| The Weekly ForceCast | |
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Date recorded |
November 29, 2011 |
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Date released |
December 2, 2011 |
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Duration |
2:17:00 |
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Link |
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App exclusive? |
Yes |
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Previous episode |
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Next episode |
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Clone Wars actor Stephen Stanton (& friends) joins us to talk about a very interesting Star Wars auction for a good cause. HitFix.com writer Drew McWeeny tells us about the method he used to introduce his kids to The 'Wars. Jimmy Mac reports on his trip to Disney and Star Tours 3D. And, its William Shatner vs Carrie Fisher in a winner-take-all grudge match! Plus, The Billy Dee Quote of the Week, Songify Contest, Star Wars in Pop Culture and more!
Guests[]
- Stephen Stanton
- Drew McWeeny (writer, HitFix.com)
Topics[]
- Voice actor Stephen Stanton joins Jason and Jimmy to talk about a charity auction he's running to benefit Leah Esquenazi, a very sick child whose parents need help with her medical bills. The auction consists of two helmets autographed by over seventy Star Wars celebrities. Signatories include Jimmy, Dave Filoni, James Arnold Taylor, Tom Kane, Catherine Taber, Corey Burton, and many more. Stephen says that "it's hard not to get pulled in" after talking to the parents of "Baby Leah," especially because he considers them to be part of the extended Star Wars family. The helmet auctions will run until December 5th, according to Stephen.
- Jimmy Mac tells Jason and the listeners about his trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. His story, which is also available on ForceCast.Net, includes his first ride on Star Tours -- The Adventures Continue, his experience at the Captain EO attraction, and his memories of walking around the Disney theme park. He describes the 'Star Wars items he bought, says that he recommended The ForceCast to a Disney cast member, and explains that the pilot on his flight home talked Star Wars during his pre-flight announcements. Jason plays an audio clip of this last event, which Jimmy says is evidence that Star Wars truly is everywhere.
- In The Cantina: Hitfix.com writer Drew McWeeny, whose series of Star Wars posts on HitFix's Motion Captured blog garnered widespread Internet attention.
- McWeeny talks about the early days of his online Star Wars fandom, including reviewing the leaked script for The Phantom Menace on Ain't It Cool News, which got him banned for life from Skywalker Ranch. "In the years since," McWeeny says, "I've had a couple of encounters with Lucasfilm, and it seems that I am still on that dark list." That experience turned him off to the franchise for a while, and he only recently came back to it as his kids got older.
- McWeeny says he originally planned to wait longer than he did to show his kids the Star Wars films. They had seen some episodes of The Clone Wars, but nothing more. However, when the Blu-ray box set arrived, his son Toshi asked him if he could see them. He says that his son's request was what made him think it was finally time.
- Jason asks McWeeny to explain his unusual choice of ordering for the presentation. He showed IV, V (to get the reveal), I, II (to build up Palpatine), III, and then VI (to put the wraps on everything). "Seeing them in that order ... [has] a lovely pay-off, and it really plays like it was meant to be that way."
- Watching the Prequels, McWeeny says, helped him better put the Original Trilogy into context. "I really came to appreciate more the big picture of Star Wars."
- Jason mentions that he was getting emotional reading McWeeny's highly personal blog posts. He then asks McWeeny what it was like deciding to open up his family life to his readers in this series. McWeeny replies, "It became very clear to me that we need media education ... we drop kids into an ocean of available media ... with no life vest and no directions for how to swim ... we don't teach them how to watch news ... we don't teach them what a simple edit means ... and as a result ... we need to find a way to get everyone on the same page, and so I think media literacy is a major thing to work towards. Part of me working toward that is [parental discretion when showing his kids media]." He says that his son asked him questions about the instruments that the orchestra was using in the Imperial March music. He found it really cool that Star Wars sparked his son's curiosity about musical composition.
- Jason calls McWeeny's conversations with his kids about the deeper meaning of the Star Wars movies "huge." McWeeny agrees and says that the morality tale embedded in Star Wars is meant to resonate with young and old viewers alike. "You hope that your kid's gonna realize, 'I hurt or affect other people with my actions' ... I saw the light switch really flip on for both of them in a really big way."
- ForceCast listener Jeff L. is the latest person to have his Songify remix submission played on the show. Jeff's remix uses Darth Vader's "Nooooooo" scream from Episode VI.
- Billy Dee Quote of the Week
- This week's quote was suggested by Tim A. from Lubbock, Texas. Tim requested a clip from an AT&T commercial featuring Billy Dee telling cable subscribers to switch to the company's TV service.
- Star Wars in Pop Culture
- Jay Shepard sent in a clip from last week's episode of Chuck that featured a reference to Star Wars, Chewbacca, and Yoda. He also sent in a second clip from the same episode, this one featuring a main character getting "re-introduced" to the Star Wars movies. Jay's final clip from Chuck included TPM bashing and OT spoilers.
- Headline News
- William Shatner recently joined the Trek vs. Wars fray when he said in an interview that Star Trek had "relationships and conflict ... and stories that involved humanity" while Star Wars was just about "special effects ... [and] ILM at its best."
- Jason says that, while he has a lot of respect and admiration for the man who played Captain Kirk, "he's dead wrong about" his Star Wars insults. He disagrees with the "derivative" remark and points to "I am your father" as obvious evidence of relationships and conflict in Star Wars.
- Jason believes that Shatner's comments are the result of his displeasure at being replaced by Chris Pine as the torch is passed to the new Star Trek cast. Jason points out that J.J. Abrams has publicly admitted to being a student of George Lucas and to having "Star Wars-ed up" his 2009 Star Trek film.
- Shatner goes on to say that "Princess Leia ... can't compare to the marvelous heroines we had [in Star Trek]." However, he does admit that he would like to run off "into the sunset" with Princess Leia. Jimmy notes that Shatner seems to still possess an essential element of "Captain Kirk-ness." "There's almost a Billy Dee element to Captain Kirk at that moment," Jimmy adds. Jason also disagrees with Shatner's assertion that Star Trek had more attractive female characters, citing Bonnie Piesse and Natalie Portman as examples on the Star Wars side.
- Not to be outdone, Carrie Fisher went on the record with a response to Shatner's attack on Star Wars. She disagreed with his assertion that Star Wars was all about special effects, saying that the two franchises "were not in the same league." She also said that the OT's visual effects were so far above and beyond those of Star Trek that Shatner may simply have been envious of her franchise's high-quality effects. Fisher also said that George Lucas once let Shatner into the Darth Vader armor. She then suggested that if fans see Shatner at a convention, they should call him Han Solo. Jason and Jimmy echo this call and asked for video (or at least audio) evidence.
- After his legion of fans encouraged him to respond to Fisher's response, Shatner offered up another video joking about what he and Fisher would look like if they reprised their original costumes (Fisher would wear the bikini). Kirk's uniform, he says, was made to be form-fitting, so his present extra girth wouldn't be a problem. On the other hand, he said, Fisher would have problems getting back into her bikini -- she might need help getting certain things "uplifted." In response to this slight directed at "our Princess," Jason invites both actors onto The ForceCast to duke it out, Battle Royale-style. "You have given me the challenge to book both Shat and Fish on the same show," Jimmy says. "Stay tuned."
- William Shatner recently joined the Trek vs. Wars fray when he said in an interview that Star Trek had "relationships and conflict ... and stories that involved humanity" while Star Wars was just about "special effects ... [and] ILM at its best."
Significant quotes[]
- Quotes go here.