The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (YouTube Version)
Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name. Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes. Eli Wallach as Tuco. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Could any or all of these three actors/characters be the ancestor of Boba Fett? Jango Fett? Han Solo?! In this episode of Digging Star Wars with guest star Phil Congleton, we compare Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti western The Good, The Bad and the Ugly – complete with the iconic score of Ennio Morricone – to George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode IV – The Empire Strikes Back starring Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Jeremy Bulloch (aka Jeremy Bullock) as Boba Fett. We think even John Williams may have lifted a thing or two from Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo. Listen in to this YouTube entry of our our final episode of 2011.
There was a comment about Boba Fett's weapon compared to something in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I don't know for sure, but my guess is the reference might be to Lee Van Cleef's gun in For A Few Dollars More. It's a long-barreled revolver which also has a butt-stock attachment, which Van Cleef can quickly pull from under his coat and hook to the revolver for more accurate, long range shooting from the shoulder. Boba Fett's blaster (actually built from a WW1 British flare gun) seems to be something in between a handgun and a shoulder gun.
ReplyDeleteVan Cleef as the bounty hunter Col. Mortimer in For a Few Dollars More also has a whole array of weaponry rolled up in a nifty bundle on his horse from which he carefully selects the right tool for any job. Not really Star Wars related but pretty darn cool.
Digging the 'casts, thanks and keep 'em coming.
Hey, J.T. Broderick! Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your post.
Shortly after the recording of this podcast, my guest Phil gave me VHS tapes of A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More (yes, I still have an operating VCR). So, I’m quite excited at the prospect of watching both and thanks to your post, I will probably watch For a Few Dollars More first to see the gun/weaponry bit. I’m already out of order in watching the films, so why not view these in reverse order?
I really appreciate your post and clarifying the gun stuff. And thanks for listening! We hope to have another episode up by the end of January.
In response to J.T.'s post above...
ReplyDeleteYou were dead on. I just finished watching FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE and Van Cleef's long-barreled revolver with the butt-stock attachment is EXTREMELY SIMILAR to Boba Fett's and must be the inspiration for his blaster. I also dug the nifty bundle on his horse for all his rifles. Very cool. Thanks again for your post.
On a seperate note, I thought this flick was a lot darker than GBU and wonder if this trilogy has the "sunshine act I, dark act II, comedy act III" design Phil and I chat about in our audio blog...Thoughts anyone?
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ReplyDeleteOn YouTube, Mitchel wrote:
ReplyDelete"I'm in the process of writing a term paper for my Western genre film class and my thesis is "Star Wars has more story characteristics in common with the classic western than the science fiction genre." These have been great resources for me. Thank you!"
You're most welcome, Mitchel! Thanks for listening and good luck with the thesis!!