# The Empire Strikes Back (1980) | Ep. 16 - Part 1

An episode of [All The Right Movies](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1471502633), 15 Apr 2022, 1 h 15 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO8009721066.mp3

The sequel nobody knew how to make better turned out to be the best of them all. John, Westy, and Matt begin the story of the darker, stranger second chapter. In Part 1 we cover the film's opening, director Irvin Kershner, the cast, and the second act — including the battle on Hoth, Luke's training with Yoda on Dagobah, and the famously troubled, over-budget production. There's a revelation coming that you already know, and it still lands. Part 2 delivers it: crew, finale, reception, legacy. Out now. Connect with ATRM: To support what we do, access our archive and listen to exclusive episodes, become an ATRM patron: Listen on Patreon Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Twitter: @ATRightMovies YouTube: Subscribe to our channel Instagram: @allthe_rightmovies Facebook: Join our movie group Bluesky: @alltherightmovies.com TikTok: @alltherightmovies Website: alltherightmovies.com

## Transcript

[0:04] All the right movies. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo
[0:08] rescued the Princess, destroyed the Death Star, but their story
[0:12] didn't end there. Now, the creators of the biggest
[0:18] smash hit of all time bring you the next episode in the Star
[0:20] Wars saga, The Empire Strikes Back.
[0:25] It's an epic of romance, of heroes and villains.
[0:30] A big. New sprawling space adventure in
[0:33] the Star Wars saga The Empire Strikes Back, coming to your
[0:43] Galaxy next summer. The Empire Strikes Back was
[0:48] released in 1980s. One of the most anticipated
[0:51] movies ever made, the second entry in the Star Wars saga and
[0:54] continuing Luke Skywalker's journey to becoming a Jedi
[0:57] Knight, the film was a box office smash and is now
[0:59] acclaimed as one of the great movie sequels.
[1:02] My name is John and with me today are Matt.
[1:04] Hello. What have we here?
[1:07] Anne Westie? That can't be.
[1:10] That's impossible. Laugh it up fuzzball, because
[1:14] all the right movies are back with George Lucas to talk the
[1:16] Skywalkers, snow speeders and smooth talking scoundrels.
[1:20] And you thought we smelled bad on the outside.
[1:43] Hello and welcome to all the Right movies.
[1:46] A bunch of stuck up, half witted, scruffy looking Nerf
[1:48] herders. Obviously.
[1:50] Obviously. And a podcast on classic and hit
[1:53] films today. We've been here before, and
[1:56] we're back in a Galaxy far, far away to talk one of the biggest
[2:00] and most successful movie sequels ever made in The Empire
[2:03] Strikes Back. Lovely.
[2:06] Never tell us the odds, but this was always going to happen,
[2:08] right? Of course it was.
[2:10] How could it not? How could it not?
[2:12] Before we head to Hearth or let's have a chat about Patreon,
[2:15] should we? We should.
[2:17] If you're fond of what we do on this, our classic podcast that
[2:19] would like us to keep doing it, please help support us do that
[2:22] by becoming in all the right movies.
[2:24] Patron patrons gain access to Patreon only podcast shows and
[2:28] access to our full archive of classic episodes like this one.
[2:31] The archives growing all the time and right now there are
[2:34] over 40 further classic episodes in there.
[2:37] If you're listening to this, you're probably like Star Wars.
[2:40] Yep, that's in there. Also Jaws, creators of the Lost
[2:43] Ark, the Terminator, the Godfather, Alien, all in there
[2:47] and more. And Archive, a superstar
[2:49] destroyed. I couldn't take down there,
[2:51] right? Exactly.
[2:52] Help us navigate the asteroid field by becoming a parent.
[2:56] So to find out more and say no, please visit patreon.com/all the
[3:00] right movies. Also, some further news, we now
[3:04] have a growing YouTube channel full of video content with more
[3:07] to come. They are top 10 videos reviews
[3:09] of new movies like The Batman by the three of us.
[3:12] And Lukas interviewed Curtis Steiger's The Godfather of Jazz
[3:16] about his favorite films as well.
[3:17] Yep, we're also going to be critiquing some all the classics
[3:20] on there too, which would be great.
[3:22] Speaking of Star Wars, I think the three of us are going to
[3:24] start with the Fund the Menace, right?
[3:27] That'll be interesting. Yeah.
[3:30] I can't believe I've got to watch that again.
[3:32] I know. I don't know why I agreed to
[3:33] that You. Want to grow the channel as much
[3:36] as possible, so if you've not yet, please subscribe and share
[3:39] it to. For now though, it's back to one
[3:42] of the good Star Wars films. Yes, it's The Empire Strikes
[3:45] Back. So why are we talking about it,
[3:48] Westie? Is it the best Star Wars film?
[3:51] I think it might be. I think it might be.
[3:53] I keep bouncing around but I'm not too sure.
[3:56] I watched it again this week and I'm like, this is definitely the
[3:58] best Star Wars film. I absolutely adore it.
[4:01] I love it. I remember watching it when I
[4:02] was, I don't even know how old I was when I saw this one and
[4:06] remember thinking that wow that's not happy ending.
[4:09] That. This is, this is miserable.
[4:11] I love this. Yeah.
[4:14] This is the I think it was my introduction to that real kind
[4:17] of like misery, misery of cinema, sort of like how nothing
[4:21] works out at the end and Disney films can like just you can just
[4:24] forget about them. I'm not interested in them
[4:26] anymore. This is what I want more of.
[4:28] And I think this is what turned us on to that, that whole kind
[4:30] of emotion in cinema. And I think it has a real depth
[4:33] and has a real emotion, even though it's a sci-fi film, You
[4:36] know, it's a Star Wars film, but still, I mean, it has so many
[4:39] themes and has so many things that it wants to say and I think
[4:41] it says them really, really well.
[4:42] I think it's really well acted, really well directed.
[4:44] We really well shot. And yeah, not only one of me
[4:47] favorite Star Wars films, if not me favorite Star Wars film, but
[4:50] one of my favorite films. So I'm excited.
[4:52] Yeah, it's always been there for me, Empire.
[4:54] I remember seeing it many, many times, but have no memory of
[4:57] seeing it for the first time because I would have been too
[5:00] young. I mean, what does it say?
[5:03] Everyone's seen it. It's influence.
[5:04] It's difficult to overstate. It's as popular today as it's
[5:07] ever been. So I'm looking forward to the
[5:08] three of us getting into all of that and explaining why we think
[5:11] it's endured so long. It's generally regarded as one
[5:14] of the great movie sequels, the greatest movie sequel by many.
[5:17] So we'll be talking about that. And there's so much of that
[5:19] stuff. George Lucas is always
[5:21] interesting to talk about. Wesley, you're a huge fan of the
[5:24] big fella, obviously. Big, big fan, Yeah.
[5:26] Couldn't drink, couldn't drink. Traffic.
[5:29] Astonishing work again by ILM on the visual effects, one of the
[5:32] most famous plot twists in the narrative, a cultural phenomenon
[5:35] of a film. So, yeah, the world record for
[5:38] the longest podcast is 36 hours. We've got that in our sights,
[5:41] yeah. I've cancelled all plans for the
[5:46] next three days. And that's why you want to about
[5:50] The Empire Strikes Back. It is the first Star Wars film I
[5:53] remember watching. I was very young and I've just
[5:56] got this memory. You've been in the kitchen at
[5:57] home and watching on the tiny little portable TV we had there
[6:02] and I was maybe 4, something like that.
[6:05] I just remember being terrified. Dragged up you like my?
[6:10] And I'll just remember being terrified of the ads because
[6:12] there was so big and stomping all over the guys, and I knew
[6:15] they were the good guys and the whole thing was scary.
[6:18] It just makes perfect sense to cover it.
[6:20] We've done Star Wars, so why not?
[6:21] Do you know the best sequel? And it just comes up time and
[6:24] time again whenever other franchises, you hear the
[6:27] directors or the actors involved make a sequel and they go, oh,
[6:30] yeah, this one is The Empire Strikes Back of whatever.
[6:34] So it's still such a huge touchstone and it's a fact that
[6:38] as a sequel, it doesn't go anywhere you expect it to.
[6:41] It's a constantly surprising film.
[6:43] We'll get in all that. It's a film of like near
[6:45] constant defeat without any resolution, and yet it still
[6:49] works as a film. And it's the film that really,
[6:51] for me, it defines this universe and it introduces so much of
[6:55] what Star Wars actually is in terms of characters and
[6:58] concepts. It's going to be a great one to
[6:59] do. So The Empire Strikes Back was
[7:02] produced by Lucasfilm, distributed by 20th Century Fox,
[7:05] and released on May the 21st, 1980.
[7:08] Filmed on location in Finn's Norway and at L3 Studios,
[7:11] England, it was directed by Irvin Kirchner, written by
[7:14] George Lucas, Lee Bracket and Lawrence Kasdan and its stars
[7:17] Mark Hamill is Luke Skywalker, Harrison Ford as Han Solo,
[7:21] Carrie Fisher's Leah Organa, Billy D Williams as Lando
[7:24] Calrissian, David Prouzer's Darth Vader, Anthony Daniels
[7:27] AC3PO, Kenny Baker's R2D2D2 Peter May.
[7:30] He was tube and Frank Oz as Yoda there's.
[7:33] Not one you could leave out, is there?
[7:40] Right. Should we do it then?
[7:41] Yeah, let's do it. OK, Great.
[7:43] Torn tones at the ready. Look out for Whompers.
[7:46] We're picking you. The beginning of The Empire
[7:48] Strikes Back. I mean, John Williams, Come on.
[8:11] Yeah. Ripping off the Batman there.
[8:16] We'll get to him, obviously. Always time for Williams, of
[8:18] course. Yeah, yeah.
[8:20] The first active Empire takes place entirely on the ice planet
[8:23] of Hoth, as the rebels hide over an echo base from the Empire.
[8:26] And we've got a couple of big sequences to get into.
[8:29] The Battle of Hoth, where the Empire launch a full scale
[8:31] assault on the Rebels is coming. But before that, we're with our
[8:34] lead, Luke Skywalker, as he comes a cropper against a Wampa
[8:38] monster. Steady, Hey, steady girl.
[8:42] Hey, what's? The matter?
[8:44] You smell something. After being reintroduced to our
[8:56] old bodies, Luke and Han Solo, Luke is taken by a whomper and
[9:00] when he doesn't report back to base, Han sets out to find him.
[9:03] This sequence brings us tone tone, snow monsters, Luke using
[9:07] the Force on the ghostly appearance of Obi Wan Kenobi.
[9:12] Mine is the warmest place to hide according to John
[9:14] Carpenter. But he didn't have a tone tone,
[9:16] did he? How does it feel to be back with
[9:19] Luke and Han Westy? It feels great to be back and
[9:22] it's it's so nice when you hear Hans voice over the radio and
[9:25] it's like, hey, nobody's like, yeah, I love it.
[9:27] It's like. Yes, cry.
[9:30] It's just like friends are back together.
[9:32] This is amazing. And I just I I love that whole
[9:34] landscape. I love the idea of Hoth.
[9:36] I love the idea of like that ice planet.
[9:38] It's just it is great. I mean, it's like half an hour,
[9:41] 40 minutes, isn't it Hoth? It doesn't feel like whatsoever.
[9:44] It's just you're there for like most of the the like.
[9:46] Well, definitely the opening of the whole film, but it did move
[9:50] to so many different places. But I just find this just so
[9:52] interesting. But I also love how angry Han
[9:55] Solo is in the opening of this film.
[9:56] He's angry all the way through, like nothing makes him happy at
[10:00] all. He's happy to be frozen in
[10:02] carbonite. To be fair.
[10:03] He's like, thank God. It's just like a relief.
[10:07] But this is just, no, it's great.
[10:09] I love the one for attack. I love the way that comes from
[10:10] Norway. All the probes being sent down.
[10:14] That's really cool. That's really interesting.
[10:15] You have this sense of impending doom and you have all the
[10:18] generals with like cough sweets, just gaffer tape at the tops,
[10:21] which is fantastic. It's just a bunch of Strepsils.
[10:24] So what the? Wow, Yeah, cough sweets.
[10:28] It's never known. Yeah.
[10:31] So it's like, that's really good.
[10:33] And it's just like, I don't know, I just really love the
[10:36] opening of the film. I think it's fantastic.
[10:37] It sets a scene, it brings the characters back.
[10:39] You see everyone you need to see when you need to see them.
[10:41] And yeah, it's great. That one protect just comes from
[10:44] normal. What do you smell something?
[10:45] Boom. And then it just kills the car.
[10:46] Yeah, it's like straight. It's really graphic, so.
[10:49] Wow, it is, yeah. Great.
[10:51] No, it's not. Whenever I see the first few
[10:56] seconds of this, I always get a sense of the excitement that
[10:58] must have been there for Star Wars fans to see this back in
[11:01] 1980. We get this great overhead shot
[11:04] of a figure riding on this weird creature.
[11:06] He takes his mask off and it looks Skywalker.
[11:08] Great reveal. The costume design on both Luke
[11:11] and Han is fantastic by the way. Especially Hans Parker when you
[11:15] see. That haircut, you're like, yes,
[11:18] beautiful. My favorite thing about this
[11:23] whole sequence though is just how angry Han is, mostly for no
[11:26] reason having to go with everyone he talks to.
[11:29] He shouts at Chewie when he's doing his best fixing the
[11:32] Falcon. Then he goes into the control
[11:34] room and has a bust up with layer three.
[11:35] People try to tell him that looks missing and how does a pop
[11:38] at him just put his hand over his mouth.
[11:41] Then he asks that officer if he's seen Luke and is really
[11:43] rude when he says he hasn't. Then when he gets on his torn
[11:46] tone some of that guy just trying to help says Sir your
[11:49] torn tone will freeze before the 1st marker and hand leg and
[11:52] it'll see you in hell. Massive overreaction.
[11:55] Why? Don't you go check, it's getting
[11:58] dark out there. Getting everyone told but yeah
[12:05] the torn tones are great. The wombat looks great.
[12:07] I love that shot and says cave where we see it sitting down.
[12:10] Some of that creature looks brilliant.
[12:12] That and great to see all the characters again, even if Han is
[12:15] so mad he could spit. Yeah, he's so angry.
[12:18] It's great, man. I.
[12:20] Really love the writing in Howard Re establishes these
[12:23] characters, particularly Han and Layer in the base because
[12:25] straight away you can see their relationship has developed so
[12:28] much from the end of Star Wars. Because as soon as he enters
[12:31] that control room she is glaring daggers at him which I find
[12:34] really funny. They've not said a thing to each
[12:36] other in the look she gives them.
[12:38] I. Think that's just an art
[12:40] imitating life though, to be fair to somebody.
[12:42] Oh, I think that's definitely fed into a.
[12:43] Real life relationship, yeah. Yeah.
[12:45] Absolutely, because she is really pissed off about
[12:49] something. But you also see it's that makes
[12:51] you. She is disappointed that he's
[12:53] leaving, both on a personal level and because we see here
[12:56] how important he is to the rebellion.
[12:57] Now he is part of them and he's going to be a big mess.
[13:00] But love our way isn't filled. He knows why she's hurt, which
[13:04] is why he says, you know, we need.
[13:06] What about you need and I just love all that dialogue to have
[13:10] is the continue argument into the corridor.
[13:12] It's really funny when he calls a yes, your Highnessness, that's
[13:16] a great line. That line.
[13:18] You know, when she would talk, I'll just assume kiss a Wookiee.
[13:21] And it's great because having this proper like domestic bust
[13:23] up in the corridor and every other rebel is just walking past
[13:26] them, just doing the job, having supplies, getting all of what
[13:29] they need to do. No one's giving them the
[13:30] slightest bit attention. This must just happen every
[13:33] single day, probably about three times a day.
[13:35] Also just having a big row in front of everyone.
[13:38] Yeah, it's just them on it again, but that.
[13:40] Guy walks through the middle of his heart and then steps back.
[13:44] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, great.
[13:48] Yeah, it's. Really funny all.
[13:50] Of the outdoor scenes on the hearth were filmed in Fins
[13:52] Mountain village in Norway and they had some issues when the
[13:54] area was hit by its biggest snowstorm in 100 years,
[13:57] avalanches and everything. Wow.
[13:59] Classic Lucas looked at hanging over from the first film, The
[14:02] Brian De Palma curse. Normally that storm would have
[14:06] halted filming, but Evan Kirchner thought it was a chance
[14:08] to shoot the scene where Luke wonders through the snow after
[14:10] he's escaped the Wombas cave. He spoke to Mark Hamill, who
[14:13] said he would do it, and Kirchner sent him out in the
[14:15] snow by himself while he stayed in the hotel and filmed him from
[14:19] there. Outrageous.
[14:22] Right up. The other thing I like those how
[14:25] we get to see Obi Wan Force Corsi for the first time telling
[14:29] to go to Dagbar and then obviously you'll see him later
[14:31] on on Dagbar itself with Yoda, but wasn't even one day's work
[14:34] file again. So he turned up half eight in
[14:36] the morning, was done by 1:00 in the afternoon.
[14:38] And instead of taking a flat fee, he got a quarter of a
[14:41] percentage point of the film's gross, which ended up making the
[14:43] millions. So not bad for like half a day's
[14:45] work. Yeah, paid millions for 4 1/2
[14:48] hours worth. I tell you what, he's got some
[14:51] nerve slacking off. Star Wars.
[14:54] Yeah, not. Even bothered about looking like
[14:56] he wasn't a haircut, he looks really fresh.
[15:00] No, it was actually the final day of shooting as well that he
[15:02] turned to the do his scene, so he stuck around at the rock
[15:04] party to. Another first shot in the film
[15:07] after the opening crawl as a Star Destroyer sending probes
[15:09] out into space. The film originally started on
[15:12] Hoff, which I can see from Kirchner's point of view, trying
[15:14] to make get a bit more of a drama, trying to make it a bit
[15:16] more of a kind of acceptable, less sci-fi.
[15:19] But that's how it was written and put together by Kirchner,
[15:21] which I can see. But Lucas changed it in the
[15:23] edit. So we'll see the Star Destroyer
[15:24] first. So even though Lucas is taking a
[15:27] back seat, he's really not. He's like starters Dr. First.
[15:30] That's how we got the first one. That work, that work in 77.
[15:34] Do it again. Yeah, that also explains why the
[15:38] opening shot the Star Destroyer is a bit unremarkable.
[15:42] Yes, I did the opening shot start the.
[15:44] Bottom of it, that's that's it. I don't see much of it at all.
[15:48] So a good start of the film and good to be back in the Star Wars
[15:52] universe then. It's great.
[15:52] To be back totally your. Time title freeze before you
[15:55] reach the first marker, then we'll.
[15:57] See you in hell. After being introduced to our
[16:00] main characters again, it's not long before the huge spectacle
[16:03] comes in the Battle of Hoth, and that's what we're going to talk
[16:05] about for our second scene 2. Are you all right?
[16:08] Yeah. I'm with your own leader.
[16:10] We'll. Send our food, I'll cover for
[16:11] you. Coming around.
[16:15] Watch that crossfire, boys. Having investigated and
[16:18] destroyed an Imperial probe Droid and realizes the Empire
[16:21] are on their way and the rebels beginning evacuation.
[16:25] The Empire turned up before they completed though and launched a
[16:27] full scale assault on the Rebel base.
[16:29] The Battle of Hoth sequence brings those scout walkers, snow
[16:32] speeders, and one of the most iconic images from the series
[16:36] adults. How's this for battle sequence,
[16:39] Matt? It's still just amazing, isn't
[16:42] it? But watching it as an adult,
[16:44] it's just so incredibly thrilling and exciting.
[16:46] And the the flying through the legs and the tying the legs
[16:49] around the tripping things over, it's just amazing.
[16:51] And it but the bits that stand out for me is when Luke's snow
[16:54] speeder gets hit and you get that really great behind the
[16:56] shoulder shot. If I'm plowing into the snore.
[16:59] Yeah. Because that always reminds me
[17:01] if you've seen former Correspondent, that Hitchcock
[17:03] film from the 40s. Oh, yeah.
[17:05] Yeah. There's the scene now where the
[17:07] heroes not from the escaping in the plane and get shot down in
[17:10] the crash into the sea. And you get, and I think we've
[17:12] tweeted this, actually, we'll get a very similar shot we have
[17:15] of them plowing into the sea and the water bursts and the cabin.
[17:18] Because The thing is that was like a really revolutionary
[17:20] special effect back at the time that Hitchcock did.
[17:23] And I'm just saying there's no way that Kirchner, who is a film
[17:25] teacher, doesn't know that. So I think, of course, I think
[17:28] this has to be a not the front correspondent, which I really
[17:31] love. It definitely has.
[17:33] That's like saying Tarantino hasn't seen 8 1/2 weeks.
[17:35] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[17:38] He's watching it now. But there's that bit after he
[17:45] crashes and does make me laugh because he gets out and there's
[17:47] an AT stomping towards him so he, you know, gets his grappling
[17:50] hook out straight up there. Could stop the lightsaber
[17:52] grenade in boom, brings it down. But does being a Jedi mean you
[17:56] can fall really high distances with no problem?
[17:59] Because that must be about 50 feet balls.
[18:02] Well, there has to be because, you know, he lands on his feet
[18:05] and he just bounds away, no problems.
[18:07] It's. Snowing it's.
[18:08] Well, you know, his kneecap should exploded that, but no
[18:11] problem, just runs where. But you know, I love it all the
[18:14] same. It's really part of its
[18:15] fantastic sequence. Yeah, I love the snow speeders
[18:19] looking the rebels fly, especially as a point of view
[18:21] shot from the side. The snow speeds when they're
[18:23] flying in between the legs of the adults.
[18:24] Brilliant. I think the storytelling superb.
[18:27] How we're cutting between the battle and the evacuation where
[18:29] Hans trying to get layout of the Falcon.
[18:31] But it's the adults for me. They just look fantastic.
[18:34] The design is off the charts for them and the stop motion
[18:38] animation by ILM to make them move is incredible.
[18:40] That's some of the most realistic looking stop motion
[18:42] I've ever seen, I think. Yeah, the shot when you can see
[18:45] three alerts at the same time on the screen and the snow speed is
[18:47] swooping in between them. Yeah, that looks great today,
[18:50] which is from 1980. Unbelievable.
[18:53] Do you know what at that stands for?
[18:55] All terrain armor transport of course.
[18:56] You know nerd, correct? It does.
[19:01] Do you? Know what at St. stands for.
[19:05] Oh, is that scout transport? Yeah, Ultra in scout transport,
[19:08] Yeah, there's one in Hoff that nobody mentions, but.
[19:11] There is. What do you think of this
[19:12] sequence? I think it's rubbish.
[19:17] No, of course not. I think it's absolutely
[19:18] fantastic. But then singing the adults just
[19:20] coming just from like on the binoculars and they're just over
[19:23] there and you just think, oh God, that's terrible.
[19:26] And you know, when Nick's run through to his snow speed and
[19:29] he's got his helmet, he's kind of like pushing people out the
[19:31] way. And I was, I thought myself,
[19:32] that's what I want to do when I grow.
[19:35] Up. I know I just want to be a rebel
[19:38] and like run to me snow speeder on a Monday morning and just be
[19:41] like really up for it. But it didn't happen.
[19:46] I always thought that's so cool. Imagine just doing that like
[19:48] when you that's all you do. Like you fly a snow speeder and
[19:51] you've got like your mate in the back.
[19:54] And I think that the design of the snow speed is I had that
[19:56] tour when I was a kid. It was absolutely fantastic,
[19:59] just brilliant. I just love the way they've
[20:00] taken all of the fights that you've seen and all of the.
[20:03] The conflicts that you've seen from the first film, from outer
[20:05] space to a real landscape that you can really understand, and
[20:09] you're just like, wow, Star Wars is something else now.
[20:12] Yeah, I can't think of many snow based battle scenes.
[20:15] This is surely the most famous one.
[20:16] I think that. Way eagles there?
[20:18] Probably, yeah. Inside, yeah.
[20:20] Inception. Yeah, well.
[20:22] If Wesley did want to be rebel, he should have joined the
[20:25] Norwegian mountain rescue skiers, because that's who
[20:27] you're playing. The X was in the scene, the
[20:28] plane of the rebel. I still.
[20:29] Might still. Make them up on the drill,
[20:32] that's what I'll say. And for their participation,
[20:35] Lucas gave a donation to the Norwegian Red Cross.
[20:37] Oh. Nice.
[20:38] Very nice. Some of them guys are probably
[20:40] in the film Monganala Guinness. Probably are all of them.
[20:43] For $5,000,000 there's no probably about it.
[20:48] We also hear A Wilhelm Scream in this sequence as well.
[20:51] For anyone that doesn't know, the Wilhelm scream is like a
[20:53] stock sound effect that's been around since the 50s and it's in
[20:56] all the Star Wars films. I think it sounds like this.
[21:00] So we had two in Empire. One's here.
[21:02] When an adult blows up the Rebel blaster dish, do you know where
[21:05] the other one is? Yeah.
[21:06] I know where it is in the first one.
[21:08] I don't know where it is in this one.
[21:09] Yeah, I. Don't know where the other one
[21:10] isn't here. In this one, it's when hands
[21:12] frozen in carbonite and Chewy throws an Imperial office off
[21:14] the ledge. Screen.
[21:16] Yeah. So Luke's gonna in the snow
[21:18] Speed. That is called Duck, which is an
[21:20] unusual name, but you know where where that comes from, what he's
[21:22] named after. No, I don't know.
[21:23] Bearing in mind that Lucas was involved, right?
[21:27] So what does he name everything after?
[21:28] So anyway. The.
[21:30] Assistant the assistant editor of an empire was called Julian
[21:33] Durham and had a dog called duck so there you go Indiana Jones
[21:38] chewbacard yeah ducks people dogs after a dog imagine known
[21:43] like George Lucas and getting a new dog you have so much
[21:45] pressure named. Yeah, after Star Wars came out,
[21:49] all George was friends, board dogs.
[21:53] Yeah, let's see, what's your dog called?
[21:54] I'm not telling you, George, because.
[21:59] As a battle sequence door, this one's pretty great, I think,
[22:01] isn't it? Yeah.
[22:02] Oh. It's fantastic.
[22:11] And that is act one of The Empire Strikes Back.
[22:13] There's a lot more to come, of course, but with those two
[22:15] sequences, the one followed by the Battle of Hoth, Empire
[22:18] pretty much picks up where Star Wars left off in terms of top
[22:20] class spectacle. Yeah.
[22:22] Then takes it somewhere completely different.
[22:24] Oh yeah. The director.
[22:31] The director of The Empire Strikes Back was ervin Kirchner,
[22:34] known mostly in 1980 as an influential film mixture at USC.
[22:38] In the director of some quirky indie dramas like The Hoodlum
[22:41] Priest in 1961, The Flimflam Man in 67, and Eyes of Laura Mars in
[22:45] 78, Empire was a big shift in his career path, to say the
[22:49] least. How do we think Evan Kirchner
[22:52] does? Is that right To have our past
[22:54] breaks back, Westie? I think Irvin Kirchner really
[22:58] had a lot to do here and he's pretty underrated for what he
[23:02] had to do. This is a big deal.
[23:04] This is a big gig. Yeah.
[23:06] This is like this is like stress on tools Like how can how can
[23:10] you take over from what Lucas did in 77 and turn?
[23:13] You've got three years later, they've got a script that
[23:16] there's probably a little bit all over the place.
[23:18] You've got characters that don't really want to be there.
[23:19] You've got actors like Harrison Ford who pretty much don't want
[23:22] to be there. You've got to try and make it
[23:24] where you've got to try and find the humor.
[23:26] You've got to take Star Wars, Star Wars somewhere else.
[23:28] Then you've got to make A twist and you've got to make a turn
[23:30] and you've got to make it believable at the same time.
[23:34] And I think he does all that. I think he does an incredible
[23:36] job with this. I don't know if and Lucas
[23:38] couldn't have done it. I'll be honest, I don't think he
[23:40] could have. But looking at Irvin Kirschner's
[23:42] back catalogue, looking at what he's done, looking at where he
[23:45] comes from, I mean, he just really understands film.
[23:47] And he wanted to make this into a cinematic film, not just a
[23:53] throwaway sci-fi film. You wanted to do something deep
[23:55] with this. And me and the film have emotion
[23:57] and it lives on. And I think it always will.
[23:59] And I think that's testament to him and having that that that
[24:02] real gutsy confidence to go against Lucas.
[24:04] I know Lucas changed lots of lots of things in the edits and
[24:08] had a lot to say about the story, had a lot to say about
[24:10] the characters. But Irvin Kirschner, I think
[24:12] anchors this film and makes it something totally different,
[24:14] something that nobody else could have made it.
[24:17] And I think he deserves more credit than he gets for that.
[24:19] I think people, more people should know who Irvin Kirschner
[24:21] is because of what he did on this film.
[24:23] That's it's a massive deal. Yeah, considering his
[24:25] filmography before Empire, I mentioned some films there, it
[24:28] must have been more hell of a shock to people when Irvin
[24:30] Kirschner was announced as the director of Star Wars 2.
[24:33] Like who? Who?
[24:35] Who? But based on that filmography,
[24:37] the stuff he's expecting to handle well in Empire is the
[24:39] drama. I think the Han Leah love story,
[24:42] the Luke Vader family opera. And he does those beats all land
[24:45] massively and all feel powerful. But the party might expect him
[24:48] to struggle with the action, the spectacle.
[24:50] It doesn't show it all that he's got no experience with those.
[24:53] We talked about the Battle of Hoth and it's brilliant.
[24:55] We will talk about the space battles and lightsaber fights
[24:58] and they're brilliant. The tone's fantastic too.
[25:00] Everyone says Empire has the darkest Star Wars film, and it
[25:03] is. But to me, it's also the
[25:04] funniest Star Wars film. He bounces the comedy in the
[25:07] drama incredibly well, which isn't easy to do.
[25:09] Just look at The Last Jedi, where the tones all over the
[25:12] place. To me, yeah, it's rock solid.
[25:14] The comedy never undermines the drama.
[25:16] And that's Kirchner kind of being easy with the mega and
[25:19] Lucas understandably checking everything over all the time.
[25:21] But clearly the word together really well, I think.
[25:24] Brilliant word by Irving Kirchner for me.
[25:26] He's made a stone cold classic of a film.
[25:27] What can you say? Yeah.
[25:29] I think Kirchner knew where he needed help with the action
[25:31] sequences and knew that George Lucas could come in and use
[25:33] that, and he used them for that and then just said, hold on a
[25:35] second, I've got this. But yeah, you have that bit.
[25:37] I've got this bit. And it would, it does.
[25:39] It works so well together it. Does I'm mad?
[25:41] What about you? Yeah, I just, I was trying to
[25:44] put myself like in a George Lucas head spear.
[25:47] See, like he's made the biggest film of all time.
[25:51] He's got the secret Corner, which he knows everyone's time
[25:53] to see. He doesn't ask his best mate
[25:55] Spielberg to do it. He asks an old teacher to do it.
[25:58] He would then turns into film. I would say it 10 times better
[26:01] than what Lucas did. And like what?
[26:04] What was Luke's reaction to that?
[26:05] Like what the hell? I think I experienced so much of
[26:08] his career after this because it's such a bizarre choice.
[26:11] But look, I would it turned out because for someone with like
[26:14] you said on 0 experience and handling special effects
[26:17] sequences or action set pieces, he just put them together like
[26:20] Spielberg. For me that with just that
[26:22] confidence and I think this. Was a huge influence on
[26:26] Spielberg. Oh yeah.
[26:27] Huge had. To be because every one of those
[26:29] scenes is so sharp and so fine-tuned.
[26:32] But I think he can tell this is a guy who teaches film because I
[26:35] think he he has looked at this in a very methodical way in that
[26:38] he's taken the story apart and he understands the mechanics of
[26:42] storytelling. So he knows how to put this
[26:44] together in an interesting way, how to keep it tonally level all
[26:48] the way through. And I think he's also very, very
[26:50] much an actors director as well, because I think every
[26:52] performance in this film is a vast improvement on what we get
[26:56] in Star Wars. And I think that's because
[26:58] Kirchner, I don't think he cares for one minute about the stuff
[27:01] that Lucas cares about. I don't think he cares about the
[27:03] mythology. What he cares about is how do I
[27:05] make this story work? How do I get these characters to
[27:08] function and give them a compelling story?
[27:10] And ultimately, if you compare this to Star Wars, I think,
[27:13] well, Lucas said there was he took all these amazing
[27:16] characters, all these pieces and he put them on the chess board
[27:19] in the first film. But Lucas only knows how to play
[27:21] a draft. He only knows like basic moves
[27:23] out of all of this. Kirchner knows how to play a
[27:26] chess, and that's the difference between the two films for me.
[27:29] Yeah, nice. Well.
[27:31] After the unprecedented success of Star Wars, the sequel was
[27:33] always going to happen. Wasn't.
[27:36] It Oh yeah, we. Talked on our Star Wars podcast
[27:38] episode. What about the deal Lucas made
[27:39] with 20th Century Fox to grant him control of our merchandise
[27:42] and sequels? So in order to keep that
[27:44] control, Lucas decided the finance empire himself.
[27:48] The initial budget for the film was $18 million, and Lucas
[27:51] bankrolled it with a combination of his own money he made from
[27:53] Star Wars and by taking our bank loan.
[27:56] I mean, that's the dream, isn't it, for a creative film maker.
[27:58] Total independence and studios with full creative control over
[28:01] everything. Yeah, yeah, we.
[28:04] Also taught in our Star Wars podcast how the production of
[28:06] that film left Lucas hospitalized with stress and
[28:08] exhaustion, and because of that he wasn't at all keen on
[28:12] directing Empire. So we started looking for a
[28:14] director. Evan Kirchner was hired pretty
[28:16] quickly, but before that, Lucas did consider another well known
[28:19] director. Have you heard who that was?
[28:21] And it wasn't Spielberg. OK, I'm.
[28:25] Sure, I know this. Coppola.
[28:26] Because he was friends with Coppola, wasn't he?
[28:29] Well, according to Paul Verhoeven, he was invited for a
[28:32] meeting with Lucas and the producer Gary Kurt to talk about
[28:35] directing Empire. Hoeven said that he turned up
[28:37] with this meeting with the court of his new movie called Spetas,
[28:40] which is apparently like a sexually explicit version
[28:43] version of Grease. That's outrageous, Hoevens.
[28:46] Director of Empire. Would that have worked do you
[28:48] think? It's really funny because
[28:50] Kirchner directed RoboCop too. I know.
[28:52] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[28:54] So. That's I don't think it would
[28:56] have his hand getting chopped up.
[28:58] Yeah, blood spurred not the end of it was Yeah.
[29:01] Half of his face off Clarence Bottlegar is Darth Vader.
[29:07] Well, after his screen spent as Lucas and Kurt for Hovind said
[29:10] that he never heard from them ever again.
[29:12] Wow. Kirchner had been George Lucas
[29:16] lecturer actually, when he was a film student at USC, and Lucas
[29:20] regarded him as a mentor figure. So Kirchner was already 57 at
[29:23] the time. But Lucas said to him, you know
[29:25] everything a Hollywood director is supposed to know, but you're
[29:27] not Hollywood, Which is brilliant because that's true.
[29:30] Yeah, he did turn Lucas down the first, though, because he said
[29:33] he had no interest in doing a special effects movie in B He
[29:36] thought Star Wars couldn't be topped anyway.
[29:37] But it's got his agent had a conversation with him and that's
[29:41] when he changed his mind. I'll bet he did, saying the
[29:43] dollar sign today. Kirching, I mentioned the
[29:48] production issue Star Wars had there.
[29:50] An Empire wasn't without with problems either.
[29:52] Have you heard much about this? I've heard a fair few.
[29:56] Yeah, there's, there's there is a fair few.
[29:57] Well, firstly, the production started late.
[29:59] Stanley Kubrick had filmed the shine in the Elstree and a fire
[30:02] had burned the set down. So this meant a start date for
[30:05] Empire was delayed by about three months with the being
[30:08] follow follow up with Star Wars that the contend daily with
[30:12] newspapers trying to infiltrate the set.
[30:14] The Sun hired helicopters to fly over the set taking pictures.
[30:17] Luckily, almost all of it was filmed indoors office.
[30:20] Yeah, plot leaks were a big deal on the film.
[30:22] Lucas kept tabs on the cast, and at one point you had a report
[30:25] which read Harrison Ford one leak.
[30:27] Carrie Fisher one leak. David Prowl's 9 leaks.
[30:34] We'll get the pros and his plot leaks later on, yeah?
[30:37] Really trustworthy pros. How many things do you know?
[30:41] 9 things you want to tell us All that things.
[30:48] And the production was further delayed by snowstorms, as you
[30:50] said, John, and bad planning by producer Gary Kurtz.
[30:53] And one of the second unit directors, John Barry, collapsed
[30:56] on the set and died from meningitis, which is really
[30:59] funny as well. Yeah, I know a.
[31:01] Visit by Prince Charles that had to be cancelled as well.
[31:04] Good at. Least wasn't Prince Andrew.
[31:11] The Empire does strike back. There's a story as well where
[31:16] Frank Oz who voiced Yoda was visited on the set by Holly
[31:19] Corkless who would work with ours as a director on the Muppet
[31:22] Shore, and Lucas grabbed Cokeless on the set and
[31:24] instantly offered him the job of a second year director because
[31:27] it was so far buying schedule. Just getting everybody in there
[31:33] was screwed. Then after production wrapped
[31:37] Lucas saw the first cut and called it disastrous.
[31:40] Which I would imagine means it would be amazing.
[31:46] And then Lucas re edited the whole movie to which it it made
[31:51] it no better. So they had to do extensive
[31:53] reshoots and go through post production all again.
[31:56] Like I want to see that first cup.
[31:58] I think that'll be that'll be something else because it's just
[32:01] pure Kirchner going. What do you think of this?
[32:03] And Lucas is like, I don't think I'm ready for that yet.
[32:05] Can I have more Star Destroyers please?
[32:07] Yeah, well, the budget by this point had increased from
[32:10] $18,000,000 to $30.5 million. And having paid for the film
[32:15] himself, Lucas was basically facing financial ruin again.
[32:20] He went back to 20th Century Fox and made a deal whereby they
[32:23] would finance the increase in budget for a bigger cut of
[32:25] profits. And that deal basically saved
[32:27] the film from catastrophe and Lucas from going insane, I would
[32:31] imagine. What a stressful time.
[32:33] What a stressful time, making the Empire stress back the.
[32:36] Thing is about that deal or Lucas got a massive favour from
[32:39] Alan Ladd Junior who at the time he was head of Fox because what
[32:42] Ladd did was signed away all the sequel to merchandise and rights
[32:44] to Lucas who obviously on his ass was never going to say no.
[32:48] And then when the shareholders found that out they kicked off
[32:51] so a lad had to leave his job. The knock on effect was Lucas
[32:54] took his next project away which was Raiders.
[32:57] Which is why Raiders is a Paramount Pictures film, not not
[33:00] a 20th Century Fox well. Right, right.
[33:03] Just just for the better. Just you've got that mountain.
[33:06] Well, exactly. Yeah.
[33:08] What's he going to do? Spotlight.
[33:16] Yeah, a lot did Lucas one hell of a big favor there all that as
[33:19] well because Cooper going to set the shining down crazy.
[33:22] Well, he. Didn't personally.
[33:26] Well, despite all those enormous problems, Empire was a massive
[33:29] success, and as director, even Kirchner gets a lot of the
[33:32] credit for that new award recognition.
[33:34] Do you know who won Best Director at the Oscars that
[33:37] year, Matt? Yes, you do, Matt.
[33:39] What year? 1980. 81 So Robert Redford it.
[33:44] Was. Unbelievable.
[33:46] Yeah. Ordinary people.
[33:47] Unbelievable. Take us on this boy.
[33:49] Man, amazing. Lucas did ask Kirchner return
[33:52] the direct return of the Jedi, but he said no, not surprised
[33:56] after all that. No, I'm.
[33:58] Pretty good, read the script. How about as well?
[34:01] Instead. And actually, he only directed
[34:04] two more Hollywood films after Empire.
[34:06] Do you know what? They were right.
[34:08] Never seen never again was never seen ever again before.
[34:10] It would have been, wasn't it 60s?
[34:11] No, no, that was 1983, Sean Connery's final outing.
[34:14] Bond Yeah, so never seen ever again was one.
[34:16] Never seen Ever Again and RoboCop 2 RoboCop.
[34:19] Two in 1990, yeah. Yeah.
[34:21] Sadly, Evan Kirchner passed away in 2010, and when he did, George
[34:25] Lucas had this to say about him. The world has lost a great
[34:28] director. When I think of Kirch, I think
[34:31] of his warmth, his thoughtfulness, and his talent.
[34:33] Evan Kirchner was a true gentleman in every sense of the
[34:36] word. Beautiful words.
[34:38] It is the. Cast.
[34:45] Irvin Kirschner was a new addition to the Star Wars
[34:47] family, of course, but not so with the cast.
[34:50] All of the main cast returned from the first film, and we're
[34:53] going to talk about our three main heroes and main villain.
[34:57] Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia, Harrison Ford is Han Solo, and
[35:00] David Prowse and James Dale joins us.
[35:01] Darth Vader are all coming up, but we're going to start with
[35:04] our lead, Mark Hamill at Luke Skywalker.
[35:06] You. Have learned much, young one.
[35:13] Our protagonist returning from Star Wars, Luke goes on another
[35:16] adventure in Empire from almost being eaten by a whomper through
[35:19] meeting Yoda and being trained in the ways of the Force.
[35:22] He ultimately loses his hand and a lifesaver due to Darth Vader
[35:25] in the climax of the movie. Yeah.
[35:27] Worse nor that though, he kisses his own sister.
[35:30] Yeah. And is really proud about it as
[35:33] well. I.
[35:34] Smoke about it. Hands behind the head, What do?
[35:39] We think of Luke Skywalker here and Mark Hamill in the role.
[35:41] Wesley. I think Hamill's great in this.
[35:44] I think he understands the assignment.
[35:47] He comes back, he's got a lot of problems because he's got to
[35:50] just deal with puppets for most of it. 80% of it listen to no
[35:54] one else to act with apart from Yoda, which there's the bulk of
[35:57] the film for him. But when he is with other
[35:59] people, he has got that charisma.
[36:00] He has got that, you know, he knows who Luke Skywalker is now
[36:03] and so do we. And it's very confident
[36:05] character, a very confident performance.
[36:07] And you just you want that in a hero.
[36:09] And I think he absolutely nails it.
[36:10] I don't, I don't think any part of this.
[36:12] I mean, it could be so cheesy. It could be so like over the
[36:16] top. And but when he's like saying
[36:18] no, when he finds out, you know, the twist and it's just you just
[36:21] say, yeah, you're there. You buy it.
[36:22] And you just see how tired he is and how much he wants to be
[36:25] something that he doesn't understand what he wants to be,
[36:28] doesn't understand where he comes from, what he's doing.
[36:29] There's a lot of confusion with the character, and I think he
[36:31] sells that really well. He sells the immaturity, that
[36:34] kind of lack of patience when it's with Yoda.
[36:36] I think that all really works. Yeah, I think he's fantastic.
[36:39] He's fantastic to Skywalker. I would say it's a real kind of
[36:43] step up from the Luke we saw in A New Hope and it's absolutely
[36:47] necessary and brilliant and he's great.
[36:49] Yeah, when we covered Luke on our Star Wars episode, I was a
[36:52] little critical of him, saying he's too much of A goody 2 shoes
[36:55] and a bit whiny and a bit one note.
[36:57] Yeah, though that's all but gone.
[36:58] And I think he's excellent. I mean, it's a continuation of
[37:01] his story and it's a great story.
[37:03] And Luke is really well written here as a character.
[37:06] He's much more fleshed out than he is in Star Wars.
[37:08] He's more conflicted mainly, but he's also a bit more selfish, a
[37:12] touch more arrogant, a bit more like a real person.
[37:15] And Mark Hamill playing him, I think he's brilliant.
[37:17] When I watch Star Wars, he's perfectly fine, but it doesn't
[37:20] surprise me that he didn't go on to have a big Hollywood career.
[37:23] Yeah, it kind of does. He's fantastic in the light
[37:26] Saber jewels and great in any scenes with you and R2 where he
[37:28] is basically acting against puppets.
[37:30] So yeah, I'm a big fan. Look here.
[37:32] The best the card has ever been for me.
[37:35] Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely.
[37:37] And. Mark, what about you and Luke?
[37:39] Very much the same. I mean, it's like Hamble took
[37:41] extract and lessons, isn't it? Between Star Wars and this,
[37:44] because he's just so much better.
[37:46] And that sounds harsh, but I think I'm going to say
[37:48] essentially the same thing for the three leads because it goes
[37:51] back to what I said about Kirshen and being an actors
[37:53] director. I do think Kirshen needs a bit
[37:55] of credit to you as well, because I think the performance
[37:57] feels a lot more guided than it ever was by Lucas in in Star
[38:02] Wars. But in terms of the right and
[38:04] Lucas just got much more depth from which I think Hamill really
[38:07] needs, and he appreciates it. He's not the little kid that we
[38:10] saw three years previously. He has the weight of knowing
[38:13] that he has the Force and he can't control it.
[38:16] But he's not fully offered yet. You know, some people look to
[38:18] him for leadership now, but he still doesn't know everything.
[38:21] He is still too impulsive. Runs where when you order, tells
[38:25] him to stare. So he's not the fully formed
[38:27] hero yet. So I just find him as a
[38:29] character much more interesting this time around.
[38:31] And it's a better performance from Hamel because of that.
[38:33] I mean, towards the end when when he does get the ultimate in
[38:36] surprise and family news, he just absolutely sells the hell
[38:40] out of that moment. You couldn't ask for anyone
[38:42] better it better in that scene. So yeah, yeah, big fun of what
[38:45] he does say because because like you John, I'm not a massive fan
[38:47] of what he didn't. So I was, but here much much
[38:50] better. Yeah, I'm always returning from
[38:52] Star Wars, of course. So if you want to hear the story
[38:54] of how he got the part of Luke, check out our Star Wars episode.
[38:58] But he still had to do a lot of prep to return for Empire.
[39:01] He had to spend four months learning karate, fencing and
[39:04] Kendall to prepare for his stunts and action scenes.
[39:07] Yeah, I can't take much karate in Empire Strikes Back, to be
[39:09] honest with you. Exactly.
[39:12] John Wick is. Swinging from vines.
[39:16] Yeah, Hamel didn't always have a good time on set either.
[39:18] His son was born during production and Hamel was given
[39:21] the day off. But he was called back to the
[39:23] set 9 hours after his son's birth to redo his shot.
[39:27] And the shot was the moment during the Battle of Hoth when
[39:29] he's about to get trampled on by the AT AT and jumps from the
[39:32] snow speed AT to avoid it. He wasn't very happy and being
[39:35] called back in and it got worse because in performing the stunt
[39:38] he brought his thumb, which is ridiculous but anyone could have
[39:41] done that shot. But actually, she was stunt
[39:43] double easy. With a helmet on, easily, yeah,
[39:45] Yeah. I know.
[39:47] There was also an accident at the start of filming after
[39:49] Luke's being attacked by the Womba, and we'll see him in the
[39:51] banter. Tank full of water.
[39:52] Yeah, just before Hamel got in the tank and mirror above the
[39:55] tank shattered and huge pieces of glass tore down into the
[39:58] water. It was that bad.
[39:59] The cursion. I said if Mark had been in the
[40:01] tank at the time he probably wouldn't have survived basing my
[40:05] death. Yeah, going to full ends for.
[40:10] His work on Empire, Mark Hummel won the Sutton Award for Best
[40:12] Actor. He returned as Luke and Return
[40:14] of the Jedi, then again in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
[40:18] We seem to agree, though, that Empire is his best Star Wars
[40:20] performance. Definitely Empire is his best
[40:22] Star Wars performance, I think. I think A New Hopes a little bit
[40:25] too loose, and I think he's really pretentious and Return of
[40:28] the Jedi too pretentious, yeah. Probably arrogant by then, yeah.
[40:36] The next person we're talking about was another returning cast
[40:38] member, Carrie Fisher, as head of the Rebel Alliance Princess
[40:42] Leah Organa Empire. Is.
[40:45] Still out there, I don't think It's not time.
[40:46] To discuss this, the committee I am.
[40:50] Not a committee. Now the leader of the Rebels,
[40:53] Leah orchestrates the evacuation from Hoth, then joins Han, Chewy
[40:56] and 3P1 on the Falcon, being chased by the Empire all the way
[40:59] to Bespin before rescuing Luke and rejoining the Rebel fleet.
[41:04] What do we think of Leanne Carrie Fisher in the film Matt?
[41:08] Excellent. And again, like Hamel, she's got
[41:11] more to work with in terms of material.
[41:13] You know, like Luke, it's a different character now.
[41:15] She's not but Princess anymore. Still in the teens who, you
[41:19] know, could kick us a bit, but it was still, you know, quite
[41:22] young. She's properly grown up in this
[41:25] film, and she's more than anyone.
[41:27] She's happy to take command. Like, I love that scene where
[41:29] she's stealing out the evacuation orders to the pilots
[41:31] because he can see not one of them is taken with anything less
[41:35] than complete respect and authority.
[41:37] She just dominates every scene that she has to, which is great.
[41:41] And she's someone now who has the death of her entire planet
[41:44] to still deal with, but she's not giving in to it.
[41:47] She's still kicking ass, just still giving orders.
[41:49] See, through all of Hans bullshit, she has Landor pegged
[41:52] banged her right as soon as just meets him and Leah.
[41:55] It's just that usual mixture of toughness but real sensitivity
[42:00] when it's just her and Han and she lets it guard down around
[42:02] him. And as he always got with
[42:05] Fisher, really really funny when it's called for.
[42:08] So very much like Hamill. The best Star Wars performance
[42:11] from Fisher in this film. Yeah, I love Leah and I love
[42:15] Carrie Fisher and she is really good in Empire, but the writing
[42:18] of her as a character is probably my least favorite thing
[42:21] about the film, to be honest. I mean apart from three PO just
[42:25] generally, but. Generally.
[42:29] In Star Wars, Leah is awesome, takes charge, possibly that's
[42:32] about. And she's always right.
[42:34] Yeah, she's written as two damsel in distress for my
[42:37] liking. Too much of the film.
[42:39] She's just there, it'll look pretty and get rescued.
[42:41] She's supposed to be the leader of the rebel, the Lions.
[42:43] But aside from a couple of scenes near the start, you
[42:45] mentioned the math where she's imagine the evacuation.
[42:47] She doesn't do any of that. I know it's 1980 and it's of the
[42:50] time, but it feels like a bit of a betrayal of the character that
[42:53] Lucas originally created. That bit when Lando was sleazing
[42:56] all over and saying what have we here?
[42:59] You really belong with us in the clouds and she just says thank
[43:01] you. Then Han has to come and save
[43:03] her. That's awful.
[43:04] No way is Lea from Star Wars putting up with that shit?
[43:07] No way. I mean, I still like her in the
[43:09] film and Carrie Fisher is great, but give her more to do.
[43:12] There isn't been love interest or being rescued by Han, right?
[43:15] So yeah, I do like her in the film, but my biggest criticism
[43:18] of the film is how he has been handled this time around, which
[43:21] I think is this year. OK, interesting.
[43:24] Yeah, I mean, that's totally fair enough.
[43:26] But for me, I think she plays people a little bit more clever
[43:30] than you give her credit for. And there's space there for her
[43:33] to move into that space if she needs to.
[43:35] And I think which is in these kind of different situations,
[43:38] and the only person she cares about was Han all the way
[43:40] through the film. And then Luke again when, you
[43:42] know, she finds out he's in trouble.
[43:44] And it's just she does have this depth and does have this weight.
[43:47] And she is very much, I mean, even if this is 1980, there was
[43:51] no one else with the real guts to do it like this.
[43:53] This is a real kind of, you know, as much as you can do an
[43:57] Ellen Ripley performance in 1980, that's as much as you can
[43:59] do it. You know, she's got a gun.
[44:01] She's blowing stormtroopers away.
[44:02] She's kind of getting away at the end.
[44:04] Chewbacca's having, you know, getting a hold of land on.
[44:06] She's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, get him.
[44:08] That's great. But she is like, I don't know,
[44:11] it's her position. And I think the whole Rebel
[44:14] Alliance doesn't really know where it's going or what it's
[44:16] doing, and everything's in disarray.
[44:18] And I think she's the character that shows how much that whole
[44:23] thing is in disarray, how there is little to focus on, how there
[44:26] was the Death Star will blow that up.
[44:28] That's what we need to do. And in this one, I think you
[44:30] just she has that. She carries that whole kind of
[44:33] confusion and carries it really well and that frustration of
[44:36] like where we're going, what we're doing, what's happening
[44:38] here. So I think she is fantastic.
[44:40] I've always loved Carrie Fisher and I've I've loved her
[44:42] especially in this film. I mean, in the first one, yeah,
[44:45] you can see her and Hamill are just like, yeah, we're kids and
[44:48] we're doing a Star Wars film, this one.
[44:49] But like, yeah, but actors and we, you know, we'll portray an
[44:51] emotion and it works. And she is really funny and
[44:55] great and like, probably the first crusher I ever had and
[44:59] always will be. Princess Leia, Empire Strikes
[45:02] Back, that hair, that hairstyle. Amazing.
[45:04] Come on. Well, when the crew all went to
[45:07] Fins in Norway to shoot the outdoor scenes on Hoth with Luke
[45:10] and Han, Carrie Fisher went with them even though she isn't in
[45:13] any of those scenes because she wanted to spend time with the
[45:15] crew, which is nice. Tell us just dedicated to the
[45:18] whole time. Just say it's just this, this
[45:20] real wait, like I've said. Yeah, and when they were filming
[45:23] London, though, she was renting a house from Eric Idol of all
[45:25] people, probably 1, even an idol organized a party so it was for
[45:31] her house and fought some of the crew.
[45:33] And then The Rolling Stones turned up as well, and well,
[45:37] here we go now. It's apart, yeah.
[45:40] No party till the stones there, according to Fish of the board,
[45:43] a drink that she called the Tunisian table cleaner and they
[45:46] ended up staying up all night. And the next day's shoot was the
[45:50] rifle of Cloud City, which apparently is why she and Ford
[45:52] look the way they do in that scene.
[45:54] Yeah. Yeah, spaced out Yeah talk.
[45:57] About being in the clouds. Party with the stones, I'll do
[45:59] it. Keith Ritz doesn't be like
[46:03] you've been out of space, have you?
[46:04] Galaxy? Far, far away.
[46:05] Try some of this. You.
[46:08] Haven't. Been where I've been, yeah.
[46:11] And during her last few days in the UK, Fisher also discovered
[46:14] from a telephone conversation with her mother, Debbie
[46:16] Reynolds, that someone had threatened to kidnap her.
[46:19] Which is outrageous, but fairly believable because that probably
[46:23] could have been me if I was old enough.
[46:25] Where were you at the time? I'm not telling you.
[46:29] I was behind your tiny telly in the kitchen.
[46:32] So for the last two days, the last few days on the set, she
[46:34] was assigned bodyguards just to make sure she'll be all right.
[46:37] But terrifying stuff, man. Ridiculous Jack.
[46:39] And Richard, the bodyguards, Yeah, the.
[46:42] Kidnappers, probably. After The Empire Strikes Back,
[46:47] Carrie Fisher returned as Leon Return of the Jedi, then again
[46:50] in The Force Awakens in The Last Jedi, and also carved out a
[46:53] career for herself as a writer and novelist, getting BAFTA
[46:55] nominated for adopting her own novel Postcard from the Edge in
[46:59] 1990. Carrie Fisher sadly passed away
[47:03] in 2016, but will always be remembered for being Princess
[47:06] Leia. Absolutely, absolutely, 100%.
[47:13] The Spencer Tracy's Leah's Katherine Hepburn, according to
[47:15] Carrie Fisher, is Han Solo, played by Harrison Ford, and
[47:19] he's the next cast member. We're going to look at in some
[47:21] detail. Why?
[47:22] You stuck up half witted scruffy looking nerf herder.
[47:29] Who is scruffy looking? After saving Luke's life at the
[47:32] star of the movie, Han finds himself romantically involved
[47:35] with Leah before being captured by the Empire, tortured by Veda
[47:38] and frozen in carbonite. Yeah, he's a scoundrel, isn't
[47:42] he? Han Solo?
[47:45] Harrison Ford? An Empire.
[47:46] What do you think, Wesley? Well, everyone knows my stance
[47:49] on Harrison Ford. That's completely honest.
[47:52] I mean, I absolutely adore the guy.
[47:55] He was like me, original hero, Indiana Jones, Razor, The Last
[47:58] Talks, my favorite film of all time.
[47:59] And I always say is he's just great.
[48:02] He's just so watchable. He's just so enjoyable as a
[48:04] character because of his frustration and because if he's
[48:07] just so funny and his body language is great and he's just
[48:11] got such a presence on screen and his hair is amazing and his
[48:14] outfits are great. And I want to be Han Solo.
[48:16] I don't want to be Luke. I want to be on.
[48:18] So I want to blaster and I want like, I want to be like
[48:20] Chewbacca there. And I want to fly the Millennium
[48:22] Falcon. Like that's what I want to be.
[48:24] And he's just so sick of this shit now, isn't he?
[48:27] In this film? I just think he's just a great,
[48:30] great character. Real Comic Relief.
[48:32] I absolutely love forward in this.
[48:34] If I was going to be anyone in my life it would be Han Solo and
[48:37] Empire stretchback and just start bollocking people for no
[48:39] reason. Great.
[48:42] Yeah. I mean, he's fantastic,
[48:44] obviously. Like Luke kind of feels more
[48:46] fleshed out and rounded here. He's more than just knock tape
[48:48] like he thought within Star Wars.
[48:50] The pirate figure, he's super cool.
[48:52] That blue jacket is great. Unreal, but he's.
[48:55] Also a bit of a douchebag doesn't always know what he's
[48:58] doing. One of the best livable rogues
[49:00] I've seen in films I think for sure.
[49:02] I mean we know from his later films.
[49:03] Harrison Ford is excellent as a leading man and he's really good
[49:06] at action as well. My favorite thing about him
[49:08] though is his comedy chops. I think he's an excellent comedy
[49:11] actor and I think this is funniest role.
[49:14] Hanan Lee are like a comedy double act before the fall for
[49:16] each other. I love it when the Falcon breaks
[49:18] down and she's like would it help if I got I'm pushed and
[49:20] he's really offended. Like it might.
[49:24] It might. I love how much three people
[49:27] annoys him because he knows me just as much.
[49:30] But then when the drama comes later on with the frozen in
[49:32] carbonite, he's not found one thing either.
[49:34] Really sells that moment. A powerful, dramatic moment.
[49:37] So brilliant stuff from Harrison Ford.
[49:39] Certainly one of the best performances of his whole career
[49:41] for me. Yeah, top three.
[49:44] Definitely. Yeah, agreed.
[49:45] I think out of the three leads, I think he is probably the one
[49:48] who was happiest with this script and happiest working with
[49:51] Kirschner instead of Lucas in terms of being directed.
[49:54] Because we all know what he said about Lucas's writing and
[49:57] directing technique that, you know, he likes him personally,
[49:59] but you know, I don't think he was that impressed with how he
[50:01] directed him. All of his reaction to three
[50:04] pure when 3 pure basically cock blocks them and interrupt some
[50:06] kissing. Yeah.
[50:07] Thank you. Thank you.
[50:09] Thank you. Very much.
[50:12] Three people was like, you're welcome, Sir.
[50:13] Yeah. This place, he's got great comic
[50:18] traps. You get the cockiness, you get
[50:21] the bravado, but he's given much more depth.
[50:23] And I think what you really start to see is that underneath
[50:26] that bravado, so much of the time he's just winging it and
[50:30] saying what he can get away with and what he doesn't care.
[50:33] He doesn't care. And obviously this film is the
[50:35] one where that look fine he does run out from which which really
[50:38] works as a bit of drama. And I think it's a it's really
[50:40] interesting take on the character.
[50:42] It develops him really well. And yeah, you can see that he
[50:45] doesn't actually know as much about the Falcon as he likes to
[50:48] pretend he does. Look at that bit later where
[50:50] where 3 pure works out what's wrong when Hand doesn't and Hand
[50:53] just pretends that he knew. Has to tell True.
[50:55] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, really funny.
[50:58] So yeah, complete agreement with you guys.
[51:01] The thing out of all of all of his appearance is our solo.
[51:03] This is easily the one that feels definitive for me.
[51:06] Yeah, yeah, I. Mean there's a bit in the start
[51:08] when he when the Hoth base and he just first comes back and you
[51:10] see him and Chewbacca together, he's in a massive hairy suit and
[51:14] he's like shouting at him and say all right man, don't lose
[51:18] your temper. I'm going to go down there.
[51:19] I'll come back and give. Yeah.
[51:21] And he totally sells it. Does do you like?
[51:23] Your next Chewbagger. Miles better.
[51:24] Yeah, he. Does.
[51:25] Yeah, he does. It's.
[51:26] Brilliant. And it's, I think it's quite
[51:29] well known now, I think that Harrison Ford wanted Hansel
[51:33] that'll be killed off at the end of Empire, which I think he
[51:35] wanted with every single character he's played in the
[51:38] franchise. So, yeah, and he didn't want to
[51:43] play the character again, ever. So that's why Lucas had them
[51:45] frozen in carbonite, just to give them the option whether to
[51:48] bring them back or not. But they did, yeah.
[51:50] And it's great, you guys. Wishing The Force Awakens,
[51:52] didn't he? Yeah, he.
[51:54] Loves that that scene when he dies, he's so happy.
[51:58] Finally. Leaps off that bridge.
[52:00] It's like yes deed. Also, when the 1st Trail of
[52:06] Vampire was released in cinemas it had Harrison Ford on there
[52:09] doing the voice over. Really.
[52:11] Have you heard that? No, I haven't.
[52:13] Well, if anyone that's not heard it, here it is, the first Empire
[52:16] Strikes Back trailer voiced by Harrison Ford.
[52:19] Luke. Skywalker and Han Solo rescued
[52:21] the Princess, destroyed the Death Star, but their story
[52:24] didn't end there. Wouldn't it be nice to me?
[52:28] Sounds far too excited to be Harrison Ford, really.
[52:32] Does more excited than he was for the Blade Runner voice over.
[52:36] Ali been at the Tunisian table cleaner when he did that.
[52:40] Must be only explanation. Is there?
[52:45] Also a nice touch when Ford found out that the editor, Paul
[52:47] Hirsch, hadn't been paid for cutting that trigger together,
[52:50] Ford split his fate with him for doing the voice over.
[52:52] Oh nice. Top guy?
[52:54] Absolutely. Legend.
[52:56] No award recognition for Harrison Ford and Empire, but no
[52:59] matter he was on the way to big things in Hollywood.
[53:01] The year after Empire played Indiana Jones for the first time
[53:04] and we as of the Lost Ark. The after that he played Deckard
[53:07] and Blade Runner. Then the year after that he was
[53:09] back his Han Solo and returning the Jedi.
[53:10] Then the next year he was in the again in Temple of Doom, one of
[53:15] the biggest movie stars of his generation, Harrison Ford.
[53:18] Pretty good decade that like, isn't it?
[53:21] Brilliant. The villain of the peace and
[53:25] returning from Star Wars is, of course, Darth Vader, played by
[53:29] David Prow was and voiced by James Dale Jones.
[53:31] That's what we're talking about next.
[53:35] Take the Princess and the Wookiee to my ship.
[53:38] You. Said they'd be left in the city
[53:39] under my supervision. I.
[53:41] Am altering the deal, pray I don't offer it any further.
[53:45] With the demise of Grandma talking to the end of Star Wars,
[53:47] Veda now does the Emperor's bidding and basically runs the
[53:50] Imperial fleet. Identifying the rebel base of
[53:52] the star of the movie, Veda hunts down Han and Leah before
[53:56] fighting and defeating Luke Skywalker in the climax.
[53:59] Yeah, strong is Veda. How is he as the antagonist
[54:03] here, Matt? It's really interesting because
[54:06] in a lot of ways I think this film is Vedas film and I think
[54:09] he dominates this film in a way he didn't quite do in Star Wars.
[54:13] Like his presence just looms over everything, even the Saints
[54:16] he's not in. You just feel his like shadow
[54:19] there because he's hot on the heels of Leah in hand.
[54:22] And there's two things he does constantly in this film, which I
[54:25] think a great first one is he makes some amazing entrances.
[54:29] Like no one walks through a door like Veda does in this film.
[54:33] The bass on Hearth, striding through the Star Destroyer
[54:36] standing up from the table, the Cloud City.
[54:39] Amazing, fantastic entrances. The second thing he does?
[54:42] Just constantly dispatching inept underlings.
[54:44] Great. Like just a litter of corpses
[54:47] behind him, like staff turnover undervated.
[54:49] Must be absolutely appalling. Love.
[54:52] Him in this. Everyone left, right and center.
[54:54] Everyone. Apology accepted.
[54:56] Captain Need. A thinks it's hilarious as well.
[55:01] Great, great stuff. Love him.
[55:03] Yeah, you're right. Mad Video's presence is such
[55:05] that his shadow was cast over this film and we have not seen
[55:08] any of that villain do anywhere. Obviously it's great in the
[55:11] climax when we're seeing freezing, hunting carbonite and
[55:13] teaching Luke a thing or two. But the scenes on the Star
[55:16] Destroyer that I like the most, how merciless he is with his own
[55:19] men, choking officers are feeling them left, right in the
[55:21] center and the cold fury that we get from him.
[55:24] The moment that you watch the Falcon escape through the
[55:26] viewport and then walks down the bridge and off the set and
[55:29] everyone is just scared rigid. They don't even make eye contact
[55:31] with him. Brilliant.
[55:33] But we get development here too. The scene where we see him in
[55:35] his meditation chamber and get a glimpse of his head for the
[55:37] first time, it subtle, makes us think what the Hell's happened
[55:40] to him. And then obviously the big block
[55:42] revealed later on that blows off you from wide open.
[55:45] He's everything a good villain should be.
[55:47] He looks good, he sounds good, he's interesting, strong,
[55:50] powerful, even gets a one liner or two.
[55:53] We said no. Star Wars Episode The Veil, that
[55:55] was one of the best films in movie history.
[55:57] Here he is the best villain in movie history for me.
[56:00] Just an enormous presence in the film.
[56:03] Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I'm not going to disagree at
[56:06] all. I mean, I think Prowse needs
[56:08] some a little bit of kudos here as well, because I think he's
[56:10] body language and the way he moves, it's just as important as
[56:14] Earl Jones to be fair. And when he says, you know, we
[56:17] can rule the Galaxy, his father and son he's handled.
[56:19] Yes. I think that's great.
[56:21] Just them little moments. Yeah, it's really great.
[56:23] And the lightsaber fights, Outrageous.
[56:25] And I think he's great in that. I love him jumping down the
[56:27] stairs, man, I just want to do that every morning.
[56:30] Right on the stairs there. And I also, it's so relevant
[56:34] that this now when he's just when when he starts strangling
[56:37] the guy just like on the video and like how many people do you
[56:40] want to strangle over Zoom in the last year, say, I wish I
[56:45] could do that, fall in the background.
[56:49] You're in charge now. No, it's just so entertaining
[56:53] and it's a great, great, great performance.
[56:56] And like you said, John, yeah, this film is, it's probably the
[56:59] best buddy ever. So Vader then, Pretty good bad
[57:03] guy. Absolutely.
[57:04] It's all right. Apology accepted Captain Neda.
[57:13] There is a wider cast, of course, and we're going to talk
[57:15] a bit more about Frank Oz's Yoda and Billy Dee Williams is Lando
[57:18] Calrissian, but in Mark Hamill is Lou Carrie Fisher as Leah
[57:22] Harrison Ford is Hard and David Problems and Jamesville Jordan's
[57:25] Vader. We have four of the most iconic
[57:27] characters in Hollywood. Yeah.
[57:30] Definitely. This episode of All the Right
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[59:52] The Empire Strikes Back and our heroes have been separated.
[59:55] Lucas headed off the Dagabad to find Jedi Master Yoda, and we're
[59:58] going to be talking about that shortly.
[1:00:00] But up first, we're with Han and Leah and the Millennium Falcon
[1:00:03] and their space chase on the run from the Empire, Sir.
[1:00:06] The possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is
[1:00:09] approximately 3720 to what never tell.
[1:00:11] Me the odds. Having made a run for the Falcon
[1:00:14] during the Battle of Hoth, Han, Leah, Chewy and Three PO find
[1:00:17] themselves chasing the deep space by Imperial forces.
[1:00:20] These sequences bring us TIE fighters, Star Destroyers,
[1:00:23] asteroid fields, Minox, and a good old fashioned love story as
[1:00:27] a scoundrel and the Princess fall for each other.
[1:00:30] How are these scenes on the Falcon, Matt?
[1:00:33] I just adore this sequence. It's I Can Fall Away, one of my
[1:00:38] favorite bits in the film. I love the music.
[1:00:41] That's one of my favorite pieces of music in the film.
[1:00:43] And honestly, this is what Star Wars is for me.
[1:00:46] The Falcon being pursued by TIE fighters.
[1:00:48] I could watch, I could watch this for two hours and I'd be
[1:00:50] happy. That's all I need.
[1:00:52] All I need, but you know, just great.
[1:00:54] Dialogue on the Falcon as well between Han and there and it's a
[1:00:57] great glimpse now Han is flying by the seat of his pants here
[1:01:00] it's. Not my fault.
[1:01:02] It's not my fault, yeah. Exactly.
[1:01:04] He knows what they're doing is crazy, but it's the only thing
[1:01:07] you can think of. So he's going to do it and see
[1:01:08] if he can get away with it. What I like though, is it shows
[1:01:12] you how much the special effects have come on from Star Wars as
[1:01:14] well. Because if you look at that film
[1:01:16] in comparison, the scene where the escape, the death toll and
[1:01:19] the Falcon and the scent I fight is after them.
[1:01:21] You can kind of tell the Falcons basically stationary in that
[1:01:24] shot and the move and the Ty fighters around it to create a
[1:01:27] sense of movement. And, you know, it's edited well,
[1:01:29] so it works. But here, everything's moving.
[1:01:31] The Falcon, it's ducking in between all the asteroids.
[1:01:34] They spin it around. The TIE fighters are doing the
[1:01:36] same, but they're getting battered all over the place.
[1:01:39] Like, it's such a good sequence, even a completely by the fact
[1:01:42] that they didn't spend the next 15 minutes hiding in the mouth
[1:01:45] of a giant space where I'm like, yeah, that's fine.
[1:01:47] Totally. I'm on board with that.
[1:01:49] It's a complete sense. Yeah, it is.
[1:01:51] It's honestly one of my favorite bits in the film.
[1:01:54] It's just so exciting. It's so good.
[1:01:57] And Ford and Fisher, it just incredible in those scenes
[1:02:00] together, I think. Yeah.
[1:02:02] Yeah, you're right Matt. The shots you have the Falcons
[1:02:05] trooping in between star destroyed and being followed by
[1:02:07] the tie fighters timeless shots. Those aside on shot when the end
[1:02:10] of the asteroid field and the Falcons troops towards the
[1:02:12] camera and away from again. That still looks fantastic.
[1:02:16] And while this is going on, we keep coming into the Falcon.
[1:02:18] It's hot and chewy. You're trying to fix stuff and
[1:02:20] then in the middle of the bowl those moments are clearly comedy
[1:02:22] moments like the toolbox falling on Hans head.
[1:02:24] But like we thought about the never undermine the series of
[1:02:27] the situation. I think it's a bit of a master
[1:02:29] class that's not the film a space ball and we're going to
[1:02:31] talk more about how ILM did what they did.
[1:02:33] But at this point, 1980, it must look mind blowingly good.
[1:02:37] Oh. Absolutely.
[1:02:38] And there's a bit with the music, you know, what does the
[1:02:39] loop, the loop to go into the yeah, I love that.
[1:02:42] There's that little, little bit of music that just like.
[1:02:46] Yeah, it's all good. In like the best bit of the
[1:02:50] whole thing is when they turn around and they're like, it's
[1:02:53] like a fight, like the attack formation and he turns around
[1:02:56] like we're going to go straight at it.
[1:02:58] And then just like flies over the top of the star Destroyer
[1:03:00] and they're like always he gone. And you feel so sorry for that
[1:03:03] guy because you're like he's trying his best and you know
[1:03:06] he's going to go and apologize to Lord.
[1:03:08] You're like, oh, you're dead. It's just so clever how they've
[1:03:13] just camouflaged themselves on the ship.
[1:03:15] It's just so good that you no chip that small as a clicking
[1:03:19] device. Amazing.
[1:03:20] But you do, and he's involved in that and I think that's just
[1:03:23] really clever writing and really cleverly done and you don't see
[1:03:26] that coming at all and that pay off.
[1:03:28] Even when you go back in the Falcon, they're just like really
[1:03:30] relieved that it's worked. Absolutely brilliant.
[1:03:33] Really. Rebel Alliance where Getaway
[1:03:35] just float with the cottage. You're not going to notice for
[1:03:37] you. We talked about the Millennium
[1:03:39] Falcon there and this film was the only time that they ever
[1:03:42] built a full size Falcon for filming.
[1:03:44] It was 65 feet across, 80 feet long, 16 feet high in a weird 23
[1:03:49] tons. Wow, fancy 111 your back garden
[1:03:52] Westy I. Just live in it.
[1:04:01] Getting an Uber back to the Falcon.
[1:04:06] Yeah, as well as I thought you ought to see Darth Vader
[1:04:08] superstar story in the film that's called The Executor and
[1:04:12] apparently is 19 kilometers long. 19 kilometers long.
[1:04:16] Yeah, yeah. They didn't build that one for.
[1:04:19] Real you wouldn't fit, my God. To be fair as well, once you get
[1:04:22] to the point that you're calling your ships the Death Star and
[1:04:24] the Executor, yeah, you don't even pretending to be the good
[1:04:27] guys anymore at. That point Are we the bad guys?
[1:04:31] Is this the dark side? Yeah, it's fine.
[1:04:34] So Han and Leah escape the Empire, but they're not out of
[1:04:38] it yet, are they? Nope.
[1:04:40] Sir, it's quite possible this asteroid is not entirely stable.
[1:04:44] Not entirely stable. I'm glad you're here to tell us
[1:04:47] these things, Chewie. Take the professor in the back
[1:04:49] and plug him into the hyperdrive.
[1:04:51] While Hauntedly are fighting for their lives, Luke's having it
[1:04:54] pretty easy over on Dagabond. Comparison, you think?
[1:04:58] And now we're headed there with him, too.
[1:05:00] I'm not looking for a friend, I'm looking for a Jedi Master.
[1:05:05] Jedi Master Yoda, you seek Yoda. After leaving Hoth and under
[1:05:11] instruction from Obi Wan Kenobi, Luke doesn't meet up with the
[1:05:14] rest of the rebel fleet. He heads off the Dagobah with R2
[1:05:17] to learn the ways of the Force. The scenes on Dagobah bring us
[1:05:20] swamp monsters, dark side caves, and introduces one of Star Wars
[1:05:23] most iconic characters and the wisest of Jedi Masters in Yoda.
[1:05:27] Yeah, of all the places to be exiled, and I've chosen
[1:05:31] somewhere a bit more scenic, having the dig about.
[1:05:33] Yeah, dumb. Smelled a little bit better.
[1:05:35] Fucking stinks on there man. How are these scenes in the
[1:05:38] film? Wesley, I think.
[1:05:40] The great and I think it's really, really good that you get
[1:05:43] that sense of like you would have pretended to be somebody
[1:05:46] that he's not and he's not playing straight into Luke's
[1:05:48] hands and I think that's really cocky.
[1:05:50] He's horrible little cocky bastard.
[1:05:52] And that he's just leading down the garden path.
[1:05:55] And, you know, he is like, it's brilliant.
[1:05:57] But I mean, I imagine Frank Oz turning around here if you're
[1:06:00] Irvin Kirchner and he's like, what do you think you're just
[1:06:02] going to sound like? And he does the voice for the
[1:06:04] first time, and you'd be like, yeah, really?
[1:06:09] We'll give it a go. Is it?
[1:06:13] Is it? Is that what you?
[1:06:15] Are you serious? But it really works.
[1:06:19] Like, watch it again the first time he speaks and imagine being
[1:06:22] an impression. I'd just say an OK to that.
[1:06:24] That's that's incredible. Yeah.
[1:06:25] That's great. Let's do that.
[1:06:27] Yeah, do that. That sounds absolutely spot on.
[1:06:29] And the whole, I mean, it's just, it's just outrageously
[1:06:32] good. It's just outrageously good.
[1:06:34] And I think the puppeteering is amazing.
[1:06:36] I think Frank Oz is really good. Oh, it's going to be a
[1:06:38] performance. Frank Oz is going to talk like
[1:06:40] this and it's going to make total sense.
[1:06:41] Is it? Yes, Yes, it is.
[1:06:43] It works. Yeah, when they first get a dig
[1:06:45] about R2, falls into the swamp and gets swallowed by some kind
[1:06:48] of monster, That was one of the sequences that came back and
[1:06:51] shot later that we talked about. And that whole sequence was shot
[1:06:53] in George Lucas, a swimming pool.
[1:06:54] Oh. Really.
[1:06:56] Yeah. Filthy.
[1:06:57] Start a story when he. But yeah, I mean, how great is
[1:07:02] Yoda? He's very much an archetype,
[1:07:04] like the old man, a goblin who imparted wasn't the main
[1:07:06] character. I love how much he loves the
[1:07:09] Force. You would have loved the Force
[1:07:11] more than any other film character has ever loved
[1:07:13] anything. That luminous beings monologue?
[1:07:16] Oh, I'm going to play it. For my ally is the force, and
[1:07:21] the powerful ally it is. Life grieves, it makes it grow.
[1:07:30] Its energy surrounds us and binds us.
[1:07:35] Luminous beings, so we not this crude matter.
[1:07:39] And he follows that by using the force lift the X thing out the
[1:07:42] swamp, which is one of the best moments in the film for me.
[1:07:45] A 2 foot tall frog thing talking about some mystical power that
[1:07:48] doesn't exist and we're supposed to take it seriously.
[1:07:51] And unless a film that would be laughable.
[1:07:53] Laughable. And the dialogue that follows
[1:07:56] that when he's, I don't believe it.
[1:07:58] And that's why you'll feel incredible amazing your.
[1:08:01] Last dialogue is unbelievable. Yeah, I think we'll buy him
[1:08:04] because for a few reasons. The design work is superb.
[1:08:07] Frank Oz is the puppeteer and the voice actor is fantastic.
[1:08:10] The dialogue written by Kazdan is superb.
[1:08:13] I mean they ruined him later on in the prequels when he's an
[1:08:15] idiot and does stupid things and leaps about like Sonic the
[1:08:17] Hedgehog with a lifesaver. But here in Empire, this is Yoda
[1:08:21] to me. One of the best supporting
[1:08:23] characters I've ever seen. Fantastic.
[1:08:25] He's fantastic. You trust him immediately.
[1:08:27] I love. Him.
[1:08:28] I'd do anything he told us to do.
[1:08:29] All right, then I'm not. What about you see?
[1:08:36] You in court next week, you would have told us to do it.
[1:08:41] Yeah, I want to talk about that sequence, though, where it's
[1:08:44] part of Luke's training. He makes Luke go into The Cave,
[1:08:47] but he doesn't tell because it's very, very trippy, I think, and
[1:08:52] it builds that tension up brilliantly.
[1:08:53] Just because you can't get a reading on the order here, just
[1:08:57] sitting there drawing pictures in the mud with a stick doesn't
[1:08:59] give any clue what Luke's going to face.
[1:09:01] And it does surprise you because you can see Digbox full of
[1:09:03] snakes and lizards crawling all over the place.
[1:09:06] You think, right, Is it going to be like some kind of swamp
[1:09:08] monster? You know, like, you know, like
[1:09:10] the womp or something like that. You're just not expecting
[1:09:13] theater. And a really wrong Footsie could
[1:09:15] just for a second you think this has been a trap all along.
[1:09:18] Is the order actually about that?
[1:09:19] Yeah, you know it does. Wrong for you.
[1:09:21] Just for seconds, yeah. Possibly, but.
[1:09:23] I think because it's in slow motion, it gets this real
[1:09:26] nightmarish quality to it. It never feels quite real.
[1:09:30] And I think ultimately it's just some really nice foreshadowing
[1:09:33] of what's to come in the third act.
[1:09:34] The fact when Luke asks you order what's in there and he
[1:09:37] says only what you take with you, and then it's Luke's head
[1:09:40] inside the helmet. So it's obviously talking about
[1:09:43] Luke's ancestry, where he actually comes from and who
[1:09:46] video really. So it's some really nice wash
[1:09:48] that corner. Was it?
[1:09:49] He knows it as well deep down, yeah.
[1:09:51] Yeah, that's it. Says you know it to be true,
[1:09:53] like, and he's adaptive accepted, but it's like your
[1:09:56] weapons, you won't need them and then takes them anyway.
[1:09:59] And that's a great line, yeah. Yeah, it is because seeing
[1:10:02] himself as Veda is like a manifestation.
[1:10:03] It looks anger and fear. Would you want me to take the
[1:10:05] weapons in the 1st place? So if you hadn't taken the
[1:10:08] weapons, you wouldn't have needed them, which is what you
[1:10:10] would have meant. Really.
[1:10:11] Exactly. Yeah, really good.
[1:10:12] I mentioned how Mark Hamill broke his thumb earlier and when
[1:10:15] he jumped from the snow speeder and he was in the wars on Dagger
[1:10:19] Bar 2 to be honest. Like the moment where Yoda and
[1:10:22] Obi Wan are trying to convince Luke to stay.
[1:10:25] Luke pulls a snake from his X wing.
[1:10:27] Kirchner had assured him that snake was harmless, but it bit
[1:10:30] him a few times on the hand few times.
[1:10:33] And earlier in Yoda's hood when Luke bangs his head on the roof,
[1:10:35] Kirchner made Hamel do that 16 times.
[1:10:39] Just bang your head again, David Fincher.
[1:10:44] Kirchner did for Hamel I think, definitely.
[1:10:47] Irvin Finchner. I know that Hamel did struggle
[1:10:51] with the scenes on Dagger bars. He was there by himself as an
[1:10:53] actor and getting bitten by snakes.
[1:10:54] So Frank, God's brought in Miss Piggy to make him laugh on the
[1:10:57] set. Really, I'd need more than that.
[1:11:00] I'm like from the Jack or something to be honest.
[1:11:03] That wouldn't do it. I've been.
[1:11:04] Bitten by snake? I don't see miss being honest,
[1:11:06] Frank. I'm having a shit time, I'll
[1:11:08] tell you what. Who's they said?
[1:11:11] No, that's not doing karate. Chopping the snakes.
[1:11:18] That's where he goes. Karate training, that's.
[1:11:19] What it was and. The thing about Yoda, he's
[1:11:21] obviously Lucas's ID, but he did change a lot along the way.
[1:11:24] First of all, of all things in this must be another reference
[1:11:28] to a dog. He was called Buffy, which I'm
[1:11:31] just so glad to change that. Can you imagine Buffy, Norway
[1:11:34] then, then Minch, which kind of get in there before finally,
[1:11:38] something on Yoda. So Lucas's ID, but the design
[1:11:41] came from a British makeup artist called Stuart Freeborn,
[1:11:44] who based the eyes on Albert Einstein, which I think is
[1:11:46] really obvious. You can totally tell the time.
[1:11:48] Yeah, but the rest of Yoda's face based on himself, which,
[1:11:52] you know, I don't really want to Google what Stuart Freeborn
[1:11:55] looks like. You can't tell he looks like
[1:11:57] Yoda. He does.
[1:11:58] No way have. A look online for Stuart
[1:12:00] Freeborn if you've not seen him before, the pictures of him next
[1:12:02] to the Yoda puppet and he looks like Yoda.
[1:12:04] Yeah, right. Wow, I.
[1:12:06] Don't know if I want to see that.
[1:12:08] I know as well that Irvin Kirschner originally thought
[1:12:10] Yoda should be 9 feet tall and have a big white beard like
[1:12:13] Moses, but like I said, that's a bit of a cliche like.
[1:12:16] Gandalf, Yeah. The first person Lucas offered
[1:12:19] you order to as well. It's a pretty, pretty obvious
[1:12:21] one. It was Jim Henson, because
[1:12:22] obviously he created The Muppets, so you know, second
[1:12:25] nature and working with puppets. But Henson was too busy making
[1:12:28] the great Muppet caper, so he was the guy who recommended
[1:12:31] Frank Olson Stead, which is why we have him as the order.
[1:12:34] And you're deep, Roy, the actor who played the Oomba Loombas and
[1:12:36] join the Chocolate Factory. Oh, yeah, yeah, He played the
[1:12:39] order, too, though he was uncredited in the film.
[1:12:41] The white. You would have walked in the
[1:12:43] distance. That's deep, Roy.
[1:12:44] You know you're a costume. Yeah.
[1:12:46] Yeah, OK, we nicer Williams put that in the score.
[1:12:49] It's like doom, doom through this one.
[1:12:57] Strings Yoga was controlled by Frank Oz, as we've said, and
[1:13:02] three other puppeteers. So the whole dagger bar set was
[1:13:05] actually elevated so they get underneath it.
[1:13:08] So Mark Hamill wore an earpiece so we can hear Frank Oz doing
[1:13:10] the voice under the set. And Oz said that on many
[1:13:13] occasions, Kirchner would give directions directly to Yoda and
[1:13:17] not to him. And you have to remind the movie
[1:13:19] speaking, talking straight to the puppet, like, I do that
[1:13:23] better just turn this way. He's like, yeah, I'm just here.
[1:13:27] I wouldn't know you inside viable with an earpiece, with
[1:13:29] Franco's just giving it 6 now. Yeah, that's your day job.
[1:13:33] To you, it was indie dramas. You didn't know what was going
[1:13:35] on. Also, George Lucas was so blown
[1:13:39] away by Frank Oz's performance as Yoda that he spent thousands
[1:13:42] of dollars on an advertising campaign to try and get him an
[1:13:45] Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
[1:13:47] Well, it ultimately failed though because of Academy
[1:13:49] restrictions. But Oscar worthy?
[1:13:52] I mean, it's good. He's good, he's very good.
[1:13:54] Robin Williams in Goodwill Hunt No.
[1:13:58] Although to be fair, I'd probably take Oz's performance
[1:13:59] here over Connery in The Untouchables.
[1:14:01] Get out, would you? Unbelievable.
[1:14:06] Enough of this rhyme shit. Yoda is one of the most iconic
[1:14:12] supporting characters in cinema and Star Wars does have a few of
[1:14:14] those though. And on that we have a question
[1:14:17] from Patreon. So one of the benefits of being
[1:14:20] an ACRM page run is I will answer your questions on the
[1:14:22] show. And Ryan Chipotle has a question
[1:14:25] for us. Hello.
[1:14:26] Ryan. Hello, Ryan.
[1:14:27] So here's Ryan. Hey guys, Ryan here with so many
[1:14:31] great characters in the Star Wars universe.
[1:14:34] Who's your favorite Star Wars character and why is it Darth
[1:14:38] Vader? Thanks guys.
[1:14:40] Well, we've already told about Veda, so Matt, who was your
[1:14:43] favorite aside from him? Aside from Veda, I'm going to go
[1:14:46] for Chewy just because everyone needs a best friend like Chewy
[1:14:51] and I want to have a best friend, but I'm the only person
[1:14:54] who understands what he says. I just think that's quite a cool
[1:14:56] thing to have. And really selfish.
[1:14:58] Yeah, really selfish. But you know, that's what I want
[1:15:01] from friends. It is always got your back.
[1:15:05] The only one who understands what I'll say.
[1:15:07] Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
[1:15:10] He's always got your back. He's going to be handy in the
[1:15:12] scrap. You can fly the Falcon with you.
[1:15:14] What's not love about Chewy? And he gives great hope.
[1:15:17] Look at him. Yeah, yeah, I can strangle
[1:15:20] someone if you want. Exactly.
[1:15:21] Yeah, and Wesley Jar jar for you, right?
[1:15:25] OK, no, I'm going to go for Boba Fett.
[1:15:30] He's just the coolest and he was the coolest one.
[1:15:33] I saw him in this. He's absolutely brilliant looks.
[1:15:35] Great. Looks really cool.
[1:15:36] Yeah. So the middle of The Empire
[1:15:38] Strikes Back is where the narrative really starts to
[1:15:40] progress. Huntly escape in the Empire as a
[1:15:42] roller coaster and the scenes between Luke and Yoda and
[1:15:45] Digaba. Pretty iconic.
[1:15:47] Yeah, fantastic. Definitely.
[1:15:52] The crew. A sequel to Star Wars was always
[1:15:57] going to be a big production. That's exactly what The Empire
[1:16:00] Strikes Back was. And we're going to talk about
[1:16:02] some of the crew who worked on that production.
[1:16:04] Now, John Williams is the composer.
[1:16:07] Pia Sashitsky is the director of photography.
[1:16:09] And ILM providing the visual effects are all coming up.
[1:16:12] But let's start with the writing of the movie, shall we?
[1:16:15] Yeah. So there are three credited
[1:16:17] writers on The Empire Strikes Back.
[1:16:19] The story was written by George Lucas, and the screenplay is
[1:16:21] credited to Lee Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan.
[1:16:24] Yeah, Lee Brackett was a science fiction short story writer known
[1:16:27] as the Queen of Space Opera and had some big screenplay credits
[1:16:30] like The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, and The Long Goodbye under her
[1:16:33] belt. And Lawrence Kasdan was a young
[1:16:35] screenwriter making a name for himself who would recently work
[1:16:38] with Lucas by writing the screenplay for Raiders of the
[1:16:40] Lost Ark. So what do we think of the
[1:16:43] writing of an empire, Wesley? I think it's a really hard gig
[1:16:47] to have because I don't think Lucas would have had a very in
[1:16:52] depth idea of what he wanted to do.
[1:16:54] I think it kind of the open and crawl, I think is all Lucas
[1:16:57] would have given to the two of the like the open and crawl, the
[1:17:00] leap bracket and Lawrence cars down and just been like, this is
[1:17:03] where we are and the sending probes out.
[1:17:05] So let's just go from there. And it doesn't feel like it's
[1:17:09] consistent, but that's not a bad thing feeling.
[1:17:12] It really works. And it was, again, like I always
[1:17:14] say with the right and it was a work in progress as they were
[1:17:17] shooting. And I think a lot of things were
[1:17:19] added, a lot of things were taken away, a lot of things were
[1:17:21] ad labed, a lot of things were put in and people were
[1:17:23] disagreeing with whatever else. And, and I think that's what you
[1:17:25] get from the writing. Yeah, I think the writing is
[1:17:28] brilliant top to bottom. The development of the world by
[1:17:31] bringing in new elements like Bounty Hunt as the Emperor, new
[1:17:34] societies is excellent. The screenplay itself in
[1:17:37] fleshing out characters more and vastly improving on the dialogue
[1:17:39] from the first film is top notch.
[1:17:41] But the thing I want to talk about is the storytelling, which
[1:17:44] I think is just incredible. in Star Wars, Lucas created this
[1:17:48] amazing universe and was savvy enough to just drop in your
[1:17:50] classic hero's journey story, which works perfectly.
[1:17:53] Yeah, he's making the big sequel.
[1:17:56] And Hollywood rules tell us the blockbuster sequels have to tell
[1:17:58] the same story as the first film.
[1:18:00] But the stakes are bigger. Aliens goes from Ripley being
[1:18:03] trapped on a spaceship to Ripley being trapped on a planet, only
[1:18:06] now the Lords of Aliens. Terminator 2 was the same cheer
[1:18:09] story as the first one, but now there's two Terminators, and one
[1:18:11] of them is liquid metal. Robert Patrick Lucas doesn't do
[1:18:14] any of that. He breaks the sequel rules in
[1:18:16] quite a few ways. Firstly, the stage gets smaller
[1:18:19] in Star Wars. Luke Skywalker wants to save the
[1:18:21] Galaxy. Yeah, he just wants to save his
[1:18:23] friends. The big battle usually comes to
[1:18:25] the end of the movie. Not here.
[1:18:27] It comes to the start. The end is small and
[1:18:29] intermittent, much more about character drama.
[1:18:31] Also, the filamental and cliffhanger.
[1:18:33] You're not supposed to do that. And most of all, the good guys
[1:18:36] don't even win at the end of the film.
[1:18:38] And when you throw in, it's got the most iconic plot twist ever,
[1:18:41] which we're obviously going to talk about later on.
[1:18:43] The storytelling, it's just as good as it gets in this kind of
[1:18:46] film for me. Bet James.
[1:18:47] Cameron hates this film. I mean, this is what Star Wars
[1:18:53] used to be capable of before the dark times, before Disney.
[1:18:59] Yeah, there's just so many elements here that shouldn't
[1:19:01] work and yet to do. You know, you mentioned a lot
[1:19:03] there John, but the fact that our 3 heroes, who we really
[1:19:07] enjoyed getting see together in the first film spent at least
[1:19:10] 2/3 of this apart from each other.
[1:19:12] The fact that really there's very little plot.
[1:19:15] It's just old story. It's just a constant sense of
[1:19:17] movement and if escape and that all works.
[1:19:20] And then the bleakness, that's an either.
[1:19:22] There's one line that always stands out to me and it's quite
[1:19:25] thorough in its when they've been captured on Cloud City in
[1:19:28] hand, gets brought back to the cell after being tortured and he
[1:19:31] says they didn't even ask me any questions.
[1:19:33] Great. Line what?
[1:19:34] A line of just being tortured. How bleak is that?
[1:19:37] Vader. Total bastard.
[1:19:39] Yeah, just torture. Him for the hell of it.
[1:19:41] Imagine, right, what Matt just said.
[1:19:43] They put that in a blurb and then anyone who hasn't seen The
[1:19:46] Empire Strikes Back get to read that.
[1:19:48] And I don't think they're going to want to say you never know.
[1:19:52] Absolutely not. Yeah, that's what should sync
[1:19:55] the film. And yeah, that's what makes the
[1:19:57] film work, though. And then characters, the
[1:19:59] characters are better developed. Everyone now has light and shade
[1:20:02] of them. And then there's how much
[1:20:03] mythology gets added in here, more explanation what the Force
[1:20:06] is. You have Yoda, the Emperor,
[1:20:08] Landor Boba Fett. There's an incredible depth of
[1:20:11] this writing in the Psyche Surgeon for sequel.
[1:20:14] It should have just been throw away.
[1:20:15] It should have been Star Wars again, a bit bigger.
[1:20:18] But there's so many brave decisions and every one of them
[1:20:21] comes off and pays off brilliantly at the end.
[1:20:24] The first draft of the script was written by Lee Bracket
[1:20:26] alone. She sadly passed away from
[1:20:28] cancer shortly after finishing her draft.
[1:20:30] And that's why Lucas brought in Lawrence Kasdan as they were
[1:20:33] working together on Wheels of the Lost Ark.
[1:20:35] And the script changed a lot after Kasdan came in.
[1:20:38] Yeah, Lee Brackett's draft was called Star Wars Chapter 2,
[1:20:41] which is very different than what we see on the screen.
[1:20:44] Kazdan said her tape was from a different era, and they didn't
[1:20:47] have a, like, the right tone. And in Brackett's original
[1:20:51] version, Veda was not Luke's father.
[1:20:53] But we did find out that Luke had a sister.
[1:20:55] The sister wasn't Leah, and she was called Nellith.
[1:20:58] So I think it's like this sounds more like June.
[1:21:03] Nellith, Nellith the elephant. Did you write that one?
[1:21:09] Wasn't that Frasier's wife and Frasier?
[1:21:15] You've been dying to say that, John.
[1:21:16] I've had. It written down, yeah.
[1:21:21] Lee Bracket was 65 at the time. They'd written science fiction
[1:21:24] as far back as the 1940s, where his empire was cool, cutting
[1:21:27] edge science fiction. So Kazdan, who was like 30 at
[1:21:30] the time, probably was the better fit for it.
[1:21:33] Yeah. And if you look at the credits,
[1:21:34] one of the producers is a guy called Howard Kazanjian, and he
[1:21:38] says gotten him. The drafts changed so much that
[1:21:40] if Lucas hadn't insisted, then Brackett actually wouldn't have
[1:21:44] got any credit. She wouldn't have been eligible
[1:21:45] because it did change so much. But he did go to the WGA, which
[1:21:49] is the Writers Guild, to ask for core credit for her, which she
[1:21:52] did get. And he also supported the family
[1:21:55] by giving them more than the $50,000 he'd already agreed to
[1:21:57] pay for us. So, you know, say what you like
[1:21:59] about him. He stands by his friends and he
[1:22:01] recognizes good work, I think. Yeah, yeah, he's The Chew backer
[1:22:05] of Hollywood. I thought he was skint.
[1:22:10] No wonder. Pull.
[1:22:11] This one out of someone has more.
[1:22:13] Toys to sell on this one. We'll sell some more toys.
[1:22:16] We'll be fine. Also quite interesting, before
[1:22:19] Star Wars came out, Lucas wasn't sure if I was going to be
[1:22:21] successful, so he mapped out two possible sequels, an expensive
[1:22:25] one if Star Wars was a hit that became Empire, and also a low
[1:22:28] budget one in case it wasn't OK. Have you heard much about that?
[1:22:32] No, not at all. The.
[1:22:33] Low budget sequel was called Splinter of the Mind's Eye.
[1:22:36] And in this and in this and in the story, Luke and Leah become
[1:22:42] marooned on a planet called Mimbin.
[1:22:44] And so does Darth Vader. How?
[1:22:47] And then he's basically hunting them across the planet.
[1:22:50] So it's like Predator with two people in it, and Darth Vader is
[1:22:52] the Predator. Outrageous little budget that
[1:22:56] sounds mint. It was turned into a novel by
[1:22:59] Alan Dean Foster and the graphic novel too, by Marvel.
[1:23:01] Right. OK.
[1:23:02] OK. I'll check.
[1:23:04] That out. After writing Empire, Lawrence
[1:23:05] Kasdan went on to have a very successful career.
[1:23:08] He wrote readers like we mentioned, wrote and directed
[1:23:10] Silverado, The Bodyguard and Wyatt Earp, and also wrote the
[1:23:14] Star Wars films Returning the Jedi, The Force Awakens and
[1:23:17] Solo. A Star Wars Story Empire, though
[1:23:21] up there with his best surely I. Think it is?
[1:23:23] Yeah, definitely. Moving on from the writing to
[1:23:30] the music and the composer on Empire was, of course, John
[1:23:34] Williams. Yes, yes, it was.
[1:23:37] Returning from his Oscar winning score on Star Wars, Williams
[1:23:39] compose all of the music we hear in the film, developing his
[1:23:42] original music and adding in new pieces to How good is it Though
[1:23:46] the music on Empire Math. Well, when we did the The Rank
[1:23:50] and Spielberg episode, I remember then when I talked
[1:23:53] about readers, I wanted to talk about the soundtrack because I
[1:23:55] think I said then I thought that's probably William's best
[1:23:58] overall work. But after watching Empire a few
[1:24:01] times and last week and listening to the soundtrack a
[1:24:03] few times and so on and so on, I think I've got to change your
[1:24:06] mind. I think this has to be, I mean,
[1:24:07] certainly it's the best Star Wars work because he's bringing
[1:24:11] everything back from the first, which was amazing to begin with.
[1:24:13] But then just look at what he adds already mentioned.
[1:24:16] I love the music from the asteroid field scene, Yoda's
[1:24:18] theme, and obviously the Imperial March.
[1:24:21] You know, evil has a theme tune thanks to John Williams and what
[1:24:24] he does here. It's just sensational.
[1:24:27] And I think my favorite use of music is right at the end when
[1:24:31] the Falcons made it back to the rebel fleet, but Hans gone and
[1:24:34] everyone's just recovering. And the music is so, like,
[1:24:37] gentle and mournful at first, like, picked out on that guitar.
[1:24:40] But then it just builds. It builds and it swells and it
[1:24:44] goes into the love theme and it just sweeps you where?
[1:24:47] And then Williams just hit you with that fanfare for the end
[1:24:49] credits. And then the end suite, it's
[1:24:51] just forget about it. That's just incredible work.
[1:24:54] So yeah, his work here faultless.
[1:24:57] Yeah, I'm the same. I'm going to say that I'm going
[1:24:58] to repeat exactly what I said on the Star Wars episode and that
[1:25:01] he's absolutely saved this film. He saved Star Wars.
[1:25:05] He made it believable, he made it serious, he made it
[1:25:08] accessible. He made you sit up and take
[1:25:10] notice. Look, this isn't just a
[1:25:11] throwaway sci-fi film. This is a space opera.
[1:25:15] It's massive and he just brings everything that he can't.
[1:25:18] Like Matt said, the Imperial March, when you hear that, that
[1:25:21] is the ultimate body tune. You're doing a theme for a guy
[1:25:31] in a mask who's all in black, and he just walks in and out and
[1:25:34] he strangles people over like a video feed, whatever else is
[1:25:37] right. OK, what's that going to be
[1:25:38] like? He's like Dan, Dan, Dan.
[1:25:42] Yes, that's exactly what it's like.
[1:25:44] And yeah, he nails it, Absolutely nails it.
[1:25:48] John Williams man, he's made so many films 100% better by
[1:25:53] matching the visuals through the music and this film is no
[1:25:56] exception. Yeah, I think the most well
[1:25:58] known music from Empire of the new pieces anyway.
[1:26:01] It's surely the Imperial March. Yeah, you both mentioned it
[1:26:03] there. Basically the Empire Invaders
[1:26:05] theme tune. It is brilliant.
[1:26:07] But Williams did apparently take inspiration for it from
[1:26:10] somewhere else. Have you heard about that?
[1:26:12] I've not. So the 19th century festival
[1:26:15] composer Frederick Chopin and his funeral March.
[1:26:18] Right for all. Listeners, here is your pants
[1:26:20] funeral March if you've not heard it.
[1:26:42] Sound familiar? Can you hear empires or not?
[1:26:45] Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought so
[1:26:48] if you said the field of water would have went.
[1:26:50] No, but actually. Yeah, what do you get it now?
[1:26:53] Yeah, he's taking the medal. You rearrange it to be more
[1:26:55] bombastic for sure. That whole piece by Surepine is
[1:26:57] stunning, by the way, if you've not heard the full thing.
[1:27:00] Slow, miserable. You like a Wesley?
[1:27:07] No Oscar wins this time for John Williams with Musical and
[1:27:10] Empire. Though he was nominated, he lost
[1:27:12] out to Michael Gore for Favour. Oh really?
[1:27:15] I mean, that's massive. That's a massive, that's a
[1:27:16] massive. That's to be fair.
[1:27:18] He was unperturbed though Williams and went on to have a
[1:27:21] fairly successful career after Empire.
[1:27:23] Yeah, he did all right. No complaints.
[1:27:31] On to how the film looks and we're looking at the
[1:27:33] cinematography on Empire. The DP on the film was Peter
[1:27:36] Sashitsky, a career going back to the 1960s.
[1:27:39] Sashitsky, The most famous films before Empire were All Creatures
[1:27:42] Great and Small and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
[1:27:45] Yes, a step. Up in terms of scale for Peter
[1:27:48] Sashitsky, then how do we do if they appear on Empire?
[1:27:51] It's a strange 1, isn't it? It's like when we talked about
[1:27:54] Star Wars, we said then we know who people like Ralph McCrory
[1:27:58] are. Who does like the.
[1:27:59] Yeah, the concept. The concept.
[1:28:01] Decide to know who Ben Bird is, Who does the sound effects?
[1:28:04] Can't tell you. Does the cinematography on Star
[1:28:05] Wars. I've forgotten who it was we
[1:28:07] talked about. I forgotten who the guy is.
[1:28:10] It's such a weird thing. Gilbert Taylor.
[1:28:12] Yeah, that's the guy. And it's the same.
[1:28:14] He, you know, he's not a household name and yet his work,
[1:28:17] it's incredible. And the difference for me from
[1:28:19] what Taylor did on Star Wars is Star Wars had two looks.
[1:28:22] Basically you're either inside a bright elite spaceship.
[1:28:25] Are you on the desert, on Tatooine?
[1:28:26] And he had the 2 looks to kneel here.
[1:28:28] Susichki has got so many looks to contend with spaceships, the
[1:28:32] iciness of Hoth, the swampy Nos of Diego bar, Cloud City, which
[1:28:36] at first from the outside looks like it's surrounded by candy
[1:28:39] floss. And but it gets darker and
[1:28:41] darker the deep you get into it, especially like the foundry bit.
[1:28:44] And he nails every single look. He makes the whole film feel so
[1:28:47] cohesive and really kind of should be all over the place.
[1:28:52] And I think he establishes visually more than what Taylor
[1:28:55] did, what the Star Wars the universe should look like and
[1:28:57] how it should feel. I think he is.
[1:29:00] For me, he's the unsung hero of this film.
[1:29:03] Yeah, I think you're right. I know that Lucas actually
[1:29:04] wanted Pierre Szecski to shoot the original Star Wars.
[1:29:07] I've seen a film we'd shot called Privilege in 1967.
[1:29:11] But because Lucas was so inexperienced, the studio said
[1:29:13] he had to have an experienced DP, which is why Gilbert Taylor
[1:29:16] was hired and Lucas and Taylor didn't get on on Star Wars.
[1:29:20] So Lucas went back to the shit ski for Empire.
[1:29:23] And yeah I'm glad he did. Empire is easily the best
[1:29:25] looking Star Wars film to me. I love how we go from the really
[1:29:29] light color part of the star of the film with the bright blue
[1:29:31] sky in the perfect white snow and Hoth and the parlour gets
[1:29:34] gradually darker and darker until looking Vader almost like
[1:29:37] 2 silhouettes in the final act. Yeah.
[1:29:39] Yeah. I feel like it has a lot more
[1:29:40] visual richness and depth to it in the first film.
[1:29:43] And my favorite show from any Star Wars film is when Luke
[1:29:45] first comes together with Vader on Bespin.
[1:29:47] And there's that shot of a silhouette Vader standing at the
[1:29:49] top of the stairs. Yeah.
[1:29:51] Awesome. Yeah.
[1:29:53] Yeah. And Westy, what about you looks?
[1:29:57] Great, doesn't it? It's dark, it's just aggressive
[1:30:02] looking. It's just, but at the same time
[1:30:04] it's the camera movement is just superb.
[1:30:07] The block gun is just superb and wasn't scared about getting
[1:30:10] dark, which is one of my, you know, all time favorite things
[1:30:14] about anyone who's an artist. If you're not scared of getting
[1:30:16] dark, I'm there all day. You know that you're in a world
[1:30:20] here and he creates the world and he creates the texture of
[1:30:23] the world and it's consistent from start to finish, and it's a
[1:30:26] wonderful piece of work. Yeah, I know as well that when
[1:30:29] the budgets started becoming a big issue, Piazza Shitsky came
[1:30:32] to Lucas Rescue a bit. He said Lucas that rather than
[1:30:34] finishing the sets for Dagobahn Cloud City, where hands frozen
[1:30:37] in carbonite just hung up, some black curtains fill the
[1:30:40] background with smoke and he'd be able to make it look good
[1:30:42] with some clever lighting. So they did that, and that's why
[1:30:45] there's so much smoke in those sequences.
[1:30:46] The sets weren't finished. Amazing.
[1:30:48] Genius. So I told you my favorite shot
[1:30:50] there with Veda. What about you fellas?
[1:30:52] What are your favorite shots in the film?
[1:30:55] My favorite show is a similar one to you but it's just after.
[1:30:59] It's the same sequence, but it's when the both at the top of the
[1:31:01] stairs and the lightsabers are just incredible.
[1:31:04] Iconic but. The great thing about if you
[1:31:06] watch it again, it's all blue and you've got Lukes lightsaber
[1:31:09] that's blue and then Vera ignites his lightsaber and then
[1:31:13] it turns back to Luke and you start getting red and then it
[1:31:15] cuts to a wide shot and then the stairs are red.
[1:31:17] So then you've got blue and red in the scene against their blue
[1:31:20] and red lightsabers. I think that production design,
[1:31:23] that whole thing, that silhouetted look, that's just
[1:31:25] like, that's it, that's it for me, that cinema every day of the
[1:31:28] week. Mine is from the very last scene
[1:31:31] of the film basically, and it's that shot of Luke, Leo and the
[1:31:34] droids looking out the window. Nice.
[1:31:35] And the rebel fleet. To the Spiral Galaxy, because
[1:31:38] that shocked to me, it sums up the emotion of the film.
[1:31:41] At that moment in the film, I just feel everything that the
[1:31:44] film wants me to feel in that one image.
[1:31:46] Like Empire Strikes Back, it's exhausted in the best, best
[1:31:50] possible way to watch because everyone goes through so much.
[1:31:53] I feel that sense of defeat. I feel that sense of they've not
[1:31:56] achieved anything and they've lost hand along the way.
[1:31:59] But you still get that little smitten of hope, the fact that,
[1:32:03] OK, they've gone through defeat, but they've all lived.
[1:32:06] The. They're still alive and they
[1:32:07] lived to fight another day and I just feel that image
[1:32:10] encapsulates that perfectly. Lovely.
[1:32:13] For his work on The Empire Strikes Bar, PS Ashitsky
[1:32:16] received no award recognition, but his career afterwards was
[1:32:18] pretty stellar. Wesley, you mentioned that he
[1:32:20] shot Crawl in 1983, one of the great terrible films, and then
[1:32:25] he became a big collaborator with David Cronenberg and shot
[1:32:28] 10 Cronenberg films, including Dead Ringers, Naked Launch
[1:32:31] Crash, Existent History of Violence.
[1:32:34] He also worked with Tim Burton on Mars Attacks or some career
[1:32:37] he had he. Did actually, yeah.
[1:32:39] Really interesting films. Last but certainly not least,
[1:32:48] we're looking at the special effects work on Empire.
[1:32:50] The team responsible for that was Lucas own Industrial Light
[1:32:53] and Magic, headed by Richard Edlund, Dennis Muir and Phil
[1:32:56] Tibbett. And they were responsible for
[1:32:58] the 600 effects shots in the movie, almost double the 360
[1:33:01] that Star Wars had. Yeah.
[1:33:04] Did ILM hit the standard here, do we think, Matt?
[1:33:08] Oh yeah, amazing work. I mean, I won't talk about Hoth
[1:33:11] in the at Arts because what those special effects do
[1:33:14] brilliantly there, which I love when they achieve this with
[1:33:17] practical effect work, is it gives them a sense of character
[1:33:20] despite the fact that they're just machines, but they've got a
[1:33:22] real sense of menace to them. It's I think that's what we
[1:33:24] Harry Housing used to do brilliantly in the 50s and 60s
[1:33:27] and 70s, even with his best work tear.
[1:33:30] Loss like turns his head in Jason that reminds you of an at
[1:33:33] at when he's like on all tours he's doing yeah that's just as
[1:33:37] terrifying it. Is that's exactly the same vibe
[1:33:40] I get from that. Yeah, Jason, you know, that's
[1:33:41] when Taos comes live and he's stomping all over the island
[1:33:44] trying to, you know, stomp on Jason and his men.
[1:33:47] That's exactly the the feeling I get.
[1:33:49] From the ads. Absolutely love them.
[1:33:51] Totally medicine. So memorable.
[1:33:53] With the ads, Lucas knew that he wanted the big snow battle but
[1:33:56] wasn't sure what vehicles to use.
[1:33:58] There was a concept artist called Joe Johnson who came up
[1:34:00] with the idea of walking tanks based on the tripod from the War
[1:34:03] of the World by Issue Wells. Yeah.
[1:34:06] And designs that you've seen by Sid Mead, the concept of arts on
[1:34:09] Blade Runner that he'd done for US Steel.
[1:34:11] And from that George Johnson designed the look of the arts.
[1:34:14] Just superb design work. Yeah, it's.
[1:34:16] Real And in terms of animating the arts, they used stop motion,
[1:34:19] which is very Harryhausen. That's why it has that kind of
[1:34:22] look. And it was an animator called
[1:34:23] John Berg who led on the arts and the whole look of it.
[1:34:27] But it took him 13 months working 14 hours a day to do all
[1:34:32] the animations. Holy.
[1:34:33] Shit. 14 hours a day for over a year, but you're sick of the
[1:34:38] sight of them. Yeah, it was stop motion, but in
[1:34:44] terms of how it was filmed, it was all in camera.
[1:34:46] So they had scale sets of the snow and with matte paintings by
[1:34:49] Ralph Macquarie, the concept artist Star Wars, to create the
[1:34:51] mountains and the background sky.
[1:34:53] So what we see on the screen is how it looked when they were
[1:34:55] actually filming. It looks fantastic.
[1:34:58] Does I? Just absolutely love where they
[1:35:00] went with the space battles on this.
[1:35:02] You were in the cockpit, you are getting them point of view
[1:35:04] shots. But this one, like you said
[1:35:06] earlier, John, that the Falcon sweeping up and down towards the
[1:35:09] camera and then and I've dug the VHS out to watch it this week,
[1:35:12] believe it or not, and I've plugged it in and it's still as
[1:35:15] good. It's really grainy and really
[1:35:18] crap and the sounds awful and the grit.
[1:35:21] And every ship as well, they're all scale models as well and the
[1:35:24] filmed against a blue screen. And then what they did was they
[1:35:27] would move them in various ways, so authorized on pulleys or
[1:35:29] movable rods or to move the camera.
[1:35:31] So it all gives you the illusion of movement and they do the same
[1:35:34] with anything else in the shots that asteroid feel, for example
[1:35:37] those asteroids moving in the same way and it all gets
[1:35:39] composited into the same shot. Yeah, that's right.
[1:35:42] Through. For example, any shots where we
[1:35:43] see the Millennium Falcon slipping towards the camera or
[1:35:45] diving between Star Destroyers, it's usually the camera that's
[1:35:47] moving, not the Falcon, even though it looks like the Falcon.
[1:35:50] Yeah, yeah. But that Mormon though, and I
[1:35:52] think it's probably the the best bit off that sequence when that
[1:35:54] TIE fighter hits the asteroid and spins into the camera,
[1:35:57] that's that's about 1.7 seconds on screen.
[1:36:00] But from start to finish took three weeks to complete with the
[1:36:03] team of animators. Wow.
[1:36:05] And that's one shot of many, isn't it it?
[1:36:07] Stayed at we had for 30 years, so it's totally good.
[1:36:10] Job development that Empire had started pretty much straight
[1:36:14] after Star Wars was released in 1977.
[1:36:17] But the issue that Lucas had was because it's there by LM
[1:36:19] specifically for Star Wars. After Star Wars was finished,
[1:36:23] ILM had no other projects so Lucas had to close it down.
[1:36:26] He then had to re establish Ireland for Empire, but
[1:36:28] obviously the people who worked there like John Dykstra, they'd
[1:36:31] all moved on. So Lucas had the race staff,
[1:36:33] almost the entire company and they eventually had a team of
[1:36:36] 100 who worked on Empire and the majority of them had to work 15
[1:36:39] hour days to hit the deadlines for the film.
[1:36:42] Everyone working their asses off for Lucas the Taskmaster.
[1:36:49] I mean it did turn out worth it because for their work on the
[1:36:51] Empire Strike Spark, ILM did win Best Visual Effects at the
[1:36:54] Oscars and this time after the film wrapped, Lucas didn't shoot
[1:36:58] ILM down and they're still probably the biggest visual
[1:37:01] effects I was out there. So all is well that ends well.
[1:37:04] Indeed. There is a wider crew and Empire
[1:37:07] which is a special mention as well.
[1:37:09] Ralph Macquarie is concept artist, Ben Burr is a sound
[1:37:11] designer, Norman Reynolds the production designer and John
[1:37:14] Molow was the costume designer. All did iconic work and in terms
[1:37:18] of the crew as a whole, I think it's difficult to overstate the
[1:37:21] importance of their contributions.
[1:37:22] No, exactly. It's just like the cast read
[1:37:24] about at the start. Yeah, you have to read the whole
[1:37:26] crew out. Not a single person could be
[1:37:28] left out. The.
[1:37:33] End. The final act of The Empire
[1:37:37] Strikes Back is among the most famous and iconic in Hollywood,
[1:37:40] and we're going all in on it. We'll be talking about the
[1:37:43] climactic lightsaber jewel between Luke Skywalker and Darth
[1:37:46] Vader, but before we get to that, we've got some carbonite
[1:37:49] that needs freezing. I've just made a deal that will
[1:37:52] keep the Empire out of here forever.
[1:38:04] We would be honoured if you would join us.
[1:38:07] Having escaped the Empire by floating away with the rest of
[1:38:10] the garbage, Han and Leah had the Bespin, the city in the
[1:38:12] clouds to meet up with an old pile of hands in Landau
[1:38:15] Calrissian. Unfortunately for them, though,
[1:38:18] the Empire have got there first. In the following scenes we meet
[1:38:22] Landau bounty hunter Boba Fett and Sea Han frozen in carbonite.
[1:38:26] Massive, right? Huge.
[1:38:28] Too big what? Do you think Westie too big?
[1:38:30] I can't. Handle it.
[1:38:34] I think it's fantastic. The whole design of that whole
[1:38:36] place is is is amazing. And I think this whole dialogue
[1:38:41] sequence between Ford and Fisher is just wonderful.
[1:38:44] I think it's a really great, powerful car at the moment.
[1:38:47] I think the way it looks is outrageous.
[1:38:50] It's just so palpable. I guess you just want to like
[1:38:54] just really just get involved. You want to be there, take a
[1:38:57] place that I want to visit. It's like somewhere that you
[1:38:59] want to go and say it looks just so real and just, but at the
[1:39:02] same time weird. But yeah, I love Lando.
[1:39:05] I love the fact that you can't really trust him.
[1:39:08] And it's so good. Yeah.
[1:39:09] It's just, it's a fantastic sequence.
[1:39:11] Really, really brilliant. Yeah, we've been in space and on
[1:39:13] the Falcon with Han and Leah for quite a while at this point, so
[1:39:16] the setting changed to Bespin is the right thing to do.
[1:39:18] The City in the Cloud was actually designed for Star Wars,
[1:39:20] originally as an Imperial prison, but it was never used,
[1:39:23] so Lucas reused it here. It works.
[1:39:25] Looks perfect. Yeah, it looks great.
[1:39:28] Got that moment. That moment when Lando opens the
[1:39:30] door and Veda standing there, that is one of the great
[1:39:33] surprise reveals and reactions. Instant and drawing his blaster.
[1:39:36] But, and we know how good Han Solo is, but he's no match
[1:39:40] whatsoever for Veda. Just force pulls the gun out of
[1:39:43] his hand like he's a child. Fantastic.
[1:39:46] And the moment the hand is frozen in carbonite, the drama
[1:39:48] where the music and the cinematography combine, it's
[1:39:50] just off the charts. I love the bit after he's been
[1:39:53] frozen as well, and the workers push him over and he slams
[1:39:56] against the floor. Yeah, brilliantly put together
[1:39:58] by Kirchner. All that heartbreaking.
[1:40:00] I mean, yeah, this is the empire at their best.
[1:40:02] Invader is best. And you've got Boba Fett in
[1:40:05] there and three people gets blown to smithereens.
[1:40:07] I mean, great. That's that's a problem with
[1:40:10] that. Sure we should.
[1:40:11] Have left him in the scrap yard, but apart from that, brilliant.
[1:40:15] Yeah. Yeah, when he's frozen in
[1:40:17] carbonite, I just love the way that's lit because that orange
[1:40:20] that's coming up from almost red contrasting day, how dark that
[1:40:24] blue is on the upper level. It gives it a real like imagery
[1:40:27] of hell to me. That's what it feels like
[1:40:29] because then he got the old notes scamping around doing all
[1:40:32] their stuff and they look like goblins.
[1:40:34] Invader is just towering over everyone and you've got all the
[1:40:37] steam billowing up from below. It's got a real like satanic
[1:40:40] feel to it, this scene, and I know a hand has been forcing
[1:40:43] because of being told that, but it feels like he's going to be
[1:40:46] burnt at the stake. That's what it looks like.
[1:40:47] He's going to be sacrificed. But that's the feel that this
[1:40:50] whole scene has. He's.
[1:40:51] Feared as lying as well isn't it when he's like he's he speaks to
[1:40:54] Boba Fett and he's like the will compensate you if he dies.
[1:40:57] Like what the fuck? That's it.
[1:41:00] That's it. Exactly.
[1:41:01] Like everything is escalated so quickly at this point.
[1:41:05] You like, you can't believe what he said.
[1:41:06] Like, oh, is this actually happening?
[1:41:08] Are they in that much of a bad trouble?
[1:41:10] Is Luke going to rescue them? And they're like, no, no, he's
[1:41:13] not. This is, you know, this is how
[1:41:14] screwed they are. And this is what I mean by
[1:41:16] saying, like, the film is exhausted in a good way because
[1:41:19] they've just gotten away from the empire on, like, two or
[1:41:22] three occasions, and you're like, God, can they not just get
[1:41:25] away for good this time? Obviously they don't.
[1:41:28] But what makes it for me is Chewy's reaction.
[1:41:30] Like, everyone loves Chewy. We know how much he loves on.
[1:41:33] And those cries of anguish he's given out, which is must be
[1:41:36] like, fear and anger and grief, really upsetting.
[1:41:39] And you just say if Chewy's thought upset and scared by it,
[1:41:42] I should be really scared and upset by it.
[1:41:44] Yeah. Brilliant.
[1:41:44] Sane. Yeah.
[1:41:46] Also on Harrison Ford, there's quite a few Ford adlibs in the
[1:41:49] film. Do you know any of them?
[1:41:51] Well, yeah, I mean, there's the famous one that everyone knows,
[1:41:55] that everyone kind of quotes. Everyone tries to be that cool,
[1:41:57] like if you misses, goes I love you.
[1:41:59] I know. And it never works.
[1:42:00] It never worked. But just as Hannah's about to be
[1:42:04] frozen, Leah says I love you. And Han replies, I know, as we
[1:42:07] all do. But the I know wasn't in the
[1:42:09] script and Ford and Kirschner came up with it together.
[1:42:12] And apparently Cars Down was furious that it got changed
[1:42:14] because he thought was some of his best writing.
[1:42:16] And George Lucas didn't like it either and was only convinced
[1:42:20] when they had the test screen and audiences just went crazy
[1:42:23] when it happened. Just it was absolutely
[1:42:25] fantastic. But I don't understand what Cars
[1:42:27] Down was worried about. What?
[1:42:28] How is that his best writing? I love you.
[1:42:30] What's he going to say? Well.
[1:42:31] In the scripty Rd. You know what hands line was
[1:42:33] originally the cars down Rd. That's what I need to know.
[1:42:36] So Leah said I love you and Han replied.
[1:42:38] Just remember that, Leah, because I'll be back.
[1:42:42] Schwarzenegger. Arnold.
[1:42:47] I mean, yeah, if we're taking from Arnold when Lando said
[1:42:49] they're going to freeze him in carbonite and should have said
[1:42:51] you're not sending Matos a cooler, surely.
[1:42:57] That would have been a Bad and Robin reference into the Empire,
[1:42:59] ladies and gentlemen. There's another house in Ford.
[1:43:05] I'd live in there as well. When Lando was about to lead him
[1:43:07] into the trap, he offers his arm there.
[1:43:10] Ford improvised hand coming up behind Leah and offering his arm
[1:43:13] to wear at the same time. And seeing you all smoothie to
[1:43:16] Lando. Nice.
[1:43:18] I like that bit. We also meet two more supporting
[1:43:21] characters here who became pretty famous in their own right
[1:43:24] in Lando Calrissian, the businessman who runs Bespin,
[1:43:27] played by Billy Dee Williams, and Boba Fett, the bounty hunter
[1:43:30] who tracked them down, played by Jeremy Bullock.
[1:43:32] Yeah. What do you think of those two
[1:43:34] as characters? I really like Lando.
[1:43:37] I think he's got an instant presence to him, which he needs
[1:43:39] because if he if he's built up as someone hand trusts enough to
[1:43:42] go to, to hide out with him, he's got to have something about
[1:43:45] him. And I think, yeah, Billy Dee
[1:43:47] Williams just bring that. And it is a strange one because
[1:43:50] his character changes so fast, like these 20 minutes, you can't
[1:43:54] keep it up. Like, oh, no, he's a friend.
[1:43:56] No, wait, Leah doesn't trust him.
[1:43:58] Oh, actually, no, he seems OK. No, actually, he's betrayed
[1:44:00] everyone. Oh, no, he's going to save them.
[1:44:01] He's helping by the end. Like, it probably spins your
[1:44:04] head around, but at the end, and I'm kind of OK with the fact
[1:44:07] that he's taken over the Falkland because that should be
[1:44:10] a total no, no, anyone other than hand flying.
[1:44:12] That should feel wrong, especially some dude we've only
[1:44:15] just met. But I'm like, OK, right now I
[1:44:18] can go with this. And I think Billy D Williams
[1:44:20] deserves a lot of credit for, for one thing, just making sense
[1:44:23] the character to begin with and getting you to be on board with
[1:44:26] him by the end. See, I really like Lando.
[1:44:28] Yeah, he's. The Apollo Creed, the hands
[1:44:30] Rocky, isn't he? But it doesn't take two films
[1:44:32] exactly. Yeah.
[1:44:36] I mean, originally Lando's name was Lando Cador, and one of the
[1:44:40] first ideas for him was to have him as a clone who survived the
[1:44:43] Clone Wars, which is pretty cool.
[1:44:46] He led legions of clones on a planet where they settled.
[1:44:49] One of the idea that Lando is the descendant of survivors of
[1:44:53] the Clone Wars, born into a family who reproduced solely by
[1:44:56] cloning. Now that just to me, it's just
[1:44:59] too complicated. That's just weird.
[1:45:01] Does. It have to be so complicated.
[1:45:04] That's just George Lucas all over.
[1:45:05] Let's have Lando as a clone, but he lives on a planet with just
[1:45:08] clones, and they're just by being clones.
[1:45:14] Yeah, well, Billy Dee Williams actually auditioned for the part
[1:45:16] of Harding Star Wars, but that didn't make him a shoe in to
[1:45:18] play Lando. The first person Lucas actually
[1:45:20] offered the role to was Yafed Kodor, but he said no because he
[1:45:25] didn't want to be typecast in science fiction films after
[1:45:27] recently doing Parker an Alien. And that was when Billy Dee
[1:45:31] Williams came in and he said Lando was much like me, a pretty
[1:45:35] cool guy, if he would say so himself.
[1:45:42] No, I am a big, big fan of Boba Fett.
[1:45:44] Like I said, he was frankly favorite character from the
[1:45:46] series because he was just so mysterious and just so cool and
[1:45:50] just had like this real persona and you didn't know who it was.
[1:45:54] And he was just like cool and Jedi and he was like straight
[1:45:56] out of there. But in this you see all the
[1:45:59] bounty hunters there, but none of them matter.
[1:46:01] Global Fets that you just see Boba Fett, you're like, that's
[1:46:03] the guy. That's the guy right there.
[1:46:05] No disintegrations. Brilliant.
[1:46:07] It's just no disintegrations, but OK.
[1:46:09] Yeah, I'll try me best. Maybe not.
[1:46:13] Maybe I'll try. But he's not even scared of
[1:46:15] Darth Vader. He's just as you wish.
[1:46:17] Yeah, whatever. Yeah, I'll do what I want to do.
[1:46:19] And I love that. And I just love the idea of
[1:46:21] bounty hunters. And I just love that whole
[1:46:23] thing. When I was a kid and I watched
[1:46:24] that and I thought it's just just so cool of like, just, it
[1:46:28] just really worked for me. Even though he's the person who
[1:46:30] takes Han Solo away, I'm quite happy that it's him.
[1:46:34] You know what I mean? It's not like somebody that you
[1:46:35] thought, oh, he's not cool enough to take Han Solo away.
[1:46:38] Boba Fett is definitely cool enough to take Han Solo away.
[1:46:41] Yeah. So it totally works for me.
[1:46:42] Yeah, he only has five lines in the film, but you're right, he's
[1:46:45] only character and the whole film would not scared a Darth
[1:46:47] Vader. Yeah, and he tracks the Falcon,
[1:46:49] sells that information to the Empire, then sticks around and
[1:46:52] takes hand off a jab by the hood where he gets paid again and he
[1:46:55] gets the Empire. I do all the work for him.
[1:46:56] He doesn't do anything. He gets 2 pages.
[1:46:59] That's probably however. He knows what he's doing, yeah.
[1:47:02] And he's played by Jeremy Bullock.
[1:47:04] And if you look on his armor, if you look closely, you can see
[1:47:06] he's got a Wookie scalp on there.
[1:47:08] But Bullock wasn't told what it was.
[1:47:10] So when he first put the costume on, he thought it was a
[1:47:12] hairpiece. So he put it on under the
[1:47:14] helmet, which ended up sticking out the sides and then cursing
[1:47:17] us on and disperse. Our laughing was like, no, no
[1:47:20] Jeremy, that's not what it's for.
[1:47:26] Huge sequence there, then some big drama the last time we see
[1:47:29] Han in the film and one of Star Wars most powerful sequences.
[1:47:33] Absolutely. Easily.
[1:47:36] I love you. I know, moving on to the climax
[1:47:43] of the film now then, and it's another big one, isn't it?
[1:47:47] Luke Skywalker versus Darth Vader.
[1:47:52] The Force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a
[1:47:58] Jedi yet. Having abandoned his fourth
[1:48:01] training on Take About, Luke arrives at Bespin to save his
[1:48:03] friends. Doesn't go that well for Luke,
[1:48:06] does it? Not really, no.
[1:48:07] He kind of folks it a bit. Arriving too late to save her
[1:48:12] and he loses the lightsaber fight to Darth Vader before
[1:48:14] finding out. Even worse, he's a son of Vader.
[1:48:18] Even more massive this Thoughts on the lightsaber duel between
[1:48:21] Luke and Vader. It's one of those moments where
[1:48:24] it's so iconic. I can't imagine how it felt
[1:48:26] watching it at the time because you'd have had so many kids who
[1:48:31] loved Star Wars and would have like flocked to the cinema to
[1:48:33] see this and, and now probably just traumatized out of their
[1:48:36] minds by how dark it's got. And just when you think right,
[1:48:40] it's probably going to be OK from now on.
[1:48:42] You've got this deal, which is brilliantly shot.
[1:48:45] It's really exciting. Love them flying around.
[1:48:47] But then BAM, of course, Luke's hand, like God almighty, what
[1:48:52] else is the film going to put you through?
[1:48:53] Because the film, it's just so confident in what it's doing
[1:48:56] here. It knows it's pushing the
[1:48:57] boundaries, but it doesn't care because it just knows this is
[1:49:01] the right thing to do. This is what we're going to do,
[1:49:03] going to chop the hand off the main character and we'll get
[1:49:06] away with it. And even I want to watch it,
[1:49:08] it's so like it is, it's still so shocking.
[1:49:11] Just the violence of it, just like bomb whipped straight off.
[1:49:14] Like holy shit that I just seen that.
[1:49:18] But then right after that again, Luke takes the big fall in more
[1:49:21] proof of our Jedi can fall really great distances and be
[1:49:24] okay. I mean he's falling hundreds of
[1:49:26] feet. He not just 50.
[1:49:28] Feet off the. Butt off the bottom of not add
[1:49:30] and he's still okay. Straighten that shoe.
[1:49:32] Doesn't smash his spine a bit. You know, it's ridiculous, but I
[1:49:35] love it all the same. And then when he's hanging off
[1:49:37] the the aerial at the bottom of Cloud City, I love that pushing
[1:49:40] you get on Leah's face when she lukes there, tells Lando to go
[1:49:44] back and rescue him. And then obviously the TIE
[1:49:46] fighters are on the tail again. It's just fantastic.
[1:49:49] Love it all. Yeah, I mean, firstly, this has
[1:49:52] to be the worst rescue mission ever by anybody.
[1:49:55] Luke leaves Jagava or full of it.
[1:49:57] I've had a vision only I can save my friends.
[1:49:59] He gets there, doesn't save anyone or even help him escape.
[1:50:02] Comes across Vader, gets his ass handed to him and his hand
[1:50:06] chopped off and gets given some psychological trauma.
[1:50:08] The boot. He goes there to save his
[1:50:10] friends and his friends end up saving him.
[1:50:12] Rubbish. Jet high.
[1:50:13] But obviously the lightsaber fight is brilliant.
[1:50:16] Vader appearing at the top of the stairs in this line.
[1:50:19] You are not a Jedi yet. Fantastic storytelling that.
[1:50:23] I like how Luke climbs the stairs and it's he who turned
[1:50:25] his lifesaver on first. He wants to fight Veda like.
[1:50:28] He does in The Cave. Yeah, fancies his chances, and
[1:50:30] he definitely shouldn't, but to be fair, he holds his own for a
[1:50:33] bit. And then Vera goes into like,
[1:50:35] second gear, I suppose. And the plot twist?
[1:50:38] I mean, that'll never be topped, surely?
[1:50:40] Not only is it a great twist, it happens in one of the most
[1:50:42] anticipated films ever made. Double whammy.
[1:50:45] It turns Star Wars from a good versus evil kind of fairy tale
[1:50:48] to the Skywalker saga, which is definitely for the best.
[1:50:52] To be fair though, if you tell someone you're their dad and
[1:50:54] they instantly instantly try to kill themselves, you might want
[1:50:58] to have a look at yourself. Yeah, but if you Darth Vader
[1:51:02] then that's the reaction you want.
[1:51:05] Yeah, probably. Probably, yeah.
[1:51:06] That's good. I've got quite a bit to say on
[1:51:11] this because I think there's a lot in this sequence that people
[1:51:14] kind of don't pick up on that isn't true.
[1:51:18] Maybe isn't Wesley. Theory is this.
[1:51:20] Wesley theory. But I just it's just what I get
[1:51:22] from it. And I think that the fact of you
[1:51:26] watch him and like you said, that Luke ignites his Sabre
[1:51:29] first and goes for it. It's just in this whole
[1:51:31] sequence, I just think Theodore's just going easy on
[1:51:33] him all the way through it. Watch the whole thing.
[1:51:35] He's just going easy on him. He's just deflecting him.
[1:51:37] He's just moving him around. He's like right here and looks
[1:51:40] like, wow, OK, come on. Then he keeps going up and he's
[1:51:42] like, look, just stop, stop. And it's just a real lesson.
[1:51:45] And just somebody just going like calm down.
[1:51:47] And he's like using the Force to like move stuff and just hit him
[1:51:49] and hits the window by accident. Luke flies out and then you get
[1:51:52] that reaction from here. He hasn't got any emotion on his
[1:51:54] face. We get that reaction like, oh,
[1:51:56] shit, he's gone up the window right off.
[1:51:58] Go and get him. I'll talk.
[1:51:59] And it's just this kind of discussion with these Sony sons
[1:52:02] just like come in. And he's just like, look at my
[1:52:06] calm down. Doing this, doing this, doing
[1:52:08] this. And I do think that there's a
[1:52:11] thing that people don't really talk about.
[1:52:12] And that lightsaber that he's using is Anakin's lightsaber
[1:52:15] from the first film. And he cuts it off his hand and
[1:52:18] cuts his hand off to just remove himself totally from Luke and
[1:52:22] remove himself totally from who he used to be.
[1:52:24] And I think that's why that's so significant and cutting the
[1:52:27] whole hand off and just making sure that a hand that grows
[1:52:29] back, which it does in Jedi is reminiscent of the dark side
[1:52:32] with the black glove and the mechanics, which becomes Darth
[1:52:35] Theatre itself. So I think that hand becomes
[1:52:38] almost like what Darth Vader has to be or what Anakin has to be
[1:52:40] and wanted him to become part of that whole psyche, which he is,
[1:52:44] which he does. I think it's a really father and
[1:52:47] son sequence. And I think if you've had a if
[1:52:49] you have a son and if he does kick off, this is exactly what
[1:52:53] it's like trying to calm him down.
[1:52:57] So to me it's it's a beautifully, beautifully made,
[1:52:59] beautifully made piece of cinema and wonderful.
[1:53:02] Well, Lucas obviously knew what he had with the big I am your
[1:53:05] father moment so wanted to keep it a big secret.
[1:53:08] Have you heard what they did on the set to do that?
[1:53:10] Specifically to poor David Prowse?
[1:53:12] No. Yeah, well, he was a notorious
[1:53:15] blabbermouth, and he was always revealing pop points for the
[1:53:18] films because Lucas had the idea like a couple of years
[1:53:21] previously this was going to happen.
[1:53:22] And he vaguely mentioned to it, and probably Prowse had gone to
[1:53:25] a convention and was just telling anyone who would listen.
[1:53:28] Oh yeah, Vader, Luke's father. You know, that's what's going to
[1:53:30] happen in the next one. Unbelievable.
[1:53:33] So to stop and continue doing it because obviously, you know,
[1:53:35] before Twitter so wasn't going to get around that much.
[1:53:38] They gave Proust a script which had the line Obi Wan killed your
[1:53:40] father instead. Then they had to tell Hamel what
[1:53:43] the actual line was right before filming so Hamel would give the
[1:53:46] correct reaction for it instead. Yeah.
[1:53:48] Mark Hamill said the Kirchner pulled him to one side and said,
[1:53:51] now I know this and George knows this, and now you're going to
[1:53:55] know this. But if you tell anybody, Carrie
[1:53:58] Harrison, anybody, we'll know it was you.
[1:54:02] Really. Medicine.
[1:54:04] Yeah. There's a good story from the
[1:54:06] premier as well. At the point when their theater
[1:54:08] said I'm your father, Harrison Ford leaned over to Mark Hamill
[1:54:11] and said, hey, kid, you never fucking told me.
[1:54:17] Which is testament to Hamill, really.
[1:54:19] And. Apparently, Proud was furious
[1:54:23] they'd never been told the truth.
[1:54:24] Because, he said if I'd known, my acting would have been
[1:54:27] completely different. I'm pretty sure you're standing
[1:54:32] there perfectly still at that point.
[1:54:34] You would have kept your fist closed.
[1:54:38] Thing is though. Like, this is back in the day
[1:54:40] when they made novelizations of films, and the novelization came
[1:54:44] out a month earlier, which was written by a guy called Donald F
[1:54:46] Glut. And obviously, the big reveal is
[1:54:48] in there anyway. So, you know, it was probably
[1:54:50] known by a fair few people. Yeah.
[1:54:52] Different times. I mean, if that happened now
[1:54:54] would be posted on social media millions of times within a few
[1:54:57] hours. Oh yeah?
[1:54:59] What? All sequence, though?
[1:55:00] One of the most iconic in Hollywood.
[1:55:03] Love it. Yeah, Absolutely love it.
[1:55:04] Yeah. Obi Wan never told you what
[1:55:08] happened to your father. He.
[1:55:10] Told me enough. He told me.
[1:55:12] You killed. It No.
[1:55:15] I am your father. And for me, we're at the end of
[1:55:24] the movie looking Lee. I meet back up with the rebel
[1:55:26] fleet and with Luke recovering from his injuries, chewing and
[1:55:29] Lando head off in the Falcon to rescue Hand from Jabba the Hood.
[1:55:32] I'm not entirely sure why Lando was wearing Hans clothes, that's
[1:55:36] really weird. It's really weird, but.
[1:55:38] Apart from that, a satisfying climax for the film.
[1:55:42] Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
[1:55:44] I end as well. Really neat.
[1:55:47] Really neat top button. Don't know these fit perfectly.
[1:55:52] Thanks so very much. Surely you get clothes anyway.
[1:55:55] You have to wear hands. Shit that's really nobody's nose
[1:55:57] in it. Chew back an extra 1 off of
[1:56:00] folks. It's probably like when you go
[1:56:01] on work experience, they say you go find a kind of strike here to
[1:56:04] he's probably said, oh you want to fight for oh you got to wear
[1:56:07] hands glow. Sorry, not do that.
[1:56:09] That's. Beautiful.
[1:56:24] Reception and awards. Big things were expected at the
[1:56:28] box office for The Empire Strikes Back, and while it
[1:56:31] didn't perform as well as Star Wars, it was still a massive
[1:56:34] hit. From a final budget of $30.5
[1:56:37] million, Empire grossed approximately $550 million
[1:56:41] worldwide. It took more than five times as
[1:56:43] much as any other film that year and was the second highest
[1:56:46] grossing film ever after Star Wars, so didn't do too badly.
[1:56:50] Not too. Shabby 30 million is not bad
[1:56:52] either for that budget. No, not at all.
[1:56:55] Before the film was released, though, Lucas did have some
[1:56:57] trouble from the director of Guild of America regarding the
[1:57:00] credits, right? Have you heard much about that?
[1:57:02] Nope. Yeah, it's all because of the
[1:57:05] open and crawl, which Lucas wanted to do that again and
[1:57:09] therefore he wanted to run the credits, the end like he did
[1:57:11] with Star Wars. But he only got away with that
[1:57:13] in the 1st place because back then they thought the film was
[1:57:16] going to be a flop, so they didn't really care what he did.
[1:57:18] But obviously this time around, the new Empire, he was going to
[1:57:20] be massive. So they're told him no, no, the
[1:57:22] credits have to be the start this time.
[1:57:24] So Lucas refused. The DTA tried to sort of been
[1:57:27] released, which failed. So then the handed out fines to
[1:57:30] Lucas and Kirchner, $250,000 each.
[1:57:34] Lucas paid up both of those himself, and then he resigned
[1:57:36] from the DGA and the WGA, which is why for Return of the Jedi,
[1:57:41] he hired Richard Marquand to direct that, because Lucas had
[1:57:44] to hire somebody who also wasn't a member of the Directors Guild.
[1:57:48] Wow. Yeah.
[1:57:51] Yeah, it's one of the first films, wasn't it?
[1:57:53] Because a lot of this, a lot of the films like in the 70s, late
[1:57:56] 70s, even early 80s, had all the credits at the front.
[1:57:59] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yes, of crawl.
[1:58:01] Yeah, first. Ones it just be like even Star
[1:58:03] Wars was probably the first film.
[1:58:04] They just be like film. That's it.
[1:58:07] Yeah, Credits. At the end, I don't want there's
[1:58:09] this probably more, but off the top of my head I kind of think
[1:58:11] of one more iconic than Star Wars.
[1:58:13] Really. No.
[1:58:15] Well, critics, why is the film didn't receive the long reviews
[1:58:17] of Star Wars, but they were still positive.
[1:58:20] So Roger Ebert, the Artful Dodger.
[1:58:22] Did he like it, Rog? I reckon he did.
[1:58:26] He did four stars out of four and he called it a visual
[1:58:29] extravaganza with fantastic storytelling that creates in us
[1:58:32] a sense of wonder. Nice loves a miserable film,
[1:58:35] Rog, Shouldn't he? No, he does.
[1:58:37] He does. Writing for Time, Joella Clark
[1:58:40] said Empire surpasses Star Wars in several ways, including being
[1:58:44] more visually and artistically interesting.
[1:58:46] True. And he said Yoda is the
[1:58:49] highlight when he should have obviously said the highlight.
[1:58:51] The odor is very nice. Janet Maslin.
[1:58:57] Even Janet Maslin has some good things to say about it.
[1:58:59] Wow. She said it's a success because
[1:59:02] Star Wars was such an uncommonly hard act to follow.
[1:59:05] It's no Small wonder that the first film had been followed at
[1:59:07] all, though she had some criticisms for Lando as a
[1:59:11] character, and she said he was exaggeratedly unctuous,
[1:59:14] untrustworthy and loaded with jive.
[1:59:20] That's just the character he has plays on and he's great.
[1:59:26] That's it, just the plays. Since then, of course, Empire
[1:59:30] State has grown stronger and stronger through the years and
[1:59:32] now regularly figures at the top end of greatest ever movies
[1:59:35] lists. In 2014, Empire Magazine had a
[1:59:38] reader's poll where 250,000 people voted to find the
[1:59:41] greatest movie of all time, and Empire came out number one.
[1:59:45] The godfather #2 to the end. Rotten Tomatoes Empire has 94%
[1:59:50] from critics and 97% from audiences, and an IMDb a huge
[1:59:55] 8.7 out of 10 #15 on their top 250 list, one place above The
[2:00:00] Matrix and one below Lord of the Rings.
[2:00:02] The Two Towers. At the Oscars, Empire won best
[2:00:05] sound and best visual effects. It was nominated for best art
[2:00:08] direction and best score. So Empire has a huge film
[2:00:12] nowadays, and it was that way straight out of the gate really.
[2:00:15] A box office megahit, acclaim, critically won a few awards, are
[2:00:18] now regarded as one of the great movie sequels.
[2:00:21] I would. Say so.
[2:00:22] Absolutely there's. Not much like it.
[2:00:28] Sequels and influence. The Empire Strikes Back was a
[2:00:32] sequel of course, and has been followed by lots of other Star
[2:00:35] Wars films including Lucas prequel trilogy, the Disney
[2:00:38] sequel trilogy, and a few animations and anthology films
[2:00:41] as well. We're not going to talk about
[2:00:44] any of those for two main reasons.
[2:00:46] Firstly, there's far too many, we don't have time, and most of
[2:00:49] them are rubbish. And secondly, we now have a
[2:00:53] YouTube channel and I plan to cover a few Star Wars movies
[2:00:56] there maybe, so keep an eye out for those.
[2:00:58] Yep. What we do have though, is a
[2:01:01] period question on one of the latest Star Wars films and
[2:01:04] Empire. OK, so Andy Sillerman.
[2:01:07] Hello, Andy. Hello, Andy.
[2:01:08] Andy has a question for us and here it is.
[2:01:11] Hi. Guys Andy here, Empire and Rogue
[2:01:13] One for me are the best in the series and make a great trilogy
[2:01:16] along with Star Wars as they both have a darker tone to them.
[2:01:20] Which? Do you prefer?
[2:01:22] Westy. Out of Rogue One and Empire.
[2:01:25] Yeah. I have to say that I prefer
[2:01:29] Empire because Rogue One wouldn't be Rogue One without
[2:01:32] Empire. Really.
[2:01:33] It's a huge influence on that film.
[2:01:35] But I do love where they went with Rogue One.
[2:01:37] I do think it was a fantastic retelling of a prequel to Star
[2:01:42] Wars, and I love Darth Vader in that.
[2:01:44] But I do think there was a bit too Fox.
[2:01:46] If Darth Vader was like that in Empire, it wouldn't be as good
[2:01:50] because you could just throw a look around and people flying
[2:01:53] everywhere, and I think they took that a little bit too far.
[2:01:56] But I thought it was great. I thought it was really, really
[2:01:58] good to see it updated for a new audience and a new generation.
[2:02:01] So I think Rogue One is my kids empire, but Empire is my empire.
[2:02:07] Yeah, I like Rogue One very much.
[2:02:09] It's far from perfect, and I think it could have been a lot
[2:02:11] better than it was. I'll keep the details for if we
[2:02:13] ever do one of those videos on Rogue One, but I do like it a
[2:02:16] lot. The main thing they've got right
[2:02:17] for me is the visuals. It looks like Star Wars, or how
[2:02:21] I think Star Wars looks at its best it's got.
[2:02:23] The right tone, it's. Grounded and it's dirty.
[2:02:25] It's got some good world building, classic Star Wars
[2:02:27] stuff that was completely overlooked in the Disney
[2:02:30] trilogy. It's not as good as Empire as it
[2:02:32] is narratively flawed sometimes, but Rogue One is easily, easily
[2:02:35] the best Star Wars film outside the original trilogy for me.
[2:02:38] Yeah. I would totally agree with that.
[2:02:40] It's got the right tone. Definitely.
[2:02:42] Yeah, very much in agreement. I like the film a lot as well,
[2:02:44] but no, I can't put it anywhere near Empire.
[2:02:47] I do find and I've always found the 1st 20 minutes to Rogue one
[2:02:50] a bit all over the place. I think it takes a while to
[2:02:52] settle in the the story wants to tell.
[2:02:55] It jumps around from character to planet quite a lot and like
[2:02:57] it's a bit hectic and I've never liked the the CGI Peter cushion
[2:03:04] talk and I don't know why they just didn't recast it.
[2:03:06] I don't think that worked at all for me.
[2:03:09] They're they're the two main force.
[2:03:10] But overall, I do like Rogue One a lot.
[2:03:13] Actually. I think it is a very, very good
[2:03:15] film, like Lot, but it's no Empire.
[2:03:17] Yeah, the last 20 minutes of Rogue One is the Empire's race
[2:03:20] back. The last 20 minutes.
[2:03:22] Is worth your time. Fantastic.
[2:03:23] Worth your? Time a huge film of course
[2:03:25] Empire and films of that size do tend to have a knock on effect
[2:03:28] on Hollywood in the years that follow.
[2:03:30] How do you think we see the influence of Empire since it was
[2:03:32] released? I think any blockbuster
[2:03:35] franchise that tries to go darker for a sequel or have a
[2:03:38] cliffhanger, so massive one that comes to mind as Avengers
[2:03:42] Infinity Walks, that had a huge cliffhanger and it works really
[2:03:45] well. It's a great cliffhanger.
[2:03:47] I remember watching the cinema being really pretty standard by,
[2:03:49] but the only thing is you knew watching it you only had to wait
[2:03:52] a year for the next one to come along to resolve it.
[2:03:55] Whereas with Empire, I don't know for sure, but I'm presuming
[2:03:58] no one even knew when Returning the Jedi was coming out or even
[2:04:01] if it would come out. So to send an audience out like
[2:04:04] that, it's such a ballsy move. And I think a lot of films try
[2:04:06] to recreate that, but I don't think they're ever going to do
[2:04:10] it in the way that Empire did. And the other one I think really
[2:04:14] takes off from Star Wars in general, but particularly
[2:04:16] Empire. It's the Pirates, the Caribbean
[2:04:18] franchise, because that first Pirates film, it's very light
[2:04:22] and torn, the plots really straightforward.
[2:04:24] It's really enjoyable. But then the sequel just brings
[2:04:26] in loads more characters, really tries to like expand the
[2:04:30] mythology, that particular world that it's set in.
[2:04:32] And it ends, I think, with Jack Sparrow being dragged off in a
[2:04:35] captivity beneath the sea by the Kraken.
[2:04:37] I think it is. And then the the remaining
[2:04:40] characters have to rely on Geoffrey Rush's villainous
[2:04:42] character to form the rescue mission for the next film, which
[2:04:45] I think is it's almost like beat for beat, a RIP off of Empire in
[2:04:48] a lot of ways. Just absolutely, you know, and
[2:04:51] he was good. So yeah, Pirates Caribbean, I
[2:04:53] think really wants to be Star Wars and really wants to be
[2:04:55] Empire. Yeah, I mean, obviously everyone
[2:04:58] knows that Empire was a big influence on blockbusters in
[2:05:00] general, but I think it's influence on sequels
[2:05:02] specifically. It's just unparalleled.
[2:05:05] Before Empire, blockbuster sequels tended to be very much
[2:05:07] standalone stories. Things like James Bond and
[2:05:10] Empire was the first. It was a direct continuation of
[2:05:12] the story where you had to see the first film to really
[2:05:14] understand what was going on. And that's been standard
[2:05:16] practice since big movie series usually follow a trilogy model.
[2:05:20] Back to the Future, The Dark Knight, The Matrix, Indiana
[2:05:23] Jones, Plant of the Apes, all trilogies and that came directly
[2:05:27] from Star Wars and Empire for the open ending for the second
[2:05:30] film, The Matrix does that, Battle of the Future, Part 2,
[2:05:33] The Two Towers all end with unresolved narratives leading
[2:05:35] into a third film, again directly taken from Empire.
[2:05:38] And mostly I think the darker second film has became a bit of
[2:05:41] a cliche of movie series now. The Dark Knight, Temple of Doom,
[2:05:45] Dawn of Planet of the Apes, all darker than the first films and
[2:05:48] all influenced by Empire. I wish more people would have
[2:05:51] taken influence from The Departure and the story that we
[2:05:53] told you about the Empire made instead of just rehashing the
[2:05:55] story from the first film, but I guess that's not as easy to do
[2:05:58] as just making it a bit darker. But I mean of course Empire
[2:06:02] massively influential to this day and I think you'll still see
[2:06:04] Empires influence 50 years from now when we're all dead.
[2:06:09] Long gone cheapy. We're putting this.
[2:06:12] End of the podcast. Like Empire, just.
[2:06:15] End on that word. When we're all dead, I've got
[2:06:24] nothing else to say. Yeah, I mean, it is.
[2:06:29] It's one of them stables where you just kind of go, you know,
[2:06:32] if it wasn't vampire, would you have such an output from James
[2:06:36] Cameron? What do you have the guts to
[2:06:37] make aliens have you hadn't seen Empire Strikes Back?
[2:06:40] You know, it's one of them films where you just watch it and go.
[2:06:43] That was something that was just so massive in the 77 Star Wars.
[2:06:48] And then we could take it somewhere else and we're doing
[2:06:50] something else with it and we're giving it a new lease of life.
[2:06:53] And we're exploring it in a dramatic tone and an emotional
[2:06:57] tone. And to me, yes, it is darker,
[2:07:00] but it's also more realistic. It's more you can buy into it.
[2:07:04] And I think that's it's there's a humanitarian kind of vibe to
[2:07:08] it where every character becomes a human being and every
[2:07:11] character has an emotion. Whereas in Star Wars that wasn't
[2:07:14] very evident, but in this it definitely is.
[2:07:16] And I think a lot of people watched Empire Strikes Back and
[2:07:18] went, holy shit, that's a sci-fi film with spaceships and Darth
[2:07:23] Vader. But I still feel something from
[2:07:25] it. So no matter what you do, no
[2:07:27] matter what your genre is, you can still create that feeling.
[2:07:30] And I think that's what Empire did.
[2:07:32] And I think that's still what Empire does, to be honest.
[2:07:34] I get some massive film. Empire carried on the phenomenon
[2:07:38] that was Star Wars and made it even bigger.
[2:07:40] Lots of sequels, most of them not very good for us.
[2:07:43] But As for Empire, I think its influence is beyond question.
[2:07:47] Beyond question, definitely, absolutely.
[2:07:48] You agree? All the right movies.
[2:07:56] So we're at the end of our Empire Strikes Back episode.
[2:07:58] We've been through the full behind the scenes story and now
[2:08:01] is the time when we decide where the film will sit in the All the
[2:08:04] Right Movies leaderboard. So Matt, you want to start the
[2:08:07] ball rolling Your summary and score for The Empire Strikes
[2:08:09] Back please and. For me, Star Wars in general, I
[2:08:13] don't quite have the love for that other people do.
[2:08:16] I think out of us three, I think you 2 are bigger fans than I am.
[2:08:19] So I don't really bring that nostalgic viewpoint to this.
[2:08:23] Like as a kid, I just always prefer, I just always preferred
[2:08:26] the indie films. So I know when we get around to
[2:08:28] do in Temple of Dune, Last Crusade, I know for fact I'll be
[2:08:31] given those marks out of pure nostalgia because I can't
[2:08:33] separate it from those West of Star Wars.
[2:08:35] I can't separate it a little bit.
[2:08:37] So every mark that I want to give Empire, for me it has to be
[2:08:40] really earned. And it's a film that I look at
[2:08:43] and go special effects, music, production design, all
[2:08:46] incredible. These characters are great.
[2:08:48] The new characters are great. To be honest, a lot of that I
[2:08:51] think is to be expected. That shouldn't surprise anyone
[2:08:53] considering how established all that stuff is in Star Wars.
[2:08:57] But what I think elevates this one is how that really unlikely
[2:09:01] choice of director works so well.
[2:09:04] And I think what adds that is that script, because the
[2:09:07] storytelling choices in this film are just so brave and
[2:09:10] they're so clever and they're just work incredibly well.
[2:09:13] And they are the elements more than anything else, that I think
[2:09:16] every other franchise that that has come after desperately wants
[2:09:19] to copy. And I don't think anything else,
[2:09:21] whether it's Nolan's Batman films, whether it's Marvel,
[2:09:25] whether it's Lord of the Rings, I don't think any of them have
[2:09:27] come close to returning to a particular cinematic world and
[2:09:31] then shaking it and turning it upside down and then going,
[2:09:34] yeah, that's what it looks like now in the way that Empire does.
[2:09:38] It's just so brave and ultimately for me it's it's
[2:09:41] really easy. When I did Star Wars, I gave
[2:09:43] that A9. Empire is in my opinion better
[2:09:46] than that film in every department.
[2:09:48] So it's a well deserved and completely earned 10 for me.
[2:09:51] Oh nice. Full marks.
[2:09:55] Yeah. I mean, Star Wars is some act to
[2:09:56] try and follow the biggest film ever made at the time,
[2:09:59] Hollywood's biggest phenomena. The pressure and expectation
[2:10:02] that Lucas and his whole team was under that could have easily
[2:10:04] buckled. And this could be a Turkey.
[2:10:06] Yeah, but obviously it's not. If they made something that just
[2:10:09] came anywhere close to the original, that would have been
[2:10:11] an achievement. But to make a film that's widely
[2:10:13] regarded as being better than Star Wars, but take that for
[2:10:16] granted now. But it's almost beyond belief
[2:10:18] that they pulled that off. And the way they did it, the
[2:10:21] tone changed like we talked about.
[2:10:22] The story structure completely changes like we talked about.
[2:10:25] It's a very different film when the easiest thing to do would
[2:10:28] have been to replicate the first one.
[2:10:30] Very different, but still definitely feels like it's over
[2:10:32] Peace with Star Wars as well. So for the great vision from
[2:10:36] Lucas, excellent direction from Mervyn Kirschner, great writing
[2:10:39] Florence Kasdan, top much performances from the cast,
[2:10:42] world class creativity from John Williams, ILM, Pia Sashitski,
[2:10:46] Ben Bird, John Morlos, Ralph Macquarie.
[2:10:49] It's something special. Yeah, yes, it's the greatest
[2:10:51] block poster sequel ever. And yes, for me it's getting 10
[2:10:54] out of 10. Nice, lovely and rusty.
[2:10:57] You want some marine score for Empire, please.
[2:10:59] It's a. Five.
[2:11:00] It's all right. How out of five?
[2:11:04] No, I'm kidding, obviously. I'm kidding.
[2:11:06] It's yeah, it's it's great. It's bald.
[2:11:09] It's like Matt said, it's very brave, like you said, John.
[2:11:13] It's just, it's takes Star Wars and progresses it into a way
[2:11:17] that you didn't really need it to progress, but you did.
[2:11:19] Once you've seen it, there's a it's an amazing film from a
[2:11:23] character point of view. It's an amazing film from a
[2:11:25] visual point of view in every step.
[2:11:28] And it's got a lot to see and it's got a lot of depth, and to
[2:11:31] bring that to the sci-fi genre in 1980 is nothing short of an
[2:11:35] absolute miracle. And it still works now and it's
[2:11:39] just brilliant. It's just so entertaining.
[2:11:42] It's just so good. It's just everything in the
[2:11:44] right place. And for me, yeah, it's a 10.
[2:11:47] Of course, so another benefit of being a patron is that your vote
[2:11:52] will count for a lot in deciding the overall scores for movies we
[2:11:54] cover. So some of our parents comments
[2:11:57] on Empire, Derek Noonan said. I remember waiting in a line
[2:12:01] around the block at Evanston Theatre with my dad to get in to
[2:12:04] see this movie. But entire experience and my
[2:12:06] love for this film are the earliest and still one of the
[2:12:09] fondest memories I have of Cinema 10 all day.
[2:12:14] Hilton Thompson said my mum blind my brother and I out of
[2:12:18] school to see Returning the Jedi as she was so desperate to know
[2:12:21] what happened to Han. That was from all the emotions
[2:12:23] she felt at the end of this film.
[2:12:25] Yes, the opening is great, the middle pulls you into the
[2:12:27] character developments and the ending is jaw droppingly good.
[2:12:30] I'm going to watch it again tonight, no question.
[2:12:34] That's parenting done right. It is right too right.
[2:12:37] A great man, yes. And Paul Wilson said when Star
[2:12:42] Wars was released in 1977 I was 4.
[2:12:45] So my first opportunity to watch it was the UK premiere on ITV at
[2:12:48] 7:15 PM on Sunday the 24th of October 1982.
[2:12:53] Made an impact on Paul, do you think?
[2:12:55] But you. Know the fucking day.
[2:12:59] In 1984, a schoolmate was given Empire on VHS video and I'll
[2:13:03] never forget the excitement of going around his house to watch
[2:13:05] it for the first time all. Right.
[2:13:09] Imagine being really excited to see a Star Wars film and it'd be
[2:13:11] an Empire instead of being really excited to see a Star
[2:13:14] Wars film and it being The Phantom Menace.
[2:13:15] Like where you go and. We still made for self love that
[2:13:19] film at the time myself. It was good, yeah.
[2:13:23] That was great. That was really good.
[2:13:25] Those are just three of the Patreon comments we received.
[2:13:27] But that was the general theme. Big memories surrounding the
[2:13:29] original Star Wars films and family.
[2:13:32] I mean, these are like generation and childhood
[2:13:33] defining films for people on there.
[2:13:35] Absolutely. Absolutely.
[2:13:36] So important. And altogether, our Twitter
[2:13:39] followers rank the film as What do you think that was an?
[2:13:42] Easy 1010. Hasn't it?
[2:13:44] Come on, it's got to be. Yeah, of course.
[2:13:45] It was Everyone loves it. It was a. 10 out of 10, yes.
[2:13:48] So that gives The Empire Strikes Back 40 out of 40 in total.
[2:13:52] Boom. And it puts it third on the all
[2:13:55] time list behind The Godfather and The Matrix, surprisingly.
[2:13:59] All right, that. Works for me.
[2:14:00] That works for me, so. That's everything.
[2:14:02] We have an empire. Hopefully we haven't failed you
[2:14:05] for the last time, clumsy as we are.
[2:14:08] Stupid apology. Accepted.
[2:14:13] Next time excuses are like assholes and Wesley Look and Pi
[2:14:16] are full of them as they talk Charlie Sheen in Vietnam as they
[2:14:19] go all in on Oliver Stone's Oscar winning war classic
[2:14:23] Platoon. One of your favorite twisty.
[2:14:26] It is one of my favorite films of all time.
[2:14:28] Yeah. It's a very, really, really
[2:14:29] special film for me. So I'm.
[2:14:30] I'm super looking forward to talking about that.
[2:14:32] Yeah. Great.
[2:14:34] To find out more about becoming a Patreon, accessing our archive
[2:14:37] Bornus episodes, and supporting us in what we do, please visit
[2:14:40] patreon.com/all the Right Movies.
[2:14:43] Please subscribe, rate, and review us on iTunes and Apple
[2:14:45] Podcasts. And socially, you can keep up
[2:14:47] with All the Right Movies on Twitter, where we are at AT
[2:14:50] Right Movies. Take a look at our videos on
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[2:15:01] Facebook to join in with all the movie chat and phone and our
[2:15:04] website is all the right movies.com.
[2:15:08] Yes, it is. We're all off now to make a deal
[2:15:10] that'll keep the Empire out of here forever, so come back in
[2:15:14] two weeks though for soon. Thanks you guys, I'll.
[2:15:18] See you in hell.

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