‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
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It's software presents Doom, The Dark Ages. Available May 15th on Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5 and PC. Pre-order now. Rated M for Mature. All right, Rewatchables Part 2. How many Rewatchables have we done two parters for? We did Boogie Nights. Pulp got two. I think this is the third one. Wow. Didn't even know this was going to be a part two, but then part one lasted so long, we were like, Jesus, we haven't even gotten to a category yet.

I feel like if we redid JFK, that would go two parts because now we have more documentation. Who said, why can't we go Lucas on it and just dive back and just try to keep making it better? It's a good idea. We should digitally edit that one and get more conspiracy theory in there. Let's take categories because there is a lot to cover. Most rewatchable scene. Opening shootout scene in Darth Entrance. That's in there, right? Yeah. Yes. First appearance of Darth Vader. Yeah. Luke meets Obi-Wan. Here's about his dad.

Now that's a name I haven't heard for a long time. That was good. Not bad. Not bad at all. He's working on it. Of course I know him. He's me. He's me. We got to save C-3PO. We find out that Vader was...

Seduced by the dark side of the force. What does that mean, CR? Yeah. Dark side of the force. It's giving into your evil impulses. What does that mean? Well, there's a whole prequel trilogy about how that happened. It's an energy field of all living things. It's all out there. Just grab it. Just get it. What's his name and he? What's that guy's name? It's Tom Noonan's character. I don't know if he has a name. Yeah, he does. He has a name in the movie? Yeah. How do they name characters that we've never seen? Kelso. Oh, Kelso. Yeah.

This is a short scene for me. I just wrote down, Vader fucks up the conference room meeting and choke forces out a dude. Fucks up. Oh, you mean like in a, wow, you fucked that guy up. Yeah. Not like you fucked up the meeting. No, he wrecks the meeting and then chokes out a dude. Because the guy calls him out. Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.

The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force. Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fort.

Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways. That guy is amazing. I love that guy. And he is, he's so certain and he doesn't know who he's fucking with. He's but the first one to be choked out because after Tarkin is dead, Vader's fucking on. He's off the leash for the next couple of movies choking out everyone. It was like when Dylan Brooks talked back to Jimmy Butler. The fat line. He's like, don't do that. Jimmy got choked out.

Dylan's body language, not the greatest there. See why he was up against a bigger lion. Sometimes you know. Sometimes you can tell by the pupils. It's alright to enjoy every Vader moment of this movie, right? To make me a bad person. Get ready to learn Chinese! Get ready to learn Chinese! The Star Wars bar.

By the way, you can throw in after I'm done. I just, I tried to cut it down. I got you. I think this is the one of the best scenes of the entire seventies. It has led to a lot of comedy, a lot of jokes over the years of, oh my God, what bar did we just walk into? Is this a Star Wars bar? Just a million of those.

We don't serve droids here? Yeah. Droid racism. Why not? Yeah. What's wrong with droids? Droid racism. Droids can buy a beer. Well, we didn't know at the time. The droids, they had some problems with the droids. They had some problems with the droids. The droids are... Oh, tell me. What were the problems? I actually don't know what you're talking about. Weren't the droids part of the clone army or whatever? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Well, do you think they know C3PO and...

R2-D2 from before? No, I meant like, they just have like an antagonism towards droids in general. Right, so during... Droid bias. Well, during... Well, not the Clone Wars, but prior to the Clone Wars, like... See, this is why I can't be a Star Wars fan. What? Well, no, it's not this. Craig just left. I'm asking if that's why he said it. I don't know. I actually don't know. He said it because droids don't drink and they take up space in bars. Oh, come on. But...

But the original, when the Trade Federation, when it first started, everybody that they were fighting, it was all droids. Okay. So maybe they didn't like droids. They didn't want droids around. Do you think they should have given... You're easily... There's a square footage issue. So many drinks they need to turn over for hours. That can't be there. It's not as big as it looks, you know? Do you think C-3PO should have had a Boston accent and then got mad at the bartender and be like, you think you're better than me? Yeah.

Do you like the Star Wars Cantina more or less than the Verdict Bar? No, the Verdict Bar is number one. Is this bar the same set as the bar in Raiders?

It's not, but they have a similar energy. Yeah. With the way the bar is set up. Yeah, a lot of scoundrels in the mix there. We get Monster with testicles on his chin. We get the negotiation with Han Solo for 17K. And most important, we get a shootout with Han and Greedo, which becomes the most... I never knew anything about this. It's like the super film. The research. Yeah. The Star Wars universe loses their fucking minds about this. Yeah. Why is this so important? Because it's central to Han Solo's character.

And it's the MJ versus LeBron of nerd culture. Absolutely. For my dead body. Yes, I bet you have. It's central to Han's character. Well, can you can you go backwards? So in the first cut of the movie, which no longer exists.

People think Greedo never shot at him. Han shot first. Han shot first. That's why they have the Han shot first t-shirts. But then in 97, what happens? They change it to where Greedo takes a shot at Han. And misses. And then Han kills Greedo. And Han like ducks. And Greedo's like, McClunky! Which is like a line that was not in the movie originally. And the fucking, and the Star Wars nerds lost their minds. So this is the deal. This was like the most egregious violation ever. They retconned his decency. Right. Yeah. And this is the thing, right?

This is, to me, emblematic of what happens to something when it is consumed by the masses.

Solo has already been established as a good guy. He goes from being a scoundrel and someone who only thinks about himself to being a good guy. We don't need to make him a good guy at his core. His character arc is that he finds value in his friends and in his relationships and then becomes- He comes back at the end. That's the value of it. We don't need him to always at his core have been a good guy.

He is the type of guy that says, oh, you're here for this. I recognize my opportunity. I will kill you before you have the opportunity to kill me. Can I ask you a random question? They shouldn't have changed it. What would have been a better name for a rapper? Han Solo or Greedo? Greedo is the rapper's name. Greedo is Grape Tree Crips. Yeah. I can bring him in here. Is it actually Greedo or is it like an extended name? No. His name is O3 Greedo. O3. But that's not Greedo.

His name is Greedo, though. Inspired by Greedo. Yeah. Great name. It is. Grape Street. Very unforgettable. We should go down to Watts. We should go down to Watts. That's what we should have had in for this. Like the actual... Star Wars and the Star Wars pod in Watts? In Watts. We should have gone down and did it with the Grape Streets. They'd have been... I'm going to move on.

I have R2 and Chewie playing circle chess. What's going on there, CR? They're just playing futuristic 3D risk chess. Yeah. You skipped one of my favorite low-key scenes, though. Stop. Tarkin making Leia watch him blow up her planet while Darth puts his dad hands on her? Yeah. Really awesome. That's pure kink. That is kink right there. It's also one of the most illest things I've ever seen. I grow tired of asking this, so it'll be the last time.

Where is the rebel base? Dantooine. They're on Dantooine. There. You see, Lord Vader, she can be reasonable. Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready. What? You're far too trusty. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration, but don't worry. We will deal with your rebel friends soon enough. No. Commence primary ignition. When I was a kid, the first time I was like, they're not going to blow that planet up, though.

Not just to test the weapon. Sets the stakes of the movie. Yeah. Also, look at the sheer shock and horror on her face when he goes, ready the weapon system, fire at will. And would you say you're far too trusting? Yeah, far too trusting. Ready the weapon system, fire at will. What? And then she has to watch everyone

Her family, everybody she's ever known, blown up. To be fair, though, she gets over it pretty quick. I have some notes about that a little later. Well, during the circle chest scene, we learn that it's not wise to upset a Wookiee. Luke tries to figure out the force of the lightsaber. Solo's like, fuck it, I don't believe in the force. You guys are fucking crazy.

And then Obi's just coming in with the, your eyes can deceive if you don't trust them. Doing his thing. I really like all that's going on in that scene. There's a board game going on. There's somebody trying to figure out the Force. Han Solo's cracking shit. You went on that scene? Of course. Okay. I have the Falcon crew breaking into the mothership. What are our thoughts on Chewie with a gun? Oh! Oh! Oh!

What's going on with him? Well, I think he's... He's a prisoner, so he's pretending to be... Would you want to break into a mothership with that guy? It's so close to long legs. No!

How dare you talk about Chewbacca this way? Did you look in the mirror last night and practice? I told you when I had this coffee, I was going to be fucking lit. But you came in with like a really good Alec Guinness, like a really good Gnome. And then you just blasted him. He's been hiding it this way. What the fuck? Why are you treating Chewie this way? Chewie's the muscle. You got to have him.

The princess. They're going to save her. We figure out. Are they going to find her? Vader? How do you feel about Vader? It's like... A presence I've not felt since... What is this? Feeling of...

remember that's his master that's his teacher they're locked in the force and this is their third duel that they've had there's Mustafar then there's the duel that happened in the Obi-Wan movie we don't recognize that and so this is the I agree and so this is the third duel that they have but this is a guy who's been training them since he was a little boy so they're connected in the force he also cut him to pieces and threw him in lava yeah he's probably like hmm this is the all time well I'll see him for Apex Mountain I'm pissed off right

It turns out he's not feeling the force. It's Bill Belichick's girlfriend. She's trying to interrupt the scene. She's got a little bit of Princess Leia energy.

Should she have been there when Leia was being questioned about the location of the rebel base? We're not talking about that. How do you feel about escape is not his plan? I must face him alone. You just slipped into Charles Bronson. I just watched Death Wish. What do you mean, the Force? How do you feel about his plan to face Obi-Wan alone? They're still on journeys. Vader is still on a journey.

Vader has a journey that was outlined for him and for the Emperor. The lore is so dense here. But for him to... And Obi-Wan actually has a journey as well. He makes his decision to become one with the Force so that he can become a Force ghost and all that stuff. So them facing each other is a separate battle than the one that's happening between the Empire and Rebellion. A little pro-wrestling in this. Mm-hmm.

It's like, we got to do a steel cage match and really figure this out. Yeah. We've had a couple other matches. There's some double count outs. Loser goes home. Yeah. Loser leaves town. This is a loser leaves town. Loser leaves his corporeal form. And we go right into the garbage hole. What would you call it? Trash garbage. Compactor. Compactor. Yeah. Are you there, sir? Dreamio? We've had some problems. Will you shut up and listen to me? Shut down all the garbage matches on the detention level, will you? Shut down all the garbage matches on the detention level. Oh.

And we get the garbage snake. Now, was that in the original movie or did they add shit? That's actually the name of a fan's favorite Axel Braun movie. Garbage snake. It's a dark, dark, dark movie.

This whole scene is really, really, this is, would you say this is the, what's our category for the, okay, motherfucker. It's up there. This is when it really kicks off. I think okay, motherfucker is when Darth Vader blasts through a door in the first scene, but it's, this is so cool, even though like some of the physics of it don't really make any sense. Yeah. It's, I always, and I, every time I watch it, I'm really nervous that they're not going to get out.

I'm worried that one of them is going to go down. They're going to get squashed. Yeah. It seems like every time you're so happy that 3PO comes through. Because they're so elated. Yeah. They don't get squashed. Squashing scenes always work where people are like, oh, oh. And you just. Yeah. One of my favorite cuts in the whole movie is when Luke has got the radioman

and he's screaming and he's saying, 3PO! 3PO! And then it cuts to the mic on the other end and 3PO's not there. Oh my God. And you can hear it and he's stuck behind the closet door. Or when 3PO thinks that they're all dead and he's like, oh, damn it! And then Chewie's like, Stop! 3PO gets such a raw deal because a lot of Star Wars fans don't like 3PO. Really? Yeah. It's kind of annoying. He's annoying, but he's got some good lines. R2 is a hero.

R2 is a hero. He shows up. Don't, don't, come on, you're doing so well. He's kind of Draymond-y, I would say. He's fine. R2 is like Draymond and Luke is Steph in this equation. Basically. Luke needs R2. True. He's like his navigator. Like Draymond with no flagrants or anything. Yeah. And he always comes through. He's brave. He fights. He's resourceful. Hold on, it's Brave Little Droid. Okay.

He didn't knock my socks off in either viewing, but maybe I missed some stuff. A lot more stuff. Cantina into Death Star Invasion into Compactor. Crack. Yeah. Incredible sequencing. So good. Darth versus Obi-Wan. No, I had the master. Your power's a weak old man. I'm starting to sound like Chung Li a little bit. Oh, Bloodsport. Bloodsport. Yeah.

This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Kenobi. It will soon see the end of the rebellion.

Did you want more from the saber fight or no? I think it was a sacrifice for very, you know, for a lot. How'd you feel about Sir Alex? Like little twirl move kind of slow. Yeah. We can get into that. I have some analysis. Little Kendrick Perkins in the low post kind of jump hook energy. I watched the tape on this one when I got up in the morning. It wasn't great. They could have stunt doubled him maybe. He's old. Look, I will say that we reinvented the lightsaber battle in the prequel trilogy. Like,

Like, obviously, Ray Park. Doing flips and shit. Doing flips. But Lucas even used story to explain that. He goes, there were thousands of Jedi. It was a more elegant time, like Obi-Wan says, and they fought with more flair and more style. Seven different styles of lightsaber defense and offense. So J.J. Reddick, plumbers, and whatever he said. But that's the future, not the past. But this is different.

Yeah. JJ Redick. The performers were in their old days. Now these guys haven't used a saber in a long time. If JJ plays LeBron for another second half, it's going to look like Alec Gibson. He's like, oh. These Jedis were driving cabs at night to make extra dough.

I was trying to think like if like Shane and Sharp not being on first take anymore, if they have to jumpstart the ratings, they should do segments where they do like stuff like them actually breaking down Obi-Wan versus Vader. Just being like, Obi tanked the fight. He tanked it. He just rolled over.

This is why he wasn't the greatest Jedi. Just like hands fine. How many rings does Obi-Wan have? What's he doing? He's just in the desert. He's not even a great Jedi. What is he doing is a good question. Two more scenes. The Millennium Falcon comes back to save Luke, which I don't remember seeing the experience of seeing this in the theater other than being like, whoa, outer space. But I guess a lot of times people cheered in the theater when the Falcon died.

Oh, yeah. Money Falkland showed up. That was like a moment, man. I have you now. Then out of nowhere, he's knocked out and they don't kill Vader. Yeah. Don't kill Vader. Great shot, kid. That was one in a million. I have you now. What? Yahoo! Look out. You're all clear, kid. Now let's blow this thing and go home. Yes!

The trench run is my most rewatchable scene. This is, this whole sequence. Well, I have one more. It's the signature scene of the movie. I have one more scene. Okay. I kind of like the big ceremony at the end. You do? Yeah, I do. It's just kind of an epilogue. It's not really a scene. Like, there's very little dialogue. Did Chewie get, like, a medal? No, this is the whole thing. Oh, don't, don't act like, you know this, right? Well,

No, he's on the stage. No, this is a whole thing. There's a whole thing about this. He never got a medal and they had to give him a medal in the later movies. Does it go against your religion? No, no. I never thought he got one. I didn't understand why he was on the stage. Well, technically, what did he really do? Wow. He's also disrespecting Chewie. Chewie doesn't fly anything. He's first mate of the Millennium Falcon. Yeah, he was on board. Oh, man.

So you don't think Chewie deserved a medal? Are we sure Chewie is good? If it's a participation trophy, we can get it out. Not only do I think that Chewie deserved a medal, I think the droids should have got medals too. I agree. There's a cutaway to the droids and they're just like... They all shined up, but I think they should have got medals too. But just to let you know, the fact that Chewie didn't get a medal is a gigantic deal. And in, I think it's Rise of Skywalker. Yeah.

an abomination of the film. A movie in which he should have been killed. Right. Yes. And they ended by giving him a medal. They gave him his medal. They gave Chewie his medal. I'm going to do my CR. Thanks, Luke Wilson. Could have been Harrison Ford. How does it take a word right now? Chewbacca, most overrated sidekick ever.

Stands out everywhere he goes. You can't slide into any. Super tough right now. Just wait. It's a hottest take. I'm sorry. I thought I was doing a hot of takes. You're right. Everywhere you go with him, he stands out. He's a fucking behemoth. Who's not going to notice him?

He speaks an unintelligible language that only one other person understands. He can't do anything. Okay, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. He can't shoot guns. Wait, wait, wait. You don't really see him fly shit in the trash department. Break down the door. Break down the door, Chewie. Superhuman strength. You did so well. You had another coffee. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Can I finish? Never use incisor strength and

I don't understand why he was even on the stage. Like, okay, first of all, he is an expert pilot. He's actually an expert shot with a blister. Does he shoot a pilot in the movie, though? Like, is he ever piloting the Millennium Falcon? The gun is embarrassing. When they're leaving Tatooine and they're escaping and going into hyperspeed, you know, Chewie was there. He was co-piloting the Millennium Falcon. He's the co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon.

That wasn't some... And by the way, he's the mechanic of the fucking ship. The Kessel Runnytoll and Parsecs didn't Parsec itself. He fixes the ship. Remember the movie Sully? Who was the co-pilot? I don't remember. Aaron Eckhart. Of course I remember.

All right. Okay. I don't know. Highest take. I thought it was funny. By the way, also, the muscle, once again. He's Harrison's muscle. How about he could have fucked a couple more guys up? I think he has more utility in the future films physically. Yeah. In the next two. That's what I wanted. And by the way, it is- Fun to look at. Chewbacca that Kenobi talks to.

That's absolutely right. In order to get Luke and Kenobi onto the ship, he arranges the whole deal. To me, I think there is a case for most rewatchable scene for the cantina scene, because the cantina scene gives you this. It gives you Obi-Wan wields a lightsaber the first time you really see, which is very exciting. It's the first time you also see a limb get cut off in a Star Wars movie, something that recurs throughout all of these movies. You get Han and Greedo, which is

super small character moment in a movie that tells us a lot about the world that we're in. And then you get this great getaway sequence. That's all part of the cantina. Plus the jazz score and all the cool characters, like the creatures from that scene are all in that little 12 minute pocket of the movie. It sounds like you're making the case. For me, it's 100% the cantina. You think it's the cantina? I love the cantina. My vote was going to be Trench Run, but I do think there's a case for cantina.

It's so much fun. It's just the most fun 12 minutes. I can't believe there's a sequence of a sci-fi movie that lasts 20 minutes and still 40 years later. I'm like, yep. And then Porkins comes in and then this happens and then the TIE Fighters get behind them but then the one TIE Fighter spins out. I feel like it's one of the most amazing...

air sequences, outer space sequences ever come in at default. It's, okay, so between the two scenes- And it's also basically the plot of Top Gun Maverick. It's between the two scenes, it's- Including them getting off the plane. It's the end of Top Gun. It's between these two scenes to me. I could make maybe, maybe an argument for the entire sequence where they're actually dressed like stormtroopers and they're rescuing Princess Leia. Oh, yeah.

However, the Chewbacca part was a little dicey. He's a prisoner. We're transferring him. If we're talking about rewatchable scenes, the scene that has been the most recreated, my blood's burning, is to me the trick front. It was, to me, the most signature scene from Star Wars. So that's your most rewatchable? That's my most rewatchable, for sure. All right. Two for two.

I'm actually with them. I was just making the case for the sake of the pod. Cantina, or to be honest, I kind of love when they're just running around the Death Star trying to escape, stuff like that. That part is fun, too. You know what else is fun about that? There's been so many movies since, and so many of them have cribbed from

Them being trapped. And like, I watched this and I kept thinking of all the Austin Powers movies, how many things they've ripped off from Star Wars. It's like the big conference room and all that stuff. It's also, there's so many things across, obviously, the entire trilogies of films and shows. But even within the film where you're watching something, you're like, oh, wow, kind of getting away with this. And then it turns out like Vader is

talks Tarkin into letting them go so that they can track them back to the rebel base. It's like everything has a later fucking... He was on one in this movie. Mastermind. Really using the force in the wrong ways. In a dark way, almost, yeah. What's the most 1977 thing about this movie, CR? Nixon being in it? No, I... I...

I guess some of this, like the laser beam special effects, some of the explosions where it just looks like a sparkler going off. I mean, like they did incredible stuff, but there are certain things that they just couldn't catch up with yet. I see. I wrote that down a bit as a positive, just that the overwhelming amount of practical effects, the hand-drawn,

like the matte paintings as backgrounds, the models, the optical effects, like all stuff that you just don't see nearly as much in movies, which I like. Also, a lot of white people in this movie. Yeah. Oh, I can't wait to talk about that. I have a whole section. Do you? Yeah. What do you have for most 1977? The creatures. The fact that the creatures are not CGI, they're real, they're, you know, guys in suits, you know, all of that stuff.

I had Mark Hamill's Cassidy Boys Andy Gale haircut kind of vibe. It's very 1977. He could have been on 20 TV shows. Ironically, he was on Eight is Enough and The Pilot. He played the oldest son.

a show where Dick Van Patten had eight kids and then got out of the show so he could be in Star Wars. He's like, can you please let me out of the contract? Interesting. Chance to be in Star Wars. But that haircut was just there for two years. You know, who's remaking eight and as eight is enough is Robert Sala. Um, they're actually remaking that on Disney plus. Yeah. So good luck to him. Uh,

Does he have a lot of kids? He has like eight kids, yeah. He just had another kid. Shaker Sage just had another one. He and Phillip Rivers are in an Obi-Wan, Darth-esque duel to have more children. What's aged the best? What do you got?

Boom. So many things. Interconnected galactic universes. I mean, this is contemporary storytelling in Hollywood right now. ILM, the creation of the first studio that is focused entirely on effects. Princess Leia as a fearless hero, not just the damsel in distress. I feel like it's huge. I'm very excited to show this movie to my daughter because I know she will

be magnetized to leia and be all about her um what if your daughter's like damn grito knowing some of her interests yeah don't get too excited about showing any movie to your kids because they can always just watch 10 minutes ago dad this sucks that's in play but there's a zero percent chance she's not interested in leia yeah um sword fighting sword fighting is never not cool

This is a great choice in this movie to find a hyper-technical, forward-thinking way to do sword fighting, whether it's King Arthur or Robin Hood or the Three Musketeers or the way that it just like runs, you know, all the samurai movies. It just runs through movie history and he finds another cool way to do sword fighting.

You mentioned Harrison Ford a bunch of times. I mentioned the fast spaceships thing. That had never really been done before in a movie. Where it was like, these spaceships are going fast because he had just made American Graffiti. He loves cars. And he was like, I see the Rebel Alliance as like hot rods and I see the Empire as like cars off the line made by the major car makers. And so I want the movie to feel like hot rod culture. It's kind of like the Fast and the Furious in a lot of ways. That's like a really smart choice that aged really well because now every space movie you see...

Fast cars. What do you have, C.R.? The Force being a kind of forgotten religion or spiritual discipline that only three zealots still practice. For all the other Star Wars that we have, it's the central preoccupation of the story. And we as viewers are supposed to understand midichlorians and how it works. In this, it's like, no, these three weirdos still talk about it. But for the most part, it's kind of been phased out. And it's all about...

It's like the long two. Strength. There's still some guys out there. Obi-Wan is the DeMar DeRozan. Then there's just all this stuff that when you're watching and you come across it, you're like, I've actually had this in the, this has been taking up brain space for 40 years. Like the two storm troopers who are getting distracted being like, you see the new BT-16, right?

And I'm just like, how did they just like throw that line in there of these two guys bullshitting with each other or the way that every squadron checks in like red five standing by? Like I want to text you on Thursday night and be like red five standing by before gold leader. This is red five. I am watching New York, Detroit. Well, for same for what saves the best, the guy hitting his head. Oh yeah. Which became lower. And then the storm trooper coming in and he hits his head and it

it became a thing. And instead of editing out, Lucas added a sound effect to it and it became a whole. Yeah. I think I alluded to this, but just the literal beats of the trench run, which I think has elements of like movies like the damn busters and other films that Lucas was influenced by. But like,

That clearly is like, that's the best we can do with an aerial attack idea. So we're just going to put that in Top Gun. We're going to put that. I was shocked how many movies ripped off even that. I think it's the ending of four different Fast and Furious movies. Even the hero pilot being like, I've lost my confidence, but now I've gotten it back. Right, yeah. Is such a recurring motif. Dan, what do you got? So the number one thing that's aged the best to me in the entire movie is Darth fucking Vader.

Like Darth Vader goes from being a cool, mysterious villain to a cultural icon that really now the entire franchise is oriented around.

So more than anything, I got ILM on here, Death Stars, period. They put a Death Star in something every two years. The lightsaber has become an iconic toy that everyone fucking has. It revolutionized the sword. It was like a new sword, a new take on it. But Darth Vader, to me, has become so important, not just as a villain, but as a flawed hero.

Because we get so much more of his story after this that really, as much as this is about Luke, it becomes about him too. And now that might be the most recognizable Star Wars thing that exists. Even the voice of James Earl Jones, completely recognizable.

Does it create the prestige TV late 90s anti-hero craze? Darth Vader is John Drew. Is it more the Darth Vader meat bone? What I will say it does, though, is to me, it does have a big hand, or plays a big part, should I say, in investigating the motivations of our villains. Because midway through the next movie, or not midway through the next movie, at some point in Jedi, Luke is going to start thinking about

Not that I have to defeat this guy, but that I have to save him.

And that kind of changes the trajectory of the entire three-film trilogy. How do you guys feel about introducing the villain immediately in a movie? It's like they use Darth Vader so much. It's like the opposite of the shark in Jaws. I mean, the music is there where every time you hear it, oh, it's Vader time. But he's immediately... Usually it's like you take a while, right, before the villain is introduced. It's like the first scene of the film is Darth Vader. He's not the villain of the movie, though. The Emperor is the villain of the movie. But he is in the first movie. He's only mentioned...

It seems like he is. And we come to find out, and that's part of the Lucas genius, is that he has it mapped out. Like, he knows where he wants to go, and he's going to show us the Emperor soon if he gets to make another movie, and that he is this true force of evil. And then when you see the prequels, you're like, he actually is the true force of evil. He is the engineer of this whole revival of the Sith mythology.

Greatest villain in film history to me. Yeah. But Darth is more just like, he's just a tragic Shakespearean guy who's lost his way. And you, once again, you see him first because you're kind of in his story.

You know what I mean? I mean, let's be honest. They are not like an awesome hang. No. Okay. All that breathing. Yeah. Yeah. Choke somebody out there in a conference. Very angry. You can't smoke darts around them. He'd be the worst podcaster ever. The breathing. Oh, wow. Darts. Darts.

We're an exact good chicken. What do you want? I don't like garlic. How does he eat? Does he have to eat alone? He's got feeding tubes. He's got to be alone. He's really fucked up. All his shit is fucked up.

His eyes are burned to a crisp. His ears, his eardrums are burned to a crisp. He's got no arms. He's got one leg. Nothing's inside him, just like the husk of something. You think he got down every once in a while or no? We don't know what happened to his manhood. No, it burned off. Did it burn off? Did they actually explicitly say that? We know that. I think I'm pretty sure that most of his opinions just burned off. Oh, man.

I'm assuming. I'll tell you what, though. Is this like an Axel Braun kind of knowledge? Axel Braun did Star Wars XXS, a war parody, and in that one, it was working just fine. I have somewhat staged the best, including, mentioned this earlier, the greatest secret probably ever kept in a movie, if you knew, which I assume Lucas knew all the beats for the first three movies, and he doesn't tip it off at all. But then when you watch it again, he's tipping it off in a couple spots where you're like, oh.

I know. I know what you're trying to do there. I saw this. So when you first see the movie, I hadn't seen it before. When you first watch the movie, you go, well, he's treating Leia like shit, right? But Leia has a termination order on it. And there's a way to watch the movie to where Darth Vader keeps stalling. Yeah, he...

You could say that, definitely. That's what I was talking about when Tarkin shows the planet getting blown up. And even though he pulls her away from stop, like, jumping on Tarkin or whatever, it is fatherly. Like, there are these moments where it's like something is telling him that. Although I guess he doesn't know Leia's his daughter until later, right? Well, we know it's not getting horny because there's that many manhood. That's right. He's dead from the right down. Yeah.

You should do the alternate cut where Darth fucks Leia. That would be really exciting. Oh, Jesus Christ. That's where the Game of Thrones is. That's where someone would watch a movie. A couple more would say it's the best. Obi-Wan is the ultimate mentor. I just like mentor movies. It's fun.

Every Darth Vader entrance we mentioned. Lightsabers. I had the wrestler Vader. Great gimmick. Oh, Big Van Vader. Oh, Big Van Vader. Phenomenal. One of the greatest athletes of all time. I've never seen a big man move like that. You were your best fat guy athletes. Like ever? Yeah, like Vader's got to be up there. So Reggie White is up there.

Yeah. Reggie White. I would say Kevin Owens has to be up there too. He's an amazing athlete. Vader 2.0. Warren Sapp. I was going to say like Refrigerator Perry. Oh, that's a good one. Those guys are out there. But I would say Mo Vaughn. Mo Vaughn. Oh, great one. Is way up there. But like as wrestlers go, like Andre Giant could move around. I don't know. I'm talking like kind of stubbier fat guys who actually have some. Earthquake, Tubboat, those guys. Braun Strowman. Jokes about the Star Wars bar we mentioned. Yeah.

How about the foreshadowing of the aunt and uncle? Luke's just not a farmer. He has too much of his father in him. The guy goes, that's what I'm afraid of. He knows. He knows. Creating a distinct world of weird aliens, creatures, and villains has aged the best. A lot of people have tried. Opening credit scroll. Written by Brian De Palma. That's right. Surprised they didn't try to work in some voyeurism.

Yeah, that's he could have also written the scroll for the porn parody. You know, I mean, he basically made it less nerdy, right? Because you got to shorten this a little bit. Yeah, he thought it was four sentences. Yeah. The Carrie Fisher Harrison Ford affair during the movie.

Sure. What's aged the best for Star Wars Lord? Nobody knew until 2016. It's a what's aged the best? Well, it's just an amazing, everyone thought they knew everything about this movie. 39 years after the movie. He was 33. She was 19. He was married. Do you think that aged the best? Here's what aged the best. Give it. All right. We're all on the same team here. I'm with it. Here's what aged the best.

They kept us hidden for four decades. Nobody knew. And then she wrote this book and she's like, yeah, I had an affair with Harrison Ford the whole time. And it makes so much sense. People were like, what? But when you watch the movie, I mean, their energy is so palpable. It makes so much sense. Yeah, I mean, she's looking at Luke. She's looking at, yeah, you know, you can see the fire. Their chemistry is undeniable. Yeah. All the Star Wars parodies all over the place and everything. It's still going. Star Wars.

The Bill Murray in SNL. Spaceballs. And then I really like this quote from Mark Hamill because he said how he was struggling how audiences associated with Luke. You have that, I'm only defined by this part and this is just who I am the rest of my life thing. And he told Carrie Fisher about it and she said, look, I am Princess Leia. Princess Leia, you are Luke. Get over it.

And then he said she was able to cut to the quick and see the positives. I learned so much about her. But that's a good attitude to have. Like, hey, this is the fucking lot we were getting. But you could be like, fucking Harrison Ford is also Indiana Jones. Yeah, right. That's true. That's true. We'll take a break, come back with more categories. This episode is brought to you by Principles.

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And we go even further, staying ahead of trends so that you have answers before you even knew you needed them. Bring on your business challenges. Key Bank opens doors. Learn more at key.com slash B2B. All right, CR, great shot Gordo Award, most cinematic shot. I have a feeling I know what your pick's going to be, but what is it? Great shot, Gil, Gilbert Taylor. Luke staring at the two stuns on Tatooine. The binary sunset. That's right.

On the Blu-ray, they have each scene titled. And that was, I just happened to pause it during that scene. And that was what the chapter was called. The Binary Sunset. Everything that I was talking about before, where like this movie allows you to fill it in, fill in the blanks, instead of him saying like anything, instead of there being like too many characters talking at him. It's just like, this is a kid. He's looking for a purpose. He knows there's something bigger out there, this greater world. And he's just like looking off into the sunset, imagining himself getting off the plane.

The planet that's the farthest from the center of the universe. It's like Sean in the early 2000s after another jet sloss. Just staring out in the Long Island Sound after the butt bubble. Wondering if anything good would ever happen with the jets. We were doing fine in the early 2000s. We had Chad Pennington. Everything was okay. You were doing all right. You were an alternate great shot. I have a few. I mean, there's one where...

Obi-Wan is on the control panel inside the Death Star and he's like flipping levers so that they can attack it and create weakness. And it seems like the, that sort of corridor is like bottomless. And it's just a painting that this guy, Harrison Ellen Shaw drew. He painted this background. So it looks like you're in this, you know, vast bottomless construction and it's,

I saw like a behind the scenes image of what it looked like when they shot it versus what the final images. And it's like astonishing. I got it. It just is, but they didn't do it in a way that was like modern technology. It's the same technology they use in like Mary Poppins. Um, that is just amazing to look at, but there's like a million versions of stuff like that. Like the first digital effect that they ever created for the movie was, um,

when R2 and 3PO leave on the escape pod and you see the escape pod shoot out and you see like the sprinkle of stardust basically out of that. And they, you know, like that's just a beautiful, unforgettable image that looks almost like it's documentary or something, but it's in a science fiction movie. So there's like a bunch of them throughout the movie. I also really love this shot of after Obi-Wan gets cut down. It's like the wide shot of Luke, uh,

standing there in disbelief even though there's already a laser battle like a blaster battle going on right and then he finally like puts his blaster up and starts shooting he was staring at disbelief because obi-wan choked you had one chance obi-wan leaves the weak side unguarded um uh luke looking up at the the two moons is i mean

Is it two moons or two suns? It's two moons, two suns. I think it's two suns. It's a cool shot. It's a great shot. And also, you're reminded that you're somewhere else. You're somewhere otherworldly. It's important. But then, I've always been partial to the destruction of Alderaan. Just the first time we see the Death Star in action, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, boom, and then watching a planet be destroyed. It's a good one. So high stakes. Yeah. Really rendered well.

Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award for Best Needle Drop. I mean, Star Wars bar music? I have it. Main title or Return Home, which is basically like the main titles. Good titles. The Sean Fantasy Award for Stealth Homage that gives every movie nerd a criteria orgasm. Did you have one? There are a lot. I'll stick to one.

There's a Kurosawa movie called The Hidden Fortress. Yeah, that seemed like it borrowed a lot from that movie, which I've never seen. It's worth checking out. I shared with Jack Sanders a side-by-side of several images that are lifted directly from The Hidden Fortress. You're like Jack's Obi-Wan. It's really like... Oh, well, Jack is doing a great job. You should wear a brown hood. He's the force. Jack should cut you down with a light saber. But literally, I can show you these pictures on the laptop. This is...

These are moments from the Hidden Fortress in which the characters are perfect matches. You know, Princess Yuki and Princess Leia and the droids and the two tag-along characters in the movie. Like, he is, it is a very overt lifting homage to this Kurosawa movie. And Spielberg and Lucas were obsessed with Kurosawa and he's a huge fascination for them. So without Hidden Fortress, this movie doesn't exist.

That's a great criteria orgasm. Yeah, that was. And it's from the Criterion. The Criterion collection. The Chris Ryan Award. Would this movie be better if a main character smoked? You didn't know I was giving this one. Yeah, I think Han. Can you imagine Han with a fucking camel light behind his ear? Yeah, just like behind his ear. Maybe he never smokes. What would the cigarettes have been called in the future? Oh, that's a great one. That's a good one.

Like, what's like a... Bantha? Bantha Lights? Bantha Lights? Yeah. Greedo Lights? Greedo Lights? I like those. The Chess Rockwell and Brocklanders Award for Best Character Name. There's a lot of options here. So many. Man, Darth Vader's a really good name. Darth Vader, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker. Luke Skywalker's like trying like a whiff too hard. What was he called before that? Luke Starkiller. Starkiller. Yeah.

He's trying a little too hard. You think that's trying too hard, but Darth Vader is... Darth Vader is just like... I think it's Darth. It's like, you guys want to come out tonight? I'm going out with Darth Vader. You're like, who? What? Guy's name is Darth? You know there's somebody on Earth right now whose real name is Darth Vader. Like, there's got to be some parents who named their kids Darth Vader. You think Darth is like just a do not name list? Darth is not his name. Yeah, I know. But I'm saying, do you think anyone's actually named... If you named your kid Darth Vader, hit us up at the Rewatchables inbox.

CR, you have a flex category choice. Yeah. It's a book about medals award for best quote. Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. That was my yearbook quote. Really? Wow. Yeah.

Look at that. Wow. Yeah. A rejection of God in high school. I was just like, interesting. I got it all under control. Well, I went to a Quaker school, so we were, Oh, you were throwing it in their faces. No, I mean like there was that of God in all of us. That's the Quaker belief, you know, but I always loved that Han Solo one. I thought yours would be 25 years from now. Do not ask me about Joel Embiid. That would have been amazing. Yeah. Um,

The Butcher's Girlfriend Award for weak link of the film. What do you got, Van? I couldn't think of one. Okay. I legitimately tried to think of one. I got one. I definitely have one. I know you want to have the Mark Hamill conversation, right? Let's do it right now. So let's have it. Did you know he wanted to have it? I've known Bill for 13 years. I know how he feels about Mark Hamill. I couldn't disagree more, but I'm interested to hear the takes. Not that good of an actor. It's... I'm not sure if ironic is the right word. He has become...

a beloved actor at this stage of his career for a certain kind of fan because he is like a famous voice actor now and he plays like a lot of villains and he's in a lot of Mike Flanagan movies and things like that. Like he, he has taken on this weird late career character actor, hall of fame quality that is in direct contrast to what he was being set up for to Luke. Yeah. In this movie, I think you can make the case that he's,

not great to be around because of what Chris said at the top of the conversation in part one, which is that like, he's an annoying teenager. But he has to, I think I have so much respect for starting him at that point. And, you know, there's a lot of dialogue right now about like the last of us and the main character and the last of us, whether she's annoying, you know, and like how, like, but you have to start at one place and get to another, you know? And I think we're very impatient. We want everybody to be prepackaged. It's like very cool. That being said, there are other people that were looked at for this role.

That I think it would have been maybe cooler. I'm excited to talk about it on Casting What Ifs. I do think, when you think about how good Carrie Fisher is and how good Harrison Ford is, and you would never leave this movie going, you know who's fucking awesome in Star Wars was Mark Hamill. Yeah. He's, I think Lucas probably saw him as the system quarterback. Yeah.

who's just like, I don't need a lot from... I have so much other stuff going on. I don't really need to shoot the moon with this character. And maybe that's... I just want him to be young and a little annoying and a little whiny, and then he can grow over the course of the movie. But I just... The fact that this was the peak of his acting career, I don't think is an accident. Well, I mean... I'm sorry, Star Wars universe. No, it's great because, I mean, by the time Jedi comes around, he has got a full grasp on Luke. And once again...

flawless three movie arc. All I'd say is if you look at where the characters are, you have two characters in Leia and Solo that are incredibly sure of themselves. Solo is the most sure of himself character maybe in movie history. And Leia is settled with all this responsibility. She's a princess. She's a double agent for the resistance. She knows what she's doing. Luke's performance is off kilter because he never really feels like he is where he wants to be.

And so there's a tension in the back and forth that kind of kids go through. He is young. She's the same age as twin sister, but experience has aged her up a lot. So he's annoying because he always has questions, because he's not confident, because he's sometimes too earnest. I think in that, that Hamill plays it pretty well. So you think, I'll step on one cast and what if, like Kurt Russell tested for this role.

Is that too much testosterone for the role? I think he's a little too cool. He's too cool. He's too cool. Is it like a Matthew Broderick in War Games kind of? Is that what Lucas wanted from this? The hard part about this and the reason why I think Hamill's redeemed over the course of the first three films that they make is that he becomes a pretty scarred, grizzled person, both because of what happens to him off screen, but also like the character himself is

is so much different when he returns to Tatooine and Jedi than he is when he leaves it. It's a really cool arc. You just have to be there. You have to really ride along with it. If you're only watching A New Hope, you're like, okay, that was my least favorite of the main three guys. For sure. He enters Jedi like Vader, talking about how powerful he is and choking people out. But he's got to get there. He goes through so much that hardens him to life.

Did you have a hottest take or no? You did it? A hottest take? I mean a weak link. Yeah. There's that guy Porkins, who's one of the pilots, who has a really tough name and gets nuked fucking instantly. And I was just like, there has to be a little bit of competition for places there. They're really counting on Luke really hard in that track. Porkins. What stage is the worst?

Look, I'll just start us off with this. I hate this whole Star Wars for New Hope. Star Wars was like Jaws, Rocky, Godfather. Then we somehow decided we had to change the name. I've never really understood it. I get it, but I think it's annoying. I think it's annoying. We're doing Star Wars. Which one? New Hope? It's like doing fucking Star Wars. The first one.

It just bugs me. Anyway, what do you got for us, Digital Wars? There's like only two women in this movie. It's a big sausage party out in that galaxy. Right? I had some notes on the cantina. I thought they could have snuck in a couple ladies. Fairly masculine environment. A couple lady aliens, baby. We don't know what kind of cantina they're in. Yeah.

Like cruising? Oh my God. You guys are assuming with your heteronormative brains. You think Greedo is greasing it up? Yeah, we don't know. We don't know what kind of cantina they're in. What color bandana was in the back pocket? Exactly. They're playing the cute little music. We don't know what's going on. Before Greedo walks in, he's like, yes. Hold on.

Wow. The Cantina. We don't know. That right there is why we're on video. That's a good one. What's your best one? You know, I think the movie thinks that it's clear that fascism is bad, and I'm not sure that that's aged well. I think the movie is weirdly... You could be read a different way in 2025.

I have every moment when it's just R2-D2 and C-3PO is like watching Jalen Green try to run the Rockets offense. Just post up Shangoon. Can Shangoon just come in here? Can we get a jump hook from him?

How different do you think the rewatchables is when the NBA playoffs are on? Like, is it? Yeah. It's like mostly teams that get eliminated by the time the pod publishes. I'm surprised we haven't had a John Halliburton reference yet. Ant. Ant. It's coming. Ant Peru. Yeah. Mm hmm.

It might have been a chance maybe to put in like Ann-Margret or Natalie Wood. Oh, wow. Let's put like a little sexier Aunt Beru. I see. Okay. Wait. Some sort of attachment. What? A little milfy. Yeah. You trying to fuck Aunt Beru? No, I just wanted a little more sex appeal. A little milfy. We have two women in the whole movie. We have Aunt Beru and we have 19-year-old Princess Leia. And by the way, one of them is giving you as much sex appeal as possible. I'm just kidding.

I'm just saying. God, Milfy. The laser bullets. Yeah. So what do they do when they hit you?

I assume burn. Yeah, burn through you. I actually had in What's Aged the Best blasters instead of bullets as aging well. Because it's like you can show this to really young kids. You could also just be like, you don't have to be like, how many bullets does he have? It's just like you get a total. So the guys get hit and they just go right down, but there's no wound or anything. Well, the only blood you see in this movie is the arm chopped off, right? Yeah. I mean, it depends, right? Stormtroopers are supposed to have some sort of armor. That doesn't seem to work. Not really.

What's Aged the Worst? This is just for Sean. 20th Century Fox released 20 movies a year and this movie became so successful that they only released seven in 1978. Just lost out on some great movies. Damn. I didn't know that. Did they just hold the other ones or they just... They were just like, let's fucking ride Star Wars. Tell that director to fuck off. Do you guys have in What's Aged the Worst... We're not making Penitentiary 3.

What's the amount of times in this movie where you're like, so that's how they do things in that family between Luke and Leia? Incest. Incest. By the way, which I'm coming back to in my hottest take, but the incest is the stuff that... It never really gets over the line, though. She kisses him on the cheek. Like, it's not... He's kind of flirty with her. It's ultimately so innocent. Luke wants to fuck her. But he just doesn't know. Right. Like...

Could happen to anybody. Yeah. What are you going to hold it against the guy? Yeah. Although he was not able to tap into the force in that particular respect. The force was telling him not to tap his sister. Luke, no, don't do this. What's aged the worst? So Marvel comics published a Star Wars comic book series, which ran for 107 issues from 1977 and 1986. Why did they stop? There's a lot of comics out there.

I wonder what made them just, I feel like by the mid eighties, maybe star Wars were starting to die down a little bit. I feel like that comic book thing could have just kept going. They have like a lot of star Wars material. Um,

I have one more big what's aged the worst, but do you guys have anything else? I don't know if this aged the worst, but it aged the funniest. Disney rejecting the screenplay and then buying Lucasfilm for $4 billion. Amazing. Yes. Nuts. It's kind of like taking two QBs. I wasn't there. Didn't have it yet. Kind of a Shadur situation. Do you have any what's aged the worst before we go? There's not that much Vader in the film. I could have used some more Vader. Lecter, 16 minutes. Vader, 12. Yeah.

Probably two of the best villains the last 50 years. I think if he's on screen for much longer, you start asking if he has a penis. Probably so. Maybe. Now we have to wait until this moment. What's aged the worst? A 1978 Johnny Carson episode. Scientist Carl Sagan went on a heater. Talked about the overwhelming whiteness of the film. And then another writer named Walter Bremond writing for the African American newspaper New Journal and Guide.

said that Darth Vader reinforces a stereotype that black is evil. This is a very white movie. I don't know if you want to do this movie, need more black people category here. I'm going to disappoint a lot of people probably. Okay. There's two things that can be true at the same time. One is that I understand that

First of all, they answered the question of the film kind of, sort of with Lando Calrissian coming in in the next movie. Do you think that was a response to the Carl Sagan type of stuff? Perhaps. I understand that particularly in fantasy properties,

seeing Black characters is reassuring in a couple of different ways. One, it's reassuring because you don't want to think that you're living in a world where when white people fantasize that there are no Black people. Like, that in and of itself is, like, odd, right? At the same time, I don't think I'm... I don't think that I'm in a huge minority when I say sometimes I don't want to think about it. And when I'm watching Star Wars, particularly...

What I want to do is think about a world where all of the handcuffs and the societal barriers that exist. All the baggage. That I don't have to consider it. Okay. I understand why we have to consider it, but when I'm watching a movie, I'm really not thinking about that because I'm in another galaxy, in another world, and I'm having a good time being there.

Good answer. It is addressed very amusingly in the movie Chasing Amy by the black comic book character who gives a speech at a Comic-Con about the inherent racism of Star Wars and New Hope, which is a very, very, very funny sequence. Maybe one of the funniest things Kevin Smith's ever written. Chasing Amy on the rewatchables list. A couple more small ones. We talked about the 20th anniversary when they digitally remastered everything and altered some stuff and how upset everybody got. And then...

There was a Star Wars holiday special on November 17th, 1978 that Lucas kind of agreed to because he wanted to keep, you know, there was really no cable rewatchable system back then. And you kind of wanted to keep the movie relevant. And it's a famous abomination. Like there's been oral histories about it. Have you watched it? I have seen it. It's been taken off YouTube. Then people put it back up. It's one of those. I think Lucas spends half his time probably just getting copies taken off. Get that thing off.

It has become kind of a kitsch classic in some ways now. Beloved in a way. And then the last one, I talked about those early bird certificate boxes, which were empty boxes that promised the receiver they would get the figures once they'd actually been made. They sold for $16 at the time. And the actual figures arrived two months later. IOUs for Christmas because they didn't have the toys ready. What a fucking debacle.

Honestly, how much money did they lose just on 1978 Christmas? Dan, you're up. Flex category. Well, I actually want to use my flex category time for my hottest steak, actually. Point of order. This movie is a lot... That's fine. Okay, thank you. Okay. So, this is the deal. This movie is...

The trilogy, not the movie, but the trilogy is a lot better if Luke and Leia mistakenly fuck in this movie.

Okay. The Van Lathan did this movie be more incestuous? If Luke and Leia mistakenly fuck in this movie, not mistakenly because they didn't want to fuck. And that's why he goes to Dagobah? And he is actually, he actually banishes himself. He feels it. Like, and then think about Luke and Leia are fucking and Obi-Wan is in the back. No!

- Like slow motion? - Like Obi-Wan knows, he's trying to tell Luke not to do it, but the dick is just too strong, the dark side of the dick. And Skywalker just wants it, he's gotta have it. Leia's into it, there's a connection. They don't know what the connection is. The connection is actually-- - The connection is she's the only woman in the galaxy who's ever seen a woman other than his aunt.

Luke is obviously a virgin. He's asking for permission to go to Tosche Station for power converters. Like, he's 17, just fucking go. You know what I'm saying? So if they fuck and then they have to deal with that guilt, Luke is maybe more apt to the dark side. The whole trilogy is better, a little darker, if they mistakenly fuck in the Millennium Falcon. Quick cutaway to Darth Vader mid-coitus. There's a disturbance in the force. There's a disturbance in the force.

Wow. You really went for it there. Yeah. I wonder if that inspired Game of Thrones in any way. Well, I'm sure that Star Wars inspired Game of Thrones, but do you think George R.R. Martin was like, I want to do Star Wars, but what if the brother and sister fuck constantly and have a demon child that ruins the realm? Yeah.

Maybe. Can't be counted out. Ruffalo Hanna, Rubenick Partridge overacting word. I got Chewbacca. He's catching so many strains on his pod.

How about Mark Hamill getting whiny loud unhappy a couple times? Oh, yeah. There's a couple scenes where Alec Guinness is like, God damn it. Why did I take this movie? I'm fucking trading lines with Mark Hamill. I won an Oscar. I'm not such a bad pilot myself. That's one that stands out when he's mad at Han. I'm not such a bad pilot myself. Shut the fuck up, kid. Shut up.

Sean, do you have a CR thing? Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How does it take a word? I already shared one about the absolute desolation of organized religion in this country due to the film Star Wars. I don't know if I can do any better than that. Also, I think that this is one of the best movies ever.

one of the worst things that ever happened to Hollywood thing is kind of true. Yeah. Not to side too hard with the butthurt. Could Luke Wilson have been Han Solo? I mean, we could end the category there. This would be this, this, the singularity of if I go back and be like, this movie would have been better with Luke as a hottest take. That would have been good. Oh, this is fun. Casting with ifs. I do have a hottest take though about Harrison Ford.

This is probably the coolest character in movie history, but he is a real cock-blocking dickhead in this movie. And he basically, as soon as Luke gets kind of interested in Leia, he's like, no, no, no, I'm interested in Leia. Luke's lost his surrogate father, gets one TIE fighter, gets a little excited, and Han's like, don't get cocky! Let him have this!

Let him just fucking pop his fucking collar a little bit. Pump his chest. Talk his shit. No, you got to be like, no, it's Millennium Falcon. It's my, I'm the only one who's not to have fun. Casting what ifs. De Palma was casting Carrie at the exact same time and him and Lucas teamed up and they did all their casting together and looked at all the same actors, 30, 40 a day. And a bunch of the actors that they looked at for Star Wars ended up in Carrie, William, William Catt.

Amy Irving, Travolta. Do you think those guys are like, gee, thanks. Glad I could be in Carrie. Travolta as Luke Skywalker, who was not auditioned for that, would have been interesting. Whoa. Wouldn't he be Han?

I think he would have been Luke. He could have been an interesting Luke. Interesting Luke. Cat would have been an interesting Luke. He would have, yeah. I still have some Cat stock from the late 70s. It might hit. So Hammo is cast over...

I mean, literally all the names from this era were mentioned, but these ones seem real. Robbie Benson, William Catt, Kurt Russell, and Charles Martin Smith. Who the fuck is that? He was the guy who ended up in Starman. And he's in Untouchables as the accountant. Yeah, he's the geeky guy in American Graffiti. Oh, shit. The guy in Untouchables is the accountant. Oh, this guy with the glasses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a ton of shit. He's in Experts.

him looking at him gives you a little bit of insight into how lucas sees luke though right he's not the coolest in town yeah um but you know andrew stevens the actor stevens who um ended up in a lot of erotic thrillers said he and mark hamill were both up for an ill-fated tv series called the oregon trail as well as a film called star wars i got the oregon trail

20 years later it's with Shane and Tweed and some Skin and Max movie. Oh, Shane and Tweed. They're worst fates. Wow. Carrie Fisher cast over Karen Allen. Filed that one away for Raiders. Amy Irving who ends up in Carrie and ends up having an affair with Steven Spielberg.

cindy williams from laverne and shirley who was in american graffiti too and then linda pearl who was bouncing around and never really found the right thing but then who knows if jodie foster how real this was but she was offered the role and couldn't do it because she had movies but she definitely was she's pretty young yeah i don't i almost didn't believe that one russell auditioned for luke and han solo

He was like stuck age-wise between the two of them. Yeah, it was like three years earlier. Perfect. The casting motives for Han is Han is tough because you're like, this is every actor, but also I can't stop thinking about Jack Nicholson as Han Solo if they actually looked at him. Well, there's two where the actors claim that they turned it down, which I think like if we were actors, I would just start doing this when I hit my mid-50s. Be like, yeah, I turned down Hannibal Lecter.

Demi came to me. I just didn't want to do it. But James Caan claimed he turned it down and Pacino claimed that he turned it down. Pacino as Han Solo, it just, that movie sucks. It's just bad casting. James Caan, maybe? There's an incredible...

Hater, Wig, Sudeikis, SNL. Saturday Night Live sketch. Oh, yeah, yeah. Of Star Wars auditions. Kevin Spacey. Pacino is one of them. Kevin Spacey is one of them. Who else is in that? It was Richard Dreyfuss. Richard Dreyfuss. Oh, yeah. Richard Dreyfuss is hysterical. Yeah, all of those are great. That's a great sketch. Dreyfuss, they almost used his voice for, I think, C-3PO or one of those. He was in that orbit of guys. Yeah, he was in American Graffiti. And then before Al Guinness was cast...

The guy who starred in all the Karasawa movies was asked to be Obi-Wan. And he said, no, thank you. He thought it would sully the legacy of samurai films that he made, which was not actually true. They thought about Orson Welles for Darth's voice, decided his voice was too known because he was in a lot of commercials. Hilarious because everybody immediately knew it was James Earl Jones, even though he was uncredited on the movie. And then Peter Mayhew and David Prowse

We're both tall and asked which one they wanted, Chewbacca or Darth Vader, and may he wanted to play a good guy, Prowse wanted to be a bad guy. They ended up doing that. Interesting choice. Best that guy award.

This movie's 50 years old. I got Peter Cushing. I had him as well. I got Peter Cushing. Grand Moff Tarkin. You're going to be like, that's not a that guy. He's in all the Hamlet movies. I mean, Peter Cushing is famous. I know. I'm just saying, 50 years later? Who else? He's like in every... But you could do 30. You could do The Uncle and Aunt. I think the movie is fascinating because in the top six parts, you have...

extremely well people who are either well known or about to be really well known and then all of the supporting players are just like British guys who are nearby who they cast and they all had careers and they went on to Andor's doing but none of them have that like oh yeah it's that guy from that thing like you can't even think of their second best role like Peter Cushing was like the lead in 15 consecutive Hammer horror movies so that's kind of a hard one

I don't know. I know that sometimes we can be like, this guy is actually really famous, but he was legitimately famous in England. Right. All right. Well, maybe the movie's too old to even know who the, that guy is. Yeah. That's true. There's probably a bunch of that guys on the enterprise. The guy gets choked out by Vader might've been in like a Star Span hutch episode. We didn't see. We'd have been like, yeah, that's David Morris. Dion Waiters award. Vader's in the movie for 12 minutes and has to win. I have a Dion Waiters award for the collective of people in the bar.

Oh, all you guys. Group D. Racist bartender, butt face, all those guys like together. You know, it's funny. If you if you want to give it to Vader, Vader's presence is so big in the movie. I didn't even consider Vader. That's actually probably it. But I like Greedo. I would be my alternate. I have him on my list. I have CGI Java that they stuck into the movie. Hate it. Why?

I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Han Mabuki. I hate it. You're really doing some great linguistics. Thank you. I've watched this movie so many times. I hate that they do it, but it's such a big deal to have that character in the movie for one scene. Then I went with CGI Jabba, but...

If Vader is eligible, it's got to be Vader, right? I think there is a case for the guy who plays Admiral Modi. The guy who gets choked when he's like, this station is now the ultimate power in the universe. He is really trying to cook in front of Vader. That's like Palenka after the little train. Re-catching couch director, City. Boston? Star Wars. Yes.

I have a Luke Skywalker suggestion. How about Mark Harmon? Oh, sure. Coming off playing at UCLA. Yeah. He's mid-20s, athletic. Yeah. Handsome. Yeah. I would buy him. But not Charles Martin Smith. You know what I mean? So like in the conception of the character. Yeah. Are you talking about... No, you're talking about for Luke. For Luke. I like Mark, but think about it. Like that's a...

I'm saying less nerdy, more handsome and athletic. Kind of on Solo's corner a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. Kurt Russell was like 74. Kurt Russell, I think, is the answer. Do you have our recasting couch? No. We're losing Sean. He's getting tired. No, I'm not. I'm here. All right. I'm ready to rock.

Han Solo in the original versions of the script was a large green-skinned monster with gills. He's almost more like Greedo. I don't really understand what happened there. We did all the ILM stuff. Lucas, a lot of, I wouldn't say a lot of great feedback on him as a director. No.

Not very good with actors. The character she said gave very little direction and just would say, like, faster or more intense. My favorite anecdote from the set of this movie is, like, in England, if you were in the middle of a shot at the end of the day, you were generally given the grace to finish your shot setup that you had, but the crew didn't dislike Lucas so much that they were always like, no, we're out. It's quitting time. What was the movie we did where they...

Oh, Spielberg and Jaws, when he decided not to go in the last day because he was so afraid they were going to do something terrible to him. Yeah. They're going to throw him in the water, right? Or something like that. There's some nerdy movie stuff from this. Like when Luke says, I can't see a thing in this helmet or whatever, he actually couldn't. And they just kind of kept it in. The Chewbacca suit, for some reason, the trash compactor scene, they were in the water too long and it just started to stink and it stunk for the rest of the movie.

One of the coolest things to read about is the original rough cut of this movie, the lost cut, which is the editor was basically assembling something for Lucas to look at. And it winds up being very long. It's like, I don't know how, like three hours or whatever. And apparently is a lot more Luke on Tatooine with like wedge hanging out, you know, like American graffiti in space. But then Paul Hirsch and other people come in and cut it way down. Yeah.

Mark Hamill said studio executives were unhappy that Chewbacca had no clothes and kept saying that he should be wearing shorts. That would have been terrible. Right.

Just like, what a horrible idea. But he was already. Can you imagine getting that nose? Would you want him. Like khaki shorts? Or dark shorts? Would you want him in pre-fontaine short shorts? Or Jalen Weber fab five. Fab five shorts. But by going commando, he's ready to jump into the Luke and Leia sex scene pretty quickly. Yeah. Um,

That's where he would have shined. Then you would have really been swayed by Chewbacca. That's all I have for half-ass or any research in case you guys have anything. Because the next category is Blind Call for Rosillo. Oh, shit. Wow. Here we go. You know he's crushing tape right now. I think this will go right to voicemail, but we're about to find out. Damn it! Do it again. Do it again. Yeah. Hold it to the mic also. Yeah. CR is the most excited for this of any gimmick we've ever done on a podcast.

He might be going to the Laker game. He is definitely going for sure. Yeah. He probably went early to go talk to an assistant coach. He's like looking at his phone right now thinking about it. Should I? Telephone number. No. Jesus Christ. Oh, tough. Mid-lift. Tough one. Really needed his takes. Apex Mountain. George Lucas? No. Probably after Empire and Raiders. As a director?

No, we're talking everything. I would say it's after Empire Raiders, like 1981 range. Has anybody ever gotten to Apex Mountain and then just sat there forever? Yeah. You know, he never, there was never a time when people were like, no, I don't think so, George. We're not going to do that for you. Like he could do whatever he wanted after this movie. I mean, but wasn't, there were projects that he was trying to get off the ground that he couldn't, right?

Like what? Like, wasn't that World War II pilots movie? One that he wanted to do all the time? He made it, right? Wasn't that Red Tails? Red Tails, yeah. Yeah, but it took like 20 years to get it made, right? No. He makes one movie and then he vanishes for a long time in terms of being behind the camera. As a director, it certainly is because the next three movies to the point of people...

To the issue that people had with his directing style, the next three movies, the performances are wooden. They're not very well directed. It's just a fact. You mean the prequels? The prequels. The next three. Empire and Jedi. Right. As like real people. Not him. I'm going to say 81 range.

The third one's coming. Everyone's pumped about it. Raiders comes out. It's a fucking massive hit. And him and Spielberg have vanquished everybody. Yeah, right. Yeah, I think it's right on that. And he has created and owns ILM.

skywalker ranch is opening he's doing skywalker sound like he's kind of like building his own he still has a decent beard but hasn't like fucked his beard situation up yet but you can almost you can almost i mean like wine he just gets more powerful and relevant as the the deal as star wars kind of you could say it's selling to disney for four billion that's up there yeah

The Galaxy, Apex Mountain. I was going to say there's some way to conceive of the outer space sagas. I wouldn't say science fiction necessarily. So sci-fi movies, it's Apex Mountain. I have sci-fi movies. Galaxy movies, Apex Mountain. I don't know. Lore starters?

This starts... Fictional mythologies. Fictional mythologies. I mean, I'm not talking about books, obviously. But as far as movies that start incredible lore, you have The Terminator, you have The Matrix has some great lore, but this has spawned a world that's way bigger than anything else. Mark Hamill, definitely. Mark Hamill, definitely. Carrie Fisher? Yeah. One, two, or three for her. Like her best brothers next year. And then Empire in 80.

What she chooses to do with it afterwards is so strange, though. Every non-Blues Brothers Star Wars movie she makes in the next eight years is like such a flop. Yeah, but again. I know she was on a lot of cocaine. I think cocaine was just running rampant. Yeah. I'm sure there were some choices that she might have gotten talked into at about 3.30 in the morning. I liked her in Loverboy. Remember that one? Oh. Patrick Dempsey? Extra anchovies. Yeah.

John Williams? It's almost impossible to say. He just shatters it every time. It's like Superman's three years later. Should we call it John Williams Apex Mountain? It's just his face. Dropping the from your title, is it The Star Wars or The Facebook? Wow. I think it's Star Wars. It's probably Star Wars. But it's a good question, though. I think it's Star Wars. Yeah. I prefer Star Wars to Facebook, generally. James Earl Jones?

I'm going to say Field of Dreams. Yeah. I think you can't- That's when he became a beloved American treasure once and for all. Field of Dreams, Coming to America. Mufasa. Mufasa. It's somewhere early 90s, late 80s, early 90s. Oh, man. He just became the fucking coolest older actor. It seems like he's too important for a voice to be his apex mountain. Moonlight Grom!

They'll come, Ray. Baseball is a part of us, Ray. People will come. They won't even know. They'll give you $5. Harrison Ford? No. We just said no. 20th Century Fox. Yes. Their profits went from $39 million to $77 million in one year. Nerds.

apex mountain for nerds i wouldn't say that in 1977 nerds had the most power they would ever have i would say the nerds that got obsessed with this movie went on to take over so yeah yeah you said the nerd sketch on snl yeah they're just rounding the shape finding out they had other people revenge of the nerds a nerds yeah centric movie comes starting a nerdissance any other apex mountain

What about movie sound effects? The Academy Awards creates a special award this year for Ben Burtt, who does all the droid sounds. You've got Darth Vader's breathing. You've got my favorite sound of the movie is the sound of the TIE fighters flying, which is like just terrifying. Every time you hear that like screeching whisper sound, it's pretty memorable.

This movie sounds awesome even now. The lightsaber sound? Yeah, of course, lightsabers. Really, really good. I think we always say this with certain movies, but the widescreen TV, better soundbar, that whole era has just blown this movie up. Absentee fathers? He got game? He got gamers up there. But absentee fathers, you don't know what your son is doing. He comes around, he's trying to fuck over you now. You don't even know. Absentee dads? Yeah.

As a movie premise? Well, it's not a movie premise, but when you look at it now, it's probably Empire then. Shaquille O'Neal's biological didn't bother? That's a good one too. Just absentee dads. This is the greatest absentee dad story ever. Because by the time Vader comes back to Luke, Luke is now a first round draft pick.

And he wasn't before when he was just a little dude on Tatooine. You didn't give a fuck about me. Yeah. Now I got the force. Now I got another dad in my life who cares, right? Obi-Wan is come on. You know, I got friends. I got all of this. Now you want me? No, that's not how it works. Cruz or Hanks? I have Cruz, but I think Hanks could have been a good Han. Cruz for which part and what year of Cruz? Cruz for Luke around TAPS.

I was going to say 1982 Cruise. That's my answer. My God. Outsiders Cruise. Like, Cruise is still had the baby. Yeah. He's filming losing it with Shelley Long and making Star Wars. What do you have? You know who I have. It's Cruise. Okay. It's got to be Cruise. But Hanks now as Obi-Wan would be interesting. I think Hanks there is like a, like when Hanks is like in the Volunteers. I could see him being Han Solo.

disagree okay thanks to tall cruise scorsese or spielberg spielberg yeah agreed what world would philip seymour hoffman have played i have any situation where he could say luke how's the peeping maybe after that sexy i had him as vader's lead counsel yeah he just would have dialed it up going go a little hunger games uh craig you have a flex category what is it

Can I quickly go back to Apex Mountain and ask, is this the Apex Mountain of Apex Mountains for a movie? Are there the most Apex Mountains in any movie ever for Star Wars? If you go through it, you have like half the actors. Yes, it's probably George Lucas holistically. I think it's villains, music, the best weapon in movie history, secret hidden movie nuggets, sound effects, blockbuster franchises. Yeah. Craig is cooking.

Is it the most Apex Mountains ever? It's the Apex Mountain of Apex Mountains. Yeah, Craig is cooking right now. I'm surprised you didn't think of that. The Apex Mountains? Yeah. I'm Craig's Obi-Wan. Sean is Jack Sanders. Craig is actually a perfect Luke. Craig, you got a lot of Luke to you, brother. And I'm bad at acting. You're a twerp. I hope you're not related to this. No, we just work together.

Mother's Day gifts at Bath & Body Works. It's kind of like... My favorite scent. Ooh, this was good. This is literally the perfect gift for me. So don't just give mom a gift. Thank you so much. I love it. Thank you. Best Mother's Day ever. Give her a moment. Only at Bath & Body Works.

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All right, pick a nits. It's time. Yeah. I think I'm going to have the most fun with this because I don't really know what happens. Yeah, because we're just going to sit here and be like, actually, Bill, in Ahsoka, that was explained. I'm going to try. All right. I'll just rip through mine. I've already done too much. R2-D2 and C-3PO just randomly eject from their little pod thing that gets out. Uh-oh. Oh, shit. Yes! Hey, we're doing rewatchables. Put it on the mic.

Okay. With CR and Sean and Van and Craig. What's up, Craig? What's up? What's up, Ryan? What's up, man? We're doing Star Wars. I've seen it. Any off-the-cuff takes? Luke was a dork.

All right. Make the case. No friends. I don't think, I think that whole thing about picking up the power converters, no chance. Um,

You know, it looked like he immediately is annoying to Obi-Wan. And it's like, dude, this might be your only friend. Like, there's no other houses around. And he's invited you in, and he gives you a fucking lightsaber, which I imagine those are pretty cool, even on Tantawine. And you're just like...

You know, why is he such a brat about everything? And then obviously like watching the Princess Leia video would be like a guy seeing porn for the first time. And he's like, replay, replay the entire mess. You know, like, so I don't know. I just think there's a lot of dorky stuff with him. It's just,

You know, granted, I worshipped him when I had the figures when I was in single digits, but as I got older, I started realizing that Han was the cool one. Yeah, that's a great take. Great take. Thanks for chiming in. I'll see you at the Laker game tonight. Yeah, I'll be sitting next to A-Rod. Wow. I don't know if we'll ever have a Blycon ever again. That was amazing.

Okay. R2 and C-3PO, what were you saying about them picking nits? I'll just start over picking nits. R2-D2 and C-3PO just randomly ejecting and landing on Luke's planet right near his house.

There's a related one too. Is that the force just drove them to Luke's house? Even before that, the Empire identifies that an escape pod has been hatched because there's no life force on it. They're like, just let it go. Fucking blow that thing up. Should have shot it down. This goes towards the theory that Darth is always holding the Empire back a little bit. There was one time where they only sent four TIE fighters at the Millennium Falcon. It's like, you guys probably could have taken the Falcon out. We could have ended this whole thing. Or another theory that R2-D2 is Force-sensitive.

What does that mean? Are there any droids that are force sensitive? That in some way, there's a theory, there's a fan theory that in some way R2-D2 is force sensitive because there's a lot of stuff that happens

around r2d2 that we kind of don't explain why it works out the way the form the way that it does that the force loves him or there's some kind of you know what he couldn't do get a drink at the cantina that's true get out of here motherfucker how'd they get on the death star or not the death star whatever the big planet is which one

when they get when they when they come back in and the gap pulls them in oh no the death yeah tractor beam yeah and then they just kind of let them in and they're like yeah it's a trap nobody here hmm well they hide but that's how bad the stormtroopers were they're like they're legendarily incompetent yeah like how terrible you're thinking it's like i don't see him the whole thing doesn't work

If the stormtroopers are better at their jobs. If they can aim. Yeah. They're legendarily in combat. Well, the aiming, I think, is a no-pick. There's a lot of... Only Rambo First Blood Part II has more straight, five feet away shots that just miss. Right. Luke, 130 people miss him from...

Right here. Yeah, when they're on the bridge that they're about to swing across, and the stormtroopers are just looking right at him. And Luke isn't even trying to hide against the side of the wall. He's just standing there. He's just like, what's up? How do you give away locations to secret rebel bases when you're in outer space? What do you mean? Like with the homing beacon thing? Yeah, it's not like they had Google Earth back then. No, but they put little trackers on stuff. They have the computers. Yeah.

How do they know where everything is in the galaxy? Who? Just everybody. Like maps? If we're going to go here, go there. They've mapped the galaxy. The computers. How do you map the big galaxy when it's infinite space? I don't really think we're the right people to answer that question. Yeah. I don't think. Isn't outer space just infinite? But we're in one galaxy though. So there's a Star Wars galaxy that's outside of the galaxy. So is there an end of the galaxy? Yeah.

Of this galaxy. You're a flat Star Wars-er? I'm just saying, where's the end of it? It's like a force field at the end. There's the outer rim of the galaxy, and then there's stuff outside of there that people don't really travel to. So how big is the galaxy? Pretty big. They have hyperspace, so they can jump around. They can travel back and forth. They can travel at light speed. I didn't really know the answers to any of those questions. There you go. The princess's outfit.

Yeah. I just think it's way dirtier by the time we get to like the last half hour of this movie. They're in a fucking garbage dump thing. Yeah. She's getting batted around like everybody else. She's just like perfectly white. Not where I thought you were going to go with that. Vision of purity. What did you think he was going to say? I thought we were going to talk about something different about the outfit. That wasn't it. It's draping. That was great. Yeah. But.

Yeah, I just think by the time we get to the hour 30 mark, probably dirt all over the place for her. What do you have for new picks? I have a few. Obi-Wan's memory relative to R2 or Luke Skywalker's little dodgy there in the beginning. I've never had any droids. Except when you cut off all of Anakin's limbs and left him to die in episode three. And that was the last time you saw R2. So it's been a while. But, you know, you knew those droids.

The biggest nitpick for me in the whole movie is... Hold on, though. Is that a nitpick if that movie doesn't exist yet? But we give Lucas credit for envisioning all this other stuff. We give him credit for knowing that Darth is Luke's father. But for our job as the rewatchables is to treat this movie as its own movie that came out in 1977 and then got remade. So you're allowed to be like Leia's outfit would be dirtier, but he can't be like theirs. I'm asking. Yeah.

They're your rules. So if you want to put, you know. No, I don't know the answer because I do think it's like if we did 48 Hours and now we know Keo is the Iceman from another 48 Hours. Right. Which is. Oh, I see what you're saying. So now when I watch 48 Hours, do I have to assume Keo is the Iceman when I watch 48 Hours? I think in most circumstances, you're right. But because the actual world building mythology is such a crap.

a credit to the movie itself that the whole idea of the movie is that it is this larger than one movie all encompassing mythology I take though maybe Lucas is full of shit and he just made this movie and then afterwards he's like by the way it's in play oh yeah I had the whole thing sketched out maybe he just made the one movie when they gave the sides to Harrison Ford and to them and the reveal was in there that

Vader is Luke's dad, Harrison Ford said back to George Lucas, did you just make that up on the plane? Like, did you just make that up? Because they were trying to keep it a secret. When they gave them the thing that that was happening, there are people who think that the fact that he had all of this stuff sketched out is actually not true. It doesn't make a difference now, but there are people who think that that's not the case. Well, there's... It's interesting. After Lost ended and he...

He wrote a long letter to Lindelof and Carlton Cuse being like, as somebody who wants to know where my story is going, I really respect that blah, blah, blah. And it's like, eh, maybe he's trying to tell us something. It's possible he doesn't. There's also actual nitpicks in the story. Chris has cited a couple of them already, but...

Throughout this movie, characters are experiencing the most traumatic thing that will ever happen to them. And then one scene later, bouncing back and being like, let's do this thing! Or like partying, you know? Like, Leia watches her whole planet get destroyed. Luke, his uncle who raised him, or charred remains outside of their home. And then he's going to the cantina and hanging out over and over again. You know, Obi-Wan is murdered by Darth Vader. And Luke gets on the Millennium Falcon and is shooting down TIE fighters. Like...

not a lot of emotional depth to the character development in this movie. I think he kind of fixes it in the next two movies. It's like they're much more complicated and stormy. They're like, we have to have a beat here where they're like sad about this. Exactly. Exactly. But it's like, it's kind of weird. Murdered or suicide mission? No, he sacrificed himself. Sacrificed himself. Yeah. Yeah.

Or maybe he just didn't want to fight Vader. Felt like he didn't want to fight Vader. Oh, he thought he was shrinking from the competition. He's already 2-0 against him. Well, it finishes 2-1. It finishes 2-1. With a loud 1. I am still, after all of these years of being a Star Wars fan, unclear as to why Kenobi did it.

Still unclear. Because he has to do it for Luke to fulfill his destiny? I think so that he can escape is the practical reason and the philosophical reason is so that Luke can go on and be the torchbearer of the Jedi way. I guess my thing is they would have escaped anyway because all of the stormtroopers... Because they were letting them go. Actually, the fact that he gets cut down

is what makes the stormtroopers turn around because Luke then freaks out and they go, oh my God, they're getting away. So I've never, I've had this conversation so many times. He didn't have to die. Like actually he didn't have to die. The only case for it is he wants to pass the torch, LeBron to Luka and be like, this is your team now, Luka. I'm going to have Anthony Edwards kill me with a lightsaber right now so I can give you the Lakers. Yeah.

But it still doesn't make sense because the best option is just fucking kill Darth Vader. He's right there. He probably couldn't have killed Darth Vader. I think he powered it out. Both physically and maybe emotionally. Yeah, I think he knew, like, I'm too old. Well, he hasn't been able to do it two times before. He had two chances. He didn't do it. It's a good career move by Obi-Wan because it's like I can either lose this fight and look like a fucking loser or I sacrifice myself. Okay, so in the same vein, this was going to be my flex category, but I'm just going to do this because it's part of a picking nit.

it's it's two different categories crushed together did i skip your flex category the george ellerby two weeks with pay award for the character who definitely should have been fired goes to grand moff tarkin grand moff tarkin is informed that there's a flaw in the

in the largest Department of Defense governmental investment in the history of the empire. The enemy knows how to attack it. He insists on continuing on with making the Death Star fully operational and exposing the destruction of his beloved battle station. He loses. This is the 28-3 at halftime in the history of movies. This is a nightmare scenario. He should have been fired. And then follow up to that, Vincent Chase Award.

Are we sure this character is good at their job? Are we sure the Death Star is good? Is the Death Star actually an effective way to run the Empire? This is a thing. It also takes a lot of energy to run it, which we're finding out in Andorra. Very expensive. This is a thing. It's not. Grand Admiral Thrawn...

did not want the resources going towards Death Star. You're about to lose Simmons. No, I'm just saying. I was just telling Ben to feed the dogs. Okay, all right. No, no, no. No, I'm not doing it. No, do it. It's disrespectful. No, no. Grant, no, seriously. Grand Admiral Thrawn did not want the Death Star project to go forward. He had a plan for an advanced TIE fighter,

that he thought would have been a much more pertinent use of the, or appropriate use, shall I say, of the Empire's resources, and that the Death Star was a waste of money and time and resources, and that it would lead to their ruin. And he was right. Grand Admiral Thrawn is the blue guy with the red eyes. So which, who's the Phoenix Sons in this scenario?

Who's Sarver? Tarkin is Ishpia. Tarkin is Ishpia, no question. He made the deal for Brad Beal and he got blown up on the Death Star because of it. There's no question about it. No, I understand. The only picking nit I really had, it's related to what Sean just said, is on the Luke side of things with the Death Star, Luke bets the entire galaxy on a spiritual force he learned about a week ago. He's like, I'm turning off the computer!

I'm going blind. It's like, dude, you were on a desert planet. You had never heard of the Force before. And now you're fucking like, oh, yeah, I'm all Jedi. Speaking of that, how much time on that equipment did Luke have? I know. They're like, he's a good bush pilot. On the X-Wing. Yeah. Like, he's just up there, full uniform with the rest of the Air Force. It's like Randy Quaid in Independence Day. He's like, I was getting an F-16, man.

Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all-black, cast are untouchable. This movie did all of them eventually? Except I know a lot of people in the Star Wars universe. You know who you are. I've been begging for the all-black Star Wars movie. And let me tell you why it should be made. To piss the fucking people off on Twitter, man. Just piss them off. They get mad every time there's one black person in a Star Wars movie.

Fucking do Star Wars Ghana. You know what I'm saying? I'm serious. They get so mad. By the way, I know people who are very high up in the Star Wars thing, and I've told them, just make an all-black Jedi trooper. I'm talking about Star Wars with a Z. It's just Lando and Mace Windu. Lando, Mace Windu, all of their people do the whole black Star Wars movie. It would be dope.

It would be super dope. There's a planet with nothing but white people. Why couldn't there be a planet with nothing but black people? That's a great idea. That's the only thing. Of all of these things, it's the only thing they haven't done. Sequel's been done. Prequel's been done. Prestige has been done. The only thing they haven't been done, the true frontier that they haven't gone to, Star Trek, is the all-black cast. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Henry Hill?

Harley Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Longlegs, or Wilford Brimley in the firm? I have an addition to this category. Okay.

Is this movie with Bill Simmons podcasting about it on his Sunday night pod? Yes. I'm so honored. I actually watched the lightsaber battles. And ever since Obi-Wan got brought down, Luke Skywalker has an edge. And guess what? He's just 19. He still has so many more levels to go. That's good. I like it. Oh, man. Ryan Rucco? Yeah.

You do it. Luke's feeling the force. Is he going to get it? Too bad. I see you, Mr. Skywalker. Just one Oscar. Who gets it? George, I guess. Yeah, best picture. Sound? Williams? You're saying just one. I'm going to say. The sound is amazing in this movie. I would go sound. All right. Probably unanswerable questions.

Did they intentionally make C-3PO look like an Oscar? Oh. No, he's very closely modeled after the robot Metropolis. So I think it's just. Just asking. Did they make him that gold to remind people of Oscar? Maybe, maybe. Why didn't Chewbacca have genitalia? We don't know that he doesn't. We don't know that he doesn't.

He might be a hider. He's a Wookiee, and so there are many, many Wookiees. Did we just cross the over for the amount of genitalia on Star Wars characters we're talking about? For at least three, four? Well, we hit two. Yeah. Does he have a butthole?

What are we doing? What kind of creature are we talking about here? Is he a Ken dog? I imagine he's like a giant Does he go to the bathroom? Does Chewbacca go to the bathroom? He was inspired by Lucas' Malamute, Indiana His dog And that dog has a lot of fur that is like that stringy fur He's like a dog

So it goes to the bathroom. I would say so, yeah. Do you wish there were more times in Star Wars where someone was like, I gotta take a piss? Halloween 1978, most people dressed the same. Probably the most. I'm trying to think of another Halloween where there was more people in the exact same costume.

Like Michael Jackson Thriller? Yeah, for you guys. He'd wear open-collar white shirts. Okay, motherfuckers! Alright, Van, top five sci-fi women Hall of Fame. Ooh, easy. Sarah Connor? Oh, one or two? Two. I came across time for you, Sarah. Sarah Connor. Princess Leia? Mm-hmm.

I'm going to throw a new addition in there. Zendaya. Wow. In Dune 2. In Dune 2. You never really got a... She's kind of always wearing that still suit, you know? I don't know. You're not into it? I mean, I love Zendaya, but it's not Princess Leia's costuming. So when we say sci-fi, are we talking about the entire realm of sci-fi? Yeah. Okay. So do Marvel movies count as well?

Do they? I don't think so, but feel free to cook. If Marvel movies count, I got Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. Okay. That's an all-time white girl right there. Doesn't count. Doesn't count. Sorry. I'm throwing at you. Daryl Hannah from Blade Runner, maybe? Perhaps. What about Carrie Ann Moss from The Matrix? She's in there. TV shows count. So you can go Aaron Gray, late 70s.

Incredible Battle of the Network stars performances. Go look those up on YouTube. If I was going to do Blade Runner, though, I'd actually do Sean Young. Yes. Yes, you would. I'd do Sean Young. Don't make Craig mad, though. Sean Young. He didn't see it. Not the best actress in the world. You don't know Sean Young. No way out.

Yeah, I know who Sean Young is. Thumbs down from Craig. Thumbs down to Sean Young. I was introduced to Sean Young in Ace Ventura. Kind of hard to go backwards from there. But I got to take one out because obviously... Finkle, Einhorn. That's right. Einhorn is Finkle. Oh, Einhorn is Finkle. That's what I'm saying. Finkle is Einhorn. But Ellen Ripley. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Ellen Ripley. That's a good one. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want?

from this movie? I would want a lightsaber. Yeah, for sure. You can only have one lightsaber. Who are you taking? Obi? I'll take Darth's because as far as I know, Darth's lightsaber is the one that works. It's the one that takes down Obi-Wan. It's the red one. I know. Sean? Greedo's corpse. Hans Blaster would be cool. Hans Blaster would be very cool. But it's Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber, though.

Can I make the case for the thing? Wait, no. The red one. No. No, no, no, no, no. Luke has Anakin Skywalker's lightbulb. Obi-Wan had it. Right, right. Well, no, no, no. So I would still take Anakin Skywalker's lightbulb. I think lightsaber is the answer, but we ban cars from this category. The thing Luke's driving around, whatever that fucking thing is. Yeah, that is cool. That thing, just to have that in your garage. Take that tool and run. What's that? Is that from Star Wars? Yeah. Luke's...

There's a there's a digitally added sequence from when they reissued the movie in the whatever was late 90s that shows like the digital version of the speeder that is so much less cool. You know, that shows that like moving around the open world as opposed to the way that they shot it in the movie. And it's just the most perfect example of like, we just don't need this. Like the speeder looks so fucking awesome in the practical version of the movie. Anyway.

The Darth mask, I think, would be the other one. I'm trying to think what thing from this movie would go for the most money. Gotta be the lightsaber. That's a good category.

So Luke's lightsaber, the game-worn Luke's... Well, there are three lightsabers in the movie. There's Vader's, there's Obi-Wan's, which we don't really know what happens to it. I'm assuming Vader takes it for a trophy or something like that. I felt like Luke could have grabbed that before he... He's across that whole... He's getting shot at by Stormtrooper. He steps on it, right, when he's kicking his clothes? Yeah, he's kicking his clothes. Yeah, so it's there. So I'm assuming Vader takes it as a trophy, whatever. But then there's the other one. Which lightsaber would you take? Of all the three, if you had to have a piece of memorabilia? I'd want Luke's.

I always liked Mace Windu's purple lightsaber. It was great. Coach Finstock will wear a best life lesson. May the force be with you. May the force be with you. The force will be with you, Chris Ryan. Trust the force. We'll always have good TV shows, Chris Ryan. Trust the force. You got another one though. The bear is going to be really good season four in June. Trust the force. Reach out with your feelings for the bear. You and Andy Greenwald will have good podcasts. Trust it. Trust it, my son.

You have a life lesson? Yeah, raise your kids. Oh, wow. Don't let Uncle Owen raise your kid. Don't let Uncle Owen raise your kids. Your kids will come back and they'll take over your empire. Best double feature choice. Is it Sith or is it Empire? It's Rogue One. I have Denis Villeneuve's Dune.

The first one or the second one? The first one. Sand Planet, kind of same thing. I like to go outside of the Pantheon with the double feature. What about American Graffiti? Oh, go full Lucas. Yeah, yeah. It's good. Raiders would be interesting too. That would be good too. Who won the movie? Harrison Ford.

George Lucas. You're really going Harrison Ford? George Lucas made $4 billion from this movie. I'm saying Harrison Ford keeps this movie attached to humanity. It's a robot and a twerp acting against each other. He's the coolest guy and one of the coolest movie characters ever.

Sean Lucas I mean George Lucas's net worth is estimated to be between 8 billion and 9.5 billion he's got 9 billion dollars that's what they estimated at yeah so that's a lot wait wait wait hold on because he sold Lucasfilm for 4 but he was making money on Star Wars through the 80s 90s and 2000s I

Is that why you think he won the movie? Well, he won the movie because he created the most indelible franchise in Hollywood history. But he also made fucking bank on it, too. What do you think? It's gotta be Lucas. That's a compelling argument for Harrison Ford. But I don't know that anyone...

in this industry has won any single movie as much as George Lucas has won this movie. I was just trying to be interesting. Can I make the case for Aunt Beru? Would have been better if you went last rather than first. Can I make an Aunt Beru case? Aunt Beru. Aunt Beru. One line out. Aunt Milfie?

Bill, way to go, man. Bill! Craig? What a treat. Hold on, Craig's up. What do you got, Craig? Craig, is he Star Wars? Craig, Star Wars? 1977? I don't know. Do any of you guys, any of you guys big video game people? I'm like, I'm not really, but Van, are you? Yeah, I like to play video games. Thinking back to the Apex Mountains, also, I love the Star Wars Battlefront video games. Oh, the Star Wars video games. It's incredible. I would say, would you say this is the best video games to come off of an original movie ever? Oh, yeah.

So Bond has some good video games, but they don't compare to the Star Wars games in totality. Star Wars games are awesome. Because you have Jedi Fallen Order. You have Battlefront. You have the original arcade game where you were in the TIE Fighter, right? Then you have the one for Super Nintendo, Super Star Wars. Like probably, yeah. That came from a movie? Yeah. Probably, yeah.

Anyway, good movie. Slow, decent, fast? I mean, yeah, it's a little slow. I mean, there's just like pace just picked up as we move closer to now. And that's just what it is. The first 20 minutes is a little slow. But what I took away watching it again, I think I probably saw him when I was 15. Of course you like him. But now...

I just appreciate them so more. When I was 15, I'm not thinking about, I mean, I'm comparing it to all the other movies I saw when I was 15, which like probably had better special effects or whatever. Looking back now, the originality is kind of staggering. I kind of can't fathom that level of originality working now. Like, it's just unbelievable that this is just, I know he had influences, but everybody does. Like him just pulling this out of his ass, putting it on the screen, everything's brand new, the world building is,

Honestly, the closest thing I can think of is John Wick and it's probably why John Wick worked because it's like just new and everybody could kind of like get into the world and like it. And it's why it's the newest action franchise that has like spawned spinoffs and is still around and people like it. Like the Sinners. Yeah, maybe Sinners. Sinners took us into a world. Terminator did too. Yeah.

Yeah, last time, one of the few times where I felt the same way in a movie that I felt the first time I saw Star Wars was The Matrix. The Matrix was the time where I was like, wow. That's a good one. Like they have thought this through completely. Yeah. You know, that sense of like, I'm in great hands right now. But it's very rare. It's very rare to do that. I also think it's cool that Lucas... Avatar is a good one, yeah. I think it's cool that George Lucas was like, I just wanted to make a movie that was fun. He's like, if you have to take one word away from this movie, it's just fun.

I know he's like, the movie's trying to say something, but I don't think the themes are... I don't know. I don't know if it's trying to say that much. It's interesting. It... Essentially, like...

we talk about star Wars and I talked to a friend about it. He goes, essentially the movie is about like fathers and sons. It's very, it's not really, it's a complicated lore, but not a complicated story. Like not a complicated movie too. It's like, this is a really, this is a great chase. Good versus evil. Same with Indiana Jones. Like I don't really know what Indiana Jones is about, but Indiana Jones, and it's my favorite movie. It's just like a feeling. And it, and I growing up, the Disney rides obviously were around when I saw these movies. So I kind of immediately made that connection.

which is probably different for you guys because they made them as, as over, over time. But like, I associate these movies with like that feeling of being at Disneyland. Star tours is not a great ride. And yet I would wait in line for hours to go on it over and over and over again at Disneyland star tours. I like, but I tell you one thing that is a fantastic ride. And it was one of the best experiences I've had as an adult man.

Not doing commercials, but have you been on Rise of the Resistance? In Galaxy's Edge. Shit. Yeah, that's cool. You're in Star Wars, Bill. You're in it.

They got stormtroopers everywhere. Okay, you're inside of Star Wars. We all went as a Ringerverse family. Man, we got to do a Ringer day at Disneyland. We did one. That would be fun. It was... No, they didn't. Oh, there's a hotel they closed. But they closed... When we did Star Wars Celebration a couple of years ago, they had like a place where just the media could go. And me and Mal and the Midnight Boys, we wrote it a bunch of times. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. How'd we do?

I think you did a great job. About three and a half. You brought really good energy. Is that the longest one we've done? Yeah. No. Boogie and Pulp both went over four. Okay. Is that true? That's what Craig was telling us. Yeah. This was pretty good. I wasn't planning for a marathon. I mean, it's the longest unplanned two-parter. Yeah. Good job. Bill, I'm proud of you, man. I really enjoyed it.

Are more coming? I feel like I missed out. Yeah, this has been the big question. Are we going to do more? Will you do Empire? Will you do Jedi? I guess we'll have to let the people decide. The nerds are going to get mad about Chewbacca. I'm going to take some shit for that. What else? The questions that you're asking, by the way, about Chewbacca, we've asked. We just asked them in like 92. Yeah. And asked them in maybe a more polite way. How could this guy go to the bathroom? It'd be funny to do Spaceballs next.

Thanks guys. Thanks. Thanks.