ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
It is one of the most iconic lines in movie history.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK")
FRANK OZ: (As Yoda) May the Force be with you.
FLORIDO: But is the Force still with "Star Wars"? The multibillion-dollar franchise is releasing its 12th feature film this weekend with "The Mandalorian And Grogu."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) We've all heard stories of the Mandalorian bounty hunter and a child.
FLORIDO: It's a continuation of the Disney+ series "The Mandalorian." The new movie arrives seven years after the last "Star Wars" theatrical release, "The Rise Of Skywalker," which made a billion dollars at the box office but was pilloried by critics and fans. For this week's Cineplexity, we're discussing the "Star Wars" franchise. And joining us are two people who have thought a lot about "Star Wars" - Glen Weldon, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour, and Marc Rivers, who produces our Cineplexity segments. Welcome to both of you.
MARC RIVERS, BYLINE: Good to be here.
GLEN WELDON, BYLINE: Hey there.
FLORIDO: So I want to start by asking each of you just, like, about your personal relationship to "Star Wars." Glen, you want to start?
RIVERS: Who's the bigger nerd here is the question.
WELDON: Yeah. I think that's open for debate. I am the oldest of schools. I'll just say that. I saw the first film in the theaters when I was 9 years old, and I felt, Glen, we have made this for you. Congratulations.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE")
CARRIE FISHER: (As Princess Leia) I'm a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan.
JAMES EARL JONES: (As Darth Vader) You are part of the rebel alliance and a traitor. Take her away.
WELDON: I got the action figures, had the play sets. I disengaged with it as I got older, but then when the prequel started coming out in 1999, it took both my nephews to see them. They were 9 and 10 years old, exactly my age, and I saw them develop the same passion for those films, which I didn't think were very good, that I still harbor for the original trilogy.
RIVERS: Yeah. So the prequels, the ones that Glen are talking about, they came out when I was a kid, and, yeah, I used to I used to eat, drink and sleep "Star Wars." Like, once, had all the action figures. I read all the "Star Wars" books. I had guides to different "Star Wars" planets and "Star Wars" spaceships. I would watch "Phantom Menace," and I would try to, like, do the Darth Maul...
FLORIDO: Oh, wow.
RIVERS: ...Like, battle sequence in the - I'd have my own double-bladed lightsaber.
FLORIDO: I think you might be the bigger...
RIVERS: And I used to, like, watch it and, you know, try to reenact the fight scene.
(SOUNDBITE OF LIGHTSABERS CLASHING)
RIVERS: But, like, many kids things or like, many things geared towards kids, I grew out of it as I got older.
FLORIDO: I don't have, I have to admit, a huge relationship with "Star Wars"...
RIVERS: That's cool.
FLORIDO: ...Actually, not much of a relationship at all.
RIVERS: You're cool. I get it.
FLORIDO: But when I was a kid, my brother - my older brother was really into it, and he would build the Millennium Falcon models, and there were TIE fighters around the house.
RIVERS: Oh, yeah.
FLORIDO: But it was a huge part of my childhood, in some ways, because of that. But other than that, other than watching those first three movies, I don't know a whole lot about it, so I'm looking forward to what you guys have to say here. Why are we having this conversation, though, about whether, you know, "Star Wars" has still got the juice? Like, what is out there that is driving people to have this debate?
RIVERS: I think what you see right now with "Star Wars" is a real creative stagnation, you know, a real lack of imagination with these films and shows.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RIVERS: So this film that's out this week, "The Mandalorian And Grogu," it's a continuation of this Disney+ series that started that was about not even one of the iconic figures in "Star Wars." It's not about Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi or Luke Skywalker. It's about this bounty hunter who has the kind of same outfit and comes from the same class as this one character Boba Fett in the movies, which - who only really got popular because people just loved his suit. And I think the powers that be said, well, if you love his suit, here's a whole show about a guy in the same kind of suit.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE MANDALORIAN")
PEDRO PASCAL: (As the Mandalorian) You do not cover your face. You are not Mandalorian.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) He's one of them.
RIVERS: And, you know, George Lucas, you know, you can critique a lot of things about him. But I think even when he made the prequels, which, you know, were lambasted at the time and still have a kind of mixed reputation, he was still innovating. He was still kind of pioneering. He was pioneering the use of digital cameras. Every movie that you see now - most movies that you see now in the theater, they're shot in digital cameras, and that's -and a large part of that is due to what George Lucas laid down with his prequel trilogy, starting with "The Phantom Menace."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE")
SAMUEL L JACKSON: (As Mace Windu) You refer to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Force. You believe it's this boy?
RIVERS: He was a story guy. I think those prequels, while not great works of cinema, they're still ambitious as far as, like, the tones they're juggling, as far as what they say about how democracies fall. And the products today, except for, like, one notable exception, which Glen and I, I think, will get into later - the products today, they more so feel like people playing with their action figures - or "Star Wars" action figures.
FLORIDO: Do you agree, Glen?
WELDON: Yeah. I would say that this universe is big. I think that's more a feature than a bug. I think Marc would probably call that a content mill, and that's what people are reacting to. Like, the business answer why, you know, we're getting all these products right now is avoiding risk. "Mandalorian And Grogu," which came out this week is even more risk-averse than usual 'cause they're established characters.
RIVERS: Yeah.
WELDON: But the nerd answer is that George Lucas, who created "Star Wars," always envisioned the main story as three trilogies. Now, he fully intended other creators to come in and play in his sandbox and tell their own stories. What I don't think he realized was how much nostalgia for those original three films was going to color absolutely everything that came after it and how today both creators - and we have to say it - and audiences wanting to go back to that original well. They keep iterating the main story. They keep hauling the same characters and storylines out of the carbonite freezing chamber and trying to thaw them out.
RIVERS: Yeah. "Force Awakens," which was kind of the start of the last trilogy - it started in 2015 - beat for beat was just, like, a retread of "Star Wars: New Hope," the original that came out in 1977. I mean, the same exact movie, essentially, just with different faces.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) We need your help.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) My help.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) This droid has to get to the Resistance base as soon as possible.
WELDON: But the machine also spits out more substantive stuff like the TV series "Andor."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ANDOR")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) There's fomenting out there, sir. Pockets of fomenting.
WELDON: Which used the "Star Wars" universe as a jumping-off point to explore, you know, how fascism works, who stands up against it and in that process just happened to become one of the best shows on TV.
RIVERS: Yeah. This was a show written by Tony Gilroy, started in 2022, and it started as kind of a prequel to a prequel. It was a prequel...
FLORIDO: Yeah.
RIVERS: ...To the film "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," which kind of led into "A New Hope." I think one of the keys to its success is the creator, Tony Gilroy, he didn't like "Star Wars." He didn't grow up a fan of Star Wars. He had no fealty to the universe or its fan base. He kind of uses "Andor" as a Trojan horse, you know, as an entry point to talk about the kind of personalities that would be drawn to fascism and, vice versa, the personalities that would be drawn to fighting fascism.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ANDOR")
DIEGO LUNA: (As Cassian Andor) They're so proud of themselves. They don't even care. They're so fat and satisfied. They can't imagine it.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #6: (As character) Can't imagine what?
LUNA: (As Cassian Andor) That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear.
RIVERS: If "Star Wars" can be adult, "Andor" is the most adult piece of storytelling that we've had in "Star Wars." And a lot of that I think is because it was not it was not all about adhering to nostalgia, adhering to our memories of "Star Wars."
FLORIDO: Yeah. As someone who loves to engage with the world around them, I mean, the way you're selling that now, the way you're telling me what those stories were about, I want to go watch that. So - you know, so we started this conversation with this question about, like, has "Star Wars" lost its juice? Does it still have the Force? Where is it headed? I mean, what's the path forward for this universe?
RIVERS: The dark side is clouding my view.
(LAUGHTER)
FLORIDO: Where do you want it to go?
RIVERS: I think the powers that be need to expand what they think is possible within this universe. I think - I mean, Glen's saying the universe is really big, and it is really big, but it feels really small because of what they're doing because they're still doing the same kind of stories with the same type of characters over and over and over again. So they're making the universe feel smaller than it is. I like more projects from "Star Wars" that actually make "Star Wars" feel like the big galaxy that I know it is.
FLORIDO: Glen, what do you want out of "Star Wars"?
WELDON: What matters is who they hand the keys to this universe to.
RIVERS: Totally.
WELDON: If they're going to keep handing it to fanboys, we're going to get the kind of material you'd expect a fanboy to make, which is, look at this character we're hauling out from 20 years ago. The original fuel mixture for those original three films, and for all the main saga, I guess, you would say, is one-third swashbuckling adventure and narrow escapes, because George Lucas loves Saturday morning serials, and he wanted to make an homage to them; one-third epic space battles, which is the pew-pew-pew pew-pew; and one-third space wizards with laser swords spouting absolute dribble about the dark side of the Force and whatnot. And that's my jam. That's what I love. But that's the original recipe. There is room to tweak it, and, you know, we keep talking about "Andor," but that had some adventure. I had some pew-pew-pew. But a hell of a lot of it was unpacking and interrogating a lot of the generally accepted conventions of those original movies, asking adult questions, grown-up questions, about this universe that was made for kids.
FLORIDO: Well, I have been speaking with NPR's Glen Weldon and Marc Rivers about "Star Wars." Thanks for joining us.
RIVERS: Thank you.
WELDON: May the Force be with you.
(LAUGHTER)
FLORIDO: And also with you. Is that what they say, and also with you? No.
RIVERS: No.
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERS: That's the Catholic Church.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS' "STAR WARS - MAIN TITLE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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