The Weekly Planet - Star Wars - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

To kick off Caravan Of Garbage in 2026 we've decided to celebrate the release of Star Wars' 49th anniversary. We're talking the original movie as it was first shown in May of 1977 with none of the Special Edition tweaks or even the addition of the title A New Hope which was added four years later. We're looking at the miracle of the movie that started it all, George Lucas' vision brought to life with the music of John Williams, special effects by ILM and the relatively unknown trio of Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill. Thanks for watching our ReviewSUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNVideo Edition ► https://youtu.be/DLsbJQTgAoEHelp support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2027 marks the 50th anniversary of Star Wars, original Star Wars. Whoa, so not this year, but next year. Yeah, well, we gotta get ahead of it. Hmm, is that why we're doing Star Wars right now, original Star Wars? Well, maybe I thought that they were doing the re-release in this year instead of next year. And maybe I thought, huh, that's weird that they were doing on the 49th anniversary and not the 50th. Oh well, time to re-watch Star Wars and research Star Wars at length. Famously Star Wars 1977, we all know.

We all know it came out in 1977. Yeah. So why wouldn't you do a re-release in 2020? Get out of it. That's what I'm telling you. We're getting ahead of it. We're getting ahead of it. Welcome back, everybody, to Carabada Garbage, the first episode of the year where we're taking a look at not only the Star Wars trilogy, but the Star Wars trilogy in its original form.

That's right. None of this CGI guff. Well, there's one CGI shot in this movie, and we'll get to it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Also, the way I wanted to approach this, because... It's tough. It's tough. Everyone's seen Star Wars except for my parents, apparently.

They told me the other day. They never saw it. I don't think that's true. They've never seen it. What are they doing? Have they read the novelization? Yeah, they've read, well, they read the novelization, presumably by Max Allen Collins. Or whoever.

Alan Dean Foster? Sure. Yeah, probably one of them. Probably, yeah. Probably, yeah. It's so evocative. You don't need to watch the movie. That's a good point.

Your parents are bigger nerds than I thought, Mason. Right. But the way I tried to look at this is, and it's kind of impossible at this point, because it's everywhere. It's been parody to death. opinion has been said, but I'm trying to look at this as if it's new. Like imagine you've never seen something like this. We could ask my parents. We could ask your parents, good point. They're busy. They're probably seen space balls also. They might have seen space balls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though like I say look at this as new, it wasn't really new at the time.

And by that I mean the influences of Flash Gordon. It's also Dune. It's Hidden Fortress. It's Joseph Campbell. There's Tolkien in it. The character Tommy Tomorrow plays an influence. on Star Wars. The DC comics character Tommy Tomorrow. Correct. Yeah. Who was revealed to also be commande the last boy on earth in a different reality. Yeah, that's what I'm telling

you. That's what I figured. And it's also new information. Also, everybody out there, look, this is a big task. This is a big task. It's certainly a big task. It's a big task to be recording this right now post-Christmas 2025 when quite frankly, we're both knacking. Yeah, that's true. I'll tell you that much.

But also, don't come at us like, oh, I can't believe you didn't mention this really obvious fact about Star Wars that I'm telling you in the comments. First of all, you won't need to, because we'll have covered every fact about Star Wars in this video. And if we didn't, it's because we already know it and everybody else knows it and you're stupid if you think that's unique. 2026, hostile. We're coming out of the gate hostile.

Here we go. But leave a like. Yeah, leave a like if you could. We like it when people are nice to us. We love you, you idiots. Which are common facts about Star Wars. George Lucas also was a huge comic book fan. He's the director of Star Wars.

There's a fact for you. You like that? You like that? You're glad we covered that? Stop typing in the comments. He directed it. He certainly did. But what's interesting also at this time is there was something like this bubbling away

in multiple different camps with different directors. So June adaptations were happening. Sure. Brian DePalmer wanted to get a version of The Demolished Man up. The Stars, My Destination, also a property that people are trying to get off the ground because you've got to remember this era of filmmaker like a young George Lucas and a Spielberg

and a De Palma and a Coppola or whatever. They grew up on the 1950s like... The old crap. The old crap we hate. The old sci-fi crap. Yeah. The old sci-fi cereal that you'd pay a nickel at the bloody Odean and you'd go there and you'd watch Part 13.

You'd be like, I don't understand what's going on here. I hate this. I hate this. And there's lead in my ice cream. Crave? This also famously, George Lucas wanted to do a Flash Gordon reboot. So that's what he wanted to do. When he couldn't get the rights to that, he went,

Well, I'll just make Star Wars. I'll make Star Wars. I'll make Star Wars. I'll just make Star Wars. So we watched Star Wars. We watched it. It doesn't even have episode four in the opening title. Unnecessary.

What I loved about this immediately, you can see every scuff and every ding on R2D2. You can see all the fingerprints on Darth Vader's helmet that they would have CDIed off by now. There's a moment, I never notice this with the torture droid that comes in, there's just numbers on the side of the syringe. Because yeah, all this stuff is from Earth. Like where we live is what I'm saying.

Oh yeah. And I think that's fascinating. But I love that also like all the matte lines and the models and the wonky costumes because I like Wonky Star Wars. Wonky Star Wars is good. I don't like shiny Star Wars. Like I look at episode two and I'm like, this looks like a puddle of slick vomit.

Absolutely. The opening sequence where the stormtroopers first burst in on Princess Lay's ship And they're just running around It's just a bunch of middle-aged men in costumes running around If they did this now, the stormtroopers would be walking an absolute lockstep And they'd be all, you know, with military precision But they're just waving their guns around and blasted They're stumbling! Everybody's stumbling and blasted

They're stumble guys! Stumble guys, exactly. That's right. I mean, iconic design, obviously. Absolutely, yeah. But just running around. Just run it around, yeah. Also, I've always thought this, and I think I should just put it out there.

There's a guy in that opening shot. He's a rebel. It's called Pello Scrambus. And he looks exactly like my dad. And you know the one I'm talking about. Yeah, all Scambus. There he is. What I also love about this upon a rewatch is that we know now that every character in this movie,

every single background character has had their own background expanded upon in their own comic book or... And then that's been wiped away and then re-done. I'm like, I wonder what the deal is with that protocol droid behind C3Pio, the one that's just a slightly lighter shade of gold. What's his deal? Got shot? Oh yeah, but before that, he probably saved the universe somehow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know. Probably had a force goblin in him or something. Force goblin. Yeah. Can you imagine, though, seeing this in cinemas. First of all, yeah, the big ship, obviously. Because that's the thing that blew people away, the sound design and all of that, which I want to get into,

the size, like the sheer scale. of watching a giant ship get sucked up by an even giant ship. But can you imagine seeing a hologram in a movie? You would go crazy. Honestly, it's amazing. You get turned into the Joker or whatever the equivalent was in the 1970s

when you saw a movie that blew your mind. You'd become a taxi driver. If that was before this. No, you'd just become a taxi driver. You'd be like, I'm going to find a way to get out of here. I'll get my cab license. Though, you know, it seems obvious. obvious now, right? And the way it came together, it's like, it's a beautiful synergy of magic

and perfect timing and all of that. But everybody involved in this pretty much with a few exceptions, there's a couple of higher ups of 20th century Fox were like, this sucks. This is nonsense. The British crew didn't like George Lucas. They're taking two tea breaks a day as, as British unions dictate. They were wiping down like bright sets that were all scuffed up on purpose. Yes. All of this kind of stuff. George Lucas had a horrible time making this movie. I bet he did. And also, like, he was successful prior to this. Like, T.H.X. had done the short film, and he'd also done the movie. He also did an award-winning short film at university before that. American graffiti was a pretty big hit. That's right.

But this was like, this was a nightmare. This put him in hospital with, like, stress. And that's why he didn't direct a movie until The Phantom Manus. So, yeah, just something to think about it. When he had enough money to be like, I have lots of ideas, everybody else just take care of him. Yeah. Well, this is a bit like that also. James. If I may, we can put this back in. Sure. The protocol droid scene behind C3PO is U3PO, who served the Royal House.

No, U3PO. Who served the Royal House of Alderan and briefly followed C3PO and R2D2 before disappearing into a corridor on the Tantive 4. While his ultimate fate is unknown in the main canon, in Star Wars legend, U3PO became a sleeper agent for the Empire, revealing the Death Star Plan's location.

Oh, he's evil C3PO! Skip! Which also exists in comics now. There's a black. There's a black C3PO. Anyway, the cast of this, nobody's at the time, aside from one significant one. Mark Hamill was a TV guy. Carrie Fisher was the daughter of two Hollywood.

He was a TV guy? He was on TV. Like Crang? Yeah, like Crang. He was a TV guy. He was a crang. Oh, wow. Okay.

This was pre-crang as well. Yeah, that's crazy. Carrie Fisher was the daughter of two Hollywood legends, but again, not famous. Harrison Ford, though he had acted before. He was in American graffiti. He was in American graffiti. But George Lucas didn't want to use anybody from that in this because it would take people out. What's the reverse of dodging a bullet?

Because Harrison Ford got a current. Being shot with a bullet. Harrison Ford was really shot with a bullet of fame, getting recast in this. So he was literally a carpenter, and I know this is a very famous story, and he was asked to just read across people coming in. I also know a story about a carpenter who was asked to read across them. Oh, yeah. Oh, I am thinking of Harrison Ford. It was also Harrison Ford.

I'm still thinking of Harrison Ford. You're thinking of Harrison Ford twice. Yes. So there was another three which they might have gone with, which was Will Seltzer, Terry Nunn, and Christopher Walken. But it basically came down to, and there was a bunch of others. James, James, I think Christopher Walker would have been a terrible Princess Leia. I actually think he would have been a really good Princess Leia. You're right, I judged too early.

And it basically came down to, oh, these people are available, good enough, we'll pay him $1,000 a week, and Harrison Ford didn't sign on to sequels, which will be coming back to in subsequent weeks. Nice, so great. God, everything looks so real and uncomfortable. Oh, boy does it. scuffling through the desert in a burning hot golden robot costume. Stormtroopers, they'd be all chafin. Those rebel, like the bobsled team helmets they have to wear,

they'd like weigh you down on the back of your neck, that bruise your neck. Yep, absolutely. Awful. You survive polio to wear that? Yeah. To end up like a question mark? You survive polio only to have to start wearing polio ester. Shirts and slacks that again chafin.

It's true. There's a guy in the metal wheelie bin. Kenny Baker. Oh, yeah. Inside R2D2. He is in the wheelie, man. Insanity. Yeah.

There's a moment where all the heroes, they go down into the docking bay to first arrive at the Millennium Falcon. And something I never noticed before is there's a cowboy switch of R2D2 on the stairs and then they cut away and then he's just on the ground. So they didn't have to figure out how he gets down the stairs. Do you think they put Kenny Baker in the trash can and they just chucked him off the stairs and then picked him up? Probably.

Wow. Yeah, I mean, that thing barely worked. barely worked. But I love the huge props. Like you've got the model sand crawler, but then you've got the one like at Luke's farm. It's enormous. Big. Yeah. And also they dressed up elephants in this.

Yes. Guys riding around on elephants in costumes. It's wild stuff. I've often seen people say, you know, the special editions of these movies, you know, they are George Lucas's original vision and, you know, if he'd had unlimited budget at the time and the technology he had, you know, the

technology of the modern day. Of course, You know, Moss Isley would have been filled with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of foul creatures. CGI dinosaurs. And the most fearsome criminals throughout the galaxy and whatever. But it's like, I just like that there's just some guys there. Some guys walking around on the streets and then they go into the canteen and the devil's there. The wolf man's there. There's a droid racist.

There's so many people there. What's the devil up to? What is the devil up to? I mean, we know, because the answer will be in the expanded universe. And then they wipe that out, then there's a new answer. I'm just like, he's just the devil. Yeah, the devil's on earth sometimes and sometimes he's on tattooing or whatever. Having a blue milk.

Doing devil stuff. Or a blue beer or whatever. Yes. Yeah. All that stuff, though, it adds so much to the world building. And it's interesting hearing like spice mines of Kessel. I made a Parson run. Kessel run.

What's this Kessel place? What is it? I guess we'll never know. We will know. I made a Parsek run and this is how many decibels it took me to get there or whatever. Like, it's fascinating stuff. And then you got someone like Darth Vader. Declone wars, James.

Declone wars, exactly. What are they? We don't know. They sound exciting. All right. I guess they're fine, I guess. Certainly a lot of guys walking in lockstep and shooting lasers, I guess that's fine. A lot of them.

Boy, they sure was a lot of them. There was a lot of them. Yeah. Danica and Skywalker was the best pilot ever. He's best base pilot. But that'd be interesting to watch, wouldn't it? We see some of it. And also on TV shows.

On TV shows. That's what I'm telling you. Yeah. But you look at like, Darth Vader and what's he supposed to be because also he's not this terrifying force in the galaxy and he's this shadowy secret he's in the meetings he's in the meetings he doesn't get a chair and one guy's like hey you're a fucking dumb ass like straight up to him and you know there's a he gets choked and whatever people are like I don't know I don't respect this this is

nonsense he's it's it's like it's like Tarkin had this weird guru you know he's paying to follow him around and, you know, check his chakras or whatever. Exactly. You know, nothing from me, thanks. That's Darth Vader in the meeting. We can circle back tomorrow. Tomorrow, yeah. Currently nothing from me. He's got to say something in the meetings. Well, speaking of him saying something, he was nicknamed Darth Farmer because David Prows, who did the body of Darth Vader in this, he didn't know he was being dubbed. So he just thought the lines that I'm giving and here's some of them here. Watching this initially, like the initial cuts, people were like, what's this supposed to be? And the intention was, yeah, that they were going to dub him. There was talk of like Orson Wells, and of course

James Earl Jones came in and did it. And there's a lot of law behind where did Darth Vader come from. Was he really supposed to be his father the whole time or whatever? Because you could look at properties that George Lucas looked at and that you could make that connection. But the most interesting one that I found, and it's in the book, How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, is that George Lucas had a bully as a child called Gary Rex Vader. Nice. Now, I don't know whether that's what happened here, but that's very interesting. I like how George Lucas has provided his full legal name, all three names, like a serial killer. Just so you know, just so you know if you see him on the street, check his middle name.

It's the same guy. You can yell at him. Hey, or maybe you should be thanking him. Thank you, Gary Rex Vader. That's right. Yeah. Real man, apparently. Think he's on cameo?

Look, he's dead, man. He was a bully in the 50s and 60s. He either got his come up and so he drank himself into an early grave. Yeah. And there's a fact. There's a new fact for you guys. Anyways, it's funny because this kind of plods along. It follows droids for a really long time and they separate

and then they come back together. They're just meandering about. They visit a farm. C3PO is way meaner than he is in any other chapter of this saga. At one point he calls R2D2 an overweight glob of grease, which I thought, rude. Rude.

R2D2 doesn't have any control over how many attachments he's got installed. No, exactly. He probably doesn't even eat that much, if at all. Yeah, he's probably also lighter than he was in the prequel because they took away his jet pack or whatever. Yeah, that's right. I don't know. And he gets shot in the head in this one.

He does get shot in the head. I love the casting of Alec Giddison this. I love how in a bar he just cuts the guy's arm off like he's done it a thousand times. Just really casually. Well, I mean, it is the signature move of the Jedi, isn't it? True, yeah, go for the arm. But we didn't know that then.

Actually, George Lucas originally wanted Toshiro Mufune for Obi-One who was in like Hidden Fortress and whatever, which I think that would have been an amazing piece of casting. Well, he didn't get him, did he? He got famed English actor, Alec Guinness, who thought the whole thing was beneath it. Yes, he did. That's who he got instead. Well, sort of.

I want to come back to Alec Guinness. God, Harrison Ford is so cool, though. Agreed. Just the first shot of him and you're like, yep, that, yes. And also, he's the best guy in the bar and he's the worst. Agreed. Which is incredible. What a piece of casting.

What a fire, you know. Just like a certain other carpenter who came out of... I'm thinking of Harrison Ford. You are thinking of Harrison Ford. Yeah, yeah. The one from Air Force One? That's right, correct. Harrison Ford.

That's your thing of. Amazing mat painting work. Matt painting, he's done it again. That's right. What's his sacred? He's probably on cameo. He probably is. Do your little Matt painting?

Yeah, yeah. Of course, I don't want to labor on this too much because I'm sure everybody knows, but a big selling point of this movie, getting it across to studio... Was the Star Wars? Was it a big part of it? They were like, do you want to make a Star Wars? And they're like, yeah. It's going to be a billion dollar industry.

Drop the the, it's cleaner. Yeah, nice. Ralph Macquarie, integral in making this happen, that image of C3PO and R2D2 in the desert or whatever. Obviously the shades of metropolis, whatever that's, you know that one. The Prince Lang movie, yes. Yeah, yeah, Fritz Lang, whatever. Princess Leia having her planet blown up is crazy.

Like I think, because you know what happens. Yeah. But that's everything. They wouldn't do it these days. Well, they would. They blew up like galaxy. and galaxies of people. They do it, yeah.

But it just feels so personal and just horrible. And yet, like, 45 minutes later, she's consoling Luke Skywalker because he lost Obi-Walking and Obi-Wi. Yeah. That guy he knew for two days. Yeah. No, they had adventures in the comics, probably, Mason. Yeah, that's probably true.

Yeah. The music's incredible. The twin sons piece. That's my favorite. Oh, my God. Apparently, this is the one thing that George Lucas was more than happy with. Everything else. He was like, this could have been done better.

Technology's not there. He hated so much of this, hence the tinkering. He even asked Mark Hamill to come in and re-record lines the weekend this movie came out. He was tinkering then. It's too late. We distributed it already, George. Well, he could have done it, but Mark Hamill was like, no, man. Also, he'd just been in a bad car accident, which again, we'll come back to him.

I can give you some ouch lines. Sure, yeah. I can give you what they call efforts in the VA industry. Oh, ow. Oh, Ben Byrd, of course. amazing soundscape work in this. The Dolby sound also. Fox apparently rolled them out in theaters and then said,

look, if this is a success, you can pay us back then. Shout out to Fox and Dolby. Shout out to all those guys. Those two bros. Yeah. Ben Burt, Fox and Dolby, yeah. I feel like I am brushing past these things, but... They're not important.

None of this is important. That's why you're brushing past. Because nothing Star Wars related is important. That's what you're saying. Anyways... I don't agree. But that's what you're saying. That's what I'm saying.

Anyways, the force. Oh, yeah. I love the moment. where Luke has his eyes covered and he blocks some lasers and he's like, you know what, I think I could feel something.

Yeah, you just did magic. And Harrison Ford's like, whatever, I don't believe this. Come on. You witnessed a miracle. Could have been a coincidence. What, a couple of blasts. Come on.

Maybe a thousand. It's like a coin flip at this point. I don't think so bad. I believe in magic. Grow up, honestly. Fair enough. The force is more complicated earlier drafts of this and a lot of this stuff gets folded into later law.

There was word of midi-chlorians. What? Even in the 70s? Yeah, there was crystals. Like crystal enhancement force crystals. Well, that's the 70s. That makes sense. Sure. Well, I mean, splinter of the mind's eye.

Exactly. They want to find a crystal. Again, it's a big crystal. We'll come back to her. We'll talk about that next week. The dark side was called Bogan. That's fun. That is fun.

That's fun for the Australians out there. Definitely. is Eric Banner of Pointer. He's a Bogan. That's what this is. Now you know. Now you know. So this is the fourth draft. All previous drafts of this. The fourth awakened. Yes. If you skimmed through them or read like the comic adaptation of the earlier drafts, they're really complicated and law-heavy and politics and over-explaining. Trade routes? Yeah, shit like that basically. Oh, yeah. But they had to cut so much of this because you can't do it. You can't squeeze that into a movie. like this in this era.

Agreed. Lightsaber's are great, even though they have a jump cut start. You notice that? No. Just kidding, I did. It's really obvious. They used initially reflective rotating tape.

Okay. So they have light bounce off and it bounces back and then they obviously did the optical effects over the tops. But in doing that, you see like the light bouncing off like Luke's eyes when he's holding the lightsaber. There's little effects like that. Classic skinny lightsaber.

Oh, great. Classic landspeeder. How did they do that? Mirrors? There was some mirror stuff. Sometimes it was on a little gimbal thing. And sometimes they used anti-gravity technology. Is that correct? Yeah. But they lost the I think the piece of paper they wrote down how to do that

or whatever. I wouldn't lose that. It was the 70s. Yeah. They probably drew over it. Probably did coconut or something. Probably did. Tarkin's great. Great performance by Peter Cushing. Another British actor he'll do anything. Absolutely. Yeah. But did he, I wonder if he thought he was above this?

Probably not. I don't think he did. He'd done a lot of hammer horror stuff? Yeah, him and, because he was obviously friends with Christopher Lee, and they did a lot of that stuff together. I love that, surely he'd be dead by now, you know, when talking about Obi-One. Why? You're older than he is.

Like, why do you think that? He's got magic. He's got crystal magic. You don't have anything. You've got this soul-crushing bureaucratic job in a big metal sphere planet thing. This sucks. You're breathing recycled air all day. He's at least out in the desert.

Exactly. You know? Exactly. But also it speaks to the character because he's arrogant. He doesn't think the Death Star could explode. Like it becomes his undoing, you know? Soon it would become its most famous aspect that it explodes. That's right.

That's the Death Stars, both of them. It's their most... They love it. It's their most notable traders that explodes. They love it. They love it. It's true. Well, the Death Star, right.

The Death Star Rescue, it's just chaotic nonsense. Two lunatics and a tall dog. And then they meet a third lunatic. And they're just going absolute fucking ham, rudder to around. There's a moment where they get out of the trash compactor, they just take off their costumes. They're like, oh, whatever. Who cares?

But also, it's funny. Yeah. There's a lot of, obviously, very intentional humor in this movie, which just some of the movies following on, they don't have. You know, the delivery of the lines, the timing of it all. It's... Who did that? George Lucas.

George Lucas. He did a lot of it. Yeah. I mean, Harrison Ford, you know, he sells a lot of this stuff. Well, he famously has said. Yeah, you can write the ship, but you can't say it or whatever. But I imagine that's mostly like the technical stuff. Yeah, blabity, bluebitty, et cetera and so forth.

He does really speed through some of the blabody blabody blubety. He's like, I'm going to make the calculator. How many pestle? Pessler runs do I got to get to the past X shot? Astrook computer is going to make the calculations that we write the jump the lights, but okay, let's go. Don't think about it. That's what I love. There's a moment also when Luke's blocking stuff with magic, whatever, I guess. And Harrison Ford's just looking at a panel and it's just lights.

and switches. You know what I mean? Like, what's he looking at? A porno. Is he? Yeah, it's the equivalent of like one of those swimsuit calendars. But in the Star Wars universe, in the past, it's also the future. He's like, oh yeah. I'm loving this. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. What are you doing? I don't believe in that. I'm busy. I love Obi-1's confrontation with Darth Vader. When I left you, I was but a learner now I'm a master. He should have said, when I left you, you threw a bunch of rocks at me, and then you took a running jump and then swatted me in the face, and I hated that. Yeah. Yeah. You've seen the Obi-1 television show. show. I didn't really want it. I didn't really, but it's hard. I know we shouldn't really

reverends it too much or whatever because that came so much later, but sometimes it's hard to look at this and not think of like the several layers of crap that's been like piled upon it. It's propping it up. Exactly. The idea that Obi-Wan Kenobi just changed his name to Ben Kenobi and just wore the same clothes. Or his Jedi robes specifically and just went to live in a cave. Oh my God. I love that bit where he disappears and Darth Vader's like kicking around his clothes. Mate, he's not in there. What did you think he shrunk down real small?

You think he got flat? You think he used his 1970s Jedi crystals to get extra flat? What's he going to do then? Sneak up your trouser leg? Just madness. They ended up killing Obi-1 in this because otherwise he just would have been

standing around that table. Look at the Death Star attack. Look at that bleepin and blooper. And that's Princess Lay's job. Yeah, exactly. So there's a very famous blooper in this on the Death Star. Go on. Stormtroper bumps, he said.

Yeah, I know that. Classic stuff. So he got a backstory? Probably, yeah. It's interesting, though, because he's taller than the other ones. And that's why he hits it. Like, I reround and watched it. Anyway, there's a documentary on YouTube.

It's called The Empire Strikes Door. And in that documentary, which people should check out, three different men claim that they were the Stormtrooper. Interesting. Who bumped their head. You wouldn't have admitted it on the day. Absolutely not. You would have had to become a taxi driver.

Look, we don't know much about this guy's backstory, but I do know he has an entry on Wikipedia. Unidentified head bumping stormtrooper. Oh, okay. There's probably a robot chicken episode dedicated to him. Absolutely. Yeah. The escape from the Death Star is great leading up to the ending.

Like, just a handful of Thai fighters is a big deal. Like, that's a whole sequence. Yeah, you can, you can, back in this era, they weren't just like completely disposable. Yeah. Cannon fodder. Four could be dangerous, you know, which, hasn't really been a thing since then, up until maybe and or.

Absolutely. One Thai fighter can be, you know, can be your whole world. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of the time, you know, this is due to limitations. At the start initially, I think it was going to be, I think at least two Star Destroyers like coming in and they're like, that's expensive. So let's not do that. And we can't mirror them.

We're using the mirrors on the Lance Beater. So we already glued them down. And they're in the desert. Yeah. The mirror budget is spanned. What are we going to move into England? No. No.

They don't have mirrors. in England for obvious reasons. Obviously. Why would you want to look at any of that? But George Lucas put $400,000 of his own money into starting... It must have been into starting ILM. And one of the big parts of that was a new motion control camera system, which would allow the dynamism of the model work in this.

Oh, yes. And in the lead up to getting some shots done, they basically spent a year just not producing anything. And George Lucas saw a handful of shots and he was like, not good enough. and they had to redo like a year's worth of shots in like six months in the lead up to the release. This was supposed to come out in 76,

which is perfect for this video actually. That's right. But it got pushed from Christmas. This is the real anniversary, I think. Of the old stuff that didn't work. Yeah. We're doing that with a video that doesn't really work. So, yeah, like it's a miracle that they pulled that up.

Also, there is one computer generated effect, as I mentioned, the wireframe death star plans. That's by Larry Cuba. There it is. That's your CGI. Wow, wow, wow. And that's what video games used to look like. Yeah.

Yuck. Gross. Anyways, it's funny in that meeting that guy's like, we can't make a shot like that. And Luke goes, nah, I can do that. Yeah, I could do it. And he does? I can do it.

I could obviously do it in the desert with no pressure whatsoever. No guys shooting at me with giant space lasers. Yeah. Just going around. One's a wizard. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I can do it easy.

I'm not to discount, you know, the work of you guys who are all, you know, You're all heroes in a way. You're all heroes in a way fighting for the freedom of the galaxy, but I could do better than you. And I did. And I did actually. You all died except for Wedge. That's right. So the way that they cut together that last sequence, the space battle, which a lot of which still looks really good. When you say they, Mary Lucas? Marsha Lucas. Marsha Lucas. We'll talk about Marsha Lucas. There's three editors on this, but yeah, she was integral. They used World War II dog fighting movie footage. They cut that together and then just went, we'll copy that. Then, of course, Hans Solo comes in hot. The dude next to Darth Vader panics and, like, flies into him. Then they have a big celebration and whatever.

You didn't have time for that, by the way. Get out of there. That's right. They're coming, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Metal ceremony. I wouldn't go to that. I'd be like, no.

Can we go, please? This is serious stuff, Mason. The galaxy is at stake. Politics. I'll tell you what, when Hans Solo came back, that's still because of me goosebumps. I know it's a children's movie for children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the most part, but I'm like, he came back.

Yeah. He did it. It was more important than the money. He did get a lot of money, though. He did get a lot of monies. And, like, what does it matter if he missed? That's true, actually. He'd still be able to get out of there.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. His ship can jump to light speed real quick. Exactly, it's fine. Once he's got the calculations to the navigation computer. Now you can do it. It's probably done that already. So, Marsha Lucas, right?

Yes. George Lucas's former wife. She's been called the heart of Star Wars if George Lucas was the brain. She ended up editing a lot of this movie. She took out a Luke and Lay a Kiss before they swing across. She moved the story along. Like, early cuts of this, they did not work at all. It really plotted.

She cut out all the guff. Yeah. Right. Did she edit the prequels? No. You did all the prequels? No, she absolutely did not. That's interesting.

It's interesting. Those famously guff-filled prequels? Interesting. Interesting that a woman famous for cutting out the guff. Wasn't available for those movies. Interesting. It was her idea to get Obi-1 killed because otherwise he's just standing around. He's just standing around.

That was her idea. These are a good thing. She said Alec Inis, you can have the day off. Sir Alec? You don't have to come in today. That's okay, I wasn't anyway. Yeah, yeah. You still paying me for this week, though, right?

Okay, great. I definitely had a lot to do with making it work, but I wasn't the writer and I wasn't the director, and I didn't come up with the creative names, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, all those names are classic. George came up with all of it using his imagination. Also, she was like, the prequels are bad

and the sequels are also bad. So, well, you know. When you're right, you're right. When you're the best part of Star Wars, you know you are. Absolutely. And I think another part worth mentioning, and there's so many people that, that made this happen. This didn't happen in a vacuum.

I mean, a lot of it did happen in a vacuum. Sure. The vacuum of space. With sound. With sound. First of all, we want to thank all the viewers. Yeah, by the way. They made it happen.

Yeah, and you left a like. You better have. Charles Lippincott marketed this film virally before virality. He took this around to different events. This is the first movie to go to Comic Con, which was in 1976. And he had a literal slideshow. No footage and was like, this is a dog man. This is a laser.

This is a guy. Whatever. And for anybody who likes the damn. The devil got a little surprise here for you. There he is. What's he up to? What's he up to? Who's the devil, though?

He's also responsible for the comic run at Marvel. He got that off the ground. Oh, yeah. Really integral. A Marvel, will you do anything for money currently because you're currently going bankrupt? Or just recovering from bankruptcy? You want to do this?

All right. Yeah. And he also got the novelization happening, which came out months before the movie, which also built word of mouth. Probably as well. Probably, Alan Dean Foster. Probably maybe.

It says like, by George Lucas, but it's based off an earlier draft or whatever. Or the fourth draft, and then they'd change much of stuff anyway. Anyway, it's time for trivia for Star Wars' 1977, a popular movie. This is the trivia section of the show, Mason. The logo is designed by Susie Rice, the Star Wars logo. It says Star Wars, but she's not credited in the movie as she was a contractor. So there you go.

This is the Nike logo all over again. It really is. Which was designed by some guy that I don't know who designed it. But it was some design student or something? Put your name on. it. Then we'd know. That's right. Apparently though people would go to her after this and be like, we did you to design something as iconic as Star Wars? And she's like, well, I can't, really, can I? The biggest thing of all time, I probably can't do that again. Look, I can do it and then I'll

give you a logo. Now you have to imagine it with like a John William score and also decades of, you know, incredible adventures, just around it for your serial brand. Can you do that? The episode four part, that was added in 1981. It was an idea that. It was an idea that. floated around initially because the Flash Gordon influences and etc. But people would have probably been like, I don't know. Because the opening scrawl originally, and here it is, it's really wordy and repeats itself. And Brian De Palma was like, this sucks. He rewrote it.

Okay. So it's perfect. There's not like a wasted word in that, you know, which is fun. It's also fun to the working title of this. I think it was, it was just Star Wars, wasn't it? Or the Star Wars? The Star Wars. The Star Wars.

It's Mr. Star Wars, I think. Star Wars. Yeah, Mr. Star Wars. What's the devil doing here? I don't know, he's hanging out. Very good then. James Cameron quit being a truck driver after watching the opening shot of this movie.

I guess he stormed out. Stormed out? Stormed out. And he had to become a taxi driver. He had to do that, yeah. He was basically kind of furious and inspired that a lot of the ideas that he said he had in his head. Oh, yeah.

The flying ships and lasers, somebody had done that. Well, it could have come up with this. Well, you didn't. Did you James Cameron? Did you big Jim? You didn't. And Elvis Presley apparently attempted to get a print of Star Wars the day before he died. And then he died.

So as far as we know, he didn't see Star Wars. Sad. Do you think? Yeah. Did he have a screening room in his bathroom? Yeah, he had all of that. Oh, in his bathroom. No, probably not.

Okay, right. No. Maybe. Maybe, Mason. Yeah. Anyways, box office, on a budget of $11 million, this made in its initial run, 410. Pretty good. Dollars. Yeah.

No, a million. Biggest movie of all time. It's made $775 from re-releases. But obviously, that wasn't where all the money was made because George Lucas, very canily, Oh, he's cany. Made a deal. He waved. You fellows don't mind if I make a little deal.

Do you fellas? Nah. They're just doing cocaine. Nah. What, nah. He waived his $500,000 director's fee for something like around $150,000. Okay. But that allowed him sequel rights and merchandise rights.

Yeah, nice. And the merch since then, even before he sold to Disney for billions of dollars and then got Disney shares and all of that. That made him billions. That allowed him to self-finance the next one and every other thing he's ever done. Star Wars stuff. Yes. The condition being that he had to start the sequel before 1979. Okay.

Which he obviously did. And of course he would. Dodge that bullet. Wait. Or he got hit by a bullet? He got hit. He got shot, Mason. He got shot by the bullet of billions of dollars.

Yeah. Anyway, you're familiar with the Spielberg-Deilberg? You know about this? Nope. Tell me about the Spielberg dealberg. We're wrapping it up, everybody. Don't worry, all right?

George Lucas was invited to the set of close encounters, which Spielberg was filming at the time. And he said, this is going to gross more than Star Wars. This is a good movie. My movie is an idiot. And I'm an idiot.

And they agreed to give each other 2.5% of their film's gross profits. Whoa. George Lucas made $8 million from that deal. That's enough for a $6 million man and a bit more, which was a big thing in that era. Like an extra leg or whatever. Yeah, exactly. That's right. And Spielberg made $40 million from that. So basically George Lucas lost $32 million.

This still brings Spielberg money in today, which is fun. And Alec Guinness, who made $150,000 on this, he negotiated a back end gross. He got 2% of that and George Lucas threw in an extra 2.5 once filming had 50%. So immediately he made $7 million. And they gave him a working lightsaber. Did they? The only one that really exists, yeah. God.

Yeah. And he killed Peter Cushing with it. That's right, he did. A whole bunch of, he went on the Guinness Rampage. What? Yeah, it's famous. The Guinness World Record Rampage. Exactly.

That was him? That was him. God. You better believe it. That's why they had to come up with a Guinness Book of World Records. Most Thespians killed by a lightsaber. That's right. By the time of his death in the year 20086, it's estimated that he made about

$95 million from Star Wars. Not bad. Must be nice. It must be nice. What an incredible start to the year and a beautiful tribute to the 49th anniversary of Star Wars. 49, baby, the big 4-9. Correct. Here's a hint towards next week.

Is it Empire Strikes Back? Yep. We could do something in the middle. Well, we already... We could cover the novelization of Splinter of the Minds. We did that already. We also did the holiday special. We got a video on that.

Oh yeah. That'll tide you over if you want. Prequels. We talk about the prequels. Prequels have done already. I think this is better than the prequels. I'm going to do a soft degree on that. Okay, interesting.

All right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But also, we have a special service for special people called big sandwich. com where it's exclusive stuff like movie commentaries. We've got one for literally every Star Wars movie. We do video game let's plays. We've got a lot of different Star Wars ones on there.

But we play that Super Star Wars. We did. I think that's on the main channel, actually. Oh. We've got... Comic book. Oh, we've done a bunch of Star Wars ones there as well, haven't we? Oh, my God.

That one way Obi-Wan Kenobi's on that luxury space yacht or whatever? Yeah. When they didn't know that that's not a thing. Obi-One-Kanobie should have been doing in expanded media. He's not allowed to do that. Not allowed. That's a fight a New Zealand guy in the rain or whatever. That's right.

Also, we have a podcast called The Weekly Planet where we talk movies and comics and TV shows that comes out. Every Monday, it's on its own YouTube channel. It's on Spotify. It's on Apple. If you do want to check it out. We talk the news of the week in Big movie. Big movie. Star Wars, one of the biggest movies there ever was. Probably true.

And is. And is also. Big movie. Thank you so much to Ben and Lawrence for the edit. Thank you, Ben and Lawrence. Hell of an edit on this one. Hell of an edit. All the extra jokes.

Yeah. They're really the secret source, Marsha Lucas. They're the Marsha Lucas. Amen, brother. The heart, if you will. I agree. Yeah, and she took out all the kisses. That's right.

All right, thanks, everyone. Grab that, Jamie, guys. We'll see you next week. Bye.