The Ewok Movies Pt. 1

Shaun
Host
00:00
This is Off To Off Topic, a show where two men with the attention spans of a squirrel try and fail to stay on topic with today's subject. Where will their oral meanderings take us? Well, stick around and listen, because today's Off To Off Topic topic is… the Ewok Movies, caravan Encourage and its sequel, battle For Indoor. Now, nate, you're the one to bring up these movies as an idea for a show topic, and I know quite well that you have some very let's say, strong feelings about the Ewoks and their origins. So you should start out by letting you share some of those feelings and let our listeners bond with you emotionally about Ewok. 

Nate
Host
00:32
Well, I mean I hate… To say I hate them is a little strong. My hatred is cool over the years but that's not because of the Ewoks from the movies, that's because of the expanded universe stuff. Not these movies, but just like the books, the novels. The books are obviously the same thing, but the books and the comics, you know. The one comic kind of softened me on a little bit was this…well, the Empire. It was one of those comics where they collaboration or a collection of different smaller stories and they made the Ewoks on Indoor with the Stormtroopers look more like a hostile American… A hostile nation, not nation Like a hostile people. Yeah, kind of like the Amazon rainforest. 

Shaun
Host
01:17
I almost said American Indians, but it's more like those islands of little tribal people who throw spears at every plane that flies overhead by a mile. 

Nate
Host
01:26
And the story was told through the view of the Stormtroopers. And they're like this new recruit comes in and they're haunted because, you know, the Ewoks drum all night to keep them awake and if one of them wonders off the pee they disappear. Because the Ewoks take them by night and slowly but surely, like they're getting whittled down, they're mentally just attacked and so…. 

Shaun
Host
01:50
The last thing you hear before you die is a little yub-yub from the back of your mind, Right? 

Nate
Host
01:53
I'm pretty much yeah, and so that really kind of like, oh okay, that makes sense. Now that would…I appreciate that the Ewoks as they stand, though in the movies, like as they came out of the movies, the Empire Strikes Back, it's awful. I mean they were…I know the point. The point was like oh, this is like the representation of the Viet Cong. You know Vietnam War, you have a big, you know empire, technological people coming in and they're beaten by a lesser technological stuff. But what even is the point? 

02:23
Like I get, when you're shooting a stormtrooper with a blaster, they drop real fast. That's stupid. But you know, okay, it's a blaster. You stab a guy in full armor with a…not just like a spear, but a spear with a stone at the end of it. There's a reason why the Bronze Age wiped out the Stone Age. Like it doesn't make any sense. It…i mean, why would that? I mean at most the stormtroopers should be annoyed. I mean, they're wearing helmets. I mean helmets…the what's the point of wearing helmets when we workplaces, like when they're on construction sites, don't even bother, because if anything falls from any kind of height, you're dead. It doesn't matter what…okay, they drop the rocks, no shit. Like I would expect them to be injured, but like just slaughtering all the stormtroopers with… yeah, with rock-tides sticks kind of thing. 

03:11
Stones rocks, and I mean it's moronic. 

Shaun
Host
03:13
Maybe all the stormtroopers, maybe this was like Vietnam and they're all just faking injuries so they could go home on shore. Leave there you go. 

Nate
Host
03:19
It's supposed to be the Fava first, right? I don't know if I remembered that correctly or not. The Fava first was Vader's personal guard, a personal like unit. So I'm not sure if it was the Fava first on indoor or if they were on the Death Star. 

Shaun
Host
03:31
I'm not 100% certain on that Every time the Empire always talks about their best trained soldiers, I am always disappointed when they see them in action. Yeah, always, every single time. Always, every time, every single time Like those. Imperial guards, the guys all in red. Ever since I saw them in Return of the Jedi, I was like those guys are cool. I want to see them do cool stuff. They're obviously badass and I have yet to see them do anything that made me go. They're worth it. 

Nate
Host
03:54
But the only time you see them is like do anything was the comics. But you know, again, the comics isn't everything and I'll be honest, I haven't read those comics, I just know of them. 

Shaun
Host
04:02
You know you did see them in one of the newer movies, return of the Jedi. I believe when…. 

Nate
Host
04:09
No, you're still standing there, yeah. 

Shaun
Host
04:11
I know. That's why I was saying they're very disappointing for being the elite crew Just standing. I mean it took three of them to take down one Mandalorian. That doesn't seem right either. 

Nate
Host
04:20
Well those weren't the Crimson Guards, those were the Pretorian Guards. Now they were still all dressed in red, and they're also supposed to be more badass than Crimson Guard. So it's… I don't know so that makes their case even worse. 

Shaun
Host
04:34
For them then, yeah, even more pathetic. 

Nate
Host
04:37
I get it Like dear the Mandalorian. It took three of them and he still couldn't take down Jinn. And okay, sure he had Besko armor, but theoretically so do they. It's… there's supposed to be a oil killing machine that works together. 

Shaun
Host
04:50
It is like… yeah, they took him down, they took Jinn down, but it wasn't easy, it took some effort. 

Nate
Host
04:55
It took some effort On top of that, like Grogu help, okay, sure, but also Grogu successfully fiddling him off, while a very unwieldy robot kinda got him away, and it's just I don't know Like I was seriously disappointed. I think there was just like they didn't want to send the Victorian guards. So they said, like the three new recruits you know, they had other more badass Victorian guards over there with Snoke or whatever Snoke, wherever he happened to be if he wasn't around then but like, oh, here's, you know, larry Curly, a mo. Fuck those guys. They came in here. 

Shaun
Host
05:29
These three guys who couldn't even make it a storm troopers, we're gonna just put them in some costumes, ha. Right, that guy's always cooking fish in the microwave with these other guys. He's late all the time. 

Nate
Host
05:39
Yeah, and this other one. There's like a big here's in the middle of a very questionable sexual harassment suit that we really just kind of was sweep under the rug. So we're gonna send them that way, hopefully something happens to him. 

Shaun
Host
05:50
It's cheaper just to have him killed in battle with the Jedi than to have all the lawsuits and everything. 

Nate
Host
05:54
He has no family, so we either pay out anything. So, who knows the big part even does pay out anything. 

Shaun
Host
05:59
I really doubt it. This is the same place. 

Nate
Host
06:00
It doesn't have handrails in all their areas where they should, so Well, you think, yeah, you dressed that, and you think about the Andor series and Andor series, the thing that made the Empire so scary was bureaucracy. So maybe they did. You know this. You know, in the movies and stuff like that they kind of look at him kind of a other evil because they kill babies. 

Shaun
Host
06:20
It's like okay, sure, but. But the other side is like, well, yeah, they're evil, but they do give me full health coverage and send a retirement plan. 

Nate
Host
06:26
So I mean, yeah, yeah and on top of that it's even scary if you realize while the Empire was killing those babies there there's a forms per baby in triplicate. They have to file, you know, through the Census Bureau to make sure their numbers are accurate and they're like okay, well, when you kill this baby, how exactly you kill this baby, because we really need it. We need all the numbers to go. I don't know what file to put this in. Do I put this under B or do I put this under S Right? 

Shaun
Host
06:51
It's all very traumatized for me, I assure you, but I'm only four years away from retirement. I'll be fine, right. 

Nate
Host
06:56
Well, back to the. I mean going back to the Ewoks. I mean I initial when I heard they were supposed to be Wookie's. 

Shaun
Host
07:02
That was what I was thinking about, because I remember you talking about how it was originally supposed to be Wookie's and you were excited yeah. 

Nate
Host
07:08
Now I actually did a little bit of poking around, and the reason why they didn't want to go with Wookie's was, like what I mentioned earlier they wanted a lesser technological species to take down the Empire Because of Chewbacca. They had established that Wookie's were technologically superior. 

Shaun
Host
07:26
Yeah, they had blasters and they could work on star fighters and so on and so forth. 

Nate
Host
07:30
I mean, I again I was like, okay, I kind of understand it, but there's still, you know, the Viet Cong. You know since I'm referring to them because Lucas did they weren't fighting American soldiers on those fucking sticks. 

Shaun
Host
07:43
You know they yeah sure they were going to have some booby traps, but they had guns too. 

Shaun
Host
07:48
It wasn't, like you said, stone Age versus Bronze Age. It was, you know, slightly more even footing. 

Nate
Host
07:53
Yeah, and so I mean the Wookie's, in my opinion, would have been a better choice. It would have been a far more exciting battle. And they're like oh you know, kids, they kids like Ewoks. I'm like, okay, yeah, sure, but I know. 

Shaun
Host
08:06
I was little, only the slower kids. It eat paste. I didn't know it wasn't a huge thing. 

Nate
Host
08:11
As a child, I've been way more excited if a bunch of Wookie's had come out and like started attacking people Just picking up on ripping Stormtroopers in half like nobody's been. 

Shaun
Host
08:20
It would have made more sense if, like you had, one Wookie using a Stormtrooper to beat another Stormtrooper. 

Nate
Host
08:25
That is awesome. Meanwhile, we've got a bunch of Ewoks running around screaming like children and somehow taking an entire garrison out with sticks. 

Shaun
Host
08:35
If you think about it, the Empire would literally just carpet bomb the entire planet. They're that big of a problem. I mean. Why fight the Ewoks on the ground when you can do two miles up they? 

Nate
Host
08:44
blew up a planet to spite one princess. You're right, they didn't need to blow up Aldram. There was no political. There's no, like they weren't uprising, they weren't doing anything. It's a planet. They were just there and in fact they were a part of the Empire and a contributing part. Lord knows how much taxes they lost by destroying that planet Right. 

Shaun
Host
09:08
One of the giant commercial and political hubs of the entire galaxy. 

Shaun
Host
09:11
Yeah, not just the smartest people that are like screw it. 

Nate
Host
09:15
And not just like financial, but like human resources. I mean, it's a planet that's pumping out bodies. Many of those bodies, maybe, would go to be Stormtroopers, many of them, like, would go bureaucrats. You know the? 

Shaun
Host
09:28
people working on the Death Star. They're like, hey, we're going outside Aldram, that's my home planet, my family's down there, that's great. Wonder if we'll get some shore leave. Oh, wait a minute. Why is a can of fire warming up? 

Nate
Host
09:38
And oh, but like the why they blew up Aldram? Well, you know, princess Leia, yeah, she was a sassy bitch, so we blew it up. 

Shaun
Host
09:44
Yeah, I mean they could have just found an uninhabited rock about the same size and been like you know. We could just make an example out of this. 

Nate
Host
09:50
The Empire and the way they do things, you'd think they'd be a little more intentional. 

Shaun
Host
09:55
Yeah, a little more cost effective, more forward thinking. 

Nate
Host
09:59
You know. But again, I get you know it's, it was, it was the 70s, it was supposed to be cartoonish, it was, you know, the whole space opera, space opera. But then they did it again. Of course we could have a whole episode about my complaints about the last three, but you know they had another giant Death Star thingy and they blew up planets and at least they had it justified, like, okay, these planets rebelled. They are like the central focus of this other republic, of the new republic. We're taking those plants out so we would have a better chance of taking over everything that makes sense, but blowing a planet for no reason otherwise, just like you know yeah, take that girl Like yeah, right, you think if they they want the scrap metal off that planet or whatnot. 

10:46
I don't even know how I got here. I'll tell you a loss out. We got the train, the guys here. So going back to the Ewoks yeah, it's just I, the wookies would have been a significantly better choice and it would have made more sense. They took out entire garrison of stormtroopers, never mind teddy bears. That could be taken out with a good strong kick. Yeah right. 

Shaun
Host
11:08
Yeah, they come right up to you just like good boot right to the gut. Would probably end one of them pretty good and you'd be like being taken out by Chihuahuas. 

Nate
Host
11:15
It's like, look, I understand it, because scary, if like 52. I will start attacking you, but if you were taken down by those 52. You had it coming. Yeah, it was your time. There's no excuse while you're taking down by 52. 

Shaun
Host
11:29
Although, dude, we do have a scene later in the first movie where a Ewok attacks one of the giant Gorak, and I thought to myself, that's kind of effective. It really runs up on this little ax like chops the dude like right on his big toe knuckle. I thought to myself, oh, that would really suck. Oh, yeah, have a little teddy dude just probably like smash and then take off, like yeah, that guy might win that fight just on the grounds that I'm not chasing after them on a busted foot. But then, as we'll see later in the movie, the Ewok decided to stay around and fight and died out of the process. Oh, yeah, yeah, this was back when Star Wars wasn't afraid to kill people and, you know, not be all Palpatine's back somehow. 

Nate
Host
12:05
Yeah, that and the thing about that. I know we're jumping movies again, but think about Palpatine's back. Somehow they didn't even have the foresight to plot that at all, like, oh he's back somehow. 

Shaun
Host
12:18
Yeah, literally that's the line is Palpatine's back somehow, and everybody makes fun of that. 

Nate
Host
12:23
Yeah, and they don't even give you the option of, or not even the option, but like, even the excuse of like, oh, let's hear the thing, like, oh, let's see what happens, yeah they could have been like Palpatine's back somewhere. 

Shaun
Host
12:34
Here's the plans and what we got. We were able to get from the Empire. 

Shaun
Host
12:37
It's no one to call. 

Nate
Host
12:39
By the way he's here. And then, of course, in the very beginning, the guy's just like oh yeah, by the way. 

Shaun
Host
12:45
Yeah, poe's like Palpatine's back somehow, man, and everybody's just like huh, that's just poor writing. 

Nate
Host
12:52
Yeah, so again we're viewer. Enough, course, as we do. 

Shaun
Host
12:56
Not really. I mean we're still in Star Wars. I mean we haven't started talking about weird things. Like you know, the fish market in China That'd be more off topic than this, that's true. 

Nate
Host
13:05
So anyway, and also I looked up, both of these movies take place between Empire and Jedi. Okay, that's three years. It was three year gap between Empire and Jedi. But now, when they originally filmed these I don't know if you've you've researched this, but this again it was supposed they originally thought this movie would take place way after, but because of Wicked they had to make it more present because he was supposed to be a child in Jedi. That means during both these movies there are stormtroopers above them. They're creating, they are making the Death Star literally in orbit, like it would not be at a place if some of the establishing shots of these of these TV movies you saw the Death Star in like as a moon in the sky. 

Shaun
Host
13:50
I could almost see them going back and add that digitally after the fact, and I don't know why they have that, because yeah, that, because that seems right up their alley. But also Disney kind of distanced themselves from this movie. Even they didn't even want to put it on Disney plus until the actor Eric Walker started a petition back in the early 2000s. 

Nate
Host
14:06
They didn't get on Disney. 

Shaun
Host
14:07
Yeah, they didn't get on Disney plus till 2021 because they're just like screw it. We don't want them to know about this movie really which surprised me because anything that make them money, I would think because these movies do have their fan base kind of a oh, absolutely. 

Nate
Host
14:21
The thing that got me was they. I thought it was like when Disney took over. They're basically said okay, any of the movies that, like all movies, are basically canon. The books, comics, all that stuff are not. And I just surprised me they I mean, I guess it's far too much, but you know, they this became one of the ones like, oh, by the way, not them. 

Shaun
Host
14:43
Yeah, yeah, that is weird because they were like I guess it was just the core six movies from before time. 

Shaun
Host
14:49
I mean I off should the Christmas movie. 

Nate
Host
14:52
I get it. 

Shaun
Host
14:52
Yeah, I was just gonna say is Christmas special concert canon with the. Oh look, look, he porn. 

Nate
Host
14:57
Absolutely not, then, and you know what that is. That's correct. You know the good choice. Yeah, that way it is. Just I will. I've never sat down and actually watched the entirety of that movie, but I have like watched YouTube videos of it with people that go through. I've seen, I've basically seen the whole thing. 

Shaun
Host
15:15
I've sat down, I've watched it, beginning to end it it like, it damages your soul. 

15:22
So back to the Ewok deal. It's the post return of the Jedi era and George Lucas was making looking to make a more family geared Star Wars half-hour short for his daughter. She liked Goldilocks in the three bears. So George Lucas said, hey, you walks are kind of like bears, let's do an Ewok one shot. Whoo, whoo, my daughter will like that. I mean bears, ewoks, they're kind of the same thing, right. So yeah, they're teddy bears, yeah, exactly. 

15:45
So Lucas got his idea to get a start shot, shopping the show to networks, but random. The same problem is to do with the Christmas special. No network wanted to mess with a half-hour thing. They were like, hey, man, we like the idea of a Ewok special, make it a 90 minute movie. And you got yourself a deal. So ABC was the one that got that deal going. They got the movie to be made for their two hour movie of the week slot that I believe played on Saturdays. So George wasn't a huge fan of the fact he was gonna take his 30 minute movie and make it into a 90 minute movie because he was still Mortified about the Christmas special. He did not like that. He hated the reception, he hated how it turns out. He is scarred from that, and rightfully so. 

Nate
Host
16:23
Hey, the reception dude, you made the worst TV like ever. I mean people have died watching that movie. I don't know. 

Shaun
Host
16:29
I I completely, I completely believe that somebody in the world has to have taken their life instantly after that statistically, someone watched that show and died. 

Nate
Host
16:38
Now, was there any direct correlation? We don't know that, but statistically I guarantee you. That was the last thing someone watched before they died. 

Shaun
Host
16:48
Yep, possibly because of that movie is the last thing they watched. Right, life is going downhill. Life left me. Kids hate me. The only thing I have is this Star Wars special I've been waiting all week for. It's kind of like I tease a friend of mine they had. 

Nate
Host
17:03
They went to get a call, call an oscope and shortly the Raptor, the doctor, killed themselves. And I still tease them about that because I'm like, oh right, I don't know, whatever they saw there. 

Shaun
Host
17:16
They couldn't bear it. 

Shaun
Host
17:20
It would be awful, you just get your cold oscope. No, you're like, hey, doc, how to look at. He just has this like thousand yard stare. He's not even like in front of you, just blam, he didn't walk over this. George's pulls out this little gun case. It just puts it the car ratio. He's like can't do it, no more. Sorry. 

Nate
Host
17:37
Why he pulls up like our proxy, where you like, walks over the window, just jumps out. Yeah. 

Shaun
Host
17:42
Straight face. It's like well, got it in myself on there. I looked up that man's colon and something. Looked back, the movie has given a budget of three million dollars and, for comparison, gremlins was 11 million and red dawn was 17 million dollars, both movies released around the same time. That's a bad comparison because those are the theatrical releases, but it gets you in the ballpark, right, yeah. And return of the Jedi, I think, was like 33 million. So this may be as made on a budget of one-tenth. Return of the Jedi. It shows, yeah, oh yeah, it does. Oh, I'll say it could have been far, far worse too. So 100%. 

Nate
Host
18:18
I mean they, especially the stop motion they had, was kind of janky, but you know what it wasn't? It didn't suck actually Interesting. 

Shaun
Host
18:27
You bring that up. We'll get into the stop motion coming up here soon, because they actually, because the budget was so low, they had to cut some corners and not do things as fancy as they did in the Star Wars movies. Stop motion was one of them. What dude who had kind of an interesting History on the production staff was the man who did the soundtrack, peter Bernstein. He did the John Candy movie, canadian bacon, will Smith's Wild Wild West and the movie Silent Rage, where Chuck Norris battles a mentally ill man who's granted night in vulnerability from medical experiments. Which that sounds like a fun romp. It does sound like one wrong. Just Chuck Norris chasing down some giant dude who's like I, like chocolate milk and beating them up actually flashed to the that would have stood up. 

Nate
Host
19:08
Cowboy bebop with a. The guy was floating around, he was a baby, he was like a child and man's body. Oh yeah, remember that one. Yeah, that was one of the best episodes of cowboy bebop, one of my favorites. It really was. They really was one of the best ones. I and I am. I've heard pretty negative things, like when people talk about the live action one and they talk about, like why they have issues with it that episode they bring up a lot. 

Shaun
Host
19:30
Yeah, I can go on for about 15 minutes on why that live-action remake just completely. I see you need to, because then we can complain about it. Yeah, I mean watch the very first cowboy bebop live-action one, because that's Mirror of the very first cowboy bebop one, which is a very good episode. Is wonder, the guys have that a spray that they spray in their eyes? Yeah, drug runners, yeah. 

Nate
Host
19:52
And they basically get addicted to that and we do a mini episode of that because that we we don't necessarily need to do a deep dive like we like yeah, it'd be a pretty good mini episode. 

Shaun
Host
19:59
Yeah, just watch those two episodes, and then we can just sit around and complain, because I do have strong feelings on why they completely messed up that series, especially that one episode. 

Nate
Host
20:08
Well, they shouldn't just left it alone, like, those episodes are great, they are great in anime. Leave them be there's. You know, unlike some of the other things, like you, okay, avatar, avatar has a very specific story, so if you could do a live-action you really need to start. Okay, this, you know, they find aang, they have adventures. They get the water people. They, you know he, the, you know water teacher. They get a stone teacher. They're gonna fire. You know all, all the stuff. Okay, there is a formula and a story behind that. But for cowboy bebop, yeah, there are spikes. That there was a spike thing, but that wasn't really the driving force behind the anime. It was kind of like oh, by the way, this is happening to. The shows were basically kind of one-offs, like, okay, here's our zone of the week, let's go ahead and take him out. 

Shaun
Host
20:54
I mean, sometimes they have like a three, a couple episode arc. But yeah, for the most part is just one-shot things. 

Nate
Host
21:00
Yeah, there was no reason to follow it like blow by blow. In fact, I heard something. See my scene. 

Shaun
Host
21:05
Yeah, they could have also just completed it on hey cowboy bebop. They lost missions and just wrote all new stuff. Absolutely rewrite the old stuff. Absolutely, because there is plenty of gaps in the original storyline where it's like, hey, they were doing nothing for a couple of weeks. Figure out something, I mean. I mean it was before spike died. There you go, yeah, yeah, yes, exactly, just be like hey. And before spike died there was a lot of downtime that we didn't show the first time. 

Nate
Host
21:26
Here's those lost missions and in the series either they did. They didn't really do a timeline. Okay, it was short enough time between episodes. They didn't age significantly, but those you know, it could have been like a year or two between episodes, yep. 

Shaun
Host
21:40
This there's yeah, cuz there's plenty of times where it was just like, hey, we're gonna cut in on them sitting around in their ship, broke with no food and nothing and having no jobs for Laurel knows how long. 

Nate
Host
21:50
Yeah, I mean, okay, we're, we're getting up, you know, try to get back to the walks, but yeah, that's. They could have done something like that and there was no reason to tie it down Like they did. 

Shaun
Host
22:00
Yeah, I will say the casting was pretty good that they did on that. That was the people I got pretty spot on. 

Nate
Host
22:05
I'll give you that and I will say I did. I did feel kind of crappy because you know, when they they cast the female, you know I for a minute before I caught myself, you know, being a toxic man, I was like, but her boobs, but I mean I yes that I'm gonna tell you right now I'm the bad person for thinking that and I realized that it's not about that. It's about the actor and what they can do and what understand like they. Her look otherwise was fine. You know, it really like in terms of like rest of there, I haven't, still haven't seen it. It's not at how our performance was, but from what I can see, I've taken out that little, like the little 13 year old boy in me who wanted to see her dress anime accurate. Yeah, I said been a hint. Yeah, I've been a porn. Yeah, pretty much. 

Shaun
Host
22:49
I get it. 

Shaun
Host
22:50
It's fine, here's your six inches of cloth to cover your entire body. Lady Mmm Although her outfits weren't really Scandals is so much seen in an oh no or even regular animation, I mean yeah, in regular anime. 

Nate
Host
23:02
I mean she was tame, you know, let's be real. I mean hell, even like Japanese fighting games. She was. 

Shaun
Host
23:11
Here's a cat girl and nothing but a tiny string bikini, but I I had. 

Nate
Host
23:16
Back when I used. I saw her. You know I wasn't super young, but you know I was a teenager or late teens, early 20s. You know she made me feel, have funny feelings there. 

Shaun
Host
23:26
That's what she was designed to do, and she did exactly mission and also it was. It just looks to she had cool personality as well. Mmm, yeah, which kind of helped things. It was like, oh, she's a badass and hot. Which right kind of a double whammy in my mind Now. Well, we're talking about the casting of cowboy bebop. We can go into the casting of the you fuck movie so far as actor casting. Warwick Davis got to return his wicket because, I mean, who else are you gonna get for wicked? 

Nate
Host
23:50
The dude is the consummate you walk and he's a pretty good actor, although but let's be real, let's be real, even if they did recast them, no one of them, no. 

Shaun
Host
23:59
but I Do not, I wouldn't know but I agree, like I'm they. 

Nate
Host
24:03
I'm glad they did. It was 100% the right thing to recast them. But let's, let's not kid ourselves. If they got some others little person to come in there, do it, that it no one notice. 

Shaun
Host
24:13
I'm kind of jumping ahead myself, but what a lot of people are saying is one reason that Lucas one warwick Davis back in this. Because Lucas one do and Work a little bit more with warwick Davis and get some stuff done or a Experiment a little bit with shooting, get some techniques down for a movie he was gonna do with warwick Davis eventually called the willow. Okay, thanks, that's yeah. And if you watch these movies it does have a willow feel about it. Yeah, I'll give you the high adventure wandering through the countryside. I'll say will is a far better movie. Oh, absolutely, which I need to rewatch. That I will say the TV series is pretty good. Did you watch that? I have not. 

Nate
Host
24:46
Okay, I heard a lot people complaining about it, but I mean, I have with. 

Shaun
Host
24:50
It is in the first, like third of the season or maybe the first half. The acting is Really wooden at times, especially warwick Davis. It feels like he literally just like glass, that his lines walked on set. It was like we're going east and then just walked off, I mean. But it kind of settles down a little bit after that. But yeah, at the end there's few lines region like what the hell is going on? You talk about the series, right? Yes, the series, yep, so it, the series, does have some issues, but overall it's pretty good. It's a fun little romp and also what. I was looking through the credits I realized I learned that Tony Cox was in the movie and one of the original Ewoks themselves. Tony Cox is a dwarf actor from me myself, irene Friday in bad Santa. That that's kind of nifty to learn. Oh, yeah, I think. I think I'm gonna talk about yeah. 

Nate
Host
25:36
Blackboard war factor. 

Shaun
Host
25:37
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, he had a real good run like in the late 90s, but he was one the original Ewoks. I did not know that, huh. 

Nate
Host
25:44
Yeah, I mean the big, and also not that surprising, because no, it's not because there's only so many of those actors. 

Shaun
Host
25:49
I mean yeah. 

Nate
Host
25:50
I remember there was a when they were trying to shoot what I can't remember to try to shoot, but like some other movie was being shot that use little people as well. So, like Hollywood was devoid of little people for actors, they're like oh my god. 

Shaun
Host
26:03
Yeah right, they all took a job in Mexico for a couple weeks. Back to the casting for the role of whiny Jack. As mace to Wanny, they hired actor Eric Walker. Eric became a child actor at the age of six. Why? Because his mom wanted a child actor, started with a Jack-in-the-box commercial and then had a couple bit rolls on TV before this movie including a one-shot on the show Webster, which was you remember that? That's one of those odd early 80s movies were a rich white dude decided to buy a black kid and yeah, as a pet sort of thing. Yeah, there was like a rash of those, and the one old rich white dude owned like a girl robot, which is kind of creepy too. 

Nate
Host
26:39
Oh yeah, I yeah a lot of like early. Well, okay, I like it in memory. 

Shaun
Host
26:44
Yeah yeah, it's a kid you can watch it like buzz it until it's like something seems odd about a rich old white man owning a you know, robotic daughter. 

Nate
Host
26:51
Yeah, in memory it like yeah, yeah, yeah, it is super creepy like completely lifelike daughter. You know a cool girl daughter and, like you, you could easily erase their memory. 

Shaun
Host
27:02
Yeah, right, Just about say she probably has a little like refit set format switch on the back. Well, I'll just reboot her to begin this day. 

Nate
Host
27:09
Yeah oh, she does that. She saw or Contributed in something that's like a tour that any other person will be horrified the rest of our life. 

Shaun
Host
27:17
All the do is right, I've got this button here. I'll just reset that whole Epstein Island experience from her mind I. Don't know why they programmed this robot to cry. Oh wait, yeah I do. Why did you put on? 

Nate
Host
27:30
me to feel pain. 

Shaun
Host
27:30
Yeah, why I? 

Nate
Host
27:33
Hate that kid by the way back to the back of the me walks. I hate that kid. 

Shaun
Host
27:37
I mean you to I remember watching this movie as a little kid and I even hated them. Back then I was like you, whiny little chode. 

Nate
Host
27:43
He is because of every Problem they have on that. Yes, every single one. He, he causes all of it. In fact, it was his fault. His parents got caught in the first place because he watered off as parents chase after they got checked but captured, and then they, and then, when the Ewoks helped them, they Find them, they take them back to their home, where there's clearly part of a settlement, and he's like he calls them. 

Shaun
Host
28:14
It's like yep doesn't know like savages. Don't listen to them. I don't like they. 

Nate
Host
28:20
I know they look like bears, but they clearly have intelligence. This is a. These are people. These are people. 

Shaun
Host
28:28
I kind of. 

Nate
Host
28:29
Do it. 

Shaun
Host
28:30
I was gonna say and I can kind of get it when they first showed up and he just the first time he saw the Ewoks with his sister kind of freaking out, but they very clearly made it be like, hey, man, we're not even a problem. Even his sister was like they're not doing anything, they're not hurt. 

Nate
Host
28:42
He's like no, I'm gonna shoot him yeah and and it's like, and the reason why he gets in all this trouble, like during it, because he's being a dick just Like he they escape and that they first of all the big monster chase him. And because they escaped when there's no reason to escape, like that they could have said bye or whatever, like they were sneak together, like they're being held hostage and they weren't, yeah. And then when they finally try to like I remember what else they were doing they were doing a similar thing and he saw this cute little thing in a tree and he goes to grab it. 

Shaun
Host
29:13
Why did you do that? I want to know, because he saw that cute thing and he literally went over there and it wasn't like he wanted to pet it, it's like he wanted to yank it out of there and like eat it or something. Yeah, it's like man come on. 

Nate
Host
29:23
Have you not learned anything since you've last, since I don't know, five seconds ago? Right? 

Shaun
Host
29:31
And it's just so irresponsible. I've lived in this corner of the world my entire life and I still would not stick my hand in a tree not knowing what's in there, so right. And I think I might get stung by a bee First. I get eaten by one of those things in a tree, like he did. 

Nate
Host
29:45
And even to the very end of the movie where he's like he kind of lurches less than whatever he's still, I mean I'm super glad Like he deserved to be killed offscreen on the next movie. 

Shaun
Host
29:56
Right, if that did Not even the benefit of having a good on-screen death. Just literally we're going to show a cannon fire and then a little. 

Nate
Host
30:04
Absolutely. He did not deserve to leave that planet and he deserved to. He deserved to end on that planet with offscreen. 

Shaun
Host
30:12
Yeah, it would almost be worth thinking of. Maybe he was just paralyzed from the attack and not dead, and just kind of had to lay there and get eaten by ants. Right, annoying they shut. 

Nate
Host
30:19
They shut that building up, build down on him. He's like weekly crying out. He's like his dead mom. He's like mother it slowly bleeds out. 

Shaun
Host
30:30
Or he's just paralyzing the space pirates from like pleasure slave and drag him off. 

Nate
Host
30:35
Oh, I didn't jump into another part. I know I'm jumping into the movie a little bit, but they're just reminding me there's just. So, yeah, I mean another part that I really enjoyed, like I enjoyed, you know, maliciously. So you know, they run into the, the wisps and they should call them wisps. Like if you listen to the Ewoks they call them wisps and they're flying around and then the little girl comes out with a candle and it absorbs all the wisdom to the candle except for one. And then, keep in mind, this just happened. It happened a few heartbeats ago even, and she looked, they go down, he captures the little wisp and he's looking at it and it's looking all sad and this little bitch goes. 

Shaun
Host
31:17
Oh, it lost his family like us. You just killed their family Like the reason why she's sad it's your fault. 

Nate
Host
31:27
You murdered their entire like village and now you're like oh, she says let's laugh at how cute I bet you that thing was trying to murder them. It just like was so weak to like. Oh ha ha ha. They're like rolling around laughing just taking them. He's doing everything I can to get vengeance. 

Shaun
Host
31:44
Like, I will destroy you. Try to like, try to like, fly off his nose and destroy his brain. 

Shaun
Host
31:49
I just couldn't believe. Oh, if this is his family. 

Nate
Host
31:51
I'm like are you kidding me? You are the cause of that pain. 

Shaun
Host
31:55
I know I really want that line to be given to Darth Vader after he blow up Alderaan and look it over. They make oh, she lost her family Just changed all. 

Nate
Host
32:07
Oh, oh, you lost your family. 

Shaun
Host
32:09
Well, whoo whoo. Also too, after that little sprite thing, there's a point where Mace just grabs and sticks in his pocket for the rest of this movie. Yeah, it just you know, they just hold it out like a little fucking item, like he's linked from the Zelda games, just like. Here's my sprite. 

Nate
Host
32:25
I mean, and I guess it did kind of help the end with the giant flew around his head and stuff, but even that it's probably flying up a giant. 

Shaun
Host
32:32
Help me, help me. These sons of bitches are crazy. 

Shaun
Host
32:36
Kill them, kill them. They're over there. 

Shaun
Host
32:38
Please, for the love of God, in this life of torture I've been stuck in this dude's stinky pocket. But yeah, oh, also that thing that grabbed his hand and pulled him into the tree, that little critter, that puppet was actually the repurposed puppet from the asteroid that tried to eat the Lillian Paltry. That makes sense. 

Nate
Host
32:55
I thought I saw a thing before. Yep, I can see that. 

Shaun
Host
32:56
Yeah, yeah that was what I was going to see on the right. I'm like, oh yeah, I feel like I knew that once before. But yeah, they just repurposed that through some moss on it and I just grabbed the kid and like, ah, ah, ah, ah. 

Nate
Host
33:05
And it makes you wonder like what? What was the evolutionary thing that would make? Like, ok, I know, if I bring this little cute thing up it's going to attract what you know. I mean, there's only so many stupid humans wandering through those woods to grab that thing, maybe whatever that was looked delicious to you or something. 

Shaun
Host
33:26
Now, fair enough, yeah, possibly. But yeah, you're right, that is a very odd evolution unless, like, the thing is part of the tree or something through that whole trees alive. 

Nate
Host
33:39
So the you walk? Oh, we were just taking with the first move right now, right, yes, ok. 

Shaun
Host
33:44
So I mean we kind of drift into the second one. They're I mean well. 

Nate
Host
33:47
I mean, I wasn't really going to talk. It's just one thing about this movie and I was going to. I'll talk about the other thought about this. But One thing about this movie was it really does kind of it emulates Europeans going to other countries and they're like oh, this person speaking another language. 

Shaun
Host
34:08
So I'm going to in English, speak louder, and I don't see it, speak louder and start yelling at them, because I don't understand them. 

Shaun
Host
34:17
No, they were not to do something. 

Shaun
Host
34:18
I'm going to be like it's OK, I'm white, I know what I'm doing, and then probably get killed. 

Nate
Host
34:22
And then until the movie, like the Ewoks, drop English in there. I don't know if you notice that. Well, yes, they do. Well, the wizard lady is like oh, you know you, you threw it away. Like, wait, what? Why are you speaking it? Because it's one thing that they had it like a montage. They're trying to teach them English, but I guess the Ewoks are pretty intelligent, but they're usually words that no business knowing, right, yeah, I mean, at what context would you understand? 

Shaun
Host
34:50
Yeah, what I think it would put the girls is like star cruise already, immediately we could grab these. Like star cruise are up in the skies, Like we make them make this first fly. It's like it doesn't. 

Nate
Host
35:00
I mean unless there's somehow telepathic. 

Shaun
Host
35:01
but that doesn't mean makes it, it's either there is magic in this world which kind of adds a whole weird element to the Star Wars universe. 

Nate
Host
35:08
Well, not really. That's canon. Like there's canon, there's magic because there's force. Yeah, first of all, there's a force. But if you watch the Clone Wars, the race Darth Maul comes from they, they are a series of female led witches. They are force witches and they actually have magic. So it's like they, they're, they interact with the force differently. They, they basically. They don't unlike Jedi and Sith, where it's like feel the force and they manipulate it. They can actively go in there and change things using the force as a magic medium. So that actually is now. 

35:43
That being said, this took place in the 80s, so you also have to realize this came out probably around the like the Thrawn series. You also came out at this time they had really established the force. Yet Because if you read, like the original head of Thrawn books or, I'm sorry, air of the Empire books, the Jedi are doing things that is ridiculous. Like it just it makes no sense. And if you try to place that into like, as we know, jedi's now, it just doesn't work. There's no crossover. They like they were just doing that, was it? There was, I think, one point they created a thunderstorm out of nothing. Like Just can't do that. Yeah, so. 

Shaun
Host
36:25
But anyway sometimes they play pretty loosey goosey with Jedi powers and what they do. Yeah, oh, yeah so. 

Nate
Host
36:31
I forgave, you know, I forgave the magic. It's OK, that's fine, but I was going to have another point I was going to go to Thrawn books came out in 1993, so about eight years later. Ok, ok. I had a point, I was going to say it and I got lost. 

Shaun
Host
36:50
And it was about force magic and how it's actually part of the war universe. Ok, anyways, back to Eric Walker, actor for Widening Mace Tawani. So yeah, anyways, after the E walk movies he didn't do a whole lot of acting after that, of note, he did have a bit of parents in the new leave it to be for show that ran in the eighties on the Disney network and something I didn't know. Disney Network spent around since 1983. I for somebody and I thought it was like one of those nineties inventions, but it started in 1983 and ran a 7 am to an 11 pm programming shift back in the Stone Age when TV stations were 24 hours. 

Nate
Host
37:27
Remember that night back when there's like sign offs and yeah, you wake up like America. It was like America's beautiful, or whatever playing and playing. 

Shaun
Host
37:36
It's like, oh yeah, yeah. 

Shaun
Host
37:38
That's how. That's how they. That was the trope they used in movies back then that you knew somebody over slept on the couch when they'd wake up and it was like a test pattern. It's like, oh, they slept well into the morning. 

Nate
Host
37:46
Well, it was that up until the nineties. Then if they want to prove someone was waking up very late, it would be like, okay, these college girls are going down oh yeah, they're like oh right. That's what you knew. You slept late with the girl, oh well commercial starts over now. 

Shaun
Host
38:04
The one I always remember from late night TV is the education connection commercial. Get connected for free with education connection. Get connected for free. Maybe because it was for like a, like a West Coast college thing. I think this is back in the early 2000s. Ok, if you were awake after like one pm. That commercial literally played every commercial chunk, sometimes twice. 

Nate
Host
38:27
Well, I was up there the early 2000s, but I don't remember that. 

Shaun
Host
38:31
Yeah, you probably don't remember, because I mean, you probably didn't hear it the trillions of times I did, because there was almost always a TV on the background overnight while I was asleep. Thirty years, so, yeah, I just kind of got drilled into my head. 

Nate
Host
38:42
I would play DVDs and stuff to help me go to sleep. 

Shaun
Host
38:43
I didn't, so I didn't have TV back in the day when it was a big flex to have DVD box sets of series because you couldn't get them anywhere else. Right, I have all the family guys on DVD and people are like, oh, that's snazzy. 

Nate
Host
38:55
Yep, I just put you since the family guy, because a lot of times I would be family guy helping go to sleep, because that's basically the. I didn't have many DVDs with the family guys box sets, they're one of them, yep, and you just put them on. 

Shaun
Host
39:04
And the nice thing about family guys, they're kind of random enough that they didn't, you know, really get into a pattern for you Right, sort of yeah. And after the new Leave it To Beaver show, little Eric Walker did a couple of shows here and there every year until the early 2000s when he moved on to just mostly music production. Oh, he did do one movie I know I recognize, and that movie was called was the early 90s and you thought your parents were weird. That was a movie where the soul and voice of a dead, Alan thick, gets put into a robot body and that robot goes back to raising Alan thick's family and porking his wife and all sorts of stuff. 

39:37
But you know how they do yeah, yeah you can actually picture exactly how that movie goes over, because, if I recall, like the dad died off cameras, like, oh, the family said we're going to take his mind and put in this robot he is working on, and then he made me believe the entire family is like oh, that's our robot, dad. Yay, raise me daddy, love me daddy. 

Nate
Host
39:56
You would think that would cause more pain than anything else. Like then they can't, they can't get past it, yeah right. 

Shaun
Host
40:01
There's like no possible healing. It's like, oh, neat. And then he's recording of my dad's voice playing over and over again, following me around. 

Nate
Host
40:08
And then it's like, okay, is this actually the dad, like his soul in here? Is it just like his, his data, you know, the data of his memories? 

Shaun
Host
40:17
So basically just listening to a long voicemail from him. 

Nate
Host
40:19
Right, right, it's like like an AI with like okay, they gave me this info, some of PC's words together, and give them back an input. Oh, I have a brother to say earlier. Again, going back to the and I know it's like I'm down to W2 deep into this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Oh, there's never too deep of a dive for us. So in this movie they stab. First of all, they meet the humans. Okay, they met humans. Again, this takes place before the return of the Jedi. In return of the Jedi, when they meet humans, they catch them, and with the intent to eat them Yep, they are meals. But meanwhile they find a couple of children and like, oh, hey, kids, let's help you guys out Now. And you could say, oh, it's a different tribe, no, it's not, because wicked to their too. 

Shaun
Host
41:06
Like, so it's the same tribe now, after you met that whiny kid, wouldn't you want to eat all humans you met afterwards? 

Nate
Host
41:14
Well, you know when they do eventually take off and, you know, flash for the second movie a little bit when, when they leave, like bye, I miss you, you're my best friend, blah, blah, blah. And on top of that, like in the second movie again, I'm not going too deep with this one, though, but they learn English now. 

Shaun
Host
41:29
Oh yep, and they sure didn't know English when they met Princess Leah, yeah, I mean. Yeah, I mean there's like although honestly that might have been just the AR Explaining their hands close to their chest, their cards close to their chest. Be like yo, yo, yo, we can speak their language. Don't let them know that. Don't let them know. 

Nate
Host
41:44
Well, and first of all, like these, ewis must be very intelligent, because not only do they learn English fairly quickly, but also it says some of the humans didn't learn any EWAC. They never bothered to learn one. At no point Does any human characters say anything. 

Shaun
Host
42:01
If this goes back to the colonization theme, actually like oh, inferior walks in their language, screwed them, speak English, god's language, yeah you guys are lesser Well and we ended, I mean, in the Star Wars universe. 

Nate
Host
42:14
English is basic, so, because that's why they kind of allow everyone to kind of speak, it's like, okay, this you know, as a galaxy, since we're one big kind of community of you know, they're space-faring people, we need one, like everyone has their own language, common tongue basically. But we need one common tongue that we can, like different planets can communicate with each other, and that's basically what they said. Okay, english, is that Fair enough? You know what I get behind that, but what I can't get behind is some random EWAC. I think it was never seen a human before busting on English within a span of like a couple of weeks. 

Shaun
Host
42:46
Right, it feels like it's even less than that. I felt like the end of a conversation. They're rattling off three word phrase and stuff. 

Nate
Host
42:52
Because the kids like, this whole caravan of courage took place probably in the span of a few days. Let's be crazy and say a couple of weeks, you know with the whole travel let's be crazy, it wasn't, but let's pretend like it was there's still not enough time to learn the whole language. And then again, jumping is kind of popular. In the next movie, for a little bit, it takes place not that much longer, you know, because there's still the little girl, still a little girl, and they you know the parents are trying to fix the spaceship. Not much time has passed Meanwhile. Like, not just wicked, but a lot of them are fairly passable in English. 

Shaun
Host
43:29
This is very true. So what we determined is EWAC are a lot smarter than we think. They are Right, Almost devilishly smart. Two At one point they were the most advanced race in the entire universe, and they're just like. You know what? We want to go back to a simpler time. 

Nate
Host
43:43
Right, well, and you know, if I had, a lot of EWACs eventually got wiped out. Then there's the Death Star blow up overhead. You have a big, giant space station like that, oh yeah, it was just raining down all sorts of debris. 

43:54
It was visible from the ground, so you know it blew up right over their heads and so a significant maybe it didn't happen right away because they were, you know, they were safe enough, you know, during, you know, so they had a little party afterward. But once all the people left, I mean even if some of that large space debris kind of hung up in the air for a while, some of it's going to come down, like the gravity invention is going to hit and it's going to become, you know, it's going to cause some pretty substantial natural disaster. Well, not natural disasters, but fires. 

Shaun
Host
44:21
There's going to be some insurance claims on that planet, is what you're saying. Exactly, yeah, but we never established what there was. 

Nate
Host
44:28
But here's the thing we keep on saying indoor, it's not indoor. 

Shaun
Host
44:31
It's the forest. 

Nate
Host
44:32
Yeah, Is that the name? Like they, I mean we don't call the moon. We don't call the moon like I don't know the rock and moon of earth. Yeah, the rock the rock mover. That's dumb. 

Shaun
Host
44:45
So yeah, honestly, I can totally see why people get confused over the indoor being the name of the planet in this net, Cause I thought the name of the planet was indoor forever. You know cause forest moved indoor and be like saying, hey, the prince of France, or something. 

Nate
Host
44:56
I don't know. It's the Frankenstein thing. Everyone thinks Frankenstein is the monster. It's not. Frankenstein is the doctor. The monster doesn't have a name the monster, it's just Frankenstein's monster. 

Shaun
Host
45:06
Yeah, yeah, but by the same token, everybody knows what you're talking about when you mention it. Have we ever actually seen what's on the real planet? 

Nate
Host
45:12
indoor, though, no they don't think we've ever gone there. I mean it has to be some kind of earth like thing, Cause you see it from. You could see the planet in this movie. You know it's up above, as it should be. It's pretty large because you're on a moon, You're not. 

Shaun
Host
45:26
Yeah, it'd be odd if the moon was smaller or bigger than the planet it was circling. 

Nate
Host
45:29
Here's the thing, though when you're on the moon, like our moon, and seeing earth, earth isn't that big, it's actually fairly small. It looks like the moon from the moon. 

Shaun
Host
45:38
Yeah, it's a long ways away. 

Nate
Host
45:40
Yeah, but in this movie the planet's pretty big, it takes up a decent chunk of the sky. So it makes you wonder how close that moon is and problem yeah, wouldn't that affect the gravity Cause? It's, the whole thing is about gravity and you know if we're that, if they're that close, there must be some wonky, as gravity is just because you know the moon affects us. It makes the ties go up and down. Jesus look, can you imagine the gravitational forces was doing to the half the time? 

Shaun
Host
46:05
you're sandwiched to the ground. The other half, you're slightly floating above it. 

Nate
Host
46:09
Yeah, it's like, okay, don't go over and make sure you're, you know, laying flat on your back between the hours of this and this, or else you're crushed. All your bones will break. 

Shaun
Host
46:19
The equinox is happening this Friday. Everybody has to get in a cave and lay perfectly flat for two hours, otherwise you will lose your all bone structure. 

Nate
Host
46:26
But maybe that's why the Ewoks are so short, like their bone density is like yeah, they're, you know they're short for the bone density. You can't like, even with a tongue's, a knife, you know, shot by a rocket, you're not getting through those bones. 

Shaun
Host
46:37
Right Turns out those Ewoks. Small as they are, they each weigh about 450 pounds, Just like solid muscle and bone. 

Nate
Host
46:44
Adimentium type thing Like it's like made of. It's cut through everything, Ewok bone. You'll never believe the things that you're seeing have destroyed. 

Shaun
Host
46:52
So the dark sabers originally invented for Ewok flaying. 

Nate
Host
46:56
Exactly. 

Shaun
Host
46:57
So the production crew on this movie, the Ewok movie thought it would be fun to give Eric and Warwick a Mike Cameron some editing equipment and let them go around do a behind the scenes style documentary. The duo called themselves W&W Productions and you can find this video on YouTube. It's about 12 minutes long and I think it's kind of worth checking out. It's got some neat little behind the scenes things going on. Did you see it at all? 

Nate
Host
47:18
No, how old was he when he? 

Shaun
Host
47:20
did that, though how old was Warwick when he did that Warwick was 14 years old in this and if you watch this special he looks like he's about eight. He is a freaky young looking. And this also confused me, because I know this, I never put much thought into it, but I always assumed Warwick was like in his 20s when he was wicking and whatnot, because that's just kind of what I assume all actors are when they start. But yeah, what else did I realize he was like 12, I think in Return of the Jedi. 

Nate
Host
47:47
That makes I mean yeah, I knew he was young, I thought he was younger than that. But yeah, it makes sense. 

Shaun
Host
47:51
Yeah, but the production thing was actually kind of fun. You guys see some behind the scenes stuff, talk to a couple of people and one of the production staff kind of shared an interesting story. He went on to talk about how in a previous movie he worked on him and the crew were setting up this shot where an actor was supposed to go up on a roof and do a scene. Well, it turns out that actor was like apparently dead scared of heights. Like, even though he was like one story up on top of like a garage roof, they had to set up this whole safety setup and whatnot, because he was just not going up there, did not like heights. But the crew thought this was kind of weird. They're like hey man, of course that dude likes heights. He was a carpenter before he was an actor and I've never seen him on roofs before. Yeah, who worked for Lucas? That used to be a carpenter before he was an actor Harrison Ford, correct? 

48:36
So I'm guessing Harrison Ford might be afraid of heights Kind of, especially with the way the guy in the interview was kind of like sly about it. 

Nate
Host
48:42
But yeah, this carpenter dude didn't want to go up on a roof. Yeah, yeah, I can see him sliding that in there. 

Shaun
Host
48:48
Yeah, but honestly I can't fault Harrison Ford because my balance is bad and I don't like being on a roof, so because I will literally like tip over on solid level ground sometimes. So I've changed. 

Nate
Host
48:58
Actually, as I've gotten older, I've gotten more freaked out by the stuff like I don't know, like my I don't know. I just can't do as much as I know yeah. 

Shaun
Host
49:06
I know some people that all their life so you can just go up on roofs and they'll just run around doing cartwheels and wrestling people and people that back in high school they would go up on their two story house and they would have like wrestling matches and try to throw each other off the roof. 

Nate
Host
49:18
I used to have no fear, and I mean that when I used to work movie theater. What I would do is like the wall was kind of had a bunch of grooves in it, but what deep grooves, like it was kind of a wavy sidewalls. I would get a ladder of a position, the like the right side of the ladder, just kind of inside that really small groove. That would climb almost all the way the top that later and change the light bulb and I mean one side of the ladder is swinging around in the air, the other side of the ladder is kind of tucked into a very small like little wave in the wall and like I mean it took a lot of balance but I did it with no problem. 

Shaun
Host
49:50
And, of course too, you know you're like a foot off, so you got one foot on the ladder and you're stretching out, reaching towards that light bulb. 

Nate
Host
49:55
Yeah, and you're like no fear. No fear, just like whatever, here I go. 

Shaun
Host
50:00
Now days is a little somebody asked Now days is a little, somebody asked you do that. You're like hey, you go, screw yourself, buddy. 

Nate
Host
50:05
Yeah, that's not going to happen. 

Shaun
Host
50:07
I've even seen people do that thing where they got a ladder leaning against the wall and they need to move it over a few feet. So they'll just kind of like lean back a little bit and just like hop, jump the ladder over to the right of that A few feet. Yeah, I'm just like that. 

Nate
Host
50:19
But not not as far back as working with theater. I used to do work at Macy's doing rugs and hanging. I had to hang rugs and that was me. Some of these rugs are upwards of 50 pounds and so I had I actually got pretty good. I get the ladder out and I would basically cradle the rug and roll the rug up a certain way and then cradle it as I climb the ladder. It's very top of the ladder, take the top, take the rug, and you got to clip hooks on there, need to lift it up like one side and clip the hooks over the, over the bar and then push it off and it would unroll. And there you go. But man, I there are several times like I'm standing on the. I'm standing on the very top of the ladder, not just not to say, oh, don't go past this part, I would pass that part, I'm standing on top of the ladder. 

Shaun
Host
50:59
Yeah, it's like do not use this as a step, do not go past this step. Yeah, and who listens to that? I've never met someone. That's just a recommendation. 

Nate
Host
51:06
Yeah, I've never met someone who's never like, oh, I'd never go. The science has to do is dangerous. Not everyone I've ever been like. 

Shaun
Host
51:13
Oh yeah, I totally said that they take that as a challenge. If anything, Right. Yeah, Sometimes I wish I had better balance, but then other times I just realized it probably would have gotten me in trouble and more broken bones than I want. 

Nate
Host
51:24
Yeah, Fair enough. With great risk comes great Well reward and also failure. 

Shaun
Host
51:29
Yeah, yeah, great failure, and I tend to lean more on the failure side. It feels like so I know, so I get it with the roast because those things got me a pain to move, because that's like literal, just dead floppy weight. It's awesome. 

Nate
Host
51:41
Yeah. 

Shaun
Host
51:42
It's not like lifting wood or something that has some rigidity. It's something that you pick up and it's just like fighting you every inch of the way, and they would dump a bunch of rugs on us. 

Nate
Host
51:48
I mean, I'm here, I have flipping a nine by 12 rug and a bunch of them on top of each other and I'm really supposed to have like maybe 20 stack on top and there would be sometimes there'd be like 35 stack on top of this, so like, and then some dickhead would come in and go. Can I see the bottom one? 

Shaun
Host
52:00
Yeah, how you, son of a bitch and so. 

Nate
Host
52:03
I, you know, I flip them all back. You flip them back to like halfway and even if you're back halfway, you start piling up. So by the time you get to the bottom one, they can only see about 25% of it, and so, and then if they like that rug, then a real journey begins. Then you roll that bottom rug up to the point where you can't roll anymore, and then you have to take the whole side and flop it back over, like put it back down. They go to the other side. Now you have to flip it back even more because you're trying to get that bottom rug. It is a process. 

Shaun
Host
52:30
And all the hell. The customer's watching you being like oh, that looks like hard work, young man. 

Nate
Host
52:34
And you're like it really sucks when there's like it's on sale, on clearance. It's like $500 rug. Now, as a as a someone who's buying something, $500 is the significant amount of money. Like I am, I am. I can't think of the last thing I bought. That was not just like frivolous but just, you know, not necessary. That was $500. Yeah, but then that $500, I got maybe, I don't know, 10 bucks off that. So here I am killing myself for like 10 to $50, you know, for a cheap rug it was ugh. 

Shaun
Host
53:04
Yeah, and I like it's like wow, I could just throw on a disc doing this accidentally and that would be the end of that. Yeah. 

Nate
Host
53:10
I would actively sometimes talk to people out of it Just like, uh, are you sure you want that one? 

Shaun
Host
53:15
Be like. Well, it takes me at least a half hour to get the rug sorted out, so you'd need to go to lunch and come back. 

Nate
Host
53:20
Yeah, I would recommend. I would recommend they give us somewhere else. But a lot of times are like, oh, I gotta go, you go get this now. I'm like fine, cause I can't, they're not going to. Let me say no, yeah, right. 

Shaun
Host
53:31
Okay, ewoks. So, despite that interesting info that we got about Harrison Ford from the documentary, w and W studios was a complete failure. It shut down and laid off all its employees all two the same year as founded Tragic, isn't it? Yeah, so you're young and up in coming studio dead in the water. Apparently, they actually got, like, uh, I LM equipment to go back to their hotel room and edit all the stuff on too. So that must have been kind of fun, cause back then it was hard to get film editing equipment, far as I know. 

Nate
Host
54:00
Yeah, I mean, that's that's the whole revolution of, you know, entertainment. Digital, yeah, it's like once digital came out and then smartphones, and then suddenly you know these people who are these niche markets going? Oh well, you know you need to pay me X amount of money because I'm the only one has equipment. Now it's like, um, my 10 year old has that equipment. Like they can make right, they could make something. Honestly, no, I'm not going to say you know production quality, like I'm not going to say it's a million dollar movie quality, that's cause, that's stupid, but it a decent quality, enough to where it's like not an embarrassment. 

Shaun
Host
54:33
Yeah, yeah, I've seen stuff. People have shot stuff on iPhones that have looked better than things I've seen on TV or certain low budget movies. It's like huh, that's impressive. 

54:41
Totally, I have definitely seen some of that stuff that digital hurt the most to film schools apparently, cause the big thing film schools had was for most people that was the only way you could get access to learn on like film cutting machines and like all the manual old school cutting and film watching machines. Yeah, film splicers, yep. Only way to get experience that is through film schools. But now you don't really need that experience. Film schools don't really have anything to hold over you. 

Shaun
Host
55:03
And. 

Shaun
Host
55:04
I mean some good YouTube tutorials and you can learn how to make a movie too. 

Nate
Host
55:07
Right, that's the thing. Like you're good at self learning. The problem is I struggle with self learning because I have a tendency to get distracted and you know I will say I learned better doing. Yeah, doing it I'll do pretty well. Just sometimes, though, I'm like I really need. I could really use that additional, like someone holding my hand. 

Shaun
Host
55:26
Yeah, Mentor to be like hey, man, get moving. That's what a good teacher is good for. 

Nate
Host
55:31
Yeah, that is like I have to admit that by myself. Like there are things where, like I really would benefit to someone coming in and going, hey, no, dude, you do this way. 

Shaun
Host
55:40
Yeah, like almost make a personal motivation trainer or something like that. 

Nate
Host
55:44
Yeah, not even this necessarily motivation, just so I'm not banging my head against the wall for, like you know, seven days. Yeah, try to figure out one thing. 

Shaun
Host
55:53
Because I only to find out, because you clicked one little toggle option in the options and that's what fucked you up for a week straight. 

Nate
Host
55:59
No, that being said, I will say like doing it that way, learning by myself and learning by failing a lot that does stick with me better that 100%. If I'm trying to learn myself, if I'm learning myself, if I'm trying to learn how to do something, and I just constantly fail, but then I just somehow I find that sweet spot. I will, I got it forever. 

Shaun
Host
56:19
Yep, yeah, you get that sweet, sweet dopamine. Hit of accomplishment Like yes. I have done this task. I am a man today, yeah. 

Nate
Host
56:27
That's where I am. It's just someone showing to me and like I will understand it faster that way, but I will get better at it. 

Shaun
Host
56:34
Yeah, I will not retain in your brain quite as much because you didn't have that trauma of failing and then succeeding. Yeah, I'm the same way. People could show me stuff and I'll learn it, but I do tend to learn it faster if I like giving it a few whacks and fail at it horribly and handle the emotional crippling of it that I can't have. Back to the casting of the Ewok movie. Playing as Mace's sister Sindel was four-year-old childhood model, aubrey Miller, who got the job for looking kind of like Shirley Temple and being the right age for the role. However, aubrey could not read and thus not memorize her lines for the role, but she was very good at parroting people. So the production basically just get the shot all lined up and set up for her, tell her her line, turn on the cameras and just have her repeat it back. Repeat that for the entire movie. 

Nate
Host
57:17
You can actually see it. Oh, that would sound so wooden. 

Shaun
Host
57:20
Yep, yep, she couldn't read, she couldn't memorize stuff. So you can actually see an instance of this in the W and W documentary, where they just have her in the scene and they're like all right, here's your line, hun. And they tell it to her and she immediately just repeats it back and they're like and cut. 

Shaun
Host
57:35
Why didn't they? 

Nate
Host
57:35
hire professional hoops? There are. There are child actors, there are child actors her age, Like shit. Macaulay Culkin, I know that's, you know that's kind of shoot for the stars, because he was like, as a child actor, one of the best. 

57:49
But like I remember hearing, like when he was, when he auditioned for, was at home alone. He went in there and, okay, to be fair, he was a little older than five but he memorized the entire script and they tried to throw him off, but they're like, they went there. He was expecting to read, like I don't know, Act 2, Scene 3. And so they told everybody, Act 2, Scene 3, that's what we're reading for. And they brought him in there and they're like, okay, read Act 3, Scene 4. And he, at first what he did was like, oh no, I don't know what to do, and then he would immediately bust it out, Like he's like, okay, here it is. And that's how they impressed him. They impressed him because he had tricked them, thinking he didn't know what it was and he had memorized the whole thing. So, and I know there were five year old actors out there who could also do this, so I don't know why they got an actor that could do that Probably her mom blew the casting director. 

Shaun
Host
58:41
I mean, fair enough, I'm not saying that that's the case, but no, yeah, someone knew something yeah somebody knew somebody or somebody was just like she looks perfect. She can't act, but she looks perfect. 

Nate
Host
58:52
That's exactly what happened with the fucking Avatar movie man, like the last airbender. They did get an actor, they got someone who kind of looked like Aang and New Marshal Arts, that was it, and so he had no acting experience. So they brought this dude on and it shows he has no acting experience. Yeah, like very badly shows. So and then here we go, that little girl, just I mean she was cute, sure, but there was. 

Shaun
Host
59:16
But cuteness only lasts so long before it's just like ugh. 

Nate
Host
59:19
So wouldn't, and just like oh wicked. Oh, wicked. 

Shaun
Host
59:23
Leave him alone. Leave him alone, he's helping. Yeah, he's helping us, yeah. 

Shaun
Host
59:31
The light in the documentary. After she says it she may goes I'm tired, and sits down. 

Nate
Host
59:38
Man, I'm like look man, I know you're not spending as much money as we're telling you to, but you're spending money. 

Shaun
Host
59:43
I will say, though, not to stick up for her, but there are a lot of famous actors who are known for never memorizing lines and literally just like reading the script two seconds before they wander out on the set and read the lines. 

Nate
Host
59:54
Yeah, I mean actors, like they have. The lines are posted up in different places. 

Shaun
Host
59:58
Oh, yeah, and when the godfather comes to mind, he basically had to read all those lines like live on the set because he refused to memorize anything, which is weird because Marlon Brando is a well respected actor but, like Robert Duvall, literally has the entire script on his chest for one scene and Marlon Brando is just like reading it straight off of that. Yeah, Apocalypse. 

Nate
Host
01:00:18
now, that was awful, from what I understand, like he, not only did not memorize the script. He was supposed that his character was supposed to be like a maceated in scrawny. And he came, he showed up fat yeah, Like, not only, not only like, complain the whole time. But he didn't want to read his damn line. 

Shaun
Host
01:00:35
So yeah, and also the island of Dr Marot. There is some horror story from that. 

Nate
Host
01:00:39
Yeah, not like him, but from a man, blake Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer was like apparently didn't want to be there at all and really very well known, he didn't want to be there. 

Shaun
Host
01:00:49
I didn't know that about Val Kilmer. I did hear the story about the reason that a modern brand award that bucket on his head all the entire movie and barely like during a break between shootings, he looked at an ice bucket sitting in the hotel room and just stuck the buck on his head and refused to take it off for the rest of the shooting. So they just had to work around it. That's literally. He just put the bug on his head, like why is bug on his? It's staying and they're just like all right. 

Nate
Host
01:01:12
It's like he's trying to get fired. He's like how far can I push this? 

Shaun
Host
01:01:14
Yeah, from what I heard, he's one of those dudes who absolutely hated his fame and everything about it. He hated how he got famous. I think he said stop it. 

Nate
Host
01:01:24
No one is forcing you Again people coming at you with scripts to do movies. Don't do them. Yeah, if you don't want to do it anymore, don't. 

Shaun
Host
01:01:31
It definitely feels like one of those I don't want the attention of acting anymore. Then why are you still acting? It's in my blood and you're like shut up, stop it. 

Nate
Host
01:01:38
It's like all those, don't do it. 

Shaun
Host
01:01:41
It's like all the celebrities who are like I don't like being in the spotlight, I don't like everybody seeing my daily stuff. It's like, well, drop out of the spotlight. Not all actors are in the spotlight all the time. I mean, nobody knows what count of the reasons is doing half the time. 

Nate
Host
01:01:52
So in my regular job. I'm a glorified I don't even glorify it. I'm like a paper pusher who doesn't push paper. You know, I do digital things for a company and if I did have to do this, I wouldn't. People will be coming to me like, hey, nathan, can you restart this thing right there. I'd be like no, absolutely not. 

Shaun
Host
01:02:11
This is not what I want to do. I hate this. 

Nate
Host
01:02:14
I quit doing that for a reason. It's because it was slowly draining my soul looking at the screens for so long, like no, I don't want to do that, so yeah. 

Shaun
Host
01:02:24
Somewhere I heard that Marlon Brando start with hating with acting was because I guess in the 60s he was a major feminist and pro women lib kind of thing. 

Nate
Host
01:02:32
But the role he got really popular for was basically playing a misogynist, so everybody kind of assumed you as a misogynist in real life, I feel like I heard that somewhere along along and if that's if that is the case, fair enough, like I understand your frustration that you're a feminist and you're popular for a role of not being basically a dick. Yeah, you don't. A, you don't have to keep acting and. B use that Like if you, if you, got famous for being misogynist, you can actually you could absolutely use that to your advantage to help. 

Shaun
Host
01:03:02
Yeah, During interviews, when people would be like, hey, what's it like to put a woman in a place? And you'd be like, nah, uh, uh, yeah, use that time use that interview to push your agenda Like of your. I completely agree with you on that. 

Nate
Host
01:03:13
But instead he's going to be a bitch about it and then people aren't talking. Yeah, Sure, he changed the conversation. They changed it from oh, he must be misogynist who played this role. Now there's like yeah, he's really difficult to work with and everyone hates it. 

Shaun
Host
01:03:25
And from the summit of the big rock candy mountain we get Troubadour Burl Ives as the narrator. One last side bit of info. When I was looking through the credits, the actor that was credited as playing card player number two was Johnny Weissmueller, junior son of legendary Olympic diver and the original Tarzan Johnny Weissmueller and also the origin of the famous Tarzan yell. That bit of info really means nothing, but apparently Johnny Weissmueller had a kid who was an actor. There you go, what? 

Nate
Host
01:03:52
no, interesting tidbit about Tarzan. 

Shaun
Host
01:03:54
Yeah. 

Nate
Host
01:03:55
And his Olympic diver. 

Shaun
Host
01:03:56
He was actually the most famous Olympic diver of all time, back in the day. 

Nate
Host
01:04:00
Interesting tidbit about Tarzan is back in the day it used to be illegal for men and women to have their shirts off because nipples are bad. Now, when Tarzan came out Austin, all these men started going oh, it'll be like Tarzan. So it started coming out with one other you know one nip out while they're doing the other thing, and for a minute there people were like all upset about it. But then they realized like they couldn't stop. It was so popular. They're like they can't arrest every dude, and so they eventually just kind of relaxed that. So now that's why. Now it's like that's what the reason why? Now men? Because they walk around with shirts off and big, big deal. 

Shaun
Host
01:04:31
That also explains like the old Tarzan outfits where they had like the singlet covering up the one nipple, but not really. Yeah, yeah, interesting. I did not know that, the more you know Rainbow. 

Shaun
Host
01:04:41
Indeed. 

Shaun
Host
01:04:43
Yeah, the famous Tarzan yell was actually Johnny Weissmule's real voice, but they played it backwards and filtered it a bit for that iconic sound. So to keep the movie in budget, they decided to film the movie in nearby Marin County, which is about 10 miles from Skywalker Ranch, and that means that this was the first Star Wars movie to be entirely shot in the United States with an American film crew. Well, I'm proud to be an American where we make Ewok movies. 

Nate
Host
01:05:10
America forget America. 

Shaun
Host
01:05:14
Ewoks making movie about Ewoks locally. 

Shaun
Host
01:05:19
I'll be. Other Star Wars movies were shot abroad and mostly using British film crews. So this was the first, isn't that neat? Also, due to the budget constraints, these were the last ILM films that would use traditional stop motion. From Empire Strikes Back and on, they had been using something called go motion, which was a fancier, better looking and more expensive version of stop motion. Involves stuff like motorized puppets and camera tricks to give motion blur, so the movements were way more realistic. Tontons were the first ILM go motion critters and you can tell the difference between the smoother, you know return of the Jedi guys and kind of the janky Ewok stop motion. Oh, absolutely. 

Nate
Host
01:06:00
I mean I thumbs up, you know, like they absolutely did a great job before, but it still stops. 

Shaun
Host
01:06:08
Yeah, you can tell, it was a version 1.0 of stop motion. 

Nate
Host
01:06:12
Yeah, I mean again, like they that was, I couldn't do it and I took a mental and patient and I am I all the hats off to him, but it's still super obvious. Yes, they worked with what they had. Yep. 

Shaun
Host
01:06:28
Yeah, I'd say that stop motion there is about on par with, like the old Sinbad movies in this. 

Nate
Host
01:06:33
Well, I always go straight to oh. 

Shaun
Host
01:06:36
God Jason in the Argonauts no, that's what I usually think of to me. Tight, no, I should. The Titans, yes. Thank you, I was like. 

Shaun
Host
01:06:48
Titans. What is it, teen Titans? 

Nate
Host
01:06:52
Yes, class of Titans, that's. That's my go to me. I understand the other ones are like a prior, older and more famous, but just personally for me that I go straight to class of Titans. 

Shaun
Host
01:07:01
I think class of Titans is the most famous of all those, to be honest. No, that makes sense. Yeah, and that the one with the stop motion skeletons that they fought at one point, I think that there was. I did that in all those movies. 

Nate
Host
01:07:12
Yeah, I mean, I think that was. I think it was probably Jason Argonauts, maybe I don't know. 

Shaun
Host
01:07:16
Honestly, we were probably blending all those kind of movies together, absolutely. 

Nate
Host
01:07:19
I mean well, because one of the main villains you know now up on the close ups it was a dude, but like when you saw him from a distance, like his full body, like it was stop motion, and then you had the big giant sea monster that came up. That was stop motion. I think even the do so was stop motion and it always kind of tickled me. On the God of War two, you actually, you know, kill the shit out of the main character from that movie because they actually use the same dude, like the same the voice actor, for what's? What's the character's name? Come on, help me out, man. No main character of class of Titans. 

Shaun
Host
01:07:59
Play by Liam Neeson in the remake what no, not when that? No, that's Zeus. Oh, no, not Zeus. Oh, you mean the main human? Yeah, I don't know, perseus. 

Nate
Host
01:08:09
Perseus. Okay, so the same actor who played Perseus from class of the Titans played Perseus in God of War two. And boy, howdy, do you do terrible things. That a man like, but he dies like you do this man by the time he dies. You're like man. Death was probably the best option for you. Great to stop, he's already dead. 

Shaun
Host
01:08:29
He did not take it easy on him. He was like oh hey, perseus from the movie class of the Titans. 

Nate
Host
01:08:35
No, he was like hey, Perseus, you got something I want and you're in my way, so I've got murder the shit out of you. There's one thing Prentice is not known for his subtlety, Right? I mean he did. 

Shaun
Host
01:08:47
He is old. You know to be fair in the older game like the newer games let's say, now that he's older, he's a lot older. 

Nate
Host
01:08:53
He's a little more subtle, not by a lot, but you know, he is a little more subtle because he's more like oh, these old bones are so sick of war. I don't want to, but I'll murder everyone you've ever known and loved. Meanwhile, in the back of the day, he's like I can't wait to murder everyone you've ever known and loved. Every morning we say boy howdy, another opportunity to murder a thousand people. 

Shaun
Host
01:09:14
I just cannot wait. Did, did, did. 

Nate
Host
01:09:17
I just say that I just cannot wait, did I just accidentally murder the entire city? Oopsie, daisy, oops. 

Shaun
Host
01:09:26
Well, I was having a bad day anyway, so Well, they were in my way. 

Nate
Host
01:09:31
I needed to open this door so I could go and open this chest. So I killed a thousand people. 

Shaun
Host
01:09:35
And that's all for part one of two on the Ewok movies. Stay tuned for the conclusion where we discuss how high definition does not help older special effects, the disturbing way we think Ewoks devour their prey and why you should always be careful what you ask in orphan. All this and more on the next episode of Offed Off Topic.