With the release of The Force Awakens, everyone is talking about Star Wars, and that includes New York sports radio czar Mike Francesa.
Francesa, however, has seen neither the new film nor the six before it, if his interaction with a caller is any indication.
Francesa had apparently wondered about George Lucas’ involvement in the first six Star Wars, and Steve in Keyport, New Jersey dialed in to straighten him out or at least try. Here’s a partial transcript of the exchange.
Steve: I just wanted to let you know, you were asking about George Lucas before and his involvement in the films. The original trilogy—
Mike: Did he make four, five and six. That’s what I asked.
Steve: Yeah, he did. He was a producer on four, five and six, he directed the first one, he was a writer on the final two.
Mike: No, but I’m saying, did he have an involvement in four, five and six? That was the question on the table.
Steve: Yes he did, but that was just in a writing capacity on the later two.
At this point the conversation could have been over, and Francesa could have gone back to crapping on the Jets or whatever else he does all day. Instead, a producer butted in and attempted to clarify that, as everyone in the world knows, the three Star Wars films made first in the actual world, occurred second in the fictional universe.
Producer: Well the tricky thing is four, five and six are actually the first three back in the 70s.
Mike: What do you mean four, five and six are the first three?
Producer: The first that came out were actually four, five and six of the series, and the later ones were actually one, two and three.
At this point Mike seems to move on, and again it looks like the conversation will progress away from the movie series the show host has never seen. But here comes pesky producer again:
Producer: I’m saying it might confuse people because four, five and six are actually the older ones.
Mike: T-th-that, I have no id—wha?
Second producer: They did it in reverse. Episode four—
Mike: B-b-but who cares? You release a movie, then you release another movie, then you release another movie. So the first movie you release is one. The first movie they released.
Producer: I understand what you’re saying, but they actually called it four.
Mike: Why?
Producer: I have no idea.
Mike: Why would it be four if it was the first movie they released?
Producer: It was a six-part series, and they released—
Mike: It was a six-part series in what? A book? Where was it a six-part series, if it wasn’t in the movies.
Producer: I’m not even sure
Mike: Wait, how do you start with part four if no one had seen anything before they did the first movie? How is four? What was it four of?
Producer: I have no idea. I don’t know it well enough.
Mike: You are making no sense. How could they start with four? What is it four of? Four what? It was a book? Was it a book?
This goes on like this for a while, with Francesa absolutely incredulous that four, five and six could come before one, two and three.
In Mike’s defense, the producers do a pretty poor job of explaining the situation.
Episode Four wasn’t the fourth episode when it came out, it became the fourth episode several years later after they decided to make three prequels. We would say it’s not that hard, but actually it is kind of confusing.
Here’s the full video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AvEy4gGG6I
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