Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
So... what the hell is this all about?
Well, I meant to have this up yesterday, but I was in Vegas, where I spent the weekend celebrating my 33rd birthday. The reason I wanted it up on the 25th should be obvious if you’re a STAR WARS fan. That date should have all sorts of significance for you. First, and most obviously, it’s been exactly 26 years since the first film was released in theaters. That date is like a scorched mark, the smoking spot where a cultural lightning bolt struck. It’s also exactly two years from the 25th that we will reach whatever conclusion awaits us as fans when Lucas releases the still-untitled EPISODE III, the final puzzle piece in his prequel trilogy.
All of this led me to recently ask a group of friends to sit down with me for a discussion about the current mindset of STAR WARS fans. If you’re like me, you’ve got a core group of friends you can talk to about all things Lucas. In some cases, the only real intersection between your tastes in film might be STAR WARS, but that’s enough to create an ongoing dialogue.
When EPISODE I came out in theaters, it was a pretty remarkable feeling that had little or nothing to do with THE PHANTOM MENACE itself, a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of the very nature of being a fan. I made new friends because of STAR WARS, and some of my oldest friends and I enjoyed a return to childhood in many ways. But many people felt burnt after the fact, and the dramatic shift in the tenor of fandom that greeted the arrival of last year’s ATTACK OF THE CLONES was impossible to miss.
Last year, just after seeing EPISODE II with a group of friends, we sat down at the Grand Havana Room in Beverly Hills for a post-mortem on the first 2/3 of a story we’d waited half our lives to see. That was one of the very best nights of pure fandom I’ve ever had. Hell, Temura Morrison himself showed up at the club that night and ended up sitting with us to share a few drinks, a cigar, and some friendly chat.
I decided, along with my co-writer Obi-Swan, that I want to start a new regular feature that we’ll hopefully feature here at AICN all the way up to the release of EPISODE III on May 25th, 2005. I’m proposing a regular State of the Union address of sorts. I’m going to do my best to invite all types of fans to sit in on what will probably start out as a bi-monthly meeting for a while before finally going monthly as we get closer to release. Most of these people work in the film industry in one way or another, and many of them credit STAR WARS with starting them down that path in the first place.
Right now, I don’t pretend to be holding any special cards concerning spoilers or details about the next film. Not yet, anyway. Some of what we talked about might be considered spoiler territory, but much of it is pure speculation. As we get closer to May of 2005, we’ll be discussing everything that’s coming in, every bit of news, every detail. I’ve managed to read the first two prequel scripts early, so there’s a good chance that will happen again, and if it does, that will certainly be fodder for conversation. Harry told me recently that he doesn’t want to report on STAR WARS at all this time around, and that just depresses me. This series of columns is all about sorting out what we’re thinking and feeling as fans. These are all just opinions, and hopefully our discussion will encourage you to contribute in TalkBack as well.
We met around 7:30, and all ended up seated around a long table, where we spent almost two hours in a boisterous, sometimes out-of-control conversation, the highlights of which are featured below:
MORIARTY: Obviously, it’s a weird time for STAR WARS fans in general. I’ve never heard so many discouraged fans. I think a lot of people have given up. A lot of people are not invested anymore in the STAR WARS series and where it’s headed. That’s a weird situation to be in because we’re two years out now from the last one, and if you had asked us right before EPISODE I one came out, I would have thought this would be like the apex of fandom right now, where people were losing their minds in anticipation. But it’s the total opposite. And I guess my primary question is... why?
OBI-SWAN: Let me respond to that by saying that I have not lost hope and I am actually at the apex.
MORIARTY: Actually, how many people have lost faith?
At least half the people at the table raise their hands.
SARAH S: I go back and forth. It depends on the week you ask me.
JEFF: It looks like six people have lost hope out of nine.
DR. HFUHRUHURR: The last half of ATTACK OF THE CLONES was so cool. If the step from THE PHANTOM MENACE to CLONES is the same step he’s going to take from CLONES to EPISODE III, then we’re in good shape.
JEFF: After I saw the first STAR WARS Special Edition, I did not see the THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or JEDI Special Editions, because I had absolutely no interest in seeing Lucas fuck up his own material again.
JIMMY D: I like EMPIRE. I watch the Special Editions, but I do prefer the original ones. I have to say, I like EMPIRE the best, but I feel that they went in and certain things were done that changed the movie to a degree that I wasn’t comfortable with. Like Luke’s scream.
MORIARTY: Would you guys mind the Special Editions if the originals were also readily available? Would that bother you as much?
JIMMY D & SARAH S: No... not at all.
BEAKS: He can do with them whatever he wants.
MORIARTY: Here’s a big questions I’ve been asking fans. As original series fans, how much ownership do we have over STAR WARS?
OBI-SWAN: Zero.
MORIARTY: I know we certainly feel like we have an amount of ownership. We feel like they’re our films and new fans don’t totally get it. Even kids who were maybe old enough to see JEDI in the theater but not the others, we feel like they don’t get it. Many of them consider JEDI the best of the Original Trilogy. I’ve noticed there’s a snobbery about the fandom. If it doesn’t appeal to us, it’s wrong. But then, I talk to kids, little kids who have just seen EPISODE I and II, and they adore these new movies. To them, there’s no issue.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: We all know that he’s doing these “Final Editions,” and I am curious...
MORIARTY: You know that he says he’s not doing them, right?
FROSTY SKYWALKER: He is. There is fifteen minutes being put back into STAR WARS. That’s an absolute certainty. I’m interested to see what he does as the quote-unquote Final Editions and after seeing him talk at The Egyptian, I actually gained...
MORIARTY: How many of us were at The Egyptian? Five of us? We all heard him say that the original version we know and love will never be on home video. They’ll be gone.
OBI-SWAN: We need to keep in mind that George Lucas has lied before.
MORIARTY: Right. We heard him say it, but, again, he lies. He lies all the time.
JEFF: I don’t know that he lies. I think he changes his mind depending on what the climate is.
MORIARTY: Dude... he lies. All of his licensing lies and he sanctions it. There’s a piece in the new INSIDER where they’re talking about the development of JEDI and the steps it went through, and they say that the urban legend of Lando dying in the early drafts of the script was just that... an urban legend. We have the draft, though. We have a copy of the draft that Lawrence Kasdan wrote, and in it, they killed Lando. Y’know, I remember after we broke the story on AICN about Ewan McGregor being in EPISODE I, they issued a statement saying that they never met with Ewan McGregor, they certainly weren’t interested in him, and he wasn’t going to be in the movie. Then they announced him about a month later.
BEAKS: What do you think the motivation is for him to change his mind on a whim?
MORIARTY: I think it’s a control mania. And it’s also a contempt for fandom. I think he doesn’t want fans to have an investment in the series the way so many of us do.
JEFF: That actually reminds me of an interesting question I wanted to bring up. How many people here have bought STAR WARS videos, magazines, comic books, books, and toys? Show of hands. How many have spent over a hundred dollars?
Every hand goes up.
OBI-SWAN: Right here. Easy.
JEFF: How many have spent over a thousand dollars?
A surprising amount of hands stay up.
JEFF: Now, compared to any other movie... even the STAR TREK series... can you name any other place the fans are spending this much money?
SARAH S: I’d have to say that the closest I’ve seen is THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The people who are hyped for the movies spend a lot of money.
MORIARTY: As a new phenomenon, they come the closest.
JEFF: Those McFarlane MY DINNER WITH ANDRE action figures would be a close third.
SARAH: I don’t think little kids are playing with LORD OF THE RINGS action figures.
JIMMY D: Not the way we played with STAR WARS.
MORIARTY: It’s a little over the heads of most kids. My three-year-old nephew knows STAR WARS. He knows EPISODE I and II... he’s clueless about LORD OF THE RINGS.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: It’s all real toy collectors in their teens, twenties, and thirties who are buying the toys.
DR. HFUHRUHURR: I want to get back to the ownership thing. I’d like to relate this to the Dixie Chicks thing... the big debate. The argument is do they owe their fame to the people who bought their records? STAR WARS isn’t a success because George Lucas made the film. It’s a success because we all bought tickets to go see it.
MORIARTY: Over and over and over again. He hit us at a moment when we hadn’t become numb to spectacle yet. Spectacle really hadn’t kicked off. I mean, STAR WARS was one of the things that kicked off this new age of summer blockbusters and giant special effects films. I think that it hit an audience at exactly the right time to get a religious fervor about it where it was everything and those three-year gaps were perfect. I was seven. I was ten. I was thirteen. I aged with the series just right. I think that’s one of the reasons JEDI felt like a disappointment. It wasn’t quite as dark as a thirteen-year-old kid wanted compared to the ten-year-old kid’s movie.
JIMMY D: Another thing about JEDI that was a let down... I was expecting three more after that movie. In an old BANTHA TRACKS magazine, they said there were going to be nine films.
SARAH S: That’s what I thought was always going to happen... the nine movies.
MORIARTY: He used to say that all the time.
JIMMY D: That’s a major let down because when you watch the end of JEDI, you know there’s nowhere to go after that.
OBI-SWAN: Also it’s kind of a let down because if Lucas had gone and made EPISODE I three years later, we’d probably have gotten River Phoenix as Anakin.
JIMMY D: After the release of EPISODE I, Gary Kurtz gave an interview in which he talked about why he and George Lucas did not work on JEDI together and all the problem they had working together on the first two movies. Who says “no” to George Lucas now? Only the fans.
MORIARTY: And the fans get tuned out. I’m banned from The Ranch for life for being a commentator about the STAR WARS phenomenon. I’ve never done anything to hurt the series. If anything, I think I’ve been a fairly vocal supporter of the series at times even when other fans weren’t.
JIMMY D: Why would we try to destroy something that means so much to us? We’re upset because we don’t want him to destroy it. And the thing that Gary Kurtz talked about was that JEDI wasn’t supposed to end nicely like that. The whole time Lucas was making the movies, Kurtz was lie, “no, you can’t do that...” By the time JEDI came around, he was tired of saying “no” and Lucas was tired of hearing it.
MORIARTY: One of the only reason I have a modicum of hope for INDY 4 now is because it’s not really in Lucas’ hands. Spielberg and Darabont are going to spearhead that project and do their own thing. And hopefully Lucas will just sign off on it and let them go.
JIMMY D: An interesting thing you said was that kids love EPISODE I and EPISODE II. What I remember about the original trilogy is that my parents and a lot of older people loved the movies and they still watch them. For them, these new movies don’t exist.
MORIARTY: Like my parents. They saw STAR WARS the night before my birthday when I was turning seven. My birthday is May 26. So it came out that weekend. My parents saw it that Friday night. I was supposed to have a birthday party the next day. As soon as my friends showed up, my parents said, “We’re not having a party. Get in the car. We’re going to the movie theater.” And it’s because they lost their minds. They loved that movie as much as I did.
SARAH S: My mom is still with it. My father lost it. When I came back from L.A. when EPISODE II came out, I said to them, “You’re going to go see it. You’re going to see it on a digital screen. If there’s not one in Pittsburgh, we’re driving to Cleveland.” For my father, it took a lot of convincing. Meanwhile, my mother was like, “When are we leaving?” She still loves it.
JIMMY D: I’ve gotta give Lucas a little bit of credit. I also read in an old BANTHA TRACKS, before JEDI was released, Lucas talked about how the first three stories would be boring. He said they would be very political and have not a lot of action.
OBI-SWAN: And how did they turn out for most people? They’re bo-ring.
JIMMY D: Exactly. He said that in 1982. So, he decided to start with 4, 5, and 6, where all the action was.
BEAKS: These new movies are about politics and intrigue. They’re pretty complex.
OBI-SWAN: But also they’re an amazingly rich mosaic of art. I mean, Lucas is really layering in as much as he can.
MORIARTY: Now, we’ve heard that Doug Chiang and Ben Burtt are completely out of the Lucas organization at this point. Ben Burtt quit, evidently. There was a power thing. Ben wasn’t getting what Ben wanted.
JIMMY D: When Ben Burtt was talking about EPISODE I, I could see that.
OBI-SWAN: In the sound documentary on the EPISODE II DVD, it’s painful obvious that Ben Burtt is growing weary of the process with Lucas. It looked like he was being stifled at ever point. But, then again, the movies are Lucas’s.
MORIARTY: Creatively, he felt like his ideas weren’t making any impact on these films. And I’m kinda glad Chiang is gone. I’m not a big fan of his design on EPISODE I. EPISODE II, like Obi-Swan and I were talking about...
OBI-SWAN: The two guys who worked under Doug Chang on EPISODE II really have the best take on STAR WARS because they’re just like us. They’re basically our age and they saw the original series when we did.
MORIARTY: EPISODE II is more like STAR WARS.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: I really enjoyed EPISODE II. I thought there were moments that I wish to God the dialogue could have been better. But it was a step in the right direction.
MORIARTY: It does make me nervous that it didn’t happen until midway through the only three films we ever get.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: However, I’ve been hearing from people who are in the know. Before EPISODE I, these people were saying it wasn’t going to be very good. Before EPISDOE II, they were saying it’s STAR WARS movie and it’s pretty good. Now I’m starting to hear about EPISODE III from them, and they’re saying that EPISODE II is going to be the highlight. Now, when you hear from people who have been right-on about I and II and now they’re saying, “Don’t get your hopes up about EPISODE III, so start looking forward to RETURN OF THE KING,” then justifiably, you start getting nervous.
MORIARTY: I know some guys who were either Lucasfilm or ILM, who were right around the hub of production, who have just left... who are quitting. And the way they explained it to me was that they got their jobs with the organization because they loved STAR WARS. And now they’re quitting the organization because they love STAR WARS. And they don’t want to be there for a bad movie. They don’t want to be there for a movie they don’t believe in.
SARAH S: Don’t they feel like they should do something?
MORIARTY: They don’t feel like they have the ability. No matter how much they kick and scream, it’s not making a difference.
OBI-SWAN: It sounds like these artists do have a voice, though, because of the story we heard about Lucas wanting to insert shots of Obi-Wan and Vader doing flips and stuff into the classic lightsaber duel in NEW HOPE. They stood up to him, saying it was a bad idea, and Lucas backed down.
MORIARTY: There are ideas he’s backed off of, thankfully, but not many. Look, everyone goes crazy sometimes, and the mark of a good artist is that they listen when someone tells them they’re crazy. Spielberg has done that. He turned to Scott Frank during the MINORITY REPORT shoot and said, “I think I’m going to remake THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS. I was never happy with the original.” And Scott was like, “Ummmm... but I love that movie. Don’t do that.” And Spielberg just laughed it off and never went back to the idea. You wish Lucas could be more like that.
BEAKS: Like the RAIDERS thing... what they were going to do to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK...
MORIARTY: It’s true. Lucas hates the swordsman fight where Harrison Ford shoots the guy. Lucas, given his druthers, would change it.
JIMMY D: Y’know what’s interesting? I was talking about that scene with someone... a friend of mine who’s Native. And his take on that scene is that it’s a celebration of colonialism and guns triumphing over the sword. I was like, “okay, you have a point,” but I still like the scene.
MORIARTY: It was all sort of whipped together the day of the shoot because Harrison didn’t want to do the scene because his back hurt. Lucas hates things that are spontaneous.
SARAH: I’m wondering if we’re just being too hard on these films. In twenty years, are the kids who grew up on these films going to be like...
MORIARTY: That’s right. In twenty years there will be a group of kids who grew up with this new trilogy, who start to have a critical voice, and they’re going to say, “You’re all wrong. We love these movies and here’s why.” And they’ll defend them so elegantly that it’ll be hard to argue with them. They’ll have a different perspective on them than we do.
BEAKS: I don’t think so.
JIMMY D: There’s no resonance.
BEAKS: Yeah. There’s no resonance. There’s no heart.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: There’s no heart deep down in these movies. They are profit-making vehicles for Lucasfilm. End of story. And do you know who’s talking right now? I am one of the most die-hard STAR WARS fans.
OBI-SWAN: Here’s my feeling. George Lucas has lost his way... but he means well.
MORIARTY: Of course he does.
OBI-SWAN: And I think he truly cares about STAR WARS, otherwise he never would have directed these new movies.
JIMMY D: I have to agree with Beaks, too. It’s simple things like in NEW HOPE. For me, one of the very first things that stuck out was our hero, looking to his future in a beautiful shot at dusk with two suns. It makes my hair stand on end. And there’s not one shot in any of these new movies that good.
SARAH S: I totally disagree with you.
OBI-SWAN: There’s some great stuff in PHANTOM MENACE...
BEAKS: Oh, please...
OBI-SWAN: ... with Liam Nesson. Okay, yeah, Jake Llyod’s bad, but Liam is really good. He’s even Alec Guinness good.
SARAH S: For me, EPISODE II is right up there with EMPIRE.
JIMMY D: The highlight of EPISODE II is the fight with Yoda.
JEFF: Let’s go back to the beginning. George Lucas makes THX 1138 and everybody says it sucks. Personally, I love THX 1138.
SARAH S: I love that movie.
JEFF: It’s really innovative...
JIMMY D: I love it.
JEFF: Then he goes off and makes AMERICAN GRAFFITI. It’s an amazing movie also... photographic innovation. Then he does STAR WARS. Which is essentially, if you break it down, it’s a coming of age story. Nothing more. And it’s about him. The main character is Lucas. Nobody ever expected a sequel. Nobody ever expected anything. So when you look at that first movie, it’s beautiful. But then he made the smart move of taking all this gobley-goop that he had from the past three years of drafts and he got a decent writer like Lawrence Kasdan...
MORIARTY: Don’t forget Leigh Brackett. She beat that thing into shape. A lot of the ideas are hers.
JEFF: All three movies have one thing... even JEDI has qualities of old Hollywood films.
MORIARTY: JEDI has my favorite moment out of any of the original movies. The moment for me, out of the trilogy, it all comes to the moment where Luke screams “Never!” and comes after his dad with a lightsaber. It’s absolutely the most emotional...
SARAH S: It’s terrifying.
JEFF: A lot of the big science fiction movies of the late 70’s and early 80’s, they related to something in reality. And the new movies don’t.
MORIARTY: Why did we need a Qui-Gon Jinn? Why does he exist? It should have been Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan should have been forefront. And where’s our rogue? Where’s our guy who’s almost bad maybe?
JIMMY D: When I watch the original movies, I could be Luke, I could be Han. I could be any of these guys. In EPISODE I when Anakin is called “The Chosen One,” that just shut me out.
JEFF: Like THE MATRIX, there is a messiah and he comes from the most unlikely of places. There is no messiah in these new movies. Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christenson... he’s not the messiah. He’s the Anti-Christ.
OBI-SWAN: I like Hayden. I let him slide, no matter how bad the performance might be.
MORIARTY: Everybody’s heard James Earl Jones blab about, “I’m coming back. I’m back for the last five minutes.” But more recently, all we’ve heard from Hayden and people at ILM is “There is no Vader. At all. You will not see Vader in EPISODE III.”
FROSTY SKYWALKER: I have heard from very high sources, who will be unnamed, that there will be absolutely no Vader in EPISODE III. No costume. Nothing. I think that the James Earl Jones thing is part of the fifteen minutes being added back into STAR WARS. Also, I’ve heard that in EPISODE III there is a crap load of fire.
MORIARTY: I want an answer to Luke’s comment in EMPIRE, “There’s something familiar about this place.” Why does it feel familiar?
OBI-SWAN: It might be Yoda that he’s sensing.
MORIARTY: That’s as big a line as, “No... there is another.” He’s dropping a narrative crumb. And he does that in licensing. He’ll do that all over the place. In the INSIDER this month, Kevin Rubio, who thanks to TROOPS, now works for Lucasfilm...
FROSTY SKYWALKER: He’s actually a good guy...
MORIARTY: Of course he is. The point is, though, he’s inside. He did an article in this month’s INSIDER where he’s interviewing one of the Kaminoans, one of the Cloners, and he’s asking them how they got the job doing the army for the Republic. And they answer that it was their work on a small personal order that got them the job. That’s a clue. He’s dropping a hint for what’s coming in III. That small personal job... somebody’s a clone who’s running around. It could be Anakin, the “virgin” birth. Or it’s Palpatine.
OBI-SWAN: Has anyone heard the rumor that’s there’s a character who’s been in EPISODE I and II who will be revealed as a Sith in EPISODE III?
SARAH S: Yes, actually...
JEFF: It’s Palpatine.
OBI-SWAN: Besides Palpatine.
SARAH S: I’ve heard it’s Mace Windu.
MORIARTY: It can’t be Mace. He dies in the duel. He gets his heroic death at the hands of Anakin. Unless it’s a redemption. Unless he reveals that he’s Sith then feels bad and goes back on it. Which he could.
DR. HFUHRUHURR: Knowing Lucas, it’ll be one of those fringe Jedi Council guys.
MORIARTY: It’ll be the dude with the long neck that sat in the background.
DR. HFUHRUHURR: I’d be willing to bet money.
OBI-SWAN: Chewbacca is in EPISODE III. The Millennium Falcon is also in EPISODE III. My question is, are they together? Has Chewie always been with the ship?
MORIARTY: I think so.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: I don’t know why he feels the need. This is basically a desperate attempt to do something that the fans are going to like. There’s so much more he could be working with.
JEFF: Are we going to get some clarification on the whole midichlorians thing?
BEAKS: Or is he just going to go back and cut that out of EPISODE I?
MORIARTY: It becomes very exclusionary... very Aryan. You have to be born into it now. You can’t become a great Jedi through simple faith. It’s genetics. HARRY POTTER has that problem, too. He’s Harry Potter, so everything will always work out for him.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: EPISODE I and EPISODE II are so different that you can just tell that he switched everything and said we better start over. He needs to give up writing and directing this thing and just be an executive producer. And it’ll never happen so it’s ultimately doomed to fail.
SARAH S: I think he’s angry.
MORIARTY: And I think he’s getting angrier. And I think he’s become more withdrawn from fandom. And I think his attitude towards fans has changed so dramatically that there’s a pretty naked sense of contempt. It’s like, “Why is it so important to you people? What do you want from me?”
SARAH S: I felt that way when we saw him at The Egyptian. It was like, “I can’t believe you losers are here.”
FROSTY SKYWALKER: I think he dreads being in public like that.
JIMMY D: I have to say that there are parts of EPISODE II that are very STAR WARS and I enjoyed very much. Like the stuff on Kamino with Obi-Wan and Jango...
OBI-SWAN: The stuff on Tatooine feels very Original Trilogy.
MORIARTY: Fans were really optimistic when EPISODE II came out. They were like, “Oh, good. It’s better. It’s more like STAR WARS.” And now it’s faded. I don’t get the feeling that it’s lasted. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough of a fix to get the over the hump and make them believe in part three.
SARAH S: I think they’re too distracted now. He’s lost people to THE MATRIX and LORD OF THE RINGS.
JEFF: I say he should go back to Lawrence Kasdan.
MORIARTY: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Lawrence Kasdan directed DREAMCATCHER. Don’t throw his name out there like he’s gonna fix things.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: I think it’s very important to realize that even now there are people in their twenties and thirties who would work on EPISODE III for free.
SARAH S: He could make the entire movie brilliant... for free. I’d pull some cable.
MORIARTY: If he really gave a shit about STAR WARS anymore, don’t you think Lucas would have realized that maybe he had some deficiencies in storytelling? He bitches about it all the time. “I’m not a good writer and writing’s really hard for me and I can’t do it.”
DR. HFUHRUHURR: Yoda on Dagobah is far more powerful now because we’ve seen where he was in the earlier episodes.
MORIARTY: That’s one of the things I hate about EPISODE I... they fucked Yoda up. The fact that they got him so right in EPISODE II kind of redeems him for me. I was like, there he is. That’s the Yoda I remember and that’s the Yoda I’ve always wanted to see. When he opened the can of whupass on Dooku, didn’t we always know he could do that? Now you’ve seen it and you’re like, “Yeah... that’s the way I figured it would go down.”
JEFF: My favorite two parts of the movie are when Anakin finds his mother and kills the Tusken Raiders, and when...
SARAH S: ... I’m telling you, when you’re an eighteen-year-old boy, you say the most insane things. That’s what makes him so perfect. He’s so awkward and so repressed for so long, that he doesn’t know what to say.
OBI-SWAN: Doesn’t the love story between Anakin and Padme kind of remind of the love story between Willis and Janet Jackson on Different Strokes?
JOHN ROBIE: “Whatchoo talkin’ ‘bout, Vader?”
MORIARTY: What concerns me about EPISODE III is Chewbacca. I love the idea of seeing Peter Mayhew, but I certainly don’t want Lucas to sell out Chewie. I’m genuinely concerned that he’ll bring him back just for comic relief shit and do something like hook him up with Jar Jar and the droids and send him off in some comic relief ship they can just cut to for fart jokes and stuff when things slow down.
OBI-SWAN: I like the fact that R2 and 3P0 are in CLONES, but they remind me a little too much of Wallace & Grommit. If you go back to NEW HOPE, there’s none of that. They have their own original vibe.
MORIARTY: ... this whole thing about, “In EPISODE III I’m going to erase both R2 and 3P0’s memory.” Don’t erase them both.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: Lucas’s failure is complete.
OBI-SWAN: Hold on... he’s not done yet.
SARAH S: The lines are going to be crazier this time than any of them.
OBI-SWAN: You know what’s funny? I didn’t wait in any of the lines, and I managed to get great seats for both midnight shows.
SARAH S: The people who stand in line are a group that’s very spoiler free. I try to tell people tings and they’re like, “No. I don’t want to know.” I knew nothing going into EPISODE II and I was so happy.
OBI-SWAN: Everybody saw Jar Jar in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, right? He was wearing that dress. I think Jar Jar might have a weight problem. Am I alone on this one? Okay. Here’s a better one. Why does Shmi Skywalker hook up with such losers like the Lars family? They’re very pessimistic. They’re defeatists.
SARAH: I thought it was scandalous that Owen and Beru weren’t married, but they were obviously sleeping together.
FROSTY SKYWALKER: Beru is a slut. She got around the campsites.
OBI-SWAN: Remember when Anakin gets up to leave the table, and Owen says, “Where are you going?” And Anakin’s like, “To find my mother, asshead.”
BEAKS: “I wish I could just wish away my feelings...”
OBI-SWAN: Seriously, though, what happened to Obi-Wan? Why is he such a sourpuss? He should be cool. He’s a badass. But he’s a bit of a downer.
BEAKS: Dealing with Anakin all the time will definitely wear on you.
JIMMY D: I was expecting him to turn around at one point and just say, “Shut up!”
OBI-SWAN: The babe factor in the STAR WARS universe is really going up. Ever since the Special Editions, I think. In EPISODE I there were all sorts of cute girls. EPSIODE II, as well.
JEFF: There’s a very simple answer as to why the babe factor is growing. Lucas is a pervert.
BEAKS: Keira Knightley as the handmaiden...
MORIARTY: In the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN trailer, she’s a knock-out.
BEAKS: BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM...
SARAH S: I love that movie.
OBI-SWAN: Should there be a bikini scene in EPISODE III?
MOR
