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Delving into Star Wars THE RETURN OF THE JEDI | 003
32 Plays23 days ago
Join Branwen and Seah as they deep dive into all things Star Wars! This season, we're on a rewatch of the OG Trilogy, Prequels, Sequels and maybe a cheeky spin-off! Follow along as we fly off exploring all the wonders and geekery of a Galaxy Far, Far Away, chatting nostalgia, worlds, lore, music, story, behind the scenes, and much more with each other and some very special guests.
In our third episode we celebrate "The Return of the Jedi", the epic finale to the original trilogy. How will it ultimately rank for us? Listen and find out!
Sisters of the Force is a weekly, UK-based, Star Wars podcast, produced with joy and love by Seah and Branwen.
Follow us on instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, or at www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
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Transcript
Favorite Lines from Return of the Jedi
00:00:16
Speaker
Sia, what's your favourite line from Return of the Jedi? ah I've got two, but I'm going to give you the shorter answer, which is, I don't know, fly casual.
00:00:30
Speaker
I actually had that one fit down as an option. That stayed with me for so long after watching the film originally. such a good line.
00:00:40
Speaker
Bramman, what's your favorite line from Return of the Jedi? I too have two, I'm going to have to just pick one on the fly. um Basically, every time Ian McDermott opens his mouth is my favorite line. yeah Like yeah every scene, he just eats it I'm going to say, oh I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.
00:01:06
Speaker
no We're going revisit him because... We're going to revisit him, yeah. Yeah. He's great. He basically gives all of the... east ah
00:01:17
Speaker
So much for this being a snappy opener. Yeah, yeah.
Introduction to 'Sisters of the Force' and Childhood Memories
00:01:21
Speaker
So you are listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast with me, Branwen.
00:01:28
Speaker
And me, Sia. And this week we're delving into episode six, Return of the Jedi. dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. a movie. What movie. What movie. it was so good to watch it again.
00:01:41
Speaker
This is the first one that I've watched and ah questioned my parents' decision to let me watch them
Sia's Recurring Nightmare and Its Impact
00:01:49
Speaker
so young. LAUGHTER
00:01:52
Speaker
but What in particular made you feel like that? It's terrifying.
00:01:58
Speaker
And also I'm pretty sure that I had a reoccurring nightmare about Jabba's little mate for like years. Understandable. I used to have a dream about him where he stole my brother. It was horrible. my gosh. Yeah, really bad stress dream about this little creature stealing the baby and I had to go and get the baby back and ah it was it was grim.
00:02:19
Speaker
but He is pretty terrifying. Yeah. But as we go through and watch some of the other TV shows, you'll maybe feel like you've had a bit of comeuppance. Okay. On our lucky monkey lizard friends. Okay, cool. Okay.
00:02:34
Speaker
Probably what's not so good is to let you know there are more than one I feel okay about him now. And actually, it was this time when I was watching it, it was the rancor. I was like, oh, I definitely watched this too young. I turned out all right.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah. You turned out Star Wars fan, which is the main thing. So you must have seen it when
Branwen's Introduction to Star Wars and Collecting Memories
00:02:54
Speaker
you were very young. have you got any light specific memories of then apart from the quacky-mongulism? Or anything that's happened to you since or stuck with you since? so Yeah. Yeah.
00:03:04
Speaker
So for this one, i have a really, really strong memory of watching this and slight callback to, I've been asking since we started doing this, so I've been asking, how do I know these things? What is going on? yeah But actually, I've remembered how I know these things.
00:03:20
Speaker
It's because I went to the Dan Sheridan School of Star Wars, which he's a friend of my parents. ah So my parents... Thank it and you, Dan. Thank you, Dan.
00:03:34
Speaker
Little shout out to Dan there. And and Kelly, his wife. ah they They were the Star Wars nerds, or Dan especially was the Star Wars nerd. So he just taught us, ah me and his oldest daughter...
00:03:48
Speaker
but we We got schooled in Star Wars. And I have a really vivid memory of watching Return of the Jedi with Jessica, his oldest. So we were like, I remember being tucked up in Kel and Dan's bed watching Return of the Jedi together. Amazing. We would have been very little.
00:04:07
Speaker
But the other thing I remember about Dan is he had all of the Star Wars figures in the wardrobe. So you opened up the wardrobe and they were all in their packaging and they were all in there and we weren't allowed to play with them.
00:04:22
Speaker
Oh my gosh. In their packaging. andro Unbroken. Unbroken. But yeah, he so many and it was like both wardrobe doors and I just remember being a kid and being like, oh my god, that's so cool, but not allowed to touch. He did have duplicates that we were allowed to play with.
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I guess that was the thing. If you're like a serious collector, you need to have at least two of each. I've recently started collecting again, um having sold my collection when I was like 12.
00:04:51
Speaker
What? For 30 quid. What? But yeah, I'm building them again. going to have to buy another cupboard to put them in. I immediately break them out of the packaging. I'm not like that kind of a collector. I just want to have them out. Different things. Pose them. Play with them.
00:05:11
Speaker
ah That was a lush memory, though. It's lush to think of your Star Wars fam. I've got similar...
Star Wars RPGs and Character Stories
00:05:15
Speaker
i thought i've got a similar like if Star Wars fan connection and I'm going to shout out my friend Paul Laws who used to DM us when we played Star Wars the role playing game the West End Games RPG back in the early 90s I think it would have been um and I had forgotten all about the fact that the campaign that he wrote that we played in which I played Durant Beck smuggler with her own ship called the Banshee after which I later named the van that I had when I was at uni
00:05:48
Speaker
This is the level we're talking about. Anyway, paul Paul wrote his campaign set around the time of Return the Jedi. Okay. So in the early part of the campaign, we were just aware of galactic events.
00:06:00
Speaker
But it ended up, he managed to write it to the point where we're with the Rebel fleet. at the Sullust massing where Akbar gives his speech and all that kind of thing.
00:06:11
Speaker
And to the point where you see some of the rebel crew going up to the ramp of the shuttle that they've nicked. And there's a hooded character going up the ramp with this big brown cloak on.
00:06:25
Speaker
And that, according to Paul, is one of our role-playing game party. Okay. So we went on that shuttle in the game and ended up on Endor.
00:06:37
Speaker
And one of our players joined the campaign late. They came in around that time and chose to play Ewok. And it scarred me for life. I can still hear my friend Ian saying, yub yub, about everything.
00:06:52
Speaker
Witchart, yub yub. Excellent. but So annoying. But no, it was a brilliant campaign and we did get to be there on Endor. but sounds fun. That's part of the for the rebels.
00:07:03
Speaker
yeah you've got any favourite moments in the film? I mean, there's millions. There's lots of moments. Favourite moments? Oh my gosh.
Jabba's Palace: Casual Horror and Intense Action
00:07:10
Speaker
Watching it again this morning, the whole of ah the Jabba's Palace sequence, there is so much going on in there. I was just like, I have whiplash every single, like, yeah what is happening? There are so many sounds and it goes from being like really, really quite chill and casual to being really quite horrific. Yeah. um Because there's torture, there's... There's murder. War torture, murder.
00:07:34
Speaker
It's really horrendous.
00:07:38
Speaker
It is, yeah. they They cram a lot in. It is action-packed. And I mean, there is an act one of the final film of a trilogy. And it absolutely delivers on all of that. Yeah. um There was so much happening. probably the thing think of the most. When I think of Return the Jedi, I think of that.
00:07:54
Speaker
That opening sequence. Yeah, yeah. I think I do as well. There was a whole like section at the beginning which I had forgotten happens. Oh, wow. Oh, you mean like pre pre... Pre... Because I just always assume that it opens with R2 and 3PO going to Jabba's palace. Me too. But it doesn't... No, we get the scene with Jor-Jor-D welcoming Vader and it's the...
00:08:16
Speaker
I need more men. It's that scene, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is lush. And I was just like, I completely forgot that this was even a thing. Yeah.
Artistry and Realism in Matte Paintings
00:08:25
Speaker
Talking about that particular opening, yeah what hit me a lot was the difference in the way that we see Death Star. Like everything is upscale. yeah Everything is looks at like there's super tiny details, which I don't think we got in A New Hope. And I think they were, I mean, throughout the film, there is incredible use of matte painting, which I think... yeah
00:08:49
Speaker
They had really mastered, I don't think they originated it. I'm not sure whether it started with Lucasfilm, but they absolutely nailed it. I remember reading um some behind the scenes book and and interviews with the map painting artists yeah who were just so into it. And like the way they use glass and they paint the painting onto the glass so they can light from behind and you get real light coming out.
00:09:13
Speaker
yeah So scenes like that overhead shot of the the docking bay when Vader's shuttle comes in and all the, well, actually a small section of troops compared to when we see him later on when the Emperor turns on.
00:09:25
Speaker
But like the the kind of the way it's all lit and it looks so real. I never even thought for a second that it was map painting. It's unbelievable.
Visual Effects Mastery in Return of the Jedi
00:09:33
Speaker
And then, you know, juxtapose that with like the Ewok village or shot of Jabba's palace. You know, it's like these incredible paintings that the characters just like slot into seamlessly. It's really good.
00:09:45
Speaker
I didn't even think about that. I didn't even think about how they did it. You're just totally in it. yeah it's so realistic it's not like CGI even like sometimes the CGI you're just a bit as we'll find out with the next film little bit because they were just starting that journey really starting that journey with that film whereas with this one they were at the top of their game yeah and I feel like even though it's a very very old movie now like 42 years old my gosh yeah for those techniques of the painting and some of the creature effects and like Yoda was a bit better and all that I just love all of that it's gorgeous it's visually it's very visually like nice in a way that A New Hope wasn't Yeah, yeah, definitely. It doesn't look like an old film in so much of a way. Yeah, it's really beautifully made. They were definitely, like say, at the peak of their game, I think, tech-wise, and really knew what they were doing.
00:10:40
Speaker
um Whereas I think with A New Hope, they were figuring it out as they
Budget Impact on Return of the Jedi's Production
00:10:43
Speaker
went along. Yeah. Probably had slightly less budget too. Yeah, zero budget compared to Jedi. I'm guessing they had a quite a big budget.
00:10:52
Speaker
Oh, we'll give them money now. yeah yeah Yeah, we trust this is going to be a successful film. You think? Jabba's Palace. Jabba's Palace. like There are stories about every...
00:11:03
Speaker
thing, you know, like could tell all the details, even at the time before the novels and stuff have come out and short stories and what have you about all of those aliens and characters and stuff. But even back then, like the Star Wars figures, you could buy loads of them, like all of the background aliens. Whereas when A New Hope came out, there were a few of the Cantina figures, but not by any means all of them.
00:11:26
Speaker
Whereas Return the Jedi felt like you could get all of the guards, all the randos in the background. Riyiz, who you talked about last week. I had that one. Yeah.
00:11:37
Speaker
I noticed something about Riyiz, which actually, this is beautiful, it ties in with our tracking of droid behavior yeah that we were talking about last time, that we were going to monitor how droids anthropomorphize. Oh, yeah, we might have forgotten about that. Anthropomorphize. Anthropomorphize. Yeah.
00:11:53
Speaker
When Leia has just rescued Han and Jabba opens the curtains, or Jabba doesn't, but somebody opens the curtains, and Jabba and all his goons are there and there all the other goons are on the other side of them and they're trapped and they've been yeah caught in the act of
Character Depth through C-3PO's Behavior
00:12:07
Speaker
freedoms.
00:12:08
Speaker
If you look carefully behind Jabba, Threepio's there looking very upset, understandably, and Riyiz has got his hand over Threepio's mouth. Yeah, that happens a couple of times.
00:12:21
Speaker
It does in this film, yeah. I'd never noticed the... the and Obviously, they were trying to keep Threepio quiet so that he didn't... So his behavioural circuits are so strong. Yeah. Like putting your hand over... Because Threepio would obviously want to call out Captain Solo, you know. Yeah, yeah. It's trap. Yeah. It's a trap.
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah. you Yeah, he'd want to call him out. Oh, I didn't notice him in the background of that one. I've but never seen in all the times I've watched it. I've never noticed it. but i think my brain was like, I'm looking for details.
00:12:50
Speaker
So was just scanning everything. only like a two secondon shot second shot. Two second shot. I was like, another droid behavioural evidence. Yeah, because then later on he he talks about how he talks about his programming not letting him on Endor.
00:13:06
Speaker
He goes, my programming doesn't let me interpret. It just wouldn't be proper. Yeah. My programming won't let me ah and person impersonate impersonates the word imperson a That was one of my other favorite lines. I love that.
00:13:21
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah. 3PO's got some banging lines,
Han Solo's Enduring Charm
00:13:24
Speaker
actually. yeah I thought I can't have a 3PO line two weeks running. I could have. Yeah, yeah. Han lines, or Han lines are always a winner.
00:13:32
Speaker
ah yes I don't know if it's the way they write Han or whatever. It's the way Harrison delivers it. It's all good. Don't really go wrong. um Still on Jabba's Palette. We're going to be talking about Jabba's Palette for little while.
00:13:43
Speaker
tu We are. um I had a question. Yeah. Timelines. Oh God. What is going on?
00:13:53
Speaker
How long?
Questioning the Plan to Save Han Solo
00:13:55
Speaker
How long between the end of Empire Strikes Back and beginning of Return of the Jedi and then how long between...
00:14:04
Speaker
the ah droids going does Leia show up and then how long between Leia showing up does Luke show up but what is going on okay I think it's like supposed to be several months possibly even more I can't remember somebody was talking about this the other day on a podcast so I can't remember the result but it is months it's taken a while to build this plan okay the most of course it is the most convoluted plan ever yeah portrayed in cinema history it's got a lot of moving parts it has which were they all really necessary could they not just have all gathered together and like marched on jam's palace yeah and just get out you know yeah no like this elaborate pantomime of different people arriving at different times um and yeah i'm sure leia like
00:14:52
Speaker
and Being taken into slavery must not have been on Leia's list things to do as part plan. So maybe it was a plan with a lot of contingency plans. Okay. Maybe, I'm guessing.
00:15:04
Speaker
um But yeah, I think it's several months before they enact it. Right. like According to the opening scene, Lando and Chewie are already there. Yeah, and they've been missing for a while because 3PO says they never came back. Yeah, which I don't understand the Chewie side of that. I get the Lando bit because he's clearly been undercover with his light skiff guard. But then Leia brings Chewie in.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah, so that's a bit of a... I'm guessing Chewie and Lando were probably scouting um and like seeing what they could get away with. yeah and figuring out with Lando being in person and maybe Chewie being like a like a second for Lando to like sneak out at night, feed him information yeah that he can report back to the Rebels and then go back in and carry on his subterfuge as Skiff Guard number four or whatever. Yeah. um Yeah. And then I think it's, I don't know. Yeah. I think nobody's ever really figured out how long...
00:15:54
Speaker
like between I mean, in the film, it's just like you said at the beginning, it's like bam, ba bam, bam. It's like one thing after the next. other than like No sooner has Leia been chained up, there's Luke coming in to rescue him.
00:16:06
Speaker
So I don't know. That's interesting. It almost looks like it was later that night. like they've just They've just changed her outfit and chained her up and then like and then Luke shows up. But it's like, she's also...
00:16:18
Speaker
Looks pretty resigned to this at this point, so don't know. I feel like Luke wouldn't have wanted Leia to be in that situation for very long. No. So I would imagine it would be like the very next day yeah or very soon after. Yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
I loved... Hearing Huttese, it's the most Huttese I think we've had in Star Wars. like There's a lot of it. We hear Big Fortuna speaking it. We hear the Dordroid thing speaking it.
00:16:44
Speaker
The rhythm of it when the Dordroid speaks it and how 3PO answers. It's like this amazing rhythmic conversation. it's like this amazing rhythmic conversation um And I love the way that different creatures and different species speak Hutties. Yeah.
00:17:03
Speaker
Like Bib Fortuna, the Twi'lek, he speaks it with a slightly French accent, yeah which which has rippled into like Star Wars canon because all Twi'leks now speak speak French. Yeah.
00:17:16
Speaker
They speak in basic, but with French accent. Yeah, i don't know if they just hire French and voice actors to play to Alexa in the animated shows. they very I mean, occasionally. And like Hera, who's the main, well, one of the main characters in Rebels, speaks with an American accent. However, when...
00:17:32
Speaker
In Rebels, she goes back to Ryloth to meet her dad, who's got the heavy French accent. yeah She starts speaking with like a transatlantic French-American accent. And the voice actor, Vanessa Marshall, she does such a great job of like Hera, who's adapted her basic to sound American like the rest of the Rebel Alliance.
00:17:54
Speaker
But when she's with her fam, it kind of goes back. and back i
Creativity in Language: Huttese in Star Wars
00:17:58
Speaker
love love it. clever. And then you've got Jabba's like big pompous way of speaking, which always sounds very slangy. and His voice is incredible.
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah. Listening to it. Like the sound design on his voice is incredible. Yeah. It is amazing. Whoa. Yeah, there's like pitch shifters and all sorts going on, but it still sounds like a being.
00:18:20
Speaker
yeah ive found I've tried to emulate like that kind of deep monster voice but in the past in some of my work, and it's not as easy do. Little altar boy sound toys. Yeah, I've just picked that one up actually in the sale recently. it's little altar boy. I did have to, there's Waves have done one as well. Sorry, Star Wars fans are just kicking it on. Now we're talking plugins. Music software. Yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
But yeah, there is a software plugin specifically for making monster voices. In fact, wasn't you that me about it. Yeah, I've one. Oh, probably. Yeah, what's it called? i can't remember. No, I can't. That's good. No shout out to them. But yeah, you can add like a certain amount of like squelchiness and it's got all different that you add into it. Oh, that's going to annoy me that I can't remember the name of it now. But yeah, I use that all the time.
00:19:05
Speaker
Yeah. But I use that with Little Alter Boy. Oh, okay. That tends to be what I do. And I'll have like a clean... ah Sorry. Sorry. ah this is This is my nerd talk. I'll have a clean one, one going through the Monster Maker and one going through Little Alter Boy, and I will weave the three of them together.
00:19:24
Speaker
Amazing. That sort of sounds like what they've done with Jabba, because it is like there are multiple pitches in his voice. Yeah, the sound design generally in the past, like the acoustics.
00:19:34
Speaker
The acoustics of the palace, yeah. I wrote that down as well. With the Max Rebo band. um Initially, when we first hear them, they're playing some like Baroque, like space Baroque. It's all very classical and Jabba's like chilling.
00:19:48
Speaker
yeah And then when they're playing, well, I have to confess, immediately after watching the movie on Disney+, plus I had to go on YouTube and watch the original The original bit, yeah. Because Jedi Rocks, I get it.
00:20:01
Speaker
I know why they added that in. yeah But the original song is a bop. It's so good. ah um Yeah, I didn't do that, but I did miss it.
00:20:13
Speaker
They do a great job of, um because there's another song that they play after. And when Boosh is like going to hang out, when Leia's dressed as Boosh and she she's yeah had the deal and Chewbacca's gone off to the prison and she's just there hanging out catching Bubba Fett's eye. yeah The band goes into a different tune and it's the same tune that we hear in Sail Barge like a few scenes later. Yeah.
00:20:38
Speaker
and the sound design wrote down the sound design with the sail barge scene is spectacular because the camera is jumping from like inside the sail barge to on one of the skiffs to a wide shot and like all different shots and every time we see it like the music keeps playing but it's jumping like all of the different environments yeah yeah like the reverb and the distance it It's so good.
00:21:02
Speaker
Even I think there's a bit of like Doppler effect as the sail barge goes past, I think. And the tune I might be imagining that. You're just so used to it. can imagine. Yeah. Well, it's it's all done so seamlessly. I think, again, it was one thing I only noticed properly this first time. this time Oh, wow.
00:21:21
Speaker
They really got the details of that. Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. I wanted to talk about Eve 99, who is the the boss droid. The boss of the torture dungeon. Yeah.
00:21:34
Speaker
I mean, I think I heard somebody talk about her on another podcast, which I'm not going to name. But they were referring to the droid as a he, but it's definitely she. Definitely she. The fact that she's called Eve 99 and it specifically says pronounced Eve.
00:21:48
Speaker
which is obviously, you know, the first woman. So yeah she's like this boss. There's bo part of the fact that i love her and I love her like cadence. She's very like classic droid. Yeah, she's great.
00:22:03
Speaker
But it's just about manages to somehow like put some sinister foreboding in her voice, even though she's monotone. yeah um And again, I don't know they made that voice like,
00:22:16
Speaker
It's like a wheezy vocoder. Yeah, there's something very odd going on there. filtering Ring modulator, maybe. Yeah, comb filter-y thing. Yeah. um Anyway, she's super cool. There's loads of stuff about her in the expanded stuff now. Is there? I mean, I think there probably was in the previous Legends you know range of expanded universe. But yeah in the new Disney, post-Disney expanded universe, there's loads too.
00:22:40
Speaker
and um There's a great short story about how she that saw that R2 had never had his memory erased. And she wanted that. She could see the power of that. So she was trying create a situation where she could maintain her memories and avoid the weekly or whatever it is, like, erase that they go through. um So she's super cool. She's also known as the Queen of Durasteel and the Mistress of Mayhem, apparently.
00:23:09
Speaker
Excellent. What title. but if when you watch now this isn't a spoiler but when mando ends up at the cantina um in most size ofly spaceport um in an episode which you may have seen if you've watched part of mandola i'm not sure can't remember. need to watch again. She's now running Chalman's Spaceball Cantina, which is that one.
00:23:31
Speaker
Which is really cool because originally, can't remember the guy's name who runs it, Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, something like that. He says, we don't serve their kind in here about the droids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now by the time Mando, yeah, we've gone full circle. It's now being run by droids. Yeah.
00:23:48
Speaker
Excellent. And it's her that's running it. So she has a great great story arc. We love her. did have a little droid torture. What is up with that? And again, they seem to feel pain. It's so Yeah, he's screaming and kicking his legs. The poor thing. And the one that's been into pieces. It's That's brutal.
00:24:09
Speaker
Did you notice that shot as 3PO gets taken out of the room when he's been having his conversation with her? And he's like, ah and he puts his hand up in the air and directly behind him, there's a different design white protocol droid, like half a droid from the waist up that's like chucked in the corner in the same posture. And he's like standing right there. It's really cool.
00:24:30
Speaker
I think I had noticed that before, but really made me laugh this time. ah Yeah, I don't know. What is that all about? What is that like all about? Because they can just put restraining bolts on the droids. They don't have to like do anything to keep them. They don't have to like who have to physically torture them. It's so grim.
00:24:47
Speaker
It's very dark. So grim. but There is a whole movement again in the expanded stuff. It's not really been dealt with very much. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they are planning to at some point. I think it's in the Aftermath trilogy mentioned somewhere in one of the interludes. And it's hinted, there's a piece of graffiti in, i think it's episode one of Mandalorian season two, I think. And he's walking through, um i can't remember what planet he's on, but he's walking through a sort of cityscape.
00:25:19
Speaker
And it's like very post-apocalyptic and there's like graffiti on all the walls. And that some of the graffiti is about the droid uprising, um I can't remember what the name they gave it It's like this whole movement that happened post-Empire where the droids went, you know, they formed together to like, you know, break the shackles of droid life. Stop torturing us. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:42
Speaker
So that would feed into that quite quite a lot when you think about it. Wow. Fair place to try. I love there's a great Jabba's Palace shot, just an establishing shot in between scenes.
00:25:58
Speaker
And it's Twilight, I think. And there's a little frog-like creature. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it eats a little insect. And it eats the insect creature, yeah. And it's become like part of Star Wars film language. Yeah. Because now there's so many in both the new films that they've made.
00:26:16
Speaker
I don't remember so much in the prequels. We'll have to track it when watch the prequels. We'll track it. But definitely in the sequel movies, there's definitely some of this where they have just like an establishing shot of somewhere. And then in the foreground, there's a little creature of some kind. Of some kind. It's in Kenobi as well, I think, when he goes to... um Ah, the big city planet, and we see like a thing going across some electric wire or whatever, some rat-type creatures. Yeah. In Force Awakens, as that beaked creature on Jakku when it's flying into Nima Outpost.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah. I can't wait to watch that again. I haven't seen those for years, actually. No. That's a good Ooh. Exciting. Any more Jabba's Palace stuff? Yes. Leia. We have to talk about Leia. Yeah.
00:27:02
Speaker
So...
00:27:04
Speaker
What am I thinking? What am I thinking? I'm thinking we haven't talked about her enough for being incredible, yeah impeccable all the time. And then in this one, she that was my favorite. My favorite Leia figure was Bounty Hunter Leia. Yeah, me too. and By Miles.
00:27:25
Speaker
And she had a little rattly bomb. And it made a little noise. And I think she was my favourite partly because she was the only one that could fit in the X-Wing.
00:27:39
Speaker
Because the ones in skirts don't fit in the X-Wing. No. Right. That makes sense. so Yeah. She's just sort of did you have the one where you could take the helmet off? Yeah. Yeah. When I started my collection again, that was the first figure I bought on eBay. Was it? Yeah.
00:27:56
Speaker
I loved it. i That figure went everywhere with me for several years. so good. I mean, everything about it is good. It's Leia for starters, but like the design of that bounty hunter is awesome.
00:28:07
Speaker
So good. For me, that is Leia at her most hot. Yes. like Yeah, exactly. I know and immediately after that, we see her in slave bikini. Gold bikini. Yes. So I think there's a whole like there's a whole thing about... like blokes realising that they're having sexual awakenings or whatever, seeing the gold bikini. I'm sure they did. But there's there's hundreds of stories about that. But what about the bisexual girls that were more confused by the bounty hunter outfit? 100%. And as a pansexual trans woman, I can absolutely vouch for that.
00:28:41
Speaker
for that exactly when i look back of course it makes so much sense now of course like i could you know she's very attractive in the slave uh bikini but it wasn't practical boy andra but when she takes her helmet off and her hair just falls down a little bit i'm like amazing oh Amazing. Yeah, she's incredible. i mean, that whole thing and the way she takes out Jabba is spectacular.
00:29:06
Speaker
That is so amazing. I'm so glad. Like, they've made that whole sequence untouchable in terms of like what anybody might say about the male gaze and about Leia in a bikini. You know, did we really need Carrie to do that?
00:29:20
Speaker
and But it says so much. Like, it says so much. It's a really powerful sequence. The fact that it's her... it like She didn't have to. She could have just escaped and then they blew up the sail barge.
00:29:32
Speaker
But they showed her by hand with no tools or anything else and no weapons killing the galaxy's biggest gangster. here It's like he's the godfather of the galaxy far, far away.
00:29:46
Speaker
And she takes him out in a bikini with her bare hands. yeah Mic drop. Mic drop. Leave it. You can all go home. Written directed by. Yeah.
00:29:58
Speaker
Done. It would have been fine if it ended there. Yeah. So good. so good. i know. um I loved her language, the UB's language, which is Boucher's race.
00:30:09
Speaker
But don't know who Boucher was, whether he or she had to forfeit their armour for later wear. Yeah. um But the language, Leia obviously learned. I mean, just we only hear two phrases. he says quite a lot of different things. I say he.
00:30:23
Speaker
I always assumed he was a he until it was Leia. They call him he quite often. theyre They're referring to him as a he until she takes the helmet off. Yeah, just as part of the subterfuge, which is cool. But anyway, as a bounty hunter, Leia just says, your dot, your dot.
00:30:43
Speaker
And then there's one other phrase, which I can't remember. but that that And it's being used for multiple different sentences. Which, by the way... Tell me.
00:30:56
Speaker
I... When you watched it, can you remember if the Huttys subtitles were in white text at the bottom of the screen with black background, like those kind of strip subtitles that pop up? Oh, what?
00:31:11
Speaker
Today or...? Yeah, when you watched it today, when Jabba Speaks, we get subtitles for the Huttys. Oh, I don't know. Does it come up in a white font? Because in my head, and I'm sure I've seen screenshots of it,
00:31:27
Speaker
Originally, it was blue text the same font as a long time ago in a galaxy far far I think. I remember blue font, but I don't think it was today.
00:31:38
Speaker
no I think Disney Plus have changed it. ah Probably easier to read on small device and that kind of thing. I remember a lot of the subtitles being in blue originally. I think they were in A New Hope as well, blue or green, when Greedo's speaking. Yeah.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway, totally geeky thing. I just missed. I missed it being blue. I missed the blue subtitles or green or whatever they were. Whatever they used to be. Yeah, that's fair. I also just wrote down, oh, we've got women now.
00:32:09
Speaker
yeah what tell there's been there's been no women in the galaxy apart from leia up until now yeah and i think there are a few women in the brief the rebel yeah as well and mothma obviously um i don't know if we got as far as women pilots maybe not quite i'm not sure um there's plenty now thank goodness but yeah oh yeah the wilhelm scream number i think there are two ah As we're tracking Wilhelm Screens, the sail barge, um yeah the first skiff guard that Luke... It's the second one, the second lackey that gets chucked in the Sarlacc pit.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah. yeah And I wasn't sure later on, I feel there's, it could be when Chewbacca's hurling troopers out of the ATSD walkers.
00:32:54
Speaker
yeah There is another fabulous scream there, but I'm not sure it's the Wilhelm scream. That might not a Wilhelm, yeah. But it sounds quite simple, because I laughed at it as well. Yeah, yeah. That's close, but it's not quite.
00:33:06
Speaker
I think I'm Wilhelm question mark. Yeah, I think it's someone imitating the Wilhelm scream. Yeah, trying to catch us out. Yeah. But they're not going because We are Hunters of the Wilhelm.
00:33:19
Speaker
That's the new podcast name. Hunters of the Wilhelm scream. There's plenty of films to find it yeah because I wrote that down. I wrote, there's another great scream. another So got more women. we got more screams We've got more screams. We've got we do we have more than one scream.
00:33:39
Speaker
I think got a tiny bit less droid banter. I mean, there is a fair amount droid banter throughout the film, generally, I'm talking about. Yeah, just there is a bit less. Oh, the other thing I had written down for Jabba's Palace was ah the sound design of the the ah carbonite unfreezing is incredible. Yes.
00:33:58
Speaker
And, I mean, it's hard to go back um I didn't do my memories thing about this. Oh, don't mind. This is this. This is it. Going back to seeing it the first time, which i yeah I've got more hope of remembering because I was 10 at this point. Yeah. And I remember queuing outside the cinema and I bought the novel, the novelization. Yeah.
00:34:19
Speaker
I think it was the junior version possibly because they brought out two different paperbacks of it. um Beside the point. But I remember watching the movie and like... I've been living with three years of Hanning Carbonite at this point.
00:34:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah, of course. Like, waiting to find out yeah if he's going to escape, which, of course, we knew he would. But, like, the anxiety of that and that scene, we didn't know was Leia at this point.
00:34:44
Speaker
I frankly didn't care at this point because we just, like... right the to It's really difficult to describe the feeling of like as that sound design kind of filters into nothingness and Han slumps forward and you're like, oh thank goodness. He's going to be okay. Three years of pent up stress yeah of worrying about Han. Wow.
00:35:05
Speaker
and So the length of that sequence of sound design and the way it builds up and those extra layers as she pushes different buttons or whatever. um it's just beautiful that's so like everything else kind of drops away and you just get the yeah these little kind of ice cracking sounds and like all this little popping and fizzing and it's like who with like the synthy bubbly yeah yeah bubbles yeah yeah I really love the physical lights.
00:35:33
Speaker
I mean, I love all this old Star Wars tech where it looks like um arcade machine like play buttons and all of that. They've just nicked those things and put them into sort of control panels.
00:35:44
Speaker
But like the control panel of that and the way that Leia presses certain things in a certain sequence and like the screen changes, like the' like ah an readout thing yeah with the green monochrome. and thing it just looks so cool and really fitted with that all that sound work um that went into it so good that was my favorite sound design bit i think maybe maybe there's others yeah there are many i mean i think if i had to pick a favorite from the whole movie the sound of the shuttle engines the shuttle yeah yeah like it's one of the first things we hear yeah in that opening scene with vader
00:36:19
Speaker
And I think we see a Star Destroyer as usual. Yeah. And I think the shuttle comes out and then we immediately get the shuttle fly by and it's just amazing like unearthly engine. I don't know what it is, it's beautiful.
00:36:33
Speaker
Nice, nice. I had like three other things for Sam though, so.
00:36:39
Speaker
Well, can one of those take us somewhere else in the film because we've been hung on Jabba's been hung up. Well, Jabba's Palace lasts about half an hour and we've been about that on this, so. Yeah. but Oh, the other thing.
00:36:51
Speaker
Yes, one of my sound design things was ah the speeders and on Endor. Yeah. And that whole chase sequence. It's wild. And again, another fantastic layer outfit.
00:37:04
Speaker
so Yeah, true. oh yeah that you you You read my mind. I think we're on each other's head. I'd written down... um uh leia imbush outfit is so hot yeah was was item number 29 yeah and then later on when she comes out of the shuttle in the green poncho i was like yeah there we go but i'm not so keen on what she's i think the idea because i've i did have that figure and i think the idea is she's still wearing almost the same outfit she was wearing at the briefing which is more like kind of army like military type
00:37:37
Speaker
thing and which i wasn't so keen on it's just under the poncho over it yeah the poncho and the helmet yeah love loving it but yeah that but this moving away from layer again moving back to the speeder bikes yes yes what is it that see in the intervening years we've had the speeder bikes multiple times in different parts of the star wars franchise do they ever sound like that Yes, always, which baffles me because I thought a lot of the sound effects were supposed to be creatures or end or like fauna, you you know, like um birds. and Because there is a lot of amazing bird and animal, constant birds and animals, which I really, really love. Stop it feeling like the Californian redwoods. Yeah. um
00:38:21
Speaker
But I always thought a lot of the speeder, you know, those kind of weird as they go around corners and go into like a new bit of wood, it makes these weird kind of almost animalistic sounds. yeah But when we've seen speeder bikes on Tatooine since, and we've seen them...
00:38:37
Speaker
On Lothar, which is where Rebels begins, they always have those same sounds. So it is something to do with the speeder bike engines. it's the speeder bike that's making them.
00:38:48
Speaker
They make these freaky country like sounds. so Weird echoey, high-pitched boomy things. I mean, you've got that way man the kind of squeal. But there are also those like weird things. I don't if it's supposed be gear changing or... I don't know. I just wrote down otherworldly motorbike chase. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty much sums it up.
00:39:09
Speaker
I feel like there are some controls that are just like different things on the bike to make it go around corners and things like flaps and things to affect the repulsors. And I think that's probably what all those sounds could be. Yeah.
00:39:21
Speaker
I'm just like winging this. I do love all of those sounds. It's a very memorable aspect of that sequence. Really cool. Terrifying scene. I find it hard to, my eyes hurt when I watch that scene. Watching it. love that Luke goes into a little bit of backseat driving and Leia's just like, get her off.
00:39:42
Speaker
He's like, pull up a side, hold on side of this She's like, me be. Who is driving this thing? your own speeder.
00:39:53
Speaker
but Again, though, Leia just yeah immediately reading the situation, yeah gets on a speeder bike and takes off. Yeah. Like barely waiting for Luke to get on. She's just ah on a mission. Even in the briefing, she's like, oh, I wonder who's fool enough to... to for that mission and Han's like oh and then she goes oh yeah I'm coming with you obviously what you just okay as if I wouldn't yeah I did i did cry a few tears in that briefing well not so much in the briefing but in the after briefing in the hangar when Lando is like Han's giving Lando the falcon to use not lending not literally giving lending not a scratch and and he's like he almost changes his mind after and oh
00:40:39
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of I don't know, i guess probably as well since we've lived with Lando and Han for many years now yeah different iterations in different parts of the Star Wars properties. so Again, I suppose most recently the Solo movie, which is a brilliant movie. It got slated a bit when it came out by audiences. I think because The Last Jedi had come out about six months earlier and had people whatever reason. It upset some people. It upset lot of people.
00:41:07
Speaker
I personally love the heck out of it. But anyway, because of that, there was this sort of like hatred against Disney. And so the film stood no chance, really. um But I think it's amazing. I really, really love it as a movie. It's one of the most like fun watches.
00:41:23
Speaker
It's got so many cool sequences, so many cool characters. It's got loads of things that we love about Star Wars. he's got And it's got quite a bit of Lando. Yeah. Donald Glover playing Lando, I think we mentioned this last week.
00:41:35
Speaker
um He's so good at it. And so I guess with all of that stuff now, you know, in a in our kind of DNA, having watched all of these other things, going back and watching that early conversation. Yeah.
00:41:49
Speaker
but about the falcon which clearly means so much to both of them was yeah i think it was the beginning of like my emotional breakdown from there on throughout the rest of the movie and we're gone it's just like a weeping mess by the end yeah so here we go oh slightly relieved by some ewok comedy there was lots of good ewok comedy Oh, I do love warwick da Warwick Davis. I could see him wearing that costume. like i think incredibledible That is incredible. That was another question I had. Is it Warwick Davis voicing Wicket as well or is it someone else voicing?
00:42:25
Speaker
That's a very good question. I don't know the answer to that. Because the voicing is amazing as well. is. um My guess is it's a voice actor. I think they like... Voice actor, yeah.
00:42:37
Speaker
Because the whole... I've written something about the Ewok language um somewhere. Yeah, the language is so good, which again is a sound design thing. yeah um It's a cross between like a variety... I think it's a cross between Tibet...
00:42:52
Speaker
Tibetan? Okay. Or something. I'm not sure if Tibetan is actually a language, but a language from there. And I think there's an African language that they maybe used as well. And they like borrowed sort of phrases and bits to to get it. but But it does all sound like pitched up.
00:43:08
Speaker
Yeah. In the same way as they did... ah whatever it was last week we were talking about with the pitched up vocals and as i said it sounded like the munchkin jouers jouers yeah two weeks ago two weeks ago yeah i think it's the same same sort thing is it okay sped up you think i don't know it sounded pitched up a little bit the noise that he makes the first noise that he makes when he growls at leia yeah yes my dog has made that exact growl before It's perfect, isn't it?
00:43:37
Speaker
yeah I know that, bro. I think it's like good voice actors and they've done all the work with the language. Ben Burtt, Going Deep. And then I'm sure it's just pitched up about a better tone or something. So it's not like... Not massively. Not like Alvin and the Chipmunks. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:43:52
Speaker
But it's just not human. Yeah. Yeah. But they've all got different tombras to their voices as well, haven't they? Yes. They're all like, they're so different. And they all look different. Like they've different colour fur, different builds. Different facial features. There's some really chunky ones, some really tiny ones. There's a baby one, which is super cute. Oh, the baby walks. We just want a baby one. And they're hiding. I get scared of seeing the preview story. Yes.
00:44:17
Speaker
love it There's a couple of Ewok movies. Oh, yeah. um Yeah, that came out in the aftermath, I think. Okay. One is called Caravan of Courage.
00:44:29
Speaker
I think that's the first one. Cool. think. And then I can't remember what the other one's called. They're both on Disney+. plus Okay. I watched one of them and have not watched the other. It was actually much better. i only watched it for the first time a few years ago. Like, I didn't see it in the 80s when it came out. I remember it coming out.
00:44:47
Speaker
Okay. For whatever reason, I didn't get to see it then. I don't know why. I think maybe it never got to the cinema because I've got a feeling they were straight to VHS. Right. That kind of makes sense. Like, VHS time was – like, if I went to the video shop, it didn't happen very often and I didn't have, like, endless budget for VHS rentals. yeah.
00:45:07
Speaker
I would probably have rented A New Hope again. are you I'd like look at The Caravan of Courage and be like, I should watch this, but not going to re-watch. um But yeah, i did watch one recently and was actually impressed by it.
00:45:21
Speaker
It's clearly outside the Star Wars world. It is set on Endor and it is the Ewoks. And I got feeling Wicket might be in them. It might be Warwick Davis again. But it is clearly not connected to the Star Wars galaxy, really, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.
00:45:37
Speaker
I did go on a little hunt after we talked a couple of weeks ago for Ewok plushies. And they do exist, but they are Yeah. Oh, we need some good ones. They've been Disney-fied and they're gross. There's there's like loads of fan-made ones. If you go on Pinterest, there's loads of like fan-made felted ones and they're gorgeous. But yeah, the actual official Disney ones are rubbish.
00:46:00
Speaker
Okay. Podcast sideline. Yeah, yeah. Ewok merch. I can start making Ewoks. I'm sure I could learn how to crochet them. Definitely. My eyes have just fallen on point number 73 on my list of things.
00:46:13
Speaker
on Ewoks are brutal. They brutal. mean, they're literally going to eat humans. They're going to eat humans. And then they're like, they fight brutal as well. Yeah. They do not mess about. They fight so brutal.
00:46:26
Speaker
and And they're just like lobbing rocks at stormtroopers.
00:46:32
Speaker
I love all those little, those are some of the most memorable bits of the whole Endor thing for me is the little like montages of Ewoks in action. Yeah. So you get like the two logs swinging. Oh, that's incredible. Splatming the head and then like the rolling them out and the walkers wobbling around on top of them. Yeah. and them grabbing, like throwing a rope around its leg. They're all holding on. Yeah.
00:46:57
Speaker
He dragged along in a little line. The most awful one is how they like, they somehow lasso one and it's attached to a tree, the speeder bike. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and it goes the way around and just smacks and horrible. It spins around in like an ever concentric surface and it explodes.
00:47:14
Speaker
They are brutal. And I swear they came around barbecuing like...
00:47:20
Speaker
As they go along. And then right at the end, they they make instruments out of all the trooper helmets. and Oh, yes! They're playing the trooper helmets like a xylophone. They really are. Well...
00:47:32
Speaker
Like circling back to my role-playing game partner. Oh, yeah. He did play his, I can't remember what his Ewok's name was. It was something very classic Ewok, you know, like a two-syllable name ending in a vowel or whatever. Yeah, yeah.
00:47:46
Speaker
And he played it brutal. Brutal, yeah. He did. He absolutely got it. I seem to remember with the stats, you know, when you build a character in a role-playing game, you, you know, For those that have never played, you create like a character with a bunch of different statistics based on their different like personality traits or strengths and weaknesses and so on.
00:48:04
Speaker
And I seem to think his stats were like all about hand-to-hand combat and nothing on anything else, really. Similar in D&D when you've got like smaller characters hand-to-hand trying to better. yeah like dwarves have great constitution, but also more dexterous.
00:48:21
Speaker
yeah um But Ewoks, yeah, they're quite tough and... yeah Strong. Good at fighting. Strong. They are completely brutal. They are. It's quite surprising how brutal they are.
00:48:33
Speaker
and They also happen to have like a ah wardrobe of like full sized women's wardrobe for Leia to wear. Oh yeah. Like this kind of gorgeous gown. Where do they get that from?
00:48:45
Speaker
That was my second favourite Leia figure, actually, was the one with the Ewoks. I didn't know there was. I never got that one. Oh, I had that one. Oh, okay. eBay. But most of her hair was plastic, apart from the two braids at the front.
00:48:59
Speaker
Oh, weird. Which were actual hair, which was weird. Yeah, I don't know how I feel about that. ah But she could also fit in the X-Wing because her skirt was fabric. Oh, cool. so Yeah. Did she have like trouser things on underneath?
00:49:11
Speaker
No, she had nothing underneath. um Really? Oh my gosh. Barbie underneath. Because I feel like she had like kind of pantaloon things on, but that's probably yeah memory. I don't remember if we even saw her ankles. I don't i don't know if we do see her ankles. but so We've seen a lot more of her in this film already. Yeah.
00:49:32
Speaker
Once we're in into like the Ewok village and the whole thing's been resolved about them you know being friends and everything and they've joined the tribe, it's from that that that scene after that where Luke slips out and Leia goes out after him.
00:49:48
Speaker
I'd forgotten the details of that scene really. I think I block out the details of that scene. Me too. Me too. For two reasons. One is obviously the emotional thing, which is what we're going to get into, I think, here. Yeah. ah The other is obviously like the plot hole of Leia thinking she remembers her mother, which yeah I think we'll just explain away. It's just Leia's like fake child memory. You know, when you have memories as a kid that aren't actually real. So we just, aren't real as Lucas is the one that wrote the resolution of that, like, fair enough. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:15
Speaker
ah But yeah, the the emotional toll of that scene, I'd forgotten. And the way John Williams, like the music is kind of like fairly predictable for most of the scene. And he's using like the different themes in different ways. So like as Luke is telling his part of the story and Leia's telling her part of the story and Luke, you know, is deciding to go and she's trying to to persuade him not to and all of that.
00:50:39
Speaker
And then Han comes out and we get this little scene. But at the end, when she says, hold me, and by the way, I am in... Floods of tears by that point. yeah There's like this minor seven chord or something that swells.
00:50:52
Speaker
There's like really detached from the rest of anything we've heard in the trilogy so far. It's like William saved that chord or that like voicing. or what I can't quite work out what it is, but there's something about it that's really intense. yeah The closest I can connect it to in my mind is um the Diasire bit we were talking about two episodes ago where Luke goes and sees his uncle and aunt as skeletons.
00:51:19
Speaker
And it's a similar, because that's a kind of a minor nine vibe. And this has got a similar thing and there's a bit of movement to it as Han holds her and she's just breaking down. oh my God.
00:51:31
Speaker
Oh my God, what a scene. That's interesting. And you're not really recovered from that. No. And it cuts immediately to Luke talking with Vader.
00:51:42
Speaker
Yeah. Which again is brutal. Like, fair play to David Prowse. Like, by this point, David Prowse knew that his voice was not Vader. Like, my state when they were shooting A New Hope, he thought his voice was going to be it. Yeah, yeah, He didn't know until he saw it at cinema. Yeah.
00:51:59
Speaker
Which is... pretty brutal. But by this point you knew that. But his physical acting in that scene, like he barely does anything. Like obviously we can't see his face, but he's very like still as Vader a lot of the time anyway. And like he's with Luke and I mean, Luke is, Hamill is doing a lot of the kind of carrying of that as well. Yeah. Like a lot of our feelings are tied up with Luke and his absolute determination that his father's going to be good. You know, yeah he like truly believes it. I mean, he says that line pretty much.
00:52:33
Speaker
Yeah. So we're carrying that emotion, but we are we're starting to realise that this isn't necessarily Luke's story. and I absolutely love that that scene is really what is it sets us in motion for the prequels. Yeah. Of like, oh, of course, yeah Return of the Jedi, it's Anakin, it's not talking about Luke.
00:52:54
Speaker
It's about Anakin. and And it sort of shifts the whole focus. I think like the Leia and Luke scene almost puts Luke's story to bed. That's almost the end of it of like, I now just need to go and confront Vader. That's all I need to do And so he's done his emotional stuff. He's told Leia what he knows.
00:53:13
Speaker
She's connected, bonded with him over that. And they've had their moment. And really, they don't come back together again until like an Ewok party at the end. Yeah. But from then on, it's kind of but it really shifts to Vader's story, which is awesome.
00:53:29
Speaker
I think that's why i love that final sequence. Yeah. i mean, the final sequence just badass. We've got three stories going on. They're all going on at the same time. Yeah. like and like He never loses, i say he, the director, like never loses pace no at any point. It's just...
00:53:48
Speaker
So good. It's like we're seamless going one to the other to the other and you're like, okay, now we're here, now we're here, now we're here. Yeah. And like it feels like it's kind of real time. Yeah. But sort of. But like sometimes you know, you're kind of aware that we've gone back a few minutes maybe yeah just to overlap the stories. To you simultaneously, yeah. Yeah.
00:54:07
Speaker
It's so good. It's one of the best like third acts of a film in my memory. i I'm trying to think of another film. Maybe Alien has a brilliant third act. um which is like constant tension and Sigourney Weaver just being awesome. It's been great, yeah. But but then I'm trying to think of other films that have. It's true.
00:54:28
Speaker
It's just the best Act 3. It's just such a great Act 3. is good. like It's got everything. It's got action. There's some comedy. There's still quite a bit of comedy on Endor particularly. I'm so like going and tapping the storm. I think I got it. I think I got it. I've got it. I've got it.
00:54:45
Speaker
no you haven't genuine like but when they're trying to distract him he genuinely goes and taps him on the shoulder and then runs around the other side it are like a child so then he just shrugs yeah that's all these ewoks yeah um yeah no i was thinking you meant the bit where he's trying to like where he's trying to hotwire the doors yeah door and he thinks he's going in another door close so good
00:55:12
Speaker
And there's lots of comedy with like the Ewoks and Chewie. I've spoken to lots of people about this and and everybody I know seems to be in denial about it.
00:55:23
Speaker
There is a 100% Tarzan reference. There is. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You you heard that as well. I heard it and I don't know whether that was in there originally. I remember it as a kid.
00:55:34
Speaker
Okay. So to it's always there. So has always there. Yeah, there a Tarzan record. remember laughing at it as a kid because at that time, Tarzan was on the TV on Saturday mornings. You it's that kind of era. It's like 50s or 60s Tarzan. Yeah. can't remember what era. Black and white, Tarzan and Jane.
00:55:51
Speaker
like this is what kids were watching in the 80s so it was like fresh in our minds we've heard that walker every saturday morning there is a reference yeah as soon as he goes he does it but it's like a wookie version of a tarzan yeah it's definitely chewy doing i don't know how they did that because they wouldn't have got one of their like bears or walruses or whatever it is they recorded to get the wookie sounds just in setting does It suddenly does sound a little bit more human they they hear yeah when that happens. so yeah I've been listening to an audiobook this week of one of the first book trilogies that came out in in the early 90s.
00:56:29
Speaker
And it's being read by Mark Thompson, who reads probably most of the Star Wars books. And he's an incredible voice actor. I think he mostly keeps getting the gig because his hand is like flawless. it just sounds like it's important. But he does all of them brilliantly. um and like He's incredible. And he does like alien voices and he knows what all of these Star Wars aliens sound like. He's really into Star Wars. I follow him on Instagram. He's all the cons. he He's absolutely in it.
00:56:58
Speaker
But he does he's one of the only ones that does Chewie. Like normally in the audiobook productions, they use audio from the films for like R2-T2 and anything that isn't somebody speaking. And so they would do that for Chewbacca. They just have like a library of Chewbacca, like grunts and roars and whatever. But Mark Thompson does...
00:57:18
Speaker
and And in this novel, it's one of the non-canon novels now, Leia gets taken by Chewie to Kashyyyk to hide okay ah from like the and Imperial remnant that's chasing her.
00:57:31
Speaker
And she meets the leader. ah No, he's not the leader. He's sort of a representative um of the Wookiees because humans hardly ever go to Kashyyyk, which I think is probably true of canon as well, the way they've used them in Revenge of the Sith and so on. Yeah. um So they have a Wookiee and it comes up to Leia and it does a roar and then it speaks basic, but in a Wookiee-ish way. Okay. and And Mark Thompson, he'll do a Wookiee, you know, the sound. Yeah. And then he does this speech in in English, but like with the Wookiee vibe and then does another little roar. And at first, when he first spoke, i was like, oh, he's just doing like the subtitles for us, if you know what I mean. It probably says in italics in the novel. Yeah. What's going on?
00:58:15
Speaker
But then as the conversation goes on, you realise, no, Leia's actually hearing him speak BASIC. He's like, how why has Chewbacca never spoken in BASIC? Has he got a speech impediment? And the Wookiee representative explains that, no, he is the Wookiee with the speech impediment. He's the only Wookiee who's got this speech impediment, which allows him to speak.
00:58:35
Speaker
Like basic, such a great little plot twist. Shame they don't bring that into, they might bring that into Galen. But yeah, Mark Thompson is really, really good at it. So I can imagine there are voice actors who can just. Who can do it, yeah. Yeah.
00:58:49
Speaker
There's a comedian, isn't there? he used to be on Nevermind the Buscocks. Can't think what his name is. He used to do a really good one. He was a big Star Wars fan. I can't remember his name. Anyway, he did a good Chewbacca.
00:59:01
Speaker
to yeah But the three-way story um is just, yeah, it's just epic. Like the whole stuff with Luke and and the Emperor.
00:59:12
Speaker
um Can I drop in some of my Emperor of lines now? Emperor lines, yeah, go on then. I mean, my initial thought, and I wrote this in capitals, was... Then I'll tell you about the lightsaber battle. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
00:59:24
Speaker
I thought my original favourite line was going to be, you want this, don't you? Oh, yeah, yeah. Gosh, his delivery. And then I'm afraid that it's you that is mistaken about a great many things. Yeah. Which is the best like comeback after Luke says you're mistaken. I mean, i to be fair, like Ian McDiarmid is 50% of why those lines are so epic. Yeah. um I did read a interview or a story somewhere that like he was a bit tentative about it and like he didn't he got cast yeah um and he didn't know quite how
01:00:03
Speaker
how far he should go with it. And he sort of had a conversation with Lucas and Luke just said, go as far as you like. Go as far as I'm being camping, do it. He did, he did. And like any other actor, it may not have worked. Yeah. You know, it could have been just like 5% over.
01:00:18
Speaker
But I think because he does it with such absolute conviction. Yeah. um And I love the way he continues. Like when I knew he was cast in the prequels, it made my life. My brain couldn't process, like how can we have him? Because he's really old.
01:00:33
Speaker
But he wasn't really old in Return the Jedi. He was in his 40s or something. Okay. He was still very young. But they obviously did all the makeup, yeah so which was perfect. I don't know if Lucas had in his mind at that point, if I'm going to do a prequel, I want him to be like Sheev Palpatine from the boom. Yeah.
01:00:51
Speaker
Yeah. and Anyway, so tell me about the lightsaber. Tell me about the lightsaber. we're We're more acrobatic now. We are. He's definitely learnt some stuff. from why Basically, I could no longer do it, is what I'm saying. but um it was Controversially, last week, I said that some of the things that Luke does, I could do.
01:01:11
Speaker
Yeah, which I believe. I'm absolutely not going to question that. I know you. You are an acrobat. But yeah, he gets a lot more like he's a lot more ah agile this time. And there's a lot more kind of backflipping around.
01:01:24
Speaker
And even Vader is as well, actually. They both are a lot more. There's a lot more kind of movement going on. So we've come a long way from the little tiny twirl of A New Hope, which I am never going to let die because it's so good. Yeah. No, well, it's the origin story of, and this is going to be an ongoing You know, we're going to get to, I mean, next film has got like Jewel of the Fates. Like, what? Yeah.
01:01:49
Speaker
We had our own Jewel of the Fates once, actually. I need to tell you about that. ah Remind me to tell you about that. Yes. We'll keep that for next time. i I'm dying to hear about that. But yeah, they were getting much more impressive is what I said.
01:02:02
Speaker
and there's ah Also, i did point out that Death Star 2.0 also has some safety rails.
01:02:12
Speaker
ah Now you say that. Yes, you're right. Because Vader has to throw them over safety rails and there's a lot of like lobbing Luke around and there are safety rails and and the Emperor as well, obviously.
01:02:26
Speaker
Spoiler alert. Well, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think it's the Emperor's Throne Room. Yeah. Oh, so he's got safety rails, right? Okay. Yeah. The budget cut will stretch.
01:02:39
Speaker
We'll stretch as far as safety routes in the Emperor's Throne movie. Great. yeah Pretty sure that's the reason. Yeah, it's a heck of a fight. I love the sort of like cat and mouse bit where he's hiding. There's a really beautiful shot of him when he's hiding underneath. And like all you can see is like a quarter of his face. Yes. And it's like he's almost consumed by the dark. Yeah, yeah. Which is so cool because like he is on the brink.
01:03:02
Speaker
As we see shortly after when he bursts out and we get that epic like... pushing Vader onto the gantry thing. Yeah. um he Luke is almost using, like, fencing.
01:03:13
Speaker
yeah Like, I think that's where they went rather than martial arts where they went in the prequels. It is definitely, like, a classical almost, like, European kind of style. And he's just, the bit where he's, like, laying in into Vader and he's already, like, got Vader lying on the ground and he's just, like, beating the crap out of him. It's wild. Yeah. Which again, like it's Vader's story at this point.
01:03:37
Speaker
And like we're feeling we're we're being asked to feel sympathy for a character that since we first saw him has supposed to have been like the art yeah arch all evil. The arch evil.
01:03:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like that. turnaround yeah which kind of i suppose the seeds of it was sown at the end of empire when he connects with luke via telepathy yeah and we get a bit of sympathy for vader at that point just like a little seed of it which we can't quite believe because we're all still like reeling from having just been told that he's vader's he's luke's father yeah um But yeah, by this point, like the way Vader is shot, and there's that awesome shot like right at the last minute when Palpatine's like, God, his lightning bolt's going full blast on Luke. And Luke's squealing like...
01:04:29
Speaker
It's his last seconds. yeah And the camera pushes in on Vader. yeah And it's just this like... And it obviously his face can't move. It's a mask. Yeah. so it's motivated camera like yeah to tell it to help us with that story. yeah i mean, we're also seeing like the light flicker and reflect off his mask, which is like another way that's making us feel his conflict and like really rubbing it in that we're seeing him watch his son be murdered. Yeah.
01:04:56
Speaker
It's pretty deep. But then at that point, the Emperor's just kind of been like, yeah, time for you to murder your father and come and replace him. So at that point, they just got to be a bit like, hang on.
01:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, no, he he I think he's realising the Emperor is like absolutely deranged, which we've known. Yeah. We've all known so many years now, but watching it again.
01:05:20
Speaker
Yeah. ones and another that like i think out of the three films, This film is the one that I dislike the special edition editions. um Like I talked earlier about Laptee Neck, which is the original Jabba's Palace song with Saish Nootles.
01:05:37
Speaker
I'm going also refer you to Exhibit 2, which is the Ewok song at the end is all kinds of wrong. The original Ewok song is super fun. And again, we had to watch that after we'd watched it. There's loads of them on YouTube.
01:05:53
Speaker
um But there's just one bit where just before Vader picks up the Emperor, he says no a couple of times. And it's clearly like, I don't even know if it was in the original special editions right that came out in the late 90s. I think it's since...
01:06:11
Speaker
revenge of the sith when he does the controversial no at the end of revenge of the sith when he's first been put into the oh yeah yeah yeah costume yeah he's like crying about yeah no and everyone like jokes about that and yeah i'm not a massive fan of that bit of My favourite the prequels, but I'm not sure about that bit. I'm not about that, yeah. they've taken those no's almost like directly and put them on this bit.
01:06:35
Speaker
Right. And like, it wasn't there before and you did not need it. No. it was so beautiful. Vader, in silence, staggers forward, picks up the Emperor and throws him down the pit. was just so good. I did write that the Emperor falls victim to the lack of safety trails.
01:06:51
Speaker
Yeah. Really does, unfortunately. Although Vader does lob him over one, so there was at least a tiny bit one. Yeah, he just misjudged But yeah, I didn't remember the no. No. And then when I watched it today, I was like, what? Yeah, I think it's an addition. I think it's definitely an addition that's happened recently. I mean, there are constantly tweaks being made. Tweaks, yeah. Like the hand shooting Greedo thing has been changed a bazillion times now. It's like... They both shoot each other at the same time, guys. It's fine. yeah Which is trying to please everybody, which I'm not sure Lucasfilm are very good at that.
01:07:25
Speaker
A few tiny, we're right near the end of the film. We've almost gone through an order, which is not like how we've done this before. But yeah, it's kind good way. We're feeling our people. impressive um Luke's, have you seen this? There's like a story about this online somewhere about Luke's,
01:07:42
Speaker
Throughout the whole film, Luke is in black. And then just in the last scene where he's dragged his father to the the shuttle yeah and he's about to take his helmet off and you realise that his like black thing has come open and there's like a pale grey thing underneath. Oh, I didn't clock that. And the idea is that throughout the film, Luke's Jedi-ness is in question.
01:08:09
Speaker
Yeah. From the first time we see him and he force chokes some Gamorrean guards. Yeah. um Which is a dark side. Dark side trick. Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely not something a Jedi ever does. Yeah. um We didn't know that at the time, but looking back on it, it's is a thing. And I don't know how conscious all of that was. and Yeah. But yeah, I think we see like Luke's redeemed his father again.
01:08:34
Speaker
or helped his father redeem himself. Yeah. And in doing so, he's like achieved his final trial, which is to face his father. Yeah. And so the coat opens and it's got like the light side on the inside.
01:08:48
Speaker
So like he was always like inside. Yeah. It's just that we've been seeing him with this black, is he, is he going to turn? Is it is he isn't he? um It's hard for us because we've seen it so many times. many times, yeah. The first time you saw it, you didn't know if he's going to turn because the Emperor is very persuasive. Very persuasive and right there. As Vader dies, we get the Imperial March on a harp.
01:09:11
Speaker
Yeah. Very high harp strings. Ding, ding, ding. That was lovely. So good.
Mark Hamill's Growth as Luke Skywalker
01:09:16
Speaker
Mark Hamill crushes this film, I really feel. Yeah. like he He really brings Luke to where we need him.
01:09:22
Speaker
He does because he's so – I find him bordering on annoying. for the Yeah, yeah. And some of that's like his character's purposefully written by that. Yeah, yeah. But like, yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
01:09:35
Speaker
Yeah. Whereas this, and and a lot of that I think is his acting had just, like he'd done a lot of stuff by this point, whereas when he did A New Hope he hadn't done very much. so Yeah, yeah, yeah. it was ah It was a good learning curve for him. And by this point, the scene at the Ewok party when he's there and the way he's just...
01:09:55
Speaker
ah burned his dad's body and yeah like gone back to the party and reconnected with everyone. like The way he greets Lando and the others. So good. Shout out to Wedge, by the way. who's like He's survived all three... All of them.
01:10:12
Speaker
All three films. Yeah, that's impressive. Not many of them did. And he survives onwards. We have him. He's in the Aftermath trilogy. Well, we see him in Rise of Skywalker briefly. um Yeah.
01:10:25
Speaker
Played by Ewan McGregor's uncle. See? Yeah.
01:10:33
Speaker
Which absolutely surreal. um Do you have any... I think we've done most of the questions that I normally ask along the way. Have you got any additional questions?
Complex Emotions in Battle Celebrations
01:10:44
Speaker
Oh, ah I noticed again in this one we've got some more whooping of great loss of life.
01:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, so disturbing. Which really freaks me out. I don't like it. Yeah, like all the Mon Calamari's behind Ackbar. Ackbar's showing a bit of like respect when the Superstar Destroyer crashes down. Yeah, yeah. like tens of thousands of lives. That's thousands people. And he's given it a good bit of like,
01:11:12
Speaker
The burden of war. and in the background, all the other monk elves are just like leaping around, screaming in joy. yes I mean, I've never been in the heat of battles. It's funny that. No, it just feels wrong. it does feel a bit, yeah. Wrong, a little bit.
Yoda's Personality and Meme Culture
01:11:29
Speaker
And the only other thing we haven't talked about is Yoda, really. Yeah. Yoda in this one. Yeah, we skipped that middle bit. He's had a bit of a personality shift again. Yeah. He's back to being a bit more serious. I think he knows his minutes from death. Have you seen the meme about um he parenting? Yeah, the seagulls. Oh, no, no. The meme about parenting. I'm talking about the badly breeding.
01:11:51
Speaker
Which is... Now that I'm a parent, I finally understand. I'm not a parent, by the way. But there's a meme that says, now that I'm a parent, I finally understand why Yoda just dies after Luke asks too many questions.
01:12:06
Speaker
He gets so tired of answering Luke's questions, he just dies. I think I may have seen that. I may have seen that. I remember when The Force Awakens came out, there was a meme of like Yoda when he's lying on his on his side with a blanket you' saying, The Force Awakens. The Force needs a few more minutes. Yeah.
01:12:24
Speaker
<unk> And of yeah, okay, while we're on memes, there's a meme of Jojo, I think it is. Oh, yeah. Or is it Admiral Peart? No, it's Admiral Peart. And he says, it's an older code, sir, but it checks out. Oh, yeah. just when And there's like, it's there's an old it's an older meme, sir, but it checks out. It's a meme that you see in comment sections underneath the meme. Love, love, love it.
01:12:49
Speaker
love So how how does Jedi rank with you now?
Why Return of the Jedi is a Favorite Film
01:12:54
Speaker
Last week, you i think you said Jedi was your favourite. Yeah. In agreement. Yeah, I think it might be.
01:13:02
Speaker
i think For all of the all of the above listed, we've talked about this for an hour and 20 minutes now. So for all of the above kind of reasons, I think it is i think it is my favourite. And I think it was my favourite as a kid because I think it's the one I watched over and over again.
01:13:21
Speaker
and that may have been kind of through dark fascination. We're not going to get into my psychology.
01:13:30
Speaker
Because I definitely did go towards things that scared me. Yeah, yeah i think it I think it might be my favourite of these three. Yeah. yeah Yeah, me too. I think i mean, i always used to say A New Hope, but that was sort of almost habit.
01:13:43
Speaker
Yeah. but But actually, if you sat me down and said, which one do you want to watch? I'd probably say Jedi. It's just such a beautifully paced movie. It's non-stop. There's fun. There's like...
01:13:55
Speaker
There's like very intense drama. Yeah, it's it's good. And the romance stuff is great. Yeah, i love all of it. yeah And Leia just being a badass. think Leia as a badass, it really brings me to this film. There's still something about romance in Star Wars that really...
01:14:14
Speaker
does something to me and I think it's my that whole I talked about it last time and being unable to watch yeah unable to watch scenes because I was a kid and I think there's still I still have some like hang-ups about some of the romance bits and it's not like current hang-ups it's like childhood hang-ups that come back up when I watch it again okay and I go no can't handle that I mean, but and as we as we'll see in a couple of weeks' time when we do Attack of the
Romance Awkwardness in Star Wars
01:14:44
Speaker
Clones.
01:14:44
Speaker
Oh, God, no. like we've We've all been scarred yeah by George Lucas' writing and directing. Yeah. i but To be fair, much as I love all Star Wars, there are some moments in Attack the Clones, particularly the romance bits, that are like...
01:14:59
Speaker
Oh gosh. Unwatchable. It's kind of unknown. It's another meme. I don't like sand. I even saw a meme about something to do with I don't like sand today. like great We're never going to let that one go. and as ah As a kid watching Han and Leia, I probably, don't know, I think I probably just glazed over yeah um a little bit.
01:15:21
Speaker
and But in self-defense probably because I was similar to you a little kid and didn't want to have to deal with that. No. um Although I guess by the time Empire came out, I was seven.
01:15:35
Speaker
And I think I was quite mature for my age at seven, like not emotionally, but like um in some ways. So maybe I could deal with it.
01:15:46
Speaker
don't know.
01:15:48
Speaker
No, it's taken me a long time to be able to deal with it. We'll track it. We'll track it. We'll see how uncomfortable Attack of the Clothes makes me feel. We know where going. It's going to make you feel very felt so uncomfortable. uncomfortable. I can't wait.
01:16:05
Speaker
I love them so much. um Yeah, I think this one's my favorite. That's what we're going for. Yeah, let's go. it for now, going have a bit of like, when we get to Revenge of the Sith, because I do love that one.
01:16:18
Speaker
Interesting. For different reasons, for different reasons, which we'll get into then.
Impact of 'Rogue One' and 'Solo' on Film Rankings
01:16:22
Speaker
I don't think the sequels are going to upset the the flow in this, but Rogue One and Solo might. Oh, controversial.
01:16:30
Speaker
They are very good films. Yeah. They're pretty much both flawless. Like I can't think of any bad things to say about either of them. Whereas all of the other six films, there are a few things where you're like, well, I'll gloss over it because I'm Star Wars lover. I'll gloss over that bit.
01:16:46
Speaker
Yeah. They're only little bits. Yeah, definitely. Well, this was amazing. Thank you for sharing. yeah thank you. Such good times about Return the Jedi. And thank you all for listening, yeah supporting the podcast. Don't forget to subscribe. And all those things. Yeah, give us a review if you can. Tell your friends, that's the best thing. You can tell your friends.
01:17:08
Speaker
you can You can leave reviews that we may or may not read depending on how nice you are. We'll 100% read. She says, I'll read them. I won't. yeah But yeah,
Engaging Listeners and Sharing Experiences
01:17:21
Speaker
definitely. If you've got Star Wars friends.
01:17:23
Speaker
Yes. And like send us messages on on Insta. yeah Like I want to hear what you think. Other people's memories of these films. Yeah, we're being like really self-indulgent just talking about. If you're another bisexual woman or pansexual person who has, who agrees, we're going to get the numbers. Who has thoughts about Leia dressed as a party hunter.
01:17:47
Speaker
If you've been affected by any of the costumes seen in Return of the Jedi. We'll be back.
Teaser for Next Episode: Phantom Menace
01:17:53
Speaker
Next week, we're going to be delving into Phantom Menace. Oh my God, I was sentient for this one.
01:18:00
Speaker
ah Love it. I was living at large in London at this point. Having whale of a time. Going with my cool London friends to Marble Arch to watch it.
01:18:13
Speaker
Well, we'll talk about that next week. We will. will. Okay, until then, bye. Bye.