Episode 11: Hunting for Yoda

Cambridge and Mashan is a weird way media podcast. If they should far, please let the sound say hello and welcome to episode eleven of Cambridge and Machean, a podcast bye two weird guys about the weird things they like. And I think we have kind of a theme episode today, something that you broached briefly on the first episode, and I went back and listened to a lot of that one, and we kind of packed those things with a lot of stuff and didn't talk a lot about the things, and we've evolved into maybe talking longer about one thing. I don't know if people enjoy that more or not. I think it's better that we're able to dig in deeper and spend more quality time with the obsessions we've chosen to talk about in each episode.

Yeah, I like it. It's hard to keep it brief sometimes about some of this stuff, and sometimes one episode becomes three episodes. Also rock Balls and Star Wars rock Balls. Speaking of Oh Man, do you have any corrections or anything from last time? No, I think it's good.

How about you? Well, I watched a video shortly after I think it was either edited or out already, and I watched a plaid Stallion's video on YouTube regarding one of the old Micron playsets, and it reminded me of a couple of things that I didn't get to on that episode. And one of the things was the set that he talked about was actually the set that's recreated in that box I got of three figures. It's just cardboard, but it is supposed to replicate that set, which, of course the name I can't even remember now. He mentioned that they kind of went against the grain as far as the packaging goes, and I had meant to bring up the packaging because that was one of the big draws of these toys is seen the displays in I mean, I remember walking into the Toys r US when it used to be in Fashion Fair and seeing that wall of black carded little figures with the I guess it's kind of a double exposure technique where the actions all look like their InMotion.

That was very appealing. And the thing that he noted was that they used black as their main color, and that was sort of a no note for toy packaging. Bright colors you're supposed to go with, right. That sort of goes along with what we're talking about today because the karting is very similar on the original actually to this day Star Wars figures, so that black mostly black card is actually very striking. And then I had mentioned the artist Ken Kelly, who did the artwork for this new package from Hasbro of that Micronots Classic collection.

I had inserted that little note that he had done the original packaging, and then I was like, wait a minute, but those were all photos. All the Micronauts stuff was photos of the toys, which is where it differs from Star Wars. I was like, was that even correct. I don't know, so that may have been incorrect that he did the original packaging. That's what Wikipedia says, and I kind of remember having probably read that before, so I just went with what they had in there.

Could be wrong, I don't know, but there were not illustrations on the old Micronots packaging. His story about the connection between the Microman figures from Japan and Micronots with Migo was that Microman actually actively pursued licenses and contacted Marty Abrams, which is a little bit different than all the other stories I heard and what I purported on that episode. Who knows what the full story is. That's all I wanted to get too thinking about it. I think I have something to add to mine too.

I had noticed this in my brief research or trapesing down the information highway of Edwood's stuff. I had noticed a listing in IMDb for a twenty twenty made for TV movie called Plan nine from Outer Space, which I'm assuming is a remake or re envisioning of it. I've not been able to find anything on there, so if anybody listening has any information about this supposed twenty twenty made for TV remake of Plan nine from out of Space, please send us a message on the Cambridge with Shawn Instagram page. That'll that would be was it? Was it a remake or was it one of those pandemic readings?

Well, everybody got together and read a script that kind of makes sense, But it actually is listed on IMDb as a TV movie, so I don't know what that means. There are no people associated with it except for Scott Nielsen, and he's listed as being all characters, so maybe it was a reading, but it says TV movie. I would love to see somebody attempt to remake Plan nine from out of Space. I want to say it was one of those like you know they did with the Princess Bride and all these other things keep themselves busy, right right, That would be interesting too. Imagine a reading of that.

I mean, it's so slow moving. It would be interesting if people started to dig into some of that material. A remake of Bride of the Monster, a remake of Glenn or Glinda, a remake of Planning from out of Space, all those would be very interesting to me, especially if it was taken seriously. I hope folks out there that have the creative juices flowing and like Edward, are thinking about stuff like that already. Well, we're hitting the Star Wars as I like to call them today, and this is a repeat for you, and I'm finally getting to my part of this story, and mine's a two parter, but the second part is more my location.

I think your location relates to yours as well. So why don't you get us started with your part of this Star Wars epic journey. You mentioned me piggybacking off of something that I started talking about in my last Weekly Weirdo. I'm really interested in exploring this a little bit further because I touched on it briefly, but I didn't really get to talk about the severity I guess is the right word of the impact of these particular characters. Going back to where we started with this, with the Greedo action figure, I was really excited about and interested in the strange characters in the background of the Star Wars movies beginning with the Canteena.

But really for me, because of my age and my experience with the Star Wars franchise at all, it really began in heavily with The Empire Strikes Back. That's the movie I got to see in the theaters. I didn't get to see the first one in the theaters. After The Empire Strikes Back came out, we were able to get copies of the first and the second movies at some point on VHS. I think they were recorded off of the television when they first aired on TV or something.

I rewatched those obsessively. The Canteena scene obviously was impressive to me from the first film, but there's that one sequence in The Empire Strikes Back where they've gathered the bounty hunters in that room. They don't say, they hardly say anything. Now, would you say, it's like a minute long scene or two minute long scene. It's very brief.

There will be a substantial reward for the one who finds the millennium falcon. You are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them a love, no disintegration. They're there and then they're gone, and the action figures came out right. Boba Fet was already available, but suddenly you had the two weird insect guys Forelam and Zuckis and IG eighty eight, which had lasting impact on me and Denar and Bosk. In thinking about it in retrospect, I can pretty much narrow down the beginnings of my obsession with toy collecting to those particular characters.

Those are my first experiences toy hunting, looking for those action figures on the shelves, specifically making sure that I could find a way to get Boba Fet, which was very difficult. He was the one that everyone seemed to be hunting for back in the day, but also looking out for Forelam and Zuckis was difficult too. And I've heard and read that people had the experience of getting a Forelam but it had a Zuckus in the package vice versa. I never had that experience that I know of I could have very because I opened those things up. I didn't pay attention to the packaging except for what was on the back of the cards to see who else was out there.

Really, those characters had such a lasting impact on me, and I think it's because of the way they looked. Hammerhead was another figure that was very intriguing to me. It was all about the look. It was not really about who they were or the story behind the characters, because those didn't exist, and it was more about the look of these characters, paired with the mystery of not knowing who they were was exciting to me too. It was always less interesting for me to play with Luke Skywalker and Hans Solo because I knew about them.

They were transparent. Their characters there well, Han Solo was a bit of a mystery, but they had backgrounds. We knew who they were, we knew what they were all about. With the Bounty Hunters and with those CANTEENA characters, it was all a mystery. Plus, there was something about the concept of bounty hunting that really intrigued me.

There are movies from the eighties that access to that similar feeling for me. The Mad Max and The Road Warrior, for example, got me really excited about these people in pursuit of a thing. What are they really after? Well, in those movies there after gasoline essentially, but just surviving. There's a character that has a kind of motivation.

Mad Max's motivation in the first movie is revenge essentially, but in the second movie Road Warrior, it's all about survival. But I was intrigued by those weird batties that were just all about pillaging and finding gasoline, and something about that kind of pursuit is really intriguing to me. What is the real motivation besides money for these bounty hunters really nothing. We didn't need backstories for me, I didn't need backstories. I didn't need to know why they needed your m Yeah, now we're getting them.

That's a whole other deal. Actually, you know what, I can talk about that a little bit because that sort of like stems from all this Boba Fett was interesting to me, But the truth is IG eighty eight and for Lam and Zuckis were much more interesting to me. There was something about the insectoid costumes of for Lam and Zuckis, that one being adroid and one being kind of organic insects. What the heck is going on there? I couldn't understand what was going on.

I kind of understood that one was adroid, but the other one's like alien creature but with sort of biomechanical features and really cool. But IG eighty eight, this character that's just standing there, barely turning its head. Something about that character looked familiar and menacing to me at the same time. What makes the Star Wars universe particularly exciting to me is that it feels lived in. It's not new and shiny.

It doesn't feel like two thousand and one a Space Odyssey interiors. It feels like a universe that it has actually existed for quite a while. And the materials used to create IG eighty eight I believe was taken from an engine parts for the head shape, that kind of reusing of old parts and referencing the natural world, like the insect creature for Lamennzuckis, and then Bosk looking like a lizard and den Gard looking like he's covered in wound dressing. Everything is familiar but new and different. And this mashup of what feels like and this is you know, speaking to my love for this stuff.

But it feels like found materials just thrown on these characters. That's how it's just a lot of it exactly, And George Lucas, that's what works, my friend. Those characters forever to me will be symbolic of my first real interest in toy versions of these characters. I loved the Universal Monsters as a kid, but I was more interested in watching the movies or looking at pictures and books. Then I was going out and trying to hunt for the Remco figures or whatever.

I was not thinking about that. But when I saw those Bounty Hunters, I knew I wanted to play with them, and I wanted to take them outside. We're going to get to the outside in a little bit. I wanted to take them outside, and I wanted to create scenarios where they could exist further, where their universe could be extended in my hands with my imagination. And that's essentially why I have a long standing relationship with toys as important objects.

I could pretty much boil it down to it's because of those characters. Did you have all the kinner characters of those Bounty Hunters? I did well. I don't think I had den Gar it just to have these vague memories of kind of having den Gar around. I definitely had IG eighty eight.

I definitely had four lam in Zuckis. I remember those three characters specifically, And I definitely had Boba Fett a vague feeling like I had den Gar and Bosque, And it could have just been that my older stepbrothers had them or something, but I definitely had my own fore Law in Zuckis, and I definitely had my own Bubba Fett in IG eighty eight. I played with those figures a lot. I mean, those figures were running around with Masters of Universe characters. They were in my possession and in my play even if I was into something else, so they were always around IG eighty eight, especially as my favorite of all of them.

We mentioned it in the show, but I started a band with a friend and we named it. We decided to name ourselves IG eighty eight because we had a very close relationship to that character. That kind of impact is really interesting to me. I don't know if other people have had the joy of being able to look back and identify what exactly pinpoint the exact moment of the exact character or series of characters that urged them to invest their life into an obscure interest. I've gotten rid of a lot of my Black Series characters, but I can't let go of the Black Series Bounty Hunters.

The first figures that I repurchased in my vintage collection were the Bounty Hunters. And it all begins there. You said you saw it in the theater. So weren't you only like three years years old? Uh?

Yeah, my dad was really interested in movies, and he is still. But I mean the first movie he took me to was King Kong nineteen seventy six. I was less than one year old. Okay, So when were you born nineteen seventy six? Oh okay, well I was thinking seventy seven for some reason.

No, I was born in seventy six. Okay, so you were a little bit older then I was. Yeah, I could have gotten to see Star Wars. But what I did see though, in the theater was King Kong. For some reason.

I don't know why he took me to that. I would have been an infant and uh those, yeah, one of those, I know. Can you imagine he doesn't recall that experience as being me crying. Maybe I was actually watching that would actually make sense to me because I was a side obsession with Gorillaz. We'll get into King Kong later on.

I guess I spent a lot of time going to movies with him, so when Empire Strikes Back came out, we were definitely at the movie theater. I mean we saw Jaws, we saw et, we saw Empire strikes Back, whatever was coming out, Close Encounters of the Third kind, Indiana Jones movies, and I always look forward to that with my dad. It was always one of the things that side of my family would do. You know, I should ask him if he took He likes to talk about the King Kong experience because it's kind of like a triumph for him. I think that he took me to see my first movie when I was less than one year old.

But I should ask him about the nineteen seventy seven going to see Star Wars. I wonder if he had a Star Wars T shirt. I remember that, so he was interested. Maybe we went, but I don't remember either of those movies. So seeing you in the theater, I'm surprised you remember in Para shtrikes Back, actually, because I can't think of a movie that I saw at four years old that I specifically remember seeing.

I think I just remember it because I was told we all went. That's what I was told, so I can tell you when I saw him Pi strikes Back on TV or on the video recording of it or whatever we did. I do have this very distinct recD collection of the Hoth scenes being very familiar to me. That could be because of what I'm going to talk about in the second half of this, but the Hoth scenes, I remember the moment of seeing those on the small screen, feeling like I had been there before. Take that as you will.

I don't know what that means. Those Bounty Hunters. I know you appreciate them too, but those Bounty Hunters really had an intense impact on me as a kid, and still do so today. They're the coolest And every time I rewatched Empire Strikes Back, I rewind that scene and watch it like three times. That does something special to me.

I feel very lucky to have had that experience. Not a lot of young Star Wars fans understand that. I think if you grew up with the prequels, for example, I think that there are probably significant characters that have impact on younger audiences. Maybe, but I can't imagine a group of characters being as or more interesting than the Bounty Hunters. No, Moss thinks this is a humble seven that won't be necessarily Oh but it is.

Those kids love that jar Jar Binks. Baby. Thank goodness my wife is around, because when that Black Series version of jar Jar Binks came out and I saw it at Target, I was so tempted just to get it for shits and giggles, just to have the novelty of owning a jar Jar Binks. And she was like, just think, do you really like that character. I'm like, no, no, I don't.

I despise that character. Well, then why would you spend it? Was? I think it was like twenty seven dollars. I think is an insane price for that.

And she's right, but you know, sometimes we gotta sometimes we gotta embrace the or face the things we fear the most. Yeah. We've been going through the movies actually partly because of this. And one day Cleo and Curly that were both doing their own thing, and I was like, well, I'll just throw on Star Wars and folks, I'm going to be using old school terms through this. So a new hope is always just Star Wars to me, thank you, And I'm not going to know character names.

They're going to be what they were in the toy version, like walroll Man, give a ship what his name is exactly? I can give a shit with a hammerhead. Yeah, I don't know. I asked Cleo sometimes, like what kind of creature are these? Okay, fine, Yeah, Grida was the only one that really had a name in the first movie.

But anyway, I'm getting off track here. So I threw it on and they're like, oh, are you watching Star Wars and so they kind of finished it with me and then we I think I did the same thing with Empire, either that same night or the next day, and so we've been going through them, and with Empire, I kept thinking as we were watching it, this is so lynching in. There's so many things in this one, and I know that he was approached to direct one of them, but it was an Empire, which was Yeah. I had to remind myself because I'm like the tank that they put Luke in that whole operation scene, the Bounty Hunters, just the way they're positioned and don't talk in there. Oh yeah, reminds me of scenes in blue velvet for some reason, and Denar particularly he is out.

Yeah, and I'm thinking this is just so weird. It has these really weird touches throughout and kind of dark, and which is why a lot of people didn't like it. But yeah, I was like, no, this isn't the one he was going to direct, but it sure feels like it could have been all that dream sequence on the dream sequence, yes, yes, exactly on what was that Yoda's planet Yegoba or planet dat Is, But it's in the Dagobas system, the Daego Bus system. That dream sequence alone is so David Lynch, and I can see why Lucas would have been interested in having him for Return of the Jedi Boy. I would have liked to have seen that.

Yeah, look that up on YouTube because it's hysterical. His discussion of his meeting with Lucas and them, oh yeah, I love it locks and is a massive headache that he gets. That was his sign to say no thanks, Yeah, oh god, I love that. I was asked by George to come up to see him and talk to him about directing, which would would be the third Star Wars, and I had next door to zero interest, but I always admire George. You know, George is a guy that does what he loves, and I'd do what I love.

The difference is why George Levs makes hundreds of billions of dolls and instead he goes and makes done uh huh. Which I know that some people have mixed feelings, and I know that David Lynch regrets Dune topic that's a whole other topic. But I have it. I love that movie. It is special to me.

So what do you got in store for us? I'm old enough to have seen the original Star Wars in the theater and I did. And you mentioned Festival Cinema's last episode, and I saw this at Regency Cinema. They're part of the same or were a part of the same conglomeration of Cinema's Regency cinemas. So was Festival.

There was fig Garden, and there was Regency, and Regency was where we went as kids to most movies because it was I guess, closest to where I lived or easier to get to. I mean, it wasn't that close, like five almost six miles away on Willow and Barstow like Festival. I think it's a car lot. Now it's behind a car lot. I can't tell what they store there.

What can see it from the one sixty eight when you drive on it and you can see the building. I saw ice pirates there. I don't really remember all that much about that initial like, I don't know who I saw. I know I saw it there. I don't know if it was just like me and my sister or if it was a group of kids.

The stuff that stuck out for me in the first movie were much the same as you Cantina, the Jahuaz sand crawler scene, that's kind of it. Like the story and all that didn't really register all that much. It was more about the creatures. There wasn't really I guess it might be hard for people to understand this now, but it wasn't like you left the theater and thought, oh boy, I wish I could have toys of these. It wasn't a thing that wasn't part of our consciousness when the first movie came out.

There were obviously, Migo had major licenses, but most of their stuff were existing properties DC and Marvel obviously, and they had both been around for decades yep. Before anybody was making toys of them or action figures, Planet of the Apes, Star Trek. This is stuff that was passed, came and went. But you know, we're successful for them obviously, But there wasn't this thought of, oh a new movie came out, I want toys for this, A new TV show comes out, I want toys of this. It wasn't like it is today.

So I didn't like lead the theater going, oh I need a grade. Oh I needed this. I needed that. I have no recollection of like the whole early Bird package. You know, the figures coming out seeing them.

I'm sure at some point when they came out, not more than a year, but close to a year after the movie came out, probably started seeing them of that first twelve. So they did the early Bird Package which you could buy like kind of like a promissory note, I am going to get these when they're made. And that was There were four and I think it was Luke Lea, Chewbacca and R two D two Star Wars figures R two D two Chewbacca and Princess Leah. They are the Star Wars early Bird Center figures. These four action figures are not yet available, but this Star Wars Early Bird Certificate package is in stores with this colorful Star Wars picture displaystand and certificate.

Just send in to get a set of four figures by mail. They'll be sent to you at home between February first and June first. Star Wars Early Birds certificate package you from Genner. People that did that paid eight bucks or whatever got those figures sent to them in this package, and then those four figures plus eight more were produced as the first twelve for Star Wars collectors. Twelve back cards are very sought after, and I had eight of those first twelve, and I most likely got them for Christmas of nineteen seventy eight.

So I had Obi Wan C three po R two D two, Chewbacca, Han Solo, Stormtrooper, San People and a Jahwa. Was it big Head, Hon? Yeah? I have Big Head, I have Balloon heead Hon, David Lynch Han was falling now And as far as like likenesses and stuff, the movie was gone. I mean it probably played for quite a while, Greedo or whatever not being screen accurate.

I probably wouldn't even have remembered the head sculpt for Greedo. The head sculpt for Hammerhead are more screen accurate than Chewbaca for example, like there's a distinct level of detail on Grido's head sculpt and Hammerhead's head sculpts that are more screen accurate, which I think is interesting. Yeah. Well that second wave, which I'll get to in a second, is I think they had a little more time to fine tune the details, right, But that first twelve And there's a great documentary I think you and I might have watched it once during our movie days called Plastic Galaxy. Oh yeah, yeah, it was all about I hadn't watched it in a while, but I was thinking it was more about kind of the lead up to the figures and less about the collectors.

It's not, but there is the history of how these things got made, and as minch and on the last episode, you know, they went around in seventy six to shop the toys around. And because this wasn't really a thing back then, most companies were like, Ah, this movie's going to come and go. There's nothing here that's going to hold people's attention for years and years or whatever, and you know, it's just some goofy sci fi movie, and most people passed on it. Kinner signed their contract with Lucasfilm or with twentieth century Fox or whoever was they were dealing with at the time. April of seventy seven, a month before the movie comes out, and there's no way they're going to have toys for that year.

That's why they did the early bird thing. Blah blah blah. So the next eight figures came out the same year, in seventy eight, but a little while later contained mostly cantena creatures, and I had of those. I had Grido and Snaggletooth, and that's it from a next eight And those could have all been Christmas seventy eight most likely. Seems like a lot to me, but yeah, it's possible because I was still getting you know, migos and other things like that.

You know, as I mentioned, they were able to watch the film now and get maybe a little more detail. But as we all know, when you watch those movies, you don't really see anything below the waste for most of these, like Walrusman is a good example, and how his head sculpt and outfit are just not even close to what's on screen. And this is part of that second wave. As you mentioned, the Grido head sculpt is actually really good, but he's in the movie more, Kinner had very few things to go off for that original twelve. If you see some of the early promotional material where they used basically Fisher Price Adventure people, Kit bashed those for like Han and some of the other ones and used a sock for the Jahwa's cape, and that's pretty funny.

And that's all in that documentary. I don't have a lot of strong memories of playing with my Star Wars figures. I don't know really why that is. I mean, I was the right age. I was eight when Star Wars came out.

I was eleven when Empire came out, which we'll get to in a little bit. To me, that's prime action figure time. When I look at these, and as I've mentioned in the past, these are really the only action figures that survived childhood. It's not because they were my most treasured items. It's because they fit in this little airplane bag that my grandma gave me, little Vinyl airplane bag that used to give you on flights.

They all fit in it and were easy to take with me later on in life when I moved, or to just store in my closet. When I was a kid, they kind of served by default migos were kind of big. I think most of my migos broke, of course most of them got donated. But when I look at them, they're all in really good shape. Hm.

One of the Jawa, I have two Jawa. I ended up getting two Jawas because they were favorites from the first movie. Yeah, and are still favorites. I love. We watched Rogue one last night and I was like, are there any Jawas in this or Grito's I call whatever Grido is Grido's And there aren't, which is upsetting because they're on tattooine.

So anyway, and my best spin Luke his head was repaired at some point, which I think was just a matter of they had a really small peg. Watching Toy ploy again to mention him and seeing a lot of the figures that he restores and what horrible shape they're in. I'm like, man, mine are like pristine. Most of them have little paint rubs on their hands, so I know that they were play with. They just weren't the things that I remember taking on adventures or going in the backyard and playing in the dirt.

It's a really weird thing to me where I still have them but I think I would trade them all for childhood migos. Who knows though, So I had ten figures of that first year nineteen seventy eight, I think I had. This is where my memory kind of escapes me. I had a land Speeder, and I don't remember if I had I think I had the Sonic controlled land Speeder. Thought I had the regular one, which I have bought one since then, once Cleo started getting into Star Wars, I found one cheap on eBay.

They're fun little vehicles. Oh yeah. But then I get confused. I'm like, because I see the ads, the old ads for the Sonic controlled one, and it came with a little R two D two clicker, and I'm like, oh, I remember having that clicker, so I must have had that. But then I also think that I I had the R two D two remote control eight or so inches tall.

Yeah, the one that pops up in Stranger things. That is when I discovered that I don't like remote controlled vehicles and have never had any. I think I had a car. At one point, I just can't. I can't do it.

I don't know, and I had decent eyehand coordination, but for some reason, RC stuff just is like beyond me. Same with video game. I think it's the same concept as video games. I don't know when we started hearing the buzz about Empire when I was a kid. At some point you start getting this thing like, oh, there's going to be more of these.

It's a trilogy. The next one is going to be this, and Luke is going to train with Jedi Master Yoda, and it's like Yoda, Oh, whoa, that sounds intriguing. What's this? And I don't know if images came out before the movie or not, or if it was a surprise when I went to see it that it was a sickly I'm up it. But all I know is that's all I cared about as far as Empire strikes Back, was concerned.

That's awesome. Yoda didn't care about anything else. Didn't care if there were Gredos in it, didn't care if there were Jawas in it, didn't care about the Bounty hunters. When I saw him, nothing mattered to me other than Yoda. I love those scenes in the Dagaba system, but there aren't enough of them, and he's not on screen long enough, and that has always bothered me, even when we watched it last week or so, I was like, there's just not enough Yoda.

I think why you were really aiming to have that character being mysterious. Part of me feels like if they had done, if they put Yoda on the screen more frequently, or had more scenes where you're seeing more of Yoda, that the Muppet aspect would have been more prevalent or present. I personally love that Yoda's so brief in those sequences. I was obsessed with him too, not to the same extent that you were, but I really enjoyed that he was. He seemed unpredictable and super creepy, and if there was more of that, then he may have ended up being more of a Muppet, which you know, with frank Oz's voice and everything, it could potentially be change our relationship to him.

When he starts talking, I was like, oh my god, it's miss Piggy, Miss Piggy. I remember thinking that in the theater, it's Grover. I don't know though, if I know that I've looked this up in the past to kind of get my timeline straightened out and looking at like Starlog because I know there's a famous cover of Starlog and a People magazine and the abuse basically the same image of Yoda, and I'm like, they come out before. I want to say they came out before, but I couldn't verify that. I think I don't think that they did.

I think they were very protective of that, But in my head, I feel like I knew at least what he looked like when I went in to go see the movie. I love Empire strikes Back, loved it then, love it now even though it doesn't have Gawel's and Gredos in it. One thing because of Candy. Yeah. One thing that can be said about Empire strikes Back of all the films that have been altered by Lucas, since I feel like that has the most non obtrusive changes.

I said that to Cleo when we were watching. I was like, this one's the least messed around with. There wasn't much to mess with in that. Yeah. I think all they really did was add windows to cloud City.

I think that's pretty much it. I think there's some long shots of cloud City they're all CGI. Yeah, sure that I don't care about. I don't need to see sand troopers falling off of do backs. Oh my god.

Don't get me started. Can talk about that stuff at the end of this if you want. Yeah, we're gonna get into that. You mentioned Boba Fet. I think he was the first mail away figure, so you had the twelve back cards.

Then you had eight new figures, so you had twenty back cards, and then you had mail away for Boba Fett, and then he ended up on a card, so there was a twenty one back card. And then Empire comes out, and I want to say that I write it down. Yeah, so I think there were initially nine new figures for Empire, so there was a thirty back card. Mark corrects this egregious card back gaff later in the episode of those figures, I had Luke and his best spin outfit. Oh yeah, so I finally got a Luke.

I didn't have Luke Lea or Darth Vader from the initial wave and I've never had them, the second best Luke in my opinion. And then I had a snow Trooper or Imperial Stormtrooper I think is the correct term, and Lando that was it for a while, because and this is where I always get my memory is wrong. That came out summer of eighty so I was eleven, and all I wanted was Yoda. Hey, get out of there. No, you could have brokenness.

Don't do that. I didn't care about any of the other figures. It's an odd assortment. Bestmine, Luke a snow Trooper, and Lando. I don't think I asked for those.

I think my mom just got them because they were a new Star Wars. I don't know. Maybe I specifically asked for them or went and got them myself, but all I cared about was Yoda. So I always think that I spent that summer after the movie came out hunting for Yoda. But I didn't.

So that'll be the second part of my little tale, which includes my place for this time. That's it for the first part. I gotta tell you I loved Yoda too. It took me the moment of holding someone else's Yoda in my fingers to realize what an immensely cool figure that was. So the miniaturization of everything, his cute, little smiling face, his utility bell.

Talk about it too much, dude, that's just like my story man, Like, he's such a cool looking little figure. I'm just gonna stop with this though. When they re released the retro collection quote unquote retro collection Star Wars figure version of Yoda. I rush out to get that little guy. That's one of the figures I never had as a kid.

Luke Skywalker handles his saber well, ben Kenoby, you should know Yoda. Yes, I've been to Jedi Mastered for eight hundred years. Yoda and other action figures, each sold separately. BBB it gets okay or too dd You I've got my laser pistel pup it. Look you're afraid of your snake Yoda.

You have nothing to fear. The Force is all around us. Yoda and other action figures, each sold separately from Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back collection from Kenner onto the second part of your story, which includes a location. I decided to go super personal on this location mainly because of its association with Star Wars action figures and my childhood. I've talked a lot about my dad taking me to the movies and stuff like that, so a little context here.

My parents separated when I was less than one year old, and not too long after that my mom remarried, well, my dad remarried and my mom remarried. My mom lived, she had primary custody of me and we lived up in the mountains with my stepfather was a genuine certified mountain man, like he was all about that. In fact, it was very interesting John Wayne was. He was like obsessed with John Wayne, and it was like it was very present in our household, the sort of Hollywood version of Cowboy. The first house that they got together was a mobile home up in the mountains on I think was about four acres of land kind of in this valley, looked and felt like a ranch from a movie.

And we planted Christmas trees. I don't know so much if they exist anymore, but back then up there in the mountains there were a lot of independently not a lot of but there were several independently owned little Christmas tree farms where the trees would be grown. Every year, people would come through and pick out their tree, and my stepdad chop it down for them and they'd take it home. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas was always an exciting time up there. To make a long story short, we lived on a Christmas tree farm.

It would snow up there sometimes, and that's probably part of the reason why hath seemed familiar. Because I was out there with my action figures, amongst the little Christmas trees or there. We had this pile of granite rocks in the back, and we had a creek, and I was out there by myself pretty much every day after school if I wasn't at a babysitter's house, and on the weekends when I was with them and up my dad's down in Fresno, I was out there in the yard on the acreage playing with my figures. The Star Wars action figures were my first companions out there amongst the granite rocks, out there amongst the little Christmas trees that were sprouting up, which was like a perfect endor for me when Return of the Jedi came out.

And we were only there for I mean, it seems like we were there for ten years. We only lived on that property from like probably nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty four, something like that, a very short period of time. Along with the experiences of living in the mountains, just being isolated and interesting and little me helping out the building fences and all those interesting experiences, my very precious memories of this place was that I would be out there playing with my action figures and it was, like I said previously, today it was four long. Zuckis, Boba, Fette and Ig eighty eight for sure were with me every single time I was out there. They had gone on mountain adventures, They'd gone deep in the creeks with me.

They had experienced the snow. Back then. Up there, we would get snow and would be pretty substantial. I don't think that happens as frequently now, which is a whole other issue, and the creeks would get really full. In fact, there was one area of the creek where I could have probably drowned it was so deep, but I loved it.

I would get in there and it would be cold, but I'd take my toys with me. The experience of growing up on this Christmas tree farm it was I don't remember. I think the last name of my stepfather is cos it was just called Cox Christmas Tree Farm up there in Dunlap, which is of the right off the one eighty if you're driving up to King's Canyon or Sequoia National Forests. I went down there a good ten years ago or so to check out the property, and many of the trees were left there of the last batch of Christmas trees, and so the people who lived there didn't continue to use it as a Christmas tree farm. They just sort of let them overgrow, and a lot of them had toppled over and died.

It was very sort of a creepy area. The ones that had overgrown were huge. It was really interesting was out there cutting one down exactly exactly. The other part of this is that they were mostly dead that had gotten big and then probably died of thirst. Every once in a while you can kind of see it from one of the side roads up there and I look over and those trees are still there.

But we got somehow got permission to walk through the old house and it had really fallen apart. It was almost untouched for my child, which is really interesting. The people that moved in some of the decor from my mom and my stepfather's decoration choices, and going back to Star Wars. What I loved about being able to take those figures out into the quote unquote wilderness. I wasn't influenced by subplots or stories that existed.

Nobody had published any comic books at this point or novels that explain the backstories of these characters, so they were just bounty hunters. That's all that I knew about them, so they could literally do anything. They were good, they were bad, they had sensitive sides, they were vicious. Like the exciting backstories that I could create for them were there. They could live in the same universe as Skeletor and Merman.

And I love that. Anybody listening to this ever grew up in a rural area, you know that there's this magical quality to the part of quote unquote getting lost, being out there by yourself, not being worried about in the city where potentially something dangerous could happen to you. You could just be out there and be by yourself for hours and play with these figures. And the fact that it was a Christmas tree farm really added to that. I could have all these different environments that these figures could exist in.

Maybe that's why I didn't really appreciate the Book of Boba Fet series as much as I could have. I grew up in a situation and Mark you did two in a lot of ways where these characters could be hours. I was excited about the Book of Boba Fet when it was announced. I wanted to know what was going on. According to other people for these characters and their stories, and because of my relationship to the Bounty Hunters, it just could never reach my level of expectation.

They'd been with me to as far back as I can remember. I've cultivated and curated stories for them in my head. I can't just say negative stuff about the Book of Boba Fet because I really enjoyed seeing a fat bib Fortuna that was really cool, was the best part about it, and I enjoyed seeing a rank or monster in action. That place for me will always carry sentimental value. To be super transparent.

It was a difficult time for a variety of reasons. As a kid, being able to sort of get out of the difficulty and go out and be alone with my toys was very special. I spent a lot of my twenties being resentful about being alone out there, and now that I'm in my late forties, I realized how in many ways that was so beneficial for my creative self, and so I'm appreciative of having grown up on a Christmas tree farm through all the seasons for those few years, and for having my Star Wars action figures for me. That probably contributes to why the Bounty unders are still extremely valuable to me. That's my very personal location, the Cox Christmas Tree Farm up and Dunlap off of Highway one eighty.

Maybe eventually I'll buy it and turn it into a Christmas tree farm. I don't think my life is that interested in that. There was a Christmas tree farm for oh gosh, how many I'm not sure how many years. Near my old house, which ironically enough is gone now because of the one eighty, just north of Belmont on Peach, there was a live Christmas tree farm and we went there. Even after we moved out of that area, we would go and cut down trees.

I want to say that even like Curlida and I first couple of Christmases, we might have gone out there, because I remember going to Javier's afterward, which is in Sunnyside. Than one year we went and it was gone and there was just a lot over by how the years anyway, just kind of interesting that you mentioned the one eighty there, and that's of course what runs through that, yeah, part of Peach. Now. I remember as a kid, I had the Christmas tree farm radar when anytime we'd be driving through the Fresno area or anywhere in the central Valley. It's like there's another Christmas tree farm, you know, is it bigger than ours?

Is it smaller than ours? Have they planted their own trees? So there weren't Yeah, there weren't very many live Christmas tree farms in town. It was mostly just like a Christmas story. There are a lot of those now and then.

I think there's still one that exists off of forty one, just outside of North Fresno. I think that one still plants and sells live trees from there. There are few between. So yeah, exactly ours is fake too. It's like we've had fake and then we've gone back to live, and now we have fake again.

It's just a heck of a lot easier, it sure is, and possibly better for the environment. I don't know. It's hard to tell, you know, is a plastic tree that lasts many many years better? I don't know. It's interesting your comments about their lack of backstory, and that comes up a lot in that Plastic Galaxy documentary, where the guys were like, it was great to have these figures that maybe had two seconds of screen time because they just became whatever you wanted them to be.

They could hop in the land Speeder with Luke or with C three Po or with whoever. They can be good guys, they can be bad guys. They can be neither, and it's all up to you. And that's the one great thing about there digging into those minor characters, and so just which they did. I still repeated the main four multiple times, Luke, lea Han, and even Lando, you know, in different outfits.

It's nice to have those outlier figures to play with. Oh yeah, I can't fault Lucas Film or Disney completely for wanting to give audiences more of those characters, because they know it's a cash grab. I mean, it's guaranteed an audience if they say, well, we're gonna show you more. I think wolvers Man and his partners show up in Rogue one briefly. We just watched that last night.

They know what they're doing, and I can appreciate that. I almost appreciate the brief appearance of these characters more than I appreciate the lengthy background stories of these characters, or trying to justify characters' actions that their choice of being a bit on a hunter or whatever. Rather than complaining too much about some of the stuff like baby Greto looking character in what's the first one of the prequels again, Phantom Menace. Yeah, the Phantom Menace, a little baby baby Grido walking around like I can't I can't even hang Well, we'll come back to some We'll get nitpicky at the end here, and people continue out if they want to, because there's a couple of things that I want to mention.

I have a good starting off point because I've been thinking about this a lot, even before deciding to do this. For this episode, Imparse rex Back comes out. I'm obsessed with Yoda. Have to have a figure. Whenever I think about this time, I think I spent that summer of nineteen eighty hunting for Yoda, but it wasn't It makes sense to me now when I was trying to nail it down, which was not easy to do, Like when was Yoda released.

I'm using all these sites that lists the figures, that talk about what cards they came on, blah blah blah, and there's no exact dates given. There's no street date for any of these figures, and I kind of have to go with card back information. Empires. Rex Back comes out in nineteen eighty. As I mentioned, I'm eleven, just turned eleven, that's fifth grade, and I'm thinking, yeah, this makes sense, this story makes sense that I hunted for it then, and then I'm like, no, it doesn't make sense because my clear memory is of biking to Arthur's Toys every day for one summer with my friend Scott Mitchell.

The reason it doesn't make sense that I was doing that in nineteen eighty is because I would have been doing that with my best friend Ricky Wadsworth, but he moved to Utah at the end of our sixth grade year. So nineteen eighty one, I'm thinking, no, that's too late, because then I was twelve and I was already moving on. And that's a whole year after the movie came out. So as I'm looking at card backs and stuff and seeing when figures were released, I mentioned earlier that there were I believe nine in that first wave of Empire Srex back characters. So a thirty back card, no thirty one back, so there were ten.

I'm sorry, and I may get some of this stuff wrong. Anyway, Yoda was on a thirty two back card, so basically by himself. The stuff that I saw online A lot of it said nineteen eighty as the release date for Yoda. A lot of it said nineteen eighty one. You can't really go off of copyright information like on the figure itself, because they're using the movie for one thing, and or the production date.

But again we're talking about a whole year after the movie. I don't know how much time I spent looking for him, but I just remember that particular summer. Every day that summer of nineteen eighty one, I rode my bike to Arthur's Toys to try and find Yoda. Fine do, I'll do not, There is no try. I lived on Madison Avenue, which is one block south of Belmont, and I was like two short blocks west of Peach Arthur My Arthur's Toys.

You've talked about Arthur's. You snaked that from me early on. Mine was on Tilerian Chestnut, and I don't honestly remember going to any of the other ones. But this was super close to our house. It's about a mile and a quarter from my house, very easy to get it to.

Hilarry is one block south of Belmont, one city block Almont, so we rode our bikes or walked probably on occasion there, and it was a big store. Yeah, it was when you talk about that one on Shields and Blackstone, and I know that building. Now I'm like, this is like two or three times the size of that and it's now an Asian supermarket. It's comparable if you think about like a good sized grocery store, if you have a chain grocery store in your city, Vaughn's, Wolves, Railey's Save Mart, it's that size. It was that size then had that tall I don't know what you call it.

It's not a facade, but a lot of buildings, you know, mid century buildings have that tall brick structured tower out front where they would have the name. That's still there. And so when you walked in to the right or south, I guess of the front entrance were all the bikes, and I think on the outside was all the pool stuff, pool supplies, you know, when you want to s wrapped in a gate walk in bikes and big wheels and all that big toy stuff. You're walking in. Everything's to your right or to the south of the entrance and you start hitting the toy shelves.

I remember looking at shogun warriors there. I remember, even though I have never played a minute of dungeons and dragons in my life, I used to go look at the little Pewter figures and they had tons of them. I don't think I ever got any, but I would just look and because I liked order of the rings that are cool. I know it came out in seventy eight, and never bought any, but I would always look at them. And then towards the back were like the remote control cars and trains and things like that.

And I think most of the action figures were up towards the front. And I remember i'd walk in walk a few aisles four or five miles down, and that was where the Star Wars stuff was. Walked there every day for a summer looking for that fucking Yoda figure, and very well could have been a whole year. Probably looked at the toys r US and the mall for it. The one bad thing about Fresno is we never get anything first.

So even if it was out in big cities like LA and San Francisco, New York and Chicago and all that, we wouldn't have had it until shipments finally make it to Fresno. I don't recall when I finally picked it up, but I do have the memory of going in finally one time and seeing him and getting him, and to this day still have him. And like you said, he's got a lot of accoutrement. Yeah, he's got a cloth cape. He's got a little orange or brown snake, depending on which version you have, Yep, a cane and his little utility belt with his milter life saver, his a little snack pack and whatever else is supposed to be on there.

I lost the cane at some point, so this is a reproduction cane. Again. It's like I barely played with this thing. It's like I just had it to adore it, or like I mean, he's got a few rubs on his feet, but his head is in perfect condition. All the his cape and snake and everything else that would normally break from kids playing with are all still there.

Probably because I was twelve and already starting to move on from this stuff. I never had any figures for a return of the Jedi as a king. When that movie came out, I was fourteen. I saw it, and like other interests, but I was way beyond I don't even remember seeing them and probably wasn't even going to toy stores. I didn't get any Return of the Jedi or Power of the Forest or anything else that came after that.

Return of the as a whole other conversation for me, I love Return of the Jedi. The Ewoks never bothered me. They never bothered me either. I don't have a problem with that. I think it's a fun story.

I love all the stuff on Indoor and totally fine with it. Maybe not so fine with the Luke Les brother sister thing. We'll get into some of that. That's a whole other story too. Take a moment and talk about your relationship to Yoda's face before I start going off on a tangent about it.

Well, I mean, that was one of the best parts of that muppet. Yeah, was his face. When I watched the prequels, I'm like, this, ain't it, man? I need that guy. I need that squishy, brinkley, goofy looking dead eyed puppet absolutely with his little butt sticking up in the air when he's digging in Luke's stuff.

It's perfect. It's perfection. And the toy, though it's not a exact replica of what we see in the movie, the toy is special to the toy face is special. Pretty damn close though, it's real close, pretty damn close. Cute little smile, and he is amazing.

He's way too serious in the prequels too. For another thing, goofy charm of Empire and his little appearance in Return of the Jedi is completely missing. They give him a little goofy charm when he shows up in the newer movies and confronts Luke as a spirit ghost, as a force ghost. I'm glad that they I mean I have complaints about those movies too, but I'm glad that they try to bring back some of that Frank Auz charm that they just totally eliminated from the prequels. I mean, they're all too serious anyway.

Just to round things out here, I did probably because of that plastic galaxy thing, or maybe that's why I got that movie. But I did briefly delve back into Star Wars territory, like Ten Years Ago. Was on a couple of message boards, and I think part of it was inspired by trying to get some reproduction blasters and stuff, like I know my jawas I lost some of those and his cane and things like that, And then I started looking at the figures that I never had, and particularly the Cantina creatures, some of the Bounty Hunters. I never got Luke Lea or Darth Vader from that original twelve, but I did end up getting a number of that second wave of Star Wars A New Hope figures. So I have now Hammerhead, Walrus Man, Boss Zuckis.

These are empiresres back for long IGD eight and Boba Fett ten years ago. These were all easy pickups and relatively cheap. My Zuckus is mint. I don't know if I got him on a card. I know I got Prune face on a car, just a banged a beater car with a destroyed blister, but still the figure was meant.

I was looking through this stuff with Cleo and I'm like, man, this Sucus is just like Pristine. That's a difficult one to find, Christine, because he's got a lot of stuff going on too, exactly chess thing. The Cape Leather Cape is just perfect. I did finally pick up some Revenge of the Jedi Return of the Jedi figures. Admiral Akbar Indoor Leah.

I got that for Cleo prune Face, who I always thought was interesting and a force Anakin, forest ghost Anakin for the heck of it. For the heck of it, that's amazing. I got to get one of those forest ghost anakins that has significance for a variety of reasons. The fact that Lucas edited him out of the end scene of Return of the Jedi and put in Yeah, Hayden Christiansen, just I hate that. Really, it doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't make any sense. For one thing he would know him is that Luke or Lea would have no exactly. Oh, it makes zero sense, George. My jumping off thing here for and this is where people, if you're not interested, might want to shut us off. I think often, what would it be like if those original three movies, the original trilogy was all we had gotten?

Yeah, that was it. I kind of wish that were true. Sometimes part of that was inspired by watching that documentary where they had to keep interest in the property, to keep selling figures because when there were no movies, they weren't selling toys. And the people from Kinner that are on that documentary, and there are a lot of Kinner people on there, are like you know, what do you do? And they did stuff they introduced, like vehicle sets that could coincide with the films that weren't in the movie.

I don't think they went as far as introducing characters that weren't in the movies, but it gets into that realm. And then of course you get the last seventeen figures, which most people hate. I think there's some interesting figures in there, but they are kind of odd. And you get Powered the Force two you know, years later, which are just hideous, disgusting figures, and the others Luke yeah, the like you know, the musk V shaped figures, the whole no interest. And then there's a what eighty three to ninety nine, however many years gap that is between new stuff.

Of course, you get a couple of years prior of that, you get the re release, the special editions, which we can talk about too. See that's where I think none of this stuff was all that important to me. I went and saw the special edition of A New Hope when it came out. Me and Jeff I don't think you were there. Were you in London at the time, And I said that I was.

I was. It was ninety seven. I saw A New Hope specially edition in London. Yeah, that's what I thought, because I'm like, oh, there's no run here, but we were in the bay Yeah, yeah, cold, you know. I think it was December first in line type of thing, and I was like, eh, again, I don't need to see a stormtrooper falling off a do back I mean back in the background of the original is perfectly funct Grado shooting first bullshit and whatever.

I mean, really, it's not okay what happened in the special editions. It's not okay for a variety of reasons. Number one, that first rendition of computer animation in the Special Editions was just horrible. It's gotten better over the years. It's still pretty bad though, it's still really bad.

The musical sequence in Return of the Jedi in Java's Palace is absolutely horrendous. The silliness of the goings on in the background in a New Hope is just embarrassing. Java's a appearance is absolutely unnecessary. Han Solo's broken neck to avoid Brito's laser blast absolutely disgusting. But this is where I'm going to get really opinionated.

That's not the worst of it. The worst of it is this. If you make something for the world, you don't take away previous versions of it. George Lucas eliminating the original versions from the consumer aspect of our culture, in other words, we can't buy it anywhere is absolutely unfair and actually unrealistic in the realm of any of the arts. Let's talk about publishing.

For example, if there's a first edition of a book, it still exists out there, folks. You can still find it. Might be more difficult to find, but you can still find it. And George Lucas taking those away. You can still find those versions on VAH just out there or on laser disc out there, but they're near impossible to find at this stage, and there are people who have released them online and been shut down.

I just don't think that's fair. I know George Lucas will never hear this, and I'm sure his friends have mentioned this. But if his pal Steven Spielberg can do that with et released the altered versions along with the original version so that you can have both to look at right side by side, then why couldn't George Lucas do that for this franchise. It's it's just not fair. Yeah, this is interesting because this actually came up before and when we were talking about WC.

Fields and all that stuff on episode seven, and you made the comment that artists have the right to edit their creations, and I said, basically the opposite. My argument is that once it's out there, it belongs to the people. As I was editing the show, I was like, you don't actually believe that, though, Mark, so I took it out, and unfortunately I don't have the raw footage from that because I would insert it here. Yea, I did say that, but I don't believe it. I think you even brought up which also isn't in the episode, but you brought up publishing and stuff and first editions, And I think of Bokowski when I think of that, because of the novel Women, where his editor made some changes and he was like, huh uh, change it back, so there was a second edition.

You could probably still find some first editions out there for a great load of money. And then I don't know if I looked this up because of that or if I just happened to see it online. Someone had posted George Lucas commenting about this where people say, you know it's not yours anymore? It's ours. You released it, and he was like no, And I'm going to agree with him here.

He's like, no, it is mine. You are just renting it, whatever version it is, whether you've bought it physically on Blu ray. He's like, you are paining to watch it for a while. These are my things. And I kind of agree with that.

As much as I dislike most of the changes, I do have to kind of agree with him. I would still like to be able to watch the unaltered versions, yes, because so many of the changes are for one thing, they don't look good. Altering the story does bother me? Who cares? If Han shot first?

He's a scumbag and he's trying to erase that scumbagginess of him. That's part of his character development, right, He's got to have an arc. Yeah, without being I don't even know why people would consider that scumbaggie. When you shoot a bounty hunter who's trying to take you in. Yes, yeah, in a lawless land, I don't understand why that's an issue.

But anyway, movies get edited, and we're in this world of where now when a movie comes out, it's like everybody wants the director's cut, immediately and it's like, well, isn't this the director's cut? Yeah, the movie comes out and it is what it is, right, And so he's sort of playing with that even more by constantly making changes. And I don't even know which version I'm watching anymore. I watched a short little thing on YouTube that tracked all the changes, and so there have been so many changes to the changes that what we're seeing on Disney Plus now is quite a bit different from what we saw in the theaters and those specialations came out. I need to say this, the artist has every right to change what they do.

It does belong to them, first and foremost. They made it, They've spent the time to create. They have every right to make an adjustment. What does actually belong to the audience, though, is what the artist is willing to share. That could be at any stage of the version of a thing, just like with the Bukowski book, just like with et for example.

The artist needs to know that there's no real way to take back what you've already given the world. You can try. There are people out there who who know how to share the original version to us. They will continue to do that. Of the Star Wars movies.

George Lucas is kind of right, but also is forgetting how little control he actually has over this massive ip that has been around for so long that the fan base actually carries a kind of ownership of it. They've become attached. That's where a lot of problems come up, though, exactly because that's where you get very toxic fanboys. We're doing a version of it by talking about it, but fans also need to be able to let go. They also need to be able to be accepting and let go a little bit.

Well, and here's my main takeaway from any art or commerce. You got the thing you paid for. Yeah, when you went to see the movie, paid a ticket price, you went and you watched the movie. That's where the transaction ends. The director, the studio, the producers, the actors.

They don't know you anything else other than that experience that you had in the movie theater, other than the experience you had sitting on your couch watching a TV show, other than purchasing a toy and taking it home and putting it on your shelf or playing with That's it. The transaction's over. They don't know us anything. George Lucas doesn't know us anything, Kathleen Kennedy, Disney nobody owes anybody anything other than what you got for the price of it. Mission Now, if you go to a movie theater and you don't like the movie, you're more than welcome to walk out and ask for your money back.

If you buy a toy, you take it home and it breaks a second you open it, you could probably go and return it to the store again. That's it. Though he doesn't know us an explanation. He doesn't know us. He really doesn't know us.

The originals. I'd like to be able to watch him. We have my brother in laws had the VHS versions for years, and I have them here at my house and I have a VCR. I could put them on. I don't like watching stuff that's been formatted for TV, so by default I'll watch what's on Disney.

Plus, I am sure I could with a little bit of effort, I could track down those LaserDisc versions that has been reformatted and put out there. I'm sure I could contact a few people and track them down, which I may do at some point. But I sort of side with him on this is like, yeah, it's not really yours. You can watch what I give you, and if you don't like that, oh well, there's a good argument on both sides. What makes it complicated is that no matter what we do, if we're going to make something and put it out into the world, it becomes a relationship.

The kind of relationship it becomes is up to those involved, and how we treat the relationship is up to us. George Lucas has a kind of relationship with us, and not everyone's going to agree with that kind of relationship. I have complicated feelings about it. As an artist myself, I agree with you and that he has every right to do whatever he wants with this, and now Disney owns the stuff, so they have every right to do whatever they want with it. It can't be ignored that the engagement with the public is the developing of a relationship, and I admire an artist that understands that that relationship should go back and forth.

It should be reciprocal, and it shouldn't be you don't like it, too bad. Those kind of relationships don't necessarily work very well. I see what you're saying, and I also understand George Lucas's perspective, but I also know that it's more complicated than that. We got to think about editing and adjusting what is consumed by our audience is absolutely normal and needs to happen, but also listening to the audience every once in a while is good too. I think Disney does that with the Star Wars stuff in that they've got fanboys making Star Wars stuff now, John Favreau and the other guy does the Dave Filoni.

Dave Filoni, Yeah, I mean they're fanboys, so they're trying in their own way to cultivate that relationship a little bit more, and I appreciate that. I also ask myself, how necessary is it? Whereas that well and listening to audiences hasn't really served them all that well either, because that sequel trilogy is born of that where yeah, oh we didn't like this stuff from that one, so we're gonna ret con everything in the next one, and then we're gonna ret coon all that stuff in the last one. So, as I mentioned, we've been going through these and next up would be the sequel trilogy, and Cleo doesn't have any interest in watching it. She's like, I don't like those ones, and I'm like, really, we watched Solo the other night, and we watched Rogue one last night, and that might be the end of it.

I hadn't seen Revenge of the Sith in full until we watched it this past week. Carla and I went and saw Phantom Menace. We might have seen Attack of the Clones in the theater. I know we saw it, but it might have been when it came out on video or DVD. I don't really remember, because again I don't care enough.

And Revenge of the Sith, I just the only thing I remember wrought Revenge of the Sith is David Letterman constantly calling it Revenge of the Blith on Late Night. That's all I know about. And hopefully and I can find a clip of that, and I'm not making it up, but he said it like every episode for months when that movie came out. Sadly, Mark could not find a clip of Letterman saying Revenge of the Bliss. And as far as the Disney stuff, you asked, I think I don't know way back when if I anticipated any Marvel stuff, And I'll give you the same answer.

I don't anticipate any of the Star Wars like I don't care. It's so glutted it's just like too much stuff. We've watched most of them, and I enjoy them to a certain degree, but like they could stop now and I'd be perfectly fine. We've stopped and started and or twice now, oh my gosh, us too. One thing I like about it is they're actually using real locations for this one.

But yeah, I'm just like, I don't care about this guy. He dies anyway, What the fuck do I care about his master? It's just also watched him die last night and rode one Ahsoka as well. Like, I just don't have an attachment. It's not there for me, you know.

And see Cleo does because she's watched the Clone Wars. It'll be interesting to know what she thinks of the Ahsoka series because I haven't watched it. I've only watched the first and second episodes. But I think we all liked it. Okay, I didn't continue, and I've seen some reviews of like how it ends and stuff, and I'm like, yeah, how does that align for people who are fans of the Clone Wars?

Does it work? Does it not work? I don't recall her being like overjoyed with it. We finished that one and it's fine. Like, I don't have any connection with those characters at all.

I want a Chopper retro collection figure. And that's about all I can say about that. Schopper's cute series book above fat yeah, whatever. We've been sticking with Mandalorian, but past that first season, I don't know, it hasn't really held that much appeal. I like it when the Jawas show up, I like little Grogu and whatever.

Show me the baby. I would like to see the baby. The Rancorps in Book A, Boba Fett was a lot of fun to see, and I love that he was kind of like a big dog and I was sweet. This stuff is hit and miss, and I think it's always going to be hit and miss. We haven't watched Ghostbusters Afterlife, but we have it here.

I just read boxed it yesterday. We're gonna try and watch it, and I've been hesitant to watch it because I am an attachment to Ghostbusters the original movie, and every time we re enter these territories, it's a little scary for us. And we'll see. I don't have a problem with people exploring these old eyeps, you know, I'm not like, oh, the story you raped my childhood. It's like it's a fucking movie.

Who cares those people who get with it what you want? The people who get that incensed over trying to bring new blood into an old thing. To me, we have every right to re envision a franchise, whether it were not is a whole other story, and we have every right to not like something too. But the people who go online and they complain and complain and complain in brutal ways without an ability to see both sides of the story or see the perspectives that are involved, that's just embarrassing. And as a fanboy of multiple things, I feel that sense of embarrassment when I see it happening.

I'm not going to say I don't have opinions about these things, because I definitely do personally. If I were to not be able to see both sides of the story, or both perspectives, or all the perspectives and respect those perspectives, and I'd be just like all those other folks. It's really too bad. What always lasts is the reasons why we fell in love with this stuff in the first place. All those folks out there that are frustrated, I just say, remember why you liked it in the first place.

Fall back on that. That's a comforter that will never go away. It's always going to be okay as long as you can just remember why you fell in love with it in the first place. Yeah, nothing new should take away from your enjoyment of the original thing. It's just not important enough to give that much energy too.

None of this stuff is that important, except for my little Baby Yoda. When I got the retro collection version of that, I was so happy because even though it's a newer version of it, it's still I feel like they're using the same molds, the same material for the little cloak, and I just love the Yoda action figure. Is that brings a tactile joy. I think that's unanimous for anybody that's held it in their hands. Well, I can say easily.

My favorite Star Wars figures are Gredo, the Jawa's Yoda, and to a slightly lesser extent, C three PO and R two D two. Now, my R TWOD two actually is pretty worn because I think every time I pick it up, I pick it up by the front. Oh yeah, his sticker is very very worn, like his chrome is in good shape. My C three PO although he's really floppy, the chrome is like pristine. Yeah, his little bolt in the back is rusty, but again it's like, I just don't think I played with them all that much.

Yeah. C three PO and R two D two are I'm very lucky to add of R two D two that's in pretty good shape that I've found online for not a bad price compared to what they're going for now, but definitely is gone for ridiculous prices now. I know. I got R two for a really good price on eBay, and especially since he's in such good condition, but he was definitely on my list of figures that I needed to have from the vintage line. I have a C three PO and he's very loose too, but his back metal is in good shape.

But the Bounty Hunters, you know, it's like they are to me some of the greatest achievements and out of all the action figures made in the history of action figures, they're just gorgeous. One that I'm going to talk about eventually on Weekly Weirdo, and he'll definitely come up when we talk about Return of the Jedi eventually, But that little wicket Ewok action figure is absolutely phenomenal. He activates the same tactile thing in me with the Yoda action figure. He's so cute. He looks very similar to the character in the movie.

It's just little arms and little legs. I mean, it's like it's adorable. Yeah, they had their stuff together by them. They actually released the figures before the movie came out and had all the you know, they were working with Lucasfilm in twentieth Century Fox to design all that stuff by then, so they definitely get more detailed by then. But detail isn't really the deal for me.

It's more the charm of those simple figures. So any who, I don't remember our outro and I forgot to write it down, So why don't you take us out? Uh? I have it written down somewhere too, but I don't have it in front of me. Well, here's what I'll do.

I will cut and paste from an earlier episode. And just as a note, we are going to be doing something special for our next episode. It will actually come out a week early, so there will be no January episode, which would have been our anniversary episode, but we can discuss that on the next one. We're going to release a special holiday episode. The day after Christmas, we will be looking back at past episodes and talking about anything that we have picked up that we discussed on those, So look for that on December twenty sixth.

And until then, here's that outro that I came up with a couple episodes back, and it'll just be from that episode the same. Have fun, stay weird, and keep collecting. Hi, don't a little music can't help rocking, rocking down, rolling down to the beach. I'm strolling. What the sea goes poking my head?

Not fun? I said, she goes, stop it now. Everyone told me got the stroll on that beach, said seagull's gonna come. You're coming back, And they did, and they did me good life. Nothing I could do but you win these perject When I tried to run, I fell and then biscuits come.

Let Madam got hit in the neck with a hackstock. Where did it go from? Run, run, bunch, I can be back back by you, bun bunch, punch, jump and stop put me down. I love to prove am booga yay, show you some dance moves. No, I don't want you to natural giant beef out there on the beach.

Got about ruse birds. You're a psycho wiener. Let me grab my pet her stop it. Please, come on, man, quick that bany what's that stank? You put a fish in our basket?

Yeah, I forgot I did that. You owe me an apology. Just hold your breath and see when the time is right. Burst back your face, run bunk trunk chump. I can be here, back back while you run.

Swim from a hairy vine. I can make you back back while your climb. Stand on one candle, lift rocks, pick your special gift. Runk punk punk chump, mail breeze. That's good.

Dam One day I was walking in about this this big log. Then I rolled the log over. Underneath was a tiny little stick, and I was like that log had a child. Listen, boy, some day, when you are older, you could get hit by a boulder. Can buy your lying neck swim come see her build?

Stopping now? Yeah whatever, you're sort of pitchy, dude it listen man, I'm not your friend. Don't fall asleep. Stopping now. CambridgeMA Seawan is a weirding Way media podcast