Speaker 1: I will state from the beginning that I am the
least Star Wars obsessed of all of the members of
this firm.
Speaker 2: You've been yelling aloud us so far, well.
Speaker 1: Because because I appreciate the ability to write and direct
and make good movies, and I get frustrated when people
who should know what they're doing do it.
Speaker 3: That me too, Amen, Brother Jason, He's the least obsessed,
the most passionate.
Speaker 1: That could be. That may turn out to be completely true. Okay,
so let's begin. Let's take it off. Yeah, we're actually
going to start now, all right, all right, here we go.
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely You Can't
Be Serious Podcast. I am here with my all time
I'm co host mister Jason Colvin. Jason, I you doing,
I'm good. D Hey you do me. I'm doing great,
and I'm so happy to be joined by three awesome guests.
We have Jeff Johnson from the A Film By podcast.
We have Dayton Johnson no relation Bye from the Docking
Base seventy seven podcast. And we have mister Deaf Dave
David Wright from the Apples and Oranges podcast. Welcome, gentlemen,
Thank you guys for joining us.
Speaker 4: That's a great drilled to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: Always a pleasure.
Speaker 6: This is where the fun begins. And I just want
to point out I'm the only one wearing a Star
Wars T shirt.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying for this particular episode, there might be
a reason for that, is if you are just joining
us for the first time. We cover movies that typically
Jason and I pick what we call winners. We compare
one winner to another winner to decide who is the
biggest winner. In this particular episode, however, we're comparing a
couple of movies. We're comparing Star Trek the motion picture,
which came out in nineteen seventy nine, two Star Wars
Phantom Menace, which came out in nineteen ninety nine. And
they are movies that in their own realm, in their
own genre, are somewhat hated upon, ridiculed, dismissed other things
by the fan elite of those particular storylines. Okay, And
so what we're doing is saying, are these movies worth
the revisit? Sometimes Jason and I do a what the
heck happened? For movies like Jaws three and Beverly Hills
Cop three where we can all agree that these are
dismal movies and they're not worth revisiting. But in this scenario,
we're asking the question, Hey, we know you hated it
when you saw it the first time, but now that
it's been twenty or forty years ago, should you go
back and check it out? Right, we just got done
with this the episode for Star Trek the Motion Picture
and made our decisions about that one. We will have
our final judgment at the end of this one as
to whether Star Trek the Motion Picture is worth revisiting.
And the movie that we're here to talk about today,
Star Wars the Phantom Menace. That I say Star Wars
the first time. To mess that up, it I got
so hard because not only is it Star Wars a
Star Trek, but you've got TMP and TPM and it's
all very confusing. But anyway, I'm sure I'll get that
wrong as we go along. But before we get there,
just real quick, Jeff Dave Dayton, in that order, tell
us about your podcast real quick for the guys who
are listening for the first time, so that they can
know where to check you out and what you guys
are all about.
Speaker 3: Thank you The The Film By Podcast is coming to
you every Tuesday, Friday.
Speaker 5: And sometimes Wednesdays.
Speaker 3: We love to talk about directors, typically underrated films on Tuesdays.
On Wednesdays we have our Star Trek themed series Phasers
Set to Stun.
Speaker 5: And on Fridays we.
Speaker 3: Do Flashback Fridays where we are celebrating the forty fifth
anniversaries of movies. This year we're doing nineteen seventy nine,
of course, and we also like to do a little
series called nineteen ninety six where we're looking at some
of our favorite films from nineteen ninety six and having
a good conversation about those.
Speaker 5: So you can check us out. We're streaming everywhere.
Speaker 3: You can go to a Film by podcast dot com
to get the entire library.
Speaker 4: Very good, all right, excuse me, very good? All right,
So thanks for giving me a chance to speak about this.
Apples and Oranges Podcast is a podcast that I do
with my eighteen year old son and we're having a
great time with it. It is actually a comparison of
the discographies of the Beatles and the Beach Boys as
we step through the decade of the nineteen sixties. And
one thing I'm pointing out with over the course of
the series is how the bands kind of ran parallel
to each other throughout the decade. How they started out
with kind of these simple record rock songs, they stepped
up their production and their artistic ambition, and then they
also scaled back toward the end of the decade. And
we're having a lot of fun that we're gonna take
it through the nineteen seventy and then shut the show down.
But just as we're recording this, most recent episode was
our Smile episode. So if you're familiar with the discographies,
they had kind of a bell curve where they peaked
in the middle of the decade. We just went through
all of those. We had today versus Rubber Soul, Pet
Sounds versus Revolver, Sergeant Pepper versus Smile. All those episodes
are available now if I've got this right. The episode
that will come out tomorrow is our Magical Misterytour episode,
so you can be sure to look for that. We
release every single Wednesday, and it's just a lot of fun.
Pitt I totally stole the format from Surely can't be serious.
We put these albums against each other in one v
one matchups, and we go through a track by track
and then at the end of the matchup, we give
our final judgments on which band won that particular matchup. So, So,
I'm a Beach Boys fanatic. I'm deep catalog guy. I
know all their stuff. But at the same time, this
series is chronicling my own journey through the Beatles albums,
their album discography, which is not something I was totally
familiar with. So I'm having a whole lot of fun
with that. I'm learning about a whole bunch of stuff
and discovering a whole bunch of new songs for me. So,
and it is something that my son and I are
doing together, and it was kind of his idea to
really push forward to make it happen. So we're having
a good time with it. And it's available on all
your streaming platforms Spotify, Apple Podcasts. You can look forward there.
If you go to link tree slash deaf Dave, you'll
find all my links.
Speaker 6: So the Document seventy seven podcast, Yes, the name was
inspired by Star Wars. We talk about a lot of
different things, mostly pop culture references, stuff like books, movies, music.
We cover a lot of albums seventies, eighties, and nineties,
but the biggest selling point I think is the fact
that we have multiple guests on, so a lot of
different voices from a lot of different backgrounds. So I'd
been telling people, you know, come for the topics, but
stay for the great discussion. A lot of it's inspired,
some of it's energetic. I use that when we start
to kind of argue a little bit too much. But
all on, we have a lot of fun and we've
covered everything from Anthrax and you know, we did Public Enemy.
Dave was actually on that episode. We did an episode
on the Public Enemy. We've done Who Framed Roger Rabbit
with you, Jason and d So we had a lot
of different things. We had a sci Fi Month where
we covered a bunch of sci fi movies over the decade,
to a Forbidden Planet from nineteen fifty eight, which actually
turned out to be a very popular episode. So we
had a lot of beats and we have a lot
of fun, and yeah, we are streaming free everywhere and
on socials at Docum based seventy seven.
Speaker 7: Dave sounds like you got a garage band.
Speaker 5: You got music playing someone.
Speaker 4: Okay, So my eighteen year old son is a rock
musician and his whole band is here right now, so
you're probably gonna hear they're probably banging away on some
chili peppers right now. It's not exactly Ma's Rebo execs.
I think the canteen is scene all right.
Speaker 2: Before we get started, let's let's just talk briefly about
when you guys saw Fanimis for the first time. You
know what your experiences with Star Wars, and you know
just kind of what your general thoughts were when you
left the theater.
Speaker 7: Jeff, why don't you start us off?
Speaker 3: A huge fan, I saw one of the first show,
the Midnight Show when theaters used to do those. I
had stood in a line with several hundred people outside
of a movie theater, me and David Burns. That was
a great experience. I've talked about that before a couple
of times.
Speaker 5: We you know, the news is there.
Speaker 3: We're we're clearly not prepared, and you know, we're just
getting we're getting destroyed by the heat. We didn't bring food,
no water, and here comes the here comes the news reporter,
and you know, I'm all excited to talk about Star Wars.
And her question is you tube have been out here
for hours and the temperatures are triple digits. Why aren't
you better prepared? And like an idiot, I just responded,
I love Star Wars and that's it. So, but I
felt it was gonna be worth it. Two days later
when we did go to the midnight show, I did
not feel it was worth it.
Speaker 5: I was very confused and let down.
Speaker 4: Anybody got, oh, so my petom menace experience, Okay, I'm pure.
You know generation Star Wars. I saw the very first
one in the theaters in probably nineteen seventy eight or
so on a rerelease. I was nine years old, between
third and fourth grade. When Empire Strikes Back came out.
I saw that a dozen times that summer. I was
there opening up with my dad, Return of the Jedi.
It was it was just exciting times. I was. I
lived with the toys. I mean, I was that kid, right,
that was my sweet spot for my childhood. And I
get to college and everybody there's my age and they
all had the same experience, and we were all Star
Wars fans. And we were in school there when the
Timothy's On novels came out and that was like a
huge deal, right because the property had been dead for
several years, and we were all excited about that. We
were always geeking out on Star Wars, and we made
a solemn pact in college there in our dorm room
at the University of Georgia, nineteen ninety one, We're like,
if they ever do more movies, no matter where we are,
no matter what we got going on in life, the
three of us are gonna come together again, and we're
gonna go see that movie together. Nineteen ninety nine. I'm
in Birmingham, Alabama. A buddy of mine is in the Athens,
Georgia area. The third one of our group was in Dallas, Texas.
We did it. They both flew in and they came
to Birmingham and we got together nineteen ninety nine and
went to go see Phantom Menace together and made good
on the vow that we've made in college in nineteen
ninety one. And let me tell you, that was the
highlight of the evening. We had a blast. We loved it.
But we went back the next day to see it.
We were all like, we were caught up in the excitement,
in the nostalgia and seeing each other and all that stuff.
And it was on the second viewing the very next
day that we were like, oh, you know what this is. Uh,
this has got some problems. I had developed my own
coping mechanism already by that second viewing on day two.
You know, I have an inside pro tip for people.
Just don't look directly at Jarjar at any point, you know,
just don't look at them on the screen, and it's
a lot easier to get through it.
Speaker 7: All right, Daden, how about you?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 6: I like to tell people I am old enough to
have seen every single Star Wars film in the theater
because that's me. And at first I saw in seventy
seven for my birthday, and so when this was coming out,
I was super jazzed, you know, I was looking forward
to it. I watched all the stuff they put on MTV.
I watched all the commercials and YadA YadA, Yadh even
had the stap droid toy that was released early.
Speaker 1: I got that, so I was all in.
Speaker 6: Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get tickets for the midnight showing,
so we went to like the two Am so which
was a weird experience because you're coming out the song
was starting to come up, so that was kind.
Speaker 1: Of weird, and.
Speaker 6: I had a lot of mixed emotion. When the movie
was over, and even from the very first utterance of dialogue,
I was like, oh no, oh no, And so I
walked out going I'm not sure what I saw. I
wasn't mad, but I also wasn't sure. I did go
see it two more times that summer, and there's things
I really like and there's things I really really don't see.
Speaker 1: Why don't you go first? All right?
Speaker 2: So I saw the midnight screening in Oklahoma City with
my buddy Roman. We had a guy on the inside
at the movie theater. We were friends with this guy
who worked at the theater. He was able to get
us tickets and we felt like we had scored big time.
And I don't know if you guys remember this. The
trailer that had come out preceding the movie. I still
believe is the greatest movie trailer of all time because
what I saw in that trailer made Phantom Menace look
like the greatest thing I could imagine it. And it
took three hours to download that trailer because that was
back in the early days of the internet. So we
went we saw the midnight screening. I actually got teary
eyed when a long time ago in a galaxy far
far away came up. I was wiping tears. I was
so excited. Then I got punched in the balls for
the next couple hours. Now, there are things that I like,
but overall, I had a sour experience, Dee.
Speaker 1: I said a bit earlier before we really started going here,
that I am the lowest ranking fanboy in our group
meeting today, right Orlando, I'm I mean, I feel like
an old man because I'm like, I'm less than two
years away from fifty. But the fact is is that
I the first movie of the Star Wars trilogy that
I remember seeing in the theater was returned to the Jedi.
So Star Wars was in my consciousness and I had
Star Wars sheets, but I was never an obsessed.
Speaker 4: See.
Speaker 1: I wasn't taken aback when he said no, I'm your father, Like,
I don't remember that experience. That was too young. I
was too young for that. And so I liked Star Wars.
It's a good trilogy, and I was excited when the
new movies were coming out. I remember in Tulsa. I
was in Tulsa after Jason had left. Weird coincidence, That's
where I saw the re releases of the first of
the First you know, the New Hope Empire and Return
to the Jedi, and I was I had mixed emotions
about what they added to those things. So I don't
have this big memory of going and seeing a Fantom Menace.
It was nineteen ninety nine, so that I know that
I was living in Norman at that time. I don't
remember if I saw it with somebody else, I don't
remember if I was alone. What I remember was, Hey,
I'm excited to go see this, And I remember thinking
he's not looking at jar Jar Binks's eyes, like, what's
going on here? I don't this is not I don't
know what the technology here, but I'm kind of disappointed
in this. And when I walked out of the theater,
I was like, huh, well, okay, yeah, okay. Now since then,
I have developed a more passionate opinion, because since then,
I've gone to school, I've studied storytelling and writing and
movie making and all of these things, and I'm like,
now I'm mad. Now I'm genuinely mad. But at the
time that I saw for the first time, I was
just like, okay, well, whatever that was it. That was
my reaction.
Speaker 7: All right, Well, I think our audience a lot.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're listening to this, you've seen The
Phantom Menace and you've got your own opinions. But let's
talk about what worked in this movie. Okay, what actually
did a good job.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sorry to do this. I did it in
our last episode two. But since I'm not the fanboy,
I have to take over for just a second and
tell a story. Can I tell the story again? Okay?
It was a different story for Star Trek, and you
guys bear with me. But in Star Wars, you know,
just think about the canteena scene alone, and you have
to ask the question, is this possible? Right? Is their
life on other planets? Right? And So when I started
looking at this episode and I started looking into the
things that I liked and disliked about it, I stumbled
across this story. And here's the story, all right, And
I want you to keep in mind while I tell
this story, the final scene in Return of the Jedi
when the Emperor is using his power against Luke, and
and what's going on when he ultimately meets his what
we thought was his demise. Save that topic for another day.
Your mouth, right, okay, So, so scientific theory, we're just
gonna talk about scientific theory. You're going to say something.
Go ahead, I feel free to interrupt me on all
of this. Go ahead, interrupt, no, no, no, keep going okay.
Speaker 4: All right, I feel like your low key just set
our but go ahead.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. So like so it's so, there are three
big mysteries on the existence of life, right and and
and then and the first one is how did life
itself happen? And that's that's a mystery, that's question number one, right,
and then the third one is how did we develop consciousness? Right?
And and basically those two things that happened, as far
as scientific theory goes, are about four billion years apart. Okay,
like about four billion years ago is whenever they they
think that life first became, and they don't know how
it happened. They don't know the answer to that, but
they they this is life became. And then for two
billion years nothing happened, like life was just these little
balls of little sacks of chemicals. That's all life was
for two billion years. And then something happened two billion
years ago where a big sack of ca mmicals and
a little sack of chemicals. Their eyes met and they
begin to cross the room towards each other, and then
they they met I love you, I know, and the
litical chemical went inside of the big chemical. And this
wasn't the first time that this has ever happened. But
what happened because ninety nine point nine nine percent of
the other times when that happens, like the organism just
fails and dies and that's it. But this one moment
in this you know, two billion years ago, like it
hasn't didn't happen for two billion years before, hasn't happened
in the two billion years since. So whether you're religious
or scientific, you can you can absolutely say this is
a miracle that happens at this moment. So these two cells,
they one goes inside the other, right, and for the
first time, the little cell is able to replicate itself
inside of the big cell. And then the big cell
splits and it's got the two new cells have big
cells and little cells together, and it's the first time
that this has ever happened. And all life that existed today,
whether you're a honey badger or Jason Colvin, or a
giant redwood tree or whatever. You share nearly half of
your complex DNA and cell structure from these things that
happened two billion years ago, right, Okay, miracle like in
four billion years. It happened one time and worked one time, right,
And so what was it? What was this thing that
happened that allowed these things to go together and thrive. Well,
it turns out that the little cell that went inside
the big cell had you ready for it, electricity, It
had electricity, and so now the big cell had the
capacity to make things because of the liqu the electricity
provided by the little cell. And that is the reason
that we have, according to science theory, we have all
life that exists today. So the chances are, if you
are able to go to another planet, the chances are
that you might find life. But it's probably not going
to be life that's going to kill you. It's probably
going to be a little psycho chemicals that you don't
have to worry about because it was a miracle that
led to this combination. Now, let me tell you what
we believe that little pack of chemicals that had that electricity.
Let me tell you what we call that today. Are
you ready for it? It's called mitochondria. You might have
heard a similar name in this new movie called The
Phantom Menace, because that's what inspired George Lucas to add
to the story Medichlorians. That was his inspiration for Mediclorians,
which apparently, according to my research, happened well before A
New Hope Ever was released. Midichlorians, I guess, were a
part of the plan from the beginning. Now, I will
tell you when I saw that in the movie, I went,
what the Sorry, Sorry, sorry, Jason Stanley, I'm sorry. I went,
what the heck?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Because I didn't like that, But now that I know
the history on it, I still have to say that
was a bad decision. But I thought you guys would
like to know the history, and I'd like to I
thought you'd like to know that you're not likely to
be killed by an alien.
Speaker 2: We did all that to get to Midchlorians.
Speaker 1: Medichlorians, mitochondria all together, electricity baby.
Speaker 2: Oh man, yes, minichlorians. Pe you we all freaking hate Midichlorians.
They took the mysticism out of the Jedi force. I mean,
come on, that's stupid.
Speaker 1: It's spiritual, it's scientific and amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he tried, he tried to give it a scientific
explanation and then did nothing with it, Like it's never
picked up again and it had zero impacted the story.
He could have just not said those words and everything
could still be the same, right, So why mess with
the mystical fascination of the force and tried? Yeah? Terrible,
terrible decision. Terrible decision that I have to think he
had more to that that he just decided to not
go with. It doesn't make sense to me that that
was truly all there was to it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like this all the time, Like, oh, I had
planned it since the beginning.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that now now pushing the BS button right, Yes.
Speaker 2: Okay, well let's back up. Let's talk about what does work.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about what does work first, should we?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 4: What did you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay, yeah, let's talk Yes, yes, talk about let's
talk about that.
Speaker 7: I mean, really, this is going to be the shorter part.
Speaker 1: Can I just just I'm sorry too late, Jason, Right, Like, Peenie.
Speaker 2: Is out of the bottle at this point.
Speaker 1: So Jason and I went to see this movie. They
re released this in the theater. You're in our hometown
because we are at the twentieth twenty twenty fifth anniversary
of this movie, and so Jason's like, I've seen this
a million times. I don't have to think about this hard.
I'm like, I have seen this once. I have been
in the room while this has been on several times,
but it's just like in front of me, and I
didn't This time we went to watch it in the theater.
Was genuinely the second time that I quote unquote watched it,
and I went in with an open mind. I was like,
I so disliked this the first time that I saw it.
I want to open my mind and say what works
about this movie? But we're starting off with that, right.
Speaker 7: Yes, what works the start?
Speaker 1: And my answer is short. My answer is the fight
between Darth Maul and Qui gon Jin and Obi Wan
Kenobi works. It's not spectacular, but it works. Darth Maul
is a fantastic villain. That's all I got. Okay, I
wait a minute, there's more than that. Come on, Oh,
I'm sure that you guys will had stuff to do it.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: So, as I said, I watched it with an open
mind and that was all I could attach. That's all
I could latch onto.
Speaker 4: Wow, well, so just let me jump on Darth Maul. There.
Darth Maul is awesome. I mean, what a cool character.
When you see him in the trailer, you're like your
mind is blown. Another classic character. You know, you're looking
forward to years and years of having him in Star
Wars stories. So it was kind of brutal to the
ending we got with him. And then of course that
shot in the trailer, you know where boom, that second
half of his saber comes out. We're all just losing
our minds, right, This is awesome and I would say
that fight, it might be the best one of the
six movies that Lightsaber Duel. What's interesting is like it's
kind of called Duel of the Fates. The piece of
music is called Duel. The face the fights called Duel
of the Fates. What's duell of the Fates? Referring to
I've seen it suggested that that fight is for the
fate of Anakin. And while you think that the good
guys win, that with Obi Wan, you know, survived being
the one to survive. Dave Filonia suggested that Anakin's fate
was sealed the moment Qui gon Jim was killed, and
that without having Qui Gon his his father figure. Qui
Gon recognized he needed to be that father figure for Anakin,
and now with him eliminated from the picture, we got
what we got. It just took longer. Took longer to
get there than if Darth maullowd.
Speaker 1: Won agree with that theory.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, because Qui Gon is my favorite Jedi, So
of course I agree with that theory.
Speaker 7: So what works for you, Dayton? Tell us what worked
for you?
Speaker 6: So I actually have quite a I have more than
just that, because I personally don't think that's the best.
Speaker 2: Well, but you know, let's go one at a time,
like you throw one in, Okay.
Speaker 6: So honestly, I love the pod Race. I think the
pod Race is a lot of fun. I love the
detail and that every single racer has a very distinct
sound to their engine. I like the effort and put
it into the track. I enjoy everything about it. It's
it's a little long at times, but I like the
effort he put into with the with the action. I
love having the Tusken Raiders, you know, taking pot shots
at them as they go through that big turn. It's
just it's a fun. It's something we hadn't really seen
on that scale. I mean, he took other racing movies
and said, Okay, that worked, let's put that in here.
That worked, Let's put that in here. And it was exciting.
I really enjoyed it, and I and I'm happy that
we actually got video game versions of that that I
could play too. So yeah, I love the pod Race.
Speaker 1: I think it's fun. I honestly thought at the time
that I was watching it, I was like, Oh, this
is where they're putting in their their setup for the
video game that's going to come out. Like I I
you can totally see it coming. And that happens in
a lot of movies, and until.
Speaker 6: I thought, they're not the only ones that do that.
Speaker 1: Come on, right, No, yeah, I mean that happens a
lot of movies. Let me because you brought up the
pod Race, this is a discussion that Jason and I
have been having and we haven't reached the final conclusion on,
but well, I want your opinion on this. So in
the pod Race, there's this moment where one of the
hoses separates from Anakin's podracer and he adjusts and he
takes this kind of you know, magic arm or whatever
it is, and reaches out and grabs it and puts
it back where it's supposed to go. Now, Jason's theory
is is that this time, this is where we first
see the foreshadowing of the force being used by Anakin.
And I just looked at it and I just said,
I don't think that's what they're trying to do. And
I don't think that's what happened. Like from my perspective,
he's using a tool that maybe he's good with the
tool and he gets it back in. But I just
felt like if this was a moment that we're supposed
to see that hey he's got he's got the force
within him already, that there would have been a change
in the music because something would have slowed down. We've
gotten some sort of hint. But Jason, whatcher to tell
us your theory on it?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean he sticks his arm out.
Speaker 2: He's got a stick and it may have like a
magnet on the end of it. But they make a
big deal about him focusing on it, the hoses flapping around,
and all of a sudden it just goes and he
uses it to Reattach.
Speaker 1: And can you do the sound effect again?
Speaker 2: Now you don't get the force musical key that I
think you should have if that's what's happening. But hoses
just don't stick to things when I stick my hand
out the windows.
Speaker 7: So I think that that was the force that he
uses for.
Speaker 3: I think it's when I watch that scene, I just
feel like it's like a common a common occurrence for
a pod. It's a it's a magnetic tool that he
had readily available, so he could just Reattach a coupling
for the thruster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that, I think.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm gonna say you're I.
Speaker 6: Think the force using part of it is the fact
that he's able to stay calm while it's happening. Okay, yeah,
know that focus on the moment and use your instincts
that you know he got the advice from Qui Goron.
That's the part of the force he's using. But no,
that's just a tool that they have. So I agree
with Jeff on that.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you said that because I feel like
that's an important feature for a later Anakin event in
the movie. I think that's a very very important point
as far as Anakin is concerned for later parts of
the move.
Speaker 4: Okay, So obviously the pod the pod race is like
the big climax to Act two, and it's the big
set action piece. And George Lucas being a car guy,
you know, this is obviously something that he would have
gotten into. And of course this we get this from
George Lucas. I think I'm on team D here on
this question. I think this is purely establishing Anakin as
a mechanic and a confident pilot. You have to establish
now in order to buy his actions at the end
of the movie. At the same time, you know, Qui
Gon was the only Jedi who espoused this philosophy of
the living Will. I mean the living Force, as if
the Force had a will of its own. Nope, that's
not a Jedi philosophy. That's not coming from the Council.
This is only Qui Gon's thing is that there is
the living Force, and Qui Gon would suggest that the
Force has a will, like the Force probably made sure
Anakin won that race, and if he needed to fix
that hose, it was gonna get fixed. But so I
don't think it's I don't think it's Anakin channeling the
Force himself. But Qui Gone would tell you that it's
the living force manifesting its will.
Speaker 1: The will.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, okay, there you go. Jeff Will worked for
you man.
Speaker 3: I think one thing that works really well for this
film and carries on throughout the prequels is the casting.
Speaker 5: Of Ewan McGregor as Obi wan A Nobie.
Speaker 3: I think he does an excellent job paying tribute to
Alec Guinness and his portrayal while also making it his own.
And say what you will about this prequel trilogy, one
thing I can always take away as a positive is
the performance of you McGregor throughout Hell and even even
twenty five years later when we get him in a
you know, Disney Plus series. I think he's fantastic and
he's always something I look forward to when I'm watching
these prequel trilogies.
Speaker 7: You feel that way about the wooden performance of Nellie Portman.
Speaker 8: Oh, shut your mouth about the mother.
Speaker 5: About things we liked?
Speaker 2: Sorry, sorry, I.
Speaker 6: Like how she does. She is working with what she
was given and considering what she was given is not
very much because we know George is not good with actors.
She did a very good job.
Speaker 1: That's you know. Jason and I talked about that. Because Dayton,
you've you've you've talked about this movie before on your podcast, yep,
and and kind of came out of the gate with
you know, we're not going to bash on the actors
that that played Anakin or voiced jarge R, which I
get a step back, I'm a wholeheartedly behind because it's
not their fault. It's not their fault. And what what
the what the what the Star Wars fans, a large
part of them did to those guys is terrible. It's
terrible that that happened. But it's like they they got
handed something. And I mean, if I'm the if I'm
a what it was eleven twelve year old nine nine
year old kidate gonna say, George, I really don't feel
like this is the way this character would treat this em. No,
you're just gonna be like, yeah, okay, I'll do whatever
you say, George. Same thing for the guy who's voicing
the THEE whatever jarge R. I'm at best.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Lucas was not an actress.
Speaker 1: The rest of fun for the kids, Okay, George, Right,
However you say.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, when you're getting stiff performances from
people like Mattalie Portman and Samuel Jackson. Then you know
it's not the actors fun, right, So the Lucas is
clearly not an actor's director. His attitude is you're the actor,
you act, you do your job. I'm gonna do mine.
And if that makes him uniquely ill suited to handle
a child actor, you know so. But I think it's
more than just being given bad material. It's the way
George probably interacted with the actors. And it's also just
the sterile environment. We know he had very little practical
sets and in the other prequels he didn't have any.
So and how does anybody act in this vacuum?
Speaker 1: You know? So?
Speaker 4: I don't the acting is bad in this movie, but
I don't really blame the actors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, don't forget this. We're still in the category
of what works. Oyeah, what happened to what works?
Speaker 2: Jason?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't know what.
Speaker 4: I haven't given my history yet.
Speaker 2: I've got my list here, so just quickly I think, well,
I mean just kind of retreading what you guys have
already said. I think qui Gon works, Darth Maul works.
I think Darth Maul works excellently. I think Lightsaber Battle
at the end is awesome. I think the pod race
is good. I think the world building in general is
pretty good. I think the story in itself had the
pieces to be good. Okay, Yes, you have young Anakin
as the upcoming Chosen One. You have the rebirth of
the Sith kind of behind the scenes. You have this
bad guy pulling the strings behind the surface. You have
the introduction of Anakin and Obi Wan and their relationship,
and you have the mother of Luke introduced. All of
these pieces should have been a great kickoff to another trilogy.
And then I think the trailer was incredible, and maybe
because it showed the pieces of the movie that work
to basically nothing else.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say because it showed
a puppet Yoda, not a we're.
Speaker 7: Not there yet.
Speaker 2: We're not there yet.
Speaker 4: Okay, so let me run down real quick for me,
what's on my list that has not been covered yet.
I love the new environments that we got. I thought
it was very maginative, whether it's both sides of Naboo right.
The city and the underwater stuff was amazing. And the
pieces we saw of Corrouscant I thought those new environments
and the Senate I thought the Senate, you know, was cool,
So I give it. I give thumbs up to that
casting Ian McDermott as a young Palpatine when he's when
he's an old man. Yet he was playing an ancient
man in the original trilogy, so you get to use
him and that was that was awesome that that worked out. Now, anyway,
there's something more I could say about him, but it
goes in the other category of what didn't work, so
I'll wait on that. So what absolutely worked for me
the first couple of times I saw the movie. Now
it doesn't work because it's just I can't unsee it
and whatever. But when they had Kira Knightley as the
decoy for Natalie Portman like that totally, that totally worked
for me initially. Now I can you know, you're not
You're not fooling me anymore. But at the time I
thought that worked really well. The other thing, I'll say,
and Jason, you touched on this a little bit, so
this isn't quite the story I wish George had gone with,
Like I think he started too young, like when we
knew the prequels were coming and we didn't know what
he was gonna do yet I was not thinking we
would see Anakin as a child, right, So, I mean, honestly,
you know, you like McGregor as Obi Wan, and obviously
he did an awesome job, but my dreamcasting was already
set before we knew how young George was gonna go. Now,
imagine this, all right, nineteen ninety eight, you say, probably
when they're making the movie cast for Obi Wan Kenobi,
you cast Kenneth Brona. How awesome would that be? I mean,
that's that's perfect, right, and then again not knowing how young.
All right, all right, I'll say that for later. So
we're talking about all So my point is that's the
story I wanted, and I have a Cassie Towye for
Anakin too. I'll tell it later.
Speaker 2: Okay, hang on to that, Bode.
Speaker 4: Wait wait, So but we got the story we got right,
And what I want to say. You said, the broad strokes,
the big pieces were there, and what we have to
do is we have to give that to George. You know,
this is his creation, this is his story. We've seen
what's happened to Star Wars since it's left his hands.
So whether it's the story we would have chosen, we
have to give credit to the creator. He's the guy,
he's the originator. This is his baby. So if this
is the story he wanted to tell, we got to
give him that. And I think given that that it works.
Like the story works. I'm not saying the screenplay works.
I'm not saying the execution of the designs work. But
I'm saying the bones, the story, the big pieces of
the Star Wars mythology, this putting into place that works.
And you have to give it to him because he's George.
Speaker 5: Lucas deaf Dave.
Speaker 3: You are on this council, but we do not grant
you the rank of what the heck happened?
Speaker 2: Master?
Speaker 1: We'll play Jeff. So are there are there? Are there
more what works that we need to discuss before I
have something else too.
Speaker 6: Everybody hates on the Gungans, and I don't think that's fair.
Oh MOI I love you, like I said, not their fault.
But what I really do love.
Speaker 7: About their CGI fault.
Speaker 6: That's no, it's not and it's not there. It wasn't
their dialect. They didn't come up with it. It was
like I said, it was anyway. I love their technology.
I love the city of out of Gunga. I think
it's cool. I love when they go to war with
the with the battle droids. They have the giant shield,
which is cool. They have the handheld shield which bounce
the laser blasts off them. They have the boobahs which
they throw, and they're just balls of energy that just
like the when the catapult them. They like take out
ten battle Droids at once, and they hand throw them.
And I thought that was really cool, considering they're supposed
to be, you know, not quote unquote as evolved as
an Aboo. I honestly thought with that in mind, the
technology was very cool and great and made a lot
of sense considering their level of development. I really thought
their technology was really cool. I thought that was well
played by Lucas. It was interesting.
Speaker 7: So I've been there, Jeff.
Speaker 3: One thing I would like to comment on that I
thought really did work for this film is the I'm
going to use this word lightly, the realism of the
Lightsaber duels, and what I mean by that is what
we got here is uh And I'm talking like when
Qui Gon and Obi Wan are bash and droids, and
even the duel of the Fates moment, it's a little
more aggressive than what we saw in the original trilogy,
a little more physical, not too insanely absurd. You know
that we'll see in a movie or two later when
Yoda's jumping all over like he's in a bounce castle.
Speaker 5: I really like the fact that you could.
Speaker 3: It was tangible, like the fight scenes, the dueling was
a little more tangible than what what we will get
later in in these in these films, so I like,
I like the realism of the saber duels.
Speaker 1: I'm adding bounce castle to my what could make this
movie better?
Speaker 4: So one more thing for the positives. And this is
a double edged sword because it.
Speaker 2: Double edged lightsaber.
Speaker 4: The same thing about George Lucas, that's awesome, That is
probably his biggest contribution to the history of filmmaking is
also the exact part of him that led to so
many bad mistakes and bad choices in these prequels, and
that is he's more focused on pushing the technology of
filmmaking than he is with working with actors and telling
a good story in front of him. And you know,
keep in mind that coming out of Lucas, like lucasfilm
is largely responsible for the develop of nonlinear editing. They
partnered with Avid in the early nineties and revolutionized nonlinear
editing and made it the industry standard for film and
television editing. We don't get that without George Lucas. He
revolutionized theater sound with THHX. He's the ILM and Skywalker
Sound has been serving Hollywood for decades with all the
best movies. And it was his focus here to push
digital technology with the CGI stuff, which we know. I
feel the same way about it that you do. But
he chose to use this vehicle to push filmmaking technology
and it's the only reason he went back into the
director's chair. On top of that, the biggest positive, direct
positive like immediate payoff that we got from him in
this area was it was because of his efforts with
Phantom Menace that we got digital projection in cinemas. So
it so he pushed all of that technology and read
to find how everybody experiences movies, and that can never
be taken away from him, and he used Phantom Menace
to get there.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are true? I agree with that? All right?
Speaker 7: Are we ready to downshift.
Speaker 1: Any more positives? No more positives out there?
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to discuss John Williams dropping score.
Speaker 1: We all know that's a gaming so and that is
an excellent point. I mean, it is a part of
the Darth Maul duel that they are playing that kind
of Carmena Barana style of music that John Williams came
up specifically for that movie. So I feel okay that
I didn't include that in my one thing that worked,
but that John Williams delivered like a freaking pro that
he is, especially especially for that scene.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they got R two D two right came upon.
Speaker 7: It didn't screw him up until it go to that
they did not mess him up.
Speaker 1: That is a better, yeah, better way.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's let's get down and dirty here.
Let's find out what did not work Jeff. Why don't
you stress off with.
Speaker 3: Something I started what did work with the casting of
you and McGregor. I'm gonna start with what didn't work
for me was the casting of Anakin Skywalker. And I'm
gonna go ahead and say I think Jake Lloyd's a
wonderful He was one of the wonderful child actors that
we had in the nineties. If you need any reference,
just watch Jingle all the way he's an adorable kid.
The problem I have with it is that we're in
we're in production, we're in print, we're doing principal photography.
In nineteen ninety seven, Natalie Portman is sixteen years old.
Jake Lloyd is eight years old, and that is painfully obvious,
not only on the screen, but even in the dialogue
that's written for him. You know, I'll cite their first
space voyage where she's kind of really giving him a
motherly type of vibe. She's, you know, he's cold, so
she wraps it in a blanket and I'll always care
for you, and you miss your mom. It just it
feels so wrong. And meanwhile, Hayden Christiansen is also sixteen
years old. He's doing stellar work. He's over with Sophia
Coppola doing the Virgin Suicides. I don't understand why we
couldn't have just had an age appropriate Anakin Skywalker from
the beginning. That's a serious issue I take with the character.
Speaker 4: Well, to your point, I totally agree, it took me
out of the story. When when you get to episode two,
Jake Lloyd has turned into Hayden Christmas and Nellie Portman
has stayed the same. It's like, what kind of weird
time warp is happening right here? Because it just I
couldn't work it out. I couldn't rationalize it in my head.
Speaker 5: It didn't and.
Speaker 4: Since and it makes no sense. And if what you're saying.
Speaker 1: You knew what you were doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And if your point is that Lucas you know,
started Anak in a too young of an age, I
agree with that. And you know, and this whole thing
about young lings and you have to because they were
saying that Anakin was too old to start training at eight.
Speaker 2: Years old, is like he's got to be negative.
Speaker 4: Art. That's like an artificial thing, like he could have.
You don't have to have young wings at all. This
you didn't have to go with the child. So yeah,
I don't like going so young.
Speaker 3: Look look at look at Hayden in the Virgin Suicides,
and he looks like he'd be a perfect match with
her in this film, and he hits like you think
about this three. Yeah, A couple of years later we
have episode two. He's hit that gross spurt, so you know,
he could put on a little muscle and he looks
a little taller, and he looks a little more intimidating
because he's going to become a vader. But yeah, bad
mistake to cast such a young actor from the get go.
Speaker 1: So so let me ask this question, why do you
guys think he did that? Like, why do you think
he chose to go with nine instead of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
any of those? Why would he choose that?
Speaker 6: He wanted to tell us And I saw this in
an interview. He was he wanted to tell a story
of like because you know, he referenced Hitler about what
a horrible individual Hitler was, what was he like as
a kid, So he wanted to see a young, very young,
innocent you know, sweet freckle faced kid turn into one
of the galaxy's most horrible villains. And when you're a teenager,
you're kind of already going one way or the other,
and you can already kind of see which way you're leaning.
So I think with the eight nine years old, you
have a better chance as truly being innocent versus when
you're a teenager, your innocent is starting to fade already.
So I think that's why he chose so young. I
agree Portman should have been younger, and I also agree
if you watch the behind the scenes, there was three
kids narrowed it down for that part, and Jake Lloyd
was the worst of the three.
Speaker 2: So that's on Lucas too. He chose the wrong kid.
Speaker 1: Or the other two anybody have known?
Speaker 6: No, they were not. And I disagree with you, Jeff Jingle.
All the Way is a terrible movie.
Speaker 4: Okay, So all right, all right, So Dayton, so you
you bring to mind industry point. Perhaps Lucas was trying
to make us ask the question, if you had a
chance to kill Hitler as a child, would you do it?
You know, maybe that's factoring into a little bit. But
here's a thought. What if as Lucas is developing this
mythos of the Jedi and the force that he made,
he decided that something that needed to happen when training
for sensitive individuals is you got to catch them before puberty,
because you know, puberty kicks in and you've got emotions
and hormones and now and you've got the force, you're
you're you're unpredictable, and you're dangerous and who knows what's
going to happen. So I can see him rationalizing needing
to start young with that too.
Speaker 7: Words for you though Luke Skywalker.
Speaker 6: But yeah, here's the thing. Though Luke had already lost
his parents, he does. Everyone knew so by taking Anakin
away from his mom at that age, what's the first
thing he noticed. He's missing her already. And as soon
as I saw this movie, I knew in episode two
that what was going to trigger him to start going
dark something happened to his mom. So the reason they
take him so young is so that separation from the
parents is does not impact them as much as as
much of it did with Anakin, because that's what happened.
He was he was he lost his mom, you know,
he was away from her and that tore him up
the entire time. So that's that's why he was too old.
Speaker 3: So to clarify him being eight years younger has nothing
to do with George having a kink.
Speaker 5: For picking up Cougar's at the bar. That just just
making sure.
Speaker 4: Okayjay said, My answer to Luke Skywalker is the Jedi
Order had been destroyed at that point, so they were
just trying to figure it out and put it back together.
So I think Rull out the window at that point.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I'm split the baby here, but it
seems to me that my twelve year old is the
perfect spot to have access to both of those categories
where they haven't quite hit that. You know, I'm against
my parents and I know better than they know, but
they're mature enough to have longings and strength, you know,
Like by the time you're twelve to thirteen is when
you're developing physically, mentally, and emotionally, and it's the perfect
time to introduce a love interest and not have a
situation but still have an innocence where you can go
this kid is still a good kid, Like all of
us know people that you know that we knew when
they were little kids that were like, man, he was
the sweetest kid, but man, when he hit thirteen he
was awful. Right, But if you catch that moment right
before that, you get both edges of the sword. You
get the good and the possibility of bad, which is
what you needed with him. It was so sugary sweet,
it became unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Are you an angel?
Speaker 5: It was too.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable to make that jump that you get in part two.
But if you'd had him at twelve ish thirteen, then
it's like, oh, here's an interesting lady. I've got longing
for her. That's more than a mother figure. But I'm
also still young and I can be good and you
can still love me. Eight and nine is awful. That's
too too young.
Speaker 7: Okay, So.
Speaker 2: Am I gonna be the first guy that says Jarjon
arbinks doesn't work as maybe one of the most awful
characters in all of cinema.
Speaker 1: His streets, you can kick it off.
Speaker 2: Let's let's do it all right, jar j R. Let's
bring up jar Jar because I mean, do we all
hate jarger we had?
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 6: I don't hate it as much as I used to
because I started I started to ignore the his main
dialogue and just kind of enjoyed his little under the
breath comments because that was a lot more that those
were funny. Whereas every time he did anything when he said,
go this way, had to twirl around, or when he
jumped in the water, I had to do a big
old summer like all this stuff, all his main stuff
I ignore. I just listened to is under the breath
comments like when they first go into the hallway, goes, oh,
this is cozy. Things like that. That didn't bother me.
It's it's all the his actual lines that got annoying.
So I've learned to just to kind of tune him
out because it doesn't bother me as much as he
used to. There's other things as far as writing and
structure and editing that bothered me a lot more.
Speaker 1: I was telling Jason, they have a fan you know,
a fan at it of Phantom Menace that's out there
where they remove the voice of jar Jar and they
have him speak in an alien language. And I don't
remember if they put subtitles on it or what it was,
but and maybe they didn't. Maybe it was just like
you just see the response, very much like Hans's response
to Chebacca, right, you know, we never know what Chebacca
is saying except what we hear Hans say in response.
That's how we know what he's saying. And so I
watched this fan adit where it's like garbleed deep like
language for jar Jar, and it works, like him as
a character actually works. The problem is that voice, the
voice and the the you know, the Oki day and
all that other weird crap that he says. If you
take out that and those weird kind of mannerisms of
voice that come with it, and you just say here's
alien speak. You know what do you know? Call it
Klingon speak or whatever. You have him talk like a
Klingon in that same voice and language, and then subtitle
or don't subtitle what he says. His character works.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I will pick up on that and agree with
both you and Jason, because the problem with jar Jar
is actually writ large across all the alien creatures in
this movie. If you think about the original trilogy, you
think about the CANTEENA scene, Right, what do we have?
We have we have aliens that are in practical costumes
and they're scary looking, and there's not a single scary
alien anywhere in this movie. The scariest it gets is Subulba.
And all of these aliens, including the Gungans, including jar Jar,
are kid friendly, which don't do that. And so and
now the Trade Federation guys, they may have been costumes.
They look kind of real to me, but there's obviously
a lot of CGI aliens here and you never believe that, never, no,
not for a second. And they're speaking English in racial
stereotype accents, and jar Jar is the worst with this
steppen fetched minstrel show accent. The Trade Federation with the
stereotypical Chinese Asian accents. It's I'm offended by that, and
it goes against the logic d that you were talking
about that was already established in the Star Wars movies,
like a conceit of this universe is that the Aliens
speak their language, our humans speak English, and they're understanding
each other and having a dialogue like that's the rules
of Star Wars and you should have done that here,
and instead we get offensive racial accents that that was
completely unnecessary. And so everything about the design of the
Aliens and that choice with how they're speaking, all of
that was is just a big category of big mistake
capital m.
Speaker 1: You've hit on a great point here, which is you
are never in fear at any point in this movie.
And the canteena scene where Luke is being confronted by
two guys we've never seen before, and one of whom
looks mostly human and speaks just straight up English. You're scared, like,
what's going to happen in this scene? Right? That's a
scary scene for anybody watching, whether you're a little kid
or more. And there's nothing scary. And then the second
point is there are characters that could be scary, but
because they're CGI. I will tell you a story. My
oldest boy is nineteen now. I think he was probably
eleven or so, maybe younger, maybe nine when I watched
this movie with him for the first time, and during
one of the Jedi Council scenes, he turns to me
and he says, is this animated or is this real?
And I was like, it's real, buddy, I mean those
are real actors. And he's like, well, why is Yoda
a cartoon? And I said, exactly, son, that is exactly right.
Why the heck is Yoda a cartoon?
Speaker 4: He doubled down on that Attack of the Clones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because in the in the trailer that we got,
Yoda was a puppet. He was he was a he
was a hand worked puppet. We did not see that
CGI crap in the trailer that Jason alluded to earlier.
Speaker 4: And there are a couple of shots in Phantom Menace
where Frank calls is operating the puppet, but most of
it is CGI. Attack of Clones. It's all CGI.
Speaker 6: Well, actually the original release, most of it was. The
only CGI was actually at the end when he was
when he was talking over one last time, he was
sitting in a seat and everything else. It was all
a puppet and everybody hated Trust me, I yes, I will,
Diana Hill. There was no Friend that was released due
the face found stuff that's on Disney Plus has the
changed Yoda. This has the puppet Yoda in it. I
promise you that you're.
Speaker 1: Talking about the original. So like when I watch it streaming,
am I going to see CGI? Or I'm going to say,
am I.
Speaker 2: Going to see you see CGI?
Speaker 6: Because he changed it? Okay, this is the original release.
Speaker 1: That's fair because I don't remember exactly the experience whenever
I was whenever I was whatever, twenty five years younger.
I don't remember when I was twenty three years old.
I do remember watching it with my son when I
was thirty something years old and going, yeah, why the
crap is he a cartoon?
Speaker 6: Why everybody complain that he didn't he didn't look right
as a puppet. Yeah, but how they aged him? They
didn't look right. So he fixed it and made him
Segi and whatever. Blah blah blah, you know.
Speaker 4: Freaking of Yoda. Yoda was off model. He didn't look
like Yoda to me. I thought. I never believed it
was Yoda, and they should have just kept him the
same as inpuct Yeah.
Speaker 1: He he's been around for what was it six hundred
years years? He's change So why yeah, why is twenty
five years earlier really gonna make him look significantly younger? No,
it's ridiculous, Dayton.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you clarified that because I you know you
were going to die in that hill because he had
the high ground figured it out.
Speaker 2: But I have the proof.
Speaker 7: I will not help you, all right. Who else has
got something done?
Speaker 1: Work?
Speaker 7: Jeff?
Speaker 1: What you got?
Speaker 5: Or Dayden?
Speaker 2: Who's up?
Speaker 4: Daydon?
Speaker 1: What do you got?
Speaker 6: Okay? Well, so, honestly my biggest complaint, as much as
he did so many things right for this universe, it's
George's fault. Everything that's wrong with this movie is George's fault.
And this is why he directed X one, one three eight,
He directed American Graffiti, which I love.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 6: He had help with the screenplay on both of those.
He writes quote unquote rights and directs Star Wars. He
had help writing that screenplay because don't they don't get credit.
The two guys that helped him got points no credit, okay.
Speaker 4: And his wife saved him in the editing.
Speaker 6: And the editing and everything. The pacing was saved by
some other people. Okay, So fast forward twenty years. He
has not directed a single thing or written anything else,
and all of a sudden, he goes, you know what,
even though I abandoned this because I was tired of it,
I want to bring it back just because, you know, hey,
this was fun making the special editions. Whatever he is not,
he's barely a filmmaker at this point, and he's taken
on this giant project. And it's a giant project. You
have hundreds of people working for me, You have artists,
you have everything, you have people doing costumes, and he's
in charge of everything. It's all his brain child, it's
all his idea.
Speaker 1: How about this? How about that?
Speaker 6: And as I said earlier before we started recording, when
you're the writer, when you're the director, when you're the producer,
when you're the bank, Nobody's gonna say, hey, George Jeor
j R. Is stupid, Hey George, those accents are terrible.
Hey George, that scene is five minutes too long. You
need to cut that. They're not gonna look at their
paycheck and tell the boss you're wrong. George, because guess
what nobody did. He was surrounded by yes men and
he didn't care, and he made what he thought was
gonna be made.
Speaker 1: And that's fine.
Speaker 6: The fact is it took three movies, it took two
swings in a miss before we got a good movie.
Speaker 1: And everything that's wrong with.
Speaker 6: This from the horrible dialogue, like, okay, the very beginning. Okay,
the Viceroy and his buddy, are you know, the Jedi
show up and he goes, you go in there and
distract him while I get called Arcidius or whatever. He goes,
are you brain dead? I'm not going in there with
two Jedi. Awful, just terrible, Okay, And then they they
call up they call it Sidiath and he goes, you know,
he starts whining at Cidious. He goes, I don't want
to see this stunted slime on my side again. I'm like,
stunted slime. Good, good try, George. I don't know what
that what that even means? You know, watch your line
to their buddy. It's not even it's not even blasted.
It's not even Star Wars slang. It's just stupid. And
then later when they're at out of Gunga and you know,
and Boss n Ask gives them Bungo, you can leave,
go ahead. They're walking away and Charger says, you know,
you're getting set up whatever and he and He's like,
we need a navigator to get to the planet Core,
do you and what makes you think this idiot's gonna
get you there? And then they get in the ship
and their crews around.
Speaker 1: Jarger goes, where are we going?
Speaker 6: Oh, the forest will take us?
Speaker 5: What is it?
Speaker 6: Is he the navigator or is it the force taking
your what's wrong?
Speaker 1: Just things don't make sense?
Speaker 6: And then later and the council Mace Window says, we
don't have time for this, you know, go back to Naboo,
you know, the little draw out of the Queen's Attacker. This
is the key to unlocking the mystery of the Scyth?
What what Darth mauls showing up? Is something gonna give
you the answers to the Scyth? Are you trying to
figure out who he is? Is that the mystery? What's
the mystery? Where they've been for the last couple hundred years?
What's the mystery they never come back to? That never explained?
That statement doesn't make any sense. He does it throughout
the entire movie. He drops lines here and there that
have no ending, no reason, and they don't come back
to it. It's so frustrating because nobody went, George, this
doesn't make sense. You need to fix this.
Speaker 1: So okay, I'm off my soapbox. I'm done. So I
just want to touch on this because I'm confident that
ninety five percent of the people listening to us right
now probably know this little tidbit already, but just for
those five percent that don't, and Dave alluded to it,
and Day and you know, leveled it up significantly when
the original Star Wars a New Hope, the very first
one was done. When they had completed the filming and
the editing of that movie, they screened it and every
single person that saw it went, this is terrible. This
is terrible, and by you know, the will of the force,
if you will. George happened to be married to Marcia,
and Marcia happened to be a fantastic editor, and Marcia said,
let me see what I can do, and she took
it and she rearranged all of the pieces and she
took out a lot of the garbage that didn't need
to be in there, and she's the one that made
it a good movie. He he brought all the pieces
and she chopped it up and made it into a meal.
And unfortunately, in the next twenty years they got divorced
and he amassed an unreasonable amount of money and power
because he had developed ILM, and they became the go
to for all things like this, like you said, like digital,
Like he was pushing the science of movie making more
than he was pushing the creativity and the essence of storytelling.
And so once we get to twenty years later, once
we get to twenty years later, there's, like you said,
a date and there's nobody to say, George, let's let's
rework this. Let's let's tweak this, just the hair, it's just.
Speaker 6: Let's break this scene down. This doesn't need we don't
need to have four underwater creatures during the planet core.
We don't need, we don't need this. Just because you
can doesn't.
Speaker 2: Mean there's always always a bigger fish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another bigger fish, and then there's a bigger fish
that was bigger than the bigger fish that was bigger
than the last fish that was almost eating us.
Speaker 7: Yeah, all right, Jeff, how you doing. What do you
got for us?
Speaker 3: Well, I'll talk about one more thing, you know, because
we've we've we've kind of talked about jar jar binks
and and everything that makes that character wrong. But once
you can see the fact that, you know, George Lucas
has said, hey, I'm making these movies for kids, So
I can accept that, and I can accept someone like,
don't shake your head now to me dating. I just
watched a freaking no no, no, I'm just saying I
just watched an interview with him and he.
Speaker 7: That's what he said.
Speaker 5: He said, that's what he said. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: I'm not disagree with that, but I want to wait
for kids too.
Speaker 3: But no, alls, I'm saying is this is what George said. Okay,
if you if you can, if we're gonna wrap our
heads around that, then why are we watching a movie
where this central plot is bogged down with taxation and
trade routes and Senate meetings because kids don't want to
see kids don't want to watch c SPAN. Yes, so
you can't have it both ways, Coruscent News Network, Yeah, yeah,
I can't have it both ways.
Speaker 4: George. If Jeff if Et showed up with c Span.
I would be watching.
Speaker 1: Jason. Jason can tell you that as we're watching this
movie in the theater, and we didn't even realize that.
We thought, you know, we've got to you know, kind
of we've got to be quiet because there are other
people here. It was about three quarters into the movie
that I was like, I'm gonna go to the bathroom
because I don't care if I miss more of this movie.
I went to the bathroom. I came back and I'm like, Oh,
we're the only ones in the theater. We are the
only ones who decided that we're gonna rewatch this movie.
And it became an open forum. But even when we
were whispering, I was like, why are they sitting down?
Like over and over, scene after scene, they're sitting in
a circle. Like if you look at the original Star Wars,
does anybody sit down? Yes? Is everyone sitting down? No?
Because there are guys who have power, like Darth Vader
and the General who are exhibiting their power by standing up.
We've got we've got seen after scene of people sitting
in a circle talking. That's not kids stuff, that's not
even grown up stuff. That's just the movie making Sorry Jasey.
Speaker 4: He is not gonna be allowed.
Speaker 2: That's right, Okay, Okay, I got I got a few, Jeff,
keep going? Are you finishing?
Speaker 5: Jason was?
Speaker 3: Jason was gonna ask you, like, aside from Joe, you
kick this off with with jar Jo, what do you
got to bring us.
Speaker 4: Home the way? I haven't gone yet either. Now give
me a second, go ahead.
Speaker 2: You haven't gone yet four times to talk about the
things that didn't work during our things that didn't Hey.
Speaker 4: I'm doing I'm just listen, listen. I am yes ding everybody,
but I haven't.
Speaker 2: Given Okay, Dave, go ahead, go ahead, Okay.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you what doesn't work. You don't make
ben Kenobi's desert clothes the Jedi uniform. Can I get
an amen?
Speaker 5: I mean amen?
Speaker 7: He hasn't changed clothes in forty five years.
Speaker 4: Those robes fit the color palette of Tattooine. He was
a desert hermit. That's why they made it that costume.
And now we see all the Jedi the height of
their powers, and they're all wearing desert grubes. Give me
a break. That's not that doesn't work at all. That
color palette was meant for Tattooine. It was never meant
as a Jedi uniform, and play out that logic, what
does it mean? It means even though Obi Wan is
in hiding, he's not changing his last name. He's on
Anakin's home. Play in it, Luke still has the name
Skywalker and he's still wearing his Jedi uniform. Like, you're
not hiding, No, we're anybody is.
Speaker 5: This is this?
Speaker 3: What does it work for Phantom Minister? The saga over
like it doesn't.
Speaker 4: Work for Phantom Menace? You don't make that the Jedi uniform.
That it was a bad decision.
Speaker 1: It was a look at that first movie. That guy
he's dressed like Obi Wan Kenobi. Yeah, but he's got white.
Speaker 7: His name's Ben.
Speaker 1: His name is Ben here that cannot possibly be the
same guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll tell you what. Nineteen years was rough on
you and McGregor from McGregor to Guinness, and it's kind
of brutal. Now that's the name I have not heard
in the long Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also haven't. I haven't. I haven't said my things
that don't work either. I just oh, the Podra doesn't
want you to go ahead and go I really just
want to get I'm going to keep yes, ending, but
so you go ahead.
Speaker 2: I got I got a couple of just a few
things that we haven't covered yet.
Speaker 1: Right for me?
Speaker 2: The podcast announcer Greg Proops from whose lines an? The
pod race announcer, Some of these podcast announcers, I don't
work all the time either, that's right. The pod race announcer,
who's Greg Proops from whose lines it? Anyway, he's like
Anakan's guy. We all that crap, cut all that crap
and do the same thing, give it, give an alien
voice whatever, and it's much more serious instead of stupid
and comical. And they got two heads and all that
stuff sucked and then it sucked. Yeah, that's right, suck.
And I can't remember who said it earlier, but there
maybe as you d there are no real bad guys
in this movie. The the Battle Droids are about as
menacing as C three p O. They suck, they can't
do anything. Roger Roger Roger like, they're stupid. They're not
even fun toys because they're too skinny. They won't stand
up up right. And Darth Maul listen. For as awesome
as Darth Maul is, I have two complaints about Darth
Maul He's an amazing bad guy that they completely wasted
because they kill him off in the first movie. He
should have been the main battie for three Pictures where
Anakin finally kills him instead of stupid old krusty Darth
Tyrannus freaking Dooku. So Darth Maul should have been the
bad guy over three pictures. They wasted that opportunity. They
blew it there. And what was my other complaint.
Speaker 1: Was Darth Maul two Darth Maul complaints.
Speaker 2: Darth Maul complaints. Oh and Darth Maul really doesn't commit
any real sin in this movie.
Speaker 5: He doesn't really do it.
Speaker 2: We know he's a bad guy. The only thing he
does is he lightsaber fights with Qui Gon for a
little bit and then they're like out to kill him
the entire time. And I get it, we know he's
the bad guy. But if you kick off this movie
with Darth Maul trying to kill Mace Windu or the
Queen or Qui Gon something where we know right off
the bat this is our baddie, this is what he did.
We've got to kill this guy or else, and they
don't ever do that.
Speaker 3: Point of order, there is one thing that he does
do that is that is a terrible thing, you know,
Okay that but I'm gonna spin this because it's an
awesome thing, and I freaking love it. I'm not you know,
it's mean and it's cruel, but it's awesome. I love
the fact that he is sent to tato Wine to
go after some Jedi and his first act is attempted
vehicular homicide of Anakin. Skywalker almost mows this kid down
for no reason at all other than just to do it.
And I cheer every time I see that Qui Gon
had not turned around and said.
Speaker 1: Anakin town man that the force was strong.
Speaker 5: I love the fact that Ami tries to run him off,
run him down. That's awesome.
Speaker 3: So while it's why, while I approve of it, it
some people might look down on him for attempting.
Speaker 1: That call that bad behavior. Okay, So there's there is
a very innocuous scene that I think kind of sums
up a huge part of what's wrong with this movie. Whenever,
Whenever Amidala and her people are like trying to escape
there and they you remember, they'll go out the window
and then they they use little cables and they go
down to the next level, and then they're outside and
there's a window in front of them, right, and she
points her gun at the window so that they can
blast their way in. And in this movie that they
have spent, however many million dollars they've spent to make it,
you see her point the gun and then you're in
the hallway and you see an explosion from behind a pillar.
And so what they've done is they've given us the
parts that we don't care about, and they've cut out
the really cool parts. So you've got these senate scenes,
you've got these meetings among the council, you've got these
trade war things, conversations going on that they're giving us
that we don't want to watch. And then they've removed
all of the fun stuff that made all of the
original trilogy good. They've removed getting us getting to see
the glass blasted open. I want to see that laser
go through the glass and it explode in my face.
That's the fun part. But what you did was you
gave me the before and the after that are both
boring and you didn't need to do that. That is
a big picture complaint for me for the whole thing.
Now onto a complaint that Jason and I shared together.
And this goes along with how young Anakin is. When
we got to that final battle scene and he kind
of accidentally takes a ship and kind of by accident
ends up in space with the mothership and is just
randomly blasting things away, there was an opportunity there for
us to see the future Darth Vader. There was an
opportunity there for us to see Anakin, even though he
may only be eight or nine years old, to be
kind of a badass because he is a great pilot.
Like they've already discussed it, he is a great pilot.
So we could see him come into that moment and
know what to do and like he's not worried, he's
not fearful. He is like I am in my zone.
I know what I'm doing and I can be awesome
at this. But they didn't do that. And then to
top it all off, as he's blasting away the culmination
the destroying the death Star of Phantom Menace is an accident.
Anakin Skywalker is shooting at these little, tiny, insignificant droid
beings and accidentally hits something really important that blows up
their whole space station. Why would you do that, why
would you make it an accident? Let us know, give
us the foreshadowing that this guy has the capacity to
be a badass, and when the going gets tough, he
is willing to take some serious action and say that's there,
that is their core, that is the thing that will
destroy this ship. I'm gonna shoot it. I'm gonna get
the heck out of here, and I'm gonna save everybody else.
That was the moment and they lost it again, so
real quick, I want to I want to argue with that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I want to respond to both things that you guys,
that Jason indeed has said. So first of all, you
mentioned Darth Maul that he they were wasted. You're you're
one hundred percent right, they wasted him completely. But if
you notice at the very end his life, Sabers magical
because when he's standing above Obi Wan, it's in his
right hand, and then when Obody One flips over and
his swings at him, it moves to his left hand
because it was his still in his right hand, it
would have blocked Obi Wan's swing. So notice that that
bump that pisses me off because you know what millions
of dollars pay attention. Okay, you have a continuity person
for a reason, and then we have the battleship, you know,
the spaceship that at the end that gets blown up.
Cool beginning of the movie, the blockade has six seven, eight,
nine battleships out there blocking the way. Right when they
come back, knowing they're coming back, there's one ship in
their way. One where'd the rest go?
Speaker 1: They could?
Speaker 6: They didn't leave because all the all the troops are
on the planet.
Speaker 5: Where'd they go?
Speaker 6: It's like, well, let's make it easier for him to
get back instead of leaving. I'man that was this. Those
are continuity mistakes to fix problems they didn't see when
he was writing the story, and that just it's just
lazy writing, is what it is. That makes me angry.
Speaker 3: I don't want to defend him, but the continuity person
had a very low Midichlorian.
Speaker 5: Count, so I don't think we should be picking on him.
Speaker 4: Real quick. I'll just bullet point these the last two
things I had that did not work. The pod race
for me, absolutely did not work. Did I mean, it's
exciting and blah blah blah, but zero stakes, zero suspense,
zero mystery of how it was going to turn out.
It was just it was just holding place, holding time,
and I was just waiting for it to be over.
It just I didn't I didn't feel anything watching that race.
The other thing is, I think it was a mistake
to show Darth Cidius. I thought it had been waterfully
subtle to track Palpatine without seeing Darth Cidius. I think
Palpatine's arc is the most important one actually in this movie.
I think that was really the Phantom Menace, was the
rise of Palpatine. Nobody knew it at the time what
he was going to be, And I think you could
have played that mystery a little closer to your vest
if you don't also show Darth ceedis just don't show them.
You could have the trade Federation of talking to him,
have the voice off camera, But as soon as you
see the dark hood in the nose coming out of
the shadow, you know exactly who it is, and you're
killing any suspense that you're that you may be able
to build. So to me, it was a mistake to
show Sidious or even have city like why even have
a named alter ego just having been talking to a
voice that we eventually find out as Palpatine. So anyway,
that's what I got.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 7: Okay, guys, anything else when I get off your chest?
Been twenty five years?
Speaker 6: Well, real quick. Lucas keeps saying, well, there, these movies
were made for kids. Okay, fine. He over explains everything,
which we didn't do in the original trilogy. He over
explains everything. His argument is, there's made for kids. Well,
you know what, why don't you take a clue from
Jim Henson, take a clue from Walt Disney. They did
not talk down to kids. Okay, don't treat them like
they're morons, all right, Just tell a good story and
they'll pay attention. So no, I call BS on that too.
Speaker 4: Sorry, Yeah, I was six in nineteen seventy seven, and
I don't think New Hope talks down to anybody.
Speaker 1: It does.
Speaker 4: I was fine, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'm not going to bring up, you know,
Jergia jumping on the chest of a battle droid while
shooting other people.
Speaker 7: We can just move on past that. Is this.
Speaker 2: Here's the question. Is this movie fixable? And how do
you fix it?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely?
Speaker 7: Okay, who's leading off?
Speaker 6: Well, you just remake it without George being in charge.
Of everything. Get a news screenwriter. No, seriously, I'm not.
I'm just he is the story guy. He's the one
that created the universe. He's the one that created the characters. Cool,
this is what I want you to do. Lawrence Kasden,
please write this. Yes, find another director, say do me favorite,
because I am not I am not a George Lucas
has said it many times. He is not an actor's director.
You can ask you know, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill,
they had all kinds of complaints when they're making the
first movie because he never he said, just faster and
more aggressive.
Speaker 1: You know, he didn't tell him me.
Speaker 6: So hire another director, hire a writer, and then this
is the story I want you to tell. I'll just
I'll be the overlord and watch everything. That's what That's
how you fix.
Speaker 1: It in the story.
Speaker 4: The secret weapon in the original trilogy was Lawrence Kasdin
and every if you look at the original trilogy, the
less Lucas had to do with an individual picture, the
better it was. He had the least to do with Empire.
It was the best one of the trilogy. So yes,
you take George Lucas's story. You got to give him
that right.
Speaker 1: You have to agree.
Speaker 4: All right, Lucas, this is your story. Now give your
draft to Lawrence Kasden, okay, and he'll punch it up
and he'll get it to work. So I absolutely agree
Lawrence Kasan needs to be the screenwriter here. But I
figured out a director. Does emails have a director they
want for this? Because I think I got the perfect
guy from nineteen ninety seven ninety eight to take over
this picture. I nominate Roland Emmerich. He had already given
this Independence Day, he'd already given a stargate, and I
would put him on Phantom Menace. And I can see
this is going over like a turn in a punchball.
Nobody else here agrees with me. I think this. I
think he would nail it. Tell me why I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: That's a whole other podcast time.
Speaker 6: As much as I love Independence Day, that that dude
is all flash no substance.
Speaker 4: That's J. J Abrams.
Speaker 1: But gos Michael bay whoa no, no, no, no no, no.
Speaker 7: Let's not start this again.
Speaker 1: No no, no, it's not all flash of no substance.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Hey, there are no lens players of Phantom Menace, so
we know it's not J. J Abrams, all right, I
like my pick. I can tell none of you like it.
That's fine, I'll own it. But I do know we.
Speaker 2: Do love the Lawrence casting idea though that may have
taken care of ninety nine point nine percent of the problem.
Speaker 4: Yep, yeah, yeah, just not having Lucas in charge and
maybe sweet talk Marsha into coming back to edit it.
Speaker 1: That won't happen either.
Speaker 6: That's honestly, That's why never get the original Chilody released
on Blu rays, because he'd have to get it her money.
Speaker 1: Yeah's exactly why.
Speaker 2: So all right, Jeff, how do you fix this movie?
Speaker 5: I'll tell you what, guys.
Speaker 3: I have been with you too, to fix Beverly Hills,
Cop three, Alien three, Jawls, The Revenge Superman four.
Speaker 5: I've been around you know.
Speaker 3: We talked Start, we talked the Star Trek the motion
picture just last week. So I'm gonna look at this
from a point of what can we do right now
with what we've got. I'm gonna give you two things
that I think would help this. First off, reduce the
jar Jar Binks screen time to Nabo scenes only because
he doesn't really serve any purpose other than selling toys.
For the majority of the movie. So if we could
just cut him to the Nabus scenes where he helps
them out in the beginning and then helps them out
again at the end with the battle, that I'd be
okay with that.
Speaker 5: The other thing, if we could get.
Speaker 3: A good editor, let's open the film with the Jedi
being dispatch to rescue the queen who's either seeking political
asylum or to investigate an assassination attempt because she won't
agree to terms with the Trade Federation. I think just
doing those two things gives this movie a much better taste.
Speaker 9: Like it.
Speaker 1: Yep, d Man, I hesitate to say anything because Jason
is so freaking good at this. I'm I'm like on
the edge of my seat to see what Jason's going
to say. No pressure, no pressure, no boy. But so
I agree with you. I think that that's starting off.
It needs to be that Amidala's life is in danger
right then, Like we start off that she is being
pursued not by guys who are Trade Federation blabadah, but
like some ominous thing, like something that's truly you know,
out for bad stuff. Maybe it's Darth Maul. That's how
it starts off, is that there is an evil that
is pursuing her, and that's the reason for the jedis
to come in and to start doing things, and that
they're stuck on that world battling those evil things instead
of what they end up battling. And then remove all
of the scenes that you have with this political battle
and just make that I mean, I think legitimately, I
hate to say this, that's better done through exposition because
I don't care to watch the scene play out over
the course of ten minutes. Tell me in one minute,
tell me what's happening in one minute, as things are
as the action is going. And you know by how
much I hate Episode nine that I don't want pure
action the whole time, because Episode nine was pure action
the entire time, and it is the worst of the
nine episodes. But this one had so little and so
little fear, so little ominous. You know, somebody is genuinely
in danger. I mean, you just take a tiny little part,
you take a new hope. The scene where the black
ball comes in with the needle and Princess Leiah is
being you know, made to talk. Oh, that's terrifying. And
that is a round plastic ball with a needle on
the end of it. It's so simple to create these
ominous situations and not a complicated way to create boring situations,
which is what we had with this. And I'm I
would rattle on too long and try to dissect the
whole movie. I want to hear what Jason's going to say.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I've got a bold idea and it's I
don't know that it would work, but at least it
at least I would freaking try to fix this thing.
So Jeff and I have already talked about opening the
movie as a part, you know, a third act from
a different story where something exciting is happening and Mace
Windu and Qui gon Are've got their lightsabers out and
they're issuing justice, and you know, maybe you have the
assassination attempt on the Queen early and you have a
battle with Darth Maul to start the movie off, where man,
this is the bad guy and this is the sin
that he has committed in that this is what he does.
Speaker 7: But if you decide not to do that, I think
my two Birds with one Stone fix is when mal
is on Tattooin and he comes after he tries to
commit vehicular homicide on Anakin, but instead he jumps off
and lightsabers and strikes down jar Jar and murders him
on tattooy. Okay, you've got Darth Maul committing a horrible sin,
and every five year old is now crying, and every
person in the audience is now like that.
Speaker 2: Dude's got to pay now. I mean, I didn't like
jar Jar, but now he's got a go. We gotta
get him now, right, you take out jar Jar, Darth
Baul commits his sin, and now we've got a revenge
plot and we've got something to work with.
Speaker 1: I told you guys, it's fan freakingtastic.
Speaker 6: He's always only that is how do they find the Gungans.
Speaker 1: At the end, we hut all that crap out.
Speaker 2: We don't care about it.
Speaker 6: But at the top with that is they have no
They have no army. You know, Nabu has no army.
So that's another issue which I.
Speaker 5: Don't have security volunteers.
Speaker 6: I don't understand why the Federation has a giant army
while the Gungmans have an army, But why the Naboo
have a few guys is with uniforms.
Speaker 1: I don't understand.
Speaker 6: I found your nineties director by the way I found
your nineties director.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Frank Darabont would do. Yeah, I definitely
just don't like that's a great one. That is a
great Frank to do anything with the fifth element.
Speaker 6: So I don't know what we mean by that.
Speaker 2: You're thinking, yeah, I think do.
Speaker 4: They work together on something? I have that name totally
associated with it. Hey, Jason, cut that out. I sound
like an idiot there.
Speaker 1: Hey, I gotta I gotta tell you guys that this morning,
Jason's like, so you think you can edit this episode
because I'm going on vacation. I'm like, you're giving me
five people to edit. But so, yeah, this is going
to be a very raw episode. Gentlemen. I'm sorry you
got the time to make this call good. Okay, I'm
going to say one more thing about how to fix
a problem in this and that is bring in a
truckload of dirt and smear it on everything. Because one
of the beautiful factors of Star Wars that they absolutely
keyed in on when they made Alien is man. Things
are messy, things are not pristine, and somehow they forgot
that over the course of twenty years, and they gave
us this shiny silver thing that looks like a mirror
as a spaceship, and everybody, even in the desert, is clean,
like they're why why are they clean? Make it dirty
because Star Wars is a space opera, but it's also
a Western, and if you're doing a Western, it needs
to be dirty. You're out on the frontier and you're
fighting on the frontier, and that is not a clean,
pristine thing. You can have those moments, I don't think
people should be sitting down. You can have those moments
where you've got the pretty civilized world that other people
are in, but that needs to be a small part
of the story. And things need to be dirty because
we need to know that this is rough and this
is without law. This is a lawless world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you just don't get that in an empty
green room. You have to be on location.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, so dirty. Sorry, let's just.
Speaker 2: Recap real quick. I think this is good stuff right here.
I think this is all pretty reasonable stuff.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You make everything dirty, you get rid of jar Jar's voice,
you age up Anakin a little bit, you dump all
the political crap, you do something a little more exciting.
You don't waste Darth Maul. And we've got a great star, right.
Speaker 4: And listen, you don't use racial stereotypes for alien languages.
Speaker 2: You know you've done all the English speak.
Speaker 4: Hey, think about this. This movie came out in ninety nine.
Planet of the Apes comes out in two thousand and one.
Now think of tim Roth in that movie. He's in
a practical costume. He's a chimpanzee, but he's scary and
he's mean, and he's bad of the bone. That could
have been jar Jar. You know, you believe Peter Mayhew
is Chebacca because he's reel and in a costume, and
on the set, you believe Tim Roth is that dude Thane.
You could have made jar Jar that bad and put
him in a real costumee, giving him a real attitude.
You take tim Roth's Thane and you put him into
the charge o role. I'm happy, I'm good. I mean,
why not do that? Go practical? I'm holding that up
as an example of proof that costume technology was on
point in nineteen ninety nine, and you could have totally
pulled it off and it would have worked.
Speaker 1: Planet of the Apes is I mean, it's the It's
the top of the line as far as those things go, though,
I mean, I'm just as far as making things real,
they did a great job. In two thousand it was
terrible movie. Tim Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes was
a terrible movie. But the costumes were on point and
they were real. And they have they have done the
I would say the one good job the Plan of
the Apes that have come since I've done the one
good job of doing CD CGI. They have devoted so
much time and energy to making it real that I
as much as I hate CGI, I like those mosques
and I'm not distracted by it.
Speaker 6: Watch Wat's the creator the CG and that.
Speaker 1: Oh I did. I saw it in the theater. Think
you can touch it.
Speaker 6: It's it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And I think I think the Rogue One, I mean
I think the Rogue One, same director, what's his name? Edwards?
Thank you, you're welcome. I think that he brilliant. The
creator fell flat as far as story and acting went
for me. But but you're but you're right. The the
realness of the world that they're in is perfect, just
like it was in Rogue One.
Speaker 7: Okay, last question, last question, is this movie worth the rewatch.
Speaker 4: D?
Speaker 2: Why don't you start us on onn't you you'll you'll
close us Dayton.
Speaker 7: Is this movie worth the rewatch?
Speaker 6: Yeah, just because, like I said, I've watched it and
I don't hate it as much as I used to.
I mean, I have issues with it, but there is
enough in there that I enjoy that. Yeah, I watch
it from time to time. I probably watch it at
least every couple of years, Dave.
Speaker 4: I will say, ultimately, yes, it is worth it because
of the larger story being told. You have to squinch
your eye and forgive a lot of the execution and design,
but the big block storytelling of the Star Wars Mythos
and its role in the larger picture of the Six movies,
I think makes this an important watch. I do not
watch it every couple of years, but I think it
does have a place in the six.
Speaker 5: Jeff, I do not feel it is worth a rewatch.
Speaker 3: I subscribe to the machete cut format when I watch
the trilogy, which I think works so much better. When
you watch a New Hope Empire, then you go back
to Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith
as a flashback sequence and then jump to Jedi.
Speaker 5: That's the way I enjoy it.
Speaker 3: And aside from watching ten minutes of Darth Maul and
the Duel of the Fates. I see no reason to
ever go back to watch this one again.
Speaker 2: All right for me, As much as it hurts me
to say this, this movie is not worth the rewatch.
I think if you watched the trailer, you get everything
you need. You get awesome bad guy Darth Maul, cool
clips of the Lightsaber battle. Now, the Lightsaber Battle is
the only thing really worth revisiting. You go back and
watch the trailer, save yourself two hours.
Speaker 1: You're good. It is not worth the rewatch. D Well,
when you started off what you said, you use the
words for me, and I think that that is the key.
Having rewatched it. For me, I would rather watch any
of the movies, even episode nine, before I would put
myself through watching episode one again. I was. I went
in hopeful that I had been wrong about it for
the last twenty five years, and was even madder when
I left. But I'm mean right, I've got my own redispositions.
My son, who is fourteen at this point, grew up
with this movie and he loves it. He loves it.
We have a mutual friend who is an adult. He's
thirty thirty thirty eight. Yeah, and he loves it because
he was a you know, twelve year old or whatever
whenever it came out. And so.
Speaker 2: For Tristan Martin, that's you.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's you, Tristan. I need to talk to
you about what you love it. I talked to my
own about why he loved it, and I'm like, you're long,
but okay, my boy, that's fine.
Speaker 4: But anyway, you lost him in the second bleep, but
go ahead.
Speaker 1: Yah. But I think that it largely depends upon you
as a person, and so I think there are some
people who might have not been that interested in it
when it first came out. We'll rewatch it and feel
the way that I did, which was you got mad,
got literally mad at what they did with your beloved
Star Wars and storytelling. But there are other people who
I think can rewatch this movie and go, you know what,
this wasn't that bad. They had some good bones to this.
I mean, maybe they didn't execute it well, and maybe
that voice was kind of dumb, and maybe the kid
was kind of hard to watch or whatever, but overall,
it was a good story or they set up things
that meant something. And so there are some folks out
there who are listening, who I'm like, maybe you can
rewatch it, right, but for me, no, stick it. Stick
the negative in the funeral pyre for Darth Vader at
the end, and please it never let it regenerate.
Speaker 4: I would say that in any case, you can skip
the movie and just listen to the saga begins by
weird ow and you're fine.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm glad we didn't miss an episode of weird ow.
Speaker 7: Hey really quickly. I don't know if you guys are
prepared to do this or not.
Speaker 2: Final judgment, Star Wars The Phantom Menace versus Star Trek
the Motion Picture, You guys, can you do that?
Speaker 6: I haven't watched that movie in like twenty years, so
I can't really speak to that. I remember not liking
it very much the first time, so I have not
rewatched it since.
Speaker 1: So, if so, only having watched it twenty years ago
and having watched it once, having watched The Phantom Menace
once a year for the last twenty five years, are
you gonna say you would pick watching The Phantom Menace
again as opposed to watching the motion picture again? More
than likely? Okay, sir Dave?
Speaker 4: Okay, So I don't like. I mean, let me put
this away. I'm a casual Trek fan, and I there
are several Trek movies I love. The first one is
not one of them. The appeal of Star Trek and
Star Wars are very different. They've pilled different fandoms for
a reason. Star Trek was always more cerebral and socially
conscious and all those things. It tried to be a
little bit more serious sci fi, where Star Wars are
just a fun space opera and the Old West. So
there are differences. And here's a case of where Gene
Roddenberry was kind of still in charge of what he
wanted to do with this first movie. And I would
say that it's very true to Roddenberry's vision of what
Star Trek should be. I just feel like his vision
is kind of boring and there's just nothing happens in
the first movie. I get the appeal, you know, they
save the show. Fans were able to keep it alive.
They brought it back, probably because Star Wars was a hit.
Now we get the cast back, the novelty of seeing
them back together. Hey, that was probably enough for the
first movie. But the story doesn't work. It moves at
a glacial pace. And I would say that even though
Phantom Menace watches every aspect of execution, it's at least
not boring the way Star Trek in the motion picture is,
so I get it. It was the rodn Berry's kind
of a stree bowl approach to sci fi, and it
was slow on purpose and blah blah blah, but it
does work for me as a piece of entertainment.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to move the needle for you two guys,
because you weren't like the other three of us. We
were a part of the Star Trek episode where we
talked about that movie. And what you may not know
is that there has been a I don't know what
they call it, extended cutter, director's cutter, exactly what you
call it, right, But it came out in twenty twenty two. Now,
don't get me wrong. There are still some very long scenes,
but they have done some very good work with it.
And I watched it when I was a teenager for
the first time, and then I rewatched it a month ago,
you know, and as an adult who can have an
attention span that's a little bit longer, I actually enjoyed
what they did in this twenty twenty two recut of
the movie, and it's not like it's some huge dramatic change,
but they have changed it in the right spots to
make it a little less dull than it was before.
There's still lots of extended sequences. But if you think
about the fact that you can enjoy two thousand and
one a space odyssey despite the fact that they're extended,
you know, scenes of nothing but music and space creations
and all of that, and you go in and you think, Okay,
I'm going to watch Star Trek, and I'm going to
think that they're trying to be more like two thousand
and one than they're trying to be like Star Wars.
I think you will really enjoy it. And that is
the cut that is currently out on Max right now.
You can watch it streaming on Max if you want to.
I would encourage you, gentlemen who haven't seen it in
twenty years, to check out this new edition of it,
because I was surprised and impressed when I rewatched. Okay,
so I've interrupted the flow. I apologize Jeff.
Speaker 2: Star Trek or Star Wars in this matchup.
Speaker 3: I think the answer is subjective and it depends on
what you're hungry for. One of these films is going
to pair well with a happy meal and one of
them isn't. And because I don't want to eat chicken
nuggets and apple slices, no matter how good the toy is,
I have to choose Star Trek the motion picture.
Speaker 4: That's I totally get that.
Speaker 1: That's a great answer you brought.
Speaker 4: You brought it down to where I can reach.
Speaker 7: It makes sense, all right, So I guess.
Speaker 4: You have to.
Speaker 1: We've said, have we done the versus party? Yeah? Oh yeah,
Well yeah, I guess I did because I said that
I wouldn't rewatch and what we watch, I guess it did.
So my hand is it's on the table.
Speaker 7: Okay, So I guess that leaves me.
Speaker 1: So wait, wait here you go, Chuck.
Speaker 7: Let's hear what every buddy Chuck had said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Chuck was with us on the on the Star
Trek episode. Let's listen to what his opinion is between
these two movies first, and then we'll come back and
hear Jason's final judgment. Chuck, now we're talking the Phantom Menace.
What do you say? Is it worth the rewatch or
just leave it in the DVD case And never open
it again.
Speaker 9: You know, I'm I'm going to rewatch The Phantom Menace
because I always want to see if it's as bad
as I remember it being. I mean, it just can't
possibly be that bad.
Speaker 4: I mean, when I was a kid, I thought being
a Jedi would be fun.
Speaker 9: When I was a kid, I thought the Force was
something natural and not just Meticlorian counts. You know, it
gets kind of fun with pod racing, and I just
at the end of the day, it just really let
me down.
Speaker 5: So is it rewatchable?
Speaker 9: It's more meth for me. So when it comes to
watching either Star Trek the Motion Picture or Star Wars
The Phantom Menace, it's going to be Star Trek the
Motion Picture all the time.
Speaker 1: Excellent, Thanks Chuck. Chill was awesome. Not a big surprise,
but yes.
Speaker 7: Jack, Jack was a great guest.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was all right.
Speaker 2: So it leaves it up to me. Okay, well, I
am now fifty one years old and I no longer
eat happy meals. But yeah, it's Star Trek the Motion Picture,
particularly the director's cut that we just watched. It's beautiful,
it's gorgeous, it's interesting. It does get the gang all
back together, like Dave said, so it does get a
lot of credit in the bank with me because of that.
It does move slowly, but man, their parts in Phantom
Menace they are super boring too. So other than the
Lightsaber Battle, which is absolute must see Star Wars after
watching and revisiting Star Trek the motion picture, it's the
better movie.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I know what I'm watching this weekend.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'd love to hear what you think after watching
the director's cut. All right, guys, that is gonna do it.
Thank you guys so much for being here. Jeff again
with the Ahilabi podcast, Dave with Apples and Oranges and
Dating with Document seventy seven. Thank you guys so much,
and of course we are sure you can't be serious podcasts.
We are coming back next week the with the matchup of.
Speaker 1: The Cult versus Great White.
Speaker 2: That's right, two big albums from nineteen eighty nine. We're
doing Sonic Temple by the Cole versus Twice Shy from
Great Rights, Great White.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait what bings us to Heaven? Now?
Speaker 2: Age?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: All right, I'm i go out here and go watch
Fifth Element.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you guys much for joining us again.
Speaker 2: No, I had a blast.
Speaker 7: Thanks for coming, guys. We will see you guys down
the road.
Speaker 6: I'm sure, bye, guys, We'll see you all, guys, toodles.
Speaker 1: Even though Jeff isn't here, we're we're recording there so
I can catch anything like this.
Speaker 4: So all right, do it sound good?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dave, we were just talking, so I you know,
of course we immediately immediately jump into quality and the
problems with these with this movie. And I was shocked
because I thought Dayton was a fan. I thought Dayton
was going to be the the you know, the sole advocate.
Maybe there's gonna be one middle of the road guy
and and then everybody else is gonna hate on it.
But even Dayton is this is it's so hard to
find something good to say about this.
Speaker 6: See, I I'm not a hater. Okay, I'm not a hater.
I didn't cry like a little like so many people
did when Last Jedi came out. I actually really liked
Last Jedi. Your mouth there's a lot of yeah, well
you know, I also, Dave's with me. No, no, you're
not with me.
Speaker 4: I'm not a total hater of Last Jedi. I have said,
I have said that I hate Last Jedi. The least
of all the sequels. And I I am not saying
it's what's wrong.
Speaker 5: With the Force Awakens, the Force Awakened.
Speaker 1: I love the Force Awakens.
Speaker 6: It is it is everything the prequels weren't.
Speaker 4: Okay, listen, listen. When Force Awakens came out, I would
love it, and I was excited and I thought they
got it right, but that I was caught up in
the excitement of the moment, and upon reflection you realize
it's a Beat for Beat remake of a New Hope.
It is not anything, is not it?
Speaker 6: Well, that's just that's.
Speaker 1: If it is a Beat for Beat remake, because I
totally I agree with you. Like I'm like, oh, well,
they're doing the exact same thing that they did in
a New Hope, but they did it with a new crowd,
and Beat for Beat remakes sometimes can be freaking good,
and they did. JJ Abrams nailed.
Speaker 6: It was a road to nowhere though, no, they the
overall story got lost. I mean, Finn was supposed to
be for Sensitive and become and become a Jedi. They
completely abandoned that.
Speaker 1: They but they didn't do that until the until the
last Jedi, right.
Speaker 4: Okay, they had no idea where they were going.
Speaker 1: No, they had an idea where they were going. It's
just that whenever what's.
Speaker 4: His name that came in, John Ryan Johnson.
Speaker 1: Ryan Johnson came in. He was just like, I don't
like any of these ideas, So I'm just gonna say
screw it, none of that really, yeah, and I'm gonna
go with my own complete different deal.
Speaker 4: First of all.
Speaker 1: But again you're not you're not stealing beat for beat,
So you got that going for you. You're doing something different.
Speaker 6: Just that like, hey, guys were upset because it was
too different. They complained that Force Awakened was too similar. Well,
it was complained that that was too different. And I'm like,
on which is it do you want? Do you want
the same or do you want different?
Speaker 1: What the hell do you want?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Well, if you already established, hey, here's here are the seeds,
here are the crumbs that we're gonna lead you down
this trail. And then all of a sudden, you're like,
this trail leads to a brick wall, and I now
have to climb the brick wall. That's that's disheartening. If
you start something, then you've got to finish it. You
can't just go no, never mind, we didn't really mean
anything that we said in that first movie.
Speaker 7: And then.
Speaker 4: All right, y'all not let me wordy. So first of all,
where Awakens loses me is that I can't even remember
the character's saying. Ray rays a total Mary Sue as
soon as she was automatically better at flying the falcon
than Han Solo.
Speaker 1: I don't know what Mary means.
Speaker 4: What is that you you bring in a like a
what do you call it, and like an avatar character
to represent yourself, and you just make this person suddenly
better at everything and flawless, and they're just the here.
It's like fan fiction. Is you're playing out this fantasy
with with the character inserted.
Speaker 6: My question is would you have that same complaint if
it was a guy instead of a girl.
Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't. And I don't know
that way, but that yes, I would.
Speaker 6: The whole thing was nobody nobody complained about.
Speaker 1: It was a disaster.
Speaker 4: How was it a disaster?
Speaker 5: It was?
Speaker 2: It took us down a road to nowhere.
Speaker 1: It took somewhere. Johnson, Ryan Johnson hadn't decided to totally
abandon He blew up the.
Speaker 4: Bridge absolutely it's not only that, it's worse.
Speaker 1: If you take Force Awakens in isolation. I like great
beginning to get start that nobody delivered on.
Speaker 4: Right, that's that's true.
Speaker 6: I agree with that.
Speaker 4: Then, So the so the problem is, here's the problem.
They went into the trilogy with no plan. That's not
like it's not like they said, all right, here are
the clues that are going to pay off in the
second and third act. He walked away not knowing what
was gonna be in the second and third act. I
agree with you. Ryan Johnson came in, so look, there's
this exercise, improv exercise writers do. It's a lot of fun.
You write your part and it's a story prompt for
the next guy, and you just kind of like, this
is improv exercise and you don't know where it's gonna
end up. They did that with Star Wars. You don't
do that for a property that you spent four billion
dollars on the whole world's in love with. Okay, so
here exactly what happened because came back and he didn't
know what he was gonna do.
Speaker 1: Here, let me say this, because you brought up improv
the the for actors, I'm a theater, major performance, major
drama degree. If you're doing improv, you never say no,
that's not what we're gonna do. You The words that
you say are yes and yes, and that's the way
you lead off if you were an actor in improv.
And so if they've decided to improv this, okay, I
don't really think that's what they decided to do. But
if that's what they decided to do, Ryan Johnson has
to go yes, and but he didn't. He went, no,
that's not really what we're doing here. We're doing something
completely different, and so he bombed the beauty of the
improv if that's what it was.
Speaker 5: But there's no friggin'.
Speaker 1: Way that they started this idea of three sequels, a
trilogy of sequels, and didn't have an idea what the
arc of the story was. It had to have happened.
What had to have happened is jj Abram said, I
will come in for the first one. I just you know,
I need to know where this is going. He looks
at the scripts ideas and says, I like this arc.
We can go there, and he delivers on Force Awakens,
and then Ryan Johnson comes in and says, I don't
like these ideas. I'm gonna I'm gonna totally go in
a separate direction of this, and the powers that be
at Disney at that point needed to say, no, no, Ryan,
we're letting you direct this. We're not letting you rewrite
the entire trilogy. That's absurd. But that's what happened. They
sat on their heels and they did nothing to stop
him from rewriting everything. And then whenever Jason Colvin called
him on the phone and said, you guys are all
a bunch of idiots, they said, oh gosh, we gotta
we got to backtrack. We gotta put the eggs back
in the brownies. And it was a miserable experience.
Speaker 2: This is the best time for me to ever walk
into chat is Aya.
Speaker 4: So do you blame Ryan Johnson, who's approved talented filmmaker,
or do you blame Kathleen.
Speaker 3: Kennedy yes, letting him do it, yes, yes, okay, And
George Lucas.
Speaker 2: For selling it okay. No, Well, I thought that was
a good idea at the time.
Speaker 6: George Lucas has already taking a shit on his own creation.
Everything he can slap that Star Wars logo on, he
put it on. You know, it didn't matter if it
was underwear, toothpaste, whatever he was. There was one hundred
different novels. There's all kinds of Hey, let's make more toys,
let's do no, no.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 6: He he was already not happy with his movie. He
kept messing with him, tweaking them, doing them over to oh,
let's do this, let's do the special istions.
Speaker 5: So I used to that.
Speaker 2: He was just as he's not inno sense.
Speaker 6: No he's not.
Speaker 2: He's not innocent, but he comes out smelling like roses.
After seeing part nine.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I still thinks are better than the pre series.
Speaker 2: Okay, hang on da no Jeff's answer answer. You can
set fire to episodes one, two, and three and they
never exist, or you can set fire to seven eight
nine and they never exist.
Speaker 5: What do you do, Dave?
Speaker 4: I'm setting fire to seven, eight and nine.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Jeff flamethrow seven eight nine man.
Speaker 1: No way, no, no freaking way. Yes, I hate nine
above all of the other people. I mean, I hate nine.
You just said you hated eight too. I don't hate eight.
I'm mad at what he did, but I don't hate it,
you know, I don't it was. It was acceptable if
you can finish it. If you can finish if you
are the if you're the kad who in the improv
class said no, you're in my house, man. If if
you're the jerk who says, well, no, we're not doing that, JJ,
we're doing something else, and you go down that road. Okay,
but if that.
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter though we here we are he hit.
Speaker 1: Say you can't say no and again. You have to
go yes, end because if you say no and again,
then you're just like, let's.
Speaker 2: Just then is burning all the ground burn?
Speaker 4: And episode nine felt like a reaction to fan reaction.
Speaker 6: It was the right way to go.
Speaker 1: I understand all of that. It's suggest that one, two,
and three are so bad, so bad.
Speaker 6: There's definitely a lot. There's, like I said, there's one
really good movie in the prequels, and there's two that
there's a bad one, and then there's an average one
which
Speaker 2: Is basically the same as seven, eight nine, except they
take us nowhere.