Star Wars

This spellbinding galactic space saga has amazed and dazzled the masses since its inception in the swinging 70s. Perhaps no other series has solidified its staying power quite like this multi-generational megalithic masterpiece of movies, marketing, and merchandise. Light up your lightsabers and let’s go kick some imperial ass! We’ll spill the beans on Star Wars on this week’s episode of FYI!

Special Thanks to:
Juan Solo
Kyle Millar
Rob Grams
Alvaro Quesada
Germain Vega
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Transcript

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[Music] this spellbinding galactic space saga has amazed and dazzled the masses since its inception in the swinging 70s perhaps no other series has solidified its staying power quite like this multi-generational megalithic masterpiece of movies marketing and merchandise light up your lightsabers and let's go kick some imperial ass[Music] we'll spill the beans on star wars on this week's episode of f y i welcome to for your info english you got it[Music] sorry sorry folks that was the only way i could start the episode by imitating the world's best bad guy darth vader and that's right now this is interesting because you can say the worst question but if we say the baddest is so i think this is the baddest bad guy ever darth vader and folks welcome welcome to our galaxy here on fyi i hope you guys are excited about today's show i am really excited the only thing is i'm a little bit under the weather um so you're gonna have to bear with me but what i've done is i have called upon some friends of mine to help me out and i've asked a few friends who are really from all walks of life from all different countries and i've enlisted them and their help to tell me why they love star wars and star wars you call in spanish star wars or guerra de las galaxias you may like it you may kinda like it you may love it but no one can deny that this is a juggernaut una fuerta let's take a look at our intro as we kick off with some awesome vocabulary i started by saying this spellbinding a spell is unachievo so if something is spellbinding it puts a spell on you i love that song i put a spell on you well star wars put a spell on us it is spellbinding and it's a galactic space saga that has amazed assombrato and dazzled this lumbrado the masses since its inception and its inception is suscomientos and then i said in the swinging 70s and swinging well to swing is column and also to swing is to share sexual partners so i imagine in the 70s it had a double meaning and then i went on to say perhaps no other series has solidified solidify i think you say has solidified its staying power and staying power is something that perduda in spanish something that lasts something that is timeless and i think that's something we could all agree on when we talk about star wars like it or hate it it is timeless it has staying power and be careful up ahead there are a lot of m's no not meteorites but words that start with m megalithic masterpiece obra maestra is masterpiece and megalithic is enormous and as i said when we talk about star wars we're not just talking about movies we're talking about the marketing machine and the merchandise and all the moolah that it brings in hey i just added an extra m moolah means money then i said light up your lightsabers and a lightsaber as we go kick some imperial ass that's right we're gonna kick the bad guy's butt and then you heard that lightsaber and later on we're gonna find out about the production some of the sound effects and some of the things that they did as far as sound effects and special effects that were groundbreaking revolutionarios and then i wrapped up the intro saying we'll spill the beans and that's to let out a secret we're going to spill the beans on star wars on this week's episode so before we even get started we're going to hear from one of my great friends juan solo yeah you heard correctly it's not juan it's not han solo now i call han solo juan solo thanks a lot juan well this guy is probably one of the biggest star wars geeks ever and he's also one of the nicest guys i've ever met he's a comedian he's a writer what we call a jack of all trades i think you say un todo te reno he's been on broadway well the spanish version of broadway in el teatro on granbia i remember i went to see him he does a little bit of everything his name is juan solo and you can check out more about him at his website juan solo punto ese remember in english don't say dot s to somebody but you have to say dot e s and he's written some amazing books as well some novels that are page turners la cabeza de la serpiente la mano del verdugo i love the name the executioner's hand una muerte improvisadam juan i gotta be honest with you i don't know how you find the time to be a star wars fanatic with all the hats you wear but folks just to give you an idea i asked juan solo for one sound bite and he sent me three and since i couldn't decide which one to use because they were all great we're gonna hear from juan solo a couple times and just to give you an idea of how much this guy loves star wars boba fett was at his wedding when he was at the altar and he had a gun to his head i mean boba fett a guy in a full boba fett costume you will not find another star wars fan quite like juan solo let's hear from him when star wars was released in 1977 i was 80 years old which was perfect it was amazing brutal incredible george lucas opened the eyes of an entire generation to a new fascinating universe after watching star wars i remember thinking why haven't they made films like this before okay because no one else could george lucas not only changed the not only changed the the word the way films were made but the entire film industry the depiction of characters the script the fantasy the special effects that after star wars everybody wanted to use the introduction of a philharmonic orchestra okay conducted by john williams john williams now you're talking and and the relationship with the with the studio with one of the major studios that that's very interesting because george lucas fought and fought to include merchandising in his contract and well at to a point uh at the point of mgm thought okay what do you want to do with merchandising do you wanna make toys of the movie oh yes and george lucas made a killing with the toys alberto can you think of a child born in the 60s 70s 80s 90s or even this century who doesn't have a single star wars toy at home i have plenty of them and i'm sure you you too i have a lot of those small action figures by kenner of the main characters and the supporting characters which which were great too everything in star wars is amazing and it's made for people from three to 99 years and that's absolutely true my mom which now she's 86 she's a big fan a big star wars fan and and i am and we have a young girl at home she's 16 zoe and she loves star wars too i don't know it's a phenomenon it goes it goes beyond imaginable it's it's incredible so he was eight years old when it came out eight years old as he said that's the perfect age and i think he really summed it up nicely it opened up a whole new world and he used a good expression juan solo is one of my wonderful students he's also richard vaughn student he is a great student if you guys are not following him follow him it's juan solo he's got comedy shows as i said the guy does it all but he even later on in the show is going to show us how he learned a lot of english by watching star wars and by reading the scripts and the comics and the extended universe but right now let's take a look at some basic stats let's take a look at the bare bones i already mentioned that when we refer to star wars we're not referring to a movie or a series of movies we are talking about a franchise that has films tv shows video games novels comic books theme park attractions and so much more in 2020 the total value of this company of this franchise was estimated at 70 billion us dollars it is currently at the time of the recording here the fifth highest grossing media franchise of all time as i said it's a juggernaut and it all started in 1977 the year i was born yeah yeah i had something to do with it no no but episode four which is really the first movie that's a little bit confusing you're like the first one or the first first one well episode 4 the original star wars from 1977 with the subtitle a new hope was groundbreaking in every way and so much that it paved the way for sequels you had the sequel which was the empire strikes back and then you had return of the jedi i think everybody will agree it doesn't matter what the chronological order is these are the original star wars movies the original trilogy and it wasn't until 1999 that episode 1 the phantom menace came out followed by episode 2 attack of the clones that was in 2002 and then episode 3 revenge of the sith which came out in 2005 and these movies are interesting because these are movies you either love or hate and the good thing is we're going to hear from both sides of that coin today on the show as many of you know in the year 2012 or 2012 como quieras george lucas sold the production company to disney thus relinquishing his ownership of this successful franchise as we say he took the money and ran but that wasn't the end disney picked it up and ran with it and again this is a bone of contention with many people you know is disney ruining the star wars saga or are they helping to make it live on forever i don't know how i feel about it i guess i'll come up with my opinion before the end of the show but as you know once disney got their hands on it they came out with the force awakens in 2015 the last jedi in 2017 and the rise of skywalker and let's not mention all the spin-offs the mandalorian and all of this as juan solo said they are making a killing sestanforrando but where did it all start you know what was that seed i always like to look for the the seed la semilla well the original concept was inspired by a book a book by an author named joseph campbell and the book is called the hero of a thousand faces and he used that he was also inspired by fairy tales los cuentos de alas westerns sci-fi movies so he kind of took all of that and he put it into star wars but the main idea you can find from the hero with a thousand faces i'm sure our star wars fans have read that and if not well that's a great one to read because as i always tell you you know if you like bob dylan well then you got to look at the guy who inspired bob dylan well this book looked at common mythological motifs it also looked at you know characters such as beowulf and king arthur you know this kind of structure and as campbell says and i'm gonna quote campbell the author of this book he says a hero ventures forth from the world of common day and to venture forthis a crusade they venture forth from the world of common day india into a region of supernatural wonder fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man so this was how he talked about it as i said not george lucas the guy who inspired george lucas it's kind of an antiquated word but it sums up the storyline resumes the plot i think you also say la trama you know the the action what happens if somebody says to you what's the movie about well that's that and right now we're gonna hear from another friend of mine my good friend kyle miller remember kyle's a wonderful dude he's on social media i'm kyle miller miller with an a he also has a facebook group which is growing every day where he teaches english he hosts the very popular drive time show on vaughn radio and guys if you are not following kyle you've got to do it he's also the author of the business english book which some of my patrons have won so congratulations to those of you who have won kyle's definitive business book well kyle himself is a self-proclaimed star wars buff fanatico de star wars let's hear from my buddy kyle miller hey alberto it's your buddy kyle here and i heard you were going to be talking about star wars on this edition of fyi so i thought i would contribute i thought i would chip in with my two cents there's a nice expression contribute my my ideas to chip in or to give you my two cents now call me a traditionalist but like a lot of people i'm really nostalgic about the original movies episodes four five and six that came out in the late 70s and early 80s but i was pretty excited when the phantom menace came out episode 1 the prequel the first one it came out in 1999 and in fact i bought tickets to the premiere to the it was a 1201 showing it was the premiere el estreno of the movie on the day that they were allowed to release it so late in the night of the the the night before they could release it at 1201 so it was one minute into the launch day they had these they call it a midnight screening so i got tickets i waited in line esperancola right i waited in line for uh for hours in fact to get these tickets with my brother we got the tickets and we waited and went to the 1201 showing and i wanted to love it as much as the originals i really did i really wanted to but i think i was maybe a little bit disappointed and i think a lot of people were but i think it was impossible to live up to the expectations basically to satisfy everyone especially the hardcore star wars fans so i would have to say i was a little bit disappointed but still great movies all of them have been great movies really but a little bit tough to live up to the expectations of the originals and now i feel since disney is involved as much as i do love the movies i feel that they're kind of milking it a little bit which means like they're they're putting out a lot of movies to make money from the franchise and maybe maybe they're milking it a little bit maybe they're overdoing it just a little bit but as you can see there's a lot of interesting uh grammar and expressions that appear when we think about star wars and in fact one that comes to mind is that great scene the classic scene where luke is fighting with darth vader and i don't want to give away the plot to people who don't know what happens but of course darth vader says to him he says luke you can destroy the emperor he has foreseen this it is your destiny he says join me and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son and it's a classic line and you see there the difference between destiny destino and also destino can be destination right but when you're talking about so there's a false friend here because if you talk about going on a trip what's your destination so he didn't say it's your destination no he said it's your destiny so your destiny is what you are inevitably going to do what you were meant to do what is your calling and the the outcome uh in your life is your your destiny or something that is inevitable your destiny so that's what he says and of course throughout star wars they talk about the force may the force be with you of course so we're not saying force without the article would be fuertha but when we say the force it becomes this abstract idea of la fuerta that that you have in star wars right the force so it takes force to um or to use force they'll say oh police officers had to use force but they didn't use the force because the force well that's a star wars thing anyway i love the movies but i'll stop there i don't want to take up too much more of your time but i'm sure your listeners are going to enjoy this episode as they are really classic movies and so much to talk about talk to you soon as you can see kyle is a hardcore fan i mean to go to the movie at 1201 to make sure you are there you are the first one front row center man that is dedication and kyle like many people seem to be let down by the third no excuse me see how i get confused the second batch of movies la segunda tanda and i think everybody everybody was looking forward to it so much that that might have done some damage as well so you remember sometimes it's not good to have such high expectations such high hopes for something because then you can be let down but regardless as kyle said the series has continued to grow on him what i mean is that even though he didn't really like that second round as much he finally you know started to like it a little bit and now he's watching all the latest shows and keeping up on his star wars stuff and the extended universe and this is part of my problem you know i love star wars i love the first three which well the first three that were made let's clear that up but also i don't want to memorize 75 million different characters i don't want to know who was whose friend on what galaxy and what planet in order to understand the movie so that's where i get lost a little bit some people love the extended universe and they know all the trivia but that's where i'm saying hey wait you're asking too much of me mistas record de la companera you see what i'm saying so that's where i can say okay extend this extend now we couldn't talk about star wars without talking about the music and we're going to talk about the music we're going to talk about the sound effects and then we're going to hear from my buddy rob rob grams who is another person who is just a talented individual he does so much stuff but most of all he's a star wars geek he lives breathes and eats star wars and don't forget you can follow rob at professional bohemian pro bow remember i'll put links to all of our amigos who gave me a hand but let's take a look at some of the sounds and the music and then we'll hear from rob and also guys if you want to join us in the bonus episode remember we've got so much that we're going to take a look at we're going to take a look at the characters some fun facts we're going to learn english from star wars plus we're going to hear some more friends of mine from all around the world all that and more in the bonus part of today's fyi and remember if you want to get a bonus episode every week if you want to get pdf documents with all the vocabulary and you want to join me in a class on zoom every week and once a month we have a master class we'll consider you know because i'll tell you why so many people say alberto i want you to be my teacher and i said okay go to patreon.com slash alberto alonso and i will be your teacher that's right guys my students see me for six classes every month plus we're gonna start organizing more events and i share posts every day if you join us you'll have access to over 750 posts the moment you sign up but more importantly you'll be part of a curious community check it out on patreon.com slash alberto alonso and i'd like to send a shout out to all my patrons especially my super duper students javier roberto david jose maria mila alex and edgar and don't forget about my interstellar students issa paco diego and carmen if you guys want to join us and find out more go on over to patreon.com alberto alonso now where were we where were we oh right music sounds sound effects well try and watch star wars without the music turn the volume off on the scenes with the music and you'll see it's a totally different movie i've done it with jaws as well and interestingly enough it's the same composer i think many people will agree one of the greatest composers movie composers or just composers of all time is john williams the guy who did star wars jaws close encounters superman e.t i mean indiana jones harry potter jurassic park the first two this is the king guys and i'm telling you you can do this experiment watch jaws without the music watch star wars without the music i'm telling you it wouldn't have been so successful honestly i think we can do an episode just on john williams also the opening crawl of the movie now the opening crawl is the credits there this was done basically by carefully placing these big yellow letters over this big black paper so guys that's not digital those are real letters that were cut out and it took three hours to shoot it and as we'll see in the bonus part they didn't have cgi like we have nowadays so they had to be really creative when it came to creating all these special effects and all these sound effects for example darth vader's actual voice was recorded by james earl jones right he's the guy who does this is cnn but it was manipulated even his voice was manipulated to make it more bassy and the breathing was done using a scuba breathing device s.o.s yeah he put the microphone on this deep sea diving gear and it worked so a lot of these effects that we know and love were done in a very practical very creative way and again star wars jaws all of these movies without their sound tracks without their sound effects they would be missing so much so let's hear from my buddy rob who talks about john williams among other things hi i'm rob i'm from the north of england um what's not to love about star wars really you know it's it's got fun adventure great characters like classic tropes good versus evil you know it's got strong female characters if that's your bag you know laser swords it's harder it's hard not to think of something that i don't love about star wars but if i was gonna nail it down to one concrete thing it would be being a child on the sofa in my family's home and that one moment where that's that john williams star wars soundtrack starts and and the credits start to roll up and it says in a galaxy far far away not in your imagination no no it's out there somewhere and in this place anything is possible and it's you know maybe maybe the marvel universe is kind of achieving that to some degree nowadays but when i was a kid it was it was star wars that did it first and it it was just high adventure in a galaxy far far away limitless possibilities yeah that's why i love star wars awesome thank you so much rob as you guys can see this is a world wide phenomenon and we're going to hear from people from all around the world in the bonus part i hope you guys will try and join us no no no wait don't try and join us in the words of yoda do or do not there is no try so i do hope you'll join us in the bonus part of today's f y ah[Music][Applause] you