Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Roger Christian: Toronto Mike'd #1102

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

In this 1102nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Academy award winner Roger Christian about his amazing work on Star Wars, from creating the light sabre and R2-D2 to the Millennium Falcon. FOTM Paul Burford is along for the ride. And oh yeah, did I mention Roger won a Golden Raspberry Award for directing Battlefield Earth? Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Thank you. I'm in Toronto, where you wanna get the city love? I'm from Toronto, where you wanna get the city love? I'm in Toronto, where you wanna get the city love. I'm from Toronto where you wanna get the city love. I'm a Toronto Mike, wanna get the city love. My city love me back, for my city love. Welcome to episode 1102 of Toronto Miked. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer.

Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh,made Italian pasta and entrees From Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville Electronic Products Recycling Association Committing to our planet's future

Means properly recycling our electronics of the past Ridley Funeral Home Pillars of the community since 1921 And Canna Cabana The lowest lowest prices on cannabis, guaranteed. Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Today, making his Toronto mic debut is Academy Award winner, Roger Christian. Welcome, Roger.

Thank you for having me. Roger, that accent doesn't sound like your typical Mimico accent. I need to know right off the top, how did you end up as my lakeshore neighbor in Mimico? I made a lot of films in Canada and always liked it here. And then when I met my wife in India, she's from here, has a business here. So the only way to make it work was I'd move here, which I did. Well, we're lucky to have you. I mean, this is going to be a great conversation. We're going to learn about all your great accomplishments. People might have a little tip off the top of the music they heard from the start, what we're going to talk about.

Did you know, Roger, that there's a longtime Buffalo DJ that adopted the name Roger Christian? Were you aware of that? I've seen another one. There's a few, actually. There's a realtor in America I get confused with. And there's a very famous DJ who worked with the Beach Boys. Oh, okay. So I think that was a Roger Christian. And then the Buffalo guy might have stole it from that guy. Probably. I think so.

Well, listen, in my books, you're the only Roger Christian. Okay. So you're number one of a bullet. I'm going to paint the picture here. We're in the backyard studio and it's like overcast and cloudy, but I don't think it's going to paint the picture here. We're in the backyard studio, and it's like overcast and cloudy, but I don't think it's going to rain. But I did throw up the tarp in case of emergency, so we should be okay. But welcome to the Toronto Mic'd Backyard Studio.

And here's a mind blow for FOTMs who are listening. There's another microphone set up back here. Please speak into the mic. Mystery co-host for this episode. Who are you, sir? Someone who thinks you're a big number. I was hoping you'd say that. Should I play the clip?

I've got it somewhere here real quick here. Because, you know, Roger needs to know who he's dealing with. Here's a short version. But, Mike, you're a big number in Toronto. You know, like you really are. So, Roger, just so you know what you're in for here. Right. Paul Burford, welcome back.

For those who haven't heard your episode, I'm just going to read the description. So, Paul, you were last in my backyard for episode 870. So this is 1102. So now you know the new tattoo you need to get. 1-1-0-2. Because you've got the nice, I see you've got the nice 8-7-0 tattoo. So good for you. Okay. Mike chats with Paul Burford about creating and producing Just Like Mom.

But you didn't wear the Just Like Mom shirt today. No, I didn't. I felt, well, because I wore it to Marie Curtis Park. Yes. And I wore it here before. You thought you've done that too much. Three times is too much. Yeah, well, it was a good run.

And I'm happy a lot of the people who listen to you watch just like mom when they were growing up. Well, guys my age, and I'm going to introduce, there's actually a couple more people in this backyard I'll introduce, but like, just like mom was appointment viewing, I can't tell you how much just like mom I watched as a kid. Like, you know, Fergie Oliver,

the host, I know that we also talked about, you know, your relationship with Fergie in episode 870. We talked about the 1983 Blue Jays because you were filming with them. I loved the 83 Blue Jays because you were filming with them. I loved the 83 Blue Jays. That's the first year I really followed the team.

We talked about Wayne Gretzky. Clint Eastwood. Is he coming to the backyard anytime soon? Before it's too late, you know what I mean? Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Paul Henderson. Wow, we're at the 50th anniversary of the goal. Yeah, that's a big deal, really.

The Anderson thing. And the fact that he's still goal. Yeah, that's a big deal, really, the Anderson thing. And the fact that he's still alive. Yeah, how's he doing? Have you talked to him recently? No, no, I get updates from him on his health. And he's still doing good. I mean, when we shot that, the Paul Anderson series, that was almost 10 years ago now.

And he had cancer. He'd had it for a couple of years. Yeah. But he's still going strong. He's going to outlive us all. He is. So if Ridley has any ideas, that's not a potential client as far as I'm concerned. So, okay.

And that episode was like 90 minutes and it was great. And all FOTMs want me to ask you, how are you doing? And then how is FOTM Broccoli doing? And then we're going to talk to Roger, because rather interesting dude. I can't wait for this. This is going to be quite something. But, Paul, how are you doing? And how is your son Broccoli doing?

Good. And Broccoli is out in Jasper right now. Nice. Which is to celebrate his wedding anniversary. Oh, one year. Because he got married one year ago. And that's why he missed TMLX 8. And you missed TMLX 8, which was like last August.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. I remember now. I still haven't forgiven him, by the way. But Roger has seen Santa and Broccoli. He saw them in the rain. Pouring rain. Pouring rain.

With my son. Does that enhance the experience? And your son, Roger, how old is he? Okay, so I have an eight-year-old as well. So he was, when was this? Two years ago at the beaches. Before COVID. Pre-COVID.

We went and it was pouring with rain so i stood there with him in the rain and then he went back on on stage with them and you know the irony of course to see sunshine in the rain yeah right see paul that's why i'm a big number in this town okay so so great they need a tv show yeah you know what there's another duo we gotta push them aside. Their time is over. It's time for sunshine and broccoli. I'll see what I can do.

I'll make some phone calls. Stu Stone can make it happen. He's a good guy. He's become friends with broccoli. Yeah, yeah. Well, we look forward to, we tried to talk to him that night at the Emory Curtis Park. He wasn't, yeah, Stu wasn't there, right?

He doesn't come to the park once, I don't think, but I will just take this opportunity before we get to Galaxy Built on Hope. So much great stuff to talk about. Like, I'm super excited. I watched a lot of Just Like Mom, but I watched Star Wars.

In fact, I think every birthday party I went to for a period of time, they would rent a VCR. Like, this is back when, like, it was expensive to own a VCR or whatever.

These parties, they would rent the VCR and put on Star Wars. like it was expensive to own a VCR or whatever. These parties, they would rent the VCR and put on Star Wars. Like I think four or five birthdays in a row were basically based around seeing Star Wars on a rented VCR. So we'll get to Star Wars. I can't wait. But you're doing well, Paul?

Yes. Yeah. Okay. You look great. And Broccoli's doing well? Yeah. Brock's doing good. He's very busy right now because he's got sentient Broccoli's doing well? Yeah, Brock's doing good. He's very busy right now because he's got Cension and Broccoli,

plus he's got a group called The Firm. Oh. There's 12 of them. After the Grisham novel. They're like blood, sweat, and tears. Oh, nice. Yeah, they've got horns and everything. Like Chicago.

Yeah, Chicago. Yeah. Sure, okay. They play 25 or 64. Yeah, they got horns and everything. Like Chicago. Yeah, Chicago. Yeah. Sure, okay. They play 25 or 64. Yeah. Amazing. Okay, I didn't know that about Broccoli. I'm going to have to get him back here and find out about it.

Because you know who would like that? Stu Stone. I haven't even introduced the guy. I just glanced at him. I'm going to introduce him in just a moment here. I do want to shout out the fact that TMLXX is going to be September 1st. So, Roger, this is like in your backyard. Great Lakes Brewery is at 30 Queen Elizabeth Boulevard down the street from the Costco.

Like really close to Mimico. Can't remember what they call that neighborhood. Queensway or something. But Great Lakes is hosting TMLXX. That's the 10th Toronto Mic Listener Experience. And it's also celebrating 10 years of Toronto Mic'd. And we have some great entertainment lined up. There's going to be a Mind Blow

competition. It's 6 to 9pm. And Palma Pasta, the most delicious authentic Italian food, is going to feed everybody. So, Paul, will you be at TMLXX? Well, I'll try and be. I love this pasta. You can get some.

Yeah, you're not leaving here without a frozen lasagna, Roger. Wow. It's really good, too. That's a surprise. Yeah, yeah. This box might be empty now, but when you leave, that box will be full. So you'll try to make it. And let's introduce the two people in the backyard before we dive in.

Brock will be there for sure. Is that right? Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay, good. I want to see him again. That's great. Maybe I'll wear my

it's cool to be kind hoodie. Yes. Yeah, we've got one. Okay, it's nice, right? I like it. That's a good slogan too. Okay. I should start to practice that.

But speaking of kind, there's a kind gentleman here in my backyard who is, is he your personal driver, Paul? Is that right? He is, yes. Tim, I know you're not on a mic,

so welcome, Tim. I have met you a few times and you've been to TMLX in the park. You were at TMLX 8. Will you be at TMLX X on September 1? Yes, he will. Okay, everybody. F-O-T-M, Tim, will be there.

And here's quite the pleasant surprise, is that the VP of sales himself is sitting to my right in case these guys get rowdy. You're going to be my bodyguard. Okay. You're stepping in. So hello to VP of sales, also a Mimico native. So maybe him and Roger are going to become buddies after this. Personal note here. And then we're diving into Galaxy Built on Hope. My daughter, Michelle moved to Montreal yesterday. So she's going to McGill. She moved to Montreal yesterday.

I've seen all these photos now. She's settling in. She seems to like her roommate who's from Vancouver. And I'm very excited for her and she's going to be awesome, but I'm going to miss her. So now is when I will cry. No, I'll try not to cry. But yeah, so just wanted to

say it's a bittersweet time when your daughter leaves home. Yeah, and it's a great university town, city. And she's on campus this year too, so I'm jealous. Can I sleep on your floor,

Michelle? The Alouettes used to play at McGill, you know. Oh, okay. I saw Johnny Rogers, the Heisman Trophy winner, when he was playing for the Alouettes. Yeah, I always remember. So when were they the Concords? Does anyone have this answer? Were the Alouettes the Concords for a while?

I know Rogers got all the CFL info, but Tim's saying yes. I remember there was a period of time where it was the Montreal Concords. I'd forgotten that. Yeah, like I think in the 80s or something like that. But Johnny Rogers. Yeah, the Ravens. Not the Ravens. Right, okay.

But Johnny Rogers was so amazing. I mean, he was a wide receiver. Like I said, Heisman Trophy winner. They paid the money to get him here to draw fans, and they played McGill, and he was amazing to see. And his last name was Rogers? Yeah, Johnny Rogers. On that note.

Flight 209, you are cleared for takeoff. Roger. Huh? LA departure frequency, 123.9. Roger. All right. Request vector, over. What? Flight 209, clear for vector 324. We have Alright. Request vector. Over. What? Flight 209

are clear for vector 324. We have clearance, Clarence. Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor? Howard Radio, clearance over. That's Clarence over. Over. Roger. Huh? Roger, over. What? Alright, from Rogers to Roger. Roger,

why did you not bring your Academy Award with you today? Where is it right now? It's hidden. Is it like in a box somewhere? It's got to be on display. No, it was... And you have more than one, right?

The second one for The Dollar Bottom, the short film I did, was resting with the producer because they shared it out at that time. Now they give you two, but it was shared out. But did you get a physical Oscar for your work on Star Wars? Yeah. And it's not in your pocket right now.

No, it's not. You didn't bring it. Because I wanted to pose with it, but maybe I'll do that at a later date. Here, I'm going to play a little promo. This is like a minute long, but this is going to set us up for our deep dive into the Galaxy of hope i'm dr david west reynolds when i was writing my best-selling star wars guidebooks

i had full access to the lucasfilm archives and all the original props and weapons but nobody at skywalker ranch could tell me how these incredible props had been created. They were all the work of one man, Academy Award-winning Star Wars set decorator Roger Christian. The lightsabers, the blasters, the gaffy sticks, they set a new look in sci-fi cinema. For the first time on video, the man who created the icons of Star Wars explains in detail how they were made. You won't want to miss this new feature-length documentary, Galaxy Built on Hope. Okay, I'm excited now. I will let you know, Roger and Paul, you can chime in whenever you feel it's appropriate.

I know you can't. We're playing the... Maybe you can hear it through the headphones on the table. I can hear it. Okay, good. I did receive a DVD copy of Galaxy Built on Hope and I watched it and loved it. Like this, like as a guy who grew up loving Star Wars,

just the detail and Roger, I mean, I've got so many questions, I don't even know where to begin, but I will tell people that as we talk about you know Roger's work on Star Wars you can go to galaxybuiltonhope.com like you can go there right now

you can pause this episode and go to galaxybuiltonhope.com and pick yourself up the blu-ray or the DVD and there's some great info on there for this documentary as I'm watching it, like Guillermo del Toro's in this thing and then next thing you know at FOTM, Richard Krauss is there.

Richard says hi, by the way. I talked to him this morning. Oh, good. Yeah, he's a good friend. He says say hi to Roger for me. I've done that, Richard. Okay. Where do we begin? How did this... We'll talk about the doc and then get into some of the details, but how did Galaxy Built on Hope come to be?

It was David West Reynolds. I was directing second unit on Phantom Menace. And they have an annual picnic, George, at the ranch in July. Wow. I went there and this young man came running down to me and said, George, I've got to ask you questions. He went off like this and i i was answering all his questions and he said listen and david was head of literature at that point it's another story and i'll tell it briefly now he's a star wars nerd he's an archaeologist and And when he was in Egypt doing a dig, he thought, you know,

these Star Wars sites should be like monuments and people should visit them. So he kind of applied to Star Wars in London and in Los Angeles and in San Francisco. Nobody knew where we'd shot. Nobody believed in this film. Everything was canned at the end of the film everything was dumped and um there were no records so rick mccallum had taken over as producer he was pulling his hair out we got to go and shoot no one knew where you shot and he remembered he he's words were some kid called in about the locations get him on the phone that was david right he said

here's a ticket meet me in tunisia on this date david met the big dp and the designers who were treating him like you know well who's this person we're the big film industry and within a day of him showing him exactly where not only only where we'd shot every location, but each camera angle, he'd worked it all out, they were kind of begging him. So he'd filmed everything on his own in 95, went back with a crew of his own on his own money and filmed everything.

And that's how he came about to be the head of literature at lucasfilm because rick mccullum said just come and hang out and he said i'm an archaeologist why would i do he said just come and then they had him write all those great star wars books on the props and everything so then he couldn't get any answers. And the interviews that were done by Charlie Lippingcott on all of us, mine was lost. It wasn't in the ranch. And so he kind of found out I was there. Yeah.

He said, you've got to write this down. You're the only person who knows this history. Yeah. John Barry had died very young and working on empire right and so i kind of gave in to his pressure and i took two years off wrote 650 pages the next head of literature john rinsler who was a new york times best-selling author edited it for me and the book cinema alchemist came out well then david west randall started again but you have to document this and not one of the making of star wars if you watch

them they're not only anything about what we did our names aren't even mentioned john barry or mine anywhere and when you think back george was under such awful pressure trying to make this film with no money, a crew who hated him and the film, that all he ever knew was I'd come up and say, how do you like these guns? And he'd go, great, these work. How do you like this set? You know, I was offering up everything.

So he really kind of half knew what we were doing but that memory had gone and there's nobody else so i thought okay i'm gonna have to make this thing eventually somehow that's how i'd met paul because he loved a film i made um joseph and mary Joseph and Mary. Which, incredibly enough, is Palestine in North Bay, if you can fathom that. I mean, I still don't understand how... Okay, yeah, give me that. Do you want to hear a film in the streets? I had this experience of Jim Cuddy recently.

He's like, oh, I got a dentist appointment, and I got to leave for a dentist appointment in 10 minutes. So you don't have a dentist appointment in a half an hour. Right, Roger? No, I just got to get my son to another place. But tell me. We'll make time. Your son will wait.

It's okay. So, yeah, I'm just joking. They canceled. They said there's a storm coming. They canceled his camp. I phoned up and said, why are you canceling? There's no storm anywhere. No, it's lovely.

And it was an excuse for them to have a day off. It's the last day of camp, right? This is it. No, he's got another week it was an excuse for them to have a day off. It's the last day of camp, right? This is it. No, he's got another week. Oh, okay. He's in soccer camp. Okay, gotcha. I signed, a friend was making Joseph and Mary and the story of Peter, two films back to back.

Okay. Biblical films. And I was very interested in the story of Jesus because no one's ever told the story of Joseph ever it's he's an enigma in the bible everywhere he's a carpenter yeah that's about all I know so I thought this is really good to do and I kind of signed on and he wanted to direct he was a producer first time so he wanted me to go first so he could kind of learn what to do. And we were going to Malta where he'd made a film originally, and great, you know, Malta's perfect to do a biblical film.

And then I signed on. Everything's done. I can't get out of it. Oh, by the way, we're going to North Bay. Not Malta. We are. What a letdown. so also in in winter in winter on the edge of winter well that's crazy yeah i crucified jesus with a foot of snow on the ground at minus about 12 degrees having to convince an actor to be on the cross um but yeah they they'd given him five hundred thousand dollars to go and shoot there so

to a producer oh well this is like this is we got to make it work which fell on my shoulders um that we found a gravel pit that actually could have duplicated for the holy lands and cgi we built sets and i cgi'd everything and no one's known. I'd never revealed it before that we were actually in North Bay and nobody ever said anything. See, you should have saved this for our mind blow competition at TMLXX. We're going to have a mind blow competition. That's a mind blow right there. It is.

It is. Because when you see the film, I remember when I first saw it and at the end it said shot in North Bay. It's a typo. North Bay, Malta maybe typo. North Bay, Malta, maybe. No, amazing. North Bay does not even have a Starbucks.

Well, that's a deal breaker for some people. If I'd known, it was. It looks like Palestine. That's the thing. So, Paul, you saw this film. Yes. And you loved it. Yeah.

And then what's the next step? Like, you're like, who made this wonderful thing? We met at a film awards ceremony. We both got awards at the Faith and Family Film Festival. Yeah. Okay. And then I asked him to get together because I had this project about talking dogs. We still want to get it made one day.

It's called Lugan Gizmo. Oh, not like David and Goliath. No. Okay, baby. Talking dogs with dog pals. Because that was also religious, as I remember. Yeah. Different religion.

I call this Indiana Jones in dogs. Hey. All right. So you're still going to try to get this made. Yeah. And then we discovered very quickly that we both love Dr. Zhivago. Sure. And also, Roger and I are one of the few people still living, I think,

that took the time during the 60s and 70s to watch world cinema. In other words, cinema from other countries and great directors from other countries. There was cinema from other countries and great directors from other countries. And that was something else that was very interesting because you don't find that anymore. People who know world cinema. So I called Paul and said, meet me in my office. And I've got to do a budget. It's going to take some time because I thought I would.

My office is Birds and Beans. I know it very well on the lake shore in Mimico. Yeah. I know it very well. I've been there many times. So that was our office. Nice.

And we met there many, many times and thrashed out a budget. Wow. And that's how it came about. So you never know what's going on in a coffee shop, right? Like you never know. There's two guys.

What are they talking about? They could be planning their big Star Wars documentary, Galaxy. And we were supposed to start shooting in Sydney to shoot George Miller first because he knew George Miller. But then the pandemic came along.

That's quite the curveball for this production. That was a challenge. Yeah, I was determined. I couldn't fly. Half the budget was me flying around interviewing everybody and I couldn't fly. Half the budget was me flying around interviewing everybody, and I couldn't fly, and we couldn't get them in. Again, it was a complete mirror of the original Star Wars. I had hardly any money to make this with,

and we couldn't get people in. They couldn't afford two weeks in a hotel, and plus it was impossible. Most of them weren't vaccinated. We couldn't get anyone in, so hotel and plus it was impossible most of them weren't vaccinated we couldn't get anyone in so I had to put my thinking gap on which is what I did with the first Star Wars and think how do I get around this and by chance I found a virtual studio in Toronto who did kids films using game technology and I had an artist friend of mine who represents Ralph McQuarrie he got to know Ralph really well Ralph taught him how to paint his style he did Christmas cars in Ralph's style and everything

he knows all the stories he painted me sets in game engine like components which meant I could be in the desert with Richard Krauss. I could be under the Millennium Falcon. I was in the Millennium Falcon. I was in sets painted in the style of Ron Pequory. So in the end, I enhanced everything that we were originally intending to do. And like Guillermo del Toro, Guillermo really wanted to do this. Impossible.

He was in Nightmare Alley here in Toronto. He said, okay, Roger, meet me outside the Netflix studio. He turned up on his own driving. I turned up on my own with one cameraman. That's it. He held the mic when I was talking. I held the mic for him when I was talking. We did almost an hour of interviews with him.

But truly, Roger, this is back to your roots. So I'm going to interweave, you know, story of the DVD obviously, Galaxy Built on Hope and sort of your Star Wars story because of course everybody wants to hear get a little taste of that and get some of those stories. But yeah, so you made it happen

during the pandemic. Yes. Through grit and determination. It was a killer because the studio was run by the Ontario government. So during the pandemic, when the government would close down, we would have to close down. Right. And we would wait sometimes months for them to reopen. It's like running a restaurant, essentially. We would wait sometimes months for them to reopen.

It's like running a restaurant, essentially. It's like, okay, all that beef is going bad in the freezer because we get to ship it. Well, it was a one-year project, and Urban Post, who are now the best production house in Canada, Post Production, their owners are friends of mine, they gave myself and the editor the cutting room there, Canada post-production. Their owners are friends of mine. They gave myself and the editor the cutting room there and we were

allowed. We were under the number that was restricted to. We spent an extra year in an edit room trying to put this thing together, the two of us, every day for a year. So it took about almost three years because of COVID. And when was it completed?

Not long ago. Not long ago. No. So that DVD I got was like the first one off the run. It was like, and then Tim grabbed it from the machine when it popped out. Pretty much. He jumped in his car and brought it here. So the funny story I'm going to share for the first time.

Tim dropped off. What a great guy. Tim, I salute you, okay? Tim drops off. What a great guy. Tim, I salute you, okay? Tim drops off this DVD, and I'm worried I don't have anything in this house that plays a DVD, because all my MacBooks now that I'm running everything on have no slot for a DVD.

And Tim brings a portable DVD player. Don't leave without it, Tim. I couldn't find it when I ran inside, but I think Monica knows where it is. Okay. So I eventually found a dusty old 2011 MacBook Pro that was like collecting dust in the basement that did fire up. And I watched it on that and it was great.

But then like almost the next day, I get an email from the great Roger Christian. We have a link to watch this thing on Vimeo. Where was that, Paul Burford, when you guys were getting me the DVD? I said, can I stream this? No, I just have a DVD. There's a streaming available. Roger had a link.

He doesn't know what Vimeo is. He thinks it's a washing powder. Because you're a fan, the fans like to have DVDs. Yes, unless they have nothing to play it on. And then they don't need that. But everybody else does. I know, I know. Somebody me cds to listen to yesterday and i've got nowhere to play them no this is where we're at now so uh we'll have to bring paul into the year 2022 here but

i just felt like we made tim drive all that way tim doesn't live in mimico like these two guys it's a long drive and literally there there was a link where members of the media like myself could get advanced screenings via the internet. This is a new thing, Paul. We've got to bring you up to speed here. Oh no, Brock he was the first person to see it. Brock. Broccoli. Yeah, well

Broccoli. It's cool to be kind. Was he kind? Was his review kind? What did he think? I loved it. I legit loved it. He loved it because he's a Star Wars fan. Yeah, and there's so many Star Wars fans. This is made for Star Wars fans. This is made for Star Wars fans. It's an important point to emphasize.

It's a legacy, yeah. Okay, so now we take a little pause. So again, if you forgot already, although you can rewind, but galaxybuiltonhope.com is a website and you can go there and if you give a rat's ass about star wars i think in my demo here the gen x demo listening right now that's everybody okay you got to check this out you guys put a labor of love but we finally captured all the stories so in this episode we'll get a taste obviously but all the detail all the graphics all the imagery it's all beautifully put together in galaxy built on hope so we're just going to learn a little more about roger like who is this guy so

roger like i read somewhere you'll tell me now on the record that you were the third crew member hired for star wars is that true correct yeah we were um i was working with john John Barry on a film called Lucky Lady in Mexico, and it was written by Gloria and Willard Huyck, who wrote American Graffiti and did work for George without credit on Star Wars. The story goes, Gary Kurtz told me that nobody wanted to make this film. All the studios turned it down. Alan Ladd chose George to work for Fox because they were all after a young director to try and revive the box office.

They were really in the toilet at that time. Right. And the board didn't want it because George came in with his worst nightmare. We want to make a... I want to make this science fiction space fantasy and there was no box office for science fiction at the time it was ill regarded so wait we're talking i guess when are you making this like 76 75 75 i was in mexico still so i mean i was one years old then but i do

know you know 2001 a space odyssey was sort of like the one big science fiction movie you could point to, I suppose. And that was like 69, I guess. 69. And, you know, the story, 2001, the screening in America, the studios walked out. The audience walked out. There was no one left. And the head of the studios went to Stanley Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick wrote on a piece of paper,

mark my words, this is a masterpiece, and put it in his hand. It never got released in America. That film played for a year in the UK, late night. Everybody smoked dope and took... Shout out to Canna Cabana. Absolutely. And they were going every night to watch it.

And it became a kind of cult in France and there, but it's never had a box office. See, thank you for educating me, because looking back, we talk about it like one of the great movies of all time, but it was not box office success. It wasn't even released in the USA, you're telling me. No, not at the time. So there's really no model to say that a science fiction movie like this could be a box office success.

And no wonder these studios want nothing to do with it. So then Fox Board had analyzed that this film would make $12 million. And they cut that in three and said to Lucas, if you can make your film for $4 million, you can make it. And the budget that Garrier got in America was $8 million. UK was exactly half the price at the time. So the head of Fox in UK said, we can make it to $4 million. Plus there were no studio space available in Los Angeles there was in London our studios were empty he could rent the whole thing so they said

listen John and Roger are doing sets exactly what you're talking about like a spaghetti western in space yeah we were building old Mexican buildings into sets and stuff. So I was actually shoveling salt in a salt factory that I was doing at the time when the car arrived. And out gets George in the same clothes, the plaid shirt, jeans and sneakers. I can't picture him anything else. Gary with a cowboy hat. We're all like students talking. And George actually picked up a shovel and was spreading salt with me. Wow.

And said, I'm trying to make really a spaghetti western, but set in space. And I told him, I said, it's music to my ears, because I've never related. I love science fiction. I read it. I always have. I'm ill-regarded for doing that in Britain. I constantly, at a dinner party, if I said I'm reading one of the classics, I would get the same comment. Oh, it's not Shakespeare, is it? And so he decided to hire

us. So we were told to turn up August the 13th in London. And Fox still wouldn't green light the film because they were trying to get the budget down to where it was at four million dollars so George paid us for money they owed him on American Graffiti out of his own pocket for four months and there was just John Barry myself and art director Les Dilley and Robert Watts, who was the production coordinator, and George and Gary. That was it in a tiny studio for four months. And, you know, I read the script and just kind of thought, how on earth am I going to do this?

This is not possible. Right. But I don't think like that. You know, this was a dream for me. I'd always wanted a movie like this, and I loved the script because I was very, veryrained with king arthur and legends and mythology and everything and i can see it's all here um we john barry quite correctly kind of analyzed and said the storytellers here are r2d2 and c3po we could make c3po because they made maria in

metropolis right and we knew 40 years later we'd make him much better than that r2d2 was four foot high we we measured him out from ralph mcquarry's painting there was no cgi don't forget this is long before anything like that existed and the practical effects, yeah. And the radio control was really primitive. And we had a very bumptious special effects guy who promised the world all the time, oh, it's going to be great, and it never was. So we had to create a walking R2-D2, otherwise George didn't have a movie.

And that's what we started with. So tell me, by the way, the mind blow to me if I'm at this competition on September 1st at Great Lakes Brewery, the mind blow to me is that the guy who helped design the look of R2-D2 lives in Mimico. That's my mind blow.

Like no one, this is amazing to me. You live in Mimico. Yep. It's amazing. Your son's got a friend across the street here. Yes, exactly opposite here. Yeah, yeah. They've just said, where is he?

We're supposed to be here. I didn't know until I came. I would have dropped him off. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so what was your, specifically, what was your role in creating this? One of the most beloved characters of all time is R2-D2. What did you do?

We had no money. Robert Watts said, I can't give you anything for wood or supplies, nothing. I haven't got any. So I got Bill Harmon, who was a carpenter and prop maker and sets for Monty Python. And if you remember, Monty Python had no money. They couldn't even afford horses. They have the coconut shells, right? So I got Bill in, and he also had a very good sense of humor.

I knew that it would not be the usual, oh, I can't do this, mate. He was always kind of chirpy and funny. So we built with marine ply that he had in his garage, and he scrounged some wood from another film in the studio and we built a wooden mock-up around kenny baker who was three foot eight and we worked out was strong enough to work it and he was a comedian they had they had a duo act right and there's yeah you see that in this doc actually that's when I learned all this about Kenny Baker yeah so we tried to build it

around him and we had to make the legs and put his legs inside he couldn't make this thing walk so I got Kenny to bring his boots in and we stuck those inside he still couldn't make it work I'd wanted

to make it look a bit better so Bill Harmon couldn't make it work. I'd wanted to make it look a bit better, and Bill Harmon couldn't make a top. So I went round the back to an old lamp. They were the big film lighting company who owned the studio. They had a dump. I went in their dump and found a lamp from the 30s or 40s, and it fitted exactly. So we used that,

and I got some old airplane nozzles from aircraft and things and stuck them in to make it look a bit better um george had said he's got to have two little arms he said to me like a knife and fork or something on the front um bill again said i can't do that roger i carved that at home with a penknife, stuck those in. Wow. And then in the junk that I'd bought, there was a fighter pilot's harness. So Bill stapled that inside this wooden tube, and Kenny could wear R2-D2 like a rucksack, and he took three steps. George and Gary were there.

I would say this is the mind-blowing, this is the most auspicious moment on Star Wars because we knew we then could do it. Wow. And you were there, and R2-D2 was born, and then you could make your Star Wars. And on set, and I've always wondered this, I'm dying to know the true answer here, Roger.

When you're making this, you're loving it, you love the script, you're loving what you do, but you must think in the back of your head that no one's going to see this. This will be a flop. It's got all the makeup and characteristics of what will end up being a flop. I never thought that.

The entire crew did. Okay, so what did you think? Everyone thought this is... And I'm wondering, Alec Guinness is. Okay, so what did you think? Okay, so everyone thought this is, you know. And I'm wondering, like, Alec Guinness is in this thing. Like, what's he thinking? Like. What? I'm just curious.

I was spending four months with George, so alone, just us. Yeah. I realized his passion and I realized his talent because I really liked THX. Right. And I knew then that this was a filmmaker who could do what he said and he did it with very little money. And, you know, reading the script,

I realized here's an absolute mythology. It was to the T, the keys that are equally spaced out within a myth are perfectly placed in Star Wars and I realized this actually could work and I stuck by my guns and George and we were the and George said it on the Christopher Nolan documentaries now on YouTube he was talking about this and they they he really did talk about it but he said you, there were only five people stood by my side on Star Wars, and Roger was one of them. Wow.

And we did. I stuck by it, and John Barry, and I think. And there's an Alec Guinness story, you know. They all afterwards are saying, oh, because he said he only did it for the money, did all this stuff. That was not true. Alec turned up on set very serious and knows his lines. And I think it was George's saving grace, to be honest,

because all the others were young actors. Mr. Alec Guinness was there. And on the first shot, before George yelled action, he went down and rolled in the dust and got his costume to feel better. That's not a man who was not embedded in this. He's not mailing it in. He gives it.

He cares. In the original script, he lived through to the end, and George realized, making it, rewriting, that there was nothing he could do throughout the last third of the picture, and he decided it would be better to kill him off. Spoiler alert. So there was a lunch at EMI Studios

between George and Alec Guinness where he had to convince an actor who didn't want to be killed off to be killed off. Right. And in the end, he agreed and said, you're right, this is actually a better way to do it this is a serious actor so i i like to disprove all these stories i my take on this is sir alec was in the company of um lawrence olivier you know all of these great thespians who were saying oh

you know what all this great work you've done and you're really known to be this kind of, what, hokey kind of guy in a science fiction film, but there's nothing wrong in it. He's connected to the world, to children now in the fourth generations. To me, that's more valuable than the kind of pomposity of being such a great theatre legend. And it doesn't decry from his work.

It's there. Everybody can see it. You know, I found it interesting that just in time for your appearance, and we've been talking about this, Paul, how long have we been talking about Roger Christian in the back? A year. Yeah, at least a year. Yeah.

So it's been a long time coming. Glad to finally meet you. I'm surprised I haven't bumped into you on my bike rides in M back year. Yeah, at least a year. So it's been a long time coming. Glad to finally meet you. I'm surprised I haven't bumped into you on my bike rides in Mimico. Like, oh, there's the guy who won the Academy Award for Star Wars.

Okay, but it's interesting to me that a brand new sponsor is Electronic Products Recycling Association and they're passionate about helping people recycle their old tech. We all, maybe not Paul

because he just learned the internet exists, but we all have old tech everywhere and it's like phones and stuff and then i'm watching this documentary a galaxy built on hope and like literally uh roger you've got like like a bunch of old cameras and old doohickeys and gadgets like just old tech that you're just kind of gluing together and i don't know if you're using duct tape or whatever but creating creating these items that we all look at with such fondness and nostalgia

because the props from Star Wars, like all those old cameras you'd put together for like, I don't know what that was called, a viewfinder or whatever it was. Binobins. Yeah, the Sandman or whatever in the desert would be looking through and all these things. Like maybe now's a good time uh to talk about

the lightsaber because i'm looking over at my fellow gen xer uh ty uh tyler sorry i almost outed you but his name is vp of sales everybody knows that but like how many lightsaber battles did you have as a kid endless like endless lightsaber battles like that's your doing roger the lightsaber yeah i can't even do the rest of this episode my mind is all over this backyard okay tell me like you had to make a sword and you said okay let me hobble together some uh items in my uh my workshop like how did you create the lightsaber two things one we had no budget so i had to find everything, we had no budget, so I had to find everything. Two, we had no time.

When they actually greenlit the film, we moved into EMI Studios, Elstree, on January the 6th. We were shooting in the middle of March. So any science fiction film has a year prep. We had two and a half months. So I couldn't make anything in a studio workshop I couldn't go through the process plus I didn't have the money to do it they couldn't afford anything

so everything was made out of junk found objects and I was like a magpie anything I could get my hands on I collect in my office the one thing that eluded me was the lightsaber. And the moment I read this script, I knew, because King Arthur was really my story that I loved, and I thought, well, here's a Scalabur for cinema age now. Right. So I knew it would be the icon if this ever worked, and I'd better find something. And I kind of relied on instinct always.

If I found something I liked, it was kind of destiny, if you like, or an accident. I'd made what you were talking about, the binder bins, which is the binoculars Luke looks through. Right. I thought, you know what, I stuck three cameras together, pieces of them with super glue, and I thought, yeah, it looks pretty cool,

but if I put two camera lenses on the front, the audience will immediately know what it is. So I went to buy those at this camera store in London, Brunnings, and I just happened to mention to the manager, do you have anything here that I could, I've got to make a weapon for a science fiction movie and he just said, we're going to have a rummage through these boxes at the underneath the show i don't think they've been open for years they were dusty right and um the first

box i opened there was the graflex battery pack handle that tied on to graflex cameras that they used in the press in the 30s and 40s and he had a load of them because that's what's used in movies always. And there it was. I pulled it out and thought, oh, my, I found the Holy Grail. It's just, there's something, John Barry described it, there's something about objects that are made for something else, but you don't know what they are. They already have a purpose.

They already look right and i thought well i've got to alter it so i i used uh the second first weapon i ever made to show george was the blaster for the stormtroopers and i stuck t-strip around the barrel of a sterling submachine gun and i had a bit of that t-strip left over so i stuck it to make a handle i didn't like the clip it was too obvious and i actually that morning i'd broken down a texas instruments calculator because i'd stripped things down to find what was in them and the bubble strip that illuminated the numbers and made them magnified them fitted perfectly that went in i thought that's all cool and called george and said you better come and have a look and his huge smile is the approval he just wanted um the d-ring on the end to hang

it on luke's belt it was there so that's how that came about now considering you have no budget and no time was there any room for george to not like something you created like you know what i mean nothing i ever made sets the millennium falcon cockpit the holds the tunisia the every prop i made and i i had to come up with everything that in those days christopher nolan i met here he was amazed he said you did everything as set there and i said yeah we had to handle the whole lot and he said nowadays it's all split up. I had everything came under my department. So I didn't have a day off or much sleep in a year. Yeah, weapons, robots, vehicles, everything came through us.

Is that Paul? Roger, you know, really believed that the weapon should look weighty because in science fiction it always looked you know they look too light and they used to go beep beep you know like Flash Gordon stuff it was never real to me

you create the lightsaber and then it's in post they would add the light or whatever. Well, funnily enough, I was doing art installations, and we were painting front projection material onto things and illuminating it. It was glowing. So because we had no time, John Barry, myself, the prop master,

and the two art directors would meet in my office because I had tea and a little tiny fridge, and I had McFitty's chocolate biscuits, which the entire film industry runs on. Wow. And so we would meet at 7.30 every morning, and that would be about our days. And so I one day said, you know, I say what we did and they said oh that's a good idea

roger why don't you try it and i we spoke to george about it the dp immediately dismissed it he was dismissed everything he was an incredibly grumpy man on it um didn't like anything we were doing doing george just said do it and so the special effects drilled out my handle put a wooden dowel in it where he was clever he put it slightly off center so it vibrated as well as turned and we painted it and on set it actually picked up light oh and that was used and then george could rotoscope it afterwards yeah tim's acknowledging the fact my brain is now on the the lawn over there uh was it was anything in post did they put the blowing up yeah it was rotoscoping wow i found we found one they found one in lucas um archives in the ranch i went there about six seven years ago they. They were filming it, and they said, we've got something to show you,

and there was the original rod. They'd found it in these boxes. They still hadn't opened since the first film. Wow. Okay, before we talk about the Millennium Falcon, I had the giant model, Millennium Falcon model. Like, I worshiped the Millennium Falcon. And now I'm remembering,

this is a story I remember always growing up hearing, but Harrison Ford was a carpenter on the film? Yes. So tell me. That was our fault too. So we found Harrison's Harrison. He doesn't hang out in nightclubs and restaurants. He's very private.

He built barns. We found out he built barns. And he said to us one day, is there anything we can do? can do and i said yeah you come to the carpenter's shop we took him down and he was helping build the sets doing stuff he'd rather hang out there and if i needed him i'd often i knew where to find him but but okay he was in american graffiti right am i okay so okay because that's like that's the first time we see harrison ford i think is it yeah which i by the way i'll just say i was a big fan of that whole 50s nostalgia stuff even though i was i was way too young to be remember the 50s but i grew up when like happy days was the big show and and city tv would run uh american graffiti late night movies uh shout

out to mark daly the voice but like i would be mesmerized by this film and then the Wolfman Jack would show up and I'm like, who's this guy? This is the coolest guy ever. I loved American Graffiti. Me too. Loved it. Okay, so shout out to American. And Richie Cunningham was in that thing, right? Yes. Shirley from the Vernon Shirley, I think, was in this thing. Ron Howard. It was a very

hard film to make. American Graffiti. Yeah, yeah. You had a very difficult time with it. Yeah. And couldn't have made it without Haskell Wexler who was a great cinematographer who would come down

at night and do the most of the shooting for him. It's interesting that the things that had to line up like the stars

that had to align because American Graffiti had to get made and be like be good for Star Wars. The whole, you know, otherwise he only had the two, right? He had THX

and American Graffiti. Well, THX the studio hated it and they cancelled it. And in fact, George went off around Europe with a backpack and his wife knowing when he came back they said you're going to pay us back the money, the $500 500 000 and um it was francis ford coppola because they were they were such a tight group him

francis de palma scorsese is he in there no scorsese wasn't in there. It was Spielberg, one other director. And they stuck together. And it was Coppola who said to George, listen, forget all this sci-fi stuff. Do something that's a comedy. Why don't you challenge yourself? So he said, all right. And he wrote about what he loved.

Because, you know, George loves fast cars and racing and nearly died. That's why he became a filmmaker. So he wrote it. And I know the story that Universal, Francis Ford Coppola wrote a check for a million dollars and said, if this kid screws up, cash it. And if he doesn't, then tear it up.

Wow. Wow. So you see that we never got that, that kind of camaraderie amongst a few directors, and that's how they survived all kind of being independent filmmakers. Yeah, and there was even, I think there's a lot of fun play between Lucas and Spielberg because it was, Jaws was 75, I guess, and then Star Wars is 77, and then

E.T. He introduced John Williams to Jaws. Right. I mean, I played some off the top, but John's still with us, so it's not too late for him to get in the backyard. Where's he at? But time's running

out. shout out to ridley funeral home let's get him back here but uh what uh like the music i mean uh that that's such a huge part of the star wars uh galaxy too yeah it's it's the music and and ben burt i have to shout out the sound design see ben ben was literally a student at film school when they wanted George. Here's the thing I analyzed. George's talent was to hire people like myself, like John Barry, like Ben Burtt, like all the fex boys

who kind of had started doing things, but we didn't have so much experience. We go, no, no no that's not how you do it it's always worked like this we all so he wrote stuff that could never be done knowing that somehow we'd figure it out and do it and um ben burt like any other sign any other sound designer i think would have gone off with his tape recorder and with a you know a simple organ machine and start playing sassy sounds what did ben burt do he went to the zoo and he recorded walruses bears dogs

lions and pigs played them backwards and played around with sound and created chewbacca and the lightsaber sound which i give a huge shout out and ben tells this story better than I've ever heard him, bless him. He really gave me a fantastic interview on the accident of how the sound for the lightsaber, and it's equal to its power, the sound of that thing is like, how many kids are doing it? Even Ewan McGregor was making the sound when we were shooting on Phantom Menace. He was constantly, we had to keep telling him, stop making the sound. You can't help it. No, I was there.

So, you know, they're all the components. And I think it's these younger directors. Look at with Spielberg. I mean, he said, what's the music for George? And he played in those five notes and that was it. Spielberg was smart enough and open enough to say, wow, let's try it. Everyone else would have said, no, we

need a 90 piece orchestra and you need all of this and doing that. And I think that's kind of, with George, it's that independent spirit that he's always maintained. Okay, I've got another George question for you,

but first, since we're talking sound on Star Wars, and I finally, finally have someone in my backyard who can answer these questions. Who decided how R2-D2 would sound, like the voice of R2-D2? Is that a voice? I guess not. That's Ben Byrne. He did it. See, to me, you mentioned the lightsaber sound for sure,

but the R2-D2, and I won't do an imitation right now, but we're all doing it in our heads anyways but like even that like it's like a perfect this is all a perfect storm yeah because it's organic that's why he didn't create artificial sounds ben it's all like human emotions deep in there and he created it and george accepted it those are the two the links you know that why it works. Okay, quick George question because we're talking about, you know, chump change here.

Like here's a check for a million dollars. Here's 500,000. Here's a budget of 4 million. So have you, I'm just curious how George, so George sold, I don't know if you know this, Roger. Here's a little update, but he sold out to Disney. Yes. Have you had any chats with him where he's like,

oh, darn, I should have held out for more money? Because he sold out for huge money, and now only X many years later, it feels like Disney got a bargain. No, he had decided. George had always, even on Phantom Menace, he was pushing digital cinema. What he wanted to be able to do

was what they did on The Mandalorian, which is create the worlds. And the technology hadn't caught up. Right. He also brought up the three kids on his own, his mother and father. And last time I saw him, he said to me, you know there was this long gap between the last Star Wars and then Phantom Menace. Partially the technology hadn't caught up that he could make it.

But also he did say to me, he said, you know, my kids were more important to me than Star Wars. And he brought them up himself. So the fact, you know, there's a common story now. He wanted to build that digital studio on the ranch on Skywalker, which is, if you ever go there, it's the most stunning place you've ever been. It's like a New England area with barns and things. The locals stopped him doing it.

So it all kind of weighed on him, and then he thought, it's another three movies. He doesn't like shooting very much, being on set every day and dealing with actors and everything. So I think at the end he thought, I'd better hand this over to somebody else to do now because he'd already created the world. And he really wanted to build, you know,

he has a massive collection of film posters and american art that is huge and he wanted to build this museum as a kind of for everybody so i think that's a lot of the reason that he did okay so if my memory is correct here so george lucas directs star wars uh does not direct Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, but did you, Roger Christian, did you work on Empire Strikes Back? I had decided with Star Wars Alien, I out-directed Alien, created all that. And you were nominated for an Oscar for your work on Alien.

Yeah. So I buried that lead. Wow, okay. And I had to create... Who won that Oscar, by the way, do you remember. So I buried that lead. Wow, okay. And I had to create... Who won that Oscar, by the way? Do you remember? He did all that jazz. Okay, okay. And the designer came and apologized to us, all of us,

and said, I'm really sorry, you deserve this, but there's a whole wave because Bob Fosse was really ill and had a heart attack, and it was a kind of a whole thing. We were sitting in the audience. He was publicly apologizing to us. Well, it's not the last time the Oscars got it wrong. Well, there you go.

And then Life of Brian, which I designed with Terry Gilliam. So I thought, you know what, I've got these three now. I've got to now do what I really wanted to do. So I cut myself off. And then by accident, George read the story that i'd written to make as my first film and there was a grant by the british government for 25 000 pounds if a producer would guarantee it would go out with the movie and he read it and came back immediately and said give roger let him have the grant i'll put this out with empire strikes back so they gave me i didn't have enough money for film but they gave me all the

bits of film left over on empire strikes back and a few other things so that was my connection to it and then on jedi george was doing second unit directing and then then he decided, because he felt he had the least to do with Empire Strikes Back, and it's his least favorite of the Star Wars movies, he felt he needed more time with Richard Marquand. So I got the call saying, would you come up and take over and do the second unit,

which is what I did for six weeks. So you directed the second unit on Return of the Jedi. Yeah. I spent a lot of time with Ewoks. I was going to ask you. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm now thinking that theme song from the cartoon, we are the E-E-E-E-E-E-Woks. This was also on Global TV. Where was I seeing that? I think it was on Global here. But okay, Return of the Jedi and the Ewoks. Okay. We're not going to hold that against you.

Well, I ended up with a lot of days. I had Jim Henson doing puppies, little tiny baby ones in nests. So did you get to know Jim well? Yeah, yeah. We were just talking about, we were just kicking out songs by Puppets. And we had Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog, and we were talking about how far too soon we lost Jim Henson, like gone way too soon.

Way too soon. Horrible. Pneumonia, as I recall. What a wonderful man. Shout out to Fraggle Rock, too. And they did that here, and it was wonderful. Yeah. Fraggle Rock.

So, no, I got to know him. And I begged George, can I please go and do some other second unit stuff? And he was loving it. I think in his head he was thinking, oh, this will be, I can see what I can do. I was bossing Warwick Davis around. He was 11 years old, making him do somersaults and partying and dancing. We had playback music.

I kept asking George, can I please stop? He said, no, I want to do more. Where did they film the Ewok planet? All in Elstree Studios, the same one, where we made the first Star Wars and Empire.

Wow. Yeah, just, okay. But you do come back for episode, well, I guess it's technically episode one. Yeah. So, New Hope is four. Okay, then you got Empire Strikes Back, and then Return of the Jedi,

and one is The Phantom Menace. So, you were also directing the second unit on Phantom Menace? Yeah. George, because he doesn't like filming, they'd allowed 12 weeks. I'd offered to do it when I was at the ranch, and they said, oh, we don't need second unit, Roger.

It's okay. This is Rick McCallum. Don't worry. Benbert's going to do a few shots. And I thought, you're in denial. And I got the call in London saying, did you mean it when you said that? And I said, yeah, you know I love this world.

And they said, come up now to the studio I drive up there I sit down with George and Rick McCollum and then they said well second unit and I explained how I do it because second unit directors want to get jobs so they go and do shots you don't need but they think are looking fantastic to impress the producers. I explain how I cut round that with my crews and how my second unit directors. George said, go and buy that equipment right now, Rick. We'll do it. OK, can you do it?

And I said, I can. I'm just going back to Vancouver. I've got to do this and do that. And they said, OK, you've got five minutes. Decide. We're leaving. So I made a quick call and the dp could do what i wanted and he came back and said okay well what are you doing in october and i said if i'm signing on i'm here and he said

because i have to leave you'll have to finish the movie so then they said come next door there was a office with a secretary everything set up and i realized then why because i'm i'm engrossed in the world i knew i didn't have to discuss with george what was needed the first set we were on was the um the huge senate where they fly around in pods right we had to be first unit on that because of scheduling and there were six times in the movie we were first. Second unit was first unit. So it was a huge endeavor and fantastic for me, obviously. But is it as fun when you have a budget?

I would think it's more fun when you have no money. Well, I talked to Rick McClellan about this, and he said it was $110 110 million dollars of george's own money he never got it from anyone else he said i said biggest independent film release he sent the budget into the hollywood studios to have it budgeted it came back at 400 million and so it was the same atmosphere there There's no producers on set going, what are you doing? Because George works fast.

There were kids on the set and there was no argument on that huge movie ever. I never saw one and it was the same exact kind of atmosphere of Jedi and Empire. It just wasn't there on the first one. Quick question about Phantom Menace. So my oldest, who's now 20, we watched the Phantom Menace a hundred times.

If I hear, now that's pod racing. If I hear that again, I'm just, I won't even let Jarvis. By the way, Jarvis, who I would sometimes refer to as Jar Jar, and he has no idea. Shout out to Jar Jar Binks. One of the more maligned characters in the Star Wars universe. I think so. And I shot a lot of Jar Jar stuff. And the pod race. I did a lot of

that. And Jar Jar he's George makes his movies for nine years old. That's always his target. He's said it to me many times. It's not my fault. I don't like them as well.

And George's talent is to take that kind of comedic, almost slapstick, but keep it down. He was very clear on Star Wars. He made it like a documentary, never catering to the comedy. So Jar Jar, afterwards, I've asked so many kids their favorite character was Jar Jar Binks I mean he's for the nine you know he steps in poo and he does all stupid things kids love him like slapsticky yeah yeah and Jar Jar is I'm trying is Jar Jar, I'm trying, is Jar Jar completely a CGI? Yes. We had on the set with a big tall head,

they'd done a perfect head of his on the set, so he would act and do it like that. So you had an actor there, but he's 100%. These are the things that I always say. When you look at Watto, he is the first fully formed cgi character in cinema history who no one questioned wasn't real ever right this is george's kind of legacy for all of us and jar jar too he's he's you don't question that he's a cgi character he's real

right that's why people hated him he was so real multiple reasons people hated him shout out to Jar Jar Binks and you're right, my boy who was 7 and 8 years old and we were watching a million times, loved Jar Jar loved the pod race he loved that pod race I was a little older and I just wanted

can I watch A New Hope again? let's watch that one again and now I'm remembering that they re-released and I just wanted to, can I watch A New Hope again? Let's watch that one again. And now I'm remembering that they re-released A New Hope. They re-released, the first trilogy got re-released with like enhancements. Like what were your thoughts, Roger, when George Lucas would add some effects that weren't maybe available in 1975, 76?

He was able to, you know, especially Jabba the Hutt in some of these scenes, he was able to enhance. Like, what do you think of that? Like sort of changing a movie decades later? Well, yeah, we had an actor playing Jabba. He was a very large actor playing him, Jabba. But George has always justified it. That's what he wanted, but he could not do it at the time.

So he really wanted people to see what he wanted but he could not do it at the time so he really wanted to people to see what he wanted my only argument was in in the end it would be worth to dissolve all of this to have the original out that people who love could watch and then you've got the new version um but you know it it's like outside the cantina. We had an animal with a nodding head that we were all embarrassed about, but people believed at the time. That's been replaced with a CGI character now who's moving around, like the banther. So, you know, I think he says it's his movie,

and that's what he wanted. He's the boss. Yeah, and he wanted people to see what was in his mind at the time. And he just could not do. Technology wasn't there. I waited this long, Roger, for you to say the word cantina, just so I could play a little bit of this jam here. So here, quick time out for me to tell you what you already know, which is you're leaving with some gifts here.

You're going to get some fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. Great Lakes, again, not Mimico, but close. Like you could throw a rock from Mimico and hit Great Lakes. And they will host TMLXX on September 1st from 6 to 9. And if you're listening to this in the future, because I'm getting notes from people like,

oh, I just heard your episode with Steve Simmons or whatever. I just got a note from that like that yesterday. And I realize, oh, yeah, like people will. I got to let people know it's 2022, people. So don't show up on September 1st, 2023, 2024. So 2022, September 1st, Great Lakes Brewery. You got the fresh beer, Roger. You got the lasagna from Palma Pasta.

Shout out to Sticker U. They're going to be sending over some swag that's going to come to TMLXX for the FOTMs who attend. If you need your stickers, Roger, you go to StickerU.com. They're in Liberty Village, but they're available anywhere you have internet connection. So it's everywhere but Paul's house. You can get StickerU.com. And Ridley Funeral Home, New Toronto. I was with Brad Jones just a couple of days ago we were recording an episode of life's undertaking and brad will be at tmlxx absolutely

for sure this was quite a jam so john williams did this cantina song is that that right? Yes. Yeah, quite a jam. Shout out to the Cantina scene. And Nerf Herders everywhere. I now remember that there's a Nerf Herder was the slur or whatever. I think it was Princess Leia that called Chewbacca a Nerf Herder. Am I right? Am I right, Tyler? Tyler says I'm correct. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. VP of Sales says I'm correct here.

Okay, I need to know, though, the Millennium Falcon story. You can't escape until I capture that. And then I have a few questions from listeners that are not related to Star Wars. But how did the Millennium Falcon take shape? Like, what direction do you get? Because that's amazing, the Millennium Falcon. It was designed by Joe Johnson.

And the original ship they designed, that Ralph McQuarrie painted, looked exactly like the Eagle ship. And so they couldn't use it. And then George just randomly said, make it like a hamburger shape, something like that. There's a lot of stories about this urban myth, but that's how it came about, and they kept the cockpit there.

We got, there was no faxes, nothing like that in those days. We got this one kind of pouch every Thursday from, and they sent photographs, and then John Barry had to, and decided you had to have a full size one to make it work because all the fighting around getting on it so he showed them how you could do it half of it and then do map paintings which Ralph McQuarrie started doing he'd never done them before and the interior they were building and I couldn't make anything for it.

And I thought, you know what? Again, because I had a director who was independent, I kind of went one day crossing my fingers to see John and George. And I said, listen, if I buy aeroplane scrap, I can make it like the interior of an aeroplane or a submarine and stick it in. And they both said, do it. And they flew me around scrap yards in England. airplane scrap i can make it like the interior of an airplane or a submarine and stick it in and they both said do it and they flew me around scrap yards in england and what i found nobody wanted it then it was sold by weight i found mountains i was buying rolls royce do and engines i didn't spend probably 50 pounds to buy and i think the one story that sums it all up, the big prop master who worked for Kubrick and did all these David Lean movies,

he asked me, and he called me boy. What do you want, boy? And I said, just strip this prop room out. I don't want anything. There's no curtains. There's no furniture, nothing. Strip it out. Have some shelves.

When what I bought was coming in on a 16 wheel lorry it was backing into the studio he's standing by my side frank bruton and i didn't look at him he didn't look at me i just heard these words you know you're mad boy and i thought you know what i don't know if this is going to work i I probably am, but I have to stick with it. And then, bless him, he just said, okay, boy, tea's on in my office, five minutes. Tell me what you need. So I said, I've got to train the props to break it down

because on a submarine or a plane, everything's duplicated or triplicated. So you can't just stick stuff into a set and think it'll work. I've seen it done. It doesn't work. You have to do it with an engineering kind of look right so that's what we did i i just stuck it in and i bought drain pipe from water pipes and things like that gas pipes anything i could get my hands on

and we i put it all together like that and I didn't know if it would work. But in the end, when it got done and then I could see people coming to the set just looking in awe and I thought, wow, this is working. And that's how, you know, the Millennium Falcon cockpit was the first thing we ever did. And relating to 2001, the art director who did 2001 drew up the set. And I kept coming in and saying, you know, I'm going to mess this up. I found old fighter pilot seats and stuck those in. And then I messed it up a bit. And that was what I showed George.

And that was it. Wow. There was his vision of the Millennium Falcon. Okay, so... Plus the dice. Oh, yeah, the dice. Yeah, because it's in the doc, but give me the dice story,

and I'll just remind people right now that this is tip-of-the-iceberg stuff here. This documentary, Galaxy Built on Hope, just amazing. If you are interested in how the sausage gets made, how the Star Wars gets made, galaxybuiltonhope.com is where you go, and you can buy it in the medium of your choice.

But give me that dice story there, Roger. Well, I'd finished it, and before I called George down, I thought, you know what, Han is a gambler, everything. And I remembered in American Graffiti, I thought at the time it was hanging in Harrison's car there were dice big fluffy ones that were very popular in America and I thought you know we should have some dice hanging because he's a gambler and they were lucky for American Graffiti so I got six pairs I got big fluffy down to little silver ones and I told George when he came to look at the set and i said listen i just you know i'd like to personalize it and it's handship and all of this

it means a lot to him so he said oh that's a great idea let's do it he chose the little silver ones they went in they're in one maybe two shots on star wars then the DP, they're getting in his way. He took them out. They never went back. Then the story followed on because J.J. Abrahams... Abrams. Yeah, Abrams was very... He was very concerned with detail being correct. He'd seen them.

He had an assistant go out and find some. Wow. And he put them into the set. That got cut. So they never turned up there. But then they become a major part of the story because Luke gives it to Princess Leia in memory of Han. Spoiler alert.

No, I'm just kidding. I'm just goofing. You can't spoil these movies. Yeah. And it's always been a big thing for the fans. Yeah. What happened to the dice? Yeah, where is the original dice we see in Star Wars? Let me guess.

They're in a closet in Mimico. Is that possible? No. No, they're not, unfortunately. I wish they were. Do you have anything from the original set like you have in your possession? I have Graflex handles because in the end,

I have the story told because I was always told by these people who are kind of anal, kind of investigators of Star Wars, I call them. There was only ever one lightsaber made. There wasn't. And 33 handles went and were sold to our production on the first one. I've got the original Graflex handles that I kept.

So I'll bike over to see them at some point here, okay? I've got replicas of Hans Gunn, perfect replica that a guy in America makes. I have got a replica of the Comlink. I've got a few things like that. Okay, amazing. And I've got the stickers from the original, the triangle ones. I've got loads of those.

And I've got film of the exterior of the canteen I took for reference, which I've got strips of film. And I've actually got, when we went for the Academy Awards, they had a lunch, well, not a lunch, a meeting beforehand. They gave us Star Wars stars with Empire Strikes Back and names printed in them, but they were wrapped in cutting copy, the prints from George's cutting room

when he was doing the editing on Star Wars. So I kept all of mine. No one ever looked, and I kept loads of them. I thought I could see the chess game on them. So I've got the original print from that original film. Wow. Okay, now before I get to these three questions that are not related to Star Wars, I'll just ask you, how is it possible that you could be working on a film basically the year I was born?

You're working on a film and you look younger than me. I don't understand. Roger, what's your secret? Health. I've always been healthy living. I realized at a very young age that it would affect you and how you are. So I've always kept extremely careful. I was one of the early proponents of organic food in england everything so um that makes a difference but my aunt yeah died at 102 my great-grandfather fell over on the ice when he was 99 my father was 92 so so I have genes. You get some good genes. We have a Chinese master here I have who I've introduced Paul to who is helping him. And he always says that you have good genes, but you also know what you're doing. And I use Chinese doctors I have for 30 years. They saved my life and they know what they're doing.

Everyone is shocked when I go in now for anything. Oh, you don't take any pills? And I say, no, nothing. This guy is amazing. I just spent over an hour with Roger here. I just met him, but all this time I'm thinking, we have kids the same age. We both have eight-year-olds. Yeah, that keeps you young.

How is it? Shout out to Ralph Ben-Murgy. Mark Breslin did that too, but I was thinking, I feel sometimes like I'm an older guy. I've got a six-year-old in there, but I'm pushing 50. But, man, you're out there doing it. When I last met George at lunch, I took Lena, who was seven months pregnant, last time she could fly.

The entire lunch was about nappies. George was going, isn't it? Because he's got the same age, young one. He says, isn't it great now? You used to have to stick your finger in to see if they'd pee. Now you have a little yellow line and it turns blue. And we talked about that food, everything. That was our

conversation because he's got his daughter's the same age as Arjun. Keeps you young. Okay. But yeah, so good for you, Roger. Honestly, you're looking great here. He's had two other kids. No more. So that's what I... No more.

How old's the oldest kid you have? He's 40. He lives here. So that's so... Okay, I'm where they... So Ben Murgie and I are in the same club. So there's kids and then there's a... We'll call it a new younger wife and there's new kids.

I've been there, done that. I bought that T-shirt. It does keep you young. It keeps you fresh. Hey, okay okay non-star wars for a moment here but uh tobias and i don't even know what i'm reading here so you'll have to it'll mean something to you roger but it's like i'm reading another language here but what was it like working at itc on shows like randall and hopkirk and jason king what was

lou grade like i don't know what any of those words mean they were when when i first started charlie bishop the art director's my first ever meeting he was doing department s they were huge cult shows at the time massive and um they were a kind of very flamboyant kind of guy who would go around solving crime and all this stuff okay peter wingard the actor and um so at that time these shows were relentless we huge like again i i think i learned to cut my teeth on those because we were doing 10-day turnarounds doing sets they were set all over the world but we did everything everything in the same studios. Not North Bay.

No, in all three studios. And Randall and Hopkirk became a massive cult. And that's how I became a set decorator because Charlie took me on. I was on the board. He could see I was board stiff. And the set decorator, unfortunately, had a mental breakdown. It was very tough.

And they said, he's not coming out. I was called down, and they loved a set I'd drawn up and said, would you like to set decorate? And I said, are you kidding? And that was it. That changed my life. And Lou Grade was a mogul. He became like a film mogul. Very sure guy.

And Lou is L-E-W. Yeah, L-E-W. They were... Bernard Delfont and Lou Greig were the two big financiers in Britain at the time and rarely saw them. But they financed everything, all these shows.

And they're huge. Department S. Yeah, it's a whole different ecosystem, if you will. It's like a galaxy far, far away. They've tried to remake Brandon Hopkirk. It was such a, because it's two detectives, and one of them's a ghost who died, and so he comes back as a ghost to help his friends.

They were fun. Okay, cool. No, good, because before we say goodbye, I did want to find out about your non i know we talk about alien but there's a little more here uh in fact here's a question i got from the vp of sales before i invited him to hang in the backyard and watch this magic did you take any video vp of sales okay i gave i assigned you a task i'm very angry at you all right it is captivating So maybe a little video.

So I will read your question, VP, since you don't have a microphone. But for some reason, and this is actually this guy right here's words, okay? I'll pretend. I'll do my best imitation. For some reason, when I was a kid, one of the only movies I had on Beta, we were a Betamax family, was the last remake of Bo Jest. Correct. Was the last remake of Bo Jest?

Correct. A silly comedy with a cast, a huge cast, including Michael York, Marty Feldman, and Anne Margaret. I noticed that Roger worked as set director on the film and wondered if he could share any stories from the film. So for this gentleman, the VP of sales, who loved the last remake of Bo Jest, what can you tell him, Roger? Yes, that was actually where I went. sales who loved the last remake of Bo just, what can you tell him, Roger?

I, yes, I, that was actually where I went the day I finished on star Wars. I was on a plane the next day to Spain to work with Brian Eatwell, a young designer, Marty Feldman design. He directed it. Um,

crazy film that we were shooting in Ireland and Spain. Um, there are a huge number of stories on that film, but it was another huge movie to make with not that much money because Marty had never directed before. Very, very funny scenes in it. There was some legendary stuff in it that we had to pull off. It's a very funny film, actually. And, yeah, there's other famous actors in there were turning up.

Yeah, because Marty Feldman had a TV comedy show at the time that was as big as Monty Python. They were the two kind of big TV series at the time. He was a bit out of his depth, poor Marty. He was huge for him. An interesting man who never, ever ate. We always had a bet to see who he'd meet. He smoked cigarettes, chain smoked, and drank vodka.

I mean, nobody ever caught him eating, ever. Well, yeah, that's a recipe for disaster. Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster. Just one note on Alien. Because, remember, Roger was the production designer. Yeah, Oscar-nominated production designer. Don't forget that. He used the same

technique with the used airplane parts on Alien that he'd used in Star Wars. And when I saw it in a matinee university theater on a sunny afternoon not knowing anything that was about that's what really got me it wasn't the monster it was the look right see he created the look of of as he created the look in star wars he created the look an alien using the uh the same airplane stuff and dripping stuff you know right this this ship was just such the nostromo was was so amazing to look at and uh i always say i think on that one we got the sets right yeah yeah but again nowhere

near enough money right before shooting fox cut 600 000 out of the art department budget because it was all the budget there was so you know they they in in their kind of excuse that they it was an r-rated science fiction movie they didn't know it would work so again it was very low budget for what we had to do but i'd already you've been there done that i've been there and i got my crew over when i was asked to go on it i got my crew down just three of them and um yeah i did the same thing again but on a huge scale okay roger we made it all the way through but i have to ask a question now i'm gonna play to play, VP knows where I'm going here, but I'm going to play a trailer, and then we're going to see what you have to say about another film that you directed.

You ready? You buckled up there? You can't escape now. I know you can run to Miracle, but you can't. So let's listen to this trailer here. When we attacked your planet, all your soldiers and all their advanced technology could only put up a measly nine-minute fight before they were exterminated. Which is why man is an endangered species. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! A lot of visuals here. But that, of course, is the voice of one of the sweat hogs.

That's a sweat hog right there. That's John Travolta. And that is a trailer for Battlefield Earth. Roger, what was your role in the filming of Battlefield Earth? I got a call because I just finished Phantom Menace. And the trailer, first one ever for Phantom Menace, broke. And just by accident, because we get to do lots of really cool shots on second unit, I think half of my shots were in the trailer.

John Travolta had fallen in love with my epic movie Nostradamus that I'd made. I was asked to go and meet John Travolta had fallen in love with my epic movie Nostradamus that I'd made. I was asked to go and meet John Travolta. So he was the biggest star on the planet. So you go anyway. Thanks to Quentin Tarantino. Yeah. Brought him back. Yeah.

And your buddy's a Quentin, right? Yes, I know. Loved his film. So I went and sat down with him first of all he gave me a huge hug and said i want to thank you for nostradamus and you're obviously not afraid of actors and everything he said listen i've finally got the power we have to make it independently i don't have much money and i want to make this movie um and you're going to have to do it. And I've spoken to George, and he said, if anyone can pull this off,

for the budget at the time was $21 million, and it's a $70 million movie. Anyone can do it. You can do it. So I kind of got, you know, Travolta kind of asked you to do something, and I love the book. It's like The Godfather coming to you.

Yeah, yeah. You say yes. It's exactly that, and I love the book. It's one of the great science fiction books of all time. So I said, look, you know, there's going to be an issue obviously with Scientology because he created it but it's nothing to do with Scientology. I'm nothing to do with it but I said I need to know everything about it because I'm going to get hammered. John took me to meetings. He took me all over the place because I wanted to learn, not to join, just to learn. And Ron Hubbard, L. Ron Hubbard, he wrote, he was a pulp fiction author. He wrote 48 pulp fiction classics.

And then he's written, I don't know how many science fiction classics. And at the beginning of, if you ever pick up the book of Battlefield Earth, he said, I know those people who are my fans of my serious work, which means his church, will be disappointed because I just wanted to write a rip-roaring science fiction. What I realized, and relating to Quentin, who saw this with John and I at the premiere, who sat between us, is that this was a pulp fiction science fiction film. And no one had ever done that before. So that appealed to me. So we got stuck into Montreal. to me so we got stuck into montreal um i had nine million dollars to make a 70 million dollar movie with and we pulled it off um what is not ever shouted about and um two things happened on the

opening the the serious critic at the la time said you can't go and see this film. The director's buried subliminal images in it and you'll become out a Scientologist. People believe it. I took it on with comedy and I said, you're wrong. I buried images about eating popcorn in it. I'm working with the popcorn companies and stuff. But the movie had grossed, the last time we checked over 150 million

dollars it's always said it's a financial failure it's not it it's the only movie elie samar who who produced all of these movies um whole nine yards and battlefield earth are the two that he made money out of for some reason no one ever touts this now um a serious critic of science fiction did a fantastic article on it about all the science fiction films that were denigrated when they came out 2001 right blade runner blade runner was never hardly released in america ever critics were as bad as battlefield earth um contact so with my older kids in london they'd say should we go to the cinema i said yeah what got the worst critics and they said all contact i said let's go and see it and at the end they said i don't understand this is such a great movie and i said you're getting a life lesson here don't listen you have to believe in yourself and believe in what you do and so i made this film we got what i hadn't realized the power

there's multi-millionaires in america who spend their entire life denigrated Scientology. And this was too much for them, a movie, because the lead actor and the writer were. It's nothing to do with it. And in fact, I wanted Mark Isham to do the music, who's turned out to be a Scientologist, who even did a demo, and John Travolta said, you can't use it, you cannot have these, I can't do it. So he was very careful about that

and we tried to make a Pulp Fiction kind of comic strip out of it. That's why we dutched the angles because it's like Batman comics and things. It was all done intentionally. I think John Travolta went on Barbara Walters afterwards. He'd never been on before. And she asked him then, what's your film you're most proud of?

And he said, Battlefield Earth. I got it made. And I'm most proud of that film. And if you, on YouTube, if you look up the making of Battlefield Earth, you'll see John Travolta saying that he phoned George Lucas and Lucas said to him, the only person that can make this is Roger. Right.

Roger, okay, and Roger, you did it? It sounds like it's not the financial bust we've been led to believe. It wasn't. And the final thing, this critic who did that, I met him at the, I was at Star Wars, the one that I went to a few years back down in Orlando. And he came and he said, oh, I've come to see you and say hello and everything. And we had a chat and he said, you know, I approached Roger Ebert before he died and asked him if he would re-evaluate Battlefield Earth, which is what he did, and he emailed him back and said,

actually, this film is really interesting. And I said, you have to find that email. He couldn't find it. And I said, this is probably one of the most important emails to me on the planet. Couldn't find it. But, you know, Tarantino, he just turned to me and said,

this is what I really want to make. This is what I would love to write, but I can't. So it's what it is. You know, people like it or they don't like it. But I get so many emails and letters, people saying, well, I finally saw it. Because most of the critics never saw it. Well, here's the thing. I actually have never seen it because the critics warned me not to see it.

And I listened like I'm a sheep here. Most people. I was like that too. So have you seen it because the critics warned me not to see it, and I listened like I'm a sheep here. Most people. I was like that too. So have you seen it, Paul? Yes, yes. Not as bad as the book. No, no, it's marvelous. I thought it was great.

And Barry Pepper's in this thing too. Yeah, he's the lead. He's Canadian, right, Barry Pepper? Yeah, he's Canadian. I saw it because Roger had made it, and I was really interested in seeing it. And I had been warned too, Roger had made it and I was really interested in seeing it and I had been warned too

and was thinking had that in my mind but when you see it it's a totally different film so I went to the Roger Christian Wikipedia page okay don't do this Roger just don't go to your Wikipedia it's all great except there's this one line I'm going to read it verbatim it says at the very end

of like describing like it talks about the sender and Nostradamus. It talks about Alien. And of course, Star Wars. You win an Academy Award for that. You didn't bring it with you. That's okay. I forgive you.

Return of the Jedi, Phantom Menace, all this stuff. And then it goes, he also directed the 2000 film Battlefield Earth, which is regarded as one of the worst films ever made. And worst films ever made is underlined, like hyperlinking to a page of like movies regarded as the worst. Like, like it's almost at that point,

it's almost, I would wear it as a badge of honor. It's like this, this, this, you know, I didn't set up the Wikipedia page. Somebody did.

And it was completely negative. And I took up Wikipedia because people would correct it and this guy whoever he is would completely destroy the corrections and go back again and I took it up with it I even got I said I'm taking lawyers against you because this is my life this is about me and I have the right to put and counter and people do, and he wouldn't allow it. And they said, no, he's an editor on there. He can do what he likes. I had the same problem with Just Like Mom and Wikipedia.

There's some really incorrect stuff there. I tried forever to get it changed. That's the problem with democracy. It's too important to leave in the hands of the just regular people. This is the problem with democracy. Well, unfortunately, human beings err to the negative. That's why we have a spiritual teaching and why people train spiritually to overcome this.

But there is a tendency to the negative. And unfortunately, the Internet has given a voice to every negative person on the planet, and they use it. Look at it. Every week you see, oh, who's the worst director? Steven Spielberg. He's terrible. George Lucas. What a terrible director. Whose take is that about Spielberg? I don't know. That's all you read nowadays.

Well, we talked about that last time we were here. That super cut of Fergie Oliver. That's another classic example. That's a great example. Here's my pledge to you, Roger. I'm going to finally see Battlefield Earth. I'm going to finally see Battlefield Earth. I'm going to watch Battlefield.

Is it okay for an eight-year-old? Battlefield Earth? Probably, yeah. Yeah, yeah, don't worry. I'd let him see Pulp Fiction, so it's okay. Yeah, so then. Speak real quick, because these things all connect in my head in real time. I just want to point,

you mentioned The Nine Yards. What's that movie called? Whole Nine Yards. Whole Nine Yards. So Bruce Willis is in that. I just want to shout out the fact that Nine Yards. What's that movie called? Whole Nine Yards. Whole Nine Yards. So Bruce Willis is in that. I just want to shout out the fact that now we got John Travolta and Bruce Willis

and now we're in Pulp Fiction with Quentin Tarantino here, which downstairs in my basement where I normally record, I have a huge Pulp Fiction poster. Still my favorite movie of all time. Maybe Battlefield Earth

will overtake it. I will review Battlefield Earth on this program after I see it. I'll do that. I'd like to hear what you think. Good. So Roger Earth on this program after I see it. I'll do that. So, Roger, you were very generous with your time. Tim fell asleep a half an hour ago, but can you

wake him up, VP, here? So, we're here. I'm going to play this because I want to just remind people about the documentary. If you're a Star Wars fan and you've ever held an imaginary lightsaber in your hand, or ever gotten hold of any kind of a toy or replica, then you know about the power of this mythic weapon that's the modern successor to Excalibur. Hear the story from the man who created the lightsaber prop, Academy Award-winning Star Wars set decorator, Roger Christian.

You won't want to miss this new feature-length documentary, Galaxy Built on Hope. That epic music, man. I could run through a wall right now. Yeah. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out, Roger, not only do you have an Academy Award, or two, sorry. What's the film that won you the Academy Award besides that?

The Dollar Bottom. How can I see that? Short film. It's lost. You're going to send me another video link? No. In storage, I've got some, either U-matic, the old system, and I've got some D1 and D2 Masters somewhere. The producer, he died.

He's in New Zealand. They've been trying to put it in archives. Nobody can find this negative. Can you imagine making a movie that wins an Academy Award and you don't have a copy? Yeah. Paramount must have one somewhere, but you can't deal with them.

We tried. Something else about Galaxy is that there's a lot of innovation in it. Right. That scene towards the end where Roger is talking to David Whiteley, who's one of the presenters from England. They're in the cantina together.

But the part with Roger, this was all shot together. Roger's in Toronto. Roger's in Toronto, and he's in England. Wow. You can't tell. You can't tell. No.

It's seamless. I feel they do that now with the Olympics. I'm watching the Olympics, the recent Olympics on CBC, and they've got, like, they're in Toronto, okay, the studio in Toronto. Meanwhile, somebody who just meddled, some Canadian, is sitting there in the room, okay, the studio in Toronto. Meanwhile, somebody who just meddled, some Canadian, is sitting there in the room, okay? Right.

So it's sort of a similar tech that's now making its way. Very cool. So everybody, again, that URL, I'll mention it one more time and then mention what Roger has in addition to his Academy Awards. Galaxybuiltonhope.com. But, Roger, you did win, and I hope you're not embarrassed by this because i think it's kind of cool you won a golden raspberry award for uh directing battlefield earth yeah do you have that somewhere like is that a physical thing or is it just like a press release like do you have

an award have i still got a golden raspberry i would have that on prominent display yeah yeah because spielberg got one yeah um most directors have got one, most big directors. Halle Berry's got one. Will Smith, I think, might have one. Yeah, there's something that... Sandra Bullock's got one. You'll be surprised when you see it, because it is really good.

Okay, well, one day I want an invite. Now that our wives are similar age, congratulations, because I went down seven years. You went down a few more. But Lakeshore Moms, shout out to the Lakeshore Moms. At some point when you have a barbecue in that Mimico backyard, I want an invite because I want to see these raspberries, these Oscars, these weapons.

I want to see it all. So I want an invite next summer. Right. And this summer's not over yet, Roger. Yeah. Okay. Roger, amazing. That was epic. Paul, you made this happen, buddy. all so i want an invite next summer right and this summer's not over yet roger yeah okay roger amazing that was epic paul you made this happen buddy you're amazing what a great fo tim i hope

i see you at tml xx is there anything that you were thinking on your when when you were weren't driving because you have a driver but when tim's driving you here is there like i gotta make sure i mention this and now you're like i haven't said it yet this is the time uh well you're you're a big number mike that's all i ask that's like the greatest hits it's like a jukebox it's just that there's there's so so many stories attached to uh star wars uh that roger was responsible for like the dinosaur bones for example we haven't talked to The dinosaur bones, for example. We haven't talked about the dinosaur bones. You've got 30 seconds.

Do you want to say something about the dinosaur bones? I think it would take too long. It's a long story. Listen, I control this show here. I'm bringing it down because I want the dinosaur bones story because I know it matters. I don't want Paul to be driving home and I don't want him to be like,

oh, I wanted that dinosaur bones story. John Barry drew them in the sand dunes when C3PO and R2D2 landed. And to me, it gave a history of a planet. It wasn't just a, you know, there was something back there and it adds a bit of danger to it. I couldn't afford bones.

The prop master, the one I'm talking about to call me boy said one day, boy, why don't you go up to the attic i gotta throw everything out because i need the space i found a full size fiberglass skeleton of a dinosaur wow so i got it down i put it in the parking lot and showed it to george and everything and we put it on the truck and it got taken and put into the desert. Robert Watts, the production coordinator, said,

Roger, we can't afford to take it back. Just leave it. We left it. So David West Reynolds went to find it and as he said, he's in the documentary and filming when he found them. It took him three days. So he found them? Yeah. In the mid-90s? Yeah, 95.

Wow! He was giving up. The only instructions So he found them? Yeah. Mid-90s? Yeah, 95. 95. Wow. He was giving up. The only instructions he ever got from Robert Watts was, you leave Tozer, this little tiny dusty town in the south of Tunisia, and as you're driving to Algerian border, you turn left. Well, this is 20,000 miles of desert. Oh, my God. It's like a needle in a haystack.

Yeah. And he was determined not to give up, being an archaeologist. And after three days, he saw a camel train, and he went to ask them, skeleton, skeleton? He was saying in French, the little boy said, skeleton, skeleton? And they led him,

and I've got them in the film, over the dunes, and there they were, the bones, what was left of them. And then Rick McCallum saw them, had had them all shipped back whatever was left there they were shipped back so i've there are three of them that david found are in the um ob1 museum in outside marion county that steve sansworth runs. And some were apparently a French collector way back when I found them and shipped a load

back to France. We've never seen those. I don't know where they are, but there they are. You know, Paul, you were right. I needed that dinosaur, but that's a wild story. It is, it is. And all this is in the dock and people have got to pick this up.

You know where to go get this doc. And Paul, for the record, what was your role in the doc other than watching it and loving it? Co-producer. Co-producer. Okay. That explains everything. Paul, can't wait to see you at TMLXX. Roger, you know you're invited.

I know you're a busy guy. But a short walk for you. But you will be fed. I'm getting desperate texts. I've got to go and get my son. Okay, so we're wanting to get done. Somebody's just invited him this morning to go to the cottage for the weekend. Here, I'm spitting out an extra

and we're going to get our photo. I've got to get Roger free here. And that brings us to the end of our 1,102nd show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at TorontoMike. Roger, just tell me if you're on Twitter or not. You're on Twitter? Yes.

What's your Twitter handle? Okay, while you're looking that up, our friends at Great Lakes... Roger J... Oh, Roger J Christian. I think it's Roger underscore Christian. I'm going to find you. Roger underscore Christian.

Roger underscore Christian. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. We're on Instagram. Instagram, you're Roger J. Christian. Correct.

And Galaxy Built on Hope. Galaxy Built on Hope. Yeah. Electronic Products Recycling Association are at EPRA underscore Canada. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. And Canada Cabana are at Canada Cabana underscore. See you all next week. It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears And I don't know what the future can hold or will do

For me and you But I'm a much better man for having known you Oh, you know that's true because Everything is coming up man for having known you Oh you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and green Yeah the wind is cold but the smell of snow

warms me today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray Well I've been told That there's a sucker

Born every day But I wonder who Yeah I wonder who Maybe the one who Doesn't realize There's a thousand Shades of gray Cause I know that's true

Yes, I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? Are they picking up trash And they're putting down roads? And they're brokerage stocks the class struggle

explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am But who gives a damn

because everything is coming up rosy and gray yeah the wind is cold but the smell of snow warms me today and your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away because everything is rosy and green Well, I've kissed you in France And I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places

I better not name And I've seen the sun go down On Sacré-Cœur But I like it much better Going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything Is coming up

Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Warms us today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away

Cause everything is rosy now Everything is rosy and Everything is rosy and gray guitar solo