Episode 49: Four Best Fourth Films

Our fourth anniversary, celebrating by discussing the greatest Number 4 films. Sarah Watt, William Chen and Jeremy Downing discuss Toy Story 4 (2019), Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), and Star Wars (1977), which was retrospectively assigned the subtitle Episode 4: A New Hope. Each are great examples of the fourth film being a great work of cinema, despite other fourth films typically being sub-par. We begin discussion around Star Wars and the way they if backloaded a franchise into its title, as well as how this franchisation has been preloaded into films since, as well as the place of the prequel. We talk about the way each of these four films work into their series, particularly the quality of the films they are following. Our discussion then moves into a discussion of the Mission Impossible series, focused around Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. We then talk about Toy Story 4 and how the whole of Pixar's original series has played out. We talk about the strength of Bo Peep in Toy Story 4 and Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, and their roles as strong female characters. This then moves into a discussion about felinity, feminism and the statement that Mad Max: Fury Road is making about gender. We return back to Star Wars and finish our discussion around the grandfather film that influenced the other three, including mentioning a raft of other fourth films which aren't good.