May 7, 2025 • 59 mins
The Epic Conclusion to the Original Star Wars TrilogyJoin hosts Krissy Lenz and Nathan Blackwell, along with special guest Francis Zagarigo, as they dive into the thrilling conclusion of the original Star Wars trilogy—Return of the Jedi (1983). This episode explores how the final installment wraps up the saga with its unforgettable characters, iconic scenes, and the ultimate battle between good and evil.Francis shares that this was his first time watching the film and declares it his favorite of the trilogy. Nathan, on the other hand, ranks it third but acknowledges its powerful ending. The hosts debate the merits of the Jabba's Palace sequence, with Krissy humorously describing it as "a Colombian drug dealer's backyard party," complete with dancing girls and bounty hunters.The group also examines Luke Skywalker's character arc, noting his all-black costume and monk-like demeanor, which hint at his potential temptation by the dark side. They highlight the reveal of Luke’s green lightsaber, a practical filmmaking choice that perfectly aligns with his character's evolution.Key Topics Covered
The hosts rate the film highly: Francis and Nathan both give it 8.5 out of 10 Ewoks, while Krissy insists it deserves a perfect 10 out of 10 Ewoks. For "deep cut" recommendations, Nathan suggests The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King as another excellent trilogy conclusion, Francis recommends Gremlins 2, and Krissy suggests Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars.Whether you're a lifelong Star Wars fan or experiencing the trilogy for the first time, this episode captures the magic that made Return of the Jedi an unforgettable cinematic experience that continues to resonate with audiences decades later.
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- The impressive Jabba the Hutt puppet that weighed 2,000 pounds and cost $500,000 to build
- The problematic yet iconic "Slave Leia" metal bikini costume
- The Ewoks as an allegory for indigenous peoples overcoming technologically superior invaders
- Ian McDiarmid's scene-stealing performance as Emperor Palpatine
- The emotional redemption of Darth Vader and his sacrifice to save Luke
- The satisfying conclusion that brings the original trilogy full circle
- Special edition changes, including CGI additions and an altered musical number
The hosts rate the film highly: Francis and Nathan both give it 8.5 out of 10 Ewoks, while Krissy insists it deserves a perfect 10 out of 10 Ewoks. For "deep cut" recommendations, Nathan suggests The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King as another excellent trilogy conclusion, Francis recommends Gremlins 2, and Krissy suggests Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars.Whether you're a lifelong Star Wars fan or experiencing the trilogy for the first time, this episode captures the magic that made Return of the Jedi an unforgettable cinematic experience that continues to resonate with audiences decades later.
---
Learn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Most
Excellent Eighties Movies Podcast. Want to skip those ads and
get early access, become a member at true story dot fm,
slash join and discover all the other great parks that
come with it. Hello and welcome to the Most Excellent
(00:31):
Eighties Goovies Podcast. It's the podcast where we peo peo
pew our way through the eighties movies we think we
love or might have missed with these our modern eyes
to see how they hold up. And today we're talking
about Return of the Jedi, a movie selection from nineteen
eighty three, about which Google says, Luke Skywalker played by
(00:56):
Mark Hamill, battles horrible job of the Hut and cruel
Darth Vader to save his comrades in the Rebel Alliance
and triumph over the Galactic Empire. Han Solo played by
Harrison Ford and Princess Leah played by Carrie Fisher reaffirm
(01:17):
their love and teams Chewbacca Lando Calarisian played by Billy
D Williams. The Ewoks and the Androids C three PO
and R two D two to as the Androids.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yes is this AI summary.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yes, it is to aid in the disruption of the
dark Side and defeat the evil Emperor. Okay, here we go.
Here comes the classic trailer.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Return for the climactic clash between the forces of good
and evil. Return to a galaxy far far away. Return
of the Jedi, the next chapter in the continuing Star
(02:14):
Wars saga. The battle for freedom rages. Arm the heart
of a hero, the courage of a rebel, the strength
(02:38):
of a leader, the loyalty of comrades, the power of
the force, the cunning of the enemy.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
But destiny revealed.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Is God thea to my father, A legend fulfilled, an
epic of heroes, villains, and aliens from a thousand worlds,
a trap. The quest continues, the circle closes, The saga
(03:32):
lives on. Return of the Jedi begins May twenty fifth,
at a theater in your galaxy.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
The circle closes. Now that was not Harrison Ford, No,
the other one. When I edited the podcast when we
did Empire, I was like, Okay, that's definitely Harrison Ford.
Could I could hear it once you pointed it out
to me. But this was just some weirdo.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
A trailer voice, A professional.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Trailer voice, yes, not a weirdo, A professional of course.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Because he's in a union.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Chrissy, I understand, I understand. I take back everything I said.
I'm Chrissy Lenz, the one of the directors at the
Neighborhood Comedy Theater in downtown Mesa, Arizona, and with me
as always is my companion, an award winning filmmaker who
will introduce himself now, Hello, you say your name?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Nathan Blackwell, independent filmmaker with Squishy Studios.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yes, I'm joining us again to complete our star Wars
Saga is a comedian of the Neighborhood Comedy Theater and
all around wonderful human being. Francis Zagarigo that's me, and
the great job pronouncing my name.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
A lot of people can't do that.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Oh well, I did my best. I am trying to
be to get into the trailer voice union. So we
watched this a couple of weeks ago together and Francis
was seeing it for the very first time. Of course,
as we already know, for Nathan and Chrissy, this was
(05:22):
the one hundredth time, and I'm super exciting. I'm super
excited to jump in France's any first impressions on where
this third volume found you.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
Well, Nathan will be very pleased to hear that this
scored higher marks for me than the last one.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Okay, I thought.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
That it was a great kind of rounding out of
the trilogy. I was very pleased to watch it. I
love the action. I think this one for me was
probably my favorite.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Wow, glad to hear you say that. Yeah, I know
we're crazy, but I love Return of the.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Jedi, Richard of the Jedi.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
How does this ring for you, Nathan in terms of
the overall Star Wars experience?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Well, I would so, I would definitely put so. For me,
it's third place out of the trilogy.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Okay, but the.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Ending is so it's it's really the ending is so strong,
you know, like like Jaba's Palace is a little weird
but cool.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
What Jaba's Palace is the best. It's my favorite. I
love that. I love that. And we'll get to this,
but I love that they all just have to sleep
where they stand.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
It's kind of it's kind of dark and it's kind
of creepy.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
And then it gets it kind of turns into the
Muppet movie with the Ewoks, but then it goes then
it goes hardcore into a really excellent ending into it
really once the Emperor is involved and intercutting, suddenly like
Steaks show up and say, oh, we've been waiting for you, you know,
(07:16):
and then everything is at stake and they they're doing
a great job of intercutting everything.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I kind of feel not to.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Throw anyone under the bus, but the director Richard markwand
he was kind of an odd pick to be director,
and I felt like there was so many moving parts
for the ending that it was kind of Lucas the
producer kind of taking over a bit, you know. Like
(07:46):
I feel like the weakest stuff is where people are
standing around talking to each other.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah without a lightsaber to.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yeah it Wasmit smashing. Yeah yeah. Which is not to
say that it's bad per se, but I feel like
those scenes are the weakest in the trilogy for me. Although,
so having prefaced all this, like I remember being so
(08:18):
incredibly excited about this movie when I first saw it.
I so, I one of my earliest memories is I
remember the night before we saw a Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
So I remember like the palpable like excitement of having
like a movie magazine and seeing like photos of the
Jaba's palace like creatures, and I'm like losing my mind
because we're going to the movie theater.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I'm so at this point nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
I'm in May nineteen eighty three, I'm seven, I think, yeah,
seven years old. So yeah, I'm losing my mind. I'm
so excited, you know, it all works for me. And
I remember then the next so we saw the movie
and then we went camping, and I remember lying in my.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
You saw the movie and then you went to end
or yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Yeah exactly, and we had the toys and we actually
shot like Super eight movies in the forest the next day.
But I remember like lying in the morning because you know,
I would get up probably like an hour or two
before like the adults, because I'm just a fidgety kid
and I can't do anything, and like the adults are
(09:35):
going to sleep in, you know. But just it's like
I remember saying to myself, I'm going to reimagine. I'm
going to imagine the entire movie.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I'm going to let it play in my mind.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
From start to finish because it was so exciting. I'm
going to relive the experience.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And I think I maybe.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Only got like three scenes in and then I forgot
what happens next.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Oh I love that. I absolutely adore that. And that's
like what I always imagine and hope for when I
took my kids to the movies when they were very young,
Like I remember, we took Rocket to see Avengers Infinity War,
not knowing what was gonna happen.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
In his favorite character, Spider Man, Spider Man, Star Lord,
and Black Panther, all of whom got dusted and Bucky,
Bucky is his very favorite, and they all got dusted,
and he I had to carry him out of the
theater as he had his little his little Bucky and
(10:42):
Spider Man figures clutched in his hand.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And I was like, well, at least I know this
is a formative experience for you.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
At least we're making memories.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
We're making we're making memories. I love that. I love
that for you. I don't remember my first time seeing this.
I feel like I've always have seen it. I don't
remember the first time.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah, I don't remember seeing Empire, even though I was
technically remembering at an age, But yeah, I don't. I
don't remember.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah. Uh, but I love this one. I adore this one,
and I think it's because I love the job as
Palace sequence for all of its quirks, and I love
I just I adore the Ewoks. I'm an Ewoks stand.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Of an Ewok fetishist.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, i astore the Ewoks so much so that I've
seen all of the cartoon the Ewoks cartoons.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Oh man, they go dark, they.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Go to some weird places.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Yeah. The second Ewok live action movie, the beginning is
just worth youtubing.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
YouTube it, YouTube it up. Uh So, Francis, how did
you feel about the Ewoks?
Speaker 5 (12:07):
I too love them. I think they're they remind me
of Magwise. I think they're related with me. Yes, I
think this is just you know where they live. This
is what they look like.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It's after midnight.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, this is it.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
It's like a goldfish that that gets bigger depending on
the size of its enclosure. Like, this is what happens
if you've got free range Mogwise.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah. Uh So we start with our opening scroll, Luca
is gonna rescue Han Oops is a new death Star.
We jumped to a star destroyer where the little Ship's
park and it's Darth Vader. There's a big don Don.
Everyone is standing there to meet Darth Vader, which reminds
(12:51):
me so much of I know you haven't seen it, Nathan,
but Francis has. Didn't it remind you of uh, disney Land,
Rise of the Resistance when you come into the First
Order ship and all the Stormtroopers are just lined up
waiting for you and they're.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
All just standing there and you feel like you were
late to something.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's cold and it's dark and
it's vast. I loved it. And Darth Vader gets to
be the middleman who's passing on the news that the
Emperor is not as optimistic as them, that this new
Death Star will be ready in time, and the Empire
is the Emperor is coming and he's displeased.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
What oh no, Yeah, this is really where we're like,
we heard of the Emperor, and we saw the Emperor
in one scene and Empire, but this is where we're
really building.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Up the Emperor as an edit character, and now like
everyone's talking about him. It's a big deal. He's coming here.
What are we going to expect. It's like that line later,
you know, like even watching like the first three movies
as when they were the only Star Wars, when Darth
(14:09):
Vader says that line is like, the Emperor is not
as forgiving as I am, and it's like I feel
like you're pretty unforgiving. But now, like now the of
the prequels and all the other stuff, it's like that
rings much truer. Just how much more evil the Emperor
is than Darth Vader.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, the Emperor is like the bad daddy. Yeah you
got two daddies, Yeah, daddy's one of them. A bad daddy.
So we cut to see three PO at R two
D two on tattoo In going to Jaba's palace, and
(14:50):
three po is like, let's get out of here. But
but R two D two is like, no, we've got
a job to do. We've got to get in there.
They have a me and a gift for Joba the hut.
Jaba is just having a nice time. He's just enjoying
his lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
He's well, he's kind of like I realized watching it
this time, it's really kind of like dropping by like
a Colombian drug dealer's like backyard party. Yeah, like it's
just like, oh yeah, grab a drink, watch the girls
get in the pool. You know, like this is just
(15:31):
this is like an everyday thing.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, every day is a Colombian drug lords. Beach party
at Jaba's palace. Uh, and he he has dancing girls,
and there are bounty hunters everywhere, and they throw the
dancing girls to the Raincorps and it's just it's it's
(15:55):
just a fun time to be had by all. Oh.
So the job of the hot puppet took Stuart Freeborn's
team three months to build, cost five hundred thousand dollars
to make, and weighed two thousand pounds. I love that.
(16:18):
That's a ton I love that. That's so cute.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It's a job.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
It's my mom's Joba the hut keychain.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Oh, it's so cute. Oh oh, Francis first impressions of
Jaba and his palace.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Yeah, I think Nathan nailed it to me. It was
kind of like a space strip club for frogs, just
all over the place, and Jaba was especially with what
we find out later, just kind of proof that even
(16:58):
in space, your boss is just a giant slug who
doesn't know how to treat people.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah. We pointed out to Francis that the whole like
singing and dancing scene was new, that they added a
whole like musical number in there with Cgi singing characters.
And what I don't understand too, is like when they
take the droids the gift. Of course, Luke Skywalker appears
(17:25):
and he's like, mighty Jaba, I come to bargain with you,
and I'm leaving you a gift these two droids and
C three Po's like, what the what? And then they
take them into the droid processing room. D Yeah, he's
getting tortured. They're like burning his feet, and it reminded
(17:46):
me of that Simpsons line, why why was I programmed
to feel pain? Like? Why should it hurt him to
like heat up his feet? We're so confused, keep going.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
I mean, they don't have to do.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
This, they don't. So Uh there's uh singing alien strippers
and a girl gets sent to the Rank Corps and uh, finally,
uh the do you what's the name of the I know,
I know it as soon as you say, I'm gonna
(18:20):
kick myself. But the Jaba's assistant who has the two
big tentacles on his head, Bib Fortuna, that's exactly right. Uh.
Bib Fortuna brings in Chewbacca and Boba Fett shows up. Uh,
there's a bounty hunter and chew he's taken away and
(18:42):
the party starts again. We see Lando is there. What
he's in disguise, but he.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Has to reveal his yes and pull down his mask
and reveal his mustache, so we recognize.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Him, but he recognize him. He's in this. He's in
the sexiest, uh, the sexiest bounty hunter outfit ever.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Well, they probably gave him like a first draft bounty
hunter outfit and he was like no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
No, I need style. Lando's a man of capes. So
the bounty hunter that we met sneaks down to Han.
The bounty hunter freeze Han from the carbonite, and the
bounty hunter is talking in like a really robotic voice.
It's carbonite, it's freezing sickness. Your eyesight will return in time.
(19:35):
Who are you? Someone who loves you? It's Leah? What?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
They smooch and we're so happy. But in a big reveal,
everyone at Jaba's palace has just been hiding behind a curtain. Yes,
they've just been waiting. I knew this is gonna happen,
(20:02):
and they were like, look, let's pretend to all go
to sleep and just hide behind this curtain.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
But everyone else at Jaba's palace just sleeps where they stand,
like they have to sleep at their post. I always
thought that was weird.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Maybe that's not like an every night thing. Maybe that's
just like on you know, like party nights.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
Yeah, they were over capacity.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, so no one could go to bed. Everyone had
a stamp. So I always love this part where Han
is first waking up and he's like, Luke a Jedi,
I'm out of it for a little bit, and everyone's
having delusions of grandeur. I love it. He's so fun.
Harrison Ford is just so fun when he can't see
(20:51):
and he's like happy to see, happy to not see,
but to be with Chewbacca and Lea even though they've
all been caught by Jaba. Uh Luke shows up, we
see slave Leah, and every young man's fancy life springs
into uh, into.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
The next stage of development.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Yes, didn't we talk about this? So, like what was
Java even gonna do with it? Like it was just
for looks, Like why'd you do this?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah? Why is she? Because he likes to have a
slave girl tied up and she has to sleep at
his feet. Yeah, and he had the metal bikini lying
around as we all do as we all should, right.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Yeah, it's like he's got a drawer. It's like pick
out anything that fits, and it's only metal bikinis.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
It's just different styles of metal bikinis. He's like, look,
we have no clothiers. We only have blacksmiths carbonite. Yeah,
they made it out of Han's carbonite leavings. Uh so
(22:12):
they Luke shows up and he does this whole big speech,
but he gets sent into the Rancor Pet see three
Bos tries to help him, Master Skywalker. You're standing on
top of a ooh no. Down. He goes into the
Rancor Pet. He has a big battle with the rank Corps,
but ultimately he kills it. What the rank Corps just
(22:32):
doing what he knows best.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
He's just doing a job.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, we didn't have to kill the rank Corps. But
I love I love the one guard who's really sad.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
The Rank Corps keeper.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, he's like crying and hugging his friend.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
That was his fed, the thing that was his.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Pet, that was his pet. What did you think of
the visuals of the Rank Corps battle, Francis, I don't remember, okay,
so it's not memorable to you. Very good, very good.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
I remember the bikini though.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, good that stuck with you even as a gay man.
It made an impression.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
I'm not sure now I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, you're questionings. That's okay. We all question when we
see the metal bikini. So Jaba decides that he is
going to exact his justice by throwing all of them
into the sarlac pit. Will they will learn a new
definition of pain as they're slowly digested over a thousand years? Now,
(23:43):
how does it keep them alive? Does it feed them
as it digests them? How does it keep them alive
for a thousand years?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Like I want to think that it doesn't actually keep
them alive. It just takes it a thousand years to digest.
Like I can get behind that to actually that they
would survive that long. Like I could see like rich
people specifically wanting to get like a sarlac treatment to
live longer. If that was the case.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
You know, right, you become a vampire when you enter
the sarlac right, just doing.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
It like a year or two and just taking you know,
and everyone else around you ages. But you haven't. But
one thing I do want to talk about, though, is
like we don't know what the heck is going on
with Luke Skywalker at this point.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
No, we sure don't. But he looks great.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Wearing all black. He's kind of super cold, and where
it's like, did Luke go dark? And I think they're
specifically teasing the kind of like the dark Luke question mark,
because that's kind of the at the end of the movie,
(25:01):
you know, yeah, just for us to kind of think
about it.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
But yeah, it it threw people.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
For a loop, and it is kind of weird, especially
since then in the last two movies he's been very
emotional and now he's like a Buddhist month yeah, to
where it's like I or like, you know, I can't
show any emotion. And he's definitely a very different Luke,
(25:28):
except for the.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Moment when they're when they're driving out, I totally agree
with you, Nathan, But there's a moment when they drive
out to the star like Pitt and Hans like, instead
of a big dark blur, I see a big light
blur and he's like, don't worry, you're not missing anything.
I grew up here. Uh. And and it's a terrible place. Uh.
That's a that's a very whiny Luke moment.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Uh huh.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
And you know, so you know where the star like
pitt scene was filmed. It was Yuma, Arizona, Arizona.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah. Yeah. Every time I drive to San Diego, when
we drive through there, there's a big Fortuna Avenue or
Fortuna Street, and I'm always like, yeah, we're in Star Wars,
you guys, Let's go find the Starlac and live for
a thousand years. But it's very funny as they're on
(26:20):
the Starlac pit because they nod at each other, so
like Luke turns to Lando and nods, and Lando turns
to Luke and nods, and then they all turn to
like Chewy and nod and it's just this slow like
procession of nodding. Which family guy did a parody of
(26:41):
Star Wars all three Star Wars is and that's the
part they nailed where it's just like turn nod, turn nod,
and it's okay. So what you're telling us is you've
got a plan. Great enact this plan. And Luke steps
to the end of the plank and he's like, this
is your last chance, Jaba, free us or you will die.
(27:04):
And Jaba is like borrow him into the pit and
he like just jumps off the end of the thing,
gets out his lightsaber. Fight fight green. Now it's green
now yes? Oh, the reveal of the green lightsaber is
such a exciting moment. It's green. I So I have
(27:29):
been to Disneyland where you get to build your own
lightsaber and they have this big ceremony and you pick
out all the things and it's very exciting. Uh. And
you can either green, blue, red, or purple. Uh. And
it's it's so exciting to get to choose your color.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
So did you go green?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I went purple?
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Oh, I'd go blue.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, rocket went red. And I was like questioning, Uh.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Huh, it's it's all It's Adventures Infinity War Trauma.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
So what's your lightsaber?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (28:09):
It's green without green?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah great.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
So do you know why they switched it to green
in the movie. Tell us it's because the blue lightsaber
didn't show up well in the desert scenes, like when
they when it's broad daylight with a blue sky with
a blue lightsaber, it just didn't pop that much, and
(28:32):
so they went green.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
They said, it's an evolution.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
It is uh, Jedi in miss I love that it's
practical and it makes sense. To me emotionally. Yeah, and
so on our last episode, the caption said that Rocket
was my cat. So I just want to clear up
(28:56):
and time that Rocket is actually my fourteen year old
son and not my cat. So just in case you're wondering,
Rocket is a fourteen year old boy, not a cat
that I brought to see aventusin Findy War.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Although I love that your cat has a Bucky and
a Bucky action figure.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yes, my cat goes everywhere with me. Uh So they
fight fight. Boba Fett gets eaten by the Sarlac. Boba fette,
Boba fet ware. That's whatever. Whatever someone says Boba Fett.
I say, Boba fette boba fet ware. Uh. And he
goes flying into the Sarlac pit and gets eaten. Uh.
Lando almost gets eaten by the Sarlac. Leah strangles Jaba, which.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
Is so harsh and gross.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
It's it's a lot, It's really a lot. He's like,
bah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Uh and
Leah and Luke destroy Jaba as Barge what the escape yay? Uh?
So we got to the Emperor on the Death Star patience,
(30:12):
he says Luke will come to you and we will
turn him to the dark side. Okay, We're gonna turn
him to the dark side. And I don't know why,
Like Darth Vader is like, are you replacing me? Like
why do we need?
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Uh? And then I love how the Emperor has two creepy.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Friends, the guys in red uh huh.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yeah, he's got there's like there's like two shriveled guys
in like purple robes that are following him around. I
like to think it's like his mixologist and his DJ Yeah,
because he's.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Got to have his funky beats wherever he goes.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
He travels so much.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
It's just a little piece of home. Chefs.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, they shriveled up because they only eat what he
They have to taste his food before him.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
No, it's in their contracts. They can't be more attractive
than him.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Right, that's true. Yeah, it's his agent and Jlo's dancers.
So we go back to Dagoba. Yoda is like, I'm
old and I'm gonna die. No more training do you require?
And Luke's like, then I am a Jedi.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
He's like, oh, oh, he's a Jedi.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And he's like, well, don't go dark. Oh btw, there's
another Skywalker. Oops I died.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
H right, And the thing that always threw me because
I mean again, like you know, until I was like
I don't know, like twenty four or something like that,
there were only these three Star Wars movies. There wasn't
like the prequels, and so I was like Yoda saying like,
oh no, You've got to face so Luke was all
(32:04):
Jedies for all we knew, you know, at least the
rules and everything. So when Yoda says, no, oh no,
you got to face Vader, your dad to really become
a Jedi, it's like, oh do all Jedis have to
do this? Like is it like a weird?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But it's really it's because.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Darth Vader is like his his like his blockage, you know,
his baggage that he's got to deal with.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
They get the the the Jedi kids so young that
they don't have all this baggage.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
He's still in conflict.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Even though he seems like he's got everything together, he
still has this dad issue that he's got to resolve
before he really graduates.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Mm hmm, totally. All it's complicated, it is, we all
have our daddy issues. What did you think of seeing
Yura again Francis and hearing him confirm that Darth Vader
was indeed Luke's dad, because the scuttle butt is that
everyone thought that the kids wouldn't believe it.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
I thought that was just serving. He's just serving teeth,
like on his way out. Just like, by the way,
couldn't he have like helped and died? Did he have
to die alone? I'll help you.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Yeah, I mean did he have like like who gets
the house? Like did he did he sign anything over
or you know, like I feel like there's a little
more that he could have done. Maybe he could have
written some of the stuff down and then it's like, oh,
by the way, there's a lot more info right here.
(33:48):
Cuff cuff.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
Yeah, here's a notebook I've been filling out for you.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Yeah, exactly, at least since yesterday.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah. I have no idea I was going to die
that he.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Wasn't really dying and was just like done, you know,
like don't come back.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
He just crawls under the covers. So so when when
Yoda dies and he disappears, his clothes disappear too, So
does that mean his clothes were a force projection, Like
(34:27):
he's actually knew.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Dude, he was nude. I love it.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
You don't understand there's medical reasons that I've always knewde
around you.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Uh. So obi Wan appears as a force ghost and
he's like, Okay, here's the deal with Anakin bt dubs.
You have a twin sister. And Luke's like, who's the
only girl I've ever met in the history of ever
(35:01):
kissed me? Yes, it's Leah Lea's my sister. And he's
like you you guessed it, Bingo bongo and he is
like you should be like, ew, I totally have the
hots for that's gross. So we're on a starship. Lando
(35:22):
is a general. There's finally another girl, mon Mothma is
there and she's like many boffins died to bring us
this information. It's like you're the only other girl. Uh.
And they're like, we've got to destroy another death Star
near the forest moon of Endoor. H. Then, Han, Leah, Chewey,
(35:47):
and Luke are all going to go to Endoor and
disabled the shield generator, while Lando leads a team of
people who are going to attack the death Star. But
they got to get the shield down or the attack
is useless. So the Emperor is like, get out of here. Darth.
Vader and Han and Leah and Luke and Cheweye are
(36:10):
trying to get into the clearance of Endoor and they're
like it was an olda code, but I was going
to approve them. And Han is like, I don't know
fly casual, but Vader knows that Luke is there, So
on Endoor. They finally land on Endoor, they get in.
They have a chase on speeder bikes, which I always like,
(36:33):
always freaked me out. They're just going too fast.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
The speeder bikes are so intense, Like I can't imagine
that you can get insurance for those things because it's insane.
Maybe they're just not meant for forests, or they were
just going a little too fast, Like I feel like
there was a combination of those things. Francis, what are
your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
It's like a bird bike of vendoor, Like they don't care,
They're just there to make money. Like they're probably leave
all over the place.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
They just park them by a tree and say goodbye.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
Yeah. Yeah, four hundred miles an hour, no safety helmet.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Now that we've seen more Star Wars, speeder bikes make
a lot of sense, just not in a very dense forest.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Right, You're gonna hit a tree or a branch.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
It's intense.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Leah makes friends with an eat.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
You imagine them in a ten mile an hour safety
exc like Chase.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Well, when we did the Tron episode, my recommendation was
Segway scooters. And that's what it made me think, is
like I can only go up to twenty miles an
hour on my Segway scooter and it feels so fast,
Like what the heck, it's crazy. We meet the Ewoks
and they make friends with Leah Vader and the Emperor
(38:00):
is like, Nuke is on indoor and he's like yeah,
uh huh so blah blah blah, we're searching for Lea.
They get captured by the Ewoks who see see who
they The Ewoks see see three Po. They see C
three Po as.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
A god right because they're not used to metal.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, and they're like, who is this metal man who's
soaper snickety And it's.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Like no, no, you don't get it.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
It was the accent. It was the British accent that
did it.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yes, So they're going to cook and eat.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Loose so that's a dealing with.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, these are savage, savage ewoks. They want to cook
and eat.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
So I never noticed this, but Wicket has. And I'm
sure this is this isn't recent or anything, but I
just never noticed it that when we first meean meet
Wicket played by Warwick Davis.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
And eleven year old Warwick Davis, Oh my gosh, just
a tiny baby.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
That they added CGI blinks to Wicket when he first
meets Princess Oil.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Yeah, so it will be as creepy.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Yeah, like his eyes were for the first couple of
shots where CGI and then they've got blinks to them.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I love the idea that George Lucas like had this
movie made and then was like, you know what's missing blinks.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
The whole special edition thing is a can of worms
that I feel like we've got to address on every
one of these because it's the only versions of the
movie that are available. Really.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
The only one is Francis has ever seen, you know,
the difference.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
He doesn't know any better.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
But yeah, it's interesting the kind of stuff that they added. So, yeah,
the new So there was an original there was a
different ending, you know, not different plot wise, but basically
it just stays with the Ewoks rather than seeing all
the galactic celebrations. And then we've got a new We
(40:26):
basically have an Ewok song that kind of takes us
out of the movie, takes us out as in to
the end, that removes us from the experience. But yeah,
just scope and and and more CGI explosions and adding
(40:46):
adding rings to explosions and and and things like that.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
But the real.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
The one that really kind of stands out as a
sore thrumb, sore thumb, is that I feel the musical number.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't love the musical number.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Yeah, you know, I mean there's plenty of silliness. There's
plenty of goofiness. It does kind of like disneyfy the
drug dealer, so much energy trying to make him grotesque
and evil. And then there's like a cute dance scene
(41:26):
to it, yeah, right before he murders one of the dancers.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, for no reason, for no good reason. She's a
very good dancerugh. So finally Luke uses his Jedi powers
to raise see three Po up on his chair and
they free them all and they all become friends, and
three Po speaks their language and tells them the whole
(41:52):
story of Star Wars. They have a big party. Luke
tells Leah, I have to go bet Dubs. You're my
sister and he's our dad. Then Han is like jealous
and she's like, don't worry about it. Hold me. Vader
and the Atsts are on Endoor. Luca's surrendered to them
(42:17):
or no, luc goes Luke goes to the Death Star
and surrenders to them. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (42:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
No?
Speaker 4 (42:23):
He goes to like what the Imperial Endoor station?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Right, right right? And Darth Vader is like, okay, cool,
go get his friends, like and Luke is like you
are good and Vader's like, no, I'm not. And Luke
is like you won't kill me and Vader's like, yeah,
I will. On Endoor, the Ewoks show them the back
door to the shield generator. Yeah, and Wicket steals a
(42:56):
speeder to distract the guards back, and we keep cutting
back between Endoor and the Dust Star. So on the
Dasth Star, Vader takes Luke to the Emperor and he's like,
you're going to come to the dark side. We know
all about the attack. We've been planning this from the beginning. Meanwhile,
it's a trap.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Oh see, now you know what that meme is?
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Did you? Did you have you seen that meme? Francis
the Admiral acbar It's a trap.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
No, I don't think I have.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Oh okay, so it meant nothing to you.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
I'm so ignorant.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
The Emperor is like given to your hate on Endoor,
the Ewoks attack, the ATSD is over running.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
So this is this, I feel is really where it
kicks in, like the climax of return the Jedi feel
like it's just going full speed, like it's really strong.
This is where the movie kind of makes up, I
think for some imbalance or goofiness, you know, compared to
(44:09):
the rest of the series, at least of the trilogy.
So I feel like one thing that we should discuss
is is so like George Lucas's like fascination or not fascination,
but like parallels of of like indigenous people versus the
(44:33):
big mechanized society and the indigenous people winning.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
That's what I love about this movie is that they
totally disregarded the Ewoks as a people that they needed
to conquer, and the Ewoks are like, no, We're gonna
hit you with rocks and take and beat you. And
I love that because they're they're these totally underestimatable little
(45:04):
furry like hedgehog type things and they save the day.
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Uh huh, I love that. Well, it's all the Vietnam
War is basically what it is. It's the Vietnamese as
the good guys, repelling like the American military force, and
it was just something that that them in the sixties
(45:31):
and seventies were like, you know, which was a huge
part of like the It was like a wake up
call of saying that you just can't like outspend or
overmodernize a people, you know. But it's interesting because he
also brings it back again with the Gungans in episode
(45:56):
one in Daboo.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah Navoo, Naboo Naboo.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
So the question is so so and the original version
of Star Wars, like the original intention was that it
was going to be the Wookie home planet, not Ewoks.
But they're like, oh, that's too many, that's just that's
just too many tall people.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah right, but we can make children work round the clock.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
In England. Uh But yeah, so, I guess comparing because
it's kind of like a repeat of the same idea.
What do you think of the comparison of the Ewoks
versus Gungans.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Well, I showed Francis a little little bit of episode one,
so he's only seen jar Jar Binks on a very
cursory level.
Speaker 5 (47:07):
And with plenty of implied like bias against him, I
would say.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
I and I don't really, I don't really remember the Gungans, Like,
I don't I remember jar Jar Binks, and I remember
like Big Daddy, who's like Big Daddy, But I don't remember,
like I remember that the Nabouians don't treat them fairly,
(47:40):
and then the Gungans are like, you should treat us fairly,
But I I it's been a long time since I've
seen episode one.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Well, I feel like the Gungans are goofier, and I
think it doesn't help that that they we can understand
what they say. Yeah, you know, I feel that's a
strength to the Ewoks, because really the Gungans they kind
of on the surface are primitive, but they have advanced technology.
(48:11):
They're just not like like technology forward like humans are,
you know, And yeah, so that's not great. And honestly,
like I'm sure jar j Art works for a lot
of for not a lot of people, but for some people.
(48:34):
But yeah, I hate to say, but it was the
biggest miss Yeah. Yeah, And so it's rough, Yeah, it's rough.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:49):
I do think just by the Ewoks being physical rather
than digital, and by us not knowing what they say
and it's implied, and so it's a lot more you know,
physicalized in physical comedy, that it just works a lot more.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah, I agree, I agree. I'll stick with the Ewoks
any day. So battle battle, battle on the Death Star
of the Emperor is like, strike me down and your
transformation will be complete. Strike down your father, let the
hate flow through you and looks like no I won't
fight you, and blah blah blah on and or go ahead, Nathan.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Oh, I was just gonna say, like, Ian McDermott as
the Emperor is just so good, Like he is literally
one of the in my mind, one of the top
movie villains just from this one movie.
Speaker 5 (49:47):
What did you think, Yeah, I thought it was. He
did a great job. Well, it's easy to hate the ugly,
you know, make.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Me think of a wicked No one mourns the wicked.
No one mourns the ugly?
Speaker 5 (50:10):
Is that be true?
Speaker 1 (50:13):
On Indoor, they break into the shield generator, Han blows
up the shield generator and they Lando is finally able
to commence the attack on the Death Star. The Emperor
zap zap zap's Luke and he's like, father, please no,
And finally Darth Vader tosses the Emperor over the side
(50:35):
of the thing and he goes flying. They attack the
Death Star. Luke drags Darth Vader to a ship. Take
my mask off, let me see you now, go and
leave me and tell your sister I wasn't all bad.
Lando and the crew take out the Middle Thing.
Speaker 4 (50:51):
Tell her I was actually pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Yeah, I had a good sense of humor at least,
even though I'm ugly. And there's an accordion in front
of my Lando and the crew take out the Middle
Thing and the Death Star blows up. Han and Lee
are back on the planet and she's like and Hand's like,
you love Luke, and he's and she's like, chill out,
he's my brother. Gross and doors happy Luke Burnstar Vader
(51:22):
and a Viking funeral. Everyone is happy. Lando and Han
hug the ghosts are all happy celebrations throughout the galaxy
and all was well. Okay, that's Return of the Jedi Louise. Jeez, Louise,
(51:43):
we did it people. So Francis. On a scale of
one ewok to ten ewoks, one ewok being great, ten
ewoks being the most Ewoks you can lawfully have in
your home as pets.
Speaker 5 (51:59):
I'm gonna stay eight and a half ewoks.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Okay, excellent. What's your reasoning?
Speaker 5 (52:06):
Well? I like to action, you know, I love a
nice forested moon, big fan.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Yes, about the old environment, but it might be cool.
Speaker 5 (52:14):
Yes, And I don't like the desert, so that's fine.
Just I think they wrapped it up really nicely. It
was fun to watch. I like, you know, a nice
balance of character and action, kind of driven storyline. So
this one was for me.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Yeah, I loved it. I loved I loved that you
loved it. It was so fun watching it with you.
Speaker 5 (52:35):
I agree you. Let's do it again.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Let's do it again. Let's just watch it again. Next
time you can come to Nathan, what do you How
many ewoks do you give it?
Speaker 5 (52:49):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (52:51):
I think I'm getting it. Oh heck, I'll give it
eight point five as well. I was gonna do like
I'll get eight point three after the year it was released.
Eight point five. Let's just go for it, but honestly
like so much. But that's.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
If it would have kept going.
Speaker 4 (53:13):
The way it was for like two thirds of the movie,
I would have given it less. But it just comes
together so strong, well.
Speaker 5 (53:23):
Hotter, I would have rated it higher.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
It's true, but in the end his forest ghost was
Hayden Christiansen. Was he hot?
Speaker 5 (53:31):
Yeah, but that doesn't erase what we know.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (53:35):
If you were only watching the first three and didn't
know anything about the pretyquel, it's like, who the heck
is that?
Speaker 1 (53:43):
Who is that? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (53:46):
It's like, well I thought you could adjust the age
on these ghost things.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
Yeah, you need to pick your hottest self. And Alec
Kennis was just like, I'm a hot old man, let.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Me be right. I was peaque yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Yeah, or as peak as a silver fox. I say,
both of you are wrong, and this movie is a ten.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
Hmmm mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Interesting. Yeah, So what about a deep cut recommendation? I
have two, but what's yours? Nathan?
Speaker 4 (54:27):
So you know, I feel like our deep cuts are
just like what we respond to in whatever movie we
see and kind of like, what yeah, the.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Next stage in that?
Speaker 4 (54:39):
For me, it really kind of gets me thinking about
movie trilogies.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (54:47):
There's a lot of movie trilogies out there, some that
have been kind of slapped together that were never designed
as trilogies, some that.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
Were always designed as trilogies.
Speaker 4 (54:57):
And while I I love many of them, I feel
like one that did it even better than Return of
the Jedi was Return of the King with Lord of
the Ring.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Yeah, best picture baby.
Speaker 4 (55:14):
Yeah, like honestly, like I made a list like Back
to the Future Matrix. These aren't just three movies, but
they're designed to be a trilogy. Lord of the Rings,
Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, the other Star Wars trilogies.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah, I feel like.
Speaker 4 (55:34):
The only one to top the completeness of Return of
the Jedi's Return of the King.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
And Yeah for Froto.
Speaker 4 (55:47):
So yeah, I guess my recommendation is ten hours of
Lord of the Rings movies, but specifically the one.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
I love it. I love it. You got to watch
the other two before you can watch Return of the King.
But Return of the King is so worth it. I
love it. I love Vego. What's yours, Francis.
Speaker 5 (56:07):
Well, the obvious choice for me is Gremlin's two.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
It's such an obvious choice.
Speaker 5 (56:16):
Yeah, especially the one who was like all dulled up,
remember that gremlin.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
Yeah, oh she's sexy.
Speaker 5 (56:23):
She's in the bikini.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
Now, yeah, she's in the metal bikini. She should have
been in that metal bikini. Okay, I've got to The
first is Phineas and ferb Star Wars, which is really easy,
but they specifically the number here on Tattooing where they
sing a song about how great life is on tattooing.
All right. And my second deep cut recommendation is a
(56:48):
company called Holy Clothing. Hly Holy Clothing, because they have
a Princess Leah dress which is inspired by her indoor
dress and it's really really beautiful. And if you've ever
wanted to dress up like Princess Leah, but the metal
bikini is not for you, Holy Clothing's lay a dress
(57:12):
is for you.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Yeah. She doesn't have many outfits, no.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
And they're but they're allso cosplay ready. All right, So
thank you for joining us, and thank you for being
with us here at the end. If you are here
with us in the end and you want a little
bit more of what we have to offer our bonus
(57:42):
content for members, tonight is gonna be a little game
we're gonna play called what are your three favorite movies
that take place in a forest at least partially take
place in a forest. And you can get that member
bonus content by becoming a member at True Story FM
and just clicking on our little podcast and supporting us.
(58:05):
And if you don't feel like becoming a member, then
please just do all the free stuff that helps us
to thrive and survive, like rate review, subscribe, tell a friend,
all those things that we truly, truly appreciate and treasure. Nathan,
where can people support Squishy Studios and the last movie
(58:26):
Ever Made?
Speaker 4 (58:27):
Yeah, so Squishy Studios dot com and the last movie
Ever Made is on Amazon Apple and.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Two be Wonderful. I completely recommend seeing it if you
haven't seen it already. It's a wonderful project. Francis, where
can people see you being funny and hilarious and charming
and beautiful?
Speaker 5 (58:48):
Well, that would be performing at the Neighborhood Comedy Theater
in Mesa, Arizona.
Speaker 1 (58:54):
Yeah, I second that recommendation. Go see shows at the
Neighborhood Comedy Theater in downtown Masara's. If you want to
hear more of me, listen to my other podcast, The
Gank That Drank, a supernatural drinking game podcast, also on
True Story FM. And while you're out there in the world,
please keep the most excellent eighties movies podcast model in mind.
(59:18):
Be excellent to each other, and pardon me, dud.
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Most
Excellent Eighties Movies Podcast. Want to skip those ads and
get early access, become a member at true story dot fm,
slash join and discover all the other great parks that
come with it. Hello and welcome to the Most Excellent
(00:31):
Eighties Goovies Podcast. It's the podcast where we peo peo
pew our way through the eighties movies we think we
love or might have missed with these our modern eyes
to see how they hold up. And today we're talking
about Return of the Jedi, a movie selection from nineteen
eighty three, about which Google says, Luke Skywalker played by
(00:56):
Mark Hamill, battles horrible job of the Hut and cruel
Darth Vader to save his comrades in the Rebel Alliance
and triumph over the Galactic Empire. Han Solo played by
Harrison Ford and Princess Leah played by Carrie Fisher reaffirm
(01:17):
their love and teams Chewbacca Lando Calarisian played by Billy
D Williams. The Ewoks and the Androids C three PO
and R two D two to as the Androids.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yes is this AI summary.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yes, it is to aid in the disruption of the
dark Side and defeat the evil Emperor. Okay, here we go.
Here comes the classic trailer.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Return for the climactic clash between the forces of good
and evil. Return to a galaxy far far away. Return
of the Jedi, the next chapter in the continuing Star
(02:14):
Wars saga. The battle for freedom rages. Arm the heart
of a hero, the courage of a rebel, the strength
(02:38):
of a leader, the loyalty of comrades, the power of
the force, the cunning of the enemy.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
But destiny revealed.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Is God thea to my father, A legend fulfilled, an
epic of heroes, villains, and aliens from a thousand worlds,
a trap. The quest continues, the circle closes, The saga
(03:32):
lives on. Return of the Jedi begins May twenty fifth,
at a theater in your galaxy.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
The circle closes. Now that was not Harrison Ford, No,
the other one. When I edited the podcast when we
did Empire, I was like, Okay, that's definitely Harrison Ford.
Could I could hear it once you pointed it out
to me. But this was just some weirdo.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
A trailer voice, A professional.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Trailer voice, yes, not a weirdo, A professional of course.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Because he's in a union.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Chrissy, I understand, I understand. I take back everything I said.
I'm Chrissy Lenz, the one of the directors at the
Neighborhood Comedy Theater in downtown Mesa, Arizona, and with me
as always is my companion, an award winning filmmaker who
will introduce himself now, Hello, you say your name?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Nathan Blackwell, independent filmmaker with Squishy Studios.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yes, I'm joining us again to complete our star Wars
Saga is a comedian of the Neighborhood Comedy Theater and
all around wonderful human being. Francis Zagarigo that's me, and
the great job pronouncing my name.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
A lot of people can't do that.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Oh well, I did my best. I am trying to
be to get into the trailer voice union. So we
watched this a couple of weeks ago together and Francis
was seeing it for the very first time. Of course,
as we already know, for Nathan and Chrissy, this was
(05:22):
the one hundredth time, and I'm super exciting. I'm super
excited to jump in France's any first impressions on where
this third volume found you.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
Well, Nathan will be very pleased to hear that this
scored higher marks for me than the last one.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Okay, I thought.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
That it was a great kind of rounding out of
the trilogy. I was very pleased to watch it. I
love the action. I think this one for me was
probably my favorite.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Wow, glad to hear you say that. Yeah, I know
we're crazy, but I love Return of the.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Jedi, Richard of the Jedi.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
How does this ring for you, Nathan in terms of
the overall Star Wars experience?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Well, I would so, I would definitely put so. For me,
it's third place out of the trilogy.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Okay, but the.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Ending is so it's it's really the ending is so strong,
you know, like like Jaba's Palace is a little weird
but cool.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
What Jaba's Palace is the best. It's my favorite. I
love that. I love that. And we'll get to this,
but I love that they all just have to sleep
where they stand.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
It's kind of it's kind of dark and it's kind
of creepy.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
And then it gets it kind of turns into the
Muppet movie with the Ewoks, but then it goes then
it goes hardcore into a really excellent ending into it
really once the Emperor is involved and intercutting, suddenly like
Steaks show up and say, oh, we've been waiting for you, you know,
(07:16):
and then everything is at stake and they they're doing
a great job of intercutting everything.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I kind of feel not to.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Throw anyone under the bus, but the director Richard markwand
he was kind of an odd pick to be director,
and I felt like there was so many moving parts
for the ending that it was kind of Lucas the
producer kind of taking over a bit, you know. Like
(07:46):
I feel like the weakest stuff is where people are
standing around talking to each other.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah without a lightsaber to.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yeah it Wasmit smashing. Yeah yeah. Which is not to
say that it's bad per se, but I feel like
those scenes are the weakest in the trilogy for me. Although,
so having prefaced all this, like I remember being so
(08:18):
incredibly excited about this movie when I first saw it.
I so, I one of my earliest memories is I
remember the night before we saw a Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
So I remember like the palpable like excitement of having
like a movie magazine and seeing like photos of the
Jaba's palace like creatures, and I'm like losing my mind
because we're going to the movie theater.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I'm so at this point nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
I'm in May nineteen eighty three, I'm seven, I think, yeah,
seven years old. So yeah, I'm losing my mind. I'm
so excited, you know, it all works for me. And
I remember then the next so we saw the movie
and then we went camping, and I remember lying in my.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
You saw the movie and then you went to end
or yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Yeah exactly, and we had the toys and we actually
shot like Super eight movies in the forest the next day.
But I remember like lying in the morning because you know,
I would get up probably like an hour or two
before like the adults, because I'm just a fidgety kid
and I can't do anything, and like the adults are
(09:35):
going to sleep in, you know. But just it's like
I remember saying to myself, I'm going to reimagine. I'm
going to imagine the entire movie.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I'm going to let it play in my mind.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
From start to finish because it was so exciting. I'm
going to relive the experience.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And I think I maybe.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Only got like three scenes in and then I forgot
what happens next.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Oh I love that. I absolutely adore that. And that's
like what I always imagine and hope for when I
took my kids to the movies when they were very young,
Like I remember, we took Rocket to see Avengers Infinity War,
not knowing what was gonna happen.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
In his favorite character, Spider Man, Spider Man, Star Lord,
and Black Panther, all of whom got dusted and Bucky,
Bucky is his very favorite, and they all got dusted,
and he I had to carry him out of the
theater as he had his little his little Bucky and
(10:42):
Spider Man figures clutched in his hand.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And I was like, well, at least I know this
is a formative experience for you.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
At least we're making memories.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
We're making we're making memories. I love that. I love
that for you. I don't remember my first time seeing this.
I feel like I've always have seen it. I don't
remember the first time.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah, I don't remember seeing Empire, even though I was
technically remembering at an age, But yeah, I don't. I
don't remember.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah. Uh, but I love this one. I adore this one,
and I think it's because I love the job as
Palace sequence for all of its quirks, and I love
I just I adore the Ewoks. I'm an Ewoks stand.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Of an Ewok fetishist.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, i astore the Ewoks so much so that I've
seen all of the cartoon the Ewoks cartoons.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Oh man, they go dark, they.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Go to some weird places.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Yeah. The second Ewok live action movie, the beginning is
just worth youtubing.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
YouTube it, YouTube it up. Uh So, Francis, how did
you feel about the Ewoks?
Speaker 5 (12:07):
I too love them. I think they're they remind me
of Magwise. I think they're related with me. Yes, I
think this is just you know where they live. This
is what they look like.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It's after midnight.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, this is it.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
It's like a goldfish that that gets bigger depending on
the size of its enclosure. Like, this is what happens
if you've got free range Mogwise.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah. Uh So we start with our opening scroll, Luca
is gonna rescue Han Oops is a new death Star.
We jumped to a star destroyer where the little Ship's
park and it's Darth Vader. There's a big don Don.
Everyone is standing there to meet Darth Vader, which reminds
(12:51):
me so much of I know you haven't seen it, Nathan,
but Francis has. Didn't it remind you of uh, disney Land,
Rise of the Resistance when you come into the First
Order ship and all the Stormtroopers are just lined up
waiting for you and they're.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
All just standing there and you feel like you were
late to something.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's cold and it's dark and
it's vast. I loved it. And Darth Vader gets to
be the middleman who's passing on the news that the
Emperor is not as optimistic as them, that this new
Death Star will be ready in time, and the Empire
is the Emperor is coming and he's displeased.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
What oh no, Yeah, this is really where we're like,
we heard of the Emperor, and we saw the Emperor
in one scene and Empire, but this is where we're
really building.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Up the Emperor as an edit character, and now like
everyone's talking about him. It's a big deal. He's coming here.
What are we going to expect. It's like that line later,
you know, like even watching like the first three movies
as when they were the only Star Wars, when Darth
(14:09):
Vader says that line is like, the Emperor is not
as forgiving as I am, and it's like I feel
like you're pretty unforgiving. But now, like now the of
the prequels and all the other stuff, it's like that
rings much truer. Just how much more evil the Emperor
is than Darth Vader.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, the Emperor is like the bad daddy. Yeah you
got two daddies, Yeah, daddy's one of them. A bad daddy.
So we cut to see three PO at R two
D two on tattoo In going to Jaba's palace, and
(14:50):
three po is like, let's get out of here. But
but R two D two is like, no, we've got
a job to do. We've got to get in there.
They have a me and a gift for Joba the hut.
Jaba is just having a nice time. He's just enjoying
his lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
He's well, he's kind of like I realized watching it
this time, it's really kind of like dropping by like
a Colombian drug dealer's like backyard party. Yeah, like it's
just like, oh yeah, grab a drink, watch the girls
get in the pool. You know, like this is just
(15:31):
this is like an everyday thing.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, every day is a Colombian drug lords. Beach party
at Jaba's palace. Uh, and he he has dancing girls,
and there are bounty hunters everywhere, and they throw the
dancing girls to the Raincorps and it's just it's it's
(15:55):
just a fun time to be had by all. Oh.
So the job of the hot puppet took Stuart Freeborn's
team three months to build, cost five hundred thousand dollars
to make, and weighed two thousand pounds. I love that.
(16:18):
That's a ton I love that. That's so cute.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It's a job.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
It's my mom's Joba the hut keychain.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Oh, it's so cute. Oh oh, Francis first impressions of
Jaba and his palace.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Yeah, I think Nathan nailed it to me. It was
kind of like a space strip club for frogs, just
all over the place, and Jaba was especially with what
we find out later, just kind of proof that even
(16:58):
in space, your boss is just a giant slug who
doesn't know how to treat people.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah. We pointed out to Francis that the whole like
singing and dancing scene was new, that they added a
whole like musical number in there with Cgi singing characters.
And what I don't understand too, is like when they
take the droids the gift. Of course, Luke Skywalker appears
(17:25):
and he's like, mighty Jaba, I come to bargain with you,
and I'm leaving you a gift these two droids and
C three Po's like, what the what? And then they
take them into the droid processing room. D Yeah, he's
getting tortured. They're like burning his feet, and it reminded
(17:46):
me of that Simpsons line, why why was I programmed
to feel pain? Like? Why should it hurt him to
like heat up his feet? We're so confused, keep going.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
I mean, they don't have to do.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
This, they don't. So Uh there's uh singing alien strippers
and a girl gets sent to the Rank Corps and uh, finally,
uh the do you what's the name of the I know,
I know it as soon as you say, I'm gonna
(18:20):
kick myself. But the Jaba's assistant who has the two
big tentacles on his head, Bib Fortuna, that's exactly right. Uh.
Bib Fortuna brings in Chewbacca and Boba Fett shows up. Uh,
there's a bounty hunter and chew he's taken away and
(18:42):
the party starts again. We see Lando is there. What
he's in disguise, but he.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Has to reveal his yes and pull down his mask
and reveal his mustache, so we recognize.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Him, but he recognize him. He's in this. He's in
the sexiest, uh, the sexiest bounty hunter outfit ever.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Well, they probably gave him like a first draft bounty
hunter outfit and he was like no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
No, I need style. Lando's a man of capes. So
the bounty hunter that we met sneaks down to Han.
The bounty hunter freeze Han from the carbonite, and the
bounty hunter is talking in like a really robotic voice.
It's carbonite, it's freezing sickness. Your eyesight will return in time.
(19:35):
Who are you? Someone who loves you? It's Leah? What?
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
They smooch and we're so happy. But in a big reveal,
everyone at Jaba's palace has just been hiding behind a curtain. Yes,
they've just been waiting. I knew this is gonna happen,
(20:02):
and they were like, look, let's pretend to all go
to sleep and just hide behind this curtain.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
But everyone else at Jaba's palace just sleeps where they stand,
like they have to sleep at their post. I always
thought that was weird.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Maybe that's not like an every night thing. Maybe that's
just like on you know, like party nights.
Speaker 5 (20:26):
Yeah, they were over capacity.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, so no one could go to bed. Everyone had
a stamp. So I always love this part where Han
is first waking up and he's like, Luke a Jedi,
I'm out of it for a little bit, and everyone's
having delusions of grandeur. I love it. He's so fun.
Harrison Ford is just so fun when he can't see
(20:51):
and he's like happy to see, happy to not see,
but to be with Chewbacca and Lea even though they've
all been caught by Jaba. Uh Luke shows up, we
see slave Leah, and every young man's fancy life springs
into uh, into.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
The next stage of development.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Yes, didn't we talk about this? So, like what was
Java even gonna do with it? Like it was just
for looks, Like why'd you do this?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah? Why is she? Because he likes to have a
slave girl tied up and she has to sleep at
his feet. Yeah, and he had the metal bikini lying
around as we all do as we all should, right.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Yeah, it's like he's got a drawer. It's like pick
out anything that fits, and it's only metal bikinis.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
It's just different styles of metal bikinis. He's like, look,
we have no clothiers. We only have blacksmiths carbonite. Yeah,
they made it out of Han's carbonite leavings. Uh so
(22:12):
they Luke shows up and he does this whole big speech,
but he gets sent into the Rancor Pet see three
Bos tries to help him, Master Skywalker. You're standing on
top of a ooh no. Down. He goes into the
Rancor Pet. He has a big battle with the rank Corps,
but ultimately he kills it. What the rank Corps just
(22:32):
doing what he knows best.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
He's just doing a job.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, we didn't have to kill the rank Corps. But
I love I love the one guard who's really sad.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
The Rank Corps keeper.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, he's like crying and hugging his friend.
Speaker 5 (22:49):
That was his fed, the thing that was his.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Pet, that was his pet. What did you think of
the visuals of the Rank Corps battle, Francis, I don't remember, okay,
so it's not memorable to you. Very good, very good.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
I remember the bikini though.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, good that stuck with you even as a gay man.
It made an impression.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
I'm not sure now I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, you're questionings. That's okay. We all question when we
see the metal bikini. So Jaba decides that he is
going to exact his justice by throwing all of them
into the sarlac pit. Will they will learn a new
definition of pain as they're slowly digested over a thousand years? Now,
(23:43):
how does it keep them alive? Does it feed them
as it digests them? How does it keep them alive
for a thousand years?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Like I want to think that it doesn't actually keep
them alive. It just takes it a thousand years to digest.
Like I can get behind that to actually that they
would survive that long. Like I could see like rich
people specifically wanting to get like a sarlac treatment to
live longer. If that was the case.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
You know, right, you become a vampire when you enter
the sarlac right, just doing.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
It like a year or two and just taking you know,
and everyone else around you ages. But you haven't. But
one thing I do want to talk about, though, is
like we don't know what the heck is going on
with Luke Skywalker at this point.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
No, we sure don't. But he looks great.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Wearing all black. He's kind of super cold, and where
it's like, did Luke go dark? And I think they're
specifically teasing the kind of like the dark Luke question mark,
because that's kind of the at the end of the movie,
(25:01):
you know, yeah, just for us to kind of think
about it.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
But yeah, it it threw people.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
For a loop, and it is kind of weird, especially
since then in the last two movies he's been very
emotional and now he's like a Buddhist month yeah, to
where it's like I or like, you know, I can't
show any emotion. And he's definitely a very different Luke,
(25:28):
except for the.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Moment when they're when they're driving out, I totally agree
with you, Nathan, But there's a moment when they drive
out to the star like Pitt and Hans like, instead
of a big dark blur, I see a big light
blur and he's like, don't worry, you're not missing anything.
I grew up here. Uh. And and it's a terrible place. Uh.
That's a that's a very whiny Luke moment.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Uh huh.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
And you know, so you know where the star like
pitt scene was filmed. It was Yuma, Arizona, Arizona.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah. Yeah. Every time I drive to San Diego, when
we drive through there, there's a big Fortuna Avenue or
Fortuna Street, and I'm always like, yeah, we're in Star Wars,
you guys, Let's go find the Starlac and live for
a thousand years. But it's very funny as they're on
(26:20):
the Starlac pit because they nod at each other, so
like Luke turns to Lando and nods, and Lando turns
to Luke and nods, and then they all turn to
like Chewy and nod and it's just this slow like
procession of nodding. Which family guy did a parody of
(26:41):
Star Wars all three Star Wars is and that's the
part they nailed where it's just like turn nod, turn nod,
and it's okay. So what you're telling us is you've
got a plan. Great enact this plan. And Luke steps
to the end of the plank and he's like, this
is your last chance, Jaba, free us or you will die.
(27:04):
And Jaba is like borrow him into the pit and
he like just jumps off the end of the thing,
gets out his lightsaber. Fight fight green. Now it's green
now yes? Oh, the reveal of the green lightsaber is
such a exciting moment. It's green. I So I have
(27:29):
been to Disneyland where you get to build your own
lightsaber and they have this big ceremony and you pick
out all the things and it's very exciting. Uh. And
you can either green, blue, red, or purple. Uh. And
it's it's so exciting to get to choose your color.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
So did you go green?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I went purple?
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Oh, I'd go blue.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, rocket went red. And I was like questioning, Uh.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Huh, it's it's all It's Adventures Infinity War Trauma.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
So what's your lightsaber?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (28:09):
It's green without green?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah great.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
So do you know why they switched it to green
in the movie. Tell us it's because the blue lightsaber
didn't show up well in the desert scenes, like when
they when it's broad daylight with a blue sky with
a blue lightsaber, it just didn't pop that much, and
(28:32):
so they went green.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
They said, it's an evolution.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
It is uh, Jedi in miss I love that it's
practical and it makes sense. To me emotionally. Yeah, and
so on our last episode, the caption said that Rocket
was my cat. So I just want to clear up
(28:56):
and time that Rocket is actually my fourteen year old
son and not my cat. So just in case you're wondering,
Rocket is a fourteen year old boy, not a cat
that I brought to see aventusin Findy War.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Although I love that your cat has a Bucky and
a Bucky action figure.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yes, my cat goes everywhere with me. Uh So they
fight fight. Boba Fett gets eaten by the Sarlac. Boba fette,
Boba fet ware. That's whatever. Whatever someone says Boba Fett.
I say, Boba fette boba fet ware. Uh. And he
goes flying into the Sarlac pit and gets eaten. Uh.
Lando almost gets eaten by the Sarlac. Leah strangles Jaba, which.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
Is so harsh and gross.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
It's it's a lot, It's really a lot. He's like,
bah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Uh and
Leah and Luke destroy Jaba as Barge what the escape yay? Uh?
So we got to the Emperor on the Death Star patience,
(30:12):
he says Luke will come to you and we will
turn him to the dark side. Okay, We're gonna turn
him to the dark side. And I don't know why,
Like Darth Vader is like, are you replacing me? Like
why do we need?
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Uh? And then I love how the Emperor has two creepy.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Friends, the guys in red uh huh.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yeah, he's got there's like there's like two shriveled guys
in like purple robes that are following him around. I
like to think it's like his mixologist and his DJ Yeah,
because he's.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Got to have his funky beats wherever he goes.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
He travels so much.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
It's just a little piece of home. Chefs.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, they shriveled up because they only eat what he
They have to taste his food before him.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
No, it's in their contracts. They can't be more attractive
than him.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Right, that's true. Yeah, it's his agent and Jlo's dancers.
So we go back to Dagoba. Yoda is like, I'm
old and I'm gonna die. No more training do you require?
And Luke's like, then I am a Jedi.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
He's like, oh, oh, he's a Jedi.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And he's like, well, don't go dark. Oh btw, there's
another Skywalker. Oops I died.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
H right, And the thing that always threw me because
I mean again, like you know, until I was like
I don't know, like twenty four or something like that,
there were only these three Star Wars movies. There wasn't
like the prequels, and so I was like Yoda saying like,
oh no, You've got to face so Luke was all
(32:04):
Jedies for all we knew, you know, at least the
rules and everything. So when Yoda says, no, oh no,
you got to face Vader, your dad to really become
a Jedi, it's like, oh do all Jedis have to
do this? Like is it like a weird?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But it's really it's because.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
Darth Vader is like his his like his blockage, you know,
his baggage that he's got to deal with.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
They get the the the Jedi kids so young that
they don't have all this baggage.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
He's still in conflict.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Even though he seems like he's got everything together, he
still has this dad issue that he's got to resolve
before he really graduates.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Mm hmm, totally. All it's complicated, it is, we all
have our daddy issues. What did you think of seeing
Yura again Francis and hearing him confirm that Darth Vader
was indeed Luke's dad, because the scuttle butt is that
everyone thought that the kids wouldn't believe it.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
I thought that was just serving. He's just serving teeth,
like on his way out. Just like, by the way,
couldn't he have like helped and died? Did he have
to die alone? I'll help you.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
Yeah, I mean did he have like like who gets
the house? Like did he did he sign anything over
or you know, like I feel like there's a little
more that he could have done. Maybe he could have
written some of the stuff down and then it's like, oh,
by the way, there's a lot more info right here.
(33:48):
Cuff cuff.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
Yeah, here's a notebook I've been filling out for you.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Yeah, exactly, at least since yesterday.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah. I have no idea I was going to die
that he.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Wasn't really dying and was just like done, you know,
like don't come back.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
He just crawls under the covers. So so when when
Yoda dies and he disappears, his clothes disappear too, So
does that mean his clothes were a force projection, Like
(34:27):
he's actually knew.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Dude, he was nude. I love it.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
You don't understand there's medical reasons that I've always knewde
around you.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Uh. So obi Wan appears as a force ghost and
he's like, Okay, here's the deal with Anakin bt dubs.
You have a twin sister. And Luke's like, who's the
only girl I've ever met in the history of ever
(35:01):
kissed me? Yes, it's Leah Lea's my sister. And he's
like you you guessed it, Bingo bongo and he is
like you should be like, ew, I totally have the
hots for that's gross. So we're on a starship. Lando
(35:22):
is a general. There's finally another girl, mon Mothma is
there and she's like many boffins died to bring us
this information. It's like you're the only other girl. Uh.
And they're like, we've got to destroy another death Star
near the forest moon of Endoor. H. Then, Han, Leah, Chewey,
(35:47):
and Luke are all going to go to Endoor and
disabled the shield generator, while Lando leads a team of
people who are going to attack the death Star. But
they got to get the shield down or the attack
is useless. So the Emperor is like, get out of here. Darth.
Vader and Han and Leah and Luke and Cheweye are
(36:10):
trying to get into the clearance of Endoor and they're
like it was an olda code, but I was going
to approve them. And Han is like, I don't know
fly casual, but Vader knows that Luke is there, So
on Endoor. They finally land on Endoor, they get in.
They have a chase on speeder bikes, which I always like,
(36:33):
always freaked me out. They're just going too fast.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
The speeder bikes are so intense, Like I can't imagine
that you can get insurance for those things because it's insane.
Maybe they're just not meant for forests, or they were
just going a little too fast, Like I feel like
there was a combination of those things. Francis, what are
your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
It's like a bird bike of vendoor, Like they don't care,
They're just there to make money. Like they're probably leave
all over the place.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
They just park them by a tree and say goodbye.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
Yeah. Yeah, four hundred miles an hour, no safety helmet.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Now that we've seen more Star Wars, speeder bikes make
a lot of sense, just not in a very dense forest.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Right, You're gonna hit a tree or a branch.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
It's intense.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Leah makes friends with an eat.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
You imagine them in a ten mile an hour safety
exc like Chase.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Well, when we did the Tron episode, my recommendation was
Segway scooters. And that's what it made me think, is
like I can only go up to twenty miles an
hour on my Segway scooter and it feels so fast,
Like what the heck, it's crazy. We meet the Ewoks
and they make friends with Leah Vader and the Emperor
(38:00):
is like, Nuke is on indoor and he's like yeah,
uh huh so blah blah blah, we're searching for Lea.
They get captured by the Ewoks who see see who
they The Ewoks see see three Po. They see C
three Po as.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
A god right because they're not used to metal.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, and they're like, who is this metal man who's
soaper snickety And it's.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Like no, no, you don't get it.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
It was the accent. It was the British accent that
did it.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yes, So they're going to cook and eat.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Loose so that's a dealing with.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, these are savage, savage ewoks. They want to cook
and eat.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
So I never noticed this, but Wicket has. And I'm
sure this is this isn't recent or anything, but I
just never noticed it that when we first meean meet
Wicket played by Warwick Davis.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
And eleven year old Warwick Davis, Oh my gosh, just
a tiny baby.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
That they added CGI blinks to Wicket when he first
meets Princess Oil.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Yeah, so it will be as creepy.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Yeah, like his eyes were for the first couple of
shots where CGI and then they've got blinks to them.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I love the idea that George Lucas like had this
movie made and then was like, you know what's missing blinks.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
The whole special edition thing is a can of worms
that I feel like we've got to address on every
one of these because it's the only versions of the
movie that are available. Really.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
The only one is Francis has ever seen, you know,
the difference.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
He doesn't know any better.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
But yeah, it's interesting the kind of stuff that they added. So, yeah,
the new So there was an original there was a
different ending, you know, not different plot wise, but basically
it just stays with the Ewoks rather than seeing all
the galactic celebrations. And then we've got a new We
(40:26):
basically have an Ewok song that kind of takes us
out of the movie, takes us out as in to
the end, that removes us from the experience. But yeah,
just scope and and and more CGI explosions and adding
(40:46):
adding rings to explosions and and and things like that.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
But the real.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
The one that really kind of stands out as a
sore thrumb, sore thumb, is that I feel the musical number.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't love the musical number.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Yeah, you know, I mean there's plenty of silliness. There's
plenty of goofiness. It does kind of like disneyfy the
drug dealer, so much energy trying to make him grotesque
and evil. And then there's like a cute dance scene
(41:26):
to it, yeah, right before he murders one of the dancers.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, for no reason, for no good reason. She's a
very good dancerugh. So finally Luke uses his Jedi powers
to raise see three Po up on his chair and
they free them all and they all become friends, and
three Po speaks their language and tells them the whole
(41:52):
story of Star Wars. They have a big party. Luke
tells Leah, I have to go bet Dubs. You're my
sister and he's our dad. Then Han is like jealous
and she's like, don't worry about it. Hold me. Vader
and the Atsts are on Endoor. Luca's surrendered to them
(42:17):
or no, luc goes Luke goes to the Death Star
and surrenders to them. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (42:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
No?
Speaker 4 (42:23):
He goes to like what the Imperial Endoor station?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Right, right right? And Darth Vader is like, okay, cool,
go get his friends, like and Luke is like you
are good and Vader's like, no, I'm not. And Luke
is like you won't kill me and Vader's like, yeah,
I will. On Endoor, the Ewoks show them the back
door to the shield generator. Yeah, and Wicket steals a
(42:56):
speeder to distract the guards back, and we keep cutting
back between Endoor and the Dust Star. So on the
Dasth Star, Vader takes Luke to the Emperor and he's like,
you're going to come to the dark side. We know
all about the attack. We've been planning this from the beginning. Meanwhile,
it's a trap.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Oh see, now you know what that meme is?
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Did you? Did you have you seen that meme? Francis
the Admiral acbar It's a trap.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
No, I don't think I have.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Oh okay, so it meant nothing to you.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
I'm so ignorant.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
The Emperor is like given to your hate on Endoor,
the Ewoks attack, the ATSD is over running.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
So this is this, I feel is really where it
kicks in, like the climax of return the Jedi feel
like it's just going full speed, like it's really strong.
This is where the movie kind of makes up, I
think for some imbalance or goofiness, you know, compared to
(44:09):
the rest of the series, at least of the trilogy.
So I feel like one thing that we should discuss
is is so like George Lucas's like fascination or not fascination,
but like parallels of of like indigenous people versus the
(44:33):
big mechanized society and the indigenous people winning.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
That's what I love about this movie is that they
totally disregarded the Ewoks as a people that they needed
to conquer, and the Ewoks are like, no, We're gonna
hit you with rocks and take and beat you. And
I love that because they're they're these totally underestimatable little
(45:04):
furry like hedgehog type things and they save the day.
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Uh huh, I love that. Well, it's all the Vietnam
War is basically what it is. It's the Vietnamese as
the good guys, repelling like the American military force, and
it was just something that that them in the sixties
(45:31):
and seventies were like, you know, which was a huge
part of like the It was like a wake up
call of saying that you just can't like outspend or
overmodernize a people, you know. But it's interesting because he
also brings it back again with the Gungans in episode
(45:56):
one in Daboo.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah Navoo, Naboo Naboo.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
So the question is so so and the original version
of Star Wars, like the original intention was that it
was going to be the Wookie home planet, not Ewoks.
But they're like, oh, that's too many, that's just that's
just too many tall people.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
Yeah right, but we can make children work round the clock.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
In England. Uh But yeah, so, I guess comparing because
it's kind of like a repeat of the same idea.
What do you think of the comparison of the Ewoks
versus Gungans.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Well, I showed Francis a little little bit of episode one,
so he's only seen jar Jar Binks on a very
cursory level.
Speaker 5 (47:07):
And with plenty of implied like bias against him, I
would say.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
I and I don't really, I don't really remember the Gungans, Like,
I don't I remember jar Jar Binks, and I remember
like Big Daddy, who's like Big Daddy, But I don't remember,
like I remember that the Nabouians don't treat them fairly,
(47:40):
and then the Gungans are like, you should treat us fairly,
But I I it's been a long time since I've
seen episode one.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Well, I feel like the Gungans are goofier, and I
think it doesn't help that that they we can understand
what they say. Yeah, you know, I feel that's a
strength to the Ewoks, because really the Gungans they kind
of on the surface are primitive, but they have advanced technology.
(48:11):
They're just not like like technology forward like humans are,
you know, And yeah, so that's not great. And honestly,
like I'm sure jar j Art works for a lot
of for not a lot of people, but for some people.
(48:34):
But yeah, I hate to say, but it was the
biggest miss Yeah. Yeah, And so it's rough, Yeah, it's rough.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:49):
I do think just by the Ewoks being physical rather
than digital, and by us not knowing what they say
and it's implied, and so it's a lot more you know,
physicalized in physical comedy, that it just works a lot more.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah, I agree, I agree. I'll stick with the Ewoks
any day. So battle battle, battle on the Death Star
of the Emperor is like, strike me down and your
transformation will be complete. Strike down your father, let the
hate flow through you and looks like no I won't
fight you, and blah blah blah on and or go ahead, Nathan.
Speaker 4 (49:32):
Oh, I was just gonna say, like, Ian McDermott as
the Emperor is just so good, Like he is literally
one of the in my mind, one of the top
movie villains just from this one movie.
Speaker 5 (49:47):
What did you think, Yeah, I thought it was. He
did a great job. Well, it's easy to hate the ugly,
you know, make.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Me think of a wicked No one mourns the wicked.
No one mourns the ugly?
Speaker 5 (50:10):
Is that be true?
Speaker 1 (50:13):
On Indoor, they break into the shield generator, Han blows
up the shield generator and they Lando is finally able
to commence the attack on the Death Star. The Emperor
zap zap zap's Luke and he's like, father, please no,
And finally Darth Vader tosses the Emperor over the side
(50:35):
of the thing and he goes flying. They attack the
Death Star. Luke drags Darth Vader to a ship. Take
my mask off, let me see you now, go and
leave me and tell your sister I wasn't all bad.
Lando and the crew take out the Middle Thing.
Speaker 4 (50:51):
Tell her I was actually pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
Yeah, I had a good sense of humor at least,
even though I'm ugly. And there's an accordion in front
of my Lando and the crew take out the Middle
Thing and the Death Star blows up. Han and Lee
are back on the planet and she's like and Hand's like,
you love Luke, and he's and she's like, chill out,
he's my brother. Gross and doors happy Luke Burnstar Vader
(51:22):
and a Viking funeral. Everyone is happy. Lando and Han
hug the ghosts are all happy celebrations throughout the galaxy
and all was well. Okay, that's Return of the Jedi Louise. Jeez, Louise,
(51:43):
we did it people. So Francis. On a scale of
one ewok to ten ewoks, one ewok being great, ten
ewoks being the most Ewoks you can lawfully have in
your home as pets.
Speaker 5 (51:59):
I'm gonna stay eight and a half ewoks.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Okay, excellent. What's your reasoning?
Speaker 5 (52:06):
Well? I like to action, you know, I love a
nice forested moon, big fan.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Yes, about the old environment, but it might be cool.
Speaker 5 (52:14):
Yes, And I don't like the desert, so that's fine.
Just I think they wrapped it up really nicely. It
was fun to watch. I like, you know, a nice
balance of character and action, kind of driven storyline. So
this one was for me.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
Yeah, I loved it. I loved I loved that you
loved it. It was so fun watching it with you.
Speaker 5 (52:35):
I agree you. Let's do it again.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Let's do it again. Let's just watch it again. Next
time you can come to Nathan, what do you How
many ewoks do you give it?
Speaker 5 (52:49):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (52:51):
I think I'm getting it. Oh heck, I'll give it
eight point five as well. I was gonna do like
I'll get eight point three after the year it was released.
Eight point five. Let's just go for it, but honestly
like so much. But that's.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
If it would have kept going.
Speaker 4 (53:13):
The way it was for like two thirds of the movie,
I would have given it less. But it just comes
together so strong, well.
Speaker 5 (53:23):
Hotter, I would have rated it higher.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
It's true, but in the end his forest ghost was
Hayden Christiansen. Was he hot?
Speaker 5 (53:31):
Yeah, but that doesn't erase what we know.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (53:35):
If you were only watching the first three and didn't
know anything about the pretyquel, it's like, who the heck
is that?
Speaker 1 (53:43):
Who is that? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (53:46):
It's like, well I thought you could adjust the age
on these ghost things.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
Yeah, you need to pick your hottest self. And Alec
Kennis was just like, I'm a hot old man, let.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Me be right. I was peaque yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Yeah, or as peak as a silver fox. I say,
both of you are wrong, and this movie is a ten.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
Hmmm mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Interesting. Yeah, So what about a deep cut recommendation? I
have two, but what's yours? Nathan?
Speaker 4 (54:27):
So you know, I feel like our deep cuts are
just like what we respond to in whatever movie we
see and kind of like, what yeah, the.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Next stage in that?
Speaker 4 (54:39):
For me, it really kind of gets me thinking about
movie trilogies.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (54:47):
There's a lot of movie trilogies out there, some that
have been kind of slapped together that were never designed
as trilogies, some that.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
Were always designed as trilogies.
Speaker 4 (54:57):
And while I I love many of them, I feel
like one that did it even better than Return of
the Jedi was Return of the King with Lord of
the Ring.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Yeah, best picture baby.
Speaker 4 (55:14):
Yeah, like honestly, like I made a list like Back
to the Future Matrix. These aren't just three movies, but
they're designed to be a trilogy. Lord of the Rings,
Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, the other Star Wars trilogies.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah, I feel like.
Speaker 4 (55:34):
The only one to top the completeness of Return of
the Jedi's Return of the King.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
And Yeah for Froto.
Speaker 4 (55:47):
So yeah, I guess my recommendation is ten hours of
Lord of the Rings movies, but specifically the one.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
I love it. I love it. You got to watch
the other two before you can watch Return of the King.
But Return of the King is so worth it. I
love it. I love Vego. What's yours, Francis.
Speaker 5 (56:07):
Well, the obvious choice for me is Gremlin's two.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
It's such an obvious choice.
Speaker 5 (56:16):
Yeah, especially the one who was like all dulled up,
remember that gremlin.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
Yeah, oh she's sexy.
Speaker 5 (56:23):
She's in the bikini.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
Now, yeah, she's in the metal bikini. She should have
been in that metal bikini. Okay, I've got to The
first is Phineas and ferb Star Wars, which is really easy,
but they specifically the number here on Tattooing where they
sing a song about how great life is on tattooing.
All right. And my second deep cut recommendation is a
(56:48):
company called Holy Clothing. Hly Holy Clothing, because they have
a Princess Leah dress which is inspired by her indoor
dress and it's really really beautiful. And if you've ever
wanted to dress up like Princess Leah, but the metal
bikini is not for you, Holy Clothing's lay a dress
(57:12):
is for you.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Yeah. She doesn't have many outfits, no.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
And they're but they're allso cosplay ready. All right, So
thank you for joining us, and thank you for being
with us here at the end. If you are here
with us in the end and you want a little
bit more of what we have to offer our bonus
(57:42):
content for members, tonight is gonna be a little game
we're gonna play called what are your three favorite movies
that take place in a forest at least partially take
place in a forest. And you can get that member
bonus content by becoming a member at True Story FM
and just clicking on our little podcast and supporting us.
(58:05):
And if you don't feel like becoming a member, then
please just do all the free stuff that helps us
to thrive and survive, like rate review, subscribe, tell a friend,
all those things that we truly, truly appreciate and treasure. Nathan,
where can people support Squishy Studios and the last movie
(58:26):
Ever Made?
Speaker 4 (58:27):
Yeah, so Squishy Studios dot com and the last movie
Ever Made is on Amazon Apple and.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Two be Wonderful. I completely recommend seeing it if you
haven't seen it already. It's a wonderful project. Francis, where
can people see you being funny and hilarious and charming
and beautiful?
Speaker 5 (58:48):
Well, that would be performing at the Neighborhood Comedy Theater
in Mesa, Arizona.
Speaker 1 (58:54):
Yeah, I second that recommendation. Go see shows at the
Neighborhood Comedy Theater in downtown Masara's. If you want to
hear more of me, listen to my other podcast, The
Gank That Drank, a supernatural drinking game podcast, also on
True Story FM. And while you're out there in the world,
please keep the most excellent eighties movies podcast model in mind.
(59:18):
Be excellent to each other, and pardon me, dud.
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