Star Wars A New Hope

This week, Phil has chosen to talk about STAR WARS: EPISODE IV - A NEW HOPE (1977).

Written and directed by George Lucas, STARS WARS - A NEW HOPE is the ultimate story of good versus evil. It’s the good guys on a humanitarian mission against the bad guys intent on universal destruction. It’s faith in what you can’t see and hope in a better world. Or, is it just a camp as tits space film that gets shown on the telly every Christmas?

Phil has worn his Star Wars pyjamas for decades. Nicky has yet to discover the joys of sci fi night wear. This conversation, featuring his enthusiasm alongside her first time impressions, was recorded in November 2025. 

References mentioned, and wider reading…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3yRv5Jg5TI The Chewbaca mask lady will brighten your day.

https://lovethynerd.com/skywalker-saga-reflections-star-wars-episode-iv-a-new-hope/ - Skywalker Saga Reflections

https://www.biography.com/movies-tv/george-lucas-star-wars-facts - George Lucas and the Origin Story Behind Star Wars

https://medium.com/@_ochre/watching-star-wars-episode-iv-a-new-hope-for-the-first-time-fdc5718874cb - Watching Star Wars: Episode VI A New Hope for the First Time


#films #podcast #movies #starwars #FILMPODCAST #moviepodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:09

Hello and welcome to Light Camera Agro, the podcast with two friends, one film and very little agreement. I'm Phil, and aren't you a little sure to be a stormtrooper, Nikki?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

I'm Nikki. Everything's fine. How are you? This week it's Phil's turn to share a movie he loves, and today he's bought the 1977 film Star Wars A New Hope.

SPEAKER_04 0:30

All outcomes soon up a first. How's your week been?

SPEAKER_02 0:33

It's been good. I've got a cold, but it's on the way out, but I definitely sound a bit bunged up. I apologise for that. I'm going to work harder, not sniffing during this record. I have tissues at the ready. But yeah, I've been busy. I went out last night with some mates who I don't see very often, so that was brilliant. I went out with another mate the night before. So I'm I'm shattered actually. I'm not used to a social world like this, but um it's gonna be quieter from now on. How about you? What have you been up to?

SPEAKER_04 1:00

Just working, not much going on, football's been going well, growing my TikTok. Um exciting. Yeah, I've gone from one a massive 127 followers to near 600 now.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Oh cool. What did you do? Post nudes.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

No idea, no idea. No one wants to see nudes. I have no idea, it's just all of a sudden just something's happened. I had a I had a little video that got over 9,000 um views, it's still going up um from the football. Right. So I'm guessing it'll be something to do with that. Yeah, fair play.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Well we need to talk about the fact this is our brand new series. It is open.

SPEAKER_04 1:40

Series two. Can you believe it?

SPEAKER_02 1:42

And we're going with the big one. Well, okay. Um okay, we are for you. Massive.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

Massive.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Um before we start then, remember this is going to be full of spoilers. So if you haven't seen Star Wars A New Hope, as I hadn't until recently, now's the time to pause the pod and come back when you're done. We will be waiting. The other thing I need to say about spoilers is I might mention, because I I don't I didn't realise all the different this this is the only Star Wars film I've seen, but I did know some things from other films that are in the ether, so I may and I may accidentally give spoilers to other ver films.

SPEAKER_04 2:22

Can I just say this is the only Star Wars film you've seen so far?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Oh stop it. No, no.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

So I am going to make sure that The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi will be in future series. Well, we'll see about that.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

But yeah, just it's the the spoiler thing just is a bit wider than just this film because I was aware as I was making notes that I referenced other things.

SPEAKER_04 2:43

I'm pretty sure everybody on the planet except yourself Star Wars.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Okay, Phil, why did you choose Star Wars and Europe?

SPEAKER_04 2:52

So when I talk about my love of films, this is where it started. This is the one that got me passionate about watching films. Uh I remember as a kid seeing it for the first time. I remember it you weren't able to buy V VHS tapes with films on, or DVDs weren't invented then, so you had to wait for Christmas, it come on and tell you Christmas, and we were fortunate enough to have a video recorder, so we recorded it and I wore the tape out. I watched that this that much. It was just this is the one that started my love of films. So this is a special film for me.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

This how old would you have been when you saw it?

SPEAKER_04 3:30

Oh, maybe about six or seven. So it would have been a few years old.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Because remember because it came out in 77, so it would have been fairly close to like you when you saw it. I guess it's a few years of it would have three or four years before it came home.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

You have to remember films back then didn't come out for m months and years on on you renting the video shop and things like that. Sometimes it was two years before they got video rentals and things like that. We're now you know we're we're in an era where a film can be on 1st of September, and then the 21st of September you can buy it on demand or or rent it. You know, back then it had all changed, and like I say, I must have recorded Star Wars every single Christmas, and then it got ended up like by the summer got recorded over with an episode of Coronation Street or something like that. But this is the big one for me.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Okay, I am aware that this is a thing for you, so I am going to be kind or just I'm just gonna be aware. But the other thing is, I am aware obviously, because I was born in the late 70s, this has been around my whole life, and it's even though it's never appealed to me, and you know my my issues with sci-fi and all that, this is I I've actively avoided watching it, I've never fancied it, and obviously, and later years there's been all these other versions that have come out, and you can't avoid um memes, and you can't avoid it par you know, The Simpsons are parodied stuff, and you know, South Park are parody. You've seen all of the various things. Um so but I so I am aware that like so many people love this. There is a fandom, people are very I know loads of people who love this film, loads of friends of mine who love this film. So I know I'm not um you know, maybe I'm in the minority. I guess there's not many people who've not seen it by the this time.

SPEAKER_04 5:17

Yeah, I think like the the one thing that I love about this film, um the the version that you've watched is the special edition version where George Lucas tinkered with it and added some effects and things, but but the you know there's some CGI creatures in there that were never in the original version. Oh okay. But if you watch the original version of this film, which is nearly 50 years old now, it still stands up visually to the day now, you know, as if it could be made last week. It it's so well made, such a well-made film, and then it was interesting at the time when it was made that the studios didn't get it. They it was like, What's this garbage and stuff like that? And this is the single biggest film ever.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Is it yeah? When you said that was like you think it is, but it's that.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

No, it is, it is, you know, it's because Star Wars came out, it all of a sudden influenced everything else.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

I know I get that it is a massive film. I just wondered if it was the stat was that it was the biggest ever box office hit, whatever.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

I don't know what so this this this changed how films were. You used to be able to buy a ticket to go into the movie theatre and you could go and watch multiple films off one ticket. But Star Wars is that popular, people were queuing round the block to see it. They changed how cinemas work, and you bought one ticket to see one film, and that changed it completely. Because of this film, Industrial Later Magic was invented because the effects houses weren't there to do what George Lucas wanted, so he created his own effects house and they caught with the new techniques. And if it wasn't for Industrial Later Magic, we wouldn't have the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park or the Beaches fighter in saving private Ryan, all those types of things. There was a lot invented from this film and grew.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Fair play. I mean, not going to argue with any of that. Well sounds marvellous. Um, so some of the things that I was aware of before I sat and watched this, I m I just made notes, I made notes before I began, before I pressed play. And I thought it was interesting just to see what my preconceptions were. So I've put um like I said, I feel like I've seen every meme and quote already. And the ones I referenced was uh were I love you, I know. Next film, that's from the next film. I'm your father.

SPEAKER_04 7:38

That's from the next film.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

So this is the point. I don't know what specifically was to do with this film. And May the Force Be With You.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

That's yeah, that's all all Star Wars films.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

So that's what I knew already. And then the other thing that I felt like I knew, or whatever, in my head, this is this film is called Star Wars. The new hope thing is lost on me. I don't remember it ever being called that. I know Return of the Jedi is one of them because I remember the moment that came out. I was younger, like I was a child. And I don't know any of the other ones. And I do remember when I was like um an adult, I guess, when there was one that like they brought out more and then they all got reordered.

SPEAKER_04 8:14

Right. No, no, so originally this was called Star Wars for a very short period of time.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

In my head, that's all it's ever been, but yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

Then George Lucas decided this was part four of a bigger story. Now, this is maybe a year, two years after it had been released.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

So they didn't tell me, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:33

They didn't tell you. So it's always like the open crawl got changed to Star Wars Episode 4 and New Hope, and then obviously Star Wars Episode 5, Episode 6, and he'd always planned to do the prequel trilogy, um, but he waited till the technology was right to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Right, because so I remember being an adult, and one of these new films had come out, and I was working in schools, and whatever, I don't know, the summer gala or whatever, I was in charge of face paints, and there was a lot of Jar Jar Binks requests, right? Which was a lot of red.

SPEAKER_04 9:05

So George R. Binks is a character. We don't really talk about a Star Wars fans because he's not very well liked.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Oh, okay. Well, well, literally, that's one of the only things I could tell you is that there was a lot of red needed when uh these little kids would come up for that. So that's basically where I am with my preconceptions. I've the I wrote Final Thoughts Before Going In. I'm genuinely not looking forward to this. I think it's going to go on forever, bore me rigid, and piss me off, right? Okay. And then I put, I need it to be a compelling story, I need to like and root for the characters. There needs to be something human and relatable about their story without it getting bogged down in space stuff. So that's where I was prior to going in. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

So for me with this film, and we'll start the breakdown of the film in a minute, there's three three sort of chapters to this film. There's the beginning on Tatooine, the Sand Planet.

unknown 9:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:55

I have no idea. Right. So that that that's like act one. Okay. Act two is when they're on the Death Star. Is that the the plot the the space station? Oh, okay. Yeah. And then Act Three is the space battle.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 10:10

Yeah. So that's how I I view this film.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

That's nice, but those three things you've just said, I'm struggling to I didn't know any of the terminology you just used. I think I've I have heard of the Death Star, but I didn't know any of the first bit you said.

SPEAKER_04 10:21

Tatooine, which is the planet that Lucas is on. Okay, okay, that's fine. Okay. So let's let's start on, right? So I think anybody who's listens to this podcast, all six of you out there, um, has realised I've got a thing for John Williams's scores.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

This score is unreal. Now, the way John Williams approached this, and I do know this because I've actually seen him interviewed, he imagined that the film was a silent movie, and if you just listen to the score, you can tell what's going on throughout the movie. Okay. I can actually listen to the entire score of A New Hope, and you just pick a random bit and I'll tell you what's going on in the film. That's how well I know the score to this. Uh it's amazing. The open and crawl uh where it comes up Star Wars New Hope, that's inspired by the Saturday morning matinees of Flash Gordon.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Because you know, Flash Gordon would end up in peril one week where he's got to fall off a cliff or something, and then the next episode would have like a bit of an open crawl telling you Flash Gordon's about to die and all this, and then all of a sudden it changes. So that's where George Luke's got inspired from this.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

So with the opening crawl, is what we're calling it. Is that what it's yeah? Fine, okay. You see all this, these are all words I don't you're saying it like the whole world knows this. It didn't. They do. Okay, fine, but I don't. The opening crawl, I it's a nice way to set set set it up, to set set up the scene, and obviously, this is a world that he has built, so it's not like you know, oh, here's Luke sitting in his house about to go to the shops, and we all relate and we don't need any explanation. We do need explanation because it's a whole world of things that but I found I had to pause it about three times to not that it went too fast, but I just didn't understand what the frig was going on. Do you know what I mean? And I was like, hang on, what? So I I I'm fascinated how small children, and I know loads of small kids in the 70s buzzed off this, so great, but I'm fascinated how they kind of went, oh right, okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:18

See, I I don't remember you just like there's a lot of right and I'll just wait for the spaceships to happen. Maybe you didn't need to. Now, interestingly, and and this is obviously my love of Star Wars. That open and crawl inspired a spin-off movie called uh Rogue One. Okay. Um, and that was one of the ones recently made. Um, to me, it's probably the second best Star Wars movie.

unknown 12:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:44

Just inspired off that open and crawl. You mean like it's it's basically civil war, isn't it, they were describing and well they're basically about uh trying to get the plans for the Deaf Star. Right. So in this film, they've got the plans for the Deaf Star. This the Rogue One is about how they got the plans for the Deaf Star. Right. Which very good might introduce that some point. So the opening credits go, and then the camera pans down. We see the blockade runner going into the distance, and then a star destroyer coming over, and that ship goes on and on and on above the camera. There's like huge you then see the big engines come and then it's just massive compared to this little ship it's chasing.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

You see, I'm lost already now, isn't it interesting? I watched it very recently, I've made my notes, but because it's just I've just not tuned in to things that I don't have immediate references for. So the first thing I've written is there's a fight, a fight out in space. Yep. So is that what you're describing?

SPEAKER_04 13:44

The blockade runner is the first little ship with Princess Leah's aboard. Okay. And then the Star Destroy is the huge ship that comes towards it and eventually captures it.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Yeah. So they capture it and then the stormtroopers break through the door and then start shooting everybody. And I will add to that, this is probably the only time in the entire franchise where the stormtroopers actually shoot stuff and kill stuff. Because most of the time they miss everything.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Okay. I have questions about the stormtroopers. So I'm not being facetious, I promise you, but these were the questions that were like I just didn't understand at the I have I have really random, stupid well, they're not stupid to me, but that you will think are stupid questions early on. Because I was just trying to make sense of it all, and then I kind of get into the plot once I'm understand what's going on later on. So it's not all like this. But are the stormtroopers, again, not trying to be funny, are they human people in white plastic suits?

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Okay, I never really understood if that was like a the alien vibe.

SPEAKER_04 14:39

So original they were originally clones, right? Um from Django Fett, which is in Star Wars Episode 2. Okay. But eventually they started recruiting people into the Empire. Uh forced recruitment, but they're people in suits. And this the white suit is the protective armour.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Okay, and Darth Ada, and I'm sorry, pre-empting, he's like the boss of them.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Yeah, well, he's pretty high up in the empire. The emperor um is the boss. He's the he basically he was the leader of like the council and he disvolved the council, but he's the one who's in charge. Right. And Darth Ada's a right-hand man. Okay, fine, that's fine. I'm on board. I'm on board. Right, okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

There's loads of things I didn't understand because you're saying all this terminology, mate because you've watched it a million times, but also because you've watched all the others where they expand the story. So just for the first time, when you were a kid watching it for the first time, there's no way you had any of this going on. I'm just saying the other.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

Well, later later on, you see Luke Skywalker and Han Solo dressed as stormtroopers, so that kind of give the ball away.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

Yeah. Okay. So there's the Star Destroyer disables the rebel ship, and the stormtroopers board the ship, firing, killing lots of people. We then see R2D2 and C3PO for the first time. We do.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Now, I did not know I I heard CP3O call R2D2 R2D2, so I knew that was him. Yeah. I didn't know CP3O, and I'm saying it slowly because it does C3PO. C3PO. Okay, this is the problem. It doesn't roll off the tongue because I did not know his name until halfway through. So in my notes, up up until then, I've called him the gold man. Right, so I knew he was you know I knew he had a name, but I did not know what it was.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

Which is Kenny Baker was inside R2D2. Yes. And Anthony Daniels was C3PO or 3PO, you get to call 3PO as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

I mean I will continue to call the Goldman because I've probably written down. But yeah, that's fine.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

I find it quite interesting because this story is mostly told from through the eyes of the droids, and they're the lowest common denominator in in the Yeah, they're treated like shit. Yeah. I got that. But they are kind of witnessing this go on around them.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

They're the everyday characters like Shakespeare has.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:53

Uh we're then introduced to Darth Vader. Yes. As he as he boards the rebel ship. And for me, he is possibly the or one of the best cinematic bad guys ever. Okay. I think he's menacing, he you know, you know. So R2D2, CTPO, get to an escape pod and jettison out towards Tatooine.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Or as I've called it, a sandy desert.

SPEAKER_04 17:21

Same thing. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

So this is so this is another this is another planet.

SPEAKER_04 17:25

So this is a planet, yeah. Oh, it is a planet.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Because they're in space. They land on a planet. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

They escape to the surface. Princess Leah then gets stunned and captured. Darth Vader starts speaking to it and says, We will find out where you've hidden the plans and blah blah blah. And then takes her towards a Deaf Star. Yeah. We then see C3PO and R2 D2 on the surface, where they fall out with each other.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

My only reference for R2D2 is um in Shirley Valentine, which we talked about last series, of when uh Shirley's daughter comes back and is really like, you know, oh Mum, get me a cup of tea, get me do get me a cocoa, can you carry me bags? And Shirley goes. She's got me running around like R2 bleeding D2, and that's the only line that that's my reference all my life of who I so I just get he's just a guy that just or a droid that just moves about. Is that basically it?

SPEAKER_04 18:17

He's an astrometric droid.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

I don't know if I need that level of detail, but okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:21

And C3PO is an interpreter.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:24

He speaks millions of languages.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Oh, okay. Didn't know that.

SPEAKER_04 18:27

R2D2 is like a fixer robot. Right? So they have an argument and they go separate ways. Walking through the desert, C3PO sees a transport in the distance and waves it down. We then cut to R2D2, who's going through a bit of a rocky valley, and then suddenly gets stunned by the little jowers.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

No, that I've called them bright-eyed monsters.

SPEAKER_04 18:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

See, this is the problem, I don't know the names of anybody. So bright-eyed monsters, what are they called?

SPEAKER_04 18:53

Jowers. Okay. Right. They then take them towards the sand crawler, and basically they've just got loads of junk on there, loads of robots and stuff, and they're they're basically they sell stuff, they find stuff in the desert, and then they sell it on. We're then introduced to Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker. The Jowers tried to sell the droids to his uncle, his uncle Owen, and his Aunt Brew. Because Luke is a farmer, he's a farmhand for his uncle.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

No, so can again, this is maybe a silly question. So on this planet, the uncle and the aunt and Luke, are they all human beings who just live on the planets? Yeah. And this is some futuristic time when human beings live on other planets.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

No, it's a long, long time ago. In a galaxy far far away.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Yeah, but I had to pause it three times to understand that.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

No, before that, before the opening crawl, it says a long, long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Um, okay, that's fine. So they're humans, that's fine. Because I wasn't entirely sure, but that's good. I I understand that.

SPEAKER_04 19:55

So they're moisture farmers. So they obviously try and get moisture, sell it on, because it's a very dry planet and things like that. Okay. So we then have Luke uh look at the droids. His uncle says, Can you get them cleaned up and and get them sorted? So he takes them to the bay to clean them. And R2D2's got a restraining bolt on him, he removes the bolt and then he sees part of a message.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Yeah, like the hologrammy kind of visiony thing.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Of Princess Leah asking for help me Obi-Wan Kenobi.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Yes, I have heard of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

SPEAKER_04 20:32

Obi-Wan Kenobi played by the great Alec Guinness.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:36

And also you and McGregor.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Yeah, no, I knew that, but I didn't understand how or why you and McGregor got, you know, why uh and I don't need to, because he's not in this film, so let's not even worry about that. But I did know that because again I was an adult when that film I you know I knew who you and McGregor was when that was being promoted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

We then get the two sons scene, which is probably the most recognisable piece of Star Wars music other than the opening credits.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Okay, I don't remember it, and I probably didn't recognise it, but no, I did I did like all the mus I I mean I did know obviously loads of the music. It is good.

SPEAKER_04 21:09

It has been in so many different movies. The twin son scene's been parodied so many stuff, and other you know, Family Guy pull her off really well when they do um their version of Star Wars.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

And it's just it's just to sh there's just two two sons.

SPEAKER_04 21:26

Yeah. He's looking out as if like life's meaningless, and he's thinking like, you know, wonder if she means Ben Kenobi.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

Well, why do you think she means that? Because that's not what she says.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

She does, she goes, help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

You're my only hope. Yeah, she says Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yeah. And he thinks, I wonder if it'll be old Ben Kenobi.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Uh he does is that what he says? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:49

Yes, he does.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

What I didn't understand was when um Alec Guinness turns up and then he s someone I guess it was Luke Carnember says something like, She was asking for Obi Wan Kenobi, and he says, And Ben Kenobi, and then he said, I think, and then he goes about a minute later, he goes, Oh, well, sorry, I'm also called Obi-Wat Kenobi.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

We'll get to that in a second. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Just saying it made no sense, it made no sense.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

So the next the next morning, R2 D uh or later that evening it is actually, Luke goes to check on the droids, and R2 D2's gone. And he says basically there's too many SAN people about, so we'll have to go first thing in the morning to find them. So they go to find them in the speeder. When he finds them, he's then jumped upon by sand people.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

I don't know if I've gone out of sync here, but I'm sort of trying to my notes don't necessarily follow what you're saying because you're using lots of technical terminology. So I've put here the gold man says to R2D2 that they can trust Luke as he's their new master. Yeah. Can we? This is my question. Can we? I'm not sure. I do trust Leah at this stage. No, that was my Okay, because I've just said, but is that where we're up to that they kind of then so you can trust them?

SPEAKER_04 22:54

So that's all happened when I've seen the R2D2's then gone, no, I've got a mission, I've got to find Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he's gone off on his own thing, and they've gone to look for him now. So the Sam people uh attack Luke and knock Luke out, and then we then see a hooded man approach and he makes a weird sound which sounds like an elephant, and some people are scared of. So when you're saying the Sam people, I don't think the Sam people are the ones who are like all covered and he try to attack Luke and try and hit him. Okay, okay, fair enough. Yeah. And then Luke speaks to Ben and he goes, There's a message in this droid for Obi-Wan Kenobi. And then Ben says, Now that's a name I haven't heard for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Okay, so I get that I misquoted it before, but the gist was he very quickly I didn't understand why that was a big reveal because they didn't really reveal it, they just said it.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

Yeah, but we're just introduced to the character.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Okay. So I'm gonna just pause because this is what mainly because my notes make no sense because I've just like lost the plot of what I was writing. And I think I'm out of sync with you, but I did summarise a little bit halfway, well not halfway through. I did summarise a little bit where we are. So I put there's loads of Chewbackers. I've heard of this character. Now I realised later on that Chewbacca is one of those characters.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

But they this we've seen is it Wookiees? You don't yeah, we've not met a Wookiee yet. Oh, okay. Well, everything that we have before I've said that Ben said something, so okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:23

So you the sand people are you might be getting a bit confused here. Okay. So we then go back to Ben's house, his little acquaintance, and then he he shows Ben the message with Luke saying, Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobia. My only hope inside this hearted unit is the plans for the Death Star, blah blah blah. So so Ben Kenobi says to Luke, You must come with me. Now he knows more about Luke than we know at this stage. It's not revealed till the next film what he actually knows, but he says, You you need to come and help me. Luke then goes, I can't, I've neither back in the farm. He goes, Well, you must do what you think is right.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Because there's a whole thing about Luke wanting to go off and the the uncle saying no maybe next year. Yeah. So he's he's sort of wanting to spread his wings and do whatever it is he wanted to do.

SPEAKER_04 25:17

Yeah. So Ben gives Luke his father's lightsaber.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 25:21

Right. First thing he does is look down the barrel of it. Now, if he switched that on, that would have taken him out and then the entire franchise straight away. But you the significance of this you you don't know yet.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

No.

SPEAKER_04 25:32

Because his father, Anakin Skywalker, and I will reveal big spoiler for the next one, is Darth Vader.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Yes. So so what I've got here is how did Oh, he says, How did my father die? That's what Luke has Obi. Darth Vader was a pupil of Obi's but turned evil, he murdered Luke's father. That's what I've written, because that's what they told me.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

And that is true from a certain point of view, which is the line from the next film.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

But I understand that, but it did make me realise, or slightly realise. Um like so I've also written Luke's I've I was making these notes just to kind of so I understood rather than that, like interesting things to bring up here. But I put Luke's father was a Jedi Knight. Apparently, he was friends to Alec Guinness. This must have been mind-blowing when it was revealed in whatever film they revealed it in. That must have I remember everyone talking about it, so I do know. But that must have been huge if you didn't have that, you know, if you didn't know.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Well, I know obviously this is gonna ruin the podcast in series three for The Empire Strikes Back, but I'll say this now. The only person who knew on set was Mark Hamill.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 26:32

Nobody knew Harrison Ford didn't and stuff, and nobody knew till the film came out.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Oh wow, that's good. It was kept on.

SPEAKER_04 26:40

It was kept a secret. Good stuff, and Mark Hamill does, I think it was on Graham Norton, does a really good impression of Harrison Ford. So how do you keep that to yourself, kid? And all this. And he said, like Carrie Fisher just used to spill the beans and everything. Never you would never tell Carrie if you wanted information to go, you just told Carrie and you would get everywhere. That's funny.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

So we hear what the force is here.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

Yeah, he talks about the force.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Yes, which was interesting because I didn't think it I'd never considered what it actually was.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

So it mentions a little bit about the force, but then Luke Skywalker says to to Ben Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi, I'm not going. I can take you as far as anchor head, and then maybe you can get a transport from there. On the way to Taken Ben, they come across the sand crawler. It's all the jowers have been killed, and there's laser blasts everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

You keep saying sand crawler, I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_04 27:36

So that is the big vehicle that the jowers use to transport round in.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 27:41

So Obi-Wan Kenobi says this isn't this isn't sand people, it's too big for sand people to hit. The only things that are this accurate in blast are storm Imperial Stormtroopers, where Luke mutters the lines, if they can trace them here, they can trace them back home. Heads home to Uncle Owen Aunt Peru. Yeah. Um, this this traumatized me as a kid. You see the the burnt corpses of his auntie and uncle.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Oh, I miss that. I saw like just the house burn out.

SPEAKER_04 28:11

They basically on the floor, like as if they were trying to crawl out of the house.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Oh, I didn't see that. Oh god. I was too busy making notes about what is going on.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

Yeah. So he goes, he goes back to the sand crawler where Obi-Wan's still there, and he says, You couldn't have done nothing. If you'd have been there, you'd have been dead too.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

I thought that his Luke's reaction or you know, scene immediately after that, he didn't seem that bothered.

unknown 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:40

There's also another scene a bit later on which we'll we'll touch upon in a similar kind of vein. And I remember seeing a funny meme about it, we'll talk about. Okay. Um so he decides to go with them to Moss Isley, which is a spaceport, to recruit a ship that will take them to Alderon with the plans for the Death Star. Alderon's Princess Lear's a home plans. Okay, fine, okay. But they want to do it discreetly. Yes. So they know there'll be like some kind of people who will have compartments that you can hide in, things like that in the ships.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 29:15

Scoundrels and villains, basically.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Wrongans. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:18

They go into the cat the the bar, which is again another famous scene. You'll have heard the bar music.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Um I don't know if I had. I remember it was inter I thought it was good music. Interesting. We've missed a little bit here that I just wanted to pick up on in my notes. But it's probably not an important well, it might, I don't think it's a massive scene, but I just wanted to tell you what happened. So there's a scene, um, I think it's before uh Luke finds out his auntie and uncle are dead, and it's in Darth Vader Towers, that's what I've called it.

SPEAKER_04 29:47

Death Star.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Okay Oh, okay, that makes more sense. Um there's like a meeting of the Baddies Council. Yep. Okay. Um so they want to quash a rebellion, and Darth Vader has the power to make a dissenter choke.

SPEAKER_04 29:58

Yes, right. Uses the force to force choke him.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:02

This is actually a terminology, force choke.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't know that. But that scene, what happened when it cut from Luke and doing his thing, and then it went to that scene. It's it basically I was watching this on Disney. Um, the screen was black for some reason, and I could hear all the audio, so I just thought this is because it's space and sci-fi. So that's something up with your internet. So for literally about five minutes, that scene was going on, and I was thinking, I don't know if that's right, and eventually I rewound and it just came back on, and I watched the whole thing again. So I just wanted to let you know, this is why I don't like sci-fi because I did not know whether or not the screen was meant to be black for five minutes of that scene.

SPEAKER_04 30:41

You know, you didn't introduce the grand moth talk and Peter Cushing. Yes, and that's where he says the Emperor has dissolved the council.

unknown 30:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:49

He took control of all the regions.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Did we meet the Emperor?

SPEAKER_04 30:52

No, not in this.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Ah, okay, that's fine. Yeah, good stuff.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

So we then go to Moss Isley, where we're obviously we're in the bar, and the one thing I love about what George Lucas has done, he created a lived-in world. So it looked like it it was a real thing. You know, you had Star Trek before this as the big sci-fi, but everything was clean, cleanliness, wherever you went, as if nothing had ever happened. Where this with with what George Lucas it was dirty, the it looked as if the people actually went to the bar, like the bar wasn't just the cleanest thing. Yeah, uh, and you've got all sorts of various characters, yeah. And as Luke's at the bar, you've got two nefarious characters who take a dislike to Luke and they threaten him, and Obi-Wan Kenobi chops his arm off.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

Yeah, the lightsaber.

SPEAKER_04 31:47

So do you then follow that up with Ben Kenobi talking to Han Solo?

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Harrison Ford!

SPEAKER_04 31:55

Yes, I was happy to see him and Chewbacca, such a great character, Han Solo, and his characters evolve as the next couple of movies. In this, he's just out for money and rewards, yeah. He's a bit of a scoundrel, you know. Um and they talk, they negotiate, they sell Luke's Landspeeder, and they give him some money, and they say there'll be more money when we get to Alderon, so he's quite happy.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Because this is a bit this was sort of I don't know what half an hour, 40 minutes in at least. I'd kind of forgotten Harrison Ford was involved in any of it, and then I was like, oh, there's someone I recognise. Because I didn't I did recognise Allie Guinness, and I suppose I did recognise Carrie Fisher, but I don't I mean I don't know Mark Hamill from anything else.

SPEAKER_04 32:36

So I I take it you don't know how Harrison Ford got the job on this film. Um no. Right. So Harrison Ford had been in American graffiti George Lucas before this. Yes, he did. Right? And he was out of work and he's a carpenter. Okay. And he was doing some work for George Lucas, and George Lucas just said, Can you do me a favour? Can you come in and just read a few lines opposite other people? Um who were playing uh or attempting to play Luke Skywalker. So he did these few lines and then he had other people read to the lines of Han Solo. I think Kate Russell was one, I think Al Pacino was one, and you know, there's some big names, and he just couldn't see anybody else other than Harrison Ford. So if Harrison Ford hadn't been doing the work he was doing, he would never have got the role.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

Cool.

SPEAKER_04 33:25

So we then cut to the Deaf Star, yeah, where Princess Lee is in her cell and Darth Vader comes in and says, We're gonna get the plans, we're gonna get it out here, and then we have a a little tiny probe droid with needles coming on to torture her.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

So this is not nice, and I'm not happy about it. It's not nice, it felt very hypnolly. Yes, it felt proper like it did rapey.

SPEAKER_04 33:51

But but what's even worse, as you watch the later films, Princess Lee is Darth Vader's daughter. He's torturing his own daughter, which makes it even worse.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Yeah, it felt very um it just the way you see the kind of looming needles going to it, and it just felt like it was it's she rahypnol, it was just you know, creepy guys drugging a woman. It didn't feel nice. Okay, but it felt like disproportionately not nice for the rest of the film, which is fantasy japes.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

So we then cut back to the cantina where Han Solo's sitting there, and he's about to get up, and we're then introduced to the character of Greedo, who sits down and says, you know, where you go, and Jabber's wanting his money, um, all this and stuff, and he says, Tell Jabber I've got the money and stuff, and it depends which version you watch. If you watch the original version, Han Solo is a bit more ruthless, he just shoots and kills Greedo. But in the special editions, the Disney versions, Greedo shoots first and Han shoots back, but I always see it as Han Solo just kills Greedo because he's just he's a bit of a tough guy.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Right. In in the special editions, which I'll now gloss over this very, very quickly. We then see Han go back to the hangar where where the Millennium Falcon is, and we'll introduce the jab of the hut. But I don't really count that scene in what we're talking about now because that's just an additional scene that was put in afterwards that was never in the original.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Okay. Is he just a big slug? That's my question.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

Yeah, okay. It is like a big slug. Right. So that I don't don't really need to talk about that. Okay. We then get to Ben Kenobi and Luke going to the hangar. Uh Luke looks at the Millennium Falcon, which is one of the most famous ships ever. You know, you speak to any sci-fi fan, they'll know the Enterprise off Star Trek, they'll know the Millennium Falcon. Okay. Um, hugely revered within sci-fi circles. And Luke Skywalker sees it and says, What a piece of junk. And it, you know, it's past its former glory days. It's you know, I I think it looks amazing, but obviously to them it doesn't. Okay. And then all of a sudden, stormtroopers start coming in to try and get them and then like plastic man. Yes. Good, okay. And then they blast off from Moss Isley into space.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

So my notes around this is I've put Harrison Ford is always Harrison Ford, he's never changed, he's a Sarkey Hottie. So that's what I put. He just he just has that kind of don't give a shit um anti-kind of curmudgeon. He's a curmudgeon, even as a young man.

SPEAKER_04 36:28

He's a lovable rogue. Yeah, yeah, I didn't dislike the character.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

He was he was probably the main the character I actually liked. Yeah, but um it just yeah, I just think he plays that. Yeah, he's played that repeatedly in many roles.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

So we then we then go to space where the Millennium Falcon's just left uh Tatooine, and then there's two Star Destroyers. Now, this always makes me laugh this because they're chasing down the Millennium Falcon. Talk to me what's a Star Destroyer, the triangle ship that you see at the beginning that's attacking Princess Leah's ship. Right? So they're attacking the Millennium Falcon, and Luke Sky says they're closing in, they're closing in, and Harrison Ford, Han Solo goes, Don't worry, kid, I know some moves. And then you see the outside shot, and it's just a ship flying completely straight. Now, this is parodied so well in Family Guy.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

I'm just amused how much you think that's funny.

SPEAKER_04 37:20

Yeah, but it's parodied so well in Family Guy. I know some moves, why you're just flying completely straight. They then jump they then jump to hyperspace. We then jump back to the Deaf Star with Grandmaff talking and Darfad have hatched a plan because Princess Leah has not gave up the Deaf Star plans and or where the rebel base is. So they decide you can choose where we we test this Deaf Star your home planet of Alderan or where the rebel base is, and she tells them where the rebel base is, and it's not really there. She gives a fake planet and he says it's too remote to show anything, so he he then blows up her home planet, like literally the whole planet kills billions.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

So I think that might be uh did they add special effects into that afterwards? There was a bit where a planet blew up and it looked amazing, like the special effects of the the ring of fire going around as it kind of had that. It just I just thought I when you said earlier that they kind of added bits in, I wondered if it'd been that because I thought when I watched this, wow, that's impressive.

SPEAKER_04 38:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 38:34

So that was that was added, it was in the 90s, I think it was when he did the special editions. Um so we then get aboard the Millennium Falcon, get Luke Skywalker, he's testing the lightsaber for the first time, and Han Solos going, I've been across the galaxy, I've seen everything, I've never seen any magical mystery thing known as the Force. So Obi-Wan Kenobi then gets him to put a helmet on where he can't see against a little remote that's firing little tiny lasers and he blocks it.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

So where I'm up to my notes, because again I'm getting a bit confused, um Obi feels something's wrong.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

He does when he gets to Hold Around.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

That's fine. The other thing I've mentioned at this point is uh Chewbacca is there. Who is he?

SPEAKER_04 39:26

He's the co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon and Han Solo's best friend.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Oh okay, fair play. And then the other thing I've put is Leah is awake. Also, why has she got an English accent? She goes into an English accent and she doesn't in all of it, but she does in one of the scenes, and I didn't know why, but you don't know why that's fine.

SPEAKER_04 39:43

Maybe because she was alongside Peter Cushing and she was inspired by his accent. Okay, that's fine. But yeah, anyway, um they then come out of hyperspace into what they think's a meteor shower, which is the unfortunate rubble of Alderham.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Is the meteor shower and there's lots of flashing red stripes across the screen?

SPEAKER_04 40:05

It's it's basically you can hear it all hitting the Def Star uh the Def Star, the Millennium Falcon and stuff like that. The next thing, a TIE fighter goes past the Millennium Falcon and they they they panic a little bit, go, they'll report that we're here, blah blah blah. So they go to chase it down. And as they're chasing it down, uh I think the Taluk Skywalker goes, Look, he's heading towards that that small moon where Alec Guinness, Obi-Wan Kenobi, goes, That's no moon, that's a space station. And before they know it, they they're captured in the tractor beam.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

So you're getting it all up to now?

SPEAKER_02 40:43

So I've got they see a space station and have to turn the ship round, it won't go. Yeah, okay, that's good.

SPEAKER_04 40:49

Yeah. So they hide themselves in the smuggling compartments, which below the floor once the ship is in there, and then they send a scanning crew on, they disable the scanning crew, and they dress up as stormtroopers, and then they leave. They find a little spot to hide, they figure out how they're gonna take out the tractor beam, and Obi-Wan Kenobi goes, I will do this. You all stay here and wait for wait for me. Harrison Ford's a bit annoyed, going, I'd rather have a fight than just sit here showing what type of person he is.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Yeah, yeah. He's always up for it.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

R2D2 who is plugged into the console says she's here, she's here. Yeah, who's here to the princess?

SPEAKER_01 41:34

It's a lot of lightsaber action. Not yet. Do you and the gang try to get past the guards?

SPEAKER_04 41:39

No, that's not lightsabers, that's just blasters. Lightsabers with a laser swords. I'm sorry. So basically, Lou Skywalker convinces Hansel to come and save the princess because she's rich and she'll give you the big reward. And all she's thinking about is the money he owes Jabber and he needs to bring him back. Yeah. So they pretend to use Chewie as a captive and head towards the block where Princess Lee has been held captive. When they go in there, they they're questioned and then they end up in a big gunfight. They shoot all the cameras and everything and kill everybody, but one of the prison officers was talking to somebody on the communications and they heard everything. And he and Han Solo, and I like this, it's a little funny scene where he's going, Hi, everything's okay up here. Nothing to say. We just had the radiation leak, that's it, we're locking it down. And they go, Okay, we're sending people up. Luke heads down the cell bay, release Princess Leah. She sees him, she goes, Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Okay, that's where you're lying.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

And he goes, He takes off his helmet and hi, I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you. I'm here at Obi-Wan Kenobi. And she gets all excited. She comes out of the cell to find the stormtrooper shooting down, and she's like, This is some rescue. This takes takes the gun off, Luke, shoots a hatch, and then jumps through it.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Yes, you are far too excited as you're retelling this. It's just giddy. I love this.

SPEAKER_04 43:14

Oh jeez. Okay. Luke, Luke and Han have a conversation, and he goes, and Han goes, I can't tell whether I hate her or I'm beginning to like her. Luke jumps through, and then Han solo jumps through.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

So my question, where is Obi? What's Obi doing all this time?

SPEAKER_04 43:30

So Obi-Wan Kerobi. I know he's like moving around, but what's like he's now looking to take out the tractor beam. Oh, okay, that's fine. So the thing with Obi-Wan Kurobi, because he can use the force, he can tap sides without touching them to make sounds, he can sneak past, he can also, you know, influence weak people's minds.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Because he made the I don't know if it's Ham Jay made the guard repeat what he said.

SPEAKER_04 43:53

Yeah, that was that was on Tatooine.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_04 43:56

So he can do that and make people not realise he's there and stuff. Okay. So once they jump into the trash compactor, Obi-Wan Kenobi finds the platform, disables the tractor beam.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Yes, but in the trash compactor, that seem as horrible.

SPEAKER_04 44:12

Yes, well I'm about to go through that now.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

I just oh Hansel tries to blast the door, it's all shielded and the laser blasts everywhere, nearly kills them. And then next thing the walls start to close in. Oh no, before the walls start to close in, Luke Skywalker feels something pass him on his leg.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

Oh my god, yeah. And then he gets dragged under the water.

SPEAKER_04 44:34

He gets dragged under the water. Yeah. Comes out of the water. He's got like a only what I can say, like a tentacle wrapped around him.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:42

And you know, hand solo blasts in the water. Luke falls back in the water, you can't see what's going on. Next thing you hear something, like a metallic sound, and next thing Luke's free says, I don't know what's happened, it just let me go. And next thing the walls start to come in. Well, my claustrophobia could not cope. Yeah, I I always hated this scene as a kid. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

Because it they move really close.

SPEAKER_04 45:08

And they're trying to keep them apart by using big metal things and they're to to prize it, keep it prized open, but they're just getting crushed, and you know, it's it's it's a horrible scene. Then Luke remembers he's got a communicator on him, and C3PO has got a communicator on him. So he starts messaging them, and they they basically got stormtroopers on them saying that you know what he's doing here. And he said, Well, with all the excitements, my counterpart here is malfunctioning, I need to take them to get repaired. So they leave where they were hiding and head down to the hangar bay, and then suddenly hear Luke screaming down the communicator, and he gets R2 D2 then to disable the trash compactors, and then they get out.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Right, thankfully.

SPEAKER_04 45:56

Yeah, it's a good scene, it's a good scene there.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Oh yeah, yeah. I did I didn't enjoy that scene, even though I can you can see it's a good, yeah, high stress moment for them.

SPEAKER_04 46:07

One one of the things quite funny when they get out is like they all look pretty dry, even though they were all stood in water. Luke Luke's hair is wet, but yet they all look very, very dry. It's as if like Harrison Fordman, I'm not walking around with wet clothes on.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

I do feel like I wonder if he like has all these riders and stuff because he's because he was like not I know he wasn't like a huge massive superstar, but he was famous, he'd done stuff, yeah. Um, but yeah, but then I suppose Alec Guinness would have topped everybody at this point.

SPEAKER_04 46:35

They there's there's a fair famous interview with Mark Hammer where he was saying something about his hair, my hair's not wet enough, or something like that, and he does an impression of Harrison Ford going, it ain't that sort of movie, kid.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

You've got to start doing Harrison Ford impressions, please.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

Honestly, it's great, it's great. So they start to make their way back to the Millennium Falcon. As they're making their way back to the Millennium Falcon, they bump into some stormtroopers, Harrison Harrison Ford, Han Solo, and Chewie shoot at them and decide to run after them.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 47:07

Yeah. I don't remember this, but go on. Leah and Luke go a different way and end up getting chased by more stormtroopers. As this is happening, Obi-Wan Kenobi is walking down a corridor and sees Darth Vader.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

Yes, they have a face-off, as I've written in my notes. They have a face off.

SPEAKER_04 47:23

Han Solo and she we run into it's a massive room full of stormtroopers and and craft a pants and run the other way. In the original Star Wars, the non-special edition, they get to the end of a corridor and the stormtroopers just stop and turn round. Right. Right, so it's a wall that they get to where in the special editions George Duke has just CGI the background with loads of stuff and then ran off.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 47:47

We then get to see Princess Leah and Luke Skywalker on an unextended bridge. They close the door, they blast the controls, and then he has to swing Princess Leah across a valley.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

Right. I don't remember that. Have we had Obi's body disappearing in his clothes?

SPEAKER_04 48:06

This is about to happen.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Okay. Because I had loads of questions about this. Nothing was clear.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

So we then go to a lightsaber jewelry.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Sorry if you were building up to that in a dramatic way. Have we done that right now?

SPEAKER_04 48:16

You're jumping too far out.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

I know, because it's it's because I don't understand everything that's happening, so I've just got these little things I remembered.

SPEAKER_04 48:22

So we then we then cut to the lightsaber battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. Now, in the prequel movies before this, the lightsaber battles are much more energetic than this. This is two old men fight dueling, basically. You know, they haven't got the energy that they used to have and stuff. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leah, Hansel are in the hangar bay, they look and all the all the stormtroopers that were guarding the Millennium Falcon suddenly have moved to one side and they go, This is a shot, let's go. And they run across, and as they run across, Luke Skywalker spots Obi-Wan Kenobi dueling with Darth Vader. As Obi-Wan Kenobi sees Luke Skywalker in the background, he says the words to Darth Vader, you strike me down, I'll become more possible more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

Right.

SPEAKER_04 49:11

So to distract all the stormtroopers, he lets Darth Vader strike him down.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Right.

SPEAKER_04 49:16

Now, when Darth Vader hits him to kill him, he's absorbed by the force.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

So basically, I watched that scene, Darth Vader hits him or does whatever he does, and the cloak just falls to the floor. So I'm like, oh, he's done a magic trick and he's gonna turn up, he's sort of you know, what's the word? Um teleported himself to wherever, and then it doesn't happen. And so then, again, slightly getting ahead, but when um what's his name, Luke, starts hearing voices, yeah, I'm like, oh, it's like he's uh hearing him from heaven, you know what I mean? So I don't I don't understand what he was trying to do.

SPEAKER_04 49:57

So he gets absorbed into the force. So so okay. Darth Vader stands on the cloak to see what's happened because he wasn't trained how to do that.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

He wasn't trained to absorb somebody into the force.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

No, at that point he didn't know about it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

Um the whole bit was I I found it conf not confusing because I could it just as I had a lot of questions and I was wondering what the vibe was, and obviously I'm aware that there's a million other films, and I'm sure the whole big explanation, but I just wondered what we were all supposed to think at that moment in 1977. You know what I mean? When it's just one.

SPEAKER_04 50:28

So Luke Luke shouts now, starts shooting at the stormtroopers, and then he hears the Obi-Wan Kenomi go run, Luke, run, and he aboards he gets aboard the Millennium Falcon and they all fly off.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 50:40

Yeah, as they're flying off, four I think it's four Thai fighters start attacking.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Big 28, it's very much Top Gun, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 50:49

Well, interestingly, when when they'd film some of the film the special effects weren't ready, George Lucas used old footage of World War II films to insert at these bits when it wasn't ready to show this is a firefight and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

It felt just like I know Top One came after, but it did feel that those were very similar vibes to walk in the parking.

SPEAKER_04 51:10

It's to show that they're capable of doing this and I feel the need. Yeah, but but basically those Thai fighters were sacrificed to let the ship go. Because they were tracking the ship.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

Um so just to talk about those, I know it's you that you've done that a little bit now, but just to mention, um Dennis Lawson is one of the fighters. Yes. And now I know that he came, I know he's really so first of all I know he's you and McGregor's uncle or whatever it is, but I love him in Local Hero, which would have been 1982, so it was a few couple years after, three, five years after. And I do want to do local hero on the pod at some point. But it was really nice to see him in a similar age to what that local hero is, and obviously now he's in like new tricks, isn't he? Or he has been. My dad loves New Trix um as an older guy, and that's fine. Um so it's just nice seeing him in something else at the around the age of when I've I know him from a film I love anyway.

SPEAKER_04 52:05

There was somebody else I wanted to point out as well. So you are jumping ahead, so I just want to include a scene now. Okay, go on. Right. So there's a scene here where Luke's looking really sad because his mentor of a few hours has just died, and Princess Lee is consoling him after her planets of billions of people have just been blown up, and it's kind of like a funny kind of scene to me. It's like, why is she more bothered about him and he's only met Obi-Wan Kenobi a few hours earlier?

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Well, patriarchy is right, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:35

Um so then we fly to Yavin for where the rebel base is. Okay, right, which is where they uncover the plans and realise what is going on with the Deaf Star and they find a weak spot to destroy the Deaf Star.

SPEAKER_02 52:51

So so I so I've put there's a firefighting space.

SPEAKER_04 52:54

Right? No, this is before that.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 52:56

So this is on the ground. Right. Um, the Millennium Falcon's been tracked to this place. A Leah worked out and they hatch a plan to send some small fighters up into space to destroy the Deaf Star. Now, this Deaf Star is moon-sized, and these fighters are you know, they're basically the size of a top one plane. Right. Right. But and you find this out in the prequel film, which was released years and years later, okay. The guy who helped design the Deaf Star didn't agree with what they were doing and built this exhaust port in to basically blow up the Deaf Star.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

So the guy who designed it in the story, not the yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 53:38

Right, okay. So they then all take off. Luke's part of Red Squadron. There's Gold Squadron, which are Y Wings, Red Squadron's X Wings, and they start attacking the Deaf Star. Han Solo said he's not gonna help them because he just wants his money and he wants to go off. He thinks it he thinks it's a silly thing, and you know they're all gonna die basically. So there's a big firefight, there's loads of lasers being shot off the Death Star. Somebody speaks to Grand Moff Tarkham. Peter Cushing for you and says the ships are that small, they're evading our lasers. We never thought that they would try such a small scale attack against us.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

There's a messenger who comes in to tell the commander. Um, I guess that's Peter Cushing. Grand Moff Tarkin. Right, so the messenger is the dad from Johnny Briggs, Leslie Schofield.

SPEAKER_04 54:29

Never seen that.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

But the kids the kids programme when we were kids. Well Johnny Briggs.

SPEAKER_04 54:33

Well, in there's there's lots, there's lots, there's lots of because they were filmed over here, right? There's lots of British actors that pop up. You mentioned Dennis Laws and you just mentioned Johnny Briggs' dad.

SPEAKER_02 54:47

Leslie Schofield, northern guy, I think.

SPEAKER_04 54:49

The what the one that stands out for me, um, I can't remember his name. Grange Hill, the the teacher Mr. Bronson. Yes, he's in the Empire Strikes Bath.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Is that his name?

SPEAKER_04 55:00

He's in the Empire Strikes Bath.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

Oh, Mr. Bronson.

SPEAKER_04 55:02

Oh brilliant. So they decide to send out some TIE fighters to try and take care of the smaller ships.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

What are you saying? TIE fighters? Yes. And what's the tie as in T H A I?

SPEAKER_04 55:14

T I E T-I-E. Okay, thank you. Right. So they go out, start shooting some of the ships. You then get gold leader, start on the trench run for the first time. Now, this this exhaust port that they are shooting is two metres wide and at the end of a long trench.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

And they have to be really precise.

SPEAKER_04 55:34

They've got to be really precise to get it in. So they they start flying down in Y Wings, that's the ship. Okay. Yeah, that they're in. And Darth Vader and two other TIE fighters come behind and start shooting them from behind. They don't get a missile off. Then Red Leader decides it's his turn and he goes down and he fires a shot at the end with his wingmen have been taken out, and it doesn't go in, it impacts the surface, and it it doesn't start the self-destruct. He then gets shot down and he goes down in glory screaming. Okay. Yeah. You also you also I've also missed there's a um and this is this is probably very 70s. This there's a a fighter who gets killed who looks like he's a rather large gentleman called Porkins.

SPEAKER_00 56:27

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:28

Yeah, he goes down quite easy. So it's Luke's turn. So Luke has got his friend Biggs on one side as his wingman, and he's got Wedge, Dennis Lawson on the other side. So they go down, they go full throttle, and you know the Biggs is a bit concerned that that's sort of speed we'll be able to get a shot shot off. He goes, You worry about those TIE fighters, I'll worry about the shot. So as they're going down, the TIE fighters come behind Darf Ada, and Biggs panics, and he's like, wait, wait, wait, and then boom, he's blown up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

So is this the planet blowing up?

SPEAKER_04 57:05

No, no, this is Biggs, the ship. Okay, you've then got Wedge, who's is the other wingman.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

You see, all this passed me by, I don't think I realised they were all working together. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 57:15

So Wedge Wedge then his ship gets disabled a bit, and he goes, I can't help you, Luke. And Luke says to Wedge, get out of here, you're no good to me. So he flies off. And then it's it's basically Darth Vader against Luke Skywalker with two of the TIE fighters. And as as he's flying down, Darth Vader says, The force is strong in this one. Okay. You see the target and scanner, and Luke's bouncing about in the target and scanner. Then all of a sudden, Darth Vader's got Luke in his sights, and then one of the TIE fighters explodes, and yeah, yeeha! I miss that. And that's Han Solo shot one of the TIE fighters.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 57:56

Darth Vader goes, What? He says this in a funny way, what? Right? And then he crashes into the other TIE fighters and starts spinning off, and then Luke gets his shot off. I in fact, I've missed a little bit out here. Luke's got his target and scanner out, and he is the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He is the voice of Obi-Guan Kenobi. He says, Use the force, Luke. And I wrote the force will be with you.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

Is this in Luke's imagination or is this the same thing? No, he's actually hearing him.

SPEAKER_04 58:22

He's actually hearing him. Okay. So Luke sets the shot off using the force.

SPEAKER_02 58:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:26

And it goes in. They fly off, the Death Star explodes.

SPEAKER_02 58:30

So that is the that is the thing I was trying to say, and I thought it was a planet. When it the special effects was a big ring. I just thought it was really. Ooh, yeah, I didn't realise things. I didn't realise things added in, so I thought it was very impressive.

SPEAKER_04 58:42

But then afterwards fair play. They then go home, land on Yavon 4. They go home and have the tea. There's a mistake in this scene. Luke Skywalker instead of saying Leia says Carrie. And it's actually in the movie. It goes carry and then they're all celebrating. That's funny. And then we have the medal ceremony. Yeah.

unknown 59:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:07

That annoys me. They all get promoted to general.

SPEAKER_02 59:11

Okay. I didn't really pay attention. It just felt like a real anticlimax. Everyone here's a little medal. That's all smile.

SPEAKER_04 59:16

It just felt like the heroes of the rebellion. Okay. They've killed Grandma of Tarkin. They've destroyed the Planet Destroyer.

SPEAKER_02 59:24

Before so I've literally my last three lines are Luke gets shot, gets the shot, sorry, everybody's happy. R2 D2 is fucked.

SPEAKER_04 59:31

Yeah, but he gets repaired.

SPEAKER_02 59:33

Okay. But not for long. There's a medal ceremony, the end. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:36

And then a cute bit is R2D2 walking over and everyone's smiling and going, oh, the end.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:42

And then amazing score again.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:45

So. What's your thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_02 59:50

Okay. I appreciate the fact that you love this. And I also, it's you have been like a giddy child recounting the plot.

SPEAKER_04 59:59

Have you noticed? I just want to point out that I basically retold the entire plot without reading my note to know the film that well.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

But yeah, but I can't just say, hang on, where are we up to? Because any Star Wars fan go, yeah, that's exactly the plot. Well, we'll see. Um, so I'll so first of all, you know I'm not gonna love this because I don't do space, and it's not like I'm closed-minded to every space film, but it's so beyond what I'm you know, what I'm naturally into.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:25

But could you pick up on the story?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:27

Yeah, there was loads of bits you were saying back in in the sort of breakdown then I was like, What? But mainly it's because of terminology. I don't know the names of things, and so when you describe them in that way, I have no clue what you're on about. And I'm not like I said, I wasn't trying to be funny before going the white plastic suit man and the the scary eye men, you know. That was that was how I was referring to people, but I can follow the story, and it and it did sort of just basically after a bit just let it wash over me. Um, what I've thought was interesting, I'll talk, I'll give you my value judgment. It's not really a value judgment, you know, I'm I'm sort of sitting on the fence of it, really. But what I thought was interesting was having not known having not watched this ever, but having heard about it forever, this film was a lot simpler and shorter than I assumed it was going to be. And I think the problem is once you've got is it six films altogether? Nine. Oh for God's sake. There's actually 11 films. I don't need the real nerdy answer. But you know what I mean. I think because of all those films, all of the different things that have come out and explanations and other worlds and other characters and other kind of um sort of facets to the story. The actual beginning one, the first one, I know it's not the official first one because it's fourth, but you know what I mean. The 1977 one is actually quite a simple story. It is. It's just some people going to rescue a princess and trying to avoid, you know, kind of destruction and all that. So that was kind of it was a lot simpler than I thought, and I didn't um I thought I was gonna be completely confused. And I I was more confused listening to you today than I was watching it because I didn't need to worry about the names of things, but yeah, it was it was simpler. Um but first of all, you know, my basic things were no gold bikini, uh, no I love you, I know, no both and dying, if I got that right. Both them's dying.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:06

Both them's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

And isn't there an incest storyline?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:09

So in in uh The Empire Strikes Back, Luke try uh kisses Princess Leah or a Princess Leah kisses Lou, whichever way around you look at it, but they don't know the brother and sister at that point.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:21

Well that's fine, that's how that's obviously fine. But basically, I've obviously melded all the sort of um Star Wars references I've sort of vaguely absorbed all into one film, and because of like none of that, I was like, Oh, actually it's very simple, or it's simpler. Um so I had some questions which some of them may have come up already. Yeah, what happened to OB? Is he dead? Did he magic himself away? Why is he in Luke's head? Um there were loads of times I needed to pause and just have a minute and go, right, what's happening? Um particularly in the first half hour or so. There's lots of different groups of people. And I wasn't I wasn't sure until quite near the end, well about two-thirds of the way in, who are we rooting for? You know, I I didn't entirely trust Luke for a while because I thought he was I don't know, I didn't really I don't know. I didn't because I've heard of these character names, I don't know if they're goodies or baddies really. I mean I know Darth Vader's the big baddie, but so there's bits where I wasn't sure. My favourite line was, I'm fine, how are you? I just think that's really funny the way he delivered it.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:15

So that's yeah, that's on uh when they're in the prisoner cell blocking.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:18

Yeah, yeah. That made me laugh. Um and the other thing that was fascinating watching it now is like so many times something would be on the screen. I'm like, oh yeah, that was like the big toy of years ago. That was there were so many merch opportunities, toys from years ago. It was really yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:35

So this is where you know, I'll touch upon when I send them in the biggest film ever. It influenced so much that you know, before before Star Wars, merch wasn't a thing like like it was. Right. One of the things George Lucas did when he made Star Wars, because the movie studio weren't convinced, he said, okay, can I have rights to all the sequels and the toys? And they'd never thought of it ching, really, innit? No. You know, um Star Wars figures and everything came out, all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:08

Um I like the special effects. So, as you know, I've said it before, CGI, particularly modern-day CGI, usually takes me out of the film and distracts me and it annoys me. Um, so I didn't, it didn't. I quite like old school special effects.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:21

So these are models. So yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:23

It didn't take me out of the story at all, so that was fine. And even though you were saying some of the stuff had been added in, I didn't feel like it was massively modern, it did it blended in, so I was happy with that. I think in the past, and maybe I've got this wrong, so you can tell me. I think you've tried to tell me this is a feminist film.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:39

I think Princess Lee is a strong feminist character.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:43

Okay, I would disagree. Maybe for 1977 she was, but she's sort of just she's a princess, first of all.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:50

She's a princess, but when she she's getting rescued, she rescues them.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:55

She's involved, but she is a lot of the film she's makes the decisions. A lot of the film she's waiting to be rescued. Do you know what I mean? Also, where are all the other women? If it's a feminist film, you know, the auntie and her are doing a lot of heavy lifting. And she got banned. I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:08

Yeah, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:10

And I would just highlight that if it's a true feminist film, then 50% of the cast and the crew and the creative team are women.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:15

So maybe maybe, like, because I have a obviously fuller image of Princess Leah than you do, but I've seen the other three films that she's in.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:25

So just to recap my thoughts beforehand, I I said I needed it to be a compelling story, and I guess it was. I mean, I didn't get bored, I don't think. So yeah, it was a compelling story. I needed to like and root for the characters. I didn't know if I was who I was rooting for for a long time, but then when Han Solo turned up, I was rooting for him. And then because he was with um Luke Skywalker, and I was like, Oh, okay, so that's that's the gang I'm I'm I'm rooting for. And then I said there needed to be something human and relatable about their story without it getting bogged down and space stuff. Yeah, I guess there was, because ultimately. If you take it very broadly, it's good be bad, isn't it? A good versus evil.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:04

And that that is Star Wars, it is just good versus evil. It is that basic. You can put it down. It's the rebels are the good guys, the Imperials are the bad guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:16

So I thought there were some interesting themes as well. This is obviously blatantly obvious to anyone who's ever watched it a million times. For me, it was like I was just making notes of what my perceptions were. Good versus evil, civil war.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:27

The force representing God and faith. Han Solo doesn't believe in it. Possibly. You know, I'm not saying these are right or wrong, these are just the things that came into my head. Because he says he doesn't believe in the force, and I was like, oh, it's like a faith thing, you can't see it, but people do still believe in it. Multiculturalism, discrimination, don't serve droids. I mean, that's just proper, like, you know, yeah, discrimination. And it's like, is that a class thing? Is it a race thing? There's all various different soon.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:51

To represent, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

And also the androids have owners and masters, so I'm not quite uh, you know. Um so those were very interesting. So, what I would say about what I thought of it, and I think as you as we often say, it's it's the it's the wrong way to kind of really love something when you come on it when you're old, and it was a child film from decades ago. It reminded me of the Great Gatsby, okay. Okay, uh where are we going with this? No, okay. So I The Great Gatsby, it's a novel, uh, and various films as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:20

Leo DiCaprio.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Yes, that was a recent one. And I uh so I had to study it when I did Mayleville English, and I had to study it when I did my English uh for my degree, and it's a classic American novel, and it tells a story. I'm not gonna go into this too much because you it doesn't matter, but it tells the story of a bunch of characters um who are very rich and they sort of flip between parties, uh, different houses, different parties around, I think it's like the 1920s, between the two walls. There's a real list l listlessness, that's not the right word. There's a real sort of lack of um everyone's very empty and shallow, and there's a real sort of lack of um I don't know, connection, everyone's very selfish. It's uh people are hedonistic and living for the moment and drinking, and you know, it's it's sort of um it's it's it's a a commentary on um the American dream and the the emptiness of the American dream. Right. None of that really matters to do with this, but the point is there's loads of themes that you can pull out if you study it. There are loads of themes that when you have to do an essay, you can go bang out an essay about the American dream, you can bang out an essay about the theme of um I don't know, um pleasure, hedonism and pleasure, whatever. You can bang out these essays if you study them, and I could still do that now, probably. However, at no point, and and so they're ri it's rich with stuff you can comment on and stuff that you can get into, but at no point do I have I did I ever enjoy the story. At no point do I sit and want to curl up in a in a chair and read that book, and I reread all my favourite books, so at no point do I want to reread that book because it just felt it feels a bit empty, and yeah, I can see the richness of what it's got. And I felt a bit like that with this, right? There are loads of really interesting c comments and themes and topics it addresses, and lots of um, oh that's representing that, and I don't even know if all of that is, you know, I don't know if I've I've got it right, you know. So I found that really interesting to watch and it kept me focused and it kept me listening, uh watching. But would I like you know, got a Sunday afternoon free? Oh, let's watch a film, would I put it on? I don't think I would, and you know I've got a sci-fi uh blind spot anyway. I don't think I would, but I could absolutely appreciate it's a really good film. I could see it was good, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:30

So this the what what I would say for you, right? Go on, is that you've you've had one viewing of it so far. Of course, yeah, and um obviously you picked up on a lot of stuff, but when you watch it a second time or a third time, a lot of what you are looking for will wash over your head to be the next time you wash it and you'll pick up on different things, a bit like you know, back to the future where you know you you take more out of it and stuff like that. But I think the thing is you know, this is just one piece of a story. Um I I class the Star Wars films, there's nine films, there's the beginning three, the middle three, and the end three. You've got to get all three of these middle three complete to understand the character arcs, where they're going, the journey, all the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:18

I understand that the other films will add on to that and develop it and make it rich. But in 1977, if you'd have seen this at the pictures or whatever, this was all there was. So at the end of this, and I don't know if you don't necessarily know the answer to this, but at the end of this film in 1977, let's say a 15-year-old and a 20-year-old have gone to watch this film. When they come out, are they like, oh brilliant, I can't wait for the next are they aware there's gonna be a next one, or is this seen as a story? We don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:42

I can't remember how long afterwards it was announced that they were gonna make um The Empire Strikes Back. And I think I think The Empire Strikes Back was it 1980, 1981, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:54

So it was only a couple of years afterwards I remember it being a you know being an hour around in the air.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:59

Um so I think people were just excited for the next chapter. Yeah. And the thing is, you know, let's let's face it, whenever films were made, there's always been sequels. And some of it is no there has, there's always been sequels, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:14

Sequels have existed, but not for every film.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:16

Not for every film, but but in in this kind of genre type film, there's always if it makes money, we make more films.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:23

So I have a question, so I've obviously I've done wider reading, so I have things to say. Yeah, obviously, well other people's things to say. But my last question, really, as somebody who is visible as was visibly excited, not in a not in a weird way, not in a pervy way, but you were visibly excited talking about that. Clearly, this was a big deal, and like little boy Phil loved this. I did not I couldn't work out who did you like role play on the playground? Who was the person?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:49

Oh, it was Luke Skywalker or Hans O.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:51

It's so dull.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:52

Luke Skywalker or Hans Or Luke Skywalker had the lightsaber. Oh, I see. That was the what we wanted was the lightsaber, the laser sword. Okay. And I did have a glow-in-the-dark laser sword. Obviously. Yeah. I've got I've got friend Liam, um, and we still to this day stend Star Wars memes through Instagram all the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:14

Okay, okay, that's I'm very happy.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:16

You always do all that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:17

I didn't I couldn't work out who little kids would be and this is also because you No, you pick all the films that you basically watch when you're like six, which is a very specific era. It's basically late 1970s American cinema, right? We've had a few of them in the set first series, but the commentary is always about these films. So I'm talking about Superman and I'm talking about Rocky, um, and this particularly, it's the it's post-Watergate. Um, America's had this kind of trauma, political trauma, where you know corruption's been at the highest levels. It's post-Vietnam, and there's a disillusionment amongst you know everybody, I guess. And so cinema has tried to redress that by having these good heroes, you know, goodness and morality, people with strong moral codes. So you've got Steve Man who's just like you know, marvellous, Rocky, who kind of is trying his best, um, and I guess the good people, the good characters in this, but um Mark Davis references that that again, it's like the uh the impact of Century Sim cinema led to Star Wars, this need for goodness to be portrayed. Also Brodie and Jules, you know, standing up to the corruption of the mayor and the um the coroner and all that. It's just you you do pick these these types. We're all looking for the hero.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:33

Uh it is basically. I'm my own hero. There's there's always a hero in most films.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:39

They can be flawed though. I mean, there's lots of versions of heroes.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:43

Yeah, well Rocky's flawed. Brody's flawed. You know.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:47

Brody's not flawed, he's not morally flawed.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:49

No, but he doesn't do things always right. He listens to the mayor rather than does what should be right. So he's flawed. Superman isn't flawed. No, he's he's a dream boat. Han Solo's flawed.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:02

He is, but then I wouldn't have put him as a hero with this. He's not the pure go he's doing it for mercenary reasons.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:07

Luke Skywalker is young, uh is he flawed?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:12

I don't think um I don't think Brody's flawed, but I just it's that idea of having that kind of it's quite a late this is this is what comes up time and time again in my wider reading. That late 70s cinema good hero with a moral, a moral kind of uh compass.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:27

Obviously, I wasn't there when George Lucas wrote it, but I don't think he wrote it as a I'll make a hero because of Vietnam and stuff like that. I just think he wrote a good story.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:35

I think it was in the vibe of the air at the time, uh, but it gets commented on quite a lot, and you know, other people have referenced this when we've come to this. I do have a George Lucas quote, which you probably know backwards or you've read it before or heard it before, but I found this really interesting. Um, it's from a piece called George Lucas and the origin story behind Star Wars. All of these links will be in the show notes. So bear with me. He said, The reason I'm making Star Wars is that I want to give young people some sort of faraway exotic environ environment for their imaginations to run around in. I have a strong feeling about interesting kids in space exploration. I want them to want it. I want them to get beyond the basic stupidities of the moment and think about colonising Venus and Mars. And the only way it's going to happen is to have some dumb kid fantasise about it, to get his ray gun, jump in his ship, and run off with this Wookiee into outer space. It's our only hope in a way. I like that. Well, I just found that interesting because it's like he had quite a specific vibe of I want to do a fantasy space adventure, because that's the only way people can go and think about it. It's the absolute opposite of me, and I write my little preteen series, my young adult series, Lisa McAuliffe. I very much wanted to write a very realistic, run-of-the-mill, everyday experience of a girl growing up with all the drama that real life brings, because real life can be dramatic enough, and I just have a very opposite view. I don't want to write about space or fantasy stuff, you know, things that are whatever. But I I just like that he was quite clear in his intention about what he wanted to do. Because I want to create imaginations too, but there are different you know versions of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:05

He was challenged by Steven Spielberg, who he's friends with, and Francis Ford Coppola Coppola to create a fantasy film.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:19

And he came up with two.

unknown 1:16:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:21

He came up with Star Wars, and he came up with Indiana Jones. He wrote Indiana Jones.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:26

Always comes back to the 70s and 80s, but you know well, it was that that era that you know. I know it, but what makes me laugh is that when we look at we've you know we've planned our ten films for this series, yours are very again rooted in a specific era. Mine are more wide-ranging. I'm just gonna say that. Um, okay, I found an article that was on Star Wars.com.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:46

So, you know, so it's got to be positive, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:49

Well, no, none of these are negative. Um, and it was called uh Studying Skywalker's Themes in Star Wars A New Hope, and it's by Dan Zire. And it looked at the wider wider themes of the film, and they came up with some things I hadn't thought of in my little um summary. Respect for elders. Yep, yes, that comes up. Um, people working together despite differing backgrounds, and the phrase was the princess, the scoundrel, and the farm boy. Yeah, it's quite uh interesting little threesome there. Uh, not relying on technology. I don't know, I don't know what's about because it was like guns and things. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:20

Light sabers technology, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:22

But the importance of hope and believing and what you can't see stuff. Well, yeah, I just think that's an analogy to religion and faith. Or it could be, you could make you could say it was. Um, then there's one final thing. Oh, there's two final things which are more comedic. First of all, I read a breakdown of so it was an article in Medium, and it was uh called Watching Star Wars Episode 4 and You Hope for the First Time, which I read this after I'd made all my notes. And so someone basically she called Natalie P she just wrote a bullet point of lists of a list of thoughts as she watched it, and there's like they're all kind of um with with a uh screenshot of where the film's up to, and it's just really funny because she's got like at one point um when Luke's aunt comes on screen, she just puts Denim never dies, and then uh when uh Luke until she just died a few moments later. When Luke hears Obi's voice, she's put laughing my ass off at this Obi-Wan ghost nonsense. You know, it's it's a funny little uh breakdown.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:19

And the other thing but I'll never read that, okay. No, it's good. It's my favorite film of all time.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:25

Do you know what you're allowed to have a sense of humour about? The other thing. Now I don't know if you remember this, and I think it was about oh at least 10 years ago, it was on the internet, and there was gonna be a link in the show notes. So I the only reference I had to Chewbacca, I knew when Chewbacca turned up, I knew who he was. Um, because there was that thing that went viral, and it was a woman who was sitting in a car and she'd basically been shopping. Do you remember it?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:48

Yeah, the Chewbacca mask.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:50

Yeah, and she puts it on and cannot stop laughing, and it's brilliant. And I watched it again the other day because I found it, so I'll put that in the show notes. But she was my ref that's how I knew who Chewbacca was.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:59

So the question is now if this was on TV and you're flipping through the channels, would you watch it?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:06

Okay. I'm absolutely not gonna be watching it when I'm looking for someone to watch on a Monday night, Tuesday night, winding down on a weekday evening after a busy day writing. I'm not gonna watch it then. The questi it this always comes up with your choices of films. The question of whether I watch it again could it could happen maybe in the downtime between Christmas and year when you're watching all sorts of random stuff and there's an element of it's a different vibe. Christmassy films, I know this isn't like a Christmas film, but like films that big things from Christmas is gone by, nostalgia, not that I remember as a child, but the nostalgia of these sort of older films that families would watch together. I might if I leave if I saw it was on, I wouldn't set the planner for it, but if I saw it was on as I was flicking, I might kind of go, Oh yeah, that's Star Wars, and then it's just Star Wars, I'm afraid. It is just Star Wars, and that's all it can be in my head. Um, but I might just sort of linger on it and see if there's a scene I remembered and a went to Dennis Lawson, yeah, and all that.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:05

Fair play.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:06

I didn't hate it.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:07

Dennis Lawson is in the entire three films of the trilogy. Oh, is he?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:11

Oh, good for him! Yeah, that's so funny. Yeah, I love him in the local hero, he's great, but that's just yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:18

So, next week it's your turn to get your own back, and you'll be picking the film.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:24

Do we announce it now?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:26

If you would like to.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:26

Do we try doing that this series? A little bit of a pre pre-cult thing. So, um, it's not a four-hour Hamlet. Oh god. But that will happen Monday. Kath Bronner's Hamlet, the whole text, no edits. Uh no, it's not that next week. I've picked a comedy that I think is well, it's very funny. It should be. And it is uh from 1988, and it is a fish called Wanda.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:51

Oh, Fish Called Wanda. I've not seen that in a few years.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:53

Oh brilliant Oh, have you seen it?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:55

I have seen that.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:56

Okay. Now, my um perception of you is that you don't really find things funny like I do. We don't have the same sense of humour, so we'll have to see.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:02

I like funny things, you though.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:03

Shut up. Um, we'll have to see.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:06

So, if people want more, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:09

I'm at NikkiBomb.com, or you can look for the Lisa McAuliffe stories online. How about you? I can be finding the Toffees Auros on YouTube. Excellent stuff. Thanks for listening. Uh, and until the next time, bye bye.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:20

Thank you. See you later.