A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 105: Twin Suns and Zero Hour (Rebels 57 - 59)

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Rebels Season 3 comes to a close with a trio of episodes that demonstrates just how far the Star Wars Animation team has come as a group of visual storytellers. Twin Suns brings us to Tatooine as hostile and hopeless as its ever been seen for a final confrontation between two series standbys (and a totally fine Ezra arc about family and fate). Zero Hour gives us Thrawn at the height of victory and vulnerability. The stage is set for the final season... which we'll be bringing to you over the next two months in four episode chunks, so that we're ready to leap headfirst into Andor Season 2 when it debuts in late April! Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Next Time: Rebels 60 - 63 (Heroes of Mandalore, In the Name of the Rebellion - The start of Rebels Season 4) Show Notes The Keep - Molasar Spy Kids vs Magna Men Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Ricardo Contreras (@a_cado_appears) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)  

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakini, joined by Ali Akampura, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners, via patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there if you'd like to support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes. And, of course, specials like our podcast on Skelet. Velotin crew. So we are wrapping up season three of Rebels this week, and it's not a minute too soon because Andor is coming fast. A trailer for the upcoming season just dropped. And so before we dig into this week's Rebels episodes, it is time for us to gather as a panel around

a highly compressed Discord stream, that's on a highly compressed YouTube trailer, to see what we can glean. My suspicion is Andor's big bad this season, macro blocking. our audience won't mind if we pause rebels just one more time just for just for one little second for us to watch the trailer that was our hope but austin was overwhelmed uh by by excitement and dropped from the call as we and now and now oh my goodness uh big we're getting an r tc connecting error oh no this is the isb trying to hold us back the isb is holding us back no Dutra's in our in our fucking server This is just what happened on Scariff So true

Hi, I'm back They don't want you to see the trailer They don't want you to They don't want us to win Yeah, uh-huh All right Sorry I think I'm back Can you see the screen?

I can see the screen Okay. I restarted Discord. We're probably good. Rob, did you complete your throw? Did you like complete your intro? Yeah, and then and then I vamp like a champ. Yeah, it's true. We had a lot. We riffed. You had a lot of fun. It all became content. Yeah, I see. I see. All right. Let me just very naturalistically come in on this. All right. Are we ready to watch Andor season two the trailer? We're ready to watch Ander season two. This was what do we hit play? And it was like, all right, here you go.

12 hours just here it is I'd lock the fuck in right now I'm ready okay we none of us have seen this we're gonna nope

what do we do we have any first thoughts on what we're seeing so far on the I'm freaking out and the two they got weird little haircuts they got weird little

yeah that's socks to me you're right oh all right that's my baby and actually I guess more importantly this looks like it's Cassian but in a type of place We have not seen him.

This seems like a fancy place. Oh, I bet this is Alderon. This gives me Alderan vibes. It gives me like... It is Alderan vibes. I was thinking Choracin first, but remember what Alderan looks like in Clone Wars with like the white columns and... Also, that's a real sky.

That's real sky and locations. All right, we're going to hit play on this. Here we go. Three, two, one. Oh, guitars. Explosions. Light or electricity. We're in a war.

Oh shit. He's walking with purpose. What's happened before? Who you want to win? Yo. All right. I sure hope that was Imperial. We're critics everywhere.

The homie. Is that Steve Earl? Singing? I think so. Okay. The own feed. Now. Yo.

Oh, I'd love to walk away with explosions in the background. Crenic, Crenic, Cretic sighted. Oh, bro. That's a dead informer. That's a dead informer for sure. Oh, the X-Rings like, is that a clone trooper era? That looks like Saws forces. Those things are trimmed out in Saws colors.

Your trots. Oh. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Turn sequence. Yeah. Yeah. Dance sequence?

Oh, was that the wedding? Oh my god I enjoyed buddy Bro Oh my Yeah I'm so fucking blade runner ass fit

Remember this moment Yes Yes I'm so ready to play I'm so ready to play Drip out I think they do hearing romance confirmed we got to do the fucked up a Star Wars content creator thing yes we got to go frame by frame we got a frame by frame okay wait first

before we go frame frame frame um the like you know what here's like one second rock like like beach rock yeah by was not my first uh that is not what I assume we would get I'll tell you that much. No. No, it is not. I don't mind it. Um, it's a little, it's a little, it's a little, it's kind of like, you know what it is, it's a victory lap. It's very, is very on, it's oddly enough is very on point for this though. Do you think it's very on point for is Tony. Yeah. Though I don't know. Maybe this is Disney people being like, um, the first, people thought the first show was too slow. And so we got to release something with like a hard rock vibe, let people know it's action-packed, which also

it was announced today that this is coming out in bursts of like arc by arc instead of episode by episode. So I think it's four weeks of three episodes each. So we got a work cut out for us. We will be feasting. I'm happy for it in the sense that

you know. It feels confident. It does feel confident. It feels like I'm happy for it in the sense that because so much of the fan reaction last time was like these episodes are so long and boring. Like, I want people to get excited about this show if it's good. And sometimes you have to get an on-ramp for the types of people who don't understand that it's fun to wait week to week and be in shoe on the scenery and be like, ooh, what do we think is going to happen?

I don't know that it does feel confident, though, to me, just from the standpoint of, like, I'm wondering what's happening with severance right now, right? Which is that severance, like that is dominating TV discourse in part because it is not just coming out in big arcs. It is sort of giving people, you know, they're sort of living and dying week to week with this show. There's a little, this feels a little bit like a, a little bit of a correction for, oh gosh. Ackleite. Ackleite. I was like, The Apprentice? I wouldn't correct with the apprentice in this one.

world of ours. More on that later somehow. You know, the other thing that Rob is, there's another wing of severance discourse. What you're talking about is Seve heads out there who are tuned in and who like the show. There are also people who really

liked season one and who find season two to be slow and boring. And every week they're like, well, was anything going to happen this week? Which is absurd because it's the most something happens every week show. It's like the rarest show. You're not watching for plot. You're not watching Plot. I'm going to show up. I just have to beat people to death with snow shovels. That's just it. This is my

If I were, if I were a showrun, if I were if I were a TV writer, I would be like, you know what? I cannot wait to discuss this at our fan convention coming up soon. And then I'm and while I'm there, I'm going to ritually beat you to death with a snow shovel. So my thought is that there to some degree collecting it is like you said Rob, acolyte reaction. I think we all actually all of us. us had problems with the way acolyte was paced, um, in terms of the week-to-week releases. So it's not like, that was because it wasn't a very well-put-together TV show. I know, I know, I know. But if all of those had dropped by arcs, we would have all felt better about that show all the way through it. Yeah.

But I never felt that way. But I never felt that way about Andor. Like I think so much of the fun for us was like week to week, what's going to happen next, like debating like the, the weird vibes of the Aldani crew. A hundred percent. I mean. All paid off a week later. Yeah.

I am. Yeah. go ahead Natalie well I was just going to say there was a not unsignificant portion of the audience that found the first three episodes of and or slow which uh is astounding to me um because again I think I think we are of a TV watcher audience that um like you were saying earlier Austin likes to watch things bubble likes to watch um how tensions are building we don't necessarily need um like big action set pieces or or capital s something to happen um in the way that people are are kind of asking for um i think having lots of small

inciting incidents that are leading to that we can read are leading to something bigger this is a common discourse with white lotus right now that people are finding the first two episodes of White Lotus quite slow, and to me, they are delicious food because I feel like there are like all these small little inciting incidents that are creating, we are like setting the full stage. The entire table is being set with everything, with plates, napkins, the knives, the centerpieces, the flowers, the appetizers, the salt and pepper. Yes, everything is there. like all of the little things that you can at when the feast is served will will allow you to engage with the feast itself are our building and that's that's what i love about tv i feel like that is what tv offers in being a episodic format um but you know uh yeah i i mean i'm very much in line with our opinions on this because i think we agree

in this but I'm like sort of hopeful about the like containerness of this and one thing I prefer this so much more than like here's season two all at once like at least that they're setting up a pace is is a better alternative than the two extremes but I also like when you think about how the season is supposed to be structured where it's supposed to be like each of these arcs are also taking place in a different year of indoors life like I you know I would love to be able to like sort of savor it week to week and, you know, be like, oh, April was the year of, you know, for B, B, B, B, B or whatever, the Star Wars, like, a year's or whatever. But I think that, like, it, it might be just as fun to do it this way.

Like, you know, if the production staff feels like this is a good way to do it, I'm, like, very looking forward to seeing how that feels blossoming over the next month. Yeah, I'm curious if it is production. if it's Disney marketing is it like I'm very curious where this came from is this trying to capture a sense of we're dropping a movie a week you know we're dropping three you know episodes which will be about two to three hours you know each week or whatever yeah what's that feel like I'm curious I don't know you know it's it's almost splitting the difference between the like streaming and week to week uh like streaming in which everything drops

all at once, and then the week to week, you know, one episode per week drop. I think it's aware of the Star Wars audience in the sense, in the way that it is putting more together at one, it is giving you more at once to kind of get through on a given week. and then it is also kind of keeping the TV audience because I think Andor is trying to go beyond just Star Wars fans. I think Andor has positioned itself as like, this is also just great TV. And I think it's trying to,

it's like trying to do both. It's trying to have both audiences engage with this in a way that's like comfortable for them. It's an interesting, I can't think of it. any other show that has done it like this? I don't know if any of you have any other references who've

dropped by ARC. But I mean, I'm like, I'm like curious about it as a, as a format. We're reinventing the network miniseries by the way. Like, all old things are coming back. Like, brace yourself for a Star Wars

Christmas special soon that will star the biggest acts of today. Oh my God. in coming in coming months uh but should we take into some of the some of the little beats that stood up to us here yeah a little bit like let's see we can we can glean here um i'm gonna try not should i should i should i should i play through in like slow motion and we'll pause if we hit something yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah let's do that okay let's go does everyone want to say their

favorite thing so far um oh um because i know mine and it was because we saw detrick crashing out but Karn looked really, like, composed. Yeah, the flip. Let's go through it. Seeing Karn just, like, it, like, sent a shock through my entire nervous. They knew they had to hold it, too, because he didn't show up to, like, 70 seconds. Because we've been dying to know what's our boy up to. What's our boy up to?

Did he get that job? It looks like he got that job, unless he's just, like, an accountant now, which would be very funny. I'm also running the slow motion because for people who haven't seen this yet, it's, like, very rapid, lots of cuts. Very loud. Very loud. So this feels like shots of Andor walking

in different arcs, like different moments through the years. Yeah, here he is in some sort of imperial facility that looks like a city in the background. I'm not 100% sure that's him. Oh, you're right, maybe it's not.

Especially now that we have this other figure who looked like, maybe we knew who she was and I forgot. Here he is in like... Oh, is he in pilots gear? He's in pilots here. Yeah, we saw him piloting a thing.

That's true. Iowa running through the world. Fields being shot at. Uh-huh. This might not be him. I was again, like, was that... Yeah, maybe not. No, that looks like him.

That might be him. No, yeah, that's tough to say. This kind of has... How tall is DiColuda compared to... A storm cooper. Oh, this is a stolen... Should we do this? Is this good? Or should we not do this?

Because I'm like, oh, I know what he's in here, which answers a question about a later shot. And I'm like, am I spoiling myself on Andor? Oh, you, like, do you not want to know that he's the one who does a air to ground strike on? It's not an air to ground strike. It's this shot later on in this, it's 100%. Oh, massacring the stormtroopers? It's massacring the stormtroopers with the tie fighter, right?

Like, that's what this shot is. Maybe that's fine, but maybe I shouldn't go at 0.25 speed, maybe I should go at 0.5 speed. But I know what the interior of a tie fighter looks like, you know? Mm-hmm. Oh, man, and this production, you know this production is serious because they have, uh, they did not use a side-toe, tech controller for the joystick they created they created a joystick

yeah well science doesn't make that anymore so maybe Holly was finally run out yeah yeah saw looking good saw looking like Rogue 1 saw a little bit more yeah well this is where I think this has to be the wedding

yeah look at how shook she looks oh love her the introduction of these characters one by one is so good it's really good oh that she He's looking over his shoulder because she's stunned because Perrin just showed up with his new best friend, Cassian. Oh, my God. And they've been suit shopping.

They just went to the barber together. All right. Wait, who is this? We don't know who this is, correct? We don't know that. We don't know that person. It's not Lita. I don't think.

No, it's certainly not that. It's certainly not Lita. Sorry, Clayda. No, I don't. Clea. Clayah. Yeah, I don't think so. Who is this?

Who is walking? Wait, do we want it? No. I want to make sure it's not someone we already know. Do you know what I mean? I don't think it is. Okay. Then my guess is like that's a, where we know the sister question is up in the air.

Maybe it's a sister. Maybe it's someone new. He's blowing something up. That's my call. I don't think they would show his sister in the trailer. That's what I would think too. But like, I don't know. There's a little familial resemblance, right?

Yeah. Crennick and the Death Star. I love that. Man, they just executed an informer. So this is how Saa Guerrera gets down is like, and that might not be We know saw is paranoid. Yeah. Or doesn't that the color scheme that his shit had?

Maybe, maybe not. No, I think his ships, I think his ships were like black and white. Yeah. Oh, hey. Is that? It's our boy. Yeah. Oh, wait, that's our boy.

Who? That's him. That's Cassian's friend from him. Oh, that is that Cassian's butt? Yeah. Uh-huh. I think so. I don't recognize.

Oh, he's been hiding out in Iowa. growing his beard out yeah okay right I think that's him we got some those are troopers without those do not look like stormtroopers oh you think this is like a

classic proto these guys might be too swaggy these might be rebels who've taken stormtrooper gear like look it's all like damage to shit yeah but they do kind of

give me fashy vibes they do have fashy vibes I don't know speaking of looking upset Dedra How you do it Another shit day

At the ISB At the White Hall factory I love that for you ma'am Uh huh This is the shot I was talking about before And then We're a wedding Oh I love me

Now she's partying Yeah You have different times Different moments She wants to celebrate You know Her daughter's Her daughter's

Who doesn't celebrate Their teen daughters Rush to Rush to marriage for religious fundamentalism. Yeah, and this is... Oh, this is Perrin and... Is he going to meet some people?

A photo droid? I think it's a photo droid, yeah. They're at the MECA. That's probably... So, Rob, your thought maybe is these are the same... These are... These are probably just a search... No, those are real Stormtroopers.

Yeah, they were different, different. The other dudes either feel to me like they're imperials who are so, like, special that they can just shit-can uniform regulations. Right, right. The way, like... You know, in like, a... Blackhawk down, the Delta Force guys, just wear like hockey helmets and all that shit.

It could be a status marker that way. Yeah. But it also could feel like that's an infiltration team that are about to go mask off. This looks like Bix to me. Yeah. His old flame. Yeah, that's Bix to me. We'll get some Bix reconnection.

Is this back on, is this back on, what is it, Ferrix? That looks like Ricks Road, yeah. It does look like Rick's Road. Are they bulldozing Ricks Road? Oh, God. Damn. My God. Okay, okay, now, I, he's, yeah.

So it is implied that he's looking out and he's seeing the revolution happening. Like that Battleship Potemkin is happening outside his window. Uh-huh. The tie, the suit, the overcoat. I love him. I love him so much. He's a little two together for me. I need him to get more pathetic.

Speaking of the revolution happening, here we go. Mm-hmm. Here we go. Is that a rogue one guy? I don't know that guy. I don't know what we go. Oh, wait. I think these are some new.

Do we not know her? I don't think so. I don't think we know her. Okay. She looks familiar to me. These are rebels. Oh, wait. Hang.

Where is she? She just pulled a gun out and what looks like a party. Uh-huh. That looks like someone waving a gun around Corrissant. Uh-huh. Yeah. Ooh. Yeah, it does.

Um, again, there's a tied to, what type of tie is that? Wait, is that a tie? That might not be an intercept. Because the interceptor doesn't have the, that, like, might be a variant of the advanced. It could be, yeah. There's a real sharp-ass wings. That's fun. Uh-huh.

Big fighting. Ooh, weird. Oh, wait. No, what was that symbol? What's a spider on the wall? This is a spider situation. Oh, okay. Admiral Trench opened a restaurant.

God. Please, give you more Admiral Trench. I was just thinking about it the other day. Weird concussive thing. Oh, Bix is there. Weird guy. Bix is more. E.

Eadies come up in the world. Yeah. You are, it's a really good point. Eadie has moved up in the world. Eadie on that, on that new, uh, on that uncle. That's, no, I think this is, the mysterious sugar daddy is stepping up. But what if, no, what if this is, what if this is Cyril's bringing in that government worker money, that high rank, you know, tier, the high ranking, whatever money and now is

able to give her fancy new robes. He's bringing his mom to the, to the work gala. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, imagine they get a new apartment Oh my God You just cut to it right away And we get Saul saying some shit I missed exactly what did he say here

Are you ready to fight or something? Right, yeah, are you ready to fight? Something like that I am, I'm fucking ready Talking to someone who's all masked up You're here, you're right here And you're ready to fight Shoutouts

And or a Star Wars story Moments before Saw gets it He looks so good He looks so good Season 2, April 22nd, we'll be there. God damn it. I cannot believe. I cannot believe because of, well, you know what?

Maybe they'll answer the question of how did Cassie and or make his miraculous escape from Scareth before it was destroyed. Because it's like, shit, this character is so good. And so dead. We can't lose it. Yeah, I'm ready for him to go. I'm ready for it. Pull the trigger. Let's make it happen.

Make me cry. You're right. And that way, like, Cyril Karn can take up the mantle. God, the scene from Dark Knight, what's the third one Return? Is it Returns? Is that with the name of the Nolan? We're Robin. Yeah, we're Joseph Gordon Robin. Yeah, exactly.

Becomes Robb. Jessica Gordon, let it. Let it becomes Robin in that, the end of that movie, like, takes up the cow. Terrible scene, but it should happen with Cyril and Andor. Cyril's going to be like, I've come to realize that the rebels, the true heirs to my Clone Wars action figures.

That's right. Do you know what I'm going to do if that happens? You know those little charms at they make that says best friends and it's cut in half. I'm going to have one that's Cali, and one that's Cyril. I love that. Because they're the oops.

Oh, my God, yes. Oh, my God. It would never happen. But can you imagine if somebody prevailed on Gilroy in that writer's room to be like, I think Calis should mentor. There should be a Cyril Kar and agent Callis arc where he recruits him to work as double agent. There's just not enough time. There's only like, it's nine.

Episodes. 12, 12, 12, 12. Thank God. 12 episodes is not enough time to get the whole Rebels gang in there. All right, the comic book series. That's right. Call us up. We'll fucking do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaking of Rebels.

And I know earlier we were like, we like it when a series takes its time and doesn't always have to be big action and like big moments. Why isn't every Rebels episode like the episodes we watch today? Why isn't stuff just happening all the time? No. So, yeah, but you know what? I also feel like I could have ate more. And I think, I think twin sons is the one where I'm like, this thing is straining at the limit mark of the runtime. You, did you, is there, what do you call it? Oh, my God. Direct. I didn't have chance to listen for a commentary. I didn't see if this commentary on it. I didn't listen to any commentary, but I do know from reading about it and watching the Rebels recon and some other interview stuff that they cut a bunch from that episode. to fit it in the 22. They said it was the most deleted scenes of any episode they've ever made.

Of course. Because they made a great Star Wars movie. Like this is the problem is that they're out there. Okay, let's just get into it. Let's get into it. So, yeah, starting with Twin Sons and it's time to say goodbye to Sam Whitworth's Darth Mall. And yeah, Twin Sons probably has a cinematic epics worth of material in its 20 minutes. my opinion is that he goes from tightly-paced

to kind of hurried in places. Anyway, here's everything that happens in twin sons. Mal's dying in the desert of Tatween looking for Obi-Wan and realizes he needs to lure the Jedi master out of hiding. Right on cue, Ezra hears the Holocron summoning him to Tatooine to warn Obi-Wan and abandons Phoenix Squadron as it repairs for the assault on Lothal to follow this force premonition

about Obi-Wan's importance and his impending danger. Chopper sneaks aboard, Ezra's stolen Y-wing, and the two are immediately ambushed by sandpeople as Ezra realizes that, yep, he's fallen for another trick from Darth Mall, stranded in the desert the two wander until Chopper shuts down from failing batteries and fouled machinery, and Ezra curls up with his droid, waiting to die as the two are overcome by sun and sandstorms. And that is when Obi-Wan rescues them and explains over campfire that evening that Ezra has forced him into a confrontation with all that he has. he'd been trying to avoid. He sends Ezra and Chop on their way as Maul arrives. Mal provokes Obi-Wan into fighting by detecting that Obi-Wan is hiding on Tatouin to protect

someone important. The two square up one last time, but this time, Obi-Wan mortally wounds Maul with the first sword-stroke of the exchange, slicing Maul's saber in half. Maul dies in Obi-Wan's arms, asking if Obi-Wan has found the chosen one. Obi-Wan says he has, and Mal's last words are that he

will avenge us. And we end the episode watching Obi-Wan looking out at the Lars family farm as young Luke is summoned home by his aunt Peru. I feel like also this Luke Skywalker has implied to be kind of young, and it's literally like two minutes before the Battle of Yavin, but the thing kind of has a dream works, like a child running across the...

They use the same model as Ezra. It's Ezra's model running, because they didn't have a different Luke model, and they're the same age. God damn it. Yeah. But the... You know what? Luke's small, too. Luke is small, and the way that

I think that it's just the clip of Baru calling for Luke from a new hope. It is. Through a new hope, he's getting called home like a 12-year-old at the playground, you know? So I think he's just, he's living a different life out there on Tatooine. Oh, ripped him all. Ripped him all. I don't know why Obi-Wan was avoiding this confrontation with Maul when he fucked him up in about 20 seconds. Because he didn't want to kill Maul.

Because he didn't want to kill him. Because he's become a sad, pathetic figure. He knew he could win. And he took the opportunity when he could. And he even took the opportunity to, I don't know if y'all picked up on this, what he does formally in terms of his, like, stance. He goes from the classic Obi-Wan, like, blade out stance above the head, his form to Quigon's form that Quigon uses when he gets killed by Darth Maugh. And Darth Maul tries the same move, which is that, like, upward. smash with the hilt into Quigon's face.

He tries it on Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan just cuts through the hilt and kills him in one hit. So it's like a perfect mirror to that original fight. It's almost being like, you could have lost that fight. Like you can't...

And also it's like, look, I've grown, you haven't. You're still stuck back then. You're still obsessed. And then he cradles him as he dies. Bro. That part. And then the... You know, we'll get there.

but then fucking Pinary Sunset starts playing, the Force theme starts playing as he looks on and, you know, sees who he's protecting. And I like, it got me in a way that I had no, I was crying. I was sobbing. And like, not over the particulars of the story, not over Luke existing so much as like all of time in my life collapsed into a single minute. And it's like I was seven years old trying to understand why my parents' marriage had fallen apart. And then I was like watching, you know, that I was like watching the prequels and like wondering why America's position in the world was falling apart. And then I was, you know, it's like everything. And I'm like now and I'm like, oh, well, here we are.

Here's what the world is. All of it collapsed together somehow with the evocation of this theme that I've been listening to for 20 plus 30, 30 plus years now. And like I don't, I did not expect them to hit that beat. The same thing happening when I saw the end of Last Jedi. and it plays briefly, or a version of it plays briefly with the Luke stuff happening. So I shouldn't have been surprised there. But it really is like the sort of like a very brief evocation of this idea that there's more to come and hope and all this stuff, which is like Star Wars working in its mythical, you know, in that, in that tenor that it can sometimes hit.

And that just completely worked for me in a way I was not surprised or that I was totally surprised about, especially since I'd seen the fucking first part of that scene a thousand times, right? Like, I've seen the, the fight that I've been hyping up forever a bunch of times. Oh, this is it. That fight is what I've seen. That was like, oh, we should probably watch Rebels, too. In some ways, that scene is why I was like, we should do a Clone War show. Fuck it, we should do a whole Star Wars animated show. Because, like, I've got to know how we get there.

How do they make me care about fucking spider legs Darth them all? You know what I mean? Like, not that he's the spider legs here, but still. That might have helped. Yeah, he probably would have won with the spider legs. I don't know how to deal with spider legs. This is sort of like, you know, now that we're like closing the chapter in Darth Mall here, I've been trying to think of like what the value of his inclusion in the Clone Wars and Rebels is.

Because, I mean, like this is an all-timer moment. It's so good in the way that it's choreographed is so good. And the fact that it's a 40 seconds is really good. Yeah. But I think that like, you know, would Mall's place in the story have been, just as good if it was an original Faloni character or if it was like somebody like Savage. It's funny.

Like when you. Go ahead, finish your thought. Yeah. Well, just like, you know, in the, in the way that like, Clone Wars and Rebels is an attempt to like rehabilitate the, the prequel episodes. Like, you know, it's the Boba Fed effect. Like was Maul better just being this, this mysterious force of darkness that we knew nothing about?

Right. Like, was that more valuable? You know, you know what I mean? The thing about it that I like is that it lines a character we know up with this idea that Maul was being used by Sidious, by Sheave, in a way that is, maybe you have to do a little more work with some. That Savage does that story with Duku very quickly, right? Like, oh, look, Duku is, is, you know, being an asshole to Savage, is abusing Savage to get what he wants for him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Savage dies, all that stuff.

Like, we already kind of got that story once. But I do think the fact that we know that Sheave was Maul's master and then was kind of discarded is a different angle because it happened in the movie and then we just never got Mall again. We would have never gotten Maligan except the Clone Wars camera happens to go into the graveyard, you know, the garbage yard, you know, the, the, the, you know, the. the scrapyard. And I think there's something effective about that story starting with a character from the movies instead of starting with a character, like, because the movies also discard mall, right? We never get to follow up a mall. And so I think there's something effective about that. I will say, I'm generally with you, which is like I would almost always rather, we've had this conversation a lot, a new character, get time and blah, blah, blah.

So I don't, I can't dismiss that perspective entirely by any means. You know, I do get that. I did read after watching this episode that it was Lucas who came up with the idea of bringing Mall back, which is something I had not known. Apparently, after they did the Savage episodes, Lucas approached Faloni and said, what if we bring, what he actually said was, quote unquote, I've got an idea and you're going to love it. So that's, and the idea was, and when when Faloni said, you know, he's cut in half, how does that work? How do you bring him back? Lucas apparently said, I don't know, figure it out. So classic George. They dipped, they dipped Anakin in lava and said this machine is going to keep him going.

He took like a lava mud bath. Yep. And that's that's Vader. And so, yeah, no. Cut in half, he's going to be fine. But I love, it hit me here at the end of the episode. We'll talk about the other stuff, but we'll just talk. Let's focus on them all because we're on what raw means to us.

It hit me here how much I have come to care about this character. And so much and so much of it is Sam Whitwer and what this writing team did with the character, which is, what is it to be the discarded villain in this? To have been shaped to be the imposing the threat in the first movie, the character that no one who ever sees him ever forgets. uh you you know you're this you're you're this incredible figure you cut across this one movie and then because because of the way that goes because of the nature of the sith you're you're just gone if you'd survive that moment if you'd survive defeat what use does what use does evil have for you none whatsoever what have you been given uh for your life's purpose and it's awake pretty much nothing so what does what does survival mean and having this character go through

these years of trying to seek revenge, trying to form some sort of power base and find some sort of place in the world, and becoming someone who, like, becomes the connective thread, really, to the world of Clone Wars and this. Because, like, you know. More than Asoka, who's been in the show, but not, like, Assoca hasn't had, Assoca's had a couple of banger scenes. I'm not trying to take away from the character. But Maul has consistently, because of the relationship with Ezra,

has had an opportunity to really develop. You know, earlier I was like, Maul hasn't grown, which isn't true. Yeah. Maul has grown, but only in ways that, like, deepened his sadness and obsession, you know? And we've seen that through Ezra in a really, in a way that, like,

justifies a lot of Ezra's appearances in the show, frankly, you know, so. Well, and he can't, he is still fighting the last war. He is still, he is the one person who he remembers from the start that, like, you know, it was Cidious who did this to me. Uh, you know, that, you know, Asoka's moved on. She's fighting the empire. She is not like fighting Anakin specifically. She is fighting the empire.

She is on to the part of this where it's like about the rebellion versus the empire. And Maul is just haunting the show trying to like get these Hail Mary attempts at getting revenge on the people who like wronged him who, who led him to this plight that he, that he finds himself in. And I love that the payoff here is that really what he's been looking to do. is a range of confrontation where he's going to get killed. Like he's been, he's been seeking out Obi-Wan basically so that Obi-Wan can kill him. Because it does feel like he has no chance in this, right? Like the fight is so lopsided as the classic like samurai movie.

Like this is, you know, the master stroke. This is the closest thing ever got into Corosawa. They've tried so hard for so long to ape Corasawa. And this exchange and the quiet between the two of them, the part, You know, it's pretty clear Obi-Wan is confident. In fact, I think Obi-Wan's confidence is probably its whole other conversation we should have after seasons of Canaan kind of hemming and hawing and qualifying whenever he says anything

about the force of the world and the Obi-Wan is here. He's like, well, here's what's true. Here's what's false. You're not supposed to be here done. Go back to your own story, Ezra. But one of the things that was so good about this is, Moll does read Obi-Wan just not in combat. He reads him like a book when they're talking because he's been doing that. He's had to get good at that in order to survive for the last however many decades, 20 or two decades.

But he, you know. And you know, it's all about finding the thing Obi-Wan cares about and killing it. Oh, and that's the thing, right, is it's not just that he says, you know, oh, you know, their back and forth is basically, you know, oh, I'm all talking shit and being like, I'm ready to kill you. Look at you. You've been living in squalor. I've been getting stronger. And Obi-Wan being like, you know, I'm not, I don't define my power by the ability to kill things. And what Maul then realizes, like, he's like kind of ignoring everyone.

He's like, you couldn't, this is not where you would have come to just hide out. Why are you here? You're protecting something. You are protecting someone. And the way he says it isn't just, I'm saying this because I know it's true and I've divined your purpose. But, Rob, to your point, it's like, this is what I have to say. to get you to fight me to the death. Because now that you know that I know

that there's something important here that you have a purpose to defend, you have to kill me. You have to fight me to the death now. None of this force pushing me away. None of this, you know, creating a sandstorm and we disappear and I'm back in the desert alone. You have to try to kill me

and I have to try to kill you. And that manipulation and movement is really just such a great illustration of like what rebels has been trying to do with mall more than what Clone Wars was doing. But like the mall in the ear of Ezra, trying to get Ezra on his side, trying to tell Ezra, here's what you need, here's what your abilities are, blah, blah, blah, was really fun. So it reminded me a lot of, and I don't love every story in tales of the bounty hunters. And there's certain things that are set up there where I don't love some of the direction they set for Bobafat, where they kept to this idea that he's like sort of a religious monk who's out there like bounty hunting is the way he expresses his faith.

to sort of punish the wrongdoers of the world. It's like, what if he gave Jerry Falwell a gun? It's wild. And he has to drink from a sippy cup. Yep. And he hates drugs. Hage drugs and premarital sex. But the way that anthology ends, actually is a thing I really love, which is this, this, this, this, this, this Bobafat, you know, he's, he's hauled out of the, of the Sarlack pit.

And he's just obsessed with this idea of, I need to, I need to find and bring Han Solo to justice. And the end of the story, he finally corners Han Solo once years after the movies. And he corners him. And he basically, it's a scene in the Western, right? It's like, we're going to call it. Like, we're going to draw. And Han, I think in that moment, it's just like, what are you doing here, man? Like, what are we, like, this is over.

Like, we don't have to do this. We can just, like, you got nothing. Like, there's nothing more we have to do. We don't have to shoot at each other. And it sort of ends on sort of Boba Fett sort of contemplating, like, Maybe we do just leave it here. Maybe we let the past die. Or maybe we just let fly one last time and give each other everything we got.

And it's, I think it's a beautiful ending to having really flawed Boba Fett story. But it's something I was sucker for in Westerns in particular, the notion that like the past can literally be embodied and come out of the past to sort of challenge your future self and the person who buried these events and has moved on, force you to reckon with them physically. in a way that like, you know, renders, renders the metaphor of like the past always being with you to an immediate actual physical threat right in front of you. And I kind of love this moment that, you know, here's, here's, here's Obi-Wan confronting once again this character who just cannot, who will not, who will not fade away and who his story is entirely intertwined with yours, even though at this point like Obi-Wan's life is shaped in a, it is about something. else now. It is about, you know, preparing for this, this reckoning with the, the emperor. And in a weird way, Maul is brought to this moment because he's realized he can never, he's had that reckoning with the emperor. He's come up short both times. He can't, he can't get the person who actually did this to him. And so he is now left to try and challenge the person who

basically just delivered the killing blow and actually get him to finish the job. I was, I was sitting here watching this episode and I was like, this is so much better than so much the shit that Star Wars is done in intervening. This confrontation has so much more on it than a lot of the movies, like anything in the sequel trilogy?

Obi-Wan series? Like, oh. Yeah. Why does the Obi-1 series even exist if we have the seven minutes of him? Like, you know, come on, let's give it like a minute for minutes, second per second, see-for-cisee, like there, you know, it does that.

remember I'd seen this by the time we had watched Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I had to be like, ooh. Cool. Interesting. Natalie, what were you going to say? Sorry. No, I was just going to say, like, it's, it is so affecting the way that Mall is, like, the journey of Maul that we've watched since he was, you know, in Phantom Menace through Clone War,

even through, like, the comics that we've read and, you know, through onto Rebels, is, like, it has this parallel for me of this, like, tragic, this tragic character similar to Anakin in the sense that, like, Maul thought of himself as a chosen one at one point as well. Like he thought he was He was Sheave's guy Like he was going to go with Sheave and usher in a new order of the world And that they were the duo that was going to To accomplish that together And and it is It is it is really hard to watch

But is like it is so affecting to watch the way in which each time Moll is discarded by whatever larger force there is that is like trying to exploit him, essentially, to use him as a tool, um, Moll still like comes back to weave himself back in. He's like, I must be a part of this larger, uh, story. Like, I, I have to have a have a larger role here in and it's that like it's that incessant kind of um inability to accept that he his time is is done like he that that not only less that his time is done but more so that he the reality that he was a tool and has always ever been. a tool to be used and set aside or even worse, like discarded and thrown away.

And I think what you were saying earlier, Rob, about not having access to Sheave and Obi-Wan being the closest thing. Like, Obi-Wan has been there since essentially the beginning. He is the only other person that was there when we met Maul. Like he met Maul when we met Maul in a in a way and I just I find him such a compelling character and I think there's a version of Mall that is kind of the like the villain that just won't die and is like and he's back but he has this and he's back and he has that but it's it's the way in which it's like

it's his motivation for coming back that I think keeps him like in a lot of ways sympathetic to me and yeah it's it's sad that he

I mean I joked earlier that like why would Obi-Wan avoid this when it took him two seconds but I do think I do think the timing like the consolidation

of it all it works It's like, it's like the final, how many blows has Obi-Wan laid against Maul? They've dueled a thousand times at this point, right? Exactly. It's like, it's not about their ability or their, like, fighting prowess. Like, we have seen that proved over and over and over again that Obi-Wan and sometimes Maul. Remember Maul whoop those Inquisitors during the last season finale?

Yeah. Yep. So we know he has it like that, you know? We absolutely do. But this is about Maul no longer having a role. This is about Maul no longer being, he like, he is like a, he is like Greek tragedy to me in a big way. Like the thing that reminds me of is when we were reading the Thron books, we kind of talked about Thron from the other side, which is like Thron doesn't seem to know he's in a Star Wars story, right? And so there's this

There's this sense that like he can't account for the force Which is we'll come back to that later, right? He doesn't understand how the force works and the force can push on events in ways that are Unpredictable and that support certain figures in history Maul does understand that and is like and I'm going to be one of those figures in history I'm going to push myself in the plot line because I can like work on the sort of narrative logic of the force, I'm going to make myself be a part of it. And the other thing that I think is, I was thinking about a lot here.

Back in Clone Wars, I, you know, did that big, that big speech about how everybody is kind of, everyone is a clone, right? Everyone is the, the clones are caught in this system of power and abuse and misuse. The Jedi, you know, Padawans are, the Sith apprentices and assassins are. This structure repeats itself over and over again. And the other thing about Maul is, and especially with Maul confronting Obi-Wan, as Obi-Wan is looking at Luke, who we know, and Rob, this is a common point for you, that Obi-Wan is going to point Luke like a missile and Yoda are going to point Luke like a missile at Darth Vader and the Emperor, which is exactly how Maul was used to be pointed at Quigon and Obi-Wan in The Phantom Menace. there's sort of an implicit question that's being asked again and again in Star Wars, at least through the prequels, Rebels Clone Wars,

and then even into the original trilogy, which is, and maybe even into the sequel trilogy in some ways, which is there are systems of power that are going to try, and people with power, not just systems, but also people, individuals,

who are going to try to shape you to their ends in ways that will run against what you want and what you believe is right. Even Luke disagrees with Yoda and says, I have to go save my friends in Cloud City. Even Luke says, no, I can save Darth Vader. Obi-Wan and Yoda don't believe you can save Darth Vader. Obi-Wan and Yoda believe you got to go kill that guy. He's unsavable.

He's irredeemable. We lost Anakin a long time ago. Luke says no to that. And in some ways, it feels like Maul is being put against not just Obi-Wan here, but that vision of hope and redemption and justice that Luke, represents that Luke will grow up to represent, which is there is always a way to save them, right? There's always a way to, you don't have to do what the person who taught you how to hold a lightsaber wants you to do with the lightsaber.

And to his dying breath, the only thing that Maul could commit himself to doing, even though he hated Sidious, was doing what Sidious told him to do from the jump, which was go kill Quigangin and Obi-Wan Kenobi. That's what he dies doing. He dies doing the thing the person he hates the most told him to go do 20 years ago, which is 25 years ago, 30 years ago, because it was when Anik was a kid, like, completely obsessed with that original mission, even though his final words are, boy, I hope you kill that sheave motherfucker, right? Like, that's wild. And so I think that there's like a real emerging way

to read Star Wars that is about how do you respond to being used by the powerful when they shape you. That's in fives. That's in Asoka. That's in, it's in everybody. Like, that's like the big mega, that's in Darth Vader, right? Darth Vader lives a whole life being pushed first by the Jedi and then by the Sith into being who he is. And then finally in his final moments resists that in order to become this true version of himself that loves his family, loves his son, and is willing to die for him, right? And so, like, real clarity here. And I think partly to go back to Ali, your early question was like, what do we get by having a be mall? I sort of think that's part of what we get.

Not that we couldn't have arrived there with a new character. certainly if the Inquisitor, the Grand Inquisitor, had been given a lot of screen time in Rebels, maybe we could have gotten there. Do you know what I mean? But we get a bit of it extra, and we get the kind of meta part of it with Maul having been tossed off screen

at the end of Phantom Menace. I just think it works. I think it opens up, it contributes to that reading of Star Wars being about what do you do when people throw you like a spear into the world, you know? Yeah. The last thing, his last words, you know,

he will avenge us is great too because like you think about the trail of bodies that Sidious has left right that like Maul's brother killed yep like all the night sisters dead yep he doesn't even include Duku in this but in a weird way Duku also like turned into a pond completely you know yeah of a plan that he did not come close to fathoming he's including Obi-Wan in someone who needs to be in the Jedi order all the force users Every single, like this guy, like, twisted the entire shape of the galaxy around himself, around the force, and every other community of force users. Everyone who has this one thing in common with each other was like twisted and destroyed by this one guy. And the thing that unites them at the end is the, is the thought that we are about to deliver this guy his retribution.

that like it in his dying moments he's at least on the same side of this and in a weird way there's this sort of like you know brotherly moment between him as he is he sort of it's his last tie to quigon right oh yeah it's like the past is now truly over um and and that is and that that's the end of it uh it's it's such it's such a good moment it's great it's so good it's like it's like mall in obiwan have been tied like the string of destiny has tied them from from phantom menace until now and it's like no matter like no matter what happened mall the arrow of mall always had to land like in front like delivered in front of uh of obi one at obi won's feet and this this like always had to come around somehow and And this is, like, the only way for Moll to be freed of that, of that, like, that, fucking don't forget, I don't know.

Don't forget, he killed Sotene. This is the motherfucker who killed Sotene in front of, in front of Obi-Wan, right? So, like, whew, the history is. It's deep. Yeah. One could have, one could have expected Obi-Wan to be a little more of a shooter for, for Ceteen, to be honest, but, you know, that's, that is, that is, that is, Obi-Wan's, like, quiet ass fucking mode.

He meditates about it now. Yeah, he's just like, he's in his fucking quiet vibes in his, in, in, withdrawn in his, like, you know. One other thing I want to shout out here, just because the confrontation with, with Mall's great. I, this is such a good Obi-Wan. So they change voice actor. This is,

uh, so they, this is not the same voice actor as Obi-1 from Clone Wars, but this is one of their other standbys. I think it's, uh, Stephen Stanton, uh,

is, I believe that's right. Um, the, the, the, the credit note that I wrote down was that this was, uh,

written by Dave and Henry and directed by Dave. And so if ever there was, if anyone ever tells you that they don't got it, they do got it. Yeah. Oh, no, it was, it was, um,

yes, you're right. Because, because, because James Arnold Taylor Taylor Taylor Taylor Taylor, does the Obi-Wan hologram, but yes, Stephen Stanton does Ben as the Ben-Kinobi versus Obi-Wan-Kinobi. And the delivery is so spot on Alec Guinness in Star Wars.

It is, he's not doing an Al-Iginnis impression, but the delivery, the cadence is like absolutely perfect. It is a tremendous, and I love it because it feels like, oh, shit, like Obi-Wan from the Clone Wars has turned into Obi-W-W-W-W-W-W-W. won from Star Wars and that is also a really impactful moment in a weird way that he sort of emerges here and now he is not you know he's not the um you and mcgregor inspired character that that we last remember like he he has now become uh sort of the the wizened mentor that we remember from the first film and it's just such a good good moment because you know you capture him in his

mentor mode the thing that luke sees in him when he first meets him telling yet another dumb kid that man you fucked up which it's really kind of as mentors go this is what he tends to do is like he dealt with his limit his lifetime limit of

hot head shit with Anakin and now he just does not have it in him to it's a humor don't forget he's also been escorting Leia around a few years before a year or two before this whenever that was so a plucky little scamp

yeah and he was slicing meat. Uh-huh. Yeah. He was slicing it up. He was making meat cubes. They were beautiful cubes. Shoutouts.

They were beautiful. Shoutouts to the beautiful cubes. Yeah. But yes, Rob, I agree. Is it the same lizard, do you think? The same lizard in this? No, that's a dewback. He was chopping a lot.

No, no, no, no. No, no. He had like a horse in the Obi-Wan series. The horse lizard. Oh, that's the same horse, I think. The one, his lizard. Yeah. It's probably the same.

That was the lizard getting the cubes. that we see in this episode. I was worried you were saying that he killed the dude, but the doobacks with their chopping in the meat, which I would not hear from now. No, no, no. But yeah, it's great. I love his whole telling Ezra like, yeah,

I knew about the mall situation, kid. Knew all about it. I've been really trying really hard to not run into that guy, but you kind of forced my hand. So I guess I'm just going to do this, but you need to get off this fucking planet. Here. Go take Mal's ship.

Trust me. He ain't going to come looking for it. Yeah, you're going to need that for the next episode, buddy. Go take his cool ship. Yeah. I find it fascinating that Mal, like, said his last words to Ezra were like, goodbye, my apprentice or something like that. Even though, like, Maul must have known that he would never, like, this. This was the last time he would ever see Ezra in that, like, the fact that there was no, nothing, that combined with the fact that Maul didn't, like, try and get Ezra to stay or like, the game was up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, or like, yeah, like, what if he kills Obi-Wan here? And then he goes back and he's like, Ezra, thank you. This is your place in the force. You led me to Obi-Wan so that I could kill him in enact justice. and then we get the classic fall to the dark side. Which, by the way, things have disappeared from this season. The Ezra Kubrick staring.

Well, that's just growing up. Yeah, but that was this season. I know it's hard for us to remember this because we've, it's taken us nine months to watch. So many pauses. Yeah, we've taken so many pauses. I think it's been nine months. I think that when we watched season three, episode one, steps into shadow, it was, it was early last year. or like maybe mid

last year but that was when we got Kubrick's there yeah this was it was okay it was June that's not that that long ago I guess you know that's maybe maybe not as soon as we'd like but

yeah but in going back over like my because I keep all of my season notes in one document and I was rereading from the top of the season and I was just like wow we started with we started with mall yeah and we're ending here with mall and there was so much more

of a threat of Ezra falling to the dark side and I do think there's like in some of the ways that Ezra engages with the Sith holocron it's like it's giving it's giving you know slightly dark-sighted. Like, what if I just, I could dabble in the dark side and it wouldn't affect me. I'm different vibes. But it, but it never really goes anywhere. And it, and I expect next season. Maybe, but who will be the, who will be, yeah, maybe he's just, maybe we're just going to settle into Kingin and Ezra, just do it different when it comes to the force. And it's, well, hear me out. Grace, gray shit. He, he, he, this is the thing. Like, I don't think. Like, I don't think. mall calling him my apprentice is entirely vanity right like to an extent like Ezra has been

marked by mall like he has he has had that influence on him canaan is not a doctrinaire like he didn't graduate the program he's got like a certificate that yoda like mailed to him after the fact like i figure by certify that one canaan jeras is qualified to uh to provide Jedi 100 material instruction. But some of what happens here is that as Ezra realizes, well, one, Ezra realizes over the course of this, that like he runs away from, they're getting ready for this mission,

and he goes rogue to go do Jedi stuff, which is the Luke Skywalker move all along, right? Like that I have to go do Jedi stuff. So good luck with the evacuation of all. I mean, I'm leaving. It's also what Canaan and he did last season. which was like, we got to go deal with these inquisitors one way or the other because we can't focus down on what our core mission is

while they're in the back of our minds, right? And by the end of this, it's this recognition that, like, no, this is my family, this is my fight, like, this is where I need to be. And it's sort of the, like, no longer elevating his Jedi journey as sort of the highest priority. There's something else that takes precedent. there's other loyalties that take precedence. And so maybe there is a bit of we are setting up for someone

who's going to be not dealing in the Jedi or Sith path necessarily, but much, much more as like force as tool, right? And, like, I'm curious where it does go. Yeah. Is basically where things stand, especially because, you know, we get to this, but I was worried that they weren't kill Canaan. and at the end of the... Sure felt like it.

Sure felt like it was on its way. But you're right also in this other kind of structural sense, which is if another way this show could have gone is that Mall stays in the show, continues to try to mentor slash manipulate Ezra, and then the final showdown, you know, Thron gets dealt with this season, and the next season, Mall takes the center stage.

Or Thron and Mall are kind of dual, antagonists in the final season and Ezra's final position is a 1v1 versus Maul, you know, to save Canaan or something like that, right? And like, Ezra's soul, but that's just off the table now, right? We don't have, the Inquisitors seem to be dead. Mall is dead. I don't expect, I mean, I guess Vader could take the stage, but if Ezra 1V1's Vader, he'll lose.

You know, outside of Asoka being mind controlled and turned into someone that Ezra can duel or Canaan. But you know what I mean? Like the, not that the force has to leave the show, but it will, it doesn't feel like it will be about a Jedi versus Sith direct conflict at this point. Unless they introduce another new character, like it's Legends of Cora over here to be the, you know, number one rival for Ezra or something. But like, it doesn't seem like that's where we're going. And in some ways, I'm excited to see where they go with him instead, you know? We'll see. discussed approximately a third of the episode. The rest of it isn't... Does it matter? I mean... Oh, sorry. Tattooing Desert looks great. Such a good job of evoking the Macquarie concept art.

True. Chopper is here. That was originally going to be Canaan and they changed it to chopper. Oh, so sad. It's way sadder as chopper. Yeah. Yeah, I think it works better as chopper. I love, I do really like the moment where, uh,

As Ezra is making the decision, like he, from Adelon, he lands on Tatouine. He's like following, after encountering a bunch of Tuskins, he continues to follow the Sith Holocron to where he thinks it is bringing him to Obi-Wan. and there's a moment where they like leave the kind of canyon out into the big expanse and Chopper and Ezra are debating like, well, if we go along the ridge, it'll be safer. If we go out into the middle of the desert, it'll be certainly more dangerous. And Ezra, like the holocron kind of pulls him towards the middle of the desert. Ezra is like, all right, I'm going this way.

you can go alongside the ridge and like catch a ride home or like call like you know check in on what's going on at the rebel base but I'm I'm going to go this way and chopper there's like a really cute moment that's chopper kind of like looks back and forth at Ezra moving deeper into the desert or alongside the safety of the ridge and reluctantly chooses to follow Ezra it's very cute and And I like when Chopper is not just like the goofy, you know, like, he is goofy and silly and everything. But I like when he's like, I like moments where he's making decisions that show his relationship to these characters. It's like nice to see that come through. So that was cool. Otherwise, yeah, that's kind of the episode. The thing that I mentioned before about there being a longer cut of the episode originally, or at least a longer script for the episode.

I'm not sure how much of it got produced, but there's a panel in 2017 called The Animated Origins Unexpected Fates panel from Star Wars Celebration. And in that, which got written up on Star Wars.com by Kristen Baver, there's a section in here that gets into it. Let me read you from that. The recent Star Wars Rebel's episode, Twin Suns, was originally 35 minutes long. Show runners were forced to leave extraneous scenes on the cutting room floor, choosing to pare down the lead-up to the final duel between Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi with a tight focus

on Ezra's journey to Tatooine. Quote, I kept as much Sam Whitware as I could because Sam will call me. Faloni joked. That meant that some scenes with Canaan and Hara were on the chopping block. The audience groaned. not like that like you want i don't know what he means by not like that i don't know i think he means sex yeah yeah we were going to put them fucking in this episode but we decided maybe not the right time or place uh quote it was about their side of the family and zeb was there too

to fit the essential the essentials in the 21 minutes philony also dish plans to include hauntings from all's past on his journey like a vision of satin and an apparition of savage the knight brother even made it to the design phase before felon he thought better of it in an already lengthed the episode, time couldn't be spared to explain Savage's origins and the creators couldn't risk alienating new fans who would be confused by his sudden appearance. Quote, uh, this is going to sound strange, but no one's going to know who this is, Follone said. If rebels is all you know, you can't take for granted that people know what it is.

This episode is so stripped down, Hidalgo said, but by eliminating the non-essentials, it made the core story even stronger. I would love it. The director's saying it. Yeah, release the director's cut, release the full cut. But I didn't, I don't think that they, based on the way that it was talked about here, it sounds like it was not actually, the cutting room floor is being used metaphorically, not literally, because of all they got to was the design phase of Savage.

They didn't shoot anything. Okay, but there was, those, like, lost Claude Wars episodes that were just like PG's talking to each other fucking hit. So, at least the director is kind of incredible. I would love it so much. I would, dude, it would have, can you imagine how devastated you'd be if, like, Tatouin was haunted by the ghosts of the people that like Maul let down, killed, hurt.

Yeah. If he and Obi-Wan had an exchange. It's so hard. I would have lost my... Satine, the woman who never existed effectively at this... You know what I mean? Satine not being an Obi-Wan Kenobi is... And it's for this reason, right?

Because you have to explain who she is because she's not in the original movies, right? But, you know, Laya couldn't have asked like did you ever have someone and then we get like a little cutaway to his team now okay it's fine it's also like why isn't she in the Mandalorian like why is it she coming up in the Sabine stuff where are we doing what are we doing what are we doing what are we doing why are we making characters and then not caring about them ever again why are we doing that so many times and this is why the Clone Wars approach of like this is a great idea for a story

let's do three episodes on it is so good that's the version of this where it's like there's the act one Hera tries to get Ezra to lock in on the mission and he's like no I just I can't do it to the characters wandering the desert in preparation for the confrontation then three the confrontation like Ezra meaning Obi-Wan Obi-Wan and Maul like chopping it up one last time before literally chopping it up

Uh-huh, uh, that, uh, it'd be so good. It'd be so good. Like, it is, this is an extraordinary episode. Like, it's, it's gorgeous. I, I love it. The final fight's so great. I could have, I could have, I could have had a feast. And instead was like, what a great topas bar that was. And it's true, like, who doesn't love a delicious topace plate? But you know what? I've almost never been to a top of, like, in a top of situation where it's like, there's like there's like three really good things on that menu. Did we? And sorry, finish, finish, finish talking. Because I found something that I think we did not comment on. Finish your topest metaphor.

Well, I'm just saying, like, most top situations. Like, there's two or three things on this menu that were, like, really good. And I could have just, like, eaten those. And then there's a bunch of other little stuff. And I want, I'm being denied the feast. We must have talked about this. Did we talk about the fact that Maul has a painting of sateen in his little cave and visions and voices? We did, yeah.

We must have talked about that. Okay. I just don't remember it because it was eight months ago or whatever. But okay I'm gonna paste it here He did just loot a bunch of stuff on his way out of Mandelaire that looks like Yeah, it's in that cubist style

So you know, that Mandalorian style That they do So that is, that does feel shrine coated Well, and I think it's a painting he stole And then he crossed out her eyes and neck That's what he did Oh God Yeah, it's kind of brutal

You know I think that's the last time Soutine shows up in all of Star Wars So that's what I was going to check on. I was like, are we ever going to get more sateen? Or do we just need to make peace with the fact that it's done? I won't be at peace. I'm never going to be at peace.

You can tell me that she's never coming back and I will, therefore, I will never have peace. Maybe she'll be, ever. Maybe Obi-Wan to think about her once in season seven of Clone Wars or something. I don't know. Okay, I know, okay. I know that I started the conversation off by being like, What do we think the value of Darth Mall is?

And we all had this very good discussion about, like, the tragedy of him and, you know, the fact that we never see him at this height of his power is really great. But what if we did a Darth Mall mini-series where he's actually in power, Mandelor, which is important that, yeah. Clone Wars did not show that because we never want to see him, you know, in, you know what I mean? But what if we had a different show? And it was all about, like, people being like, you did that shit to Stee?

And everyone was talking about Cheteen that whole series. And you can just put Sam Whitworth in some costume. You sure friggin' end. You could even, what's the name of his, what's the name of his group? What's the name of his gang? That's what I was going to say. Like, you could just do a show about him. Is it?

Black Sun. And then there's red, no, he's part of the Red. Ah, shit. Crimson Dawn? Crimson Dawn. Yes. I think he might be both But my guess is

My guess is they moved him from Black Sun to Crimson Dawn Because of the neo-Nazi group called Black Sun That also exists in the real world And they're like, what if we made him Crimson Dawn instead? Maybe that's the thing that we should do No, they kept Black Sun in Star Wars though It's still around Well, he

What would the Shadow Collective was the like alliance Yes He brought together which enabled him to take power Right, because Shizor is Black Sun, right? Prince Shizor from... Oh, yeah. Zizor is Black Sun. Yeah.

It's Shizor, Rob, because it's Caesar. I hate it. I know. I've only found this out, like, a couple years ago. I was talking to the editor of the collection I did that Star Wars story for, and he said Shizor. And I was like, oh. Yeah, I was like, who?

From a book we should read at some point in here. Shadows the Empire. We should read Shadow the Empire in between, in between, Empire and Return of the Jedi. Oh, okay. Which is when that book takes place. Oh, no. Han Solo's been case in Carbonite.

There's a story with no Han Solo. Dash Rendar. Correlian smuggler extraordinaire. What are you doing here? There's a different ship. It's called The Outrider, and it's very cool. You're right. The shit was the Shadow Collective, and then yeah, Crimson Dawn, I guess, right?

So they could do a Crimson Dawn show. That would be such a good show. It would be so good. Give us, like, a prestige. crime show all up i don't even would they let would they would they let it cook would it be able to cook or would we end up getting more

dryden voss or who the fuck ever from solo no it would cook and we would have a bunch of flashbacks of when sateen was at charge and we would see the two versions of mandolore or whatever and it would be good i mean maybe sateen will come up in mandolore in mandolorean one day Like that would actually

They haven't done it in four seasons of Mandalorian I mean she has not come with Bo Catan being in every one of those seasons If they haven't done it by now Yeah Like they're just memory hauling her Because the thing is if you bring up Satin So this is the thing You can't have your whole beautiful redemption arc for Mandelore

Oh it's so good the Mandalarians are like starting the forges once more When the person who was like hey we need to stop killing each other all the time And maybe move beyond the whole like warrior cult No we have to we have to memory hole Satine because she was the one person who was like, I don't know if you want to be getting knee deep in war ever again. Yeah. Yeah.

And you can't, to the point that she couldn't be, like, Savage couldn't be in this episode. You're not putting her in the Mandalorian and Grogu movie to be like, here's this woman that wasn't mentioned when Boketan. It had to be in the Bocatan show. Like, if we ever got that, it would be, yeah. I could imagine, I mean, I'm sure she's been mentioned, I'm sure Bocahattan has said my sister once or twice in Mandalorian. I have been watching that show. I have been watching Boca Tan scenes like a hawk. I have been like, you know, like when a cat like gathers their little paws like really tightly under them and just watch intently like ready to spring and they can just hold that for like hours. That is me when Boatatan is on the screen because it's like Sateen's going to be mentioned. Like something about like we're going to get.

something with a connective tissue between these Mandalorians and what we saw, no, nothing. And so much about her dad. Like, we've had the Bogota talks about her family shit. And, like, that's when Sateen would have been mentioned. It's her fucking sister.

Her fucking sister. Her sister was the fucking president. What are we doing? The Mandalarians also, do you not remember? They just don't mention. They remember when we were ruled by that red guy for a few weeks. Yeah, they don't mention that so much.

Yeah. Like, I showed up and, like, he just kicked a lot of asses. And then he was like, I'm your king now? And we were like, yeah, that's the rule, I guess. So. Oh, my God.

Okay, well. It made sense in Black Panther. Yeah. Should we go with the rest of these episodes? Absolutely. Let's talk about them. Let's dig into zero hour. So,

remember how Ezra was, like hey callus we think the empire's on to you it'd be a good time to get out of here and calis is like no i got this unconvincing patsy over here it's gonna be fine i'm good a lot of rebels about to die for that little bit of hubris rip commander sato callus had to stay in there to try to stunt on thron and uh this is this is what happens so thron tricks Callis into radioing a warning to Phoenix Squadron that Thrawn is expecting their attack on Lethal. He triangulates Callas's message with one of the locations of the rebel fleets, finds their hidden base, and arrest Callis after they do karate to each other.

The rebels realize Callis' cutoff message means that Thrawn is coming, but before they can escape, the Imperials arrived with a huge fleet backed by interdicted cruisers, meaning there is no escape for Phoenix Squadron or General Dodana's fleet. when Mothma tells the rebels Damn, that sucks and says she can't send reinforcements but she'll do what she can for them once they're taken prisoner.

Ezra volunteers to slip through the blockade to try and get forces from Mandelor during the assault. Admiral Constantine tries to steal glory by bringing his interdictor cruiser. The one thing Thrawn can't afford to lose. Admiral Constantine's like, I must bring it

into action against Commander Sato's carrier and Sato takes the chance to execute a suicidal ramming attack on the cruiser, destroying both ships and opening the path for Ezra to get to Mandelor where, of course, the Mandalorians, being Mandalorians, are now in the midst of a civil war

and are too busy to provide aid to the rebellion. But once Sabine's like, I have to go help my friends, her family decide, eh, how will it, we can do a rescue mission. Meanwhile, Canaan asks Bendu for help and then really pisses the big guy off.

And we'll come to the consequences of that. Thrawn leads a ground assault on Phoenix Squadron base after scaring them a lot with a bombardment that is fended off by that generator that got from Geonosis. While Thrawn is busy with that, Governor Price is in charge of the blockade. Phoenix base is overrun,

but just as Thrawn has cornered Hera and the ghosts, Bendu shows up as a giant, furious storm, and begin smiting everyone he can, telling them to get off his planet and making a point to say fuck Canaan and Jaris in particular. Meanwhile, Ezra and the Mandalorians board the interdictors hull, destroys gravity projector, causing the whole ship to explode. Governor Price watches as the rebel fleet,

like rockets past her window making their escape. Thrawn has the idea that they just shoot the big Mufasa cloud right in the middle. That'll probably kill whatever's causing this, and that appears to work. Bendu appears to get got. But as Thron goes to administer the coup de grah, Bendu tells him he has a vision of Thrawn's death gripped in the cold embrace by many arms.

My God, that sounds a lot like Thrawn's sigil. Oh. The Chimeres sigil. That's interesting. Thrawn is shaken by the prophecy and shoots Bendu only for Bendu to disappear and leave only haunting laughter behind him. The rebels rescue.

Calus on their way out of the system and begin their journey to Yavin-4 with new improved hot callus in tow. Hot Callis is here. I'm sorry. Let's refer to him by his real name, which is Punished Callis. You're right. I think Hot Callis might be who we meet next year. You're right.

You're right. This is punished callous. We'll get to Hot Callis. Yeah. Everything has its... The stages are important. They will be important in the future. I'm so glad I made peace with my callous hate so I could move on

so that I can enjoy this callous being tied up and and the little single big lock of hair in front of his eyes. It's crazy. It's crazy work. I was like, ooh, I was like, ooh, you changed, like that, ooh, the hair, the hair is not toy hair anymore. It's like the hair is broke. It, like, it just, it really, it really meant a lot to me, but they did that.

Real quick. Just last off the last episode, there's a close-up on Ezra's face while he's all, like, in the Death Storm. The show cast, we careful about the close-ups. Sometimes there's a Mr. Potato Head thing going on. We look too close with these characters. It looks like a little bit of felt glued to people's, like, heads. Quick question.

This episode opens on a, the wide shot of Lothal we've seen with a big Imperial, like, headquarters building and the reflecting pool. but now it's like a toxic green sludge. And I'm trying to remember, was it always a toxic green sludge outside that base? It's not just that, but it's got like L.A. smog going on. It has the orange sunset with the gray-ass sky that's like pushing down on it. I do think that they've industrial hubbed Lothal and turned it from just like a shipping center into something else. Like I do think, I'm curious.

Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana. I do wonder if we didn't get the whole premise of as we're going to Tatooine was like, I have to get ready. I have to lock in for our Lothal rescue mission. And then that did not happen, right? And so that doesn't happen because of the stuff that happens in this, because Thron goes to attack Adelon instead. And I am curious if we're going to get the follow-up, which will be go to do the Lothal mission still so we can get some Lothal action again, because it's been a while since we've really been there. They make a big point of being like, that's our home.

We have to go back to home. And I do think, Rob, you're catching something, which is maybe we'll get there and it will be a nightmare. We'll have seen firsthand what the empire does to places. The scouring of Lothal is coming. Right, exactly. The fact that Callis not only didn't like go with them when they offered him the escape,

but he's still like sneaking around ducts to do little recordings as if he's playing Deus X. Bro, lay low for five minutes. Like make sure you're never in a place where you can get jumped. Just like chill out for a little bit. Watch your back, you know? The heat was just on.

Like, what are you doing? I don't know. He doesn't have it sometimes, man. Yeah. I did think at first, like, is he being fed false information when we get... That's what I thought was going to be the plus. Me too.

We get Thron talking to Tarkin via hologram and being like, ooh, is he going to like say some shit to like get them to go somewhere else and then he'll be in the real place. But he doesn't even like let that even be a possibility because like the next scene for Callis is getting busted, transmitting as fulcrum. Did anybody know where he was? Esra's little tower. He's an Ezra's little tower. He's an Ezra's little treehouse tower from the first season. That's what he's set up as his as his fulcrum base. it's great we get a little one-on-one we get a little one-v-one with uh it's such a good moment though

this thron is so good he's mid-transmission the door slides open yeah and uh god what's the what's the line thron gives him as he walks in it's up there it reminded me of of uh the timber and batman if you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight uh it's got that energy to it yeah what does he By the light of the Lothal moons. Yeah, because that's his, like, code phrase or whatever. That's, like, Callis's, like, cat, yeah, code phrase for communicating with the rebels. Oh, my God, it's so good. Callis has become such an emo kid.

He says to him, oh, my God. When, like, Thron goes on is like, you know, like, I've caught you. Like, I know that you're fulcrum, like, blah, blah. And then it just, it, like, ends with callous saying to the, Thron, you talk too much. And then they get into a fist site. I was like, is that shit?

Protagonist coded. That I'm that shit that I've been waiting for. Yes, it's so good. I'm like, okay, Cal's is finally here with us. Well, that's the thing where it's like, if you're going to redeem him, do the whole thing. You know what I mean? Do it all. If we're going to go down this path, which we have lots of caveats on, we've spoken a bunch,

at least do the fucking thing. Like, at least really do it and let us root for him as he's in a 1V1 versus Thron. up in Ezra's Tower, you know? At least let him shit talk with a grin on his face, which they do. And it's like, they, yeah, okay, cool. That's, you know, pitch came right across the plate. They did it. That's the right way to do it.

I mean, this is the bit also where Thron is like spoken like a rebel or something like that. Or you have the heart of a rebel. And he's like, that's a compliment. I'll take that as a compliment. Yeah. It's great. It's good. Also, the little throwaway line, Thron has about, you're good, but you're limited by the fact you were trained at the Imperial Academy.

There's a bit of that, like, we're both outsiders to this, right? You're the insiders become an outsider, and I'm the true outsider. And again, like to an extent there's always this vibe of. Thron wants to see how this plays out. Yeah. To an extent. But I love, I love the entire sequence. I love the show's lighting.

It's so good. The fight choreography. is fantastic. It's a great sequence. And it kind of seems like him deleting the coordinates of that planet kind of worked because they were able to send. This is kind of a weird thing. They were able to send the

probe droid to that planet. They didn't have a problem doing that. But now there's no record of the planet except Thron doesn't just study art. He studies myth that inspires art. Yeah. And so perhaps deleted from the

Imperial database might have worked. If I hadn't studied the art of this one species that depicts this planet being here, it's so funny. It's so funny. You say so, man. Yeah. Yeah. You got to, you got to, well, again, like, they're keeping the art thing, but they're getting rid of the eugenics part of his art thing. It's more just like, I study art to know about the world and the people in it, you know, so.

Yeah, it's like, what can we derive from, like, what information is? is hidden within the art rather than like, like, because this person made this art, it means they are in, like... In capable of strategic thinking or, like, dramatic action or whatever. Yes, their species does not use critical thinking. Exactly, yeah. Is this the first time we've seen over on the other side on the rebel side? Did Donna, or did he show up on the big Hara calls everybody,

or my mothma calls everybody he shows up until he speaks okay okay he's like i've forgotten how much he was the dude in a new hope like that's his fleet sort of in a new hope right so it gives you the training mission briefings in the x-wing see the rom game true yeah there he is there's the guy also looks like the dude from the big lobowski damn damn you know what the dude would have figured it all out for these rebels probably he would have figured it out it would have been super chill the whole time. It would have been actually really stressful, but he would have been super chilled out about it. Yeah. And then it's fight time. It's kind of on. Like the Dada's ships and stuff show up in space, but, you know, before they can, they're going to gathering the whole

armada effectively or the whole fleet to go do the Lothal mission. But like they don't even get a chance to do anything because Thrawn's crew shows up basically immediately or the, whoever is it Constantine who he sends first to kind of lock them down and then Thrawn's fleet will show up in a bit and I think he brings everything all at once because like Constantine is in charge of the interdictors but he did oh yeah and maybe it just times it out but remember he has he's like go there now deploy the fleet and then I'll I'll join you then we'll be joining you shortly or whatever the chimera comes in a beat after yeah Constantine opens fire on them that's what it is On the frigates.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool space fight. It's good shit. It's good shit. They are outnumbered. They're outgunned. Thrawn is good at this.

Thron knows. Oh, and Thron treats Sindola as his real adversary. Like, the Donazol, but, like, he's kind of, like, he is interested most in Sindula as his opponent because, like, of that duel they had on Rylahaw. that she's the most interesting she's the most interesting foe he has yeah uh in this group but he basically gives the speech of of like no there's no there's no there's no surrender being offered like i am going to end all your dreams and ambitions right here right now yeah um you sort of the this is not the this is not the villain telling you to beg for mercy that's not what he's here to do

he's here to crush you all yeah uh so you know from from from there it's on uh now Unfortunately, he still has those staffing issues. He sure does. I like on the rebel side that we get a really classic, like, this is a good war film structure, right? Which is like, it can't just be the battle if what you're doing is an adventure story. You're doing it an adventure story, not a war story. And there's war in it. But you need characters to have other things, other tasks other than fighting.

And so we get, all right, can you go get us help, Ezra? It's actually Ezra and Canaan. Can you go get us help? your Jedi, you'll have the best chance of slipping past this group and escaping. And then, and then on the way to that, Canaan's like, actually, I can also give us help from somebody else. Don't worry about it. I haven't told anybody about this guy, BRB. This is where I was in full panic because the start of the episode. Ezra has his big heart to heart with Canaan. Right. You're right. Where he's basically like, you know, I've realized something like, you're not just my mentor.

Like you've taught me how to Because Canaan's like I'm not much of a Jedi trainer I don't know that much about it I've been really limited And Ezra basically is like You taught me how to be a good person though Yeah

And I was like oh my God They're gonna kill Canaan It was the most like Last conversation coded thing They're gonna And then Canaan's like It is all about the family In this like they're so clearly a family unit

He and Herra and are much more open in sort of their affections, the way they address each other. She calls him, like, love a few times in this, right? And he's like, I have one thing to go take care of alone. Don't worry, I'll be back. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is, they're going to, they're going to rip our hearts out here, aren't they? And they don't, but I sure thought it was going to go that way.

I will feel, it feels like a death clock was just put on the screen. Like, I do, is he, is he going to, make it out of this whole thing, do we think? Like, he doesn't make it out of these episodes, but... I don't think Canaan makes it out of the whole thing. Me either. No. I think mostly because of that, like, for Ezra.

Right. Like, I think it's going to be a thing where, like, we've already had the conversation where, was it in this episode? Hold on. Oh, yeah. It was in this episode where Camer. Canaan and Ezra have the moment of, as we're talking about, like, you know, you've taught me so much. I mean, yeah, that's what Rob was saying, yeah, was that scene, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry. No, but, like, that's the scene, right? Like, that's setting up the stage. There's no way you have that conversation, then he gets out of the show alive. Yeah, I did. But, like, thinking of the age, you know, target for rebels. And a thing that I really appreciated with rebels is that they have made. like they've changed the models over time like canaan has a blindness as or has the the um

scars uh you know callus is a sexy man now right that i feel like they're more invested in the growth there you know i don't know maybe maybe i'm just trying to hold on to yeah i mean to me like i'm hoping that we got through it there because i was like they're i think it's a bit like they're faking us out that this this episode's going to have stakes but in the end all the characters we care about are going to make it out, but they had to make a sweat a little bit. I'm hope, but it was a, it was an alarming, but a very sweet one that Ezra sort of, like, the show has always circled around the ways some of the roles that these people play with each other don't entirely fit together because they're kind of at odds with how they feel

about each other, right? That like, um, when Canaan tries to lean in on being a Jedi and there's points where that is, you know, where he basically has to abandon Hera, on on ghost base to to go do Jedi stuff and he's like we have to go on this mission with uh soaker right there's the end of season two of uh you know he basically over her protest abandons her to go like on this Jedi quest and so there's there's moments where they've sort of had the the roles that they fill uh the different hats they wear sort of be at odds with each other like Hera having to be space

but also badass commander and who has to be the person to issue orders in that way. They're kind of touching on that too where these characters are sort of, here Ezra is resolving that tension a little bit. He's sort of saying like, yeah,

you're my Jedi mentor, but more importantly, like you are my father figure. This is my family. I like it. It's a good place to, it's a good place to reach with these characters.

And then Kain is, takes that energy and doesn't apply any of it to Bendu. Instead, he basically goes up to the big force guy and is like, listen, you piece of shit. Like, this is, like, he took Democratic town hall, like Congress, congressional town hall energy to Bendu. Listen, man. One of the worst pitches, I, like, you got to know your audience.

You got to know your audience. That's fucking Bendu. He's in the middle. I actually think he's playing Bendu. I think he's, by the end of it, he knows you got to make him mad to get him to do anything. Because he's not going to fucking do anything. He's going to sit back and let's get killed. Oh, well, the will of the force.

Fuck the will of the force. And that's Cany's cool. Like, fuck it. Like, if the will the forces lean back. Now, was Bendu cooking when he said, uh, well, maybe what the force wants is for all the Jedi to be dead? Yes, he was. Yes, he was.

Of course. Yum, yum, yum. But this is, but this is what he needed to do to get him off his ass. Like, otherwise, he was just going to sit back. He was going to sit back and let this happen. The force ain't your friend sometimes. True, true. Especially when it comes to personifications of it, you know?

We've been to mortis. This is, and you know what? This is what somebody needed to tell Yoda. Like, this is also a little bit of us getting the, like, because every time Yoda, oh, Master Yoda, thank you so much for phoning in to this. Hey, everybody, guess what? I got Master Yoda is going to FaceTime with us. And, hey, I'm so, regret, regret I do.

I cannot be with you right now. To this address, send your fundraising. Uh-huh. Your donation, these donors will match. Your Congress people you should call. Like, Hayden is past that, which is like fun to see a little bit here, right? So they're back and forth to the person who's listed. people listening who have not watched this. He goes to talk to Bendu, and Bendu is like,

I'm the one in the middle. I don't take sides. And Canaan's like, the empire is going to kill us. And he's like, I don't take sides. I'm above war. You're worrying in wars. I'm unseen. I'm unknowable. I'm the rock in the river. You know, this is, they're not going to find me. I'm the Bendu. And Canaan is like, they are going to find you and kill you too. And to be clear, Canaan doesn't know he's right, but like if they ever, if we were a few years later, they would just death star this planet if there was a problem with it. You know what I mean? And I don't know that Bendu has it like that. Maybe he does. Maybe he can leave Adelon. Maybe that's possible. I don't know. But like the empire is not above just blowing up a planet to deal with some shit. We've seen this. And so, or like, you know, scouring it from the skies. We've seen that. And so, you know, I don't know. I think he makes the big case that he ends up making is, Bendu was like, I'm the Bendu, I'm the one, and then Cane completes it for him, saying, in the middle, so you keep saying, look, I tried to live like that once, told myself the galaxy would go on with or without me, but when I saw innocence harmed and I knew I had the power to do something

about it, I couldn't just watch it all burn down around me. Some things are worth fighting for. This is like the Rebel's thesis statement. And like, Bendu is not the right audience for it. I recognize that. You're all right about that. Bendu is not the one who's going to be moved by, or he's moved by it, but he's just moved to indiscriminate action instead of you exactly come on board, but I don't think you can get Ben-Du on board, right? No, no, no, no, no. I don't think Bendu, I don't think Bendu ever is, like, going to be like, I'm a rebel now. I'm going to fight for the rebels.

Like, I don't think there's anything Canaan could have said that would have gotten him. He just isn't that. He is this specific guy. He's like Yoda-coded. He's like unwilling to participate in a, sorry, original trilogy Yoda quoted, let me make that clear. He's like, oh, he's a little, he's actually, he's a big freak. He's a big freak. He's a big freak.

And he is going to speak in silly little, like, riddles and not give you a straight answer and speak towards the force itself rather than, you know, like what is materially happening who the rebels or the Imperials or like that does not matter to him at all. This is very much like trying to get Tom Bombadale to get in a fight for you, right? Where you kind of got to go up and be like, I don't know, man. I heard that guy called Goldberry a bitch. And like, suddenly he's like, I'm going to tape these yellow boots and shove it right up their ass. And so there is a little bit of how do you get, yes, how do you get a character who exists outside the story?

Yeah. He was in touch with that like cosmic universal perspective of like, what is any of this to eternity? How do you get that guy come off the bench? It's mortis. It's mortis vibes. The mortis people don't give a fuck about sheave Palpatine. They're they're dealing with.

the forces of with the force and the balance of good and the light and dark which also hits the thing we were just talking about with Ezra and Ezra's journey as a Jedi being not sideline but like slid back a little bit into the background because it's like there are moments in history says rebels where you need to step forward and do the thing that maybe it isn't sit on the planet and meditate, you know, um, that isn't the role that you need to play. He spends very little time actually doing Jedi shit. Like he, it's not like the, the, the, the Clone Wars version of this would be, or maybe not even Clone Wars.

The original trilogy version of this would be, Ezra has been sitting with Bendu this entire time, like meditating. Right. And then finally, you know, abandons Bendu to go save his friends. Like exactly what Luke does, basically. Which is actually funny because it's... Yeah, we'll see. It's just interesting because Hara specifically calls out,

Ezra and Canaan, you will have the best chance at getting away because you're Jedi. And it's not like... It's not like Ezra does anything like specifically Jedi-like in order to get away. It's not like he, like, force does something with the force to... She just knows how the plot works. Jedi get away, you know? Exactly. Exactly.

She's watched these movies. Yeah, exactly. Well, I think the thing really, for me, is like, Bendu, the Bendu seems to represent this notion that the force is timeless and, you know, that something like balance will be brought one day to the force, that these things happen in cycles. there are, of course, there are wars. There were always wars.

This sort of like indifference to the particular moment of history because when you take that zoomed out relative view, you start saying like, okay, well, there have been many times when people have fallen into conflict and war and dissatisfaction and depression. And there have been many times when there's been a great deal of peace and prosperity and those places, those things happen at different places at different times. And if what you're working with is these big transcendent eternal ideas about good and evil, you can't get caught up in the little stuff. And you have to kind of have this monk on the mountain indifference or distance, you know, to everything. And that isn't, you know,

I do think the show might have a place for when you have, you know, the sort of powers that Ezra and Canaan do you have a responsibility to act. But it really has, there is no place, you can't sit on the sidelines of history. Whatever that looks like, Whether you're a Ma'an Mothma or Saul Guerrera or a Canaan and a Nezra and Hera or Sabine, the thing you can't do is just kind of sit back and kick it. They'll come for you, you know, like you will get caught up by this thing, choose your own angle of action. And so I do think that like there is something really good to see Canaan, you know, in some ways the lesson of the Jedi are like either they're too disinvolved in history or they're too willing to judge. just be pawns in history. They're not willing to like take their own clear perspective for many, many, many reasons, right? Like they wound up being generals in a war they should have

never been generals for. So they, in that moment, they were maybe, they refused to step back to where they needed to. But like in this moment, we got the best Jedi in the world or in the galaxy sitting in Tatooine, playing some sort of long game about the balance of the force. And the result of that is people are going to die because he's not there to be their leader. Whether that was the right play in the long term or not, you can have that conversation. But for Canaan and Ezra, the play is get active, be part of the rebellion, let yourself not be consumed by this notion of the, you know, Jedi Code or the force being above and beyond it all and try to help the people you care about, which is like good kids TV vision of how to work

through problems type shit, you know, get involved. Stay, stay active. And he does. He gets in Darth Mall's ship, which is like, everyone's getting the gauntlet. And I'm like, what the fuck is Oh, right, Darth Mall's big ship. Cool ship design. They got to sell some toys. And slips past the, he starts heading towards the escape vector, but he's going to get interdicted. And Sato has to do his damn thing.

Sato does the damn thing. What a real one. Constantine had one job. Like, literally, you command the internet of the cruiser. All you got to do is nothing. That's the whole, the ship just has to be there kicking it. And the rebels are trapped. The bit where Callis picks up on this.

and is like, oh, you're having a little, a little, you know, vying for glory. Because he, because Constantine is like, let me go do the thing. And Thron is like, no, I need you to sit back there because I know how. And he, of course, always says Sindhila, instead of Sindula, a little character trait I love about him, is that he mispronounces her name every time. That's like he has some imperial or Chis pronunciation of her name. Everybody else says Captain Sindula, he says, Captain. in Cindola.

Maybe no one wanted to correct Lars in the booth. I don't know, but he does it every time, and I have to imagine he gets. It works. You know, it works, exactly. And I love that Callis is like, ooh, a little glory hog going to happen in here. See, immediately that this is all going to fall apart. Is this where he also gives thrown the warning? Or maybe it's after the bombardment.

And he's like, oh, I've been in your position before, buddy. It looks like it's all wrapped up. It looks like it's impossible for them to slip past you. They're going to do it. Just get ready. But yeah, Constantine does the thing, the one thing he's told not to do. It's great sequence. Like, I'm a sucker for Starship Commander clears the bridge as he prepares to, like,

launch the thing as a weapon. I'm like, here we go. It hits me every time the last commanders, we're with you to the end. Commander, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Do we actually need to do this? Probably not. I don't know. I guess they did establish in that previous episode where they got the carrier that you

need a couple people to fly that thing. They did. You're right. So he needed his, he needed his house, his helmsman to stay aboard. So they could wait for Constantine to be like, no, this support ship that's job is literally just to hang out and do nothing. I'm going to bring it in a close quarters battle. And then this animation team has got for years of practice watching that, watching the carrier. Just, like, carve into that interdictor is awesome. It's so sick. Shout us to this cruiser, this carrier, too. This is the one, people who don't remember, the one that Cham and Hara got in the

Cham Hara episode a season ago or whatever. They stole this ship from the Imperials and repainted it. Fun to see a ship, you know, have its own little continuity in the series, again, like the shield generator coming from Geonosis. The show has been very good at being like, there is a material. like the Y wings also they stole the Y wings and those are what are part of General Dodan's fleet like they've been really interested in where did all this stuff come from where is the carrier that you need because they're not the vampire they don't just

have a factory somewhere making this stuff they got to steal the stuff they got a I know I wish the B wing that we stole or that we got a couple of seasons ago had come up maybe I really want that cool B wing with the super laser to come back but like they're doing that again and again and I think I've done work. I think I've done a lot of work here if they'd had that thing. Maybe that's off on Monmouth's fleet, which will not be coming to help. No. Speaking of, hey, you've got to get active.

But Ezra's like, hey, we could really use a little help right now because Harris' plan is go tell Monmouthma, we need your help. We'll flank them and we'll win. My momathma's like, nah. I'm going to have the best lawyers that the rebellion has. will negotiate the best, the best release for your prisoners. I was just like, what, what prisoners? There are not going to be prisoners after this. Are you kidding?

They're shooting lasers at us, man. I'm really happy. I kind of like this vision of a mock mode. They could have killed them. And then John was just like, actually I'm over it. Let's do it on the ground. I kind of love her as someone who's still going to be slow to recognize the fight she's in. Yes.

Like this, she's like, no, it's time to begin. like fighting the rebellion and it's like great uh this is not going to be like the american revolution where they're going to parole officers to each other and like i'll swap these prisoners like everyone they take is going to be executed or thrown in jail yeah like there is no don't worry i'm going to send lawyers we're going to we're to get you out of there no problem you're going to you're going to spend a night in in prison what bro they would be in arqueena five so fast are you kidding me Oh, my God. There's no way.

Ed, we get the most, you know, when she says, when she says, she tells me that she can't do this, that, oh, would put at risk the stuff that we've built and blah, blah, blah. The final thing she says to him is, like, may the force be with you. It's the most thoughts and prayer shit we've ever heard, or the version of, May the force be with you we've ever heard. And it's like, again, there's something really fun about the idea that, like, you just got to do it. You got to punch them in the face if you're going to, if you're going to fight them. I love to see this because I'm really curious about what it's going to be like the next time they meet Mom Wathma.

Maybe all this doesn't come up and everyone understands why she couldn't come help. But there's a little thing here too where, so in the in the Andor season two trailer, you have Andor giving that line. Do you want to fight or do you want to win? And right here, the rebels want to fight. But I think one of the theses of something like Andor is that, yo, you can't like, these people appear evil. Who keeps to shit about a fair fight? Like they've engineered it's they're going to win the fair fights. like meeting them in the battles that they've like they have a military that's like built to win battles like this if you fight them battles like that you're going to lose because that is that is what they have like built themselves around winning you have to kill them you have to find ways the places where they're weak and you just have to get them there and there's there's a little bit of that monmouthma and the dada it's like no we'll create a big rebel fleet and we're going to like engage them in these sort of stand-up fights and there's a little bit of

Someone like Thrawn is not someone you want to be fighting those fights against. You're going to need that X factor. It's going to be Bendu showing up at the last minute. It's going to make the difference. It's going to be Mandalorian commandos doing their thing. But it's not going to be, let's put our rebel frigates up against their Star Destroyer line and see what happens. But Motham is kind of right about, I can't throw more ships into this. But the entire, this whole sequence calls in a question, why are you guys preparing to attack Lothal?

Right. Like, what didn't have it? If this is, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. I thought this was the thing. Like, I thought this was what everyone was organizing towards. I thought this was the point of like getting everyone on board, on, on a line, like, bringing all of the various rebel, um, rebel. Like, cells.

Yeah, cells. That's what I was looking for. The rebel cells together. Like, I thought this was what, I thought this was like on the. list, like, rebel, rebel, uh, task list, a, uh, get lethal back. Doesn't seem like it seems like, well, as long as there's no star destroyers there, we should be fine. Like, this is not, like, the war ban.

What are we talking about? Your tactics are not, you are not ready for this. Because, yes, there's a bit of like, now we will put the rebel fleet together. We'll fight them, uh, you know, in a straight fight. Now, now, maybe part of the thing here is like, Thrawn is a force multiplier. maybe like in their mind they're like well we're going to fleet together then we can win some fights where thron isn't you know like because they could beat constantine clearly you know they do have the people and the minds to do that but you know thron is not that guy thron is or thron is that guy

that's the problem right thron is this is is not constantine thron is him and uh hard to out maneuver that guy because he does see through it uh like he did here and then uh of course You can't, you know, real LeBron, J.R. Smith moment here. You know, like, what do you do? Ah, just, ah. Great. I love it, too. It's such a, like, there's great things in this fight. The way the Starfighters move around is very keeping with the way they shoot the miniatures in a new hope.

The way they're, like, slow and slip and sliding through space. There's not a lot of, like, forward motion, but a lot of, like, lateral motion through the frame. So the choreograph, sort of dive bombings they do of the, of the Star Destroyers. it all looks great. The moment where Constantine realizes, like, hey, wait, that rebel ship's changed course. You get the view from his bridge as he realizes that, like, nope, that is, that is coming straight at me. And he gets the brief moment of realizing how badly he's fucked up before the curtain comes down.

Do you think the reason why the rebellion symbol, and there is not an actual answer for this, I believe, but the rebel symbol seems derived of. the Phoenix Squadron symbol? Do you think that this sacrifice is sort of like behind the scenes what they were thinking about is like what would lead

the rebellion symbol to have that sort of shape? It's like a variant on this and it's like well without Sato sacrifice and the end of Phoenix Squadron we wouldn't we wouldn't have the you know rebellion that we have today is the

but is the rebel symbol also like a stylized reimagining some of the Jedi symbolism as well? I don't know. I don't because no, because the Jedi symbol is like, oh, I guess so it has the wings, right? It has the wings in the lightsaber, but instead of having the lightsaber, it has the sort of tripartite birdhead thing that we get. Yeah, it's called the alliance starboard in the legends. If you have things echo other symbols, you know, you can, you can sort of sweep a lot of things together under one heading. Oh, yeah. Interesting. Okay. There seems to be,

a particular, there seems to be a specific answer here, but I don't know where that's sourced from. Apparently, this is from Star Wars, absolutely everything you need to know, updated and expanded from 2017, which has a cover like it's a, now that's what I call music CD. If you've ever seen here. Natalie, so in the 1990s, they would send out music compilations on, compactist. I had a compactist. Did you have a, do you know what now that's what I call music is? Yes.

I would watch the infomercials. I'm not a, I'm not Gen Z. I'm not Gen Z. I was there. I was there. Yeah, I know. So the rebel symbol, this book apparently says that this symbol was combined was the combination of the

personal signature of Mandalorian artist Sabine Ren, which is the star bird, that orange phoenix symbol, and the symbol of Saul Guerrera, the three-pronged symbol of Saul Guerrera, which is interesting because Saul ain't here. At the end of this episode, I thought for a second, oh my God, is Ezra going to go from Mon Mothma? That's what I...

Well, the first thing I unfortunately thought was, is he going to go to Hondo? He should have. That was actually the first thing in clone wars, he would have. In clone wars, he would have at least got to see once. No, young Bridger. And this is a four-episode arc. Not for Hondo.

Yeah, yeah. Hondo's busy right now. Yeah, exactly. God. Yeah, so funny. I also thought that, though, Natalie. I was like, ooh, is he going to go to Saul? Is Saul going to be the one who bails them out?

And there's like a little Saul versus Mon Motham? Like, ooh, Saul was the one who came through with it for us at that point. Now we can finally, like, start setting up the tension between them. Yeah. Then we go into season four with them, like, sobbing like, well, I won you. The Phoenix, you know, the Lothol, whatever. And then that being like, yeah. That would have been fun.

Well, Talco sometimes. I guess we didn't actually finish talking about the big Bendu confrontation. The thing we left off is that Bendu turns. until like a big tornado. Which is wild. He does. Yeah, this is why I don't think that Bendu would make it out of the shooting from the Death Star is because like he's just the planet, right?

That's what it seems like. He's nature. He's the planet in some way, right? It's a really cool effect. The way his eyes glow is great. So I think this is a reference to the keep The Michael Man horror movie The Keep The Nazi I guess you know

I'm telling you look at the scene where Radu Molasar saves the main character's daughter from assault by Nazi guards with the tangerine now the thing this this thing has that Rebels does in his Tangerine Dream Yeah you're not wrong I can see it They did talk about how, in the Rebels Recon, that to get the kind of tornado effect and all the storm effects, they really wanted to evoke, like, particular practical effects around smoke, the sort of like you put ink inside of water and shake it up to kind of get this cloudy, smoky, contained effect. And then you kind of play with that in composition and stuff.

And so, you know, if not this, at the very least, this style of effect from genre movies, definitely being pulled on. Very funny. But specifically, no, this is Molassar. This is 100%. There he is. Glowing eyes in the smoke storm. It's cool. It's a cool, it's a cool effect.

It's scary. It's fun to see Bendu kind of show up like this after being the way he's been the whole time. It's funny to think that my I believe Bendu is just a season three character because they had to get to Adelon for him to be a character, right? So it's only been here and he doesn't know he's going to talk after this. Say that again? Doesn't seem like he's going to want to talk after this. I think this might be it. I think yeah, I don't know that they're going to get to talk much with.

Hey, Bendu. So things got pretty crazy, huh? Yeah, that was a little on me. Mark's his thing. No reply. Yeah, I said some things I didn't mean to. It all comes out in the wash.

They're oomfies. You know. I don't, yeah, maybe. I don't know. One of the oomfies like, like really trying to get the other oomfy.

To do some stuff. Yeah. To be dead. To become dead. Yeah. The fact that that Bendu was like calling Kha, calling Canaan out by name was like

this one's for you Canaan Jarus You are a bitch Because yeah this will As the fight continues We'll see where he goes and where he goes Is an even bigger tornado and storm He's actually become a tornado anymore

He becomes just the clouds The lightning storm But that's like the end of this The second episode First we get the Sabine shield We get the shield that she how she and Zeb got from Geonosis, they power it up. Natalie, as you said, Thron is seconds away from overwhelming it.

He could have just kept blasting, and that would have been that for them. Truly. And he's like, what if we did? And he was like, let's just go down there. Let's go down. Let's say hey. I got this whole tailored combat outfit together. He's like, well, I got this little hat I want to put out.

I got to show this hat off. I got to wear it out. Did you, did you tailor your, your. protective vest and put your rank bet? Yes. Yes, I did. I did do that. He's so glammed out. I love. The goggles. It's fantastic. Imagine in the club. He should have been in the club. He should have been in the club. The scene of them bombarding the base and the shields like getting blasted is so scary. Hara looking up. I thought they were cooked. It's so good. Him watching as the green laser blasts like streak down toward the planet. And then we watch from

behind as she watches the shield like pulsing and buckling with the impacts it's great stuff the way they they match cut between the rebel and in imperial sides is fantastic them looking up him looking down the imperial's looking down it's great it's fantastic um they were cooking they really were with these i guess i should say too again this is um i believe written by uh gilroy and uh philoni um but directed by i've written it down uh stephen melching um no no sorry Stephen melanching um no sorry Stephen Melching wrote part one, and then Gilroy and Matt Minchevich wrote part two, and it's directed by Justin Ridge, who we have seen direct a handful of episodes, including all the way back to rookies in Clone Wars.

He's used pretty sparingly. He did rookies, the Gungen General at all time, the debut of Uncle Ono, Innoc, Innocence of Ryloth, one of the Ryloth arc episodes, and Holocron Heist, the really great Cadbane episode for Clone Wars. And then since then he did Art Attack, which I think is one of the shorts, one of the Rebel Shorts. It's the Sabine short. Entanglement, which is the Prelude Short for Zeb. And then he did this.

And he just one more. No, then he did Rebel Resolve, which maybe is the fourth of those shorts. No, it's the 14th episode of the first season. It is when Canaan has been captured and they're trying to find Canaan. And then he did this, and that's it. So, like, he has a real short run with this production crew, but does a damn good job, I think, across those episodes. A lot of those have, you know, even things like the Gungan General. Actually, you know what?

Sorry, I said the Gungin General is Uncle Ono. That's Bomb Bad Jedi, isn't it? Gunn General is when Obi-Wan and Anakin are captured by Honda and Jarjaro shows up to help them. Oh, my God. Incredible. We've come so far. Speaking of coming so far, the thing that I missed

in the Darth Mall episode that I wanted to bring up is did I just completely forget when the holocons became little dice that were five meters? They were so tiny and they're vibe meters now

instead of being they used to be like on the shelf, right? I think that's because maybe they got a little busted up when they put the holocons together and they've been acting weird ever since, I don't know.

They shrunk, though? Yeah, their little D4s, they're old 2D4 for damage And I was like, I got it Tosses him, I don't know It's funny We get some fun Zeb and Rex action In fact, we skipped a very important

Zeb and Rex scene in part one Where they're uncling out They're like Oh God He's like, well, it's better than slinging for Jupas Oh yeah Is it or something like that? Oh, it's great Zebs like

But them's Jupas was good eating And Rex is like, you got me there. You got me there, bud. Hell yeah. Absolutely. God, I miss them. I need the clones to come back. I need us to go back to the Jupa clones.

I hope we get them at least one more time. If you're wondering, like, where was the ghost shooter in the Battle of Scarf or yeah, they're grilling out? They're grilling out. They're grilling. Yeah, you're right. Legs up. I didn't know we were going to be rescuing casting the Andor today from Scarf. really too hammered to drive

I do bet we get the ghost in season two of Andor in the background somewhere We haven't already Yeah, I'm so sure we do Parked in the garage somewhere Exactly, exactly God, what if in the middle of the Andor trailer we had just seen

Hera or Zeb or something? Like I'm a bat! Yeah, exactly I mean we are getting closer. Real life Hera exists. Real life hair exists. Oh, my God. I don't even know what I'm going to feel when we get to Asoka.

I know. Many things we felt. Every time I think about it, I'm like, this is going to be something for us. So repeatedly through this, it's just like one of the problems is rebels in a weird way feels more contiguous with like the visual storytelling of the original Star Wars films and a lot of that good stuff. in a way that a lot of Star Wars, especially TV live action Star Wars, really struggles to attain. Andor's solution is to extensively use, like location shooting, much like the original trilogy did, but also it's very judicious about, like, what settings it adopts for this stuff. They don't, like, modern Star Wars struggles to do space battles on this level,

struggles to do like think about the dog shit defending the village episode of the mandolarian one second rob uh yeah which one well there was you know season one the one that was the most seven samurai coded but also if the seven samurai were basically defending like someone's front lawn instead of the whole village it's like because they can only stage yeah the guys come out from this one little like brush and you fight them and that's the that's the whole episode there's no it's it's very there's no dynamism to and you don't get anything approaching you know the first time they fought the ATAT with the the whole clone crew aboard the you know board the old like leftover walker from the old war uh and you don't get the rebel starfighters like you know

in atmosphere shooting down at the ATATs canaan showing up and slicing through the legs. That's still a little O.P. in my opinion, but who gives shit? He does do that. Why couldn't Calcastis do that? I guess he wasn't. He's not, he could double jump, but he couldn't do this. That's right. He couldn't do this. And then, you know, you got Rex and Rexon, uh, Zab, you know, blowing up the mines below the first wave of walkers. All this stuff hits. Uh, and it's, these are sequences that in terms of like direction, action, sense of scale, look, a lot of the recent Star Wars stuff struggles to struggles to achieve you know I think something's really

hitting me with this is like so many Star Wars stories are really well told by this animation team and they're more capable of going to some of the places you want Star Wars to go than like other TV offerings it's weird but like we're in this world we're like the live action frequently looks kind of unimpressive in a way that like good animation does not well and it's funny because a week ago we were talking about how uh they didn't have enough budget to do uh to show callus's hands because they only had the one model meanwhile we had to get obi one both in the robe and out of the robe in twin sons we had to get uh thron's cute little hat and like tank

commander fit like uh they were spending the budget in these episodes this is where that budget But they are generally, I think, speaking, very comfortable with working with the models they have and the budget they have to create big feeling moments, spectacle, the sense of the scale from the original trilogy and from the prequels and sequels too. And so, you know, a lot of it is, a lot of it comes down to what we were talking about before. Someone was talking about how good the lighting was. Stuff like when the lightning starts happening and we're getting characters' faces hit by the lightning, we're getting throng, disembarking as the storm is rolling in. Oh, my God, that's the sequence. And there's, you know, obviously a lot of that stuff you can do with the tech that they're using for, for the live action shows. It's expensive and the shows are built on, you know, even when the budgets are big, they're not, they're not, you know, blockbuster film big.

And there's lots of writing and, you know, commentary out there about why did this show or this movie from 2002, why does the, Why do the effects in this look better? And we know that partly that's about combining both practical and CG, but it's also about the speed that is being required from the CGI artists, the conditions that that stuff is being made in, the degree to which there's like an expectation of just turn it around quick, you have these techniques, just do it, and way less in terms of like find an inventive way to capture this stuff.

So I don't even put that at the feet of, of the artists so much as the tools that are being used as the default aren't necessarily the best tools for a lot of this stuff. The tools aren't being determined based on what a show needs. They're being based on what we have and what is affordable for us to use. And so, yeah, I don't know. There was something about this specifically that they're able to capture stuff like space battles just so much better than in Mandalorian.

And I say Mandalorian is like, I think that that stuff is probably better than what we saw in some of the other live action shows. You know, I think all said, you know, stuff like with the space pirates and the Mandalorians and stuff in Mandoos season four, season three. So there's only three seasons of the Mandalorian, right? And then Book of Bobfet is sort of a half season. But in that third season, there's like some okay stuff in there, but it does, you're right. It never gets to the filmmaking quality, the camera cuts and stuff and the camera movements and the choreography that we get, I think, in this pair of episodes. Yeah.

It's great. I mean, it helps that I always get the sense that this crew is our huge tie fighter nerds. Like the, like, Faloni and company are inspired by the games to an extent. So they give a shit about the space stuff more than some of the creative teams might. And so there's a little extra care intention lavished on that. But, yeah, it looks, it looks fantastic as the storm arrives, sort of announcing its arrival as Thrawn heedless. of the gathering darkness behind him or perhaps in his

he was believing he is the storm right uh disembarks with his uh with his stormtrooper black shirts as it were meanwhile oh yeah those are the like the um dark troopers or whatever from rogue one they're modeled after that particular vision of them I don't know if they're actually dark troopers uh but they're

I think they're recon troopers so this comes up in the X-wing books that like uh sort of their commando force has like the armor in black and gray in the contemporary thing they are called death troopers is what they are called the like thin black ones uh came up in in either rebels recon or on the website um that's what these ones are being called they're called death troopers uh also known as death soldiers or a w r troopers um uh and the this particular version of them were designed for for the Rogue One, which had just happened. And so Filoni was like, yeah, we'll take those.

And in one of the Rebels Recon, he's like, now we didn't know how they were going to be used because film is very flexible compared to what we do. A lot of it gets finished way later than what we have to get our stuff locked by. So we had their basic designs and just kind of ran with it and thought, Philoni's argument was like, Theron should have access to these guys the same way that like Crennick or whoever does because Thron is like at that tier of the empire and I wanted to show that he had his own crew and access to that sort of part of what the imperial arsenal was which is it was fun. I think they asked Faloni about the volume when they were, there's an interview with him, not Falani, Gilroy about this around the time that Ender released and they asked him like, did you use the volume?

I think he speaks about, like, you have to lock what you're going to ask the volume be doing so far in advance. And he's like, that is just not the show we were making. Right. I know myself and we are not going to lock what the story is going to be or the, you know, what we want to have happen in time to use an effect like that. I think there was an interview we gave to God, mine had been as far back as Grantland. That makes sense. No, it was and or he's the ringer. It was almost certainly the ringer.

Yeah, it has to be. Babe girl. Hey, girl. That's my reference. That's my, I'm sorry. I know you hate the CG characters. Run along. Meanwhile, Ezra's, I will run to the Mandalorians to provide help is very optimistic.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny because it's like, well, he doesn't. He says I'm going to go to Sabine specifically, right? And it's a kind of a weird scene because it's just like, well, we could never. when he help for the war because we're in the middle of her own civil war. And then Sabine's like, no, I'm going to go. And they're like, well, I guess we could give you help for the next 15 minutes,

which is all he's asking for anyway. It works because it's nice to see the Sabine stuff cash out into something. But like, it's not like he came in to be like, I need you to sign on with the rebellion. It's time to fight the empire. He was like, we are dying. Send three ships. Just come through for like a sec.

Yeah. We're super busy with the Civil War. Yeah. Like, what? As soon as you said that, I was like, I'm tired of y'all asses. Like, I've over the Mandalorians. What are you doing? Like, what are we talking?

This is the Mandalorian. Like, you have been a fan of Mandalorians for a long ass time. Is what I, like, if I, that's like one of the things about Allie. This is true. Allie, yeah. This is the Mandalorian Laker. Are you done with the Mandalorians? No.

No, I mean, I'm, never. Candorous order will always be what he is to me. And that is the same even after I read that fucking book and he sucked ass in it. But like, just the like first line that we get from her being like, we can't do it. We're in war. Like, again, with y'all asses. Like, come on. Yeah.

You know, you have a friend who's always who's always busy with something or can't help you out. Always some shit going on. Always the crisis friend. Come on. I just like, I... I just like... I... I just felt like I don't...

I can't spend too much time harping on this because it is like we just... I personally cannot. My emotional investment is just it's... It's... It's not what it was. But I could summon it. it for a second and say that

I just being in you got to just say the thing. What are you trying to say? Like we left we left off. Yeah. We left Sabine here. And it's like we come back and it's like we were like just here. Like it feels like no time. Like they've all been the same idle animations the whole time. Yes. They were like

oh yeah. We're we're continuing on in our thing. And the other thing is like no one's vibe is like their vibe from before. Like everyone is just like so like the, even the mom is like, oh yeah, we're in a civil war. It's not like, how could you ask of us this? We are in so, like there's no drama here. It's just like the most like just like, yeah, we're in civil war. Like I'm so, I'm sorry. Like we can't help you. Like, and the brother's like, yeah, like, we're just, we're, we're doing war. Like, I'm sorry. Like, I was just like, girl, you are giving us nothing. Like, give us something. Please, you're the fucking Mandalorian. It's so, oh, it's just, maybe I'm, maybe I'm just like the Mandalorian

hater. I don't know. Maybe that's me. Maybe that's me. You can't just drop the Mandalorian hater. I don't know. I just, I don't know. I don't, am I crazy? Like, did, did y'all have feelings about coming back here? I thought coming back here, it would, we would be able to see like a glimpse at what Sabine has been doing, like, since she's been there. Doesn't seem like much.

We did see something changed and we pick up what changed. The sun went down, Austin. That's not Sabine's doing. She painted her brothers, Paul Dr. on his Mandalorian armor. She gets a little paint on there. Does y'all not pick up on that? No.

Okay. She painted one of his armor, his armor place. That's, that's cute. That's fine. That's cute. But after all the setup we did to get her into this position with the Mandalorians and do this,

it is time for us to rise up against the camera. It's like, yeah. And you're right. It feels like we were just here. We've left everyone in the basically the exact position since the last time. Except now we got this little civil war going on So we couldn't help you But then, yeah, we can spare a few ships

Real, did you guys hear Jessica's gonna be able to make it To the D&D session this week Oh cool, what are we gonna do with her character Well we left her on the Mandalorian planet So we're just gonna like She just be there still I want to go pick her up

And she could be in the session this week Okay cool Like after she's left the party For you know Schedule reasons or whatever That's the vibe unfortunately That is so the vibe It's like it's fun

when they actually come along for the ride and, you know, they do their Mandalorian thing on the... Yeah, the action sequences are really fun. Yeah, the action sequences are fun. I just, it was just bizarre. Maybe there was just not enough time and this wasn't... I just, it's just so, like, Ezra's seeing Sabine for the first time. And Sabine's like, Ezra, like, what are you doing here?

That is not even what happens. Do you know what actually happens? The first person who speaks in this scene is Chopper. Or Sabine goes, what are you doing here? Chopper's like Chopper, chop, chop, and she's like, wait a second, what? And Ezra then is like, yeah, what chopper said is right.

We're getting, we're getting our asses. It's been belt to ass over on Adelon, and we're not the ones holding the bell. That's what happens. So, structurally, this is kind of weird because it feels like we did this whole like, God, it's Sabine shit again. It's classic, we're doing stuff with Sabine.

Because we did this whole, like, we're going to fill in. that backstory and she can confront her painful past with the help to fend you off screen. I thought she was going to be like, I can finally. The big magnet. I thought whatever it's going to be. We're going to finally show, which by the way, Allie, I need you to not read any Sabine emails. Because someone sent in the, so I know what the weapon is.

We've talked about this. She made, she made the weapon that was used against the Mandalorians. And I know what the weapon is. In the time since that, since we recorded that episode. people on Blue Sky sent me a new fact about that weapon that is unbelievable. And I'm going to tell you what it is. Have you already read this? You already read the email in question?

I did not. I don't know. So if you start reading one, like, did you hear about the, you need to stop reading and move on. Because when we learn what the weapon is, which I believe we will learn in rebels, I will tell you what the new unbelievable fact about that weapon is. I've been dying since you said for her to not realize this was. a weapon to use against mandolars. I've been dying.

What I've learned is that I yearn to know. I stand by my giant magnet. It is like, it is like cartoon, cartoon giant magnet. And it's like, and you see the little, wah, want to tell you what this is so bad.

I want to tell you what it is. People just being whipped through the air with a jet packs. Can I tell you what it's called? No, that might be too, mm-hmm. The people listening. No, let's be,

the mandolarian stuff is the, Like, season premiere of the next season. We're going to get to the show fast. It's the next. You're going to find out the name of what it is. I like a guess. Can anybody guess what the name of the weapon is? I'm going to go out.

I just want guesses. The Mandalorian Destroyer? I'm covering my face so I can't respond. The mando device? The mandopeter. I need guesses from Alley and Rob. The. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

Esquerader. Oh. That's pretty good. It's not right, but it's pretty good. The pesquerator. I can't even like get my head around like imperial naming conventions. Mm-hmm. The anti-the-helmet device.

The reverse, the, the super magnet for. It needs so much. than any of these things. You're not going to get there, which is fine. It's, it's fine. I think the best grader is very funny for many reasons. We'll come back to that. But the name is actually the, we'll come back to the name. I'm going to look. I don't think you should tell you know. I'm gripping my armrests so tightly right now. I want to know. We'll be able to watch right after we record this episode. You can go watch. I believe. Until you won't let me watch it. I'm double checking. I haven't frozen Kongs full of peanut

butter so she won't let me watch it. I see. I see. You know, it is in with the name. It is in the next episode we watch or the next two-parter we watch. We're going to know what the weapon is next episode. Correct. Which means next episode also be able to tell you the other thing it was used for. Oh, I'm so glad to finally be free. I'm so glad to finally be free. I am all. I am all confronting Obi-Wan in the deserts of Tatooine. I am. I am. I am. I think, Natalie. Oh, my God, I'm so thirsty. Oh, I yearn.

Please kill me. Is it the Mahler? It's not the Mahler. You're closer in some way. Oh, my God. Because she would have been going into the, she would have been in the Crimson Dawn time, right? No, I don't, I don't.

I guess she never acknowledged who fucking Darth Mall. She's like, we've said that she was never like, That was the demon that was leading by people. That's correct. But then she joined Crimson Dawn, where he was the guy. Like, what are we saying? Like, I, I, ooh, the emotional vestments back. Motion of us back.

Hang on, Natalie, that only happened because there was a career day at Boney Hunter School. And the table, the Crimson Dawn table made a really good pitch. Uh-huh, uh-huh. But he was the Crimson Don president. Well, she was like a teenager. She wasn't the president. No, Darth Mall. Oh, no, oh, yeah.

Well, he was the title. What was his title when he was the head of? He was like the fucking leader of the mandolore. I know, but that wasn't the leader of, that wasn't, because we know what the leader of the mandolores were before him, right? Because it was, it was, what was the teen's title? Oh, was she not the Mandalorian? She was, no, she was the, not the Mandalor. Yeah.

She had some, she had some rank, remember? Oh, in the Imperial Academy? Ceteen, no, Cetting. Oh, Cetteens. She was a duchess, that's what it was. Duchess, yeah, yeah, yeah. So was he, was he Duke Mall? That'd be funny.

No, because he takes over with Death Wash, so they would have just read, they would have made him the Mandelor. And you think, like, the last mandolour was a Sith demon is something that would come up when you're hanging out of a Cated day today. Like, let's just. It's actually It is actually mind-boggling It is mind-boggling

It's Oh, did anyone else think that That all of the talk about Oh, we don't have Sotene here To fix the shield generator We don't have Sottyne That it was going to cash out with Sotene showing up That it was going to cash out with like Sotin

Doing something with that Just poochie shit It's just poochie shit She deserves She's one more opportunity like there's not even not even my heart i'm just saying in terms of she's going to have this next episode arc like how big is she going to be in this next season she has to be back to being a main character in the next season this is right like i don't know what we were setting up was like they

were going to go to like parallel structure where she was going to be like doing stuff on mandor right no and so you see like maybe oh man like as where we are so deep in the like liberation of mandalaura like Tons of cool stuff is happening and and maybe we'll get to that like a flashback, but the to have it arrive at sorry man, we're just super busy because we're fighting a civil war We're in this dark room that says nothing about our culture or what we even do even see the painting. They didn't even show us the painting again The cool painting. Oh, they did behind her, right? It's like it's back there, but do we even get like a fun location and they had to do a set build Recreation of the location and they were like, uh, we'll just shoot it into this corner. We'll shoot into the corner. We don't we don't we don't we don't we don't we don't we don't we don't have enough money to build the whole thing. We'll just shoot in this corner.

It doesn't matter. Okay, everyone. I don't know that we ever get the zoomed out shot where we get to see the sick painting of Sabine's mom. I don't think we ever get the actual shot. I think we just get a bunch of close-ups. No, I remember seeing it in these episodes. Okay.

Yes, that's zooming behind her. Okay. It's just, I'm just like, episode 16 is where we left Sabine. It is episode 21, 22. I thought we would, I thought we weren't going to see Sabine again until next, like, give it some time to cook. Like, give her, I don't, like, she does, she, like, it's fine once we leave this planet. Like, it's fine once we get to her, like, you know, doing her Mandalorian thing with Ezra. Like that all, the action is fine.

It's just like, I don't know. I'm just so, I'm so frustrated. And I feel so, I feel so cuckoo for feeling this way. I feel like, why is it that this one character is frustrating me so much? And I think it's just because I truly wish she was, she's all the potential of being interesting, all the little piece. is like could be there and it's just constantly like i don't know she's like constantly held at arm's length like we just can't let sabine get too close to to being

to getting to know her like when roman rains was like sort of a face wow when they booed him after after the royal rumble you're right and there was like they were pushing roman too hard and people weren't ready for it quite yet. I think I was at that Royal Rumble because I remember walking back to the Atlantic Criminal from Barclay Center hearing people talk shit about Roman Rains and being like

but I really like it. You were ready. You were aboard the Roman Rain Strain. Well, this is the thing. You were acknowledging him long before anybody else. Well, here's the thing is I was a shield fan and then the shield broke up and now I'm a candor's order fan and the Mandalorians broke up.

Wow. You were a type. Candice and Roman have like a sort of There's a little bit of a you know You know What it is Well it's really wild is And then when it was time for the Roman Empire In the WWE you were gone

You were like yeah This isn't it I'm doing some other shit And when the time for the Mandalorian shit to happen You were like This isn't This isn't quite what it was So there's a sort of

The first season of the Mandalorian was fantastic You know We just have to take We have to acknowledge the good moments. And I think the thing for Sabine is like the... Sorry, this is the acknowledge him. This is what they do. They put him one finger to acknowledge him.

Oh, God. But to Natalie's point here is that, like, her inclusion here is so bizarre because it feels underbaked. And the reason we took her off the screen is to put her back in the oven. Like, how did you not break her back? And then it's just raw dough that came out. Just like, just like the, the cupcake pans are full of liquid. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And I mean, we know, the season premiere is going to be Mandalorian stuff. I mean, I shouldn't know that, but I do know that. Well, you know, we would say the names of the episodes, and the name of the episodes is like Legacy of Mandelor or something, isn't it? Right. Yeah, exactly. So it's almost, it almost feels like there is a version of this script that didn't have her in it.

And then someone was like, wait, we're going to do the finale. What's out of Bean? Sorry, Legacy of Mandelor was last, was one we, last saw her. The beginning of this is Heroes of Mandelor, Part 1 and Part 2. So, which we'll get to in a second. Not in this episode, but we'll get to saying what we're covering. The point is, I think we were hoping we'd have more dramatic reunion. And it just, honestly, it feels like whatever the mission here was, it didn't have, it didn't have time to bake. Like, I feel like, structurally, we were supposed to pick up Sabine in a different place, where it's like, great news, y'all.

I've united the tribes beneath the banner of me holding the dark saber and it's like you need help get ready to see some Mandalorian shit But this is the thing Just show us interrupting something Why aren't they at a war table? Because they spend all their budget

Yeah I mean They're in their war living room They're in their war living room They are reusing that I do think the I do think to some degree The personal interest in the Mandalorians from Faloni and co

is running up against they're never going to let the Mandalorians do anything interesting in this time period because they were not a factor by the time of the new hope. They don't want to like commit to stuff now and like save themselves

to have the space for like there's for something later. Which is the Mandalorian Manalurian Grogo all the stuff we're going to get through it throughout whatever all the shit is but I think that like specifically like The Mandalorians don't seem to exist in the original trilogy as anything that matters. No one ever mentions them, et cetera.

And so it feels a little bit like they have to be off the board by the end of rebels in some way. They can't have been part of the rebel alliance. It feels like that to me, that they are writing around that limitation in a way that's like saving stuff for later. Okay, one day we're going to get to tell the story of the reunification of the Mandalorians is going to be a big deal. We can't tell it in this time period, the Clone Wars. We can't tell it in this time period, rebels. We can finally tell it. We can't tell it in the sequel timeline because it doesn't come up during the sequel movies.

We'll be in the little gap between the original trilogy and the sequels. We'll just live there. Now, can it happen in a way that will be important for the galaxy so that it impacts the timeline of the sequel movies? No, because it would have impacted the sequel movies. If the Mandalorian Empire gets reunited and then they don't ever deal with the emerging new order or whatever the fuck the what do they actually call it is it called the first order then

they can't possibly actually big matter right so again and again it feels like it's it's being shelved it's like being like squeezed in in a way that prevents the story from being told or maybe the story just isn't that good maybe I don't care about

the reunification of the Mandalorian Empire partly because of Rob what you keep going back to which is like it means sidelining the more interesting version of that story, which was two visions of Mandelora exist, the Satine version, and the Death Watch version, and that's not,

and that story is a story that I think all of us really loved the concept of. Also a version that would have really interesting repercussions in the time of the Galactic Civil War if the Mandalorians had reunited. And once again, there was a division between the

warrior cult and the pacifist cult. And in this moment, the pacifism wins. And so they like come to a, they sign a treaty with, they like Neville Chamberlain themselves with the empire and decide we're not going to go to war. We're going to let you crush the galaxy, but you're going to leave Mandalorian at planets alone or something. That could be a really compelling spin on the Satine stuff.

And instead, we just get this kind of false start over and over again thing. Again, we're about to watch two big Mandalorian episodes. I hope they're really cool. I think the Mandalorian fight scenes, the action scenes have been. phenomenal throughout the series. I liked meeting Sabine's family. I'm excited for y'all to find out about the secret weapon whose name was said in the last 10 minutes and no one noticed it. And that we'll see a little bit of what is... The Roman Rains? It's called the Roman Rains. It's called the Royal Rumble and it creates earthquakes. Anyway, and so that to be like the fact that it feels

kind of boxed in in that way. It's how I felt about it every time it's come up in Rebels. And even parts of Clone Wars, it felt like that a little bit. But at least there, it felt like they were letting themselves, like, answer the question, which was why aren't they involved? And they're answering the question here, but it's just like not that interesting of an answer. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I want Sabine to be cool as hell. I want Sabine to get more action here. I just want to know what everyone else is talking about. Me too. We too.

That's what makes me feel cuckoo. Like that's actually what makes me feel cuckoo bird because I'm like, like, I mean. I think Sabine has a really cool design and people are able to do what they do with protagonists a lot. Which is fill in the blanks, take the little crumbs, build a life. There's a really, is a lot of little beats that they can zoom in on and tell stories of their own about. They can relate to a character who feels like pushed over. away from their family, despite trying their best. They can relate to the same way that, like, Ezra doesn't really have shit going on.

The thing that Ezra has is that he's gotten a lot of great relationships built throughout the course of the show. His stuff with Ball and stuff with Canaan have been really strong. There are bits of that for Satin, for Satine, Jesus, for Sabine across the series where Sabine and Hara have some cool conversations. Sabine and Canaan have that training montage with the Dark Sabre. and there's some of that stuff that can kind of work, but, like, she doesn't get the attention she needs

to really develop in the way that even Ezra was able to over the last couple of seasons, especially. And, like, she's not the only one suffering here. Zeb is barely in these episodes. We don't go to bat for Zeb in the same way because there isn't, like, as loud of a Zeb fan base out there. But, like, the end of this episode is Callis gets on the ship and they don't even show him looking at Zeb.

There's no Zeb interaction. Well, that's like, Star Wars is a homophobic in this era. 100% is, but they don't even have history even if they were wanted to do the other part of it where it's like they're bros or they hate each other still or there's some attention, they don't get any of it.

All of Zeb in these two episodes Hold on, hold up. Zeb does say, that's callous. There's an escape pod. That must be calis. And that's why I'm asking him to like go welcome in onto the ship at the end. And he's just like hanging in the corner. Talking to rats.

The thing is with with Zeb is that he is so like secondary character code like he is just like he is he's sidekick coded to the extreme like he is not walking the line between the two in a way that and that's the frustrating tension yes and they keep trying to like like make us feel like she's protagonist she's a protagonist but they don't give her what a protagonist needs in order to get that emotional investment from from the audience. So I just realized something.

Does she even bring the Dark Saber to this fight? No! She doesn't bring them on the Dark Saber! She leaves it home because she's waiting for somebody else to use it because she doesn't deserve it because she doesn't want it. She doesn't want it. Yeah.

Because she builds a big magnet. She's not unfit to wield the Dark Saber. I don't think it's a big magnet. It is. I know it is. I know in my heart. It's a big magnet. The Empire can't stop us.

Everyone, two-year jet packs. Bzzt. I have this, like, image in my mind of, um, of, like, a cartoon where somebody turns on a big magnet and, like, everyone has helmets and it, like, they raise to the sky and they're stuck to the underside of, like, a ship or something because of the mag. Like, do you know what I'm talking about? Magneto. This is, like, it's not, like, oh, I know what it is. I know what it is I know what it is

I'm wracking my brain what is it it's spy kids it's in the second spy kids movie when they're at the gala and like it's not that they have helmets on

it's that they're all secretly robots or whatever or maybe they put helmets on but but Mr. Floop or I forget who the antagonist of Spy Kids too is but they like turn on a button and it like raises all

of the people up to the bottom of the space like the ship or something and they are all stuck to the top from their heads that's what I've been trying to think of this entire time spy kids two island of law stream spy kids versus magnaniman uh from what I can see and yeah everyone gets zapped up I've never seen this movie um it's I was I was gonna say it's good but I haven't watched it since I was probably eight years old so uh I'll give it a rewatch and I'll report it was it was huge with kids of Natalie's generation Austin I think you know for millennials it resonated a little less so okay hold on the original spy kids came out in 2000 and one yeah I was 16 Natalie I was too old

I know I was I was six that one but that's what I was just hit by the bestorator or whatever it was But that's what I'm trying to say is I was, I was kid in the spy kids. That's what we're trying to say. They brought those towers down. You were like, the what? I was watching it. I watched it. I remember being in school.

And they put, they brought in the TV on the wheels. I was in first grade. I was in first grade. I had had major surgery at that point. I was very conscious. You know what? You're right. I shouldn't, you know.

No, it's okay. But I do remember that shit. It was, I remember. No, my kids seem to hit. Like, I'll have a lot of younger friends, slightly younger friends, for which Spy Kids is very important. I think I should watch them at some point.

They're Millennials, too. They are Millennials, too. Spy Kids has a microwave that you put, like, a data card in, and then it prints you a hamburger. Okay. That sounds great. Let's go.

It's aspirations. it's yeah it's um it that blew my mind bring it back so don't know she'd make that yeah what are I used to kind of deal with the juiceroy was like the jucero yeah yeah that one's so anyway all right so sorry for the spy kid's tangent and anyway mandolore continuing to be slightly disappointing but you do at least get mandolarians pouring out of a ship and running along the surface of a star destroyer interdictor it looks cool yeah at least we get that I love that they've all got their cool armor, but nobody will give Ezra a cool armor, so they give him a little, like, 60s spaceman helmet. It's like Clone Wars era.

It has the old Republic logo on it even. It's great. It's cool. The only thing missing from his outfit is like a little like 60s Raygun, a little like satellite dish thing around the barrel. And it goes, p. Yeah, no, he's, but they, they do, they do work out there. Meanwhile, the Thron getting his first taste. So in, in the books, as you alluded to, Austin,

Thrawn never really does fully grok like what, until it's too late, what he's messing with when he messes around with the force. The, like the rules of the galaxy where his form of strength and military might and prowess rule and everyone else is sort of made to, like bow to that power. here he gets his comeuppance very quickly because he's got a room cornered he's doing his all like now i will take your take your surrender i will i will take your prisoner and that's when bendu rolls in and i love this moment as the storm begins talking to them he turns around canaan's got his lightsaber out like preparing to fend off bolts from the blue like he knows

how angry bendu is and you get thrown what jedi devilry is this and that First little bit of fear. Oh, this is not, this was not in the, in the script. Yeah. He goes, I am the Bndu. I bring death. Wild. All right.

Yeah, Thron has not seen this shit. Throne is not ready for it. No art of Bndu out there. I wish, I wish, I wish he would go home and be like, I have to find some, you know, historical representation of Bendu. Yeah, that would be really fun. Yeah, I guess, yeah. Yeah, no one did a painting of this shit, buddy.

Get ready to learn Bendu. There's a reason nobody really talked about this planet. Yeah. It was depicted from a great distance. Uh-huh. Starts running. The lightning strikes start hitting everything. Canaan has provoked the Bendu into attacking everything.

He's like, get off of this planet, get out of here. Everything is getting blasted. Even though Canaan's like, I told you my friend was coming. It's not your friend. anymore pal and yeah he's like leave this place I am the light

I am the dark I am the Bendu and then yeah we get some fun lightning lightning as projectile weapon crashing against Thai fighters

and rebel rebellions ships and stormtroopers on the ground and specifically chasing Canaan Natalie as you pointed out he like has it

out for Canaan specifically he's like Canaan is doing you specifically yeah fuck you specifically can't his

or his Hera is playing a quick time event to dodge incoming lightning bolts and you know this is so much like we talked about like Ezra kind of having Aladdin vibes this is a lot like tricking genie into just like

going ham yeah it really does have that energy this is Caden being like okay you won't grab me wish is great I'll bet you're too much of a punk though to smite this imperial fleet yeah totally and then throng just shoot up like um

aim for the middle Everyone shoot, yeah, everyone shoot the cloud. Yeah, shoot where the eyes are. A really beautiful shot of the Bendu's body falling from the heavens, like a meteor or something, which is really sick. I was really disappointed when that worked, though. Me too. They should work. Small arms?

I know. Well, the ATATs are also firing. It's a bunch of stuff firing at once. Yeah. I think he's just up there floating around. And Theron was like, shoot him, right in the middle. Aim right there. Storm would never.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. Although, Ben, do's got a different agenda here, which is that now he's about to snap back into ambiguous prophecy mode. That's right. He's gotten that off his chest. He's going back to his, like, happy place of, like, being all-knowing. Yeah.

And just freaking people out a little bit. Thron gets shook by this. Yeah, he says, I see your defeat, like many arms surrounding you in a cold embrace. We get to zoom in on Thron's eyes and Thron look. The fuck you do. Uh-huh. It sure would be horrible if the symbol you adopt as the totem of your army and your dominance might also be the fate you fear most of all. I also think that part of it is like he says you cannot see, but I can.

Like, Thron doesn't like the idea that there is a perspective he can't gain because his superpower is that when he has knowledge, he can use the knowledge to attain victory. And so the idea that, like, there's not a spy he can place somewhere, there's not a painting he can observe, there's not a book he can read. There's no way to get the Bendu's perspective on the world is, like, existentially terrifying for him. It's like, that's his true vulnerability is there are some things that he can't learn about. And if that's the case, then, then he's kind of doomed, right? He doesn't have another way to win. And we get a really great, I really love the camera. work in the final couple of shots of this as they move through the ghost and canaan like you know pat's people on the shoulder and we get the hallway filled with you know with a wounded shatter rebel troopers yeah a hundred percent yeah they look like defeated army yeah like and sabine is like I got to go back to help the mandoloreans and here is like all right bye wait I forgot oh my god so mean's like uh I have to go help my family and hair is like uh yeah Good luck. I have to go to help my family. So I know how about family, but blow up the death

star. But I'm sure whatever you're doing, I'll bet that's super important too. Yeah. Canaan thanks callus arm on his shoulder. You know, thanks for risking everything for us. I know we, you know, I know that you put it all in the line or whatever, you know. Could have been Zeb saying that. That's all I'm saying. Why wasn't it sub? I think it coming from Canaan matters and in the Yowie version of this, which is like, you know, Canaan is our emotional and moral core of the show. The last meeting they had, he kind of rag-dalled Calus around to make it look good, but also for fun. Yeah.

Yeah, like, we need the Canaan, like, stamp of approval that, like, Callis is, like, officially, like, here and on board and, like, is cool with us. Callas's little forelock, like, comes down. And then immediately he just starts, like, wiping out Stormtro. You don't even see it. Like, just the elevator slam shut and the next thing you know, like Star Troopers are dead. He's just, yeah, he's...

Yeah. New Calus just dropped. Yeah, New Calas did just drop. I can't believe they fucking caught me on Cali. This is the thing. How can you... I want to... I'm rooting for Sabine.

I've been rooting against Callis. And yeah. So, awesome. I think some of what's going on here is... they discover in the process of working on Calus from the way they write the character where the characters performed that they had something really good.

The Sabine thing is the classic problem of the show was originally conceived with these characters and these positions and here's the role they're going to play and it just isn't clicking. Yeah. Yeah, I do, you know, I don't know that Sabine is being given a lot,

but I don't think that what's, it's so hard, right? Because it's like, you could only perform what's put in front of you and it keeps feeling like there's a better performance somewhere else but it's not the one we're getting you know um it's hard it's really hard i i mean you know it's it's the point that we were making before about zab where like zeb had the the the the shot at the to like hit it out of the park and did right when he stepped up to the i'm trying to make a baseball metaphor but i don't know what he put he

he steps up to the plate he steps up to the Yeah, he hit a home run. Sabine keeps getting these opportunities and just gets fumbled on them every time. And like I, yeah, I, it feels like the way that the camera moves, like, it's like tracking the up to Sabine and Harris conversation. It's almost like, it's like, it's just moving so quickly that it's like, oh, and there's Sabine And we're moving on It's like

It's just like It's just a stupid hateer cast I don't hate her I just want better I just want I want to feel for the character What I know other people feel for the character And I don't

I'm not being given that What I want you know Whereas but I think Have we already seen Some of the stuff That makes them feel that way? I don't know I don't know

Maybe I think that the Charles of the Dark Sabre is an episode That Hit for People is my understanding. I think it can probably hit for other people more than it hit for me, but it's still hit for me. It's still worked. It's just like that's a one-off and the core mandolore.

And again, I don't, she is being saddled with the Falloni Mandalorian verse part of this. Yeah. Which to come back to Alex, something you said at the beginning of the episode, talking about mall and like what's the value of mall versus a new character, to some degree the thing that's that's being, that's tough here is all of the continuity that Sabine is being asked to carry versus someone like Zeb, which is all new stuff. And like, our expectations for Zeb are a lot lower because of

that. We're not like, damn, where's all the LaSot content? We have not talked about the LaSot outside of the introduction of their genocide and the original and then the thing where they go to the place and da-da-da-da. Like, we're never like, oh, I want to know more about what's happening on the LaSat secret home world. We're constantly like, well, You keep telling us the Mandalorian stuff is important, but then not showing it to us or not developing it. That's exactly. So Sabine is sort of a, you know, a senectiki of the Mandalorian situation. And it's a shame that it's falling on the back of a character, you know.

Hera, for that matter, we get one episode, we get a couple of episodes about Ryloth, Rylothian culture or the Rylothian Civil War, the Rylothian resistance via Chamm and Hara's relationship. It's not on the screen every day. We're not being told that it's important. There's not a show called the Twilic or the Rylothian. That's telling us that the history of Ryloth is important. Unfortunately, we are getting that with Mandelora. We are getting it with Mandalorians, and Sabine has to be the character or the show's, you know, kind of axel on which all of that turns.

And, you know, that's also true for the Jedi, but the Jedi storylines have been hitting in a way that the Mandalorian storylines have not been hitting. And that's not about Sabine specifically. That's about that stuff. And it's a shame. But, yeah, I don't, I think we're more of a disappointer, disappointed people than traditional haters. But, yeah. I think that really kind of hits the crux of where is, is why we keep coming back to focusing in on Sabine. It's because this is theoretically, Faloni, like, we know that Faloni has these larger aspirations for the Mandalrians and that it is going to become the core of.

sort of the center of the Falloniverse as we move forward. The sort of fourth era of Star Wars. You know, like if we have the new, if there's going to be a movie, it's going to be in this new era, so. Yeah.

And it just, you would think that there would be, that this, that this character would have more of a, would be more of like an inciting, um, I don't know. At least it's not like a bobobo-fat. Yeah.

Look, I think, I think the thing moves me to hater status is honestly that I think some of the stuff with the Mandalorians is like, we've seen cool bandalorean ideas. I think things begin to fall apart as it's like, and let's keep shooting it off through the lens of this one character who's a kid. And we're going to have like all these important like mandolary things happening all informed by like a kid and a young adult adventure type thing, you know, being the framing, the framing device on it. uh so that that stuff is that stuff is definitely not hitting and also just the the chopped up way they they're telling the story where it's like i need your help okay fine like i'll be right there all right i have to go back to mandor that's great kid good luck i i feel like that is actually the most disappointing part of her inclusion here for me which is that like this theme of like you know the the relationships that we've like seen

develop have paid off. There's this mention of family again and again again. And like, you know, I get as much that you, Sabine is part of that family, so she should be there. And that's why we're including her. But for her to say, oh, I have to go back to my family and not come to the thing of like, you're my family because, you know, the, like the rebellion should be important to her in some way, right? And like the, the, like, hesitants or any of that with her, her mom and her brother and stuff, like that should have a consequence and it should move her along

instead of just being like, oh, we hit the Sabine button real quick to get her back in here. Or Sabine should get to be mad when Harris says no. Like, Sabine says, I want to repay the favor to her and Harris' response is go,

but I can't come with you. I have to attend to my people, basically. And then we just move on. And we just move on. We don't even really get, we don't, the camera, doesn't stay on Sabine long enough for her to react outside of like looking away. Like she's on, when I say looking away, I don't mean like in a dramatic way.

Just like her head is moving around, you know. She should have a response to that in some direction. And maybe that's where we'll come back in in the next episode. But like the show that cares about her interiority would have her be either I get it. You know, I'm sorry you can't. You know, I wish you could come help me, but I get it. Or how could you say that when we just put so much at risk to come help you, which of course they didn't put so much at risk because of the.

situation as we had stopped before but that's like what's being gestured at is that they weren't that they couldn't come and help and they decided to take the risk to do it Sabine makes an ask Harris says no and that doesn't have any weight to it the camera just moves past it and I wish it had been allowed to have some weight to it because it's interesting stakes you know especially especially because in the previous episode at the end of episode 20, Ezra, when returning to, after going on his solo mission to go rescue Obi-Wan or confront him all or whatever, like this, this, you know, this side quest, when he returns back to Atalon, he says, this is where I'm supposed to be, you're my family, and we should go home.

And they do a big group hog and Sabine's not there. It's like, I know. I don't know what to say about it. I honestly But now Calus is part of the family Now it's like The uncle count has gone up officially

The Uncle Count Callis is an uncle now From the case we I don't remember this Seven years ago When we first started Watching Rebels We were counting

How many uncle But it also went down Because Mall is dead You know We lost We've formerly drafted him As an uncle I think we had him

Yeah He was like Bad boy uncle Yeah he was bad boy uncle Yeah Oh yeah he was uncle that your your parents tell you not to hang out with and like yeah he also gained obiwan who's like the the uncle that like okay like he's just fully not he doesn't want to be part

he's just already part of family yeah yeah he's on tattooing we don't know what he's doing we haven't talked to him in years but yeah he's still family uh but yeah it's this is a great run of episodes that rebels had here at the end of the third season really fantastic I like and I don't just mean these three. I think going back, I've been really happy with the show since we've come back to it, basically, but especially this last two sets of episodes that we've covered. Natalie, what were you going to say? No, I agree.

I think, I think I remember being really excited about where we, like, started off in this season, starting off with kind of Ezra in his like new kind of older slightly older, more matured state. Ezra

like exploring what the Sith Holocron could offer him like having the kind of tension between the dark side and the light side of the force um I'm going to skip over

the bean stuff and then like getting some really interesting shots like I'm thinking of the POV shot from last last time we recorded of Callis in the of his perspective kind of like a day in the life on the ship

a day in the life in Callas there's a lot of I even like actually the legacy of Mandelor like coming to Sabine's house there was like so much so much cool like world kind of building about their history and their backstory a lot of the architecture there was like really cool um I hope that we are going to continue on this high like I hope that like we're we've hit the stride and moving into season four that we will just have

a solid run of Bangor Epps. We've got big ones because I think probably worth saying here we are going to far as our plan I believe four episodes per podcast episode for the rest of Rebels so that we can be done Rebels the day before or the day after

and or drops, right? I would love to drop that episode the day before if we could do a quick turnaround on it. We'll see how it goes or if we can get it all recorded early because if we cut out the 45 minutes of shitting on Sabine from every episode, which many people are screaming at us to do. Fair enough. I'm really torn on all that because it's like our job is to talk about why we like the thing

and what works and what doesn't and what the show is saying and doing. And like a big part of our experience of watching it is this big Sabine conversation. So it's like I don't want us to, Cotto, please don't cut anything we've recorded. But it's, but it is like, oh, it reminds me a little bit, Rob, of what we were doing. the Ava Podcasts back in the day for Waypoint. And it was like, all right, well, there's a lot to chew on here, but we have to stop and talk about the parts of this that like are flopping again and again, even though the overall effect is a show that we all really like a lot.

And it's like, I know that's not good podcasting, you know, but it's, or it's, I think it's good criticism, but I know that there's part of the audience that thinks that it's not fun to hear, you know, and we got to respond to the work that's in front of us you know and that's just like the honest truth of how to make a show or how to do criticism really so that's that is what but this is you know this is probably we don't have a panel at star war celebration or whatever that's true not yet not yet we never asked you one day Disney write us a letter and say come do a panel and we'll have to consider it you know you to go the other way around on that one do we I don't know

Um, one important, uh, thing I wanted to point out about the Andor trailer, um, before we close out is that one of the, uh, scenes that we were like, who is that? It was Clea. It was. Okay. That's what I was trying to figure out before. Well, then she was totally. I guess, you know what? Her being secret agent, I just, she's not in her shop girl uniform. She's not. She's not. done up to be like selling in tees. Specifically the one it's the it's the brief moment where the woman is Clayah is like shaking and or is like confronting him and kind of this like

two shot I linked a screenshot of it or actually it's a GIF in the in our in our almost that's right after like you got Luthan killed or something Yeah. It's like, what are you doing? Are you in this or are you not? Are you here to fight? I don't know.

Maybe that maybe that's what you get. Maybe he's telling her you're here to fight or you're here to win. Yeah, maybe that's what's going on. She's like, I've never not been here to fight. And he's like, but my point is we want to win. And she's why I want to fight and then just circles now. They're stuck. The entire episode, just they can't, they can't get past it. Yeah. But anyway, we are past season three. Rebels. I hope. I'm loving this Thrawn. This has been such a good, having an end with his confrontation with Bendu and confronting like, oh, there are forces past your understanding here. And it means we'll have him in the next season, presumably, as our primary antagonists, changing things from the previous seasons because, right, we had Grand Inquisitor in season one. We had the rest of the Inquisitors in season two, along with Mall showing up. and then Assoca and stuff. And we had a lot of Vader. And Vader, you're right.

We had a lot of Vader in season two. And now it's like the Thron show. And it seems like it will continue to be the Thron show. But I was saying before four episodes next time. Here's the Mandalore part one and part two. And then in the name of the rebellion part one in part two. So much to see. Big episodes coming.

This is we're going to be turn it around. Those issues we've been having with the Mandalorian. I'm saying we're going to be like, wow. Wow. Now that we've seen. the big magnet. I totally understand like they were cooking and I just didn't realize

but they're using an induction burner and I just couldn't understand it yet. Right. I see if you're saying. Where's the heat coming from? Right. Yeah. Fucking magnets. With that we've reached the end of another episode of a more civilized age. Our show is produced

by Cato Contreras and supported by our listeners at Patreon.com slash civilized. Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. And remember, I am not the person who always starts the Sabine chat.