A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 130: The Empire Strikes Back (4k80) Pt. 1

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Three years after Luke turned off his targeting computer, Star Wars returns. Indeed, one might even ask "Is The Empire Strikes Back the actual 'start' of what we know as Star Wars?" Maybe! It's here that Star Wars begins to take the shape of a franchise (without any of the bloat yet), Industrial Light & Magic performs even greater special effects miracles, and the story begins to effortlessly blend fairy tale and melodrama. Plus, we get to see the original little green freak in his natural habitat. NEXT TIME: The Back Half of Empire Strikes Back Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Show Notes Hosted by Rob Zacny (robzacny.bsky.social) Featuring Alicia Acampora (ali-online.bsky.social), Austin Walker (austinwalker.bsky.social), and Natalie Watson (nataliewatson.bsky.social) Produced by Michael Hermes Music by Jack de Quidt (notquitereal.bsky.social Cover art by Xeecee (xeecee.bsky.social)  

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakeney, joined by Alia Kampura, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners via patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there if you like support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes. Today, we are watching The Empire Strikes Back. Woo! This is the, as Austin posited, a sequel to a movie that didn't necessarily need one. And you know what?

Watching it this time, it does feel like we're picking up something that had already been sort of put down for a little bit. It is now the 80s in the Empire Strikes Back in a way that it is distinctly the 70s in Star Wars. But we'll get into all of that. You already know the broad overview here, but just in case you don't, the opening crawl informs us that the rebels are in hiding from a vengeful empire while. Darth Vader is hunting down the rebel pilot who blew up the Death Star. In short order, we see the Imperials scatter a bunch of what we will learn, are probe droids to the winds in a search for the rebel base. And then we are on Hoth, the ice planet of Hoth,

catching up with what the rebels are up to. Han, sexually harassing Princess Leia, Luke, putting down nest cameras for the rebel base, and getting mugged by a wampa. He's trapped out there in the wampa cave. People realize, hey, Luke hasn't been back in a while. Han takes a break from harassing Leia to go rescue Luke, which is bad news if you're a taunton.

He arrives at Luke's location just after Luke has escaped the abominable. What's the thing in Rudolph? The Reddust Radio Acclamation. Abominable Snowman. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for filling that blank. He's escaped the cave of a Star Wars abominable snowman, the Wampa. He's escaped and immediately passed out.

And he gets a vision of Ben, who was incredibly unconcerned with Luke's current predicament, and just tells Luke, you're going to go to Dagobah, and you're in a lunar from Master Yoda, who trained me. Asterisk, as viewers of the original of the prequel trilogy. No. And then Ben fades out as Han arrives and saves Luke by cutting open his... We're pretty sure that Taunton was dead, right? I think it was...

Dead or die. We need a science minute later. Okay. We have to talk about this later. Yeah. Anyway, the main thing he does to save Luke is he builds a shelter. And the two are recovered by the patrolling fighters from Rogue Squadron the next morning. And Luke is brought back, tossed a back to tank.

And then used as a prop by Leah to explain how little Han understands women when she plants a big old kiss on Luke's lips. And Luke looks pretty smug at that moment, which is a topic for Luke and his therapist in later installments. They hear radio chatter coming from out on the tundra of Hoth and Han goes out to investigate it. They destroy the Imperial Probe Droid, but that gives the game away. The Empire probably has the location of the rebel base, and the rebels, to their credit, begin making immediate preparations for evacuation. You might remember in Star Wars. The Empire appeared to put all its officers in one big conference room aboard the Death Star,

and we can presume that all those officers, probably the brain trust of Imperial Military, all got blown up with the Death Star. And so, Darth Vader is pursuing. suing the rebel base and trying to capture, capture the rebels using what seems like maybe the B team. And as he is burning through the roster, the C and D teams. At the short-lived Admiral Azzell has the Imperial Fleet drop out too close to the rebel base and immediately get detected.

And Vader begins what a process of winnowing down the Imperial Command structure that we'll see him run through several steps over the course of this movie. strangles Admiral Azzle and promotes, is it Piet at this point, or are we on Nita? I don't remember. Don't get too attached to either. Yeah, these guys are understudies. Yeah.

They begin the assault on the rebel base. The rebels field their squadron of snow speeders to buy time for the evacuation of the rebel forces. The snow speeder sequence, A lot of fun, inspired a lot of the best Star Wars video games or scenes in video games in history. They did a lot of preparation for Imperial assault, but apparently didn't realize the snow speeders couldn't actually damage any of the Imperial Walkers, which seems like an oversight. Maybe they didn't know the walkers are going to, like, it's kind of wild that they drop these giant, like elephant mecks to march towards them in the snow. I wouldn't.

That's not the plan I would have. done, you know? So, it just might not have been prepared. Also, my real feeling about this is like, the rebels don't have shit. They only have what they have and we're not ready for

any of this. Which is cool. The rebels carry out a pretty poor defense of their shield generator. Colonel Veers, the Imperial Ground Forces commander, destroys the shield generator,

which allows Imperial forces to land on the rebel base immediately. Somewhere in all this, Luke is shot down his dead man walking co-pilot, young DAC, who was ready to take on the whole empire by himself, is left aboard

Luke's snow-speeter only to be crushed by an ATAT's leg. But Luke makes it out of there. During the evacuation, however, Leah can't make it to the Imperial transports, which are making the way through the Imperial blockade because the rebels have a war-winning

gun that we just never see used. again for the rest of the series. It shoots into space from the ground, like knocks out two Star Destroyers, no problem. And like, I don't know, I would have bought like 50 of these things. Anyway, they only have the one.

They got it on detail, you heard of deal. Someone's uncle gave it to it. You know what I mean? Now remember, once you mount this, once you mount this ion cannon, you can't use it again.

It's its location locked. That's right. They track your IP to a different rebel base. It just shuts down. It just shuts down. You got to get the VPN on it. Yeah. So Han takes Leah to the to the money and falcon, which crucially, he and Chewy have been trying to repair since the movie began.

They take off and discover the hyperdrive isn't working, and they flee into a nearby asteroid field to avoid capture. Meanwhile, Luke informs R2 that he's deserting. I mean, that's a harsh way of putting it, but he seems like nobody was clued into this place. that the commander of rogue squadron was going to go to the planet Dagobah He's a guy training He's AWOL but is he deserting You know maybe you're okay

Maybe he'll return you know he's gonna return He's gonna get in trouble He just has to go pick something up really quick He just had to like run a quick errand If he comes back which he does We know this from the series If he comes back he was AWOL If he is picked up by MPs at a later date

That's right Pretty sure they're gonna charge him with desertion 100% Yeah. It's also just a weird situation for Luke and the rebels. We'll talk about it. But like he's a leader. The opening crawl says that-

They gave him like an important job. Yeah. The opening crawl says that the rebels are a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker. He just got here. Like he did, he did something really cool. Let's all give him credit. That was really cool of him to blow up the Death Star last movie, last time.

Um, what does he know about being a commander? What does he know about military tactics? I'm trying to say. What does he know about like resourcing? I don't know. Maybe he has a lot of leadership experience from the moisture farm that we don't know about, but. Wow. Well, I bet his essay said that.

I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm on a diverse team of moisture droids and vaporators to, uh, to, under harsh conditions. Also, imagine being a pilot who was to fucking deal with the fact that Lou Skywalker blew up the Death Star, because now that's just like, oh, you expect me to do

that? Like, you expect me to do all this? Like, yeah, Luke did it, but I'm supposed to do that. Okay, calm down. He's, like, formed an entire squadron of, like, elite badasses who are going to be like Luke's wingmen. Yep. But it's one of my favorite cartoons of all time, Kate Baten's Hark of Agrant. Uh, there's this cartoon, Billy Bishop's Flon. school. Billy Bishop was like an absolutely lethal Canadian flying ace. And he's trying to explain the young pilots like how to be good pilots. He's like, so if you get in a dog fight with enemy, I would simply win. That's what that's what I do and it's worked for me. Don't let the enemy get behind you. Get behind them and shoot them down. Somebody's like, but, but sir, what if the enemy gets

behind us? He's like, well, that just sounds like bad tactics. I don't let, don't let that happen. No, just get behind the enemy and shoot them down and you'll do just fine. It hasn't failed me yet. That's a specific line at the beginning of this. I know we have to keep going with the summary, but there's a specific line in the beginning of this, or one of the pilots is like two fighters against a Star Destroyer? Like, are you kidding?

Like, we are not Luke Skywalker. We do not do that shit. We die out there. Sometimes we're in the same ship as it when we died. Dack just died. Damn. Yeah. I bet Dack was feeling really.

good about like, well, what's going to happen? Like, R2 does not say anything. R2 not talking about what happens if you're riding behind Luke. Damn. Damn. Anyway,

so Luke heads off to Dagoba. Swiftly crashes on the planet or are his systems turned off and he's guided by the force to the correct location. Either way, He crashes in a big sloppy swamp, makes his way ashore, along with R2 while leaving his ex-wing in a fog bank of swamp stuff.

There's monsters. There's critters. He does Jaws again. He does Jaws again. He's not directing this movies, but they do with the Jaws B together. And then there's a little guy who shows up and he realizes Luke is Seeking Yoda, but we know this is Yoda. But crucially also, it's a Frank Oz puppet at its best.

Just the absolute, the goat expressive, fucking Yoda. Yeah. That's fucking Yoda to me. That's fucking Yoda. If we kept this Yoda, we wouldn't say the goat. We'd say the Yoda. Like, that's how good he is.

I don't know what the acronym is. Don't ask me, you know. They couldn't animate the, like, lips purse. like Muppet look for Yoda So we could have Yoda the whole time Like you mean in the CG in the prequels you mean? Yeah Like they could have made Yoda Yoda if they tried

I agree Just do the puppet mannerisms but animate him I don't know things that are just missing from the performance When Frank Oz is not like physically controlling Yoda I just made a little like claw hand gestures Like he's like a Kermit style Muppet which really isn't I don't think so but you get the point Either way

Neither of these characters make great first impressions on each other. Luke, a bit of a dick. Yoda, a bit of an annoying Gremlin. Things are off to a bad start over on, over on Dagoba. Meanwhile, Han

and the Millennium Falcon, Leah chewing the gang, chasing through the asteroid field. Vader does not care. He's taking the entire Imperial fleet into the asteroid field. Tie fighters getting blown up. Star Destroyers, crashing into asteroids, thousands of sailors,

killed doesn't matter. So Anakin vibes, by the way. Oh, so Anakin vibes. Vader, Ken, you bothered to be on the bridge for portions of this? He's back in his, he's back in his room, meditating, brooding, talking to a very different

Emperor Palpatine. Depending on the version you're watching, if you're watching, so I had to watch the 4K remastered special edition. Okay. You did not get the 4K80. Situation is not doing great. I see. Okay. So I had a way too sharp-looking sheave pop up in the middle of this movie.

And it's like, it's not even properly matched, right? Like the original, all the holograms in the original are low-res interlaced as hell look bad. And this emperor is just very different. And you got different dialogue, that means. That dialogue is different. They're different dialogue as well? They slightly added. We'll get there.

When we get there, we'll give you the comparison. person. So. Anybody watch this on like an old VHS tape or like the special edition blue, like the special edition DVDs because then you could get like, we could get the whole range of watching this over the last five decades or whatever, you know. I did not. So the empire is trying to hunt down the falcon. The falcon hides in a aptly timed cave, but it's not a cave.

It does provide a nice hideout for some more sexual harassment to unfold. As Han explains that Leia is only mean to him and annoyed by him because she's just trying to deny what she already feels, which is that she's completely crazy about him. Which is true. Which is true. It's an uptown girl situation. She's embarrassed by what she feels.

It is like so much a part of what this episode. it is that we can't do all of it. You're right. You're going to take the lead on this one, Alia. I need you to take the lead on it. While they're in that cave, after a point, after some more tensions erupt between Han and Leia, the smoldering blazes to a fire. Leah's hanging out, having a think, chewing on her glove. When, holy shit, what the fuck?

Is that like an alien squeegee guy? showing up? No, it's a mynok. Minok is chewing on your windshield. And so they all go out there and they shoot the mine ox off and then they're like, wait, what's up with this cave? It's squishy and kind of weird. And then they realize that's no cave. That's an

upper intestinal system. And they have to fly the money and falcon out of this thing. Leah really slow on the uptake for probably the Her worst moment of the series, really, there's like the cave mouth is closing and there's teeth. Yeah.

And she's like, the cave, it's closing. And Haasad's like, that's not a cave. He says it a little martyrs, but like, we're all saying they're like, Leah, the fuck kind of cave has teeth. Yeah. Listen, Leah didn't get, she didn't get to go on that many adventures. We saw that as soon as she, you know, left the house into the forest, she was often

immediately retrieved so you know she she doesn't have a lot of life experience with this sort of thing no field trips to the upper intestinal track of any space monsters etc meanwhile back in Degaba

Luke is talking yet more shit to Toyota only to realize as as this little creature seems oddly informed about the deficiencies Luke has brought with him him to his Jedi training, the things he doesn't understand about what it is being a Jedi, the coin drops that he is, in fact, talking to Yoda.

And Yoda's like, fuck this kid. I ain't training him. And at that point, the whining begins. The bargaining with Ghost Obi-Wan begins. Luke kind of misunderstanding objections. Yoda has race as, says, I'm not afraid. Which is beside the point of what Yoda was saying. But Yoda being teed up like this can't resist a good moment for him.

And again, Frank Oz, to make this little freak the scariest motherfucker you've ever seen as he says, you will be. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think he would have locked in at that moment that he was like, I'm feeling like myself again. Yeah, I do. That brought him back. Yeah. I'm thinking we're back.

You know, there's some, we're not going to talk about like that's about where we're going to stop. We're going to break it down. Yeah. So I won't talk about other future locked in Yoda moments, but they're there. They're coming. Yeah. And there's also more like scary Yoda. So.

Oh, yeah. Fucking Empire Strikes Back. This movie is so good, is what I was going to say. It's so good. I mean, there's a reason why everyone says this is their favorite Star Wars movie. I think, I don't know about all of y'all. It's my favorite. I think it's my favorite.

It had historically been that. And then I think I had a little period where I was like, but what about Star Wars? And I do. We just watched it. Star Wars is great. But for me, it goes back to the thing I said last time, which is like, it feels like there's Star Wars and then there's like the franchise Star Wars. And I think Star Wars is a really good movie. Star Wars is the best Star Wars movie.

But once it becomes a new hope, not literally, not like it changes, but once you think about it as, okay, I'm thinking about all of it. Star Wars. I think Empire Strike's Back is the best Star Wars movie. Does that make sense? Totally. Totally. Totally. Totally agree. Yeah. If I were to take Star Wars, the first movie to come out in 1977, on its own, in a vacuum, without anything else, it's a remarkable movie. Like, you just think about, like, the context of the era in which it was made in and, like, what other movies are coming out at this time and those kinds of things. When he plays it into, like, that kind of cultural context, it's such, yeah, it sings, it soars. It, like, totally sings for me. But I feel the same.

Like, once I place it in the continuum, Empire Strikes Back just hits every thing. I want in a capital S, capital W-TM Star Wars movie, you know? It feels like the blueprint. They quote it. This is the one that they're quoting constantly.

And Ryan, I mean, constantly. So much comes into, like, the Imperial March, we hear for the first time in this movie. It's unbelievable. The entire aesthetic of what is the empire comes. It's there in the first movie. Yeah. The conference room and all that.

But as we talked about, there's a lot of like Buck Rogers in the way the empire is depicted. Here now, there is a consistent aesthetic to the empire that we see. It is gloss black. It is brooding. It is shadows. There's a lot less of this, like, pristine, white, and bold primary color, spaceship-looking stuff.

It is, all of it is really, like, more Vader's helmet than anything else that the ship sees aboard are all sort of show that aesthetic. And so, like, that comes into our idea. of what the empire is now. Yeah. Gets informed by this movie. The emperor sort of comes in from the wings and doesn't move to center stage, but we are, we are now sort of clued into what's going on here. There's a hell of a lot more happening here than just, yeah, your dad was Jedi Knight.

We were the guardians of the Republic. Here's your sword, kid. Yeah. There's, like, now we actually get into what does it mean to be a Jedi? Because it is not just trust, use the force and then blow up a giant, Space Station when the day. This is where we get into the whole concept of the force is your ally, but it's your enemy. Yep.

You carry with you the seeds of your own destruction. And the force will amplify that. I think the next, you know, the last thing that happens as Luke goes into that cave is Yoda says, you know, you don't need your weapons in there. And Luke is like, what's in there? And he goes, just what you bring in with you. And Luke is like, God, I'm going to bring my weapons in there. And it's like, bro, I just told you. The only thing in there is what you bring in there with.

you. And that's, you know, we'll talk about the cave next time, but the stakes from here forward are about the, can Luke withstand the temptations of the dark side? And this is the movie that sets that up. None of that is in a new hope. None of that exists even conceptually. You know, we know that Vader is Obi-Wan's fallen apprentice in a new hope. We know that there's a way to fall. There's a way to become evil. But that's just life. People can just become evil. really sells that big time. You know, that, it takes inner stage here, almost replacing the, is Han a good guy or a bad guy stress of the first movie?

And like for the rest of this original trilogy, can Luke resist the temptation of anger, etc? We'll talk so much more about this in the next three episodes of the podcast, obviously. Well, we'll meet our new morally ambiguous character from the edges of law and order. Next time. Also, again, like, he would be great in law and order. You're right. I know that's not what you meant, but he'd be so good in law and order.

The empire is very sharper image. It is. When we meet Lando, it is very, like, 80s, like, this is luxury. Like, stark, white, cushy minimalism is the way of so much to say about Cloud City. I have so much to say about Cloud City. We can't get there. Yeah. That has to be next time.

but it's so hard not to jump ahead. Shall we jump back to the ice? Yes. And in fact, I want to start there because I think this is still a general comment, but it starts at the ice, which is one of my first notes. Besides, oh my God,

Luke leads the freedom fighters, quote unquote, and also, too, the Imperial Starfleet is capitalized in the intro, and it feels capitalized in this movie. Like, the Imperial Fleet is the death star of this movie. Oh, my God, the Imperial Fleet is coming. oh my God, look at the superstar destroyer, the executor, the ship that Vader is on that looks even bigger than dwarfs all these other ones. All that stuff is great.

And that's actually the thing that I want to emphasize is one of the biggest changes in the last movie, besides moving into the question of the dark side, besides the sense that there's more happening politically and socially and economically in the world. For all that, besides all that other extra detail is the visual extra detail. The leap in ambition for the special effects in this movie is really remarkable. You know, they are using blue screen in a new way here to the degree that especially in the 4K80 cut, you will sometimes see the little flash of blue around people or on people's skin just a little bit. But they are doing stuff with stop motion with really interesting camera trickery, like traditional practical effect camera trickery to create things like the big weird. wide snowfield, all sorts of stuff like that, that was just, and also just like the movement of

the ships in this, the way the Falcon is constantly twisting and turning. You're getting more shots from in the cockpit during action sequences. You're getting more shots of it moving against and near other models. The asteroid chase that we'll get to eventually is this super detailed, super intense thing. And that's not even going to talk about things we'll talk about next time, like the way lightsabers look and stuff like that and the stuff that is happening on Degabobos. But from the jump, I felt like, oh, my God, there weren't shots like one of the opening shots, which is of the Luke riding a taunton through the snow. There was nothing like that in a new hope.

Even the wide shots of the desert didn't quite look like that. And I think that that's one of the big hallmarks. Advances in CG become the thing in the prequel trilogy. but, you know, it's hard to remember sometimes how big of a leap you get from a new hope to Empire Strikes back in special effects technology and technique here. The set construction here is just incredible. Like, in the first movie, you're great.

But the different vibes and modes of spaces in the rebel base, the fact that you have, first of all, Everything feels like it's half unpacked. The Rebel Command Center still looks like it's half in boxes. They've started wiring stuff up, but it's not finished. The hallways where Han and Lay are having the arguments look like they just carved out the minimum amount of space required for, like, a person to pass through out of an ice block. And it's badly lit. There's ventilation ducts everywhere running through it.

And then you have like the spacious like bone light medical spaces, which are like the most completed spaces there. And we remember like the rebel hangers on Yavin, which, you know, we talked about, are so dark. The ships stand out, but like it's, it's very much like a bare set outside of like the giant models that we see. Here, Echo Base is really the opposite of that. You can sort of see into the base in a way you never could in the previous movie. And what you see is, again, like, a place that's busy with characters having side conversations, there's maintenance going on everywhere. When they shut those giant, like, doors for Echo Base, it's really impressive.

It's a moment with a lot of, like, weight from the, you know, both what signifies and then the sense of, like, you know, the, the epic scale, the architecture they've carved out of this thing. And then they're going to destroy all that, sort of before our eyes. that like this disorder we're going to see is going to turn into an amazing level of like visual chaos once the battle begins as we revisit these spaces

and find them half destroyed from like the impact of laser blasts and bombs and so we see these things sort of caving in on themselves and the camera is that's another thing the camera feels so cinema verite in places here

where it is moving around with the characters When the battle is joined and we sort of see things as they're really getting hectic, the camera is pushing through bits of debris and like shooting around between broken pieces of conduit and past dead bodies. It's really striking compared to the first movie. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's interesting how many of these spaces, if they, especially like the central control room or operations room or whatever, could look imperial if shot a little differently, could have that sort of dark quality.

But partly because of the ice and the snow that's like in the ceilings and the back walls and stuff, you don't get there. But it's also because of the costuming, right? They do such a good job of having people on, yes, cozy, big coats, puffy jackets, puffy vests. And then like white and beige, obviously Leia in like the iconic all-white snow outfit.

But like even the rest of the rebels or many of the, have on beige's and tans, which is like, you know, the kind of their, you know, faux uniform set up. But that really means that they pop off of the black machines and computers in a way that the imperial officers who are often wearing, like, gray kind of disappear into them or just kind of feel like greeble bits on them in terms of like color language, which I think is great. I'm going to link in the, in the, in the show description, I'm not going to get into it, but an article about how that opening big, wide shot of the taunton going across the field was done because that was like some weird camera trickery that we don't have to get into because it's not,

because it's weird technical camera trickery. I just want to like make sure it's available for people because I think it's interesting, but I'll put that in the show notes. Yeah, just one more shot on the production value. I think the fact that we get to zoom between such scale in such detail, like specifically in that scene with with Luke writing the taunton across the sort of snowy tundra that we get to like like look at the you know the the frosted crust on the taunton and and you know just the detail in like the design and everything and the way that it's moving and in other

shots when we're inside and in Hans like in the in the you know taunton um um um um um um you know stable as it were, like just just getting to, you know, there's a way to have a lot for a little by like cheating things and keeping it very, you know, kind of strategic and efficient. But this Empire Strikes Back just feels so indulgent in how much we get to kind of luxuriate in the details of costumes and puppets and, you know, animatronics and, you know, animatronics and, And I don't know if, you know, these are animatronics, but just that. And then to get to like see the scale of it all and in the space battles and everything, like that just feels like such a luxury to be able to indulge in all of that.

And really speaks to, I think, the investment in production value of this one compared to the last. It's funny because I think the thing that stood out for me, production value-wise, is the thing that hasn't been mentioned, which is, like, how much more dense the scenes are with people? So true. We had the, you know,

you know, you had the opening scene in Star Wars with all of the rebel pilots, but then you spend so long with just Luke and Obi-Wan that it feels like, you know, the story is getting broken through with the population sometimes. But, like, just seeing how many people are in the, the rebel base and how they interact with each other and how that's different from how they interact with each other in the empire base and like there's that like really funny shot where they're

all about to go fight and they have like 12 guys just kind of walk across the like a base area where all the ships are to just go like yeah it's like the onset version of putting that all together and having all of these extras just like it's just like kind of cute and like oh there's like it feels like they know a franchise is happening without like having the the experience of a franchise in the same way that we talked about a little bit last time. But like, you know, just the in some of that indulgent and some of the like, you know, we have this budget. We're going to use it. It just feels like that in these scenes for me where it's like, oh, we can fill these places with things and people in a way that we couldn't. so let's do it like as best as we possibly can.

We'll wrap back around to that with Cloud City for sure also because Cloud City also has a lot of that and it does it in an interesting way. I also want to shout out friend of the show Jake who reminded us of the missing franchise that we were trying to find last time. At the end of the last episode we were like, what was like what's a comparable multi-movie franchise of the time? And Planet of the Apes is the one. Planet of the Apes has already gone through the huge multi-movie arc more than a trilogy. I think it's a quintology. I think there's five of those in the 70s. Maybe I'm wrong about that.

But so people would have had that experience. And that also was like a cartoon and a TV show and like that did the thing. So there was a model. But to your point, Ali, like, yeah, like their action figures probably coming out by now, right? And so maybe you do get a Wedg Antilles action figure. You know you get a Boba Fett action figure. Famously, that's, like, one of the ways that people end up accounting for Boba Fett's popularity is cool action figure, among other things that we can talk about once he's actually in this movie. But I do think that you're right that, like, it's not franchise-brained because, like, there's, I mean, I guess there is a spinoff book at this point, right?

We have not yet read Splinter of the Mind's Eye, but it exists. So, but I don't, but it's not. going to happen. At some point, we will get there. At some point, we will have to get there. But, yeah, the 90s style transmedia enterprise, you know, cross-media franchise type thing hasn't happened yet. So, but do you think that they're conscious of it, Allie? I think you've hit that nail on the head. Can we talk about Han and Leah, or should we? Uh, boy, so where do we want to jump into that? Because here's the thing. Can this be isolated from what ultimately happens?

Can we talk about, like, Ellie, like, you lead us here. I think I can lead us here. Can we discuss Han Leia in the tunnels without Han and Leah while she just can't open his pickle jar?

Absolutely. Because I think that, like, this is so important to the sequeling of this movie that, like, the conversations that they have

is what puts in the time between these films. Interesting. And then, like, yes. I am so confident in my, understanding of the way that Luke and Han feel for each other.

But the, like, part that I've not confident in is if Luke is swaggy enough to write it, I just have to, like, believe that that was, that was on the performance of it. But, like, there are two people who have spent a lot of time apart, who've worked together, who, you know, there's this, like, immediate, kind of like assumption of communication. Like, Leia's like, you told me you were staying, but Han is like, oh, I have to go. Like, the version of Han and Leah

that makes sense to me is that, like, she is a different person to him when she is on the radio. When they are, when he is out doing the missions and she is in Echo Base speaking to him, they have developed a rapport that seems affectionate. So Han is like, you are this different person when we are alone

and you have to admit your feelings to me. And she is so attached to the idea of being a person who wouldn't date somebody like Han Solo, that she can't bring herself to be like, yes, I am actually interested in you, despite being actually interested in him. All right. Can I read you a note that I've written? Please. This is all caps, but I won't read it loud. The starting stakes of this relationship are that she,

She will not admit that she loves him. This is a Billy Joel uptown girl situation. And then I even quotes here, we need, yes. What about you need? I need. I don't know what you're talking about. You probably don't. That is like the first exchange that the two of them,

it's like the end of the first exchange that they have in which she is like. No, come out, Virginia. Don't make you wait. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, the conversation that they're having is she's like, ugh, I guess you are going to get out of here even though we need you. And he's like, please just tell me that I matter to you as a person because I know I'm with you, Allie. Off screen when we're not around all these motherfuckers, you have made it clear that you like spending time with me.

But you don't want to say in front of these people because you're a princess and I'm a fucking scumback. I'm not from, I'm not from Alderon, and he shouldn't have said that probably because of how Alderan went. But, you know, that's the type of exchange that this feels like, I'm not saying that he should have said you could use a good kiss.

I don't know that that's, I wouldn't have said that in his situation. And yet she, and yet she did. Just side note here. Harrison Ford, the goat of problematic romantic encounters. Like, let's see, Raise Lost Ark

Hey, what's the backstory of Marion? Don't ask. Don't ask. Hey, Blade Runner. Hey, Sean Young. What's up? Hey, this seems kind of

lacking in consent of any kind. Well, we're together now. The Blade Runner one is like, I think, way worse than this. But also that's a film that doesn't expect you to think he's good. Though I do think people just think he's like, you know what I mean?

I do think it doesn't invite enough. of the critique that I think it's supposed to do anyway. Yeah, Han Solo or Harrison Ford. I think that his initial bid to Leah in the moment where he's like, he makes the announcement very, you know, publicly, loudly in the control room that he's going to be leaving. And he says, you know, after running into a bounty hunter on Ord Mantel, like, he's, He's nervous.

He's like he needs to go deal with the situation, which I do believe. It, it, it, that feels. And I think that also contributes to what Allie's saying about the time between that like, he's been running around doing, like, he has been a part of this doing something. I don't know what he's been doing. But, you know, he's been a part of this. And that like the heat is catching up to him. He has to go deal with the job of situation.

otherwise, like, it's just, it's making him increasingly nervous. And I think he, like, looks to Leah as, like, in this, like, bid for affection where he's like, are you, like, how are you going to respond to the way that I'm, you know, pretty passively announcing to the room that I'm going to be leaving? And she's like, all right, then. And, like, he's crestfallen. Like, you see it in his face. He's just like, well, fine. then like I'm out of here and he just like storms out and that's when Leia goes after him to try and you know convince him to stay but I think that like that initial kind of reach out for like

that's the first point where just you can feel him waiting for her to like just give him give him anything. Just a crumb, a crumb of, like, disappointment that he's leaving or just like any, that his presence has any effect on her. And she's so stone, like, she's so in control in that moment that she, and she comes off so, like, stone cold. It's brutal the way that, you know, that moment transpires. And then we get this, you know,

chase into the halls and the tunnels and everything. But I just love that initial moment. Of a really bracing analysis of this entire relationship through bids and response and love languages. We're going to have to table that for now. But I do think you raise a good point there, which is that in Han's defense, it's been three years.

It's like he didn't, Java's been out there sending bounty hunters after him. the stakes are getting higher. Used to be Greta would show up, and that wasn't really a series. I was a shot across the bows. Like, as we see in the special edition, right?

Like, Java isn't even that pissed at Han yet. Yeah. But three years later, this has become a major problem, uh, that he is pissed at Han. Han, and Han's staying with the rebellion for three years,

already has, like, increased the degree to which his head is in the lion's mouth with this stuff and he need and and the interesting thing here is that nobody has lea's back on this totally like when hans like hey i got to go like i got to deal with this bounty the general in command of echo base is like hey to lose you but yeah you do have to go buddy death mark is not an easy thing to live with and so like everyone and it also sure indicates the rebel lines is full of people who have these shady pasts and like hey i'm going to have to go see you guys

guy about some money. That's right. Yeah, true. So maybe against that backdrop, Luke being like, yeah, I had to piece out and go do some stuff. And it's like, yeah, we always go do some stuff in between missions. So like, it's not like Hans abandoning the alliance, but Leah treats it as such, in part, I think, because she has to keep him in that dirt bag box, that he is, oh, this is just like what he was like on the Death Star, where he's just out for himself. And he kind of hasn't been out for himself for three years. But she has to treat him that way because, I think to Ali's point, he's not good enough for her yet. At least she doesn't feel like he's good enough for her, which is why her play is to unload

the most purely distilled, like 80-proof look of disdain. Oh, my God. That you can possibly see. But also a look that, like, if someone looks at me that way, I will do literally anything to make you not look at me that way and make you think I'm better than that. Yep. Unbelievable face acting and expression expression acting throughout this whole movie.

And like I think, you know, the important part of the scene is that like you start with him looking for her and she's looking at him already. Yeah. Like there's not like, she's not like, oh, I hear Han's voice. He's saying that he's leaving. Like she's focused on him the entire, like there are stakes in her mind just as strong as there are for him in this.

And like he's like sort of acknowledging her. and trying not to acknowledge her and being like, oh, I'm going to make this decision. She's not important to me. I'm just going to go. And then she's like, okay, you're not important to me. And he's like, fuck, no. I'm supposed to be more to you.

Well, I'm really mad about this. Yes. So I love that. It's great. I love them. If I have to say two things in layas defense, since none of us seem to be like taking her side in this, which is fine.

One, though, is imagine someone, imagine your laia here and what he says is I have to go deal with this job of stuff and and then you go we need you here and he goes well if you say you need me here I'll stay

wouldn't you go like well then this job of stuff isn't all that important you could stay why aren't you staying if you would say for me why won't you stay for this thing that means the world to me right right that's one counter argument this the second is and I think the Star Wars

itself this film certainly doesn't get into it through explicitly the gender angle on this. And we know in Return of the Jedi, Mon Mothma will be here, and she's in charge of the Rebel Alliance or is in a leadership role. But she is a princess. And I do think that you could do a read of this where she is like, there are expectations of me to be at a remove from my, you're my, you're, you report to me, you know, like I'm in the leadership of the Rebel Alliance.

you were a captain in the Rebel Alliance, and there are both class and gender elements of that. And there would have been for the viewer in 1970, right? Or 1980, rather. Where, like, okay, she is like a cool woman in charge. He is a scumbag. And there are specific pressures around that. There's why you get songs and stories about these sorts of things,

where it's like she's doing everything she can to stay in control and empower, etc., etc. The movie doesn't really dive into that stuff, but you can do that sort of reading alongside class and, gendered lines. And I think that that is maybe a little more sympathetic to Leah's positions here, even if, you know, at the end of the day, I think that our collective reading on this was like they have different history off screen or when they're not around all the rebels. They have a different relationship there.

He wants her to acknowledge that feels accurate to me. They are both an HR issue, though. Just rolling around. Like, Leah has nothing to do in that Rebel Command Center. she's just like, hey, I'm gonna point it, just act like I'm, just actually I'm saying. I'm just reading out, we're staring out. And it's like, Princess, I'm like in the middle of, I think something just landed on this place. Shut the fuck up.

No, look over there. Is how I'm looking at me? It's how I'm looking at. No, it's something really scary just landed. It's one of the most frightening things I've ever seen in my life, actually. No, it's a meteorite. It's a meteorite. They land all the time.

I should write. It's a meteorite. It has legs. It looks like kind of like, what if a spider, could fly. She's talking to General I can't again. God damn.

Okay. Okay. Just tab over something. Bring something up on your screen. I need to like, just maybe run a tape from before. Lay, we don't have tabs.

My screen is a big piece of glass with white lines on it. All right. Now I'm going to lean past your face. I'm going to look toward him. Okay, bye. I got to go see him.

I also will say one thing in defensive layer. And the harassment read, I guess, which is that he is bullying her. Yeah. Like, you know,

every part of his interaction here is, like, his hurt feelings. But also, I think that, like, if you're going to be going after a princess, you're going to bully her, like, at the point. Like,

Wow. I'm sure there's a hot mechanic that he could have. It just works. More open relationship with, but, like, it's kind of the thrill of the chase. Like, what are we talking about here? That has been three years,

and this is where it's at, is wild. they've been like in a holding pattern for three years they've been have you know they have not slept together and regretted it and like gone to a weird place like the vibe isn't even that that's right like it is still like no i'm denying that there's anything happening here right or is it they have slept together and she won't talk about it and she says it's a mistake she he knows she doesn't feel it's a mistake she knows it wasn't a mistake but hey we can't do that while on Hoth. We never

We have to act like this never happened, huh? But it's so cold. I feel like you've slept together a good kiss thing doesn't really like. You're right. But I think it's like what he's saying is that you know, she like what she needs to be reminded of is like

the way they feel about each other when they're together when they're like maybe when they're like intimate with each other that there's like a you know it's it's a like objectively grimy way to say it, but I think what he's saying is like,

like he wants to connect with her on this personal level. You need me. I want you to need me. Like, please, like, just tell me, like, I matter in your life. And for you to stop being such a frigid bitch. That is the problem. But she's like,

I have the rebellion on my back right now. Like, I have like the entire I'm fighting for literally world peace. Like I am literally trying to We're on the run We're hiding on a fucking ice planet

Like she has everything in her head all the time Yeah And I like I see both sides of it Where she's like My feelings for you can't matter Because the rebellion and your place And the rebellion matter so much more Like you are of greater

Objective value To the rebellion rebellion, then you can't, not objective, objectively the wrong word, but like what you mean. But like, but like, but in like the grand scheme of things, like, if, if, if you being a part of the rebellion meant was the like the tipping, you know, the, the, the, the grain of rice that tips the scale to, to win us the war. And it meant that you and I could never be together. She's making that choice every single time. Because this has been her lifelong, you know, fight. Like this is, this is everything for her. This is real for her. And he just wants to feel as

important to her. Yeah. You know, it's, so I really do understand both sides of it where she's like, we have bigger fish to fry than our relationship. And he's like, but I care so deeply. You know who else has this dilemma in this movie eventually? Luke Skywalker. This is actually He's setting up in a way the same conflict that Luke has in the back half of this movie at Degabat, which is, and what we see is Leia for three years has been making the, I have to put my personal feelings for the people of my life aside and focus on the mission. You know, we'll get there, but Obi-Wan and Yoda would be like, that's right, Leah. Deny your feelings. Focus on beating the empire. You would make a great Jedi.

You would make a great Jedi. I do think here we also begin to see some of the problems cropping up with we're not gonna we're not we're not we're not at the like fully objectified like Jabba's Palace

view of Leah that we get to in the third movie no we actually get like a break from sexualized Leah for a second or is that well so not the case you're making I think it's that we all

Also don't get, take charge, fuck it, like, I'm the captain now, get out of my way. I'm going to get us off this goddamn death star. And if you're not like, you can either help me out or get on my way. We don't get that either at this point. And crucially also, we don't get a sense of like Leah as a woman with a job in the Rebel Alliance. Like, I joke about she's like, hang around and, like, making eyes of Han will pertain to work. But we don't see her having the same, like, responsibilities that Luke does during the evacuation. You know, he's, he's, like, checking cargo manifests.

Han appears to be the go-to guy for literally everything that the rebels get up to on Echo Base. Cheryl Reiki and kind of runs the, you know, runs echo base and runs the defense. But we don't get as strong a sense of like what Leah's official role here is. She pops up in these scenes to kind of be harassed by Han and to allude to sort of the greater purpose they're supposed to have and what they need to do. Yeah. But we don't see it as much. I think it begins some of the issues we see with. like some of the stuff that I think

cornally like somewhat cornedly tried to get fixed with the sequel trilogy where you had the people posting like don't call her Princess Leia she's General Organa and clap emoji stuff like that trying to sort of fix those this problem that crops up in the original trilogy which is that as starting around here we start to

lose track of Lay as an important leader within this alliance and is not defined by her relationship with the men around her. And starting here, it is increasingly focused on her relationship with men. Even like her rescue mission to Jabba's Palace,

that's for Han. The tensions on Endor, that's just like a lot of that's centered on her realizing Luke's her brother and Han is insecure because like, damn, she does suddenly seem really close to Luke. But this is, I think, it's the movie where we start to, like, lose a little bit of Leah as

take charge badass. Yeah, I think the two things she does here are brief the pilots and say, hey, here's what what we're going to need you to do, protect the transports as they leave. That's the two fighters against a Star Destroyer sequence I mentioned before, because she's telling everybody, hey, we got this eye on canon. It's going to give us covering fire. Then we're going to leave. And then also is the one who I think makes the call to be like, we have to go now,

even though the general is like, it's too dangerous to go now. But after that, and that's like the first 20 minutes of the movie, she's like in the cockpit in the passenger seat, you know, for the bulk of the middle of this movie. And then he's like scared and sad and angry for the. final act basically, right? I don't know that she, I don't remember what she does in the final third of this movie. She's sitting in the pilot seat of the Millennium Falcon. She goes back for Luke.

You're right. She makes the decision. Well, Luke calls out to her and then she tells Landau to do it. But versus grabbing the gun. I think Rob, you're right that you've met it. I think Rob was right in that there is a transitional moment here where the like, give me the fucking gun. I'm getting us out of here, Leah, isn't really here in the same.

way. No. Even like her last command, I guess, being to, it seems like she was leading the evacuation. I think so. I think that's right. And, like, determining which groups were leaving at what point. And it was kind of on her to give the final order for the people in that room with her to evacuate. And yet, you know, Han is like, we have to go. We have to go. It's all happening now. And there is something you know there is something about the the fact that Han is the one who like pulls her away from command

to save her personally and you know he doesn't take everyone else on the ship he takes he takes well he's not trying to get him to make out with him well this is true this is true and and I will say from that point on

it does feel like she you know when she this is best been stuff But when she gets to Bestbin, like the first thing that Lando remarks on is, you know, how hot she is. And holy shit, she's like, what the fuck are you doing with this loser? I can't always talk about this so badly. We can't. I'm pretty sure.

I'm pretty sure Billy D. Williams almost makes Harrison Ford break at a certain point. I would believe it. Okay. Maybe counter argument, though. Lay is basically right about everything except for the fact that they were in a cave for the rest of the movie in terms of her bad feelings about things. we are Leah being like, Han, you said you fixed the hyperdrive. We are Leah to be like, are you for real?

We're doing this, basically the rest of the movie. And in that way, she actually kind of becomes like the audience perspective character, which is its own sort of, it's not agency in the narrative, but it is like an important centralized perspective, you know? Yeah, I, it's not that I disagree. It's just that I feel like I see moments of it maybe more. than y'all do? Like, I feel like it's significant that she is the one who is like,

it is a problem that Luke is not here. You know, somebody be informed about, like, go tell Han about this right now. When, like, you know, Han is asking somebody else and he's like, I don't fucking know. I, you know, I think it's significant that she seemingly is trying to be the person to leave the base last. Yes. And Han is trying to pull her out. and she's like, no, I have to be here.

But she is trying to go down with a ship, essentially. You know, I think the Millennium Falcon stuff is not the most, like, you know, engaged. She's been with the rebellion. But I also think that's the point of what that is because it's also the first time that they, like, get to spend time alone together. It's her first adventure, like we were talking, like, you know, she gets to be away from all these people and these pressures.

So she's not, like, center stage there. But then when we get back to Bespin, I think, like, I think of her saving Luke. I think of her calling out to Luke the moment she sees him, despite of everything going on. Like, she's not just taking Landau's word for it and going along with the plan or, like, things like that.

Like, I feel like we see these sparks of her trying to push back, but not in the same way that's like, I'm taking this gun. I think that there's actually a moment where, like, Landau hands her two guns. And she's like, what am I going to do with this? And she knows what the fuck would do with this.

Yeah. And we'll come back to Return of the Jedi in a couple, or in a month or whatever, and talk about the stuff there too because I think that even that stuff isn't as open and shut as I think we can some like Slave-layer costume really is something

but we'll unpack it all in the rest of that movie I think then so is there other stuff early on before you said you want to talk about the Tontan and some science yeah okay it's getting the Tontan issue

actually can we can I ask a question before we actually get to because presumably you want to talk about the thing that Han does with the Tonton when he goes to rescue Luke or do you want to ask about something else before that well okay I just want to say that like the implication is that it is so cold that like people can't survive outside or nothing can survive outside it's like oh your Tontan is going to die out there and like Tonton just kind of is like it falls over and like Luke and Han are like breathing fine like it's not an oxygen issue is it like a rebellion like

The rebels, like, did, you know, Tantons are great camels or horses or whatever in better climates, but like... So I watched this with Chia the other day. Shoutouts. And this was also that Chia's first thought is like, I thought the Tontons were like maybe native to this planet or something, but like they're not doing good. Did the rebels just bring tank animals from like somewhere else? and they're just like, they should do okay. And so these are just like donkeys dropping dead on like the ice planet. Like now here's the thing though.

My counter argument was I think it is exhaustion that kills Hans Antonon. That it's not the cold. It's that he rides it too hard, weigh the fuck out there to whoever Luke is. And that's what causes it to drop. Not that it's so cold that the creature was overcome by it. it's it's that the the range that he was taking that thing out was just not viable for a for a solo ton ton yeah yeah i was going to say i think i agree with that i think he also like han probably has the um the hand warmers that you like you open and you shake it in the air yeah like the chemical

yeah yeah the kelly like he's got like 40 of those in his jacket and his pants and his pants and like he's probably because they sleep the night out there and they're fine in the more I mean looks like fucked up but they sleep inside of the taunton one of them sleeps inside of the taunton right oh he actually doesn't

no no no no he builds a shelter yeah but he says I have to get you this will keep you warm while I built while I build the shelter so maybe the shelter has like super heat capacity like space heaters and stuff yeah yeah totally all the kind of you know future you know

tech whatever. Yeah. Well, they definitely had to get naked and cuddle in there. I mean, we just do that. That's dead certain.

Absolutely. It's too hot. That's just, it's cold out there. I just think the, the thing that also came into clarity here is that like, in the,

like, this is how bad the rebellion is doing here, is that like, Han takes the, the tauntan because they're like, oh, none of the speeders are working.

Yes. Like, which is a real point to Rob's range thing where it's like, oh, There's no cars available. I'm going to take the pack horse that we usually only use in, like, these tunnels or around the base. Yeah, that's a really good point.

I think they, like, just got to Hoth because they're just, how, do we know how long they've been on Hoff? Well, you can find probably an answer today. There's probably, you know what I mean? But let's say just based on the movie itself. I don't think so. I have the script here. I don't see anything about, like, we've been here for two years, you know, for two months now.

I think at most we're talking months. Right? Yeah. Like, I think that, because there's. still setting up perimeter cameras. Oh, and crucially.

You couldn't have even brought most of the rebellion here. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like months with like engineer teams first. But like actual like command center stuff. Like all this stuff is new.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm getting the sense that you know, yeah, their bikes don't work here. The tauntons can barely

can't survive after hours for sure. They can probably are nearing exhaustion every day. Han probably took out a Tontan that had been out that day and hadn't had the chance to like recuperate or recover.

You know, who knows? But I believe I understand why the Tonton fell, I guess. Yeah. What I'm saying. Do you all know the story that was told

to Star Wars nerds in my little age bracket about the Wampa attack. I'm guessing that Rob has heard this. It's not ring a bell. Maybe this will jog something, but I don't know what you're talking about.

The story that I was always told by my elder nerds was that the reason that Wampa attack happens is because of Mark Campbell's car accident which broke his nose and... Oh, yes, I have heard this.

I did hear this story. I thought that was true. So the quote that I'm looking at now from commentary, George's commentary on whatever the initial Blu-ray release was, I'll just read it here. At the end of a new hope, he, Mark, had been in a car accident and I knew he was going to look a little different than he was in the first film. But my feeling was that some time had passed. They've been in the rebellion fighting that kind of thing. So the change was justifiable. There is a scene in the film where Mark gets beat up by the monster.

He doesn't say Wamp, but he says the monster, which helps even more. But that wasn't really the meaning of why we wrote the monster in the beginning. We needed something to keep the film suspenseful at the beginning while the empire is looking for. That's all. And so, now, Carrie Fisher says, I was still shooting Star Wars when Mark got into the car accident. It was a really bad accident. Miraculously, his teeth didn't shatter, but his nose did. He had to have some of his, he had to have some surgery.

I'm not going to go further on that part. So they adjusted the film with the snow monster right away in the movie in the movie Scratch his face to account for his looks being different. So it really depends on who you hear about this. And apparently Mark Hamill has said that they use some of his real scars to like track where his monster scars have gone. But that's not necessarily evidence that they like are trying to like hide or like justify his facial change.

What is going on with the PR team for this car accident? This is the second time that we've been like, yeah, Mark Hamill looks really weird because of that car accident. And so it's a bit like, no, no, no, no. The timing is slightly off. The first time was during the holiday special and he had all that crazy makeup on. Oh, right. That's the same accident.

That's the same accident. Right. But even then we were like, oh, well, there's a reason why that isn't the case because of the timing is different. The timing was different or something was weird. about it that wasn't you're right i don't remember the details there what the hell is going on the buddy got that's what i don't know yeah um other wampa thing really quick uh and we will again come back to this in the next episode but uh recurring thing in this movie uh and in conscious

of the first movie in the first movie the visual metaphor for learning the force was about seeing or about sensing without seeing right uh luke wears the helmet that the blind like the blast helmet so he can't see the remote sensors. Luke flies the ship with the, it turns off the X-wing and turns off the targeting computer and he still hits the shot. In this movie, it's like touching without touching, right? Or it's levitating things.

It's moving things with your hands. And the first instance of that here is him pulling the lightsaber out of the snow while he is hung up from the top of the ice cave. Don't ask me how the wompike hung him up by the top of the top of the ice cave. I don't want to know. I don't need to see that.

I don't want to know. We don't care. You know, we don't care. The wampa can do it. It implies, the wampa may be a sentient creature that has a curing, like, process. That it, like, this is food for later. That's right.

We're going to let this thing. He might even, like, drain Luke later in the way, like, a deer gets drained. Yeah. Or you're like, like, this wampa might be like, holy shit. I have never seen a food source like this as late in the season. This is the great thing. Human? Yeah, yeah. That's He's just going for the winner

Tanton. Yeah. And I'll have a Tonton now. I'll save the human for later. In the remastered special edition 4K Mm-hmm. There's a lot more Tontan eaten. Let me tell you that. Oh yeah. So like in the original film, right? You hear

menacing wampa noises off camera. Mostly it's implied that like Luke is in grave danger. in the special edition Luke looks over and sees the abominable snowman doing the Resident Evil cut scene like just blood everywhere like just chewing on Tonton

and Luke's like I gotta get out of here and then the Tantan and then the Wampas like ooh it's a way it can begins to stir so it's like way more gory and dramatized but also I think works less well because I think it's actually more suspenseful having like you don't know when this thing's gonna show back up totally

what the focus is can Luke get this goddamn lightsaber exactly you watch the special edition then Rob right you got all those scenes is it the Wampa snow trooper scene in your version of the movie no or that remains cut okay there's a sequence that was originally shot

during the the raid on Echo Base on the rebel base, where the very short version of this is that, like, the droids managed to lead some snow troopers who are raiding the base into a room

where there's a bunch of, like, wampas. Some those co-tore fucking thing I've ever heard. Can I tell you what it's actually, I mean, it is very cotor,

but can I tell you where it actually shows up? It's Shadows of the Empire. It's in the Shadows of the Empire N64 game. That room exists. Classic, the Shadows of the Empire,

for people who don't remember this, is the, like interquil that takes place between largely takes place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi but it opens in at a half attack and it includes this ridiculous thing where the

where R2D2 kind of like pied pipers some some snow troopers into the wampa pen in order to, it might be the other way around. Oh my gosh yeah I feel like I vaguely remember this. So that's all the wampa detail I have Monsters. Star Wars monsters,

important. How do we know that the Wampa didn't just want to hang out with Luke? I think that hanging him from the ceiling upside down would be my clue. But maybe he just didn't want him to leave. Or freeze in the snow.

Or freeze in the snow. I'm going to put you up here, buddy. It's going to be a terrifying massage. I know you'll try to flee. But that will not be good. good news for you. I'll be over here carving up this ton-ton for us to enjoy together. That's for us.

Wow. Maybe he wanted to you know, maybe that's how Wampas sleep. Like we don't, maybe they sleep upside down. Like that is nice and comfy. You know who to handle this? Obi-Wan. Obie 1. He would have sat down, had had coffee with him. Yeah. He would have shown

back up to Echgo base with like a whole trio of Wampas and he would have been like, I've solved her defense situation. You know, like, I brought us some friends. Just like Hermie in Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer where he does the, he takes the bad tooth out. And no, actually, it's worse than that. Fear moves all the abominable snowman's teeth and says he's harmless now. That's not good.

Don't do that. Don't do that. You wouldn't want to do that. That would be not good. That's a horrible. That's a horrible children special. Like on every level. I don't like those.

Like Rudolph's kind of rancid. any other pre-invasion stuff I like was we we get to see Vader's cool like bedroom chair set up his like special like Is this the moment we see the back of his head?

It's not yet that's a little later We first see him sitting in it frontways with his mask and stuff on later we will see the back of his head and go are Vader's white I love that set piece so much I love that it's the brightest thing in the Empire base now

I love that shot of when somebody goes to go talk to Vader while he's sitting in it and the light hits him from below because like that's where it is and it's just like the scene looks so good when he's lit that way the Vader costume in this which is a slightly different version is so good he's getting this it off. The little green lights by his belt.

Not to mention the extra shininess of the helmet and everything else. Like all that's great, but like all of the details are just pristine. It's so good. Oh, I guess the last other Wampa area thing is we get a Force Ghost. First Force Ghost. Oh, yeah.

Right? We've heard Obi-Man before, but he's here. He's here and also are we supposed to be like, is he here? because like Luke is all fucked up? Or are we supposed to be like Or is it less that we're supposed to doubt it And more that because Luke is

fucked up He's like able to see Him in this moment You know what I mean? Yeah I It seems like such a weird thing Because like I am so

Like audience test piled at this point That my first thought is like Oh you have. have to establish the Alameda's character for people who didn't see Star Wars. Just Guinness. There's no Mick. No. That's fair.

He should be Irish. I just feel like, I just. One other IRA leaders. I'm just going to claim them. Can we misidentify a mess? Yes. But yes. Alas.

But yeah. I think you're probably right. I think you're probably right. It's like, oh, shit. like he's in this movie he's a ghost Luke can see his ghost and also he's so removed from like Luke your destiny

is not to die of exposure here on Hoff that's not even a question you're gonna be fine yeah you'll learn from I already guided Han here oh interesting the way he does dissolve as Han like takes his place he's like Ben

does he say like Ben help me I think so yeah and then Ben disappears and holy shit who's coming through. Here's Han. That is where I carried you, my son. That's right. Well, there's only one pair of footsteps.

That was the Taunton that Han was writing, actually. But I was talking to them both. We also get, we also get Alec Guinness's pronunciation of Yoda. It's, you can really feel it's, you can write the Kirogama. You know what I mean? It's like the Japanese yo and da.

Like, it really has that feeling. Yoda is not, you didn't know who Yoda. was when you started watching this movie. Do you understand? Lucas was not able to sell Frank Oz on that pronunciation. Oh, no. Uh-uh.

No. It's, it's good. No, his name is Yoda. Yoda. No, no. Yoda. Yeah. Yoda.

You see Yoda. You know what, Frank, you got it. You know what? Maybe. Just rock and roll, baby. Maybe Obi-Wan just says it weird. It's been so long since he said. He's like, how do I say it?

again. What's the pronunciation? I'm normally talking to him. We got it for like one day on set. I mean, that's the other thing about this is I had not remembered how little he's there and the fact that he is not there. He is being recorded on blue screen and they're going to drop his ass in. You know? Yep.

I believe that that's true. I guess I'm not 100% sure if that's true or not. But no, he just loved being on set with these kids so much. He actually was just any time he was going to be. involved in the scene. He's like, I just want to be on set with them. Just off to the side. Snow battle. Snow battle. Snow battle. Which you can read. So I had to pull this up because this stuff cracks me up. So during the heyday of national security blogging,

um, where you had the danger room over on Wired and a bunch of other like Natsack reporter blogs out there. Kelsey Averton, started a blog called Grand Blog Tarkin. And they did a multi-site symposium analyzing the Battle of Hoff, which is very funny talking about things you can extract about the defense environment of like Star Wars in this era. But also well worth reading is angry staff officers breakdown of just how badly the rebels appear to suck at land warfare from what you see in this battle.

Angry Staff Officer is a National Guard Engineer officer, I believe. So, like, guys whose whole professional job is think about how to stop tank assaults. Look at a piece of land. How would you stop tanks if they were trying to attack there? What would you build? What would you dig?

How would you work together to stop the tanks? And so he sort of breaks down just what we can observe from the, from the rebel effort here it comes with a very good map if you scroll down of the battlefield and also everything else that happens on Hoth that is

that is pretty delightful but it is hilarious how much like people who are interested in military shit and defense stuff have just like frame by frame broken the scene down to

and not just to analyze what's happening in Star Wars, but also, there's actually so many things that you can flag with people, it can stand up as an example for a whole bunch of things. Like, not a ton of people know exactly what happened at the Battle of Kursk. Like, half the people on the planet Earth know exactly what happened at the Battle of Poth. And so you go to the Battle of Poth to illustrate something and not the actual battle that happened. that's such a funny way to think about it that's a nightmare actually

but okay yeah do we get a lot of um training out of then you put a tow cable out and you tie their their legs up is that a thing that we can is that being taught of the academy maybe they didn't know about the ATATs no no I'm in our real academies are we are we training

Are we doing that? Are we being like, when they bring out the AT-A-Ts, get your toe cables ready? Or have we just invested in munitions such that we don't worry about that? I think the analogy is, why are your pilots out there creating what amount to barbed wire and tank traps when you should have had the stuff in place? I see. Like, if they are vulnerable to this, then there should have been AT-A-T traps that would have slowed them down and brewing them would halt if they didn't want to tip over. But instead they left it to Luke to sort of invent on the fly when their speeders just completely failed to shoot these things. That was like one of my big notes was very much like if Luke doesn't figure this out, they're done for, you know?

And we don't get 30 years of Star Wars fighter pilot games of doing the toe cable run multiple times for Hoth level, which think about all the jobs. Luke is a job creator. You know what I mean? Man, trying to bring down three AT-ATs and like mode seven and the Empire Strikes Back video game, brutal. You get too far out, it breaks the tow cable. Try to spin around too sharply, you hit the ATAT and you crash out. Yeah, 100%. Real tricky stuff.

But yeah, the... Really tough. On the other hand, if that happens, the cost of it is that you get to listen to one of the best John Williams' tracks of all time again, which is the battle in the snow that plays during this secret. The like, dun dun dun dun dun dun that one is so good. John Williams is on another level in this movie, not just with the Imperial March, but like all the way through. The highs of it are just unbelievable. I do think something that is cool here.

And again, I think is an underrated strength of these movies, though, is that another reason you can see a lot of people start invest in like, what's going on tactically in the Battle of Hawth and all this is these movies never fully feel. like they're just BSing the rules as they go. The entire Imperial Assault is connected to a thing that the probe droid spotted that the rebel officers saw and recognized the importance, which was the shield generator.

This force, sort of their fast-moving overland assault force, needs to get to the shield generator before they can storm the rebel base. ATAT can't do it themselves. They have to get the shield generator before the main imperial assault

can begin. The rebels want to defend this for as long as possible to buy time for the evacuation. And I feel like as Star Wars goes on, things get more and more divorced from this kind of like stake setting about like, well, why are these people fighting here? We get more like just abstract battle stuff happening. There was a critique I read, God, it was a good like blue sky thing a couple days ago. Basically it was this argument that somebody who's reading a bunch of fantasy,

like genre fantasy was coming increasingly in conclusion that like a lot of people in those spaces don't know anything. And what they meant is they know other fantasy works, they know the other references,

but they don't know languages the way like Tolkien did. They don't know like military history the way tons of authors, you know, have. They don't know cultural like history or art history

the way they can't inform their universes with all of stuff. Instead, they end up like quoting works that we're familiar with these concepts. And I think Hawth is a good example of like how this stuff is going to get watered down in later versions of the films where this is a movie that is shot with a lot of touchstones in mind, right? Like it is quoting other works. It's quoting, you argue there's a bit of like paths of glory here with the trench warfare or any number of David Lean films really. with just the sense of scope and scale. But a lot of those movies themselves are like war movies or history movies where you lay out the stakes of here's the two sides

and here's what they're trying to accomplish. And here's what means when you see these guys reach to this reference point. And that starts to go by the boards as Star Wars, the franchise overtakes things. And you have more things that are just like, and then spaceships fight in the sky and like Poe Damron does a bunch of awesome shit and like Typhoid explode everywhere. but you get like less and less sense of coherence and stakes to what the battle signify.

They kind of signify nothing. They're just spectacles that have to happen because like here insert space battle. The battle reaches. We don't, they don't spend a lot of time setting this up, but they just do a very efficient job of the empire is going for that shield general. Once they get to it and blow it up, echo base is done. Yeah. Overwhelming forces can land at that point and then we're done. Or we could just obliterate them from orbit, presumably, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And it informs everything that happens. And so you get like a really coherent, dramatic battle where consistently, you know, like, why are the rebels out there fighting even? Well, clearly they don't have a prayer of throwing back the Imperials. But as long as that little shield generator thing holds up, they are buying time for their evacuation. Right.

Right. It's really well done. You know who just gets past all this shield generator BS? Admiral Thron famously. His whole thing is about stopping, it's about getting a different solution to this problem, right? Is he cloaks the ships and then gets them. I don't remember the exact detail.

There's a crucial difference though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what Thron has to deal with is a planetary shield generator. The entire planet is not a planetary shield generator. Because that's where they're able to land troops at the edge of the bubble. I see. Of course. Yeah.

So, like, Corrason, the entire planet is covering the bubble. Yeah. They're just shooting it. And you don't even know how many there actually are because they, they have cloaked so many of them and they're just like slowly,

aren't they just like slowly revealing themselves? Is that sort of mine or something, right? Yeah, yeah, to sort of create, like basically moot the shield generated. to keep the shield generator up to save it. But what I'm more mean is

the empire has to land its walkers on the planet a long ways away from the rebel base because they basically have to march through the... They can't just land ships through the shield. They have to march their troops up to the shield generator and destroy it. That is the implication. And what Thrawn is dealing with

is like on really populist worlds, the entire planet is shielded. And so you basically have to bombard the shit out of it. And then you're bombarding the planet. I think that is broadly the thing they've laid out. Wikipedia seems to think Hoth is fully shielded. And I think that the shields prevent orbital bombardment. Orbital bombardment, but not landing.

But I don't, we don't have to dig into this right now. But whether it's a localized version or a bigger version, Thrawn figured that shit out. That was his big, his big innovation was, I would have handled that without needing to put any troops on the ground with ATATs. I don't know what he's doing right now. He's busy. Him and the emperor conferring us of shit. Where is he right now? I don't know what he is doing right now, but Mara Jade is up to some stuff right now.

Well, also, so he, sorry, like right now, Thrawn his dream of the fisherman's wife, like, situation, like, that is just what's happening. Like there's tentacles, there's Ezra for some reason, there's space rails with tentacles. That's true. That's true. That's true. But in the, in the Tim of the Zon version. Yeah, in the old version. Thrawn is out there just making the galaxy a better place. He's like, we need a strong empire to face the real threat. The Yu-Janvong.

Right, right, of course, of course. Yu-Jan vong. One day we'll learn about the Yuzan vong. There's another thing here that cracks. me up, which is several times we cut to General Vier's ATAT. His big helmet. His big Oh, such good helmets. They're all just

got their gear on. But imagine imagine you're like in Omaha Beach scene, like saving Private Ryan, all that. Or you're in one of the tanks and so you're trying to barrel through the German defenses and all that. And like people are dying all around you. Like you're really in

the shit. And then like little ghost Eisenhower pops up in front of you and is like are you through the beach yet and he hops at you and he twirls and he struts and he stamps that is what that is what Vader is doing he's getting on his little holocom to the general who's an active combat and it's just like shield still looks like it still looks like it up it's up and he doesn't just put his he doesn't just put his fists on his sides. He like struts

and like puts his fists so high up and makes a big huffy gesture. It is most incredible. Like, I think we might have talked about this last time, but it continues here. The baseline level of interpersonal professional communications

in the world of Star Wars is bitchy. Oh, yeah. Like that is everybody's interactions with each other is just like a little help. Fine. That was in the 80s, you know? That was, we hadn't had training yet, HR training. They haven't made me look at a ridiculous video about what isn't, isn't immoral in the

workplace yet, you know? Right, right, right. Trying to be mean to each other. Also, we're that like one or two scenes away. We skipped this part of Vader choking a guy through a video screen where he chokes Ozell or whatever to death through the video screen. It's such an interesting addition. It like really is like, oh, we're trying this one again, huh?

Like, people loved the strangulation scene. And it's like an increase of power. Like, I, I, I, it, it feels like, you know, the band playing the hits again. But again. But it's touching at distance, which is the big metaphor of this, this movie, right? Oh, true. Luke moves a lightsaber. I mean, we'd already seen Vader Chokey guy, you're not wrong.

But it is. It's like Luke didn't used to be able to move things. from across the room. Now he could do that. Well, what can Vader do? Let's see what... Let's see Vader's card. Oh, he's choking a man through a TV screen.

He really has power at distance, you know? But I do think you're right. It is a lot. Yeah, there's just like something about the gravity of this film and some of the like, what we were talking about before with the like increase in production value. Because when we were watching the first one, I could get in the head of like, this is my first time watching this movie. Uncle Ben is about to walk away from R2D2.

I'm like feeling physical anxiety of my chest because I'm like, you can't leave RD behind. But when I was watching this one, I was just like, this is Star Wars. I love this movie. I couldn't detach myself enough to be like I've never seen this movie before.

How am I responding to it? Because it's like, oh, Star Wars is here. Darth Vader, that's Darth Vader. Oh, he's doing the choke that I love. Like, there's nothing. Guzzling details. Like the fact that everyone else blanches when Azzle starts to choke.

Yeah. And like there's just two like dudes like working the comm station behind him and they look over like what the fuck is happening? Do you just every time Vader leaves the command deck? Everyone is like, oh shit, there he goes. He's looking at him like, you know, cowering as he walked by. He has just been furious since the first movie. Yes. We have to get there. We'll get there when we get to the emperor scene. We have a lot to talk about. But he's so mad. What he has been up to in the last three years.

We can't talk about it yet. We need him to talk to the emperor. I'm going to shut my mouth. We're going to move on in this scene. They're knocking out the ATATs. Luke does not use his old grapple hook. It's a new different grapple hook. Well, that's because the guy who needed to shoot it.

That's right. Died. No, no, no. I meant when he goes up into the ATAT with his, when he does the call of duty, drop a grenade into the tank maneuver, which I know is a real maneuver. I know that's not a call of duty maneuver. I know.

I know. I'm not just quoting video games But you know Real soldier that ain't grappling Grapple hookin up to the belly of the tank To drop the grenade in there Which by the way is not a little Is he getting the grappling hook out of the speeder?

I think so Because he's not trying to rescue Dak I used to think he was like checking Dak But like Dak is dead He doesn't even think he's just like Dack is luggage He's just trying to get out of the way What he's fishing around back there for

I think that's right The Snow Speeder as we talked about piece of shit like piece of military equipment wasn't working two days ago to save Luke they're not they're not

you're right you're right does it have guns that can deal with AT like imperial ground forces also no only if they're like neck are showing and they can't get to the height where they could shoot them in the neck

they can't get up that high why weren't they just flying the X wings around like just because you need those to escort you only have enough X wings to escort the, it's the same guys who are going to be flying them

and right there's to zip over there to their X-wing parking lot and also this is how bad this thing is like the X-wing one pilot, one astromack fully like independent like fighter vehicle etc.

The snow speeder a tenth of the firepower of the X-wing none of the flight capabilities two people required to operate it. You need Maverick and Goose aboard this thing

to have it fail to hit things. Sorry, fail to do damage to things that it hits. And its alternate weapon system needs someone else to futz with it. So you get Rogue Squadron, 12 X-Wins. Rogue Squadron in the Snow Spears had enough to fight the ATATs,

six of them. Yeah, six of them. Not enough. I will say the coolest thing about them is that they figured out how to get the tail gunner from a World War II bomber into a fighter, like, you know, a figure, you know, fighter silhouette, basically.

It's not really a fighter silhouette, doesn't have wings. It's just kind of like a kite or a surf. What is it? What is that shape? What are we called? Like a trapezoid, I guess, right? But I think that's, I think it's cool that they managed to do. What they wanted was we want, like, tail gunner energy in a fighter.

And we know those died, like flies. of all the bombers constantly yeah exactly so we want to get that scene from war movies into this how do we do how you doing back there doc not good not good ripped back back um but yeah and i also hadn't really realized i didn't really clocked how much luke is the dude here uh he's giving instructions this is his unit he is telling everybody to do stuff obviously like you said you we need wedges guy to hit the actual toe cable sequence because DAC is dead, but it's Luke's command, you know?

That's true. I mean, it has been three years, so maybe he just did the accelerated leadership course. Right, right, right. Just being in action. Also, a lot of more experienced fighters died. That is also true. That is also true.

It's like him and wedge. It's just him and wedge, basically, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's some dialogue here that I feel like gets missed. This movie gets quoted a lot by the rest of Star Wars. We get a lot of All Too Easy and some of the other Vader stuff in the later half of the movie. We have a lot of sequence quoting, you know.

But something that feels like it doesn't get quoted here are, I mean, one is Han says go to hell. This is where we have to address that Han says to go to hell. So hell exists as a phrase. We don't have to go deep into this, but that's where it comes. He says I'll meet you in hell. He says I meet you in hell. You're right. He says,

and then I'll see you in hell. Oh, sure. I thought. But one of those. Yeah. Hell was invoked. Hell was invoked. But my favorite one of these is when the falcon is having trouble.

And I think it's Leia who goes, what did it help have I got out and pushed, which more people have started to be saying shit like that. You know what I mean? That's so funny. It's so funny. It's so funny. It's so good. This is a car movie.

George Lucas loves. cars. Get out and push. Something you say about a car. That's so true because importantly, Han says, it might. He does. He's like, it might. Yeah. It's so good.

What a movie. It's also good. And, you know, we've been recording now for an hour and a half. We are 30 minutes into this movie. I like sat down, worried that the film would slow in the first act somehow.

You know, when I think about this movie and I think about my favorite stuff, it's all stuff in the middle and especially the final act of the film. And in my heart, I was like, oh, but I got through, I have to get through Hoth first. Hoth kicks ass. Hoth is good. So much happens on Hoth. Like, I think this movie picks up so quickly because it knows, it's a cognizant of the, of the fact that the audience has been thinking about

what is going to happen next and it it truly doesn't feel like it wastes any time like as soon as we're on Hoth, we're into Han and Leah's relationship in the kind of like you know tensions

and what not there and then we're into Luke immediately getting hit by the like that is the first thing that happens in this movie that Luke gets abducted by the wampa and is like trapped in this cave and oh he he's been working on his force stuff he's able to you know close his eyes and put it put his hand out and he gets the

lightsaber to him and in freeze himself and then oh hans here to rescue him and then oh guess what the fucking the imperial army is here too and vaders like it just this movie picks up so quickly. I almost am like, give me a second to catch my breath is how the first bit of this movie feels. But what I think of the kind of anticipation of the audience member in 1980, like sitting down to watch this movie like so hype, like so much hype, then it feels like, yeah, this is what I wanted. I wanted all of this. It's all here. And it makes sense. Because at times, I almost feel like the beginning of Empire Strikes Back is too fast. And like, give me more time to just like sit with Luke with Han and Leah and feel their relationship out.

Give me more time with Luke and how his force training has been going. But it's like, no, here's where we are. Get caught up. Like, again, we're being dropped into the middle of a moment. We're not, Star Wars is not about like, here's. the setting and we're going to like just lay all the groundwork to you know really build the world and all this it's it what it is is you get dropped in into a moment where action is already taking place and things are already the cogs are already turning things are already happening

and you need to kind of catch up to the moment that's what the fucking opening crawl is for is like here's what you need to know And now let's press start. And now we go. And check out this giant spaceship. You've never seen anything like it. You know? And you're going to get the slower stuff.

Yeah. It'll slow down. In my head, I'm always like, oh, there's like this long training sequence with Luke on day. No, it feels slow. It feels like it's supposed to feel. It feels meditative. It feels inward looking.

It feels sort of out of time and space. And certainly it are removed from the rest of the action of the movie. and trying to square all the timelines doesn't does this all happen like in a day and a half before he has to go rescue? It doesn't matter. The point is Luke goes and does like 80% of the Jedi training needs to do out there

and so it's up that whole vibe. It doesn't bear thinking about because the important thing is emotionally we're going to get those slow moments where it's like, okay, now let's look at Luke's journey with the force. Okay, now let's see where Han and Lay are actually at. and like what the relationship is once you take away like the the the sniping out of it.

So I think it's one of the brilliant things of this movie is it just floors it out of the gate. It's been three years. Let's move. It's Star Wars time, baby. And it's going to return to those themes and those relationship stakes. And it's going to give them time to breathe. John Williams even wrote a cool little musical thing. theme for Leah and Han making out

or Leah being harassed. Works for both. But first, we're going to have something of those, like, unbelievably tautly-paced Star Wars you've ever seen. And that's just, that's this movie from beginning to end.

Even the slow stuff doesn't break the tight pace in the entire film. For sure. Yeah, and I think, Rob, you get at something else here, too, which is, like, it's, in some ways, it, um, Natalie, you were saying it feels like, okay, I got it. I kind of wish it would slow down. If it did, some of it might start to fall apart because, totally, uh, which is not going to be

countering you. I'm, I'm, I understand completely. I'm not trying to be like, oh, that's not, I don't agree. But I think the two, the two things you both set together kind of add up to like, hey, if you slowed down and started counting the time, you would end up going, wait, how long was Luke even on Dagaba? But because of the pace of the film, And because of the difference in the pacing between Hoth and then the asteroid stuff and then the slow meditative stuff on Degaba, you get to feel like Luke got a lot of training, even if counting up the days wouldn't necessarily get you there. And it's okay that there's an inconsistency there.

That's not the type of story it is, right? Like, there is a way in which it's a fairy tale. There are ways in which it's mythic. And part of that is allowing for ambiguity and time and disconnect in that stuff. and not like, no one's ever looking at the calendar in this story, you know. I'm working on something right now with a friends of the table with Jack DeKee that's connected to an old Friends at the Table thing. And we've been talking about dates and whether, you know, when we tell stories in Friends of the Table, there's kind of one of two modes that we have. And one is we have lots of numbers and dates and very particular relationships between our different seasons and stuff.

And then we have seasons where like we never say a date ever. We might say something happened a decade ago. Or I might say that like something was going on for a few years or a few weeks or a few months. But there's stuff we're like, we're never giving an actual date to this. And I think Star Wars exists in that mode. I mean, obviously it has like, we eventually get to this is happening in three A, B.Y, three years after the Battle of Yavin. But actually watching this movie, and maybe we should have pushed back on this before, the audience has waited three years. That's why it's three years after the Battle of Yavin.

And I'm, I think it's wise of them to have adopted that. as the actual like amount of time between the movies and the stories. But the movie doesn't say it's been three years. And I think that that is interesting because the movie kind of can play with time in this way that is abstract. And that gives it certain, you know, affordances. It's to be flexible about time in ways because of that. I'm pretty sure it doesn't say three years. I don't remember it saying that.

But it is three years, canonically, especially at this point. know. And it works that it's three years. I do think it works to be like, oh my God, they've been tense and working together for three years and they've never figured out what they are. And now they're in the asteroid field. And now they're doing weird flips in the air in the in their hearts and also in the Lenin Falcon. Yeah, the evacuation of Hoff Base, like her being cut off, trying to get the the, the escape vehicles, having to take her back to the Falcon as Imperial troops

come pouring into the base with Vader all of it's awesome I love just the destruction that's been wrought on me is this in your version the original I was struck by there's a moment where we go to the Rebel Command Center and there's a dead protocol

droid just like lying like crushed under machinery in the center of the frame as Han Lai are making final preparations to leave. It's kind of gnarly. I think so, because doesn't,

I feel like, like, doesn't C3PO look over at it or something? I'm trying to remember. I'm not sure. I'm skinning through. But it is brutal, for sure, you know, regardless of that. And also C3PO, we even mentioned the droids yet.

The droids are good. The droids, they're so good. They're so funny. We're going to get a lot of C.3PO next time in one of his iconic comedy bits slash his many struggles of being dragged around by these fools, you know? It was already doing it. Like, during the evacuation, like the jokes begin as he is horribly, like, kidnapped effectively aboard the Falcon.

we hey does the Vulcan have this power before the drop the little turret out the bottom and just massacre stormtrooper button I don't remember they had to upgrade James Bond shit having out of nowhere it's like oh no the rebel the Imperals are shutting up a big gun to shoot the falcon and he's like chewy use the use the blaster and it just wrecks house that's great and then they escape and then we get um is this my favorite most height piece of Star Wars music? that Williams ever wrote.

Like, fundamentally, asteroid chase. Asteroid Chase. Like, the others, there's, the others are more listenable.

They are, they have better, like, they work better as themes. But there is nothing in Star Wars. I think that hits as hard as, da, da, da,

as the Falcons like, like twisting around asteroids. So good. Like, it hits so fucking hard. It is, it is incredible. every time it popped up in video games

it was like yeah now this is Star Wars baby yeah yeah I was sending speaking of Jack Tequita I was sending tracks from this movie to Jack the other day and I was like I know this is an absurd thing to send but have you heard this John Williams guy obviously they had but like you know this stuff is on another level

it is I think we're just going to keep coming back to this Star Wars gets invented here in a very weird way. The thing that becomes the Star Wars franchise. So many of the iconic video game moments, so many of the short stories and novels that draw on material. So many of the Clone Wars episodes that want to quote something feel like this is. And again, the kind of core stakes of what goes forward from here. In the prequels, the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan,

you know, in the sequels, the relationship to Star Wars itself, you know, and the desire to concept. constantly quote Star Wars. So much of it is, like, and that's kind of like in a meta way, because that's what everything, that's what Star Wars does for so long. It's,

it's all here, you know. And yeah, the Ashrod Field is just a killer. And it's great, like, battle choreography also. This is part of the, like, they have pushed it forward so much in terms of model, like moving models around.

Things look like they're moving more. Yep. A hundred percent. Cross the board. Looks a lot less like we push this model to the side in front of a camera. Yeah. And a lot more like when the Falcon is like being chased by tie fighters, it feels like

they are moving through space. Very fast. And Rob, let me tell you, like, watching the 4K80 version of this, that is how it looked. It does not look back. I'd say the only effect that really made me go, hmm, was some of the, the animatronic taunton stuff at the very beginning. But even that was cool. You also has good Ray Harryhausen.

It does. Like Vives. Always. And here's the thing. that often gets missed. Stop motion has kind of alien weird quality that in a way make something else more convincing

or at least a little more like fitting with the setting than like something smoother or like better animated. I certainly would rather than beyond weird. I'd rather these weird animatronics than like superimposed person on a you know a green horse

and the green has been replaced with taunton. You know what I mean? Yeah. But all of the twists and turns and the dives and the canyon, the canyon in the big asteroid, where they kind of do the canyon run and the Millennium Falcon turns sideways to like dip through the tiny part of the canyon and the Thai fighters, you know, crash into it. That's Star Wars to me. That's star. This shit means something to me.

All right? This shit means something to me. The way the Millennium Falcon like does that giant. giant swoop to like settle into the case is so like no one else does that. Can you imagine you've never seen anything like this in 1980? You've never seen anything like that in 1980. You're like, oh, where's it going? Oh, it's dropping down.

Like there's something so fluid about that movement where like- 2000-1 of Space Odyssey. I like 2000-1 of Space Odyssey. I like Star Trek. It don't do this. You know what does this is going to the air show. You have to go to the air show to see something like this. And I've been to the air show.

And there's not a plan in the world that looks as cool as Lenny and Falkin. I'm telling you, there isn't. They got me saying Falkin because that's how they say it in the movie. I say Falcon when I'm talking about the bird. But when they say Falkin, I say falcon. That's how Harrison Ford read the line. That's right. And we're just going with it.

That's right. That's what it is. It's like, also. again, Han is so cool in this movie. He's just like, it's just like, the problem is, he's out there, building a shelter for his homie the night before the battle. I'm saying. Saving his brood.

Yep. Killing a probe droid. Realizing the probe droid found you. It's too late. Too late to get out of here. Getting his girl through the base while it's like falling down around them. And then is like, hey, check this out. And flies through the asteroid field.

And then he's like, we need somewhere to hide. boom we're moving like a thousand miles an hour I just spotted a cave in we go yeah now what's up with that cave we'll get to it's not a big deal don't worry about it it all works out one one thing that I want to quickly call out before we move on to the cave stuff

is we at this point have seen the back of or we see the back of Vader's head yeah it's right now Right now. It's right after Luke lands and gets on to Degaba. Yeah. And there's something, I know that when you see Luke in the Bacta tank, the color of his scars are so distinct. And, you know, you could probably attribute it to, oh, they use the same, you know, makeup, you know, application method for the way they did.

Luke and the way that they did the back of Darth Vader but that like the pinkish like there's like this this raw like raw skin you know when you like when you pull a scab off too early and it's like the skin is so tender

and pink and raw and there's this mirror that I see between Luke and the back to tank in the way that his scars look and then getting to see that glimpse of the back of Vader head and the pink pinkishness of his scarring in the back and I was just like interesting I see I see what you're doing there I think you're right I really think you're right that's that's really sharp yeah

we didn't talk about the back to tank at length Luke and the tidy white is at the back to tank floating around it's incredible also I want to shout out that there's like it seems to be there's some sort of like interaction utility tool that goes between both the Bacta tank and is also how people interact with the screens in the control room, which is like a little magnifying glass thing that also has like a some sort of, you know, like imagine. Yeah, it's like a touch thing. And you see it in the control room with the people, the different rebel officers kind of navigating the maps and graphics

on Hoth, but also on the Bacta tank, the medical droid goes up to the side of the Bacta tank and like sticks it on the side. It's just cool, and I love the way that Luke's body is like floating, it

floats up and like it just has this very cool, freakish, you know, like, effect. that it's like he's, you know, he's going through this intense process. Like he's, you know, his chest kind of like pumps in this big way that kind of sends him up in the back to tank. It's really cool.

I love a back to tank moment. His rebreather that's on in there. Yeah, I think that you're right in drawing. Even like the way that the shot of him in the room is framed where the light is coming from the back to tank. And everyone else is like dark and in the shadow kind of is echoed in the Vader helmet off scene where his kind of is revealed that I guess his office is also his medical bay. Yeah, his dressing room. Yeah, his dressing room.

But it's, well, the reason I say it's his medical bay too is because you can kind of see. So here, just to be clear, we're talking about a scene after they escape into the asteroid field from Hoth. and I think maybe after Luke lands on Dagaba, which we'll talk all about the Dagaba stuff together. But we get this like, you know, I forget which Imperial officer, but like comes into Vader's big room, his like, his all his quarters or whatever.

And there's this sort of, inside of that there is a, I don't know what shape this even is, but it's like a big interlocking geometric shape. It's not a sphere because it has like hard angles. Dodecahedron? Maybe a dodecahedron. It has this kind of like,

angled teeth that close around around like can close into like almost a little not a cube but you know a closed shape a closed a decadron and it's all white inside and the officer steps inside the doors close and then he kind of walks around to talk to Vader and is surprised to see as are we the back of a human person's head bald head that is getting the Vader helmet lowered onto it that's covered in these pinkish scars as Natalie was describing I think maybe one thing it's important to say is like, people didn't know if Darth Vader was a human or was not just a robot, right?

Obviously, he didn't have a name like the other droids did, but this is the first time we see that he is, you know, a person, a man of flesh and blood. And also, the fact that the thing that he doesn't put the helmet on, a big, like, claw hand

lowers it onto his head. And you can kind of see, other computerized apparatuses and apparatus and stuff in there. So I've always read this as like partly a space for his physical robotic or like cyborg maintenance as much as like

his little you know desk or whatever. And then it closes. He closes himself up in there at the end of that scene which is interesting. I love the scene. I just like I think that there's something so interesting about like the way that the camera is curious about Darth Vader and the way that like

his staff is the sort of like you're peeking on this moment that he does not want you to see and this like it's this big revelation about this character that you like you know we're impressed by in the first movie but I don't know that I was very curious about Darth Vader I kind of feel like I got the vibe he was like the villain but in this like there's there's it's like oh there's there's more there. And it's like, knowing what we know of Anakin and Darth Vader, that like this is the very first,

like, even inkling of that is this like, real moment of vulnerability and like, like, invading his space is so, um, like,

powerful, I think. Totally. Yeah. It's like, it really, it, only getting to see sort of through the cracks of his pod creates this like,

it feels like an invasion of privacy that like we shouldn't be like we shouldn't be seeing this but all all we want is to know more like why why why why this why what happened to him you know um where does he go when the pod closes like what what what is he doing in there um just add such intrigue and mystery and and like reveals a vulnerability of Darth Vader's that he like he keeps

you know his sort of the people around him at a distance you know that they're not you know it's not a person placing this helmet on for him it's not uh it's not himself it's like Austin said an apparatus

that is like doing everything for it's his own contained environment And from nowhere is he going to like take an extended hand to, you know, not even in a sort of subservient way. Like no human interaction at all, no human touch here. Everything is controlled and, you know, in his realm. For sure. Very, this is what it is to be Anakin Skywalker forever. Ain't that the truth

Yeah We want to finish up This part of the asteroid stuff Before then just pivoting to Bigaba for the rest Yeah We need to save a lot of time for you We know an alley check in

Yeah how's the vibe Between Our lovebirds It's going great You know The first vacation With your Uh huh

Your Situation should You know Yeah you know I think we're I guess we don't get to Maybe isn't that actually Because we don't really get

We don't we get them landing here I guess we actually shouldn't talk about Them saying We can't my hands are dirty yet Maybe we have to save that for next time Oh my god It's gonna kill me It's gonna fucking kill me

Maybe that happens here before we Maybe that actually does happen Yeah No it doesn't It's at the same time As Luke is Interacting with Yoda Oh but we're gonna talk

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we're just not going to talk about Luke in the cave. So we can. We can talk about them inside of the... So, let's do it. So, yeah, let's do it. What do we think? Let's check in on the course of negging and harassment as they reached a payoff. Hans' theory holds up here. Oh, okay. You treat me differently would wear a load. Is that if, you know, you're a different person around all of these people. alone together. There's something between us and obviously you like me. Is this not the best example of it? Because he's still basically being mean and being like, I know that you want to be with me. And she's like, no, not really. Stop touching me. But I think that

like, stop touching me because my hands are dirty and him being like, I literally do not care. It's not what he says. I'm dirty. Yeah. He says, my hands are dirty too. What are you afraid of? There's nothing to be afraid. It's just you would be here. It's what he wanted, you know? Their hands are both dirty in the sense that they've both, they're both, like, they're both doing this. Like, they're both betraying, you know, they're themselves, like, their roles,

they're, they're, who they're meant to be, like, oh, yeah. I hadn't thought about that. Is that really it, too? Like, they're both at, like, at fault. They're both culpable. They're both, like, they both have fallen for each other. There's no, both of their hands are dirty. Like, it's, you know, it's, it's a two-way street.

Let's bracket what we know about Han from obviously the, all of the EU fiction and from the film solo and his previous relationships. Are we supposed to feel like, when we read these scenes. Are we supposed to read them as Han is a scoundrel, or not these scenes, but just Han as a character. Han is a scoundrel, and he's like, he hooks up with people all the time, and this might just be one more hookup for him. Or are we supposed to believe that he's like, he's putting himself out on the limb. He's the smuggler who never puts down roots anywhere. He's the guy who bounces around. He's put down roots.

It's been three years. And he's kind of betraying the self he used to be, but she won't betray the self that she used to be. Does that make sense? I mean, yeah, I think you definitely can read it that way. I think it becomes tougher to read it that way with how mean he is. He's very mean. Because, you know, she gets to be guarded and he has to be the one who's like fighting for it, obviously, right? So, like, I do think just as much a part of it is him being like, well, I want to leave.

You know, you're supposed to be the one who's not stopping me from leaving and I don't want to leave. And now that's your problem because it's not my problem because I'm supposed to be, leaving. I also think that, like, in the bullying aspect, there's, like, it's not that he doesn't like lording the fact that she really likes him over. Like, I think that there's, like, there's, there's fun in him for it in that way. But I also do think that he is being as defensive as she is being, but because she's better at it than him, he doesn't get to be defensive. And he has to be like, you have to play your role in this. Like, come on. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She happens to like nice men. He's a nice man.

Says him. And then that's when she's your scoundrel. That comes earlier. Okay. Right? Because here is where... She says you're a scoundrel and he's like, scoundrel, I like the sound of that. And then he takes her hand and starts rubbing it. And she's like, my hands are dirty.

And he's like, my hands are dirty too. What are you so afraid of? And that's when she says, I happen to like nice. Nice man. I'm a nice man. I know you're not. I have the scene here. Yeah, I'm reading it.

On my second monitor. And it's just like, it's just so, it's so, um, I need to write a, a YN Fick right now. I need to be Princess Leia. I need to be, I need to be both of them, actually. I mean, it's, you know, obviously, like, bullying someone into, like, giving up and just kissing you, is problematic behavior. But in this, no, but what, but what I, if I can, it's, it's like he's trying to, like, he's trying to, like, break through the responsibility. that she, like this blockade of, of everything that's going on outside. They're stuck on a fucking asteroid.

There's nowhere to go. All they're supposed to do right now is fix the ship and hide out until, you know, the coast is clear. All they can do, like, in some ways, one of the only things they can do is just spend time with each other and be around each other. Like, this is one of the only opportunities they have where, like, they could actually take a pause and and you know

sort of confront the feelings that they have for each other and it's like he's like chipping away chipping away at the wall that she's built around this like fortress of role and responsibility and the rebellion and everything that's going on out there and it's like

none of that is happening in this asteroid right now in this asteroid right now in this very moment like we can we can press pause on the world. Like, can you pop, can, can we do that together? Unfortunately, see 3PO comes in and reminds them that, uh, there's some shit going on.

Well, that's just that. Um, he's really excited because he did what Han told him to do, right? Right. Yeah. Also, just side note. It's going to be recurring theme. Han routinely is like, shut the fuck up, three PO. It's my ship.

I know it better than you do. but 3PO's often like diagnosed the problem and is coming at the have you checked the such and such and such and hans will be like yeah of course i thought of the such and such chewy uh we need to check the such such so there are a lot of moments of like it's a great bad 3PO low key being excellent at like fixing up the falcon and figuring out what's going on to it yeah and han being really annoyed by the fact that he appears to be the third or fourth best Millennium Falcon mechanic aboard his ship. So I just want to say two quick things which is one. I've been reading the old script here.

There's a couple of drafts available of the script. The first one is the transcript of the first draft by Lee Brackett. The script for Empire Strikes Back was written by Lee Brackett and Lawrence Cazden. I think Cazden is the person who does the final version of the script.

the Lee bracket one The kiss scene is so different We don't have to get we don't have to like walk down this path But I will I will link it and people should do a an old control F or command F for kiss and read all the various kissing scenes in this version of the movie Various well well she used to kiss Luke before she kisses Pahn in this version of the movie A sweet tender kiss that's not the case anymore.

Though there is a kiss. There is a brief kiss, actually, between the two of them, after Luke is injured towards the end of this movie. But the sequence of them kissing is different inside of the Falcon

while waiting for the Star Destroyers to move on. But in the main one, in the actual fourth, I believe the fourth draft, which is the shooting script of this film, there's also some

there's some stage direction, right? There's some direction for the action here. Which I think is all very interesting. Han looks at her with a piercing look. He's never looked more handsome, more dashing, more confident. He reaches out slowly and he takes Leah's hand against, again, from where I was resting on a console, he draws it towards him. I'm not going to read through the dialogue.

We've already talked about that. Lay is now very close to Han, and as she speaks, her voice becomes an excited whisper, a tone completely in opposition to her words. And then later, he kisses her now with slow, hot lips. He takes his time as though he had forever, bending her body backwards. She has never been kissed like this before, and it almost makes her faint. When he stops, she regains her breath and tries to work up some indignation, but finds it hard to talk. Suddenly, 3PO arrives in the doorway, speaking excitedly. And I read that because, again, I'm not going to read the whole stuff from the other version of this draft,

the other version of the script, the first draft of it. But in that version, Han is like anxious during this scene. They kiss. She pulls away. He's like, are you in love with Luke? She's like, I'm not in love with anybody. I don't want to be in love with anybody. And he's like, I can't find the words for this.

And explicitly says like, no other woman has ever been in the Millennium Falcon besides her. Oh. Matter of fact, you're the only ever woman who's ever flown in the falcon. Trouble is, I can't seem to make anything sound convincing

Leah and then the bombs start or whatever. So he can't continue his thoughts. She knows that the ship is a woman. Landis girl, yep, that's exactly it. That's right. You don't fly in the ship. She's not in, she is the ship.

She is the ship. She is the ship. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lande's wife is carrying you around. It's so fucked up. I can't believe it. Yeah. Is that in the main feed?

Can people listen to us talk about that with their, if they aren't patrons? I think so. I don't think, I don't think it's a patron. I think it's a patron. I thought solo was a main. Hold on. I'll Google us. Point is.

Goal us. A.MCA Hans. Yes, the point is. AMCA solo episode. Anyway, the point is, is that Leia runs away. She doesn't know what she wants. She just needs to guess. That's the main thing.

Han was right. Her attempts to get out of that situation and de-escalate it. Nah, fuck that. We're kissing. Episode 61, solo Star Wars story, it is in the main feed. And importantly, our show notes are the following things. Man in L.A., get off your phone. Stop becoming influences.

We need gaffers. Then, who are you? Who are your people? I don't have any people. I'm alone. Typing. Han Alona. And then the three Lando cover art cover, you know, book cover arts, which are all so good.

That's what we should be reading. We should be reading Lando Calrissian in the Mind Harp of Sharu. You don't have to tell me twice. Hang on. So hang on. Austin, can you very quickly figure out, hang on, maybe from these covers I can tell. What's that? Because are these?

No, I can't tell. So are these like companion pieces to the Han Solo Adventures? where he goes to the corporate sector and like their companion pieces like Hans Sol at Stars End and all that I believe that that is I believe that that is correct in the sense that

the reason I believe that is I think that they were collected in the same style of Omnibus Omnibus that the Han Solo adventures end up being collected in I'm pretty sure got it it's from the same era it's from that same set of

or same time period, I believe. And then 3PO prevents us from having the first and only explicit sex scene in the Star Wars cinematic universe. Yeah, that's right.

Tragic. Thanks a lot, 3PO. C3Pio's like sort of obsessed with Han Solo in this movie. Say more. C3PO is like trying to be the third wheel mean girl in Hans Solo's Mean Girl act. Like, I noticed

it like in the Echo base C3Pio is constantly following Han Solo Even the moment that I noticed it the most is there's like Leia kisses Luke, Luke does the like hands behind head, and then Han gets upset is like, I gotta go. And C3B is like, I gotta go

too. And I was like, C3Bio, where do you have to go? Why do you hang out with Han Solo so much? Yeah, okay, it's because he's Leia's droid. He's keeping tabs. He's always got to be wondering what's Han up to. We don't think it's Leia hasn't said. C-Tbio always follow on around and tell me what he gets up to.

Is he not Luke's droid? This is Luke's droid. This is a dead letter. This is mooted by now. He's clearly her droid. Because she was her droid before. Luke buys him from the Jawa's, but only because she... There's like a really ugly court case.

It's both of them. In between Star Wars and now where it's like, Liz, like those are my droids. Yeah. And Luke is like, no, my dead uncle bought those droids. They're my droids. And like they don't talk for like six months because they're in this custody battle over the droids. Sad. Damn.

Mm-hmm. Tragic. Well, on the executor, nope. The executor. I think. The Brits would say executor. They would say the executor. And they're imperial, so probably that.

Which, by the way, the giant, this is a superstar destroy that Vader is on, has, like, the red engines in contrast to the regular Star Destroyer are blue, like blue white engines. Sometimes you just got to flip it and it looks cool. You know what I mean? You're like, oh, how do we make this look different? Oh, give it big, kick-ass red underlighting. Okay. Sold. Looks great.

Yeah, very Anakin coded. Very anic coded. The stock parts, they're the ion, the blue ion drives. Yeah. need this thing underlit. Yeah. Like he's out there like, hey, uh,

why are there giant neon strips being put on the underside of the star destroy? Don't worry about it. It's just Lord Vader. Lord Vader needs this thing to cast a little glow. Yeah. Speaking of Lord Vader, he gets a call or he gets a, he gets an admiral who runs up to him,

which you know it's bad. If an admiral like speed walks to you through the ship's halls and it's like, hey, Lord Vader, uh, the emperor commands, you to make contact with him. The emperor commands you to make contact with him. Not the emperor has, you know, sent word he wants to talk at your earliest convenience.

The emperor commands you to make contact with him. And we get this great establishing shot of the ship. And then we get Vader leaving his little office cube and kneeling down on the hollow disc. And we get our emperor who looks very different in the original release. Yeah, he's just some guy He's in fact some really But his but his eyes

Like some like it's like he's wearing like the The googly eye Glasses you know that That the eyes will kind of just spill out That it's like the Yeah The what are those called I don't what they're called I know what you're talking about

The slinky glass The slinky eyeglasses vibes Do you want to know what it is? What? So it's an actress, Marjorie Eaton, and then she had her eye sockets darkened. And then in post-production, they projected, they superimposed chimpanzee eyes. What? Yeah.

Chimpanzee eyes. I'm going to screenshot this for us. the thing. That is wild. It's pretty wild. Not how I would do it, but I am not George Lucas. See, this is a final.

I discovered Ian McDarmid just looks that way. Yeah, he just pulls it off. You know what I mean? It's not a whole thing. He just looks like the way it needs to look. And this is so interesting to me. I'm just going to read the

initial original dialogues that we have it all here. What is thy bidding, my master? There is a great disturbance in the force. I have felt it. We have a new enemy, Luke Skywalker. Yes, my master. He could destroy us.

He is just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him. The force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi. If he could be turned, he would become a powerful ally. Yes, yes, he would be a great asset. Can it be done? He will join us or die, master.

Hey, the opening of this movie, the text crawl, says, the evil Lord Darth Vader obsessed with finding young Skywalker has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space we see them

they have a really cool effect when they like dart off does the emperor not know that why does he talk to Lord Vader as if Darth Vader has never heard of this guy We have a new enemy Luke Skywalker Yeah dude

Darth Vader's been hunting for him We've heard him say his name In dialogue The Emperor Seems not to know that Interesting Yeah Well she's got a lot of projects

As we know That's true The Emperor's got a lot going on But he's the guy with projects That's right Not Vader That's right right. But Vader now for the first time ever has himself a little project. He's been working on

something. And so my question is, uh-huh, and maybe this is where you're about to go, Natalie, do we think, do we, one, do we think that Vader knows or doesn't know who Luke is at this point? Two, yeah, I think he does too. My answer is no. He is playing dumb and defraing. offending Luke to the emperor here. And specifically, I kind of read this as, as the emperor being like, crossing his arms, I'm crossing my arms right now. Hey, man, you hear about this Luke Skywalker guy?

Yeah, we got to find him, don't we? As if to say, I know what you've been up to. Thousands of probe droids have been dispatched for some reason. you know, oh, you're looking for that kid, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to find that kid. You know, he doesn't say it directly because that's how Sith shit is. But, like, next time we will talk about the relationship between Luke and, and, and, uh, and Vader and about what that conversation looks like.

But I really think this is evidence that Vader has been already working behind the emperor's back on this Luke Skywalker ship. This is one of those things that becomes so much more delicious. having the pre like having not just the prequel trilogy but also all the other stuff we've we've watched the clone wars all the stuff shading in there where i think it works here just to begin with like vader knows this is his son like the the the rebels are going to celebrate their new hero scream his name from the mountaintops this is luke Skywalker the minute even without the back story we know, just Vader is his father.

The minute that hits Vader, Vader is no longer a liable partner to the emperor. 100%. Like things that he, like he's already rogue at this point. That's kind of the way that a lot of this gets characterized, right? It's like early in the movie when Vader is talking to Azul and Piet, his goal, he is like, Skywalker is with them. That's what I care about.

I want to find Skywalker. That's well before this call with the emperor, right? And in a way, a lot of this feels like Vader has gone off book. You know, like, hey, man, what have you been up to? This is not what you're supposed to be doing. You know, he's more interested in finding Luke Skywalker than in crushing the rebellion at this point, you know, which we will again, wrap around to more next time. That's his goal. And does not give a shit about anything else.

Like, again, we see Star Destroyers being destroyed in the course of the asteroid chase. Like, they don't make a big deal out of it, but you see little, like, figures on the hollowboard, right? Like, winking out as, as their ships are destroyed this chase. Doesn't matter. He doesn't care about what happens to this fleet. Like, all of this is secondary. The rebels are escaping, don't care. Only interested in bottling up the rebels insofar as Luke is bottled up with them.

The minute the Rebel Fleet is gone, hey, Gizummitzbo, Vader, isn't doing pursuing the rebel flees. No. He's going to be on his way to Bespin. I mean, he follows the Monium Falcon first through the asteroid field. Like he said, do the asteroid field. He says how many Thai pilots to die in the asteroid field looking for the Monon with the hope that either Luke will be on there or the Luke's, you know, Leia and Han will be

there and they can get him to Luke. I also wonder a little bit about this, you know, just the rules of like, ability to read people through the force, whether that like attenuates it all at distance. But Vader sure has found excuses now to be as far from the emperor as possible. Yeah. Right? Like he's taken, he's taken the fleet. He's booked it out there and has been hard to get to until the emperor is basically like,

can you please put him? Actually, I command that he get on the phone. He needs to return this call. That's right. Go get him right now. Go get him. Totally. He called a different number.

Yeah. Why didn't he just call Vader? Directly. Yep. Right? It's interesting. Yeah. He called the admiral's number and is like put him on the line.

Have him calling back like right away. And yeah, Austin, immediately like a. And also here's another question. Palpatine's a real fucking bind here. Because he has to act like, oh shit, this kid's Luke Skywalker. Dude, this is so crazy. Oh my god, do you believe it? That like, I didn't know.

That was a possibility in the cards. So like there's this bit of like, again, you know, this is, this is like stringer and Avon. You know, on the roof at the end of season three. We didn't got a dream. They both sold each other out. Like, Vader is like, I'm going to kill you, old man. And and Palpatine's like, okay, Vader's no good to me. We either kill that son or we or Vader's going to have to have to go.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Do you remember when we were on Nabu? You know? Yeah. Running through the market. There is a difference between the special edition and the original. I think this is like a real classic. You did not need to change these lines thing.

the big difference is instead of just saying we have a new enemy, Luke Skywalker, the emperor now says, we have a new enemy, the young rebel who destroyed the death star, I have no doubt this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker. And instead of saying,

well, you made it worse. They made it way worse. Instead of saying, yes, my master, Darth Vader says, how is that possible? And the emperor says,

search your feelings, Lord Vader. You know it to be true. He could, destroy us. And then we get back into he is just a boy, etc. Although there is a bit funny.

How is this possible? It does have a little bit of, hey, hey, yeah, remember a conversation we had when you woke me up out of the fucking torture, medical chamber or whatever? And you were like,

oh, Padme is dead and lost the baby. What the fuck happened there? Yeah. But what that does is by including the howest is possible. Yep. It makes it seem like Vader hadn't already figured out. Like, why else would he have...

Well, I guess what you could argue is that it was the force drawn... Like, his obsession was sort of fueled by, like, a misdirected, you know, that, like, something was drawing to him to Luke and he didn't know what it was, but that, you know, the obsession was clear. The problem with that is his name is Luke Skywalker. And yeah. Okay, that's part. I'm just like,

what the fuck are we talking about? Yeah, exactly. That's the problem with it. And they're changing it just to make a reference to the conversation that's in like 40 minutes. Like, it's the same movie. It's not like we're referencing the movie after it or the first one. It is just repeating the text.

Sometimes you like things to rhyme too much and you're just like. Yeah. About about people who try to rap like Twista. I get it. You can do a lot of rap for a second. I don't need it. And stay on beat. Or we go offbeat just a little bit,

but like I don't need, I don't need rhymes for second to be real high. Hmm. You understand. It's lyrical. It's like, you know, it's like,

you know, spiritual miracle. Yeah, it's like, no, man. Like, you did it really good in 1980. Can we just please? There's,

like, we get it. Anyway. I like, yeah, I like the first version a lot better. Yeah. As much as I love the Ian McDermin, chief because just an

all-timer I wish they'd let him just read the script the way it was yeah it just one of the thing I mean it's all kind of already been said but one of the things I love about

the original is that yeah it does kind of feel like he's reminding Darth Vader that Luke is a threat like the the seeking of of Luke out, you know, I think it's a threat to himself.

It's a threat to Darth Vader. It's like it's a threat to the power of two or to the rule of two, not the power of power. It's a threat to math. It's a threat to the rule of two. And that like, hey, you better not be looking for this person because you think he's your kid and you're going to, like, take him under your wing and, like, defect from the, you know, from the empire or, or worse, try and take me out. Like, you need to find him, make sure he does not become a fucking Jedi and, you know,

and kill him. And then Darth is like, but he could be such an asset. We could bring him to our side. We could bring him to his side. And you just get the sense that Palpatine or the emperor is, like, sure, like, do whatever you can to get him on this ship to get him within our, you know, within our grasp. Yeah. And then Palpatine's plan will take place.

Like whatever Palpatine wants next. That's right. Yes, the next pivot. Like, I see, I see Palpatine being like, why is Darth Vader wasting quadrillion bajillion dollars worth of resources chasing this kid? I need to get rid of Darth Vader and get this kid on my. team. Like, fuck Darth Vader. He's, like, totally irresponsible with the company card.

We cannot have him. We cannot have him in charge anymore. Let's get this kid on board. Vader's late to his playing years. He's getting like that supermax contract, but he's not really putting up supermax numbers. Maybe it's time to get a rookie in the draft, you know? Well, we'll keep Vader around for a little bit to help, you know, train him up. But we're not.

Then we're getting rid of this Vader guy, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's something in the like re- because like it, it's so intentional to redo it, right? And the only way that I could like defend or understand their perspective of doing that is that like it is further like, you know, it is another step to the death of Anakin Skywalker, right? Like, Obi-Wan gets to speak as Anakin as a separate figure that Darth Vader, Palpatine is insisting. To Anakin slash Darth Vader's face, like, I think that this is Anakin Skywalker's son, who is someone, you are not, and you need to kill this guy as like another step into being Darth Vader. But then like, if that's the interesting angle of his thing here, to have him be like, well, no, I don't actually want to kill him. Like, then the conversation should have also changed there to be like, no, you have to kill him. That is Anakin Skywalker's son. You are Darth Vader.

Yeah. But, Wink. Unless. You know? We have one more league veteran to talk about.

One more guy who's been around the game for a long time. Do we have this? It's like a Vin-Skulli intro for

It is. For one of the Okay, for one of the worst who's ever done it, but also now we're going like back to the original tape

you know what I mean we're seeing who was he really and I gotta tell you I like this Yoda the Yoda we're talking about specifically in this episode especially yeah now this is my guy

this is him this is him this is him Luke crashes into the swamp R2 gets almost eaten by a weird monster spits him out doesn't like the droid taste maybe too coppery

and then Luke wanders into a little gremlin, a little goblin, the walking stick. Funny little guy. That's what Daegaba looks so cool. We're so in. It's so cool. Like, someone mentioned, I think, Rob, maybe the set design in general here. Hang on.

How many little critters do you constantly see running around in Daegaba? It's non-stop. You all notice the, maybe it's not in this set, but did you all notice the snakes? The snake behind Yoda's house? I was wondering if this was the little. like an addition or just, I haven't watched this in 4K. Maybe before. That's, I think, what it is. Yeah. Because, like, there's a moment later where there's an iguana on a tree behind Luke.

And I was like, I don't remember. Is this fucking special edition bullshit? They're just adding, like, reptiles. No, I'm not going to say they're not. There's a chance they are. I don't have a list in front of me of what they've added. But there's stuff all through this area. They really did dress it up with little guys. What do we think of? You can smell these shots. Oh, my God. You can smell these shots. So stinky. Also, like. Mellie. Mark Hamill is doing such a good job here. And like the fact that he has to be in most of this movie alone and he's like acting to R2D2 the entire time or this little Muppet and he's like crushing it. Like there's a moment early. I think it's when R2D2 is like almost getting beaten or whatever,

eaten and then doesn't and then like Luke makes like a little joke and then kind of laughs it off. and the sort of like half-concerned but half-teasing face that he's able to make towards R2D2 is like, damn, he's really doing that shit to like a prop. To a prop, yes. We're like, we're so annoyed by stuff like that happening in movies now, but like watching him do it was like, you ate that, Mark. Yeah. You know, like, it might go under, maybe it doesn't go under commented, but like part of, Star Wars' success

in the 70s and 80s is that it is a movie with puppets in it and kids watch a lot of television where grownups talk to puppets

it is an established and especially at this point in time in film like the height of the Muppet era like that is a thing that everyone likes and it takes a lot of skill to be in a scene

with a little Muppet or a little robot and get some joy out of it, but kids like that stuff a lot. And so, like, of course kids like Luke Skywalker. Luke Skywalker, like, has it the way that the adults who have to act on Sesame Street have it, the way that the adults who are in a good Muppet movies have it, you know? I don't think, and kids, especially in the 70s and 80s, love puppets.

Puppets are cool. Puppets are excited. They do weird stuff. They look like little weird guys. They move around in funny little ways. Like, that is, I know we talk a lot about, like, oh, the practical effects look better than the CG, and I'm with you.

But there is also specifically a cultural position of the puppet in children's media for fucking ever, since the invention of the puppet. And I'm not saying that all puppets are children's media. We know that there's like a broader history worldwide of puppet theater, like for sure. And so maybe I shouldn't even discount that so much. Like Yoda was a cultural...

Before there was baby Yoda, there was Yoda You know? Real. And frankly, part of the baby Yoda's thing is that's a little guy. That's a little puppet.

Look at the little puppet. People love that he's a puppet. I'm a return guy, but for puppets. I'm actually not that. I'm not a big puppet guy. But I watch this stuff and I go, damn good puppet.

But the people yearn for puppets. Like the Muppets finally, you know, did a reunion show. The Seth Rogen, you know, special. Like, we yearn, we yearn for puppets. You know, it's just so, it's so fun to get to. And I think a part of the massive success of Baby Yoda is that he's specifically a puppet and not solely CGI.

Yeah. If he, he feels real. He feels like a little guy. You can hold in your hands. You can see him at Disneyland walking around in the same. way you see him walk you know in kind of maneuvering and stuff in the show Disneyland does he move around but independently now or is he just carried by uh gin he's I think he's still in the pod or he's carried but how do they

they're making advances every day how do they do the pod I don't say mostly or maybe he's not in the pie I think he's just in the born yeah he's in the I see that makes sense but they had they had baby Yoda at the at the Oscars like sitting in sitting in a chair you you know, and like clapping and stuff when this year when Conan hosted, which is like so stupid, obviously. But like, it, I could almost bet that like so much of the success of

selling baby Yoda as this like adorable, you know, creature that people just have this insatiable, you know, obsession with is that he felt like physical and real. And it comes from this. This is the urtext, actually. This is it. Like, it all comes from here and all the other places that we've said. I, like, I am a puppet guy.

Okay. And mostly insomar as this. Like, it's one of those cross-disciplinary things that, like, the results are really interesting. Like, particularly, like, the creature workshop, Muppet-style puppeteering is, like, firmly grounded in comedy. And vaudeville, and so you have, like, they're not doing ventriloquist shit. That's a crucial distinction. There's a little bit of ventriloquism tossed into it where it's like, um, disguising

what your voice is, disguising, like, you know, making, making this thing seem like it's independently animated. And that's the other part of it is that it's a bit like live action animation. Yeah. Where like the expressiveness of animation, a really well-crafted puppet. and a team of puppeteers can make things pop and create like memorable little gestures or expressions that are really kind of tricky to get at just like imagining an expression in the abstract and saying like give me something it looks like it's thinking there you know if you look at like

how how the Muppets operate they're constantly reacting to things in the scene they're constantly playing off actors and other and other other Muppets I think that's kind of what's so cool about it It's at once like live comedy, but there's like little bits of animation. But they themselves are also a practical effect that requires a lot of like craft just to bring the thing to life. The more complicated the puppet,

the more it becomes a team effort to steer it and have it all work together, which means like coordinating, what is the personality to this puppet? How does it express those things? Because it's not going to be one person using their hand to bring that all across. Like everyone has to be able to like,

pull their part of the animation to make these things land. And I think that's kind of what makes Yoda, like, Yoda's a really, like, a high expression of this, of this craft where that fucker looks like he's in these scenes. Oh,

yeah. He's crawling around. He is, like, using both hands to mess with shit. He's bending over and climbing into the side of Luke's backpack to steal shit, his ass all out. What are you doing, Yoda?

Stand up. You're a, you're a creature who, walks on feet. And yeah, so I think that, like, I think it accounts to a large degree, like, why is this character so memorable? Why is he looms so large? Like, is there, Chewy's a guy in a suit.

So is Qio. Yeah, totally. And those are both good, but like, I don't, I'm a struggle in name of a character. I think maybe R2 is the closest to it. But even R2 has a lot, it's more in common with puppetry, right? Yeah. I think I think so um and and so like this is this is this is like a major I guess Java too though Java is gonna be a big oh yeah let's talk about yeah next big that's gonna be it but but like Yoda looms so

large because this is a major character a pivotal character in this movie you ain't played by a human it's played by the goat of like or or one of the goats of of popetry right like this is this is Henson's right-hand collaborator as well. Yeah. And like, and also like, Frank Haas is a really good actor. Yeah. He pops up in Knives Out. Remember, he plays the lawyer. That's right.

Like he's got like he can do acting. And so with Yoda, you have like a really well, well designed and driven puppet. That also just acts, it's like acts as little puppet ass off in these scenes. I think with Hamel also I was sure by this too Alan I'm glad you brought it up I think sometimes Hamill gets treated

like the Ringo of Star Wars and watching this I'm like that's just not true yeah like Hamill's bringing so much to this movie this series

but the stuff on Dagaba in particular the real like there's so much happening just in how he reacts to Yoda and like the impatience and the guilt for feeling impatience. Like a character so at odds with himself. And then it tees up Yoda so beautifully breaking down like, here's why you're not

cut out to be a good Jedi. Like I can see it written on your face, the things that like you don't get it. You're not built for this. Yeah. And I can't work with you until you get it. The thing you just identified too of like Luke being conflicted is so important because that's not really. what that first movie is about at all, right?

Like, he's, he struggles with learning how to use the lightsaber in the falking scenes with Obi-Wan, but he's not, he's not like, um, am I, am I capable, you know, he's confident. That's the thing he is all the way through. I used to do this in my sky jumper or whatever, you know, I used to shoot, uh, what are they, what are they called on tatu rats in my T-16? My T-16. There it is. Thank you.

And this is a movie about needing to introduce doubt into the mind of the guy who blew up to Death Star without a targeting computer. And it starts here with their relationship. In fact, it starts even before the training starts because what are the first things that they say to each other? And actually, this sequence is part of the, like, the great way that a puppet can act in ways that, you know, this kind of exaggerated ways that a person's face can't. we get this great line that I think is like core to this original conception of the Jedi to some degree, which is Luke is like, yeah, I'm looking for a great warrior. And one, I mean, Yoda says great warrior, wars not make one great. And his ears dip.

And that's that great bit of like puppet acting, right? The ears dip. And of course, we with all of our context, are like, ooh, yeah, he knows something about how, Wars can actually make you. Or sure didn't make him great. A hundred percent of the lowest lows. But also something I think really fascinating about that moment is no one told Luke that Yoda was a great warrior.

That's not how Obi-Wan describes him. He simply says that Yoda trained him, which also we know isn't really, we know it was was Quigot and Gin. We don't get into any of that. We don't need to get into any of that. Listen, everyone gets like a class with Yoda. I guess so. You know, there's like one substitute teacher day

where Yoda comes down. But he wasn't the thesis advisor. You know what I mean? He's lying. The entire time, like he's been sitting in a case thinking of like, how do I make this story as simple as I can? Okay, Yoda's the only one left. He's my traitor, whatever.

Darth Vader killed Luke's dad because I'm really bad about it. Also, it'll make Luke want to kill Darth Vader. Yes. Like, he has been workshopping this for so long that he doesn't even know the truth anymore. I love it. I love this read. But he never says Yoda is a great warrior to Luke. Luke believes that Jedi are great warriors.

And if Yoda is a great Jedi, that means that Yoda is a great warrior, right? Because so far the force has been, here's your laser sword. Now blow the fuck out of that space station. That's right. And so can you imagine being Luke and being like getting to this guy who is a weird creature? You don't even know if he's Yoda yet. And then eventually you realize he is Yoda. and then he says, you're not ready for this.

You can't do this. You're not ready for this. And seven seconds later or whatever, 15 seconds later in the same conversation, you're too old for this. And it's like, I put the Death Star. How can I not be ready for it? I didn't even have my targeting computer on.

I'm the most ready for this anyone's ever been. Do we know that Yoda heard about the Death Star? Like, do we know that he got the memo of, this is really, because this has gotten all fucked up with the, expanding galaxy of Star Wars stuff. Because I think... Originally, it certainly feels like Yoda's maybe just on this planet

just vibing and waiting. But now, he's talking to Ezra. Oh, Lord. Yeah. So I had that same thought going into this. I was like, well, yeah, he's just been here the whole time. But he specifically, when he talks about Luke not being ready, does talk about having seen him. Yeah.

A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, hmm? The most serious mind. This one, a long time have I watched. All his life he has looked away to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, hmm? What was he, what he was doing, hmm? Adventure, he. Excitement.

A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless. This motherfucker fuckers tuned into the Luke Skywalker Channel 24-7. Listen, he locked in to blow up the death start, though. He was sure in that fucking moment. Right. So, yeah, totally. So has you been watching him from Dagabet his whole life?

No, I think he watched like the first two seasons of Luke Skywalker and then was like, fuck this kid. You don't think, Vigran. What if it's the other way? He blows up the Death Star and he's like, ah, shit, I got to go to the archives. I got to go watch all that shit that he's been up to. See what's going on with this Luke guy Oh my ghost Obi-WiWan Can you get me the DVDs?

But it's weird Do you have a Plex login? Do you have the Plex login? It's weird because I Rob, I'm with you. I came into this movie being like Here we go. Time to throw out all this bullshit

about Yodo paying attention to events outside of Dagaba But he explicitly does say I've watched him a long time And I didn't Hang on though Uh-huh So he's talking

talking to Luke, he's talking to Obi-1 at the same time. And we assume that this one means Luke. It probably does. But imagine Yoda as like a guy from like the Lower East Side of New York. This one a long time

I've watched. All his life he's looked away. Like he could be talking about Luke, but also he's describing another failure, right? To a degree he's talking about Anakin. I see someone Vader in your mind I see There's a little bit

Like he has seen guys Like Luke come through Right right I see another one of these guys You brought me another one of these guys You last one What happened with the last one you brought me You know

I love that The script does say To the Invisible Ben Indicating Luke But I love your read of it Because that is again What this movie ends up being about Is Luke just going to be

Another Anakin? Right Yeah You know? That's why all this stuff with Yoda is about, this is why Yoda has all these doubts. This is, you know, especially with the greater context that we now have that's all been filled into rhyme with this. But even just in this movie, the doubts are we can't get to have another Darth Vader

situation, man. Well, it makes it more poignant. Yeah. Like, in a very real sense, like, dude, this is our last roll of the dice. Well, crucially, Yoda's identified. we'll discover maybe it was Yoda's identified someone he'd rather train. He might have, yeah. But as far as we know at this point, like, they do not have many tickets left to, to, to try and win the defeat Palpatine sweepstakes.

And Yoda's, Yoda's shying from this. I don't think this is a put on. I think he's scared of training him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%. me that the absurdity

of Yota being like yeah, Pala was here, she'd be less annoying. She'd argue with me less. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. She would tear into this guy. Yeah, that would absolutely hear, like, green freak said, like, in

anger. Little green freak? 100%. The sequence where, I know we were kind of bouncing around all this, but, like, would just need to be said again little weird little green freak Yoda who's bouncing around and stealing stuff from

Luke's kit and cooking root leaf for whatever in his little hut is awesome all of that stuff is so cool it's so funny he says he says to to Luke you know

I'm not hungry or something like that and he's like for the Jedi it is time to eat as well. And Luke, like, it goes right over Luke's head. Like he's, and, and Luke's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Jedi eat now. It's, yeah, me, the Jedi here. We eat now. And Yoda's like, no, not your fuckass. Me, I'm hungry. I'm the Jedi here. And like, there's, it's such a, it's classic fairy tale test, right? How do you treat people that you think have no value to you, right? Like how do you treat people that you view as like tangential to your story?

There's someone you've run across on your way and they can't give you anything. How do you handle it? And Luke fails this pretty badly. It was just like you're a weird little little green critter. I just want to get you out of the way. So I'm going to meet the Great Warrior. Also shoutouts to the prop makers for giving Luke the nastiest looking kit. of military rations I have ever seen.

And I've watched a bunch of videos off at YouTube where people like where the dude finds like 150 year old like rations from armies that ceased to exist like a century ago. Yeah. This is some nasty shit. And again, isn't keeping with the,

who things are going. Things are rough for the Rebel Alliance. Yeah. This stuff has absolutely expired. He's key. He's kept him in the X-wing for a while. to the best pilots in the Rebel Alliance. Yeah, he's a commander or something, right?

He's like, he has a wing of ships. And nevertheless, that stuff looks grody. I also have to shout. And Yota insults him for it, right? How do you get that big eating food like this? That's killer. Eat my root soup. Yeah.

Grow. Eat my soup. I also have to shout out the, I don't know if this is an upgrade. on Artu from last movie, but R2, you know, Luke tells R2, like, stay outside, like stay with our stuff. I'm going to go follow this frog and see what happens, but, you know, just make sure you kind of keep an eye on our stuff. And Artu doesn't listen to him and kind of follows him to Yoda's house.

And there's a moment where you see R2 outside the house, like lift up onto his tippy toes. like he engages his hydraulics to kind of like lift onto his tippy toes and look through the window look through the window to check on Luke it's so it's like it's like to me I read it less as him being worried about Luke and more like what the fuck's going on in there like I want to like why'd you tell me to stay with the stuff I want to like be a part of this um but also it could be is he going what the fuck is Yoda up to in there oh my god yeah because there's a moment later I I want to say maybe after the, it's after Luke goes into the cave that we get just a shot of Yoda sitting and waiting patiently and Art2 is like chirping at Yoda.

That's their first time together privately. What are they talk about, you know? They're finally catching up. Right. Buddy, if I got a boat to pick up? Yeah, 100%. R2 being like, I have to level with you about something. Brings up the wedding slideshow.

Oh, my God. You knew? Knew you did. You know? There you were? There you were. Invitation you got? Oh, yeah, Yota wasn't invited.

Artu isn't tired of the scene. He's like, listen, that shit you did to Anakin, I'm not letting you do again. When he comes out of that cave, you're going to be nice to him, okay? Oh, my God. Yota be able to pay you? He did not. Expensive? Good wedding photography is.

That's right. Oh. here's another here's one of the rare moments I find in this movie that doesn't feel like it matches up with all of the other Star Wars we have watched and read and played when Yoda does the switch in the in the hovel where they live where he lives and where they're eating root soup and suddenly he drops the sort of like high pitched muppet voice and moves into the kind of like solemn wise sage of the woods voice he says much anger in him like his father and obiwiwi one says, was I any different when you taught me? And Yoda says, no, he is not ready. But Obi-Wan was not the angry one in any of our new Obi-Wan materials.

Hold on. Maybe some youthful, maybe some pre-prick. When he's with Quigone. I guess you're right. He is a little asshole. You're right. He is kind of asshole in that movie. I take it back. And that's after being intensively like edges

sanded by Quigone. You're right. You're right. I take it back. Because this is when he talks about Jar Jar as being a lesser life form and shit like that, right? Yeah. Yeah, dude. Like, there is a degree of, I'm going to snap like makes window on this, on all this bullshit. Okay, that's a good point. I forgot about that moment.

I forgot about, about episode one, Obi-won Kenobi. Yeah. Okay. Never forget. Which is a testament to McGreg. Like, you forget that guy existed because, like, episode two. Yeah. He is, like, trying to be the guy Anakin needs him to be.

And then over the course, the Clone Wars cartoons, both of the Clone Wars cartoons we've seen, the performance is consistently in line with that of, like, someone who's desperately trying to be the big brother or, like, parental figure that Anakin needs him to be, whether or not that outfit perfectly fits. Yeah. And then, yeah, we get, we get the much anger in him like his father, which I think Ali hits again. The thing you were saying, which is like, he is afraid of fucking this up. But then the bit that I read before about a Jedi having deep commitment, serious mind, etc. That's kind of our first vision in Star Wars about what that other part of what it means to be a Jedi is. Not just a great warrior, not just knights from a chivalric age who happen to have a little magic.

But like monks, there's a monkish quality to them. There's a spiritual aspect to them that is about being. rigorous and solemn and not rushing into things, not going for adventure, not, you know, being reckless. And again, like you said, Obi-Wan says, I used to do all that stuff. But I do think that it's interesting. It's like, again, if you're the viewer, if you're, if you're watching this in 1980, you were learning what a Jedi is more deeply here than you have.

It doesn't exist yet, you know. I guess I haven't read Splinter of the Mind's Eye. I haven't read the novelization, the original, like 77 or whatever novelization of Star Wars. And maybe there's some more Jedi material in there for the superfan. But if you're someone who like went to the movies and saw Star Wars, a new hope twice, and then you saw this when it came out, this is it. You're starting to fill in the blanks in what a Jedi is. I always like to remind us of that stuff because like it's so easy where we're at now in the franchise

to feel like a Jedi is a settled and clear thing. you know, a thing I come back to a lot is the like Jedi, you know, Jedi aren't allowed to have romantic attachments was not a thing that was as explicit as that until the prequels, right? And so that's, the Jedi are always being invented in real time, you know? We're now deep enough in on the franchise that it seems unlikely that we will ever get another revelation as big as that.

But here is one even bigger. I think, then the particular doctrines of the Jedi Council or the Jedi is a religion, it's that the Jedi is a religion. So the Jedi does have this style of like strict, you know, a strict code of conduct and a desire to be a certain way in the world. Will Luke become a Jedi? Can Luke do the swamp planet training?

We'll find out. We'll find out. And yet it is possible that mostly what Luke needs to learn to some sick combos. It's so possible. To run around. Philosophy, all that good shit, absolutely. Double jump, can I do?

Uh-huh. Luke, climb that rope. Handstand? Yeah. Climb that rope while I'm on your damn back, you know? It's not a rope. It's a vine. Sorry, it's not a rope.

Obviously, it's one of the many vines of Dago. He's doing Tarzan shit out here. Swinging around. It's, it's, like, what, what, what training regimen is this from, from Yoda? Yoda's not like, oh yeah, and then today we're going to do the handstand unit. And we'll do the, the vine stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'll work. That all, that all really help.

There's been, like, a Hegseth Bolsonaro quality of this training where it's like, and we're just going to be doing mixed. martial arts, we're going to be out there like carrying a load of cargo on our backs and off trees. He's doing one of these like fake boot camp workouts that you can sign up for if you're like insecure in your masculinity. You know what I mean? You get like a fake drill sergeant to yell at you.

But here I think we're going to learn the real trick is it's all just to get under Luke's skin and inside his head so that he will get out of his. Yeah. do we want to stop here and then save the big conversation about what the dark side is? Absolutely.

For the next time. I think that makes sense. Let's do it. I've had too much Jedi training for today. Let me read one more note. That's about a thing that's said at some point on the Bloody Falcon because I don't think it's relevant to any larger conversation. But I know there's been a lot of conversation over the years on this podcast about like

Star Wars politics and like, hey, can you even really tell if the, the, the rebels are like left or right? Does that even map it all? Well, at one point, Leah has a suggestion to make and Han says, there's no time to discuss that in committee. All the evidence will ever need

that the rebels are leftists right there. Han annoyed with all the committee meetings, all the slowing things down with the proceduralism that's supposed to ensure that everyone's voice is held. And Leah countering somewhat unconvincingly with I am not a committee. but one suspect

At some point she tried to Robert's Rules of Order That's what I'm saying A routine interaction 100%. And so there it is my evidence The rebels are infighting Who will be

The Joe Rogan of the Rebel Alliance You know These are the questions We need to get answered in this time frame Until then Please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice and we'll be back next time with the rest of Empire Strikes Back. And when you return to us, we'll bring only what you take with you.