this is not a screen name asks i'd like to know more about grant's work on r2 if
you have any anecdotes about it oh yeah what i mean so grant
grant and mahara worked on r2 as early as the mid 90s
as um electronics help for dawn bees so back then there were no prequels uh
in the mid 90s uh there was an r2 there was i think a
dozen or so r2s at the at the ranch and you know some in
probably one in george's office i was george i'd have one in my office
and some of those r2s were original aluminum our toes
are twos built by nordic engineering some of them were
uh fiberglass r2s built by tony dyson who built i think
six or eight r2d2s for empire i don't know if any new ones were built
for jedi i can't quite remember that but by the mid 90s there was one working
r2 that they utilized for appearances and there was one like
mostly working one uh and again this is before we had the
robot marketplaces which battlebots and the maker community have brought into
being that make doing work like maintaining an
r2d2 so much easier uh back then it was not nearly as easy
servos weren't as high-powered as they are and
being able to integrate motors and speed controls and computer systems and
feedback loops etc um it was a much more
complicated job and grant was vat grown to
fill in and help don bees with those and ended up becoming
you might or might not know um he ended up becoming c-3po for a number of years
for lucasfilm appearances in fact contractually was required to maintain a
certain weight he had to like drink slim fast every day
uh to fit into that 3po costume yeah that's freaking cool um
in 98 or 99 i think a few of us started chatting and we
realized that the kenny baker r2 sat over there in d building for a
couple of years just sitting in one part of the building because they didn't
need it for anything uh and the kenny maker r2
it stood upright right didn't have a third leg because that's the one
whenever r2 does it like that was kenny inside um so the kenny
baker r2 had you could see it the sides and you can
actually see this in the shot sometimes you can catch a glimpse of kenny's pant
legs not quite but um r2's feet had sneakers
in them mounted in them and that's where kenny's legs
slipped through and slipped into the sneakers so that he could actually like
do that r2 business um and a few of us grant and included
uh and myself and some other model makers started to make measurements off
of that r2 um and we wanted to make our own
now we didn't want to violate the terms of our employment so we didn't use any
of the original parts to make our own we simply took as
all the measurements we could and then we hand built slowly
methodically our own r2d2 and the goal was that each of us would take some
parts and then we'd each make a mold of those
parts and supply castings to the other members of this
romeo delta group the measurements from that r2
somehow made their way to the r2d2 builders group and help kick-start that
fandom but the one thing i will tell you is that if you start to measure r2d2s
too carefully you will end up with a wide spreadsheet
of measurements because no two r2d2s from the film series
are quite identical to each other they are all
just a little bit different and that's that kind of tempers one's need for
hyper veracity because there's no such thing
it is not a target it is more like a shady gray area that you can try and
shoot towards the middle of i remember as so um what i do know is
that grant finished his r2 just a few months ago
and it still sits there at uh in the same building uh that funko's in
um i don't know what plans they have for that r2
uh and i'm sorry i didn't have a specific grant yamaha
anecdote about the r2 just that like that level of co-mingled fandom and
employment and professionalism that was one of my
favorite parts about working at ilm and
grant and i were very similar in that regard of like
both loving the the parts and pieces of the universe and also
making them and being part of the engine that produced that universe
someone whose name is it's already rendered
asks what future tech in the star wars universe would you like to see become
reality now
lightsabers that's that's an easy one i mean flying cars
i think we'll have those pretty soon
and i'm really glad that we'll have autonomous flying cars because i don't
want human beings flying those things not by
a long shot um land speeders no
land speeders would be great uh but lightsabers
lightsabers say anything else i mean look i'd love to be able to jump into a
spaceship and fly between planets i don't think that's going to happen
quite soon lightsabers dude dude could you imagine i mean
i would imagine if you were really training jedi it would be years before
you handed them a lightsaber it would be years of training before you headed to
the lightsaber because there are few things more dangerous that
you could possibly imagine a human being holding
than a lightsaber right like you just like you fall asleep with it in your
hand and you cut your couch in half but these things are they're not they're
not to be toyed with it is very disconcerting that everyone
just hands luke one i mean i know he's got the force and
everything but still still okay um this is wow we're already at an
hour and six minutes this is my last question um m
johnson says adam exclamation point at the end of series one we see the
darksaber in mandalorian yes giancarlo esposito who is now
like the go-to villain in all shows right because he just showed up in the
boys season two and he's on mandalorian and breaking bad and better
calls all right like i think giancarlo's
business card should just say villain
what a great actor to be a regular villain he is so
scary and wonderful um so what is your rel uh
we see the dark saber and then lauren what's your relationship to the star
wars legends universe and how do you feel about it showing up in more
mainstream live action star wars stuff um again you're asking me a question
that goes way beyond my institutional knowledge about star
wars because i i don't know the legends universe i know there's
clone wars there's all sorts of other franchises that i have not
taken in that being said i feel fine about it showing up in more
mainstream star wars stuff i i don't mind that stuff at all i
i
look uh george and john favreau dave filoni and all of the
amazing directors of the season one of mando
and season two and john noll and all of those guys
they just they love the universe and they love telling stories from that
universe so their whole goal isn't servicing
one portion of the franchise versus another it's
taking in the entirety of the whole thing and giving us some great stories
to enjoy and when they come across a
mcguffin or yeah a macguffin like the dark saber
i don't know whether it's mcguffin or not but r2d2 is certainly a macguffin
uh he's actually i think the most famous and biggest mcguffin ever in film but
that's just my opinion but these these folks their their goal is just to
tell great stories and get us involved in those great stories so i loved
seeing the end of mandalorian and learning that there was a thing called
the dark saber and then going to research it and seeing that it comes
from here and like that's awesome man that's just i
don't have any problem or issues at all with that kind of excursion um
you know i i look to a future i look forward to a future where
fan fiction could yield things that production could use and everyone could
make some money along the way and here we are back to where i started
which is talking about copyright law and fair use um
you know i think it's really really
one of my favorite things about the star wars universe or any big franchise
universe marvel twilight star wars star trek
is all of the different ways that fans engage with those franchises uh
and the fandom goes way farther than any of the creators of any of those
franchises could have possibly imagined and the transformative artwork that that
fandom then exercises on those franchises where
they write their own fiction they write their own stories they design their own
costumes they come up with alternate other story
lines that stuff is all really important and
vital and amazing that's that's beautiful to be celebrated and i
love that people can take these franchises and make them their own and
make it feel like they're a part of their lives and share and exalt with
each other on you know whether it's fan fiction on
the kindle or or deviant art that people are drawing
or stls that people are 3d printing for each other
um so i'm a big believer in the huge melting pot that everyone
can can eat from like that's that's to me
that's the ideal and i don't think walling off any of that benefits anybody
thank you that was a stunning set of questions and it feels like i've only
spent about 15 minutes talking but i can see now that it's been 70
minutes uh so thank you guys for joining me for
this live chat we will be doing more
soon and uh you can follow us on tested and our youtube channel
to learn when these are happening to become a a a
contributing member um there are links in the comments below
for doing that and for those existing members who are contributing and helping
us keep the lights on and keep builds coming through here i say
thank you thank you so much and thank you all for attending this live stream
again for me um it makes the world feel a little less
lonely uh and i really appreciate the interaction
i appreciate the conversation and i miss it and i can't wait till i can see
so many of you at the next live con that we go to
together whenever that is hopefully sooner rather than later but
let's all stay safe in the meantime i think the very next con that will happen
will include a lot of costumes that have masks built
right in i'm just throwing that out there so start
thinking about your mask-based cosplay and i think that's where the sweet spot
will be thank you everybody stay safe wear your masks take care of each other
and i said love and virtual hugs yay okay let's uh end the stream