One thing remains, Vader.

You must confront Vader.

Then, only then, a Jedi will you be.

So Paul, this is just another example of just Jedi, just being very fuzzy about what it actually takes to be a Jedi. Does everybody have to face their dad to be a Jedi? Is that the tru... What is it?

But we've been promised the return of the Jedi. And I thought we got that in the opening Bond adventure sequence of this film. But I guess not. It hasn't happened yet. It's very mysterious.

No. The Jedi don't even return in this movie at all, in fact, because there's still just one of them.

I disagree.

Well, there's two. Technically, there's two, I guess. Yeah. Paul, I have a question for you about Return Of The Jedi.

Oh, please.

Our first movie of 1983, and the second movie to start with, right? Come on, the best, right?

Yes.

Well, here's the thing. Now, this movie has been out for how many years? Like 40 years now? What was that? Yeah, whatever. I'm not good at math. Here's the thing. Is there anything about this movie that you and I can say in the next two hours that is in any way going to be new, that like some nerd our age hasn't already said on Twitter, on a podcast, on a documentary? I mean, like, I literally have friends who are featured in this documentary called The People vs. George Lucas. Like, this is our generation's heir, you know? What can you and I possibly say about it?

Javi, all I have to say is there's only one way to find out. I'm Paul Alvarado-Dykstra.

And I'm Javier Grillo-Marxuach, and this is Multiplex Overthruster, Summer of 83.

Yay, and welcome to the inaugural Summer of 83 episode with the towering auspiciousness that is the culmination of the Star Wars trilogy, the most anticipated movie of my childhood. I'm curious if it was also for yours. Oh, yeah. Return of the Jedi. And let me just say right off the bat, this is not Star Wars Episode 6, Return of the Jedi.

It's Return of the Jedi.

That is what we saw in 83. That's what it is. Yes, there's the opening crawl, whatever, blah, blah, but...

And for this podcast specifically, we looked at a... I don't know how we found it, but a version of the movie that was not the special edition, right? It just sort of mysteriously appeared in all of our computers. We don't know how.

I mean, the powers of the Force are mysterious.

We willed the special edition back into its original state.

And thanks to many Bothans, we were able to experience as close a recreation of the theatrical release of Return Of The Jedi, because that is what we're discussing today. There's no special edition. There's no other whatever. It is the 83 version of Return Of The Jedi that we are discussing today.

And many Bothans died to bring us this edition. Who knew that Mon Mothma was going to become like the most important figure in the Star Wars universe like 40 years later?

That's a lot.

Exactly.

But then again, who knew that parliamentary procedure would become the linchpin of all Star Wars?

Yes. Yes. Where to begin? There's so many things to talk about.

I have an opening point.

Okay, yes.

I have an opening point to make before we go even into the plot summary.

Okay, good. Because I'm ready.

I don't know. Maybe we should go into the... Okay.

Okay.

So Paul, over the years, a lot of people in our generation have this weird hatred of this film. There was a magazine I used to read when I was in my late 20s called Sci-Fi Universe. And they literally published an essay, and it was written by Dana Gould and Dan Weber. And it was literally 50 reasons why we hate Return Of The Jedi. And I got to tell you, as the years have gone by, this movie has aged like a fine wine. And I have nothing bad to say about this movie. I may have some nitpicks or something, but it's only gotten more fun. And it turns out it's actually the Star Wars I revisit most nowadays.

I think it is arguably the most fun Star Wars movie. And to those detractors, I just think that their heads are full of Bantha Poodoo. This is the delightful film. I also think it is the most uniquely structured. Of all the Star Wars films. And that's something I'm very excited to geek out with you about. In terms of the film's plot. But first, it's 1983. This is the third Star Wars movie. It is really the fourth Star Wars anything? Because there's only been the holiday special. In addition to the holiday special. Nothing else produced yet. There would then be, in the long dark ages, the Ewok TV specials, there'd be cartoons, droids and whatever.

And then a long interregnum. And then we got the Zan books in the 90s. So literally, this was a time when Star Wars coming out was like a global spanning event. It was like the biggest thing ever.

Yes. And this was the biggest thing in pop culture and certainly biggest film franchise. And it was the culmination. Now, those of us who were reading our Star Logs were captivated by whispers of a possible far future additional trilogy that Lucas might be thinking of doing. But that was only in the wildest hopes and dreams of Geekery.

And it's really interesting, because George, I just call him George, Uncle George was interviewed so many times, and he had so many different versions of the how many trilogies I want to do. There was the, I just want to do the first trilogy, then I was like, I want to do the other trilogy, but it's when they're older, and I don't think everybody will be old enough to make it. I mean, I know that there's a lot of discussion about what's canon, what isn't, and I don't even care who thought what, when, because I worked on Lost, and I know what it's like to make something that's longitudinal and serialized and all that shit. So, I know how much you make up and what ideas you start with and all that, but he really did change his mind a lot about what his plan was, didn't he? Or am I mistakenly remembering my Star Wars?

No, not at all. And there were interviews where then he denied saying what he had said. Oh, George. Yeah, his mind is a labyrinth of many mysteries.

But I mean, I think he had a big idea. I think he wrote the Jedi Bendu script that was 500 pages long, and apparently not written in the Galactic Basic.

In the Journal of the Wills, yes.

The Wills, yeah. Are the Wills the midi-chlorians? There's a whole thing about how the notes, so the Wills were just some sort of race of scribes. I've never been able to fully process that. Were there some race of scribes? What the fuck were the Wills, man?

I believe they have yet to be fully processed. And we can only hope one day that those-

One day, I think next year. I think next year, it's going to be Disney's going to have an eight-episode mini-series called Trials of the Wills, or Triumph of the Wills, perhaps, and it'll be some sort of ongoing strip mining of the Star Wars universe that we've seen. But anyway-

Depends on the winds of our world, whether those revelations-

Depends on our current administration, if it's going to be called Trials of the Wills or Triumph of the Wills.

We'll have to see which revelations are extolled. Was that a phone ringing?

What was that? I don't know.

That was the hunger doorbell bringing us back to momentum in the plot, you guys.

Oh, nice, okay.

Is that a new thing?

Yes.

Wow, producer Brad for the Summer of 83, new things are happening in the podcast. I love it.

This is terribly exciting. Okay, so the plot, I can do no other, no better to set this up than the opening crawl with which we are generously furnished. Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. Little does Luke know that the Galactic Empire, all caps, has secretly begun construction on a new armored space station even more powerful than the first dreaded Death Star. When completed, this ultimate weapon will... No, actually, I don't believe... No? I don't think so.

I thought it was all caps in the...

Oh, okay. You tricked me up. When completed, this ultimate weapon will spell certain doom for the small band of rebels struggling to restore freedom in the galaxy. And that's all you kind of need to know. There is, after the diversions into Darkness and Hoth and Cloud City, it is kind of back in a certain way to, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But it's actually... Let's go again, which is, we're getting a second Death Star. And we open with a little teaser, a quick little taste of basically project management.

Okay. I can recite that scene by memory. Lord Vader, you honor us with your presence. You may dispense with the pleasantries, commander. I've come to put you back on schedule. I assure you, my men are working as fast as I can. Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them. Anyway.

We're gonna do the small podcast as a radio play.

I love that scene. And I love how when Darth Vader says, perhaps you can explain it to the emperor yourself when he arrives, the emperor's coming here. Like the foreshadowing of the dread of the emperor. And you know, like Darth Vader is such a looming figure of evil. And then like literally Moff Jergerod is like, the emperor's coming. Like he's talking back to Vader. He's like, Lord Vader, you know, my men are working as fast as they can.

You know?

But when it's the emperor, he's like...

He sells that really well. Because the only thing that all these imperial fascists are, that scares them more than Vader, is the emperor who has only been a distant abstraction and a hologram, not a material present.

Yeah. Especially in the summer of 83, because all we know of the emperor was like this weird face that had these weird eyes that people say they were a woman's eyes or a chimp's eyes or somebody's eyes.

It was a monkey face. It was like a chimp thing and then dubbed and yeah. Yeah. So it was this very weird voice.

The voice of actor Clive Revel, I believe.

Exactly. But I love this sequence, this short little teaser sequence that accomplishes so many things so efficiently. First, we get this glorious vision echoing, bookending the opening of Star Wars. But instead of tattooing, we're over Endor, we have a Star Destroyer coming overhead, and then the shuttle and two TIE fighters come out of it. Again, this is ILM showing off at this point. It is ILM at the peak of its miniature, analog, practical effects powers. This film is just, ugh.

I would argue that this film is a pinnacle.

You are so excited.

What? Yes?

You're so excited. We forgot to ring the real bell. I rang the doorbell. You guys just jump right in with your excitement.

Sweet baby, space Jesus, how could we forget to ring the bell?

Ding, ding.

Okay, well, but here's the thing. Here's the thing.

No, no, no, wait, wait, wait.

I would argue the movie has not begun yet. That's why I haven't rung the bell yet.

No, or had, no. Okay. But I would argue that of the entire analog era, this is the single greatest accomplishment ever. These people were at the height of their powers of choreographing space battles. Of course, they're shot 76B, which is the greatest shot in the history of cinema, and certainly the most busiest one. It's amazing because it literally is the end of an era. But the thing is, when they started using CGI, they weren't as good at doing this stuff on CGI, so the space battle here is so... We'll get to it.

Yes.

Okay, how cool is the Lambda shuttle? With the wings.

Spectacular. That's another great thing about this film is we're seeing new design language. The design language of Star Wars expands in beautiful ways. And as you say, ILM that started basically as a laboratory, to experiment on how to figure out and do these things, they are now Jedi Masters. They now know how to do everything.

And in less than 10 years, in less than 10 years, they have literally become like, like they've literally, it's amazing.

It's so great. It's so great. So while we see things that echo sequences and shots, like a ship entering a hangar, the hangar bay on the new Death Star, it is at a level and a spectacle beyond what we have seen before. And it's really exciting.

I want to go on record as saying Muff Jergerod is the only human face in the scene.

Yes.

It's all Stormtroopers. Well, there may be a couple of Imperial Shemps hanging out, but it's at least Stormtroopers and like Darth Vader, who's just their helmet, you know?

Yeah.

So that actor, you know?

Yeah. And who also gets, again, one of the great onscreen entrances of him, you know, descending the gangplank of the shuttle with the smoke and the score and everything. It's just wonderful reveal and entrance. And then this walk and talk that is...

I have a blasphemy.

I have a blasphemy on that. Are you ready for my first blasphemy?

Go for it.

I kind of feel like they didn't stick the landing with that shot. I actually feel like the shot is way too far down. So you get sort of like Vader's legs kind of coming down and then his crotch. And this is kind of, I actually think that they should have shot that from overhead. That's just me. That's just me. But it is a great entrance, but I just feel like the shot isn't quite right. But that's just me. I suck. I'm sorry. I'm a bad man.

No, I, again, I'm fascinated by how-

By my stupidity.

By how wrong your wrongness can sometimes be.

Two of my favorite lines in this movie. I literally love this scene so much. And two of my favorite lines in this movie are in it. One of them is when Moffatir Gerad says, I assure you, you know, my men will finish on time. And Vader goes, the Emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation. A line I use today anytime somebody tells me something I don't believe.

Yeah, it's so good. It also I feel like it should be part of management training for project management.

Especially the button of the scene, Paul, which is the Emperor is not as forgiving as I am.

Yeah.

Holy shit. Delicious.

And what a setup. Like just what a tease for the rest of the film. And again, we were only five minutes into the film. And it's just a little teaser. Then we got to Tatooine, which we have not seen since the first film. Again, a lot of this film is about full circle. And 3PO and R2 are back on Tatooine. Probably the last place 3PO wants to be approaching the magnificent Jabba's Palace. We don't know that yet, but then they ring the doorbell from hell. And basically, they don't ring the doorbell. They knock on the door. And then we get...

Jabba has a ring doorbell, as you so literally put it.

Of sorts, of sorts. That this eyeball thing on a pike...

It's sort of a red kind of like...

This orb, this literary orb thing.

I love it.

And speaking in Hattese, I just love all the alien language in this film. Especially so much of it that is not subtitled, but our characters understand implicitly. And here begins, and I'm wearing 3PO and R2 on my shirt. I just have to take a moment to extol the magnificent joy that is Anthony Daniels in this movie. This is 3PO's movie, more than any other movie. I think it's...

I agree, actually.

He may have the biggest speaking role of any character. I don't know, but it's certainly the biggest speaking role of 3PO's in any film. And he is so freaking great and funny.

I think this is also like 3PO being funny without being ridiculous. When you get to the prequels, it's like, I've lost my head. I'm beside myself. And in this one, it's kind of like you're getting that wonderful, prissy kind of, you know, fey, vaguely coded as gay robot, which fine. But it's the perfect balance between him being funny and him being ridiculous, you know?

It's this great portrayal of a character that does not want to be in any of the situations he finds himself in. Yeah. He's doing his darn best to manage as best he can, failing. Yeah, failing. And instead of taking us out of the movie, it draws us deeper in the movie because he's so committed to the reality of all the scenes and all the absurdity of what's happening. And his reactions, I just think, are priceless and perfect and his physicality. But I think that Anthony Daniels is underrated as an actor and as a performer, particularly for 3PO. But I think this film is such a wonderful showcase of his gifts.

Yeah. I think of 3PO as kind of the Dr. McCoy of Star Wars. And I know that they're very different characters, but I feel like they serve a similar role, which is like, they're the people who are kind of standing in for the audience going, you know, what the, you know. Yes. In many ways, they're a very human part of the movie that I really, and I feel like I'm in complete agreement with you and I'm completely with you. Have you seen Anthony Daniels in anything other than Star Wars, by the way?

I mean, I don't even know.

Particularly. And I feel that that is a crime, that he is not celebrated more broadly and utilized more fully.

When we get to Wedge finally showing up, and he's one of my favorite, like, Tendential Star Wars characters. I mean, I can actually talk about other things he's been in, you know? Like, we're going to have a conversation about that.

Let's get to it.

Let's get to it.

Anyway, so we're at Jabba's Pounce.

Jabba's Pounce's giant, huge, heavy door rises up out of the sand, lets them in into ominousness. And there's this big spider robot thing in the background that's freaky.

Which later, we found out in some short story that it's the reincarnation of some guy who was put in a...

No one cares.

It doesn't matter.

No one gives a fuck.

It's just the movie. It's just the movie. Then we get the glorious piggies, the Gamorrean guards that are...

I love the Gamorrean guards! Gamorrean or Gamorrean? It sounds like gonorrhea when I say it. I'm going to say Gamorrean. Okay, Gamorrean.

I think it's Gamorrean. But yes, and they are prosthetic wonders.

The greatness of this is that, I mean, they're clearly prosthetics, right? This is obviously a mask, but I don't care. It looks great.

They look fantastic.

And they are so weirdly expressive and just...

Yeah, and kind of blobby.

Yeah, they're orcs.

They're basically orcs.

Yeah, it's great.

And then we get what I'm going to presume one of your all-time favorite characters, Bib Fortuna.

Bib Fortuna.

Whoa!

Whoa. It's dripping with creepiness.

I think what we're going to get in this podcast, that is, I think we're just going to be really happy. I'm going to be really happy about it. Everything we're talking about makes me so happy just to talk about it.

Yeah.

One of the highlights... So I was an exchange student in England in 1989. It was my semester abroad. And I saw the actor, I believe his name is Thomas Carter, who played Bib Fortuna in The Merchant of Venice. As one of like some duke or something. And it was one of those things. And then later on, the character who says the line to Admiral Pied, he goes, we're not going to attack. That guy, that same summer was Valmont in the West End in Dangerous Liaisons. So it's like literally all of these people are just British stage actors. And it's just phenomenal to know that they were just kind of doing this as a lark.

Yeah. It's one of the joys of the Star Wars films filmed in London, is that they're just grabbing all these great British stage actors and putting them in Imperial uniforms. That's right.

It's so good.

It's just great. So apparently, you know, 3PO and R2 have said that they're there delivering a message to the great Jabba the Hutt. And that has to be delivered in person. But also R2, upon further interrogation by Bim Fortuna, reveals that they're also delivering a gift, which 3PO is unaware of. What, what, what gift? And Bim Fortuna wants to know...

You could literally write a whole series of movies called 3PO Didn't Get the Memo.

Exactly. Exactly. And this is the beginnings of 3PO's escalating crescendo of concern that is basically his arc in the film. He just has more and more to worry about until the great, greatest twist for him.

The best.

What a reward for a character and an actor that awaits him. Anyway, so then we finally... Fortuna is convinced to bring him into Jabba's Throne Room. And then we get this wonderful echo bookend of the Cantina scene from Star Wars. Now at a whole other level in Jabba's Throne Room, that is the Muppet Show from Hell. It's just glorious.

It really is. And you know what? A lot of people, like, I think there's a line in a Kevin Smith movie even where somebody goes, ah, revenge, return of the Jedi versus a bunch of Muppets. I don't care. I love these puppets. They are so good.

It's amazing. It's the whole thing is this movie is such a feast of spectacle that is delightful in terms of the attention to detail, the care, and the fact that I think everyone knew on this film, working on it, most or many of whom had worked on this whole trilogy, that this was it. Like they had gotten the e-ticket unknowing on that first film, and they've been on this incredible ride for close to a decade, and were going to go out on a high. They were just like putting it all in on this film, and going to leave nothing on the field. And you feel that energy in every frame of just like, it's just like, to give us more, give us more.

And I hate to pivot, but we should have one company. Look, they go in, we see the hologram of Luke, and that was it. Here's a question for you. So I don't think Richard Marquand is nearly as strong a director as Irving Kershner, especially since also Peter Szuczycki, who's an incredible DP, shot Empire Strikes Back. I think Empire is a much more painterly film, so much more beautiful film. Yes. And this film feels a lot more sort of casual. The shots are not as carefully composed, perhaps. It doesn't have the same kind of grandeur of Empire Strikes Back. But I'm not sure that that's, I don't feel like that's a knock on Marquand. I feel like there's a lot going on with, specifically, Lucas' relationship with Kirchner and how that all worked out.

Yeah.

Whatever flaws this film might have as a director, I just want to say, yay Richard Marquand. He died soon after making this movie.

Yeah.

And he gets really maligned. And I got to say, like, this was probably an assignment that was really difficult. And I feel like you came through it with fine colors.

Well, I always take into account a degree of difficulty when judging things, just like used to be a factor in some Olympic competitions. And you just have to imagine the degree of difficulty on this film. More effect shots than any film in history. I mean, just so many things that were just had not been done on this scale ever. He's thrown into the deep end of the pool and he swims very diligently and pulls it all off and I think makes it work. But to your point, Empire is such a visually, cinematically lush film and evocative. This film, I think its strength is more on editorial. And also that so many of these sequences are showcases of storyboard artists and a really great pre-pro and planning and execution by, I mean, ILM. And the staging of this, the orchestration of it, but also particularly, as we get into later, I want to talk about this more, but I really find the editing of this film, the construction of it really impressive in terms of how well-oiled a machine it is, even as unusually structured as it reveals itself to be.

Uncle George has never been shy about saying that he likes to find the film in editing.

Yeah.

Which is probably why Lucasfilm invented the Edit Droid, which then became the Avid, I mean, literally pioneering a whole field of digital, non-linear editing. So I think that this movie, I think that when you look at Kirchner and you look at how he, he directs in a very classical cinematic way, mise-en-scene, move the camera, and when you have to, compose a beautiful shot, let the action tell you when to cut in and all that. I think this movie is also like, I think the director's job in this movie was also sat, and I hate to say this because it sounds like I'm denigrating the job, but he really was doing more image capture.

Yes.

You know, for the editing room. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Here it feels like he is not, the director in this film is not there to show off, he's there to get out the way and showcase everybody else's work.

So anyway, so yeah, Mark one.

Yeah.

So then we get one of the greatest creatures, the characters of all time. We've heard whispers of Jabba. We have never seen Jabba in 1983, until we arrive in his throne room. And what a payoff Jabba is.

Right?

Spellbinding. I share not, I mean, the only person who I think has more enthusiasm for Jabba than I do is Diego Luna, who famously, there are clips on the internet of him, I want to touch Jabba. I want to touch him.

I did not realize he had a...

I'll send you. He's obsessed with this. And also, my dear friend, and mentor Guillermo del Toro, came perilously close to getting to make a Godfather movie about Jabba for Lucasfilm and Star Wars. That sadly, the powers that be were fools to pass on. And not make. What could have been? But...

Nothing could make me more grateful, by the way, that Lucas didn't have the technology in 77 to put this character on screen. Because we've seen that scene in the special edition, right? And honestly, it would have ruined this so much to have seen that back then.

Yes. Yes. And so thankfully, yeah, Jabba was cut out of Star Wars, the first film, so and held back until Lucas could manifest him fully. And it's magnificent. It's just the biggest, grossest puppet ever. And I just love it. And it took, yeah, multiple operators and people...

It was like a tail guide.

Yeah. Melting inside of this huge rubber. It's amazing. It's amazing.

But I remember there was one guy in the documentary, in the making of documentary, which I watched, I literally wore out of the VHS tape, as with all Star Wars documentaries. There was one guy whose job was just to blow smoke into Jabba's pipe.

Yeah.

And the other guy was going, hello, my job is to blow. It's a very good job.

Yeah, it's just it's great.

But they fully realize a character and a performance, and you believe Jabba is alive and free.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Completely. And the vocal performance, the hatties, the tongue, it's just dazzling. I love Jabba so much in this. And we get R2 then doing a holo message, again, bookending the message of Princess Leia from Star Wars. But now it is Luke in Jedi garb, all black, ominously enough, giving a message to Jabba very diplomatically, wanting to-

Greetings, Exalted One.

Yes, negotiate for Han Solo's return. Because as we all know, at the end of Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett captured or took Han Solo, who is frozen in carbonite, off to deliver him to Jabba the Hutt.

To collect the bounty, yes, of course.

To collect the bounty. And-

By the way, leading to my favorite line in the entire trilogy, which is General Raikhan going, Death March is not anything to live with. No shit, Sherlock. Sorry, go on.

Yeah, not something you want. But then Luke also reveals that he is offering the droids, R2 and 3PO, as gifts to Jabba, which again-

You're playing the wrong message.

It did not. It just snoops to 3PO. He's not thrilled.

Didn't get the memo.

And then we get another great flourish reveal of Jabba saying, I will not give up my favorite decoration. And we are shown that Han Solo is still frozen in carbonite, propped up against a wall on display.

And you get the sense that it's been about as long between them showing up and tattooing as it has been between movies. It's been a couple of years.

It has been, yeah, that serious time has passed. And stuff has happened that we are not completely privy to. But we will get hints of. And yeah, and it's like, oh, this is not good. And again, as if Jabba weren't great, we are teased with glimpses of his little minion who then bursts out laughing, cackling, salacious crumb, which again, is one of the great, one of the great, I'm just going to say he's a muppet.

Whenever I work with someone sycophantic, I say they're the salacious crumb of whoever they're sycophantic to. That's how much that has permeated my life.

Yeah, it's just so great. So then the droids are taken to the dungeon. We get to see droid torture, which is insane. It makes no sense, but they're torturing droids in Jabba's dungeon. They're assigned 3,000, R2 are assigned new jobs. Yes, Javi.

They're given restraining bolts?

Yes. Yes, again.

Now, here's a question about that. There's a couple of things. One of them is the voice of the robot who processes them. I love that voice. I use it for my children's stories at night. But here's my question about that. So Star Wars are constantly saying, oh, they're just droids. They're just droids. They don't have emotions. Droid seem to have a lot of emotion, a lot of sentience, a lot of conscience, and it turns out pain receptors in their feet. So that's weird, right?

It is so weird. Then we cut back to Jabba's Throne Room and one of the most fantastic musical sequences ever committed to cinema.

Max Rebo band playing Lapty Neck.

Lapty Neck, baby.

Lapty Neck. That's right.

I mean, who in their right mind would ever dream of excising, much less replacing this sequence with anything else? It can't be topped. It is magic. It is so great.

And by the way, again, another call back to the documentary, which I think I mentioned earlier in another podcast, Lapty Neck is, of course, Hattie's For Working Out.

Yes.

It is a song about exercise, which is insane considering what Jabba looks like. I mean, I don't think you would want to be the guy singing that in Jabba's Palace. You know, like, I don't know why Max Rebo didn't get drawn and quartered after that Jabba would be like, bitch.

How do you know that Jabba isn't a fit hut?

Well, I mean, I don't know.

Dressing Zor by the hut, Gardulo by the hut.

We're gonna see a fit hut next summer.

Oh, we are?

On the big screen, yes.

But, oh wow, okay. There you go.

I didn't say that.

The hut. But we also get other glimpses of the throne room, including the revelation that Boba Fett is there. Which is like, ooh, cool.

But also the revelation that there is a little bit of a... Jabba has a little surprise for you, because he's trying to get the dancing girl to come close. Jabba's a bit of a perv. We were getting to Jabba.

Let's just say, and this is glossed over, but slightly, but it's fairly evident. And again, now looking through the lens of Andor, it's pretty clear Jabba is a... I was going to say human trafficker, a twilight trafficker, at least. And...

And a bit rapey. Yes.

A bit rapey.

And he is a... He is very problematic. So I want to make sure...

As a character in our world or as a figure in the Star Wars universe? Both.

Both. Both. He is morally vile. And so, yeah, we also get, again, another great setup that will pay off, which is that this twilight dancing enslaved woman is not being as cooperative as Jabba would like. And Jabba is trying to bring her over. He tries to reel her in on her chain of bondage and ends up basically hitting a button on his throne. And the floor grate opens up beneath her and she is plunged to her doom. We don't see where she goes.

We don't see what happens.

But we hear, and it sounds really, really bad.

Now, do you really want to have that button so conveniently placed?

It's like something you could accidentally hit a lot.

Right? Like, I talk with my hands. I don't want that button anywhere near me.

No, no.

I have no wife. I have no kids. And not have any malice. Just be like, honey, what are we having for dinner?

Yeah. You might set a glass down on it or something. There's so many ways that could cause so many problems for so many people.

What could possibly go right?

Then in a moment that just feels like, oh, if only they'd arrived a little sooner, they could have let Twilight Girl could have been saved.

I never thought about this from the perspective of the Twilight Girl, but I guess you're right.

Well, we have in the intervening years had many more Twilight characters that now I feel more affinity.

Are you trying to say that you found Twilight representation problematic in the original trilogy?

It's a little... Well, anyway, we won't even...

There's so much.

I'd step back. A bounty hunter arrives. Diminutive bounty hunter, bringing an imprisoned Chewbacca.

And the bounty hunter only has three words that it ever says, which are weirdly interpretable. So it's one of these languages that I guess maybe works contextually or in intonation, because literally this bounty hunter, all the bounty hunter I've said is, is, yeah, thing, yeah, thing, yeah, thing. And that means everything. That means everything in the Star Wars universe. So I love that language.

As a very distorted voice, this sequence is so great. I love the simplicity and the elegance of this sequence. And again, it's a turn. Like, we don't see this coming. And again, in 1983, watching the movie in the theater, 3PO is now brought forward into his new role as the court translator to translate-

Apparently, the only one who understands the Yato language, yes?

Yes, this negotiation between the Bounty Hunter and Jabba, which, again, I feel like should be taught in business school. There's so much in this movie that I feel it should be a required curriculum for anyone getting an MBA. So this is Negotiating 101 on display, but in the most beautiful way.

The Bounty Hunter costs a very high price.

Yes.

Jabba says, why would I pay you that, even though you've brought me the mighty Chewbacca? And the Bounty Hunter says, yeah, though, which means.

Yes, I have a thermal detonator, which bold negotiating tactic that Jabba appreciates and is amused by. Jabba does not seem to fear for his life.

And this Bounty Hunter is my kind of scum, fearless and inventive.

Exactly. Which is what a great compliment. And again, there's so much in this tiny little scene that I think is so great. It's just a sterling example of efficiency in a scene. Jabba respects it. They make the deal. The Bounty Hunter is welcome to court. Chewie is taken to the dungeon.

And just as Chewie is taken to the dungeon, what happens? What happens? Somebody's chin strap starts to itch, so he's got to lower it.

Yes, and it's Landon Calrissian.

Yes, yes.

Landon Calrissian in disguise as a guard in Jabba's court. So the plot thickens.

The plot thins, yes.

We start realizing we're in a little bit of a Ocean's Eleven or like a heist.

It's the God damn 18 that's happening here, right? I mean, you're in a heist, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

It is this little heist movie, and we're seeing these pieces come together like, oh, there's a plan.

There's some things afoot.

Some things going on. Then at night, you know, Chewie's taking the dungeon. The bounty hunter sneaks back in quietly, although runs into some wind chimes. Does this seem to wake anybody up? There are all these people sleeping in the throne room, which is weird.

Everybody sleeps in Jabba's throne room. It's kind of weird. I went on a bunch of squatters here and there.

It's a choice.

And it's a big palace.

And goes stealthily to Han Solo and Carbonite and begins to defrost Han Solo, which is a really cool sequence. Really neat.

I was going to say, actually, probably my least favorite visual effects in the movie. I think it's one of the few that doesn't really work for me. They do go on.

I just think the whole setting and the mood and the tone and the way it's staged and everything, it's not just the effect, but it's a vodka.

No, no, it obviously works.

Yeah, it works.

Han emerge. And Han, having been in Carbonite for who knows, a year or two, is not in good shape, stumbles out, collapses, can't see.

Seems to have gained about 15 pounds, by the way.

And is inquiring, and the bounty hunter is trying to calm him down and give him some assurance.

Suffering from hibernation sickness.

Yes, in this robotic voice. And Han asks, you know, who are you? And we get just the perfect reveal. The helmet comes off.

It's like a Mission Impossible mask takeoff here. Isn't it wonderful?

Almost. It's just exquisite. It's just a bow. Like you just it's perfectly someone who loves you. Yeah. Yeah. Leia takes off the helmet reveals herself and says someone who loves you again. Call back to their last words to each other in Empire. It's so perfect. But yeah, it is interrupted by ominous laughter. I recognize that laughter. Yeah. And there is Jabba and all his people waiting and watching and laughing. And it's dare I say, it's a trap. It's a trap.

But is it?

Because there are traps within traps.

Well, exactly. Or is it all part of the plot? So that Han is sent down.

He tries to like talk his way out of it, but Jabba is like, no, no, no, you had your chance. Sends him to the dungeon where he is reunited with Chewie, who brings him up to speed a little bit, much to Han's... A Jedi Knight!

Everybody's suffering delusions of grandeur.

Harrison Ford is having so much fun in this movie, even though he's on record of begging Lucas in vain to kill him off in this movie. And there are moments in the film where we think, oh, maybe one of them is going to not make it. But, I mean, come on, really.

They all have plot armor three inches thick.

Yes.

And then, but Jabba clearly has other plans for Leia and is intrigued by her. And of course, he's just lost his...

His enslaved Twi'lek, yes.

Yes, so he like, oh, a replacement has presented itself. But then, the next day, presumably, we're following that morning.

But isn't this the part with the tongue now?

Oh, yeah, there's tongue.

Because he brings it up to him.

Yeah, and then he's like, and he's like, ah.

And he says, soon you will learn to appreciate, man.

You see his giant slithering tongue go, and I gotta say, I mean, we can't say enough great things about the great Carrie Fisher, but she plays revulsion and moments in this film so convincingly.

I get the sense that's how she felt about humanity, and she just sort of channeled that.

I was going to surmise that I can only suspect that in her real life, she probably was subject to many situations that evoked such revulsion.

You mean a female actress in the 1970s?

No. Yes, and she is channeling that magnificently in this film. So here again, favorite part, Luke arrives, a cloaked figure, we know it's Luke, arrives.

But what an entrance.

Through the entrance in back of the silhouette, Gamorrean guards try to stand in his way, but he puts the whammy on them.

He puts the whammy on them.

Effortlessly. And we're immediately impressed upon that his skills have advanced since last we've seen him. We don't know to what degree yet, but they've literally advanced. Then Bib Fortuna attempts to intercept him. And we get, again, bookending the original film. He does a glorious Jedi mind trick on Bib Fortuna to get him to bring him to Jabba, even though Jabba's given them strict orders not to be disturbed. It's certainly not to be awakened.

Now, I find this interesting. Now, Obi-Wan does a Jedi mind trick like this. And then Luke does a Jedi mind trick like this, but Qui-Gon kind of does it like that.

So for those listening and not watching, Obi was doing everything very elegantly, specific hand gestures affiliated with the Jedi mind trick.

It appears that the Jedi mind trick is not a hand thing, it's more of a mind thing.

Yes. At least Luke has the ability to do it without the additional empowerment of a hand gesture. And Luke is very serene, he's very calm, he's exuding a vibe we have not witnessed before in Luke.

Which is very- This isn't young, confused Luke, this isn't teenage, I want to go to Tashi Station Luke. This is like a seasoned, mature Luke Skywalker, yes.

Yeah, at least we hope so. Anyway, so then Fortuna haplessly wakes up Jabba, who is angry and insults him as a weak-minded fool, which he is. And then we get this twist as Luke then attempts to use the Jedi mind trick on Jabba, who is immune.

Revelation that there's a couple species that don't. Yeah. Toydarians and huts, we know, yep.

And so presumably this was part of Luke's plan and it has gone awry. And it also seems Luke is without his lightsaber, curiously, because when he after when he fails to talk sensor to negotiate with Jabba, and Jabba is basically going to be like Callus Bluff, he uses the force, grabs a blaster from a guard to try to, you know, take him on. And Jabba hits the button again, set up perfectly. Now we get the full reveal, we follow Luke.

Well, he might have been reaching for one of those bugs he has in a tank that he eats, right? We don't know if he hit the button.

No, he's pretty explicit about it. That's like, I don't know. And he also is dismissive. He's like, you are no Jedi Knight. He's he that's right. He's he's clearly lived a long time, seen a lot of things. He does not see a Jedi standing before him.

He's no Zorba the Hutt. He knows what he's doing.

There you go. And Luke plummets down into the rancor pit with a unfortunate Gamorrean guard that doesn't get his balance quickly enough.

And who is quickly eaten like a great reveal a wonderful filth tippet miniature puppet that is alternately. I think it's really mostly a puppet. I think there's a body performer at some point in the movie, but it's mostly a hand puppet. And you see it coming out of the darkness with its little yellow glowing eyes. And what I love about the Rancor is how the eyes are under its mouth, you know, it's such a like it's such a like savage. I don't know. It makes it look so much savagery and lots of drool, right?

A lot, a lot of drool. But again, another and you can just kind of feel behind the scenes just the relish that all these ILM artists and Phil Tippett and the Unmotion team are just like now we get to show off. There's so many great sequences that are just wonderful excuses and platforms to showcase the artistry of these effects geniuses.

And in case you're wondering where Luke's lightsaber is, by the way, just in case you're wondering where Luke's lightsaber is, he doesn't have it here either. No, he wields a femur like a lightsaber, which is interesting.

And it's very strange, although we will recall that, well, Luke left the last film without a lightsaber because his hand was chopped off by Vader and his hand with his lightsaber plummeted, you know, and would never be seen again.

So we could imagine Luke is a lightsaber less, a lightsaber less Jedi.

But how can one be a Jedi without a lightsaber? But also, how does one get a lightsaber?

Paul, I don't know what to think.

We don't know any of this stuff anymore. But meanwhile, this rancor, this giant, like, beast, Harryhausen nightmare, reborn, is coming for Luke, and he's without a weapon except for bone, that the, you know, does not last long.

And you get the whole great fey-ray thing where the rancor puts Luke near its mouth. It's about to eat him. Luke's in the giant hand. But then Luke knows how to throw a skull.

Luke, in a moment of perceptive ingenuity, figures out a way to defeat the rancor by luring him through a gate passage and then hitting the control panel so that it basically guillotines. But with a very dull blade.

Then we get one of the emotional moments of the Star Wars trilogy.

One of the most unexpectedly moving, touching, and sweet scenes.

Which is that the rancor keeper is really sad that his beast is dead and he starts weeping.

Yeah.

Then another guy puts his arm around him.

He pulls him. The fact that this film first has that idea and then actually takes the time. This is a long movie. So at this point, this is the longest Star Wars movie. That they're like, what are you going to do?

Yes.

It's over two hours. But that it will take the time to have this beat and let it fully play out for no reason other than itself. There's no need for it, but it's just, I love it so much. That's why little things like this make me love this movie so much.

But this is a good time to discuss Star Wars. Well, not really because we're like 10 minutes into the movie and we're five hours in the podcast. But it's a good time to discuss the relationship between humor and Star Wars. For me, this moment works. Even this kind of a silly moment in its own weird way because it's so out of left field. It's funny and yet it's within the universe. I feel like humor is so all over the place in all of the Star Wars that we have witnessed. But in these three movies, I know a lot of fanboys don't like this particular beat because it feels kind of out of left field. It feels a little too ridiculous. As I've gotten older, I like this beat a hell of a lot more. But I also think that the humor in this movie is never-

Does that mean when you were younger you didn't like it?

No. I remember when I first saw the movie wondering why this was happening and feeling it was kind of silly. But now when I see all of the other attempts at humor that Star Wars has made and they have been Legion and a few of them work, I feel like this is just one of the rare moments when Star Wars can be silly but it still kind of works. And it's a moment where- most humor in Star Wars works because it's Han Solo, it's coming out of character, it's a situation, and they're very much in the world reaction to the situation. And I don't know, this is- Paul, what are your thoughts?

Yeah.

So at the time, and I know it's played as a gag, it's sort of set up and played as a joke for the audience. And I think that the general audience and sort of at the time, it is received thusly. However, it is played within the world. Yeah. And within the film earnestly. I mean, a little dialed up, but not too much. And so the fact that it works as both, I think, is a feat. Because yeah, it is a gag and you can laugh at it. But also you can go, Oh, you lost this bet. And yeah, it's like certainly it plays differently at a different age. So if you're somebody who has loved and lost a pet, it is going to hit you differently than if you haven't, I think.

But by the way, also, if you're somebody of a previous generation than us, and you grew up with the prequels and you love the prequels, which is, look, I've met a lot of people between their mid-20s and their mid-30s, almost hitting 40, who grew up with the prequels. And they love the humor in the prequels. And they don't dislike Jar Jar the way our generation did. And I think that also going back and seeing this movie, once you've seen the prequels, if you're of a different age, it just, the context is so different, you know, in terms of what humor means in Star Wars, you know?

Yeah, I was just going to say context is key. And yeah, the relativism within which we receive and judge it is crucial. But yeah, at this point, it's interesting because, yeah, there has been humor and levity in the Star Wars films. But this film leans into it in some new ways that I think are a little gutsy and interesting, but as we get to later, are somewhat questionable and I think collide with a reality that maybe Lucas didn't fully consider, which is that the kids who were kids and core audience and watched Star Wars in 77 are older in 83 and are a little more cynical tweens and up than-

So as I was.

Yes, then they were when they first saw the first and that the second film had taken the audience on this journey of maturity and into darkness. And so I there was definitely a sense of somewhat of a backlash or a recoil when this film then tried to in some ways maybe backtrack.

Just go back to trying to be a kids movie.

To the tone. Yeah, to more to the tone of the first and to have some levity. And that's one of the interesting things about this film.

It's also a grim foreshadowing of goofiness to come in later in future Star Wars products.

Yes, because it can easily get out of control.

So anyway, and I rate Jabba's sentences are characters to die by being cast into the pit of the Almighty Sarlacc, into the pit of Carkoon, which is the nesting place of the Almighty Sarlacc, where they'll have a new definition of pain by being digested for 1,000 years. And then we go to one of the greatest, greatest set pieces of all time.

Yeah, I love it. But yeah, our heroes are gathered and reunited, but in captivity. They've all been captured by Jabba. Except for Lando, who is in disguise. They're kind of...

Whose chest strap still itches. He's still lowering it a little bit. Yes.

And yeah, Jabba through translation with 3PO, lays out this just horrible doom that awaits them, which is delicious. And the interplay with Luke and Han is fun and great in the sequence. And Han, you've got to feel like, okay, you woke me up for this. Like this is this is you should have left me in the car tonight. And then but yeah, then the sail bar through the desert and that stars as my favorite thing.

Star Wars ever did, which is it becomes a pirate movie. Like, yes, if Star Wars wasn't great already. Now it's a pirate flick, which is and Luke is on a skiff outside of the sail bar. She's going to be made to walk the plank.

Yeah.

And he goes to the plank.

Yeah.

And one of the greatest John Williams cues of all time.

Oh.

Oh, my God.

And the setting of the board, of putting all the pieces in place for this sequence, and you watch the film doing it, that it's all coming together, and the anticipation, I remember as a kid, this is one of the biggest lean-in moments I ever had as a kid in a theater, with the anticipation of, oh, what's happening? And once you get the dun, dun, like these, these, these.

The French horns, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. These pulses. But then, but then, but then, but then, the lights are sort of, nah, nah, nah, as Luke. But with the intercutting on everyone's faces, and with the positioning of where all these characters are, and the suspense that's building, oh, and again, it's the editing and the score.

And you can even see R2 has his own close-up, which is weird, because R2's a dome. So he just shows up and he pulls up on top of the barge. It's weird. Yeah. But Paul, I want to say something before you continue. In apropos of something you just said, because I don't want to lose this point, you and I were 13 or 14 when this movie came out, right? No, so I turned 14 when you were 13 on this movie.

I think I was 11.

You were probably 11, yeah.

Yeah.

I had never seen like Ocean's 11, like Heist movies, or I hadn't even seen Top Copy. So Heist movies were not part of my vernacular. So I'm sure that people older than us watching this are going, wow, this is just Ocean's 11 or Top Copy. But for us as kids, for many of us, this is our first exposure to the, yes.

Yeah, we'd never seen anything like it before. And it's drawing on, and again, one of the great geniuses of Lucas and these films is the first film drawing on Kurosawa and on sci-fi series, Flash Gordon, all this. He has new, still has other things to draw on that he's bringing to the table here. And yeah, this pirate sequence on an ocean of desert is genius. It's because, yeah.

Over a giant anus.

These levitating craft over a whirlpool of doom, but in the form of this pit with this creature with these kind of janky tentacles. And again, we're talking the original theatrical.

So it just, it literally just looks like a giant butthole in the desert. I mean, it's not, it's not the...

But with teeth, like...

Yeah, but with teeth, yeah.

Yes, and I'm also thinking of the movie teeth. But in this sequence, as we're seeing these characters in place, R2 leaves his post because he's been, he's been turned into a drink server and at a tray attached. He's a waiter. And he reunites with 3PO.

Who doesn't have an, who doesn't have a bar attachment for astromech droids just hanging around, don't we all?

I feel we're still waiting for this technology to emerge in our real world where we will have a droid bring us beverages. But R2 leaves us posts in the interior of the sail barge, goes to the top deck by the rail.

And just as Luke is about to be cast into the pit of Carkoon by a weak way, I might add.

Yes, yes, and is prodded to walk the plank. A small panel retracts from the dome of R2's head. And what is poking out? What could it be?

It's the lightsaber. And then as Luke, oh my god. So also, by the way, what a bad, because here's the thing. Luke, in the Rancor family, Luke has been a little feckless. And we're kind of used to feckless, Luke. So we're kind of like, what the hell's going on here, you know? But he literally goes off the plank, but he sort of does this turnaround, grabs the plank with his arms as he falls under. It does have somersault over the guards. Yes. Are to shoot, I mean, everybody has seen this. I know we're just saying shit. Everybody has seen a million times, but it is so, so much fun. It is so much fun to watch this.

One of the most exhilarating sequences in film. And we have waited half an hour in this film to get to an action sequence.

Which is three hours in our podcast time, by the way.

Yeah, but again, it's like this is a Star Wars movie. There has been no action sequence for the first half hour. And then we are rewarded with swashbuckling and we get what we think in the moment. And what we've been promised is the Return Of The Jedi as Luke lands on the skiff, grabs the lightsaber, ignites it, and it's green.

It's green!

It is a new lightsaber and a new color we have never seen. You were losing your goddamn mind in the theater.

And Paul, I gotta tell you, and here's the part why, like I said, I'm gonna come clean a little bit later about how much I, at least at the time, appeared to dislike this movie. And I think it's because I was a petulant tween, and I was used to certain, an empire did a certain thing, and then this did another thing. But I gotta tell you, in the theater, this sequence was exhilarating. And for me, at 55, it has lost none of that power. I rewatch the scene constantly for myself. I rewatch it with my kids. It's one of the few things of Star Wars that I can show my kids because they're little. And it just, this apotheotic moment of Luke Skywalker being shown at long last as a Jedi Knight, at the height of his powers, is just wonderful. And it has not lost its power for me.

Because for three movies, we've been experiencing this trilogy growing with it. We have heard tales of the Jedi, of the Jedi Knight. But we, no one has ever seen a Jedi Knight in action.

Exactly. And we've seen Obi-Wan and Darth Vader do a lot, but they're clearly both older.

That was like an echo of a retired, but we've never seen a full squash-buckling Jedi Knight in action. And to see the promise fulfilled of Luke now, who we see and we think, this is the Jedi have returned. This is, he's a Jedi, Luke. There he is. This movie is going to be amazing. He's just going to be kicking ass all over the place with his lightsaber. It is one of the most impactful cinematic experiences of my youth. And I think probably second only to the helicopter rescue in Superman, which I think is still the pinnacle to this day. I think the most exhilarating sequence in cinema, and certainly in my life and my experience.

I don't disagree.

But this probably comes second for me from my youth in terms of what was most thrilling to see and still stands up and holds.

And I want to talk about this, because this is going to come up a couple of times. And I want to sort of discuss one thing like, look, this movie was made in 1984, okay, or 83 or 82 or whatever the shot. I don't remember. So Summer of 83, 83. Okay, so Paul, look, compared to what George Lucas did in the prequels, compared to what the different directors did in the sequels, the lightsaber dueling across the board in this movie is fairly modest, okay? You're not getting all of that.

There is an infamous shot where he is kicking air, like a huge gap between the Jabba guard that he kicks on.

Yeah, absolutely.

And he doesn't get in contact.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

He was using the force. He was using the force.

He was a force kick.

He forced pushed him with his foot. But I gotta tell you, Paul, like, I mean, you know, I don't wish that this movie looked more like Revenge Of The Sith. I don't wish that this lightsaber duel was different. I look at this movie and I feel like I saw, like, it's weird seeing it at 55 versus seeing it at 12 or at 13. My math is, I was on a red-eye flight to London. I'm doing this podcast from Scotland. I don't know what time, time has no meaning or relevance. Hence the long running time of this podcast already. Maybe it's that I saw the future and I like the future that I was promised in my past better. Maybe it's nostalgia. I don't know what it is. But when I look at the dueling of this movie, it has a just wonderfully comforting analog quality to it. That is so much what 80s cinema was about for me. And I know that there are much better lightsaber dueling and a billion other things that have been made with the Star Wars name. But even now as a 55-year-old, I look at this with such fondness and it is still thrilling for me to watch this. And one of the things that infamously Luke made an appearance in The Mandalorian many, many years later. And one of the things I loved about what they did with him in The Mandalorian is his lightsaber style is actually pretty primitive. Luke is not a trained duelist. And yes, he's fought Darth Vader, but Luke has this kind of weird smash mouth, kind of thrown together style that's very kind of like blunt. And when you think about how other people who took up this mantle did that later on and paid homage to it, but when I look at it in this movie, it works because Luke is not really a true... Who taught him? Nobody taught him on a sword fight. He says, you know, it's great.

Yeah, he had that tiny little bit of training thing with the droid on the Falcon.

And we don't know how long he spent in Dago by owning this shit.

Kind of it. But we don't know what he's been doing in the intervening years or time between Empire and this, but who would have trained him? Who could have trained him at this point? Yeah.

So we don't know if he's doing it at Targu, is he doing it at Vapod? Which one of the five forms? Nobody knows, but it's fine.

So as thrilling as the sequence starts, we then get an escalation of thrill, but then the first disappointment of the film.

Really? Which is what?

Yes. So then we get as if this wasn't badass and awesome enough, it's been set up that Boba Fett is there. And Boba Fett moves into action once all this shit is going down. And he ignites his jet pack and what? It flies.

Flies to the skiff.

Off of the sail barge, lands onto the skiff to take on Luke and Han and Chewie, and pulls out, and it's like, oh my God, finally, we're getting what was promised.

Awesome snub-nosed kind of like shot of shotgun blaster that he's got.

Yeah, and all these weapons and things that we've seen on him, like we've been teased in Empires.

He uses his rope launcher to tie Luke up, and Luke is like suddenly incapacitated, but he can still kind of like deflect blasts, but it's not good.

And we know like Boba Fett's the most fearsome bounty hunter, and we've been waiting to see, oh my God, is he going to like show, like get his whole sequence and big fight sequence? But then he is dispatched almost as quickly as the swordsmen and raiders. And by accident, by clumsiness.

First of all, one of the greatest line deliveries in movie, no, no, no, you're wrong. First of all, one of the great line deliveries in movie history, which is Boba Fett, Boba Fett, where? Because I was always blind.

Yes, Han is blind.

He's got like the gaffey stick that one of the guards has, and he like hits the back of the jet pack.

He turns and then like from behind, like he accidentally knocks Boba Fett, who, by the way, has a jet pack off of the skiff, falling into the starlight pit that consumes him.

Doesn't mean what, doesn't mean what, look, look.

And he has blade throwers, he has the rocket on his back, he's got like all these things, the missile and the, and it was like, how do you do that? How do you do Boba Fett so wrong?

In the intervening 58 years, you know, people feel the way you do. I gotta tell you, like my fondness for this film has, and I'm sure I hated that when I was a kid. I'm sure I hated that moment. I can't imagine I didn't. But I gotta tell you, I look at, now I look at all the revisionism and, you know, bringing Boba Fett back and all that other stuff, and I'm like, fuck that shit. That's how he died. You know, like it's not a perfect, the Star Wars universe is not a perfect universe. Not every character gets the best sendoff or the best. For me, this is really, like this movie, it's like there's action going on, there's fun going on, and to me, this is just, the swash is being buckled, my friend. Yes, you know.

I agree. Be that as it may. I feel like, and I get the movie's long, they've got a lot to do, but with all that setup for Boba Fett, to have so truncated and abbreviated and kind of cheated of a payoff, I feel like at the very least, we should have let that breathe, and we should have gotten the equivalent. See, I draw a distinction between the swordsman and raiders and this. The swordsman being dispatched, instead of us getting the whole rooftop chase sequence that was storyboarded and planned, but then they couldn't do because Harrison Ford was sick, that actually works. It's an upgrade because we have no attachment to the swordsman. He just appears and we maintain the propulsion of the narrative by shortcutting that interaction and it reveals character about Indy that is important. So all that, I'm like, yes, that is a win. That was a great creative choice. In contrast, we have gotten this abundance of setup and a foreshadowing of the badassness of Boba Fett. It has been built up in our imagination, starting with the goddamn holiday special.

I know, I know, and I get it, Paul, but no, no, I know where you're coming from.

We have the greatest character designs in all of Star Wars. And then for him to be dispatched so quickly, A, that's just not good. But to have him dispatched accidentally just feels like such a cheat. And it's funny, it's a gag. And yes, it is funny.

Okay, okay, I need to stop you. I need to stop.

I feel like at the very least-

Paul, Paul, Paul, no, no, hang on. First of all, there are two big differences between this and The Chira Swordsman. The Chira Swordsman was an itinerant street entertainer who got unlucky, okay? That's what that guy, he wasn't part of the bad guys. He was just like some sword juggler who out for tips and he gets shot. It's horrible.

The other thing- No, it's great. It's great.

That's my retcon of that movie.

Wait, wait, wait. You don't like the swordsman getting shot in Raiders?

Well, I feel bad for him. He's an iterant street entertainer who got shot by Indiana Jones for no damn reason other than trying to juggle his sword in front of an American trying to get a tip. You didn't know that? It's the big tragedy of that movie. I'm sure that the party didn't see was where he's with his family going, look, I got this new sword. I'm going to go do my juggling act. I'm going to get so many tips.

I didn't see a tip jar to speak.

Never mind. Anyway, but here's the thing, Paul.

Yes, you're right.

You're absolutely right. It is horrible, it is stupid, it is goofy, it is a betrayal of the character. But let me give you an alternate hypothesis here. I waited 40 years to watch Boba Fett launch that missile from his back, and then I finally saw it, and you know what?

It sucked.

He has to literally put his hands on his knees and squat like he's pooping, and aim, and then the missile flies out and it's the dorkiest shit ever. You know what? I'm happy that I was robbed of the Boba Fett fight, because I don't want to see what that looks like anymore. Like, now that I got it at the age of 55, I'm like, fuck that shit. He died that way. Now that I've seen Boba Fett get out of the Sarlacc pit, like Patton Oswalt told us all we needed to want to watch, I don't care. He's not the main character in this movie. At the end of the day, he's a shimp, you know? And I get it, he was in the holiday special in the Novant Animated thing. It just doesn't matter to me anymore. I love you, man.

Wow, that's a lot. Okay, so first of all, I don't know about this other Boa Fett that squats to shoot rockets, of which you speak. I can't imagine anyone doing something that inept with this character. That just is wildly implausible to me.

It's almost worse than him dying so weirdly, usually, right?

And I can't, for the life of me, be limited by the lack of execution ability of some other random person decades away from this girl.

All right, all right, all right. I get it.

Because in my mind, and I know your imagination surely far exceeds my own, Boa Fett doesn't need to squat. He needs to just blink and this rocket shoots and has a homing device that he targets through his helmet. And he can go-

And it will be on the technology of the time to show us that.

Shoot anything behind him. There are so many possibilities that are open. And here's the other way I'd look at it, because yes, this is a pirate movie, but this whole sequence of the film, the first half hour or so, feels like an extended bond opening. It's like a self-contained bond adventure.

This is proceeded by one of the greatest feminist moments of cinema, literally rivaling John Dillman, Leia strangles Jabba with his own chains.

This is incredible.

Yeah.

You could make a case. It's the most amazing moment in the entire Star Wars trilogy because and the symbolism of Leia.

We haven't talked about the bikini because everybody's talked about the bikini. Who gives it? It's been it's been trot over. Yeah, whatever.

Leia, who now is referred to in that costume, not as problematically slave Leia, but now as Hutslayer.

Hutslayer.

Leia, which I think is great. But the fact that she takes the chain of her own bondage, and uses that to strangle the most vile, disgusting manifestation of the patriarchy.

Yes.

He's a giant penis, dude. He really is a giant penis.

He murders him in cold blood, not in self-defense.

One of the more violent moments of the saga, I might add.

In liberation. And it is, it doesn't happen quickly. It's like he's straining. He's like, it's gruesome.

They made such a meal of him having this sort of thick gravy-like spittle.

Yeah.

So when he finally dies and his tongue comes flying out. Yeah. And it's so satisfying.

His death, like gasp, like his last gasp and like, uh, lunges is over. Oh my God. It is beautiful. Are you kidding? As a kid, I could not believe what I was seeing. But it immediately is like, holy crap, Leia is ruthless badass. And yeah, he is unfazed by this at all. She's just like, got to do what you got to do.

This is the Leia who said to Governor Tarkin, I recognize your foul stench when I first came on board. That's that Leia.

Yes, and despite the, let's say, choice that was made of putting her in the skimpy attire, she now gets to be action hero Leia in this sequence and hold her own.

And in this movie.

In this movie. And then in tandem with Luke, who then arrives on the sail barge and you know R2 is saving 3PO from, you know, Salacious Crumb trying to steal his eye, which is kind of hilarious and disturbing. And my eyes, my eyes. It's like briefly, but this, but this sequence, like there are glimpses in this sequence between her killing Jabba and, and, and Crumb like taking 3PO's eyes where it's like, it's like a horror movie version of, of Star Wars almost. It's really cool. Then like she's turns the, the gun to the deck, you know, Luke, they're coordinating with Luke.

They blow up the sail barge. They scoop up the robots with the.

Again, in a, in an echo of, of the first film, Luke swings them off the barge onto the safety of the skin.

In a great swashbuckling moment, he grabs, he grabs a rope that seems to be, that seems to be, I don't know what that rope is attached to that. He can actually swing from the, no, yeah, but it's only, it can't be attached, like for him to swing all the way to the skiff, this would, this would have to be about halfway between the skiff and the sail barge.

So I, I, I'm going to say that the barge is, the barge is lilting.

Oh, it's listing. Okay. Got it. Got it. He shot the gun at the deck.

Did I say lilting? Yeah, that's wrong. Listing. Yeah.

Paul, you have, you have just literally, literally you have just redeemed 47 years of doubt in my mind. May the good Lord bless and keep you. I appreciate that enormously.

Thank you.

Now, this leads to one of my favorite match cuts, by the way, which is the sail barge is exploding, the skiff flies right into, comes around the corner, flies right into frame, and then that cuts while it wipes. It does a clock wipe.

Yes.

To the X-Wing and the Millennium Falcon leaving Tatooine.

Yes.

Which is just such a great, like, it's so satisfying.

It's beautiful.

And now we're half an hour into the film, five hours into the podcast, and the plot hasn't kicked in.

It's 36 minutes, and we basically just had the opening Bond sequence of the film. The movie has not even started yet. Paul. Yes.

I don't know if this is the conclusion of the podcast or if this is something I should bring up now. But, you know, all talking about Boba Fett really like lit a thought in my mind, which is this, for me, the entire Star Wars saga has become about the power of not getting what you want. I think for so many years, this was such an influence, it was so wonderful. Everybody loves this stuff so much. We were all clamoring for more, but we got more. And all the more has made me appreciate what these films did in their time, with their technology, with the modest sort of action and stunts and whatever. Honestly, I'm happy not knowing so many things I now know about Star Wars and about the history and about the characters and all that. But honestly, some of the newer stuff is great, some of it isn't. But more than anything, now I go back to these movies, I've seen the future that we were promised and I like the old future better. I've said that once before, but I genuinely feel that way. I feel like my fondness for these films only grows the more Star Wars they make.

Yes, I think that this franchise is an expansive example and life lesson in Be Careful What You Wish For. You never know. But now is a good point for me to start looking at the structure of this film.

Yeah, let's talk about that.

I'm really fascinated by what this film does. So we get this whole mini movie, basically a Star Wars short film, extended short or for 36 minutes, this whole Tatooine Hut adventure and rescue of Han Solo. That could all have been its own movie. You could conceivably have developed that in a full three act, heist movie about we got to rescue Han. And we kind of get two movies in this movie, in Return Of The Jedi, which is remarkable and how well it works. But we get this 36 minute kind of pre movie. Then we get two interludes before the movie really begins.

That's right.

And then once the movie begins proper, it does so in a way where it is intercutting three settings and sets of characters, non-stop until the end. And I just, I've never seen a movie do this before. And it's such a wild structure. But it works, I think, so well.

And it's a big revelation, I think, again, at the age of 12, seeing a movie that so sort of masterfully cuts between these three stories. There are three battles going on. And it's ongoing, and it really is sort of a, I feel like the structure of the show is very weird. I think they earned the weirdness because of what they did with Empire. And they had to resolve Empire, and they had to resolve a lot of things. But again, it just goes to show you that not every movie has to follow the traditional three-act structure or the hero's journey or whatever the hell it is. It's like, I've never questioned the structure of this movie. It works for me.

Yeah, but it throws everything you've been taught and know about traditional structure kind of out the window, but remixes it in different ways. Because in a way, we're kind of getting two movies buffered by two interludes. And the first of which...

And I've got to tell you one thing. This tripartite sort of second to third act structure that we get in this movie after the interludes, after what I assume is Dago Bha and Death Star, literally gets mentioned in every writers' room I've ever been in. It is that influence. It's like literally this idea we cut between these three battles. I hear it all the time. It is a touchstone for a popular culture in a way that I think is quite unheralded, actually.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, it is an escalation in building on what was done in Empire, where once they split the characters up, they split our heroes, and they're intercutting basically between two POVs of action, between Leia basically and Han until he's in the Carbonite, and then her and Lando and that back and forth. But they're in basically the same setting. But here, it is exploded across very different settings.

The forest moon, the Death Star, the space battle, it's a lot going on in there.

It's so much more ambitious. But yeah, so our heroes have escaped tattooing. Luke and R2 take off on the X-Wing to fulfill a promise to an old friend. As Han, Chewie, Leia, C-3PO and Lando are taking the Falcon to go run and they're gonna rendezvous with the fleet. It's like, ooh, we're gonna get to see the fleet.

Yeah, and by the way, at some point during that trip, Han gets promoted to general.

Yeah, there's so many hand wavy things.

He was Captain Solo in All of Empire Strikes Back. Somehow he gets a field promotion.

Yeah, it's like, oh, you've been stuck in a car tonight for two years. So hey, here, we're gonna promote you, give you a promotion.

This man is gonna bring in some new ideas. Yes, he hasn't been around. And then, but anyway, so Lukas and Diego, he's going to talk to Toyota.

Presumably, and that's great. It's a tease for that. But then first, we get Meanwhile on the new Death Star or Death Star 2. They just call it the Death Star.

Meanwhile.

With only the foreshadowing we got in the prologue, we immediately now are at the point where the Empire, the Emperor is arriving on the Death Star to a full military review and with his badass crimson and robed Imperial guard. That lit my imagination once I saw him.

Aside from the throne room scene in the first movie, we have never really seen a gathering of military might like this in Star Wars. There's literally rows upon. When Darth Vader arrives, there's maybe three rows of stormtroopers. When the Emperor arrives, there's like 12 and there's officers, and there's the crimson guard, and there's hundreds of TIE fighters. You really get the sense that in a way that this trilogy has never shown us before, this is a huge deal. And I love that.

Yeah, beautiful map.

And then the Emperor comes out and he's like, this is the little reason of a man, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's a little ancient kind of crone person. And we get his theme, which we haven't heard before, a new musical theme. There are a lot of great new themes that Williams deploys while bringing back the classic ones.

The first time that vocals have been used in Star Wars is the Emperor's theme.

Yes, and we get a walk and talk between him and Vader, conferring about Vader's continuing search for Skywalker. And also, the sense that the Emperor has basically foreseen all sort of stuff that's about to happen.

Yeah, but I'm having some difficulty remembering. We actually don't see the Emperor's face in the scene. You just sort of see his lower, his mouth.

We don't get a full-on side shot, right?

We see glimpses of his face, but we don't get a full-on view of his face.

So there's still a reveal to be had with Palpatine, which is awesome.

Yeah.

Not that we know his name is Palpatine from anything said in the movie. He's never called that, but we know him.

No. Then we get the, we're back on Dagobah for an extended interlude and basically two scenes.

My favorite meme in the Internet right now, and I don't know who made it and whoever did, you're a genius, is one where it says, you can only understand once you're a parent, how it is that Yoda got so sick and tired of answering loose questions that he just died. Only a parent can understand that.

Yeah.

Oh yeah. I remember as a kid watching the film, because when last we saw Yoda in Empire, he was old, but he was spry and full of energy. Yeah. He seemed to live for another several hundred years.

Nine hundred years. Didn't look a year under 850.

Yeah. But Luke has returned to complete his training and fulfill his promise to Yoda. But Yoda is dying.

Now, Paul, has Luke gone back before to actually finish his training and get more training, and that's how he comes back in the black costume with the new lightsaber and that shit or is this the first time he's been back since Empire? Because I have a lot of questions. I don't have questions. I don't know what it is. I don't care. But what's your thought on that?

We are not explicitly told, but implicitly it feels like, because he says when he's talking to Artu in the cockpit, and Artu is like, where are we going? He's like, to fulfill a promise to an old friend. Which to me means that the promise he made in Empire, when he left saying he'll come back to police training, he has not yet fulfilled. Ergo, he's returning finally now for the first time to Yoda.

Right. Okay. Which is why his robes don't look like Jedi robes, which is why he just sort of like-

Yeah. Again, there are a lot of unanswered questions. We also, watching the film, have no idea where his new lightsaber come from. There is famously, and you can find it on YouTube, a deleted scene of him constructing a new lightsaber, which apparently he doesn't do till he's on Tatooine in a cave. Yeah. It's weird.

Yeah.

But it doesn't explain how he knows to do it, how he learned to do it, and so that scene's deleted. So he doesn't exist as far as we know.

And there's also a deleted scene where they're in the middle of a sandstorm getting into their ships, and it's like that cut, that cloth wipe is so elegant that you can't imagine anything else. Yeah.

No. And you don't need the exposition or whatever the celebratory...

But one of the things we learned in the prequel trilogy is that George Lucas is obsessed with people getting in and out of spaceships and discussing the details of their transit.

Yes.

He just loves that more than drama itself. Anyway, so Luke asks Yoda a bunch of questions and Yoda just says, Ah, time to die. Because he's just, he literally is just sick of Luke's shit. And so Yoda dies, he vanishes, presumably much as Obi-Wan did because he'll probably come back as a force ghost or something. We don't know anything about force ghosts or quiet ground or any of that shit. We just know Yoda vanishes. And then, and look, I know that everybody has made this joke, but it's like, and then Obi-Wan shows up and he's a ghost, he's in non-corporeal form, but he sits on a stump to give Luke the exposition.

Before we get there, oh no, go on, okay, fine, fine, fine, what?

Wait, this will be a good time to reintroduce our old friend, Paul Plot.

Do go on, Paul Plot.

You shame me mercilessly.

Well, cause we're like, cause we're two hours into this and we have like half an hour into the movie.

But you know what?

It is a touchstone for us. There's no way we couldn't talk this much.

Yeah. These two scenes working in tandem and the one scene each that Yoda and Obi-Wan get in this film are some of the most extravagant engines of exposition I have ever seen in a film. Just the per capita density of exposition that each scene expols.

Consider there's only three capita. There's Luke's, Yoda's and Obi-Wan. So it's only three people and all that exposition.

We get so much in this. And yes, it takes Luke asking these questions. And yeah, Yoda is like, he tries to roll over. He's like, I'm tired.

I want to rest.

I'm trying to die, kid. Come on.

And we get some great lines from Yoda. You know, like, you know, what? 900 years old, you reach, look as good you will not. There's the, you know, twilight is upon me and soon night must fall. Like there's some lovely little Yoda-isms. Yes. But finally he relents and starts giving in and to Luke's questioning.

Yes. And obviously, Luke could not have been back. Actually, this answers my question now that I obviously knew this before, but I don't know. Because Luke says, is Darth Vader my father? And Yoda ruefully says, told you, did he?

Yes.

Yeah.

And, and, and observes that that's unfortunate. This was, although it's like how he had to consider that that was a possibility, that that, that that would happen. But we get a very important exchange here, especially in relation to the title of the film, which is Yoda says to Luke, no more training do you require. Such as it is. Yeah, exactly. Which isn't plausible.

In the prequel, like literally, literally, they pick you up as a kid, they kidnap you, they throw you in the Jedi temple, and they fucking teach you how to be a Jedi from like when you're five years old. But Luke got like two, less than two weeks with, with, but it's like, it's like, Luke's been through a lot. He's just that special. It's fine. Yeah, he's fine. Yeah.

He, he, he did a practicum in the, in the field. But, and there's a glimmer there where I'm just like, is Yoda really, is he just that desperate to sleep and to shut Luke up? And he's like, no more training do you require? But no, like he said, and then Luke naturally asks or asserts, then I am a Jedi. Which again, we, he's, we've been told in the opening sequence of the film and seeing Luke acting.

He's a Jedi Knight.

Oh, he's a Jedi Knight.

He said, I'm a Jedi Knight.

But Yoda then says, not yet. Nope. That first, you must confront Vader and then only then will you be a Jedi. But that's his last test to become a Jedi. And that's really crucial. So the, so he's, according to Yoda, he's not yet a Jedi.

Technically, he's already faced Vader. So if I were Luke, I'd be like, actually. Well, that's how we lost his hand, remember? So I'll be good. Anyway, go on.

Let's face him again. But then we get his dying words, which I think are worthy of a clip.

All right, so now you may remember an empire. There was actually a very theatrical moment where Luke takes off, Obi-Wan in a voice says, that boy was a lost hope. And then the lights go dark in the background, the light turns red on Yoda, and he says, there, there is another.

Yes.

So we know this is coming. This is a question that had to be asked, yeah.

It's a payoff, and leading up to this, Yoda is like trying to get out his final lessons to Luke. So he's telling him things like, beware anger, fear, and aggression. That's the path to the dark side. Do not underestimate the emperor. But he also says, when gone, I am the last of the Jedi you will be, but the force runs strong in your family, pass on what you have learned. And at that moment, we think, oh, he's speaking of future generations of Skywalker. That when I read it that way, at that point.

You're a much more sophisticated viewer of this film than I am.

He's thinking long term and that, oh, and not only to his children, but that Luke is going to have to carry this and pass this on, but then hits him with the whammy of his last dying words, which is a startling revelation, I think, in Jedi as Luke, I am your father in Empire. Or it's close, but it's a big twist, I think, that comes in this film. So now Luke is like, what the hell? He doesn't know what he's going to do. He goes, he's like, he's the X-Wing, which Archie's fiddling with. It's like, I don't think I can do this. He's talking to himself, and then the force ghost of Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan.

And returns.

And Luke is pissed at him. Well, who wouldn't be?

Rightfully so.

And then he goes, Obi-Wan. Like the way he says it, just like, Hamill's line delivery, Obi-Wan. You know, I gotta say, Paul, like, this is probably, this film at its worst. I feel like these two scenes are butted together. They're some of the clumsiest expository writing. You're right about the, and also like just, there must have been, I mean, look, I love Lawrence Kasdan. I mean, everybody involved here is a genius, whatever. It really feels clunky the way that this is all put out. And why did Yoda have to die and Obi-Wan show up? It's weird.

It is awkward. I will draw a distinction between the two. I think that the Yoda farewell, although it is sort of out of the blue that, how is Yoda suddenly sick and dying? That's a payoff without a setup. That's like, we haven't, it's just where did that come from? We just are being told to buy it and accept it. But that aside, that scene, and I think Frank Oz's performance is really beautiful, is really lovely. And it's, I think it works pretty well. I think the only one scene is a real mixed bag, because you do get the obvious sense that Alec Guinness, Sir Alec Guinness, is just there to cash a check. For one scene, and he's not even really channeling Obi-Wan as much as he has, in terms of performance.

He's more like elegant British exposition guy, in this film.

Yeah. But the other thing is, this scene is the most kind of colossal cinematic retcon that I've ever seen, maybe had ever been undertaken in film history up until this point.

You said Vader betrayed and murdered my father. The nice guy that was Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader became Darth Vader, and in that way Darth Vader betrayed and murdered her father. So what I told you was real from a certain point of view. What? What?

It is such abject bullshit.

It makes me hate Obi-Wan.

Are you kidding me? Yeah, it makes Obi-Wan a manipulative asshole, for one, and it just feels like implausible.

How much harder would it have been for him to say, Luke, I didn't think you were ready to hear this. It is, this revelation would have shattered you. I mean, literally, just, and I'm sure they went through many iterations of it, but there's a human explanation for this. Luke, I couldn't tell you because you needed to take this journey. Luke, I couldn't tell you because you weren't ready to hear it. Luke, I didn't tell you. Whatever, there's 500 better ways of doing this, and this is just awful.

It opens up such a can of worms of plot holes and problems that are unnecessary, but it's like they've backed themselves into a corner because this is where they decided the story was going to go. But again, in Star Wars, the first film, there was no intention and plan.

It's a total thing they made up on the fly. Like that's clearly, you know, obviously.

Yeah. And so now it's like they're trying to shoehorn it in. And yes, they were able to do it elegantly, beautifully, spring that surprise and empire, but without having to explain it or whatever. But now we're dealing with cleaning up the mess of it. And it is a mess. It is a narrative.

Yeah. It also makes the universe about the size of a thimble. You know, because it's like, you're my dad, I'm your sister, I'm your brother. Yeah.

Because then in the sequence, then Obi-Wan proceeds to reveal actually or proceeds to nudge Luke into having the revelation that, oh, if he has a twin sister, oh, it must be Leia, which is also just like, are you kidding me? It just, this is where the film feels like, okay, we're stretching.

Yeah.

Amount of what, the number of and volume of pills that we're willing and able to swallow.

I don't think that this story material is necessarily bad. I think it is very poorly conveyed to the audience in a way that is very uncinematic, which is not the norm for this trilogy. It's very clunky and it doesn't feel like there was any consideration of why Obi-Wan's character would be this way. I think it tarnishes the character for me a lot. It was hard for me to accept Obi-Wan in The Phantom Menace and even going into Revenge of the Sith, Attack of the Clones, because I'm like, he lies to Luke. I love Luke. Luke is who I wanted to be when I was a kid. So literally, this resentment of Obi-Wan carried into my adult life, which is weird.

Yeah. It's very strange, the effect that it has, and by having to retcon this plot construction, it is retroactively damaging our relationship with this character.

You know how bad the damage is? You remember the trailer for the Phantom Menace that came out in 1998 or whatever? I remember being at a party, and I remember this guy, Darren Docterman, wonderful VFX designer, an amazing guy. He was literally showing it on his Apple Wall Street. Remember the black Apple computers with the rubber? We were all beside ourselves because we were watching it on a laptop, and that never happened before in history. But there's a line where Qui-Gon says, Anakin Skywalker meet Obi-Wan Kenobi. And I remember the first thing that came to my mind was, that lying sack of shit. I mean, come on.

Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway.

Anyway.

I'm sorry.

We're at the 40-minute mark of the movie.

And we're at the two-hour mark of the podcast.

But, we're at the 40-minute mark of the movie. But, Luke says he cannot kill his own father. Luke is convinced that he can turn...

Again, another piece of plotting that is completely unmotivated by anything. And Luke talks about the conflict later on. Just honestly, up until we get into the emperor's chamber, which is when this shit goes bananas good, like all of this stuff about, I feel the good in you, I feel the conflict. Really? There's nothing in Empire Strikes Back that makes me feel that.

Yeah. Where does it come from? And yeah, this is sort of this fulcrum of the film that is very crumbly.

It's what I have a showrunner who would have called it a creaky hinge.

Yeah. Yeah.

Big time on on on multiple axes. Because then there's the whole thing about, oh, you know, Leonardo Leyes is his sister and he realizes that. And Obi-Wan is like, oh, your insight serves you well, but could be made to serve the emperor. And so it's like setting that up as a possible threat and risk. And so there are all these cans of worms that are now open. And but now at 47 minutes into the film, we finally begin what really is the proper, which is the mission to take out not only Death Star 2, but the empire and the emperor himself. But pretty quickly, yeah, now the movie's like, okay, this is the movie I came to watch.

Han Solo's gonna go to the surface with a small commando force to blow up the shield generator that's protecting the half-completed Death Star. Everybody knows what to write. Then once we do that, the ships will come out of hyperspace, the entire rebel fleet will mount a massive attack against the Death Star, and presumably kill the Emperor, and that'll be that. Now, there are two great characters in the scene. Mon Mothma, who later we'll find out is the most important character in all Star Wars, at least, you know, and Admiral Ackbar. Yes. Who is just, just... Admiral Ackbar! Oh my God, I love that. And by the way, it was interesting because I guess there was some internal controversy about whether that design would work or anything like that. I love the Mon Calamari so much. I think that they're the most fun race. They build these great blobby ships and they're the shipbuilders and they're fish. And why do fish build spaceships? I don't know. I don't care. I love the design of this. It's like a giant fish head guy. Come on. I don't even know what to say.

So as disturbing and distressing and disarming as the Dagobah interlude is, kind of throwing this movie on balance, it regains its footing so assertively as we are on the rebel fleet. We're in also the beautiful set design.

Home one.

Of on the command ship, home one of the rebel fleet commanded by Admiral Akbar, who is just like, oh my freaking God.

By the way, it's the first alien we've seen in the Rebel Alliance. I don't think there's any aliens in the Rebel Alliance in Empire or in Star Wars. This is the first time we've seen that this is actually a multicultural group of rebels. You know?

Yes.

And we sure as shell act don't see any aliens in Andor. So, you know, or Rogue One, so.

Yeah. And we also see General Calrissian, who is like, looks.

His game is so strong.

Oh, my God. It's fantastic. And then we get, I think, one of the great briefing scenes in a mission briefing. This now this movie is basically a World War II men on a mission movie. And we get the mission briefing. And we've had, again, echoing the first film, there is a mission briefing in that first film that was very simple about you've got to go and start on Torpedo A, and the Slappy and the end. And to blow up this, that's it. Here, it's more, it's much more complicated.

We're sending a guy to the place with The Thing, and then we're sending a bunch of guys to The Thing and The Place.

Yes.

It's a lot.

Yeah. But also, there's a little hint of John Le Carre introduced in that Mon Mothma is revealing intel that many Bothans died to bring us. Many Bothans. There are three key points that they have.

The Emperor has committed a crucial tactical error.

Yes. The weapons on the new Death Star are not yet operational. It is relatively unprotected because the Imperial fleet is scattered and the Emperor himself is going to be there.

And the only thing protecting him is that shield generator on the forest moon of Endor.

Yes. On the forest moon of Endor. So they can deactivate it from there. They'll send a strike team. So they've got this perfect plan. The problem is two of their three pieces of intel they've gotten are false.

Everything is going exactly as I have foreseen.

And we don't know that. The only thing, the intel that they've gotten that's real is that the Emperor is there. I love this part of this because, again, those Bothans died for false intel, largely. And the Rebel Alliance is committing everything. They are going all in based on that.

We don't know that. We don't know that.

Huge gap that to take that. But we don't know that yet. But we're going to find out.

But we don't know it right now. The plan seems to sound to me.

The construction of this is so great. But yeah, it's thrilling because it's like, oh my God, they've got a plan. They know what they're doing. They divide up. Solo is like, who would be crazy enough to lead that strike team on Endor? And of course, it's General Solo who's somehow a general. And then, you know, it's like, oh, who's? Well, I didn't want to speak for you. And, you know, who's going to volunteer to join him? And of course, it's Leia.

And then Luke makes a great entrance and goes, I'm in, which is great.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very swashbuckling.

Leading to that great moment where Leia says, you seem different. What's the matter? He goes, I'll tell you later. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll tell you another time or something, which is very...

It's such a Doctor Who moment. It's like, how did the Daleks do X, Y and Z? I'll explain later.

Yeah. Then we get this great... I love Han and Lando together. And we get this great farewell of them on the hanger deck where Han basically entrusts the Falcon to Lando.

The previous owner who arguably took better care of it than Han did, by the way. He had the life pod attached to it. Yes. Much nicer Falcon when Lando had it.

But it's this emotional moment between these two men. And it has this very vibey World War II Men on a Mission thing vibe going on.

Han says, I feel like it's the last time I'm going to see her again. You know, about the ship.

Yes. And we get that bit of foreshadowing, which is that, oh, shit, is the Falcon going to be destroyed? Is Lando going to die? Or is Han Solo going to die? Which I love. But they split up Han, Luke, Lanchui and the droids take a stolen shuttle and then we cut to the Death Star. And then from here on out, we are intercutting between the fleet, the Death Star and the planet Endor. And it is a marvel of editing and of narrative intercutting and construction of moving back and forth seamlessly and effortlessly that maintains momentum and clarity and propulsion.

And I honestly feel that the people who hate this movie do not give this entire last 45 minutes of this movie any credit or hour or whatever the fuck it is.

Well, it's like a closer to an hour 15. It's almost a whole movie.

Okay, now we got a lot to cover here. Okay, so Khan and everyone in shuttle Tidarium, the Lambda shuttle they've stolen, managed to sneak by the Imperial blockade of the Forest Moon with an older code that nevertheless checks out. And you get the sense that Darth Vader's a little suspicious about this code. And then of course, Khan says his best line, I don't know, fly casual.

Yeah, so on the Death Star, the Emperor's dismissed Vader, sent him back, says, you're done, you're good. Go back to the command ship. And then we're indicating between the shuttle and this great suspense sequence, also great use of William's score, in terms of building tension as Luke and Vader become aware of each other's presence. They've got this forced sense awareness of each other. And Vader tells Admiral Piet. I believe you're my favorite.

My favorite Imperial bureaucrat. No, actually.

Imperial.

Again, watching it at 12, watching it at 55. At 12, he was my favorite Imperial bureaucrat. Now it's D. She's just the best.

Well, she's a bureaucrat.

But anyway.

But tells him to let them go. But Luke now is carrying guilt because he is convinced he's putting the mission at risk. That's right. But Han is like, now you're overthinking it, whatever, blah, blah, it's fine. But Vader's like, leave them to me. He's going to go. They get passage to Endor. Then we're on Endor and we see them arrive in this great rebel camo gear.

Which I just love. But really, Han Solo has a trench coat.

That's a camouflage. Somebody made him a camouflage trench coat because he can't wear a poncho like everybody else. He has to look good.

He has to be cool. He's too cool for a poncho.

Lando's cape game is very strong. Han had to step up eventually.

Yes. But then we get Scout Troopers.

The greatest, by the way.

It's Speeder Bikes, new design.

We love the Stormtroopers. The Scout Troopers are so much cooler. Less armor, cooler helmets, and more mobility.

And the Speeder Bikes.

Also, a greater capacity for peripheral vision, I might add.

Yeah.

And the ability to, like, raise the visor that we don't see them doing. But yeah, they can. So, Khan has a plan to, like, oh, I'm going to take care of these Speeder Bikes.

He goes awry.

He steps on a twig. It's a dumb joke that they have to chase down these. And then we get...

The Speeder Bike chase to this day is just thrilling. I love it.

An amazing, tremendous sequence. I watch it now and I just think, what a nightmare for every compositor at ILM.

Compositing in daylight is the hardest thing to do. Anytime you've got daylight in your ear, yeah.

Yes. And at speed, with the motion and everything. But also the sound design. Ben Burt and the whole sound team at Skywalker Sound, there's so many sequences that are just for the sound design alone, it is a feast. And this sequence is iconic. It's great. And again, we get to see Luke pull out the lightsaber.

Since you're mentioning sound design here, and I think producer Brad put this in our rundown for the show, but this is also the dawn of a really interesting new era in film going. Because this is also when George Lucas is not only established ILM, he's also doing things like putting a theater accreditation program together, because the exhibition sucks in the 70s. And he's literally getting people like, there's a guy named Tom Holman who was George Lucas' sound guru. And in fact, they say THX was named after THX 1138, but the joke is it was actually called Tom Holman's Experiment, right? And it basically becomes this program by which they accredit theaters that have the best sound possible, and they begin to set the standards for what moviegoing should be like. So literally, Return Of The Jedi is not only a movie that is a great movie and a wonderful object of our childhood, it is literally a moment when the physical exhibition of film and the physical distribution of sound within a theater becomes an object of science and not just of, if we got a hall, we stuck a projector in it, who gives a fuck, you know? And it's literally the beginning of the modern era of film going.

This is such an important point because when Star Wars came out, most movie theaters showed movies in mono, in mumbled compressed, like crappy, crappy sound. And Lucas is pushing the bounds, bringing back full orchestral film scores for one, but also doing aggressively ambitious sound mixes and sound design. He is not satisfied with the state of not just film production, again, going back to your point of creating nonlinear editing that would become the avid and, you know, all these visual effects through ILM, but also for film exhibition. And that sound was not up to the standard and not able to reproduce what they were making. And so, yeah, he created the standard. And so, by Empire, it's like, oh, yeah, you could, you know, more common to see movies in stereo. But to then get surround and the wider dynamic range and broader staging of the audio that the THX standard then gave theaters, it was a revelation for moviegoers, they experienced movies in a different way.

Look, I adore George Lucas. I generally see him as a patron saint. I don't care what people think about the prequels or whatever. I don't think a single man has ever done more to advance the art of cinema and to give filmmakers the tools to make great films. And look, everything, all the digital stuff ILM pioneered is partially what made it possible for TV to be good because it allowed us to do things with CGI. We could never do with models on TV timescales. Nonlinear editing changed television. The whole golden era of television happened because of those things. And he also changed the film-going experience. I mean, it's like you're literally looking at a guy who's using all of his power and money to actually make the craft, to actually advance the craft of filmmaking and advance the experience of going into theaters and watching movies. And without him, none of, you know, like some of this probably have nonlinear editing and CGI and a bunch of other things would have probably emerged in their own way because other people were working on it. It's, George, then just invent all this shit, obviously. But I think if you look at any one person and their contribution to the art of cinema, I, it's hard for me to imagine anybody who's had that much influence and that much of an impact. I don't know.

And then, and then you also make Star Wars, you know? Exactly.

You could, you could take Star Wars off of Lucas's plate and say, judge him separate from everything Star Wars and throw Indiana Jones there, whatever else. Purely on all the things you've mentioned.

And there's more.

Pixar came from Lucasfilm. It started as a division of Lucasfilm. Pioneering CG animation.

It was, it was, Pixar is the name of the computer they were, they used, the first computer that was doing the CG stuff.

And the, the, the render man's rendering software, you know, all the CG animation, that was all pioneered under Lucasfilm. And then spun off, sold to Steve Jobs and blossomed as Pixar. Making films with digital cameras. He was the first to make episode one.

Episode two, yeah.

To use the Sony. Well, it was partially, I think, in once. Part of, part of one is shot.

But, but by sheer tyranny of will, George Lucas willed movies into the digital era. I would say.

Yes. And to, I think broadly, it's to everyone, everyone's benefit. Although I think he would be the first to say, motivated by pure selfishness. Because he wanted those tools to exist. So he could use them to manifest his own vision. By extension, they extended to everyone else, and economies of scale and widespread adoption made them more viable. But it, all of these things that change the industry are because-

Because George wanted to go back and make the first Star Wars shinier? Because he never felt that it was completed because he hated how the VFX looked, and then he like literally pioneered all this technology. So he could go back to the film in 1970s, and look, I've heard him say, like, look, I'm the guy who takes the heat. Everybody says I'm a horrible person for making these movies or what have you, blah, blah, blah. So I'm sorry if you like the original Star Wars, but guess what? It's not what I wanted. I spent my whole life developing this technology. It's now the movie I wanted. I buy it. It's fine. I don't like it. I don't like that you can't get the originals. But Paul, it's such an odd thing that it's not odd. It's like literally changing the face of an art form so you can go back and fix the problems in a piece of work you did.

Yeah. And how it's going to be presented. But since you opened that door, I'm just going to go on record. These films are part of our cultural legacy and memory. I think there's nothing wrong with an artist revisiting their art and revising it and changing it and making new versions of it till the cows come home. Go crazy.

But once you produce a work of art and put it out in the world, it is no longer even Ridley Scott let the theatrical cut he hated of Blade Runner get into the DVD sets with all the other cuts. So I guess.

Also, film is a collaborative medium. It is not just authored by one person. It is the work of all these artists. And so I will shamelessly advocate for people to seek out the despecialized edition. Or some some print or some print of the original movie that might just be a transfer of an original film print. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

BFI is doing a screening of the original 70 millimeter, like like the dug one out from God knows where that George didn't get a chance to destroy.

You know?

Yeah. But but they should and can exist alongside each other. And I think we need to honor all the artists. And well, I think that's the shitty, the shitty thing about the special editions is that is that all of the stuff, all of the pioneering work that made it possible for Return Of The Jedi to be as awesome as it is was erased in favor of Shiner CGI stuff, which I think that is that is a terrible thing.

And I do wish which and which now actually looks more dated than the original film.

Well, because Star Wars won an Academy Award for editing and so much of what makes that movie work and those sequences work is the editing, not the fact that the ships look great when examined in a still frame. It's the fact that the scene was put together the way that it was, you know. So, but again, when I say it's fine, it's like, I'm just, you know what, when I say it's fine, what I mean is, I'm kind of tired of arguing about it with people, you know, much as we are right now.

And but again, yeah, well, I don't, yeah, again, I mean, it's, I, again, my hope was when Disney acquired Lucasfilm that they would have the right and the economic incentive to say, well, we could sell a whole other version of Star Wars.

That's the part I find so baffling.

I don't know why they haven't.

I find that baffling that they haven't.

I don't know why they haven't done that. I don't know if it's a clause or it was part of the condition of the sale of the film. I don't know if it's because of he did these new versions because of some residuals issue that he doesn't want to pay his ex-wife or that there's something related to that. I don't know. I don't care. But with the 50th anniversary looming in 2027, which is terrifying to comment on.

I don't want to talk about that. Let's not talk about that, Paul. Why would you? You want to talk about the other thing? How about we don't talk about that, our impending dotage?

I hold onto hope. I hold onto hope. I wish Lucas a long, long, healthy, happy life. I hope we don't have to wait until he dies to get a proper re-release of these towering pillars of cinematic achievement in their original form as they were released and experienced and changed the world.

You're right.

Because it is a cultural crime that they are denied to us because of one person's selfish whims.

Here's a question for you. All three of the original films are in the National Film Registry.

Yes.

Is it the original theatrical version?

Yes.

I don't know the answer.

Yes. So the films that the every year in Congress, I mean, who knows if that's going to happen in any more Library of Congress, admits new films to the National Film Registry for preservation and also for recognition of landmarks in film. Yeah, all three films are there, but the recognition is for the original films. It's a question of whether they have been provided with original prints of all three of those films.

Yeah, but look, I do not look. At the end of the day, I would say that I can hold these two truths simultaneously. And I know that's weird and that's Orwellian of me and I'm a bad man. But I understand where George is coming from. And I also understand the need to have these films. To me, it's, look, the, again, these are contradictory things, but I get both of them and I get frustrated because I feel like it is such a densely argued point between us fanboys, you know? But the fact of the matter is whether you can see the originals or not, we come from an era, Paul, when nothing, no form of media was widely easily available to any of us. Okay? The point being, you know, you and I grew up in a culture of scarcity, okay? We would have seen Star Wars in theaters and then waited another year to see it again if it was re-released, if at all. And most movies were not, right? So for me, the argument that we deserve to have these films in their original form is sort of a product of an era when you can literally pop a disc in a thing and get whatever you want, you know?

I disagree. I disagree.

I know you do. I know you do. But I think it is a cultural conversation that would not have taken place in 77 or in 82. We live in a very different media environment and things mean a lot of different things.

I disagree because repertory theaters existed and there were revival screenings every seven years of the Disney Archive films, animated films. There were revival screenings of Hitchcock films. 2001 of many other classic films that would be re-released and brought back. And it was unthinkable that someone would say, oh, I'm going to go back and change that movie and then erase from every obelisk the original film.

I don't believe that that's true. I mean, I think there's all sorts of stories of films that were altered in the originals. I mean, it's like everything is like going back to the Magnificent Embersons. I mean, it's not, I don't know. I don't think it's unheard of.

That film was famously never finished.

All right, all right, all right. Let's move on. Let's move on. I have confessed that you're right. And that I double think this shit all over the place in my thoughts.

There are plenty of things to appreciate the special edition. I'm glad it exists. You know, I'd love for him to do another one. Keep making another one.

But by the way, I wish they go make a special edition of The Phantom Menace where the script is good.

But I don't need them. I've seen them once. I never need to see them again. When I watch movies, I don't watch A New Hope. I watch Star Wars. I watch Empire Strikes Back or Return Of The Jedi. And those are the movies and continue to be.

But again, we're talking about being 55 and being 12.

And real quick, I did quick internet research. The Library of Congress asked for prints and they were offered the new ones and they declined. So they just haven't listed, but they don't have prints in the library at the moment, from what the internet tells me.

Wow. Look, I cannot imagine that the originals for these films don't exist somewhere. I know George protests that he destroyed the negatives and it's impossible to get the originals back. I don't believe that. I don't believe that for a second. That just doesn't track with anything that is remotely. So they're somewhere in a vault. They'll come out eventually. And maybe it'll be after George dies. Maybe it'll be sometime. No, no, that's not the case.

And as we know, they can be very faithfully reconstructed.

Or dare we say procured.

Yeah, and procured. Yes, thanks to some obsessive compulsive diligence by some hardcore fans who hopefully will not be criminally charged.

And now on to the greatest space battle in history.

I think producer Brad is saying that we're dangerously teetering toward the three hour edge. Paul, I don't want to go beat by beat for this anymore. Let me just tell you something. Okay? And I'm not trying to thwart you because I know you want to go beat by beat. And I know you've got shit you got to say about every beat in this movie. But if I just had 20 minutes to talk about this movie, and I do.

Okay.

And we'll do more. We'll do more. We'll talk about all of it. The one thing in this movie that has stuck with me more than anything else, even though Ian McDermott has played this character a whole bunch of many more times after this, okay, is how fucking disturbingly evil the Emperor is in this movie. And the mind games that he's playing with Luke and Darth Vader are so fucked up. And to my 12-year-old mind, this was, or 13 or 52-year-old, I don't know how old I was. I don't give a shit. Paul, can we talk about that just a little bit, please? Like, just how fucked up is this whole thing that's happening with the Emperor? He's horrible. And has any actor ever relished in the sheer obnoxiousness of an evil character as much as this guy? I mean, where the fuck did McDermott get this? It's insane. He's so happy about what a piece of shit he is, you know?

He is having a lot of fun. And given the buildup that the mythology has constructed for the ultimate reveal of the Emperor, it is a pretty solid payoff. Like, I think that they hit the jackpot in casting and in the prosthetic, even though it's a reconfiguration of what they kind of did and, you know, in the vaguely... It's not the same Emperor at all as the vampire monkey face.

No, monkey face, woman's eyes, monkey, Clyburn thing.

Monstrosity thing. And I don't think it needs to be, I think it's fine, but he is just dripping with devious deliciousness and at every turn and clearly he knows he has hit the jackpot with this role of just not holding anything back.

Anything back. It's all on the table.

It is so over the top.

And, but it works. And yet I believe him.

Yeah.

I believe, like, when he, from the moment that he tells, you know, so look, going back, there's been a speeder chase, Luke has left the party, he's surrendered to Darth Vader, who's taken him up to the Emperor.

Wow, you're skipping a lot.

No, no, we gotta get to the EO for a second.

I'm trying to chunk it out.

No, no, wait, wait, wait, I'm trying to chunk it out. Three things are happening. I'm trying to go chunk, instead of peek-a-boo, chunk by chunk.

Okay, okay, okay. We're following this thread. Okay. Yeah. So Luke has basically confessed to Leia, if we're following this thread, that Luke's his father and she's his sister.

Darth Vader's his daddy and she's his sister.

Which is wild that he just lays all that out at her. Then he has to go confront her because he thinks he can save him, which again, why does he think that? It doesn't make any sense.

That is from his ass to your dinner table. Literally, I don't know where that came from and whatever.

There's a great moment where then Han arrives and is like jealous because Leia, he's like, what are you talking to Luke about? And she can't tell him. He's like, but you can't tell Luke. And he's like, he's being such a dick. Like he's such a dumb guy.

But by the way, Han is a dick. Yeah, but he's the beginning of the Empire Strikes Back. He's a rapey asshole at the beginning of the Empire Strikes Back where he's like, yeah, your real feeling's about me, boo.

You know, he's a bigot. Come on. But that gets Luke out of the Ewok village. We'll come back to Ewoks, whatever. And then he lets himself be captured by the Imperials and brought to Vader who is now on Endor. And there is this amazing scene between the two of them. But it's a little uneven in terms of how Luke is written and his posturing and his tone.

The writing in this section of the movie is pretty fucking janky. The scene with Luke and Leia, although it is accompanied by one of John Williams' most touching and wonderful pieces of scoring, which damn near saves the scene. But it's like when Leia is saying, no, Luke, you can run. It's just so clunky. And it's written like suddenly they thought they were writing some elevated thing. It loses its colloquy. A lot of Star Wars seems to be delivered in this kind of bizarro mid-Atlantic cadence. And it just feels like for all the epic stuff they're reaching for, they're trying to somehow elevate the language or something, it doesn't work at all.

And again, this is a problem that has persisted since the first film, but at least they've let go of trying to have Leia have an accent or not. But it is, it's about how do people speak in Star Wars? They're still not quite committed or landing on that decision. But I think the scene between Luke and Vader on this weird platform, like landing platform, there's also like a docking platform for a walker. It's a really weird, interesting story.

One of the coolest shots, one of the coolest shots is the Lambda shuttle arriving with a walker kind of in the background. Come on.

Yeah. But that there's this surprise because Luke addresses him as Anakin Skywalker.

And so that name no longer holds any meaning for me.

Exactly. So on the one hand, Vader is pleased that Luke has accepted the truth, but yet now he's having that truth turned against him, and he's not happy about that being confronted with that and hearing that name, which maybe he has not heard spoken in decades.

Yes. Now Paul, the timing Nazi, the guy who's telling you that you can't go beat by beat, I'm going to pivot so fucking hard right now.

But the last thing, the last part of the scene, the last part of the scene, the last exchange, is that Vader admits to Luke, because Luke is like, oh, you can join me, we can take on the Emperor. I know they're still good in you, I can sense it, I don't know how. But Vader says it's too late for me, son.

Which by the way, given what a piece of shit of a genocider he is, and as we found out for everything else we've seen, I mean, Vader's got a lot of red on his ledger, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. But at this point, we're now, the conversation, it's blurred between how much is he speaking to Vader and how much is he speaking to Anakin in terms of that just by that admission that he makes to Luke. And then, you know, but Luke is then, you know, then my father is, you know, is truly dead.

And then, this is the rare, this is the rare place in these movies, by the way, where the prequels have actually added something that makes one of the originals more credible, you know, because now that I've seen Anakin's story and how he turns and all of that, and especially even something like Obi-Wan, you know, the Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries, which is mixed. I feel like, I feel like everything I've seen that, I feel like it actually supports this a little bit more. For what you just said, now I know who Anakin is.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, it's the Clone Wars animated series that for me, I think really sells the character more fully and dimensionally. But yeah, it's interesting now, looking back at these films and this one in particular, in the context of everything we've now seen since, including the prequels, the Clone Wars, you know, the spinoffs, all this other stuff. Because you can't help but look at some of these beats and moments through a different context and lens that we have.

55 versus 13, exactly.

Yeah. But it's not just time and age. It's an accumulation of exponentially more screen experience and information, and time spent with these characters in a different context.

By the way, as much as I just like what the Emperor does in this movie as a chunk and as its own thing, a lot of what comes before it also illuminates that in a really interesting way. But part of me is happy about that, and part of me just wishes that I just had this bit of the Emperor. Because the performance and the writing of the Emperor in this movie is so sharp and so just devious and horrible.

Yes. So that we thought. So Vader has brought Luke to the Emperor. But yeah, continue.

Disney owns Star Wars, right?

Yes.

Star Wars is a huge attraction at Disneyland, right?

Yes.

And so is the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.

Yes.

When you go to the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, there is an homage to the director of the original film, which is that there's a book laying on a table. Obviously, you can't open anything. It's a set. The director of the Swiss Family Robinson is the namesake of Anakin Skywalker. The guy is named Ken Anakin. And it's probably the only mention of the word Anakin you'll ever see anywhere. It's a really uncommon name. So weirdly, the biggest homage to Anakin Skywalker and the oldest one in Disneyland is that his name is in the Swiss Family Robinson thing, which is actually the name of the guy that he named Anakin after. So boom, pivot, sorry, sorry. They go up to see the emperor.

That's kind of cool. That's kind of cool. And yeah, the emperor proceeds to sort of taunt both of them. He uses the force to like, unshackle his handcuffs. He dismisses the guards. He says, I'm looking forward to completing your training.

Finishing your training.

And Luke is defiant in a way that almost seems unmotivated. It's very strange how assured Luke is in this sequence to the point of like, yeah, this is... You are not in control of the situation. So very strange. Luke is weird in this stretch a little bit.

If you look at it in the context of the previous scene, is Darth Vader saying, you know, it's too late for me. So then it's kind of too late for Luke. He knows he's going to die. Luke is going into this thinking that the attack is going to succeed. And he also goes into it knowing that at least his father saw them. You can't turn me back.

Yes.

So Luke has nothing to lose at this point, but to be, you know, he can be as cheeky to the emperor as he wants.

Yeah.

And the emperor says one of my favorite lines in the movie. You'll find it is you who is mistaken. About a great many things. Sorry.

But yeah, so in this sequence, and you see Luke, a big part of Luke's cockiness and confidence is that he has confidence in the plan and in his friend. And at one point, the emperor even says, you know, Luke says to the emperor, you know, your overconfidence is your weakness. And he retorts, your faith in your friends is yours. And then the emperor reveals that he is aware, not only aware of the plan, but already has countermeasures in place to foil the plan.

That he fed the false information to the Bothans.

Exactly, exactly. That this was all a lure and a trap to destroy the Rebel Alliance.

That the commander of the Bessard Moon is going to be met by a legion of his greatest soldiers.

Yeah, sort of.

I mean, I don't know if you see the fight at the end of the day. If those are the best soldiers he's got, that's a real problem. But whatever.

Yeah, and that your friends are walking into a trap as is your Rebel fleet. Oh, and that the shield is going to be operational and blah, blah, blah. So it's like, oh, he's such a bastard.

He goes, I'm afraid the shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive. He's such a dick. God, I hate him. And I love him.

I know. If he had a mustache, he'd be twirling it.

But McDarmott sells it because he's so mean-spirited. He's such a petty little man. The Emperor Pierce is like this little raisin of a guy. And then you meet him, he starts to turn around in his turn and that's when he first sees his face. But he's so, like, just, Paul, literally, at 55 and at 13, I had a hard time wrapping my head around just the cruelty of this character. You know, the sheer emotional cruelty that he wreaks on these two men. It is, to this day, and God knows I've seen enough emotional cruelty to last a lifetime. I live in America, in Trump's America, and I've been through a divorce, but holy crap!

Yeah, it is. And he just ratchets it up because he still has more cards up his sleeve that he has not played yet in terms of just crushing the hopes of Luke and everybody. But staying on this thread because meanwhile we're going to be intercutting between the fleet and the awesome battle stuff, and then the Ewoks we haven't talked about in The Villain, and then teaming up with the Rebels.

We'll do this, then we'll do Ewoks, and we'll do the space battle.

This is a good idea.

So in 10 minutes.

No, we're going to come back and record a whole other part of this podcast. I'm sorry, producer Brad, this is going to be the Ben-Hur of our podcast. Without me spoiling a main plot point for you, producer Brad, which you haven't forgiven me for since we were roommates in 1995. Okay?

Speaking of that, I've been withholding a bit of trivia.

Yes, please.

Oh shit.

Do you know what other movie Richard Marquand directed?

Which one? Oh, the other movie I spoiled for you when we were roommates in 1995.

The Jagged Edge.

Oh, literally, this is like me and producer Brad. If there was anything that threatened to ever end our friendship, it was my propensity for spoiling twists.

Oh my God.

Yeah, I'm shocked. I'm shocked we're still together.

Oh my God.

All right.

There is a stretch, brief aside, there's a stretch when my son was younger and he would watch things and then want to rewatch them with me and I hadn't seen them and then he would, he would narrate what is about to happen. And I'd be like, why are you doing? No, don't do that.

That's kind of like what it's like being a friend of mine in the 1990s.

Yeah.

I have a Star Wars spoiler with my son. Since we have time. My son hadn't seen the star, he'd seen the first one, but not the second or the third. And I'm reading him one of those little children's books. And it's like a father son with Vader and Luke. And in it, Vader says, you know, I'm your father. And my son is like three or four and he goes, Vader is Luke's father? And I realized that little book had spoiled it for him. And I didn't know it was coming.

But here's the thing, that plot twist is kind of like the plot twist in Psycho. You know, Marion Crane dies in the middle of the movie, right? Like, there is no way that you can live in this popular culture and grow up in this popular culture. I mean, there is a way, obviously, in other countries and stuff like that.

It's like Rosebud or kind of Sozay, yeah, yeah.

Sozay, or that you literally have seen this parodied so many times by the time you're old enough to actually watch the real movie, that you can never, one of the experiences about watching these in the Multiplex when they came out and when they made the history they made is that we didn't know.

Yes.

We didn't know Darth Vader was Luke's father. We didn't know Leia was his sister. We didn't know any of this stuff and it was all a surprise. And it can never be a surprise for anyone ever again because of the amount of cultural, because of the size of the cultural footprint of this work.

Yeah. Yeah.

But you never want to be the one to spoil it. Let someone else do it for you.

Shut up. You're so mean to me, producer Brad. No, no.

I'm talking about me and my son.

Okay.

Okay. I thought you were, I thought, you know, I mean, I expect to be saying shit about spoiling Ben Hur for you until like, we're well in our 80s and in the old folks home, but come on.

So since we're on this tangent, and it's like the one Star Wars movie we're going to be talking about on this podcast, presumably.

Thank God another one's not for another 16 years or whatever it is.

Yeah, I don't know if we're going to do Multiplex Overthruster sees the Phantom Menace.

No, no.

Wow, that'll be nine hours long and we'll need catheters.

I think the mid to late 80s are the height of my ambition. But Javi, I don't presume you have yet had the chance to fully introduce Star Wars to your kids yet. I don't know where you are if you've done that yet. I was very intentional with my son in terms of how I was going to do that. But inadvertently, he was the right age when Lego Star Wars video games, PlayStation game came out. So his first introduction to Star Wars was playing the Lego Star Wars PlayStation, which is delightful. It's wonderful and it's great. And it didn't really spiral to give away much of anything. But so he had that kind of in the back of his brain, kind of seeped in very little when he was really young. But then I watched the Clone Wars animated series of them. So we went on that journey together through that whole series. Then I showed him Star Wars. And when I introduced it to him, I will never forget the look on his face because I hadn't told him anything about it. I hadn't said anything or teased it. He looks at me and he says, they're Star Wars with real people? He had no idea. Wow. He had no idea. And then it blew his mind. So I showed him then the original trilogy. It kind of spaced apart a little bit. So he got to have that experience. But again, with the only context of playing the Lego Star Wars game and then watching all the Clone Wars. And then we watched Rebels and stuff like that, blah, blah. And then we watched the sequel. I've never shown him the prequel.

Really? Yeah. But he watched the sequel trilogy. That's interesting. Yes. You know, yes.

He may he may have watched the prequels on his own in some way.

Maybe he went rogue and watched them on his own.

I don't know. I think he has some awareness of them. And I'm like, if you want to watch them, go, you know, do whatever you want. But I like my job is done.

But again, it's like of all the movies, of all the movies that we're visiting in this podcast, I think it bears sort of saying that like Star Wars is just something that has been so transformed over the decades and is so ubiquitous. You know, when Donald Glover got the part of Lando Calrissian, he was interviewed and somebody asked him why he took the part. And he said, because I can't write myself into the Bible. And it's like literally, I mean, we're talking about something that's on the level of not the Bible. But you know what I'm saying? This is the pop cultural air we breathe. And especially for our generation as we've come up and become the people making the popular culture. You know, in the film Twister, in the late 90s, it was funny that Philip Seymour Hoffman goes, that's no moon, that's a space station. And now it's like you can't make a movie without it having some Star Wars reference in it, you know? So it's really interesting just the sheer saturation of this material in our culture and what it means culturally for us. That it's part of who we are, you know?

Yeah. And what a space it occupied from the late 70s into early 80s.

Very different.

And then took a bow and left in large part. And then, you know, kind of was kept alive through ancillary extended things for what seemed like an eternity, but was only like 16 years or something. Which now seems like a blip. But yeah, we had no promise that we were ever going to get anything more. There was just this vague hope that, you know, maybe someday we'll revisit them and we'll, you know, and it was left to our imagination of where that could lead. But the shadow that it casts in terms of how large it looms.

It's colossal.

It's hard to think of anything bigger in pop culture.

Well, that's the thing is that, look, I think, you know, you can talk about Shakespeare, obviously. You can talk about any number of other things that are ubiquitous. But I think for the age of modern media, this is it.

Yeah, for contemporary pop culture, contemporary, saying, last half century, century.

From the birth of cinema.

Yeah, and certainly for cinema. Yeah, I think that's hard to dispute. Dear listeners, we interrupt this podcast for an unprecedented announcement. Here's the thing. You may have thought that the Star Trek II episode last season was the longest we could go. Oh, no. We probably should have surmised that this being the only Star Wars movie we're going to cover, that we would have a lot to say. Boy, howdy do we. We are not done yet. We've got quite a bit more to go. But would you look at the time? So we decided to take a break for ourselves and for all of you and leave you on just a slight cliffhanger with the promise that we're going to conclude this conversation with our first two-part Multiplex Overthruster episode, first and hopefully last, my esteemed colleague, producer Brad tells me. And we will see you back here at the Multiplex for part two for the thrilling conclusion of Return Of The Jedi and our second season premiere kicking off Summer of 83. So please join us and tell your friends. Don't run away. We promise it won't be a three-parter.

Thanks.

Catch you later.