A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 01: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

"It's like poetry. They rhyme." What ever happened to the glory days of the Galactic Republic? Did it all fall apart because of the masterful manipulations of a dark lord of the Sith? Or may there have been some cracks in the foundation already?  Join Rob Zacny, Alicia Acampora, Natalie Watson, and Austin Walker as they try to answer those questions, kicking off their journey into the Clone Wars by first revisiting Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace.  Show Notes The Beginning: Making Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace  Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Austin Walker Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)

So here we are with whatever this Star Wars podcast is. We will work on all the details later. But to start off on what it is you are listening to, I think for the past year so, there have been a lot of us getting back into all things Star Wars, particularly the Clone Wars cartoon. And like a lot of people who found the Mandalorian piquing a renewed interest in Star Wars things,

I've sort of found myself questioning a lot of things I thought I knew about Star Wars. As I've been watching the Clone Wars and Austin, you, me, Ali, Natalie, we've been talking about this a bit. You look at the Clone Wars and you see a surprisingly trenchant story of military sci-fi that tackles themes about Forever War and creeping authoritarianism. And all of it's rooted in the prequel trilogy, which is weird because I think I am in the camp, and a lot of us, I think, are, are in this camp where the prequel trilogy is like this narrative and artistic debacle in Star Wars.

But shows like Clone Wars and the Mandalorian, coupled with kind of how the Abrams trilogy ended, they've raised an exciting possibility. could it be that the prequel trilogy was good actually can answer that and set up our discussion of the Clone Wars we just went back and watched

the Phantom Menace and the answer appears to be probably not but anyway here we go I'm your host Rob Zagney I'm here with Ali Akapora Austin Walker and Natalie Watson and we are going to get

all into the Phantom Menace Woo we're doing it I don't know about all that, all that you said, I can't speak to it. I can't, I am not familiar with it in the way that you have described, but I'm happy to be here. Can we actually set up what our Star Wars histories are in as brief a window as possible? Absolutely not. Just to, like, give us some, okay. I need, we booked two hours for this recording, and that is a two-hour question.

you're asking Austin, but I can do my best. I can humor you. Well, maybe we'll set this up. Maybe down the road we'll go into a deep dive into something or, like, we can all like have like a show and tell about something from our Star Wars past, old games we liked, books we liked, whatever, but we don't have to do that today. Maybe that can be like a bonus thing for people who like tosses a couple bucks on a Patreon or something like that that maybe we set up by now.

Maybe we haven't. Who could say? We don't even technically have a name for this podcast. yet because we're feeling it out. But I think that'd be a great... People should write it and ask us some questions about that stuff. But can you give us just like the 30-second version of it, or the minute version of the two-hour answer?

I loved me some Star Wars. I got into it when I was like 11 or 12, and I think they aired the trilogy on sci-fi channel. And it was the first time I'd seen it. I came to it late and immediately was like, this shit is amazing. And it turns out that once I was done with the trilogy, there was the expanded universe, namely the Zon Trilogy.

And then Kevin J. Anderson, he wrote some books too. And then there were many more books of varying quality and competence. And I started to learn valuable things about myself, about my tastes and sci-fi, about how some things are technically canon, but you can kind of pretend they didn't happen because everyone else is doing that. And how sometimes authors would come in later. and clean up messes that earlier authors in the series kind of created. And then the prequel trilogy came out, and I stopped being a Star Wars fan for about a decade.

Like, literally, I was at the Clone Wars, attack of the clones, at a midnight showing. And by like 2.30 in the morning, I was done with Star Wars. And that's kind of where things stayed for a good long while. So this was an active resignation. You were like, you know what? You nailed your theses to George Lucas's door. You walked up to Skywalker Ranch and you said, Mr. Lucas, tear down this wall. I'm mixing my metaphors now.

Just roll with it. You know, when you fall asleep during the, like, action day new ma of a movie that you were super excited to see, like, you kind of do have to reckon with what just happened here. Like, what's going on in my heart? Maybe you had a big dinner. damn this is why I love you Natalie materialist analysis you've gotten

out of the realm of ideas into the realms of physical facts like I did a cookout with my friends well there you go you went to the cook you fucked up

you okay yeah Natalie or Ali what about you Ali please go ahead sure I have a very strange Star Wars history

which is that I guess in around 2006 a friend of mine played Cotor 2 and was like, hey, Ali, the Jedi are really cool. We should do a text-based RP off of this. 15 years, I watched the movies. I read a lot of Wikipedia entries. I hold the Mandalorians very dear to my heart. And I just kept following Star Wars from there. I haven't read as many books as I'd like. I read the Bounty Hunter series this year.

how's that hold up I was surprised to find out that Boba Fett actually sucks but you know you love and you learn and I think that Star Wars has a lot of value and it's brought me a lot of joy so I'm excited to talk about it

and revisit some major parts I reread those I reread just the bounty hunter short story collection this year to write that that short story and remembering that Boba Fett like is a pure tannical asshole was not all my list of things that I wanted to do. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Yeah.

I guess I'll build off that which is like, yeah, I wrote a Star Wars short story this year. It isn't part of a certain point of, from a certain point of view, the Empire Strikes back, a collection of like a billion stories from side characters in a, uh, From the Empire Strikes Back, I read about Dengar and IG 88, two interesting bounty hunter figure, kind of grimy dirt bags. One of them is a robot. One of them might canonically become part robot eventually. It's not very clear or may have already been part robot.

It's super unclear because the canon is very weird. And I think that that speaks to where my interest had always kind of been with Star Wars. I loved it as a kid. It was a huge bonding thing for me and various parts of my family. to get like deeply personal. My parents were divorced and the sides of those families did not get on particularly well.

But my dad loved Star Wars and my mom's dad loved Star Wars. And so I had kind of figured a way to knit a relationship in my own heart between both sides of this family by finding a common bond. They didn't like get together

to talk about Star Wars with me. But it was a way for me to as like a seven-year-old make these two things come together. And so I loved Star Wars as a kid and like Rob, kind of dipped into books, comics, games, everything I could. I didn't fall off hard as hard as Rob did during the prequels, but I did come out the other side being like,

I think there was a good learning experience for me to learn that things I like as a kid could get bad and that you have to let go. You have to let go and realize you don't own them, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they're not important to you anymore. They can still be important to you and also be kind of terrible. so that's that's me Natalie that was really deep thank you um so I have probably the least deep relationship with Star Wars here I feel like I watch them maybe as I was as a kid I definitely saw the hating Christensen ones um um loved those um as a child um

Didn't really follow it. I think I played Lego Star Wars at some point. Then I met this man. His name is Kyla Wren. And I was like, wow, this is for me. Okay. So then I just went on a little journey of self-discovery, which means basically I watched

the last three movies once each time when they came out. An Odyssey, honestly. It was... Epic in nature. Yeah, mm-hmm. Twist and turns. Twist and turns, you know, I was with my mom and just Christmas morning for those three years that those movies came out, we just went and saw them.

And then I started, I watched. the first season of Mandalorian and big Pedro Pascal fan so I was like here for that and then it's really I'm noticing the through line here which is men are bringing me to Star Wars namely the men that are in them not men in my life because that's not the case and yeah so that was that's kind of my relationship to Star Wars not very deep but I love this collection. I love this collection of experiences. We are all over the place.

I think it makes us a perfect, a perfect quartet of Star Wars fans. Absolutely. Yeah, I don't, I have no familiarity with the Clone Wars. Couldn't tell you what a clone is. I love it. Well, guess what? There are none in this fucking movie. Not a single one.

Clone rating zero. I'm watching the Clone Wars and I'm like, so all those little soldier dudes are clones? It seemed just like soldiers. what did they come from but I'm sure I'm sure my questions will be answered The questions may have been answered in the movie

You fell asleep during Attack of the Clones But the clones just show up at the end of that movie They're like, here we are, we're some clones Wait, no spoilers, I haven't been there yet No spoilt but you do find out You do attack, Emily I'm very ready for my education though

Like, I'm very ready. You've seen it before. I'm ready to just dedicate myself to this and just become a Star Wars head. You're going to lot a lot. I'm prepared for it. I can't wait to figure out what Order 66 is or what happens in that third movie. Because one thing that I didn't go back and do was ever finish that trilogy. Wow.

Which one? The first one? The prequel trilogy. The prequel trilogy. Oh, you've never seen the third movie. The dramatic irony that is. hanging like a sword over the Clone Wars. I'm just like, nope, don't really know what happened there.

Where I did get the most of that story filled in was watching the cut scenes from the Force Unleashed, which at some point we should talk about because that actually turns out to be a really good, like, fan fiction, like, approach to Star Wars. And I'm here for it, and we'll get to that. I almost played that last week, and then I watched the trailer for it,

and you know how in the Star Wars, sometimes really may the Force be with you? in the trailer for the Force Enleashed it ends by saying may the Force blow your mind and I was like you know he does do that though

damn okay perfect that was around the same time they made Dante's Inferno into a game right like so it was the same game that's the same game basically it's a character action game

in which you toss motherfuckers around with your powers given to you by God or the Force Middiclorians as we learn in today's viewing. Yeah, so games were, like, embracing that, you know, force-driven power fantasy. Using the powers of the force for much of anything is not really what the Phantom Menace is about. We kind of get a, we get a little taste of what the Jedi are all about, like, right at the start of this movie, when one thing I had forgotten, or maybe it's not that I'd forgotten it, but,

I think a lot of the narrative structure and, like, world building that is happening in the prequels has since become clear because we have things like the Clone Wars, like, expanding on it and, like, doing more with it. Because I don't remember most of, like, what, like, none of the stuff I'm about to talk about or we're about to talk about really registered with me at the time. And it dawned on me, I think one reason why it all flew past me is because all of it flies past you at the start of the phantom menace

right out of the gate we are bombarded with a bunch of ideas and set up and like rules for how this world works that you know 20 minutes in the movie we've moved way beyond the premise and deep into what is happening in the dissolution of the republic

and it takes 13 minutes to get underwater and that first 13 minutes is filled with information but like then you're underwater like was I supposed to pay attention to any of what just happened? Yeah. The answer is yes, but why would you know that?

Yeah, it's all critical, but then the movie's like doing the Finding Nemo like Angler a bit as well. And so you're like, the angler. See, the Big Fish was probably the most important part of the first act, right? And it turns out, no, the Big Fish is kind of not thematically relevant

to the Phantom Menace at all. But it does, it does check a Star Wars box. I'm not trying to, like, give us rules for every podcast here, but I do want to note when it hits, you know, our good friends, Cameron Cunzelman and Michael Lutz do just king things. At the end of their podcast, they pull out what were the king things in an episode. We're not going to do that necessarily, but I do want to note one Star Wars thing. Big animals, big weird alien animals, check. This movie's got them. It's in everything in Star Wars. Nature exists. It's bigger than anything else. It's weird. Big. Big. Fish done. Check. Austin, I think you were talking the other day about just the weird things, this movie kind of slides under your, like under your radar right at the start as it sort of outlines, hey, what's happening in the Phantom Menace?

And it turns out like, what's happening? The setup for this might be weird and little troubling. It's all in the text crawl at the beginning of the film. I copied the entire text crawl down in my notes because I was like, blessed. I was like, this seems so important to the whole system that we're embarking on. Uh-huh. And it bloatedable.

Debatable. Things we know for the text crawl. There is a galactic republic. Who are they? Planets. A bunch of planets. Okay. Got it.

I have so many questions for every single people appoint here. We know through the film that there are places where their power does not necessarily, is not as important. We go to a place like that. but the taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute. Taxes. Taxes? The colonies don't want to pay taxes. Tell me if this sounds familiar.

Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy trade federation, pause. Another important thing in Star Wars, another, like one of these things that it hits a lot that's like big animals is racism. The greedy trade federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Nibu. They set up a bunch of spaceships around Nibu. No one can ship stuff anymore. So you don't learn this in this movie, really? I would say, and please correct me, Allie, Rob, if you have different answers for this.

I think you could maybe parse it on like a 13th rewatch of this movie. But it's a distant planet that's very pretty and rich. filled with humans who are important, but also it's provincial. It's not, it's a little baby planet that they can bully, but it's sort of like a, it's sort of like a prestige place in some ways, because it's so pretty, and everyone kind of likes to go there on holiday, and, but it's not so big that they're going to get their asses kicked by it. That's kind of my read, and like, again, none of this is here, like the human-centric, like,

politics of the core world is not, like, noticeable here necessarily, but that, That is my read on why that is. Rob raised a finger. Well, I was just going to note, the Trade Federation also do not really know why they're doing this. And we're going to get to that in a second. And the real reason they're doing this at Nabu is because the person who's in their ear

needs to have a plausible interest in Nabu. Correct. The real reason they're doing this is because... Is that revealed in this movie, or is this a twist that I can't say? You basically know, though. Who do you think... You really have... It's hard to make.

Hard to admit. I mean, but here's the thing. This movie's for five-year-olds, so. Yes, right. It is. A lot of people probably were surprised at the next couple movies, a lot of people. So, you're right. The senator from Nabu, Palpatine, is actually whispering in their ears telling them where to go.

Wait, we don't know that yet. Oh, my God. Well, you just said it was for five-year-olds. We're five-year-olds. I'm five-year-old in this podcast. Let me finish the text. crawl because we were 30 minutes into this podcast or something. We haven't even got out of the text

yet. While the Congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, which is to say, decisions have not been made, which is to say the blockade has not been deemed illegal yet. They were not like, you have to stop that blockade right now. They explicitly

say that. Yes, correct. They explicitly say I wrote this down. They ask, is this legal at one point? The two men. I don't know their names. Oh, do you mean Newt Gunray?

Newt Gunray. Yes. I don't know the other man's name, but one of them is named Newt. They're, like, totally cool with it because they feel like they're operating within the confines of legality, which is blocking trade routes. Yeah, apparently allowed. Apparently allowed. And to be debated over. To be debated over.

But the Supreme Chancellor, a man named Valorum, uh, secretly dispatches. is two Jedi knights, quote, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy to settle the conflict. And so the first act of this movie is them going, showing up as ambassadors from the chancellor to squash the beef, supposedly convince them to arrive at an agreement that will stop this trade dispute, which is to say do exactly what the trade federation then tries to do to the queen, which is forced them to sign some paperwork that they otherwise wouldn't want to. Anyway, that's the text crawl. That's the state of the world, as far as we know it.

I couldn't help but notice that the two guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy were not received as if they were peaceful, just people in general. Are you sure they got some tea? They got some tea, but they were really, What's his name? Margle? What was it? One more time?

Marble? Markle. Newt Gunray? Newt Gunray. Thank you. Newt Gunray was very, and his homie, was very afraid. They were very afraid when they showed up. They seemed like very stressed out.

And if I were receiving two ambassadors of peace and justice, I don't think I would be as freaked out. I would be ready to have a conference. conversation with them, perhaps. I feel like that that says a lot. The fact that they were like, I didn't know it would be Jedi. The fact that the Jedi were dispatched here without galactic approval secretly, but not secretly from the Jedi, presumably, right? What this means is that the chancellor got on the phone with Yoda, who we meet this movie,

and was like, yo, can you send two dudes to Nabu? We got a situation. And Yoda must have been like, I'm not going to do what Yoda voice. must have been like, did you ask the Republic about this, the Senate, or Congress? And the chancellor said, no. And Yon said, I'll get right on that, chief. I, yeah. Quigon, you don't follow any rules.

O'BiWon, you go with him. Keep him in check. But yeah, that's what really got me thinking that the Jedi aren't maybe, maybe not everyone feels like the Jedi are who, The text crawl is telling me they are. That was my first hint. They're definitely there too strong arm them, right? Like, that's very direct of being like, yeah, they were supposed to be there to tell you to stop doing that.

Yes. Yes. Well, the implication definitely seems to be that, like, look, they are there to help achieve a peaceful settlement. But once a Jedi is there, it's also kind of like your parents have shown up and they're going to, like, they're going to settle the dispute. Like, at this point, like, great. You, like, they will work with you to, like, resolve this,

resolve whatever this disagreement is. But once they've made their ruling, like, if you don't like it, the implication does kind of seem to be, things could get way worse real fast. You know, that, like, Jedi are very reasonable right up until you start disputing with the reason they're giving you. And, yeah, like, what unfolds here is, incredibly dense because we've got an entire

sequence aboard this the spaceship we already have Quygon Jin and his young apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi introduced right at the start we're kind of introduced this idea that off-screen Yoda represents kind of the Jedi party line talking about like Obi-Wan

is talking about well I'm supposed to be always mindful of the future right and Quygon says but not at the expense of the present not the expense of the present not the expense of the moment. And so we already have this philosophical dispute sort of opening up in the framing of the story. And then we have the Jedi kind of waiting

for this negotiation to happen. And the Trite Federation panicking and talking to this off-screen puppet master figure who is recognizably for people who'd seen the original trilogy. Like it's obviously they're talking to future emperor Palpatine on the... Oh, okay, yeah.

Yeah, like he's wearing the same costume. Like, he's the same... I forgot that there are movies that came before this. Yeah, so... Yeah, so, like... But for people who hadn't seen those movies, and this is, I think, one of the major... This is one of the reasons

that's become such a divisive trilogy. A lot of people watching these movies had not seen the original trilogy, and they were, in fact, five-year-olds. and this was for them and then you had a bunch of people in their 20s, 30s, approaching middle age being like, all right,

time for me to get my Star Wars fix and they discover like, this isn't for you anymore, man. Like, we're introducing this to a whole different generation. Did you not pick up what we're putting down with remastered versions when we released those? When we said it was for... Yeah, for all those who haven't seen it.

Like, that's who Star Wars is for now. We've already sold you. all the toys we can. So you have the Trade Federation having their full-on freak out, and this off-screen, this off-screen puppet master tells them, just fucking invade, just go for it. And the Trade Federation dudes are like, I guess we're invading. And it's very funny because they're the villains of this movie.

But within the first 10 minutes, they seem terrified by every escalating step they're taking. and every time they like hang up the phone they're like um this is did we mean to do that is that right? Yeah

so we're invading now okay is that legal I guess I mean it's tough when you're just like I don't want to be taxed anymore and then some guy is like yeah but you should commit some murders

like you know it's difficult it's hard it's really hard and presumably we are supposed to to it that this guy has helped support them, has helped, like, get them some wins on the way here theoretically. You know, it's tough because, Natalie, you were saying to me

earlier, you wish that there was a movie zero. You wish that there had been, like, how do you get to hear? Can we see some some of what Palpatine is doing in the background? Can we see some of, like, what's up with the Trade Federation? And what I told you was there were a bunch of middle grade books from this era that I read that helped fill in some

those gaps. I don't necessarily vouch for them. But those exist. They're out there. None of them are canon anymore. Oh, well. Why not? Because Disney bought Star Wars and was like, no. No. We're going to clean this up. Yeah, exactly.

So what's canon? What we're seeing. What we're seeing. This is canon? Right now. We're starting the canon. Books published post-Disney, I believe, that have been marked as such. And I think that that's it. the other stuff isn't not canon, it's legends canon, which means it's like, those are some

stories that maybe get told in this world, but that doesn't mean it's the real, you know? Right, right, right. Anyway. So who is the Trade Federation? These people, question work? Some other people maybe we'll see in the future. What is their role? Like, are they operating trade for the whole Galactic Republic?

Is that what they're overseeing? So, one, they're a place for Lucas to exercise his World War II fascination with Imperial Japan. Yes, but also, but also his Silver Age sci-fi or Golden Age sci-fi, Ming the Merciless, Flash Gordon Orientalist. And not that the Japan, not that the World War II Japanese thing is not also right, which is all throughout this movie. But so much of this is also Flash Gordon Ming the Merciless, like the Yellow Peril style of, like, 1930s serialized. villains, right? But honestly, I think, like, in terms of what they actually represent in this universe, they're probably more like, there were trade leagues in world history, too. Like, the Hanseotic League wasn't, like, a major national power in Europe. It was basically a bunch

of German, it was like a German trade federation. But it was enormously, it was enormously powerful because they basically ran shipping for the entire North Sea. And you kind of had to do what they said. So it kind of sounds like these are people whose whole business was running trade routes for at least a good portion of old republic space and then the rule was changed on them and now

they're getting, like now they're getting a bit host. Like if you think about it like it's internal taxation of trade routes is just probably not a great sign in a sort of national system where you've got people like laying taxes on like I don't know

it's probably not. Yeah well it just the whole thing, like, you watch this whole movie and you go, like, well, what is the world? What is the, what is the Galactic Senate? What's it mean to be a, to be a party? Is it like the U.N.? That's all of my questions. Or is it like Europe, right? Like, is there a, is it a federation?

Does the Republic even know? Like, does the Republic know where its borders actually are? Right. The answer is no, because we go to Tatooine in the second act, and that's technically within the border, but no one takes their fucking money. No one takes 20,000 credits. If someone came to me and was like, I want to buy your, I want to buy your computer for

20,000 euros. I'd like, I'll figure it out, homie. Hand them over. Let's go. Like, I don't, yeah, that's not good here, but 20,000 euros. Let's go to the bank. Show me this is real. But not in Tatooine, apparently. So, yeah. So the Jedi escaped this really clumsy assassination nation attempt, because, like, even though the Trade Federation are terrified of the Jedi, they don't really know what Jedi can do. They have, like, an idea, like, these dudes are badasses, but, like, we can probably just gas them, right? That'll work.

It doesn't. They're like, I'm going to hold my breath. It could have. It could have. It could have worked. One, don't blow up their ship loudly seconds before gassing them. Two, keep gassing them. Let them steep.

Just leave them in there. They open the doors way too much. quickly. They were like, got to check. It's like taking the bird out of the oven. You're like, it's got to be done, right?

I'm guilty of that, though. I got to say, if I'm baking cookies or something, I do beach opening the oven and checking and probably ruining what I'm doing in the oven in general. So I understand where they're coming from. Sometimes you just want to make sure

it's going okay. And then sometimes the bird is live and comes out and starts like, Just flogging up your kitchen. There's a great bit also where, like, again, not really knowing what the Jedi are, where they're like, close the door, that'll hold them. It's like, the one thing the Jedi are known for is having an unblockable laser sword that cuts through anything and then, like, close the door really hard.

But what would you do? You're not a military leader in this scenario. I would concede. I would be like, you know what? You got me. You got me. This pulls out the phone. He's not even here.

He's not dealing with it like I am. Nat Gunnary is out just immediately. You got me. Honestly, I just bought these droids secondhand. This is even my droid army. I'm standing here with the PDF open for how to deploy droid army. But they do figure it out. They send the droid army down in Nabu.

the Jedi go down in the boo and immediately immediately rescue from getting stumped like getting crushed by a tank a funny little creature named Jar Jar Jar Banks and Jarjar

is like you know where you'll be safe Gunga City or whatever it is the underwater city in this place they've been banished from they're standing in front of what is obviously a pond And he's like, no, we have an underwater city in this ocean. And I'm like, that's not an ocean? And then they get in their, in their robes.

They don't even take off their outer robe and lay it down. They don't do, they don't have a bag to put that shit in. They're like, all right, yeah, well, we got these rebreathers with us. We can go diving right now. Shit. And it works. It works. I want to take this moment to say, Ahmed Best, who plays Jar Jor Binks, was.

was critically harmed by this film in a way he did not deserve. I watched the behind-the-scenes documentary the beginning today, which is free on the Star Wars YouTube page and everyone should go do it. It's an hour long and it's hilarious

and like kind of brutally honest about what a mess that production was. And the speed with which Ahmed Best is just like, boom, I got it. I understand what I'm doing. I got Jar Jar Binks down. The fact that he is incredible. incredibly hot and that they make him

dress up in the ugliest costume I've ever seen in my life even though they're going to replace him digitally anyway my man has on like a reboot visor and then on top of that a fake jar like a Jar Jar Binks

slurpy cup top as his mask helmet thing and then he has on the full body Jar Jar Binks suit and it just looks and he's just sitting there and his fellow actors don't even give him the fucking respect of looking at his eye line up there. His fake eyes, I know.

His fake eyes. They will look anywhere else, but his fucking fake eyes. Filming in Tunisia, 132 degrees Fahrenheit. Ahmed Best, in the rubber suit, doing it all, did not deserve to get how you got done by these movies. They really made you sound racist. You read all those lines the way they were written, and they're not good.

None of them are good. Not a single one. What is the function of Jar Jar Binks? What is the form and function of Jar Jar Binks in this, in this movie and movies to come? We'll discuss, I guess, movies to come, but I could not tell you. He's for kids. Jar Jar's for the kids, like Wu-Tang. He's there because you're five.

And you're like, whoa, he's funny. He's a goofball. We already liked, you know, Lucas saw that people liked C3BO and R2D2 as like sidekick goofball characters. And I'm not, Allie is shaking her head at me for even making this comparison. That's because I know there's an R2D2 within view of where Allie is. It's like, I get that it's comic relief, but R2D2 and C3BO were like, great. They were great. Well, this is what I'm saying.

They're great. They're fantastic. I love them both. Jar Jar is not them. Why did they go this way? I my guess is the... Go ahead, Rob. Like, this is during peak Elmo on Sesame Street.

Like, this was the zeitgeist, I think, of kids entertainment at this time, which was, like, make it as close to, like, goofy baby talk as possible. And, like, I think genuinely that is kind of what they are. I think that's what they're drawing from is like here's this going to be this goofball character that kids can relate to because he's also going to be awkward and like kind of childlike

in some ways and going to have a really affected speech like unlike the like other characters who will read to like kids as adults jar jar is for them do you think George Lucas thought he was being progressive when he wrote

Jar Jar Binks with a fake patois do you think he was like We finally have a black character in a movie. I don't know that I... I don't know that I... I don't want to know the answer to it. Because I know it's probably yes. I don't know that he thought about it that hard enough.

Yeah, you think he just dealt in this shit. Just floating signifiers. Let's make the... Let's make the space trade federation, the greedy people sound like bad. racist East Asian accent, like broken English, let's make the goofball, underwater islander stereotype, do like a fake Jamaican patois, mixed with, mixed with occasionally Swedish. I don't know if you can pick this up, but sometimes Boss Nass is just doing the Swedish chef. So not actually Swedish, I should be clear.

Muppet Swedish. That for me is like, I look at it and I'm like, I just don't think he, like, it just feels like a thing he stumbled into in some ways because, like, it's not like, it's not like, like the trolls in Warcraft, where they were clearly like, you know what these guys should be as Jamaican? Like, this is, like, this is clearly, like, what is, like, what's Jar Jar supposed to be? I watched this, because I, because I knew going into it that he had this, like, there was this critique of Jar Jar as, like, a pretty racist character. I'm watching it, and I'm like, boy, there's, but in a lot of ways, there's still not quite enough for me to hang that on in,

in this performance. It's just, it's just a profoundly weird character, character concept for me. not the only weird speech affect in this movie, I will say We'll get to Wado Not even who was talking about Or Amadala What we're talking about

Amadala That's, yeah Amadala It's all Well we should get to Amadala We should speed through Big Fish Big Fish

They got a They got a boat Through the core of the planet I was so shocked that the core is just the ocean, first of all. You know. They just went right to that. They just go right through.

They were like, core of the planet, core of the planet. I was like, oh, shit. Here we go. It's just fucking, they just went across the street, basically, underwater. It's just a fish at the center of the world. That's it? Yeah. No big deal. I just wanted a quick, quick research.

Quick research note here. Yeah. To decide on the sound of Duke Gunray and a Nemoidean character portrayed by Silas Carson, Lucas, and Rick McCallum, who is in that production or in that behind the scenes movie, a documentary pretty extensively, listed the actors from different countries, reading Carson's lines. Eventually, they chose a heavily Thai-accented English, and Carson re-recorded the dialogue to mimic the Thai actor's accent. And then secondly, the Gungan characters, I guess it doesn't actually say here where it comes from. But the critics at the time, the quote that comes here is a pigeon mush of West African Caribbean and African American linguistic styles. So I do think, like, at the time you had those folks, you had critics picking up this exact shit. So this is not one of those things where, like, 15 years later, people on Tumblr or are,

visiting a thing from their childhood and be like, oh, wait, this might be fucked up. Even at the time, even in 1999, people were like, ah. Yeah, I don't know about that. George, Georgie, Georgie. It's bad. It's extremely fucking bad. Anyway. But yeah, so then we speed through the fall of Naboo to the battle droids and the escape of

the ruler of the Naboo, Queen Amadala. and her handmaid and her personal staff and bodyguard. And they all escape with the Jedi following a quick firefight at the Royal Palace and they escape. But during the escape, as they're trying to break through the blockade that the Trade Federation has established, their ship gets blasted a ton, and they send an entire squad of droids out there who all just get mowed down. It's like that's seen in the Matrix 3 where they keep sending guys out. to, like, you know, get ammunition into the combat max and, like, everyone's just eating shit.

Like, that's kind of, like, R2DT is the one, like, the one who survives the run. And they're like, what's your name, little droid? And it's like, it's R2D2. Which, again, I think starts that, like, I think it also started dawn on me with this movie and this trilogy. Like, Star Wars is an extremely small universe.

Like, here you're seeing, oh, we're so far in the past. Like, it's going to be a whole new setting. whole new characters and they start like right out of the gate being like but you know that droid who's like iconicly like an iconic part of Star Wars and is like part of every single one of the adventures of the of the core cast of the original trilogy uh he's here too yeah and i remember i remember that and i was like i mean i think there'd be more than like three or four droids in the entire galaxy like just it's a little weird that our two is here like that's how that's how he got there that's how it all it's all it's all

connected. Yeah. We needed to see R2's origin story. People were invested. People are alley in the Star Wars. I'm bitches.

Yeah, I guess I think I'm okay with it only because there has to be a moment where R2 crosses these people, right? And what that moment is should be mundane in some way. And I think the way it's mundane is

any of those droids could have been R2D2. All had to be is that one got hit first and we would have gotten the other astromectroid. I know that's like reversed from the way this actually worked, which is they had to create a scenario in which R2 was the one that survived, but it's not like, you know, Anakin didn't pick R2 out of a lineup. It's like, that's the one that speaks to me. It's literally just the one in six that didn't get killed.

And did a good job. Shoutouts to R2. We don't, and we don't know, as far as I know, I don't know where R2 existed before this. I don't want to know. I don't need to know that someone on. Nabu was secret. Oh, actually, R2D2 was made by, you know, Palpatine originally and given as a gift to the

Nabu royal family. You know, R2D2 Palpatine. Right, exactly. Exactly. This is the thing. That shit could have happened. And that is, by the way, just really quick, that is why they cut down the canon is because questions like that were 100% answered in the pre-Disney canon.

And I love those books, but I also get it. I also get why you cut that stuff. Yeah, you couldn't. You had to get that whole I of Palpatine situation out of there, that whole like super dreadnought haunted by the sexy ghost lady. You couldn't have that. You'd like try to play me out of the dance. Now you're trying to get me back onto it.

Yeah. So their ship's damaged and they have to make an emergency. There's an answer. I'm sorry. There's an answer to why R2D2 is like that in the legends canon. Oh. Please tell us. The Royal Engineers of Nabu were famous for making aftermarket additions to their R2 units specifically,

which rendered the droids some of the most sought-after units in the galaxy. Oh, my God. On Nabu, they happened to just make really good R2 units. They're hot rotting their R2s. So were all of those R2s? No, those were not all. There were a couple of R2s, but there was a... Then why was R2 just amongst the riffraff?

Wow. Okay, slow down. They were all... They were all elite gamer gear, like Naboo. Those are not all alien wear droids, okay? There could only be one. You know they're from that bow. Some of them were down.

It was the same. Yeah. Some of them had the same manufacturer, but just not the gamer brand. They're made on the same line, but they don't have RGBs on them. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I got to. Anyway, so R2 is there.

So R2 shows up. R2 shows up. So they get to Tats. Tatooine, and you might think things have been weird. Yeah. Tattoine, things start getting weird fast. And you start, like, and I think this is, when I think about things that maybe caused audiences, like, people like me, I think, to maybe treat the prequel trilogy a little harshly, is that it wasn't clear at the time watching it. I had still bought into this notion that the Jedi were awesome.

and so I've seen this movie about like we're bringing the Jedi back. Luke is the first of the new Jedi like he's going to restore this order of powerful good knights who like you know the sort of old republic's knights of the round table

who kept the peace and fought for justice and I think one of the things that like probably didn't fully register with me when I saw this movie because rewatching it the other day I was really struck how terrible the Jedi seem

across the board in this movie and it's when they get to Tatooine that really quickly tons of alarm bells start ringing about like what exactly are you guys about what do you actually do? They get to Tatooine with one goal in mind and that is we need a new hyperdrive.

We just need to repair our ship so we can get back to Coruscant and sound the alarm about what's happening at Naboo. And it turns out basically throughout this entire sequence, that remains the principal thing they care about. We just need

to put gas in the tank and get out. And the only thing that makes them deviate a little bit from that is they run into this kid, Anakin Skywalker. They go to the junk dealer on tattooing who is this character

Wato. Padmae's with them. Padmae's with them. Padmae's with them. Right. Yes. Not Queen Almodala. Padmae, her handmaiden, don't worry about it. Yeah. The queen insists that Padmay be taken with this crew. The Queen wants to see for herself what's happening on the planet, so she sends Padmae.

Yep. Who is not her. Who is not her. But what Padme sees, it's like the Queen has seen it. So don't worry about it. They're tight like that. Yeah. Also, I don't know if this is addressed here.

She's an elected queen. Don't worry about it. She's a teenage girl, yes. but she's an elected queen. It's great. Do you think this is the equivalent of there being a Tumblr call outpost between book one and book two? And in book two of a YA trilogy, the author goes, ah, well, actually, let me just wind that back and address, by the way, why that was okay in the first book. And that's why in the next movie, we learned that she was an elected queen.

Okay. Yeah, it definitely feels like we love princesses, but monarchy, huh? What if it was an elected, yeah, it's very, like, genuinely, a Christmas prince has a more convincing, like, political backstory for its royal house than, like, Naboo. The problem is, like, we all love Princess Leia, a princess from Alderon, and, like, I don't know why I phrase that, I, I, yeah, right? Well, I don't know why I phrase that, like, we all love milkshake, Doc. The Duck who loves milkshakes, five minutes later, Alderon explodes in this scenario. I guess. I don't know. I don't know what the thing is. Anyway, we meet Wado

is where you were and Skywalker and they like, the kid is the kid. The kid's the kid. He's just a kid. But we do get like, so all Quaggon wants to do is just buy a hyper drive. And Wado's like, they're expensive

man. And I just noticed you didn't want to do the Wado accent. Huh. Weird. I'll do it in a second. Hold on. No. Do not. No, he has a great line, though.

He's got a great line. Okay. So Quigon is like, I just want the hyperdrive, and Wado's like, okay, what do you use to pay for it? And Quaghan's like, I got, I got new Republic credits. And Wado immediately says something that I think is probably one of the most trenchant statements about the state of the old Republic right now. I'm not going to do the Wado accent, even though I think I could nail it.

I believe in you. We all believe in you. But Republic credits are no good out here. I need something more real. Yes. I made the exact same note. Great line. Yeah.

That's just not real. That's not real. It's not physical. Yeah. And do you remember what Quigon calls them? Because he doesn't even say credits. He has some other word for Republic credits. It's like Republic dateries.

It's what he calls them. Which there's no, I went looking. to see, like, what the fuck is a datery? Okay, that sounds like special issue currency. Well, like, my read is the word data isn't it? So I think it's Bitcoin. I think the Republic uses Bitcoin. And he's like, absolutely not.

Like, I don't want money or stuff. I want stuff. The world runs on stuff. I'm Waddo. Isn't this the same encounter where, like, Quigon makes like a move and Wado is like you can't use your force shit on me

or something like that. He's like immediately like you think you're some fucking Jedi or some shit that's not going to work here and I was just like you know what? Fuck him up Waddo fuck him up establishes this other thing which is that Jedi powers are incredibly powerful except

anybody with a spine like just anybody who can like remember like no I think I genuinely know what I want. It doesn't work on Java and it doesn't work on Wado. It's just like, I want money. I want money. The problem is, the problem is that's because they both come from greedy species who innately

can resist those powers because this is the way George Lucas does world building. It's not that Wado, because they were, no. He even says, your weird tricks don't work on Toya Darians. He literally says, my people. Yeah. I'm a toy, I'm a toydorian. Mind tricks don't work on me only money Oh, we're in Ferengi territory

Son of a bitch Yeah, dude But you're also I mean this is the thing about all these All this shit is like there's a version of it that's sick There is a version of it that's like Oh yeah, this only works on weak-willed people And I mean that is still the version of it

We're going to see for the rest of especially Clone Wars Where it's like oh this person is very strong-willed And they can resist the power of the Jedi or whatever But the worst version of it is when it's just genetic And Wado is, for sure, like, flirting with anti-Semitic stereotypes, but also he just broadly is, like, Eastern Mediterranean. Like, you pick any culture out of a hat, and Wado's designed to sort of, like, suggest all of them at once, basically, like, any sort of sharp Eastern traitor, whatever that means. That's his role in the story. And also to be a slave owner.

And his business, he runs a junkyard, but the real value of his business is that the real value of his business is, that you can execute repairs and, like, refurbish, like, busted-ass materials. And you can do all of that because of Anakin. Thanks to Boy, Genius, Anakin Skywalker. Right. Yeah. Who just, I guess, naturally has an ability to understand machines and fixing them. And...

Uh-huh. Yeah. You just, you know, sometimes the force works in mysterious ways. Sometimes it does. Sometimes gives you a trade. Yeah. Um, well, and we see this in what I think is one of the most interesting bits of cognitive dissonance in the film, which is that the big, the bet, the two things that we can say, Anakin does really well. One, pod racing and everything to do with pod racers, which we'll get to.

Two, he builds a slave for his mom called C-3PO, um, who's a robot slave, uh, called a droid in this universe. This universe filled with robot slaves. And there is some real scene one to scene two shit where it's like, you know, I'm getting ahead of it a little bit. But there's a scene, there's a conversation where Padmei so shocked at the state of the world says, I can't believe there's slavery in the galaxy still. The Republic's anti-slavery laws. And someone cuts her off and is like, the Republic's anti-slavery. laws do not mean shit here.

But like 30 seconds prior to that is Anna can be like, check out this slave I built my mom. And and Padme is like, nice. Yo, this is sick. And C3Bio is sick. Don't get me wrong. But I part of me really truly believes that Lucas had a long term plan in his heart for where the fuck the droid shit is going in the world. But it is, it is, I like it as an illustration of the hypocrisy that undergird. everything in this world, that you can

absolutely have sapient people who do work for you for free forever, and no one bats an eyelash. I think the only so, in the legends canon, I think the only book that ever tackled that head on was the courtship of Princess Leia, just FYI.

There is a sequence where in this novel, before Han Solo and Leia can get married, this hot dude from out of town with a cool sports car, and a domineering mom blows in the town and is like Princess Leia you'll be my bride and she's like he's a prince and he's like super hot and he's got a nice car in fact he has like a thousand nice cars that are battleships

and we could use those to close out the war against the empire so she's like yeah I guess I should marry this dude and so Han Solo yeah so Han Solo has to like win her back which he does by turning into Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything and like doing the whole like the Does he great yeah well no he has the idea for that but he's like I don't know how to make that work

he's like C3PO could you write a song for me and so C3PO writes a love ballad for Leah in this story which he then gives like at a press conference we're announcing this royal marriage and C3Pio just stands up

and like sings the song Han Solo. What a man, Han Solo. And... Wait, pause. The name of the song is What a man, Han Solo? Yes. His ballad to her

is about how dope he is? No, C-3PO wrote this. Like, Han didn't have a... Like, Han was a, like, concept guy. Han commissioned it. Right, you didn't mean write a song for me to deliver

about my affection for her. 3PO performs the entire thing, which you can do, because he can, he's fluent in over six million forms of communication. Right, right. One of them is like, you know, choir and bridge and rock band. So he sings the song, and everyone's like, what the fuck? But in the back of the room, there's all these droids who like start losing their shit.

And the book will lose the fact that they are like droid emancipation and droid rights like droids that are like, fuck yeah, like our guy just like, he's just showing his initiative. That's a person. You got to give it to 3Pio. Yeah, no, there's just a bunch of droids in the background of the scene who are like, yeah, droids can do that shit. Droid's rule. Let's let the droid speak.

And that's like the one time the Legends universe is like, are Droid's people? And it's for a comedy bit. Solo does it for like 30 minutes. It's not great. We'll get there maybe one day. You're good for now. You will. There's a twist in solo that would take a lot away from this.

movie so you should not watch solo yet okay um i won't yeah i'm sorry for that side trip no that's good it's it's really important it's yeah i look this stuff is just in my head and i can't get it out i will never be able to get it out because i i drank it in at a really crucial age and so i don't know chemistry but i do know the things i was reading while ignoring chemistry. I don't know chemistry, but I know what cortosis weave is. Yes, yes, exactly. Cortosis weave stops lightsaber.

Don't worry about it. Oh, thanks. So. So everyone's, like, they come to this planet, and everyone's really shook by the fact that there's slavery happening, and yet nothing about their mission, these two guardians of peace and justice, one of which is sitting on the fucking ship. doing jack shit the whole fucking this whole fucking act

yeah and he just doesn't do shit a king just sitting in the ship doing nothing what a waste let me just say that is fucking first there was there was disrespect on jar jar binks and now there's the disrespect

I'm at best yes I'm at best thank you I don't think feels anything about Jarjibis isn't like At least, yes. First, there's disrespect on Ahmed Best. The most disrespectful, and then...

And then Ewan McGregor also disrespected in this sequence, IMO. So, the thing is, this kid's a slave, but that's not really anyone's problem. As Quigon says at one point in all of this, he's like, we didn't really come here to free slaves. He asked them. He's like, are you here to free us? And he's like, nope.

Absolutely not. Fuck them, kids. I'm getting out of you. I'm getting my hyper drive. I'm getting the fuck out of here, okay? Well, and then, like, Anakin says also in that scene, I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back here and freed all the slaves.

Which is interesting because, like, Anakin is a kid who didn't have a lot of exposure to, like, stories of what the Jedi are. So, like, in some ways, he knows what they are because he knows about their laser swords, which is like the sort of shit that kids would hear and would think is awesome

but also like to a degree he also having visions of like what he really is and the fact that everyone just ignores the other part of this which is like what Anakin wants to do foremost is go liberate slaves

in the community he's a part of and everyone's like yeah that's cool kid so anyway how are we going to get this hyper drive but Anakin ends up on their radar because Quigon has started to intuit that like hey something is up with this kid though He has preternatural abilities.

Like, he can repair anything. He can do pod racing, which humans generally can't. They don't have the reflexes. They don't know the build. And so he starts to realize, like, this kid seems like a force user. And as he is, like, cleaning up a cut on Anakin, he takes a little blood sample. Just, you know, sneaking a little DNA test, like a cop. remotely

And his mom just watches it happen Yeah Shmi watching on It's so tragic Because she sees everything that's coming Like we don't know that she has the force But she can fucking see the future Right

And she knows everything that's coming The second these motherfuckers come in her house Yeah Yep It sucks IMO And the blood test reveals that like he has 20,000

midichlorians. Which is a lot. Al, you were going to say something there. I don't want to. No, I just think, like, it's tough because I feel like that dinner scene where they're talking about slavery

and it's very quickly brushed over is like compelling it's compelling looking back on it because it like sets up the core conflict which is like, Anakin wants to help people and this is why eventually he's going to be bad Jedi.

And it's also just like, it's the first 30 minutes of that movie and it just throws all of the stakes like out of the window because it's like at that point, why are you rooting for Kwai God? Like these people aren't heroes. They're not good people. I hate like, sometimes I am reduced to a person who's like, well, why didn't Harry Potter just buy a gun?

I keep watching that movie. If you're, like, if you're, like, going to steal and cheat and, like, mind-trick people, like, just fucking steal the hyperdrive. You have to connect with one of the employees. Like, what is happening? Steal the hyperdrive, get Schme and Anakin out. And you're just... So I think this is, like, yes, this is so... We took all this shit on board during the original trilogy where it's like, no, Jedi need to be above, like, base emotions.

They need to be peaceful and reflective. and act deliberately. And Darth Vader's there is the example of, like, look, when Jedi go bad and they just start saying, like, how do we exercise our will? The end of that road is Darth Vader. Okay, fine. But I think there's probably, like, exit ramps before Darth Vader, where, like, when you're dealing with a slaver on a planet who's, like, trying to rip you off and also is, like,

holding families in bondage, I think at that point, you can pretty safely, be like, look, I'm a Jedi, I can cut you in half, or we can cut a deal. And, like, then dictate terms. And that's probably fine. Well, they were going to do that anyway just to the Trade Federation. They're fine with doing it when sent to do it. They're fine with walking up to that point by not doing it, as Allie mentioned, using the force to cheat on a dice roll. Let's talk about this fucking negotiation, because genuinely, I think you can't, the the fucked-upiness of what happens on Tatooine, like you need to get into the nitty-gritty

of how Quigon gets a fucking hyperdrive and Anakin via this weird deal. Anyone want to lay out like... I mean, what, yeah, you go ahead. You brought at the table. You brought it to dance. Yeah, so at the dinner,

Schmey, Anakin's mom realizes, like basically the only people give a shit about on this planet is gambling. and gambling on pod races. And she sort of suggests the idea that she immediately regrets having put forward, which is, like, you know, pod racing, Anakin can do that. We could enter him in the race, and he can basically, like, win the hyperdrive. And Anakin says to his mom, mom, you say the biggest problem in the universe is that nobody helps each other.

Again, like, just Hamrian's idea of, like, Anakin's a good kid. and the Jedi, like, he is more of a Jedi than the Jedi are, basically, where he's like, no, we can't stand by and let injustice happen. Like, I've been raised with this being anathema of my values. And you get Quigon there being like, I mean, a little injustice can happen. If I don't have a war quarter. Here's the other thing that, like, the develops over the course of the rest of this movie is, Quigon is the one Jedi who is like, yeah, I guess you're right.

We should help people sometimes when it aligns with, uh, you know, an ancient prophecy, that's a good excuse to help people. Whereas everyone else is like, no, a good Jedi doesn't get involved. They don't get emotional. They don't grow attachments. They don't have any. They don't show love to people. They commit just acts of justice as ordered to, by the Galactic Senate.

Imagine a militant tuxedo mask, like order. Like, that's kind of the Jedi. You didn't do anything. Yeah. But so, Quigon's like, cool. He does the blood test on Anakin and he's like, wait, this kid is loaded with Minnichlorians. What are

Minnichlorians? They're little forced creatures, something, something. It's really fucked up and there's a real answer. Yeah, they have language. It's a whole thing. We cannot. We cannot. Not today. At some point we'll solve the mystery of the Midichlorians. I do. I have swapped on this. This was like a key

scene that I hated as a kid because, for the reason that we talked about before, which is like the Jedi are cool and noble and mysterious. They're a strange sorceress group that when you read the old EU, there are lots of periods in time when they're like mystics. And they're like mystics or paladins, but they're never eugenicists. They're never bureaucrats. They never have 23 and me set up on their ship ready to go to see if someone is really the Force Jesus.

And I hated it because like those weren't my Jedi. And I really wanted to map my Jedi onto this as a kid. But now, seeing them as, like, you know, very religious clerics who are here to enact a very particular sort of governmental justice are not here to do that. They're at Nabu to do that. Here, they're just passing through. And then to complicate that further with,

and they want to do blood tests on people to see if they got it, so that they can scoop them up and bring them to their Jedi school to produce more of them is, like, you know, this is, my shit. But can they produce more of them? We'll get there. I mean, yes. But we'll see. One of the really tough lines

in this part of the movie for me, especially was like when Quigon is talking to Anakin's mother and it's like well, you know, if you were part of the Republic we would have found him way earlier. Which is basically just saying like, yeah, we would have taken your son from you anyway. He would have just been a slave

in a different way. But sorry for still taking him now. I hate it. Did they just test everyone? I mean, my my view of this is always there's elements of it with like Buddhist traditions

in Tibet, right? Where it's like they find like they find where other Jedi are. Now it turns out there's blood tests involved there's like finding people's force potential but like basically the Jedi are always sort of out there saying hey where is a prospective

new knight like being created at this point. They get people basically from infancy. And they're like, well, you know, like we sensed, we sensed the force was here and your baby is a Jedi. You know, are you up to date on Mandalorian, Natalie? No, I don't even need to be.

You don't even need to be. Because remember in the first, I mean, the first season is like, oh my God, this little baby did some wild shit with his mind. You have to get him to a Jedi. That's kind of what the world's standard is inside of the Galactic Republic is if a kid seems to have a little bit of foresight or can

move something with their minds or has any other sort of tell the Jedi find out about it. Someone calls the neighborhood watch and says, also they have a monopoly then on force powers via a religious discipline that nobody seems to share except the Jedi. Like a thing that also emerges is while the rebellion in the original trilogy, was like very much may the force be with you. Nowhere else that you ever see

in this universe is like the force a living concept that people are interacting with on a daily basis. Like the Jedi are basically

like a really powerful cult in terms of like a lot of people's relationship with the force and yet see Allie's face trying to like run through the holocron

of her mind to make is this true? I, there's there's the way that Rogue one handles it is the only time that I've really ever seen it handle like oh there's people in the world who um believe in this and sort of think of it as like you know something that is compelling or at least something that can help them without being like I'm a Jedi and have a

lightsaber now um but that's really the only place in the star was universe that I've seen it which is why I like those scenes in those movies um but overall you're right yeah it's very weird Like a dude in a done robe would show up And be like Congratulations on your baby Turns out it's for us Yeah He's ours

Give him So is that the only way you get more Jedi? Yes Yes because Jedi are monastic order Yep They are a solid bit monastic order I mean listen no timeout

They can They can form attachment They're not allowed to And yeah they can't form attachments I don't know the particulars about the way that that law has been interpreted, both personally and throughout history. Also, it's bullshit. Also, it's bullshit.

And the Clone Wars kind of gets at this where, like, Jedi don't get married, but do they form attachments and entanglements, maybe a little, when you're young Jedi? It's like Cold War spies, Cold War spies, right? Like, no, you shouldn't marry the enemy, but sometimes you have a trist with someone from the CIA, even though you're KGB. It just happens. And yet, do your point, Rob, like, they have the monopoly Unlegitimized Use of this, right?

Like, you're not allowed to go, there are other people in the universe Using the Force, connecting to the Force. They're called cultists. They're called sorcerers. They're called, you know, not devil worshippers, but, you know. Force Witches of Dathamir. The Force Witches of Dathamir, exactly. We get to be, we get to be on in, you know, next to UNHQ

with our fancy temple on Coruscant. They get to be in a swamp planet. Oh, that's another sci-fi thing, Star Wars thing, checkbox. Planets are either one thing or two things. We got sad planet, tattooing, we got city planet, Corrassette, and then we got Nabu, which is green. Well, I was going to say, like, water plus green stuff. There happens to be a city there, but yes, yes. Sorry, just before we move on from Natalie's Morton question,

of how do you get more Jedi? Can we just address Anacan's Immaculate Conception here? I was so fucking confused. I wrote down, who is Anacan's father and why do I care? And then as the movie was progressing,

I was like, wait, she was, her answers were a little strange to me. Because I thought it was like, he didn't have a father, like he wasn't around. No. And then she was like,

he didn't have a father. And Quigon says that. Quigion does not go back to the Jedi and say, we don't know who his father is. He goes back and he says, spontaneous conception. The Force did this. The Force got all up in there. The Force fucks. Jedi don't fuck.

The Force is. That's tight. Good for the Force. There is a. There is a theory that I will not get to. I guess we're not going to get here until we get to Revent of the Sith, right? You tell me. I couldn't know because I haven't seen it.

Do I fucking have to say this theory? No. Do you want to wait until Rob's surprise? Because Rob hasn't seen. I'm so excited. I'm going to wait for it then. Rob's waited long enough. You're right.

Thank you. Yes. I'm so, oh, I'm doing a little present. I'm like, ooh. I can't wait to find out how the SIF got revenge and what they got revenge for. And who the fuck they are? And who are the Sith? Actually, this is a good moment to talk about the Sith.

Okay, time out really quick. Pod racing happens. Wait, hold on. No, just fast thing. Kind of back up to the... Yes, I know. I warned you, you said, Austin, if you put me in charge of, like, hosting these discussions, this is what's going to happen.

You're like, it's fine. And I was like, we did like 18 hours on Emma. Doesn't matter. point is I need that hyperdrive I'm going to make a wager I'll put my ship up for the hyperdrive he trades away

all the winnings for this massive bat for the hyperdrive he's like no I'll just take the just like look if you win you get all the winnings and I just get the hyperdrive if I lose you get my ship and

win win situation but not for Quigana I'm like what the he doesn't he said to him though he was like win-win situation yeah it's just a bad deal and then and then the day of the race he's like oh i think i want the kid and so he like his opening bit is you know you should really throw in both the boy and his mother and what is like there's no way like a ship is worth two slaves and quigon is like yeah that's fair well i'll have i'll have one

Give me the boy And Wado's like Let's leave it's a chance Let's make a little wager Pulls out a little die Rolls it And Quigon manipulates it

So that he makes sure That Anakin is the kid Anakin is the one who will be freed If they win this wager And it just drives me Absolutely like Up the wall That this is how Quigon

Massage this situation It's like He was cheating already Like it's just it's such a ridiculous It's such a ridiculous like long shot Hail Mary play And he does it all for like The minimum viable trade Give me the hyper drive

And one one of the slaves we've met On our on our trip here And you keep the winnings Like are you kidding me Quaghananin shit Like just truly and fully It's just it's very difficult to watch, I think, because they're like a secret society of magic negotiators. And he doesn't

even say, like, no, I want two slaves. He's just like, oh yeah, you're right. Two slaves isn't worth it. It's like, what is wrong? He goes in with her as the leverage. She's, he knows he's not going to get to. But he walks in with two so he can get to one. Schme was never a part of the equation. Shmi was just the bargaining tactic And it's so fucked It's so fucked And the most fucked part Is that they said

Like this whole instance Is Quigon breaking the rules, right? Like that's his When else has he ever fucking broken the rules Other than taking this fucking kid with him? He breaks the rules a lot But not When?

In fiction He's breaking the rules all the time Because we get that from Yoda I'd love to see it And Lou McGregor Obi-Wan being like, master, you can't always just do things that the council says not to do. But he doesn't do them, but it's not in the name of justice. It's in the name of his weird subsect of Jedi, of the Jedi order, right?

He belongs to a special different, like, category of Jedi believer. And we only get a little bit of that here. That, again, it is developed a little bit, you know, throughout. But the way he talks about the force is different. Which is like Byzantine Catholic? Is that like? Basically, right? Yeah.

Like, there is that style of, like, I mean, he doesn't, he's recognized by the Pope. You know what I mean? Yeah. But it is not, it is not, it is not orthodox, but it is not exactly. It's also, like, not, yeah. Exactly. But he's, he's an exasperating figure. And yes, these negotiations where he's like, here's my, here's my opening offer.

It's eminently reasonable. I'm going to trade away a bunch of it to a bad, bad deal. And that's, the Trade Federation should have just dealt with them. Like, honestly, Tread. Trade Federation should have just chilled, like, kickback, and, like, Quigon would have walked in there and been like, okay, so here's my opening, here's my opening bit. You guys, you guys declare Naboo a protectorate. And you just work from there, and then again, whatever they wanted.

Yep. Okay, so the race, Austin. I just, I'm going to be quick on it. Like, I want to keep moving, and so I want to say, like, it's a, it's a totally fine action sequence that goes a little too long. Greg Proops is there. Shoutouts to Greg Proops. He's doing the commentary. He's one of the two-headed aliens. There's some physical comedy with pit droids. Love a pit droid. Love the physical prop design in this movie. I think that the pod racers look sick. But the race is the race, and it goes on forever. All of Tatooine goes on forever. We need to

get off of Tatooine. I don't think anything here is especially interesting. There's a bunch of bits around like he's good at doing this this is the big takeaway he's good at doing this uh i don't quite understand why anyone on tattooing roots for him at the end because they root against him the entire time only two of his friends show up only only two of his friends show up yeah that was rude that was um which is super shitty i also briefly briefly briefly do want to note that there is a deleted scene in which quagon argues harder for shmie and that got deleted they didn't keep that in they said nah get that shit out of here it's one minute long so it's not even like a whole thing like don't even worry about it but

um i'd like to see it also subalba evil chester cheetah cheetah oh he's an evil that's what he is just you're totally nice real jerk um but yeah um and i like also huge body count in this race subalba not like not clear why they tolerate him being in these races he kills like eight people during this race but he's just out there like flinging grenades out of his He's a monster He doesn't give a shit

He doesn't give a shit But But Subbola does have Two Twilight like Pit girls Who massage him Yeah When you said body count

I was like Subvolva's got Bodies Happy do The pit race I mean the pod race Was so fucking boring to me

I'm sorry It was on it goes on forever it was so fucking whack i just every single time we came through that tunnel i was like here we fucking go again it was just i could not stand it and it was just i think the worst part of it was the close-ups on little anakin just being like like moving back and board like whoa he sure doesn't look like he's controlling anything there's no drama there's no where were the stakes he was just coasting the whole time i was not i was not afraid for him and any point. I just felt like he had it

in the bag the whole time. I'll go back real quick. Sorry. Yeah. It was just like, wasn't it compelling when he would look at his screen and sometimes it wouldn't be purple anymore? I like the part where he would jiggle the switches on

his dash to like fix things. This is all things I genuinely love. I love all that top works so much. They all make clicking sounds. He fucking magnetizes the fucking jet engine back onto his shit. But also clearly uses the force while he does it. Oh, yeah. That's the first. Like, there's no way that thing

was magnified enough to, like, haul that it. He's using the whole time. No one can do this. That's the thing. He's good at this. Because of the force. But I will note, in that documentary where we see how to cast Jake Lloyd, there's a group of kids. And the implication of the documentary

was, Jake Lloyd had the weakest readings. And everyone was like, oh, but I love how naturally he is. Like, those were like a little too good. That second kid is so good. He's so good. He delivers the fucking angel line, which is a trash team line. He delivers it. And I'm like, oh, I understand that line now.

I get it. He does, that does feel like the naive thing a child would say upon seeing someone so beautiful and not just beautiful, but different than anyone else he'd seen before. Because this is someone who was raised in life of luxury, who'd been pampered her whole life. And he can sense that even though. And he looks at her, like, that degree of luxury and wealth is so alien to him. She may as well be an angel like the one from the planet, Idiot, or whatever the, the, fuck the name of the planet is i gore whatever it is the spaces love them all the spaces just love the angels from the planet igor but but no it just it did jump out at me in that documentary

where it's like they picked the kid who seemed cutest because he was also the weakest actor but then you see they're shooting the movie and them kind of being like oh like uh kids it's kind a week in these scenes. And I'm like, yes. Like, how did you not anticipate, like, that you'd have to make a movie with the kid you chose? And maybe the one who seemed like kind of a trained actor at his age would have been a good direction to go. Not that I think Jake Lloyd does a terrible job here. Like, again, just like with Jar Jar, it's more than material than anything else that causes the shit to go wrong. But, yeah, like Lloyd, like everyone seems to have a a difficult time making you believe they are in the scene.

And in the pod race where he's just like fucking noodle arming his pod racer, it's like, I don't, like, I don't buy it. I don't buy it. I'm sorry. I just like the sounds the clicks make. I like the sounds of the clicks. I'm just not feeling like he's really hit in those clicks. No, and also he's going to win.

You're right. There is no doubt that he is going to win this race because. would have been very funny as we lost and Quagion just had to like carve a bloody swat. That would be great. You know what, actually? Yeah. The prophecy demands it. Let's go. Yeah. I hoped we were going to do it the one way. I hope it would be

the one way, but it's the other. Yeah, exactly. Wins the race and they go to end, they go to leave. Oh, by the way. Do it on a moped. Right. By the way, Darth Mall has been here. Well, backstory, the Sith have been happening at a certain point

the emperor not the emperor yet the dark lord of the Sith who's been in contact with the Trade Federation is like mad at them because they are like

we can't find they left sorry boss the the queen left she's too far for us to trace down now and he's like not too far for a Sith

and then Darth Maul steps forward and looks sick as shit and crosses his arms and he has like devil makeup on and he's like and then they send him and they find he instantly finds them on tattooing

he instantly finds them on tattooing he's like they're a tattooing and releases it out two droid drones to go search for them and he finds them and at the last second before they leave he jumps quigon and they have a little quick fight in the desert and yeah

it's just a quick like here they see him it's been a while since light sabers huh here they are and then they take off they escape they go to Choruson and they are greeted there by Senator Palpatine of Nabu

of Nabu. Yeah. And boy, he sure looks like the dude that the Trade Federation have been, like, Skyping with. So, like, and also he's very, like, like, right out of the gate, the first scene where he's having a private audience with Amadala, he says there's no civility, only politics, the Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates, there's no interest in the common good. And he further outlines that Chancellor Valorum, who sent the Jedi to an Abu, he's weak, he's mired in corruption investigations. Not that any of them are true. Not that he's, I love the bill where he's like, they're unfounded corruption allegations, which to me just means like, you set those up.

You're the one who put those charges on him. You knew they wouldn't stick, but they'd get in the way. And I'm at all's like, well, gee, I don't know, what should we do? And he's like, well, you know, what we need is a strong Supreme Chancellor. And we should do that via no-confidence vote in Chancellor Valorum. Amadala points out, hey, Valorm's been our staunch ally throughout all of this. That seems terrible. And Palpatine basically, like, doing shit that you can only do plausibly if somehow the ruler of this planet is a teenage girl is just like, yeah, no, you're right.

That's fair. But then I guess that probably means you would just want the courts to handle this. and they're super slow. Boy, real conundrum, huh? And Amadala thinks about it, and she's like, well, I don't want that. I don't have time for the courts. And Palpatine's like, hmm, I don't know. Like, there are the options.

And I am not manipulating you at all. Nope. And poor Amadala in this story, she has to be this naive at this point in the story for the next thing to happen, which is, I'll do with the Jedi stuff as a group here. let's just get to the Senate the Senate meeting exactly what Palpatine sort of says is going to happen

happens Valorum starts saying like hey we should do something with us trade federation blockade and everyone's like fuck that like no the trade like what we need to do is send a commission to fact find around the blockade

and Palpatine's like I told you it's so good for like 90 seconds it fucking rules so much and he points out like see, now the bureaucrats, the real power, are starting to get involved. And Amadala is like, ah, shit, okay, fine, no confidence vote. And then all hell breaks loose and everyone's gasping and, you know, everyone's appalled. To be fair, she's been getting, she comes back to the ship after leaving Tatooine to find that there have been messages sent from Nabu that are like,

hey, a lot of our people are being massacred. And no one told her about that while she was out and about doing stuff with Anakin. Also, there's some Anakin... There's some Anakin Padmei conversations along the way here. They're just not. There's an age gap felt here because the actors are to have an age gap

more than the characters do. And it's rough, dude. The decision to foreshadow their romantic relationship in this by being like, you know, we need to hand it a little, a little romantic tension between these two characters was a bad call you know again like

kind of horror movie-esque in some ways if you're like it was genuinely so uncomfortable to watch I just wanted to die it was so terrible lots of great relationships have age gaps but not when one of them is a child and we probably don't want to contemplate

how a couple with a real age gap would have looked when one of them was like or something. And yet, and yet here comes Phantom Menace being like, let me put this idea

in your head. And I'm like, I do not want that. I do not want that. Allie, your mouth is open with, pregnant with ideas.

I don't want to be the person who's like, this worked actually because it didn't. But watching the movie, there was an element of it like, because knowing that they get together,

I was like, at least there's like a a Romeo and Juliet aspect here of like all adult around them sucks so badly that they are the only two who are like understand that you should help people or not let them die

but not a fan not the best that's a great start for a good friendship between the two to blossom but it's immediately injected with romantic overtones in a way that it's just like not for me Anakin I'll never forget you

and I'm like you should probably put him on ice though for a long You probably forget him a little for a little while. Put him on the back burner. He is nine, you are 14. That is too big. It's not, it's going to be a long time until those two things even out a little bit.

But yeah, it's just, but also like, this also, like, this is some of the stuff that the Clone Wars is going to have to do cleanup on, which is one, Padmey Amadala is, like, a savvy and insightful politician. and not the easily sort of manipulated rube that we get here where she is just a tool in Palpatine's hand to make sure that his next step of his plot unfolds. And also the Clone Wars does kind of retcon this idea of like, look, because of his age gap, Padme had like a life as a young adult prior to meeting a grown-up Anakin. And that's the thing it also gets into a little bit.

Yeah, we'll get there for sure. a lot of concepts that the Clone Wars has to sort of parachute in and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. So you might have gotten the wrong impression of a few things from these movies that we love and that we honor and respect, but nevertheless, just enter the theater of the mind as we conjure a new history of these characters. So while all this is going down, Quigon presents his findings to the Jedi Council, and there's two things. One, I think I just found a Sith on tattooing. And everyone's like, that seems unlikely, but could be. And Quaghan's like, I also think I found this child of prophecy. I found a, what is it, virgins?

A virgines. A virgin. Uh-huh. The virgins, Anakin Skywalker. It's like, the Chad, Obi-Wan Kenobi. it's such a like chicken shit quigon moment because like the meeting is over oboe one walks away and then he's like by the way there's this child i found it's no big deal but like prophecies he knows it's not going to go over that's the thing and like the thing okay

the other thing i do like here is that yud is an asshole his hostility to quigone is palpable like treats him like a seminar student in a lot of ways where he's like I got you there got you there I already knew you were to say that and then you have like in the next scene where we see the Jedi they're interviewing Anakin and it's unbelievably cruel

he's killing it he's acing the test which turns out to be the same test that Bill Murray gives the start of Ghostbusters where it's just like wavy lines triangle but like Anakin is just crushing it

but fuck those test results here's the real thing the Jedi want to get to Yoda says see through you we can another Jedi the one sort of

the devil face cone head thing um Keady Mundy I want to say his name is Mundi Mundi Mundi I believe

that's from you're talking about the big head motherfucker Jedi conehead yeah Jedi cone yeah it's Kiotti Mundi but not the

not the gray alien like long neck dude. I don't know the gray alien long neck one. I know Kiadi Mundi Mundi but I don't know that other motherfucker. But yeah, Mundy says your thoughts dwell on your mother. Yoda then adds on afraid to lose her, I think.

And Anakin's like what's that got to do with anything? And Yoda says everything and then gives, now in a very different context, I think we've heard a million times before, fear is the path to the dark side, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering

and it's like the kid misses his mom and he was a slave he's very familiar with suffering yes also also we dragged the acting of Anakin a little bit the goodbye sequence which I blew past to get us here

is very good the farewell to his mother is good it hits me it fucking sucks he's so sad to let her go and the thing that this scene is so the thing that's so fucking tough about it is it's not just that they're like, hey, this is dangerous. It's dangerous to train people to use the force

if they have these deep human personal connections or attachments. It's that there's a degree to which they are almost dismissive of who he is as a person because of it. They're judgmental that he would even have those relationships. ships or those attachments it's more so than scared of what it might mean for them in the long run and it comes or at the least it doesn't come across as empathetic to why he would have those

attachments they're only focused on that he has them and not how he has them why he has them how they are produced to begin with no they're fabricating a resentment for him for the rest of his life because if this is what i mean his the one thing other than his mom that he he loves and freeing the slaves on the planet is Jedi he's like fucking obsessed with Jedi he wants to be a Jedi he because they have this this semblance of justice and peace and that means so much to him as somebody that wants to help people and so the idea that his humanity is the thing standing in is the thing standing in his way of becoming somebody that can help people like his mom who he it's just it's so fucking sinister and it's

It's just like, it's so emotionally manipulative to be like, oh, you love your mom. Fuck you. I'm like, it's so colossally cruel. You're talking to a five-year-old. It's fucked up. He's not five. He's nine, but so. Natalie Watson, I've never seen, I don't know anything I'll start.

He's nine, actually, Rob. You read the material? Yeah. You would notice? Well, I mean. You know, Padmae knows down to the minute how old Anakin is. Run the clock. Timers set.

But I think the other thing here, though, is, and this is, like, discussed in the next scene where they should have explained why they did not want to train this kid, the Jedi are terrified of Anakin because he is so incredibly powerful. But it's like, here we are starting to run into the tragic element of this, which is that. Because the Jedi are actually scared of him and view him as a potential threat and are already starting to look for ways to clamp down on him and control him, they're also guaranteeing that he will not get the support and care he needs to, like, not be someone ruled by anger and frustration. Talk about fear. They're fucking moot. They are operating via their fear right now. They're afraid of him. True.

And they're like, you're afraid. You're afraid. That's right. Yeah. Fuck you. You're the ones so afraid. If you weren't afraid, then why wouldn't you train him? You're so afraid.

By their own logic. Makes you think. Yeah. Debate the Yoda. I would say they're attached to their existing power structures and ways of doing things. But they are. Like, this is the thing. It's like all of this is blatantly self-serving.

It's being dressed up as, you know, we have this like philosophy that's really important to us. And how could this kid who's raised in slavery not have already like internalized that? Ah, he's just untrainable. We got to, you know. And he's too old. Yeah, too old. Kick him to the curb. And it's all like sort of masking this notion of, uh, Quighan, we really wish you hadn't brought this kid in because you're right.

He might be a child of prophecy, but none of us know what that means. and he kind of spooks us. So as they're going back to Nabu now to, because even though they got Palpatine elected Chancellor, it's still not going to move fast enough to free Nabu. So they got to go back. Like Amadala's insisting on it. Padma decides.

I mean, sorry, Queen Amadala. Yeah. Decides to go rogue. Yeah. And this is the one fun. of Jar Jar Binks because he's there to be like by the way in the ocean

there's an army and Padre's like oh shit you skipped over the line that you put on Twitter today which is Amadala and Jarjar Binks are looking out the window into Chorusat

beautiful you know picturesque cityscape the very melancholy look on their faces you know Amadala has, like, the full, like, fake Gatia makeup on, which pause to, uh, and Jar Jar Binks walks on stage right, and he says, use a tinkin, use a people gonna die?

I missed you tweeting this. I'm fucking destroyed right now. And she just says, I don't know. Which can you? Gungens get pasted too, eh? Hmm. I hope not. And that's what he says

And then he says Well we got an army We got a fucking grand army We're good at this unlike you You that's why you don't like us It's very funny The Gungans appear to be a Massively more advanced society

In some ways Like Naboo went all in on big palaces And like marble work And like the Gungans were like What about force fields That repel the power of the ocean Or whatever else you might throw at them What about like

like blaster napalm in big balls of goo like the gunyans appear to have a lot going on and the Nabu are just like no we run this planet we get the palaces on the surface

I think Where'd the humans come from On Nabu Where'd the humans come from on Nabu? Probably spaceship Because if you look up Nibu people there, that refers not to the people who live on Nibu originally. These are called Gungans. The name of the planet isn't Gunga.

It's Nabu. And the Nibu references the humans who live there. I'm not liking where this is going. I'm just asking the questions. Oh, I looked it up. Oh, convenient. For thousands of years, the Gungens flourished until a group of human colonists from Grismalt crash landed on Nibu. They didn't mean to go there

They didn't mean They were on their way somewhere else But then they were like Hey This has fruit Ooh nice river confluence Here on dry high ground With deep bedrock

It feels like this could be the seed of a civilization Ooh I love these bluffs I could just Oh really put an aircraft hangar Right on top of this beautiful waterfall I think that's I think that's what You know

Nature I'm playing it like it's a fucking city builder, like a PC game. We're like, actually, I think I'm just going to, let me hit those high mountain sliders all the way up. This looks sick. Let me use the deforestation tool a little bit. We're good. And now I'm just going to watch my spaceships fly out of there. But of course, we're peaceful people.

We've basically only got like mall cops and the Starfighter equivalent of like segways. And the Gungans are just like Oh fuck these people and just leave And peace out and go to these cool underwater cities Yeah It rules down there by the way It's cool No I mean I think again

Like subtext the end of this movie The Polymical Order on Nebu has been sort of Pretty radically revised And it does appear that the Gungans are liberating the Nebu But it's you know We all know who really is the power of that planet now Uh huh But anyway, so they got to go back.

Anakin has a conversation with Quigon. It's their last real conversation. Where Quigon's like, I'm not allowed to train you. So I want you to watch me and be mindful. Always remember, your focus determines your reality. Which I think translates to Quigon telling the scared, recently liberated, now abandoned slave. Um, to try mindfulness, uh, is, is, that's what Quigana is all three this kid on their way to the war zone. Uh, you know, your focus determines your reality. Um, so if you're sad, you should try maybe not.

Have you heard of head things? God. Here's some exercises you can try. Yeah. Has anyone ever told you about the secret? That's what Quigong Jin's secret Jedi sec is The Jedi had tried to suppress it It was only known in Darth the Lagos the Wise

You can't make that That's the quote I only know the memes I only know the memes Oh my god So they go back and then we have a pretty rapid like we have a three-part battle unfold in pretty quick succession

Austin you want to take us through like what this sort of day and a lot looks like there's like three there's three three sections here there is let's think oh yeah you're right it's four parts because there's the Gungans and the droid army out in the fields outside of

God what's the name of the city Fuck It's not Naboo It's like Thess or something like that It's not Thess but it's something like that Damn it, anyway, it doesn't matter And that's like a big George Lucas in the beginning

Theed, thank you In the beginning, the documentary that Rob and I keep talking about George Lucas pitches this scene to Stephen Spielberg As being sort of like war and peace And it's the Gungans who have some very advanced stuff like the Force Field Generators, but also lots of stuff that is advanced in the damage it can cause,

but is symbolically and in terms of design, supposed to reference sort of tribal weaponry, native weaponry. They're called primitive in the movie. They're called primitive in the movie, right? Yeah, this is absolutely the sort of like Zulu's story of an. Embedded local population fighting against a more technologically armed outsider force. And then winning the day – I mean, this isn't normally how the story goes. Winning the day because a small boy isn't a jet fighter in space and happens to pull the trigger at the right moment.

But, you know, they're using like catapults to fire energy rocks at people and similar stuff. That's tier one. Which are all very effective, yes. They're all very effective. It's just that they're just outnumbered. They're just that number. Hey, can I have a quick shout out, though? Yes.

This movie anticipates a lot of directions filmmaking is going to go. And, like, particularly the composite shots and the use of CG. You don't I appreciate it, though? The Gungans hold formation and use their defenses, and it's only once the droids close that it turns into a giant melee. But we do not get the thing that we now get in every movie, which is both sides just running hell for leather at each other, like no formation, just like having a big charge, countercharge, like scrum in the middle.

And I'm, I hate that, I hate it so much. And I'm so pleased when the Gungans are like, no, just stay behind your shields until you're forced to come out. Like, yes, yes. They make the right call. They don't look like fools here. Like, they don't. And I do think like part of the, again, I think that George Lucas is, you look at his history, you look at the readings of these films, which will continue to talk about. You look at the fact that, like, you know, the rebels in the original Star Wars trilogy are supposed to be the Viet Kong, right?

like this is not someone who is out here being like yes the kind of neoliberal world order is what the future of the world should be um and i do think he means well and so i think you get that stuff that's kind of like almost like matt iglesias style good intentioned liberal bad brain shit where you have the gungin leadership being like what i don't like about the naboo is they always want to be they always act like they're elitist and if only they would stop acting like they're the, that they're smarter than us, we would all be, we'd all be equal. And so I think despite all of the, like... And so Padmae Niels. So Padmey Niels, bends the knee. That's where this, that's where that comes from. It comes from this. A lot of people think it comes from

Game of Thrones, but Padme was the first one to bend the knee, quote unquote. It's in the script. You could go look it up. Trust me. And, and I think that there's supposed to be like this thing, like, wow, yeah, the Nibu really did have to recognize that the Gungans were just equals like them, despite the fact that they're, you know, plon. playing on all of this primitivist, bad fake patois, like all those other signifiers of race are there, and racism are there. Despite that, that is part of how this whole battle goes

and how that whole arc goes. Second level is security forces, fighting throughout the streets of feed, Padme trying to lead a group with Captain Panaka, one of the only other characters of color in Star Wars, to the throne room, where the heads of the Trade Federation are, so that they can force them to sign the treaty or whatever and end this thing.

And that's lots of, like, running through the hallways of this Italian palace firing blaster shots and stuff. It's fine. It's kind of cool. It's kind of cool. I think this whole sequence basically works. There is Anakin. Quigon says, go somewhere safe. Anakin climbs into the cockpit of a fighter pilot.

He winks. He's, like, stay in that. Don't leave that cockpit. Before that, he just tells him Get somewhere safe and where he goes to is the cockpit and then he does the wink. He's like, ah, I see an opportunity for you to prove that you

That you are the chosen one. And so Anakin immediately tries to save the day. Does Anakin technically observe the rules but like just fucking kill a bunch of people. I'm a Jedi.

They're just a career. They're just droids. It's okay. to own them and kill them at your leisure. They're not people. There were other, well, there were people on that fucking shit. On that ship, for sure. And then you get the sort of echo, it's like poetry. They rhyme, as Lucas says, of, you don't know that quote?

At the very beginning of that documentary, George Lucas is explaining why so much of episode one feels like episode four and you hope, including the fact that Anakin's big finale moment is that he flies up into space and in the way. to a trench, except instead of a trench, it's a docking bay on the enemy's ship, and he pulls the trigger and blows up the enemy's ship because I guess their, like, power generator is right next to their hanger, which is a bad place to be. And that's supposed to like echo or rhyme with Luke's Death Star run, right? And so this is him explaining why there's all these repeated ideas is it's like poetry. They sort of rhyme. At least he's trying to rhyme ideas. I'm like J.J. Abrams, who's like copy, paste. 100%. How don't make a different? Bigger than before?

Font plus plus, plus, control plus plus plus plus plus plus plus. All my periods are 14. 14 point. Yes. Let me close those margins in a little bit and see if I can get more pages out of this. And the fourth kind of layer of this combat

is the climactic battle, the duel of the fates between Quigon Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi on one side and Darth Maul on the other who has arrived here. in order to ensure that all this goes according to plan. They fight their way from the hangar into the power core of the city of Theed, I guess. And do some like dope choreography.

Darth Mall is revealed to have a double-sided lightsaber. The music slaps as hard as anything has ever slapped in my life. It is hard to oversell or overstate how big Darth Mall was. Even when people were like, this movie is kind of bad, huh? Darth Mall remained cool as shit. Lots of Halloween costumes six months later. I had that lightsaber toy. He's just cool.

He's just a cool. He's so cool, but I'm just like, where is the context? Doesn't matter. Everyone thought there would be some. And everyone thought, well, if it's not in this movie, it'll be in the next movie for sure until the end of this fight happens when the fact that maybe Darth Mall was not the villain you thought he would be. is revealed as he gets cut in twain.

But that fight scene is very good and is the emotional core of the Quigon and Obi-Wan relationship as they get separated. And they get separated by a really sick set of energy walls. I don't know why they work like that. I love it. I would think if you just energize the end of each side, that would be an effective way to block out a thing. But for whatever reason, there's these, like, cascading, like, mechanics. It's like the Titanic.

It's like the Titanic. Yes, you're totally right. Oh shit, that was totally on Lucas's mind when he was making this too. Like in that documentary, like Titanic is front of mind because Titanic has recently broken all his records. Yeah, yeah, literally broke all of his records as big as shit. And Frank Oz is like, can you explain to me Titanic? And Lucas is like, no. Sometimes things just happen.

Sometimes things just get really big. And then he immediately, he immediately in the documentary, like, pivots and says, and sometimes things, fail. And he says, you know, we did more, more American graffiti. And it made 10 cents, he says, anticipating that maybe the movie he's making is not as good as he wants it to be, or that it may not find the audience, he hopes. That documentary is so good. But that fight is really great. And it all kind of comes down to this moment where Ewan is separated from Liam's, Liam Neeson's, Quigon Jin, and Darth Maul gets the upper hand, slays Quigon Jin with a cool backstab, like, through the chest.

Actually, he doesn't, it's not a backstab. It's like he punches him in the face and then does like a spin, turn around, catch him in the chest, lightsaber hit, quagon falls, Obi-Ban screams, and, and then goes one-on-one and takes the day. I think this sequence still works for me fundamentally, mostly because Ewe and McGregor knows how to act and decides to do a good job at it. Yeah. He graces us.

Well, the fight choreography in all the previous Star Wars was so slow. Like, the actor who played Vader, that armor weighed a million fucking pounds. They could never get Vader to move very fast or be like an athletic, like, sword fighter. Also just fight choreography in, like, North American films at that time was just not, like, particularly sophisticated. here was it cutting edge no has it aged particularly well post the era of wirework

and like you know the raid movies where like now you have stunt people just making movies that are all about just awesome shit happening all the time no but in the context like 98 where your previous like frame of reference for what is the most hardcore lightsaber fight you've ever seen

is Return of the Jedi this fight is just wild It's really cool. Yeah. All this shit where like there's that moment that Obi-Wam blocks the attack behind him because presumably he can sense it with the force. And it's like I know for years people have talked about the lightsaber fights in these movies as being overdone and like over-choreographed.

I think this one specifically still really holds up as feeling like three combatants at the prime of their technique and deeply in touch with something that would let them do things that are greater than what humans can do. Also, there's just certain little flourishes that I think do really great work at communicating who they are and how they fight. There's that one little moment where like Obi-Wan's like whole leg like slides out as he comes to a halt that is just like there's so many little things that I will remember for the rest of my life in terms of how these people move.

And so much of that just comes from great choreography and practice and training again. Again, in the beginning, there's a great moment where one of the stunt coordinators is telling you and McGregor, like, when you spin it back over, when you, like, do this little, like, return to pose, take it a little slower. Just end with focus, not with speed, because that's where your character should be at at this point. And the thoughtfulness on that stuff, I think, really does show and, and communicates, like, a big difference between how these characters do fight and what that means about who they are as people, which is, like, what you want from big, dramatic epic fight choreography, epic in, like, the... literal sense not in the like me being like whoa that was epic a word that had not even come into the parlance the popular parlance yet in 1999 probably right I think that's probably still other four years out three years out from being overused three years later Anakin's line would have been this is epic as he destroyed the droid chip

instead of the time it was just because it had to rhyme now it was pod racing yeah this is this is podry Please, we need the edit immediately. You need to put that on Twitter tonight, Natalie. Unbelievable. So, yeah, and that's that act. That's the act. It's like a bunch of fighting.

I don't know if anyone has big thoughts. How much space trash is there? That was my no place. I have a genuine answer, but not for this time period. Okay. Later, after the prequels, the answer is very little space trash, because the Empire is very efficient at getting it and turning it into new ships. I know this because... Empire is good or bad?

Bad. Okay. But this is part of the thing that they do. Also, they don't like, if I'm remembering my note right, the note that I got from an editor, they don't like it when there's, like, evidence of the Clone Wars around. And so any of the, any of the, like, big space hulks that were, that would be floating around, all the derelicts, got cleaned up, moved into scrapyards, like the one at the beginning of Jedi Fallen Order, cut down, repurposed because they just don't want that shit out there. Just get it out of space. And that's interesting, at least, so. Sounds like, uh, rewriting history a little bit, you know, you're just, oh, yeah. I was going to say, I think away the vestiges of the past. Yeah, the empire sucks. I definitely think that that's the case.

I suspect that the Galactic Republic less good at that because of all the bureaucrats, but I don't know. Because it's just like tied up in... Other shit. ...responsibility is it, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I'm sure there is a garbage federation also who's also pissed about their contracts or taxation or whatever. Anyway, Darth Maul dies. The Anakin blows up the ship that controls all the droids. the droids all shut down, Padmei rushes into the throne room, they win the day, and then we go

into the final act. We go into the kind of dating mall that is like, now what happens? Let's set up the rest of this trilogy. There's a tough thing for me here where it's like, the only thing that ends up moving the Jedi Council to end is that like, it was Quigon's dying wished to train this kid, and now it's fine. The fuck. Well, it feels, it very much.

feels like it's just, it's just, uh, Obi-Wan's problem now. Like, you don't really get a sense that like, Yoda or any of the other Yoda, Jedi, Jedi are going to. There's another little Yoda in there, though. What's that little Yoda? There's a second Yoda. Is Yaddle in this movie?

In the wide shot, you only see in the wide shot. There is another Yoda-looking creature in there, which is very interesting given what we now know about the Mandalorian. Anyway. Yeah. it's uh yeah it just feels like they're kind of they're just they're just like pushing him off sorry i was thinking if yoda and yaddle fucked it had to be emotionless just completely loveless it's just it's functional it's functional we got to get another yoda out there with child you

are they hate it so much fucking off i can't good night everyone podcast. Yoda is not a lot to fuck. I'm sorry. Let Yoda fuck. Hell no. When I reformed the Jedi Council. They've got to have another way.

It's got to be something else. Could I understand you in cloning? Yeah. Am I got to find out about that? If he's a fucking Yoda clone, yeah, you're going to find out about cloning once you watch this next movie. He's actually Yoda. Anyway.

I'm sorry, I can't help myself. I've got these things in my head and they don't go away. There was a character named Luke in the expanded universe. Natalie, it's a real character. He was a clone of Luke Skywalker. Is that taller Luke? No, different. That's a different Luke.

Anyway. That's a thing, though, right? Taller Luke is like a fan. Bigger Luke is a thing, yeah. Okay, okay. But Luke is a real character from the comics, so. Okay. So, I will say, like, I think there's an element of, we didn't like Quigon.

Quigon's dead. And now it's kind of like, well, one, kind of have to, like, mourn and honor this guy because, like, he was still one of us. We didn't like him, but in death, he's become, like, kind of sanctified in some ways, which we see happen all the time in political life. Like, the minute, you know, a real bastard dies or something, people are like, you know, you do have to hand it to them you know they sure were who they are um and i think of some of that i also think to a degree uh the you know the toothpaste is out of the tube with with anakin like he just blew up a battleship like just by feel yeah and to a degree like at this point like he is now like the universe knows about him like everyone on neboo knows what he did he's a

Alpatine knows what he did. Yeah, he's a hero. So now the Jedi kind of have to bring him into the fold because they can't, they cannot now, they can no longer pretend that they can cut him loose and he will like sink back into anonymity. That's no longer in the cards. Right.

What they could have done is, he's the boy who lived. God damn it. Listen, Terps haven't ruined Star Wars for me. That's not true. Mandalorians are filled with them, huh? Anyway, they could have gone and, like, rescued Schmee and just set them up in witness protection somewhere. But that's just not conceivable for it.

Why can't they just go get fucking Schmee out of there? Just go get Schmeet and the rest of them. At this point, yeah, it's not a priority. She's not a priority, right? Because that would show emotional attachment. But injustice is happening. What are you going to do, Natalie? You're going to go save one slave?

You're going to choose which saved. You've got to save all of them. At that point, you're getting into politics because that's local. The law say slaves are allowed. and Jedi aren't there. Not the intergalactic ones. But Tatooine isn't, that's up to Republic peacekeepers, not to the Jedi. The Jedi are the Republic's peacekeepers.

If the Chancellor would send us to Tatooine to do this, we would do this. Well, Palpatine's not going to do it. That's a shame. Maybe the next one. Also, like, it also seems to me, like, just going back to Quieta's decision-making for a second, there doesn't appear to be actual law on Tatooine. Not really. Like, the only arbitration we hear about is, like, well, we could have the huts, like, is literally Java?

It's Java. Yeah, I think that's the thing. They're just like, well, this is a hut planet. The huts have got this figured out. It's not a problem. But that ain't real. Like, you can just go in there and be like, sorry, I killed this, I killed this pawnbroker. Like, sorry, Jabba.

Like, I shot a pawnbroke. And I took a hyper drive And his two slaves Yeah He didn't want $20,000 Do you? Because this will all go away Neither of us

Need to have this problem It's the Rob, it's the $20 conversation From a Bronx tale Did you like Wado especially? No? Then let's think of it this way It cost you $20,000 to cut him out of your life forever

Uh Anyway Um, yeah, Kwagon Quigon, there's a funeral They burn him. His body's still there. That's pretty fucked up, IMO.

Yeah. It's weird for reasons we can't talk about yet, but we'll become weird soon. Okay. Yeah. We'll talk in the next movie. Palpatine is like, we'll be following your crew at great interest. So he's, like, he's now the guy in charge of the old republic. He's now got eyes on Anakin and knows Anakin exists.

Everyone's still like, boy, I wonder what that situation with the Sith. ever wise, we should keep looking into that. Do you think that was the master or the apprentice? Yeah. I wrote something to say about that. Ooh, yes. This is when we say we zoom it, we frame. The shot frames Chancellor Palpatine.

We get the parade, the victory parade of the Gungons. Yeah. And we get a final shot of Padmey and Anakin, Anakin kind of looking, like he's kind of leering at Padme It's not great. He's kind of like, mm, mm. Yeah, I like what I see. I've got a little, I've got a little, um, Padawan Lerner braid now.

Oh, he does have the braid. Yeah. He does have the braid. Yeah. If you want to see Obi-Wan, if you want to see you and McGregor get that haircut, you can go watch that documentary where you and Gregor gets the haircut. I would like to see that. And the little boy, Jake, Jake, what's his last name?

I forget his last name. Lloyd. Lloyd is like, what if you, what if he cuts too much off and he makes you wear a wig? and I think what Ewell McGregor says is like well then George can do all the can take all those shots himself can like play the character himself at that point

I think George's kid by the way I don't know that's not Jake Boy he's got his family there it looks like he's getting like he's brought his kids in for work that day because he's really looks like to do that and if you're Ewan McGregor you got to be like cool yeah these kids are cute I love them yes Ewe and McGregor is also just incredible in that

documentary he's having a great time he loves doing the choreography. He picks out his lightsaber from a special box. And he looks thrilled. He looks thrilled. There's the bit where they do the Darth Mall choreography like shots and then he lands on like a big soft stunt pad. And after that they say cut,

he like gets off it with a big grin on his face and what's he say? Do you know what he says exactly, Rob? It's like they asked me to do Star Wars. Yeah, they said they said you want to do a Star Wars and I said, uh, too fucking right or something like that. So if we're looking at this movie, I think here's the thing.

I came to this with a lot of goodwill because I was like, man, I think I'm ready to re-appraise all this. But I had never hated the Phantom Menace. I'd always thought it was like, okay. Like, Attack of the Clones is the one where I was like, this all sucks. But Phantom Menace kind of worked for me. I think it still kind of works, but it is worse than I remembered. On the other hand, there's ideas here. Like, the script, bad.

it's not a particularly well-executed film in part because Lucas is pushing technology beyond what it could really do at the time and was maybe misusing it because he's kind of inventing a new style of filmmaking but if you set all that aside like the ideas in here where it's like well we're going to go back to the height of the Jedi order

oh god they're terrible these guys suck okay we're going to go back to the late republic the glories of the old republic like, oh, no, it's a crumbling, like, corrupt, cronious, like, hellscape. All this stuff works and all of it's good. It's just the script belies, like, the good material that is there. Like, in the opening, there's so much that's fascinating in The Phantom Menace,

but it's like Lucas doesn't want to linger over it much in some ways and just wants to get to, like, you want to see the pod racing, right? And I'm like, actually, I kind of want to see more genetic counsel. meeting like minutes like stay in the senate for a little while because this part rules and like it rules in a way that's i think about this trilogy of films as being a post 9-11 series because of stuff that comes in the next excuse me the next two which do release post 9-11 attack of the clones is 2002 and i forget when Revenge of the Sith is but obviously after that by a couple of years probably 2004 2005 um and there was lots there about the security you know uh uh this kind of

the surveillance state, security theater, the rise of authoritarianism and autocracy in a democracy, the ways in which it happens. And a lot of that is also heavy-handed and didactic and, like, goofy, not particularly, you know, deftly handled. And yet, the thing that I always forget is that this comes out in 99, but anticipates a lot of the problems of the modern day, then-modern day in a way that are pretty astute. The ways in which it's clear that the biggest democracies in the world are, in fact, kind of crony capitalist states that only get involved when the money gets messed up. The ways in which the individual lives of people don't really matter so much. And in fact, there are entire classes of people who are allowed to exist in oppression and poverty where governments will not get involved because of the risk of a costly political war or political

conflict that comes out of it, and because they don't want to shake the status quo up too much. And of course, like the then emerging sort of, or actually then, I guess, cemented in America kind of Democratic Party elect, which had become increasingly good at getting nothing done professionally by towing a line and pointing towards the ways in which nothing can get done. And from that morass, Lucas says, that is the perfect recipe for authoritarianism. That is the perfect recipe for someone to come in. Say that a strong man would make a lot of sense right now because, hey, wouldn't it be good if one person could make some big decisions? What if one person could swoop in, make this happen? And you can vote

for that person. I'm not saying I'm going to take it over. I'm just saying Nabu is in crisis right now. And I think that that stuff really works. And the Jedi stuff gives you so much to chew on if you're there for that stuff. And if you're reading this summary or listening to us talk about it instead of needing to watch it yourself. Yeah. I think that's the biggest part of it for me

is that all of the ideas, like when you take them at face value and you're taking them abstracted from the experience of watching the movie itself, it's all really interesting. Like all of the things are things that I, those are the questions that I think the last three movies,

movies like brought out in me about like bureaucracy and the Jedi order and like who gets who gets to say like who gets to dictate what is right and and and like what is just and all those kinds of things like all of those inklings are here and it's just it's so glossed over and it just moves through it so quickly for the sake of like these action sequences or like weird bouts of exposition that like it's just so strange like this it's such a strangely paced movie and like it feels like a fucking amusement park ride i feel like i'm just going through i'm at Disneyland and i'm going on the roller coaster and it's just it's so It's so distressing, I think, because I so desperately want more of it.

And I just don't have the place I want to get it from. Like, I'm just not going to get it in that movie. Yeah. Allie, do you have any big, like, takeaways from this thing? Yeah, I don't know. I'm in a similar place where, like, the moment where I was like, yeah, this movie fucking weird and I don't know that it's going to do the things that it wants to do is 30 minutes into that movie when they're sitting at the dinner table and like I

to expect me as a person to like care about that pod race after that is ridiculous just like for me to like continue to rue for quagon or like think that his impulses are good or like just fucking bizarre and I like I get that like I guess Lucas and his heart of the hearts was like, oh, I have to write three of these. So let's just slow this down a little bit. But, like, it's a very difficult viewing experience when you have to be the one watching that two-hour movie. Yeah.

I know we've done a lot of referencing the beginning that documentaries about this film. And this has turned into, like, a podcast also about that. But that thing ends on George Lucas sitting down to write the script to episode two. And he writes Star Wars. Episode 2 Space Dot And that's how it starts

And I mean This is a documentary written Or a documentary put together That absolutely knows The film is a bomb And the film isn't It's not a bomb

I think it did fine in theaters But in fact I think it probably did pretty well I know people want to see it multiple times I don't have those numbers in front of me But it was critically a disaster And the film The documentary knows that

Documentary lingers with those moments like there's some great stuff of Lucas and the other producers sitting in the theater seeing it and then afterwards being like wow like there's this movie goes all over the place and Lucas says like well this is just to some degree this is the sort of filmmaking I make but this is a lot I don't know how we can expect people to keep up with this when we make this thing and can barely keep up with it well there's a weird in the background of this there's also Lucas saying at one point lays up. He's like, as a producer, I want to make my

movie. I'll do whatever it takes to make my movie get made. But as businessman, we have $50 million to do this. But the other thing alludes to is that with the techniques they're pioneering, ILM is going to have

a massive amount of work to do on the back of this because he's like if this movie works, everyone is going to want to make their movies this way. Which is true. Like, This is where, like, Lucas is a weird guy because in terms of, like, you know, the movie opens on him talking about autura theory. It becomes laugh-hold because, like, in terms of, like, I mean, he is. Yes, he is.

But also, like, is he a particularly artistic one? Not really. Are his best films the ones where he was not theuteur? Absolutely, that is the case. But he's a visionary in that he's like, no, the technology is here where we can do whatever we want with digital composites. shots. We just need to figure out how to do that. And I think one of the things, and this really comes through an attack of the clones, everything looks unnatural and weird. The actors don't seem totally located within the scene. Don't totally seem to be like bought into the scenes they're

in and what is happening. And I think some of that is the problem of this was all new. And one of the raps against these movies was like, oh, it was a nightmare and nothing was real. The actors like we're basically just acting in front of green screens. I think the reason you don't see movies like this anymore is because every film actor, every screen actor, even all the way down to television, just knows how to do this. They just, you know, everything is composite.

Everything is being screened in, right and left. And so in a weird way, you're catching this moment where these people who made what we could call like traditional movies with, you know, full sets, et cetera, like practical effects. By and large now, they're working on a scale of

like digital correction and post-production that has never been tried before and it's weird and it's uncomfortable but Lucas needs to pioneer these things so that he can then turn around and offer his effects business

as like the cutting edge purveyor of these techniques yeah they invented the 18 wheeler before the highway was invented right you need everything around digital filmmaking to make the technologies that they were using work. There's an incredible back-to-back set of scenes in that thing

where you get him sitting down with Ben Burt, who's a sound design guy, but also does some other stuff. I think it was Burt. To talk through this kind of digital composition thing, tiny nothing scene that they're working on. And I think it goes to show how heavy-handed Lucas was as a director and editor here.

Bert kind of says he loves to direct in the editing booth. He always has instead of directing, like at the set where people are out there's a scene where they're just in the cockpit of the Nabu royal ship and you know Captain Panaka is on the right hand side of our screen Obi-Wan is on the left. Obi-Wan sits down and then a few moments later Captain Panaka sits down and George does not like that. George wants Panaka already seated when Obi-Wan sits down and so using this new technology, they very kind of sloppily composite part of the later take earlier in the scene,

so the Pinocca is already seated over on the right-hand side of the screen by the time that Obi-Wan goes to sit down. And it's like, who cares? That scene did not, like, I get it. Visual media and storytelling, like the motion on screen is important. I 100% understand why you would have a preference for that during filmmaking. But also performers make choices around how they, like, perform. based on blocking in the scenes.

Yes. So at this point, he's trying to, like, stitch together two different takes that were, did not know the blocking, the final blocking that he was then going to put into the film. And so he's just, like, completely in it in that way. And Bert seems like very, like, this is ridiculous. The next scene is Frank Oz, the puppeteer, coming in to play Yoda. And he had, and he's playing Yoda, right? There's a puppet.

This is not CG Yoda. He's, like, sitting down on the tree. trench holding up Yoda, moving his hand. Also, it's so breathtaking. We see him bring the puppet in and it's a dead lifeless thing. And you're like, that looks like shit. And then you see it underperformance where he's controlling, where he's like playing Yoda. And you're like, oh, it's the Muppet effect. That thing is alive. It's a living thing. He brings it to life instantly. And it's incredible. And then down in the pit, Lucas is there with Frank Oz and is showing him the like dailies of Wado, flying

around the junk shop and Frank Oz is like you're not going to need me anymore and Lucas goes no no we're always going to need you Frank and he's wrong because next episode two is not to get too ahead of us there is some like wild CG Yoda shit that we're about to get into I mean it's bad it's well we'll see if it's bad it's been years since I've seen it since I fell asleep but I remember it I remember it being bad I'm with you and And it's so heartbreaking that in this moment, Lucas, I believe that Lucas believes that the hand, that the, the physicality of this practical puppet is so important to keep. That this is the only way to depict Yoda as this important physical being in the world. You need natural light hitting it, blah, blah, blah.

And somewhere along the way, you just know he just stops believing that because he wants to do this other thing with Yoda. He's going to sit at his fucking desk and he's going to write, and then Yoda fights. with a lightsaber and it's awesome. Yes, Yoda was of course always a stand-in for the fact that power is not physicality that you don't need to win a fight

physically in order to win a fight philosophically or mentally. However, what if like a double backflip green lightsaber force punch happens? That would be cool. And then he and Christopher Lee are going to see who can pee further.

Like, that's that's what's coming up next. time. I didn't write an outro. So I forgot that part. But we'll be back next time with Attack of the Clones. Then you might think, but then you're going to finish the trilogy, right? O Contrere, we have to get into Clone Wars.

Which is what his podcast is about theoretically. Which bridges the gap to Revenge of the Sith and creates the dramatic arc that the original trilogy, maybe it didn't fully develop and bake through. And also, I think, derives a lot of meaning from the idea of over several seasons of this TV show, there is a fate awaiting these characters and this order they're defending. And it is inevitable that they're going to fail. But it's interesting to see how, despite their intentions, they're going to bring about disaster.

So that's our approach. Like, we're getting through Attack of the Clones, and that is going to set up. us up for Clone Wars and see how a new creative team starts reinterpreting this sort of foundation that Lucas has laid. I think it's worth saying a couple things. One is, so we're going to do Attack the Clones, then we're going to do the Clone Wars, a CG movie, which I think it's easy to miss on Disney Plus, because if you search for the Clone Wars, you might just get the TV show. Yeah, but there is also a movie that you should find. So that'll be our third episode and then we'll start going through the clone orders in the default release order.

I think a lot of people have already written me saying if you're going to watch this, you should do it chronologically according to when the events happened. And that means sometimes taking stuff out of order from release order, maybe even across seasons, no. Hell no. As a storyteller, I often do shit out of order on purpose. Sometimes, and sometimes it's not on purpose. A network will say, well, no, you need more action here.

So we're going to open with a bigger action thing in the series, even though maybe that takes place 20 days later in the fiction don't care watching release order I want to know how this hit I want to know how it hit when this shit came out I want to be able to think about the ways in which people who already watched it uh watched it originally the majority of those people and the way that most people today who hit play on Disney Plus and watch it who did not pull up a skip list who did not pull up a different watching order which is the vast majority of people I want to talk about how they experience this thing I don't I'm not saying anime

I don't even do this show with anime I don't even do I'm just put it in my veins The way it was released 100% Even if you embarked on like Naruto But I would just watch Naruto

Whatever the release order was 100% I certainly wouldn't do like You know There's a flashback episode So let me watch that flashback episode first No that flashback episode exists To be a flashback episode

referencing all the stuff I already saw Dramatic irony This is what this is Anyway That's those are like get ahead of some questions that I know people are going to have. I respect it. I would never go through the effort of keeping track.

I just press play, so. I'm saying that we should also press play. That is what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I'm with it. Any other bookkeeping?

I think that's it. Let us know if you liked it. Yeah. Leave us a review. Yeah. We're still figuring a lot of things out, but by the time you hear this, we will probably have a number of episodes in the can.

So, you know, the next thing you might hear might be radically different. It might be under two and a half hours. Who can say? Probably won't be. I'm frankly very happy with this two and a half hours. I'm so proud of us. We did it.

Nailed it. We even talked about that documentary bunch. Didn't even blow the time limit that much. Yeah, totally. We didn't talk about Natalie Portman's accent, but I will accept defeat. She drops it in an important scene. She has multiple different accents at different points in the movie.

Code switching, that's right. She a real one. She dropped. Well, Kieran Eidly is doing that accent for half the movie. That's also true. They're both doing different bad accents. Boss Nass, when they talk to the Gungan leader, Boss Nass, she drops it. That's how she signals.

Listen. That she's not yet. She's just folks. I'm just folks. Yeah. And that also she, because she has. the queen in that scene and she's as handmaiden Padme so she rolls up incognito and then is like listen I'm actually I'm the real one I'm not going to use receive pronunciation I'm not going to

use like this very weird tortured I don't even know how to describe what that accent was but her first her first presentation as the queen like her first scene as the queen she's doing just like a regular like semi-regular british accent and then it just vastly goes in another direction in such a weird way though like it's like but then it then it goes ham in some other direction that i don't know where north is on it but it's somewhere else yeah there's there's a lot of weird like there's weird decisions being made but the thing that i just will never stop wondering about all this movie is like what direction was Lucas giving people

on the set? And the answer might be not much because like if you're editing a ton of people in post is that imply that maybe you don't get involved with the actors enough as a director and who do we see like handling like doing like reading

notes. I think it's just kind of a script coordinator or producer like on the set being like hey you know and then this is happening but you don't see a lot of like feedback. You see Lucas is getting really involved in Vio work where he's like, yeah, run it again, run it again, run it again, run it again. Please, I need to watch that documentary.

Please, there's Sibulba Vio work. Like, write the, like, read Sibulba lines 85 fucking times. But then... That's sick. That is sick and twisted. And also I do think... Watch it. I'm begging everyone.

I wonder if at this point was he a little bit intimidated by the fact that, like, when he made Star Wars, he had one famous actor on that set. This time I think he's been out of the game for a little while as a director and he's kind of impressed that he's got Natalie Portman

who's like the rising star for a generation he's kind of impressed he got Ewan McGregor who had emerged as like one of the like you're defining leading men of his generation and I do wonder if there's a little bit of like imposter stuff happening with Lucas. And both of them have the same thing

that a lot of his earlier actors did, which is like, you know, Lucas sees himself as an uteur and comes from that school of filmmaking and that click of directors where he was working with indie film, you know, early independent

film stars, people who would, you know, you look at American graffiti and you see a lot of people who are like, these are not big Hollywood names in the traditional sense. They're young actors who are going to find their niche in their own way, and he's like, can I do it again, right? He's about to do it again with up-and-coming actors like Natalie Portman.

And Ewan McGregor, who, of course, has done train spotting, which is not a traditional big-budget Hollywood film. And this is going to be the transition for some of these actors, and he's going to be the one who ushers them through it. And Hayden Christensen next time. And now we have the, like, young Hollywood, like, just cultural context for it all. And also, these are people who grew up watching Star Wars. You and McGregor knows what a Star Wars is.

You remember he was excited to get a lightsaber. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, there's no one on the set who's going to do the Harrison Ford. Like, you can write the shit, but you can't make people say it. Like, nobody ever said that on these sets. And again, I think it probably needed to be said. It was 22 years since he last directed a movie.

That's nuts. Star Wars, the original, and this. 22 years. So, it's tough. It feels like ultimately an ad for the, technology that he was trying to pioneer. Like, that's what's on display here at the forefront. Well, don't worry, next time I'm sure it'll be better.

Attack of the clones. Next time he's going to nail it. You know, he works. I believe. The kinks are going to get ironed out. And attack of the clones, this is going to be where he really shows off what he's doing with this trilogy. So we'll be back in one week, I think, is our plan for this.

I think for this, yeah. I think we're going to do another one next week. And we're going to have a little gap. And then a gap. I think we're going to go to twice or once, twice a month, every other week, I think, after that. As long as that's what it feels right. Everything is contingent on the future and how we all feel and what response is like and everything else. So let us know.

Yes. Eventually I'll have an outro. So then we'll... I'm at Austin underscore Walker on Twitter. And you can also listen to me on Waypoint Radio and at Friends at the Table. Waypoint Radio is a video game podcast I do with Rob or used to do with Natalie Friends at the Table is an actual play podcast

I do with Allie Um yeah and you can find me at Alley underscore West on Twitter.com Uh You can I knew we're going to do it I was like oh I don't know

I don't have the same tile layout No we do not I have a straight line Um You can find me at Natalie Watson on Twitter you can find me at Rob Zakeney on Twitter I'm also on Waypoint Radio and you can also catch me on ShiftF1

which is a racing podcast I do which I think is why it was picked to join this because the pod racing obviously couldn't do a prequel podcast without a racing expert Yeah I know you y'all like to do racing movies sometimes over there so I'm sorry if we kind of caught this one

early, but I think there's enough meat on the bones here to really reduce it on shift F1. Yeah, I think we do that. So good luck with that, for sure. All right, bye. That's it. That's the podcast. What should we say at the end?

May the Force be with you. I don't know about all that. We can't do that. Everyone says that. Fuck Jedi's. Go home. But like, don't fuck Jedi. No, you're not allowed.

Don't. But, wait, what if that's our own little, like insurrection is only fuck Jedi don't save their number in your phone

good night perfect perfect done time done is good pause oh my god do you know what today is

what what is it made the fourth no is it may the fourth It might as well be I'm in April It is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

Wow Somebody should tell them the boo But I mean like only if that's what you're there to do Uh huh Uh huh I mean this is exactly right The Galactic Senate definitely has an intergalactic day For the abolition of slavery

And they It's still a real problem in some places like Tatooine, slaves still exist in great numbers. The end. So is there not a senator from Tatooine? No. No. I don't think so.

In the billion senator, Fox? No. Because the people on Tatooine don't think they're part of the Republic. The Republic's like, but you're subject to our law. Java should show up. Java should be a senator. All right. Senator Java.