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Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism. It's the patriarchy, zeph and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Jamie, I am your father. Oh join me, we can
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: rule this podcast as father and son.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: You didn't chant you, you only added the word podcast.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: And then I'm like, no, I would sooner free fall
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: into space. Then rule this podcast with you. You sick? Oh fascist? Wow? Yeah,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I know it's my birthday though, I know. Sorry, happy birthday,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: but you did, Yeavy and you you brought it on yourself.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: We can't. We can't excuse fascism just because it's your birthday. Caitlin,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Happy birthday, thank you. It's true. This is my birthday
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: episode Big Year. Holy shit. Yeah, I'm forty bitch. I
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: love it.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: I love it, and you've well tell tell the listeners
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: at home how you've been celebrating.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: It's kind of been. I like that for you. You
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: are so good at having a birthday and it becomes
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: birthday season, not birthday the day. Yeah, it's a whole
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: this time around, it's a whole year. I started in April.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: My birthday is in a few days from the release
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: of this episode, but I started back in April by
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: going to London to see Paddington the musical. That was
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: my big birthday treat to myself, and it did not disappoint.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: It was so good. I'm so happy for you.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: That is like, Yeah, the second it happened, I was like,
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: I know that Caitlin is going to find their way there.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: It really is just a matter of when. Yeah, but
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: you made quick work of it, Thank you, thank you. Yes,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I was very efficient. But yeah. And one of the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: other ways I'm celebrating is by making us talk about
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Empire strikes Back.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Which I am actually I mean, wow, life comes at
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: you fast because I'm so happy to do it, and
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine myself saying that when this podcast started. No,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is just like a big nostalgia year,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: especially us wise, because it's our ten year. We're still
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: figuring out how to celebrate.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: You know. But I think so much about how I remember,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: like your thirtieth birthday show at Nerd Melt yeah, and
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: how that was a time where it was around the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: time that the Star Wars sequels were starting to come out,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: and I just couldn't have cared less. But time continued
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: to march on, and then I realized I was wrong
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: as hell. These movies are fun, They're good, They're fun
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: and flawed. And guess what, I'm not better than a
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: damn person in the world, unlike I thought when this
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: twenty two or whatever. So I'm so excited. Yeah, I
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: mean should we? I guess If this is your first
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast episode, welcome. It's a fun one and we'll
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: tell you what the show is really quick. This is
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: our podcast where we take a look at your favorite.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Movies and in this case, Caitlin's favorite movies, using an
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as the jumping
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: off point for a discussion.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: But Caitlin, yes, what is that? What is that? Not
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: to quiz you on your birthday? Yeah, while making me
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: do labor. It is a media metric created by our
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: dear friend of the podcast, Alison Bechdel. Quick version is
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: and our version is it? Do two characters of a
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other?
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: And is there conversation about something other than a man?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: And I think you'll find the reason that we're kind
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: of glazing over the specifics of the test in the
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: case of this movie is because well, it doesn't pass.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Even does it doesn't help plow even a little bit
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: to this movie.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: So you know, like there are certain episodes where we
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: get really specific about like, well, it could mean this.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: It could mean this.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: But there are certain movies where you're like, well it
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: either it's episodes where it happens a lot or never
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: even runs the risk of happening, and this is the latter.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: We don't really need to get into the.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Nitty gritty today, No we don't, but we do need
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: to get into the nitty gritty of our relationship with
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Star Wars and Jamie, you were already talking a little
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: bit about yours, but tell us what's your relationship with
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: this movie specifically and then the larger universe.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been it's been a journey. We actually we
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: talked about this a fair amount in our Prequels tour,
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: which happened early last fall in the Midwest, where my
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: relationship with Star Wars began with the prequel. I just
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: was not a sci fi kid at all. I was
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: not sci fi or fantasy. I know, we were very
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: different sci fi fantasy action. We're just not my vibe.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: I was like, performatively to criticize myself at eleven years old,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: performatively against a lot of it, because I don't know.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: I had this mentality that like magic was cheating, So
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: that's why I don't know. But Star Wars, obviously, I
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: remember I didn't see the first prequel in theaters. I
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: did see the second one at a drive in, and
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: remember it being the first movie.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, that was boring, and you were
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: not wrong. I was not wrong, and you can listen
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: to our Prequels episode for more on that. And then
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: the third one I performatively loved because they like kind
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: of turned Darth Vader into like a sexy, hot topic character,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: which I was into so all over the place. But
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I never really watched or engaged with the original trilogy
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: when I was a kid, so I wouldn't have seen
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: The Empire Strikes Back at least until I lived in
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: LA I would guess, not for the first time until
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: like the last five years.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Probably I just never I mean, and then it definitely
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: rewatched it last summer when I was doing like pretty
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: heavy prep on the prequel and the original trilogy for
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: our for our tour, so I can now confidently say
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: all this, YadA, YadA, YadA. I can now confidently say
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: that Empire Strikes Back is indeed my favorite of the
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: first trilogy.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of people's favorite.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: I would see, Yeah, it doesn't seem to be a
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: controversial opinion, but it like it just it hits, it hits,
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: and it I mean, while it makes a lot of
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: the mistakes that movies of its era also make, there's
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: a lot of tokenism, there's a lot of like there's well,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: we'll talk about it, but I think that in terms
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: of mistakes that Star Wars often makes, it tends to
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: avoid a few that I associate with this franchise in
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: a way that I appreciate. And the performances are so fun.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: It's a great story. I love Lawrence Casten. I enjoyed
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: learning about Lee Brackett, who I didn't really know anything about.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Same and yeah, I don't know, I just this is
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: my favorite one of the trilogy.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Although I think that because I know your favorite is
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Return of the Jedi, that while that's.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: Not one that I love, I do love the Ewoks
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: and if the Ewoks were in Empire strikes Back, it
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: would be a perfect movie.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I agree, yes, thank you. I know that I cite
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Ewoks as the reason that I love Return of the
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Jedi the most, and that's not entirely true. There are
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: other things I like about it. And also, and I
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: might have brought this up before, either on this podcast
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: or I've guested on other Star Wars things in the past,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: but the version of Return of the Jedi that I
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: watched growing up was an edited for TV version of
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: the movie that we taped from TV onto a blank VHS,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: which like just trims a lot of the I think
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: unnecessary bits from that movie makes it a lot tighter,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: and that version is my favorite movie. When I watched
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: the theatrical cut of Return of the Jedi, there's weird
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: stuff that wasn't in the edited down version that I saw,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: and I was like, what the hell is this? I yeah,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I get why people think it's kind of not the best,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: But was there anything else about your your relationship with
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Star Wars Before I start to wax poetic about it, No,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I just my favorite. I love Babbu Frick. I didn't
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: see The Last Jedi when it came out in theaters.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I might have seen episode seven, but we definitely saw episode.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Nine together and we were freaking it up. That's my
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: full history. Incredible for my Star Wars fandom. I mean,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: you have history, I've got history. This is a fandom
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: that I do not talk about as much as some
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: of my other fandoms, such as Paddington or Titanic, for example.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: But I am a long time Star Wars head, especially
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: this original trilogy. I am not a completionist when it
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: comes to all the Star Wars content out there. There
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: are a bunch of series that I haven't watched, and
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, at some point it's just like it kiss
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: to be too much. Yeah, so there are many fans
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: who know a lot more like Star Wars lore than me.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: But I've seen this original trilogy dozens of times, probably
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: starting around like age nine or ten. This specific movie
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: I've watched many many times. I love the World. I
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: also love and Or. I have an and Or tattoo.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: I also love Baboo frick Ough now we're talking. I'm
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: back excited to see him in the Mandalorian movie that's
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: about to come out. I can't wait.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: We were just talking about because we were just talking
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: about Kerry Fisher on a recent episode of Daly's Eeitgeist Icons.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah I haven't seen him. Sec Oh I remember you
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: texting me saying that the Babu frick Gians were in
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Mandalorian season three.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Right, that wasn't me because I did not watch the
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: show that far.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, someone must have told me either way. But yeah,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: he's he's back, baby, He's on the poster and everything.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: I can't wait. Oh yeah, I'm very excited. So yeah,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: like because that movie's coming out, it felt also like
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: a good time to talk about this movie, specifically because
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: the lore of the mandolori Orians, like Bobaffett is like
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: one of those people. The first Star Wars movie that
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: he appears in is this one. I think, Like, I
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: know he's not in a note of hope, but there's
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: like also random like there's a Christmas special that everyone
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: forgets about. But anyway, like I mean, people talk about
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the Christmas Special. This isn't isn't isn't Boba Fett like
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: a meaningful part of that. I barely remember it. I
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: just remember you meet Chewbacca's whole family and they look
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: so fucking freaky. But honestly is worth a watch. We
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: should watch it some Christmas together, should cover it, We
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: should cover it, Yes, yes, but yeah, I love Empire
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: strikes Back, and yet Return of the Jedi is still
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: my favorite, and I will probably insist that we cover
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: that for another birthday episode of mine, maybe even next year.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: We'll see Oh my god, wow. Okay, but uh yeah.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Shall we take a quick break and then come back
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: for the recap. Let's do it and we're back. Okay.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: So first, I'll start with a very brief recap of
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: episode four, just in case anyone needs a refresher. The
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: evil Galactic Empire has built this huge planet destroying Death
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Star space station thing. We meet Princess Leah. She's a
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: member of the Rebel Alliance that are rebelling against the Empire.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: She puts blueprints for the Death Star into R two
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: D two and then he and C three po escape
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: to the planet of Tattooine, where they end up in
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: the possession of Luke Skywalker, who links up with a
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Jedi knight named Obi Wan Kenobi. Together, they find a
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: hologram message from Princess Leah about these Death Star plans,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: so they set off to deliver R two D two
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: and the plans to the secret base of the Rebel Alliance.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: They do so in the Millennium Falcon, a ship piloted
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: by space smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca. You've seen it
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: at the Lego store. Yes, it's a you know, a
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: little known ship called the Millennium Falcon. And then as
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: they're flying around in this ship, they get pulled into
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: the tractor beam of the Death Star, where they find
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: and rescue Princess Leia, who had been captured by Darth Vader,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: the big bad Boy. Yeah, and if you don't know
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: who Darth Vader is, we can't help you. Sorry, we
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: cannot help you. Yes, yeah, he and Obi Wan Kanobi
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: have a lightsaber battle. Obi Wan is killed, the others
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: escape in the Millennium Falcon again and they make it
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: to the rebel base where the Death Star plans are analyzed.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: They discover a weakness and after this big space battle,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Luke Skywalker blows up the Death Star. The end and Now,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: and that leads us right into episode five. Empire strikes
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: back with a very satisfying little time jump that I appreciated. Yes,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: we skip over some stuff and we're caught up to
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: speed in the famous Star Wars opening scroll. Of course,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: I believe it's been a couple of years since the
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: first I was seeing three years after the destruction of
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: the Death Star, is what I was saying, which actually
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't remember in preparing for this, and actually did
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: kind of help address some of the story questions I had,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: where you're just like, well, it's been three years, you know,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of shit that's gone on. It's been
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: eighty four years minus eighty one years. At this point,
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: it's like, you know, Lea and Han, it's like it's
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: like a work crush, you know, like it's not love
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: it for a sight. They've been they've been colleagues, yes,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: for years, right, And we don't know exactly how much
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: time they've spent together in those three years. Yes, I
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: was not totally clear on that. But we learn in
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: the opening scroll that Imperial troops are hunting members of
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: the Rebel Alliance across the galaxy. A group of Rebel fighters,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: including our friends Luke Skywalker, Princess Leah, Han, Solo, Tobacca
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: C three, PO R two D two, and others, have
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: established a secret base on the ice planet of Hath. Meanwhile,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Darth Vader is obsessed with finding Luke Skywalker and has
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: sent out like probes to look for him. Question Mark, like,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: we I have to believe we're not meant to truly know.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: I did, Like I remember when I rewatched it last summer,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: being like, ooh, this is a fun little fashion moment
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: in the Empire strikes back that because it starts on Hath,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: like everyone kind of has this like little ellll Bean.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Thing going on where they're wearing parkas, and there's at
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: least for Han and Luke, there's a big like I
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: took my hood off and here I am and I'm
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: still sexy and awesome moment that is so like we
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: come to this place. I really I enjoyed it. I
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: enjoyed the the de robing. Sure, sure, yeah, I meant
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: to do this earlier during my like history and relationship
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: with Star Wars. But I have a little show and
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: tell moment if you'll indulge me. Oh please, I have
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Star Wars memorabilia that I've collected over
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: the years. Huh and so first, great for a podcast
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: that we've refused to pivot to video. A Yes, this
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: is an audio medium. However, I will describe these things
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: and then people will really, you're a writer, Wow, thank you.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: We're going to conjure an image. My tools are words. Okay,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: So this thing is a canister of haf chocolate, Hoth cocoa. Wow, yeah,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: ok yeah, Hoth coco. I also have a Boba fet
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: This is a coin bank. What is it about?
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: What is it about boba fet that is so appealing
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: to people? I like, I've never quite understood it because
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: I was so surprised on the rewatch of being like, oh,
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: this is the movie, we meet Boba fetted and.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: He's so like random to me. I just like, I'm like,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I don't understand why people have but people have like
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: an absolutely, like fervent connection to this character. I never
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: really understood it either. He does appear on screen a
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: little bit more in Return of the Jedi, but cumulatively
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: his moments on screen and Empire are maybe one minute
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: of screen timely there. They don't even call him my
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: name either. Darth Vader just keeps calling him bounty hunter.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: He's a guy doing cool stuff. But there's a lot
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: of guys doing cool stuff in Star Wars, and I
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: don't think the prequels really help retcon that, honestly, because you're.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Like, oh, Boba fet has a difficult relationship with his father.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: What's fucking new in this franchise?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: So true? God? Yes, Okay, a few more items, and
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: some of them are very specific to this movie. This
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: is a little book called I Just as Soon Kiss
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: a Wookie and other Star Wars quotes. This is a
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: book called the Star Wars Cookbook Wookie Cookies, Wookie Cookies. Yes,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess it was just sitting there precisely.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: This is a book called how to Speak Wookie. And
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: then there's buttons on it. I wonder if the batteries
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: are still alive. No, they sure aren't. I'd pressed a
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: button and nothing happened. Okay. Last thing I'll share is
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: we simply can't forget my Ladies of Star Wars Deck
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: of Cards. Yes, yes, I honestly do sometimes because my
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: my recall on the original trilogy. Unfortunately, my recall is
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: best on the prequels because and again you should go
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: back and listen to our Prequels episode because I'm very
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: proud we did a lot of work to prep for that.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: We sure did. But this one. This one, for me
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: at least, is gonna be a little looser because I
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: did not have weeks to prepare and or tickets on
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: the line. Yeah, but I kind of forgot if this
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: was the the one with Java or not. It is
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: not the one with Java, and I think that that
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: works to its advantage quite a bit, I would say so.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Although I love the sequence at Jaba's palace, so I.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: I, okay, this is like, well, this is related but
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: not related to Empire Strikes Back. But I was so
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: shocked because I'm so out of the loop with this
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: franchise that I know that, like fans.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Knew about Jeremy Allen Jaba for probably months and years,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: but I was so when I was watching the trailer
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: for the Mandalorian and Grogu and they were like Jeremy
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Allen White, and I was like, where I must have
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: missed me? I don't know about this of what do
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: you speak? Look up Jeremy Allen White Star Wars. He's
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: playing like Jaba's son nephew. Ever, forget where it is.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: He's Jeremy Allen Jaba. You're like, what, Well, if you
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: recall I made a big deal about Jaba's small son
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: who appears in Is that Jeremy Allan Jaba. I was
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: so let me see. I also was like, I guess
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I don't understand what point in his career Jeremy Allen
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: why does that? This is a confusing career marker where
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: you're like, you can be in Star Wars, We're not
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: gonna look at you like, yeah, well, it's like when
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Daniel Craig plays a Stormtrooper who's on screen for like
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: three seconds in one of the sequels. Yeah, but you
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: wouldn't know if it was him because he's in a Stormtrooper.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: But he was already very famous by that point. But
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Jeremy Allan Jaba is like second built. He's like a
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: big part of Yeah, he plays Roda the hut Rada,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: the hut I'm not sure how to pronounce it, but yeah,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: he's calling him Jeremy Allen Jaba. That I just was.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know why that was so shocking to me.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: I just don't think of him as Jeremy Allen Jaba.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, he contains multitudes, I guess. So anyway, anyways,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: can't wait for Baba Frick, I will be seeing Jeremy
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Allen Jaba in theaters. Same do you want to go together?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, if you'll have me, I will. Okay, Okay,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: let's do this, do it? Okay? Back to fire strikes back,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: we cut too. Hof the ice planet, Luke is riding
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: around on his ton Ton creature when the Abominable Snowman
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: attacks and captures him. This is so iconic where you're
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: just like, I didn't know that he could get to
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: wherever this is. It is like right up there with
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: monsters incorporated, with places you don't expect to see. The
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Abominable Snowman appear. No, he's around. Yeah, he gets around.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: He gets around, including a long time ago in a
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: galaxy far far away, and so he captures Luke Skywalker. Meanwhile,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: on the rebel base, Han Solo is getting ready to
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: leave to pay off his debt to Jaba the Hut,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: father of Jeremy Allen Jaba. Princess Leah gets when the
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Han Solo is planning to leave, and she wants him
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: to stay because he's a valuable asset to the rebellion
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: and also maybe because she likes him. Question Mark, We'll
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: talk about it. We'll talk about it. But whatever feelings
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: they have for each other, they are unw willing to
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: admit it to each other, and also it's mostly Han
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: solo being a complete dick. Yeah. Hahn realizes that Luke
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: is missing, so he goes out looking for him. Cut
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: to Luke in an ice cave, the Abominable Snowman's ice cave,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: where he uses his Jedi powers that he's been working
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: on to summon his lightsaber and kill the Abominable Snowman.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: But the Abottable Snowman made an incredible recovery at least
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: by two thousand and one. In Monsters Inc. To meet
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Mike Wazaski. Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes, of course, Luke
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: escapes into the blizzard. He's freezing to death. He starts
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Jedi hallucinating and sees a vision of Obi Wan Kenobi,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: who tells him to go to the Dagabus system and
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: find Master Yoda so that Luke can complete his Jedi training.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: It's part of there ison that Jedi shit is so
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: fun and has to be so useful as a writer,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: because it is just having a plot hallucination, a plot
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: based hallucination. Whenever it's convenient, Obi Wan Kenobi's ghost like
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: force ghost will just show up and either deliver some
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: exposition or move the plot forward, and you.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Really don't need It's not that you don't need to,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: it's that you're not allowed to ask questions because the
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: very concept of faith is on the line. It's a
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: very high stakes plot device they have.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: There, yeah, yeah, and good for them. Yeah. So then
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Han Solo finds and rescues Luke. They return to the base,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: where Han continues to be a dick. So Leah kisses
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Luke to perhaps make Han Solo jealous, which is one
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: of cinema's most flaccid kisses. Also fully we don't know
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: in this movie, but fully ancestual. Also yeah, she kisses
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: her brother, but she doesn't know that they're brother and
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: sister yet, so it's actually kind of cool and fun
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: and flirty, I remember, right. Okay, So one of Darth
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Vader's probe droids shows up on the planet Hof, meaning
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: the Empire knows that the rebel base is there, so
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: the rebels start evacuating, but the Empire launches an attack.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: There's a big fight scene with Luke and the other
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: rebel pilots battling the Empire and they're at ats, which
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: is also not they are not named in this movie.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know how anyone figured out what they're called,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: but they're those like giant four legged things. I okay,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: this is the way that I think about it, unfortunately,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: but because I have two mini pets. But okay, they're
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: called what I think it's pronounced at ats or maybe
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: they're called atat's, but it stands for like all to
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: rain something something.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: So to me, they look like and always have looked
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: like if my cocker spaniel, Sunny, fans will know if
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: he got this, if he got the surgery that Petropascala
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: gets in materialists.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: That's what to extend his legs. I was like, that's
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: what it would look like if Sonny got the surgery,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: you would look like there's I think they're so funny.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I don't see them refer to comedically enough. They're too big.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: They're just too big. They're they're so legsy, tall and skinny,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: and you're just like the design flaws are abound, truly
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: to the like, it's so easy for the rebel pilots
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: to destroy them. They're they're called all terrain Armored Transports.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: I've got notes. But also like it's so funny.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I mean I'm sure that this happens in actual terrifying
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: you know, military industrial complex machines where you're just where
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: it's just so unbelievably monstrously efficient.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, one of my favorite things to watch is
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: videos of like AI robots that there's like a presentation
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: of them. Someone's like unveiling this super high tech AI
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: robot or whatever kind of robot thing, and then it
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: immediately trips and falls and like breaks apart. Yes, it
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: is so. It hits so hard seeing a Boston Robotics thing.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Eat shit, it feels so good to see. It's awesome.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: My favorite one is it like goes well, I didn't
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: even if it goes viral. I also feel old saying
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: goes viral.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Now, I don't know if people say that anymore, but
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: there's that one of I think it's a Tesla robot
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: trying to like serve a drink and then it.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Just like passes out. It's it's it's real fun. Yeah, yeah,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I love those videos. Yeah, okay, fuck them, fuck fuck them. Yeah.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: The problem with Star Wars is while it is cool conceptually,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: uh you know, robots aren't gonna like help or anything. Yeah,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: but well it's always the Empire that uses them. That's true.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, well droids, I guess robots. Droids are actually robots,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: and yeah they are. Look, it's complicated, it's complicated, it
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: is it is. Yeah. But anyway, this battle is happening,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: the Rebellion is losing, and then Darth Vader shows up
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: at the rebel base just as Han Leia, Chewy and
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: c Threepo managed to escape in the Millennium Falcon. But
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Star destroyers and other Imperial ships are chasing and shooting
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: at the Millennium Falcon, which is damaged and can't get
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: to light speed, so they end up in this asteroid
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: field that they have to maneuver through. They enter a
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: cavern on one of the bigger asteroids to hide while
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Han and Chewey repair the ship. But wait, there's something
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: weird about this asteroid or this cave, but they don't
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: know what's going on yet. Meanwhile, Luke and R two
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: D two head to the Dago bus system. They kind
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: of crash land into this like spooky bog and they're
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out where they are where This Yoda
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: character is some I was I was gonna say, kind
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: of a bit of a swamp like a like a
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: like kind of somewhere where like a like Shrek lives
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: kind of like somebody can start playing it anytime, kind
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: of that wow, that kind of vibe. And you know
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: this is a swamp where a green outcast lives. That
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I And it's interesting and there's someone should write their
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: thesis paper on why green house casts, you know, sort
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: of trend towards these settings. I have Okay, I have
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: a letter box list that I've been working on. Okay,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: it's called something like movies where a character who is
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: green has been cast out by society and lives alone somewhere. Grinch,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, Grinch, Shrek, Wicked, Wicked.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Wow, for that's that's official. Yeah, and Yoda that wow.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: What's going on? What's going on here? And in a way,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: because there's like the little I've.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Been well whatever it's Minion season, Kitla and I well,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: you don't have to tell me twice. Hello, we're gonna
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I cannot wait for the new Minions movie. But that's
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: a separate like little yellow cartoon characters are another whole
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: thing too, Because you've got SpongeBob, you've got Minions, you've
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: got like the list goes on and on. You're just like,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: what is it? What does it mean? Someone give me answers?
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Let's continue to explore this, shall we? Yes? But anyway,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Yoda is Shrek, but they don't know that yet. Luke
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: and are two D two and come upon Unlike Shrek Yoda.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: To be fair, Yoda is like open to others being
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: at his swamp, but it really depends. He's kind of
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: like if Shrek and Donkey were one character. Yes, yeah, wow,
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: huge for Yoda. What a compliment? Yeah, right right, because
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: like Donkey, Yoda is annoying. He's really annoying and always
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: like but also you know, wants company so badly. It's true.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: So Luke is looking for Yoda, but he doesn't know
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: what Yoda looks like or who he is, and he
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: comes upon this weird green, little muppety guy. Boy is it?
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: I'm up? And it's literally Frank miss Piggy. Yes, yes,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: and he's super annoying. So Luke is like, what the fuck, dude,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: leave me alone. I'm trying to find Yoda, and this
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: little guy is like, I am Yoda and you are
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: too impatient, too angry, and too old to be a Jedi.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: You crusty bitch. So here's maybe a controversial thought. Yeah,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: and it comes with many layers and does tie into
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: our previous prequels research Yoda, Like, what a wild swing
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: the character Yoda is conceptually versus how hugely like society
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: embraced Yoda as a character. I think with this in mind,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: things make a little bit more sense into like the
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: jar Jar of it all. Now I look at how
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: weird and annoying Yoda is, an empire strikes back and
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: sort of understand why George Lucas, who is like not
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: known for really thinking things, thinking how things might be
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: perceived through sure might have thought that jar Jar was
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: really going to work. We talk about in the prequel
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: all of the reasons that that may not be the case,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: but there's precedent for it. Yeah. I feel like people
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: talk about jar Jar like an annoying character coming out
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: of nowhere in Star Wars is a completely out of
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: nowhere thing, but it's like there is precedent and there's
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: precedent of it working. Yeah, but yeah, shrug, who knows. Anyway,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Yoda is reluctant to teach Luke, but Luke is like, no,
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: teach me, please teach me, Daddy, teach me daddy. Luke
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: always wants a daddy. That's kind of his whole He's
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: obsessed with having a daddy. I mean, to be fair,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: they keep dying true, So he thinks back on the
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Millennium Falcon, they're working on the ship. They're still trying
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: to repair it. Han Solo continues to be an ass,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: but Lea quote unquote likes it, and they kiss on
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: the lips and again we'll talk about it. But then
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: they go outside because some creatures are lurking around and
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: there's again something really weird about this cave, except it's
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: not a cave. It's a giant space worm that they
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: have to fly out of slash narrowly escape from. Fun.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: It's fun. This is a great part. Yeah, I love worm.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: So then we see Darth Vader having a little chat
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: with the Emperor about Luke Skywalker, how the Force is
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: strong with him, and how if they can turn him
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: to the dark side he could become a powerful ally
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: and Darth Vader says he will join us or die.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: And I think one of the things that the Empire
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: strikes Back has going for it is like, not too
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: heavy on the Emperor. You really have to have a
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: careful balance of Emperor in your Star Wars movie. I
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: feel too much Emperor is annoying and or boring. A
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: little bit of Empire is fun. I agree, And I
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: think there is too much of the Emperor in Return
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: of the Jedi and also in the prequels and sequels,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: except except in that amazing fight with Samuel L. Jackson.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: That's the right amount. Oh my gosh. Yes, there's fun
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Emperor and there's not fun Emperor. I like that he's
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: there for a scene and then we just move on.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: We move on. Yeah, Okay. So we're talking about the
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: dark Side and they're trying to get Luke to come
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: over to it. Back on Digoba, Yoda has agreed to
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: start training Luke, and so they're doing that. Luke asks
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: about the dark Side. Then he goes into this cave
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: where he faces his fears that he will be tempted
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: by the dark Side and become someone like Darth Vader.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: So now we have this like looming thing over Luke,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: and it's also freshman year philosophy seminar. What's going on
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: in this cave. It's like, it's it's good shit, it's fun. Yeah, Meanwhile,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Darth Vader hires a bunch of bounty hunters, including Boba Fett,
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: to find the Millennium Falcon, and apparently a lot of
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: people were like, hubba, hubba, who's that? And I'm just like,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: he looks like a fucking any anyone else in Star Wars.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: I don't get it. There is certain like sci fi
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: fan braid that I just like, I need it really
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: spoon fed to be because I don't understand. I don't
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: necessarily get this one either. I understand that he's like cool,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: I guess, and his costume's cool, But why people glombed
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: onto him so much? I don't know. I don't quite
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: know if you did, or know why sound off. I'm
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: genuinely curious why this character of all characters for sure. Okay,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: So Luke keeps working on his Jedi training, which is
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: mostly just like floating rocks around. He does try to
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Jedi lift his ship out of the swamp. Luke literally
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: kind of like has a little grad school side quest
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: like yeah, he's like he's doing a workshop. Yeah, like
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: many like many grad school courses. You're like, so, what
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: is the function of this? I'm sure it'll become clear.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Eventually and it does, Yes, it does anyway. Luke he
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: he can't lift something as heavy as a spaceship out
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: of a swamp, but Yoda does it with relative ease,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: and Luke is like, oh shit, I'm a free in
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: eighty eight. I still have so much to learn, mupp
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: It's awesome. Yeah, and then Luke, with his force powers,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: sees a vision of the future which is Han and
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Leah in danger. Yeah. So Luke wants to go help them,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: but Yoda and obi Wan's force ghost try to discourage him,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: saying it's a trap and he needs to finish his
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: training and he's being tempted by the dark side. Blah
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: blah blah. They're like, don't quit grad school and he's like,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: don't worry, I'm just gonna take a sabbatical. Yeah. He's like,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: it's just one session. I'll be back. I'll finish my degree.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: I swear, I swear. So Luke leaves and obi Wan
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: says to Yoda he's like, ugh, that boy is our
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: last hope. And then Yoda is like, no, there's another
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: and we're like, oh my gosh, who is it. Meanwhile,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Leah and Han and Chewy and C three po arrive
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: in Cloud City, where we meet Landol Kelrisian. He is
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: an old pal of Hans and also a scoundrel like Han,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: so not someone they can really trust, and there's definitely
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: something suspicious going on. It turns out that Lando sold
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: them out to Darth Vader, so our friends are imprisoned
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: and tortured. C three Po is torn to pieces, Hans
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Solo is frozen in carbonite and turned over to Boba Fett,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: and this is where we have the famous scene of
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Leah saying I love you and Hans says I know,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: and we're rolling our eyes and they're all right. A
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: lot of people were irreparably harmed by that line of dialogue,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: including me as a child, So I'm not above that
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: the line that no, but no, it's not being above,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: it's just it's it's the line that inspired a million
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: emotionally volatile relationships. Yes, sad but true. Yeah. And then
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Luke shows up to Cloud City and there's a big
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: confrontation between him and Darth Vader. They're lightsaber battling. Vader
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: is like, join me on the dark side. It's really
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: cool over here. Meanwhile, Lando double crosses Darth Vader to
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: then help his friends. After all, so Lando lea Chewy
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: c three po they're running around. They're trying to save Han,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: but they're too late, and then they have to make
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: an escape from Cloud City because it's being taken over
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: by stormtroopers and everything. We cut back to the lightsaber battle.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Darth Vader chops off Luke's hand and then reveals to Luke,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: I am your father, and we're like narratives a movie
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: about fathers and sons. Yeah, and then it becomes nine
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: movies about fathers and sons, try as it may to
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: occasionally become other things. That is where we keep going.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: It is ultimately because a movie about fathers and sons. Ultimately,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, the sequels, right, are ultimately kind of more
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: about Adam Driver and Hans Solo than they are about
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Ray and the people. They can't decide if they're hurt, Like,
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: they can't decide who Ray's parents are, so it's not
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: about her and her parents. They're like the Emperor whatever
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: I mean. And I'm not the first and only person
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: to make this observation, but the sequel trilogy really suffers
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: from two men having a narrative dick measuring contest with
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: each other because it's Ryan Johnson and JJ Abrams being like, no,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: it's my thing. No, it's my thing, which is like,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: you know, annoying and ridiculou. But it's also like you
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: would think that there would be a system in place
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: that would like decide who was going to do what
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: in advance. It is still so shocking to me. And
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: I don't care about the continuity of Star Wars, so
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not like super worried about it, but it is
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: shocking to me every time I hear how those things
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: played out, where it was like, see, your plan was
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: to spend like a billion dollars of these movies and
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: you didn't want to decide in advance who was going
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: to do what and when and if they agreed with
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: each other about a single thing like that is kind
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: of like it's almost awesome, how how like ridiculous it is.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I guess it's you could see it as encouraging the
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: huge corporation of Disney, who they let Ryan Johnson do
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: his thing. But right, they're giving creative control to the filmmakers,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: but at what cost? Right, But then they can't decide
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: if they like regret doing that or not. I don't know.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: There's been so much discussion over the sequels, but what.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: Does seem interesting to me after just like rewatching this
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: and watching watching the prequels and you know, not having
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: quite as firm a grip on the sequels, But it's
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: like it is sort of different versions of the same
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: cultural biases that become an issue every single time with
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: this franchise. They never true, they're always promising they're about
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: to course correct, and they just kind of it seems
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: like outside of like ancillary series like and or, but
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: out of like non feature entries to the franchise, they
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: never really quite managed to do it.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: So I.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, So Darth Vader has just told Luke that he
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: is Luke's father, and Luke is like, oh my god,
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: what Kenobi told me that you murdered my father?
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: There?
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: That bitch is a liar. Yep, it's funny. In Return
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: of the Jedi, Obi Wan's Force ghost appears again and
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Luke confronts him about lying to him, and Obi Wan's
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Obi Wan's explanation is like, well, if you just like
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: really interpret it very weirdly, actually what I told you
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: was true, so it was just shut up I'm just
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: saying stuff whatever. Yeah, Okay, So Vader wants Luke to
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: join him so that they can rule the galaxy as
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: father and son, and Luke is like pass and he
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: like drops into the abyss and ends up like dangling
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: from an antenna or something in Cloud City and he's like, uh,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: somebody help me, lay up. Help and Leah, who is
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: flying away with the others and Millennium Falcon, here's Luke's
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: call because maybe the Force is strong with her also.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: So they turn around and rescue Luke and they're trying
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: to get away, but the Falcon's hyper drive is still
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: fucked up, so they can't get to light speed, and
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Luke is having a Force conversation with Vader about joining
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: the dark Side. He's literally having a job interview on
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: like over the Zoom Force Zoom. Yeah exactly. Then R
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: two D two fixes the hyper drive and they escape
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: and then make arrangements to go rescue Han Solo from
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: Job of the Hut on Tatooine, which will happen in
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: the next movie. And that's the movie. So let's take
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: a quick break and we'll be right back. Yeah, and
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: we're back. Well, Caitlin, I mean birthday privileges. Where would
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: you like to begin this discussion? Oh my gosh, well,
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: I feel like it makes sense to start, as we
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: often do, with some context. I did some research on
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Lee Bracket, and if you're wondering, huh, who's that? Well,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I didn't know. Let us tell you.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: I didn't know before researching for this episode. It was
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: a delightful little journey because Luke, sorry, George Lucas is
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: simply so sonomyous.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: My god, wait, is that why his name is Luke?
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: I just did, like a Freudian slip. It's like if
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: I named my protagonist Loft, You're like, you know, Loft
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: my last name. It's like CBS Luke Skywalker. Well, I
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: never connected those dots, but maybe wow, are we the
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: first we? With Star Wars? I never believe anyone's the
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: first person to make an observation, but what if we were?
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Who knows? Yeah, Anyway, what I was trying to say
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: is that George Lucas is so synonymous with Star Wars
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: and its conception that people tend to forget who else
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: was involved in the making of these movies. So, of course,
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: the first movie, episode four was written and directed by
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: George Lucas. But Empire Strikes Back was directed by Irvin
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Kirshner and the screenplay was written by Lawrence Casten and
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: drum roll, please a woman. Lee Bracket is her name,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: which would that ever happen again? No?
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: You?
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: I don't think so? Wow?
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: Really good guys, great job guys. And Lee Brackett has
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: a kind of fascinating life story. Do you, I mean,
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: do you want to take it away? Because she passes
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: unfortunately before the movie comes out.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so here's the research I did. If you
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: have anything extra, please chime in. But Lee Brackett was
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: one of the most prominent woman writers during the Golden
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Age of sci fi, so like the forties and fifties,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: I think primarily she was known as the Queen of
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: space opera. She wrote a bunch of sci fi novels
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: and short stories throughout her career. She also has numerous
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: screenwriting credits, including The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, and
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Wild Right like crossing genres too totally, and she worked
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: on an early draft of Empire Strikes Back. So what
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: happened here is that Lucas.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: George Lucas reached out to her right, Yeah, yes, he
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: approached her because it was like, George Lucas was a
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: big enough sci fi fan that I'm sure that he
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: was aware.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Of her totally. Yeah, And what I read was something
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: to the effect of he he didn't like love building
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: out the world of Star Wars and like figuring out
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: all the lore. So he's like, let me find a
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: sci fi writer who's been doing this for decades who
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: loves and bring her in. Yeah. Yeah, So he approaches
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Lee Bracket and in late nineteen seventy seven they come
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: together and basically like put the pieces of this story
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: together for the sequel to Star Wars. George Lucas had
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: some core ideas in mind, but he wanted Lee Brackett
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: to kind of form them together into a cohesive story.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: So she went off. She wrote a draft and turned
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: it into George Lucas. However, she was sick with cancer
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: and by the time he like kind of came back
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: to her with notes on her draft, she was hospitalized
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: and she died a few weeks later, very young, tissues
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: in her sixties. Yeah.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this was I mean speaking of just like how
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: especially when you get past a certain point in history.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: But this is nineteen eighty It's pretty ridiculous how infrequently
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: women writers are acknowledged or remembered, because I mean, and
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: this is not a dig at Lawrence Kasten, whose work
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: I really love, but like everyone knows who Lawrence Casten is.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: And part of this is that apparently there's this kind
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: of phenomenon where people generally acted like nothing from Lee
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: Bracket's draft appeared in the fire film, and so people
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: just kind of weren't really talking about her and her
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: contributions to the story, which is especially that makes me
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: frustrated on the George Lucas side of things, particularly because
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: they know she's like not around to advocate for herself. Yeah, totally.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: So it is just like kind of a full erasure
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: for sure. And for many years her draft of the
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: screenplay was available to read, but it was only available
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: to read at a library in New Mexico and only there, Okay,
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: so it was hard to get your hands on, yeah,
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: until twenty sixteen when it was published, and so I
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: would be interested in reading it. I have not read
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: that draft of the script, but for those who have
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: read it, the consensus seems to be that many of
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: the basic story beats between Lee Bracket's draft and the
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: final film are more or less the same. There are
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: a few differences, such as the love triangle between Luke, Leah,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: and Hahn is far more prominent in her draft. In
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: her draft, Luke has a secret sister named Nellith.
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I remember learning this in my Women of Star Wars
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: research last year. Nelleth the character who would never be
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: nice and try right. Oh, you wanted to write another
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: woman in the movie. Well, too bad. Well you're gonna
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: have to wait another twenty years. And don't worry, we're
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: gonna write her out immediately. Yeah, we won't give her parents.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: We'll never figure out who her parents are. Another difference
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: was in Lee Brackett's draft, Luke's father and Darth Vader
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: are separate characters, and then there's some other kind of
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: minor differences here and there. I mean, yeah, that's a
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: to be fair, no no offense to our friend Lee.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: That's a pretty big chain. If that's a Lawrence Casten idea,
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: that's Darth Vader being the father kind of crucial fair, yes,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: for sure. Yeah, But I think people were sort of
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: acting like her entire draft was scrapped, right, and they
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: basically started from scratch. But like Lawrence Casten was building
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: on her work precisely, and so and I'm paraphrasing a
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: piece from the Den of Geek website, But in her
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: draft there is a battle on hof, the flying through
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: the asteroid field sequence is there, as is the city
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: in the clouds, various unexpected betrayals, the climactic duel between
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: Luke and Darth Vader. So like so much of her
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: that's massive. Yeah, so was she?
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, and I did not watch the credits when
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: I was doing my rewatch is she credited I name
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: in the original movie or is it just Laurence.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Cast In she is credited? She is. Okay, that's good
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: because I think that there's like, in general, a like
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: still to this day, cultural misunderstanding of like how writing
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: for TV and film works where it's well, I feel
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: like there's a cultural misunderstanding because it is unclear in
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: many cases, and you've talked about this on the show before,
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: where like your name will be on an episode that
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: you didn't actually write that version of the script, or
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: you did write the script, and then you are not
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: credited because xyz reason.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: So there's like all these it's like the crediting system
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: is very weird because the crediting to some extent, is
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: just done to justify how money.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Is distributed between writers.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: Which is very confusing as well, Like the WGA crediting
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: conventions are really confusing. But like even all that aside,
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: like like you're saying, the fact that one writer is
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: credited disproportionately kind of under cuts the whole point of
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: like how it works, which is like that they're even
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: if they're not working together at the exact same time,
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: which they weren't, they're still collaborating, and that it ends
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: up being kind of this genderless dick measuring contest that
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: mysteriously writers who are not CIS men tend.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: To lose almost always, as evidenced by what we both said,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: which is that we were not aware that a woman
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: named Lee Brackett wrote a draft of this movie. I've
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: been watching this movie for over three decades. Oh was
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: this your first time hearing it for? I didn't know
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: if it was Yeah, Like I wow, Yeah, that's ridiculous.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: I mean that, and that it took until twenty sixteen
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: for you know, that to become even knowledge that we
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: could have, because it's like truly without and this is
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: like where fan communities are can be amazing. It's like
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: without people willing to go to the library in New Mexico,
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: it's like her contributions could have been downplayed for decades
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: to come. Yeah. Yeah, So her contributions to the film
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: are undeniable, but her work is often completely overlooked because
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: people are just like, yeah, George Lucas and Lawrence Kasden, duh.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: And it is at that point I think, particularly on
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: George Lucas, to emphasize her contributions, and I think that
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: that failure to do so is something that we're allowed
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: to be pissed off at. Sure. Yeah, so shout out
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: to Lee Brackett rip our friend Lee Brackett. Yes, So
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: with that in mind, let's talk about the movie. Although
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: there's a little bit more of I think behind the
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: scenes stuff regarding Leah slash Carrie Fisher that will kind
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: of dovetail into perhaps a discussion about Princess Leiah.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, maybe I should have said that during my Star Wars.
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: My biggest connection to Star Wars is I love Carrie Fisher, Yes, more.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: So than anything else. Yeah. No, she was so awesome,
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: gifted writer rip to her as well, just amazing. God,
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: I want to live in a world where Carrie Fisher
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: was allowed a crack at any Star Wars script. I know,
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: like a proper crack at it, right, because listeners may
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: or may not know that Carrie Fisher was a highly
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: sought after script doctor for a while and she would
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: be hired to fix or polish or punch up scripts.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: But that was after she was in the original Star
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Wars trilogy, right, Okay, So Carrie Fisher like was pretty
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: open about like saying that she was having a hard
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: time connecting to her character Leah. Yeah, she found her
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: to be pretty one dimensional. She joked that basically the
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: only thing she knew about Leya was that she likes
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: to wear white clothes. You're like, hey, so that's actually
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: not a caaracs.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: That.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: And we know from the diaries that Carrie Fisher kept
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: at the time of filming these movies that she was
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: envious of Harrison Ford because he was allowed to rewrite
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: dialogue for Han solo.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: Often on the fly, so that he would never have
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: to actually learn how to act. And that's my I'm
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: not a Harrison Ford fan.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: I think he's obviously like undeniably he's got riz all
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: that stuff. But it's like, well, yeah, because he can't
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: do anything else, so of course he's gonna need the dialogue.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: She doesn't have range. No, that is many movie stars don't.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah. So a prime example of this is
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: during the scene where Leah says I love you and
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Harrison Ford improvised the I know response. So he was
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: doing that from time to time on set, just kind
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: of rewriting his lines and doing whatever he felt like. However,
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: director Irvin Kirshner would not allow Carrie Fisher to do
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: something similar. But what she did do was just kind
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: of make a bunch of notes for herself for the
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: laya character in an attempt to kind of provide some
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: extra characterization in context that this script doesn't script. This
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: was discovered when her copy of Empire Strikes Back was
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: like put up for auctions. So I believe after her death, yes,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: I saw this as well, and a lot of her
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: note for herself was something along the lines of man
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: are so disappointing, and so that is something that it is.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: So I don't know, it's so cool watching actors. It's
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: just like every time you see and this isn't I mean,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: this movie is a great movie. But every time you
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: see an amazing performance in a movie that you're like,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: how the hell did you manage to do a great
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: performance in this like otherwise kind of boring movie, it's
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: because of stuff like that. It's so cool that, like
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: she had.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: To create a character where a character didn't exist because
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: she cared. Yeah, it's awesome, dude, I love it. I
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: know if only any of the actors did that in
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: the prequel trilogy. Well, let's not blame the actors in
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: the prequel trilogy. We know who who the problem was. Yes, yes,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: but like I think Iwan McGregor in the prequel trilogy,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: it's a great example of someone giving a like an
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: amazing performance in like pretty boring movies. I agree. Yeah,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: I was thinking of Samuel L. Jackson, who is one
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: of the most prolific actors of our time, and he
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: gives the flattest, dullest performance imaginable. But I'm not blaming
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: that on him because iconic director George Lucas sucks directing
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: and doesn't like people were actors or apparently you just
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: told me writing so so. So you're an editor, man,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: He's an editor, he's a special effects guy, he's a
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: he's a special effects whiz. Yeah, and that's why he
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: made the Star Wars movies. Yeah, which is all good,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: but it is futty to learn.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: Like.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, and he also hated writing.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: I was like, okay, we hated actors and writing, directing, directing.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: Cool. Yeah. Anyway, So Carrie Fisher, through her performance, helps
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: to give Princess Leah more characterization than she otherwise had.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: And I think it's a huge reason why I always
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: connected to the Princess Leah character. I always admired her.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: I think it's one of the reasons I like this
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: trilogy so much. She's doing so much with so little.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: She's amazing. Yes, however, she still is the only woman
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: in the galaxy. Yeah, it's I mean, and I have
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: to be willing to criticize my faves too. It's kind
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: of like Minions vibes. It's it's every setting in the
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: original Star Wars trilogy has minions rules, has full on
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: smurf rules. Yes, yeah, there's only one woman and we're
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: not allowed to ask where the others went. It's still
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: just her. But I mean in that there's well, it's
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: it's interesting because I'm curious what you think. I think
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: that Leah. I also feel this way about Episode four,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: but I think more so about this movie. She is
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: a very active character. She is a character with a
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: lot of power and a lot of agency, and while
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: she is not always the person making the most active
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: decision in from scene to scene, she is always a
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: part of the action. It's something I really appreciate about her.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: I think that sometimes, especially kind of older Star Wars fans.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: Will use that very true fact as a way to
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: dismiss some of the more stereotypical aspects of Leah. To
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: be like, I mean, I encountered this today and I
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: was like, okay, where they're like it doesn't matter if
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: she's the only woman, because she well did in that scene.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: You know, like you're just like, okay, we've got to
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: be able to hold a couple things at once here.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: Because I love that she welded. We celebrate that she welded.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: What was she doing we don't know, and no one
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: could tell us, but like, yeah, she's always actively involved.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: But to be fair, when like Han and Cheweye are
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: welding this ship, I also don't have any fucking clue
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: what they're doing. Well, that's that's what I mean.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: It's like she's doing she's doing space sides. I just
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: think it's funny that, like the sort of tokenism around
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: gender that exists in this trilogy. I think for big fans,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: they're sometimes like, you can't say it's not feminist, she welded.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, but has she met another woman before?
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: Has she made the questions like she's a part of
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: a love triangle, because really sloppy romantic interests, the sloppiest
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: love triangle's ever written. Yeah, but yeah, Like I rewatched
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: episode four as well, just to see if there were
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: any significant differences between how she's framed in the first
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: movie versus this sequel, and I think the main difference
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: is that in episode four she I wouldn't even say
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: primarily but she is like the princess who has to
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: be rescued. Yeah, and they kind of drop the more
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: princessy elements of her in this I thought, I don't know,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: I agree, No, I totally agree. And even though even
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: though she has to be rescued, I would almost argue
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: that in that movie, she isn't necessarily damseled the way
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: other damsels in distress will be treated, because she's taken
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: as a political prisoner rather than like a woman love
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: interest being captured to raise the stakes for the male protagonist.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: And she's taken as a political prisoner because she's suspected
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: of rebel activity, which she was doing because she was
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: putting the plans to the deathk Star into R two
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: D two. Well, unlike most other women who become damsels
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: in a movie, she was actually doing something to impact
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: the direction of the plot. And then as soon as
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: she's released from captivity, she jumps right back into the action,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: which also we tend not to see in a typical
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: damsel situation. So I think from the jump she has
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: been written as a character who is a very significant
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: part of the narrative, the action, the beats that move
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: this story forward.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: And it's also that she's always been a like revolutionary general,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: which also remains to be true. I mean, I think
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: throughout the rest of her time in the series, like
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: in the sequels as well.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you know, we could talk about the
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: girl Boss optics of becoming a military general, sure, but
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: you know, I think for a military for the resistance,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: for the revolution, Yeah exactly. Yeah, So I just I
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: don't know, I appreciated that you know, two things are
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: true here, and I think also to build on because
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: we covered episode four, we should recover it because we
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: covered it. One of the I remember I was late
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: because I was working at Playboy, and it was ten
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: years ago when we first did that episode. It's our
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: first episode that appears in our feed. Yeah, so for now,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: for now, but yeah, I mean it's I feel like she,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: you know, I love that she's a revolutionary. I love
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: that she you know.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: I think maybe ten years ago it was like, well,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: we don't want any love stories, and now I think,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: you know, the show has grown to be like, no,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: it's not that, it's that it really depends on what
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: the love story is.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: And like, m hm, so let's talk about that. Yes,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: let's talk about it. Okay. So Han is in love
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: with Leah, but he cannot be vulnerable enough to directly
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: communicate to her. Yeah, presumably because he's afraid of rejection.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: So in episode four, Han has a conversation with Luke
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: about how like, oh, would a princess ever get with
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: a scrappy guy like me? So he's afraid of a
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: class based rejections. But instead of you know, being vulnerable
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: and communicative about his feelings, he nags her, he projects
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: onto her. There are all these scenes toward the beginning
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: where he's like, you want me to stay because of
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: the way you feel about me. Yeah, he's handsome and awesome.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: It's the BISHEMI test vibe of just like he and
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: and what's interesting. And I don't think we could have
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: talked about this when we talked about A New Hope,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: because I don't think it was out yet.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: We now know. We just talked about this on Zeitgeist
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: the other day that Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford had
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: an affair with a significant age gap. She was a
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: teenager and he was in his early thirties on the
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: set of A New Hope. Not this movie, but that again,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: just like speaking to how aggressively Han Solo mirrored who
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: Harrison Ford was a lot of the issues Leah is
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: having with Han in this movie are issues that Carrie
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Fisher was having in like trying to have this relationship
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: with Harrison Ford, of.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: Like being emotionally inaccessible, of being dismissive, of you know,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: doing all these things that I think men are socialized
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: to be permitted to do and women are socialized to tolerate.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: For sure, So we have Han Solo not treating Lea
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: well because of his insecurities of being rejected by someone
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: he loves. Now with life, it's telegraphed to us that
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: she has feelings for him as well, but also doesn't
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: want to admit it, perhaps also for a class based reason,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: like a social status thing where she might think he's
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: beneath her or something, or maybe because he's kind of
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: a being a dick.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: It's like when you're really attracted to someone who is
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: an asshole, and you're like, maybe best to just keep
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: this as a crush.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, And to Leigh's credit, she is always pushing back
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: against him when he's being a dick. She's calling him delusional.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: She calls him a stuck up, half witted, scruffy looking
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: nerf Herder, an iconic line, but she it is very like,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: we're never meant to fully believe that. And I think
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: that the reason we're not supposed to fully believe that
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: is because of how you're socially conditioned long before you're
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: sitting in the theater, right. And yes, so it's like
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: one of those tricky things where I think there was
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: like an era of media criticism where it would be
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: like Star Wars did this, and it's like, well, no,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: star Wars didn't do this, but star Wars reflected this
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: to a very young audience. Yeah. Star Wars didn't invent this,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: but it did perpetuate it. Yeah, and in a way
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: that like, I mean, you only need to visit a
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: forum or two to understand that some people really took
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: this mentality quite seriously. Yes, yeah, okay, So then there's
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: the kiss scene. Yeah, this is when Leah is welding,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: aka doing the most feminist thing ever women be welding.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, it is. Do you remember when I
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: think we talked about.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: This forever ago what Julia Roberts movie is it where
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: we were like, oh, the the rom com trope, where
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: like we know that she's she's going to get the
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: guy the end.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: If she like fixes car at some point. Oh yeah,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: it's like the mechanic trope to be like, I'm I'm
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: a girl that's more doing more traditionally masculine things. Therefore
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not like other girls. I'm cool. I'm Yes, it
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: happens in a lot of movies. Actually, I don't think
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: this is when Leah is welding. She's just doing some
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: other repair work on the Millennium falcon anyway, not important. Yeah,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: she's fully evolved at every step of the action. Yes, yes,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: Han comes in as she's like doing this repair work.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: He starts immediately invading her personal space, trying to either
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: like take over what she's doing or help. She shoves
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: him off. He starts condescending to her, calling her a
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: nickname that she doesn't like. He's touching her hands. Intimately,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: she's telling him to stop that, he keeps inching his
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: face closer and closer to hers. He has also backed
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: her into a corner so she cannot, like get away.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: It is the most Harrison Ford romantic scenario. I mean truly,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: it is the most Harrison Ford romantic scenario that exists.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: But like just in terms of being textbook, Murky consent
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: the whole premise and relies on it being Harrison Ford
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: in a movie.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, Like, yeah, he's charismatic and rugged, so obviously
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: anyone's gonna want to kiss him, is the idea. So
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: he's he's close to her. They exchange a few more
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: words and then he interrupts her with a kiss. Their
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: kiss is interrupted when C three po comes in and
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: then as Han is talking to him, Lea sneaks away.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: As far as the kiss itself, it's also murky because
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: it's like, Okay, I wouldn't classify it as a surprise
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: kiss because she also goes in for the kiss, but
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: only because she is written in such a way that
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: she's like relenting to him basically, and the scene feels
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: quite coercive. Yes, he has treated her badly up until
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: this point and continues to like nag her after this.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: And also I think that it is like a tricky
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: like even if we are to believe that the character
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: like that, you know, I do think that like obviously
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: Carrie Fisher is like giving a performance where it's like, oh,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: she's attracted to Han, but to be clear, which I mean,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: we we know we're fully appreciated the choir here, but
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: that like, being attracted to someone does not entitle them
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: to do anything to you physically, yes, of course. So
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: like again, it's just like it's a lot of murky
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: logic that this movie is, like, assuming we're all on
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: board with.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: Totally, because you can read it as either like he
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: wears her down until which is like also doesn't feel
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: like quite it either like there's just this like I
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: don't know how to describe exactly what's going on, because
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: it's because it could be like, actually she secretly likes
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: it when he mistreats her and nags her in many scenes. Yeah,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: we don't know exactly what it is, but it's not good,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: and it's a lot of like again, it's like it's
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of tropes that like it's that this is
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: just one of the most famous examples of It reminds
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: me of our conversation around like when we redid our
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: Twilight episode not too long ago, of the idea of
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: like fantasy fulfillment and yeah, but how murky a conversation
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: that becomes like where if like you if this scene.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: Affected you in a way that like you're like, oh,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: that's such a hot scene like that that's not an
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: irrational reaction based on how people are socialized, you know.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: It's just because like I mean, it's complicated by the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: fact that there is this like there is a trope
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: that like, well, women want to be ravaged by a
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: masculine either man or beast. That's a pervasive trope throughout literature.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: But then some women do kind of.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: Want that, right, Well, yeah, it's right, it's just like
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: presenting it that like whatever, Like not everyone wants that,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: and some people do want that, but this story beat
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: tends to prove.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: I mean it's like kind of just like Fopio on
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: the cover of a paperback novel. Thing they're doing here.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: I mean that's literally what the like the movie poster
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: looks like with the two of them. For sure, he's
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: like kind of looming above her. She's like, if I'm
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: remembering it correctly, like she's got her head kind of
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: thrown back. Yeah, I mean, it evokes a lot of
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: romance novel stuff, and so it's hard to know what
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: to do with because I think that for me, it's
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: like it's mainly how young, like the general audience for
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: these movies were. Yeah, in a way that I think
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: we've seen in the way that the fandom has sort
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: of played out over the decades that there are some
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: positive takeaways right where it's like Leah is a very powerful,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: outspoken woman who is always a member of the action,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: who is still subject to these romantic troops exactly. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: and like, let me know what you think about this,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: But in various scenes when we're seeing her making strategic
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: decisions about what the Rebel Alliance should do. She's giving
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: orders to people parentheses men because it's just a bunch
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: of men. They respect her authority, they don't question her choices.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: So it almost seems like even though there is a
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: dearth of women in the galaxy, or at least in
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: the Rebel Alliance and the Empire, there doesn't really seem
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: to be like systemic space sexism against her.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: No, which feels very much like borrowed from like Star Trek,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: where you know, we are also to believe that there
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: isn't space racism, right, but also that doesn't stop Star
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: Wars from being subject to all of the race associated
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: tropes that.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: Existed in the US in nineteen eighty so, and we'll
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: talk about landolcar Parisian I'm sure though, But yeah, there
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: aren't these like systemic, like these systems of oppression and bias. Really,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: it's just like individual men being shitty to lay us,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: such as Han Solos. Well, that's what makes it kind
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: of like again like this bizarro cultural artifact where you know,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: we're being told we're in a world where women can
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: easily be you know, unquestionably in power and powerful, but
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: how can we hold that being true with Leah still
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: being treated like a woman might have been treated in
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty in the US. Like, you know, it's just again,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: It's like it's not a problem specific to this movie
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: or franchise, but you know, you certainly do feel the
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: reverberations of this kiss and this relationship dynamic the I
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: love you I know, which is like, you know, I
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: got to hand it to whichever writer wrote it. It's
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: a snappy fucking or I guess Harrison Ford, Harrison Ford
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: impacted on set. It's a snappy line of dialogue and
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: it like tells you who this character is. But yeah,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean it. It is obviously like a.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: Very particular melodramatic dynamic that in a movie that I
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: think is pushing back on gender archetypes with Lea in
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: some ways, it really doesn't romantically or with this love
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: triangle that becomes increasingly incoherent as they're changing their mind
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: between movies, which I guess is what Star Wars has
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: always done.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really represents a relationship model that so many
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: men thought they should follow, so many women thought they
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: had to follow. Like for what a burgeoning romance was
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: supposed to look like and again I fell for it.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: It does feel like well wherever, we won't need to
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: get into it too much today. But how you know,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: every feminist movement comes with a period of backlash, some
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: of which is over, some of which is like a
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: little more subtle. And I think that like at every
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: step of feminist representation in media, because Lea is too
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: many an iconic feminist character. That for many of these characters,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: especially in like bigger projects, it's like they can have
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: power to a point or in certain arenas, but in
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: other arenas they have to remain submissive and okay with
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: blah blah blah blahlah. But then that you know, that
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: is a little bit in conflict with the fantasy fulfillment.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: Like it's just it's it's we're not Luke, We're not
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: at Jedi grad school, but like, but it is.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: It is really interesting because I think that we're having
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: a very different conversation about this now than we would
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: have when this show started. It's true, it's true, well,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: growth growth, we love to see it. Well, happy birthday
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: to me. And speaking of age, you already mentioned this,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: but the Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher age gap because
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: I believe she was was at nineteen and he was
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: in his early Yes, she was an adult, but she
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: was still quite young. Yeah, not so not legal but
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: not good and so yeah, he is pretty significantly older
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: than her well and married also oh right, oh my god, yeah,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: I forgot about that for the sake of the relationship
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: in this movie. It's a classic case of you know,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: a Hollywood age difference where the woman is far younger
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: because society hates older women. And once again, happy fortieth Birthday.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: Which like which luckily Carrie Fisher had no shortage of
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: things to say about when she was younger and when
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: she was older. Yeah, but yeah, I mean it is
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: it is like so unquestioningly like to the point where,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: like I had to, I had to have it pointed
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: out to me when I was first watching Star Wars,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: where You're like, yeah, he's visibly so much older than her,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: and I was like, yeah, I guess I'm just used
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: to seeing that, right, But yes, don't. Do you have
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 3: any other thoughts on Ley and this?
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, the other thoughts I have on her are
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: are generally quite complimentary, Like I just I love this
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: is my favorite movie for her just a few things,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: such as in this movie she's never damseled, but she
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: is instrumental in saving Luke at the end, which normally
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: we don't see. That her costuming does not sexualize her,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: which or objectify her. I mean, that's a different conversation
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: in Return of the Jedi, But in this movie, I
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: was also thinking about Padme. Yeah, I've spent a lot
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: of time thinking about we both have and how you
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: know not It's again, I'm not saying this to be
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: like super complimentary, but it was. It is interesting to
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: observe how the state of the Western feminist movement is
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: reflected throughout whatever over like basically half a century through
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: these movies, because somehow in two thousand we're in a
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: worse position than we were in nineteen eighty, which was
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: also just culturally true. Where you know, between the second
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: and third movies, in this and the original trilogy and
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: the sequel the Original Trilogy, we decide that while and
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: Return of the Jedi, we have the whole jab a thing,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: but we decide that Leah is more powerful than we
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: could have possibly conceived of. She is a Jedi and
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: she has access to the Force. Whereas in the prequels.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: Padme gets an unbelievable character downgrade.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: Between movies two and three. She is more a part
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: of the action than she'll ever be in part two,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: which isn't saying that much, and then in part three
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: she's just weeping in a room the whole time.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: She's pregnant. She's gonna be dead soon. Yeah, it's just
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: like it's it's she's she's really left in the trenches.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: So it is. Yeah.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 3: I do appreciate that Leah is being set up a
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: rocky third movie, but a movie in which she will
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: continue to be I don't know. I haven't I didn't
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 3: watch Return of the Jedi before this, and I know
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: she has sidelined for a significant part of the third movie,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: so maybe it's just tradition, right.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: I also didn't rewatch it for this, so it's not
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: super fresh in my mind. But again, we'll just cover
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: it my next birthday. But uh, yeah, I love Leah,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: And even though I understand why, at least during the
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: filming of this movie, Carrie Fisher was kind of lukewarm
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: on her get it luke warm. I wonder if I've
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: made that joke before. I feel certain you have. I
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: understand why she's a beloved character, and yes, I love
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: her and that so much of that has to do
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: with Carrie Fisher. Yes, I also love Leah, and I
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: think this is of the three movies kind of like
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: the best showcase of what's great about her character. Shall
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: we talk about Lando Calarusian? Let's talk about our friend Lando.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: I don't have a whole awful lot to say, but
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: similar to how Leah is the only woman in the galaxy,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: Lando is the only black person in the galaxy, at
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: least with lines of dialogue that we yeah, which is
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: and again this is another like I think Star Wars
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: fan cope with all due respect if there's members of
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: the community listening that people were like, well, James Earl
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: Jones is a black actor. You're like, uh, well come on, yeah,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: but we never don't see him, and when you do
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: see him, he's a white guy. He's a white guy,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: and he's canonically hating christiansen So that.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: Actually does not defly like, well, well, James Earl Jones,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: you know, is the most iconic cast member arguably in
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 3: the entire franchise. Like, we can't be making that sort
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 3: of argument, right, I have a little bit to say
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 3: about Lando, who is like Billy T.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: Williams is just like, oh so amazing. Yeah, I was
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: looking for a little background in how he is characteristic,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: and there was a fair amount written about Lando as
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: a character when Solo came out. And then I think
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: that conversation promptly stopped because no one saw that movie.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: But that's speak for yourself. I saw it in theaters
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: twice for some reason. There were dozens of you there.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 3: But Donald Glover plays a young Lando Calrisian in that
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: prequel movie. And so anyways, there was like a brief
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: period of time in twenty eighteen where black culture writers
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: were reflecting on the legacy of Lando. So this is
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 3: pulling from a Slash Film article from twenty eighteen by
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: Monique Jones Pimpin and the Black Exploitation Roots of Lando Calrissian,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: in which she kind of traces she mentions something that
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: George Lucas is always He's like, Star Wars isn't racist,
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, Okay, if you have to say it,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: maybe you need because Star Wars famously I mean, and again,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: like if we're thinking about Star Wars in a longer timeline,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: this is something that the franchise makes steps towards but
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: never actually meaningfully improves on because you think about how
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: John Boyego was rightfully speaking out during this sequel trilogy
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 3: about how severely scaled back his character was and how
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: he was a race from promotional materials in certain countries
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 3: that were extremely racist against black people.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: So same thing with the Jar Jar Binks of it
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: all and all of the racist Trump's president ar like
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: it just well. I was also going to say the
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: Rose character played by Kelly Marie Tran, she was the
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: recipient of so much racist vitrey, Yeah when her character
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: was introduced, and then she.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: Was completely sidelined in Rise of Skywalker. This is historically,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, this happens in movies quite a bit with
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: actors of color that are initially cast in large roles.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: This is certainly the case consistently in Maine Star Wars
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: franchises without fail. I mean the fact that Samuel L.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: Jackson turned in a mid performance through like something's going
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: on here.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: Something's not right.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: But with Lando, who is the first significant black character
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: in the Star Wars franchise ever. Yeah, Monique Jones talks
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: about the cultural ideas around blackness that are being pulled
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: from to create this character. So something I wasn't sure
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: about but is true, is that Lando Caversian was always
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: envisioned as a black character, and was also always.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: Envisioned as Billy d Williams.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: Specifically, I guess George Lucas was a fan, so like
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: in his original notes, he was like Blue Dye Williams,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: So this part was kind of written for him. But
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: it's pulling on a series of tropes and specifically the
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 3: blaxploitation movies of the seventies. So quote Lando further defines
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: the mainstream image of blackness as being one synonymous with
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: coolness and slickness, but with that image comes negative associations
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 3: of blackness being shifty, dangerous, and untrustworthy. It's unclear if
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 3: Lucas was directly inspired by blaxploitation, but Blaxploitation's pervasiveness certainly
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: informs Lando's character, from the cape to his roguish personality.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: There's a reason that many fans refer to Lando as
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 3: a pimp in space. In just looks alone, Lando fits
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 3: in with the sweet Sweetbacks, Dolomites, and superflies who preceded him.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 3: The iconography of the pimp is one of the lasting
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 3: controversial effects of blaxploitation popularity. The image is emblazoned in
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: our minds. A charismatic black man with perm straight hair,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 3: a flashy hat, and equally flashy clothes. Auf fur or
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 3: cape of some kind was always in the mix. Lando
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: iiO has relaxed hair, a saunter an expensive looking blue
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 3: cape lined with luxurious gold fabric, complete with a gold
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: neck chain. Looking at Lando from a blaxploitation perspective, the
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: character continues in the tradition of updating the trickster persona
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: via the pimp. Even though Lando is in a galaxy
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 3: in which racism doesn't exist, his costuming and his cape
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 3: in particular calls back to the movie Pimps of the
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: recent past of the time, showing the audience he has
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: the mystique that the other white characters can't quite replicate
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: or understand. His clothes exemplify his ability to work outside
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: the system that is still despite it being at a
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: galaxy far far away, set and run by white people.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: In this way as well, Lando's character harkens back to
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: black exploitation. His individual acts of resistance, such as tricking
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: Han and working with Darth Vader with the goal of
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: securing Cloud City's protection are quote conceived in confusion and
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 3: executed in panic. He doesn't stop to think how his
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 3: double crossing would have come back to cross him. All
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 3: he knows are the ways of the swindler. Despite his
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: role as a government leader, his trickster ways are tied
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: to his blackness. And whether or not Lucas realized this,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 3: he still gave his critics ammunition against him despite his
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: inclusion of a black character. So it's a very interesting piece.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 3: She also later goes on to review how Lando's character
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 3: is addressed in solo, which isn't relevant here. But we haven't,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 3: you know, really talked about the black exploitation genre in
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: any deep way here, and I wanted to just acknowledge.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: That that was a.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 3: Very very thoroughly discussed and people are of so many
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: minds about it genre that was, you know, sort of
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 3: at its height in the seventies, and that you can
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: see its influence on Lando Calrisian. But what every analysis
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 3: of Lando, like it always ends, including this piece, ends
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 3: with that said. I love Calrisian and he's really cool,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 3: and Billy D.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: Williams is awesome, and Lando Rocks, and I think that
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: both of these things are true that like, you know, yeah,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: and what is also true is and this is part
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: of the you know, like smooth talker, like blaxploitation inspired
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: characterization of him. You might call him a smooth talker,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: or you might say that he's being a creep toward
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: Leah because he's always being like, I mean, look what
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: we have here, And I think in that way he's
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: being a creep in the same way Hans a creep.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: This is true, Like, yes, they're just both creepee guys
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: who found each other, like many creepy. And that said,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: I do love Landell Kelrisian. So yeah, it's complicated. I
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: really think everyone loves I mean, I don't know. I
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: was not in my admittedly kind of like not deep research,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: but I was not able to find any Lando calrisy
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: and haters. I don't which is all Billy dev I mean,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: like Billy D. Williams is so awesome. Yeah for sure.
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: So anyways, yeah, I do think that there Even though
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: George Lucas has resisted any racial analysis of this character,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 3: obviously it is there. It has been discussed quite a bit.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: And again there's like the classic Star Wars tokenism to
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: this character that also exists for Lea, where in the
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: entire galaxy there is one black person and one woman,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: and she of course is white. And for many classic films,
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: this was the way the world worked.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: I do appreciate with with Lando, it's like it's impossible
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: to I think, impossible to dislike him by the end
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: of the movie. And I do appreciate that we are
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: given context for why he's doing what he's doing. He's
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: not double crossing Han and Lea because that's just who
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: he is out of like SPIKEE or Malice. Yeah, it's
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: a survival based decision, does it. There are many implications
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: that come with that. But I did appreciate that, like
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: you are given a clear reason not just why he
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: does it, but but why he is later forgiven right
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: because the first chance he gets he double crosses Darth
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: Vader and tries to help his friends so and then
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: appears again in Return of the Jedi as one of
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: the crew. I mean well, speaking to that, speaking to
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: like a choice of survival, something that we didn't talk about,
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: I don't think on our first Star Wars like our
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: New Hope episode, but the fact that this is like, now,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: if I was there, I no idea. Yeah. I also
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: think that might have been one of the episodes where
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: you kind of didn't watch the movie. Yeah, I didn't
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: think podcasting was going to be a job. I just
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: thought we were so we were chilling, having fun. Yeah,
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: But the anti imperial nature of this whole franchise, I
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: think it's best handled in and or it's very very simplified.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: I think in the original trilogy, where it's just sort
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: of like Empire, bad Rebel, Alliance, good guys. Well, and
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: it's like the first trilogy is really clearly pulling on
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: World War two stuff. I mean it's like that, sure,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 2: you know in a way that I feel like, I
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: don't know. I'm not trying to hand it to George
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: Lucas with the subtlety of his storytelling, but some of
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: like the visuals are so overt that it feels like
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: you don't that they're like sort of electing you to
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: fill in the blanks on your own based on your
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: knowledge of what would have then been like pretty recent history.
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: But oh yeah, yeah, if you look at like side
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: by side footage from this original trilogy and footage from
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: Nazi World War two. Yeah, battles like the parallels are visible.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: But this is why I like and Or so much
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: because it examines in a far more nuanced way what
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: a fascist empire looks like and what it does, what
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: a revolution against that looks like, how a resistance movement ignites,
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 2: and the complicated figures who are participating in it along
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: the way. Yeah, so everyone should watch and Or. But
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: but then it's like to do that, watch it illegally
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: because Disney Plus is well that that's the thing is now,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: like you have to make well, you don't have to. Also,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: you don't have to you don't have to make anti
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: fascist content for the fascist but like you know, there
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: are there are many, uh like for for a certain budget,
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: people are forced to put themselves or to forced to
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: choose to be in that position. Yeah, it's a whole
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: thing anyways, and Or's good. And the last thing I
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: wanted to touch on was just a little bit about
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: the Jedi. Are we talking religion because like iology, Okay,
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: and we talked a bit about this in our Prequels
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: episode as well, but I wanted to talk a little
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: bit more about the kind of like philosophy and ideology
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: of the Jedi. There is a video essay from Pop
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: Culture Detective Agency which we might have cited this specific
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: essay before, but it's about how even though the Jedi
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: in these movies are portrayed as these like wise heroic
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: protectors of the galaxy, they actually represent a rather toxic
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 2: version of masculinity because a huge part of their ethos
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: is suppressing your feelings emotional vulnerability equals weakness, and because
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: most Jedi Knights are men, especially in the first two trilogies,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: we can see the parallels between Jedi ideology and patriarchal
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: conditioning in our galaxy, in our world. Yeah, it gets
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: more into the Jedi lore, I guess in the prequel
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: trilogy because the reason Anakin is seduced by the Dark
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: Side is because he makes the mistake of having feelings
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 2: and of having deep connections with women, both his mother
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: and his beloved Padme right, and that's what inevitably leads
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: him to the dark Side, which you could read as
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: commentary on like, look what horrible things happen when men
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: are discouraged from freely feeling their emotions, But the prequels
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: do not frame it that way.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 3: Really, No, the prequels the prequels kind of, I think
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 3: if we're operating in and I think that that is
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 3: actually a good reason people don't like because there's some
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 3: reasons people don't like the Prequels that are annoying and
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 3: some that are valid, which is that like this whole
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 3: spiritual encouragement to connect with one's emotions, to have a
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 3: clear perspective of the world, and to meditate and all
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 3: these things that are demonstrably good is retconned to be
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 3: this like weirdo. It's just like over explaining and kind
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 3: of undercuts what makes it so interesting in the first
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 3: place and what makes it possible for viewers to kind
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 3: of take on for themselves in a positive way.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: Right Because going back to the specific movie we're discussing today,
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 2: I think that one of the things that distinguishes Luke
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 2: Skywalker from his father Anakin slash Darth Vader is that
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: Luke kind of rejects this part of Jedi ideology. And
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: we see this in a scene where Luke sees that
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: like future vision of Han and Leah being in danger,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: possibly about to die, and he wants to go save them.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: Yoda and Obi Wan's Ghost, which are his Jedi trainers,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 2: are like, no, who cares about your friends? You have
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: to stay here and finish your Jedi training, and Luke
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: is like, yeah, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: going to sacrifice my loved ones, which, to be fair,
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 2: I guess knowing the events of the prequels helps that
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: moment hit a little harder, where you realize that like
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: Yoda and Obi Wan are kind of like beating the
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: same drum until Luke proves them otherwise. Sure, yeah, I guess,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: but it's it's all over the place. It's all over
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: the place.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 3: I do like that, and that like multiple things end
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 3: up being true, where like Luke does is right to
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 3: go and rescue his friends. And also it was a trap,
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 3: like they weren't totally wrong.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: They were wrong. But Luke is like, well, since I
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: know it's a trap, I can maybe work around that.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: Leah still has to tell him it's true. But isn't
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: that isn't not the way? I mean, She's always the
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: most discerning character in the room. She's always the voice
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 2: of reason she is, and the franchise eventually recognizes that.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: It just takes it takes a while. Yeah, but I
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: guess what I'm saying is. One of the things I
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: like about this movie is that at least Luke is
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 2: permitted to be more emotionally vulnerable. He's more expressive with
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: his emotions, certainly than Han solo is. He cares deeply
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: about his friends, and he's not afraid to show it.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: I love you need more men like that. I love
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: Luke so much. I feel like we really often not
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: that Luke Skyworker is an overlooked character. Obviously he isn't,
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: but that in favor of Han in terms of like
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: what makes a character interesting and attractive, I do think
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: he is kind of overlooked. Sometimes no totally.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 3: Because his qualities are objectively I guess and whatever. I'm
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 3: speaking for myself here, but like more attractive than what
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 3: Han is doing. But the movie is very didactic in
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 3: telling you who deserves romantic attention and what behaviors should
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 3: be quote unquote rewarded. And that's a whole other thing
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 3: with romantic attention and what shouldn't be And like Luke,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 3: while we clearly we love Luke, he is you know,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 3: he is our protagonist. He is notably the recipient of
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 3: less romantic attention than Han.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Leiah only kisses him to make Han jealous, and then.
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 3: They make that weird and gross in retrospect and like
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 3: their sister and brother. Actually, and I'm not saying that
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 3: like Luke should have a romantic interest, Like, That's not
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying at all. I just think it's pointed
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: who you know has the because in this world and
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 3: in this time and still often now, the romantic interest
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 3: of a CIS woman is treated as a plot reward,
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 3: and Hana is clearly the recipient of that plot reward
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 3: in this franchise.
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, I have come all the way around on this.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: Where as a kid, as a teenager, into my twenties,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: maybe even into my early thirties, I was like Luke
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: Skywalker whiny and annoying, Hans Solo cool and hot and rugged,
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: And now I'm like Han Solo a dick who needs
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 2: to go to therapy, Luke Skywalker soft, gentle kind, sweetie
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: and sweet. And again, I look, if you're someone in
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: the business of dating straight men, you'll encounter your fair
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 2: share like no, no shade. If you're still like I like,
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: unfortunately Hannegging is hot to me, Like you, you live
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: in the society and it's your right. I'm just saying
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: that Luke is mister Sweety and and I recognize that.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: And also it seems like Mark Hamill was mister Sweety,
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 2: and it is possibly mister Sweety to this day. Do
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: you remember when we went to that event at a
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 2: now defunct comedy space, UCB Sunset and he was there?
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: No where were we. It was something that Liz Winsteed
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: was doing. Oh, it was a comedy show. I think
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 2: it was a fundraiser that was promoting access to abortion.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: I do remember going to that. I don't remember that
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: Mark Hamill was there. Mark Hamill was there, I think,
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: like doing random illustrations or something. He's like, I mean,
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: from what I know, and I'm not a Mark, but
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: it seems like, you know, I'm sure they're a little
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: lib but like it seems like he's he's like a
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 2: genuinely like sweet and thoughtful person. I think so. And no,
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: he was, he was there. I'm wondering if I can
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 2: like dig up pictures from this event, but yeah, he
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: was there, and I was like freaking out. I was like,
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: oh my god, that's Luke Skywalker. This is incredible. And
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: you were sitting next to me being like I feel nothing.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: I guess that's why I don't remember, because I felt nothing.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: It was just another day for me. Yeah, yeah, fair,
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: but but no, Yeah, he's mister sweetie. He seems like
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: a sweetie. And yeah, I don't know.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's everything I had for this.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's tricky because when you're talking about one
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 3: Star Wars movie, you're kind of talking about all of them.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 3: So I'm sure that there's things we missed. Listeners. If
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 3: there is anything in particular that you feel we should
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 3: have discussed and didn't, please let us know. But yeah,
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's so much to love about this movie.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: I understand why it's a lot of people's favorites. I
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: will point out that this is the and I'm not
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 2: totally sure why this is, but this is the only
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: Star Wars movie of the original trilogy that was not,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: I believe, edited by a woman, Marsha Griffin, who would
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: have been Marshall Lucas at the time, who I remember
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: because of her iconic quote about how she, long after
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 2: her divorce, saw Star Wars Episode one and went to
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: her car and cried after and was like, what happened
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: to my ex husband? What a flop? Why did he
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: make such a bad movie, but she did. She did
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: edit episode four and six, so I'm not sure why
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: she didn't edit this one, but she needed a break maybe,
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, we just we haven't talked about the original
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: trilogy in so long that I just wanted to shout
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: her out. She also, I mean, she was like very
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: much in this group where she also edited American Graffiti
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: and but a bunch of Scorsese movies, Taxi Driver, New York,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: New York. Alice doesn't live here anymore, Like she's a legend,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: a legend anything else you want to talk about. No,
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to see Babu Frick. Oh my gosh,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 2: we're gonna see And look, I'm not above thinking Grogu
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 2: is cute.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: I look, there's sometimes I look at my cat Casper,
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, hmmmm, Grogu vibes, and I see it.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: Look, we're uh. Sometimes you just have to remember we're
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: living at difficult times and you have to be cringe
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: every once in a while, and it's a sign of
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 2: you know, uh whatever, it's a sign of happy birthday. Caitlin,
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: does this say past the absolutely not. No, I didn't close.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: There's not another woman there is I did see with
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: mine own eyes. Oh no, not us starting to do
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: the like I saw a woman. You're talking about it,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: like how they talk about like the munchkins that are
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 2: allegedly dead in the background of Wizard of Ows. That's
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: how you're you're like, oh, wait, we actually correct it.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: We actually updated it to four K. And it was
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: a tree. It wasn't anything. It wasn't a woman at all.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: Even so U huh, there's a woman. She's on hof okay,
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: at the rebel base. She I think is in front
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 2: of a computer. She maybe has a headset on that's
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: so valid. So she's doing something that's so valid, but
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: Leah doesn't talk to her. In twenty seventeen, they would
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 2: have made a four part mini series about her. But
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: now there's no more TV and misogyny's back, and they
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: probably wouldn't anyway. So yeah, that's a note on the
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 2: Bechdel test. But what about our nipple scale, where we
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 2: rate the movie on a scale of zero to five
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: nipples examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens hm hmm. Indeed, well, again,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: we've talked about how Lea is an iconic and admirable
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 2: ca character. She is not immune to gendered tropes of
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: the time, but she also defies a lot of gendered
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 2: tropes of the time in that she's allowed to actually
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: participate in the story and the action. And that's that's
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: not insignificant. The bar is in hell, but that there
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: is that. But I do love Leah and I love
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: Krrie Fisher. I don't know. I guess maybe like a
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: nipple and a half. Yeah, maybe two. I was gonna
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: give it too. Based on the existence and delayed celebration
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 2: of Lee Bracket fair where while Star Wars is very flawed,
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: I think you're hard pressed to find many movies of
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: its era where there are women in roles that prominent,
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: including in the editing booth, et cetera. Again, it's peanuts,
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 2: but it was rare at the time. And I'll I'll
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: say two nipples for that. Same one goes to Carrie Fisher,
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: one goes to Lee Bracket. I'm gonna do the exact
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: same secret. Third nipple goes to Babu Frick Baboo Frick. Guys,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: we're gonna, we're gonna all start cheering at the theater
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: when he comes out, right right, I will, We're gonna
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: get him that side thing that they were supposed to do.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: Do you remember how the voice of Babou Frick said
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: that she wanted there to be a serious about him,
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: about his romantic exploits of the past. I did not
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 2: know that, but but I need it. I really, I
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: really carry a torch for that, for that anecdote where
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 2: she was like, if she's like, there's a story here this,
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: this little guy has lived, Babu Frick Fricks, it's right there.
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 3: It's right there, and we're available for work when the
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 3: series gets greenlit. Keivin Happy birthday, Thank you so much,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 3: thank you for bringing one of the best Star Wars
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 3: movies ever.
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: Happy to do it, and I don't know if I
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: will commit to covering Return of the Jedi next year
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 2: for my birthday, but it's a strong possibility, but love it.
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you for covering this with me today.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 3: Of course, and thank you listeners as always. Sorry, my
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 3: computer's going to die in like two minutes, so I'm
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 3: racing to the finish. You can find us as always
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 3: if you enjoyed this episode, but just the two of us,
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 3: there's hundreds more over on our Patreon aka Matreon. We're
• 1:52:40
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• 1:52:43
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• 1:52:47
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• 1:52:50
  Speaker 3: two hundred back episodes, and it is the best way
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 3: to directly support the show. And you also get access
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 3: to like tour information before we announce it to the
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 3: general public, which will become relevant later this year for
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 3: our ten year anniversary tour, and access to a really
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 3: fun community that we're very thrilled to be a part of.
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 3: So yeah, check us out there and on Instagram for updates,
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 3: and uh, that's kind of it.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: That's kind of it. Shall we get in our millennium
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 2: falcon and press the hyper drive button and go to
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 2: light speed whatever the hell that means. Let's do it, Okay,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 2: Bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia,
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: hosted and produced by Me, Jamie Loftus and Me Caitlyn Durrante.
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 2: The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann and edited
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of them? That's me and
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: our logo and merch and all of our artwork in
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: fact are designed by Jamie Loftus. Ever heard of her?
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 2: Oh My God and our Themes. Song by the way,
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 2: was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: Iconic and especial thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo.
• 1:54:10
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• 1:54:13
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