Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe show. That's right. I'm back to have the same in-depth NBA conversation You're used to we're gonna talk about the games the X is knows the drama the playoffs are coming up And now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and I'm my own YouTube channel Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're gonna love so make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand News Zach Lowe show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast. Let's go The rewatchable is brought to you by the ringer podcast network where you can find the watch with CR That's right big picture with Sean Fennissi higher learning.
Yes Midnight boys Pew Pew Pew you gotta get it right for the crucial yeah I'm Bill Simmons we're about to do Star Wars it. It's a major movie and you guys are really really excited. Let's get going You guys you guys you can't bully us throughout this time Star Wars great at PG all right guys first installment of the greatest trilogy ever Peak of the 70s blockbuster era godfather exorcist Jaws Rocky Star Wars return to popular cinema The highest stakes ever in an actual movie because the entire galaxy is at stake, man. Yes Which of our first few star wars 1977.
I'm not doing this chapter for a new hope fuck that this movie's called Star Wars Yeah, I thought in the theater we called it Star Wars, okay? One of the single most important moments of my life is watching Star Wars with my father It actually opened up my mind to an entire realm of cinematic possibility being that deep in space All of the lore that goes on around it all the mystery when you first see it you're wondering what's happening? What's happening? How do you explain some of the things that are going on it assumes that you understand both the natural heroes are but also that you kind Of get an understanding the stakes of the world It sets you up for me at least to understand all of the nerd culture stuff and all of the science fiction stuff that I will Go on to love for the rest of my life.
I'll tell you when you sign seven. Yeah, seven years old I'm the only one who's on the theater. Yeah, I mean this is the movie that I've seen the most of my life I think I was surprised right here that you told me that last week I mean you don't remember it's like from the time what that I can basically remember from when I was like five or six to Now I mean it's just been a constant in my life and especially with the last what 15 years of its revival pretty much since like 2013 When it first week comes out 15 15 It's been two revivals because the 97 was the first revival when they released really crushed it I was like what's going on? I was a teenager.
It was huge over $200 million dollars. Yeah, well they were also they added new stuff So that was part of the appeal but then they get the prequels to that was like they're pretty close for the life It feels like the mid 2010s and then this whole Disney and or middle-earn universe was like the fourth revival Yeah, I mean it's like we do these were watchables a lot and like we'll talk about movies from say like the early 80s of the 70s This is the first one I think we've done that I feel like was this turning point where I was born into a world after Star Wars So I was born at the end of the 77 So everything that happened in my life is a world that is reacting to what George Lucas did and it's so I don't even have like a frame of Reference for what going to the movies was like before Star Wars And I think it's a testament to this movie's legacy and impact that movies were never the same after that I think also because what you were saying with Rocky and the godfather and this era of Massive cinema, but most of those movies were for adults and for guys like us who are like in their 40s who were born into a world of Star Wars These are movies for kids I mean you could I think I thought four five when I saw Star Wars for the first time And so it just becomes a part of your cultural bloodstream at a very very early age So it's definitely on the list too for me for the movies I've seen the most and I did it Remember having the three VHS cassette box, you know that expanded size box and just like running that over and over again in dead time In afternoons after school, so it's got to be super analyst and you know I think like all of us like it just set us up for a lifetime of getting interested in science fiction Fantasy comic books like all this stuff that is so present in the culture now starts with this movie Yeah, I was always I was watching it this time I was thinking a lot about Luke and Han and when you're a kid let's say when you're like six or seven years older whenever you see This movie and you're starting to get all the toys. I mean this movie really It suggests a lot of things about what we would come to understand about the mythology and the lore around Star Wars But there's so many pockets for your imagination in this and I was taken back to like having the toys and like writing my own Star Wars stories Because it wasn't so everything was drilled down all the details were nailed down like all the things about stars that we now know Which is gonna make picking it almost hard because you can just be like I had answered that in Rogue One or the answer that in Jedi The answer that it says it's like well for me I came up with them like and that was like this thing that became it almost belonged to everybody because in your mind You're like I think about which as much as I think about whoever and I have a whole story laid out my little brain about this And I think that's why people are still obsessed with it later in life is because you have this memory of it being like a cortex of how you started to use Your creative brain almost there was scarcity as well. Yeah, like we didn't have a lot of Star Wars material and content Obviously they want to be television specials and it was constantly referenced and all that stuff But you know there weren't like there were comic books and stuff like that But then you get to expand the universe stuff and all that stuff that we spent all those years Reading and then they just said doesn't exist after hours and hours of reading it still for the way about that You had to make the mythology up in your head.
You had to wonder how was this a big deal? You had to think about what the Clone Wars were like how they thought what a Jedi looked like when a Jedi was 25 We only knew old jedi's and then baby jedi's we never knew a Jedi in this prime You have to think about all of these variables because it wasn't giving it to you yet We were still in the baby stages of how gigantic the universe would become and that sort of goose your imagination to fill in the gaps Of the stuff that you hadn't seen but wanted to see so it came out I think I was at the end of maybe second grade. It's like late I was still in school and people were going to see it like you started I didn't see it right away people in my in my class some of them and I was in you know Massachusetts and people were going like four or five times in two weeks and it was the first time you're like wait This kid David like it is kid David my husband In two weeks and it was like what yeah He went to the same movie six like we were just like dumbfounded and there was like the sports kids And then they were like the Star Wars kids and they were the certain kids that they just Oh Really all the sudden it became part of their personality like this movie I came back for against the net third grade Whatever was in there at that point some of the merch was out and I think I were just into it and it was like this whole world I never remember seeing that before I do think that that is a real generational divide between us at least where to me like the kids We're in this words were in the Star Wars look at the ring or exists I think because eventually what happened to the culture is that those things were all the same Yeah, like your obsession and your passion and I told you when you texted me about doing this I vividly remember being ten years old and walking down the hill from my house to go to the local bookstore And I would just sit in the bookstore and I would read the Star Wars encyclopedia for hours I couldn't afford about the book. Yeah, exactly the band is describing and Chris is describing Where's like there was so much information that you heard what's uttered one time in one of the movies?
And there was all this lore that was explained about it But it was the same exact experience as looking at the back of a baseball card Yeah, you're like you're you're getting a better understanding of the history of this thing that you have a passion for But you can only experience it when you're watching a game or you can only experience it when you're watching the movie Except there's all this external culture around it and like I'm sure when we came out everybody's getting toys and they were The Halloween was the first one Yeah, Halloween was a few years later and everybody was dressed as like Luke I don't know we probably tried to bully him at some point But it just it wasn't for me until Empire I saw in the theater was cool. We didn't really have cable in the same way back then I remember there was that famous holiday special they did here I didn't see that either but when Empire came out that's when it makes sense though In Empire came out I was like holy shit, so and now there's gonna be a third one I mean just weren't conditioned to take a trilogy is like that Empire was the serious movie Yeah, it was the movie where Star Wars grew up where there was a Defined romance in the movie between Han and Leia where Luke great sense of what I'm having seen it Where Luke has this adversity and personal crisis about who he is and how he's gonna get there and that's the movie where they went Okay, let's take all the ideas from the first one and then evolve them into a movie that is for the movie goer That's a little bit more of a grown-up version of it because it's a lot darker There's a lot of double crossing and beings that are going on So they actually kind of made Empire for the guys like yourself who were probably you know I mean you're still pretty young at the time but were more serious film goers and film watchers Okay, that came out kind of around the shining 80 was a really good movie here. Yeah, but Look you watching this twice in four days the first time I watched I'd seen it a long time and I was like, ah It's dated but now this is fun. This is nostalgic and then I watched it the second time and I was like this one was kind of awesome Something that George Lucas I think I've seen pieces of it for 50 years But just watching it start to finish because when you start it especially when we had kids I was like, I wonder if my kids will like it and see 3p.
Oh and R2D to go in the desert and the movie just dies for like four Minutes and if your kids can get over that hump, you just basically have to get your kids to the Star Wars Bar scene once you're there It kind of you're going from that point, but it does get a little slow there I kind of the inverted experience rewatching it. I watched it a couple times for this the first time I was like man We are on Tatooine for a long fucking time This is just a lot of desert time with Luke and I was kind of bored Yeah, it's probably been between five and ten years since I've last watched it and but by the time we got to the trench run I was like probably this is the best I've ever felt Like this is just amazing Like every time Darth Vader comes in it's the best entrance. He's the most captivating villain That's ever been in a movie and you're just like a and he's in the movie for 12 minutes Yeah, there's never been a better villain, right? It's funny.
The movie is about him. Yeah his story We didn't know that we did not know that then yeah, we didn't know that then but when you watch it through that lens now You're still watching his story and the story of his kids and the story of the entire his certain father Yeah, but Obi-Wan tells the story about what happened to Luke's dad But you know, I mean, it's we're gonna talk about a bunch of shit there But that keeping that secret not knowing that secret in 1977 on watching the movie one way but now knowing the secret when you watch it It's a completely different. Yeah, I think I think they jumped out of me on these rewatches was I always forget how bratty Luke is for that first Hour, you know, and like there's there's like those funny lines where he's like, you know, I was gonna Power converters or whatever and it's really like not until they spring lay up that he kind of like starts to grow up a little bit And then that also when he has the moment that basically makes him a man when he loses Obi-Wan or whatever But like yeah, it's really funny I remember being a kid and identifying with Luke because I was a child So Luke was kind of like a cool older person to me then and now it's like you go back And you're just like I just watch it's just like as soon as solo shows up the movie takes off So that's the other thing when you're watching this it's Harrison Ford one of the great actors from a popcorn standpoint the last 50 Years and he's just this young version. Yeah, it's like watching young somebody in college like some NBA player Completely fucking confident every scene crushing it's like the movie is written for him people are talking about stuff and how it's bullshit You're going with that guy.
Yeah, we're always always doing right perfect. You feel like he can sleep with Princess Leia even like three minutes Oh, he feels like yeah, I can take this down right now Luke is like what do you think of her? I'm not trying not to and then how sees that Luke is you know a little into her and he starts fucking with them a little bit Still last spirit though. Yeah, he is also the only person in the movie who's allowed to talk like a modern person Yeah, I have a British accent the part when he blows up the control panel and he's dressed as a star to a pretty like boring conversation Anyway, he's like the only guy who's sarcastic.
He's only got has really like like modern jokes Yeah, so he feels like the cool version the cool guy you want to be Luke is a hero, but he's so bland I mean he doesn't have shape as a person Han is a guy who's lived, you know, he's 34 years old Yeah, he doesn't have shape because the actor or the way the character No, I think it's supposed to be a kid who's isolated who's looking for feels like his life should have meaning and it doesn't and it's But if that's 18 year old Chalamet as Luke in 1977 is Luca back But here's the deal here's what I know now that they built lore around that we didn't know that Luke is being protected Yeah, very directly by Kenobi and By his uncle, right? Loops call to action is mystical. The force is calling to Luke, right? The thing that's making Luke look out at the stars and I'm actually feeling the weight of talking about The Luke is being called to something more because it's birthright.
Yeah, and so when you watch the film now He's annoying, but I'm watching them. I'm going let him go. Let's look fucking Skywalker You don't know what he's supposed to become you guys are muting his life to that point. It's like CR saying this by Anthony It's right Right, so all of that's happening and he's bratty But it's a part of the most perfect three film arc to me in movie history.
I have a confession Okay, I feel like I should have gotten more involved in the Star Wars This actually made me watching the second time. I'm like this is a bad job by me. I should have gotten more But I'm actually excited to watch the second one now. You've seen it though.
Yeah, so I saw in the theater. Okay What do you saw all in the theater? Okay, I went that you had to go either was that you were just left out of the conversation? If you didn't go what was it though, where you like I don't want to be perceived as a nerd Just never really never really got me in the way like some sports movies action movies other I just never really dove in Yeah, I didn't know that gets me.
But you love lore. I mean you were like with basketball when you talk about best the history basketball This is exactly like listening to the band talk about it's the same exact I blew it I was talking to my buddy Jim Grady one of my best high school friends And he had two cassettes that were on all the time We watch Rocky 3 all the time and then he would always have Star Wars on and I would always be if he was watching that I would always want to do something else How dare you do rewatch? Yeah, I did around in your past. Let me find out you were like William Zabka 80s cool kid.
No See the kid I just never got like that and never I never really like Star Trek either I watched all the Star Trek's but I never really I thought you never noticed I fight us But when I watched it this these two times I was a little more intrigued because I just like how there's big themes and it steals from the past with All these other things like this is basically a Western Families been wiped out it steals from 90 different things From doom to the point that was pissed off about the fact that he thought the movie was So from Flashwarden so because that's what we just wanted to make was a boss Yeah, I mean look at the the C3PO and art theory of wizard device. It just feels like all It's all synthesized into this perfect little package but also Demonstration that even though we're telling the same stories and invoke the same emotions It is how you tell them It is the world that you put people in it is the ideas and the concepts that you're able to create when you're telling these stories You have a new not a new form of government But you have a new style a new look you have the technology aspect of this which was revolutionary in and of itself Right you have all the things that you take to take a clap that you need just a take a classic and making it to something that people have never seen Can I ask you a question because you obviously are watching the starware stuff that comes out now with such a close eye Yeah, one of the things I thought was really interesting reading doing research about this was you know Lucas goes through all these different variations of the script It's 250 pages at some point. He has the entire trilogy mapped out when this stuff comes out It's immediately like they're gonna be 12 movies He's got 12 in his head But when you watch the first one we watch a new hope the thing that blows your mind is that first 45 minutes albeit Maybe a little bit dull is not packed to the gills with information There's not a ton of exposition about like well Okay, there's the Senate and they're doing this and then like we're gonna cut to Palpatine and then we're gonna cut to here And these characters are gonna meet just to talk about the fact that there's a vote coming up or that the Clone Wars were like this It's just droids wandering around the desert which in a weird way becomes more immersive, right? Like like what the fuck is this movie?
What is going on? So do you do you I guess I my question is like do you have a preference or do you kind of see the difference between how starwars has changed over the years? I see how we've changed yeah, so during that time you trust with the audience more all right door opens Seven foot black droid black in color and in voice for some piece of those Pops in this guy's evil the death march plays you know, it's fucking on right when you say the Clone Wars The audience didn't go home. It's like in it audience now.
We're like what are you talking about right? So we kind of demand this interrogation of story that is good It makes us more sophisticated movie goers But it also sometimes and I can say this about Star Wars fans even now puts the handcuffs on what filmmakers are able to do Because it makes you want to roll out the story faster than what it is that they're giving it to you This movie the pace is a little all over the place But it's expecting you to actually do a little work and putting yourself in the world and it's giving you enough visually at that time Which I'm assuming we hadn't seen too much stuff like this and I know we hadn't seen any stuff like this right So it's expecting that you'll be wild about what it is that you're seeing and you'll sort of succumb to or surrender to like What's on the screen and by the time you know it? You're on a while they also there's some cheat stuff that they do that's really smart They give him the ways that they name some of the characters. It's like on solo.
Yeah, he's a solo act Yeah, you know Walker not the subtlest of title this guy might walk in the sky someday and just every like there's a waiter Yeah, we know it's like I wonder what this guy's about yeah go through but and it's stuff that if you're five years old or seven years old You can kind of you're just instinctively understanding everybody. I love hearing you say the word Greedo like I just never thought we would Yeah, just a man controversy with that My Greedo One thing about what you guys are talking about that is interesting though is that Lucas's imagination is unbelievable I mean it is like unmatched the amount of world building that he has done in this franchise is insane obviously I don't know Have like a nine-cannon universe It's almost like Stephen King if he had become a director He's a great comparison. It seems like he's still writing. I mean still coming up Very crazy, but the reason this movie is the way that it is is because it is an after-effect of its practical opportunity So the movie is basically 25% of what Lucas imagined but could get on screen and part of what's amazing about the movie is the way that the Technology develops during the production of the movie to get as much of what he wants on that practical stuff that we love at this It makes me so special and so perfect is his biggest frustration and regret and why he kept going back and messing with the movie and changing the Movie because he never felt he says that the final product of Star Wars when it was released when you saw it in second grade Felt abandoned that he was like this is just as much as I could get done before I had to just stop He's got so many different ways of saying this and the most interesting thing about is this by the time we get to the point that George can tell the story that he wants to tell the technology that he want that at his fingertips He makes three movies that aren't very good.
Mm-hmm And it's it's interesting because he makes you talk about the portman movies the prequels By the way, just came out 25 people like yeah, John me like Seth he was excited about it. Yeah, I like it. I like to work bad They yeah, they're not very good. They're deeply political like almost the inverse of the first I'm hoping to remember how absolutely polarizing and upsetting those movies I feel like I'm doing fan of medicine at first came out I refuse to believe that it wasn't good a lot to myself for months and then I woke up with a guy father for a stepfather You know what?
Very similar. Yeah, very similar. So it's it's interesting because he talks about this all the time and he'll have a Comp a sorrow situation with anyone but the constraints on the movie kind of made it what it was Oh, yeah, this is Shawn mentioned this when we were texting about it. It's such a shame The original thing doesn't exist.
I would just be Fascinating to see like what the special effects work is obviously their stuff and the version I watched it I watched it on a Disney Plus but at that I got the Blu-ray because I want to see that and there's obviously stuff They've added in the last yeah 10 12 years where it's like you watch Rocky and that's the movie It's like there's empty seats when those guys are fighting you just see empty seats everywhere and there's you know really bad I make up and it's like part of the charm they made it in 1976. I don't love that they redid it Although I shouldn't say much because C. R. And I've been heat for time Going back and adding you know yeah CGI characters Great I think the last time you could watch the original theatrically released version without any of the added stuff was the first DVD That was issued that the like alternative version you could watch.
I don't have that anymore I mean I used to have it in every format this movie in every form is their laser disc. I'm definitely yeah There's a lot of that form it's definitely on the VHS and on the laser disc, but they have it on Blu-ray has not been issued You can't watch the original theatrical version. That's kind of a mis-by-lucus who clearly is wanted to profit That is clearly doesn't care I don't actually think he sees these movies especially this movie that we see it right like John's Totally was a part of it as like a professional misstep that albeit made him a billionaire like I don't think he's looking at it as like Oh, well, this is just a priceless perfect gem. It's like a piece of art that you shouldn't touch No, he doesn't think fidget does this too, right?
That's like the dust off of a window and stuff like he doesn't change characters like job is in this fucking movie in the new versions of it He's not in the first one so when you meet Java, you're like this is my Which by the way steps on yeah, it's better the other way it is better There's no question about it like the idea of who is job of the hut is the same thing Right? What is this gangster character who could who could possibly be in the movie of rooms? But he can't see past that he can only see into his own imagination And he can only try to reach for what he was envisioning when he was whatever 30 years old when he made this movie So it's like this never-ending quest to fix the mistakes of the production that is also the I thought it was bullshit at first like he would say you do four five and six because you didn't have what you needed to do one Two and three right and one two and three they're gonna be hundreds of Jedi running around and all that stuff And you didn't have what you needed and so technology has got to a point to where I can go back and actually shoot these movies now I'd be like, oh, that's bullshit I mean, maybe he didn't have the story worked out or maybe all of this stuff about how much of this stuff that he had ready and planned Is just a legend but he continues to prove it because he won't stop tinkering with the movie He tinkers with it and tries to get it closer tries to perfect perfection and actually kind of doesn't get there with doing it Not just a job it means a girlfriend You don't you don't you don't gotta know he's married again, right? Yeah, Lucas.
Yeah, Lucas got him a You know say I'm saying it's like that This movie hits good versus evil the galaxy what the fuck is even up there, right? What do you believe in it? What do you believe in the forces obviously the key to the whole universe and what do you actually believe is a human being? Do you believe we're just randomly here?
Yeah, or is there some greater purpose for all? You just believe in just hitting same day How far will you go to dominate somebody else how far will you go to the dark side to get more power? I'm certainly a theme that might be more relevant every couple years in there right now including this one Destiny Baldors and sons getting old like an older one of LeBron in this Laker series like you know where it's like hey Oh, we need 15 I think it's gonna be stepping on the cloak pretty soon. I think I think Yeah, it's going you've got old old man I am the master now.
Yeah, that's anything ever one of my Luc Wilson hot takes which is I guess maybe I won't use this one But there's a direct correlation between the decrease in engagement in organized religion in this country in the rise of Star Wars and That's that's a legitimate hot take like there is a there is a case to be made that certainly among the vast swaths of mostly young men But women too who were obsessed with Star Wars and the kind of mythology that was available popular entertainment complete And because this is a deeply religious movie it kind of undermines the organizing nature of religion in our society And it's not the only factor but it is death in my mind definitely a factor. I've not heard that really good I'm not against it. I think my only regret is you didn't do that on first take So There's there's a religion. Okay, that my grandmother was a part of at one point I was not allowed to watch on with my grandmother's house for a little while I remember there's a religion I will talk about the religion But that there was a video tape that you watched when you were getting into the religion my grandmother was a part of this religion And there's all of these things that were bad in In society and there's a part of it where Star Wars comes up And it says that George Lucas believes in a force for real and he thinks that the force is a substitute for a belief in God and for a belief in religion And when I was over my grandmother's house for a little while she's no longer with the religion I could not watch Star Wars and I remember it's so funny that you would say that back in the day She deconstructed to me how Star Wars is actually a movie that is giving religious dogma to people telling you that you'll be powerful If you believe in this thing Darth Vader is the devil and Luke Skywalker is Jesus Christ And she was doing it from trying to like I'm not poison me But trying to save my soul, but she was also telling me why the movie was so resonating for me Right, right?
The movie is in part synthesizing not just samurai movies in the Wizard of Oz But like Judeo Christian myth like it is pulling everything from the history of religion into a story like in the 80s Especially we were given all of these tokens of our belief in these fucking toys Yeah, and you were just around all day and be like this is this is my Han Solo toast And now I'm gonna think about this guy for three hours Which is more than I thought about Jesus Christ Or anything even where I sink Christopher metal and now you hold a Han Solo toy Well, we had less to do so like for me It was baseball and football basketball cards and hockey cards, right for other people they're playing it was funny I forgot when doing the research is how late the merch was mm-hmm that they made the movie and they weren't even sure And then it became this race and there you could buy boxes that were empty They were almost like IO you for Luke's got a hundred all's because they hadn't had a maid yet It's fucking crazy, but they had no idea the movie was gonna be good. I feel like all my toys Like the stuff I remember having is more empire era like Dagobah like I had a Dagobah that you could like slip through the mud kind of thing There was always one kid who had the Millennium Falcon who was like you had to go to his house to play with it I didn't have that growing up. That was like a $50 toy, right? I never had a life like they really got a kid about the toy saver was like the popular dude in the neighborhood Well, this episode is brought to you by State Farm life is all about choices There's a lot of choices in Star Wars and the next three movies that the characters make Luke makes some good choices He trusts the force at State Farm No goals to help you make decisions that you feel good about that's why the State Farm personal price plan You can choose the right amount of coverage to help create a competitive price talk to a state farm agent today So learn how you can choose to bundle and save with personal price plan like a good neighbor's state farm is their prices are based on rating plans They're by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility varies by state I had some stuff I want to get to but I had to ask producer Craig What's your your younger than us?
What's your lifespan with this movie with this like the race? Yeah, because you're in it's like they've already made the prequels and shit's going down So how do you walk into the Star Wars universe? Um, I I wish I could like remember specifically when I saw it the first time I may have seen the prequels before I saw these I don't even really know I had only seen them a couple of times I was closer to you bill and that like I saw them maybe once or twice I liked them But they didn't like you know capture me in the same way that other people don't know I think the only troubling thing about Star Wars is it's so complex and people go so deep into it that sometimes it feels like You can't be a casual fan because everybody will exclude you That was part of my problem You could be on this You could be on this There were no answers yet You know like there really wasn't this like oh you can refer to one of 19 animated series like document this entire Yeah, it's kind of hard for me to be like I like Star Wars and they're like oh really what's your favorite planet? I'm like why?
It's true what are you thoughts on all around? Because it's a story that stokes obsession But then I don't think Star Wars nerds like us realized this at the time But we were just as alienating to other people as we felt alienated from them You know because it's just you immediately just lock into like talking about Hoff and But he's like sports like NHL fans Yeah, he's like that Edmonton You know why George games If somebody comes up to me and is like oh are you a sports fan? I'm like yeah, we start talking and they don't know who the quarterback of the Niners is I'm like I just got to know That's me talking about That's how many little kids and if I meet a dad at the preschool who doesn't know sports like shit We got nothing to talk about I took movies in the movies I took Marie Rau to see Uh, Phantom Men is like the third time I saw it and at the beginning of the movie Both Obi-Wan and Qui-Wan they force dash into the area where they're trying to get and she goes How can they move so fast and my blood started boiling? Yeah, I'm like how did my blood started boiling?
I'm like they're using the force she goes what's the force? I said Shut up Just something to do with this You're embarrassing Okay, people can hear you We got to get out of movie nerdy for a second Because there's this whole and there's so many things to get in with this movie But there's the whole impact that this movie had on movies for the next 48 years Because it became massively successful It's right at the tail end of all of this great creative explosion All these directors doing amazing things and then this movie makes a cajillion dollars and Um, there's so much resentment about it that it became a big thing for Lucas And Lucas has all that stuff he's talked about about like Look people get mad about Star Wars ruin movies And meanwhile we built multiplexes all over the country in the world Because of the money people made from this movie And there's a lot of in that the Biscuit book is the best one for this We're just a lot of directors just taking like shots at Lucas Like he ruined it. We were doing great until that movie Meanwhile couple is going up to him like Maury and Goodfell was right He's a buddy Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, that's the key Um Sean, do you think that's fair? Uh, yeah, I mean this is This is my hot take which is that Star Wars is arguably the most perfect movie ever made in the worst thing that ever happened in movies Um, and you know, it starts with Jaws in 1975 It's the first genuine wide release of a movie It's the first movie that premieres essentially on a thousand screens simultaneously That had not happened before And it's in part because Universal realizes that they've got something on their hands That they can market nationally and get people to show up People in Go see Gone With The Wind That Way They didn't go see Casablanca that way They saw it that would be open in their city and then they're closing it to another city And then it was open across five years This movie opens even wider than that it's an even bigger sensation It really really encourages the repeat viewing that you're talking about And it's edging out other movies because there's what three four movies max and everything Yes, and they're just shoving out other things And also we're in the middle of a time where Movies for adults are dominating the culture And this is the movie that resets the trajectory for mainstream movies to be made for kids And that kids is where the pop gold is It doesn't change the fact that I think the movie is wonderful and then I'm a huge fan of Star Wars in general And I still consume Star Wars stuff to this day But It didn't ultimately benefit filmmakers have benefited corporations and have benefited movie studios who got more and more green Because they saw that the ceiling was higher than they realized And so because that ceiling got raised on the potential profits It just had a tremendously negative effect across movie making over periods of time That doesn't mean there weren't there aren't good movies anymore Well, the question is would that have happened anyway?
Well, that was a really good question Somebody got there Somebody got there Somebody got there Obviously when that first movie comes out We don't know that it's going to be three films that another three films that a massive sale to Disney That includes it a universal expansion of the property I do think it's predictive of a kind of feverish model cultural thing that was happening in the 80s Where like Michael Jackson opens up the idea of how big an artist can get in music Like for the first time maybe since the Beatles like it is a literal like Everybody is obsessed with this one thing And obviously there was something in the water coming That was like people were ready to have maybe be distracted I don't know but your point's really well taken I mean this movie famously had to make way for Sorcerer the William freekin movie At Man's Chinese Theater And Sorcerer had like a week or two run and they were like get this shit out of here We had to split the baby there is our appetites were expanding period There were more ways for us to experience things The home video was having a boat There was more space and opportunity to build these big multiplexers, right? That's in the 80s That's an 80s, yeah What you're seeing is that people want more stuff Cable television is starting to dominate We could talk about almost any industry that we love We could talk about the NFL, we could talk about the NBA The appetites for these things were met by people who could translate them culturally Wrestling, porn, all that Like in Boogie Nights they talk about what it was like going from film to video in porn And how that exploded the industry It wasn't a happen But also degraded the art form That's the other thing that's right But it depends on the way so this is why I would say I can't say it It depends on the way that you look at it, right? Because I can make an argument You're a Floyd Dondoli Exactly, right? Johnny Gorker I got different ways to make an argument that There is no Axel Braun or Kevin Moore, these are point directors by the way I can make an argument that these guys don't exist if there's not an explosion So it's the key to that, yeah Right?
I can make an argument that if movie studios don't become corporations Then the smaller films that guys were taking chances on don't get made Are you talking about porn or are you talking about it? Either way, it's a fair answer That because of Star Wars there are more movies and more movies It's good Yeah, I was just really just picking back off of what Sean was saying Oh, he's definitely right But it's like the idea basically that somebody who's six years old and 36 year old Could be obsessed with the same thing Yes, yes, that's crazy Yeah, that happens once every Well, and also 10 years now like you're regenerating new classes of young people Every five years basically who then dive into this movie? That did not exist There's two other things though And I think it had something to do with the backlash You just have this once in a lifetime almost like an NBA draft class Where there's just like seven superstars in the same draft You've all these guys that grew up together Who has been a million books about it But you've of course, Daisy and the paulma You know, Paul Schrader and Fried Can, all these dudes Coppola, yeah Coppola And Coppola hits it The biggest to begin with And then it basically murders him Spielberg becomes the most commercial and the smartest He's always the smartest as we'll get to in a couple of these things And then Lucas is the one that figures out how to put it all together And all these other people just start having bombs and failures So it was kind of like Well, we're failing because Everyone wants Star Wars That's like no, maybe you're failing because you made a shitty movie That nobody want to go see or maybe the other reason for all this The fucking cocaine air is coming in And cocaine is ruining A bunch of these directors and storytellers And you know, it's just And Lucas and Spielberg were the ones that arrived So where Sazy came back, some of these guys ended up making good movies again But for the most part These guys were just built for it Some of his life co-blot With their own personal tragedies That changed the way he was The fuck ups down murdered him You know what I mean? You know what I mean?
I mean, the freaking thing is The most instructive to me always Because he makes the French connection And he follows it up with the exorcist That had never been done before No filmmaker had ever scraped the ceiling so profoundly before While simultaneously making arguably the best movie In both genres Like are you the greatest porn movie ever made And the greatest cops movie ever made And then It's like in the wilderness like 15 years Yeah, I mean he makes cruising So that was the apex I mean he made great movies Nobody cared about the first time That was the best cruising movie So 3 apex, right? Action, horror, and cruising Are you sure it's the best cruising movie? Have you seen all of them? Apparently there's an axle-broning film It's Jack's I'll show you that super later I think it's some of it is luck Some of it is circumstance I do think that The studios got very hip To the potential With franchising after this movie Plus these guys part of their thing They were acting How can I get away with spending as much money as possible And these stupid studios will let me do it And then after a while The gigs up And you guys start making some money for some of these people You know One from the heart Which is a couple of He bankrupt himself And it ended up he thought it was going to be like I don't like 8-10 million And it ended up being like almost 30 Oh yeah, it's been all of his own money It's the dark side of it on yourself It is the all time Maybe I should have been on yourself You've got yourself copy as you being like this That's a big clue You're just like a couple of guys shirt off in Manila Like he's so important to this story Because obviously he and Lucas are like his apprentice And works under Coppola And is a USC kid And he makes THX 1138 And it's a complicated production I think Warner Brothers puts it out It's early 70s, early 70s It's not a big hit It's a claim but it's not a big hit It's a strange movie And Coppola after that movie comes out And Lucas starts telling him his ideas And he's already starting to formulate some of Star Wars Coppola challenges him And he's like man I'm gonna make a comedy And that challenge leads to American Graffiti And if Lucas doesn't make American Graffiti And figure out how to write real people I don't think Star Wars is any good So American Graffiti is great It's a real great Here's a fourth And he finds Harrison fourth That led to a great bet on your self-moment van Because they gave him 150 grand to write What would become Star Wars And then American Graffiti hits And they're like Hey, you're a hot director now Here's more money We're gonna give you 500,000 And he says Now I'll keep the 150 But give me all the merchandising And any sequels And they're like That sounds great Because nobody did sequels No one did sequels Merchandising didn't work for movies Yeah And that was a two billion Cojillion dollar Pretty smart One of the all time I'm not stupid You're a stupid movie It moves Where in the moment You think Oh he sounds like a kid That's not a spy He doesn't know what they're always talking about He's dumb But either he knows something Or he doesn't know something Like either he is so blissfully ignorant That he's gonna do this Because he doesn't understand how it can backfire Or somewhere In the recesses of his brain He goes I know something about this lore And his mythology And everybody else doesn't get And I'm willing to take less Because we're talking about A half a million in 70s brain It's a lot of cocaine Well it's like Mark Cuban Right by in the Mavericks Super smart Selling in broadcast.com By the Mavericks with the Super smart And then selling probably low To the Vegas family He's like You're still gonna run the team He's like great And then they cut him out Is that what he sells to Disney?
That's what this is? No it's just You can look like a genius With one decision And then the next decision You're like What the fuck was that guy thinking? How did he not know? Can I reduce some sour grapes quotes?
It was from Pauli Gail It's a bunch of things Siskel In 77 does the show with Ebert Before it was called Siskel and Ebert And uh Or at the movie Yeah it was called What was it called? Sneak previews or whatever? I think that was the first one yeah And he kind of scolded The movie and Hope that Hollywood would continue to cater Audiences who care about serious pictures This is a tough one Because this is the same year as Saturday Night Fever Which is one of Siskel's favorite movies of all time So he felt like movies like Saturday Night Fever Were getting taken down and notched by Star Wars Then you have Scorsese These are quotes from the Biscan book Um Where he basically says The success of Star Wars Coupled with the failure of New York Which was the Scorsese movie Couple of the Federation cocaine habit Right Met that the kind of movies Scorsese made Were being replaced by the kind of movies Lucas and Spielberg made Scorsese said Star Wars was in Spielberg was in We were finished Well in a long run turn off the portion right I listen He went on to become an incredibly prolific director That made movies that stand the test of time A lot of different types of movies They come back I mean A comeback, yeah 80s were rough He was in the wilderness for a while Yeah, the 80s were tough And there might have been a couple lines Hmm But these were tough for We're talking about Scorsese I mean he's like out there trying to get like Last Intention of Christ made I this is That's a comedy bomb King comedy bomb I mean But these movies are He made a raging bull Raising bull You know what I mean? So he's the last Intention of Christ In that particular time Talk about another movie That down in the Bible Belt We had There were whole Jimmy Swagger Sermons about the last Intention of Christ How about Angelou?
Oh Who was Cypher? Who was Cypher? You booked for the October I'm not doing Angelou So I'm saying it's like I did it but Marx were say to me We're still able to Like you know He He was equals with Lucas and Spielberg I think a lot of these guys felt like they were all equals And then Within four years they were You know half of Hollywood When we did Raiders of Lust Ark together And then Spielberg's doing it They're just fucking annihilating everybody When we do the Angel Heart Rewatchables Can we all wear Canton NFL Hall of Fame Blazers and Volcan Lisa Bonet It's about to be a father There another Hall of Fame for me Well it's the final level What we mean For your Hall of Fame To the white girl Hall of Fame I know But like There are last level of the Hall of Fame Hall of Fame is like Pantheon John Millia said Lucas and Spielberg showed There was twice as much money out there And the studios couldn't resist that No one had any idea you could get as rich as this Like ancient Rome You can clearly blame them And then Friedkin said What happened with Star Wars was like when McDonald's got a foothold The taste for good food just disappeared Now we're in a period of the evolution Everything has gone backwards Sort of a big sucking hole Oh shit So then Lucas his comeback was Star Wars didn't kill the film industry Infantile Infantileized it Popcorn pictures have always ruled Why is the public so stupid? That's not my fault I just understood what people like to go see And Steven has too And we go for that One of my core beliefs is that Movie making While it is definitively an art form Is a commercial art form People don't make movies for Movie videos for wide release Just because they're artists They make them because they want people to see them And pay for them So we hope so You know people like Millias Who I really admire and an amazing writer That's like kind of a hot take You know I generally agree more with what Lucas says And I really like a great popcorn movie It doesn't change the fact that Ultimately studios are the Organizations that determine the fate Of what movies get made So it's just a by-product Of something that is obviously Sincere for Lucas and Spielberg Still were really close encounters Of the third kind this year You can't tell me that that was like a cash grab That's one of the most personal movies ever made Yeah So there's like real nuance in this conversation It's just a A little bit of cash grab The Stafford about The truth and the Stafford about what Millias is talking about Is the Roman excess of wealth That exploded in Hollywood For the most part It benefited the studios And the corporations and the Studio heads and the agents And all the people around Hollywood That decided like Oh, look how much money we can make from this And that's probably what had more Profounder Of what kind of movies they got made That anything Lucas ever did But that's a Lucas case Because he's saying The theater owners had more money They had more screens So now people had the Wanted to make more money to put In the screens And now you lead that Relates to the rise of More indie movies, art house movies And he's like Star Wars had this You know Shuffleife that Basically created Where the 90s got it And now that's not the books and Magazine pieces in the 90s Where they're all like With the movie industries falling apart There are no good ideas left And we like reveal Oh yeah And we've 95 to 90 That's amazing You know when I think about The movies that were gigantic Movies of the past Obviously like the Ten Command Is a gigantic production right That is a biblical epic But that's a piece of commerce That's something that is tapping Into something that everyone in The country is behind Which is you know Jadale Christian values It's a story that everyone knows And you're trying to do a story That everyone knows To get them into the end Mass appeal Mass appeal I think what really changed was And what Star Wars might have changed Was kind of what was mass appealing Right Because if you had all these biblical Movies before And these epics And all of these things that you would Pour all of this money to And these were some of the highest Grossing movies of all time When you talk about making movies For kids Or making science fiction pictures And making movies that were in outer space Or making movies that were in the future Or maybe it changed that But as far as I can remember The films that I thought Think about That grossed a lot of money Were always big huge films That were relatable Well think about that This is why I think the sour grapes Stuff is bullshit You go back to the 70s They were trying to make movies like Star Wars all the time Yeah it's not like Poseidon Adventure It's just a gross showering It's a fun and famous Entire and Fern of that Another one But in 76 I remember I'm old enough to remember When they did this It made a big deal But the King Kong movie Was basically Star Wars A year before Where it's like Here's a huge movie Here's Jessica Lang And that's the real Yeah And we're gonna blow this up And that's the Pongkul movie From 1933 And this is We're gonna make this a giant deal And I feel like If you're gonna blame a movie I'd blame Jaws before Star Wars Because I think Jaws fucked everybody up I just think that What happened in the 70s Is not replicable And the guys who were literally 28 years old And at the absolute pinnacle Of both the artistry And the box office In movies There's no It hasn't happened since And it won't happen Yeah It's like We just mentioned Pongkul the Holy Side It's not like that It's not replicable It's not replicable I was looking at this 1976 The highest-grossing movies of that year Fly A documentary that was an iMac's movie Is number two And a star is born King Kong Silver Streak All the President's Men The Omen The Enforcer And Midway Wow And then number 10 Is the Bad News Bears Which you feel the kids So like I think that shows you That the Cool New Hollywood 70s is still happening and still powerful But also like King Kong And Silver Streak And Bad News Bears are in there And those are movies that are Appealing to broad audiences That are trying to bring in As many people as possible There's the other thing I don't think Hollywood Really mastered the kids thing Because like when I was a kid The syndicated shows That we all watch Were like Brady Bunch, Gilgames Island The Batman I used to love the Batman show Those were shows that didn't really Do that well on TV And then they would have the Second's shelf life on Cinicated And then kind of became the Thing that way For sure The creator of the show We all lost them on Nick and Night Yeah Hollywood didn't understand I don't really feel like Hollywood Understand kids were such big Business for them Until 77 It's why this movie couldn't get Off the ground first Because they said that this is Movie for Kids and the only place That does those movies is Disney Disney only studio made Beautiful music actually Right and now they understand But in the 80s they began to Understand Because you saw big huge movies For kids You saw them in every story A lot creatures like Different stuff like all the Dark Crystal stuff Because they have the blue for I mean the thing that happens Is like there is no graduation Out of Star Wars Yes most people probably leave Behind But like what Star Wars Invents is the idea that You can continue these people As customers beyond their Childhood Which is look at the four of us Sitting here talking about Star Wars is if it's like A pressing issue You know what I mean?
We are There's a Star Wars show on right Now it's probably the best thing on TV It's like Right It's still with us It was about to cry like 30 minutes ago I had to stop myself I started to get chill Both talking about the movie Like it's weird Because you know what though I will say this though A lot of people listen to the Stuff that we do over on the Rigiverse And it's difficult for me to sometimes Be the actual grown up that I need to be Because in nostalgia It's just it's too thick Like I can't wait through it right I can't wait through When I look at the When I watch this movie For this podcast At the exact same feeling as I did You know what I do? I do I do I like watch Rosario Dawson Acting against like a An invented digital screen Talking to an alien about stuff And I'm just like well I have to do the work I have to finish the talk You know what I mean? Well this great game that we began I was trying to think I was trying to think of an nostalgia As a business For Hollywood I think it's 89 It's when it's right around there When they have the third indie movie They do Batman And they're starting to figure out And then when we go into the 90s Disney really starts to figure out The Machine of Movies And the video cassettes And it's like we have the Lion King The Lion King is gonna come out Elton John is going to sing the song And it became like almost like a blueprint For how to hit kids How to make parents And Sean knows that Somebody with a little kid right now There's a five-year window Where it's like I just want to take My kid to a movie theater for two hours And feed them popcorn And hope they don't have a meltdown We do it every time We do it every time Yeah I think you're right that they Figured out the formula for sure I think this moment right now Is really interesting and instructive Because it is a little bit of an echo Of a past period where Star Wars is something that is familiar but new 2001 Space Odyssey happened Like there was a movie That had this same visual dynamism in space These stations kind of look similar This is the special effects It's a huge influence on the movie But the big differentiation Aside from the story between this movie And 2001 is that this movie is fast 2001 is slow Two hours five minutes But it's familiar but new And to me it's the same thing with the Japanese movies now Oppenheimer, Barbie, Super Mario Brothers, Movie, Sinners, Minecraft, movie These are the biggest movies The last few years Familiar but new Like you've never seen a Minecraft movie You know what that is? You're aware of it as a video game You've never seen a movie about it You've never seen a good movie about Super Mario Brothers Star Wars is like we've seen movies Plenty of movies like this before But never plays this way George does something Every couple of scenes He gives you something cuddly Because when you think about it The first scene is Vader brutalizing somebody Like Vader is He gave us like a dozen people And jokes one guy out there He kills a guy But free feel He guys asking for it Yeah Talk to Vader What are you doing?
What are you doing? Art to do Be too cuddly By the time you get to all well note Chewbacca, big cuddly guy You want to give him a hug He never lets you get too far away From the fact that you're safe and you're okay Watch the movie 2001 to make you re-examine like a universe And it's cold versus warm It's a intellectual versus emotional Like they're like a study in contrast They're made total sense There's also like the perfect framing device Of saying it's a galaxy far away But it's a long time ago So it's immediately timeless Because they are recognizable Things about this galaxy that you recognize in your world But you're also like But is this Is this like a western? Is this like a samurai? Is this like King Arthur?
Is this like all these Is a Bible story It feels very old Even though it's set in the future And so you wind up kind of losing yourself In the world of pure imagination Whereas 2001 is about Human beings on earth longing for connection With something greater than they have Even the scroll that begins with songs I realize that that's something that He got from older film reel Bug Rogers Cereals and stuff like that Cereals Bug Rogers type of stuff When I was a kid watching it I just remember trying to read everything And feeling like something insanely important Being sick Like something really super important Is being sick The original mode bomb You're reading it as your question The NBA play after this You're reading it in the world Game six Okay, Princess Leia I think you're trying to Even that There's this majesty and this wonder to it And I know that it wasn't new But it felt You're studying like Bible stories It's called the scroll It's like you've unfurled Of something that Moses read You know it's purposefully plucked It's starting in the middle It's episode four You're like how did I miss the first three? What happened? You're like immediately The urgency of watching is instantaneous We had to talk legacy and influence I would say this was the first movie To become a worldwide pop culture phenomenon I don't know if anyone ever Pisses together Talked merchandising worldwide You know like how did the movies Play in simultaneous release? There was no sequel to go on with the wind There was no There wasn't sequel to the novel I mean that's beautiful I think it's a link Two videos, sequels, plus all the movies They made novels, comics, video games, amusement parks Merch, everything Multiple TV series in the last 10 years It's moved with the culture Wherever it is It's like we're doing streaming now Okay, here's some streaming Lucas became If not the most successful film producer Ever is in the top four Harrison Ford comes out of this movie But then we talk about influence I think this movie has to We have to give a credit for It's the repeatable blockbuster You can't say Godfather Even though there were two Godfathers It's a franchise I think he had done it I think he was on this movie's corner Interesting I think Bond did this It's different Because they kept getting recast And they're not serialized stories So their character is a repeat But their story doesn't feel like it's woven together But the idea of Let's go to the new Bond Had existed for years before But you couldn't have it was no You didn't have to see the last one To know You can watch Russia with love And I haven't seen it before Correct, correct Lucasfilm, all the stuff he created In the 70s Which was cutting edge Well, industrial likes and magic I have a lot on that if you want to talk about Ireland It's the most interesting thing to do About this movie is those guys I think we should have had half-assed Great bet on yourself story We covered May the Force be with you Just as a concept which we talked about The evil Empire This became the Yankees For us and Boston almost immediately But the whole concept of an evil side And then like just There was no reference It was the Yankees It was the Yankees Yeah Was it an inspiration?
I knew I was going to watch it for that You know Some of us China China China The scroll The dark side of the forest The dark side of the forest Harrison Ford All the directors That this movie influence J.J. Abrams Cameron Fincher Peter Jackson Chris Nolan Ridley Scott John Lassar Was not a director but the creator Michael Bay Michael Bay Our guy Yeah Um What else for our influence? You just go big ass picture Ugh I'm just the technique of world building Which is now become World building Basically how you get a meeting in Hollywood Is like it's not just this There's so much more You know what I mean There's so many more ways to go I would add Peter Jackson To your Star Wars Definitely Influences Um and the way he made the Lord of the Rings trilogy I just think yeah Like it's become now the currency of Hollywood is to go in and say There's so many different stories We can tell with this main story I mean I think there is some fatigue with that Um because people feel like they're not getting A complete statement And maybe the success of Barbie and Oppenheimer suggests like People are pretty satisfied with one story But sinners Yeah We can ask them what about a prequel? Like they're pepper in them on the record We'll see with Cougs I'm keeping the faith with Cougs I want a center sequel Well now let's take it to you know Honestly can we go prequel and then sequel Can we go to Chicago with Smoke and Stack?
Can we go to Boston in the 70s? Why are you? Why are you throwing a value upside? Obviously Why do I have to get stuck there?
Obviously John Favreau Obviously Dave Filoni Those guys are definitely Fruid off Lucas's tree But you know this movie also revived Like the Doom movie The David Lynch Doom movie gets made Because of Star Wars Yeah Because And Do You Know Do You Learn This? It was maybe gonna be a part of Star Wars Doesn't get on Star Wars And so he doesn't get on Star Wars He failed on King Kong So he's like I gotta get Doom to go And he gets it to go and it doesn't work It doesn't work You know Influenced everything but there's not There's nothing like it I mean there's not really Is this the number one This movie influenced the most things Of all the movies we've ever talked about I think there's a strong case It's the most significant piece of popular culture Since Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan You know what I mean? There's just these Titanic seismic moments Where you can feel the whole It's what Chris is saying about Michael Jackson You can feel everything kind of shifting So it's ahead of 8mm Yeah it's like No it's like how much it's really close Which we talked about Hulk fiction is influenced Yeah It's not like five years Like ultimately like people love Pulp Fiction They were making movies like Pulp Fiction For about five years And people were listening to music Like the music on the soundtrack for about five I might try to be disrespectful It's like one of my favorite movies This thing is now five decades Of having kind of Everything in a headlock With no sense whatsoever That it's slowing down I think that's the crazy part This is what I will say Is changing Because I thought about this a lot Before we got on here So when we talk about the dead period In Star Wars We're talking about a point to where There's not a lot coming out And like we're talking in class About the books that we're reading Now there's still all kinds of stuff There's still toys And their conventions and all of that stuff But if you want to watch Star Wars stuff On TV and movies You have to watch the whole stuff Now there's something that's happening That's interesting We're starting to wonder If we're running out of story That is new for Star Wars We're having I'm not saying it I'm saying that Whatever they put out We're going to watch it Do people are being turned on to it But there is something that's happening right now To where We're relitigating this exact same time That this movie is setting There's a show that's set right now In the same time It's telling the story in a completely different way You want to laugh But we're starting to wonder How much Star Wars we need Which speaks Because everybody's so afraid to push the ball forward Because then you're on your own If you want to just play in the sandbox Of like Oh like we already know Cannonwise and timeline wise What's happening Leading up to a new hope You can do that Defends will capture the lore But so much so That one of the only Star Wars related things I watched that wasn't this movie Before I watched this movie It was just the last 15 minutes of Row 1 Which is a movie that I've always liked And I think it's a cool movie But what's most compelling about it Is the last five minutes when Darth Vader shows up And he is the Darth Vader that you See it's on your mind's eye when you're five years old Where you're like this is the baddest You've seen that to me It looks even cooler He's way cooler But the thing that is interesting to me about that Is that when that movie ends It literally ends all the way up to the last second Before Star Wars 4 A New Hope Stars Like that's how much we have exploited the material That we made a whole movie About every little thing that happened Right before this movie that we're talking about in Pods And now we're making a two season TV show About every moment that goes up into that movie When Solo came out This was the first time I was like There are limits I liked Solo But here's the thing about Solo And what's the actor's name? All of the air and right Okay He's good Yeah That movie changes career to me Because he was on his way up Everyone loved him He had this personality And then somebody asked him to be on Solo Somebody asked him to be a Harrison Ford In the most perfect role of all time And I don't give a fuck Who you get You can't do it You can't do it So there's a part of Star Wars That every Star Wars fan Has to come in terms with That cannot be done Like the way it was done in the past And I think people are having a hard time It could be funny if like white lotus Adopted the Star Wars strategy Like we're doing an Armand prequel She's like Ripping through We're gonna follow What was the family That lost the dead lost the money The rat lifts It's a rat lifts It's a due to a scene For four seasons Let's take one more break And there's more George Lucas stuff Just a quick backstory Lucas wants to do a flash Gordon type thing He starts working on a treatment In 73 called it The Star Wars He wanted romance and adventure and fun And space And started showing it to people And nobody was supportive And they were like Why the fuck are you doing this?
Why I make some real movies And people are just shitting on him And then 20th century Fox find it like that They wanted to be in business with Lucas Get 150 grand American Graffiti Crushes They're like here's 500 He does the sequels merch thing He bets on himself and wins To the point that no studio ever does this again To this degree Where they're just like Yeah take it It never happens again It's a one and only This was the only time The only one I mean there's been some close ones Even Coogler recently with sinners Where you can get it back in 25 years Nobody was ever like Yeah it sounds great take it Well, I mean Megalopolis did just happen You know like you can still pay for the movie yourself But it's very rare for someone Actually own the creative rights Of a studio film Of a studio movie Immediately Immediately Immediately in perpetuity So he said that a screenplay was Almost 300 pages long Ended up I don't know if you want to go into How we took revenge of the Jedi And then moving stuff around And saving stuff for later Yeah They filmed it in Tunisia In England He did ILM This is where you could talk about ILM If you want He created basically a company To do all the special effects That he also owned If he hadn't signed with Fox To make this movie I don't know if it would have happened Because Fox had just closed their special effects department So there was no one to do Do we have special effects Maybe we just never have them Maybe not in the form that we have them now So we have a lot of things together This group of people John Dykstra Dennis Mirren Phil Tippett Joe Johnston Like guys who go on to be Some of the most important movie makers Of the next 50 years And all these guys Move into this warehouse In California And he's off in England making this movie And they're figuring out How to make the things That are the indelible images That we still see from the movie That still Look good The opening image of this movie With the spaceship flying And then the star crews are overhead There's an incredible documentary series Called Light and Magic on Disney Plus If you are even one-tenth of a movie nerd And interested in how they do these things You have to watch this series Because the first two episodes Walks you through Specifically How they develop the technology All these guys in this warehouse That made all this stuff possible The motion Cameras that they invented The way that Phil Tippett is creating Like evolving animation styles Like all that shit That they did It's so cool It's dorky It's no doubt dorky But it changed movies Because ILM eventually becomes the place That evolves digital animation And computer-generated animation That takes us to where we are now in movies Some of that is for the worst In my opinion But what they were doing with practical filmmaking Effects You mentioned the Ten Commandments They literally get this division film The last time in the US film That's been shot on this division Is the Ten Commandments And they're like We're going to shoot these models That we built On this ancient film stock So the Death Stone looks like amazing And wide And grand and beautiful So just like really ingenious young guys Who have nothing else going on in their lives But trying to come up with cool ways to make this movie That is out of Georgia's head There's a shot And Floyd Gondola comes in He's like Guys I don't see it That's right I think the future is video I think that's like the ones right here Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer come in Hey hey hey What's with what we always are down a little bit Uh There's a shot when Malayan Fox is first fly Diving like towards the end of the uh movie And they're about to land at the Rebel Base And there's like the Red Planet And then it comes around that Red Planet To be able to see the Rebel Base Planet And I still to this day I'm just like that is outer space Right? I can't get my mind around the fact that guys made that Like it looks like a spaceship traveling in outer space to me Well and also how fucking cool it was in 1977 That's what I think That's why the movie hit like it did Because people were just like That's why they did it They did it on the show Back to Sean's point about the first shot You see the first shot The Rebel Cruiser is trying to outrun the um The story The the star destroyer I thought to myself watching it back You guys must have lost your fucking mind My mom said that I was like the first the first The first ship goes by and you're like cool And then the fucking destroyer Comes from the top of the screen Over the audience And she was like Everybody in the theater just gas Because even the depiction of a space battle When the laser is coming in It kind of dissipates There's not really very much sound They invented the way space battles Are supposed to look They had to invent that from scratch Because that went to the moon That was all like you know Made up by the government They shot that in birthday So we don't know what space is even like at this point So we they had to invent What space travel look like I don't know what stuff different Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galacta All those shows are happening And Star Wars just seemed like it was crushing It was like your four servers are after It was right after Dijkstra goes to work on Battlestar Galacta right afterwards But he said something really cool That I hadn't really thought about Which is that in that shot That we're talking about where the destroyer goes overhead He's like the entire ship During the whole shot is in focus You don't realize that how hard it is to do that There's never a moment Where in the foreground or the background of the image Nothing is blurry Nothing is shadowy In space that you can see every detail of that ship And because all of those models are handmade They made all of these doors and widgets And windows on the ships Handmade and to scale So it seems like this is something that was built by people It felt like a real thing Oh yeah, you can see the level of detail The last battle Absolutely When they're flying over the surface of the Death Star And it's like you can see every nook and cranny And you're like Guys George Lucas over underrated They're in the case I mean when you're when you're It's here to go When you're looking at the star destroyer Or the Death Star You're wondering what that does I wonder what that does I wonder what these things are Is that a satellite? What's happening here? What's going on?
And those are the things that like Smaller decades and decades And generations of wondering curiosity Well Fox wasn't impressed They gave the movie very little marketing support Did some licensed t-shirts and a couple posters Which are now worth like Insane amounts of money Like insane Like you go on eBay No they're like 80, 90,000 hours You think your former classmate David is sitting pretty With all the merch from back to back? Yeah, the lunch boxes Anything like those toys If you have the the iOU box That you never actually cashed in Or whatever that thing was Like that's everything's worth Anyway Lucas wanted it on Memorial Day weekend And everybody is like that's bullshit We don't do some movement We don't do stuff in May And Lucas was like No no no we get word about for kids Again George Lucas So they do May 25th They pair it with a movie called The Other Side of Midnight Starting Susan Sarandon Based on a Sydney Sheldon novel Sean I don't know if you've letterboxed that one I'm Susan Okay I do want to do this right Next week on the rewatch Pair it together That's the one for us They pair it together And that movie gets dumped in a week And the rest is history This is one of my favorite anecdotes Lucas and Spielberg who are buddies And they're arguing about Who's movie is going to do better? Close Encounters are Star Wars And Lucas says Your movie is definitely going to do better I'll give you 2.5% of the profit on my film You give me, we'll trade So we'll root for each other's film And Spielberg accepted Because he thought Lucas was going to have a bigger movie And Spielberg ended up with 2.5% of Star Wars Pretty good Fucking Spielberg I can't tell you man If the movie was like a mafia He's like a mafia He's like a mafia He's like a mafia We didn't pay for that I don't remember doing that Lucas was so sure the movie was going to flop That he went on vacation With a bunch of people including Spielberg And the movie is taking off And they're in Hawaii And they come over the Raiders of Lost Ark on the vacation So he's just winning I don't think anyone's ever winning more Over the span of a month than George Lucas Do you remember pre-release What the energy around the movie was? No, nobody was on it I don't remember so after it came out And the kids in class were starting to think about it They're like lives had changed Cause we're going Saturday And then we're going to go on Sunday Cause when you look at the critical response It's such a huge spectrum Where it's like You know, some of the high end places Are just like this is empty There's no characters Blah blah blah blah Then there's a lot of people who are like This is definitely going to change the trajectory of culture I'm sure you have the eber quote Yeah Roger was a fan Harrison Ford Borderline, how does it take?
Is this his greatest role? This is, he was Indiana Jones This is the argument I think I was a better movie role than this I went to a bar mitz for one time Where there were two tables It was the movie thing about mitz for And at one table there was this guy That was Harrison Ford And he was Indiana Jones And another table there was this guy And he was um Han Solo He was Han Solo That moment I was trying to think to myself Is this a recent bar mitz for? This is like Here's what I was thinking to myself Is Harrison Ford Han Solo or Indiana Jones Like what jersey is he in? What's this hall of famous?
I have the sort of answer My answer for this is I think Indiana Jones Is his work iconic role But I think he wins Star Wars a new hope Like I think that You should be on the last category I just say Jesus I think Not even the correct answer to that question Without Harrison Ford This movie actually doesn't work On a whole, on a total level But in my mind he is Indiana Jones I thought about it for such a long time Indiana is more important for him Probably I think it's his most enduring role We haven't seen the legacy of Red Hulk yet though So we can't actually answer that question Good stuff on Star Wars Um I love Han Solo I think he's Han Solo It's such a great character In Indiana Jones He's the close guy In Indiana Jones Like so much I think he's Han Solo He gets to cook in this He gets to just come in and have fun and flirt And have the best lines He's in every frame almost of Indiana Jones It's true I mean look Indiana Jones is probably his most Enduring role In his but for some reason When I think of that character When I think of him as a guy I think Han Solo Probably goes Han Solo one In the two regarding Henry III Where he had to get shot in the head to learn How to be a good guy We'll be doing that in the rewatchable That's not something I'll ever get it I love that movie I love that movie You know what that would be as by the way The first screenplay ever authored by JJ Abrams Is that true? Known as Jeffrey Abrams He was a better fucking child Directed by Michael Kels You didn't give your take On Indiana versus I think Indiana Jones is the one I think the way to measure this will be When he dies and I would imagine That the obituary is already written The New York Times will say You know Harrison Ford best remembered For his roles in Raiders of the Lost Ark Star Wars Anchorman too And 42 And Cardi had written working girl In clear presence danger And you know No others I guess I'll say Indiana Jones I like the Star Wars What do you say? You said it's Indy It's what he's most known for But for you it's Han Solo I think Han Solo is the most important part of this movie To me Who else in the history of Recent history movies last 50 years Could have been as good as Han Solo That we have Honestly you have to be To me like when I watch him in this movie I'm like this is like if Brad Pitt and George Clooney were the same guy It's like it's got the ineffable cool And like that kind of remove But also like can make fun of himself And it seems like a joker And it's so hard to put that together It's close to Denzel case He's a little edger He's like a little closer to training Now you got to be thinking about Denzel When he asks for the money from ladies I'm leaving with something Denzel case is all I'm saying Because it's a charisma role It's a charisma It's a charisma I'll steal your girl I'll steal your money I think it was a realistic one Is if it was a couple of years later I think her Russell If you put her Russell in his pocket That's like that That movie was basically snake Placing as not bad Because here's the thing Han has to be dashing But not too pretty Yeah Because he has to look a little rough Around the edges He has to be He has to smuggle But he's got to be lovable He's got to be somebody That like a face that you can kind of Forget Because he's got to get past Impital On water in his most handsome man Wherever they're But in witness though That's a couple of years after He got better as he got older Uh music by John Williams He gots better heard of him People act out here He He No no no no He grabs the belt In this movie He grabs the belt And he has never really pushed the belt He's been a man He has been the goat He manages to be like Duh duh He's like That shit works right How many are in it? Really?
Like There's an argument to be made And it's just artistically That he is the most successful person To come out of the movie Artistically But we've talked about whether He was the Joe Mantanian Searching for Bobby Fisher He's better at this The name thing you've ever been at? Like I see the number one He's better at his job Than anyone's ever been At a movie job He's the greatest film composer of all time I actually don't think Hey, Minsky K Minsky has the time for Yeah I have a couple of guys above y'all And you should throw them at work I just want to plug y'all in here Um I think there's like obviously tons and tons Of great film composers And like right now A big reason why Cinder's is so great Is because living in Cooglish partnership It's very similar to what Tom Williams and Spielberg have So on and there's tons of great people Do this but Tom Williams, those recent years ago Was still writing incredible scores And getting nominated And writing great scores for Star Wars Like he's still iterating on this music And making it sound great in new material And he's in his 90s He's just writing a now Typing bang in the keyboards On a piano that's just on a pile of cash No I'm thinking It's a piano He's got a chair It's like all in $100 bills And he's just rocking in the hundreds So you know how Harrison has the Which I would say that not very many actors Have that To that level Are you Indiana Jones or Han Solo John Williams has that Is it this? Is it Indiana? E.T Is it E.T?
Is it Superman? Yeah Like E. Jurassic Park Dressed like ridiculously recognizable You I would say that it's Star Wars Eddie Murphy is ex-fulfoli That's Walter Beyerman It's what I'm trying to think of Like if you just associate one thing with Oh he's saying more music Eddie Murphy Yeah Yeah What's Denzel? What music?
No I'm talking about associating somebody with one But you're talking about all these different things Right What is John Williams' one Identify Bill thing? I'm saying What are some other ones Where it's like instantaneously Cosperts For John Williams, I honestly think of Jaws before Yeah I actually forgot about Jaws for I think Jaws has to be the number one for him It's probably the most famous team But I think Maybe Maybe Maybe It's one of the most iconic movies We're picking from the most iconic movies of our lives Yeah But think about the fact that everyone is so memorable Now Don is Superman is not as big of a movie as The rest of these movies It's pretty big fucking movie but it's not But the theme from the movie is as enduring Or even more enduring than the movie itself He also just has 10 movies that are not As big as these that he just absolutely Cooked like Empire of the Sun is a gorgeous You're funny if you ask John Williams Like what do you think I'm gonna run with me? Yeah he's a good actor Like I'm a secretariat One other thing I want to talk about Before we get to the Oscars and all that stuff We talked about Lucas's imagination With things And you really I think one of the reasons this movie was so cool The first time you saw it in the theater Was because there's just all these different creatures Like in the 70s we had the Muppet Show Right and there were the two guys in the balcony And then there were different things And we knew all these people And we had like Sesame Street And Lucas like Basically Quintupo's down on all these things Jim Henson is a great comp though We were talking about Stephen King Jim Henson is one of those guys Who's like I have this world in my head And I'm gonna keep trying to get it out As much as I possibly can He doesn't have that It's like okay We have evil seeing people But then when we get to the bar Every single person in the bar Looks different than the next person There's that one guy that comes in It seems like he's got balls on his chin And there's a guy with a big on his nose He's like you're just going around It's like where the fuck are we? So to me the secret MVP of the entire movie is Ralph McQuarry Who's the illustrator Who Lucas told all of his ideas too For all these characters And McQuarry draws all of them Before storyboards Before they totally know what all the financing is These are the proofs of concept That they share with everybody To say this is what the characters in the world Will look like And if you look at the original Ralph McQuarry sketches Of C3PO and R2D2 Of all those characters in the cantina Of the whole world It's so close to what the movie looks like So close And that's why when people like And George Lucas's dialogue is terrible His direction can be stilted at times Like when people are really critical of him All that stuff comes out of his head From McQuarry's pen And that to me is like the ultimate case For why he is so so so so so critical To this whole machine He won five Oscars And got nominated for best film But did not win Yeah Do you want to talk about what was nominated?
Yeah, go do it Well, closing counters is also nominated No, closing counters is not nominated But Spielberg is nominated And doesn't win I believe it's Julia The turning point Annie Hall Which wins that year And what else? What is the other one? A good bye girl So the good bye girl Turning point and Julia Shows hands on me You have seen all three of those I haven't seen all three of those I haven't seen all three of those I haven't seen all three of them I've seen all the good bye girl I don't know what turning point even is What is that? I think the Annie Hall thing I've always thought it was not even four of the stuff that would be because then Titanic 20 years later Basically Everyone was like Yeah, Titanic that should win But how does Star Wars not win I don't think it was taking that seriously Obviously Not yet It's still hard for movies like To be able to do because it's hard for movies Like Star Wars So win the top award I wonder if you could even sense any of the burgeoning backlash rejection of Star Wars in the embrace of any Hall there I mean a Hall is quintessentially 70s products It is I mean any Hall is a revolutionary movie in its own well Yeah, I mean the way that the movie is made in the way that the story is told is is remarkable And so to me, it's not like a safe pick per se over the movie like Star Wars It's just weird to be like come on like that's not that would be a classic Yeah, I was the like this movie is not me for picture director supporting actor screenplay and then all of the tech categories And then wins all the tech box Oh, okay, yeah, I knew that which is a classic like we got the celebrated old guy and he got over the big That's exactly he's a guy kind of in a film with a bunch of newcomers and the new faces was okay.
This is a serious. Yes. Yes I a lot of conflicting reports on how pumped he was about this movie I was a really good worker, but was like why don't you kill me? I really don't want to do this anymore like it points to kind of keep him happy Pretty must be nice for the Guinness estate to a couple of points on Star Wars It ended up being you know This guy wanted Oscar was one of the more famous actors of the 20th century and this ended up becoming the thing that that out lived him Yeah, and I mean he's in person or require and Lawrence over 80.
I mean like he's in some of the biggest movies. Yeah, hey Great, you and I have all time wearing a rug. Yeah, we're in a rug You think you would have gone to Turkey Oscar score sound visual effects special achievement scientific and engineering which I don't even know that Let me know about it. Ultimately made who knows 75 million It initially grossed four hundred ten million worldwide in surpass jaws to become the highest grossing movie ever and then ET came out It was reissued so many times that they had to start changing titles and doing special editions and all that stuff If you do the inflation adjusted list, which I know Sean is very passionate about gone with the win So number one and star was second Chris Chris is two favorite movies of all time Roger Reiber be nervous Four stars every once in a while.
I have what I think of as an out of the body experience in a movie Raj I simply mean that my imagination is forgotten is actually president a movie theater and thinks it's up there on the screen in a Curious sense the events in the movie seem real and I seem to be a part of them And then he just raids and raids and raids about how fucking cool star wars is me to Raj I need to come for me too I feel like we should take this to a part two. I was gonna say we're 95 minutes. It's the longest intro of any I think good nights with seven hours. We're gonna take this to a part two Thanks to Craig Corlbeck and Jack Sanders