Episode 50 - Star Wars A New Hope

Transcript

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd today

we're going to go back to our roots and

talk a little bit about

star wars today we've decided

we're going to tackle the original

movie that from 1977 a new hope but

before we get started i i

gotta ask you a question uh this has

nothing to do with star wars but this

happened to me last night and

and i i need your help on interpreting

my dream

how how good are you with interpreting

dreams

it depends if i can be sued for bad

advice

yeah well you know i i'll sue you but

uh i probably won't win because i'm too

lazy to get a lawyer

so i had this dream last night and

in the dream my wife and i are

walking through the grocery store and

we're doing our grocery shopping and all

of a sudden

the announcement comes on and

the manager whatever the store says that

you know attention all the you know

patrons of the grocery store

there's a new law that's been passed in

the united states

that it is now legal

to steal up to 75

worth of goods from a store

and that's all that was said and i look

at my wife and i say

did i just hear that right my wife says

yeah i

guess we can just take 75 dollars worth

of stuff

and i thought well that's just kind of

strange

and then i look up in the dream

and donald trump is coming down the

aisle

with a grocery cart and decides

that he wants to take 75 dollars worth

of nacho cheese

and i i look at my wife i said donald

trump

is in our grocery store and he's taking

worth of nacho cheese and she said yeah

that's what it looks like

and he's got secret service with him and

secret service guys say okay you have

your 75 dollars worth of nacho cheese

and then i woke up what do you think

that means i think it means somebody in

the house is pregnant

um i hope not

i hope you're wrong and uh if

you are right i'm gonna sue you if

you're right

so let's talk about star wars so we

we've done

a an episode about the prequels

and we said you know we got the prequels

out of the way

uh maybe we'll do the sequels maybe

we'll do the originals but we decided

hey

you know let's go back let's get

original and let's talk about

the first movie so we're going to talk

about star wars

a new hope yeah this replaces the

episode we were going to do on

storage wars no freaking hope of getting

anything worth crap

out of the lock up oh

see you you've got to get my email

address correct because i didn't get

that memo that we weren't going to do

that one

so so can you get my email address right

the shepherd the shepherd at aol.com

isn't it

no well ask jeeves.com yeah

okay well star wars episode four

new hope uh it was released may

25th 1977 in the united states

and um originally there were fewer than

theaters across the country that

actually ordered the film to be shown

40 theaters in the united states fewer

actually than 40. wow

so maybe like 39 or something yeah maybe

yeah and um 20th century fox actually

had to bribe

some of those theaters to actually order

star wars

and they bribed them uh that in order to

receive

this eagerly anticipated movie which

i've never heard of

called the other side of midnight these

uh movie theaters had to order

star wars have you ever heard of that

movie the other the other side of

midnight

the other side of midnight i mean we

know pretty big movie buffs we have

we have thousands upon thousands of

movies and i've never heard of that

movie the other side of midnight yeah

no was was that like an academy

award-nominated movie do we know that

or i don't know i'm almost tempted to

ask siri if she's heard of it but

yeah the problems we had last time with

her i don't think you need to

bother with her she gets to be contained

she's got podcasts right

i think she does yeah at least our

versions of siri yeah

does but we've got to be careful saying

her name too much while we're recording

because we both have iphones

and at least we don't say

hey and then her name because oh my god

i react

hey siri oh

oh oh she's decided to show up oh

now all of a sudden she's listening yeah

so you got to be careful

you got to be careful technology

uh no yeah say

no yeah you got to be careful

no got to be careful with that got to be

careful with technology

useful as always yes would have been

quicker for me to google it

um so uh 20th century fox so we're kind

of worried that

star wars would be um beaten out by some

of the other movies being released in

the summer

and that's why they actually moved the

release date to like may 25th they

brought it

forward a little bit and isn't that a a

weird time to release a movie

wednesday right before memorial day yeah

they didn't want it to be beaten out by

some of the summer blockbusters as such

coming out that year

such as smokey and the bandit which was

you know expected to be a big

big success so um yeah they actually

moved it

and i think on the opening day on the

25th

i think there was only like 32

theaters which actually showed it and

then the next day another a

started showing it but that was it

across the entire united states wow

so um and you know in the run-up to its

release

you know fox told you know george lucas

oh no 20th century fox

yeah not fox 20th century fox that's

still the same

okay okay i i we we have to be

so accurate with this podcast that we

don't want to lead anybody astray

yeah this is the this is the one one of

the few podcasts where we do actually

want to be accurate on star wars because

we know the fans will pick this to

absolutely absolutely and and

we're we're two of those fans yeah so um

yeah george lucas because

you know this communication had come

from 20th century fox that they weren't

you know too optimistic about you know

star wars being much of a success

he actually elected to forego his option

to an extra half a million

dollars for directing and he um

exchanged it for the merchandising and

sequel rights

smart guy smart smart guy

but i mean he did that you say he was

smart but

you know i mean obviously it wasn't

smart in hindsight on 20th century fox's

part

but well yeah but you're right there

but george lucas had actually visited um

steven spielberg's set when they were

doing

close encounters and george lucas said

to um

you know steven spielberg i think your

movie is going to do way better than

mine and steven spielberg actually

disagreed

and they kind of had a bet and they said

let's take two and a half percent

of each other's movies for all time so

to this day

steven spielberg still gets two and a

half percent of

star wars wouldn't wouldn't that be a

nice

position to be in to to just say hey

let's

let's bet on this yeah you know reminds

me of uh

what was the movie with uh dan aykroyd

and eddie murphy and and the rich white

guys you know they bet a dollar

uh trading places okay it's kind of that

same premise

you know you're just playing with the

world but it's

it seems like such a cheap bet at the

time now wasn't it

um one of the other one of the actors in

star wars as well

took some uh percentage

no that was alec guinness alec guinness

yeah allegheny because they couldn't

afford him or something but yeah

i mean i said i'll take a percentage of

that so so he said i'll take a

percentage

rather than whatever you pay after yeah

you know you got scale

and he was already an established actor

had been doing movies for years i mean

he was a well-known actor

peter cushing was a well known oh yeah

with a hammer horror i mean

yeah oh yeah it yeah so so those guys

made out like

bandits yeah yeah that's a

good deal but again that benefit

hindsight so um yep

within um three weeks of the release of

star wars

20th century fox's stock had actually

doubled and they mo

and they more than doubled their annual

profit in that year from any previous

year

purely because of star wars wow so um

you know again i think fox kind of got

lucky a little bit there

i know i think they definitely got lucky

i mean it it

was it at this point that they were

saying hey we're 20th century fox

and we're in 1977.

we only have 23 years left in the 20th

century

maybe we need to be rethinking our name

yeah

i mean that that had to be when it that

whole thing

started coming around saying maybe we

need to

rename our movie house yeah it's a shame

they didn't have the internet they could

have gone online and got a general

consensus of opinion

yeah that's true just posted something

on twitter and said

hey what should we name this and maybe

somebody would have said

21st century fox and they'd have been

like we just bought ourselves another

100 years

maybe we should have done that well you

know what's been happening over the past

few years whenever

any corporation or company has been

running these you know what should we

rebrand ourselves or name ourselves

thing

i don't know whether this mainly comes

from 4chan or from reddit but

a whole host of people go on there and

it's always something it would be

something

like fox foxy face yeah

or something like that and it gets the

majority of votes because they all flood

in and like

you know absolutely you know there was

but those do make good names it's like

you want to go with fox okay yeah fox

mcfoxy face i think it was some

um semi-professional soccer team

uh in the united states actually they

were going to give the fans a chance to

come up with the official name for the

team and again either

4chan or reddit got on it and it was

going to be called like footy

footy face or something fc yeah so

yeah but i mean for soccer in the united

states let's be honest i mean that

that's probably a pretty good name for

it because it it's still not making it i

know that wears you out a little bit

because yes soccer is the biggest sport

in the world

but it still hadn't grabbed hold in the

united states

still the most played sport in the

united states

well probably so i mean we do have a lot

of kids

that have to well and adults as well

most played adult sport and most played

youth sport in the united states

okay all right but that's only because

we can't just go down the road and play

ice hockey

well that's true especially in texas

yeah

plus i can't skate for crap so there's

there i'll be a goalkeeper i think

maybe maybe you and i should play ice

hockey yeah

i've got it on the xbox one if you want

to kind of

are you better at that than rocket

league

um i'm better at giving birth than

rocket league

no i'm pretty good at rocket league now

anyway getting off topic here yeah so by

or we could never do that yeah no by

august 3rd star wars was actually

playing in just under 1100 theaters so

it jumped from that 40 theaters to 1100

in just over a couple of months across

the country

and there were actually 60 theaters who

played it continually for a year

wow kind of non-stop which you know i

mean given that the average star wars

fan went to see it

goodness knows how many times having it

running for a year

i mean yeah you're going to get the

repeat business from the same people and

there's not

that many movies where people you know

go do that to you know

sure yeah i mean you got star wars

in in the modern day of movies you've

got

a handful of you know your harry potters

your

uh what the hobbits and and

[Music]

what was the one before the hobbits oh

lord of the rings

lord of the rings you know things like

that you you might get people to go see

those movies

more than once but right star wars was

kind of that

yeah first one that everybody ran out

yeah before

the haters come out with star trek we're

we're not even gonna accept those

comments yeah now did you know star wars

it was actually re-released in 78 79 81

and 82 in the theaters because they

figured like you know people

had enough of a break oh they'll want to

see it the following year and the

following year but it wasn't

actually until 81 that

um episode 4 was actually subtitled a

new hope before that it was just star

wars episode 4 and then it was became

star wars episode 4 a new hope

yeah but the the fact that they

re-released it

makes sense right because this is before

home video it's

starting to take hold but nobody had

home theater you know you didn't have a

huge

tv in the house and part of star wars

was that

opening scene yeah when when the

ship flies over and the star destroyer

flies over

in that whole opening scene everybody

loves

that just got everybody to immediately

fall in love with star wars yeah it's

different to witness that in the movie

theater

versus just sitting at home watching it

on a 19-inch tv

so i could see that now um how old were

you when you first saw a new hope

because i was eight

when it was released um in the uk but

you were pretty much an embryo still

around there

well yeah i mean i i wasn't

even a thought in my father's

mind at that time when it was released

because i was born

before uh 77

but i do remember watching

star wars on television i remember

my dad sitting in the living room

recording star wars off of

television with our curtis mathis

vcr in a wired remote control

that had a play pause button

while we recorded it and it wasn't even

a button it was a

slider was that so you could cut out the

commercial yeah so you had to slide it

down to pause

and then slide it back up to hit play so

record would start just to record star

wars

off of normal broadcast television

and i sat and that was the first time i

watched star wars now did your dad go

and watch it in the movies when it was

originally released or was it not his

thing

no no he did he did he he loved the

movie and my mom loved the movie

and and they went to the theaters and

watched the movie

they they did like it and they knew you

know

new baby on the way he was gonna like it

too

yeah now i actually saw it

the summer it was released in the uk and

i remember i had to line up for three

hours

well now in the uk was this

released long after the uh in the summer

okay so not that far not that long a few

months but yeah

i remember ironically because of the

the line was yeah the line was around

the block multiple times and it was

three hours and it's not like we went

first weekend or first week

i mean it must have been like at the

second month of

release and it was still three hours wow

you know we did by no means you know

live near a

huge city or anything but yeah it i

remember staying in line three hours

with my dad

you know going in to watch it yeah but

in that kind of ironic because

all the soundstage stuff was recorded

over there

yeah um i think

you know here within

you know you go like five miles in any

direction for the most part

you're gonna hit a movie theater in you

know england

he didn't really have a lot of choice in

movie theaters i mean i think in our

closest city

there were maybe only two movie theaters

and one of them wasn't a very big one

and i think used to show

all that artsy crap which kind of like

yeah we would consider like a indie

yeah yeah yeah yeah you could pretty

much make a movie and they'd play it

yeah um so yeah i guess that kind of

explains the lines really because

we did only have one movie theater that

i can recall ever going to

and you know i don't think i had that

many screens at the movie theater

yeah you know well the movie theaters

back then

aren't like movie theaters today where

you have

like you say 16 screens 24 screens

30 screens you know stuff like that they

had

two yeah and and that was it

yeah and so you had a choice between

two movies you went left you went right

right

those were your two movies you were

gonna look at that was

it now um obviously

you didn't see it when it was first

released at the movie theater and by the

time you got a little bit older

the market was already flooded with

merchandise

now what was your first piece of star

wars merchandise

probably action figures yeah i mean i i

was so

young i i remember wanting star wars

toys

but it was action figures i i didn't get

any of the playsets anything like that

it was action figures i can guarantee

you can't guess what my first piece of

star wars merchandise was

i would guess a porg

no star wars mate first of all oh new

hotel

well i know you like porgs target

practice

target practice yeah uh so your first

piece of star wars

merchandise and this is bought in a

store

yeah i'm gonna go with

an x-wing no it was actually a blue

star wars ruler which my dad bought

for me on the way back from work and

brought it home it's a school yeah it's

a ruler

yeah school supplies a star wars ruler

but i loved it

it had may the force be with you on it

but no i love that thing that's cool now

did you ever get the chance to go see it

at the movie theater

well yes and of course much later in

life

when i saw the original movie

in the movie theater and and when i say

the original

actually the first time i saw a new hope

in the movie theater was actually the

special edition right

when they got re-released well that was

like 91 wasn't it a special edition

exactly

yeah that's that's when i first so you

never got to see the original unaltered

one in the movie theater no i didn't it

yeah now not to get too off topic

but the first movie that i ever saw

in the movie theater with or

for me of course but i also saw with my

father

was return of the jedi in 1983

okay so you know this was

obviously i had watched star wars i had

watched empire

and now i'm

five six years old

i'm old enough in my father's eyes to

actually go to the movie

and sit there and watch a movie but the

absolute the first movie i saw in a

movie theater

was return of the jedi right so

obviously empire was already out by the

time you first went

and so yeah a jedi been out for a while

the time he first went sorry because

that must be jedi was 83

yeah you know so new hope was 77

empire was 80. jedi was 83

yeah and it was still in the movies and

you know in 83 i was five six years old

yeah and that was the first time my dad

took off work and came home

and picked me up and we went to the

movies and we saw jedi yeah

in the theater so you mentioned that

your dad illegally copied it off the tv

did you actually own the dvd or

laserdisc of star wars at some point

well we we didn't have money like people

in the uk

to have laser discs oh we didn't have a

lace fix yeah

so uh my first copies of star wars

were recorded off tv so

my first copy of star wars was recorded

off of uh cbs

kdfw uh cbs

and i'll never forget and even when i

watched the movie today when luke and

leia

are about to go across the

the gap when they

you know look shoots the laser

hits the the lock and says well we gotta

swing across here

during that scene there was

a deal that popped up from the local tv

station

kdfw that popped up right there so every

time i see star

wars a new hope i picture that because

when

i would watch that movie over and over

again i would see the little station

identification

right there yeah because that's where it

was recorded yeah

empire was actually recorded

by one of my dad's friends who had hbo

and so he recorded it off of hbo

so there were no interruptions on that

one there were no

like weird hard stops on that but we

still had that vhs

and i wore that vhs tape out

and i can't remember you know this is

back in the day

when you had that slp vhs

where you could have six hours on the

tape and there were

like three movies on it and empire was

actually the second movie on there so i

had to

constantly fast forward through whatever

the first movie was

just to get to empire to watch that

return of the jedi we

recorded i think

off of hbo and i think that's when we

finally got cable so we actually had a

a nice clean copy that we did for

ourselves

but it was still on slp and i think

after return of the jedi was

the ten commandments or something like

that so there were three movies on that

yeah i recorded it off tv i actually had

a friend

who the summer it was released

was going to new york for holiday later

on in the summer probably closer to the

fall

and um one of his friends who

uh well i think it might have been a

relative who lived over there said

hey you know if you go uh you know in a

manhattan you know there's a lot of

people hawking you know

kind of like videos you know on the

street corners and stuff and you can you

could probably buy star wars for like

you know ten dollars fifteen dollars and

it'd be a really good car

just just so we're clear we we know

nothing about

hawking like pirated and nobodies no

i think hawking is selling them yeah you

know like yeah street corners and we

don't

do that this is brand new information

we're just talking so

anyway so anyway you went there right

and he bought it

him and his um i think his brother his

brother was older than him but yeah they

walked around

um and actually managed to find a copy

and they bought it

but where they were staying there didn't

have a vhs they just had a betamax

right and so they had to wait till they

got back to england to play it

now obviously there was a little bit of

an issue with the format

so um they put the movie in and it

started playing and it was uh

a different uh line rate or frame rate

or something i can't remember what they

used to call it because

um yeah yeah because it was an ntsc

format as opposed to power

power yeah so anyway so we all had piano

so when it started playing it was in

black and white okay

and it turned out it wasn't star wars at

all

it was a porn movie involving clowns

and a lot of screaming i

i thought that's what episode 4 was

well maybe episode nine

i would have rather watched the pawn

with the clowns and screaming in black

and white

let's be honest episode eight would have

been better off if it would have been

actually yeah yeah episode eight of

course yeah yeah but that's that's where

later date

hey we're we're supposed to be focused

on episode four

hey yeah we got to focus we got to focus

here

so how many how many times while you

were still

i guess a kid as such did you see star

wars oh did you watch star wars

do you think way too many to count

way too many over 150

no i i mean thousands thousands

of times i mean i i was

eight nine years old and i could quote

the whole movie

yeah start to finish i mean i i i knew

it every

little bit of that movie by the time i

was eight or nine years old

all the star wars yes funny i could i

could reenact everything with the

action figures that i had you know i i

knew about kdfw

channel 4 you know oh

wait a second two three seconds okay

here's where

that kdfw channel four pops up

right now when they're about to swing

across here

oh here's where my dad messed up

whenever he was sliding the deal on the

curtis mathis vcr

and cut out two seconds of the movie

i i i knew it that well it's kind of

amazing how you got a girlfriend really

yes yeah yes well other than the fact

that i'm

a gorgeous man yeah but

yeah i don't know i'm a gorgeous man

it's um it's funny because our friend

eric when he used to live around the

corner

he was not a gorgeous he's not a

gorgeous man not like you and i

um whenever i used to go round his

we used to put on a rogue one because we

you know we had a you know copy of it

and

literally almost every day that's what

we put on so i think across

i think across the uh time span of a

year i think i saw rogue one maybe about

250 times yeah

just like three four times a week

without fail and it's just always

playing in the background and then um

it actually replaced because we had hot

tub time machine which is always a great

background movie sure and and

unfortunately that's one of those movies

where i think i know

it almost word for word yeah you know

it's

it's just crazy how you can have some

movies even if you're not concentrating

them just on in the background and you

feel comfortable whereas

some movies i just can't have on in the

background because it annoys me

right now all the screaming in

schindler's list i just can't work

with that there's a lot of movies that

you know like you say you consider

background movies that you've seen

so many times

and then you know all of a sudden

you realize maybe you forget a few lines

from right and that's actually where my

wife likes to

throw stones at me because it

i don't watch a new hope as much as i

used to when i was a kid still loved the

movie

but i will get a random word

here or they're wrong and then she just

beats me you know

just mentally like oh i thought you were

a star wars fan

yet you said and and there was no and

there

and you're wrong and i thought you were

a star wars fan

and then it makes me want to beat her

but i don't beat her

now um you said that the special edition

was the first one you saw

now later on in the theater yeah yeah

okay yeah

so you did see the unaltered edition

before that now

now what do you think of the special

edition compared to the unaltered

version do you kind of i mean given it

was you were so young when you saw both

i mean

looking back at special editions

a new hope to me

lucas did a good job i remember

watching a pbs special which by the way

we recorded on our curtis mathis vcr

and the making of star wars

and they showed the scene that they put

in the special edition with jabba and

they had

you know that actor that was wearing the

suit and everything

and han solo's walking around him and

and talking to him

and all that i didn't think

the original trilogy that

the special edition i don't think it

did it a disservice except for the whole

greedo

shot first or han shot first and i know

that's

a big deal uh and that was like two or

three

iterations after that and

i mean we could do a podcast about that

if we were a star wars podcast right

which

i mean let's be honest we could actually

do a star wars podcast but

we don't want to do that uh but

i think all in all the special editions

were okay i i didn't have a problem with

it yeah i i

honestly didn't have a problem with them

it's like

77 80 83

there's only so much technology

available and everybody looks back at

those movies and said

look what lucasfilm did with these

movies and what they were

able to accomplish with special effects

and now all of a sudden you fast forward

20 years

and you give a guy this ability with

computers and everything else to

to make everything look great and he

just said well let me clean some

of this up and and make it look better

that's all he was trying to do he wasn't

trying to change the story

back then right i'm

good with the special editions but when

i showed my kids the original movies

my kids have seen the original movies

and the special editions they

like the special editions better

but they're also kids yeah so

now we have the 4k versions of all of

the star wars movies and

a new hope is difficult to watch in 4k

especially on

you know because it is i've got a

80-inch tv and watching

4k a new hope on there it's it's almost

like watching a soap opera it's just

overly clean i have to go back right you

know if i put it on deliberately

i tend to put on the um you know

unaltered

version but even that you know it's just

so clear because i guess they remastered

it and did all this stuff with it and

even that on the big tv

it's kind of difficult you know it looks

better on a smaller tv

you know well you you also have to

remember that when you were

watching those movies you were watching

a movie on film

in in its actual film strip

going through a projector so it it looks

different

and now everything's digitized and it's

so cleaned up that

yeah it does make it

a little bit harder to watch because

those special effects

that they had back then you know you're

taking

something that we have now and cleaning

it up

that unmasks those special effects

that were easily hidden way back then

because of film

and it's it is it's hard to watch

now um if you ignore the other eight

movies in this series which obviously

isn't hard to do with the final trilogy

what's your impression of a new hope

almost like 45 years later do you think

if it was released now and obviously had

the special effects which

kept it in line with today's quality of

special effects do you think

plotline storyline that it would still

be as well received

absolutely if you took that storyline

and you applied today's special effects

today's sci-fi

capabilities and everything it would

hold up

two hundred percent yeah to what

hollywood's putting out

but i mean as the original movie not

being redone with all the kind of

absolutely you know the original movie

it would hold up

if you showed that movie if it was

shot today and you showed it to an

audience who had no idea what

star wars was it would hold off

now what do you think say your kids were

watching it now for the first time right

compared to everything else which has

been out again ignoring all the other

star wars movies

do you think they would pick any holes

in it in terms of

well why aren't they doing this why are

they doing that blah blah blah because

obviously technology

back then in 77 was very different now

and you think

you know some of the technology you look

at in the original star wars trilogy

seems kind of backwards even by today's

technology we use now you know i mean

they're

wired headphones in the millennium

falcon for one but exactly

that's where i was going the the wired

headphones and

all that but you know what if you're

talking about

shooting the movie today with the same

screenplay

there wouldn't be wired headphones well

there's a fan theory on there

actually that you know if you didn't

know what the ship

is old enough no no not even that it's

about

you if you didn't want your signal to be

hacked

or copied have been having it wired and

keeping it

you know kind of almost like an analog

network would make sure that your signal

and conversations couldn't be

intercepted so having it wired

and got rid of his iphone because you

have to have an android because

somebody might read his text messages

well now he got rid of the iphone

because he kept dropping it like a

14 year old girl well

[Music]

that's the one half dozen yeah so um

although the suggestions kind of

blasphemy in a lot of star wars circles

do you think star wars could be remade

today without it

being kind of a virtue signaling piece

of garbage sure

no never happened it would never happen

and that's a sad thing we picked the

perfect time to have that movie made

we really did uh

it's kind of sad because the scoundrel

character of han solo would have been

looked at

as some kind of womanizer some kind of

would have been toxic masculinity yeah

it would have been bad

uh carrie fisher who

played a great role in that and then you

found out later

what a powerful woman she was

everybody would have said oh no they're

just

placating to the the male

tale of what a woman is that have made

her wear pants as well

yeah it wouldn't work

yeah it wouldn't have worked now i did

read on one big star wars forum

uh that the general consensus has kind

of split a little bit that

if you gave the guys involved in rogue

one and the mandalorian

complete autonomy over everything that

they wrote the script

casted it produced and directed it it

might be worth the gamble

that's a tough one because rogue one and

obviously the mandalorian are more kind

of gritty

the casting has been was fantastic you

know

shot very well and of just those guys

who were involved in that did

everything you know did everything

themselves no outside interference

but i think the reason why rogue one

and mandalorian worked

is because those guys were star wars

fans yeah

they they realized why some of that

stuff worked they

realized that now we have this you know

kind of a

new version of what we have to have

and they're mixing it in and they're

doing it the right way

yeah they didn't do it like uh

rian johnson well actually on that on

that same forum

uh everybody agreed they'd rather have a

pedophile as their kids pe teacher

than let ryan johnson near anything star

wars related ever again

absolutely yeah me too

now who would you cast in a remake

who in a remake yeah

say the rogue one and mandalorian guys

you know going to remake it

who are you going to cast so so remake

of a new hope

uh okay all right so

luke skywalker that's a tough one

so i'm going to

[Music]

punt that for a minute i i'm gonna say

it's hard i was trying to think about

this early it's hard with all of the

characters

it it really is

i don't know i it is hard isn't it wow

no i i was looking at that on the forum

and nobody could agree

yeah was this a stop the shepherd

because you have officially stumped the

shepherd well i actually think

there was one thing they did agree on

they did think that you and mcgregor

could actually play obi-wan

yeah but you're talking about today yeah

well

okay okay yeah i i can't picture

anthony daniels not being c-3po

well you wouldn't know would you

[Music]

and then he could just be a voice and

you know kenny baker

rest in peace he's gone uh peter mayhew

rest in peace he's gone uh my gosh

i mean david prowls rest in peace he's

gone

it can't picture anybody other than

james earl jones being the voice of

darth vader

but i mean maybe

princess leia is

selma hayek 20 years ago

but not today i i i

i don't know yeah that is

called yeah i mean how do you recast

that movie i

i don't i don't think you can recast

that movie

i don't think it's possible there's a

lot of good actors

out there um i'm sure if we actually sat

down and went

went with a piece of paper and went

through some of our favorite movies over

the last 10 years we'd probably be able

to find

some good enough actors who i don't

think so i disagree

i i don't think we could it but you're

talking about

10 years ago you said today yeah yeah if

you were remaking it today

if we were remaking it today it no

because a lot of my favorite yeah a lot

of my favorite actors i can't see where

they'd fit in the movie

if you take people like edward norton or

leonardo dicaprio

i don't know what roles you could give

them in the movie yeah you know

now hang on leonardo dicaprio could

probably pull off grand moff talking

yeah maybe if he was cast as a much

younger kind of

well yeah you could age him a little bit

yeah

so so maybe he could pull that

he's quite short though and grandma i

don't know how tall peter cushion was

but yeah but

it i don't think he was that tall yeah

and okay and that's where we're at yeah

that's it yeah i mean who else is

out there in hollywood that could

actually do this

i mean well let's look at good actors

okay russell crowe is a great actor but

can you see him in there

i mean brad pitt is a great actor but

you can't really see him in there

sorry um i agree with both those yeah

no they can't do it yeah um christian

bale

no no no sorry not a good actor

i think he's a decent actor i know he's

not yeah i think he is but anyway again

it's just like

even with my favorite actors i can't see

where you'd fit the characters

the original cast might be irreplaceable

because it's so branded in your memory

that

yeah it maybe is it maybe is blast for

me to try and remake it

yeah that's a good point i just i i

don't

see it i don't see it happening yeah

you can't remake that right you can't do

yeah now i figured this would be one of

those topics

we could actually do a stump the

shepherd on because

what you're telling me is you tease me

there was gonna be no stump the shepherd

and now here we go okay and uh

so so we're all clear i haven't watched

a new hope in two weeks

yeah yeah maybe three weeks so

give me a little bit of clearance here

well so

here we go as long as you get in the

ballpark on these okay

you're okay all right now they're not

outrageously difficult ones except for

the last one

so uh since 1977

unadjusted for inflation how much

has the original star wars movie

made worldwide purely in movie theaters

so not on sales on dvd

blu-ray

and 750 million dollars pretty close

seven hundred and seventy five

ah pretty close oh we thought you were

smart over there no i think

i figured you'd get close to that

because i think we actually discussed

that

in how much money the in the in the uh

yeah and the yeah yeah we're too lazy to

remember

that stuff now do you know what the

original budget was for

a new hope uh i want to say

it was like 20 something million dollars

even lower than that was it yeah

well oh okay you're talking about

original 77

yeah oh okay it was uh

less than three million dollars no it's

eleven million dollars

oh okay yeah you can barely make a

commercial for that nowadays

but um well in contrast do you know how

much

it costs to make a rise of skywalker

7.25 yeah and filmed on an

iphone 8 yes uh base based off

quality well it had a budget of 275

million dollars wow so you could have

made 250

pretty much approximately you know star

wars a new hopes for the cost of the

rise of skywalker now how many academy

awards did

a new hope win okay so

i used to know this uh

john williams won for best original

score

yeah um

[Music]

i don't remember if there was

an award for uh technical achievements

back then but i'm pretty sure there was

and they won for best special effects

yes oh i'm just asking for a number you

don't have to tell me what oh

so so how many how many

oscars yeah did the movie win uh

uh four it's actually

seven seven that one for best original

score

best film editing best editing

okay yeah best art direction best

costume design

best original score we've already had

sorry uh best sound rather best visual

effects and special achievement awards

oh yeah well there's all those oscars

out there that

most people don't get to see right

so you know i i i get that you get that

do you know how many the rise of

skywalker won

negative one zero

i think uh i was close the one before

that yeah got

negative one yeah in fact yeah

yeah it makes sense now um how tall was

david proust who played

darth vader uh six nine

no six six

okay that's close now um

actually do you know how tall uh james

earl jones who did the voice

no uh 16. he's that big yeah

no he's a big dude yeah

not remember him in a coming to america

well of course i do yeah

and he's a big guy but he he's one of

those

it kind of like me i don't

stand up straight you know i always see

james earl jones and he just kind of

doesn't stand up straight anymore

right you know most people say oh you're

not six foot tall

yeah i am and then when i stand up

straight like oh yeah you're actually

tall i'm like yeah but it hurts to

stand up straight so i'd rather not how

tall

was peter mayhew six seven

seven two no kidding yeah

what about kenny baker

eight nine now uh now uh

kenny baker was three six i think

three seven three yeah

now here's one which you have no chance

of getting so this is my

favorite question to asking well

let's be honest you just asked me all

those and i'm

i think i figured you'd get close well i

got closer yeah you got close to mostly

i wouldn't have a clue for most of those

to be honest

now um how many tie fighters did the

first death star have

and obviously they get this official

figure from the expanded universe novels

this is a bunch of nerds sitting there

yeah figuring this out

but it is official star wars universe

fast oh this is

more of that what's canon what's not

canon

well this is which i i just get so worn

out with

to me just answer the question shepard

how many tie fighters did the first

death star have cannon is what was on

the screen

not all this crap but i'm gonna go

with i mean you've got this

little moon floating around there

128.

no well

i know what five would have said six or

10 million you were gonna look at me and

say no

well 10 million would have been a bit

rough

and six might have been a bit unequipped

okay yeah

so 128 this figure is going to astound

you for a couple of reasons

okay the first one is well that seems a

bit of a strange number

the second one is the number itself

seven thousand two hundred and ninety

three

[Music]

yeah that seems a bit excessive now is

that a prime number

i don't know hey siri

is 7293 a prime number

yeah so how'd that work out for you well

i just wanted to know because it just

seemed a random number but i guess if it

divides by something i was figuring the

person who designed the bays

where all the tie fighters go in you

know yeah but why wouldn't it be an

even number um well i guess

as it is about something well now hang

on you've got

vader's tie fighter right that might be

the

three so maybe now you should ask her

seven thousand three ninety two

but and even well we know what that is

yeah yeah

yeah okay now now have a now do you know

how many uh

personnel it had on board over three

million

1.7 million military personnel now there

are others as well obviously like

cleaners and

stuff like that and everything yeah

don't leave them out of here

yeah yeah they're on the subway yeah

yeah

i mean if somebody's gotta be running

the jersey mike

and saying hey i'm making you a sandwich

yeah so don't leave them somebody has to

save the alien ale

that's right yeah yep you absolutely do

yeah

you've got b arthur that's running the

bar

and she's saying hey here's a beer yeah

yeah

and that's one do you think alien ale

was free on the death star or

i'm sure it was a happy hour dream yeah

i don't think it was that explains why a

lot of those thai fighter pilots

couldn't really fly for crap though if

they had a bit too much alien ale that

would you know what if i if i had to

be a tie fighter pilot and deal with

that yeah that would be

buzz buzz space flying i i mean i'd want

to fly around

and be yeah yeah yeah i get that

so lastly on that question how many

droids do you think there were

oh good lord you know i

i don't know how many mice were running

around on the death star

probably no no because i'm pretty sure

they had good road and control

on there probably which some of the

droids were responsible for

ah that's good point

4.5 million 400 000

and you call yourself a star wars fan

your wife would be ribbing you for those

words

i'm just not as much of a star wars fan

as i thought i was

right so so going into the last part of

the podcast

um i did want you to have the majority

of the uh

talk on today's podcast given it's your

all-time favorite movie

well empire is but yes

yeah yeah you know i wanted you to be

able to kind of

talk about it so um who's your favorite

character in a new hope

because i think mine changed from movie

to movie my favorite characters in some

movies were not really characters enough

well i mean like luke skywalker

certainly wasn't my favorite character

in the any of the final

you know luke was never my favorite

character but he was some peoples but i

doubt he was in the final trilogy

you know i i still have to go with vader

yeah i mean

to this day i'm still an empire fan

i'm still a darth vader fan but

i'm i'm sticking with my boy yeah

darth vader darth vader through all the

movies everything else

and we could probably do a podcast on

why

the empire is actually the good guys

yeah

i mean they really were but i'm i'm

gonna stick with darth vader

right i think i'd have to go with han

solo mainly because i can relate because

most of my life i've had big hairy

things following me around so

no yeah well so with

with me saying darth vader is my first

i gotta say a close second is r2d2

because i love r2d2 hate c3po

but love r2 now who's your least

favorite character in the

new hope in a new hope

man i gotta think about that one you see

it's one of those things to me

like if you ask that same question for

rogue one i think

every character pretty much perfectly

fitted the role

for that script that it was very

difficult to say you disliked

any character because they all did a

good job for who they played

i i would probably have to say in a new

hope

it'd have to be uncle owen

you know because he was such a prick you

know he

he had everything and peru was like you

know look at him like

yeah what what's your problem yeah you

know why can't you

man up yeah you've got him doing all

this stuff and now columbus like

oh i can't do it maybe next summer yeah

yeah yeah i'm not gonna let you do all

this

so i would have said uncle owen yeah

would be my least

yeah but that's because you don't like

the character he's playing

though i mean i think that's just the

question well i kind of mean as in a

character you just

don't like just because it was a crap

character

i mean the fact that the fact you

disliked him it means he probably did a

good job of being that idol

no what no okay crap character

i know the answer to this it's the guy

that says

oh hold your fire let's not shoot at

this because it's

just some random pod that's coming out

of here no life forms on board yeah

and we can't waste one laser blast to do

this

without that guy's worthless well yeah i

mean he's

Episode 50 - Star Wars A New Hope

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