Speaker 1: Oh ye, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 2: People say, good mind to see this movie When they
Speaker 2: go out to a theater they are cold sodasarn in
Speaker 2: the monsters in the protection.
Speaker 3: Booth, everyone for tend podcasting isn't boring?
Speaker 2: Cut it off, y, Return for the climactic clash between
Speaker 2: the forces of good and evil. Return to a galaxy
Speaker 2: far far away. Return of the Tedi the next chapter
Speaker 2: in the continuing Star Wars saga. The battle for freedom
Speaker 2: rags arm, the heart of a hero, the courage of
Speaker 2: a rebel, the strength of a leader, the loyalty of comrades,
Speaker 2: the power of the horse.
Speaker 3: The cunning of the enemy. The destiny revealed.
Speaker 4: Is the fad of Father, a legend fulfilled, an epic
Speaker 4: of heroes, villains, and aliens from.
Speaker 3: A thousand worlds crap.
Speaker 2: The quest continues, the circle closes, The saga lives on.
Speaker 2: Return of the Jedi begins May twenty fifth at a
Speaker 2: theater in your galaxy.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White,
Speaker 3: join me once again as mister Jamie Benning.
Speaker 1: Hello, how are you doing, Mike? Good to be back.
Speaker 3: Also back in the booth is mister Stephen scarlatta, Yo,
Speaker 3: thank you for having me. Sci Fi July continues with
Speaker 3: a look at Richard Markwan's Return of the Jedi, released
Speaker 3: on May twenty third, nineteen eighty three in the US.
Speaker 3: That is, the film concludes the original Star Wars trilogy
Speaker 3: was supposed to be followed fairly quickly by six or
Speaker 3: nine other films. Instead, it was followed by two Ewok
Speaker 3: films and some other infrequent bones thrown to fans by lucasfilm.
Speaker 3: From starting on ted Tween to ending by blowing up
Speaker 3: the Death Star, the film feels incredibly similar to Star
Speaker 3: Wars and New Hope, only not very good. We will
Speaker 3: be spoiling this film as much as humanly possible, so
Speaker 3: if you don't want anything ruin, please turn off the podcast.
Speaker 3: Come back after you've seen the Abominable Special Edition or
Speaker 3: any of the other futzedwith versions of the film. We
Speaker 3: will still be here. So, Jamie, when was the first
Speaker 3: time you saw Return of the Jedi and what did
Speaker 3: you think?
Speaker 1: It was one of my very sort of formative experiences.
Speaker 1: I lived in a little town, a little village southeast
Speaker 1: of London, and on my seventh birthday in June nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three. I was taken to London by my parents,
Speaker 1: and my sister joined us, and my aunt and uncle,
Speaker 1: my cousins joined us as well, and we went to
Speaker 1: Hamley's at the big toy store on I was spoiled rotten.
Speaker 1: I think I got like snow Speeder and an Attat
Speaker 1: and bitfore Tuna, and I remember looking at those card
Speaker 1: backs with the black dowt Ewoks and all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and then with these giant bags. We went to see
Speaker 1: Return of the Jedi at the Dominion, which I think
Speaker 1: was one of the biggest screens in the UK at
Speaker 1: the time, on seventy mil I ever remember there was
Speaker 1: a Whita Bix advert beforehand. I loved it. I loved
Speaker 1: the whole experience, and I have an affection for this film,
Speaker 1: which I think we're going to tear down in the
Speaker 1: next hour or so. But I do have an affection
Speaker 1: for the film because it kind of it was the
Speaker 1: first time I think I properly realized that films were made.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense that there were these names attached
Speaker 1: to the film. Yes, there was George Lucas, but there
Speaker 1: was Ken Rauston and Phil Tippett and all of those guys,
Speaker 1: because my sister at the time brought her behind the
Speaker 1: Scenes book. I bought the story book in the foyer
Speaker 1: after the film. My parents had pence left to spare
Speaker 1: after the Hamley strip and they let me buy that book.
Speaker 1: And on the train, my sister and I swapped books
Speaker 1: and I was looking through this thing, going wow, Matt
Speaker 1: paintings and compositing and model making and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And that's when I think, think that sort of jump
Speaker 1: started my love of behind the scenes of movies.
Speaker 3: And Stephen, how about yourself?
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, I first saw it in the theater. I
Speaker 5: was a huge Star Wars fan when it came out.
Speaker 5: I was ten when it came out. I vaguely remember
Speaker 5: seeing the first one and mostly remember Empire waiting in
Speaker 5: a lobby to see it more than the actual movie.
Speaker 3: But when Return was coming out, I was excited. I
Speaker 3: was at the right age.
Speaker 5: I had the Marvel comic that had the entire movie
Speaker 5: and it It took me a month to finally see
Speaker 5: it because every time we went to the theater it
Speaker 5: was sold out or the line was around the corner,
Speaker 5: and my family was like, no way, We're gonna sit
Speaker 5: online for like three hours for you to see this thing.
Speaker 5: So it took like a month and it was hard
Speaker 5: waiting to Zill see that movie. It was so funny,
Speaker 5: like maybe when the first Avengers came out, the Marvel movie.
Speaker 5: I remember seeing it opening weekend and just being like, Damn,
Speaker 5: we're so spoiled today that we could see a big
Speaker 5: movie opening weekend Wolverine last year, like on a Sunday
Speaker 5: morning at eighth in the morning, opening weekend. But when
Speaker 5: Jedi came out, Dude, you could not get into that theater.
Speaker 5: It couldn't And so it was the wait when the
Speaker 5: movie was out to finally get a chance to get
Speaker 5: into theater.
Speaker 1: I think my dad.
Speaker 5: Found some theater that he heard about that doesn't have
Speaker 5: long lines, and that's how I finally got to see it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I loved it. I was the right age for it,
Speaker 5: and I ate it all up Man with a Knife
Speaker 5: from fork Man. I loved it at the time, but
Speaker 5: throughout the years it became the one I watched the least,
Speaker 5: and then when I got into film school, when I
Speaker 5: rediscovered Star Wars. When I was in film schools, when
Speaker 5: I came to realization, no Empire is my favorite and
Speaker 5: probably one of the best movies ever made. And so, yeah,
Speaker 5: it was interesting returning back to Jedi.
Speaker 3: For this podcast. I think I saw it maybe opening weekend. Sorry, Stephen,
Speaker 3: I don't want to rub that in your face or anything.
Speaker 1: Because i'd let you Q.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember how I got to see it,
Speaker 3: but I remember it was it was me, it was
Speaker 3: my folks. I don't think maybe they just dropped me
Speaker 3: off or some time. I don't remember being there with
Speaker 3: my folks at all, but but yeah, I remember the
Speaker 3: movie theater. It was the Southgate Theater that eventually became
Speaker 3: an AMC, which is eventually now part of the Meyers
Speaker 3: Parking Lot Meyers thrifty acres for folks that are outside
Speaker 3: of Michigan. It's a chain around here. And yeah, I
Speaker 3: was eleven, so right around that same time, and I
Speaker 3: don't know what it was like. I think when I
Speaker 3: saw it initially I was stoked, but even watching it
Speaker 3: the very first time, I was like, oh, they're just
Speaker 3: doing another Death Star.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 3: The biggest thing for me was Boba Fet when Boba
Speaker 3: Fett died, and just because I had fallen in love
Speaker 3: with that character from seeing you know, the Star Wars
Speaker 3: Holiday special seeing Empire strikes back, the whole thing of
Speaker 3: Consolo being frozen. I was just so, you know, like
Speaker 3: what's going on? And I had this headcannon of when
Speaker 3: Lando reaches down and like checks the vitals, was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: he's actually sending it to like defrost in a few
Speaker 3: hours or something, So Hana is going to like wake
Speaker 3: up in the back of slave one and kill Bubba
Speaker 3: fed or have a huge fight or something in that.
Speaker 3: I just had it all built up in my head
Speaker 3: as being like, Oh, this is going to be the
Speaker 3: best thing ever. And then when he just died in
Speaker 3: such a cartoonish way of like just dispatch within thirty seconds,
Speaker 3: and I was like, why is he even sticking around
Speaker 3: at Jaba's palace? Like he dropped off that the prize
Speaker 3: it should be out getting more money. You know, bounty
Speaker 3: hunters don't make any money standing around Jaba's palace, is
Speaker 3: what I think. Anyway, It's not like he's on commission
Speaker 3: or something. But yeah, so I don't know. I just
Speaker 3: I don't know how soon after because I know, I
Speaker 3: had plenty of action figures. I had a lot of
Speaker 3: Ewok action figures, a lot of those monsters that were
Speaker 3: on job as barge, you know, uh Rawatu had, those
Speaker 3: guys had a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: Lando and Skiff God disguised with a little helmet on.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well, dud, that was my favorite.
Speaker 1: That was a great for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mine was bash. I loved Hells.
Speaker 1: You know what Mike is about. You know, like, if
Speaker 1: you compare anything to the Empire strikes Back, you're going
Speaker 1: to struggle, right, So imagine if Empire had been a
Speaker 1: really shitty movie, the Jed I would probably be revered
Speaker 1: today because it would have been a return to form
Speaker 1: and it would have been back to the formula and
Speaker 1: the stuff that we love and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But when you put it up against Empire, it really
Speaker 1: is a very, very different film. I remember when I
Speaker 1: sort of rediscovered the trilogy when I was probably about
Speaker 1: fourteen or fifteen, I think it had come out on VHS,
Speaker 1: and my mum was like, you really want that for
Speaker 1: your birthday? Aren't you a bit older? That kind of stuff?
Speaker 1: And I remember watching Empire for the first time in
Speaker 1: quite a few years and just thinking, because I knew
Speaker 1: Jedi more because I did it on tape from TV,
Speaker 1: I think an Empire, I was like, Wow, there's so
Speaker 1: much dialogue and there's so much character development, and you know,
Speaker 1: compared to Return the Jedi, which as my then eight
Speaker 1: year old daughter and when we watched it a few
Speaker 1: years ago, said to me, it's just a series of
Speaker 1: set pieces put together. That's kind of what Returned the
Speaker 1: Jedi is. You know, you've got the opening, and you've
Speaker 1: got the sail bars, and then you've got the Yoda scenes,
Speaker 1: and then you've got the Death Star stuff, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of it.
Speaker 3: But it does stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think because of that comparison to Empire.
Speaker 5: I was thinking, like, is it like a Halloween three thing?
Speaker 5: Like when Empire came out, was it not liked as much?
Speaker 5: But throughout the years it just gained more fandom.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people were kind of pissed
Speaker 1: off at the ending, weren't they that it was like
Speaker 1: such a downbeat ending. You know, you think about Star Wars,
Speaker 1: it's all tied up in a bow or right, Vaders
Speaker 1: aren't going off and maybe he's going to be in
Speaker 1: a sequel kind of thing. But when you get to Empire,
Speaker 1: it's very dark. You know, it doesn't have a proper
Speaker 1: ending for people. It isn't like the Bubblegum movie that
Speaker 1: the first one was. Yeah, it's interesting to try and
Speaker 1: remember how they were perceived in sort of isolation, those
Speaker 1: three films. But yeah, I think like you Stephen as
Speaker 1: well over the years watching back. Even though I have
Speaker 1: an affection for Return to Jedi, like I said at
Speaker 1: the top, I do know it is the worst of
Speaker 1: the three by some way. You know, it's actually quite
Speaker 1: made in places. There's some really badly focused shots. There's
Speaker 1: some pretty dodgy editing of sound under explosions and music
Speaker 1: editing is also a little bit wonky in places. You
Speaker 1: just don't see that in the other two as much.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I still dinner Well, it's all good man.
Speaker 3: The first movie felt like it was so poured over,
Speaker 3: you know, you had even like Brian de Palmer helping
Speaker 3: rewrite the open Scroll and the re edit, and Marcia
Speaker 3: having her hand in there. And it probably didn't help
Speaker 3: that the marriage was kind of on the rocks around
Speaker 3: this time, so she's probably not as involved as she
Speaker 3: was with the previous films. I think that's kind of
Speaker 3: a down thing, also, not having you know, it's just
Speaker 3: George writing and then Kasden coming in and cleaning things up.
Speaker 3: He doesn't have a lead bracket to bounce stuff off
Speaker 3: of either. I mean, it's just like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it just felt like it was missing things and just
Speaker 3: having like mark One there, and I mean Lucas just
Speaker 3: admitting like I wanted a director that I can control,
Speaker 3: basically directing by proxy through poor Richard markwand I always
Speaker 3: felt bad for that guy. The story is better than
Speaker 3: the reality, the story that David Lynch tells about being
Speaker 3: approached to direct Return of the Jedi and just the
Speaker 3: thoughts of what Return of the Jedi could have been,
Speaker 3: you know, if Doune didn't happen and he directed this instead.
Speaker 6: I was asked by George to come up to see
Speaker 6: him and talk to him about directing which would be
Speaker 6: the third Star Wars, and I had next door to
Speaker 6: zero interest. But I always admire George. You know, George
Speaker 6: is a guy that does what he loves, and I'd
Speaker 6: do what I love. The difference is what George loves
Speaker 6: makes hundreds of billions of dollars.
Speaker 3: That would have been wild, But I can't imagine Lynch
Speaker 3: and Lucas's sensibilities getting on whatsoever. But hey, the sound
Speaker 3: editing would have been fantastic, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be down on any of the
Speaker 1: sound that is. But that whole Lynch thing, you know,
Speaker 1: he talks about being offered the film and being with
Speaker 1: George and then being taken upstairs and there's all these
Speaker 1: drawings and he's like getting this headache and it's getting
Speaker 1: worse and worse. In a way, I could sort of
Speaker 1: imagine Lynch doing Empire more than Jedi, because Empire is
Speaker 1: the kind of weird, spooky of film. He's got some
Speaker 1: pretty abstract ideas, you know, the dream sequence and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff, and maybe you know, if you'd left
Speaker 1: Lynch alone, like he left Kush alone to do it,
Speaker 1: but maybe he would have a very very very different Empire.
Speaker 1: But Return the Jedi, I think Lynch probably made the
Speaker 1: right decision, didn't he.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: I just love his little quote he was like, because
Speaker 5: it was a Georgia's film, he already designed these little
Speaker 5: bears and had all this stuff done, and he wouldn't
Speaker 5: have had control. And I think you could just see
Speaker 5: more of him in Dune versus we'll ever see it
Speaker 5: in Return of the Jedi, and we would never get
Speaker 5: Blue Velvet as like Dino's Apology in a way. You know,
Speaker 5: Lucas is going to give David Lynch an apology movie
Speaker 5: after what he puts him through for a Jedi.
Speaker 1: It's a real shame that, you know, Mark One didn't
Speaker 1: live longer, because it would have been interesting to hear
Speaker 1: his take on it. There's very little of him talking
Speaker 1: about the movie. I remember when I was making my
Speaker 1: returning to Jedi film, we mentor you that I dug
Speaker 1: around for stuff, and at the time, when it was
Speaker 1: a two thousand and eight something like that, there wasn't
Speaker 1: much around on YouTube of him talking. There's a few
Speaker 1: magazine interviews. You know, he did want to do the
Speaker 1: best job he could. But I think, you know, as
Speaker 1: you said, might that you know, he was employed because
Speaker 1: he was a fast and efficient director. You know, he'd
Speaker 1: made that I had the need or I think was
Speaker 1: the film that Lucas saw that kind of attracted him
Speaker 1: and he found it like really efficiently and moved and
Speaker 1: it was kinetic and it was always like moving along.
Speaker 1: Every scene was there for a reason, and he needed
Speaker 1: somebody that wouldn't be there, you know, going over schedule
Speaker 1: and going over budget. But yeah, I would love to
Speaker 1: hear his sort of his answers to a lot of
Speaker 1: the questions that have been raised about you know, was
Speaker 1: he a puppet at the time, because some people you
Speaker 1: speak to you on the set, I said no, No,
Speaker 1: he was very diligent. He had it all in control.
Speaker 1: He made a lot of the suggestions, including the the
Speaker 1: booh stuff and you know, Jabber being there as a
Speaker 1: prisoner and all of that kind of thing. So maybe
Speaker 1: you have more more more say in the film than
Speaker 1: we realize.
Speaker 3: I believe he.
Speaker 5: Had to say in bringing in Annakin at the ending
Speaker 5: as a ghost.
Speaker 1: I thought, I read that, and I think that might
Speaker 1: be right.
Speaker 3: You know which version of Anakin?
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: I always think like Luke is going to look over
Speaker 3: at the end of that special edition and see Hayden
Speaker 3: Christensen there and go, where the fuck is.
Speaker 1: That is this guy? I mean, you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of get why they did it. It really annoyed me
Speaker 1: at the time, But now so much time has passed
Speaker 1: with the prequels existing in the world, I've come to
Speaker 1: accept that they're not for me. Then they're for another generation.
Speaker 1: And you know, when Anakin turned up again in some
Speaker 1: of the TV stuff, in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: I think it was in ah Soka. I can imagine
Speaker 1: they were very excited, those fans, and you know, I
Speaker 1: can't take that away from them. But at the time,
Speaker 1: I said, why are you changing this movie? Some of
Speaker 1: those tradition changes I do not like.
Speaker 5: I went last year to like the fortieth anniversary screening.
Speaker 5: They had it like over here at the cinema on
Speaker 5: the x D screen, like their rip off Imax, and
Speaker 5: I remember sitting down at first, I'm like, I was
Speaker 5: really excited to rewatch it because like some of my
Speaker 5: favorite moments in Star Wars are in Return to Jedi.
Speaker 5: That's why I have like, I appreciate the movie, but man,
Speaker 5: when they're at jobs Palace in that new musical number starts,
Speaker 5: oh good Lord.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. It was excruciating.
Speaker 5: And then you guys shared with me the original cut,
Speaker 5: which I watched, and I had more appreciation of that,
Speaker 5: and I was so happy not to experience that sequence again.
Speaker 5: And the sarlac hid putting in like the mouth. It
Speaker 5: was just like watching it in the theater. I was
Speaker 5: so bummed by it. I was like, dude, this is brutal.
Speaker 5: And then the effects don't hold up as much either
Speaker 5: in the special edition unfortunately, but watching the version without
Speaker 5: all that is really good though.
Speaker 1: I think the thing is when you see those movies,
Speaker 1: you want to be reminded of the time that they
Speaker 1: were made, that they are a product of that time.
Speaker 1: Right next week on the twelfth, or this week's around
Speaker 1: the twelfth, they're showing how the BFI here the British
Speaker 1: Film Institute, they're showing the original nineteen seventy seven Star
Speaker 1: Wars Die transfer print in stereo and it's been sitting
Speaker 1: in the arcohol Wow for decades.
Speaker 3: I'm amazed they're allowed to show that.
Speaker 1: I believe it's gone to the very very top. I
Speaker 1: won't say any more than that, but I think because
Speaker 1: the particular festival it's only is the Film on Film Festival,
Speaker 1: which is about showing Celli Lloyd. You know, they've got
Speaker 1: the Twin Peaks pilot without the weird European cuts on
Speaker 1: as well. They've got a couple of nitrate prints of
Speaker 1: older movies. But Stars is the kind of opening night thing.
Speaker 1: There's doing two screenings of it, and yeah, it's amazing
Speaker 1: that it's happening because even at the TCM Festival, a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks back over in the States, the Empire
Speaker 1: Strikes Back that was shown with George there was the
Speaker 1: special edition again. You know, you've got this one arm
Speaker 1: of George and his endeavors to push every thing into
Speaker 1: the digital era from the start. But now I think
Speaker 1: a lot of these filmmakers are getting to that point
Speaker 1: in their career where they're looking back to their origins
Speaker 1: and kind of accepting their work to a certain extent.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's going to be interesting. Apparently somebody quite
Speaker 1: high up is coming to announce the film or present
Speaker 1: the film in London, so yeah, I'll feel you in
Speaker 1: on who that is. But that should be interesting.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, that's amazing because I don't think I've ever
Speaker 5: seen those versions since, like VHS or anything, because like, yeah,
Speaker 5: like this return version, I haven't seen it in years.
Speaker 5: You know, this is the first time rewatching it like
Speaker 5: this because I hate all I mean, Lando breaks the
Speaker 5: fourth wall when he has to lower his like helmet thing. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but all the singers when they're singing the gibberish, it's
Speaker 5: just they're singing it into the frame.
Speaker 1: That's where and the tonsils in the back of the
Speaker 1: throat of that main singer is just like it just that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, that stuff doesn't fit. But I kind of
Speaker 1: see those special editions in a way as an exercise
Speaker 1: to kind of prove that the prequels could be made.
Speaker 1: Could we make digital environments, could we make digital characters,
Speaker 1: and also to fund that as well, because I mean,
Speaker 1: they made a heck load of money back in what
Speaker 1: was it, ninety seven, so I can see that as
Speaker 1: a kind of a stepping stone. But you know, I'm
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to run the originals in some format, and
Speaker 1: I think I was around for the trilogy screening at
Speaker 1: Elstreet Studios or the cinema that used to be opposite E. L.
Speaker 1: Street Studios in the early nineties. It was the last
Speaker 1: time the original prints were shown before they were all
Speaker 1: gathered up then the special editions were going to be
Speaker 1: and I think it was like ninety two maybe, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see it all these years later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it'd be interesting, But Jedi, I mean, the only thing
Speaker 1: that really is miraculous about that special edition is that
Speaker 1: Fermi Taylor, who plays Ulla the Green Dancer, looks exactly
Speaker 1: the same, you know, twenty years on.
Speaker 3: While I was doing my research for this, I found
Speaker 3: there was a whole fetish community around Ula. I didn't realize. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, there's like subreddits and things just dedicated to
Speaker 3: her life. What's that rule when something can be sexualized
Speaker 3: on the internet, Like, she definitely gets sexualized. And I
Speaker 3: think like her popularity is what really spurned the Ahsoka character,
Speaker 3: because I don't think that Ahsoka would be Ahsoka without Ula.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, the original Return of the Jedi
Speaker 1: had a few frames taken out of it for the
Speaker 1: special edition because when she falls into the rank or pit,
Speaker 1: there is a bit of a moment where her boot
Speaker 1: pops out, and they shaved off like two or three
Speaker 1: frames they remember for the special edition. Not that when looking,
Speaker 1: but I just heard that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you're right. It is just like such the
Speaker 3: series of set pieces, I mean, the whole thing at
Speaker 3: Jaba's Palace, I mean that takes up so long. Why
Speaker 3: didn't they tell C three pm? What was going on?
Speaker 3: Why is he so fucking clueless? Like he feels like
Speaker 3: Marcus and Salah in the Last Crusade, where these really
Speaker 3: competent characters from the earlier films suddenly turned into complete morons,
Speaker 3: and it just feels like he's a moron through this
Speaker 3: entire movie. Like we talked about his character in the
Speaker 3: first movie, and when we talked about episode four I
Speaker 3: new Help, which I still hate calling it that. When
Speaker 3: we talked about Star Wars, that was the name of
Speaker 3: the movie. And when we talked about Star Wars, we
Speaker 3: talked about how George wanted him characterized like a used
Speaker 3: car salesman, and that was there in that movie, and
Speaker 3: I could see it in the second movie as well.
Speaker 3: But there's no subterfuge at all in this film. He
Speaker 3: just I can't tell a lie. I can't I can't
Speaker 3: tell these people I'm a god. And I'm just like,
Speaker 3: haven't you watched Ghostbusters?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I guess not, because Ghostbusters was eighty four. This was
Speaker 3: eighty three. Right when someone asked you if you're a god,
Speaker 3: you see yes. But he just feels so stupid in
Speaker 3: this movie and constantly like what did I do? And
Speaker 3: like all the slapstickiness, and especially around him, like getting
Speaker 3: smacked by Jaba, falling off the skiff, like all of
Speaker 3: these things where it's just like what happened to this character?
Speaker 3: It just you're undermining yourself.
Speaker 1: It's in the same thing happens to Harrison Ford's Handsello
Speaker 1: as well. He just turns into this dfast as well.
Speaker 1: It was just like, what's going on? Oh hit Bob
Speaker 1: a fair, I'll hang on what your brother's sister?
Speaker 3: What you know? Come on, tell me what's going on?
Speaker 1: I can't tell you?
Speaker 3: Could you tell?
Speaker 2: Luke?
Speaker 1: Is that who you could tell? I'm always taken out
Speaker 1: of a movie if kind of rules have been set
Speaker 1: and then suddenly a character does something purely for a
Speaker 1: little kind of story point that doesn't fit their character,
Speaker 1: and I feel return the jedif if you refer to
Speaker 1: the other two movies, some of the dialogue that comes
Speaker 1: out of those characters' mouths in that movie, or some
Speaker 1: of their actions just really don't fit with what you
Speaker 1: understand about them. Yeah, that whole thing at the start
Speaker 1: with Jab of the Heart, I love it. I love
Speaker 1: Jab of the Heart because when I first saw him
Speaker 1: on screen, I was like, oh, why is that thing?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 1: This is amazing and it you know, I'm fortunate to
Speaker 1: call Dave Barkley, one of the puppeteers, a friend, and
Speaker 1: Toby Fillpott as well, and I've interviewed those guys a
Speaker 1: few times and found out all details about that. I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I'm far more interested in return to Didi
Speaker 1: behind the scenes than I'm actually of the movie itself,
Speaker 1: since maybe I was fifteen or something like that. But
Speaker 1: I still have an affection for those scenes. But they
Speaker 1: really don't make much sense, you know, the hologram, Like
Speaker 1: why is he doing that with a hologram because he's
Speaker 1: coming anyway? Is it like multiple attempts to do what?
Speaker 1: But so Laya's there, she's dressed up, she's got Chewy's
Speaker 1: and now Chewy's captured. Oh and Hansell has been released.
Speaker 1: Now he's captured. Lay is captured. So is Luke gonna
Speaker 1: come anyway? Or is Luke late to the party? But
Speaker 1: hang on it, he left that he did the hologram message.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't gel. But these things didn't occur to
Speaker 1: me until I was in my twenties. Probably I just
Speaker 1: used to sit there and just love all the hardware
Speaker 1: and the character moments and all of that stuff. So
Speaker 1: I don't know I've become cynical in my old age.
Speaker 3: The Java stuff.
Speaker 5: There's still some of my favorite things in a Star
Speaker 5: Wars film. But you're right, watching it this time, I
Speaker 5: didn't realize how long it keeps going. You just keep
Speaker 5: introducing characters and it just goes and goes.
Speaker 8: And go too.
Speaker 5: Luke comes in, and I guess it's due to like
Speaker 5: so many rewrites they were doing so fast on the
Speaker 5: movie that it's very off and like you were saying,
Speaker 5: just like all the characters are off, I don't buy,
Speaker 5: like you said one hundred percent with Han Solo.
Speaker 3: It's not Han Solo.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's the Carbon the Night or
Speaker 5: wherever the hell.
Speaker 3: He's so much softer in this movie.
Speaker 5: He's not the Han Solo from Empire, and Darth Vader's
Speaker 5: not the Darth Vader from Empire. I don't really feel
Speaker 5: like Luke. I guess his development has to be stronger
Speaker 5: in this movie. But when he's lurking around Jaba and
Speaker 5: then threatening him and everything, I don't even buy his
Speaker 5: threats to Java. Is there just something really off with
Speaker 5: the characters period? And I think Ley is just there.
Speaker 5: And I guess mostly because in the original draft she
Speaker 5: was already supposed to be on Endoor throughout the whole
Speaker 5: first act, and then they were with all the rewrites,
Speaker 5: so like, oh, now, she's gonna just appear here, and
Speaker 5: I guess that's why she has nothing to do until
Speaker 5: she strangles Java. But it is kind of a mess
Speaker 5: watching at this time, because you guys give me so
Speaker 5: much stuff to read and watch, and then it made
Speaker 5: me think even more about it, like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: this movie is really a mess. I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: But there's a bit in from Stars to Jedi and
Speaker 1: the Making of a Saga, the big long documentary they
Speaker 1: released around the time of the Return of Jedi was released,
Speaker 1: where Richard Markorn is there looking very officious for me.
Speaker 1: He's got his clipboard and he's obviously got like script
Speaker 1: or storyboard on it, and Harrison Ford says, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: try and say it without moving my mouth in case
Speaker 1: you choose not to use it. So I got the
Speaker 1: feeling like you were just talking, Stevehn, that the rewrites
Speaker 1: were happening sort of on the fly, and they were
Speaker 1: having to shoot alternate scenes potentially, or just always have
Speaker 1: in mind that something might not be used or could
Speaker 1: be used in a different way. And there's also a
Speaker 1: bit where marketed there in Jabber's Palace again with Richard
Speaker 1: Markwon and the energy between them is really weird. I
Speaker 1: think he says like old Jabber is becoming a really
Speaker 1: big star now, and Mark Hamill says, oh, oh is he?
Speaker 1: Or you know something like that. This just this weird
Speaker 1: moment where you think these two are not connecting. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know what it is. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever heard mal Hammill talk about Richard directly,
Speaker 1: and I've dug through, as you know, many million interviews
Speaker 1: over the years. I might be wrong, there might be
Speaker 1: something out there, but he just felt like there might
Speaker 1: have been a little tension on set because of course
Speaker 1: this is a massive, massive movie, and the expectation was high.
Speaker 1: The budget was pretty huge for the time. But again
Speaker 1: it was you know, George throwing a lot of his
Speaker 1: own money in as well, So just some of those
Speaker 1: behind the scenes bits, it just feels a little bit
Speaker 1: more clunky than it should have been or could have been.
Speaker 5: Going back to what you guys were talking about originally
Speaker 5: with Empire, going off what you're saying, it's like, I
Speaker 5: think that's why this movie is so nice is because
Speaker 5: like he knows this is wrapping up with this one,
Speaker 5: and he knows the next few things are going to
Speaker 5: be Ewok movies and the Droid cartoon. He's trying to
Speaker 5: play it as safe as possible with this movie. It's
Speaker 5: got to be a success, you know, it's huge and
Speaker 5: everything has to be played safe. He can't make another
Speaker 5: dark sequel. And I think that's why it is what
Speaker 5: it is.
Speaker 3: And like what Mike was.
Speaker 5: Saying, it's like everything is a callback to Star Wars
Speaker 5: in this. You know, it's like the opening is the
Speaker 5: same as the opening of Star Wars with underneath the
Speaker 5: Star Destroyer and you know some of the stuff you
Speaker 5: guys gave me where It's like Jab's Palace is the
Speaker 5: canteena scene all over again. You know, it's like another
Speaker 5: assault on a death Star. You know, another whole planning
Speaker 5: scene about the Death Star. It's like we've pretty much
Speaker 5: another Yoda scene.
Speaker 3: You know, Yoda originally wasn't in this.
Speaker 5: But the director wanted Yoda in it. It's like everything
Speaker 5: we've seen before from the previous movie. It's like trying
Speaker 5: to remind.
Speaker 3: You, like, oh, yeah, you love that original movie.
Speaker 5: We're going to start again on the desert planet we
Speaker 5: were already at in the first one.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to hear some Mark Hamil interviews where he
Speaker 1: was sort of talking about knowing what you knew from
Speaker 1: Empire and the success of that or the relative success
Speaker 1: of that, and the way the film and the characters
Speaker 1: would go in he I think he says something like,
Speaker 1: you know, returned to the Jedi. I thought I was
Speaker 1: going to have this mohawk and I was going to
Speaker 1: be like turned to the dark side, and like everyone
Speaker 1: nobody can believe that I've been turned, and then the
Speaker 1: last minute I kind of save them and all this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And I think he said jokingly. I
Speaker 1: think it was on a Kevin Smith round table things
Speaker 1: some years ago. He said, I thought Bobaffett was going
Speaker 1: to take the helmet off and it was going to
Speaker 1: be my mother. And you know, he was looking for
Speaker 1: all of this sort of mysterious stuff that had all
Speaker 1: been kind of lined up, and he wanted it to
Speaker 1: be answered in some way and to continue going in
Speaker 1: that dark direction. But I think you're right, George just
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that it was a prophet. He
Speaker 1: wanted to get it done. I think he was probably
Speaker 1: exhausted by this time. Like you said, the divorce with
Speaker 1: Marshall was going through at the time, and it just
Speaker 1: feels like, yeah, we know the formula, let's just do
Speaker 1: that with a few new toys thrown in.
Speaker 3: Even when you look at the scene of later talking
Speaker 3: with Wicked, it's basically when Luke is talking to R
Speaker 3: two and the swamps and or like him meeting Yoda
Speaker 3: kind of, but Wicked doesn't speak English, so it's almost
Speaker 3: the exact same thing where Leah is doing this.
Speaker 5: Now cha, well, it looks like I'm stuck here.
Speaker 1: Trouble is, I don't know where here is.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I gotta do as fine as Yoda if you even exists.
Speaker 1: Can sit down, you want something to eat.
Speaker 3: This place gives me the creeps.
Speaker 9: I feel like.
Speaker 3: Like we're being watched. Oh wait, put your weapon.
Speaker 5: I mean you no harm.
Speaker 10: I promise I won't hurt you.
Speaker 5: Not come here.
Speaker 3: The first movie feels like Luke's movie, right. The second
Speaker 3: movie could be Luke or could be Hans's movie, because
Speaker 3: they're both equally very important. And then it comes to
Speaker 3: the third movie and I'm like, well, whose movie is this?
Speaker 3: It doesn't feel like anybody's movie at this point, So I.
Speaker 1: Have Vader or the Empress movie. In a way, they're
Speaker 1: the sort of biggest character.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and I guess it's supposed to be Anakin's redemption.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, he's been a villain for
Speaker 3: two films, very vicious villain, and yet now suddenly we're
Speaker 3: supposed to see good in him, and I'm like, I
Speaker 3: don't see what you're seeing Luke. And Luke's whole development
Speaker 3: feels like it takes place between these two movies, because
Speaker 3: when he shows up, it's like, Okay, to your point,
Speaker 3: he's making all these threats. I don't feel like he's
Speaker 3: a badass. I don't feel like he's any sort of
Speaker 3: threat to Jabba whatsoever. I had read while I was
Speaker 3: doing my research, so first I read it and then
Speaker 3: I saw it. So when I read it, it was, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: the movie was supposed to start with Luke building his
Speaker 3: lightsaber and when the beam comes out, it's green, So
Speaker 3: we don't know is he good is he bad? Because
Speaker 3: we've seen blue versus red, we've never seen a green
Speaker 3: lightsaber before. We don't know what this guy's doing. And
Speaker 3: so I was like, oh, that's cool, Like throw us
Speaker 3: off the scent a little bit here at the beginning
Speaker 3: and kind of do that thing that you were talking
Speaker 3: about where it's like, oh, maybe he's turned to the
Speaker 3: dark side. You know, he left his training too early,
Speaker 3: all these things. And then I finally saw that scene.
Speaker 3: I didn't think it was actually shot, but then I
Speaker 3: saw it where you see, it's just a connector between
Speaker 3: Darth Vader at the beginning talking to jarjirod that imperial dude.
Speaker 3: And then we transitioned to Tattooine and you see Luke
Speaker 3: working on the lightsaber. You see he's in a cave
Speaker 3: and you've got R two sitting across from him. You've
Speaker 3: got three po in the back outside, and it goes
Speaker 3: basically right into them leaving and going to Java's palace.
Speaker 3: So you don't get the sense that Luke has turned
Speaker 3: at all. There's nothing there. It's just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's working on lightsaber. Okay, cool, you know. And then
Speaker 3: that even like, had they kept that scene in there,
Speaker 3: it would have just added more to the confusion as
Speaker 3: far as why's he shown this hologram? Like, we know
Speaker 3: he's here, we know he's on Tattooin.
Speaker 5: He feels too invincible also in this movie, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't know what his plan was if R two
Speaker 5: wasn't there to give him the lightsaber. First, he goes
Speaker 5: for the gun at doesn't work, And that's the only
Speaker 5: time you see him kind of vulnerable is the Rank
Speaker 5: Coors scene.
Speaker 3: Because every other.
Speaker 5: Scene he's just kind of invincible. It's very odd, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm never fearing for him at all or anything. And
Speaker 5: when you see Darth Vader not as himself, like Jamie
Speaker 5: has that phenomenal film youmentary you sent me and I
Speaker 5: watched and I was blown away by it. There was
Speaker 5: a sequence in there where Vader's choking out someone and
Speaker 5: I'm like, yeah, that's what's missing from this movie, is
Speaker 5: Vader choking motherfuckers out because you were threatened by him.
Speaker 5: He's so scary an empire, He's choking everyone out. That's
Speaker 5: just missing from this movie. I guess they have to
Speaker 5: soften him so when he turns at the ending and
Speaker 5: the whole like everyone I guess was expecting was Luke's
Speaker 5: battle with the dark Side, it's only in that one
Speaker 5: scene when Vader pisses him off, when he talks about
Speaker 5: his sister. That's the only kind of time you see it.
Speaker 5: But that's not at all in this movie. You don't
Speaker 5: really get a lot of that, and It's something they
Speaker 5: teased with Daisy Ridley's character that last trilogy and never
Speaker 5: went through with it at all either. That's like they
Speaker 5: always set it up, but then they just kind of
Speaker 5: back away from it. And by the way, you're also
Speaker 5: right about that Wicked scene. I never thought about it
Speaker 5: that it's totally mirroring Luke and Yoda.
Speaker 3: You nailed that.
Speaker 1: There's something about Luke in this. It feels like they
Speaker 1: wanted to paint him as getting above his station too early,
Speaker 1: Like Yoda laughs at him, so certain are you? He
Speaker 1: says about being a Jedi and that, and then Harrison
Speaker 1: Ford or hand Solo should say, has that line, which
Speaker 1: again doesn't fit his character. I've been out of it
Speaker 1: for a little while and everybody gets delusions of grandeur.
Speaker 1: That's not a Han Solo line. It felt like they
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of say that Luke is kind of
Speaker 1: going too early and it's too risky and it's too
Speaker 1: dangerous and he could turn to the dark side. But
Speaker 1: it isn't really developed enough for us to kind of
Speaker 1: feel that danger until that very last moment, you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, where Vader kind of pisses him off
Speaker 1: and he goes it gets a bit angry and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and then culminates with him throwing the lightsaber away. I
Speaker 1: feel if they'd have built that up a little bit more,
Speaker 1: Luke is just getting a bit too carried away too quickly,
Speaker 1: you know, the quick and easy path and all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. Maybe mirroring some of those threats Theo's dangers
Speaker 1: that Yoda talks about in Empire, it would have felt
Speaker 1: like he had more of an arc through the movie.
Speaker 1: I just didn't. Yeah, I just don't buy where he
Speaker 1: is or what he's doing.
Speaker 3: For most of I don't want to be this guy,
Speaker 3: but I don't need to see every scene of connection materials,
Speaker 3: YadA YadA. But it always feels and this is such
Speaker 3: a minor quibble, but I'm going to bring it up anyway.
Speaker 3: It always feels to me like the scene where he
Speaker 3: turns himself into the Imperial Guards and they bring him
Speaker 3: to Vader. Not seeing him turn himself in is a
Speaker 3: missing opportunity to see how he would handle himself in
Speaker 3: that type of situation. I want to see that. I
Speaker 3: don't care about him hanging out with the Ewoks and
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff. I almost want him to
Speaker 3: leave the story a little bit earlier and separate out
Speaker 3: of me, because we see them separate right after the
Speaker 3: whole job of skift thing where you' the Falcon goes
Speaker 3: right and the X Men goes left. And thank god
Speaker 3: he showed up at Dagoba when he did, because if
Speaker 3: it was fifteen minutes later, Yoda would be dead again.
Speaker 1: It feels like the writing is inefficient in a way.
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't ring true like it does, particularly
Speaker 1: an Empire and also in Star Wars. But yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: if you hadn't have turned up, he would have just
Speaker 1: got one little croak ten minutes later and that would
Speaker 1: have been it for Yoda. But again, it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like Lukey is stripped of anything at that point. Like
Speaker 1: when you know Obi Wan dies in Star Wars, you
Speaker 1: kind of go, oh shit, he's on his own here,
Speaker 1: like he's just met this guy and he's his mentor
Speaker 1: and he was going to teach him. What's going to happen?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 1: Okay, they're escaping the desk Star when Yoda dies, I
Speaker 1: think he has that moment, doesn't he. Where he says
Speaker 1: to ar To, I don't think I can do it.
Speaker 1: I can't do it alone. Then Ben Kenobi arrives, that's
Speaker 1: a whole other thing. But I don't feel his vulnerability
Speaker 1: at that point as much as I did when Obi
Speaker 1: Wan died. I still love this movie.
Speaker 3: Oh no, it's all good. I'm now trying to call
Speaker 3: you you are moron for liking this movie.
Speaker 5: No, no, not so.
Speaker 1: I just you know, it is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: movies still because it's dumb and it's part of my childhood.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you're a kid, these things passed
Speaker 1: you by, all these little pot points and things and
Speaker 1: character changes and things that don't feel right in the character.
Speaker 1: But it's not until you get older you stop picking
Speaker 1: it upart but you never hit people do this with Empire.
Speaker 5: Just all the stars aligned for Empire to make it perfect.
Speaker 5: Lawrence Kasden, the director taking more control because Lucas was
Speaker 5: so overwhelmed by everything.
Speaker 1: And the dop as well. I mean, Peter Sushitski looks amazing.
Speaker 1: Empire hurts the other producer, Kurts.
Speaker 5: I think he got a different producer for this one,
Speaker 5: which Lucas had his hands all in this one for
Speaker 5: sure versus Empire, and not saying Lucas is, you know, incredible,
Speaker 5: But I think there was just all these elements in that.
Speaker 5: And then I think it was also that Kasden had
Speaker 5: Kirshner's back more. And then when it comes time for
Speaker 5: this movie everything Hasden wants to do, Lucas is like, nope,
Speaker 5: because Kasin's more in a frame of mind of Empire.
Speaker 5: He wants to kill off characters. He wants to kill
Speaker 5: someone off during the Jaba scene, so the stakes are high.
Speaker 3: Well, hell, Harrison Ford was first in line. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: kill off my character please. It was funny because when
Speaker 3: they what was the New Star Wars movie he was
Speaker 3: in where he died. Was that Arsa Aikins. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: I remember right before the movie came out, I tweeted,
Speaker 3: because it was still Twitter back then, I tweeted, Oh,
Speaker 3: I really like the New Star Wars movie. It's such
Speaker 3: a shame that Han Solo dies and people were out
Speaker 3: for me for blood, and I was just like, I
Speaker 3: didn't know that he actually died in the movie. I
Speaker 3: was just taking a guest because I was like, he's
Speaker 3: been wanting to be dead too since nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: He wanted to die in this movie and like, yeah,
Speaker 3: kill this character off. I mean, I love Han Solo
Speaker 3: but would have really raised those steaks. Holy shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had that same guest. I remember saying to
Speaker 1: my wife, is the only reason Harrison's going to have
Speaker 1: returned to this movie because he wants to be killed off? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because there wasn't another version of the script as well,
Speaker 1: where you know that Blast is chasing them out of
Speaker 1: the Death Star and there's that little second have they
Speaker 1: perished or oh no, here's the Falcon and the X
Speaker 1: wings and stuff. They were going to actually get rid
Speaker 1: of Lando at that point as well in one version
Speaker 1: of the script, and again it would have felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, the stakes were raised, Like you know, when
Speaker 1: you take away a main character, you really do feel
Speaker 1: the peril for everybody else. You think, well, anything can
Speaker 1: happen now. But yeah, it's just played so safely. But
Speaker 1: you know, the other thing I was saying about Peter
Speaker 1: Sushitski's it was The dop On Empire. You know that
Speaker 1: film looks amazing to this day. I saw it in
Speaker 1: the cinema again. It was a special edition The Least Heinous,
Speaker 1: I guess a couple of years ago, and me and
Speaker 1: my mate turned to each other at the end and
Speaker 1: we said exactly the same thing. We said, Wow, it
Speaker 1: still works, doesn't it in that movie? You know, it
Speaker 1: still really looks amazing. You look at Jedi has a
Speaker 1: really sort of flat look to it. Alan Hume was
Speaker 1: the DOP You know, he worked on some of the
Speaker 1: Bonds later on, but he worked on the Carry On movies,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was as DP, and it has
Speaker 1: a very sort of fight look to it. I think
Speaker 1: turned the Jedi.
Speaker 3: It's not surprising that you said James Bond because I
Speaker 3: actually had James Bond in mine. Maybe it's because I've
Speaker 3: been doing the ranking on Bond podcast, but I really
Speaker 3: had James Bond in mind as far as those set pieces,
Speaker 3: and especially some of the set pieces that go, in
Speaker 3: my opinion, on for too long. I like the idea
Speaker 3: of the speeder chase through the forest Moon of Indoor.
Speaker 3: I really like that, and I like the way they
Speaker 3: shot it. It just feels like it goes on for
Speaker 3: a little too long, kind of like a lot of
Speaker 3: James Bond chases do. But again, I think I was
Speaker 3: probably right there with you. Jamie's first watching everything I
Speaker 3: could get my hands on around the making of this film,
Speaker 3: and I did the same thing for Empire. Did the
Speaker 3: same thing for Star Wars, because back in those days
Speaker 3: you didn't have the Internet. You couldn't go watch this
Speaker 3: the YouTube special or something, and if you didn't see
Speaker 3: it on PBS or on Nickelodeon or any of these
Speaker 3: kind of channels, you just didn't see it. But if
Speaker 3: you recorded it and you could just watch like over
Speaker 3: and over again, like how did they do this Starlac
Speaker 3: pet thing? How did they do the speeder bike? So
Speaker 3: seeing the speeder bike sequence taking apart and showing like, oh,
Speaker 3: here's where it's stopped motion and here's how we did
Speaker 3: the speed of this, and then having who's a Ben
Speaker 3: Burt come in talk about the sound effects. I mean,
Speaker 3: the sound affects themselves in this movie, and that's to
Speaker 3: me kind of the one of the funniest parts of
Speaker 3: the film is when C three p I Is telling
Speaker 3: the story of Star Wars to the Ewoks and it's
Speaker 3: all through the use of sound effects, and I'm like, yes,
Speaker 3: like these sound effects are classic, the whole cranking of
Speaker 3: the ad ads and everything, and it's just like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is so cool. But of course what I'm watching
Speaker 3: that now, I'm just like, oh, this reminds me of
Speaker 3: that scene in Rain of Fire where Christian Bale is
Speaker 3: in Gerrard Butler when they're re enacting Star Wars, and
Speaker 3: I'm just like, yes, Star Wars is this classic tale,
Speaker 3: like it is the mythology of our times, and like
Speaker 3: it's so funny because yeah, like and then like you're saying,
Speaker 3: we went real dark with the second one, the third
Speaker 3: one just playing it so safe and just it felt
Speaker 3: like it was just such a kiddy movie, you know,
Speaker 3: like having the Ewoks in there, having the Teddy Bears,
Speaker 3: having the slapstick having like, oh my god, having fucking
Speaker 3: Chewbacca do a Tarzan yell as he's swinging over and
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh man, it was so funny because at
Speaker 3: the same time, as I was listening to a recording
Speaker 3: of just Return the Jedi the soundtrack, basically I've flipped
Speaker 3: over and I was listening to We Hate Movies talking
Speaker 3: about Revenge of the Sith, and they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: Chewbacca does a Tarzan and yell and I was like,
Speaker 3: oh god, that sounds so awful. And then I listened
Speaker 3: to Return the Jedi and he does it again. I
Speaker 3: was like, oh fuck, or he did it the first time.
Speaker 1: I should say Yeah, there's also that bit with the
Speaker 1: speed of bike when the Scout Trooper. I love that design,
Speaker 1: by the way, the Scout shoop. Oh, I'm with you
Speaker 1: on the speed of Bikes. That was Nila rotis Jimiro,
Speaker 1: who again I'm happy to say as a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: he's actually sending me something very cool this week. Just
Speaker 1: to quickly aside, I've interviewed him three times now and
Speaker 1: we've become quite chatty on WhatsApp, and he sent me
Speaker 1: a load of drawings that he did original drawings for
Speaker 1: me of his iconic designs. One is a Scout Trooper,
Speaker 1: but Regal Robot I've been doing these reproductions of macettes
Speaker 1: of the characters that you see in that documentary. They're
Speaker 1: all on the table.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: He made the design of this thing called the Yuzz'm,
Speaker 1: which I think is the guy that sings in the
Speaker 1: special edition. But originally it's just in Jamber's palace like
Speaker 1: leaning up against towards this little guy with like little
Speaker 1: pipe cleaner arms and a fuzzy kind of body. He
Speaker 1: was sent one of them by Regal Robot and he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't want it, I'm sending it to you. Jamie
Speaker 1: so I'm getting that in the post this week, which
Speaker 1: should be fun.
Speaker 5: I noticed him too during that making of Just Mike
Speaker 5: said it to us, and I was like, oh, he
Speaker 5: was a character in I't know he was a character
Speaker 5: until the special edition.
Speaker 3: But keep going. I'm sorry he mean to interrupt you.
Speaker 1: No, no, that's fine. And Nilo said to me that
Speaker 1: because he did some little sketch cards to go with
Speaker 1: this model, and he said, you know, I got through
Speaker 1: like half a dozen of these drawings and then I
Speaker 1: realized I was bored. And that's why we didn't develop
Speaker 1: that character, because it was a dumb character. It is
Speaker 1: a dumb designed So I'm getting it. But the point
Speaker 1: I was going to make was about the Scout Troopers
Speaker 1: was there's that bit where one of them has the
Speaker 1: front end chopped off with the like Luke's light saber,
Speaker 1: and it goes it's like this really really sort of
Speaker 1: cartoony whistling sound as it spins around, and that feels
Speaker 1: very non Star Wars, you know, like Bember of course,
Speaker 1: as we know, went out and gathered all of these
Speaker 1: organic sounds, and I think that speed bike sound was
Speaker 1: when he heard like a jackhammer in the road and
Speaker 1: the air hose got a stone in it, and he
Speaker 1: was like, wait there, and he ran off and got
Speaker 1: his recorder and recorded that sound for the speeder bikes.
Speaker 3: That's incredible.
Speaker 1: A lot of these organics are grounded, real world sounds,
Speaker 1: and then when you hear the Tarzan call and the
Speaker 1: spinning speeder bike, it just feels like we're in a
Speaker 1: tech avery kind of environment.
Speaker 3: It gets silly, man, the movie just gets silly. That's odd.
Speaker 5: I mean because it was for kids. Because I was
Speaker 5: thinking about the third Indiana Jones movie at the trilogy,
Speaker 5: the Crusade. It's like they did the same thing. You
Speaker 5: had this dark temple of doom, and then all of
Speaker 5: a sudden they're like, all right, now, let's put Indiana
Speaker 5: Jones back as a teacher. You like that, you know,
Speaker 5: you like the Nazis, Let's bring them back. You know
Speaker 5: you liked all the traps. So in the third act
Speaker 5: of this movie, there's gonna be traps and instead of
Speaker 5: melting people, it's gonna be ghoulish when he drinks from
Speaker 5: the goblet. They brought back the original. So they just
Speaker 5: they wanted to, like, you know, do like this Raiders
Speaker 5: DLC for a Crusade. It's the same movie as Raiders,
Speaker 5: and it's soft again and nice, you know, and he's
Speaker 5: kind of you know, it's something he would go on
Speaker 5: it to do again. What I appreciate about Jabna's Palace
Speaker 5: this time was I didn't realize how they pushed all
Speaker 5: those monsters in the front and then they just had
Speaker 5: regular people like in the background, you know, cause I've
Speaker 5: noticed this time there was some dude that looked like
Speaker 5: Candy Man with his jacket just shown behind Jabba.
Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, there's.
Speaker 5: Actually like regular as humans hanging out behind all these
Speaker 5: you know, there's that weird monster just chill and not
Speaker 5: doing anything. I was like, who all these people gathered here?
Speaker 3: You know, like you're talking about, why is Boba there?
Speaker 3: I mean, it must be a happening place.
Speaker 5: He's just hanging out.
Speaker 3: Lots of musical acts there, that's for sure. Hey, Jaba
Speaker 3: loves his mutancy. I come here for the entertainment.
Speaker 1: And it certainly feels like returned. The Jedi is jabbasine
Speaker 1: compared to the Cantena scene. It feels like in Jedi
Speaker 1: is far more sort of performative. They're all like coming
Speaker 1: towards the camera behind Luke, and you know you've got
Speaker 1: Claptu there going like this, and the gammery and guards
Speaker 1: kind of stomping around, Whereas in Star Wars, you know,
Speaker 1: they're in their booths, they're having their own chats, and
Speaker 1: then when the lightsaber thing happens with Kenobi, they will
Speaker 1: turn around to look. You know, it feels like people
Speaker 1: are having their own lives, whereas with the Return of
Speaker 1: the Jedi and that Jabasine, it feels like they're there
Speaker 1: for the scene. To me when I'm watching now, well, I.
Speaker 5: Did think it was interesting this time around watching the Jabbazceine.
Speaker 5: I guess the bib Tuna dude. Once Luke does the
Speaker 5: Jedi mind trick on him, he does kind of disappear
Speaker 5: in the back and see three PM steps forward like
Speaker 5: he It kind of shows Jaba, like how he treats
Speaker 5: the droids and when he's done with someone, he just
Speaker 5: discards them, and you can kind of see it with that.
Speaker 5: This time around, I noticed it with that character and
Speaker 5: I thought that was kind of cool, like he's kind
Speaker 5: of discarded after that scene to the background.
Speaker 1: Bitt.
Speaker 3: It is one of my favorite characters. I mean, just
Speaker 3: the way he speaks in that kind of like pig
Speaker 3: Latin are two daytoa type of stuff.
Speaker 1: And he swears like the second he's on screen, like
Speaker 1: he calls jab bowanka and I remembers like a teenager going,
Speaker 1: WHOA hang on a minute, did did you just say that?
Speaker 3: It's such a great design too, you know? Yeah, Like
Speaker 3: I've always teeth.
Speaker 5: I was fascinated by his action figure too as a kid.
Speaker 1: I think that's yeah, because the figure kind of looked
Speaker 1: wet as well, didn't it. It looked kind of slimy
Speaker 1: and wet.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I also wanted to take his head tail
Speaker 3: thing and straighten it out and stuff. I love those
Speaker 3: types of figures, you know, where you can actually interact
Speaker 3: with them a little bit more ones with the helmets, yeah.
Speaker 1: The robe and the kind of chest piece underneath in
Speaker 1: the Yeah, and the staff with this sort of spindle
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love that meme that's going around where it's
Speaker 3: the I can't remember what movie it's from, where the
Speaker 3: girls like to say those three words three.
Speaker 5: Words I'm yours.
Speaker 4: They were no longer thank you.
Speaker 1: That's all I needed to hear.
Speaker 2: I do know.
Speaker 1: I think of that actor Michael Carter bit Fortuna. I
Speaker 1: think of him every time I go on the underground,
Speaker 1: because he's the guy in American Wealth in London that's
Speaker 1: chased through the underground.
Speaker 3: Oh really.
Speaker 1: If ever, I'm in a tube station in London and
Speaker 1: it's kind of quiet, I feel like I'm in that
Speaker 1: movie which scared me for years when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and I think of him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, staying with Jaba's Palace a few more minutes. Seeing
Speaker 3: Book of Bilbafet really recast the rank or keeper who
Speaker 3: apparently showed up in Book of Bilbeffet, but I didn't
Speaker 3: realize it was the same character. But like this whole
Speaker 3: thing of how the bond between a rank or keeper
Speaker 3: and the rank corps, and like when he cries after
Speaker 3: the ranker monster is dead, I'm just like, now I
Speaker 3: feel totally bad. Like when I was a kid, I
Speaker 3: was just like, Oh, isn't that funny this guy's crying
Speaker 3: over a monster. But then now I'm just like, oh, man,
Speaker 3: like this is Pathos right here. And then you compare
Speaker 3: that to the scenes of droids have peen sensors. Now
Speaker 3: this is a thing we put peen sensors and droids
Speaker 3: where and that whole thing where the droid is being tortured,
Speaker 3: so reminds me of just like a Disney Rider. Reminded
Speaker 3: me of like Pirates of the Caribbean, so funny, like
Speaker 3: the guy turns the thing, the droid turns, it comes
Speaker 3: down and then it comes back up. Then they just
Speaker 3: keep doing that. I'm like, that's odd.
Speaker 1: It feels like at some point they said they wanted
Speaker 1: sise Noodles in the Rebo band to start up on
Speaker 1: that big scream, and they wanted it to match with
Speaker 1: somebody else screaming, Okay, let's make a droid do it,
Speaker 1: and nobody went to droid's scream. You know, do they
Speaker 1: feel pain? It's just they put that idea together and
Speaker 1: off they went. Maybe George wasn't on the set that day.
Speaker 3: We're talking about how characters might die. I mean, when
Speaker 3: Han Solo looks at the Millennium Falcon and he has us,
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's just a strange feeling. I'm never
Speaker 3: going to see her again, that never comes back whatsoever.
Speaker 3: And that's like this moment of pathos where I was like,
Speaker 3: oh wow, yeah, something bad might happen, but don't worry.
Speaker 3: Nothing bad happens.
Speaker 1: It's probably when Lando was due to die, right exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And get mon Matha and her thing where she's just like,
Speaker 3: oh many bothans died to bring us this information, and
Speaker 3: you're just like, oh, fuck man, that sounds like really intense,
Speaker 3: Like give me that movie. Don't give me Rogue one,
Speaker 3: give me the Bothens that are dying because of this.
Speaker 3: Like that's what I want to see, is like these Bothans.
Speaker 1: Well that's much later, of course, isn't it. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: a return of Jabdi. But I tried to recut a
Speaker 1: trailer once I'll make a Return of the Jedi trailer
Speaker 1: to make it dark. So I died with every hero
Speaker 1: has a journey or something. I was sort of mirroring
Speaker 1: the early prequel one, and I picked a bit of dialogue.
Speaker 1: You know, there's that bit of dollar where Hansally says,
Speaker 1: you're throwing away a fortune here, don't be a fool
Speaker 1: to Jabber when he's trying to negotiate with him. I
Speaker 1: put that in as the falkm was entering the Death Star,
Speaker 1: and I proceeded with a bit of him and Lando
Speaker 1: kind of talking or something. So I tried to use
Speaker 1: some of the bits of dialogue to sort of kind
Speaker 1: of make you worried about the characters and about the
Speaker 1: iconic spaceship and stuff. And it's amazing how quickly you
Speaker 1: can snip out certain scenes from that movie and give
Speaker 1: it a darker feel, you know, the stuff with the emperor,
Speaker 1: the lightsaber battle at the end. You get that kind
Speaker 1: of chorus stone voices that rises up after he says,
Speaker 1: you know, about his sister. There are moments in there
Speaker 1: sort of sprinkled throughout, but it feels that as they
Speaker 1: remove scenes and swap things around, they forgot what they
Speaker 1: also had left in. In some cases that no longer work.
Speaker 1: You know, they would have worked perhaps with the scenes
Speaker 1: left in. Who knows. But there's a really good book
Speaker 1: called The Annotated Screenplays. Lam's really good, and it kind
Speaker 1: of picks out all of those different changes, all those
Speaker 1: evolutions of the script. And you know, it's always tantalizing,
Speaker 1: isn't it for fans like us to go, I wonder
Speaker 1: what it would have been like if this had happened, X, Y,
Speaker 1: and Z had happened. But yeah, I think there is
Speaker 1: a bit of movie in there somewhere. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's ever been a fan at it or trying
Speaker 1: to make it darker, because there's probably means to do
Speaker 1: that now. I would think it'd be interesting because it
Speaker 1: is the least favorite of a lot of people of
Speaker 1: that original trilogy, and it's usually number three, So maybe
Speaker 1: it's time somebody does go in there and have a
Speaker 1: little play with it.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you could save it from the ewarks, though, yeah,
Speaker 3: we all wish.
Speaker 1: That they were Wookies right at the time when George
Speaker 1: was talking about the Wookies. But then we saw the
Speaker 1: Wookies in one of the prequels and it's Revenge of
Speaker 1: a Sith. Revenge of the Sith. It was pretty bad.
Speaker 3: I love that movie though.
Speaker 5: That's my third favorite Star Wars movie.
Speaker 3: I gotta say. But that's why I won't ever be
Speaker 3: hard on you say and you like Jedi, because I
Speaker 3: get it. I have my revenge.
Speaker 5: This that's my third favorite. It just got re released
Speaker 5: and my friends want to see. I'm like, it's so good,
Speaker 5: like hatting and blowing me off.
Speaker 1: It's great. It did really well. It got like in
Speaker 1: the top five movies week, Hid in the Chops.
Speaker 5: Oh did he over here too? And then it was
Speaker 5: gone in a week later.
Speaker 3: I wasn't able to go see it. I was so
Speaker 3: bummed that was just a week release.
Speaker 5: But going back to what you were saying about the
Speaker 5: Lando and the Millennium Falcon, what I always got from
Speaker 5: that scene was him telling there won't be a scratch
Speaker 5: on it, and then you start seeing it get messed up.
Speaker 5: It turned into like that Corey Haym Corey feld Me
Speaker 5: movie License to Drive, where he has he.
Speaker 3: Starts messing it up again, it just goes silly.
Speaker 5: I just think the first half of this movie with
Speaker 5: Jaba and the Starlac pit and all that stuff, but
Speaker 5: then once they start getting on. I love the speeder
Speaker 5: bike scene though too. It's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 5: But after that is when I start to tune out.
Speaker 5: I mean, even though one of my favorite shots in
Speaker 5: the Star Wars movie is the POV from the cockpit
Speaker 5: with all the tie fighters coming at it, that's probably
Speaker 5: one that in the Star Destroyer crashing it to the
Speaker 5: other those are some of my favorite moments from a
Speaker 5: Star Wars movie. I love that stuff, but it's just
Speaker 5: unfortunately for me, it's like not my least favorite Star
Speaker 5: War movie by a mile at all. But as an adult,
Speaker 5: when I was a kid, I loved the Ewoks stuff.
Speaker 5: I loved it, but as I got older, it just, yeah,
Speaker 5: it doesn't work for me as it used to when
Speaker 5: I was younger.
Speaker 3: And I think that's how it is. What a lot
Speaker 3: of adults.
Speaker 1: Mentioning those battle scenes at the end, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the best battle scenes in those Star Wars movies
Speaker 1: and even some of the late ones. The complexity of
Speaker 1: some of those shots. There's a documentary which I'm sure
Speaker 1: you would have seen at some point. It's called How
Speaker 1: to Film the Impossible, and they visit ILM and this
Speaker 1: guy's got like the sheet of like a three paper
Speaker 1: and it's got like a grid on it, and there's
Speaker 1: an X to mark where every ship interacts with another
Speaker 1: ship or crosses the path of another ship in that
Speaker 1: famous shot where there's like seventy five elements or something.
Speaker 1: Just the complexity that they had to go through doing
Speaker 1: that optically just kind of blows my mind. I've spoken
Speaker 1: to some of those guys on my podcast, and I
Speaker 1: can never quite come to terms with just how difficult
Speaker 1: that must have been to kind of imagine and plot
Speaker 1: out and then do optically and still maintain the resolution.
Speaker 1: And you know, there is a mistake and if famously
Speaker 1: there is a mistake and it where two Ti fi
Speaker 1: as appear in front of the falcon rather than behind
Speaker 1: it where they should be, just for a frame or two.
Speaker 1: But yeah, some of that stuff in those those bat scenes,
Speaker 1: it's just fantastic, just the sort of choreography of it,
Speaker 1: the way that you can read those shots and understand
Speaker 1: the geography, and they're doing that with models, you know,
Speaker 1: and doing it optically compositive. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: Well, even just the shots of the Ewok encampment where
Speaker 3: you've got the three or four different planes of action
Speaker 3: and you see them in the trees and everything. I
Speaker 3: was just like, that's really gorgeous because I think of
Speaker 3: something like, you know, Fellowship of the Ring and they
Speaker 3: do something similar with when they come to Ribondll and
Speaker 3: you just see like, oh, yeah, here's this fore ground,
Speaker 3: here's this background, here's this mid ground action. But to
Speaker 3: do that all with Matt paintings and double exposures and
Speaker 3: all these things, it's just like, wow, that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Some of the best matte paintings in the I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, Mike, Mike Pangrats, you know, Chris Evans and
Speaker 1: I think Harrison Ellershaw might have done some as well,
Speaker 1: but yeah, some of that. Whenever you see those posters
Speaker 1: online like these are matte paintings, there's always a thousand
Speaker 1: people going, wow, I didn't know this was a mate painting.
Speaker 1: It's such an amazing sort of lost art.
Speaker 3: In a way. Leader's entrance into the movie with all
Speaker 3: of the troopers there, and you're just like, that's a
Speaker 3: mate painting. Like the guys that are moving are all real,
Speaker 3: but then all these stormtroopers standing here, I'm just like,
Speaker 3: holy shit, that is amazing that you could do that.
Speaker 5: The concept of that Death Star just half built. I
Speaker 5: think it's iconic.
Speaker 3: It's gorgeous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is a nice design. There's some fantastic
Speaker 1: designs in this film. They feel like they belong, don't
Speaker 1: they that Every kind of even the speed bikes you could,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, they feel like Star Wars instantly. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, having those same design as through the trilogy,
Speaker 1: you know, Nilo and the others, Joe Johnston and yeah, just.
Speaker 3: Even having Joe Johnston and Ralph mcquarie doing those paintings,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's amazing. Now when I watch some of
Speaker 3: the newer Star Wars stuff, and I'll be like, oh,
Speaker 3: I've seen that before. Where have I seen that? And
Speaker 3: then I think back to those old paintings from seventy
Speaker 3: seven to eighty eighty three, and I'm just like, that's
Speaker 3: where I saw it. Like those images are so burn
Speaker 3: in my mind, like seeing a throwaway character in like
Speaker 3: the Han Solo story and I'm like, oh, that was
Speaker 3: one of those McQuary paintings.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I think the Mandalorian used like concept art
Speaker 5: from Empire dyn used with like the ice spiders or something.
Speaker 1: And what that's right, Yeah, that was a mcquarie, wasn't it.
Speaker 5: When you watch all the making of and then you
Speaker 5: know this little book where you just see like the bibfit,
Speaker 5: you know, whatever made it on screen, there was concepts
Speaker 5: before it, a number of concepts before it that got there.
Speaker 3: All the concepts are amazing.
Speaker 5: Also, it's just like, but you know, they just couldn't
Speaker 5: pull it off yet.
Speaker 3: We should probably address the elephant or the bantha in
Speaker 3: the room and talk a little bit about the sister
Speaker 3: and just this whole from a certain point of view,
Speaker 3: And yes, there is another kind of thing. That was
Speaker 3: the thing I was talking about in that people just
Speaker 3: don't believe when you tell them how much Star Wars
Speaker 3: changed from beginning to end, because somehow George seems to
Speaker 3: have sold it that he knew exactly what he was
Speaker 3: doing from the beginning, and I'm just like, no, that
Speaker 3: is the absolute opposite of truth. He did not. He
Speaker 3: might have had a plan, but it changed so much
Speaker 3: as it went along. I have concepts of a plan.
Speaker 3: My god, this whole thing of we're going to retro
Speaker 3: fit Anakin to be your father, and that albi Wan
Speaker 3: didn't tell you about this stuff, and surprise, you have
Speaker 3: a sister, so I guess the whole sister thing. It
Speaker 3: just feels like a way to resolve the romance between
Speaker 3: Han and Luke and Lea. It doesn't add anything to
Speaker 3: the story whatsoever. It might have like back during you know,
Speaker 3: Splinter in the Mind's Eye or something like that, have
Speaker 3: we learned that they were brother and sister? And that's
Speaker 3: what those like training scenes in one of those second
Speaker 3: second trilogy things like where we had the fake layer
Speaker 3: that just looked absolutely terrible, you know, the d aged layer.
Speaker 3: Like I was like, oh, well, that reminds me of
Speaker 3: this thing. But yeah, it's like, why do we have
Speaker 3: to have that, I guess now because of the force
Speaker 3: powers that Ben Solo ended up having. But again, that
Speaker 3: just was all, we don't know what the hell we're
Speaker 3: doing when it came to that second trilogy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right about George, you know,
Speaker 1: and him kind of changing his mind with you. All
Speaker 1: you got to do is look at those annotated scripts
Speaker 1: in that book and look at any interviews he gave
Speaker 1: early on. Yes, he had plans in his mind to
Speaker 1: make multiple movies and relogies potentially, but he was mixing
Speaker 1: and matching ideas, you know, and that's what he did.
Speaker 1: And you know, like every creative endeavor, you have to
Speaker 1: think on your feet on the day and try and
Speaker 1: make the best of it. And I think occasionally he
Speaker 1: just kind of like lost sight of where things were going.
Speaker 1: I mean, if it was always his plan for Luke
Speaker 1: and Leia to be brother and then what the heck
Speaker 1: was he doing in the Empire strikes back with them
Speaker 1: sort of creating a kind of love triangle. And yes,
Speaker 1: that idea was there in early concepts that they were
Speaker 1: brother and sister, but then he sort of abandoned that.
Speaker 1: But then, oh, I've got enough money to make another movie. Okay,
Speaker 1: now we need to kind of resolve this, you know,
Speaker 1: like he didn't originally have Obi being killed off at
Speaker 1: the start, you know, and then he realized he was
Speaker 1: just standing around and had to have that conversation with Guinness.
Speaker 1: I always think back to, like, there's that moment where
Speaker 1: Luke says in Star Wars, how did you meet my father?
Speaker 1: Or how did you know my father? And Alec Guinness
Speaker 1: does this kind of intake of breath and he looks
Speaker 1: the other way, like, chit, I've got to tell this story.
Speaker 1: But I remember seeing an interview the Guinness where he
Speaker 1: said that at that point, I sort of assumed that
Speaker 1: there was a backstory. So I just realized that if
Speaker 1: I just did a little thing with my face, that
Speaker 1: it would look like this, some big deal went on
Speaker 1: all those years ago between us. And of course that
Speaker 1: now has resonance because of we know what I'm you know,
Speaker 1: evolved afterwards and unfolded afterwards. But yeah, I find those
Speaker 1: sequences really weird. In returns to edit, when Luke tells
Speaker 1: Lea that Vader's his father, her reaction is really odd.
Speaker 1: If she's figuring out, oh, hang on, he's my father too,
Speaker 1: and he tortured me. And we've been chasing across the
Speaker 1: galaxy trying to, you know, get rid of this guy.
Speaker 1: And where's the moment where she even reacts to them
Speaker 1: being siblings or that she's the daughter of Vader That
Speaker 1: it's just not there. It just feels really weird, that
Speaker 1: whole scene. And then Han Solu comes in and he
Speaker 1: does that really weird sort of patting on the back thing,
Speaker 1: kind of looking around with Leia. None of that feels
Speaker 1: I think the only thing that really carries that is
Speaker 1: the kind of is the atmosphere there. There's that mist
Speaker 1: sort of hanging in the air, and it's quiet out
Speaker 1: the back while all the other stuff's going on, and
Speaker 1: then there's that nice Luke and Layer score going on.
Speaker 1: I think it would have benefited from having a few
Speaker 1: more takes or a few more.
Speaker 3: Rewrites that he'll see, You'll tell Luke.
Speaker 5: Caudi another unhandshole of the moment. But where I find
Speaker 5: fasting about the other thing is I was too young
Speaker 5: when I saw an empire in the theater to catch
Speaker 5: the other line.
Speaker 3: It wasn't until like the.
Speaker 5: Secret History of Star Wars, when I listened to that
Speaker 5: book over and over again. I realized, like how people
Speaker 5: were like, who is the other? And listening to that book,
Speaker 5: it's about oh, because George was going to do another
Speaker 5: trilogy and the other was going to be carried on.
Speaker 5: According to that book, that's what the other was supposed
Speaker 5: to be the character that was going to be in
Speaker 5: the sequel trilogy, because at that point that George Lucas
Speaker 5: was like, I'm making another trilogy after this, and then
Speaker 5: somehow while doing Return, he just got burned out and
Speaker 5: was like, all right, we're not doing that. There was
Speaker 5: a star log I wish I wrote down which date
Speaker 5: it was, but it says right in front of me,
Speaker 5: Star Wars saga continues and it says, you know, Revenge
Speaker 5: of the Jedi is released.
Speaker 3: I was back when I still called Revenge of the Jedi.
Speaker 5: On May twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three, the firm begins
Speaker 5: plans for the next trilogy of films in the nine
Speaker 5: part saga, you know, so they were ready to go
Speaker 5: with it, and I guess he just got so burnt
Speaker 5: with Jedi and just knew it's gonna be a nice
Speaker 5: movie and we're gonna have the Ewok stuff, and he
Speaker 5: doesn't want to do him anymore. But and then that's
Speaker 5: when the other turns into Princess Leia. It was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: now I can turn her.
Speaker 1: Into this other.
Speaker 5: But I guess people were so upset buck in that
Speaker 5: for waiting three years to find out who the other was.
Speaker 5: I was too young at the time, so but that stuff.
Speaker 5: I was all learning from secret history of Star Wars.
Speaker 5: But I'm And then they said in this Starlog article
Speaker 5: that they were gonna do the sequel trilogy in reverse order.
Speaker 3: They were gonna do three, two and then one. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 3: I have it right, I'm looking right at it.
Speaker 5: That wasn't Starlog, so they did when it was Revenge
Speaker 5: to Jedi before it turned into Return.
Speaker 3: They still had thoughts of.
Speaker 5: Making other Star Wars movies, but then some maybe it
Speaker 5: was the divorce and everything where he was just like,
Speaker 5: this is maybe ruining me and I want to keep
Speaker 5: doing Star Wars is maybe the technology is not where
Speaker 5: I want it yet, and I'm going to take some
Speaker 5: time off.
Speaker 3: I'm going to make a lot of experimental films. Now
Speaker 3: that's my dream. Where Sho got yeah, yeah, we got
Speaker 3: Howard the Duck.
Speaker 1: That's kind of experimental, and Tucker.
Speaker 3: I tried watching those two Ewach movies today.
Speaker 1: Holy shit, I haven't met That was probably my worst
Speaker 1: cinema experience as a kid. I remember saying yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and my parents said, oh yeah, We've got surprise for you,
Speaker 1: and they gave me this tick and I was like
Speaker 1: the Star Wars like wow, and I'm sitting there going
Speaker 1: where's Luke, Where's Hans Solo, where's Princess Leia?
Speaker 5: What is this thing?
Speaker 1: And I remember walking out of the cinema and I
Speaker 1: was that eighty five, so I would have been like
Speaker 1: eight or nine years old. I think it's the first
Speaker 1: time I really experienced like the proper disappointment because where
Speaker 1: are my favorite characters. I want to see the further
Speaker 1: adventures of these people, you know, where is it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: The old look is good either, right, the euarks in there.
Speaker 1: No, they were made pretty cheaply, you know, and they
Speaker 1: were made or it's like the other thing you think
Speaker 1: about Jedi, you know, as opposed to the other two.
Speaker 1: You know, the first one they went to Chinisia. They
Speaker 1: went to the UK of course to shoot an Elstree.
Speaker 1: Second one they went to Fincer in Norway and then
Speaker 1: back into the UK. Obviously also Elstreet's returned to Jeddo.
Speaker 1: But then they did the rest of it in the States,
Speaker 1: you know, they it feels like they didn't kind of
Speaker 1: branch out and go to some exotic place, so you
Speaker 1: do kind of go, oh, yeah, that's the Redwood Forest
Speaker 1: and oh yeah, that's that's you Arizona.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe that was a budgetry thing as well, or
Speaker 1: just to you know, you can kind of understand why
Speaker 1: Lucas ended up doing so much digitally because all of
Speaker 1: the pain he went through his sets being blown away
Speaker 1: and flooding and white outs and snowstorms and all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. I can totally understand it.
Speaker 3: With the Sands storm that didn't get included.
Speaker 5: But I did the shark documentary Shark Exploitation. When I
Speaker 5: interviewed Carl Galtlieb and Joe Alves, they boil said and
Speaker 5: swear by they wish they could have done CG with
Speaker 5: the shark. They were like, you know, even though we
Speaker 5: love that fucking shark, we love it and we wouldn't
Speaker 5: want a CG. But according to them, they're like, in
Speaker 5: a second, that's what they wish they had because they're
Speaker 5: the ones that were in the trenches dealing with it
Speaker 5: and the stress and the harp.
Speaker 3: But they in a second, we'd want to do a
Speaker 3: CG One Shark.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean, I'm making this Joe Al's documentary, have
Speaker 1: been for a couple years and we're going out to
Speaker 1: Martha's Vineyards next week to shoot some stuff with Joe.
Speaker 1: And what's the line Joe said, you know, you might
Speaker 1: as well give it a go because it's going to
Speaker 1: be the best there is because nobody else is trying it,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's how they kind of approached George.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, Okay, we're gonna make this thing. We're
Speaker 1: gonna put it in the sea, and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to find this location with the bed of the beach
Speaker 1: has got to be this height and that they've got
Speaker 1: to find, you know, places inland, and it turns out
Speaker 1: Martha's Vineyard is the right place. George talks about building
Speaker 1: the sal barge in Return to Jedi, how it took
Speaker 1: three hundred laborers, five months, whatever the stats are, he
Speaker 1: says in that documentary, and then it's on film for
Speaker 1: like minute and a half, two minutes or something. You
Speaker 1: just have to kind of do the best that you
Speaker 1: can to get that thing. You don't need to show
Speaker 1: off the thing that you've made. I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the real lessons I learned from Georgie in that
Speaker 1: documentary is you know, you shouldn't ever give yourself a
Speaker 1: pout on the back for the graft that you've done,
Speaker 1: the work that you've gone through, because maybe you need
Speaker 1: to cut that shot out. Actually maybe it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Maybe it did take six months to get but maybe
Speaker 1: it needs to come out of the movie. Maybe return
Speaker 1: the Jedi needs more of this teachings.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's sail bars and then the Sarlac set that
Speaker 5: they did. It is huge and it'sn't seen to wrap
Speaker 5: your head around that they built all that.
Speaker 3: I hate this whole thing that we have to go
Speaker 3: back to tatuin why was Jabba? We don't have the
Speaker 3: scene of him coming to the docking bay and threatening
Speaker 3: hand Solough in the world that the three of us
Speaker 3: grew up and that scene didn't exist. I was job
Speaker 3: on tattooing, Like why couldn't his palace have been someplace else?
Speaker 3: And it just feels like we keep coming back to
Speaker 3: tattooing and like all of these even when it's not tattooing.
Speaker 3: It's Jaku. It's another desert planet. And I'm just like,
Speaker 3: come on, guys, like you know, Luke says in the
Speaker 3: first movie, if there's a bright.
Speaker 5: Center of the universe, you're on the planet that is farthest.
Speaker 3: From classic line. This is the backwater burb. But instead
Speaker 3: it becomes the center of the fucking universe for all
Speaker 3: nine movies. And you're just like, for christis, can we
Speaker 3: get away from tattooing? Thank God? They don't go back
Speaker 3: to tattooing in an empire. Use some other planets, man,
Speaker 3: Let's go see some other places. But this is just like,
Speaker 3: all right, we're back here. We're doing this again. And
Speaker 3: you know, basically, they replace Darth Vader as a bad
Speaker 3: guy with the Emperor. And even when it came to
Speaker 3: the Emperor as a kid, I was a little disappointed
Speaker 3: because I was like, oh, he's just a little old man,
Speaker 3: like I was expecting somebody like tall and grandiose and
Speaker 3: somebody very very commanding. Instead he's just like he's like
Speaker 3: mister Burns basically, the way he carries his hands and stuff.
Speaker 3: It paid a pretty penny for this pretty penny, but
Speaker 3: it was worth it, though, I do love what a
Speaker 3: snide bastard he is, especially when they're.
Speaker 4: Like, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational
Speaker 4: when your friends are right.
Speaker 3: Oh man, the way he's just mocking Luke, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: that's pretty good. I like that and like mcderman's voice,
Speaker 3: especially in this movie.
Speaker 1: I think it's the best sort of version of the Emperor.
Speaker 1: I think in the pre cause it just feels like
Speaker 1: he's wearing this really big kind of prosthetic and it
Speaker 1: all feels a bit fake where he's sort of hooded
Speaker 1: and you don't quite you see his piercing eyes, but
Speaker 1: you don't get kind of good look in. I think
Speaker 1: that's a good thing In Jedi. I quite like the Emperor.
Speaker 1: It's a terrible action figure. I remember sending off like
Speaker 1: give it a row. I remember sending off tokens for
Speaker 1: that like, and it was like one per household and
Speaker 1: one to my other grandparents, one to my house. And
Speaker 1: then I got, wow, it looks it looks like my nana.
Speaker 3: Those little Kenner proofs of purchase. Well, and then it
Speaker 3: had the electric like plastic thing that you could put
Speaker 3: on it so it looked like force the original I
Speaker 3: didn't have that either.
Speaker 11: Ninety Yeah, this one was just like the walking stick
Speaker 11: and a gray thing with a face. That was it,
Speaker 11: and the cloak was plastic. It was no, they didn't
Speaker 11: give you it was the moment, wasn't it.
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Why were jawas the best action figures because they had
Speaker 3: the cloth cloaks.
Speaker 1: I had another Ben Canobi and I painted it like
Speaker 1: gray and put Luke's Jedi robe on him and that
Speaker 1: was my Emperor nice.
Speaker 5: I was so cussed up with that much better. Well,
Speaker 5: you're talking about tattoo in. I mean it was going
Speaker 5: back to what I was talking about with Raiders of
Speaker 5: the Lost Stark. I think they just want to remind
Speaker 5: people everything from the first movie again somehow by putting
Speaker 5: it back there. That's my only thought of why they
Speaker 5: wouldn't put him somewhere else. Yeah, because, like you said,
Speaker 5: it doesn't you know, you could just call.
Speaker 3: It a difference. It doesn't have to be that play.
Speaker 1: You're right, And there wasn't there something in some of
Speaker 1: the early scripts that Luke was going to go back
Speaker 1: to Ben's house to try and discover something about building
Speaker 1: a lightsaber, and you know, so you've got that, so
Speaker 1: then when they remove that, it's like I was talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, They're like, okay, so we're still on tattooing,
Speaker 1: but we're going to do this now, So where's the
Speaker 1: motivation to go there anymore? It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: That makes sense. When I was talking about the cave,
Speaker 3: I was thinking, oh, that kind of looks like Ben's house,
Speaker 3: But they don't ever short from the other angle inside
Speaker 3: the cave looking out.
Speaker 1: It is a cave in that instance, because there's a
Speaker 1: matte painting that was unused that had like a little
Speaker 1: cut out for R two and three PO and you
Speaker 1: could see the X wing and presumably the Y wing
Speaker 1: the layer and two ear arrived in. Yeah, I think again,
Speaker 1: it's like each time they sort of change their mind
Speaker 1: on how a scene was going to work or who
Speaker 1: was going to be involved, they forgot the original intention
Speaker 1: of why they were there in the first place, and
Speaker 1: therefore it loses its meaning.
Speaker 5: Well, Yeah, like in your film Dementary, you had this
Speaker 5: whole thing about prune faced action figure characters that were
Speaker 5: supposed to be on endoor, and I'm like, why weren't
Speaker 5: they on endoor helping the fight and stuff like that?
Speaker 5: That's kind of disappointing.
Speaker 3: I never noticed those guys, Thank you, jam Neither did
Speaker 3: I those guys.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, to watch Jamie's film and Dementary, it's
Speaker 5: fucking phenomenal. Instead of watching a return watching Return of
Speaker 5: the Jedi, watched that.
Speaker 1: Returning to Jedi still on Vimeo. But I remember when
Speaker 1: there was that sort of little resurgence of Star Wars,
Speaker 1: the sort of the dark times. I remember about nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one going to Forbidden Planet here in London, and
Speaker 1: there was a fanzine there called the UK Star Wars
Speaker 1: Fan Club, and it was a black and white fanzine.
Speaker 1: I think I had a color cover, but it's all
Speaker 1: black and white in the middle. And there was an
Speaker 1: article in there, a feature in that each quarter or
Speaker 1: whatever it was, and it said have you noticed I
Speaker 1: think was the line, And I wrote in to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I've just bought the wide screen versions of the film,
Speaker 1: and for the first time I've seen FX seven, the
Speaker 1: medical droid on the left hand side of the frame
Speaker 1: in the Rebel meeting. And then wait a minute, there's
Speaker 1: like the proof faced guys in the back and I'd
Speaker 1: never seen them in the four by three before, and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff, and when you bought those widescreen
Speaker 1: editions and blew them up to horrible low resolution, there
Speaker 1: was so much more in the frame, you know that,
Speaker 1: Like you see that big, weird a man of Man character,
Speaker 1: like the yellow and green guy with the staff with
Speaker 1: the skulls on it, and all of these amazing designs
Speaker 1: that are sort of lurking in the background. Because those
Speaker 1: early VHS's I had, they were so murky, like you
Speaker 1: could barely see any detail in them. I remember watching
Speaker 1: Alien on the VHS for the first time. I could
Speaker 1: barely see a damn thing. But yeah, I remember that
Speaker 1: was a big thing, the UK Stars Fang Club, and
Speaker 1: then there was that build up in like, oh, George
Speaker 1: is going to re release the movies and he's going
Speaker 1: to make some changes, and then there's Stars Insider magazines
Speaker 1: coming out and all of that, and then you know,
Speaker 1: it just was a sort of arc of disappointment from
Speaker 1: there on.
Speaker 3: Really, let's go ahead and take a break in them.
Speaker 3: We'll be back to talk about those dark times and
Speaker 3: maybe talk about the unmasking of Darth Vader as well.
Speaker 3: If we're talking about disappointments anyway, We'll be back in
Speaker 3: a few minutes with an interview with producer Jim Bloom
Speaker 3: right after these brief messages.
Speaker 10: Classically is a film Journey to the East, a curated
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Speaker 10: in film.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about Jedi, especially because your
Speaker 3: title changed between Empire and Jedi, and I was curious
Speaker 3: as far as how did your fonsibilities changed between the
Speaker 3: two films.
Speaker 12: On the Empire Strikes Back, I was originally hired as
Speaker 12: an assistant producer and then because of my responsibilities and
Speaker 12: my work, Gary came to me with I'm sure George's
Speaker 12: blessing and said, you've done such a good job, we
Speaker 12: want to make you an associate producer and have you
Speaker 12: share that title with Robert. Robert was one of the
Speaker 12: great men. Originally when we were hired, because Gary offered
Speaker 12: me a job as an assistant producer, that was my title,
Speaker 12: you know, which could mean a lot of different things.
Speaker 12: But I knew quite a bit about movie making at
Speaker 12: that particular point, and I had started with them in
Speaker 12: nineteen seventy two on American Graffiti and had stayed in
Speaker 12: touch with them over the years. Then you know, it
Speaker 12: was like in November December seventy eight, early seventy eight,
Speaker 12: Gary calt and said I'd like you to be my assistant,
Speaker 12: and it was like WHOA. I had seen Star Wars
Speaker 12: and I had loved it, and I remember, you know, if.
Speaker 8: I need to talk quicker, just just give me a.
Speaker 12: And I also tend to jump around to quite a
Speaker 12: bit I had gone to In the spring of seventy seven,
Speaker 12: I went to visit Gary in his office at Universal,
Speaker 12: and he because I had stayed in touch with him
Speaker 12: over the years, and he was kind of like a
Speaker 12: mentor to me, and I enjoyed talking to him, and
Speaker 12: if I needed a piece of advice he would often
Speaker 12: offer to me. And he took out this coffee table
Speaker 12: book of still photos that had been camped of Star
Speaker 12: Wars because it was a couple of weeks before the
Speaker 12: release of the movie, and it just like blew me away,
Speaker 12: completely blew me away. It was just like, oh my god,
Speaker 12: look at this stuff. This is just fucking amazing. And
Speaker 12: you know, I was just so taken with the look
Speaker 12: of these, you know, mostly black and white, comped photos
Speaker 12: that they put together in this coffee table book. And
Speaker 12: then when the picture opened, I went to see it
Speaker 12: the first weekend and I was so taken. I was
Speaker 12: attempted to stay there and watch it again, but I
Speaker 12: didn't want to get back in line. But I'm sure
Speaker 12: I saw it again very soon after. But I went
Speaker 12: to summer early early show at the Regency, which was
Speaker 12: the big theater at the time in San Francisco, you know,
Speaker 12: big seventeen millimeter screen, blah blah blah, and I was
Speaker 12: just like, you know, everybody else, well that was Star Wars. Yeah,
Speaker 12: I was just like whoa. And then anyway, after Star
Speaker 12: Wars came out and it did so well, I went
Speaker 12: to work in the summer of seventy seven. My first
Speaker 12: job as a first assistant director was with Matthew Robbins
Speaker 12: directing Corvette Summer, where I met with Corvette Summer, at
Speaker 12: which point Mark got into a car accident and completely
Speaker 12: blew his face apart. Unfortunately, a little bit before it
Speaker 12: worked this great looking California surfer Kate and just destroyed
Speaker 12: his face in this car accident, which is why in
Speaker 12: Empire the movie opens with the wampa ripping it face apart,
Speaker 12: because they needed a reason to say what happened to
Speaker 12: Mark's face, and that was it. They covered him up
Speaker 12: and the wamper rips his face apart, which is why
Speaker 12: he looked so different. I was a very young first,
Speaker 12: a d even by any standards. I was twenty four.
Speaker 12: I hadn't turned twenty five yet, and it was pretty
Speaker 12: young to be an assistant director at that time. And
Speaker 12: then after Corvette Summer, Phil Kaufman asked me to work
Speaker 12: on The Body Snatchers, which I did, which was great.
Speaker 12: It still holds up today as a great movie, even
Speaker 12: more so today than before because, you know, one of
Speaker 12: the great lines from the movie, Donald Sutherland says to
Speaker 12: forgetting Brooks name her last name, at the moment she
Speaker 12: sort of becomes his love interest in the movie, you know,
Speaker 12: with like what's happened to my husband. You know, he's
Speaker 12: not the same anymore. And Donald says, well, maybe he's
Speaker 12: become a Republican, you know, because he's become a pod
Speaker 12: person and he's just like so weird. Yeah, and more
Speaker 12: true today than it's ever been before. And it was
Speaker 12: true in the nineteen seventies, you know, but even more
Speaker 12: so now than it was then, unfortunately, and much to
Speaker 12: my dismay and depression. And then after that Gary call
Speaker 12: and he said, I'd like you to come work for
Speaker 12: me on Empire. Oh, you know, what do you want
Speaker 12: me to do? I want you to be my assistant producer.
Speaker 5: I want you to help me.
Speaker 12: I want you come to London. I want you to
Speaker 12: go on location and help me make this movie because
Speaker 12: it's going to be bigger and you'd like you were around.
Speaker 8: And it was like whoa.
Speaker 12: And I remember saying to him, you know, I said, Gary,
Speaker 12: you know I always thought at this point in my career,
Speaker 12: I might sort of turn my attention to becoming a
Speaker 12: director because I'd worked with so many great directors. I mean,
Speaker 12: it was just like mind boggling that in my short
Speaker 12: career I had gotten to work with George and Francis
Speaker 12: Coppola and Sam and Bob Vautman and Hal Ashby and
Speaker 12: Phil Kaufman and Matthew and I'm sure I'm going to
Speaker 12: forget some people, Steven Spielberg, all these great directors, and
Speaker 12: I had learned so much from working with all of them.
Speaker 12: Yet after working with Phil, I thought, I think I
Speaker 12: could do this. I think I've needed to plus forty
Speaker 12: six episodes on the Streets of San Francisco TV show
Speaker 12: working with Carl Malden and Michael Douglass and what treat
Speaker 12: that was. And Gary said, Jim, He said, I want
Speaker 12: to tell you that there isn't anything that you're not
Speaker 12: going to learn on this show working with me that
Speaker 12: won't make you a better director.
Speaker 8: And he was right.
Speaker 12: There wasn't anything. You know, I learned so much working
Speaker 12: on those movies, and I've learned a lot about producing
Speaker 12: movies as well, and an incredible amount of visual effects
Speaker 12: because my first part of working on Jedi was to
Speaker 12: move ILM from Dan Eyes up to Santa Fell and
Speaker 12: to hire all the guys that I brought up who
Speaker 12: had worked on Star Wars up to Santa Fell. You
Speaker 12: know those guy guys when you think of the core
Speaker 12: guys and what they've all gone on to do. Jennis
Speaker 12: muirn Joe Johnston, Richard Edlin, Phil Tippett, Ken Ralston, Bruce Nicholson,
Speaker 12: Laurene Peterson and Steve Galli, Peter Kuran, all the guys
Speaker 12: who went on to lead all of the key departments
Speaker 12: at ILM. And so when I started my job on Empire,
Speaker 12: working at the Parkway House, which is George's office, and
Speaker 12: you know, I was in some little back room, the kitchen,
Speaker 12: you know, it was where my office was, and you know,
Speaker 12: working with Why used a joke I called the Parkway Princesses,
Speaker 12: which were Jane Bay and Lucy Uchiever Golson and Chrissy England,
Speaker 12: you know, and previously went on to run ILM and
Speaker 12: become a great production person and all these other people.
Speaker 12: And then they had found the warehouse in Santra Fell
Speaker 12: where ILM was going to be. And then we went
Speaker 12: to work on building ILM into a visual effects facil
Speaker 12: you know, with being sort of multi purpose, which was
Speaker 12: to be a visual effects facility, but when we weren't
Speaker 12: making Star Wars movie, it would become a visual effects
Speaker 12: facility for other movies. And the first two other movies
Speaker 12: that we did at that time were Dragon Slayer and
Speaker 12: then Raiders of the Loss, you know, the next two
Speaker 12: movies that came through ILM, and then you know, we
Speaker 12: got ready to do Jedi. So to serve it explaining
Speaker 12: the difference between the two things was that I was
Speaker 12: the general manager at ILM as well as being the
Speaker 12: associate producer on the movie. So I had two hats
Speaker 12: to wear, and Gary wanted me to go to run
Speaker 12: the second unit in Norway. You know, it was like
Speaker 12: his producer, second unit producer in Norway. And so I
Speaker 12: moved to London in November of seventy eight and then
Speaker 12: stayed there November December January February, scouted Norway with everybody,
Speaker 12: and then went back with the unit in early February
Speaker 12: when we began principal photography, and principal photography was supposed
Speaker 12: to be five days and turned it to seven or
Speaker 12: eight blah blah blah. And then I stayed with the
Speaker 12: second unit, which was supposed to be two or three
Speaker 12: weeks and became six or seven. Because as the joke is,
Speaker 12: all the weather, it's never this bat until the movie
Speaker 12: company shows up, and that's exactly what happened. There were
Speaker 12: days on end when just like there were with the
Speaker 12: first unit, that it was a complete white out and
Speaker 12: we couldn't get up on the glacier to shoot. It
Speaker 12: just wasn't safe to go up there.
Speaker 8: You could just you couldn't see.
Speaker 12: And we were we were in these snowcats, and we
Speaker 12: were following.
Speaker 8: The way the cross country skiers did.
Speaker 12: The Norwegians just go out and go, but they tie
Speaker 12: themselves and they go from poll to get up to
Speaker 12: the glacier, to get up the mountain or go where
Speaker 12: they were doing, because there are a lot of dangerous
Speaker 12: grasses are But we couldn't move a unit up there
Speaker 12: and work. And I mean we always used to joke that,
Speaker 12: you know, they would serve pasta for lunch and from
Speaker 12: the time got from the plate to your mouth, it
Speaker 12: was frozen, you know, or you take a pee in
Speaker 12: the time that the pe hit the snow, it was frozen.
Speaker 12: You know, it was really could But then you know,
Speaker 12: it was you know, February into March, and later in March.
Speaker 12: Eventually it got a little bit better, and then we
Speaker 12: got our work done and you know, some of the
Speaker 12: most important work, which is why Gary wanted me there
Speaker 12: was because I understood the visual effects of the movie,
Speaker 12: and I understood how critical when you put a shot together.
Speaker 12: It's not just the unknown Rebel troopers running away from
Speaker 12: the explosions planted in the snow, but it's being able
Speaker 12: to see the snow Walkers coming up from behind them
Speaker 12: and the other guys people. You know, they hadn't made
Speaker 12: a lot of effects movies before then. It was still
Speaker 12: a very young business back in the late seventies and
Speaker 12: eighties as far as what they had done on Star
Speaker 12: Wars and what we were trying to do on Empire.
Speaker 12: And so I used to argue with Peter McDonald, who
Speaker 12: was the second unit director, and then he would set
Speaker 12: up a shot and I'd look through the lens and
Speaker 12: I'd go, Peter, we got to frame up. I said,
Speaker 12: what do I need to frame up for? I said,
Speaker 12: because the snow Walkers are back there, and the snow
Speaker 12: Walkers are firing laser cannons into the snow that are
Speaker 12: creating the explosions in the foreground, in the mid ground
Speaker 12: that all of these troops are running away from. Okay,
Speaker 12: he would do that, and then you've got this beautiful
Speaker 12: battle that we created up there. And then the other
Speaker 12: thing that I also knew that was critically important were
Speaker 12: all of the snow Speeder helicopter background plates that we
Speaker 12: shot with a sixty five millimeter camera mounted on a
Speaker 12: gyroscopic Westcam rig for you know, understanding all that stuff
Speaker 12: and appreciating the movie and knowing all of the storyboards
Speaker 12: by heart and all of the great, you know, conceptual
Speaker 12: work that Ralph McCrory did, who I became very friendly with,
Speaker 12: you know, during those days. You know, I just had
Speaker 12: a great appreciation for how beautiful the movie could be
Speaker 12: because I knew that Ralph did it on Star Wars,
Speaker 12: and I knew what we can do it again. And
Speaker 12: you know, I also try to instill on everybody this
Speaker 12: spirit core.
Speaker 8: We're making a sequel, but it's going to be better.
Speaker 12: It's not going to be shitty, because most sequels were
Speaker 12: crappy and this was shitty. So when Empire was over,
Speaker 12: George came to me with Howard Kazangian, and first it
Speaker 12: was Charlie Weber, but anyway, they said, we want you
Speaker 12: to be a co producer on Jedi, you know, and
Speaker 12: there be two of you, you and Robert be in
Speaker 12: the UK and you'll be over here. Because the other
Speaker 12: mandate for Jedi different than Empires that we were going
Speaker 12: to shoot all the location work in the United States
Speaker 12: because it was getting too dangerous to go to Tunisia.
Speaker 12: You had your job is stuff there, and you know,
Speaker 12: we need you to find a desert. And George Joyce
Speaker 12: had a vision to do a Redwood planet, you know,
Speaker 12: Redwood planet, which is what we did. And so you know,
Speaker 12: we had to go out and find those locations in
Speaker 12: the US and you know, hire the cruise and blah
Speaker 12: blah blah. The other thing that was advantageous is that
Speaker 12: we were a San Francisco based company, not an LA
Speaker 12: based company, and I knew who all the good crew
Speaker 12: guys were in San Francisco, which there was one, you know,
Speaker 12: which was which was a challenge because they're not as
Speaker 12: talented as the LA guys were. Because at that point
Speaker 12: I had worked with San Francisco Cruise and done a
Speaker 12: lot of work with LA Cruise, you know on Batford
Speaker 12: Glory and Coming Home and Close Encounters and Hack and
Speaker 12: Pause movie.
Speaker 8: The Killer or Leading.
Speaker 12: You know, I knew what it was like to do
Speaker 12: a studio movie, to do independent movies out of LA
Speaker 12: how talented. You know, the movie business was in Los Angeles,
Speaker 12: it wasn't in San Francisco, and so but I had
Speaker 12: to kind of covel a group together that had the
Speaker 12: chops to do a movie like Jedi. So the responsibilities changed.
Speaker 12: And the other thing that changed was that we made
Speaker 12: Empire and I went to London November to go was
Speaker 12: not for me to be the general manager of ILM,
Speaker 12: but to be system producer on the picture and to
Speaker 12: be overseeing ILM a little bit, but to hire a
Speaker 12: general manager. And I hired a guy who I had
Speaker 12: worked in the live action because I felt that he
Speaker 12: had the production responsibility that wasn't emblematic at that point
Speaker 12: in the visual effects business in the US, because you know,
Speaker 12: who are you going to hire. They either worked on
Speaker 12: Close Encounters here, worked on Star Wars. You had either
Speaker 12: worked for Doug Trumbull, or you work for you know,
Speaker 12: the First John Company. And so I said, gee, this
Speaker 12: makes a lot of sense to me to bring some
Speaker 12: production guys in here, because they know about making movies.
Speaker 8: And it's not that much different.
Speaker 12: You know, you got different groups, but everybody's contributing the movie,
Speaker 12: and the scheduling is a little bit different, and so
Speaker 12: I brought that skill set with me to Empire.
Speaker 8: So I hired a guy who I.
Speaker 12: Had worked with on the Streets of San Francisco TV show,
Speaker 12: who lived up there, who knew a lot of the
Speaker 12: local guys, and I also hired him because I knew
Speaker 12: he could make a deal with the local union rep too,
Speaker 12: because we kind of had to do that in order
Speaker 12: to bring the guys out of LA. And the guy
Speaker 12: in San Francisco was a vice president in the IA
Speaker 12: nationally and he had the cajone ace in the USIA
Speaker 12: to tell the guys in LA, no, we're doing it
Speaker 12: this way, and I'm going to do it that way,
Speaker 12: and he would listen to him because he was on
Speaker 12: that executive board. So it worked out that way. There
Speaker 12: were other financial reasons why we didn't want to do
Speaker 12: it with the LA group. We wanted to do it
Speaker 12: as a San Francisco group, and we got special dispensations
Speaker 12: from the IA in LA when we do the live
Speaker 12: action photography to hire camera guys and construction coordinators and
Speaker 12: special effects guys to.
Speaker 3: Do the work that had to be done.
Speaker 8: And when it came to like.
Speaker 12: Grip and electric and stuff, we mostly worked with local
Speaker 12: guys out of San Francisco under their contract, and the
Speaker 12: LA guys would come up and work under the Sam
Speaker 12: Francisco contract and it got worked out. So you know,
Speaker 12: I did a lot of that stuff. And then on
Speaker 12: Jedi after production was over, the guy who I hired
Speaker 12: from streets of San Francisco was like, I can't deal
Speaker 12: with these visual effects guys. They're just it's just too
Speaker 12: much for me. With their official effects guys are different
Speaker 12: than live action guys. You know, live action, Oh, we're
Speaker 12: going to go in and get it done and blah
Speaker 12: blah blah, and you're moving all the time and it's quick,
Speaker 12: and the visual effects guys are they're a pretty nerdy group.
Speaker 12: I mean, if you talk to these guys, I say
Speaker 12: it affectionately because I really love all these guys because
Speaker 12: I knew them so well. We were all like a family.
Speaker 12: But it's a different group because they had a very
Speaker 12: different vision of filmmaking. You know, live action has put
Speaker 12: the camera down, get the actors, get the shot, you know,
Speaker 12: blah blah blah, and visual effects is like I got
Speaker 12: to build twenty different layers on how I'm going to
Speaker 12: put a shot together until it's finally done, and back
Speaker 12: then everything was in the optical printer, you know, it
Speaker 12: wasn't digital. He kind of missed being on the set.
Speaker 12: And after I came back from London, what happened was
Speaker 12: then we finished the Norwegian stuff and I was supposed
Speaker 12: to stay in London for the rest of the shoot,
Speaker 12: but Gary came to me and said, things are not
Speaker 12: going well in Santra Fella. I want you to go
Speaker 12: home and supervise what's happening there. And I got back
Speaker 12: there as soon as I was there.
Speaker 8: Over a few weeks. Dick said, you're here.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 8: It's been fun, but I'm out of here.
Speaker 3: You don't need me.
Speaker 8: You do it, you know it, you understand it better
Speaker 8: than I do.
Speaker 12: I don't enjoy it. I'm taking off. So he left
Speaker 12: and then I took over at ILEM and we put
Speaker 12: the picture out, and back then it was a very difficult,
Speaker 12: complicated movie to do because we're doing stuff that nobody
Speaker 12: had done before. So those are different responsibilities. And when
Speaker 12: Empire was over, I didn't want to spend my life
Speaker 12: running a visual effects facility. I wanted to be a
Speaker 12: film producer. I didn't want to be a visual effects general. Manager,
Speaker 12: and George wanted me to stay on and run the place.
Speaker 12: I saw gona like to find somebody to take my place,
Speaker 12: because I'd like to go back and make movies again.
Speaker 12: I liked making movies from here the script, let's go
Speaker 12: make it all the way into the theater. But I
Speaker 12: like working with directors. And he said okay. And then
Speaker 12: I brought Tom Smith in, who I had worked with
Speaker 12: right after American Graffiti. He was a documentarian, but he's
Speaker 12: kind of a nerdy guy. I mean, I had that nightly,
Speaker 12: a very technical filmmaker, you know, a cameraman editor, knew
Speaker 12: a lot about filmmaking. Tom came in and it was
Speaker 12: a good opportunity for Tom. Tom fell right in and
Speaker 12: he became the general manager for many years until he left,
Speaker 12: and then he became a producer at one point, you know,
Speaker 12: produced visual effects and produced features and stuff like that.
Speaker 12: I still talked to Tom, you know, he's still a friend.
Speaker 12: And so then Tom came in, and then after photography
Speaker 12: was over, Jedi was set up in such a way
Speaker 12: that hal Berwood and Matthew Robbins, who I'd mentioned before,
Speaker 12: who I had met on close encounters, when they came
Speaker 12: into do additional script writing and also worked as like
Speaker 12: the first two characters to walk off the mother ship
Speaker 12: when it landed in the box down in because they
Speaker 12: were at the pilots from the nineteen forties who got
Speaker 12: carried away by the aliens. They were going to go
Speaker 12: make a movie called The Grid, which is this great
Speaker 12: science fiction time travel movie that I often think that
Speaker 12: Terminator stole from at some point because it's all about
Speaker 12: coming from the future back to the present to fix
Speaker 12: something that will affect the future. Great we never made it, unfortunately,
Speaker 12: you know, it's one of those I put a design
Speaker 12: team together for Matthew al was going to be the
Speaker 12: executive producer because he was going to off and direct.
Speaker 12: So I was going to produce the picture, and we
Speaker 12: were set up at the Lab Company, and we needed
Speaker 12: a lot of pre production so to figure out what
Speaker 12: the movie was going to look like and what it
Speaker 12: was going to cost. This, you know, that was part
Speaker 12: of this way of making movies then if you were
Speaker 12: doing stuff that but he could quite visualize, and I
Speaker 12: hired Sid Meade. You know, Sid used to be this
Speaker 12: great designer at a wonderful great designer, industrial designer, and
Speaker 12: Ralph McCrory and a guy named Peter Lloyd out of Colorado.
Speaker 12: We have this great art department and this guy's turned
Speaker 12: out all this wonderful conceptual stuff for this time travel movie.
Speaker 12: When we were like designing the future and designing the President,
Speaker 12: and I was in touch with a well known professor
Speaker 12: of linguistics from UC Berkeley named George Lakeoff, who is
Speaker 12: going to help us create a language of the future
Speaker 12: five hundred years from now. And we were going to
Speaker 12: do some of the future stuff with subtitles, you know,
Speaker 12: but people would be speaking whatever English was going to be. Yeah,
Speaker 12: it was really cool. It was a great idea. Anyway,
Speaker 12: the right stuff came out and it was a great movie,
Speaker 12: but it tanked. And when it tanked, the lad Company
Speaker 12: Warner Brothers said no, we're not going to make the
Speaker 12: grit and tell them to go find a partner. We'll
Speaker 12: give you fifty percent of the budget. Anyway, we didn't
Speaker 12: make the movie. There were things that I learned that
Speaker 12: I found out later when I went to work at
Speaker 12: studio about the way movies are made that I didn't
Speaker 12: know then, And it's like, I wish I would have
Speaker 12: known then what I know now. You know, which is
Speaker 12: when I'm forgetting the guy's name at Universal, you know,
Speaker 12: cent to me, I'll make it for sixteen million, but
Speaker 12: I wouldn't do it a penny more. And I said,
Speaker 12: you know, I really need eighteen to do it. He said,
Speaker 12: I'm a only going to give you sixteen. That company
Speaker 12: will put up eight. All put up eight, and then
Speaker 12: you go make your movie. And I should have said,
Speaker 12: let's go. You know, I should have just said let's
Speaker 12: do it, because I should have learned the lesson. But
Speaker 12: Steven taught me on close encounters, which was very funny,
Speaker 12: which was we were getting close to going at photography
Speaker 12: and the guys at Columbia said to Steven, lose two
Speaker 12: days out of the schedule. You got to cut back
Speaker 12: by two days. And it's like, I don't know where
Speaker 12: are we.
Speaker 8: Going to find two days.
Speaker 12: And I went into a meeting with Steven's office with
Speaker 12: the first assistant director, Truck Myers is a great ad
Speaker 12: and I was his second. And we gave Stephen the
Speaker 12: board and we said, Steven, we don't know where to
Speaker 12: find two days. Here's the board. And Steven said, give
Speaker 12: me the board. And we handed the board to Steven
Speaker 12: and he took the board. He went and he shook it.
Speaker 12: Two little day strips, which is how you separated the
Speaker 12: days on a production board, fell out, and he picked
Speaker 12: him up and he handed him to chucking me and
Speaker 12: he said, here, those are your two days.
Speaker 3: Let's go.
Speaker 12: He knew that once they got into it and they
Speaker 12: were making the movie, they're not going to stop him.
Speaker 8: There's no way then.
Speaker 12: You know. The thing that I learned when I went
Speaker 12: to work at Sony as a creative and production executive
Speaker 12: was the filmmakers tell you eighteen, and the executives tell
Speaker 12: the corporation twenty, you know, and everybody's got a buffer
Speaker 12: built into this thing that you're doing so that they
Speaker 12: all look good. Well, it's just a that's a fucking game.
Speaker 12: The Grid would have been a really great movie, particularly
Speaker 12: because of the time. I love time travel and science
Speaker 12: fiction type stuff, and one of my favorite movies is
Speaker 12: Chris Mark Versus Laste, great movie. I remember producer named
Speaker 12: Tom Luddy who passed away a couple of years ago,
Speaker 12: who was one of the first director curators of the
Speaker 12: Pacific Film Mark.
Speaker 8: I can Berkley and when.
Speaker 12: I came out to cal and went to school, I
Speaker 12: used to go to the film markive all the time
Speaker 12: and watch movies and hang out in the projection booth
Speaker 12: with the projectionist and watch movies, or go down and
Speaker 12: see movies and our remember Us where I first saw
Speaker 12: Loge Italian. That just blew me away. It's like, it's
Speaker 12: a great movie. I just love the story. I just
Speaker 12: love the love story. You know, a guy who dreams,
Speaker 12: and he keeps dreaming. You know that he's on the
Speaker 12: jetty and he's witnessing something and he's not sure what
Speaker 12: it is, and he falls in love with this woman
Speaker 12: and who's this woman?
Speaker 8: And then they grab him.
Speaker 12: Because he's got this intense dream quality about him and
Speaker 12: they need somebody who's a dreamer that they can send
Speaker 12: to the past or to go figure out what's wrong. Anyway,
Speaker 12: I just thought it was a great idea. There were
Speaker 12: like the qualities about that that Halm Matthew borrowed to
Speaker 12: do the Grid. It was a love story and there's
Speaker 12: a woman in the present and a woman in the future,
Speaker 12: and you know they're trying to solve a problem. All
Speaker 12: the stuff just looked great. You know, the stuff that
Speaker 12: Ralph came up with, Sid came up with. It was
Speaker 12: just like the first time I saw the Star Wars
Speaker 12: design stuff, it.
Speaker 3: Was like WHOA One difference as well between the two
Speaker 3: films was Gary Kurtz. He mentioned that he was kind
Speaker 3: of a mentor to you. How was that not having
Speaker 3: him on the production of Jedi?
Speaker 8: It was different.
Speaker 12: Gary and George had a falling out, you know. I
Speaker 12: think it's well documented that Empire went millions of dollars
Speaker 12: over budget because of lots of different reasons. Georgie decided
Speaker 12: he didn't want Gary to be the producer on Jedi,
Speaker 12: so we hired Howard. And then Howard came in and
Speaker 12: it was fine. It was different, you know, very different guys,
Speaker 12: different producers, different backgrounds, you know, different sensibilities, you know,
Speaker 12: all those things. But from my point of view, it
Speaker 12: was fine. You know, we were working with Kirshner, was
Speaker 12: the best of the Star Wars directors Empires. I think
Speaker 12: Empire's best movie, you know, and I love Star Wars
Speaker 12: as well. And then you know, I think Jedi was
Speaker 12: a different movie than the first two for lots of
Speaker 12: different reasons, different story thematically, where the company was at
Speaker 12: that point in time, what the mandates were, all of
Speaker 12: those different things. What was happening in Georgie's life, both
Speaker 12: professionally and personally, and et cetera, et cetera. You know,
Speaker 12: Curse is a real director. The performances that the actors
Speaker 12: give are by far the best in Empire. I think,
Speaker 12: you know, these some great stuff, you know, I all
Speaker 12: these joke that Princess Leah's you know, whine in the
Speaker 12: snow cave. I'd rather kiss a wookie, And Hans says,
Speaker 12: I can arrange that, you know, just little things like that,
Speaker 12: you know, or I love you know, I forgin, I
Speaker 12: love you, I know Han soul goes, I know, you know,
Speaker 12: there's just stuff between the characters that was. You know,
Speaker 12: George is a great director, but I think Chris is
Speaker 12: really an actor's director. You have that sensibility. I love
Speaker 12: Kursh She's a great guy. I got to know him
Speaker 12: really well. He's a very funny guy.
Speaker 3: Did you interact with Richard Markuan that much?
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 12: I did, yes, And I think it was a tough
Speaker 12: show for Richard because we sort of took a director
Speaker 12: with not the experience that like a Kersh had and
Speaker 12: put him into George's world. So he always would look
Speaker 12: to George, say what do you think, what do you think?
Speaker 12: And so that was part of you know, I don't
Speaker 12: think he quite understand visual effects the way that George
Speaker 12: did at all. So that was also a challenge to
Speaker 12: come on board for all of that. And George was
Speaker 12: around quite a bit during the shooting with Richard, depending
Speaker 12: on what was going on, because I think he sort
Speaker 12: of needed that help and support. You know, most of
Speaker 12: the time work was happening because it's you know, you're
Speaker 12: in like, you know, how you want to come work
Speaker 12: playing George's playground, you know, I mean that's kind of
Speaker 12: what you're doing. From Star Wars to Empire was a
Speaker 12: little bit different, but from Empire to Jedi it was
Speaker 12: a lot different on top of that, because it's really
Speaker 12: it's George's world. It's George's movie in a sense.
Speaker 3: And but yeah, I did.
Speaker 12: I liked Richard, but I think it was a tough assignment,
Speaker 12: but certainly one that he was happy.
Speaker 8: To take on it.
Speaker 12: Who wouldn't be happy to take on And you want
Speaker 12: to be a millionaire come direct these movies. I mean
Speaker 12: that's kind of like a crass bottom line, but you know,
Speaker 12: it's the movie that you know, it is a business
Speaker 12: after all, and people think that way. You know, not
Speaker 12: only that, but it's also you want to, you know,
Speaker 12: come direct a sequel to the two most successful movies
Speaker 12: of all time or top five or whatever it is.
Speaker 12: It's like, how does the director say?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 12: They usually don't unless their last name is Spielberger says,
Speaker 12: or you know what I mean?
Speaker 8: And that wasn't Richard.
Speaker 12: I mean, I don't know how many features Richard had
Speaker 12: done before. You know, he did Iye of the Needle,
Speaker 12: which is a good movie, and I think the movie
Speaker 12: that attracted him to George.
Speaker 3: I know, with so many producers, so much of it
Speaker 3: is solving problems, and I was curious as far as
Speaker 3: some of the problems that you had to solve while
Speaker 3: you're making this, from.
Speaker 12: My point of view, is logistical through. That was the
Speaker 12: really first challenge for me was putting a unit together
Speaker 12: without being able to call on all of the key
Speaker 12: people out of Los Angeles and keep the quality of
Speaker 12: the work up to where it had to be to
Speaker 12: make a Star Wars movie.
Speaker 8: That was a big issue.
Speaker 12: The other issue was initially was finding the locations. Okay,
Speaker 12: we want to go shoot in the desert, where do
Speaker 12: you do that? In the United States, and you know,
Speaker 12: we looked all over Robert and Norman Reynolds. Norman is
Speaker 12: a great, wonderful production designer and a lovely guy, great guy.
Speaker 12: We took this reconnaissance for about two or three weeks
Speaker 12: where we went looking for locations for the desert and
Speaker 12: then for the woods. We went from La outside of
Speaker 12: Vegas to Saint George, Utah, all around Utah, into Colorado,
Speaker 12: into the Four Corners area of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah.
Speaker 12: You know, looking around those areas trying to find jobas
Speaker 12: you know, where's where are we going to build a barge?
Speaker 12: Nobody would ever build a barge can today and that
Speaker 12: then nobody had ever built a set as big as
Speaker 12: we built.
Speaker 8: Outside of Arizona.
Speaker 12: We built a sailboat that didn't sail in the middle
Speaker 12: of the dunes, you know what I mean. It's like
Speaker 12: I remember when we first talked to sailing consultants who
Speaker 12: we hired to work on the movie, and it's like
Speaker 12: they said, Okay, what do you want to do? He said,
Speaker 12: we want to build a sailboat in the desert, and
Speaker 12: they would look at us like, what, who builds a
Speaker 12: sailboat that doesn't sell? You're going to put in the
Speaker 12: desert where it's windy, and how are we going to
Speaker 12: keep it from moving when the sails are sailboats, that's
Speaker 12: how they were, and you put the sails up and
Speaker 12: the sails apply pressure to the boat to make it
Speaker 12: go through the water. So those are some of the challenges.
Speaker 12: Was building this huge, fucking built a boat down in
Speaker 12: the middle of the desert. So it was like being
Speaker 12: down there and getting the crew in and the time
Speaker 12: to do it all. And then the other difficult part
Speaker 12: about the Redwoods is all the Great Redwoods are either
Speaker 12: in national parks, in state parks, or on private property.
Speaker 12: And the national parks and state parks are happy to
Speaker 12: have you just stay on the path, don't walk off
Speaker 12: the path. We need to plant some explosions in the trees.
Speaker 12: It was like, what, no, we can't do that, nor
Speaker 12: would you expect them to. And then the private forest
Speaker 12: people who owned a lot of the original growth primary growth,
Speaker 12: never touched redwood. They didn't know why anybody near it
Speaker 12: because it was back during the Save the Redwoods time
Speaker 12: and they didn't want word out that they had stuff
Speaker 12: like this because they wanted to log it. They didn't
Speaker 12: want movie people coming in, left wing movie people coming
Speaker 12: in and letting people know where their old primary growth
Speaker 12: forests were. So the challenge was is how do you
Speaker 12: find somebody who's got it. Well, we did, you know,
Speaker 12: And what's interesting is that we found this. It was
Speaker 12: a curtain of primary growth redwood between Highway one oh
Speaker 12: one and this completely logged out old growth strand of redwoods.
Speaker 12: And they left the curtain up so that people on
Speaker 12: the highway couldn't see how they demolished all of the
Speaker 12: wood behind it. And that's why it was there, because
Speaker 12: they were saying, okay, we're going to From their business
Speaker 12: point of view, it was I think it was a
Speaker 12: private company. I wasn't a public company. It wasn't like
Speaker 12: Pacific Lumber. It was a small family group called Miller
Speaker 12: Realm and it was like Miller and then spelled the
Speaker 12: name backwards.
Speaker 8: That was the name of the group.
Speaker 12: And they owned these beautiful trees just south of the
Speaker 12: Oregon border and between Crescent City and the Oregon border.
Speaker 12: And our location supervisor for that redwood stuff a woman
Speaker 12: named Mickey Herman. She had scouted the entire coast of California.
Speaker 12: She knew every redwood grow from Santa Cruz to the
Speaker 12: Oregon border. She's seen it all in helicopters. And she
Speaker 12: hired a local guy up in Crescent City who turned out.
Speaker 8: To be a savior as far as finding this.
Speaker 12: And he found this piece of property and he knew
Speaker 12: the people, and they invited U sent And the first
Speaker 12: day that we went looking through the Redwood location, I
Speaker 12: remember walking through the redwoods, the thousand year old redwood groves,
Speaker 12: and walking down into the hill and stepping into fern
Speaker 12: force that were the ferns were up to my shoulder
Speaker 12: and seeking into the leaves and all of this gross
Speaker 12: underneath these huge you know, like near woods type redwoods,
Speaker 12: And I felt like I'd been transported back, you know,
Speaker 12: thousands of years to be in this farce. I mean,
Speaker 12: it was a religious experience to do that. The stuff
Speaker 12: had never been touched. And so they said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 12: you can shoot here. We want to put things on
Speaker 12: the trees. Okay, do whatever you want. We need to
Speaker 12: build a road, no problem.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 12: It was like we found the redwood planet, and we
Speaker 12: found these trees that we thought we'd never yet.
Speaker 8: It was just amazing.
Speaker 12: Those are some of the challenges. Okay, let's go find
Speaker 12: the locations. We got to do it here in the
Speaker 12: States because we're not going in Norway for the snow,
Speaker 12: or not glad of Tornesia for the desert, et cetera,
Speaker 12: et cetera. Anyway, we found everything, and we had to
Speaker 12: kind of launch those units and make it all work.
Speaker 8: And then we had to integrate a.
Speaker 12: UK crew with an American crew because the UK guys
Speaker 12: were only bringing their keys over, not their all their
Speaker 12: support people. Had to integrate art departments US Art Department,
Speaker 12: UK Art Department. And we also had a big second
Speaker 12: unit up in the Redwoods. We had to put a
Speaker 12: US second unit together to do all the second unit work,
Speaker 12: all the Ewok battle stuff without the principles, you know,
Speaker 12: with walker feet and trees falling over and tree gags
Speaker 12: and explosions and you know, stuff like that. And we
Speaker 12: also had the Ewoks, which was the largest congregation of
Speaker 12: little people since the Wizard of Oz, you know, nobody
Speaker 12: had ever made, you know, which was which is great fun,
Speaker 12: you know in a way. And they were all up
Speaker 12: in like you know, and we put them all together
Speaker 12: in a like two or three motels up in it's
Speaker 12: north of Smith River Brookings in Brookings, Oregon because it
Speaker 12: was close and you know, it was kind of remarkable.
Speaker 12: We also did the whole Blue Harvest thing, you know,
Speaker 12: because I knew that we couldn't make a Star Wars movie,
Speaker 12: you know, without somebody going, oh Star Wars shirt, there
Speaker 12: goes the It was ten dollars became fifty. So I
Speaker 12: said to George early on, I said, let's we need
Speaker 12: to come in like we're making another movie. And I thought,
Speaker 12: let's just pretend it's like making a horror movie. And
Speaker 12: I tried to come up with the most boring name
Speaker 12: that I could think of, and it was like Blue Harvest.
Speaker 12: And the whole idea behind the named Blue Harvest is
Speaker 12: it was supposed to uninspire you to ask, right. It
Speaker 12: wasn't like a horror movie like each you're young, you
Speaker 12: know what I mean. There was nothing active about it,
Speaker 12: nothing made that It was too like peak your curiosity
Speaker 12: when you think of like Dawn of the Dead, Day
Speaker 12: of the Living, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: There was nothing less.
Speaker 12: I said, no, no, no boring. It's like the Harvest.
Speaker 12: That boring and the fact that you know you're going
Speaker 12: to take that and combine it with it wasn't like
Speaker 12: red harvest or blood harvest. It was like blue harvest.
Speaker 8: It's like blue. It's like this passive color, you know
Speaker 8: what I mean.
Speaker 12: It was supposed to put you to sleep, and so
Speaker 12: that's where blue Harvest came from. And the tagline was
Speaker 12: supposed to be ridiculous, horror beyond imagination, Like who wrote
Speaker 12: that line? It's like so cliched, you know what I mean.
Speaker 12: It was just supposed to be dumb. And so that's
Speaker 12: why that's where all of that came from, you know,
Speaker 12: And it kind of worked for a while, you know,
Speaker 12: until people started talking about Harrison and Cowrie and Mark
Speaker 12: and R two and C three po and snow walkers
Speaker 12: and speeders in Daha and we did it in Yngan,
Speaker 12: we did it, so it kind of worked. The other
Speaker 12: thing we were trying to do is that as Star
Speaker 12: Wars it become so popular that there was a huge
Speaker 12: following of fans who were going through the trash cans
Speaker 12: at Isle m and looking for stuff all the time.
Speaker 12: We just wanted to make sure that nothing happened to
Speaker 12: attract any attention to that. So that's where Blulble Blue
Speaker 12: Harvest was. So yeah, it worked for a while.
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of titles, what do you remember as far
Speaker 3: as the title changing from revenge to return and then.
Speaker 8: It was revenge.
Speaker 12: And I said to George one day, and maybe other
Speaker 12: people said the same thing, and I said to him,
Speaker 12: I don't know if a Jedi would seek revenge. It's
Speaker 12: not part of the Jedi philosophy. And he went to
Speaker 12: my George imitation, Yeah, that's interesting. Now, only think about that.
Speaker 12: You know, within like a week or so, it changes
Speaker 12: the return of the Jedi. Revenge is a better word
Speaker 12: for a movie, but it's not what the movie is about.
Speaker 12: It's really about the return of the Jedi. So it
Speaker 12: changed from I still have Revenge of the Jedi t
Speaker 12: shirts and sweatshirts and you know, but it changed from
Speaker 12: revenge to return. I guess other people must upset it too,
Speaker 12: because I remember reading something about it a while ago.
Speaker 12: But then there's a lot of not invented here stuff
Speaker 12: that happens in Hollywood. When you have a good idea,
Speaker 12: you sometimes find out years later that other people take
Speaker 12: credit for it.
Speaker 3: He said, you're doing a lot with the second unit.
Speaker 3: Was that George directing that?
Speaker 12: No, it was David Tomlin directed that, and David was
Speaker 12: the first assistant director on Empire and then on Jedi,
Speaker 12: and he was a good second unit director because when
Speaker 12: we were shooting the second unit up in the woods,
Speaker 12: the first unit was back at doing Blues screen work,
Speaker 12: and because it was with the Principles, George wanted to
Speaker 12: be with them, so.
Speaker 8: He gave the second unit to David. Were with that
Speaker 8: point was.
Speaker 12: Very well versed in the Star Wars universe, having worked
Speaker 12: on Empire and all of Jedi with. Richard had also
Speaker 12: worked with some of the greatest directors in the world
Speaker 12: as well in his career, and he was sort of
Speaker 12: a really good choice and had directed second unit before.
Speaker 12: Because the second unit stuff was mostly action stuff with
Speaker 12: stunt men and battle stuff and special effects, and because
Speaker 12: he had a good grasp of visual effects at that point,
Speaker 12: he stayed on to do that, and we were essentially
Speaker 12: shooting storyboard sequences. Just all that stuff had all been
Speaker 12: storyboarded the head of time, so we knew which pieces
Speaker 12: we were doing and when and what they looked like,
Speaker 12: and everything was sort of built to accommodate all that.
Speaker 12: David stayed on to do the second unit when we
Speaker 12: were up in the woods, and then sometimes we had
Speaker 12: like a third unit, and I directed a few shots,
Speaker 12: you know, like I did in Norway Little Things, Robots
Speaker 12: moving right to left or whole Second Night Little Things.
Speaker 3: I've always been so impressive as far as the way
Speaker 3: that the miniatures match with the rest of that, especially
Speaker 3: like the logs rolling in the atsdes and all that.
Speaker 3: It looks so good.
Speaker 12: The challenge was not so much matching the miniatures to
Speaker 12: the real, but matching the real to the miniatures, because
Speaker 12: most of the stuff that you see is mostly models
Speaker 12: miniature stuff, either matted into shots or complete shots with
Speaker 12: just the miniatures in them.
Speaker 8: And you know, most of the time.
Speaker 12: We did have a full sized chicken walker up there,
Speaker 12: but it didn't really move it just you know, wasn't
Speaker 12: really practical to move it around. You can kind of
Speaker 12: see it, but it was built and designed and created
Speaker 12: a book. The great detail that the guys in the
Speaker 12: model shop and the stop motion guys did with Phil
Speaker 12: Tippett and John Berg and that whole stop motion group
Speaker 12: that did a lot of the snow walker and the
Speaker 12: little chicken walker type stuff. I'm sure if that was
Speaker 12: the name that they finalizes.
Speaker 8: Driver.
Speaker 3: How'd you even move that thing around?
Speaker 8: Or a crane?
Speaker 3: You know, then find a spot or it.
Speaker 8: You know, it came in pieces.
Speaker 12: They bring the pieces down and then get some crane
Speaker 12: down there or something small to kind of build it
Speaker 12: up again. That put scaffolding around it and just construct it.
Speaker 12: It didn't move too much when it was there. I
Speaker 12: think the viral quill quite a few years prety limited
Speaker 12: and maybe what it could do, and it didn't always
Speaker 12: worked the way you wanted it to.
Speaker 8: It's like big stuff. Those are tough pieces to move around.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a.
Speaker 3: Pretty arduous shoot. But did you have fun on it?
Speaker 12: I don't know if I ever had fun shooting one
Speaker 12: of the movies because they're just so difficult and so
Speaker 12: complex and there are so many pieces and so many
Speaker 12: elements that you need to keep in mind all the time,
Speaker 12: but the way it's all being assembled and put together.
Speaker 12: Ansley enjoyed working with the people that I worked with.
Speaker 12: And I loved working with George because he's so brilliant
Speaker 12: as a filmmaker, and loved working with a lot of
Speaker 12: the English crew. I just love working with Norman Reynolds
Speaker 12: and working with Robert Watts because they were so professional
Speaker 12: and so much fun to make a movie with. I
Speaker 12: love my team of people who I put together, you know,
Speaker 12: I was you know, back in those days. It was
Speaker 12: always very important to me because of how I grew
Speaker 12: up in movies, to put good people together, to like
Speaker 12: leave your personality at the door. People you know, and
Speaker 12: you were like working on the movie together, and it's
Speaker 12: not about ego. It's about you know, doing what's right
Speaker 12: for the movie and making the good decisions, and you
Speaker 12: try to leave the ego, you know, is to put
Speaker 12: a group considerate human beings together, because I'd worked on
Speaker 12: a bunch of movies where people were not considering and
Speaker 12: there were too many assholes around, and it just you know,
Speaker 12: you know, making movies is hard enough without having to
Speaker 12: be surrounded by people like that. So it was always
Speaker 12: very important for me to put a When people used
Speaker 12: to say this about the movies that I produced, it
Speaker 12: was just so nice. That was important to me to
Speaker 12: hire key people would be good people. Life's too short,
Speaker 12: you know, making movies is hard enough to make a
Speaker 12: movie without having to work dickheads, you know, and so
Speaker 12: you try to avoid that kind of stuff whenever you can.
Speaker 12: So there were lots of people who enjoy their work,
Speaker 12: people who care about the work. You know, people are
Speaker 12: mean and shitty and they don't care and they're just cheap.
Speaker 12: When somebody's faced with an opportunity of making a decision
Speaker 12: of I can do this or I can do that.
Speaker 12: If I do that, i'm helping them. And if I
Speaker 12: do this this fuck them. If you're not nice to them,
Speaker 12: they go fuck them. I asked for this or I
Speaker 12: wanted to do that, and they said no, it's fuck
Speaker 12: you go hang yourself. The old expression used to be,
Speaker 12: if they're going to hang themselves, don't stand on the
Speaker 12: rope and you try. I never enjoyed that, you know,
Speaker 12: so that if I went to somebody and I needed
Speaker 12: a favor, I wanted to do something, they were say sure, okay, great, Because.
Speaker 8: You try to create a team. You know, you're putting
Speaker 8: a team of people.
Speaker 1: Together and you make a movie.
Speaker 8: You're like making this little army.
Speaker 12: It's moving around from place to place and you know,
Speaker 12: going here and the vaving there and setting up shop
Speaker 12: and coming in with the trucks and the people and
Speaker 12: all the blah blah blah, and you know, and you
Speaker 12: know it's like it's you know, no room for assholes.
Speaker 12: I mean, that's the way I feel and I don't
Speaker 12: like working with them, and I don't want them around
Speaker 12: the movies that I worked on. It's just, you know,
Speaker 12: it's kind of something I learned from working with George
Speaker 12: and Carry is that you know that's not.
Speaker 8: The way you do it.
Speaker 12: You know there's still life. As I got older, the
Speaker 12: other stuff you learned is that it's a movie.
Speaker 8: Be life is life.
Speaker 12: Somebody has a family member who's dying, you sort of say, yeah,
Speaker 12: go take care of your family member for a few days,
Speaker 12: as opposed to say, well, we got the shot tomorrow morning.
Speaker 12: It's like, give me a break, because I've seen too
Speaker 12: many unhappy people who in divorced families because they had
Speaker 12: this attitude of that the show must go on. Come on, guys,
Speaker 12: get real. It's not bring surgery. It's movie making. We'll
Speaker 12: figure out a way to do it. I don't want
Speaker 12: people getting hurt. You don't want people dying. They don't
Speaker 12: want to make stupid mistakes.
Speaker 8: It's not worth it.
Speaker 12: There's another way to figure it out. But I guess
Speaker 12: there are other people who don't agree with that philosophy.
Speaker 12: Directors should throw a walkie talkies. Although I didn't work
Speaker 12: with too many, I work with life's too short. It's
Speaker 12: like it's hard enough, let's try and enjoy it while
Speaker 12: we're doing it.
Speaker 3: All right, We were back and we were talking about
Speaker 3: return to the Jedi, and yeah, that's funny, Jamie. I
Speaker 3: had in my notes the dark times post Jedi, because
Speaker 3: we went for a lot of years with nothing. As
Speaker 3: Star Wars fans. It was, you know, you had those
Speaker 3: two Ewok movies, you had the Droids cartoon, you had
Speaker 3: the Ewoks cartoon, but that was about it. There wasn't
Speaker 3: a whole lot going on. So yeah, you had like
Speaker 3: Banther tracks and then eventually Star Wars and Cider as
Speaker 3: a magazine. But there it was a really dry, dry
Speaker 3: period for us.
Speaker 1: The Christmas eighty four, it must have been. I got
Speaker 1: the Ewok village and a few of the Ewoks figures,
Speaker 1: and I got the Rebel Troot Transport as well. I
Speaker 1: remember my sister got a Commodore sixty four and I
Speaker 1: was like playing with my Ewox and I'm looking across
Speaker 1: at this Commodore sixty four and I was ignoring my
Speaker 1: Ewox and I was going, I want one of those,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's kind of when I gave up
Speaker 1: Stars and my mom gave away all my stuff to
Speaker 1: this really annoying kid down the road. I'll never forgive
Speaker 1: or him for that. And then I remember going to
Speaker 1: another toy shop, a toy shop that I used to
Speaker 1: visit to buy Stars figures, and I remember seeing those here.
Speaker 1: There were the tri logo packs. They had like the
Speaker 1: Spanish and the Battalion and the English as well, like
Speaker 1: your Power of the Force era, and it had like
Speaker 1: the Barada figure and the Luke Stormtrooper figure, and some
Speaker 1: of the more Ewoks and the Imperial Dignitary. I think
Speaker 1: you barely see him in Return of Jedi, but I
Speaker 1: remember going, oh, I want one of those, and my
Speaker 1: mum said, you've grown out of that. And then there
Speaker 1: was a period in that same toy shop I remember
Speaker 1: passing where everything was being sold off for like fifty
Speaker 1: p and I still regret to this day, and I
Speaker 1: still got this image of just like all of the
Speaker 1: toys just stacked up from all the different eras, Star Wars, Empire, Jedi,
Speaker 1: oh my god, all of them, you know. And there
Speaker 1: was this period between eighty five and maybe ninety one
Speaker 1: where there was just nothing. I think you've mentioned about
Speaker 1: Stars Insider, but The precursor to that was the Lucasfilm
Speaker 1: Fan Club magazine. Remember seeing that one day. The thing
Speaker 1: that really sparked it again for me was when I
Speaker 1: found Steve sand sweets from concept to screen to collectible.
Speaker 1: There was this gold and black book with Vader on
Speaker 1: and it. We opened it up, my buddy and I
Speaker 1: we were like seventeen at the time or something like that,
Speaker 1: and it was all the figures and we're like, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that one existed. I didn't, you know. And
Speaker 1: we got we were started to go around you know
Speaker 1: what we call charity shops, you'd say thrift stores, I guess,
Speaker 1: and boot sales, table cells, just buying this stuff up.
Speaker 1: And that's when I kind of really got back into
Speaker 1: it all again. But I remember that period of like nothing,
Speaker 1: and I still hankeered for more stars. I wanted like
Speaker 1: an animated show with the further adventures of Luke and
Speaker 1: Ann and Leia. I wanted more movies. I wanted more
Speaker 1: video games, you know, And I guess there were some
Speaker 1: video games, you know, tie Fire and X Wing and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff on PC later on, But those
Speaker 1: times they did seem like the dark times. There wasn't
Speaker 1: much about and if you were still into Star Wars,
Speaker 1: it was like, really, haven't you moved on Turtles or
Speaker 1: Mask or something else. I don't know a Mask, Yeah,
Speaker 1: those not our masters in the universe.
Speaker 5: No, but you're right, it was disappointing when you finally
Speaker 5: found out that Return was the last movie. So I
Speaker 5: think I brought up on when I was on a
Speaker 5: Dune episode with Mike, like, that's how I got into
Speaker 5: Dune was because it was supposed to be the next
Speaker 5: Star Wars. That's why they were That's what the magazines
Speaker 5: at the time where everything was promoting it for and
Speaker 5: there was toys, and I'm like, oh, this is the
Speaker 5: next June. You know. I didn't see it in the theaters,
Speaker 5: but I rented it and dubbed it on like ripped
Speaker 5: it to Betamax tape, and I'd watch it over and
Speaker 5: over again to like it because I thought it was
Speaker 5: going to be the next Star Wars. And of course
Speaker 5: years later I learned, you know, of course it was
Speaker 5: never going to be another Star Wars. It was so
Speaker 5: disappointing not having another Star Wars. And then yeah, I
Speaker 5: just kind of I don't remember the exact time I
Speaker 5: fell out of the toys. It was probably I think
Speaker 5: I got into Gi Joe after Star Wars because I
Speaker 5: was still really young. I was ten when the movie
Speaker 5: came out, so I was still playing with all that
Speaker 5: shit and Masters of the Universe. But it was it
Speaker 5: was sad, and then it wasn't until the early nineties,
Speaker 5: or like I said, when I got into film schools,
Speaker 5: when I rediscovered Star Wars again.
Speaker 3: And you can see it from a different eye, you know,
Speaker 3: because I had roommates.
Speaker 5: We're all smoking weed at the time, and you're watching
Speaker 5: it now in a different mind frame and rediscovering it
Speaker 5: and being like, oh shit, my friend's a laser dis player,
Speaker 5: my roommate, and you're like, dude, this is amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that Definitive Collection laser it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I remember, Yeah, my friend had it and
Speaker 3: he called it the Defective Collection because there was like
Speaker 3: missing pieces and the extras were really scant, and just
Speaker 3: like oh yeah, Like we were excited. We were thinking, like, oh,
Speaker 3: the Holiday Special is going to be on here, because
Speaker 3: that was such an important part of our lives growing up.
Speaker 1: And do you know, I wasn't aware of the Holiday
Speaker 1: Special until I started to collect style stuff again, Like
Speaker 1: in the early nineties. I remember being a toy fair
Speaker 1: just down the road here and this guy had a
Speaker 1: VHS obviously boot leg, So what is this? And it
Speaker 1: said this fills in the gap between stars and the
Speaker 1: Impire stress back.
Speaker 3: I was like, what, there's more like?
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe, you know. And I've got home with
Speaker 1: that same buddy of mine that we discovered since weeks
Speaker 1: book with and we put it.
Speaker 3: In and we were just a few poor guy, Oh
Speaker 3: my god, what.
Speaker 1: Is happening us? Have we just entered another dimension? I'd know,
Speaker 1: because it never got screened in the UK as far
Speaker 1: as I know, so it was completely off our radar,
Speaker 1: never mentioned anywhere in any of the books I had.
Speaker 1: Have you seen the documentary about the Holiday special?
Speaker 3: Oh? A Disturbance in the Forest? Yeah, fantastic. Oh I
Speaker 3: need to watch that.
Speaker 5: I saw it live when it was on as a kid,
Speaker 5: and for years I thought I made it up or something,
Speaker 5: because I remember we all gathered around and watched it,
Speaker 5: and I had a vague memory of it, and I
Speaker 5: didn't think it was real until like the Internet and
Speaker 5: later on, when I just like that was a real
Speaker 5: thing that we sat around there and watched on TV
Speaker 5: one in my.
Speaker 3: Head that cartoon with Boba Fete was like a half
Speaker 3: an hour long. It was probably maybe like five ten
Speaker 3: minutes or something like that, but it might have the
Speaker 3: best thing. Yeah, and I loved him writing the dragon
Speaker 3: and he had that cool little spear thing and just
Speaker 3: the voice characterization, like that's right, friend, you know, I
Speaker 3: loved that. I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, he was so badass. It was so ripe
Speaker 1: to be put in an animated world style Wars. And
Speaker 1: I just feel like, you know, there was that fan
Speaker 1: a few years ago that did that kind of X
Speaker 1: wing of tie fight, a kind of battle or something
Speaker 1: in a kind of an anime style. He was just
Speaker 1: a fan just with saying, Lucasfilm, give me some word,
Speaker 1: and that's some of the best stuff I've seen. And
Speaker 1: I would have loved that as a kid, you know,
Speaker 1: just imagine that like a weekly series of The Further
Speaker 1: Adventures of Droid's was a riot. But you know, it
Speaker 1: didn't kind of scratch that itch.
Speaker 3: I'm sure had I been younger, that Clone Wars cartoon
Speaker 3: would have been right up my street. Or like there
Speaker 3: was another one too, not bad Batch, but there was
Speaker 3: another cartoon that was supposed to be really good Rebels Rebels,
Speaker 3: thank you. And I think that also would explain a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff that's going on in the Star Wars
Speaker 3: universe now that I'm not aware of, because even as
Speaker 3: a kid like I would hear these things and like
Speaker 3: they would start to build the expanded universe. Like I remember,
Speaker 3: I was huge into the Marvel comic books, and I
Speaker 3: really liked the comic book that came out after Jedi
Speaker 3: where it showed Bulba Fet coming out of the Sarlac
Speaker 3: pit because it was protected by his armor, and then
Speaker 3: he gets picked up from buy some jahwas and then eventually,
Speaker 3: like I think, he is on top of a sand
Speaker 3: crawler and it crashes over the side of a mountain,
Speaker 3: so he ends up dying again anyway, but you hear
Speaker 3: more about the Mandalorians and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: and I was like, Wow, this is really cool, and
Speaker 3: then you see the way that they handled it and
Speaker 3: book at Boba Fet where it's just like, Oi, I
Speaker 3: got rescued out of that thing. I want to be
Speaker 3: friends with everybody, you know, Oh, you need a job,
Speaker 3: you know, and it's just like, what the fuck is
Speaker 3: this show? This is awful?
Speaker 1: Did you know the only thing I liked about that
Speaker 1: show was that we were back there. We were back
Speaker 1: in Jab's palace, and I could look at it again
Speaker 1: for an angle. That was the only aspect to like today.
Speaker 5: He's like Han out of a carbon night man, you
Speaker 5: just change ye.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Every episode had them going in that back to tank
Speaker 3: for you know, half the episode and flashing back to
Speaker 3: the sand people, and I'm just like, all these poor
Speaker 3: sand people they're gonna you know, they got massacred by Anakin.
Speaker 3: They're probably still talking about it today. I did actually
Speaker 3: like that show. Unfortunately, I liked the two Mandalorian episodes
Speaker 3: that they snuck into Book and Bubba fut Phenomenal.
Speaker 1: They were great, Yeah, these are good.
Speaker 5: Phenomenal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're really good. Third season of The Mandalorian where
Speaker 3: it was just like the whole Katie Sacoff thing, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm getting ready to be done with the show.
Speaker 8: Guys.
Speaker 3: This was originally so great. As soon as they brought
Speaker 3: Luke in, I was like, oh, please don't bring in Luke.
Speaker 3: I don't need this to be tied to the Skywalker
Speaker 3: family anymore.
Speaker 1: This is why I loved Andors so much, though, because
Speaker 1: it didn't need to be Star Wars ultimately, and it's
Speaker 1: really well written. The sets are amazing, the performances are amazing.
Speaker 1: It's got a great soundtrack, it's got nods to films
Speaker 1: that we've all discovered after we fell in love with
Speaker 1: Star Wars.
Speaker 3: I thought that was great.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've said to friends of mine who
Speaker 1: goes stars, never seen one. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: why they're are friends, but I said to them, this
Speaker 1: is the series for you because you can watch this
Speaker 1: and you don't really have to know anything about Jedis
Speaker 1: or jah Wars or anything. You can just go in
Speaker 1: and see it for what it is, which is a
Speaker 1: great bit of TV. I think those other series they
Speaker 1: just tried so hard to kind of connect dots in
Speaker 1: the same way that the prequels did.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, look, there's a big arrow here to
Speaker 1: say that was po was built by Anakin's that what.
Speaker 5: I was so disappointed by the Obi Wan show because
Speaker 5: of the layer thing, because for years they were talking
Speaker 5: about there was gonna be an obi Wan movie, and
Speaker 5: I was so excited because I thought you McGregor was
Speaker 5: perfect casting and him getting older to play obi Wan.
Speaker 3: I was so hyped.
Speaker 5: But then that TV show, it just it puts Princess
Speaker 5: lay and it's like, why we don't need that, Why
Speaker 5: can't we just have that Seventh Samurai Adventure?
Speaker 1: And Luke was in there as well, wasn't it at
Speaker 1: the Homestead? I think the little Luke and I do
Speaker 1: you know? The brother about that show for me was
Speaker 1: when they have that fight. It wasn't the fight itself,
Speaker 1: it was that moment where he's half an Akin half
Speaker 1: Vader and the voice keeps changing. I was like, that
Speaker 1: should have been in the prequels. That is what we
Speaker 1: all wanted to see.
Speaker 5: Well, that's the problem with the prequels.
Speaker 3: For me.
Speaker 5: I like the prequels, except I don't like the Phantom Menace.
Speaker 5: I think the Phantom Menace him being a kid throughout
Speaker 5: the whole Phantom Menace really rushes the character development in
Speaker 5: the two other movies. That's the one I'm not a
Speaker 5: big fan of. I like Darth Maul and I love
Speaker 5: the pod Race. There sequences and Phantom Menace I like.
Speaker 5: But I liked Episode two and three way more. But
Speaker 5: the things I liked about the prequels was at least
Speaker 5: compared to the later sequels trilogy at least everything was different.
Speaker 5: In the prequels, we were seeing things we hadn't seen before,
Speaker 5: spacecraft and villains and set pieces that were original, versus
Speaker 5: the new trilogy we got, which was, well, we had
Speaker 5: to now go back to the original Star Wars and
Speaker 5: show you all the cool things you liked in that again,
Speaker 5: versus we got to see new machinery and we've never
Speaker 5: seen a padre, so we've never seen a lot of
Speaker 5: that stuff before.
Speaker 3: That's why I liked the prequels.
Speaker 5: But Episode one bummed me out because I thought it wasted,
Speaker 5: and again, as a kid too much, I always kind
Speaker 5: of wish it was like Good Fellas, where we had
Speaker 5: him as a kid for twenty thirty minutes and then
Speaker 5: we got to see him gradually grow up. But that
Speaker 5: would make it a completely different movie.
Speaker 3: The second movie feels like such a waste to me.
Speaker 3: That feels Attack of the Clones. It feels like a
Speaker 3: detective movie that I just don't care about.
Speaker 1: Where it's you didn't get it, it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'll be ones trying to figure out who's
Speaker 3: building these clones, who's ordering these clones. There's this whole
Speaker 3: thing about you know, Darth Sidious and then Darth's who
Speaker 3: was that Chrisopher Lee played to count count do you?
Speaker 3: But he also has a Darth name. He might be
Speaker 3: Darth Tyrannus or something. I don't know, Count dou Killa
Speaker 3: the rush to make him Darth Vader in the last
Speaker 3: five minutes, I was like, no, no, no, Like the
Speaker 3: whole third movie should be him as Darth Vader. The
Speaker 3: second movie should be The Fall from Grace, and it
Speaker 3: just like all the rules of like, oh, Jedis can't
Speaker 3: get married. I'm like, what what is happening here? Like
Speaker 3: why is this the conflict? And appreciate your opinion, Steven,
Speaker 3: I just have nothing good to say about those prequels.
Speaker 5: Whatsoever, Dude, It's all good Chris for years that I
Speaker 5: get a lot of anger toward me for defending the people,
Speaker 5: ate me for defending them, But it was just like
Speaker 5: I just liked that they were different and I had
Speaker 5: a great time.
Speaker 3: Except Phantom Menace.
Speaker 5: I'm not the biggest fan. I do love the duels
Speaker 5: in Phantom Menace. There were so many things in Phantom Menace.
Speaker 5: I like it, but it just can't I can't handle
Speaker 5: him as a kid being a fighter pilot and doing
Speaker 5: all that. It feels like he should have been a
Speaker 5: teenager at that point of the movie doing that, but
Speaker 5: him being still that young. I'm not gonna buy his
Speaker 5: relationship with Finalie Portman in this second?
Speaker 1: Are you an Angel? Imagine Return of Jedi didn't exist, right,
Speaker 1: and all of those series, the prequel let's say the prequels,
Speaker 1: then the series, and then the sequels. Imagine they're jumping
Speaker 1: off point was the Empire strikes back? Because if you
Speaker 1: think about it, a lot of those shows and those
Speaker 1: prequels and those sequels, esthetically and tone wise, they are
Speaker 1: more Return of the Jedi than they are Empire or
Speaker 1: Star Wars. I think, you know, as much as I
Speaker 1: love some of those environments I've talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: Jabber's Palace, altern of Jedi, I think that you know,
Speaker 1: we really needed to get away from all of that
Speaker 1: stuff and that asthetic. I'd love it if it went
Speaker 1: down that path that the Empire was on and Luke
Speaker 1: had really turned to the dark side and a few
Speaker 1: people have got killed off, and imagine what we'd been
Speaker 1: having now, maybe we wouldn't have had to wait all
Speaker 1: these years to have and or which you know, deals
Speaker 1: with some pretty grown up topics, and for this Jeni,
Speaker 1: it's for our generation, right that show. It's not for
Speaker 1: anyone else. It's not for the kids who liked Rebels
Speaker 1: or even the prequel guys potentially, But yeah, I just
Speaker 1: I just thought, esthetically, they do you match your to
Speaker 1: in the Jedi more than they match anything else.
Speaker 3: It is so fitting for twenty twenty five, just this
Speaker 3: whole idea of this push towards fascism and stuff. And
Speaker 3: it's so funny because of course I had to think
Speaker 3: about Trump while I was watching this, and thinking, he
Speaker 3: probably wants to be the Emperor, but at best he's
Speaker 3: job of the Hut, this whole thing of who's going
Speaker 3: to pay me the most kind of thing and bargaining
Speaker 3: with Boosh and all this stuff. You get to the
Speaker 3: Emperor's scenes and you're just like, no, this guy knows
Speaker 3: what he's doing. He's got everything taken care of. His
Speaker 3: fatal flaw is that he doesn't think that Vader will
Speaker 3: ever turn, and he thinks that those people down on
Speaker 3: the surface of the planet of the fourth Moon of
Speaker 3: Endoor are going to succeed. I do like there's a
Speaker 3: deleted scene where the Emperor orders them to fire on
Speaker 3: the moon and basically wipe out everybody, like take out
Speaker 3: that that whole thing, including all of the imperial people
Speaker 3: that are down there, and you have this whole thing
Speaker 3: of Gerad like having conflicting feelings and stuff, and poor
Speaker 3: jar Gerard is just completely elominated from the film, other
Speaker 3: than like one scene where it's just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I need more people. I can't build this that fast,
Speaker 3: and it's like, okay, yeah, you're on every project that
Speaker 3: I've ever been out on my life during my normal
Speaker 3: nine to five. Not enough time, not enough resources, but
Speaker 3: yet you want perfection, Okay. Great.
Speaker 1: I interviewed the editor returns It, who was Markwan's editor,
Speaker 1: a guy called Sean Barley lives in West London, and
Speaker 1: I went to his house for the morning and we
Speaker 1: chatted about it and he was talking about that early
Speaker 1: cut he did that was quite plodding. I think the
Speaker 1: film was like two hours forty minutes or something like that,
Speaker 1: but it had all of those scenes in. It had
Speaker 1: those scenes with the guys gunning on the falcon dressed
Speaker 1: in their kind of you know, camouflage, fatigues and stuff,
Speaker 1: and more of them going down on to end or
Speaker 1: you see the guys all sitting behind them. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of shots back there, and you know, he said,
Speaker 1: I actually really liked that version, he said, because it
Speaker 1: made more sense. He then didn't say much more about it.
Speaker 1: I really wanted to kind of prone to see if
Speaker 1: he had like a VHS not cough of it somewhere,
Speaker 1: but we did show me it was the splice that
Speaker 1: he cut the film with, and went up to these
Speaker 1: little office upstairs and there it was the little splice
Speaker 1: and he said, oh, I've got probably half a dozen
Speaker 1: of Revenge of the Jedi T shirts knocking around somewhere.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we should we go in the loft now?
Speaker 3: And god, yeah, they changed that title so late. I
Speaker 3: mean there was a movie theater I used to go
Speaker 3: to around here that still had a Revenge of the
Speaker 3: Jedi poster in the marquee, you know, in the lobby,
Speaker 3: and I was just like, oh, yeah, like that would
Speaker 3: have been something. And yeah, just this whole like Jedi
Speaker 3: don't take revenge thing. I was like, Okay, I guess
Speaker 3: I can see that. But at the same time, return
Speaker 3: is such a weak title.
Speaker 5: No, you're right, but it fits the movie because it's
Speaker 5: such a nice movie.
Speaker 1: It was going to be return originally as well.
Speaker 5: It doesn't deserve the title Revenge of the Jedi because
Speaker 5: it makes it sound too you know. It's just it's
Speaker 5: a nice movie. So it asked to be return and
Speaker 5: we got Revenge for the third Star Wars, which is.
Speaker 1: A rougher movie. And I love how many people take
Speaker 1: responsibility for that to as well. Like I've spoken to
Speaker 1: Jim Bloom. I haven't heard your interview with Jim, but
Speaker 1: he says, you know, he remembers talking about it, and
Speaker 1: how Kauzandin says that he came up with it, and
Speaker 1: George said it was his idea, you know. And you know,
Speaker 1: I work on big TV shows and big sports events.
Speaker 1: I can't remember who made a decision in the thick
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm sure things I've claimed that I've done when
Speaker 1: not my idea. Originally, it was just a little spark
Speaker 1: of an idea that somebody else gave me and I
Speaker 1: ran with it. I remember that there was a cinema
Speaker 1: near us that had that poster up for a little
Speaker 1: while as well, and I remember when I went to
Speaker 1: see it, I was like, I thought it was this
Speaker 1: other movie, And I can imagine those people who were
Speaker 1: at that kind of sweet spot age for Empire going
Speaker 1: into Jedi and seeing the word revenge and thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to be one hell of a thing.
Speaker 1: This is going to be for us. I'm now fifteen
Speaker 1: or sixteen or whatever they would have been then, and
Speaker 1: then they got this fluffy little jolly all wrapped up
Speaker 1: in a bundle movie.
Speaker 3: It also, Jedi, isn't that it's I can't remember the
Speaker 3: term for this, but it's both a plural and a
Speaker 3: singular or noun. So it's like, is it more than
Speaker 3: one Jedi? Is it the Jedi? Yes, yes, exactly, like
Speaker 3: they've been asked out before. And if we don't know,
Speaker 3: like we know that Yoda's around, we knew that Ben
Speaker 3: was around, Like how many other Jedi are there? So
Speaker 3: it feels very weird when it's like, no, no, Luke's
Speaker 3: the last one. I'm like, I'm sure there are other
Speaker 3: Jedi that are out there someplace, but and I was
Speaker 3: really hoping, like no, no, this is like at the
Speaker 3: final hour, all of these Jedi are going to show
Speaker 3: up and be like, we're here to help you in
Speaker 3: your fight. We're here to help take down the Death Star,
Speaker 3: Invader and the Emperor once and for all. And I
Speaker 3: got to say, as a kid man, when they unmasked Vader,
Speaker 3: it was one of the most disappointing things in my
Speaker 3: entire life.
Speaker 1: Is that you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, after seeing the back of his head in the
Speaker 3: second movie, I was like, Oh my god, this guy
Speaker 3: is gonna be so fucked up. And then it's yeah, Grandpa,
Speaker 3: what are you doing here Sebastian Shaw having those big,
Speaker 3: bushy eyebrows.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, because that's the important thing.
Speaker 1: They removed the eyebrows, because their eyebroads should have been gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that unveiling. I think for a lot of people, including
Speaker 1: David Prows, it was a disappointment. You did want to
Speaker 1: see somebody a bit more messed up. But I think
Speaker 1: for years I was a bit scared of that scene
Speaker 1: in Empire where you saw the back of his head.
Speaker 1: And what I do, or what I did i'd probably
Speaker 1: still do to a certain extent, is if I'm scared
Speaker 1: of something, I just sort of turn it into something else.
Speaker 1: And I remember as a kid thinking it looked like
Speaker 1: raspberry ripple ice cream that you can buy here, and
Speaker 1: I done. If that was the thing in the States,
Speaker 1: it was like vanilla ice cream with like this ripple
Speaker 1: thread of raspberry and you get a little tasted of
Speaker 1: a little hit of raspberry, and that's what it looked like.
Speaker 1: It looked like a scoop of that on Vader's head.
Speaker 1: So for years I was I was scared about seeing
Speaker 1: what was on the other side. And when it happened,
Speaker 1: my cousin was next to me and we were sort
Speaker 1: of like getting a little bit closer and just thinking,
Speaker 1: what's going to happen here? And then we both oh,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. It's just an old.
Speaker 8: And I guess.
Speaker 3: We did see the Emperor in the second movie as well,
Speaker 3: and he had the It was cool. It was like
Speaker 3: chimpin monkey eyes. Yeah yeah, and then you could see
Speaker 3: him in person. You're just like, oh, okay, back and
Speaker 3: change it.
Speaker 1: Yet Luke had just taken the mask off, and imagine
Speaker 1: if you'd just taken the mask off and we just
Speaker 1: saw Luke's face just kind of go or maybe he
Speaker 1: looked just like Luke, you know, like the dream sequence
Speaker 1: in Empire maybe is like an old version of Luke. God,
Speaker 1: there's so much potential with that sequence yeah, it feels
Speaker 1: like a lost opportunity.
Speaker 3: And then the poor guy just dies, and the death
Speaker 3: of Yoda and the death of Darth Vader they do
Speaker 3: nothing for me. There's no feeling. I'm just like, Okay,
Speaker 3: poor cross eyed Yoda just faded away. You know, he's
Speaker 3: one of my favorite characters. In the second movie. They
Speaker 3: give him such short shrift in this film. Then he
Speaker 3: just disappears, and then yeah, like we build up to
Speaker 3: Darth Vader and then you go, oh, he's just a
Speaker 3: harmless old man. He's basically the Wizard from the Wizard
Speaker 3: of Oz. You're just like, he's the guy who's pulling
Speaker 3: the levers and everything, and you're just like, how is
Speaker 3: this guy such a threat for the last two films,
Speaker 3: And now you see what a weak old man he was.
Speaker 5: You weren't off completely when you were talking about like
Speaker 5: the return of the Jedi being Jedi as I have
Speaker 5: a podcast Best Movies Never Made, and we had JW. Wrinsler,
Speaker 5: one of the nicest human beings I've ever met, so kind,
Speaker 5: and he was telling us that the original version of Jedi,
Speaker 5: during the ending when Luke has wanted with the Emperor,
Speaker 5: that the ghosts of Obi Wan and Yoda come back
Speaker 5: and help. They're like help defending him against the lightning
Speaker 5: and everything, you know, and then the final, the very.
Speaker 3: Ending, is that they become human again.
Speaker 5: So in a way, that title, the way you were
Speaker 5: thinking about it, there was a version of it where
Speaker 5: it was Returns of the Jedi. In a way when
Speaker 5: you were saying that reminded me of have you seen tweet?
Speaker 5: This could have been going on for years, but I'd
Speaker 5: just been seeing it recently NonStop, someone saying I just
Speaker 5: realized after seventeen years of watching Star Wars. The title
Speaker 5: episode Return of the Jedi refers to Darth Vader's.
Speaker 1: Return as Anakin and not Luke.
Speaker 5: I don't think that's where Lucas intended, but I find
Speaker 5: it interesting because in a way it could make sense.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until later years that that ever occurred to me,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it was something online that
Speaker 1: sparked that, but yeah, there's that sort of duality. Luke's
Speaker 1: decided he's not going to go to the dark Side.
Speaker 1: He throws his legs over away, the Jedi returned. He's
Speaker 1: now become a Jedi. This is him reaching that kind
Speaker 1: of peak and simultaneously, there's you know, Anakin saving his
Speaker 1: son and getting rid of the baddest guy in the
Speaker 1: universe and chucking him down the vent. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: could be read like that, but I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: talked about that at the time. Maybe for twenty five
Speaker 1: thirty years.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all the information you guys gave me, I didn't
Speaker 5: see that once, but I think that it is fascinating.
Speaker 5: I saw that tweet recently in the last few weeks
Speaker 5: getting ready for this show. It's just been popping up
Speaker 5: everywhere all of a sudden.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, weird.
Speaker 5: And by the way, I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 5: did Darth getting split in half going down one of
Speaker 5: those things like the Emperor?
Speaker 3: How do they always survive that?
Speaker 8: Somehow?
Speaker 1: Palpatine returned.
Speaker 3: Well, even Luke's lightsaber apparently survived that as well, because
Speaker 3: that little orange creature and was like, oh, here's Luke's lightsaber,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, this is the blue one. This isn't
Speaker 3: the green one oak?
Speaker 1: And what was it? Like, that's a story for another time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that will mean any of the sequels. I do
Speaker 3: like the person who gives the ted talk quote unquote
Speaker 3: about how all the Star Wars movies have the wrong titles.
Speaker 1: What happens?
Speaker 9: In episode one we meet Anakin Skywalker The Rise of Skywalker.
Speaker 9: Years later, we find out that Palpatine, leader of the Sith,
Speaker 9: have ordered an army to destroy the Jedi. Revenge of
Speaker 9: the Sith. In episode three, Order sixty six happens and
Speaker 9: the Clones Attack Attack of the Clones. In episode four,
Speaker 9: ovi Wan teaches Luke that it is time for the
Speaker 9: Jedi to return. Return of the Jedi. In episode five,
Speaker 9: Yoda teaches Luke how to use the Force. The Force awakens.
Speaker 9: Episode six, both Yoda and Anak and die, which makes
Speaker 9: Luke the last Jedi. After the Empire has destroyed, a
Speaker 9: new empire comes. The Empire strikes back. Come on guys.
Speaker 9: An episode eight, Luke train's ray and then sacrifices himself
Speaker 9: to give the Resistance a new hope. Finally, in episode nine,
Speaker 9: Palpatine returns from the dead, making him the Phantom Menace.
Speaker 9: Thank you for coming to my ted talk lucasfilm hire
Speaker 9: me please.
Speaker 3: Oh I never thought of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, some of them did that with the Last Apes trilogy.
Speaker 5: Also that all the titles are for those Because I'm
Speaker 5: completely confused.
Speaker 3: What movie is which now Jesus, Yeah, well, I'm confused
Speaker 3: by the sequel trilogy because I'm just like which one's
Speaker 3: force awakens, which one's last. I just know that I
Speaker 3: don't like any of those. I'm not like some sort
Speaker 3: of misogynists where I'm just like, I can't handle Daisy
Speaker 3: Ridley in this role. I just felt like, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: I like her a lot too. I really wish that
Speaker 3: she had joined forces with Kren like that moment that
Speaker 3: I think we all talked about. Had she gone with him,
Speaker 3: it would have set the whole trilogy in a way
Speaker 3: better place and shown that conflict because instead, a good
Speaker 3: character starts good and ends good and as good all
Speaker 3: the way through, as opposed to somebody who actually has
Speaker 3: a moment of doubt and then redeems themselves complication. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: and Ben could have been that, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1: But you see those posts online. You know, how come
Speaker 1: this happens and then that happens and then this didn't happen.
Speaker 1: And the answer is always bad writing. It's never about
Speaker 1: some expositional thing or character thing. It's just somebody didn't
Speaker 1: think about it at the time, and they just forgot
Speaker 1: what they had. In some cases, I'm able to sort
Speaker 1: of compartmentalize those films as sequels, as maybe somebody has
Speaker 1: a go at rebooting Star Wars and this is the result.
Speaker 1: I don't have to hold them as some sort of canon.
Speaker 1: I'm not part of a religion, as a lot of
Speaker 1: people seem to think it is the case. But I
Speaker 1: experienced those films, particularly that first one, The Force Awakens,
Speaker 1: through my daughters, who were quite young at the time.
Speaker 1: How old is that film now? Yeah, just remember them
Speaker 1: kind of you know, skipping down the high street here
Speaker 1: where I live and wanting to go to the Disney
Speaker 1: store and buy an Action figure. And I thought that
Speaker 1: was great, you know, I thought fantastic, this is their
Speaker 1: Star Wars. And I lived the first time I saw it.
Speaker 1: I was with my cynical forty year old mates. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're talking, oh, ten years ago. I'm fifteen next year,
Speaker 1: so blummey and I remember, it's all coming out, just
Speaker 1: going a lot to process, you know, we're just trying
Speaker 1: to find a way to like it. And then that
Speaker 1: second one, I didn't go on with a torn of
Speaker 1: third one, I kind of just gave up on. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I was really pleased that my kids enjoyed it, and again,
Speaker 1: like you see another generation of people into it. And
Speaker 1: you know, I went to Star Wars celebration here in
Speaker 1: London a couple of years ago. I did a panel
Speaker 1: about and OR about the visual effects and OR for
Speaker 1: ILM and what was fantastic about that was just seeing
Speaker 1: all the different generations of people and all the different
Speaker 1: cost plays, the effort the people put in, and the
Speaker 1: love they have for these tiny little moments in the films.
Speaker 1: Like one guy, one of the best costumes I saw.
Speaker 1: He was Obi Wan, but as a ghost, so he
Speaker 1: had this blue neck cut and kind of stitched all
Speaker 1: the way around him and he's appeared to glow as
Speaker 1: he was walking along and that's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like two minutes in one of the movies. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that about Star Wars that it's got. There's
Speaker 1: so much of it now that so many people can
Speaker 1: find what they love within it. And I've never been
Speaker 1: one of those people who wants to defend or argue,
Speaker 1: you know, a particular point in the movie. Just you know,
Speaker 1: if you love it, great, if you don't, just go
Speaker 1: and watch something else.
Speaker 5: I hear you. I like a lot of movies people
Speaker 5: can't understand why I like. But you know, that's why
Speaker 5: I'll never argue with people. Like when The acle I
Speaker 5: came out, everyone's ripping it apart.
Speaker 3: I just get my opinions to myself.
Speaker 5: You know, it's like I want to go on there
Speaker 5: and rip things apart. But I do wish they would
Speaker 5: have went with the Duel of Fates draft instead of
Speaker 5: Rise of Skywalk. I just thought that was a more
Speaker 5: fitting finale to that trilogy. There was just this great
Speaker 5: I don't know. It was like Gray with this dual
Speaker 5: lightsaber fighting Kylo Ren with his crossguard lightsaber. It just
Speaker 5: seemed like such a visual in my head for the
Speaker 5: poster and just I don't know, man, instead of you know,
Speaker 5: Kylo Ren turned into a good guy and then.
Speaker 3: Just I don't know. I found that movie to be
Speaker 3: kind of a mess.
Speaker 5: Maybe years from now, when I returned to it, I'll
Speaker 5: appreciate it, because that happens with me with certain If
Speaker 5: I don't like something now years later, I could go
Speaker 5: and appreciate it. But them getting rid of that draft,
Speaker 5: I just always felt like, I don't know why they did.
Speaker 3: I thought it was really cool, but because they fired
Speaker 3: the director who wrote it.
Speaker 5: Now they had to get rid of I thought a
Speaker 5: really good story, and then instead we got the warps
Speaker 5: chased and the movie is really cool. But that's all
Speaker 5: I remember. I just watched it once and I was
Speaker 5: just kind of like bummed out by it. And then
Speaker 5: especially years later getting my hands on that draft and
Speaker 5: then I read it and I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: This is great.
Speaker 1: I have to get hold of it. You just brought
Speaker 1: up a good point. Then they all watching you dislike them.
Speaker 1: In years later you fall in love with the me,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, I guess later on it would
Speaker 1: be a good example of that. But I think that's
Speaker 1: what's unique about these three original Star Wars films is
Speaker 1: I've loved them in every phase of my life, you know,
Speaker 1: since I first saw them, through my teens and my
Speaker 1: twenties and my thirds. Now I'm in my late forties,
Speaker 1: and I still love those movies, and still I don't
Speaker 1: I probably don't watch them once a year anymore like
Speaker 1: I used to a few times a year. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've seen Star Wars for good three or four
Speaker 1: years now. So the screening next week this week's going.
Speaker 3: To be very good.
Speaker 1: But I've always found something to like about them through
Speaker 1: all the phases of my life. And that's pretty unique.
Speaker 1: And I think it is really bloody hard to make
Speaker 1: these movies and make a good one of these movies.
Speaker 1: You know, all the tools have been there in the
Speaker 1: past and it has not been achieved. And it just
Speaker 1: goes to show what a miracle and Or is, and
Speaker 1: what a miracle Empi Strikes Back is and the original
Speaker 1: Star Wars is. You know, you think of the confluence
Speaker 1: of all those things that had to come together, all
Speaker 1: those artists, the timing, at the politic call landscape at
Speaker 1: the time, the need to want to have something that
Speaker 1: was fresh and new and exciting and different. You know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing that it happened. And hey, we happened
Speaker 1: to be on Earth at the time they were released.
Speaker 1: Isn't that pretty amazing We were here for Star Wars.
Speaker 1: David Bowie, the Rolling Stokes. You know, it's kind of crazy,
Speaker 1: really Indiana general.
Speaker 5: It's you know, just so much cool stuff growing up
Speaker 5: with and experiencing.
Speaker 3: For the first time.
Speaker 1: You know. One of my shout out to Waz He
Speaker 1: is a hypnotherapist right used to be an editor and
Speaker 1: he recently got a message from somebody to ask if
Speaker 1: you can hypnotize me to make me forget Star Wars
Speaker 1: because I want to see it again for the first time.
Speaker 1: He said, give it a go. I won't pass any
Speaker 1: judgment on that, but I do love that idea of
Speaker 1: just being able to have your memory wipe to re
Speaker 1: experience Star Wars all over again. But then you'd have
Speaker 1: to wipe so much else. Wouldn't you all the things
Speaker 1: that reference it over the years and lean into it.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be great to watch it again for the
Speaker 1: first time.
Speaker 3: When we talked about a New Hope, one of my
Speaker 3: co hosts for that was Rob Saint Mary, who really
Speaker 3: hadn't watched Star Wars and so it was very new
Speaker 3: for him, and he just knew so much of it
Speaker 3: from the culture, like you were saying, like all of
Speaker 3: the references, like I'm surprised that we have gone for
Speaker 3: almost two hours. We haven't done like every other group
Speaker 3: of men talking about Return of the Jedi and just
Speaker 3: drooled about Princess Leigh and the slave girl outfit. I'm
Speaker 3: very proud of us because like that comes back all
Speaker 3: the time. I mean, even that friends with their fetish
Speaker 3: for that thing, and I'm just like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Yai.
Speaker 3: But like, yeah, that's a major part of the culture
Speaker 3: as well. Like now you see when you go to
Speaker 3: like the Star Wars conventions and stuff, how many women
Speaker 3: are dressed up like princess Ly and her slave garb.
Speaker 3: You know, it's pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I think that's another example of what we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier where it doesn't fit the character. You think
Speaker 1: about Empire and she's feisty and she's finding back, Okay,
Speaker 1: she's falling in love with and Solo and you know
Speaker 1: he's been taken off and I love you, i know,
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff. But to see her just
Speaker 1: sat there in front of Jabba just not saying I'm
Speaker 1: doing anything. You just think, where is the fire? Where's
Speaker 1: the fire gone? What has happened in the interim here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was a sexual awakening for a lot
Speaker 1: of young men, But it's the thing that feels the
Speaker 1: most out of place to me, I think in the
Speaker 1: whole of that trilogy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because she was supposed to be doing something else,
Speaker 5: and that makes sense now she's not really doing much there,
Speaker 5: and also like no one's like paying it you know,
Speaker 5: like Luke doesn't even pay her no mind.
Speaker 3: It was like, yo, what do you now?
Speaker 1: He's just the stoic and doing his thing. And Hans says,
Speaker 1: where's Ley and she goes, I'm here, and that's it.
Speaker 1: That's all we get.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Obviously she does strangle him in the end, and that
Speaker 1: is a great moment that she gets through that, and
Speaker 1: carry would talk about that in interviews with you know,
Speaker 1: she hated or she loved Jabba, but she hated the
Speaker 1: what did she call it, the mung in the corner
Speaker 1: of his mouth, and she got to strangle him in
Speaker 1: the end was great. But yeah, it's a difficult topic,
Speaker 1: isn't it, because so much has changed since then. And
Speaker 1: I can kind of see what they're harkening back to
Speaker 1: the whole kind of Arabian kind of look and the
Speaker 1: Flash Gordon thing, and I mean Nilo Rhodashumiri designed that costume,
Speaker 1: and I think George initially said, no way, we can't
Speaker 1: do that, and he kept sort of pushing George all
Speaker 1: the time with these ideas, and eventually he kind of
Speaker 1: went for it, and then I think he he almost
Speaker 1: regrets it, you know, And I think it was Kenna
Speaker 1: wasn't it said they were never going to make an
Speaker 1: action figure of her like that. Oh, I ain't know that.
Speaker 1: And two years later as Bro did one. But it's
Speaker 1: the bit that, you know, I've got three daughters. If
Speaker 1: I'm watching that movie, they said to me, I think
Speaker 1: it was about five years ago. So it's your birthday today.
Speaker 1: What movie do you want to watch? So, oh, let's
Speaker 1: watch with Tanage. I was probably the most family friendly
Speaker 1: of the three, you know. And we're watching and that
Speaker 1: bit came on, and I'm looking at my three girls,
Speaker 1: you know who at the time, two of them are
Speaker 1: developing into young women, and I did feel a bit shitty.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a fan edit that needs to be done.
Speaker 3: They covered up with Daryl Hannah's but in Splash. I'm
Speaker 3: surprised they haven't done the same thing for Return of
Speaker 3: the jub Oh. Yeah, digitally made her hair longer and
Speaker 3: it looks awful. Whoever did the special effects for it
Speaker 3: did not know what they were doing. It looks like
Speaker 3: she's wearing a pair of panties made out of fur.
Speaker 1: In defense of the effects artists, they probably did know
Speaker 1: what they were doing. They just didn't have the time
Speaker 1: All the money to do.
Speaker 3: All right, guys, let's take another break in. We're going
Speaker 3: to play a preview for next week's show. Right after
Speaker 3: these brief messages, after all.
Speaker 5: These years, I thought I knew you, but it turned
Speaker 5: out to be a stranger.
Speaker 7: We're fighting for our lives, and my family must survive.
Speaker 13: Yes, the most shocking experience of their lives. Doubly shocking
Speaker 13: because it can happen to you.
Speaker 3: Still, right my trailer, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2: Cola cops?
Speaker 1: They're busy with the new highway patrol?
Speaker 13: All right, The lawless are on the loose, making it
Speaker 13: necessary for law abiding citizens to make their own law.
Speaker 7: I could going fire a shadow over their heads. Maybe
Speaker 7: that'll upset them. Right, there are no civilians. We are
Speaker 7: all at war.
Speaker 3: Give me, I'm good with the I'll stay here and
Speaker 3: I'll kill them.
Speaker 13: This is civilization's jungle after the jackals of society have
Speaker 13: ruthlessly ravaged it, ending the world of decency.
Speaker 8: I killed two men.
Speaker 12: I tried to kill them too, but I missed.
Speaker 5: I just wasn't a good enough shot.
Speaker 3: That's right. We'll be back next week when they look
Speaker 3: at panic in the year zero. Until then, I want
Speaker 3: to thank my co hosts, Stephen and Jamie. So, Jamie,
Speaker 3: what's the latest with you, sir?
Speaker 1: Still doing the podcast? The film you mention this podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm just in the process of editing episode one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight, and funnily enough, it's an episode that
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to throw out there at the moment
Speaker 1: because I'm so busy. It's an interview from ten years
Speaker 1: ago with Anthony Forrest, who played not only the deleted
Speaker 1: Fixer who was one of Luke's friends at Toshi Station
Speaker 1: from the original film. We also played the move along
Speaker 1: Stormtrooper and there's some great stories about him traveling out
Speaker 1: to Tunisia and getting drunk on champagne with Mark Hamill
Speaker 1: on the way back and sticking stickers all over a
Speaker 1: sleeping Alec Guinness I think he talks about at one point.
Speaker 1: So yeah, still doing the podcast and working on this.
Speaker 1: Joe Alves, Jaws production designer, the camera's production designed lots
Speaker 1: of stories from Joe we've been compiling over the last
Speaker 1: few years. We're out to Martha's Vineyard next week to
Speaker 1: shoot more of that. Thanks to the gofund me that
Speaker 1: I started. If anybody's listening and wants to help us.
Speaker 1: Then the go fund me is still active. If you
Speaker 1: look for not your Average Joe or Jamie Benning and
Speaker 1: go fund me, you'll find it. I just keep chipping
Speaker 1: away at things that I love to do, so yeah,
Speaker 1: you can find me as film We mentories pretty much
Speaker 1: everywhere online. Also, my return of the Jedi Unauthorized Timeline book,
Speaker 1: which you mentioned earlier on is still available. Myself and
Speaker 1: Justin Berger released that for the fortieth anniversary. So it
Speaker 1: chronicles the film, as it says, from seventy six to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, because you know, that's the first time
Speaker 1: Jabba the Het has talked about and we go through
Speaker 1: the whole process sort of listing out all of the
Speaker 1: dates and everything that happened on those dates. And this
Speaker 1: is information you can find in Rinseler's book and in
Speaker 1: some of the other books as well. But you know,
Speaker 1: shown in this format is quite interesting that you'll see like, oh,
Speaker 1: there was an Ewok costume test on the day that
Speaker 1: the Sandstorm scene was shot, and you know, you see
Speaker 1: the film in a kind of different light, and then
Speaker 1: all the way through production, post production, all the way
Speaker 1: up to its anniversary. So that's available on Amazon pretty
Speaker 1: much everywhere you can get Amazon. Like, here's an examplele
Speaker 1: we recreated a load of call sheets as well. Some
Speaker 1: of the pages are just like call sheets, listing out
Speaker 1: who was on set that day, what's the date today?
Speaker 1: On eighth of June. Right, let's have a looked. So
Speaker 1: here we are in June. Is the and entry for
Speaker 1: the eighth. There's one for the ninth. Oh, there we go,
Speaker 1: there's one for the seventh. The Hollywood Reporter announces Jedi
Speaker 1: inned seventy million in twelve days. That was June seventh,
Speaker 1: ninet eighty three. If we go back to eighty two June,
Speaker 1: they've probably won during production here, so the ninth of June,
Speaker 1: the Jedi Creature Shop schedule on those days had Tony
Speaker 1: and Randy skin rancor whatever that means. And then like
Speaker 1: I put a couple of bits of my interviews in there.
Speaker 1: I've got diaries of the guys that worked on Jabba
Speaker 1: that have never been seen before. They're not like deep diaries,
Speaker 1: but you know, Dave Barkley says like here is so
Speaker 1: there's these entriesome day. That's a shot that mattered the
Speaker 1: swords of Dave and the Jabba there, but it says
Speaker 1: first day Elstria rather at eight am. Creature Finger extends
Speaker 1: in Stuart's lab and check out Jabber Toby and I
Speaker 1: get inside. It's okay, and we meet with Robert Watson,
Speaker 1: Doug and you know, just little bits that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have known about before because everyone's got a story, right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's like you can get the paperback version
Speaker 1: for like twenty bucks on Amazon.
Speaker 3: Fantastic and Steven, how about yourself?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do a podcast called Best Movies Never Made?
Speaker 5: Right now, I guess when this episode comes out, nearing
Speaker 5: towards the end of an epic going through all the
Speaker 5: unmade Superman movies. We just did the Mario Puzo draft,
Speaker 5: and then we did the original version of Superman three,
Speaker 5: and then we're gonna be doing Lives and Reborn and I.
Speaker 3: Wrote a huge article about that years ago, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it took me forever to track down some of those scripts.
Speaker 5: Holy shit, Yeah, dude, it's massive because I do all
Speaker 5: the outlines and oh my god. Yeah, well you thought
Speaker 5: that Weur Batman episode was the longest. I think this
Speaker 5: is gonna beat it. So you can check that out.
Speaker 5: And I want to see more shark content. I know
Speaker 5: Jaws fiftieth documentary is coming out. I got a bunch
Speaker 5: Shutter Shark Exploitation, and I'm excited for Jamie's documentary on
Speaker 5: Joe Alves because there's so many things we couldn't really
Speaker 5: get into Joe olves a lot in the documentary because
Speaker 5: we have to touch on Jaws, where we have hundreds
Speaker 5: of other shark movies to get to. But one of
Speaker 5: my favorite things about Joe Alves is when you watch
Speaker 5: the opening of Jaws, when they're running by those fences
Speaker 5: in the beginning, like, that's all Joe production design.
Speaker 3: He puts those fences up. You now, the Dude's freaking amazing.
Speaker 5: So I can't wait to see Jamie's documentary because I
Speaker 5: just love Joe Alves and there's so much I don't
Speaker 5: think people appreciate or even know about the guy. But yeah,
Speaker 5: if you want to see a cool shark documentary about
Speaker 5: shark movies, check out Shark's Ploitation on Shutter and just
Speaker 5: the podcast in that. At the moment, I'm working on
Speaker 5: something new, but I don't think I can announce it yet.
Speaker 5: Hopefully going to be finishing this summer, but yeah, you
Speaker 5: can follow the podcast on Twitter and Blue Sky Now
Speaker 5: and Instagram and all that to see concept art from
Speaker 5: all the movies we talk about.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you again guys for being on the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to hear
Speaker 3: more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some
Speaker 3: of the other shows that I work on. They are
Speaker 3: all available at Wadingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our
Speaker 3: Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit
Speaker 3: patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get
Speaker 3: helps Projection Booth take over the galaxy
Speaker 9: To ants to an