Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I can’t believe how much mail the first JEDI COUNCIL article generated. You guys proved one thing to me... these conversations are happening everywhere right now. The point of this series of articles is not to position ourselves as the end-all-be-all STAR WARS authorities or to say that we’re “better” fans than anyone else. It’s to kick-start conversation, and to give voice to what I think is happening all over fandom as we ramp up for the final film in a series that, like it or not, has been a central part of the inner lives of a generation of film fans. There’s really nothing I can say here that isn’t said somewhere else in the body of the piece, so let’s just jump right in. We all met in a seedy bar in Mos Espa that looked suspiciously like Frosty Skywalker’s apartment. STAR WARS films were playing on the giant TV screen in the background during the whole conversation. Food and drink was copious. Here’s what happened:
Moriarty- First thing we are going to do, is that Obi-Swan actually went through, I haven’t read these, so I don’t know what’s in here, but he took TalkBacks from the first Jedi Council Article, and we’re going to read a few of these…
(insert nervous laughter and jokes from all out of fear from all members of the council of how their first comments were taken.)
Moriarty- … sort of warm-up, and then we’ll start to talk about new information. Got some pictures to show. And there’s some good stuff. First off, there’s a Talkbacker called Cash Bailey, who says, “Lucas ain’t proved shit until he goes back and has Han shoot Greedo in cold blood.”
MrBeaks- I like that Cash Bailey by the way, he’s a good Talkbacker.
Obi-Swan- I think this is like a key point for a lot of Star Wars fans, because that is like it’s never been more clearly illustrated, Lucas’s intentions with this new way of film-making, than when Greedo shot first.
Jed- And it looks fucking ridiculous.
Moriarty- I think more than anything, it’s a bad effect. It’s just weak.
Mr. Beaks- I didn’t even know he was shooting first, that was the whole thing. I thought just thought that it was just another effect added in the first time I saw it. And then everybody is like, “No, no, no, he’s supposed to shoot first.” It was lost on me.
Frosty Skywalker- I think the major problem for every single fan is that this is a bounty hunter, and he’s at point blank range, and he’s going to miss. And I think that if it was just an effect, or Han reacting to him it would have been better, but it’s clearly just horrific.
Moriarty- There’s just nothing to work with. It’s not like Lucas had an alternate take where Harrison Ford was like, “Oh, shit!”, and moves out of the way. It’s just not in there.
Frosty Skywalker- It’s just horrific.
Obi-Swan- I thought it was terrible when Han stepped on Greedo’s tail.
Mr. Beaks- It was a Snuffleupagus.
Moriarty- Okay. Now this one addresses, something… first off, how many people have Hyperspace accounts?
Sarah- I do, I am an addict.
Moriarty- How many people are paying for them?
Sarah- I am.
Moriarty- I'll go on the record and confess just so there are no “ifs, ands, or buts” about it, we put up the photo that was taken off of the Hyperspace webcam of Anakin with the longer hair. We got a really polite and friendly “cease and desist” letter from Lucasfilm, from a pretty decent guy named Paul Ens at Lucasfilm. And his point, and well argued, was that the whole point of Hyperspace is obviously exclusive content and if we reprint that exclusive content, that it devalues what the fans are paying for. He offered Harry and I press accounts so that we could look Hyperspace over. I’m still not convinced that it’s worth paying for. I think there is some interesting content, but I really believe that it should be free to fans. I think that you should be able to just go to the website, look at a webcam, because it’s promotion. We’re basically being asked to pay for a two-year promotion.
Frosty Skywalker- I have a question, have they released any of those deleted scenes?
Sarah-Yeah, they did. It’s on there.
Moriarty- I watched one today right before I left the house.
Sarah- I’m going to speak as some one who pays for the site. It’s twenty dollars for a year. I can justify this. I spend more on lattes in a week. I pay more for a newspaper I don’t read everyday. But I cannot stop watching Hyperspace, I cannot stop watching that webcam. Other people that have gotten into the webcam agree, it’s worth every penny. Aside of that, it’s one of the most active communities that has grown out of it. One of the first times I turned on the webcam, there was Lucas. It was showing Lucas sitting there writing, taking notes, and I was like, “Oh, my god!” That was worth my twenty dollars for that thirty seconds right there.
MrBeaks- What did it say? “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”?
Sarah- Not just that. There is a message board that I just found, like a week into having it, that was people all watching the webcam at the same time. Literally, there is anywhere from 900-2000 messages posted on that thread. It’s insane, you cannot keep up with it. They’re all about, “what are we looking at here” and “well, what are we looking at here”.
Moriarty- I’ll say this, there was a really cool sequence that I saw the other day where it was them suiting-up Peter Mayhew for the first time. Putting him in the full suit, putting him in the mask, with the articulation, having him snarl, having him try out various Chewbacca faces, and then having him walk around the studio. And watching the sequence of that, watching like every twenty seconds renewing or sixty seconds or how ever often it is, and watching Peter Mayhew putting on the suit and walking around, was pretty groovy.
Sarah- They make you feel completely a part of that. They actually ham it up for the webcam. They put up little signs, “Hey, we’re going to lunch”, or, “Hey, are you looking now?”
Frosty Skywalker- Okay, I am just going to say this, that for twenty dollars, it’s the most economical thing that Lucas has ever provided to the fans. Ever. Figures being six dollars, the toys being so much, and for twenty bucks you get a year of content, I have no problem with it. The question is, are you just paying for a webcam? Is that essentially what it is?
Moriarty- The set diaries have been interesting.
Sarah- The set diaries have been interesting, some of the other resources, like the vault if you are into the expanded universe, you have greater access to that.
Frosty Skywalker- I would like to see them provide more content, more of the deleted scenes, I would like to see stuff like that. However, we already know where it’s going. We have the twenty dollars for Hyperspace, which is all well and good, for this year while they’re filming the last movie. But next year, there is going to be nothing worth paying for. The year after, nothing worth paying for. And he’s going to fuck us, like you know he’s going to, for the ultimate box set.
(Chuckles from the group)
Frosty Skywalker- You laugh all you want, but he’s going to, let me say it again, fuck us for the ultimate box set where we’re re-buying all the editions that have come out, going to have all these deleted scenes that we know exist for Episode I, with the Darth Maul fight with Qui-Gon on the ship which everyone knows was filmed. And we all know that he did it on purpose. And he’s going to make scenes for Episode III specifically to be deleted.
Momma Frattelli- I’m sorry, but I can’t picture my childhood hero “fucking” us.
(General laughter and aside comments)
Mr.Roboto- That’s nothing new though. Slowly releasing more and more and then charging you more and more.
Obi-Swan- I don’t mind him giving me a little bit now, a little bit later, a little bit more down the road, I think that’s cool.
Moriarty- You don’t mind giving Lucas all your money. I’ve never seen anyone enjoy giving their money to somebody else the way that Obi-Swan enjoys giving his money to George Lucas. Its like, “You know what George, ABSOLUTELY.” And I think that’s a Star Wars fan thing. I don’t see any other fans who are quite that eager, even Star Trek fans. They’ve dried up, they’re less willing to spend money, and the product just isn’t there. Star Wars fans cannot… you cannot pry them away. You cannot make them close their wallets.
Mr.Roboto- I’ve been driven away.
Frosty Skywalker- Wait a minute, I’ve been driven away. My close friends will agree. I used to be hardcore in spending my money on Star Wars and my wallet has been closed now for a while. Because, A, it’s just ridiculous, the amount of product released. As a former toy collector, you cannot release the same thing again, and again, again, in new packaging and expect me to pay. And B, the product that I am supporting is not good. Episode I garbage, Episode II okay, Episode III…
Mr.Beaks- Speak for yourself. I got to a point with Episode II where I think it’s worse than ‘Phantom Menace’.
(General disbelief rolls through the group)
Mr.Roboto- It’s certainly not a great movie
Mr. Beaks- It’s a laundry list checking off everything that the fans complained about and wanted to see.
Obi-Swan- Less Jar Jar Binks
Mr. Beaks- Less Jar Jar Binks. No midiclorians, a sexed-up Natalie Portman…
Frosty Skywalker- We had this conversation at the last Jedi Council, that was, as Moriarty said it, the universe feels like it’s getting smaller and smaller…
MrBeaks- And that’s the Chewbacca thing.
Frosty Skywalker- I can’t believe that Chewbacca is in the new movie. There is no reason for this.
MrBeaks- And that he’s going to do what he’s allegedly going to do.
Mr.Roboto- “Hey kids, remember Chewbacca?”
Sarah- Now, but see that something else that I feel like I’ve been getting from the webcam, again worth every penny. My excitement level is now like, I had been excited but had been feeling really down about Episode III and had been really worried. I am now out of control loving what I am hearing and am seeing.
Mr.Roboto- I love the original trilogy. When Episode I came out I could not believe how bad it was. I actually convinced myself I liked it until I walked out of the theater and said, who am I kidding. That was terrible. Episode II, yeah, it was okay. I have no reason to look forward to Episode III. I can’t tell you why. I know it’s going to be bad, but I cannot wait to see it.
Obi-Swan- You just believe it’s going to be over.
Mr.Roboto- I guess that’s true.
Obi-Swan- You know what I heard, and this is kinda cool. Maybe you heard this about Chewbacca, where there is this scene where he is with infant Luke and Leia. And he produces milk, so they suckle…
(Laughter and general add-ons to Obi-Swan’s lame joke… everyone talking at once. )
Sarah- When you saw more than one wookie costume on the webcam… that there is going to be a lot of wookies…
Frosty Skywalker- Well, you cannot screw up Chewbacca. How can you screw up, “Argh!”
Mr.Roboto- Sure you can. By having a whole fleet of them like Ewoks.
Jed- And you are fucking up his whole entrance in A New Hope.
Moriarty- Which is the greatest entrance…
Frosty Skywalker- We already know… I am going to use a friend of mine, let’s say who is “involved” with things, he said, “The script, its really not that bad. It’s going to be a good movie. But he hasn’t added any dialogue yet.” Once he adds the dialogue, it’s all over. And keep in mind, the dialogue was being written moments before shooting began.
Sarah- It’s probably what I saw him doing on the webcam…
Moriarty- It’s still actually being polished.
Frosty Skywalker- The dialogue is what the fans hate the most and it’s the thing that he is spending the least amount of time doing. It’s just crazy.
Mr.Roboto- Dialogue doesn’t sell toys, dude.
Mr.Beaks- Can we address this real quick about Darth Vader? Last time we were together Vader was not going to be in the movie, or so we had heard…
Moriarty- Actually, can we hold off on the Vader conversation? Because we are going to have a Vader conversation soon.
Mr.Beaks- Ok, alright.
Moriarty- Let me read this second Talkback, because it goes to what we were just talking about. “I really didn’t wanna to start bitchin’ but the more I think about it… CHEWBACCA???? THE FALCON??? NO CLONE-WAR BATTLE???? NO VADER???? LUCAS ARE YOU TOTALLY INSANE???? Is it really necessary given all the loose ends you have to tie up and various other fuck-ups you’re responsible for, to further complicate and ruin the STAR WARS UNIVERSE by injecting frankly ridiculous ideas into the frame!!! I mean Chewbacca!!! *urge to kill… rising*”. Signed, Snake-Eyes.
Jed- I remember that one.
Moriarty- And with the Chewbacca thing, there is a legitimate fear that they’re shoehorning things now in a desperate attempt to the fans happy…
Obi-Swan- To make it “Star Wars”.
Moriarty- For example, we’ve got the original film showing right now here in the living room, and we’ve got Chewie walking around, and I have to admit I got a charge out of seeing the belt on a Wookie and seeing a Wookie around the studio.
Obi-Swan- Why has Chewbacca worn that same belt for twenty years?
Moriarty- But storywise, is it going to feel like they’re showing him to show him and then during the movies are we going to wonder, why doesn’t he make a bigger deal out of being with Ben again and why doesn’t he make a bigger deal out of Luke Skywalker? Why doesn’t he react more? It doesn’t fit with what we’ve already seen. If he hand-delivered Luke and Leia as babies to the Lars’ homestead, if he was the person… And that is what Peter Mayhew has alleged. Supposedly. There is some dispute over that.
Momma Frattelli- Could he have had his memory zapped too?
Moriarty- Well, Peter Mayhew has so far been the leakiest of leaky actors. Like they got him on the set and first thing he did was start calling people going, “Dude! Guess what I am doing in the movie!”
Momma Frattelli- Maybe he got tanked and couldn’t remember the whole experience. He blacked out.
(Short break in conversation here for Moriarty’s cell phone and Herc to arrive.)
(It should also be noted that this is where Herc did his first shot of Jagermeister.)
Obi-Swan- I was going to say, you know what would be a really cool thing to really get enthusiasm up for Episode III? Is if they did a contest, where you could enter and if you win, maybe there would be five winners, they fly you to Australia and you go to the set to met the stars, and you get to have sex with them.
Moriarty- Well, I thought… I thought you were heading somewhere else, because they just announced yesterday a contest where you can win a role in the third film.
Obi-Swan- Someone is going to piss their pants if they win.
Momma Frattelli- My friend got to be in Phantom Menace. You can’t tell it’s him. He just happened to be the right size.
Moriarty- I’ve always said that I’d be a Stormtrooper even if you could not see my face just I could go, “Yeah, I’m that guy and I fall down.”
Mr.Roboto- Well, anyone could be a Jedi in Episode II in the Geonosis battle sequence. If you were homeless, they let you be a Jedi. They had two hundred types of Jedi just standing there. Some of the weakest looking Jedi I had ever seen.
Mr.Beaks- Butterbean. Butterbean should be a Jedi.
Frosty Skywalker- What were we talking about..?
Sarah- We were talking about Chewbacca… how Chewbacca would have not remembered seeing Obi-Wan before…
Mr.Roboto- We don’t know he doesn’t know Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan just leaves and comes back with Chewbacca…
Sarah- And maybe they stayed in close proximity for a reason.
Moriarty- But he doesn’t acknowledge that he knows both Luke and Leia.
Obi-Swan- He would know them by smell. By scent.
Moriarty- The rumor is that Peter Mayhew delivers the babies in this movie. Actually takes the babies and puts them in hiding…
Obi-Swan- Out of the womb?
Moriarty- Not actually catches them as they pop out…
(Many jokes about Portman in labor… hard to hear… too many people talking at once.)
Sarah- I think that would totally make sense that he would have been sworn to secrecy, and that he would never say it out of fear that if Vader knew where his kids were...
Moriarty- But once he hooks back up with them, there is no acknowledgement, and that’s going to seem like a gap.
Sarah- Because maybe, he obviously would know that the children may not know who their father is and who is he to tell them who their father is?
Frosty Skywalker- Its also possible that it’s just a rumor.
Moriarty- That Mayhew was just shooting his mouth off.
Herc- That’s my vote.
Mr.Roboto- The kids were just infants when he saw them…
Moriarty- But he’s a Wookie. I agree with Obi-Swan, there might be a scent.
Mr.Roboto- Now we’re reaching.
Frosty Skywalker- I would say that we’re talking about something that could be not true and, just throwing that out there.
Moriarty- Oh, absolutely. I’d say, Obi-Swan, let’s go ahead and get the pictures ready.
Jed- I was going to say earlier that we just passed the scene in A NEW HOPE where Luke and Han run into the Storm troopers in the detention bay and they shoot the guard. And it’s a really subtle edit that I didn’t know about for years and years, that he cut the bullet hits. That he kept the blaster hit, but the magnesium burns, they’re gone in the Special Editions.
Moriarty- Which I always loved as a kid. When the lasers hit the armor, it looks like they hurt the armor and they hurt whoever was inside.
Mr.Roboto- That shows violence which cannot be shown anymore.
Moriarty- It’s very sanitized. And it’s weird that they claim there is more lightsaber action in this third one than ever before, but it’s going to be really, really, sanitized. When I was seven, it was great to see the scene where they cut the guy’s arm off in the bar and there is the gratuitous close-up of the arm in the big pool of blood. And you don’t have any of that in the new movies.
Frosty Skywalker- I did hear that the third one is going to be a lot of action and battles. Is there anything else we can talk about while we’re getting the pictures ready?
Sarah- That was one of the funny things watching on the webcam, and reading on the message board at the same time. They were shooting what looked like Obi-Wan trying to get Padme away somewhere, and she was wearing something flowing and something big, and then not so big, and then they changed her costume. Everyone was trying to guess, “Is she pregnant here? Does she look pregnant here? Are they hiding something? What about that?” You had people taking screenshots and throwing them into Photoshop and magnified it five-thousand times…
Moriarty- And that is one of the running themes that I know is in the script. Padme’s role in each movie has been about deception and about appearances and people that look like her and twins, and in this one it’s about her hiding the fact she is pregnant from everybody including Anakin. And so all the costumes are designed with that in mind.
Momma Frattelli- She’s like Sarah Jessica Parker on the last season of “Sex in the City”.
Moriarty- Yeah… she’s going to be standing behind things a lot.
Momma Frattelli- Always wearing something flowing…
Sarah- Elaine in “Seinfeld,” always holding a big bag…
Mr.Beaks- That shows a lot of how Lucas sees women you know. That he’s turned her into this deceptive character. Lucas has had troubles with women. He’s not been a champ in that department.
Moriarty- I wanted to discuss the set diaries from Hyperspace. From July 8th, “This environment is a mix of interior and exterior—a sitting area with an expansive view. During production, the view is just a huge curtain of blue screen with the occasional tracking marker to keep future digital artists from getting lost in the expanse of blue… Today’s shoot adds another two pages, for a total of eight pages of script shot in this environment so far. ‘It’s the scene that explains it all,’ says George Lucas matter-of-factly. True to the much-predicted tone of Episode III, the characters have grim expressions as they account for the dark state of things.” Now, the only two actors that we know were on set during that shot were Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor. And it’s the scene that, as he puts it, “explains it all”. I am curious, how is one scene going to tie up all the loose ends in these movies with those two characters? Because it seems to me like there need to be a lot of people in on it if we’re going to start getting explanation. Palpatine, more of the Jedis..
Frosty Skywalker- Maybe he’s just talking about the children.
Mr.Roboto- Or he could just be taking the easy way out by having Obi-Wan explain to her everything…
Moriarty- The cloning… there are a lot of questions that he set up in this trilogy and you know, for any sort of resolution to occur, it’s gotta be exposition city.
Mr.Beaks- It’s going to be like Dustin Hoffman at the end of TOOTSIE.
Moriarty- The big scene where he tears the wig off…
Obi-Swan- You know what I am really afraid of? Episode I and Episode II have so far been teases. Right now, we have no more answers than we did in May of 1999. We have more questions that have been raised. My biggest fear is that Lucas is just going to go through this next movie and not really answer anything.
Frosty Skywalker- I have to say that we brought up this point at the last council, and from what I have heard from other people, is that he is answering questions. What I have heard also is that…
Moriarty- But is he answering the right ones?
Obi-Swan- He’s answering that Chewbacca was around.
Moriarty- But that wasn’t a question!
Frosty Skywalker- All that I have heard is that there are no major spoilers… like Vader being Luke’s dad or Leia being Luke’s sister, but there is a lot of, “Oh… so that’s how that happened.” Like that kind of reaction. There are a lot of those. That is what I heard.
Moriarty- So okay… are we ready for pictures? This one is of Anakin with the ‘70’s do. Everyone evidently is getting mullets and ‘70’s hair for this movie…
Momma Frattelli- Oh… that’s kinda cool.
Obi-Swan- He’s kinda Andy Gibb.
Sarah- But more importantly, and you don’t have a full shot of it in that picture, is that he’s got the big, black glove that looks like it goes down.
Moriarty- And I’ve heard that one of the earliest shots of Anakin is Anakin shirtless and when they shot it, he had the blue sock on for the mechanical arm… and they’re doing the blue screen arm so it’ll be completely CG.
Momma Frattelli- Cool.
Moriarty- So that’s how we’ll see Hayden. It’s also to show that Hayden is bigger now.
Herc- And this is real? It’s not someone’s Photoshop?
Moriarty- No, that’s actual. That’s real.
Sarah- It’s from the webcam.
Moriarty- Yes. It’s factual. Everything is satisfactual. Now, this next one. This one came from a solid, solid source, somebody that I’ve known since before Episode I and who has been rock solid on everything since. What he sent us is what he says is Vader for Episode III. This is what he looks like. This is ILM production artwork by Ryan Church. This is your first glimpse, and this is allegedly Vader’s final appearance in the movie.
Mr.Beaks- Wow.
Momma Frattelli- Is he wearing snowboarding boots?
Frosty Skywalker- Is this going to be in the article?
Moriarty- No, I am not running the artwork. I can’t. I want to run reactions to it, though, because I cannot run the artwork or Lucasfilm will come down on me like a ton of bricks.
Mr.Roboto- I think it’s really, really, creepy.
Momma Frattelli- It’s just him without the cape.
Sarah- That looks like what was in the creature shop today. Yeah. I checked just before I left…
Moriarty- Really?
Mr.Roboto- That would be bad-ass. There is no way Lucas would have the balls to go with that.
Moriarty- That’s a pretty grim design.
Momma Frattelli- Yeah, it’s really dark.
Moriarty- So it’s kinda like a combination of the typical Vader suit with the Sebastian Shaw head. But younger. It’s kinda imposing, I think. That’s a frightening thing.
Mr.Roboto- It also looks very mechanical.
Obi-Swan- The coolest thing about this is, if you go to the Force.Net and you look at a lot of the artwork that’s done by fans and they’re trying to guess what Vader looks like? This ain’t it. Everybody’s been missing it.
Moriarty- Yeah, they’ve been going another direction. They’ve been trying armor and things out… and this is a little different.
Momma Frattelli- Yeah… this is kinda cool.
Mr.Roboto- He looks beat-up.
Frosty Skywalker- I’m going to say this again. I ran the picture, or actually the description of the picture, by someone I know, and that someone said they did not think it was Episode III art. They thought it was “Clone Wars” art.
Moriarty- It’s not “Clone Wars” art. And I’ll tell you why it’s not. It is not a Genndy Taratkovsy design. And they’re not doing designs for “Clone Wars” that are not in that style. All the “Clone Wars” designs are very specific, a sort of Cartoon Network/Dexter’s Laboratory/Samurai Jack-style. They look that way. That’s ILM art. That was done by Ryan Church. That came out of ILM.
Frosty Skywalker- You know something? I could be very wrong. I totally don’t have an answer either way. Although if I take a picture of this, in a week from now, we will have an answer.
Moriarty- And I don’t want to act like we… a big part of this is that there is a lot of guesswork that goes on. You get things sent in, you hear things. Like last time. We talked about Ben Burtt. Yet one of the set diaries just confirmed that Ben Burtt is cutting animatics right now. He’s at Skywalker Ranch, and they’re sending the footage to him and he’s cutting things in. So Ben’s on the picture.
Obi-Swan- But he’s not the lead editor.
Moriarty- He’s not the lead editor.
Obi-Swan- So something happened.
Moriarty- Or Ben chose to just focus on that…
Mr.Beaks- I was just going to say, has his work load changed?
