Latest / Most Things Kenobi - A Star Wars Podcast / S2 E11: How Star Wars Did and Didn't Fit Into the New Hollywood Era in Cinema

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S2 E11: How Star Wars Did and Didn't Fit Into the New Hollywood Era in Cinema · Most Things Kenobi - A Star Wars Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello there, it's time for Most Things Kenobi.
• 0:03
  Shouldn't it be all Things Kenobi?
• 0:20
  Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of
• 0:22
  Most Things Kenobi, a podcast about Obi Wan Kenobi and all
• 0:25
  things Star Wars. I'm your host, Lauren.
• 0:28
  And I'm your host, Leanne, and this.
• 0:31
  Week we are talking about something called the New
• 0:34
  Hollywood era. And Leanne, you are being very
• 0:38
  kind to talk about this with me. Well, OK, so I'm gonna be the
• 0:44
  inquisitive Co host who knows little to nothing and Lauren's
• 0:49
  gonna educate me and the listeners, which I do.
• 0:53
  The way you describe this, it's very fascinating.
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  I think I can add a few things because we kind of had like a
• 0:58
  little preamble before we started recording, so I won't be
• 1:02
  totally useless. But you are the knowledgeable
• 1:04
  person in this in this conversation tonight.
• 1:06
  I'm finally going to get to use my college degree.
• 1:10
  Every time you talk about cinematography or music or
• 1:14
  shots, angles, this, that, The other thing I just sit over
• 1:16
  here. I'm like, she's so smart.
• 1:20
  Well, that's how you feel when you explain science to me.
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  Oh God. Well, that's for another
• 1:25
  episode, 'cause this, this is not it.
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  This is all you, my dear. The thing that's nice about this
• 1:31
  is everyone has seen movies. Everyone felt most Americans.
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  I won't say everybody, but most Americans have a sense of
• 1:39
  American history. So everyone can relate to this.
• 1:44
  I'm just gonna give general overviews.
• 1:47
  I won't dive too crazy deep into anything, but the New Hollywood
• 1:51
  movement was like it was a big deal in cinema and it was the
• 1:56
  turning point for a lot of cinema, and George Lucas was
• 2:00
  right in the middle of it, and that's why I want to talk about
• 2:03
  it. I was going to say, you said
• 2:05
  this started in the 70s, right? It's technically like mid 60s to
• 2:09
  about 1980 ish. Some people say it's just the
• 2:14
  60s, some people said just 60s and 70s.
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  Some say it goes into the 80s a little bit.
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  So eras in cinema have blurry edges.
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  There's no like, hard line on it.
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  There's a lot of overlap. New stuff begins as the old
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  stuff is still going. But the main new Hollywood
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  directors are all people you know.
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  It's George Lucas, it's Spielberg, It's Francis Ford
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  Coppola, Martin Scorsese, you know, they changed the face of
• 2:40
  cinema and a lot of other ones. Like you know, there's quite a
• 2:43
  few other ones, but those are the most, I would say the most
• 2:46
  average person is going to know those 4 directors.
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  Probably, yeah. And they're, they're revered to
• 2:52
  this day for their work. I mean they are legends.
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  When that's part of the argument is the new era hasn't ended
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  because Coppola and Scorsese are still making those kinds of
• 3:02
  movies to this day, Yeah. So while I was thinking about
• 3:06
  Scorsese, because he puts out some damn good movies, do I like
• 3:12
  everybody that he puts in them? Casting's casting's always kind
• 3:16
  of iffy, right? But I'm always captivated by his
• 3:21
  his films honestly. Yeah, even if they're hard to
• 3:24
  watch, there's something about yeah.
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  That's. The fact that this man can do
• 3:28
  taxi driver and then the age of innocence blows my fucking mind.
• 3:34
  Oh, I just got chilled. I just got chilled.
• 3:36
  Yeah, you're right. And so all of these guys are
• 3:39
  also best friends. They all went to college
• 3:42
  together, they started production companies together.
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  So it kind of makes sense that they're right at the center of
• 3:47
  this new movement. It all came at an era that was
• 3:51
  the perfect timing for the big switch that came because cinema
• 3:56
  before this was pretty different.
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  Yeah, there's kind of two ways to look at it, right?
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  There's what was going on in cinema, and then there's what's
• 4:05
  going on in history, socially in the country.
• 4:08
  Those two things have like a big impact on what's going on a lot.
• 4:13
  Yeah, it's a lot. I mean even like globally
• 4:17
  intertwined a lotness. Yes.
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  And this, what we're talking about is American cinema.
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  There's other forms of cinema going on in France, Italy, you
• 4:25
  know, there's like neorealism, there's Russian cinema, Chinese
• 4:27
  cinema, all this stuff. We're just talking about
• 4:29
  American cinema with this. So I'll give you like a really
• 4:32
  quick overview of cinema timeline.
• 4:35
  Yeah, let's break it down. So the first one is early
• 4:37
  cinema, which is like the silent era.
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  So we all kind of know, you know what that looks like.
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  Then there's the Golden Age, which were talkies, yes, but the
• 4:48
  big thing about the Golden Age was it was the studio was king.
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  And they also, they, they owned the movie theaters as well.
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  So like they would only screen their own movies.
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  You weren't allowed to like make a movie and put it up in a
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  cinema. That's not how it worked back
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  then. After that was film noir and
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  that was like the 40s and 50s Cold War era.
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  So you can see why film noir is like kind of a big deal at that
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  time. People were starting to get a
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  little bit nervous and suspicious of the unknown.
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  Then there's the era independent or like the auteur time period
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  which is the 50s and 60s. Think Alfred Hitchcock.
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  Oh, yeah, right. Yeah.
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  And then new wave begins, a new wave, New Hollywood.
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  It's the same same era. They have a couple different
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  names for it, but New Hollywood begins in the like mid to late
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  60s. After that comes the
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  blockbusters, right, right. And so think Spielberg, you
• 5:47
  know, blockbuster movie. So there's and and we're still
• 5:50
  kind of in superhero blockbuster now, but nowadays it feels like
• 5:56
  I. Feel like it's waning?
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  A little bit is waning and there's also like new wave is
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  still exists now in a lot of independent movies.
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  Part of why new wave could start is because there was like a big
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  shift happening in the movie industry.
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  There was actually a Supreme Court hearing that made it so.
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  No way. Yeah, it was like a big deal.
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  They they ruled in 1948, United States versus Paramount.
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  It was a decision that broke up the studio conglomerate.
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  So now cinemas could film anything or they could show
• 6:30
  anything, which meant foreign movies.
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  Think about it. You couldn't.
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  You weren't seeing foreign films before because the studios would
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  only show what they made, which is like, my brain is like, you
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  can't even process that now because there's so much shit.
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  It's crazy. We have access to everything
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  now. We do, and everything's
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  influenced by the other thing in another place.
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  Exactly. It's it's kind of crazy, you're
• 6:55
  right. So like what's going on in
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  Europe there is like this neo realism and it's really gritty
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  and it's post World War. So now that's suddenly coming
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  into America, and we've never seen that kind of stuff before.
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  Then there was also a dissolution of the Motion
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  Picture Production Code in 1968 and that was like guidelines of
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  what is and isn't allowed on screen.
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  Oh, interesting. Think about everything before
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  the 1960s. There's no nudity.
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  The violence is very minimal. The way people talk to each
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  other, the like, the way they were allowed to address certain
• 7:32
  issues. You just don't see it before
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  that. Well, that was that was kind of
• 7:37
  a sign of that time too. Just kind of keep it buttoned
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  up. Don't, don't let anything too
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  controversial out. I mean, what could be deemed
• 7:44
  controversial exactly? At the time, although, you know,
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  there's all sorts of stuff that we look back at now and we're
• 7:49
  like, Oh my God, that's so inappropriate.
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  But they didn't right see it that way.
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  Right, right. What was appropriate and
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  inappropriate then is wild. Yes, Oh my God, just.
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  Some of the shit that was let through anyway, yeah.
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  Just watch Birth of a Nation if you're not sure.
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  Like, it was all considered very glitzy, but it was also
• 8:11
  considered very conservative and not in a political sense, in a
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  like morally conservative way, right?
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  Right, right. In the 60s, that starts to
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  shift, but it also starts to shift.
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  Like people are sick of seeing that kind of stuff because it
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  doesn't ring true to them anymore in the 60s, because by
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  then we've had World War 2 and we've had the Korean War and the
• 8:38
  Cold War. But then a shit starts to get
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  very active socially in the United States, and a lot of
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  like, very upsetting, heartbreaking stuff happens all
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  close together, right? The civil rights movement starts
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  in the 50s and goes on well into, you know, we could say
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  now. Oh yeah.
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  Oh, we. Kennedy is assassinated in 1963.
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  the US is involved in Vietnam from like the 50s, but they
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  really up what they're doing in Vietnam in 1965.
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  MLK is assassinated in 1968. A few months later, his brother
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  Robert is assassin. Or his brother, Sorry, Robert F
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  Kennedy, JFK's brother, is assassinated in right, right, in
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  1968. They're all the civil rights
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  people, you know, basically these very prominent figures
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  fighting for civil rights get assassinated.
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  And then there's the Watergate scandal that begins in 1972,
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  right? So all this shit happens, right?
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  And the American public becomes disillusioned, very cynical, and
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  they no longer trust the government.
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  Y'all didn't see what I just did with my face?
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  Like what? Does that sound familiar?
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  The thing is that sentiment has never shifted back.
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  Think World War 2, right? Like everyone was like the
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  government said, buy bonds and they they did.
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  They wanted to support what we were doing and support our
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  troops and all this stuff. After the 60s, no one believed
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  the government had their best interests at heart anymore,
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  right? Oh, and the draft.
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  The draft started in the 60s also.
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  The draft, don't forget television.
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  They're not broadcasting shit that they never broadcasted
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  before. Exactly.
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  Visually, yes. And it it a lot of that can't be
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  censored quite as much. Yeah.
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  You know when, let's say Challenger blows up, you know,
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  and, and, and people are watching.
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  And it's live. What's, what's his face?
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  Nixon gets on there and makes a fool of himself and and all the
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  stuff. Like that, the body is coming
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  back from Vietnam. They showed it.
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  Can't ignore that. Yeah, and the 70s, I was not
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  alive. I can't speak to it but the 70s
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  marked a transitory phase like you said, where the
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  disillusionment and the, I hate to say rebellion, but music
• 11:02
  changed clothing. It was the birth of that started
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  in the 60s. Yeah, yeah.
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  Exactly. Yeah.
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  So then that carried into the 80s.
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  Very much so. And.
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  Until, until Ronald Reagan and it all changed and and like
• 11:17
  yuppie ISM and all that. So there's like a pretty
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  distinct shift that happens even there.
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  So this is like a really interesting period where some of
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  the culture still bleeds over, but there's also a bigger
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  division happening there. But that's a whole another story
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  for a different day. We're talking about movies,
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  after all, yeah? Exactly.
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  But there's this was always something that my professors
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  asked, does art reflect history? Does history reflect right?
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  Oh well, yes, the answer is yes, exactly.
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  Like it's a chicken or the egg. It's like it's both.
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  Back to the Renaissance, shit, even before there was religious
• 12:00
  and socio things going on that literally drove art and art
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  drove the socio economic, religious, political everything.
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  100% it's. It's not rare, Yeah.
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  So. Cinema's no different, and it
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  has a further reach than like a painting on a wall.
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  Cinema can reach a lot of people all over the world now in
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  seconds. Back then, of course, it had to
• 12:24
  be shipped in a can to. Other still so cool though.
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  There's nothing better than the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick
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  tick of an old film. You know I.
• 12:33
  Know it just like the saturation on film is so different than
• 12:37
  digital, but now you know there's AI can do all sorts of
• 12:40
  crap but right OK, so you see the historical context.
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  Here's what a new Hollywood film is right?
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  It has gritty subject matter, which is going to be like war,
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  violence, crime, prostitution, adultery.
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  These are subject matters that were maybe touched on in golden
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  era, but not this way, right? It's inventive, dynamic and
• 13:01
  documentary style cinematography.
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  So think of like an old Gene Kelly movie.
• 13:05
  It kind of felt like 1 camera filming a stage.
• 13:09
  Yeah, yeah. Now there's like moving cameras
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  and George Lucas and Spielberg invented a lot of technology for
• 13:17
  how they use cranes and helicopters and all sorts of
• 13:21
  crazy shit and. Those things that are on a like
• 13:25
  an almost a train track. And it.
• 13:27
  Follows yeah, that's so cool how they film some scenes like that
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  it's. Amazing.
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  And they they use rack focus while they do that, which takes
• 13:35
  a lot of skills. Scorsese does this amazing
• 13:37
  trombone shot in Goodfellas. It's super famous.
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  Everybody knows it if they've seen the movie.
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  It's where the people hold still, but the scenery around
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  them rack focuses so it looks like you're zooming up a hallway
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  at them. It's, I mean, it's fucking
• 13:53
  awesome. I think it's I just.
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  Imagine, imagine being at the forefront of this and it being
• 14:00
  like the first wave of its kind. And then it's AI don't know.
• 14:04
  I don't know what it's like to invent anything, but to be that
• 14:11
  creative. Yeah.
• 14:12
  To think to, to take the courage to try something different.
• 14:17
  Yeah, it was. I think that's fantastic think.
• 14:19
  About it like your think of like your grandparents what they were
• 14:23
  going to see the movies and then your parents their movies
• 14:26
  that's. True, it was so.
• 14:27
  Shocking to the older generation to see stuff like this, because
• 14:32
  it was. It was so realistic in some
• 14:35
  senses that it was borderline very upsetting to people.
• 14:39
  Yeah, yeah, I could see that. And I mean, watch Taxi Driver,
• 14:43
  it's fucking upsetting but it's very well made.
• 14:47
  But I never want to see it again.
• 14:50
  No, it's so good and so impactful.
• 14:54
  Once is enough, Yes. Exactly.
• 14:56
  And then there's cynicism, and there's less moralizing.
• 15:03
  A great example is Taxi Driver. Robert De Niro plays Travis
• 15:07
  Bickle, the main character, and he does horrific shit.
• 15:11
  Really super upsetting stuff. It's a very upsetting subject
• 15:14
  matter. The movie does not take a stance
• 15:17
  on whether it's right or. Wrong, right?
• 15:21
  Yeah. And that's very common in this
• 15:23
  time period. So it's gritty, it's shitty all
• 15:28
  it's kind of like baroqueism, which is misshapen Pearl.
• 15:31
  It's like the ugliest parts of life but not judging it.
• 15:36
  Just putting it out there to view, Yeah.
• 15:38
  For strange entertainment and like, but it's, it's an art
• 15:42
  piece. It's taking realistic stuff,
• 15:45
  yeah. And putting it in front of large
• 15:47
  groups of people for the first time, which I think that would
• 15:49
  be so cool to be there for one of those, like the first time
• 15:53
  you ever see. Something like that.
• 15:55
  Exactly. It's what we've talked about
• 15:57
  before, where you want to see yourself reflected in art.
• 15:59
  And people were so cynical at that time because of everything
• 16:03
  happening politically and socially.
• 16:06
  A big jolly Hollywood movie felt really insincere, and they were
• 16:12
  getting kind of sick of it as a society.
• 16:15
  And so to see this stuff that's super gritty felt more realistic
• 16:19
  to how they felt. They felt afraid of the draft
• 16:21
  and afraid of like the social and political violence because
• 16:24
  there were more protests that ended violently, stuff like
• 16:27
  that, You know, students got shot at Ohio, stuff like that.
• 16:31
  So some movies that were very famous from this era where
• 16:37
  Bonnie and Clyde, which I told you, it's kind of like one of
• 16:40
  the 1st movies and that movie was super bloody.
• 16:45
  It was. So violent.
• 16:49
  Yeah. Like, holy shit, that ending was
• 16:52
  crazy. Easy Rider.
• 16:54
  Also, it was like it was all about counterculture, which came
• 16:57
  out the next year. It was 1969.
• 16:59
  Counterculture, sex, drugs. They took drugs in the movie,
• 17:03
  which they never showed that shit before.
• 17:05
  And then there was like a whole sequence of experimental
• 17:08
  surrealism. And it wasn't like an Oscar.
• 17:12
  Yeah. It is so upsetting the subject
• 17:18
  matter, super upsetting at. Least they were recognized for.
• 17:23
  Yeah. Their groundbreaking this.
• 17:25
  Yeah, it was. It was a big deal at the time.
• 17:28
  Now, if you watch that movie, you probably laugh out loud
• 17:30
  because it's just like hippies riding motorcycles.
• 17:33
  But. Yeah, but it should be respected
• 17:35
  for what it was at the time. It was a big deal, that kind of
• 17:38
  stuff. You can't compare it to today.
• 17:40
  There's no comparison because it of the time period.
• 17:43
  Exactly, You can laugh at stuff, but if you put it in context
• 17:46
  you'll realize it was actually kind of a big fucking deal.
• 17:49
  There was also like The French Connection, which everybody's
• 17:52
  heard about. Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Dog
• 17:56
  Day, Afternoon. What do all these movies have in
• 17:58
  common? Not a single one has a happy
• 18:01
  ending. No, not a single of the ones
• 18:04
  that you listed that I've watched, not a single one has,
• 18:08
  No. And actually, there's ambiguity.
• 18:10
  Ambiguity in the characters themselves.
• 18:12
  Yes, they might be good, they might be bad.
• 18:15
  They have good intentions but do bad things.
• 18:17
  Exactly. Yep, George Lucas is on this
• 18:20
  list, but not for Star Wars. His contribution is American
• 18:24
  Graffiti and I would say it is a happy ending.
• 18:33
  Again, I haven't seen it, but I know the I know the ending so I
• 18:36
  don't want to comment too much, but I know how it ends.
• 18:39
  The main character is like trying to decide if he's going
• 18:41
  to go away to college or not, and one of them decides to and
• 18:44
  one of them decides not to. What's right?
• 18:46
  What's wrong? Right.
• 18:47
  And there's no, like, real judgement on which is the right
• 18:50
  thing to do. Even to this day, that's kind of
• 18:53
  a theme. Yes, one path is no better than
• 18:55
  the other, really. If it if it's you.
• 18:57
  It's what that character wanted, you know, So like.
• 19:00
  Exactly, yes. Yeah, I say George's
• 19:05
  contribution is one of the more cheery ones, but his other like
• 19:08
  what was it? THI can't remember the numbers
• 19:11
  now. It's the number of that
• 19:13
  stormtrooper. He used it in his original like
• 19:15
  sci-fi short movie that he made with Robert Duvall.
• 19:19
  I can't remember now. Man, I feel like I should know
• 19:21
  this. It's the, I don't know, I can't
• 19:24
  remember it now because I haven't looked it up recently,
• 19:26
  but that was, that was way more fucking depressing.
• 19:29
  That was like Brave New World depressing at this time.
• 19:32
  Gone are the days of wrapping everything up in a nice neat
• 19:35
  bow. It's this era is way more
• 19:38
  interested in showing the irony of getting what you want or like
• 19:41
  the way society doesn't give a shit about you, how you can
• 19:44
  become invisible in the world and the bad guy might win even
• 19:48
  though the good guy tried really hard.
• 19:52
  So how does Star Wars fit into this?
• 19:54
  It comes out in 1977. It's right in the middle of this
• 19:58
  era. It kind of sits on the line
• 20:01
  right of. It it we have to think about
• 20:04
  episode 4 only. Right, because exactly.
• 20:06
  There was no intention of the others coming out.
• 20:09
  Right. No idea that that was even going
• 20:12
  to happen. So he's just so.
• 20:13
  Yeah, just the New Hope. Yeah, exactly.
• 20:16
  And it, I mean, it does deal with the subject matters, right?
• 20:19
  War. It does.
• 20:20
  Resistance, large evil that's overwhelming censorship,
• 20:26
  economic hardship. I mean, Han Solo is so perfect
• 20:30
  in in this era. He is the new Hollywood man, you
• 20:35
  know. Yeah, he really is.
• 20:38
  And it's it's kind of amazing to me that George Lucas makes a
• 20:43
  movie with a happy ending in the middle of this era, cuz like, no
• 20:48
  other movie was like that at the time.
• 20:51
  Yeah, with such large figures in in this movie, like very obvious
• 20:57
  bad guys, very obvious good guys, you know, space in
• 21:03
  general. Yes, right.
• 21:05
  Like no one else is making. What have we had, Star Trek?
• 21:09
  We've had Star Trek up to this point, which was walking in from
• 21:13
  stage left, stage right. Into frame.
• 21:17
  Cutscene, new stage like, and I'm not knocking it it yeah,
• 21:22
  yeah, yeah. Foam green, green alien like
• 21:27
  it's loved and revered and my mom would speak to this.
• 21:30
  She's a giant Trekkie, you know, and that opened the door.
• 21:35
  But like, space wasn't common. We got every movie that you
• 21:38
  listed here was down on planet Earth with just humans being
• 21:42
  terrible and maybe sometimes not.
• 21:45
  Not happy endings. Yeah, and here we have this
• 21:48
  these guys with shiny, I'm trying not to describe them as
• 21:52
  lightsabers. They like they're they're laser
• 21:55
  swords. Hey, and guys in black caves,
• 21:59
  Hey, you know. Like it's so it doesn't fit in
• 22:04
  with all the other stuff that's going on in this time period of
• 22:08
  the. Reception it it got, you know,
• 22:11
  the hordes of people that went to see A New Hope, you know, and
• 22:15
  the title alone is kind of out of this.
• 22:18
  It. Has the word hope in it, you
• 22:21
  know? When I wondered.
• 22:22
  That was odd. Maybe it's because people were
• 22:24
  so tired at this point because New Hollywood started in the
• 22:28
  late 60s. Now this is the late 70s.
• 22:31
  It's like maybe they were ready for happy movies to come back.
• 22:35
  Or something to take them out of something that wasn't so totally
• 22:40
  beyond what they could connect to because we're still dealing
• 22:42
  with, like, real world topics, even if it's set in space.
• 22:46
  And the space, the moon landing, all of that had already
• 22:49
  happened. So it wasn't too far out of, you
• 22:51
  know, maybe this will be the future.
• 22:53
  Like, maybe someday we'll get to travel to a plant, you know,
• 22:55
  stuff like that. Like kids.
• 22:56
  Yeah. I still kind of hope that we can
• 23:00
  go far away in spaceships. But at the same time, you have
• 23:05
  the sense of good guy, bad guy, Perhaps the good guy can win.
• 23:09
  You know, perhaps not all hope is lost.
• 23:13
  That sort of thing. The background, at least, let's
• 23:16
  say Tatooine and some of the other ships, is very much New
• 23:20
  Hollywood in the sense that it's the future, but everything's
• 23:23
  rundown. Right.
• 23:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very.
• 23:27
  It's like what you've said about the rebellion, too.
• 23:29
  It's like this ragtag group of people who kind of don't have
• 23:32
  equipment that works that well. They're all kind of underground.
• 23:36
  They're not. They're reusing stuff because
• 23:38
  they have to and got to get creative with some stuff
• 23:41
  sometimes and. When I've I've read another
• 23:44
  theory too, which I don't remember if we've ever talked
• 23:47
  about it here on the show, but I know you and I have talked about
• 23:49
  it just a little bit together that it's a reflection of the
• 23:52
  Vietnam War. Cause the Vietnam War ended in
• 23:55
  75. And I've heard it describes that
• 23:59
  the empire is America and the rebellion are the Vietnamese and
• 24:05
  they're fighting this large empire that comes into their
• 24:09
  world. I mean.
• 24:10
  Sure. The actual conflict is far more
• 24:13
  nuanced than that. And I'm not passing, I'm not
• 24:15
  saying anything about that or passing judgement on it at all.
• 24:17
  It's not my area of expertise. But the idea that that conflict
• 24:23
  going on in the real world might have had an influence on George
• 24:26
  Lucas is not a far fetched idea. Even though his symbolism is
• 24:31
  much more like Nazi symbolism with, you know, the Empire
• 24:35
  outfits and everything like that.
• 24:36
  But. The Chanel boots, yes.
• 24:38
  Yes, exactly. I love studying this kind of
• 24:40
  thing where you take like a film and you look at it in the era
• 24:43
  that it was created and how parts of it, kind of like parts
• 24:47
  of Star Wars feel like new cinema especially, or New
• 24:51
  Hollywood especially with like the technology, the
• 24:54
  cinematography, some of the larger themes.
• 24:57
  But the fact that George Lucas wouldn't give in to the cynicism
• 25:00
  all the way, I think is actually kind of a beautiful thing.
• 25:03
  And he holds it is like all the way through the prequels and
• 25:07
  everything so. He really does.
• 25:10
  And I mean, there's a reason these films have stood the test
• 25:14
  of time with multiple age groups, eras of generations, you
• 25:19
  know, different iterations of characters, but you know,
• 25:23
  throughout the same woven fabric of Star Wars, we keep coming
• 25:27
  back for a reason. We say it all the fucking time
• 25:30
  here that Star Wars is pain, lest we forget.
• 25:35
  But we keep coming back because number one, it's real.
• 25:38
  It's real to us, Meaning we feel connected to the shit that's in
• 25:42
  it. That pain that's in there.
• 25:44
  We get it. We actively seek it out in some
• 25:48
  ways because we're we're like that in this fandom.
• 25:52
  And then in the end, we have characters we can cling to that
• 25:56
  give us hope or give us messages of hope that we carry through
• 25:59
  our real lives. I just got a sign for my.
• 26:03
  Office. Can you guess what it says?
• 26:06
  I'm not sure which which way you went.
• 26:08
  A wooden sign. I got it on Etsy.
• 26:11
  Rebellions are built on hope, and I am looking at it every
• 26:14
  single fucking day I'm in that damn office of mine.
• 26:17
  Every time I start to feel like everything's crumbling, I
• 26:21
  remember well the phrase of the rebellion.
• 26:24
  But Jin's words, Cassian's words, their words, you know?
• 26:29
  Yeah. Thank God for hope, because.
• 26:32
  Yeah, I think we really need. Thank God for George Lucas for
• 26:34
  giving it to us and giving it to the people then, because they
• 26:38
  obviously really needed it after the bullshit of the late 50s,
• 26:41
  sixties and 70s leading all the way through.
• 26:44
  Yeah, on to today. Well, maybe that can actually
• 26:47
  give us a little bit of calm, because I bet that generation
• 26:51
  felt pretty fucking terrified also.
• 26:54
  And it's very true. I know it's very true that my my
• 26:57
  dad lived in fear of the draft being called up.
• 27:00
  His draft number was the next one gonna get called up when
• 27:03
  they finally canceled the draft. Oh, I never knew that.
• 27:07
  Yeah, and it's just like. That's intense, you know?
• 27:10
  That's a whole other level of fear that we don't have now, but
• 27:14
  we have our own shit that our parents generation definitely
• 27:18
  wasn't dealing with. So let's just try to cling on to
• 27:23
  the George Lucas lesson of hope and that if we can have our
• 27:28
  community and stay together, that we could maybe make it
• 27:32
  through some hardship. And that's I think why Star Wars
• 27:35
  is really successful because, again, it has that theme of be
• 27:39
  careful what you wish for. Luke wants adventure, gets it,
• 27:41
  and ends up paying a huge price for it.
• 27:44
  Totally, totally, totally. And we kind of, I think we
• 27:47
  relate to that as humans because life is hard.
• 27:51
  It's really difficult. But then to have the story wrap
• 27:55
  up in a way where you're just like, oh, thank God.
• 27:59
  Yes. Right.
• 28:00
  So I think that's what we needed and and I I would say that's
• 28:04
  what society needed at the time because the next era is called
• 28:09
  kind of the Good Morning era in the 1980s where it's like think
• 28:14
  of Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Back to the future.
• 28:19
  We love these heroes that are kind of irreverent, but also
• 28:22
  really hearts of gold. You know, they got a heart of
• 28:24
  gold. Yeah.
• 28:25
  And that 1980s and even into the 90s, like Jurassic Park and then
• 28:31
  Independence Day, like all these movies that are big
• 28:34
  blockbusters, they make people feel something, like they can
• 28:39
  overcome something, you know, it's.
• 28:41
  I'm over here smiling because you just mentioned Independence
• 28:45
  Day. That fucking film hit me hard
• 28:49
  when I was in 6th grade. I think that Spielberg and Lucas
• 28:54
  were like founding fathers of the New Hollywood movement, but
• 28:57
  they're also the reason it ended.
• 28:59
  Like their shift and their production companies shifted
• 29:04
  people into a new state. Not everything because like I
• 29:08
  said, there's still people making New Hollywood genre, but
• 29:11
  it allows us to all exist at the same time, which before that
• 29:17
  wasn't really possible. And I also feel like Star Wars
• 29:19
  in particular kind of combines golden age Hollywood with new
• 29:25
  Hollywood. So you get like the big glamour,
• 29:27
  glitzy, beautiful and then this like gritty subject matter and
• 29:32
  you mush it together and you get this space opera.
• 29:36
  Yes, yes, all my favorite elements, really.
• 29:43
  So that's my spiel. Thank you for letting me rant on
• 29:47
  about it, but yeah. I honestly, I find it
• 29:51
  fascinating. I didn't know the names of all
• 29:54
  of these different eras, and I didn't know that the 80s was the
• 29:56
  good morning. Is there a reason for that?
• 29:58
  I. Don't think that's it's official
• 30:00
  name. It's it's more of like the
• 30:01
  blockbuster era. But yes, they say the quote is
• 30:04
  quoted as Good Morning Era because of Ronald Reagan,
• 30:07
  actually. Oh, OK.
• 30:10
  And it has to do with like the golden age of America and like
• 30:15
  America for Americans and all that stuff, so.
• 30:19
  Want one? I get it.
• 30:23
  Yeah. So like moving on I mean.
• 30:25
  It's it's impossible to say that politics and art aren't thinner
• 30:28
  connected. They absolutely are, and
• 30:31
  politics drives social stuff. Social stuff drives politics,
• 30:35
  and it all influences art one way or another.
• 30:38
  Since the dawn of time. Really.
• 30:40
  Yes. And it's way more comfortable to
• 30:41
  be looking back at it in history than to be living through it.
• 30:44
  But it is what it is. That's probably.
• 30:47
  That's probably what every generation said, though.
• 30:49
  Exactly. And so maybe 40 years from now,
• 30:52
  the film makers, we'll look back on whatever the fuck this is and
• 31:00
  have a talk about it. Why the?
• 31:01
  Hell, did we have all these like, superhero universes going?
• 31:07
  It's the multiverse. We need the multiverse of the
• 31:10
  multiverse. You don't understand.
• 31:14
  We had to have 50 things going on at once.
• 31:16
  That's what everybody was about back then.
• 31:19
  Never ending multitasking, including superheroes.
• 31:24
  Damn, no wonder we're exhausted. All right, our question for you
• 31:33
  this week is if you were an original 1977 New Hope viewer,
• 31:40
  if you were in the audience and you knew the hype leading up to
• 31:44
  A New Hope and you're in this age of cinema that Lauren and I
• 31:47
  just discussed, what was your initial feelings going into
• 31:51
  seeing it? Like, what drove you to go see
• 31:54
  it? Were you feeling any of the
• 31:55
  emotions that Lucas and company were trying to either create or
• 31:59
  recreate in a different way? Tell us.
• 32:02
  We want to know because we weren't there and we wish we
• 32:04
  were. All right, next time we are
• 32:09
  going to dive into one of Leanne's passion subjects and
• 32:12
  I'm really excited to talk about this because as fanfic writers,
• 32:16
  we have as fanfic writers, we've both had to do research on this.
• 32:23
  We're going to talk about ships in the Star Wars.
• 32:26
  And. Yes, it's going to be awesome.
• 32:28
  We're going to discuss like the innards of the different ships
• 32:32
  and like where was the mess hall?
• 32:34
  Where did they get changed? Did they have showers?
• 32:37
  How did how does this work? Where did Vader sleep?
• 32:41
  Oh wait, he didn't. Nope, Nope.
• 32:46
  He had nightmares and then floated in some weird liquid.
• 32:49
  So anyway, where was that kept on a ship?
• 32:51
  We'll let you know. Let's talk shit about Star Wars.
• 32:57
  Yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
• 33:01
  On the last episode, we discussed Obi Wan Kenobi because
• 33:04
  that's what the show is about. And we're talking about our
• 33:07
  favorite moments from the Kenobi series.
• 33:09
  And Cheryl Z sent me this message saying, I can tell you
• 33:13
  that my immediate response to my key standout scene is the scene
• 33:17
  where he puts his hand on the back of the door.
• 33:19
  And you can see him reaching out and reading Riva and working out
• 33:23
  what's going on and being the wise negotiator.
• 33:26
  As soon as he puts his hand on the door, you saw this change in
• 33:29
  his demeanor and his emotions, and I audibly said there he is.
• 33:34
  Oh, that. Yeah, there he is.
• 33:36
  Oh, that's good. Yeah, I was.
• 33:40
  Like yeah, that's really good moment because it is him.
• 33:42
  Like it is suddenly allowing himself to use the force to read
• 33:47
  the moment and he's putting all the the hints together to
• 33:51
  realize who she is, as I do love that moment.
• 33:55
  And then he's like, yeah. That's a good.
• 33:56
  One, you're not bringing me to him, I'm bringing him to you.
• 33:59
  That moment, he's like. Yeah.
• 34:02
  That, that is good, Yeah. That's a good moment, yeah.
• 34:06
  Thank you to everyone who sent your favorite Obi Wan moments
• 34:09
  in. There are too many to list.
• 34:11
  That is the general consensus from all our listeners.
• 34:16
  Basically all of them. And thank you so much for
• 34:22
  joining us here on the Most Things Kenobi podcast.
• 34:24
  We appreciate every single one of our patrons and are grateful
• 34:27
  for your support. If you'd like to support the
• 34:29
  podcast and become a patron as well, head over to The Most
• 34:32
  Things Kenobi Patreon. As always, you can follow us on
• 34:35
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• 34:39
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• 34:41
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• 34:45
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• 34:47
  find all of these, head over to Most Things kenobi.com.
• 34:51
  So until next time Myspace win, may the force be with you.
• 34:55
  Always.