With the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series about to drop, Christine and JJ finally dive into the world of Star Wars! First, they go way back to the 1977 film that started it all to describe the aesthetics of the Star Wars Universe. Then they break down the franchise trilogy by trilogy, describing the evolution of the effects, and the challenges of designing visuals for science fiction prequels. Along the way the pair describes favourite characters like Yoda and Chewbacca, and epic scenes like Kylo Ren vs Luke Skywalker. Plus, some teaser descriptions of characters in the Obi-Wan trailers.
With the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series about to drop, Christine and JJ finally dive into the world of Star Wars! First, they go way back to the 1977 film that started it all to describe the aesthetics of the Star Wars Universe. Then they break down the franchise trilogy by trilogy, describing the evolution of the effects, and the challenges of designing visuals for science fiction prequels. Along the way the pair describes favourite characters like Yoda and Chewbacca, and epic scenes like Kylo Ren vs Luke Skywalker. Plus, some teaser descriptions of characters in the Obi-Wan trailers.
Talk description to me is Christine Malec and JJ Hunt.
Christine Malec:Hi, I'm Christine Malec.
JJ Hunt:And I'm JJ Hunt. This is talk description to me, where the visuals of current events and the world around us get hashed out in description rich conversations
Christine Malec:It's a big day for us. It's the long awaited Star Wars Episode. And some of our listeners won't care at all. And some listeners are just on the edge of their seats. And so it's a divide, we get it. And there's also a divide between Star Wars and Star Trek fans. Now I'm pretty clear where I sit in in that one. My first love and knowledge base is Star Trek. So I'm gonna learn a lot today. Not that I haven't watched some of the Star Wars and I get what they do well. So lots of people really interested in this. So let's dive right in. So what we thought we do, by the way, this came up because Obi Wan, this is going to be premiering in the next couple of weeks. So we don't have much visual on that yet. And so stay tuned. That's something that will come up in a subsequent episode when we have more to draw from. But what we're going to do first is to give a basis of the Star Wars universe and what it looks like and the ethos and what it creates what it has created so far. So what we thought we'd do is tackle it in three parts. And so we're going to start with the original trilogy. So JJ, what can you say about the aesthetic of those films?
JJ Hunt:Yeah, I mean, the original Star Wars film 1977 It really, I mean, this started the whole thing. And that franchise is massive. Now nine films in the Skywalker saga, two anthology films, we're about to release the they're about to release the third Disney plus show, then there's animated shows and comic books, and plus the terrible Christmas Special, that's awesome. I mean, there's so much wonderful content here. And it all starts with Star Wars 1977 of relatively low budget film, and then Empire Strikes Back Return of the Jedi. So from 77 to 83, that's when the original trilogy was released. It informed that everything for it for the entire future of the franchise. And I think, you know, I when I was going through my notes there, you know, preparing my notes and going through some of the original, you know, footage, there's a key idea about the Star Wars universe that informed the storytelling and informed the visuals. That is right at literally the very first moments on film from the original Star Wars movie, the very first thing to appear on screen in the very first film, even before that legendary text crawl, where the yellow text enters from the bottom of the screen, and then recedes into the distance like a like a flat page from a book slowly traveling through space. Even before that, in sky blue text on a black background. were presented with the opening message a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Christine Malec:...a galaxy far, far away! Ha ha ha!
JJ Hunt:And it's key. It's key to the storytelling and also to the visuals because we are watching something that is supposed to have taken place in our past. This is not our future. This is someone else's past. So from a visual standpoint, the filmmakers are not trying to create a version of our technology advancing in the future. This is other worldly technology from the past. And so that really informs the way that they've made the world look which is kind of the signature of Star Wars, whereas Star Trek is often very shiny, and and futuristic. Star Wars is kind of grittier things are falling apart. Things are rusty things are kind of hobbled together, cobbled together. This is the Star Wars universe. So they've got amazing things like spaceships and Androids and lightsabers, but the Tech has real relatable issues like age things fall apart, they get repaired they get MacGyvered costumes get dirty. Towns are rundown. This is a huge huge part of the aesthetic of the original series, and it laid the groundwork for everything that followed, like I said, So what let's take just one scene as an example. In the very first movie, Luke and his uncle are buying R two d two and C three po they're buying secondhand technology from the Jawas. Jaw was are three or four foot tall creatures. They were brown hooded robes that completely cover their faces leaving their faces in shadow. You only have these glowing dots for eyes that appear under these hoods. Their robes are covered in sand because they're their desert dwellers. And they have these old leathery satchels that hang up their sides with criss cross straps over their chests and backs. And the jaw was traveled in these sand crawlers. Massive boxy tanks like the size of apartment buildings that are made of rusty steel, rusty metal, big tank treads that are caked with compacted sand that roll along the desert floor. These are the Jawas as they come in, and this is where they are selling droids they've got to read our two unit there that Luke and his uncle are about to buy. But then this read our two unit, the motivator blows on it. I don't know what a motivator is. But it blows on it,
Christine Malec:I think I blew mine last week.
JJ Hunt:Ha! Your motivator just went out on ya, eh? So when this art read our two unit the motivator blows, Luke actually has to wave his hand to vote to kind of clear the smoke that's puffing out of the top. So that's why they instead they purchase our much loved blue R two d two unit and the blue R two d two unit has a silver and blue dome the top I think we describe this in our robots episode. But the silver in our two d two is kind of grungy, and it's a little bit grimy, but it's still travels all rights it travels smoothly on its three roller feet. And they also by three po and again we described him in our robots episode, he's got these exposed wires in his midriff so he's got this brassy, upper body brassy legs, but the sections but you know are separated by this gap at the stomach. And this gives us a glimpse of all of the wires that presumably run up and down the inside of the body. And Luke's robe is it's got this white robe that looks kind of like a karate gi and it's dirty that don't have that he lives in with his aunt and uncle has like peeling mud plaster walls, it's covered in sand, everything about the world is is a little bit dirty. It's a little bit makeshift. Right. This is the aesthetic that is right is established right at the very beginning of the very first films. And again, these these first movies were made in the late 70s and early 80s. And they were made using practical effects, real sets real locations, real creature puppets, in no small part because they didn't really have CGI that was usable. That was really, you know, fully functional in the 70s and 80s. And everything felt real because it was real, right. And while this could be a disadvantage, if you're trying to tell a science fiction story that takes place in our future with perfect shiny technology. If you embrace it like these filmmakers did, it can be a real advantage, right? Because it makes this other worldly tech look genuine look real look relatable. So this idea about practical effects versus computer generated effects. We'll probably talk about more as we go on. From today's point of view. These first early movies, especially the very first Star Wars, which was, like I said, filmed on a very small budget in the 70s. It looks old, it's 45 years old. So it looks like the artifact that it is. Now the colors look a little bit muted. The image is not high def 4k Crystal clear that's a little bit grainy. And I would suggest that the actors look a little bit more like real people and not movie stars. So sometimes they are a little bit sweaty and they glisten. Not because it's an action scene and they need to look sweaty but because that's how people look, when they're filmed under very big, bright lights. They just that's not as polished is more of that kind of grounded in reality feeling in these first movies that kind of disappears, the bigger the budgets get and the closer we get to today's movie making tech.
Christine Malec:There's something that you referenced. I'm not even sure what episode it was, but we're talking about cinematography. And there's something that Star Wars movies do when switching from scene to scene. Can you remind us what that is?
JJ Hunt:That's right, the wipe style great memory so the Star Wars wipes from scene to scene. So instead of a lot of movies, you go from one scene to another scene, you either have a hard cut or a softer cut so one scene ends and then the next scene starts It's just sharp, that's a hard cut a softer one, you would have a slight fade. So you would maybe one scene fades into the other one, it's a blending. But what Star Wars does is these fantastic wipes they're called. So instead of one scene ending in the next scene beginning, maybe one scene ends with a with a dot that appears on the screen, and then the dog grows bigger and bigger and bigger. And behind it behind this opening circle is the next scene, that's a circle wipe. Or maybe there's a drop wipe, where the one scene kind of drops in on the next one, where there's like a curtain wipe where it's almost like a curtain rises, revealing the next scene behind it. And then there are I don't know, I can't remember exactly how many of these wipes are really used in Star Wars. But there are things like star wipes and you know, different shapes that you wipe from you swipe from one scene to the other. And it's, it's kind of hilarious. It's very much of the 70s. But they've kept doing it, they keep up with these interesting, you know, wipes from one to the other because it's now part of the visuals of, of Star Wars. It's the way we get from scene to scene. They're very fun.
Christine Malec:One of the most memorable scenes for me is when, okay, I confess, I'm just not steeped in the lore. But there's it you flip into the cantina and you're in this alien bar. And there's this funky groovy music and it's filled with alien people. And this is something where Star Wars excels in to me and so can we talk about what Star Wars did with aliens in the original movies, and then maybe what they've done subsequently?
JJ Hunt:Yeah, Star Wars really has gone all in on on the aliens and on the different races, whereas Star Trek tends to, you know, focus a lot on foreheads and ears with their special effects and their makeup. Star Wars is a much like Wookies and E walks and tentacle creatures and it's much much much more varied. And because the universe has been going on and on and on. And people get really into it. Each one of these species. There are rules, there are home planets, there are societies and backstories for all of these creatures, that continues to be build, the mythmaking continues to be built. And so when you first walk into the cantina, and there are cantinas, they, I mean, this is a trope, it's a Western trope, right? Star Wars is really just a space Western. And it's an old western trope gunslinger walks into a bar, and there are all sorts of shady characters, they just did the the Sci Fi version where you walk in and there's Ooh, there's a Oh, that's a nasty looking Android over there. And Oh, who's that creature with a giant head with a tuft of hair. And whoa, that's a really Oh, that looks like an underwater creature. And they're all in this bar together. And almost every series since has had at least one sequence where the characters walk into a shady bar. And in fact, I think it was in the Mandalorian, the very first episode of the Mandalorian. Not only does mando walk into one of these bars, but there's actually like the swinging saloon doors like, like, they go right back to the Western trope. So it's really, it's just playing on this idea of this space Western and because a lot of sighted film goers will have seen Westerns in the past, not only do we get the space stuff, and the costumes and the and the amazing creatures, but we get the visual references to those swinging saloon doors, we get those moments where everyone's head turns to see who's walked into the bar, we get those tropes and it it just calls back all of these other Westerns that we have heard before or seen before or had described before.
Christine Malec:Can we go alien by alien just for a bit and describe them?
JJ Hunt:Okay, so I'll just I'll just describe a handful of aliens that that pop up. And all of these, like I said, all of these will have names that I don't know. Because I'm just not that steeped in it. So someone might hear a description and go, Oh, that's a so and so. And I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily remember Okay, so here's one guy who's got kind of grayish green skin head is rounded, and kind of spiked on top with a with a mohawk of spikes running down the middle and two small antenna horns on either side of the spiked Mohawk nose comes to a snout like a new kind of like a combination fish mouth, pig snout, two big round black eyes and things fingers with really are hands with really long fingers that end in these kind of like suction cups. That's one alien dressed in like a brown vest and a blue and white shirt by the way, so the costume is this is about the makeup. And then he's seated at a bar beside another alien this is kind of like a hippo looking alien with grayish skin and Throgs Neck that looks like it might inflate at some point. And has mutton chops big black furry mutton chops on either side like on either cheek but no hair up top and hands it look like gorilla hands and then beside them is another creature who's got like a lizard face very angry kind of lizardy face and then playing a musical instrument like a flute behind or more like a clarinet I guess behind is this kind of more classic alien with a with a large domed head and what looks almost like a like a like more of a lobster mouth so it kind of did there's a bit of hard shell and kind of flappy bits underneath the mouth. And this is you know, kind of pale white skin this just three I could do this a dozen times over and pick out three more over and over oh here's one that looks like an abominable snow person. So completely hairy beast but with like a sloth like face looks quite gentle this creature does actually. And there's got a bit of a blue quality to their fur.
Christine Malec:Can we pick some specifics that are well known like a wookie?
JJ Hunt:Yeah, so a Wookie I mean, the classic, probably the most well known of the aliens because this is you know, Hans very good friend. Chewbacca is a Wookie extremely tall Wookies are like Sasquatch Bigfoot he really really tall most rookies that we see have dark brown for quite Shaggy, maybe a little bit greasy and unkempt and in a face that's kind of pulled in small relative to the size of their body with a with a black kind of dog's nose. And the fear goes right down to the eyes and right up to the lips. And Chewbacca has got this like this ammunition belt that goes diagonally across his chest. I think it really comes to a little pouch that's on his side, and carries, like a crossbow that he fires. Harrison Ford's a fairly tall guy and Harrison Ford reaches Chewbacca his shoulder so a full head and a half taller than then a pretty tall man. That's Chewbacca and then you get in the Mandalorian you get a new Wookie Well, I guess this book he has existed in the comic books for a while, but the first time we've seen him in, he represented in a live action, which is Krrsantan. Krrsantan is massive as a Wookie bounty hunter, and he's got black fur with gray around the eyes and even more muscley even bigger. Chewbacca was actually quite lean. But Krrsantan is more like beefy bodybuilder in shape, but with the same kind of matted fur and the same kind of face but in in blacks and grays instead of browns.
Christine Malec:How about Yoda?
JJ Hunt:Oh Yoda, so they're kind of two different Yodas we've got the Yoda that most of us remember and think of which is the Yoda the puppet and then Yoda became CGI for a while which is interesting. So Yoda as a puppet, it little green guy kind of like an elf or a gnome. Got wrinkled, slightly pointy head and wispy strands of white hair around this leg, this kind of pale green scalp, Long Ears point way out to the side straight out to the side. And he has a heavy eye wrinkles like heavy, heavy eyelids, wrinkles over the bridge of his nose and a kind of puckered wrinkly smallish mouth. And he's wrapped in in a pale beige kind of burlap II robe which is a great choice. Because not only did this kind of tattered Burleigh burlap cloak this robe tell us something about the character and how he lives. But it's very tactile, right? Burlap is scratchy, but strangely soft. We know how it feels. And it makes us want to cuddle this wizard and old character. It's very tactile. So when you have a real puppet with this real fabric that we can imagine feeling and holding. It's very personal. It's very real. But then in the last two of the prequel movies, the character was changed to being a digitally rendered one nada puppet. And it's interesting because as a digital character, not nearly as charming, not nearly as lovable, not nearly as endearing, and it's much harder to have a human connection with this character, both for the actors who are playing off of them in the audience, I have actually heard some of the actors say, yeah, it was really hard to play off of a digital Yoda. Whereas when I had the chance to play off a puppet, it was real. Like, you believe in this. We talked about this with puppet in our puppetry episode. You believe in puppets in a way that is odd. Like it's, there's there's magic to it. Now, that being said, when you switch to the digital Yoda, and you get something like the lightsaber battle between Count Dooku and and Yoda in the Attack of the Clones movie that's wicked, because filmmakers aren't bound by the constraints of practical puppetry, Yoda flips a bowtie spins in the air, he twirls and slashes like a fast moving dervish. He's got this small but deadly green lightsaber, and he's moving at incredible speeds. And it's like we all imagined we were doing with our own Yoda action. Back when we were kids, that's the Yoda that they can get with the digital effects that they can't quite get with the puppets. But that being said, in Mandalorian, the more recent Disney plus movie, TV show a series, they had their choice, they could go for making this character called Grow goo or baby Yoda. They could make him either a puppet or go with CGI, and they went with the puppet, a very high tech animatronic puppet. But a puppet. Yoda was largely performed by single puppeteer Frank Oz would did almost all of the puppetry for the original Yoda, grow goo was performed by five different puppet tears. And they were each puppeteer had a different set of facial features and limbs that were assigned to different remote control devices like the kind of remote control that you would use to, you know, do a remote controlled car. And so each puppeteer, one's working the eyes and the nose, the other one's working the head in the mouth. And then they also get in there and they do old school puppeteering where the hands are operated with sticks, like just regular puppeteer sticks. Or maybe there's a there's a version of the Grow goo puppet where someone stands behind with a hand up the back of the puppet. And they made grow goo move like an old fashioned puppet. And this grow goo was a massive hit a huge sensation, long ears again, oversized in this case, even more so than with Yoda because they were playing on the way that babies their faces. in lots of different species, kittens and puppies and humans, their features grow in at different rates. So you'll get like a little kid, that little baby with a huge nose or a kitten with really big ears. It's quite cute. And so they they built that into Grow goo and they use those ears to move, they move an awful lot. Those ears are kind of where a lot of the expression comes from. In grow goo it's very, very, very effective. So they always start with the puppet. And then they use CGI to enhance the puppet as opposed to just eliminating the puppet altogether and making it CGI and it's been hugely successful.
Christine Malec:Can we talk Darth Vader?
JJ Hunt:Oh, absolutely. Darth Vader. So Vader. I mean, one of the most iconic villains in all of cinema, all dressed in black, black cape, and like blacks and plasticky like vinyl blacks, like this was not, not natural materials. These are all man made synthetic. So she's very shiny black helmet, very shiny black costume, long black cape that goes all the way to the floor black gloves. And the black helmet also has a face component that covers the face. And so the helmet is covers the top of the head expands you know, so it's sits above the top of the head and then comes down so it almost has like wings that comes down to the shoulder at an angle. And then the face piece has this little breathing apparatus which gives you the right at the front, dark, dark dark eyes, and the only kind of light or anything that's not black on this costume at all. There's like a chest piece and a belt and it has, you know, little light sensors that are part of the mechanics of the costume. You know, we're led to believe that this is what's this is the computer tech that is supporting the synthetic and the Android part of Darth Vader's body. No, you cannot see any human inside this in this costume. It's everything is covered in shiny black synthetic material.
Christine Malec:We talked about the aesthetics of the first trilogy. What happens to some of that in the prequels and sequels?
JJ Hunt:So the prequels this Phantom Menace and 99 Attack of the Clones 2002 Revenge of the Sith 2005 These movies were released to great fanfare, right, the incredible cast creator, George Lucas was going to be all over them as writer and director. And the interesting thing was that the computer generated imagery, the CGI that was available at that time was going to allow George Lucas to create the worlds that he was kind of unable to make before the computer tech existed. So people were really excited to see him build on that world that he created. But with new tech tools. The thing is, it wasn't entirely successful. And some would consider that to be a great understatement.
Christine Malec:Ha ha !
JJ Hunt:There's a lot of people who have a lot to say about these prequel movies and where they fit in. If they were good movies or bad movies, we're going to leave a lot of that behind, and just stick to the visuals, the visuals, visuals, visuals. So the world was still supposed to have this kind of makeshift, somewhat rusty aesthetic that we described in the first three. But then these incredible perfect computer generated ships suddenly fly into the scene and look completely out of place. The CGI especially the CGI of the time, again, like early 2000s, was very clean, very crisp, very digital, which to a lot of people reads as fake. So even at best even when the scene is visually very impressive, even if it looks great, you're still kind of pulled out of the moment to marvel at the Digital facts. So the Attack of the Clones is a great example. There's this great big battle and Attack of the Clones. It's an amazing scene, dozens of Jedi of various races, clone troopers, battle droids, lightsabers blasters, it's epic. But so much of it was computer generated, that it actually looks more like a video game. You have some real actors, but they are obviously in Unreal places. So much so that in fact, I was like scanning footage to you know, to remind myself of what this all look alike. And I found one clip from this scene where it's Yoda in you know, kind of hanging outside of the ship as it swoops into this battle dome. And in you know, surrounded by troopers, and I saw the clip and I thought, oh, that's from an animated movie, I should look for the I should look for the full scene. And then I found the full scene and discovered No, no, that's from that scene. That was just a short clip. But in looking at it really quickly, the so obviously animated that I thought it was from a, from a cartoon or digital, short or something. It's really very digital. And what's interesting about that is for those of us who were raised on practical effects, it looked and felt more importantly fake. But I think for kids who were being raised on digital effects, it looked awesome. He didn't care that it was digital or looked digital or looked fake. In the same way that we talked about in the in the VR episode where my kids and I have a different understanding. They don't care if it doesn't look 100% perfect or not real is fine. Whereas for me raise someone raised on reel raised on practical. You know, it didn't look 100 It took me out of the moment. Right, right, right. Another visual element of the prequels that is worth noting is the style. This is kind of interesting. So these films the prequels took place 30 years before the first Star Wars film. Now how do you convey that right in a prequel to a contemporary piece, a filmmaker will plunk in lots of telling visuals so that we know that this took place 30 years before so they'll put in some vintage cars. They'll add some vintage clothing, some vintage hairstyles...
Christine Malec:Right right, yeah.
JJ Hunt:How do you do that for something like this? It's really difficult. So Lucas actually had Lucas in their design team they tried to borrow some of that same vintage visual language. So the ships from Naboo for example. Naboo being the home planet of Queen Amidala was played by Natalie Portman. The Naboo ships were really sleek, lots of shine. They need Chrome. The Royal starship, for example, has a pair of these dark like engine pods on either side of this long blade like hull. And it's all in this really, really shiny chrome. It's like a retro futuristic sports coupe.
Christine Malec:Heh heh heh!
JJ Hunt:And the N 1 star fighter has these similar engine pods, but they're near the front, kind of like the head of s shiny hammerhead shark in the body section that's in the middle, tapers back into this fine, fine, fine needle. It looks like the redesign of a ship from the cover of a 1950s pulp sci fi novel.
Christine Malec:Oh!
JJ Hunt:Very retro, very vintage. And then there's the hair. There were a lot of bad wigs in the prequels.
Christine Malec:Ha!
JJ Hunt:They have these hilarious Jedi mullets and Jedi rat tail hair braids. These are very thin braids down the back of the kind of side back of the head. And this was a very 1980s Look, which were well out of fashion by the early 2000s When these movies were being released. But I think they kind of used that right to convey to the audience that this is a prequel, very hard to do. And sometimes it hit the mark. Sometimes it didn't.
Christine Malec:So then what happens in the sequels?
JJ Hunt:So the sequels so this is the force awakens from 2015, The Last Jedi from 2017, the rise of Skywalker from 2019. From a visual standpoint, again, not commenting on the content. From the visual standpoint, I think the sequels were able to do what the prequels wanted to do to be true to the visuals of this kind of crumbling world, this rusty world that was established in the original, while dazzling the audience with new special effects, I think they were finally able to do that. So not only did they use more practical effects, like real sets and whatnot, the CGI looks pretty close to real. So it it satisfies both the old school old timers like me who want real to look real. And the younger fans who are like Nah, man, make it fake, just make it awesome. And it no longer the CGI no longer pulled audience members out of the moment, just to wow them visually, the moment and the visual go hand in hand. So a great example of this is the scene where Kylo Ren played by Adam driver and his army or are facing off against Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. So the resistance forces are hunkered down in an old Rebel base Kylo Ren flies in on his command shuttle. And this is a black ship with long black wings that are as wide as the body is long and these are really long wings and they're folded up kind of like bat ears, and it's just hovering in the air really sinister. And with him, he's got a row of massive walkers. So these are more vicious models of the famous at at walkers from the original series. Here these walkers are like four legged creatures. They look kind of like giant long legged steel plated elephants. These legs are really long. They've got these powerful Tusk like blaster cannons that come out the sides of their heads and their front feet or hooves are really interesting. They kind of bend back a little bit. So they look like they're leaning on their knuckles, which is a very kind of primal, nasty looking gorilla like stance that just makes them look even stronger and beefier, and they line up. So all of these walkers with Kylo Ren hovering above the line up in front of this cliff face on this mineral planet. And the mineral planet has red soil that's covered by a layer of fine white salt. So most of the ground is white, but there are hints of this red soil underneath. And they're facing this. These walkers are facing a huge steel. It's like a shield door. That's the height of the cliff. This is the entrance to the Rebel base. There's already been a battle so the white salt in front of this base has already been blasted away, leaving this red soil exposed like an open wound. And so old Luke Skywalker walks out of the base to face these these monstrous machines. He's a little bit grizzled. He's got his beard and he's wearing a black robe. And he faces these line of walkers. And in one of the shots were actually behind Luke so we get to kind of see his point of view. The row of Walker's is silhouetted against the setting sun, the golden light washing out a lot of the pale blue sky. There's actually a little bit of lens flare in the upper corner as if sunlight is reflecting off of the camera lens pretty cool. And inside this hovering shift Kylo Ren glowers at Luke he's in rage, and he Kylo Ren has got long, somewhat greasy black hair, his eyes are dark, he's got this thin, deep scar are running from above his eyebrows down his cheek and down his neck. It's very it's clean, but deep, it looks really nasty. And his voice is trembling with his barely controlled rage. And he says, "I want every gun we have to fire on that man." And they do. All of their walkers widen their stance, they actually kind of shuffle a little bit to prepare, they brace for the recoil. And every blaster cannon opens fire on Luke. And where he stands, the red soil gets kicked up into this tornado like Cloud. And inside this cloud, the landing blaster fire looks like lightning. And when finally the barrage stops, the rest, the red dust begins to settle. And Luke Skywalker somehow steps forward unscathed. And he casually flicks some unseen dust off of his shoulder. And almost every shot of that features very, very heavy CGI, the world is CGI, the ship is CGI, the like everything about it is CGI, visually, it's spectacular. And the attention to detail this red soil under the white mineral, the white salt on top, the sunspot on the lens. There's no lens, there's nothing this is just completely created. It's immaculate. But it's very real. It's very believable. It doesn't take you out of the moment. And that's what the sequels and I think I would say the Disney Plus series, they've been really quite successful in integrating the CGI into the visual storytelling.
Christine Malec:The Obi Wan series will be coming out on the 27th of May. And we don't have a ton of visuals on that yet. But, JJ, what can you tell us of what we're seeing so far?
JJ Hunt:So we have like some teasers about some of the characters that are that are going to be focused on in this in this series. I don't actually know a lot of these characters, so I'm going to be learning about them when I watched the series as well. But yeah, maybe we can just give a little bit of description of some of these characters and then come back in a few weeks after the new episodes are available, and we can describe more the locations of chips and other things. So we do have a sense of what Ewan McGregor is going to look like as Obi Wan Kenobi. He is an older Obi Wan right he's his hair is a little bit long and a little bit shaggy brown hair still a little bit of gray at the temples. He's got this kind of reddish brown beard that's still fairly trimmed, his eyebrows are a little bit more blonde and and again quite long, and they're letting the wrinkles come in around his eyes and around his forehead. He looks like a man who has seen some things he's been around for a while. He's got medium skin tone, and and wears a lot of again, these kind of burlap he kind of cloaks this very, very thick wool and kind of cozy cloaks and robes and so forth. That's what I've seen so far, then we have not seen what we haven't seen as anything of Darth Vader, Hayden Christensen's Darth Vader, so we don't know how much of his Darth Vader costume is going to be in play and how much we're going to see him - Hayden Christensen's face. How and when they are going to be using him, when they're going to be using full costume? We have seen some of the inquisitors. So there are these these Inquisitors who work for the Empire hunting down Jedi. And we've seen very short clips of them in the in the trailers. So there's the Grand Inquisitor, and the Grand Inquisitor in the animated series where he's been featured. Mostly, he's got a, like a white face very, very pale white face elongated. So a very tall kind of skull at the top, hairless with very, very fine red lines look like they're tattooed, vertical lines up his scalp. And then a couple of red designs I think again tattooed onto his forehead that kind of look like upside down checkmarks and red triangles, similar long red triangles kind of running down from his yellow eyes that look almost like you know, streaks of tears pointed red tears, long white nose, and a snarl on his white face in a black costume with a high neck. Now that's the animated version. There was some controversy, you know, quote unquote controversy. The first images of the Grand Inquisitor in the in the from the series. He looks rounder, and a lot of fans were like, huh, he looks plump. He's supposed to be long and lean. It didn't quite look though. That's it. We'll see how that actually plays out as the series goes on. There's Reva the Third sister played by Moses Ingram. A young black woman, very set jaw, intense gaze. And she's, uh, she's got long black braids that are pulled back and tied up on her head and then run quite far down her back. And in the clips she's got, she's also wearing this, not a Vader costume. But similar in that it's all black with lots of synthetic and shine to it. So it looks a little bit more leathery than plastic, but similarly black and synthetic. And then there's a character called the Fifth Brother and other Inquisitor and he's got a, like a half dome hat on in a very, very quick shot that we've got of him. Narrow eyes again, pale white skin, very quick and then who knows what are their characters we're gonna see, maybe we're gonna see Qui Gon Jinn, who was Liam Neeson as a force ghost. So Force ghosts are something that have a very distinct look in the Star Wars world, where a character is a little bit translucent and has a kind of a blue aura to them a blue kind of purple aura. So maybe Qui Gon Jinn in his bad, you know, looks like a fake beard and a wig. With its pulled back and long hair down the back. Maybe he will appear as a force ghost. Who knows? We'll see in a couple weeks, and in a couple weeks, we can come back and describe more of the visuals from Obi Wan Kenobi.
Christine Malec:We've barely scratched the surface here.
JJ Hunt:We haven't even talked ships!
Christine Malec:Right?! I think I think I'm hatching this right now. I want us to do a whole episode on spaceships. Awesome. Just the concept of spaceships. If there are specifics, that you have questions about that don't get covered in the standard movie and TV descriptions, tweet them out or send them via emails, contact us and social media because there's so much here, and we've focused on what we focused on. But we'll be talking about Star Wars, again, in subsequent episodes, particularly related to Obi Wan. So if there are specifics that you're dying to know more about, let us know on social media, and may the Force be with you. We hope you're loving the show. We really enjoy the challenge of putting together a new episode each week. To ensure that our efforts are worthwhile. We need to reach as many people as possible. That's where you come in, help spread the word. Maybe send a podcast link to three friends. Post about the show on local listservs and Facebook groups. Perhaps tweet about a favorite episode and tag some followers you think might like it, or show your love by becoming a patron. The broader our reach the longer we can stay Boyd and keep afloat. With your support. We'll be around for a long time. Thanks for listening and staying connected on social media. It's what makes this so rewarding for us have feedback or suggestions of what you'd like to hear about. Here's how to get in touch with us. Our email address is talk description to me@gmail.com. Our Facebook page is called Talk description to me. Our website is talk description to me.com and you can follow us on Twitter at talk Description.