Latest / Movie Meltdown / Brian Jay Jones and the Temple of Lucas

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Brian Jay Jones and the Temple of Lucas · Movie Meltdown

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hi, this is Tom Kane, the voice of Yoda. And
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: listening to Movie Meltdown, you are good.
• 0:23
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  Speaker 1: It's showtime, folks. Enjoy the show.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Our nuclear reactor pumping out.
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  Speaker 3: One million kilowatts of power.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: What's up, and welcome to Movie Meltdown.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Brian, and this.
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  Speaker 4: Week I'm joined by my special guest co-host, author Brian J.
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  Speaker 2: Jones.
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  Speaker 5: Now, Brian is a New York Times bestselling biographer who
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: has written an award-winning book on Washington Irving. Now, at
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  Speaker 5: this moment, you're probably like, this doesn't sound like the pop-cultural,
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: movie-oriented stuff you usually talk about.
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  Speaker 2: Which is true.
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  Speaker 5: But Brian's second book definitely crossed over into one of
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  Speaker 5: my favorite areas as he wrote Jim Henson, The Biography, which,
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  Speaker 5: by the way, was a national bestseller. And not that
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  Speaker 5: I couldn't talk about Jim Henson for hours, but if
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  Speaker 5: that wasn't enough, Brian's latest book is entitled George Lucas,
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  Speaker 5: A Life. So we definitely have a lot to talk about.
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  Speaker 5: And before I take the conversation to the geeky places
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  Speaker 5: I normally do, and I will, first we'll find out
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  Speaker 5: that Brian, while still obviously having deep fanboy roots, comes
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  Speaker 5: from a very different path. Political analyst and advisor in
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: the U.S. Senate? Yes, a very different area than we
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  Speaker 5: usually start off in around here. But Brian's lived an
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  Speaker 5: interesting life and is a fascinating man who is definitely
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  Speaker 5: prepared to hold his own in a conversation about Star
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  Speaker 5: Wars and George Lucas and film and... But I'm getting
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  Speaker 5: ahead of myself. So for now, I will pause just
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  Speaker 5: long enough to tell you to go seek out all
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  Speaker 5: of Brian's books, especially his latest, George Lucas, A Life,
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  Speaker 5: which is now available on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere.
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  Speaker 5: And with that having been said, let's just roll into
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  Speaker 5: this great conversation with biographer Brian J.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Jones.
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  Speaker 6: All right.
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  Speaker 5: Well, welcome to the show. Thank you. I usually try
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  Speaker 5: to start at the very beginning with people and kind
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: of get a take on you before we move into
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: your subject of the book. So I guess early on,
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  Speaker 5: what was your interest as far as like early back
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  Speaker 5: in childhood? Was it fandom? Again, we're, I guess, coming
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  Speaker 5: from that generation of... Right. latching onto pop culture. So
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: were you one of, I guess we can go ahead
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  Speaker 5: and jump to, were you one of those Star Wars
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  Speaker 5: kids or did you have a love of pop culture
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  Speaker 5: kind of stuff that early on?
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  Speaker 7: Well, no, I mean, I was a pop culture kid.
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  Speaker 7: I was like, you know, a comic book kid and
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  Speaker 7: a cartoon kid. And, you know, I was like, when
• 3:51
  Speaker 7: you're a kid, you can't get up for school at,
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  Speaker 7: you know, seven o'clock in the morning. But on Saturday morning,
• 3:56
  Speaker 7: you were up at 530 so you could watch cartoons.
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  Speaker 5: When they had cartoons. And when they were only on
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: on Saturday. Yeah, that was your one day a week.
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  Speaker 5: It was like kids day.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 7: So like super friends. That was the be all end
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  Speaker 7: all for me.
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  Speaker 5: Get your bowl of cereal and pick your channel. Right.
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  Speaker 7: So I was always kind of a pop culture kid
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  Speaker 7: without really knowing it. But I was the perfect Star
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  Speaker 7: Wars kid because I was nine when.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: Star Wars came out.
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  Speaker 7: So I was like the target audience for Star Wars.
• 4:21
  Speaker 7: So people ask, where do you come into Lucas' Star Wars?
• 4:24
  Speaker 7: Where do you come into Lucas' story? I come into
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  Speaker 7: it with Star Wars. Day one. Now, I found out
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  Speaker 7: later I actually knew American Graffiti. I hadn't really seen it,
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  Speaker 7: but my parents saw it and they had loved it.
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  Speaker 7: And I always heard him telling the stories about the
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  Speaker 7: guy tying the chain around the police car's axle. So
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  Speaker 7: I knew of that movie, but I didn't put two
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  Speaker 7: and two together on that for a long time.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's one of those I think I saw on
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  Speaker 5: cable in years after that. It was like, oh, this
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  Speaker 5: is a fun movie. And I still don't think I
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  Speaker 5: put it together for several years after that. And I'm like, oh,
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  Speaker 5: wait a minute. This seems weird.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, we knew all like, you know, as kids growing up,
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  Speaker 7: we knew all like the post-Star Wars movies. And we
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  Speaker 7: even knew like when he was the producer of movies
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  Speaker 7: and they would tell him, you know, Howard the Duck
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  Speaker 7: was a George Lucas film, you know. Poor guy.
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  Speaker 5: George Lucas joint.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 7: George Lucas joint.
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  Speaker 5: Well, I guess when you got to a point, did
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  Speaker 5: you always know writing was kind of where you were
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  Speaker 5: going to be headed or?
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  Speaker 7: No, you know, I mean, you know, I was like
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  Speaker 7: the editor of the high school newspaper and all that stuff.
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  Speaker 7: But when I first went to college, I wanted to
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  Speaker 7: be a biomedical engineer because I was good at biology.
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  Speaker 7: But then I found out I was terrible at math
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  Speaker 7: and chemistry and physics and things that really matter if
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  Speaker 7: you don't want doctors that kill people. So I dropped
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  Speaker 7: all those courses, and then everything I had left was
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  Speaker 7: English 431, which was like Arthurian romance.
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  Speaker 5: So all I had left was English classes.
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  Speaker 7: So at that point, I was like, my heart's been
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  Speaker 7: trying to tell me something for a while. I'm an
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  Speaker 7: English major.
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: Which is a degree in unemployment for the most part.
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  Speaker 7: So, you know, I was never somebody who was like, oh,
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  Speaker 7: I want to write the great American novel. But my
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  Speaker 7: first job out of college as far as first thing
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  Speaker 7: I did was actually ran a comic book store for
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  Speaker 7: a year.
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  Speaker 2: Nice.
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  Speaker 5: That's good if you can get it at this point.
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  Speaker 7: This was in the day of Dark Knight and Watchmen
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  Speaker 7: and Batman Year One.
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  Speaker 5: But still kind of like on the outskirts of the world.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, it was before comics became cool.
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  Speaker 5: Before the turn.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: It was just you and a handful of dorky kids. Yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 5: It looked like the only time they left the house
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  Speaker 5: was to go to a comic book store.
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  Speaker 8: Right.
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  Speaker 7: You were like, a girl walked in.
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  Speaker 2: You know, so. Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: They didn't walk into it.
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  Speaker 7: No, they came in.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: Sandman.
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  Speaker 7: Sandman was like your chicken.
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  Speaker 5: The gothy thing was just seeping in a little bit.
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  Speaker 7: We could get that. We could get him in with Sandman.
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  Speaker 4: So, no.
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  Speaker 7: So I didn't necessarily know that I wanted to. But
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  Speaker 7: my first job, my first real job finally, was I
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  Speaker 7: got hired to answer constituent mail in a U.S. senator's office.
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  Speaker 7: I worked for Pete Domenici of New Mexico. I was
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  Speaker 7: from Albuquerque. So my first job was responding to constituent mail,
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  Speaker 7: and I worked my way up in that office and
• 6:50
  Speaker 7: became a legislative analyst. Which, as I found out later,
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  Speaker 7: is pretty good prep for biography because your job involves,
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  Speaker 7: like your member says, go get me all the information
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  Speaker 7: you can on this particular topic. And you go out
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  Speaker 7: and you talk to people on both sides of the
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  Speaker 7: aisle and you call the Library of Congress and you
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  Speaker 7: ask them to write a short report and you get
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  Speaker 7: information and you. Anyway, and you cobble this all together
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  Speaker 7: and you write your paper, which should be a page,
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  Speaker 7: but for me it was usually two. But I found
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  Speaker 7: out that was a good practice for biography. But no,
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  Speaker 7: I hadn't necessarily ever wanted to be a writer. I
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  Speaker 7: can't plot as part of my problem. So that's why
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  Speaker 7: I write nonfiction because I know how it all turns out.
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  Speaker 5: So I was terrible at that.
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  Speaker 7: But when I finally decided I wanted to write the
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  Speaker 7: Washington Irving book, it was only because I was a
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  Speaker 7: huge fan of Christmas. And Irving, I found out by
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  Speaker 7: reading this history of Christmas, was like the guy who
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  Speaker 7: invented the American Christmas tradition and told all of us
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  Speaker 7: that like, oh, this is the way they always celebrated
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  Speaker 7: Christmas in the old days. And he was just making
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  Speaker 7: it all up, which I thought was awesome. So that
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  Speaker 7: was when I, you know, started learning more about Irving,
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  Speaker 7: wanted to be Washington Irving's biographer. And that was kind
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  Speaker 7: of how I got into that. And I, you know,
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  Speaker 7: didn't know it was going to be a– I didn't
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  Speaker 7: know I'd do another one after that and another one
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  Speaker 7: after that. I wanted to write that Irving book. And
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  Speaker 7: then my agent, when it's done, says, what next? And– Yeah, and,
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  Speaker 7: you know, that one was weird because, you know, I
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  Speaker 7: think I was on Jim Henson's Wikipedia page.
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  Speaker 5: I can't really remember how I got there. I wish
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  Speaker 5: I had a cool story for it.
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  Speaker 7: And I was looking through it and reading it, and
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  Speaker 7: I was like, God, I wonder where they got that. And, like,
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  Speaker 7: people cite anything on Wikipedia, but Muppet fans, I found out,
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  Speaker 7: are pretty good at it.
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  Speaker 5: It's Wikipedia, so you never know.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, so I went down to the bottom of the page, and, like,
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  Speaker 7: everything cited was, you know, Jim Henson, the works.
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  Speaker 5: It was all about the work.
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  Speaker 7: There was no biography.
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  Speaker 9: Okay.
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  Speaker 7: I was like, well, that seems kind of low-hanging fruit.
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  Speaker 7: I can't believe there's not a Robert Caro who hasn't
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  Speaker 7: been doing that for 20 years. Anyway, so that was
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  Speaker 7: how I got into the Jim Henson biography. I was
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  Speaker 7: reading about him and was like, wow, there's no biography
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  Speaker 7: of Jim Henson? That would be great. And after that
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  Speaker 7: book was published, I found out, because I was with
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  Speaker 7: Random House, and they published the Star Wars novels, that
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  Speaker 7: apparently word got back to my editor that George Lucas
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  Speaker 7: had read my Jim Henson book and really liked it.
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  Speaker 7: And so I was like, this is awesome.
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  Speaker 5: This is Brer Rabbit.
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  Speaker 7: Don't throw me in the briar patch. He wants to
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  Speaker 7: be done. He wants me to write his biography. So
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  Speaker 7: I wrote to him, and it took about three or
• 9:01
  Speaker 7: four weeks, but I finally did hear back from him
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  Speaker 7: saying no.
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: That was going to be one of my questions, is
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: how much clearance do you need or want? Expected, but
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  Speaker 5: still disappointing.
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  Speaker 7: But at that point, I'd really been doing a ton
• 9:14
  Speaker 7: of research and fell in love with the research and
• 9:16
  Speaker 7: actually think it works much better, and I think it's
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  Speaker 7: more exciting for the reader when you've got Rather than
• 9:22
  Speaker 7: having this as a reflective story where you've got people
• 9:26
  Speaker 7: telling us what happened back in the old days. It's
• 9:28
  Speaker 7: so much more exciting, I think, when you're reading, you know,
• 9:30
  Speaker 7: this interview George Lucas did in 1976 in Starlog, you know,
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  Speaker 7: when he's, like, pissed off because Fox didn't give him
• 9:37
  Speaker 7: the money he needed and they left him out in
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  Speaker 7: the desert and nothing worked and the special effects aren't
• 9:41
  Speaker 7: coming in on time and he's just despairing of ever
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  Speaker 7: finishing this wacky movie that nobody understands.
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  Speaker 5: And we'll never see. Right.
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  Speaker 7: So I think it's much more exciting for you, and
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  Speaker 7: to write it, I mean, I think it's much more
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  Speaker 7: exciting and dramatic that way to get him in the moment.
• 9:55
  Speaker 7: Because we all sort of, like, bring our own thing
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  Speaker 7: to Star Wars.
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  Speaker 5: We know what we think. We know what we like.
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  Speaker 7: We know our expectations.
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  Speaker 5: But I think it's more fun to like know, okay,
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  Speaker 5: what was he thinking? What was going on with him
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: the whole time? Definitely we'll get back to that. I
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: guess while we're still kind of doing the writing part,
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  Speaker 5: do you treat it differently? I mean, going from someone
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  Speaker 5: very historical to... someone who has pretty recent history to
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: someone who's still living, do you.
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  Speaker 7: Totally dead to mostly dead.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, to still out there and being pissed.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 5: Do you change the way you handle it? Or, I mean, obviously,
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  Speaker 5: you can't do much different than historical data when you're
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: dealing with someone who's dead, but when you have access
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: to people who knew them or people who worked with them,
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  Speaker 5: or does it change the way you approach things?
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, they were all sort of deep drill
• 10:40
  Speaker 7: research projects. The one thing I didn't have with Lucas
• 10:44
  Speaker 7: is I really wanted his archives, and I couldn't get his,
• 10:46
  Speaker 7: you know, J.W. Rensselaer and Horvath.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: You get three geeks once.
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  Speaker 7: Because I know some of the archivists, and they're like, man,
• 10:52
  Speaker 7: we'd love to let you in, but we can't. And,
• 10:55
  Speaker 7: you know, and I didn't have him, which, again, probably
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  Speaker 7: worked better because knowing what we all now know and
• 11:00
  Speaker 7: now what I know as well is, like, he probably
• 11:01
  Speaker 7: would have hovered over me and wanted a final say
• 11:03
  Speaker 7: on the manuscript and so on. So it works better
• 11:05
  Speaker 7: as unauthorized.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: It's probably better, yeah, coming from the outside.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Versus, again, you're going to get a weird, oddly cleaned
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: up version of it where you can just kind of
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: say what you find, what you need to say.
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  Speaker 7: And, you know, and even talking with people about him, yeah.
• 11:22
  Speaker 7: you know, there's like a lot of retconning going on
• 11:24
  Speaker 7: and like, there's.
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: A lot of, that's all he's done.
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  Speaker 7: But even like, you know, and even people telling the stories,
• 11:29
  Speaker 7: like they tell the stories in a certain way now
• 11:31
  Speaker 7: and everybody's got sort of party line, whether they mean
• 11:33
  Speaker 7: to or not, they tell party line and people are
• 11:36
  Speaker 7: trying to, you know, try to see if they can
• 11:37
  Speaker 7: secure their own legacy in their own place in the story. So,
• 11:40
  Speaker 7: so you get a lot of that going on. So
• 11:41
  Speaker 7: even a lot of the people I talked with when
• 11:44
  Speaker 7: I got done, I was like, you know, that was
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: great for context, but I'm not sure I'm going to
• 11:47
  Speaker 7: use that because again, it was much more interesting to get,
• 11:51
  Speaker 7: you know, his roommate in 1969 when he's like, I
• 11:54
  Speaker 7: think George might've been overcharging me for my rent, you know, um,
• 11:57
  Speaker 7: and Gary Kurtz, you know, who's, you know, pissed off
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: that he's getting, he, they're having, they're, you know, they're
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: bickering over the direction of return of the Jedi. And so,
• 12:05
  Speaker 7: so most of the interviews I did conduct, I ended up,
• 12:07
  Speaker 7: they were very helpful for context more than anything else,
• 12:09
  Speaker 7: but they didn't necessarily ended up being the quotes I
• 12:12
  Speaker 7: used in the book, which is very odd.
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  Speaker 5: So, um, So to get back to your question, like
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: all the books ended.
• 12:17
  Speaker 7: Up being these very deep drill archival books. The hardest
• 12:20
  Speaker 7: part of doing a living subject is your end posts
• 12:23
  Speaker 7: keep moving. You don't know what's going to, you know,
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: had I been on, you know, I generally outline, it's funny,
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: I generally outline books in thirds and then I do four, four,
• 12:32
  Speaker 7: and four when I outline my chapters. And had I
• 12:35
  Speaker 7: started that last third and he died while I was writing,
• 12:38
  Speaker 7: it would have changed the tenor of the book.
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: It would have changed the way I.
• 12:40
  Speaker 7: Approached that ending.
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: And recently he took a hard turn anyway in his career.
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: So it still kind of changes things.
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: And it was funny because I had actually missed several deadlines. Again,
• 12:50
  Speaker 7: because I was despairing. It was my Star Wars. I
• 12:52
  Speaker 7: was sort of despairing of ever finishing it. And I
• 12:55
  Speaker 7: missed like an October 31st deadline. And then I missed
• 12:58
  Speaker 7: my deadline, which was supposed to be January 1st, 2016.
• 13:02
  Speaker 7: But what happened right before that deadline came was George
• 13:05
  Speaker 7: Lucas and his Disney white slavers interview. So you get
• 13:08
  Speaker 7: these gifts every once.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: In a while.
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: He still keeps delivering these lines.
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: So stuff still comes up that helps you figure out.
• 13:15
  Speaker 7: And that helped me actually frame some of that last
• 13:18
  Speaker 7: chapter as well. So that's the hardest part is that
• 13:20
  Speaker 7: last chapter is fungible until the very last moment.
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: Well, that's one of those. I've kind of talked to people,
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: I guess, from both of these worlds. But we recently
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: had Kirk Thatcher on. who worked with Henson and was
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: kind of handed the reins at that end point there.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: He took over a lot of projects after that.
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  Speaker 7: Kirk's awesome.
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: And, you know, he has nothing but good. And I've
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: talked to a couple other people in years past that
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: had worked in some way in the Henson company, and, like,
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: there's nothing but love. Like, I mean, it's... I would
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: be hard-pressed to think of somebody who had, like, every
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: once in a while you're like, he was a little
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: weirder than people realized. But, again, he's an artistic genius.
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  Speaker 7: Very into the ladies.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: But, yeah, Jim. Again, it was the time.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: He was a hippie.
• 14:02
  Speaker 7: And that was the thing with Jim.
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: Like, he really, Jim really is kind of like what
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: you think he is.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 7: Which led some people to be like, well, you must
• 14:07
  Speaker 7: have really whitewashed this book. And I was like, no,
• 14:09
  Speaker 7: I tried. And he was pretty honest about it all. Yeah,
• 14:11
  Speaker 7: he really is kind of what you think. I told,
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: I sound like such a douche when I say this,
• 14:14
  Speaker 7: but I was talking with Frank Oz. And I said
• 14:16
  Speaker 7: to Frank Oz, I was like, you know, it's really
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: disappointing when people are disappointed when their idols don't disappoint them.
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, when he's not a jackass.
• 14:24
  Speaker 7: And Jim doesn't disappoint. He really kind of is what
• 14:27
  Speaker 7: you think he is. And Lucas, in his own way,
• 14:29
  Speaker 7: is kind of what you think he is. He's almost
• 14:30
  Speaker 7: a brain in a jar at times.
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: That's where I was going. I was like, it's not
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: like there's anything wrong with Lucas, but the situation is
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: such a loaded weapon that they're handing you.
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: This could go horribly wrong for anybody. Like, we're just
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: gonna spin this revolver and see where it goes off.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: So it's like, it's now such touchy subjects here and
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: everywhere when it comes to the Lucas stuff. Anything, like,
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: any property that he's touched has now got weird strings
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: attached to it.
• 14:58
  Speaker 7: Right, and I mean, like, it was really hard when
• 15:01
  Speaker 7: I was writing the Henson book, like, clearing stuff through Disney.
• 15:04
  Speaker 7: And I was like, I got done with that and
• 15:05
  Speaker 7: I was like, phew, man, I am never going to
• 15:07
  Speaker 7: have to worry about ever clearing stuff with Disney again.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: Well, I jumped right out of the frying pan into
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: the fire on that one. And the next day you
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: were like, signed up.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: What?
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: Oh no. Disney.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Who now owned everything.
• 15:19
  Speaker 7: Right, they own the world. They own, you know, your
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: favorite comics and all your favorite childhood icons they own.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: Well, I think, again, I've got, I think, a lot
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: of later in his life questions. I guess, is there
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: early stuff that you came across that you were kind of, like,
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: surprised by? Like, from the earlier, I guess, maybe coming
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: out of college days or, like, into the beginning of
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: Star Wars? Was there stuff you'd just never heard before?
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: You were like, this is kind of amazing. Nobody talks
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: about this.
• 15:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, I mean, I was familiar with, you know, THX,
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: the science, the mainstream movie, if you want to call
• 15:51
  Speaker 7: that mainstream.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: But I did have to go find all of his
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: college films and watch them, and actually.
• 15:55
  Speaker 7: Most of them are on the internet. So, you know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 7: that was really kind of fun and exciting, watching a
• 16:01
  Speaker 7: lot of his student movies, and you know, I mean,
• 16:04
  Speaker 7: you watch those and you go, oh, wow, okay, no
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: wonder people thought this was the Boy Wonder.
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: I mean, they're really good. And weird and creative in
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: a way that people weren't doing. Like, he's still coming
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: out of that camp of super creative, you know, Coppola
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: and Spielberg and all of them are coming up at
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: that time, but he's really doing his own weird strain
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: that nobody else was doing.
• 16:24
  Speaker 7: And even the ones that are kind of like, you know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 7: what he always calls the tone poems, and they're not
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: necessarily super artsy-fartsy, but, you know, something like 142.08, the
• 16:30
  Speaker 7: one where he's following the racing car. The thing that
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: struck me watching that is how, you know, kind of
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: removed he is at times. Like the camera's really far
• 16:39
  Speaker 7: away and the car's kind of in the background. And
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: then at times when it goes past, it almost sounds
• 16:43
  Speaker 7: like a TIE fighter. Like even then, Lucas loved sound,
• 16:47
  Speaker 7: like the way things sounded. So you can sort of
• 16:48
  Speaker 7: see the portrait of the artist as a young man,
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: even in those early student films.
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: It's sort of telling as the director he will become.
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: He's not the most hands-on with actors. And I think,
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: especially as you get to prequels, you start to see
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: it almost take a toll on what he's trying to do.
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: And it is interesting. Distanced is a way to, yeah,
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: an interesting way to put it.
• 17:08
  Speaker 7: In those early films, he's really fascinated by man's relationships
• 17:11
  Speaker 7: with machines, which is kind.
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: Of a, there's a little bit of that, and maybe
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: even a lot of that, in Star Wars. We spend
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: 20 minutes before we see a human being. basically yeah
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: one of the most oddly structured films ever.
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah and even in something like you know 142 08
• 17:23
  Speaker 7: he you know there's a great moment when like the
• 17:25
  Speaker 7: car spins out and the guy's cranking these and there's
• 17:28
  Speaker 7: this you know disgusted look on his face this is
• 17:30
  Speaker 7: like man versus machine again yeah it's a theme he
• 17:33
  Speaker 7: really seems to love he did and again there's there's
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: stuff to take from all of that but yeah you
• 17:38
  Speaker 7: start to see it cobbled together of who he's.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: Going to be down the line um i guess one
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: of the things i wanted to touch on and see
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: how much you found out on the i mean if
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: the films themselves didn't change the world the merchandising definitely
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: did the marketing merchandising the toys all of it yeah
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: how connected to that was he beforehand like is it
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: something they just came to him and he went oh
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: that is a good idea or from the get-go was
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: he like I want action figures.
• 18:08
  Speaker 7: And then later he went, you know what would be smart? Well,
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: you know, Lucas was always very, like, control is his
• 18:14
  Speaker 7: modus operandi, basically. Like, I mean, it's like, you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 7: the moment that Universal edits four minutes out of American
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: Graffiti just because they can, like, that's the birth. I mean,
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: that happened to him, too, in THX. They took the movie. But, like,
• 18:26
  Speaker 7: that's the moment in Universal when Universal does it. That's
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: like the Marvel Comics supervillain moment with him shaking his
• 18:33
  Speaker 7: fist and, I'll get you.
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: Screaming towards the sky.
• 18:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that's the moment that Skywalker Ranch is sort of
• 18:39
  Speaker 7: born in his head. He's going to run the table
• 18:41
  Speaker 7: at some point because he's just furious with the studios.
• 18:44
  Speaker 7: In 1980, he calls them used car salesmen and the
• 18:46
  Speaker 7: sleazy art of the deal.
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: Which is funny, as simple as some of those things
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: are compared to some of the horrible things I've heard
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: people have done to their films.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: Four minutes by you know right and his movie still
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: holds up yeah yeah.
• 19:01
  Speaker 7: You know he puts the four minutes back in and
• 19:02
  Speaker 7: they're charming but you know you're like all right this
• 19:04
  Speaker 7: whole bit with anyway so um so when he's doing
• 19:08
  Speaker 7: star you know so control is always sort of the
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: way he's operating but so when he gets to star
• 19:11
  Speaker 7: wars he he talks about how when he's you know
• 19:13
  Speaker 7: he was making the movie or writing the movie and
• 19:16
  Speaker 7: he's like oh we need to have an r2d2 cookie
• 19:18
  Speaker 7: jar you know he kind of thinks of these little
• 19:19
  Speaker 7: things would be fun to have maybe a little pistol
• 19:21
  Speaker 7: or something.
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: Like for himself?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: Or like for merchandising?
• 19:25
  Speaker 7: And he did get his cookie jar eventually.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: I would hope so.
• 19:27
  Speaker 7: But he, you know, when he's negotiating those contracts, what
• 19:31
  Speaker 7: happens to him is while he's still, you know, negotiating
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: Star Wars, they pay him nothing in his initial contract.
• 19:38
  Speaker 7: And then American Graffiti hits. And now he's the hottest
• 19:40
  Speaker 7: director around. And so Fox is kind of scrambling. Are
• 19:42
  Speaker 7: we going to lose this kid? Should we renegotiate? And
• 19:45
  Speaker 7: his lawyer's like, we can renegotiate and get you a
• 19:47
  Speaker 7: million dollars. And Lucas says, no, I'll make it for
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: the pittance that they're going to pay me. But let's
• 19:53
  Speaker 7: go in and let's examine all those clauses now very carefully.
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: So I mean, American Graffiti sort of empowered him then
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: to go in there. He had a little bit of
• 20:00
  Speaker 7: control going in there and saying, they're not in the
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: People like to make it look like Fox got caught flat-footed,
• 20:07
  Speaker 7: but they didn't give them away not knowing what they were,
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: but they were kind of junk clauses, especially in the 70s.
• 20:12
  Speaker 7: You know, sequel rights, okay, good luck with your Planet
• 20:14
  Speaker 7: of the Apes franchise. You know, I mean, that was
• 20:16
  Speaker 7: kind of a thing.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: Sequels hadn't done well, really, outside of Godfather, which is
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: a very different type of movie. And merchandising, you know,
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: people had made toys for Dr. Doolittle, which tanked.
• 20:26
  Speaker 7: So people were, all right, take your merchandise, get some
• 20:28
  Speaker 7: dumb T-shirts out of it. Merchandising is seasonal stuff. Once
• 20:31
  Speaker 7: the movie's out of theaters, no one's going to want anything.
• 20:34
  Speaker 7: So Lucas held on to all these clauses, and so
• 20:37
  Speaker 7: when he's controlling all that and then does manage all
• 20:39
  Speaker 7: the spectacular merchandising, he can really sort of ride his
• 20:42
  Speaker 7: own ticket. But to get to the larger issue of
• 20:46
  Speaker 7: everything that we expect, everything that we derive pleasure from
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: nowadays in the filmmaking experience, he kind of laid out
• 20:54
  Speaker 7: for us. The merchandising, the sequels. We expect sequels now
• 20:57
  Speaker 7: to any dumb film.
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: Again, Empire was such a weird move at that point
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: because it just stops. And I'm like, now they all
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: do that. You watch any Harry Potter movie and they're like,
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: see you next year. Might as well just say that.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: You're sitting through the credits of Empire. Is there a
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: stinger at the end of this? Are we going to
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: get a preview of Boba Fett or something? Coming soon.
• 21:16
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so Lucas is the one that gave us the
• 21:20
  Speaker 7: idea that there should be sequels, and there should be merchandising,
• 21:22
  Speaker 7: and there should be great soundtracks that we can buy.
• 21:25
  Speaker 7: And the other part of the process that I just think,
• 21:29
  Speaker 7: like the audacity of this guy, is he's editing his films,
• 21:34
  Speaker 7: and he's saying, you know, they sound great. in the
• 21:37
  Speaker 7: editing room, and they sound like complete crap when they're
• 21:40
  Speaker 7: in the theater. Theaters need to get it together and
• 21:42
  Speaker 7: realign it so it sounds in the theater like it
• 21:44
  Speaker 7: does in my editing room. I mean, colossal balls, you know?
• 21:49
  Speaker 7: And what's he got? I mean, he's using his power
• 21:52
  Speaker 7: for good in a way. He's like, if you guys
• 21:53
  Speaker 7: want to reconfigure with this THX certification that I have,
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: and The way the candle rate and the speed at
• 21:59
  Speaker 7: which you run movies and all these little specials. Oh,
• 22:02
  Speaker 7: and by the way, I have Return of the Jedi
• 22:04
  Speaker 7: ready to go in THX if you'd like.
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: It's just waiting.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: But I'm only going to send it to the certified.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: I'll give you my certification.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: And he does it.
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: Again with Attack of the Clones. He's like, well, digital theater,
• 22:14
  Speaker 7: you know, you really should install digital projectors.
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: And I do have episode two here ready to go.
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: Ooh.
• 22:22
  Speaker 7: So, I mean, he's always, like, using Star Wars as leverage.
• 22:24
  Speaker 7: But for him, he's advancing the cause of the filmmaker.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:28
  Speaker 7: Getting, you know, having the ability to see their own,
• 22:31
  Speaker 7: you know, view of the film, their own image on
• 22:34
  Speaker 7: that screen.
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: Again, I've always said that. Like, if you take the
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: films out of play, it's like, Jaws is sort of
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: the big blockbuster that kicks it off. But from that
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: point on, everything that changes film for the next 30
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: years is almost always Lucas.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: It is like the creating the sequels and the franchising
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: and the marketing and the merchandising, upgrading the sound, like
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: even to the point of creating the blue screen effects
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: and like taking visual effects to a point of like.
• 23:04
  Speaker 7: Don't forget ILM, right?
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, ILM and then eventually Pixar sort of. Pixar is his... Stepson.
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: Side baby.
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: He still calls it my company. That's what you got
• 23:15
  Speaker 7: to love about it. It's still my company.
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: Again, like it is one of those, like you kind
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: of don't want to give them that much credit, but
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: you're like, damn, it's true.
• 23:22
  Speaker 7: Yeah, because what he's doing throughout the late 80s, early
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: 90s is, yeah, he's got, I mean, he's got ILM.
• 23:28
  Speaker 7: What are they doing?
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: They're giving you, oh, I know.
• 23:29
  Speaker 7: I don't know, Jurassic Park, you know, all these spectacular
• 23:33
  Speaker 7: special effects. Like, that's him. Important films, like Willow. Yeah, right,
• 23:36
  Speaker 7: like Willow. Like MST3K.
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: I liked Willow! But that monster looks great.
• 23:42
  Speaker 7: But, you know, ILM was really, you know, if there
• 23:44
  Speaker 7: were a long time you'd be watching a movie and
• 23:45
  Speaker 7: you'd be like, special effects by ILM? You're like, oh,
• 23:47
  Speaker 7: special effects by ILM! It's gonna be great!
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: And then it just became the standard like for a
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: while it was weird when it wasn't you're like where
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: is this rinky dink operation they pulled it.
• 23:56
  Speaker 7: From this movie and as I found out and I
• 23:57
  Speaker 7: mentioned this in the book at one point like it
• 23:59
  Speaker 7: was winning the Oscar every year and it was almost
• 24:01
  Speaker 7: always competing with itself in the category so you know
• 24:03
  Speaker 7: it would be nominated for like four movies and so
• 24:06
  Speaker 7: eventually there were a couple other guys that kind of
• 24:08
  Speaker 7: got their act together that were like okay we can
• 24:10
  Speaker 7: make our own house it's okay and now they actually
• 24:12
  Speaker 7: haven't won in a while but anyway it's like.
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: But they lit that fuse yeah and again sort of
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: kicked off all those new avenues in filmmaking, too, where
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: now there are guys doing nothing but special effects. Before,
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: there was a handful that worked in Hollywood, but think
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: of all the kids coming out of the late 70s
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: into the 80s that were just like, I want to
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: learn to do special effects. I want to do makeup. Again,
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: the weird monster kids that used to make Frankenstein masks.
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: Now it's like multiplied to where now there's more people
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: going to school to make these masks. Then there are
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: jobs to fill making these masks.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: Well, and now, too, it's like if you want to
• 24:48
  Speaker 7: make a monster, it's like, okay, then you need to
• 24:50
  Speaker 7: sit down and learn how to program it in a computer.
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: Because you're not actually going to build that mask. Nobody
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: does that anymore. We're just going to program this. And
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: you're like, but I want to be Rick Baker and
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: wear gorilla costumes. And you don't do that anymore. Yeah. So, like,
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: everything sort of changed because of what he had his
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: hands in. Right.
• 25:04
  Speaker 7: I mean, who knew, like, you know, this is one
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: thing that surprised me. Who knew how important Young Indiana
• 25:09
  Speaker 7: Jones and Radioland Murders were to the Star Wars trilogy?
• 25:14
  Speaker 7: Because that's where he's testing out that technology. That's where
• 25:16
  Speaker 7: he's undertaking like that sort of weird, unconventional filmmaking style
• 25:20
  Speaker 7: where he's like, you know what, we're just going to
• 25:21
  Speaker 7: keep rolling film for a year. We'll just keep shooting
• 25:24
  Speaker 7: and we'll be editing in real time now because we
• 25:26
  Speaker 7: can do it digitally. And if we need coverage, we'll
• 25:29
  Speaker 7: go back. We'll just keep everything open.
• 25:30
  Speaker 8: I mean.
• 25:31
  Speaker 7: Which is the way he filmed the prequels. So, I mean,
• 25:34
  Speaker 7: who knew that those two, I don't want to call
• 25:36
  Speaker 7: them goofy, but Radioland Murders really kind of is, but
• 25:39
  Speaker 7: those were two really important projects. The older versions of
• 25:41
  Speaker 7: the kids are pretty fun. They kind of sink to
• 25:43
  Speaker 7: the bottom, though, when you're thinking about it. You don't
• 25:45
  Speaker 7: think about young Indiana Jones that much.
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: Again, because it's TV, which now that's totally shifted, and
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: if it came out now, it would be the biggest
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: thing on Netflix.
• 25:54
  Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, it had to be frustrating. Like, ABC
• 25:57
  Speaker 7: had no idea what to do with that thing. Like,
• 25:59
  Speaker 7: they kept moving it around. It was like Twin Peaks almost. Like,
• 26:02
  Speaker 7: we don't know what to do with this. We're going
• 26:03
  Speaker 7: to keep shuffling around.
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: And again, it was weird that it jumps back and
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: forth to two different eras, two different actors. Like, that's
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: confusing for normal people. And then when you would see, like,
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: Indy is the old man, I'm like, oh, is that
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: the way he turned out?
• 26:14
  Speaker 7: Oh, I don't know if I like that.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: Let's just kill him off earlier.
• 26:18
  Speaker 7: But then that episode with Harrison Ford, I mean, that's
• 26:20
  Speaker 7: the moment where Lucas is like, oh, wouldn't it be
• 26:22
  Speaker 7: interesting to see Indiana Jones in the 50s?
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: Ties it all kind of together in a way that
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: we were fine with until we got more. Until we
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: got it, yeah. Until we got more. Well, you know,
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: it's like the story I always tell is.
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: Like, I remember watching, you know, the original Star Wars.
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: I don't call it episode four. It's Star Wars to me.
• 26:36
  Speaker 7: But I watched the original Star Wars when I was
• 26:37
  Speaker 7: in my 20s. And, you know, I was working in
• 26:39
  Speaker 7: politics by that time. And there's the line where Tarkin's like, oh,
• 26:41
  Speaker 7: we've dissolved the Senate and we've returned all the power
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: to the territorial governors. You're like, oh, wow, listen, wouldn't
• 26:47
  Speaker 7: that be fascinating to learn the politics behind Star Wars?
• 26:51
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 26:52
  Speaker 7: Not so much, really. Now, again, I say that, and
• 26:55
  Speaker 7: there are people who are like, what are you talking about?
• 26:57
  Speaker 7: That's so interesting, hearing about trade regulation.
• 26:59
  Speaker 11: Really?
• 26:59
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: And I've, again, being the geek that I am, I
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: keep going back and forth, because the more and more
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: I watch these things unfold, and especially the issues that
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: I have with one through three.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: The thing that I come to is like how sophisticated
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: the emperor's plan is. I'm like, I don't know, I'm
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: kind of on board with this guy. He's a mastermind.
• 27:20
  Speaker 7: Isn't it terrible like you're watching a tune and you're like,
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: I'm kind of having a hard time following this.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: This is actually very complicated. And yet he's working both
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: ends of the game in every movie. Like the first
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: one is mastermind. massive but even the second one he's playing.
• 27:31
  Speaker 7: Yeah you're kind of like you have to give lucas
• 27:33
  Speaker 7: credit you're like this is actually very complicated almost the
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: point where i'm not sure i knew what happened for
• 27:37
  Speaker 7: a little.
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: Bit yeah it's very especially the first one the first
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: one is so behind the scenes and yet he's working
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: both sides of the game to get a war that
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: hasn't even started right.
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: Yeah so it is it is intriguing and i'll tell
• 27:48
  Speaker 7: you i find attack of the clones so talky that
• 27:51
  Speaker 7: was the one when i was re-watching them again i
• 27:53
  Speaker 7: was like oh you know i turned my phone i
• 27:54
  Speaker 7: was like oh my god I forgot how talky that
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: movie was.
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: It's such a weird conglomeration of stuff, because it wants
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: to have the romance, but it wants to have the
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: big gladiator scene at the end. Right, yeah, he's trying
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: to get a lot of stuff done. And one silly
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: robot action thrown in the middle for laughs. And you
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: gotta give him credit.
• 28:10
  Speaker 7: I mean, that's the thing you gotta say for Lucas,
• 28:12
  Speaker 7: whether you like him or not, and I'm on record
• 28:14
  Speaker 7: as not a huge fan of him. As I was saying,
• 28:16
  Speaker 7: they weren't made for me, but... You know, but he's
• 28:19
  Speaker 7: advancing the ball. He's doing what he wants to. He's
• 28:21
  Speaker 7: going to tell the story he wants to tell. He
• 28:22
  Speaker 7: doesn't care what you think. He doesn't care if you
• 28:23
  Speaker 7: think he sucks. He doesn't care if you don't like
• 28:26
  Speaker 7: it that midichlorians were what give you forceful weights, which
• 28:29
  Speaker 7: really bothers me.
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: But he doesn't care what I think. Yeah, we've complained
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: on that many times. And he doesn't necessarily care what
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: the fans think.
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: You know, he's going to take his ball and go home.
• 28:35
  Speaker 7: I'm making the film I want to make. If you
• 28:37
  Speaker 7: don't like it, go make a film.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Dear George Lucas.
• 28:48
  Speaker 9: You should celebrate Cause I just saw Revenge of the
• 28:53
  Speaker 9: Sith And it was really great But then I heard
• 28:59
  Speaker 9: a rumor You're calling it a night Ain't gonna be
• 29:05
  Speaker 9: no more Star Wars movies That just.
• 29:08
  Speaker 8: Can't be right Well I know you're tired I'm sure
• 29:15
  Speaker 8: you need a break But you can't end the story now.
• 29:20
  Speaker 8: There's just too.
• 29:22
  Speaker 9: Much at stake.
• 29:25
  Speaker 8: So I'm gonna help you.
• 29:27
  Speaker 9: We'll keep this thing alive.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: I'll pick up right.
• 29:32
  Speaker 8: Where you left off for Star Wars 3.5. Cause there's
• 29:38
  Speaker 8: another story to tell For the Jedi and the Sith
• 29:45
  Speaker 8: And the way I see it Well it goes something
• 29:49
  Speaker 8: like this.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: Luke Skywalker.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: A cute little.
• 29:56
  Speaker 8: Baby They put him in his crib, but he levitates out.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: It's coming.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Here it comes.
• 30:09
  Speaker 7: It's intermission time.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Time to visit our concession stand.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Our tempting, tasty french fries go with everything.
• 30:17
  Speaker 8: Come and get them.
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: They are hot.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: They are delicious.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by World of Leathercraft. Specializing in
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: handmade leathercraft items with a specific nod to the geeky genres.
• 30:28
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• 31:04
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• 31:12
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• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the page. Then it will take you to their Etsy
• 31:16
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• 31:18
  Speaker 1: geek-friendly products they have to offer.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: All his life, he only cared about one thing. Himself.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: But now, the best hotshot pilot in the galaxy was
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: playing babysitter to an old man, a green kid, two robots,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: and a princess. Han Solo really had his hands full.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Han Solo is back. Star Wars is back. Star Wars.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Rated PG. Parental guidance suggested.
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: Keep organizing these fun conversations about film and keep booking
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: amazing guests. So just go to patreon.com slash movie meltdown
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: or go to movie meltdown.com. And the link is right
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: there at the top of the page and you can
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: help keep the show going. Plus you get exclusive episodes
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: every month just for club members. So go to our
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: Patreon page, join the meltdown club, become a milk a tear,
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: get cool stuff and keep the meltdown rolling. Damn the man.
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: Save the meltdown. Just where is our future? The things
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: we've done and said.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Let's just push the button.
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: We'd be better off dead.
• 32:55
  Speaker 9: Cause I hate you.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: And I berate you.
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: And I can't.
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: Wait to get to you.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Kirk R.
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: Thatcher, the punk on the bus in Star Trek 4.
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: First of all, I hate you. Secondly, you're listening to
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: Movie Meltdown.
• 33:13
  Speaker 6: And I eschew you.
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: And I.
• 33:24
  Speaker 9: It's part of your problem, you know.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: You haven't seen enough movies.
• 33:27
  Speaker 10: All of life's riddles are answered in the movies.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And now, on with the show.
• 33:42
  Speaker 7: There's a guy named George, and he made Star Wars.
• 33:46
  Speaker 10: It made lots of dough, so he made some more.
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: Luke and Han, Obi-Wan.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Building theater's number one, a galaxy far, far away.
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: But when the plot gets thin, we'll make the teddy
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: bears win. Luke should get the girl, Han can bear
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: it and grin.
• 34:05
  Speaker 7: He's her bro, she's his sis.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: We'll pretend that one kiss never happened, not at all.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: It's a small universe after all. It's a small universe
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: after all.
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: It's a small universe after all. Through this small, small world.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: That's where I initially want to go is like, as
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: you're doing this research, I've heard his answer, I think.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: What makes him turn away from directing? Because I know
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: there's the wife and the kids thing. Is that really?
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: Because he's, I mean, he's a pretty passionate artist in
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: those early days.
• 34:43
  Speaker 7: Part of it is, you know, the task, the physical
• 34:46
  Speaker 7: part of directing really took its toll on him. You know,
• 34:50
  Speaker 7: when he was making American Graffiti, you know, he had
• 34:52
  Speaker 7: this miserable hour. So they were working all night and
• 34:55
  Speaker 7: he's filming, hanging out of the harness on the side
• 34:57
  Speaker 7: of the car and they find him asleep and hanging
• 34:59
  Speaker 7: in the harness still. And Harrison Ford says he had
• 35:01
  Speaker 7: to yell cut sometimes and And John Milius tells a
• 35:04
  Speaker 7: story about how Lucas' diabetes flared up and he got
• 35:07
  Speaker 7: very sick. And when he was making Star Wars, he
• 35:09
  Speaker 7: had this painful foot infection. I think the directing takes
• 35:15
  Speaker 7: a physical toll on him. It does on a lot
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: of directors, it feels like. And he's not Francis Ford
• 35:21
  Speaker 7: Coppola who wants his actors to work with him and
• 35:24
  Speaker 7: go ahead and get method. Lucas doesn't want you to
• 35:26
  Speaker 7: get method. Just read the damn lines.
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: I mapped out everything I want to do. I'll be
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: over here figuring out this angle.
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: He's annoyed with Irving Kirshner. Stop mollycoddling these guys. Just
• 35:36
  Speaker 7: get the film done. But working with actors is not
• 35:39
  Speaker 7: his greatest strength. At least not in the 70s and
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: through the 70s. It got better. I think more than anything,
• 35:45
  Speaker 7: it was very physical. And Mark Hamill has just that
• 35:48
  Speaker 7: spectacular line where he says, I think if George could
• 35:50
  Speaker 7: make a movie without actors, he would.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: Pixar is born.
• 35:54
  Speaker 7: So, yeah.
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 35:56
  Speaker 7: So, you know, I think, I mean, it was just
• 35:58
  Speaker 7: the physical toll it took on him. You would think
• 36:00
  Speaker 7: you would rather be the director than, like, the executive
• 36:02
  Speaker 7: producer who has to shoulder the entire burden and is
• 36:04
  Speaker 7: following the budget and everything. But no, the directing for
• 36:06
  Speaker 7: him is the painful part. As we were saying, Lucas
• 36:09
  Speaker 7: likes post. He wants to do all that behind-the-scenes stuff,
• 36:12
  Speaker 7: but the directing was just miserable, physically miserable for him.
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: It's the first time I think I noticed the executive
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: producer as a legitimate job, that it wasn't just a
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: name on the credits. You could actually start to see,
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: as he stopped doing those movies and became executive producer
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: on all these others, you're like, well, he's still guiding
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: the movie, and sometimes he's still doing story-by. So from
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: the initial concept, it's his. And then every step of
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: the way, he's over their shoulder. But he doesn't have
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: to be there every day doing the grunt work. He
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: just comes in and goes, no, no, no, no. I've
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: got the money. You change this. You change this. You
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: do what I say. So he's puppet master.
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: Well, what I love is before they start working on Empire,
• 36:48
  Speaker 7: he's like, oh, no, no, no.
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: I'm going to just hire a director and let them
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: do the job. And I'll just sit back and be
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: executive producer and leave him alone.
• 36:53
  Speaker 7: Never does he leave poor Urban Kirshner alone. So much
• 36:57
  Speaker 7: so that Kirshner's like, I'm not directing the third episode
• 37:00
  Speaker 7: of The Return of the Jedi. Forget it. So he
• 37:02
  Speaker 7: kind of hovers over Kirshner and then just makes Richard
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: Marquand absolutely miserable. He can't ever relinquish control, but I
• 37:11
  Speaker 7: think when he's cut loose from the directing, that's when
• 37:13
  Speaker 7: he's actually enjoying the process a little more. But I
• 37:17
  Speaker 7: think once it came back to the prequels, I think
• 37:20
  Speaker 7: he realized at that time that because he's got the
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: new technology at his disposal, the only way to make
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: sure that comes out right, the only way to control it,
• 37:27
  Speaker 7: is you better put your butt in the director's chair.
• 37:28
  Speaker 7: And he's executive producing anyway. So Lucas is really running
• 37:32
  Speaker 7: the table by that point.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: And by that point, it had just dominoed to the
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: point that he had so much money of his own
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: that it becomes the most expensive independent film ever because
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: it's self-financed, basically.
• 37:43
  Speaker 7: But isn't it weird to think of Star Wars as
• 37:45
  Speaker 7: an independent film? And it really is.
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: Those one through three definitely are. But those first ones,
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: he's still fighting with budget issues. By the time he
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: got to one through three, he's like, I don't have
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: to deal with that anymore. Right. I got it in
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: pocket now.
• 38:00
  Speaker 7: And, you know, I had to kill him because on Empire,
• 38:02
  Speaker 7: for example, like, he's like, F you to Fox. I'm
• 38:04
  Speaker 7: going to finance this myself. And then, like, starts to
• 38:06
  Speaker 7: run out of money and kind of has to.
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: Go back and say, can I have 20 million, please,
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: just to finish this up? I'm going to put some
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: more clouds on Bespin. Can I get another? Exactly.
• 38:13
  Speaker 7: And so Fox is like, aha, now we can negotiate
• 38:14
  Speaker 7: our fee again. And they got a little bit of
• 38:16
  Speaker 7: bigger peace out of Jedi at that point.
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: And, yeah, hearing that they, like, passively cut the budget
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: on jedi i'm like this is the biggest movie franchise
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: in the world at this point and the studio still
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: doesn't have faith in the system or this director.
• 38:30
  Speaker 7: Or i mean you gotta love the fu he sends
• 38:33
  Speaker 7: to fox when he's negotiating empire like they end up
• 38:34
  Speaker 7: with like 20 of it i mean he just like
• 38:36
  Speaker 7: cuts them down to as little money as he can
• 38:38
  Speaker 7: possibly give them and i mean i think that's what
• 38:40
  Speaker 7: cost alan ladd his job yeah it's almost like just
• 38:43
  Speaker 7: give him whatever he needs to do this and so
• 38:45
  Speaker 7: by the time jedi comes around they're like yeah we're
• 38:46
  Speaker 7: not we're not falling for.
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: That one again.
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: But you're right. I mean, even when he's carrying around
• 38:51
  Speaker 7: something like Raiders and he's like, we're funding this, you
• 38:53
  Speaker 7: guys just need to distribute it. You know, it's harder
• 38:56
  Speaker 7: than he's planning, I think, to fund. And he has
• 38:59
  Speaker 7: to get somebody like Michael Eisner who kind of thinks
• 39:01
  Speaker 7: the way he thinks and is very aggressive and there's
• 39:03
  Speaker 7: a reason he ended up running Disney and all this. Who,
• 39:05
  Speaker 7: you know, who really kind of got it and understood
• 39:07
  Speaker 7: it was a great deal. If only to be associated
• 39:10
  Speaker 7: and affiliated with that film, you know.
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: And that little, especially that dynamic at that time, like
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: that is that golden spot in history of like, Lucas
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: producing Spielberg like right in the middle of his game.
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: At the height of his powers. And kind of finding
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: his footing. Like the first couple, you know, he's still
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: figuring this. out but by the time he hits jaws
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: it's just okay i've got this down and like that's
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: just then right in his stride.
• 39:35
  Speaker 7: And i think you know i think the raiders is
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: you know that both of them having the most fun
• 39:40
  Speaker 7: on a project because you know by the time they
• 39:42
  Speaker 7: get to temple of doom lucas's marriage is in shambles
• 39:44
  Speaker 7: and he's not having very much fun on that one
• 39:47
  Speaker 7: But in Raiders, little do we know behind the scenes.
• 39:51
  Speaker 7: And plus Spielberg's coming off that terrible helicopter accident on
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: Twilight Zone set that really gave him headaches and nightmares.
• 39:59
  Speaker 7: So Raiders is really sort of like Camelot to them
• 40:01
  Speaker 7: in a way. It's the perfect storm for them both.
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: They're both happy.
• 40:04
  Speaker 7: They're having a great time. Lucas knows everything. That Spielberg's
• 40:07
  Speaker 7: not going to drive this car into the ditch and,
• 40:09
  Speaker 7: you know, can just stand back and let Spielberg do
• 40:10
  Speaker 7: what Spielberg does.
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: And it takes it a little more serious. Like, for
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: something that's still fun and campy, like, it never hits that, like,
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: I love the other two, but they're very self-aware of
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: how silly and, like, afternoon cereal they are. So they
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: really kind of play it up where something still seems
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: sort of grounded in that first one, even though ridiculous
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: things happen in it. Like, it still feels like there's
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: stakes there. especially like Temple of Doom you don't really
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: feel oh god.
• 40:36
  Speaker 7: You know I remember seeing Temple of Doom in the
• 40:38
  Speaker 7: theater and you kind of walk in there and go
• 40:39
  Speaker 7: whoo you know wow wow what was that what the
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: hell very depressing it was a crazy ride literally that
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: middle part there we're on a roller coaster for like
• 40:47
  Speaker 7: 20 minutes but you know but I mean that's you
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: know that is a metaphor for Lucas's state you know
• 40:51
  Speaker 7: he's been divorced and you know when the guy tears
• 40:53
  Speaker 7: somebody's heart out of their chest that is real I
• 40:55
  Speaker 7: mean that is Lucas's guts on the screen he's gone
• 40:58
  Speaker 7: through that horrible divorce his heart has been torn out of.
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: His body so So, yeah, that was one of those
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: I was trying to decide what, yeah, what changed him
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: as an artist. And I guess it is the being
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: able to control it without the grunt work.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: Then, and this was one I asked, we've had Ben,
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: who's a guy on the show all the time, and
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: I was telling him we were going to talk about this.
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: He was like, okay, here's my question. He's like, he
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: wants to know, like, what about that point when.
• 41:24
  Speaker 7: The tide starts to turn?
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: Because up until mid-90s, he's like a god. For geeks everywhere, granted,
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: it's a smaller pool of geeks than it is today,
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: but still, he was pretty much infallible. I mean, nobody
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: even questioned Jedi back then. Those three movies were great,
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: and now we go, hmm, Z-Walks. But at the time,
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: I don't remember people really nitpicking Jedi. It became a
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: geek thing later.
• 41:48
  Speaker 7: I think the tables turned a little bit with the
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: special editions.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: That's, yeah. And it dominoes. It's like special editions into... one,
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: and then by the time you get to Crystal Skull,
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: it's like people have just lost it.
• 42:01
  Speaker 7: It's like one begats another, begats another, and so on.
• 42:05
  Speaker 7: Without the special edition succeeding, you probably don't get the prequels.
• 42:10
  Speaker 7: But what happens with the special editions is then he
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: has to keep going back and meddling, meddling, meddling, meddling, meddling.
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: And still to this day. And still to this day.
• 42:18
  Speaker 7: And so, you know, but the fact that people went
• 42:20
  Speaker 7: to see the special editions in the theater, I think
• 42:22
  Speaker 7: that was one of those eureka moments, and he was like, wow,
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: people still respond very strongly to Star Wars. They still
• 42:27
  Speaker 7: love Star Wars.
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: Love it, and we'll come back and spend more money.
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: Come back again. As if I'm not getting them in,
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: you know, DVDs for them. And it was a chance
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: for people to go back and be like, oh, right,
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: I remember.
• 42:35
  Speaker 7: Seeing Star Wars in the theater. I saw it at
• 42:38
  Speaker 7: the Uptown Theater in D.C. in 97 when it came out,
• 42:41
  Speaker 7: and it was awesome. Um, but even then I was
• 42:44
  Speaker 7: very upset about the Han shot first, but very, very
• 42:47
  Speaker 7: upset about that even then. But, but yeah, you can't
• 42:49
  Speaker 7: stop messing with him.
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: But, but anyway, like I think another weird artist D
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: over produced.
• 42:55
  Speaker 7: But that's at the point where I think his relationship
• 42:57
  Speaker 7: with the fans does start to tilt.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: A little bit.
• 43:00
  Speaker 7: And, and I, you know, I think part of it,
• 43:02
  Speaker 7: I think this was like his, you know, post Vietnam
• 43:05
  Speaker 7: flashback almost is just like, here are the fans, you know,
• 43:08
  Speaker 7: essentially like cut four minutes out of your movie, George,
• 43:10
  Speaker 7: you know, that's, That's Ned Tannen at Universal Studios with
• 43:12
  Speaker 7: American Graffiti. I think him hearing us as fans nitpicking that,
• 43:17
  Speaker 7: I mean, that really bugs him, I think.
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: I think that was part of what Ben's question was,
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: was how aware was he of that stuff? Because it
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: was pre-social media or the very outskirts of social media,
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: maybe by the prequels. So how connected was he to
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: the point of starting to see all this backlash? Because
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: in the fan world, I was there, and I'm like,
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: Han shot first. What the hell? And even by the
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: time you get the Jedi special edition, I'm like, this
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: dance scene is ridiculous. So the fans are all kind
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: of rumbling at that point. Changing the song that Tice
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: Noodles was singing? Come on. I'm like, no, no, no.
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: I want Lofty Neck. Come on. Lofty Neck's the way
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: to go. The original Ewok song.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Come on, guys.
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I mean, the fans are definitely all out
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: there complaining, but I'm like, at that point, has it
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: started making its way back to it?
• 44:07
  Speaker 7: You know, I think a little bit. But, you know,
• 44:08
  Speaker 7: the fans are still, even at that time, more than
• 44:11
  Speaker 7: willing to meet him more than halfway. And so, you know,
• 44:14
  Speaker 7: so then when he announces he's coming back to Star Wars, like,
• 44:16
  Speaker 7: we're really fired up and excited. I mean, I was
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: working on Capitol Hill at the time, and here's, like,
• 44:21
  Speaker 7: Senate staffers were like, oh, my God, there's a new
• 44:23
  Speaker 7: Star Wars film coming. Like, everybody was so excited for it.
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: That puts it in perspective, the fact that Geek Guys...
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: We're willing to go watch Meet Joe Black.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: Just to see it. Just to see a trailer. Two minutes.
• 44:34
  Speaker 7: On YouTube, there's a great video that somebody made in
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: the theater. They took a giant camera in there. So
• 44:40
  Speaker 7: you can hear the audience reaction. And like, the place
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: goes nuts.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 44:44
  Speaker 7: And they just go insane. When the Lucasfilm logo comes.
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: Out, people lose their minds.
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: Yeah, they just go bananas.
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: It was still... Again, you start to see it turn
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: with special editions, but it was still there. The love
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: was waiting to be just heaped upon him. And the
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: preview for Phantom Menace is.
• 45:00
  Speaker 7: Actually spectacularly good.
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: Even at the time, I think I kind of remember going,
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: who is that weird, fishy character? But you bought into it.
• 45:07
  Speaker 7: It looks really awesome.
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: You're like, he knows what he's doing. It's planets that
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: you've seen.
• 45:13
  Speaker 7: I don't know.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: At first, that... The Phantom Menace trailer really holds up.
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: Just watch that.
• 45:20
  Speaker 7: Just watch the trailer. The trailer holds up.
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: Well, and then, but that's, yeah, as we get into
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: it and like you just watch the, it's just the
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: domino effect. It's like by the time Phantom Menace kind
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: of like everybody walks out of the theater and goes.
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: I don't think I like that. It was like the denial.
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: Fans were like, it's George Lucas. I have to like it, right?
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: But I don't feel right.
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: But the other problem is he really played the merchandising
• 45:44
  Speaker 7: card wrong on that one. Like, hyper-saturated the market with just.
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: Endless amounts of stuff. There's a Rizzoli action figure. Does
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: anybody need a 40-something balding dude that's not cool? has
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: barely any lines.
• 45:58
  Speaker 7: Yeah so you know but you know neckties and on
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: pepsi cans it's just like they just oversaturated the market
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: i think that box yeah i think there was a
• 46:06
  Speaker 7: little bit of backlash on that and i think he
• 46:09
  Speaker 7: got that because you know he actually brings the fans
• 46:12
  Speaker 7: out to skywalker ranch to you know talk to them
• 46:15
  Speaker 7: and he's actually you know trying to do a preemptive
• 46:18
  Speaker 7: strike on some of this stuff but you know, recognize
• 46:21
  Speaker 7: they probably over-marketed and they scale back their marketing on
• 46:23
  Speaker 7: the next ones.
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: It is funny because it's one of those first times
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: you start to see the project creator start tinkering with
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: it as it's going.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: Because now you see that in series all the time. Like,
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: people lose their mind at the beginning of the season
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: of Walking Dead. By the end, they'll change what's going
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: to happen because fans are bitching on Twitter 24-7 so
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: they're just like, I guess we gotta redo this. So, Like,
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: it's funny now how immediate that is with social media
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: being like it is. But, like, that's kind of that
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: first thing of, like, he just dropped Phantom Menace in
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: people's laps and they were like, I don't like this
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: and this. So you see, like, by the time Attack
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: of the Clones comes out, he's like. all right, Jar
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: Jar's only got a couple lines, and then we're going
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: to send him out to pasture for a while. Well,
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: and I love his first draft. He writes on the front,
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: Jar Jar's a big adventurer. He thinks he's hilarious. Again,
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: he's still needling it. Exactly. He's still twisting the knife.
• 47:16
  Speaker 7: A little bit.
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: He's still bitter about it. He's like, I want to
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: do it my way, but... Fine.
• 47:21
  Speaker 7: And again, he's one of the first people to be
• 47:23
  Speaker 7: sort of internet savvy. Some of the trailers only come
• 47:25
  Speaker 7: out if you put in the DVD, which will take
• 47:27
  Speaker 7: you to a special feature on the web. I mean,
• 47:29
  Speaker 7: he really still couldn't help playing with that technology. He'll
• 47:33
  Speaker 7: never take that away from him.
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: And still kind of rewarding the fans that are real
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: hardcore fans. fans. He's just like, if you go down
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: this rabbit hole on the internet, here's a screenshot from
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: this thing that I'm not going to put out anywhere else.
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: Even J.J.
• 47:44
  Speaker 7: Abrams does that. Look, we put the Tumblr from Batman
• 47:47
  Speaker 7: is on the bottom of the Millennium Falcon.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: If you look, you can see R2-D2 on the wall
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: in Raiders. He's always played that game. When we get
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: to that point, he just hits this fall from grace.
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: By the time you get through those first three Before
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: we even get to Crystal Skull, people have just kind
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: of lost so much respect for him. And to the
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: point of being angry, this is, again, a weird veering
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: of fandom into the point of not even like, oh,
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: I just don't like your movie. It's like, you've ruined
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: something that was mine. My childhood is spoiled. It's a very... weird, spoiled,
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: possessive child thing that these generations now have that, again,
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: nobody did that back in the 50s. Nobody was doing that.
• 48:35
  Speaker 7: But you hit it perfectly because the problem, both the
• 48:38
  Speaker 7: blessing and the curse of Star Wars, for Lucas in particular,
• 48:42
  Speaker 7: is we all feel like we own it. You know,
• 48:46
  Speaker 7: it's so important to so many of us that we
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: all have opinions on it. We all have our idea
• 48:50
  Speaker 7: of what an ideal Star Wars film is like. You
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: and I could probably make a list of ten things
• 48:54
  Speaker 7: that would make an awesome Star Wars movie. And we'd
• 48:55
  Speaker 7: probably agree on seven of them. But then we might
• 48:58
  Speaker 7: come to fisticuffs on the other three.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: You know, it's like... When we're done, we can send
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: it to Disney and they'll make it in three years.
• 49:04
  Speaker 7: People feel very strongly about Star Wars. People feel entitled...
• 49:09
  Speaker 7: To Star Wars, to their opinions on Star Wars.
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: And in a way, it's great.
• 49:12
  Speaker 7: I mean, people are so invested in Star Wars that
• 49:14
  Speaker 7: they do feel strong. I think there's a lot of
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: creative people that would love to have fan bases that
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: are that devoted that rabid that opinionated even when they're
• 49:23
  Speaker 7: mad You know, you at least know they're out there.
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: They keep watching.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:26
  Speaker 7: They keep watching.
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: Well, again, it is that weird generational shift that's continued
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: to happen.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: With each new... Like, the Gen X kids were just, like,
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: so lashed onto that.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: And they were the one that got up in arms.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: Like, again.
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: kids still kind of like The Phantom Menace. You know,
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: it's like, yay, George R.R.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Martin's down.
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: It's funny. Yeah, that's what I say.
• 49:47
  Speaker 7: Look, the prequels weren't made for me. I'm generation one.
• 49:50
  Speaker 7: I'm an episode four, five, six guy. I hate to
• 49:53
  Speaker 7: call him that, but I'm a four, five, six guy
• 49:54
  Speaker 7: because the Star Wars you like, but I always say
• 49:57
  Speaker 7: Saturday Night Live, you always think the best years on
• 49:59
  Speaker 7: SNL are the ones you watch between the ages of
• 50:00
  Speaker 7: 20 and 24. It's true, really. And for Star Wars,
• 50:03
  Speaker 7: it's the ones you saw between the ages of nine
• 50:04
  Speaker 7: and 15. And, you know, Jon Stewart has that great
• 50:07
  Speaker 7: line when George is on the show and he says,
• 50:09
  Speaker 7: and Jon Stewart says to George Lucas, My son says
• 50:11
  Speaker 7: that The Phantom Menace is his favorite Star Wars movie,
• 50:14
  Speaker 7: and I keep telling him, no, it's not.
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: So, you know, there you've got the generational aspect there.
• 50:19
  Speaker 7: The little kids like the prequels.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: They do.
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: Their parents don't. Well, I've said that on the show before.
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: I remember the tail end of working at a video store,
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: and families would come in, and there was just a
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: Star Wars section, and they didn't section them out, and
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: kids would be like, I want... Return of the Sith
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: and Empire. Right. And they would just pick two out
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: of there and watch them and they didn't... You're like,
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: you're not watching them in order! First of all, which
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: order are you watching them in? We need to sit
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: you down. Second of all, these don't... You're like Professor Frank. Yeah,
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: these don't go together. You can't enjoy them on as
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: many levels as I do. So you're not going to
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: shock when you see the text changes and the culture.
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I'm just kind of like... You can't watch
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: them out of order.
• 51:00
  Speaker 7: They won't make sense.
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: I'm ringing them up looking at their parents going, did
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: you okay? I'm like, are you sure this is all right?
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: Because.
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: I don't know about this. So yeah. But, but seeing
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: that firsthand, I was like, well, it doesn't matter what
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: I like. If there's people out there that still love it,
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: you know, I guess it doesn't matter.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: But you get that weird generational thing that goes on
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: to the point, kind of that same thing where now like,
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: we are so spoiled as a society, and as geeks
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: and fandom, you know, is taking over, it's like kind
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: of the biggest moneymaker there is now.
• 51:31
  Speaker 7: Right, I mean, and we want our way, and we,
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: you know, demand that creators hear our concerns and, you know, respond.
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: And act on them. And they have to sometimes, which
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: kind of sucks.
• 51:40
  Speaker 7: But it is, you know, it's a bizarre play, and
• 51:42
  Speaker 7: especially for the, you know, somebody like George Lucas is like,
• 51:44
  Speaker 7: you can't, you don't get to tell me that. Josh
• 51:46
  Speaker 7: Whedon's like, I'm hanging it up. So, you know, it's just,
• 51:49
  Speaker 7: it depends on the temperament of the artist, too, but it's,
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: Some people care terribly what the fans think.
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, you saw Lucas sort of bite his tongue.
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: But here's what's interesting.
• 52:01
  Speaker 7: What's flipped on this is, you know, okay, Lucas never
• 52:04
  Speaker 7: cared what we think. We still care what Lucas thinks
• 52:06
  Speaker 7: about the new movies now.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:08
  Speaker 7: And we saw Rogue One and liked it. Okay, you know. Well,
• 52:10
  Speaker 7: that's good. But half of us are like, oh, we
• 52:13
  Speaker 7: liked it? Well, it's going to suck then. And then
• 52:15
  Speaker 7: half of us are like, oh, we liked it? That
• 52:16
  Speaker 7: means it's going to be awesome. So, you know, when
• 52:18
  Speaker 7: he sort of gave The Force Awakens that ringing endorsement
• 52:21
  Speaker 7: of it was okay. You know, you're like, what does
• 52:25
  Speaker 7: that mean? But it still matters to us what he thinks.
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: It kind of does.
• 52:29
  Speaker 7: What the creator thinks, yeah.
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean, this is one of those I
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: will almost give him credit. For most of those first three,
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: definitely Phantom Menace. It's like, he really just made what
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: he wanted to make. And again, funded it out of
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: pocket and was like, screw you guys, I'm doing this.
• 52:42
  Speaker 7: And you know, did shape episode two, I think, because
• 52:45
  Speaker 7: of fan outrage on Jar Jar.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 52:48
  Speaker 7: I don't buy that Jar Jar was a Sith Lord,
• 52:50
  Speaker 7: but I think they did tone him down a little bit.
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: Again, he was supposed, Anakin was supposed to come in
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: a little older, and I think he realized that mistake, too.
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: It's like, now he's back to young Indiana Jones as
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: a 10-year-old, and I'm like, nobody cares about this little kid. Like,
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: at least when you're a teenager, you've got some sort
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: of adventures going on, and you're interested in girls, and
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: things are kind of interesting in a normal person version.
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: Little kids are just weird little kids, and they deal
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: in their own little kid world, and it's harder to
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: bring in a bigger audience.
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: And I think, like, he was like, all right, fine,
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: we're gonna have to focus more on the romance, and like,
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: That backfired on us too. So it's like, it's, yeah,
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: it is weird watching how he's, he's just on that
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: tightrope of like, I want to be an artist and
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: I want to do whatever the hell I want. But
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: he's right at the edge of like starting to get
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: feedback and starting to be like, I guess I'll do it.
• 53:38
  Speaker 7: And the thing you got a little about Lucas too,
• 53:39
  Speaker 7: half the time is half the time when somebody complains
• 53:41
  Speaker 7: about something, he's like, well, that's what I meant to
• 53:42
  Speaker 7: do it that way.
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: Like everyone's like, oh, the love story. It's really over
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: the top.
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: Oh, it's supposed to be over the top.
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: I'm glad you got that. You know, the retconning is ridiculous.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: I remember just yelling at the screen going, I've seen
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: interviews of you. It's a nine story. And then when
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: he came back, it was just, oh no, it was
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: always supposed to be six.
• 53:58
  Speaker 7: It was always supposed to be six.
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: It was always supposed to be six. I'm like, I've
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: seen you say it. It came out of your mouth.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Are you kidding?
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: At one point he said it was 12.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no.
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: So, you know, yeah, he could.
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: And I remember when I was in like fifth grade
• 54:08
  Speaker 7: reading Splinter of the Mind's Eye and reading some other
• 54:11
  Speaker 7: interview with him. And he's like, well, the, The early
• 54:13
  Speaker 7: installments of Star Wars will actually probably be narrated by
• 54:15
  Speaker 7: 3PO and R2 and will be the adventures of Ben
• 54:18
  Speaker 7: Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Like, they were
• 54:22
  Speaker 7: clearly three people to him, even at that time. So
• 54:24
  Speaker 7: all this stuff about.
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: And yeah, you can doubt, you can like, so even
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: watching them now, you can be like, he had no
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: idea the Luke and Leia thing.
• 54:33
  Speaker 7: Absolutely.
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: Watching that first one, I'm just like, you would not
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: set up any of this like that. You wouldn't set
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: up a triangle right when you know down the line
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: two of them are related that's just creepy.
• 54:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah I mean he's like and I think even at
• 54:46
  Speaker 7: the time he was he was saying he was intentionally
• 54:48
  Speaker 7: doing like a like a road movie so there was
• 54:50
  Speaker 7: like the girl with the two guys and there was
• 54:52
  Speaker 7: tension there like You're right.
• 54:54
  Speaker 5: You don't do that if you're intending all along to
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: make that brother sister. That works in episode four. That
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: is part of that weird dynamic. It's a gang together.
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: They're having fun.
• 55:02
  Speaker 7: People watch it now and you can hear the goobers
• 55:06
  Speaker 7: going on.
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: Gross. Because now everybody knows. But yeah, at the time,
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: watching that moment in Empire when she just plants one
• 55:13
  Speaker 5: on him.
• 55:13
  Speaker 7: And then he leans back.
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: Oh, the smug look. Again, that was really kind of
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: a cool moment that first time.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: It's not ruined forever! Or three years later, like, Luke's like, ah,
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: Luke really stuck at the Han there. And we're like, well,
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: not so much in the long... Oh, Han got him
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: on that one, and if only he knew... In the
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: long game, it's a whole different story. Then, I think
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: the other thing with that, like, ridiculous fandom, it also
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: goes to the other end of, like, almost to the
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: point of religious zealots. But to the point it is
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: like a spiritual thing, like kind of from both. On
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: the one hand, some people can check a box that
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: says Jedi now in a form.
• 55:54
  Speaker 7: And did.
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: And yeah. But on the other, I'm like there are
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: people that like it really is as important. Like these
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: are the stories that we were raised on that like
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: shaped who we are turning out to be. And like
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: it is almost like a fable or– Biblical stories were
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: meant to teach a lesson. You learn these things from
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: Star Wars. Very well put.
• 56:15
  Speaker 7: It'd be like if nowadays you went back and you're like, okay,
• 56:18
  Speaker 7: all the stuff you read in Essence Fables, actually... we're
• 56:21
  Speaker 7: going to retcon that. And the tortoise actually doesn't win
• 56:24
  Speaker 7: the race because the hare had a hovercraft the entire time.
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: The tortoise just waited by the side of the road
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: and snipered him on.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: The way out.
• 56:30
  Speaker 7: Yeah, something like that. Because at the time we didn't
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: have sniper technology, but now we do. So yeah, it
• 56:35
  Speaker 7: would be like going back and tampering with those stories.
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: I mean, and the delicious irony of it is you
• 56:39
  Speaker 7: go back and read Lucas's testimony from Capitol Hill when
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: they were talking, you know, this is the time Ted
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: Turner's colorizing movies and Lucas and Spielberg appear in front
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: of the subcommittee and they're like, they shouldn't be tampering
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: with movies, and they need to be intact for the
• 56:53
  Speaker 7: next thousand years. And then after Lucas goes back and
• 56:57
  Speaker 7: does tinker with them, his response is, well, I'm the creator.
• 57:00
  Speaker 7: I'm the one that gets to make that call.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: I can say that.
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: You guys don't get to say that.
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: But what would he have done had Akira Kurosawa gone
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: back to the Seven Samurai and tried to retcon or
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: tinker with them? He'd have been apoplectic.
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: Put cell phones in people's hands instead of swords.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: Because swords might kill people.
• 57:15
  Speaker 7: I mean, you might say, why would he do that?
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: He's tinkering with a perfectly acceptable movie. He shouldn't be
• 57:18
  Speaker 7: doing that. Well, that's what people think you're doing.
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: It's funny that even Spielberg went down there.
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly.
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: Thank God he came to his senses and came back.
• 57:24
  Speaker 7: But it was for the children.
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: It seems to, I'm like, to me, I was like,
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: if that federal agent doesn't have a gun in his
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: hand right now, he's not a very good federal agent.
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: If he's holding a flashlight.
• 57:35
  Speaker 7: You got a walkie talkie? What are you going to do.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Tell on me?
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: He's got a walkie talkie instead. I'm like, he's a
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: horrible government agent. He's fired. So I'm like, it made
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: sense that he had a gun.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: So yeah, thankfully they came around. I mean, did you
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: even think about it when you were, I didn't.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: No.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: Again, like we, well, again, we were, we were coming
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: up in a very different time, like, and You see,
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: especially the Spielberg movies do that. They're just like, you're
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: watching Elliot. Elliot's got a rough life. Elliot's coming up
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: in a weird family. Same thing with Poltergeist. All these
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: kids are being their weird little suburban world, but things
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: aren't easy. It's like you see them kind of coming up,
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: trying to figure shit out, and that's what every little
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: kid's doing at that point. But we weren't coddled. There's
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: a weird thing going on now where it's like both sides.
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: Kids are so.
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: Disconnected from what's going on and the parents are like
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: helicopter parents that want to protect them but at the
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: same time every one of them is on the internet
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: all day looking at the most god awful stuff so
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: it's like two sides of the same coin of like
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: You're not really prepared for the world, but you've seen
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: the most horrible things it has to offer. So like,
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: what are these? I worry what's going to happen.
• 58:43
  Speaker 7: In the comfort of your own home, you saw all
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: these things.
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I worry what's going to happen.
• 58:46
  Speaker 7: At least we had to go to the darkness of
• 58:47
  Speaker 7: the movie theater to be terrified by Poltergeist or something.
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: So Poltergeist scared the living shit out of me when
• 58:52
  Speaker 7: I saw it. I mean, I think I was a
• 58:54
  Speaker 7: teenager when I saw that movie and it scared the
• 58:55
  Speaker 7: crap out of me.
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: It's an odd. I'm not a clown puppet guy, and
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: I will never be because of that.
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: That's not fun for anybody.
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: Clowns in general. Puppets, it depends. You know, the hints
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: right muppets are i'm okay muppets are always clown.
• 59:08
  Speaker 7: Clown muppets not clown puppets.
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: Oh well then i guess where do we where do
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: we go with this like what do we take from
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: all of it as you get to the end and
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: you see that hard turn of george going you know
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: guys i'm just letting it all go if If he is, again,
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: it'll be interesting to see if he changes something.
• 59:28
  Speaker 7: I don't think it was fan response to Star. I
• 59:30
  Speaker 7: don't think he was sending a fuck you to the
• 59:31
  Speaker 7: fans at all by saying, I'm retiring. I really think
• 59:34
  Speaker 7: it was Red Tails. I think it was the response. Again,
• 59:37
  Speaker 7: once again, trying to make a movie.
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: People going, we don't really care about your other stuff.
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: But I don't even think it was necessarily fan response
• 59:42
  Speaker 7: to Red Tails. I think it's, I mean, the studios
• 59:45
  Speaker 7: didn't believe in it. He put all of his own
• 59:47
  Speaker 7: money into it. He had a hell of a time
• 59:48
  Speaker 7: getting people to distribute it. Some of the studios didn't
• 59:51
  Speaker 7: even send people to the showings of it. I mean,
• 59:53
  Speaker 7: that really pissed him off. It really hurt his feelings.
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: It's a different world now because you look at the
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: stuff Coppola puts out, too.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: He's coming out of the same camp as you. He's
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: as big a recognizable name as you. Has anybody, specifically
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: in the real world, movie geeks maybe, but there's a
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: couple of his recent ones that I'm like, you can
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: name them and people won't recognize the name.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: Because it's just no studio puts that much money into
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: projects anymore. They do not back you like they used to.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: And your name doesn't necessarily mean people are going to
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: watch the movie. So Red Tails is a good example.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 7: And I think partly, I mean, and, you know, Lucas
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 7: was a crusader for this long before he married an
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 7: African-American woman. So, you know, people who like want to
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: be cynical, like, well, it's just because of his wife.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 7: But I mean, Lucas was dogging this since 1990. And
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 7: he was determined that it had to have a black cast,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 7: a black director, a black writer. So in a way,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 7: it's kind of Lucas being prescient in this before– he's
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 7: ahead of the curve on it again. Lucas is the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 7: one who's like, you need black voices in a movie.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 7: This is before Oscars so wide comes along. Lucas is
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 7: the one who– I mean the beauty of it is
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 7: his writer for that wins the Oscar for 12 Years
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 7: a Slave.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: But Lucas is the one who recognizes it's important to.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 7: Do this and does it. And the problem is he
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 7: does it rather badly. All of his stuff has been
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 7: so awkward. But again, forget our response from the theater.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 7: The front end of that, when the studios just throw
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 7: up their hands, I think that left a horrible taste
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 7: in his mouth. And that's the interview he does where
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 7: he basically says, I'm retiring. I am done. This is it.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 7: That really bothered him. And he threw in the word
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 7: racist and his reckoning of that. It really, really bothered him.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: It is one of the... He kept making that... For
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: even when.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: Definitely after the prequels, but like for years, maybe even
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: before the prequels, he kept doing that. Like, I want
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: to make my smaller art. I want to go back
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: to what I used to do, which is true. Like,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: you know, when you, when you are that hotshot kid
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: and you're making these first couple of movies out of
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: the gate before star Wars comes along that are, I mean,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: he really was like the, the golden boy at that era.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: So like when you can't do that anymore, when like
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: the things have shifted so much and you're hit with
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: this media onslaught and this, Public response, which is great,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: but at the same time, you can't go back to
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: being that guy anymore, right? I want to make THX again,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: but I don't get to do that now.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 7: You know, I think in a way he did it, like, indirectly.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: He did it, like, through his friends through the 80s
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 7: and 90s. You know, like a film like Pao Quazi
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 7: or Mishima. Like, those are the kind of films I
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 7: think he would have liked to have made.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 7: And so, you know, backing them in his own way,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 7: working behind the scenes. Even a film, like, people forget that, like,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 7: he produced Body Heat. You know, it was really important
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 7: to him to help out Caston and stuff. But, you know, like,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 7: that's a very personal film. And Lucas, you know, likes
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 7: supporting the artist like that. So you look at the
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: stuff he's even executive producing. I mean, that's still him
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 7: trying to advance the cause, advance the cause of part. And,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 7: you know, doing those weird movies without actually having his
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 7: hands on it. It's something like Twice Upon a Time
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 7: that John Correa does.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: A film that I love.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: Fantastic film. And that's a very sort of experimental animation film,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 7: which he would have loved to have made, I think.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 5: But again, at this point, he kept kind of fighting.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 5: He's like, I want to do that. But then he'd
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: come back and do Red Tails, which is still a
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: huge budget, major cat.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 7: And now we'll do Indiana Jones again.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: And now we'll do another Indiana Jones. And I want
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: to do more Star Wars. I'm just like... just do
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: what it is you say you want to do or
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: quit saying that one or the other. Spielberg's like, we're
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: still waiting, George. At this point, that's the thing. Now
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: that he's been like, okay, I've left That. I've left
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 5: Star Wars behind. I've left everything.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: It would be.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: Kind of interesting for him. Like, we now have the technology.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: You don't need any... First of all, you have your
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: own ranch. You could do it that way. But, like,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: all you need now is a phone. And, like, you
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: can make little indie movies again. And you don't even
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: need somebody to distribute it. Put it on YouTube.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 7: If somebody found out George Lucas had a YouTube channel,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 7: and he's like, oh, I'm going to make this little
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 7: weird artsy-fartsy four-and-a-half-minute movie, and I'm going to put a...
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 7: That thing would have two billion hits in three days.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: That's what I'm saying. I'm like, in this world... Anybody
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: can put their stuff out there now. So I'm like,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: why doesn't, if he was really meaning.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: Those things he kept saying. I'm going to make a
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 7: movie nobody, I don't care if anyone sees it.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: I don't care if anybody, yeah.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 7: Although that's funny because at one point he's like, I
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 7: don't think you can make a movie. And then he
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 7: comes around and he's like, why would you make a
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 7: movie nobody wants to see? You know, like he's berating
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 7: Coppola again. Lucas is always at his best when he's
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 7: berating Coppola.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: Again, he cancels himself out with most of his own comments.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 7: And he's usually yelling at Coppola when he does it.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 7: Why would you make a movie no one wants to see, Francis? Hey,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 7: you made.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: Howard the Duck, man. That is, I mean, that's, I
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 5: keep coming back to Coppola. He is the perfect example
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: because his stuff, like, he is still doing them. They're
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: usually not huge budget. They might be a couple of million. But, again,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: for him, that's something he can swing. And, like, they're just, like,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: I feel like Coppola's working backwards as an artist. Like,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: when he was still relatively young, he did a few
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: off ones. But, like, he's putting out these amazing and
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: complicated and very polished film.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: And you look at these ones that he's done these
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 5: last couple years and they kind of feel like an
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: art film student. Like they're very artsy. They're super artsy.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: They're also not worried about being like conventional. They're not
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: worried about like specifically telling a story or making money
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: or any of that. He's gotten, which again, I guess
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: maybe he's an old guy now and he doesn't care
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: about any of that. But I feel like he's reverted
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: back to his art school kid that he wanted to be.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 5: And I'm like, why doesn't Lucas do that?
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 7: I think the one who does, and he's not in
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 7: their circle on this, but I think the one who
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 7: does probably at, perfectly in that regard is somebody like
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 7: Woody Allen. Woody Allen's like, look, I'm going to make
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 7: two films a year. One of them you're never really
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 7: going to hear of, and the second one you might
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 7: hear of, and maybe you don't even win an Oscar.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 7: Or at least be nominated. Yeah, he makes two films
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 7: a year, and you go back later. I mean, you
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 7: look at Woody Allen's, I'm like, I haven't seen... It's
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 7: a phone book. I haven't seen half of the stuff
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 7: that came out post-radio days.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: I haven't seen half of these. A lot of them.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: He's like, I'm just going to put out two movies
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 5: a year. Maybe you'll see them, maybe you won't.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 7: And that's kind of Lucas's attitude, but he's not actually
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: putting out the two movies a year.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: Again, Spielberg still kind of knocks him out sometimes. Gorsace
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: coming out of that same group, like, he's not as common,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: and it's not as often, but, like, he's still pretty solid. Like,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: he's still doing what I feel like he wants to do.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: But you see George and Coppola just sort of struggling with, like,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: what do we do now? Like, we became a big name,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: and I don't know how to... Do this now. Coppola's
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: enjoying making his wine.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 7: The Francis Ford Coppola wine's awesome.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: I think that's kind of like, that's why I almost
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: respect Coppola, because he seems like he's what George says
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: he wants to do, but he's actually doing it. I
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: don't care. I just don't care.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 7: It's interesting, that triangle of he and Coppola and Spielberg.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 7: They all complement each other in the sense that every
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 7: one of them has something the other two doesn't have
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 7: and that the other two want.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: If they could team up with Spielberg, that would all
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 5: work because he knows how to make that shit work.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 7: It's like Coppola wants the empire, but always Lucas has
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: the empire. And Lucas wants to make the artsy tone. Well,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 7: Coppola's making that. And Coppola wants the mainstream hit. Well,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 7: Spielberg's doing that. Spielberg knows how to nail that. They
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 7: all fit together. They're all missing something, and they all
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 7: have something that no one else has.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 5: Why isn't there just one studio where the three of
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: those guys just team up and work on projects? Exactly.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: I'm getting them all on the phone. But yeah, I
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: think that would be more interesting is to watch him
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: take more of the Coppola route and let Lucas just
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 5: be like, screw it. I don't care. I'm just going
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: to put him on YouTube. I'm going to start making wine.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: I live in California. I can do that.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 7: And then when you get Strange Magic. What the? Serious hell.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 7: I mean, you know, it's like his first film distributed
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 7: by the Strange Magic.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: It's all, yeah, it's all strange.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's Strange Magic.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: Whether it's magical, I don't know. It's definitely strange.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 7: And he's like, it's like American Graffiti. I used rock
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 7: music in my soundtrack.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: All right, we get it.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 7: We got it.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 5: It's all come full circle. We know you were there first.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: We give you credit for that.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: We know Tarantino steals from a lot of people.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: It's okay.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 5: Even he says it.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 7: Tarantino does it. Coen brothers do it now. Anyway, Lucas
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 7: did it first.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: We get that. What have we learned?
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: What have you.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: Learned when you've spent this much time putting this together? Yeah.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: What is your take away from it? Is it a
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 5: different take than you had going into Lucas?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 7: I think it's a more amplified take. You know, it's like,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 7: you know, Lucas is so kind of, especially when you're
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: a nerd, like Lucas is always kind of entrenched in
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 7: your nerdish DNA. Like he's always hovering back there, like,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 7: you know, like a dark lord.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: Or an executive producer. You're always constantly where everyone, you know,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: you're reading through and you're like, oh, look, Lucas is
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: an executive producer.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 7: You know, you always, you look out for him and
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 7: so on. So I think, you know, it was a
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 7: hyper-realized version of what once you start digging and pulling
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 7: back the layers and finding out what's going on. And,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 7: you know, so, you know, for example, like I didn't
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 7: realize that Prince had played at their wedding reception in Chicago.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 7: You know, little things like that. I was like, oh,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 7: you got Prince to play at.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 9: His wedding reception.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 5: I would have really liked to gotten that.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 7: Wait a minute.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: Exactly. Now I miss my window.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 7: So, yeah, you know, I mean, he's, you know, people
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 7: said like, well, he's such a, you know. How can
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 7: you write a biography of him? He's actually kind of
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 7: just an ordinary guy. But I mean, that's part of
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 7: what's so cool about him. Here's this ordinary guy that's
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 7: built this incredible filmic empire. And again, advancing the ball
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 7: on behalf of other creative types.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: Across the board. On behalf of other creatives. I mean,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 5: there's a lot to be said for that. So it's
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: like the people who are probably now giving him shit
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: and talking bad about his movies are able to do
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: the things they're doing and do it in their own
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 5: home computer now. Right, yeah. Because of the advancements that he's...
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: Is Thomas Edison interesting?
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 7: I don't know, but he gave us a light bulb.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: So, you know, is Lucas interesting? I don't know, he
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 5: gave us Star Wars and THX. I'm team Tesla. Yeah,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: especially when he's played by Bowie. Even better. We were
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: just discussing. But, yeah, it's kind of that same thing of, like,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 5: watching people now, like, have sort of a little– sneer
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: about his mainstream movies. I'm like, but everything that's going
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 5: on now that you, who want to be a snobby filmmaker,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 5: are like, it's all because he, like, got the ball
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 5: rolling on all of this.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 7: You know, and it's, again, it's part of Lucas's curse.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 7: I mean, this is a guy who would like to
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 7: make little small independent films, and, like, little small independent
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 7: films don't make it these days because you had Star
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 7: Wars paved the way for the, you know, big tentpole movies.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: Well, I thought, I mean, that really, like, it was
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: kind of the worst thing that could have happened to
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 5: him if, for that guy that was making THX 1138. Like,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: I want to make these weird artsy movies, and I
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: want to just sort of, like, because there are plenty
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 5: of those directors that just kind of not even to
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: the effect of Woody Allen, but just once or twice
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 5: a year, they knock out a movie, and it does okay,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 5: and they pay their bills, but they're kind of, like,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: not bothered by the producers, and their artistic vision gets
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: to kind of, you know, follow through, and, like, he
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: could have gotten that and been happy, but instead he
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 5: made the biggest blockbuster of all time, and, like, it
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: ruined his life.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 7: And what's he do with THX?
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 5: Like, he brings down, like, the dream of Zoetrope.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 7: Like, THX is what tanks poor Coppola and American Zoetrope,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 7: and don't come... But what good comes out of that?
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 7: Coppola's like, well, we need money, so I guess I'll
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 7: go take this little gangster flick they're offering me.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: I guess I'll go crazy on some new movie.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 7: I'll take this potboiler.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 5: I'll go to Vietnam and shoot something.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 7: Get on a helicopter. Nothing will go wrong there. Again,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 7: that was a movie Lucas thought was his. And when
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 7: Coppola says, no, I'm going to do Apocalypse Now, Lucas is.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: Like, fine. I'll do this Flash Gordon thing. How did
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 5: either of those work out?
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 7: Exactly, yeah.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: Neither went smoothly, let's put it that way.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 7: Exactly, both of them were lost in the wilderness for
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 7: quite some time.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: So, I guess, tell people where to find you and
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: the book and all of these things.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 7: The book is available in fine bookstores online and brick
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 7: and mortar everywhere.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: Physical bookstores? Physical bookstores. I know of a couple.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 7: We did break the internet on the opening day. It
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 7: was sold out on Amazon by 10, which was very impressive.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 7: You can find me on– I'm primarily on Twitter. I'm
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 7: at Brian J.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 9: Jones.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: Spell it out.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 7: B-R-I-A-N-J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S. That's also my.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: Website, BrianJJones.com.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 7: I'm on official Brian J. Jones at Facebook. But, you know,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 7: I forget to update it. And I'm on Twitter. Find
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 7: me on Twitter.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: There's too many social media platforms.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 7: I can't maintain them all.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: I can't maintain them. Yeah, that's mine. I'm like– make
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: use of Twitter but like I want to be too
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: wordy so I'm just like not enough character yeah say
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 5: I'm the opposite I want to get it up and out.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 7: So I get it up on Twitter I just throw
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 7: the links out on Twitter yeah I put it up
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 7: on Twitter then I'm like no I gotta go over
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 7: and actually write an entry on Facebook if I make
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 7: smart ass comments I do it on Facebook so yeah
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 7: and if it's big I'll put it on my own
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 7: website yeah there you go instead so go find me
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 7: there well yeah.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: Definitely go check it out and otherwise thank you for
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: being here hey.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 7: Thank you this has been a lot of fun.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: Otherwise that about does it we will return next time
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 5: same geek feed thanks for listening.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: Now and then I think of when I was in
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: power Like joking people with the force until they died
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: But then you told them all my history And took
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: away my masculinity And had my character portrayed by subpar.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: Actors You are now addicted to an overuse of graphics
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: And making credo shoot first, on shot first So when
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: you try to have the force make sense, you introduce
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: the midi-glorians. And what's the deal with having me be
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: dubbed over?
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 5: But you didn't.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 12: Have to change at all Make them like they never
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 12: happened and the fans are nothing I don't even need
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 12: your love You treat me like a panther and I
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 12: feel so rough No, you didn't have to make them
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 12: blow Have your friends direct your movies and they'll turn
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 12: out better You think that you don't need them though
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 12: What happened to the Star.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 6: Wars that I used to know? What happened to the
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 6: Star Wars that I used to know?
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 12: What happened to the Star Wars that I used to know?
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 11: Now and then I think of all the times I
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 11: screwed fans over. I had them believing that the first
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 11: three films were really done.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 10: But Star Wars will be done my way I don't
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 10: care what they have to say I think that they
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 10: should let it go And they'll never get a Blu-ray.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 11: Of the Star Wars that you used to know.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 6: You didn't have to change at all No more puppets,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 6: no more practical effects or nothing. I don't even need
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 6: your love. You treat me like.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: A whopper and I.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 6: Feel so cold.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 5: No, you didn't have to.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 6: Sell your soul. Do we really need to watch them
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 6: all again in 3D? Judge, I wasn't all time old.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 12: What happened to the Star Wars that I used to know?
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 6: What happened to the Star Wars that I used to know?
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 6: What happened to the Star Wars that I used to know?
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 6: That I used to know. I used to know. That
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 6: I used to know.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 7: His name is like something so minuscule. Well, it's so
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 7: funny to hear you talk about action figures. Because I
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 7: even said something in the book, I made fun of that.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 7: I'm like, oh, look, there's a Perth Durland. What kind
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 7: of a dork needs this?
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: Oh, wait, I have one at home.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown. Produced and
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: edited by The Oddity Studios. With the opening music performed
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: support the show, Email producer at MovieMeltdown.com.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: Talk hard!