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Episode 024 - Hour of Triumph
9 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we discuss our long running relationship with Star Wars focusing on the original trilogy from A New Hope to Return of the Jedi
CREDITS:
Intro clip from George Lucas' "Star Wars" (1977) from Lucasfilm Ltd, distributed by 20th Century Fox
Opening music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-116199/
Closing music from Bad Lip Reading's "Seagulls! (Stop It Now)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFW6UWyTF8
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Two Oceans Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Two oceans. Two oceans will begin. We gotta find out which cell this princess of yours is in. Here it is. 2187. You go and get her. I'll hold him here.
00:00:31
Speaker
Everything's under control. Situation normal. What happened? It's like weapons malfunction. But everything's perfectly alright now. We're fine. We're all fine here now. Thank you. How are you? We're sending a squad up. Negative, negative. We have a reactor leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak. Very dangerous. Who is this? What's your operating number?
Nostalgia and Legacy of Star Wars
00:01:04
Speaker
Welcome to the Two Oceans Podcast, where myself, Sue Fire, along with my friend and congenial colleague, Scrumby, discuss film and other media through a decades-long lens of mass media consumption. In this episode, we discuss our long-running relationship to Star Wars, focusing on the original trilogy from A New Hope to Return of the Jedi. This is the Two Oceans Podcast, so climb into the smuggling compartments as we get pulled into Episode 24.
00:01:20
Speaker
or in conversation anyway.
00:01:34
Speaker
Okay, okay. All right. Musical intro. Star Wars episode this week. On May 4th. May 4th be with you. On May 4th? 4th May? Whatever.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah. How does that translate over in limey land? And so you may the fourth be with you. And so it doesn't quite work over here. Yeah. Yeah. I would imagine. Yeah. For that. Maybe in Yoda speak. Right. There you go. And then when somebody says it, you know, I like, may the fourth be with you. And I'm like, and so also with you, like, I just can't help turn that off. Yeah.
00:02:22
Speaker
I'm actually talking about the British side of Star Wars trivia. When Han Solo in the original trilogy, he uses a different gun to shoot Greedo. He shot first thing.
00:02:38
Speaker
That particular gun was made in the US because the Cantina scene was filmed in the US. And they couldn't export the gun that was made over here to take with them. So they just created a whole new one. Oh, and just for that one scene. Yeah. I wonder where that lives now.
00:03:03
Speaker
Who knows? Who knows?
Script and Production Insights
00:03:05
Speaker
So I thought we'd kind of hit the original trilogy to start things off and maybe go back to our roots, our very, very deep roots in Star Wars. Indeed. Yes, yes, it's so fundamental. I mean, now it seems easy. But you know, for the longest time, it was not.
00:03:29
Speaker
Oh, we just had scraps, didn't we? We got lots of toys thrown at us, but not. Well, I remember the there was a Bloom County strip once where it was the main carrier like took down George Lucas because he's like, Jedi and I don't wait four years for sequels because, you know, we had to wait three years between movies. Oh, yeah. Or four years between Star Wars and Empire.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it kind of proved its worth. Well, and also when you're doing everything or much more practical effects rather than green screen garbage, you know, it has an impact I think as well. So in a lot of ways, but we'll talk about that. And then like the script development of the original trilogy changed quite a lot. Well, there was script development.
00:04:23
Speaker
Well, there was script development. Like Return of the Jedi had Han Solo dying at one point. Yes, indeed. And Luke just kind of going off into the wilderness at the end, which sounded interesting. But the other changes through the whole series as they went through it. So we had different media thrown out to us. I think some books came out. We had Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, yes.
00:04:49
Speaker
where Luke and Leia are sort of more romantic. They don't know that they're related yet. Yeah, actually, actually on that note, a lot of people have sort of pointed out analyzing the final scene of the Empire Strikes Back where Luke's got his arm around Leia and it sort of pans out. And there's been a lot of supposition about what was going on there, you know, obviously. And
00:05:13
Speaker
And then we had the exploits of Han Solo. I think there's some three other books and we have the comics as well. The comics started in then too, which were very much, very much detailing. Yeah. Luke's running around in that jacket that we only saw him in briefly in the throne room or the award ceremony. Like I remember that being the thing like, Ooh, we get to see him in the jacket. You know, it's the Barbie doll thing, right? But he's got a new hat.
00:05:37
Speaker
Uh, but they were, uh, they were all right. You know, uh, they really started, they gave the idea of fleshing out, you know, this idea of what, and what now was like, well, it's not cannon and all that. It was like, you realize we, you know, we grew up, there was no cannon. Well, exactly. Exactly. It didn't matter.
00:05:54
Speaker
like from the fan club and things where they talked about the Sith, right? Like Sith was not mentioned in any of the original trilogy. And the origin of Darth Vader, you know, we had little bits and pieces, like it had something to do with fighting with Obi-Wan and lava, you know? Yeah. So that was down for a long time. Well, that was, and that was Splinter. Splinter in the Mind's Eye talked about that. Yeah. That he kicked, they had the fight on the top of the volcano and he kicked him into the volcano.
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah, and the comics actually had a flashback to that as well. It was a great sort of comic cover, very sort of goofy art style of that time, with the whole kind of lava thing going on. And then mentioned a Palpatine as well, all the way back there before Empire came out. So some of this stuff was in there, but there were some pretty big changes.
00:06:46
Speaker
Yes, indeed.
Comparative Analysis with 70s Sci-Fi
00:06:47
Speaker
And, but yeah, the thing is, you know, so first movie comes out, I'm seven. How old were you? Seven. Seven. Yeah. And couldn't couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe my luck. Yeah. And how, how much fun it was versus, you know, what, what it took to get there. You know, there's a lot of good behind this.
00:07:07
Speaker
behind the making of all that behind the scenes stuff, like how it got made and how lucky it was and basically it was having the lady that was the editor that saved it more than anything. A lot of the production crew in the background were essentially the same production crew that worked on 2001, A Space Odyssey. Right. And then you had John Williams' music. Ben Burt, who did the sound effects, sound effects to this day,
00:07:36
Speaker
are are amazing, you know, iconic, iconic, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then you have Phil Tippett as well. Then in the whole industrial light and magic. And you bring up so much talent. Yeah. And the point of, you know, 2001, you're like, yeah, that was sci fi. That's what we had for science fiction. The only things outside of, you know, we're like schlocky, you know, fifties, B movie kind of stuff.
00:08:03
Speaker
or schlocky like Italian stuff or something like that. Or like 2001 being so incomprehensible to kids of our age. You know what I mean? So you had like 2001 or silent running as well.
00:08:18
Speaker
which are not films that are easy for kids to get into. Actually, Universal sued George Lucas because of R2-D2 saying, oh, you've taken R2-D2 from Silent Running. And it was like, they look nothing alike. So that got thrown out. And how much? Or even Planet of the Apes was as difficult to get into. It had some heavy, heavy themes.
00:08:45
Speaker
Well, and that was the thing. It was all heavy. Like the 70s sci-fi stuff before Star Wars came on the scene was all dystopian, depressing, bleak. I mean, worth watching, you know, certainly, you know, Logan's Run, Omega Man, you know, you can just start, like I said, silent running, you can just start counting them down. But none of them were for kids. And none of them, you know, none of them had a spirit of adventure or
Influences on Star Wars
00:09:13
Speaker
anything else. They were much more
00:09:16
Speaker
you know, we're just set in a different place.
00:09:18
Speaker
Well, I tell you something else at that time that was appealing to me, I'm pretty sure. Oh, yeah. I'm guessing here that that is appealing to you. Indeed. That the Kung Fu movies that we had at the time. And the interesting thing about martial arts was it had this implication that there was a kind of almost spiritual side to it, right? And Star Wars tapped into that with the Force as well, which was really kind of cool. And then we also had outdated
00:09:46
Speaker
sci-fi like Flash Gordon, right? It's just like, okay, this is fun, but boy, this is kind of hokey. You kind of wish someone would take it more seriously. And we have the same thing with Batman as well. Even at that age thinking, I wish they were more serious about it.
00:10:07
Speaker
But they had movie executives making decisions on our behalf as, the seven-year-olds aren't going to understand this. They don't want a serious Batman. They want something fun. And I think it was the same thing with,
00:10:20
Speaker
the science fiction time, so Star Wars, like push so many buttons. And then, you know, I think it's been, it's such a bedrock with Star Wars, because I remember when they played The Making of Star Wars, and that was probably the first time I'd ever seen anything about the craft of making cinema, where, you know, they spent time showing how Ben Burt just went around just like,
00:10:44
Speaker
hitting stuff and recording it, right? And mixing these sounds, and then you saw how they built the models and all this, and it was amazing. There wasn't anything quite like it, because they didn't create those sort of making of movie films until Star Wars. More stuff came out after that. It tended to be the
00:11:07
Speaker
effect stuff. And then later on, they started doing these, you know, art of books that are quite common now, kind of major, major films. Right. Well, and the other thing too, is that, you know, for this, you know, all we had growing up with the saying, you know, watching stuff before this, because I, you know, even at seven, I, you know, consumed a lot of media in my time. And a lot of it was, you know, the same stuff that Lucas was raised on.
00:11:37
Speaker
So,
Alec Guinness's Star Wars Journey
00:11:38
Speaker
you know, the, you know, golden, you know, seven voyages or golden voyages in bed are seven voyages, seven voyages in bed. And, you know, all those and, you know, this felt like that. In fact, you know, there's stuff lifted directly from from those movies and and, you know, people, the reviewers at the time then tied into like, oh, it's like, you know, they looked at the searchers and
00:12:07
Speaker
What was it, the Red Castle, the Kurosawa one basically? The Hidden Fortress. Hidden Fortress, sorry. The template for A New Hope, wasn't it? Yes, yeah. And the fact that Lucas went to Joseph Campbell to talk about mythology and to learn how to weave that better, like actually tell a story like that.
00:12:28
Speaker
You know, that's damn impressive. It is impressive. And I think he was at the peak of his form at that point. Yeah, he was still a filmmaker at that point, not entertainment.
00:12:40
Speaker
icon or whatever he is, whatever he became. We talk about the sci-fi at the time being quite heavy and cerebral and dark. Let's not forget that Lucas also made THX 1138, which is a solid movie, but for a seven-year-old,
00:13:03
Speaker
It's difficult to understand. You're missing a lot. Yeah. And I think you made a good point there around the Harryhausen stop-motion Sinbad movies. What a big deal those were because they had that real sense of fun and the effects were amazing, the locations were amazing. And then you also had
00:13:27
Speaker
things like the Epic Westerns were another thing that was quite interesting with things like Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. And then A New Hope had these settings in this vast desert. And one of the things that I miss, and it's one of the benchmarks that I use when I'm looking at Star Wars media,
00:13:49
Speaker
in how it ties back to the original is I think the pacing of the first of A New Hope is very very good. You have this you open with this action sequence and it really sort of kicks off the entire story and then it drops down a beat when 3PO and R2D2 are separated in the desert.
00:14:11
Speaker
And I remember it feeling quite slow but mysterious. I had no idea where it was going to go. And then we came across the Jawas and all that. And I don't think I have seen it come close in some episodes of The Mandalorian.
00:14:32
Speaker
where it lets you soak in the location, right? And you didn't know what was going to happen next. And it's continued in Empire Strikes Back as well, where, you know, where are they going to go to now? Oh, Cloud City. Well, you had no idea they're going to go to Cloud City, you know? Oh, they're in an asteroid field now. You know, I love that not knowing and feeling like it was a bit of a road trip, right? Yeah, right. Yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I kind of missed that in the third movie with Jedi, which didn't feel like a road trip. And I think, you know, yeah, it's just one of those things that really makes me feel like, ah, this is very true to the original series. I love the fact that they're going in all different directions now. But yeah, I did hope that when they had the sequel trilogy that they would
00:15:28
Speaker
they would go that direction too. And again, it didn't feel like it. It sort of felt a little bit more patchwork. Well, I'd say they didn't except for Last Jedi. The Abrams films didn't. The Johnson film did. I think the Johnson film is my favorite out of all of this. Oh, by far. Yeah. And the reason being, I would say it's the same thing. He was in love with the original source stuff like we were, like Lucas was.
00:15:54
Speaker
And so he's going for that to make a Star Wars movie, not going to the original Star Wars movies to make a new Star Wars movie, which is what Abrams did. And that's why they're so flat and not as good as his. It was just like a bunch of ideas just thrown up on the screen. And some of them are good, some of them are bad, but they don't all hang together. It's the South Park member berries thing. Member, member Chewbacca, you know. Exactly. So.
00:16:24
Speaker
And the other thing too is that when I saw Star Wars again as a kid, I was seven year old, all I had was TV channels, four channels, and one of them just showed old movies all the time. So when it came on, I knew
00:16:40
Speaker
Harrison Ford, I knew Alec Guinness and I knew Peter Cushing because they'd been in all these other movies and I had seen them and you know it's like oh look it's Van Helsing oh no he's a bad guy again he's like in dr. Frankenstein okay exactly yeah exactly or yeah
00:17:02
Speaker
There's a guy from the Grey Flannel suit. We talk about all the talent, but we've already sort of touched on how many different genres you get in the hope as well. Because as old World War II dogfights, which were always kind of exciting, but always really short. And then you had this epic sequence of the trench run in the original trilogy.
00:17:30
Speaker
Which, speaking of World War II movies, he lifted from Damn Busters, which I hadn't seen at the time. In the UK, of course, that's the Staple Dad movie, right?
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But here it's not quite the same, probably like Longest Day maybe here or something like that. Right. Tora, tora, tora, something like that. But he lifted the literal dialogue directly from that movie into the attack. And it's the same setup, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's still the same, there's no way.
00:18:05
Speaker
This is going to work. And the only sad thing about that is at the time that they, when they filmed it, and I think this is great that they at least had the intention of this is that there were female fighter pilots in that run, but they all got cut out, but then they got brought back in for Rogue One. Yes. Yeah. They were able to, they had the footage. Yeah, which is really cool. Yeah, which was nice. Yeah. Yeah. Which was good.
00:18:32
Speaker
And yeah. Yeah. Trying to think of I mean, so we have that original movie, which which almost felt like a standalone. I don't remember it. I think originally when it played, it didn't say episode one, episode four. I mean, A New Hope. I think that got added.
00:18:52
Speaker
at a later release. I don't think it did. I think it was part of that weirdness of it. It's like, why are we starting with four? Who cares? And it was a new hope. It's like, well, what was the old hope? I remember being confused by that as a kid. Like, what? What? And then just moving past it because the rest of it was so fun. But still, I think, no, because Lucas wrote it out originally. He said, no, let's start here. Again, being at the peak of his creativeness, it's also the peak of his arrogance.
00:19:19
Speaker
in terms of being a creative. So he's like, oh, well, I have this massive space opera to tell. I'm going to start at this point in the story.
00:19:30
Speaker
Which which which has worked out to a degree which actually worked somehow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I mean the weird thing is is is there's all the talk about Alec Guinness not liking Star Wars But I've seen a video this week of him talking about Star Wars and I think it's a lot more tempered because he said when he got the script He
Unexpected Sequels and Trivia
00:19:49
Speaker
was gonna say no. He's just like I don't do science fiction
00:19:52
Speaker
But there was something that made him keep turning the pages and he wanted to know what was going to happen next. And the dialogue was clunky, but he liked the story. And he obviously, you know, worked with Lucas to to improve the dialogue that was on there. And he mentioned when talking to Lucas how much Lucas was also inspired by Tolkien, because in an early draft, Luke and his relatives were originally meant to be small people.
00:20:21
Speaker
So just like Frodo and, you know, the Hobbits basically. But that changed at some point. I am your father. Wow. Cool. And then we had David Lynch passing on directing Jedi as well. Right. Well, the fact that you said, you know, bring up the point about the standalone.
00:20:47
Speaker
of it. It's like, you know, we had no idea, you know, not like now, like, we had no idea there was gonna be a sequel. Yeah. Like, we weren't clamoring for a sequel. We weren't, you know, you didn't do that at the time. That wasn't a thing. That didn't exist. Totally. You know, and the idea of then when this other, you know, you start hearing the rumblings of like, oh, they're doing another Star Wars movie. Like, really? Like, you had no idea. Like, how does that work?
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You know, the only thing that got sequels were like screwball comedies. Oh, and half the time with those, you would get a different cast. Oh, totally different. Yeah, everything's different. Yeah. And they were they were never good. And it kind of ignored the continuity didn't happen in the sequels. And they were never good. And yeah.
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, this is another bit of trivia that I got. And it's one I don't see very often. And it's the weirdest. And I think it's probably my favorite piece of Star Wars trivia is Chewbacca's outfit, right? It's human hair.
00:21:57
Speaker
Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. And if you think about it, you think, huh, yeah, there isn't an animal that has hair like that. Right. And it was all done by human hair, by the costume makers over here, which kind of makes sense because it looks like really well-conditioned human hair, doesn't it?
00:22:19
Speaker
But yeah, yeah weird kind of stuff that you wouldn't do nowadays Yeah, these cancer patients don't need these wigs we'll have them for this this Star Wars epic And the other one that I think is quite quite good is Samuel Jackson's lightsaber was engraved with the same words that were on his wallet wallet Yeah, yeah Yeah, and he chose the purple he was like why not when I want purple
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, well, we can't know all of a sudden there's a whole. All of a sudden, magically, this whole mythos around the crystals, crystal around lightsaber colors and what they do and all that sprung up. Yeah. It was like, oh, we need to explain all this. But again, it goes back to that whole kung fu thing. And you think about the old films with the sort of master and apprentice, and it very much kind of echoes Yoda, right? You have this quiet, wise, old
00:23:18
Speaker
who's also a master, right? You wouldn't want to mess around with them, even though they look as weak as anything, they would be able to walk anything you could throw your way. He's the main leader from Seven Samurai, you know, that goes down to Pose as a priest, so he shaves his head to go in to try to, you know, diffuse the situation without violence, you know, and then this kick-ass samurai epic is, you know, here's your hero is the one that doesn't want to use violence, that doesn't want to be a hero.
00:23:48
Speaker
and being that quietly wise as well on top of everything else. That's why, again, prequel wise, everybody's like, oh, Yoda with the lightsaber, and I was like, oh. I guess, yeah, that would have to be true at some point, but there was, again, the same certain point of it. It's like he didn't need to be.
Criticism of Prequels and Lost Magic
00:24:10
Speaker
Well, this is the other thing that I think the Pringles did quite badly was the whole midichlorium. Midichlorium. Fucking midichlor... Oh, God. I sincerely hope, because we're up to this point now of digital technology where they can actually... Hopefully they've kept some of the raw material.
00:24:36
Speaker
from the making of the prequels to to actually just redo it in the look and feel, you know, use the same performances, you know, or, you know, but to get rid of some of that stuff, because the midichlorians just takes the magic away from the force. You don't want to explain it. Yeah, you know, I don't want it explained. It's like going, you know, giving you the backstory of characters that you're like, I never asked for the backstory. Exactly. Doesn't need it.
00:25:07
Speaker
Doesn't need it, doesn't need it. Do you have Lea's what? Cued up? Because that was my reaction in the theater on that with the, like it's mitochondria. You just call them mitochondria. Really? It's cellular? Really? It was so contrived and so bad. It's a connection to every living thing, but only if you have, you know, the right combination in your bloodstream.
00:25:32
Speaker
This is the other thing I didn't like and it's one of the things that I liked about Ryan Johnson's was as the end of that was saying even the the impoverished sweeper boy can connect to the force. Yes. He brought it back exactly. Yeah, you could be an absolute nobody and be strong. You didn't have to have parents with the name of Skywalker.
00:25:53
Speaker
Oh, Palpatine or whatever. Bullshit. Sorry. Sorry. And I liked Ray, right? I hated that. I thought that was so unfair to her and so unfair to every fucking character.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, totally, totally. I did. And without that, I would have accepted her taking on the name Skywalker at the end, right? Sure. I would have accepted that. I think that's why. Yeah, the legacy, the idea, you know, it becomes and, you know, they could have traced that arc better of how the, you know, how the person becomes the symbol, because, you know, that's, you know, you have that in Rogue One, say, and talking about newer Star Wars, you know, you have that there and you have that with rebels and you have that, you know,
00:26:38
Speaker
where things move to become more important than just the person. And that's an important piece of human evolution and societal and civilization development is around those kind of ideas and ideals.
00:26:58
Speaker
And you could have had that instead. Nope. Well, you've got to spend you've got to spend like all your resources in three Star Wars shows to retcon the stupid rise of Skywalker bullshit. Well, you know, we've already had to retcon the original trilogy. Right. And Filoni did a great job of it. Sure. Even to the point that and no disrespect here to to the actors of the movies, because, you know,
00:27:25
Speaker
They had to live with dialogue. That was awful. Was pretty awful. But the writing for Anakin in the Clone Wars made him so much more of a sympathetic character. Yeah.
00:27:42
Speaker
Because because in the movies, he always had that that that dark side. Right. Yeah. If if that wasn't necessary until you got to the third movie, because that would have made such more of an impact knowing he's a great guy. I really like him knowing reason why everybody feels bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally, totally. And the one mistake that they made with the sequel trilogy, which I
00:28:09
Speaker
I can. Yeah. Yeah. Anyhow, I don't want to compare the two to two prequel and sequels. But but but but I the I couldn't believe that they hadn't planned out the full trilogy before starting filming the first episode. Yeah, I could not believe that. So disappointing making it up as they go pretty much. And it's a shame that Dave Filoni didn't have as much power as he does now. Right. Because, you know, and I I'm hoping that Ahsoka does very well.
00:28:37
Speaker
because that'll that'll support him even more. But, you know, I think he's he's been able to talk to George Lucas one to one, take Lucas's ideas, some of which are naff and some which are brilliant and actually be able to make something of that and and.
00:28:56
Speaker
It's it works out really well. It is. And it feels very authentic to Star Wars. So Lucas somewhere in his brain still still has a connection to, you know, this universe that he created. Sure. Yeah. I just just don't think he can express it as well as someone like Dave Filoni. Exactly. Well, and Filoni's got our passion and level of interest and passion. Yeah. And believing in the story and wanting to do it right rather than seeing it as a business to sell toys.
00:29:24
Speaker
Oh, exactly. Which, you know, that's all the prequels were. There is nothing commendable in the prequels. Nothing. I will stand and will die on that. People are like, oh, no, the story, you know, Filonia will go off about how important the story is about the development. I'm like, I'm like, again, didn't need it. Ultimately, I'm not saying you're wrong about, you know, what you've what he focuses on there when he gets passionate about it. But we didn't need it.
00:29:51
Speaker
You didn't need those at all. I think these sort of main beats between those three movies, there were the interesting ideas were mentioned, but never fleshed out. And then the most boring ideas were the ones that got fleshed out. Right.
00:30:08
Speaker
You know, which is why Clone Wars had so much scope because they're like, oh, gosh, you left all this behind? Well, you know, we'll develop that. And, you know, it turned into something quite interesting. And I think I think they shoehorn themselves as well, going like it has to be a trilogy. Right. Yeah. In a lot of ways, I think it would have worked better as a television. Well, it's been proven so that it works better as a television show.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, the the prequels are passionless there because I mean, it's also because it's all about Jedi for one. I mean, that's another thing. There's no Han Solo. And that just pissed me off so much because it was so obvious. Then there was no humor. There was no you didn't care about any of the characters.
00:30:50
Speaker
In fact, you wanted to see them like come to harm. And except for the only cool character to introduce Darth Maul, then they kill him in the first one by chopping him in half. Like what the what? Well, so so you had Maul and you had I like General Grievous quite a bit as well. But again, he didn't get much.
00:31:15
Speaker
much use, really. Not in the prequels, I think. Not in the prequels. Obviously, in the series, a lot of development there. Yeah. Or Count Dooku. Same with Dooku. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say, effectively, these are great characters, right? And they've got some good lines in the movie, but boy, do they have to wade through a lot to get to that. I mean, the fact that none of the clones
00:31:45
Speaker
ever existed, they were all digital, is one of the most obnoxious facts about the prequel trilogy. Why? Why? Why change the formula? And in terms of the money that he had, it wasn't money. He could have produced the whole thing on his own. So it's a shame. It's a shame. Just getting too excited by the new toys, I think. Well, and nobody tell him no.
00:32:15
Speaker
That's what clearly the prequels are. No one was there to tell him, this is a shit idea, George, jettison this. You know, it's just the more successful you are, the harder that is to do right is to self out it. Well he invited Brown, Scorsese, and Spielberg, and all these big hotshot directors, Coppola, and no one would tell him, George.
00:32:38
Speaker
Well, because they're all spineless motherfuckers. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, there's a good reason for that. After their own interests, the idea of them fostering art, at least at that time in their careers, is garbage. It's nice to see
00:32:54
Speaker
Now, as they've gotten older, those particular directors like, just an aside, Scorsese praising Aria Oster and Bo is afraid, like saying, no, here, look, this, getting more into the film festival idea and promoting it rather than producing and kind of thing. I'm like, good for you. Okay, that's good. And I saw Spielberg saying that he really regretted the
00:33:16
Speaker
re-editing E.T. to remove the guns and give them walkie-talkies and that. He was like, film shouldn't be touched that way. You shouldn't go back and do that. That's wrong. I'm like, yeah, everybody told you that at the fucking time. But you didn't listen because nobody could tell you anything. Nobody could tell you no. And now they're like, yeah, those were mistakes. Like, yes, we told you then. I'm still telling you now. But, you know, at least now you just saved yourself by beating up my hands. If I ever meet you.
00:33:45
Speaker
I'm just going to turn all that energy on to JJ Abrams instead.
00:33:52
Speaker
I like Abrams too, that's a problem. Anyway. I mean, this is the other thing is as we talk about the studio wanting to make money, but sometimes they just ignore open sources of money. Like say, for example, there are a lot of people who would love to have a release of the original trilogy in the original format.
00:34:19
Speaker
Unfucked with, yes. Yeah, exactly. And the only way that you can get hold of that now is through pirate sites. Japanese laserdisc. Because they exist. Yeah, I've got them.
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah. On a burn on a off of Japanese import. You know, somebody got had the the the laser discs from Japan. So, you know, quality is not great, but they've remastered them now, by the way. Oh, they've remastered them to four K, all three of the original movies. So you remember how when you saw the TIE Fighters, you had those little square boxes. Uh huh. Yeah. They fixed all of that. Or the he does the loop and empire and you see that reflection. Yeah.
00:35:05
Speaker
So, you know, that was again, part of the time that was part of the appeal. We're like, yeah, no problem. Oh, the Marine Corps stop motion. Sure. No problem. Right. Right. Right. Right. Totally. And and it was good. But but but it wouldn't it would be, you know, a special edition. It doesn't mean that is the edition. Right. There are people out there who are clamming for that. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, we don't want to do that. Why?
00:35:27
Speaker
Why not? Oh, here's another avenue of which one is like, and we don't want to show Han Solo shooting first is like he clearly shot first into that game attempt that you had to undo it. Just that's also like, yeah, and undoing it makes him less of a character, not more.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah. And not showing Jabba the Hutt in A New Hope is so much better. Right. That mystery around Jabba the Hutt and hearing his name mentioned from, you know, in A New Hope, Emperor Strikes Back, it built up his character. And by the time that you got to Return of the Jedi, you're like,
00:36:03
Speaker
Who is it? And the first thing you hear is that laugh, right? And this amazing practical effect that they did for Java. What the hell is that? Exactly. And it's incredible. But trying to put him into that scene when he was originally meant to be this man doesn't work. It's definitely meant to be an extra on the DVD and nothing more.
00:36:33
Speaker
Hey, here's a thing. Here's an idea we had and we didn't go with it. But here's what originally. Oh, neat. There you go. Moving on. Totally. I've seen lots of clips in a lot of movies that are great scenes. Right. But the editor made the decision that in terms of the pacing and the cut of the film,
00:36:53
Speaker
It just doesn't fit. It doesn't necessarily mean it's not canon or didn't work in the story. It just broke the flow of the movie or was unnecessary, you know. That, and yeah, and the menace and Hans constantly on the run, he never see, you know, he knows what he looks like. You know, him and Chewie know what he looks like. You know, they're trying to get away from him.
Narrative Tension and Cliffhangers
00:37:16
Speaker
And that's why you have such a nice payoff with the, you know, the end of the second and the beginning of the third.
00:37:21
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Totally. Oh, and then he's dead. Yeah. And then he's gone. Yeah. Okay. Kiff from the movie executives assistant. Exactly. So yeah, the original Star Wars comes out.
00:37:47
Speaker
It's amazing. We haven't seen anything like it. No idea that a sequel is coming and then the sequel comes and it's like, what? And it really like, but it, but you know, everybody at the end of that is like, but what? What? And like, oh, I guess we're getting another movie. That's cool. But the other thing was like, wait, what? You know, there was a lot of that. And then it's like outrage, the idea that you would cliffhanger a movie
00:38:13
Speaker
Nobody did that also, you know, that didn't happen either. And that goes back to the original, uh, flash Gordon series, right? They always had a cliffing everything, you know, all those old serials like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think, and it was part of the, you know, and I have a theory about why empire, why the script for the story for empire and why the movie is so strong is one, uh, Lucas didn't direct it for one.
00:38:38
Speaker
He took that step back and allowed him to concentrate more. He was also writing Raiders of the Lost Ark at the same time and doing that same thing, going back to these old serials, some original source material to make something new.
00:38:55
Speaker
out of it, but also a nice homage and that sort of thing, really helped hone and tighten and focus and make everything stronger. The relationships in the first movie are pretty superficial because you're meeting these characters for the first time. In the second one, you meet basically one new character. I mean, you kind of meet the emperor, but not really.
00:39:20
Speaker
You meet Lando. Everything else is that core group and their relationships and what they've gone through together in the time off.
00:39:29
Speaker
you know, off screen history, and then where they're at now and where they go. And it's so much better because of that. Instead of going to the spectacle, they turn it in, right? Instead of turning it out. And you still have, like your point before, the different locations, the chase, the thrill, the adventure. But again, you talk about the pacing from the first one, which does not match the pacing in the second one, which also does not match the pacing from the third one. The third one is kind of the weakest version of those
00:39:58
Speaker
trying to get those elements from the previous two movies. I mean, again, I still love Jedi, don't get me wrong, but it is the weakest of the three because, well, because of the Ewoks and because of that. Well, and the other thing like the Ewoks, and it's one of the things that they could have leaned into a little bit and it's hinted at in the movie is the Ewoks were gonna eat them.
00:40:19
Speaker
Yes, they're going to eat them if they've eaten others. And I think they they could have balanced out the cuteness with that a bit more. I'm sure at some point that they will do that in some. And you know, one of the when I was making my list for Star Wars stuff and I was ranking things and such to one of the subsections I did was for video games. All right.
00:40:45
Speaker
And in one of those, the Battlefront II, there was a mode later that was Ewok Hunt. And it's terrifying. And they've recut it. There's videos where they've used it as making it into a horror movie, Star Wars is a horror movie. Not much work you need to do. Exactly. It is terrifying. And it's like all of a sudden these little cute little furballs that were obviously meant for children and to sell toys.
00:41:11
Speaker
for the most part, become all of a sudden, he's just badgers with bloodlust with an agenda.
Star Wars TV and Experimental Media
00:41:23
Speaker
Instead of being teddy bears, market them as honey badgers. They're small, but they are good bears. Also, the Ewok thing then shoots me back off to
00:41:36
Speaker
the Star Wars TV idea. And for us, Star Wars and TV were, the combination was that exact poison. Because the first thing we got was the holiday special. That was the first thing. And then you had the Donnie Marie special, Star Wars special. And there was another, and
00:41:59
Speaker
And again, you had movies and the Ewok adventures. Yeah. Uh, and then, yeah. And the shows, which were awful droids, terrible. Um, I will actually say that that watching the holiday special was probably the first experience of my life that I would say.
00:42:17
Speaker
I was drunk or I thought I was hallucinating. The whole thing made no sense. And it felt like my brain was fried. Like I was watching it and going, what is going on here? You know, in my time, I've watched a lot of difficult movies, a lot of ones that were French horror films, what have you. Really difficult situations. Nothing traumatized me like that Star Wars holiday special. Nothing.
00:42:42
Speaker
Because I still, like, I still twitch. And the, you know, the what's the big thing he's writing that's turned up in the mythosaur mythosaur is in there. And and you had that bit. But at that point, because it was so handcrafted with animation that they could only afford like four minutes. Yeah. And, you know, why don't you stay on that? Why are we going back to this crap?
00:43:10
Speaker
Yeah, I could have watched that the entire time. And if I remember correctly, they like split it in the episode as well. They did. Like, OK, here here's this bit and you're gonna have to wait. You're gonna have to wade through all this this musical numbers and all this other bullshit art. Carney.
00:43:25
Speaker
Oh, my God. You know, I actually the one one thing that I think was very good, though, that did not take itself seriously, which was I was fine with was the Star Wars episode of the Muppets. Yes, I think that worked. That worked. Yes. Yeah. I think that that was great. And well, and I think it was also a fortunate thing. I think that's what led into Yoda becoming the characterization we got.
00:43:54
Speaker
the visual and the, you know, with Frank Oz getting involved. And Frank Oz was at the top of this game as well. Exactly. And the idea that, oh, this could work. Like, how do we make Yoda? I'm like, oh, we just make a puppet. Easy.
00:44:08
Speaker
You know, he was like, oh, yeah, no problem. We've been doing this for years. We got this, you know, or movies that that even of that time, like Labyrinth, right?
Importance of Practical Effects and Dialogue
00:44:20
Speaker
Or Dark Crystal or Dark Crystal and things like that. And but but I think of Labyrinth a lot because that's where they were able to create these huge creatures, right?
00:44:32
Speaker
that walked around, that were there, that were among the actors, and were convincing. And I never understood why we didn't see more movies without it. Because I remember at the time thinking, this is the future. This is the direction to go in. And we've never seen anything like it except the now-cancelled
00:44:54
Speaker
Dark Crystal series a couple of years ago, which I really enjoyed. And I think it didn't get its fair shake to continue. I thought it was solid for a series. But actually, going back to Empire, one thing that I will point out.
00:45:09
Speaker
One of the things that we get a lot in the subsequent movies are lightsaber battles, right? And what I will say is in the original series, the dialogue is almost more important or as important in the duels.
00:45:28
Speaker
than that action itself. I think the dialogue, I can remember all the dialogue that Vader and Luke say in Empire, Obi-Wan and Vader in the first one. And then again, the duel in Return of the Jedi as well as I really remember that dialogue. And I don't think I had seen anything
00:45:52
Speaker
quite like that until the Obi-Wan series, which, you know, it hit and miss. But that face-to-face with Vader, I think, got that, where the dialogue between them and that tension and that real emotion that kind of grounds it is what makes a great lightsaber fight. Whereas it's like in Revenge of the Sith,
00:46:14
Speaker
I thought it was the dialogue didn't happen until the very end. We had to watch them, you know, just spin all over the place. Yeah. And there was no taunting. There was no appeals. There was no there was nothing back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, oh, look at the they're on a green screen and this is all that. And then the I mean, the ridiculously over the top, annoying score from Williams again, somebody else who fucking lost it.
00:46:44
Speaker
No, this is dramatic. Let me tell you how to feel. Fuck you. No, you don't tell me how to show. That's what movies do. Show, don't tell. If the showing matched the music. Oh, yeah, which it did once upon a time.
00:47:00
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, it was like having a fanfare for, I don't know, something squalid. Yeah, no, no. But those lightsaber fights, and I expect Filoni to do the same thing in the Ahsoka series. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, he even did in his episode of Mandalorian that introduced the live action Ahsoka, right?
00:47:26
Speaker
And that was so well done. That was so well done. Very excited for that series. Indeed. So yeah, Empire, again, came out of nowhere, loved it. It was so much darker too, just moving the story along. They took a lot of risks.
00:47:43
Speaker
Oh, they did. But I mean, the one thing that I remember, the main thing I remember is at the very beginning or in the beginning, you know, segment of the movie, Luke's hanging upside down and his lightsaber is there and he reaches for it and he starts and starts to move. We're like, what?
00:48:00
Speaker
Wait, wait, what? Right. An empire establishes the whole force. The force can do that? Yeah. Yeah. Like we had no idea. It was never used that way in the, in Star Wars. Star Wars, the force, I mean, he uses the, the, uh, mind trick and the noise thing and that's it.
00:48:19
Speaker
And Vader uses the choking. They also can call out to each other as well. You know, my father. Well, it just you have that thing at the beginning. And then obviously his training with Yoda, you know, kind of explain it to us, too. But the fact you buy it at the end, you're like, oh, yeah, sure. They'd be able to have that connection. He'd be able to do that. You know, like, yeah, you've established it.
00:48:41
Speaker
You know early on in your story and now this callback is like oh, yeah I'm sure the force can do that force can do anything if you have and then oh if you have the right combination of you know vitamin D whatever Oh God
00:49:00
Speaker
When they did the Clone Wars series as well, they expanded on the mythology of the force without
00:49:13
Speaker
explaining very much. Like, I don't know. Do you recall that episode where there was father, daughter and son? That's what I think. Yep. Oh, yeah. They took it to the next level. And that was amazing. And then if anything, it actually made more questions. It didn't. It wasn't an end of the line like midichlorians are. It's like, oh, it's just this. That that just was like, what? You know, and and they also use that as an opportunity to give Anakin a bit of a sneak peek of where he's headed.
00:49:42
Speaker
of where he's headed and, and, you know, they also resurrect Ahsoka there, you know, because she dies in that series. Yeah. In that story. And the daughter, you know, she becomes that side of the force then. Which, you know, I don't think that's really explored enough in terms of her backstory. Like she, you know, that's why her and Anakin are like that close. It's like, because they are meant to be those warring sides that have to exist to have that semblance in the middle, you know. But that's great.
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. It goes back to that sort of Eastern martial arts and philosophy thing where, you know, it's got a real world equivalent of, you know, this sort of self-discipline and being in control of yourself and being connected to the people around you. So, you know, it's not magic, but it does have a real world equivalent, whereas midi-chlorians, you know, like what is COVID?
00:50:41
Speaker
What are you going to compare it to? I can take some supplements and get more. Popeye, you know, I just want that written out of canon. I just think that and Liam Neeson and I think Liam Neeson was great in the role that he was given. But God, that role, that role just did not work. It's so sad because it's just like phoning.
Dave Filoni's Impact on Star Wars
00:51:08
Speaker
I mean, it's completely phoned in.
00:51:11
Speaker
Because it has to be like, you know, it's not his fault. I'm not saying Liam needs to not phone in the performance. It's just the performance. It's the way it's written is so fucking terrible. And he's forced to sit in front of green screens the entire time. So we didn't even have the technology we have now where the actors can actually see what they're acting against. Yeah. So there's no, I mean, there's no threat. There's no impetus. There's no,
00:51:35
Speaker
Passion, everything reads as flat as a green screen. It's just terrible. The other thing is A New Hope started with flawed characters. They had somewhere to grow into. What you had at the beginning of the other trilogies are people who are basically already perfect.
00:51:55
Speaker
pretty much, you know, they didn't want to show the darkness. And that's what I don't like about that sort of old Han Solo, you know, didn't shoot first thing was, no, that's important because he is not a moral character at the beginning of the movie. Not at all. Right. But you need to give him somewhere to grow into, right? Yeah, right. And that's why, again, with Last Jedi, Benicio Del Toro's character,
00:52:23
Speaker
Not only that he exists, but what he brings up, he's like, oh, look, war profiteers are profiteering off the rebellion or whatever they were called in that as much as the First Order. It's like, look, and then his thing is like, yeah, of course we've been turning in. They offered more money.
00:52:42
Speaker
Yeah. Duh. It's like, you know, there's just that reality of it that I'd love rather than like, oh, everybody's good. I'm going to fight for the right thing. Right. Are they, though? You know, and they're playing. Yeah, he was playing both sides. And yeah, that that was that was kind of a nice touch. I mean, that that is where you know, it's the gray areas that are interesting. Right. And yeah, exactly that you tell.
00:53:05
Speaker
Which is why it's kind of nice to have, you know, this sort of dark and light sides, but they tend not, you can only use them sparingly. So your Luke's and your Vader's and all of this. This is what makes Ahsoka quite interesting. I am no Jedi.
00:53:25
Speaker
Right. She she is she is somewhere in between. She's trying to find herself and the Jedi, you know, weren't all that great. After all, were there, you know, it's like or the bad batch, you know, the outsiders and you didn't have any of that at the beginning of the movies. You know, Poe Dameron was as kind of swashbuckling, but he was returning the Jedi Han Solo already and.
00:53:51
Speaker
Did he go anywhere over the course of those three movies? Of course he didn't cuz they didn't plan it He's basically the same person. He was very start exactly. No. Yeah, you arrogant at the beginning and
00:54:04
Speaker
Yeah. Well, where do you go? I mean, Ray was the most interesting one is one. And what I loved in Empire Strikes Back, going back to it, is some of the surreal imagery that you had there. Luke going down into, you know, with with his lightsaber, even though Yoda said, you don't need to take that with you. Right.
00:54:25
Speaker
And that made you nervous right there. It's like, is that a good idea? And then he goes down, chops off Vader's head and the mask opens and it's his own face in it. Now, that that again kind of echoes some of that more mature science fiction that we were talking about before. And in the second of the sequel trilogy, when Ray sees all those reflections of herself, right, moving slightly out of sync,
00:54:53
Speaker
I really like that because that echoed that scene with Vader to me, the surreal David Lynch, what's going on here kind of scene that you could interpret and is never fully explained. Right. And the darkness existing simultaneously and can just latch on to even the most simple or well-meaning sort of things.
00:55:18
Speaker
And I thought that scene with the stump in Empire as well is that when Yoda told Luke, you know, you'll only come across what you take in with you. So he shouldn't have taken his weapon, you know. And that's immediately what sort of made me kind of nervous and that.
00:55:37
Speaker
But yeah, that movie was super dense in terms of what it stuffed in there, you know. And like I said, again, to go back to the idea of pacing in these and like some sort of cinematic nod or structure, you know, to a proper cinema, you know, the whole thing with, you know, he spends the majority of that movie on Dagobah. There's not and it's not action packed.
00:56:03
Speaker
Yeah, in that right, it's all learning, it's all going to school, it's all math, or, you know, theory and versus, you know, then you intercut that nicely with, you know, what's going on in the Millennium Falcon and, and Han and Leia's relationship finally.
00:56:22
Speaker
You know, him finally wearing wearing her out. Well, I mean, they've got a lot that happens in the characters there. And he went back like the character development. How does Lando Calrissian first appear? Right. He's deeply flawed, but you kind of understand the situation he's in as well as, you know, they arrived before you did. I'm doing the best I can here. Yeah. You know, even even see Threepio in Empire is like a dick and everybody hates him and you see why.
00:56:51
Speaker
Like in the first movie, it's like, oh, it's a little, you know, whatever, you know, you don't really think of him in any sort of characterization versus, you know, an empire. You're like, everybody's just like, oh, you know, everybody, everybody shares Hans frustration with him. Like, yeah, we're done with this.
00:57:08
Speaker
Like, you know, just stop talking. Like they just switch him off. It wasn't enough. And everybody's okay with that. They're like, yeah, no problem. You know, that's like, but you dared to take a character and do that with him. You know, that.
00:57:23
Speaker
Yeah, no, that was an excellent movie. And then Return of the Jedi had some, I mean, Return of the Jedi sort of felt like the first quarter of the movie was like a continuation of Empire, but then I found it quite jarring after that. Yes, yes. Basically, if I'm rewatching Jedi now, I'll watch the first of the open and then I'll watch the end.
00:57:52
Speaker
Like that for me is the core of what that movie, like that's the important stuff. Everything in the middle of the Ewoks and going to end or, you know, there's so much in the middle that's like.
00:58:03
Speaker
There was so much potential there in the middle that could have gone back to those World War II movies. Again, we can mention about Force 10 from Navarone and all this. That was a perfect opportunity to harken back to those, but yeah, a little bit wasted.
00:58:24
Speaker
Yeah, but those bits around it are so good. Oh, totally. Yeah. And they had a story to wrap up rather than a story to tell, I think. Right. In a lot of ways, but the one, they still stayed true. Basically, they had to basically stay true to one. It felt like they had to sacrifice the other stories to stay true to one. So they picked the biggest one, which is Luke and Vader.
00:58:50
Speaker
Yeah, in that and when you know at the end when Luke throws away his lightsaber.
00:58:55
Speaker
And it says, I don't care. Absolutely great. I've won. You can't beat this. You're like, Oh, my. You're like, Well, I'm just going to kill you. He's like, OK. And you're just like, Yeah, but OK. Good for you, buddy. Like, you know, screw you. It was mental battle. It wasn't. Yeah, exactly. And then like a whole thing with like sister. Right. Yeah. And that's what triggers Luke to kind of lose it. Oh, Luke goes ape shit. That's my favorite part of the whole series. Yeah, totally.
00:59:25
Speaker
And there, William's score is note perfect match to what you're seeing. They are so perfectly in sync. If you want to show cinematically, how can film tell a story with just visuals and a score? I'm going to show you this segment of Return of the Jedi as case in point of how perfectly that can be done. That's one of the examples I go to.
00:59:52
Speaker
Duel of the Fates would have fit against any of the, you know, that sort of moment in that movie. But there just wasn't anything that was up to that level in the prequel trilogy. No, not at all. Not even remotely close. Yeah. Yeah. And it should have been. It should have been. Right. I mean, the only good thing the prequels gave us was the Clone Wars TV show.
01:00:14
Speaker
Clone Wars TV show, and I think- And Tarkovsky's Clone Wars as well. Yes, yes. And he was the creator of General Grievous as well, as that was in the Tarkovsky. Yes, he was the origin of it as well. Yep, that's right. Yeah.
01:00:34
Speaker
cool cool cool yeah um so that that was just gosh there's so much to go over in star wars master skywalker there are too many of them what are we going to do
01:00:46
Speaker
Oh, blimey. We're gonna have several episodes. Oh, exactly. I found clips from the original series and they were all so bad, you know, the whole thing about sand.
01:01:05
Speaker
Well, it's anytime, you know, watching like some kind of Star Wars review, you know, recap show or something like that, and they'll play some clip, use it a similar way, but they'll play something from the prequels and I just immediately start screaming at the TV. No, don't, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:01:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I just oh, yeah, so yeah, the other stuff just so in terms of like, yeah, what else on here? You know, I still have my theory about Kyle Ren and Prince Zuko from Avatar being the same character.
01:01:48
Speaker
to explore as well as the rankings of the other movies and now we can do shows and
01:01:59
Speaker
Now, Avatar taps into a lot of the original trilogy. Well, again, Filoni, that's so you can see that his love for Star Wars come through in that. Yeah, very clearly. Anyway, but but but he had his hands untied. He could create this new method. Exactly. And it was free of all this other crap. Exactly. He didn't have to. He wasn't forced to have to retcon and fix other people's mistakes.
01:02:24
Speaker
So we've got Star Wars Visions is released today. Released today. Watch the first four. Oh, I've heard good things about it. I get to watch one. Man. And the fourth one, at least in terms of how they lay them out, has watched them in order of what they presented
Future Prospects and Fan Community Contributions
01:02:40
Speaker
them as. The fourth one's the Ardman Studios one, which of course is hilarious. Yeah. And so many little nice little touches that are just perfect. Really?
01:02:51
Speaker
But the first three were all incredibly solid. Nice. I've heard that they're all pretty solid by the time you get to the end of the episodes. That there's something that'll make you weep or laugh. Compared to the first series, I heard that this is more consistent in terms of the quality as well. Yeah, and it already seems that way.
01:03:19
Speaker
And then they also released today. And it's probably it's not meant for us. It's not meant for us. And that's fine. Right. Young Jedi Adventures came out for the little lens, which is meant for the younger kids. But again, you kind of wonder, are the younger kids going to enjoy it? Because we have that same thing we talked about earlier where executives are like, small kids want this. Do they? Do they? And we got a Soka in terms of children's programming.
01:03:48
Speaker
It has gone leaps and bounds since when it's a search of decisions were being made when we were that age. Yeah, I mean, leaps and bounds, even but but that's saying that some things have gone the other way. So, for example, like the transformers that we had are probably more adult than the transformers in the cinema now that are meant for adults. You know, terrible stuff, terrible stuff. Anyway, yes, he had Orson Welles back then. Exactly.
01:04:16
Speaker
Yeah, stuff coming, yeah. So Ahsoka, that is looking, I think it's going to be better than we're hoping it'll be. I think so as well. I've got a lot of faith in Dave Filoni on that one. Yeah, and Dave Filoni doing his own character and their own story to make you basically the fifth season of Rebels. Yeah. Totally.
01:04:37
Speaker
The casting looks great. Fantastic. Yeah. And then after that, so the two that we have for this year, Soka's in August and at some point in 2023, we're meant to be getting skeleton crew. Skeleton crew, right? I still don't know enough about that one to get into it. Except for the fact of what we've seen, who's getting like to direct episodes. Yeah, the directors are good. Directors are good. So that has me hopeful that
01:05:06
Speaker
That means they're like, okay, we're tapping these people, not just because they're good, but because they can tell this kind of story. Well, they, the one description I've seen is that they're kind of looking for that kind of, um, uh, the, the two things that have been cited are stranger things and the goonies. Okay.
01:05:27
Speaker
So I don't quite know what to expect out of that one, but we'll see. I think the other one that I'm really excited about though is the acolyte. Yes, absolutely. Let's go explore that. Yep. I think that looks very exciting.
01:05:42
Speaker
and seeing it from the dark side as well as having the Kung Fu element in there. Even in that sort of small clip that we saw just looks terrific. It reminded me of the Grandmaster where in the fights you'd see them like shift their weight on their feet and those little details that really kind of bring it home. Agreed. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that very much so. Especially after I've been basically balls deep in Jedi Survivor.
01:06:12
Speaker
Uh, the new game. Uh, I've not played it yet. Have you? And yeah, uh, uh, and then there's a, I mean, the major part of the storyline to give it too much away, but involves the high Republic, uh, lower and nice, uh, exploring that, uh, you know, Cal can, the main character can do it through the four. So we get an extra narrative layer. That's like, Oh, okay. And it's clear, you know, they're going to tie it in, set it up for.
01:06:38
Speaker
everything else, which is, again, nice to draw that kind of storytelling into the fold with everything else. The other thing that dropped today as well, which I watched, which is well worth it, it's only four minutes long as The Simpsons. Rogue, not one or something like that. Basically Maggie ends up in the, yeah, Maggie ends up in the Groguza little pod thing. Right. Nice.
01:07:08
Speaker
And it's very entertaining. A lot of good. Again, it's like the Lego stuff. They just knock it out of the park because it's short and they just they want to have fun with it. And yeah.
01:07:19
Speaker
Cool. And, uh, and then we get Andor season two, August, 2024. Um, and then, uh, can't come soon enough. Can't come soon enough. Cause that series. Yeah. I'm going to save myself the five years. Yeah. Apparently five years on this project. I mean, I, uh, uh, I want to, you know,
01:07:44
Speaker
I want to go back through and watch it again just because I know I'll need to before the next series, but also saving it just because it's so good.
01:07:52
Speaker
Yeah. Like I'm savoring watching that again. It is the best series so far. Oh, for sure. Easily. Yeah. Easily. And then the finale to the bad bat season three, no date on that yet. But I am glad that they are following, Filoni obviously had a plan for that. And yeah, it is going to end the next season. So yeah, we're really looking forward to that. Yep. Good goal. Yep.
01:08:21
Speaker
And then Mandalorian season four. And the things that they're not saying, you know, the things that have been some shake up on things that got pulled or things that got canceled or like, oh, they're not going to have a second season of Obi-Wan. Like, no, why? You don't need it. You know, there's him and Filoni or Filoni and Favreau are smart enough to be like, no, we just need this bit. And like and and they're like, yeah, you know,
01:08:48
Speaker
Uh, uh, probably, you know, production cost-wise, you know, something making like skeleton crew is spreading costs significantly less than something like Obi-Wan, you know? Um, and you can still probably have a ball with it and tell new stuff and new stories and expand. And again, the fact that we're able to sit here and discuss multiple, multiple Star Wars shows that are coming out that are good.
01:09:14
Speaker
Across genres as well. Across genres and just hitting all sorts of different points. Again, long time ago, that would have been not only unthinkable, but unwatchable.
01:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, we know that firsthand. Exactly. It's our shared trauma to get here. And so now the fact, when I see a lot of these reviews or something, obviously there's more head lingering, but like, oh, has the show lost its way? Or what was the point of this? Or something like, you don't get it.
01:09:49
Speaker
You know, not everything is custom made for you. You know, this is the thing like I said, Young Jedi Adventures released today. I'm not going to watch that. I hope it's great. I hope it's great. I hope the kids enjoy it. That's fantastic. But yeah, there's so many good things to watch. Yeah, I can give that one a miss. That's fine. Yeah, it's OK. You know, I'm going to ruin or lessen my, you know, I'm not going on a Star Wars trivia bender or something like that. Actually, OK.
01:10:18
Speaker
Did you hear about this? The guy that edited the Obi-Wan episodes into a movie, which apparently is very, very good, a tightly edited movie, has been hired by Filoni now. He's working for them, and they bought the rights to the cut that he made, because apparently it's amazing.
01:10:38
Speaker
That's awesome. And that's the way to do it. And they are going to be releasing that Obi-Wan movie cut at some point. And I can't wait to see it because there were bits in Obi-Wan that lagged and sort of lost pace. So I am really looking forward to seeing that and seeing it officially as well.
01:11:01
Speaker
And again, looking, you know, they're viewing it more as a shared community, you know, contact community thing, you know, the deep fake guy for the Mandalorian and Luke's. Right. He got hired as well. He got hired because they're like, he was like, oh, that was terrible. Let me fix that. They're like, you know what? Yeah.
01:11:18
Speaker
Good idea. Come work for us. Rather than typical Disney, let's sue them into Stone Age. They have this, because Star Wars is big enough to tell Disney to say, hey, slow down. Cool your jets there, buddy. Mouse.
01:11:40
Speaker
It's interesting. We're going over time here, but in Obi-Wan as well, I think they took a lot of the beats and the visuals from that from Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which we mentioned earlier as being sort of prequel, especially that last confrontation between Obi-Wan and Vader has a lot of parallels with Luke and Vader and Splinter of the Mind's Eye as well. Exactly.
01:12:06
Speaker
Which was cool another thing and kind of jumping off on to so recently the Watch season 3 of Picard, which I thought was excellent It seems like Star Trek have found their own Filoni on that side Which is great because it's it's it's long overdue but one of the nice things in in that series that I wish they would do more on the Star Wars side is
Musical Themes Enhancing Narrative
01:12:29
Speaker
is they didn't lift music from the movies directly, but they took different passages and stings and notes from the Star Trek backlog of films and television.
01:12:47
Speaker
and included it in the soundtrack for Picard. So you had horns from Wrath of Khan at key points in the series, and they were so well blended in, but you loved that two seconds.
01:13:05
Speaker
of hearing that music. And it seems like they're a little bit averse to doing that in Star Wars. And I kind of understand some of it. Right. But sometimes there are moments where you think, boy, you know, especially the way Luke turning up at the end of Mandalorian, some of that original music, I think, would have improved things. And I've seen people do edits using the original music wholesale on that. And I don't think it needs to be the music wholesale, but sure.
01:13:33
Speaker
having some kind of hint at that music or even some kind of crescendo with Luke Skywalker's theme would have been great. I can understand when you're dealing with characters that aren't from the original series, but for God's sake, there's this great backlog of music, make use of it. Yeah, exactly. Cool. So I think we're going to have to...
01:14:05
Speaker
So, uh, I think we're gonna have to catch up on current movies. We'll need to do another Star Wars special, uh, I don't know, Midsummer or something? We'll keep the conversation going. Mm-hmm. Agreed.