98 - The Empire Strikes Back Commentary - With Giles Terera

Weirding Way Media. Welcome to episode ninety eight of the Film we Mentor's podcast. This is Jamie Benning talking to you hear from my house in London. Welcome back or maybe this is your first time. If it is your first time, this isn't a typical fair Usually it's a conversation between me and a behind the scenes artist.

This time it's a special episode. It's a commentary episode for the Empire Strikes Back, recorded with me and my friend Charles Terrera, actor, writer, singer, musician, award winning Hamilton's Starring Superstar. Charles was actually the second guest on this podcast when I was starting out, and he's been a friend of mine for well over fifteen years now. We're actually brought together by our love of Star Wars. He saw Starles Begins my project, which is still available on Vimeo, by the way, and he loved it and wanted to know if I could be involved in a project that he and his work partner Dan Paul were working on at the time, which was a film called Muse of Fire, which we mentioned during this commentary.

Do check that out if you can. It is available on streaming platforms. So Charles suggested that as we were closing in on one hundredth episode, that he come back on the podcast and we record a commentary on one of our favorite movies, probably our favorite movie, The Empire Strikes Back, the second in the Original Styles trilogy, directed by Irvin Kershner, written by Lawrence Kasden and Lee Brackett. So I headed up to London to Charles's flat with a couple of microphones in hand, and we sat and we watched the special edition of the film. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to watching The Empire Strikes Back, but I figured that if you're going to watch the film and listen along with this commentary, the most available version these days is the special edition on Disney Plus, so you'll be able to sink it, hopefully with the twentieth century Fox fanfare, and listen to us for a couple of hours waffling about this movie that we laughed so much.

So here's my special commentary episode on The Empire Strikes Back with Jarles Terrera, and I'll be back at the end for a bit more jabbering on. All right, I'm basically just going to ask you, yeah, let's do it, because that's what I'm going to start with asking you a question, right, so this is the very top, so right here we go. Okay, so probably need to turn this down a bit. They're a bit more I would say more. All right, okay, all right, so you should be able to sync up with the twentieth century Fox fan fare, which, by the way, I thought was part of John William's score until I think I was in my teens.

Yeah, but didn't he redo the whole thing they used? They put it down? Yeah, yeah, would be introduced. I think it's like, isn't it something with the Alfred Newman extension or something? Yeah?

So when was the first time you saw this film? This film? Okay, I never grew up watching this film. My memories of this film, I'm not. My memories just as a kid are because I'm born in Tempty six Yeah, same, so I never I never remember.

My memories are like the traffic Impactor and yeah Jabba and they eat what the speed of bike? They're not Cloud City or the space like. Yeah. I think though this is the most grown up of the films, isn't it. And I think this is the one I'd seen the least until I reached my teens, and I rediscovered it on video.

One birthday. I was in the video shop, you know those things that used to exist, and my mom and I said, what do you want for your birthday? And I was like, oh, I want the trilogy and all the making of videos. I think I was like, fourteen, really haven't you grown up? And I was really surprised because I hadn't seen Empire in a number of years.

I was really surprised how different it was to the other two in terms of the amount of dialogue, how dark it is, how kind of creepy it is in a way. Yeah, but I definitely saw this when I was about five. Okay, I remember seeing Superman two, which is what eighty or eighty one, and I saw this, I think as a double bill with Star Wars. I think my parents are terrible at like remembering what we did go and see and what we didn't go and see. I never saw.

I tell people that this is the first movie I saw in the cinema, but actually it was The Rescuers, which I watched actually this summer. This is that's kind of almost in this kind of lost Disney period with your niece and nephew, as though because some much need to watch that group, so I never really watched. By the way, this bit here I saw this on the big screen recently is reissued over here. This bit here where you see the probe coming out of the Star Destraw and then straight into Hoff, it just makes me think they're just above Hoff because you don't see it go into hyperspace or anything that the probe, so it feels like they're already there. I noticed the other day.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, just imagine, like when this film first came out, everyone had just seen Star Wars like three years before and had all these expectations. This opening is just so out of nowhere. It has no there's no relation to film from where we left. By the way, I love this shot. I've talked to Dennis Muuren about how they did that helicopter shot, and it still makes no sense to me how they managed to pull it off.

They like rethrow to photograph the ton tom, having animated it and superimposed it onto the helicopter foods the real helicopter footage that they'd shot and frame by frame changed the aspect of it and the sort of alignment. It shouldn't have been possible back then. But the thing about these films is, like you, especially this one on half, is the amount of like a combination of effect that they've got. Yeah, they've got paintings and then they've got live stuff. They've got models, they've puppets, tom toms, and the fact that they put it all together so seamlessly.

I mean you could. Yeah, as an adult you can see what's you can see what's what. But as a kid, oh yeah, there's a there's a sort of magic. Like even just with the tonton, they're like blinking and looking around. You know, if they'd have focused on it too much, it would have looked nath but Kershn is really good at just keeping its face just out of frame, yeah, and just getting these little moments of it.

Yeah. But some of that was shot in at the back of Ilm in California, and some of it was shot in Fincer in Norway. And that's the thing that always strikes me about these films is how well it all sort of gels despite all the different, like you said, all the different aspects of it, Like all this stuff presumably is in London. Yeah, that was Elstree. Yeah, they built that's a huge set in Elstree.

Did we only ever see these two outside? Did did Karen Fish go to Norway? There are actually pictures of her in Norway with Harrison and Mark and having a bit of fun. She just wanted to. She was never meant to go, she wasn't needed, but she went because she wanted to go and just kind of soak up the atbsphere.

And Harrison wasn't due to go because when I interviewed Robert Watts, the blizzard scene where he goes to rescue Luke, which will see in a minute, was supposed to be shot on a sound stage because you can't rely on a blizzard. But when they got to Fincer, they woke up and there was this unbelievable blizzard. So Robert said, get Harrison on the next flight to Oslo and then get him on the train, and the snowplow had to go and pick him up with the production manager or a location manager with a bottle of whiskey, and Harrison apparently arrived at one o'clock in the morning and said, oh, my agent, and Robert said, Harrison, Harson, he was joking with him, and he against union rules. He went out the next morning and did the scene where he puts Luke in the tontine and all that, and those scenes are so convincing, aren't they.

Because it's a real blizzard, like Robert said it was. He said it was effing freezing. I remember because I was there, and there is something to be said about having these real locations. But yeah, look, how well all this marriages though, you know, all the steam in the background. Yeah, it's probably boiling hot in there, but it looks cold.

Yeah, these days they'd had cgi sort of steam coming out of the mountain, right, because I guess where we left the film the first film, they've just got all their medals and yeah, part of the rebellion, and and now we get the sense that they've just had been having this kind of feuding relationship where they don't know where each other stands. And I remember, do you remember thinking, I remember not knowing when I was a kid, like who Princess Leo was going to go with? Yeah? Oh absolutely, And well George didn't even know. There's there's that book between Star Wars and Empire which they've sort of rushed out, written by Alan Dene Foster called Splinter of the Mind's Eye, where I think Luke and Layer do actually get it on a bit, right, I think.

But yeah, that the first film, it is a proper love triangle, isn't it. Is it going to be the sort of cynical grown up one that she's going to go for? Is it going to be this sort of callow youth and im of wanting her to go with? Look? Yeah, me too, me too obviously.

Yeah. I didn't really get into Harrison Ford as hands Silo until I was in my teens, where I just thought he's really cool this guy. Actually, yeah, he just seems like a bit of a pain in the ask to me. And he's always shouting with people, like part of his whole characterizationally just shouting at his subordinates. Yeah, those that little bit where he comes out and says, you know how we're going to dry out her clothes?

I really don't know. It's sort of those sort of little Laurel and Hardy kind of moments almost, isn't it where they've become this comedy duo. Yeah. What struck me about seeing this on the big screen again recently was how little time our three protagonists spend together. It's minute, It's like single digit minutes that you get all of them together.

I thought that I watched it recently as well. Luke spends a lot of the movie on his own, Yeah, and there's only a couple of moments with it all together. So this bit here, yeah, is a bit weird because this is Taunton line down, there's the medical Joy tending to it, and this is the whole unused Wamper sunplot where the Wompers were attacking the base. I've seen some of the shots, I think at some of them in Building Empire, and I think some came out in the Blue ray and they look so terrible, so thankfully they But again, as a kid, you I would have never sort of played attention to that at all. No.

I think it was only when I got the widescreen VHS's as a teenager started seeing these details. You know. It's like some of the things in the first film where some of the like in moss Isley where some of the sink they've redubbed it. Yeah, but some of them was a way out. But I've never paid attention at all.

But what you're used to, you just take you do this bit here, do you know? For years I thought when he reaches out for the lightsaber that he had like his index finger and his pinky finger out, And that's how we used to in the playground, used to pretend we were using the Spider Man, but what it actually likes Spider Man, but sort of the other way up. But what it actually is is it's a bit of his scarf. But on the crappy vhs of it I had, you couldn't tell whether it was a finger or not. By the way, that's producer Jim Bloom's feet.

Yeah, so he was in the floor and they just shot right down and reversed it. This, of course is the special edition Wampa, which totally unnecessarily my view, because it should be this sort of unseen beast. But we get like these full frame views of it, and you know, and the original you just get the sound of him munching away and the sound of him getting closer. They go, there's the pinky finger. It's not a finger.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, And I love this, you know, it's just such a basic bit of filmmaking to some stage hand underneath the fake snow just flickering. Probably very dangerous now and that's known. I've probably breathed a lot of Yeah, arms, more arms being chopped off. Actually, I lent them DVDs of this years ago to one of my daughter's friends. He's called Jamie as well.

It was about eight and his mum asked if she could borrow them, and she came back kind of horrified about this film in particular, really just the amount of like limbs being chopped off and stop motion and look at that cut there from the stop motion straight to the live action in Norway, it really works. I love that. You know, they had a version of the Tonton on location where you'd have a guy in the tonton coothing the legs around and like a puppet of Harrison on the top. Okay, I've seen like there's a half a second clip of it in one of the documentaries that came out in more recent years. It looks terrible, but in Harrison there anyway in the end, but you see how much the editing they rely on the editing because you're doing all those kind of wild puppetry kind of things, if you cut it together smartly enough, yeah, and kind of get away with it.

Yeah, great editing in this film anyway. Like Paul Hirsh who I interviewed as well. He wrote that really good book A long time ago and Editing Room Far Far Away did some great work on this. He was actually visiting the set because he needed more footage, Like he was just going up there and just going like, what's happening? Because I'm done.

You know. He was ahead of the game, so he got to see some of the stuff going on as well. Have a listened to that episode and also read his books. It's not like a how to of editing. It's just his sort of story of the films he worked on.

I like the journey of using the fourth In this movie, we've just seen him try and get the lights around yeah. Yeah. And then in the previous film, What's He Done, he's had that stuff with Ben where he's trying to yeah the blast shield down and also the don't use your computer, yeah, trust your feelings. Yeah, and you see he's developed. Yeah, it's the dude from Cheers on the right there.

There's a part of me that can't see this film now without thinking of the bad lip reading songs. You have seen those, Yeah, the Bushes of Love and Seagulls, and there's one called Hostiles, and it's got a bit of this clip here with the Tewbacca singing. There's a lot of shots in this movie that have been flopped. Yeah, that was one of my things because carry looks different there. But that's Luke's influence.

He's very good at sort of creating the geography of a scene in editing mm hmm, because he was quite heavily involved in the editing on So I believe poor old Chewy. It's it's great is that you just see the closeness of the relationship through a sort of physical manifestation. They're just him sort of crying, and you know, we've sort of led to believe in later is that Chewy has got this kind of an ideal where Hansell has saved his life, so he has to protect his life or whatever. Paul Mark, he was actually laying in that snow, you know, in the blizzard, right just outside the hotel as the story goes, because they couldn't get any further and there's Alec back in a role he didn't really want to get involved with.

And he's so continually in this film Luke or Mark and what is sort of acting with something that's not there, whether it's he can't or they quite see Ben in that's intuaction. He there's a lot of acting on his own. Who does By the way, did you ever think that that Tom Tom Rivan with hand Sello on it was something to do with Ben? Did he draw har? Did he draw hand there in the same way that Luke is drawn into Dagabar into the swamp by Yoda?

Potentially? Or that didn't, But it makes sense now. I'll never be able to not think that. So this is the bit, the blizzard bit that they shot outside the hotel and Harrison was flown up and then trained up and then snowplowed up to the location. Is is Han Solo the only non Jedi to use the lightsaber?

Yes, in these original films. I think he probably is. Think so. I remember thinking at the time, like I was hated that the guts coming in at that What does that look like? It looks like like Chinese bean shooes or something, doesn't it?

And you hear the sound of him and I can never quite work out. I was like, is he really putting him inside there? How does that work? Yeah, there's just the suggestion of it isn't there because you don't physically see it. I had the Tontan as a kid.

The Kenner one, the palotoid one with the hard belly, okay, so you could slot the figure in at the top to ride it. But then they brought out the soft belly one that you could actually shove Luke in there. But I didn't have that, so I never fully understood quite what was happening there. I think that's a great shot. You know, no visual effects there as far as I know.

It's just a really long lens. Yeah. And these shots where there's where there's nothing in the actual foot you know, in the frame, Yeah, they're adding stuff in. I wonder how they do that. It's like in the next film with the Speeder bike chase when there's a shooting forests.

Yeah, having to imagine what's there or it's bonkers, isn't it. I Mean I talked to Ken Rauston a little bit about this when I interviewed him about how they understand the scale and the trajectory of each element, Like some of those shots in Jedi so complex, these ones. I mean that's sped up West cam Helly footage and they've put you know, the run bits in reverse, so you know, for those reverse shots on the faces of the pilots, and such a bold thing to do, to put like gray colored ships on white background. If you look at the original original, you do see that the compromise was to make them a bit transparent, and you see a bit of it. I found them.

My dad always used to say, at that point, how does he know they're both there? I guess because Hans Sale says, nice of you to join us. Does he say, there's Luke in the diaper tank in the What was the thing about his injuries was in a crash or something? Yeah, there's that whole thing that he was badly injured in a ah, he had to have some work done on his nose, But I think it was it was played up. He said himself.

I think that what the injuries weren't that bad. I mean, he does look quite different from the original film. But I think also that this scene was already written into the movie to certain extents, so it sort of fulfilled that purpose. So this is one of those few scenes where everyone's together. Of course, we've got the kiss, the kiss twice in this film when he's on his sick bed later, but then again like it just goes to show, you know, like I think people have this assumption that films are made with this completely locked idea of what's going to happen in the sequels, and you know, there's this written out path.

Lucas was sort of doing this off the cuff to a certain extent, but you think by the fact he knows in this movie that Darth Vader's gonna be the father then, and we have there is another that there's something some Yeah, but that there is another could have been Bob Effeteal. We do know it could have been. It could have been anyone, because I'm always like, why doesn't why doesn't Why don't they know that? Why doesn't know that? Yeah, either there's a kiss.

There was a whole deleted scene here where they're sort of repairing Luke's face with this sort of white gauze stuff on his face. I think you deleted scenes on the blu Ray. But I think again, like Paul Hersh's efficiency of editing, just cut this down just to the core elements that were needed. Yeah, I always think he sounds like Admiral. Wasn't that that?

But he's got that kind of gruff. Yeah, I've always quite liked him. He feels the part doesn't he. Yeah, I'd buy it. I love the atmospheric lighting in this movie.

It's so it's lit so much nicer than the original like the original Star Wars as I still call it, which is just like, you know, a big bright light on everything and everyone. This is a lot more atmospheric, isn't it. There's a real knack in the production design in this film as well of suggesting function without actually showing it as well, Like all those screens there you just go, oh, it's some military thing, but you never see them working that. I love all the production designer this film, all of the hardware you see in the background, and he's there both brilliant but Arison board is brilliant and just flipping switches in there. Yeah, got a bit of nothing happening, but yeah, he sells it well.

He's got just a He's clearly very good at giving a sense of action, isn't he. He's very good at like you look at raisers of lost arc and stuff. It's very good all that stuff again, now you'd see it on a screen, it would be a three D model rotate need you just suggest it? And the economy is great? Yeah, that is key.

I think This scene, of course, is like a nod to the opening of Stars, isn't it, with the Start Destroyer going over and you think, oh, it's a star. Oh no, it's just a bit of a Star Destroyer and it's oh yeah, it's huge. But hang on, what's what's causing this shadow? I mean, I suppose it has a desired effect. Whereas as a kid, I was like, how can that possibly be that big?

Considering what we know about the Start Destroyer? Yeah, like where was it built? Where was it? Yeah, it's a planet sized. That's what I always loved about Stars as a kid though, and as a teenager is nothing is explicitly explained that, Whereas I've always felt like Star Trek was the opposite of that.

They were constantly explaining things and the technology behind things. So in the UK, here we all knew Admiral Osla's mister Bronson, the head master of Grange Field, terrifying man, A really a real disciplinarian, wasn't he In that It's horrible, horrible character. I was scared of him. Yeah, me too, And therefore in this Vader looking his shiniest in this movie, they've buffed him up. Definitely.

I think that's the best vader for me. That the Empire one always looks spot on. There's Julian Glover, you know, yeah, you worked with him. I worked with his wife, did you know? And I know his son of it as well.

Isn't he half brother? No, I've got them mixed up. I was gonna say Jeremy Bullet, but I think that's Robert Watts. But I think they all lived on the road together at one point or something like it. I probably got it wrong again, he's with someone who's not there.

Yep, that's true. And look at those switches and stuff from the left a level that hard way. It looks like looks medical without having like a I don't know, things bleeping and blooping all over the place. So they dressed up kids in the costumes, in small costumes for the background here to give more a false perspective. Really, so there are kids in the soldier uniforms running about.

It kind of a cute seeing that one. They can really care for each other a lot. But again, nothing really explicit. Just get and you get that look from Harrison there we think ship, something's going to happen. Look of lighting love that.

So what are we how many minutes in and we here twenty three minutes in and it's all about to kick off. Look at the sides of electic. I had the Star Destroyer playset as a kidney. She did it, had that chamber did it and it lit up red and there was like this screen and it did a Star Destroyer. Yeah, it doesn't look like from the outside, it's just sort of this this room, but you could hang certain you could hang the figures upside down like it was weird.

It was like a place that didn't exactly show anything from the movie other than this chamber thing. Darfader's meditation stroke, bathroom or whatever reason. So of course we'd seen him strangling the guy in Star Wars and Tark intels him to stop. But now we see that you can actually kill somebody, and also when they're not when he's not in the same location. Yeah, that's even more bad.

I don't know if we ever see that in the rest of them. No, that's true, that's a side of that's it. This is quite cool scene because, like, you know, it shows she's in charge. Everyone's listening to her, nobody's like rolling their eyes, you know, and she's clearly like the Boss. There's a lovely shot of her behind the scenes shot where she sort of clocks the documentary crew shooting her and she just does this beautiful smile and just nods and mouths something.

It's such a nice, such a sweet shot of her, because she's clearly nervous about this scene. So these are all the Norwegian soldiers that are all dressed up here in Fincer. It's interesting we don't have any of our heroes on the ground in section No, not until Luke's flying around gets thrown out of his But it always feels it always kind of flies by the secret this battle for me Han and Lea are inside, but we don't actually have any of the heroes actually in the in the snow. M did you ever get a sense of like how long they've been on Hoss, Like they've been here five minutes because Harrison, you know, Hans still fixing the ship the Chewy, and they're still putting markers out and all this stuff.

So they've been here like two weeks and they had to leave. You know, how long is the official gap between the first I don't know, I don't see, I don't know. I mean I always thought it to be like a year or something, or eight months or I don't know. There is a version of the film where that voice saying the first transport as a way is actually Mark Hamill. I think it's on the seventy mil version.

He said that he actually voiced that bit. I myself. I love the score for this meet. It's brilliant. I would say it's probably the best one.

Yeah, there's a brilliant bit of behind the scene footage where one of the crew is describing to these nor Egian soldiers that these huge mechanical beasts are coming towards you. You can't see them, but they you know, imagine they're there and hold your gun like this. You know, these snow speeders are just on a forklift truck out of frame. But again you just get like just you know, a few little cuts here and there that there's multiple there's probably only a few of them there, but they've just cut, cut, cut to make it look like more. There's something really ridiculous about the attacks if you sort of step back from having in terms of practice, never seen this before, Like this is giant mechanical dog camel things, but they're so great.

I just love That's what I I love about these films is the design is fantastic and it's just like take it or leave it. This is our idea because everything is familiar. Yeah it's all the space stuff, but it's familiar. It's got legs, it's like an animals. Yeah, it's scary, it's of a big dinosaur, and you sort of get the parameters of it.

So you just accept that as opposed to I think sometimes science fiction films I try and make things completely different yes to what they do in order to make it feasib whereas actually it's not really about the mechanics. It's about the characters or the people, like all of this stuff, the shots in this and how they put it all together, and what's a model and what's not. There's a lot going on in there, there is. There's a lot of cuts here. It's a real ramp up from the previous film, but there's again that familiarity.

If you've seen the first film, you know they're in another battle situation against something that looks you know, they're on the back foot here as well, and now you see the peril. Dak is gone. That's dead man, just go. I love the bubble wrap and this strap's there. You ever notice that the bubble wrap, You just don't see it because it's so well integrated into the design.

The other thing that struck me about this film, You though the camera barely moves, look at how many of these are sort of still frames. I mean that one's moving a little bit with General Veers chatting to Vader, and obviously these ones have a bit more kineticism to him, but a lot of the shots, the framing is held out. Yeah, and that's why I think it just works the best out of all of the movies, the original movies, because you can just grab a shot and it looks like a what's every frame of painting? Is the phrase? I had the snow speeder.

I'm sound really spoiled, don't I had the tow cable on it. I think I actually got the snow speeder the day I went to see Return of the Jedi the Hamley's here in London, and I think I got the attack then as well, because I don't think many of the Jedi toys were aunt at that point. Attack was always I think the sort of top of the toys thing. Yeah, that and the falcon I did I mean, I was thinking about the falcon just the other night for some reason, and I just thought the scale of that thing. You don't get toys that are that big today.

I don't think, you know, comparative to the child the children that we were then. Oh yeah, I love that attack because it had that articulated head and the lasers that would fire, the clear lasers that would fire back and forth, choice more soldiers, Johnny in the fight there, and this is where everyone separates, isn't it like we don't see anyone together again until they rescue and so loo Yeah, but even then they never really no. Yeah, So I took my nine year old daughter Eve to see this with this in the big screen a few weeks ago. She found it really creepy this film. Okay, and actually there are quite a few jump scares in this film, and there's quite a lot of unknown but you don't.

Yeah, it's quite difficult to process all of this stuff that's going on. It's coming at you at such a pace. Yeah, if you know it, then you know it. Whereas if you're unfamiliar with it, like the stuff and Dagober and that the cave and all of that. Yeah, kind of weird.

It is creepy and like you say, not really explained. No. I love that those attacks are either these giant models that you know, Field tip It and Coke were articulating and animating, and those ones are just cutouts, cuts so that they stuck on. So that had to ship that thing out to Norway. Crazy.

You can see why Lucas wanted to work with green screens years later, because just the effort of making films back then was enormous. I love the way that the ice caves here look a bit shiny. In certain shots you can see a bit of their bottom right, it does look like ice, but it's just foam where they just got a hot cable and carved it out. I guess what time are you trying to run? In the CCP.

I love there's a shot here in a minute where you see the soldier sort of running in the foreground and the attacks in the background, shooting at the ground and a guy trips over. I've always loved that shot. I think it's the next one. Yeah, this one. Look at that.

Let's just epic, But it again, it doesn't linger on it. I think that's the other thing about that efficiency we're talking about. They don't ever show off anything. Mm. He's just there to serve the story and move the film along.

It's like, what is that? What? What are they working with there? That's just another big set they've built, like a section of a set. There's the little at s t they chucked in at the last minute, goes completely black that frame there, which is unusual in a film.

Sound does so much of the heavy lifting. That's a great shot as well. What're you gonna say that live shot? I swear you see a pilot flying out here? It is week this Like again, it's just sort of suggested, isn't it?

Like where does that figure in the base? Is that next to the base? Is that the base itself? Is that the it's the shield generator? Right, but we don't ever see the shield, and you know, it's just all all suggested.

Some of this feels a bit dated. Now, come on, sweetheart, we're taking off and him. Yeah, but you know, we've been shown that she's clearly capable, and now it's like he has to drag her around to rescue her. But it's almost like he's doing it because he cares about her and he's not going to take no friend yeah, yeah, I certainly didn't have all of the figures when I was a kid, but I did have this snow Trooper. It always seemed a little bit mysterious to me, like, was it the same folks that were in the Stormtrooper, the regular Stormtroopers and they've got a different outfit on, or did they have that same thing underneath that kind of owl at the front or so that was a map painting just then briefly to make the base look even bigger.

There's a great program on the BBC. What's it called. It's to do with like film financing. I'll put it in the links to this episode, but it shows this guy visiting the set and like walking all over the falcon and it just shows the size of that set. It's really cool to see.

I love how grimy it is. A padding around the doorway. Again, it's sort of that uplighting on the faces, isn't it like they had in the base here. If you compare the falcon shots in the first film to this one, it looks totally different. I remember, actually as a kid when I had this on VHS, the film was so dark you could barely see a damn thing.

Yeah, I'm the sayings of the borders of it. And I was talking to you about this bit the other day, wasn't I after I'd seen it, Like, how did Luke get off hof when there's this you know, number of star destroyers. But I think we all just sort of figure he went out the back door the other side of the planet, all that the star destroyers are now in pursuit of the Falcon, and there he is. I think it's nothing again, like there's no focus on that from on the screen there or anything. It's just like he's talking to him and he's reading it.

Done. Yeah, two second shots. Yeah, that's all we need, get it. I like the manu control. Really what am I here for?

This is like Vader's March at his best here, I think in this sequence, because it's got that real kind of humph behind it. I think. Actually I heard the asteroid Field track at the Barbicane with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Williams in the nineties. Wow is amazing. Wow that And I remember Superman being an amazing well he's smart because in these movies he in these big action sequences, fights and stuff.

He knows he's got to compete with a lot of sound effects, so he's the music in these moments is just all brass. Yeah, yeah, quite kind of. It's not very subtle. Whereas then when you get like the love theme or yo, yeah, the quiet membals, he does a lot, whereas in the s into just like turn up the trumpets. You and I often have chats, don't we about like the story elements of these films, and like why this happens and what does that mean?

And when was this? You asked me a lot of questions, don't you about why was this choice's name? Or what is that I'm looking at? At this point, I think you've watched these films, don't you for so many years, sort of seeing them in a different way as you get older. Yeah, because you write yourself obviously, and yeah, and there's so much going on in them that just stuff.

I remember when I watched your film Menary stuff where so much I didn't realized at all. Ever, I really pay attention to and also sort of embracing the fact that now I am interested in the film, whereas as a kid, I was interested in the story I didn't know. Yeah, yeah, there was only ever interested in the characters and the story, whereas now I can't help but be Yeah, I've gone around that circle multiple times. As a kid, I loved it, and then I got into the making of stuff, and then I made my film Mementaries, and now I'm sort of back into the character interaction. And you know, seeing it on the big screen again the other week, as I keep saying, it hits home differently again, like there's something.

I mean, we're watching this on a laptop right now, but there's something about watching a film, even a film you know, inside and out on a big screen. There's something to do with the size of people's eyes and how they interact with each other. And you know this as a stage actor as well, you know, sort of projecting that your face to do things, to like interact with other people on stage. Yeah, I think there's so much of this is in the eyes. And in the first film, like when they're sitting around that table in the canteena and talking about the price of hiring the Falcon and stuff.

I love the eyes, like between Harrison and Alec and Mark and again look at that frame just barely moving this stuff. Again, It's like how they did they do this optically? How many times has this been copied in films as well? Getting through a small gap and r Edemy is exploding. I sent you recently deny the story of albums that were like these condensed edited versions of the film but only an audio that came on LP.

And what's quite weird about them is the way they condensed the story, but also how they use different audio takes and different mix of the sound effects and music. Because we're so used to these, aren't we We know exactly what's going to come next, and you hear those like wow, even now there's a slug stuff that's yeah? Is that the slugs bum? They've gone very far down? Yeah?

Or do they get eaten by the slug without realizing? Again do we need to know? It's just kind of like, you know, a little suggestion again again Mark talking to somebody that isn't it? He does it? Said brilliantly.

He carries the whole film that way. I think he said something like, you know, for weeks the call sheet was just like Mark Hamill obviously had all the crew around him and everything. But he's either talking to our two or Yoda. So yeah, is Yoda drawing him in here because you will go to the Dagabar system. It's been planned out.

But how does he know where to go? It's a it's a planet. It's a huge plant. Yeah, he must be drawing, mustn't he. It's a bit of a cog.

Yeah, it's a huge coins of the right place. Again, we've seen nothing like this landscape in the previous movie. Apparently that bog was quite stinky. Towards the end there the after party, all tables and chairs and meal and everything after the film, and Dave Barkley was one of the Yoda puppeteers who's a mate of mine. He said, somebody jumped in and he said, goodness knows what was in there by that time?

You know what was like when you just leave it stagnant. Look at that mistang in there. There's great, isn't it. It almost feels like a Ridley Scott movie this year legend, or one of those sort of fantasy movies from around the time. My nine year old kept saying, from from almost the beginning, is R two D two going to be okay?

Is he going to be right? Is it? And and then when this happens, she's like, what where's he gone. It's fine, he gets out. I think she just had a real compassion for him because he's so she said he was cute, he's so cute, and it's funny how just this block of metal with his rusty Inns communicator again some for stage hand, Yeah, but all of this stuff just can main means that your imagination has to be engaged as it does so much work, which is partly why you're then invested in it.

Yeah, and that's part of the restriction of the technology and his work at the time. But it's also like that, what is that? Yeah, that's exactly what my daughter said, what is that here? It's a monster? It's a monster or something.

This bit where he gets spat out, now there's two different versions of dialogue. I think in this version he says you were lucky to get out of there, and then another version he says you're lucky you don't taste very good, which is a sort of comedic line and just the simplicity of that. You see him the shot him being spat out, yeah, short of Luke just looking yeah and then him landing Yeah, that's it. Now, it'd all be one shot, like point of view like GoPro on his head. Yeah.

I love the sort of rib cage of some other monster. Yeah, did you see there, Yeah, there's a lot of that. In fact, there's a shot I noticed when I'm watching on the big screen when Yoda's getting the just before he gets the X Wing out of the swamp, there's this bright green lizard in the background. Yes, I've never seen it before. Love that look there.

This bit here as a kid used to freak me out, yeah, with when you see his head. But yeah, but I used to sort of get myself out of being freaked out by thinking it looked like raspberry ripple ice cream. Yeah. If you don't know what raspberryripple ice cream is, google it. That sort of vein of raspberry going through the vanilla.

But that's the first one where we see it. Okay, there's something in there. There is a human in there. Yeah, because of course we don't know anything about him at this point other than he murdered Luke's father, as BNK Nobody says. Dave Prow says that he actually said something about hemorrhoids there instead of asteroids for a laugh.

But by this point he knew his voice was never going to be used. You always see layas kind of tweaking away at things in this period of the film, don't you. She's doing something there, and then there's that bit later where they kiss. God knows what she's using and doing. But it just sort of if in that twist something.

Yeah, But also it just shows her capability as a character, doesn't it. We just sort of accept that she just is cracking on with something. I think this is that bit that I can never unsea where Harrison Mouths carries lines. Is it this bit? Yeah?

Maybe it was a take that he thought they weren't going to use, and then they did. She was my first love, you know, when I was about five. I was just totally in love with her. My wife was saying about Mark Hamill as well that when she was young a crush or Mark. I'd never realized how giant his eyes are until again I watched it on the big screen again on his own.

There's a few bits of hardware. It's probably not I don't know, there's Kenny in there at the moment. There's a little bit of wabbling going on, and probably is Kenny. Again. It's like, is that a heater?

Is that a battery charger. What's he hooking? Like? Who cares? You know?

That's the outfit that he famously appeared in the Muppet episode with as well Mark Hamill, where he plays both himself and his twin. And I love that about those TV shows they appeared on back then because they're all just wearing the original costumes, right, that's all they were. That's probably worth a million quid now if you're still about cool that hard way, I love it. And again like there's something familiar about this place. Yeah, I always loved that line pre prequels.

I always thought, well, maybe he went there as a baby or as a toddler and love all that stuff, you know, the pre prequel mind that you were just able just to run riot in your head. Yeah. Now, I've always thought that Yoda's just being a bit of a dick here to see how easily, how easy it is to wind up Luke. I don't think he's this quirky character. I think later on he shows how serious he is, And I was thinking, how thoughtfully is I think this is just him going can I wind this kid up?

Easily? If not? If so, Ben's wrong and I can't train him. One other n't. I would think that because in they're letting men sort of newer films, the sequels, they've kind of when they've got him back, he's kind of more like this, yeah, because I'm like, yeah, you're doing that to kind of test out Luke.

Yeah, I think he drops it, which is testament to like, again, the acting and the publicly where yeah, I don't know how it we'll get to it, but I love this publicly here. It's amazing. Yeah. Dave Barkley told me when I've spoke to him that he and Wendy Midner and Frank Cars and all the other people involved would literally you do the lines with no puppet, and Dave would move the eyes, imagining he was moving the eyes, and Frank would sort of have his hand in the air, and Wendy would be doing the years and stuff like just imagining doing it, and so that by the time they arrived on set, it was all, you know, in their minds exactly what they had to do. So when they got in the set it appeared like magic, but it was just rehearsal.

Yeah, would you know all about of course, Yeah, working on shows where you're just getting it down to that very fine, can't see it and you're underneath all that set and yeah, so so Mark now talking to two things that aren't We've got it it fans in. Yeah, he talks about where he had like stuff and he was picking up the rolling stones or something, so exactly he can get frank, cause is that what he's getting through there? I think he was getting direction from across the other side of the set on certain scenes when there's more distant shots. Maybe I don't know, But again, like the different versions of Yoda, you know, there's the one that we see there and then there's this one in the distance. But we just buy it, don't we like?

And it's done that a distance because there's no articulation in that face. Probably probably so they just understand what technology has got to be used in what way to make it convincing? Are two left on his own? It is a creepy place, my daughter's right. I do like the fact that the falcon has got a personality according to C three P.

You know, I don't know where it learned to communicate. Of course, I wonder why he hates droids so much. I mean, we could talk about the solo film, but that's not again here she is with the worlding torch. What's that? What's going on there?

What's that? What could it be? Don't know, don't care? Love it? Look up, look at all of that pipes, and you buy it.

You're doing something. You even see something in the foreground in a minute day, the sort of flickering around, spinning around. I think it's in this book. Some there's like extended versions of these scenes that had they kept them in it just wouldn't have worked. Again, editing is such an important part of these films in making them convincing and efficient.

I think you know, some of the early cuts of Jedi just went on and on. There's that thing I was talking about, just like whirrying in the front in the foreground. Again, look at the composition. Every shot is amazing, everything and they get get closing close, just that little creep in great writing, which is great. It makes perfect sense.

I think Irving Curson said, that's as close as you can get to a sex scene and stars movie, just one one kiss. I love this bit here is we didn't notice this for years because I think in the four x three version of it, you didn't see the guy go off the hologram. There is the rock hit his Star destroy because I think it was framed over over to the right side. Yes, make contact with move the ship of the asteroid. Yes, I love those little kinds.

A little moustroid there. So there's all these stories about some of the asteroids like being potatoes and stuff because they were playing with what they could and couldn't get away with on on the screen. So this is the special edition where we've got Im McDermod back. But originally there was that original Emperor with a monkey's eyes. We have a new the Young Rebel destroyed Star some of these.

I think this is probably the least heinous special edition inasmuch as the additions are pretty good. There is that bit towards the end, alert my Star Destroyer for my right, where whereas before he says bring my shuttle, I prefer that, and there was no need to sort of use that outtake from Return the Jedi the Shuttle landing, And yeah, this seems a bit a bit lame, but for the most part, I don't I don't mind this specialis and it makes sense that you're going to put the Emperor in because he has this established character and we know what he looks like, now, yeah, you would be agreed. Yes, okay, so he's his master, but he's asking him if it's possible. I like that. And also, how's that going to work?

You can only have two sit at the same time. Yeah, so somethings are how do you does have some cute moments in this again. I can't stop thinking of the Seagull song here, the bad Blip Reading song. My daughter got really into them at the moment, and she keeps playing them on YouTube and singing along with them. In fact, somebody said on one of the comments that he went to see the Empress tracks back with his sister, and his sister said, oh, is this the bit where Yoda starts singing?

Oh no, that doesn't happen in the movie. It's funny when people have their sort of cultural awareness from the wrong time period. I remember that happened with my elder daughters who started seeing things in The Simpsons first and then understood the movie, or in Barbie's dream House where they rip off Indiana Jones at one point. I know all the nerdy things obviously, like how many times Mark had to hit his head on the ceiling to get the take right. Because that's how ill, that's how you know all this Like here the shift in the characters, and it's as simple as and as simple as Yoda's mouth is and stuff.

I totally buy that he's alive still. Yeah, I love that character so much. It is down to what Luke is him as well. Definitely, but across the board, like all departments contribute to. You completely buy that.

What a gamble Yoda is huge. You know. He only exists really because they decided to kill off ben Kenobi at the end of Star Wars because, as Lucas said, he had no function at that point, it was going to be more powerful to kill him off. So then they had to get another Jedi Master written to teach Luke. Yeah, this is the real good Yeah, not that guy larking around hm.

And it's so different to what's going on in the Muppets, I mean the Muppets. Is nothing subtle about the Muppets with is such detailed stuff that how do you know that's going to work? I love this theme as well, something really sort of emotional about it when you get that big, sort of rousing version of it when he pulls the X wing out later on. It still makes me choke up a bit. I mean creepy, very creepy, you will be.

It's like shot, what Will is so confusing for him? That's amazing thing I remember thinking about. It's like, what's going on with Luke? Like, what's what's he getting drawn into? All of a sudden bends back tie bombers.

There used to be they didn't have those. There was a diet No, I didn't. There was a die cast metal version of them. You could get the X Wing I think, snow Speeder, tie fire and that Tyomber. The ty Bomber one is worth absolutely fortune though, I mean these are the ultimate in like literally states and just crapping an umbrella again jump scare, but yeah, what is that thing?

What's that milky crack coming out of its mount quick enough that it's like, what was that? A constantly imperil in this film? Their music here, no, I think it was scored. Actually memory serves, but just as powerful to not have it. I'm going to mention another toy thing here.

You could send off proofs of purchase or the little name graphics off the front of the card backs and you could get the survival kit, which included the gas masks that you could add to the characters, and a few guns. I have one. I think I had a couple, of course you did. You could only get one per household, so I'd send one to my grandparents and one to my Yeah. Again, just letting the action move in the frame actually should meant to mention Peter Szushitski, the dop in this film.

He doesn't get enough credit for this film. I really, I really would love to have him on the podcast, but I think he's kind of pissed off that all anybody wants to talk to him about is this movie when you worked on so many other amazing films. I will try again, because you know I will. I will speak to him about these other films. But it's such a nice looking film.

The Old Star Trek tilt, Yeah, I'll tilt this way, you run you feel that way again? The music that's so much. We're in peril again. We need to get the hell out of Dodge m H three first. Okay, this is an okay, that's no moon.

Yeah. Apparently there is a little out take version that Ken Rauston did, which is just his hand in a sock I filmed that. I'd love to go in that archive one day. Just lock me in there for like two weeks and let me look through those three hundred and fifty hours of original trilogy behind the scenes, which apparently so at some point Frank co Os had to go and do Sesame Street Live over over the Yea, it's not there's a water pipe thing, that's right, We've just got a clicking water pipe in the background. Yeah, Franko's had to go and do Sesame Street Live, which is over the road at ABC Studios near Elstreet, and Dave Barkley had to take over and do a lot of pubpetian for this scene here.

Okay. He was aged nineteen at this point, Dave having just got the gig, so all this stuff, Yeah, having just got the gig by going visiting Stuart Freeborn and showing some of his work that you've done at home. He said, okay, you start on Monday. Yeah. I think some of this was still Frank, but there was certainly some shots the other day did And there's a deleted scene where this bar gets thrown in the air and Luke has to slice it up, which was in the comic, the Marvel comic version.

I remember as a kid I had. I bought it off a kid at school, this hard back annual of the comic, but it had been semi obliterated by battery acid like a bacteries with Liking, and it was just falling apart as I was reading it. So here again another creepy moment. What's in the cave? Like I always thought that maybe Vader had been there, or the reason Yoda is there is because the Dark Force is strong and it kind of hides him in some way.

I don't know. It's like again, it's like, not explicitly said, but there is a structure down there, isn't there? You actually see a shape, Yeah, it almost It almost looks like the shape of those corridors on best Bin on Cloud City. That always confused me. I was like, why does it look so structured down there?

Your weapons you will not need them? Bullshit, says Luke. I'm going to take my gun my life to say they really. That's another little jump scale there as well. The thing they really sort of you sort of manipulated almost in this mm hm.

So it's going down a hole to get to the entrance of this cave. There was some weird little snippet of trivia about some of the plant life. You see, there's a there's a thing called old Man's beard that they used, and they actually took some of it to Kawaii for that bit in Raiders where they enter the cave to get the idol. And I think it's like to take over and grow there lizards and snakes, Yeah, because the kenn A figure of Yoda had a snake around his neck you see there. And again it's like, what are we supposed to feel here?

Is this a dream? Is this like a test? It's slow motion? Does happen anywhere else in the it's weird, weird slow motion as well as a dream. There's a dream equality to it.

Isn't there to look straight in with it? He's going to ignite first. I didn't get this for years, this bit, and I still sort of don't, and I don't think it's supposed to do. But again, I asked my daughter and said, why do you think Luke's face is in his sold which said, well, I thought he either had a brother or a twin or he's his own worst enemy. So okay, yeah, I didn't figure that out until I was like twenty or something.

I think this is actually Mark laying under the set with his head pop tuns. I think he said that on a tweet some years ago. Yeah, yeah, very confusing. What am I supposed to feel now? I'm so confused?

And you're just like, Oh, that shouldn't have happened, or is it exactly? Watch it? Well exactly who knows he's manipulardn't mention it? Do they? No?

Think about this scene? Right? It's so out there to just have this lineup of weirdos and they all look so different, don't they. Mister one of my pals dressed up as Bosk when we would see Secret Cinema whenever that was built, the helmet and everything homemade costume. He actually got to fly the ship off of Tatooine or whatever.

They put him at the front. It's very funny. Winter's Lando. This is yeah, caping it no, no wonder if we were there the same night. I ended up grassing up Han Solo to a stormtrooper in the canteena and they put me into Han Salo in prison for like ten minutes.

I haven't really talked about the sound effects of stuff, but I love all this stuff. I think that sound is sort of I think it's in Raiders, somewhere hidden, like either when they open the arc or when the plane starts up at the top of the film. We often recycle those sound effects, but it sort of suggests a mechanical thing, doesn't it. That's what's great about all this technology. It feels analog.

Yes, he's got so much of this stuff to do in this movie. Yes, continually on the wrong track, and just those little moments of like the camera tilting up so the characters dip down and then cut to the diving down of the falcon. So clever the way it suggests what's going to happen in the visual effects bit next m h. And now we sort of empathize with the Imperial offices here, thinking, well, he's that's the end of him. You're going to apologize that ain't gonna ain't gonna cut it to get it, and the guy next to him thinking well I've been promoted.

Yeah, that guy on the left, you never really see him, but he's he's probably all the conventions for a while. There's always a couple of things going on, isn't there. Like R two sensing that the ship's sinking. Luke's trying to do his thing. I always loved that.

It's like and that's practical. Yeah, I did sink quickly, didn't it. I think Dave did that bit as he had a falls over as well. Again, we don't see the sort of where Yoda ends up. We just see him appear into frame and look holds the frame, holds the frame.

Luke stands up out of frame, and then he appears in frame. It's so well directed. I'm always have great admiration for directors who can clearly edit in their heads. Yes, I mean, I'm sure it's heavily storyboarding things, but because there's clearly not coverage going on here, Kershner clearly knows the shots he wants to achieve, the look he wants to achieve. I always thought kurshed there was a bit of a Yoda himself.

He always seemed like this slightly wizened, wise Buddhist character. Perfect line, that isn't it. Dave Bartley tells me that's the sort that he really took that line to heart. Hm hm, dode are doing? There is no try so like when he got offered to go and work on these other big movies like Roger Rabbit and he Chief Puppeteer and Return of the Jedi.

Just yeah, I'm doing it. Do it. Just be open to those opportunities. And again there's the next bit of him trying to use the force to move the object, which he was able to do at the beginning with the saber. That now, yeah, it's too big because he's not thinking about it in the way he should.

Love these shots of Yoda here, just one little bit of like slightly different posture from that puppet, and you wouldn't buy it. Yeah, I love when the eyes move ahead of the head move. Yeah. Yeah, I was talking about this. Yeah, I was talking about this the other day.

Yeah. That fit is great, isn't it? Just absolutely Yeah, reality of it, tiny detailed. That's a long take as well, isn't it for a puppet pull off all those different maneuvers. I always feel like Luke should have had another go trying to do that.

Yeah, but you sort of give you know, he's giving up at this point, isn't he? Because that's too hard. I can't do it. It's all this self doubt and which you know is good from a character point of view, But it always fell like up until this point he was really going for it and throwing himself into it. I do love the way that in this film, as opposed to the pre cauls and the sequels and things that, yeah, there's there's the big, big one that the Force user, the Force sort of takes its toll.

Yeah, you can see how much it's taken out of the oda at the end. I was thinking that recently, especially in the newer films and products, where that it's great moment for that happens. The Force is used quite a lot now in films in the series, which actually it's us quite sparing and it's an easy thing to do, and they can't do it for too long, and they kind of respect the logic of it and just to see like a tiny the foot of it, that's what you need. Really. Yeah, and again look it comes into frame and makes the perfect frame.

I did have at one time a load of trading cards in the nineties. They were tops trading cards that were just single frames in widescreen of certain scenes of the movie. I think that was the first time I really appreciate it, just how each one could be framed and put on a wall. It's all about belief. Those transitions like they've told him nothing really, no given in, no answers or anything.

Yeah, it's kind of expected to do it. Yeah. Another death, Yeah for Darth Vader. They removed a bunch of deaths from Return of the Jedi when they cut down the sort of original cut of it because just like we've seen that already, we know we can do that. It's about something else now.

It's about the relationship with Luke Invader. I love the way all these guys are just now terrified who's next, every possible destination. In a way that's sort of like the job of that Robert Watts had on these movies, you know, just make this thing happen. But there's a bit in the Raiders makeup which says Robert, we're going to need another ten thousand snakes yeah, and he goes, okay, from these but these this is what these crews did back then. You know, they just made it happen.

I always see these films as British movies as well as American movies because they were so much of it was made over here with British cruise and it was just you know, I don't know where are we now, Like ten miles from l stree or something like that. As a crow flies it was within reach as a kid. I always sort of understood that it was there, never thought I could do it. But he's got a seat Yeah, it's got a seatbelt, I suppose, so that you can hang there while he's powered down. And we're sort of in that awkward post kiss moment here like where are we now?

Where do we stand now? We've still got to go on our adventure here and get out of this mess. But we've just had a snog, So yeah, are we exclusive or not? Yeah? Yeah, that's been and shutting down three po just gives them that little bit of intimacy here, doesn't it.

They're as close as they've been in the whole movie and been left alone now. I do love his delivery lines in this film. Yeah. You always get the sense of Harrison that he's always he's always really focused on delivery of lines, and there's certain things where you go that on paper could be read a certain way. He always has an interesting I always think of that.

There was a bit in Seinfeld where Cramer had to say, these pretzels are making me thirsty in a Woody Allen film, and he just spends the whole episode, going through all of the differentia. It's just I never understand how you actors do that stuff, like how you work out how you're going to deliver that lion. Like when you're in a show, do you deliver it slightly differently some night? Yeah, yeah, it's always different, but never deviating from the actual words. Because when he penalies by, yeah, go to your web.

Some people did that. You find different ways to do it. See now, okay, it's okay. Now he's moving more objects again. Look at that sort of natural vignette of the tree around the edge.

There's always something in cursonal shots kind of in the foreground, just framing it. Mark spends quite a bit of time upside down in this film. This is probably the biggest explanation of the force that we have in any movie. It's funny how back in the seventies and eighties this is about as pumped as men looked like now we expect it. We expect anyone in a movie now that takes it top off or yes, leaves off to just be like ripped, shredded.

Whereas Mark's clearly in like good fencing fitness kind of isn't he you know, but also he was like a kid when we're seen in the first movie as a kid, and the kind of growth between that film and then to this and to where we see him at the end. It's they always suggest like a journey that he's on. Wrong. He's probably got the biggest character up of everyone, hasn't he. I mean, he's the Adventures of Luke Skywalcraft for all.

He's the one that's had to change the most. And by the time we get to Jedi, he's like this really serious, stoic Yeah, kind of is he pretending to be that because he wants to be that and he feels that's what a Jedi should be or has he actually reached that place? Is Yeah, I always bought that he'd done on that journey from the kid that you see in that on the farm at the it's like a massive journey. One of the other things I love about this movie from a design point of view is like these cloud cars. They literally make no sense.

They look like nothing else in the movie, but they work somehow, Like Neilo Rhodis and why do you need two people like in two different chips joined together? Like what, Yes, it's like a it's like a motorcycle and sidecar, but two motorcycles joined together. But I love that kind of art decori look to them, and I love the look of Cloud City as well. It almost looks like the Land of Oz when they're going in the distance, those sort of cylindrical towers look. I think Ralph and Quarry has actually said that before that he thought I'll do something that's not been done before, and then he was like, oh, it's yeah.

But in terms of these these films, like the color, the texture completely different from Dagger Half or Yeah. I still think to this day when I'm on a plane and I see the sunset, that I'm in Cloud City, because as soon as I see those colors, I'm in Cloud City. If I do you think you belong with him amongst the clouds? That's what you're saying. That's a line, isn't it.

You truly belong to us here amongst the class. That was another thing that struck we've seen this recently as well, was sort of how lecherous? What have we hear? He's smooth? What what have we here?

Not? Who are you? You know? It's stuff you just don't hear anymore, though, isn't it wouldn't work. I can't get away with it.

I love the story that this scene right was shot the day, the morning after they were all at Eric Idol's house drinking this booze that Eric had brought back from Tunisia. Yeah, fucking that's very different now. Yeah, it sort of looks a bit squashed or something. Yeah, yeah, this booze brought back from Tunisia when they were shooting Life of Brian and they called it Tunisian table cleaner or something, and they all got absolutely trashed. So they're all still drunk.

That's what this because this is the This is one of the few parts where you see people smiling in this movie. And partly it is because it's part of the story, but partly is because they're still smashed. Where they make it work. We've all been on jobs where we've had parties the night before that we shouldn't have found ye. Yeah, you just run on adrenaline for the day and then crash for twelve hours.

There was me wanting to be Luke as a kid and as a teenager, and basically I ended up looking like Lobot could even worse. At least the ball guy gets you know, an instrumental part the later on three Po was running to catch up wait for the There's a bit in the LP here where you hear more of Lando describing his mining operation. It goes on a bit longer, I noticed. I think that's from the seventy mil version of the film as well, which had a different audio mix. And you hear the bit where C three Po says I don't want to die on the back of a demented Wookie, whereas in this they he says I don't want to die and it stops it.

I do like the way that droids swear at each other, you know, you watch your language and all that in the first film, And now is that the torture room. It's just occurred to me. Yeah. It always seems like there's a lot of set. This is a big set.

Did they sort of clever things and sort of re use bits for different shots, but a lot of it. But there's shots of like from above where you just see the sort of the wooden extery of the sets, and it does look quite extensive that it went from one room to the next. Again, they never give him answers. No, even Yoda cannot see that. I do love that.

There's that kind of wisdom of the elder's battling with the enthusiasm of the youngster, and you don't know who's right at this point. Kind of yeah, I mean the credits would roll here, right if you say, if he stayed, hand and Layer would die. If maybe if you hadn't gotten to the X wing out, you wouldn't been able to leave. Yeah, that's why I have to go. I don't want to lose.

You want it must be on. This all depends no pressure, So you're not trained. You need to stay, but you also need to fix the galaxy. There's a little outtake here where in one of the documentaries where a snake bites Mark all right, and he says he fucking bit and they left it in the documentary. That's cold blood.

It is cold he is a lizard. It's I understand. You notice some on there's no buttons on him. Of the costumes and Star Wars, you never see buttons. Okay, there was a conscious effort by John Molo not to make it look earthly, so everything's like poppers and presumably velcro or something like that.

I will return like that's just a camera moved there. Simple it's not nothing's moving on the X one, so deleting the prequels from our minds. Ben's convinced he's the last hope, and Yoda's telling him for the first time. Presumably there is another who is the other? Is it Bob Effect?

Is it Admiral Ozzl? Who knows Han Solo used the lightsaber earlier? It could be here here m hm. When I was a kid, this scene coming up where Chewie's recovering three po from the jump pile, it felt like it went on for ever. No, not that scene, actually the scene where he's putting him back together.

I always felt like it just went on and on and on and on. I don't know why. Again, we're at l S three. Some fake sun shining in this. There's another version of this scene as well that's longer and a lot more awkwardly.

Can they redo this or something? This is one of the ones who redid I don't know what do you mean redid? What? What are the time like re shot it? Or I'm sure I saw that in one of your fume remigies where it did look right or something I didn't and I don't remember how here look two of the Bounty Hunters sitting there.

I g a T eight and what was the time called Zukus, which I think got renamed A four la m at some point. But they're both sat there in that junk file. Are we to believe that they've been disposed of or is it just they reuse the costumes and just plumped to me, three pers always in a mess. Yes, so he's got a bit of him missing somewhere. It was only in later years I noticed that all that sort of embroidery on the inside of Lando's cape, there's really like elaborate embroidery.

You only see it in that shot. Just happened just then and there there's a shot of it in the archives book. And look she's got all that pattern and embroidery on her cape as well. That's what I love about these films. There's always stuff you don't need to see, but it's there because it should exist.

These little dudes, the little loud Naughts, tiny years. Yeah, like all this said endless cords. They opened it and didn't make for the special edition. So you see some of the exteriors and stuff, which I think you know makes some sense. You get a little elevator going past him.

I'm always a little bit unsure of when of like Lando's motivation here, that they arrived right before you did. He says, So, why up until now has he been sort of jovial? And is he just covering his ass because he knows that Vader will kill him? You'd think that he would be a little bit more subdued and you'd be able to get a suggestion that something was going on before we reached this moment, because it's not until that second before he opens the door. I've just made a deal.

But again, the question mark isn't that because do you trust him now? I don't trust him. Yeah, he doesn't trust him. It's like who is he? Who is this guy?

But I always get the sense with these films you're only ever supposed to watch them once. Nobody was ever supposed to go back and rewatch them and see, you know, the failures of the writing, or or the way the sort of exposition unfolds. It's only nerds like us that I've watched them one hundred times thousand. I don't know about it. Yeah, this bite, it seemed to go on forever for some reason.

It's like the start of a holiday special, just wookies chatting to each other for twenty five minutes. Actually, it's quite a sweet scene. She was like, without pan again, he's got more bloody work to do, fixing things. Is this a shakespeare in reference here? Yeah, this is a Hamlet alas or I like the way Chew looks a bit messed up here as well, like his fringes.

Yeah, they're all really dire straight batters, aren't they. I love that How I noticed things in this film, No matter how many times I've seen it, I didn't notice until just then you actually see the blast hole in the front of his chest that shot before this. This apparently was supposed to go on longer, this torture scene, but they had to kind of play it down a bit because it was too grisy, too gruesome. Well again, you know, I'd see that as a kid and go, what the hell? Something bad's going to happen here, like all those things like being at the dentist times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, And then that's you just cut to that horrific scream in the background. Did never again he reaches for his neck? Heare, doesn't he? Or? Is that?

Later on there's a bit where he kind of you get a sense that Vader has given him a little right, a little forced, a little choye. It must be a bit later on when they're in the carbon in the original films where you we still don't we just heard about jab a the harbit on that we still se which is a long time to be talking about this character and really really setting him up. Yeah, what what is a jab of the huts? It sort of it's like those you know, I thought the bounty until we ran into an Audi manteil changed our mind. It's like, I love those throwaway lines because it just shows that they've done something else in the interim.

Again, it's not explained, but it opens the world up, doesn't It looked terrible? So Ley has been tortured in the previous movie. Hansello has been tortured in this movie. Three Peer has been shot to pieces. R two DT was blown up in the previous movie.

Everyone's been through the ringer here, haven't they. I always like the way these guards look like imperial officers, but with a bit of bling thrown at them. They've got the gold trim slightly softer. Yeah, it's interesting. Once we trust Land, though, we're never sort of in question.

We never questioned that again, no kind of. Yeah, it's quite a big set up with him of being completely untrustworthy, yeah, or mercenary. This bit here is a bit like when they pick up three p O you go on without me, master be I'm done for And it's the same wipe. I think from top from bottom to top. Am I remembering this correctly?

Yeah, because I think in the first film that Anti Daniel didn't have his three po lengths on. But whether that's a knowing sort of nod to the visual style of the first movie, or whether it's just coincidence. You know, I love this set amazing. When Norman Reynolds built this set, Urban Kershner said, it's not finished, Like, I can't shoot on this set. It's terrible.

Sort it out by Monday and over the weekend. I think they toiled over certain aspects of it. Didn't change much in the end, and Kershner came in said, this is perfect. It just took that weekend for him to sort of get his head around it because there are no sort of we don't sort of get where the walls are. We just kind of go on this sort of infinity thing.

That first shot though, gives you an impression that it's up high. It's elevated because it shows from down below, isn't it. And again, like first time you see the movie, you think, what, what's this? I always think that Harrison's got such a distinctive walk. I could spot that silhouette in like so many movies.

I watched The Fugitive again recently. I love that girl he's got. There's just something about his physicality that's so recognizable. There's those clips of Just like the audio on set of Just and they can barely hear each other over the steam, and it just goes to show that things are so naught until you add music and sound and reloop the dialogue. Yeah, here he is on the back of a demented wookie.

He says, cheery and cuffs. Again. I love that look that yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not just I'm scared. It's like this is changing. Here here that's Tom Tubs having none of it.

I said, if I can't snog someone, you neither kill you, mate, I love you. Harrison's favorite famous lion that you talk about that, but it's in it's in like what is it godfather? Mm hmm. Someone I think it's one of those films. I think it's a Pacina certain way does exactly the same thing.

I'm pretty sure it's Godfather, okay, because it is the famous night, isn't it. But I don't think it is a particularly really no way because he was supposed to say I love you too, and don't you forget it or something like that. This used to scare me. Yeah. I turned around and looked at my daughter's face in the cinema when we saw this, and she was just sort of grimacing and going, yeah, is this this horrible?

Like what is he alive? Is he dead? Does he know? Is he awake? Like it's such a weird concept that you're frozen in this thing.

I could never quite understand what this bit when it falls as well as she kind of jumps again another little jump scale almost shattered his bones. Look at the eyes. Love it two gels like a sort of narrator in some ways, and it gives us a lot. Again, I liked the sort of economy of Bob Efe, that the whole power of him was like you didn't know who he was. Absolutely it was yeah, yeah, now we kind of suggestion about yeah, Glorians and I quite like the fact that he was like, yeah, me too, bad ass.

Yeah, we knew nothing about and I had I had the figure the figure of him as well, and he was this mysterious character didn't know anything about. And I think there was even a parade I think it was in San Anselmo my memories correct, where they got Vader and Bob effect to walk the streets in this parade had pre Empire Strikes Back release and everyone's like, who's this to you? Okay, he's with Vader? Who is this guy? Right?

And they created this mystery and then the figure you had to send away for and all this stuff, and and he was in the Holiday Special cartoon in seventy nine as well, and they built like this myth How did they do this one? They shot here? This one where it gets Because I have no idea, they probably just that's a practical Yeah it is. Yeah, I've never thought about that actually, more than running around on his own polishing I had to go on, didn't it a bit like the Death Star arts? He is still grubby that.

I love the fact that that's Jeremy Bullock in Bob Efet's costume. And then in a few seconds here we see Jeremy Bullock as an imperial officer as I released the same Dude, I'll show you him just sick. That looks like one of those watches you could send away for in the comics, like they had a calculator built into there. Is that Jeremy bulk there. He was such a sweet guy.

Passed away a couple of years ago. I met him a couple of times and he asked me what my name was before so photo, and I said Jamie. He said, oh, Jamie, that's a great name. My son's called Jamie. Yeah, I'm pleased for you.

Yeah, that's a really good name to have. He was just always trying to make a connection with people. I love that the smoke just filling the top of the room there. I was chatting to my mate about this bit last night. Just how creepy it is, like all the doors closing behind him and then those lights coming on later when he's in that time.

Yeah, like presumably the force is drawing him here or you know, vaders to make sure he makes his way in here, so they're sort of closing the doors behind him. I always wanted a playset of this as a kid. I think there was one, but you could only get it in a Canadian like like Big Store or something, Seers or something like that. So this is the first time they've met. Yeah, apart from in the dream o Caave whatever, There's nothing wrong with this scene at all.

It's so perfect. I love the lighting, I love the composition, I love the he Vader's like one hand. Yeah, that is so powerful. I think Mark talks about how they were always he was always told to hold it two hands because it had this heft and its weight to it. But yeah, it does suggest the power on Vader's side, doesn't it, Mark, And we didn't see him fight with a light save, but it's the first time we've seen him who we've seen him with the luke.

Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, Baldy saves the day. Come on, there should be more strong roles for all people in the movies. I mean, this is this is some good ones. Captain Parson kindel Kurts, I mean yea, So since we've been most of this stuff, this is only Anthiony Daniel's voice, right, because he's been mashed up for most of this. Yeah, yeah, so he was just off off camera here feeding the lions.

The puppet. Yeah, because I've seen shots of him, like in his robe and slippers, and of course he's not a liked individual, you know. I've heard things about him recently like that's horrible. Who worked with him on something and just said he was just horrible. He Actually I went to hand him one of my film meamentaries once and I held it out in my hand towards him, and he shrugged his shoulders and said, I'm never going to watch it and just walked off.

Okay, Delusions of Grandeur where I interviewed I interviewed James L. Jones and in his we did it in was in a play. We did an addressment in the interview and when he finishes, were clearing the audi the equipment, he took out his pile of pictures ten by eight and he was signing them. Yeah people, Yeah, he was signing them. So if you ever asked nice him for one, he does him plug your film.

So that was for that was for music firement Shakespeare. Yeah, it's still available, still out there, still available and interview just about everyone you can think of as well. So if you're a film nerdy, watch it because you'd got like Ian McKellen Judy Dead, Ewan McGregor, Tom Hills. I mean, just the list goes on. It's probably one of the best casts ever.

Yeah, it was. It was great. It was great fun to do, and he was brilliant and mean, honestly spoken about him. He's so incredible in this. I saw a bit of an interview the other day.

I think he's on Letterman. It took him two and a half hours to voice Star Wars. He just went in, did two and a half hours, bank got seven grand through or something, and we went and in this one, he said they had to really work out what they'd done right, because because they were just doing it at the time for Star Wars, but for this, because Stars have been such a big success, they realized they had to not only replicate the success but build upon it. And I think they ended up spending days, maybe weeks doing it. Yeah, I mean, god, what addition he makes to these movies.

Did you get him too? Didn't you get him to say you're watching like you're watching CNN? Yes? Yeah, he did it, and he was a good sport, I mean nice. He always seems like he certainly didn't shrug and say get out of you know, well, I think there are those stars, aren't there that realize that the only reason their career exists is because of the fans.

And there are those that think the fans only exist to sort of bolster their ego. Yeah, this is the Yeah. So my mate Matt was saying about last night just about how creepy this is. Like again another the lights coming, Like where am I what is that for? Practically again I don't And what is that thing?

Is there a map? Is it like some electrical thing? It looks like city almost again, I don't care. I just love the design. And on the big screen you see all these bits that you never seen before.

Like there's some like twisty on the left of the frame. There, it's still on the left of this frame. There's like these twisty metal drills almost that run down the walls. It's almost like the of the cave. Yeah, that's exactly it.

Yeah, so the cave was almost like a premonition, if anything. I love it's just like stage hands just lobbing boxes and Mark Hamill and they're all like camera boxes and lens boxes as well, and then Colin skeeping the stunt double from Mark just leaping out the window again, the sound and the visuals just doing all the heavy lifting there, just like the wind and the the suction out of the window. Vader looking awesome with his cape there. I bet you looked just as good with your cape on, didn't you like? Where's that?

And there's his light? Say the left of frame that. I always thought the storm tubers could do a really good tap dance on the cloud City again. A bit of a special edition edition here. I don't think it was necessarily needed, sort of expands it a bit.

Yes, it doesn't look a bit. Laugh now there are to scrape again quick, No wonder he's got rusty in ads. He's been in a lake. He's itit's burning inside him. Quite a resourceful little dude, though, isn't he opening doors, putting the smoke out and everything?

The brass is back. I love this bit of the score here. Actually a little plug for another podcast, the Soundtrack Show, which David W. Collins does. David is a sound designer lucasfilm The Skywalker sound and he does this show where he analyzes the music of his favorite movies.

And he told me things I had no idea about, just about the recurrence of certain themes and versions of you know, the rebel fanfare and love being coming back. It's really worth it. Listen. Oh, I always thought too, you should have got in the pilot's seat there in the copart. He's like he's in control now, just escaped, but Luke's on his own now.

Another day of filming, another jump Scarpe coming as well, and love this bit with a lightsaber kind of wiping the frame Invaders like on the march here, like he's really aggressive now he's like right, so there talking and the fighting about let's just get this done. The impatience of the dark Side. Mark Hamill sort of talks about how he was so bruised and battered he looked like a relief map of South America or something on his skin. It's really physical sequence. But also movies, Vader can be injured, but he's always come back with a bigger hit.

It's kind of sad that kids now watching these movies for the first time go in knowing this bit already. Yeah, because actually at the time when he delivered that line, there was you know, there were discussions amongst friends in the playground. Is he lying? He must be lying. It can't be his father because Ben said he murdered his father, or maybe maybe he is his whole I don't remember not knowing though.

I don't know if I do him at the cinema, so I just remember talking about it, but I don't remember not knowing. I wish I had that. Yeah, must have been really exciting. There's that famous Simpsons bit where Homer comes out and says about him being his father, and there's everyone lined up outside like oh yeah, right, which I think is how my kids found out about it first. Now this is Dave Prati, right, Yeah, it was saying that Obi Wan is your father that I mean physically, Yeah, yeah, yeah, because all this stuff is such brilliant, like the physical work, which absolutely I think Movements has actually said how much credit he gives Dave Prow's, you know, for the physicality of the character, like all that stuff iconic.

You can actually hear that glove kind of squeak when he draws it in, which I love that little sound nugget, which you only notice whence in subsequent stuff when it's not there. That actually did a lot of incredible, really specific things there. It's like Peter Mayhew in a way, you can always tell when it's him because he's got the sort of knock knees and yeah, that's sort of lumbering run that he does not even like. I was like, what what is this he's getting into? Yeah, I just thought I want to do that.

Yeah, pre pre water slides. This was pre flumes. Wow. Again, it's like, we don't need to know what it is. It's some exhaust poor and that's like some sort of weather vein or now what falls there?

Is it just an object to show that the peril of the potential fall that he could have that wasn't or is it his hand or is it his weapon of No, it's something a box of some sort, isn't it Again? I think it's just a way of saying there's peril here. I always at this looks pain for where it stretches his hand and he's going to hang upside down again for what the third time? Clothes or torn up. Look all that sort of staining and marking on the bottom of the hard way there.

I love the production design that Norman Reynolds and this just him and his team just pulled something off amazing. I mean to top the look of the first movie, which really is quite a simple production design. That's one with the camera moved, but it's a brilliant effect to bring the emotion of the scene. She's just that's so great. The little flicker of the eyes should not really doing anything, but it says so much.

Chew. He's got some moves. Yeah, this bit bring my shovels much better because he's kind of held just bring my shuttle. And then you didn't see that external shot. It was just like he's pissed off and everyone's behind him going, oh god, we're gonna get it.

Yeah. There are some stills of this bit where Luke lands on the falcon and lots of Land is tending to him. That suggests that there was a longer scene. Again, that's an addition there, but again it's just you know, chopped down to its necessary components. Okay, the music here, Yeah, so those strings that he just goes on, it's quite unnervous.

Yea. Again this sort of suggests peril here, doesn't it as well? Look like these doors look kind of vicious, don't they. Like you don't see him Land, but you don't need to do you because he goes let's go say this must be it must be right? Yeah, yeah, he's never you know, he doesn't even know this bloke is Does he land over?

Yeah? This scene is kind of weird addition. In fact, if you look at Vader coming down the ramp, you actually see the guy from Return to the Jedi meeting him at the bottom of the ramp because it's an out take from Return of the Jedi. It's just to the right of frame. In the second Lord Vader, this is an unexpected pleasure.

There is a did you ever work with him? Yeah? I did a player, but six seven years and we got in to do all that stuff at the beginning. Did you we reacted it? Yeah, because everyone was few fans will start with what show was that.

It was at the Denmark and he did it, he did it. He was a good game. Yeah, he did it excellent and he said browsers and read really he did the first take and stepped on my cab or something. Right, Get this guy out there. He wasn't very nice.

I hate all that stuff, like when people just get too big for their boots and I think they can just fire people because of the weight they carry. You look at the young lad on the left, there's a young lad, giant Adam's Apple. Yeah, they've run out of officers because he's been killing the activated level. That staining on all the droids here. You know, if that was a vintage car, you wouldn't clean it off, you just leave it.

The humor they get with after the Beeves is so clar Ben, but just making noises and putting them in a keyboard. I really want to interview Ben this year, and that's my aim. Have you have you contact with him, spoke to him? No, but I'm in contact with the guys at Lucasfilm or at ILM and a Skywalker sound that hopefully can get him for me. I just don't want to go over the same old stuff.

I want to talk to him about. I want to ask all those questions he's not been asking you. I love that bit there with Vader and Lude with a slow little mix between, because everything else cuts cuts, cuts for wipes, and there's the there's mixes between, which I think they did again with that deleted scene from Return the Jedi when Vader's trying to sort of communicate with Luke mm hm. Again it's sort of an unspoken sort of editing come mention. The mix just sort of suggests usually the passage of time, but here it's a connection.

It's the connection across space. Isn't it ready for attractive again? Not two saves a day finished with Baker could do it. I'm standing here in pieces and remember looking up the word grandeur as a kid, and what is a delusion of grandeur? Mm hmm.

Everyone's like, who's gonna die at this point? And they're like me. Even this guy here looks around like got away with it? This spit here was added very very late on a couple of shots. Yeah, so they'd rapped.

I think they were even doing the rap party for the effects guys, and then Lucas I think, said no, we need some more shots. We need them done now. Is this shot here might be one of them? So I think Ken Rouston and Dennis Muir and all of those guys got called in very very late on to add to that, because I think in the seventy mil version that shot isn't in there. I think that's the case.

Is he wearing a Han Solo's clothes? They look very he hasn't worn those It no waiting for your se The only time Mark Hamill says made a force with with you in it's off camera. I saw him in an interview once saying he wouldn't say it because he never said it in the films. Okay, like this little effect here with a clicky little tendons again analog, Yeah, very cute as bit where he puts his arm around Artio as far as hand on artis shoulder and cleaned up somehow. Well, they get a full service from me, which turned back to the rebellion and what a thing it was to end the film this way, like nothing's tied up in a neat little bow.

This just didn't happen. It's it's three bloody years until we saw the next But yeah, people say that, but I don't remember it. I mean, they got away, and it could if it hit there, I wouldn't necessarily be when I'm a kid, I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, I mean they kind of get away. But you know, I'll call you when I make contact, when we'll find jab at that yeah, right right, you know it's going to carry on. Yeah.

I turned around to my mate who saw this with me and his son and my wife and my kid the other week, and we both said at the same time, it still really works, doesn't it. This movie. It's amazing, amazing storytelling. There's a lot going on. You're always with it.

Yeah, you And what's good about them? I think him and spielbergers, even if they don't give you the answers for certain things along the way, it is deliberate. Yeah, so he goes into the cave. Okay, why is he in the cave? I don't know, but I'm okay with that.

I never go hang on a minute, and that stops me knowing in the movie. In fact, it adds to it. When some movies you watch, you go hand a minute, why was what was that? And I never really feel that with these even they're so quick and they're so fast, you always feel like you're being taken along. Yeah, it's very funny.

Yeah, it's it's creepy. It's funny. It's heartwarming, isn't it. It's emotional, it's you really care for the characters, don't you. It's funny how many of these people I've interviewed now when I see these credits credits, Yeah, and you've had most of them, and I know a lot of these people.

So Disney Plus has done its thing and minimized the credits because it wants us to watch Return of the Jedi instantly, but we'll stop. We can open that again, can we? Yeah, Well, I hope you enjoyed us waffling on about the Empire tracks back. We could do another one of these in the future. Maybe we should do Return the Jedi, a movie that we both love and both know inside out.

And you've probably got more like store is about actors you've worked with as well who were connected to these movies. Yeah, there's quite a few of them, because all those sort of young English actors that were yeah snapped up, Yes, Imperial imperials. They had to have a British accent. And you also feel like in the score with this the first movie, that sense of that a lot of them seem to have, which is like this is you know, I believe in it, but it's a kind of way out there movie. Yeah, you feel that he John Williams and the school manages to go right.

There's an opportunity to really expand and do lots of more interesting things. The first one is kind of Yeah, things like the Imperial March. When you watch a new Hope anytime Darth Vaders on, I won't to hear that, Yeah, it's so synonymous with him, is it. I think in this film The Empire, there's so many kind of out there tracks like that Hoffback one. It's all that percussive, kind of really odd when you listen to it in isolation, it's really kind of out there, whereas in the first film it is very much that kind of corn gold symphonic sound, isn't it?

Still want Joe Johnston on the podcast there's Neilo Rhodis. He sent me a Christmas card this year. Last year he sent me one with a drawing of a character on the back of a tonton which he designed, which I'm keeping forever. Craig Barron I interviewed him as well. It was kind of when I see these credits lawn people, I kind of feel like you're one of these and one of these dudes.

Yeah, that's the thing, Like I feel like by the time I've figured out that, oh you can work in the film industry, it was too late for me. Like I wish I'd have had that confidence to go and do something. I'm not artistic, I'm not particularly technical, but I certainly have an interest in all of this stuff, you know, working TV obviously, but I think I would have needed to have got in there in my early, very early twenties, because I got married young and started having kids relatively young. It's too late by then to sort of give my life over to the film industry. And I guess thinking like to talking about them technically because a lot of the sort of spaceship hardware.

It's because it's not about that. Yeah, that adds to the fact that it kind of doesn't really date in the way that some of those other movies sci fi movies at the time do date. Yeah, it's actually it's just about the characters. Yeah, they're never looking at what they're switching on in the MILLENNI. They're never showing off the technology or trying to make too much sense of it, so it's not really sort of trapped by that, yeah, fifty years later whatever.

I also hate him or dislike in later movies, not styles movies necessarily, but in science fiction and fancy and stuff, those kind of big swoopy shots that want to show you the geography of the entire place before it goes in on the close up, whereas in these films the editing is there to show you the geography of the room you're in, and I think that works so much better. There's an intimacy to it. Yeah, you kind of get everything you need, Like in the subsequent films, I feel everything Planets seemed to be quite a lot like Tatooine, whereas in these original films, this is green, yeah, the forest, yeah, yeah, this is snow. Yeah, it's about the palette. This is a volcano.

Yeah, and you kind of you're not. You know where you are. You've got the information you need, and then you can concentrate on the characters. We're into the foreign credits here. I did hear once that like people who play but the guy who plays I don't know hand solo is also the guy that dubs Harrison Ford in a lot of movies.

Okay, And I also did hear something really weird recently that AI is now able to translate oh God movies into a voice of like, so it'll be Harrison for the voice, but speaking French. Okay, which makes me wonder about the careers of hundreds of people. Yeah, that's a whole that's a whole other episode. Yeah, I think your mic might have died, but hopefully it's being picked up on my one. Well, that was cool.

That went quite quickly, didn't it. We're sitting in the pitch dark here. That's the way you need to watch these movies though, Yeah, definitely very quick. Maybe I should bring my projector next time. It's the longest of those movies, is I don't know.

I think it might be all right and cut. Well. I hope you enjoyed that special episode commentary episode with me and Giles Terrera. Thanks Giles for your hospitality and for the lovely steak dinner you cook me. After we did our commentary, we had a really nice afternoon and evening actually just chatting about life and the complications of heading towards fifty fifty years old soon.

Well, I'm forty eight this year. But closing in coming up on the podcast, I have my conversation with presenter and documentary maker David Whiteley. If you don't know, he made two documentaries, one about Britain's involvement in the making of the Stars movies, which is great, and another great one about the Palliitore factory which produced the Stars figures here in the UK back in the day. And then next month April twenty twenty four, it's going to be the episode of this podcast. You know, when I started out, I thought I was going to get to ten, maybe ten, and give up.

But I've just loved it so far, and really I've had some amazing guests, and I've learned so many things and made so many friends and spoken to so many people whose work I admire, and you know, I'm continuing to do that. Thank you to the support that you provide on social media and via Patreon. If you do want to support the podcast, you can do that on Patreon dot com, forward slash Jamie Benning. If you'd rather not get involved with the Patreon side of things, there is now a way to support the podcast directly via PayPal. I've created a donate button which I'll put on the website and in the show notes, and you can choose the amount that you'd like to send.

If indeed you do want to send some money to help the podcast going, you can find that on filmnementaries dot com and as I said on the show notes for this episode, so do look out for the two episodes next month. I managed to get Phil Tippit for the one hundredth episode, legendary animator, director, producer, and we had a great chat about his career, and I'm still trying to get Peter Sushitski, the DP of the Empire Strikes Back, to come on the podcast talk about his incredible career, and of course I'm working way here in the background trying to get these amazing guests for you to listen to. It's as much for me as it is for you, because I do love doing this and I hope you enjoy listening. Thanks for joining me, and I hope you can do so.

For the next episode of the Film Youmentaries podcast Weird in a way Media