Last Jedi Minute 107: Chicken Head

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Date

June 29th, 2021

Summary

Reylo face the combined might of Snoke’s furious guards and affable guest commentator Paul F. Tompkins!

Guests

Paul F. Tompkins

Notes

Film

• Starts off with a Praetorian guard wrapping his whip around Rey's laser sword and ends with Kylo Ren fighting some guys.

Podcast

• Lazer swords and other Space weapons.
• The guards are very robotic.
  • They'd move faster if not for the armor. Mentioned: Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron.
  • Callback to the age-old debate about whether or not Stormtroopers in Star Wars were robots.
    • Other shocking things that could be under the helmets, like a chicken head.
• Contrast this scene with the death of the Wicked Witch at the end of The Wizard of Oz, where all her guards celebrate her end rather than avenging her.
• The literal spark that lights the (literal and metaphorical) fire.
  • It's ironic that Snoke put so much effort into lightsaber-proof armor and yet he's surrounded by drapes that are a fire hazard.
  • They could have had a cute firefighting robot.
• The wood chipper in the floor. Referenced: an explosion from "Get Smart".
  • What if the armor is only impervious to lightsabers and nothing else?
  • Lightsaber ceiling fans (editor's note: see below).
• More top shelf sound design with the lightsabers striking the armor.
• Rey is totally attacking in anger but it's fine this time (no "once you go down the Dark path..." here).
• Referenced: a chicken with its head cut off.
• Maybe the guys in the back who aren't fighting are just hoping the other guys will take care of Rey and Kylo so they don't have to get involved.
  • Like Alex playing dodgeball, where he would slowly work his way towards the people who already had gotten out and blend in with them so no one would throw any balls at him.
• Paul wasn't sure about his thoughts on Adam Driver but thought he did a fantastic job in these movies.
• Paul loves Rey and her fierceness.
• The trope of trying to change the bad boy.
• Paul is confident that he will make it home by tomorrow.

Meta Minute

• 21:19 podcast episode length.
• Today, Paul is calling from the River Thames in London, UK.
  • To travel directly from Pyramid Lake (see yesterday's episode) to London (a distance of a distance of 5420 mi / 8720 km) in under 24 hrs would require that he travel at 225 mph or approximately Mach 0.3.
    • Buuut assuming he doesn't have a flying yacht, to sail all the way from the coast of Southern California to London (a distance of closer to 9000 mi / 14500 km) he would need to average 375 mph.
      • This beats the current water speed record by over 50 mph. Impressive!

The Scarecrow had a gun?

• You may be surprised to know that in the original 1939 Wizard of Oz film, the Scarecrow can be seen holding a revolver in the haunted woods as they near the Wicked Witch's castle. The fact that so few people remember this has become a subject of videos on the Mandela effect. Possible explanations for the collective delusion of the Scarecrow traveling unarmed can be found in this very thorough Reddit post: Scarecrow in Wizard of Oz with a gun?.
  • To quickly summarize, although it's possible people saw an edited version which removed the gun (à la the shotguns to walkie-talkies in E.T.) what's more likely is that the original movie was shot on poor quality film and then copies were made of it that further degraded the visuals, making details like the Scarecrow's gun nearly invisible.

Other meta notes

• The term for using the brand name to refer to the entire category of product (like Lightsaber™ for laser sword) is a "Generic trademark".
• You're right, Pete, "roboticity" isn't a word. The word for 'the quality of being robotic' is "roboticness" [1].
• Inquisitors have lightsabers that rotate like a ceiling fan and the guys are on record as disliking those very strongly.
• Lightsabers are fictional technology, but assuming that they cut by melting/burning, then we can approximate a video of a lightsaber cutting through things using molten metal. There are many channels on YouTube devoted to this. Here's a video of somebody pouring molten copper onto cheese.
• The term for being unable to stop thinking about something once someone draws your attention to it is "ironic rebound".

Links

Audio only

https://art19.com/shows/star-wars-minute/episodes/835401f4-640d-42f6-b93d-10b4475c0d5c

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJDvqZy7_eE

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