Multiplex Overthruster, Summer of 83. And we're back.

Hello, dear listeners. There's a reason why I have three days' worth of stubble, and not all of us might be wearing the same clothes from when you began this podcast. It's that, well, recapping Return Of The Jedi up until now has been such an exertion that I literally had to go into the Odin's sleep for three days. Like the Druid Al-Anon from the Shannara Chronicles, I had to literally sleep for three days to recover and to be able to speak of this film again. Paul, how are you?

Well, magically, and such are the mysteries of the Force, no time has passed for me at all. What? I am still exactly where we left off, mere moments ago for me, yet somehow days ago for you.

Well, Paul, I feel, look, I must say that I feel a little bit like I've become the, let's not go beat by beat Nazi, and I just want to make sure I haven't offended or bullied you. Because I worry about it, and I think our audience worries about our relationship, Paul. I think they do.

I harbor no such worry or remote echo of concern.

All right. Well, I just-

In any corner of my soul or psyche. No, I appreciate your trying to keep us on the straight and narrow, as challenging as that is due to the chaotic caverns of my mind.

Due to my being every bit as digressive as you are, and circuitous, I might add.

Exactly.

In 1990-something, when producer Brad and I watched the best of both worlds, Star Trek episode, he in fact said that if I had been taken over by the Borg, my name would be circuitous. I would be circuitous of Borg.

I just want to point out we're still not discussing it.

So we're back on the Death Star, where we left off after a couple of tangents and digressions. The Emperor has revealed this has all been an elaborate trap. So elaborate. The rebels are totally screwed. So fucked. The Emperor then proceeds to make Luke watch painfully as the fleet is getting hammered.

What an asshole. I hate him so much.

He's such a prick.

He is so just horrible. And you can tell he has been playing this out in his mind.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. For probably months, if not longer. And he's finally getting this wish fulfillment.

I bet years. I bet it's been since like The Empire Strikes Back when he was a monkey, you know, with Clive Rebel's voice. And he's literally just been in the shower going, Now, young Skywalker, we should hit her.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And so luckily, we've had these windows where Luke is getting a spectacular view of horror. And the Emperor is getting, I guess, his dream porn show of Rebel destruction. And then, as if things couldn't be worse.

As if.

The Emperor, as I believe alluded to previously, has one more huge ace up his sleeve. And as he says, to now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station and the Death Star, it blows up a rebel frigate.

Yeah. By the way, it's into the medical frigate. It's a medical frigate, right?

It might be.

I don't know.

I try not to think about it too much. But yeah, it blows it up.

And here's the thing, and I got to hand it to the Empire here because, look, look, this is the Emperor is being a dick and he's evil. We can get that. But now that we've seen Rogue One and Andor, we know just how much Orson Krennic had to go through to get that super laser working. So the fact that they were able to get that together in such a short period of time, I mean, I'm kind of impressed. I got to say, like, look, I'm not saying the Empire had any good points. I'm just saying this was a anyway, go on.

It warrants mention that this film poses a very puzzling question, which is, how the heck did they get this second Death Star up and running so quickly?

Well, I mean, because I believe, as Moff George Routh said, we shall double our efforts.

Well, I guess so, clearly. And I guess they have optimized their efficiency of workflow since working out the kinks of the construction of the original Death Star, that they were able to expedite a secondary one. And maybe they already had the secondary one underway. Maybe the whole plan was, we're going to just build a whole crap ton of these Death Stars and deploy them across the galaxy.

It's total government contracting thinking. I have one when two will do, right?

Yes, exactly. Redundancy, the economies of scale.

I would say, though, that the Death Star is supposed to be much larger than Death Star I also, right? I believe that when I've seen the different size comparisons, and I have. But the other thing I would say is...

Although I don't think this is ever said in the film. So, we're kind of taking that with a grain of salt, yeah.

However, having just watched the second to the third to last episodes of Andor, the second to last episodes of Andor, we know a couple things. First of all, having seen Rogue One, we know that the Empire's got all the Kyber they need now, so that's not going to stop the construction. Plus, they don't have to destroy Gorman again to get all the calcite they need. So, I mean, these are two big hurdles that they've managed to overcome. I'm just very impressed with their logistical planning.

I mean, the long-term design of their supply chain. Yes, yes. On really an unprecedented scale. I mean, even Tim Cook would be in awe of this. It's really impressive.

And you know who doesn't, who never gets enough credit is Orison Krennic.

No, no, not at all, not at all.

But Luke is watching with horror as the fleet is destroyed in front of his very eyes, and the Death Star is operational.

We're rapidly descending at breakneck speed to the lowest point, not just of our protagonists, but of the entire Rebel Alliance that is in danger of being annihilated by this.

And the Internet tells me that the first ship destroyed is the Liberty, a heavy cruiser.

You know what? It's a columnar.

No, I think the second one is the medical. I know the medical frigate gets fragged, but I think the yeah, it was a Mon Calamari ship.

Yeah, the second ship was the Nautillion, which is the same class as Home 1.

Wait a minute, but the medical frigate doesn't get destroyed at all?

Based on what I'm reading in the Internet.

Why is this a whole part of that? They're headed for the medical frigate. Okay, you know what?

I'm hoping at one point they are attacking, but then they defend the medical frigate.

You know what? I've seen this movie so many times. It's like I haven't seen this movie at all. Let's go on.

Oh my God. We're never gonna get it. No, we got it. This episode will never end.

No, it's literally like Groundhog Day, but over a turn. Okay, so anyway, Luke looks down and the Emperor is holding...

Your friends on the Ender Moon will not survive. There's no escape. The Alliance will die, as will your friends. And then Luke is bristling. And meanwhile, if we have not established this yet, the Emperor seized Luke's lightsaber and has it resting on the armrest of his throne.

He's just petting it like Blofeld's cat. He's just pawing at it like, yeah.

Within reach of Luke's force powers, and he's taunting Luke.

And he's just, it's like it's the Emperor's own Hitachi Magic One. He's just gently stroking it, you know?

Yeah, and he's like, good, I can feel your anger. And you can see, and to Mark Campbell's credit, he is wrestling with all these impulses of knowing, I can't give in, he's got to mind Yoda's warning. But yet, he asked to try to save his friends and the rebels. And, oh, what is he going to do? And meanwhile, I feel like in this scene, in this sequence, the Emperor is more than a little...

Thank you...

.Colin Robinson.

What's that mean? Who's Colin Robinson?

Colin Robinson.

I have no idea.

From what we do in The Shadows.

I don't watch that show.

You don't watch what we do in The Shadows? He's an energy vampire. He's an energy vampire and he is sucking. He is... okay.

No.

No. He's not...

well he...

Okay, hang on. There's a reason I brought up the Hitachi Magic Wand. Okay? And it is this.

What?

Hitachi Magic Wand.

Are you aware of it?

I have heard whispers of legend.

Some of the fellows at Bible Study might have been talking about it, Paul. Anyway, look. The emperor, I subscribe to the Salieri theory of the emperor, which is that the emperor has sublimated all of his desires into the search for power to such a degree that, and I think you can see this in Ian McDermott's performance. It's like, it is sexual for him what he's doing, you know?

He's like, yes, you want this. I feel it.

And he's so, like, I mean, I generally believe that there's something profoundly sexual about the way that he describes his perception of Luke's growing hatred, and that he's kind of getting off on this. You know what? Maybe it's not a popular theory.

I don't know.

Maybe Star Wars isn't about that, but that's what I'm seeing. And he can see it again because nobody says the word focus in a more creepily rapey way than Ian McDermott in Revenge of the Sith when he goes, I feel it.

It gives you focus.

He turns it to Jennifer Coolidge. It's a word.

Wow. So I have to say that is a provocatively PG-13 interpretation of these proceedings. And by no means do I want to dissuade you from that fantastical eroticism that you are registering.

I don't find the Emperor erotically beguiling, Paul. I'm just calling it like I see it.

I'm not suggesting that you do. But that was an unexpected revelation of your-

You got to admit, it looks like Saber is-

Okay, anyway, let's keep going.

Meanwhile.

Meanwhile.

Producer Brad, don't you have that bell? Don't you have a bell that you're supposed to hit whenever we're like-

It's been so long, I forgot.

If that's a new thing for Summer of 83, you got to start using it a lot. Otherwise, it's going to go the way of the Frank Factor. Otherwise, it's going to go the way of the Frank Factor.

The Frank Factor.

Oh, man. So, Emperor.

Emperor Palpatine.

I'm defenseless. Take your weapon, strike me down, and you're turning to the dark side. I'm defenseless.

I'm just a little man in a black robe, just sitting here, just watching the destruction of the, you know, I'm defenseless. Go ahead, try something.

And so, Javi, what happens? What happens?

Luke totally tries to fake him out. Luke turns away like, oh, I'm not gonna do anything. But then he snaps back, and telekinetic, he takes a lightsaber, tries to kill the emperor. And it's almost like there's another Jedi knight standing there waiting to defend his emperor. Could that be Darth Vader?

Yes. Yeah. And one of, I think, the great iconic shots in the film is the cross beams. The cross beams. Right in front of the emperor's face, as Vader instantaneously, reflexively blocks Luke's strike. And the emperor, at this point, has won. He has run the table. He has tempted Luke to the dark side to strike out. And all is presumably lost.

And the emperor laughs maniacally, his face lit up by the glow of the lightsabers.

This is probably, again, the height of ecstasy in the emperor's ancient existence.

The apotheosis of his evil, absolutely.

So thus setting up the epic conclusion duel of Skywalker and Darth Vader, the subtext of which is Luke's continuing attempt to summon Anakin Skywalker out of the walking sarcophagus that is the Vader armor, to take control.

But before we get to that, this is a good time to go to Endor. Let's talk about it.

Meanwhile, on Endor, as I scroll back.

We've done so little on Endor because Princess Leia is presumed dead in the speeder chase. She meets up with this gloriously, roly-poly little bear whose name is Wicked Warwick. It's never said in the movie, nor is the word Ewok, but we all know this. They have a little meet cute with where she offers him a granola bar, right? And he's poking her with a spear.

This scene is delightful.

I love it. I have no problem with it.

And yeah, Wicked again played by the wonderful Warwick Davis.

Willow Ofgood, yes.

In his big star turn who would later be Willow and has been a staple of the franchise and beloved by fandom. The way all this little scene, this almost little short film of mirroring in a wacky way, Elliot meeting ET, it is a first contact scene.

Yes, it is.

Between species, between human and Ewok. And the Ewok Wicket is very jittery. Yeah. And he's seen clearly other humans that have only been hostile in terms of the Empire and the stormtroopers. Yeah. Poking Leia, who's unconscious with a stick, with a spear, waking her up. She is so just unfazed by this whole thing and kind of-

She's just like, cut it out, cut it out, cut it out.

Yeah, yeah. And I just love Carrie Fisher in the scene and of course in general, but it's nice to give her her own little short film in the movie, where she gets to play with this kid who's playing the Ewok. And it's so charming and they bond over a snack. Again, it's not Reese's Pieces, but it just has this echo of Elliot and ET to me, but it's Leia and Wicked. They're bonding.

But Paul, let's take this moment. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Let's take this moment to discuss the wooly mammoth in the room. Okay. The hairy elephant, which is the Ewoks. Now, over the years, Ewok hate, Ewok reclamation, retaking the Ewok name and using it positively. I mean, like all these things have happened with... How many years on? 50, 50 years on?

No, not that many.

All these years on, Paul, where do you stand on? Where did you stand on the Ewoks back then? And where do you stand on it now? What?

38 years, I believe.

Okay, 67 years on.

He's 42, by the way. No, 42, sorry. So I was still young enough that I found the Ewoks delightful. And I am very grateful for that accident of fate, because as we know, apparently, there was previously thought that this would be the planet of Kashyyyk, and it would be Wookiees that we would be finding, which the mind boggles at how awesome and epic that would be. And we do get Kashyyyk in the prequels and the Wookiees, it's okay. But that would have been great and an opportunity to, let's say, revise the representation of Wookiees that had been inflicted on us in the Star Wars holiday special. But for whatever reason, it was decided, no, let's do something cuter, something more appealing to kids.

What I heard Lucas say in one of his many interviews is that, you know, Chewbacca was so sophisticated, he could pilot a ship, he could fire his boat caster, he fixes stuff, he's very smart. And he really wanted to do kind of a more grounded, primitive, sort of forcing as a highly mechanized force. And you know, since the Wookiees were tall, he had to go short.

Yes, yes, to draw a starker contrast of just how unfair the balance of power was in this occupation, in this act of imperialism, literally. And you know, that's fine. But I love me some yub nub. So, I like the yub.

This movie came when I was at an awkward age. And producer Brad knew me quite well during this age. And I had hit sort of a contrarian streak. So, I guess like Norman Spinrad wrote out just a pan of this movie in Starlog magazine. And I remember reading it and thinking that and just agreeing with it fervently and being so upset about the movie, you know, and all that. And it's sort of not been until like, you know, many years later that I kind of realized, I just really love this movie and even like, you know, and I would sort of be upset about the Ewoks being in the Muppets and all that stuff. And, you know, I think for me, it was sort of an accident of youth that I felt that it took so much out on Return Of The Jedi. And, you know, look, at the end of this podcast is going to be me admitting that this is a janky-ass movie, you know, but I still adore it. Like I have, and it's one of the most significant movies, I think, in most of our movie going lives, you know? So, yes, I hated the Ewoks for a long time. And then, like, you know, a couple, like, maybe 15, 20 years ago, I just said, you know what? Fuck this shit. I love this movie. I'm on.

Admittedly, and we'll get to this in very short order, relatively speaking, the Ewoks stuff does get remarkably silly.

It does.

And arguably maybe too silly in the film.

Yes.

At the same time, I'm just kind of like, hey, it's the end. It's the, they're closing out the journey. Like, they're just having fun. Let them have their fun and do it. But I think that this film pinpoints, at least for a generation, an important fork in the road in terms of fan cultural criticism. Yeah. That is a divergence between judging a film on its own merits versus judging the film relative to your expectations. On expectations or desires of what one thinks the film should be. Because there were not long-running serialized franchises in film like this on the scale until this era. Unless you go back to things like The Thin Man and some other things.

Or James Bond. James Bond, but they're not really serialized.

Exactly. Yeah. There's not really any continuity. And you're kind of expected to get, oh, we're going to get different self-contained adventures. But because, as we, I think, made mention of earlier that Empire was such an unexpected leap and turn from the original film, from any expectation into a darker, more serious, more gravitas-laden film that set an expectation, I think, among a lot of the fandom that again, are progressively, gradually growing older and a little more mature to expect it to continue that trajectory.

I can just riff on that because I think Empire was a huge part of my maturation. You know, like when Luke lost his hand, it was like, I mean, I hate to say it because it sounds so pathetic, but it was like a growing up moment for me, you know, where you realize, like, holy shit, the world's a horrible place, you know. And these things can happen to this boy that I've idolized since, you know, for the last five years. And I identified with his journey. And now he's lost his hand. And he's found out this guy is his dad. This is really awful. And it was, and then, but suddenly the, and you know, that was, so I was 11 when that happened. So like, I'm coming into Return Of The Jedi, you know, I'm about to turn 14. And it didn't keep going forward to, you know, sort of just a little bit above my weight class in emotion. You know, I think you're exactly right. I think I wanted it to just get more and more and more like the way that I was, you know. And I think honestly that this is a much more telling representation of the tone of Star Wars for the next 40 years than anything else. You know, it's like this is about the blend of, you know, serious evil versus silly hijinks that the entire prequel trilogy exhibited, you know?

Yeah, because as we've said, the stuff with the Emperor, it is leaning almost into horror. Yeah. As far as how drippingly dark it gets. But the whiplash contrast, especially as we're intercutting in this last hour of the film, between then the more lighthearted hijinks of with the Ewoks, that does take a somewhat of a dark turn at some point, but darkish. But yeah, is in real interesting tonal contrast and imbalance. I get that that was a little jarring at the outset, but it's a ride. It's what Star Wars is. It spans all those things.

I got to tell you, as much as I claim to hate the movie, I would watch Cisco and Ebert's sneak previews. When Cisco and Ebert reviewed this movie, so the show would air on Thursday night, and then they would rerun it on Saturday morning on PBS. When I knew they were going to review Return Of The Jedi, I set up my Super 8 camera in front of the television, and I recorded the clips from the movie that they showed on the Cisco and Ebert show on sneak previews. And I would watch it over and over again in my little Super 8 projector. And the scene that I would watch more than anything else was the scene where, you know, because it's phenomenal, right?

Yes.

But Paul, here's the thing. What happens next in this movie with Leia and then with Han and Luke? You know, because Leia, Han and Luke, we catch up with them. Chewbacca spots a piece of meat hanging from a tree, right? Goes for it because Chewbacca is always hungry. They get caught up in a net, and then they get captured by the Ewoks after R2-D2 uses his saw attachment to cut themselves out of the net. So they get captured.

Yes.

And the Ewoks...

Yes. And we get the most glorious moment for C-3PO and Anthony Daniels.

I could be mistaken. They're using a bit primitive dialect, but I do believe they think I am some sort of god.

I love the shit out of that.

I'm sorry.

Now that I'm 55, I don't give a shit. I love that.

At this point in the film, we get the gods must be crazy for anyone who's going to get that reference.

This weird, this weird, colonialist trope suddenly jumps up at us for... But it does have a sort of a plot rule in that it's what gets Seawox on our side, right?

I love this so much, even though it is so ridiculous and slightly, dare I say... Racist? Yes.

Evocative of a colonialist trope, shall we say. Yes.

And that was as good a time to mention this as any. There is a pervasive problematicism in a lot of Star Wars.

They only found some Asian people in that galaxy in this movie, you know that.

Exactly.

And no Latinos yet. They're looking for the Latinos. I don't know what happened with them.

Yeah. Well, we finally get Latino in the sequel trilogy. Sort of.

And we get Jimmy Smits. We get Jimmy Smits. You know, that's nice. That's nice.

And in prequels, we get Oscar Isaac. But broadly speaking, any...

We just come out of St. Paul's.

I'm trying to construct my words as diplomatically as possible. But there is a pattern of assigning racial identities and stereotypes to non-human characters. And drawing an identification that non-white is alien.

Well, what I keep saying by colonialist trope is like, this shit's out of Buona Devil. You know, like, it's a total like 1930s, by the way, which is what George Wood just wrote, Washington, but it's a total 1930s, like, you know, bring him back alive, you know, kind of thing. It's like it's a total like representation of like, oh, the cannibal pygmies, you know.

Exactly. The Ewoks are a stand-in for an indigenous South Pacific or African primitive tribe that these sophisticated white heroes and protagonists are smarter and wiser and more capable than, and they get away with it. Right. Star Wars gets away with it by them being cute and teddy bearers in Ewoks.

And by being the 1980s.

And by being the 1980s. Although that doesn't save the prequels in Phantom Menace and others.

I'm not talking about what prequels.

We're not even going to go there. We're maybe three. Paul, what could you possibly be talking about? I'm not even going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. But it bears mentioning that in a cast that is except for Lando, I believe entirely white. That anyway, that this is in woken into the fabric of the film.

Look, I think Star Wars is very much a product of its time and a product of its creator's time. The time in which its creator came of age. I want to bring up something though. Of course, Luke uses the force to levitate C-3P over the Ewoks to show his godlike power and thus get them to surrender.

This is a really funny beat and I just contextualize it. So on the one hand, Chewie thinks he's a stomach. He goes for this baited trap that they get trapped in this just ridiculous fashion. You're going backwards. But then they're freed, 3P rises up, they treat him as a god, but he's a god that they do not obey. He's a god that they worship and adore and they carry him on a throne that they just happen to have.

So Luke says, tell them.

But why does he tell them? Where are Luke and Han?

Oh, Luke and Han are tied to a spit. Yeah, they're going to get cooked.

They're getting cooked.

They're going to be cooked in a dinner in the god C-3PO's honor that the Ewoks are going to feast upon the flesh of our heroes.

If I directed this movie, this shit would look a lot more like Bone Tomahawk, but I digress. What I want to say is, have you seen Bone Tomahawk?

We premiered it at Fantastic Fest.

So you know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I know it very well.

So, one of the things I love about this scene is when Luke says, tell them that if they don't obey you and let us go, you will go angry and use your powers, right? And then Luke uses the force. But when he first suggested to 3PO, 3PO says, I could never impersonate a deity. And then Luke and Han will say, tell him, tell them, right? And if you watch The Making Of Special, which is almost as big a part of this film as the film itself, because it's what I watched instead of the film, because I couldn't go see it every day. Watching Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill work out the joke in that told me so much about how actors work together. And it's a lesson I've taken forever, which is, Harrison Ford says, it's not going to be funny unless you and I both say it the same way. And then they rehearsed it, because at first, they were going to say it different. And it's just one of those things where, like, it's one of those early lessons in just sort of directing and working with actors and all that, that like I never... And I now kind of like, I don't know, it just became one of those things that made being a filmmaker tangible to me, you know?

This whole sequence is a Star Wars comedy. Like, it chunk works so well as a comedy. And again, I just have to give huge credit to Anthony Daniels for playing it so straight, but also the chemistry between Hamill and Ford is so good. But 3PO seems to have his version of the Prime Directive, where he refuses to accept and or exploit the divinity that has been bestowed upon him by the EEWAF which is admirably ethical but willing to let Luke and Han and Chewbacca be roasted a lot.

You know, Paul, the Prime Directive is not about easy choices, okay?

All right?

If anybody could just, we all were just obeying the Prime Directive. You got to make the hard calls. I think 3PO was a...

It's hilarious.

I want to point out one more thing. Have you noticed that even though C3PO is fluent in over six million forms of communication, that he still has his acts? Like, you'd think, right, if he's fluent, he's a protocol droid, he's got to translate and shit. They're going to make him speak the languages with fidelity to how a native speaker might speak it. He's also a robot. He can do this without any training, right? But he's totally like, like, a tuta mishka jabba do hat, you know?

A muteota, and you're just like, what's Threepio?

Yeah. But also then, it ends with the greatest little punchline, a really coda, like, just a little button on it.

Do go on.

Where Threepio is then set down. He's startled by levitating.

Yes.

It doesn't occur to him that this is Luke using the Force to levitate him. Luke settles him down once the Ewoks agree finally to free our heroes.

To not cook our heroes.

And Threepio says, I never knew I had it in me. Like, he thinks he did it. Threepio thinks he levitated himself.

But here's the thing, this is where you start. But this is where Star Wars starts. Like I said, this is the template for future Star Wars. You know, this is the birth of Threepio, an attack of the clones going beside myself and all those corny jokes, you know. And it's great here, but then you see like when it starts going again, it's going on again.

Yeah, yeah. Return Of The Jedi opens many doors that we are taken through.

Paul, Paul, the Return Of The Jedi goes through many paths, some of them considered unnatural.

Yes. We also skipped over the fact that Leia emerges in a some kind of Ewok.

I don't think she's the first woman who's been with these Ewoks. I'm telling you, it's like Marion Ravenwood and the Bantu Wind Pirates. I don't think she's the first one to sail with these people.

I mean, that opens a whole side story possibility.

And we know there's cannibalism. They've got dresses and cannibalism. I see a honey trap. We will discuss.

Yes. So many fascinating narrative possibilities that spokes on this hub of the wheel that are tantalizingly...

Yes. Or perhaps mercifully left unexplored.

Yes. Then we get, I think, this delightfully meta scene in the film. And I appreciate it so much as commentary on the place that, and we talked about this earlier, on how big a place Star Wars had become in our popular culture as contemporary mythology. And as 3PO in Iwaki's, and again, another thing I love in this movie are the alien languages. We heard a little bit of the Iwaki-Chitter-Chatter is re-telling the story of Star Wars. Recapping the last two films to a wrapped audience of Iwaki.

The only way the scene could have been better is if instead of C3PO narrating it, it had been Roscoe Lee Brown from the story of Star Wars LP, Cataclysmic Disaster.

Yes, and later for best picture nominee, Babe.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, Paul.

Maybe the greatest narrator of all time.

We get the Iwaks on our side. We go scout the laser dish.

Yes, the Iwaks are going to show them how to teaming up with the rebels, going to show them how to get to the shield generator. And then we have to get a critical exposition scene between Luke and Leia. And we touched on it earlier about Luke giving the revelation to Leia, and then Han coming in, and then that whole playing out and hold me and blah, blah, blah.

The thing about this scene that I think is interesting is that whenever... Star Wars is kind of like not... Like Star Wars has this weird thing where it's colloquial at times, and then sometimes it's sort of like quasi... Someone's idea of quasi-elevated mid-Atlantic language, you know? So like when Han is on screen, it's all kind of like a little cool and loose and whatever, but then suddenly it's like, you know, it's like, Father, I will not leave you here. I will save you. You know, it suddenly becomes like he thinks he's riding the lion in winter or something, you know?

It becomes, dare I say, as stilted as an ad-ad.

Oh! So we go, the Ewok shows the way to the back door.

Yes. And so then we get the bunker, you know, they're approaching the bunker and we're like, oh, good, a bunker. Like we're back in, we're back in like a World War II.

Yeah, here we go. Commando.

Kind of band. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Movies. And they have this plan. But our furry companion has gone and done something rather rash. And he walks go, steal a couple of speeder bikes, created a diversion. And then Han leads the rebel squad and ambush the remaining stormtroopers, enter the generator bunker. And we're like, oh, this is great. This is going to be a piece of cake. Right. They're going to figure they took the bunker easily. And they're planting charges. But no, no. It is, dare we say, a trap. And all these other imperials arrive and capture them and flip the script. Two things.

Two things about this scene. Of course, this is one of the most famous lines in Star Wars. Paul, take it away.

You rebel scum.

Two things about this scene. First of all, there's a deleted end of this scene where Han actually looks at the guy and goes, scum? It's on YouTube. Look it up.

It's amazing.

The other thing is, so I had the incredibly good fortune of visiting the Skywalker Ranch and they showed us the archives for the movies. And one of the things they had, so Han and Leia are putting up the charges and there's a railing and then behind it, you can see the shield generator, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, which is super cool.

Yeah. Well, do you know what the shield generator is made of? Those are red Dixie Cups, spray painted, yeah, solo cups, spray painted orange and silver. And the top bits, the top conductors are actually the little dental office cups and the base are two lids for the cups glued together. And once you know that, you can never unsee that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's that ILM is still in touch with its roots.

And they literally can make magic out of anything. It's so amazing. So our characters that we get, we get arrested. They take us out of the bunker. They've got this whole legion of storm troopers there.

Yes. It's like, oh my God, all is lost until...

One of my favorite John Williams cues ever. One of the most stirring moments in this movie, the Ewoks have gone and gotten all of their little Ewok armies and their riders.

And with Threepio, Threepio rises up and leads them and distracts the Imperials, lures them into this ambush of Ewoks. And as I have written down in my notes, silly mayhem ensues.

You know, Paul, if Avengers Endgame taught us anything, and if this movie taught us anything, and if Time Bandits taught us anything, and that's sort of like where it's kind of the cavalry arriving in a stirring moment of surprise is a beat that never fucking fails, you know? When I used to work at a TV network, we used to say tried and true does not mean dead and buried. And wow, do they just did this? They dropped the shit out of this trope, and it works all weekend on Monday. I mean, it's amazing, right?

It is, it is, it unfolds with increasing degrees of absurd revelations.

Yes, it does.

Beginning with the fact that, oh, Ewoks have catapults.

Yes, catapults.

That they start using.

And somehow they also manage to cut down a large number of trees and set up traps for the, for the AT-ST walkers, for the Scout Walkers.

Exactly. Big giant log.

The log squisher. Yeah, they have a log squisher.

Yes.

And a glider.

Yes, they have gliders. They have mastered flight. And not just gliders, but glider bombers. Yeah. All sorts of primitive technology that the Ewoks have mastered.

I swear, this race was literally less than a year away from putting up a warp drive and being visited by Vulcans. I'm telling you.

If only we could have let them alone to pursue.

To develop at their own speed.

Their own destiny. At the outset, and meanwhile, Han and Leia are trying to get back into the bunker, and it's locked, and they're trying to get some R2, whatever, and the Ewoks are caught these stormtroopers and the Imperials by surprise, and are gathering them on the run. Then the tide starts turning. And then we start seeing Ewoks killed by stormtroopers, and Javi, it's so sad.

Not like that. Okay, so two things about that. So we have the one dead Ewok, right? That they get blown up and they fall, and then the other Ewok wakes up and tries to jostle the other one.

I mean, we thought it was sad when the poor rancor died and his handler came and mourned him, and then we've got the Ewoks.

I will tell you something, Paul. There is a book called Return Of The Jedi from a certain point of view. I don't know if you know it. It was a part of a series of books.

I am.

With sort of short stories about different things that happened. The great Sarah Kuhn, a writer who is a dear, dear friend of mine, wrote a story that is the backstory of those two Ewoks. And it is so touching and so good. And I know that a lot of people revile this beat because they find it too cutesy, poor, sentimental, whatever. I got to tell you, first of all, I think Sarah adds many dimensions to it in a way that is just masterful. I don't know, man. I think this beat is pretty sad. I don't know. It got me.

I have not been blessed in life by knowing Sarah, but all that I know of her is the force is strong in her. And yes, she has contributed meaningfully to the Star Wars canon. Then it sort of gets silly again. Their Ewoks are teaming up to take one of the, I call them the chicken walkers. A lot of people are the little mini-scout walkers. But then I really want to know where you stand on this, because I struggle with the-

The Tarzan scream?

Yes. Chewbacca with a couple Ewoks attached to him, swings on a vine, and inexplicably-

You hear an Ewok go.

Across time, space, and dimensions, channels Johnny Weissmuller. And let's lose a Tarzan yell as he swings. Javi, what the fuck?

That's what took you out of the movie, Paul?

I mean, at this point, I'm really there. I'm really going for a... Like, I'm along for the ride, but that just might be a bridge or dare I say, a vine too far.

That wasn't the only Tarzan scream that summer either in movies.

Really?

Go on.

Go on.

Octopussy.

Well, that's right, Roger Moore. They do have a Tarzanian joke in that when he's running away from the tiger, yeah. But Roger Moore lives in a world where Tarzan exists, yeah.

Producer Brad, we have not seen that movie yet at this point, in Summer of 83. We do not know that.

What is this pussy you speak of?

I think I saw a trailer. Oh, you saw a trailer. You are clearly channeling or revealing psychic powers.

Producer Brad, there are layers to Producer Brad we have yet to even understand.

When we get to that, we will have to compare and contrast. Yes. The Tarzan yells.

Honestly, I'm sure at the time, I railed about it being the way that you do and now I just don't care anymore. I put it on the same category as The Wilhelm Scream. As we know that The Wilhelm Scream appears in all Star Wars movies. I made a point in The Middleman to use it in every episode, but I feel like it's become a little bit played out as a gag. Like you hear it in every fucking movie now. But to me, it's too many falls on that category. It's an audio inside joke, but I respect and understand your point of view on this.

Again, not a hill to die on. It's one of those things that I'm conflicted on because part of me is delighted by it and thinks that's hilarious. The other part of me is that it takes me out of the movie and it just feels overindulgent and just a little too-

Too-too. I mean, look, there's a movie where the silliness is starting to pile up.

It breaks the fourth wall in a creative, conceptual way in terms of the world-building of Star Wars, of the whole, anyway, the immersion. But you know what?

No, you know what? I have a thing like that in another movie that I'm speaking as the 55-year-old me, not as the 12-year-old me. Batman Returns. There's a scene in Batman Returns, where we go to a high society party in Gotham City.

We're jumping into the 90s.

I know. But the song they're playing is Rick James' Super Freak. And I'm like, Tim Burton has built this Gothic, Ruritanian Gotham city that's so otherworldly and all this shit. Literally, that movie seems to exist in a completely other universe than ours. I get it, it's our universe, but none of our popular culture is there. And then suddenly you hear, and you're just like, what is this? It took me out of the movie entirely for a similar reason. And it is a hill to die on.

No, it's not.

But I remember to this day, so at this continuity like that in a movie, the risk is that it'll take you out to this day.

Yes. I guess it says something to the fact that at this point in the film, the filmmakers have the confidence that there's enough at play, that they're operating at such a level, that no one's going anywhere, they can indulge to their heart's content and get away with it.

Okay.

So, arguably, they kind of do. Then we get, well, a great gag. They're trying to break in the bunker. There's a really good gag where Han's like, I got it, got it. And then a second set of blast doors close.

He's trying to unwire the doors in the closed gap.

And he unwires it, whatever. Then we get this startling moment where stormtroopers arrive and Leia is shot.

She gets hit.

And at the moment, you're like, oh my God. But it's just like a flesh wound.

It's on the shoulder.

And the stormtroopers come in and then we get a great call back to Empire of the reversal of their classic exchange of-

Leia demonstrates that she's holding a gun, that she's going to use to surprise and kill the stormtroopers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That she's got the drop on these stormtroopers that are approaching.

Han looks down at the gun that she's holding and goes, I love you. And then she's the one who goes, I know.

Yeah.

Which is, I think is, Leia gets a lot of justice in this film.

Yeah. And also, by the way, a rare moment where Han is having an earnest non-sarcastic emotion. You know, which is not something you see a lot of it. You see it in his, hey, Luke, may the force be with you in Star Wars, a couple of moments.

Yeah. This is an important point we've glossed over. Not that we have time to go over everything in this film.

No, we don't.

But famously, Ford begged Lucas to kill him off in this film and wanted to die, and that it was an effort to get him back to this film. But Han has a real arc in the film in terms of coming to grips with and accepting his feelings for Leia and admitting them to himself and to her by the end of the film. That's, I think, played very well by Ford. It's not over done and you buy it and it plays out, I think, in a very lovely way. It's one of the little gifts that this film has. Not just for us, but I think for those actors in terms of getting to perform that.

Now, this beat passes, the AT-ST Walker looms over us suddenly. We think we're cooked, but it turns out it's Chewbacca and the two Ewoks inside. So, Han gets in the AT-ST Walker, puts the helmet on, and feints that he's the commander in order to get into the bunker.

Yeah.

It's not Han. He has another rebel do it. That's not Han in the AT-ST.

That's not Han?

No, it's his idea, though. He does say, I got an idea, and then when we come back, they use it. No, no, no, no, no.

Well, 38 years I've been watching this movie thinking that's, don't prove this to me.

It's some other random rebel. Let me guess, it's Commander Cody. God damn it. No, he doesn't have a beard. No, it's some other random, it's some other random rebel. It's Han. Han does not have time to change into an Imperial uniform, climb up and get into the Imperial walker, and then get back down, change back into his rebel gear, and then go in the bunker.

Well, I've been wondering about that this entire time, but I don't think that's-

Han is there at the bunker, he goes right in.

All right, all right.

I'm sure it's Han.

It is totally Han.

We'll throw up a poll. It is not Han. It is not Han. It is a different- It's a different-

Do some other rebel have the time to change into that uniform?

Come on, man. All right, all right, all right.

Yes.

Okay, we're gonna table this, because producer Brad is literally having an aneurysm that is rupturing.

Okay.

I'm so excited.

They blow up-

I know, I know. If this is true, you will have literally destroyed 38 years of cognition, you know?

Okay, so I'm so sorry. It's a heavy burden. Yeah, they get back in. They recapture.

They blow up the shield, Paul. They blow up the shield. They blow up the shield.

Just blow it up, please, please, please. Okay. They blow up the shield. Finally, they blow up the shield. Meanwhile, in orbit, Han Solo- Oh my God. The greatest space paddle of all time.

Lando Calrissian is leading the Rebel fleet in the Falcon with his trusty co-pilot, Nian Numb, who is- Do you know-

Oh my God.

Now, have they said what race he is? I don't remember what race he is. Is he-

I don't know, but I need a moment of Nian Numb appreciation. Yes. Let's just say vaguely racially codified. Yet.

Yet.

A positive representation. Yeah. Of seeing an alien that is not Chewie in a co-pilot scene. Yes. Yeah. We do get some positive alien representation in this film with Akbar most nobly and now with Nian Numb.

Those are some of my favorite characters in the saga. I love Nian Numb and I love- okay, back, back, okay, go ahead.

And the team up and the instant chemistry that we get between Lando and Nian Numb, who is speaking gibberish but of course in Star Wars, all humans understand what the aliens or robots are saying. Even when the audience doesn't. And we get this tremendous little- here's a little taste.

Don't worry, my friend's down there. You'll have that shield down on time.

Or this will be the shortest offensive of all time. Now here's the thing. I mean, oh, oh, it's so good. You gotta hand it to Billy Dee here, because Billy Dee is like the most suave motherfucker that ever lived, right? He is just charming as fuck. And it's a tribute to him that he can have this kind of chemistry with. It's basically like a dude inside of a silicone mask, you know? But whoever did the voice and the puppeting for Dian Nam did a really good job, because that character comes to life.

Right, and presumably all of Dian Nam's dialogue is dubbed. So Billy Dee is just acting across this guy, and I'm blanking on the guy's name who plays Dian Nam, who's a celebrity, a fan. I think it's someone who's only...

Only plays Dian Nam, okay.

I believe so. But delightful, weird design, and again, the language, the voice, the whole conception of this character, and the comic contrast of the two of them as a alternate to the duel of Han and Chewie. Also, the reward that I feel Billy Dee Williams is given in this film to go from an empire getting to play this rogue who is in a gray area.

Who sells out our heroes. Isn't that so great? He sells out the heroes.

And who's been on record of saying he had to endure for two or three years between films, people hating him for betraying Han Solo, to then come back and get to be General Calrissian, to lead the rebel fleet into battle and be a space freaking hero. And he's magnificent.

Now, Paul, this all leads to my favorite.

Real quick. Richard Bonehill is Nia Knob.

There you go.

Yes.

Kudos. All of this leads to my favorite exchange in this entire film. And it's when they come out of hyperspace. The offensive is about to begin, right? And Nia Knob says, I'm going to get to Yamateati. And Lando says, well, we got to be able to get a reading on that shield up or down. And Nia Knob says, oh, I'm going to get tall. And Lando goes, well, how could they be jamming us unless they know? Unless, you know, if we're coming.

Hold back.

The shield is still up.

Pull back. I get no reading.

And then cut to Admiral Ackbar.

The greatest line delivery ever. It's a trap.

It's a trap.

Oh, my God.

And William's score throughout this whole stretch. And the intercutting between all these things.

But the score, the score, like it's such a, I think in the soundtrack it's called Into the Trap. It's such a great cue. It's so awesome. And I love how like it just all goes to shit so quickly. And then the TIE fighters come in, you know, and the best part of it is then we have shot 76B. I think that's what it's called, which is literally the single most complicated and most, the single densest composite shot in the history of analog cinema. Right? Which is like, there's a shot where the Millenium Falcon is coming straight toward the screen, TIE fighters everywhere, Star Destroyers, the Death Star, you know, my grandmother's wheelchair. I mean, it's insane. Everything's happening there. And Paul, can you tell me what it was like for you to see that shot in 1983?

This whole sequence, again, the trilogy is building up to this in a way that he didn't even realize. But this is the ultimate confrontation between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire. And we get finally the full fleet coming to bear and having the rug pulled out from under them and now has to fight for their lives in a mad scramble, buying time, trying to survive long enough for maybe, maybe Han and the arrest of the bunker. Yeah. To blow up, to deactivate the.

And we, the audience know that they're getting arrested and shit. It's not good down there.

Yes.

Lando is putting all his faith and he doesn't know it's gone bad.

Yeah. And at this point, they don't know and we don't know that the Death Star is operational.

Oh yeah.

About to start just railing on him. But it is so thrilling, the sequence and it's also just a jaw dropping showcase of ILM.

Yeah.

Basically just rolling up their sleeves and saying, let's show you what we can do.

Yeah, just Richard Edlund and Joe Johnston, and everybody just going, bitches, here we go.

Yeah. Just as a pinnacle of analog, handmade visual effects. Yeah.

These two seconds or three seconds or whatever are literally.

Compositing and motion control and everything they've learned, everything they've done. It's one of those sequences that, as a kid watching it, you're seeing something that could not be exceeded by your own imagination.

And you've never seen it before. Nobody had ever put a space battle, or by the way, or an air battle of any kind, on this scope, you know? VFX didn't exist for it.

Yeah, but I remember as a kid, it's like this is what I've always dreamed of wanting to see. This is the space battle that's exceeding what I've imagined in my childhood brain. And I am seeing it, and it's actually happening. And again, one of the most thrilling cinematic experiences of my youth.

And what I love about what happens next is that Lando is, I mean, Lando is a ballsy dude. Like basically, the Death Star is operational. The Rebel fleet is getting creamed out there. Khan has been arrested. There's no end in sight to this thing. And Lando, and basically the Star Destroyers, have formed a perimeter around the battle to stop the rebels from escaping. So the Emperor can just pick them off one by one to make Luke his bitch, right?

And this is one of the things I also love about Lando, even from the beginning, from the clip that we showed, is that the way he's written, and we've talked about, some of the stilted dialogue, whatever. Lando and Billy Dee Williams' performance is so effective on two different layers. On the one hand, he has to give us crucial exposition to orient the audience.

Well, we got to be able to get a reading on that show before down, yeah.

Yeah, just so we know the mechanics of this battle and how things are working. The other thing is that he's demonstrating as a character, and the fact that the exposition is woven so just cohesively seamlessly with his character is that he has this capable, sharp presence of mind and situational awareness that other characters do not have. That even in the midst of this chaos of this battle, he has the clarity of consciousness.

And the faith in his friends. And the faith in him.

Well, and faith in his friends, but also to ask, why are only the fighters attacking? What are those star discoverers waiting for? This is crucial for the audience. Just like the whole thing at the beginning, like, oh, this will be the shortest offensive. Exactly. But that is such important information. But also the fact that he's the guy who's on the ball in the situation. He's not panicking. He's looking at the big picture and what's immediately in front of him. And then we cut to your favorite and mine, Admiral Piet, on the exit, after Lando's posed that question. And he's being asked by an underling, what are our orders are? And Fred, just very coolly, Admiral Piet, the Emperor has something special planned for them.

We only need to keep them from escaping. In that beautiful, queeny, British way that all of those stage actors do. We only need to keep them from escaping.

Yes. And at this point then, now, the Death Star is taking out Cruiser after Cruiser.

And perhaps a medical frigate.

And Lando, Lando then, and the contrast between him and Akbar. And again, however the mechanisms of rebel hierarchy work, Admiral Akbar is in command of the big ships, the main fleet ships. Lando is leading the attack squadron as general.

But the conversation between them is Lando telling Akbar to order the fleet to engage. So he's not saying, he's not giving an order. He's going through the chain of command, which is pretty admirable for him in this situation.

But he needs Akbar to agree. There needs to be, they cannot fracture the fleet. Or, you know, they have to be working together.

That's right.

Because now their carefully laid plan is gone. It has been sent into the shredder.

Yep.

And they now have to improvise. And Lando makes the daring gambit of turning the attack squadron away from the Death Star and going point blank into the face of the Imperial fleet. Right. On what's essentially a suicide mission. But it is to avoid the risk of fire from the Death Star.

Because Ackbar says, at that range, we won't last long in front of the Star Destroyers. And Lando says, we'll last longer than we will against that Death Star. And we might just take a few of them with us.

Yes. And as a geek, and I had not yet, of course, even come close to my college naval history classes. But this sparks so much of what would later be my Master Commander Geekery and everything. Just the fleet mechanics and strategy of, and of course, it's all absurd. It's the space battles, it's fantasy, it's not whatever.

It's not absurd. It actually, let me, wait, wait, wait.

It's played so logically.

Yes, but here's what I would say, Paul. It is absurd, but the difference between this and the opening sequence of The Last Jedi, right, is that both sides have a strategy and it passes a test of like sounding at least militarily sound. You know, the rebels are coming in on a sneak attack to attack the Death Star. They get flanked at perimeter. They decide to go up against the perimeter because it's a more powerful weapon on the inside. Okay, like I understand the Emperor strategy is, you know, surround them until I can get the Death Star, you know, can get all the calcite fired up and we can really kind of start doing some damage. So for me, like I look, and yes, it's absurd, but it makes sense within the logic of the movie, and just to some degree of like military hierarchy and all that.

Yeah, it is internally logical. It maintains fidelity to the internal logic of the world that has been built for us by the narrative.

Yes, yes. But, you know, like we're not going to last long out there, you know.

No, no.

I was going to rip on The Last Jedi, but it's like that opening sequence, it's like the First Order shows up to literally route the rebels and they don't surround the planet, they just put all their ships in a line on one side of the planet and then they stop to talk and then like they have to prime their cannons and like they don't show up with their cannons primed, you know. Okay, never mind. Fuck it. I don't care. Okay.

This isn't the plot you're looking for.

All right, all right, Jesus Christ. Anyway.

But it buys them just enough time.

Yes.

Just enough time for Han and Leia and Chewie to blow up the Shield Generator. And then Ackbar announces the Shield is down. And the Death Star is open for business. And Lando leads the fighters in. And just as if that were not through.

And what cue does John Williams play for us?

Well, Nian Num in this moment, he's so happy.

Yes, he is.

He's so happy.

And I love how happy Nian Num is when he's like, he's just like, we get to go.

I've been waiting for an alien to do some heroic shit in these movies.

Let's go.

You know, it's so great. And then it's like, oh, now, you know, so now, so now the tide has turned on the two main battles.

It's not all rainbows, daffodils and cheez-its inside of the Death Star there. You know, Luke is dueling his father.

Yes. Now we're back in the Death Star in the Emperor's Throat Room. And we get the duel we've been waiting for. The rematch between almost Jedi Skywalker and Darth Vader.

And, you know, as beautifully staged as the duel in Empire Strikes Back is, I feel that this one is about as clumsily staged. It is not the movie's best hour for me in terms of how this, but it doesn't matter because what is happening in the scene is so like just incredible, you know, but the dramatic, oh my God, dramatic stakes of this duel. Luke is a much more confident fighter than he ever was, you know?

Yeah. And so we do get that progression. We get a lot of shadow and light and the contrast of the lightsabers. And we get this duel not just physically but mentally and emotionally.

Yes.

As Luke is trying in seeming vein to appeal to his father, Anakin Skywalker, to re-emerge from the clutches of Vader, as the Emperor is pulling these puppet strings, and thinking that no matter what happens, the Emperor feels like he's won. Because either Vader defeats Luke, and Luke's defeated, or Luke defeats Vader, and then that means Luke's turned to the dark side, and now is the Emperor's new apprentice. And the Emperor is surprisingly not very shy about this view of the situation, even in front of Vader. Yeah. But it doesn't seem that Vader is, like, his loyalty is dead fast.

It just goes to show how far gone Darth Vader is. Like, if he has to die to make his son go to the dark side, he'll do it, you know? And that actually works really well, I think, in the context of the scene, because, like, Vader is more machine than man, right? And by the way, just to, well, I can't say that yet, but Luke, not being inside of the robot body that Darth Vader has will actually be a more powerful Jedi because you need to be flesh and bone to channel the Force lightning. So I'm just saying. Yes.

Which we're about to get to, yeah.

But then, now, here's what I was about to ask you. So do you think Luke is stalling for time? Do you think Luke thinks there's a, or is he just stalling for time to try to get Anakin? I can't imagine he thinks this battle is going to play out well. He's already kind of shot his wad in terms of that, right?

I think based on the limited amount of information that Luke has, he kind of feels like if I don't do something, if I don't win here, yeah, all my friends are going to die.

In vain.

That this is the last chance I have, yes, in vain. That there is no hope that he's taking the Emperor at his word. And given the fact that the Emperor was not bluffing in terms of the trap and in terms of the Death Star being operational, Luke has to feel like, okay, my only path out, I'm in a corner. I have to try to turn Vader, his father. And so he starts the duel as the Emperor is taunting him by Luke. He turns off his lightsaber and says, he will not, I will not fight you, Father. And then Vader attacks and forces him to engage and to fight. And Luke is kind of saying he's sensing this conflict in Vader, that Vader is denying and saying there's no conflict. And he's lobbing him down off the balcony and throwing the lightsaber.

The most badass thing in this movie.

That's pretty badass.

Is when Luke is heading up on the rafters and Vader goes, you are unwise to lower your defenses.

And then he throws his lightsaber. And like literally the lightsaber, the lit lightsaber cuts down the entire corridor.

That's badass. That is badass.

Yes. Yes. And it kind of in a weird way, foreshadows, pre-shadows the whole, I have the high ground now in the Obi-Wan Vader scene. We're like, Luke gets the high ground on Vader.

Vader's like, am I going to fall for that shit again?

Vader knows how that song goes. And so he destroys the high ground out from under Luke to bring him back down.

That motherfucker is not getting close to the high ground at all.

It is great. And then there is this sequence that is so creepy.

Oh, so creepy.

And where Vader is essentially stalking.

Yeah.

Luke is hidden in the darkness.

Hiding in the shadows with his lightsaber off.

Yeah.

And he's searching for him with his mind as much as his eyes. And then we get the revelation that Luke has a sister.

Luke is going, don't think about my sister. Don't think about my sister. Don't think about my sister. And Darth Vader goes, sister.

So you have a twin sister. Your thoughts have now betrayed her too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the dark side, then perhaps she will. Oh, my God.

I mean, talk about escalation of stakes.

Oh, my God.

As if the stakes couldn't get any bigger. Boom, he blows that door open of possibility. And immediately, just take us back to sitting in that theater, in that moment, because what this does is it opens this door, blows it open where immediately our minds race ahead through the possibility that Vader is going to kill Luke and then go get Leia and turn to her and we're going to get Darth Leia.

What a piece of shit. I hate it. I hate the Emperor.

All that plays out like a Mission Impossible title sequence of psychic vision of this alternate future that the movie has just laid out in front of us and Luke says, no, you're not going to shout the best no in the entire Star Wars trilogy and he lights up his lightsaber. As horrible as Luke's no is in Empire.

Yeah.

And mercilessly mocked. Boy, he gets a second chance at a wailing no here and he sells it.

First of all, I think that Hamill brung it on the Empire. Like that is, he's emoting, it's big, but I know he feels it. But I got to say, this is so satisfying. This is so satisfying because even though we know that fighting is going to ultimately be the way that Luke goes to the dark side, Vader is such a piece of shit here. He's gloating about Obi-Wan. He's like, oh, I'll turn your sister. And Luke just wails. And I love how by the end of this, there's a great tracking shot. And again, the choreography, is it as good as Phantom Men as with Darth Maul? No. But the sheer emotional satisfaction of Luke just wailing on Darth Vader, and then he gets him on that bridge. And he's just macheting the shit out of this guy. It's like the end of Rocky IV. It's not a boxing match anymore. It's a street fight. It's about who wants it more. And Luke is just beating the... And then he takes his hand off and it is glorious. And it is like, oh my God, it is archetypal.

It's operatic.

And the score at that moment from when Luke says no, and then it elevates and we get the chorus and Luke unleashing all of his rage. Because at this point, at this point, Luke believes there is no hope to get his father back. That his only path now is he has to just defeat Darth Vader and kill him to save his sister and everybody, even if it's the cost of his own soul. Yep. He's that desperate.

It's so good.

Yeah, and Vader is not prepared. Vader is not expecting this because he thinks Luke is weak and is not going to give in to that degree and that intensity in that moment. And as we will discover, Vader is not a spring chicken. So Luke has physical and age advantages that outweigh his lack of experience at this point. And again, fueled by the most potent motivation that could possibly fuel him.

His real love of Leia that we saw in the previous scene, you know, and we know that and Leia and Luke lays it out. He doesn't want Leia to have, you know, he knows the power runs deep and all of that in his family and he tells her and all of that. But he wants to protect her. He wants to protect her from all of this. It's so great.

And then and then again, the the almost I mean, this film indulges in a lot of bookends and echoes. And the ultimate one being when Luke chops off Vader's hand and looks at his own hand to him, and he looks at his own cybernetic hand, and they are now opposites where Vader is pretty much robot and Luke is human, except for his robot hand. And then he tosses away his life. He pulls back from the brink of finishing him off.

And this is the thing I love. I love in this movie. And I think that it's one thing that the prequels actually make better. And it is that when Luke throws his lightsaber away and he tells the emperor, you know, no, I'll never turn to the dark side. You failed your highness. I am a Jedi like my father before me. Now, whatever the strengths and weaknesses of the prequels are, now that I've seen the prequels, that is such a fuck you. Much greater fuck you than it was in 1983, by the way, you know?

Oh my god, it's so bad.

Yeah, I would say The Clone Wars makes that even richer. But it is an iconic moment. And it is that we've seen Luke and we are conflicted and torn in this duel because we want Vader defeated. We want to save Leia and the rebels. But we also do not want to see Luke turn to the dark side. The other thing looming over all of this since the first appearance of Luke in this film, Luke is clad in all black.

For the first time, yeah, in the entire movie.

And that's a choice, especially on a desert planet of tattooing, when you're wearing all black and it's not a still suit. And so there's been this foreshadowing, this foreboding of maybe Luke is going to go to the dark side.

It is the classic black belt progression, you know, it's the world kind of blackens you as you move through it. Luke starts in this very pure white and through all of Empire, he's wearing dirty fatigues, you know, his clothes keep getting muddier and messier and all of that. And then finally, he emerges in this movie dressed entirely in black. It's a really classic use of color for character. Yeah, the parallels between him and Vader are total.

Yeah.

And then, yeah.

And then in response to Luke's declaration of defiance to the emperor, first, the emperor simply says, so be it, Jedi, like as if it's a slur that he's calling him. Then we cut back to the end or in the fleet, but then back, and he says, if you will not be turned, you will be destroyed. And then we see something we have never seen in Star Wars before.

Yeah, go on, go on.

A new force power unleashed in ILM glory beyond the Phantasmagoria that we were granted in Poltergeist.

And Paul-

Force lightning.

I was like, well, what's this old raisin going to do? Pull out a lightsaber and duel him? Come on. Exactly. Then the lightning.

Yeah.

I was so shocked as a kid. Oh my God.

Yeah. It is terrifying and badass. And it is piercing the physical form. It is it is performing a live action x-ray.

Yeah.

Like illuminating the interior side of the structure of the skull.

I mean, it makes no medical sense, but it's so striking. It's so striking and awful.

As a the design, the conception, the execution of this ability as an as a visual effect is such artistry. And it is sound design and everything from it and the performances that sell it. It's so fricking great.

The Emperor has just been this little dude in a robe, you know? And yes, he's an asshole. Yes, he's weirdly, you know, eroticizing his pleasure at Luke's rage and all that stuff. You know, and he's not a nice dude and all of that. And he's little. I mean, compared to Vader and Luke, he's shorter than even Luke. This is such a, like, surprise, because you don't know what this guy can do. You know? You know he's powerful or something. And then, and you haven't, you know, you've seen the telekinesis and all that, but you haven't seen, like, the large scale shit we saw in Revenge of the Sith, okay? So to just see him suddenly whip out this power was shocking to me in 1983. And it was, and it literally, it was, I honestly thought he was going to kill Luke.

It's immediately evident that there is no defense against this power.

Nope. None. Nope.

And that the emperor has been just keeping this up his sleeve. It also begs the question, what other powers might the emperor have? But just from what we're seeing him unleash, the emperor basically has the power of a god.

Yes.

And now it's evident that Luke is completely screwed. He is being slowly killed slash cooked by force lightning.

So good.

To the emperor's delight because he is relishing, torturing Luke for his impunity, for him daring to stand up.

Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side. You will pay the price for your lack of vision.

By the way, a line you might hear, a bad guy in something I've written, say sometime in the future because I love that line.

It's so great. Again, Ian McDermott. There's this reciprocal jackpot that this film has hit in both directions. In terms of Ian McDermott getting this role and getting to save these lines and do these things and the film getting the perfect performer. To manifest the emperor who is loomed in our imagination since the two prior films. Vader in the, lumbers up wounded and wheezing and returns to the emperor's side. As he's watching the emperor torture his son to death.

And Luke is screaming, no father, please, no.

Yeah.

And now at this point, Luke in his dying breaths is making a last desperate plea to hope to still try to reach his father in there, even though he'd given up on that.

Yeah.

But he's pleading and hoping.

And this is one of the most satisfying things in the history of cinema. I think that's so satisfying.

And to all the criticisms of Richard Marquand as a director.

Nope.

This is great.

He brings it when he needs to, and also him and the three editors, credit on the film, including the great Marsha Lucas, Williams with his score in this moment. The way this sequence is so precisely staged and cut and designed with David Prowse with a minimal amount of performance, very minimalist in his body language, because we're getting no dialogue, but we're registering what Vader is thinking and struggling with based on him turning and looking back and forth between the emperor and his near death, his son who's been in the process of being murdered.

It takes him a while.

It does take him a while. And you feel the struggle and it goes to like a push in, like a close up of him, we get tighter on Vader and him struggling. And the incredible score and it takes its time, like it's excruciating.

And the emperor is just yammering away, saying all sorts of nasty shit. Yeah, it's gross.

And again, the emperor is one, he's just like, ah, he's just like, fully, just whatever.

It's also when he goes, when he goes, now young Skywalker, you will die. Yeah.

And he goes in for the, like, the super charge, the full voltage, everything that he's been holding off. And then we get what's been promised by the film's title, two hours into this movie, it finally happens.

The Return Of The Jedi.

The Return Of The Jedi.

Four hours into this podcast.

Vader, Vader throws, Vader grabs the Emperor, lifts him up.

No, no. Anakin Skywalker.

Anakin, Anakin Skywalker. That's right.

Turns to the Emperor, grabs him, seizes him off the ground, becomes consumed in lightning, presumably now as a conductor, grounding the lightning, taking it away from Luke into himself and struggles and takes him and throws him over the railing into this bottomless pit of the Death Star.

And by the way, this is so satisfying and so amazing. And this is the one thing where every time that they've brought Palpatine back in comic books and movies and like-

I don't know what you're talking about. Palpatine never comes back.

He never comes back. Not even somehow.

He's defeated forever.

Yeah. And honestly, to me, that's canonical. Like I don't look at any other, you know, like it's like this is the perfect end for this character. Straight up No Chaser. Stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect $250. This is it. And anything beyond that cheapens it so much because this is like literally-

It's the perfect end for both characters.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so, so, so then while the offensive is going on outside and Lando Calrissian and the woefully underappreciated Wedge and Tilles are flying into the superstructure.

Yes, who's red leader?

He's red leader now. Yeah, he's been promoted. And look, I feel Wedge was in the first Death Star attack. OK, and he doesn't even get to take out the main module. He's got to go for the power regulator on the North Tower, you know, but whatever, whatever.

But it's the two of them in concert.

Yes, yes.

That, yes, that they enter in. And again, another thrilling scene.

Yeah, so beautifully made.

That ratchets up the complexity and intensity. Like we thought the speeder bike chase was the showcase of ILM. Getting the Falcon and red leader's X-wing inside the guts of my semi-finished. And being chased by TIE fighters all the way to the reactor core. This sequence is just unbelievably awesome. It's incredible. And the staging, the scoring, and then the culmination of them coordinating their attack. And then the race to escape the explosion.

And Lando's scream of victory as the Falcon is literally spat out from the fireball of the, oh, beautiful.

Amazing shot, amazing shot. I just, I love it so much. But meanwhile, the Death Star is then in the process of being destroyed.

Yeah.

And Luke, amidst a bunch of fleeing and panicking Imperials who can't be bothered by, hey, what is he doing with Vader's body?

What is he doing with our boss? What the fuck?

Dragging Vader's body across the floor of the shuttle bay.

In their defense, they were mufter, Gerard Loyalists. They were finer. They didn't give a shit.

I think that's a plausible explanation. Luke is struggling to carry Anakin to the shuttle to rescue him. And you have to guess that with all of his accoutrements, Vader is a heavy load.

He's a heavy load, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And Luke has just been fried by force lightning for...

No one's in good shape. No one's in good shape.

No one's in good shape. Anakin pleads with Luke to help him remove his helmet.

He collapses on the ramp of the Lambda shuttle.

And one thing I want to say briefly about, again, the finale and Anakin emerging from the clutches of his Vader identity and defeating the Emperor, that to me redeems the retcon choice of making Vader Luke's father. Oh, yeah. Which was not the original plan. Like that, I just think, OK, that makes it all worth it.

I don't know how this movie works emotionally without that.

You know, like once you commit, you know, and I don't know how you end this saga, these this without having that personal connection to it now, you know, but maybe it's it's it's one of the I just think greatest endings and conclusions and payoffs of a story and an arc and a hero villain.

No, it's great. Yeah.

Anyway, it's it's incredible. This next scene is also incredible, but underneath it, there is a wrinkle do go on and it's not on Sebastian Shaw's face. There it is. Yes, because so so Anakin pleads like take the mask off. Luke is like, but you'll die.

Nothing can stop that.

Yeah. And he says, just for once, let me look at you with my own eyes, my own eyes. It's a poetic line, but that's the only way he's looking at anything because he has his eyes. He just is looking through the mask that led us to the virus.

That's what gets in the way, man.

That's fine. I'll give it poetic license. Like he wants to not be seeing him through sunglasses. That's fine. And then. We're what's revealed is this tragic figure, this horribly scarred visage of an old man, of an older Anakin Skywalker who is hard to look at. It's just a tragic, scarred, mutilated figure who tells him to leave him there. And then we have this exchange. And this whole sequence, again, I think is wonderful. There is one wrinkle in it beyond those that appear on his waist.

What is it?

Darth Vader is voiced for three films by James Earl Jones, a black man. And obviously, once the decision was, and he was cast in that voice before Vader was ever intended to be Luke Skywalker's father. We are now unmasking Darth Vader, and that is not a black man. So on the one hand...

You feel like he should have been a black man? You feel like he should have been black?

No. Well, this is no. What I'm saying is that the film mythology has backed itself into a corner in terms of whatever they're going to reveal, there's a wrinkle. Because of course, presumably, Luke is not biracial, we presume. So presumably, Anakin is a white man. Okay. But there's unavoidable erasure of the fact that Darth Vader, as we have known him for three movies, has been performed, at least vocally and iconically, by one of the greatest black actors of our time. And now that is stripped away.

Look, I respect your unpacking of this, but I think that James Earl Jones' voice in this has not, and there's nothing coded. I mean, in the real world, it's coded, obviously, and the real word is not coded. It's the voice of one of the greatest black actors of all time. I don't know. I'm a little less taken aback by that, but maybe I just didn't... You know, Paul, one of the things I'm learning about this movie, just talking to you about it for 82 hours is that...

Which is not as long as the countdown in The Soldier, which was 96 hours, but we're rapidly approaching that.

There's a lot about this movie I haven't thought about, and it's because every time I put it on, I'm just plain entertained by it. And even though this movie is probably one of the most significant film-going experiences of a large segment of our peers, myself included, this movie is a watershed. It is the end of a saga that literally we had seen nothing like it, all of that. It is so hard to explain what life was like before Star Wars, because the pop cultural ubiquity of Star Wars, even when it was, quote, dormant, unquote, but you talk about this and I'm listening to you, I'm going like, Paul, and I don't agree or disagree, I just don't know how to quite process what you said, but I haven't thought about any of this crap with this movie because I'm just, I just love it so much and it just satisfies me so much that it is the rare example of a movie which is weird because it's not a movie that's considered to be as good as its two predecessors in any way, but it's a rare example of a movie that can go back to it any time and get what I want. So I haven't broken it down in a lot of ways. A lot of this podcast will be laughing and being gleeful about it because it's fun to talk about this movie. And it's so bizarre because we're so used to tearing Star Wars apart, analyzing Star Wars this, and I don't even, for me, just this lengthy consideration of this film just brings me joy. And it's not a perfect movie. It's not like Empire. It's not a perfect movie.

Yeah. And by no means do I want to take anyone's joy away from it. And I'm reminded of a dune quote that is, truth suffers from too much analysis. And we're certainly in that territory.

I would counter that in the era of CGI, in the era of makeup performances, in the era of motion capture, many performances are in fact composite performances. You've got a body performer, a voice performer and all of that. And I think for me, I would rather dwell on the idea that James Earl Jones, a great black actor in 1981 collaborated on creating one of the greatest villains of all time, rather than thinking, you know, it's a, but you know what, your mileage has varied. Paul, we are on what my friend Hans Beimler used to call a mad dash for the logo. Like we just gotta get to the logo. Come on, we just gotta get to the studio logo at the end of the movie. Let's mad dash for the logo, come on.

Anyway, but to not take anything away from the wonderful Sebastian Shaw, who also is like, thank goodness, because you're tasked with casting somebody to come in at the last moment, and then be Anakin Skywalker, and sell it, and also sell the fact that, oh, what is under this mask?

You've never seen it before.

We're gonna have an emotional connection with immediately, and believe, and believe that scene, and it's an incredible scene.

And there's something very sort of swoop-faced and tragic about that guy's face, like it's a sad face, and it's very, it's not a malicious face. They cast somebody with a genuinely kind of kind face. It's weird, you know?

Yeah. And the exchange is so well-crafted and simple, which is that, you know, Lucas, you know, he can't... The Luke's dialogue is still a little stilted, and this performance, like, I shan't leave you or something, something like that. It's just a little...

I've got to save you.

Yeah, yeah, I've got to, yeah, it's a little...

Here's what makes it sound stilted. I'll not leave you. I've got to save you. You know, it's the I'll...

Yeah, yeah. And so that part's a little, like, ehh. But then Anakin replies with the great line of you already have. You know, he has already saved him. And then we get the dying final words of Anakin Skywalker. It's very touching, it's beautifully done, it lands. And William Scor, which through so much of the film has been so gloriously bombastic and operatic, in this scene pulls way back and is so restrained and quiet to let this scene play out and this line land.

Although I wish they hadn't played the Imperial March on the harp. Every time they try to jam the Imperial March into like something touching, it never works for me.

Like in the first movie where they're like, you know, yeah, and that is an interesting choice because one thing we, again, sorry to go back, but one of the great moments of the climax of Anakin returning, of the return of the Jedi, is that for the first time we get the heroic force theme played for Vader.

Anakin and not for Vader.

Symbolizing that he's no longer Vader.

Paul, Anakin, not Vader.

That's what I'm saying. Symbolizing that it's no longer Vader, it is now Anakin, it is a Jedi who defeats the Emperor, who has returned. And that again, just a beautiful bit of scoring that accentuates.

Luke escapes from the Death Star in a plume of fire. And then we have one of the most beautiful cues, which is when he, you can see that he has Darth Vader's body on a funeral pyre.

Beautiful funeral pyre scene, beautifully scored stage. We follow the flames and the smoke going up.

And then we get one of the most divisive moments of modern cinema.

Yup.

I was going to say one of the greatest celebratory scenes of all time that I carry in my heart and reference frequently.

You know Paul, there is so much snark about the Yub Nub song and they changed it for the special editions, which whatever, I don't give a crap.

I do.

No, I know you do. And we've also established that I am in a weird liminal space about all this.

Can we get a little Yub Nub? Can we get a little Yub Nub?

Can we get a Yub Nub?

It's good stuff. It's good stuff. How would you talk about that? Why would you ever change that? Why would you erase that from every obelisk along with Lapdynek? It's just madness. It's magic. It's magic.

I honestly think it's funny. So the special editions came out in 1998, 1999, 2000, right? I think. No, no, that was actually early. It's like 96, 97, 99, right? And at the time, I was still younger, and I still had the cynicism about some of the stuff. And you know, like when they changed it. And I got to say, like, I do like the cue they replaced it with. It's a very pretty cue. And it's very rousing. But I don't need to go to Coruscant. I don't need to see Statues of the Emperor Falling. I don't need to see people celebrating in Cloud City. This was about our characters reuniting beautifully. And, you know, sort of, and doing what our characters did, you know, what The Empire Strikes Back didn't quite give us at the end of Star Wars gave us was a curtain call. Right? And at the end of Empire, quite noticeably, they're standing with our backs to us in the very last shot of the movie. And then here we get another curtain call. We get everybody, and they're all just sort of standing there. They're wedding, their prom wedding picture. And Luke looks over to a corner. And what does he see, Paul?

Well, there's something important before them that happens. There's something very important that happens before it. On Endor, after Luke escapes and Han and they escape, and we're down on Endor, the rebels and Ewoks cheer because they see in the sky, the second Death Star exploding and Han is with Leia. And Han says, I'm sure Luke wasn't on it when it exploded, presumably. And Leia knows for sure that he wasn't because of their force bond. And Han is then like, okay, he gets it. Like, they've got a thing that he'll never have with her, and he's going to gracefully, maturely like bow out. And Leia then is looking at him like the idiot he is. And because he says, he's like, you love him, don't you? And she's like, yes, of course.

You love him, don't you? Yeah.

Like, he is such a little kind of little arrogance, but also like a little puppy dog. Like, it's really great performance he gives. And then he gets within milliseconds, the worst news and the best news of his life. Going from Leia admitting she loves Luke, to then revealing that Luke is her brother.

Yeah. She kind of played that out a little bit. Like, she should have kind of maybe switch those over.

No, no, no, no. She shouldn't have because he's a dick and he deserves it. Like, she fucks with him in this scene so perfectly. It's so beautifully. And the look, the performance that Ford gives, that it takes him a beat to process this information and finally realize, well, wait a minute, they have experienced a lot of living in the last half hour of these characters, okay? I love this exchange and it's the perfect button. And then finally, they're together, they're a couple, they can admit and recognize their feelings for each other.

I love how these two characters kind of come together at the end of it. And it only makes it harder to see.

Very sadistic.

Paul.

Now, while the Ewoks sing and everybody's celebrating and singing about their yubnub or their freedom, Luke looks over to a corner and sees Obi-Wan and Yoda, and the force goes to Yoda and the force goes to Anakin. And to me, the force goes to Anakin and Sebastian Shaw, if only because that's when he died a Jedi.

Yes, because it would be objectively insane to say, oh, we're going to reward Anakin for having become the worst villain of the epoch of killing and murdering all these people as Darth Vader, to then when he turns, he gets a young force ghost, but Yoda and Obi-Wan get old force ghosts.

Yeah, no, that's not good.

And also, Luke would not recognize a young Anakin. He'd be like, who the fuck is that? Who's that kid? And Obi-Wan. And why is he young in these other two? That would be insane. That would be one of the stupidest creative decisions of pandering to a prequel audience because then it'd be like, well, if you're gonna make, if you're gonna make Anakin young force ghost, you've got to make Yoda and Obi-Wan a young force ghost. But then you'd have Ewan McGregor there. And Luke would be like, who the fuck is that?

I don't know what you're talking about because the only version of this movie-

But you couldn't possibly mix those up. Like you'd either have to go all one way or the other, but it wouldn't make sense to go all the young or halfway.

I gotta tell you, like I don't even want to think about the revisions, any of that stuff. This is a pure experience rewatching this movie. And we did see a extraordinarily hard to find copy of the original that was in no way pirated. And it was taken from the DVD, from the laser disc set. We all know this. It's such a pure experience that I don't even want to think about any of it. It's like honestly, this has weirdly emerged. As the Star Wars movie I revisit the most in its original form, it is the one that to me is the most still very entertaining. It's the one that has all of these emotional payoffs that I love. And I just, you know what? If maybe the prequel fans like it the other way, I don't know. Good for them. Bully. There's plenty of copies of that one out there. But this is my return of the Jedi.

I think of any Star Wars anything. It arguably is the most satisfying and complete ending. Yes. So, you know, Luke Leia, you know, pulls Luke back to the celebration. She does not see the Force Ghosts. But they're happy. And they're together. And they're proud of Luke. Yeah. Visibly. And Luke goes back to the celebration. And that's it. That's the end. They won.

Han and Leia get married and proceed to usher in an era of galactic peace and responsible governance that lasts until their deaths much later on. They raise an entire generation of capable heroic leaders who are able to lead the galaxy and face off any extra galactic threats they might face. But it ushers in a great area of prosperity because sometimes if heroes win, they actually remain competent at being good at their jobs.

Yeah. And Luke follows Yoda's instructions and passes on what he has learned to Leia, who becomes a Jedi, and to a whole new generation of Jedi who help restore the Republic and keep peace and order.

And who learn from the mistakes of the past and don't fall the way that their predecessors did.

Yes.

Man, those would be some great sequels to these movies, wouldn't they?

I'd love to see that. Oh man.

Oh man, that'd be great.

How satisfying would that be? Yeah, and seeing like Han and Leia go have a honeymoon on Kashyyyk at the Wookiee Resort. And like, oh my god, there's so many joys that await us after this. It's just wonderful.

Paul, we've gone on for way too long on this. Producer Brad has literally aged 10 years. Producer Brad, we don't need to talk about this film's cultural impact. We don't need to talk about whether it opened at number one. Let's just talk about next week. What are we going to do next week at the Multiplex? What do we got?

Well, next week, we're moving one week further into the summer of 83. We have three films that have opened. Those films are, first up, Wow. Psycho 2.

That's a thing that's happening to somebody.

OK, let's keep moving. Next.

Oh, God.

Option two is The Man with Two Brains, Steve Martin.

Oh, I quote this movie so much. This may not be a great film, but wow, is it quotable. OK, OK.

The last option is War Games, Matthew Broderick.

Yes, that's an easy call. And I just have to say kudos to any and all studio execs that dare to schedule any movie the weekend after Return Of The Jedi.

After Star Wars, yeah, come on.

Yeah, you know, that's a bold choice. And certainly, any that have even a vaguely sci-fi genre dimension to them.

You don't think that The Majesty Of Psycho 2 couldn't take down this film, really, is that what you're saying?

No, but I can only presume that the gambit of War Games was that there would be people showing up at the Multiplex disappointed that all showings of Jedi are sold out, and therefore, they will then look for anything as a second choice, and War Games will welcome them with a warm, geeky embrace.

Don't forget, Return Of The Jedi was the first film to open on the Wednesday before Memorial Day.

Oh, yes.

So, the more people had seen it in that weekend, then possible in past films.

But we're wanting to go back and see it again and again.

Alright, this has been an amazing journey, and it's been so pleasurable talking about this film, and it just shows how it has endured for me. So, guys, yes, Paul.

I just, at the risk of overstaying our welcome, I just have to say, there's no one left listening. There's no one left listening at this point. I could not be happier or more grateful that we are in season two of Multiplex Overthruster, that we are now in our second summer in the 80s, hopefully of many, that we will get to re-experience, and that for any of all of you who are still listening at this point, I, boy, I don't know what that says about you or about us, but I thank you, and I hope that you help spread the word, like and subscribe, tell your friends, go back and experience if you've missed them. The entirety of season one, Summer of 82, is available.

With our award show, with our Christmas special?

With our holiday special, On the Dark Crystal, with our award special, giving out our own awards for the Summer of 82? The Multies. You do not want to miss that if you haven't heard it yet, but feel free to go back and pick and choose, or if you're new to the podcast, you can take that ride from start to finish, I dare you, but it's not obligatory. But we welcome you, and we are glad you're back, and until next week, we will see you in line at the Multiplex.

Catch you later.