granted, some of that is, you know, where did I get these touchstones at what point in
Iconic Star Wars Cast and Their Careers
00:37:27
Speaker
my life? But the characters, despite being generic, are also anything but, which ah is what makes them so memorable.
00:37:37
Speaker
We know them, we know how to relate to them, we know what to expect from them, and yet we still know that there is more to them.
00:37:49
Speaker
While we're on the subject of people, want to go through a little bit of the cast because obviously this cast has become some of the biggest names in cinema. But George Lucas specifically selected for kind of unknowns.
00:38:05
Speaker
Yeah. When he was trying to pull cast members and he got a few very big names. Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing. Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker
are were huge at the time. They'd been working for decades. But Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, Harrison Ford had done some other work prior to this. And both Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher had done a couple of things.
00:38:31
Speaker
But this was sort of this was their big break. This is what made their careers. Lucas, again, wanted that as because then when you're not when you're not watching the movie like, oh, that's Timothee Chalamet.
00:38:45
Speaker
That's what's his fucking face. The character can then more easily become that everyman character can more they can more easily fall into that role. Yeah. But I mean, let's start with Mark Hamill.
00:38:58
Speaker
Mark Hamill had been in some television things, couple of episodes of things here and there, but Star Wars was his first film role. He then honestly has been in a lot of things that I have not seen, both in live action hack television and movies.
00:39:16
Speaker
A lot of Star Wars things, a lot of things appearing as himself or as Luke Skywalker, like in the Muppet show because what he's really known for what he goes on to two a lot of is voice work and he plays an incredible fucking villain specifically you will probably recognize him most and most of the people from our generation will recognize him as Fire Lord Ozai no I didn't know this Fire Lord Ozai is Luke Skywalker
00:39:52
Speaker
He also played the Joker in everything animated Batman for decades. There is a clip that was floating around Tumblr for years.
00:40:02
Speaker
One of the animated Batmans in which Bruce Wayne gets kidnapped by... Riddler and two or three other villains and then the Joker shows up and then he's saved by Swamp Thing and then there's something else that happens.
00:40:20
Speaker
No. And it's, it's, it wasn't, sorry, it wasn't Bruce Wayne getting kidnapped. It's movie star Mark Hamill getting kidnapped by all of these villains. And so it's Mark Hamill playing himself, being kidnapped by himself, himself and himself and being saved by himself and himself.
00:40:38
Speaker
Oh my god. He is playing like seven different characters in that scene. And granted it's voiceover work so he can walk into the studio on separate days and put down these tracks.
00:40:50
Speaker
But he is known for his voice work and being able to... put together just incredibly different incredibly diverse voices and then it's really fucking weird when you see him do that in live action isn first of all voice actors are incredible Whenever you watch a voice actor switch voices like ont stage, that's terrifying.
00:41:17
Speaker
Or when you see a voice actor like doing a voice that you're not expecting from them, that's also ridiculous. He played a villain, one of the villains...
00:41:28
Speaker
in follow the house of usher which was like a a horror netflix show that i watched a bunch of whenever it came out i don't remember when that was i feel like it was over the pandemic because it feels like it it was probably in some sort of liminal time And I watched him come on screen and start speaking in this deep, raspy voice and was like, I know this is Mark Hamill, but that's not Mark Hamill, is it?
00:42:00
Speaker
There's no way. And yeah, that's just him. That's just him doing a voice. He was called off. Someone from corporate called his supervisor, stood him down. That's wild.
00:42:11
Speaker
And he's delight. He has supported a number of liberal and lefty causes throughout his life and has kind of a generally funny Twitter or did. I don't know if he's still on Twitter.
00:42:26
Speaker
he He apparently, during Trump's first term, did a bunch of videos where he read out Trump's tweets in his Joker voice. oh my god he he generally seems to just have like a good sense of humor i don't remember exactly when it was but he gave an interview at one point where he talked about gay fans telling him that they saw themselves in luke and he was like luke doesn't have a love interest and i never played luke as gay but if you see luke as gay he's gay mark
00:43:01
Speaker
I know celebrities aren't our friends, but I'm genuinely touched by that. That's kind of a big deal that he said that. That's nice. is and But also, Chanel boots.
00:43:14
Speaker
I mean, you know, wi all we needed was our eyes to see that. But still, you know, it's nice that he said. Harrison Ford was in several movies before Star Wars, including American Graffiti, which was another George Lucas movie, which is where he met Lucas.
00:43:32
Speaker
He then went on to play a number of other characters in sci-fi as he was in Blade Runner. He is, of course, Indiana Jones. He plays Dr. Richard Kimball in The Fugitive, which is a phenomenal movie with Tommy Lee Jones.
00:43:46
Speaker
He played Jack Ryan in a number of... the various Jack Ryan movies, which I know are a big franchise. I have read one or two of those books back in my, back in high school, I read a lot of those like 80s through early 2000s spy novels by all of the various authors, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, all of them were the same.
00:44:13
Speaker
They all take place in a Soviet nation or as you get slightly later in an unnamed Middle Eastern country.
00:44:25
Speaker
Occasionally, occasionally there's a foray to South America. Oh. Ooh. I read a lot of those in high school. they Not a single one of them has stuck in my memory.
00:44:35
Speaker
That just makes you think of the a clip from The Gay Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo. It's not racist. It's diverse.
00:44:45
Speaker
I don't have too much more to say about Harrison Ford. I, looking back, definitely had a thing for Harrison Ford as Han Solo and as Indiana Jones.
00:44:59
Speaker
understandable that looking back should have all been clearer so much earlier little bisexual me was just having a time you got there in the end i did you know who also got there with harrison ford this Carrie Fisher.
00:45:19
Speaker
And Carrie Fisher might be my favorite person to have ever walked this planet. Every single thing I read about her, every interview I've ever seen with her, she's just fucking hilarious.
00:45:31
Speaker
Mm-hmm. and a piece you know And a piece of that is the sense of humor she's developed, particularly in talking about her struggles. She struggled ah with addiction throughout her entire life.
00:45:45
Speaker
And when she eventually passed away, ah believe it did potentially relate to complications from her history of drug use. But she, during her life, was...
00:45:59
Speaker
A brilliant entertainer, clearly. She was a brilliant writer, script doctor, incredible actress. Brings the drama to Leia.
00:46:12
Speaker
Level 20 bard in real life. Genuinely, though. Like genuinely, you know most of her big roles are about Leia.
00:46:24
Speaker
That was kind of her big thing. And she played in plenty of other movies and plenty of other shows. But like the things that I recognize her from are all related to her being Princess Leia.
00:46:41
Speaker
And when she was, from all reports, just incredibly well respected by the entire rest of the cast. Imagine if she had been respected by George Lucas.
00:46:53
Speaker
Fucking imagine. what a Imagine. I am staring at a quote from fucking George Lucas here. Which is, she was extremely smart, a talented actress, writer, and comedian with a very colorful personality that everyone loved. In Star Wars, she was our great and powerful princess, feisty, wise, and full of hope in a role that was more difficult than most people might think.
00:47:14
Speaker
Gee, George, I wonder why that role might have been more difficult than most people think. Was it you? hang is it me, Jesus? Is it me, Dina? Other actors...
00:47:26
Speaker
actors We had, of course, Sir Alec Guinness playing as Obi-Wan Kenobi, who fucking hated this movie. he You've told me this before. is Did he just think it was undignified? well why He referred to it fairy tale rubbish and agreed to take the role after apparently the studio doubled his initial salary offer and agreed that he wouldn't have to do any press for the film.
00:47:57
Speaker
ha I respect that. I'm not showing my face in public being associated with this. You got me in the movie. That's all you get. Yeah, Baze. I mean, he was a huge name at the time already.
00:48:12
Speaker
Among his various acting credits, starting 1934, the first bigger name Oliver Twist 1948. He played Fagin. bigger name was oliver twist to nineteen forty eight he played fagan He played in, again, so many things that i feel like I should recognize. He was in Lawrence of Arabia, which apparently was a major influence on George Lucas. George Lucas loved that movie. He was Dr. Zivago in Dr. Zivago.
00:48:40
Speaker
Obviously was in Star Wars. And then again, as with so many of these incredible actors from this era who had been at this for decades at this point, and like many of the older actors that we talked about when we talked about the Lord of the Rings films, he's a classically trained Shakespearean actor.
00:49:00
Speaker
Not surprising in the slightest. No, you you look at i look at his stage credits. You have Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labor's Lost, As You Like It, Hamlet Again, Twelfth Night, Henry V, Richard II, Merchant of Venice,
00:49:17
Speaker
Hamlet again, Hamlet again, Henry V again, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet again, Great Expectations, The Tempest, Brothers Karamazov, King Lear, a Cyrano de Bergerac, Macbeth again, Merchant of Venice again, i'll Walk in the Woods.
00:49:36
Speaker
And that is a sampling primarily focused around his Shakespearean roles. There's dozens of others on his list of credits. The other big name in this cast was Peter Cushing, who played Grand Moff Tarkin with his fantastic fucking cheekbones.
00:49:58
Speaker
They are truly impressive. He apparently was originally slated to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, but George Lucas decided him and his fantastic fucking cheekbones would be better suited as the villain.
00:50:15
Speaker
He apparently was very good friends with notable badass Sir Christopher Lee. Amazing. And much like, and in part, because as we may remember from our discussions of the Lord of the Rings movies, Sir Christopher Lee played Dracula quite frequently.
00:50:35
Speaker
I forgot. and And Sir Peter Cushing, opposite him, i assume it's Sir Peter Cushing. He has a most excellent order of the British Empire. And Peter Cushing played opposite him as Van Helsing.
00:50:49
Speaker
Remind me. He is one of the other, like... main characters he is a quoting to oh was he the doctor he's the doctor doctor van helsing yes okay yeah yeah yeah i did dracula daily one year and so that was good because now it means i've read dracula but it was over such a long period of time Fair, fair. He also played Baron Victor Frankenstein in many old monster movies.
00:51:17
Speaker
Again, is a classically trained theater actor, played in numerous theater productions, including... the one I see called out here is Hamlet.
00:51:28
Speaker
He also played in a film, he played in a film adaptation of Hamlet. He passed away in 1994 from prostate cancer, um which I didn't realize into because,
00:51:40
Speaker
Whoever covers his lines in some of the later animated Star Wars animated stuff does such a good goddamn job getting his voice right.
00:51:51
Speaker
He was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor as Grand Moff Tarkin. Other actors who also deserve plenty of accolades for this. We have Anthony Daniels, who played C-3PO. he's delightful ah he is so much fun and i wish i could remember the shit that i had read about anthony daniels a couple of weeks ago when initially i was doing these notes because i didn't write it down something about c3po something about like having somebody else in mind to play 3po and then meeting anthony daniels and being like ah no that's
00:52:27
Speaker
Or having a different idea in mind for what 3PO's personality and vibe was going to be. And then Anthony Daniels was like, nope, this is it. Stuffy British butler.
00:52:38
Speaker
Yes, and he does it so well. He has... One, two, three, four film roles that are not 3PO. That's it. One of them is a cameo in another Star Wars movie as a different character.
00:52:55
Speaker
And then one of them is as Legolas Greenleaf in the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings from 1978. Oh, no way. Kenny Baker. appeared as r2d2 he is the man inside r2d2 costume peter mayhew was chewbacca he was super fucking tall i was but that was gonna be my question was is he actually that tall yes his peak height was seven foot three inches whoa 2.21 meters it's probably really hard to be that tall because you have to be that tall forever not just when you're being chewbacca
00:53:33
Speaker
Yeah, that seems that seems rough. And then we have the multiple actors who played Darth Vader. Because Vader was portrayed on screen, like in the suit, by David Prowse.
00:53:50
Speaker
And David Prowse read out Vader's lines like on stage. And again, David Prowse is this large, kind of hulking, imposing figure. but apparently kind of has a West country British accent, which I don't know what that sounds like off the top of my head, but apparently it was kind of too farmer country-esque for what they wanted for Vader.
00:54:14
Speaker
So Vader was then dubbed over by James Earl Jones, who has just such an incredible voice. My God. And then visually Vader will then be played by yet another actor in Return of the Jedi. Yeah.
00:54:30
Speaker
David Prowse was actually apparently really salty about the fact that his voice was dubbed over. I would be too, especially if you don't know that that's going to happen. You think, okay, I'm playing this character. George Lucas is kind of known for like making these last minute decisions and just running with it. And well, that's too bad for the fucking actors, I guess.
00:54:52
Speaker
Yeah. But all all of these actors went on to have strong careers. Many of them focused around Star Wars. Many of them continuing on on outside of it.
00:55:03
Speaker
There's a couple of other people to
John Williams's Musical Legacy
00:55:05
Speaker
talk about. One i will one group I will talk about as a group. But then one other person in particular that made Star Wars what it was is, of course, John Williams.
00:55:15
Speaker
m who composed the soundtrack George Lucas apparently wanted to use pre-recorded music like just pick out some stuff and brought on John Williams as a consultant for that and John Williams convinced him to have a full soundtrack for the movie everyone say thank you john williams yeah the correct fucking decision john fucking williams has five academy academy awards
00:55:51
Speaker
One for best scoring adaptation and original song score for Fiddler on the Roof. Four for best original score for Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., and Schindler's List.
00:56:04
Speaker
Hell yeah. He was also nominated for Academy Awards for every other Star Wars movie, all three Indiana Jones movies, Home Alone, Saving Private Ryan, and two of the first three Harry Potter movies.
00:56:19
Speaker
My local classical radio station? fucking loves John Williams there is at least one usually more like two or three John Williams songs him conducting his own work which is always so fun like per day just during the time that I listen on my commute He is, i mean, he is prolific and still composing. He is 94 years old as of 2026 and still composing and still directing and still working.
00:56:51
Speaker
He is responsible for the sound of pop culture through the 70s and 80s. Not surprising. Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Schindler's List, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones, Hook,
00:57:05
Speaker
He also composed the theme for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. superman home alone harry potter he also was the principal conductor of the boston pops orchestra from nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety three he also composed the theme music for the nineteen eighty four summer olympic games NBC Sunday Night Football, the theme for NBC News, themes for PBS's great performances, as well as Lost in Space, Land of the Giants and Amazing Stories.
00:57:36
Speaker
I had a songbook back as a kid of trumpet like transcriptions of his music because he writes such incredible brass lines.
00:57:48
Speaker
that is That is one of the many things I love about him. But personally, as a brass player, he writes incredible brass lines. And he really knows how to make a ah is how how to make a song hit.
00:58:02
Speaker
o right From that very first chord at the beginning of the Star Wars theme, you're like, ah, I am in an epic fantasy tale. Yeah. The theme for Superman, that is so neatly, is it listening to the music, you don't have to watch anything, but that is so neatly the transition from Clark Kent into Superman.
00:58:25
Speaker
of The way that music rises, bump but bu bu bump but and it's, it's a, it is, you can visually in your mind's eye see Superman jumping up into the sky up up and away. His list of compositions is divided by decade because there's no other way to do it. Yeah.
00:58:47
Speaker
His composition for Jaws, which is, again, one of the most iconic movie themes of all time, captures such an incredible sense of creeping dread. I have a short personal connection to Jaws, one of the few movies that I have seen. When i was a senior in high school...
00:59:08
Speaker
we did a field trip to Cape Cod. and I forget what the house was, but it was this cool house on the beach that was run by these conservation people and you learned about the ocean and nature and it know was great. But we spent a whole day learning about sharks with the people from Osearch who do a lot of specifically great white shark tracking and research and stuff. It was fascinating. learned about all of the many, many, many sharks.
00:59:34
Speaker
ah god And then we go back to this little cabin. It wasn't my whole grade. It was probably only like 30 of us for some reason. might have been like AP English. i don't know.
00:59:44
Speaker
But so after we spent our whole day learning about sharks and we go to this isolated little cabin on the beach in the dark, that is when we all watched Jaws. And then the next morning, we all go out to the beach and everyone else was unaffected because they were brave. But I was just like, oh my gosh, sharks, the sharks are everywhere. So it's very impactful. Thank you, John Williams, for contributing to that.
01:00:10
Speaker
In addition to his movie themes, he also composed ah music for Olympic Games in 1984, 1988, 1996, and For NBC Sunday Night Football, for NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, Meet the Press.
01:00:26
Speaker
and he has concert concerto pieces from that he has written from nineteen sixty nine to twenty twenty five Oh my God.
01:00:37
Speaker
He also frequently gets commissioned to create celebration pieces for specific events. In 1986, he composed a fanfare for the sesquicentennial of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Okay, great.
01:00:58
Speaker
Fanfare for a festive occasion composed for the Boston Civic Orchestra. He did an arrangement in 2007 for the 2007 World Series of the Star Spangled Banner. Fanfare for Fenway as part of the Boston Red Sox's 100th anniversary of at Fenway Park.
01:01:13
Speaker
He composed theme music for the Oscars in 2021. And I'm just like cherry picking shit here. When I think of he...
01:01:24
Speaker
ah Unfortunately, like I don't have necessarily as many musical insights as I did when we talked about Howard Shore's music, mostly because didn't do quite as much research.
01:01:35
Speaker
But like when I think of a film composer, John Williams is the first one to come to mind. Yeah, I see why. yeah he obviously you know had influences like any any artist does but when you listen to modern film composers you can very clearly see through lines to john williams music i don't i don't think there is a film composer alive that doesn't draw from John Williams.
01:02:08
Speaker
We talked a little bit about Ludwig Goranson's music when we talked about The Mandalorian. And you can see direct through lines, just in style and in mood and in tone and in just ways the melody and counter melody are constructed, ways in which you combine things things like synthesizer and and with the full orchestral vibe, the ways in which you use orchestral music and orchestral instruments to create like a sense of the environment, the percussion pieces when the sand people attack Luke in Beggar's Canyon, I think is still one of the best...
01:02:57
Speaker
depictions of not diegetic music that feels like it could be diegetic music that I've ever seen. Yeah. I will try for some of our other episodes when we talk more about this, when we talk because we'll we'll constantly talk about Star Wars music. I'll try and get some like more music theory deep dives when we go into it later. But Star Wars would not be Star Wars without John Williams' soundtrack.
01:03:23
Speaker
Agreed. And the final group of people responsible for all of this...
The Birth of Industrial Light & Magic
01:03:28
Speaker
Is ILM, Industrial Light and Magic, which I went ahead and I watched like a little documentary series they have on Disney Plus about these about these bunch of fucking nerds.
01:03:43
Speaker
George Lucas was like shopping around for special effects groups and kind of couldn't find one that could do what he wanted at the price he wanted and had the technology figured out. So he had a couple of guys and went like, you know, a couple of guys, right? And they went, yeah, sure. We know some people. And they put together Basically a bunch of their friends, a bunch of sort of kind of outcasts of the Hollywood special effects scene and created industrial light and magic. That's a true ragtag group of heroes.
01:04:20
Speaker
Truly. They were created for Star Wars. Because Lucas wanted something new. They have a whole section on their Wikipedia page called milestones.
01:04:34
Speaker
hoi Of like their first uses of certain technologies. Notable live action films that ILM worked on. Star Wars. Empire.
01:04:46
Speaker
Raiders. So there you've got George Lucas Productions. But then... Conan the Barbarian. Star Trek, Wrath of Khan. E.T. Again, nope, I'm sorry.
01:04:58
Speaker
E.T. was, I was about to say E.T. was also George Lucas. E.T. was not George Lucas. E.T. was John Williams doing music, but it was Steven Spielberg. Dark Crystal. Star Trek III, Search for Spock.
01:05:09
Speaker
The Goonies, Back to the Future. ah Labyrinth. Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home. Spaceballs, Harry and the Hendersons.
01:05:21
Speaker
Oh my God. We're not even into the nineties yet. are two Die hard to not die hard one. The Godfather part three. Again, not parts one or two.
01:05:31
Speaker
The Terminator movies. Star Trek six. but Undiscovered country. hook Jurassic park. Schindler's list. Forrest Gump. Star Trek generations.
01:05:43
Speaker
Mortal combat. Indian in the cupboard. Jumanji. Mission impossible. Again, another film series known for ridiculous special effects. Star Trek First Contact.
01:05:55
Speaker
More Jurassic Park. Starship Troopers. again We can see a so a sci-fi theme here. Yeah. Flubber. Titanic. Saving Private Ryan.
01:06:07
Speaker
The Mummy. Oh my god, we're still in the 90s. We might have to speed this up. Yeah, they but long story short, they're responsible, again, much like John Williams is responsible for the sound of pop culture in the last 50 years, ILM is responsible for the visuals of pop culture.
01:06:30
Speaker
We established in our lord of the Rings movie episodes that we are of the opinion that practical effects are always better. Yes. And we watched the original theatrical release of this movie.
01:06:45
Speaker
And like, yeah, there's clearly some effects you can see, like practical effects that you can tell are practical effects. But then there's some effects that still hold up so well that it's hard to tell that like that is not a starship scene.
01:07:01
Speaker
rocketing away from you. They had miniatures in multiple sizes because they were kind of a bunch of nobodies. Apparently, George Lucas was filming the movie over at a studio in England and they're back in l LA.
01:07:17
Speaker
Haven't figured out a single shot yet by the time that they're almost done with principal photography. And so they had like two weeks to put everything together. my And also, a bunch of the people worked other jobs.
01:07:30
Speaker
The person who did all of the matte paintings. for backgrounds, was also doing matte paintings for Disney at the time. doesn't People would work their other jobs and then they'd come in at like 8 p.m.
01:07:43
Speaker
and build brand new technologies. One of the people who was behind the creation of ILM was talking in this documentary about having to build a new camera rig so you could program and track the way that the camera moved, so you could do it the same on every single shot.
01:08:07
Speaker
Because you had to take multiple shots to like then cut that in. Or if you had to take multiple shots because you didn't get it right the first time. Or you were cutting certain things together. You had to be able to follow the exact same path every time. And there was no technology to do that.
01:08:24
Speaker
And also they're building these miniatures that are, when I say again, miniatures, they're bigatures. You have a five foot across model of the Millennium Falcon. Oh damn, I didn't realize it was that big.
01:08:36
Speaker
There were smaller models, of course, as well, but there was also a giant fucking model of the Millennium Falcon. You know, you had a 10 foot long Star Destroyer. Some of these things were, in fact, huge. You know, the the trench in the Death Star is like a 10 foot by 10 foot square that they're sending down this camera into.
01:08:57
Speaker
hmm. And so frequently how they do these shots is they would move the camera, not the model, because then they could keep the lighting the same on the model and just light it from one angle and then have the camera move.
01:09:12
Speaker
But then when you do the film, you can make it look as if the model is moving, not the camera. That is very cool. And apparently they found this technology from like a friend who had built it for a commercial like three years beforehand.
01:09:28
Speaker
And they had to size it up and redevelop it all. The history of ILM is... a history of coming up with random fucking bullshit on how to make this thing work.
01:09:42
Speaker
And I'm hitting a mental wall. I'm sure there was other shit that I had about this. They can, I know was reading something about, they consulted a lot of old like World War II movies and a piece ah for shots with the X-Wings. And obviously a piece of that was, that was George Lucas's inspiration. That's what he said he wanted.
01:10:01
Speaker
So some of those are shot for shot out of like, filmed dog fights from world war ii and that kind of connects nicely into a couple of little costume things please Yeah, so the World War II connection, I think we've obviously established pretty
Costume Design and Its Impact in Star Wars
01:10:16
Speaker
strongly. In my little bits and bobs of costume research, that was also a very strong theme. The costume designer, the lead designer, was named John Mollo. passed in 2017.
01:10:29
Speaker
And he has actually done costumes for a bunch of movies. He did Alien, Outland, that Gandhi movie. Event Horizon, he won an Academy Award for the costumes in A New Hope, so good for him.
01:10:41
Speaker
But the thing that is really interesting about this guy that I learned is that before Star Wars, he had no costume design experience and was hired specifically... because of his knowledge of military history.
01:10:55
Speaker
And his whole thing that he did was he was a consultant for historical films. So like period pieces, educational materials, whatever. So he really, really knew a lot about military history.
01:11:12
Speaker
And George Lucas apparently didn't want a sci-fi look for Star Wars. He wanted it to be very sort of beat up and lived in which is something that I've picked up on immediately in my first impressions we were talking about the Mandalorian and sort of just the shabbiness of it that is very charming to me and talking about the process of developing all of these looks specifically for the Empire military characters it was a mishmash of a lot of different influences I found a quote from an interview talking about his process
01:11:49
Speaker
Where he had brought an actor around to a bunch of shops in England to try to find things for Darth Vader. He found a motorcycle outfit, so he put him in that. And he found this long black cape, so he threw that on him.
01:12:03
Speaker
And he found a gas mask from World War I, and then he added a Nazi helmet. And that very clearly is obviously Darth Vader. And all of these different historical influences mit yeah mismatching. That's a hard word. Everyone at home, try to say mismatch.
01:12:23
Speaker
Do it. It's tricky. Stormtroopers took a lot of influence from medieval knights. So they could be kind of these faceless warriors that had this kind of robot feel, but also this sort of fantasy feel.
01:12:38
Speaker
Influences from samurai, Russian, Cossack, medieval, Tibetan. They put all of these different military histories together to get this very unique look and unique vibe.
01:12:49
Speaker
There was also a lot that was much more subtle. I found a random blog. i love learning things from random blogs. i love a random blog. and Called From Tailors With Love that ah got into the details that were interesting.
01:13:05
Speaker
intentionally subtle like for example i don't know if this is a common factoid that everyone knows but it was new to me which is that none of the costumes from this era of star wars include visible fasteners so there's no zippers buttons nothing to visibly show how these garments are held together because that has continued to be a thing Yay, good. That's delightful. That's such a fun design challenge. And yeah, it does date things very distinctly.
01:13:37
Speaker
If you have zippers, then okay, we're in a post-industrial kind of vibe. What are the zippers made of? How are they positioned? How are they aligned? What are the buttons indicating about a person's social class, the materials that are available to them?
01:13:52
Speaker
You learn a lot from fasteners. But I think the average person who doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about clothes, would never consider that but then once you know that it's very obvious there was also a lot of sort of muted neutral colors because they didn't want to date it to specific color trends which i think was a smart choice but the thing thing about the thing about the costumes that we have to talk about yeah we do that there's no underwear in space
01:14:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So this has been quoted many times and a long version of the quote from Carrie Fisher's book, Wishful Drinking.
01:14:34
Speaker
Anyway, George comes up to me the first day of filming and he takes one look at the dress and says, you can't wear a bra under that dress. So I say, okay, I'll bite. Why? And he says, because...
01:14:47
Speaker
There's no underwear in space. I promise you this is true. And he says it with such conviction too. Like he had been to space and looked around and he didn't see any bras or panties or briefs anywhere.
01:14:57
Speaker
Now, George came to my show when it was in Berkeley. He came backstage and explained why you can't wear your brassiere in other galaxies. And I have a sense you will be going to outer space very soon. So here's why you cannot wear your brassiere per George. So what happens is you go to space and you become weightless.
01:15:13
Speaker
So far so good, right? But then your body expands, but your bra doesn't, so you get strangled by your own bra. Now, I think that this would make a fantastic obit. So I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.
01:15:30
Speaker
Which, just delightful. And woman objectified in movie? Shocking. Fork found in drawer. But something about this just really deeply gets my goat. It upsets me so profoundly. I also found another video clip of Carrie Fisher talking about her experience more generally, but also with the underwear and space things. at the AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards honoring George Lucas.
01:16:02
Speaker
And it's so funny, but also you can really feel the pain in her experience as she's delivering this scathing roast that's talking about what a great artist George Lucas is and whatever. But one of the lines is about how you own my likeness. So every time I look in the mirror, I have to send you a check for a couple of bucks. And I hope I slept with you to get the job because if not, who was that guy? She's hilarious. But also talking about how...
01:16:34
Speaker
Leia's image is her image and she was objectified in the filming but also Leia has been made into a literal object that you can buy. She's like, I'm a Pez dispenser. I'm a shampoo bottle. You can yoink off my head and get soap out. And that is weird. It's strange to see all of the ways that you are commodified and can be mutilated and just used as a literal and figurative doll for other people's enjoyment and consumption.
01:17:03
Speaker
Right, well, and and like I was saying, when were talking about her filmography, like her major roles all revolve around the fact that she was Princess Leia.
01:17:15
Speaker
Most of her major appearances in later media are either her appearing as herself or as Leia. I really want to read her book, because...
01:17:27
Speaker
The only opinion that I care about when it comes to Carrie Fisher in these movies is Carrie Fisher's opinion. Oh, absolutely. I was trying to find information about the no bras in space thing. was like, i do not want to hear or see the opinion of a single man about this situation. I am only interested in the word direct from Carrie Fisher's mouth about what this was like for her.
01:17:53
Speaker
Because it's just this little, it's this one tiny thing that I can also do a whole dress history thing about the fact that people with boobs have found ways to support those boobs throughout all of time and space.
01:18:08
Speaker
There is going to be some kind of supportive undergarment under that flowy dress. And it doesn't have to be a bra because modern bras, sure, they do date and outfit. But I, oh, it just makes me so mad. It gets my goat.
01:18:22
Speaker
I hope George Lucas is strangled by a bra. If you do not have tits and have ever tried to fucking run with tits that are inadequately supported, if you have small tits,
01:18:36
Speaker
That do not bounce. I forget who I was telling this to. It might have been you or it might have been someone else. I was talking about how occasionally, because i I am blessed with large tracts of land, as Monty Python would say. Sometimes I just have to physically lift them up so I can take a good deep breath. Yeah.
01:18:54
Speaker
you know There's going to be a way. And the actual costuming solution was they just used dress tape to sort of hold things in there under the costume. But the fact that he was so insistent on it and...
01:19:08
Speaker
To him, probably I doubt that George Lucas was sitting in his office rubbing his little hands together going, here's a way that I'm going to be creepy to Carrie Fisher. I don't think he thought about it that hard.
01:19:19
Speaker
I think he just thought this was his idea and it made sense to him. I don't i don't think it just wave i read know the way that I read George Lucas's misogyny when I watch it through these movies, because it's it's very obvious I don't think he thinks about it.
01:19:36
Speaker
This is not a this is not misogyny around. hey I'm putting her in as a sex object and the ideas for the viewer to be able to imagine fucking her.
01:19:47
Speaker
Once we get to the metal bikini, maybe we'll talk about that. That's a slightly different bit. But like I just genuinely don't think he thinks that, I don't know, that he thinks that women have opinions.
01:20:01
Speaker
we like I just fundamentally think he cannot conceive of a woman like functioning as a hero. yeah And yet somehow manages to write Princess Leia as if she is the single most competent person in that film.
01:20:17
Speaker
She is very obviously the only person who has any idea what the fuck they're doing in that entire movie, including out of all of the Imperials. They're all just like, muah ha ha, I am evil. And she's like, I genuinely, if I die, this is how I'm going out.
01:20:35
Speaker
But hey, now I have a way out of here. So here's how I'm going to fix this fucking problem and use these men as my tools to get me out of this fucking issue.
01:20:46
Speaker
I love her so much. i was When I was finishing my notes for this episode, i was trying to think of my, you know, like let's return to my thesis statement. Think about my queer reading. Think about my feminist reading. What is this serious treatment of women so far?
Representation in Star Wars
01:21:01
Speaker
There just aren't any. I can't really have a stance yet because one of them is crispy deep fried and then the other one is the only girl.
01:21:12
Speaker
So maybe there will be more and I can have a more... Fleshed out analysis. Better takes. But for right now all we've got is poor Carrie Fisher all by herself.
01:21:23
Speaker
But she's crushing it. Well, and this is this is why the fandom menace is so fucking weird about women. that Every time a girl character who's gotten introduced in later movies just gets such a ridiculous backlash is because for the first six films, all we get are sexy lamps.
01:21:47
Speaker
who genuinely, if you want to read them with any nuance, are actually remarkably interesting and deep characters. And I would say at least 60% of that is the women who are playing them and actually and bringing that to the fore.
01:22:03
Speaker
And the other 40% is George Lucas being so misogynistic, he accidentally circles back around, I don't know, almost making a feminist statement. Yeah.
01:22:15
Speaker
like i don't know exactly how that works but it feels it's it's clearly unintentional then of course also everyone in this movie is white oh yeah there will be some there's one black character in the next movie but yeah we'll we'll talk about race too as it becomes relevant because oh boy Yeah, the the only person of color involved in the the main cast here is James Earl Jones, who is heard in voice only. Yeah, who we don't see. Uh-huh.
01:22:57
Speaker
Sorry, Mr. James Earl Jones. This is a George Lucas in the 70s. I think that's pretty much exhausting it. as you know I know we said, I think, last episode that we weren't going to come up with, like...
01:23:10
Speaker
too much groundbreaking for these episodes. But I think we've covered some good points and hopefully some good thesis statements, as you say, to draw from as we go through the next couple of movies.
01:23:25
Speaker
Hopefully this is a good just repository of information to refresh your brain if you already know about Star Wars or if you're like me and this is all news to you so get up to speed because this is stuff that takes a lifetime of fandom plus hours of research to figure out and put together.
01:23:45
Speaker
And I think much like kind of how I initially felt about Lord of the Rings, now I'm less intimidated because I am experienced at entering these spaces very bravely with my bestie at my side.
01:23:58
Speaker
But, you know, it's intimidating to feel like there's this whole world of information that you don't know about if you are curious about Star Wars and want to get into it.
01:24:09
Speaker
Hopefully this is nice to feel like you have some background and some context. If you are listening at the time that this comes out in the Northern Hemisphere, as the majority of our listeners are, although we do have a few that are not high South American and Australian listeners, we know you're there and we appreciate you very, very much.
01:24:29
Speaker
We do.
Looking Ahead: Future Episodes and Closing Remarks
01:24:30
Speaker
But if you are like the majority of our listeners in the Northern Hemisphere, and this is whenever this comes out in April or May, and it is getting hotter, You can join us for our next episode.
01:24:43
Speaker
we we will be talking about the frozen ice world of Hoth. he And we can all imagine wandering around on the frozen ice planet of Hoth with some animals that we thought smelled bad on the outside.
01:25:01
Speaker
We will be covering Empire Strikes Back on our next episode, and it will probably not be two episodes long full of stuff. We'll see. I say this now. We're going to do our goddamn best.
01:25:15
Speaker
If you want to come along with us to Hoth and Bespin and the swamps of Dagobah, which is probably what it's starting to feel like out there in the Northeast of the U S where we live and it's getting fucking humid.
01:25:28
Speaker
Not right now when we're recording this, probably when this is released, you can follow along with our podcast, wherever you're currently listening and wherever else you might get your podcasts. We're on pretty much every major podcast podcast podcast platform. God fucking damn it.
01:25:46
Speaker
Lots of tongue twisters in this episode. cat form It's also getting late and we are losing the plot because we record these after work at night because we have day jobs.
01:25:59
Speaker
Shocker. Shocker. You can also follow our social media. We are at fanapppod, F-A-N-A-P-P-P-O-D, on any social media site that we are on. That includes Tumblr, Blue Sky X, Instagram.
01:26:15
Speaker
We have a TikTok that I've never fucking used. Follow us on any of them, frankly. anything you like, even if I don't post on them. If you want an actual response in a timely manner, the best way to get that from us is to send us an email at thefandomapprentice at gmail.com.
01:26:34
Speaker
But of course, we always love... any interaction that you choose to leave us. If you choose to leave us a five-star review, if you choose to leave us a written review or a comment on our social media or on the podcast itself, we love to see that. It's always so nice when we log in and get to see that our listeners have been interacting with the things that we have put out into the universe.
01:26:58
Speaker
Until next time, as you're bathing in moonlight, try not to get strangled by your own bra. Beautiful. I'm going to do my best. ah But I mean, it's not a bad way to go if that's how I have to go out.
01:27:14
Speaker
The Phantom Apprentice is produced and edited by Rin and Sam. Our music is composed and performed by James. You can find more of his work on Spotify and Bandcamp under Baeruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z.
01:27:27
Speaker
Our art is by Casey Turgeon. You can find more of her work at KCT Designs on Instagram. The content discussed is the property of the original copyright holders and is used here under fair use.
01:28:15
Speaker
You can preside over a space. No one can preside quite like you. It's just an aura. and something you exude. It is not. is. It is.
01:28:28
Speaker
I'm tempted to like open my door and be like, Miles, agree with me. Tori would agree with me. I'll text them later. Add it to my list. Not saying it's the DM energy, but I'm not not saying it's the DM energy and the transferable skills between that and the other big D. Big.
01:28:53
Speaker
the
01:28:56
Speaker
Well, that's a wrap on our episode, folks. Remember to like and subscribe. hit the bell for notifications on YouTube. Join our Patreon where you will receive, I don't know, feet pics. What do people want?
01:29:16
Speaker
Laugh so hard a booger came out.