BIG DOORS: Return of the Jedi

[00:00:00] JOSH: Welcome to Trash Compactor. I'm Josh and joining me today is Russ

[00:00:11] RUSS: Hi.

[00:00:11] JOSH: Mickey.

[00:00:12] MICKEY: Hey.

[00:00:13] JOSH: and Frey.

[00:00:13] FREY: Hello.

[00:00:14] JOSH: And today we will be talking about return of the Jedi, the final installment and the original star wars trilogy episode six in the chronological story of the star wars Skywalker saga,

[00:00:29] so where do you rank Jedi in terms of let's talk about the original trilogy, where do you rank.

[00:00:35] FREY: In my heart, I think because it was for so long when I was a kid, I almost sometimes feel like I want to put it first. even though if like, I kinda know better, like empire is so much better in so many ways, but the thing is that like, uh, Jedi is built like a, like a dark red, like Disney world.

[00:00:53] so it's kind of like immersive in that artificial way. it's kind of hard to fall out of love with that.

[00:00:58] from like when you were a kid.

[00:00:58] JOSH: so that's another question I was going to follow up with, but since you brought it up, this your favorite when you were a kid?

[00:01:04] FREY: Well, I watched the German empire, I think the first time I saw them. maybe one. And so for awhile, they were just kind of like one five-hour monolith of the movie in my mind. And then I remember like, uh, the way I started differentiate them was that the empire was the, laugh it up fuzzball movie, because my dad would always repeat that line to my sister and I, and we just thought it was super funny. And then, um, you know, when my brain was like slightly, just slightly more developed, I remember like, when I was like 10 to 12 years old, I was like watching some younger kids down the street. And I remember we were watching like the, uh, that Rankin Basque, Christmas special, like with your, without Santa Claus, like one with, the snow miser.

[00:01:39] He reminds her song, which is weird. Cause it was like mid April, and then we put on return of the Jedi after that. And I kind of have like a new awakening with that. It was like, this is brilliant. Like these dumb little kids before me don't understand the artistry. and then I went home and Italy. But then, but then, so then from that point on for awhile, that was like easily my favorite one. And then it kind of maybe gradually shifted at some point from there, but it's still like, still kind of have to put it above like new hope, even if it's, if I have to put on power of the pair of Tom.

[00:02:11] JOSH: That's interesting. Russ, what about you? Where do you rank it now? And where did you rank it when you were a kid or.

[00:02:18] RUSS: Uh, top marks across the board. Uh, it was number one as a kid. Uh, also it was the first star wars that I saw. So I think, I must've been somewhere between the ages of like three and five. I remember, um, I was sick from day camp at the time and, uh, my dad had left me a VHS tape.

[00:02:35] I had never seen star wars. I only knew of it roughly from him talking about it. And, uh, yeah, so returning to that was the first one I saw. number one back then, uh, number one now, uh, which, uh, the modern cinephile would say empire strikes back. but I know better it's returned.

[00:02:50] Uh, for sure. Uh, I, I can see through all the, uh, all the art it's, it's the purest of, uh, of star wars experiences. It's amplified in all the ways. It's like everything they've took to movies to get it right. Jedi is just a as perfection for me.

[00:03:06] JOSH: Well, that's interesting. I want to, follow up with both what you said and something that for, I said, but, uh, Mickey, where do you rank Jetta? I returned the.

[00:03:14] MICKEY: Now I rank it. I rank it third. , definitely not my favorite as a kid. I think, I think empire was my favorite as a kid. Um, but I think I, yeah, even young, I would say then it was new hope and then no, no. As a kid, I'd say Jedi was second and then new hope was last. we watching now, like I would say, I think new hope, um, is more cinema in a, in a pure sense where like, like Frye said that, you know, and rewatching this, this return of GI now is like, to me, it's like almost like, um, it's separate from those two movies and the original star, you know, the original Disney.

[00:03:48] , star wars, ride, and world experience and return a jet. I are actually two it's more related to that. I get a sense that there, to me, there is artifice of watching this, like watching one sermon. There's like kind of artifice of like, I can see the, the moving pieces behind the scenes of this being more commerce than a movie.

[00:04:06] Start to kind of show that we're real to me rear its head more and in the next one. Um, but, but as a kid, it was more fun than to meet the new hope. I don't know why, like that's kind of like, obviously already did an empire one. I don't wanna get too much into it, but there was just something about like even young, you know, even like, it seems like it's a darker, more complex movie that still I thought was cooler.

[00:04:26] But then, but then the space battles, I mean, honestly the, the, the indoor commando scenes and this, the big space fleet battle that me as a kid were like, yes, this is my second favorite one. Cause this stuff is awesome. I would also say it kind of like, you know, talking about like vibes. It did have, I felt like one and two had more like Friday night let's order a pizza as a family, some popcorn and make it a cinematic experience where the third one was more of a like, okay, I'm awake at like 11:00 AM on Saturday and that's bright daylight, but I'm going to watch this one, you know, it's kind of a, less of a cinematic experience, but more of a, yeah.

[00:04:59] Um, it's interesting. Cause it works slider too. It's a much lighter movie there. I mean it's tattooing end or other than I guess the throne room and the space battle, you know, compared to like an icy cold world and asteroid belts, you know, type of thing. It, it, it, to me, it's a much brighter movie.

[00:05:15] JOSH: You mean, you mean literally

[00:05:16] brighter?

[00:05:17] MICKEY: bright.

[00:05:17] Yeah.

[00:05:18] JOSH: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:19] MICKEY: think if you're talking vibes, it kind of goes into that vibe of like, this is more of like the Saturday, you know, maybe even half paying attention, but as a kid that's, I'm, I'm paying attention to the stuff I think is cool. And that's why I enjoy, I enjoy.

[00:05:31] JOSH: Yeah.

[00:05:31] RUSS: Um,

[00:05:32] MICKEY: so yeah, I'd say second as a kid.

[00:05:33] It wasn't my favorite, if I was my favorite, but it was, I liked it better, but now, now watching it third .It's still

[00:05:39] good.

[00:05:41] JOSH: yeah. , first of all, I do think it's interesting that that even as a kid, you thought that empire was your favorite. But what I will say to that, you know, there is this like mood and tone, that's kind of mysterious about empire that like, that like really draws you in and makes you lean in a little bit.

[00:05:56] So I think as a kid, I knew there was something going on that was intriguing to me, an empire. Um, but yes, as a kid return to the Jedi was my favorite, for all the reasons that you said Mickey spectacle of the battle over end or, and on end or, I mean like that whole, the intercutting between those three sequences like that whole space battle was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen and stood as like the most amazing, impressive space battle in film TV, like it was like the gold standard for a long, long time. I do think there's something to what you said, fry. is kind of an amusement park ride and it's kind of constructed that way a little bit. in my mind return of the Jedi is a lot of, it's like a string of set pieces and I think it is consciously designed to be that way.

[00:06:46] I think Lucas, took a lot of lessons from Raiders of the lost Ark, which was also consciously designed to be like a string of set pieces.

[00:06:55] MICKEY: Yeah, no, I agree with like what you're saying. And like, I think something that really highlights that to me is the kind of back and forth nature. Of the final battle, especially on end or when they're taking things back and forth. And to me, I don't want something like that, like really screams, like using the park ride or when it was amusement park shows you to go see at Disney or whatever, where it's like, now we have the upper hand and now we have it.

[00:07:13] And it's just that it's a roller coaster almost.

[00:07:16] JOSH: Yeah, well, for me, the real thing is it's like, the speeder bike, Jace is really emblematic of it. It's like, and now is the speeder bike chase. The movie sort of stops to have an action set piece that is like totally unnecessary. Right.

[00:07:29] MICKEY: Yeah.

[00:07:30] JOSH: I mean, it's cool. And it's fun.

[00:07:32] but like from like a plot standpoint, from like a moving the story forward standpoint, it does nothing to develop the characters. It does nothing to move the story forward. Like it is like just there because we want to have an awesome. chase in this movie,

[00:07:44] FREY: when you were talking about how there is something about empire, even when you were a kid that pulls you in, that's kind of like it's in the way, in the sense of it's kind of dark. I think a good example of that for empire is, uh, the

[00:07:55] RUSS: Um,

[00:07:55] FREY: bog, like when R2D2 is like, kind of like caked in bud,

[00:07:58] like, I feel like that's like a kind of a piece of like set direction that like wouldn't happen and cause it's more, it's a little more clean like that.

[00:08:05] Like it's more like we're on rails.

[00:08:07] JOSH: yeah,

[00:08:08] no, that's true.

[00:08:09] FREY: thing. Like I be like, that's like a natural hold over in, uh, empire from like the original one.

[00:08:14] JOSH: That's interesting. this actually speaks to something Russ said, and Mickey said, uh, Russ, you said this was like the most star wars, star wars. Like it even out star wars is star wars. Right. And, Mickey, you said that you were kind of starting to feel the artifice a little bit and like, see, you know, get a sense of why certain things were happening from the behind the scenes thing.

[00:08:36] What I can't on see, from the vantage point we have now is that this is where the prequels start like return of the Jedi is the prequel to the Phantom menace, everything that, people deride about the Phantom menace can be found right here in this movie, the veteran medicines is returned to the Jedi, but more so in the end sequence.

[00:08:56] You don't have t hree set pieces that you're cutting between you have four and in The Phantom Menace you don't have the Ewoks, you have the Empire right. And I said, this in the last podcast about Empire, but basically for me, where Star Wars, I don't want to say goes wrong because I don't think it's wrong.

[00:09:14] but the gravity of making Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker's father, warps the rest of the movies around that. Right., so when you have that twist at the end of Empire Strikes Back, you know, Return of the Jedi has to be about Luke and Vader. And then, one of the things that I think Return of the Jedi is often criticized for is convenience of tying up the other Luke and Leia, brother and sister. And can feel a lot of that sort of continuing on in prequels, like arguably the prequels, that's completely, what they are is those. Kind of conveniences of like, of tying everything together and, you know, making these people related. So it all interconnects and like explaining stuff that know, makes the whole world of the movie and the saga quote-unquote feel a little bit smaller and convenient.

[00:10:03] I think the prequels start here. as my point.

[00:10:06] MICKEY: Yeah. I mean, if you think about like all the things that they talk about, the behind the scenes stuff that was going on, it there's, you know, there's a lot of debate, but like a lot of people say like in the end, this was mainly a Lucas directed movie. He really started picking up and directing a lot more because of the drama that's rumors.

[00:10:21] Like I, you know, it's one of those things where it's, I don't think I'll ever be proven, but that he did step in for stepped in a right off the bat more than he did in empire, I think.

[00:10:29] FREY: I actually heard it was the opposite. The thing that I was listening to him talk at this, uh, I forget what it was, but it's from like 2010 and he was talking about how he was on set a lot more, like he actually meant to not be allowed and settle out and empire and it turns out he was error than he expected to be.

[00:10:44] And then for Jedi, he ended up being like, almost totally not there.

[00:10:49] JOSH: Well, having read the Jonathan Rinzler, making of fraternal, the Jedi I'm making of empire, he certainly was on the set of empire more than he thought he would have to be. And I think he was on set. so I watched from star wars to Jedi last night, and obviously, the documentary camera crew captures wherever they capture.

[00:11:09] but Lucas was giving a lot of direction and Richard mark, Wanda and George Lucas would be standing there. The actors would go over to George Lucas and ask him what he thought. So, so, you know, I very much get the sense that, um, obviously we weren't there. We don't know, we only have these, first and second hand accounts from other people. but this, this ties into a place where I want it to start the choice of director and Richard. Marquand why Richard mark wand, and preparation for this, I, and I know. at least a couple of you, have I watched the movie that Richard Markwan directed right before this, that got him the job?

[00:11:44] 1980 ones. I have the needles starring Donald Sutherland, which I thought was a really great fucking, really awesome movie. Like it was it's from a genre. That's really up my alley. You know, it felt kind of like a, a popcorn version of like, of like tinker tailor, soldier, spy, I thought it was really,

[00:11:59] FREY: thriller.

[00:12:00] JOSH: yeah, no. I watched the movie. It was really good. I enjoyed it very much, but I don't get the sense from watching it.

[00:12:07] Oh, okay. This is the guy who has to do the next star wars, except that the moments between the characters, he clearly demonstrates in that, in that movie, he can direct actors, he can work with actors and he can direct action. And I feel like what happened with Richard Marquand is sort of what happens now.

[00:12:25] When, you know, somebody like a Gareth Edwards or like a Ryan Coogler, or like, a column Trevor, like you have an indie hit, right. And then you immediately get scooped up by some studio to make a franchise movie. Like you do a Marvel movie or a star wars movie, frankly, like,

[00:12:43] yeah.

[00:12:44] MICKEY: And what, and it was like Lynch was also a possibility too, and would have been the same

[00:12:46] JOSH: Yes.

[00:12:47] MICKEY: because 83, what did, when she even do, he would have been super Indy

[00:12:50] at that point.

[00:12:51] FREY: before

[00:12:52] JOSH: no. Well, he had done a razor head and he had done a yes. And he had won the Oscar for, for ultra man. I think he won an Oscar. I think that movie won an Oscar. Didn't it? I don't know. Anyway. Yeah. As a huge David Lynch fan, I would've loved to have seen the David Lynch return of the Jedi, but I think we, kind of know what that is.

[00:13:08] It's it's dune. Yeah. and I don't know if you guys are familiar with the story, how David Lynch recounts, the meeting that he had with George Lucas. he says that he met with him and they went out to some restaurant for lunch that only served salad and he thought that that was very weird and. George Lucas was describing the movie would Lynch had this, like this awful headache. And he couldn't really concentrate on what, on what George Lucas was saying, he was like, and then he was talking about these like little Teddy bears or whatever.

[00:13:36] And, in my head was just throbbing. And eventually I said, George, like, does it really seems like you're your baby. Like, you have an idea for what this is. you should direct us. Like, you don't need me to do this. And I that was a very canny thing that he understood.

[00:13:49] He got the sense that, oh, he wants someone that he can tell what to do. And I think in Markwan, he had a director that was, um, willing to

[00:14:00] RUSS: Pliable.

[00:14:00] JOSH: collaborate. Yeah.

[00:14:02] to be generous.

[00:14:03] MICKEY: having to do with the DGA was.

[00:14:05] FREY: Oh, yeah,

[00:14:06] JOSH: I mean, that's certainly true.

[00:14:07] FREY: but there's also other parts of the needle that, uh, kind of maybe just cause I was watching it in the context of star wars and like how in my connected, but I mean, it takes place. Most of it takes place island called storm island

[00:14:19] like it's storming there and there's like a cliff side and I was like, this is kind of like a star wars planet, like

[00:14:24] this, the setting of it.

[00:14:25] and also like you said, yeah. I think more than even the other star wars movies, there are kind of like actor moments and return of the Jedi.

[00:14:32] RUSS: Okay.

[00:14:33] FREY: thinking of when I was watching that too, because there there's one extended, well, I'm probably a couple of button, either needle, but there's like one extended sequence between whole dinosaurs and like the, the, uh, canine.

[00:14:44] like a five to 10 minutes scene of just the two of them talking. And then, and Jedi there's we get back-to-back scenes of Luke talking to Yoda and Luke talking to obiwan and it's just like the

[00:14:54] stretch of dialogue.

[00:14:55] JOSH: Yeah. So basically, so what I think Lucas saw was he was like, okay, here's a guy. He can direct the actors. Great. And then I can do all this stuff that I want to do. I mean, essentially is the vibe that I get I do not want to denigrate Richard mark Juan's work on this because having now seen, I have the new.

[00:15:12] which I think is a really solid, very entertaining, very well-made movie obviously, or was, um, he passed away, far too young, but he obviously was a very talented, capable director. And, um, I was reading, secrets of the force, which is a book that came out, I think this year or last year, an unauthorized oral history of star wars by mark Altman and Edward Gross.

[00:15:35] And they have a lot of, of archival interviews with Richard Markwan that I had never read or heard before, where he basically says, like, he knew what this was and he was down, he respected star wars. he was on board with George's vision of it, and he wanted to help him realize that in whatever way he could, whereas like an urban Kirschner. And, uh, Gary Kurtz, the producer who did not produce return of the Jedi, but he did the first two, you know, I think they had different visions of what this should be or what this could be that, I don't think George Lucas, I don't want to say he didn't want to, take the time to listen, but I feel like this point, for many, many reasons, had very specific ideas of what this movie should be and how it should be done.

[00:16:20] And he wanted it done. think being the operative word, I think he was over star wars at this point. And I think he just, he wanted to, wrap up the trilogy so he could, he could move on, and, uh, pick up the pieces of, of his life.

[00:16:34] MICKEY: Yeah, you almost get, there's like a sense of maybe like star wars was a monkey's paw to

[00:16:38] RUSS: Okay.

[00:16:39] MICKEY: Lucas, where he

[00:16:40] created one of the greatest things. And then by returning the Jetta, it's just like this it's an albatross.

[00:16:45] JOSH: It was, and I would argue that, it really took him about a decade kind of re fall in love with his own creation and, Be gained, to spend another decade plus of his life, involved with it. I think he came to peace with that, but I think, you know, that kind of crazy success pressure and crazy whirlwind of, you know, being the eye of the storm of a cultural phenomenon, the likes of which I don't know.

[00:17:11] We'll see another quite like, again, I don't know if it's possible to create something of this kind of seismic cultural

[00:17:20] force.

[00:17:21] MICKEY: Marbles kind of doing something similar, but not quite,

[00:17:24] RUSS: But that's adapted.

[00:17:26] Like that's, that's an adapted universe that already existed. So I look at star wars as being a wholly original written for screen. Well, wholly original. And then it's, you know, it's a proxy for dune, but you know, wholly original in its own way. You know what he's trying to do. and Marvel universe is like people I've heard from, uh, from adults, with children, who have seen star wars and the children's eight, forget about star wars.

[00:17:47] The minute they leave the theater, but they're talking about Marvel, like Marvel is their star wars. Now that's just how it shook out a star wars doesn't the interest for a lot of, necessary true of all, all children, but in the same way that I think it did for many of us

[00:18:00] MICKEY: You don't. I w I want to say, I'm sorry. I just say Ghostbusters. I think might've been the closest possible, like next thing that was star wars. Ask that.

[00:18:09] RUSS: could have been.

[00:18:10] Yeah.

[00:18:11] FREY: Right. But, uh, also I was going to say Marvel, um, is also just basically like TV, like right. Almost right from the beginning. I mean, star wars is now too, but the reason that Marvel is able to be what it is is because it basically functions like TB.

[00:18:24] MICKEY: Yeah, it became a juggernaut. but it had to really

[00:18:26] RUSS: Yeah.

[00:18:27] MICKEY: worked at it where like, it was spontaneous with star wars. It was a flash in the pan thing that grew organically where there, like with the Marvel, like what they've graded that felt like they have worked to make it that, um, type of thing.

[00:18:41] RUSS: Flashing the pan, the whole stove caught fire.

[00:18:44] MICKEY: Yeah.

[00:18:44] JOSH: let's start at the beginning. we have another death star. How do we feel about this?

[00:18:48] RUSS: I could tell you as a kid, I thought this was the original death star that was still left over after the explosion.

[00:18:53] JOSH: Interesting.

[00:18:54] RUSS: I was three or four I didn't know any better. Uh, and I was like,

[00:18:59] FREY: kind of makes it seem like that. It's just

[00:19:00] RUSS: yeah, it's like oh, it's broken. Yeah. They, they blasted a chunk and it's still going. I was, no idea. This was like, all right.

[00:19:07] That's why it's still there. Otherwise in a million years, like why would you build the desk? Sorry, again.

[00:19:11] FREY: Well, I th no, I always kind of liked it cause it's like, kind of like a, now it's like a real, like symbol of terror, because like they rebuilt the structure of that. Like the, destruction of that represented, like their big win. I was just like, looking at what's almost, your win is almost erased.

[00:19:24] is there like memorizing

[00:19:26] JOSH: Oh, that's interesting. I really liked that. I never thought of it that way. I really liked that read.

[00:19:30] RUSS: It's bigger too, right? It's like twice the size

[00:19:33] JOSH: Well, yeah. So, I mean, so I mean, yes, like if you read like the role-playing book or whatever, it's like twice the size or whatever, functionally on screen.

[00:19:40] It's exactly the same

[00:19:41] though. It is a very striking image.

[00:19:43] RUSS: Well, let me pose this to you. Uh, it's the forest moon of endorse. So, uh, in the, like that's no moon, that's a space station, but now it's a moon of a moon. So it really is nothing. Like, if you think about it like this, it's just not that

[00:19:55] big. It's a moon of a,

[00:19:57] yeah, it's a moon of a moon. Come on like that.

[00:19:58] That's tiny. That's that's not that a fear. You're fine.

[00:20:02] JOSH: no.

[00:20:02] MICKEY: there's talk like behind the scenes of issues, they didn't want to do the desktop for the first movie. Right. was something that like had already envisioned there being a whole saga and it ends at the desktop. But then he's

[00:20:12] RUSS: Uh,

[00:20:12] MICKEY: I only make the first one, I got to kind of throw the desk star in

[00:20:14] at the first.

[00:20:15] RUSS: Yup.

[00:20:16] JOSH: yeah, I mean, that's, when he made the first one, I don't think there was any question that it was going to end the way that it ended, I think. at least 50%, like the point of the whole exercise was to have the massive space battle at the end.

[00:20:28] So, so obviously it was going to end up in that first movie. when you reach the third one you reach the end of that original plot, there's a Deathstar sized hole in the finale. There was a lot of talk in story conferences about, the end battle happening over the capital city planet of the empire, which I feel like would make a lot more sense if you want to really feel like this is the decisive blow to the empire, the rebels have one. The reason they didn't go with that, was, a budgetary thing. George Lucas didn't think that they could uh, Ford or realistically pull off the effects and the sets that having a city planet would require.

[00:21:10] So that's actually one of the few things that I know he's talking about when, he always says in interviews and stuff, like I have to wait to make the prequels until the technology was there to do it. and I was always kind of like, what are you talking about? I don't really understand exactly what he's thinking when he says that, except this is something that I, know he's talking about.

[00:21:27] He was like, I can't do a city planet on that scale, realistically, whether or not that's true. I mean, look, I wasn't George Lucas in 1983, he obviously knew, what, his company could do and how far the money would go. I think it would have been cool to have seen what, 1983 technology, how it would have rendered an environment like that.

[00:21:48] RUSS: Yeah. I mean, to take it back to death star as like the opening of the movie, something I always thought, even as a kid, like, this is big, like we're coming, we're coming a shuttle craft out of a big star destroyer, or we're going to the Steph star and it feels possibly like I can see it looks, it feels bigger than the, uh, the first death star, but big doorways, big bays, big, big, wide, long shots.

[00:22:11] Like it feels really, um, isn't, it there's like this, this of like enormous spaces sort of thing, like in the space, it's all kind of there and it feels rigid, very controlled, very manufactured. There's not that camera motion that you would see in like leader star wars films. it's just, it's very static, locked off shots, you know, some moving, but, um, very, very like parallel, perpendicular.

[00:22:38] There's not a lot of twists and turns. very, um, sterile in a way. And that's it's. And I think that that starts to build a sense of, uh, ominous fear that, you know, uh, for boating, uh, that the emperor is kind of like, this is huge. They have a lot of gear here. This is a, this is pretty scary.

[00:22:56] So it's a good way to lead in with always, always open with your bill and.

[00:23:00] JOSH: Yeah. Well, that's interesting too, because I think there's a lot to what you're saying, but, I think that the static minus of the shots I think is also, intentional in that. You know, star wars was a movie that was really made in the editing room and empire strikes back.

[00:23:15] The shots are much more dynamic with like the tapes are longer and Irvin Kershner is constantly using the camera, he's settling on new compositions and stuff and you can't really, you can't really cut around that. And I think it's no secret that, George Lucas is he considered himself to be more of an editor than I don't want to say a director, but like his favorite part of the process was the editing process.

[00:23:36] And I think, when you're working with a director that is not shooting for the edit, he's not. Getting all the coverage. He's not giving you the choices to have later in the editing room. I think that was really, frustrating from an editor standpoint, on empire, he couldn't make it the way he wanted it because of the way it was shot. so I think that, with mark wan, he found someone who would shoot it in a traditional way, not in a bad way, but like he would get the coverage and he would, shoot for the edit, which is a valid thing.

[00:24:04] MICKEY: Yeah, it's kind of funny. Cause like thinking back on like the shot, there's not like a lot. a dynamic things you're talking about like, like camera movements and be just no, like blocking, that really stands out to me thinking that, I mean, maybe the, the door opening on Luke is really like, when you think of a shot, that's a cool, that's the one, but that's really kind of, it may maybe some of the throne room sites, but what it really reminds me is like, especially when you hit the nineties with comedies, the way those were shot, up until present, they would call me to just kind of very static, very still shots with comedy as they do for the reason of like, it allows the actors to riff and, improvise and things like that.

[00:24:36] it's kinda, it's kind of like the same idea. It gives, it gives less power to the, the camera operator, to the person and their, but, but more opportunities for fixing later. And I, yeah, I definitely think, especially compared to empire, in terms of like, yeah, things like blocking camera movements or just like composition there's, there's not a lot that stands out to me.

[00:24:53] Um, as much as there was like an empire even star wars, um, again, like really just the door of Java's is open and Luke is like the one I kind of image that. Think of in a sense.

[00:25:04] FREY: Josh, you did mention that one possible Markwan, uh, touch what the, uh, the handheld shot.

[00:25:09] JOSH: Oh yeah. So something later on. So, so this shot always stuck out to me. I think the first shot when we're on, the rebel cruiser, we're inside the ship and we're following these, um, soldier, rebel guys, or whatever, through a hallway. And it opens up into the briefing room. That shot is a handheld shot. And I think it's first maybe only handheld shot and the entire trilogy.

[00:25:32] And what made me realize that was watching eye of the needle because very similarly, you would have a lot of scenes where, uh, the coverage was, you know, very standard, punctuated with these, occasional handheld shots. Then once I watched return of the Jedi again, after having seen eye of the needle, I was like, oh, okay.

[00:25:51] Like, that's a mark wand shot. Like he decided it's like, okay, now I'm going to do a handheld and just see what I get, which again is a very, is the editor's mindset.

[00:26:00] FREY: It also kinda reminded me of the, uh, like just say circa 1971, conspiracy thriller for a moment there. It was just like

[00:26:06] JOSH: Yeah. Yeah. Right,

[00:26:07] FREY: on there.

[00:26:08] RUSS: Yeah. I mean, I disagree that the, uh, the shots don't really have a lot of presence, especially the opening, uh, for me always has, they kind of look like, some like, you know, seventies, CII book, cover paintings, these really kind of rigid lines and kind of flat panels. so it, it definitely works for me.

[00:26:25] And I feel like, um, in the lack of motion, uh, even, even if it isn't, uh, uh, Like a, like a choice, even if it's more of a technical choice that they need to shoot. These things were static, whether they're matte shots or not, or they're composited. Um, I feel like it sets a certain stage, because as soon as you go to tattooing, uh, and we follow a C three PO and R2D2, uh, go into Java's palace, um, it cuts to the shot of them walking.

[00:26:55] And it's a wide, we see a little landscape, we see Jabba's palace the distance. it goes to a shot where it's a wide and they're standing at the door, uh, on the right side of frame, which is a big. Like, it just feels the whole frame. And for me, uh, that like return the Jerry is about big doors like that.

[00:27:13] That's like one of the major themes of the film and like big, big doors. And, it really sets the scale. We were like, all right. So whoever's behind this big door is pretty important, cause that's a really big door. Um, and like a big, slow moving door. That's the other factor. Like things move slowly because they're big.

[00:27:30] It's, you know, it's a matter of scale, uh, it really feel it fills the frame and it really does feel like more of a theatrical set piece. It feels like a stage play. I always used to think the Phantom menace felt like, like, why are they performing this? Like, it's a play. Like, why are they just like a little diorama's that they're in?

[00:27:47] And then now I'm looking at return to Jedi and I'm seeing like, oh no, this is, this is kind of what it's always been. Like let's show the space. Let's show that the texture of the crack wall. And, and that's really what we're getting here. So I think there, there is a character to, um, these wide, uh, kind of shots there.

[00:28:05] There really are kind of like moving paintings for me. And maybe

[00:28:08] that's, it's a little, there's some like Barry, Lyndon this to it, you know, for

[00:28:12] me, uh,

[00:28:13] which I love.

[00:28:14] JOSH: disagree with you. Like it's a, mean, it's a taste thing. It's a style thing. Like, I'm not saying that, you know, one is right and the other is wrong. I do think lot of the imagery in this movie certainly is very striking. the incompleted death star in this movie is very striking.

[00:28:30] It's a very striking image, , in a way that, the first one was not, I certainly think that this is, um, much more imposing and there is something to what you're saying about scale, And again, I watched from star wars to Jedi last night and, mark Hamill as the narrator, but also the interview with George Lucas in that movie, they were both saying like return of the Jedi is doing what he wanted to do with star wars.

[00:28:54] And a lot of that was scale, right?

[00:28:57] RUSS: the most hours you can get

[00:28:59] FREY: as far as the scale that you're talking about, like, I think that is one big part of return of Jedi is just like, uh, in terms of the set designers, like there's a huge focus on like architecture, even a job was palace, uh, the new death star. Like it's all, I think that is where the visual, comes in.

[00:29:17] RUSS: the money, went into production design for sure.

[00:29:19] MICKEY: know, I was saying the camera, like, yeah, maybe a little down on the camera work, but I think the production design is the best of the whole trilogy. Although that might relate to like, again, it's like the wheels are coming off and this is commerce and this is just selling toys.

[00:29:30] aspect of it

[00:29:31] again is if that's where, you know, we're kind of reaching that it's like, like the B

[00:29:34] wings in a wings are cool. Like, those are a great addition of a new thing, but is that just because, oh, I, oh, but maybe not, maybe I'm just being a little like too, you know,

[00:29:44] JOSH: I mean, I don't think you're wrong. Um, also something to, well, if we're just doing the death star again, we have to make it a little different.

[00:29:53] MICKEY: Yeah.

[00:29:53] JOSH: We have to add some new, some new fighters, some new designs, and we have to make it, I mean, that one shot the first shot where we see all the tie fighters and then the next shot after it, the one where the Falcon flies through those zillions of tie fighters.

[00:30:06] Like that shot

[00:30:07] It's it's it's it's just amazing. I mean, it wasn't 1983. It still is

[00:30:12] MICKEY: And it's not just the more shifts it's the costumes are cooler, like the commando and door commando costumes. And then all the aliens and Jabba's palace it's. it's really cool.

[00:30:22] FREY: I look like they're dusters with like the, it looks like they're like spray painted. It's a very like, kind of abs like cyber punk style almost.

[00:30:28] RUSS: fry, where you going to ask if they ever made a job as palace place at,

[00:30:31] FREY: Yes.

[00:30:33] RUSS: uh, they had it, they had job on a rolling, like platform, like his, like his little lounge area. I think they had like a cardboard dire Rama. Like I could be wrong. I know they made that leader like the power of the force figures.

[00:30:46] they had like a cardboard diorama's like Sarone room set up, but, uh, and they did remake the, the Java on the, uh, on the, the, the rolling, uh, platform.

[00:30:54] MICKEY: I have

[00:30:54] like an R2D2 thing that like

[00:30:56] came up part into Jabba's palace type of thing. It was like, it was like R2D2, maybe like a foot big, and then you would open him up. And the inside was Jabba's palace with like

[00:31:07] little

[00:31:08] RUSS: You're talking about the micro machines, the

[00:31:10] goat.

[00:31:12] MICKEY: yeah.

[00:31:12] RUSS: Oh, so I have a good follow-up to lead into like Java's palace since we're kind of hanging out there. , when that little eyeball pops out of the door, like I always liked that it a little, little glowy or pops that little flips up. Like a lot of those small details I think was what interests me as a kid. Um, and, and it was kind of like stays in my mind, but like a slow moving door.

[00:31:33] And then they walk in, it's shadowy, there's a good Marine guard there. And the guard is drooling when they, when they see him light, light, like Juul, like coming out of his mouth. And, uh, I was like hot pink guy. And, like, as a kid, as a kid, you're like, all right. So they got these rolling in there. It's a big guy.

[00:31:49] There's this like, uh, spider Crawley, like, uh, bringing in jar guy, BMR monk moving by, and, and the super dark. And I think a lot of the character for me of good star wars is like shadow beams of light, which are. Uh, especially in this film a lot more like of those like blue, blue beams of light, but also the fog and mist and whatever, whatever space opium, spice they're smoking and Java's palace is like all floating around and like giving like so much texture where like, sometimes you just can't see, it's like a shadow.

[00:32:22] You don't really know what's going on in that part of Java's palace. it really makes it feel both lived in, which is one of the great parts of star wars. And it feels like you don't know what's around the corner. You don't know, who's like, uh, sleeping, you know, a drunk over in the corner at Jabba's palace.

[00:32:38] Uh, and, and that's like for me, one of the best parts of, I mean, one of the best parts about this whole movie in general is the Java sequence. for me, one of the best, uh, however many minutes of a star wars film is everything related to Java's palace.

[00:32:52] FREY: Well, what you're describing is like the same reason why the only special mission change that I hate and I can combine with almost everything else, but the, uh, the song to the change to like Jedi rocks and like the in that scene, like in the

[00:33:06] JOSH: Yeah, man. Lap Teaneck is awesome.

[00:33:08] FREY: yeah, Latina kids. Great.

[00:33:09] Did you, I was looking at the lyrics. I can read those later if you

[00:33:13] RUSS: Okay,

[00:33:13] FREY: but, uh, uh, but yeah, like the original version, it had the feeling of like being a little kid and like an adult space and like, you're kind of don't know what's going on. But then, you know, it's bad.

[00:33:23] RUSS: well,

[00:33:23] FREY: like now it's like a, like a soft, like Muppets version where with like, wait, like weightless CGI. And like, the wholesome boomer humor, like, you know, like somebody going to laugh at it. It's the only part where like, where, I know star wars as a whole is family-friendly, but like, it's like this like is actively not made for me right now.

[00:33:38] RUSS: It's terrifying. And also like you walk in and the music that's playing, it's like a job as Baroque recital. I think it is on the, uh, on the track. And like, I'm a big harpsichord fan. So whenever you, you like modify that and put it in the space, like the music and job was palace rocks. Like it is good, good music like star wars or not.

[00:33:55] I can listen to anytime

[00:33:56] and.

[00:33:57] JOSH: which does not rock.

[00:33:59] RUSS: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. And like, I, I only watched like the original or theatrical version. Like I don't really, I don't watch any of the special additions ever. Like I've only watched them, I think once or twice when they first came out and I don't, I don't watch them anymore. So I'm going, like, my memory is strictly, the original theatrical version Java's palace is super CD and there's so many people in their corner and there's other, like, as I watched it this time, I noticed there's a few other women that you don't really know, who are in the quarter.

[00:34:23] One has like, uh, like split color hair. just like, there's a lot of characters. Like it is a good, um, like maximizing, like the experience of the Cantina scene. It was new, it was

[00:34:34] FREY: yeah.

[00:34:35] RUSS: in, you know, 1977 like, all right, how do we do it again? It's like, well, you make it seedier, know? And then any of dancers and, and you have frogs in a jar you got this little, like little goblin, you know, like laughing at everybody, you got a little gesture.

[00:34:49] it's just a maximized. It's great. It's like the, is that they took what they did in the Cantina and pumped it up and made it a little, maybe a little scarier. And like Java is an imposing creature. That's just a Marvel of effects, work and puppetry.

[00:35:02] MICKEY: Yeah. I just want to with Ross and kind of bring it to something. I think for, I said at the beginning, when we're asking, like, is this, you know, what's your favorite movie? Where do you rank it? almost a sense of like, I rank them? These movies are, they're just sequences. And I like some sequences in one movie over another.

[00:35:14] And I definitely think Java palace it's up there. I think a lot of it is these details that Russ is talking about that really stick out.

[00:35:20] JOSH: Yeah.

[00:35:20] MICKEY: think if like me thinking back and like say, star wars, one of the first memories that's going to come to me for some weird reason. I don't know it's up. It's such a great detail.

[00:35:28] Is rank or train or crying

[00:35:31] when they're in

[00:35:31] JOSH: Yes.

[00:35:32] MICKEY: Like, why do that? But it's

[00:35:33] amazing as

[00:35:34] everyone's sleeping other things, everyone's just sleeping. You know, they, they just sleep, they

[00:35:38] just pass out and sleep.

[00:35:39] JOSH: oh, that's something I wanted to ask about. Like, like, so, so Java, I mean, this is his throne room, right? So he sleeps there too. And all of these, like, like the holy ploy riff Raff, like hangers-on that he just like,

[00:35:55] let's

[00:35:56] FREY: you know,

[00:35:56] what's the sex thing. Um,

[00:35:59] JOSH: I.

[00:36:00] RUSS: It's, it's heavily implied that it's an all-night orgy. A job was palace. Like,

[00:36:05] JOSH: It is heavily employed. Well, you're hitting upon something here. we got to talk about the, the middle bikini,

[00:36:13] right?

[00:36:14] RUSS: before that Oola is wearing Oola the

[00:36:16] JOSH: Oh, sure.

[00:36:17] RUSS: is who is the first, uh, victim of,

[00:36:20] JOSH: the, rank or,

[00:36:21] RUSS: the rank order. Yeah. Uh, she's she's wearing fishnet a top. And I think even as a child is like, is that a boobie? Like, you know,

[00:36:30] so like, yeah, so that might've been like the first, uh, like, like booby and a movie I even even saw and, you know, like at a young age, uh, so there was like a level of like eroticism in this star wars film that just, uh, the likes have not been seen

[00:36:44] JOSH: mean,

[00:36:45] RUSS: in star wars.

[00:36:48] JOSH: I would say it's a little bit juvenile though. Like.

[00:36:53] RUSS: I was a child

[00:36:54] JOSH: I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, fair enough. I mean, fair

[00:36:56] enough.

[00:36:57] RUSS: target, target audience. Totally worked

[00:36:59] showing all

[00:37:00] JOSH: like looking at the Sarlacc, that's like giant

[00:37:03] vagina, vagina, dentata is kind of like, like a little on the nose, isn't it?

[00:37:08] I mean like,

[00:37:08] RUSS: thinking that. Yeah, that's that's sick,

[00:37:10] JOSH: dude, it's a, it's a giant hole. It's a giant like fleshy hole in the middle of the desert with this covered in teeth.

[00:37:17] MICKEY: I

[00:37:18] RUSS: was talking about a professional dancer.

[00:37:19] MICKEY: at one.

[00:37:20] FREY: the trainer is crying.

[00:37:23] MICKEY: Maybe it's just jab as a juvenile one. Maybe it's all just a reflection of the character that jab is that he's just.

[00:37:29] RUSS: Ju a man-child I think Mickey's a hundred percent. Yeah, he's a gangster. Uh, he, you know, he comes from a long line of gangster huts he, and he's young Java he's, you know, he's easy, you know, we don't know how old he is. He's young guy. He's just looking to have fun. He's hanging out with all of his friends, Fetts in the back.

[00:37:45] when there there's a point when, um, I wanna, I can't remember if it's, when Oola goes down the pit if it's a, when Luke later falls, Boba Fett is laughing with Java and you hear Boba, Fettes laugh,

[00:37:56] on the theatrical cut it's at, um, yeah, Boba Fett laughs at 25 35. I wrote down the time code from the, I

[00:38:01] JOSH: really

[00:38:02] I'll have to go. I'll have to go back to, to that,

[00:38:06] because in that case,

[00:38:07] RUSS: yeah,

[00:38:08] JOSH: like, that's like, that's weird.

[00:38:09] FREY: That

[00:38:10] you'd like, you know, how they replaced, uh, a reasonable voice with, uh, Tim

[00:38:13] Morrison's voice. Like, which I don't like, but also, I think I mentioned to you guys before that, um, the one good thing about it with the new Boba Fett is that like kind of makes it more believable because just his voices kind of has like an inherent kindness to it that you can believe that maybe that was there along, except that the one thing that's still ruins that even in the new cut of that is that he, when he's in Java's policy, like kind of touches like one of the dancers, like face like suggestively, like when it's just like, oh, what a scumbag?

[00:38:38] Like he's still,

[00:38:39] JOSH: Yeah.

[00:38:39] FREY: that that guy is the guy that like comes out of the pit, like

[00:38:43] MICKEY: Maybe he's trying to save

[00:38:43] her.

[00:38:44] FREY: maybe,

[00:38:46] MICKEY: he's like, I don't want to dance, baby. I just want to talk.

[00:38:50] JOSH: Oh my God. Yeah. so I want to, I want to ask you a question. I think we've all been talking about how much we love this whole sequence of the movie, this whole, Java sequence, which, you know, clearly the climax of which is, you know, Luke showing he's a Jedi and he's got some skills, he takes that everybody. But, isn't there another version of this that accomplishes the same thing where it's like the cold open and we see Han frozen and Java's palace. And then, there's like some kind of like a, Batman, like sort of like a takedown.

[00:39:21] And the jail break happens in the first five minutes and then like, Honda's free. Then we move on with the movie. because in a certain way, we spend a lot of time here.

[00:39:29] FREY: well, I think they're modeling it after Hoff, which like, I think the same amount of, it was like 37 minute sequence on both of those movies where like, it's just like, okay, we can have their nearly 40 minute kind of like, it is like a cold open, except it just goes on for the entire first act.

[00:39:44] JOSH: Yeah. But that's what I'm saying. the idea that the rescue of Hahn, which was something that was, I mean, we all knew that that was going to happen or maybe we didn't, I don't know, but reestablishing the status quo so we can move on with the rest of the story like That's a pretty significant detour.

[00:40:02] Right?

[00:40:03] FREY: Every time I watch it, I always forget how long it takes for that to happen. And I'm like, I always like, think it's like the second scene.

[00:40:09] JOSH: Right. but it's actually, so, so it's a really long, it's a long sequence. And I'm not saying that it doesn't work. Like I think, I think it's great. And obviously for kids, you know, it's very effective. It's very cool. You love spending time in the world. Like you love seeing all this and that.

[00:40:23] I mean, that the reason for it. I mean, I don't think you need justify it anymore. I'm just saying. Trying to tease out, you know, thinking about it in story terms, like when you're, you're developing something you're choosing, it's like, okay, well, what is this about? And obviously, I guess it does tie into the larger story, uh, which is really Luke's story.

[00:40:42] I think to the detriment of all the other characters, Leah and Han in particular, I think are just kind of appendages in this movie.

[00:40:49] MICKEY: I just let, that reminds me of the one thing. Like the, the thing that really struck me rewatching it for the first time in a while this time is like, to me, like how effortlessly, you're saying it looks movie, but to me, like a Harrison Ford stole it to me

[00:41:00] as an actor.

[00:41:01] JOSH: he is fantastic in this movie.

[00:41:03] MICKEY: His face does so much like in this movie,

[00:41:05] JOSH: He liked, he sells he, yeah,

[00:41:08] He sells so much.

[00:41:09] MICKEY: the millennial, like when, like the most, probably the most emotional part of all three movies is him having to let go of the millennium Falcon. Delando the last time just through like the way

[00:41:18] RUSS: Yup. Yup.

[00:41:18] MICKEY: And you're just like, oh my God, this guy loves his ship more than

[00:41:21] FREY: but also, uh, the C that same word is rescued. Um,

[00:41:25] JOSH: Yes.

[00:41:25] FREY: that kind of emotion from like, it's just like,

[00:41:27] JOSH: Yes.

[00:41:28] FREY: sounds Rhonda, like, and then I might be down to a more Cause it's like, really think of broad performances when it come to star wars. But like when he's like, you can feel how like vulnerable and like relieved and like scared he is.

[00:41:37] And it's just kind of like,

[00:41:38] wow. that's

[00:41:39] like, I don't think I've ever heard that from like Harrison Ford ever before our sins.

[00:41:42] MICKEY: Yeah. Well, and to,

[00:41:43] to

[00:41:43] Josh

[00:41:44] RUSS: that you? Yeah.

[00:41:45] Yeah, exactly. That whole moment.

[00:41:47] JOSH: now. Yeah, he's fantastic. And that scene Frye is, I wrote in my notes, Harrison Ford is so good, like exactly at that, moment, that you're describing, but here's my thing about Han in this movie, I mean, first of all, know what he's doing leading the strike team on the ground.

[00:42:02] Like that doesn't really make sense to me.

[00:42:03] FREY: Yeah.

[00:42:04] JOSH: be flying in space. I think, I feel like that's a more natural place for him to be,

[00:42:08] FREY: They feel like they kind of had to explain that would the exchange of, uh, with Lando or it's

[00:42:12] JOSH: yeah. Right. And the other thing, , I don't know, watching it this time, like, I kind of feel like Han should feel like he's missed a lot. He should feel out of place and be trying to be trying to catch up So the last time he saw Luke was right before the battle of hos, he had just saved his life.

[00:42:29] Right. And he was still a kid in his eyes. And now all of a sudden he's, he's a Jedi Knight years have gone. I, just feel like it's a missed opportunity to have Han have some, have a character arc, like in the movie. And, Layah she should either be leading the strike force herself, or she should be, where Monmouth is, she should be with Admiral Ackbar, running the battle.

[00:42:53] Like, what we have in the movie that we got was, she's just kind of running around with Han on the planet and she gets into jeopardy and doesn't really have anything to do You know, it also doesn't help that. thing that Leo is most remembered for in this movie is bikini thing, which is,

[00:43:12] RUSS: She also kills Java the hut though. So I dunno, that's like a pretty big move.

[00:43:17] JOSH: no she does. Yeah. But that's sort of like a plot thing and like, we don't really see her enjoying it. Like she gets revenge like on paper,

[00:43:24] RUSS: Well, you know, you know, the whole huts hut soccer really exists more so in the expanded universe, uh, whatever they call it now, legacy, uh, like, because Leah killed Java, uh, oh yeah. Whatever. Uh, because, uh, Leah killed Jabba the Hutt. Like there is a huge bounty on her like everyone related and like that just follows them through.

[00:43:46] All the rest of the expanded universe or, or, uh, legends or whatever they want to here.

[00:43:52] And it's a cool point like that. That's a bigger story that falls through. So like I get where, like I look at Jedi is like this, the serial nature of star wars where like, you're not getting, everything's not perfect.

[00:44:03] They set up a lot of things. They don't really make perfect arcs, but they do leave it open. And there there's more space to explore after this film is over. I don't think there's enough time to do all that. I'm not saying that they, that they couldn't attempt it, but, you know,

[00:44:17] FREY: weird that it does become almost like mostly damselfish again, considering that the sister reveal it's just like, oh, she is a heroic character potentially, but like

[00:44:26] her, the biggest thing she does is shoot over your Han shoulder.

[00:44:29] JOSH: no, so, but that's something else. when she learns that that Darth Vader is her father, gives no reaction at all.

[00:44:37] MICKEY: Yeah, because

[00:44:38] she's not even an orphan as far as she knows. Right. So does she actually think, does she think her? I can't remember.

[00:44:42] JOSH: I'm not sure. think they kind of gloss over that. So, but it is interesting. Like she finds out in the same Luke is her brother and Darth Vader who tortured her, who destroyed her family and her planet and everything. She knows she finds out that's her father.

[00:44:58] RUSS: And that she is for sensitive at the same time. Like,

[00:45:01] like I, I, I feel it. Yeah. Yeah. I think she's totally in shock. They had some wine and they're a little bit, they're a little bit, a little fuzzier on the edges. They don't really, yeah. way too much information to comprehend. I don't know what that would even look like.

[00:45:15] There had just explode like a scanners moment. Like, I don't know.

[00:45:20] JOSH: well, I mean, I guess what I'm getting at is that this movie and the other movies are like, they're not really interested in what's going on inside Leah and not even really interested in what's going on inside Han. Like these are

[00:45:31] RUSS: true.

[00:45:32] I totally agree.

[00:45:33] MICKEY: the skywalk. In fact, well, it's interesting because if you think, well, not, not to like skip over too much of the end, but like this almost becomes like, like Vader, like, you know, if you think it's like, oh, we have these three main characters that Luke Han and Leia, but this movie, again, it focuses on Luke, but then like two character, then it really becomes Darth Vader slash and it's his redemption and

[00:45:53] that's becomes a major story point.

[00:45:54] And I think that more than you, maybe even Luke, except it is a Luke story, because he's the one trying to redeem them. But, but this, but failure becomes more of like a main, character, you know, and in that sense at the expense of, of hon and Leah's development, but that's the thing, it's, it's a movie about jetties and the Jetta is an important thing.

[00:46:11] The Skywalker's agenda, you know, is that, yeah, it kind of at the

[00:46:14] expense of like to me, like I'm more of like into the, the, the smugglers and, and the Reggie Antilles and all that stuff. It's cool to me, but I still enjoy it.

[00:46:22] RUSS: that brings up like a really good point. You could enjoy star wars, uh, in a lot of different ways. Uh, you can enjoy like Mickey likes a lot of the peripheral characters, which are, they're like wedges, like one of the greatest characters who really gets Lando kind of takes his, his a little bit glory, uh, leading the strike when it should have been wedge in my opinion.

[00:46:40] But, but yeah, there's all these side characters that are great, or you could focus on, on the Luke Skywalker thing, uh, and, and his issues, uh, or he could be really into the fact that there, there are B wings and they look awesome. Like there's a lot of, there's a lot of different things in this movie, like, um, that I think you could focus on, but one thing talking about the Jedi, like the Jedi Knight, like this being my first movie and not having seen any other star wars, I'm like Jedi Knight.

[00:47:03] So like I started off like, is on at walking a plank. there's no coming back. There's no, no one coming to save them. As far as I know, I've never seen this movie before. And, Luke gives a us confident signal I've ever seen. he gets a nod from Lando. Uh, there's a, a cylinder ejected from, RTD two's dome and it lands in his hand.

[00:47:24] He turns it on, a laser sword he, and he just like just pure chaos energy and just, sparks there flying. And it's like the most exciting thing I think I've ever seen in my life up to that point. Like I think the only other action movie I was really into as a kid at that point was masters of the universe, whatever.

[00:47:43] That's just, that's what it was. It just, the timing worked out. but. Yes, it was masters universe and it was returned the Jedi.

[00:47:50] FREY: Okay.

[00:47:50] RUSS: seemed like not, haven't seen any star wars, not knowing anything like, uh, Luke's a Jedi Knight he's wearing all black. what he's in the hologram talking to, uh, talking to Jaba, uh, playing from RTD to, his color definitely resembles like a priest collar there there's this like this this religious element, to it where he's like, ah, it was very, very, very honorable, very, well-spoken, very different from the Luke that we had seen previously.

[00:48:15] So it's like,

[00:48:17] FREY: yep.

[00:48:17] RUSS: is right when he's like a lot's happened since he's blue, the cheddar at night, like it's, it's a wild concept and having seen other star wars films. I'm like, this is, yeah. He is a Batman character. He like he's coming in. He's weren't we're in dark clothes.

[00:48:31] FREY: Yeah.

[00:48:32] RUSS: fighting, he's winning.

[00:48:33] He's taking command of the situation. He's telling people what to do. This is his plan. pretty wild. I don't know what I, what I start talking about here, but

[00:48:40] that's yeah.

[00:48:41] JOSH: is the plan by the way?

[00:48:47] RUSS: By whatever means now.

[00:48:49] FREY: then definitely do a cool move where our two checks the sword out of

[00:48:52] is out of the space.

[00:48:54] RUSS: will, I will say this. So, in empire, uh, Luke sees the future potentially, or sees one possible outcome of the future. , Luke must have seen, or had some premonition of the future or had planted, captured. He must have known that Java routinely, dumps people in, the Sarlacc pit, to have his lightsaber hidden in our, to, to have his old plan like that.

[00:49:17] know. I'm not going to try to figure it out writing wise, but it's exciting. Uh, and

[00:49:20] maybe he forced so out. Maybe he didn't. Yeah.

[00:49:23] JOSH: ultimately at the end of the day, I mean, the reason it happens, the way it happens is because it's, it's, it's the most exciting, version is my point.

[00:49:29] RUSS: wait, tell me a modern equivalent of that. Like, I haven't seen a movie that's excited me like that in ages, like, you know,

[00:49:36] JOSH: Hm.

[00:49:36] RUSS: movie. That's excited me like that. No, I don't think I have, has anyone?

[00:49:40] MICKEY: Um, I mean, not recently recently, but definitely post to the Jedi,

[00:49:45] JOSH: Yeah. Like, like diehard, maybe

[00:49:48] RUSS: No, I got

[00:49:49] MICKEY: end of Jurassic park.

[00:49:51] JOSH: Robocop,

[00:49:53] RUSS: but like I had not seen the other films and yet I saw this as the most iconic moment ever.

[00:49:58] JOSH: Robocop, two directed by Irvin Kershner

[00:50:01] RUSS: it, it was just, it was super, it was super like, exciting for me. And I felt like something big was happening and I just

[00:50:08] haven't had that energy from a film, since really.

[00:50:12] JOSH: Might I might I pause it that you might be, leaning on some of your childhood nostalgia for your feelings about the movie there.

[00:50:23] Is that possible?

[00:50:24] RUSS: oh, absolutely. I mean, I mean, there's no doubt that my memory of of excitement like is locked in and, you know, loaded, like whenever I'm watching this, I'm like, yeah,

[00:50:34] JOSH: No. What I mean, that's fair.

[00:50:35] RUSS: That's

[00:50:36] JOSH: mean, that's

[00:50:36] fair. Like

[00:50:37] RUSS: best. That's, that's

[00:50:38] what they're supposed to do.

[00:50:40] JOSH: I agree with you. I think that these movies are most effective This one in particular, I think, is most effective when you are that, that age. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. The only thing that I just want to, that I am trying to tease out here is like,

[00:50:55] is like,

[00:50:57] RUSS: that. Maybe it's not as. Good. As I

[00:51:01] remember, it's not as good a film as empire strikes back. I mean, that's fine.

[00:51:07] It's still my favorite.

[00:51:08] JOSH: no, that's, that is totally valid. Like, I'm not I'm not saying one is better than the other. I think that, that this movie has different concerns and different goals than the empire strikes back does

[00:51:21] RUSS: Yes.

[00:51:22] JOSH: one is more effective for, a certain demographic than the other,

[00:51:26] FREY: It's not the blue movie. It's the brown movie.

[00:51:28] JOSH: Right.

[00:51:30] RUSS: Well, I think, and I started saying this and I'm maybe in my statement, but I think this is the best star wars film. if empire strikes back might be a better film film.

[00:51:40] JOSH: is, that is completely, totally fair and

[00:51:42] valid. But I'm not

[00:51:44] even disagreeing with you. yeah,

[00:51:46] RUSS: a, I think this is the, like, I think part of star wars is excitement, adventure, all the things Luke's not supposed to be seeking, but it's is that type of energy that makes it exciting.

[00:51:57] So whether it's like perfectly written or if Luke's kick connects to that, guy's head on the skiff. that is kind of irrelevant to me. Like, Like,

[00:52:06] it's really, it's really about fun.

[00:52:07] JOSH: well, the only thing that I will say though, is that you could say the same thing about the new movies.

[00:52:12] RUSS: You could, I won't.

[00:52:15] JOSH: Right. But that's my point though. Like, the only reason I think why somebody might say that about like your, what you just said, like you, you are giving Jedi a pass on a lot of things. because at the end of the day it makes you feel good and you love it. Right. but like, if you're going to grade Jedi on a curve like that, then you know,

[00:52:39] RUSS: I wouldn't even grade the new ones. So I don't, I don't know. I mean, I think as kind of an

[00:52:42] irrelevant.

[00:52:43] FREY: my

[00:52:43] is actually as much as to like return of the Jedi I actually really love the, like, uh, last Shaddai

[00:52:48] JOSH: I like the last jet I'm more than this movie.

[00:52:50] FREY: and it kind of directly rebuts this movie the most in particular,

[00:52:53] JOSH: I mean, that's something, I don't know if we're going to be able to get to in this

[00:52:55] pod, but, but, uh,

[00:52:56] FREY: Let's say refer,

[00:52:57] JOSH: uh,

[00:52:59] MICKEY: to go back, I guess, to the job as palace and everything. I think I agree with Ross. I think it's great. Action. think it's great. Action. Again. I'm not going to say there's nothing that since then, but I would say maybe now going back 15 years, there hasn't been anything like action.

[00:53:13] Just lacks that kind of excitement, I think. and even that's me watching it now, like recently watching and be

[00:53:19] JOSH: Yeah.

[00:53:20] MICKEY: there's nothing fields. It's, so much physicality to it. There's not computer generated stuff to it. And that works.

[00:53:26] And even if it means is there's not. As, as high of a body count as there isn't a modern movie, those bodies that they do get the kill, a knockin are still feel realer and better and funner overall.

[00:53:37] And then I guess the other thing I want, if we want to bring it back to lay as bikini, if it's, this is a trash compactor, if you want to have bad opinions, although I don't know what, like what star wars like Phantom is like anymore. So maybe this is a, a common

[00:53:48] JOSH: it's fucking awful.

[00:53:49] It's.

[00:53:49] MICKEY: is so maybe I'm with them.

[00:53:50] But I actually think it's, I think the, the, the sexual politics of the first three movies and especially trends are fine. I actually think, in a certain sense, the male gaze, and I think there should be a female gaze too, and movies are good. I like the James Bond movies and I might have when there's new James Bond, movie

[00:54:04] RUSS: Um,

[00:54:05] MICKEY: part, because.

[00:54:06] You know, the, the female, the male gaze aspect of it is I think it's an inherent part of cinema that I don't think as human

[00:54:12] RUSS: well,

[00:54:12] MICKEY: sexist part of who we are, and we

[00:54:14] shouldn't be afraid of. And, and honestly, from what people say behind the scenes is that, that it was Carrie Fisher I've had two movies of being like, just like completely desexualized, because I honestly think Lucas was like, I think like for the time, especially he was actually trying to do like, strong female character, um, in, in, uh, in, uh, genre that wasn't like known for it.

[00:54:34] And to a point that she even had to push back a little bit and it'd be like, let me be a woman a little bit, you know, kind of thing. Like, , you know, what they say is like, that was a little bit of a push on her, on her behalf. I think maybe she regretted and how calm comfortable it was, but,

[00:54:47] JOSH: Well, well, but she also felt like she had nothing to do in this movie.

[00:54:51] MICKEY: Yeah.

[00:54:52] Which is true. in a

[00:54:53] certain sense,

[00:54:54] JOSH: Yeah. I would agree with you. Like, I don't think, politics of these movies. such as it is, , the male gaze is obviously baked into the cake, not only in these movies, but in, you know, the vast majority of, of, mainstream movies in particular in this genre.

[00:55:10] But, um, the only thing that I would say has an age really well, believe it or not is in the empire strikes back. And I talk about this on the empire pod, the, um, the way hon kind of not forces himself, but I mean kind of, forces lay it to kiss him, is not great. she says, no, several times she says like, she makes it very clear.

[00:55:32] Like I don't want to do this. And she's completely at Hahn's mercy. Like there's nowhere she can go.

[00:55:37] MICKEY: It's the implication of being alone on the millennium, Falcon and asteroid belt. The, the implication.

[00:55:42] FREY: Okay. Cause he hasn't heard from Harrison Ford smirk.

[00:55:46] MICKEY: But at least it wasn't half as bad as a bill Murray with Sigourney Weaver and Ghostbusters. It

[00:55:51] didn't reach that level of being

[00:55:53] pretty, pretty bad.

[00:55:54] JOSH: I'm not saying it's the worst thing in the world. I'm just saying that's the one thing that I think has aged a little, a little strangely.

[00:55:59] FREY: I think that's also supposed to be like a must have

[00:56:03] like.

[00:56:03] MICKEY: Yeah. It's like

[00:56:04] JOSH: yes,

[00:56:05] MICKEY: type of like, yeah.

[00:56:06] JOSH: exactly. But that's something that star wars is, does a lot that, they pay homage to something? but they're also importing all of the, the cultural attitudes that, produced it. and they're perpetuating it. So like, a good example is the accusation of racism in the Phantom menace, the Namibians in episode one and how they sound like, chinese villains or whatever from like a Charlie Chan movie or something. And, George Lucas can honestly say, I'm not being racist. I'm, paying homage to whatever. but in, so doing, without examining what those movies were doing, you're perpetuating the racism that was there, then it just removed from its context.

[00:56:45] FREY: I'm not being racist. I'm just doing a match to something I like,

[00:56:49] JOSH: right,

[00:56:49] FREY: your like

[00:56:50] RUSS: well, I'd also say though, that's, that's not out of character for Han solo in this, in this,

[00:56:56] world. So, I mean, it

[00:56:57] makes like it fits for the character, whether, whether it's a good moral, interpretation of a relationship, that's not for, that's not for me to question that's that's the character.

[00:57:09] JOSH: Yes. Except I think it's clear what the movie thinks. So,

[00:57:14] RUSS: yeah, I guess it's back to, I get what they're doing, so I dunno.

[00:57:18] JOSH: I get what they're doing also. It's just that, you're saying things and communicating ideas and reinforcing certain, power dynamics, whether you're conscious of it or not. It's like, you know, you can be saying something without realizing that you're saying it.

[00:57:32] MICKEY: But my question is if they say like Hansel was based a little bit on Francis Ford Coppola,

[00:57:38] JOSH: Yeah,

[00:57:38] MICKEY: price for Copa maybe has a little bit, uh,

[00:57:40] familiar

[00:57:41] with some people in the past or something maybe. Yeah. I wonder.

[00:57:44] JOSH: well, I don't want to speak ill of Francis Ford Coppola, but I mean there were certainly stories.

[00:57:52] So, it's got pretty uncomfortable, I want to talk about, about Yoda. Yoda and Obi-Wan, they both say to Luke to complete your training, you have to kill your father. Right. And, I'm wondering like, is that what, like the paddle one, Jedi trials are, is like, is everyone's like Rite of passage graduation, to be a Jedi. Like, you have to commit patricide.

[00:58:14] Like you have to kill. It's like, it's is that always what it takes to, graduate to bigger Jedi?

[00:58:18] MICKEY: Uh,

[00:58:18] FREY: actually easiest for Lu. It's usually harder for them to do it. Like and loose cases. Just like,

[00:58:21] no, this guy's easy to kill. I could like you, you're not going to regret this at all.

[00:58:25] MICKEY: at my dad's employer, moisture Palmer. Why, why do I got to kill him? He's not even, he's not even a war criminal. Come on.

[00:58:31] JOSH: Right.

[00:58:31] MICKEY: think it's interesting though, because I never thought about it before. And he raises it kind of like is a little bit of, again, like this, a little bit of like the prequel started coming out where like, oh, the jetties are kind of a, a pretty strict sex religious group that it takes things pretty seriously.

[00:58:45] And maybe too far, you know?

[00:58:47] FREY: Yeah.

[00:58:48] JOSH: it's really manipulative and fucked up.

[00:58:50] MICKEY: Yeah.

[00:58:51] JOSH: Like they are like, no, you're not a Jedi, not until you kill your dad. And I mean, look, I get it. Like Luke is a part of their whole plan. He's their only hope, I mean, this was the plan.

[00:59:03] FREY: but they are doing what the emperor is doing to Aniket.

[00:59:06] JOSH: Yeah, no, they are. They are manipulating Luke and Luke. He ends up saving the day. by ignoring what they tell him, uh, what everyone literally says to him, he says, to bury your feelings deep down, like that sounds exactly wrong.

[00:59:22] FREY: Yeah.

[00:59:23] And even like you mentioned, like the, uh, like whole personality change that he goes through, I mean, that's also a Darth Vader is a transition where it's just like, now serious, man.

[00:59:32] RUSS: Yeah.

[00:59:33] JOSH: yeah, yeah, no, the other thing, that will be want says, when Luke says I can't kill my own father, obiwan comes back with, then the emperor has already.

[00:59:43] FREY: Yeah.

[00:59:43] JOSH: Like, like, like what's like, what are you That's really fucked up and manipulative.

[00:59:49] FREY: Well, thanks for nothing.

[00:59:51] JOSH: No, but so, so it is interesting though, because what the scenes are doing are basically correcting, the continuity error that has now cropped up, that results from making Vader Luke's father, right?

[01:00:06] because in the first movie, I think it's pretty clear that that was not the intention. so we need that moment of obiwan to explain. I was lying, but it was just a little white lie. Here's why, uh, what I said was true from a certain point of view, but seriously, you really gotta, you really gotta get.

[01:00:21] FREY: Yeah.

[01:00:23] JOSH: or The other interesting thing that I noted on, on this watch, knowing where Luke ends up, not only in the last year, also now having seen what he's up to years after return of the Jedi and the book of Boba Fett, what Yoda says to Luke, he says to pass on what you have learned, not rebuild the Jedi, according to the Jedi rule book. what Luke learned was don't listen to what the jet I tell you to do. I mean, basically,

[01:00:49] MICKEY: Yeah. I mean,

[01:00:50] it's a big part of that, of the end is him trying to not kill his dad to save his life, to say, no, I won't. He

[01:00:55] rebels against the Jedi emperor. He

[01:00:58] forges his own third way. You know,

[01:01:00] he's the bill Clinton of the, of the galaxy.

[01:01:03] JOSH: Oh, God, that's depressing. Um, also thought it was kind of weird, the way it will be one reveals that information, the other he spoke of was your twin sister.

[01:01:11] And, and Luke's like, Leah it's layout. And OB was like, How'd you know that revelation just kind of stepped on a little bit.

[01:01:20] FREY: Yeah. kind of like, they didn't even have the musical, you kind of comes in late. Like it comes in like a few seconds after we're

[01:01:26] JOSH: Oh really?

[01:01:27] FREY: cause that's like a drop of like that information. And then it's just kinda like, aren't you going to, I feel like you should be playing music right now.

[01:01:33] And then it's just like a few seconds later,

[01:01:35] but I was going to come back to the, uh, where you were saying before about the third way thing. Like the, uh, you could kind of just say that like whole time right, because he just kind of like, no, my point is to keep it loose

[01:01:46] JOSH: Yes, yes,

[01:01:47] FREY: he kind of comes back and says that in last Jetta,

[01:01:49] JOSH: Exactly. Right. I think it's interesting because it does, dovetail with kind of the fan expectation of like, oh, so after this movie, Luke, he goes on and rebuilds the Jedi, right. Like that's actually not what he's supposed to do. we learn who the Jedi were in the prequels and they weren't all that great.

[01:02:05] And they're actually kind of fucked up a little bit so it is really interesting, like that whole, you know, reckoning with what the Jedi actually are at in that sense. say what you will about, of the SQLs but that component of it, to me is, the only way to reconcile, what we of the Jedi and the prequels and what we hear of the Jedi and see of the Gemini in the original trilogy. Is that like you know, Luke in the last Jedi is, is very much the voice of star wars fan who saw the original trilogy and then saw the prequels was a little, bummed out that the Jedi suck so much. Like he had the same experience that wars fans had and he's mad about it. He's like, like, did you know that the Jedi actually sucked? And that, the emperor was right in front of them whole time. And like, they fucked up and they made Darth Vader, like what the fuck? Like that's fucked up and he's like depressed.

[01:03:00] MICKEY: Yeah.

[01:03:02] JOSH: Maybe a different, a different podcast.

[01:03:04] MICKEY: I guess there's a good, yeah, maybe cause I have a lot to say that in terms of why I think I really don't one of the main reasons I don't like the prequels and sort of don't like the sequels it's just too much Deadeye for me. And to me, like the jet, I started in the first movie a, it's just a, you know, a pastiche of like

[01:03:22] RUSS: Okay.

[01:03:23] MICKEY: um, various world's religions and ideas and Buddhism and balance hodgepodge nothingness, because he just wants to make a modern day mythology.

[01:03:31] But as pastiche, that

[01:03:33] RUSS: Correct.

[01:03:33] MICKEY: culture again, because we talked about star wars blew up and got ahold of so many people that people needed to be real. For some reason, like

[01:03:39] JOSH: Yeah.

[01:03:40] MICKEY: the, they actually need the religion to work for some reason.

[01:03:44] FREY: Okay.

[01:03:44] MICKEY: food Lucas decided to feed into it with the prequels.

[01:03:47] And they decided to focus on that with this equals and just like, it's like, no, man, all it is it's just mumble jumble. Let it be mumbo-jumbo. So people get the wheeled cool swords and gets to be like sort of its own side by version. religious, you know, of the, you know, the hero's quest that doesn't really, it doesn't really matter.

[01:04:02] The actual mechanics of the mythology, like it's like getting

[01:04:07] bogged down into, it was the mistake I think, of, of the pre.

[01:04:11] JOSH: I agree with you to a point. I do think that like that, like if you're going to make more, you like have to, make certain

[01:04:18] decisions and make certain choices about what things are and what things aren't. that said the prequels certainly were not the only way to go. and I mean, again, like a part of the problem is in those intervening 16 years, the entire world was sort of writing their own version of what it should be.

[01:04:35] And, movies we got were a very specific, depiction that, did not necessarily align with what was in people's heads. but yeah, I mean, I take your point.

[01:04:43] MICKEY: think like the, not to go too far, but I think one of reasons I think the Mandalorian works for me is it's a whole new lore and it's not like this thing. They have to keep on making

[01:04:52] JOSH: Yeah.

[01:04:52] MICKEY: Jedi and the forest work. Now we have the new Lord we can kind of, you know, riff off of and kind of do new things.

[01:04:58] and I think to the point, like you were bringing up like D like, I, I would rather have the length. we didn't have this tattoo queen Jabba's palace sequence, you know, what would we have? Would we just have more of this? Which to me would have been, I would prefer. Did you have a palace stuff now I appreciate it.

[01:05:13] And I'm glad we went back to that goodbye just because I think Yoda is of the, one of the best characters in the whole Frank Oz is amazing. so I think it's an important scene, but I I'm glad it's as short as it is. And you know, it does what it

[01:05:25] does And that's it. And I don't, I don't know what else you would add then if you, if you shortened like the Java stuff

[01:05:30] JOSH: speaking of Yoda, the reason he's in this movie is Richard Markwan. He wasn't, he wasn't in the story outline or whatever. And then when mark, Juan showed up, he was like, well, you have to see Yoda again. He was so integral in an empire.

[01:05:45] you need to bring Yoda back, like you have to have some closure with that. And I think, I think he was right on the money.

[01:05:50] MICKEY: and killing him too, was I think especially if you're not going to kill Hannah or anyone else like that, like I think his death is

[01:05:56] JOSH: Yeah. Yeah. Well that, well, that was Lawrence Kasdan actually, we have to kill, like, it needs to feel.

[01:06:04] MICKEY: That's literally a notorious VIG lyric. Someone's got the die.

[01:06:09] JOSH: Lawrence Kasdan was saying somebody has to die. He wanted it to be hon and George Lucas was like, no.

[01:06:16] FREY: keep your hands up by hand.

[01:06:17] JOSH: well, he gave a number of reasons. I mean, you know, first of all, he wanted, this to be a happy ending, you know, which I get, I think is valid. and he also supposedly said, dead Han action figures don't sell.

[01:06:30] FREY: Maybe you don't know that

[01:06:33] JOSH: Yeah, I know.

[01:06:33] FREY: literally dead?

[01:06:37] No points of articulation.

[01:06:38] JOSH: no, but that said like, I get that, like, I'm sympathetic to that, uh, point of view and again, I don't think he's wrong. Like this was my favorite star wars movie for my entire childhood, I think he was right. Han shouldn't die.

[01:06:51] FREY: Yeah.

[01:06:51] MICKEY: No. I agree. I am happy.

[01:06:55] JOSH: one thing that drives me crazy every time I see it, you know, you were talking about On saying goodbye to the Falcon, but, uh, the seat right before, between Han and Lando where he's like, I want you to take her. I mean a taker, need all the help you can get. And then land was like, all right, all buddy, but I know what she means to you.

[01:07:13] And then there's a sight

[01:07:14] FREY: Yeah.

[01:07:14] JOSH: they cut to the Falcon is in the background and you realize that they're talking about this, but Han says, She's the fastest ship in the fleet. that line ruins. what would have been a perfect sight gag? think that they, are talking about Leah and then it turns out no, he's actually talking about his shit. Right. And it drives me crazy because it's just that one line, if he didn't say that the whole thing would really play as a yeah, it's right there. I mean, the way that it's staged and edited and even written, except for that one line, it's all like, this is supposed to be a joke, but for some reason, you step on your own joke. I don't know. It just, it just drives me crazy every time I see it.

[01:07:54] FREY: Shot for comedy,

[01:07:55] I wanted to,

[01:07:56] um,

[01:07:57] would like to knob. Do you ever look at what that maneuver is?

[01:08:01] JOSH: I don't

[01:08:01] know what

[01:08:01] FREY: like, I think I found it. I have to look up where it was like, galaxy news net, like news things from like the star wars, adventure journal that was published in like 95. So probably around the time, like newsletter came out and it's like this little it's like this little trading card, like news, uh, update of like explaining what happened.

[01:08:16] And basically like, he was like on to knob, like looking from a spaceport and there was, pirates coming to, steal the resources from there. and another guy he's like, I bet I can take care of that. And another guy that was nearby, just bet him like a brewery, like the detour brewery that he couldn't do that.

[01:08:31] he's like, oh yeah, like, I'll take that bet. And then it goes up and I think he like harnesses, like chunks of the ice ring of the planet, Tim, like throw it out the pirates and then like hit them with like Connor nets. And then that's what does it, and he wins a brewery out of it.

[01:08:46] MICKEY: Oh, yeah, that's awesome.

[01:08:48] FREY: It was actually, they were going to use that story.

[01:08:49] But then now when they're early drop of solo, that was going to be the whole second half of the movie just to knob. And like, there was going to be

[01:08:56] JOSH: That's cool.

[01:08:57] FREY: Dawn, and like cloud riders, like fighting over resources. I guess like, you know, an atmosphere,

[01:09:03] JOSH: That's interesting.

[01:09:04] FREY: that was going to be the tire.

[01:09:05] And I think they scoped out like, uh, they were going to shoot it and think Mexico, like the rainforest. So like, let's go cause there's like a jungle planet.

[01:09:12] JOSH: That's cool.

[01:09:12] FREY: one, one other is in the Mandalorian, bill Burr mentioned it like the part where they're trying to infiltrate and, uh, that, um, killer officer like starts asking, uh, Mandalorian, so like information and bill billboard comes and saves him.

[01:09:24] he's like, you have to speak up. He lost his hearing into knob, which makes it sound like Vietnam. Like that's like, that doesn't sound like anything, like, so like, so wait, like, what is tonight? Like, what is like, is that a big, like what happened there?

[01:09:35] we're back to square one.

[01:09:37] JOSH: Thank you for laying all the, to knob with them on us. Like I, I

[01:09:41] FREY: I

[01:09:41] was like, positive, like right when I was, I was like, I need to find out what the knob is like with her. I'm like, that's, that's all the information you can find on it.

[01:09:47] JOSH: Siri bring me to Wikipedia. What is the knob? well, speaking of Vietnam, and, or in the E-box,

[01:09:54] this is, George Lucas's Vietnam.

[01:09:56] MICKEY: I mean, he was going to be part of apocalypse now and one way or

[01:09:59] another, that was, He,

[01:10:00] was early in

[01:10:01] the development.

[01:10:02] JOSH: that was supposed to be his and John millions, his movie, and they were going to shoot it on 16 millimeter. They were going to go to Vietnam while the war was still happening. Mind you, and it was kind of going to be like, Haskell Wexler's, medium cool where, , he shot a lot of it at the 1968 democratic national convention in Chicago.

[01:10:20] like, you know, mixing. docu-style with like a narrative, that's what they were inspired by. Like they were going to go to Vietnam kind of make this satirical Dr. Strange lavash docu-style movie in Vietnam. And like, if you could just imagine John Milius and like tiny George Lucas, it's , fucking Ren and Stimpy, in the jungles of Vietnam with like a couple of 16 millimeter, bowl Xs, and Nagra is like, like, you know, making a bonkers satire comedy but anyway, instead of making apocalypse now, he decided to do star wars instead, but a lot of the DNA, a lot of the issues that he wanted, to deal with and explore, with apocalypse now, the. primitives winning a battle against a much superior force with superior technology. Like that was always where this story was heading. And so end or in the Equinox that is George Lucas's version of Vietnam. I mean, this is Vietnam for nine year olds. I mean, is what this is.

[01:11:14] MICKEY: I mean, it's got a great prop, I guess, in a sense in that way, you know?

[01:11:18] JOSH: No, it is

[01:11:19] MICKEY: I mean, they're they're the good guys are the, the Viet Cong in this movie and it's, and it's awesome.

[01:11:23] JOSH: yeah. so whenever star wars fan says like, you know, stop making star wars political, I'm like, bro, that the, the original trilogy was the empire is the U S and the walks are the Vietcong. I mean, that is literally what was in George Lucas's mind. The emperor is literally Nixon.

[01:11:42] The, throne room is shaped like an oval and that is not unintended.

[01:11:47] MICKEY: Does that make Hannah layer like the Soviets and the Chinese arming? The, uh,

[01:11:51] JOSH: it could be, I don't know. what do we think about the box?

[01:11:56] FREY: I like them.

[01:11:57] MICKEY: Yep. I like them. I have, I have no clue. I don't know. Like I know there's hate and I never got it.

[01:12:02] I

[01:12:03] FREY: inherently, don't have in a different world. Like they didn't have to be like, I know, I think people don't like them because they're like a kind of like a cynical yeah, cute. Like for made for marketing type of thing. But like, they don't have to be that based on this movie. they,

[01:12:16] have the potential to be like kind of ferocious and like a little like weird and scary,

[01:12:20] MICKEY: kind of scary. Look in

[01:12:21] FREY: Yeah. The scary looking.

[01:12:23] MICKEY: The teeth are kind of terrifying.

[01:12:24] RUSS: I like the sequence when Leah feeds a cracker to wicked.

[01:12:29] JOSH: Yeah,

[01:12:31] RUSS: Like, I just, I, I enjoy it. Like, it's like, Hey, I'm gonna take off my helmet. Don't worry about it. Let's have a cracker. Like I I'm in that moment with them. Like, I'm kinda hungry. I'm watching like, like we're mostly movie. Like I, as a kid, I just, know also the music cues are really good that that kind of echoes sound and like John Williams score is totally on display here.

[01:12:55] I think it's his best score. Um, you

[01:12:58] JOSH: gorgeous.

[01:12:58] RUSS: there are things in empire that are fantastic. He takes them, on them. He builds on everything he's done before. Like a lot of the effects work. the scores are so good. particularly liked the And I think in combination with Ben bird sound design, is so.

[01:13:13] Good here. And just like the musical cues. It is a little comedic because they're cute a little bit of the comedic movements, I could see why, you know, star wars fans, the time might be opposed to Equinox, Mickey's right. They got teeth and those things like they're going to eat those people.

[01:13:31] They, they tied them to sticks and they're going to, going to cook

[01:13:34] JOSH: Yeah.

[01:13:34] RUSS: and eat them with, with, with those little uwak teeth,

[01:13:38] their, their

[01:13:38] FREY: a dime just by being there like, oh, you can charm them. And like, okay, now we're not going to you, which is even scarier.

[01:13:44] MICKEY: And

[01:13:44] RUSS: tariff, terrifying.

[01:13:45] MICKEY: with the P he's scary looking

[01:13:47] RUSS: Oh, chief Sherpa. Yeah, he is. I mean, the walks got themselves a cartoon show. I mean, so did the droids, I mean the two most marketable aspects of star wars are robots and he walks at that time, a chirp is terrifying, but fortunately we have someone like pap Lou who jumps in that speeder bike to create a distraction.

[01:14:06] I mean, pat blue to me is a real hero, overturn the Jedi. Um, and, but not only, and where we have to be thankful for it. Um, but, it just shows you like, there's a lot to like, read into these . I mean, w what it was shortened backwards for, for Willkie. Like, there's a lot of things like originally they wanted Wookies for return the Jedi or and they didn't want to bring cause like the cast chic, like, Wookies no technology.

[01:14:34] Um, they just don't necessarily choose to live with it per se. I dunno, what, what the actual like story behind it is, or if it's

[01:14:41] cheaper for Equinox? I don't, I don't remember,

[01:14:44] JOSH: well, George Lucas said, because I just watched it. And from star wars to Jedi, he couldn't make them Wookies because he showed you baka. And he obviously wasn't a primitive and he, uh, he knew his way around technology. I still think that you still could have done it because Chewbacca was kind of removed from his, his home.

[01:14:59] Like I mean, to my mind, like I still would have been fine. but I think to really, to really underscore the thematic content, I think is why he had to make it clear that none of know, these are very primitive, people creatures, right? The interesting thing about the walks too, is that I don't know where I read this. I think it was maybe one of the, uh, Jonathan Rinzler, making a fraternity, the Jedi, but, um, George Lucas, his instructions were, don't be afraid of cute. I think some of the initial designs were a little more fearsome and I think that's actually an interesting, move.

[01:15:32] I think, you know, the cynical reading is like, oh, he wants, he wants it to be kid-friendly to sell more toys or whatever. But I think that that actually really enhances, the idea that the fearsome empire is brought down not only are they primitive creatures, but they're also cute.

[01:15:48] Like the empire is destroyed by cuteness. I think it's actually, uh, kind a delicious sort of a metaphor there or whatever it is.

[01:15:56] FREY: but Also sort of highlights how their, underlying nature or like that they're not necessarily, it was almost a, not an afterthought, but like a layer on top

[01:16:05] of like what they were conceived as.

[01:16:07] JOSH: no. And also it's very similar to, um, it's sort of the idea with Yoda taken to the extreme. it doesn't always look on the surface, what you would expect. You know, Yoda, the idea that this tiny little. Froggy creature is the most powerful Jedi master. And he's like, 11 inches tall.

[01:16:26] Right. And

[01:16:27] MICKEY: And

[01:16:27] he can't put the other real sentence.

[01:16:29] JOSH: Right. And he can't he can't speak forwards. the idea that appearances can be deceiving. I think the Equinox or the ultimate expression of that, you know, the empire would never consider them a threat and they don't.

[01:16:41] RUSS: But, you know what they got, they got those black eyes, like a dollars I got, you know, you should be terrible. You should be terrified of these little, these little furry tooth things. Uh, cause I was just, I was looking through, uh, uh, the returns that I sketchbook. Um, and it's all like a lot of like the preliminary concept drawings.

[01:16:58] And um, there they say like there were supposed to be two types of creatures, inhabiting,

[01:17:03] uh, indoor and you know, the Muslim is this tall, like they're furry with like long stilt, like legs, they say one is in Java court. Um,

[01:17:10] JOSH: yes.

[01:17:11] RUSS: yeah,

[01:17:11] JOSH: actually, he's kind of a rod, to the wall. He doesn't really move a lot. he's actually highlighted in the aforementioned Jedi rock sequence. He's the CG singer. I like he's the.

[01:17:23] RUSS: So, yeah, so they didn't do that because of technical difficulties. And like, you know, the key features were like, you know, a pug nose face. A lot of the early concept designs are pretty much just like, you know, hamsters with, uh, with, with bows and arrows and like, I mean, that's, to me, like that makes sense.

[01:17:37] Um, I'm fine with it. And again, like a lot of people think, you know, they're too cute, they're Teddy bears, but they're, they're fierce. Like, again, I'll bring up pap Lou, uh, you know, he, he's an adventure, he's a risk taker and like, uh, also somewhat technically minded. So if you think about it, like they've been watching the Imperials, you know, ride their speeder bikes for awhile now without any, any prompting jumped on, know, through the throttle and boom blast off.

[01:18:02] like, uh, smart, intuitive, uh, intuitive bear creatures.

[01:18:06] FREY: a little stinker.

[01:18:07] RUSS: Yeah. That's the best way to describe my thing.

[01:18:12] MICKEY: again, the, the, the point that I, like, I think like, they look cute as in terms of a look, but again, I think they are kind of, I guess, like, it's cute the way, like they share the cracker with layer, whatever, there are some key, but overall they are fearsome creatures.

[01:18:24] And I was thinking it's kind of interesting, like, compared to like, maybe like ITI, like he's pretty ugly, but he ends up being this nice, um, pure whole being

[01:18:31] RUSS: he's a pacifist.

[01:18:33] MICKEY: Yeah.

[01:18:33] FREY: Yeah,

[01:18:34] MICKEY: cute, like looking things that are fo for, or you're just like now we're just gonna like kill and eat these people.

[01:18:39] We don't care.

[01:18:40] RUSS: They're hungry, baby.

[01:18:42] JOSH: I love that one, that one. And that's in, you're talking about where three PO is having Storytime and he's basically recounting the whole, the whole trilogy to the E-box. I love that one. He walk the, the oldie walk. He's like, he's, he's like smoking a pipe or something and it's kind of like, oh,

[01:18:59] he's

[01:19:00] like,

[01:19:00] MICKEY: goes back to like the ran core trainer too. Like these just little details that guy with the

[01:19:05] JOSH: yeah.

[01:19:06] MICKEY: the baby walked terrified, like the Vader sound he's like, oh God, like they don't have to throw these things in. And they do, and it just makes it a whole world. And it's, it's great.

[01:19:14] FREY: not to go back to. John was palace for too long, but the Ranko thing, uh, trainer just reminded me again. I kinda liked and Fett with damage. Right? How have they kind of continued tradition? Like all the

[01:19:26] JOSH: yes.

[01:19:26] FREY: just kind of have an attachment to the Cause he's like, he

[01:19:30] JOSH: Yeah.

[01:19:30] FREY: boxes his own.

[01:19:32] MICKEY: Yeah. The Marine Corps trainers or.

[01:19:33] FREY: trainers are.

[01:19:34] MICKEY: They're there, the pit bull owners of that universe.

[01:19:36] FREY: Yes, exactly.

[01:19:38] JOSH: Right, and it's interesting too, because what he, what Danny Trejo says about the rank horse nature retroactively makes you feel really horrible for this rank. Or it's like the only reason he's like this is because they're. They're mistreating him and he's, he's, he's, you know, he's hungry and scared and he's like, okay, if I have to sing for my separ whatever, you know, they're not fierce unless you them badly kind of poignant and sad.

[01:20:08] Um, something cool with the walks and an, is like, you know, similarly the, the ATS TV kind of gets its moment to shine. It's like you take the ATA eighties from the beginning of empire and you have like the mini versions.

[01:20:24] MICKEY: Yeah, I that's just, again, that's again, like we were saying before, just cool production design, that's just an awesome looking fun thing, you know, like yeah. And you could say, yeah, it's gonna be a cool toy. Maybe that's why, but it also is just like, yeah. One of those things

[01:20:38] RUSS: Yeah.

[01:20:39] MICKEY: a kid just out of a, more than anything in your mind is like, man, these two cool things in these two legs that can shoot lasers and

[01:20:45] JOSH: And also a lot of the effects, like, there's this one shot where, the HTST is walking forward and then the camera pans over to a bunch of stormtroopers running. there was no computer motion tracking, like, they created this shot where they had to manually, make that camera move with the go motion to stop motion.

[01:21:08] But the, um, the animated, model of the HTST like, to have a moving shot like that, that doesn't even call attention to itself. , like it didn't have to move, but the fact that it moves and you don't even, I mean, so invisible, it doesn't stand out. Like just makes you by the reality of it so much.

[01:21:28] RUSS: That's a lot of the effects in this movie, especially like, you know, we were talking about the space battles, uh, compositing, that many ships, it was the first time they'd ever done that many in like single shots. And it's just like for seconds, mere seconds on screen, they're compositing, you know, like 15, 18 ships in a shop around the millennium Falcon.

[01:21:47] And it just it's gone in a flash, but the impact of that shot, and it really is, I think some of the best looking, uh, physical effects composite or work like in any movie. And to me, it just reads better than, uh, like any kind of CGI versions I've seen. I like I have yet to see a CGI version that, uh, I guess maybe you could say like in rogue one, there are elements that do

[01:22:12] feel a little bit.

[01:22:13] That one is the only one that I recall where, where the ships actually feel and have the kind of weight that think they need.

[01:22:19] MICKEY: But he CGD over physical models in that I think that's why.

[01:22:24] FREY: Right. And they probably did some of that put like purposeful, like, uh, looking like stop motion or puppetry, like with the CGI.

[01:22:31] RUSS: And Jedi, Jenna is unmatched in those effects. Yeah. And I was just gonna say

[01:22:34] like, it's that seamless, ATS T that's walking. It's like, yeah. It's just part of the story. It's not, we're not showing off the effect. It is really is designed to be forgotten. Like if you're thinking about it is taking you out of the story and that's of, what's great about where we turn the jet.

[01:22:49] I got to,

[01:22:50] FREY: I do. So like the look of the of bike chase too.

[01:22:53] JOSH: mean, it's awesome.

[01:22:54] I love the sound of it too.

[01:22:55] MICKEY: yeah,

[01:22:56] FREY: And it just

[01:22:57] MICKEY: it's a P 38 lightning.

[01:22:58] FREY: what.

[01:22:59] JOSH: Oh, is that what.

[01:23:00] MICKEY: Yeah. Well that mixed with something else that had Ben Burt mix a

[01:23:02] P 38 lightning. Yeah. Something like that.

[01:23:05] FREY: animatic that they made before? Like they make like a,

[01:23:07] MICKEY: Yeah.

[01:23:08] FREY: model just to

[01:23:09] get the shots right? the action figures

[01:23:11] JOSH: Yeah. they feature that, very heavily in, from star wars to Jedi and that as a kid, like watching, that was one of the things that made me realize like, oh, maybe this is something I could do.

[01:23:23] FREY: DOI.

[01:23:25] JOSH: yeah,

[01:23:25] RUSS: yeah,

[01:23:26] MICKEY: speaking of the spiders, big chase and all this stuff is like, I was almost white in Oakland. I haven't seen this in so long. I hadn't seen him turn on Jedi, like 10 years, maybe 12. I was one of those people like, nah, no physical effects better than CG and I'm going to, and you know, and I always say that, but then I turned this on.

[01:23:40] I'm like, am I going to be proven? Where am I going to watch this? And be like, Ooh, yeah, this isn't as good as I remember as a kid after the last 15 years of CG stuff. And I saw no, nothing that like, it was good. It's better. Like, I appreciate it, everything this, this did. I was, I think, especially worried about this, the speeder bike scene of that, just when you're like, yeah, that was clearly just going to be some people in front of a blue screen it wasn't, it was like, it's so much better than I even remember well it

[01:24:04] was done.

[01:24:05] FREY: the, like sense of like that expansive space and it also, but without any sort of like, uh, like CGI hanging over it, like, it's

[01:24:14] MICKEY: Yeah.

[01:24:14] FREY: you can tell it a real it just goes on forever and ever.

[01:24:18] MICKEY: I think the only, the only thing that I felt like was like a little iffy was the, the a T a S T on the logs getting tripped up on the logs.

[01:24:25] JOSH: That's so funny though. Cause both of those were animated by Phil Tippett. so there is some event of it too. Yeah. So there is some of ed 2 0 9 in this, uh, that, that animation it's the same, it's the same artistic creative mind.

[01:24:37] It's the same hands manipulating. but that shot actually Mickey, love that shot, because like the, I mean, I think it works like it doesn't, um, stand out to me as, as, uh, You know, not a passing muster or whatever, but that aside the believability aside, like the, the amount of work that they had to do, uh, to make, I like to track the ATS T the animation of the ATS T it's so painstaking for this shot that lasts, I don't know, less than five seconds on screen.

[01:25:15] MICKEY: If it is worth it,

[01:25:17] JOSH: No, it's totally worth

[01:25:18] it. it's described, in detail in the Jonathan Rinzler, making of ended had been alluded to in other places, but, uh, they called it, uh, black Thursday where, , basically they were zeroing in, on completing the shots for the end battle and stuff.

[01:25:34] And, uh, this one day, George Lucas shows up and he just like threw out half the shots I was like, you have to do them over again. you know, like it's not good enough. And, Joe Johnston and Richard Edlund and, other guys at the shop, got plastered and stayed up all night and like, were really pissed off. But then they went, they went back to the drawing board and recreated all these, all these shots. I think the rest of, right, like this is the, Zenith of this kind of, of expertise and technique. for so many reasons, it's like the, pinnacle of kind of this kind of work, these particular, creative artists skills are being harnessed to the absolute limit of what they could do and what the technology could do.

[01:26:21] RUSS: And you, you hit the nail on the head. It's, it's really like all of these effects are in service of stories, of visual, like seconds moments. Uh, and because they didn't have to worry about, You know, like achieving this one little moment. Well, we could do this whole, we could have shield generators over entire, uh, you know, walking army troops and it just, uh, limitations are really, I think what made it so sweet and so, so tasty it really, it really like, like you're getting a little bit, but it's done so well.

[01:26:54] It's done the best they could possibly do with the technology at the time. I don't think CGI has necessarily not done the best they can do at the time of the technology, but I think it's, looked at differently. I don't think it's treated a sweet, as a sweet, savory morsel, you know, or

[01:27:12] like good dessert, like a little like a tiny little appar teeth, you know, like a little, like a

[01:27:17] JOSH: Yeah, no, no, no. Well, I think you're exactly right. Like, I'll contrast this with the opening space battle at the beginning of revenge of the Sith, which is, I think the nearest star wars equivalent, and actually in terms

[01:27:28] RUSS: Hmm.

[01:27:29] JOSH: room, dynamic is actually you're, you're supposed to see this, uh, you know, as sort of a mirror of that, sequence, I mean, it is impressive in certain ways. that first shot, like the first shot where you're following, the two star fighters and then they go, uh, down and, and reveal the battle. It's like, there's so much happening and that's one shot and you follow along, the two fighters and weaving in and out of all this stuff, you just subconsciously know, like, that shot is impossible.

[01:27:57] RUSS: that's that's it. We know it can happen.

[01:28:00] JOSH: and there is no restraint. because, and I think you're exactly right. Like there were limitations, like physical limitations that, uh, were there from the technology. And when you approach CGI as like a magic button, fix it all, we could do anything.

[01:28:18] How do I say this? Like with the way they had to get the shots and do all this work to get these little moments, it really makes you think about every shot, every frame, like, does this need to be here? Should this be here? How does this work with everything else?

[01:28:34] RUSS: You're forced to edit before you even start. And that's, and that's really like, it it's like this. you're editing the visual effect because of your limitations of resources. Um, it's just, yeah, it's just like refinement. Like the thing you're getting is, would have filtered through so many passes, so many ideas and concepts and people saying yes, no, yes.

[01:28:53] Maybe. and, just, and, or even having to rework it. I mean, like, uh, humans are a finite resource in filmmaking and, and to make it a team, redo what they've just, sweat over, you know, bled over because it wasn't good enough. Like, I mean, maybe that's pushing it too far. but the end result of return the GI, like it really, like Mickey said, it stands up, it holds, holds up and like, yeah, there's a few moments in the speeder bike chase.

[01:29:20] Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're on, they're on two kind of bouncy speeder bikes, but I do remember as a child, uh, going to MGM studios and they had a speeder bike set up at the star tours area. I just remember

[01:29:32] FREY: no problem.

[01:29:32] RUSS: is the coolest thing as I sat on that and I was like, speeder bikes are awesome.

[01:29:36] is great. The design looks cool. They hold up. And my memory of the excitement of the film, I think it was in the Leonard Maltin star wars interviews, the George Lucas before, uh, the THX remaster to BHS version. uh, Lucas had said like, you know, sour 77 w it was bright and sunny desert, and then Hoth was icy and cold.

[01:29:57] And then Jerry wanted to be green. Like he wanted those differences in

[01:30:02] JOSH: Yeah. The Browns and the earth tones and

[01:30:03] the Yeah.

[01:30:04] RUSS: And, and to have the speeder bikes going through that space. And I think it was steady cam that they

[01:30:09] JOSH: Yes. the the inventor, the inventor of, the steady cam, Garrett brown. Am I pulling that out of my ass and then his name? yeah, but anyway, steady cam was a new thing. I think, Kubrick.

[01:30:21] FREY: Yeah.

[01:30:21] MICKEY: it was shining, right. It was shining. And then Rocky and then this

[01:30:25] basically. Yeah,

[01:30:26] RUSS: for glory.

[01:30:27] JOSH: yeah. Uh, they were trying to figure out how to get these shots and they were like, well, let's call up the guy that invented the steady cam and see if like, that was the only way that they could figure out how to do it. And it looks amazing.

[01:30:40] RUSS: It really is a good match.

[01:30:42] MICKEY: He did a frame, like a step or something. He took a step and took a frame a step and did a frame. then they played at 24 frames per second back with the composite or something like that.

[01:30:52] RUSS: Let's give you that high speed motion. Yeah.

[01:30:54] And it works. And we hadn't seen any emotion like that. I think in movies up to that point, like no one had achieved that visual effect of that speed and Yeah.

[01:31:03] FREY: The evolution of a star wars, special effects kinda reminds me of like the evolution of like original NES graphics. Like if you're looking at the original, like MES

[01:31:11] games. So like the ones that were hurt, at least in like the late nineties, it's like, they did everything they could possibly do with that technology.

[01:31:17] I was going to say like, pat CGI, like, uh, the thing about that is that like, guess it's not so much of an issue now, but like through the history of the last, like 20, 25 years, like, people just also ignored the limitations of it. They thought like, they're like,

[01:31:29] oh, we can do this. Like, we'll do it.

[01:31:30] I was like, no, it's like, shit. Like, like if they think that they can do it.

[01:31:33] JOSH: 100%. Like, I think the problem with it is you don't, it's like, you need to, you need to put your own limitations on yourself, , to get the best results out of it. You need to be judicious with how you use it when you use it and not use it as a crutch.

[01:31:48] MICKEY: and I guess one thing, especially watching these, the star wars movie is like something I don't understand when they use CGI is like, I don't understand why we replaced matte painting with CGI. Like, to me, it's just like, watch these movies, like matte paintings are perfect. I don't, I don't get why we ever, did that switch?

[01:32:01] Like, it's something you

[01:32:02] don't actually need CGI for. Yeah. But I

[01:32:04] guess, I guess that's, maybe I'm more complained about digital than actually like, that's my issue. It's not CGI,

[01:32:08] but digital.

[01:32:09] JOSH: well, that sort of ties into what I was about to say. I do have to ask, because I asked myself this a lot of the times, like, how much you think We have a bias because this is the aesthetic that we raised on. And you know, we're more accepting of them as quote unquote realistic, versus CGI or, digital, techniques, because, for example, like I was talking to somebody and they were talking about a shot in one of the new movies and how, the effects, like weren't up to par.

[01:32:39] And then I was like, well, sure. But if you look at, for example, the 1880s and the empire strikes back, like, like those don't look real, you can tell that it's an effect, so my thing is, I think, with a movie like this a heavy, special effects movie, the buy-in is you're either willing to go with it or not.

[01:32:57] MICKEY: I think for me, it's like, not, it doesn't look real or not, but it it's physical. know it's

[01:33:03] a physical thing. And that's, I guess for me, like I guess I have nothing against If you want to say it's just to me, it's almost a different medium to, to what?

[01:33:10] RUSS: Yeah.

[01:33:11] MICKEY: what I think cinema is going back to

[01:33:12] FREY: yeah.

[01:33:13] MICKEY: magic lantern to, to Zoetrope.

[01:33:15] If you will. It's like, it's a physical thing and everything that's ever been done. with special effects, minus animation or whatever, up to, this point, because the GI was like, you were doing something physical with a film strip you were getting something onto a finally onto a film strip by filming something in real life onto light in that whole physical, like again, the physicality of it.

[01:33:36] RUSS: Yeah.

[01:33:36] MICKEY: that's what cinema is,

[01:33:38] know? And then when you hit 1990 and all of a sudden you're like, it's a video game. Like, and

[01:33:42] RUSS: Okay.

[01:33:43] MICKEY: video games are cool. I mean, maybe that's maybe that's the age thing. Maybe that's us growing up with, grew up with cinema

[01:33:48] with filmmaking and I didn't grow up with video games and maybe that's what, and that no, no, you might be right.

[01:33:53] And that, that, that maybe that it's not so much related to like

[01:33:56] a movie bifurcation. It's a video game. It's when video games became big.

[01:34:01] JOSH: what you're reminding me of is I think it's, the Ben Hamina essay about the aura art in the age of mechanical reproduction.

[01:34:09] Right. you know, the, the, aura. the object.

[01:34:14] Once you can mechanically reproduce it, you lose the aura that the work has, because the art is an object it's like created, and it's imbued with all this stuff. And then as soon as you can basically recreate it through photography, and you have a representation of it, that's a stand in for the quote unquote real thing.

[01:34:36] you're missing the aura that the object was imbued with, and you're making it less special. And I'm wondering if there isn't something along those lines. So what we're talking about, Filming and of itself, like the medium of cinema, like,

[01:34:51] You know, what is a movie? There is no genuine article, like maybe the negative, but like nobody watches the negative. so what actually is a movie it's, it's actually not a real physical thing. It's it's like a sculpture in time and light and shadow. that is experienced in real time.

[01:35:10] MICKEY: I think it's experience. I

[01:35:12] think experience is the key word.

[01:35:15] JOSH: Yeah. So, but it's

[01:35:15] RUSS: Yeah.

[01:35:16] JOSH: because it's not an object. Like it doesn't have the aura, so it is really interesting what you're saying, Mickey. but again, I have to ask Like, is it a distinction without a difference, like maybe two, two our eyes

[01:35:27] FREY: I think the difference is you said it before, is that like, it's an impossible shot? Like usually if anything, we find wrong with CGI, it's either an impossible shot or it's presented as an impossible shot. And it just doesn't seem like that's why C it would seem often one way or another. so we have a concept of what a possible and impossible shot is.

[01:35:44] and the

[01:35:44] one it fits and one doesn't. Oh, is.

[01:35:46] JOSH: No, I think you're right, because you look at the way, force awakens, a big part of the marketing was how, like they're going back to practical effects or going back to like the old school way of doing things at blah, blah,

[01:35:55] RUSS: Well,

[01:35:55] JOSH: there was more model work in the Phantom menace than there was in the force awakens. the way that they use it is very different. they use it like the, um, the blanket blanket, the, the young car plot, the uncarved putt. I don't know what the fuck his name is the guy that, that's far more portions or whatever that guy, he's, Simon peg, and a latex mask.

[01:36:16] but they use CG to animate and articulate, the mouth some of the expressions. So they use it in a way. So it is real, it was really there it's onset. but the judicious use of CG, they use it sparingly to augment what is there, which is. A better use of the technology

[01:36:36] RUSS: yeah, that's like the new dark crystal that, that, uh, the new season of dark crystal that was on Netflix as the prequel to original film, uh, you know, they're still using pretty much identical, puppets Muppets. Um, but they're doing the eye blinks, I think.

[01:36:50] And, uh, and some other minor things, which I actually didn't perceive.

[01:36:53] It still felt very puppety and I think it's the thing. I think part of a very often, a lot of my issues are that like I'm living in minus Talia for the past. Um, think one of the things that people want to see out of star wars and, it did happen in, the Mandalorian is seeing puppets that aren't perfect or seeing kind of like jenky puppet movement.

[01:37:14] Um, I think part of that artifice that physical artifice is what Mickey's looking for, what I'm looking for. Like, I kind of want to see it done physically. Even if it's not perfect because the same light that's hitting that Muppet is hitting the actor in the scene and there's there. That's, that's our exp they experience we're getting out of that is closer to reality than when you're making a perfectly seamless, a seamless ship fly across a pond in whatever last Jedi or no.

[01:37:45] Sorry. A rise of Skywalker, I think is that the shot of the XPLAN slung over the water? The PO Damron like, I just, I felt nothing watching.

[01:37:52] JOSH: I actually think there's a force. Awakened said,

[01:37:54] RUSS: Oh, yeah, I don't, I don't know. I can't remember those movies blend into one big blur, but, uh, but yeah, it just, it doesn't read like anything to me because it's not, if that were done a practical effects, it would be a model composite it over water.

[01:38:06] But for whatever reason, the light hitting a plastic, painted model is still reading better composited for me than, than the CGI. So, when we're watching that space battle and like, I don't know. It must be like, it was one animation when the emperor is like, uh, your friends are failing and looking out the window.

[01:38:23] I don't know what we're actually seeing out there really micro models or a little like little like hand drawn 2d animation. So I don't know what that was actually.

[01:38:31] JOSH: I think it's probably a 2d animation. Like it may even just be like, um, uh, like razor gay, like razor cutouts on like a, like a sheet of glass or something.

[01:38:40] RUSS: Someone's got an overhead projector and they're doing a

[01:38:41] scroll and they're

[01:38:42] rolling in the back.

[01:38:44] JOSH: so you just said something that I think is, , I think you hit the nail on the head actually. Uh, the difference

[01:38:49] is. I think the difference is perfection, perfection real true, true perfection, like true symmetry, like true straight lines. True. Right. Angles. They're unnatural. They read to us subconsciously as unnatural. So when you have a physical model, you have all of the real natural imperfections of, the way the light interacts with the surface and the lines are straight, but like real, straight, not computer straight, yeah, yeah,

[01:39:17] RUSS: Yeah.

[01:39:17] FREY: I think about the way the speeder bike scene of what it looked. If it was CGI, like perfect today, see like CGI, like it wasn't like cool in its own way, it wouldn't like, like,

[01:39:26] JOSH: yeah.

[01:39:27] FREY: the cool way that it does actually work, because that is physical space that they're

[01:39:31] flying through.

[01:39:32] JOSH: Yeah, well, what, comes to mind actually, what you just said that is, that sequence in, uh, kingdom of the crystal skull when chase through the forest, You're not, I'm talking about and that looks fake.

[01:39:41] FREY: Right. Exactly.

[01:39:43] JOSH: Oh, just a weird thing to say, because I mean, I mean, this is also obviously fake,

[01:39:47] FREY: but

[01:39:47] it's like the parts are all

[01:39:51] JOSH: yeah,

[01:39:52] RUSS: mentioned the Phantom menace effects and there's that one effects where like, in all the, all like, um, on the original DVD that came out in the, uh, the BTS footage, they show that they painted all these mash, dickheads different colors in the,

[01:40:03] in the, in the arena and the podcast res uh, wow. Uh, pod racer, we're doing the podcast, they were pod racing in the arena, and they're all, and someone's underneath juggling match to color mastic heads.

[01:40:16] reads as more realistic the eye, unfortunately, in that movie because of the camera that you used, I feel like a lot of the effects got flattened and a lot of the life taken out of them anyway, cause also was like, what rescanned later digital effects replied. Uh, but, but they were. Hand painted that were then digitize later, but they were still, you know, it still has that, that element.

[01:40:37] That's a little bit more organic, whatever a human nature algorithm is. Flipping those, matchsticks on the bottom is more realistic than, you know, some sort of pre like animated sequence of little, a little tiny heads bobbing, I suppose.

[01:40:52] JOSH: Though Russ, you were right the first time they're doing the podcast. Now this is pottery. sorry

[01:41:03] RUSS: I, I'm glad I opened that up.

[01:41:05] That

[01:41:05] opportunity for you.

[01:41:06] FREY: Like what have I done?

[01:41:07] JOSH: what's really interesting about that is that for my money, the Phantom menace fields, the most quote unquote star wars, the, of the prequels. And I think it's because it was shot on 35 millimeter film stock. Like if you watch a print of the Phantom menace, I mean, it may be just for people of our generation and older, it feels more quote unquote real than the version that you watch on streaming, where it has all the digital noise reduction and they try to make it look like the other two prequels, uh, which were shot on, two K digital video, which is wild to me,

[01:41:38] the.

[01:41:38] RUSS: That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. I was thinking of the other films. Phantom menace was shot on 35.

[01:41:43] JOSH: Yeah.

[01:41:43] RUSS: had that digital intermediate, like post.

[01:41:46] JOSH: Yeah. , but, so it's, so it's interesting. in some corners of the internet, there are, fan film, restorationists. And if you look at, the prints they have acquired and scanned of episode one, when you see it, not what we're used to seeing, which is like, streaming version that has been, digitally scrubbed everything looks kind of waxy.

[01:42:06] Like when you see it. On film and it, it, produces the colors the way that a film print does, it feels more like the original films did, because I think of that quality

[01:42:17] RUSS: well, it's

[01:42:17] back to Mickey's point. It's that plastic? Medium it's like film, film shot on film feels like film because it was on film.

[01:42:24] MICKEY: Yeah.

[01:42:25] JOSH: but that said though, mean, once again, like, is that, but like, is that something that will die with us? I mean, like, is that a thing that actually

[01:42:35] RUSS: yeah. A lot of things.

[01:42:36] JOSH: matters.

[01:42:37] MICKEY: mean, there'll be hipsters 50 years in the future who will like, you know, there'll be like some small collection. They're like, yeah, vinyl's better. And man, they used to have this thing called 35 millimeter and everyone else will just be like, yo, okay, whatever, man. It's going to go watch iron man 10.

[01:42:50] JOSH: I guess what I'm really asking and maybe no answer here. Ironman X. Yeah. guess there's no real answer here, but like, is there something inherently like in a vacuum

[01:43:03] MICKEY: Yes, I think

[01:43:03] JOSH: to practical effects?

[01:43:05] MICKEY: Yeah. I, I think there is,

[01:43:06] RUSS: Yeah.

[01:43:07] MICKEY: I don't have the link. I think philosophic. Honestly, I think there

[01:43:12] is something

[01:43:13] FREY: appeal just

[01:43:13] to a physical thing.

[01:43:15] RUSS: I sleep better at night, knowing it was a physical effect.

[01:43:19] FREY: yeah.

[01:43:20] Like would you rather have like an e-card or like an, a physical car? I guess I wouldn't want either of those because what are you going to do? One a card. I think they want a physical card.

[01:43:30] JOSH: You are reminding me of a, um, of a debate that I had with someone on the force.net, Jedi council message board in like 2003 that is still there. , some guy was like, so this was right after the attack of the clubs.

[01:43:46] I was like, why would you make the clone trooper CG? It's so easy to make, you know, a physical suit and like a lot of those shots, didn't need them to BCG when you could've just had the physical suit. And some guy was arguing with me that. it was just as good and there's no reason to make a suit.

[01:44:00] And I was like, but no, like the more real things you have in the image, the better. And the guy was like, no, like there's no difference.

[01:44:07] FREY: the argument is he's saying I don't see the difference. what is he accusing you of a longer that seeing the difference? Like you see the difference if he doesn't like.

[01:44:14] JOSH: no. Well, I mean, I think I was like,

[01:44:16] RUSS: I know.

[01:44:17] MICKEY: but, but no, but even if you don't, if

[01:44:18] you don't see the difference, I think there is something metaphorical. I don't know if that's the

[01:44:23] RUSS: No, no. It's in your bones. You feel

[01:44:25] it in your bones?

[01:44:26] FREY: won't turn off the, the, uh, motion smoother on their TV when I got it So,

[01:44:29] MICKEY: Yeah. Um,

[01:44:31] RUSS: That's a good point.

[01:44:33] MICKEY: like, it's like, people are pointing out. There's like a whole thing now where people are saying like the euphoria creators, like yeah. I'm shooting on 35 millimeter and people are like, yeah, you get it on HBO. Like it's, you're

[01:44:42] JOSH: Right.

[01:44:43] MICKEY: compressed, like why, but I'm like,

[01:44:45] RUSS: I can see the green.

[01:44:46] MICKEY: I think, I think the way it's going to like the way your lights are going to play on a 35 millimeter, it doesn't matter if you're capturing the whole thing.

[01:44:53] When you get, when it comes off a HBO, max or not, there's other aspects of it being physical that affects it other than just the pure

[01:45:00] RUSS: Yeah.

[01:45:00] MICKEY: you get in the end product, the way actors will react to it, you know, that, that could be an argument to that guys. Like, does it matter if it looks just as good?

[01:45:07] I'm like, yeah, it looks just as good to us, get it in our eyes. But then the actors who are, know, um, composite it against, it will react differently to, know, a hundred extras and they are

[01:45:17] too.

[01:45:18] FREY: Isn't what gets good. And you just don't know because you don't.

[01:45:20] MICKEY: Yeah.

[01:45:20] RUSS: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:45:21] Apparently season two of HBO's euphoria was shot entirely on Kodak Ektachrome film. I know

[01:45:26] I looked it up because yeah, so they wanted the first season though, it wasn't shot in Thailand films. Certain sequences were, but they pushed and pushed and got the whole season two shot on film. And I got to tell you, it looks like it and it looks fantastic.

[01:45:40] Um, and that's yeah. And that's like, uh, it's right. Like whatever whatever's happening between the lens and the film plane how it's compressing and chemically mixing and like how, how skin tone looks and how the edge of a face will drop out of focus, whatever that is, all those things. It's the same for me as N a T S T stumbling on a pile of logs that are composited in a second shot.

[01:46:06] Thank you, Phil Tippett. It's just like. And also even like an empire, like they were shaking the table as they were doing the shots, uh, to give like an extra blur mode, like a motion blur, uh, to the, to the, uh, stop motion, which was like kind of a new innovation for them. It's like these little things I think will always add to, that, that feeling, you get watching it versus like, yeah, something super smooth.

[01:46:28] Even when you apply film green back to a CGI effect, it you're just painting and film grain, and it's not there. There's no physical process happening there. Maybe in the future, certain algorithms, I know there's gate shutter and things that have been added from certain cinematographers. Um, think that that happened to the cinematographer for knives out working with Ryan Johnson like a certain process, uh, to replicate film, you're replicating it versus actually happening in camera.

[01:46:56] Um, all that being said, it actually brings me back to, thinking, the throne room. On the, on the second death star. so the emperor sitting in this giant chair, the throne room is really interesting cause it's on this giant spindle off the face of this thing. Um, really the only argument I can think of for actually having built out the death star, uh, in my, in my opinion, if you're going to build a second death star and this happens later in, in kind of in dark empire and the series, just build the weapon and build like a frame around it.

[01:47:25] You don't need to build an entire space station. Like it's a lot of resources, a lot of time. A lot of guys just have you start destroyers and just build the gun, just, just build the center portion and you don't have like,

[01:47:37] FREY: but was

[01:47:37] RUSS: and just,

[01:47:37] FREY: of their, their Russo or like, I didn't even know this is operational,

[01:47:42] RUSS: well, yeah, I mean, th the ruse is part of it, but like that's a lot of time and money granted. They're, they're, you know, they're, they're conquering worlds and, and having, you know, enslaving people and, and taking all that to build their weaponry. But like why built the whole thing? Just built the gun.

[01:47:56] JOSH: No. I mean, you're kind of right. Actually that actually would have made it a little more interesting. I think if they were like, okay, we're obviously not going to rebuild that whole thing again, because it took 20 years, but we are, we are gonna, we are going to rebuild the gun and that's really all we need.

[01:48:11] RUSS: it's easier to defend a gun That

[01:48:12] entire space station.

[01:48:14] JOSH: Actually in the original rough draft of return to the Jedi, they were trying to destroy a gun that was on the forest moon of had Avedon, which was the name of the Imperial city planet. And it was a defense thing that the rebels were going to land on the moon.

[01:48:32] Of the Imperial city planet take over the gun and turn it onto

[01:48:36] MICKEY: So

[01:48:37] JOSH: capital.

[01:48:37] MICKEY: Navarone.

[01:48:39] RUSS: I was going to say,

[01:48:42] MICKEY: Yeah.

[01:48:42] RUSS: is cool. like if you're

[01:48:43] MICKEY: riffing on world war II, like mission movies like that. That's kind of awesome.

[01:48:47] RUSS: I'm down for that,

[01:48:48] JOSH: I mean, that's cool. Like it's like, again, the reason we didn't get that is because, George Lucas didn't think that they could do the effects of the city planet. maybe

[01:48:55] RUSS: then put it on an empty planet. I don't know, put it on, put a nice planet, but put it on the forest planet. Just, you know, just do the thing you can do. And then, Matt paint in your giant gun, it would have worked. would have been for it.

[01:49:07] JOSH: , to be clear, the giant gun was on the forest moon, like that was like defense.

[01:49:11] RUSS: But it would be destroying the city planet. You're

[01:49:13] saying. Ah, gotcha.

[01:49:15] JOSH: So, they were going to land on the moon and take over the gun. instead of shooting it outward, like they were going to turn it inward.

[01:49:22] RUSS: You know, the problem is like had blade runner come out earlier that had been like, oh, we can do what we can do an industrialized city planet. Like, like no problem.

[01:49:30] JOSH: Yeah. And the irony of that is that an attack of the clones, a lot of like the, , the underbelly of chorus and is, is clearly influenced,

[01:49:37] RUSS: Uh,

[01:49:37] JOSH: blade runner.

[01:49:38] MICKEY: Yeah

[01:49:39] Turnbull. He, I think you already said no to star wars.

[01:49:41] They got determined old Douglas Turnbull. Is that his name?

[01:49:44] JOSH: Oh, oh,

[01:49:45] oh yeah. Duck

[01:49:46] troubled. Nope.

[01:49:47] MICKEY: I think Lucas asked him if he wanted to work on star wars and he's like, nah, I'm good.

[01:49:49] JOSH: I think he was, I think he was, busy on another thing, duct trouble, uh, who just passed away recently. Yeah, he did blade runner. He also did star Trek. The motion picture. He obviously, he,

[01:49:59] RUSS: Close encounters.

[01:50:01] JOSH: uh, yeah, he, um, he directed, silent running, I believe. And he worked on 2001, a space Odyssey, which is really like the progenitor for all this stuff.

[01:50:11] Like all these guys saw, 2001, a space Odyssey and, and started to get into this.

[01:50:16] RUSS: Well, silent running has some of the best, uh, star wars, uh, like droid robot situations going on. mean, a lot of people would say, look at his, his robots and say like, R2D2 is just totally a riff on the silent running, Dewey drone.

[01:50:30] JOSH: the studio that released silent running tried to Sue 20th century Fox, uh, saying that they, that they ripped them off. And the last, but, or they settle out of court. I don't know. But I think the final thing here, let's talk about, Vader, Luke and the emperor and that whole confrontation.

[01:50:45] first of all, I think Ian McDermott, who was only 37 years old when he played the emperor in 1982 or whatever, I think he's fucking phenomenal. I think he is so good

[01:50:57] MICKEY: Yeah. I think like the best actor

[01:50:59] in the series, like act or act like, you know, like, like Harrison, Ford's got his mojo going on, but he's like and into the prequels, I think too, he is,

[01:51:07] JOSH: no, yeah. He's also one of the highlights of the prequels. like the idea that, this guy was 37 he's.

[01:51:12] MICKEY: yeah.

[01:51:14] JOSH: And, and, and he, gives this incredible performance. I

[01:51:18] RUSS: feel so old

[01:51:19] FREY: I have a weird.

[01:51:21] RUSS: watching him, watching him, watching him, and his, the physicality. It's just, yeah, like that's that, to me, this is why the Oscars don't matter. That's an Oscar winning performance right there. it just, it trans transformative of a person. and

[01:51:35] just, I don't know, as a kid, that was the scariest thing I'd ever seen.

[01:51:37] That, that character just like, oh, this

[01:51:39] FREY: yeah.

[01:51:40] RUSS: and terrifying.

[01:51:40] MICKEY: to

[01:51:41] me, it's definitely like a theater actor doing theater, actor stuff in a movie, and somehow it works cause it's so foreign type of thing. And it's definitely, to me, it's experimental theater acting or something, you know?

[01:51:52] JOSH: Well, because it fits yeah. It fits what Fry's talking about. Like this is this calls for theatricality,

[01:51:58] MICKEY: Yeah, totally.

[01:51:59] FREY: I don't think, like, not from everybody, like it couldn't be for everybody, every character doing that, like

[01:52:04] JOSH: Right.

[01:52:04] FREY: fits from the billing.

[01:52:05] JOSH: Yes. Yes.

[01:52:07] RUSS: Hamlet.

[01:52:08] MICKEY: like confused, like when, when, like you were a kid and Phantom menace came out and you're like, I don't understand how the same actor who was clearly like really old in fraternity. Jedi is like playing

[01:52:21] a younger version and I'm like trying to figure who is this guy? Like, he was like 80 and it to Jedi I'm very.

[01:52:27] JOSH: that's funny. So what do we think about. the whole dynamic here. So, the emperor and Vader are trying to turn loop to the dark side. do we think Vader thinks Luke is going to join him still when all of a sudden done is this like a, three-way sort of a game of, you know, everyone has, competing motivations here and there.

[01:52:45] FREY: I think theater is kind of on autopilot in a way the whole, probably before, like even before, when Luke had said we're going to be some like, kind of like two thirds of the movie,

[01:52:52] I think it's somewhere between, empire strikes back in there. I don't think he's like, even, I don't think he's even thinking about, like, he's just kind of like, he doesn't even know what he said.

[01:52:59] RUSS: Peter knows his limitations with the emperor is what you're saying. Like he knows he can't

[01:53:03] FREY: Yeah. Like, a little kids, the brain literally can't, think past like what's happening with or what's going to happen. Cause you know, it was like, he doesn't want to kill Luke like in the back of his mind and he

[01:53:12] JOSH: Oh, I see what you're

[01:53:13] saying.

[01:53:14] FREY: so like, he was just kind of like you just kind of like on autopilot, like it's just what he'd been, he's been doing. and then finally at the last moment he brain start fires up and it makes us Virgin.

[01:53:23] JOSH: do you think he realizes that, the emperor wants Luke to kill him? I mean, actually I don't even know if the emperor wants look to kill him. Like, I think the emperor wants the stronger one to win. And if that's Vader, it's Vader, if it's Luke it's Luke.

[01:53:35] obviously a revenge of the Sith and count Duku didn't exist at this time you know, You can imagine like he, he's got, I see what's going on here. I mean, he's seen this happen before,

[01:53:45] MICKEY: Yeah.

[01:53:45] Cause I, I think for helping team, like it's like one of those things is like, if Luke wins, Luke is the more powerful, he's the foretold one who's more powerful and he gets

[01:53:52] him as an apprentice. Or if Vader kills Luke, then he just like, I mean, there's obviously some sort of psychological thing he's add on antique and Skywalker, Darth Vader, his entire career or whatever.

[01:54:02] And it just, it just will give him it's more and more of him having power, like, like some sort of psycho power over Darth Vader of like, yeah, I made you kill your son. You never gonna overstep your bounds with me.

[01:54:13] JOSH: Yeah. That's true. That's as fucked up as what all we want a Yoda or trying to get Luke to do.

[01:54:17] MICKEY: No, it's the same thing they're doing. Like it's. And so it really is Vader and Luke together. Like they are kind of almost like this, like two forces pushed into this you're right. I think it's the street way where like Vader knows that Palpatine Vader thinks that leaves, that Palpatine actually wants Luke to kill him, but grader's probably playing a game of like, what if I can get Luke to kill Palpatine?

[01:54:36] And it's the two of us the world. And then Luke is like, what if I can get Vader to kill Palpatine? And then as me and my dad back good side, you know, like that's

[01:54:44] JOSH: Ah,

[01:54:44] FREY: of it as like a Colt member. Like he's just kind of like going through his programming so he's not even thinking about, if he's trying to get Luke to turn against them, like, he doesn't have the tools. so I kind of think about that until finally kind of makes himself

[01:54:59] MICKEY: Yeah, it was why he probably talks about desk destiny a lot. You know, it's like, well, no, whatever happens with this destiny,

[01:55:05] can't, you know,

[01:55:08] JOSH: That's that's, actually very interesting. I think that's a really interesting, way to look at it from both Frye and Mickey. Like I think that, yeah, it's like, it's like, he's going through his cult programming and like, he doesn't have the, framework to even understand what is going on, because he's so deep

[01:55:26] FREY: he's like thinking like a certain, uh, certain language, like in certain terms.

[01:55:30] RUSS: He was

[01:55:30] also a child when he became Vader. Like he doesn't, he doesn't have any of these adult like, cognitive skills to handle it

[01:55:38] and be clouded by the dark side. Yeah.

[01:55:40] FREY: Last time we was normal, it was Havey Christiansen.

[01:55:42] MICKEY: Yeah. It's something that I think both empire and return is missing is, is a, a gram off target character, you know, like this kind of like Vader and the Vader's relationship to the empire and to the emperor is this, this cult religious thing.

[01:55:55] And you know, the reason why mark Tarkin was like this, more ultimate bad guy to Vader was that he's like, no, he's playing his own political game. And you know, there's like more of a political to his relationship with the emperor and to the empire. And I know they were saying there's like early drafts where I'm off to Gerard Gerard, or however you're supposed to say his name

[01:56:13] JOSH: Not even early drafts, like there were scenes, like they shot it. Like you could see a lot of the, yeah. Like you could see a lot of the deleted scenes, no, it's very cool. and there's a thing where the emperor is, is playing mind games with Vader and he's, pitting MAF Gerrard, or wherever his name is against Vader.

[01:56:31] And like, he's doing that. And it was there, like they shot it. there's a moment where, Gerrard or whatever says to Vader, like, you know, the emperor, won't see you or whatever. And then like, he, he starts to force choke him And it's really, some cool stuff. So, but again, very similarly to what happened in prevention of the Sith, where there's a lot of great stuff, really interesting things that were cut

[01:56:53] out, make room for. And this movie, the Luke story and revenge of the Sith, the Anik, and story like what, ended up happening in both of those movies was it was way too long.

[01:57:03] A lot of stuff had to go and they really had to, focus on one thing. And in this movie they really had to zero in on, okay, this is Luke story.

[01:57:12] FREY: Okay.

[01:57:13] JOSH: revenge of the Sith. you lose all that stuff about pad

[01:57:16] FREY: Yeah.

[01:57:16] JOSH: and the group of senators in the Senate and they're starting to form the rebellion and bail Organo's there and all this stuff and all this really interesting stuff that you completely lose, because Otherwise,

[01:57:26] it would have been like a three and a half hour movie. And they were like, okay, we have to make it about Annika and after make it about Annika.

[01:57:31] And I think something similar happens here,

[01:57:33] MICKEY: yeah, I feel like a lot of space battle maybe got cut to like, it feels like there could have been more as, also as a space battle was it's like, you didn't actually get the sea to be wings. Do anything type of

[01:57:43] JOSH: Yeah. Well, so, so, so they had a problem. So they had a problem with, the wings of the B wing, uh, were too thin and they had a lot of problems, uh, losing the wings in the compositing when they keyed out the blue screen. So, so they ended up, not being able to use a lot of those, shot.

[01:58:01] RUSS: I guess that makes sense. But I'm thinking about like the X wings as well, X wings have the the, foils have like really they're really thin. So like, I don't

[01:58:09] know, like, I, I,

[01:58:10] MICKEY: to shoot.

[01:58:10] RUSS: but the B wings are a cool design

[01:58:12] JOSH: so what do we think about, Luke going to the dark side? when I was a kid, I didn't really see the big deal. Uh, you know, maybe I just wasn't really getting it, but I was like, just, just, don't go to the dark side. Like I don't, and that's kind of like what he, and that's kind of what he does the movie.

[01:58:28] He's just like, Nope, I'm not going to do it.

[01:58:30] And I'm like, yeah, right. Yeah. Like I don't really say, but, what is really interesting if you read again, I'm like a commercial for JW ruins was making a return of the Jedi. but when George Lucas explains how you fall to the dark side, it's, it's basically it's like a meter, right? And the more evil things you do, the more your, your dark side level rises. then once you get to a certain point, it's like flipping a switch and then you're on the dark side. Right. so if you have that in mind, what the emperor is trying to do, make sense, he's trying to make Luke so mad that he, trips the switch and he falls to the dark side.

[01:59:09] MICKEY: I think I agree with you as a little kid. I think the one thing that makes me as an adult think like maybe the dark side is I can see going through it and like doing it is like, they say it's like, oh, that light sides, it's hard. It's hard to be good.

[01:59:19] It's hard to do the light side stuff. And the dark side, just

[01:59:22] an easy hack. It's a hack. And now as an adult, I'm like,

[01:59:24] FREY: Um,

[01:59:24] MICKEY: I mean, if I could win the battle by doing the

[01:59:27] easy thing, even I'll do that. Sure. Whatever I, whatever. And I'll deal with the dark side later, when it comes, you know,

[01:59:34] JOSH: Well, no, I mean, I agree with you, like, now I get it. Like now it actually works for me a lot better than when I was a kid. Like the emperor saying, I know you want to kill me, kill me. I'm writing. \ but that, is what will make him fall the

[01:59:46] dark side.

[01:59:47] like it would be so easy.

[01:59:48] FREY: it's easier, when somebody is emotional, that's what, and that's why Anna can was in a position to have that flip, flip switch, like really quickly

[01:59:56] make

[01:59:56] RUSS: Yeah.

[01:59:56] FREY: emotional than that. If you want to, if you want to manipulate them that way, then, then they're a little bit more easy.

[02:00:02] MICKEY: I worked at me and I honestly think. One of the best moments, again, like on the back of thinking as a kid is like, even just thinking of three movies is almost one thing. And what stands out to me is definitely like the line of like, I'm a Jedi.

[02:00:13] Like my father before me is definitely like, damn, that was

[02:00:15] good. You know, of thing that I really responded to as like, as a kid,

[02:00:18] JOSH: totally. Yeah. by the way I was reading, the Taschen, making of, or they,

[02:00:23] published a book about the making of the original trilogy. And then another one about, the prequel trilogy, and in the one about the original trilogy, the author, Paul something, I forget his name.

[02:00:34] he's interviewing George Lucas and George Lucas is, is basically talking about how the original movies were. So not what he wanted, like it was, so it was so hard to get so little and blah, blah, blah. He wasn't really happy with so much of it. the author was like, mean, there's gotta be something you were happy with.

[02:00:50] Like, what's your favorite thing and the original movies and, George Lucas's others. one nice shot in return of the Jedi, and the duel between Vader and Luke that tracking shot. that goes under the stairs.

[02:01:00] FREY: Yeah,

[02:01:01] JOSH: he was like, that was a pretty good shot.

[02:01:03]

[02:01:06] MICKEY: something else I want to say about the whole, that whole scene and the emperor in general too, is I, I, and I think going back to the theme of relating this to like, this is the first prequel, the prequel to the prequel, you know, a lot of similar things going on is I think John Williams is like on a whole other level with the emperor's theme.

[02:01:21] To me like, yeah, that's, emperor's theme is like John Williams is kind of like getting more operatic, which then goes fully operatic kind of like in a sense in the next in episode one doula fates,

[02:01:31] JOSH: Mm.

[02:01:31] MICKEY: I think, there's split, there's a through line to me between those two themes, which I think, you know, kind of works in that, this idea that you're saying that the return of Jetta is a prequel.

[02:01:40] JOSH: Oh, yeah. Like there's also, like, I don't think it's the emphasis theme specifically, but that, moment, other, we were just talking about what that shot during the duel as the first time John Williams, he brings in, the vocals, like, the chorus.

[02:01:51] MICKEY: Yep.

[02:01:51] JOSH: obviously that is the centerpiece of, duel of the fates is, is the choral chanting in that

[02:01:57] RUSS: We'll riffing on the John Williams, I think. And I could be wrong, but in Java's palace, it sounds like he's actually incorporating, uh, synthesizers the

[02:02:05] JOSH: he is.

[02:02:06] MICKEY: what? His

[02:02:06] RUSS: in Java's pop.

[02:02:07] MICKEY: in Toto.

[02:02:08] RUSS: In that mood change. Like there there's so many things that have been heightened in return, the Jedi and that mood change with the synthesizers.

[02:02:15] Like there's an evolution of his score. Like I think like John Williams is the ultimate, like greatest evolution in star wars, uh, the effects and the music, uh, for me, like sure. There's character arcs and things, but like the score to me, like I have the scores on cassette tape, they're so good.

[02:02:32] And I actually, I probably listened to the Jedi score more than any of the others, because I think it's just, takes what he started and build on each, each of the pieces, each of the themes interweaves them so well. And that last act of Jedi is just like most interesting, play of all, all the pieces of, of the themes that he's actually built in that time.

[02:02:52] JOSH: I agree. I think, you know, thinking about it, I think you're probably right. I think that the Jedi soundtrack is the one I probably listened to the most, as a kid, for sure.

[02:02:59] MICKEY: MVP, you know, in and of the star wars. I, I don't, I think they would not have been as great of movies as they are, if it really wasn't for what he was doing musically, I think they, they could easily have just been another of more BCII picture,

[02:03:13] you

[02:03:13] RUSS: Well, let's

[02:03:14] JOSH: You're right.

[02:03:14] RUSS: alone as well. Like, you know, like,

[02:03:16] like,

[02:03:17] like,

[02:03:18] FREY: been a PSI by star wars

[02:03:20] RUSS: like John or in home alone elevates that film to like a whole other plane. Like I would say probably like one of the greatest like film score composers of all

[02:03:30] FREY: You know,

[02:03:30] MICKEY: Yeah.

[02:03:31] FREY: if for homeowner, I feel like it almost makes it more sinister in a good way. Like it

[02:03:34] RUSS: Yeah, it really, really does. It elevates like the quality of that film, like, like through the roof, like, you know, into the stratosphere of, of what the film I think I saw that like, uh, uh, like in the Netflix, like, um, like movies that made us or whatever, but, but, but it's true. Like get, getting John Williams and like, and yeah, and Jerry, I think is just probably the best example of his work and especially the throne room sequence, like, like, uh, when, when Luke is just, when, when looks get all sweaty and that lightsaber battle is just like, it is ferocious.

[02:04:06] It is just like hard strikes, like death blows. And honestly, I still think it's the, one of the best lightsaber duals in all of star wars. Um, because it is really hacking death blows, like just like pure anger. Um, the strikes are all intended to hit and to kill, like is really is like violent and in a way that like it ferocious violent.

[02:04:28] Yeah. And that. Yeah, it just, it seems to be the most realistic. Like this is a duel to the death right now, until he, until ultimately he stops and he's like, I won't fight you. Cause he realizes, you know what he's doing, but then, you know,

[02:04:41] he snapped back and it goes by on again.

[02:04:43] JOSH: was? That great shot? Like he realizes like, oh shit. Like I am literally turning into my father.

[02:04:48] RUSS: Yeah. And

[02:04:50] hand to hand recognition of like

[02:04:52] chopping off the hand, looking at his own hand, like, like it's all there.

[02:04:55] JOSH: He's like, I just did to my father, what he did to me. I literally have a machine hand, like shit.

[02:05:02] I mean, yeah. I mean, It might not be subtle, but it's, it's, it's fantastic.

[02:05:05] RUSS: It works. Yeah. It's.

[02:05:06] MICKEY: And I sort of like, they kind of reminded you in the, I seen when he gets shot in the hand, you're like, oh yes,

[02:05:11] this will be important later. Yeah.

[02:05:14] JOSH: so the last question that I have, ]\ , how do we feel about Vader's redemption? does that final act of sacrificing himself to save his son and taking out the emperor? is that a real redemption? Does that make him a good guy again? Does that make up for

[02:05:30] the

[02:05:30] untold death and destruction?

[02:05:32] FREY: only in the sense that that's the best that you can do at that point. I don't

[02:05:36] JOSH: Yeah.

[02:05:37] FREY: so then, like if that that's, I don't know, can you, it's more a question of like, are you willing to accepted in that context or not?

[02:05:44] JOSH: Yeah. Well, so, so it's interesting because the prequels actually make it not work for me.

[02:05:50] MICKEY: Yeah.

[02:05:51] JOSH: Um, because, when you just know him as Darth Vader, I mean, okay, sure. Like it kind of works. Like, you don't really think too much about it. It's like, oh shit. Like he, he did the right thing in the end.

[02:06:00] but then like when you see it as, you know, he did, I mean, he murdered children and revenge of the Sith. like, I don't know, it's this really interesting, problematic thing that, he's basically saying no, like, like all is forgiven. So like the movie, when you see the ghost of mannequin Skywalker alongside Yoda and Obi-Wan at the end, it's sort of like, oh no.

[02:06:23] Yeah, he did it. He turned, he turned good again. I mean, there aren't any consequences

[02:06:27] FREY: Even with the pre-cal showed that he was emotionally, like he loved Padma. And like, so that's like kind of like word as hard as like, uh, so like when he does a sacrifice at the end of return of the Jedi, like, know, for December it's for Luke, but like, is it just for Luke? Cause like, does he care about the galaxy pretty much, or is it just kind of a, like a personal redemption for him?

[02:06:50] Because like, so that's kinda, I think that would make a difference too. Like is he doing this for? Is it literally just for Luke? Because that's like, kind of like, that's like how his emotions work.

[02:07:00] JOSH: Yeah.

[02:07:01] FREY: that he loves, the people that he loves, he doesn't care about anybody else.

[02:07:03] JOSH: Yeah. I mean, that's an, mean, that's certainly a way to read it. he's lucky he died

[02:07:07] MICKEY: Yeah, well that we would

[02:07:10] have of trials of like star wars as the

[02:07:13] next movie.

[02:07:15] JOSH: Like I frankly, me, I would love to see that just me personally, like that really pushes all my buttons. And then, you know, something that I think is left unexplored, which I think is a missed opportunity, but, um, they get into it and some of the, novels, but when she, becomes a leader in the new Republic, like it's a scandal when people find out her dad was Darth Vader.

[02:07:38] MICKEY: Yeah, remember that.

[02:07:40] JOSH: I mean, like imagine the dramatic, potential there. the implications of being related to Vader and the implications of like, having to face the consequences for what he's done and really a tone. Like he doesn't, he doesn't, I mean, I think I'm making my position clear.

[02:07:54] Like I don't think what he, he does is really redemption. It's like, oh, thanks guy. I like it though. At the very last possible moment, you decided to do the least you could possibly do

[02:08:04] RUSS: He redeemed himself the eyes of Luke, that was, that

[02:08:08] FREY: Yeah.

[02:08:08] RUSS: in, in that film's context, that's

[02:08:09] FREY: Yeah.

[02:08:10] RUSS: mattered. And like, that's how I'm actually viewing the film. I'm actually not really trying to think about the prequels at all. Cause I haven't

[02:08:15] seen them enough to have any type of like emotional resonance for me.

[02:08:18] So, um, like, and I've seen, I've seen Jedi, probably one of the films I've seen the most in my entire life. So, uh, Yeah. I, I think, yeah, yeah. I'm cool to redemption and uh, think it's all good at the end cause he got that he walks on and uh, they're drumming on drum and on helmets and like,

[02:08:37] they're going to have barbecue.

[02:08:38] That's not human. Yeah. Yeah. And like, and also like the, the attack teams down there. So he got, he got Landale yacht wedge and like they're all going to have some barbecue with the walks. And I think it's going to be a great time. Like for me, it's like best ending ever. Like you're going to have barbecue with Teddy bears.

[02:08:54] It's going to be great.

[02:08:55] MICKEY: my Mike is my answer to the question is I'm going to play like my usual, like Shane or blade runner words. it is maybe it's like, you're not supposed to know, like that's, that's the thing. That's the thing is like, you actually don't know if his redemption or not redemption, I guess you do know that the force ghosts, but like, me, it's almost like a good thing, like, or, not like another movie would just be like Luke being, like some sort of religious Ella being like, no, he's redeemed.

[02:09:19] He is one with the forest now and he's at peace. And in like, you know, Hannah layer being like duty milk, he murdered millions. Like, no, that's not acceptable. I don't like, and like, they almost don't like, there's like the idea that like, there's these two, like there can be these two, um, thoughts on it, both from the fans and from even like within the universe of like, like, Hey, the forest says like the forest is like thousands and he, he confessed on a deathbed.

[02:09:39] Sorry. You know, he was a horrible person, but he's going to have him because he does that's bad convention, you know? And that's just the way the religion works. And then like the other people being like, well then maybe this religions kind of little fucked up because, you know, in a, in a, not really like force Jedi perspective, like, no, he is not redeemed that doesn't, that's not enough.

[02:09:57] Sorry.

[02:09:58] JOSH: like good place system of you're a good person or a bad person. It's like, the same, conception, Lucas has about, , you've got your dark side points and your light side points. Right.

[02:10:10] MICKEY: Yeah.

[02:10:11] JOSH: if you can do one thing that just kind of puts you over the edge on the light side, then, then you're going to heaven.

[02:10:18] FREY: RPG roles.

[02:10:20] JOSH: Right, exactly RPG. something that's kind of interesting, Howard Cassandra and the who just came out with, his biography by the way in the last year, that was coauthored by JW Rinzler. Who, uh, who, who sadly passed away in the last year.

[02:10:35] um, Howard Cassandra and brought up with George Lucas, this issue, he was like, I don't get this whole redemption thing. Like, Vader's is basically space Hitler, and you're basically saying, okay, now all forgiven.

[02:10:45] Like, how does that work? And Howard Kazanjian was a very, , He took his Christian faith very seriously. And George Lucas said in response well, your religion is all about forgiveness. And Howard Cassandra was like, and in that moment he made me realize,

[02:11:02] yeah,

[02:11:03] it is. I I mean, that is, that is, what forgiveness is and Russ you're right. because especially when this movie was made, it is only through the eyes of Luke, . Obviously you're not thinking about the prequels because the prequels didn't exist.

[02:11:18] I just think the problems come in when George Lucas's personal view of what's going on here, comes in. I don't think that works, in his mind, is a redemption for the character that he depicted in the prequel trilogy. And I don't know that, that I buy that.

[02:11:35] RUSS: Yeah,

[02:11:35] I don't, I don't, I don't, think like, I don't think the prequels necessarily have a nice clean. Slide into the original trilogy. I never did. That's fine. They don't have to, I don't watch them. And so it's okay. I want you to turn the Jetta. I though it's the best star wars movie and still my favorite

[02:11:54] FREY: I'll tell you what I do watch.

[02:11:57] MICKEY: I, definitely feel like, you know, I I've reached a point where it's like, Ken is what I make it, you know? And I think I'm with you where it's like,

[02:12:03] RUSS: head Canon all head

[02:12:04] cannon.

[02:12:05] MICKEY: can pretend I don't get that. The prequels, I don't, you know, it's, it's, it's weird. Like when,

[02:12:10] RUSS: Cheers.

[02:12:11] MICKEY: there was there was like a spending universe stuff and there was the stuff after returning to Jedi, and then they started doing old Republic stuff or whatever.

[02:12:19] I had just no interest. I never had anything in interest in terms of what happened literally a minute before episode four, like, I don't know why it just was nothing that interests me, like.

[02:12:31] FREY: So the, in the Halloween movie series officially made this okay. Because there's like four different timelines there. And like, you literally have to pick which ones you want to have your head canopy, that like opens the door. You can do that for anything now.

[02:12:42] MICKEY: Yeah.

[02:12:43] JOSH: Totally. Yeah.

[02:12:44] FREY: do you wanna hear the, the translated lyrics

[02:12:46] RUSS: Yeah.

[02:12:46] FREY: uh, Latino neck?

[02:12:48] JOSH: yes.

[02:12:49] RUSS: Yup.

[02:12:50] FREY: I'm not going. to sing. I'm just going to say my body is Ryzen. My soul is sympathizing 11, man. It's coming. So I'm shaping up. I feel my heart pumping. My whole brain is something a fancy man has come in. by the way, last is fancy, man. That's what that means. fancy, yes.

[02:13:08] A fancy man is coming. I'm shaping up and working out. We'll seeing people sing. You got to work your mind. You gotta be okay, gotta walk the street, you gotta move your body. You got to work your feet. We're shaping up and working out.

[02:13:24] JOSH: We're shaping up and work it out.

[02:13:27] RUSS: I want to see that movie that's the theme song to the movie.

[02:13:31] Like I want to see that in star wars, universe, movie,

[02:13:34] MICKEY: I wanna see that Phil Collins musical style with those lyrics, and then it's Miami vice style montage of like a Jedi, like preparing for the final.

[02:13:42] RUSS: they're just leaving money on the table.

[02:13:44] MICKEY: \ they sing that song before Luke showed up, right? like

[02:13:46] JOSH: Yes, I believe so.

[02:13:47] MICKEY: is this some sort of thing where they like, oh yeah. It's like, Nancy mans

[02:13:50] JOSH: Yeah.

[02:13:51] MICKEY: He's coming for you. It's Luke. They're thinking about Luke.

[02:13:54] JOSH: Well that's my head cannon. Um, but no, seriously, like, I mean, at the end of the day, I love this movie. I know that there were a lot of things I critiqued about it, but at the end of the day, like I love this movie. It's one of my favorite movies. I will, I will always love this movie. And, uh, I really enjoyed this conversation with all of you.

[02:14:11] Um, any final closing thoughts about return of the Jedi

[02:14:15] MICKEY: I actually like, this is a great movie. I watch it and I'm like, yeah, I love it. I don't care. Like are cool. I don't care. They're cute. to me, it's like empire is my favorite movie and there's nothing bad I can say about it.

[02:14:26] It's just like a well made movie. This is a movie that. It's so close to my heart and like, I can pick apart forever, but it's just never, no matter how hard I pick it apart myself, it going to actually ever make me not enjoy it though? Because it was just like it's just like the pinnacle of like eighties, blockbuster cinema.

[02:14:42] Like I think the only thing that can top it in that sense, it's probably Raiders, you know?

[02:14:45] FREY: Yeah.

[02:14:46] JOSH: because we love.

[02:14:47] FREY: Yeah.

[02:14:47] my

[02:14:47] MICKEY: Yeah.

[02:14:48] FREY: my, I think I love more than anything. Just like a perfect movie. It's like my favorite genre of movies, horror movies. And that's like filled with like, almost by definition, like imperfect movies. I like things that are just

[02:14:58] RUSS: Sure.

[02:14:59] FREY: and like in perfectly great. So I think that's a big reason why I like this.

[02:15:03] Maybe my number one, depending on what. Um,

[02:15:06] JOSH: Very well.

[02:15:08] RUSS: Uh, I just want to point out that, um, that the, um, the shield, uh, generator, uh, based door is also a fairly large door. Um, so back on my theme of Jedi contains many large doors, whether it be, uh, a docking bay or, so just, you know, even the rain core has the, um, the gate cage door. So a big doors is a theme return.

[02:15:28] The Jedi, that I really didn't get into talk about in depth, but it's something, um, feel free to DME or something, uh, afterwards, I can go in great detail about, uh, the many doors of star wars particularly in

[02:15:41] return of the Jedi.

[02:15:42] JOSH: Well, you should DM the emperor at tell him to put a fucking door on the open chamber to the reactor core that he has in his throne room. What the fuck is wrong with this man? He's sitting next to it. Like a.

[02:15:54] RUSS: policy, no limited railing and a, and no, no gates or greats.

[02:16:01] FREY: Got to work fast.

[02:16:02] MICKEY: I think

[02:16:02] we should just do just the podcast and just the doors of star wars.

[02:16:05] RUSS: Doors the doors.

[02:16:09] JOSH: I definitely want to do a whole trash compactor about all the doors and star wars. I'm serious star wars.

[02:16:20] MICKEY: I think there's

[02:16:22] RUSS: I

[02:16:22] MICKEY: maybe,

[02:16:24] JOSH: Well, I really want to thank all three of you. This was a really fun conversation. I really enjoyed it. And I'm nothing. I like more, I always say then, uh, talking about star wars with my friends as my favorite thing to do, and this is great movie to do it with. I want to thank my guests, Russ Mickey and Frey.

[02:16:41] And if you enjoyed what you heard, please rate us five stars on whatever podcast platform you choose and follow us at trashcompod.com or trashcompod across all social media.