Talking Pondo: Return of the Jedi and Local Hero

  In this episode, Marty gives Clif the movie Return of the Jedi to watch and Clif gives Marty the movie Local Hero to watch. 

Clif and Marty revisit 1983 by pairing two very different films released just weeks apart: Return of the Jedi and Local Hero.

They break down what makes this moment in movie history so unique: from the large-scale filmmaking and iconic imagery of Jedi to the quiet charm and character-driven storytelling of Local Hero. The conversation dives into performances, themes, and the shifting tone of early-80s cinema, with thoughtful insight into how both films have continued to influence audiences and filmmakers.

#ReturnOfTheJedi #LocalHero #1983Movies #StarWars #FilmPodcast #MovieDiscussion #80sCinema #FilmAnalysis #TalkingPondo #ClassicFilms #PopCulturePodcast 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So let me get this straight. Indoor. They're all in camo. This handpicked, specially chosen strike force. Yet they bring a six-foot golden and shiny as hell droid with them. Where they just I mean, why not just put like some it wouldn't have been cool to put paint him camo? Wouldn't that have been dope? You know, put a robe on him? Something?

SPEAKER_03 0:33

It it does lead into another discussion as well, but nobody ever said they were the best and most efficient strike team ever. We've seen what this team has done before. True. They by the time they they barely they let us go, you know. They the Empire wanted to know the Yavon Moon, and then Empire they get split up pretty quick.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

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_03 1:18

Luke Skywalker and the Space Chimps moved to Scotland and will not be seen this week, so we may bring you the following hero's journey.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Oh I'd watch it. Are we ever I don't I would too? And it turns out that the space chimp is just a 12-year-old kid with a mask, right? It's the space chimps we made along the way. Well, folks, uh there you go. There's your open there's your opening. Uh welcome back. It's uh talking pondo. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

I feel like I did see that movie where Luke Skywalker moved to Scotland. Was that one of the sequels?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

I feel like that's the one where he's doing blue milk, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Well, that was episode I was gonna say nine, but that's not right. But it but this is episode 99 of Talking Pondo. Well, if you did like 16 episodes of making Pondo, quiet you. I mean, those count as well, but you know, it's count, they count. It count. It's it all counts. It's a podcast, it's a weekly episode, you know. It's an episode, it counts. We just haven't hit two of those movies yet.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah, and just because this podcast sometimes takes a different form, like talking figgy pondo or talking math out, does not mean that it's not a valid episode, talking kill her. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

It's just doing the math when we hit episode 117, I think it is. Or is it one or would it be one of the where we do our 200th episode movie that we've covered?

unknown 3:05

Right?

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Because there were 16 interview episodes in the making, yeah. Which means you have to do 116 altogether, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yeah, you have to do it, yeah. If you do 100, that would make 116. Yeah. Well, our two hundredth. Simple math focuses and uh that's our struggle.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Yeah, and I I doubt we'll even do anything fanfare for that. It'll just be like, oh, 200th movie. But for the 99th movie, managed to squeeze in some special things. But boy, have I been hit over the head with 1983 over for the last few weeks. We watched uh the right stuff, which was three plus hours in the world of 1983, and then this week was all 1983.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Set in the world of 1950.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

You get Return of the Jedi and uh Losin' it. No, not losing it. You get 10,000 BC. Local action hero with uh no, not the Arnold movie. It was I made a joke so many times now I forgot the name of the movie. It's called Local Heroes.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

It's the yeah, no, it's you're you're gonna get confused with that tough guys movie with Kirk Douglas.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

You know, I did have that on the brain when I was watching this because it's 80s Burt Lancaster, and there's only so many of those to go around. Your film next week is Atlantic City and Rocky Horror Picture Show. As we're tying it all together for episode 100. No, episode 100, as we previously discussed, is uh our Christmas spectacular. It's our hundredth episode, and we have our special guest, uh Jessica, for that one, and we're bringing some Christmas classics. That's next week. But for this week, episode 99, if you want to get your uh Long Island accent on, even though nobody in these movies had the Long Island accent. What's the movies? The movies were Return of the Jedi and uh Local Hero, both released in 1983. As I said last time, probably the most interesting year of the 80s. And yes, I say the word interesting quite a bit. I I use it all the time for an adjective, but in this case, I really think it fits that year. Uh you hadn't quite got to the Reagan Back to the Future Ghostbusters era of the 80s that we all remember of the Goonies and that shit. And we were just barely out of the 70s, and it's kind of the last gasp of some of the 70s filmmaking in both of the films today, especially in Local Hero, I thought. But also, you still get hippie filmmaking up until like 1985 with things like Real Genius, but at that point it's more Manhattan Project, we're against the nukes. And then it becomes Robocop and we're into a whole nother planet. That was my uh diversion there.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

What I remember it's that era of like Blondie and uh that type of thing, right? Like it's not 80 by by 84, Blondie had kind of taken a backseat to like Van Halen and some of these other bands, but yeah, you know, in 80, 81, she was freaking huge, massive. Yeah, we were in thriller right then. It's that time, yeah. It's that time in the 80s, you know, when Michael Jackson's thriller hits it's it's uh off the wall Michael Jackson, it's not thriller Michael Jackson, right? That's that's where we are with these movies. It's that's that in '83. This is like local hero is like you said, kind of reflecting back, and and return of the Jedi is looking forward, like pushing. I was I was having a conversation with somebody the other day where they were talking about the fact that Lucas isn't a very good director, and I was like, who cares? He's a he's an amazing storyteller, and he's pushed the field of filmmaking farther than damn near anybody out there, as far as you know, everything. I mean, you know, Skywalker Ranch, Lucasfilm, you know, ILM. Good God, man. Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? Plus all the technical awards that he's he's got for all the Star Wars films, it's just it's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

I think he probably directed out of necessity for the first Star Wars film and for the prequels of a way to oversee more departments in a way, because he seems like so much more of a technical director, but he didn't even direct today's film. Today's film was Richard Marquan. Is that the guy's name who directed Return of the Jedi?

unknown 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Richard Marquan. Yeah. Do you want to go you want to go Jedi first since we kind of dove into that or do you want to do that?

SPEAKER_03 7:38

I I suppose so. Yeah, I guess that makes the most sense. Yeah.

unknown 7:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

I wonder which one actually came out in the theaters first. Well, how close were the release dates?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I mean, Jedi was definitely a s Jedi's definitely a summer release. Right, that's like a memorial day. May May 25th, 1983. I'm betting that's later in the fall or something like that. No, April 29th. Oh, so local hero came off first. Yeah. A local hero would have been playing at the the art house.

unknown 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah, because it was released in the United Kingdom. It's it's a it's a UK movie.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

That makes sense too. But yeah, let's let's do Jedi first. I watched Jedi first this week anyway. So it's no surprise to you, as you know I was watching Vocal Hero right up until we started recording. I don't like to do it, but it happens sometimes, you know. It's the thing of doing a podcast. I like to let the movie sit for a couple days, but sometimes you, you know, you do what you gotta do. Still try to be objective about everything. But Return of the Jedi. Uh we're starting with the bad guys for a change in a Star Wars movie. That's different. The opening shot, and you can say, Well, you saw the probot at the beginning. Yeah, well, I'm talking characters. The movie starts with, you know, Darth Vader showing up and seeing. You know, it's kind of like uh Hopper is coming here. Yes, and he is most displeased with your apparent lack of progress. So the movies do have a little bit in common, but that Bert Lancaster is not exactly Darth Vader. But anyways, what is Return of the Jedi?

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Um, okay, Star Wars, episode six, Return of the Jedi. 1983, rated PG, two hours and eleven minutes. It's always returned to Return Quest.

unknown 9:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

I believe so. I don't I I I don't remember. I think when didn't he start retconning that in between Empire and Jedi? I think so. Um so anyway, um, after rescuing Han Solo from Job of the Hutt, the Rebel Alliance attempts to destroy the second Death Star while Luke struggles to help the Darth help Darth Vader back from the dark side. Written by Lawrence Kazan and Lucas, stars the usual cast of rogue characters. Um let's see, where's your storyline here? Luke Skywalker battles horrible Job of the Hutt and cruel Darth Vader to save his comrades and the Rebel Alliance and triumph over the Galactic Empire. Han Solo and Princess Leia reaffirm their love and team with Chebaka, Lando Calrizian, the Ewoks and the Androids C3PO and R2D2 to aid in the disruption of the dark side and the defeat of the evil emperor.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

A little on the AI-ish side, but not terrible sounding. Close enough, I guess. Not very good at telling stories. This one's a little less dark than Empire, like we were talking about last time, but it's still very 1980s slimy gloppy is coming in to fashion here. You know, there's still some like E moments for a small kid, I would guess.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

My first note here is not the revenge, but the return.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

Yeah, but it was going to be ready.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Because of course, when we were kids, we all we all saw the stuff announcing it revenge, and then he changed it. And why did he change it? Because he thought it was it a Jedi would never take revenge.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

Exactly. And then then when he gets to the episode three, he found the a place for the word revenge. And you know, there's only a handful of movies that actually use the word revenge in their title. We know this because we made one of them. And every time we type it in, we see those other titles like Revenge of the Nerds, uh Revenge of the Sith, uh, I think there's a movie called Revenge with Kevin Costner. The last movie Joe Bob ever showed on the movie channel. And uh there's probably a couple others, but not very many. There's not very many. It's it's it's an interesting uh company to be in, to be one of it really. Strange films. Yeah. And Revenge of the Jedi wouldn't have made much sense, anyways, because nobody's really taking revenge in the nobody's really taking revenge in the yeah, he's not coming back to take revenge, he's trying to save his dad.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah, for a galactic space opera, the story seems to center around tattooing. It's a it's a galaxy with thousands of planets and life forms, but yet everything seems to happen in this backwater desert ass.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

You know, knowing all that we know from uh episode one on, that it's like, well, yeah, of course, because the Anakin has his roots there, and of course, Java the Hutt with like Han owes him money, so it's like you can't help but escape this fucking place. It's almost like they want to get away from it, but they can't.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah. Episode one, two, and three deals with Tatooine, seven, she's on Tatooine, you know, it's it's insane.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

It's like between that and like the only really I hate to say the word lame part is it's the Death Star again, but they manage to outdo it though. And even that iconic, I mean, even the half-built Death Star is iconic, you know. And so it's like and not to mention that dog fight at the end where they really ramp it up, and it's just like, yeah, that's pretty much the shit, guys. And then flying in the Falcon into the Death Star and hitting the reactor, and Lando fucking flying off. We you know you love it. It's awesome. But it is kind of like they're doing the Death Star again.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Yeah. Yeah, you definitely took my note, which was my biggest issue is the retread of another Death Star. It smacks of a lack of creativity, you know. Why why not a ship or have the Empire work more with the criminal element, you know, something that's different, you know, and and but you know, instead it's like, no, we're gonna rebuild a Death Star. Okay, I I guess, okay, but I guess because you just changed the design because it had that one flaw, and then suddenly it's the ultimate killing machine. And yet somehow they they make it up. You know, and then no, they do. I I completely agree. And then is it more exciting than the first movie doing it? It ends up being a bit of a trap for you know, set by the empire, and and uh it's a trap uh set by the empire for them, so it's you know it's almost like a like a lure to catch the rebels again. Like, well, if we build another one, they'll come in and try to fucking, you know, and then we can kill cut the head off of the snake off.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

There's a line like something to the extent of I don't care about that buildup of forces over there, that's insignificant. What we're doing here is we're focusing on this moon. But you know, obviously Palpatine and Darth Vader were completely blind to the fact that Yoda was still hidden, and God knows how many other countless Jedi's that hid themselves as well that Yoda didn't even know existed, but most importantly, they didn't know about Leia. I mean, Darth Vader doesn't even know until he pisses off Luke enough there at the end to where you can finally be like, oh, the twin sister and all that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

So it's like they think they got it all sewn up, but they don't really understand that these fucking ewoks are, you know, like you judge Ewok by its size. I mean, Yoda told you in the last movie that the force is in all that nature and shit, and you're not paying attention to it, like the dark side. So of course they would overtake it. And I know Ewoks are considered goofy, but they're only in like less than a half hour of the movie, and we know that they were trying to eat Han Solo. And look, let's face it, stormtroopers can't shoot for shit. It's not surprising they could be taken over by a bunch of insane teddy bears throwing rocks at them. It almost kind of makes sense. But as I said last time, it's always one step away from being the holiday special. They just did the editing a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Where to start with all of that? That was like a whole rant. Um, let me I'm going through my notes here. I'll just start from the beginning. Yeah. Um, directly replied. We can jump in and out of these things. I have a lot of fun. I like I like where you but I do like where you're going. Um so start with Jabba's palace, right? Like I love how Jabba is a big fat drug slug crime lord, and that's their that's the head of the mafia. That that kind of tracks. Um, I always thought Bib Fortuna was really fucking cool, right? Um, but one of the things also things I find weird is you know when they take uh R2 and and C3Pio back to talk to the head droid that runs the droids for Java's Palace, and they're torturing that droid by branding his feet. The idea that a droid can feel that is really fucking weird to me. It's like a like just the idea of torturing a robot in general is kind of fucking strange.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

It makes me right where I'm like makes me think about that Polo movie with the droid uprising and stuff. Those movies aren't well executed, the other Star Wars movies, the Disney ones, but the concepts that lie within them are somewhat interesting and they do sort of attach to the original in a way.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

It's the it's the right move to start the movie with uh hands rescue. Um you don't want to you don't want to move you don't want to wait on that, you want to get that done right away and make it a big make it a whole big you know spectacle like he does.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

And it's such a tight opening, too. I mean, that's just there's no fat on that Java sequence. It is just I mean, we saw it so many times that we got jaded and thought it was dull or whatever. Oh, here's the Java scene again, or no, no, that's like that is Chef's kiss.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

I especially love when she yeah, I especially loves when she brings Chewy in and pulls out the detonator and you know uh I I love all that.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Luke was gonna shoot Jabba, he'd just fucking reach for that gun with the force, he was just gonna be like, BAM, this is over right here. But no, he falls into the Rancor pit. And that's the more of the context we have. Whether you like Book of Boba Fett or not, if you've seen it, you're thinking about that thing as the pet, you know, and Luke didn't mean to kill it, but he had to. So when you see the Rancor keeper bawling over it, you know the context more of what the Rancor is.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Well, and and once again, it's a movie full of really cool moments Rancor, Chewy Lay as the bounty hunter, Sarlac Pitt, you know, all this really cool shit. The I the song by the the you know the the the I can't remember who who it is that's singing, but I haven't heard a song that bad since hopscotch. Like, oh my god, it was it was pretty awful. But the size noodles band away. Yeah, the cise noodles band.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

You can almost see why they changed it, but they made it into something worse. At least here it's borderline holiday special, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Yeah, yeah. And you know, you know, and you know you're a badass when Boba Fett's giving you the nod of respect, you know, and he's just like, yeah, okay, you're not playing. But yeah, that whole that whole thing's great. I I like it more like Albert did.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

The only my only biggest problem with it is that there's too many friggin' puppets. Uh like this is where we start to go into the uh for me, we go from Star Wars into kind of kid he's really kind of trying to pull in that next, he he hasn't followed his audience, he's gone and tried to still pull in kids in that next kid generation, so he's leaning heavy on puppets in certain instances. I like you've got um, of course, Java, then you've got uh what's the little thing next to Salacious Chrome. It's so iconic, though. I mean you've got the you've got the Max Rebo band, they're I'm and then later you've got later you've got Yoda, you know. It's a it's a fucking lot of puppets, but he didn't do that really in the first one. He did a little mainly like the the band at the cantina was yeah, the masks and kind of humanoids and stuff like that, right? So um, and I didn't mind Yoda being a puppet, but suddenly it's like Jedi is littered with puppets. Like it's just puppets everywhere. It was the time of the of the technology. I do like I do like that that uh Lucas took like the opportunity in the Jabba scenes to kind of show the diversity, like that's where you get to see because that's uh one of my favorite things about the Cantina scene in Star Wars is you walk in and it's oh now suddenly it's not just humans, there's a diversity of life here. We're opening up even more than that. Yeah, yeah, and Jabba's Palace was just like that. Yeah, that like really fast and that was cool. Yeah, yeah, and you even get some stop motion with the Rancor. You know, I mean uh these these films kind of set the bar for technical and kind of technique-driven filmmaking and broke so much ground for other people, you know, all the computer controlled cameras, all this kind of crazy shit. You know, they were they were just winning technical awards and technical award for this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

Yeah. You know, Jalba Java took it personal. He should have treated it like business. That's where he fucked up because he was just he was pissed that Han took so long to get back to him or whatever. He didn't even want to unfreeze him. He's like, I'll pay you triple. And it's like he wouldn't negotiate with Luke, and Luke's like, I'm gonna we're gonna kill you, you know, and he's like, No, fuck you, and it's like, okay, well then everybody. Die. But somehow Bib Fortuna, who I could have sworn was on that ship, lives because he's taken over in Book of Boba Fett. So maybe blinking you'll miss uh some people getting the fuck out of there before shit really hit the fan. But boy, they took everybody down. And you kind of think, well, didn't any other mob boss notice? Yeah, they did. Bib Fortuna took over the vacancy. But one thing I really noticed in this movie, among other things, was this Jedi and the Sith, they always seem to underestimate the criminal element. The criminals are the ones who are really running the Star Wars universe. They create all the ships for everybody, it seems like, as we learned in Last Jedi. And, you know, it's the Boba Fettes and the Huts is what makes the universe go round, the people smuggling the Landos and the Han. See, we're emperor's underestimating fucking Lando Calrizian is gonna blow your shit up. The Sabox player fucking you know spice mine trader guy. He shouldn't be here, but but you fucked everything up. And now he is here, and you underestimated that shit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

You underestimated his criminal abilities and what what it what all he did is a criminal.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

Like a James Bond villain. I have to reveal my plan to you and do it this specific way rather than just killing you right now. We have to take the satisfaction in it. Well, you're taking too long. No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Luke swinging Leia onto the desert skiff is another echo. Of the first movie, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

Um, it that might be more iconic than the first one. The speeder bike scene alone, we had never seen anything like that back then. We saw Tron, but this goes to another level.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah, this this the speeder bike scene was that so you remember the return, you know, remember how they had an arcade game for each of them, right? Well, and and for me, the Return of the Jedi one was one of my favorites because of that speeder bike indoor section. It was kind of a bitch to play, but once you got the hang of it, you could zip right through it. It was really cool, and I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Iconic performance in this one. I mean, this is the Obi-Wan you quote is Return of the Jedi Obi-Wan. Then the Emperor has already won. You are our only hope. I mean, there's a couple other lines he says too, or from a certain point of view. That comes from this movie. That shit's like branded. You know, looking back on these, yeah, I realize just how much comes from Return of the Jedi. There's a lot comes from the first two, but this one, this one's the font.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

My favorite, a couple of my favorites are, of course, the the of course, one of them's a meme, which is it's an older code, sir, but it checks out. That's another quotable and then uh I don't know, fly casual is one of my favorite. It's always been one of my absolute favorite lines. So, one thing I want to talk about. Okay, so moving on to a little bit of indoor, right? Oh, well, and I also want to say this the great thing about these movies, growing up with these movies as a kid, which you and I did, is um of course they would come out in in the summer, you'd go see it during the summer, and then you'd wait for that big toy rush for Christmas because you were just obsessing over the new ships that you'd seen. You know, Empire, you got the B Wing and all that stuff, and you got the you know, and then by Jedi, you're getting an A-wing, you're getting fucking different TIE fighters now, you know, you're getting you know, all that stuff. So it was it was always cool to be able to have all these ships to kind of obsess over and be like, oh, that's the medical transport. That's cool. Oh, look at another thing, you know. There's a Y-wing, cool, man, you know, anyway. Um but so let me get this straight. Indoor. They're all in camo, this uh hand-picked, uh specially chosen strike force, yet they bring a six-foot golden and shiny as hell droid with them. Uh where they just put like some it wouldn't have been cool to put paint him camo, wouldn't that have been dope? You know, put a robe on him?

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Something it it does lead into another discussion as well, but nobody ever said they were the best, the most efficient strike team ever. We we've seen what this team has done before. True. They by the time they they barely they let us go, you know. They just the Empire wanted to know the Avon Moon, and then Empire they get split up pretty quick. But here, here they actually get to go on a little adventure together. They all get really good scenes with each other mixing and matching.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

And it does lead up to the fact that the Ewoks think Three Pio is a god. Yes. And you go, wait a minute, God in Star Wars? Let's examine this. Now, obviously, the easy uh answer is somebody's probably already written about it. There's so many freaking Star Wars books, but I look at it as like, well, since the Jedi's don't necessarily have gods, do they look at them as primitives with gods like a primitive thing in in the Star Wars universe? Or is this just a throwaway line you're not supposed to analyze this much, but it's a podcast?

SPEAKER_00 27:42

I don't know. I I uh one of my favorite things about about Star Wars is that I've read some I've read the books and stuff like that, but I've tried to stay away from like the unprinted lore. And I honestly can't remember if maybe in the Timothy Zahn books he talks about how the Jedi or you know maybe treat all sentient life forms the same or not, or if they have that, but I can't remember, honestly.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

It's also interesting, and it is interesting. I think that's a proper use of the word again. Uh that most people consider the Endor the Ewok stuff to be the weakest part of the movie. And I think it's because of the rewrites, because this was supposed to be Cashy originally, right? It was supposed to be a planet of Wookiees, right? But he didn't get to do that until like episode three. Yeah. And so he went for the half size instead. Would have been super cool for Wookiees, though, man. And so it's like, but I still think what's essential of what they were trying to convey in that story-wise beats are in that part, and I think they caught that early enough before they went into production. It feels like in any ways that it just feels organic, like it's always been that way. But I think that might be why some of that stuff registers is kind of odd. But it's really like less than a half hour of the movie is ewok time, and a lot of it's a lot of cool shit, like the two logs smashing the fucking chicken walker. I mean, that's it that's iconic.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

That's I have a note. My favorite part of the ewok battle is the logs on the chicken water and the dead ewok checking on his friend.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

Oh, of course they make you care about it. Yeah, you can't say you didn't care about that. That's like lying about E.T. Exactly. And our whole generation knows that. You saw this in the theater, they made you care about those fucking ewoks. You can't say you didn't care about them. They had enough of a budget to where they they had facial expressions and emotions. When you watch the Ewok movies for it's made for TV, they ain't got no emotion. They got fucking dead eyes, man. But in this movie, they still had enough of a budget to where they all had personalities and stuff, at least.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

You know, well, and and they had I think they had better actors who could who could kind of pull that off. There were some pretty good actors for this.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

Um there's an Ewok smoking at one point. He's smoking a pipe, listening to the C3 pipe.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah, yeah. The speeder bike thing, that's basically just that's the that's the beginning of uh this is pod racing, you know. Immediately, that's what I think of when I see the speeder bike stuff now.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

And it makes sense why they both have that skill, you know, they're Anakin's kid. Yeah, that green and Anakin's woke up again in a way. He's not just Darth Vader anymore at that point, so it's time for pop.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

That that green saber is is I love it. I love that green saber.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

That's one of the best scenes in the whole movie, is when Luke, who I think just wanted to ride in an adat, dropped off to meet with Darth Vader. I'm like, he just wanted to ride in the fucking ad-at. But then they have that whole scene, and it's the most powerful scene in the movie, I think, is after Luke gets in the elevator and the Darth Vader has his moment of doubt by himself. And it's like, oh shit, things are changing. You can almost see Hayden Christensen under the mask, you know. Yeah, it's like it's too late for me, and it's like, yeah, you killed all those younglings and shit. You don't even know what this fucker did.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

But it's still let me ask you this. Uh so I had this, so I just had this flash of a thought. So do you like or dislike the idea of having Hayden Christensen put in as the force ghost for Anison for Anakin?

SPEAKER_03 31:28

When I going through these again, and it's one of my notes, is now I realize the special edition versions, they're made to match episodes one, two, and three. Right. That's why they have that. But I still think there's nothing wrong with the 80s versions existing as their own trilogy as well, where I get by Darth Vader, who has eyebrows, you know. Yeah, totally. So I've come to terms with it once again, where I go, it's supposed to match those. It's supposed to match the prequels. That's why, like, oh, what is what is going on here? Why are there gunguns at the end of Jedi? Well, that's because it's matching, it's the one, two, and three version. He even made the color palettes of those movies change to those. So going through these original versions again made me realize, oh, they have their time and place. And if I was doing a run of one, two, and three, I might actually watch the specials of four, five, and six after to see if it feels more akin to it. But we still need these versions because these were the ones that we all saw.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

I kind of, for me, I I kind of like I I kind of like the the Hayden Christensen update. Like It makes sense. It does make sense, and I can and but I can also see it like, okay, so at the end of Is it at the end of Empire where they're all, or is it Jedi where they're all where yeah, it's at the end of uh Jedi where they're all all the force ghosts are standing there nodding at Luke. Yeah, you know, congrat you know and I like that being him, but I think isn't there another point where that's there where it's no, yeah, but I also yeah, I I agree with you. I I I don't mind Anakin. I got I got a little confused there. I was thinking about something else, but uh you know I was thinking there was another there was another film where there's another force ghost that could have been Anakin.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

It's just Obi-Wan and Yoda, and then it's Anakin is the ghost. And then if you go to episode nine, all other ball of wax with the force ghosts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Yeah. Uh at one point, one of the ewaks says, Ichihuawa. It says, What? You heard me.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

Ichi Wawa.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Oh, I really didn't. At one point, one of the ewaks says, Ichiwawa! Um, so Leia runs off into the forest with her new friend that is basically a living teddy bear.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

Um, I understand why I know what I was gonna say real quick. I understand why his eyebrows are gone. Darth Vader's eyebrows are gone in the special edition, because he burned up. He wouldn't be able to grow eyebrows back. Well, I guess. But anyways, Leia runs off with uh Leah runs off.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

With a living teddy bear. Um, do you know about the the how I met your mother theory that about about Ewoks and Barney's the Barney Stenson's Ewok theory in Return of the Jedi? Let's elaborate on this. So basically he says that kids born after May 25th, 1973 like Ewoks because they were young enough to enjoy them. And people born before that date think ewoks are fucking stupid. And so I think I'm kind of straddling that line. I'm born, I'm born that year after that, but I still don't I still think Ewoks are probably like the second or third worst thing Lucas did in the entire series of movies. Because I other than Jar Jar Binks. Yeah, which is probably the biggest fumble. That's his biggest fumble.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

Yeah. Yeah, because at least at least these Ewoks connect to all the iconic moments that we remember. Yeah, they just annoy me, Marty. I mean they just annoy me at all. I'm okay with them because they're just they serve their purpose. I I don't even see it as almost too kiddie, because even that's like violent, you know. They're murder bears, they were gonna put Han Solo in a spit and eat him. They're playing bongos on the stormtroopers' helmets at the end. They're they're very savage, uh savage race. And you also think they were supposed to be Wookiees, right? And so what a different, totally different slant that would have been because then you don't have that kitty. So if I look at it and think, okay, what if I just look at this as they're just this other species they run into that just happen to be bears? Well, the emperor wasn't expecting fucking bears. Well, because nobody expects fucking bears. And so I was finally okay with it this time, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Do you think that he should have, you know, um, I think there are films or film series that hit like Harry Potter.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

Because we watched episodes seven, eight, and nine, and now we I realize how good I had it with Return of the Jack. Okay, that's totally what it comes down to. You know.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

So these movies in the end are basically, especially I think four, five, and six. I don't feel like one, two, and three or seven, eight, and nine are really suit I don't think seven, eight, nine are super geared towards kids. I think they're geared towards an adult audience that wants to see a series of sequels. Yeah, it'll be interesting if we analyze one day. Yeah. Um, but I do feel like Star Wars, Empire, Return are are geared sh right at that, you know, eight to twelve year old and more and higher audience, right? But it they're they're really playing two kids to a certain expo. But you know, there are a series of movies like Harry Potter where as the kids have grown up, the movies have gotten more sophisticated, right? Like, you know, every year he goes to school and he's a little bit older, and so the movies get a little bit more less less childlike and a little more serious, right? Until you finally hear with Deathly Hallows and he's you know, he's having to kill somebody and all this shit. Do you think that Lucas should have grown his movies up? Like I imagine that would have been an amazingly different three movies if he had gone like, okay, these kids, you know, these kids that were 10 that saw it, now they're 12, now they're 14. You know what I mean, or or whatever, 13 and 16. You know, I think it took him three, what, three years to do each movie or something like that? Well, I'm just curious what your thought is. Maybe I'm just reaching.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Outside of the it's interesting though. Once again, I'm using that word correctly, I think. My limit for using that word is probably meant for the episode now. Can't say interesting, again, I have to come up with a different adjective. But no, you bring up a good point. But I think watching this movie again, uh being in my 50s now, and outside of the uh Muppet element, I feel like the movies do get more sophisticated as they go. Especially this one. I mean, we get Yoda dying, we get all of the everything's coming to a head, all of the intense scenes with Luke and Darth Vader, and then Luke and Leia have the good scene about you know, we're related, and all this stuff starts to unfold. There's a lot of a lot more drama and and things happening in this one than I would always kind of take it for granted, like, oh, it's just the ewok one, it's the kitty one. It's like, oh, I think I was just missing this too much. I think there's a lot heavier feeling. I think you're right, especially when you know those prequels and stuff, and it's like, oh shit, and Anakin's coming together. So maybe he did grow them up. Yeah, I didn't really think of it, but from that certain point of view, as he likes to say, it made me look at this one in a totally different light now.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Yeah. I love that discussion with, like you said, the Vader and at the end with the, you know, then my father is truly dead. You know, it took three movies to get to that exposition, right? To get to the father and the son, meeting, and and and instead of immediately fighting now, this let this time they're having a a calm conversation. You know what I mean? He's not accusing him of anything, and you know, and Vader's not trying to lure him to the dark side with you know, it's just like, well, this is gonna happen. What do you want to do?

SPEAKER_01 39:37

And he's like, Are you sure you fucking want to do this? Like, we can just you and I can just fucking kill this guy, get the fuck out of here, and it'll be fine, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Nope, nope, this is the dark side. You gotta fucking do what the dark side says, you know. All right, you can almost like I said, it's a trap.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

It's a trap and moment. It was, but they were both traps. You can almost feel the Hayden Christensen under the mask thinking, the fuck is the he's he's fucking the emperor's telling him what's up, and he's like basically saying, Fuck you. He's like, dude, you don't want you don't want to do that. Here we go. And the emperor because he's like, Oh, I'm waiting for this shit because I rem I know who's under that mask and how cocky you were, and everything just coming to this massive head. So as much as I don't like those Disney movies, they've added something weird to it because I have the solo movie in my head that's playing on out in the other battle with Lando, and then there's Han, who was a former Imperial, knowing their tricks, so he could fucking fool them into coming around to the back, you know, to break in. Emperor wasn't expecting that either.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

It just added these layers to it, you know. I love how Luke gets mad his dad, his dad mentions his sister, you know. That's Luke's girl to kiss, not dad's. Space operas. Space operas are weird like that, right? Well, they put that Oedipus thing in there a lot. But hey, Cutting McFord used the roadie for the doors, so yeah. Cutting off Vader's hand seems like equal justice, but you know, but later we learn that ain't Vader's first time for that. Right. You know. Uh this is one thing I'll say. In in today's filmmaking, Luke escaping the Death Star with his father, in my opinion, would be a much longer sequence. Yeah. You know, pacing be damned. They would just, they would, you know, oh, he's gonna drag him, and then he's gonna get him into the seat and check on him, and then he's gonna have problem. You know, instead, it's Luke's dragging him, boom, they're taken off, you know, and they're gone. And then it's just he's gotta get it, yeah, you gotta get out, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:43

Darth Vader funeral pyre. Iconic.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Iconic.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

It's amazing. I mean, my favorite part of the whole movie, I think, is those guys running past Darth Vader at the end when he's all fucked up and Luke is carrying him, and they're they're running, they're running and they look over, and I'm imagining them thinking, fuck, Darth Vader is fucked up. We are in trouble. I gotta get the fuck out of here. Because he's all stumbling and shit, and people are just running, they're like, Oh my god, that motherfucker's in trouble. They fucked him up. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

They're gonna kill all of us, they're gonna kill all of us.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

Yeah, yeah, that that always cracks me up that part. It's not supposed to be funny, but in that kind of you know uh troops aspect of Star Wars with the comedy stormtroopers, you could almost imagine you know that type of storyline going on with them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

So imagine that you're a highly trained and equipped Imperial Imperial Trooper, and then you land on this jungle planet, and then suddenly there's an ewok rampage, and you and you get your ass kicked by some fucking fuzzy three-foot jungle bears. Like, you know, that's a that's the most beautiful metaphor for Vietnam, I think I've ever heard in my entire life. It's I mean, not not calling the Vietnamese three-foot jungle bears, but just saying, you know, that that coming in on somebody else's somebody else's jungle and trying to trying to get whoop some ass and getting your ass kicked, type of thing. Yeah, it's it's a good film. I I I enjoy it quite a bit. Uh, I hadn't seen it. Yeah, I don't know, probably in a decade. It's it's I just don't know much.

SPEAKER_03 43:29

It was on all the time for a while.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Yeah, I don't revisit the trilogies. I watched them a lot in the 2000s when as because as these other ones were coming out, I would be like, whoop, I'm gonna watch them in series and see how they are. Oh, I'm gonna watch them in series and see how they are. The best one that I've Oh, go ahead. No, the best one in series that I've seen that butts up beautifully is um uh Rogue One. It butts up perfectly to Star Wars. And the rest of them just kind of meh, they're their own little segments.

SPEAKER_03 43:59

Anyway. It was good to get some distance from it to go back and yeah. Also the original version of this just has some mild tweaks like the song in Java's Palace talk about making it even more kitty-like. I remember opening day people kind of groaning during that part.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Yeah. Yeah. It was just like, oh that's unnecessary.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

We can just have our goofy size noodles song and my yub yub ewok song at the end. Thank you. Yep, yep. Very much. As ridiculous as that is as well. Yep. I it's hard to imagine this movie without that, even though it's easy to watch this movie without it. I always hear the yub yub song.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

I often wonder what a what a Return of the Jedi movie without Ewoks would have been like.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Well, maybe it'd be a little more Revenge of the Sith like. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Because we get the Kashyyyk planet there, we finally get our world of Wookiees. When we talk about episode three, that'll be a fun time to uh compare and contrast. But looking back at it this time and having gone through the other two as well, and uh my previous uh controversial stance about how A New Hope was the best one when for years I was always saying Empire was the best one. This is the best Star Wars movie, period. This is where it all comes. When you think about Star Wars, all those iconic things and the lines from It's a Trap, fucking down on. I could have wrote and wrote almost every other line from this movie as a meme or and and it moves so well, that Jabba scene is so tight, and then we just move right into the next sequence with the Yoda death, and then it, you know, I love Empire, but like I was saying last time, you get the ad-at thing, it's like it's a it's it's nice, but it's it's not as fucking tight as that fucking Jabba sequence. And and like the first movie, they diddle dally until they meet each other and then they fucking have their small adventure. But here we get to see the whole gang together. They have such great fucking scenes with everybody. Luke has good scenes with Han, Hans has good scenes with Leia, Leia has good scenes with Luke, fucking Darth Vader and Luke and the fucking Emperor's coming back, and fucking Han thinks his ship's gonna get blown up, and it's all coming to a fucking head right here. And I used to underestimate, I was like, oh, that's the worst one. Remember when we used to think that was the worst one was the joke about the newer movies, you know. But also having seen the newer movies makes me appreciate this one a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

I wouldn't I would nowhere near put this as the worst one at all. I think out of the trilogy, it's the it's the one I rank the lowest.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

That's what I used to, but now it's my favorite of all the Star Wars movies, period.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

I still no, I'll still stand, I'll still stand Empire for all for all time.

SPEAKER_03 47:01

That has a few uh great moments, but this one's nothing but well.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

I mean, you know, it's not my fault, you know. I mean, Empire's got it's not my fault. It's the beginning of Book of Fett, it's all that stuff, and then and then and then even Star Wars has got you know, use use the use the force loop and all that type of shit.

SPEAKER_03 47:18

You know, my God, did they really knock it out of the park with this movie?

SPEAKER_00 47:23

Yeah, oh absolutely. Um I I just I again think fucking speeder bikes.

SPEAKER_03 47:29

My god, that's such a tight scene. All the fucking fighters come at them when they come out before they realize it's a trap. And it's like it's the one of the most fucking space battle sequence, it totally outdoes the first movie. Where I was saying you're almost falling asleep by the time you get to that part, you know, but they had figured out the pacing of what Star Wars was the only other thing that comes close, maybe is Attack of the Clones, maybe that opening sequence with Attack of the Clones.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

But that's all I will say the Jedi stuff is you know, at least more of a it's not digital, it's it's a physical, um practical effect. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 48:08

Yeah. I I could have written down the lines, but I've would have written like every third line. And you'd be like, yep, yep, that one lives in my head rent-free too. Yep, yep, that's a meme. Yep, that's yeah. Couldn't believe how much I enjoyed it. I was trepidatious putting it on, even though I'm the one who picked it, because it's like, okay, here we go again with this interminable Java shit and then knee walk shit, but I was just eating it up. Just like, shoot that fucking lightsaber at me, fucking R2, and I'll grab it and do a backflip and start fucking chopping motherfuckers up. And thinking, oh yeah, Boba Fett's gonna come out of that fucking sarc pit and go live for Boba Fett.

SPEAKER_04 48:57

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 48:59

Oh yeah. Yoda dying. My god. It's that's that's that's some intense shit when you're like fucking 10 years old, you know. And then here comes Obi-Wan again, it's laying it all out, you know, and it's like, yeah, it's just so good. But I I like them all. You know, I'll give this one five as well. I have no reason not to give any of three of these a five. It's just too much going on here.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

I you know, I I I I've thought about it because I I gave Star Wars a five, I gave Empire a five. And I just I don't I think again, I think it's the least of the three, but I think it's still probably the least of the three five stars. You know, maybe I could maybe go 4.7, but I can't go four and a half. So, and four point seven rounds up to five. So it's I'm gonna have to go five stars.

SPEAKER_03 49:54

So it changed things too much, just for Lando blowing up the fucking core and saying yeeha and fucking slingshotting out of the fucking Death Star alone with that blast behind him. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

And that's some great moments for sure. I I I it's uh, you know, again, two what is it, two hours, I think, two and two eleven, something like that. So it's pretty long, but um it knows it's chasing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:20

Yeah, a little bit less ewak for me, please, George. There's not much ewok. No. And then when you go into some of the other movies and you go, fuck, there's a lot of Jar Jar in this shit. Too much fucking Jar Jar. Whew. And a pod race that goes on forever, but that's for another day. But now we have another film from 1983 that also has some pretty good pacing as well. Might be a little on the long side, but movies tended to be back then. But what is Local Hero from 1983? To do a very short setup because we're we'd almost be wrapping up by now, but that was Return of the Jedi, so.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Well, no reason, you know, we can talk as long as we want to talk, god dang it. Anyway, um, Local Hero, 1983, uh rate of PG, one hour and fifty-one minutes. An American oil company has plans for a new refinery and sends someone to Scotland to buy up an entire village, but things don't go as expected. This is written and directed by Bill Forsyth, um, starring Bert Lancaster, Peter Ragert, and Fulton McKay, or Mackay, I think. Let me get his storyline for you. Mackay. Oil billionaire Happer sends Mac to a remote Scottish village to secure the property rights for an oil refinery they want to build. Mac teams up with Danny and starts the negotiation negotiations, excuse me. The locals are keen to get their hands on the silver dollar and can't believe their luck. However, a local hermit and beach scavenger, Ben Knox, lives in a shack on the Crucial Beach, which he also owns. Happer is more interested in the northern lights, and Danny and a surreal girl with web feet, Marina. Mac is used to it is used to a Houston office with fax machines, but is bored is is forced to negotiate on Ben's terms. Sorry, I could have written that read that better.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

They could have written that better. I I mean, they these this I'm I'm glad you've watched the movie already, viewer. Because some of that shit does not happen for so long into the movie, and the description makes it sound like it's all in the first ten minutes.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Yeah, yeah. Um so speaking of minutes, I'm one minute into the film, and I had to pause because there's a credit that I have never seen before, and it was called a lighting cameraman. I have never seen a credit, a lighting cameraman credit, in my entire life, and I had to look it up. And uh so the guy's name is who's the lighting cameraman is Chris Menjez. And so so later on the menjes for you. I I love you man fans out there. Uh or later's on the men jays, is what he says. So but uh so AI says it's sometimes used for a camera operator on a second unit who handles the lighting and the camera for their specific shots. He reports the DP and is sometimes credited for dailies footage. So I thought I found that very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 53:07

I wonder if that's a term that doesn't get used as much since this movie's first fucking time I'd ever seen it.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

And I think, I mean, I don't know if it was I didn't necessarily see a DOP credit here, so maybe and maybe that's British, where I guess if you just handle the cinematography and the lighting, then you're you're the camera lighting. Lighting different times, yeah. Wild.

SPEAKER_03 53:34

Anyway. Well, you know, we watched Waking Ned Devine. I wrote Levine in my notes. Jeez. Waking Nick Levine, yeah. And that was very early in the season. Now we're towards the end of the season and we're watching this one, and it feels like a nice bookend in a way. It does. I was thinking the same thing. Almost 15 years before that one. But I feel like the Ned movie was inspired in ways by the tone of this, the feel.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

Not necessarily a story, per se, but it's got that It's got that slow kind of rye um uh small town feel to it, you know? Um a lot of weird characters, kind of their own sort of logic that's both funny and sort of correct at the same time, and and uh sass to strangers.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

There was a line that kind of for me summed up that whole thing. And we've watched a couple of movies, like that train spotting was another one that fell in, the the full Monty, and the line was something like in in this movie, it was uh and I'm not saying it right, but you you'll remember what I'm talking about. Uh, did he sign the thing? He just wants more sprouts. And it's like that is that that's that type of humor. That's in a fucking nutshell, that type of and that that's the whole tone, everything right there.

unknown 55:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Well, there's another one where they're talking about the money because you want to buy a house because I'm trying to sell one, Charlie. You know, because they're all because the premise of the movie is basically this oil company's coming in, and the town is thrilled that this oil can they're gonna give them 20 million dollars, everybody's gonna get it cut, they're gonna get profits for 10 years, they're gonna be a percentage of profits because the the company's gonna build this massive oil holding and shipping area. And of course, there's one dude who owns four miles of beach and lives on the beach and he doesn't want to sell. Uh which we don't find out about until about 90 minutes into the movie. Exactly. Yeah, because we think the deal's all done and everybody that you know, everybody's partying and they're all excited and happy. We know it's like something's gonna ruin this deal.

SPEAKER_03 55:49

I feel like I may have seen parts of this years ago. It seems sort of familiar, and not just because of the year it was made. No, I know what you mean. Because I'm sitting there going, oh yeah, this isn't gonna turn out right, and then you know, I was the fish out of water, but it turns out that I actually like it here more, and I'm gonna stay here. But it wasn't it wasn't as bad as some of those other movies where it's like the whole story hinges on did the person oh, you fucked up, you fucked up, we were gonna do the thing and make all the money, and now uh it just kind of oh, it didn't happen, and oh, but hey, you know, life goes on, you're my friend, blah blah blah. And that was the different approach this one seemed to have for that type of thing, which makes this one a little more charming than some of those other paintbinders.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

Well, it's I think because the deal was still gonna go through, right? Because what he said was Well, there was work and money, but it was doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

What Happer said was like, we're still gonna buy it all, just tell him to move the oil place somewhere else, because I'm gonna make an institute here, you know, because he's he and that dude are looking at the stars and all that shit, right? So that's why everybody was happy, right? Like everybody's good to go. My one of my favorite parts early in the movie is when he's talking to when Happer's talking to Mac and he hits that button and suddenly the roof opens up and the dude's got a fucking planetarium in his office. I'm like, oh dude, that's fucking cool for 83. That's really dope. What a cool idea. I really liked that. Um music by Mark Knoffler was a surprise. I didn't know that he'd ever scored new movies.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:36

You got Sophie from Nate and Hayes.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

I was about to say the same thing. The the swimming girl is Sophie from Nate and Hayes. I'm like, ah, here she is, showing up again. That's so awesome. Uh it's it's crazy. What are you thinking about, Marty? Girls, naked girls in a fish tank.

SPEAKER_03 57:59

And it's it's an 80s, early 80s movie that so many of these mid-90s movies start to emulate, but they do it in that 90s way, and I feel like I like this one a little more than some of those. I like those as well, but this one's a little more refreshing in a way.

SPEAKER_00 58:21

No, I know what you mean. It it it's definitely kind of like you said, it's a character piece. It's very Doc Hollywood to a certain extent. Guy has to, you know, stay in a small town, makes friends, you know, kind of falls in love with the town and the people in it, that type of thing. Um the town, of course, is charming but weird, all that type of shit. You know, uh, I I I liked it, I I quite liked it. I like the fact that the character is like early on, the the Mac is kind of a douche. He's calling those girls and fighting with them and you know, trying to get one of them, you know, it's like his his his flirting is just way terrible. You know, he's just not a real good dude. Like a billy, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 59:06

He learns that he'd rather be here. That's exactly it. One of the things I liked about it, you reminded me just now, is some of those other movies, they really kind of have this slant of city's life sucks. But this one doesn't. This one's just like he he just it's not working for him the way it was anymore. It's not like the some of these other movies where it's like, I can't believe I ever wanted to live in the city and it's fucking horrible, and I have to live out here. And it's like, hey now, come on, we've we can both live in equal measure here, you know. It doesn't have to be shit on big city life, you know. That's that has its footing as well. And this, but this movie doesn't do that, and that's another reason I liked it. It was more realistic in that respect. He's just done, you know, he's automatically onto the phone to them at the end of the movie, right? Like he wants to go back.

unknown 1:00:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:02

So it's understated, and there's not a bit lot of plot, but it's just kind of not supposed to be, you know. Yeah, it's art.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

You can tell he's not happy to leave, but at the same time, he knows, you know, I think he always knew he was going to. He of course he gets drunk and says, you know, hey, you could be me, just go back and take my job, and I'll stay here with you know, be in with your wife and all that. Uh but so here's something. He's got another version of himself out there, that other guy. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So about 22 minutes into the movie, 22 and a half, he and Daniel, um, Mac and Daniel, they they're entering the hotel. This is where, you know, they're like, hey, can we come in? You know, we got a uh, you know, the hotel doesn't open till eight. Well, can we come in anyways? We got a sick rabbit, you know. And so they he lets them in to the hotel or tells them, hey, the door's never locked, and they go in. So there's that this scene where they're entering. It's so weird. I don't, I, I, I don't know if they were trying to be funny or if it if maybe I'm just missing the point. But so they enter into the hotel and into the dining room, and the owner walks, there's a table in the middle of the room, right? A dining table, the table later where we'll see them eat several times, right? And so the owner walks uh downstage around the table, and Daniel starts to go upstage around the table, and uh Mac is following him, and then Daniel for some reason just stops and decides to go. He wants to go around the table and go downstage, which means he runs directly into Mac, who shoves him aside as he continues going upstage around. It's the weirdest fucking like, what in the fuck? Type of like what does it matter to Daniel which side of the table he's going on? I guess is he I don't it was strange. It was it was a very weird, like, what it was kind of the weirdest, for me, the weirdest choice in the movie. Uh every other, every other thing about this movie was really um pretty enjoyable. It's a it's a languid pace. Like it takes its time, you get to know everybody, you get to know Mac, you get to know Daniel, you get to know Maria, you get to know everybody in the town, pretty much, at least the accountant. The main people are the main people, the Russian dude that just suddenly shows up and sings the worst karaoke of all time, and and the whole we have to watch the listen to the whole song. It was that was uh that was fun. Shades of Give Me Liberty.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:20

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

That's that's a good call. License to Deal in Game is an interesting title for a plaque. You should have known bringing a sick bunny into there, they were probably gonna feed it to you if it were they couldn't fix it. That's exactly what they did. Poor Trudy. Poor, poor Trudy. So I noticed this. And I I want to have this discussion with you. Mac is the type of guy with that when you set a plate of food in front of him, he salts it before he does before he even takes a bite, he puts salt on it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:03

Oh, I did notice that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

Yeah, now are you the type of person who salts your food? Like if somebody puts like if you're at a restaurant and somebody puts a plate of food in front of you, do you just immediately grab the salt and start to salt it? Or do you take a bite first and see if it needs salt?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:15

I I rarely put salt on things anyway, so yeah, same.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

But I always taste it first. Like, why would you you know because that that's that's a character trait they put in on purpose, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:30

Well, and just in general, people taste your food before you salt it. That's that's that's a good thing to do. Don't don't just assume that it's not gonna be salty.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:38

He just jumped right in and assumed that the deal was gonna be one way, and it turned out it didn't need the salt. An allegory for the movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:47

It's a it's a weird ass movie. I mean, I at one point he's just standing there, they're all he's standing around a bunch of dudes, and they're down at the dock, and he's asking what they're doing. Oh, we're fixing the net so we can catch lobster. Oh, whose baby is it? And they all just look at him. Like there's no explanation for it. They all just look at him, and then the scene cuts back to something else. Like, it's like, what in the heck? This movie is fucking weird. It's funny and it's kind of weird. None of us are quite sure whose baby it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:20

It's whack. It's like a dances with wolves, Doc Hollywood comedy type of, you know, gone native, you know, like you said, fish out of water. Um give me your give me give me four eight-year-olds and a ten-year-old has to be the craziest line I've heard. The craziest line of dialogue I've heard in a long fucking time, dude. Weird part of dialogue. He's like, give me give me some 26-year-old Scott. She's like, I don't have any more. He's like, Well, then give me two eight-year-olds and a 10-year-old. And I'm just like, what the fuck, bro? Oh, that's hilarious. Snuck that right in. I love the therapist who keeps working with Hap, and eventually it's just calling him and berating him and calling him a stupid ass and leaving him notes. And you know, at one point it's like, I'm gonna, you know, I think it's time we just start punching you. And he's like, get out of here. What are you talking about? He's like, You punch me and I'll punch you. That was hilarious. Overall, though, a strange movie, uh, um, a fun one. Uh, I would probably watch it again, but I don't I don't know I'd watch it very much, but I really I appreciated what it did.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:38

Right, I'd always heard so much about it. That it was, you know, this important mm forgotten cult classic. And uh i if you hadn't brought it to the show, it was gonna be one of my blind picks at some point. But I'm I'm glad I watched it because I see where a lot of other things get their inspiration from. And I can't really think of a movie that feels like that before that one. Yeah. Because then we're just back in the world of like hopscotch and stuff. And they made movies a little different then. But 1983, it was the year where anything could happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

I I really like Happer's character. You know, I mean he's this oil tycoon who I mean has a head for I mean I mean he's asleep in business meetings. And yet what he's really interested in is like he because when he sends Mac out there he's like now here's Virgo pay attention to Virgo and look for a comment while you're out there and you call me the minute you see it. Right? And that's a lot of what the movie hinges on is this dude's kind of like I don't know he's like a um like a uh like a the wizard from the Wizard of Oz or something. You know he's he's one of these type of characters which gives the the film almost like a whimsical sort of um almost a fairy tale type of feel to it to a certain extent you know which I think is pulled off really nicely by the beautiful landscape and the beaches and everything you know this island's gorgeous wherever they're they're shooting it's really pretty the town's really pretty too yeah it's not like a deuce ex machina because we already know that he exists and he can come in and change everything but it's also not a bleak 70s ending where it's like he comes in he turns it off and nobody has any money.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:29

No there's a different place because it's the 80s.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:33

Yeah things are looking up again in the 80s yeah economy's looking up Reagan's in charge we're all going to win we're oil people and then pretty soon we'll get into our USA chants and we'll have Rocky IV and we'll have Red Dawn and we'll have all the rah rah Iron Eagle rah rah USA movies because there's a fuck ton of those things. Yeah well yeah exactly like gung ho maybe we'll bring have to bring gung ho on at some point it's a good movie it's understated yeah I I like it I really do I think um I also think it's it's just smart it's a smart picture it's doing what it does really well it's not trying trying to tell too complicated of a story but what it's doing is you know I love the fact that the town's just like oh this is great you need the dude's just like just you know give me three or four days guys I'll squeeze this guy for all the money we can get out of him you know I love it it turns out they didn't have to do anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:38

Nope. But like the the Ned movie reminded me in ways like they twisted it like we have to go around and convince each person to sell in that movie as opposed to everybody wanting to sell but the objective was kind of the same and it and it and it definitely what here's what I like you know they go and they negotiate with the guy and they're offering him all this money and he won't take it and you know rather than turning into some sort of fucking courtroom drama or some sort of some sort of big melodramatic thing right where they force him off the land and you know whatever and there's some sort of oh that's weird thing you were saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

Yeah or and but there's also you know maybe some sort of weird kind of statement about you know evil the evils of corporations. Instead here comes this dude who owns the place and he just basically goes oh yeah we're not doing any of that here. I mean I'm still going to buy it because I want to turn it into this nice oceanic institute and fucking you know astronomy club and then we'll move the oil over somewhere else. And it just kind of it just kind of resolves that way right like there's no there's no I like that there's no this crazy ride of tension to this unmerciless end and then fall off. You know what I mean? It's not it's just kind of like well what are we going to do and then holy shit here comes the boss. Right. And the boss comes in and fixes it because literally that's when you're at work and you get into a situation that you can't handle that's usually what happens your boss comes in and fixes it.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:06

I think it's also because of the time period it was made like all the movies that were inspired by it have a little bit more cynicism in them or a harsher edge or things sort of like that happen or in some fashion or another where it's a big blow up but this one doesn't have the big blow up it's just things don't work out the way they thought they were going to but isn't that the whole point of the movie right right so I I just finished watching it right before the recording as I mentioned earlier so it you know it it would have done better to have sat with me for a few days like any movie but this one was if you if you had to watch a movie and then get on and record about it immediately this was a good candidate for it because I can already tell that you know it's a really good movie. I got a lot out of it and I can tell it's I'm probably going to appreciate it the more I think about it. But also I don't know how often I'm gonna throw it on.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:10

But if it was on I would that's exactly how I feel yeah that's exactly how I feel.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:15

I think I liked it more than all those other before-mentioned movies.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:19

Even though I liked those it was like oh this is just the it's a little more easygoing so three three million pounds in 83 grosses six million worldwide you know then probably went to then probably went to um VHS and then home video and probably probably made another five or six table and somehow neither one of us ever saw it until no which is pretty crazy because we watched everything back then.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:49

I and I feel like this would have fallen right into kind of like uh it would have fallen into that something I would have watched because it would have been like after hours diner it would have you know what I mean is that kind of indie kind of kind of character piece that you know I I was totally into when I was a kid I'd I'd watch all those you know so I'm I'm shocked this wouldn't slip through very very surprised well what do you give it uh three and a half three and a half I'm you know what I think I'm I'm gonna go right there with you I'm gonna go three and a half also geez we're not arguing about much lately are we uh maybe that's a good thing yeah I mean it's not gonna happen every week oh man um but yeah I I'm not sure I want to do a lot of trilogies all in a row but that wasn't too bad because it was Star Wars and you know episode 99 I I before the first 100 Star Wars uh it's part of why Pondo exists in many ways absolutely filmmaking inspiration there's tons of other movies too of course but I just wanted to get those out of the way I hear you um and I do trilogy too I do think yeah true and I do but I I do think that uh local hero was a good kind of it was a nice offset to you know Return of the Jedi it was really a nice it was like okay return is this great kids movie I love and local hero was like something I kind of sank into for an hour and 50 minutes where I was just like this is this is good I'm I'm quite enjoying this.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:28

You could have seen them on the same day maybe absolutely in A pretty cool watch I find some newspaper ad that shows them both well well maybe who knows I mean it was in I I think that release date was was that release date was Britain for April so maybe it came over in May who knows who knows uh United States was no actually United you're right United States was actually February 17th that makes even more sense because that means the movie was probably shot in 82 which gives it even more of the 70s leaning yeah well what do you got for me next week because then it was like the Russians are coming the Russians are coming here we still have you know the nice Russian the nice Russian yeah next Russian we like that Russian he does remind me a lot of the Russian from uh Give Me Liberty.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:31

I think they were inspired yeah it would surprise me yeah you know who I'm I can't remember his name but we know you know we're talking about the guy who opens the herring and makes that with the sister and all that stuff so next week for episode 99 and a half you're watching Moscow on the Hudson no we're not doing that but that that would fit thematically Moscow on the Hudson next week is episode 100 with Jessica Stone where we're talking about a couple of Christmas movies for you. Yeah we already did talking figgy a few weeks ago at least we were supposed to if it never came out then now you know our recording order whatever fuck it merry Christmas next week and that's right it's the Dennis Leary type of Merry Christmas I'll leave you with that uh the Merry fucking Christmas as he likes to say but the week after that it'll be our New Year's episode where we watch a couple movies that are loosely related to New Year's Eve because it's hard to find actual New Year's Eve movies. And then we're done with this thematic shit for a while.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:41

Yeah and we're gonna we're gonna do the unfortunately I think even worse than you know again I I have a thing where I kind of think that movies that are Christmas movies kind of have to be about Christmas in some way just because you have a Christmas scene in the movie doesn't mean that it's not a Christmas movie. But we're gonna use that loose definition for the New Year's because it's even worse for New Year's there aren't a lot of movies about New Year's Eve at all. We watched Poseidon and Go last year so yeah and they happen on New Year's so I guess it's close enough. So what do you got for me? Uh well we had we had boardrooms this week right and then we had a a scene a few weeks ago where a guy smashed into a window into a boardroom momentarily I know what you're giving me yeah you already know yeah you want me to guess yeah I guess you're giving me the Hudsucker proxy I'm giving you the Hudsucker proxy boom good guess there that's uh Coleman Brothers and Sam Raimi movie going into the backdoor of of their efforts again and I'm realized oh it's New Year's so there is a New Year's movie New Year's happens on that okay uh I'm gonna give you a movie that I saw I want to say three or four months ago maybe um it's a classic it's considered probably one of the best noir movies ever made and it has also a New Year's scene in it and it's Sunset Boulevard.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:09

Okay well maybe I'll like it more the second time right I know it's a classic and I'm always willing to watch things objectively because you never know because just like today now I say Return of the Jedi is my favorite Star Wars movie. And earlier in the day I couldn't remember shit and you did. Maybe something did happen back in 2020 where everything flipped upside down.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:31

Or maybe you just get a little older and this is how things play out right here's what's happening I truly believe this at this point that CERN super collider is opening up um it's it's opening up probability factors that that we're skipping into because I now we in rewrites yeah because ever ever since they've been firing that damn thing off the weirdest shit's been happening covet you know uh you know bird flu fucking god knows man it's everywhere it's everything ukrainian war you know pops off all of a sudden you know I'm telling you I think it's I think it's a certain super collider. Big bang theory like that TV show because you know something watch Star Wars well I I give you I'm I didn't know you'd already seen it but I hope uh maybe better it's a good it's important and it's a it's a good one to bring and it's a New Year's one so we'll get it out of the way. Yeah. All right then well I guess until next time um hang on here let me see what I got uh see my quote here yep you got yours go for it advice you make I have a confession to make I'm not Scottish letter man