Empire Minute 82: Tourists

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Date

May 6th, 2014

Summary

Han and Lando laugh together, and the group moves on through the corridor. The lagging Threepio passes a Threepio-type silver droid who is coming out of a door.

Guests

Joseph Scrimshaw

Notes

Film

• Starts with Han asking Lando about the gas mining business and getting updates on Lando's job; ends with C-3PO getting blown to pieces and skittering across the floor.

Podcast

• This is a very adult minute.
• People are welding on Cloud City. People working in Star Wars are always welding.
• Cloud City is a very clean place.
• "Cloud City" is the city and "Bespin" is the planet that cloud city is "on"/above.
• Place names in the Star Wars universe are like place names in Los Angeles - there are many different names for the same place.
• Being obsessed with Star Wars and signs of this - e.g. editing Wookiepedia and starting sentences about Star Wars with "technically...".
• Calling LA suburbs "systems" eg the Burbank System.
• About Cloud City from Wookiepedia:
  • It is 400 years old.
    • This seems old and potentially dangerous for a floating city.
    • There should be old family money in cloud city given that it has been mining gas for 400 years.
    • It seems futuristic to us but is actually classic and old.
    • Maybe this is why it floats so well - its made to a higher standard like the Empire State Building.
    • The mining business or Lando all seem to be new given all of the problems that he lists off.
  • It has 392 levels.
  • It has a population of 5.5 million beings.
    • This is a terrifying number of people.
    • It must be more crowded as you go down the levels.
    • The evacuation later in the movie must be a massive undertaking.
    • When everyone leaves Cloud City with their spaceships it must take off into space given that its so light.
  • There are 520,000 tourists in Cloud City at any given moment.
  • Of the 5.5 million beings in Cloud City there are 2 million ugnaughts.
    • Are ugnaughts respected or treated poorly?
    • Ugnaught jobs in Cloud City.
• Lando lists real problems that adults have. There should have also been a discussion about the taxation of his trade routes.
• Lando should have given Han and Leia a whole Powerpoint presentation about the Cloud City operation.
  • The information is important because everything Lando does is to keep Cloud City, and his job, afloat (literally).

 Pete says that Lando's position is like:
  You win an established mining operation in a card game with a BP executive.
  You decide to live on the oil rig.
  You get some people to work there with you.
  The platform has been there forever but your operation of it is just beginning.
 Alex says:
  or its like Puerto Rico.

• 10% of the population are tourists and almost half the population are ugnaughts.
• The rude silver droid that talks to C-3PO:
  • Named E-3PO. He is a grumpy protocol droid.
  • The ugnaughts called him egregious.
  • Something happened to E-3PO before he got to Cloud City that made him grumpy.
  • He got more and more grumpy and rude on Cloud City.
  • Later, when the Empire takes over they go back to Cloud City and find E-3PO.
  • The Empire scanned E-3PO and all he had was imperial dining and clothing etiquette because so many parts had been removed to try and solve the grumpiness.
  • E-3PO is always rude.
• E-3PO's line E chuta has never been translated because it is inappropriate.
  • Is e chuta said in the prequels in huttese?
  • Is E-3PO speaking huttese or is this just a universal swear word?
• E-3PO and C-3PO just stare it each other for a moment. This would have been a perfect opportunity for E-3PO to give C-3PO the finger - but protocol droid hands don't work that way.
• The door opens, C-3PO sees E-3PO, C-3PO hears a noise that sounds like R2-D2 and then walks in.
  • Why does C-3PO think that R2 would be there?
  • Odd that C-3PO wanders off from the group; hopefully he learns his lesson.
• C-3PO ends up in pieces just like he's always worried about. This is as bad as it gets for him.
• Who or what shoots C-3PO? Assumed to be a Stormtrooper.
• Does Vader choke Stormtroopers? Yes, very quickly like a throat punch - but he doesn't kill them.
• "Sorry Pete" - Cloud City looks better in the special edition. Pete doesn't agree.
  • For the tourists Cloud City should have roller-coasters, ads, huge lines, selfies with Lando etc.
• Will Billy Dee be in episode 7? We "know" that the other main characters will be.
• Billy Dee now wears an ascot all the time - this is very Lando.
• This is the last Lando for the week. Joseph loves him in the movie.

Meta Minute

• 21:13 podcast episode length.
• Cold-open: Support the Show request - starwarsminute.com/donate.
• Joseph is obsessed by this podcast and loves the concept.

Quotes

• Alex: I like how you went with the EMPIRE State Building to keep with the theme. Pete: I'm glad I didn't say the Empire Strikes Building.

Link

http://www.starwarsminute.com/2014/05/06/empire-minute-82-tourists/

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