Talking Pondo: Star Wars and Hell or High Water

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the movie Star Wars to watch and Clif gives Marty the movie Hell or High Water to watch. 

The FBI teaches Darth Vader how to surf? Not this week: Marty and Clif dive deep into two films that changed their galaxies in very different ways.

First up: Hell or High Water, Taylor Sheridan’s neo-Western about brothers robbing banks to save the family ranch. Clif says it’s a modern classic; Marty calls it “trope city.” Then the guys revisit Star Wars (1977), no McClunky cuts here, breaking down why the original’s pacing, world-building, and 70s filmmaking magic still hit harder than any special edition.

Join the conversation as they debate Oscars, tropes, desert palettes, and why Jeff Bridges and R2-D2 might be America’s most reliable screen partners.

#TalkingPondo #StarWars #HellOrHighWater #MoviePodcast #FilmDiscussion #TaylorSheridan #JeffBridges #ChrisPine #FilmNerds #StarWars1977 #MovieReviewPodcast #NeoWestern #FilmAnalysis #PopCulturePodcast #MovieDebate 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

He's not very bright. I mean, he is more like Anakin when you go back. Like, you know, the prequels aren't that great overall, but they do match pretty well for five and six. It does create a nice connective world. Very true. You get more up into how this movie led all the way up to Rise of Skywalker, is kind of like thinking about Jason X compared to the first Friday 13th.

SPEAKER_05 0:28

Welcome to season three of Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty give each other a film to watch and talk about them in detail. Some episodes will include a special guest.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

Will not be seen this week, so we may bring you the following time theft.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

The FBI.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

The FBI. What? Okay. The FBI is gonna teach me how to surf? And you'd be thinking, oh, are they watching Point Break? No, we're not watching Point Break. But we are watching, or we watched, two more movies for this 95th episode of Talking Pondo. Well, 95th of the whole series. We haven't done 95 of Talking Pondo. If you want to get really technical about it, because there were those 16 episodes of making Pondo, go listen to them right now. And then come back and listen to right now. I pushed those in the in the ending part.

unknown 1:37

Do it now.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

So our films today are Star Wars from 1977. What? Not the 1997 special edition or any McClunky version that's been put out since.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Look, we'll get into it. We'll get into it.

SPEAKER_04 1:58

We'll get into that, guys. The other movie is not point break. The other movie is another old movie from 2016. How does this stuff go by that fast? The other movie is Hell or High Water, a film that in many ways resembles point break. But I don't remember point break getting a best picture nomination. But we're going to get into that soon.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Okay, sure.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

You're short circuiting my brain with the point break reference because there's no surfing, there's no there's no mentor relationship, there's no undercover guy. I guess cops and bank robbers, I guess, is I can see that part. But we'll get we'll get there.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

Simplistic trope nature of it, but my brain was broken when I discovered that was a best picture nominee. I I was stuck on short circuited for about five minutes there.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

You want to start with that one? And then after I think I figured it out. Yeah, I think it'd be better to start with Hell or High Water from 2016. How is it that old? 2016? I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

It's really bizarre.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

It's like we watched another movie on here recently that was 10 years old, and it's like, how the fuck is this film 10 years old? It's just crazy. Uh, but this is another one of uh I guess it's a trilogy from this writer. And Sicario was part of it, and this is like the middle part and the third one. Oh, we might as well do the third one at some point. Uh about like some kind of like a southwestern trilogy or something. But oh I'm I'm not familiar with uh huh. I wonder what that third one is. Yeah, I think it already they made that one like in 2017.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Where does the third one?

SPEAKER_04 3:42

They're not really like connected, but the thematically. And what I would guess Wind River?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Is that what you're making?

SPEAKER_04 3:49

Yeah, Wind River. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

The general Elizabeth Olson picture.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

Probably something to do with banks, if I had to guess. But anyways, what is Hell or Highwater from 2016? Well, you'd be wrong about that. It's not about banks. What? It's not. Banks plays such a large part in this movie in Sicario.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Okay, Hell or High Water, 2016, Rated R, hour and 42 minutes long. Uh directed by David McKenzie, written by Taylor Sheridan, stars Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Jeff Bridges. Toby is a divorced father who's trying to make a better life. His brother is an ex-con with a short temper and a loose trigger finger. Together they plan a series of heists against the bank that's about to foreclose on their family ranch. That's your log line. Uh, your storyline. In West Texas, two brothers go on a bank robbing rampage. They are targeting the branches of one bank, in particular, the Texas Midland Bank. This bank is about to foreclose on the mortgage on their ranch and claim the property. And robbing the bank to pay its own loan seems appropriate. On the trail of the brothers, it's a Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton, and with only a few weeks to go to retirement. Tagline Blood Always Follows Money.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Yeah, it's it's an interesting film. It really is, because it's one of those, like once you turn it off, you start thinking about it, and it sits in your head a little differently. And so I've actually grown to appreciate it a lot more over the last few days just thinking about it, but it still doesn't take away the fact that this thing is trope city until it's not, because it has a few little nice twists that changes it up. Like in your description, there, I'm a few days away from retirement. Sure. Yeah. He makes it his own. We're gonna keep robbing banks until it something goes down because I'm the nice one who wants to go straight, kinda, and you're the crazy one. Oh, I wonder what's gonna happen when they go into the bank that's too big. Is the crazy one gonna fuck everything up for them? So it's that type of, you know, that was the point breakish thing where I was like, but it also told me that like that was around the time when the Oscars started going to 10 nominees for best picture, so they started in there for that kind of things. And I was like, how did this get a best picture nod? And then after it was over and I thought about it for a few days, I realized, okay, just because it's laden and it's tropes, there's a few spots that are so strong that I think that might be what throws it completely up into this is uh got some really great moments hiding in what is a regular kind of heist thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Let me jump in here. Okay. So I think personally, I think this is a modern classic. I think this is a blah a neo-western classic. I think, and here's why I think that Westerns in particular usually follow a pretty straightforward formula. There's an obvious good guy, there's an obvious bad guy, uh, you know, the good guy wears black, the good guy wears white, the black, the bad guy wears black. You know, I'm I'm I'm I'm reaching back to the 50s and the 60s and talk about these. You were because you're talking about these tropes, right? These western tropes, right? Um and the the movies bank robbery movie tropes in general. True. Well, and I mean well, I mean, bank robberies and robberies, stagecoach robberies and all that shit are are tropes of westerns for sure, you know. I mean, in fact, that's what a lot of guys were on the, you know, well, I robbed a bank and now I'm, you know, I'm an outlaw out there and now they're hunting for me, you know. But but you think of movies like Warlock, right? Where they take the trope and they take the idea and they spin it on its head and they make something successful and different on it. And that's why this movie gets it done and gets it right, because as many sort of tropes that you kind of have to to tell a bank robbery story with two brothers in the Midwest and Texas, it seems to rise above the sum of its parts a lot more. David McKinsey and the cinematographer, um, who is that cinematographer? Uh, hang on a second. They shoot the fuck out of Texas. I mean, Texas doesn't look this good. I've I've been to Texas, it does not look this good. And I think this is New Mexico too, to be honest, but they really got that like big sky, big uh big fields, big land feel to it. And also uh it's like that first spinning shot in the very beginning as the as they pull in to rob that first bank and she's walking in. Uh, you can kind of see that it's a town that's kind of like they they nailed that like failing town feel, you know, that the town that's you know the one where oil's left and or industry's left and this town is struggling. Um, I think that's that's why I think this this movie really is better than the sum of its parts. Anyways, I love it. Uh one of my favorite early lines in the movie is Ben Foster looking at her and going, You're stupid. You know, I I love Ben Foster's character in the movie. I think he's fucking great. I really do. And I think it's uh, you know, I'll give Taylor Sheridan credit. He doesn't, I mean, he I don't think he's ever gonna win an Oscar for his writing, but he tells a great yarn. You know what I mean? Uh he's pretty good at at writing a, you know, he knows how to put all the elements into place to make a good story.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

It's kind of like when we watched sneakers.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

And I said, you can make me watch CSI episodes, and I'm probably gonna say they're good, but it's not something that I'm into, and this falls into that category. I like this a lot more than sneakers, though. I will say that offhand. But what it feels like to me is It's almost like. And I understand you're supposed to try to make the greatest movie you can possible with the material you have. This is$12 million budget. But it almost felt like like a regular type of heist movie, but we're gonna shoot it in a way that looks like one of these made-for-cable hour-long action drama where everything's heightened and got that pseudo-docu feel. I'm like, does this really warrant this level of heightened, like like smug or something? I don't know. I didn't, yeah, it didn't fit for me very well.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

I don't boy, I don't find it smug at all. I mean, it I think it's I think it's coloring and it's shooting is sort of aping no country a bit for O'Meill.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Um, but but I also think Cohen's, yeah. Yeah, I well, not necessarily Cohen's, but just that kind of shooting that vast, like I said, wide open, big Texas. Texas is a big state. If you've ever been, it's huge.

SPEAKER_04 10:37

But doing it much better than the person who made Inbruge. And this guy's a Scottish director. Yeah. But once again, I'm like, what's off here? Oh, it's somebody who's not an American doing Americana movie. Those always feel a little odd to me. But this one is a little better than In Bruges, and it's definitely better than three billboards, because this guy kind of gets it in a way.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

I think I mean, I I think it's like Wim, it's like Wim Wimders coming in and shooting Paris, Texas. It's you know, I mean, I for some reason, in my opinion, foreign directors seem to shoot uh mid midwestern big sky movies, these types of things a lot better than we do at times. It's almost like it reminds me of uh of um the full Monty, where it's like, you know, the why do why do English people do the whole down and out working man thing better than Americans do? They seem to do those comedies, those sort of whimsical comedies a lot better. I don't know. Um but yeah, I I early on one of my favorite shots in the movie is uh after they rob that first bank and they pull out on the Camaro and they've got that car that runs that that follows up aside with the camera, and it's got that great camera shot following in. So to where they've they you know they're they're pacing alongside and it can but they've shoved that camera into the car and he's telling him to slow down. He says, I ain't speeding and all that. You pass by that giant debt relief sign and these empty towns and this, you know, this this oil refinery town that's just broken down. It it it sets the to me, it sets the mood right away. Um, I love when they rob that bank with that old man, and he's like, You got a gun on you, old man? He's like, You're damn right I do. And he he yells at his brother, he's like, you know, would you pay attention to what the hell's going on? And they go running from that old man who's shooting at him. Uh you know, I I thought it was a lot of fun. Uh the dialogue, the dialogue felt real and spot on. His his obsession with Comanches and being the Lord of the Plains is a very uh a very good character, character device and character trait. You know, I like his face off in the casino with that Indian dude and telling him that you know enemies within everybody with makes me a comanche. I, you know, I I really liked quite a bit of it.

SPEAKER_04 12:44

Um yeah, I think I like it a little more than Sicario. Uh but for the most part, the until until the parts that that broke away from the tropiness were just so into the trope of like I'm the I'm the loose canon, I'm the one with the plan who's got a straight mind. It was just bored me to tears until it finally got towards the end. That's when I discovered it was a best picture nominee, and I was like, that's the most baffling best picture nominee of all time. I can't understand why anybody would care about this completely mediocre movie. But then it does a few things that are interesting that it holds till the end, and these are the things that's been kind of rising it above. Jeff Bridges does a really good performance in this, and his character is very rich and nuanced. So when he does shoot the guy and he's he reels from it, and he has such a feeling of like almost crying, yeah. And that pushes it forward, plus the twist of we robbed the bank to pay the bank with their own money because the bank was gonna take away our land that we found oil on, and then we were gonna have money. So, how did you do it when he shows up on the porch? And so the to me, the whole movie builds up just to the scene where he kills the guy in the very ending, and those two scenes where I'm like, that's what's spinning this thing way higher. And I bet on a rewatch, I'd probably enjoy it a little bit more, knowing more what their plan is, how it's gonna play out. The little things like you're gonna be saying, uh, you're gonna miss all my racial shit when you're standing over my body. And turns out, oh, I should have realized his partner's gonna be the one who gets killed instead. The movie's trying to tell me that.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Well, and that's that's and I I I I love the way, especially that scene plays out where the you know he's crouched behind the car, his partner comes up behind him, and he's got the AR-15 and he's looking, and then suddenly, bam, bullet hole in the fucking head, and Bridges, and Bridges almost is in shock, you know. And and Bridges is I I I think this movie is again, I I I agree with you. There are a few things that are very kind of basic in a neo-modern, or in a western or or a or a bank robber milieu. You have to have a few things like this, right? And but the twists come in, I think, in several different ways. Uh, you've got that great scene where uh he's they're eating dinner and he's talking to the waitress, and then Bridges comes in and makes her give up the money, and those four old men are fucking laughing at him. My favorite scene in the entire fucking movie is the T-bone cafe with the fucking old lady who's like, what don't you want? And they're both like, what?

SPEAKER_04 15:41

And she's like, parts of a movie.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Oh, I fucking love it. You know why I love that? Because that's a real fun, that's the realest exchange in the entire movie. I've been to restaurants like that. I've wor I've I've sat down in in many Midwestern or Texas type of red and had a waitress, not to that level, but damn close to it. Damn close to it, you know. You know, we had some asshole come in here and try to order trout. We don't serve no trout, we ain't never served no trout. I'm fucking dying laughing. And the thing about it is, is people like in the mid from the Midwest find that shit very funny. It's very true, it's very genuine. So I I thought that was really well done. It was funny. Uh, and I think I think that's the other part of the movie is that it kind of rings true. Those characters very much resonate as very real and very genuine. It that the it's not it's not Riggs and fucking Murtoff from Lethal Weapon, it's these two brothers from down south who But he is getting too old for this shit.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

He's a few days away from retirement.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

So well, that's Jeff Bridges. But at no time does he, you know, say I'm getting too old for the shit. I do love how he's constantly picking on his partner. I think that's fucking great, especially when they're in the the hotel room together and he's watching the he's watching the the his partner's watching the fucking televangelist shit, and he's like, come on, man, like don't know. Aren't you supposed to like worship the spirits or some shit? Like, can't be watched worshiping Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

The movie does show a turning point with the two robbers where they decide to hit the bank that's too big, even though they knew better, and they end up killing people. And it's like, oh, if you were rooting, that's the moment. How do you continue?

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Well, that's the moment where everything starts to fall apart. That's the that's the part where like it's bad when his brother goes, like, you know, he's having the the thing with the waitress brother's like, I gotta take a big old dump, and he you know goes across the street and he robs that bank, right? Like the line is I have to shit like a goat. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Or something to that extent. This is almost my line at the end of the episode. Yep. I have to shit like a goat. Uh but yeah. What is up with Tyler Taylor Sheridan banks? This whole movie's about banks. And remember Sicario? It was like when she goes in the bank.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

There's one bank in the in Sicario, one bank. It's not all about banks.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

But but that bank played a very important part in Sicario when she went in there. They're not sure. It did. And so that's why I was thinking, well, this third part of this trilogy has got to have at least one scene in a bank.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Uh, I I love how the waitress is like, fuck you, that's my mortgage. You're not getting that money. Right. And and those four old men are laughing at him. The Whalen Jennings needle drop as they're driving through the through the the the cut country and uh let the world call me a fool. That that that shit is perfect. Um, that gas station scene where you've where Chris Pine realized, you know, kind of reveals because it to me it's like the movie plays early on, like Ben Foster's the tough guy, and Chris is kind of the like you said, the brains, right? The weaker guy. And then they get to the gas station, and that dude's with the you know, in the the green car, and you know, Ben Foster and him are having words, and Chris Pine just shows up in Owner and just beats the entire piss out of him, and you go, Oh, okay. You know, there's it there's no telling actually which one's probably more violent or probably more capable of this. It's just one has a little more self-control than the other one does.

SPEAKER_06 19:15

Right?

SPEAKER_02 19:15

One's a little bit smarter than the other one. And I I thought that was a really because they don't they don't talk about that. They just show it through action, right? It's like that scene where Foster, he in the early part where they go back to his house and he opens the door to his mom's room where the his mom's sick bed was where she died and all that shit, and he's kind of like he kind of peeks in like a kid at first with the door kind of cracked open, and he asks asks his brother how long you know she was in there, and then he pushes the door open, and then at the end of the scene, he's like, fuck her. And he should never wanted me, anyways, and he turns around and walks off. Man, there's a lot to that, I thought. Um uh it was really well done. Tanami, I told you, is my other favorite line from that, where he's they drive off from that gas station. So, yeah. Um the Jeff Bridges, I think, like you said, is the the best part of the movie for me. There's a lot of the the movie's beautiful, I think there are a lot of great shots in it. Bridges is one of America's great actors. He plays against that other guy really, really well. Um This is a movie my stepdad would have loved, I think.

SPEAKER_06 20:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah, I could see that. Gil Birmingham plays Alberto, he plays off of him really well.

SPEAKER_04 20:36

Now, there was something that happened pretty early on in the movie that was one of the most interesting aspects, I thought. Now we've seen cigarette acting in film, but this movie has vape acting.

SPEAKER_06 20:49

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

Yeah. This was nine years ago. I don't see a lot of vape acting in movies and TV, and I think it looks weird. It does look weird watching him vape on that thing. It really does. It's just, but it does. I mean, tobacco, they're probably like, nah, we don't even want the replacement tobacco products in movies. But it is interesting to see somebody having a conversation in a scene and he's hitting a vape. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Tobacco vape, you know, because I guess he's trying to quit smoking the character, is my guess. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, it stands out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Yeah, he's trying to be, and I think he's trying to kind of he seems to kind of try to like his partner makes fun of him, but he's also trying to kind of show his partner like he's a Christian, so he's kind of, you know, that's why he's watching the Christian television while he's in there. He wants to kind of, you know, get that in his head. And you know, he's he's trying his best to make this guy that he admires, obviously, and likes and works with have better habits, is what I feel like. You know what I mean? Like he's trying to be a good influence on the guy, and that you know, all he's getting is a lot of static for it in the ring.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

Now I noticed this has an extended version. What is in the extra 10 minutes?

SPEAKER_02 21:58

I have no idea. I haven't No, I haven't seen it. Um one of the things that this movie uh really stands out to me for is that it it reminds me a lot of the when I first moved to Tucson as a kid, right? Like when I first had to stay there for a long period of time. I'm from a country I'm from a part of the country that's very green. It's got red dirt, it's got green trees, it's got a lot of water. And uh I move out to Tucson and there's no deep greens in Tucson. It's all olive drabs, tans, beigas, you know, uh the cactus are maybe green for a month after the the monsoons, and then everything's back to this kind of drab. And it it this this color palette that they used in the movie very much reflected that I thought.

SPEAKER_04 22:49

Um you know what I hope I never see in a movie or TV show ever again is halfway through a film, somebody reconnecting with their estranged spouse who barely has anything to say, and then promptly leaves the movie again for the most part. That might be the most overused trope, and I can complain about it because we made a movie where we did that same trope.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

So well, I mean, she's she shows up at the end.

SPEAKER_04 23:17

I mean, he's but it's the same scene of I've been out, I've been doing all you're the blah blah. It's like I I mean we saw the same scene in Midnight Run. They did it kind of a little funny.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

I think it's a little bit I think it's a little bit I think I think the end scene shows a little bit of progress in the relationship, but I also understand what you're talking about. I also think that it shows it's like he told Jeff Bridges, none of this shit's mine. It's all in my wife and my kids' names, it's all in a trust. Like, you know, he doesn't even live there, he lives probably lives somewhere else.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

And maybe one day he'll show up and give him the peace that he so desires in Hell or Highwater 2, where they team up and the Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine team up and start robbing even larger banks together. You know what? I think I'd actually watch that.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

I I it's a I think it's a glorious movie. The death of Deputy Deputy uh the Deputy Ranger is so subtle, it's perfectly done. It's graphic, you know, Bridges hunting down and and killing him and his reaction to killing him.

SPEAKER_04 24:20

Yeah, that's the that's the point.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Ben Foster sitting there, Lord of the Plains, and kind of being so satisfied with himself. You know, this is a crazy this guy's completely lost. He's up there, you know, shooting motherfuckers and being all happy with himself and pow. Uh it's a it's a it's a it's I like the movie. It's got layers to it. It's it's not just a straightforward bank robbery. Point break doesn't have any layers to it. Like point break is just point break is just Bodie, you know, the big wave, money, bro. And this is some this has got a little bit more going on to it than that. We got the surf the wave. But I do agree the tropes are there for sure. It's a definitely a trope, troped bank robbery movie, like the beatniks and moon, and you know, but I think that it took those tropes and and it it took the same Legos that other movies used, and it built a better building out of it than that.

SPEAKER_04 25:11

It made me feel like this might have been one of the first scripts that the screenwriter wrote, maybe. Because it has kind of that feel of like I'm feeling out, I'm using tropes to and then do a twist, and then like Sicario feels a little more filled out, even though I think I like this one a little more. I mean, he'd been writing for Sons of Anarchy for He'd been writing for Sons of Anarchy for eight years, so there's no telling. Who knows? Maybe this script was in the drawer for 15 or something. Maybe the feel of uh I think I would have really liked this movie if it would have had like an 80s aesthetic to it. Instead of like the modern camera look. I'm just like there was something where that didn't mesh where I'm like, this I feel like this movie should be something else. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Ah, this movie worked for me over and over again. I mean, it it I I think that there's uh just gorgeous fucking shots. When when he when he puts on the blanket and goes out into the sky at night and he's and he's walking and the storms are coming in and the blankets blowing by it's fucking gorgeous. You know, I I I just think it's it's great. It it it captures Midwest, small town, it nails it, it nails a lot of the characters. Like I said, you go to you go to a place like the T-Bone Cafe, you're gonna probably run into a waitress like that, that shit's hilarious, you know. None of these characters are likable, though, so it kind of makes me wonder. I think I I I disagree. I mean, I think that Jeff Bridges is very likable. He's irrascible, but he's likable, you know. I mean, his partner wouldn't work with him and do everything he does if he didn't like him, you know. It's it's that whole thing of like it what's the intent behind the word? Is it the word itself that hurts, or is it the intent behind it, right? And I don't think that Jeff Bridges' character has any intent. He's you know, poking fun because he's a fucking old, irrascible asshole. He's a likable guy.

SPEAKER_04 27:05

Well, I never really liked either of the bank robbers before or after.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

I liked uh I liked I liked Ben Foster, actually, I think more than I liked Chris Pine, but because I think Ben Foster is a bigger personality, and he and you could see he was a he was a lit fuse. Like he you could you could see that's that's part of the movies you can see that he's gonna blow up and and and the key is his brother trying to keep him from blowing up so they can get this shit done, you know. And like you said, it's different.

SPEAKER_04 27:34

They go for the big big bars, and that's a that's novel. You don't see and getting away with it doesn't happen a lot.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

No, no, and I and I I also another scene I love is when he you know he he finds out his brother's shot, he put helps him put pressure on it, and then he just pulls that truck over and gets that fucking fully automatic gun out because they're being followed by all those locals, and he just starts those people just hauling ass out of there. Yeah, I would too. It's it's you know, a lot of fun. It's a it's uh I think there's also a kind of a fun uh sort of silliness to it, too. I I don't take it too seriously, like a good western, you know. Um, but yeah, so I think like I said, I think it's uh for me a kind of a new modern classic. I think it's a lot of fun. You don't see a lot of westerns that do it like this. Um again, playing with the tropes, but also making them work really well.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

Yeah, outside of a few really brilliant moments, I was left wondering why I was watching the movie.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Well, because I told you to. Well, I know you're watching it.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

But like I was like, why is what is it that didn't well you just explain for the last 27 minutes why you like it. It's a fucking bank robbery movie, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Yeah, it's fascinating at like it looks fucking great. I give it four stars.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

I give it two. Wow. Uh yeah. I mean, it's worth watching though, because there's some moments where they there's some twists in there, and it might work better for you if you were more akin to the certain genre. I'm never gonna say this is a bad movie. I'm just gonna say it's a movie that's not for me. And they're gonna go, oh god, here we go again. A whole podcast about Honshot first? Maybe, but I'm gonna try to delve into some other things that maybe we haven't thought of when we think of Star Wars from 1977. What is it?

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Uh Star Wars A New Hope. Well, let's see. Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee, and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Death Star. Uh, this is from 1977, it's rated PG. It's two hours and one minute long. Written and directed by George Lucas, starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Uh C. Storyline. Where is it?

SPEAKER_02 30:03

The Imperial forces under orders from cruel Darth Vader hold Princess Leia hostage in efforts to quell the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. Luke Skywalker and Han that's not why they do it. Uh Luke Sky, she has the plans for the she they think she has the plans for the Death Star. Uh Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, Captain of Millennium Falcon, work together with the companionable droid duo R2D2 and C3PO to rescue the beautiful princess, help the Rebel Alliance, and restore freedom and justice to the galaxy. I guess.

SPEAKER_04 30:31

Something like that, right? You you know what this movie's about. And if you don't and you're listening to us for the first time, you're gonna have an interesting viewpoint on this movie that they later retitled A New Hope, episode four. But when we saw it back in 1977, it was just called Star Wars. There was nothing else. There was this one movie. Now, what do you remember about the first time you went and saw this? Was it the opening shot? What do you vivid have a vivid memory of that Star Destroyer going overhead or opening scroll?

SPEAKER_02 31:09

Oh, um I think it's the opening score over the 20th 20th Century Fox logo. As a kid, I remember every time I heard that 20th Century Fox logo, I thought I was gonna watch Star Wars. Um since Star Wars never came to like any kind of cable, and you only had that one VHS, like there was no chance, but like I was so stupid as a kid that I was like, oh, it's Star Wars. I did not realize that 20th Century Fox made other movies. Um, but yeah, I mean, I remember that. I remember I mean I saw this at the drive-in when I was when I was four. And uh my mother had a uh like a it was like an El Camino, and she rolled down the window and I sat on the window ledge and I put my head on the top hood of the car and I put my hands on my uh put my head on my hands and I watched the movie that way. And she said, she says that's the quietest you you had probably ever been in your entire life up to that point. She said, You didn't move, you didn't say shit for two hours. Like you just sat there and you just watched that movie. She's I've never seen you locked in on anything like that in my entire life. And so that for me was the first, and I saw it probably three or four more times easily. Um, I remember seeing it in the theater a couple times, and and that's when I remember like the the ship passing overhead, and you know, the uh uh the river blockade runner, and then suddenly this massive star destroyer passing overhead and wondering what the fuck's going on, and right and uh yeah. That's that's the stuff stuff I remember. And that score, of course, and then of course the scroll.

SPEAKER_04 32:48

Yeah. Uh I saw it in an indoor theater when I was three. My sister Virginia took me to it. I think it might have been the first movie that I was taken to as a child. At least that's the memory. It it's hard to say though, because it could have been like a Pinocchio or it's a lot of movies around it, but I know I saw it before I saw Grease or you know, Star Trek the Motion Picture to mention last week. But it it's it is interesting to uh just see how many iconic moments are right there in the f within the first 15 minutes. I mean, just the Princess Leia putting the data disc into R2 D2, just the shape of that has become iconic. R2 D2, where are you? I mean, catchphrases are being thrown out left and right. We're barely five minutes into the movie. Set for stun. You get that weird circle, you never see that again. You know, there's a lot of things moving that you never see again in Star Wars.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Well, that's the the I mean, the film opens with no credits, which in 1977, I mean, now that's now that's but but back then, I mean, to go directly from Can you imagine credits on yeah, no, can you imagine a directed by directed by George Lucas starring Luke Skywalker and starring Harrison Ford? Yeah, that would the no, instead it goes from 20th Century Fox logo to black to dun dun and the scroll, and you're off and running, right? Um I always have to remind myself there's a person inside that R2 unit, that poor uh poor that poor little person that's in there trying to make that shit work.

SPEAKER_04 34:27

Now, speaking of the first 15 minutes of this movie, the first 15 minutes of this movie is unlike any other Star Wars movies opening 15 minutes. Because it's still the 70s, which makes me lament there wasn't more 70s Star Wars movies. Now I know the holiday special only gets started on that, but because it has that almost surreal, like weird, you're dropped in the middle. What the fuck is going on? These robots are walking through the desert. It's very strange. I love it, but it's very fucking strange when you analyze it from the perspective.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

It doesn't make it to your mind, it doesn't make a lot of sense, right? But he world builds very quickly. Yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah, like you know, he um, you know, like as soon as they drop onto the planet, you get the two of them, you get the droid splitting up, right? So you get one that meets the Jawas, and the other one's got you know, they get that big crate dragon skeleton behind it. And you know, we didn't even know what the hell a crate dragon was, we just knew it was a giant lizard skeleton, right? So it's a it's a rich world he builds, droids, jawas. Later we get the bar scene, which is you know, so while it's mostly humans in the main story, so I think I mainly think so that kids can identify with those, the entire world, like you go to that bar scene, that bar scene is like, holy shit, look at all the different aliens. And I mean, there's gotta be 40 or 50 distinct aliens in that movie, or at least, just in that scene alone.

SPEAKER_04 36:05

And isn't it such a good thing that Chewy, the link to the past, just so happens to be at most icely? Who would they have hitched a ride with if they hadn't been there? What a weird what-if scenario, right? Because there's Chewy who knows Yoda, who who know he was there in Revenge of the Sith. We just saw that in the previous chapter. Of course, when they made this movie, they didn't know all about it. Right. It is kind of a trip to think, man, that's some good timing there, guys.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Well, and that's that's why this movie. That's why this movie it's it's such a weird artifact now, right? Like it was brilliant when it came out. Nobody had had any idea of any any inclination of a film like this or doing anything like this. Lightsabers and blasters, the way they did the the blaster bolts alone was so fucking, you know, just uh groundbreaking and sort of iconic. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it it when he's building this rich world, he's in, he's in, he's including a lot of different things, um and he's moving you through it very quickly, right? But the problem with it is that it was such a brilliant eye, it was if it's a standalone movie or if it's within the original trilogy, it's this brilliant film, right? That that creates this world. But when you start building on it and building on it and building on it, and by the time you get to the prequels and then later the further sequels, and you go back to watch Star Wars, you start to have these weird questions like Of course Ben knows that fucking droid. Of course he knows who R2D2 is. Are you fucking kidding me? That's his best friend's droid. Well, then he's a terrible liar, or he's the best actor in the world, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

Because you know, Luke ain't the swift swiftest guy in the world. It takes him about 10 minutes to realize why the Jawas are dead, you know.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Okay, true, true. But it's just it's this like uh I don't remember having a droid. Um oh, by the way, you're oh, just real quickly, buddy, here's this archaic, all powerful weapon that your father left behind. Here, I don't want to give you instructions on how to use it. Here, here you go. And point it at your face, whatever you do. First thing, just point and look right down at it before you, you know.

SPEAKER_04 38:24

But it is brilliant when he delivers that line of I don't remember having a droid, but you can see behind the eyes is like this shit's come into a fucking head. Like, because he knows that this shit, if he's seeing R2D2, he knows everything's come home to roost at this point. There's no hiding anymore, there's no hiding luke.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

We got somehow he just and somehow he just finds Chewbacca at fucking Mosaic's luck.

SPEAKER_04 38:54

Who knows what kind of ship they could have ended up on?

SPEAKER_02 38:58

But it's funny not to mention C3PO. I mean, I mean Darth Vader built C3PO for fuck's sake.

SPEAKER_05 39:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:07

I mean, come on. Well, you want to go even weirder than that. Apparently, there's no R2 Astromech specialists anywhere, especially not on Yavin 5. Hey, this R2 unit we just fixed up. You know how fucking old this thing is? This thing is from Naboo. This is a royal droid. How the fuck did this get here? Yeah, how did you get this? Nobody ever notices because all the must be so many R2 droids. They've been, you know, they all look the same. But that's a droid from the fucking Nubian ship. That droid knows everything, which it leads me to this note here. Well, may the force be with you. Well, with R2 D2 in your ship, I think you're good. Because R2 D2 is basically the force. What happens in part seven? The force awakens, R2 D2 wakes up. Hmm, he's almost like a physical embodiment of the force. You can fuck with them, you can deactivate him, but you can't destroy him. If you're with R2, if R2 he is the force, R2 is Star Wars in his essence, I feel. If R2 was a character in Dungeons and Dragons and he was on your team, you would get like a plus 30 from just entering the fucking room by having him with you. But nobody notices. What is this fucking Naboo droid doing here? Where did you get this thing? Well, it picked it up from a jaw wall on the block. What the fuck? Do you know how old this is? And nobody can get me started on this fucking uh interpreter droid. He's pretty fucking old, too.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Yeah, no shit. Yeah, and he looks handmade, he looks like he was a kit or some sort of uh interesting, hmm. Yeah. Uh the the the burned bodies are pretty graphic, you know.

SPEAKER_04 40:58

Yeah, charred bodies, yeah, heroin bodies, and that goes right into heroin droid scene. This movie's pretty dark too. We say Empire's the dark one. There's some nasty fucking shit in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

That round droid coming into Princess Leia's room with all the things sticking out of it. It's like that's creepy, dude. The heroin droid, I call it. It's the torture droid, I believe. I I I love the uh Jedi lacks that edge.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Jedi doesn't have creepy shit like that.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

No, no, no, no. Jedi's got Ewok. No. Uh I love the bar in the bar how uh when they they cut back to the bar at one point the the band starts a new song and the whole bar's like, yeah, like oh, they picked a real, you know. I was like, I love that. That makes me laugh every time. Uh that 3D chess game on the Millennium Falcon is dope. And it looks like it looks like stop motion Ray Harryhausen figures, you know what I mean? And and that's the sort of like attention to detail, like you know, the the Empire is very clean and orderly, right? Everything's new and nice looking and you know, shiny.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

And the rebels and Millennium Falcon and the speeders, like this they're all the slow burn.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Yeah, yeah, but the all all the all the rebel stuff is all beat up and very dirty and analog and kind of thrown together, and you can you can really tell um the difference between the two and and that sort of thing. It's really, really great. And again, this is 77. Nothing like this existed. No, you know, nothing the people nowadays are so spoiled because they don't understand how what a fucking massive impact this had on your entire this follows the Joseph Campbell uh hero myth, which is Luke's Luke Skywalker's whole, you know. Well, he you know, he's a young farm boy who finds out he's got secret powers and he finds a wizard who helps him unlock his powers and trains him, and then he meets his friends and they go on a quest, and you know he has to fight the evil. That shit has been done everywhere now. And it's it's insane. This movie, the impact, the cultural impact of this movie, the professional impact of this movie is it's uh it's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 43:09

It's a 70s movie, unlike any other in a way, because it does have its sense of nihilism and the kind of slow, trippy pacing, but the hero wins. Right. Which is a little different. So it kind of starts to pave the way for the 80s where it would be a lot more action-packed.

SPEAKER_02 43:30

Yeah, and the hero winning a lot more. We wanted in the 80s to see the hero. We wanted to see fucking Rob Lowe beat the shit out of that guy in blood in Youngblood. You know, we wanted to see him win, you know.

SPEAKER_04 43:44

So this is a bit of a my centerpiece, I guess you would say. So compare Star Wars to Sorcerer. Uh the movie that it came out almost the same time as it killed it. And you can even throw Fright Knight into the mix a little bit. All three of these movies take the first half to set up the movie. And then about the middle point where everybody's finally hooked up, boom, we're off and running. And so it's that kind of 70s filmmaking. Well, all the Star Wars sequels don't have that. I mean, maybe Rogue One a little bit, right? But I think Empire takes a little bit to set up, but it doesn't take as long. Yeah, and they already know each other and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

Yeah, but that I mean that first one that I think that's the charm of it is that it does take a while to set up, but everything that you're watching is kind of riveting and fun to watch and interesting. So you're never bored, you're never checking your watch or wondering where this is going. You're just kind of following the young kid and the droids along on this weird adventure, right?

SPEAKER_04 44:54

And speaking of checking your watch, let's go through the pacing and discover exactly why this original version of Star Wars works. And like I wrote down, it's not so much the changes they did to the special edition, it's how they fucked up the pacing of the film, where things are supposed to happen at specific times. Throwing things in like the Java scene in most icely, it's it's like your beats are off. I feel like the guy in Whiplash going, That's not my beat. That's not my beat. Uh so at 16 minutes. Not exactly my time. Yeah, right. That's a festival. So 16 minutes in, we meet Luke. We don't meet Luke until 16 minutes into the movie. That's wild. When do you think Han Solo shows up? 47 minutes in. 47 minutes in, yeah. Yeah, it takes him a minute. So it does, it does take some.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

So when does when does Obi-Wan show up?

SPEAKER_04 45:49

Uh oh, he's probably somewhere. 2025 minutes in the 30 mark.

unknown 45:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:54

It's very, very mathematical. And then you have 53 minutes, the Falcon takes off. And then at one hour and one minute, the precise midpoint of the movie in this version, they arrive at what was Alderon. Now, if you put that job in that other stuff, that's being pushed like a five or six minutes. And so it these subtle things in the pacing, and also the removal of all those lovely dissolves that I've missed throughout the years, or like the retake of the same R2 shot, they clean all that stuff out and it gets rid of all that handmade feel to it. And it just, I feel like those special editions kind of the movie's so good that it rises above it, but the pacing in this one just feels like a like somebody re-recorded Sgt. Pepper's or something and put an extra measure in the middle of it, and it's like, wait a minute, you can't do that. It fucks it up. At one hour and 13 minutes, Leia rescued. One hour and 15 minutes, they finally all meet. It takes 75 minutes for Han and Leia to finally have exchange words before they jump in the garbage chute. They are nice ones. And then the teams all together. Oh, I'm gonna go into that a little bit here too. Nine minutes into the movie, exactly, we escape from Death Star. It's like this precise timing in a two-hour and one-minute movie, and then to the Death Star approach in the final hour, 42 minutes. But once they all meet each other 75 minutes in, boom, it's an action film. But this brings me to my other point is Luke and Han, they're not friends, are they?

unknown 47:34

No.

SPEAKER_04 47:34

As a kid, I always kind of thought they were chummy and buddy, and you look at it now and you go, they've only known each other a matter of hours. This is most evident after the getaway where Han's hanging out in the back. He's not even sitting next to Luke, who's all, I'm gonna join the military. And you know, Han from the solo movie's like been there, done that kid, not doing it again. But they've only barely known each other. He he barely tries to rescue him from the trash compactor monster. He's kind of like, eh, whatever, you know, he kind of pseudo-gives up, and and he's just riling up Luke from the beginning. I could fly that ship, and you better not hit on Princess Leia and all that. And Han's just laughing to himself. It's it's a much more buddies.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

So no wonder Han's all those kids an asshole, right? Well, it's an it's a it's an adversary, it's an adversarial relationship. They're both vying for Princess Leia's attention or affection. It's Nathan Hayes. Um one of the things that I remember uh af so I'm you know, I went to the special editions when they were released on theaters, and one of the things I remember liking was I was so used to the original series that I really enjoyed seeing this extra footage. Like, well, oh, you shot that and it just wasn't good enough, right? Yeah, and it's it's it was cool to see like this extra stuff, right? But what I didn't realize was that Lucas was gonna go, that's it, that's the new Canon, and you can't have the old version anymore. That's the worst. And and I the version that we watched is the 1977 4K Restored Project, and it looks so good, and it looks just like it looked when I was a kid. You know, there's that great light difference when the sun's not fully going down, but it's obviously late afternoon on Tatooine, and then here comes R2D2 into that canyon, and suddenly it's kind of dark, and the Jawas hit him and they capture him, you know, and then when they finally get him to the sand crawler, it's gone completely dark. You know, later on in the special edition, that stuff's kind of lightened. It's the the levels are different, right? And and because they want you to be able to see because it's it's almost dark, too dark. It's almost it's it's uh day for night, but it's almost too dark to where you can't really see what's going on. And they went and they fucked with it a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 49:51

They want it to look like the prequels coloring.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 49:55

So it's I wish they had the original available.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

I exactly. That's my thing. I prefer the original. I don't mind special edition because it's fun to see. It's fun to see Lucas go. Here's some stuff that almost made it that would have been cool. But you know, changing, you know, in this whole, you know, Han shot uh Han Greedo shot first shit is terrible.

SPEAKER_04 50:17

That's just fucking Han is the only one who shot is what it would be. Yeah. That's it. Han Solo is a deadly motherfucker. It's a shot of Greedo kind of exploding because the shot's going at him is what you see. You don't see a shot from the side where the laser crisscrossed. God no. That stuff is it was fun the first couple times, and now I'd be like, it's pulling me out too much.

SPEAKER_02 50:44

I remember when I was a kid, the first couple times I saw that shot, I went, what the hell just happened? Right. And then Solo gets up and puts his gun away. I'm like, oh, he shot him from under the table. Oh, okay. He's that's fucking okay.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

And like the the X-Wing battle at the end, they've they've changed all of the ships, and so the pacing on that is is different than in the original version. And watching it again, it was like it felt like a glove. It felt like this is the I'm used to it hitting on this in specific music speech at certain moments, and they change it, and it's like, what why are you altering one of the most successful game-changing movies of all time and not leaving the original version there for us to compare it to to see at least what you changed? And we could go, yeah, the new version's better, because I can see the old one right there. You know, you can only get the old one in a non-anamorphic copy unless you can find the one we did.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

You know, it's very much like George has been telling himself this story with miniature figures or Legos for a very long time, and when he finally got the opportunity to do it in real life, he made this elaborate, detailed world with these fantastical stories and these fantastic characters. And you know, it some of it worked and some of it didn't. You know, I mean you've got the whole holy shit, he kissed his sister thing, and then you've, you know, uh you've got all the weird retconning, but in the end, you if you're a Star Wars fan, you kind of overlook it because you just you just want more Star Wars, right?

SPEAKER_04 52:22

You know well, he knew how to shoot it. But I don't think I don't think George knew how to edit it. Because the movie was edited by his ex-wife.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

His wife, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:33

And then once all that ends and the alimony and stuff, and now I'm going to completely destroy her edit for all time. Thanks, George. Thanks for being that vindictive. You can't find anything about this story online, so maybe it's not true, but I remember reading it in books. That's why that's why he didn't put out any movies until Phantom Menace is the story, is the the the myth is that it was all because of that. But it's also destroys a lot of your original FX artist's work, too, by changing it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Well, the the myth is that he he uh had to give his wife so much of his uh work, you know, I guess production the for the next 10 years their divorce, she got anything that he made, and 50% of anything he made, so he went off and so long.

SPEAKER_04 53:18

He went off and made fucking Howard the Duck and Radio Land Murders and stuff like that was the legend. And then it was like, I'm going not only did I do that, I'm gonna erase her legacy by recutting the film, so all of her edits are gone. Now, is this true? We don't know. This is allegedly in a podcast. This is alleged, but you kind of go, hmm, let's hope that's not the case. But at least hardcore fans have kept the movie in its original version, and you can you can find it if you look for it. Now, speaking of uh what's going on in this movie, uh first time I saw it, I thought they blew up Darth Vader and not the Death Star, because you know, a three-year-old mine who's been up too late at the movies doesn't know what's going on. And so a few viewings later I figured out what was going on. But watching it again this time, and it always reminds me of it when I watch it, but this time especially, the up too late watching the Death Star run in the theaters as a kid vibe, where I'm kind of semi-falling asleep because the movie's so long and it's been a long day, and they're just going down that trench, but the music's loud and it almost feels like you're in a club because it's kind of distorted, and it has that weird kind of trippy. I'm just enveloped in the movie. I remember the whiz did that to me too when I was a kid for some reason. It had that kind of analog vibe, and it was just that scene always takes me back to those first screenings of it in the theater. Also, we've talked about sitting all the way through in credits. I think this movie might be responsible for me sitting through in credits because you want to sit there and you want to hear all that Star Wars music. It's like it's part of the movie. I want to hear those refrains and then the you know, I can't turn this movie off when the credits start. I have to watch the four minutes of it because I won't need to hear that music. It's it's like some movies I can cut it off, but this one it's like, no, I I wanna I wanna hear that. Word. No, I know what you mean. Uh, what else did I write here? The fact that good follow-ups to this were made at all is a small miracle. Because this movie is such a scrapper in the first place, it wasn't supposed to work. Like some kind of glamorized hammer movie that the crew thought was a joke when they were making it, and somehow they managed to make movies that some would say might even be better. Like Empire, some people Jedi is their favorite, the prequels still fit, and then you get to the Disney era, which I just look at as it's fanfic. It's like a different continuity Force Awakens forward because some people's Chewy eats people and some people's Chewy doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 56:12

One of the things about his wife that's that should be mentioned is that she won the Oscar for film editing for Star Wars. And we can't see it. And she was, and well, no, I mean, yeah, we can't see the version that she went. She also was on a nominated for American Graffiti. So, I mean, yeah, you're right. She was obviously a very gifted editor.

SPEAKER_04 56:31

Yeah, she gets away from him, and he's not making interesting movies. It's true. You know what else she edited? Taxi driver. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. What else do I have here? That's from that page.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

And then I think at least that's what it said. Maybe, maybe that's wrong. Maybe that's not.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

Alice doesn't live here anymore. American Graffiti Star. What's the oh, she was a supervising phone.

SPEAKER_04 57:04

So she did get Martin Scorsese's responsible for kiss my grits. Rest in peace, Polly Holliday. Kiss my grits. We love you, Polly Holly. He is responsible for that by proxy, right? As a little kid. Kiss my grits. I didn't realize the Alice TV show was based on a Martin Scorsese movie when I'm seven. I didn't either. But it's weird when you think about it now. Yes, when you think about it now, it's very weird. Uh my other note was, you know that early, of course you know. You've seen the movie. That scene with Uncle Owen early on where he's telling him I want to leave, no, I gotta keep you on another season. That's another perfect example of a scene that is completely unique to this Star Wars movie. There's not another scene that feels or looks or sounds like that in any other Star Wars film. There's no score there. It's because they're still figuring out what makes Star Wars Star Wars. I just find it completely fascinating, that type of stuff. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 57:56

Very true.

SPEAKER_04 57:57

Fascinating, Captain.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Fascinating, Captain.

SPEAKER_04 58:00

I didn't even mention Chris Pine, Captain Kirk last week, Captain Kirk. Boom! Chris Pine is an excellent actor, and he was excellent in that film. Have we watched four Chris Pine films? Because he was in Bottle Shock, right?

SPEAKER_02 58:14

He was in Bottleshock. He was in DD.

SPEAKER_04 58:17

Wow, so he's been with us from the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

He's in Hell and Highwater. What else? What's the fourth one?

SPEAKER_04 58:22

Uh well, there was the Hell in Highwater. Yeah. The Bottle Shock. Bottleshock DD. D.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

What's the four? What's the fourth one?

SPEAKER_04 58:35

Oh, am I acting like we already watched his Star Trek movie? I think so. Yeah. And once we stop recording, I remember the movie it was. Now it was.

SPEAKER_05 58:49

I feel like there was another one he was in.

SPEAKER_02 58:51

Oh man. You got anything else on Star Wars? Oh, I do, I do, I do, I do. Um my first two movie crushes are Princess Leia and Marion from Raiders. Uh and uh I've been in love with strong women ever since. Um the Trash Compactor scene is a great piece of misdirection. Um, they escape a hot gun battle, and you think they're gonna be safe. You know, you're gonna get that kind of chance to breathe, and then suddenly you get the you know, the space worm, and you know, everybody screaming and trying to get out of it. They let us go. Well, they didn't seem like they were letting you go. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T16 back home. Hey, kid, how about you shut the fuck up? Yeah, like you know, I do I really have to listen to this fucking farm boy who just showed up, some rookie who hasn't seen a second of action, tell me about how he can bullseye womp rats. How about you suck it?

SPEAKER_04 59:47

He's not very bright. I mean, he is more like Anakin realize when you go back. Like, you know, the prequels aren't that great overall, but they do match pretty well for five and six. It does create a nice connective world. Very good. You get more up into how this movie led all the way up to Rise of Skywalker, is kind of like thinking about Jason X compared to the first Friday.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

To be honest with you, to be honest with you, when I watch the the original trilogy now, I always bump Rogue One up in front of it because I think that Rogue One bumps right up to Star Wars kind of perfectly. And I really like that. I really like to watch I love to watch Darth Vader cut through the whole thing and then the ship pull away and him stand there, and then we cut right to Star Wars with the ship pulling off, and then I fucking love that.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:37

Revenge of the Sith connects right up too, because you got Obi-Wan on Tatooine. So interesting world of Star Wars movies. There's a lot of them, and I'm sure we'll be getting to many more of them at some point. But uh this is episode 95. I wanted to get Star Wars underway before we had a hundred.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:03

So well, um, I'm glad we kind of got it out of the way. I'm glad we knew we had made Pondo, didn't it? Right, it's yeah, it very much. It's very much a Pondo uh influence movie. I'm glad we waited this long so that we weren't yeah, uh uh so that we were kind of prepared and we're and we're more comfortable in the podcast. Uh one of my other last things is only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise. Precise! Only in this fucking movie are stormtroopers precise, sir. That's why only in this one.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:32

Well, you go back to the the Reels of Justice case, Star Wars versus Empire, we did where I was like, Empire is a is the reboot from which all the rest of them spring from because you kind of have to rub some elements a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:47

It's the perfection of what George came up with in the first one. That's why I kept saying it was the fulfillment of the promise, right? Because it was like here's Star Wars, I have all these ideas, and look how cool and neat it is, and I have all this cool shit. And then Empire goes, Oh, thank you. We'll take that and do a really cool movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:03

Once Star Wars is established, perfection. Yeah, but there's still something absolutely amazing about watching Star Wars appear out of nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:13

Oh, sure. Sure. And it's and it's uh again, I don't I can't think of a more in my lifetime, a more culturally significant film, yeah, or a film that's had a bigger impact on film itself. So it was Optica Week again. Who knew? I mean, the the dude created industrial light and magic out of this, which went on to do fuck Skywalker Ranch, Skywalker Sound. The he touched so many films with this one film. He was able to make so many other films better by saying, Well, come on to Skywalker Ranch, we'll do your we'll do your effects. Come into ILM, we'll we'll help you with this. I mean, think about that. Think about the 80s and 90s.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:53

You know, the point of George as a director has always been he is pushing the technology forward with this movie. It might not really be the story. So you can rag on Attack of the Clones having bad dialogue, but what he's doing is and that is still pushing the technology forward.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:08

I mean, he his first film, the first first major blockbuster shot with digital cameras, 10 and 1080i. I mean, come on. So um, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:19

What do you give it? Oh, I give it five stars to give it five stars. Five stars would be ridiculous, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:26

Yeah, I agree completely. Rest in peace, Porkins.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:32

Seriously. Yeah, may the force be with you. Dude, I got R2 with me. I got R2.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

R2 is the force, and I'm good to go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:43

Yeah, I I think when it boils down to is R2 D2, is like for me, he's the ultimate, or it's I guess you'd say he is the ultimate Star Wars character because it just embodies eras, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:58

You've heard that theory that basically the Star Wars movies are about those two droids, right? It is.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:11

You know, and that's why the kind of makes fucking sense. Why the sequels don't work as well because they don't have a good R2 D2. They got the BB8, but they don't do enough with them. Yeah, yeah, I agree. So I think we've said some stuff about Star Wars that you haven't heard before, I hope. Try not to retread the same. We didn't even bitch about Holland Shot first that much. See?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:36

Yeah, I just you know, look, he he did get over it or done. It doesn't make the character bad because of it, it makes the character smart and slick, and you know, because he knows Greedo's gonna kill him anyways. Yeah. So you might as well get the guy first.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:49

We were told most icely spaceport, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, so why can't he shoot Greeto? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:58

He's part of the wretched hive of scum and villainy, that's why he's there secting a shitty job from some weirdo wizard. You know, it's a ship that made the kessle run less than 12 parsecs.5 pass light speed.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:12

It makes me think, could there be a good 90-minute Star Wars movie? Because they're always long. And I'm thinking, yeah, I think so. You start solo with the Sabuck game. So you cut off all of that stuff, early stuff, so it's just about the Kessel Run race. About a good 80 minutes. You don't want to see how he met Chewbacca and all that stuff? Yeah, you don't need that. Just start right with with him meeting Lando and the game, and then it's all about the well when we eventually cover solo some at some point, maybe. Oh boy. Yeah, it'll be a bit, I would think.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:47

So So what do you got for me next week?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:49

Okay, so next week, wow, I can't believe it. It's already going to be the week of Thanksgiving. Yeah. So it's coming up on uh the the you know Thanksgiving picks and you know we we Thanksgiving movies aren't the easiest thing to find. And you know, we had some kind of semi-unconventional Halloween movies, so I figured I can pick a somewhat unconventional Thanksgiving movie. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:19

Because as long as it's about as long as it's a Thanksgiving movie, you're fine.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:22

It takes place on Thanksgiving. Oh boy. But I don't know if it's about Thanksgiving, but you know, we watched He Never Died and Dark Man, so why can't we watch The Last Waltz next week? The Last Waltz. Yeah, the band's final performance on Thanksgiving Day, 1976. The ticket included a Thanksgiving dinner. It's a Martin Scorsese film. I don't really care about the band, but it's a good movie. So Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

All right. All right. Um I know it's a weird one. Well, I'm going to give you one that probably isn't necessarily, you know, I don't think it happens on Thanksgiving either. However, they are hard to find. One of the things about a Thanksgiving movie and a Christmas movie is that you during Thanksgiving and Christmas, you want to find a movie that everybody can watch.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:15

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:16

That everybody can sit down, right? So that your MAGA uncle doesn't have something that sets him off. Hell or High Water. Yes. Hell or High Water. Now you're getting it. So I have this one, and it is My Cousin Vinny.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:33

I knew it. Nice. And my cousin Vinny. It needs to come on the shows.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:39

It needs to come on the show. I've talked about it a bunch. There's another one that's very much like this that we might get to at some point, but My Cousin Vinny is probably, in my opinion, the most family-friendly movie that you could ever have. I mean, and and without again, without being a trite family movie, right? Without being home alone with a cute little kid, or without being something else where they're really trying to trying to drive Christmas story, planes, trains, and automobiles where they're really trying to drive home the feel-good. My dog this is completely different. Yeah, exactly. This is completely different, but it's still a you know, it's still a movie that I think the whole family can watch. And I think that's that's Thanksgiving in a place.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:23

That's an excellent choice because sometimes better. No, that's a different Fred Gwynn movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:31

And Fred Gwynn is awesome in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:33

Um I'm glad it's happening before 100.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:36

That feels like one that needs to be in the Yeah, it needed to be right up there close to it, right? And and this is the I'm I'm really glad that 100 is coming close to the end of the season where we can kind of do this because um it's it's gonna work. So yeah, so Last Waltz, my cousin Vinny. It's gonna be a very interesting mix. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:53

More nihilistic cocaine-fueled 70s mixed with uh some of the more happier early 90s five.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:03

And that's week, too, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:06

So um yeah, yeah. Well, she won. I don't know about last waltz, but I know Marissa Tomei won for that's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:15

No, she did. You're absolutely right. She won for uh for best supporting actress in this. Just so unusual for a comedy. And she's so young, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:24

What won Best Picture of the Year? Hell and Highwater was nominated.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:29

Best Picture Oscar 2016 went to Spotlight.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:35

I've never seen it.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:37

You never seen Spotlight?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:38

No. So that was a movie that was up against Hell or High Water?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:42

Yeah, Spotlight's about a uh true story about a newspaper and their attempts to expose the um predatory uh child abuse in Catholic Church. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:53

Well, that of course that wins. Uh what were the other nominees that year?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:59

Uh let's see. Let's see. It was Inside Out, The Martian, Straight Out of Compton, The Revenant, Mad Max Fury Road, Creed, Bridge of Spies.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:08

Oh God, so they really were just if it was a big movie, they were throwing it up there. That was kind of about the time I checked out of the Oscars because you know it really is about campaigning and money. I think that's right. Hang on.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:23

And we're gonna watch every single one of them next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:27

That's right. It's gonna be awesome. Uh hang on a second, maybe I was wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:35

Best picture, you know? Spotlight. Oh, I'm sorry, no, spotlight the big short, bridge of spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max Fury Road, The Martian, the Revenant, Room. I think Room, she won Best Direct Best Actress for the Room.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:50

Not the not the Room, Room. Oh, oh, Chris and Ray's old band. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

What is this feeling? I'm not believing. Sorry. Wow. So we could do this for another 30 minutes on the podcast, guys, but I think we're we should probably get out of here instead. Want to go out on a quote?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:18

I've never met nobody who got away with anything ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:26

Sorry, I'm still laughing. Um hold on, where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Okay. You Rangers are an odd bunch. May the force be with you. May the force be with you. Let's get out of here, man. Later.