Jedi Minute 14: Frog Juice

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Date

January 22nd, 2015

Summary

He pushes a button and, before the dancer can flee, a trap door in the floor springs open and swallows her up.

Guests

Joe Dator

Notes

Film

Starts with the continuation of the Lapti Nek musical number.
Ends with the sound of blaster fire indicating someone's arrival at Jabba's Palace.

Podcast

• Cold-open: Ad-read for starwarsminute.com/merch.
• Is this a typical day at the palace? Laying around waiting for something to happen? Does anyone ever work?
• Jabba was at the peak of his powers in Episode 1 but has now fallen and been reduced to what we see in the original trilogy.
• This scene seems to be much faker than the cantina scene; there's nothing actually happening (eg the Greedo and the Yak-face in the background are just standing or sitting around).
• Jabba's Palace is like a coffee house where you can sit around all day working on your script and sipping a drink.
• Maybe its Jabba's daughter's wedding day and they're all waiting for an audience with Jabba.
• Referenced: The Godfather.
• The aliens that the hosts saw in the palace scene:
  • Yak-face; Ree-Yees; Tessek (the squid-head); Ephant Mon (looks like an elephant); Barada; Beedo - and also Meatneck; Cronut; ABBA fan; TV's Corbin Bernsen.
  • Is meatneck or cronut the worst disease?
  • Yak-face is probably working on his LA Law spec script.
• There are two dancers in this scene - a big dancer (Yarna d'al' Gargan) and a tiny dancer (Oola).
• About Yarna d'al' Gargan.
  • There was no action figure of her due to the character's design and features.
  • Jabba likes to have an eclectic mix of people around him.
  • The type of human women that aliens generally seem to like.
  • The character is played by Claire Davenport who has been in heaps of films including Birth of the Beatles (which was also directed by Richard Marquand, the director of Return of the Jedi).
  • Birth of the Beatles and its various iterations.
  • The character's back-story:
    • Jabba liked Yarna and made her gain weight and apply warts to her face to remind him of his mother.
    • After working at the palace, Yarna went back to her normal life and lost a lot of weight.
    • The character is therefore wearing make-up for Jabba.
    • She is wearing a terrible and unflattering outfit.
• What are Jabba's motivations towards the female characters?

Does he just want to eat them?

• Jabba is saying "do it again" in Huttese when he's yelling at Oola.
• Oola is scared of Jabba so she has clearly heard stories about him.
• Oola's back-story:
  • She had no idea what she was getting into at Jabba's Palace.
  • Oola was a well-trained dancer that thought this was a professional gig.
• Some people think that Oola fell down the trap-door and was turned into the frog in the bowl that Jabba eats.
  • This is because they are both green and Oola is heard screaming when she falls.
  • This theory is not impossible given the other crazy things that we see in Star Wars.
• The layout of this sequence is confusing:
  • There's a grate, then a trap door then Jabba's platform.
  • Once Oola falls through the trap door then the platform slides forward to the grate.
  • Why not just have the grate go all the way to the platform and have the grate be the trap-door.
  • Also, the trap door is very small and the victims have to be coaxed to stand in the perfect spot for it to work.
• The special edition scene with Oola in the rancour pit was filmed especially for the special edition and was performed by the same actress.
  • At least this scene clarified that Oola did not turn into a frog.
  • The hosts want to create an "Oola was the frog" t-shirt.
• There appears to be a real frog / toad in this sequence - at least in the bowl.
  • The crew member operating Jabba's hand has been quoted as saying that the frog was very difficult to pick up. It was slippery like a bar of soap.
  • There are also real rats in the dungeon and snakes and lizards in the magic cave.
  • Ducks are also referred to by Lando at one point, so there are definitely ducks in the Star Wars universe.
  • Pete mentions the line cut from the script of Star Wars in which Obi-Wan says "...water off a duck's back" to which Luke asks "What's a duck?". This scene makes Luke look really dumb and its a good thing that it was cut.
• According to EU, the frog is a Tatooine Paddy Frog.
• The first time this sequence was filmed one of the frog's legs was hanging out of the side of Jabba's mouth. This was deemed as too much by the movie-makers and that take was not used.
• The frog looks like it tastes pretty good to Jabba.
  • Joe thinks about what characters are eating in movies a lot.
  • The idea of selling star wars frogs in real life - either as pets or food. They could be used to make frog juice.
• Some more about Oola:
  • The same actor was used to film these scenes in 1983 and 1997.
  • This is the famous wardrobe malfunction sequence.
  • The remastered laser discs and the internet revealed that Oola's top was not always fully on when she was struggling with Jabba.
• C-3PO does his "I can't even gesture" - he waves his hand and walks away.
  • C-3PO is also topless in this sequence.
  • Other topless characters in Star Wars.

Meta Minute

• 27:06 podcast episode length.
• The complete list of aliens seen in Jabba's Palace.

Quotes

• Joe: And I'm Joe Dator and I spent six weeks learning Huttese just to do this podcast.
• Joe: <In relation to Jabba never appearing to work> It seems like it would be pretty easy to topple him from his throne. <Pause> Pete: Literally? Joe: Not literally. Physically it would be impossible to topple him from his throne.

Link

http://www.starwarsminute.com/2015/01/22/jedi-minute-14-frog-juice/

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