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Journeys into Wild Space - Kurosawa's "THE HIDDEN FORTRESS" movie deep dive | 032
35 Plays16 days ago
Join Branwen and Seah as they deep dive into all things Star Wars. Follow along as we fly off exploring all the wonders and geekery of a Galaxy Far, Far Away, chatting nostalgia, worlds, lore, sound, music, story, behind the scenes, and much more with each other and some very special guests.
We've hit Season 3! This is our first 'Journeys into Wild Space' episode, where we're deep diving into Akira Kurosawa's 1958 masterpiece "The Hidden Fortress", a film which was a strong inspiration to George Lucas when he was writing the OG Star Wars. We get into the characters, the storytelling, the characters, the cinematography, film sound magic in the 50s, attention spans, musical moments, character silhouettes, strong women main character energy, significant eyebrows, and of course the many links to the Star Wars saga.
Sisters of the Force is a weekly, UK-based, Star Wars podcast, produced with joy and love by Seah and Branwen. Sisters of the Force theme by Seah and Branwen.
Follow us on Instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, Bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, TikTok @sistersoftheforcepod, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, and https://www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Favorite Lines & Season 3 Announcement
00:00:20
Speaker
Sia! What's your favorite line from The Hidden Fortress? Oh, it's a girl, followed by an orchestral stab that was the most dramatic thing in the universe.
00:00:32
Speaker
That's perfect. I love that. Franwen. Hi. What's your favourite line from The Hidden Fortress?
00:00:43
Speaker
You cannot mute my heart. Ah, yes, I did like that one too. Which was a big line. Yeah, was a big line. Yeah. I think when I first watched the film, and I think this is the first time I've ever watched it. Is it? I don't think I'd seen it before. think I'd seen bits of it before, but not the whole thing. I didn't really notice the lines in the same way, guess because I was reading subtitles. And, you know, when a great line hits you because of the actor's performance, there's some kind of weird disconnect.
00:01:10
Speaker
But then i was skipping back through bits of it to make notes and like looking at clips on YouTube and stuff. And I came across that and I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah. There are actually many more brilliant lines as well. There are. There's loads of them. Yeah, really beautiful script from like the bizarre to the kind of profound. Yes. It's really good. You're listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast, and welcome to season three. Oh my goodness.
00:01:40
Speaker
I can't believe we're here. I can't believe we've seen Mandalorian and Grogu, and we're now in another world. We are now in a different universe. It's surreal. We hope you're still here, yeah continuing our journey.
00:01:54
Speaker
For so much of the last five months, we've been... Just Mando and Grogu. Yeah, completely. been Deep in Star Wars TV. yeah ah Deep in Jon Favreau's brain. And it feels so weird to be stepping away from that slightly. Yeah. yeah Quite exciting to step away from it now, though. It is, yeah. I'm really excited to step away from it. Where are we next? Where are we going? Well, if you're wondering where we're going,
Journeys in Wild Space Introduction
00:02:20
Speaker
we're going to tell you. So yay this is the first of what we're going to call Journeys in Wild Space. Yes. Not to be confused with the book series Adventures in Wild Space, which is very good and very Star Wars-y, by the way, if you want to read them. But Journeys in Wild Space are episodes where we're gonna yeah we're going to do some different things. Yes, we've got some exciting journeys lined up already. We have got some very exciting journeys. We've made like a schedule we haven't filled it all in yet. which is It's probably hurting Bramwen's brain more than it's hurting mine. Do I follow schedules? No. I'm a big scheduler. i'm
00:02:59
Speaker
I'm the yin of this yeah relationship. But we do have loads of potential journeys plotted in to a kind of not date-specific schedule yet but we're going to be doing all sorts of things.
The Clone Wars Rewatch Commitment
00:03:11
Speaker
We're going to be looking at different films that maybe aren't in the Star Wars galaxy, yeah but are associated, adjacent, Star Wars adjacent. Yeah. Star Wars adjacent. That's going to be my next album name. Yeah, it's a good album. I'm buying it.
00:03:24
Speaker
We're going to be looking at some other aspects of the fandom, like cosplaying and collectibles all that kind of stuff. We're going to looking sound and music. Yeah. We might even go into some of the wild world that is fan fiction. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yes, we might. I don't think you're ready yet, dear listener. Oh, no. But yeah, all of these other things. So these are the journeys in Wild Space.
00:03:57
Speaker
This is the first episode of that, which we're going to get to in a minute. But in between that, and probably more significantly in terms of content amounts, we're going to be delving into the Clone Wars. Yes. Which is a big undertaking. For the next year of our lives. Yes. We shall be re-watching The Clone Wars.
00:04:18
Speaker
This is our commitment to Filoni Lucas. Yeah, we've struggled to figure out what is the best, like, main focus for the podcast. And yeah, I think we teetered between a few different things, but Clone Wars came down as, I think, the winner. It's the one. Yeah. It's where we're going. It feels like it's at the root of so much of everything else that's come since, and even that came before. Yeah.
Diverse Insights & Guest Features
00:04:43
Speaker
It's...
00:04:43
Speaker
such a potent area of storytelling in Star Wars Galaxy, and we felt it only right that we should do that before we move on to anything else. But don't worry. If you're a Skeleton Crew fan or you're Andor head or you love the Acolyte or any of those other great things, Rebels, people keep asking me when are we doing Rebels. We will get to it. We're going to get to them all eventually.
00:05:04
Speaker
Just bear with us. But come with us on this journey to Clone Wars. Clone Wars is incredible. I can't wait to visit it again. I'm excited to visit it properly for the first time. Yeah, you've seen some. I have started it. Yeah, I started it about nine years ago, maybe. I don't even know. Yeah, yeah. So I will potentially remember bits of it, but we'll see. Yeah, and interesting you've met some of the characters now yeah through different ways, which is interesting. Interesting way round.
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, and it's a different way. I was a bit insistent that we did this in the end because I wanted you to go on this journey you on the Rebels journey, even though I did them the other way round. But yeah, we talk about that as we go through it all in real time because, you know, different perspectives. It's going interesting. It's be really interesting. We've got some incredible guests coming on as well for that. many of whom you already know we've
The Hidden Fortress & Star Wars Influence
00:05:55
Speaker
got some big clone wars fans coming in and hopefully we're gonna have some new guests as well that haven't met yet it's gonna be really exciting but to break up the clone wars just because yeah it would be a bit much because otherwise the next year of our lives will just be on clone wars we are going to drop these journeys in wild space in and i'm quite excited to talk about this one yeah so what is this one tell us what this one
00:06:19
Speaker
We watched The Hidden Fortress, which as probably most hardcore Star Wars fans will know, yeah this ah supposedly inspired a New Hope. yeah And this is where my first confession happens.
00:06:34
Speaker
I've still got about 20 minutes to go. I haven't finished it In my defence, it's really long. It is been incredibly very long. We've discovered that there's a couple of edits out there. Yeah. Where is this 90-minute editor that I've heard so much about? Which I can totally see how they could make a 90-minute edit because it is long. It is long. And I did see, i watched ah a kind of film doctor. don't know if he was a real doctor of films, but he's like a respected analyzer of films on YouTube saying his only critique was that it could be shorter. It's long.
00:07:12
Speaker
But those were different times. i feel like that's one of the first things I noticed about it. If we talk about like how we responded to it sure at this point, it really, really struck me how different pacing is today compared 70-odd years ago. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we know attention spans have shrunk. We know social media has made us all like rubb attention deficit. We cannot...
00:07:36
Speaker
Cannot cope. But this is like a really, really beautiful representation of that. Yeah. I watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang recently as well. Yeah. And same thing. Pacing. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Which is interesting because to me, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in my memory, I've not seen it since I was probably 12. Yeah, yeah. Felt like quite... it's It's relentless, but it's so long. It's so long.
00:07:59
Speaker
but We had to split it up into two halves because five-year-old nephew couldn't cope. Yeah, yeah I can imagine. I feel like with Hidden Fortress, I had to keep making myself get into this meditative state yeah and think, no, this is good for you. Just sit and watch this 30-second long shot yeah of two men walking up a mountain. Be patient. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy the journey. yeah Switch off.
00:08:27
Speaker
But it possibly didn't help because I had my laptop on my lap. You were double screening it. I was. and while i was typing notes. yeah And so the instinct, when you watch me doing that for the Mandalorian episodes, my fingers are going a bazillion miles an hour pretty whole time. yeah yeah But with this, I was like putting the laptop aside for moments. and yeah I mean, our aim isn't to break it down in the same level of detail. No.
00:08:50
Speaker
we we do with We'll be here for nine days if we try to do that. But it was, yeah, I found it quite calming. By the end, I think I'd got into that yeah head state.
00:09:00
Speaker
yeah yeah. I did it in sections because ah freelance life means I'm all over the place, which is how I've managed to mismanage my time and I've still got 20 minutes left. forgive you. We know you're going to go and watch it straight after this. I am going go and watch it straight after this. But also, i hope did watch a lot of like and analysis videos of it and stuff, so I do know what happens. I'm just... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:09:24
Speaker
it just didn't quite make it through the whole thing. and But because I was doing in sections, it was like, I'll do this bit here and then life calls and I have to go and do something else for a bit and then like come back to it. And I did manage to find those kind of meditative states and I was really enjoying watching it and getting into how slow it moves. Yeah, yeah. There's an incredibly long fight scene where not a lot happens. Yeah, yeah.
00:09:52
Speaker
like I watched it through the first time. I was skipping like 10 seconds ahead and I kept just skipping through and are we still standing here looking at each other? Just like five minutes later. This is wild. It is so interesting. Yeah.
00:10:07
Speaker
It's interesting if you go back to A New Hope. Yeah. And obviously there's a lot of parallels that we're going to get to. not Of course, yeah. Actually, i would say one of my reflections on watching The Hidden Fortress properly for the first time is that it Although, yes, there are moments where I'm like, oh, Star Wars. There were a lot of moments where i was thinking, well, this isn't that.
00:10:27
Speaker
No, it's not that similar. Why do people talk about this so much? yeah There is a lot that's different about it. But the first third of A New Hope, after that opening scene, which is pretty action-packed, with the droids on Tantivey IV and Leia and all of that.
00:10:41
Speaker
There is a very, very long period of time there before anything else happens action-wise. I think nothing really happens until they're escaping from Os Eisley, which is quite a chunk of the way through Quite chunk of time, yeah. Yeah, that's true. i mean, there's a little Tuscan Raider fight, but like aside from that that, it's very, very slow going. It's Luke's family life, it's meeting Ben Kenobi, it's...
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, the stormtroopers, but nothing is really going on. i did feel like in Hidden Fortress, it's kind of an hour before we get into the plot. Yeah, yeah definitely. Just like, what?
00:11:14
Speaker
I think what he's doing is he's kind of, yeah, he's setting the scene and he's giving you feelings about the characters. But you're absolutely right. We don't really... I was thinking, I missing something in the story? it No, it's just the story hasn't really kicked off yet. We don't really know what's going on yet. is laying the groundwork, yeah which has made me want to go and watch a lot more films from this era, which I have done in the past, having...
Exploring 40s & 50s Films
00:11:41
Speaker
and Different periods in my life really enjoyed different stuff from the 40s, 50s, I mean, me and my mum, we love our Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and we watch those quite often, although they are quite pacey in comparison. But there are also a lot more of these kind of more artsy films from that period, not that Fred and Ginger isn't artsy in its way, but yeah things like Citizen Kane and the early Westerns and things like that where cinema was being explored you know in in ah in bigger strokes.
00:12:09
Speaker
And it's made me curious about the pacing of those as well. And I have a feeling it's probably going to be the same story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think people have a lot more time generally in Yeah, and that's so that's so nice, isn't it? like yeah I teach children quite a lot. And a child said to me recently that she thinks that adults need mandatory silent reading time. Yeah, yeah.
00:12:34
Speaker
We really do. Yeah, that would be great, actually. Thank you. so wise. Isn't it ridiculous how that feels like an aspiration for me now? Yeah. Whereas 30 years ago, I'd have been doing that anyway. She was taking the mickey out of my to-read pile because I told her how big it was and how I just never get through it. And she was like, I could get through that many books. I'm like, yeah, but you're a child. You've got to.
00:12:53
Speaker
so i Is there anyone listening who hasn't got a huge to-read pile? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If so, how how are you doing that? I'm on a book ban. I'm not allowed to buy any more books until I've got through of my to-read pile. wish I could say the same.
00:13:10
Speaker
Only yesterday I took delivery of and N.Y. Adar, which is a Welsh book of birds. Oh, nice. Which isn't really a reading book, but it's yet another book for me to put online to read. farm Yeah, I have just bought another book actually, but I'm crowdfunding the book. So it's written by good yeah byers a friend. So that's fine. It's not actually out yet.
00:13:31
Speaker
That's cool. I love that. Okay, say it so Hidden Fortress. Yes, let's back to this.
Kurosawa's Visual & Technical Mastery
00:13:38
Speaker
Famously directed by the incredibly influential Akira Kurosawa, who made so many amazing films in the 50s and 60s that have influenced so many films in the West. And I think, yeah, he was a real game changer. Yeah. I felt like he was a real artiste as well. Like he was really trying to be, trying to increase the art of cinema in a really great way by taking inspiration. I mean, he took inspiration from the West. yeah He loved John Ford and his like Westerns from...
00:14:13
Speaker
you know, the early cinema period. And yeah, especially um a film called Stagecoach. And there were various other ones that John Ford made. yeah And they feature like these epic vistas, you know, huge shots of...
00:14:28
Speaker
the the kind of West yeah and the moral codes of the people living there. And yeah there's a common trope in Westerns of like community under threat yeah sort of thing, which is what's going on here yeah and in other ones of Kurosawa's films. So he was influenced by those films from the West and we can see that. And that and I love the sort of like mirror thing where he then influenced the next generation of American filmmakers. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:54
Speaker
My first thought straight off this was just the settings are so beautiful and all of the sets look amazing. Yeah. There isn't a single shot that isn't beautiful. It's that classic every frames a painting, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Which I can see Lucas being really influenced by and he yeah does talk about the visual style of it.
00:15:12
Speaker
They did film a lot of it. I think, know if was most of it, but a lot of it on the slopes of Mount Fuji. Cool. So it was on location, which yeah is really interesting. yeah. And must have been a challenge. And it was a challenge. yeah Around the time that they were shooting, they had the Kanagawa Typhoon, which is one of the strongest typhoons on record. my gosh. Apparently out to sea. I don't think this happened when it hit Japan, but yeah yeah there were winds of 202 miles per hour. Ooh. Which is wild. That is wild. I've done some filmmaking on the side of a mountain in Wales where the winds got up to...
00:15:49
Speaker
just under hurricane level. Oh my gosh, that's no fun. We nearly lost some crew that day. Luckily, everyone was fine. Wow, yeah. Well, you you were there then. you It was wild. You can imagine Curacao going through. can imagine. Although I feel like there we don't see a lot of wind in the film. We do see some rain, but there's not a lot wind, so I think they must have just stopped.
00:16:10
Speaker
Stucked when it was really windy. Yeah, that's a sensible thing to do, but unfortunately, time constraints. It did. And Toho, the studio that was sort of like funding the film, got very frustrated, not only because of that, but just because he's a very slow shooting director anyway. Sure. he takes his time to get everything just right. Good. And they sort of dropped him along the way. Partially. He formed his own production company so that he could release but Toho still distributed it for him. So he kind got the best of both worlds then. Good. Which I kind like. It's sort of like that subcontracting type of vibe. That's large. He was doing some new stuff. He was using Toho Scope, which the kind of Japanese response to CinemaScope, which was the big thing in the US at the time, like the widescreen...
00:16:59
Speaker
that new aspect ratio of super wide, which really suits films that have big landscapes in them. Yes. And clearly he wanted some of that for the vistas that we find in the Hidden Fortress. So this was the first film he shot in Tahoe Scope. I'm pretty sure other people had used that format in Japan before, but I think he was this was a new adventure for him. Yeah. And it uses anamorphic lenses, which are like, just it just makes everything look incredible. yeah And yeah yeah to me, anamorphic lenses make landscapes look so huge, but they're also brilliant when you're shooting close as well, like we depth of field.
00:17:33
Speaker
When you do rack focus, if you watch the the kind of blurry stuff in the background of a yeah kind close-in shot and the focus racks, it changes focus. The focus seems to stretch vertically. you're watching the background stuff, that It's to do with anamorphic lens. The way the lenses are shaped, the way they're sort of the bulbous part of the glass. If you know, I'm trying to describe it with my hands. It's an audio medium. Yeah.
00:17:57
Speaker
Go and Google anamorphic lens. So, yeah. he So, he was trying to pioneer his own technique, I guess, in that way. And I'm sure he was doing that in direct response to John Ford and what he was doing there. Cool. Cool.
00:18:10
Speaker
Before we started recording, you were talking about some interesting sound technology stuff. my gosh, yeah. stuff Sound stuff. So one of the first things I noticed was our understanding of sound now, we know roughly how long we can loop for an audience not to notice.
00:18:26
Speaker
Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it? Is it like a minute and a half? a minute and a half. It's a minute and a half. If you've got kind of low level, as long as nothing... too obvious happens in that minute and a half. yeah You can loop a minute and a half and an audience will not notice. Obviously, they didn't kind of have the ability to do that back then. So a lot of the sound, the background sounds and stuff are much, much shorter loops. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:18:48
Speaker
So you can hear them straight off the bat, which I always find hilarious. Wow, I didn't notice that. Oh, my God. It's so funny. There's a there's a horror film I can't remember which one. It's the one with the fish people that come and steal the women.
00:19:06
Speaker
Great. don't think I've seen that one. Creatures of the Deep, something like that. I don't know. okay so I can't remember when it came out. Possibly in the 60s? Also a vintage horror film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Late 60s, early 70s. But there's a five minute long kind of chase and screaming scene at the end. And it's a 20 second loop. And it drove me mad. That's wild. I was like, cannot cope with these. That's so brilliant. I mean, in a horror film, that's perfect. Yeah, yeah.
00:19:39
Speaker
I was just like, I need to turn it down because the same 20 second loop of screaming is really in my brain and I hate it. I did notice that that also happens here, like the battle loops. Oh, yeah, like yeah, yeah. Chanting and the battle loops. It's the same kind of really short loop. try And it didn't annoy me as much in this because it's not screaming. but Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think know visually there's so much going on in those scenes as it's fine. Yeah, you can kind of distract you from it. Yeah.
00:20:08
Speaker
Anybody um listen to the Star Wars audiobooks, if you do, and you listen to the ones have got all the audio production, which is most of them. Okay. Because they've got loads of background sounds, like ambience throughout the whole book usually. Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. there's one that they use for whenever anybody goes to anything remotely like a cantina. Yeah. And I'm guessing it's from the Lucasfilm archives and it's probably the original loop from Hope, you know. Yeah, sure.
00:20:33
Speaker
But when you hear it in a book, it goes on for much longer because, know, Mark Thompson or whoever is is reading the story to you. Reading the story, yeah. And it can take like 15 minutes to tell that bit of the story. So you're hearing the thing and there's a couple of aliens in that loop that I've really to love-hate, if you know what Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know exactly what you It's such a weird thing, isn't it, when you get those loops? Yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
If anyone is making ambience, minute and a half. Yeah, least a minute and a half. At least a minute and a half. Yeah, and it will protect everyone's brains. If you're layering ah different elements within an ambient loop, yeah then loop them differently. So one bit is looping every, like...
00:21:14
Speaker
one minute 20, and then you've got another layer that's looping every one minute 40, they're not going to meet up again until yeah five hours have gone by. you'll have like constantly changing. And then it's much, it just helps your brain so much. but obviously in 1956 or whenever this was shot, they couldn't, they didn't have the capabilities to do that. I wonder if they, they must have been recording sound onto tape.
00:21:37
Speaker
They must have been recording sound onto tape. And also there's a lot of like, A lot of the ambience is clearly recorded indoors as well, which can then be quite jarring when you watch it back because it's all outdoors. Like there was a chanting scene where they they're joining up with the fire festival lot and they're all chanting, but you can hear that the chanting was recorded inside and they're all outside. it's So amazing it kind of hurts your brain a little bit I'm working on a film at the moment and my partner asked me what i' achieved that day. And I was like, I've managed to do all of the little things that no one is going to notice. It's true. But if they're not there, people will notice. 100%. So our brains can do that now, obviously. Yeah, that's the standard now. So yes. Same thing when people put long reverbs on music videos that are then filmed outside. I'm like, no, don't do that. Yeah.
00:22:28
Speaker
Please don't do that. But anyway, there's that.
Sound Technology Evolution
00:22:32
Speaker
But also the amazing thing about sound in the cinema around this time is they would use multi-speaker setups, but quite often there had to be someone there to mix it live.
00:22:43
Speaker
What? And occasionally, depending on how big the screen was, you might also have multiple projections. Yeah. Especially if you have a curved screen. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think that was part of what Cinemascope may have been. Yes. So you then have to have three projectionists and at least one sound person. my gosh, the whole team. Yeah. So it got to a point where it wasn't that much different from like going to see a play because there were so many people having to make the film work. Yeah, yeah. That's I know, completely wild. But there was like, I found all these different diagrams of where they place all the speakers. And then you've got someone who's kind of locked in a little sound booth who's basically live mixing the whole film as you go. Okay, so I've got an interesting tangent to this yes that I found out. I didn't come across any of that. That is so interesting. but I did come across something similar, which actually, if you put it in the context of cinemas today, still makes sense. Right. What I found is that they'd used Prospector directional sound, Prospector TM, yeah which was like a way of presenting sound in the mid 50s. It didn't last, but it did. As you say, it had three speakers.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah. Like a centre one and a left one and a right one. And they had a single mono mix, but there were like three copies of the mono mix, I think, with sub audible tones 30, 35 and hertz. Yeah.
00:24:11
Speaker
that would steer bits of the soundtrack to the different speakers. So it's like an automated version of what you're describing. Okay, yeah. So it feels a bit like some cinema... When it says, you know, selected cinemas, you'll hear it in Dolby, whatever. Yeah. Like, if you had the Perspector thing installed in that particular cinema with the sub-audible thing... I mean, it says sub-audible tones, 35 and 40. I can hear 40 hertz. That's a note. Yeah, that's a note, isn't it? So does that mean...
00:24:40
Speaker
The stuff that was coming out of that speaker had like mmm underneath there. Yeah, what's going on? It reminds me of like carrier waves and I'm guessing that's the sort of principle that it's using. It's almost like radio waves kind of thing where you have like mean like, radio transmission you would have like high frequency waves, yeah like FM or whatever. but It's a similar version of that, but like with sub... I don't know. like I could not get my head around. I too saw a diagram, but the diagram basically just showed you the three speakers in front of the screen you know or behind the screen kind of thing. It didn't yeah show you technically. So I need to do more research on perspective. Yeah. Because when did Dolby happen? That was 60-something.
00:25:21
Speaker
I know that in the late seventy s mid to late 70s, around the time of A New Hope, is when they started introducing different types of quadraphonic and surround. Yeah. So 1966 was the noise reduction system.
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah. but Which is what Dolby were first kind of known for, about trying to reduce the hiss of yeah tape, obviously. Yeah. I think there were various attempts using multitrack tape yeah to distribute sound through multiple channels to create a surround sound, like Quadrophonic having four speakers running the corner of each corner.
00:25:50
Speaker
yeah But then when digital audio came along, i think that opened the possibilities a little more. You be a little bit more sophisticated with it. So that would have been during the eighty s yeah when digital audio really became more of a standard for audio recording. Yeah. and But I suppose like even in the 50s and especially you can kind of tell with this film, we've got field recordings being used a lot more and like yeah they're kind of opening up this whole like it's not just the dialogue anymore. Yeah, it's beyond what you captured on the shoot kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. yeah We can begin to see how George fell in love with this guy, with Kurosawa. Yes.
00:26:30
Speaker
definitely So apparently George first saw the film when he was in film school and his friend, screenwriter and director John Milius, who wrote the first two Dirty Harry movies, among many other films. yeah There was him and Spielberg and Coppola. and yeah They were all studying together in California at the same time. sure And so he was introduced to it by John Milius and he went to see Seven Samurai first.
00:26:54
Speaker
yeah which I think has remained his favourite one. But then he gradually saw them all and fell in love with them. And i don't think he rates Hidden Fortress highly in the Kurosawa back catalogue exactly. Okay. But he was strongly influenced in the way that Kurosawa tells a story and his visual style.
Kurosawa's Influence on Lucas
00:27:12
Speaker
I think the visual style is probably his the biggest influence. You know, it's a non-specific influence. In some ways, it's a bit specific at times, but generally, it's like a sort of a non-specific, I love how this guy shows you stuff. I love how he uses the frame.
00:27:26
Speaker
yeah Like with the big Western style vistas shots and cutting tempo, like at different in places you'll have like these massive long shots, but then like in the horse chase scene, which we'll talk about more specifically, there's like really fast cutting yeah and the way that he frames stuff. There was some really interesting things, which I saw in a YouTube breakdown earlier.
00:27:47
Speaker
Dr. Josh Matthews, I think is his name. He was talking about how Kurosawa frames our two main characters, our two protagonists, yeah Tahe and Matashichi, either side of the frame quite often. yeah Because you've got this like wide Toho scope aspect, you can put them either side. And then whatever they're talking about or interacting with is in the middle. In the middle, So for instance, when the princess first appears, you know you've got him, the two guys, one on either side, and she's in the middle of the frame. middle yeah So I think Lucas liked that kind of stuff. I did find a little clip of Lucas talking about this visual influence. So maybe we should have a little listen to that. it's really It really is visual style to me that it's so strong and unique. And and again, a very, very powerful element in how he tells his stories.
00:28:38
Speaker
I think it comes from a generation of filmmakers that were still influenced by silent films, which is something that I've been very interested in having come out of film school, that the visual and the visual graphics and the the framing and the just the quality of the images goes a long way to telling the story and setting the mood. and and you're not going to find really a lot of filmmakers that have the the facile quality with the medium that Kurosawa had.
00:29:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. love hearing Lucas paying respect to people. makes me feel good. Yeah, yeah. It gives me all the fuzzies. It's interesting. I'm talking about silent film kind of stuff because there's a lot of that in the music, like the music doing a lot of the work. It is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's a character in the film, isn't it and Yeah, yeah. There's loads of kind of musical jokes. There's loads of musical storytelling happening. and Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:33
Speaker
Later in the interview, he was also talking about another visual technique that Kurosawa uses where he uses long lenses to capture the kind of close-ups, the character shots. Sure. You know, there's so many different ways of filming a person. There's so many different lens choices you can make. But by using a longer lens and you just move the camera further away and so effectively you're kind of like more zoomed in, by doing that with a long lens, you...
00:29:59
Speaker
narrow the depth of field so that everything behind the character or in front even is out of focus and harder to distinguish which means you don't take as much notice of it. It draws your attention. you're with the character. It's very much about character yeah which is a really cool method of doing that and beautifully contrasts with the wide angle shots which is the opposite where you've got like a really short lens to to get as much of the scenery in as possible. Super interesting. I know so little about cameras. It's something that unless you you know, happen to embark upon that yourself as a technical person, you just take it for granted in the same way as loads of people just take sound for granted. Yeah. You know, if you spend time... I have a, you know, entry-level knowledge from... the sort film stuff hobby filmmaking that I've done over the years. you know what I was so, right at the beginning of Hidden Fortress, there's a scrambling up the yes mountainside bit yeah And I instantly remembered us making a short
Filming Challenges & Actor Demands
00:31:03
Speaker
film. We And you gave me your brand new camera and went, just climb up that quarry for me. Get the shot. It literally was. I got literally bought the camera like two days before. yeah
00:31:15
Speaker
This was the first shoot of that particular film. We knew we were going to go on this adventure into the wilds of West Wales to film this character walking through the wilderness in a very Kurosawa style to be fair. And I remember getting out my old Canon x m one which was that the last of the mini DV films. and realising that it was glitching every time I tried to film anything and that the quality was just terrible it was in the early days of HD TVs and I was like can't I can't make this film on this at it's not happening yet so yeah I ordered a spangly new Sony HD camera camcorder
00:31:50
Speaker
And yeah, we were at Rosebush, is it We were at Rosebush Quarry and we were like, oh, it's going to look better if we shoot it from up there. that'll tell you what, I feel like we were channeling the Hidden Fortress because so many of the shots we got of our lovely Felix actor at that point were like Tehei and Matashichi, like climbing up the screen climbing and then climbing down the screen. Yeah, yeah. I have to say, fair play to those two actors in this film because they had to do effectively a lot of stunts. because They did, yeah, yeah. They were up and down the scree constantly again and again and again. mean, it's a visual motif of the film of them yeah climbing up and then climbing down again. Climbing back down again, yeah. Even with the steps near the beginning when they're in you know the big sort of riot.
00:32:35
Speaker
rich Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, that sequence. That sequence is wild. Sat up on the sofa and I was wow. how did he do this? It's so, and like, it's kind of really shocking because there's ah yeah there's bodies everywhere. There's gunfire. It's brutal, brutal scene. And the music's still quite whimsical. And you're just like, what's going on? Yeah, they're still playing it the comedy, the two main actors. And you're like, oh my gosh. Yeah. This is brutal.
00:33:01
Speaker
Brutal. And so many extras and so much movement and yeah that location with the steps. I mean, where is that? It's just yeah stunning. Is that a set or is that a place? i don't know. I wondered that. I wondered if it's, because I was wondering if some of it's painted. It's quite difficult to see, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. the How much of it is painted backdrop and how much of it is actual place. Yeah. And I couldn't find that information out anywhere.
00:33:26
Speaker
This also leads me on to... a load of stuff about the locations themselves, or at least yeah he creates locations. And again, it's a very Star Wars thing.
00:33:37
Speaker
heard that same Doctor of Film yeah talking about Empire Strikes Back and how we have these different environments like snow and then and swamp and space and Cloud City and on Imperial Star Destroyers and so on. There's all these different things and they're all very different yeah tactile-wise.
00:33:54
Speaker
They feel different. There's different visual qualities to them all. And in this film, we've got mountains, we've got swamp, we've got woodland. Lovely little glades. Yeah, the villages that they go in. Well, there's like a village. And they're all very different in the same kind of way. And I think that's kind of a Lucasism as well. Yes. I mean, Lucas takes it to the next level because he's like, how many planets can we fit into this? Yeah, yeah. How many places can we visit? What more challenging locations can we choose to shoot in? I mean, it is fun. I think a lot the, I've not done many film shoots at all, but most of the stuff that I have been involved in has involved some sort of challenging location in some way or another. It's never easy. It's just more fun that way, it? The weather's always wrong. know, it's just a nightmare.
00:34:45
Speaker
They use fog a lot in this film, The Rural Fortress, and rain as well. as some really intense rain stuff. Yeah, yeah. Which, I don't know, he somehow captures it in a really visceral way. There was one bit of fog, like misty stuff in the woods towards the end where the soldiers are coming through, and they can hear those constant horns being blown, like the kind of dissonant pitch horns, and it's very like the Gungans coming out of the swamps in The Phantom Menace. Okay. Oh, wow.
00:35:14
Speaker
That's one thing was going say, actually, when we introduced this this idea of watching The Hidden Fortress, we're kind of tying it to A New Hope yes because that's what everybody does. But actually, I feel like there are as many references in later Star Wars films that Lucas made. And not just Lucas, but also other people have made.
Character Inspiration & Iconic Motifs
00:35:31
Speaker
yeah As we go along, we'll probably spot some of those things. them out.
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. There is a lot because he did reuse some of it for Phantom Menace as well, didn't he? I think so, yeah. He's like original ideas. So when he first wrote the screenplay, well, not even the screenplay, he he wrote like a plot outline in the early 70s. Sure. And it's very much closer to the Hidden Fortress where we've got a general who's escorting a princess on an escape kind of thing, which is yeah effectively what's going on here with the two peasants.
00:36:02
Speaker
which at the time I think were bureaucrats rather than droids. So it's a bit more similar yeah in a way. and like you say, a lot of it ended up in The Phantom Menace especially.
00:36:14
Speaker
There's something about the decoys as well. in the Yes. Like Padme's decoys. Definitely, yeah. On a couple of levels. Like the fact that Princess Yuki's sister is kind of played off as her yeah when she's...
00:36:26
Speaker
killed. yeah And then Princess Yuki having to pretend ah to be a mute. So she's being kind of carried in disguise through this sort of landscape. Shout out to her, by the way. She's incredible. She She's so good. I love her eyebrows. I love the way she stands. I love the way she speaks. like She has that pose. I was going to talk about this character silhouettes, actually, because it's a classic filmmaking trick anyway. But I've definitely heard George Lucas talk about it and other Star Wars filmmakers talking about it. How important character silhouettes are. And like if you look at silhouette of Darth Vader, you immediately know who it is. if you look at a a silhouette of Yoda, you immediately know who it is. Boba Fett. Yeah, Boba Fett. In animation, it's super easy to do. And it's yeah the essence of like animation character creation. You're a big love of a Hell of a Boss. i Love it. The character silhouettes in that are wild. Wild. Very wild. But you know exactly who they are. Yeah, and you know what fandom they come from as well. yeah, yeah. It's an identity.
00:37:26
Speaker
And in this, it's there. It's maybe not as obvious as it is with animated characters or characters with different species and stuff. Yeah. But you've got the princess. Whenever she whenever we see her, it seems she's doing that stance where she holds the cane across in front of her with her legs apart, like which is a very characteristic stance. It's power pose. Yeah. It's not a traditional feminine pose if you want to start talking about how...
00:37:50
Speaker
the male gaze works and everything else it's a unique like it looks like the letter a the way she stands yeah it's very powerful and then the two peasants you know tahe and matashichi they've got very distinctive i mean they pretty much are r2 and 3po like one's short one's tall they're slightly different but they've got a unique look to them yeah yeah i love all of that Samurai as well, he's very... Yes. The way his shoulders move is really distinctive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the way he carries his shoulders and like, it's almost funny, but it's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:38:24
Speaker
I don't know how to describe it It's like, it it is comical. It works in the film world, but then if you were actually doing that, you'd look weird. Yeah, but it is is a big part of his solo and how we perceive him. And then when we meet General Tadakura later on, he's like yeah nemesis who then... yes redeems himself at the end. They have the really slow fight with him. Yeah. He's got a different stance as well and a different silhouette. Yeah.
00:38:50
Speaker
It's really cool. Side note, he, on the back of his costume, oh yeah when they meet for that fight and a bit later on as well, they meet again, he's got like a circle emblem on the back of his cloak or armour or whatever it is.
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah. And it's pretty much, well, it's very close to the Imperial symbol. Yeah. that Death Star soldiers have got on their helmets. On their helmets, yeah. Yeah, we've seen a million times since.
00:39:16
Speaker
Definitely, yeah. There's quite a bit of that symbol stuff. that like His army generally have got that symbol, which is like a square with three horizontal kind of bars in it. Yes, yeah, yeah. There's no Star Wars reference I can find in that, but it's still like symbols. The symbolism thing. Simple symbols that denote who we're dealing with. Yeah, and eye-catching. Yeah. Almost like otherworldly as well, which is kind of interesting. If we're going to get into like silhouettes and stuff, the samurai's Kabuto helmet, which we see our general macabre Rokurota wearing at the end is very Darth Vader's helmet. It's clearly samurai helmet. love that, Yeah. And the fact that they're using swords, i don't know if they're specifically katana swords, but they're of that vibe. Yes. Which is obviously lightsabers have been very light sabery yeah called reference to that. Yes. I was looking for more light direct Star Wars references because we've obviously got the stuff we've already talked about. Yes. We didn't mention the film-makery trick of wipe dissolves. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a few of those. I think they're all vertical ones throughout, whereas Lucas did some diagonal ones. Yeah. Yeah. Other Star Wars directors have developed it a little bit more. yeah like Where can we take this dissolve trick? Yeah, yeah which is a great reference. I love that. um But yeah, there are the the the characters as well. Obviously, we've got headstrong princess, powerful princess. and I was going to call him a guardian, but he's not really a guardian. He is no like accompanying her... I was kind of struggling to work out what the relationship was there. Yeah, yeah. It's not very clear until almost to the very end when you finally... yeah She goes through this transformation having immersed herself in the life of the everyday people. yeah She's been forcibly removed from her, you know... From her station. Kingdom, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And she experiences this connection with the people and understands the value of that and how it can make her a better leader and everything else. yeah
00:41:23
Speaker
But we don't really, really get that thing and him as her kind of number one, I guess, yeah until we see those shots at the very, very end. Which, by the way, the cinematography in these shots where it's just like perfectly framed, it's very yeah it's kind of a cross between the throne room scene at the end of A New Hope, yeah where it's all very square and flat framing, but also Amidala and many shots of Amidala in all her makeup and stuff. And the styling of Amidala is very much like the styling of Tsitsuki in her elements at the end there. yeah
00:41:56
Speaker
But yeah, let's dig into some of the other Star Wars connections. I was going to say New Hope connections, but I think it's like overall Star Wars connections. Star Wars in general. Yeah.
Musical Influence & Comedic Elements
00:42:06
Speaker
So there's some music references, which is obviously a John Williams thing. Widdly woos. Yes. There's some widdly woos. but There is. And there's a very specific whittly woo of a flute theme, which is kind of Princess Yuki's theme, I think, that comes back again and again and again. And if you listen to the opening fanfare of A New Hope, at the end of The Crawl, yes we get a little flute line or a piccolo, I think it is. Mm-hmm. As the camera pans down before the Star Destroyer starts flying over the top. We've seen that so many times. So many times. If you slow down that piccolo theme, which I have done because I've sampled it to make drummer bass with... which how many drum and bass Star Wars producers, you know, haven't sampled that bit of A New Hope. It's very, very, very similar Sato's theme of Princess Yuki. It's a flute that plays it.
00:43:08
Speaker
I presume that's what you mean when you say widly woo. That is one of the things that I mean when I say Widdly-woo. The other thing that I mean when I say Widdly-woo is whenever it's quite tense, there's lots of Widdly-woos in Star Wars. and Yes. We've got the same kind of high Widdly-woos going on here whenever it's a bit tense. We came across some of them in The Mandalorian, particularly when Mando's fighting with yeah Gideon at the end. Yeah, the little string Widdly-woos in that case. Yeah.
00:43:35
Speaker
In this case, it's there's a diddly-doo, diddly-doo, diddly-doo, diddly-doo. That happens quite a lot. Yeah. When I sing it, sounds like a ringtone from the 90s. Those 90s ringtone composers, who are probably Japanese, by the way, will have watched some Kurosawa, I'm sure. That's true. Or at least listen to Sato's scores. I was like really interested to hear how much of a hybrid score it is. It's got some Japanese instruments in and some Japanese melodic ideas, but it's very Western as well. It is, yeah. It's classical Western orchestra. Yeah. Western classical, I should say. I think it's that way around. Whichever way And I can hear John Williams, although he doesn't directly reference it, there are definitely...
00:44:18
Speaker
i dont Come on, he does directly reference it. The droid on Tatooine, I can't remember the name of the queue, but you know, but plan um oh yeah yeah yeah do yeah and which is a bassoon or an oboe, I can't remember which instrument it is. yeah We get quite a bit of that in the first half of this film. Yes. think they use bassoon and maybe bass clarinet. I think it's woodwind anyway.
00:44:41
Speaker
Obviously, woodly-woos are my favourite thing. so I feel like it's quite minimal. Although there's a lot of music, and as we said earlier, the music is doing a lot of work in the film. It's quite minimal in themes. Like he uses the same stuff again and again and again. Yeah, yeah.
00:44:56
Speaker
ah There's lots of the um comedy music as well. Yeah, yeah. Which that droid theme from New York is pure comedy. Very, very similar. But their physicality is always, it's almost animation style. Yeah, that Mickey Mousing thing of like synchronising. Yeah. Some of the zap sounds or whatever which the orchestra's doing.
00:45:17
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I know what you mean. Definitely. There were moments of that. Again, I was surprised to how much comedy there is generally in this film. like It is very funny. It's kind of a comedy above everything else almost. yeah I mean, it's an adventure, whatever. Very slapstick. Yeah.
00:45:31
Speaker
I suppose you could look at films like Princess Bride as well. Yes. You kind of 80s adventure films, The Labyrinth even. ah They were probably paying homage to Lucas. Well, Lucas may have been involved in some of them.
00:45:43
Speaker
Indiana Jones, which again has got comedy mixed with action. Adventure. There was some definite um Indiana Jones vibes yeah in that fire festival scene. Yeah. It really reminded me of The Temple of Doom. Okay, yeah. With the sort of big, yeah, ritualistic almost stuff going on. Yeah.
Redemption & Strong Female Characters
00:46:04
Speaker
Okay, another another Star Wars trope is about the redemption arc of yes General Tadokoro, who yes we meet him about two thirds of the way through where he has this fight with our General Rakuroto hero. Yeah. And it's very much Ben and Vader on the Death Star. Vibes.
00:46:24
Speaker
It's kind of so a bit slower measured in the same way as their fight, possibly a little bit more so. It makes Vader and Obi-Wan look like lightning. Positively dancing around. but he does that thing where, well okay, he sort of jumps to Return of the Jedi in a way where he was kind of left scarred.
00:46:48
Speaker
Yes. In the same way that Anakin was scarred and he reveals his scars in a similar way to we sort of see Anakin's scars revealed in Return of the Jedi. Yeah. but Where he's come good at the end. Yes. Like in the same way as Anakin comes good at the end. Yeah, yeah. And and has that little moment of redemption.
00:47:03
Speaker
but in this it's a much happier ending for him than it was for Anakin. Yeah, exactly. he becomes part of the new kingdom of Princess Yuki. Yeah, yeah. It's really nice.
00:47:14
Speaker
I wonder... Were there other, because obviously this is almost kind of become a bit of a trope. Yeah. Where was the first kind of story? It goes, it's similar to like old folk stories though, isn't it? so it's I guess, yeah. I mean, cinema wise, it definitely goes back to early Westerns. Yeah, yeah. There's this whole thing about the Joseph Campbell book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is yeah like a breakdown of the hero's journey and the story archetypes in cinema generally, but also specifically in Star Wars. I think Hidden Fortress is a slightly different version of that, but those ideas of story, like you say, they go way back way back there to folktales. and Yeah.
00:47:54
Speaker
yeah But in cinema, suppose, yeah, the westerns were the early versions of that. One thing I did notice is there's more female characters in this one. Yeah. There isn't a new hope. yes We've got a few more women going on here. I was kind of like shocked. to I've seen her referred to as a proto-feminist, Princess Yuki, and how she is as single-minded as Leia. And we love Leia. Her appearance in the history of cinema at that point was phenomenal. Yeah. And shout out to Carrie Fisher for absolutely embodying that. All of it. Yeah. But Princess Yuki was there before, you know, and she goes through such a journey.
00:48:34
Speaker
She does. And although we could say that our protagonists are Tahoe and Matashuchi, she is a massive part of the kind of what the story actually is about. It's about recovering your community, your kingdom, whatever you want to call it. Her moment of looking over the landscape and...
00:48:53
Speaker
crying. yeah That really hit me hard to like her performance. She's just like tears are rolling down her face. Juxtaposed with the woman who before that is going, she shouldn't have been raised as a boy. yeah I've never seen her cry. It's like, yeah, she's doing it in private. I mean, that's some serious storytelling of like talking about gender roles and everything else at that time.
00:49:17
Speaker
But showing that she is embodying both, that she has the masculine and the feminine is really powerful. And she owns it and it's never taken away from her. she No. And she sort finds both sides of herself on her own in this journey. Yeah. and comes to embody them both when she retakes her position as a leader, as a princess. yeah There's that little conversation that they have when they're discussing how to get her, and she's kind of not involved in that conversation. They're discussing how they can get her to where they need her to be, how they can get her across enemy lines. She has to pretend to be mute. And then like he goes in with reverse psychology to try and persuade her. instantly and I was like this is a trick that I use with my five-year-old nephew to get him to eat his food and then I was thinking about a bit more and I was like actually it would probably work on me as well because I've done many many stupid things just because someone's told me I wouldn't be able to but then she came in and instantly went you're trying to reverse psychology me and no and I was like fair play love her From the moment she first appeared on the screen every step of the way, I just loved her development as a character.
00:50:29
Speaker
fab. This was 1958.
00:50:32
Speaker
Why have we had to put up with decades of Hollywood male gaze? Bullshit. Exactly. but but We did not need to do this. No. We'd already established incredible female characters thanks to Kurosawa. And I'm sure other filmmakers in the early days did some great stuff with female characters. But where were they? Why did that not carry through into Hollywood? Why is it only now that we're finally getting stories? That it's coming back. And don't get me wrong, this story was written by,
00:51:04
Speaker
well There are four people who wrote it. Okay. But think they're all men. I don't know they're just men. But still, they wrote a brilliant female character. Yeah. And was performed fantastically yeah by Misa Yohara. She just did such a great thing. She was 21, I think, when this was filmed. I think she's supposed to be 16, I think, the character. i can't remember whether that's specified. She's playing a lot younger. She have even been...
00:51:31
Speaker
younger than that i'm not sure that's wild in the same way as amidala there's a there's kind of a very strong link i think she's more like amidala than she is she is leia yeah for sure i mean her sassiness is leia like the comedy side of her is leia but her royalness and her personal journey is much more amidala and obviously visually she's very amidala as well yeah Her eyebrows are fantastic. Shout out to her eyebrows. Yeah. This might even be the second time I'm mentioning it today, but... And they are, they're worthy. I'm being twice. As someone who has blonde eyebrows and I can't do anything with them, but I was very impressed. I have fairly significant eyebrows. I always have done.
00:52:15
Speaker
Fairly significant eyebrows is also a great name for a band. Significant eyebrows. As a child, I was bullied about my eyebrows, but I have embraced them yeah in my gender transition and, you know, my journey in that. You've always got fantastic eyebrows. I've embraced them, yeah. Mine are minor invisible. Yeah.
00:52:38
Speaker
We could draw them We could draw them on, but then it would look silly because I'm blonde. I mean, I draw mine on. I do have eyebrows if I'm not wearing makeup. You can still see my eyebrows, but they are a fraction what they are. After a few minutes with a Rimmel pencil, it's a big part of mine. If I'm going to do the bare minimum, my mum talks about this as well. She does the same thing. If I'm going to bare minimum makeup, eyebrows are the first thing. Eyebrows and mascara. Excellent. That's interesting.
00:53:05
Speaker
I felt like Princess Yuki would have stayed the same. like Yeah, she would. Mascara and eyebrows are a significant part of her look. She's awesome. Like her resilience. They do that bit where they go into the town. They have to yes like trick their way into the town.
00:53:20
Speaker
You don't need to see his identification. Yeah. exactly They go into the town. It's a whole ploy with like, oh, let's just free up one of these gold bars that we're hiding to get us through the the kind of blockade. yeah Definitely like going into Mos Eisley. And then we're in this hive of scum and villainy, which is, yeah again, pretty brutal. Like the we they're just casually talking about child in a way, you know. i mean, that's a recurring theme in this film, by the way, which... Didn't make me feel uncomfortable, but it's yep but it's kind of presented in a way where it is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable, particularly in this scene. And they're in effectively what is the cantina scene.
00:53:57
Speaker
And her resilience during that and the way that she is determined to buy back one of her clan who's been enslaved, who then becomes an extra character who is really awesome. And I kept waiting for them do something awful about her and they didn't. She continues to destroy, which was really happy to see. yeah And also becomes a part of their subterfuge because now they're no longer a party of two men and a woman sorry three men and a woman. They now have an extra woman, yeah which throws off some... soldiers in the future. Oh, can't be them because they've got two women. there's another woman, yeah. It's definitely not them. That's not the people. Those aren't the droids we're looking It's not the people we're looking for. There's too many women. But yeah, her resilience in that sequence and her determination... And obviously she's also learning she's vulnerable in it too. And we can somehow see her yes becoming more a woman of her people.
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah. I suppose she's been quite sheltered up until that point, hasn't she? So she doesn't really... And I feel like that scene with her lady-in-waiting or whatever the old lady is earlier on you were talking about when they're trying to outthink her but fail to, yeah it is a kind of yeah it's a representation of they see her as living this sheltered life. But she proves, even at that point...
00:55:12
Speaker
that she is still... she still understands what's going on and she's... Yeah, she's not as sheltered as she appears to. no But she's not averse to growing as a person and she's open to that.
00:55:23
Speaker
Yeah, she's such a powerful... The more I think about her and her character and that performance... It's so good. The problem with the Star Wars kind of juxtaposition of it is that everyone is obsessed with r two d two
Princess Yuki's Impact & Peasant Redemption
00:55:35
Speaker
and C-3PO. And yes, we're seeing a story being told through the eyes of these two comedy characters, one tall, one short, and... yeah That is a massive thing, but we have to look beyond that as Star Wars fans to so see some of this other stuff. And her story is, I think, what I'm going to take away yeah from this film. Definitely.
00:55:55
Speaker
Controversial opinion. Yeah. The peasants annoyed me. Yeah. i was kind of annoyed and a bit done with them. There was so many unnecessary scenes. They don't learn. No, there's no learning going on. I feel that is intentional. Like it is yeah supposed to be annoying, I think. But I know what you mean. Maybe in modern day times they will have learned some lessons a bit quicker. yeah We wouldn't have had yet another complete disaster of a scenario where they try and steal some gold and run away and they end up in a mess. that The general has to come and rescue them from or the princess or whatever. yeah Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't think that's controversial. I think that's an intentional thing. They are annoying. They play it for annoyance. That's so annoying. Even to the last few minutes of the film, and it's only when they realise who she is, I feel like that's their their redemption as annoying yeah characters. They suddenly discover who she is.
00:56:51
Speaker
And I'm reminded of the moment in Phantom Menace where Padme steps forward and Obi-Wan has to do that. yeah He has to eat his words a bit and yeah He grows in that moment and I feel like the two peasants at the very end, they do experience of that. But it's just a shame yeah that it' not it's literally in the last two minutes of the film. yeah We have to endure their shenanigans for two hours and 17 minutes. yeah yeah And some of it's funny, but like some of it just goes way too far. And you're just like, come on now. Just come on, guys. Come on. And and that that's also a pacing thing, isn't it? Because it takes so long. and you Yeah, yeah.
00:57:30
Speaker
Let's speed this attention We all know where this is going. Speed it up. So yeah, I guess these are some of the things we're going to take away. Yeah. the pacing and how that is so very different and how much of a challenge, it's not impossible for us, but it's a challenge for us to experience in the present day. I feel like yeah that's definitely one of the significant things. And and I think I'm inspired by Princess Yuki.
00:57:52
Speaker
Yeah, um definitely. I'm going forwards trying to be a bit more Yuki. Yeah. It's going to give me more like eyebrow determination if that's even ah Excellent. It's made me connect with Lucas again a bit, I think, because obviously we're in a new era of Star Wars yeah since the like early 2010s. We've been in the hands of Disney. yeah We've still been in the hands of Lucasfilm, but Disney have been a kind of background. It's almost like the unseen emperor, which, by the way, is another character trope in this film that we don't get to see the person pulling the strings.
George Lucas's Legacy & Audience Engagement
00:58:27
Speaker
yeah But yeah, we've been in this new era and we've fallen in love with Filoni and Favreau and
00:58:33
Speaker
All the other incredible filmmakers have been a part of the new era of Star Wars, JJ and Rian Johnson. like We've had all these new people, these new voices. They're all being very respectful to Star Wars. I don't care what the fandom menace says. they are yeah they are They are paying homage to what Lucas created. But watching this and reading about Lucas and watching that interview with him... It's made me, yeah, come reconnect with George Lucas as a filmmaker.
00:59:01
Speaker
That's nice. Yeah. And I think if you're listening and you haven't seen The Hidden Fortress, seek out the 90-minute version. Maybe, yeah. I don't know. Unless you're in it for the long haul. I would say go for the long haul. Go for the long one. Do the long one. the spiritual journey of it, for reminding ourselves of attention spans and all of that. Yes. Make yourself to I'm really glad that it's not just me because I was like, is this a me problem? Am I struggling with this? No, we're all struggling. I'm particularly bouncy or what's the what's that happens? Listener, give us some feedback. Tell us if you have watched it. Did you struggle with this as well? I feel like you're going say yes, you did. Just to make me feel better. my terrible, terrible attention span. I did the dishes at the same time as well because I was like, well, if I'm going to i'm going to watch this film, I'm going to do some housework as well. It's cool. It's a good accompaniment. It's a good, like, it could become a comfort watch in the long term.
00:59:57
Speaker
I want to watch it again. as I was watching, I was like, this is long. I'm doing this for the research, for the podcast, for Star wars like for Lucas, all of those things, but it is long. But actually having finished it and reflected a lot on it and listened to some other people reflect on it and now had this amazing conversation with you, yeah I'm going to go watch it again. going to finish
01:00:17
Speaker
i'm going to finish it Yes, you should. I've seen like the last few shots and stuff because I've watched Breakdowns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know where we're going. but like The last 20 minutes are great. I think they're the best 20 minutes of the film. you Do it. I think you could kind of almost do without the first 40. Yeah. That could have been condensed into probably 10 minutes. yeah, yeah. yeah Yeah.
01:00:42
Speaker
If you've enjoyed this, yes maybe go and give us a little review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or anywhere else where you listen to podcasts. All of the places. We'd love that. And if you've not done already, pretty sure you have by now, but if you haven't done, go and follow us on Instagram Blue Sky. Yeah, all of the places. yeah can and Join our little community of Star Wars lovers. Yay!
01:01:05
Speaker
And am I right in thinking our next episode is Clone Wars related? is. The next episode is simply and specifically called Clones! We have a chat which called that. We may have a group chat of the same name, right? With the incredible Mary. She is a clone lover. She's a clone knowledge source, which is we're bringing her on to kick off our Clone Wars rewatch. We're just going to talk about the clones themselves. I can't wait. I'm so excited. I don't even have to watch anything. I'm just going to listen to Mary. That's going to be great. Yeah, Mary, no pressure.
01:01:44
Speaker
You've got to carry this episode.
Excitement for Upcoming Clone Wars Episode
01:01:46
Speaker
Just kidding. We have a plan. that We've got lots of talking points. We've got characters that we're going to delve into. We've got planets that we're going to talk about and how the clones came to be and how they develop. It's going to be brilliant. o I'm So come back next week to come on a little... be eyebrow chat in that one.
01:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, i don't think there's any kind insignificant eyebrows stuff on. You can't see the significant eyebrows. There may be. We'll find out. Okay. Come with us. But yeah, we will see you then for some clone talk.
01:02:22
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Bye.