Here it is, a series of podcasts thirty years in the making. With Ready Player One making a huge splash on the box office, I wanted to honor it by turning the clock back for this retro, in which we look at four films that are highly regarded by a whole generation of film goers. But how will we see them years later?
Contrary to what emails I have received about us lead you to believe, Big Brain on Matt and I have had bouts of contention before. Just listen to our Terminator Genisys show for one example of such. But as much as we debated and grabbed each other’s throats about that film, I don’t believe we have ever gotten as confrontational as we do on this one. What’s funny about it is the film in question, 1986’s Labyrinth, is a movie made for intentions of having fun. Yet, we make it into a fight.
Stuck in the middle of this mess is one BingeCast TimeStamper Logan James. How will he react to the adversity, and how does he feel about the David Bowie-Jennifer Connelly starring George Lucas production? Listen below to find out, and be sure to come back next week for the final film of our series The Neverending Story. How much will we fight about that one? Ask Atreyu.
It came to this. After almost twenty years, and countless inquirees from fans of when the team behind one of the most beloved franchises of all time would get back together to make a new film, the universe formed the foundation for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. With a director who was now respected -and a few gold statues to further prove his worth- and a co-creator who was just coming off closing out his OTHER beloved franchise, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, along with always game Harrison Ford, were here to create a new Indy adventure. And boy were we excited.
Well, at least two of us were. Listen as Law, Nate and I go through the journey of watching the fourth film of the franchise, and Law gets ever increasingly annoyed. We also detail what the next move for our favorite fedora wearing hero could be, and whether we would welcome a return to the screen for him.
I must say. As painful and hard as it was to put these shows together, they sure were a hell of a lot of fun to record. A big thanks to both Law and Nate, as well as that Sneaky bastard Juan Carlos for our kick ass logo.
Stay tuned. More retros coming!
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) (?/10, ?/10, ?/10)
By the time 1989 rolled around, five years after the previous Indiana Jones entry, the film landscape had changed. Steven Spielberg was not the only one turning out blockbusters, as a quirky filmmaker named Tim Burton rolled out Batman, a superhero juggernaut starring Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton.
So how would Spielberg and pal George Lucas retort? By turning their once daring franchise into a sentimental journey for a father’s love and the key to immortality. Join Nate, Law, and I as we sort through Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. As always, some of us enjoyed the journey. While one, was left out in the cold. But which one of us is it this time? Listen to find out.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) (?/10, ?/10, ?/10)
Welcome to the second of Binge Movie Aftertaste’s four part look at the Indiana Jones franchise. As one part of our crew so observantly puts it, at the rate we are going, we should finish up Crystal Skull by 2019. But this week, we are here to talk about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And do we have an interesting podcast for your ear holes. Listen as Law and I get once again baffled by the out of planet living Nate Peterson. At one point, he says that he is indeed going with the ride and ‘meeting us in the middle.’ But is he? You make up your own mind.
We hit it all here, as we talk about subjects such as how the film affected how ratings are done today, how it contains perhaps the worst character Spielberg ever put to film, and how two of us like Short Round while the other hates him with a passion. I’ll give you one guess as to who that is.
So what are you waiting for? Download the episode and get ready to yell at your phone. Loud.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) (?/10, ?/10, ?/10)
I know. I promised no more Star Wars related articles. But this topic was deep in my craw and needed to come out. Now.
Star Wars The Force Awakens has been out over a couple weeks now. Most are praising it as a return to form for their favorite space franchise. Others are calling it nothing more than a slavish recreation of things past. For quite awhile, I was straddling the fence of which way I leaned. But after giving the movie another shot outside a premiere environment, I decided that I lean more toward the latter side. Director JJ Abrams did not hold back in his love for the franchise, and it seems this is the movie he has been wanting to make ever since he rejuvenated the Star Trek franchise seven years ago.
Somewhere in the middle, lies our good friend George Lucas. Now, he was at the premiere of The Force Awakens, and appeared to be all smiles. I saw him from a distance, and Abrams even took pictures with him, and I’m sure stories were exchanged.
This part of the evening quite frankly baffled me, and I’ll explain why. The making of The Force Awakens is quite a story in of itself. As of late, Lucas has been thoroughly open about the fact that after Disney bought the rights to all things Lucasfilm in late 2012, he was deeply involved in reviving his characters for a planned one off. And if all went well, another two installments after that. Working with writer Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) and Abrams himself, the story was supposedly going to revolve around Han and Leia’s grandchildren. Here is where details get sketchy. Abrams purportedly did not like where the story was going and, with permission from Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy, fired both Arndt (who still possesses a writing credit on the finished film) AND Lucas off the project. That’s right. The man who came up with the world Abrams was going to expand on, was no longer going to be involved, taken off by a hired hand. As quietly as this chain of events happened, there was no word of sour grapes at the time. Lucas had even gone out of his way to say to members of the press who asked him that he wishes Abrams luck. For his part, Abrams hired Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi scribe Lawrence Kasdan to work deeper on the project, and the rest, as they say, is history.
But what about George? Well, after The Force Awakens‘ second trailer almost quite literally set the internet on fire back in April, Lucas said that he had not even seen it. I found this quite odd. Either Lucas was doing his best to just stay out of the limelight and bathe in his over $4 billion in assets gained from the sale of his franchise. Or, and this last week has made this a stronger possibility, he was going out of his way to let Abrams know that no matter what he did to his characters, Lucas was not going to care. In essence, the most subtle pissing match between two Hollywood titans raged on.
Flash forward to the week before The Force Awakens opens. Lucas comes out in the press saying he has had a screening of the movie, and that he thought it was ‘fun.’ Not a damning review. But also not an overtly positive one. Couple this with internet videos released that week of Lucas appearing almost hurt, letting out in the open for the first time that he did indeed have ideas which Disney rejected. They apparently decided to go with a new vision, and the ousting of Lucas was only the beginning.
Now’s when it gets fun. Starting this week, Lucas has been even more open with his thoughts on the movie. This time, there was no skating around his true feelings. Here is an exact excerpt of what he said on the Charlie Rose Show (that thing is STILL on?!) this week:
“They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that. Every movie I work very hard to make completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships, make it new.”
So says the guy who came up with the idea of having two out of three films of the original trilogy contain a Death Star as its main weapon. But that’s beside the point. If what Lucas is saying is indeed true, then his ousting from the project had nothing to do with Abrams and company wanting to do something new. They wanted to do the exact same things as before, specifically the things that worked before 1999’s The Phantom Menace was released and supposedly ‘raped everyone’s childhood.’ Now as far as how true these logistics hold true with each and every character in The Force Awakens, I will hold off on until at least another month or so. Yes, that S P word is still being honored here.
But Lucas goes on:
“They looked at (my) stories, and they said, ‘we want to make something for the fans…’ They decided they didn’t want to use those stories, they decided they were going to do their own thing….They weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway..but if I get in there, I’m just going to cause trouble, because they’re not going to do what I want them to do. And I don’t have the control to do that anymore, and all I would do is muck everything up. And so I said, ‘Okay, I will go my way, and I’ll let them go their own way.”
But perhaps his hardest hitting bit of commentary came next, when he addresses Hollywood’s lack of taking chances, thereby playing it safe.
“Everybody went out and made spaceship movies and they were all horrible and they all lost tons of money. And you say, there’s more to it than that. You can’t just go out there and do spaceships. Of course, the only way you can make money is not take chances. Only do something that’s proven. You gotta remember. Star Wars came from nowhere. American Graffiti came from nowhere. There was nothing like it. Now, if you do anything that’s not a sequel or not a TV series or doesn’t look like one, they won’t do it.”
The words of a bitter man? Maybe. But, what does a man with a $4 billion empire have to be bitter about? What I grasped onto in this whole bit of commentary is his calling The Force Awakens a ‘retro movie.’ Looking back on the finished movie, he’s not wrong. Be honest. Did it REALLY propel a story forward, or just play off the same tropes that worked before? I have said since the beginning. There are worse things in this world than a glossed up remake of A New Hope (yes numbskulls, I KNOW it’s not a remake. Stop convincing me and yourselves of this). But by taking these tropes and putting them onscreen in a new glossed up format, The Force Awakens is being praised as a return to form for the franchise. Is it, really?
And where does this leave Lucas? Again, I had promised myself -and my Binge bosses- that there would be no more Star Wars articles for the time being. But seeing this situation develop, and even being present for part of it, made me take a step back and wonder. Think Steven Spielberg is regretting not taking a Star Wars directing gig now that one third of the Bearded Trio has seen his creations fall into the hands of corporate minded Disney? As that final set of credits graced the movie screen of my second viewing, the entire theater was clapping wildly as if the home team had hit a World Series winning home run. The tried and true tropes that Abrams displayed and Lucas had described in his Charlie Rose interview had indeed worked its magic. Yet all I thought was, ‘so this how Star Wars democracy dies, with thunderous applause?’
Ok, enough Star Wars talk. There are many other things in the film world to write about. And I promise, dear readers, I will start getting to those, next week.
Here’s our final commentary for Return of the Jedi! This time Law and I invite one half of the Sounder Twins, PeteMC, to tackle the fun and gloriousness of Episode VI. Listen as our disappointment increases at what a sissy Han Solo becomes; laugh with us as R2D2 forgets that he can fly; marvel at the fact that Pete might’ve drank his own piss.
What happens when you get four drunk Bingers (Bingers?), three of them are Supka’d, one of them is ACTUALLY Supka and throw on Empire Strikes Back? Another BingeCast commentary of course!
In this installment, the boys try to figure out what Cloud City actually is, why Lando is smooth, if Luke actually sped up Yoda’s dying process and more.
After this, the prequel commentaries are over. Let that sink in for a bit.
They are sent out in style though, as Garrett, Kupka, Batch, and Moreno sit down to give a commentary for the Hayden Christensen Oscar reel known as Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Some of the things discussed in this two plus hour bit of internet madness include:
What is a ‘high bar, low bar, high bar?’
What asshole let Obi Wan’s Boga sound like a dog’s squeaky toy?
Ooohhh, that ‘subtle’ symbolism Lucas attaches to Anakin turning to the dark side is AMAZING.
How’s Star Wars like Marvel?
How’d Lucas try to ‘inject’ Peter Cushing?
Mace Windu’s Dark Side.
Is Garrett a woman hater for hating Natalie Portman?
So HOW exactly did Padme hide the fact she was pregnant from the Jedi?
What’s a ‘face actor?’
Why are the Jedi ‘Skyping’ into their own council meetings?
What is Garrett smoking to see similarities between this movie and Rosemary’s Baby?
Jedi Sportscenter (trust us, it makes sense).
Lightsaber Dildos.
Grab your favorite alcoholic beverage, put on your best Vader brooding face, and watch with us the last Star Wars film to hit upon the masses until…well, you know.
The Phantom Menace exists folks. I know. It is such a crime. It is almost as if people are treating Episode I today like our parents treated Faces of Death back when I was growing up. I know people who want to keep it as far away from their kids as possible. That, my friends, is ridiculous. Acknowledge its faults -which I am going to do here- but do not treat it as a sort of black eye George Lucas gave you when you went to theaters in 1999. Let them decide for themselves.
Whew. Now that I got that out of the way, let’s get to the movie shall we?
Background: After 1983’s Return of the Jedi came and swooped that year’s box office title with a thrilling conclusion, people thought Star Wars was done. However, I remember reading interviews with George Lucas in the weeks leading up to Jedi‘s release (my mom used to get People Magazine and I would, even as a six year old, go through it just looking for movie related articles) and he was saying he still has ideas of stories he would like to tell about that galaxy far, far away. The problem is that effects standards were not up to speed yet. His vision, he proclaimed, was beyond the reach of what modern technology could handle. In other words, let me make Howard The Duck and Willow before I start thinking about how to progress with plans for a new Star Wars story.
Fast forward to 1993. After baring witness -and even helping with post production while his friend Steven Spielberg was out on location with Schindler’s List– to the Spielberg directed epic Jurassic Park, Lucas was convinced the time to start with new Star Wars tales was upon him. Park‘s realistic computer imagery astounded audiences and filmmakers alike, and Lucas decided to test the computer generated imagery -or CGI- standards by fulfilling his ‘true vision’ of what his original trilogy should have been when he originally filmed it with only 70s and 80s technology at his disposal. After audiences showed up to these re-releases in droves, Lucas concluded that he could now start with his telling of Darth Vader’s back story.
As for me, by the time The Phantom Menace had started production, I kind of wavered in my Star Wars fandom. My toys were put away in the garage, I had just graduated high school, and I was starting to tip my toes in the waters of real life. Believe me, I was in no hurry to grow up. But with filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, M Night Shamylan, and David Fincher out there, at the cusp of their primes and setting new standards with their storytelling ways, Star Wars just wasn’t ‘cool’ to me anymore. Goodbye Star Wars. Hello Pulp Fiction.
I would go to friends’ houses and they would scoop up every magazine cover featuring that spiked red headed figure that they could. But I would turn a blind eye to all of them. I would skim the Star Wars articles to see what this new science fiction story featuring a main character named Neo was all about. Or how a low budget horror movie about a group of kids getting lost in the woods had captured the pulses of audiences so many other directors could not even dream of finding. It was a new era of film, and I still say to this day that has a lot to do with how The Phantom Menace is perceived today.
Still, even with all that ambivalent energy leading up to Star Wars Episode I, I remember seeing its trailer before Wing Commander and Meet Joe Black, and finding that as much as I did not want to admit it, I WAS looking forward to The Phantom Menace. As was my father. So on one hot April day, I approached the box office of our recently opened movie theater and bought two advanced tickets. One for my father and one for me, with a little gold plated heart that I got for a $2.00 donation to charity. There was no escaping now. We wouldn’t be waiting in lines for weeks. But a smile creased my face as I felt a tinge of that excitement I had as a child enter my body like a sneaky thirst.
What I Thought Then: Going into the theater that May evening was sheer excitement. I did not read reviews of the film going in. Though I was a huge Howard Stern listener back then, and as you’d imagine, his on air review of the film the week before its release was not overwhelmingly positive. In fact, it was just the opposite. Yet, this was a night out at the movies with my father. Lightsaber battles were breaking out in the staging area in front of the screen. My father looked at me and thanked me that I was not out there with them. I looked at him and expressed a hearty ‘you’re welcome.’ also exclaiming I would never do that. But something deep down inside REALLY wanted to!
The movie started and when that theme hit those speakers, I was in awe. Here I was, on the first day of The Phantom Menace‘s release, and I was seeing a brand new Star Wars vision onscreen! It was at that moment I felt like the kid I was at Return of the Jedi. Wide eyed, I took in the CGI’d elements, and didn’t even have too much a grip on what the story was. I was enlightened by all the battles, the way the Jedi took out droids with kicks and strokes. It felt like magic had befallen us, and even as a little character named Binks permeated a lot of frames, I was taken into Lucas’s mind of what he envisioned Vader being as a child. The final frames hit, and Dad and I had left, still talking about the awe inspiring images we had seen.
As we left the theater, we came upon a couple college friends of mine who were also in the theater with us. We spoke about what we had seen, and they were convinced it was everything they envisioned and more. I honestly do not remember what we spoke about that day in the car on the way home. But I do remember thinking, something is just not right. Especially when my father brought up the fact that he didn’t remember midichlorians ever coming up in the last trilogy.
I saw The Phantom Menace two other times in theaters. Once with a huge Star Wars fan whose wedding I was three years away from being in. Bet you can’t guess what their theme was? And it was on this viewing where I had the ET scene pointed out to me. Very cool callback to your buddy, George.
Though it was the third and final time I saw it in theaters which told me the most about the film and how much it had failed at what it was trying to do. Though he is now, my (at the time) six year old brother was not a huge Star Wars fan. I took him to theaters to see The Phantom Menace, thinking it was going to be a fun time at the movies for both of us. We stopped by Taco Bell, grabbed some lunch, and sat down to watch the movie. Around the time the story moved to Tatooine, I looked at my brother, the core aimed at audience, and he was fast asleep. The audience Lucas had tried so hard to reach, millennials if you will, had been sleeping away as his new creation Jar Jar Binks was yukking it up onscreen. Here is when it finally hit me. Lucas, for all intents and purposes, had failed in his attempt to reach in and grab the hearts of a brand new audience. Instead, he put them to sleep.
What I Think Now: Look. I am not going to sit here and try convincing people how misunderstood a masterpiece The Phantom Menace is. It has almost none of the magic I would widely relate to while watching the other trilogy. It had none of the characters I loved so much. Oh yeah. Ewan McGregor was lingering around as Obi Wan. But does a new audience really CARE how these people from a trilogy made in the 70s and 80s came to be? I feel that is a massive part of the prequel trilogy’s overall biggest issue. It did not tell us anything we did not already know. Except, of course, for the fact that midichlorians determine a biological reason why you are either born a Jedi or not. So how many midichlorians does Luke have?
Watching The Phantom Menace today, I can still get past a lot of the complaints people have against it. Taken in context of the entire saga itself, I think the film fits in rather well. It certainly has some awesome battles -though I still find some big issues with the final space battle- and seeing the inner workings of how the Empire came to power gets more interesting the more times I watch it. In the final act of Return of the Jedi, we were treated to a ground, a lightsaber, and a space battle. We get all of those once again in The Phantom Menace. You can’t fault Lucas for going for a formula that didn’t carry results.
I still take a lot more positives out of the film than most. I find the podrace to be an exciting and innovative way of showing Anakin’s ability to think his way out of any situation no matter what it may be. I enjoyed seeing Artoo spreading his heroic wings earlier than we had imagined. I enjoyed seeing the magnificent final lightsaber duel, where Obi Wan learns to control his emotions, therefore defeating Darth Maul and saving the galaxy from more of his menace. And before people start messaging me about how Maul should have lived, I will just say let it go. This was not a story about Maul. It was about Palpatine’s imperial plan to rule the galaxy. So, stop with that movement. I don’t care what canon says he has lived, he is done. Enough.
In Conclusion: All of the things people criticize about The Phantom Menace -and all the prequels as a whole- I can certainly make cases for existing the entire saga. It’s just, after a decade and a half, Lucas’s world was now mixed with the likes of Tarantino, Fincher, Zemeckis, Jackson…..
The list goes on and on. But seeing The Phantom Menace today is not the horrible experience people make it out to be. Sure, Jar Jar gets some very uninspired comedy in, and there are not any of the heart tugging moments we saw so many of in The Empire Strikes Back. But seeing Darth Vader as a child, one who rests with the entire galaxy fifteen years away from being his for the taking, is not nearly as bad an experience as, say, a movie featuring autobots and decepticons.