The Hacker Movie Canon: Star Wars

Yes, yeah, I on over the weekend, you know, I, I had posted, you know, hey, we're, we're doing this podcast. We're going to record this weekend. It's going to be super fun. And Chris Vysopa replied and he's like, I love all the hacking scenes with R2D2. And this is before I rewatched it. And then when I was rewatching it on a couple days ago, I was like, oh shit, Chris is right. R2D2 is like the actual hacker in this movie. Like, he's the one that's opening all the doors, He's the one that's holding the data.

He's the one that's like actually, you know, transporting the data, all that kind of shit. You know, Luke's just kind of along for the ride in a lot of ways. George Lucas foresaw AI hacking way before you know the. You're not wrong, Wade. There's so much in this movie. But. Go ahead, Rich. And I love it like so. R2 is a hacker. Not all the droids are hackers. Like you have Chopper, who is, he's just a mass murderer. I mean, he's a serial killer.

Seriously. He is responsible for more deaths in the Empire than just about anyone. Although I, I guess it's a toss up with the Death Star. We, we don't really know how many contractors are still on that system, but you've got Chopper pushing people over railings. You've got 3PO who is just, you know, kind of bumbling along. If we look at like a bunch of the other like R2 units, like you don't see any of them hacking in even in the animated shows. So it's really like R2 is like the hacker of the series.

Yeah, and one of the things that struck me on this rewatch, I I don't think I'd rewatch this movie like all the way through probably in, I don't know, three or four years, something like that is how like the emotional core of the movie is R2 and C3PO. Like most of the human characters are like, you know, Hans kind of a caricature of like roguish mercenary doesn't really care about anybody else. But you know, obviously as a soft hard under it, Luke's kind of a, you know, the the cub in the lone wolf and cub story at this point, you know, Leia, like we don't really get too much of Leia. She, you know, she's whatever in this movie, she's just there to yell at Han Solo kind of.

But all the like scenes or pieces of dialogue where you're really kind of like, oh, wow. It's, but honestly, it's about R2 or C3PO, you know, and you don't even, we don't even know what R2's saying. But you know, you get the little wiggles or you get him like doing something and you're like, yeah, that's my guy. I mean, my favorite, one of my favorite things when I was, you know, a kid watching these as they came out was when Jedi came out. And you've got that scene in the Ewok village where 3PO is telling the story with the sound effects and, you know, to all the Ewoks and every and and everything else was it was the realization. I'm like, oh, they're the narrators. So it's R2 and Threepio are the through line of those movies, you know, and then and we're focusing on, you know, the original, but you go into the prequels and they're a big part of that.

And then you go into the, you know, the of course, awakened in those series. But again, it's like, you know, to to go to what you said, like they're the narrators, They're the core. They're the ones, you know, telling the story of everybody else. And that bit in, you know, Jedi was when I first realized that, you know, as a kid watching it, I'm like, oh, wow. They're the ones like, and that was before the Internet and everything. So of course we, you know, we had to have our debates in the schoolyard. We didn't have our debates online, which is made fights a little bit easier. But yeah.

Yes, yeah. Do you guys remember when you first saw this way? Do you have like a memory of I I think I'm we're all roughly the same age, but I think I'm the oldest 1 here. And I was I was old enough to see it in the theater, but I didn't and for a specific reason. I'll tell you why. But way do you remember when? I, I don't for the original. So I, I was born in 77. So I was an infant when it came out in May 77, but I do remember waiting in line at to see the, the next ones like that. That is a distinct part of of my memory, you know, and the toys, I think the toys were the parts for me that sort of gelled everything together because you know that that I think it was really the first time I remember where you could watch it on screen and you can play with it at home and like all of that just.

Yeah. Melded it in my my soul. I feel like to where it sticks, it sticks with me. Yeah, what about you, Rich? Yeah, so I mean, I was born in 71, and so I have two memories associated with 77. One was I don't remember the experience of sitting in the theater. I I have this flash, you know, six years old. I had this flash in my mind of standing with my dad on the outside of the theater in a wine that wrapped around the theater to go in and see the movie.

And so I just kind of remember being outside with him and not knowing. Like, for all I know, that was one of the first, if not the first films I saw in the theater. My sister was three years old. She wouldn't have gone along. So it's just kind of one of those. Yeah, so. There's that part of it, but then there's something that I, I almost feel guilty telling this part of the story. At that time, my dad was kind of doing a start up of a business and it and I'm falling apart because of for reasons.

But where he and his partner were putting television studio video decks on the merchant ships. Because if you think about it, the merchant fleets at the time, no entertainment other than books. I mean, there's no Internet, there's no satellite, there's no VCRS weren't out yet in 77. They were like, you know, just it was like a year or two later that those hit the market. So that Hanukkah of that year, he had two three quarter inch videotapes and that was Star Wars.

Each one was an hour long. So I may have been the only child in the world to have Star Wars on videotape the year it came out. Oh my. God. My sister we had we also had like it was Wizard of Oz and and she got Dumbo was the other one. So those were the 2 main ones with Dumbo and Star Wars. And I was he wouldn't let me touch the video deck because it was a mechanical like handle you had to pull. It was meant for television studios.

And I don't know how many hundreds of times I watched that movie. I mean, nobody had VCRS yet and I had Star Wars on these two three quarter inch tapes. And to this day there is when it there the tractor beam is pulling them into the death start. That's when the tape will go and like the flip tapes to the next tape. And in my head, I don't care. I could be watching on the best high def format, like whatever it is. When that scene hits in my head it's like the video craps out and then we had to go switch tapes. That's incredible.

I I don't you never told me that story. I've never heard that before. That's crazy. How would? That come up a lot, you know. No, but I. Mean, we've definitely talked about Star Wars and crazy shit before, but that's wild. That's very cool. I can only imagine, like you, I'm sure you knew that that was cool, but at the time you weren't like, I'm the only kid on Earth that has this. Like you're probably like, ah, my dad's cool. He's got this thing. I am sure some of their like studios that kids and everything had I was. Like. We're a middle class kid in Jersey, you know, and I had this thing.

That's wild. Oh my God. I didn't see this in the theater. I like. I definitely remember like you do. Wait, I remember going to see Empire in 80, right, 1980? Yeah. So I was like 8 years old when that came out. I was born in 72. But when this came out, we had just moved back. When I was a kid, we lived on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. So like you fly to Hawaii and then you fly like another six hours southwest of Hawaii. And it's like if you look up Kwajlin or like the Kwajlin Atoll or Bikini Atoll, which is sort of like nearby, there was a lot of nuclear missile testing and ballistic missile programs going on out there.

And that's what my dad did at the time. So we had just moved back from there. So like I had not really lived in the, you know, the continental US at that time. So I think we were in Maryland or we might have been in Jersey actually rich. But like in 77 I, I didn't know what movies were like I had no knowledge of like popular culture or whatever. So like I might have actually seen Empire before I saw this. It's possible 'cause like I don't, we didn't get a VCR until like probably the mid 80s or like, you know, 84 or something like that. So they, I'm sure they re released Star Wars in the theater before Empire came out.

So maybe I saw it around the same time, but you know, it would have been later. But it was. I do remember the toys like you do, Wade, like they were the biggest deal, like the action figures. Cause yeah, there were there were no like that didn't exist. Like movie merchandise like that was not a thing until George Lucas was like, you know what? I don't really want your money. I want all the merch rights. How about that? Yeah, look at that. Sure. My is that. The original Kenner set? Or is that original? Yeah.

Yeah, that's. The original This the one that Sears released Like that first one? I I at least some of them are, yeah. And then I got this thing from, I don't know, this some cereal box order for the stand or something is if I recall correctly, but my gosh. But yeah. That's wild. Oh my God, yeah. Poland after I moved to like we had a theft in out of the garage after I moved to Arizona and they got almost nothing but they got climbing gear and my original Star Wars Oh.

Man, I'd, I remember like, I don't know, maybe 7 or 8 years ago, my, my wife's brother who's about, I don't know, seven years younger than me. And I've known like my wife and I met in college. So I've known him since he was in high school. His parents were moving here in Massachusetts, and they tossed his original Star Wars figures like did not know what they were. And like, told him after the fact, like he, you know, he came back from Christmas and they were like, oh, yeah, you know, we were cleaning out the garage and the old house and we were, we threw away all your Star Wars shit, right?

And he was like, I'm sorry, what? Like what? And they were in some of them were in packages. Some, you know, had like his name written on the foot like Woody from toy store or whatever. But still, like you know, there goes your childhood into the trash. Painful. Painful. The look at his face is one of those you're just like, oh man, you could just see like a little piece of your childhood dying, like in real time. Tough stuff. So yeah, let's get to the actual movie.

When when you guys think about this movie, what like do you, what part of it sort of pops in your head is like Rich, you mentioned the tractor being seen because of that very specific memory you have. For me, it's the end. Like I always just think about like the trench run and that sort of part which I like in my mind was like 40 minutes. It's like 12 minutes or something like that. That last battle, I thought it was like the last third of the movie. It's not. It's like there's so much of them just standing around in rooms or like talking on microphones to each other around the space stations and Death Star or whatever.

But what like pops in your head, Wade when you're like, you know what? I'm going to sit down and watch Star Wars because of this. Oh man, I mean the the just the battles lightsaber, all of that kind of the lightsabers aren't that great in the first one. I mean that peaks and Empire Strikes Back, which is my favorite one by the way, but I mean different scenes from a personal perspective. I mean all the ships and all that. Especially watching it as a, as a young kid, as the first time I'd seen anything like that. It was just mind blowing.

And you know, wow, from a from a security perspective, watching later, you know, there's just so many scenes that I totally missed as a kid that I have no recollection of. It didn't really make an impression on me. But now I can't help but see it, you know, and I'm like, man, how did I miss that? Because it was, was this intentional? You know, was it, what was it meant to be like an information security mistake movie? I don't think so. But I mean, wow.

I mean, from the very beginning, you know, starts with theft of the of the plans all the way to the insecure exhaust port. I mean, from beginning to end, it's like security problems, you know? Yeah, what about you, Rich? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to pick any particular moments because of I mean, I had like I said, I saw hundreds of times and and then, you know, with kids, we've watched all of the like everything multiple times. My son especially is into it and my but even my my daughter's were Inuit or are still are at various phases. So I mean, obviously the ending for me, the so the, the part that emotionally for me that kind of helped in my life was like all the Jedi pathway stuff and you know, making the right decisions and the moral code that was involved with that, which later you find out the Jedi were all corrupt and everything else issues there.

Destroyed that little. I'm like, oh, he taught in the ideal version, so do as I say, not as I did. Yeah, but yeah. Which Lucas, I mean, he does not get enough credit for that. And the political, social stuff of the prequels, which I think we're living in that time right now. But. But like the really stupid version of that anyway, going to the so, so that aspect of it like really for me, 'cause we had, we had problems like growing up and my dad got sick and all sorts of like other stuff.

So that was like something I could cling to through those films and then afterwards that that helped guide my life. And it's probably why I went into security and being a paramedic and all that various stuff that I did. But in terms of going to like what Wade said about the infosec aspects of it, you know, I don't think that Lucas set out to do it that way. It's that if you look at Star Wars, and I don't know if that set the precedent for a lot of our modern films, but of all the movies, like you've been reviewing, how many of them is the hacker there just to move the plot along and cause the hackers, You know, what we do is really boring. But the implications of that, it's a plot device. And so Lucas is famous for saying like how fast is warp speed?

And it's like, well, it moves at the speed of plot. Or maybe that was a Star Trek one, sorry, but and that or for hyperspace. And that's really what it was like. So yes, there's a lot of security implications within there. And I think the things that we've talked about afterwards that have been built the, you know, the from the animated series to the other movies, you get more into that. But if we just look at Star Wars, you know, itself, the whole idea, like the concept is if you have this effectively indestructible thing, how do you get from A to explosion and a?

And there's really no way to do that without the flaws. And I think that comes a lot from the World War 2 movies where this was, you know, Guns of Nabarone and Worst Time from Nabarone. And like all the ones I can't even remember the names of dirty. Dozen things like that, yeah. Yeah, because World War 2 was won by security and cryptography. Yep, yeah. It the data breach part of it that you mentioned, Wade is really funny because like for people in our industry, if you, you can't not see that as as just this giant like allegory, even though it was 50 years ago, you're like, Jesus Christ, it's her.

Like she stole something, you know, puts it on a flash drive essentially, which is RQ and then has to get that to the people that run the exploit to actually, you know, destroy the, the system that they're targeting. That's that's honestly what it is. It's crazy. Like it's a you. Know it's a four sentence elevator pitch now, you know, yeah. Yeah, and, and even the filler scenes in there, you know, the fact that the Empire traced the stolen plans to the right ship, you know, that's like, that's good incident response. And you know, they, they, they storm in there, try to get it, but as you mentioned, it's it's out of the it's on the flash drive and, and has been X filled by that time. Then, you know, they, they actually detect the escape pod with R2 on it.

And there's that. I think they say something like, oh, there are no life forms aboard. It's nothing, you know, they detected it, but but it looks, it looks benign. You know how how many times do we see that in the, in the detection and response world? So I I just, I love stuff like that. Yeah, I do too. The there was a couple things that really struck me on this rewatch. As I mentioned, I hadn't seen it all the way through in quite a while, but I had been watching like Andor and things like that, which, you know, Andor, you find out like how they actually stole this stuff and like where the kind of rebellion came from and all that. In this movie, like we have no idea like where the Empire came from, where the Rebel Alliance came, like where are they getting all their funding and ships and bases and like all of that kind of stuff.

We don't know anything at all about the Jedi's except for like this sort of not monologue, but the conversation that Obi Wan has with Luke on Tatooine where he's just like, oh, you know, it's like this thing that binds everything together and your dad was one and like, OK, let's go. Like you, you don't. It's not very well developed. It's like the whole idea of the force is just kind of a a vague, you know, is Han says like, like a weird old religion. And you know, I've seen a lot of shit kid. And I've never seen anything that tells me that there's one overarching force that holds it all together. And that all comes through later in the other movies. And, you know, they obviously developed that much more because, you know, George Lucas did not expect this to be a hit like, did very famously.

He, you know, the studios didn't want to make it. He had been writing this for years. It had gone through all these, like, development things. And, you know, he didn't go to the premiere. He went to Hawaii with Spielberg instead because he thought it was going to be such a flop. And then I just went and looked it up this morning. This movie made $195 million in 1977 in seven months. That's not in 1977 dollars. That's bananas. It's $150 million more than the next highest grossing movie, which was the deep.

I don't even know what that was. I guess it's a jaws RIP off. But this movie was like hit doesn't even cover it. Like you said, like people were literally lined up, you know, blocks and blocks down the down the street to see it for like the 5th, 6th, 10th time. You know, it's, it's one of those things that's just become like it's ingrained in the culture, even if you know, you haven't seen every minute of everything like like we probably have. It's just a part of the world now.

Well, the, and it's hard to express like, you know, as a kid in that time period as they were coming out, having to wait three years in between for what was next and all the schoolyard discussions and US playing games with flashlights and toys, you know, like, like Wade has there. And when they all came out, all the figures, like I remember when the prequels came out, I walked into like Target and I freaked out and just bought all the toys and put some more garbage. But it was like because I couldn't afford them all as a kid because we were not we didn't have a lot of money.

I think the closest equivalent that I've had in my kids lifetime, a little bit of the Marvel stuff, but the pace of that is so quick. It was actually Stranger Things and because of the time period that that was watching and we went and saw the finale in the theatre. Like my daughters have boyfriends. They dish their boyfriends to like come, you know, watch the family that's. A true mark of respect right there. Rich like. Wait, what? You want to say like, no, we're going to go see strangers. That's awesome.

But but if we think back like I like how you just framed it, because if we look at the first one in particular and then the next two, and we didn't have like Andor was brand new, like we didn't know how they got those plans or everything. We know now, none of that was defined and none of what came later was defined. And to be honest, I think that was the magic of it. I think if they had explained it all and and the core, you know, the hacker plot line was a very clear one. We we're using those terms like the data theft, the data breach, finding the flaw.

I mean that's, that's there's two threats. There's the what is the plot? And then what is the characters and all the plot development. It's much less the hero's journey in terms of getting from A to E. It is very much, you know, way, way what you were talking about. It's the that the theft of the plans and then. You. Know chasing after them and Dennis what you just said about the incident response aspect of it and all the crazy things they do like blowing up an entire planet to try and figure out like where the plans are going how much do they know and then eventually leading to the the final attack. And I that that's pretty cool.

Like the hacker plot line is the thing that drives the story, the plot forward, where the Jedi and the hero's journey is the thing that drives the characters forward in their their development. Yeah. And the other, you know, a couple of other things that really jumped out of me is, you know, aside from like the Force and all that not really being so well developed in there. Like Vader, Like he's in, you know, I don't know, 5 or 6 scenes, most of which are him just saying like 2 sentences, you know, giving somebody an order or saying come with me or get to the ship or something like that.

You know, he's not a Yeah. And I think he was meant to die in this movie originally, like he was supposed to get killed in like the trench run. Somebody was I At least that's what the Internet tells me. So because, I mean, it's got to be true. This wasn't really envisioned as like the trilogy that it became, you know, and obviously Lucas didn't know that he was going to make Vader Luke's father until Empire. And I mean, obviously a great, great idea, Good job, George. But you can tell in this this movie, like, he's just supposed to be sort of a caricature bad guy, literally dressed in black, you know, you know, breathing heavy and like, you know, being evil.

Like, he doesn't really have any sort of back story aside from we think he killed Luke's father. Like, that's kind of all we know, right? Like there's not much more to him. And he works for Tarkin. I mean, that's like if you just make the original. He's not in charge of anything, no. He's a corporate drone, essentially. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Wade, what is it that like really keeps you coming back to this movie like over the year and is and is kind of like driven your, you know, interest in the franchise as a whole? Oh man, there there.

There's a lot of things Rich Mitch mentioned 1 is my kids are into it. You know, I, I think maybe our generation is unique in that we are into kind of the same things that our kids are into. Like I, I don't remember that with my parents. I don't remember really sharing any kind of cultural loves with with them, But now all the stuff that I like as a kid, Star Wars, I mean, Transformers, I mean, they made a new Voltron series. Like I can relive all of this stuff with my kids and they're experiencing it and and even better than just watching the old ones like mine.

They there's new stuff coming out for all of these things and that makes it even better. So I get to experience something new along with them. It's so I think, I think all of that is probably my favorite, favorite aspect of it and the nerd angle, you know, we, we dress up as Star Wars characters and go to awesome con here in DC or other other things like that. It's just a it's it. It allows an outlet for that kind of thing, which I I love about it.

Yeah, the I think the generational part of it is like you, you guys both mentioned is a big one for me too, like when my son was, you know, maybe 7 or 8. He's almost 22 now, which is bananas. But when I figured like, OK, he's old enough to start watching like the Star Wars movies and understand them and have fun, that was like the coolest thing. I wasn't like a super Star Wars nerd, but like when I was able to like, start with, you know, this movie and then Empire and Jedi and he loved them all. And we, you know, we had them on DVD or whatever at the time. And then they did start putting them back in the theaters eventually.

And we went and did all that. And, you know, he watched the prequels and we're like, what happened? Like these are these are not great. I was like, yeah, I know, man, I know. You gotta people are trying to make get their money. That's what that's what happened. But that is a big part of it for us too. Like he's and then I'll tell you the biggest thing was when the Lego Star Wars games came out on like Wii, at which we had at the time were super fun. You're just like jumping around and like smashing Lego stormtroopers and all that kind of shit. It was so much fun.

Like we that and the Indiana Jones game. So we played the hell out of when he was like, you know, 10 years old or whatever it was. So yeah, that's sort of like you said. Wait, I had like, no, you know, movie or like cultural music connections with my parents. Like I had great parents, but if we didn't have like that it, it wasn't a thing back then, you know, like now we can still listen to the same music our kids do and like may not love it, but at least we know what it is, you know, like my parents didn't know what the hell like U2 was or like Def Leppard when I was listening to them in 1985. My.

Middle daughter is a Parrot Head and last year, Oh yeah, her Apple Music end of the year she was in the top 100 listeners. Let's go. That's like her background thing. The I mean, you were talking about that this is the Sabine helmet. I made it to my daughter. You know, we marched in the Fiesta Bowl parade together with the 500. You made that. Yeah, I don't. Know why that surprises me? But yeah, she said. Oh my God. So this. Is the one that doesn't fit anymore.

I have a, we're doing her adult Sabine because she's 16 now. So it's out in the garage and in different states, pretty printed armor and helmet. And then a friend did all the soft parts to it. So we're trying to make it like approvable level even though you can't be approved by the Rebel Legion until you're 18 and be a member. But yeah. Oh really? They I didn't realize they had age restrictions. I guess it makes sense. Yeah, there's the Galactic Academy, which is for the kids, but but we had exactly like and I did. I don't know about you guys.

I didn't push it on my kids. No. So for me, it's always been comfort food, huge part of my childhood, all the new movies, everything else. I had some stuff around the house, but not a lot. I got way more into it as they got into it. I don't, I would probably wouldn't have joined the 501st if it hadn't been for my kids and like them getting really into Comic Con and everything else. And now it's going to be weird because they're getting older and they're still, you know, one of them obviously still wants the costume, wants to troop with me. But so there's that aspect of the shared thing.

So it in my case, they just knew it was my favorite movie. And then they kind of got pulled into it on their own a little bit. But I I was very careful about how they saw the original movies and controlled that piece of it. They were watching some of the animated stuff and we can go into that. That's a whole like story. And then leading up to, you know, we got to do the galactic star cruiser. And like that brings tears to my eyes thinking about that experience with my kids where we were living it for, you know, 47 hours or whatever it was where on the. What is that?

That didn't make it. I don't. Know what that is? The well, they called it the Star Wars hotel at Disney, but it oh. OK, OK. Yeah, that. Thing but it was no, it was you literally are living in an immersive storyline with Disney level actors and engineering and immersion for you know, just over 2 days is that. A Disneyland or Disney World. Disney World, but they shut it down. Oh, OK. It wasn't yeah, profitable enough.

And they were they they took a tax write off. So like you show up and they wouldn't even you're in universe. So it's like. A Renaissance fair or like, or like Colonial Williamsburg, where they're like, I, I don't know what you're asking me about, like I don't know where the Coke machine is. Yeah, but you're on like this ship, which felt like you're on a ship. I mean, it's a concrete bunker. You've got like, your windows in your stateroom, like, are all synced up for the whole ship. So if the ship's in hyperspace, your windows are in hyperspace. If you're in a planet, you see the planet. If you're supposed to be on the 2nd floor versus the first floor, your angle is different.

Like this is the Imagineers went gangbusters and it was a full like immersive storyline with plots and a big finish and like crazy tasks and things that you had to do as part of this. At one point we're doing one, I'm like, Oh my God, there's background music because we're in the movie. And so they started like quietly pumping. They pumped in smells. You go to Galaxy's Edge, you do missions there, but you're on a, a transport that takes you down there. So it's like you go to the port on your ship, you get on it, and it looks like you're in a shuttle, and then you get off and it's a special entrance.

It was a special entrance there, Disney World. So you walk out. So now you're on your short excursion from your cruise ship. What? Oh my God. You got to look it up. It's. I can't believe you. Didn't you weren't aware of it? It was like one of the most amazing experiences. And we managed when they cancelled it, we we managed to get on and and there's a lot of hacking. Let's just say there's all these like weird like task it to do kind of on your data pad, which is an app on your phone kind of. That's cool, yeah. So that is like I'll, I'll cherish that as I mean, you guys know how much I travel around the world and all the crazy things I've done. That's a top five like moment.

It's not. To be. Upset that I didn't do that when it the short window that it was open. I can't believe how quickly they shut that down. But how? Long ago was that. Five years. Three years. Oh, that, oh, that recently. OK, I guess I probably did hear about it, but my yeah, my kids were a little older than yours. They were probably like, you know, too, that like aged out of it at that point, like already in college, but still, like, that's awesome that that's like, I can't believe that wasn't profitable. That sounds insanely expensive. It was.

Like I have pictures of my son, like in the engine room, like working with Chewbacca to like, you know, fix some engineering problem. Like, I mean, that's the level this thing was that. That's Brad that you mentioned Chewbacca we had. That's the first mention of him in this in this podcast so far. We. That was another thing that I like. He's doesn't do all that much in this movie. I know there's the whole like fan thing of like give Chewbacca his metal or whatever at the end, but like he kind of like he steers the ship, he runs around and does stuff.

He does stuff in the trash compactor, but he's kind of like, just a background, like, guy in this movie. Obviously, later on he does more, but that was another thing. And I was like, I thought Chewbacca had a bigger role in this, You know, He's just kind of like, not Comic Relief, but like kid relief. Like, little kids would be like, oh, I like the furry guy, you know? Yeah. I mean, he's the copilot, right? Yeah. That's it. That's kind of it. And he, like, takes orders from Han. You're not really sure, like, why they're friends.

Like, where did he come from? Like, are they always together? Did he just pick him up for like a couple mission? Like what? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I, I mean, I am fascinated. It is hard to separate in my mind the fully developed characters from the characters as they are at the end of A New Hope and even Luke. You know, like if I just watch A New Hope Luke, I don't I don't like him very.

Yeah, he's. Like a little whiner. And so, but you know, but I, I, that's not the Luke that I, I think about, right? I think about the, the, the, the one in episode 8, of course. I mean, I like the green teat milk Luke. That's the, I'm just kidding. But anyway, yeah, they, they are, it's, it is funny to watch them at that, that point, 'cause they're very different. He is like, you nailed it, rich. He's a whiny teenage jerk who's like pouty, you know, even at the beginning, like where he's with his aunt and uncle you're. Some coward converter.

Oh my God, Like I get it. Like he does. He's not having fun like being a a water farmer or whatever the hell he is. He wants to go to the Academy and be a pilot, right? But he just pouts. He's like, I don't want to do this shit. I don't want to clean these droids. Like I want to go where all my friends went and like, you know, fly a spaceship or whatever. And then like later on I started laughing when after Obi Wan gets killed and then they're like back on the Millennium Falcon and he's just like leaning on like the space chess board and like pouting.

And Leia's like, dude, come on. Like, like, and I'm thinking like you knew him for like 48 hours or 72 hours maybe. Like it's not like he raised you. Like just cheer up kid. Like get, get get it together. Like get your shit together. I know your your weird old father figure died, but yeah, come on. I mean, if you, yeah, you know it, it's hard like for anyone on the planet, I think, to separate out their views on that movie alone. Yeah, yeah, the.

Cultural influence, I mean, globally, you know, Superman, Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader, like, you know, in terms of like the most recognizable figures that we have out there, none of us can remember, you know, really what it was like to to see that just for the first time. I mean, I have a little bit of memory for my kids because they that was most like talking to not my son because he was just younger enough that he got kind of fell into it, you know.

But with the girls, I staged it. They were only allowed to watch the the D specialized edition and we did movies, you know, in the hardcore kind of a thing to, you know, like I yeah, the whole thing was like staged out when they were ready to watch it. But well, like, I'm remembering their reaction a little bit of, you know, of what that was like. And they definitely didn't bond. So like kids bond with R2 big? Time. Yeah, of course. So I mean.

Everybody loves the hacker, so they bonded, you know, kind of with the R2 and but they definitely like what you said with like, I mean, Luke is there, there's his journey and everything else, but I don't think they associated with that at all. Princess Leia is a much stronger character and and honestly, there's so many, many Pixie dream, manic Pixie dream girls out there in like all these various movies, but she's not. She's like a well formed, largely strong female character, which I also think now as I'm older is like role model is just very interesting.

Yeah, especially considering Carrie Fisher was, I think 21 when she made this movie. OK Yeah, even younger. She had. She had only been in shampoo before that. And, you know, then comes into this. Yeah, she's 19 or maybe she was 21 when it came out or something. But she's a force. Like she's, you know, she's obviously a, a legendary actress and like. Hollywood figure. But you can tell even now, you go look at this, you're like, OK, that girl knows what she's doing that, you know, not just the character, but the woman who's playing her is like, knows how to do this.

And she's blowing Luke off the screen. You know, he's just like, you know, she's doing her shit. Especially like the scene that really drove that home for me this time was when they're sort of trapped in that hallway shooting it out with the stormtroopers before they fall into the trash compactor. And she just like grabs the gun, I think from Luke and just like blows a hole in the side. And it's like, go down there, somebody's got to do something here. And he's like, oh, yeah, I guess. So. Like, you know, it didn't turn out great, but she like, took charge. It's like, I'm not going to stand here and look at you 2 idiots.

Just like shoot it out. Like let's let's figure this out. Even when, like, he goes in to rescue her, just like, who are you? Yeah. And then it's like, she's like, all right, let's fucking go. You have a plan. What the fuck? Yeah, this was. Your whole plan, yes, And then? I mean, and she takes charge and clearly she knows Obi Wan. We don't know the extent of like where that comes from or anything. And of course that that's dealt with later as well.

But yeah, yeah. Where do you guys stand on the prequels? We've mentioned them several times. I can remember, I was I guess 27 when Phantom Menace came out. It was a big deal. A bunch of us went and saw at the theater and they had re released the original, you know, the first trilogy right before that went saw those. And then we saw this and we were like or we saw A Phantom Menace. And I just remember being like massively disappointed in it for many, many reasons. And I tried to watch it again like a month ago and I couldn't even get through it. But where do you stand on like their place in in all of this? Who Yeah, I I massively disappointing is a good way to to sum it up.

I can, I can remember that feeling, and I think most people do. I, I think Episode 3, I I enjoy watching that one now. That's the only one of the prequels that I can sort of say, all right, I I like that and I I like the progression of watching Anakin turn dark. Yeah, the other two in my mind, I you could trash one and you know, I'm glad 2 is there because the Clone Wars was a great animated series that yeah, you know, and I guess it at least gets sets that up. But other than that, not a not a huge fan. Although my kids did like the the the prequels when they were when they were younger.

So I didn't want to trash them too much. You know, I was like trying to be careful, like, oh really? You want to watch that one again? OK. Yeah, I mean. I, I try and separate stuff out, like obviously we can talk about the fandom stuff I guess in a minute, 'cause that's, that's a separate kind of thing. I really, I, I remember I was very hyped up for it. Not only was it one of the, so let's talk about Internet history stuff. That preview was one of the very first that was streamable on the Internet. I can't even tell you how many times I watched that thing. I mean, this was like people, listeners may not remember viewers.

Like, I mean, YouTube and stuff was not a thing yet and previews like that. So the stream of that preview is to this day is one of the best film previews I think that was ever created as a as a trailer. The other was I was living in Boulder at the time, Star Wars Celebration. One that was the very first one was in Denver. So we went, we had to see the premiere of the the preview like on the big screen, like in the hallway, you know, like the whole age kind of a Comic Con thing. We, Ray Park was out there doing like, martial arts on stage like, so there's all that hype up and we saw it.

I don't think I was fully as disappointed as both of you just expressed. I think there are a lot of things I didn't like about it. The ending, to me, though, is still the three parallel action sequences is something that Lucas does. It's almost no other directors can pull off. Yeah, intertwining action sequences. So yes, of those the mind spacing on on the planet. But the you know, you've got up on the you've got the the Anakin space fight scene, you've got the duel of the Fates. It's just come on, man, Duel of the Fates. That's worth that's worth sitting through that whole movie and all of those inter intertwined pieces. So that was great.

I think the the next two I didn't like as much. It was still Star Wars. Yeah. I think though, I to me, it's in some ways it's a gift because of the we got Clone Wars out of that and Clone Wars led to Rebels. And even now, like we're still, we have my son and I are still rolling Bad Batch because we don't want to fully finish it off. And then now we've got, you know, the other the like Rebels to me is my absolute favorite of all the Star Wars things. I think of all the films of all the shows, Rebels by far.

And for, you know, we could, we could get into that. But if we look at the one things that I criticize about the prequels was like, it's a, it's a trade dispute and there's tariffs and, and then like how stupid are people like, like Palpatine and giving up your democracy and all that. And then we all criticize that as like, you know, a 5 year old's interpretation of political science. But but here we are kids. Yeah, yeah, I.

Respect it way more than I did. Five years ago, yeah. I mean, it's it can be extremely depressing and dark to go back and just like read these things at a surface level and see how right Lucas and all his collaborators were about like fascism and authoritarianism and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's funny. You meant you guys mentioned the animated series. Like I never really got super into those. My, my son watched them for sure. But there's a like a significant chunk of the fandom that that is their shit, like Rebels especially, right? Like people just absolutely love that stuff. And I know that there's mentions of like characters and little plot things in like Mandalorian and stuff like that that ties back to those that I never really totally got. I love Mandalorian for what you know, on its own in Andor 2. But like those animated series are like a huge, huge thing for a non trivial chunk of the the

fans, I think. I mean. They make the movies better. Anakin's flip to the dark side makes no fucking sense in episode 3. If you like the emotional core that Anakin. I mean hating Christiansen. I nothing against him as an actor. Like it wasn't him. I saw him at he was at our Comic Con last year. Super nice guy like on stage. I didn't talk to him, but if you know the Ahsoka Tano storyline and the corruption of the Jedi that occurs in the clone war show and then and then her is the through line connecting the prequels to rebels now to the the post rebels Mando verse. Stuff like that really makes those movies better because there's a whole like thing about her. He she was his paddle on and her and showing. There's a.

Whole thing in Clone Wars where it leads up to it very much covers the the Jedi realizing that they had been warped by Palpatine and by being pulled into this war and they're like, we're supposed to be peacekeepers and now we're war mongers. And there's stuff around her in particular and her relationship with Anakin that's played very well, as well as Anakin and Padme, which their relationship and you know again, very well. So I think Lucas is still with the landing and apparently there's some there's some behind the scenes reasons why that that got changed in the movies and not a good way, but that that's my to me, those are those characters to me as much more the Clone Wars in the movies.

I don't know what about you, Wade, because you've watched all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. And the especially that that segment of the Clone Wars you were you were discussing there wasn't that that was added fairly recently, right, That was. So there was the the plot line where Ahsoka is accused of blowing up a thing in the I think it was in the Jedi Temple and then she goes into hiding and then is innocent. So that was all like there's a very emotional scene with with Anakin and her about like where he's like he's realizing that there's something wrong with the Jedi.

That was in the first version. They did the add-ons to continue her story, which was like the last half season, which gets into that a little more and ties into the point of like it's her and and Maul like right as right as the yeah, it all the the empire is like taking over. Yeah. I, I enjoyed those and, you know, still have hope that they'll pick up those threads in the Ahsoka, you know, live action series currently. And then, you know, it looks like they're starting to, to, to blend that.

Don't want to do spoilers and all, but you know, you, you, you see some of the, the characters re emerging and, and that kind of stuff. Although I have to say the, the, the, the current Thrawn is a big disappointment because I, I, I liked those original Thrawn series books that were published in the early 90s or whatever. I can't quite remember air to. The Empire. Yes, air to the Empire and and that trilogy of books and the way Thrawn was in there. I I like that a lot. So we'll see.

We'll see if they get to anything that approaches that, but not not quite yet. That's the other crazy thing about this, this whole franchise is how much like they've mined out of like what was a 2 hour space opera that everybody thought was going to suck? Like the novelizations, you know, the original books, like all that kind of stuff. Like there's billions of fanfiction stories, like all this authorized stuff, you know, the animated series, the prequels, the everything. Like if you go on Disney Plus and just click on the Star Wars tab, there is like year's worth of content for you that you can just watch without.

Like, you know, it's, it's wild. And yeah, it's not all great, but a lot of it is really, really good. And the way that they've, like, pulled the threads of this story to weave like a really, you know, pretty comprehensive tapestry is like, pretty impressive, honestly. I think the biggest thing holding it back is the toxic fandom because it's true. Of almost everything rich. Like I know it's just it's so frustrating because some of the to me, Star Wars, it's like the Lego, it's a playset and filmmaker should have. So there's two things I think blew it in. So I mean, all right, we're getting here an hour here, so I'm OK throwing this out at the end. But the 789, I think 9 just blew it because they were trying to appease the fans who didn't like 8 where I didn't like I loved 8 as a film.

I it was very hard to watch because it's not where I wanted those characters to be. But it was very true to Star Wars and very true to the characters like Ryan Johnson. People are like, oh, Luke's hiding out of this plant like a hermit. Like, OK, did you not see Obi Wan or Yoda? Like that's exactly what they were fucking. Doing Yeah, they were literal hermits like just leave me alone, I don't want to talk to you. The throne of the. Lightsaber like that was very much like I I get it. That's not what we wanted. And then I do think they should have actually killed off Leia when she died in movie.

And so I think that's that was a decision that because she could have been dead then and it would have been very emotional in that movie after Carrie Fisher died, they could have edited it that way. And then they tried to bring her back for the the 3rd and I think that was a problem. But anyway, all of that aside, the fans don't let them explore with Star Wars the way they should. Where like Andor showed it's adult level content, incredibly tense didn't have a big like action finale.

The action finale was the episode before the finale, which was still I mean that that revolution scene and they were kettling and they were doing all the things we know happened at protest and the set up like that was that was one of the best hours of television I'd ever watched. It was great they had there. Maybe the ending wasn't there, but but like that, it's frustrating that Disney has whiffed on all of this stuff because they aid the the toxic fandom aspects of it, which is we know some of that's Russian trolls. They know they can divide us.

I mean, that absolutely happened with particularly episode 7 and with the strong female characters. Like that wasn't all real people that did the Russian troll bots going after us. And that's been proven, or I might believe it as I didn't do the research. It's insane and. So it's sad because there's I think there's so many wonderful directions we can go in with new levels of content and new kinds of story. I mean, Skeleton Crew is a good fun kids show.

Solo I think was an unnecessary movie but was a fun action movie. There's a cool like, that train sequence is insane in that movie. It's bananas. That in the theater was wild. You know that that was great. Yeah, the movie doesn't totally work, but it's not like I didn't walk out of there. Being like that sucks like it was, yeah, unnecessary is probably a great work for it. Rich. Like, do we need that? Maybe not, but who cares? Like, you know, yeah, there's a lot You're you're right, Rich. Like the I mean, the lesson is people ruin everything.

Honestly, like that's just how it works. But like, you know, like getting back a little bit back to the the hacker part of this. One of the things that I was like struck by probably the first couple times I went to Black Hat and Defcon, which would have been like O1. O2 in that time frame is like you would just see people walking around Defcon in 175° heat in Las Vegas in a full fucking stormtrooper outfit, just like a norm on a Tuesday, just wandering around and I'm like what what is happening here? Obviously there's like a whole costume like dress up thing at Defcon now, whatever.

But like that the overarching like impact that Star Wars has had on the hacker culture is like, I don't even know how you would quantify that. You just, it's everywhere. The number of like you, I'm sure both of you have done it like conference talks like with the Star Wars theme. I don't know it for sure, but I'm, I would bet $1,000,000 that you have, I mean and lots of other people we know, but. Yeah, but. Those like those themes and just like all of that is it's so ingrained in the security and hacker culture now. It's it's one of those things that's almost inseparable, you know, from it like the Matrix or you know, the Hackers movie or whatever.

It's just everywhere. I mean, think about our generation in particular, and I can't speak to with the younger generations coming into the I mean, we're we're aging out. Let's be real. Most of our friends aren't Black Hat and Defcon anymore. I see far fewer friendly faces there than I used to. But for us, you know, for the Gen. Xers, I mean a lot of our side, if you're going to be in technology, you probably have an affiliation with sci-fi. And So what was it?

It's what's sitting behind Wade right now. It's Star Wars and it was Transformers and it was Star Trek and all of those, I think. So of course, those are the things that we, you know, kind of love is in terms of our media and just makes absolute sense. So that would kind of inspire where we go. Yeah, yeah, it is everywhere short. Language like at hacker cons and stuff. If we talk about, you know, sealing the death car plans or, you know, we make jokes about the exhaust port right below the main port, like.

Everyone. 'S going to know what we mean. Yeah, everyone's right there. Yeah, I. Think it resonates too, just because you know, we, we talk a lot about how infosec is really an uneven playing field against defenders and and attackers. And, you know, I whether or not it was planned or not, the fact that hacking was a way to turn the tables in in the Star Wars movies, I think I, I, I think that has a lot to do with it. You know it it it resonates of OK, yeah, that's the way for the little person to to to actually do something against a a large overwhelming power, right.

And I think that that resonates with the the security and hacker mindset a lot. Yeah, very much so. It's a way to, like, reverse that asymmetry and be like, OK, you're this giant overarching power, but guess what? We have a little knowledge that maybe you don't have, and we know how to use it, and we're able to move faster and do things that you can't because you're this big, lumbering, you know, monolith. Yeah, I didn't think about it that way, but that you know earlier when I talked about it.

Is. What drives the plot forward? But wait, I think you you nailed it. Like, across all of this. Yeah, the hacking's kind of the only way the little guy has a freaking. Yeah. Find the exploit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, especially in this universe, yeah. And it's I mean, it's been written about in beaten to death in like the behind the scenes and like development of this movie specifically of like how it was also like a a larger metaphor for like the the 70s, like new Hollywood guys like Spielberg and Lucas and all of them that were coming up and, you know, trying to to find their place in the larger Hollywood, you know, bureaucracy and making these like scrappy. Not that this is AI mean.

It sort of is. It had a decent sized budget, but you know, it wasn't a traditional Hollywood movie. You know, it's not a love story. It's not like a anything like that. It's a weird space opera, but yeah, it's the same sort of like little guy against the establishment type story. Which was inspired by Vietnam for the originals, yeah. But then like, you look at what's going on now, like over in Ukraine, It, it, it's hacking and technology advancements and creativity that are, you know, admittedly there's funding from, you know, the rest of the world, but still. I mean, you look at Russia, you look at Ukraine and they're, you know, that what they've done with drones, what they, I mean, that whole thing where they had the drones in like the sheds with the roofs that opened up and the drones flew out and destroyed.

Like yeah, I'm not saying they were inspired by Star Wars, but but. I'm not not saying that. There's a drill line. You know, go. Back to what what Wade was saying there. Yeah, that it lines up. That checks out. It's true. Maybe the last thing before we go, I know you guys got to go, but I was if you go, and I'm sure you guys have watched that light magic documentary series on Disney Plus about like industrial light magic and how the special effects, especially for this movie, the first one, like they invented so many ways of doing things.

And yeah, there's a couple janky shots in here, especially the Death Star stuff where you're like, OK, that's a model, but most of it you're like, this is amazing, especially for a 50 year old movie. And if you look at some of the AI driven slop that's coming out now, you're like, we have, we have regressed like literally like 50 years. I would much rather watch Star Wars than any of the newer like Marvel movies or anything like that in terms of the effects and the technology. Yeah, that that is actually a good point. I mean the making of it itself is sort of a a a hacking. Oh, for sure.

What how, how can we do a whole lot with just a little bit, you know, and, and advance that art and the curiosity and creativity involved in that was it's it's really cool. Yeah, watch. So like we saw Avatar Fire and Nash when that came out, we went to the big IMAX we've got. We're lucky we have one of the last like real 20 real IMAX screens 20 + 20 ish minutes from us. But I watched some of the making of that and it's weird because it's almost the opposite side. Like Cameron has infinite budget and everything else. But you can see that that old Rodger Corman like hacking mentality again, as he's coming up with ways to make that in a physicality, which is I think will really separate out, you know, not to switch, switch franchises here. But like, whatever you think about those movies and they don't look like they were all generated computer to the point of where like they look up the

water tank that they built that they could like emulate currents, but it was also a weight machine, but it's also a current machine. But where they had like a a lifting platform to create islands in there like as they were. And then they had the this new ability to film, do motion capture from above the water to in the water, which I didn't think was anything in shots. But some really. And then really cool stuff about how they for the flying bit where they actually use those, like, you know, those water jet things that you can ride that are hooked up to hoses or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. You use those and put stuff people on them. And like they had a really hard time figuring out how to land without giving them concussions every time for those two feet up in the air. It's like, but anyway, just I went a little off topic there, but I love that that spirit is still alive and that increases the even if it's everything you see is been affected by a computer. It's not like when you watch something filmed in the volume or some of those horrific Marvel movies like Quantum Mania, which was like I watching here, like I played the games. Yeah, but that, I mean, the practical way that they did a lot of the effects in this movie is incredible. You know, you like the, the little minute details they're using, you know, forced perspective and all those like camera tricks that they were kind of inventing at the time and they were inventing new sound technologies and all that kind of stuff.

And it all somehow it all worked. You know, they like they got it to work somehow. And, you know, 1977, which like, we can barely get computers to work now in, you know, 2026. So all right, boys. Well, thank you both so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. It's one I wanted to do for a long time and I I was waiting to get the two of you to do it. So I'm glad we got to get everybody together, Did we? Actually review the movie I I don't know, no. No, that's not what we're here for, Rich.

We're here to have fun. That's it. All. Right, All right guys, take care. Hopefully that's. Me too. Thanks a lot. Cheers. Thanks a lot guys.