Ryan Jacobi and Patrick Cotnoir on the record-breaking Blu-Ray for "I'm 'George Lucas': A Connor Ratliff Story"
Fan of audio commentaries? How about 57 of them?
If you are unaware of The George Lucas Talk Show, I think it’s best for you to seek it out immediately with as little context as possible. A great starting point is the documentary we’re discussing today — I’m “George Lucas”: A Connor Ratliff Story. Follow along as I talk with director Ryan Jacobi and producer Patrick Cotnoir about the official Blu-Ray release from Kino Lorber, complete with a total of 57 audio commentaries and hours of additional special features. You can watch the full interview below on Meet Me at the Movies.
And here are a few of my favorite excerpts from the conversation if you prefer it in writing.
Last time we spoke was January 2024, and y’all had this film at Slamdance. Y’all have been through quite the journey since then. Y’all were on the festival circuit, then you got distribution in late 2024, and now you’re getting this Kino Lorber physical release. So I’d love to have the two of you speak a little bit to this journey. I imagine it’s gone in many different directions than you initially anticipated.
Patrick Cotnoir: From the beginning of this whole process — going back to December 2018, is when this whole thing kicked itself off — my thing was always like, “If we’re doing this, we’re going to get a physical release. This is going to happen. I’m so sorry if you have other plans, but either you make this happen or I make this happen. But it’s going to happen.”
So that’s always kind of been the goal. And I think it worked out that we found the right partner to make this happen. It took a long time because the physical media world is not what it was two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago. It’s rapidly changing. And I think we’re in a place where it’s coming back a little bit because people are seeing that things can just get pulled from streaming at any time and can be taken off the internet, and you just can’t see it anymore.
So I think it’s starting to lead to this revitalization of Blu-rays, 4Ks, DVDs, whatever. And we got connected with Kino after talking to a few companies, and we were basically like, “We have a lot of stuff that we want to put on this.” And the people who have seen this movie, who wanted to see this movie, either probably rented it or saw it in theaters. A lot of those people have already seen it, so we need to make this special, and we need to make this worth it for the people who haven’t seen it, or the people who have seen it but want more.
And I think we put enough stuff on this to make it exciting for those people, but it’s been a long process trying to find the right people to agree to all of our insane demands. Two discs, as much stuff as you can possibly fit on there, digital bonus features. The biggest stumbling block was the two discs, because a lot of people were like, “Monetarily, it doesn’t make sense for us to do this.”
But Kino was like, “Yeah, sure. Sounds good.” And there was really almost no pushback on it, which ruled. There was almost no pushback on anything we pitched this whole time. I would send a deranged email at like three in the morning just being like, “What if we did this?” And they’d be like, “Yeah, okay, great. How do you want to do it?” And that was very exciting to me and to the rest of the team.
Ryan Jacobi: The thing about us this whole way through is that we commit to the bit. No matter what we’re doing, we’re like, “If we’re going to do this, let’s really do it.”
And I remember we were out in LA at one of the Alamo Drafthouse screenings, and afterwards we were joking about, “What if we could break the world record for most commentaries?” And it went from joke to, “No, we’re going to do this” within about 30 seconds. And Patrick, I just saw your brain going like, “Who are we going to get? I know 30 people off the top of my head.” And so there it was. And it’s been such a fun process this whole way through of staying playful. Just, whatever is the most “us.”
And so I enjoyed curating a bunch of the bonus materials, like the deleted scenes and the extended interviews. I did that in 2023, which Annamaria [Sofillas], our producer, told me: “Ryan, you better do this as soon as we’re done with the film because you’re still in the thick of it, so you’re going to know exactly what people are going to want to see.”
And so by the time it came around to make the actual thing, I was just like, “Patrick, here’s everything. Here’s a giant folder, and now it’s up to you to curate this massive amount of stuff.”
So it was very fun for me, having been so in the weeds on this project every step of the way, to just be CC’d on all these emails at 3:00 a.m. that Patrick is talking about, and just be like, “Wow, these guys are doing it. Great. I don’t have to do anything from this point on. This is Patrick’s baby.” So yeah, this whole Blu-ray thing for me was very fun to witness too.
So of the 30 or so commentaries you have on here…
Patrick Cotnoir: Thomas, there’s 57 commentaries! There’s 30 on the disc. There’s 27 digitally that you get when you get [the disc]. And I want to make that very clear, because Kino — I’m coming for you, Kino. They’ve been promoting this as 30 commentaries, and that is not true. There are 57 commentaries on this!
I’m glad you mentioned that! So of the nearly 60 commentaries, are there any of those — I’m sure it would be like picking a favorite child — but anything that really stands out in there that you think just epitomizes your mission of those commentaries? Or it can be a handful.
Patrick Cotnoir: Yeah, I mean, this release is kind of a treat for me too, because I haven’t even listened to all of them. And you know what? It’s out now, so there’s nothing we can do about it.
But the one that I love the most, that I listened to a bunch, was Brian Jay Jones, who wrote George Lucas: A Life, which is as close to being an official biography as you can get. And he takes [his commentary] from a really scholarly perspective, as if it’s an official biographer doing a commentary on a biopic or whatever it is.
I remember I scrolled to one point and it was him talking, and he was like, “Connor’s here with his dad right now, and Connor’s relationship with his dad is so much unlike George’s relationship with his dad. George and his dad didn’t get along.” And it was like he had done research about this while he was talking, and that makes me laugh so hard.
But I wanted everyone to do something different, because I didn’t want everyone to do the Schwarzenegger thing of like, “And now I’m walking down the stairs, and I’m walking down the hallway, and I’m going to see the girl right now,” just describing what is on the screen.
So I told everyone, “Do whatever you want. Have fun with it. Talk about the movie. Talk about whatever you want.” And Travis McElroy from [the podcast] My Brother, My Brother and Me just reads the full Entourage Wikipedia page in full, because that’s what he wanted to do. I think that’s very funny. So if you want to learn about Entourage, you can listen to that one.
And then there’s Connor’s improv group, The Stepfathers — Shannon O’Neill, Sebastian Conelli, and Alex Dickson — are kind of Mystery Science Theater-ing it a little bit, kind of ripping on everybody, which I think is really fun.
Then we also have ones from fans. So you get a different perspective than you would get from someone who actually knows Connor, because these are just people who really liked the show during lockdown. I tried to throw a few of them together — I think it’s like four different tracks or something like that.
So everyone has a different perspective. You have past guests, people who worked on the stage show, people who worked on the livestream show, fans. My mom does one with me. Rob Malone, the editor, and I do one where we just call a bunch of people, which I think is fun. So there’s one with like 15 people on it, because we just call whoever we want to our phone. So it’s truly a bunch of different perspectives, but the Brian Jay Jones one sticks out for me, personally.
So is it true that in about 20 years you’ll release an updated version of the documentary with slight variations to more fully complete your vision, in true George Lucas fashion? [Editor’s note: This section to be read with a slight hint of sarcasm].
Patrick Cotnoir: Yeah, it’s true. Right, Ryan?
Ryan Jacobi: Of course.
Patrick Cotnoir: We’re going to cut some people out.
Ryan Jacobi: Yeah, but definitely add Connor stepping on a giant’s slug tail. There are just some things that have to be in there.
Patrick Cotnoir: And you’ll never be able to watch this one again. This one is gone forever. I don’t remember if we talked about this the first time we talked — we probably didn’t, because it hadn’t happened yet — this version is actually a special edition. This Blu-ray is different than the version that premiered at Slamdance. Ryan, I’m going to throw you under the bus a little bit. Is that okay?
Ryan Jacobi: Go for it. I’m so used to this story now.
Patrick Cotnoir: I know, but I think it’s worth telling. There’s a shot when Connor goes back to Missouri, and they’re driving down the main drag and they see the Capitol and all that, and the audio is Connor saying, “This is Missouri Boulevard. It’s a really important street for me.” But the shot was not Missouri Boulevard.
So Connor made them change it after the premiere, because he said he didn’t want to look stupid if people from Missouri saw that and knew that it was not [Missouri Boulevard]. So this technically is already a special edition. So if we can get a super special edition, I would love that.
Well, I will confess I still have the original screener saved on my Vimeo Watch Later. So I guess I’m in possession of both the original edition and now the special edition. I’m in rare territory.
A theme that is prevalent throughout the entire documentary, and also the career of George Lucas, is the matter of failure. I’m curious for each of you personally: How did making this documentary challenge what you thought about the concept of failure, whether that be personally, professionally, creatively, or a combination?
Patrick Cotnoir: I think we all still struggle with that every day. But it’s definitely something where you push through it and you find the thing that you’re supposed to be doing.
They talk about the “dead-eyed” stuff with Tom Hanks firing Connor on Band of Brothers, which gets expanded upon in his podcast. But that was so long ago, and Connor’s done so many things since then.
Things seem big in the moment, and then you realize later on that, “Well, if that hadn’t happened, then this wouldn’t have happened, and this wouldn’t have happened.” Having that in the back of your head — it seems like a big deal, but it’s not a big deal — is very important. And I’m trying to work on that as much as I can. Talk to my therapist, you know?
Ryan Jacobi: I think that’s something we have in common. We’re all very ambitious people. Everyone who worked on this documentary is wildly ambitious. Like we said, we commit to the bit.
So this documentary was a way of exploring for myself this obsession I didn’t realize I had with success and failure. And then seeing Connor move through it almost calmed me down about my own life, to where I kind of took on his philosophy that you can’t really fail if you do what you love. If you give your whole heart to something, there are different levels of achievement possible when you do that, and we’re shooting for the best.
Connor is a very ambitious guy to this day. I hope the documentary paints that properly, because he’s not just doing it only for the fun of it, but he doesn’t have attachment to outcomes. He’ll be like, “Okay, it didn’t work. What’s next?”
And that’s something I really took with me moving forward.
I’m really glad that we could sit down again and chat. It’s always fun to hang out with y’all. Congrats on a record-breaking Blu-ray, and hopefully for the special edition in 20 years, you break your own record.
Ryan Jacobi: I wanted to mention — there’s something I didn’t realize was included on the Blu-ray that I was really happy was [included]. It was that extended interview with Connor where we’re doing the visualization of what would it be like if we were at Skywalker Ranch and he interviews George Lucas.
So it’s within the Connor extended interviews. If you’re a fan and you have the Blu-ray, check it out. I rewatched it recently and was like, “That was a strange little visualization we did, that was kind of fun.”
And again, the further away I get from this project, I’m like, I really want that to happen now. I want this Blu-ray to stumble across George Lucas’s mailbox and him to invite Connor to the ranch and to have this dream come true. Somebody make it happen.
We’ll speak it into existence. It’s gonna happen.
Thank you all for reading, watching, and listening. I’m “George Lucas”: A Connor Ratliff Story is now available on Blu-Ray at Kino Lorber. And as always: Watto, tho.