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The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part One) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
01:39:17
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- [00:00]
Bill Simmons
Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe Show. That's right, I'm back to have the same in depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're going to talk about the games, the X's and O's, the drama. The playoffs are coming up and now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're going to love. So make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen. Listen to your podcast. Let's go. This episode is brought to you by New Pro Namo Clinical Enamel Strength Toothpaste. One thing we all try to do to stay healthy is to keep up a routine. Things like daily yoga or trying to maintain a healthy diet. So how about making oral health part of your day? Brush your teeth twice daily with Pro Enamel Clinical Enamel Strength for three times stronger enamel protection. And to help protect teeth for life, try new pronamel Clinical Enamel Strength Toothpaste. Right now. The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast network where you can find the Watch with cr.
- [01:11]
Sean Fennessy
That's right.
- [01:12]
Bill Simmons
Big Picture with Sean Fennessy. Higher learning.
- [01:15]
Chris Ryan
Yes.
- [01:16]
Bill Simmons
Midnight boys. Pew, pew, pew, pew.
- [01:20]
Chris Ryan
You better get it right for this.
- [01:21]
Sean Fennessy
It's crucial. Yeah.
- [01:22]
Chris Ryan
Better get it right.
- [01:23]
Bill Simmons
I'm Bill Simmons. We're about to do Star Wars. It's a major movie and you guys are really, really excited. Let's get it.
- [01:33]
Sean Fennessy
You dork.
- [01:34]
Chris Ryan
You like.
- [01:36]
Bill Simmons
You guys. How you guys doing?
- [01:37]
Van Lathan
You can't bully us throughout this podcast. Not bullying anything.
- [01:40]
Bill Simmons
I had a great time a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Here they come.
- [01:46]
Van Lathan
Star wars coming in too fast.
- [01:48]
Chris Ryan
An adventure unlike anything on your planet.
- [01:52]
Bill Simmons
It's an epic of heroes and villains and aliens from a thousand.
- [02:04]
Chris Ryan
Star wars. Rated pg.
- [02:21]
Bill Simmons
All right, guys. First installment of the greatest trilogy ever. Peak of the 70s blockbuster era. Godfather, Exorcist, Jaws, Rocky. Star Wars. Return of popular cinema. The highest stakes ever in an actual movie because the entire galaxy is at stake. Van.
- [02:38]
Chris Ryan
Yes.
- [02:39]
Bill Simmons
What jumps out first for you? Star Wars 1977. I'm not doing this. Chapter four, New Hope. Fuck that. This movie's called Star Wars. I saw it in the theater. We called it Star Wars.
- [02:49]
Van Lathan
Okay, okay.
- [02:50]
Chris Ryan
Oh, it's already begun. One of the single most important moments of my life is watching Star wars with my father. It actually opened up my mind to an entire realm of cinematic possibility. Being that deep in space, all of the lore that Goes on around it. All the mystery. When you first see it, you're wondering what's happening. What's happening? What's happening? How do you explain some of the things that are going on? It assumes that you understand both the natural hero's arc, but also that you kind of get and understand the stakes of the world. It sets you up for me at least, to understand all of the nerd culture stuff and all of the science fiction stuff that I will go on to love for the rest of my life.
- [03:39]
Van Lathan
How old were you when you saw it?
- [03:40]
Chris Ryan
Seven. Yeah, seven years old.
- [03:43]
Bill Simmons
I'm the only one who saw it in the theater.
- [03:44]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. I mean, this is the movie that I've seen the most of my life. I think I was surprised to hear.
- [03:49]
Bill Simmons
That you told me that last week. And I would not have been megas.
- [03:51]
Van Lathan
I mean.
- [03:51]
Sean Fennessy
I mean, I remember it's like, from the time that I can basically remember from when I was like, five or six to now. I mean, it's just been a constant in my life. And especially with the last, what, 15 years of its revival pretty much since, like, 2013, when Force Awakens come out.
- [04:10]
Van Lathan
Fifteen? Yeah.
- [04:11]
Bill Simmons
It's had two revivals because the 97 was the first revival when they crushed. People were like, what's going on?
- [04:18]
Sean Fennessy
Like, I was.
- [04:21]
Van Lathan
It was huge.
- [04:21]
Bill Simmons
Over $200 million.
- [04:22]
Van Lathan
Saw them all again. Well, was also. They added new stuff, so that was part of the appeal. But then again, the prequels, too, that was like, they're prequels for the second life.
- [04:30]
Bill Simmons
It feels like the mid 2010s and then this whole Disney and or Mandalorian universe was like, the fourth revival of it.
- [04:37]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I mean, it's like we do these rewatchables a lot, and, like, we'll talk about movies from, say, like, the early 80s or the 70s. This is the first one I think we've done that I feel like was this turning point where I was born into a world after Star Wars. So I was born at the end of 77. So everything that happened in my life is a world that is reacting to what George Lucas did. And so I don't even have, like, a frame of reference for what going to the movies was like before Star Wars. And I think it's a testament to this movie's legacy and impact that movies were never the same after that.
- [05:10]
Van Lathan
And I think also because of what you were saying with Rocky and the Godfather and this era of massive cinema, but most of those movies were for adults and for guys like us who are, like, in their 40s who are born into a world of Star Wars. These are movies for kids. I mean, you could, I think, probably four or five when I saw Star wars for the first time. And so it just becomes a part of your cultural bloodstream at a very, very early age. So it's definitely on the list, too, for me, for the movies I've seen the most. And I vividly remember having the 3VHS cassette box, you know, that expanded size box, and just like, running that over and over and over again in dead time in afternoons after school. So it's got to be super high on the list. And, you know, I think, like, all of us, like, it just set us up for a lifetime of getting interested in science fiction, fantasy, comic books. Like, all this stuff that is so present in the culture now starts with this movie.
- [06:03]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I was always. I was. When I was watching it this time, I was thinking a lot about Luke and Han. And when you're a kid, let's say when you're like six or seven years older, whenever you see this movie and you're starting to get all the toys. I mean, this movie really, it suggests a lot of things about what we would come to understand about the mythology and the lore around Star Wars. But there's so many pockets for your imagination in this. And I was taken back to having the toys and writing my own Star wars stories, because it wasn't so. Everything was drilled down. All the details were nailed down, all the things about Star wars that we now know, which is gonna make picking nits almost hard, because you could just be like, oh, yeah, they answered that in Rogue One, or they answered that in Jedi, or they answered that in Sith. It's like, well, for me, I came up with them, like. And that was like this thing that became. It almost belonged to everybody. Because in your mind, you were like, I think about Wedge as much as I think about whoever. And I have, like, a whole story laid out in my little brain about this. And I think that's why people are still obsessed with it later in life, is because you have this memory of it being, like a cortex of how you started to use your creative brain almost.
- [07:14]
Chris Ryan
There was scarcity as well.
- [07:15]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [07:16]
Chris Ryan
Like, we didn't have a lot of Star wars material and content. Obviously, they went on to be television specials, and it was constantly referenced and all of that stuff. But, you know, there weren't, like, there were comic books and stuff like that. But then you. Until you get to the expanded universe stuff and all of that stuff that we spent all of those years reading. And then they just said, doesn't exist. After hours and hours and hours of reading it still feel away about that. You had to make the mythology up in your head. You had to wonder how was this a big deal. You had to think about what the Clone wars were like, how they fought, what a Jedi looked like. When a Jedi was 25, we only knew old Jedis and then baby Jedi. We never knew a Jedi in his prime. You have to think about all of these variables because it wasn't given it to you yet. We were still in the baby stages of how gigantic the universe would become. And that sort of goosed your imagination to fill in the gaps of the stuff that you hadn't seen but wanted to see.
- [08:18]
Bill Simmons
So it came out. I think I was at the end of maybe second grade. It was like late. I was still in school and people were going to see it like you started. I didn't see it right away. People in my class, some of them. And I was in, you know, Massachusetts, and people were going like four or five times in two weeks. And it was the first time you were like, wait, this kid David, like, this kid David, you think you're better than me, David? He saw it six times in two weeks. And it was like, what? Yeah, he went to the same movie 6. Like we were just like dumbfounded. And there was like the sports kids and then there were like the Star wars kids. And there were these certain kids that they just.
- [08:58]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, shit.
- [09:00]
Bill Simmons
And there was some night over that.
- [09:01]
Van Lathan
You'Ll be other many more times in this episode.
- [09:03]
Bill Simmons
But there were these kids that really all. All of a sudden it became part of their personality. Like this movie when we came back for I guess, the third grade, whatever it was. And at that point some of the merch was out and they were just into it and it was like this whole world. I never remember seeing that before.
- [09:19]
Van Lathan
I do think that that is a real generational divide between us at least where to me, like the kids who are into sports were into Star wars. Like that was the ringer exists I think, because eventually what happened to the culture is that those things were all the same. That like your obsession and your passion. And I told you when you texted me about doing this, I vividly remember being 10 years old and walking down the hill from my house to go to the local bookstore. And I would just sit in the bookstore and I would read the Star wars encyclopedia for hours. I couldn't afford to buy the book. But the exact thing that Van is describing and the Chris is describing where it's like there was so much information that you heard uttered one time in one of the movies and then there was all this lore that was explained about it. But it was the same exact experience as looking at the back of a baseball card where you're like, you're. You're getting a better understanding of the history of this thing that you have a passion for. But you can only experience it when you're watching a game or you can only experience it when you're watching the movie. Except there's all this external culture around it. And like, I'm sure when the movie came out, everybody was getting toys and they were like, the Halloween that was.
- [10:19]
Bill Simmons
The first one, whatever Halloween was a few years later and everybody was dressed as like Luke or did David go.
- [10:25]
Sean Fennessy
As Luke or Vader?
- [10:26]
Bill Simmons
I don't know. We probably try to bully him at some point. Where is David now? David, come on out the. But it just, it, it wasn't for me until Empire because it was like, I saw it in the theater. It was cool. We didn't really have cable in the same way back then. I remember there was that famous holiday special they did a year. I didn't see that either. But when Empire came out, that's when.
- [10:50]
Chris Ryan
That makes sense.
- [10:50]
Bill Simmons
Though when Empire came out, I was like, holy shit. So. And now there's going to be a third one. We just weren't conditioned to think of trilogies like that.
- [10:57]
Chris Ryan
Empire was the serious movie. Yeah, it was the movie where Star wars grew up, where there was a defined romance in the movie between Han and Leia. Where Luke.
- [11:08]
Bill Simmons
Wait, don't spoil me. I haven't seen it.
- [11:11]
Chris Ryan
Where Luke has this adversity and personal crisis about who he is and how he's gonna get there. And that's the movie where they went, okay, let's take all the ideas from the first one and then evolve them into a movie that is for the moviegoer that's a little bit more of a grown up version of it because it's a lot darker and there's a lot of double crossing and things that are going on. So they actually kind of made Empire for the guys like yourself who were probably, you know, I mean, you were still pretty young at the time, but were more serious filmgoers and film watchers.
- [11:45]
Bill Simmons
Well, that came out kind of around the Shining. 80 was a really good movie. Yeah. But look, you watching this twice in four days. The first time I watched, I hadn't seen it a long time and I was like, ah, it's dated, but, nah, this is fun. This is nostalgic. And then I watched it the second time, and I was like, this movie is kind of awesome.
- [12:06]
Van Lathan
He was onto something, that George Lucas.
- [12:08]
Chris Ryan
I was like, holy, we don't need that from you.
- [12:10]
Bill Simmons
I'm just saying. I was like, whoa. They really. They really did.
- [12:14]
Chris Ryan
Star wars is a good movie. Yeah.
- [12:16]
Bill Simmons
So you say.
- [12:17]
Sean Fennessy
Would you say over under 10 times you've seen this in your life?
- [12:21]
Bill Simmons
I think I've seen pieces of it for 50 years. But just watching it start to finish, because when you start it, especially when we had kids, I was like, oh, I wonder if my kids look like it. And C3PO and R2D2 go in the desert and the movie just dies for, like four minutes. And if your kids can get over that hump, you just basically have to get your kids to the Star wars bar scene. Once you're there, it kind of. You're going from that point, but it does get a little slow there.
- [12:45]
Van Lathan
Yeah, I kind of. The inverted experience rewatching it. I rewatched it a couple times for this. The first time, I was like, man, we are on Tatooine for a long time. This is just a lot of desert time with Luke. And I was kind of bored. And it's probably been between 5 and 10 years since I've last watched it. But by the time we got to the trench run, I was like, probably best movie ever made. This is the best I've ever felt about a movie. I was vibrating. I was, like, in tears.
- [13:08]
Bill Simmons
That's how I felt the second time. I was like, this is just amazing. Like, every time Darth Vader comes in, it's the best entrance. He's the most captivating villain that's ever been in a movie. And you're just like. And he's in the movie for 12 minutes.
- [13:21]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [13:22]
Bill Simmons
There's never been a better villain. Right.
- [13:24]
Chris Ryan
It's funny. The movie is about him. Yeah. It's his story.
- [13:28]
Van Lathan
We didn't get it.
- [13:30]
Chris Ryan
We did not know that then. We didn't know that then. But when you watch it through that lens now, you're still watching his story and the story of his kids and the story of the entire.
- [13:41]
Sean Fennessy
And his surrogate father.
- [13:43]
Bill Simmons
Well, when Obi Wan tells the story about what happened to Luke's dad. But, you know, I mean, it's. We're going to talk about a bunch of shit during this pod. But that keeping that secret, not knowing that secret in 1977 at all. Watching the movie one way, but now Knowing the secret. When you watch it, it's a completely different movie.
- [14:01]
Sean Fennessy
I think I. The thing that jumped out at me on these rewatches was I always forget how bratty Luke is for that first hour, you know? And, like, there's. There's like those funny lines where he's like, you know, I was going to. I was going to station power converters or whatever, and it's really, like, not until they spring Leia that he kind of, like, starts to grow up a little bit. And then that's also when he has the moment that basically makes him a man, when he loses Obi Wan or whatever. But, like, yeah, it's really funny. I remember being a kid.
- [14:33]
Bill Simmons
I can't wait to talk about that.
- [14:34]
Sean Fennessy
And identifying with Luke, because I was a child, so Luke was kind of like a cool older person to me then. And now it's like, you go back and you're just like, I just watched. It's just like as soon as Solo shows up, the movie takes off.
- [14:45]
Bill Simmons
Well, that's the other thing when you're watching this. It's Harrison Ford, one of the great actors from a popcorn standpoint in the last 50 years. And he's just this young version of him. It's like watching young somebody in college, like some NBA player we love, and everybody.
- [15:01]
Chris Ryan
Yeah. Completely fucking confident. Every scene.
- [15:08]
Bill Simmons
He's crushing.
- [15:08]
Chris Ryan
It is like the movie is written for him. People are talking about stuff. And Hans going, that's bullshit. And you're going with that guy? Yeah. Are we sure we should be doing the right. Perfectly?
- [15:19]
Bill Simmons
You feel like he can sleep with Princess Leia if you give him, like, three minutes.
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Chris Ryan
Oh, he feels like it.
- [15:23]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [15:24]
Bill Simmons
I could take this down.
- [15:25]
Chris Ryan
He's playing with Luke. Luke is like, what do you think of her? Hey, la. Whatever. I try not to. And then Han sees that Luke is, you know, a little into her, and he starts fucking with him a little bit.
- [15:34]
Sean Fennessy
Still a lot of spirit, though.
- [15:37]
Van Lathan
Yeah. He is also the only person in the movie who's allowed to talk like a modern person. He doesn't have a British accent. The part when he blows up the control panel, when he's dressed as a stormtrooper and he's like, boring conversation anyway. He's, like, the only guy who's sarcastic. He's the only guy who has really, like, like, modern jokes. And so he feels like the cool version, the cool guy you want to be. Luke is a hero, but he's so bland. I mean, he just doesn't have shape as a person. Han is a Guy who's lived, you know, he's 34 years old.
- [16:08]
Bill Simmons
Do you think Luke doesn't have shape because the actor or the way the character.
- [16:11]
Sean Fennessy
No, I think it's supposed to be a kid who's isolated, who's looking for or feels like his life should have meaning. And it doesn't.
- [16:20]
Bill Simmons
But if that's 18 year old Chalamet as Luke in 1977. Is Luke a bedoric?
- [16:26]
Van Lathan
We're already getting started on Martin.
- [16:29]
Chris Ryan
We'll get into the double feature situation. But here's the deal. Here's what I know now that they built lore around that we didn't know then. Luke is being protected very directly by Kenobi and by his uncle. Right. Luke's call to action is mystical. The Force is calling to Luke. Right. The thing that's making Luke look out at the stars. And I'm actually feeling the weight of talking about. It's difficult to explain.
- [17:05]
Sean Fennessy
This is like the men's recovery project. We're just gonna be like, the three of us are gonna be crying, then follow the. Rocky was good too.
- [17:13]
Chris Ryan
I'm getting chills. Luke is being called to something more because it's his birthright. And so when you watch the film now, he's annoying, but I'm watching him. I'm going, let him go. Let him go. That's Luke fucking Skywalker. You don't know what he's supposed to become. You guys are muting his light to that point.
- [17:32]
Bill Simmons
It's like CR was saying this about Anthony Edwards last year during the playoffs.
- [17:35]
Sean Fennessy
That's right.
- [17:35]
Bill Simmons
Let him go.
- [17:36]
Chris Ryan
Like when Uncle Owen kind of gets burnt to a crisp, I'm kind of like, all right, cool. Now the movie can start. You know what I mean?
- [17:41]
Bill Simmons
Right?
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Chris Ryan
So. So all of that's happening and he's bratty, but it's a part of the most perfect three film arc to me in movie history.
- [17:47]
Bill Simmons
I have a confession.
- [17:49]
Sean Fennessy
Okay.
- [17:49]
Bill Simmons
I feel like I should have gotten more involved in the Star Wars. This actually made me watching the second time. I'm like, this is a bad job by me. I should have gotten more. But I'm actually excited to watch the second one now.
- [18:00]
Sean Fennessy
You've seen it, though?
- [18:02]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I saw it in the theater.
- [18:03]
Sean Fennessy
Okay.
- [18:04]
Van Lathan
The second one, what do you think?
- [18:05]
Bill Simmons
I saw all in the theater? I went that you had to go there. Was that you were just left out of the conversation.
- [18:10]
Van Lathan
If you didn't go, what was it though? Were you like, I don't want to be perceived as a nerd.
- [18:14]
Bill Simmons
Like, what was under just Never really. Never really got me in the way. Like some sports movies, action movies, I just never really dove in.
- [18:24]
Sean Fennessy
I didn't have tickets.
- [18:26]
Van Lathan
But you love Lore. I mean, you were like, with basketball. When you talk about basketball, the history of basketball, this is exactly like listening to Van talk about Luke Skywalker. Right. It's the same exact.
- [18:34]
Bill Simmons
I blew it. I was talking to my buddy Jim Grady, one of my best high school friends, and he had two cassettes that were on all the time. We watch Rocky III all the time. And then he would always have Star wars on, and I would always be. If he was watching that, I would always want to do something else.
- [18:48]
Chris Ryan
Bill, I'm going to do that.
- [18:49]
Bill Simmons
And he was like, how dare you do rewatchables? I tried to get you to watch that for the entire late 80s.
- [18:53]
Chris Ryan
Yeah. I'm a dig around in your past. Don't let me find out. You were like William Zabka, 80s. Cool kid.
- [18:59]
Bill Simmons
No, Karate Kid. I just never got. And never. I never really liked Star Trek either. I watched all the Star Treks, but it never really.
- [19:08]
Sean Fennessy
Sci fi is going to grab you. There is an element of sci fi to this.
- [19:11]
Bill Simmons
But when I watched it these two times, I was a little more intrigued because I just like how there's big themes and it steals from the past with all these other things. Like, this is basically a western.
- [19:21]
Van Lathan
Yeah, it's an adventure.
- [19:23]
Bill Simmons
Clint Eastern goes back, his family's been wiped out. It steals from 90 different things.
- [19:29]
Chris Ryan
Steals from Dune to the point that Fred Herbert was pissed off about the fact that he thought the movie was too derivative.
- [19:35]
Bill Simmons
Stole from Flash Gordon.
- [19:36]
Chris Ryan
Stole from Flash Gordon.
- [19:37]
Bill Simmons
Because that was what Lucas wanted to make.
- [19:38]
Van Lathan
Wizard of Oz. I mean, look at the C3PO and R2.
- [19:43]
Bill Simmons
Wizard of Oz. It just feels Kurosawa.
- [19:45]
Van Lathan
Yeah.
- [19:46]
Bill Simmons
All that stuff is 2001.
- [19:47]
Van Lathan
It's all synthesized into this perfect little package.
- [19:50]
Chris Ryan
But also a demonstration that even though we're telling the same stories that invoke the same emotions, it is how you tell them. It is the world that you put people in. It is the ideas and the concepts that you're able to create when you're telling these stories. You have a new. Not a new form of government, but you have a new style, a new look. You have the technology aspect of this, which was revolutionary in and of itself. Right. You have all of the things that you take to take a classic that you need. Should I say to take a classic and make it into something that people have never seen.
- [20:22]
Sean Fennessy
Can I ask you a question? Because you obviously are watching the Star wars stuff that comes out now with such a close eye.
- [20:28]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [20:29]
Sean Fennessy
One of the things I thought was really interesting reading, doing research about this was, you know, Lucas goes through all these different variations of the script. It's 250 pages. At some point, he has the entire trilogy mapped out. When this stuff comes out, it's immediately like, there are going to be 12 movies. He's got 12 in his head. But when you watch the first one, when you watch A New Hope, the thing that blows your mind is that first 45 minutes, albeit maybe a little bit dull, is not packed to the gills with information. There's not a ton of exposition about like, well, okay, there's the Senate and then they're doing this, and then like, we're going to cut to Palpatine and then we're going to cut to here and these characters are going to meet. Just to talk about the fact that there's a vote coming up or that the Clone wars were like this. It's just droids wandering around in the desert, which in a weird way becomes more immersive. Right? Like you're like, what the fuck is this movie? What is going on? So do you, do you. I guess my question is like, do you have a preference or do you kind of see the difference between how Star wars has changed over the years?
- [21:25]
Chris Ryan
I see how we've changed. So during that time, you trusted the audience more. Right. Door opens, seven foot black droid, black in color and in voice, rest in peace. James Earl Jones pops in. This guy is evil. The death march plays, you know it's fucking on, right? When you say the Clone wars, the audience then is going, oh, my God, Clone Wars. Clone Wars. Like, in the audience now, we're like, what are you talking about? Right? So we kind of demand this interrogation of story that is good. It makes us more sophisticated moviegoers. But it also sometimes, and I can say this about Star wars fans even now, puts the handcuffs on what filmmakers are able to do, because it makes you want to roll out the story faster than what it is that they're giving it to you. This movie, the pace is a little all over the place, but it's expecting you to actually do a little work and putting yourself in the world. And it's giving you enough visually at that time, which I'm assuming we hadn't seen too much stuff like this. And I had seen.
- [22:32]
Bill Simmons
No, we hadn't seen any stuff like this.
- [22:34]
Chris Ryan
Right. So it's expecting that you'll be wowed by what it Is that you're seeing and you'll sort of succumb to or surrender to, like, what's on the screen. And by the time you know it, you're on a wild ride.
- [22:46]
Bill Simmons
They also. There's some cheat stuff that they do that's really smart. Like even the ways they name some of the characters. It's like Han Solo.
- [22:54]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [22:54]
Bill Simmons
He's a solo act.
- [22:55]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [22:56]
Bill Simmons
You know, like Luke Skywalker.
- [22:59]
Van Lathan
Not the subtlest of titles.
- [23:01]
Bill Simmons
This guy might walk in the sky someday. And just every.
- [23:05]
Sean Fennessy
Like there's Darth Vader.
- [23:08]
Bill Simmons
It's like, I wonder what this guy's about. You go through but. And it's stuff that if you're five years old or seven years old, you can kind of. You're just instinctively understanding everybody.
- [23:17]
Van Lathan
I love hearing you say the word Greedo. Like, I just never thought we would.
- [23:20]
Bill Simmons
Get a controversy with why Greedo. Who shot first Greedo.
- [23:27]
Van Lathan
One thing about what you guys are talking about that is interesting though, is that Lucas's imagination is unbelievable. I mean, it is like unmatched. And the amount of world building that he has done in this franchise is insane. Obviously he's pulling.
- [23:40]
Bill Simmons
Spielberg is the only one who's even.
- [23:42]
Van Lathan
Maybe like have like a nine film universe.
- [23:45]
Sean Fennessy
That Indiana Jones is still George Lucas.
- [23:48]
Van Lathan
It is George Lucas.
- [23:49]
Bill Simmons
Well, it's almost like Stephen King if he had become a director.
- [23:54]
Van Lathan
He's a great comparison. Stephen King's still writing. I mean, still coming up there. He is to this day. It's crazy. But the reason this movie is the way that it is is because it is an after effect of its practical opportunity. So the movie is basically 25% of what Lucas imagined but could get on screen. And part of what's amazing about the movie is the way that the technology develops during the production of the movie to get as much of what he wants on. That practical stuff that we love about this movie that makes this movie so special and so perfect is his biggest frustration and regret and why he kept going back and messing with the movie and changing the movie. Because he never felt, he says that the final product of Star wars, when it was released, when you saw it in second grade, felt abandoned. That he was like, this is just as much as I could get done before I had to just stop.
- [24:47]
Chris Ryan
He's got so many different ways of saying this. And the most interesting thing about it is this. By the time we get to the point that George can tell the story that he wants to tell with the technology that he want that at his fingertips, he makes three movies that aren't very good. And it's interesting because he makes you.
- [25:09]
Bill Simmons
Talk about the Portman movies, the prequels, which I love.
- [25:12]
Chris Ryan
Revenge of the Sith, which, by the way, just came out, made 25 million people.
- [25:15]
Bill Simmons
Like, yeah, Jomi likes Sith. He was excited about it.
- [25:17]
Chris Ryan
Yeah, I love.
- [25:18]
Van Lathan
I like Sith.
- [25:19]
Chris Ryan
I like Sith.
- [25:19]
Van Lathan
But the other two are bad.
- [25:21]
Chris Ryan
Yeah, they're not very good. They're deeply political, like, almost the inverse of the first.
- [25:28]
Bill Simmons
I'm old enough to remember how absolutely polarizing and upsetting those movies.
- [25:32]
Sean Fennessy
I fell asleep during Phantom Menace when it first came out.
- [25:35]
Chris Ryan
I refuse to believe that it wasn't good. I lied to myself for months, and then I woke up one day.
- [25:39]
Bill Simmons
The Godfather three, my stepfather.
- [25:41]
Sean Fennessy
You know what? Don't disrespect me.
- [25:42]
Bill Simmons
It's good.
- [25:43]
Van Lathan
International.
- [25:43]
Bill Simmons
No, it's fine. We're okay. We're okay.
- [25:45]
Van Lathan
They're very similar. They're very similar.
- [25:47]
Chris Ryan
So it's interesting because he talks about this all the time, and he'll have a Star wars situation with anyone, but the constraints on the movie kind of made it what it was.
- [25:58]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, yeah.
- [25:59]
Bill Simmons
Well, this is. Sean mentioned this when we were texting about it. It's such a shame the original thing doesn't exist. I would just be fascinated to see, like, what the special effects were, because obviously there's stuff in the version. I watched it on Disney, but then I also got the Blu Ray because I want to see that. And there's obviously stuff they've added in the last 10, 12 years where it's like you watch Rocky and that's the movie. It's like there's empty seats. When those guys are fighting, you just see empty seats everywhere. And there's, you know, really bad eye makeup. And it's like part of the charm. They made it in 1976. I don't love that they redid it. Although I shouldn't say much because Ciara and I have done Heat four times.
- [26:38]
Van Lathan
But Michael, Man's not going back and adding, you know, CGI characters to his shootout. You know what I mean?
- [26:45]
Bill Simmons
He could have added, like, three more Mojitas.
- [26:47]
Van Lathan
That's my advice.
- [26:47]
Bill Simmons
It would have been great.
- [26:48]
Van Lathan
I think the last time you could watch the original, theatrically released version without any of the added stuff was the first DVD that was issued that the alternative version you could watch. I don't have that anymore. I mean, I used to have it in every format. This movie. I've had this movie in every format.
- [27:03]
Bill Simmons
Was there laserdisc?
- [27:04]
Van Lathan
Oh, definitely.
- [27:05]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, there was laserdisc, so profit was in that format.
- [27:07]
Van Lathan
Obviously it's definitely on the VHS and on the laserdisc, but they haven't on Blu Ray. It has not been issued. You can't watch the original theatrical version.
- [27:15]
Bill Simmons
That's kind of a miss by Lucas, who clearly has wanted to profit out of it.
- [27:19]
Sean Fennessy
Doesn't care. I don't actually think he sees these movies, especially this movie, the way we see it, right? Like totems of our child. He looks at it as like a professional misstep that albeit made him a billionaire. Like, I don't think he's looking at it as like, oh, what, this is just a priceless, perfect gem.
- [27:38]
Bill Simmons
It's like a piece of art that you shouldn't touch. No, he wasn't. Fincher does this too, right? Doesn't he?
- [27:42]
Sean Fennessy
Well, but he just stuff like the dust off of a window and stuff like, he doesn't change characters. Like, Jabba's in this fucking movie. In the new versions of it, he's not in the first one. So when you meet Jabba, you're like, this is my mom.
- [27:56]
Chris Ryan
Which, by the way, steps on Jabba. It's better the other way.
- [28:00]
Van Lathan
It is better. There's no question about it. Like, the idea of who is Jabba the Hutt is the same thing as the Clone Wars. Or like, what is this gangster character? Who could. Who could it possibly be? And then just by putting him in the movie, it ruins it. But he can't see past that. He can only see into his own imagination. And he can only try to reach for what he was envisioning when he was whatever, 30 years old when he made this movie. So it's like this never ending quest to fix the mistakes of the production. That is also the most Sam Preston.
- [28:29]
Chris Ryan
And I thought it was bullshit at first. Like, he would say you do 4, 5 and 6 because you didn't have what you needed to do. 1, 2, and 3, right? And 1, 2 and 3. They're going to be hundreds of Jedi running around and all of that stuff. And you didn't have what you needed. And so technology has gotten to a point to where I can go back and actually shoot these movies now. And I'd be like, ah, that's bullshit. I mean, maybe he didn't have the story worked out, or maybe all of this stuff about how much of this stuff that he had ready and planned is just legend. But he continues to prove it. Cause he won't stop tinkering with the movie. He tinkers with it and tries to get it closer. Tries to perfect perfection and actually kind of doesn't get there with doing it. Not just a job of things.
- [29:09]
Bill Simmons
Sounds like he needs a girlfriend.
- [29:13]
Chris Ryan
He gotta.
- [29:14]
Bill Simmons
Oh, he's married again, right? Yeah.
- [29:15]
Chris Ryan
Who, Lucas? Yeah, Lucas got him a. You know what I'm saying?
- [29:20]
Van Lathan
He has a black wife.
- [29:26]
Chris Ryan
I'm not like that's. I'm saying it's like that in and of itself. Once I learned that, I was like, I see what the soul comes from.
- [29:32]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, that's right.
- [29:33]
Chris Ryan
I see where the light comes from. He's what?
- [29:37]
Sean Fennessy
The Force.
- [29:37]
Chris Ryan
The Force. He's well taken care of.
- [29:39]
Bill Simmons
This movie hits good versus evil. The galaxy. What the fuck is even up there, right?
- [29:46]
Sean Fennessy
What do you believe in?
- [29:46]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Do you believe. I mean, the Force is obviously the key to the whole universe. And what do you actually believe as a human being? Do you believe we're just randomly here?
- [29:56]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [29:57]
Bill Simmons
Or is there some greater purpose for all of us?
- [29:59]
Sean Fennessy
Are you like Han Solo and you just believe in just hitting same game?
- [30:02]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Are you immersed? Are you a good teammate? Are you a mercenary? A good teammate? How far will you go to dominate somebody else? How far will you go to the dark side to get more power? Which is certainly a theme that might be more and more relevant every couple years. Movies are very resonant right now, including this one, Destiny.
- [30:26]
Chris Ryan
Fathers and Sons.
- [30:28]
Bill Simmons
Getting old, like, getting older, like LeBron. And this Lakers series, like, you know, where it's like, hey, Obi wan, we need 15 rebounds.
- [30:36]
Sean Fennessy
Anthony Edwards is going to be stepping on the cloak pretty soon.
- [30:39]
Bill Simmons
I think Anthony. Anthony Edwards is going, you've got an old, old man. What does he say in the duel?
- [30:46]
Chris Ryan
I am the master now.
- [30:47]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [30:48]
Van Lathan
And that's Anthony Edwards, one of my Luke Wilson hot takes, which is. I guess maybe I won't use this one. But there's a direct correlation between the decrease in engagement in organized religion in this country and the rise of Star wars. And.
- [31:02]
Bill Simmons
Oh, that's. That's a legitimate hot take.
- [31:04]
Van Lathan
I like that. There is a case to be made that's certainly among the vast swaths of mostly young men, but women, too, who were obsessed with Star wars and the kind of mythology that was available in popular entertainment. And because this is a deeply religious movie, it kind of undermines the organizing nature of religion in our society. And it's not the only factor, but it is, in my mind, definitely a.
- [31:28]
Sean Fennessy
Factor that'd be that. I have not heard that really good, but I'm not against it.
- [31:34]
Bill Simmons
I think my only regret is you didn't do that on first take with Molly and Ryan Clark. Ryan Clark.
- [31:39]
Chris Ryan
Split screen, shout out, Ryan Clark. So look, I'll say this.
- [31:43]
Bill Simmons
I gotta disagree with Sean.
- [31:46]
Chris Ryan
So there's a religion, okay. That my grandmother was a part of. At one point, I was not allowed to watch Star wars in my grandmother's house for a little while. I remember there's a religion. I won't talk about the religion, but that there was a videotape that you watched when you were getting into the religion. My grandmother was a part of this religion. And they were talking about all of these things that were bad in society. And there's a part of it where Star wars comes up and it says that George Lucas believes in the Force for real. And he thinks that the Force is a substitute for a belief in God and for a belief in religion. And when I was over at my grandmother's house for a little while, she's no longer with the religion. I could not watch Star Wars. And I remember it's so funny that you would say that. Back in the day, she deconstructed to me how Star wars is actually a movie that is giving religious dogma to people, telling you that you'll be powerful if you believe in this thing. Darth Vader is the devil and Luke Skywalker is Jesus Christ. And she was doing it from trying to, like, not poison me, but trying to save my soul. But she was also telling me why the movie was so resonant for me.
- [32:59]
Van Lathan
Right, right. I mean, the movie is in part synthesizing not just samurai movies and the wizard of Oz, but like Judeo Christian myth. Like, it is pulling everything from the history of religion into its story.
- [33:10]
Sean Fennessy
Like in the 80s especially, we were given all of these tokens of our belief in these fucking toys. And you would just sit around all day and be like, this is. This is my Han Solo toy. And I Now I'm going to think about this guy for three hours, which is more than I thought about Jesus Christ in any given day.
- [33:28]
Van Lathan
You used to wear a St. Christopher medal and now you hold a Han Solo toy.
- [33:31]
Bill Simmons
Well, we had less to do. So, like, for me, it was baseball and football and basketball cards and hockey cards. Yeah, right. For other people, they're playing. What's funny, I forgot doing the research is how late the merch was that they made the movie and they weren't even sure. And. And then it became this race and they're. You could buy boxes that were empty. They were almost like IOU for Luke Skywalker dolls because they hadn't had it made yet. It's fucking crazy. Like, they had no idea the movie was going to be good.
- [33:59]
Sean Fennessy
I feel like all of my toys, like, the stuff I remember having is more Empire era. Like, Dagobah. Like, I think I had the Dagobah that you could, like, slip through the mud kind of thing.
- [34:10]
Van Lathan
Yeah. There was always one kid who had the Millennium Falcon. It was like you had to go to his house to play with it. Like, I didn't have that growing up. That was like the $50 toy.
- [34:17]
Chris Ryan
Toy Saber.
- [34:18]
Van Lathan
Right. I never had a life lights either.
- [34:20]
Chris Ryan
Toy saber, all that.
- [34:21]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, my God.
- [34:22]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [34:22]
Sean Fennessy
The kid who had the toy saber was like, the most popular dude in the neighborhood.
- [34:25]
Bill Simmons
Well, this episode's brought to you by State Farm. Life is all about choices. There's a lot of choices in Star wars and the next three movies that the characters make. Luke makes some good choices. He trusts the force.
- [34:36]
Chris Ryan
He does.
- [34:37]
Bill Simmons
At State Farm, their goal is to help you make decisions that you feel good about. That's why with the State Farm personal price plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to help create a competitive price. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with personal price plan. Like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans are varied by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability, amount of discounts, and savings and eligibility vary by state. I had some stuff I want to get to, but I had to ask producer Craig, what's your. You're younger than us. What's your lifespan with this movie?
- [35:09]
Craig Horlebeck
With this. Like, the original three?
- [35:11]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Because you're in. It's like they've already made the prequels and shit's going down. So how do you walk into the Star wars universe?
- [35:19]
Craig Horlebeck
I wish I could, like, remember specifically when I saw it the first time. I may have seen the prequels before I saw these. I don't even really know. I had only seen them a couple times. I was closer to you, Bill, in that. Like, I saw them maybe once or twice. I liked them, but they didn't, like, you know, capture me in the same way that other people did. I don't know. I don't know. I think the only troubling thing about Star wars is it's so complex and people go so deep into it that sometimes it feels like you can't be a casual fan because everybody will exclude you.
- [35:47]
Bill Simmons
That was part of my problem.
- [35:48]
Sean Fennessy
But you could be on this. You could be on this. There was no answers yet, right? You Know, like, there. There really wasn't this, like. Oh, you can refer to one of nineteen animated series that, like, document this entire.
- [36:00]
Craig Horlebeck
Yeah. It's kind of hard for me to be like, I like Star Wars. And they're like, oh, really? What's your favorite planet?
- [36:04]
Bill Simmons
And I'm like, it's true. What are your thoughts on Alderaan?
- [36:08]
Van Lathan
Because it's a story that's Stokes obsession. But then I don't think Star wars nerds like us realized this at the time, but we were just as alienating to other people as. As we felt alienated from them too, you know, because it's just. You immediately just lock into, like, talking about Hoth and why.
- [36:25]
Bill Simmons
It's like, NHL fans. Yeah. Don't talk about Edmonton. You know, you don't watch Oiler's games.
- [36:30]
Craig Horlebeck
If somebody comes up to me and is like, oh, are you a sports fan? And I'm like, yeah. And we start talking, and they don't know who the quarterback of the Niners is. I'm like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Like, that's me talking about stars.
- [36:39]
Van Lathan
That's having little kids. If I meet a dad at the preschool who doesn't know sports, I'm like, shit, we got nothing to talk about.
- [36:43]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I feel like.
- [36:44]
Bill Simmons
Movies. See any movies?
- [36:46]
Chris Ryan
I took Marie route to see Phantom Menace, like, the third time I saw it. And at the beginning of the movie, both Obi Wan and Qui Gon, they force dash into the area where they're trying to get. And she goes, how can they move so fast? And my blood started boiling.
- [37:07]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. I'm like, hot date?
- [37:09]
Chris Ryan
It was hot day. My blood started boiling. I'm like, they're using the Force. She goes, what's the force? I said, shut up.
- [37:18]
Van Lathan
Shut the up.
- [37:19]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, just let me enjoy this.
- [37:20]
Van Lathan
You're embarrassing.
- [37:21]
Chris Ryan
Shut up. Okay?
- [37:22]
Bill Simmons
People can hear you. We gotta get a movie nerdy for a second because there's this whole. And there's so many things to get in with this movie, but there's the whole impact that this movie had on movies for the next 48 years because it became massively successful. It's right at the tail end of all of this great creative explosion. All these directors doing amazing things, and then this movie makes a kajillion dollars. And there's so much resentment about it that it became a big thing for Lucas. And Lucas has all that stuff he's talked about about, like, look, people get mad about Star wars, ruined movies. And meanwhile, we built multiplexes all over the country in the world because of the money people made from this movie. And there's a lot of. And the Biskin book is the best one for this, where just a lot of directors just taking, like, shots at Lucas like, he ruined it. We were doing great until that movie.
- [38:14]
Sean Fennessy
Meanwhile, Coppola's going up to him like Maury and Goodfellas. I need some money.
- [38:22]
Bill Simmons
Sean. Do you think that's fair?
- [38:25]
Van Lathan
Yeah. I mean, this is. This is my hot take, which is that Star wars is arguably the most perfect movie ever made and the worst thing that ever happened to movies. And, you know, it starts with Jaws in 1975. It's the first genuine wide release of a movie. It's the first movie that premieres essentially, on a thousand screens simultaneously. That had not happened before. And it's in part because Universal realizes that they've got something on their hands that they can market nationally and get people to show up. People didn't go see Gone with the Wind that way. They didn't go see Casablanca that way. They saw the movie opened in their city, and then it closed and it went to another city, and then it was open across five years. This movie opens even wider than that. It's an even bigger sensation. It really, really encourages the repeat viewing that you're talking about.
- [39:09]
Bill Simmons
And it's edging out other movies because there's what, three, four movies max in every theater, and they're just shoving out other things.
- [39:17]
Van Lathan
And also, we're in the middle of a time where movies for adults are dominating the culture. And this is the movie that resets the trajectory for mainstream movies to be made for kids, and that kids is where the pot of gold is. It doesn't change the fact that I think the movie is wonderful and that I'm a huge fan of Star wars in general, and I still consume Star wars stuff to this day. But it didn't ultimately benefit filmmakers. It benefited corporations, and it benefited movie studios, who got more and more greedy because they saw that the ceiling was higher than they'd realized. And so because that ceiling got raised on the potential profits, it had a tremendously negative effect across moviemaking over periods of time. That doesn't mean that there weren't. There aren't good movies.
- [39:57]
Bill Simmons
The question is, would that have happened anyway?
- [39:59]
Sean Fennessy
Well, that was.
- [39:59]
Van Lathan
Somebody else might have got there. Somebody else might have got there.
- [40:01]
Sean Fennessy
I think, gotten there. Obviously, when that first movie comes out, we don't know that it's going to be three films, then another three films that a massive sale to Disney that includes that a universal expansion of the property. I do think it's predictive of a kind of feverish monocultural thing that was happening in the 80s, where, like, Michael Jackson opens up the idea of how big an artist can get in music. Right. Like for the first time maybe since the Beatles, like, it is a literal. Like, everybody is obsessed with this one thing. And obviously there was something in the water coming that was like people were ready to have maybe be distracted, I don't know. But your point's really well taken. I mean, this movie famously had to make way for Sorcerer, the William Friedkin movie at Man's Chinese Theater. And Sorcerer had like a week or two run. And they were like, get this shit outta here. We gotta put Star wars back in.
- [40:56]
Chris Ryan
Yeah, I think to split the baby there is. Our appetites were expanding, period. There were more ways for us to experience things. Home video was having a boom. There was more space and opportunity to build these big multiplexes. Right.
- [41:11]
Bill Simmons
That's in the 80s.
- [41:12]
Chris Ryan
That's in the 80s, yeah. So what you're. What you're seeing is that people want more stuff. Cable television is starting to dominate. We could talk about almost any industry that we love. We could talk about the NFL, we could talk about the NBA. The appetites for these things were met by people who could translate them culturally.
- [41:34]
Bill Simmons
Wrestling, wrestling, porn, all of that.
- [41:37]
Chris Ryan
Like in Boogie Nights, they talk about what it was like going from film to video in porn and how that exploded the industry. It was going to happen, but also.
- [41:48]
Van Lathan
Degraded the art form. That's the other theme.
- [41:50]
Chris Ryan
But it depends on the way. So this is what I would say. I can't say that you're wrong, but it depends on the way that you look at it. Right.
- [41:56]
Van Lathan
Because I could make an argument you're a Floyd Gondoli. Exactly right.
- [42:00]
Bill Simmons
Johnny Jack comes in, he's got a different way of doing things.
- [42:03]
Chris Ryan
I could make an argument that there is no Axel Braun or Kevin Moore. These are porn directors, by the way. I can make an argument that these guys don't exist if there's not an explosion in pornography. Right. I could make an argument that if movie studios don't become corporations, then the smaller films that guys were taking chances on don't get made.
- [42:29]
Sean Fennessy
Are you still talking about porn or are you talking about either way, that.
- [42:33]
Chris Ryan
Because of Stall wars there are more movies and more movies is good.
- [42:38]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I was just. I was really just piggybacking off of what Sean was saying, where the idea.
- [42:42]
Chris Ryan
That, oh, he's definitely right, but it's.
- [42:44]
Sean Fennessy
Like the idea basically that somebody who's 6 years old and 36 year old could be obsessed with the same thing.
- [42:49]
Van Lathan
Yes, yes.
- [42:50]
Sean Fennessy
That's crazy. And that happens once every. Well, and also 10 years now.
- [42:54]
Bill Simmons
Like regenerating new classes of young people every five years, basically, who then dive into this movie that did not exist. There's two other things, though, and I think it had something to do with the backlash. You just have this once in a lifetime, almost like in an NBA draft class, where there's just like seven superstars in the same draft. You have all these guys that grew up together, and there's been a million books about it, but you have Scorsese and De Palma, you know, Paul Schrader and Free Kane, all these dudes.
- [43:22]
Sean Fennessy
Coppola.
- [43:23]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, Coppola. And Coppola hits it the biggest to begin with, and then it basically murders him. Spielberg becomes the most commercial and the smartest. He's always the smartest, as we'll get to in a couple of these things. And then Lucas is the one that figures out how to put it all together, and all these other people just start having bombs and failure. So it was kind of like, well, we're failing because everyone wants Star Wars. And it's like, no, maybe you're failing because you made a shitty movie that nobody wanted to go see. Or maybe the other reason for all this, the fucking cocaine era is coming in and cocaine is ruining a bunch of these directors and storytellers. And you know, it just. And Lucas and Spielberg were the ones that survived. Scorsese came back. Some of these guys ended up making good movies again. But for the most part, these guys were just built for it.
- [44:11]
Chris Ryan
Some of its life, Coppola went through some personal tragedies that changed the way.
- [44:15]
Bill Simmons
Apocalypse now murdered him.
- [44:16]
Chris Ryan
You know what I mean? Some of it's life.
- [44:18]
Van Lathan
I mean, the freaking thing is the most instructive to me always, because he makes the French Connection and he follows it up with the Exorcist. It's. That had never been done before. No. No filmmaker had ever scraped the ceiling so profoundly before while simultaneously making, like, arguably the best movie in both genres. Like, arguably the greatest horror movie ever made and the greatest cops movie ever made. And then it's like in the wilderness, like 15 years.
- [44:43]
Bill Simmons
Well, making people cruising. So that was his apex.
- [44:46]
Van Lathan
I mean, he made great movies, but nobody cared for a long time.
- [44:49]
Bill Simmons
So that was the best Cruising movie. So three Apex Story, Action, horror and Cruising.
- [44:55]
Van Lathan
Are you sure it's the best Cruising movie? Have you seen all of them.
- [44:58]
Sean Fennessy
Apparently there's some Axel Braun film. Yeah.
- [45:00]
Bill Simmons
Let me check out Axl Brick later.
- [45:03]
Van Lathan
I think it's some of it is luck, some of it is circumstance. I do think that the studios got very hip to the potential with franchising after this movie.
- [45:13]
Bill Simmons
Well, plus these guys part of their thing. They were acting. How can I get away with spending as much money as possible and these stupid studios will let me do it. And then after a while the gigs up and you guys start making some money for some of these people. You know, one from the heart, which Coppola, he bankrolled himself and it ended up. He thought it was going to be like, I don't like what, 8, 10 million? And ended up being like almost 30.
- [45:35]
Van Lathan
Oh yeah. And spent all of his own money.
- [45:37]
Sean Fennessy
It's the dark. It's the dark side of bet on yourself.
- [45:39]
Van Lathan
Yeah.
- [45:39]
Bill Simmons
It is the all time. Maybe I should have been on your.
- [45:42]
Sean Fennessy
Self copy is you being like this and it's with your big blues. Got his shirt off in Manila, like.
- [45:49]
Van Lathan
But he's so. He's so important to this story because obviously he. And you know, Lucas is sort of like his apprentice and works under Coppola and is a USC kid and he makes THX 1138. And it's a complicated production. I think Warner Brothers puts it out.
- [46:03]
Bill Simmons
It's early 70s, right?
- [46:04]
Van Lathan
Early 70s. It's not a big hit. It's acclaimed, but it's not a big hit.
- [46:08]
Chris Ryan
Weird, weird movie.
- [46:09]
Van Lathan
It's a strange movie. And Coppola after that movie comes out and Lucas starts telling him his ideas and he's already starting to formulate some of Star Wars. Coppola challenges him and he's like, man, slow down with the science fiction stuff and show me that you can make a comedy. And that challenge leads to American Graffiti. And if Lucas doesn't make American Graffiti and figure out how to write real people, I don't think Star wars is any good. And American Graffiti is great. It's still great.
- [46:34]
Chris Ryan
Harrison Ford.
- [46:35]
Van Lathan
And he finds Harrison Ford.
- [46:36]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, that led to a great bet on yourself moment Van. Because they gave him 150 grand to write what would become Star Wars. And then American Graffiti hits and they're like, hey, you're a hot director now. Here's more money. We're going to give you 500,000. And he says, Now I'll keep the 150, but give me all the merchandising. Any sequels. And they're like, that sounds great. Because nobody, nobody did sequel. Nobody was like merchandising didn't work for movies.
- [47:01]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [47:02]
Bill Simmons
And that was a 2 billion kajillion dollar.
- [47:06]
Chris Ryan
One of the all time. I'm not stupid. You're stupid. Movies were in the moves where in the moment you think, oh, he sounds like a kid that's high on his own supply. He doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. He's dumb. But either he knows something or he doesn't know something. Like, either. He is so blissfully ignorant that he's just, I'm going to do this. Because he doesn't understand how it can backfire. Or somewhere in the recesses of his brain he goes, I know something about this lore and this mythology that everybody else doesn't get. And I'm willing to take less because we're talking about a half a million in 70s bread. It's a lot of cocaine.
- [47:42]
Bill Simmons
Well, it's like. It's like Mark Cuban, right? Buying the Mavericks super smart. Selling Broadcast.com, buying the Mavericks with it, super smart. And then selling probably low to the Vegas family is like, you're still going to run the team. He's like, great. And then they cut him out when.
- [47:57]
Sean Fennessy
He sells to Disney. That's what this is. Or.
- [47:59]
Bill Simmons
No, it's just you can look like a genius with one decision and then the next decision you're like, what the fuck was that guy thinking? How did he not know? Can I read you some sour grapes quotes?
- [48:07]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, is this from Pauline Quill?
- [48:10]
Bill Simmons
It's a bunch of things. Siskel in 77 does the show with Ebert. Before it was called Siskel and Ebert or at the Movies. Yeah, it was called. What was it called? Sneak previews or whatever.
- [48:23]
Van Lathan
I think that was the first one. Yeah.
- [48:24]
Bill Simmons
And he kind of scolded the movie and hoped that Hollywood would continue to cater to audiences who care about serious pictures.
- [48:32]
Van Lathan
This is a tough one because this is the same year as Saturday Night Fever, which is one of Siskel's favorite movies of all. So he felt like movies like Saturday Night Fever were getting taken down a notch by Star Wars.
- [48:41]
Bill Simmons
Right. Then you have Scorsese. These are quotes from the Biskin book where he basically says the success of Star wars coupled with the failure of New York, New York, which was the.
- [48:50]
Sean Fennessy
Scorsese movie, coupled with my raging cocaine.
- [48:53]
Bill Simmons
Habit meant that the kind of movies Scorsese made were being replaced by the kind of movies Lucas and Spielberg made. Scorsese said, Star wars was in. Spielberg was in. We were finished.
- [49:04]
Chris Ryan
Well, in the long run turned out to be horseshit. Right.
- [49:07]
Bill Simmons
I.
- [49:07]
Chris Ryan
He went on to become an incredibly prolific director that made movies that stand the test of time. A lot of different types of movies.
- [49:17]
Bill Simmons
Big comeback.
- [49:17]
Chris Ryan
I mean, a comeback. Yes.
- [49:19]
Bill Simmons
80S were rough.
- [49:20]
Sean Fennessy
He was in the wilderness for a while.
- [49:22]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, the 80s were tough. And there might have been a couple.
- [49:25]
Chris Ryan
Couple lines the 80s were tough for. We're talking about.
- [49:29]
Sean Fennessy
I mean, he's, like, out there trying to get, like, Last Temptation of Christ made. This is.
- [49:35]
Chris Ryan
I mean, but these movies are.
- [49:37]
Van Lathan
He made Raging Bull.
- [49:38]
Chris Ryan
Raging Bulls, yeah.
- [49:39]
Van Lathan
You know.
- [49:39]
Chris Ryan
You know what I mean? So he's the Last Temptation of Christ in that particular time. Talk about another movie that down in the Bible belt we had. There were whole Jimmy swagger sermons about the Last Temptation of Christ, about Angel Heart.
- [49:54]
Sean Fennessy
Louis Cipher.
- [49:56]
Bill Simmons
I got you. You're booked for that.
- [49:57]
Chris Ryan
Yeah, don't worry.
- [49:58]
Bill Simmons
Don't worry. We're not doing Angel Heart.
- [49:59]
Chris Ryan
So I'm saying. So what I'm saying is, like, I get it. But Martin Scorsese, to me, was still able to, like, you know, he.
- [50:06]
Bill Simmons
He was equals with Lucas and Spielberg. I think a lot of these guys felt like they were all equals. And then within four years, they were, you know, half of Hollywood, when we did Raiders and Lost Ark together, and then Spielberg's doing E.T. they're just fucking annihilating everybody.
- [50:20]
Van Lathan
Yeah.
- [50:20]
Sean Fennessy
When we do the Angel Heart rewatchables, can we all wear Canton NFL hall of Fame blazers and welcome Lisa Bonet to the Ring of Honor?
- [50:29]
Bill Simmons
Is there another hall of Fame? Fame for Van. Like.
- [50:32]
Chris Ryan
Well, there's.
- [50:32]
Bill Simmons
Well, it's a final level. What.
- [50:34]
Chris Ryan
What do you mean?
- [50:35]
Bill Simmons
For your hall of Fame? The white Girl hall of Fame.
- [50:38]
Chris Ryan
I know, but, like, is there a.
- [50:39]
Bill Simmons
Last level of the hall of Fame?
- [50:41]
Chris Ryan
Nah, hall of Fame is like, you know, Pantheon. Yeah.
- [50:44]
Bill Simmons
John Milia said Lucas and Spielberg showed there was twice as much money out there, and the studios couldn't resist that. No one had any idea you could get as rich as this, like, ancient Rome. You can clearly blame them. And then Friedkin said what happened with Star wars was like, when McDonald's got a foothold, the taste for good food just disappeared. Now we're in a period of de evolution. Everything has gone backwards toward a big sucking hole. So then Lucas, his comeback was Star wars didn't kill the film industry. Infantile. Infantilize it. Popcorn pictures have always ruled. Why is the public so stupid? That's not my fault. I just understood what people like to go see, and Steven has too, and we go for that.
- [51:29]
Van Lathan
One of my core beliefs is that moviemaking, while it is Definitively an art form is a commercial art form. People don't make movies for Movio studios for wide release just because they're artists. They make them because they want people to see them and pay for them.
- [51:44]
Bill Simmons
So I would hope so.
- [51:45]
Van Lathan
You know, people like Milius, who I really admire and is an amazing writer, that's like, kind of a hot take. You know, I generally agree more with what Lucas says, and I really like a great popcorn movie. Movie. It doesn't change the fact, though, that ultimately studios are the organizations that determine the fate of what movies get made. So it's just a byproduct of something that is obviously sincere for Lucas and Spielberg. Like Spielberg released Close Encounters of the Third Kind this year. You can't tell me that that was like a cash grab. That's like one of the most personal movies ever made.
- [52:16]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [52:17]
Van Lathan
So there's, like, real nuance in this conversation.
- [52:20]
Bill Simmons
It's just Hook might have been a cash grab.
- [52:22]
Sean Fennessy
The sad part about the truth and the sad part about what he's. Milius is talking about is the Roman excess of wealth that exploded in Hollywood, for the most part, benefited the studios and the corporations and the, you know, studio heads and the agents and all the people around Hollywood that decided, like, oh, look how much money we can make from this. And that's probably what had more a profound effect on what kind of movies they got made than anything Lucas ever did.
- [52:48]
Bill Simmons
But that's the Lucas case. Cause he's saying the theater owners had more money, they had more screens. So now people had the wanted to make more money to put in the screens, and now you lead. That leads to the rise of more indie movies, art house movies. And he's like, Star wars had this, you know, shelf life that basically created where the 90s got to. And now the stuff, the books and magazine pieces in the 90s were, they're all like, the movie industry's falling apart. There are no good ideas left. And we, like, revere all those.
- [53:18]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [53:19]
Bill Simmons
From 95 to 99, we have it.
- [53:21]
Chris Ryan
As, like, amazing now. You know, when I think about the movies that were gigantic movies of the past, obviously, like the Ten Commandments is a gigantic production. Right. That is a biblical epic, but that's a piece of commerce. That's something that is tapping into something that everyone in the country is behind, which is, you know, Judeo Christian values. It's a story that everyone knows, and you're trying to do a story that everyone knows to get them into the deeds.
- [53:50]
Van Lathan
Mass appeal.
- [53:51]
Chris Ryan
Mass appeal. I think what really changed was. And what Star wars might have changed was kind of what was mass appealing. Right. Because if you had all of these biblical movies before and these epics and all of these things that you would pour all of this money to, and these were some of the highest grossing movies of all time. When you talk about making movies for kids or making science fiction pictures, maybe there was a thought that that changed the seriousness of moviemaking to making movies that were in outer space or making movies that were in the future. Or maybe it changed that. But as far as I can remember, the films that I thought, Think about that. Gross a lot of money, were always big, huge films that were relatable to me.
- [54:33]
Bill Simmons
Well, think about that. This is why I think the sour grape stuff is bullshit. You go back to the 70s, they were trying to make movies like Star wars all the time.
- [54:42]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. Isn't that what like.
- [54:42]
Bill Simmons
Like Poseidon Adventure.
- [54:43]
Sean Fennessy
I was just gonna say Towering Inferno.
- [54:45]
Bill Simmons
Ton of famous in Towering Inferno. That's another one. But. But in 76. And I remember, I'm old enough to remember when they. When they did this, it made a big deal. But the King Kong movie was basically a Star Wars a year before, where it's like, here's a huge movie. Here's Jessica Lange, and that's a real Jeff Bridges. Yeah. And we're gonna blow this up.
- [55:02]
Van Lathan
And that's a popcorn movie from 1933 originally.
- [55:05]
Bill Simmons
This is. We're gonna make this a giant deal. And I. I feel like jaw. If you're gonna blame a movie, I would blame Jaws before Star Wars. Cause I think Jaws fucked everybody up.
- [55:14]
Van Lathan
I just think that what happened in the 70s is not replicable. And the guys who. 28 years old and at the absolute pinnacle of both the artistry and the box office in movies, there's no that it hasn't happened since and it won't happen again. You know, like, it's just. It's not replicable. I was looking at this, 1976, the highest grossing movies of that year. And it's a really interesting kind of mix of what we're talking about here, because Rocky's number one, of course. But then a movie called To Fly, a documentary that was an IMAX movie, is number two. Then A Star Is Born, King Kong Silver Streak, all the President's Men, the Omen, the Enforcer, and Midway.
- [55:55]
Bill Simmons
Wow.
- [55:55]
Van Lathan
And then number 10 is the bad News Bears, which appealed to kids. So, like, I think that that shows you that the. The cool new Hollywood 70s is still happening and still powerful, but also Like King Kong and Silver Streak and Bad News Bears are in there. And those are movies that are appealing to broad audiences that are trying to bring in as many people as possible.
- [56:14]
Bill Simmons
There's the other thing. I don't think Hollywood really mastered the kids thing because like when I was a kid, the syndicated shows that we all watched were like Brady Bunch, Gilligan's island, the Batman. I used to love the Batman show. Those were shows that didn't really do that well on tv.
- [56:29]
Chris Ryan
Right.
- [56:29]
Bill Simmons
And then they would have the second shelf life on syndicated and they kind of became a thing that way because.
- [56:36]
Van Lathan
I'm sure we all watched them on Nick at night.
- [56:37]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, Hollywood didn't understand. I don't really feel like Hollywood understand kids were such big business for them until 77.
- [56:44]
Van Lathan
That's why this movie couldn't get off the ground at first because they said that this is a movie for kids and the only place that does those movies is Disney. Disney was the only studio made movies for kids initially.
- [56:52]
Bill Simmons
Right?
- [56:53]
Chris Ryan
And.
- [56:54]
Bill Simmons
But now they understand.
- [56:55]
Chris Ryan
But in the 80s they began to understand because you saw big, huge movies for. For kids. You saw the never end the story. A lot of creatures like different stuff, like all the dark crystal stuff.
- [57:06]
Sean Fennessy
Well, because they have the blueprint. I mean, the thing that happens is like there is no graduation out of Star Wars. Yes, most people probably leave it behind, but like what Star wars invents is the idea that you can continue these people as customers beyond their childh, which is, look at the four of us sitting here talking about Star wars as if it's like a pressing issue. You know what I mean? We are. There is a Star wars show on right now. It's probably the best thing on tv. It's like, right? It's still with us, dude.
- [57:33]
Chris Ryan
I was about to cry like 30 minutes ago. I had to stop myself. I'm starting to get chill bumps talking about the movie. It's weird because. You know what though? I will say this though. A lot of people listen to the stuff that we do over on the rigor verse and it's difficult for me to sometimes be the actual grownup that I need to be because the nostalgia is just. It's too thick. Like I can't wade through it, right? I can't wade through. When I look at the. When I watch this movie for this podcast, I had the exact same feeling as I did, dude.
- [58:07]
Sean Fennessy
I stand there, I like watch Rosario Dawson acting against an invented digital screen talking to an alien about stuff. And I'm just like, well, I have to do the work, finish the job. You know what I mean? Well, this great game that we began.
- [58:22]
Bill Simmons
I was trying to think. I was trying to think of a nostalgia as a business for Hollywood. I think it's, it's 89. It's when that. It's right, right around there. When they had the third indie movie. Oh yeah, they do Batman and they're starting to figure out. And then when we go into the 90s, Disney really starts to figure out the machine of movies and the video cassettes. And it's like we have the Lion King. The Lion King is going to come out. Elton John is going to sing the song. And it's. It became like a. Almost like a blueprint for how to hit kids, how to make parents. And Sean knows as somebody with a little kid right now there's a five year window where it's like I just want to take my kid to a movie theater for two hours and feed them popcorn and hope they don't have a meltdown.
- [59:03]
Van Lathan
We do it every minute. We do it every weekend. Yeah. That's why movies still worked.
- [59:07]
Bill Simmons
Get it forever.
- [59:09]
Van Lathan
I think you're right that they figured out the formula for sure. I think this moment right now in movies is really interesting and instructive because it is a little bit of an echo of a. A past period where Star wars is something that is Familiar but new. 2001 Space Odyssey happened. Like there was a movie that had this same visual dynamism in space.
- [59:28]
Sean Fennessy
The stations kind of look similar as well.
- [59:30]
Van Lathan
Yeah, the special effects, it's a huge influence on the movie. But the big differentiation aside from the story between this movie and 2001 is that this movie is fast. 2001 is slow, 2 hours, 5 minutes. But it's familiar but new. And to me it's the same thing with what's happening in movies now. Oppenheimer, Barbie, Super Mario Brothers movie, Sinners, Minecraft movie. These are the biggest movies of the last few years. Familiar but new. Like you've never seen a Minecraft movie. You know what that is? You're aware of it as a video game. You've never seen a movie about it. You've never seen a good movie about Super Mario Brothers. Star wars is like we'd seen movies, plenty of movies like this before and they never put. But never quite this way.
- [60:06]
Chris Ryan
George does something every couple of scenes. He gives you something cuddly because when you think about it, the first scene is Vader brutalizing somebody. Right. Like Vader is.
- [60:17]
Sean Fennessy
He kills like a dozen people and chokes One guy out.
- [60:19]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [60:19]
Chris Ryan
He kills a guy.
- [60:20]
Bill Simmons
But three po, the guy was asking for it. Don't talk back to Vader. What are you doing?
- [60:26]
Chris Ryan
3Po and Archer D2 cuddly. By the time you get to. Oh, we don't know. Chewbacca, Big cuddly guy. You want to give him a hug? He never lets you get too far away from the fact that you're safe and you're okay. Watching the movie 2001 will make you re. Examine life in the universe.
- [60:43]
Van Lathan
And it's cold versus warm, intellectual versus emotional. They're a study in contrast. That made total sense.
- [60:49]
Sean Fennessy
There's also the. The perfect framing device of saying it's a galaxy far away, but it's a long time ago. So it. It's. It's immediately timeless because they. There are recognizable things about this galaxy that you recognize in your world. But you're also like. But is this. Is this like a western? Is this like a samurai? Is this like King Arthur? Is this like all these. Is it a Bible story? It feels very old even though it's set in the future. And so you wind up kind of losing yourself in the world of pure imagination. Whereas 2001 is about human beings on Earth longing for connection with something greater than they have.
- [61:29]
Chris Ryan
Even the scroll that begins with Star Wars. Now I. I realize that that's something that he got from older film reel Buck Rogers serials and stuff like that. Serials. Buck Rogers type of stuff. When I was a kid watching it, I just remember trying to read everything and feeling like something insanely important was being said. Yes, Something really super important is being said.
- [61:57]
Sean Fennessy
The original Roach Bomb.
- [61:58]
Chris Ryan
Yeah, you're reading it.
- [62:00]
Bill Simmons
Should the NBA playoffs do this?
- [62:02]
Sean Fennessy
You're reading Game six.
- [62:04]
Chris Ryan
Okay. Princess Leia. And then you're trying to. And even that. There's this majesty and this wonder to it. And I know that it wasn't new, but it felt.
- [62:14]
Sean Fennessy
No, you're studying like Bible scripture.
- [62:15]
Van Lathan
It's called the scroll. It's like you've unfurled something that Moses read. You know, it's purposefully.
- [62:22]
Sean Fennessy
It's starting on that in the middle. It's episode four. You're like, how did I miss the first three? What happened? You're like, immediately. The urgency of watching is instantaneous.
- [62:32]
Bill Simmons
We had to talk legacy and influence. I would say this was the first movie to become a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. I don't know if anyone ever put pieces together. You're talking merchandise worldwide.
- [62:44]
Van Lathan
You know, like, how did the movies play in? There was no simultaneous release.
- [62:49]
Bill Simmons
Gone with The Wind. There was no.
- [62:51]
Van Lathan
There wasn't a sequel.
- [62:52]
Chris Ryan
Novel.
- [62:56]
Bill Simmons
I meant that. Two immediate sequels, plus all the movies they made. Novels, comics, video games, games, amusement parks, merch, everything. Multiple TV series in the last 10 years. It's moved with the culture wherever it is. It's like we're doing streaming now. Okay, here's some streaming. Lucas became, if not the most successful film producer ever is in the top four. Harrison Ford comes out of this movie. But then we talk about influence. I think this movie has to. We have to give it credit for this. The repeatable blockbuster. You can't say Godfather even though there were two Godfathers.
- [63:34]
Sean Fennessy
That's the franchise. It mints franchise.
- [63:36]
Van Lathan
I think the only thing.
- [63:37]
Bill Simmons
Nobody had done this.
- [63:38]
Van Lathan
I think James Bond is on this movie's corner. Interesting. I think Bond did this. It's different because they kept getting recast and they're not serialized stories. So there are characters that repeat, but the story doesn't feel like it's woven together. But the idea of let's go to the new Bond had existed for years.
- [63:57]
Bill Simmons
Before there was no. There were. You didn't have to see the last one to know.
- [64:01]
Sean Fennessy
You can watch Russia with Love without having. Correct.
- [64:04]
Bill Simmons
Lucasfilm. All the stuff he created in the 70s which was cutting edge.
- [64:09]
Sean Fennessy
Well, industrial lights and magic.
- [64:10]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I have a lot on that.
- [64:13]
Van Lathan
If you want to talk about ilm. It's the most interesting thing to me about this movie is those guys.
- [64:17]
Bill Simmons
I think there's. I think we see that in Half Assed. Okay, great Bet on Yourself story. We covered May the force be with you. Just as a concept which we talked about the evil empire. This became the Yankees for us in Boston almost immediately. But the whole concept of an evil side and then like just this.
- [64:38]
Sean Fennessy
There was no reference in Boston.
- [64:39]
Chris Ryan
It was the. It was the Yankees.
- [64:41]
Bill Simmons
Oh, yeah. I knew I was gonna walk into that.
- [64:49]
Van Lathan
Yeah. It was just for some of us.
- [64:50]
Bill Simmons
It was the squirrel. The Dark side of the force.
- [64:58]
Chris Ryan
Dark side of the Force, yeah.
- [65:00]
Bill Simmons
Harrison Ford, all the directors that this movie influenced. JJ Abrams, Cameron Fincher, Peter Jackson, Chris Nolan, Ridley Scott, John Lasseter, who's not a director, but creator.
- [65:14]
Van Lathan
Michael Bay.
- [65:14]
Bill Simmons
Michael Bay, our guy. What else? For influence, you just go, big ass picture.
- [65:22]
Sean Fennessy
I mean, just the technique of world building, which has now become world building. Basically how you get a meeting in Hollywood is like, it's not just this. There's so much more. You know what I mean? There's so many more ways to go. I would add Peter Jackson to your Star wars influences and the way he Made the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I just think. Yeah. It's become now the currency of. Of Hollywood is to go in and say, there's so many different stories we can tell with this main story. I mean, I think there is some fatigue with that because people feel like they're not getting a complete statement. And maybe the success of Barbie and Oppenheimer suggests, like, people are pretty satisfied with one story.
- [66:00]
Bill Simmons
But sinners.
- [66:02]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. What about a prequel? Like, they're. They're peppering them on the red carpet.
- [66:07]
Bill Simmons
We'll see with kooks.
- [66:09]
Van Lathan
I have. I'm keeping the faith with Kukla.
- [66:12]
Chris Ryan
I want to send a sequel. Why not? Let's take it to, you know, honestly.
- [66:18]
Bill Simmons
Can we go prequel and then sequel? Can we go to Chicago with Smoke and Stack?
- [66:22]
Sean Fennessy
Can we go to Boston in the 70s?
- [66:27]
Bill Simmons
Why are you throwing him out of the Oops?
- [66:29]
Chris Ryan
I don't understand this.
- [66:31]
Bill Simmons
Why do I have to get dunked out of here?
- [66:33]
Chris Ryan
Obviously, John Fish Favreau. Obviously Dave Filoni. Those guys are definitely Frudolph.
- [66:37]
Van Lathan
Yeah.
- [66:38]
Chris Ryan
Lucas's. Lucas's Tree. But, you know, this movie also revived, like the Doom movie. The David Lynch Doom movie gets made because of Star Wars. Yeah, because.
- [66:51]
Van Lathan
And Dino De Laurentiis, who was maybe going to be a part of Star wars, doesn't get on Star wars. And so he doesn't get on Star Wars. He failed on King Kong. So he's like, I got to get Dune to go. And then he gets it to go, and it doesn't work.
- [67:00]
Chris Ryan
It doesn't work.
- [67:01]
Van Lathan
You know, it influenced everything, but it's not. There's nothing like it. I mean, there's really.
- [67:08]
Bill Simmons
Is this the number one? This movie influenced the most things of all the movies we've ever talked about.
- [67:12]
Van Lathan
I think there's a strong case that it's the most significant piece of popular culture since, like, Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan, you know, I mean, like, there's just these Titanic seismic moments where you can feel the whole. It's what Chris is saying about Michael Jackson. You can feel everything kind of shifting.
- [67:27]
Bill Simmons
So it's ahead of 8 millimeter. Yeah.
- [67:29]
Sean Fennessy
It's like, think about how much really close. We talked about Pulp Fiction's influence.
- [67:35]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [67:36]
Sean Fennessy
Was that like five years, like, ultimately, like, people love Pulp Fiction.
- [67:39]
Bill Simmons
It's like a half.
- [67:40]
Sean Fennessy
They were making movies like Pulp Fiction for about five years, and people were listening to music, like the music on the soundtrack for about 5. I'm not even trying to be disrespectful. It's like one of my Favorite movies. We're. This thing is now five decades of having kind of everything in a headlock.
- [67:56]
Bill Simmons
With no sense whatsoever that it's slowing down. I think that's the crazy part.
- [68:02]
Chris Ryan
This is what I will say is changing because I thought about this a lot before we got on here. So when we talk about the dead period in Star wars, we're talking about a point to where there's not a lot coming out. And like we're talking in class about the books that we're reading now. There's still all kinds of stuff. There's still toys and there are conventions and they're all of that stuff. But if you want to watch Star wars stuff on TV and movies, you have to watch the old stuff. Now there is something that's happening that's interesting. We're starting to wonder if we're running out of story that is new for Star Wars. We're having. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that whatever they put out, we are going to watch and new people are being turned onto it. But there is something that's happening right now to where we're relitigating this exact same time that this movie is set in. There's a show that's set right now in this same time. It's telling the story in a completely different way. You want to laugh, but we're starting to wonder how much Star wars we need, which speaks to.
- [69:06]
Sean Fennessy
Well, because everybody's so afraid to push the ball forward because then you're on your own. If you want to just play in the sandbox of like, oh, we already know canon wise and timeline wise, what's happening leading up to a new hope, you can do that.
- [69:18]
Chris Ryan
The fans have captured the lore, but.
- [69:21]
Van Lathan
So much so that one of the only Star wars related things I watched that wasn't this movie. Before I watched this movie, it was just the last 15 minutes of Rogue One, which is a movie that I have always liked and I think is a cool movie. But what's most compelling to me about it is the last five minutes when Darth Vader shows up and he is the Darth Vader that you see have saw in your mind's eye when you were five years old where you were like, this is the baddest killing that ever happened.
- [69:45]
Sean Fennessy
He looks even cooler.
- [69:47]
Chris Ryan
Way cooler.
- [69:48]
Van Lathan
But the thing that is interesting to me about that is that when that movie ends, it literally ends all the way up to the last second before Star wars for A New Hope goes.
- [69:57]
Chris Ryan
Right up to it.
- [69:58]
Van Lathan
That's how Much. We have exploited the material that we made a whole movie about every little thing that happened right before this movie that we're talking about on the POD stars.
- [70:07]
Sean Fennessy
And now we're making a two season TV show about every moment that goes.
- [70:10]
Chris Ryan
Up into that movie, into that movie. When Solo came out, this was the first time that I was like, there are limits. I liked Solo. But here's the thing about Solo. And what's the actor's name again?
- [70:21]
Van Lathan
Alden. Aaron Rake.
- [70:22]
Chris Ryan
Okay. He's good.
- [70:24]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [70:24]
Chris Ryan
That movie changed his career to me because he was on his way up. Everyone loved him. He had this personality. And then somebody asked him to be Han Solo. Somebody asked him to be Harrison Ford in the most perfect role of all time. And I don't give a fuck who you get. You can't do it. You can't do it. So there is a part of Star wars that every Star wars fan has to come to terms with that cannot be done like the way it was done in the past. And I think people are having a hard time coming to terms with that.
- [70:55]
Bill Simmons
It would be funny if, like White Lotus adopted the Star wars strategy. And like, we're doing an Armand prequel, just like ripping through. We're gonna follow. What was the family that lost their dad lost the money? The rat lifts.
- [71:09]
Sean Fennessy
Ratliffs.
- [71:10]
Bill Simmons
It's a rat lifts.
- [71:11]
Sean Fennessy
It's a duke.
- [71:11]
Bill Simmons
You would have on them for four seasons. Let's take one more break. And there's more George Lucas stuff. Just a quick backstory. Lucas wants to do a Flash Gordon type thing. He starts working on a treatment in 73, called it the Star Wars. He wanted romance and adventure and fun and space and started showing it to people. And nobody was supportive. And they were like, why the fuck are you doing this? Why don't you make some real movies? And people are just shitting on them. And then 20th Century Fox finally liked it. They wanted to be in business with Lucas, gave him 150 grand. American Graffiti Crushes. They're like, Here's 500. He does the. The sequels merch thing. He bets on himself and wins. To the point that no studio ever does this again. To this degree where they're just like, yeah, take. Never happens again. It's a one and only. This was the only time, the only one. I mean, there's been some close ones. Even Coogler recently with Sinners, where you can get it back in 25 years. Nobody was ever like, yeah, yeah, it sounds great. Take it.
- [72:17]
Van Lathan
Well, I mean, Megalopolis did just happen, you know. Like, you can still pay for the movie yourself, but it's very rare for someone to actually own the creative rights.
- [72:27]
Sean Fennessy
Of a studio film, of a studio movie.
- [72:30]
Van Lathan
Immediately.
- [72:31]
Bill Simmons
Basically immediately and in perpetuity. So he said the Screenplay was almost 300 pages long. Ended up. I don't know if you want to go into how he took Revenge of the Jedi and ended up moving stuff around and saving stuff for later. Yeah, they filmed it in Tunisia. In England, he did ilm. This is where you could talk about ILM if you want. He created basically a company to do all the special effects that he also owned.
- [72:55]
Van Lathan
If he hadn't signed with Fox to make this movie, I don't know if it would have happened because Fox had just closed their special effects department, so there was no one to do this.
- [73:02]
Bill Simmons
Do we have special effects? Maybe we just never have them.
- [73:05]
Van Lathan
Maybe not in the form that we have them now. Because he brings together this group of people. John Dykstra, Dennis Mirren, Phil Tippett, Joe Johnston, guys who go on to be some of the most important movie makers of the next 50 years. And all of these guys move into this warehouse in California and he's off in England making this movie. And they're figuring out how to make the things that are the indelible images that we still see from the movie that still look good. The opening image of this movie with the spaceship flying and then the star cruiser overhead. There's an incredible documentary series called Light and Magic on Disney. If you are even 1/10 of a movie nerd and interested in how they do these things, you have to watch this series because the first two episodes walks you through specifically how they developed the technology. All these guys in this warehouse that made all this stuff possible. The motion cameras that they invented. The way that Phil Tippett is creating, like evolving animation styles, like all that shit that they did is so cool. It's dorky. It's no doubt dorky, but it changed movies because ILM eventually becomes the place that evolves digital animation and computer generated animation that takes us to where we are now in movies. Some of that is for the worse, in my opinion. But what they were doing with practical filmmaking effects. You mentioned the Ten Commandments. They literally get VistaVision film. The last time a US film had been shot on VistaVision is the Ten Commandments. And they're like, we're going to shoot these models that we built on this ancient film stock so that the Death Star looks, like, amazing and wide and grand and beautiful. So just like really ingenious. Young guys who have nothing else going on in their lives but trying to come up with cool ways to make this movie. That is out of George's head.
- [74:45]
Bill Simmons
There's a shot and then Floyd Gondola comes in, he's like, guys, I don't see it.
- [74:49]
Sean Fennessy
That's right.
- [74:49]
Bill Simmons
I think the future's video, I think that's like the ones right here.
- [74:52]
Sean Fennessy
Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer come in and say, hey, why don't we hose.
- [74:56]
Chris Ryan
Her down a little bit.
- [74:58]
Sean Fennessy
There's a shot when the Millennium Falcons first fly to Yavin, like towards the end of the movie. And they're about to land at the rebel base and there's like the red planet. And then it comes around that red planet to be able to see the rebels base planet. And I, I still to this day I'm just like, that is outer space, right? Like, I can't get my mind around the fact that guys made that. Like, it looks like a spaceship traveling in outer space to me.
- [75:24]
Bill Simmons
Well, and also how fucking cool it was in 1977.
- [75:27]
Chris Ryan
That's what I think.
- [75:28]
Bill Simmons
That's. But that's why the movie hit like it did. Because people were just like, that's what David.
- [75:33]
Sean Fennessy
They did on this four times in two weeks.
- [75:34]
Chris Ryan
Back to Sean's point about the. That first shot, you see the first shot, the rebel cruiser is trying to outrun the Destroyer. The Star Destroyer. I thought to myself watching it back, you guys must have lost your fucking minds.
- [75:50]
Sean Fennessy
My mom said that. Mom was like, the ship, the first ship goes by and you're like, cool. And then the fucking Destroyer comes from the top of the screen over the audience. And she was like, everybody in the theater.
- [76:02]
Chris Ryan
Just because even the depiction of a space battle when the laser is coming and then it kind of dissipates, there's not really very much sound. They invented the way space battles are supposed to look. They had to invent that from scratch. Well, NASA never went to the moon. That was all like, you know, made up by the government. They shot that in Burbank. So we don't know what space is even like at this point. So they had to invent what space travel looked like out of nowhere. That stuff never happened.
- [76:37]
Bill Simmons
And Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galacta, all those shows are happening. And Star wars just seemed like it was crushing it blowing up.
- [76:43]
Sean Fennessy
Was Galactic Ring before Star wars or after?
- [76:45]
Bill Simmons
It was right after.
- [76:45]
Van Lathan
Dykstra goes to work on Battlestar Galactica right afterwards. But he says something really cool that I hadn't really thought about, which is that in this shot that we're talking about where the destroyer goes overhead, he's like the entire ship during the whole shot is in focus. You don't realize that. How hard it is to do that. There's never a moment where in the foreground or the background of the image, nothing is blurry, nothing is shadowy in space that you can see every detail of that ship. And because all of those models are handmade, they made all of these doors and widgets and windows on the ships handmade and to scale. So it seems like this is something that was built by people. It felt like a real thing.
- [77:27]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, yeah.
- [77:28]
Van Lathan
Like the level.
- [77:29]
Sean Fennessy
The last battle.
- [77:30]
Chris Ryan
Absolutely.
- [77:31]
Sean Fennessy
When they're flying over the surface of the Death Star and it's like you can see every nook and cranny, and you're like, oh, my God, George Lucas over underrated.
- [77:39]
Van Lathan
There is a case.
- [77:41]
Chris Ryan
I mean, for real, when you're. When you're.
- [77:43]
Bill Simmons
Is he the goat?
- [77:46]
Chris Ryan
When you're looking at the Star Destroyer or. Or the Death Star, you're wondering, I wonder what that does. I wonder what that does. I wonder what these things are. Is that a satellite? What's happening here? What's going. And those are the things that, like, spawned decades and decades and generations of wonder and curiosity.
- [78:04]
Bill Simmons
Well, Fox wasn't impressed. They gave the movie very little marketing support. Did some licensed T shirts and a couple posters which are now worth, like, insane amounts of money. Like, insane.
- [78:17]
Sean Fennessy
Like millions.
- [78:18]
Bill Simmons
You go on ebay? No, they're. They're like 80, 90,000.
- [78:23]
Van Lathan
You think your former classmate David is sitting pretty with all possible.
- [78:28]
Bill Simmons
With the lunch boxes, anything. Like those toys, if you have the. The IOU box that you never actually cashed in or whatever that thing was like, that's the. Everything's worth. Anyway, they. Lucas wanted it on Memorial Day weekend. And everybody was like, that's bullshit. We don't. It's a summer movie. We don't do Memorial Day weekend. We don't do stuff in May. And Lucas was like, no, no. We get word of mouth for kids again, George Lucas. So they do May 25th. They pair it with a movie called the Other side of Midnight, starring Susan Sarandon, based on a Sidney Sheldon novel. Sean, I don't know if you've letterboxed that one.
- [79:05]
Van Lathan
Haven't seen it.
- [79:06]
Sean Fennessy
Okay.
- [79:07]
Van Lathan
I do love Susan Sarandon.
- [79:08]
Sean Fennessy
Next week on the Rewatch.
- [79:09]
Bill Simmons
Pair it together. Yeah, it's a one for us. They pair it together, and that movie gets dumped in a week, and the rest is history. This is one of my Favorite anecdotes. Lucas and Spielberg, who are buddies and they're arguing about whose movie is going to do better, Close Encounters or Star Wars. And Lucas says, your movie's definitely going to do better. I'll give you 2.5% of the profit on my film. You give me. We'll trade. So we'll root for each other's film. And Spielberg accepted because he thought Lucas was going to have a bigger movie. And Spielberg ended up with 2.5% of Star Wars. Pretty good fucking Spielberg.
- [79:46]
Sean Fennessy
I gotta tell you, man, if I'd be like, look, man, we didn't pay for that.
- [79:53]
Bill Simmons
I don't remember doing that. Lucas was so sure the movie was gonna flop that he went on vacation with a bunch of people, including Spielberg. And the movie's taking off and they're in Hawaii and they come up with the Raiders of Lost Ark on the vacation. So he's just winning. No, I don't think anyone's ever winning more over the span of a month than George Lucas.
- [80:13]
Van Lathan
Do you remember pre release what the energy around the movie was?
- [80:18]
Bill Simmons
No, no. No memory whatsoever.
- [80:20]
Sean Fennessy
It was just.
- [80:21]
Bill Simmons
I don't remember until after it came out and the kids in class were.
- [80:24]
Sean Fennessy
Starting to talk like lives had changed because of it.
- [80:26]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, like we're going, going Saturday and then we're going Sunday.
- [80:29]
Sean Fennessy
When you look at the critical response, it's such a huge spectrum where it's like, you know, some of the high end places are just like, this is empty, there's no characters, blah, blah, blah. Then there's a lot of people who are like, this is definitely going to change the trajectory of culture.
- [80:43]
Van Lathan
I'm sure you have the Ebert quote.
- [80:45]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, Roger's a fan. Harrison Ford, borderline hottest take. Is this his greatest role?
- [80:53]
Chris Ryan
This is.
- [80:54]
Bill Simmons
I mean, he was Indiana Jones.
- [80:56]
Chris Ryan
This is the argument, is there a.
- [80:58]
Bill Simmons
Better movie role than this?
- [80:59]
Chris Ryan
I went to a bar mitzvah one time where there were two tables. It was a movie themed bar mitzvah. And at one table there was this guy that was Harrison Ford and he was Indiana Jones. And another table there was this guy and he was Han Solo. He was Han Solo. At that moment I was trying to think to myself, is this a recent.
- [81:16]
Sean Fennessy
Bar mitzvah or this is like years ago?
- [81:20]
Chris Ryan
I was thinking to myself, is Harrison Ford Han Solo or Indiana Jones? Like, what jersey is he in?
- [81:32]
Bill Simmons
What's this hall of Fame buses?
- [81:33]
Sean Fennessy
I have the sort of the answer. My answer for this is I think Indiana Jones is his more iconic role, but I think he wins Star a New Hope.
- [81:44]
Bill Simmons
Like, I think that you stepping in the last category.
- [81:47]
Sean Fennessy
I'm just saying.
- [81:48]
Bill Simmons
Jesus.
- [81:49]
Van Lathan
I think not even the correct answer to that question.
- [81:52]
Sean Fennessy
Without Harrison Ford, this movie actually doesn't work. Work on. On a whole, on like a. To like on a total level. But in my mind, he is Indiana Jones.
- [82:03]
Chris Ryan
I thought about it for such a long time.
- [82:04]
Bill Simmons
Indiana is more important for him, probably.
- [82:07]
Chris Ryan
I think it's his most enduring role.
- [82:10]
Van Lathan
We haven't seen the legacy of Red Hulk yet though, so we can't actually answer that question until we step on thunder.
- [82:16]
Bill Simmons
I love, I love Han Solo.
- [82:19]
Chris Ryan
I think he's Han Solo.
- [82:21]
Bill Simmons
It's such a great character. He's the coolest guy.
- [82:24]
Chris Ryan
Indiana Jones, like, so much. I think he's Han Solo, but he.
- [82:28]
Sean Fennessy
Gets to cook in this. He gets to just come in and have fun and flirt and have the best lines. He's in every frame almost of Indiana Jones.
- [82:34]
Chris Ryan
It's true. I mean, look, Indiana Jones is probably his most enduring role. It is. But for some reason, when I think of that character, when I think of him as a guy, I think Han.
- [82:49]
Bill Simmons
Solo probably go Han Solo 1, Indy 2, regarding Henry 3, where he had to get shot in the head to learn how to be a good guy. We'll be doing that on the rewatchables at some point.
- [83:01]
Van Lathan
I love that movie. You know what that movie is, by the way? The first screenplay ever authored by J.J. abrams.
- [83:08]
Bill Simmons
Is that true?
- [83:08]
Van Lathan
Then known as Jeffrey Abrams. Yes.
- [83:10]
Chris Ryan
He must have been a fucking child.
- [83:12]
Van Lathan
Yes. Directed by Mike Nichols.
- [83:14]
Chris Ryan
You didn't give your take on Indiana Versus.
- [83:20]
Van Lathan
I think Indiana Jones is the one. I think the way to measure this will be when he dies. And I would imagine that the obituary is already written. The New York Times will say, you know Harrison Ford best remembered for his roles in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- [83:36]
Sean Fennessy
Star Wars Anchorman 2 and 42 working girls.
- [83:42]
Van Lathan
Yeah. In Clear and Present Danger, and, you know, Miller Brothers. I guess I'll say Indiana Jones. I. I like the Star wars movie.
- [83:50]
Bill Simmons
What do you say?
- [83:51]
Sean Fennessy
You said it's indie. Is what he's most known for.
- [83:54]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, but for you, it's. It's Han Solo.
- [83:56]
Sean Fennessy
I. I think Han Solo is the most important part of this movie to me.
- [84:00]
Bill Simmons
Who else in the history of move. Recent history movies, last 50 years could have been as good as Han Solo that we have, that we've had?
- [84:09]
Sean Fennessy
Honestly, you have to be. To me, like, when I watch him in this movie, I'm like, this is like if Brad Pitt and George Clooney were the same guy. It's like. It's got the ineffable cool and like, that kind of remove. But also, like, can make fun of himself and seems like a joker. And it's. It's so hard to put that together.
- [84:29]
Bill Simmons
There's. There's a Denzel case.
- [84:32]
Chris Ryan
Is. He's.
- [84:34]
Bill Simmons
He's a little edgier. He's like a little closer to training.
- [84:37]
Sean Fennessy
Now you got me thinking about Denzel when he asks for the money from ladies. Because I'm leaving with something.
- [84:44]
Bill Simmons
There's a dental case is all I'm saying. Because it's. It's a charisma role. It's a charisma. I'll steal your girl. I'll steal your money.
- [84:50]
Van Lathan
I think the most realistic one is if it was a couple of years later. I think Kurt Russell. If you put Kurt Russell in this part, that's like that movie.
- [84:58]
Bill Simmons
Basically Snake Plisk in it.
- [85:00]
Chris Ryan
Not bad. Because here's the thing. Hawn has to be dashing, but not too pretty because he has to look a little rough around the edges. He has to be. He's a smuggler, an asshole, but he's gotta be lovable. He's gotta be somebody that. Like a face that you can kind of forget because he's gotta get past.
- [85:22]
Bill Simmons
Mallard would be furious right now because she thinks Harrison Ford walks on water and is the most handsome man who ever lived.
- [85:27]
Chris Ryan
But in Witness, though. Though. So that's a couple years. He got better as he got older.
- [85:32]
Bill Simmons
Music by John Williams. You guys might have heard of him.
- [85:34]
Sean Fennessy
He blacked out here.
- [85:36]
Van Lathan
He.
- [85:37]
Sean Fennessy
He did it.
- [85:38]
Van Lathan
He.
- [85:40]
Sean Fennessy
Not a bum note here.
- [85:41]
Van Lathan
He grabs the belt in this movie. He grabs the belt and he has never relinquished the belt.
- [85:46]
Chris Ryan
He's been the man 77.
- [85:48]
Van Lathan
He has been the goat.
- [85:49]
Sean Fennessy
Can you imagine just being like.
- [85:52]
Bill Simmons
He's like.
- [85:53]
Sean Fennessy
That works. How many.
- [85:58]
Chris Ryan
Really? Like, there's an argument to be made and it's just artistically, that he is the most successful person to come out of the movie. Artistically.
- [86:08]
Bill Simmons
Well, we've talked about whether he was the Joe Montana searching for Bobby Fischer. He's better at this than anything you've ever been at. Like, is he the number one? He's better at his job than anyone's ever been at a movie job.
- [86:20]
Van Lathan
He's the greatest film composer of all time. Fine. I. I actually don't think Cameron.
- [86:24]
Bill Simmons
Kaminsky.
- [86:26]
Sean Fennessy
Kaminsky as this cinematographer.
- [86:28]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [86:28]
Sean Fennessy
I have a couple of guys above Janusz.
- [86:30]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [86:30]
Bill Simmons
I'm just on my board. I just wanted to plug you.
- [86:34]
Van Lathan
I think there's like, obviously tons and tons of great film composers. And like, right now, a big reason why Sinners is so great is because Ludwig and Coogler's partnership. And like, it's very similar to what John Williams and Spielberg have. Hans Zimmer, there's tons of great people who do this. But. But John Williams, as recently as, like five years ago, was still writing incredible scores and getting nominated and writing great scores for Star Wars. Like, he's still iterating on this music and making it sound great in new material. And he's in his 90s.
- [87:00]
Bill Simmons
He's just writing it now. Type, typing, banging the keyboards on a piano that's just on a pile of cash. It's a piano. He's got a chair. It's like all in $100 bills. And he's just rocking in the hundreds.
- [87:15]
Chris Ryan
So. You know how Harrison has the. Which I would say that not very many actors have that to that level. Are you Indiana Jones or Han Solo? John Williams has that. Is it this? Is it Indiana?
- [87:27]
Bill Simmons
E.T.
- [87:28]
Chris Ryan
Is it E.T. is it Superman?
- [87:30]
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
- [87:31]
Chris Ryan
Like.
- [87:31]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [87:32]
Van Lathan
Jurassic Park.
- [87:33]
Chris Ryan
Like, ridiculously recognizable. You. I would say that it's Star Wars.
- [87:37]
Bill Simmons
Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley.
- [87:39]
Chris Ryan
Shut up.
- [87:39]
Sean Fennessy
That's Faltermeyer, man.
- [87:41]
Bill Simmons
I'm trying to think of, like, if you just associate one thing with.
- [87:44]
Van Lathan
Oh, you're talking about music.
- [87:46]
Bill Simmons
Who was Eddie Murphy?
- [87:47]
Van Lathan
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [87:49]
Bill Simmons
What's Denzel?
- [87:51]
Van Lathan
What music?
- [87:52]
Bill Simmons
No, I'm. I'm talking about associating somebody with one. But you're talking about all these different things, right? What is John Williams One identifiable thing. I'm saying, what are some other ones where it's like, instantaneously? Because for. For John Williams, I honestly think of.
- [88:06]
Sean Fennessy
Jaws before I actually forgot about Jaws.
- [88:09]
Van Lathan
For a long time.
- [88:10]
Bill Simmons
I think Jaws has to be the number one for him.
- [88:13]
Sean Fennessy
It's probably the most famous theme. But I think maybe.
- [88:18]
Chris Ryan
Maybe.
- [88:22]
Van Lathan
We'Re picking from the most iconic movies of our lives.
- [88:24]
Chris Ryan
I know, but think about the fact that everyone is so memorable. Now, Donner, Superman is not as big of a movie as the rest of these movies. It's a pretty big fucking movie, but it's not. But the theme from the movie is as enduring or even more enduring than the movie itself.
- [88:41]
Sean Fennessy
He also just has 10 movies that. That are not as big as these, that, like, where he just absolutely cooked. Like, Empire of the sun is a gorgeous.
- [88:48]
Bill Simmons
It'd be funny if you asked John Williams, like, what. What do you think? Yeah. Secretariat. One other thing I want to talk about before we get to the Oscars and All that stuff. We talk about Lucas's imagination with things, and you really. I think one of the reasons this movie was so cool the first time you saw it in the theater was because there's just all these different creatures. Like, in the 70s, we had the Muppet show, right? And there were the two guys in the balcony, and then there were different things, and we knew all those people, and we had, like, Sesame street. And Lucas, like, basically quintuples down on all these things.
- [89:25]
Van Lathan
Jim Henson, so many different great comp, though. We were talking about Stephen King. Like, Jim Henson is one of those guys who's like, I have this world in my head, and I'm gonna keep trying to get it out as much as I possibly can.
- [89:36]
Bill Simmons
He doesn't have to opposite it. It's like, okay, we have evil sand people, and there's. But then when we get to the bar, every single person in the bar looks different than the next person. There's that one guy that comes in who seems like he's got, like, balls on his chin.
- [89:49]
Chris Ryan
Then there's another guy with a big pig on his nose.
- [89:52]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. You're just going around. It's like, where the fuck are we?
- [89:55]
Van Lathan
So, to me, the secret MVP of the entire movie is Ralph McQuarrie, who's the illustrator who Lucas told all of his ideas to for all these characters. And McQuarrie draws all of them before storyboards, before they totally know what all the financing is. These are the proofs of concept that they share with everybody to say, this is what the characters and the worlds will look like. And if you look at the original Ralph McQuarrie sketches of C3PO and R2D2, of all those characters in the cantina of the whole world, it's so close to what the movie looks like. So close. And that's why when people are like, ah, George Lucas, his dialogue is terrible. His direction can be stilted at times. Like when you people can be really critical of him. All that stuff comes out of his head from Macquarie's Pen. And that, to me, is like, the ultimate case for why he is so, so, so, so, so critical to this. This whole machine.
- [90:46]
Bill Simmons
It won five Oscars and got nominated for best film, but did not win.
- [90:51]
Van Lathan
Yeah. Do you know. Do you want to talk about what was nominated that year?
- [90:54]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, go do it.
- [90:56]
Van Lathan
Well, Close Encounters is also. No, no, Close Encounters is not nominated, but Spielberg is nominated and doesn't win. I believe it's. Is it Julia? The Turning Point, Annie hall, which wins that year. And what else? What is the other one, the Goodbye Girl.
- [91:15]
Bill Simmons
Oh, right.
- [91:16]
Van Lathan
So the Goodbye Girl, Turning Point and Julia. Show of hands, how many of you have seen all three of those?
- [91:22]
Sean Fennessy
I've seen Julia.
- [91:23]
Chris Ryan
I haven't seen all three.
- [91:24]
Van Lathan
I know.
- [91:25]
Chris Ryan
I saw the Goodbye Girl. I don't know what Turning Point even is. What is that?
- [91:28]
Van Lathan
The Amy I've never seen?
- [91:31]
Sean Fennessy
What's that?
- [91:31]
Bill Simmons
I think the Annie hall thing. I've always thought it was nuts, even before the stuff happened, Woody. Because then Titanic, 20 years later, basically everyone's like, yeah, Titanic, that should win. But how does Star wars not win?
- [91:42]
Van Lathan
I don't think it was taken that seriously.
- [91:45]
Bill Simmons
Obviously.
- [91:45]
Chris Ryan
Maybe not. Yeah. It's still hard for movies, like, to be honest with you, it's hard for movies like Star wars to win the top award.
- [91:51]
Sean Fennessy
I wonder if you could even sense any of the burgeoning backlash, rejection of Star wars in the embrace of Annie hall that year. I mean, Annie hall is a quintessentially 70s product.
- [92:02]
Van Lathan
It is. I mean, Annie hall is a revolutionary movie in its own way.
- [92:05]
Sean Fennessy
Oh, yeah.
- [92:06]
Van Lathan
I mean, the way that the movie is made and the way that the story is told is. Is remarkable. And so to me, it's not like a safe pick, per se, over a movie like Star Wars. Like Julia 1, you'd be like, ah, come on. Like, that's not. That would be a classic travesty. But like, this movie is nominated for picture director, supporting actor, screenplay, and then all of the tech categories. And then it wins all the tech categories. Chewbacca, Alec Guinness.
- [92:30]
Chris Ryan
Oh, really? Oh, okay. Yeah, I knew that. And it jumped right outta my mind.
- [92:33]
Van Lathan
Which is the classic. Like, we got the celebrated old guy and he got a look in the big. Yeah, exactly.
- [92:39]
Chris Ryan
He's the guy that kind of in a film with a bunch of newcomers and the kind of new faces was, okay, this is a serious movie.
- [92:46]
Van Lathan
Yes, yes.
- [92:47]
Bill Simmons
A lot of conflicting reports on how pumped he was about this movie. Sounds like he was making an app.
- [92:52]
Sean Fennessy
He was a co worker, but was like, why don't you kill me? I really don't want to do this anymore.
- [92:56]
Bill Simmons
Like, they gave him some points to kind of keep him happy. Pretty, pretty.
- [93:01]
Van Lathan
Must must be nice for the Guinness estate to have a couple of points on Star Wars.
- [93:04]
Bill Simmons
It ended up being, you know, this guy won an Oscar and was one of the more famous actors of the 20th century, and this ended up becoming the thing that. That outlived him.
- [93:13]
Van Lathan
Yeah. And I mean, he's in Birds on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia. You know what I mean? Like he's in some of the biggest movies of all time.
- [93:18]
Bill Simmons
People like, hey, Obi Wan.
- [93:19]
Van Lathan
Yeah, there you are.
- [93:21]
Chris Ryan
Greatest Jedi of all time.
- [93:23]
Bill Simmons
Wearing a rug.
- [93:25]
Van Lathan
Wearing a rug, yeah.
- [93:26]
Bill Simmons
Wearing a rug.
- [93:27]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [93:27]
Van Lathan
It's time to finally say it.
- [93:28]
Bill Simmons
I was like that. As you know, I spot the toupees out of nowhere. It's like that rug doesn't.
- [93:33]
Van Lathan
You think you would have gone to Turkey?
- [93:34]
Chris Ryan
Oh, for sure.
- [93:36]
Bill Simmons
Or.
- [93:39]
Chris Ryan
Zero Medical in Beverly Hills.
- [93:42]
Sean Fennessy
No free ads.
- [93:44]
Bill Simmons
Five Oscars. Score. Sound, visual effects. Special achievements, scientific and engineering, which I don't even. Is that even an Oscar anymore?
- [93:51]
Van Lathan
No, definitely not.
- [93:52]
Bill Simmons
For that $11 million budget ultimately made, who knows? 725 million. Yeah, it seems like it's higher. It initially grossed 410 million worldwide and surpassed Jaws to become the highest grossing movie ever. And then ET Came out. It was reissued so many times that they had to start changing titles and doing special editions and all that stuff. If you do the inflation adjusted list, which I know Sean is very passionate about, Gone with the Wind. Still number one in Star Wars. Second.
- [94:22]
Van Lathan
Yeah. Chris's two favorite movies of all time.
- [94:26]
Bill Simmons
Roger Ebert. Are you nervous?
- [94:28]
Chris Ryan
No, not really.
- [94:29]
Bill Simmons
Four stars.
- [94:30]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [94:31]
Bill Simmons
Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out of the body experience at a movie Rog. I simply mean that my imagination has forgotten it is actually present in a movie theater and thinks it's up there on the screen. In a curious sense, the events in the movie seem real and I seem to be a part of them. And then he just raves and raves and raves about how fucking cool Star wars is.
- [94:50]
Sean Fennessy
Me too.
- [94:50]
Bill Simmons
Raj.
- [94:51]
Van Lathan
Raj.
- [94:51]
Bill Simmons
I knew he'd come through.
- [94:52]
Van Lathan
Me too.
- [94:55]
Bill Simmons
I feel like we should take this to a part two.
- [94:57]
Craig Horlebeck
I was gonna say we're 95 minutes.
- [94:59]
Sean Fennessy
Is this the longest intro of any.
- [95:01]
Bill Simmons
Boogie Nights was seven hours. We're gonna take this to a part two. Thanks to Craig Horlebeck and Jack Sanders, we will see for part.