Star Wars Compilation mp3
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[00:00:00] Hello everyone. 

Katie Marinello here

For those of you who aren't on our social media, Claire gave birth on March 26th to Elizabeth. Patience. We're all obsessed with her and it's been a busy month. And it's gonna be a little while before we can record again, but it is May the fourth.

And so we wanted to celebrate. By giving you this mega compilation of the first trilogy of Star Wars episodes 4, 5, 6 I, I thought about giving you the holiday special as well, but you don't need that. That's just gonna ruin the vibes. If you wanna listen to that, you can scroll back to season one. But.

If you haven't heard all of our Star Wars content yet, or if you wanna revisit it, this will give you a new hope. Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Uh, return of the Jedi might be my favorite episode we've done, so far, so enjoy and may the fourth be with you. 

[00:01:00] Hello and welcome to Carried Far, far Away, a podcast project where we are going to watch and read everything that Carrie Fisher did during her short life and storied career. I'm Claire Fisher. I'm Katie Marella. And today we are talking about, I'm so excited. Star Wars. Star Wars. Star Wars, episode four, A New Hope, which I believe was at some point called Star Wars.

It was called Star Wars. Just Star Wars for a few blessed months in 1977. And ever since they've been changing the nomenclature on a regular basis. It is kind of amazing. Like, I don't know of any other franchise where like, there's just never a final draft, but I think it, you know, it gives us a lot to dig into and a lot to talk about.

So, all right, so this was Kerry Fisher's second movie, as we mentioned last week, and it came out in 1977. So this movie was actually slated for December of 76, but [00:02:00] got pushed to May 25th, 1977, which was its original release. It has been rereleased many times since, as you all alluded to, since we were so shocked last episode by how successful shampoo was.

I did go and look at what else was popular in 1977. Yeah, okay, I'll give you a hint though. Star Wars Out earned the second place winner by 300%. Like it earned three times with the second place box office movie was. Wow. Okay. But do you know what the second place box office movie was in 77? No, smokey and the Bandit.

Oh, well at least I've heard of that, but like it does nowhere near the cultural staying power. No, but that's interesting because I feel like we kind of get this narrative that it was like, like Star Wars was like the underdog, right? Like. It was a slow burn, but no, it was like wildly successful. Well, that narrative comes from the fact that like it was hard to get it made.[00:03:00] 

Right. Right. And, and this story's been told many times, but basically science fiction had historically been the kind of thing you did with the money that was left over in your couch cushions at the end of your year of making westerns Right. And crime dramas. Right, right. So getting a script produced and made into a movie, getting things like merchandising tie-ins and things like that was like.

The science fiction world had not seen a movie done on this scale before. Right, right. Um, all right. Now of course, to be fair, number three, top earning at the box office was close Encounters of the third kind. Okay. So it's not like George Lucas was the only person who had the idea that science fiction should be coming back.

Okay. Yeah. Good point. Number four was Saturday Night Fever, which is weird to think about those being the savior. Yeah. Number five is a bridge too far, which is a war movie with a very stacked cast. Mm-hmm. Has some fans to this day, among people [00:04:00] who prefer war movies. But think it's safe to say that no movie that came out in 1977 could possibly have the same type of impact that Star Wars had.

It would've been, it would've been rough to be released that same summer. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'd hate to be the Barbie Heimer of exactly, of Star Wars. Fary would've gone down. Oppenheimer would've gone down. Yeah. What else was going on in the world of Hollywood that year? I thought that this was interesting too.

In January they announced that Christopher Reeve had been cast as Superman. Oh, wow. But in point of fact, the Superman movie was not released till December of 1978. Because it too had trouble getting to a finished draft. Right. Right. Yes. Um, and at the 77 Oscars, which of course were held several months before Star Wars came out.

Mm-hmm. And we're honoring movies that came out in 76. The big winners were Rocky for best picture, and then most of the acting awards went to people who were in network. Okay. Have [00:05:00] you seen Network? I'm Matt as hell. Right. Yeah. I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, well that makes sense because Hollywood loves giving awards to movies about.

Show business, right? Yes, absolutely. Although Rocky's an outlier in that respect. It's not gonna be about movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What else was going on in 77 when I looked this up? And I, and I kid you not, this is what came up as the top things. Jimmy Carter took office. Okay. Cambodian, Vietnam went to war.

Okay. And a helicopter fell off the roof of the Pan Am building in Manhattan. Jesus killing five people. What was it doing on the roof of the Pan Am building? Oh, there used to be a helipad on the roof of the Pan Am building. Oh, I guess they had to get rid of that after, after the incident. Yes. They, they haven't used it since.

And, and it's now the MetLife building, of course, pan Am doesn't even exist anymore. Right? Yeah. So, yeah. Okay. But so that, that happened literally the week before Star Wars came out. So, you know, if you wanna put this into any kind of timeline that you have that [00:06:00] involves those two events. They weren't, was Harrison Ford involved in said like after crash?

Because he's been involved in most of the rest of them. This point, Harrison Ford did not yet have his helicopter license. Got it, got it. As far as I know, yeah. Okay. So Vietnam and Cambodia were at war. Where were we in terms of the Vietnam War? The Vietnam War in terms of US involvement had ended in late 73, but Saigon fell in 75.

Okay. So this was about, it was a little less than two years after, you know, south Vietnam was fully conquered. Got it. Okay. Makes sense. It was two years before the Iranian revolution. I believe though, I, I would have to look this up. I actually think Star Wars had a theatrical release in Iran. Oh, interesting.

Okay. Yeah, I, I seem to recall that tidbit, but I, I would have to go back and look at Yeah. The Iranian Box office for that. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, obviously. It's well known that well, well known, but people who [00:07:00] don't try to say that Star Wars has gone too woke in the 2020s, that obviously Vietnam was a big influence on this story.

Yeah. As well as obviously World War ii, because he literally named the storm troopers after Nazis. Okay. So that, that's in the nineties. I was told, I think, by dad. The storm troopers were named after the Nazis. What I was missing was that by the mid seventies, they were calling the American troops in Vietnam storm troopers.

Oh. Specifically to evoke the com Nazi comparison. Oh, oh, yeah. And that, that was a, a slurry used against people serving in Vietnam because of the, among other things, massacres of civilians. Mm-hmm. And widespread sexual violence that the American forces were being accused of. Okay. So it does mean that when people cosplay a storm troopers, I still to this day find it a little.

Disturbing. But yeah, it's explicit parallels with, you know, the Vietnamese conflict really come in Return of the Jedi. But [00:08:00] I mean, certainly George Lucas, who had only escaped being drafted to fight in Vietnam because he had a medical exemption, certainly that was on his mind. Yeah. And cer, I mean, we know many, many movies made in the late seventies and throughout the eighties were very obsessed with the legacy of the Vietnam War.

Yes. So it is not surprising to learn that there was a little of that in George Lucas' mind when he was writing this political movie. Yeah, I would say so. So I did find it interesting. I pulled this up on Disney Plus where it resides now since the incident and the synopsis was a young farm boy intercepts a distress call from the captive Princess Leia.

That was it. That was the whole synopsis. And I found that so interesting because obviously when you and I were talking about discussing this, it, it's a little intimidating, right? Because this movie has been, I think it's fair to say dissected. Within an inch of, its like if, if we had to do a DNA test on this movie, there would be nothing left to dissect.

Yeah. This, this, there would be no more material. [00:09:00] The discussion has been done rather to death. But we decided obviously, that we were gonna focus on Carrie because she was in like two seconds of the last movie. But this is her mo. From a certain point of view. From a certain point of view, this is her movie and I found it.

This is her. Yeah. Interesting. That it was a, that the synopsis, she's the only named character. Yeah. I mean she is given equal billing. Mm-hmm. Carrie Fisher, mark Hamill and Harrison Ford have equal billing in the end credits. Yep. Which they don't have equal screen time. Nope. But they were seen as equally important to the plot Yes.

And to the series. Yes. Okay. So let's talk about everybody else before we get back to Carrie Fisher. So there are a lot of characters in this movie, and obviously as the series goes on, there are many, many, many, many, many or more characters, and they've all got. Various conflicting backstories and, you know, names and, and [00:10:00] novels and spinoffs, and then Christmas specials.

We don't speak of that. And then, are you kidding? It's our next episode. It's our next episode. I know. So, so I just, I tried to go with like the, the top view, but I didn't wanna leave out any of the maybe more major in this movie, but not major throughout the rest of their career anyway, so Mark Hamill, obviously Luke Skywalker, by far his most well-known role, and luckily he's kept a pretty good sense of humor about that over the years.

After Return of The Jedi, he went to Broadway to kind of distinguish himself from his Luke Skywalker role. And then his most famous role outside of Star Wars is as a voice actor for the Joker in the DC comics. Over the years he said that he and Carrie truly had a brother sister relationship. Sometimes they were speaking, sometimes they were not speaking.

Uh, but recently, just a couple weeks ago, he [00:11:00] wrote for her birthday for those wondering how she would vote In this election, one of the last of many arguments we had was who hated the orange atrocity more, and after half an hour we had to agree to disagree, hashtag carry on forever. So I do appreciate that their relationship seems to have healed towards the end and that he always, always keeps her kind of her memory kind of alive in his social media presence.

Both of them I think, really benefited from social media. From re reconnecting with fans via, you know, Instagram and Twitter. Mm-hmm. Harrison Ford, on the other hand, probably the most famous actor to come out of this series. I had done nothing before. Nothing before this probably. And so he's often credited as being one of the top grossing actors all the time.

But I did look it up and he is somewhere in the middle. He, but he has made $4.23 billion in the box office, and I'll take, you know, that's, that's acceptable. Do you wanna guess who's right above him and who's right below him? [00:12:00] Uh, I'm going to Wait, what num what rank on the total list is he, is he like number eight?

Is he number six? Is he, hold on. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. He's 10th. He's 10th. Mm-hmm. Who's right above him? Mm-hmm. Samuel Jackson, Samuel Jackson is actually number one. Oh, okay. Okay. 5.85 billion. Is Keanu Reeves on that top 10? He is not. Okay. 'cause I've heard he has a record, like most paid to play a single character, but I don't know if over his whole career.

Yeah. All right. Tell, tell us who's number nine. Okay. Number nine is Chris Hemsworth. Mm. And number 11 is Chris Heavens. So, ah, Harrison Ford is a sandwich between the two. Chrises. Chris Pratt is number three. So the Chrises what? No love for Chris Pine. No love for Chris Pine on this particular list. Was happy to see.

Scarlet Johansson and Zoe [00:13:00] Zeldah, also Outran Harrison Ford. Well, yeah, 'cause they're both in the MCU and the MCU has out earned everything ever made right. Yeah. And I think Harrison Ford, like he's probably dropped to 10th within the last 15 years as the absolute C has exploded. He probably, absolutely.

Number two was Robert Downey Jr. Right? Yeah. Robert Downey Jr. Chris Pratt, scar Johansen, Tom Hanks outlier. Obviously Zoe Zel, Donna Tom Cruise, and Bradley Cooper and Chris Hemsworth. So Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford are the ones that didn't come from Marvel money. So he is. Best known for obviously playing Indiana Jones, starring a Blade Runner, portraying Jack Ryan in the Spy Roller films, Patriot Games, and Clear and President Danger.

And with all that, he's only received one Oscar nomination, which seems wrong. Do you know what it's for? Was it for Air Force One? It was not for Air Force One. I would've guessed that as well. Sabrina? Nope. What [00:14:00] it's called Witness. He was a detective. Oh, that one. A detective who enveloped himself in the Amish community in the crime thriller Witness who was nominated for best actor has not won.

Unfortunately. Just before she died, Carrie Fisher published her diaries from the making of this particular film, and she makes it clear that Harrison Ford was fairly predatory to towards her during that time. She describes the relationship as an affair. He was 33 and married and she was 19 and drunk. I had a crush on him for 30 years after we first saw this movie, and I'm sure we'll talk about that.

But this story gave me an ick. And what made me really sad is that she wrote that she was still uncomfortable around him all these years later in 2016. So, you know, you think about a movie as opposed to a TV show, you don't really expect to be with those people for the rest of your life, you know? And I think about if I [00:15:00] had to spend all this time with people I worked with when I was 19 years old.

Like, what would those relationships be like? Because I couldn't even tell you who I like was closest with at work when I was 19. I don't even know where I was working when I was 19. I know where you were working when you were 19. Certainly not someone I would wanna have like reunions with for the rest of my life.

For the rest of my life. Yeah. I mean, I think, so of the people who were in this cast, and I know we're not up to him yet, the one who had already been famous was Alec Guinness. Yes. And we're gonna get there. And he definitely did not enjoy. So he's actually what he was remembered for. Yeah. So he is actually next.

Um, okay. So Alec Ick was probably the most famous actor going into the movie, right? Mm-hmm. He is in nine of the hundred mo most influential British movies, according to Alyssa. That was written in 1999. He was nominated for best supporting actor for this role, which is really, yes, yes. Okay. I had no idea.

And he won for best actor, for playing Colonel Nicholson in the bridge on the river. [00:16:00] K. So it's been 25 years earlier. Yes. He'd been nominated many, many times prior to this. So he obviously was in the best like negotiating position. Famously, George Lucas kind of negotiated for backend, right. Merchandising, right me merchandising and, and backend film Pres proceeds.

And so Agen has also got, there's all this stuff in his bio about what percentage he actually got, but he says basically it allowed him to live in the, as he said, modest way that he, that he was used to for the rest of his life and only have to take roles that he actually wanted to take. One imagines that he was probably doing that prior to Star Wars, but he was, he was a fan of the, so when the film first.

When he first saw the film, he wrote this in his diary, so he wasn't showboating for anyone. He said it was a pretty staggering film, a spectacle and technically brilliant, exciting, very noisy and warmhearted. The battle scenes at the end go on for five minutes too long, I feel, and some of the dialogue [00:17:00] is excruciating and much of it lost in noise, but it remains a vivid experience.

And to be fair, I said the same thing to you when I watched it the most recent time. Right. The battle and the battle scene at the end goes on for five minutes too long. I will forever and always say, let us give our thanks to Marsha Lucas, wherever she is. Yes. Because it was even longer in the original script.

Right. And she edited it and made it the iconic battle scene that it now is. Yes. Which goes on only five minutes too long. Right. Good point. I've read the original Novelization, which was based on an earlier version of the script and it did that last few chapters is just Dill. Yeah, he, there's some like back and forth about whether he was upset that.

O one dies at the first, oh, sorry, spoilers. OB one dies at the end of the first film. He says that he actually suggested it to Lucas and that he didn't wanna tell him that. He just couldn't keep saying all that dialogue. But of course he continued to do so as a ghost for the rest of the time. He died in [00:18:00] 2000.

So solid chance he saw the re-release. I don't know if maybe some of the remastering got some of that dialogue out of the noise, but I mean, he and Harrison Ford both have that. I have done hundreds of films. Please stop asking me about this one that I did 45 years ago or whatever. Yeah. Even a possibly apocryphal story of which he, he asked a fan who was asking for his autograph.

I'll give you the autograph if you promise, never to watch Star Wars. It's tough. Right. And now we're getting into the, the actors who are really only known for Star Wars and Ha. Who have had various relationships with that. For example, Peter Cushing be. Uh, he's not only known for Star Wars. He was in like a million movies before this.

Okay. Peter Cushing, who was an actor for over six decades and included appearances in more than a hundred films. Other than Grand Moof Tarkin, he was mostly known as a lead in the Hammer production horror films from the 1950s to the 1970s. And he [00:19:00] died in 1994, which means he never even saw the remakes of his most famous role.

And I'm sorry, I'm sure that the horror films were lovely, but this is his most famous role. I think the Dr. Who fans will fight you on that. Oh, Dr. Who, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I, sorry. Ians. Huge, huge, blind sub spot on my part. I do apologize. I should maybe do this research not 20 minutes before we start.

Okay. All right. So Peter Cushing, God rest his soul. Yes. And who else? And Daniels who was listed on Wikipedia as an English actor and mime artist. Uh, and he is the only actor to have either appeared or been involved with all theatrical films in the series, as well as many of their spin spinoffs, and he seems not at all upset that he is C3 PON, pretty much just C3 po.

Kenneth George Baker, who played R 2D two was an English actor, comedian, and musician. He was three foot eight in his adulthood. [00:20:00] He was in John Lester's theatrical troop of little people. Apparently some lady came up to him on the street and offered to put him in this theatrical troop of little people.

He was in the circus for a brief time, then he learned to ice skate and was in a lot of ice shows. And he was in a successful comedy act called The Monotones, and he actually nearly turned down Star Wars because they had reached the final on the talent show Opportunity Knocks he and Jack Purvis, and then he was RTD two in six of the Star Wars films.

But he was often listed as a consultant once technology made it so that he didn't actually have to be in the teeny tiny suit. On the other end of the spectrum, Peter Mahu had Gigantism, and so he, his peak height was seven feet, three inches, and he portrayed Chewbacca until 15 in the Force Awakens. And he retired due to health issues, but was listed as a Chewbacca consultant on the next film before he died.

And he was honored as a, with a lifetime achievement award in the MTV film [00:21:00] awards in 1997 as Chewbacca and Carrie Fisher presented the medal, right, because he needed one finally. Yes, yes, yes. Because she, he doesn't get one at the end. He doesn't get one at the end. Yeah. David PRUs was a bodybuilder and the physical body of Darth Vader.

He was also known in the UK for being the green crossman. Which was a superhero who taught children and young people road safety. Yes. Yes. He, that's what he was. I think, you know, other than his bodybuilding career, which obviously he did quite well in, he probably of these guys have the most complicated relationship with the role.

He wanted to be the voice, he wanted to be the face they kept, you know, subbing in stunt doubles for him. He was actually accused of leaking the news of being Luke's father, when actually he was just a really good guesser. 'cause he said it in like 1978, like several months after, way before Empire Strikes Back had been written.

Mm-hmm. And then in 2010 he was actually banned by [00:22:00] George Lucas for, from attending Star Wars fan conventions. And allegedly Lucas gave no reason other than he had burnt too many bridges between Lucasfilm and himself. So, kind of a sad story. Yeah. Apparently there's, there's a documentary about that, which is interesting.

I apologize for saying we were only looking at actors who were only known for Star Wars because the next one is obviously James Earl Jones. God rest his soul. Recently gone quote unquote too soon at the age of 90. He gained international fame for, so I didn't know whether he was already really well known, but he had been in Dr.

Strangelove and then he'd been a theater star, but he gained his international fame for his role as the Voice of Joy Vader and went on to Star in everything for the next 60 years or so. He is an EGOT winner and a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. His was an interesting relationship with the franchise because he wasn't [00:23:00] on set.

He didn't actually meet Carrie Fisher until they both guest starred on the Big Bang Theory. He actually had chosen not to put his name on the first two movies, which is a bold move for somebody who wasn't yet famous. But by the third one, I guess it had become famous enough that he was like, all right, I'll put my name on it.

And in 2002 he received the Kennedy Center Honors and President George W. Bush said, people say that the voice of the president is the most easily recognized voice in America. Well, I'm not gonna make that claim in the presence of James Earl Jones and you and I, you and I saw him live in a play. Oh yeah.

He played the grandfather. And you can't take it with you. You can't take it with you. Yeah, yeah. He was, he was very good. Philip Mortimore Brown played Uncle Owen. He's pretty much only known for that because he was blacklisted by the House un-American Activities Committee for being a founded member of the Actor's Laboratory Theater and was forced to move to the uk.

So this was actually his like comeback. Oh. After being. Banished basically for some number of [00:24:00] years, and he eventually did move back to the US and basically signed autographs as Uncle Owen for the rest of his life. Very short Wikipedia, which always makes me sad. On the other hand, Sheila Mary Frazier, who played Aperu, appeared in more than 50 films of TV shows during her career and had a wide range of roles on the stage.

And besides Aunt Peru, she is best known as Jean Ashton, the embattled mother of a wartime family in Liverpool in the television serial, a family at war, which was British. So we've never seen it. You say that as if we've never watched British television. No, that's true. We have, obviously, I've never seen Dr.

Who. I'm really sorry about that. Peter, I loved you in Rogue One. I loved your ghost in Rogue One. Okay. That's your comfort. He's actually quite good in this movie, and I, I'm always fascinated by the. I guess hierarchy on the Death Star. Yeah. I was just thinking this morning, like I don't really remember if I was ever afraid of Darth Vader, but I was very scared of Grandma Maf.

Tarkin, like he is very scary. It's [00:25:00] true. Oh, you're far too trusting as he is, you know, gleefully blowing up her home planet in front of her. Right. Like that. So let's get to the synopsis, shall we? Okay. Okay. Okay. Leia is a princess senator and Rebel spy fighting against the fascistic government of her galaxy.

Her ship is intercepted while trying to deliver plans for a super weapon to an old friend of her father's Obiwan Kenobi. She's taken into custody by Darth Vader, who surprises her father, but nobody cares about that. She's tortured by him in an attempt to discover where the rebellion is headquartered.

But she resists. She is then forced to watch her entire planet be destroyed by a new, the new super weapon. Everyone she knows. And loves has literally killed in front of her. Her whole world is literally blown, blown up. I just feel like we need to dwell on that just a little bit. She is resting in her cell knowing that her death warrant has been signed.

When two men show up claiming to be there to rescue her, she's immediately snarky, which seems unnecessary but deserved. She does take charge and make it clear that she really only needed them to open the door. After escaping, she immediately jumps into leadership mode and helps the team prepare for battle.

Her new friends blow up the death star and she gives two thirds of them a medal and has probably the best smile in the galaxy. [00:26:00] All right. Good work. Okay. How many seconds was that? Uh, that was actually 50 even. Woo, that was pretty good given that I spent, you know, five of them on, they blow up her entire planet.

They do blow up her entire planet and, but can I, can I just say that the amount of time that I just gave it is as much time as it's given in the grand scheme of this movie, it was a movie that wanted to skip past a lot of trauma. Like they never mentioned Aunt Brew and Uncle Owen ever again. We will talk about this in several years when we get to the Force Awakens and et cetera.

Can't remember the name of the, the eighth movie right now, Skywalker and No, the Last Jedi. Yeah, see? Yeah. Okay. Alright. We'll be talking about this eventually, bud. So when we, when we talk about nephews and uncles, and we never mention Uncle Owen again, it's just. Mind blowing. But anyway, it's a lot in the extended universe.

We'll, we'll, [00:27:00] we'll turn to that. True, true. So, yeah. So I will say a couple of thought thoughts on the trivia around this character Yes. Of Princess Leia, who, who is, as we've said, as not at all typical for women in movies in the seventies. Mm-hmm. And in fact, in 1977, like there's an interview where Carrie Fisher speaks to BBC and says.

What appealed to her when she got the script was quote, George Lucas didn't want a damsel in distress, didn't want a typical princess, he wanted a fighter, someone who was independent unquote. Mm-hmm. It's an interesting interview 'cause she also says that like she did, she personally did the only stunt that Leia is involved in where they have to swing across that chasm as like she was, she was in the harness with Mark Hamill.

That was not a body double, right? Mm-hmm. She also mentions, and I think this is really an important lens to see it through, is that it she's, she put it as quote, George loves films and that's what this film is about, is movies. She said, every scene is a. Reminiscent of a scene we've [00:28:00] loved before. Mm-hmm. So she mentioned like, you know, homages to the Wizard of Oz, to Robinhood to High Noon.

The swing across the chasm, I think is from an Errol Flynn film. You know, Han Solo's character Arc is kind of based on what Humphrey Bogart goes through in Casablanca. Mm-hmm. You know, deciding to take a stand in politics, even though he's usually only in it for himself, right? Mm-hmm. But she did say that George Lucas, for all that he loves movies, did not give a lot of direction to the actors.

Said it was just more in. Faster do faster, faster, more intense, faster, more intense. And so, you know, said, you know, all the dialogue gets lost a little. And Harrison Ford famously said, you can type this stuff, but I can't say it. Right. You know, she felt like getting from the page to the screen A And this franchise was kind of the poster child for making it up as you go along, right?

Mm-hmm. I mean, the fair fact that Al Guinness apparently had to suggest that his character die while they were filming the movies to show, right? What was the original plan there? Yeah, exactly. In [00:29:00] 2014, Carrie Fisher told timeout, quote, I am Leia, and Leia is me. We've overlapped each other because my life has been so cartoony or superhero, like by this age it would be ridiculous if I had a problem with it.

Mm-hmm. And also. A word on the infamous hairstyle. Yes. The cinnamon buns glued to our ears, which we both look like we have on right now. Famously lamb tuned. Yes. In space balls. It really is just her headphones. Yes, yes. Um, George Lucas said he saw that hairstyle in a book about Mexican revolutionaries of the early 19 hundreds.

However, researchers have pointed out Mexican revolutionaries didn't wear that hairstyle. Hopi women did like the Native American tribe from what's now Arizona and, and Mexico. Right? Mm-hmm. So it's possible he had seen photos of Native American hairstyles in a book about Mexican history and kind of like merged the two in his head, but mm-hmm.

Yeah. The, the influence appears to be that that's actually based on a Native American hairstyle. And [00:30:00] to be fair, her hair throughout the series just gets more and more fabulous. Oh, her hair is an amazing part. I mean, and I will never, you know, put that down because Yeah. She doesn't look great when she's a prisoner.

Right. But over the course of the series, her hair just gets better and better. So talking about making it up as you go along. Mm-hmm. I was struck this, so we have mentioned before that we watched this movie a few a hundred many times. Times. Like if, if we're not at a hundred, I'd be shocked. This is probably, if we had to rank the movies we've seen the most in our lives, it probably goes Apollo 13, return of the Jedi, star Wars.

A New Hope Maybe. I think. I think actually Apollo 13 would be third. But yeah, so I was struck this time about how we are very much just dropped in the middle of the story. Absolutely. So I know that he didn't really have it planned out to have this full like nine movie. [00:31:00] Franchise, whatever. And he talked about it later as if he had, and there's all this like, mythology around it, but like, we are dropped in the middle of a story.

Even the opening scroll is like, the rebels are in crisis or something. Like what? Yeah. The who, the what I actually wrote in here, you know, it's a movie that's very much noted for how quickly it established its universe, but I, as I put it in my notes, and the heck with you, if you didn't catch any of that, right, because we're not gonna explain, we're not gonna slow down and compared even to other action movies in the seventies.

This is an extremely fast paced movie, right? Like, I, I was actually a little long, well, it's long by modern standards, but it, it's extremely fast paced. I mean, I, I was taking notes of just like when Leah's on screen because I, I was like looking for the story beats and like, you know, the first 10 minutes.

It's her story. Right? Right. The first 10 minutes is a princess hiding something in a robot, opening fire on storm troopers, getting stunned, getting [00:32:00] captured, lying to Darth Vader, and then she's off screen for a full half hour. Right. While they, while they establish everything else. Everything else. About the entire universe.

About the entire universe, yeah. Including, you know, the, what type of economy is going on with droid piracy, right. And like, where do these people drink when they wanna drink, you know? Right. And like, how are there weird hermits and is there a religion? All of that is established in like 30 minutes. Right.

And then, and then we see the princess again because Vader is coming into torture her mm-hmm. With a needle. And, and I was so scared as a kid. Oh my God. Was there was only truth serum. But I mean, still, still pretty scary still. Yeah. And then again, for a woman in sci-fi in the seventies to resist torture, very unusual for a woman and, and not be shown.

Right. She, we don't see that scene. It's not used as like torture porn or whatever. No, absolutely not. And I mean if you look at some of the things that happened to the Bond girls in the sixties and seventies, you know, that selling tickets based on people wanting to witness [00:33:00] scenes in which women were in peril, brutalized was a thing.

Right. But in this case, the torture is offscreen and she resists it. Yeah. Like the next we see is that like, oh, they refuses to don't know how to get her to talk. Yeah. So I mean, even though she's not on screen a whole lot, even in like the first 45 minutes to one hour, she's not on the screen that much.

What we get is this is one fear princess. Mm-hmm. Right? Like this is the princess who opened fire on the storm troopers who were in the process of taking her ship over. Right, right, right. This is the princess who's standing up to the two bad guys of the movie. Right. Tarkin and Darth Vader. She insults them both to their faces repeatedly.

And I also wrote down like the first time we see her, she has a gun. And I think for. Again, thinking in 1970s, thinking there was no Princess Leia for girls before Princess Leia, right? Yeah. To see her immediately taking charge, right? Like mm-hmm. I'm not going down without a fight. I'm not gonna tell you anything.

I'm gonna continue to [00:34:00] stick to my cover story. Yeah. There's not any screaming, there's not any like, you know, tears like anything. Even, I mean, even when her entire world is blown up, literally, you know, she does beg on behalf of her people because that's what a senator should do, but she's not a princess.

Should do. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And just a person, right. A, a native of that. That land. I mean, I will note that like she wasn't alone in being a tough woman on screen in 1977 specifically because this was the year, same year as the Bond movie, the Spy Who Loved Me. Mm-hmm. Which was the first time James Bond had a Bond girl be his equal.

Like she's explicitly presented as she is him, but on the Soviet side. Mm-hmm. And like to the point that they're. Introduced in parallel scenes where like he's in bed with the bond girl du jour. She's in bed with a, a, a man. Mm-hmm. And then bond girl du jour and the the agent are both killed in the ensuing action sequence, right?

Mm-hmm. So like there, [00:35:00] the parallelism is there. So like this was starting to come out in the movies more, and then it was like a year later we got Alien, you know, so like this was beginning to be a thing that woman action heroes could be a thing. But you know, it was not yet the standard for sci-fi and to be named Princess, right?

I mean, that was very intentional. It's never explained what she's a princess of, how she's a princess and a senator until 30 years later in the. Prequels, which even then, it's not really explained, right? So Yeah. Yeah. You have to turn to the extended universe for it. Like, oh, princess is an elected position right.

On her planet. Right. And it means she serves in the Imperial Senate, which is mentioned but not shown in this movie. Right. And it's mentioned in the context of it's just been dissolved. Right? So apparently it's not really working that well off screen dissolved, right. So yeah, purposely pick that princess title and make her this warrior.

It's de who refuses to [00:36:00] be rescued. And again, I don't know that she needed to be a snarky as she was when she was being rescued. All right. So let's talk about the rescue seat. Yeah. Because I, I, I hadn't really thought about it in this way before, but I noticed like when she's being rescued, Luke Skywalker, whom she's never seen before in her life, bursts through the door of her cell.

In the uniform of the people who have been torturing her. Right. Right. And her first lines are, aren't you a little short for a storm trooper, right? Yes. Which is just mind blowing. Like, are you trying to invite more torture? I'm confused. Well, she's probably trying to keep people on their toes. Right, right.

Throw them off balance. Right. And then as soon as they're out in the hallway and, and she realizes just how brained this scheme to rescue her really was, because there's only one way out of here. And they've managed to alert people to their presence. So when she shouts, when she grabs the gun and shouts, somebody asked to save our skins and blows a hole in the wall, her next line is into the garbage chute fly.

She just met Han Solo. She doesn't know he's actually a pilot. [00:37:00] Right. She just throws out Flyboy fly. Boy, that's a thing you can tell your inept rescuer. Have they even like I know Luke Skywalker says, I, I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you. I don't think she even knows Han Solo's name. She doesn't know Han Solo's name.

She doesn't know Chewbacca's name. She calls him the big walking carpet. Right, right. So like, I don't know who you are or where you've come from, but from now on you follow my lead. Yeah. And so, okay, so we grew up in the, the girl power era. Like where there's this like idea that strong means mean kind of sometimes, you know, or like strong mean.

So like, I think when we were little, it didn't really like, I'm like, girl, like nobody else was coming. Right? Like nobody else was coming to rescue you. So I, I'm not saying she needed to be grateful because they were, I mean, objectively Han Solo should not have fired at the Intercom win. Somebody asked for his identification numbers, that is objectively the wrong way to get someone out safely.

[00:38:00] Right. And she'd been through a lot and she had just seen her entire world blown up. So if we're gonna get into the psychology of it, she's handling everything quite well. Even when they're like threatening to blow up alder on, like her reaction is to try to divert them to a different target by lying.

Right. She doesn't give up the, the place of the rebel base. And, and that is telling as well. 'cause I mean public service announcement here, but if you're ever being tortured, torturing people makes them lie. So if you're ever being tortured, just lie. Right. Like that. Nobody has any right to expect that you'll tell the truth under torture.

Right. Right. But she does stay calm, cool, and collected throughout. But she gets mean because if they're not here to actually get her out of here, then they may as well not have come. Right. Right. They're getting her killed. Yeah. Which, I mean, the end result is gonna be the same. It's not like she herself never makes an error in judgment.

Right. Like. Jumping into the garbage chute, not with any way to get out of it. And then, I mean, they do it again. If Luke Skywalker had not been there [00:39:00] with an intercom to somebody who had access to the computers, as, uh, Hans said they would all be a lot skinnier. Yeah. Which is a very weird line. But even as, even as that's happening, you know, she's saying, well, don't just stand there.

Try and embrace something. Let's do something. Yeah. Like this amount of agency for a captured princess, even though she's mean, right. Mm-hmm. This amount of agency and this amount of refusal to play nice. Mm-hmm. Was a luck for a captured princess in Yeah. In a movie. You think, think it still would be to this day.

Yeah. Certainly for the Times and even today. And it certainly made an impression on little girls like us Yeah. In the nineties, right. That we weren't seeing as much of that. Even 20 years later. Right, right, right. And then I noticed that like once they escaped the garbage shoot and they're like getting their clothes back on, Han says, well, if we can just avoid any more female advice, we'll be fine.

Mm-hmm. It's like, well, nobody had any better ideas. No. What was your plan? Also like weird sexism for, [00:40:00] you know, a long time ago, and it's a galaxy far, far away where there's like one woman in the entire universe. So two, and, and we will talk about that because as kickass as she is, I looked up, women speak against Star Wars and other than her, in the entire original trilogy, there's a YouTube video that has every other woman who speaks.

It's a minute and 23 seconds long. So out of out the Andrew and in Return to the Jedi, the, there's one right. The, yeah. The woman who speaks at the end of about the second Death Star. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's pretty much it. So not great. Yeah. And let's see. We talked about this a little bit with the last movie, sometimes men write women and they could use a woman's perspective.

Now let's talk about Marsha Lucas. Tell us about Marsha Lucas. Okay, so Marsha Lucas was George Lucas's first wife. She ended up leaving him in the mid eighties and not having very much career in the arts since then. However, she and George [00:41:00] made American Graffiti together, which was their first big hit in 1973, and they made the original Star Wars trilogy together.

Mm-hmm. She was his editor. He wrote things, he directed things occasionally, but she was the editor. Mm-hmm. And she won an Oscar for her editing work on, I believe it was The Vampire Strikes Back, right? Mm-hmm. I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. So of the two of them, she's the one who's had. An Oscar. Mm-hmm. Worth noting.

However, most of what they had worked on before Star Wars had been extremely low budget. You know, including, for example, American Graffiti, which was done quite cheaply and was a massive hit. According to the cinematographer Gilbert Taylor, who was most famous for doing a hard day's night before he shot a new hope.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and Dr. Strange love, he said, George Lucas really had no idea how to delegate responsibility because he had never had a full crew on a movie until he made Star Wars. Mm-hmm. Which means his entire career leading up to that point. And keep in mind, he, he, [00:42:00] he was already a multimillionaire, very popular director for his work on THX, uh, 1 1 3 8, and American Graffiti.

Everything he'd done had really been him and Marsha. Mm-hmm. Throwing something together to, and making it work. Right. So, Marsha Lucas's contributions to this movie specifically, most famously include I if you read The Novelization, which was based on an earlier version of the script, the Death Star is blown up when it is just minding its own business is not on its way to attack Yvan.

Mm-hmm. It, it is not established that they even know where Yvan is. Mm-hmm. Right. Although, you know the line about them tracking the Millennium Falcon is there. Mm-hmm. So like, okay, they'll, they'll find their way to Yvan sometime in the next six months, I'm sure. Mm-hmm. When they're, when they're not so busy.

Right. And also the runs at like the trench runs of Biplanes Up the Canyons, which is not at all what's supposed to [00:43:00] be happening, but, but that's what's happening. Mm-hmm. Go like three or four loops. Of people running up that trench and getting shot, run up that trench and get shot to the point that reading it, you're kind of like, okay, stop trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Right, right, right. To the point that like when I was reading the Novelization, by the time Big Star Lighter dies, I was kind of like, well, we knew that was gonna happen, right? Mm-hmm. And not only because we've seen the movie, but also because we know literally anything about dog fighting tactics, right?

Mm-hmm. So, Marsha Lucas's contributions to this movie, were actually adding a sense of tension and suspense to the entire final hour of the film, right? And it's interesting, princess Leia speaks very little in the final half hour. She is mostly just watching on a screen, anxiously seeing if Luke's gonna pull this off.

Luke and the other pilots are gonna pull this off as the death stars advancing to kill her. [00:44:00] The fact that the Death Star is on its way to kill her is only established in voiceover because that wasn't in the script, that was done in editing, right? Mm-hmm. And shortening the Death Star runs so that you see that people are being shot, but you don't need a full backstory on all each of them tightening up.

Also, the first act there, there was originally a little bit more depth given to Luke's like Life on Tattoo than they, so I do remember that from, I don't think it was like the official novelization, but it was like a picture book that we had of the first movie, and there's this whole thing about his friends and, and going out to, yeah, Tashi station or whatever, you know, which is obviously mentioned.

It's interesting, again, being dropped in the middle of a story where. He runs into that guy who he is supposed to see in the first scene. Right? Yeah. In the rebellion. And we're just like, oh, I guess he is really good friends with this guy. Yeah. I mean, and and if you read the novelization Yeah. The [00:45:00] backstory amounts to he's really good friends with this guy.

Right. This guy's runaway to join the rebellion. Like that. That's, that's pretty much what it is. Well, did he run away to, to join the rebellion or did he run away to join the Empire? Because Luke is trying to go join the Empire. So in the novelization, and I'm such a nerd for even knowing this. Okay. Yeah.

The Imperial Flight Academy or whatever, Uhhuh the academy as Luke calls it. Yeah. Trains both fighter pilots and civilian freight. Pilots. Oh, so he wanted to go be a a civilian. He and Biggs had grown up thinking that they would someday become pilots because they had been told that Anakin Skywalker had been the navigator on a spice freighter.

Right. They were gonna go work on freighters. The scene that got cut is Biggs has just graduated from the Flight Academy. He has his commission and he's come home to celebrate. But then he tells Luke, I'm gonna jump ship. I'm gonna join the rebellion, and Luke says. You can't do that. Like you have to play by the rules.

You have to stick with it [00:46:00] and throw away political line where Big says it's a matter of time before they come for tattoo Ween. And then you and your aunt and uncle are just gonna be working in one of their slave camps anyway. Like, 'cause Luke's argument is you can't jump ship. What would your family do if you didn't have an honest job?

And he is like, well what's gonna happen to my family anyway and I'm gonna jump ship? So then when they reunite in before the Battle of Vin, it's a reaffirmation like, Hey, we both survived and we've both made it off that planet. And then Biggs's death immediately afterwards is like a little sadder. It's not much sadder.

'cause like if that's your good friend who like you just reunited with and he died, then that's explanation enough. The heck with you if you didn't catch that, right? Mm-hmm. We're not gonna slow down and we are not gonna explain it. Nope. On with the show, right? Nope. So anyway, back to the point that editing really is what holds the second half of this movie together because after they get off the Death Star, after Obiwan dies.

After they get off the Death Star, then it's Luke's story. Right. [00:47:00] Leia does less, although she does have an interesting moment. You know, we said to be strong, you have to be mean. There's an interesting moment where she chooses to comfort Luke. Mm-hmm. This kid who grew up in a desert and just went to space yesterday Right.

And is freezing. Right. Right. Brings him a blanket when he's crying because Ben has died. Ben Canobie has died. Yes. Now, if we wanna be fair to Luke, he did just lose his parents, right? Yeah. So he, he never knew his biological parents. He was raised by his aunt and uncle. He loses them horrifically. I mean, truly that is a scary scene.

Yeah. When there's like the skeletons of, of Aunt Peru and Uncle Owen and knowing that he had like just left, right? Like he would have been there and then he watches his. You know, derisively, I've heard it talked about as his karate teacher, but he watches his father's friend, right. His father's friend's friend who had promised him this life.

Right. This training and all this [00:48:00] be struck down. It's very scary. There's also, I know, I know people are, I know what you're gonna say because people are always so snarky. I know. I know. Okay. I don't wanna compare traumas. It's not a trauma Olympics. She's very much like, we need to move on. Right. She says, there's no time for sorrows.

We must move on. Yeah. And, and so it's, it's two different ways of handling trauma because she has just seen her entire planet blown up. I think it's, it's just an interesting contrast. I defend that moment and I will to the end. Yes, yes. Because when you've been through. A horrible trauma and then you see someone else is hurting.

Yes. In many cases it makes you feel better if you do for them what you wish someone had done for you. Yeah, you're absolutely right. There was nobody to come for her when it happened. Of course, in the timeline of this movie, I think it happened like yesterday, but it happened days earlier. And so these are two people who have had the worst week of their lives.

Everything she worked for in the Senate, everyone she knew and loved her home. Mm-hmm. Is gone. Gone. [00:49:00] His home is gone. His mentor who convinced him to go on this adventure is gone. The pilot who got them out of that death star is leaving and he has one friend in the entire universe in the form of bigs who's about to die.

And his second friend in the entire universe is Princess Leia, whom he just met and whose first comment was on his height. So like these are two people who are quite alone in the universe. Yes, you're right. You're absolutely, and there is a moment where they comfort each other in a way, and that shows it's a beautiful.

Moment and then she walks away and I'm like, dear Lord, can she just be a person? 'cause they immediately start talking about, what do you think of her? Yes. So they briefly comfort each other. Then they have to fight again. Mm-hmm. She deduces that they're probably being tracked but doesn't really do anything with that information.

Then Han and Luke start talking about her as a sex object. Yes. Which is inevitable. 'cause it, it was a movie in the seventies. Right. And [00:50:00] the action heroines, quote unquote, that we had were mainly the bond girls. Year after Star Wars came out, they made a movie in which one of the bond girls names is Dr.

Goodhead. Yes. So she walks out of the room and I'm just like, you know, it's such a, it's so far with the exception of, of a couple of. Let me say this again. Han Solo is a jackass, let's you know, and he's supposed to be right. He's supposed to be the scoundrel. He's supposed to be the swagger, swag, swagger, swag, smuggler, smuggler, swag with all the swag.

But don't you mean swagger? What? All the swagger. There we go. Swag, swagger. How about we swipe this again? Hanzel is a jackass. He is supposed to be, he's supposed to be the scoundrel. He's supposed to be the one with all the swagger and clearly has this tragic backstory that also barely, barely acknowledged.

But for the most part, she [00:51:00] is treated as one of the adventurers throughout the story. So it's disheartening to me, again, looking at it from a 2020 point of view, right? Looking at it from a 2020 point of view, not looking at it. As a girl in the 1970s, not being a James Bond fan to myself, and it's disheartening that when she walks out of the room, their first thing is, well, what do you think of her?

Then again, as I've mentioned, she's the only woman in the entire galaxy, so I guess they really have to worry about which one of them is gonna end up with her, because that's the only way that these things can go. Yeah, and I will say that's, that is a sin of the editors because Luke had a, a female friend in the scene that got cut from back on tattooed, so like, so there would've been another woman.

Yeah. There are women in this universe, so we just don So it's it's obviously like not Well, no. I am gonna say it is, it is significant because she is equal billing. She's an [00:52:00] equal character in the movie, but the way she's treated by the fandom for. The rest of her earthly and unearthly days is not equal, is not with respect, is very much a Well, who do you want her to end up with?

Luke or, uh, I mean really up until the end, because it's the last movie where she's revealed to be his sister. So that's who it was. It was like, well, who she, what? You know, who's she gonna end up with? Who's it gonna be? And then obviously there's much more objectification in in the last movie. But yeah, I just think it's interesting.

I think this became a very male-centric fandom, and I'm not sure that they always got the message that they were supposed to get from her. That's fair. The question is of course, how much of that was baked in and how much of that might be a case of fans will see what they wanna see. Mm-hmm. Because certainly, you know, as I'm fond of reminding people, star Trek [00:53:00] was sponsored by a bra company, right?

Its original run. So like that was made for a female audience and screw anybody who says otherwise. Right. This may have been aimed more at little boys than at little girls. Right. Although I think they were trying to be. At least somewhat inclusive, right? Mm-hmm. Little tidbits that were dropped. For example, in, in Carrie Fisher's one woman show where she says like that they asked her to lose weight.

Mm-hmm. That, and, and in her memoir saying that, like, she wasn't allowed to wear a bra under the costume because there's no underwear and space, there's no underwear and space. So they, they taped her breasts down instead, which is way more painful, while also probably not improving the quality of the image all that much.

Right? Mm-hmm. And the joke that she was told of about George Lucas, I hope I slept with you to get the job. 'cause if not, who was that guy? Mm-hmm. The fact that Harrison Ford apparently took advantage of her when she, she was 19 years old, although she does describe that as consensual, it's worth pointing out.

Um, no, she doesn't [00:54:00] describe it as consensual. She describes it as an affair and as an affair. Okay. But the way that she explains what happened, I do think this is important. The way that she describes what happens is she was drunk. There were a group of men taking her somewhere and he intervened and then took her somewhere and they slept together.

They continued to sleep together over the course of the production. But I don't think she's very like, oh, I was so empowered in that moment, you know? Right. So it goes to shows, some of this is baked in that this movie was made by men, and although they went up, they, the movie was produced and directed and written and shot by men.

It was edited by a woman. Mm-hmm. So, even though there was an effort to make Leia an equal character in universe, it would be difficult to argue that Carrie Fisher was treated equally. In the world. The power and agency that she had as a 19-year-old actress [00:55:00] in the seventies was less than the power and agency that the actors had.

Right, right. If you think about, she's the only woman in the universe. She was probably the only woman on set most days. Yeah. You know, 'cause Marsha wasn't going to every, you know mm-hmm. Tunisian, well, neither was she, but you know what I mean? Like she wasn't, she was probably the only woman on set quite, unless like her makeup artist.

Right. Or like her, her costume person might have been so, and you and I have often. Been ourselves, the only woman in the room working in, you know, male dominated industries or just hanging out in male dominated spaces for one reason or another. And the power dynamics there can be very damaging even when the men make an effort to be nice.

Yeah. And you often do, you often have to pretend to be okay with things that you're not. Yeah. So Cal couple that with the fact that she was already beginning to show symptoms of what would eventually be diagnosed as severe case of bipolar disorder [00:56:00] and was abusing substances starting down the road of addiction, that would eventually kill her.

I think it's interesting to think that she, she was a teenager. She was an adult, but she was a teenager and. Was not in a very privileged or powerful position, and yet turned in a performance of a woman who's incredibly powerful and definitely is the author of her own life, right? Yeah. And does not take anybody's scuff, right?

Mm-hmm. Anybody's right? Mm-hmm. Regardless of circumstances. So, I mean, honestly, the character is almost more powerful for knowing the milieu in which it was made, right? Yeah, absolutely. And again, as she said, it's almost impossible to separate the character from Carrie Fisher herself. Yeah. And she, I think, probably had many feelings about that over the years, but eventually found it amusing.

Uh, in her one woman show, she says, unless you've never seen Star Wars, in which case, why are you here? So, you know, as, as we track this character, 'cause we're going to track her for [00:57:00] the next, let's see, this is 77. Four decades. Yeah, four decades. It's gonna be. Interesting to see how that does parallel her life even more so than maybe some of her books, which are literally autobiographical.

Well, but no autobiographies is ever a unbiased account. Well, her novels are not autobiographies, but they are autobiographical. I'm saying some of 'em have an unreliable narrator. No, most of them. I mean, I can't, I can't wait to read postcards on the edge because it is so interesting and so hard to follow because the narrators are so unreliable.

With that in mind, let's talk our next steps, because did we decide on including TV, movies or not including TV movies? 'cause are we gonna face the Star Wars holiday special for a second time in our lives? Yeah, it's, it's perfect timing 'cause it's almost Christmas. Well, there's two other made for TV movies in between though.

Oh, tell me. Comeback Little Sheba. Okay. [00:58:00] And Ringo. I think we agreed that we would do anything she was credited in. That's not, I like one episode of television. I am going to reserve judgment until I find out how easy it is to find comeback. Little Sheba, whatever that is. Yeah. Let's see. Come back Little Sheba.

It is available in its entirety on YouTube. Okay. Then we can watch that remote recovering alcoholic and his Dowdy Unambitious wife face a personal crisis when they take in an attractive lodger. Ooh, I wonder who she plays. Okay, so next up will in fact be comeback little Sheba, but. At my back, I always hear the wicked Chariot coming near, which is the Star Wars holiday special, which was famously quickly made because a new hope had been such a hit and they wanted to put something out before they were able to bring the empire strikes back to scream.

But first we'll do come back little [00:59:00] Sheba and then we'll worry. Should we rank her based on her hut slayers? Ah, yes. Well of course this is the character who slays the hut. She hasn't slayed the hut yet. Nope. But we know that hut is going down. When he comes, we would give her a solid four out of five hot slayers on this particular movie.

Yeah. Four out of five hut slayers. She will cut. 'cause she doesn't actually slay a hut in this. Slay a, this one a hut. Soon enough. Yes. Right. But the hut slaying is coming, like you said. And I do think it's a strong showing for the first time we see this character. If this were the only time we see this character, I think she still would be iconic.

Mm-hmm. And yeah. Only goes up from here except for the holiday. Except to the holiday festival. I'll tell the story of the time you forced me to watch it the next time you force me to watch it. It's a, it's a doozy. Yeah. I, I don't know. I, I, I bet I'll find a way to defend it. I don't think you will. But for now, [01:00:00] princess Leia, our space grandma and the queen of our hearts is, so we meet four slash five hot slayers, four outta five, and until we meet again in a holiday special in three years, well, in a holiday special, and then in three years for Empire Strikes Back.

Yes. But for now, people find you if they wanna talk more about huts. Le with you, Claire. If more people want to talk to you about the comparing and contrasting of Princess Le with various bond villains and Bond girls, where can they find you? Uh, I run the blog known as the Dead fictional girlfriends report, dead fictional girlfriends report.com or as one of my students recently said, wow, that's a URL Ms.

Fisher, what did we agree on for a sign off? I forget if my life wasn't funny. Oh, okay. Just remember in the immortal words of Carrie Fisher, if my life wasn't funny, it would just be true. And that's unacceptable. Thanks for listening to another episode of Carried [01:01:00] Far, far Away. This podcast is hosted, produced, edited Reedited.

Obsessed over and loved by Katie Marinell and Claire Fisher. You can follow the show on Facebook and Instagram at Carried Away Pod. You can email us at away carry pod@gmail.com. You can follow Claire at dead fictional girlfriends and Katie at Katie Away. All clips used in this podcast are done so under the protection of fair use.

Have a wonderful week and may the force be with you and now our space Grandma, wisdom of the Week. Now keep in mind, I am the Pez dispenser and I'm in the abnormal psychology textbook who says you can't have it all.

Hello and welcome to Carried Far, far Away, a podcast project where we are watching and reading everything that Carrie Fisher did during her short life and storied career. I'm Claire Fisher. I'm Katie Marella, and today we are talking about Empire Strikes Back,[01:02:00] 

star Wars, episode five, the Empire Strikes Back, pew, pew, pew, pew. Seems only yesterday we were doing episode four. Well, actually yesterday we were opening your time capsule. Goodness, from the year 2000. Oh. Tell the people what you had on your official autobiography for your time capsule. Alright, so I graduated from fifth grade in 2000.

Now I could have the audience to say your age, but I was a millennium baby and we did this project where we put a bunch of stuff into what looks like a bomb or a rocket ship. We're gonna say rocket ship 'cause we're talking about Star Wars and it said, do not open until 2025. So my parents brought it down over the weekend.

Claire and her husband were with me and we opened it and I wrote a couple of different timelines and biographies, but there was one where I had just written three facts about myself, and the very first fact was, I'm [01:03:00] obsessed with Star Wars. And I was like, well, it was pretty much guaranteed that almost exactly 25 years later, I would start a podcast that's not really about Star Wars, but it's mostly about Star Wars.

So just in case there's anyone listening who has never seen Empire Strikes Back, which seems impossible, but I did have at least two people ask me this week if that's the one with the gold bikini. Claire, why don't you grace us with a 54 second recap. All right. Princess Le is commanding a rebel base on the icy world of haw and indulging in some belligerent sexual tension with Han Solo when the empire discovers their location during the battle slash evacuation.

She's separated from most of the fleet, including Luke Skywalker and escapes on the Millennium Falcon, with only Han Jcca and three po due to engine trouble. They're forced to spend a long time dodging imperial pursuers in search of a safe harbor. In this time, Hele and Han developer own romance, they seek shelter on Cloud City only to be betrayed and turned over to Darth Vader for torture.

It's revealed Vader wants to capture [01:04:00] Luke and is relying on Luke's psychic connection to Leia and Han to draw him out. Shortly before Hannah's frozen in Carbonite and sold to a bounty hunter, Leia confesses her love for him. While Lando helps the rest of the party escape, Luke shows up and fights a dramatic dual with Vader eventually losing a hand and flinging himself off the Cloud city platform.

Leia discovers her forced sensitivity and time to catch him. The ragtag crew vowed to find. Continue the fight. That was 58 seconds and I didn't even do the part where I am your father. We'll cut it in. I'm go father. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about how this movie came to beat before we get too far into actors and such, because it is an interesting story, I think, and there's a lot of lore around it.

And all these stories could be false for all I know. Um, but obviously Star Wars was possibly not as big of an underdog as we thought it was, or as, as the lore says it was. But, um, it wasn't an [01:05:00] unexpected hit, right? It was nobody expected it to go to number one, the, and to become the fervor that it was to the point where they had to sell IOUs for Christmas gifts and et cetera, et cetera, that year.

So, and it was rereleased and hit number one, right? Multiple times and Yeah. It became a right. Global phenomenon. Yeah. And after everybody. Took the holiday special and chucked it into their memory hole. People were really dying for more content. Right. So pretty much immediately, obviously the second movie was, was greenlit.

There was a long negotiation between 20th Century Fox and George Lucas because now they wanted in, I guess, more than they did the first time, and then he decided not to write it and not to direct it. And I think that's really interesting. So I saw a couple different explanations of this. I don't know if you came across any explanations in your research.

Some people say it's because it was really hard on his health to direct Star Wars. And some people say it was [01:06:00] because he wanted to focus on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Bad decision, in my opinion, but different story. Well hang, I don't know. Well hang. He's credited as one of the writers. He's credited as like Story buy, yeah, yeah.

Story by exactly right. The screenplay. So he did, so what he did was he started coming up with ideas in 1977, pretty much immediately after, right? Mm-hmm. But he decided to hire a science fiction writer, Lee Bracket. So a woman. Well behold, we, we have a woman involved in the production, although hers was not the final shooting script.

No, hers was not the final shooting script. So he hired her for $50,000. He knew she had cancer. She wrote a script, handed it in, and he wrote a whole bunch of notes on it. And unfortunately, she wasn't able to do the rewrites because she had been hospitalized and died. So then he wrote the second draft.

Which was something like 121 pages long or something crazy. [01:07:00] And hand wrote it. And then in June of 1978, he hired Lawrence Kaden to refine it after being impressed with his work on Raiders Up block the Lost Ark, and it keeps coming back. And so a few things were going on in the zeitgeist here. Yes. And in Harrison Ford's career.

Right. So let's talk about the director though. So for whatever reason, he decided he didn't wanna direct it. Maybe he just felt that it's too many moving pieces. So he knew Urban Christner from USC School of Cinematic Arts, where Kushner was a teacher, and Kushner was like, wait, why? Why me? You know? 'cause he had not really done a ton.

He'd done some independent stuff. And Lucas said that he really liked the way he did character development. And this movie was definitely supposed to be more developing of the characters. Than the original. And the quote is, because, you know, everything a Hollywood director is supposed to know, but you're not Hollywood.

Hmm. [01:08:00] So, okay. I hadn't heard that quote. Yeah. So inter I hadn't either, so I thought that was interesting. And Cursor tried to say no, but his, his manager was like, wait, what?

No, you're, you're gonna direct this movie. So, yeah. Interesting that it is definitely a tonal shift. It's definitely a different writer, a different director. Mm-hmm. And it's interesting to think about how that all affected things famously, people say that it's darker. I don't know. The first one's not like light and happy.

They destroy planets. There's one survivor of the attack run on the Death Star. I wouldn't say the first one's light and bright. It ends with kind of an homage to a Nazi movie, right? Yeah. I think the fact that there's not a satisfactory happy ending is what gets it branded as dark. The empire strikes back not having a happy ending.

That is something I did find some trivia on because the final scene that exists in the movie today [01:09:00] where they say, we will find Han we'll rendezvous on tattooing Luke's getting his prosthetic hand. That was a re-shoot was going to end just with Luke having just lost his arm and learned something freely scary about his own history being caught by Leia and R 2D two fixes the engine in the nick of time and they hyper speed away and.

That's that we, but James Bond will return. Yeah. You know, tune in in the next movie, which will three years from now. Right. Yeah. Um, so tell us a little bit about the Times. Yes. Okay. So this was released June 18th, 1980. 1980 was an election year. June was the month in which Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy were up against each other in the primaries, democratic primaries.

Jimmy Carter did wrap up enough, he secured enough delegates for the nomination, but would lose in the general to Ronald Reagan. So [01:10:00] generally, you gotta put this in the context of the Iran hostage crisis was ongoing. People were becoming quite disillusioned with a certain vision of the future that Jimmy Carter's original election had stood for.

Mm-hmm. And there was beginning to be sort of a conservative backlash that would come to define the rest of the 1980s. Into today. Into today. Perhaps Relatedly, CNN launched on June 1st as the first ever 24 hour news network. Oh, no boo. And they have not shot up since, nor have they taken down their breaking news banner.

Never. Never. Not once. Before we taped out the breaking news, CNN's founder has famously said they're prepared to continue broadcasting until the end of the world, and they already have a tape ready for when they need to play the lights down. Anyway, C Nnn started talking and they shut up. Since Venus Williams was born the day before Empire Strikes Back came out.

On June 3rd of [01:11:00] that year, a computer error at NORAD erroneously reported that the Soviets were attacking, which inspired war games awkward. And on the same day as the premier of Empire Strikes Back, a federal grand jury indicted two US representatives for having accepted $50,000 in bribes, offered to them by undercover FBI agents doing an investigation called Abscam, which would inspire the plot of American Hustle.

So a lot was going on here that would, that would inspire future movies only $50,000 in bribes. That seems like chump changed these days. Yeah, I know. Uh, even when adjusted for inflation. These were both representatives from New Jersey, so you know, of course they were. Of course they were. I'm, I'm gonna look up how much that is in today's dollars.

I wanna know if we got our money's worth for that. Okay. I'm gonna make a note that you should insert John Stewart's clip about the Find New Jersey corruption. $190,000 death. It's literally [01:12:00] still nothing. It's not a lot to sell your soul for, but anyway. No, not anymore. Yeah. Where, where are the gold bars?

Where are the trips to Turkey Future Claire here. It turns out you can't get that clip of John Stewart online anymore, but Katie is referring to a time in 2014 when he said, I'm disappointed, ashamed of the state I grew up in. To see New Jersey sink to such a piss poor third rate quality of corruption.

This is New Jersey, a state renowned for its piss rich first rate corruption. So more directly related to the times is sort of what had happened to pop culture after the first Star Wars came out because everything was coming up sci-fi. Mm-hmm. Uh, in 1977 when Star Wars came out, there had been. Rumors that Star Trek might get a second, or I guess a third TV series if you count the animated series immediately after Star Wars came out and was a hit, paramount Green Lit Star Trek, [01:13:00] the motion picture, right?

Launching a movie franchise, which much like CNN has not shot up yet. That one came out yesterday on Paramount Plus. A movie or a spinoff? No. Section 31 is a movie. It wasn't theatrically released, but it's a movie. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, lots of movies aren't theatrically released anymore. Exactly, yeah.

Everything coming up sci-fi Trekkies had been a, a huge part of the early fan base for Star Wars, and then Star Wars inspired the Star Trek movies. Other franchises were jumping into the Fray. Moonraker, the James Bond film was rushed into production with a hastily assembled space related plot because mm-hmm.

Space was big. Dune got green lit. It eventually came out in 1984, but there was like a failed attempt to get some financing for a different version before that. Frank Herbert, who wrote the Dune series, went out of his way in one of the later Dune books to make a contrived pun saying The three pos are people who are contented with cheap knockoffs [01:14:00] because he was accusing George Lucas of having ripped off.

Portions of Star Wars from Dune. So, and if anyone listening to this is not like in on all of the pettiness and viciousness that happens in the sci-fi world, let me tell you that people are really competitive about their sci-fi fandoms. Mm-hmm. Right? The many hours I spent reading Trekkies versus Star Wars fans in early internet, and George Lucas, George Lucas has thrown shade.

He said, fans of Star Wars don't sit in their basement. They go out and have lives unlike Trekkies. There was that whole thing between William Shatner and Carrie Fisher, and then George Decay had to. Step in and say, we really need to focus all of our hatred on Twilight. Yeah. That was a weird thing that had to happen.

Remember when Twilight was a thing? Remember when Twilight is a thing all, I have so many friends who rewatch it, like it's their comfort movie. Oh, Lordy [01:15:00] Lord. Yeah, I know. Okay, so where was I? Oh, okay. And you also already referenced Raiders of the Lost Stark. Mm-hmm. Which, you know, worth noting that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were working together on a series of groundbreaking sci-fi movies, such as we might Note, close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Stark in the same era.

I mean, 1982 was when Bel Blade Runner came out. Star Wars was part of and sort of the kickoff for a a decade straight of science fiction being big business. Yeah. In a way it hadn't necessarily been before. Mm-hmm. And people who were alive at the time say that like. You have to understand, it used to always look cheap.

Mm-hmm. Star Wars made it look like a real movie. Mm-hmm. And by bringing in this well-respected indie director, they made the Empire strikes back a character study that also features a battle between flying spaceships and [01:16:00] anthropomorphize tanks. You are actually in a floating city having a sword dual fight choreographed by well-respected fencers, right?

Mm-hmm. Like so to find a grounded, realistic, or at least real looking way to do a sci-fi movie was still kind of a new idea. Right. Right, right. And I mean, I have. Several quibbles with the idea that this is a layered character study. I think it gets more credit for that than it actually delivers on. Hmm.

And we will talk about that more. But think about how much character development people were used to getting at that point. James Bond. Pow, pow. You know, women come, they go at least this woman stays alive for the entirety of the movie, even if she is still the only woman in the universe. Except for there's one moment where there's a woman looking through one of those space screen, the yeast in the rebel base.

[01:17:00] Mm-hmm. And Princess Lay is right across from her, as far as I can tell. They do not speak. So no betal tests there. No betal tests, but there is a second woman on set for some period of time. It gets in a lot of character development for the men. Yeah. And so while Luke's story is great and you've got the whole dramatic reveal, I am your father and you've got the losing an arm and you've got the facing your own darkness and you've got the deciding between your own path and protecting your friends, you know, all great character stuff.

Wonderful, all good stuff. Not, not so much comparable in Leia's story, although they do have some character beats that are interesting. There's some character beats, but she, so the first movie we noted that the IMDB summary was her right. Princess Leia is intercepted and must rely on whatever her friends to help her.

This one is after the Empire overpowers [01:18:00] the Rebel Alliance, Luke Skywalker begins his Jedi training with Yoda At the same time, Darth Vader and Bounty Hunter, Boba Fet pursue his friends across the galaxy. Boba Fe gets name, checked his friends and slay a dozen his friends. Yes. Yes. And the rest she's And the rest, right?

Like in Gilligan's Island. I, I no, I, I'm glad you said that because I had the exact same thought. I was like, she has actually become less of a character in this one, in my opinion, than she does in the first one. And I'm gonna tell you now what I think that the title of this episode should be, which is Carrie Fisher's father forgets she exists.

Okay. Darth Vader doesn't know he has No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I mean, that's not what I mean at all. I'm not talking about the. Phantom Menace bullshit. I'm not talking about any of that. What I'm talking about is that in the first movie, she is the most dangerous person to them. [01:19:00] They move the entire space thing to her planet.

You mean Death Star? Yes. The whole space thing. The Death Star to her planet because she needs to give up this vital information. She is a leader high up in the rebellion in this movie. He comes face to face with her again. Now she defeated him. Once she's resisted Truth serum, they torture Han. It's implied that they're torturing her as well.

They never asked them any questions. Han says, they never even asked me any questions, and that to me is just what? I understand that you have this white whale, right? You're focused on who you believe your son is, which also not a hundred percent sure how he even figured that out. 'cause I don't remember. I don't know what the connection is there.

I'm crushed. You didn't read the comics that I walked Midtown Comics. Okay. But a comic that came out in [01:20:00] 2015, 15 is not, I mean, it, it may fill in that gap, but if I'm looking at this in 1980, yeah. There's not really a connective tissue between, wait, why do we care about Skywalker's Sun? I mean, we knew, we know about Anakin, we talk about that.

But again, she was the most important person in the first movie. She was the one that they needed. Right, right. And she is, I mean, they don't even show her. Not that I wanna see anyone tortured. They don't even show her torture scene. They show Chewbacca's and they show Hans. And she's just like, why are they doing this?

Like she, I feel like she takes a major step back. Mm-hmm. In her characterization. That's true. But before we get into the actual scene by scene here, let's do the actors. Yes. So let's talk about that. Who are not Perry Fisher? One of the things that Empire Back is noted for is being really good at establishing some really powerful new characters in the second, [01:21:00] which you have to do in order to keep the story going.

So let's talk about Lando Kelian Billy D. Williams. He's originally from Harlem. He made his Broadway theater debut at age seven. In 1945, can you imagine being a 7-year-old black actor? No. 45. That's impressive. I didn't know that. Extremely impressive. And he actually won a painting scholarship to the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design.

So painting was actually his first love. Wow. According to Wikipedia, he returned to acting to fund his art supplies, which is very funny. But he continues to paint to this day and has won awards for it and is, you know, his stuff is displayed at various places. His film debut was in the Last Angry Man in 1959, but he came to National Attention in the television movie, Brian's Song, 1971, which earned him an Emmy nomination for best actor.

He has appeared in over a hundred films and over 70 television roles over six decades. Besides, he is obviously best [01:22:00] known for Orlando Kian. The role that stood out to me was he was Harvey Dent in the 1989 Batman and also in the Lego Batman movie in 2017. Yes, and I love the Lego movies. He's earned three NAACP image awards and the NAACP lifetime Achievement Award.

He was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1984 and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1985. Yoda, we must speak of Frank Oz was born in England, which I did not know that. Did you know he was British? Um, I never thought about it, Jack. Just thinking about all the voices he does, I, it wouldn't have necessarily occurred to me, but his parents were puppeteers, so this was in his blood.

Basically, they moved to California when he was a little bit older, and as a teenager he worked as a puppeteer apprentice, and he was hired by Jim Henson in 1963 to work for the Jim Henson Company. Besides [01:23:00] Yoda, he is known for Miss Piggy Fozzy Bear Animal and Sam Eagle on the Muppet Show. Cookie Monster, Bert and Grover on Sesame Street.

So kind of an amazing range. And then how'd they get him for Yoda? So Lucas knew that he wanted this puppet thingy. He asked Jim Henson and Henson actually recommended Oz. Now I've read different things about whether the syntax, the speaking backwards, that Yoda does was his, or if Lucas had that in the script.

But regardless, he definitely made this character what it is, right? Mm-hmm. He voiced the puppet in Return of the Jedi, obviously, and also in the Phantom Menace. Then they made a computer generated Yoda in episode two and three, but he came back to voice them. And then when the DVDs were released, they replaced the puppet with CGI in episode one.

But it's his voice throughout his work as a director. Another thing I did not know, he [01:24:00] directed The Dark Crystal. The Muppets Take Manhattan Little Shop of Horrors, dirty Rotten Scoundrel. The Indian in the cupboard, death at a funeral. Like those are some big, like those are some names that you know and I did not know that about him.

So pretty cool. And then I guess I have to talk about Boba FET because apparently we always have to talk about Boba fet. Put Captain Solo in the cargo, hold his great wine, right as you wish. Okay, so obviously we saw Boba Hfe for the first time in the Ho Star Wars holiday special. However, we don't remember that everybody has, has put that to the side.

Jeremy Bullock, hilariously his IMDB page was WR written by the Boba Fit Fan Club, and I actually really like some of their turns of phrase, but he got his start in children's television and then he got a major role in the musical film, summer holiday in 1963. Shortly after that he was in A BBC soap opera called The Newcomers, which ran for three years and made him a household name in [01:25:00] the uk.

So he did already have. Fame during the 1970s. He made many other screen appearances. Do you know what other franchise that you've studied in depth? He appears in, I am going to guess by the way you said that, that it's James Bond. It's James Bond. He plays the character Smither Q's assistant in 1978, he was starring in the television comedy series agony when he was asked to play a quote, small part in Star Wars episode five, the Empire Strikes Back.

This is the part that I'm direct directly quoting from the Boba Ft Fan Club. 'cause I thought it was funny. The part of course was Boba Ft. Proving the old theatrical saying that there's no such thing as a small pirate.

He came back in Return of the Jedi when Star was re released in 1997. The interest in the character, Boba FET skyrocketed. And so he was invited to many sci-fi conventions and he. Was [01:26:00] apparently known at least by these guys who wrote this thing as someone who responds to all his fan mail, even though he gets a lot more than he used to.

I, I remember when we read how Star Wars conquered the universe by Chris Taylor. He interviewed Bullock who said he kept the armor of Boba Fet and he says, goodnight Boba fat on his way up the stairs at night. Well, it certainly kept him comfortable in his later years. Is he still alive? He died in 2020.

If you had put a gun to my head, I couldn't have told you that Q had an assistant named Smithers in the seventies. I, that is such an nothing character, but I, I assume that Smith, there's the Simpson's character is based on that. Probably, but I, I dunno. I mean, I can tell you a lot about Q including, I actually know what Q's real name is, which has been spoken on screen exactly once, but I didn't know that he had an assistant.

I assumed you would know. Interesting that this very white British man [01:27:00] originated this role and then later we find out that it is Maori. Yeah, they made the prequels. Django Fet and Young Boba Fe were both played by actors from New Zealand, Maori actors from New Zealand. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. Um, one of whom also narrates the introductory video at the City Museum of Rota Row in New Zealand, which was a weird moment for me in the summer of 2007 as an impressionable young Star Wars fan.

I walk into this museum and Django Ft tells me the story of how the volcano erupts when white people get too greedy. And I was like. Well, that puts me in my place then. Thank you. Django fet.

It's all connected. Editor's note. We mean Tamira Morrison, but we didn't have his name in front of us anyway. Anyone else on our actor list besides all of our returnees, Alec and Oh yes. Obviously pretty much everybody. Well not everybody 'cause a lot of them died on the Death Star, but [01:28:00] all, most of the good people, the good ones are back plus Darth Vader and, oh, you didn't mention the Emperor makes their first appearance.

He does. As a hologram. I did. There was a credit for his voice, but I know you have some trivia about who played the body. Yeah. In the original theatrical release, it was a different face because they hadn't yet hired the person who would play Palpatine from then until 2019. It was edited, I believe as soon as it was released on VHS.

They had gone back and put him back in. Ian McMan was hired for returning the Jedi and then continued to reprise the rule for many decades. But in the original release of the Empire Strikes back it was Marjorie Eaton in heavy makeup and then a voiceover provided by Clive Revels. But it's like a 45 second appearance.

It wasn't very much. Yeah. And she died in 86, so she didn't live to see how that character evolved over [01:29:00] the decades. Yeah. She was an American painter photographer and character actress. Mm-hmm. But we've never seen her be the body of emperor Palp. 'cause we have only ever seen this in various home video and rereleased versions.

Right, right. So you and I have never seen her, but anyone who was at the theater in 1980 did. Okay. So with that out of the way, let's talk about this plot. Let's talk about the extent to which it does or doesn't deserve the credit it gets for its character work. Okay. I will note off the bat, the first act features someone showing concern for Leia's emotional state.

It is Major Delin played by John Ratzenberger in a single scene. He makes a colleague lower his voice when they're discussing how Luke and Han are stuck outside and Mike freeze to death. Mm-hmm. So that she won't overhear the gloomy prediction. Right. So again, is it showing concern for [01:30:00] her, her emotional state, or is it infantile As infantile as her infantile What?

What is her role in this rebellion? She is apparently commanding this base. She's the last one out. She doesn't evacuate until they're saying Imperial troops have entered the base. Imperial troops have entered the base. She is prepared to go down with that ship. But she's not the general No. Right. She's not Who?

Han goes to to say, I need to leave because we ran into Boun Bounty Hunter and I, I need to go pay off Java the hut. This whole thing could have been solved with like a wire transfer. Yeah. If they had a wire transfer order. Yeah. Yeah. Money order. Just send a check. Gosh. Mm-hmm. But yeah. Yeah. Okay, so that sets up something I, I wanna mention.

There are, throughout this movie, at least two ways you can interpret Leia's character. Mm-hmm. At pretty much all times. Mm-hmm. She's either in charge or she's a bit of a figurehead. Mm-hmm. And they kind of go back and forth on that. Mm-hmm. They're either concerned about her or they're [01:31:00] infantalizing her.

Mm-hmm. She and Han are either just teasing each other or Han's sexually harassing her. Right. Right. When he keeps insisting that she has feelings for him, her responses are, I just as soon kiss a wooki. I don't know where you get your delusions. Laser brain. You stuck up halfway to scruffy looking nerve herder.

I guess you don't know everything about women yet. And then. Passionately kisses Luke in front of him. Later on, she says, being held by you isn't quite enough to get me excited. And then she says, you make it so difficult sometimes, and at this point in the movie, he says, yeah, I do. I really do. And then they kiss, right?

He says, you could be a little nicer though, as a, I guess, yeah. Either they just are teasing each other or she's actually not interested. Brian said out loud when she said, being held by you isn't enough to get me excited. And he says, I haven't got time for anything else. Brian said out loud, God, he's a [01:32:00] creep.

Yeah. Is the romance with Han and creepy? Yes. Because that's what she gets to do in this movie mostly. Pretty much, yeah. Is that she and Han are stuck together. Right. Cut off as the only two humans on this spaceship in Mortal danger. I actually wrote down this whole franchise is just a study in trauma bonding.

Okay. That's because this is supposed to take place. Three years later. Right. So there's clearly been many, many other adventures together, but there's kind of a big jump from what do you think me and a guy like me and a girl like her to, you know, could you use a good kiss? Right. Right. Has there been anything else in those three years, or is it all business on her side?

And again, she's the only woman in the universe, so he's kind of a creep about it. So just by chance, my husband and I had watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which is the second one in the Indiana Jones series. The night before we watched the Umpire Strikes Back, which is the second one in the Star Wars [01:33:00] series.

Mm-hmm. And Brian said he's a creep both times in Indian Jones and Temple Doom. He hits a woman with a whip to make her not walk away. Yep. However, Brian said that. Indiana Jones treats women a certain way because he's an homage to 1930s movie, serial Heroes who treated women that way. Sure. He, uh, or as he put it, the whole fucking plot of Indiana Jones is absolutely bonkers in any case.

So the bonkers way it treats the Battle of Sexes is like part of that world. Mm-hmm. Here the world was 100% fictional, made up out of whole cloth. Mm-hmm. They could have made the balance of power between genders, anything they wanted to make it right. And what they made. It was a whole lot like the dynamic that Indiana Jones has with most of the women tea encounters.

Right. When we look back at older movies, remind ourselves the concept of affirmative [01:34:00] consent as a concept came into existence in the 1990s. So in 1980 when the asteroid theron shakes and she falls into Han's arms and he uses this opportunity to flirt with her, that wasn't seen as as big a problem as it now might be.

And their first kiss happens after he kind of corners her and presses her up against a bulkhead. And she seems to be receptive to that, but she's just spent the whole first act of the movie not giving him any encouragement at all. Right. Of course then it's, they, they're trapped on the ship. The, the timeline is not really defined, but it's implied to be a couple of months.

'cause Luke goes through his whole Jedi check range right. In the time they're trapped together. So there are, as I said before, two possibilities. A, he's just a super fucking creep and takes advantage of the fact that they're alone together for months and she can't get away from him. Mm-hmm. To force that relationship.

Counter argument. Option number two, [01:35:00] Leia being a princess politician, military commander is kind of used to psych, psych offense and suck up and finds herself attracted to a man who challenges her assumptions and calls her on some of her pose that she has. Now, just 'cause your swagger works on women sometimes, doesn't mean you should try it on every woman you meet.

Mm-hmm. But it apparently is working for Leia at some point, right? Because when they get to Cloud City and she thinks something's wrong here, and he kisses her forehead, tells you to relax, she says, as soon as this is over, you're as good is gone. Soon as you get me back to the rebels, you're leaving. And at that point I was thinking it seems like she likes him better when she doesn't have to be seen with him in public.

Interesting. Or maybe she likes him better when she's trying to rebuff Lando Kian, who. Possibly as much of a creep and she doesn't know. Right. So she's like, excuse you. [01:36:00] You know when he says, when he kisses her hand and says You're gorgeous or something like that. Mm-hmm. And she says, thank you. I'm like, oh, that thank you.

Just like sent shivers down my brain. 'cause that's every woman who's just in like a vulnerable situation. Like, okay, thanks. Yeah. And then I've read that as originally scripted. Han said, I'm not planning to trade her Lando, but that Harrison Ford objected. He was like, no way. Making that he is just protective.

Not that he is paternalistic. Right. When he says, all right, all right, you like smoothie. A lot of how you read Leia's character in this movie depends on how you read that relationship. Mm-hmm. If it's that they actually aren't mutually attracted to each other, but the differences in background, social class, lifestyle, everything are just so obnoxious that they can only really have a relationship when they're stranded together.

If that's the case, then this is actually a cute love story. [01:37:00] If it's that he's a creep, then this is a story of a woman going through sexual harassment for months and then give again 'cause she thinks he's about to die, right? Because that's the big scene. Let's talk about the scene that the scene, the subject of many of your childhood night nightmares.

I know Nightmares. Yes. Yes. We'll call them nightmares. Okay. So Darth Vader, massive drama Queen was already on Cloud City when Han and Leia arrived, unbeknownst to them. Mm-hmm. But nevertheless waited until dinner time so he could dramatically reveal his presence. It's, and with him he has a bunch of storm troopers and Boba Fed who, who was also hiding.

'cause Boba Fed has apparently also got a fair flare for the dramatic, he stepped out from behind a strategically placed wall. Right. You're right. He does. Yeah. At dinnertime, like that's supposed to mean something to these people. These people have no, well, no. They saw him before an [01:38:00] animated form because that's Canon.

Right. Good point. So now he's double crossed them Again. We would be delighted if you would join us. Right? Yeah. I recently saw a comic that was like, so what was that? Did they actually sit down for dinner? What was that dinner like? What happens next? I, there's so much fan fiction of what happens at that dinner.

I'm telling you. Yeah, the, the cutaway is not really very effective there. I need to know more. Having taken Han and Leia prisoner, Darth Vader has them and Chewbacca. And Chewbacca. But don't forget Chewbacca. CP, sorry, sorry. Darth Vader has them tortured because he is hoping that their pain will echo through the force and cause Luke to try to come and rescue them.

Also left unexplained. How he knows Luke can do that trick. I guess he assumes that he could do it. Could he though? Yeah, because he says in the first in Star Wars, a new hope, he says, I felt, I feel, I sense a presence. I've not felt in. Then goes after Obiwan. Yeah, but that wasn't from across the other side of the [01:39:00] galaxy.

It was from in the same room. No, but there is the whole, there's been a disturbance in the force or what does the emperor say? There's been a big something in the force. I don't know if it's disturbance. Activity in the force. Activity in, yeah. So he somehow has intuited that Luke is being trained to do this thing.

Mm-hmm. And so he has used Han Leia and Chewbacca to get Luke's attention. Oh, one other thing, he doesn't necessarily know how long Luke trained with Obiwan. Yeah, that's true. Okay. So we know that it was approximately two minutes, but in his world, they could have been on tattooing together the entire time because they were in fact on tattooing together the entire time.

So, okay. Fair. Alright. But to get back to the scene, mm-hmm. Now that. Luke Skywalker is on the way and Darth Vader can sense this. He goes to fulfill his half of the deal with Boba Fet who, who helped track them down by turning over Han Solo to be [01:40:00] turned in for the bounty. Mm-hmm. That's what bounty hunters do.

But what does he do first? Katie? Oh, why does watching this movie still gimme genuine anxiety? I don't have any fond feelings for Harrison Ford anymore, for reasons I've discussed in previous episodes. As I get older, see the love story between Han and Leia as creepier than romantic, and yet I get so much anxiety and I almost didn't wanna watch it.

So there is a machine in the cloud city, I guess they used it for freezing carbon, whatever they're mining on Cloud City, they, they transport it by freezing. Okay. Got it. So Drive Bader has decided that the best way to get Luke from point A to point Emperor is to encase him in Carbonate, absolutely no indication why [01:41:00] this plan was hatched.

You would think he could just like force choke him or something, or keep him like just four stroked enough anyway, um, tie him up, right. Literally anything. But he's decided that he has to be in this carbonate, so they're gonna test it on Captain Solo. And so they basically tell them in the moment, like he says, Tolando, what's going on, buddy?

Or whatever. And he tells him You're being frozen in carbonate. And I think the only person who reacts appropriately to this news is Chewbacca. Chewbacca fights back, starts throwing positives, starts throwing storm troopers off the ledge into the machine. Never to be heard from again, because nobody cares about the storm troopers.

And you know, Han says, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. This isn't gonna help me. And then he says, you have to take care of the princess. Which again, because he's trying to calm Chewbacca down by reminding him of live to fight another day. Principles. Yes, sure, sure. And then he [01:42:00] kisses, Leia gets on the thing to go down and she says, I love you.

And he says, I know, I know the lines that have adorned many a wedding cake since have the Yes. We went to a wedding on May the fourth that had the on the top of the Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So did you look up the actual story of why this happened? I know we've like talked about it in the past, but do we have any like historical.

Confirmation that it was because they didn't know if Harrison Ford was coming back. Uh, I haven't found, I mean, the, the lore around the making of Star Wars is consistently inconsistent. Right. I have heard that Harrison Ford suggested the idea of not responding with I Love you too. Mm-hmm. I have heard that it was scripted to be I love you too, but that.

He didn't think Han would get sentimental in his last moments, basically. Right. But I'm talking specifically about the Carbonite. Oh, is he put in [01:43:00] Carbonite because they didn't know if he, they were gonna be able to get the actor back. That's what I've heard. I don't know if it's true. Yeah, I don't know if it's true either because Star Wars was, I mean, I know he was an American graffiti, but Star Wars was his breakout as well.

Yeah. So I've heard stories in the past that the other two signed on for three movies and he ne didn't necessarily do that and, but it's not like he was already Harrison four like now that would make sense. Well, I mean you, you mentioned he had also made Raiders of the Lost Ark. Brian's other comment was she, does he play an overgrown teenager?

Everywhere we see him. 'cause yes, American Graffiti, Indiana Jones and now Han kind of all have this overgrown teenager kind of thing. And I, Brian was talking so much about this, I was like, honey, I'm gonna want you to go watch Blade Runner and come back with a full report. So we close this loop of things that Harrison Ford was in in the eighties.

I don't think it's an unfair, he does seem to play and at a certain point when you are Harrison Ford and you're one of the highest grossing actors of all time, [01:44:00] is it not on you that you're constantly playing these kind of like sexist, overgrown teenagers? I dunno. I mean the, to what extent do actors.

Characters versus, you know, the people who write the characters to be that way. A hundred, a hundred percent. But he's had a career now for 50, 60 years and he plays the same character. I haven't seen him in shrinking yet. I do wanna watch that 'cause it looks interesting. Well, maybe our next podcast is a Harrison Ford watch through, so we can look at the way his performances if we spend like five years on it.

Sure. I mean, you gotta have some time to build up your fan base. Right. Okay. Um, okay, so that's the big scene for you for 7-year-old me. Sure. Yeah. Eight for 7-year-old me, a bigger scene. And I was thinking about this, so the, the one important thing that insisting on Freezing Hot and Carbonite to test if this will work, [01:45:00] establishes is that Darth Vader has decided.

Luke can't die. Right. Darth Vader. He was bad in the first movie, but he has been really unleashed in this movie. Oh my God. He spends most of his screen time force choking people who aren't moving quick enough for him. Right. And, and, and then promoting the next guy into his position. Exactly. Right. Which becomes almost funny.

He does it so much. It, it is almost funny. But he, I think he does do it three times or he does it twice, but it's three admirals. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I actually wrote down like, what is the turnover rate in this army? We see him on his knees in front of the emperor. Right. And the emperor saying. Confirmed that Luke is Anakin's Skywalker's long lost son, right?

We're gonna have to kill him 'cause he's a threat to us. And Dr. Ader stands up to the emperor and says, no, let's try to turn him to the dark side instead. And then he goes to all this trouble of the slightly convoluted plan to [01:46:00] freeze Honda and Carbonite so that we'll know that we can freeze Luke and Carbonite.

And why don't you just tie them up. But anyway, I guess if you have a space wizard with telekinesis, tie him up is not that simple, right? So the big climactic dual between Luke and Vader is really interesting because Luke is weaponizing his own mortality against Vader. Vader. Can't let this end with him.

Killing Luke. Mm. So you see that Vader leaps down the stairs. He almost flies with his cape flapping it all mm-hmm. To to force push him into the carbon freezing chamber. And Luke just force jumps out of the carbon freezing chamber. Yeah. And Darth Vader starts ripping things off the walls and hurling them at Luke to try to knock him down.

Mm-hmm. But like you're holding a laser sword. If you wanted to kill the guy just go out, we would kill him. Right. Laser sword. Right. Do And Luke knows he can use his reflexes to survive major falls. And then this kind of builds up to the big reveal [01:47:00] that Darth Vader as our father had already spoiled for us, is Luke's father, which comes when he really has Luke on the ropes.

He's cut off Luke's sword hand, the lightsaber goes flying away. Brian actually paused it to ask, remind me how he gets that one back. And I was like, he kind of never does. Nope. And not until episode seven maybe. Yeah. And then he throws it into the ocean 'cause he is in an F, the Jedi kind of mood and Right.

Brian said, in all fairness though, F the Jedi. Yeah. I'll come back to that in a minute. Darth Vader really has Luke on the ropes. Luke chooses to jump to what could be his death. Mm-hmm. Because he knows that's the one thing Darth Vader can't stand would be to have him die. Does he know that though? I think he's noticing that when Darth Vader's making the offer, let's go rule the galaxy father and son.

Got it. To kill yourself is the way, it's the ultimate, like Yeah. The ultimate rebellion against that, and I don't know if it's been remastered and remastered or if I just [01:48:00] haven't seen this movie in a while, but him hanging off that like telephone pole at the end, like the very end after he's fallen down that shaft and he is hanging upside down on that thing, that is genuinely scary.

Oh yeah. Because you get, you get a real sense of height there. Like when you go down, got a shaft that is made of metal or whatever, and there's so many chefs in Star Wars buildings, right, that people throw themselves down and they're fine. But when he gets to that telephone pole, basically, and all that's below him is clouds.

That is mm-hmm. Genuinely scary. Yeah, I used to get terrified by that and if, and if he didn't have Space Wizard Telekinesis with his twin sister, I don't know what the end would've been there. Tele, yeah. Telepathy. Yeah. Space Wizard. Tele also telekinesis, but yes, telepathy with his sister. I don't know how he, yeah, I don't know.

That could have been the end of Luke Skywalker. Yeah, it was very mysterious in the original run. How Leia manages to [01:49:00] hear him and sense where he is and go back for him in the Millennium Falcon since it had not been established that she had any kind of force powers. In fact, it's never really established until the sequels.

I know he says it to her and return to the Jedi and we'll get there, but she's never really shown using it for anything other than being tuned into the emotions of the people around her AKA being a woman. But she does, she saves his life. First of all, he calls out for his dead. Karate teacher three times before he calls out for life.

Okay. The man's in a bit of shock having lost his arm and also his dead karate teacher's Ghost has been the most helpful character all movie to him. I suppose he has, but he specifically told him, I'm not coming with you. Yeah. And there's been no indication that he is able to manipulate the physical world.

Let's talk a minute about how Obiwan doesn't come with him though. Luke is getting trained on Diggaba with tta. [01:50:00] Mm-hmm. And he finds out that Leia and Han and Chewy and three Po who put together have a lot of information that they, they could be tortured for, are now being tortured specifically to get his attention through the horse.

Mm-hmm. And he says, I better go rescue them. And Yoda and Obiwan insist he cannot go, even though. It will eventually be revealed. Princess Leia is the potential backup plan for the chosen one. If she is your second possibility of a chosen one and your current chosen one is insisting on going to do something quite risky, you should probably rally the troops to protect the books.

Right? Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Which is why when Brian said to be fair F the Jedi. Yeah, the Jedi really. Do not the Jedi have a plan here? No. I mean, I freaking hate Yoda. Like I hate him. The more I watch him [01:51:00] and with the many other, you know, we obviously have many more chapters of context for him than anyone watching this in 1980 would have.

I just find him insufferable everything he said that it sounds profound because he says it. Wards. But do or do not? There is no try. What kind of bullshit is that? I can't train him. He's too old. He's too young. He's too, I didn't get to kidnap him as a child, so I can't possibly train this guy. It's, I hate it all.

I hate it all so much. You personally bought me this paperweight though? Yeah, I used to believe that. I just mind, would you have learned, save you? What can, and I'm sure that's true for you, but for Luke, I just found the whole thing exhausting. And it turns out that he didn't really need Yoda. I mean, he kind of whiffs it on this mission.

He does not actually rescue them at all. And also he specifically is warned by Leia shouting. [01:52:00] It's a trap. It's a trap. Continues. He walks straight in to the trap. Yep. And look, he gets trapped and loses a hand and has to fling himself up to his potential death of then use face wizard telepathy to get rescued.

Right. And his light saber is not seen again for 42 years. Right. He ends up not, not only does he end up not rescuing them, they have to rescue him. Right. Yeah. So technically in this one instance, Yoda and Obiwan were right. Okay. But play this out the other way. He doesn't go to rescue them. Mm-hmm. So they get sold to a bounty hunter and or escape cloud city.

And then they do what? Well, but what, what does, what does he do? He comes up with a plan for how to get. Back as we will see in the next movie. I guess that's true. It's unclear to me whose idea that was, because again, there's a whole [01:53:00] lot of jump cuts to the next thing. I'll say. My other favorite part of this movie is The Battle of Hoff.

Yes. I don't know if you remember an old friend, Sam, who had all of the action figures for all of the combatants in that movie, the A TAT walkers, the ones with the two legs, the ones with the four legs, the snow troopers, the little rebels, and I don't know if you remember this, but his whole playroom was just constantly the battle of Hoff.

The sudden realization that these futuristic ships also have harpoons. Oh my god. Luke saying, use your harpoons is right up there with McCrady wants the flamethrower from the thing in terms of how explicable that comment is, right. You have Harpoons. Yes. It's a good thing you have harpos. This happens to be, isn't that convenient?

Yes, this happens to be a situation where you need Harpos, but what were you planning to use them for? Well, also how they feel when they go to get Luke. It's like open the top hatch. Oh, well [01:54:00] it's very nice that you suddenly have a top hatch. Ah, top hatch was always in the model. We just hadn't seen it open before.

Right, right. Yeah. But I do wanna go back just briefly to why I hate Yoda. 'cause I do think that requires a little bit more explanation. The wisdom that he's passing on has not worked. Right. Even if you don't know anything about the prequels or the sequels, it's been established that Kin Skywalker hunted down and killed all the Jedi.

Right. So we don't, well, no. Darth Vader. We don't find out. That was kin skywalk. Sorry, sorry. Darth Vader. Yes. It's been established at Darth Vader, hunted and ex exterminated the Jedi, basically. And so it's very much a stuck in your. This is how it's always been done. So how could we possibly do it any differently this time?

Right? Yeah. And then there is, when you do add the context of the larger story, the concept that he accidentally [01:55:00] unleashed wizard fascism on the galaxy and then went and hid out in the swamp for 20 years. And I think that if you accidentally unleash faci fascism, you should be responsible for what happens next and not just let planets get, I mean, he's the most force sensitive being in the galaxy.

He felt alder on. Mm-hmm. Explode. He probably felt a million other. You know, travesties that have occurred in the past 20 some odd years, and what he's just waiting around. There's also, he is a hypocrite in terms of like, oh, I don't think I can train this one. Well, you've had access to him since he was a literal newborn, right?

You could have raised him up anyway you wanted. Right. And like, right. You could have sent him anywhere in the galaxy. You could have gone with him anywhere in the galaxy and you didn't, so don't complain. He could have lived on [01:56:00] Gigaba for with you for 20 years. Like, it's just, it makes no sense. Mm-hmm. And then let's talk about this in the context of what week we watched it.

What weeks did we watch it, Katie? So I, I personally watched it six, six days after the inauguration of Donald Trump for the second term. And. There's just no way to decontextualize this. I think from fascism in all of its many forms. You know, you can say it's Vietnam. You can say it's Nazi Germany. You can say the prequels are a hundred percent early two thousands, USA, but Lando decides the best way to protect himself and his fortune and his pe people who work for him is to acquiesce to the, to the emperor's demands, right?

To the empire's, demands, and sell out his best friend. [01:57:00] Granted, we don't know how long it's been since they've seen each other, but, but he is selling out a lot of people. A lot of people, the whole city is gonna come under imperial control, right? But he thinks it's not right. So they promise him that they will leave him alone.

Deregulate. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. Or not, not not regulate. They have not regulated and they will not, they will continue to not regulate. Yeah. And that they will only take Han Solo, not Princess Leia or the Wooki, and then they immediately double cross them on all of that. We are gonna take over the city, we are gonna leave garrison's behind.

We are, and Leia and Leki are coming to our, are coming with me basically. Mm-hmm. And so he decides at that moment to double cross the double crossers and become the hero. We're not seeing a lot of that this week. We're seeing a lot of, the first part, we're seeing a lot of the, [01:58:00] well, I have to protect my assets, so I guess I'm just gonna acquiesce, uh, just all fall on my knees.

Mm-hmm. And. Remove my diversity statements from my mission statement and Right. Donate money to the Emperor's Inauguration Fund because Yeah. Clearly this is what the people want this time. Right. So eight years ago, it was all about not wanting to be associated. Yeah. And you know, Lando says, oh, we've been, you know, we've been able to fly under the radar.

We don't fall within the federation or whatever. And we're not in the mining guild Yeah. Guild either. And I've just made a deal that will secure our safety from the emperor forever. No it won't. No it won't. There is no safety. Yeah. There is no safety. When you're trying to negotiate a boundary with someone whose word is no good, how can you uphold the norms when the other side doesn't have any?

Right. So, I mean, star Vader helpfully, uh, looks as [01:59:00] evil as possible so you can it see him coming. It's really yes. If Trump or any of the many other fascists that are coming to power right now would just wear a cape, maybe we would be, Hey, land is wearing a cape too though. We, oh, we can't point it on the cape.

Well, maybe we can. Maybe we should have immediately not trusted him 'cause he was wearing a cape. Anyway. Billy D. Williams has said that his children's friends would say, why did you sell out? Ha. And he would say, 'cause Lando felt he had other responsibilities and he needed to protect other people more than he needed Han's friendship, which makes sense as a character motivation.

And that's the thing that absolutely happens in real life. But let me tell you, when the person you sold out to turns on you, you will wish you had your friend back. I opened up about this a little bit on social media, but I. Long ago I was involved in a friendship that turned toxic and abusive. And I to appease this person who was constantly making me [02:00:00] miserable, cut off people that he was fighting with, and he was always fighting with somebody.

And when eventually I realized that I needed to get him out of my life or I was possibly going to die, I was in an awkward situation of wondering if I was ever gonna be able to speak to those people again. Mm-hmm. And I did reach out, I did make apologies in some cases, and one of them is my friend again.

Mm-hmm. But only one. Mm-hmm. And I got a second chance with that person that I did not deserve because I let the bully be the reason I stopped speaking to someone who'd been good to me. Mm-hmm. And he had every reason to say he didn't wanna talk to me ever again. Yeah. 'cause of the way I had behaved under the influence of a bully.

Uh, but he took me back. Mm-hmm. And, and I appreciate that very much. I started dreaming of my ex bully three nights before the [02:01:00] inauguration, and I dreamed of him every night and in every dream that was the same, that he showed up as someone's guest at a social event. Mm-hmm. And I was expected to play along.

Mm-hmm. Be the bigger person. Just stay quiet, don't make a fuss. Mm-hmm. That is being done to us politically. Mm-hmm. We are expected to think that because this person is back in power, that whatever they did the first time is something we should forget about. And that whatever they're doing now is something we should learn to live with.

It's not true. Nope. Don't let them to convince you that this is normal. Don't let the bully be the reason you cut off your friends One day you're gonna wish you had your friends back. Mm-hmm. Don't let the bully in this case, be the reason why you cut off your friend, the US Constitution, or all of the really nice laws that we have in place.

Don't let him take those away because you will want them back more. When he gets even worse. Yeah. Yeah. And that's all I'll say about it. Lando has to make some amends about [02:02:00] the actions that he took. Right. He's the first one to go in to Java's World, which we will see in a couple of years when we get to that.

And it's not really addressed again, and I kind of wish it was, we'll talk about this more in the next movie, but the redemption of Vatican Skywalker mm-hmm. I have a hard time with, in the broader context of, great, you saved one person, how many have you murdered? And I'm not, obviously there's the whole forgiveness thing, whatever.

But the fact that he shows up at the end as a force ghost is just, I, I don't believe that he's able to immediately transcend into whatever the afterlife is, if, if there is one for them. Because come. Yeah, well that's an interesting ethical question that I think we should discuss in the return of the general.

Agreed. Orlando doesn't just go to get Han back. He tells everyone to evacuate cloud city. Right? He goes to get [02:03:00] Han back, he gets them onto the Millennium Falcon, you know, he gets flies. The Millennium Falcon with Joey. He gets, gets Luke Leia chewy and the droids to safety. Then he goes to get Han back infiltrating a dangerous warlords uh, layer and he leads the attack run on the second death star.

So like he has to go through things and yeah, I believe one of his good lines. There weren't that many good lines in the rise of Skywalker. Right. But one of the things he says is, you know, someone says, how, how can we do this? And he says, well, we never did it alone. Mm-hmm. Right. So Lambos arc at least, is actually, you actually have to put in the work to show you're sorry.

Right? And to make things right before we should accept you back into our lives. Right. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. And I know I said trauma bonding earlier, but from everything we know about fighting fascism, the way you do it is through community, right? Yes. The way you do it through building communities.

So Sure. We weren't with them every [02:04:00] battle for those three years between Star Wars and Empire Respects. So to us it might look like kind of superficial relationships, but no, no, it doesn't look like a superficial relationship at all. No. Ha. And Luke. Are obviously best friends in the first act of this movie.

Sure. And they barely knew each other last time. Right. That's true. That's true. Han and Leia had just bet and now they have, you know, some this weird will they won't thing. Yes. But we talked about like, we don't really know the nature of that. No friendship. But it's pretty obvious. I mean, the way Han runs out into a blizzard Yes.

To get Luke and gets him inside the carcass of Aton Han and then sets up a tent and they huddle all night for warmth. You see that that is a friendship where neither of them would ever leave the other behind. You're absolutely, yeah, you're right. I, I do believe the relationship between Luke and Han, but they're not in this movie together that well, they're in the first act.

Right. I don't necessarily buy it [02:05:00] with, again, going back to Leia, like we just don't get that much from her No. To really understand where she is with either of them really. I believe she's friends with them. I believe that they're, they've been fighting for three years, but I don't know that I've, yeah, we just don't think get that much from her.

I think we've agreed on that. Mm-hmm. Well, want me to bring us some trivia here on a lighter note. Oh, trivia. Yay. Okay. Han and Luke both Kiss or a Kissed by Leia in this movie, do you think it is that Luke and Leia kiss more often? Leia and Han kiss more often or they kiss an exactly equal number of times.

I would say it was Han and Leia, but that seems too obvious. They kiss, they kiss an exactly equal number of times. She kisses him twice. She kisses Luke twice. Twice and she kisses Han twice. Luke in the infirmary in the beginning and then after he's lost his hand and she's providing first aid on the millennium voucher, she kisses him on the lips.

Yes, she kisses. I rewound to double check. 'cause I knew you were gonna ask that. No, I definitely, I definitely remember [02:06:00] doing a double take. Like did she just, okay. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, that's not accepted First aid protocol. But you know

what? The healing of a woman's touch isn't, uh, true. Loves kiss. Isn't she technically a Disney princess now? True. Loves kiss. Yeah, she kisses hun right before he gets frozen and once when they're alone on the Millennium Falcon. Right. So in the opening scroll text, they call the Imperial Ships a Star Fleet, all one word with a capital S.

Oh, no doubt. As an homage to Star Trek and the Trekkies, who, again, their enthusiasm for science fiction was a role, a factor in Star Wars a success, so, absolutely. Absolutely. And then there's one other Star Trek reference later, right? With the cloaking device. Cloaking device. Well cloaking devices. I, I don't know if Star Trek originated that idea, but it did popularize it.

We saw Luke [02:07:00] training on a lightsaber in the first movie, but when does he first use a lightsaber in the whole franchise against the creature thingy? Wampa, yeah. Mm-hmm. Cuts off a WPAs arm. Mm-hmm. I once got this one wrong in Star Wars Trivial Pursuit on the launch platform on Cloud City. What device does R 2D two deploy to cover the cruise escape to the Millennium Falcon?

Is it smoke? Supposed to be a fire extinguisher. Okay. And last thing I'll mention three times in the movie, Luke tells R two to stay somewhere either in his X-Wing or with the camp on Deba and R two Disobeys all three times. Mm-hmm. Revenge of the SIS would eventually recon this to be, because the last thing Anna had ever said to R two was stay with the ship and then he never came back.

Mm. So remember R 2D two is canonically the only being who knows the full story. There's thousands of other pieces of trivia about this movie, but [02:08:00] you know, I just, you could read entire books on this movie. Entire Hooks. Yeah. Let's talk about the Hut Slayer. Okay. I will say mad props for the snark in this movie.

Oh, play a snark. I did not like it this time around. Really? Yeah. It really started to gr on me. You did? I don't know. I don't like, I Maybe I did when I was younger. I do not like the. Dynamic between people when they can only talk in, in sarcasm. Oh, well that's gone out of style now. But it it's a, it's a thing.

It's a trope and it works. I mean, it works for her character, but I think I have to dock her a hut slayer on this one. We gave her four out of five in Star Wars, a new Hope because she did not actually slay a hut. But I think she's got, I think I have to give her at most a three on this one because I just don't feel like she had the kind of agency that we saw in the first one.

I'm still gonna give her four. Okay. Because of the line. Someday you're gonna be [02:09:00] wrong and I just hope I'm here to see it. But she takes it back. Would it help if I got out and pushed? That's pretty good. You don't have to do this to impress me. Yeah, you certainly have a way with people after you punched somebody.

I mean, come on this. Okay. The snark is good. She has some great lines. I still, I'm giving her a three. I'm giving her a four. Okay. Are we allowed to do that? Does she get a three and a half? I guess she does. Okay. Fair enough. All right. Three and a half out of five huts layers. So what are we watching next week?

The Blues Brothers. The Blues Brothers a movie I have heard of and know nothing about. Uh, it's a movie I have heard of and know one thing about. Carrie Fish is in it? No, the Catholic church once endorsed it as a good movie about Catholic values. Oh, good. Can't wait. Everyone was kind of [02:10:00] surprised by that, actually.

Yeah. Well, maybe this is the one where she's not engaged and also having sex with somebody else. She did apparently get engaged to one of her CoStar on the set of the Blues Brothers, but then she got back together with Paul Simon instead of marrying him. So perhaps we'll be talking about that trivia very soon, perhaps.

Until then, just remember the immortal words of our space. Grandma, if my life wasn't funny, it would just be true. And that's unacceptable indeed. May the force be with you. May the force be with you. Thanks for listening to another episode of Carried Far, far Away. This podcast is hosted, produced, edited, re-edited, obsessed over and loved by Katie Marine and Claire Fisher.

You can follow the show on Facebook and Instagram at Carried Away Pod. You can email us at away Carry pod@gmail.com. You can follow Claire at Dead fictional girlfriends at Katie, at Katie Away. All clips used in this podcast are done so [02:11:00] under the protection of various. Have a wonderful week and may the force be with you and now our space Grandma, wisdom of the Week.

There is no point at which you can say, well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap.



Hey, Katie. I'm drunk. Oh my God. Wait, me too. We all got drunk in honor of Brian's birthday.

Oh my God. No. I was gonna tell you I have a big announcement. What's that? I've decided to start drinking again. Okay. The world is awful and I don't know why I stopped drinking by myself. It's not like the world got less awful. Alright. But this is awesome. Now we're about Dixie. Would you like to do tonight's?

Uh, hello and welcome.

Am I editing this one? You are we. Hello and welcome to Carrie Far, far Away show, where we watch and read everything Carrie Fisher did in her short life and story career. My name is Katie Maranello. [02:12:00] I'm Claire Fisher, and today we are discussing Star Wars, episode six, return of the Jedi. Yay. Yay. So I actually felt a little melancholy starting this movie.

Oh yeah. I feel like we just started this podcast, even though I know it's been like almost six months that we've been recording and we're done with the Star Wars season. Yes, we know that there will be more, but we didn't know that in 1983, we didn't know that as late as 20. 14. 14. Right, exactly. So 2013, they announced it a few years before it came out.

Did they announce it a few years before? Yeah. Anyway, there's a reason we were so excited by 2015, right? Yes. We are so hype. So hype. Um, and then I was thinking about how she must have felt. Mm-hmm. 'cause let's be honest, all these other movies that she's been doing, not Star Wars Level, quality, some hits though.

I [02:13:00] mean, believes Brothers was a hit. Yes, that's true. Uh, shampoo was a hit, weirdly. Yes. But she's what, like 24 at this point? Well, let's see. She was 19 when she made the first one. It was six years later. And 25. Yeah. Yeah. 25. That's a weird time to feel like your biggest work is behind you. But she got married the same year to Paul Simon.

So, you know, she still had some hope for the future. Yeah. But then they got divorced like a year later. A year later, yeah. Mm-hmm. So, and then they got back together and then they were off and on for 12 years. Yes, yes. Plus, you know, she's struggling with a whole lot of other things. Yeah. So at this point in her life, she had yet to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but she was definitely showing symptoms and she was, it's coming soon.

Yeah. Self-medicating. Uh, so, you know, it's possible. She just wasn't really thinking that hard about the future. Um, we know she was doing a lot of LSD. [02:14:00] Yeah. We, when we get to postcards from the Edge, I think we're gonna learn that she was thinking very hard about the future. Oh, was she? Yeah. Because postcards from the Edge, I've read it before.

I know you haven't. Um, it's not autobiographical, but Yes it is. And it's about an actress who just finished a highly popular science fiction franchise that is trying to figure out. What the rest of her life is and is addicted to drugs and has bipolar. Mm-hmm. Well, right. What you know. Yes, exactly. All right.

Shall I do a 54 second summary of Return of the Jedi? All right. Absolutely. You're in time. No, hold on. And. Princess Leia and her friends infiltrate the criminal organization of Job of the hut in order to rescue Han Solo, who is still frozen in Carbonite. After she's captured and forced to wear a revealing outfit, she slays the hut.

Later she han Luke at Chewy and the droids go to Endor to lead a ground assault against a shield generator, [02:15:00] shenanigans and snow involving chase scenes and being mistaken for Gods and or food. Eventually, Leia recruits the Ewoks as allies slash allegories for pro-American Vietnamese and Cambodian people.

Mm-hmm. Luke then peels off to fight Darth Vader in person. While Lando Korsian leads an aerial assault against the newly reconstructed death star, thanks to the power of teamwork and friendship, as well as Darth Vader's, truly last minute rebellion against Emperor Palpatine. The good guys prevail. Cue the dance number.

Yes, the dance number. Is the dance number shorter than it used to be? Yes. Okay. Because that 'cause they added the scenes from the other planets. Yes. But I didn't think that meant they had to reduce the dancing. The people who make special edition DVDs live in a a special world, usually. Certainly does.

Mm-hmm. Brian was inspired while Washington to say, now I really wanna see what the original looked like. 'cause we've never seen the original. I was having that feeling a lot during this movie, and I don't really know why, because I did not have that feeling during Star Wars or Empire Shakes [02:16:00] back. But I just was like, I'm curious what changed.

And part of me at this point, you know, we had the re-release version, so the 1997 re-release, or eight, whatever, whenever this movie was rereleased, we had them all on VHS. I think we've only watched, I've only watched the DVD re-release maybe once with you. Mm-hmm. When we were living together and we did like a whole series rewatch.

So part of me was like. Am I forgetting this? Or is this new in certain places, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've only seen the original, original when we were over at our friend's, the Mahoney's house. Yeah. And watching their eighties era home video releases. My, the main thing I remember is the SAR lock, not having a mouth Yes.

In the older version. And I did remember that because I remember in our special edition, VHS, you know, the gold box that had Darth Vader's face on it. Mm-hmm. They had [02:17:00] like comparisons. Yeah. They had a making of the remaster. Yeah. So I remember like the windows and the cloud city were more like vibrant, like you could see more of the city.

And I remember the, a lot of the monsters had been mm-hmm. Redone in return of the Jedi, it's probably most noticeable 'cause they completely redid some of the scenes in Java's Palace. I thoughts. Okay. All right. Okay. So I said I'd do one trivia fact every 10 minutes. Okay. So you want me to, I'll do one now and then we'll start the clock.

Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. There's exactly one actor who had to reprise their role for the special edition. The job as palace sequence was heavily edited and extended for the special edition, including adding a shot of the slave dancer that he kills, the one he drops into the ranker pit. In the original release, she just drops through the trap door, end of sequence in the re-release.

They want to show her in the Ranker pit. They got the same dancer back. [02:18:00] Wow. 15 years later. Her name is Emmi Taylor. Mm-hmm. It only ha happened because a friend of her son was involved in doing the new updated special effects. Oh. And he was like, oh yeah, my mom was in that secret, didn't know. And then they were like, oh, okay.

So yeah, they, the one person that they brought back is that random dancer who dies in Javas Palace. Yes. Um, okay. I'll now start my clock and we won't share another trivia fact for 10 minutes, but I can tell you about the times if you're interested. Yes, let's do it. Let's talk about the times. All right. So this movie was originally released May 25th, 1983.

Mm-hmm. And it has some interesting records. It grows $23 million domestically in its opening weekend, which was then the biggest opening weekend gross in history. But it broke a record that was only 1-year-old. And do you know what movie from 1982 had previously held the opening weekend record? No. Star Trek to The Wrath of Khan.

Ah. Now, this is during the [02:19:00] Star Wars. Exactly. Yeah. Return to The Jedi was the first movie to gross over $20 million domestically in its opening weekend, and it went on to make $475 million in 1980 $3 against a $32 million budget. So, you know, very respectable, very healthy, but just goes to show this was an event, right?

People were camping out. People were going more than once, right? Yeah, for sure. Because by 1983, they knew there'd be a home video release, but not everybody had a VCR. Mm-hmm. So if you wanted to see it, you saw it in theaters, right? Mm-hmm. Um, in pop culture, the Disney Channel had launched on April 18th, so, you know, they would one day all be owned by the same people.

Right. Um, five days before this movie came out on May 20th, two separate research groups published a set of findings in the same issue of the journal science. The separate research groups had independently declared that a novel retrovirus was [02:20:00] probably the etiology behind, uh, what is now called hiv aids.

Isn't that so interesting? I, I remember hearing about that. Like, and it's not the only time that's happened where like two groups of scientists will discover the same thing around the same time. Well, they were working from the same inputs. Right, right. Yeah. But still, to be ready to publish on that exact timeline is interesting.

Yeah. There's a whole behind the scenes story, uh, which was made into a book and a movie called, and the band played on. But, um, so AIDS had been clinically described for the first time in June of 1981. Took two years for an etiology to be confirmed. Uh, compare that to how quickly we got COVID, like right identified, known to be novel, DNA sequenced, uh, and a vaccine already having safety studies done within, I think it was like 45 days of it first being identified, right?

Mm-hmm. So, you know, two years seems like a, a long time compared to that. Well, especially because the scientific community and the government had been ignoring it for several years before that. [02:21:00] We now know it had been circulating since at least the late fifties, but had flown under the radar because many of the things that people who are infected with HIV could die from were things that could be mistaken for pneumonia or cancer or anything like that.

Mm-hmm. And meanwhile, 1983 was an important year for the media that we use to record, edit, distribute, and listen to this podcast. Oh, in two important ways. Okay. Number one, on January 1st, the migration of the ARPA net to TCP slash IP was officially completed. If that means nothing to you, this is the beginning of the true internet.

Oh, okay. Time's gone by when you could really only connect from like one of seven computers in the world. And it was called AM ANet. Right? Okay. The TCP IP protocol is what it made it possible for us to eventually build up to the World Wide Web. Okay. Which of course didn't come online till the nineties and second.

The first commercial cell phone call was placed October 13th, 1983. [02:22:00] Phone company representative stood in the parking lot of Soldier Field in Chicago and called Alexander Graham Bell's. Great-grandson in Germany. Aw. Cellular phone technology had first been demonstrated way back in 1973, but without supporting infrastructure of cell networks, there was no commercial market for it.

Mm-hmm. So they spent 10 years like setting up networks in various countries and then brought out a commercially available model in late 1983. It's so nice that. There's been no ill effects from either of those inventions at all. Absolutely none. We're fine. Right? Yeah. But if you're listening to this on your phone right now, right, right.

1983. We're so happy that you have the internet and the cell phone. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So with that in mind, shall we, um, dive into what we think about Return of the Jedi, which I know we loved it when we were kids. Are [02:23:00] you not interested in actors who aren't Carrie Fisher? Oh, they added more actors this time.

I hardly noticed. Okay, that's actually really good point. 'cause I was scraping the bottom of the barrel to find some, but I did. So just a few. We'll go over just a few. Um, first of all, I had forgotten that this movie was redirected by yet another person. Yes. Uh, Richard Marquon. And he was like, Lucas's, like seventh choice apparently, according to Wikipedia.

He asked Spielberg, but they were both in disputes with the Director's Guild. He asked the guy who did the second one, whatever. Anyways, so he only really directed about seven feature films total. Richard Mark, because he died four years after this movie was released. Oh, Lucas said he chose him because he was good with actors, um, which we know Lucas very much was not.

Um, but Lucas was on the set a lot more so than he was with Empire Shas back. Um, he said it was because Marquon didn't have as much experience with special [02:24:00] effects. Maron is quoted as saying it is rather like trying to direct King Lear with Shakespeare in the next room. Uhhuh? Yeah. Ian McDermot, um, he says, ah, Ian McDermott.

Ian McDermott. So he plays the Finally joins. Yes. Finally joins. He plays the emperor. He's from Scotland. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1974. Have you noticed that a lot of these actors got their start on Shakespeare? I just think that's interesting. Um, everybody gets their start on Shakespeare, I guess.

I don't know. Not everybody gets their start in the Royal Shakespeare Company. No. He has received an Olivier Award for best actor and a Tony Ward for best featured actor in a play. He'd only had one other film role when he was caster. At least that's what he says. And then so he was cast as the emperor.

Then 16 years later, boy, if anyone's grateful for the prequels, right? Yeah. Because 16 years. So after this like kind of a bit part, you know, he has like a couple of scenes in the last movie, he reprised the role [02:25:00] as the character's younger incarnation of, of Senator and later Chancellor Palpatine and s Lord Darth Sidious in the prequel films, he has a voiced or appeared as the emperor in every movie that the emperor has appeared in.

And most of the TV shows. That wasn't true at first, but he was rec conned into Yes. Empire strikes back in the re-release. So yeah, so he's voiced cous in several Star Wars TV shows and movies that I've never heard of. So that's how prolific he is. CNN named him fourth in their top 10 British villains.

CNN will make a listicle out of literally anything. Anything, anything. British villain. Breaking news. Breaking news. What is there like, are there like Jordanian villains and like, you know, I know I had to say that several times to be like, why is CNN doing British villains? Mexican villains, Peruvian villains.

Okay. Top 10 villains from TI Taiwan. I mean, Sebastian Lewis Shaw. [02:26:00] Played Anakin Skywalker. He was an English actor, theater director, novelist, playwright, and poet. He had a seven decade career where he appeared in dozens of stage performances in more than 40 film and television app appearances. He also got his start in Shakespeare, including a decade run in the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He was also a writer, and this sounds like something that could only happen by someone named Sebastian Lewis Shaw, and not like Sandra Lewis Shaw. He sometimes only took parts in movies under the condition that he would be allowed to write all his own lines. Uh, he wrote one novel called The Christening, which has a description you have to read on your own because I cannot handle it in my own brain.

So obviously he's only in the one scene where Luke takes the mask off of Darth Bader. But because it was emotional climax of the film, the casting crew did want an experienced actor. The scene lasts two minutes and seven seconds. He himself only says 24 words of dialogue. He received more [02:27:00] fan mail and autograph requests from that scene than for any role he had in the rest of his career.

He knew Aaron McDermott. There was some like rumor that he hadn't seen the first two Star Wars movies. That's not actually true. I think that a rumor came to be because when he saw Ian McDermott and was like, Hey, what are you doing here? And he was like, oh, I don't know. Something Sci-fi e. Um, but that's because he had to keep it a secret who he was playing.

Ah, Timothy D. Rose is an American actor and puppeteer best known for playing Admiral Admiral Act Bar. He reprised his role in the Force Awakens and the Last Jedi. He also puppeteered the characters of S Noodles, who's one of the musicians in the jab of the hut Palace and salacious crumb. The court jester of Jab of the Hut.

He gets an awful lot of screen time. Uh, exactly. Eric Bowers Field was an American radio dramatist and voice actor. Um, and he actually played, played the Voices of Admiral Akbar. And Bib [02:28:00] Fortuna, who is the guy who escorts the men to Java's Palace. I know the name of his species because I'm a geek. Yes. I just had to throw Caroline Georgina bla Blackton in here because she plays mamma AKA, the other woman in the entire universe.

This is probably number three. Yes. This is probably what she's known for best internationally. But in England, she's known for her role in the British Television Comedy series Brass. And she also played an Agatha and the BBC adaptation of Polder from 2015 to 2018. And then, because I recognize this name, Warwick Davis.

Mm-hmm. British actor and television presenter. He was 12 years old when he played Wicket one of the Ewoks, and then he was went on to be the title character in Willow. Mm-hmm. The Leprechaun Film Film series and Professor Phillis Litwick. And the Goblin gr grip hook in the Harry Potter film series. So he's like kind of a big name.

I actually have a piece of [02:29:00] trivia about him on this movie. Oh yeah, yeah. If you don't mind. After Carrie Fisher's death, he reported that he remembered he was in a very hot, thick Ewok costume, and between takes, she would bring him cookies and chocolate milk to keep up his blood sugar and his strength. Aw.

And he said quote, she was everything an 11-year-old Ewok could possibly wish for. Aw. And then just one more note. You may remember back when we talked about the original Star Wars, we discussed how Kenny Baker almost didn't take the role of R 2D two because his musical act called the Mini tones, reached the final on the talent show opportunity knocks.

Mm-hmm. So it turns out his partner, Jack Purvis, his partner in that musical act, had gone to the audition with him and they kind of like negotiated so that they could both be hired. And so Jack played a different alien in each of the original trilogy, including Tebo. He's one of the Ewoks. Okay? Yep. So that is the bottom of the barrel, [02:30:00] last minute additions to the Star Wars universe.

But you know, some, I mean, especially Ian McDermott, some pretty key characters. Oh, I did wanna say that Sebastian Lewis Shaw died in 1994, so he did not live to see his likeness replaced by Hayden Christensen in the 2004 DVD re-release. Hayden Christensen has said he, he didn't fully understand what they were gonna do, like that they were gonna replace the other guy until he saw what they did with the footage he shot.

And he was like, dude, how rude to the late Sebastian Shaw. It's rude, but it's also like, I mean, Sebastian Shaw looked nothing like, no, like, and he's not the right age as what he would've been, so I understand. Why they did what they did. I thought I had heard that they replaced it when they pulled the, um, when they pulled the helmet off.

So I'm glad that that didn't happen. [02:31:00] No, no, no. So that would be all wrong. Yeah. All wrong. All right. All right. Let's get into Return to The Jedi. Yes. This was our favorite when we were growing up for a really important reason. Harrison Ford comes back. Harrison Ford comes back. You were, you were distraught after we watched Empire Strikes Back.

Absolutely. A distraught. Okay. But we, I think we talked about this on our Empire Strikes Back episode. It is genuinely scary. Like that is a genuinely scary thing that happens. Yeah. But like we were at home and you were like, two days later you were still upset. And finally I said like, mom, what? What day did we see Empire Strikes Back?

This is how young I was. I didn't know how to use a calendar. I said, mom, what day did we see Empire Strikes Back? And she said, Sunday, why? And I said, I think we should go see Return to The Jedi next Sunday. And we did. And yeah, we saw this one in theater. So I remember we, we saw Star Wars, as we've said at home and then in theaters we saw Emperor Strikes back at home only.

And then we saw this one in theaters during [02:32:00] its re-release. So if we wanna divide this up a little bit into chunks, I called Act one from opening scene where Darth Vader is dealing with a contractor who's behind schedule Up, up through when Dad said, okay guys, the movie's over, let's go home. Because Java's Barge had just blown up.

I thought it was over. I was like, oh, that was great. Yeah. The heck with the empire. As long as we get Harrison Ford back, we're fine. Harrison Ford's back. Everything's fine. This first act is the only one that Boba Fe is in. So if you are a Boba fan, if you came back to see Boba Fet, you got, you got three seats.

There you go. You got to see him die. Yeah. You got to see him tickle the chin of a girl who's enslaved in Java's Palace. Mm-hmm. You got to see him nod approvingly while a bounty hunter is negotiating with Java and then you got to see him die because, uh, Hansel accidentally punctured his jet pack while they were above a very dangerous pit.

Yes. Which is [02:33:00] fine 'cause he was gonna die anyway 'cause they killed the entire gang of Java people, including all the slaves I might note. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Not great. To be fair, it seemed like in this rewatch, Luke goes out of his way. To try to get Java to not make him kill everybody in the pot. You can either profit by this or be destroyed.

It's your choice. But I warn you not to underestimate my power. Oops. He does say over and over and over. Bargain. This is your last chance, Java. This is your last chance. Free us or die. Bargain. Bargain. Bargain. Bargain. This is the last mistake you'll ever make. Yes. Bargain. Bargain. But also I think, I think I said this both before Luke's plan to have, oh my God, everybody infiltrate.

Oh my God. It's so stupid. One by one by one it okay. [02:34:00] Sending your droids in so that they can smuggle your lightsaber in. Alright, I'll give him that one. Even though sending three po, I don't know. Why don't they ever tell three po the plan? Because three po never shuts up and he tell everyone the plan, I guess, but like he's so.

For clumped the whole time. He can't even do his job. What's to keep Jabba from disintegrating him while they wait for Luke Skywalker to come rescue them? So here's my problem with it. You know, I actually, I like the recorded elevator pitch that Luke sends in. Fine. Greetings, exalted. One, allow me to introduce myself.

I'm Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight and friend, captain Solo. I know that you are powerful, mighty jaba and that your anger with solo must be equally powerful. I seek an audience with your greatness to bargain for solo's life.

With your wisdom, I'm sure that we can work out an arrangement which will be mutually beneficial [02:35:00] and enable us to avoid any unpleasant confrontation. As a token of my goodwill, I present to you a gift. These two droids, what did you say? Both are hardworking. And we'll serve you well. I've actually used that in ESL classes as an example of an elevator pitch and forced my students to critique Luke Skywalker before they start critiquing each other.

It's very useful. I don't know why he sent Lando in, I don't know why they needed Chewy sent in. When Leia gets there, she unfreezes Han. So presumably the goal was to have Han walk the heck back out again. Right. Which, if he could do that, why didn't you just send Chewy in, have Chewy on, free him, sling him over his shoulder and run?

Right, right. I don't know what Lando does. I still don't know what land does. I think Lando had to actually go bind Java, right? So there's not any like indication that they knew exactly where his Java's palace is and it's tattooing, which everything looks as the same. So I, what I get now that I understand that they leave [02:36:00] at the end of the Empire shakes back to find Han is that he had to infiltrate for that.

However, he appears to have given them no other information, such as there is a secret. A pit in front of Java's throne, or he might not have realized that. Uh, I mean, it appears that Java used it fairly generously. I mean, he uses it twice in a day. What we see Exactly, exactly. Do we really believe? And that, and some other, like min of his just falls in there and nobody thinks to do anything about that.

So, but no, here's my problem with it. When Luke finally shows up, he just mind tricks his way in. Right? And then he tries a mind trick on Java, right? And he force chokes the guards. If Luke could do all of that, why didn't they try that in the first place? Start there first. Yeah. Yeah. Why? Why? I mean, so I will say I like Princess Leia in this first act a lot.

I like [02:37:00] her agency. I mean, obviously she is the hut slayer in this. Yeah. But even when she comes in as a bounty hunter, I feel like she starts from a pretty strong position. However. There's no way she wouldn't have known that that was a trap. Yeah. To walk in there and it's unguarded and there's nobody around.

Like, where does she think they are? Mm-hmm. It doesn't appear that jab of the hut can move from his throne. You know, he clearly naps there. We see that when Luke comes in, so to then unfreeze someone who's gonna be disabled. Mm-hmm. Right. Like it makes more sense to grab the slab and go and, and then unfreeze him when he can recover somewhere that he's not in danger.

And when Java shows up and catches the, it's like from behind a curtain. It's not like they, he wasn't had to do anything particularly Yeah, sneaky. Exactly. So, or to believe that she was just blinded by love. Is this part of the plan? Luke acts like this is all part of the plan and I just don't believe that he [02:38:00] could have possibly predicted all of these different.

Scenarios what's going on?

Looks crazy. He can't even take care of himself, much less rescue anybody. The relative nonsensical ness of this act, though, I will note three strong moments from it. First of all, out Unfreezing Han and saying, it's someone who loves you. Who are you?

Someone who loves you? Lay very touching reader. Beautiful. Yeah. Second, uh, my personal scariest moment when I was a kid, I was less affected by the carbonite than you were. But when Luke fights that fights that rankor underneath J's throne. Terrifying. Terrifying. Oh yes. Master Luke, you are standing on and our first lesson in moral relativity.

Yeah. Ethical [02:39:00] relativism was introduced to us when the ranker keeper starts crying and mom said he doesn't wake up every day thinking he's bad. He thinks it's just his job to take care of that ranker. And yes, we now know that there's a sympathetic backstory in the extended universe, but we were six and eight and we had to take the movie as a, a text standing on its own speaking.

Well, we'd never seen anyone be sad when a villain died before. Right. Well, so it goes to show bad guys don't always know they're bad guys. Mm-hmm. Sometimes they do. Yeah. But sometimes they just think they're doing their job. I suspect this guy did know. Because he knew what the ranker was eating well, because otherwise, why is he crying?

Bad guys don't cry. Bad guys definitely cry. Bad guys definitely cry anyway all the time. And then the third epic moment, Leia S lays the hut, slay, slays the hut. Leia slays the hut. Slay queen, slay queen, slave, queen. I mean, it's just amazing.[02:40:00] 

Again, no way that they could have predicted this. Did they know that Leia was gonna end up as a sleep? I don't think they thought they necessarily needed to kill Java. Right. Right. Or they thought that maybe that he'd just die when they blew up the barge. Yes. 'cause he was trying really hard not to have to kill Java.

Right. So he comes off to me, and I think this might be intentional as somebody who's like read a couple books on Jedi and like, you know, he studied abroad for a couple of [02:41:00] days with Yoda and now he acts like he's an expert. And this is definitely something that has been discussed at length in the literature.

What is the gap between Empire Shakes back and Richard return to the Jedi? Now Wikipedia says it's a year, but he doesn't go back to Deba. He doesn't go back to Deba. So what is he doing and how does he get so much more powerful that now Yoda says his training is complete. Yeah. All right. Trivia. Trivia.

Go. The gold bikini was actually held together by a metal framework, so it didn't move with Carrie Fisher's body and her breasts kept popping out and ruining takes despite this, allegedly, the costume designer created this after Carrie Fisher joked that nobody could tell she was a woman in the first two movies because she wasn't eye candy.

Yeah. So there has been a lot of talk about whether she specifically asked for a more really revealing outfit. I mean, I would argue that the white suit that she wears in Empire Shakes back [02:42:00] is well fitted to a woman. Yeah, it's a snow suit. It's cute though. She looks cute. Yeah. So the slaves let, should we talk about the slave suit just a little bit.

Tiny bit? Yeah. Yeah. So, um, has a presence in the fantasies of quite a few humans. What is the, I don't want to go into this too much because slavery is bad. What is the purpose of having a human sex slave when you are a giant slug? Okay. Two things. First of all, there is extended universe material that, um, suggests Java is just like that.

And the other huts all judge him for effectively being into bestiality. Okay? Two until recent months, I had never read God Emperor of Dune, which is the fourth book in the Dune series, in which a human who merged with a sand worm yep. Mm-hmm. Is now a long slug like creature with [02:43:00] like arms and head, um, and is probably why Frank Herbert was so convinced George Lucas was ripping him off.

'cause remember, job of the hut did not appear until Return of the Jedi, right? Or he gets red into the first one. He was not there until the return of the Jedi. So, God, emperor of Dune came out in 1981 and then suddenly in 1983, here's this race called the Huts, which look like slugs, but with arms and a head.

Okay? And in God, emperor of Dune, he falls in love. 'cause he used to be a human. And he falls in love with a human woman. And every time he says he's going to get married, everybody glances down his body looking for a penis to the point where when one character does it, he says, no, I don't have a penis. Uh, the point in that book being that he loves her for her mind mm-hmm.

And he says to her, if you [02:44:00] require, you know, children, you can have a, a male lover of a human male. But like, I'm still in love with you. So, A, they're kind of ripping off dune and B, there's more to life than just sex. Katie, obviously, obviously, I guess. I guess it could be seen as like getting a really cute dog.

Yeah. Okay. People put their poodles in like pirate costumes sometimes. Exactly, right. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. If you look at it that way, he puts Leia in a bikini. Yes. And ha is blind at this point in the narrative. And notably, Luke makes a point of not saying aloud, what the hell does he have you wearing? Right.

You see him like want to mm-hmm. And then he doesn't. Mm-hmm. So that the blind man won't know what this is happening. 'cause this is disturbing no matter how you slice it. Yeah. Either she's his dressed up poodle, or he's planning on committing bestiality. Right, right. [02:45:00] Or she could be entertainment for his.

You know, we see the other slave dancing. Yeah. There is a And we see, uh, we see boba fat kind of flirt with one of them. So there's that. There is, uh, at least one short story. I, I don't believe it's canonical anymore, but there's at least one short story where like, she's offered to Boba f as like a overnight company.

Okay. We've officially talked about this more than I want to. Okay. All right. We'll drop the subject. It it, it might just be that they were ripping off God ever. Let's hope they were just ripping off dune. Right. And that they weren't really looking at the mechanics of this too. So there's like not actually any reason for her to kill Java necessarily 'cause he is about to die.

And R 2D two probably could have let her off that chain regardless. But. Boy, is it cool? She, yeah. A battle breaks out and she takes advantage of the fact that she is chained to Java [02:46:00] to throw that chain around his neck and choke the life out of his, it's probably the most graphic death we have in this, in the series.

'cause most them are evil, evil. Pew. Pew. And I do think it causes like more chaos, which is probably what was the goal at that point, right? Yeah. And once, once the boss is dead, people start jumping ship and whatever, whatever. Um, and then she turns the barges gun on itself. Yes. Which is so cool. And blows it to kingdom come.

Mm-hmm. Technically, I did take note that Luke is the one who actually sets it off, but whatever. Okay. He says, get the, get the gun. She gets the gun. And they make their the power, power teamwork. They make their triumphant escape. Yes. They swing safety clinging to each other in a clawback to the movie.

Mm-hmm. From six years earlier. And that's it. That's act one. And it seems like it could be its own movie, but. So Act two I said is more or less from like then when Luke goes off to Deba up through when Mamma explains the plan and that many Hans died to bring us this information. [02:47:00] Right. Okay. Brian said this is more fuel to the quote Jedi or incompetent Dicks unquote fire because they just disappear because he just runs off on his own.

Yoda was written into this movie because Lucas was worried most people would just assume Darth Vader was lying about being Luke's father. Yes, I read that. And so it had to be confirmed by a reliable witness. So they go back to date with us, which this is not, but okay. And they, he says, is Star Vader my father?

And Yoda says, which we can cut in. Told you. Did he Unexpected. This is an unfortunate, oh, okay. Hang on. Why in the galaxy far, far away? Would Darth Vader not tell? Right. The person he's trying to manipulate. Right. The manipulation be the, y'all super should have seen this coming even without the Space Wizard, psychic powers that you [02:48:00] are supposed to have.

Right. That is what Hunter, let's present a thing that a manipulative bastard would do. Right. Also, it's a thing that a father would do. What are you really gonna come face to face with your long lost son and not tell him? Yeah. I mean, especially if you think your enemies have been specifically hiding your long lost son to the point that they faked his death.

Right. And blamed you for it. Exactly. Yeah. I mean it, and now we're getting into prequel lore, but still. Okay. This is comics between the comics released before the sequels came out, lore that he had to track down the mortician who prepared pod MA's body to find out that she actually hadn't been pregnant when she died.

Oh. So he said, makes 20 years thinking not where his kids are, that he killed her while she was pregnant and that's why he never looked for his kids. Yeah. Well kid, he thought it was one kid. It was two, right? Yeah. Right. Because there were no sonograms and a galaxy far, far away and you can't force sense the presence [02:49:00] of babies you yourself created.

Right, right. Yeah. Psychic, but not that psychic. Or maybe he just wasn't listening. Like he seems like the kind of person where like maybe Pad Bay tried to tell him it was twins. That's true. That's possible. On the same note, like Obi Wan's ghost pops in again. Hi Obi One's ghost. Oh, why are you here? Obi Wan's ghost.

Um, he says things are true from a certain point of view that the most infamous line, which I will defend a certain to a certain extent, because the Anakin he knew is dead. He cut off kin's limbs and then threw him in lava where he promptly caught fire. That is the last he saw of the kin he raised who had been a good soldier and a good Jedi ish, uh, and then, and then went bad, went evil.

The sit he killed was an evil guy, Darth Vader. I think possibly in order to live with that, he had to convince himself that Anakin had already been dead when [02:50:00] he chopped off the limbs of Darth Vader and threw him into lava, where again, cannot stress this enough, he caught fire. So Obiwan probably left thinking that was him.

That was the end of him. Mm-hmm. It is not his fault that it turned out to be, that he could drain the life force from other people to stay alive, you know? Right, right. Um, anyway, I'll defend to the end that Obiwan is like, eh, sorta of justified in his convincing himself that Anakin is dead. No bullshit but bullshit.

He called, he says, Darth Vader killed your father. He doesn't say. That your father died. He doesn't say your fa, you know, unfortunately, like he says, there was a young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine before he turned evil, and he betrayed and murdered your father. That is not a, oh, well, last time I saw him, he was dying.

Situation. He knows. He knows what he became. Let the record reflect that. Katie just recited that from memory. I did, [02:51:00] and I'm quite proud of myself. I'll cut in the actual scene so you can see how good I just did. How did my father die? A young Jedi named Darth Veda, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights.

He betrayed and murdered your father.

I have the same problem with OB one that I have with. Yoda. Which if you guys didn't see our, we listen and we don't judge video that we post on Instagram. Check that out. 'cause I have an epic rant about Yoda. Honestly. I have a problem with the entire Jedi ordered right down to the apparent kidnapping of children to raise them into peace warriors, quote unquote peaceful monks.

Sure. With laser swords. With laser swords, yeah. Mm-hmm. As all peaceful monks have. Um, so yeah, I find this whole thing stupid. The fact that Yoda spends so much time [02:52:00] avoiding talking to Luke about these really essential things that he needs to say. Like, there's another Skywalker. He doesn't bother to say that until his last breath.

He is 900 years old. He could have written that down, like written it down men. I don't know. Maybe when they finally, he finally reveals his, his true identity to Luke, he could have sat him down and told him the whole damn story. That would've, that would've been a good time. It would've been a good time.

And also like. A great time for Luke, like leaving him in the dark about all these different secrets leaves him very vulnerable to the, the dark side of the fork. Yeah. Because it allows him to have anger, hate, betrayal, all that good stuff. That, a sense that he has never once in his life had a positive male role model who wasn't lying to him about everything.

Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, honestly, Anakin falls, I mean, again, this is prequel lore, 1983, we didn't know all this, but Anakin falls to the dark side for kind of a [02:53:00] lot less. Well, is the death of your pregnant wife less or more than He doesn't fall to, he doesn't fall to the dark side because of his wife's death.

He's already on the dark side for that. He falls to the dark side because he wants to protect. Protect her. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so it's protecting your pregnant wife. Yeah. He falls, he falls to the dark side because of some bad dreams. By this. Okay. By this, uh, logic, I should be arresting the cast of summer house because of that dream I had the other night where they perpetuated the, the Holocaust.

I dreamed that mom and dad wanted us to move into a house with 32 roommates. See? And neither of us is evil yet. Okay, well, yeah, that's a good point. I was gonna say the big thing, the, the, the thing to me that cements, that Obiwan might be like deluding himself, not just lying, is him saying that your sister had to stay, quote, safely anonymous.

Mm-hmm. Leia has not been [02:54:00] safely anonymous. Leia has been a thorn in Vader's side since she was old enough to talk. He has taken her prisoner twice. Right. He has tortured her twice. So it's more like y'all dangled her out as bait, hoping that if she ever got noticed, Vader would think, oh, I had a daughter.

Mm. And it does not make sense that Darth Vader would be that close to her so many times and not have any idea. I mean, except maybe he's just the kind of father who wasn't really paying attention to his children. Well, but, but it's well established that he can sense Luke's presence no matter where he is in the universe.

Okay. Now he can, yes. He couldn't do that last time. Right, right. So he's developed that, he's leveled up. He, he collected some xp, so maybe because he suddenly thought that he existed, so he didn't know that. Okay, fine. He didn't, he he didn't have that power until they had fought each other and he had cut off Luke's hand.

Fine. [02:55:00] Um, I did have one little, uh, note about, not this, but um, at what point does Han learn that Lando has been working for the good side? Yeah. That, that happens off screen, like while Luke's on Daba and then when we get back to the Fleet Muster point. Um, no. It happens even before that. It happens. It, I think it must have happened in the cell with Chewy because he saves Land's Life at the end of Act one.

I, I forgot to mention this in Act one, but he saves Land's Life. Lando iss about to fall into the Slac pit. He hears his voice 'cause he can't see anything. Mm-hmm. He hears his voice and says Lando. Mm-hmm. And he goes to great lengths to save him. So I guess that whole betrayal thing is just like water under the bridge.

Yeah. Let's just, uh, be the giants and step over that mountain. Also, this, the opening [02:56:00] scroll for this movie calls them a small band of rebels, which, I'm sorry, it just looks like a lot of rebels for to be a small band and Lando who nobody. Uh, presumably because he leaves straight from the cloud city to go find.

Ha. Nobody at the base has ever heard of him, met him, seen him, he gets promoted. To general, if you were the guy who's next in line to be promoted, how would you feel? Well, you know, rank in a rebel alliance can sometimes be a somewhat informal matter. I know. Okay. So then the, this brings us to the briefing scene.

Yeah. With the famous, the many Baan side to bring us this information. Mm-hmm. A woman speaking, a woman. To make a long story short, they summarize what the plan will be. Yep. Okay. Can I give us some trivia now? Sure. All right, so unlike some sci-fi franchises, we might name Star Wars, never hired a linguist to [02:57:00] invent languages with full vocabularies and syntax for its alien characters.

Mm-hmm. Instead, it fell to sound designer Ben Burt, to source sounds from real world languages to make up gibberish. That would sound like alien languages. Mm-hmm. As a result, hatis that we hear Java speak is mainly, uh, which is a Peruvian inkin language. Okay. It's also spoken by Guido in the first movie.

Interestingly, the Ewoks, whom we are about to meet in the next act are speaking a mashup of Tagalog from the Philippines Tibetan, and, and I apologize, I, I've tried to figure out how to pronounce this using the international phonetic alphabet, but I've never been any good at the international phonetic alphabet, Kali Orand or, or.

Which is a language spoken by a single nomadic community in Mongolia, which Ben Burt happened to hear in A BBC documentary, after which he tracked down an 80-year-old Callie Mc refugee woman [02:58:00] and recorded her telling some folk tales. Then played the tape for the Ewok actors and had them imitate some of the, um, phone names that they heard.

Okay. And in our final act, we're going to meet a very minor character who became an unexpected breakout Ian,

who co-pilots the Millennium Falcon during the final battle. He has like big jowl. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah. He was played by Kipsang Rodich, a Kenyan student who was living in London at the time, and Kipsang Rodich just was told to speak his native language of Kian, which is a highest dialect.

18% of the population of Kenya speaks this language. So he just put in some lines that were appropriate for the situation, like saying what's going on with the shield and then Lando saying, Hano, get that shield down. Mm-hmm. You've just gotta give him more time, right? Mm-hmm. Because of this, his character became really [02:59:00] famous in Africa.

That's awesome. As a result, the character made many, many appearances in the extended universe, now known as Star Wars Legends. And Rodich was invited to reprise his role in two of the sequel trilogy films as Nannu grown 30 years older. So right. There are things to be said for inventing languages, uh, but I think this also leads to some cute moments too, where like actually you can be like, oh, hey, I recognize that word.

Mm-hmm. If you know any of the languages. Right. That's cool. Alright, so let us come now to Act three. Yes. Which I said Act three is kind of from when the group leaves for end or. Up through when Luke leaves to go confront Vader. Okay. And this is exciting because we've never really seen them all kind of together except for like the flight from the Death star to the rebel base.

Mm-hmm In the fourth movie, first movie. So I remember being very excited that, oh, [03:00:00] Han, Luke and Leia and Chewy and C3 PO and R 2D two are all gonna be together on this mission. Which doesn't make sense 'cause R 2D two's an astro droid. What were they hoping to do with it? Makes no sense. Well I guess they were hoping to break into the bunker or whatever.

'cause he does, they do have him do that anyway. None of it makes sense because also we're all, was their whole team on that tiny little ship? No, just the command crew for the shuttle Right. Is the people we know. No, I know, but like all the rest of the people. So they, 'cause there's this whole scene where they're trying to like get past the empire.

The rest of them snuck in with supply deliveries. It's vaguely suggested. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that sequence is also where we find out that Luke Vader can sense each other's presence on ships across open space. This is not explained. Nope. Ask no more questions. You'll be told no more lies. Mm-hmm. And then there's speeder Chase, [03:01:00] which looked so cool when I was a kid.

Oh yeah. I was like, wow. I'm sure that there's like a thousand video games of this, but it would be so cool to try to do this. Mm-hmm. Wait, how do we get to the speeder chase? They land and then they get caught by a storm trooper patrol and they leave to go report in. Right. And they try to get them to not report in which they, they do.

They don't report in Leia. We've seen Leia shoot at Storm Troopers back in the first movie, but Leia actually kills a couple of people in this case. Oh yeah. She took some into crashing. She hits one with a branch. She shoots one. Uh, yeah. Yeah. But in so doing, she gets separated from the men. Yeah. So Luke and Lay are on the same speeder.

Luke jumps onto a speeder that already has the storm Trooper on it, throws him off, cuts the something off of the, the wings off of one of the other speeders, stabilize her wings. Yeah, sure. And yeah, then she passes out, which is [03:02:00] interesting because when they all fall out of a tree later on, they don't all pass out.

Well, she befriends an Ewok who finds her passed out, and it's probably better not to ask why the Ewoks have a full outfit in her size. Back at her, their base, the ew, she does change. It's true. They have set traps for humanoids all over this planet, presumably in hopes of getting the storm troopers because they've been invaded by storm troopers.

Right. And like, dude, rude. Um, but like, did they capture a female storm trooper in her nightgown? Is that why Leah's suddenly wearing a flimsy white dress? Right. Right. Where did the hair ribbons come from? Well, hair ribbons I could see. Anyway, since this is a Carrie Fisher podcast, let's talk about the scene between her and is that Wicked, the one who finds her?

Yes. That's the one played by Warwick Davis. Yeah. Little bit of trivia that I found that I knew, I think, but I forgot the word. Ewok is never uttered [03:03:00] in this movie. Nope. And none of the characters are named except into the, in the credits. Mm-hmm. So we'll call 'em Wicked, but she never calls 'em anything. She doesn't speak his language.

No. So what do you think about this scene? What are we to learn about Leia and about the Ewoks from the scene? Um, she gives him some food. Mm-hmm. Which is like the universal, give an alien some food. Yep. And pray they don't have allergies. Right. That's, I mean, that's et that's one scene in Stargate. Um, I mean, just if you meet a stranger, offer them some of your food and she takes a bite of it to prove it's okay.

Right. Right. Mm-hmm. And then gives it to him because she intuits that he is poking her with a spear, not to be aggressive, but because he's afraid. Right. And in all fairness, his planet has been invaded by storm troopers and those are the first humanoids they've probably ever seen. Possibly. Yeah. Though, I mean, they have no problem eating them, so who knows.

Yeah. Yeah. 'cause he's [03:04:00] very jumpy. Mm-hmm. And she's very much like, I'm not gonna hurt you. And she notices, oh, you're a little guy, aren't you? And I mean, I guess it's implied. He's like a teenage e walk. 'cause he's even shorter than the other E walks. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it would be hard to hurt something with those big eyes.

The E walks are adorable. They're so cute. How awesome did that tree city look when we were little. So cool. Wouldn't you have wanted to live there and of of days? The baby Ewoks would, and to this day, I'm very impressed by the level of detail they went into for the Ewoks who could, who could totally be a throwaway plot device.

Right. Easily. Yeah. And I know that the Ewoks are controversial amongst the sci-fi bros who claim this movie as their own. I literally see no problem with that. There's no problem with, I mean, Han says short help better than no help. Right. They for [03:05:00] once in the whole series, they acknowledged that humans landing on strange planets that are already inhabited by sentient races are gonna have to make some alliances.

Right. Right. There's also, I mean, there's a very, very dark real world subtext, which is the way that the US Infantalized, the Hmong and other tribes that sided with us during the Vietnam War. Right. And then sold them out completely and left them behind to be slaughtered. This is almost a opportunity to try to rewrite that, to have a happy ending.

Yeah. Yeah. And for a franchise that has been so technologically driven this whole time, it's, in my opinion, very cool to see kind of a more sticks and stones and spears and bows and arrows. You know, I, I wouldn't even call it. Primitive just not futuristic. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's also, the [03:06:00] ewoks did not set this up all in one night.

I was thinking as I watched some of the like contraptions they have Oh yeah. With like multiple logs loaded. So like the Ewoks were already like arming themselves to get the empire off their F and moon. Right? Right. And it just so happens that that means they get to, you know, be on the same side as the Rebel Alliance.

But if the Rebel Alliance hadn't shown up Storm troopers, were still going down baby. Right? Like, I have some questions about their religion. Like, uh, why don't you listen to a God when he says, please don't eat these people who are my friends? And also I have some questions about their dietary habits because, um, how are they gonna eat R 2D two?

I don't know if they knew how they were going to get R 2D two. Honestly, I gotta say one of my favorite Harrison Ford moments is when he tries to blow out the. The torch that they're using, the torch that they're using to set the fire. Yeah. And boy, do they forgive them quickly? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So three Po and Han [03:07:00] handle a tactical conversation with the Ewoks, like three PO tells the story, and then Han like asks a bunch of questions like about how the Ewoks can help.

Meanwhile, Luke and Leia are having a much more personal conversation along the lines of, do you realize you're my sister? I sort of forgot this entire scene happened. I mean, I, I mean, no, that's not true. But there's something about it that I was like, huh, I don't know. Like, yes, obviously I remember him telling her he is a sister.

I remember the whole, do you have any memories of your mother? I remember when I was little being like, oh, look at that. They finally acknowledged that if Darth Bader's their father, there must have been a mother at some point. They don't really ever explain that Aleah knew she was adopted. Mm-hmm. And of course.

In retrospect, how could she possibly have any memories of her mother? She had memories of her adoptive mother. Right. But he said, he says your real mother. Yeah. That's her adoptive father. Remarried. So she thought he was talking about [03:08:00] her first adoptive mother, is the explanation you get if you ask too many questions, right?

Yeah. Let's, let's take the extended universe out of this. Let's, let's read the text. Mm-hmm. Okay. Reading the text. They both remarkably quickly accept this. They've always known, which does make the making out a little strange. Yeah. But the making out was performative. So the first time, yeah. No, they didn't make out again.

They just kissed the second time. Okay. Well, the second time she still kisses him on the lips. She doesn't have to. Okay. But I mean, you can, like a quick peck is not like inherently a sexual thing, I guess. Yeah. Anyway. Then they have a weird conversation where like he, he says he has to go confront Vader, and if he fails, it's gonna be up to her to come and confront Vader with, uh, no further tactical planning.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, you'll be on your own. And she says, why don't we [03:09:00] just run away instead? Right. Which to be fair, there may be some sense in that, um, she doesn't say, let's run away. She says he should run away. Yeah. Leia Organic does not run away. She says, Luke, she thinks maybe run away if she runs away, far away.

If he can sense you, then just leave this place and go away. She never says she's gonna run away, but then she says, I wish I could go with you to confront Vader. Yeah. Right. So I, I just got the sense that whatever Luke decided in this moment. She wishes she could do not him. Oh, no, no. That's, she wishes she could help him somehow.

She wishes she could help him. Absolutely. But I don't believe she would ever run away from the rebel alliance. This is her whole life has been Yeah. This re rebellion. Yeah. And continues to be, as we know, for the rest of her life. Yeah. She has to stay. He's gonna go see if he can take down badder, and then Han walks in [03:10:00] and there's a total, honestly, this is the most like realistic scene.

I think that there is between the three of them. No, no, no, no, no. It's realistic, but it's depressing because Yeah, exactly. She walks in and is immediately a jealous, insecure jerk. Yes. And there has been no sign that Leia has any interest in Luke. Yep. In this entire movie. She risked heaven and earth to get Han out and mm-hmm.

Repeated how much she loved him. When he gets freed from almost being eaten by an Ewok, she immediately runs to kiss him. She snuggles with him by the campfire. Yep. And then like 15 minutes later, she has to go have a private conversation with someone else with whom she has a fully separate relationship.

Right. And Han freaks out. Could you tell Luke? Is that who you could tell? I find insecure men so irritating. So irritating. But again, I just felt it was a very human moment for them and, and too human. He does immediately regret it. I do [03:11:00] remember when I was little, not understanding what he was so mad about, but I get it now.

And I, I don't even know that he thought, well, I guess later we know that he thought that they were gonna end up together. But it's, it seemed to be more like, oh, well you can tell your secrets to your friend, but you can't tell them to me. And I don't know. It's just a very human moment. Again, not in a, like a good way.

All right. Before Act four. One more piece of trivia. Although David PRUs and James Earl Jones share once again shared the role of Darth Vader in the climactic dual in the Throne room, the Emperor's throne room, he was actually played by Swordmaster Bob Anderson in platform shoes. Since that accounts for most of his screen time in this movie, that means that Bob Anderson played Dar Fader for like a lot of this movie.

Much of it, yeah. Yeah. Alright. Which brings us to Act four, which is a very, very cool act. Is it? Tell me more. Well, it's a three-way war. Uh, [03:12:00] yes, because Luke Luke's, okay, Luke, the setup is Lucas surrenders to his father. They have a little like, you know, I feel the good in you. Come back to the light side, like, you know, don't do this.

Don't keep doing this, I guess. 'cause he's already been bad for a long, long time, long time. And I will not turn, you'll be forced to kill me. Blah, blah, blah. Lando not knowing all that's gone down with the Ewoks and the getting captured and the being mistaken for Gods, and the being nearly eaten and the blah, blah, blah.

Lando hopes that Han's team has gotten that shield down. The shield generator down. So Lando comes to lead the aerial attack, run on the new death star. Meanwhile, there's a ground assault going on by Han Leia, Ewoks at all, because they ain't got that shield down yet, right? Mm-hmm. And third, there's a battle for the soul where Luke Darth Vader and the Emperor are having a philosophical conversation, missionary [03:13:00] meeting slash sword fight.

Which is interesting because the emperor makes pretty clear only two of them are leaving this room, right? Like it's eventually, yeah. Yeah. Either. Luke's gonna fall to the dark side or Luke's gonna die. Right. And if he falls to the dark side, his first act is gonna have to be to kill either the Emperor or Darth Vader.

This is later explained that the STH only ever operate only, only ever two. Yeah. Yeah. I think he doesn't really mention, like, he doesn't really make that clear, I think until like towards the end he says, take your father's well. Take your father's place. He says, pick up your lights saber and strike me down with it.

Mm-hmm. And he says, kill your father and take his place at separate times. Yeah. But it, it's pretty clear they aren't all coming out of this, saw their own feet. So I see a lot of parallels between Luke and the emperor here in that both of them act like they've seen it all. Right. That they like, well, Luke in the beginning acts like everything has gone [03:14:00] according to his plan.

And the emperor throughout the entire movie, and especially here, says, everything is happening as I foreseen. And I'm like, I'm sorry you saw all of this. Like including the part where you lose, you planned all of this. Are you sure? And they're just like watching this battle happen. Yeah. And I don't know if I were the emperor of the entire galaxy, I even though I think I'm safe, I probably would've evacuated.

But hubris, no, no, no. You're not enough of an egotistical bastard state. No, that's true. I'm not. And yeah, I mean, again, with the lore that we know now, why wouldn't he think that he was ordained by the force to be emperor forever? Many, many years ago when we were small and watching this, you said to me, the dark side is too mean to have friends.

The emperor says at this point, your faith in your friends is your weakness. Right. To, [03:15:00] to Luke, this final act is very cool because it's a win for the power of teamwork. Right, right. Friendship. It is however, community, however, did Luke have to go face Darth Vader for his own peace of mind, baby. Uh, but not necessarily, not inherently.

Like I don't really feel like he had anything to do with this battle because No, no, no. He's not in a battle. He's not in the battle for destroying the death star. He's in the battle for destroying the sth. If he can bring, if he can get the emperor dead and Anakin back to the good side, the Jedi win, right?

So he is winning a, he's on a battle for the soul. He is not trying to get the death star blown up, right? But regardless, they're all gonna be blown up soon. So I'm not sure that it really, he thinks it would be matters except that perhaps you could argue that [03:16:00] he distracted the Emperor and Darth Vader so that they couldn't see that they were losing the battle.

No. Luke says, soon I'll be dead. And you with me? Luke went into that. I know knowing, I know. That's what I'm saying. He thought they were all three going to get blown up. Yeah, I know. But he thought it was worth it if he could save their souls. That makes no sense. I know that's where it falls apart. But it's Luke super cool.

It is. I mean, they are sword fighting up and down stairs. He kick Darth Vader in the chest. It's all very, very cool. There's evil. They play a bit of, they play a little bit of hide and seek. Yeah. You can't hide forever. Luke, you have a twin sister and you know, I I I like that. No. Yeah. I just feel that he, I mean, I guess, yeah, his, his whole, his destiny is never really to be a part of the rebellion.

His destiny is to bring back the Jedi. Yeah. This plan works. 'cause they all work on their own. Thing, but with the common [03:17:00] goal of overthrowing the empire, right? Mm-hmm. So like Han's, getting that shield generator blown up Han at all, Lando at all is fighting. Oh. Leia's getting that right. But like Lando keeps saying, Han will get that shield down.

Right. We've gotta give him more time. Right. That's why I, but this is a Carrie Fisher podcast. All right. So Leia, Han, et all, et cetera, are we at, are getting that shield generator blown up? Mm-hmm. Lando is holding off the entire star fleet to give some ti to buy some time for that to happen. And then this is, in my opinion, a more interesting battle than the first death star battle because Yeah, there's, like you said, more tactics to it, right?

Like draw the fire out, try and, and everybody doesn't die. Yeah. Right? It's not like the whole Yeah. Like with Luke, you know, it's like the whole fleet is wiped out. That's not the case here. No. Uh, well, yeah, and wedge and Tilles becomes the only guy to survive. Both attack runs. Survive. Both. Mm-hmm. Yep. I don't know.

When I was a kid and now the last 40 minutes of this movie are like the [03:18:00] coolest part because it's just, they're all fighting and they've all got some fire lines in. He'll have that shield down in no time, or this will be the shortest offensive of all time. Not bad for a little fur ball, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah. And the Ewok battle is just so cool. The Ewok battle. I mean, talk about you have the tech, but we know the land. Right. And when they get caught yet again by the storm troopers and Leia shows Han that she has a gun. Mm-hmm. Hidden. And he says, I love you. So it's not, I know. So she gets to say her. I know, but also it's because she's being clever, right?

Yeah. It's because she's being smart and tactical and gonna get them out of this mess. It's not for any, you know, physical or other reason. Okay. So. Then the final ending trivia alert, according to Gary Kurtz, who produced the first two movies, but then parted ways with George Lucas of there are conflicting reports [03:19:00] as to why.

Um, but he says that he was with the production long enough to see the original treatment for Return of the Jedi. Mm-hmm. And he says the original treatment was going to be Luke Skywalker walking off alone and exhausted like the hero in a spaghetti western going into seclusion in the tattooing desert.

But according to him, George Lucas wanted a happier ending to encourage higher merchandise sales. Mm-hmm. Yep. I read that. But I think it's interesting that by the time of the sequel trilogy, we find Luke exhausted off on his own. Exhausted, yeah. Yeah. And not selling any merchandise. So the ending then, okay, that's the other thing.

When I was a little kid who doesn't love a good dance party with all their friends, friends, dance party is fabulous. And actually, I'm, I'm gonna say something controversial. I actually really like seeing all the other planets celebrating the end of the empire. Yeah. I mean, cool. Well, it's not controversial for you.

It's controversial I think in the fandom [03:20:00] because it was yet another thing. I don't like that they shortened the dance party for it because like you said, the dance party is epic. Oh, by the way, shout out to Nora yet again. I ran into her today at a protest and I said to her, you know, it took me decades to realize that the Ewoks ate the storm troopers.

And she said, oh, I think I'm just learning that now. Okay. Was I the only 6-year-old? No, I know I'm not the only one. 'cause last summer I taught. A kid, like a 22-year-old Russian kid that the bad guy from Highlander and the voice of Mr. Krabs are the same person. Mm-hmm. And he said, wow, I knew this class was gonna be life changing, but not that life changing.

And I said, next you gonna tell me you didn't know the OX eight storm troopers? And he said, no, of course. The OX eight Storm Trooper, he's like, they're using, they're helmets for drums. Like, where else do they end up? Yep, yep, yep. Mm-hmm. Never really, I honestly didn't occur to me to think too much about it, but yeah, that makes sense because they, yeah, [03:21:00] the Ewoks have definitely cooked and eaten the storm troopers and are serving them up at the dance party with the rebels.

So do we think the rebels ate the storm troopers? Almost certainly. Yeah. Um, PO Damon's mother is canonically at that party too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's one of, you know, the women in the briefing where mamma explains the plan. There are several female X-Wing pilots, scene in the background, but then they're not shown during the battle sequence.

Of course. Well, at least one woman filmed a scene for it, but it was cut and for any clear reasons. Uh, but canonically, one of them is the mother of Oscar Isaac's character in the sequel trilogy. So she totally ate Storm Troopers at that dance party while Han and Leia were in one of the bathrooms conceiving Kylo run.

This is now Canon. I will take no questions bathroom. God, there were huts everywhere. Yeah. Okay. You all, anyone who's been to even one [03:22:00] dance knows that people hook up in the bathroom. Of course. Um, okay. And then the final scene is when Yoda and Obi one and whichever version of Anakin Skywalker you wanna see, show up and kind of smile and approve at Smile Approvingly at Luke, who then goes back to join the party.

Yeah. Having burned. Yeah. We didn't talk about burning the, the, um, armor, but. Nor did we talk about the, you were right about me. Oh, yeah. That two minute scene that Sebastian Shaw's so famous for. Let's back up. Let's back up. Because we actually didn't talk about the big moment of redemption for Darth Vader either.

All right. Yeah. Okay. We have to talk about that. I know, because Very important, very important question. Is it enough, right. Well, the dark side is too mean to have friends, [03:23:00] as you have said. Mm-hmm. Vader has far fewer reasons to be loyal to Palpatine than he has reasons to care about his son's life. Even if those reasons are entirely selfish, like, oh, my son is part of me, blah, blah, blah.

Right? Or he's the last part of his mother, or whatever. Right. And in fact, Palpatine has, by this point, made it clear that only two of them are leaving this throne room, and he doesn't care which two. And the Force Ghost of Vatican Skywalker decides it's gonna be me and my son, not me. And the guy who. He pulled me to the dark side, so he picks up Palpatine and in the original, he doesn't say a word in the remake.

He shouts. No, no. Dramatic. Yeah. Okay. In the original, without another word, he scoops up palpatine and flinks him over a railing to his death. Apparent death. Anyway. Yeah. Really Should have just split him in two. But I guess that wouldn't have worked either because of other Preco law that we won't talk about [03:24:00] entirely.

He does this apparently because Luke shouts Father, please nevermind that Luke has been begging him for, I don't know how long this whole thing lasts, but from the moment he gets to Darth Vader, you know, you're not gonna kill me father. You can't kill me. You're, you're good. Blah, blah, blah. Then they go through this whole fight scene.

Yeah. But it's just like watching him being electrocuted to death was the final straw for you. And by the way, so I was thinking about this in 1983 and in 1997, you don't know that forced lightning is a thing. It's genuine. No, it's genuinely scary. The first time I saw the turn of the jet, I was like, oh my God, he's shooting lightning out of his hands.

Yeah. It's really scary. I have nightmares about it. Yeah, I think with the addition of the prequels, it maybe has less of an impact because they do use it in the prequels. Mm-hmm. But yeah, it's, it's scary. Mm-hmm. And yeah, I mean it is a very dramatic like death scene and Luke is [03:25:00] in terrible pain. Pain obviously.

And Vader who was burned alive as a young man, sees his son burning alive, kills Palpatine, and then has a touching reconciliation with his son. Luke actually tries to get Darth Vader off the death Star, like he thinks he's gonna take kin. I don't know what explanation he's gonna offer to the rest of the universe.

Right, right. And like, have a relationship with this man who has repeatedly tried to kill both him and his sister. Yeah. I mean, I guess And, and the entire universe. Yeah. He could take him to be tried, I don't know. But he, he does try to, you see him trying to, in his weakened state, try to lift him and get him to a shuttle where he can take him off the death star.

But Darth Vader Anakin right? Says, no, let me look at you with my own eyes. So take my, my helmet off and then leave me behind. So Anakin [03:26:00] doesn't think that killing Palpatine was enough. Like he doesn't think he can go back and have a life again. Well, I think that's objectively true, but he's also dying.

Well, he got hit with the forced lightning when he picked Palpatine up. And since he lives in an iron lung, the E key was a bad thing. I mean, he, he, he dies in front of him. That's why he has the armor. Tell your sister, you were right about, you were right about me. And then he dies. But before that, he says, go, leave me.

Right. Just tell your sister I, you were right. So he knows he's dying. Just wants to have some last words that's himself instead of as the man in the iron mask. Right. It's not enough, in my opinion. It is a beautiful, very like Christian moment, you know? Mm-hmm. If you're looking at this as an allegory that you can be saved at the last moment.

But I mean, he's destroyed entire planets and the more we build out the universe, the more comic books and TV shows and all the stuff that there's, the more and more [03:27:00] and more truly horrific things that he's shown to do. Yeah. Saving your son, who, like you said, is part of you. Mm-hmm. Right. I'm not sure that that or, and killing the emperor who's, yes, that would be great, but he's likely to die anyway.

I don't. It's so, it's never quite sat right with me, I don't think. And as I get older and older, I'm like, really? If he wanted to redeem himself, he should have gone and faced trial. Right? Like he should have mm-hmm. Been able to go and, and reconcile. But that doesn't make for a very good movie. Dying is easy, living is harder.

Right. And amen to that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, redemption equals death. Mm-hmm.

I should have looked this up. I didn't. I, but I have at some point heard that Jediism was not meant to be based on Christian ideals. It was meant to be based more on Buddhism. Oh yeah. No, I don't think Jedi ideals are, [03:28:00] but the, you know, 12 step cycle of the hero, which is not necessarily a Christian thing, but has that kind of moment of redemption.

Yeah. But I think the reason why he might appear in the afterlife is that the Jedi might have the Buddhism thing going on where like. You go to the afterlife and then you'll come back as like, you, you, you'll have another chance to live a better life. I maybe, I don't know. I mean, there, there's some very extended lore on, on the philosophy of the Jedi and how the living force and force goes work on.

None of which we're gonna discuss here because frankly we don't remember what it is. So, um, in my defense, I never knew what it was. Yeah. There's a cryptic line in revenge of the sth. I guess it's only cryptic if you try to take the movies, a standalone text and don't bother to read all of the supplemental materials.

But apparently not everybody can become a foolish ghost. But one of the people who knew how to become a forced ghost was quite a God Jin Yeah. [03:29:00] Who discovered Anakin in the first place. And we know from the sequels that Palpatine knows how to become a forced ghost and bring himself back to life. So anybody has a hack.

Forgetting to the afterlife. It might be the kid who was taught by the two of them, AKA at a kid's sky walker, right? Yeah. Whatever. I'm, I'm fine with him standing next to, you know, I'm fine with it. It's fine. It, I don't love it, but it's fine. I do like that they made it Hayden Christensen. Mm-hmm. It is what it is.

Can we just say, I hope Hayden Christiansen is having a nice day and I hope Jake Lloyd is having a nice day. Um, because we're, we're not gonna be discussing the prequels again, so we might as well say it now. Um, for those of, we will defend the prequels at a different time, in a different life, in a different podcast because Carrie Fisher is not in [03:30:00] them.

But we do, we both feel, and I, I'll speak for myself, feel that there are redeeming qualities to the prequels that were not maybe noticed or celebrated in their time. But with hindsight. There's some interesting parts. Actually. We liked them when we saw them, so we can't even say that. Well, we were the target audience for, we were liking them when we saw them.

Yeah. I was eight. But, um, I will say just for the audience listening at home, that my sister will not allow mention of the prequels to pass without us pausing to say that we hope Hayden Christensen and Jake Lloyd are having a nice day wherever they are, because this, those movies ruin their lives, especially Lloyd.

Absolutely. I mean, Jake Lloyd really ruined his life to be a child star that way. Yeah. So, um, we hope that they, so the backlash against those movies is not only unwarranted, it has had real harm. Yeah. So and so we hope that they're both safe and among friends. Mm-hmm. One more piece of trivia before we do the hot sl.

Go for it. [03:31:00] Okay. In some early teaser posters, the subtitle was Revenge of the Jedi. This inspired the producers of Star Trek two to change the subtitle of their movie from Revenge of Khan to Wrath of Khan. But then after Wrath of Khan came out, but before Return of the Jedi came out, the producers of Star Wars reconsidered and thought, oh, Jedi aren't really like the vengeance types and made it return to the Jedi.

Ironically, Kahan really is the vengeance type. Yeah. So he or he earned the revenge of Kahan. Right. So I Han Good. So I actually think Wrath Khan is an epic name and I think that was the right decision. But I had read that it was Return of the Jedi and then somebody had said it was like not a very strong title.

So they made a revenge of the The Jedi, and then they moved, they changed it back. I don't know if that's true. Who knows? Yeah. Well, I remember when Revenge of the STH came out, everybody's like, oh, don't you mean return of the sth? Right. They finally got that, that word back in there. Revenge. Revenge. [03:32:00] All right.

Let us, let us rate the hut slayer, because I think there can only be one answer to this. Five five's across the board, baby. She slays a hut, and I actually think, especially because I was going into a very on edge after seeing the Big Step back and characterization that she takes in Empire Shakes back. I think this movie did her justice.

I think she gets her own moments, her own agency, and yes, she ends up with the guy in the end, but it's not like, like he clearly loves her for her tactical brilliance in addition to her. And he never saw her, never saw her in the Golden Bikini, so he can't say it was that. Um, everybody else saw in the gold bikini though, and whew.

And boy, did that become a thing. Yes. I think those of us who have any amount of attraction to women had thoughts about that gold bikini when we were kids. I didn't know at the time why I was intrigued by the gold [03:33:00] bikini, but oh boy. Was I, we should probably cut in the clip of Carrie Fisher talking about that guy who said he's, he thought, thought of her every day from the ages 12 to 16 or whatever.

As you've pointed out in Star Wars, you were the only girl in an all boy fantasy. When did you start realizing that you were a part of boys' sex fantasies? Not until way later, and I'm very glad of that. Like about, I don't know. Maybe eight years ago. Some guy said to me, I thought about you every day from when I was 12 to when I was 22.

And I said, every day. And he said, well, four times a day.

And you know, what do you say to that? Thank you. Four times a day. Four times a day. Anyway, she's a sex symbol. Sure. She has some, uh, I, I [03:34:00] wouldn't say control of her sexuality, but she is a sex symbol for part of this movie. But she is herself and herself is a badass as she is. Five hut slayers for me. Hutz slayer, Ewok, BeFriender, crasher of speeders.

Mm-hmm. Warrior and Diplomat, which she has been since the beginning. And lover and love. And soon mother, but not for another Woo boy. Several nine months, 30 several, two years, several, several other movies we have to get through before we can get there. So what are we talking about next time? We are talking about Garbo Talks?

Never heard of it. Me neither. So we will find out what that's about for next time. But in the meantime, just remember if my life weren't funny, it would just be true [03:35:00] and that's unacceptable. Goodnight. May the force be with you and also with you.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Carried Far, far Away. This podcast is hosted, produced, edited, re-edited, obsessed over and loved by Katie Marinell and Claire Fisher. You can follow the show on Facebook and Instagram at Carried Away Pod. You can email us at away Carry pod@gmail.com. You can follow Claire at Dead fictional girlfriends and Katie at Katie Away.

We are proud to be part of the 12 and 24 network. You can join fans and creators from the Network on Discord by clicking the link in the show notes. All clips used in this podcast are done so under the protection of fair use. Have a wonderful week and may the forest be with you

and now our space Grandma Wisdom of the week. Um, so you, you, you describe yourself as having a pattern of being obsessed with inaccessible [03:36:00] men. I know, but I'm 19. At that time, there had no pattern. I'd had one boyfriend when I read that. I, I felt so sorry for myself at that age. I mean, how could I have a pattern if I had one boyfriend?

But that's, I guess, how it felt to me. You know, it was as intense as a pattern instead of as a choice. I don't know.