July 27, 2022

PREQUELS 1986: What if the prequels were made in the 1980s?

A radical thought experiment about an alternate Star Wars production history

The player is loading ...

What if George Lucas continued making a new Star Wars movie every 3 years after 1983's RETURN OF THE JEDI and EPISODE I came out in 1986, EPISODE II came out in 1989, and EPISODE III came out in 1992? Who would have been cast? Who would have directed? What would the special effects breakthroughs have been and how might they have changed the stories of the films?

JOSH is joined by JON, RUSS, and FREY in one of the most fun what-if convos we've ever had. Just wait til you hear who we cast as Boss Nass.

(This one particularly benefits from the visuals afforded our YouTube version of this episode, which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/A3xLMTyICc0. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel while you're there!)

NEXT WEEK: Josh recalls the time he saw George Lucas get a medal, with special guest his own mom. No, this is not a joke.

RATE US podchaser.com/trashcompod

FOLLOW US instragram.com/trashcompod & twitter.com/trashcompod1

EMAIL US trashcompod@gmail.com

TRANSCRIPTS AT trashcompod.com

Support TRASH COMPACTOR by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/trashcompod

Transcript

[00:00:00] JOSH: Welcome to Trash Compactor. I'm Josh and joining us today is Jon.

[00:00:06] RUSS: Yeah.

[00:00:06] JONNY: Hello.

[00:00:07] JOSH: Russ Star Wars Hi.

[00:00:08] And Frey. And today we're going to be doing something fun. It's a thought experiment. Uh, today is Prequels 1986. Basically this started as, an email chain between Russ and Jon and myself. A few years ago, we were doing a thought experiment.

[00:00:26] one of the things that you run into when comparing the prequel trilogy films with the original trilogy films that makes it difficult to judge is the 16 year time gap between Return of the Jedi and the Phantom menace. So a lot of things have changed. George Lucas has changed in terms of his sensibilities and the things he's interested in and his thinking about Star Wars had evolved.

[00:00:50] The technology had evolved the way films are made, had changed, and they result in a lot of aesthetic differences between the two trilogies. And we were kind of wondering, well, what would the prequel films have been like had George Lucas continued on his new Star Wars film every three years pattern, from return of the Jedi, which came out in 1983.

[00:01:13] So that would mean episode one would come out in 1986 and episode two would come out in 1989 and episodes three would come out in 1992. And, it was kind of a fun thought experiment, like who would be in them, who would direct them? What would the special effects look like? And, we thought we'd revisit that and, discuss the prequels that may have been in the 1980s if they'd been made in the 1980s. So we're gonna start, we've all, made some choices for who will be cast in certain roles and who would have directed the films. And I think we're just, if we're going to go around and, say some names, uh, let's start with Anakin Skywalker, the hero of the prequel trilogy, who would have played him circa 1986,

[00:01:56] John.

[00:01:57] JONNY: I think this has mentioned in our thread a while ago and, um, I think probably the most solid choice for something like that would have been like Val Kilmer, 1986, he's the prime Iceman top gun age. Uh, he has the brashness a swagger to him and a physical resemblance that where he looks like he could be a Skywalker with a bit of a Han solo edge.

[00:02:21] Not only that, but as we've seen with history, Madmartigan and Willow, it's like, there you go. It's kind of like, it's, it's all kind of, there's a package deal. And, uh, he also has the physical stature. I feel like. Convincingly convey the idea and, uh, a brooding nature of the convicted, the idea that he could be Darth Vader in the future. I think he works on literally like every level of the physicality, the excitement, the swagger, the idealism and it going bad, you know? all of his iconic characters have a little bit of that edge in them, you know?

[00:02:53] JOSH: No, I think you're right. and something else we should just address is that, we are operating on the assumption That George Lucas's conception of the Anik and Skywalker character in like 19 80, 45 would have been a character closer in age to Luke in a new hope and not, the nine-year-old that he eventually, became an episode one.

[00:03:14] just for the simple reason that I think he made the character nine years old. you know, he was a father of three, he'd raised three kids. And I think his, his perspective change, I think he got a little farther away from You know, he was very close to being that young man.

[00:03:29] And I think, Luke Skywalker was kind of Lucas's alter ego, and I think he identified less with that as time wore on,

[00:03:37] JONNY: Yeah, I also do have an option for a younger version too, but I guess I can keep that until later.

[00:03:43] JOSH: well, I'm intrigued, but,

[00:03:44] FREY: Yeah.

[00:03:46] JONNY: Um, the younger option just would've been River Phoenix because that would have

[00:03:50] JOSH: no, of course.

[00:03:51] JONNY: that he would have been, um, right after stand by me. Uh, he would've been like entering puberty so older than nine years old,

[00:04:01] RUSS: Yeah.

[00:04:01] JONNY: like, he's like older than nine years old, but what the acting chops and the, and he's, he's, he's coming of age sort of thing.

[00:04:08] So he would have like aged up with the trilogy so by the time it ended in 1992, he would already be like, late teens or approaching 20, which would be still kind of young for Darth Vader. But I just feel like, uh, even if they've recast them in a sequel, like River Phoenix would have been a solid like boy version of Anakin and Skywalker, if you want to go that way.

[00:04:29] But I always thought of Anakin as sort of like a man and therefore Val Kilmer was my touch choice.

[00:04:34] JOSH: those are great picks, Russ who's on your list for Anakin.

[00:04:37] RUSS: Oh, this is interesting. So I'm glad, uh, uh, you mentioned Val Kilmer. Uh, so I might, I might mess this name up, but Adrian passed our, um, uh, yeah, so, so near, so, so near, Near Dark, they're both in top gun. I was thinking more Near Dark, but I liked the connection. Uh, he had, for me, for me, he is the look where they could, they could give him some, a little frost of tips, you know, blonde it up a bit and, uh, and kind of give him like a, like a happy-go-lucky younger kind of thing.

[00:05:07] Uh, and I think he could easily agents at dark, like go back to normal and, and he's kind of, he's kind of that dark horse, um, and I think will be a perfect, uh, antiquing Skywalker. Um, but th that being said, as we're talking about like an older version of Anakin, um, and I don't know, you know, we're not going to talk about, you know, rewriting the prequels, but I always imagined he would still be kind of like a slick street kid.

[00:05:31] It would start on croissant, you know, and he'd be racing, you know, speeder, bikes, you know, swoop, bikes, whatever you want to call them, you know, in the alleys and making money and do, you know, flying like, you know, freelance gigs and just trying to make money to survive, that kind of thing. So I see him as a little bit edgier, and that's why I go with Adrian past our, uh, as my, as my choice, I feel like he can carry, um, uh, the darkness of the character because he is kind of born in the dark and then eventually they'll find their way to tattooing, I suppose, but

[00:06:00] JONNY: uh, Near Dark,

[00:06:01] FREY: Yeah.

[00:06:02] JOSH: Woo. Woo.

[00:06:04] RUSS: oh,

[00:06:06] JONNY: that was on a platter for me, by the way, you don't have to make his hair blonde because. Because he could be the dark-haired one and his wife, pat, and it could be the blonde one too. Like, it doesn't have to be the father of this blonde.

[00:06:16] RUSS: That's very true. But also it's Hollywood. You can make anyone older, younger blonder,

[00:06:20] JONNY: Whatever. I mean like me, my, my parents, me and my brother all have like different hair colors. So like, it really doesn't matter that much.

[00:06:27] FREY: Yeah.

[00:06:27] JOSH: that's a great, a great, pick.

[00:06:30] That's a great pick. I never would have, I never would have thought of that, but that's a really good pick. I really liked that a lot.

[00:06:34] JONNY: Th it it's actually, it's funny. You mentioned that. Cause I, I have another Near Dark pick for later on if we go into more characters, but I'll, I'll,

[00:06:43] RUSS: do I, So do I,

[00:06:46] we're

[00:06:46] FREY: Now it wouldn't be, oh, that could be, that could be pretty much any of that cast. Yeah. that's what I was thinking to Adrian. Adrian Pasdar are too for this physically cause of Near Dark, because he goes from like, like easygoing cowboy to pruning vampire. But Uh, my back, my other one was a Clayton Rohner.

[00:07:02] You know, that is from just one of the guys.

[00:07:05] JOSH: No.

[00:07:05] FREY: he was like, he's

[00:07:06] JONNY: he, was, was he the main guy or was he the bad? The bad guys? William Zappos. So he must be

[00:07:10] the main dude.

[00:07:11] FREY: yeah. the one that like, correct.

[00:07:13] JONNY: yeah,

[00:07:16] JOSH: yeah, that's a good pick.

[00:07:17] FREY: Cause He was like, I mean, he was technically part of the brat pack, but he was like the one that like never like really, made a big splash. So I feel like he would be the one to hop into or I feel like any of those other backpackers wouldn't be, they would like Star Wars tech, even though it was huge movie, it wouldn't be hip enough for them.

[00:07:34] RUSS: yeah, that's a good anecdote choice as well. I, I totally see it.

[00:07:38] FREY: And then just for fun like, if we, if there was a young Anakin, I was thinking Barrett, hover, which is a kid from

[00:07:44] never-ending

[00:07:44] JONNY: Uh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Never any story kid.

[00:07:47] RUSS: He's a photographer now a fine art photographer, but

[00:07:51] JONNY: He's like, he's like a super hip photographer now, too. I think he has like a big beard and he's like,

[00:07:56] RUSS: Yeah.

[00:07:57] JONNY: edgy. He's like totally like edgy now. I think

[00:07:59] RUSS: Was.

[00:08:01] JONNY: that's true. I mean, total bad-ass for the history.

[00:08:05] JOSH: Well, I'm going to have to step up my game because my pick was just Val Kilmer. Cause because I was going cause I was going with the Willow connection. Um, I think some of those are really great picks.

[00:08:16] RUSS: Well, you know, it says to me, the fact that, um, frat nature is the same person means we're both. Right. And that's the answer.

[00:08:22] FREY: Yeah. That's how it works. Right.

[00:08:23] RUSS: Yeah. Right.

[00:08:25] JONNY: even though it's too, even those two first two years is the Mo more original ideas. So therefore it has the edge.

[00:08:32] JOSH: I mean, the interesting thing is that, like, I'm also trying to get in the head of Lucas and what he may have actually done. and so like, just knowing that he would eventually cast him for Willow,

[00:08:46] JONNY: makes me think he

[00:08:46] had an eye on him a little bit.

[00:08:48] JOSH: Yeah. I mean, or that like, in some alternate version of history, it just like, it just like, seems like that was something that may have happened.

[00:08:56] Um, Star Wars we didn't mention from the original email chain, You had a really great idea for anagin that I thought was a little, little bit of an unexpected choice, but, 1980s, Gary Oldman

[00:09:07] JONNY: hell yeah. I still think that would be a fantastic choice because he wasn't famous. Then he was just doing, maybe Sid and Nancy, like around that time. And, uh, he would have been, I feel like I would have fit very well with Russ's vision of like a street urchin, uh, a hero. And I feel like Gary Oldman,

[00:09:25] as we all know, and the guy can do everything and if he wants to be scary, he can be scary,

[00:09:29] but he could also be romantic and you get also, he he's.

[00:09:34] He's a good looking guy in a unconventional sense where it's like, he just seems like I'm like the thing about someone

[00:09:42] like Val Kilmer is that he's a smoldering dude on a level of like Brad Pitt. But if you're like at like more camel, uh, there's something there specifically after the car accident too, you know?

[00:09:52] Uh, and I feel like Gary Oldman's voice face, I'm sorry, uh, is a face that can tell a story, but also can inhabit any role that he can, which is why he's Gary Oldman, you know, so I feel like, uh, he's a type of guy that can sell any angle of anecdote that you want. And, you know, he would put forth the effort to make it deeper so that when he does fall, I feel like you would really believe it coming from him.

[00:10:19] JOSH: No. Totally. Yeah. you know, it's interesting. One of the things that George Lucas always talks about in terms of what he was trying to do with the prequels, was mirror image or the, the inverse, and a lot of ways of the original trilogy, it's like, you know, similar character archetypes, similar situations.

[00:10:34] but then it goes one way instead of the way that it went in the original trilogy. And I think, mirroring the journeys of, Anakin and Luke. I think he may, he may very well have gone for like that, darker, more, more brooding, version of Anakin.

[00:10:50] JONNY: especially since, Return of the Jedi would've came out, let's say three years prior to this movie. So you can't have Mark Hamill part two, you need to have something that's different, different from more camel to show that Luke is his own person.

[00:11:03] JOSH: Yeah. But that's a good point. I think like the proximity to Return to the Jedi. You would really have to, contrast.

[00:11:12] JONNY: Yeah, it has to be a contrast be like the same sort of, uh, person.

[00:11:16] FREY: Yeah,

[00:11:17] that's what I think would be there was going to be any changes there. It would be less

[00:11:20] mirroring mirror imaging between like the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. Like there would be concerted effort to, make things feel different.

[00:11:29] JOSH: that's what I'm saying though. So see, when I say the mirroring, like I'm saying,

[00:11:33] the darker brooding version of Luke.

[00:11:35] JONNY: The inverse of Luke

[00:11:37] JOSH: Yeah. but okay. Let's move on from Atkins Skywalker. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Fry,

[00:11:42] FREY: I'm gonna go with one of my more wild winds, a Hugh Grant.

[00:11:45] JOSH: Whoa. Good pick,

[00:11:48] FREY: Because have you ever seen like layer the white worm? Like think of this isn't I'm not thinking about at 92 grand, there was like eight, as you were crying. He was like, actually kind of smoother and cooler.

[00:11:55] RUSS: very very swab in that film. Yeah.

[00:11:57] FREY: Yeah.

[00:11:58] JOSH: that's a good pick. That's a really good

[00:12:00] RUSS: Damn.

[00:12:01] JONNY: one.

[00:12:02] FREY: if for some reason you didn't start stuttering until like the nineties.

[00:12:06] JOSH: yeah, same.

[00:12:07] JONNY: When like Star Wars I haven't, I thought done that before the dark times.

[00:12:13] JOSH: yeah, that's a really good pick actually. That's very cool.

[00:12:16] RUSS: You're hired.

[00:12:17] JOSH: Russ

[00:12:18] RUSS: Oh, uh, a fry, your higher we'll go back in time. You're hired back in time so we can never disprove if it were my choice for Obi-Wan,

[00:12:25] uh, James Spader.

[00:12:27] JOSH: Ooh.

[00:12:27] FREY: nice.

[00:12:29] JOSH: Interesting.

[00:12:30] JONNY: do the accident.

[00:12:31] FREY: Yeah.

[00:12:31] RUSS: I think he certainly could. And I mean, uh, the feathered hair, like I think it would've worked really well for, uh, for Obi-Wan and we know he has the, uh, the acting gravitas, uh, uh, yeah, he's definitely always on my short list for most, uh, plugging an actor for a movie that didn't exist as James Bader.

[00:12:48] So

[00:12:49] JOSH: You're like, broadening my horizons here. I wasn't even, .

[00:12:52] I don't know where you guys were thinking. I wasn't, near where you guys are at.

[00:12:56] RUSS: I'm in Frey's box and he's outside.

[00:12:58] JOSH: Okay. Johnny.

[00:12:59] JONNY: Jonny. Think I know what you're going to say. And it's what I think you guys are talking about an email thread from a while ago. So I'll kind of go with one of my original thoughts on that role, which I think no one else thought of which was John Hurt. Uh, because I think, I think John Hurt, uh, it still channels the wise experience of a Jedi master.

[00:13:21] Whereas the other guys you're talking about are very brilliant, but I think they're very much like a swashbuckler, which I think what kind of go with a Ewan McGregor vibe of like the actual, uh, pre cultural issue that we got. But that's also with the lens of what you're talking about. Josh, if like, uh, maybe different priorities, I think maybe in 1986, Alec Guinness is kind of fresh in people's minds and he did seem, he didn't seem very well.

[00:13:47] Uh, he was white hair and, and everything like that. So if you're going to go back to like 20 years, you figure he would be like middle age, you know? And I feel like if you're going to go with middle-age and was them, and also have like a, a Griffith experience that people, uh, uh, not question with authority and also a bit of a pinash like John Hurt has got a bit of a wise ass streak in him, which is really good, so he could do really serious and he can also crack a joke that would like break a room.

[00:14:17] And I feel like, uh, he just is someone that you would trust and that would be John Hurt.

[00:14:25] JOSH: that's a good pick. That's a really good pick. And I see it like, um, like sort of around the eyes, like I could see him sort of being a younger Alec Dennis. That's a

[00:14:34] JONNY: Yeah. Yeah, because I was thinking Alec Guinness as the end point and not to feel like John Hurt, it really goes in that direction.

[00:14:40] JOSH: Again, I pick a super boring, but, um, I always liked the idea of Jeremy Irons.

[00:14:46] JONNY: super solid,

[00:14:47] FREY: Yeah.

[00:14:48] JONNY: super solid.

[00:14:49] JOSH: so one that I was thinking of today was a Liam Neeson.

[00:14:54] JONNY: Yeah, he wouldn't, he, I feel like he's a bit, it's funny.

[00:14:58] Cause he said the tall and, and this is something that I know you're gonna make a, another podcast about. Maybe like if you had to rewrite the sequels entirely,

[00:15:09] JOSH: Um, I don't think I'm going to do that.

[00:15:11] JONNY: you got to think of and do that. Okay.

[00:15:13] Well, uh, spoiler alert, if you do, there's one idea that you came up with though many years ago, Burt, uh, Josh.

[00:15:20] Yeah, that was brilliant. Which was the idea of you make the prequels, that Darth Vader should be a separate character.

[00:15:27] Uh, so then I thought if you were to do that, Liam Neeson would make a good Darth Vader. There were 1986,

[00:15:33] JOSH: That's interesting. That's

[00:15:34] JONNY: or if you were to put Qui-Gon Jinn in this movie, just make them leave me something again.

[00:15:38] Why not? Fuck it.

[00:15:41] JOSH: that's interesting. well, let's move on to, to pad. May pat may army dollar.

[00:15:47] RUSS: I'm so, so sticking with my Near Dark, uh, Jenny Wright. Would be my,

[00:15:52] JONNY: sees the whole cast. Yeah,

[00:15:54] RUSS: yeah, I mean, I'm just, I'm just going to take all of, all of the great casting choices from Near Dark and apply them. Um, I mean, also my backup was Sean Young. Um, I also thought Jennifer Connolly, but she's a little bit too young. She wouldn't be the right age to be a love interest by the time by, by like the second film. I think once it, Once Upon a Time in America, she was what, between the 12 and 14, she was way too young.

[00:16:18] And that was 80.

[00:16:21] JONNY: the

[00:16:21] 83, I believe it was once upon a time in America, but she would be the right age if it were river Phoenix.

[00:16:26] RUSS: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a possibility. Um, but yeah, I think Jenny Wright, uh, works for me and we know the onscreen chemistry with Adrian and pastor or my choice for Anakin works. So, uh, and then being older, I mean, those, those romantic, uh, little like inclinations, those little moments can start earlier, uh, in our revisionist.

[00:16:45] Uh, what if prequel films? So I said, I feel like she'd be a great choice. I think she's got a great look for it. Um, and Sean Young, uh, would have been maybe a touch older at the time, I think. Um, so she, yeah, she'd be my other choice, cause she'd just done dune in 86. Is that my right on

[00:17:02] JONNY: 80. I came out in 84, I think

[00:17:04] so.

[00:17:05] RUSS: she'd be coming off of dune.

[00:17:06] So

[00:17:06] she would kind of be in, in like kind of the public eye. Um, so yeah, so

[00:17:11] JOSH: And the space opera,

[00:17:13] RUSS: no,

[00:17:13] JONNY: That's a, that's a good, as I, as funny and earlier in day, I was thinking about, uh, Sean Young as a possibility for that too, which is kind of funny.

[00:17:21] RUSS: My last throw away was Alyssa Milano as a, as a choice.

[00:17:24] JOSH: how old was.

[00:17:26] RUSS: w well, how old, how old is she? And Who's the Boss?

[00:17:28] JONNY: she's like 12 or 13 when like,

[00:17:30] RUSS: oh, she was,

[00:17:31] yeah.

[00:17:32] Okay. Okay.

[00:17:33] FREY: Yeah,

[00:17:34] JONNY: Yeah.

[00:17:35] RUSS: Yeah. So yeah, that was, yeah, that was just kind of her, she and Jennifer Connelly, I think yeah. Were too young to, to play the role. So I think I'd go Jenny Wright. More so, even than Sean Young.

[00:17:43] Yeah.

[00:17:44] JOSH: I like it. I like it. Frey. Who's your pad dollar.

[00:17:48] FREY: Um, I kind of wanted to put Joan Chen in there for some reason, cause like just, uh, just, I th I think it's just because, um, and, uh, last emperor, she kind of looks a lot like like full Queen Amidala, attire. I think I just associated the image,

[00:18:05] JOSH: Interesting. I

[00:18:06] FREY: know, do you know, uh, have Linda Morris

[00:18:09] JONNY: no, I

[00:18:10] FREY: Sixteen Candles, she's like the popular girl that,

[00:18:13] uh, Anthony Michael Hall takes around, and she's also in gremlins too, has Marla

[00:18:18] Marla

[00:18:18] Bloodstone.

[00:18:19] JONNY: Oh, I see

[00:18:20] her. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:21] RUSS: Yeah. I

[00:18:22] FREY: And just, just the range of those two roles. I feel like she should have been in more things, around that. time period.

[00:18:27] JONNY: She kind of has like a, have a likelier look a little bit.

[00:18:30] FREY: Yes, but then

[00:18:31] all, Yeah. But

[00:18:32] she looks very different in Gremlins too. I just think that she's got a lot of range and that's, it'd be interesting to put somebody in that role that can, kind of move as much as whoever's in the Anakin role from one mode to the other.

[00:18:45] JONNY: Hmm.

[00:18:45] JOSH: I like it, it's a really interesting pick. Both of those picks. Jon?

[00:18:50] JONNY: Uh, I've had a few, but you usually the one that's on the top of my list is probably Diane Lang. Cause I

[00:18:55] think,

[00:18:56] FREY: Oh, nice.

[00:18:56] JONNY: she, uh, kind of like the Val Kilmer thing, I think she's like the whole package. Like she can kind of do whatever it is that you need. Have, and she also has that fire in her that, um, I think could go a long way into like an adventure and be passed down to lay and stuff like that.

[00:19:13] And, but, she also seems a bit Regal and she, she also did some like really interesting work, back in that time, I mean, sheets of fire and the outsiders and all

[00:19:22] that. And I

[00:19:22] JOSH: the outside is what I was thinking of.

[00:19:24] JONNY: I feel like the, you know, I say integrity a lot, but I feel like she, she would have brought some level of integrity to it.

[00:19:30] I've had some other choices too. Like if you want to go in different, different avenues, like, um, if you want to go a little bit younger, uh, Mia Sarah, might've been a good choice.

[00:19:40] FREY: Yeah. that's backup for me. I feel like that one could have happened, like if they did this.

[00:19:44] JONNY: because that would have been like, uh, right off of legend doing this instead of Ferris Bueller, maybe. Uh, and

[00:19:52] if you want to go the Willow angle, you can just take a Western name.

[00:19:55] Uh, Joanne Whaley,

[00:19:57] JOSH: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:58] JONNY: Madden Martin's love interests. Like she could've been pad me too. You know, there's a lot of choices, Allie Sheedy, maybe if she like, want to be a little bit more serious and fun, she could have probably done it. Like there's a lot, I feel the go with, but I think Diane Lane was probably the one that was just like all compensating.

[00:20:14] Like she just kind of like checks every box of like, wherever you want to take it, she can take it that way.

[00:20:19] JOSH: I agree though. I like a lot of the names that you just dropped.

[00:20:22] RUSS: Ally Sheedy was busy with a short circuit, so she's working with droids, but

[00:20:26] what she's a

[00:20:26] JONNY: yeah. she's very,

[00:20:28] she said I hit my robot quota. Fuck it.

[00:20:32] JOSH: my pick, I was also thinking Diane Lane from our original thread, but then I was also thinking, Leah Thompson.

[00:20:38] JONNY: She would've been

[00:20:39] FREY: Oh, Yeah.

[00:20:40] JOSH: No.

[00:20:41] JONNY: Coming right off and back to the future.

[00:20:42] FREY: saved it from Howard? The duck?

[00:20:44] JONNY: Oh,

[00:20:45] JOSH: Right, right.

[00:20:45] Yeah.

[00:20:46] so again, like sort of implicit in this, you know, if George Lucas is making more Star Wars movies in the eighties and he's not, he's not making Willow, he's not making Howard the Duck though.

[00:20:54] I mean, maybe he is. I don't know. so my line of thinking is that some of the casting decisions that were made in those movies and production decisions that were made in those movies would have ended up in the new hypothetical Star Wars movies. complicated sentence, but I think you get what I mean.

[00:21:09] okay. Uh, let's do, Qui-Gon Jinn, assuming he's a character in this version, Russ, you smiling pretty big. What's your big.

[00:21:17] RUSS: Yeah. Uh, so, so these, that us came up with yesterday, the Jeremy Irons shifting up to Qui-Gon Jinn, I'll just throw it out there real quick to get out of the way. Uh, cause I had, you know, I chose my James Spader for Obi-Wan, so I shift the Jeremy Irons up. Uh, but my new choice, uh, I think they both work, uh, Edward James Olmos as Qui-Gon

[00:21:35] JOSH: Interesting, interesting.

[00:21:38] RUSS: my other choice coming right off road warrior. But Mel Gibson was Qui-Gon Jinn.

[00:21:42] JOSH: Oh, pick, interesting pick. Um, how old was he then?

[00:21:47] RUSS: He had, uh, he had that white streak in his hair and growed warrior in Asia up like 10, 15 years. It was great.

[00:21:53] Like he could do it.

[00:21:54] JONNY: they also aged up, lean me some for the movie. They put gray in his hair when he wasn't, he was like only 40 something years old when he did it, he was like

[00:22:00] 45, 40 whatever.

[00:22:02] JOSH: was, he was going on 50. He was close to

[00:22:04] 50. I think he was in like

[00:22:05] JONNY: But he was supposed to be someone that like in his sixties. So they

[00:22:08] put more grain in his hair than he actually had.

[00:22:10] JOSH: Well, that's a

[00:22:11] FREY: surprised.

[00:22:12] JONNY: Yeah. He was a very 60.

[00:22:14] RUSS: Midichlorians.

[00:22:15] Keep you young,

[00:22:15] baby. Yeah.

[00:22:16] JOSH: Yeah. There you go. That's a good pick.

[00:22:20] JONNY: full transparency, I don't really have a pick for Qui-Gon Jinn. Cause

[00:22:23] I just feel like, uh, I was like, that's a character that's kind of superfluous to . I love quiet Gunjan. I love Liam Neeson, but like it's one of those things where it's like, I don't know how much of this story would have had Qui-Gon gin immediately after the trilogy.

[00:22:40] Maybe I would have.

[00:22:41] And if it did, he's like he's an actor. He's a character that like so many people I feel like can play.

[00:22:47] FREY: Well, maybe you. change your mind if was played by Rutger Hauer.

[00:22:51] JOSH: woo. That is, that is

[00:22:54] a great, that is, that is

[00:22:56] JONNY: He, he was actually, he was actually the top of choice for me to play a Darth Vader. Darth theater was a separate, uh, character,

[00:23:03] but, uh, but quiet got Jenn quiet Gunjan Rutger. Hauer is fantastic. Casting. I, I give that to you. That's amazing.

[00:23:11] RUSS: tit for tat FRA. You got one of mine. I got one of yours.

[00:23:14] Uh,

[00:23:17] JOSH: Uh, was he on your list? Uh, for

[00:23:19] RUSS: now

[00:23:21] JOSH: Oh, okay then. Okay, then it's still good.

[00:23:23] FREY: Yeah, it could be a dual role.

[00:23:28] RUSS: he has range. He has range. It looks good in bike shorts. That's fine.

[00:23:34] JOSH: Um, I have a few, uh, for quite long, actually I was thinking, uh, Christopher Lee.

[00:23:38] JONNY: Oh yeah. You would've been young enough to like get away with it back then. Yeah,

[00:23:43] JOSH: Um, and then, um, that also led me to the thought, you know, I've read some people saying, count Duku in episode two, wouldn't it have been cool and more resonant if that had been Qui-Gon.

[00:23:56] JONNY: Interesting.

[00:23:57] JOSH: either that or Qui-Gon should have been Dooku in episode one. because if you're setting up that character to be a fallen Jedi I'd actually have it mean something, uh, by seeing him as a Jedi in the first movie.

[00:24:09] It would be interesting, like if you have the villain of episode two, either a fallen Qui-Gon or a Duku that we see as a Jedi and episode one, it's sort of like a cautionary tale of what, can happen when a Jedi falls to the dark side?

[00:24:25] so we as the audience and The end universe Anakin would see that that's a possibility, like we would see that that happens.

[00:24:32] JONNY: That's very cool. And it actually, it reminds me of my choice for Darth Maul because I wrote down two different actors and for a very two distinct reasons. And one was like, if they do the Ray park thing where they have like an Acrobat and there, and they dub over his lines and he only has like two sentences of dialogue, I was going to say Donnie Yen, you know?

[00:24:54] Cause he was like, that's like peak Hong Kong, like come through cinema. And I think he was like in his twenties back in the eighties and he totally could have done that. But then if you want to actually have like a real scary villain, uh, with dialogue and, uh, more of a presence in that sense. And if you were kind of go with like more of an eighties choreography of fight scenes, I was going to say the lens Hendrickson as dark.

[00:25:21] FREY: Oh,

[00:25:22] that's cool.

[00:25:23] JONNY: Yeah. Cause I feel like, and he's a character that he could even maybe survive into more movies or whatever. But I feel like he's the type of guy that's like, we're going back with a Near Dark thing and everything. Like, he, he looks imposing, he sounds imposing. And he can give you that stare that says like, I'm going to bite your head off.

[00:25:44] But like, he's, he's a bit like a menacing in the sense where you feel like this guy has done things that are, that are inhumane to other people and he might have skills that you don't know about to back that up, you know?

[00:25:59] FREY: I'm just picturing a wet or something with like, uh, like intense makeup on his face too.

[00:26:02] Like the dark.

[00:26:03] JONNY: exactly what that voice and this be like,

[00:26:05] JOSH: And those eyes too.

[00:26:07] He is like, he is very intense eyes.

[00:26:09] JONNY: it does. And the shape of his head and all of it. It's like, it's all like, you could totally.

[00:26:14] JOSH: My one other real quick, Qui-Gon choice, Now, now bear with me here. and this is presupposing that Qui-Gon. He's only in episode one. but Sean Connery he's in last crusade, right? so there's the film, connection. but this started me on a whole thought process where I was remembering in the Star Wars documentary.

[00:26:35] That's on Netflix, Mace Neufeld, the producer of the Hunt for Red October. He, he shares an anecdote in that movie about casting Sean Connery And, Connery was like, I need some, some good monologues in this script. If you want me in the movie, we'd need to get a writer to write me some good monologues and Mace Neufeld.

[00:26:52] The producer happened to have an office next door to John Milius. So mace Newfields suggests, to Sean Cotter on the phone. how about, how about John Milius who very famously wrote the, I love the smell of napalm in the morning. He wrote the, USS Indianapolis, speech for, and jaws.

[00:27:10] so Sean Connery is like, millions would be great. do you think he would do it? And Mason, Newfield, he goes, yeah, let me say, hold on. And then, so he walks in to John Milius's his office and obviously, the rest is history, so that's where, we get, stuff like all world out of a cherish, the Americans, once they trembled the sound of a rockets.

[00:27:27] Now they will tremble again at the sound of our silence. so I had this whole thing. I was like, Sean Connery as Qui-Gon, he would say something like our old adversary, the set have returned. Once they trembled at the crack, all of our lightsabers. Now we must face them again. And I just thought, I just thought that'd be really funny.

[00:27:43] that's um, I picked for quagga and

[00:27:44] JONNY: The only, the only thing I would say about that though, is that he would have been coming right off of Highlander, which is like a similar role I'm out. I share Sean Connery's stature and ego would want to do that again, but he probably made me, you never know,

[00:27:57] uh,

[00:27:58] JOSH: mean, if the money's right.

[00:27:59] JONNY: I was thinking too, if you want to play a fun and loose, uh, Scott Glenn, might've been a good, quiet Gunjan.

[00:28:05] Uh, grizzled demeanor and he very much channels like, uh, Eastern philosophy. He

[00:28:12] was in a movie called Yakuza, but Scott Glenn was in the other Yakuza movie, uh, from like the seventies. It was kind of cheesy, but uh, either way I'm on a tangent now, but I just feel like, I feel like he's very believable as like a spiritual warrior.

[00:28:24] If you want to have him in like a movie and dispose of him in one movie and possibly even make them turn them back to as a bad guy

[00:28:31] RUSS: He's got the right stuff. Yeah.

[00:28:33] JONNY: go. There you go

[00:28:35] JOSH: Oh, man. let's do a Darth Maul. I actually didn't have a picture of Darth Maul.

[00:28:40] JONNY: well, I already blew my little head because I decided both of my

[00:28:42] picks.

[00:28:43] RUSS: I got one. Oh yeah. Crispin Glover.

[00:28:46] JOSH: Ooh, Alright.

[00:28:48] FREY: I don't think anybody, like they won't even have that fight cause nobody wanted to go into your room.

[00:28:53] RUSS: No explanation, just Crispin Glover, no

[00:28:56] explanation needed.

[00:28:56] JONNY: and, the things like they could, they could kill him off in the, in the same movie too. So that like, if for some reason they clash with Crispin Glover style, it's like, well, he's dead so they can just move on.

[00:29:09] FREY: Have to recast prosthetics.

[00:29:11] JONNY: yeah, exactly. Uh,

[00:29:13] uh,

[00:29:13] JOSH: like having floating upside down.

[00:29:14] JONNY: He did the, as he, as he should, you can't use someone's likeliness without, uh, pain.

[00:29:19] Um, you know, uh, but yeah, I definitely would have been like the artists Darth Maul and possibly the scariest tier, depending on how well he does it.

[00:29:29] RUSS: Well, you have to wonder what the makeup would have been like in these films, because there'll be a character that we can bring up, um, who was CG, who would, who like, okay, so yeah, so they're going to be, so how was the makeup it's going to be prosthetics is going to be, uh, latex appliances. You know, it's going to be like, you know, , makeup and masks.

[00:29:48] So it's very interesting. We can put, you can put, uh, the actual actor on the set this time and not have them be, you know, um, CGI rotoscope replaced.

[00:29:57] JONNY: now that I think about it, one of the fellow possibly could have been a really good Darth Maul he would have,

[00:30:02] JOSH: Well,

[00:30:03] JONNY: he would have been platoon age and, uh, he could do anything.

[00:30:08] JOSH: Well, the thing with this role though, like, presumably this character wouldn't have as many lines

[00:30:15] JONNY: Well, that's the thing it's like yet again, like, I, I guess if you want to play really close to the Fenton medicine, you're absolutely correct. Like they could have gotten, maybe check your chance to play Darth Maul then or something like that. But

[00:30:26] RUSS: Yeah. I would say like a, you know, Jean-Claude van Damme or like, you know, one of, one of the action stars of the period who had a lot

[00:30:32] of flexibility and can do splits with lightsabers,

[00:30:34] JONNY: like, like Ben or ketos could've played like Darth Maul or something like that and put him in makeup.

[00:30:39] FREY: Dan was on my list,

[00:30:41] but I was thinking, uh, this afternoon, Peter Kwong who plays, uh, the illness, henchman rain, and big trouble in little China. Cause he's a martial artist and we just had

[00:30:50] as president,

[00:30:52] RUSS: yeah,

[00:30:53] JONNY: Oh

[00:30:53] FREY: or, uh, Michelle Yeoh,

[00:30:55] JONNY: That would've been cool.

[00:30:57] FREY: cause then I, I was kinda thinking like, wouldn't even like necessarily even like a female version would just be kind of like a gender, gender stark model.

[00:31:04] Like they could kind of like how the original pinhead in Hellraiser is. And there was one book.

[00:31:10] JOSH: Oh, yeah,

[00:31:11] JONNY: What's the name of that actor that, uh, Kevin Costner throws off the roof in the untouchables, that

[00:31:17] RUSS: Oh, he's great.

[00:31:20] JONNY: guy. He's like I said, your friend's squealed like a stuffed pig or something like that. It's like that guy could have been a good Darth Maul too.

[00:31:27] RUSS: That's a good choice.

[00:31:30] JOSH: is a good choice. okay. How about jar, jar, jar, jar, Binks, who I'm presuming would have been in like the Howard the duck suit Or was that a puppet?

[00:31:38] JONNY: How would the duck that's a person in a suit, I think.

[00:31:41] RUSS: Yeah, I think it was a, probably mixed, mixed at times, but yeah, mostly persons who

[00:31:45] JONNY: You know, it's funny. Cause like I don't, it's one of those things where it's like yet again, like I, if I'm trying to think of like, uh, in my own head, like when I say like, you know, Lance Hendrickson should be Darth Maul, I'm picturing a person with lines and pathos and like, so I'm kind of going to the core of the character as compared to like, yeah, we'll give him a free lines.

[00:32:02] He'll do a couple of backflips. Like I'm not thinking like that. So if I think about like the character of George R. Banks on that thinking of like a minstrel sort of thing, I'm thinking of like a really weird alien that, no one can quite understand. That could be funny, but it's also just kind of like, to something bizarre, you know?

[00:32:24] so I was thinking like, Tom Noonan, you know, and like a really weird alien outfit.

[00:32:30] RUSS: Ooh, that's a good

[00:32:31] JONNY: And then he could be like, oh, this really bizarre fucking alien. Maybe he'll be weirder instead of funnier. But like, he would be, he's a good actor. And he could, he could probably do that.

[00:32:40] FREY: You can just look like he looks like a man hunter,

[00:32:42] JONNY: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[00:32:44] But like, but like, but not have like the meesa Jar Jar Binks aspect of him, but like, you know, this is kind of like a weird fucking space presence That people don't quite know what to do with when he's around them.

[00:32:57] JOSH: I'm going, I'm going, Paul Ruebens. I'm going Peewee, baby.

[00:33:04] RUSS: Oh, are you're a rebel, Josh. a good, that's a, that's a good, that's a good choice. Prime Herman.

[00:33:13] JONNY: Those peak Pee-wee Herman.

[00:33:15] RUSS: That's

[00:33:15] FREY: would be quite the navigator.

[00:33:17] RUSS: Yeah, he was the he's the little robot

[00:33:19] voice. yeah.

[00:33:21] JOSH: So, and then he's also, I'm just realizing he was also, the voice of, uh, Rex and Star Tours. Star Wars even sort of works with the Lucasfilm connection, which I

[00:33:31] JONNY: Yeah.

[00:33:32] You know, if you go, if you go funny and judge everything. So I guess how he Mendell can probably do it too. I mean, he was

[00:33:37] in little monsters. He did the

[00:33:39] voice of gizmo. He does, he

[00:33:41] could do it. He's got the voice.

[00:33:44] RUSS: Oh yeah. Okay. From, um, little monsters. Wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have, I have a parallel choice to, uh, to Howie Mandell. I'd say Bobcat goldthwait it's my choice for Jar Jar

[00:33:55] Binks.

[00:33:55] JOSH: actually, that's actually

[00:33:59] RUSS: Do doing his Bobcat voice. yeah.

[00:34:02] JONNY: yeah.

[00:34:03] RUSS: Cause he's of.

[00:34:06] JONNY: That's kind of, that might be the best choice out of all of them

[00:34:08] JOSH: Yeah, no, that is, that is perfect. So, so instead of, police academy too, he does start with episode one instead. That is a great big, that is awesome. That is awesome. does anyone else have any more chargers?

[00:34:28] JONNY: I think, I think he can't talk Bobcat. I think that's, I think it was brilliant.

[00:34:33] JOSH: Oh, I was really proud of my Paul Rubens one, but I think we're unanimous. It's it's Bobcat gold wasted for charger. That's amazing.

[00:34:40] RUSS: mean, I just watched hot to trot recently, so it was like fresh in my mind. hot to trot is a

[00:34:46] real, real gym.

[00:34:48] JOSH: so unless anyone has some other characters that they have.

[00:34:52] FREY: got a few.

[00:34:53] JOSH: Okay. Friday then. Russ,

[00:34:55] FREY: Um, Boston, mass. I don't know why. I just wanted to see either at Walsh or Dan de uh, uh, or Brett.

[00:35:05] JONNY: He took both of the RAICES

[00:35:06] JOSH: are you

[00:35:06] RUSS: I have them. I had them both for Waldo Star Wars Walsh. Dan,

[00:35:11] FREY: person for awhile.

[00:35:12] RUSS: were you watching blood simp? So we're doing your dark and blood simple here to get.

[00:35:18] FREY: Yeah. They're both from

[00:35:19] JONNY: you know, you

[00:35:19] JOSH: That's amazing.

[00:35:20] JONNY: you know who I want, uh, you know, how Yvonda show up in the Star Wars prequel. I always, there's always, these two actors have very similar names, so I'll make sure yes. The correct order of name, uh, Keith David. I always thought he should have shown up in some sort of,

[00:35:34] FREY: oh yeah. that was actually, oh, that was one of my mates. Windows.

[00:35:39] JONNY: cause I was gonna say there's Keith David and there's David Keith, and I'm always, I'm always like, which one

[00:35:42] FREY: Yeah. Yeah. I have to think about it for five seconds every time.

[00:35:46] JONNY: exactly. So like he's David, I think he could play, pick a role and he could, he could, he could play any sort of like ancillary sort of like a figure of authority with gravitas, you know?

[00:35:56] FREY: for sure.

[00:35:57] JOSH: my pick for Boston mass, I think, uh, Brian bless it. In 1986. Would it

[00:36:01] JONNY: Sure. The same dude.

[00:36:02] JOSH: um,

[00:36:04] FREY: just Dan a day. I'm like, just like a, half-assed like kind of aquatic, like makeup, like

[00:36:11] JONNY: Oh, you know what? Marlon Brando was one day on set with cue cards and weird fat alien makeup with like a bucket on his head. And he's like iron boss, like that fucking brilliant.

[00:36:26] RUSS: called Francis Ford Coppola to direct that scene because he's the only one he'd listened to. So George would have to call up his buddy France, like, Hey, Hey, you got to come direct and you won't listen to me.

[00:36:38] FREY: rusty. You want to do, do you have any other waters?

[00:36:41] RUSS: So wait, so that was your water, right? My Star Wars

[00:36:45] FREY: Yeah.

[00:36:45] RUSS: water is. I wasn't, I wasn't doing boss' Nass. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't do a boss NAS.

[00:36:50] FREY: I do have a, Watteau a buck flour, which is a, you know, the guy that puts a bomb in, like back the future plays a bomb in like every movie. Yeah.

[00:36:59] JOSH: that's a good one

[00:36:59] FREY: I.

[00:37:00] feel like he never has the scene. That's like more than like three lines. So

[00:37:04] get a

[00:37:04] slightly bigger role.

[00:37:05] JONNY: Water water. That's the character to even think about. I don't know why, but immediately I'm like Dennis Hopper,

[00:37:13] RUSS: Yeah. I can see

[00:37:15] JONNY: you can't take the kid man

[00:37:24] RUSS: That's great.

[00:37:25] JONNY: or Harry Dean Stanton.

[00:37:27] RUSS: Oh yeah.

[00:37:28] FREY: Yeah.

[00:37:29] RUSS: A little more reserved of a water, but yeah.

[00:37:31] JONNY: exactly like that. His character from twin peaks.

[00:37:34] FREY: Oh, there's a bit port Tunno cameo. And, uh, I would say that that could have been a written mail because, um, in return to the Jedi, he was played by, I think it seems Michael Carter, who is like, he's an American world from London. and so it was Rick may also, I just imagined them being friends and like Michael Carter couldn't do it.

[00:37:52] So Rick set sets in and also Frank gods is an American girl. Come on. And so

[00:37:56] JOSH: Oh, I didn't know that.

[00:37:58] JONNY: he plays a doctor, right. Or something like that there.

[00:38:00] JOSH: so Russ, who else? We got?

[00:38:01] RUSS: We should do mace Windu like officially, um, so-so Rutger. Hauer is one of my mates, winter choices, and Lou Gossett Jr. Was my other,

[00:38:09] JOSH: Ooh,

[00:38:09] JONNY: Well, Lou Gossett Jr. Is like, yeah, the, he

[00:38:12] he fits the,

[00:38:14] RUSS: with mustache,

[00:38:15] JONNY: yeah,

[00:38:16] he definitely has the, uh, he definitely has the, authority of Samuel Jackson and he also has the don't fuck with me vibe of Jackson.

[00:38:26] RUSS: And I think, I think he was coming off an officer and a gentleman at the time. So he would be in that, in that space. So it's

[00:38:31] JONNY: exactly what I was thinking of.

[00:38:33] RUSS: oh, and actually Debra winger could have been a, like a pattern may, potentially.

[00:38:37] JONNY: if you want to age up valve, uh, I say Val Kilmer as a thesis character, uh, Anik into like late twenties, uh, sort of a character then Debra winger would have been right in there. Absolutely.

[00:38:49] RUSS: I think the older you make Anakin the better the story is, cause he's way too old to be a Jedi. Cause like we didn't know Jedi started out. I was like, you know, like pre-K uh,

[00:38:57] JOSH: Yeah. Well, so the other thing about that is that when we see him unmasked in return of the Jedi, he looks like an old dude

[00:39:04] JONNY: because he is the actor, the actor was a Sebastian Shaw. He was like 70 something years old. He's like older than Alec Guinness.

[00:39:12] Like, so

[00:39:13] JOSH: I mean, if you look at the original trilogy, it's very clear Star Wars that Alec Guinness Obi-Wan is supposed to be much older than the character we leave in revenge of the

[00:39:24] JONNY: same thing with Anakin Skywalker,

[00:39:26] JOSH: Same thing with

[00:39:27] JONNY: Cause cause when you find out his actual age, it's like, oh,

[00:39:30] JOSH: like, he's like 43 and in return to Jared, something like that.

[00:39:33] JONNY: And like, And I think like Obi wan Kenobi. What, uh, what is he like 58 or something like

[00:39:41] that? It's like, It's like, no, it's like that guy that guy's not 58 years old, you know? I think he turned, uh, did he turn, how old was he on set?

[00:39:49] He turned 70 on set or he's like 60 something on set.

[00:39:52] JOSH: no, he was, he was 57.

[00:39:54] JONNY: was it 57

[00:39:56] FREY: Wait, Alex. Dennis was

[00:39:58] JOSH: Yeah.

[00:39:59] JONNY: don't know about them looking that up.

[00:40:01] JOSH: Pretty sure.

[00:40:02] JONNY: call malarkey. Yeah, he was born in 1914. So he was 62 when they shot it.

[00:40:08] FREY: Yeah.

[00:40:09] JONNY: So, okay. So he was in the sixties, you know, like it's, it's appropriate for the way he is presented in the movie.

[00:40:14] JOSH: I don't know, man. It's that extra sun and Tatooine really ages you twice as fast, I guess.

[00:40:20] FREY: I have another miss window. Uh, Michael Dorin.

[00:40:24] Cause he was

[00:40:25] JONNY: Oh Yeah.

[00:40:26] FREY: but he wasn't a Richard mark. One movie, a jacket like 85.

[00:40:31] So he could have just been recommended for it.

[00:40:34] JOSH: Okay. Interesting. Speaking of directors, are we ready to do our director picks?

[00:40:38] JONNY: Yeah,

[00:40:39] RUSS: Yes,

[00:40:40] JOSH: Okay. Russ, who's your, pick of director? Speaking Richard Markwan.

[00:40:44] RUSS: Kathryn Bigelow,

[00:40:45] JONNY: good. She's one of my picks too. She's

[00:40:47] she was, she was one of my picks.

[00:40:49] RUSS: sticking on Near Dark. And I feel like, I mean, timing-wise like Near Dark would have had to come up first in our, in this imaginary thought. uh, because you know, that would be

[00:40:59] the showcase that she, you know, she would be perfect for

[00:41:01] this type of movie before that it was that film with, um, with Willem Defoe, um,

[00:41:06] JONNY: The Loveless.

[00:41:07] RUSS: Yeah, the level is so, but I mean, I think that she would be a great choice.

[00:41:11] And also like, I mean like the, the character, the depth of characters in a Near Dark, just like that the movie goes, goes deep. It gets emotional. Like it's really, I feel like she's the right person to both mix, uh, action and, and a real like, you know, character, uh, exploration.

[00:41:30] JOSH: I like it.

[00:41:31] JONNY: it's funny, you mentioned, because I think Near Dark came out in like 1987, which would have been after this. And, um, my, my pick for the first movie would have been, uh, James Cameron, because he would have been coming right off of the Terminator. And, uh, he was, and he's obsessed with Star Wars and, that's what got him into movie-making.

[00:41:49] And instead of jumping on a sequel that was aliens, he probably would've jumped on SQL. That was . And then, uh, I think for the third movie, Which would have been in 1992, Kathryn Bigelow would have been my choice for that one

[00:42:05] because she wouldn't have exactly, he would have recommended her. She would have done Near Dark.

[00:42:10] She would have done point break.

[00:42:12] And then at best at that point, I mean, Hollywood is terrible when it comes to gender politics,

[00:42:18] but she would have proven herself as someone that could do an action movie.

[00:42:21] James Cameron already proved you can do an action movie and special effects. But I feel like with, uh, I feel like by 1992, they would have trusted her to do .

[00:42:30] Probably,

[00:42:31] JOSH: My only thing with James Cameron is that I feel like they really would have butted heads, him and George Lucas.

[00:42:37] JONNY: maybe. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's funny like George, who would've had to like implicitly trusted James Cameron to do it.

[00:42:45] JOSH: Well, so, so this is getting back at another thing that we would have to assume. so because. I think at the real world, the reason why George Lucas waited so long to direct another Star Wars movie is because he was exhausted and he, he wanted to, focus on his family and concentrate on his, kids and his company.

[00:43:04] so if you still work with that, that sort of mindset, reason to keep making Star Wars movies is because that's, what, keeps his company going? That's what, keeps, paying for payroll. Right. so if he's sort of doing these movies out of a sense of the obligation to, do all the work he wants to do in terms of the R and D for, filmmaking technology and pushing the boundaries of effects, technology, and stuff, know, hypothetically he may have been willing to kind of be even more hands-off than he was on jeopardy because he recognized that he can't really do that.

[00:43:40] Right. So, so in that sense, you know, maybe it would've made more sense to go with someone who had shown they could do it, who maybe he was still early enough in his career and still like, young enough to still be kind of in awe, a little

[00:43:56] JONNY: What 100% I was going to say, you already have the, uh, the, uh, the fact that he was asking people like David Lynch, and I believe David Cronenberg, if they want to do Jedi and they at least Lynch turn him down. Um, maybe Cronenberg was never really in a mix, but I heard,

[00:44:10] JOSH: I don't know. I don't know if I've heard a crunch

[00:44:12] JONNY: but, but, but, at least just with the notion of him asking David Lynch is enough to him be like, I'm trusting this artist who really wants to do their own thing now to your point, too, I'd completely agree that James Cameron is coming off the Terminator.

[00:44:26] And he, I think would have been hungry to tackle movie like . And he's to prove he can do what he want. I don't think post Titanic, James Cameron would have done it, but I think like our post Terminator to James Cameron, but I think. Right after Terminator one, I think you've been like, yes, give me all the budget.

[00:44:48] And I

[00:44:48] will show you what James Cameron

[00:44:50] can do speaking in the third person. And then like, and then it would have been a, it would've be like a proving ground for him. And it might've been just as much of a nightmare as it was for him to make aliens because

[00:45:01] aliens was his trial by fire.

[00:45:03] And it was a fucking nightmare for him, but he

[00:45:06] JOSH: which, which they also shot in the UK,

[00:45:08] JONNY: Exactly. So

[00:45:09] he would have, it would have been the same, a similar experience, but Wars and sped.

[00:45:14] Yeah.

[00:45:15] JOSH: Okay. Okay. All right. I think I'm sold. I think that's all Don Cameron. Um,

[00:45:20] FREY: like you mentioned before, the David Lynch thing is part of what makes me think this could potentially be possible John Carpenter,

[00:45:27] uh, because,

[00:45:29] um, because it's the only, it's the only like sliver of time when that might happen, because that's when John Carpenter was working, like starting to do like big Hollywood movies and he hated that experience so much that after the trouble, middle.

[00:45:42] Which was 86 is when he went back to any. Uh, but so I imagine this as I hate to sacrifice big trouble in little China, but this would be in place of that. And like, This would be the final,

[00:45:52] JONNY: Yeah,

[00:45:53] FREY: final movie that

[00:45:54] JONNY: after the thing. And after, uh, escape from New York, like, yeah, that's, that's really interesting.

[00:46:00] RUSS: Frey rewrites history with a heavy pen. I don't know.

[00:46:05] JOSH: that's amazing. I I'm going to steal that. That's great. Um, okay. My picks are comparatively boring. Um, my. I

[00:46:15] JONNY: Steven Spielberg.

[00:46:17] JOSH: No, no, no. I don't think that maybe ever would have happened. Like,

[00:46:21] JONNY: No, they would have done it by now. If that was ever a thing, they were,

[00:46:25] it was known.

[00:46:26] JOSH: my pick is actually John Korty who directed the first he walks TV movie

[00:46:33] JONNY: Oh, okay.

[00:46:34] Cause she would've been priming him, I guess.

[00:46:36] JOSH: we discussed this, way back on the newsletter episode, but, John Korty, who, who then I mistakenly said, I thought was possibly one of Lucas's roommates at USC.

[00:46:46] He was actually much more than that. He was a local San Francisco independent filmmaker, who was the direct inspiration for. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas to found American Zoetrope because

[00:46:58] he basically had, yeah, because he basically had an entire film studio and post facilities on like, a farm and a barn and he had all his own equipment and he was basically like a one man studio shooting, these really interesting independent films.

[00:47:14] some of which are, called classics in like, cinephiles circles. And so it seems like what happened when he made, the E-box movie was. Um, I mean, I don't know if like, he, he was like, he was like helping out a friend because he needed money or like, he just wanted someone that he knew he could trust who he could, kind of leave alone.

[00:47:34] but he went to John Korty for, the Ewoks movie, which came out in 85. So it

[00:47:39] stands to reason he may have, gone to him for episode one, like a safe pair of

[00:47:43] hands that he knew he could trust. and, uh, yeah, so that's my pick for episode one is John

[00:47:49] Cordy.

[00:47:49] JONNY: not boring. That's it's a real, no, no, nobody would've ever said that. Like that's why I don't think it's boring at all. I think it's actually rather insightful.

[00:47:57] JOSH: Oh, thanks. my other, possibility I thought was maybe, Willard Huyck, Gloria, Gloria Katz, who wrote the script for American graffiti and did the final polish on the original . who, again were close friends who directed Howard, the duck for George Lucas?

[00:48:13] JONNY: That's funny.

[00:48:14] JOSH: though, I like, I think John Korty is a little more, is a little more interesting, but, um, who knows? Who knows?

[00:48:21] Okay.

[00:48:21] JONNY: know, you know, who popped into my head? Uh, uh, I was thinking how someone like Ridley Scott probably wouldn't have done it, but I think maybe Tony Scott might

[00:48:31] JOSH: I was thinking that too. Yes. Yes. I was thinking Tony Scott. I was thinking Tony Scott for maybe for maybe episode one or episode two,

[00:48:38] JONNY: yeah. Especially if he's doing like top gun budget stuff and he already has the style with like the hunger and stuff like that.

[00:48:43] I think he probably would have done something. Cool.

[00:48:46] JOSH: do we have any thoughts about what the special effects, breakthrough, um, sequence may have been for episode one? Like, I keep thinking of young Sherlock Holmes, the stain glass night.

[00:49:00] that's kind of similar to like a droid.

[00:49:02] So, you know, obviously they wouldn't have the computing power to make, all of the droids, in a droid army, through, computer graphics. but like maybe if there was like one, control droid or something the other ones would be in suits like the, the rank and file, battle joys would be in suits and then like The main one that, uh, would be one you would face at the end of Star Wars computer game or something like

[00:49:27] maybe that would have been rendered in CG.

[00:49:29] JONNY: like the, uh, death trooper grievous sort of character, like a boss fight of sorts. That's interesting.

[00:49:38] JOSH: mean, or maybe they would have saved that for grievous in episode three. I don't know.

[00:49:42] JONNY: well, but at that point, 1992. So your posts a Terminator two,

[00:49:46] you're getting you're prepping for drastic park. They wouldn't, they would, if they worked on all sorts of CG for the

[00:49:49] JOSH: yeah. Yeah. So my thinking for episode three, the like special effects breakthrough would be, the first, naturalistic CG creature.

[00:49:58] JONNY: right.

[00:49:59] JOSH: That's sort of what I was thinking.

[00:50:00] JONNY: it's funny, you mentioned the, uh, the stained glass thing because full disclosure, you know, this, I think I sent you an email about this many years ago, but as a, as a thought exercise out of boredom, I wrote like an outline. So when we were originally talking about this, like what this movie could have been, and, uh, and I always thought that something that they'd never go over in a Star Wars movie is the creation of a lightsaber.

[00:50:23] I know there's a deleted scene in return that Jedi it's kinda like this throwaway thing that they clearly literally through. White's not in the movie. Uh, so I feel like, um, I think like if you're going to be making. The first Star Wars movie, uh, with Anik and Skywalker becoming a Jedi Knight. And he has a lightsaber that he ends up handing over while the, that Obi-Wan hands over to Luke.

[00:50:44] Like maybe there should be a moment where he's in the process of how he makes it. So in order to make it, as we know, there are these crystals. So I thought it would be cool if he was in like a crystal sort of planet. And he goes on a vision quest to find his crystal to make his lightsaber. That being said, that might be a good sequence in the movie that have that CG crystallized

[00:51:05] sort of like crystal

[00:51:06] JOSH: creatures,

[00:51:07] JONNY: or

[00:51:08] JOSH: and the last Jedi,

[00:51:10] JONNY: Yeah.

[00:51:11] or even just like a vision that he has while like, like let's get into some weird Excalibur shit or like, you know, like when, like, when they go to find like the holy grail, like that's like some sort of like scene where he's like trying to get the crystal and like some like crazy CG thing that he has to overcome with either his spirit or, oh, no, I'm just making this up.

[00:51:29] And then like, And then

[00:51:30] like, but, but, it's a good excuse to have like a CG, like use your imagination at that point, you know, and really, really lean into the fantasy aspect of Star Wars with just like one scene

[00:51:40] RUSS: I buy that for dollar,

[00:51:42] JOSH: Yeah, Paul Verhoeven for, episode one, maybe.

[00:51:46] JONNY: I'll help. I'll hold a lot more broad, a whole lot more tits.

[00:51:50] FREY: he was actually not the one I. was gonna go with, but I really wanted to pick him for three, perhaps the three, just because of like, I'd like to see like the bear hooded violence, just like a applied, but just slightly, you know, like toned down a little bit, but applied to like limos Anakin.

[00:52:04] JONNY: I can see Michael Ironside popping up as a bad guy or a Peter Weller popping up as a bad guy or something like that. You know,

[00:52:10] JOSH: yeah. It's actually a shit. Yeah. so Michael Ironside is the kind of actor who, who shows up in all of these, B Saifai movies in the eighties and nineties, who I feel like, if they made these movies, then

[00:52:24] Michael Ironside would have showed up

[00:52:26] JONNY: he would, he would be like the, uh, the gruff soldier or the gruff

[00:52:30] Renegade.

[00:52:32] Yeah.

[00:52:33] W a good guy or a bad guy. He'll be like the Renegade sort of character does gruff, but like get shit done.

[00:52:39] JOSH: Let's move on to episode two. what characters are in episode two? That aren't in episode one there's there's, count Duku

[00:52:46] RUSS: Jango Fett.

[00:52:47] JOSH: jester. Oh,

[00:52:48] JONNY: Oh, GENCO, Jesus Christ. How the hell did we all forget about change?

[00:52:52] RUSS: Yeah, but he wouldn't take off his helmet in my version. So doesn't matter who plays him?

[00:52:56] JOSH: maybe Jeremy Bullock.

[00:52:59] RUSS: actually. Yeah.

[00:53:00] JOSH: he was a real actor. He,

[00:53:02]

[00:53:02] I mean, if they are clones, then it should have been him.

[00:53:05] JONNY: actually that would have been another good character for Scott, Gwen or Lance Hendrickson as

[00:53:09] well.

[00:53:10] JOSH: Oh yeah.

[00:53:11] FREY: Bernie Wells from Madmax two and commando.

[00:53:15] JONNY: Oh, yeah, that guy.

[00:53:16] FREY: that's kind of based off of Boba Fett original voice. Cause he's sounds like such a, like such like

[00:53:22] a over the top villain, like just as voices. So that's how I would kind of person that Would you under that original

[00:53:28] public?

[00:53:29] JONNY: you know, who I thought might be, uh, old enough, cause he popped up in the nineties, but I don't remember seeing him so much in the eighties so much was Michael Wincott

[00:53:37] and I feel like he's a guy that could be like any of these roles, you know, including Jango Fett or Darth Maul or

[00:53:45] FREY: I thought of him, but I forget. How would he be? How old would he be in the mid eighties.

[00:53:49] JONNY: I don't know. Cause I know like he might be too young. Let me, let me look him up. I

[00:53:54] feel like he's

[00:53:54] JOSH: been, he, he would've been 28.

[00:53:57] No, I'm sorry. 30.

[00:53:59] FREY: Yeah. Cause I feel like it's born in the fifties, like 50 fifties.

[00:54:02] JONNY: Yeah. he would have been you're your, your rights, uh, Josh, you have been in 28, 27 and we're making this movie so like that he still I'm sure. Had a voice back then and doesn't change that much over 10 years or five years.

[00:54:14] JOSH: maybe Dexter Jetstar.

[00:54:16] JONNY: Jesus,

[00:54:19] JOSH: Oh yes.

[00:54:20] RUSS: Uh,

[00:54:20] so

[00:54:21] JONNY: uh, Jimmy Smith just keep

[00:54:24] going. So Smith.

[00:54:25] RUSS: my, my pick for bail, Ghana, Timothy Dalton.

[00:54:28] JOSH: I actually liked that a

[00:54:30] FREY: Yeah.

[00:54:31] JONNY: Yeah.

[00:54:31] JOSH: I think that's good. I really liked that.

[00:54:34] JONNY: Well also too, like, if he is the adopted father of, uh, Padma, it's also a good opportunity to cast any one you want. I'm sorry. I've

[00:54:43] yeah. I've layer. Uh, he, you can cast anyone you want, you know, uh, I mean, he could be like, my, I can't think of anybody right now. He could be Keith David. Like he gets to be like, you know, he can.

[00:54:53] Well, David Keith that's said yeah, either one, take one. You

[00:54:57] JOSH: or, or David Carradine?

[00:54:59] JONNY: there you go.

[00:55:00] what's the name of the, uh, Dexter guy. What's the name of the guy from, uh, what's the name of the guy who in Scrooged. He was in New York dolls, texter Poindexter. Oh sir. Poindexter. He could play Dexter and attack at the clouds. David Johansen. Is that guy's real name?

[00:55:18] JOSH: Okay. Okay. I

[00:55:19] JONNY: Yeah,

[00:55:20] like I say, I'm working in a diner.

[00:55:21] RUSS: I got Clint Clancy brown as, uh,

[00:55:25] as bail Organa

[00:55:26] FREY: Oh,

[00:55:26] nice.

[00:55:27] JONNY: He

[00:55:27] JOSH: that's I like that too. I like that too.

[00:55:30] RUSS: as

[00:55:30] bell. Again, a Clancy

[00:55:31] JONNY: Oh, yeah, he would have been good. Cause he was a cliche choice of mine for Darth Vader, if he were to be a separate character, but that's a good choice for bill or Ghana that guy's

[00:55:39] got a lot of authority in him.

[00:55:41] JOSH: he does. does anyone have any picks for count Duco

[00:55:44] JONNY: mean, honestly, Christopher Lee,

[00:55:48] I just keep the same guy

[00:55:50] RUSS: Yeah, he would've got cast this county.

[00:55:52] JONNY: and he would've been able to fight his own fight scenes back then.

[00:55:56] RUSS: yeah.

[00:55:56] Yeah.

[00:55:58] JOSH: Friday you have a captive group?

[00:55:59] FREY: No, I was actually thinking, um, you know how he's like, uh, he was his paddle one, like, I th I don't know if this is a bad idea now, but like, if he was actually from, instead of being brought to him, like he was baby, like, he was actually from the same planet ICO to either at the same species or like a different one.

[00:56:16] JONNY: Oh,

[00:56:16] FREY: So, So, maybe he wouldn't even be, I mean, he would obviously have a voice actor, but maybe he wouldn't even be an actor, but if he was a different species, but still an alien, or still like, kind of like a, like a pretty like visually complex, scaling race, I would either want Robert England or Ron Perlman

[00:56:33] and makeup.

[00:56:35] JOSH: Cool, cool.

[00:56:36] RUSS: Can I piggyback on that? I'm the

[00:56:37] puppeteer that could also be a Jim Henson doing the voice. So Frank Oz is like, got, got a few minutes. And so because Jim Henson didn't have time to do Yoda, then I was like, well, now it's your time to hop on board. I dunno, just to.

[00:56:50] JOSH: Interesting.

[00:56:51] So, so I agree also Christopher Lee, but here's my left field one, Patrick Stewart,

[00:56:59] JONNY: Yeah,

[00:56:59] JOSH: he was in dune annex, caliber and and life force. And, he played, Carla,

[00:57:07] JONNY: did. I

[00:57:08] didn't know that.

[00:57:09] JOSH: I guess he played, Carla in the BBC Alec Guinness version of tinker tailor soldier spy.

[00:57:14] And, so I started thinking of the formidable, . opposite number

[00:57:20]

[00:57:20] could you see, Patrick Stewart as like a fallen, a

[00:57:23] FREY: Yeah.

[00:57:24] JONNY: Oh, yeah. if you go to, if you're going to go younger in age, uh, Gabriel Byrne, I feel like a mix, a good fallen, uh, jaded

[00:57:32] FREY: Oh

[00:57:32] yeah. You know what actually had him as, um, I know he was only like mid thirties at that point, but as a quiet gun. Cause, but if you look at the middle of the

[00:57:40] movie, that guy. It's like long hair. Um, and I think we can pull it off.

[00:57:46] JONNY: Well, he was also an Excalibur with Lee Mason and Patrick Stewart and all these other have

[00:57:50] these and they all played like swashbuckling Knights. So it's like, yeah, just choose one. It's like, they're all. They're all very good.

[00:57:58] RUSS: I feel like Friday, I've been watching the same Ken Russell movie marathon at some.

[00:58:04] JONNY: Ian

[00:58:04] McKellan could have been a good choice back in the eighties.

[00:58:08] I'm not sure I'm going to movies. He was doing, but he was doing, he did like the keep with Michael man, but like

[00:58:13] he, but he, uh, he gets. Definitely pull off a Duku vibe in the eighties, or even quite gotten to, like, he could, he's like make a jet.

[00:58:24] I put you in the calendar roll and it's like, and he can do it.

[00:58:27] JOSH: I see that, who do we think would have directed episode two? So this would have been 1989. if we're doing every three years,

[00:58:34] JONNY: Sure. Uh, my boar, yeah, honestly like my, my, my top choices were, were Bigelow engines and James Cameron. But my, my boring choice would be, uh, Ron Howard,

[00:58:47] just

[00:58:47] because I

[00:58:47] JOSH: my choice.

[00:58:48] JONNY: yeah, if they gave him the shot of Willow in 88, 89, it would've fit just as well.

[00:58:53] JOSH: yeah.

[00:58:54] he's my choice. uh, what about you fry?

[00:58:56] FREY: Uh, Wolfgang Peterson, but, um, uh, you know what, but actually he was in my, there was a little bit of a head canons to this because he would be the one that was originally attached to episode one. Any other trout out that's John Carpenter comes in. I've heard the mentioned that. Another reason why I was thinking John Carpenter is that the last movie before that was star man.

[00:59:15] So he's already done like lighter aside from stuff.

[00:59:17] JOSH: that's great. I love

[00:59:18] FREY: uh, so, but then Wolfgang Peterson comes back after. Neverending story. it.

[00:59:24] was before

[00:59:24] JONNY: fuck you did enemy mine.

[00:59:26] FREY: Yeah.

[00:59:27] RUSS: That's where I got my Lou Gossett Jr. From too. I was like, I was thinking, you know, I had to remind you

[00:59:32] FREY: but

[00:59:32] then,

[00:59:33] so the droid factory scene, I was thinking that would feel like DAS boot.

[00:59:36] JONNY: Hm.

[00:59:39] JOSH: so my thing in terms of the. Special effects showcase for episode two, this is 89. I'm thinking the abyss, I'm thinking of the water tendril

[00:59:48] and I'm thinking Camino ins and water on Camino. So I'm thinking maybe the Camino ones would be like weird water tentacle creatures, or maybe they're probe.

[00:59:57] similar to the, like the weird, mechanical eyeball for Java's palace, like maybe the Camino ones would have like a, would have like a water tendril, sort of like an object. I mean actually sorta like the water central in the abyss, except it would be, on this planet. I think George Lucas would have seen what the technology was capable of and would have tried to figure out how to utilize it, because you know, his little.

[01:00:21] Way of producing these movies was kind of in concert with the art department and with ILM, like they were sort of bouncing ideas off each other. so I think if, like they said to him, like, Hey, like we can do like a mechanical creature and CG really well. Or like, Hey, like we can do water really well.

[01:00:37] Like he would have then gone off and like written like a water monster or something. You know what I mean?

[01:00:43] JONNY: Yeah, he would have, he would have just taken that thing and brought it all the way to the young belt that he could've

[01:00:47] pushed it to

[01:00:48] the envelope. it's funny because when I thought about like a sequence in that bin, and again, in my thought experiment, I also wrote kind of an outline for this episode as well, but it's like, I don't, I didn't think of it as like a, a special effects sequence as much as it's just like a visceral experience, sequence.

[01:01:05] And I think like at this stage in the game, we're post a lot of great. Action. Movies were post Vietnam movies were posts a lot of things, and to kind of go with like the James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow sort of vibe. And also around this time, if he didn't do glory, maybe even someone like ed Zwick, you know, Edward Zwick and, um, it would have been interesting to see, like what, what, what, like an actual, like Jed, I, cause that's a Takata clone was just the Coliseum thing.

[01:01:33] So in my head it would have been interesting if it was like kind of a more visceral, like in the mud. And it was like a real like post, like this is a post Vietnam generation of moving, making post platoon and all that. So like, what if there was like a fight where there's like in the mud and everyone's almost like calf deep in the muck and like, and there's this like glowing light sabers and lasers flying around and like explosions and shit.

[01:01:57] And then

[01:01:57] like, to me, that would be like a huge. Epic sequence, but I don't know if it would be like on par with maybe like how, like the battle of was like a blowout, but it wasn't because of one special effect. I feel like this was like the, the blowout Helm's deep sort of like action sequence of the trilogy might be like the Jedi battle with the separatists in the mud fighting Duker Vader, and things just get all sorts of fucked up, not like an, a rated R way, but just like in a very like glowing light, even though everyone's caked in mud and like, and just kind of going at it, and then you could see like flashes of like Anakin taking your risks, or like going, going beyond that he should go beyond and you see the shades of his darkness for me and Episode two, but they still saved the day, if that makes any sense.

[01:02:46] So

[01:02:47] it's not a special effects sequence. I don't know, but it's a great action sequence, you know?

[01:02:51] JOSH: no. I'm with you. I think you're right. Like, the eighties action movie. It's like the heyday

[01:02:54] of that. So,

[01:02:55] these movies would have absorbed a little of like what was

[01:02:58] JONNY: Yeah. Like post post, well, predators coming out the year after, but like, even then, like, if you think about like the flares and the last battle, like glory and stuff like that, like shit like that, where it's just

[01:03:08] like, it's like add a control, you know? And it's just kind of like chaos like that. You never, it , but I feel like up until a rogue one, you didn't quite see the chaos of

[01:03:21] war a

[01:03:21] JOSH: yeah.

[01:03:22] JONNY: you know?

[01:03:22] So

[01:03:23] I

[01:03:23] JOSH: Well, I mean, you sort of, you sort of do in end battle and attack of the clones, except, except I feel like it's lacking that really visceral gritty field because it's

[01:03:34] JONNY: because it's all it's all not there.

[01:03:36] It's just like, so you see a million troops and lasers and stuff. It's like, but it's all not there. It's just like, but if

[01:03:41] you had

[01:03:41] real people who would actually have to shoot it and make it look beautiful, you

[01:03:45] know, or, or

[01:03:46] exhilarating and what have been a real bitch to shoot.

[01:03:49] FREY: something I was thinking of, do this. I don't have like a special X breakthrough about, uh, I was thinking like, as these movies go on, like they, They would kind of start to become more self-conscious about like their original aesthetic, because in a way that, because I think the pre-call is like, towards, because kind of like when, with that stuck with it and like, it's kind of unique looking For its time period.

[01:04:07] But if it was cute, kept on going like, um, without a break, I feel like he would get into the late eighties and the were trying to find ways to, like, I think they wouldn't be, like you said, they would add some CGI, but, as much as I could, but there was so many practical effects

[01:04:20] and I think you would see, um, at least in the first movie of the first two, you might see like, um, you know, there's like air blood, bladder effects, like were like you will have like practical effects and like, you can shoot like air into it and like, look like,

[01:04:32] a pulsating and like, whatever.

[01:04:34] JONNY: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

[01:04:35] FREY: yeah.

[01:04:36] You ever, obviously like the Twilight zone movie, like the one where the cartoon characters come out and they're

[01:04:42] just like, yeah, that kind of thing. I feel like he would see a little bit more like with that, like I was thinking that's what, for that reason I was thinking briefly, like, could I make Joe Dante director?

[01:04:50] And I think that would, that wouldn't

[01:04:52] RUSS: I have a director to throw in there. You just made me think of, uh, Robert Zemeckis,

[01:04:56] who framed Roger rabbit is really exactly that it's like, it's like, how

[01:04:59] do we, how do we seemingly, uh, blend, animated effects in this case, you know, 2d cell animation, uh, with the physical space.

[01:05:06] And it's like, you know, they're using, you know, tennis balls on sticks and animating over it. And they're, they're doing all these things. These like basically pre CGI, uh, techniques. So I feel like he might be a great choice, uh, could have been for attack of the clones or,

[01:05:18] JOSH: That would have been really wild. I actually like the idea that may be, they would have tried to do something like that. Like my only thing is that I think Lucas was sort of, he was trying to figure out how to do things faster and more like effectively. so I feel like the laborious nature of that, I think probably wouldn't have, appealed to him though.

[01:05:40] so, but the thing though about that though, is that

[01:05:41] RUSS: You should have animated Howard, the duck.

[01:05:43] JOSH: arguably? Yeah. Um,

[01:05:45] FREY: Everything is animated.

[01:05:51] JOSH: Yeah, but that is an interesting thought experiment. Like the idea that, you know, you would have a movie that combined like traditional animation to that scale and like, and that interactive, like, I can't really escape that now that you've mentioned it, because that is sort of like the eighties equivalent of what 99 2000 prequels were.

[01:06:08] Right.

[01:06:09] JONNY: Yeah.

[01:06:10] I, it, it, I mean, I saw that movie in the movie theater and blew my mind. I, I was like, how are they talking to I'm like, I remember hearing about how they did in the, behind the scenes, like entertainment tonight sort of thing. But as a kid, I was like, they're talking to cartoons. They are there.

[01:06:23] It's how has he, how has Def pulling the piano? How has this happening?

[01:06:28] JOSH: Knows. The meccas is a really

[01:06:29] JONNY: he's the man also, I feel like at this time too, Stan Winston will probably be cutting his teeth on like aliens and makeup and all that during these movies, like, I feel like he probably would have been, uh, either, uh, banging on their door to be part of it.

[01:06:44] Or they would have asked him to come up with a creature or two while they were making the trilogy.

[01:06:48] RUSS: He would've done grievous.

[01:06:49] JONNY: He maybe could have meant done the Jar Jar suit. You never know, you

[01:06:52] know,

[01:06:53] RUSS: Yeah.

[01:06:53] JOSH: Yeah.

[01:06:53] RUSS: I probably any of them, I mean, especially coming up with Stan Winston was a T2, right?

[01:06:58] JONNY: Yeah, Yeah, but

[01:06:59] he did like the predator. He did the queen alien. He

[01:07:01] did like all

[01:07:02] sorts of shit.

[01:07:03] RUSS: yeah. So

[01:07:04] he, yeah, he was coming up right

[01:07:05] then. Yeah.

[01:07:06] JOSH: Yeah. So maybe James Cameron, if he did episode one or episode two,

[01:07:09] JONNY: You would've gotten Stan Winston on.

[01:07:10] JOSH: yeah, he would have gotten Stan Winston to do

[01:07:12] the, the

[01:07:12] charger

[01:07:14] JONNY: Yeah.

[01:07:14] RUSS: teach.

[01:07:15] JOSH: army.

[01:07:15] JONNY: also did the Terminator together. He made the Terminator exoskeleton the middle of that. So

[01:07:20] RUSS: I'm done for the day. That's it?

[01:07:21] JONNY: so he's, he already has a guy like in his pocket.

[01:07:24] JOSH: Maybe even one of the reasons why he would have appealed to Lucas, he would have been like, okay, like he did, he did like a droid thing. Like, well, let's give him even more money and see if he can do a zillion of

[01:07:35] JONNY: Let's see if we can two droids.

[01:07:37] JOSH: the opening of the Terminator, like

[01:07:40] JONNY: Yeah. That's the future battle.

[01:07:43] RUSS: so good.

[01:07:44] JOSH: yeah, the future battle.

[01:07:44] Like he could have seen that. I've been like, okay, like I want to, I want to do that.

[01:07:48] JONNY: Honestly, I think that's one scene is the perfect demo, real to do , just to show them the, the

[01:07:54] opening, just show them the Terminator. And he's like, all right, that's what I'm saying. Like, he could totally you, but you have to drop, you know, it's like, and that

[01:08:01] movie is totally from . It's Star Wars inspires James Cameron, James

[01:08:06] Cameron gets recruited to do , you know,

[01:08:08] JOSH: Right, exactly. okay. I really liked that. uh, let's move on to episode three. what new characters are in episode three, besides General Grievous?

[01:08:16] JONNY: um, not really Grievous and Mon Mothma and stuff like that, but you can get like the same actor to play my Mon Mothma. She was just in Return of the Jedi

[01:08:26] JOSH: they just would've hired. the actor that they got for Return to the Jedi. She would have just

[01:08:31] JONNY: right back.

[01:08:31] JOSH: She was, she was in a show, a British spy show from the eighties that I really liked. And when I realized it was the same actor as Mon Mothma I was like, oh fuck.

[01:08:41] My mom is in this.Star

[01:08:43] JONNY: Wars

[01:08:45] JOSH: Mr. Paul free of Westminster is the name of the show.

[01:08:49] JONNY: Hm.

[01:08:50] JOSH: It's the most, uh, British sounding name of a show ever. Um, uh, Carolyn something anyway, it doesn't matter. Um, so who would, sorry? Um, Who would have played General Grievous, would he have been an actor or what are you've been,

[01:09:06] JONNY: He would have been a voice. I

[01:09:08] think, I think

[01:09:10] it would have been like part animatronic part CG. Like they would've gone that I feel like he would have been, the character would have went crazy with

[01:09:17] the 1990.

[01:09:19] RUSS: It would, have been Kane Robocop to kind of like, um, like a mix of like TV screen and like, and like,

[01:09:25] like

[01:09:25] JOSH: Tippett with, Phil Tippett. Did the stop motion

[01:09:27] RUSS: Phil Tippett. Come back home. Yeah.

[01:09:29] JONNY: who is also Tom Noonan. If I remember

[01:09:32] RUSS: Yep. Correct.

[01:09:33] JOSH: is also, and is, and is also directed by Irvin Kershner who

[01:09:36] did empire.

[01:09:37] JONNY: It's like poetry rhymes.

[01:09:41] JOSH: I love it. so episode three, doing 1992. Okay. so General Grievous you think would have been a voice. Star Wars hologram face. I like that.

[01:09:51] FREY: I was just thinking

[01:09:52] slightly more advanced, like,

[01:09:55] JONNY: absolutely.

[01:09:56] JOSH: he would have been like a liquid metal. Um, he could have been like a liquid metal creature.

[01:10:03] JONNY: they have also used like, if he had the same sort of plate armor that he had, I feel like that would have been practical, but then they could have used like CG to do like Ironman things with his armor and gadgets and stuff

[01:10:15] JOSH: well, so the problem with that though is like the motion tracking then I wouldn't have been as sophisticated. So, would have had to do it manually probably

[01:10:22] JONNY: Well, who knows, but I'm just saying like, they would have experimented with like

[01:10:27] the RO the robot nature of him. I feel like

[01:10:29] FREY: I just

[01:10:30] like the phrase, do an iron man things.

[01:10:32] JONNY: Yeah. Which Ironman at the time was like really state of the art. So, uh, but also

[01:10:36] Stan Winston, uh, built the suit, I think for that

[01:10:39] too.

[01:10:40] RUSS: Yeah, that was when they still have physical suits. Yeah.

[01:10:42] JONNY: yeah. Uh, I do, I will, I will say though, uh, if Kathryn Bigelow is not doing it in 1992, David Fincher would admit a good,

[01:10:49] JOSH: You a motherfucker. That's my, my pick for director. Well, so, so because it works perfectly because it, because alien three was 92. So, so instead of having a disastrous experience on alien three, he would have

[01:11:03] JONNY: you have

[01:11:03] a disaster experience and Star Wars . He has the Return of the

[01:11:06] Jedi experience, you know,

[01:11:08] cause he like stop motion photography or something for it.

[01:11:10] JOSH: he was a model, a model cameraman and Return to the Jedi, uh, for ILM.

[01:11:16] And so, yeah, I mean, it makes sense like, he would've gotten his first shot at directing a movie. It makes sense, with his, his music video and his model background that, you know, George Lucas would have hired him to direct the

[01:11:29] JONNY: Yeah.

[01:11:29] JOSH: wars.

[01:11:30] JONNY: There, there, there are options. I mean even Tony Scott, and then you to still huge, he probably could have done it then.

[01:11:35] RUSS: Yup.

[01:11:35] JOSH: Well, so my thing though, is that I feel like in 92, George Lucas would have been making Star Wars movies Non-stop for like 17 years, I feel like so close to the finish line, he would have been exhausted. And that's why he would have been willing to, like, he doesn't want. have any more arguments with a director who has like

[01:11:55] a vision, like he would, he would just want,

[01:11:58] so like, yeah, like, so that's why the idea that he would hire someone who looks really promising, but has never directed a feature before, work in the model shop.

[01:12:06] So, at his company, so he knows how special effects work, the idea that he would trust the last movie to someone who'd never directed a feature before. I mean, like you were saying, you know, uh, Fincher was obviously hungry enough to, direct the second sequel in the alien franchise.

[01:12:21] Like I, which I don't think like, was like a, young director's dream first project. Right. I mean, I don't know, maybe it is, I don't know.

[01:12:27] JONNY: I mean to some. Yeah. But, I feel like he was more, uh, I don't want to say naive, but it's like alien three was the thing that like broke him and became and made him who David Fincher is. It's like, I feel like he might, I feel like before alien three, he might've been a different filmmaker with more of a naive sort of sense of like, oh, they're gonna let me do this movie.

[01:12:47] I'm going to do this movie the way I want. It just like shattered. He still doesn't even talk about it.

[01:12:53] Like he won't talk about the movie publicly at all, which is insane.

[01:12:57] JOSH: in my head and this hypothetical David Fincher directed episode three from 1992 has a very similar story to his experience. I'd have to start at three. It's just like, it's just like a total nightmare. And like and George Lucas is like, you know, micro-managing everything.

[01:13:10] And he's like, he's like, no, it's not like that. It's like this. And then like, you know, he reached out. Whole swaths of the movie and like, the exact same thing happens to David Fincher,

[01:13:18] JONNY: Well, you know, famously David Fincher we'll do like, uh, 87, like takes of like somebody just

[01:13:24] JOSH: which is the total opposite of what George

[01:13:27] JONNY: exactly, which would mean they would butt heads like crazy.

[01:13:30] FREY: I was just, I just like,

[01:13:31] the idea that it's like, that's his judgment day that it was just

[01:13:38] I was thinking that for similar reasons as pincher, uh, Joe Johnston,

[01:13:42] cause

[01:13:43] JONNY: Yeah.

[01:13:44] FREY: like, and plus he had rocket, the rocket here a couple years before that. I don't think that was a hit, but still

[01:13:48] RUSS: Yeah, that sounds good.

[01:13:49] JONNY: I think that's the most probable choice. Like if it were to happen, it probably would have been Joe Johnston

[01:13:54] RUSS: 'cause

[01:13:54] he he's already, he's already on the team. So it's like a

[01:13:56] perfect choice. Yeah, I agree. I'm

[01:14:00] FREY: And also Robert Zemeckis for that, just because it could do some Forrest Gump. Not that he has to be the director for that to happen, but like some up silo, visual effects, Veronica.

[01:14:11] JOSH: Maybe, maybe they, maybe they got like some, some Alec Guinness footage from like fucking, from an older movie of his, and they'd like repurposed it.

[01:14:23] JONNY: Bridge on the River Kwai or something like that,

[01:14:26] JOSH: Uh, to create sort of like a. The end scene link up the two, trilogies or something. I don't know.

[01:14:33] JONNY: I think Joe Johnson is probably the one that would be it.

[01:14:35] JOSH: Yeah. I think that makes the most sense.

[01:14:37] FREY: I was just thinking of what the galactic Senate seat would look like. And I think it would look the same, but they would have like a combination of mat paintings. And like also like for like forced perspective, that kind where, they would put the background like really close up to the foreground and just have, cause there'll be, you know, aliens of different sizes.

[01:14:54] and that, I think you would still have the ITI cameo and like that's how they do that. They're just have like a little little people, like people like far away dressed up as UT put the fake for background in the foreground. But I feel like the fact would like pretty much as it does in

[01:15:07] a.

[01:15:08] JONNY: I wonder if, what the duel on Mustafar that the volcano planet, if they would have done something more in the vein of like a huge set, you know, like the way that the day go by an empire or the way they did the entirety of legend, you know, how they make it look like a forest, but it's just like all in the studio.

[01:15:25] So I feel like the volcano planet, maybe they could have went to Iceland or something like that, but I feel like to get that epic scale of it, they would've just had to fake it. And, um, without all the CG that probably would have been like a magnificent set, you know, they probably would have added some

[01:15:41] like crazy Sith-looking statues and shit like that because they're going by, well, if it's a set, you might as well do whatever we want, you know?

[01:15:48] Uh, or maybe, yeah. Or maybe like the, the pipes would have been like on that, like Tim Burton, Batman scale of like matte painting and like architecture. So I feel like,

[01:15:58] uh, it would've

[01:15:59] JOSH: oh yeah, no, that's interesting.

[01:16:02] RUSS: you thinking like the 1989 Batman? Uh, Tom, uh, first, uh, yeah.

[01:16:06] JONNY: Yeah. Just sort of like, I feel, I wonder what they would have done with like the factory sort of setting that they have in the prequel and the, and the actual 2005 movie, but like make it practical. They would have, uh, I think I would have been, I guess more visceral, you know,

[01:16:19] JOSH: well, so, so, what's interesting is that when I think of the duel on Mustafar, The closest original trilogy analog to the duel on Mustafar is, the duel on Cloud City between Luke and Vader. it's that very similar. Like, you don't know exactly what all of this stuff is for.

[01:16:38] uh, but like there is a L like a sense that it does something. I'd like to kind of move through it. And like, I feel that they were going for a very similar thing in episode three, with like the

[01:16:52] like mining

[01:16:52] factory or whatever it is. Yeah.

[01:16:54] It's like, you know, there's like a logic to how it sort of works.

[01:16:56] They don't ever

[01:16:57] really explain it. Right. Star Wars I feel like it would have been some combination of matte paintings and sets

[01:17:03] JONNY: I think it's established, he does get burned up, so they probably would have had some sort of lava flow thing, even if they

[01:17:09] faked it with like, with gelatinous slime stuff in some set or something. I don't know. But.

[01:17:13] JOSH: You know, the other thing I was just thinking is that, we're talking about 92. We're also talking about the time of Young Indiana Jones where they really were, playing around with digital effects and like, you know, crowd duplication and, doing set extensions and, and stuff like that.

[01:17:31] So maybe they would have done it like that somehow.

[01:17:34] JONNY: This is also post temple doom. So they've already had those sets sort of figured out and I

[01:17:39] feel like you're. Yeah. So I feel like, uh, they would have done a combination of like you sort of just real actors and like other actors with CG and other scenes. But for that scene, I feel like 1992 analog budget with some CG, uh, uh, boosting, if that I don't even think they would have done it so much for that, but oh no.

[01:18:01] I just think it would have looked really cool.

[01:18:03] RUSS: I Dante's Peak is only a few years off. So I mean, like

[01:18:07] JOSH: Would Star Wars have still maintain the level of popularity that it had had we gotten a new movie every three years, completely unbroken versus have it go completely dormant for 16 years, uh, to build up that anticipation.

[01:18:24] I don't think it's wrong to say that no movie has been more anticipated than episode one, a Phantom and it's 1999. Do we think that, we would have had like Star Wars fatigue by 1992? Like, you think these, these movies would have continued to like shoot up to number one highest grossing movie of all time?

[01:18:43] Like year after year after year.

[01:18:45] JONNY: I think I would have went the same route as like maybe James Bond, which is a. Everyone loves James Bond. It's always a, an event when a James Bond movie comes out, but it doesn't hit the same sort of, uh, hyper attention and crazy marketing that like a new Star Wars movie does. And so, no, I don't think people would have, I don't think people would've, uh, been so, uh, uh, what sort of high on Star Wars if they just kept making movies every three years?

[01:19:18] However, I don't think people would've stopped liking them either. I just think they would have held like a one rung lower on the ladder of popularity if they just kept having them come out, you know?

[01:19:31] FREY: Well, I guess we can look at it right now, too

[01:19:33] for

[01:19:35] JONNY: You

[01:19:35] FREY: that's what's happening right now.

[01:19:38] JONNY: fry exactly the way it is. The way it is today is the way it would have been in the eighties.

[01:19:42] JOSH: Well, my question is, what arguably happened with the four of us, where the generation who came to Star Wars in sort of that dark time period where, it did sort of have this like mythic status and the fact that they were already made. And, uh, we're like a fact that just like always existed in the world.

[01:20:03] I mean, like, in my mind, like they were like, the stone tablets come down from the mountain. Right. It's like, you know, the idea that like that, like there were new Star Wars movies to be made is like, oh, you know, sequel to the Bible is coming out. It's

[01:20:15] JONNY: Yeah. Yeah. Honestly.

[01:20:16] JOSH: so I wonder if that. That nearly two decade gap had something to do with cementing kind of the mythic status Star Wars itself had in our culture.

[01:20:28] So, um, so while you might be right, that, you know, right now is a good sort of reference, or like a good example for how , fandom and the way people regard to Star Wars would have been, in this hypothetical scenario, would you still have the intensity of the fandom? I mean, maybe it would,

[01:20:50] don't know.

[01:20:51] FREY: you would still, I guess you would still have that gap that where it goes

[01:20:54] dark, presumably after, after 92, but I guess it would still be different because you have six movies instead of three. So even that might be, you would fit, would feel a little bit less like the Bible because was just already so many of it,

[01:21:05] but then you would still have that gap from 92 to like pre like 2015 or something like that,

[01:21:10] JOSH: wait, so maybe, so maybe, are we saying, so we have a 16 year gap in between episode three and 2008 when they have, they have

[01:21:16] FREY: yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:21:19] JONNY: yeah,

[01:21:19] like I, I was, I was, I totally agree with fry if they, if they maintain the gap, especially if the way they made, if there is a movie that came out in 92 and not a movie until 2015, The Force Awakens would have been the defendant menace lover of hype, uh, compared to the, what The Phantom Menace was when we came out, the forest wagons still had a lot of fucking height by the way.

[01:21:40] Uh, so I know, but I feel like it would have had episode one hype. If it, if it came out, if there was a gap from 92 to one Force Awakens came out, that would have been, it's just, it just would've knocked the hype over to

[01:21:53] FREY: Yeah. And that would have been a 23 year gap it two 15 still.

[01:21:57] RUSS: Well, I think the big difference too is also like media and social media and being able to see so much footage and in like spy shots and like kind of seeing a lot of, uh, the, the production happening before your eyes and w where that would never happen in the past. So I think that, I think that was part of the element that kind of, uh, decreased, uh, that hype factor for the force awakens, comparatively, uh, not just the time, the time gap itself, but the fact that we just have so much more access that you're like, all right, well, I kinda know what I'm getting into this time, and I've already been disappointed once, you know, hit me again, you know, so I don't know.

[01:22:34] JONNY: those of film magazines that you would buy, like at an airport, because like you see like a behind the scenes shot of some movie that you know, is coming out and like here's a picture of Harrison Ford and Last Crusade, I remember 89 or whatever, when they were coming out with the first ninja turtles movie, I knew they were making a live action and Ninja Turtles movie.

[01:22:52] And everyone's thinking like, well, how are they going to do it? And I saw one photograph of. Leonardo fighting like a foot soldier. And as a little kid at first grade, I was just like, holy fuck. It's a real ninja turtle. And it was just like one, like, it was like one picture in a magazine and that's all they had.

[01:23:10] And it wasn't like an, any legal it's like blow out like six page spread. It was like, there's like one tiny, like, like one tiny, like thumbnail. That's like this as big as like your pictures on my computer screen right now of like Leonardo, like blocking like a punch. And I was like, I cannot wait for this movie.

[01:23:27] And like, and so I feel like those movies would have had like the equivalent of like, instead of like a webpage, it would be like, oh, store like magazine here's picture of like, you know,

[01:23:37] JOSH: Yeah.

[01:23:38] JONNY: here's a picture of like, I dunno, like Val Kilmer and his robe or something like that. And I'm like, oh my God, that's what Anakin's gonna look like.

[01:23:44] And then like picturing the movie in my head before it even comes out. So the level of seven back then was like palpable, man. I mean,

[01:23:52] like, we didn't know anything about Terminator 2 until the first trailer came out,

[01:23:56] RUSS: Hung heavy in the air. You can taste it. And

[01:23:58] JONNY: Like

[01:23:59] you didn't even know, like, uh, you didn't even know movie was being made until you're watching another movie and all of a sudden, like next year, like

[01:24:07] Batman returns, it's like, there's

[01:24:08] gonna be another Batman movie.

[01:24:09] Holy shit.

[01:24:11] This is like, we just didn't know. You know?

[01:24:14] It was amazing for hyping up movies

[01:24:17] RUSS: the dark times. I

[01:24:18] JOSH: yeah.

[01:24:18] RUSS: it better.

[01:24:19] JONNY: Yes.

[01:24:21] JOSH: And on that I want to thank Russ Jon and fry. If you liked what you heard, please visit trashcan pod.com and please consider rating the show and leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can find us all across social media at trashcan pod on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and we will see you on the Star Wars next one.

JoshProfile Photo

Josh

Editor/Writer

Sometimes I make things.

JonProfile Photo

Jon

Actor

RussProfile Photo

Russ

media wino

FreyProfile Photo

Frey

Little Doggybot