Last Jedi Minute 9: The Magenta Backhoe

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Date

February 11th, 2021

Summary

At last, the resistance bombers have arrived with the dynamite guest commentator Josh Flanagan from ifanboy!

Guests

Josh Flanagan

Notes

Film

• Starts with the bomber pilots talking about how they're going to take out the dreadnought Fulminatrix and ends with the bombers going to try and drop bombs on the dreadnought.
• The bombers are not part of Blue Squadron, they're part of Cobalt Squadron.
  • First guy we see responding is pilot Finch Dallow.
    • Played by Kevin Layne.
• The haggard-looking old man who lets us know there are fighters incoming is Ben Teene.
  • Played by Ben Morris, ILM creative director and visual effects supervisor for this film.
  • His bomber is called the Crimson Bolide.

Podcast

• If you don't count Gutterballs, the podcast that covers The Big Lebowski one minute at a time (which unbeknownst to our hosts actually came out years before STAR WARS MINUTE), Josh's podcast Goodfellas Minute is the first to follow in Pete Alex's footsteps.
  • They actually asked them permission to take the movies by minutes treatment to another movie.
  • The running joke that the show is recorded every morning, not in blocks.
• Poe is Black Leader at this point. If he's so high up in the hierarchy he probably shouldn't be leading the mission from the front and attacking all by himself.
• Bombers are crewed by a pilot, Gunner, and Bombardier.
• A lot of names in Star Wars have a specific syllable pattern: first name is one syllable and the last name is 2+ syllables.
• Dallow is piloting the Cobalt Hammer.
  • The element Cobalt versus the color.
  • In an earlier draft of the script, the gunner was supposed to be Finn. Maybe the same not very imaginative guy who named Cobalt Squadron came up with the name "Finch" from "Finn".
• Ben Teene looks like he just woke up and they shoved him in the plane.
• The bombers seem extremely fragile; they're like battle droids.
  • They seem like they don't have shields (but see below).
• Their formation is terrible because they blow up one and it wipes out most of the fleet. What are these bombers normally used for?
  • Other than the Falcon's gun turrets, we never see the weird artificial gravity.
• Technical notes: what sort of tinfoil was used on the bombers?
• Classic Resistance pilot screaming death "they're everywhere" .
  • Jaycris Tubbs. His ship must be the Magenta Backhoe. Is this another "William Hootkins situation" where they named him 'Porkins'? Referenced: "Miami Vice". But no he's played by assistant director Jamie Christopher.
    • Still though, who named him?
  • Maybe that's why the bombers failed so badly – because it's all just a bunch of cameos from useless Hollywood executives. Referenced : Spaceballs.
  • Notes about Tubbs: per Wookieepedia, he had "at least two children". Names of three Christopher children in Aurebesh on his helmet.
    • Poe probably gets a card every Christmas from the Tubbs family.
• Josh's general The Last Jedi thoughts:
  • Cool space battle and in a way we haven't really seen before.
  • Many beautiful shots but that don't look like Star Wars.
• "Two snubfighters at 2-10". 2:10 must be a popular time for TIE fighters.
• Follow the show and the guys on social media. Josh deleted all his social media accounts except Instagram.

Meta Minute

• 24:32 podcast episode length.
• Josh's video caption reads "Smells Better on the Outside".
• During the Galactic Civil War there was also a Cobalt Group that was mentioned in the 2015 comic "Shattered Empire", which is part of the new Canon. As this was prior to filming TLJ, it's possible that the name served as the inspiration for Cobalt Squadron.
• Poe leading from the front makes one think of "Star Trek" and the trope of only the highest-ranking officers leading the away teams.
• According to Wookieepedia, the MG-100 Star Fortress does have deflector shield. It just must not be that effective, or maybe they were in a hurry and forgot to turn it on.
• The weird artificial gravity that makes the gun turrets on the Falcon work is a result of the last-minute re-design of the ship. Originally, it would have looked more like what would eventually evolve into the Rebel blockade runner, where such a contrivance would have been unnecessary.

Quotes

• Josh: Wait, are you in Cobalt Squadron? No that's Azure Squadron, they're over there.
• Pete: (paraphrasing an old Dentyne gun ad) "Brush your breath with Ben Teene".
• Pete: (to Ben Teene) No time to shave, get on the Crimson Bolide!
• Pete: Those weren't legs, those were bomber chutes.

Links

Audio only

https://www.starwarsminute.com/2021/02/11/last-jedi-minute-9-the-magenta-backhoe/

Video

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mkU4UfmKwek

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