Episode 107 - Star Wars Part 2: Obi Wan Kenobi

Christine and JJ  just couldn't fit all of their Star Wars talk into a single episode, so today they circle back in their X-Wing to describe ships in the Star Wars universe. Then, having started the new Obi Wan Kenobi series, Christine and JJ go deep on the visual details that inline description doesn't quite have time for: visual parallels, hidden clues, and quickie cameos. Spoiler warning! And nerd alert, too!

Transcript

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JJ Hunt: 0:03

Talk description to me with Christine Malec and JJ Hunt

Christine Malec: 0:27

Hi, I'm Christine Malec.

JJ Hunt: 0:28

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: 0:47

Welcome to episode two of our talk about Star Wars and spoiler alert, if you're going to watch Obi Wan, and you haven't yet, you might want to press pause and wait, because there will be. Yeah, spoiler alerts, I'm giving spoiler alerts right now. And so, I watched the first episode yesterday. And so I have some specific questions that we're going to Yeah, we're gonna have a ranging conversation because we've never actually done this where, you know, one episode of something new and it's audio described and so then we can dive deeper. So I'm pretty excited because I think this is going to be a unique way to have a conversation. But where we left off on our first talk about Star Wars was about ships and both of us acknowledging that science fiction in general, the real world but especially Star Wars, riddled with groovy ships, interesting spaceships and so one of the first scenes I think, JJ in the first episode is The Inquisitor ship sort of landing and looking quite menacing. So shall we start with some talk about the ships?

JJ Hunt: 1:57

Yeah, let's talk about ships. So that's a great scene by the way, that was so beautifully shot with this, this black Inquisitor ship and I don't think it's been named yet this trend Inquisitor transport ship, it flies over Mos Eisely which is, you know, a city that's well explored in in the book of Boba Fett, desert city and tattooing. And this Black Ship it's got a sharp kind of prolonged nose and it flies very slowly over Main Street. And it looks so predatory as it cruises right along I heard one breakdown video they talked about the fact that the prongs the nose looks almost like the the open mouth of Pac Man ready to gobble up the people who are standing on the street below looking up such a great kind of opening to to that series and you know, a rival on tattooing. But let's talk ships in general in the Star Wars universe. Which one do you want to talk about first X Wing the Millennium Falcon. What's what's what's your favorite ship, Chris?

Christine Malec: 3:04

Oh, let's go for the Millennium Falcon is so storied.

JJ Hunt: 3:07

It's classic. The Millennium Falcon really is the number one ship in this series. So it's a big, like it's a disk like a pie plate shaped disk. And it's got a prolonged nose at front. So two kind of pointy parts that come out the front. And it's got one little side wing with a with a with a small cage that kind of looks like the kind of cage you would put on the snout of a dog to keep them from from biting or barking. And that's kind of off to the side. That's actually the cockpit so the cockpit isn't front and center cockpits not on top, the cockpits off to the side, which is kind of interesting. So that's the general shape of the ship. And what's amazing about the Millennium Falcon is that it really does look like a ship that has been pieced together. There were bits stuck all over it. There's like a radar dish over here. And then there's the gunners turret that sticking out over here. And all of the panels on the ship are different. They're all individually rendered. So it really does look kind of like a patchwork like Oh, at some point, there's a blaster fire over here. So get another sheet of steel and you know, bolt it on over here and you know, with the this blue on this part of the ship, well, I think we can find one from a junkyard and stick it on over here. So it's kind of got that real hodgepodge look to it. It's gray and in steel with some rusty parts. It's got a few kind of red markings here and there, but it's not like super organized. It looks like a bit of a piecemeal ship, which is part of its charm. And then when it takes off it's again got this disc shape. And so right along the edge of the disk at the back is where the lights or the engine lights are so when it goes wrong, it just speeds off those glow blue and zips forward from there, that's kind of the way it travels.

Christine Malec: 5:05

How about the X Wing?

JJ Hunt: 5:07

So the X Wing is a longer ship, it's kind of got more like... I used to love funny cars when I was a kid, I don't know why it was like this rocket cars that would like try and break land speed records by zipping across the desert. That's kind of the body of the X Wing, really, really elongated nose with like just a one kind of pilot spot right back and center on the nose. So the pilot is behind a sheet of you know sheet of glass essentially, and looking at like a fighter pilot and a fighter airplane. That's that's the basic design. And then there's there's a spot for, for a droid to be sitting exposed to the elements behind the pilot seat. And then what makes it an X Wing is the traditional wings. That would be if this was just an airplane and had wings sticking out the side, those wings sticking out the side split open. And when both sides split open, you now have an X shape. across the back of the ship. There's no tail like on an airplane so you don't have to tail with a fin stepping sticking up the back. You just have the nose, his long nose, the X shaped wings when they open up and then on both the top and bottom of the X Wing are long like needle like blasters. And just kind of sitting back and above the pilot's seat are kind of big engines. So this ship is very much based on a fighter jet model. And that's that's the way it operates. It twists and turns it gets into dogfights that's the way the X Wing operates. Whereas the Millennium Falcon is a bit is a bigger ship. So it can it is very skilled and and maneuverable. But it's mostly about speed. The X Wing is very, very, very nimble. I mean, truthfully, they make the Millennium Falcon pretty nimble, too. And some of those great battle scenes, the Millennium Falcon is twisting and turning and using the flat edge of its pie shape to flip back and forth. But the X Wing is really like it gets into the dog fights. That's what it's all about.

Christine Malec: 7:13

The droid is not in the cockpit?

JJ Hunt: 7:17

No, the droid's actually outside so it's up in behind and exposed. So when that droid is is seated in that spot, the head are two D two, it's usually an R two unit is just this this round droid head in space. Um, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't have, it doesn't have a compartment around it for the most part.

Christine Malec: 7:42

Other ships?

JJ Hunt: 7:44

So I mean, there's so many. So there's like the Imperial class Star Destroyer. These are where you're getting into the really massive ships, you know, the classic Star Wars opening, where there's the camera, so to speak, zips past the ship, or slowly passes the ship or the ship slowly passes the camera. So you get to run the entire length of one of these massive ships. And it gives you a sense of scale. It gives you a sense of just how vast and huge these things are. And the destroyers are actually based on Navy ships, naval destroyers, aircraft carriers, they're huge. And they're kind of blade shaped. So they come to a very fine point. But again, they're flat like a knife blade, and then they're kind of stacked up on top. So there are different tiers different levels on top, and then there's a big array. So it really does look like a like a naval destroyer. But again, with a with a with more of a blade shape appointed blade shape. And the patchwork that I described in the Millennium Falcon, there is some of that it's not, it's not piecemeal. But in order to demonstrate that this thing has been built, it's not just a monolith, it has been built over time you do when you're getting close in those initial those opening shots from from any one of the movies where they slowly pan by one of these ships, you do get to see the various panels, the various components that are stuck to the side and that make up the hall. And that helps add to your understanding of how big this thing is because it's one piece after another piece after another piece and you go past one, you know a array of weapons and then you go past an array of you know what look like satellite dishes, one after the other after the other because these destroyers are huge.

Christine Malec: 9:46

One more...

JJ Hunt: 9:47

Let's talk about the Mandalorian's ships because... The Mandalorian was a great show. And and the ships were good though. People really get invested in these ships and so for most of the Mandalorian the he had the razor crest and the razor crest was a great kind of bulky ship that was a kind of a I mean he was using it as a transport and he would you know hold his His bounties in the in this ship and it was kind of got a bulky midsection. It's a little bit capsule like in its main body with the cockpit, high end up front with blaster cannons on either side, and then up in high in behind our two big engine pods. And again, very patchwork very kind of this is a beat up ship. It's an older ship, intentionally older, like they he needs it to be older because it runs under radars and whatnot. And it get piecemeal, dark gray patchwork steel rough and ready and could bounce off of any surface it could, you know, hit a you know, bounce off an asteroid and just keep flying. That was the idea until it got completely destroyed. And so then the Mandalorian needed a new ship and he got what he's been working toward and building and we haven't really seen an action yet is a ship that's based on I think it was an N 1 Nabu Starfighter I think I've got that right. So this we talked about this the the Nabu design in the last episode, very, very, very sleek and kind of working on like 1950s A cruisers like 1950s car design, cars, these were part of the prequel series, very, very, very sleek. This one's like got a hammerhead shark look to the front. So instead of the rocket engines being up in the back, these ones are right forward with with like a cross piece. So that's gives it the hammerhead shark look, and then the and then the engine pods taper into these very, very, very fine points. And so it takes this design from the prequels, but they were so sleek and sexy and perfect in the prequels people got me it didn't sit well with everyone because they didn't have that kind of piece together rustic thing that people love about Star Wars. And so what they did was they took one of these ships, and they said what if they What if you know, the Mandalorian with help from some friends pieces this ship together. So now you have the best of both worlds. You've got this really cool, very sleek retro Hammerhead design, but it's cobbled together and so you've got panels of steel panels, like that kind of thing. And it has the place for the droid in the back you know just behind and above the pilots the pilot seat, but this time they did put a little dome on top of it and that's where grow goo can sit so instead of a droid sitting there his copilot is is little baby Yoda is grow goo so super cute. And grow goo now sits inside this, this pod instead of r two d two. That's that's the the Nabu, n one Mandalorian star fighter or whatever they're gonna call it I don't think it's got a name yet.

Christine Malec: 13:17

Watching Obi Wan, having, you know, participated in our first episode on Star Wars, I was really heightened to the patchwork quality and so I'm thinking of examples on Tatooine like they're cutting up a well yeah, which is like a really 19th century Earth, you know, grubby thing next to droids and spaceships or, you know deserts and riding on animals. But then there's right next to this high tech and so it made me listening, you know, participating in our episode last time really sensitized me to the so I'm interested in talking more about the worlds and how they're made because the sort of grumpiness has become definitely part of the charm that I don't I did definitely didn't appreciate until you and I talked about it a few weeks ago, so the way that the chips are packed because to me spaceship means sleek, like Star Trek, you know, or Apollo missions or something. And that's not what's happening here. So you get the sort of grubby low tech, like people selling pottery in a, you know, in an open market while a spaceship is landing next to them and that, that that paradox, which maybe it's paradox, maybe it isn't, but it's so well done. And so i It seems that an Obi Wan they're continuing that aesthetic.

JJ Hunt: 14:45

Yeah, they absolutely are in doing a brilliant job of it too. So again on tattooing, you've got these this, this streetscape that is because it's a desert planet. A lot of the buildings are Are our adobe buildings very sand colored everything is sand colored and sandy. So the same tan color of the of the sandy streets is the color of the adobe buildings with their which have rounded doorways and domed roofs, their dome rooftops and whatnot, a very classic desert construction. And yeah, and then you've got like droids who are also super Sandy and pieced together right like everything on the planet, the awnings, the vendors, where's the clothing, everything is covered in sand. And what I found really interesting about arriving on tattooing is because those of us who have watched the book of Boba Fett really know tattooing now and have spent a lot of time in malls Isley, this this the city, there was a sense of visual familiarity. So it was I launched right into the story I launched I cared about the city when this ship, you know, this Inquisitor ship is landing in the street. I'm already caring about it, because I know it. I feel comfortable there. I feel familiar. And it looks real. It doesn't look like some space age. Ooh, it looks tangible. It's a desert city. It's a desert town. And I know these people because I've seen them in the book of Boba Fett. And if not them, their ancestors, you know, like it just felt really, really at home there. But the other thing that's interesting is this, though it carried over this kind of patchwork piecemeal thing carried over even into Alderaan. So Alderaan This is where young Leah is growing up as a princess having been adopted by Baylor gonna play by Jimmy Smits. And it's, in some ways, it's a very sharp contrast to tattooing. So you know, instead of being a desert like tattooing, Alderaan Is it our first shot of is of this island with clear waters in the foreground snowcapped mountains in the background in this city sized royal palace in between in the palace is a series of tall white and silver towers, everything's got smooth edges and rounded tips. And very sleek, like probably as sleek as anything we've seen in Star Wars really slick and sleek and everything is in in silvers and whites. It's very, very clean, lots of nature around again, you've got the weave, you've got the waters and the in the mountains, and they're even there are some forest scenes. And yet, when you get right in close, when you've got a close up or you're on one of the lat landing docks or you're in an exterior shot, you can still see that the towers are not seamless modulates the paneling on the exterior is still discernible. So there are some signs of aging in the structures. Some of the exterior panels are slightly imperfect and, and they have minor color differences, which will tell you that some of those panels have been replaced over time, it doesn't look like the Mandalorians razor crest or the Millennium Falcon, which is like totally just patchwork but there's subtle little indications that these are still structures that someone had to build. These aren't just digitally rendered things and again, it's not that no one has ever done this before. Like this kind this attention to detail is present in other series including in Star Trek by the way they also do this in the most recent versions of the enterprise you can see this paneling with the tiny little bolt marks along the sides. But in this series they do it very very very well.

Christine Malec: 18:50

Now I'm not to episode two yet but can we talk about the urban landscape?

JJ Hunt: 18:54

Yeah, die you so die you is this kind of seedy urban? I don't know if the whole planet is sometimes in sci fi. The whole planet gets described in the same way so I don't know if it's like the whole planet is like this or if it's just the city but die use like this Hong Kong Blade Runner vibe and really drawing quite expressly from both of those visuals. So a lot of tall tall towers packed in tight just like Hong Kong and the Blade Runner vibe. So it's filmed at night of course it's always night in cities like this. He never in a movie see one of these cities like on a beautiful sunny day with a breeze go. It's always night and a little bit rainy and a little bit grimy, everything's grimy. There's some smog or mist that's hanging in the air. In fact, when the Starliner comes in when Obi Wan flies into the city on a Starliner they have to fly right through this blanket of kind of greenish smog that hangs in the air really gross. And then you get down into the streets and you know very very tall buildings and vertical neon signs on the sides of all of the buildings, again, very Hong Kong, more so than even Shanghai. It's seedy and dark. And almost all of the light that's in this city is provided by the neon signs that are on the outsides of buildings. So that means that there's always a greenish glow or a reddish glow, or a yellow glow. It's never just a, you know, a straight street light over, you know, lighting up a square, it's always these colors, these tinted lights that are coming from the sides of buildings, not directly overhead really has an impact on the way that city is, is visually presented to us.

Christine Malec: 20:43

Now our podcast is not a place for discussing the nuances of how audio description is done. But having just watched episode one, there was a couple of things that stuck out for me. Because you and I had talked about this a few weeks ago. And they were kind of about how characters are described and identified. So the bounty hunter, the female bounty hunter, I was pretty sure I remembered that she was an African American woman, a black woman, but the description didn't identify that and then later, there was instances where there were aliens and the describer use the pronoun she, which I liked, but I wasn't sure if it was based on anything, or just a decision not to use the pronoun here, because that's what people default to. And so it I don't know if I even have a description related question here. But it just made me think about the difference in the ways that audio description gets written. And I felt like I was kind of watching a bit of evolution of audio description, writing, because there were some word choices that were to me... unusual. Were you checking out the audio description from a describers point of view and noticing any of that stuff, too?

JJ Hunt: 21:59

Yeah, I didn't watch the entire thing with audio description I watched I watched it first without but then when I was writing my notes, I went back and forth and watched certain scenes with audio description, in part because I wanted to make sure I was aligning my description with the way people would have been hearing it if they were using ad as they were watching it. But also because I'm really curious, I want to know how it was being written and what was what was working. And yeah, I noticed a few of those things to the sometimes i the language of the describers sounded a little bit like the language of the Jedi, a little bit formal and a little bit a little bit flowery. I'm not sure if that was a choice to be in line with the language of the Jedi, or the speech patterns of the Jedi. It's funny, I hadn't noticed that they didn't mention skin tone with I think it's Riva the third sister. That's yeah, yeah. And that's important. I mean, it's important for a number of reasons. Obviously, we've talked about the need to be describing skin tone, and, and so forth, to make sure that those that representation is passed along to description users. It's also potentially very important because our very first scene, the very first scene of the whole series after the recap, we start on correspond at night, and we pull back from the city, which is you know, we see the lights of the city flickering away, and we pull back from there, onto a terrace where these youngling's are practicing martial arts with a rope Jedi. And the very first person that gets any screentime the very first person that's on screen is one of these young Ling's and one of these young in this youngling is a young black girl, a young woman of color.

Christine Malec: 23:47

Gasp! Oh!

JJ Hunt: 23:48

And what we know is that the Inquisitors are force sensitive, or former Jedi who have been flipped to the dark side. And so it's possible that this is absolutely nothing. It's possible that this is just some kid of color who is, you know, not an extra but has this small role in this show. And it has nothing to do with Riva, but it's possible given the similar skin tone, given the similar body bill like you know, body shape, and the fact that this is the very first person who is on screen in this series. It's possible that that's Riva. And we're going to get in future episodes, some kind of flashback to her being... what she might feel is not protected by the Jedi and that has led her down this path.

Christine Malec: 24:41

Right!

JJ Hunt: 24:41

So to not describe skin tone in that moment, might might become a problem. Interesting. You mentioned that some of the aliens are described as she using that pronoun. That's interesting. I wonder if in those moments there may Making the describer is making a judgment call based on the scene. And in the dynamic, or it's quite possible that those describers are getting scripts and notes from, you know, either Disney or the production company that tells them because again, this is like the lore on these things. Star Wars is designed such that every race of every character is known, the backstory is known some of these characters are named, even though they're only in a shot for a second. So it's possible that there's some kind of information that's been passed to the describer. I honestly don't know.

Christine Malec: 25:40

I'm going on a tiny tangent here, but I can't help it. I've been getting extra sensitized to describers using a first name or a last name. And when what I'm noticing, and I don't think it's just my feminist lens, women characters are more likely to be referred to by the describer. With their first name, male characters are more likely to be referred to by the describer with their last name, and I've tried to be objective as I can, and I don't think it has to do with how the other characters talk about them.

JJ Hunt: 26:12

Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's an interesting one, too. And that has been a default I certainly know, especially in my early days, that was probably a pattern that I fell into. There's also often good guys are first name, bad guys are last name. That often gets used.

Christine Malec: 26:33

Ooh, I never noticed that.

JJ Hunt: 26:34

Yeah. And sometimes that's an intentional choice. There's also some idea that Riva is being called Riva, not the third sister by the other characters within the piece. Because they don't have as much perhaps they don't have as much respect for her. Perhaps she's some kind of foundling or something like that. And that's one of their ways of being dismissive of her.

Christine Malec: 26:56

I thnk they call her third sister.

JJ Hunt: 26:58

They do. They mentioned it a few times, but they also call her Riva quite a lot.

Christine Malec: 27:02

Yeah.

JJ Hunt: 27:02

We're only two episdes in at this point. But these are, this is how it like juicy, every little detail is.

Christine Malec: 27:09

Yes, yes!

JJ Hunt: 27:09

Visual, audio. It doesn't matter. We're hanging on everything!

Christine Malec: 27:13

Right. So what did you, while watching it, what kinds of stuff did you see that you thought "Oh, man, the describer just doesn't have time to describe that groovy thing?!"

JJ Hunt: 27:22

Yeah, there's a lot and like, it's such describing can be so tough, because you're weighing a lot of different things. And you know, describers when they're trying to do something like a star wars where everything has meaning. It is it's it's impossible. You can't get it all in.

Christine Malec: 27:39

No pressure, eh? Star Wars!

JJ Hunt: 27:41

I know! It's only Star Wars!

Christine Malec: 27:42

You know you're going to be under a microscope,

JJ Hunt: 27:42

Oh my God, I really feel for them Totally. And they did a great job. Like there's lots of right!? elements that they I think they did brilliantly, yes, that they picked up on that I was really impressed by. But in line description in general, just as not particularly well designed to do things like describe worlds, to break down moments or to find all those little hidden details and cameos. Right. So there's some elements of the cinematography, I think that are worth talking about. There's some elements of like those, those little cameos and those little details we can get into. But like in terms of the cinematography, for example, some of the things that the description couldn't possibly, I mean, that's I shouldn't say that. It's not that they can't convey it, they can and do the describers did a good job of conveying as best they can within the constraints of inline

Christine Malec: 28:35

What a nightmare. description. But you know, we got this opportunity, let's Gosh. One of the things I thought the break it down a little bit more. So that that first shot that we you know, on chorus on that we talked about, where we pull back from the city at night onto the terrace, past the, the younglings, who are practicing martial arts with a robe, Jedi. It's a very smooth tracking shot, as calm and tranquil as the music is, as we pull away from the city over this terrorists pass these younglings very smooth, visually very smooth. And then the clone troopers arrive, and they open fire and everything changes. And what happens is the camera reveals itself to be handheld or at least simulating handheld camera. So our point of view or field of view really starts to shake, it moves around a little bit, we become instead of being smooth camera tracking, we suddenly start to shake and we move around. And this makes sighted viewers really anxious, and it puts us right in the scene. And the youngling's are kind of quickly hide behind the Jedi. But the staging of this means they're hiding behind the Jedi toward us. So these younglings gather all around us. And it gives us the point of view of either being one of the younglings or someone who is meant to protect them because they've all gathered around in front of us. Either way, it's super engaging Right, it puts us right in the scene, then the Jedi leads us into the corridor. And from there kind of the rest of this battle and attempted escape, it appears to be a single, unbroken shot. And so visually, this adds to the urgency, it makes us feel like we're one of the kids trying to escape in real time. It's also kind of like, like war footage, if you've got a journalist who's embedded in a battle situation, it's very much like this. There's battle going on all around, and the journalist is trying to film whatever they can. It's got that kind of feel to it. So it's really, really effective, in fact, so effective, that even though there's no violence toward the children that's depicted on screen, we don't see any of these kids get hurt. Disney actually released a content warning, because this episode was being released within days of the most recent school shooting in Texas. Oh, God, and they were worried that the this attack on a school attack on school kids, it was so effectively shot that people would would connect those two things. And yeah, so they released a content warning about that in advance. describer did well, in the first episode was the the animal that Obi Wan rides and how its legs are jointed in an unusual way. I really enjoyed that. The describer picked up picked up on that and kept kept reiterating it just because the audience kept seeing it. Yeah, I'm sure you go. Oh, that's cool.

JJ Hunt: 31:34

Yeah, that was really I think, then she talked about like, the front legs hinged out, and the back legs hinge the opposite direction. They mentioned that.

Christine Malec: 31:43

Yes, Yeah.

JJ Hunt: 31:45

And it's interesting that you point out that you heard it mentioned over and over again, because this is another brilliant thing that they did, that the cinematographers did. And then the describers picked up on and conveyed it, you know, really well. So the fact is Obi Wan in this series, the last time we saw Obi Wan, he was like one of the world's greatest Jedi as a leader in that in that community. It's hyper skilled. And now we're coming back to him. And he's kind of a broken man. And he's broken because of, you know, years of monotonous hiding. And they need to convey that in like the first half episode, they don't want us to have to watch him live a monotonous bored life for episode after episode, because that becomes boring for us, they need to convey that quickly. And one of the ways they convey it visually, is not only by repeating the same kinds of scenes over and over again, but they actually repeat the same shots over and over again, kind of beat by beat. So the shot is the same, the editing is the same, the pace is the same. So this part where he's he's part of the crew that's butchering meat from that sand whale. And he bundles a slice of meat that he that he steals every day he rides home on the barge feeds that camel like Ethiopia, I think it's called. Those moments are repeated shot for shot. Exactly. And that visually drives home the repetitive nature of his existence. And the describer very wisely and clearly it worked it like you picked up on this. Yeah, they repeat the same phrases. Exactly. So that description users get that same sense of repetition. Yes, yes. So that it's a comparable experience. So brilliant that they did it and I love that you picked up on it.

Christine Malec: 33:34

And his sandy colored hair, she refers to the scroll the narrator there, the writer used it in the description several times to and when you like reiterate that in the description, it was done. But you did too, that everything on the planet just looks the same sandy color and so it highlights how he is trying to blend in like even His hair looks. The same color is everything. So the repetition worked. We're totally where there are other aspects of worldbuilding our characters that the describer just didn't have time for.

JJ Hunt: 34:03

Oh, yeah. Another kind of cinematography element that I thought was beautiful to establish. Character and menace. Riva is a really wonderful, menacing character, and they got to make her do they have to make this character, a match for Obi Wan? Right away, and one of the ways they make her menacing, there's a great scene. Riva is searching for Obi Wan in this cargo port. It's this warehouse space that he's hiding out in really dark row after row of crates and cargo, and Riva is stalking him slowly making her way down these aisles created by these rows of crates, and she has with her an Inquisitors lightsaber. It's just a different design. It's not a straight hilt. It has the shape of an uppercase D with the hand inside that uppercase D and it's got A red blade on it. And so as Riva is stalking through the warehouse, the red glow of her humming lightsaber blade lights her way. And because she keeps this blade at waist height kind of either at her side or pointed in front of her, it casts an eerie red glow on her face, kind of like at a campfire, when a person holds a flashlight under their chin, under lighting, like coming up the face is really effective. It's super menacing. And that glow of that red lightsaber is, again, most of the lighting in that scene comes from this red glow. Super Effective makes her I mean her performance is great. She's got a very menacing tone and very menacing physical presence. Yeah, assisted by great, great design, great lighting design, great cinematography, sometimes you see the glow of the lightsaber, making its way down the rows of crates, you don't even see her you just see the glow of the lightsaber. Super effective.

Christine Malec: 36:05

So how about smaller scale details? Are there cameos or little things that in the end crowd would have would have got if there was time for describing them?

JJ Hunt: 36:14

Yeah, and a lot of those details. And I did check to see if there's any way that they're so small, they're so tiny. In some cases, there's no way that the describers got time they're trying to set a whole scene, and there's some character in the background, it's virtually impossible to get them in. So there's a there's on Alderaan there's an official political reception. And at that reception, both see Threepio and Artoo D two are there in the background. So you don't I think see three people might have been mentioned, but not Oh, two d two who's like, you know, serving drinks or dance or something like that. Yeah, they're just in the background. There's one you might have mentioned or might have picked up on this, this panhandling Clone Trooper that Obi Wan gives credits to this isn't the second episode, actually, this, this clone trooper has a recognizable voice. And in fact, the description identifies him as a familiar looking clone, which I really like. Because it lets the audience know that this familiar voice does belong to a familiar face. But it doesn't take away the fun of the discovery. Ah, and I will confirm here that yes, indeed, that was to Mara Morrison, the actor who plays Boba Fett, and Jango Fett, and kind of, you know, theoretically, all of the clone troopers, and it's him buried behind this, this really scruffy beard in this, you know, the wild hair in this grimy, grimy clone clone troopers uniform. And he's he's been reduced to, you know, begging for credits on the stream. And so they did a great job of putting that character in visually in a way that an audience member would be like, Oh, I totally recognize that. And the voice is super familiar. He's got a very, very recognizable voice. And the describer did a great job kind of letting people know that that was something to consider, but I'm not going to tell you exactly what it is. Let let the discovery be up to you. There are a few other nice very like the parallels, the visual parallels because this is a prequel of sorts, right? This story takes place in the middle of the greater Star Wars story that we already know. They did a very nice job visually kind of drawing parallels from one Star Wars story to another and so these Pod Racer goggles is a moment so at the early in the in the episode in the first episode, Obi Wan goes to see the moisture farm that young Luke Skywalker is living at with with his uncle, Uncle... Owen! Oh, and thank you. Gosh, how can I not remeber Owen.

Christine Malec: 38:56

Tee hee!

JJ Hunt: 39:00

And so Obi Wan goes to check in and from the distance he hides in the rocks. And he, you know, picks up these binoculars and he and he watches. young Luke and young Luke puts on these Pod Racer goggles and pretends to be flying a Pod Racer or piloting a Pod Racer, which of course is exactly what his father Anakin did as a little kid put on these Pod Racer goggles and Raisa pod pod Pod Racer in just a little visual moment that again like it's, you don't you don't have to be watching it to pick up on that parallel but visually, these the goggles which are these kind of steampunk round goggles that you know they get slipped on. It's a nice visual link between the two the two stories. Number one were Ewan McGregor has this like this wonderful pensive gesture where he gently brushes or tugs or twists the hair of his beard at the side of his chin and this As a gesture pulled directly from Alec Guinness, who played Obi Wan Kenobi in the very first Star Wars film, just a little brilliant acting gesture that he's like, Well, if I'm going to continue if I'm going to grow into Alec Guinness, I need to start picking up on these mannerisms. Now, that's a brilliant little little, you know, acting detail. And then when Obi Wan finds young Leia in episode two, he goes after your lair has been kidnapped, and he goes after and finds her. And the moment he finds her, you know, she's only 10 years old. She's a very short little kid, and so to to kind of calm her and reassure her that he's a good guy rescuing her, he leans forward to talk to her and calm her. And his posture mirrors exactly the posture of Carrie Fisher's lair, in the hologram that she will lay, send to Allah Guinnesses Obi Wan Kenobi when she asks for his help, and the first Star Wars, oh, the same posture. This it's very similar kind of blue lighting. They're both wearing these kind of cloaked costumes that have been hanging sleeves, the postures the same, the lighting is the same. The cloaked the costumes, very, very similar, lovely, lovely little parallels that are being drawn. And not every viewer is going to get to watch that and remember, but there's, you know, if you're either a hardcore fan, or just somewhere in the back of your mind, like, that's familiar, great at putting those things in.

Christine Malec: 41:29

What a challenge for a describer and I it makes me wonder if the one person who wrote the description was steeped in Star Wars lore or just, you know, it was a job for them. But yeah, what a responsibility because it's so storied and so mythologized. It's such a big world. We love making this podcast. If you love hearing it, perhaps you'll consider supporting its creation and development by becoming a patron. We've set up a Patreon page to help cover the costs of putting the show together. You can contribute as a listener or as a sponsor to help ensure that accessible and entertaining journalism continues to reach our community. Visit patreon.com/talk description to me, that's pa t ar e o n.com/talk description to me 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.