Blank Check with Griffin & David - Commentary with Connor Ratliff - The Phantom Podcast

Episode Date: April 13, 2015

Joining Griffin and David this week is host of the George Lucas Talk Show, Connor Ratliff, to discuss the commentary special feature included with the initial DVD release of the Phantom Menace. Together they review what members of the production crew (including director George Lucas, producer Rick McCallum, sound designer Ben Burtt, animation director Rob Coleman and more) have to say about the filming of this movie and discover new evidence of what went wrong. Do we agree Phantom is like the act one of a play or should the focus have been on making a better stand alone movie? Why is revealing that 85% of the dialogue had to be ADR or reshooting 45 more minutes of footage a year later after principal photography not embarrassing? Could Phantom hold up as a silent film? Also, Griffin talks merch where he spotlights Pepsi collectable soda cans and the golden Yoda, Connor’s fake Phantom Menace rumors that make it to Spin magazine and what is the best joke in the film.

🎵 Hello all you jetties out there. This is Griffin Newman. I'm David Sims. Very tall man. And welcome to episode four of the Phantom Podcast. Episode fours usually are really good. Really good.

Yeah. That's what I've heard. If you get lucky enough to make it to four, that's when the money starts rolling in. This is an exciting episode because we have our first ever guest on the podcast. Hello. We packed him in. We packed him in. He is an incredible comedian and actor and comedic actor.

All three. Yeah. Proper titles. Triple threat. Yeah. Get all those hyphens in there. You might know him as a member of the Stepfathers, the famous improv team at the UCB Theater in New York City. You may know him from his work on The Chris Gethard Show.

You may know him for his long running, right? Is that fair to say it's been long running at this point? I think a year. A year? That's long running. If we're talking about what, I mean, could be talking about his long running difficulties. Talking about your life. His long running gym membership.

No, his long running late night talk show he hosts called The George Lucas Talk Show. Which we just played South by Southwest the other night. And how'd it go? It went very well. It was very fun. So, interesting comedic choice to fashion a... You haven't actually introduced our guest yet. Oh, his name's Connor Ratliff.

There we go. Sorry, just wanted to... The great Connor Ratliff. Would have been great if we'd gone the whole hour. And Connor Rat his name's Connor Ratliff. There we go. Sorry, just wanted to... The great Connor Ratliff. Would have been great if we'd gone the whole hour. And Connor Ratliff. Connor Ratliff. I assume, you know,

because, I mean, American Graffiti was a big movie at the time. Sure. But, you know, hasn't really lingered as a classic in the culture as much as you think it would.

I think it gets its dues, but it's not like... I think it's still one of the most profitable movies of all time. Oh, yeah. That's true. In terms of how much it costs to make and how much it has made over the years. But at the moment, it

doesn't loom very large in the zeitgeist. I'm surprised by how many people of my generation have not seen it. Because it's a very fun, very watchable movie. Yeah, and there are other movies of that time, similar. Grease, whatever the fuck, you know? Yeah, that's absolutely right. About the same culture culture happy days yes which endures yes and was really kind of just a lift for american graffiti yeah whitewashing um uh thx 1138 was a cult classic

uh there's one other one i'm forgetting and then the phantom menace is was the only you know big you know still zeitgeisty film he's made. And you're starting a talk show about him in the year 2014 running to 2015. Are you that big of a Phantom Menace fan? Well, I mean, my sidekick in the show is Jar Jar Binks played by comedian Sean Diston. Of course, the great Sean Diston, the great Jar Jar Binks. Yeah. And but, you know, I think you work with what you got, and there's no shortage.

Even if you were to limit reference points to one Lucasfilm, I think you could still build a talk show around it. Because I would say every project that Lucas has done, you can call me out on this if you disagree, good or bad, you can point to it and, this is why this is important or significant or influential. I would agree. Yeah, absolutely. I would agree, especially as Strange Magic, which he recently produced, is important that it finally lets us know what songs were on George Lucas' iPod. It lets us know that. It also broke box office records. Did it?

Yes. Please go on. No animated film opening on 3,000 screens has ever grossed so little money. What was the opening weekend for Screams and Rage? I don't remember. I just know that was the record, but as George

Lucas in my talk show, I always say it broke box office records. And when people call me on it, I will cop to what the record is. It doesn't matter. If you break a record, you break a record. You're in the books. The fact of the matter is you're making history. Making movie history.

Making movie history. And it's due out on DVD in a few months, I believe. Sure. I saw a report online that said estimated May 2015. They just figured. They're ballparking it there. Do you know if there are plans in the works to release it on Blu-ray and digital platforms or is it only going to be a DVD release?

I absolutely believe it. It's going to go straight to bargain bin. Blu-ray, digital. I mean, I think a lot of this stuff, I think as far as I know, American Graffiti is not streamable except maybe as a purchased. I think that's one reason American Graffiti

is a little less well-known right now. It's a little harder to see. I think like with anything now, if you is a little less well-known right now. It's a little harder to see. I think, like with anything now, if you want to get to millennials and their ilk, you gotta have it be an easy click away. Stress. And I think if American Graffiti was on Netflix tomorrow,

everyone would be watching it. Absolutely. It's very, I mean, we're just sheep, you know, gnawing at the cud of, I'm gonna end this metaphor before I... There are a couple think pieces out to make teenagers feel like they have to see it. Sure. Maybe a listicle. Tell them Bobby Durst confesses something at the cut of, I'm going to end this metaphor. There are a couple of think pieces out to make teenagers feel like they have to see it. Sure. Maybe a listicle. Tell them Bobby Durst confesses something at the end of the movie.

I don't know. Anyway, so the purpose of this podcast is to nail you to the wall, just like the Jinx nailed Bobby Durst to the wall. All right, let's do it. We want to Jinx you. By the way, we record these podcasts a month in advance of their release. That's right. That's right.

This reference is hopelessly outdated at this point. One of my jokes that I came up with on the fly during the South by Southwest show that I was proud of and it went over pretty well was that George Lucas was under the impression that The Jinx was a TV series that starred Jar Jar Binks. But that was his new series. And George watched four episodes

before he finally realized this is not Jar Jar's new show, The Jinx. Because it does feel like one of those things when Puff Daddy became P. Diddy that Jar Jar Jinx would just be like, no, call me Sir The Jinx. Call me Sir The Jinx. He thought that

all the blinking was like a foreshadowing of Jar Jar Blinks. That was a little bit of a like, he's on his way. Yeah. Jar Jar does blink very deliberately in The Phantom Menace. His blinking is, he moves his whole head just like Robert Durst. For you listeners at home, David is moving his whole head while he blinks. Yeah.

All right. I'm in a different corner this time. I like it. I'm settling into my corner. Jinx, J-I-N-K-S in your mind was what Lucas was thinking right

well no I just thought no I thought it was like changing it with like a cool new rebranding like don't call me Jar Jar Binks call me the Jinx

yeah the Jinx the definite article is yeah it's an important part of that here come the Jinx here come the Jinx yeah

but yeah if the George Lucas talk show it's a real talk show with real guests. It's not always George Lucas themed, but everything is filtered through George Lucas. Right. First Fridays of every month at UCBS, or most months. Who knows? Maybe a month from now it'll stop.

But definitely look it up. Check it out. It's always great. Google it. Google it. But that puts you in a unique position. That's why we wanted you on. You've been spending a lot of time trying to crack George Lucas' mind so you can play him thoroughly.

As an actor, you need to understand the psyche of who you're playing. It's a blend of my own personality and George Lucas'. Something that ever since I was a little kid, I have a Star Wars fan club card from when I was a little kid. Right. From the early 80s. Yep. That's crazy. Did something come with that? Was there like a free gift or toy that came with?

No, but you had a subscription to Bantha Tracks, which was, I think I was in the- That's a great title. I didn't know that was the name. That was the name of the newsletter. Attracts, which was, I think I was in the That's a great title. I didn't know that was the name. That was the name of the newsletter. And I think the year that I was a member, I have these

things to show, without saying too much, it's clear that I signed up for the snack club a little too late. It's weird because, I mean, we're talking like 20 years before the Phantom X was released. I know. I'll just say yeah, maybe too early or too late.

The timing was off, though. Because George keeps on talking about, yeah, I had these ideas for a while. You know? Right. In the commentary. That's a long lead up. Sure. For you to join a fan club just so you could get pre-production artwork.

Well, there was a lot of hype prior to the release of The Phantom Menace. Oh, we know. We've been covering it. A lot of hype. Well, that's, we're covering. Lines out the door. This is the opposite end, you know, where the bantha poopy

comes out, what we're dissecting in this episode because we all re-watched the film last night with the commentary track. Yes, yes.

This was recorded in 2001, two years after the release of the film for the original DVD release and it's him with a bunch of other, Ben Burtt sound. I think it's Ben Burtt,t sound designer, the producer Rick McCollum

and an editor of some kind. That's right, yeah. And Dennis Murin, the visual effects lead guy. Dennis Franz from NYPD Blues. Dennis Franz is there, yeah. He talks the whole time. Franz Ferdinand the band. Dennis Franz Ferdinand. When they merged in a teleporting accident exactly yeah when dennis franz one being was the leader of franz ferdinand uh-huh um but but this we finally got to really dig into uh the film in george's own words how he views it um knowing that the response wasn't great um i suppose so he's he's he so. He sort of skates around that.

They don't acknowledge, Lucas doesn't acknowledge that. I will say that the first comments on the commentary track, I'm not sure who it was, are the most acknowledgement of any negativity because they were like, man, those first two weeks, the executives are freaking out. They're not as excited about the way the opening title, that the problem in those first two weeks was that they don't like the way the music

and when you see Star Wars at the top of it, that it wasn't getting the same reaction that it did back in the day. Yeah. When other films, I mean, of course... Similar films, yeah. Across the decades of cinema history, a lot of movies start out with credits and music. Is what you're saying.

Yes. That is what you're saying. You couldn't be referencing anything more direct than that, right? That's what I'm saying. Yeah, you wouldn't want to get docked points. No. Yeah, exactly. Right, so like The Great Gilda.

But you're right. You're right. They were worried. The problem is the opening. We somehow lost the audience in those opening seconds. And that was the only acknowledgement of any issue that anyone had with the movie. It's funny because so much of the commentary is focused on the post-production where the shots were first being delivered and the producers and everyone was seeing it

and how wonderful it all seemed to them. And it's like this blissful universe where it's like, oh, the first shot of the Gungan City. There was a wave of applause among the post-production crew. They don't talk about the audience. My recollection of seeing Phantom Menace, not on opening night. You should talk about it because we've talked about it. My recollection,

I saw it not on the Thursday night or whatever when the midnight screen was on. I saw it the next night. I had flown out to visit a friend in LA and so we already, there had been 24 hours or close to it. Of chatter. Chatter. So, we already knew people are mumbling about it.

Right. But still, the internet is a little more infant. So, it's a little less, you're not going to just have it ringing in your ears. It wasn't Twitterscape or anything. Exactly. But this is a movie that had a fan club established for 20 years prior to its release. And you were a member. Yes. A card-carrying release. And you were a member. Yes.

A card-carrying member. Card-carrying member. I remember the opening 15 seconds worked gangbusters. Yeah. They just went over like a charm. I remember when the first thing, because, I mean, I remember when that opening chime rung out, I remember gas the when that opening chime rung out I remember gasping

wow I remember being like it's happening yeah and then shortly after that I remember as soon as the text crawl started being like

that's not great we covered episode one of this podcast we read the text crawl out and it really is just violently boring. Yeah.

Yeah, it's aggressive almost. Yeah. Yeah. And then there is – But that's the only thing that's criticized really in the country is the opening, which is I would say they nailed it. Just the – I mean – That's great so far.

It couldn't have been better. You know how when there's a political debate, you'll see the sort of lines of audience approval going up? So it's at 10 right at the start, and then the slow decline begins immediately after that. This was the thing that jumped out to me immediately from listening to the commentary. And just to restate for Connor and our listeners, the goal of this podcast is, as always, to try to figure out what this movie is about. Right. Yeah. We're trying to get at the themes of this movie, what it's trying to tell us.

What is The Phantom Mass about? About its world and about our world. And, you know, we're bringing you on as someone with insight into George Lucas's mind. We're listening to his commentary to get a sense if we can reconcile these two things and figure out at least what he thinks it's about. I mean, Lucas said at one point, one of the major themes of the movie is biology versus physics. He said that in the commentary. Yeah, he did say that. And he overtly said one of the

themes of this movie is biology versus physics. Yes. Which, I mean, I don't know what to say about that. I mean, there's not a ton of evidence on the side of physics in this movie, in a weird sort of way. No, no. I guess physics is soundly defeated.

If you consider physics to be robotics and gravity and things like that, because the Gungans, I feel like that's a very biology sort of focus. The force that's a blood test that's biology, right? I like that. It's a scientific movie. Just while it's in my head, I really liked that Liam Neeson talks about the midichlorians and keeps referring to them as bacteria. You mean George Lucas keeps referring to them as bacteria, too?

Does he refer to them as bacteria? He refers to them as living organisms in your body that would exist almost as another life form inside you, like it's some sort of foreign invader. Yeah. And he likes that concept. But Liam Neeson just keeps saying it's some sort of like foreign invader yeah and he likes that concept but Liam Neeson just keeps just saying it's bacteria like the Jedi's are just a little filthier in a way that

yeah I mean that's what we talked about last week it was a blood disease yeah the force that being a Jedi it's essentially a blood disease but it's also like I feel like it's probiotic like it's like good bacteria and that probiotic would I mean this is about biology defeating the physics. So do you remember when exactly he says that in the film?

What inspires him? I don't remember. It's in the later half of the movie. He was just saying one of the themes of this movie is biology versus physics. I remember thinking like, that's not what I took away from it. But it does hold up now that we talk about physics. Yeah. And we're thinking like, that's not what I took away from it, but it does hold up now that we talk about it. Yeah. That it's about,

Gungans are kind of the... Yeah, Gungans. He pronounces it as Gungans. And he talks about how they've grown their cities, or someone, one of the people talks about that, you know, how it's all grown,

and that that's reflected in the design, and yeah, and the force is a biological phenomenon. I remember that point where he said, in the commentary, that he was like, you know, for me, this was about the final battle between the battle droids and the Gungan army is for him a representation of the Vietnam War. I think everything for George Lucas is a representation, right? Because American Graffiti is about the Vietnam War. A lot of it's about the Vietnam War. He was like, that was an important thing in my college years, and I felt the need to represent that.

And so I found the idea very powerful of American military with all this advanced weaponry going against a very – what was the word he used? I wrote it down because it was so – Primitive? Yep, primitive. A primitive culture. Thank you. He was like going against a primitive culture. I don't think he meant it as a pejorative, though.

No, he didn't at all. No, but I thought it was an interesting choice of words. He means it in a positive way, but I feel like that's where George Lucas often trips himself. Yeah, because I feel like he probably thinks the Vietnam War is biology versus physics. Yeah, I think he probably does. Physics is just the wrong word. He's using the wrong word. Yeah.

Because physics is like the imaginary forces or the unseen forces that sort of guide all sorts of behavior in energy and matter. It's not robots. I think he means trees versus robots. Yeah. I think he means robots. Well, the Vietnam War thing he was saying, you know, this idea of like, you know, it's biology versus technology or whatever he said. This film is coming out 20 plus years after the end of the Vietnam War. Oh, yes.

A comfortable 20 years after the Vietnam War. And the implication is that the battle droids represent technology advanced weaponry. Right. But the clumsiness therein. Right. And the Gungans are the biological, organic, primitive culture. But you look at them. The battle droids are robots, right?

Yeah. Okay, so that's some pretty advanced technology, but they don't work super well. No, and they're governed from a central computer, which is their undoing. But they don't seem to have much in the way of their own intelligence. No. They don't function very well.

They don't walk very well. They walk very slowly. They plod. With a duck butt. Yes. And they can be defeated very easily. And in terms of weaponry, all they have is just a basic blaster. Yeah.

The Gungas, on the other hand, even if you're telling me these are organic weapons. Right. They have force field bubbles. They have a force field bubble, which is remarkably effective. They have giant dinosaurs. Yep. They have like laser shields. Yeah.

And they have these exploding. Plasma bombs. Yeah, the plasma bombs. These like grenades of pure energy. That they harvest from the water. Right. Right. Okay.

So even if all this stuff is organic and they harvest it, their technology is far more advanced in terms of the weaponry. And they don't discuss this at all, but I do think that it's an important factor in understanding this conflict between the surface people and the water people. They obviously have aggressively kept everyone out of their territory. Yeah. They are not a peaceful people at all. No. Naboo, upstairs, they're pretty peaceful. They're a keeper of people.

We don't have an army. Yeah. We're a simple group of Romanesque art people who all live in palaces of marble columns, but they don't have much of an army. The Gungans, I think, are the aggressors. The Gungans. The Gungans.

Well, that was another interesting point he made we're jumping all around here yeah we are but when they first go to naboo he said the whole idea was that he wanted naboo to represent a culture that's focused on beauty rather than technology i actually liked that point that he was trying to make that kind of goes to our point our analysis from at least that's why episode two of our podcast that the film is maybe this rules of the game-esque takedown of bourgeois culture. Yeah. No, Connor just wrote a thing on his phone to ask me if he can-

Wrote an excellent question on his phone. Yeah, you can ask. You can bring this up. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, what I wrote was, do I lose points for mentioning Spaceballs? No, not at all. You can mention another film.

It's a great movie. I actually think- I actually, I would argue that Phantom Menace cribs a couple things from Spaceballs? No, not at all. You can mention another film. It's a great movie. I actually think... I would argue that Phantom Menace cribs a couple things from Spaceballs. There are some themes that come up in Spaceballs that Phantom Menace then seems to do earnestly. I think the above ground Naboo seems like the planet from Spaceballs. Yeah, that's right. More than any... Yeah, it really does seem like that's the Dick Van Patten.

Yes. Yeah. Yes. I would agree with that. And also, Dot Matrix is, if not visually, in terms of energy, very similar to C-3PO as a character, which is kind of interesting. And C-3PO is such a minor character in this movie. I know. We haven't really gotten to him yet, but we'll talk about him.

It does feel like he cribbed a lot from Spaceballs. I don't think Dot Matrix looks like C-3PO. C-3PO is just like... I said not visually. Well, you know who the energy personality't think Dot Matrix looks like C-3PO. C-3PO is just like I said not visually. Energy, personality. Dot Matrix is golden. You know who visually Dot Matrix does look like and we do have to talk about her because we have to talk about her every week. TC-14.

TC-14. We talk about TC-14 a lot. Hotest bitch in the game. TC-14 is the shiny silver protocol droid who serves the tea in the first scenes of the movie. If there's a larger sort of character arc. Played by Lindsay Duncan by the way. The there's a larger sort of character arc... Played by Lindsay Duncan, by the way. The great Lindsay Duncan.

Which we discovered last week. Noted British character actor. If there's a larger character arc for the two of us, David, on this podcast, I think it is us getting comfortable enough in our discussion of fan mess to acknowledge that we both just want to fuck the shit at a TC-14.

Yes, I think that's maybe more important for you, but it is important for both of us. Or your id is showing more I guess you let it rage publicly whereas I'm a little more repressed you often say you want to fuck the shit out of TC-14 this is the first interesting thing that

jumped out to me in the commentary because it starts almost like second five and just to talk about the commentary it is an edited piece of audio it is not the sort of classic uh dvd commentary where they just sit on a big fluffy couch and they're like oh you know i have a story about this and they chalk it is uh four or five different people talking and they're all edited together yeah and then dennis franz talks over the whole thing which is really confusing yeah

go on it's like yeah it's like they just recorded everyone like free associating about the film and cut together the best bits which i and overlay them to the sort of roughly corresponding points. You were talking about how they were disappointed by the response at the opening credits. Fanfare, the 20th Century Fox fanfare, then the silence, then the boom, and then the scrolling thing. It's interesting to me, from the moment the commentary starts, he keeps on talking about Star Wars as a larger franchise. He keeps on saying things like, and of course this is how all the Star Wars movies began.

And I think this is a big point as to why episode one fails because he was so concerned with the future movies he wanted to make in this franchise. Yes. You know? It keeps on coming back to this point that we knew this was meant to be a big franchise. This was episode one that implies that there

would be a two, a three, a four, maybe even a five, a six, who knows a seven. You know? That seventh one sounds really exciting. Overkill, but Fast and

Furious are up to seven entries right now and it's showing nowhere in tear. And Fast and Furious began after The Phantom Menace. Yeah, 100%.

Definitely influenced by it. Yeah. But it goes to this point, he keeps on saying, like, you know, throughout all the films I want this to be

a recurring theme and I think that's a problem is that he wasn't putting enough focus into just making Phantom Menace engaging on its own. He was too worried about the world

he wanted to build later. Right, he talks about this as setting the scene, explaining the characters, setting up the plot. He says that. He says the Phantom Menace is act one of a play.

Yeah, and it says the whole point is to introduce these characters. Yes, absolutely. And he gives every character a play. Yeah, and it says the whole point is to introduce these characters. Yes, absolutely. And he gives every character a little hero moment, in his eyes at least, like R2, D2, you know, fixing the shield generator. I would say, at the risk of making the title perhaps unwieldy, that I would rechristen the film Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace You Gotta Start Somewhere. I think that that would give it a sort of a self-deprecating wheezy.

It might have been useful. Just a little bit of like buckle up because it's all about the potential. This might get good. Yeah. This is actually an important point to state just because

if any of you folks listening to this episode are just kind of Ratliff fans who didn't bother listening to the first three episodes, you need some background on it. Phantom Menace was meant to be an epic saga. I think the Star Wars film series. And it just never happened.

It never materialized. So we only have the one Star Wars film called The Phantom Menace. And if someone were to reference other films, I wouldn't even know what they were talking about. But George frequently talks about his other planned films. The plans. How he thinks these characters are going to turn out. Another interesting thing he talks about is he states repeatedly over the course of this commentary that the film is, A, told from the point of view of the Jedis.

Yes. Which I would argue it isn't really. No, not really at all. But it's an interesting point that they are sort of almost unimportant actors who sort of move through the plot of the film, you know, influencing it, but it is really Amidala's tale, Naboo's tale, told through their eyes. He does say that. He says she's the main...

She's the protagonist in a way, but we're not seeing it through her eyes. Who do you think is the protagonist of the movie? I think one of the biggest problems with this movie is that it doesn't have a protagonist It's like Magnolia It's like shortcuts, it's very Altman-esque It's in Nashville No, it's a three protagonist movie It switches abruptly, almost shudders between the three

It's Amidala for the first third And then it's very much an Anakin movie And then at the end, bizarrely, for like 20 minutes It's an Obi-Wan movie And you barely understand that character at all. Yeah. But it's suddenly about his pathos. But I would argue the film lacks,

watching it, you know, despite George's intentions, lacks a central viewpoint. You know, this is the perspective from which you're viewing this film and lacks a central character in relation to the story. Yeah. Whose thread we're really following emotionally.

I like his idea of Amidala and then the Jedi as our sort of ground, but he doesn't quite pull it off. I think one of the big mistakes that I learned about through this commentary track is that she said, Natalie Portman said, I worked on an accent for this character and then George didn't like it, so we threw it away. I missed that.

So she had a different accent. I think one of the problems, performance-wise with the movie, is that actors who are normally great, even in movies that aren't great, like we've seen Liam Neeson be great in movies that aren't great, or even be just very good in movies that aren't great. Liam Neeson has

almost made a career out of elevating subpar material. And I would say that he's not bad in this but he is at the low end of his range. He seems detached. Yeah. There are very few moments where he's allowed to be as interesting as he is naturally.

I agree with that. And I think someone, I know there's a lot of fan commentaries for this movie that you can find online. I don't know if anyone has bothered to edit together – I think you could edit together a very interesting commentary track for this movie using interviews that various actors and people involved in the movie have given over the years. Because one of the stories that's most interesting about the making of this movie that's not referenced at all in this commentary track is... I think I know what you're about to say. Who's the actor from The Limey?

Terrence Stamp, yes. Yeah, Terrence Stamp shows up to film, and he thinks he's going to be filming a scene with Natalie Portman, and he said it's a green screen and a ping pong ball, and he's like, what is this? And they're like, oh, just look at that as if it's Natalie Portman. He was like, fuck this. He just did not.

He was done. He was like, I'm not going to do. If you ever do make any more of these, I'm out. Right. Yeah. I didn't know that he could have been in sequels. I didn't know that that was a possibility. He might have had the option in his contract, but none of those options were picked up.

But he made it clear. No, no thank you. I think the plan was... Did he do the scene? Because he does, of course, have one scene. He's in it, because he showed up. When he talks to her. But he made it clear, I know the deal is that I keep coming back for these, but I will not. Wow. He was like, this isn't

what I do for a living. I don't show up to talk to your ping pong ball. Right. Well, and then, I mean, it's been, you know, Liam Neeson took a break from acting, right, because he was so worn out making the film for the same reasons. I think worn out acting against nothing. Before we move away from Terrence Stamper,

I just want to quickly note that I have read in perhaps that same interview, that same quote, that he was disappointed not only because he had to act against no one, had to act against a ping pong ball, but specifically he did the movie because he had a crush on Natalie Portman. Wow. Who at the time was 14, Terrence Stamp was- I don't know, 108. He's an old man.

That suddenly shifts the story into one where it's like Lucas is the hero of that story. He's like, I'm keeping Natalie Portman away from you. Get me a ping pong ball. Talk to that ping pong ball as if it is something that is illegal for you to do. I think Natalie Portman may have been 16. Oh, which in England is age of consent?

That is correct. That's why they filmed overseas. That's the only reason they filmed in England. Right there in San Francisco. Film in England. Right, Darren Sam insisting. Film in England, film with her. Wait, what's this? I can't be with that. It's a ping pong ball.

I mean, I'll say there's a revealing moment in the commentary for Lucas where he is talking over the scene where Anakin says goodbye to his mother, and he says that he has a range of takes of the scene. Some are less emotional, which is hard to imagine. Hard to imagine. And some are more emotional, and he specifically refers to people carrying on in this scene, some are less emotional, which is hard to imagine. Hard to imagine. And some are more emotional, and he specifically refers to people carrying on

during this scene of a slave child being ripped from his mother's arms, basically, by someone he met two days ago. Okay, okay,

all right, calm down. Yeah, and he's like, you know, we could have had like a more, but I decided not to. And then he gives no real, he does keep talking,

but there's no real explanation for why. But it is, he stripped a lot of emotion, and we were talking about Liam Neeson, out of this film. Where a child who is raised by a single parent is leaving the only home he's ever known. That's correct. Travel around the galaxy with strangers. With literal people he just met who abducted him after doing a blood test on him. George watched the initial cut of that scene

in which the emotions played out as you would expect them to in real life and went, this is too saccharine. Like, this is too melodramatic. And cut it down more and more, which speaks a lot to his priorities. I'm not trying to brag here, but I did appear on one episode

of a French TV show called Taxi Brooklyn South. You did? I didn't know there was South in the title by the end of it. I thought it was just called Taxi Brooklyn. Maybe they dropped the South. Yeah, who knows? Counselor, you better be going

somewhere with this. Yes. There was the director of that show, who I will not state by name, but you could very easily figure it out, who has directed a lot of Liam Neeson action films. It was a 10-page dialogue scene. And I was only supposed to film for one day.

And we spent the first eight hours filming a foot chase that took up two sentences in the script. Right? So it was just eight hours of, I wanted to move in close up with the feet and the hands the gun and just all these different tracking shots and at the end of the day we were losing light and they were like

oh we only have 45 minutes left to shoot the dialogue we have to start the dialogue scenes and he just like turned to me and the other actors

inside and went yeah I guess now we do the blah blah blah blah blah and it was like this guy is so uninterested

in working with actors and capturing dialogue and doing any emotional scenes. He just likes shooting stuff moving around. And George seems to sort of have the same sentiment. Old Georgie Porgy. He says, I mean, not only the thing about cutting the emotion down, but he also keeps on talking repeatedly throughout this commentary about how he views it as a silent film. Yep, which I thought was interesting. He doesn't think the dialogue's important. He wants it to play perfectly without the sound

which is interesting because it would not make any sense without the sound. It would be nice to look at. I would like to do it as a future episode. It's got to be kind of hurtful to Ben Burtt. Yeah, definitely. And John Williams. That's a good point because

Ben Burtt's work defines the film probably more than the dialogue. It's the strongest element of the film. And without that you That's a good point because Ben Burtt's work defines the film. Probably more than the dialogue. That's the strongest element of the film. Absolutely. And without that, you do lose a lot. But without the dialogue, you could probably basically understand what was going on. I think in certain ways it'd be... It's told in very broad...

He's a very old-timey director in that way. I want to suggest for a future episode, because I know you guys were talking about the sustainability of this podcast. How long can you... I would say that for one of the episodes, you should take a piano score from an old silent movie, anyone, like The Gold Rush by Chaplin or something like that,

and just watch The Phantom Menace with an old-time piano score. I'd love to do that. That's what Steven Soderbergh did with Raiders of the Lost Ark, which George Lucas produced. He converted it to black and white and he cut all the dialogue and sound effects out

and played Trent Reisner music underneath it to show how strong it worked. But I want old time piano music. Yeah, this sort of jangly dun dun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He does repeatedly say,

he goes back and forth between whether it's a silent film or whether the entire movie is music. He keeps on harping on and on throughout this entire commentary. It's like the film is a symphony. Oh, it's a symphony.

It's like a jazz piece. What do you think of John Williams' work in the movie? It's very strong. I think we've talked about it a little bit. It's terrific. Characteristically strong. I remember at the time that this movie came out, because there was a lot of promotional tie-ins to the movie, and you would hear the Duel of the Fates score before the movie came out in a lot of the commercials.

And there was a big Taco Bell tie-in. Yeah. And for some reason in my head, you know how you'll sometimes give a lyric to an instrumental piece? Yeah. Then you can't forget it. I can't remove this lyric from the Duel of the Fates, which is, Come and buy your food at Taco Bell. Tacos, tacos, tacos, tacos, tacos.

So that's what's going through your head during this climactic duel. Come and buy your food at Taco Bell. If I can do, I mean, this might be a good moment to do a quick merchandise sidebar. Yeah, Griffin often focuses on the merchandise tied into this movie. Very interested in the merchandise related to this film. In recent research, I might be getting the number wrong, but I believe PepsiCo paid $100 million to have the rights to merchandising tie-ins, promotional items across all their brands. Yeah. So there was a series of Pepsi cans.

They had like 30 different Pepsi cans. Wow. With different characters' faces on them. You had to collect them all. And if you collected all of them, you could send in something to get a gold Yoda can. And the gold Yoda can was also- Would it come with Pepsi inside? Yeah.

So people were buying Pepsi cans and then emptying them out and then creating walls of Pepsi cans in their homes. It wasn't blind. You would know. You'd have to go into Bodega and dig through and go, I need a shimmy. I need a shimmy. I got fucking eight Mace Windus, you know? But the other thing was, not only did they have a Taco Bell tie-in, they, because they had overspent so wildly on this, the rights, Pepsi owns Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut.

And it was all three together. Yeah. There was like a total of like. So you had to visit all three fast food chains to unite the set of whatever you were looking for. Yeah. I should mention this, even though this is a big, this is a big diversion, but it's important. No, that's fine.

That's fine. I, a few years before when this movie was announced it was going to be made. Sure. So you're like 13 years into your club membership

at this point. Right. What year are we talking? 1996. Okay. I created a website that was, at the time that Yahoo

was the main search engine and it was, it was not was not an engine so much as it was a directory. It was, yeah. It was curated. Yeah, remember how there'd be little sunglasses next to sites they considered cool? Yeah. And I created a character called Ryan Johnson, and the website was called Ryan Johnson's Star Wars Prequel Rumors. Yeah. That's amazing.

That is amazing. We can't really discuss why, but that is mind blowing. With a Y though, I assume. Yeah. I later made an independent movie that played at the Austin Film Festival, a couple of other film festivals.

Called Brick? No, no, that was about this character that I'd created for this website. And what a nightmare he was. The website was in part, I would say, an early satire of a certain kind of unpleasant fandom. Like an ain't it cool news type.

A little bit, yeah. But if you looked up Star Wars prequel rumors in 1997, my site was the first site listed. Did it have cool sunglasses next to it? I don't remember if it had cool sunglasses next to it. That was the dream, of course. My goal was I was going to make up fake rumors about Star Wars Episode I

and see if I could get them reprinted in any kind of mainstream publication. Because there's a lot of excitement about what's this movie going to be about. And so if you Google the phrase, if you Google these words, if you Google Trinkies, Star Wars, prequel, and spin. Trinkies.

Trinkies, T-R-I-N-K-I-E-S. You will find a post by me, but also a Google Books archive of the Spin Magazine issue that they did like a four to six page article about all the different rumors were online and they were rating the various rumors. Sure. And my website was really overwhelmingly sampled for this article because I clearly had the worst rumors. So you were almost the baseline that they judged against. And you could tell like I was part of what made this article fun to put together. It's like look at these dopey rumors. They made a sidebar, which is maybe my greatest accomplishment, of various titles that were rumored for the film.

Yeah. In the Star Wars lettering that we would all come to know from Phantom Menace coming out. My favorite of the titles was Trinkies Go Home. The plot of the first movie was that it was about Anakin's 10th birthday party and that there would be a race of squirrel-like creatures with red noses called the Trinkies. And at first there would be misunderstandings,

but then they'd all come to be friends. So you can look that up and see some of the... I'm reading. What's amazing is that the other rumors that are being talked about here are all, like, spot on. They nailed that Liam Neeson will play a mentor

of Obi-Wan called either Both or Qui-Gon Jinn, so you know. And one of those is a lot more specific than the other, to get that right. Yaddle, a member of Yoda's race, will be introduced, and as we talked about last week. Underused.

Underused, but she's there. Although it does say that she will have pink skin, a floppy ear, and a Dennis Hopper-style eye patch, which is not true, unfortunately. Well, that's a combination of Yaddle and Evan Peel. I guess so. Evan Peel isn't of Yoda's race, but he's missing an eye. Remember he has the big scar across

one eye and he's got long pink ears. And it does say that Jar Jar Binks will be chubby and three-eyed, but still alien sidekick. And he will be a source of Ewokian hilarity. That's an adjective that means nothing to me.

Anyway, I thought we were talking about the commentary. I think we've gotten off track. We've gotten off track because that was really important. No, I want to read that website. We're like seven layers away right now, but I just want to, before I forget. Please. The point I was building up to with the merchandise sidebar is to unite the three worlds. Each store represented one planet.

Oh, I see. I see. Coruscant. Yeah, one was Coruscant, one was Tatooine, and one of them was... Must have been Naboo. Was Naboo, yeah.

Those are the three. Those are the three planets in the movie. And so each restaurant only had items connected to one of those planets. Coruscant must have sucked. Oh, it's so shitty. I want to get Connor's opinion on Coruscant. How do you feel about Coruscant must have sucked. Oh, it's so shitty. We want to get, I want to get Connor's opinion on Coruscant.

How do you feel about Coruscant? The whole planet's a city. We've talked about this a lot. City planet, right? Yeah, how incredibly illogical this is. And it's addressed in the commentary. The designer's like, very exciting to make Coruscant.

The whole planet's a city. You know, doesn't go into like the absurdity of that statement. The whole planet is one city is the direct wording, which is not possible. It just sprawls until it fills the whole planet, right?

Yeah, but then how... What would downtown Coruscant be? It would be on one hemisphere. Right, but eventually it would turn into uptown Coruscant, would it not? You definitely have to change your way of thinking. Yeah.

You know what I mean? You have to rethink what a city is. But can a city sprawl to fill a whole planet without dividing itself into multiple cities? You say yes? Well, it's not me saying yes. It is what it is. It happened. It's not me saying yes.

It is what it is. It happened. Saying that Coruscant isn't one big city is like saying that those droids didn't explode. Yeah, they did. They did. I mean, it is what happened. The planet is a city that covers the whole face of the planet. So the concept of uptown and downtown is an outmoded way of thinking of what a city can be. It's you're the problem, Griffin.

I'm the problem. Yeah, as usual. Anyway, the commercials had a pizza delivery lady and Colonel Sanders and the Taco Bell show up. Do you remember what city was which place? Would have been great if they changed it to Coruscant fried chicken. That would have been great. And Pizza Hut should have just been Pizza Hut.

With the two Ts. With two Ts. Yeah, I like that. And what's the other one? Taco Bell. Taco Bell should have been, what's a fun thing from this movie? That's a whole other episode. What's a fun thing from this movie?

That's a great game. Taco Mall. that's a whole other episode what's a fun thing from this movie it's a great game um no taco mall like darth maul oh i see okay yeah is that that does take place on carasan right no does yes it does no i'm sorry on the booth you can go wherever he wants that's true no well that we we did talk about last week how darth maul and darth sidious seem to share an apartment with a balcony on Coruscant. Nothing outrageous, but a nice apartment with a little balcony. It's just nice to own a place.

Yeah. There was one thing that George Lucas said in the commentary that really struck me as an interesting comment. Because he meant it clearly in one way but the way I heard it

I think was interesting he said I've always wanted to make a race film and he was referring to the pod race this is like my race film

this is like a 20 minuteminute race film in here. I would argue that some would say he did make a race film. Different definition. I mean, certainly that was the big reaction to it was you made a race film. Oh, and we've talked about that a lot already on the show. But isn't it interesting that he would even use those terms? He would say a racing film. Yep.

A race film because that's a real term from film history. A race picture. Yeah. Talking about the Potter race quickly, I'm looking at some of my notes here, some of the most egregious lines that George threw out that I took note of. There's the point where Ben Quadrinos' engines blow up. Yes, I remember this point. And George sort of explains.

He goes, so what's happening here is that Ben Quadrinos has his quad. He throws up all these quad coupling and they blow a rotary cuff. And so this is exploding. And acknowledges that this might be difficult for audiences to ingest. He says audiences won't understand what's happening here at all. But if you lived on Tatooine, you would understand what was happening. I wanted to talk about that. It's quite a moment that he says that

and then does not address what he means by lived on Tatooine. But I mean, he's saying like within the fictional universe, of course, this is a commonplace pod race accident. As if, you know, unfortunately, the film didn't screen on Tatooine. So, you know, he never got to play to that audience. But it also feels like a humblebrag to me of like, my imagination is so great, the concepts I've thrown out don't make sense

unless you're a fictional character within the world I created, where in fact almost everything in The Phantom Menace has some sort of real world parallel. Absolutely. Much like the chance cube is very much like flipping a coin to decide something. No, it's very much like a human way of deciding between two things.

Rolling a chance cube. Rolling a chance cube. The thing that we all do every day. We all own chance cubes. We might not know the mechanics of a pod racer perfectly, but it's like, I've seen a fucking car accident. Engine blows up. It's Formula One.

That's all it is. That's all pod racing is and Ben-Hur and things like that. You wouldn't understand it unless you lived on Tatooine. Ben Quadraneros. So he was just, you know, when he decided to be a pod racer, they were like, you gotta have four engines. Everyone else has two, but you're gonna need four. With a name like Quadraneros.

Or is it a family of four engined pod racers? Like, you know, the Quadraneros family. Oh, they name themselves after the engines? Yeah, yeah. Is that what it is? Or does the concept like in the same way that like a family

invents a certain concept far back. Sure, right. They just name it out after themselves. Does the concept of Quadraneros, four quadrants go back to the first Quadraneros that were like how many, oh, this many engines, I don't know how they got it. What's your name? Quadraneros. They were like, how many, oh, this many engines, I don't know how to count it. Oh.

What's your name? Quadraneros. Well, that would be the base of, okay, let's, we should say if we took one away, how much that would be,

and then that, and that, and that. Right. Let's have a numbering system. Should we call that numbering? I don't know. This is,

we're really going back to the primordial sort of era. Ben Quadraneros, who is a, well, we haven't talked about him. What's the funniest joke in the movie? Oh, that's a good question. Is it Qui-Gon grabbing Jar Jar's tongue, which George Lucas cites in the movie as something he came up with that was brilliant and relieved the tension. And they all talk about how much they cracked up filming it. Yeah, which makes no sense to me because it's digital. How did they crack up filming it?

I don't understand. The idea of Liam Neeson reaching out and grabbing something in the air was apparently that funny that on a tense day of filming, they finally were like, we can do this. They don't address why filming was tense. They don't really say why it was a hard day, but they do say it was a hard day and that really helped burst the balloon. Well, can I throw out a theory? And I don't know if they were made aware of this while filming or if it only became clear

to the actors after the fact. Go ahead. But knowing how much of a meticulous tech head old Georgie Porgie is, I think they probably knew what they were signing up for. In addition to, you know, Terrence Stamp's complaints

that he had to act against a ping pong ball, that he didn't get to finger blast 14-year-old Natalie Portman. Another thing that I think was bothering the actors very early in the commentary when they're entering the trade ship, which we discussed at length in episode one of this podcast. He mentioned that a lot of the sets are built out of wood. Yeah. I don't remember who says this. Rick McCollum, maybe. So a lot of sets are built out of wood. And, I don't remember who says this. Rick McCall, maybe. So a lot of sets are built out of wood.

Of course, they're meant to be metal in real life. And we didn't like the creaking sounds that the wood made. So 85% of the dialogue in this movie was dubbed later. He does. He does say 85%. He doesn't address whether that's unusual or not, but it's a little unusual. That's what you get from taking your cue from the middle pig. Yeah.

Building out of wood. Straw absorbs cue from the middle pig. Yeah. Building out of wood. Straw absorbs sound much better. I make my film of straw. So it must have been fun for the actors. Yeah, come back and record all the dialogue again, please. So what that means is you're on set. You're doing scenes with other people. You're trying to find emotional connection.

You're picking the readings that make sense to your environment. Living honestly in the moment. Shoot all that and then like 18 months later George calls you up. You go into a booth by yourself much like the room where we're recording this podcast. You talk into a microphone you get some workaday pig like producer Ben working the ones and zeros

and they just go okay and we're going to do this one line at a time. Beep beep beep and you have to match up the exact way in which your lips move. Yeah, they're playing the footage for you. So it's not even come up with the best line reading you have today. You have to try to replicate the mood you were in. Do it out of context in a bubble.

It's very, very tough to do. And most movies when there are scenes that are ADR'd in later you can tell because they feel kind of weird emotionally. But most films it's only like a handful of lines here and there. Or during an action scene something where there'd be a lot of noise. Something like that. 85% of the dialogue in this movie is ADR, which is why no character in the film ever sounds like they're actually talking to another person. Right. It sounds like a series of monologues.

Yeah. And you've harped on a lot about Natalie Portman's voice in this movie. Yes. Connor points out that she had an accent that was thrown out. I will not have this disgusting no committee. But that feels like a 14-year-old old who's like I gotta say it the same I gotta match up with the lips. Right. It's too enunciated.

That's a terrible job. What can I tell you Griffin? It's what happened. And the film is like music anyway. Yeah I mean you're saying a lot the major flaw in the movie is there's too much wood. In the design it's literally to the So you're saying the major flaw in the movie is there's too much wood?

In the design of it. It's literally to the base. The acting is wooden like the sets, and one caused the other. Terrence Stamp had wood. That's the only reason he came to set, because he had morning wood. That's right. Yeah. I mean, the movie starts with a joke pretty early on. Oh, so yeah, we were just trying to discuss the funniest part of the movie, right?

Well, let's just try and list as many jokes as we can remember. The negotiations were short? Is that the joke you're thinking of? No, that probably is the most successful joke. He delivers it like a joke. Like, he's like, well, you're right. He's like, I'm going to tell a joke right now. You're right about one thing. Qui-Gon is just like, you know, whatever. There's a joke before that,

though. Okay. Doesn't he say, I have a very bad feeling about this? He does. And Lucas says it, like, there's a repeating motif that though okay um uh doesn't he say i have a very bad feeling he does i have and lucas says it like that there there's a repeating motif in the film and i have a bad and it's a funnier one he even says that repeats out all the star wars movies which is like once again don't fucking write jokes that you think will be funny five movies from now you've only made one film george this is the start of a franchise don't load up your buffet plate too much i have a bad feeling about him foreshadowing things fucking six movies in advance now what are some other funny jokes Start of a franchise. Don't load up your buffet plate too much. I have a bad feeling about this.

Foreshadowing things fucking six movies in advance. What are some other funny jokes, Connor? Well, I'm forgetting now. Maybe you'll remember. I know that there's at least one. I think there's two jokes that Jar Jar makes that are borrowed from pop culture. Okay. I can't remember what the first one is.

I know he says ex-squeeze me. He says ex-squeeze me. Which, Wayne's World know he says ex-squeeze me. He says ex-squeeze me. Waynesboro didn't invent ex-squeeze me but they did sort of popularize it. It's a thing. It's a common pun. They certainly had their stamp on it. But I think there's another one that I discovered this time that I'm blanking on now

where Jar Jar makes a joke that is like a joke from something else. You're probably right. I can tell you the moment I definitely laughed the hardest at upon seeing the film in theaters as a 10-year-old. And just could you let Connor know what your review of the film was coming out age 10 of seeing the first scene of Phantom Menace? Best movie I've ever seen. Yeah.

Yeah? Yeah. Well, the movie was designed for you. Yeah, it was. I was the target audience. George Lucas does say during the scene where Jar Jar numbs his tongue on the pod race connector thingy that that scene is alarming for children and that children react to it badly. He's talking about children like they're little wood lice under his microscope.

He's like, you never can predict what happens. Children don't like that scene i think his phrasing was it's almost unbearably tense he's like they see his hand is going in the motor and he's reaching for the thing and they know that an accident's about to happen he's gonna get electrocuted did he watch that scene with like a bunch of children like at a pantomime show because i can imagine going no don't do it because like i have never had any reaction to that scene whatsoever well it's because laughed at Harus upon seeing the film was definitely when Captain Tarple says, Oh, Jar Jar, you're saying big doo-doo now.

That killed me. And 10-year-old Griffin. 10-year-old Griffin. He does say doo-doo. Do you like it now? Do I like that joke now? You're smiling pretty big. He's kind of funny.

Captain Tarple is a pretty cool dude. He is funny because he's a pretty cool dude. Hold on, hold on. I don't want to lose this moment where Griffin is genuinely regressing. He's a pretty cool dude. He's a cool dude. Well, one thing that's funny about Captain Tarples that I only learned recently upon downloading the Star Wars trading card app on my phone is that during the final battle, Jar Jar technically outranks him.

He's been promoted to the rank of general. I forgot about this. And so the Captain Tarples, who coordinates a very successful, I would say, defiance of the Trade Federation, is supposed to be answering to Jar Jar Binks. And seems to know what he's doing. He hasn't even put on a military. He's still wearing his flared trousers and a boo vest that he wears throughout the film. Well, as George makes very clear on the commentary, Jar Jar's victories are all by accident.

Right, yes. He says, I view this as like a Buster Keaton routine. It's a classic slapstick. When he knocks open the Gungan grenade vat. Which, of course, you know. Ouch time. Ouch time. The thing we all remember about Buster Keaton and loved about him first and foremost was

that he never stopped talking. That was the best. If you want Jar Jar to be a Buster Keaton-esque figure, he keeps on saying, I view Jar Jar as a silent film comedian. Wasn't How Rude, How Rude was a catchphrase from what? How Rude? How Rude? Wasn't that from like a TGIF show or something?

Wasn't there someone? Oh, you think that's the other? Oh, yes. You're absolutely right. What show is How Rude a catchphrase from? I don't know. Step by step or something. A kid on a show like that said that. It was the little kid. That's another, because they really tried hard

with How Rude being a catchphrase for Charger. Yeah. He says it a bunch of times. Not best joke in the film, but best joke in the commentary. There's a point in the commentary where it's the... Full House. Full House. Of course, of course. It's the Tanner.

It's Mary-Kate and Ashley. San Francisco-based show. It's obviously going to seep into... It's true. He's a barrier. It's too bad that Jar Jar Binks never says, you got it, dude. That would have been good if he'd continued the motif. Actually, if he was going to lift something from TGIF,

did I do that is the phrase that would best fit Jar Jar. Absolutely. After he trips and breaks something. Rather than comparing him to Buster Keaton, he should have compared him to Urkel because he is a lot like Urkel in that he won't go away and he is excessively dominant in the plot for no good reason. And he embarrasses all black people.

That's the other way that he is like Urkel. You've done so much Neimoidian Urkel. We haven't, you've done so much Neimoidian accents, we haven't really done your Jar Jar yet. I don't have a good Jar Jar, that's the problem. My Neimoidian is spot on. It is. His Neimoidian's really good. Let's hear it. Is that

illegal? That's pretty good. Thank you. There's a point in the commentary where he says that when they were trying to figure out what the voice of the Neimoidians was, they did a temp track where they had them do ESPN commentator voices. Which we ended up using that in the pod race. Yeah. That would have been interesting, too.

If the Neimoidians had been like Craig Kilbourne and Dan Patrick from SportsCenter. Well, I don't know about that. That would have been funny. That would have been funny. Yeah. That would have been a better stereotype. If you can make fun of a race, make fun of white people. Yeah, make fun of white sportscasters from the 90s. Yeah, they could use it.

Best joke, and the commentary, not the film, is there's a point where it's right before Darth Maul, I think, shows up, when it's the Naboo Royal Starship, and the sand's building around it, and think, shows up when it's the Naboo Royal Starship. Yeah. And the sand's building around it and they know they need to get to the ship. And over that, I don't remember who it was on the commentary, says, I remember that day when we were filming on set, someone asked me what we were having for lunch and I said sandwiches.

So that was a funny joke. Whoever that was, Ben Burtt, Rick McCollum. I think probably Rick McCollum. Dennis Franz. Dennis Franz. Dennis Franz. Franz Ferdinand, Dennis Franz Ferdinand, was so

proud of that joke on the day that it made its way to audio He had to repeat it two years later. Two years after the release of the film. He wished there had been a camera, maybe a making of camera on him at that very moment and he regretted it. Yeah. So he was like. He had to repeat that joke.

Sandwiches. This is another point that's interesting. So the commentary was recorded two years after the film was released because it first came out only on VHS. The DVD release wasn't until 2001. The film was in production for a very, very long period of time because they keep on making clear across the commentary that there are scenes that are shot a year after principal photography ended. Yeah.

Many scenes where he's like, this was actually shot 18 months later. Yeah. So people keep on going, oh, you know, when people like to shit on the Phantom Mass, they go, oh, these basic story problems, you know, it's screenwriting 101. You don't do this, have this, less of this, more of this, whatever it is. It's not like he shot it and went perfect. He shot it. Oh, yeah.

Put together rough assembly, looked at it, went, we need more stuff. Shot 40 more minutes of footage. Arguably some of the worst scenes in the film were shot a year later. It reminds me of some of the scenes that he included. He also says, like, this scene was in and out. He says it about, you know, like, this scene was in the first cut, and then it took it out. And the scene of, a lot of it has emotional scenes, like, about Anakin leaving his mother. The most surprising thing was to hear when he talks about there's a part where they go back. And rather than going back to the Gungan city underwater.

They just go to a clearing in the woods. But you see Jar Jar just get out of the water and he's like, they're not down there. And he's like, this way we didn't have to go down and see all that. I'm like, this whole movie is nothing but spectacle. It seems like a weird thing. Like, we don't want to show that all again. Like, just seeing him get out of the water and saying, no, movie is nothing but spectacle. It seems like a weird thing. Like, ugh, we don't want to show that all again. Like, just seeing him get out of water and saying, no, they're not going to. Well, weird to pinch pennies there.

Yeah. It's like the rest of the film you're splurging. You're already shooting in Italy, like, in the finest Roman column. And you've already digitally built what that world looks like. Yeah, right. Just drop them back in. So having a scene where he's like, they're gone. Yeah.

Could have been intriguing, maybe, as opposed to just like like, they're gone. Yeah. Could have been intriguing maybe as opposed to just like, Mr. Logan, no, not there. Yeah. And then he just says like, oh, I know where they are, sacred place, right over here. I'm trying to go to a sacred place. That's pretty good, Jager. One of my favorite improv shows, I haven't,

it's sort of a notorious thing with improv shows, like, oh, when are you going to do your Star Wars? Like, Star Wars comes up a lot. Yeah. And people who haven't seen Star Wars but do improv are like, ugh. You know, just it always comes up. But there was a stepfather show that I didn't initiate it being a Star Wars thing, but someone else did, and it became a thing.

And I did a walk-on where I was quiet for a long time. I just walked into a room, and they were doing a whole scene. And I didn't say anything for a long time, and then someone said, wait, who's that guy? And I went, oh, Misa! And then it just was a tag run of just, from that point on, it was just Jar Jar Binks in various scenes because every scene

I would just react. I was like, wow! You know, just like, oh no! Misa stepped in shit! And it was, I can see how it might have been fun at the time to give yourself that fully to something that stupid. Yeah. Oh, Jar Jar must have been a ball to play.

Yeah, yeah. Ahmed Best of Stomp. Yeah, exactly. He was a performer on Stomp. Like, he wasn't even getting to say dialogue on stage, so they were like... Another weird thing. Buster Keaton, he hires a silent performer,

and then he gives him reams of dialogue right and like you said also always over other dialogue almost like he's just sort of chattering away in the background

as everyone else is trying to figure things out and apparently according to the commentary there's a scene cut of him bouncing around with the droids in the bottom of the

Naboo Starfighter there was like a whole scene where I assume like droids keep popping out of like walls and doors and he's like whoa what are you and yeah I wish we that had been included. My favorite part of the commentary is they keep on saying things like we just felt like that was a little too much.

Or like the first cut of this scene when the animators brought it to us Jar Jar was overacting a little so we had to tone it down. It's like this is the toned down version? I can believe it too. This is you reigning it in? Yeah. I mean there may have been versions where Jar Jar's eyes do like tech save and they pop out and they're huge.

That may have been the one victory of physics in the movie. We will bind this character to the laws of physics in this universe. When he first sees Padme his tongue rolls out onto the floor and then he does a wolf whistle and steam comes out of his ears. Well that was the initial when Terrence Stamp

was playing the character before he refused to do any more lines. I would say two things regarding comedy and its relationship to The Phantom Menace

in terms of both success and failure. Because not a great comedy. As a comedy, it doesn't work that well. Absolutely. I'll say this. Yeah.

I actually respect the film for how big its failings are. I think they're bold Yeah. I actually respect the film for how big its failings are. I think they're bold choices. I think it was bold given the buildup for this movie that George Lucas, who did not have a reputation for, like, you know what he's great at, is coming up with madcap slapstick characters. There wasn't like he could point to and say like Look at all of the Yeah THX 1138 it's just pratfalls Let's look at all the times that he's been great at doing this kind of comedy That he decided with all the anticipation

With the one guaranteed home run Knock it out of the park This is going to be a smash hit movie He was like I'm going to do this character this way. Right. To me, that is... In this much of the movie.

That is a baller move. Mm-hmm. On par with... To me, it would be as if instead of making a new Star Wars movie, George Lucas had said,

I'm going to do a stadium tour where I do two hours of stand-up. I'm only going to play stadiums. And it's going to be like... Basically, it's going to be like Eddie Murphy Raw. But with me.

Can I talk about sex? You know, like, you'd be like, whoa, that's pretty ballsy. Exactly, yeah. I think the fact that he, I think it was a mistake for the movie, but I do have some respect for the fact that he was like, this is what I think is good. I'm going to do it I think it

it speaks to the fact that this is even though it has distribution deal from 20th Century Fox this is an indie movie we've talked about that a lot and it was done with the full control of an artist saying this is what I want the movie to be

the thing that I think artist saying, this is what I want the movie to be. The thing that I think would have fixed this movie is, rather than putting all your comedy chips into this Buster Keaton slapstick digital character, if there had been a character in this movie who was charming and roguish and who undercut the movie. Who maybe sort of poked fun at a little bit of the self-seriousness of the other characters. I think there's a candidate for this.

I've spoken to both of you about this prior to this. Yeah. Captain Panaka. If that character had been played by any comedian that you like, picture anyone. We were throwing out names. The first name that popped into my head

was Vince Vaughn. Just so I was thinking, it doesn't even have to be The first name that popped into my head was Vince Vaughn. Yep. Just so I was thinking, it doesn't even have to be, like a lot of people don't like Vince Vaughn. But at that point in time, he was, you know,

just emerging in a big way. Yeah. But I think if you put him into that role, another name we threw out was like Bernie Mac. If Bernie Mac could destroy it.

And because basically that character spends most of the movie saying, this is a bad idea. I don't think we should do this. Which is a great angle for a comic character to have to be like, listen, this is a bad idea. I didn't sign up for this. Right.

How popular would a character be in a movie like this if he or she was like, listen, sister, I'm just in it for the money. I got to get out of here. I got other stuff I got to do. I don't want to be in a Star Wars adventure. I got my own stuff going on. Absolutely. I think if you cast someone charming and likable and allowed them to kind of say,

you know, this is bullshit. I don't like being in a Star Wars adventure. I got to go live my life. And then you keep wrangling him back into it. He's like, well, here I go again. Yeah, that sounds like that would be the key character in a Star Wars film. Yeah, maybe almost the fulcrum point

for a lot of characters who are much more idealistic. And it doesn't have to just be a comic character. You could have given maybe Captain Panaka and Queen Alidala could have had a little fling or something. That'd be great. I think Terrence Stamp just entered into the running again, if that's the case. He's going to have some harsh words for you. His agents are calling. That's right.

I've written a list of jokes. Rogues jokes. Terrence Stamp's a very funny actor. I shouldn't be down on Terrence Stamp. Tell him I'm coming! That is a good point. That's a great movie. David, you were saying right before you started recording that Jar Jar, at no point in the film, does anything on purpose

that actually advances the plot. The only skill he shows is knowing how to quickly get to the Gungan sacred place in the process of one edit, which is impressive. Apart from that, he does nothing that's good.

So George was operating under the assumption that a comic relief character has to be all comedic, you know, that he has to be the fool, that he has to be this Falstaffian idiot,

but Falstaff even turns out to be a little more cunning and sharp. Falstaff's got a bad brain between his ears. And he ends up being a character with pathos. Yes, absolutely.

Maybe that's a future direction for this character. Maybe he could be a focus, not in a big way, but in some small way of maybe... A tragic plot point. Yeah, I mean, this movie sets a lot of balls in motion. A lot of gungan energy balls. And on the commentary, it ends by Lucas saying, you know, we've killed one of the villains,

but it doesn't mean we've killed the main villain. That's true. Big tease for episode two, fingers crossed. And the main villain is... Darth Sidious? They remember the scene where he's on the hologram and he's walking? The spider table?

And they act on the commentary, and they're like, and we have this great reveal of the little walking holographic projector. You're like, how's the hologram walking? Yeah, and they're like, and we have this great reveal of the little walking holographic projector. You're like, how's the hologram walking? Yeah, and they're like, you know, people watch this movie and for one second they are confused as to how this thing is walking before the great reveal of the holographic walking thingy. But Connor, you do raise a great point that even like Buster Keaton was like a very tragic figure in all of his films and there was a lot of pathos there and he was kind of silent. He was a guy who was trying his best and would fail often but was always coming from the best intentions.

Jar Jar is just a comedic device and if you're saying someone like Captain Panaka who actually has a lot of purpose within the story but nothing else, has no character developed, but is important to all the main actions of the film. If you gave him some personality, if you made him be funny in a way that's human, is grounded in how you would react

in that situation, but also made him a fully rounded human being with perhaps a love interest. Yeah. You know, motivations of his own. He's just a utility player in this. And it's weird because he's arguably, this is, you know, last night was like the fifth time

I've watched this movie in the last month. And every time I'm surprised. It was a nice break actually to have to come through. But every time I'm surprised by how large a character Captain Panac is, I always forget because he's not thought of as being a primary character. He's arguably like the sixth lead in the movie. Yeah. He's in a lot of it.

He's on screen a lot. He advances the plot a lot. He's like a big motivator. But he's so bland and so undeveloped. He's a real straight arrow. He's just like a dude throwing out expository dialogue. That was a fascinating moment for me was there's the point where he's just like a dude throwing out expository dialogue that was a fascinating moment for me was there's the point where he's talking about the scene at the skywalker home shmi's skywalkers uh

kitchen table yeah and they're setting up all the things we need a new engine uh hyperdrive well we need to get off this planet well there's a pod race and he goes this is the pointer scene every movie has a big pointer scene where you have all this expository information that you have to get out. It isn't fun and it's really annoying. It's the hardest one to do well because you're afraid of losing the audience and boring them. He goes, a great example of probably the perfect pointer scene is Raiders of the Lost Ark. So he throws out his own movie as a perfect pointer scene. But he goes, this was the tough one to get through.

And the reality is every scene in The Phantom Menace is a pointer scene. That is absolutely the case. And Captain Panaka is a pointer character. All he does is say stuff that anyone could say, that a fucking Apple talk could say, you know? Yeah. Yeah, you could replace him with Ciri. Yes. You could merge, I would say, a good dozen of the characters in this film into one character.

Like, and just have that character deliver all the information. Agreed. There's Sayio Bibble there's Rick O'Leary and there's even Watto honestly Watto's fun My roommate watched it with me last night she is a computer programmer

she was sitting on the couch trying to program an app while I was watching the commentary and she kept on lifting her head up and going like what the fuck did he just say but her big analysis which i think is really interesting is that um the biggest theme that comes up in the commentary is george saying well you know i wanted to do this but i thought i'd lose the audience so i had to do this instead or saying you know i did put this scene in so the audience could understand it like all of his decisions he's putting on the audience's shoulder.

He's saying that he made a movie just for you. Yeah. It isn't even necessarily the movie he wanted to make. Like on one hand, it's self-financed. Things like Jar Jar are like something he felt very strongly about and put in. But it also sounds like it's him making these decisions based on what he thinks the audience wants out of him and trying to make a movie explicitly for other people. He seems to make a movie that no one really likes.

It's for everyone and for no one. And that builds to this larger point that my roommate kept on saying, which is like, he just doesn't understand human beings anymore. And I was like, well, American Graffiti, because she originally was like, he just doesn't understand human beings.

I was like, he used to make really good humanistic films. And she was like, yeah, but he's just rich and he lives in seclusion in a ranch by himself and he's surrounded by people who just say yes to whatever he does because they all work for him yeah and he goes make Jar Jar sillier and they go okay fine I guess you're a genius yeah okay and the film is like aliens trying to make a movie based on what they think humans want like trying trying to make a blockbuster for humans. Having ingested all popular filmmaking. Yes. Starting with Flash Gordon,

starting with the 1930s sort of serials. Yes, right. Which brings me to my analysis this week on maybe what this movie's about. Please. Maybe it's like his anthropological study of humans. Or just of the things that bind us, of biology and physics. Maybe this is like his microcosmos.

He's just like, I don't understand how things talk to each other and have emotions and feel. That's why he cut all his emotions out. Did I get it right? He's asking us. Did I get it? He's like, I don't know. Did I capture this right? Yeah.

Connor? I want to direct you to something. Yeah. Connor? I want to direct you to something because you guys are obviously frustrated because you are waiting for the next things to happen. And there is one thing. It's sort of a prequel. It's not canon, but it was an official in a Star Wars related thing.

Okay. Have you ever seen George R. Binks by Tony Millionaire? No. Okay. I want you to try and find it. It's like a six or seven page story about George R. Binks and his father, George R. Binks. And his father is like a fucking hero. He's like this Gungan sea captain catching these huge sea monsters and stuff.

And his son, Jar Jar, is an idiot and he's ashamed of him. Sure, as he would be. As the entire Gungan nation eventually is. As he is exiled. And it really is amazing that this was allowed to be published. It was published in like a Star Wars Tales comic book. So it's not canon, but I think it's close enough. But you should seek it out because I think it does offer a fuller perspective on the world of this film.

Yeah. And speaking of the world. I'm definitely going to seek this out. Speaking of the world, we didn't even talk about this because it's just so interesting to talk about. 75% of the commentary is him and his team outlining how few elements within each shot are actually real. It's true. Yeah. And it's mostly just him going, this is fascinating because that's the only real actor and then that was shot as a model and then this was a location.

Here we only had a door, he says at one point. He's so proud of the fact that he like cobbling together a reality from disparate elements that were never in the same room at the same time and there's one line where he goes this is one of my favorite scenes in the movie because almost none of it is real yeah which was like wow yeah i think i think you're referring to when the surface the submarine thing surfaces onto naboo he says this is entirely anime i found this is direct quote. He goes, this shot right here is completely digital and then he just pauses and he goes, no reality at all.

Right. There you go. Much like his description of a race film. No reality at all is pretty fascinating. He's almost like the lawnmower man. They sound dismayed anytime they're talking about how they filmed in a real location but then we had to match the sunlight or we had to do that.

Well, like like one person was talking about how they filmed. It's one of those like the queen and her little counselor filming like in this real palace in Italy or someplace or Spain, wherever they filmed in Italy. And they're saying, yeah, unfortunately, like there were candelabras everywhere. We had to digitally erase all those. And it's said with not just like, yeah, this is something we had to do. It was like, unfortunately, they say it to you as if here's the bad news. When we filmed this, there were candelabras and we had to erase them all. He's talking like there are spiders.

As if we, the listener, will be upset to find out that they had to do all this work to make a Star Wars movie. To me, that would be like saying, well, unfortunately, these characters aren't real. We had to hire these actors to play them. It's just like, that's not unfortunately. That's just you're making a movie. That is the process of filmmaking. Or it's not like candelabras that you had to digitally erase is so horrible. You're like, unfortunately, we filmed in this place and there was human fecal matter smeared all over the walls.

A murder had just occurred. Yeah, unfortunately, there were dead bodies when we filmed and that was really depressing. The presence of candelabras that they digitally erased should not be the source of such dismay on the part of the people who made this movie. It's just part of what happened. The whole movie takes place in space with alien galaxies.

Why erasing candelabras is a bigger bummer than inventing a whole underground city, I don't understand. Do you have a take, to wrap up our podcast, do you have a take on what you think this movie is about? Yeah. It is about

a political power play in which our heroes are unwitting pawns. Okay. So it's about good people being manipulated. By forces they can't understand. By forces they can't understand. A phantom menace. By forces they can't understand. On one hand, some of them are man-made forces, bureaucracy and politics.

There's political manipulation using the trade federation to provoke a reaction so that this can happen. But on a – let's say that's physics. On a metaphysical scale. Yeah. But then on another scale, we have a virgin birth. Yes. And a blood disease. Yeah. A magic blood disease.

And this is an X factor, right? So there are the machinations of man making plans, villains that have yet to unveil their agenda. plans, villains that have yet to unveil their agenda. But we also see something that is beyond the control, something that happened that is a force to be reckoned with. Tangible reality versus forces we feel, both good and bad. Yeah. And since this is the beginning of a saga, we don't need to understand all of it, but

we know that Anakin Skywalker is an important figure. Clearly, yeah. Otherwise, why would you devote this much screen time to an eight-year-old boy? And these things are going to have consequences on both ends. And I think we end with a victory. It's true. There's been loss, and there is a portent of perhaps terrible things to come. Who knows?

We'll never get to find out. I don't know. I feel like, I mean, this is a very successful movie. I feel like we've seen so many different, you know, Twin Peaks is coming back. That's true. The X-Files is coming back. The X-Files is going to be 24. I feel like we were primed for some sort of reboot, certainly.

As we pointed out last week, Disney did pay several billion dollars to buy Lucasfilm. You have to think. Yeah. I mean, a Star Wars reboot is somewhere within their plans. Right. A couple lines, just to wrap this up, that I wrote down that I just want to read verbatim. Please do. Because they jumped out to me.

There's a point where when the Jedis are trying to break through the door of the Trade Federation ship and he talks about how it's subverting, making the human creatures, the invaders, and putting all the monsters and the robots on the other side afraid and he went, I just wanted to make this scene about Jedi Godzillas.

He does say that. That jumped out to me yep there's another line where he says all the citizens in this film are musical even when there's no music that's musical John Cage yep this is one I don't even know what it was in reference to it could have been anything where he just goes so little of this is real. Was he talking about the film? Like sand through his fingers.

There's a scene where they're reboarding the Naboo Royal Starship, and he explains how he wanted to give the movie more of a documentary feel. He tried to shoot it like it was a documentary. More than what? More than other movies. I guess. So he brags about how he had Jar Jar kind of out of frame, so it felt like it was a real tangible thing that he was shooting on set that he actually had to frame around.

Yeah, these are my last two. Okay. One is that when they're talking about the animators working on the Gungan team, if one of the animators goes, most of the animators were working on Jar Jar. We had a much smaller team working on the boss.

They refer to Boss Nass as the boss. Or they could have been referring, we don't know, they could have been referring to the cutting room floor scene

with Bruce Springsteen. Was he in the scene where Jar Jar avoids all the droids down in the Starfighter? Was he there too? Avoid those droids! Look at how many there are. One, two, one, two, three, four! Yeah, so we'll never know. We'll never know.

And finally. My favorite revelation in the entire commentary track. When discussing with the special effects team the physics of Watto and how a creature could have such a big belly. And such small wings. And be propelled through the air on such small wings. George said, I don't know. Just imagine there's helium in his belly or something. Hilarious.

Then why isn't his voice funnier? His voice is pretty funny, to be fair. Yeah, but if it was on helium, it would be funnier, right? Yeah, definitely funnier. I have a great faith in the boy. Now, I may be misquoting, but one of the controversies of Watto is that a lot of people perceive Watto as like a Jewish. Yes, a merchant. A Jewish merchant.

We haven't gotten dug into this much yet, but yes. A Shylock figure. I could be wrong about this, but I seem to recall that a defense was offered up for this. Something along the lines of like, we always say he's like a greedy Italian guy or something. Like, I may be making that up but I seem to recall that Justin is no he's not Jewish

he's not Jewish he's a greedy Italian he's like a guido you know one of those grease balls there is I mean it goes to this point of him not understanding humanity

the whole film feels like it's about like how fascinating he is by other cultures I don't think he's consciously mocking other cultures. But he's so weirded out and he views everyone other than him as an other. And he's fascinated by the other. And part of the problem

is I think that I never fully accepted the people who jump to the Jar Jar Binks is racist. That's a racist thing. And it's automatically a step and fetch it type character.

I never fully am on board with that. I think the problems with the character are more fundamentally that the character is not funny enough. Sure. funny enough. Sure. That I don't think there's a single criticism of Jar Jar Binks' character that you couldn't apply

more stringently to the Donkey and the Shrek movies. Yeah, except the difference is Donkey's funny. That's why he gets away with it. It's funnier.

It's more comedically successful. Yeah, it's still always to me, yeah, but it's also got Eddie Murphy as the voice, which means that my bar for how funny it should be

is a lot higher. Sure, but I'm saying there's a reason why Donkey became a beloved popular character across five films. It seems like they're playing in the same archetype. To me, the Donkey character in Trek always felt like the type of thing that young Eddie Murphy would have been making fun of. Agreed. As a stereotype. Or as a character that's just more laziness than anything.

It's more like settling for the first funny thing rather than deepening it and going for something more interesting. But I would say that one of the things that draws attention to the things that feel like, whether it's the Neimoidians or the Gungans or Watto, is the fact that the human or humanoid, because we don't know if they're humans, do we?

They are simply humanoid. Yes, we don't know. It's a galaxy far, far away. Are so boring that the default is that. So the attempts to be interesting are really just first step attempt at being interesting. Surface details. So Captain Panaka is so boring that he's not given any interesting character traits. And Jar Jar is given first step, baby step attempt at being quirky or interesting or fun.

He talks funny and he is clumsy. Yeah, and I would say that the step towards making this movie less problematic for the people who look at it and just see, like, oh, look at all these ethnic and racial stereotypes, is that the default characters are so boring that it actually enhances the attempts to make these characters interesting is even more pronounced. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would agree with that. Well, I think that's a great point to end on characters interesting is even more pronounced. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would agree with that. Well, I think that's a great point to end on. It is. I'd like to thank Connor for coming on and being a guest today. People can Google you. Check out.

You do Stepfathers every weekend. Yeah. And you do the George Lucas Talk Show. Check it out. You have the 12-hour day podcast. Great podcast. It's 12 hours long. Each episode is 12 hours long. 12 hours long.

We've talked some about Phantom Menace on there, I'm sure. I don't remember. Yeah. And the Terry Withers Mysteries. Oh, yeah. Monthly at UCB Theater. Just use your Google wisely. And the Chris Gathard Show will be...

Starting on Fusion, end of May. Yes, end of May. Ask your cable provider to get Fusion. Get it now. It's the best show on television. Yep. And you're a big part of it. Yes, end of May. Ask your cable provider to get Fusion. Get it now. It's the best show on television. Yep. And you're a big part of it. Thank you.

I mean, this incarnation is going to be a blast. And so thank you for listening. Thank you for listening, guys. And as always, may the Schwartz be with you.