208: Lukewarm Skywalker

Hey kids, it's Brian. Just a message before we start. What you're about to hear is our fifth annual holiday celebration. Five years we've been getting together for our little makeshift party to eat too much novelty food items and talk about movies and the holidays and whatever. And in the process, we've really become this little dysfunctional family. a band of geeks and weirdos that somehow found each other.

And by my organizing this little traveling road show of movie fandom, it creates magic or horror, whatever you think comes out of this every week. But whatever it is we do, I've come to value it immensely. It's become one of the most important things in my life. Just us getting together and this talking that we do every week is kind of amazing, at least for me. And hopefully you guys.

Get something out of it, too. And every year I try to expand the show to give us new opportunities and to be able to bring you something new and different and hopefully interesting. But to expand the show, we need to be able to get it out there to more people. And with as much stuff that's out there flooding the market these days, that's really become the hard part. So this holiday season, you want to give us a gift?

And hey, I know you're dealing with a lot of money issues. We all are. It's hard to come up with cash. So I'll tell you what, this won't cost. You a thing.

What we need you to do is help spread the word about the show. Go online, tell your friends, repost our episode links, write an email to your local paper or your favorite blog or whatever is the best way to get hold of people in your area and tell them to check us out. Even leave us a five-star review on iTunes. I bet there's still a lot of you out there who haven't even done that. And even little stuff like that makes a big difference if everybody gets on track and does it.

And all of that is stuff that really needs to be done and won't cost you a dime, but it will really show how much you care about the show. And you at least care enough to listen. So if you're going to invest time each episode with this little dysfunctional family, why not do your part to support the family? The rest of the gang here actually goes to a lot of trouble and commits a lot of time to put these episodes together for you. So if not for me, for them, do what you can and help spread the word about the show.

And the best way to do that is to join the Secret Circle. you know i've been advertising this since we began but really all it is is just a network of of you know the really dedicated fans that that want to work with us on this and we have a handful of people on board right now and they are awesome a big thanks to those who are already helping us out you've done some great things in the past and and continue to be there for us week in and week out and help us spread the word about the show and i really appreciate that but to everybody else out there email us at geeks at movie meltdown.com and say, I want to join the secret circle. And then we can talk and come up with the best ways to get the show out there into the world.

So message us and let's work together this next year to make movie meltdown even better. So for the time being, I'll say happy holiday of your choice. And let's get this very special life day episode rolling. Because of the following special program, Wonder Woman and the incredible Hulk will not be presented this evening. The following program is a special presentation.

The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. We're going to have to provide more cooling in the containment chamber. Do your sit-ups.

Yeah. We'll be back in a minute. Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree.

Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree.

Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree. Merry, Merry Christmas. Have a Christmas with glee.

Here's a little toy any girl or boy certainly would love to see. Merry, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to who? Take a guess. Yes, yes.

Merry Christmas to you. Here is a baseball that throws itself. If you've been good this year, it may appear on your toy shelf. Do we have the data on what to get the Wookie this year? He already has a comb, you know.

Yes, we have. Finally computed the perfect gift. Here it is, a brush. Perfect. Merry Christmas to you.

Here's a toy robot that goes to sleep. Can you believe the way he does it is by counting sheep? One sheep, two sheep, three sheep. Merry, merry Christmas. Have a Christmas with Glee.

Have a little fun. Eat a honey bun. Decorate a Christmas tree. Merry, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to who?

Take a guess. Yes, yes. Merry Christmas to you. Here is a hammer without a head. So when you miss the nail, you'll never.

Hurt your thumb instead. Merry, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas the best. Sing a little song. Try to hum along.

Entertain a Christmas guest. Merry, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to who? Take a guess, yes, yes, Merry Christmas to you. Now here's a. Costume that's very weird, cause when you put it on it seems you've.

Gone and kissed a beard. Where is the wolfie? I think he put the costume on. Hey, did you tickle me? I did not tickle you.

Well, if you didn't do it, then who did? Yes, yes, Merry Christmas to you. Have another little guess. Yes, yes, Merry Christmas to you. Just one more guess.

Yes, yes, Merry Christmas to you. What's up, and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. I'm Beau. I'm Ben.

I'm Lucy. I'm still Dave. I'm Ben. I'm Greg. And Fred was a wuss, and he wimped out.

He couldn't handle the Life Day fun, so he. Took off last week. He went to get a life. Get a life day. So, yeah, welcome back to our fantabulous Life Day celebration.

I'm excited. I'm very excited to be part of this. I love this Life Day thing. We're halfway into the holiday special and we are beaten down, let me tell you. I'm not.

I love them. I'm going to go home and download some Starship. Jefferson. The only thing that's holding me out is I know Bea Arthur is coming out. Oh, God.

And this is the mod era Bea Arthur, I believe. Beatrice Arthur. Beatrice. Let's get that straight. I can see why you wanted to abbreviate that.

Probably hairier than the Wookiees are. Wow. He's more feared than Boba Fett. Yeah. Yeah, we're about to see the first canonical appearance of Boba Fett.

She's going to take on the whole Empire. Right. They should have cloned Bea Arthur as Boba Fett. It's been Stormtroopers. God, this is taking a scary turn already.

It's taking an interesting turn, actually. The cogs are turning on this one. This is good. We can save this special. I sense the good in it.

Yeah. He can see it. The special can be good if we imagine something different than what we're seeing. I am still holding out for a scene where the three ghosts are going to talk to Darth Vader about how to. That's at the end of Jedi.

There's three ghosts, and they're talking to Luke. Did you not remember that part? And then the one turns into Anakin Hayden, and it kind of becomes a little... And it pisses off old dudes everywhere. Right.

Lukewarm Skywalker. So. I just think so far, though, I mean, before we get right into it, the person who's put it best is Dave. He's like, this is Not especially, it's more like a weird dream you would have had to where it's like you dreamed you had. the Star Wars Christmas yeah. I used to really anticipate movies so much you know as a kid as a fan that sometimes I'd have a really weird dream about a movie before it came out.

It would usually be kind of scary to be fair that's exactly what it is to be. Fair Lucas did everything in his power to make sure that this was just a dream that only happened one time and we technically should not be watching this we're being a little bit we're being we are being rebels right now standing. Up to the imperial forces of Lucas maybe it is maybe this is the dream And every time the Star Wars Christmas special goes to sleep, we live our lives. This is great. It's like the Matrix.

That's what he said, though. Except the Star Wars Christmas special is reality. Get on some Starship, man. At one of the conventions, he said if he could. If he had the ability, he would track down every copy of the bootleg and smash them with a hammer.

Maybe that's why he sold out to Disney and he's going to use that eight point gazillion dollars to buy all these copies from someone. And destroy the universe. He's going to take down the internet just to kill people. He's going to buy the internet. He could do that.

Better maybe now that Disney owns it, they're going to run it on television on December 21st. Maybe that's what the Mayans... They could do a marathon. Yeah. And show it like it works.

You look like a Christmas story in TNT. Will they? In the previous episode, we were talking about stuff we liked in it. I just remembered something else. This is one of the few times in Star Wars where you see an alien race and you can actually see individuals.

Of that race. For example, every time I see a member of the Greedo species. They all look like Greedo to me. Maybe that means I'm a racist. I don't know.

But all the. Greedos look alike to me. That's not the first time that's been thrown around at Lucas. But all of these Greedos, I can see the differences in them. I think I'm growing as a person.

All the Stormtroopers look alike. You know, for being clones... Those two were completely. Different in this episode. There was about three inches difference between the two.

It was a little short for us. It was a little short. They still got the oil on their back. I'm very happy to see that. I don't ever remember stormtroopers putting guns in people's, like two inches away from people's noses.

They were gangsters. What do you want? They were totally gangsters. They should have held it side by side. John Boo.

Oh, man. Put in the tape. Let's see it. I think at this point we were going to get back into it. All right, we're going to seal our fate and go watch the rest of the Star Wars Holiday Special.

I hope there's a knock at the door and it's like Lando. That would be... Hello, movie meltdown. He could bring over the Schlitz and really turn up that life day. See, moral.

You're the one with the neon sign down the street. And I'm pretty proud of that neon sign. There is. It's right down the street. It's a lamp.

At the end. Of my street, there's a big Billy Dee Williams approved neon sign. Awesome. I drive by it every day and just look at it. Got it, Bill.

And does that sign still light up? Yeah. See? Works every time. Works every time.

Did Lucy just leave, too? I think she said it. She snuck out the boat. Dropping off like flies. She snuck out through that wardrobe in the back.

We won't be seeing her. It'll be a few seconds for Bryce, but it'll be years for her. Time is no medium. She's going to come back older and wiser and carrying a sword. Oh.

She'll come in and cut off our heads and put us out of our misery. I don't blame her at this point. There can only be one. Of course, I don't know. At the same time, if we talk about anybody not aging, I mean, I feel like time is standing still when we're watching this.

What are the. Odds this time of year of getting a Christmas snow? A gift that pleases. A case of the sneezes. Or a kiss near the mistletoe.

You doubt the odds against Christmas cards finding each friend on your list. Or getting a box of oversized socks. But you don't stop to think about this. Christmas could have so easily been the day they invented the wheel. Or the day Bad King John was so put upon that the Magna Carta was sealed.

They could have discovered America on December the 25th. Or snow could have fallen. Or nothing at all. And we'd never have known what we missed. The odds against Christmas being Christmas are 365 to 1 Christmas, you see, could have easily never, ever begun.

The odds against Christmas being Christmas, against. Love being born at all, were so very large that all of the rod should seem terribly, terribly small. You have to remember when you're in December that you're at the close of a year What would you have done if time had run out before Christmas was here? I'd like to point out that the odds against adding an extra month are 92 million to 3. You cannot put locks on all the clocks or chain Father Time to a tree.

But whatever the odds, this time of year, humans should never complain. Whether caught in the crush of a Christmas rush, or the snow, or the sleet, or the rain, Whole galaxies in distant worlds would change places with any of you. Because you have a day when love came to stay. Though it nearly didn't come true. The odds against Christmas being Christmas.

Are 365 to 100. Greetings to father, who works all year for the family and outdoes himself at this joyous season with lots of surprises for everyone. Greetings to mother, that miracle worker of the home whose loving efforts seem sometimes like magic. And greetings to little brother, usually a terror, but somehow since he visited Santa at the department store, he's not been himself at all. Greetings to Sister, who was so busy decorating the house with mistletoe and then seemed to forget.

It was there. Greetings to Grandma, Grandpa, and all your uncles and aunts. May you gather round the table for your Christmas feast in the joyous tradition. And may your celebration be filled with all the good things of life. And may the spirit of peace and happiness, love and good fellowship... which is the true meaning of Christmas, encompass your entire family.

What we want to say is that the management and staff of this theater, all of us, wish all of you good luck, good health, good times, and a very merry Christmas. Christmas is full of holiday cheer. Fuck you! This holiday season, join Hercules on a mission to spread the spirit of Christmas and to save one boy from being added to Santa's permanent naughty list. May the curse of the gods be upon you.

May the hatred of men persecute you. Until you have paid for the blood of a thief. Fetch the spirit of Christmas and treat yourself to a real adventure in this heartfelt, fun-filled movie special. If you will join me in the conquest of the world... All mankind will recognize me as their queen and adore you as their one and only god.

Love me, Hercules, and together we shall reign over men and gods. Hercules Saves Christmas, coming this holiday season. Dave, I do not get superheroes. Oh my god, I don't get you. What don't you get?

Towerbot here. Well, the meatbags were going to say that if you're a geek and like podcasts, then you could try Tower of Technobabble at www.toweroftechnobabble.com. Then this started. Well, it's up to you. I'm gonna get my taser and put the stop to this.

Towerbot out. Okay, monkeys. It's nap time. Tweaked Audio, your source for high-performance, noise-reducing earbuds. Available in three styles and seven colors, durable and designed to sound great for both music and those chatty podcasts, like the one you're listening to now.

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Don't forget that report, Bill. Yes, sir. Thank you. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your ass.

Happy Hanukkah. We look up at the winter star. We know that's where you are. Our trinity's big and round, so you can come right down. And if our wish comes true, we'll spend Christmas Eve with you.

Our hearts will. Sing with glee as we. Decorate the Christmas tree. Well, ladies and gentlemen, as I promised you and all the kiddies, we're going to have a visit from Santa Claus because we're having a wonderful Christmas party right after the show. And Santa Claus is going to distribute all the presents.

And the cast is coming. And the family is coming. In fact, they should be here any moment. I think I hear somebody coming right now. I think when I go home, I am going to dig out my Luke Skywalker X-Wing pilot.

Figure and get a little magic marker. Give him some blush, maybe some eyeshadow, you know. What? I'm going to put a Jack Daniels bottle in Princess Leia's hand. Or just get one of the Death Star.

It's okay, I'm being method. Okay, you really old, overweight, feeble guy. You protect this 10-foot Sasquatch lady from the evil Nazis. Space Nazis that are coming. I'm acting, damn it.

I'm doing this for Peter. I am in charge. I am a princess. Okay. I didn't know he was channeling Bob and Doug McKenzie.

That's it. I'm turning back. I know your family's waiting. I know it's an important day. All right.

Well, give it a try. I'll set your coordinates. You won't jump far. I'll get you back there in time, pal. Trust me.

Can't wait to hear your thoughts. All right, we're back. We've seen the rest of the wonder that is the Star Wars Holiday Special. Happy Life Day. And to celebrate this half, I brought us a Boba Fett.

Since he made his appearance in our second half here. Oh, that's the Boba Fett from the 1990s. That's the reissue. Yeah, the second half. Second wave.

And, you know, I was realizing I've got from that same line the Luke Skywalker wearing the yellow jacket as you see him at the end. Of Episode 4, A New Hope. I had no clue that I actually was holding an official Luke Skywalker holiday special figure as seen in the cartoon where you meet Boba Fett. That's right. It's amazing.

And he's also He-Man shaped. Yes. Well, he started off that way in the poster technique, right? I was looking. Around Ben's head so I could get the who cares look on Lucy's face.

I'm past the who cares. Look. I wish I was writing down notes. I had so many questions to ask about this. I have an official announcement, though.

All right. I've always loved Star Wars. I don't like it anymore. You mean Jar Jar didn't do it? It was this?

It was the realization that it really was this bad. I mean, Star Wars was great. And Empire, one of my favorite movies of all time. But this brought. It down to such.

And the prequels brought it down to such a low level. I don't know what I can recover. I think I'm officially done. It's jumped the shark thing. Star Wars and Christmas jumped the shark.

I won't lose out on Christmas. The first season of Christmas was awesome. Greg, this is not the spirit of Life Day. Yeah, you're not embracing Life Day. It sucked all the cool out of Chewbacca.

I love how he's just staring at the camera. I don't know what that cult Life Day... It got so bizarre. For the kids who haven't seen it, at the very end, the climax. If you will, a whole troop of Wookiees walk through the time-space vortex to the Tree of Life and they're all wearing red robes and it's like a very Jim James.

I thought we stepped into Phantasm. All the people that said they had to go somewhere else show back. Isn't it easy to get together? I'm looking at it this way. I suppose I'm overthinking it probably, but Trying to think, all right, this holiday came about probably, if it's that important to Chewbacca over the course of hundreds of years in their society, especially since you get really nerdy and.

Star Wars-y, Wookiees live a long, long time. So obviously this has been around for probably thousands of years. So why did a religion arise within their culture, a culture that still walks around in the nude everywhere? To where they feel the need to put on robes? Right.

Except when they need an apron. I know why. It's because they had to show 200 Wookiees at the end, and it was much cheaper to just get 200 Wookiee heads. Instead of full Wookiee suits. They showed them actually mostly from the back, too.

They already had the Imperial Guard robes ready for later on. They were also all wearing the matching tennis shoes. It was very Heaven's Gate to be honest with you. Actually, that's why they had so much smoke on the ground. Imperial Guards are like really Wookiees, and they're wearing hats?

You know what? Like I said, it's dead to me. I don't care. Actually, maybe you can put the helmets on a Wookiee. It's like when you give a cat a bath.

You get a Wookiee wet, and it's really, really skinny. You can fit all that on. They might have been Wookiee Snuggies, too. You know, Greg, it's funny, because I know that just last week you watched for the first time the very first Doctor Who Christmas special. How would you compare that to the official Star Wars Christmas special?

I could watch. the Doctor Who Christmas special a hundred times before I would watch five more minutes of this. And keep in mind, kids, that special had robot Santas. Yes. And Greg still liked it more. Right.

Yeah. It was exciting, comparatively. And a Christmas tree that. chased everyone down through the house and cut a Christmas tree-shaped hole through the wall. It was Warner Brothers-esque. And it's still better than this, right?

It's still better. It had a plot. See, I think this should make you appreciate Star Wars more. Because this shows you what it could have been. Like, if it would have ended up in these hands, if they would have given it to, obviously, network TV guys, this is what we would have had in the movie.

I mean, the fact that we got three relatively good movies out the first run is kind of impressive, actually. That it could have ended up just like this. Yeah, but I think this was done so cheap. I can't, I don't know, I can't see it getting past the green-lit mark. phase to be, like, nationally released or something. Of course, I mean, I say that, but then also I look back at when we watched Star Crash, so there you are.

This makes Star Crash look, I'm not saying good, but it makes it look better. Like, oh, this was the norm. Well, I know, yeah, we've said that it was panned universally, but. I don't know. I don't know.

I think what it is, it really, yeah. It pulled back the curtain for me too much, that it wasn't this magical place that existed that was, you know, that, you know, yes, I knew it was fake, but it was real to me as a child. It's not anymore. It's dead. It is kind of brilliant how, like, intricately it, like, demystifies the Star Wars franchise.

Like, it's just so.... I don't know. It kind of ruined it for me, too. I can see myself as a seven-year-old, though, and looking past all the weird stuff and just focusing on the cool... Like, okay, at the very end, Chewbacca is having his flashbacks to the events that happened in Star Wars.

And they're showing a montage of Star Wars clips. I know as a kid. would have been so excited by that because again I had no other way of watching Star Wars over I was essentially seeing a cliff notes version of Star Wars all the cool scenes again and I would have loved that and then. It goes to them eating dinner and bowing their heads be thankful for Star Wars well. That's true I mean back then you know the only way you could see Star Wars at home or at. Least little tiny pieces of it was 8mm film if you bought it and showed it on your wall Right.

There was no video. There was no repeat. I had that. Kenner cartridge thing that you could drop in and crank, and it would show an 8mm loop, and you pointed it at the light. Yeah, the knockoff version of the Fisher-Price.

Yeah, the Fisher-Price one. So, yeah, just seeing even little clips like that on TV was a thrill for kids, you know. Which is why they wisely stuck it in there. Yeah, that's what I was thinking at the time. I was thinking, all right, this is the payoff for anybody who managed to sit through this.

It's like, all right, here's a flashback to better things. Actually, I figured it was more like the, hey, kids, see this movie? Next one's coming. Start saving your money for Empire. They did the re-release of Star Wars.

They did a special re-release in 78, like a year after they had that special poster with. The birthday cake and the action figures and all that stuff. And I'm sure they probably did a re-release for the holidays too, so it was all cyclical. Star Wars played Showcase for like 68 weeks. Oh, yeah.

That's where I saw it. It's back in the day when movies didn't go away. I just have this impression that it was almost like a dissertation that someone was writing. They're like, this is so big, how bad can we make it and people still watch it? Like, okay, we know what people will buy and what people will go nuts for, and we can sell them anything.

Now let's see how far we can push it, how bad it is, and then we know our bottom level. If we know that it bombs, then we'll go, okay, we can't go back to BR. I think you're giving them too much credit. I don't think, I think now they might put that sort of thought into, everything now is planned out and so like, again, ironically planned of what, you know. Well, how much can we do this?

And what if we did this? But I think this was just straight up bad variety television. They planned it exactly like a bad variety special. At the same time, back in those days, every year there were huge Christmas specials. They had a model that they went.

By to make a Christmas special. They knew that they had to have... Who's that at the door? It's Art Carney! And they had to have the... the big musical numbers and all that that was.

The regular tv series had their christmas episodes you know yeah well. They all like they ran that kind of stuff like compare this to a donnie and marie christmas special all the time it's not really any worse. This just has space scenes and wookies in it but i think it's just that this hurts us more because yeah. Because we have that weird personal connection because the donnie and marie christmas special doesn't work its way into a big mythos you know. And so that's canon too although they had action figures so i don't know.

When ben was mentioned demystifies earlier it just kind of dawned on me i think that's the whole problem with this is the first star wars the charm and i think the thing that hooks you when you're a kid when you watch it is here's luke he lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere and he's just a generic kid and all of a sudden he finds out that there's something special about him he has a cool past And he gets to go off on an adventure. And as a kid, you're like, that's so cool because you. Go to school every day and you're stuck at home and you dream about doing stuff like that. And you get to watch where this person does. This is the exact opposite.

This basically reminds us that, hey, after all the cool stuff's over, that's when you go back home and shit's the way it was when you left it. You know, the irony of it is like, you know, he was living in an oppressive time during a war. And all that those characters. Are wanting is a time where it can be peaceful, and you can just go to school, and that's the only thing going on in your life. You know, Luke wanted what you had.

Yeah, and actually, Luke almost wanted what he had, because it's like he wanted to go off and fight the rebellion, but the rebellion was so people could live out their lives, which essentially he was. Doing on his evaporator farm, so. Yeah, Chewbacca didn't have it too bad. I mean, he lived in a huge house. And that's what I got to thinking.

It's a house of criminals because, see, before the. It's like the Anne Frank house. It is. Well, no, before the rebellion came along, they were smugglers. Right.

So all he was doing was he and Han were just going off and they were just stealing and looting and killing and whatever they wanted. And so. That family's living, that is not, I don't think that's the standard Wookiee household. It's like the Scarface home of the Wookiees. And so that's why the kid's so goddamn spoiled and he has all that stuff.

Right. And then Art Carney is encouraging it even more by giving him the box that, for all. Intents and purposes, we can't figure out what the fuck it's supposed to do. I like to think that Wookiee's just really living caves, and they just found a human family's home and killed them all and lived there. There's so many little things in it that are just mystifying.

Like, as a kid, when I got done watching Transformers or whatever, I never clapped. The way Lumpy claps after every TV show he watches. Lumpy's a very special boy. He's very appreciative of everything. As you should be.

I'm not. You are not learning anything from Lumpy. Starlog 324-1. From the bridge of the cruiser RS Revenge, Captain Keza Han reporting. We are awaiting the return of Captain Han Solo and his first mate Chewbacca, who are long overdue on a delicate mission to acquire the mystical talisman which has been sought by our forces and by the Empire.

You had said while this was going on that the cartoon was the best part. There's evidence for that because in the Star Wars Blu-rays that just came out, they actually have the cartoon as a special feature on the Star Wars Blu-ray. For the first time in years, they're actually admitting that the holiday special existed, but that's all that they're showing is the cartoon. Because that's all you need to watch. There were so many little touches in that cartoon like, The fact that they thought to have inflatable pontoons on the spaceships, you know, it just, I don't know.

It was a nice little touch. Cool stuff. That I liked. It looks, the look of the show is so weird. It looks like Mobius.

It looks like something out of Heavy Metal, circa 1980. It has like a weird anime vibe that we weren't used to in this country at that point. Now it seems normal almost because every kid's into anime, but like. In that time, the Battle of the Planets was probably all you'd ever seen coming over here. So, I mean, it has a weird look for what we were, the Warner Brothers kind of stuff.

We were watching it that way. Yeah, but even our crew, when we were watching it, it's like we were sitting here doing the MST3K version of this. And then when that came on, we all got dead silent. It's good all of a sudden. You can tell the people that made it cared about. what had happened because they saw at the end of Star Wars Luke isn't wearing his white karate shirt anymore he's got the yellow jacket so they have him wearing the yellow jacket in this you know.

They understood the universe yeah. That's why I think this was obviously something done with something else in mind like maybe somebody was going to do like a backstory pilot. Star Wars cartoonist and I wish they. Would have because I think it would have been way more interesting even than a lot of the other stuff that's happened over the years I think The version of that is even better. It's still the same people that made droids and Ewoks, but those became, especially Ewoks, became really watered down.

The droids was alright as I remember it, but it's been a long time since I watched it. I wish I would have seen more of this. The plot of this one is almost like how The Clone Wars is now. It fits into a nice little tight story. It's sealing the gap between two movies.

I did think the characterization of Boba Fett was a little bit too obviously evil. I mean, he just kept saying terrible things, but then tacking on the word friend at the end of it. You are completely out of your mind, Fred. He said, he must be a friend. He seems like one.

It shows how gullible Luke Skywalker still is. You're only going to get in my way, Fred. You should have hooked up with a golden girl because she would call everyone friend. I couldn't figure out actually what the whole. plot was I mean what was he doing it's like he helped him get medicine and resuscitate Han and Luke so he could come back another day well. He was going to try to earn their trust to take them back to the rebel.

Base yeah But the droids foiled the plan. The only plot hole is why didn't he just take out everybody in that room? Right. I mean, I guess he just wanted to escape. I mean, if he even just wanted to kill them off, I mean.

He could. Well, his little departure is a little weird there. Yeah. I'm leaving now. You know what's weird, too?

It's a very see you in the next movie once again. I think the. First time I saw this, after the first time I saw it, you know, there was the time it went out in 78. Was it 78 when it went out? Yes.

Okay. Okay. You know, I saw it then, and then, you know, years later, I think it was in the late 90s, I found a version of it, and I hadn't seen it for years, and I. Watched it again. I remember being annoyed that it was a magic charm in the plot, because that just seems so not...

Not Star Wars. There is no Harry Potter magic in this universe. Well, there kind of was at that point until the prequels came along and screwed all that up. The Force was pretty damn magic back in the day for midichlorians. But even that seemed like it was just a part of nature.

This was like, it only makes humans sleep. So Boba Fett's not human? That was the implication, right? Technically, he's a clone, so. But a clone of a human.

A clone of a human of a clone. Yeah, exactly. When they did Star Wars, the Stormtroopers weren't clones. Yeah, they didn't know anything about that yet. They were just drones.

That's why. They're just idiots. Maybe it's his third eye BIM mark on his forehead. You wish he was cool enough to have a BIM mark. Yeah, I know.

Everything goes back to the apple. It's all about the apple. And, of course, I'm being a nerd and realizing that his coloring's all wrong. So is everybody. But they've made an action figure of that coloring, so that's canon.

It's canon. He can have different outfits. When they came out with that mail-away Boba Fett, that was not too long after this show. Because the whole controversy over that toy was it was supposed to fire that little rocket. And then they decided, no, it won't fire that little rocket.

Because some kid choked on a missile fired from a Battlestar Galactica Viper toy. I have one of those missiles. By the way. It's all Battlestar Galactica's fault. I've got...

And that's why they pulled it out. So it wasn't that much further because, you know, Battlestar was in 78, I think, when that first hit TV. Yeah, it was 78. Yeah, pretty rapid succession. Because I had the card that they came on that had the sticker over it because I, like every nerdy kid in America, pulled the sticker.

Off and went, holy shit, the rocket's not supposed to fire. I got all excited and wanted that one. And we never got that. You know, every kid in my school swore they knew a kid that had one that fired. It's like when you're a kid, it's the best urban legend.

I know a guy, a kid. He doesn't go to our school. He goes to school in Canada. He's totally got one. He goes to a private school or something, and his fires.

He's got an itchy action figure, too, man. This kid's rich. He's got everything. Oh. I really, I think the part, I was, okay, I was staying with it.

I was like, okay, whatever. The part that really was hard to get through was the part where Harvey Korman is doing the instructional video. That really just, mm-hmm. That dragged. They were just bleeding for time.

Yeah. That's all it was. That's the part I sat there. I was just like, we're watching a TV show of someone watching an instructional video. That's as bad as...

Think about that. And it just seemed like it couldn't get more tedious than they do it in slow motion. They would slow the whole thing down and it felt interminable. Once again, ahead of the curve. He's kind of Max Hedrum there for a second.

It was. Yeah. It was. And I was just laughing at just how. Bizarre it was compared to everything else.

I mean, you know, because Ben made the comment, it's like it's Tim and Eric before Tim and Eric. I was like, yeah, it's a couple of things. I mean, in the way of just... It totally is. Watching something to where it's bad on purpose, but they didn't quite have it down pat yet.

And same with the Max Headroom thing. It's like it's on its way to a lot of different things, but especially within the context of this, it's just padding for the sake of padding. What I don't understand is He's so, I mean, my mom would religiously watch the Carol Burnett show. And so I've seen every episode of it. Was any more of a straight man on that show?

No. And he was, he was hilarious. And this made, I mean, it's like they, I don't know. Well, again, it showed you. This is an entire example of how everything can go wrong if nobody really puts any effort into it.

I mean, the writers on Carol Burnett were genius and really funny. So you're watching that versus he's just killing... Same thing with Art Carney. I mean, Art Carney was hilarious years before this. And it's like you watch him do what I guess he's supposed to be his normal Art Carney thing here, and I'm like, this is not.

Funny at all. I wonder if Maybe when they were first getting the deal to make the holiday special, they were given a block of time. And then Star Wars was just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And they were like, we can sell more ads. Make it two hours.

And then they were like, oh, crap. What are we going to do? Because if it was an hour and you stuck more to the plot, it wouldn't be so bad. It would still suck. But, like, it would be tolerable if it were a 44-minute thing with a lot of commercials in the middle.

And you could just stick to the plot and one stupid song at the end. Strictly sales. It's dragging it out. Like you said, they had two directors. And you start watching that whole cantina thing.

Mm-hmm. Well, that's obviously a different director. Yeah. The way the camera's moving, the way the interaction is a lot smoother. Yeah, I mean, that scene actually is like one of the better scenes of.

The special, too. I just spent some money and had all the real canteen days. Yeah, what did everyone think of the Jewish wedding song played in the canteen with Bea Arthur? I said there's a lot of other Christmas tie-ins. This is the Hanukkah scene.

Right. I mean, we have a very different thing going on here. For those who don't know what we're talking about, they basically take. The much-loved... cantina song and. They slow it down put it in a minor key.

It's like and then they're singing about stay with me my friend. It's like a final drink for the road song sort of thing. Yeah again i'm I was watching. I was like, if I ever owned a bar, I would play that every single night at closing time. Exactly.

It would be funny to me. Yeah, because, you know, they firmly established in the scene in Art Carney's shop that the Imperials are like space Nazis. And so these are the space Jews. These are the space Jews who are. being thrown out of their village, you know, by the... That totally went over my head when I was a seven-year-old.

Let me tell you that. If we've learned anything from Mel Brooks is there will be Jews in Spain. And I put all my faith in Mel Brooks. That man's a genius. The only thing that.

Doesn't make sense about that whole sequence, it's like, You know, the Mos Eisley Cantina. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. But they still mind curfew. Yeah. Right?

And they're all real lovey and they cry when they have to go home. Well, they're all drunk and falling all over each other. Oh, and we learned that there are no open container laws on Tantanina. They walk out in the street. They let banters roam the streets there.

They don't have any rules. Again, this is going to be overthinking it, but do you think that all species in the Mos Eisley Cantina get drunk on the same thing? Is there a universal beverage that's getting them drunk? I actually thought that during the. We stopped bar.

A bartender there would have to know, okay, you can have this and you cannot, because this is poison to you. It had to have been one drink, because, I mean, there weren't bottles behind her, it was just a bunch of lamps. And one pitcher of coffee. They get drunk. Yeah.

Oh, I was also... This is the pedantic nerd in me. I was bothered that Walrus Man had two arms. Right. That was his brother.

But I don't want to stoop to the level of saying that all aliens look alike. So this wasn't the same character. So this either happened before. Well, if you were really nerdy, you. Would call him Pondo Baba instead of just Walrus Man.

Which a lot of traditionalists do. Yeah, I'm old school because I still call him Hammerhead. Hammerhead. Snaggle. I did.

I was keeping an eye out for the extra tall blue snaggle tooth. What if he was. Sitting at a table with the short red snaggle tooth having a drink together? That would have messed up your world. That was the Sears exclusive snaggle tooth.

How bored does Lucy look? She's like, that trip home is getting longer. She's doing enough before she even walks out of the building so once she hits the road it is going to be she's like. Oh look it stopped right there's a little I hate you guys in there too. Her mouth is moving I don't.

Even know what to say first of all I'm out of my league because anything I could possibly ask I'm just going to sound ignorant no. No no do it please I don't know if ignorance is the word normal yeah yeah a real person that we think way too much about this i you were essentially you had never seen this i'd love to know your thoughts. Why did you're trying to say that in a serious voice you're a little bit. Of a nerd because you said you had seen well i i as a kid i loved star wars i like loved it as all kids do i. Was a Can I ask what killed it for you?

Was it growing up? I think it was growing up, yeah. I think it was reaching the age of nine or whatever. What the hell were you thinking doing that? I've already gotten kicked down enough.

Anyway, go ahead. And my first date was actually Empire Strikes Back. I don't know if I've ever told that story. I don't think so. Yeah.

It was the greatest first date ever. Well, it was. So, question. Were you making out during the part where Darth reveals that he's Luke's father and you missed it completely? It's actually a lot better than that.

I went with Bill Santon, who was adorable, who continues to be adorable, frankly. We went on a date. We got in the back of his parents. His parents came out to pick me up. And we got in the back of their station wagon.

It was the wood-paneled kind that you look out the back. Family truckster. And we started driving. It was like a 20-minute drive into town because I lived out in the country. It was a big deal.

And so we start laughing in the back seat of the car because Bill's hilarious. And I wet my pants. So we get to the mall. Yeah, I'm four years old. I do want to mention that.

So we get to the mall where the movie's playing. We get to Turfland Mall. And for whatever reason, I'm not embarrassed. I don't know, because I'm four, I guess, and I haven't achieved that level of self-awareness yet. You're on a date at four?

Yeah. That's impressive. So I tell Bill's mom, I'm like, I'm super stoked about the movie, but I want my pants. And she says, honey, it's okay. Let's go to McGalpin's and we'll buy you some new Lee jeans.

And so we did. Lee jeans, wow. And I remember vividly being in the dressing room and talking about how cute Luke Skywalker was. And she agreed that he was cute. And I guess I was comfortable sharing that with her despite the fact that I was on a date with her son, which is maybe tacky.

Anybody that knows you've peed your pants. Right, there's no secret. There's no secret. That's true. So then we get into the theater, and at this point, though, we know that we shouldn't be sitting with them.

It's okay to wet your pants on your first date, but it's not okay to sit with the parents, because that. Is a big deal. She is advanced. So we sit up toward the front, and they sit in the back, and I just remember watching the movie and being in awe and just being so very much in love with Bill Sandman and his whole family. So did you and Bill over there.

You know, in that story, I hope the thing that is dead accurate is you said the exact phrase. Super stoked to see the movie, but I got my pants. As soon as you. Got my pants. Actually, can you put that in the movie sometime?

I'm super stoked about seeing the movie, but I'll wear my pants. And they were amazed, like, oh my God, you're four years old and you just said that sentence. I do have a history with the franchise, and I do have tenderness toward it, but not to the level of anyone else in this room. Can we? Get Bill into the podcast my question for follow up is how many times have you said that sentence since then look I'm super stoked to see.

The movie but. Dot dot dot So when you two got married, did you have a little Luke and Han on your wedding cake? I was going to do that. Luke and Han. Luke and Han.

Luke and Han. Luke and Han. Luke and Han. Luke and Han. Luke and Han.

Luke and Han. Luke and Han. Luke and Han. Luke and Han. Luke and Han.

Luke and Han. Luke and Han. Luke and Han. Luke and Han. Luke and Han.

Luke and Han. Luke and Han. You know, really cute. Was seeing drag queen Luke, was that kind of a shock? I do remember being really confounded as to why he was no longer as attractive as I'd remembered him.

And I thought maybe I was just too young and I'd grown up from the time I was. One to the time I was four. When you were little. Right. When I was little, I thought he was cute, but not.

Or maybe I thought that because I was so in love with Bill that he'd Luke Skywalker was dull. He eclipsed Luke Skywalker. Right. I know. She was normal.

What happened with you and Bill? What happened? What's the end of the story? Did you two break up? Cindy Cantrell.

Don't even give. Me Star Wars. Cindy Cantrell. I hate her. Well, anyway.

God. Another story for another podcast. That's sad. I'm more interested in this plot than the life of it. Definitely.

That was the best story of the night. Way more entertaining than the movie. Yeah, that's, you know, the. There wasn't enough sex stuff happening in this movie. You know, the kids love the sex stuff.

Where was all that? I don't know. The masturbation scene was... Yeah. The Arthur pouring the drink into his drinking hole.

That shot went on for a little too long. Like, she poured some drink... stopped I was like okay we see the. Action no I think that's what dolphins will evolve into that was this blowhole well. See that's what I was thinking I was like that's very convenient to have both a separate drinking hole and speaking hole can you. Imagine if that guy gets caught in the rain and he doesn't have a He would drown.

He doesn't have to drink. I mean, he can just. I don't understand, like, why he's got hair lining it. See, that would be a pain in the ass. Yeah, that's gonna get mad at you.

It's a filter. It's like, uh, baleen. But see, if you shower, yeah, I don't know. You can't shower. You can't shampoo.

Maybe I'm just so buried in the sand, he is the Starlock. Kid. Maybe. So. Again, ahead of the curve here, is George Lucas responsible for reality television?

Because I was giving credit to MTV for. Years, but I mean, in this scenario, we're watching the reality going on in the cantina. And it's, I, because you asked me if this was like a bad soap opera, but then later, it's all in the same universe because that message comes on in the canteen and in the Wookiee household. Yeah, see, and that's what's so weird. It's that whole weird stoner thing about the show.

It's like, the kid, Lumpy, turns on his receiver and is watching the stormtroopers watching the soap opera. Yeah. Right. But like, how many levels are we into this? And all of a sudden, bad TV, bad TV, bad TV.

He's secretly, without the Stormtroopers knowing, he's watching the animated version of what's happening between the films. Starring his dad. Exactly. I was watching it and I thought, he's watching an animated version of his dad? Is his dad now like a war hero and he's watching a propaganda film?

But if it's a propaganda film, then why are they putting Boba. Fett in it? It just. I like the cartoon. The cartoon is awesome, but you try to figure out how does the cartoon work within the context.

Of the Wookiee household and that reality. It's a radical propaganda film. It's showing the evil of the empire and not trying to recruit the young kids. But I was confounded as to why he would choose to watch that while the stormtroopers were there. I mentioned Wookiee's a special boy.

He wasn't worried about his parents. No, but he was smart enough to hit the boss button and turn it back to whatever that Wookiee was. Actually, I would say Wookiee's not bad. Stupid at all. I mean, he was just like us.

He was getting bored with what the hell was going on in the house. He's like, fuck it, I'm going to watch something more interesting. He's like, yeah, these guys are dicks. They're tearing up my place. I'm bored.

I'm going to watch this until they leave. I don't know why he was so upset that his bantha got his head cut off. I mean... weren't they going to eat Bantha's surprise for dinner? I bet traumatized you. And then as you told that story, I was like, I think I kind of remember really having a problem with that part.

I was like, don't tear up his toys. As a kid, that's really all you had. And then he puts the poor decapitated Bantha on his bed and he puts the cover over him as if to say, it's okay. He's only sleeping. It's okay.

It's okay. It's okay. Very materialistic Wookiee. Yes. Except for pants.

Everything else. I still am. I haven't progressed since then. I was pretty grim that whole sequence. I was just not smiling or laughing.

But they didn't find the jerk. They didn't find the carved wooden X-Wing fighters that would have given them away. Yeah, where was that? You know, Itchy should have made some carved TIE fighters just to sort of, whenever they see the. Troops coming, put them out and hide the X-Wing in.

I'm a loyal citizen of the Empire. Of course, smashing his toys, I don't think any of us felt bad when he smashed the Harvey Korman whatever it was thing. The erector set thing that he was working on. I don't know what. It was like one of those little Radio Shack build your own radio kits.

It was a transmitter. Again, was I just making this up? Was he responsible for sending out that message that sent them back to the base? That's what it was. That's...

You only have to pick up on that. It's not there for. You to see. It's certainly not spelled out. Well, this movie is subtle.

I mean, it's got layers. And, you know, we have to face the reality of we never see these three characters again. So I'm assuming that the stormtrooper that got pushed over the edge, he crawled back up that tree and. Shot them all in their face. That's why little Lumpy never shows up in Return of the Jedi.

Maybe they'll show up in Episode 7. That is actually a pleasant thought. I like that they were shot in the face. I know that sounds horrible. Every time the Stormtrooper puts his.

Gun anywhere, it's always two inches away from someone's nose. That Grandpa Wookiee looked like he'd already been shot in the face like six times. Yeah, he kind of has. You know what he. Reminded me of?

Those alien Muppets on Sesame Street. He had the yip-yip-yip. That's exactly what I thought. The way that his bottom mouth looked like Beaker. One of the two.

He's creepy. So to follow up, in the cantina, you were talking about the giant rat. Oh, talk about that. According to the IMDb trivia page, they said that was actually made for Fruit of the Gods. Yeah, you know, because I noticed Tom Berman's name was in the credits as well as Stan Winston, mostly for the Wookiee family.

But it's possible it could have been one of those guys. I mentioned Rob Bottin at the time was working for Rick Baker, and he had built some giant rats and some actually cool giant rat suits that ended up getting used in Rock and Roll High School. Which, I mean, all that stuff sort of went around in the same circles anyways. Oh, yeah. They were like five guys in the business back then, and they all knew each other.

Yeah, they probably just, when they went to go shoot that scene, just opened up the warehouse, and they got the original Rick Baker stuff for the film. All that Rick Baker stuff, those were all just masks that he had made, and they needed some extras, and they shot all that pickup stuff in L.A. For Star Wars. If anything, that scene would have been more awesome if they'd actually lit it. The cantina the way it's lit in Star Wars.

I mean, if you bring, if they brought the lighting down just a little bit, it would have had more sense. But you notice that a lot of the actors were acting the same. I mean, the characters were kind of doing the same stuff that they do in the bar. Those two guys were arguing. Yeah.

I mean, somebody knew what they were doing in that sequence. It's pretty weird. Even the Falcon cockpit was over lit. Even that wasn't lit right. Something else I noticed, I didn't, Again, the Star Wars Blu-rays came out, and they had all these deleted scenes that we had never seen.

And before they show the Bea Arthur cantina musical sing-along thing, they were showing scenes from Star Wars outside of the cantina. And there's that one scene where this alien on stilts walks over a little small guy. And that was actually a... a deleted scene on. The Blu-ray, and I completely forgot that it was in this. And so I'm thinking they were therefore using deleted scenes from the movie.

Why didn't they put in the big scene? I was just thinking. Well, I mean, I was surprised, yeah, they didn't cut in a shot of the Jabba guy or something. Because then you could just use him as a guy. But isn't the big.

Guy in the bar kind of dressed like him? Yeah. The hat and everything? It kind of looks like Jabba's outfit. Yeah.

He was just laying around in there, too, next to a rat. He looks like a mix between both Jabba and the attache or vizier or whatever to the emperor. And now, actually, I'm losing nerd points because I don't know what the name of the dude is underneath the emperor who wears the purple outfit. You all know what I'm talking about. His toady.

It was Purple Man, I believe. Oh, okay. You actually have trivia from this? That was about the only interesting thing. I like when they tell you the dumbest things in the world.

Did you know? No effort. Did you know that? The first one says, the song Carrie Fisher sings is based on the theme from Star Wars. That's something, yes.

We learned the actual lyrics to the. Star Wars theme in the Cantina song, the bummer version of the Cantina song. Did you know the director never saw Star Wars? Did you know the director shot himself after this premiere? I'm making that part up.

But. Yeah, that's about the only useful thing. If you'd actually said the director shot up before filming any scene, that would make sense. That's the only trivia that's of note, though. I mean, it's all stuff.

Mark Campbell was in a car accident. Yeah, we already know that. So this is an untapped mind. No, this is the only other one that's interesting. It says the holiday special is the first time that James Earl Jones was credited for performing the voice of Darth Vader.

The next time would be five years. Later in 83 during the end credits of Return of the Jedi. So they don't credit him all through Star Wars or Empire according to this. So they didn't have any other stars, obviously. They were like, and James Earl Jones.

Yeah, we got him. So, you know, we got that going for us. We didn't get any shots of Darth Vader that are new, but we got him to do a voiceover. Yeah, we're not paying David Prowse. We're not paying that guy to put a suit on.

We got shots of him. You can't read his lips. What did everyone think of Carrie Fisher singing? She rocks. It was tolerable.

We celebrate a day of peace. A day of harmony. A day of joy we all can share. Together joyously. A day that takes.

Us Even she knew it was bad. Yeah. Because it wasn't really going along with the melody. Yeah, well, it's heartbreaking because, like, Eddie Fisher's kid and Debbie Reynolds' kid, you want something to happen. She is a superpower.

But, you know, I've heard worse. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. Yeah. It fits this. Well, that was the best thing.

When we were near the end and I made the comment to Lucy, I was like, all right, so, you ready for this to be over? Because Carrie Fisher starts to sing and she just laughed. And then as soon as it came on, she got this appalled look and I was like, you thought I was joking, didn't you? I thought you were being mean to me. No then it's not me yeah exactly i gotta say though in the big.

Climatic battle where han solo comes and doesn't really do anything the stormtrooper just conveniently. He was acting his heart out i mean oh yeah he gave it his all man he put the most effort in this he actually had a look of terror on his face and concern oh no a stormtrooper and he's Well, that's what, yeah, you were saying we were watching it. Like, the acting just shot up like 3,000 points when he comes on. And then, as soon as that happens, he could not get out of that house fast enough. Like, oh, gee, Maul, it's great to see you.

I've got to get back to the Falcon. I can't be in the sink any longer. I left my lights on. On the Falcon. I better get out before the battery runs down.

You've got to remember, I parked on the other side of the planet, so it's going to take me. A while to get out. Don't forget, you're my favorite family. Your family love you. Have a good life day.

I got to go. I was contracted for a minute and a half. See you later. Yeah, I mean, you all have fun going into, like, you know, the weird portal thing. I really don't know what's going on there, but, you know.

You're crazy Wookiees. Yeah, you all have been watching 2001 too much. You got to go to the weird space portal. Do you think the other Wookiees at the Tree of Life ceremony, all these... humans came in, broke in on their sacred ceremony. Do you think they're like, who the hell are these guys?

That's what I say. Watch it. I'm like, who invited the droids? Yeah. We don't like their kind.

Nah. What the hell? We already had to hear that one with Chewbacca telling us all this shit. Now we've got to invite the humans? No, no, no.

Flip-flop it. Flip-flop it. You're telling me as a kid. When you went to Christmas Mass, if Chewbacca just got up and he, like, yelled for half an hour, you wouldn't find that awesome? I'd go to church all the time.

Well, you know, when the priest kind of gets going for a while, it starts to sound like Charlie Brown's teacher, so it's kind of like that. Yeah. But, uh. Well, it is funny, though, that you were saying Han Solo was contracted for a minute and a half, but really, I mean, obviously the biggest star in this, but he's got the most screen time. He's on there a hell of a lot more than Mark and Carrie, so it's funny that.

He bothered to put in that much... An hour and a half of sitting in the set looking back and forth. I wonder if, was this before Indiana Jones? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Okay, maybe he was like, if you just do this, I'll let you be in this movie. And it's kind of awesome. Probably so. They were just cranking up probably on pre-production on that. Probably.

I remember seeing him in like one made-for-TV movie right around that time. It was that. Really? It was like an Exorcist kind of ripoff called The Possessed. Yeah, I remember.

They just put it out in that series. And Harrison Ford would be the good guy in that. And that was around 78. He did one TV movie, and then. From there on...

That could be the opposite. It might have been that with Fisher and Hamill and all of them, even though the performances they gave were just horrible, maybe they were even more lackluster than that. They'd just come on and be like, Give them their lens like, no, no, come on. You got to at least make it somewhat believable. At least maybe Harrison Ford went in knowing it was going to be bad and thought, if I give it all my all.

Then they just have to do one take, and I'm gone. Luke and Carrie, yeah, you all can show up, and you all can get drunk in the morning, but come take 32, you're going to be sobering up and hating life, and I'm going to be long gone. I'm going to be at the bar. Maybe he was just in the bar. Yeah, Luke was good on The Muppet Show.

I don't know what happened here. Did Luke do The Muppet Show? Did Carrie do The Muppet Show? I think they all kind of. Showed up, yeah.

No, as I remember, it was Mark Hamill, Chewbacca... And the droids. Okay. I don't know if she ever did it. I don't know if she did Saturday Night Live.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe Lucas watched this and he was just like, this guy's putting in effort. All right, you know what? I'm putting you in my next movie.

You two. Sequels. Your clues are over. Go back to doing cartoon voices. You know, getting back to what you were saying about you thought that Mark Hamill was a dreamboat and all that.

I know another friend of mine. She. She cites Harrison Ford, Han Solo, as being the moment when she realized, ooh, boy, I like him. I want him. You know, so...

Were you at all attracted by Han Solo, or was it just Luke? It was just Luke. I didn't understand the Han thing at all. Really? But as a child...

You don't like scoundrels? It's the bad boy thing. Yeah. Also, as a child, I had a weird hang-up where I thought people needed to be blonde. It was this weird thing.

It really was a strange thing. No, it really was a strange thing. I remember watching Dukes of Hazzard, too, and thinking that. And this was when you were three and you were starting to pick this stuff apart before you started dating. Well, again, Bo's a little, you know, you've got to give him credit.

But then, like, as I got older, I realized that the darker scoundrels are the more interesting people. But as a young child, I thought, like, I remember watching, I thought that Chrissy could only be pretty, that Janet couldn't be pretty. That's not possible. I remember thinking, what was that show called? With Jim J.

Bullock and the two sisters. Too close for comfort. Yeah, I remember thinking the blonde sister could only be pretty. It was just this weird cultural thing where blondes were really hot. That's weird.

And then as I grew up and I realized my own personal taste disassociated from the media, then I realized that... You can't get attracted to them. She probably had that Farrah Fawcett poster. That's the thing. Only Farrah could be the hot one.

Kate Jackson's never. Going to be the hot one. I'm like Sabrina. Jacqueline Smith. So, Ben, that friend you were talking about, was that also the friend who had the Boba Fett that shot the rocket?

It was a girl, I swear, man. Girls didn't even know. That was actually like back then. That would have been the Holy Grail. A girl... that likes Star Wars and has the Boba Fett that shoots them off.

It's like some mythical creature. And she has both snaggle teeth. That girl told me to take that Canada. I guess, yeah. That girl doesn't exist.

That's what I said. That's your girl? That's a space station. Both snaggle teeth? No way.

Yeah. Snaggle teeth. That's amazing. It is amazing. So I wonder what other science fiction franchises could have done holiday specials and saw this and.

Said, Star Trek. Ooh, what would the Star Trek Christmas special... Was there any form of Christmas in the Star Trek universe? Well, I mean... Kirk and Spock celebrate Hanukkah.

I hate to tell you. That would be their holiday special. They'd be spinning some dreidel tips. Well, Spock has the Pon Fars. I was going to say, yeah, that's what I was thinking.

That's the closest to any kind of ceremony you have. Wait, I have a dumb question that's going to make me sound dumb. What's Star Trek? You can listen to me for an hour. This was one of those things that I made the connection in my head, but I was like, no, if I were actually anybody else in this room, there wouldn't be that.

So the narration at the beginning, of the cartoon where they're like star log, didn't that seem like Captain's log? Didn't that seem like a Star Trek thing? Yeah, it was kind of off. It was like there was a narrator and you were supposed to know who he was. Yeah, they reference him as a captain or something and it's some other guy.

That's why I think this is a pilot for some other show. That's why I got the vibe that the captain was maybe the fellow who I don't know had the weird mustache he kind of looked like he kind of looked like the Billy Barty character from Masters of the Universe I didn't know his name I thought. He was from Wizard of Oz I assumed it was his. Name that was weird he didn't have an action figure either when I heard Starlog I thought of the magazine yeah actually there was a Star Trek cartoon in the 70's was that about this. Time It was previous to this.

It was around 75. It was actually a pretty good cartoon. Filmation did it. And they got a lot of original script writers to do it. So it was pretty smart.

Pretty minimal animation. That's what I wish they would have done with this. There would have been a lot more interesting story. It's kind of what I've said and kind of what I'm hoping for the future, basically. This is what I said when I was on that lousy Tower of Technobattle show.

Anyway, I went on this whole thing of, like, now that it's been bought out and we can open up this universe to whoever, I'm like, this is kind of. What I hope. Like, that clip from the cartoon is what I always wanted, and we didn't get anything like that after Jedi, including the prequels. So I'm just like, I would love to see them leave out, which they're not. They're going to work in old Han Solo.

But I wish they would leave out all of the preexisting characters, just give us a whole new bunch of people keep it in this universe and just tell more stories. It's like, I like that universe, I like the way that things operate and the crazy creatures, and it's like, just quit beating the dead horse of these same handful of characters. I don't think it hurts if you have a little cameo here and there, but I think the problem with the prequels is... suddenly this galaxy got a whole lot smaller because everybody knew everybody and Tatooine, which in Star Wars seemed like the ass crack of the universe, now. It's like the hub where everything is happening there. It's just a real paltry imagination.

That was what ticked me off so much about what they did with every single movie in the prequel series. It's like, oh, we're going to get back to this. Oh, and then, you know, Darth Vader built C-3PO. Yeah. Remember that guy that we killed off really crappily.

In all your movies? Oh, he made the entire clone creation. Well, I remember that was the thing that pissed me off. Django started everything. Yeah, I remember that.

Pissed me off. I think it was episode two when Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, they buy C-3PO and R2-D2. I'm like, how the hell does he buy... The same droids, 30. Years later, and nobody knows.

The droids don't know. They don't know. It's because they're racist. They think they all look alike. Another one of those R2.

Although, does he ever see R2? Because he walks away and Luke has to buy the other one. And then he's off and he has dinner. And R2' s getting cleaned and serviced, and he runs. Off that night.

Maybe he's just drunk. I may not ever see R2 and may not ever make the connection. But how about that 3PO that won't ever shut up? I think you'd remember that. Hey, that's that one that crappy kid built.

Oh, but that 3PO was silver-colored. But R2 is. The one that won't shut up in Star Wars, and he's going on about the princess. You'd think he would also go on about, hey, hey, we've been here before. We were here 30 years ago.

It's just, like I said, it's just lazy, lazy storytelling. Yeah, it is, really. So yes, maybe with the new movies. That's my hope. We've had that really cool expanded universe and books and comics and all this stuff for years.

Just let those people have a crack at it. Give it to other... Again, well, look at this. They gave this to God knows who. It's whoever was working at that animation studio.

It's like world's better than most of the stuff. Definitely better than most of the stuff going on in the prequels altogether. It's still more interesting than, I mean, hell, even by the third movie, he's stealing from himself. It all went. South as far back as 83.

Yeah, after Empire. Lucy, did you go on any dates to see the prequels? Did any magic happen during those things? I'll save those stories. I went to the drive-in and saw Phantom Menace, but...

God, at least you can sleep in your own car. Yeah. Really should have made use of the fact that it was a drive-in on that one. But, yeah, that's all I'm taking from this is you can see where Star Wars could have gone wrong and kind of didn't for those first three or two. Plus-ish on that last one.

Two and a half. I like the first half of the third one. But, yeah. Yeah, and hopefully, looking at the animated part, if you give it to somebody else, it can be. I mean, the universe is really rich and interesting, and maybe it'll be interesting again now that somebody else owns it.

Everybody pretends that the Empire was defeated and destroyed at the end of Jedi, and it's like, well, no, they just blew up a Death Star and killed an Emperor. It doesn't mean that the story's actually over. There's a lot of dancing and singing. At least with the extensions, I mean, I don't know what route they're going to take, but most of the. Branch off novelizations talk about basically it's trying to figure out who the emperor's son is.

It turns out the emperor has a son that's within the empire. It's just he's being hidden by the empire for when this eventually would occur so he can take over. Who was the baby mommy? Who's the lucky lady? Or was it just one of those the force made the baby's son?

Anakin's mom. She really wasn't. Me it's. Like here's your new baby what do you want to name her. I just remember the whole like twist of it was like the emperor's son was allegedly like he was reputed to have three eyes and so there's like a grand moth within the army that actually has like the third eye on the forehead and he's trying to take over the emperor's ship and it's turning out that the guy's actually hitting he has a third eye but it's on the back of his head and it's covered over by his hair.

And it can see into the future and all this stuff. Was there a drink hole. On the top? Yeah, I was going to say that. It could have been Harvey Korman.

I remember growing up and reading it and thinking it was really, really cool, because they had this whole prophets in the dark side thing. It turns out that they have almost like these, the emperor had this group of druids working for him. Oh, that would make sense. It's the whole Sith thing. That smacked of the supernatural, whereas the rest of Star Wars is pretty straightforward.

Yeah. This is getting really geeky. The holiday special had cults drinking, prohibition, violence to kids, domestic wife abuse. Don't forget those black eyes on Marla. Questionable.

We don't know. It was a snapshot of everyday life under the imperial forces if you happened to be covered in hair and lived in a tree house. And the princess gets to be an accountant. Yeah. She is working that adding machine.

It's like she's working in a hotel or something. Yeah. Like I said, she's sorting. Yeah, she's sorting out the paperwork for everybody who died in Alderaan. She's on the payroll for the wrong.

Somebody has to be the CPA. She's going over her parents' will. I get everything right because they're gone now. Only everything's blown up that I would have gotten. They had offshore accounts.

And by that, I mean other planets. Yeah. So, yeah, we should probably wrap this up. You know what's wonderful about this episode is nobody's really going to make it through. Real geeks are going to hate us for talking about it like this.

And the people that aren't Star Wars fans aren't going to give a shit. No, you know what? I think. No, actually, this. Star Wars fans love to rip it apart.

Go back and forth about anything, really. I was going to say, any Star Wars fan who sat through... The Christmas special will want to know, okay, how much did you all suffer? How bad did you think it was? It's sort of like as protective as they are of this whole Star Wars entirety.

This is the one thing that they let themselves get angry about and deride. I guess it makes them feel better that they know who. Snaggletooth's real name is, but at least I don't like that holiday special. I'm not that bad. So wait, you guys aren't the real Star Wars fans?

No. I know. Sadly, there's deeper basements. That's the thing. We're pretty big geeks, but there are hardcore people out there that put us to shame.

And I don't pretend that we're any. The minute I saw the Stormtroopers walk in and they didn't look the right height, I was thinking, well, they're obviously cosplayers from the convention. Okay. And, you know, they just come along to be part of the show. Yeah, Lucy, if you want to see the step below us, just go to YouTube and type in Triumph Star Wars line.

And then the people that he interviews. They're waiting to get in to see Star Wars and he's interviewing them. Bunny ears. What time is your mother picking you up? Yeah, I think the.

Best joke is, like, I've got some trivia for you. All right, what is the substance that Han Solo was frozen in? And the whole crowd shouts carbonite. It's like, no, I'm sorry. The correct answer was, who gives a fuck?

He speaks for the rest of the world. I love it when a guy cosplays as a Spock. and he's down there, and he's just walking by, and he's flipping them all. Oh, the geek tribes. Always at war. So, again, we will go back to our soundtrack for the evening.

The final one on this is the meaning of Christmas. I mean, do we need to? We've tapped into that here, right? I mean... Christmas or Life Day, yeah.

This is Christmas. We've already covered this. This is a Christmas album. It has nothing to do with the special, but it's a holiday-themed Star Wars album. It's serving as our soundtrack, so...

Hold on. I. The whole reason they said Holiday Special and Life Day was because they didn't want to peg it down to any particular holiday. But here they are. In 1980, they didn't give a rat's ass.

They put up the Christmas and the Stars album. Two years makes a difference. Yeah. Because if they said Holiday Album, you'd think it was from the special and you'd never buy it. Yeah.

That's probably what it is. But I need the Bea Arthur song to play in my bar to make people leave at the end of the night. You can go find that on your own. I want the Bea Arthur single. Again, you just show them the movie and they'll leave.

Yeah. But it's not available on TV. Why? I'll get that Starship single on iTunes later. Is Starship on that album?

No. It has nothing to do with the special. I guarantee you look around online and some geek has done it. It's Star Wars. It is there.

It is. They've cleaned it up and, you know, it's there. All right. Any last holiday wishes? Happy Life Day.

That's what I'm saying. Happy Life Day, everybody. I'm just going to call it Life Day from now on. That's what I'm saying. Yoda blesses everyone.

Instead of all this crazy season's greetings, we'll just roll it all into Life Day. So, Happy Life Day. I wonder how early Life Day sales happen in this universe. If they bring it out before Halloween, I'm going to kill someone. Before Space Halloween.

God. Space Halloween. So obnoxious. I think in Star Wars, people just dress up like humans for Space Halloween. You know, all the aliens, they.

And, of course, it's like a human mask and then a plastic suit that says human on it. It says there's a Skywalker on it. They're like, look how pretty I am. They might have a really fun Halloween party on a Death Star. Think about that.

That would be fun. Yeah. We had, this Halloween, we had.... Two Jawa costumes ready to go for my kids. They'd be perfect height.

I was like, you get to have guns. And my daughter was all for it. She was going to be the tall one, not the short one. And my son wouldn't do it. He didn't like that the mask lit up.

And I was like, that's the whole reason to buy the mask. It lights up. Are you sure he's your son? Right. Right.

He might be the emperor's son. Check for that eye. Well, he did. And then. Shave his head.

Go home and shave your son's head. That's part of the cult ritual. And he's like, dad, why? Because it's Christmas. That's right.

Put on this red robe. Well, I wanted to get him. I said, well, we've got the Boba Fett costume over here. Would you like to get that? And he picked the Jango Fett costume instead.

And so I might have to take him in for evaluation. Yeah. Yeah. He likes him better because he has two guns. That's a good reason.

And he said that he essentially defeats Obi-Wan Kenobi, whereas Boba Fett just died. Boba died with pretty ignominious death. You know, in that cartoon when Boba Fett's coming aboard the Falcon and he meets. Chewbacca, he's like, I am a Fred. You'd think Chewbacca would have gotten a clue from the Wookiee pelts that.

Were hanging on. And why isn't the guy that's training to be a Jedi have some clue that this guy's a bad guy? You're a trusted and faithful friend. Don't put Luke in charge. He's not ready yet.

He needs more training. Greg's going to go home and he's going to be asking his son, do you want to watch a movie? Sure, let's watch a Star Wars movie. And you'll sit out Empire Strikes Back. and you're going to sit out Revenge of the Sith. You're just going to sit there and just bullets of sweat are just going to be running down your face.

No, actually, I like Revenge of the Sith. If it's not that mess, that'd be different. Yeah, it's not that type of film. There's a lot more going on. I mean, the first 40 minutes of Revenge of the Sith is just adventure, nonstop.

Then you get to the love story shit. I hate the law of the craft. But that's at the end. Like I said, the first 40 minutes when they're on the ship that's going down. It's a pretty interesting stuff.

I like when Anakin turns. He's kind of dark. I like when it gets that grim. I still don't know why. I don't know why he turns.

Well, see, and the only problem with that movie is there's too much going on. It's like, we've got to wrap up all these movies. It's like, yeah. I mean, I know why. It's just, it's bad.

I feel more like Revenge of the Sith is where. The prequel should have started. Speaking of wrapping up. Speaking of wrapping up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lucy's already getting up and walking away. She's like, I've had enough of this. I disqualify myself because I never even saw that film. Oh? I saw like five minutes of it.

It's the better of the three. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, basically it is. It's the best thing at the Golden Corral.

I walked into the theater and I saw Obi-Wan riding a big lizard and I turned around. And I walked back in and I saw the. Whole Darth Vader, no business. And I turned back around. Well, you were done at that point.

So you're going to wrap up the Captain's Log here? Oh, yeah. Captain's Log. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next week.

Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Happy Holidays. Happy Life Day. I think he means Christmas.

But, Mr. Claus, pardon me for asking, but what does Christmas really mean? Could you explain it to me? Of course, I would be happy to. The meaning of Christmas.

Christmas is a. Time for joy. Christmas is a world of snow. Christmas is your own fate. And as any child.

Can see, Christmas. Needs a Christmas tree. Thinking tiny nights with family. Close at hand. Christmas rings on every door.

Christmas carols by the store. Christmas is a. Time for peace and love. When we say. I can love you.

My gift to you is that I do. Will you all say with me to each other? I can love you. My gift to you is that I do, I do. So that's it.

Christmas is the feeling we get this year when we care for each other. Not only this year, but every year. As far back as anyone can remember. And way into the future. For different peoples, on different planets...

But. The best Christmas gift is always the same. I can love you. My gift to you is that I do. Will you all send.

With me to each other? I can't love you. My gift to you is that I do. I do. So you see, the happiness your toys bring to children all over.

The galaxy is your gift. Not a feeling. Can compare to a moment filled with care. For a gift of love will live and never last. That is the meaning of Christmas music.

And Christmas and Christmas. I suppose we will have to wait a whole year before it comes round again. That's true. But maybe someday, every day will be like Christmas. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Every day a day of joy Every day. A time for cheer Every day a special feeling Lasting all the year Special kind of Christmas pride Special feeling deep inside. Writing every line and every part of life. Christmas music everywhere. Singing in the clear night air.

Christmas gives a time for peace and love. Every day a day of joy, every day a time for cheer. Every day a. Special feeling lasting all my years. Special kind of Christmas pride.

Special feeling deep inside. Breaking every heart and every heart. Every bar of love. Christmas music everywhere. Singing in the clean air.

Christmas is the time for Easter fun. Merry Christmas, everyone. And may the force be with you always. We can move that table out of the way so we can actually hear your thoughts. Sound whoopees.

This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by the Auditude Studios, with opening music performed by the Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard!