A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 67: Call to Action, Rebel Resolve, and Fire Across the Galaxy (Rebels 13-15)

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Finally, we've hit our first big Rebels milestone: the finale of season 1. With Gall Trayvis revealed to be an Imperial operative, the crew of the Ghost takes his supposed mission (getting the word ou...t about how people should fight back) into their own hands. The result: A series of episodes that cements the first season of Rebels as better than we could've anticipated. We get answers to lingering questions. We get a well earned farewell to few characters and a (re-)introduction to a trio of new ones. And we get some of the coolest showdowns we've seen yet.        Next Time: Rebels 16 & 17 ("The Siege of Lothal" Parts 1 & 2) Show Notes Call to Action Concept Art Gallery 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)

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakney, 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 brilliant Q&A episodes, where your questions remind us of cool videos we saw one time and we stopped the show to watch it together and let you enjoy our reactions. They people like it. The people like it.
Starting point is 00:00:36 The people, look, we are just giving the people what they tell us they want. If the people are like, stop doing it, they would let us know. And they have it. So, you know. Yeah, like, it's like when Obi-Wan lists his head, but like instead of hearing the death throws of Alderan, here's people being like, show us more cool video reaction sequences. And he's like, okay. And they open up the holocaust table and like,
Starting point is 00:01:00 Luke, let me show you some of my favorite memes from a more civilized age. That's what happened. Our next episode is going to be all the remainder of Rebel season one stuff, right? Our next Q&A. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, that's a ton of meat. Yeah. That's a big, big table.
Starting point is 00:01:21 With a lot of plates. They'd come out around before with like the size and the fixings. The meat is here. Oh, wow. This all looks good. It already looks good. I'm living on sides. This is pretty good.
Starting point is 00:01:34 That brings me. I'm satiated. Before we get into today's episodes, call to action, Rubber Resolve, and fire across the galaxy, I did want to ask you all something. Am I mistaken,
Starting point is 00:01:47 or was the rap on this first season, Rebels, that it was something to be endured before the good stuff. That is what I was told. Yeah. I'm sitting here. Wait a second.
Starting point is 00:01:57 Maybe the good stuff's coming. Maybe this isn't the meat. Maybe this is the flexions. Yeah. Maybe we're about to be blown away because overall, I think this is as good, if not better, than the average Clone War season. Yeah. You know? What was the lowest point of this first season?
Starting point is 00:02:18 Damn. Slinghot. I don't know. Sleyshot. Rebels episode list. Let's see. Droids in distress. Which wasn't even that bad.
Starting point is 00:02:29 What's not bad? Oh, let's go over the episodes real quick. Spark and Rebellion, the two-parter intro, which is like, fine. Fine, good. Good for a pilot, right? There was like the little shorts, which we wrap back to in this, which I liked today. Droid's in distress, which is the R2C3PO, fine. Definitely middling.
Starting point is 00:02:46 Middling, but fine. Not crap. Right, because remember, we get the stuff in that with the, like, we learn about Zeb's backstory. Yeah. Right. Uh-huh. They're not called the little stats. You're thinking of Anne Rice again.
Starting point is 00:02:58 Fighter Flight the one where they Eb and Zeb steal the Thai fighter That's good That's hijinks It's fun
Starting point is 00:03:07 That's fine Yeah that was silly These are like When there are like Little Light episodes in this They are little light Fun episodes Unlike the droids
Starting point is 00:03:15 Ark in Clone Wars Rise of the Old Masters Yeah Droid's in the Void or whatever Day in the Void Rise of the Old Masters The one Great
Starting point is 00:03:25 Awesome especially if you know the truth which is that that was a force ghost and not a hologram of Luminara. Breaking Ranks, the Ezra Goes Undercover episode. Love it. Surprisingly good for like being a kid's adventure. Out of Darkness,
Starting point is 00:03:39 which is the Hera Sabine episode, they go and meet all the people on the asteroid base, the cats on the other. I'm a little lower on it because of the- I would say it's probably this one for me. It's the lowest, but it's still not that low. I had a fine time watching it.
Starting point is 00:03:52 It's not that low, yeah. I think it has second act problems, second half problems. but like hair is great. Hair is great. Hair is great. Empire Day.
Starting point is 00:04:03 Good. Gathering forces of the follow up to Empire Day. That's kind of a one episode deal. Good. Path of the Jedi. The, they go to the Jedi Temple. Maybe that's, Ali, your lowest. I remember you not being as high on that one.
Starting point is 00:04:18 Yoda shows up. Yoda does show up. He's no Galtrethus. It gets a plus one and a minus one for Yoda showing. Right. this is true. It evens out. It kind of cancels it.
Starting point is 00:04:28 Yeah. But it's still better than like water war or any of that shit from Cold War. Oh, absolutely. Idiots Array. I'm a little mixed on, but overall still had a good time. I think everybody else here had a pretty good time. I had a very good time. Right.
Starting point is 00:04:44 Vision of hope. And is the, what was the, what happens in that? It's Travis. That's Travis. Right. That's the most, that's right. That was good. That was good.
Starting point is 00:04:52 And then these three, which are bangers. Yeah. Good season. Yeah. I think this season had an unjust rap and maybe that's a sign that the later seasons are so good that by comparison the first season is weak or here's the alarming interpretation people didn't know what was good
Starting point is 00:05:12 and there's stuff that is not this that is different and maybe less good at least as like you know by our by our measure approaching I doubt it I feel like they found it I feel like they found the groove. We'll see, I guess. But yeah, positive on the whole first season. Stronger than many Clone War seasons. It's also, it is, it is much shorter than the average Clone War season. And I feel like maybe that's doing something here in terms of just like investing in like good story. Like you don't have as much room to like do your Kurosawa stick again. And again. And again. without them doing Seven Samurai.
Starting point is 00:05:58 They got to do Seven Samurai next episode, next season, right? For sure. At some point, we're only going to have one, though. Control F village. Well, the thing is, we know they'd eventually do it in the Asoka or in Mandalorian when Asoka shows up. They do it there, right? I mean, they do it in Mandalorian three times or something.
Starting point is 00:06:15 Season one, episode two, when he like goes to that fishing, that swamp village or whatever. And then they do, then Book of Obavet ends up also being Seven Samurai. So I bet it shows up eventually in rebels. Pheloni can't help himself. But hopefully just once. But hopefully just once. And we didn't have it at all in this season. So Tholone's also always like, man, these, you know, these Curisov films are great, but there's just so much edge on them.
Starting point is 00:06:43 If only it were just a little sanded off. Well, the other thing is the other thing, the place that I think some samurai shit shows up is in some character design that we're going to get in this. pretty explicit and like philoni says this as much in a philoni zone we'll go to today and then like the combat the lightsaber stuff feels like very like ooh look at this style versus this style instead of just like we're doing a fight um also tarcan has a hojo crest also he does this is true this is true um god we get good stuff this episode we should get into it yeah so even though these three episodes describe a neat arc i think it is going to be easier to take them one by one because they're deeply procedural. Each one leaves off with one set of plans complete and with another problem
Starting point is 00:07:30 remaining for the next episode. And that holds true, even with the finale where I guess you'd say the remaining problem is, you know, the Empire, Darth Vader, all that stuff. But they do address the immediate crises here. So our first episode, Call to Action, follows on the heels of vision of hope. The Empire has decided to burn Galtrevis as an asset in order to use his credibility to turn the people of Lothal against the ghosts. Canaan decides to fight fire with fire by hijacking a massive imperial comms tower to send their own message out across the planet and neighboring star systems. But the plan is far more dangerous than they think because Moth Wilhoff Tarkin has arrived
Starting point is 00:08:10 on the planet to take charge of its floundering manhunt. He anticipates the ghosts move and sets a trap at the tower. In the ensuing battle, Canaan is captured as he buys time for the rest of the ghost to escape. But they do manage to get their message out, even though, as Ezra asks at the end, it is unclear whether anyone heard it or if it mattered if they did. This starts off with such an incredible shot. There is concept art of this on the Star Wars.com website. In fact, the concept art section of this particular episode is just so good. I'm just going to link you the whole section instead of giving you like just the one piece.
Starting point is 00:08:53 but it's just like great, what do you call it, view of the city, skyline view of the city of Lothal City with the, with Tarkin Star Destroyer coming into the, from the top of the frame, dominating the top half as the imperial march hits in a way that we've not yet really heard the imperial march, like the empire is fucking here and it is so strong and so striking and so immediately like, okay, we're in this mode now. And also, then Tarkin shows up. And Tarkin is, like, it's a, it's a different, he's in a different, like, level of everybody else here. He just immediately berates everybody and shoes everybody out. And it's like, y'all are amateur. It's like, get on my level. I'm doing it differently than you are. We need more from
Starting point is 00:09:46 you. This is not, this is like amateur league shit, which is wild because I think the show's done a pretty good job of making, like, the Inquisitor and Callis not seem like fuck-ups. But Tarkin is just, he just expects more. He's just a different tier of what the empire is. And I think that's a really fun thing to do with your, like, next tier up of villain as they kind of lay the groundwork, presumably, for what's to come. There's something else he's doing here that I found a little bit interesting, which is, at least in public, he's pretending that there's no way there's any Jedi still out there
Starting point is 00:10:19 in the world. they everyone that everyone he meets it in the greeting party uh you know governor uh sorry she's not the governor she's minister toa yeah and callus everyone knows that like oh you're here to help us with the Jedi problem effectively and his response is very much like what Jedi problem there is no way there's a Jedi problem because I know from Jedi they're all dead they don't exist well and he puts the Inquisitor of Blast in a way because he's like and we're supposed to have a Jedi guy we got a guy who's supposed to take care of Jedi insofar as there are anything with that name left that's the guy and he hasn't been even doing like y'all are like no one here is producing numbers the regional manager has shown up to your little retail store and is saying what is going on in this in this outfit moff tarkin's about to play with the twos and he ain't even going to shoot and they're going to bury they're going to bury the inquisitor and callus that's what I'm saying oh and we get of course sort of the thesis of where we're at in the moment here because we get the we get the andor
Starting point is 00:11:28 beat right which is like the ISB or the the imperials know that there are a bunch of little groups out there and don't believe there's any sort of unified front and he says cells factions they basically are saying like wait there's a rebel movement out there and he's like cells factions tribes call them what you will they lack the one thing that would make them a incredible threat to the empire, unity. And it's like, oh, that's what the rest of the show is. Well, and it's the funny thing, because that's in the next scene where he's bringing up, he's berating Oresco and Grint.
Starting point is 00:12:00 And what's funny there, too, is, again, in terms of that, like, we don't talk about the Jedi in front of the Normies, effectively. And then also, apparently, dudes like Oresco and Grint have no idea that insurgencies are happening all the time, that the empire is always fighting little rebel groups. This is also a secret that is held at the Tarkin level. that the empire's engaged with all these little brush fires, which is also kind of an indicator of, well, of course these guys are rematch
Starting point is 00:12:25 because they don't realize that, like, this is happening everywhere. This is now, this is part of the job of being an imperial official as you're going to end up fighting these battles. But because, you know, we've always been at war with East Asia type shit is happening here, these guys are kind of taken aback by the notion that what is happening to them is not the singular weird occurrence on Lothal. it is endemic.
Starting point is 00:12:50 It's the cost of doing business. Like, okay, if you're going to be in this role across the galaxy, you're going to have little guys pop up who want to throw over your shit, deal with them is Tarkin's position, right? We deal with them and prevent them from coagulating into something that it's not possible for us to deal with. That's the job. And, of course, we'd seen these two fail at that.
Starting point is 00:13:11 There's something about these episodes, I think, shows that they've gotten more mature as a scripting and creative team. that like there's a speeder brake chase in this episode. It lasts exactly as long as it needs to. They get away. The, you know, the question of what's going on in it is less important than the fact that it's like fun to watch them zip around town and across the planes and to get into a little bit of a blaster fight and Canaan does like some cool maneuvers and that they get away.
Starting point is 00:13:39 And that this is just happening. Like they can't put a lid on this insurgency, which of course has consequences. What was the reaction to the thing that Tark? What did y'all feel about Tarkin telling the Inquisitor to take these characters off the board the way that he does? In the office, does anybody remember this? Where Tarkin is just like, oh yeah, full-on decapitation? Uh-huh. The fact that you could see him, like, activate the lightsaber and, like, they're not dead yet.
Starting point is 00:14:11 Like, you know what that next move is, is that it was cool. It was, you know, the villainy. I was fucking with it. I was like we should feel like these villains are are credible threats. Like there's no goofiness here. Even the way that like that callous and the Inquisitor are fucking up is like taken seriously. It's not like, well, you guys are just some some like, you know, you're just like blowing it. you're just whatever it's it's like it's taken seriously in the way that they react where they're
Starting point is 00:14:53 not like totally falling inwards and feeling terrible about themselves where you know the inquisitor is like I'll like right you know I'll prove this to you like you're you're going to be you're I'm going to be worth your investment basically um and then in this scene it's just like it continues reinforcing that this is like this is a legitimate force this is a legitimate Like the empire is holding legitimate power and wielding that in on this planet on Lothal. They're willing to cut heads off. Well, and I think the other thing sort of caught, the other thing I really appreciated there was I was struck by was, I wasn't surprised that Minister Tua is horrified by it because she's a figurehead. She's a functionary.
Starting point is 00:15:39 Like, she's not, she's not supposed to be read in on what the empire is all about. What was striking is that callus was also kind of floored by what it just happened, which is interesting because it's like, oh, like there's masks within masks. Like, this guy. And you were not and you jumped at this. You know what I mean? Your name is I'm hard. Like I'm, I don't feel.
Starting point is 00:16:02 That's your name. And you saw your boys get their heads cut off and you're like, eh. Well, and it's great because like they're making so much of this in advance of Andor, right? But like, you can sort of see. Calus is sort of a white glove, you know, tyrant in a lot of ways, right? Like there's an order to things. He represents order.
Starting point is 00:16:22 He's, you know, he's a super cop for, for the empire. And so something like an inquisitor just cutting off heads in the middle of a, what seems like it was a routine meeting is kind of like, oh, I didn't realize that was possible in this order of things. Because this is the stuff that happens to the Palpatine level and the Vader level. Yes, this is the equivalent of like you being. you're in like an office job and being a room when a CEO just goes, you're fired to somebody. And you're like, whoa, they didn't, they didn't, you didn't just, you didn't hear.
Starting point is 00:16:55 You didn't wait until the meeting was over and then you said an email and then da-da-da-da-da. You just did it? And it's like, yeah, that's how certain people can do, you know? I also think there's another small thing about the scene that I love, which reinforces a recurring thing that we love about the dark side Sith and, you know, dark side assassin relationship stuff. two scenes prior, the Inquisitor was being berated by Tarkin, and he is now his sword arm, right? He is now like, okay, I'm going to cut off these guys' heads for you. I'm a tool being used, and I am a tool that gets passed around, because later we will really emphasize that he's Vader's tool primarily, and then he's afraid of that relationship. And he moves through fear.
Starting point is 00:17:36 Like, that's what motivates him the most, through fear against his opponents, but also that's what makes him make choices, right? right? He has to be, he's afraid of the people who have power over him and he will work with them to prevent that pain hitting him. And that is the same situation that we saw in all of the prequel clone war stuff between Sidious and Duku, between Duku and Ventris and Duku and Savage. Like this is, and then, and between Cidius and Mall, right? This thing of like, I'm a thing being used by the person above me. I want to be more than that. The only way I can do that is by gaining their trust and being a good soldier for them. And there is something really sad about the fact that after Tarkin shows up and tells the Inquisitor that, like, he isn't
Starting point is 00:18:23 doing anything right, he immediately falls into step to work with Tarkin. And it, like, I don't know, the end that Vader has done this to the Inquisitor, right? Like, Vader has turned whoever this person is into this very flexible worker for, you know, the worst work that you have, the most, like, grimy, cruelest stuff that you have. You've created this person to do that work for you. Vader's done it. Anakin Skywalker has made his own Darth Mall, right? And this is the first time. We don't see their relationship on screen, but they hint at it and it ain't good. You know, I don't think we get the impression that, like, the Inquisitor and Vader are having fun chats, you know? I think it's a lot, probably a lot more like what we saw between
Starting point is 00:19:07 Duku and Savage than what we saw between Palpatine and Anakin pre-Vader, you know. Yeah, there's no, like, appealing to some sort of interiority, like, no sort of, like, what are your dreams? What are your desire? It's like, you know, who do you want to protect? Who do you feel? Like, it is so cold. It is so, like, utilitarian in a way that, you know, it's clear that.
Starting point is 00:19:37 the Inquisitor has long been since broken by this system. Well, and as we're going to see, he has a more meaningful relationship and connection to Canaan. Right. Like, there is a, like, he is tormenting Canaan, but also there is a degree of, I can also relate to you on a level. I understand you on a really, on a profound level, because to a degree, there are elements of each other's stories that are that are reminiscent of one another um you know yeah go
Starting point is 00:20:12 go right i was just going to say last thing on the sort of on the the on the minister and um tarcan here the way that tarcan and uh the inquisitor specifically the way that tarcan talks about um Jedi leaping from the pages of ancient history like appearing out of like it 15 years ago was Order 66. Yeah. But it, but, and so your first reaction is like, okay, how this doesn't make sense, like everyone obviously knows that the Jedi were around. But this is like a question that's, we've had before in terms of how prevalent, how many
Starting point is 00:20:52 people actually encounter Jedi in their like lifetimes. Minister Tua clearly has never encountered a Jedi before. She's seeing something that sort of discered. describes what she might imagine a Jedi to act like or behave like, and she's, and she's right. She is right. She is right. She is right.
Starting point is 00:21:15 But she's made to feel like a fool. Yes. Because the way that the, that Tarkin talks about Jedi is being like from ancient history. But I love that with the couple, coupling with the dig at the inquisitor of like, and there's supposed to be someone here that's already wiped them all out. and you wonder what is the inquisitor's back like is the inquisitor a former Padawan is he like uh like we don't know where he came from we don't know what his origin story and relationship to the force is and i like i have this curious sort of like imagination
Starting point is 00:21:51 of like the inquisitor sort of having had like another like a life at being a Jedi possible and then and to be there as it's being described as like something from ancient history is like just like creating like this distance of like alternate realities basically if like the inquisitor I don't know yeah yeah but yeah I don't know that we're gonna know at this point right yeah so this kind of one of the interesting thing when we get to a new hope honestly because I was watching bits and pieces that a month or so ago but like I've been interpreting a lot as like oh it's so weird that everyone forgot the Jedi existed after just like 15 20 years but
Starting point is 00:22:32 that's actually every time it comes up it doesn't quite come up that way every time it is more this idea that the Jedi are heavily mythologized people know they were real but in terms of like what they actually were what they actually did it's become kind of murky like people like people don't really believe that they were all that they were cracked up to be and there's an element of of this too where it's like uh for instance when the two when two doomed imperial grunts say like he lives up to their reputation uh, the Jedi's reputation, Tarkin's responses, I doubt that very much. Right. And, and, and, and, and part of that is, you know, he wants, he wants the Jedi to seem like,
Starting point is 00:23:12 you know, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Right. Uh, there were these, like, super warriors out there who could do all this, like, magical shit. But really, the Jedi were just a, you know, political military order that we wiped out 15 years ago. And if there was anyone who lived up that reputation, Tarkin knew them. You know what I mean? Like, you know, he, you know, he, You're telling me you're up against a real Jedi, please. Like, Tarkin knew Yoda. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he knew all these people. He's friends with Anakin.
Starting point is 00:23:40 Right, yeah, uh-huh. This is one of the questions that comes up in the Rebels recon. I'm going to not do this one because the last Rebels Recon, the one that we're going to actually go through today is so long that I don't want to also show these other ones. But this is the question that comes up for about this episode in the second. You know how the Pablo answers are always about the previous episode. I know people picked up on that.
Starting point is 00:24:01 But that's people, someone writes in. is like, hey, how come, if they was only 15 years ago, what happened? Sorry, illusion of life on Twitter wrote in and said, why our Jedi treated as fairy tales, despite being active 15 years ago, presumably within most people's lifetimes. And Pablo's response is like, it's 10,000 people. There's 10,000 Jedi for the whole galaxy. Most people at the height of this time didn't know any Jedi personally. And that actually, and the thing that he emphasizes is that made it really easy for Palpatine and the kind of imperial propaganda department to play with what that means. What does it mean that there used to be a thing
Starting point is 00:24:39 called the Jedi Order? It becomes very easy to shape and twist that when you don't have people who know any Jedi. Because the Jedi are so cloistered, because they're only show up when something's really bad and they, you know, handle something. And they're concentrated in the, in the Jedi, like we don't have the presence of Jedi temples all over the world, really, or over the galaxy, really anymore. Exactly. You're long since, yeah, long since had, like, other, yeah, schools and stuff. Totally.
Starting point is 00:25:07 They might show up and take a kid from three towns away from you once when you were seven, and that is the only time you've ever dealt with them. And you didn't even deal with them. You just heard rumors that they showed up and they had a sword at their belt, you know? That's not enough to go on. It makes it very easy to twist and confuse. The other reason about showing this Rebel's Recon is they just straight up put a spoiler that we've been avoiding for the whole season, Rob, the one that you stumbled into a couple of
Starting point is 00:25:31 weeks ago, into the thing. The second question public gets asked is like, hey, is this, is A, B? And he's like, yep, A's B. And it's like, why would you just put that in a little featurette? What are we doing? So. What? Yeah. Before the episode even came out? It's not in any of the content that we've seen yet. The thing that he dropped and confirms has not even come up yet. And in any of the episodes, we've seen. It'll come up in a future episode. This is a season two thing? I don't even know what it's going to be. I don't know. I'm going to look up when it's going to hit. Now, admittedly, it's an open secret kind of because it's in the credits. Like,
Starting point is 00:26:09 you just watch the credits. Yeah, you have to read the name. Well, like, oh, I know that name. Yes. But it's, but it's, but the show hasn't addressed it. And if they're going to, like, the show will make those connections in its own time. And for it all going to be like, let me tell you what those connections are is kind of annoying. It's a, it's a shitty way to hit the, just, it's a shitty way to call attention to it, you know. But yeah, it is in the, it is in the credits, the name is there, it is what it is, but. So we get, we get Altrevis. They've wrapped up the operation where he's an Asian provocateur and now he's, he's interviewing, God, what was the dude's named?
Starting point is 00:26:45 Like, Ashton or something like that? It's Alton Castle. I know this because I was like, wait, isn't, is he related to the wrestler Dalton Castle? And I don't think they are because of how Alton Castle. not a real person, but I am, I does make me, the thing is, Dalton Castle had already been wrestling by the time this came out. So is Alton Castle, Alton also spells his with a K, is it a reference to Dalton Castle? Who could say? Either way, they have like a shitty little, like, talk show host. I need everybody to know really quick. Dalton Castle is incredible. He comes
Starting point is 00:27:21 out in sequins, and he gets followed by the boys who are men in. tight shorts who often lift him up on their shoulders or on like a, like a paliquin, is that how you pronounce that word? Yeah, my vague, I don't know. Yeah, and like big feathers and incredible. Shout out to Dalton Castle. King. Okay, I must
Starting point is 00:27:40 have gotten the wrong Dalton Castle because the Dalton Castle I'm looking at is a professional bull rider and I'm not Yeah, it's called being a Renaissance man. Yeah, you get around, is this, this guy? You weren't seeing this guy? I was not seeing this guy. No? I was not.
Starting point is 00:27:56 This is fantastic. It's so good, dude. Yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't name, like, a talk show host guy after Dalton Castle. A imperial talk show host guy, you know? If he looked like him, like, had some long hair and stuff, I don't know. I don't know, dude. That being said, that being said, Dave Volone, we have had so many reference names, reference to people names of, like, just our, like, this could just be, yeah. This, this character first starts in.
Starting point is 00:28:26 a hollow net news thing tie into Star Wars Rebels like a web show type vibe and like a young reader's book so who could say you know
Starting point is 00:28:40 maybe the name came from somewhere oh wow he's in of course he is he's in the book that is the what is Zaire Leonez Zer Leonez has a book has like a children's book not children's book I'm sorry this video
Starting point is 00:28:54 Ali shared of Alton Castle explained that he's here for the big payday of $29,000 and he's going to go to the farmer's market and buy and he makes the little make it rain gesture everything he's going to get all seven fancy jams I'm sorry this is an amazing character
Starting point is 00:29:12 Yeah he's great He's so good He's very good Is this another he's a Ring of Honor wrestler Yes he came up through Ring of Honor Yeah he might still be there right So much good shit came up with that awful Sinclair promo.
Starting point is 00:29:26 Did you see the other Ring of Honor thing from this week where the guy who was doing a $25,000 tournament and he was talking about all the stuff if he could buy with that. Oh, yeah. Willie Mac. It was really Mac. It was really Mac. Uh-huh. And at one point
Starting point is 00:29:42 he was like talking to the interview, he was like, have you been to Jamaica? You went to Jamaica with me if I win? Shout out to really Mac. I mean, you guys can watch this after. Yeah, please. You have it on on back good god he's just such a regular dude i love really right i love regular dudes so me too they're doing this this staged like cream puff interview with uh with gal travis to explain why have you
Starting point is 00:30:10 recommitted yourself to the empire uh would love to see that vow renewal ceremony as as he explains that you know he was he just wanted to you know reform things and spread a message of peace and love, but some people have twisted it. So obviously, he's not down with that. So he's, he's throwing him with the empire, and he's personally offering a reward for info about this gang of rebels that have twisted his message and they drop a little still shot of like the album cover version of ghosts. I was just kind of a banger look. If I saw them pop up, you know, I'm like, damn, those are those supposed to be the bad guys. They look kind of heroic. It's sort of like the, like, you know, like doing the Hunter Biden thing.
Starting point is 00:30:53 for too long, we're increasingly, you're like, and then he did this. And it's like, huh, well, do you tell me more. Yeah. So, but it, it does sort of, it demoralizes the ghosts because they do feel like, you know, they're being, they're being painted as the bad guys, are the people going to turn on them. And Canaan decides what they can do is basically this exact same trick. They can send their own message out, hijacking the imperial comms relay. They go, reconnoid or the site, and Ezra has every clever way of diffusing a probe droid situation.
Starting point is 00:31:30 I love how the probe droid looks, by the way. Just big weird bug eye. It's the probe droid design. It's not a new design, but there's something about the execution here that's creepy. They're creepy droids. You know, the sounds they make are creepy and insect, like, this is
Starting point is 00:31:45 insect and not bug. The way they talk to themselves. Oh, 100%. The top, it's so disturbing. The, like, the, like, Like, me, but don't know you don't. I, you got a back pocket. Troids don't do that. Right.
Starting point is 00:31:59 Deroids talk to other things that you can talk to. But they don't just like converse to no one. No. This is a, this, I mean, they are, they are kind of little freaks. I mean, they are. They have them dangly bits underneath. But they're no match for cats. Uh, Ezra summons one of the prairie cats over.
Starting point is 00:32:22 and it demolishes that droid but they're a little too cocky and they don't realize that even though it's down and out its camera's still running and it catches a glimpse of them riding off on their bikes and we get a taste of
Starting point is 00:32:34 what kind of adversary we're up against because the moment like the Imperial see that Callis brings the image to Tarkin Tarkin divines what they're up to. Tarkin immediately knows they are going to go after the comms relay
Starting point is 00:32:48 Callis wants to set he wants to secure the relay He wants to defend it from a rebel raid. Tarkin, next level. Tarkin's like, this is a trap. Mm-hmm. And we're going to, we're just going to stake it out. That's going to have some major impacts as we go on.
Starting point is 00:33:08 This entire inclination of Tarkins to be just that little extra degree of cuteness in terms of like, there's the obvious thing we could do, but I'm a genius. And I am going to find a way to bag the entire, you know, bagged the entire lot in one go. I like it a lot because I think it shows, like, the difference of scale of resistance that we're in versus in Clone Wars. Because in Clone Wars, like, the plots were, the scale of the plots were huge. Like, you typically, Anakin and Co, like, people on our side on, you know, on the Republican side were the ones
Starting point is 00:33:53 kind of conceiving of these kind of plots and like tricks and things like that. They're very rarely on the other side of like falling into a trap and if they were going to a trap they would do like 40 chess and they're like they know that we know
Starting point is 00:34:10 that we're going into a trap or whatever you know. But here it's like Calus isn't doing plots like that Calus is a go and get him guy. Callis is a more troops, more forces. Call's his plot, big plot so far was get a second truck.
Starting point is 00:34:28 You know? Like, that's basically what he would work with. Yeah, he's got no, like, no scale, no scope, no creativity. He's here to close cases. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Career guy.
Starting point is 00:34:43 Career guy. So I, and like the fact that they don't anticipate this, that our guys don't anticipate the fact that they would fall into a trap that, you know, that the empire could be one step in front of them, um, shows that like, we're just, this is a new type of conflict. This is a new type of like, uh, uh, yeah, conflict that they're, that they're getting themselves into, that they're going to learn some massive lessons from. Like, you can tell that callus is picking up on a lot of Tarkins like tricks and, in strategy. and stuff, and it, I would assume that Callis's strategy is going to change from here
Starting point is 00:35:28 on out. That's a, that's a really good point, Natalie, about like, they don't know someone like Tarkin is out there either, like the same way that, you know, Grant and Oresco, don't know that there's these other rebel groups. The rebel groups also, like, they didn't realize that someone like Travis was possible. They just didn't know that that kind of plot existed. Right. And they don't know that someone like Tarkin is out there who is, like, diffusing
Starting point is 00:35:51 rebel groups as a matter, of course, because this is all, this is, this has to date been a shadow war. Like nobody, nobody knows that these battles are happening. And so there's nothing to learn from them. There's no familiarity happening. The rebels have no idea that the empire can't operate this way. Right. Right.
Starting point is 00:36:11 Also, real quick, just great not to have the Clone Wars Tarkin who has, or like the early Clone Wars Tarkin, the first time he shows up and is doing all of the, like, The problem with the Jedi is they don't go hard enough. That's their problem. It's just a better, more interesting. Stars, they bring life to planets. But what if there were a star that brought not life, death? Hmm.
Starting point is 00:36:38 I must ponder this. Exactly. It rhymes. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I love also the scene with, um, Ezra's having his doubts about this, this whole mission and is a bit, snide about the odds of this mission having a success and Canaan takes him aside and asks him what the deal is and Ezra explains pretty frankly he doesn't really want to do this because he
Starting point is 00:37:02 thinks this has like disaster written all over and it could cost him his his found family and once again we get another scene that encapsulates like the Jedi creed stuff that we found so inert through clone wars that failed to reach people comes through here because Canaan walks the path more effectively by struggling with it than a lot of the Jedi we've met today. He sort of explains that, you know, these connections matter to him too, but also just the nature of the struggle there in means you have to be willing to sacrifice all of that, you know, for the sake of this, of this greater cause. And he explains that this is something his master tried to teach him endlessly as a trainee and he didn't really get it until he's trying to teach it to
Starting point is 00:37:49 Canaan, which is like to Ezra, which both kind of illuminates maybe that, you know, we always sort of had that conversation about Asoka and Anakin, like, you know, what's the point of this exercise? Was she there to sort of be a positive influence on Anakin? But there's also an element of our Jedi just not really finished. The lessons haven't fully said until you've also taught the material, until you've figured out a way to like package it and relate it to another person and move move to that mentorship side of the equation. Yeah. I feel like the, you know, I think the note that I have here is very much just like
Starting point is 00:38:27 Canaan remains the best example of what a good Jedi master could be that we've seen, you know, and I think a large part of it is that he recognizes verbally, transparently. He's also still going through it. But I also do think that there is like, I've said this before about him, that he's been a good example of like, hey, what's a version of what Jedi are supposed to believe look like that we could get on board with? And him being like, listen, like, I know that you're afraid of the risks here. There are going to be losses. We take those risks anyway because it's better for the world. Again, speaks to a better version of what the no attachments thing looks like, right?
Starting point is 00:39:07 Which is like, you can't let your attachments hold you back from doing the right thing because you're so afraid of losing the thing that you're attached to that you won't do the right thing, right? And that's like, again, that's like a 101 version of it, but like that is the good version of what the Jedi are supposed to believe. And if you're going to tell a story about a Jedi order that functions, it should look more like this than the way it was, you know, the way it becomes so dismissive of attachment by the time you get to the end of the Clone Wars era, right? And I think that's, it's been fun to have this character on screen, making explicit what has been an implicit read of mind. Canaan's version of Jedi is more like don't have anything in your life that you're not prepared to walk out in 30 seconds flat, but the thing that's around the corner is not the heat. It's a moral imperative. Yeah, exactly. You can love. You can have close friendships. You can have a good life. But never forget that the moment a moral necessity appears that requires sacrificing all of that for you to stand up, then that's just how it is. Which also underscores part of why one of the big motivating forces for this trio of episodes is, we can't let the rebels know there's a fucking Jedi because that kind of moral imperative against all else is risky for the for the Imperials, right? The Imperials get to win in a nihilistic world where people don't believe in anything, where they don't believe that it's worth risking your neck in order to change something because what's it worth anyway? But in a world where you have some sort of icon of this vision of morality that the Jedi stand
Starting point is 00:40:40 for, you know, whether or not they ever lived up to that simple. In some ways, like, it's incredibly lucky that Canaan is the dude who showed up in this moment, a person who actually does represent the things that people used to believe about Jedi, because the Jedi we met in Clone Wars mostly didn't live up to that image. But Canaan kind of does, and so he's well positioned to be this beacon of hope for a burgeoning rebel movement. And so it's like, it works out in this way, right? like this is the guy who believes it and he kind of believes it we'll find out I guess right like
Starting point is 00:41:15 does he partly get to believe this because he got disconnected from the order at the right age before it could like work him over and turn him into what we will I you know what I think it was kind of a fundamentalist version of the Jedi he gets to kind of like have the beliefs but be in the world which I think we have been positioning as like our vision for a reformed I order from the jump, you know? You take the risk. You take the risk to make the world better. There will be losses.
Starting point is 00:41:43 He doesn't pretend. He doesn't tell Ezra, like, and if we do it right, no one can, you know, no one will get hurt. No one will ever be hurt. Right. The force will protect us. That's not what he says. He says there's going to be losses. You already lost your parents, you know, like.
Starting point is 00:41:57 We've all lost someone. We've all lost someone. Exactly. All of us have lost things. So, love that. I love this, this entire raid sequence is terrific. Austin, you sort of shared the concept art and I think it really comes through in the action sequence. Like just like just the colors like there, this entire thing unfolds in the deepest blue of night.
Starting point is 00:42:17 You know, we get a, we get a cool high small with the shot of, it jumped out of me in real time. It's, it's great that there's a storyboard concept art image of it of like Sabine just coming through the door and putting the two comms troopers down immediately. And also, here's a sense of even, it's funny, the empire doesn't deploy overwhelming force here, but the way they arrive with like the distant constellation of shiplights in the sky as they approach and the armored transports on the highway, it does feel like so much of the show has portrayed the empire as sort of a comedic keystone copse type empire. We're going to get back in that mode in places in, you know, in this arc. But here it also does feel like when the Empire gets its act together, when someone like Tarkin is on the field, they're capable of fielding an elite squad. Yeah. And being way more than the ghosts can really handle. And this scene without bringing in things like Star Destroyers and endless hordes of ties still has this feeling of the Empire's arrival might just be a couple transports full of troops.
Starting point is 00:43:29 But if they're the right troops and they've got the right. plan, you're done. Yeah. The, a thing that I like here, we get another reuse of an old vehicle. Does anybody remember, I believe these are probably first deployed in the Asoka getaway stuff on Corrassan, but maybe also with the fives. The five stuff is where I remember it. These kind of like hover patrol, like the things.
Starting point is 00:43:57 The tie panel transports, the supplant the old clone transports. This is them. This is those exact units being reused. Yeah, the Imperial Patrol Transport is a monochromatic makeover of the Republic Police helicopter scene in the Clone Wars. Love to see that stuff just get reused one-to-one. Tarkin was on ordering that shit around before anyway, you know, with the troopers on Coruscant. Love to see it here again. Very fun.
Starting point is 00:44:26 And yeah, the rest of this attack is fun. It's gorgeous. You know, I like the shot of the. comms tower with all those spotlights pointing up at it, you know, it's not quite Albert Speer Cathedral of Lights fascism, but it's like, you know, look at our big tower and all of the light we're shining on it is a good imperial, you know, a symbol here. And the way it goes bad and Canaan being like, all right, I'm going to stand my ground and fight off the Inquisitor long enough for y'all to escape. It's all just like, it's kind of colored by numbers.
Starting point is 00:45:01 but I don't mean that in a bad way. Like, they stay in the lines. They hit these beats. They're setting up for what comes next. And, you know, I don't know where it all goes. I think we've all been spoiled at this point by something in the character or in the Disney plus art for this about Canaan's future, to some degree at least. I don't know, but I don't know when that happens.
Starting point is 00:45:24 I thought it was going to happen here. Me too. I also thought it was going to happen here. Then don't look too close at it, Natalie. No problem. Okay. It's like, okay, something's happening at some point. When is it going to happen?
Starting point is 00:45:36 Who's going to do it? What's the situation going to be? No fucking idea. And it's fun to be in that world, you know? You know, I'm not like, I'm generally not a person where spoilers ruin something for me. I'm also not someone who's like openly a spoiler talk or without any warnings or anything. But I, right now I'm enjoying not knowing the little bits of this show that I don't know because, you know, outside of some big picture stuff, they're still. lot of, a lot of empty space here.
Starting point is 00:46:04 For instance, where this all goes and who lives and who dies at the end of this three episodes, I didn't know. For the big reveal at the very end, we'll get there. All of the above. Okay. Good. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. So, is there anything else at the end of this episode worth?
Starting point is 00:46:21 Yeah, I think so. The, you know, it takes, the entire dawn is, the entire fight is pre-dawn. Yeah. And as the sun is coming up, Tarkin arrives on the scene. to interrogate Canaan and as he's taking custody of him Callis warns them that, you know, the rebels
Starting point is 00:46:38 did hijack the comms tower and Ezra begins his broadcast. And is it the most compelling thing in the world? No, but it is the template that we see using a couple other places. This is, if you've played Fallen Order, it's really similar to the speech that
Starting point is 00:46:56 I think Prouf is your buddy at the start of that game. And it's similar to Marva's speech in Andor, like, the three speeches I'm talking about all sort of take as their premise, someone from the community just sort of laying it on the table and saying like, hey, we all know things have gotten worse. Like we all feel in some ways that like things under the empire have gotten way harder than they used to be. you know this you know we none dare call it oppression basically and that this is kind of the rhetorical tack that Marva takes
Starting point is 00:47:36 it's what Prout takes in the shipyard scene when the inquisit and when the inquisitors show up in fall in order but as for speech appears to be kind of the the prototype which is just kind of a from the heart unplanned you know I'm one of you we all know that things on Lothel have never been easy
Starting point is 00:47:52 but they suck now and let's just be honest about about that fact and and why that is and we get the shots of the people in the street sort of pausing and listening to that a weird aside we see people wearing the hats that Mr. Minister Tua wears
Starting point is 00:48:08 is that a standard Star Wars hat or is the idea here that like this is a loathal guard thing. It feels like a lotthal thing to me. I've never seen that hat before except for here on Star Wars. Maybe I'm wrong. Which is like is Tua one of them and has been set back
Starting point is 00:48:26 to sort of govern it or is she sort of cosplaying as a like you know in loathal traditional dress yeah uh to make it look like the empire is reconcilable with uh right you could also imagine that like clothing has changed like clothing has changed to reflect sort of imperial uniform like forms in places that are occupied by military forces like here on lothal as you're on and or you know the dress style changed, yeah. Yeah, where, like, shops are carrying, you know, are either encouraged to or just by nature of, like, you know, who's there, are, like, caring designs that are, like,
Starting point is 00:49:07 reminiscent of imperial garb or vice versa. Someone, I was trying to get to minister to his Wikipedia page. Yeah. Uh-oh. That's dangerous place to be, I bet. Well, no, not for the reason, you might think. the top of this page just it's an all black page right now and it just says i love gronia ex ceila who are hankai star rail characters and there's a little heart and i has someone
Starting point is 00:49:38 edited this page to shout out their favorite han kai star rail shit there's no entry you take a look at this page because when i click through i see i love bronia x zeal what the fuck now the rest of Star Wars Notforandum.com seems to work that is fucking wild didn't this game just come out Honkai
Starting point is 00:50:04 a couple months ago yeah so this was a recent change yeah somebody went to somebody went to minister to us I mean did they think like this was a page that nobody would why would anybody look at visitor
Starting point is 00:50:17 I have a theory I'm wondering if it's like the same voice actress or something But for me, it's just a black page with I love Brania. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Oh, my God. Sometimes you just discover a thing in the world, you know? This is a little gem.
Starting point is 00:50:34 I don't know what's going on. She doesn't deserve this. No, let to a cook. Not my, oh. Not your evil girl. Yeah. So, anyway, wait, I was going to say something else really quick about during the message before I was distracted by this nonsense. which is a note that Killian Plunkett, I think it was Killian Plunkett, noted during the message scene for the lighting, a fun trick that, you know, this room is almost always totally lit when they show it.
Starting point is 00:51:09 And they basically got rid of all of the primary lights and only did a kind of spot on each of the characters in the kind of wide shot of this. I think it has like a really good effect to be like, oh, we're in like a dramatic moment now. Like they're going to do a talk. The ship feels darker. Canaan's not there, right? Canaan's light isn't in the ship in this moment. And boy, does that, you know, that's kind of the state of things as we go forward, which I think is nice. And we get, you know, a beautiful moment of editing.
Starting point is 00:51:37 As he's speaking, we see the rockets fired from those imperial like attack choppers effectively. And we get the great shot of the overhead pointing straight down to the rockets slowly cruising toward the tower as Ezra tries to speak his message and as the tower is destroyed Tarkin you know looks at Canaan and says you do not know what it takes
Starting point is 00:52:00 to win a war but I do he's lived through one and he won one you know now yeah that war was a work was different yeah exactly maybe that's what it takes I mean Canaan doesn't know yet
Starting point is 00:52:16 you know I don't know I don't know I wonder When did When did Tarkin ever find out The war was of work? Maybe he did I wouldn't have read Tarkin in all the way
Starting point is 00:52:27 No No I would have told Tarkin I had people On the inside Of the separatists Right I wouldn't tell Tark I mean maybe
Starting point is 00:52:36 But Tarkin's whole thing Is like Military power Like huge displays of like Of like violent power Not like you know converting a Jedi
Starting point is 00:52:50 into a super Jedi killer and yeah why she needs to know all that that's what it takes to win the war you need Anakin Skywalker you get Anakin Skywalker's crossover you win the war like that's right that's where we were at
Starting point is 00:53:06 but you want him to believe in like the value of that military might so yeah it occurs to me that like what is the What is the propaganda on Order 66? Well, Natalie has a book entirely about it.
Starting point is 00:53:26 But like what's the spin? It's like, oh, our fierce clone army defended us against the, you know. Jedi coup. The tyrannical Jedi. They tried to assassinate him. Remember? That's, I think, the thing, right? They came to my office with lightsabers and they tried to assassinate me.
Starting point is 00:53:46 Right. Because, question mark. And I fought them off, but I turned into this weird frog. But then so Tarkin and other imperial generals get to be like, oh, we were yielding the might of the galaxy now. Right. When it came, push to shove, like our clone army did what needed to be done. Yeah, I think so. And protected us from the foul Jedi.
Starting point is 00:54:09 I bet we get a lot of this in Badbatch eventually. And I still just think, like, dudes like Tarkin couldn't be. Or at least, like, at a level very, like, just beneath them, you couldn't read people in because fundamentally you might have, like, violent sadists who are sort of leading your armed forces and your secret police. But they all fancy themselves as, like, rational actors enforcing an order. And the Sith stuff is weird. It's just real weird. And the more like you go mask off Sith, the weirder it seems. And as we sort of saw, like, this is still a massive military apparatus that could.
Starting point is 00:54:46 would knock off the Jedi in the blink of an eye once it got big enough, you know, Palpatine needs to look like a fit leader of that in order to stay in charge. Because if it's like, ha ha, it's all weird, froggy, this shit. Somebody like Charcot would be like, well, I just want to build big space stations and dominate the galaxy. So you got to go. Also, I think an important thing here is in terms of the timing of it all, the Jedi betrayed us. We killed the all and then we won the war so it's like we didn't need them anyway they were holding us back all of those lives
Starting point is 00:55:23 we'd lost it's the Jedi they had fucked us over the second we got rid of them we won the war so to be fair they never did pull the gloves all the way off with Duku we do know this oh no assassinate him we shouldn't have done this
Starting point is 00:55:41 oh gosh this feels so Icky, you guys. Okay, we'll send one Jedi. He'll be our sin-eater. One guy is going to go assassinate. Which guy should we send? Chad. We're sending Chet.
Starting point is 00:55:58 Chad Chet. Jedi hot guy. And we're going to send him with, we're going to send them with our femme fatal haughty. No way this can go wrong. Oh. but yeah so so that's that's how things wrap up the the comms tower is destroyed the message is cut off and it's unclear as to what that has sparked so now we have rebel resolve which centers on the aftermath of canaan's capture the gang attempts a daring raid to learn canaan's whereabouts
Starting point is 00:56:31 from the computer aboard an a t s t walker but despite winning a pretty spectacular street battle they learn nothing in the attempt meanwhile canaan is being tortured and interrogated by Tarkin throughout the episode as he tries to glean info about the rebel cell. Hara reaches out directly to Fulcrum, who we see as a hooded figure speaking through a voice modulator over the holocom. Fulcum advises Hara to let Canaan go, especially because it has brought attention that Fulcrum advised the ghosts to avoid as they are now too valuable as symbols following Ezra's message to risk being captured, especially since Ezra is a force sensitive and Folkram knows that.
Starting point is 00:57:11 Ezra refuses to abandon Canaan and he leads the rest of the ghosts on a rogue mission behind Harry's back to get info from their old smuggling contact, Vizago. To win credibility in front of Vizago, Ezra reveals himself to be a Jedi. Vizago is genuinely impressed and gives Ezra a clue as to where he can find information about Canaan, but in return, Vizago has an open end marker from Ezra that he can call in later. Harrow realizes what the crew is up to, but decides to go along on their raid to hijack one of the imperial courier droids that the imperials are using in the wake of the tower's destruction to transmit data. And once they've done that, by sneaking chopper in that droid's place, they get access to a central data repository that does have information about where Canaan is being kept and where he is about to be sent. in this case,
Starting point is 00:58:05 Mustafa. And that is where things end up. They got to get Canaan out of Tarkins. Mm-hmm. In a castle. We don't see the castle, but he does have a castle. It is truly divorced energy.
Starting point is 00:58:20 It really is. No, I love it. It's great. This is so cool. Like, check it out. Yeah, the divorce ad getting like the bachelor pad with like all black furniture. This is my lava rumpus room.
Starting point is 00:58:32 Big, You think the rent's bad, but, you know, as a neighborhood isn't great. So that's actually pretty good, but I'm making it work for me. Now, if I had my kids, I think they'd, like, there'd be a ton of space for them. They'd really dig it. Yeah, all the glass walls and, uh, I don't have my old job. So I'd have way more time for them. Shame.
Starting point is 00:58:58 So, yeah, my opening note is just, I think the ATST scene is, is fun, little, chase through, but mostly the score sounds great, like the music throughout all this, the way it syncs up with the action. It's terrific. It's like, this show is good at, and I mean it's better at this than Clone Wars was
Starting point is 00:59:17 a lot of times if Clone Wars had sort of a side sequence, it didn't feel like it was accomplishing very much for the most part. Occasionally saw a cool battle happening that didn't really like weigh much on the plot, but in general, when there was like kind of wasted time, it felt like wasted time here.
Starting point is 00:59:33 we get, I think what it communicates is they're not doing nothing. They're trying really hard and fighting really hard to try and figure out where they can rescue Canaan. It involves doing shit like broad daylight heists of ATSTs. It just doesn't matter. It's like this level of effort is not producing any results which does get us to why Her is so ready to give up because this is the type of stuff they've been trying. And if that's not
Starting point is 01:00:00 working, there's not a lot of other cards left to play. They're not just like asking questions to their normal contacts or whatever. They're like really going for it to try to get this intel, and it's not working. And I think that never as that felt more than in one of my all-time favorite moments, Zeb has to jump into an almost exploded ATST in order to grab chopper and football carry him away under his arm. Incredibly good, cute. These are the boys. I love them.
Starting point is 01:00:33 I love them. It's so good. Yeah, and I also do love Hera as the kind of hard-nosed realist who was like, listen, this is what Canaan was doing. Canaan wasn't doing that so that we would go rescue him. He was doing it so we would be safe. And it's clearly a hard position for her to take, but I do love that they let her be that person here and continue to be like the heart of the like, maybe not the heart. heart. Maybe if I had to, like, say who's the heart and who's the brain of the operation, like, I guess I would say she's the brain of the operation or something. But like, this is her
Starting point is 01:01:10 unit in that way. She's committed to the rebellion. She is the one. She says repeatedly in this episode, like, Canaan doesn't know shit, like, which is good and smart. And it's wild that she is like down with the cause enough to keep that line, you know, between the two of them. She knows that they are a cell. Like, she. She regards them, and everyone may not know to what extent they are the cell. I'm thinking of, like, the moment in the last episode where Ezra gets excited when they describe, like, the cell on Lothel and other cells. And he's like, oh, we're a cell? Like, we're a cell?
Starting point is 01:01:53 There's other people? Like, what's going on? But I think Hara is completely tuned into that. It's completely tuned into what their... sort of relatively small part of this resistance, what it's actually supporting and how far it extends beyond themselves. I also love this bit with her and Fulcrum, where Fulcrum is like, listen, you went off book. Like, you were... First time we heard Fulcrum's voice also.
Starting point is 01:02:25 Is it the first time? I think so. Okay. Because I was like... Because the minute I heard it, I was like, I know who that is. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really?
Starting point is 01:02:32 I didn't. I did not at all. So the thing is that when she started, when, when, when fulcrum starts lecturing. Sky guy. Excuse me? And basically has the whole. Who? Who?
Starting point is 01:02:43 When fulcum starts lecturing, who? You said, you said. We'll edit that out. No, I mean, you don't have to because it's. Yeah. This episode. But yeah, when, when, when fulcrum starts lecturing Hera. There we go.
Starting point is 01:02:56 And, like, it is exactly like when, um, the various moments where she had to, like, bring Anakin back on task where it's Asoka like telling Anakin like I remember that moment where she's like patience master I think during the malevolence arc where it's like pull it together man like here is
Starting point is 01:03:16 the context you need to keep in mind and here is in that mode of I just want like I want to do something we had a crisis here and the the vibe from fulcrum was very much like I know that cadence I know that delivery that's that's Ashley Extain
Starting point is 01:03:32 you know, like behind that modulator. We just talk about it being Asoka now that we've had this bit. Last episode, there's a bit towards the end where Natalie were like, do you know who Fulcrum is? I had to like judo throw my way out of that conversation and do a different conversation because I couldn't even let on that I might know who it is because I would crack enough that you might read that it was Asoka. Because I've known this I've known.
Starting point is 01:04:00 This I've known for a certain minute. That's a bummer. I knew. I knew this well before we were even watched. Like, this was, I knew that this is what happened to Asoka. It's very well known that Assoca ends up playing a role in Rebels. So it was, there was always like a probability that it was going to be Asoka because, like, they were going to introduce her eventually. And this seemed like a natural place to do it.
Starting point is 01:04:23 Like, it's going to be a big reveal who is, who is Folkrum. We can talk about the actual reveal later, like the actual moment. But, yeah. But, but yeah, I do love this, this note of. of, hey, you guys were useful as a commando group doing stuff behind the scenes. You went rogue and basically waived the flag of rebellion and said, like, it's time for the uprising. And people are responding to that.
Starting point is 01:04:51 But that now means that you can't go running around doing commando shit. Because if you get caught, that's worse than if you've done nothing at all. You now have to be useful in this other way, right? You have to be useful by being protected and by being a symbol and you have to go into hiding until things cool off. We got to lose those wanted stars, you know? Well, people thought Galtravis was, you have to be. Right, exactly. So, and listen, again, Galbravis wasn't pointed out there in a way where people were getting up in arms and fighting and whatnot.
Starting point is 01:05:23 They were retweeting. They were retweeting, you know? How much money do you think that he made? Oh, it's GoFund me. Bro. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He got to go fund me.
Starting point is 01:05:35 His various is. And it's GoFund me so he doesn't have to get the hit. You know what I mean? He doesn't have to hit the goal. Whatever comes in, he keeps. Oh, yeah. You know, he got the Kofi running, for sure. He got the tip button on Twitter.
Starting point is 01:05:48 You know what I? He got the tip button. Oh, as soon as it dropped. Yeah. I need to visit the 12 seats of old galactic democracy. Will you fund my journey? Will you fund my journey? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:00 Yeah, we're all going on a journey right now in the empire. That motherfucker. All the money. I'm just, you know, I'm just saying. So, Ezra is not about to walk away from, from Kennedy gets everyone to sort of sign on with this plan to, to go, to go rescue Canaan, who is, meanwhile, just being tortured first by normal means and then the Inquisitor is brought in. I do like that Tarkin is very frustrated because Canaan shrugged off the little interrogation droid that we remember from A New Hope. And now suddenly that makes sense, people are not supposed to resist the interrogation
Starting point is 01:06:41 droid. That thing is supposed to break you. It didn't break Leia either. But of course, Leia is a force sensitive. Right. That it just can't penetrate the mental defenses of someone like who is, you know, Jedi to the max. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:57 If you have a strong will, it won't. break you, I guess. But you know, the Inquisitors are like, don't worry, I can use the force directly and do that instead. And that also doesn't work. L's. Posting L's. Canaan is a king. Canaan's a king. And you who else is a king?
Starting point is 01:07:18 Vizago. Vizago. Vizago is a king. Hondo Mark 2. Better in every way. Better in every way. Hondo who? Talk to me about Vizago Go ahead, go ahead, Natalie. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:07:32 I was just going to say, I can't believe for every time that Hondo was mentioned that Vizago was not immediately followed up.
Starting point is 01:07:42 Like, Vizago is carrying this energy. He's carrying this energy. On those shoulders. Yes. Those shoulders. My man's got the facial
Starting point is 01:07:50 hair all the way in on the mutton chow. The muscle shirt. The muscle shirt, the big paldron's on. He's got the ship. He has a whole, busted off devil horn.
Starting point is 01:08:00 Because he doesn't like to get his hands dirty. But you mess with the ball. You know what he's done. Do you know what the name of the ship and the name of his organization is? No. It's the broken horn. That's sick. He's got a fucking roll.
Starting point is 01:08:14 He's got little hash marks on the horn too. Yes. Is that little teardrops? I could be. You know? Or maybe it's for good deals. That's just how much he loves the game. That's how much he loves me.
Starting point is 01:08:24 It's like every time he nets like a hundred percent. profit. He's like, yeah, that's a mark. Scratching that one in my horn. Yeah. He's, he's good. He's fun. He doesn't believe. So they show up to him. Hmm. So Herra is like, we can't, we have to stop going after Canaan. Does not say, you know, does not, keeps a good face on it. It makes it seem like it's her call. Classic coming down from management. I have to own this decision. Otherwise, we'll all end up being mad at fulcrum. We don't all be mad at fulcrum. Let them be mad at me, you know, trying to do the rebellion here. So, Ezra has a plan, and Ezra's plan is to, like, sneak off the ship with Zeb and Sabine, go to Vizago to get Intel, because Vizago can get Intel, but you have to
Starting point is 01:09:09 trade for it. And you have to kind of put your name on the streets about what you really are. You're not just doing smuggler shit. You're not just, like, helping a crime guy. You are a rebel group. You are a Jedi. He tells him it outright. And he shows him. He lifts the damn box. And Vasago's like, all right, I'll tell you what you need to know. But I get a favor, TBD, in the future. See, this is just good RPG campaign construction. Yep, yep. I don't know what that favor is right now.
Starting point is 01:09:39 Yes. But we also now have a major plot hook that I can drop back in six months from now. Yeah, exactly. Whenever I don't know what to do with our story. This is getting a little stale, time for a bizago adventure. Exactly. And then the moment when they go inside. Vizago's ship, and Vizaka was like, all right, we're going to make a deal. That's the deal. We all agree.
Starting point is 01:10:00 And he bows. And then, and then, and then, he's trying to shake his horn? He tried to shake his brother. He's going to pet him. It's so funny. The other thing I love about it is, um, anyone here's seeing The Bronx Tale? Yes. Coming of age movie about a little kid who basically covers up a mob murder his little kid and basically becomes the adopted. like a mentee of that of that mobster great great movie uh but it kind of like bizago has that chas palmetry energy where it's like he's he's pragmatic he's a bit of a dirt bag but the fact that ezra is a Jedi does impress him not just for instrumental purposes it does move something in bizago when when he sees that and when he brings him aboard the ship
Starting point is 01:10:50 there is a bit of like initiation to this where it's like i'm going to speak to you as a man now Yeah. Like, this is how we do business at this level. This is how you do business with me. I'm not dealing with Hara. I'm not dealing with Kainan. Like, I'm going to engage with you as an equal, which is something nobody has done.
Starting point is 01:11:05 He's still a kid aboard the ghost. Zago takes him aside and it's like, this is what, like, this is the world you're stepping into. It's picking up markers and putting them down with guys like me. Yep. And, like, there is a code to that. And that code is we bow at one another. And then, and then you don't shake my own.
Starting point is 01:11:24 You don't shake my horn. And then he drops like the, the info, and it's sick. I love this, this beat. So, yeah, this is, also it's one of my favorite things. Every time we learn about what is the technological paradigm of Star Wars. We've learned from Andor that they don't have, like, large digital databases that are readily searchable. They don't have, like, a lot of processing power. And here we learn that they are basically, that their comms infrastructure is.
Starting point is 01:11:54 is like Marconi wireless technology. That comms tower was it. That was a big telegraph aerial that gave them communications around the planet. Without that, their comms don't work. Like, they can't talk to each other across the city, hardly at all, because that tower is down. They can't talk to their ships, you know, with that tower down. That is the only thing that had the transmission power to get stuff across. And so they've fallen back on using courier.
Starting point is 01:12:24 They are using droids, because again, we know that droids, because they kind of break the rules of like the limited computing power this universe has, droids can store lots of info, but the problem is it's a little guy on wheels now. It's a little person who has all that knowledge running around. And it has to get from point A to point B. Well, now Tarkin doesn't seem so smart, right? His whole like, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to destroy that tower rather than let it, rather than let you use it. And it's like, okay, but you just destroyed the big advantage the empire has, which is it's omnipresence. Yeah. Yeah. And also is the Tarkin maneuver, right? Is, let me blow it up.
Starting point is 01:13:05 I have a problem. I'm going to blow it up and that'll send a message and they'll stop and we'll deal with the materials cost of that later. You know? It's like the dude in the good place where, as soon as this is a problem, I throw a Molotov cocktail at it. Next thing I know, I got a different problem. and that is that is kind of the Tarkin move yeah dude but it will shock you more than it shocks me so usually that works which is also like truly now now skip you know how I feel about the many lives lost on Alderon however but would the rebellion have functioned as well as it did
Starting point is 01:13:48 And what did they've unified and blown up the Death Star and then beaten the Empire if not for Tarkin blowing up Alderan? I don't know. It's a pretty compelling reason to destroy the empire. They're out there blown up planets. We can't live like this, you know? This is a Tarkin L. You know what I mean? And this is the same thing.
Starting point is 01:14:12 He wouldn't, like they sent out this message. He blew up. I can't call grandma anymore because he blew up the day. comms tower? You could have just sent a guy in there. No more FaceTime? Right. Send it an engineer.
Starting point is 01:14:24 Get a union guy. He's going to go in there. He's going to fix that for a minute an hour. It's like, I'm telling you, you got the switch right here. I just cut power. And they're like, no. Uh-huh. No, black out the city.
Starting point is 01:14:33 Yeah. Exactly. Well, now you can run ads from the senator, though, that's like, this rebel cell means that you can't call your family for Christmas. Well, and they did put it on them. Right? Because one of the things Rosago says is, like, ever since your little gang blew up the comms tower, and Ezra, like, that wasn't us. So they have put that on the rebels, you know, which is silly.
Starting point is 01:14:59 But I do just love this idea of, like, the empire is actually, like, they are kind of stuck in a mold of, they have technology that predates World War II. They've got the lasers, and that's cool. But in terms of everything else you need to do computing, communications, they don't have. have it. Like, the, the way they do communications across a planet is they build big towers that talk to each other. On Khoras, I bet it wouldn't be a big deal for one of these to go down. But this is one of these outer rim planets that has been like, they're thinking about this a lot while watching these episodes and watching the big, in the previous episode, when the Imperial Probe Droid scene happens, they're on the middle of the highway. They're like standing on like in,
Starting point is 01:15:42 like, not an overpass really, but almost like a suspension arc, like for a suspension bridge on the highway and it's like you can picture the imperial bureaucrat who designed the lowthal expansion you know like playing sim city and being all right i got the city uh i'm gonna drag one big like an o game draw one big out to where the minerals are and then that will be my mineral base and then we'll have one highway out to the refining plant and then that'll run one highway back to the city that's good to go that's infrastructure baby what do i need one like and people need to talk i'll pull one com tower out there that covers all three, that's it, that's all I need. And like, that's what they've done. They have not built, you know, any redundancies into their structure.
Starting point is 01:16:27 They're not here to support people. They're here only to support this mineral extraction project that the entire planet now runs on. And remember, there's no fucking water in the pipes anymore. So they are really truly just pouring all of the material wealth into wealth extraction instead of into sustainability or whatever. Well, but this entire technology mold also kind of works against redundancy because the cost of doing anything is so high like it is the
Starting point is 01:16:55 you know for instance like the Eiffel Tower was an enormously powerful radio transmitter right like it plays a key role in defeating the Germans in World War I because their radios literally stopped working as they got closer to Paris because the radio interference coming off that tower
Starting point is 01:17:10 just like blacked out their radios but they're kind of stuck in this mold of if you want big transmission power, you need to build big transmitter. Once you've built one, man, building a second is really hard to justify. Right.
Starting point is 01:17:26 The second, the big one works. It also sort of explains maybe why the Star Destroyer is so enormous. It has to be a big floating like headquarters that does all that shit. You know. So why do we need, we're not going to get a bunch of mid-tier ones, which is like, that's how the rebel fleet looks in comparison, right?
Starting point is 01:17:43 The Rebel fleet has always been like all these different shapes and sizes. And obviously there are different types of ships than the Star Destroyer, but it's mostly slightly bigger Star Destroyers and slightly smaller Star Destroyers and then gigantic Super Star Destroyer, you know? In fact, I think it's in this episode that we see one of the other ships that's not a Star Destroyer, but has that same like triangular look that's actually one of the, it's the same basic design as the Jedi. Yeah, the little courier ship is a Jedi, the one the shuttle docks with is the basic design. that the Jedi cruisers used during the Clone Wars. Not the giant troop transports that would become the Star Destroyers, but the ones that like Anakin or Obi-Wan would have and have like a complement of troops on there, but not, you know, tens of thousands of troops or whatever.
Starting point is 01:18:32 And so it's like, yep, those are just doing transport duty for the, for the empire now. That's where Canaan's getting moved to, you know. So this, the Tarkin's rather impulsive decision to destroy the towers opened up a big vulnerability, which is as we've learned in the previous episode the Empire doesn't know what droid models it uses. Fundamentally like this is like this is not
Starting point is 01:18:54 these are not bright guys it's a quote deep throat this is just it's not the tightest operation so if you paint a droid imperial colors everyone's like that's an imperial droid when chopper comes around the corner in the imperial colors and it clicks in that you know what about to happen
Starting point is 01:19:11 I was losing it I was and then he just goes on board and the stormtroopers like is that but not our problem we're in hurry it's your problem that's your job is to make sure that's your job is to make sure the only
Starting point is 01:19:24 that's your ship you know who's real problem it is when chopper gets up to the courier ship where he's going to upload the data there is you would think this guy is a technician whose job is to do like operational security
Starting point is 01:19:39 for this guy he watches the droid jack in and chopper he's watching Chopper just do database searches looking for shit in his files and he's like wait you're not supposed to do that and he can't stop him right he can't like lock down the system
Starting point is 01:19:53 instead he's like hey this droid's acting funny to be fair if it were me and I was at work and a droid came in and just started doing some shit I'd be like he probably knows what he's doing I don't know what he's going to do I don't know what I mean yeah probably he's probably doing something important
Starting point is 01:20:10 that I don't need to know about realistically exactly exactly And it's a, it's, it's, it's none of my business. None of my business. My lunch break is in 15 minutes. I'm not going to start. Why is this jury taking 12 copies of Adam Sandler movie Little Nikki and putting it onto the jacket? I don't know.
Starting point is 01:20:27 Must have gotten ordered to do it. Not my problem. Not my problem. You know? And it's, it's true that, like, yeah, here's the bathroom key. Yeah, here's the bathroom. It's true that notion that like the empire doesn't.
Starting point is 01:20:43 have because like power is so closely held in it guys like this they're basically just like um nannies for the droids going about their business but they don't have authority he's not like this is not an IT director who can like do anything about this this is a dude whose job is a stand there on the ship
Starting point is 01:21:03 watch droid roll in yep jack into the system droid leaves and his his job is to be like yep the bars filled up correctly just thinking about the brief time when I worked for EB games before they all became game stops and someone comes in and they got like 15 copies of the same game
Starting point is 01:21:21 and you're like yeah you can trade those in I worked at a game stop next to a best buy you know they were coming in with 12 360s to trade in next day we had to like instill a
Starting point is 01:21:39 time for for new releases at least 48 hours or 24 hours we couldn't take trade-ins for of a game that released for at least 24 hours but that person probably just came back 24 hours later we would get the brand new we would get the brand new yeah you're gonna cut them open to see if they were if they if they came in the store with them wrapped we'd say we couldn't do like we'd say you got to go outside and unwrap that but then they would come back in catch you're fucking here's here's 54 like 37 you know yeah we'll take those 10 new games and give you 50 bucks back chopper behind the
Starting point is 01:22:16 counter perfect good that's that's how it goes sometimes yep I guess in defense of these imperials they're catching on the fact that chopper's up to no good and that's when the ghost attacks and now they have a bigger problem which is the ship is under attack the imperial droid they're holding hostage turns out to be a good little trooper he's just helping out out putting out fires and I'm like they got another cool droid and Zebs like this droid rocks he just wants a home
Starting point is 01:22:47 aboard the ghost and also and I guess this this is key Chopper is murderous because when Chopper gets the data as part of his escape he kills a stick of stormtroopers
Starting point is 01:23:00 yeah dude he kills them someone again wrote in to Rebel Recon to be like hey do the stormtroopers have like a thing let's and breathe Like a filter mask lets them breathe out in space. And Papa's like, well, you know, their masks are qualified to be to be, you know, airlocked and, you know, airtight. And so, but you do need an oxygen supply and they don't have one.
Starting point is 01:23:25 So bad news for them. I love how Chopper not only does he execute all those men, he then has like a wild, powerful booster pack. Dude, it was like an Apollo castle taking off. That was a hard burn. We've never seen Artu do this. Artu will jump around and shit.
Starting point is 01:23:47 But yeah, Chopper's doing different shit. Chopper is doing handsprings at the Krispy cream. Yes. He's got that energy. He's back at it again. He's out here playing Kerbal space program. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:24:03 Like setting up burns. Have we seen that? the base of Chopper before? Like, was it always just a jet engine he has? I don't know. I don't know. I think that's the first time we saw. It's wild. And Rob, you were setting something up by talking about
Starting point is 01:24:17 Chopper's murderous instincts, I fear. Well, yeah, because he gets aboard the ship, and he's got the data, and they're like, yay, you're here, and everyone loves the new droids. It's like, we got two droids now. And Chopper, like a shitty jealous cat they're closing the hatch to fly off
Starting point is 01:24:39 with their two droids and Chopper spins his little arms smacks the droid through the hatch and drops it back toward the surface of Lothol and the reaction shots are great as everyone just watches Chopper appear to kill a droid and he does like a little like he almost just like his hand is out
Starting point is 01:24:59 and he's like oh me you know You gotta love me. It's extremely I'm the baby gotta love me. Yes, yes. I feel bad for this droid. I'm the only,
Starting point is 01:25:08 I'm the only baby in your life and that's how it's gonna be. It's even worse because the droids have like a bro moment before Chopper does this. They like do a little dance
Starting point is 01:25:18 together. It's really cute. I was like, does Chopper have a friend now? Like this is gonna be a cute. I didn't get friend at all. Chopper was fronting. The other droid was very,
Starting point is 01:25:28 was trying to be friendly but also there was a little bit of like, yep, I'm here. They like me too. And Chopper was pissed from the start. Like, you could, there was chopper body language that was like, what's this of the joints? Hands on the hips.
Starting point is 01:25:41 Who is this? There's, oh, yeah. You know? You got a, I leave for one mission and you got a new droid in the mission. Introducing one cat to another, so fraught. Yeah. And here, they just, they misplayed it. They did the introduction in front of an open hatch.
Starting point is 01:25:57 Yep. This is the first time that I'll go back, remember Philoni's. said chopper has cat energy instead of dog energy this maybe he was thinking about this yeah dog wouldn't do that yeah dog would just sniff a bunch you know oh who's this who's this um but hey that drawer's fine he activated his jetpack and he landed safely on lowthol and has new friends we didn't see the cats attack maybe he'll befriend the cats feloni's answer to this in this episode was unfortunately he thinks that the power pack probably runs out and he he he's the uh what is the what is the host of that show called andy i think
Starting point is 01:26:37 she says like so he's dead and floating's like he's not i don't say he's dead he's just turned off i was like yeah oh i hope it's somebody found him i hope someone found him yeah he's going to get powered you know in a in a disney plus show five years from now and the squad mark two about canaan something yeah uh-huh that makes sense or this is like a dark like this is how they write out chopper it is like you know it'd be pretty hardcore if chopper got killed by a droid he he thought he murdered years earlier and he kind of had a comic right where everyone's like you know we're not happy the chopper's dead but chopper chopper wrote this check here's my actual prediction
Starting point is 01:27:21 i read the asoka show goes to lethal and during like the ship flies over during like an establishing shot and then this little droid pokes its head out and looks up and sees it with all its cat friends with all its cat friends but there's like dozens of them
Starting point is 01:27:37 it's like you know the parent of a whole horde of cats now it's just kind of like a fun little establishment guy I like that I like that that's my guess also I dig that so they realize that
Starting point is 01:27:51 Canon's been transferred aboard Tarkin's flagship the sovereign very massive love it love it God, I feel like, I feel like Anika would have just handled the Reapers, honestly. I think it wouldn't have been a problem.
Starting point is 01:28:11 Anyway, this. And then we ended up to be continued because they've got to get him before it gets on Moosephar. Exactly. And then we opened on a great fun throwback to the Sabine and kind of all of the little intro shorts that we watch at the very beginning of the season. Yeah, this is the thing about Fire Across the Galaxy. Like, you know, the main point is they're going to board Tarkin's flagship and save Canaan. But along the way, this one episode pays off so much from stuff that's earlier in the series run.
Starting point is 01:28:43 We have them hijacking the Imperial Transport out of that Star Base that Sabine blew up in the shorts to get a landing party to the Star Destroyer's hangar to sabotage its power. They need its high fighter. And it turns out that we wondered, like, where was Ezra running from that he was hanging out with Sabin? It turns out Sabine and Ezra have been sneaking off to do a custom paint job on the fighter that Ezra and Zeb stole during the grocery run. You know, the plan in this episode starts well. You know, they slip aboard the Star Destroyer without much trouble. But the minute they triggered the EMP blast effectively in the hangar, Tarkin once again shows he's a cut above our typical adversary in these shows because he has taken steps to ensure
Starting point is 01:29:27 that the moment anything abnormal happens aboard his flagship the rest of his fleet begins sending help we've seen so many times the inversion of like
Starting point is 01:29:37 if the word doesn't get out nobody knows anything as untoward is happening Tarkin operates under the assumption that the minute anything not routine happens something is afoot so the ghosts quickly find themselves
Starting point is 01:29:51 in a massive battle aboard the ship you know trying to escape these arriving imperial reinforcements and Ezra rescues Canaan, but very quickly finds himself in a battle with the inquisitor. The Inquisitor appears to kill Ezra, which sends Canaan into a berserker. Sorry, no. He sends Canaan into, he makes Canaan unleash righteous but measured Jedi power.
Starting point is 01:30:19 Emerald Justice. Emerald Street Justice. Emerald Street Justice. Yeah. And he uses that to defeat the Inquisitor in battle, sending his. his saber into the power core to ignite an explosion aboard, aboard the sovereign. You know, he has him at his mercy dangling above the destroyer's power core. The Inquisitor tells Canaan, he has unleashed something far worse than death and lets himself
Starting point is 01:30:41 fall into the power core. Meanwhile, as the rescue has gotten in over its head, Chopper has picked up the red phone to fulcrum to ask for aid. As ghosts make their escape aboard the roomiest tie fighters in history, they are shielded by the arrival of a small task force of Kralian Corvettes led by Chopper and the Ghost. When they get back aboard the ghost, they're met by the person
Starting point is 01:31:04 who's been secretly piloting it, Asso Catano. Well, you also, who else is there? Via hologram. Hollow Bail Organa. That's fucking right. Which is like a real fun last second like swerve. If you're like, oh, Bail's folk room.
Starting point is 01:31:21 Like, no, it isn't. But you could have imagined hitting that the first time. Yeah, that's what I thought at first. I was like, whoa, that was like, I was like, but I don't know, even with the voice modulator, I don't know. It wasn't getting bail. It wasn't getting bail. Yeah. This episode bangs.
Starting point is 01:31:37 I love this episode. I love Bail's security team moving for Chopper. Yes. Showing Chopper the proper respect. That's right. That's correct. Yeah, we're in it. It's good.
Starting point is 01:31:53 It's good to see all this shit happen. I guess it opens it on the torture. They're just beaten up on Canaan. That sounds good. And mocking, like, the Inquisitor sort of mocking him for obeying his master's instruction to run, you know, indicating that at least as far as the Inquisitor is concerned, Survivor's guilt has been a major part of their weapon against the, against the Jedi. But the way their whole plan comes together, you know, stealing the ship, going back to the,
Starting point is 01:32:23 going back to the air base. Oh, it's the artist again. All that stuff is, is great. I love the, I love the reveal of the painted tie fighter. Yeah, what do you think of the tie fighter? Was everyone's feelings on the, the Sabine, you know, classic,
Starting point is 01:32:41 Sabine Mark I'm, I'm glad she put her spin on it. Not like, no, no, no, continue. I'm just, this is harsh. You're coming out of your heart. All right, Lando. I respected the expression of creativity.
Starting point is 01:33:02 I just think in a utilitarian sense that it is a little attention catching and may not be great when in a dog fight. So may count against you. I would have gone for something a little bit more. you know, the palette, it's, like, the design is great. The design. But you wouldn't have used so much neon. Yeah, I wouldn't have used, and which I imagine is pretty fluorescent in space because the UV and stuff.
Starting point is 01:33:36 So, yeah, I would have just gone for something a little bit more subtle, personally, but. Don't you think it's in conversation about how Imperial fighters in our lives, like, can't be subtle and are loud and disruptive? It's visually loud Instead of sonically loud It's making Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally I get that like
Starting point is 01:33:58 For the installation For sure For the like Right For the like It's parked in the park For a few weeks Yeah
Starting point is 01:34:07 I'm really excited For Sabine's immersive experience The immersive gallery To open up 360 You know It's good It is corny though Like it's
Starting point is 01:34:19 I don't get her ska aesthetic. Like, does ska exist in Star Wars? I don't think so. It's very weird. Where is she pulled? Well, let me see the protest art that she's pulling from. I would love to. That's what I want to say.
Starting point is 01:34:34 Yeah, I wish I had that. Is that not in the book? When Natalie mentioned there's a lot of neon there, Sabine does not appear to outgrown. I don't know if, like, Natalie, like, you're of the generation where this was new novel to you. But I think Austin and Ali probably are when they would like roll out cool crayons
Starting point is 01:34:55 to go with your normal like creola crayon pack of like here's your crayola neon pack and here's your like your creola like pastel pack and such like that. And this appears to have been foundational
Starting point is 01:35:10 to Sabine's palette as an artist where it's like I don't want these boring typical primary colors and like conventional complimentary combinations I want the most the boldest hues
Starting point is 01:35:26 yeah definitely what was the name of the person again oh I don't remember the artist why is there an indexed by artist there's yeah there's like artists of the galaxy and it has here in part four
Starting point is 01:35:45 Rise of the Rebellion Sabine is in here Watch for spoilers I don't know if there's any Sabine spoilers in there I can't I don't know any Sabine spoilers actually
Starting point is 01:35:54 It says This doesn't have spoilers It says Once a star pupil At the Imperial Academy of Mandalore You know this Sabine Ren fled to become a Bounty Hunter
Starting point is 01:36:02 And then joined the early rebellion Uh Spoiling Okay I didn't I didn't recycle That bounty hunter chat
Starting point is 01:36:10 I didn't I didn't get bounty energy energy from her Well she's a Bandererian Oh wow They all kind of became... You know, Mandalorians love to go bounty hunting.
Starting point is 01:36:22 They do that. How many, so many of them have done a run as a bounty hunter. It's true. When your bar mitzvah is like, here's your gun and your jetpack, like, there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of gigs you can pick up. Yeah. God. Um, anyway.
Starting point is 01:36:43 Anyway. They're going to use the ship because, as Sabine points out, No one uses visual scanners anyway. You're using, you're scanning for like, like, hey, is this actually the type of ship it's broadcasting saying it is? And you're looking for like the specific like identification tag, basically, not for, hey, is it big bright and yellow? You know, by the time they could see us will be inside anyway. So not the worst plan, you know. That's fair.
Starting point is 01:37:12 And also, you know, it's nice. Hera is just on board, right? Harrah is like, all right, uh, I should be angry. I should be really mad about this, but I'm glad we got it. Let's go rescue Canaan. I do love Zeb, seizing the opportunity to get out of the doghouse for having been complicit in covering off the fact they didn't destroy the tie fighter to be like, but you shouldn't have painted it.
Starting point is 01:37:33 And it's the shit, again, the shitty uncle energy. How do I spend this? I basically helped you kids like hijack and steal a police cruiser. Yeah, 100%. but the thing I wasn't a part of was you like hot rotting it. Yeah, you've made it. It's very disrespectful kids. Come on.
Starting point is 01:37:51 Yeah. Not very useful. I love all of the shots that we get of Mustafa in space and like the, the huge fleet in front of it. And we get that kind of nonstop across this episode. You know, sometimes you've got a big lava planet. And then you have your big, you know, imperialist, fascist war fleet in front of it. And it looks sick as hell. it's evil you you you want to see stuff go down there stuff will go down there it's good stage
Starting point is 01:38:19 setting i mean the raid goes pretty smooth like we're in the rain now basically right azra feels that he's there right they're like okay before we commit is canaan on there and azra has to reach out with the force and confirm and he does and he is so we have the torture happening it's like you're coward you know that you know you're you how did it feel to survive order 66 what were your master's last words and the funny thing is it's like can you need to carry this. Your master's last words were run. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:38:46 And you did. And you did. And you survived, which is the whole point. Yep. But it's, I do like this notion that one of the things that's getting Jedi killed throughout this interregnum period throughout this, this era is the fact that the surviving Jedi are like racked with shame for not having died with the rest of the order. And so you can see where like this usually is enough to get Jedi to make real bad calls
Starting point is 01:39:08 about, you know, when it comes to staying under the empire's radar. The plan starts without a hitch. I do love the little side of the neon orange checker board or chessboard tie fighter landing in the hangar. And the two stormtroopers noticing how weird it looks and one would be like, but again, like it. Yeah, that's the thing. Again, no one's going to pull the alarm in the same way that when Chopper came on board, no one like immediately. Because imagine you are the guy that pulls the alarm and it was for the, you're getting. killed you are getting
Starting point is 01:39:44 fucking killed murdered decapitated probably at best you know there are things worse than death as we know I wouldn't be saying shit ever I would not I would never say a word ever in my life if I was working on these Sabine has what appears to be like an
Starting point is 01:40:01 EMP plus like set up here it explodes and knocks out the ship to the degree that it starts to like tilt in space a little bit and it also knocks out a bunch of people because normally you see like an EMP go off in fiction and it's like oh all the comms are down
Starting point is 01:40:20 oh the electricity doesn't work the power is out out this like sends people into seizures and they fall over well probably because they're helmets right I guess maybe like there's probably some tech in the helmets that maybe causes some I like that yeah that's a fun yeah yeah totally well played on Sabine's part I also wanted to do something important here.
Starting point is 01:40:43 Ezra has clearly been practicing. He cuts a really good circle with the lights in a minute. Yeah. That circle. I was like, Filoni, you son of a guy. He cuts the circle. It works.
Starting point is 01:40:55 It's good. And then, yeah, it's raid time. Fighting in the hallways, looking for a canaan. I do want to mention that we did get an important name drop here that I cannot Google. Master Bilaba Yeah, Deepa Balaba Or Deepa Bilaba, I want to say maybe Canaan's former master
Starting point is 01:41:16 Who I hope we get some more Lord drops on We have seen her before Oh, have we? She's in the prequels, yeah She's on the Jedi Council In, I want to say episode one I'll drop a screenshot of her here She's like, you know, she showed up in the background before
Starting point is 01:41:36 She's one of the people who okay's Anakin or who's in the room, I guess, when Anakin gets okay to join the Jedi Council. So, yeah, I don't know what her deal is. We have not, I don't think she showed up at all in Clone Wars or she has, like, very minimal. So the reinforcements start pouring into the sovereign, and Ezra, you know, pulls down one of those blast shields to cut the stormtroopers off from pursuing the ghosts, but he realizes he's also cut them off from their direction. access to the holding cells, but as Hara points out, this ship is full of Ezra-sized ducts. I don't know if we're going to keep playing this car throughout the series, but for now, Ezra's the boy who can fit through ducts.
Starting point is 01:42:21 And so that is how he is going to get to Canaan. Meanwhile, as all this is going wrong and the reinforcements are racing toward the sovereign, chopper makes an executive decision to just call fulcrum. Like, this is done. Like we are calling, we are calling for help. I have a question, though. Why is Canaan left alone in his cell? Probably because of the good question.
Starting point is 01:42:48 Well, who are you going to put in there who can actually deal with him? Anyone you put in there is a way for him to get out. It's my trick. I was a visitor. There's the alarm's going off, man. Like, the Inquisitor is just like, the Inquisitor, I guess, wants to see how his plays out. Maybe. I mean, does the Inquisitor, where is the Inquisitor?
Starting point is 01:43:07 What's he doing when the- He's waiting on the bridge above the power core? Maybe that's the way through, though. Maybe he's like, this is the only way out from there. I guess, but I would just stay with Canaan and be like, when that little kid comes through the door, I'm just going to be like, got you. Yeah, but we've already talked to this. He likes to have a little fight.
Starting point is 01:43:23 He's confident. He likes it. He's really bored. You know? Yeah. He says that. You know, when the fight begins, he says, you know, at last a fight, worthy of my time.
Starting point is 01:43:36 But it is more than he is prepared to handle because, you know, we've seen him kick Canaan's ass now a couple times, but what he's not prepared for is the gun blade. Canaan has a gun blade now. Canaan's in Final Fantasy. So he's swinging the sword,
Starting point is 01:43:51 and then he's using that little blaster thing that Ezra built into the, built into the help. And it totally tells the Inquisitor, because you know what? This is a guy who learned to be a Sith warrior from books. That's right.
Starting point is 01:44:04 That's right I've Vader probably taught him some stuff It rules As you're being like As you're being like I don't know why I never thought of that Yeah dude me either You built it
Starting point is 01:44:15 You didn't want to do this As we're reaching out And grabbing Canaan saber And they're fighting with each other's sabers Is really fun And inquisers using bicycle kicks Yeah This fight just rules
Starting point is 01:44:26 I love a fight on a bridge I keep being impressed By the choreography in the show Like to the point that I like tried to look up Who did it, like what the team ones there. I found
Starting point is 01:44:38 some, like, articles that were like, oh, it gets better after season two, so I stopped reading. But I, yeah, like, it's so good. Yeah. The bit, the bicycle kick thing you're talking about is like when the Inquisitor, like, does like a jump kick on Canaan
Starting point is 01:44:54 and keeps kicking himself, kicking him up his body to, like, jump off of him. Like, it's wild. There's like some sick stuff in this. The score is a provocative of the mall fight because we're in that same mode, Jedi and Padawan versus dude with the, you know, dual lightsaber. The music is going off during this whole section.
Starting point is 01:45:14 It's so good. Also, just like Jason and Isaacs is absolutely killing it throughout this episode, just constantly nailing this being the shitty evil guy. Like, it's a fun, pulpy villain scene. The animation team also seems to have a sense for how Jason Isaacs would play a scene. too. There's moments that like of his little expression is very like that's a Jason Isaac's ass like moment. Like you've ever seen it? It's not a good movie. The Patriot sucks. But Jason Isaacs is compelling in it. And there's, you know, it's a similar kind of role where it's like
Starting point is 01:45:52 there's just this unkillable, you know, monster. And there's similar energy here. And we get the line drop, right? We get, uh, uh, as we gets knocked off the bridge. Canaan can't see him and at that point you know, Canaan stands up after looking kind of defeated and the Inquisitor doing this big evil grin and Keynes like, that was a mistake.
Starting point is 01:46:17 Why? Because you have no one left to die for you. Canaan grabs his own saber from across the bridge and he just goes in the stagentious No, because I have nothing left to fear. And like, peak. You know what I mean? Keno. They both beat each of that salute and it's like now.
Starting point is 01:46:34 to the death. Yep. You know, you've removed the last attachment. It's time to go. Now, yeah, come on. You know I love that beat. Yes. But the fact that there's a second, tinier bridge, just a couple of made for me.
Starting point is 01:46:49 I know how many couldn't see this child land on safely. It's so close. It's like, it's like hopping down from like a short wall. Yeah. Like a little. I wouldn't do it now, but when I was like 16, I was doing this. the time. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah, we can climb on the roof of the shop right if you go off the dumpster, but then you have to jump down somewhere else.
Starting point is 01:47:11 Not a good idea, but like, where else are going to do stupid jackass stunts, you know? Yeah, it's true. So meanwhile, the escape with Sabine and the crew is proceeding apace, but the fight, you know, they radioed to Ezra to see if he's okay, and this is how we learn he's fine. He's watching Canaan just going off and they ask him, how was Canaan? He's like, he's, he's like, he's He's better than fine, actually. Because, you know, this is some shit nobody has ever seen from Canaan. And, you know, Canaan tells the Inquisitor, I was a coward.
Starting point is 01:47:46 I don't know that I'd agree, but I was a coward. But now I know there's something stronger than fear. Far stronger. The force. Well, you know. This type of story kills a Bible study. Yeah, this story goes off. Folks.
Starting point is 01:48:03 You know who else? sacrifice themselves for you Jesus Jesus did this I was doing some heavy stuff and like I you know I couldn't it was these burdens were too heavy for me but then I remembered they're not too heavy for the Lord
Starting point is 01:48:20 and everyone's like amen that's so right yes that's how it is that's how it is and then Jesus stuck his lightsabers into the devil's lightsaber twisty thing and cut that shit open yeah the force was conveniently slow mode. Uh-huh.
Starting point is 01:48:35 It gave him a slow-mo power. Uh-huh. The force can do anything, including let you take advantage of. Now that I look at it, kind of obvious structural weakness of the Inquisitor's spinny dual saber thing, would you just put your sabers in there and go, bop? I think even one would do it. You know, it's one of those little bonus.
Starting point is 01:48:57 The first time you were introduced, though, to this type of, like, boss, that attack is so disorienting because your attacks can't get through it and the guy can just walk toward you and close off space with the spinny blades and you're like I don't know how to get through them or around them I'm just fucked. As soon as you get the parry timing. Yep, it's done. It's just
Starting point is 01:49:16 done for him the second you can pari. This is a Sechero fight. It is a Sechero fight. I actually do love that the thing that wins this fight is not a strike. It's Canaan calmly putting the sabers in and then opening them up to destroy the thing. And, like, it's not, it's fun because it's not a big physical blow, you know?
Starting point is 01:49:37 I think that matches the vibe. I was going to ask, I think the slowness of this is like an anti-seizure. I bet that's right. Yeah. That's where all of the dimming has been, by the way, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've noticed it now more when it comes up. But it's only when, like, lightsabers are around.
Starting point is 01:49:58 And, yeah. So I think that. I just saw that dimming back in Clone Wars a couple of times with, like, the Duku, the Duku fight during the Sifodias episode, where the whole screen got kind of dimmed weird. And we were like, what happened here? So that is, that is only on the Disney Plus versions. It didn't originally air like that. And it is like an anti-seizure, like, you know, edit, basically. I think you're right.
Starting point is 01:50:22 The slow motion is probably also that. Yeah, even though it adds great effect. Like, I love to be slowed down. like the original trilogy uses slow-mo like that at various points like it's very in keeping with some of the key moments with that like this is how the uh dark side cave sequence dark side cave uses it yeah totally there's there's definitely moments where they sort of have it play it play out like that i also love like whoops our cool dramatic fight on the bridge was above the power core of the ship and so my dual lightsaber contraption plunged into the power core and now the ship is going critical and you know we get the
Starting point is 01:51:05 you know canaan towering over the inquisters clings to the bridge and the inquisitor just tells him you have no idea what you've unleashed here today there are some things
Starting point is 01:51:15 far more frightening than death and just throws himself into the abyss rip I thought this dude was going to be a multi-season villain
Starting point is 01:51:23 I was like the inquisor's going to be huge what the fuck was he in Obi-Won he's coming back bro because he's got to be two things
Starting point is 01:51:32 he's cooked guys he said there are some things far more frightening than death yeah Darth Vader he means he can't go back to Vader
Starting point is 01:51:40 after shit is after Obi-Obi-Wan he if he goes back to Vader he's gonna get cooked by Vader and that's way worse than death
Starting point is 01:51:49 I see I thought he's going he's going into his like this is his Mustafa basically like he's going
Starting point is 01:51:58 he's gonna go get fucked up and then he's going to get re he was cut in half in obi won he can come back from this all he needs is the power of hatred i think he can come back if it were me this is like this is like this is like those tic talks of the guy watching the car watching the gtze yeah yeah then i would tuck and then i'm tucking like i just give the second passenger seat i think i could survive that sub implosion yeah that's exactly that i don't like swum out or something But yeah, y'all, I think this is it
Starting point is 01:52:31 I don't know Because you can't have set him up as the villain No, this is why I think this is the season one They did do that But now the real villain shows up It's like Avatar Exactly, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes Or Cora, right?
Starting point is 01:52:46 Which like, what's the villain Of this-cora is what I'm thinking of, yeah Each season has its main antagonist And yeah, it makes sense That's my feeling Then why was he in Obi-Won why he died Obi-Won?
Starting point is 01:52:59 Well, he couldn't. I know because Obi-Wans before this. Oh, no, I know that he fake dies at Obi-Wan,
Starting point is 01:53:05 but I still don't know why even fake die? Why not just live? I mean, Obi-Wan has so many problems. I don't think he can. I guess they were like the Inquisor was cool.
Starting point is 01:53:17 He only had that one season. Let's give him a show. I bet that's it. Yeah. And I guess I don't... Let's do his makeup really badly. Is it possible he goes back? I don't know.
Starting point is 01:53:25 Maybe, but I don't. I don't think, my understanding, my, my full spoilers or not full spoilers, my partial spoilers of this show, I don't know that we hear more about this dude. Yeah, but I never heard anything about Asoka coming through in this show. Yeah, but it could have just been out there. It is just out there. I have seen too many Asoka scenes from the show that are good, really, ready for us to get to. I don't know if there's season two, season three, season four, I don't know. But there is some shit coming that is like, I want to talk about it.
Starting point is 01:54:04 Outside of you that nobody accidentally. That's because I was following this show at the way that I follow shit I don't actually follow. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? I said, I'm not going to actually watch, but I'll check in the spoilers every week because I'm curious how it's going. You know what I mean? Or like NBA during the regular season. Like, I don't have time to watch games right now.
Starting point is 01:54:24 But I want to know what's happening. so that when the playoffs come, I'm ready to watch, watch. And that's how I was with Rebels, was like, I was following it like that. And so, like, that's why, like, I knew Tarkin was in the show. I know generally where things break towards the very end of it with the individual characters. I know the various little spoilers about character backstory stuff. There's a few other big things coming that I know that are, like, frustrating to know, obviously. But what I have not, I don't, I don't know.
Starting point is 01:54:53 Like I said, maybe there's a, maybe there's a one-off. episode with the Grand Inquisitor comes back. That's totally possible, you know? Yeah, I mean, he did, he did get pretty cooked, so. My man got cooked. I'm watching that sequence. He fell into the day. Obviously, like a pile showed up at the end of full metal jacket.
Starting point is 01:55:10 And it's like, hey, man, remember how crazy training was? Now I'm here again. But, like, the emperor also does fall into a pit and come back in Rise of Skywalker, right? Yeah, people do this. People do this. People fall into pits and come back. You're not wrong. That is the, I mean, this is true.
Starting point is 01:55:26 Like, Anakin fell into a molten pit, famously. Yeah. My guess would be that if we get him again, it'll be evil force ghosts or, or it can't be a ghost because he's a Sith, you know, a bad dream or something, you know. So, but this is, this is cause sovereign to begin to explode. We get the sort of mirror image of Tarkin. being told to evacuate this time he does. He disembarks from his flagship. You know, everyone is, the rest of the ghosts are hopping aboard a Tabeen's tie fighter.
Starting point is 01:56:07 Kane and Ezra reach a different hanger and see the tie advance the Inquisitor uses. And Ezra points out that not like the Inquisitor is going to be using it. And we get that good aside from K& as like, kid, sometimes you worry me. A little bit of that. Yeah. I just got that little bit of, you know, he's in it for the blood sometimes. Yeah. We get the, I just love the bit of as they're trying to escape the pursuing tie fighters, Zeb says we're in a bit of a bit of a bit of a tight spot, which reminds me a lot of, oh, brother, where art thou?
Starting point is 01:56:46 We're in a tight spot. But the pickup from Sabine, well, these things weren't meant for three. Terrific. Uh-huh. The swarm of ties behind them as the, you know, one of the three Star Destroyers, the sovereign, you know, it begins to fall into the mystifarian, like, orbit is just such a cool shot. Like, the show just looks really good. And I think this is, again, it's like, oh, I get what they mean when they said they were
Starting point is 01:57:14 excited to play with these toys. I don't think that there is a ship in the prequels that could make me feel what I feel when I see 20 or 30 tie fighters rushing towards them. Like the tie fighter is iconic, you know? We saw it sounds of those Republic Cruisers get destroyed. It still doesn't feel the way like when you see a Star Destroyer crippled and burning beginning its death dive, you know, a bit like at Endor when one of those things was like plunging toward the executor. And it's sick when the rebel ships show up. And you're like, oh, that's that's like those are the rebelships.
Starting point is 01:57:49 You know, that's the Correllian, not the Crellion. What's the actual Tannafor unit called? What's the actual? They are Corvettes. They are Corvettes. Okay. Yeah. But they're called blockade runners here.
Starting point is 01:58:00 Right. Because that was the original, like, I believe that's what the toy was called, the Robo Blockade Runner. So that's what they're going to use here, right? That makes sense. So we get the, uh, now, I'm not entirely clear on what they do. Do they? They provide cover, you know?
Starting point is 01:58:15 They're here to help. And they presumably their places. For the fighters. The fighters. You needed somewhere for those fighters to dock, you know. And Chopper didn't know what the situation was going to be. That's what I like. Chopper was like, I need shooters.
Starting point is 01:58:28 You come, we got to go. You know, we were just doing a quick pickup, but like, you can't go back with one ship. Bring whoever. Yeah, exactly. Who's down? You know, Chopper? We got to get the behind the scenes look at Chopper making the pitch and be like, I don't care anymore. Who's coming with me?
Starting point is 01:58:44 You know what these people do. Come with me. Whose ship is it? Is it your ship or is it a fulcrum ship? That's right. It's your ship. I fuck with Chopper. I fuck with Chopper Big. I fuck with him.
Starting point is 01:58:56 Also, the Hera Canaan reunion. So good. Poys like Falcons, baby. They should have kissed. Poys like Falcons. They should have kissed. I wanted them to kiss. Give us one little kiss.
Starting point is 01:59:09 I did you to know that there is a small group of Rebels fans out there who don't think they were always dating throughout this show. and it's like I don't want to tell you I don't know I'll pray for you Is there a more explicit moment later That they're like oh this is the moment Well there's a moment there's a there's there's not a moment I'm just going to have cane and hair explicit and see what's up what happened Yeah
Starting point is 01:59:36 Tell me what you find Yeah Yeah that is the that is there is a sub unit that there's a subsection of fans who are like Well actually I think I found the real videos of when these moments might happen. Oh, like the wrong shit did not appear and actually like what appeared to be highly germane clips from various episodes appear.
Starting point is 01:59:56 Don't watch those. Yeah. They don't, they don't hook up in that prequel book about them because that's, I don't think they, I don't know. I don't know if they do. I haven't read that.
Starting point is 02:00:07 I haven't read that, you know. I am oh. But yeah, this is a great moment. I'm trying to be professional. Very, very affectionate with each other.
Starting point is 02:00:16 everyone knows and chopper and chopper like being the the little kid again being baby being like hey what about me as they're about to kiss is like yes chopper's role here uh and then yeah we get the little republic honor guard for chopper and bales hologram and bales sort of explains that this whole cell structure has been to keep all the like each blockhead runner belongs to a different cell all this thing has been compartmentalized. That was the protocol, but then Asoka comes down from the turret or the, no, she comes down from the cockpit. Yeah, I think she's probably. And she explains that the protocol has changed. It's, it's time to go loud. I love how non, like, it's not a big deal. It's just she comes down the thing and Harris like fulcrum. And it's like, yeah, that's, yeah, that's, yeah, that's fulcrum. No one in this room knows who Assocato is, you know? It's just a Soka for us.
Starting point is 02:01:16 We were going like, ah, but, but the people in the room were like, oh, I guess that's fulcrum. That's, that's cool. What's up? What's up? She just comes down the ladder, like, A and thing. I, my jaw dropped. I was so shook.
Starting point is 02:01:30 I could not, like, I just didn't know. I just, I just wasn't thinking about it. Like, I wasn't thinking about when is Assoca coming back? Is she going to be here? I was just thinking, I mean, I was assuming, it pays off. Yeah, it really does. You know what I mean? This is the whole.
Starting point is 02:01:45 we all, it was all for this moment. It was all for, damn, we went such a long time without Assoca. We last saw Assoca leave. We didn't even, we, and if we hadn't watched Udipal, we wouldn't even heard her name since then. Oh, yeah. You know? Here she is, finally. That's what I do really love this little bit of her, um, telling Ezra, um, like the last chapter is closed and now the future is yours or whatever like she is somebody who understands oh yeah like the totality of things she understands that when you move through your life you you can't go back to some stuff yeah damn true what do we what do we feel about the design love it taller adult yeah she she looks like time has passed yeah the thing unless
Starting point is 02:02:41 sold on as the vocal performance. The vocals, I was going to say, is a little interesting. Because I think, it feels to me like, like, so here's the one thing. Like, Asoka was a kid. Yeah. But women's voices don't necessarily
Starting point is 02:02:56 change that much from there, but she's doing the, like, much graver, much deeper. And it's like, I can see her being more serious, but I don't know that, like, all the delivery, like, would totally change. There's a lot of, like, this is a more Gravita Sasoka?
Starting point is 02:03:13 Her voice is generally lighter. It's been 15 years, right? 15 years is a long time. It is. But I don't know. It just feels to be a little bit like... And she was like... 16?
Starting point is 02:03:25 How old was she? Yeah. I don't know how old she was, but... Yeah, but usually your voice gets lower over time, right? It does. It sounds like the pitch... Oh, you're saying she's higher here. Her pitch...
Starting point is 02:03:36 Her tone, I think, sounds like, more serious and kind of, like, muted. Like, she doesn't have as much... much like modulation as she speaks it's not like going up and down as much but the general pitch of her voice sounds higher and like whereas I think it's almost hard to tell because her voice is so bright in the clone wars but here as it has sort of a more like muted general tone but it's the pitch I feel like comes out more it's feeling higher something about it's just, like, hitting me as, like, it doesn't quite sound, it sounds like someone trying to do Asoka, but serious in some ways. And, like, I think for me, I guess partly my problem is
Starting point is 02:04:22 Soca was a serious character when she left. You know what I mean? It's kind of this thing of, like, now she's got to be in a more ponderous fashion to show, like, how things have changed. And, man, things were pretty heavy when she left. You know what I mean? It's not like those moments hit any different because she sounded as bright as she did in Clone Wars. So I'm curious, like, the thing concerns me is in the process of, like, making this tweak through the vocal performance, are they also going to suppress X-Teen's ability to emote through the character? We'll see. I think this is a
Starting point is 02:04:54 one-off performance. I'm going to have some time before she dials it in and they find it. I don't think the vocal performances in the show were great in the very beginning of the season even. But we're also paving the way for an Assoca and the Mandalorian who's also very like, whoa, you're telling the Jedi line now and... I am so curious how we get there
Starting point is 02:05:13 because do you want to go to the Flonny Zone? Please. Or do we want to finish this last little bit? Because it's like one more scene and then we'll go to the Flonnie Zone. Well, yeah, so things have changed. So Assoca's come back, but you know what else is entering the picture
Starting point is 02:05:26 is Vader now. The Inquisitor is off the board. Things have gotten completely out of hand and Darth Vader has been called in to clean the situation up, which is scary as hell, right? It's, it's,
Starting point is 02:05:42 they've done a good job keeping him off screen for a lot of this. I guess the other thing that's cool is, you realize that one reason they're so terrified of the Jedi is the Inquisitors are all well and good, but like they never, like, it took an army to kill the Jedi. It took an army and it took Anakin Skywalker. Right, who killed more than any one person could.
Starting point is 02:06:05 Right. But if you don't have those things, you don't have it like every Jedi is accompanied by an army that will turn on at the moment's notice. You don't have, don't have, don't have, don't have, don't have, a single Jedi is one of those things where it's like, that guy could be an unstoppable terminator. Right. That, like, we just can't handle with conventional means. And so, Vader can't be everywhere at once. Having him have to come deal with this is a huge commitment. And it's why they're so terrified of, like, there being a bunch of little Jedi running around.
Starting point is 02:06:34 This gets out of hand real fast. Yeah. And like if Vader is this scary, in some ways the Jedi are this scary. Right. Like, so. All right. It's time for Rebels Recon 114 inside fire across the galaxy. We're going to skip the intro part and come in at second 54. 3, 2, 1, 1. Go. Darth Vader is one of the most iconic characters ever. How did you get his real life gravitas to translate? You don't mess with it too much. The only thing that we were going to play with slightly was the helmet. And even there, there were Ralph Macquarie paintings to go from. A lot of it's how you frame him. We tried to constantly frame from below.
Starting point is 02:07:18 We don't want to ever really be looking down on him. The only person would really look down on him is like the emperor. At what point in the process was it clear that Asoka would be coming back? It was kind of debated from the very beginning of the series. And I think that everybody was very cautious with that. cautious with that because we wanted to establish these new characters and not confuse people to think that this is just a continuation of Star Wars, the Clone Wars. I got a call from Dave Faloni, and it was beyond exciting to say the least. And then to find out that she would be like a rebel leader was so cool.
Starting point is 02:07:53 From the very start, we knew that that was going to be Asoka. We also knew that people would jump to that. That's not what Dave just said. The number of characters that that could be. Dave Lord thinks he runs this. A lot of our fans did some really serious detective work to figure out their identity. Did you follow along with any of that? I do not underestimate the ingenuity our fans have someone remastered the voice
Starting point is 02:08:15 and it sounded a lot like Ashley when they decrypted it. Star Wars fans are so clever, are so smart, are so passionate, and I love that. I mean, the fact that they care that much. To mess with that, it's not always Ashley playing in season one. Oh, yeah. How did you determine Asoka's look? for rebels. I've been trying to get her to this kind of pseudo samurai look which is what her armor is based on now for quite some time. It is weird when you go back sometimes to clone wars
Starting point is 02:08:46 characters figuring out a way to translate whatever that was before in a different medium into how it might look on rebels. It's almost like you're designing them fresh. I wanted to look like armor that she would have found somewhere that she'd gone into an old temple and got this Ancient Jedi armor. And her lightsavers are completely new as well. There'll be a great moment where she actually turns this thing on for the first time in season two. And you'll see that her blades, they're basically white because she's not a Jedi. And she's not evil to kind of reflect her non-affiliation.
Starting point is 02:09:20 When the Clone Wars ended, did you talk to Dave at all about where Asoka might end up? I always asked Dave about where Asoka is and what she's doing. Because I only know up to a certain point. I've had kind of an outlined plan that I had since I worked with George about where Assoca's progression is as far as a character at different time periods of the Star Wars universe. When people ask me where she is, I'm like, she's eating cupcakes working on a pony farm. Ashley says something along the lines of a pony farm. Yeah, she doesn't know what she's talking about.
Starting point is 02:09:51 She says that stuff because she knows I do not like those things. Gross. Yeah, I agree, Chopper. Fuck that. Hey, Chopper, don't be sad. Season 2 is going to start before you know it. We'll have a good break. Chopper's walking away and is sad.
Starting point is 02:10:09 Also, I skipped the thing here where Chopper tried to ask Andy, the host of this out, and she rejected him in a previous video. What? Yeah. He brings her roses. It's very bad. He brings her roses, and when she says no, he throws them on the ground and rolls back and forth over them in front of her.
Starting point is 02:10:27 Okay, that's very funny though. It's very funny. It's very funny. Awful but very funny. Yeah. We're still in chopper mode here. Chopper's walking around the studio is slowly leaving. Sad.
Starting point is 02:10:40 Here comes to Andy. He forgot this. Damn. Dropped his stuff off. He's pushing his box of stuff away. He's pushing his box of stuff away. Okay, little shot I forgot to call out, but I did love it. All season long, even the sending out of your questions online.
Starting point is 02:11:02 So for one last time, we track down the story group, Paulo Hidalgo, for answers. Hey, Paula, I got two more questions for you this week. The Nerf Herder asks, is Stormtrooper armor airtight? I'm going to guess the reason they're asking has to do with those stormtroopers, that chopper blows out of the airlock. The good news for those troopers is that the armor can be sealed against vacuum, but the bad news is they don't have much by way of an air supply. Trooper helmets have filtration systems and stuff like that.
Starting point is 02:11:30 But if they want to operate out in space, they're going to need an extra air supply, which is what we see outside the Death Star in a new hope in the Millennium Falcons. Never noticed that. Okay. Okay. And our last question.
Starting point is 02:11:40 Very cool. They're dead. Jacob Lockett asks, Tarkin has been in the last few episodes quite a bit, but shouldn't he be overseeing the Death Star's construction? He's not a general contractor. Tarkin's a busy guy. He keeps on the move.
Starting point is 02:11:50 You've got to remember that in addition to being sort of in charge, of the Death Star operation, he is a grand moff, that is, he's the governor of the entire outer rim territories. So he's not just holding a one project, he kind of has to represent the projects, months at a time. And charging for all of them.
Starting point is 02:12:07 Thanks, Boblin. Thanks for all your answers this season. No, and I'll be back to install the dish array. Like, next week after for sure, I just got to deal with this thing on local, finish up a job. Now, the first season of Star Wars Rebels was just our first step into a larger world. I sat down with cast and crew to get their season one highlights and
Starting point is 02:12:23 hear what they're most excited about this is so interesting to me the divide on this what's your favorite part of season one oh wow oh man favorite part of season one oh fredi's here getting a lightsaber that was really fine tailored waiting that we were gonna get you didn't get one did they give voice actors light sabers no not prepare you emotionally i love that moment in the pilot where everybody's about to find out the secret i love love love that moment i think my favorite part was really when ezra learned that we were actually out to help people Lando.
Starting point is 02:12:53 Yeah. Absolutely. That was pretty cool. And hair of shine in that episode. That was hilarious. Vader. Like, you hear it, and you're like, oh, man. Yes.
Starting point is 02:13:05 The fact that it got done, it was real. Real. Yes. A lot more than even I was expecting it to, and I'm a big fan of the show. For me, when Canaan says, I have nothing left to fear. I get goosebumps now a little bit, just saying it. My favorite part is how the show got just like Clomber's constantly better that it evolved.
Starting point is 02:13:25 Seeing how quickly and how wholeheartedly the series was embraced by so many, it's been absolutely amazing. What are you most looking forward to about season two? There's a bigger bounty on their heads, so the stakes shoot up. We went at it much stronger. The shows get more exciting and more dramatic.
Starting point is 02:13:42 We're gonna get the ghost finally moving around to different planets. There is more happening. There are more episodes. More characters. And we have some really sick guest cast coming up And in season two, the people will be like, what? And not just like new characters,
Starting point is 02:13:57 but like, who's playing the new characters and who's playing the old characters. Hayden. I want to see how Canaan develops as a Jedi, as much as I want to see how Ezra develops as a Jedi. Canaan fought in the last great war. Is he really ready to fight in the next big one? We've established this new triangle of characters,
Starting point is 02:14:12 Tarkin, Vader, and we have Asoka Tana. It gets me back Asoka, which is very fun for me to write her again. Asoka was always asking questions and wanting to know why, And now, Asoka is the one answering the questions. And if anyone's scared as to, they're going to screw up Vader, no, they are not. It is awesome. I'm looking forward to fleshing out a bit more
Starting point is 02:14:35 of everyone's backstory. We're going to get a lot more spotlight on everybody's history and more stuff is going to come to light. Season two starts, like, literally right where you want it to, and it's just perfect. Next season, the Ghost True, discover that they're not the only rebels in the galaxy. Chain and Harris, that's scene.
Starting point is 02:14:53 Meet Commander Sato and the Phoenix squad with this never-before-seen concept art. This is, this is, we're seeing some A-Wings. I'm excited to see some A-Wings next season. Sure, A-Wing shoots red lasers. Cool ship. Great. The Wolf?
Starting point is 02:15:12 No, a lot of, I think this production might be called Wolf. Because a lot of the production art has the Wolf. Like branding. Thanks for watching Rebels Recon. We'll see you in April at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim with an even bigger look at Star Wars Rebel Season 2. I'll be there. I'll be there.
Starting point is 02:15:29 Check out our episode guides and watch for other rebels announcements only on Star Wars.com. I just needed that. We just haven't gotten that in a little while, so. All right. Speaking of, I love that the way that the first and third episode of this trio ended with like a fate to silence and then the credits music would kick in.
Starting point is 02:15:49 That was really fun. I love the section of asking everybody what their favorite part of the show Season 1 was and all the voice actors like, this cool scene I did. And anybody on the production side was like, that we finished it. We actually did it.
Starting point is 02:16:03 We got it out the fucking door somehow. When they were like, tell stuff that's going to happen in season 2 and Killian Plung gets like, more locations. More models. More models to make. People.
Starting point is 02:16:14 Uh-huh. Just like staring at a production calendar and his head. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's, there's no break for him. He doesn't go away, you know, he's, he's probably immediately, I mean, I'm sure there might have even been some overlap in production schedules. I'm sure.
Starting point is 02:16:30 Yeah, I'm sure. I think it's so funny watching this stuff, I don't know if you all saw this going around, but recently Freddie Prince Jr. came out, was like, I'm done doing Star Wars shit. I wasn't even really that big of a Star Wars guy to begin with as a kid. I was a Star Trek kid. And like, I don't really care about the shit. And like, when I see videos like this or I hear a video, a few years ago about how like people misunderstand Jedi and there's no such thing as a gray
Starting point is 02:16:53 Jedi and like he talked to George and George explained to him how the force works. He like talks like such a fucking Star Wars fan that I don't know what happened. Either something happened and he's like, I'm done with Star Wars or he's lying and he's not done with Star Wars. And he's like, it's a trick. But like there's a quote going around recently from him on a podcast where he seemed so dismissive and he's like, I'm just too old for that shit. And it's like, you did this five years ago or something.
Starting point is 02:17:23 Like, what are you talking about? Well, the fact that this is his timing, I think he's saying, like, I'm done playing that is what he's saying, yes. Right before, but right before the show where, like, Canaan's still alive by this time point, like, this would be the misdirect. And that's why I'm saying it would be a misdirect. And there's a weird energy. Yeah, but that's such a corny misdirect to be like, I hate it.
Starting point is 02:17:40 Just kidding. I love it. And I'm in it. Like, that's just not a good misdirect. That's not fun. I agree. he hasn't gotten over the fact that his star turn in the wing commander movie didn't launch a wing commander franchise a fucking movie david suhsouche does the name of the character what is the or is it who is that
Starting point is 02:17:59 who's david suhsuchet puaro oh he's in that movie yeah dude he's he's like he's like an admiral who's like in it for a hot minute and then it's like oh uh they can't pay my rate anymore goodbye that movie's bad i saw the movie in theaters it's oh yeah he is a lot of it's It's more fun than you think now, I think. I saw it on Amazon a few years ago. It was all right. Sure. It was like, it's cute.
Starting point is 02:18:22 Yeah. But just the shot I wanted to call out, when Ezra goes to Canaan's room and Chopper's there being sad and he turns around and he tried to smack into Ezra for the hug. Leave me alone. No, and he just hugs him. And it's like a pet, like letting you just cradle his head. Yes. And they're the, they're the two.
Starting point is 02:18:45 It's those two who get, who really. make it happen, you know? Yep. It's good stuff. Maybe now Chopper will stop like removing the screws from Ezra's bed. No. Probably not.
Starting point is 02:18:58 That's the love language. Yeah, you're right. You're right. That's sibling shit. Mm-hmm. Might as well ask Zab to stop whipping shit at Ezra's head. This is not happening. All right, so that does it for today's episode
Starting point is 02:19:16 and for season one of Rebels and I am kind of excited for season two. Me too. We got Vader on the board now. Yeah, Vader's on the road. We don't even have to wait. We can just watch it right now. We just watch it right now.
Starting point is 02:19:28 It's out. It's ready. I might like once we stop recording. I can now watch the next. Actually, what episode can I watch? I haven't broken down the next season yet to do a breakout. It opened for the two-parter. It would probably be easiest for us to just do Star Wars Rebels,
Starting point is 02:19:44 the siege of Lothal, which is how. how this opens a two-parter the siege of the i think that's probably right um if we change our minds i'll do a pickup and change what i say here but uh so yeah let me do the breakdown and then and then you know next episode we'll explain what the season two breakdown looks like but next week patreon backers will get to hear our Q&A on the balance of this first season and if you like to hear that or you just want to support the show you can do so at patreon.com slash civilized. Until then,
Starting point is 02:20:18 until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. And thanks for sticking with us and we're looking forward to going through season two with you as well. People have told us
Starting point is 02:20:32 that the show's not even gotten good yet. So I'm curious. I was going to say, I'm going to put it out there really quick. I think I like this season more than the bulk of live action Philoiverse stuff. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:20:46 I don't know if the highs are as high as maybe Mando season one's heights were. But like. I'm just generally having a better time and I'm not as angry. I'm not as all over the place. I've been so angry. Yeah. Let it out. There's a tweee sensibility that crops up in in the Faluniverse, the Mando stuff, the Boba fat.
Starting point is 02:21:11 There's a tweet sensibility that shows up. And also like, I think visual. those shows are so hamstrung by the production medium that they're using. And this is not. Like this, this unlocked what's cool about Star Wars. I mean, see lots of cool stuff. There are definitely, there are definitely constraints here. I think that they, but they were somehow working within the constraints here in a way that I find much more enjoyable than they have been able to do in Bando 2 and 3 in Boba Fett. And I guess Obi-Wan is not a Falunyverse show, right? I don't know what his, I don't know if he had hands on that or not. But like, contemporary
Starting point is 02:21:46 live action Star Wars stuff the only thing that I think Handor is of course leagues I think above this in terms of like but that's just because I think it's like a genuinely good show and a different tier or different style of show that I just like more but this in terms of like
Starting point is 02:22:02 the fun adventure serial I'm loving it but da da da da da yeah and this doesn't you know the funny thing is this doesn't totally inconsistent with Andor no it's in conversation Yeah, this is the, like the good YA version.
Starting point is 02:22:19 Yes, 100%. These things are, these things talk. And I don't, you know, I bet Tony isn't out there watching rebels. Oh, people in his writer's room where I think there's too many things here I've noticed. And I'm like, wow, this feels very similar to. Well, I think it's like these are the potent ideas in this time period. So happy to see people recognize that. Play with it.
Starting point is 02:22:39 All right. Well, we will get into it in, in a couple weeks. And once again, next time on our Q&A. we'll be discussing this first season so write in your questions to our email not to our Patreon DMs to our email
Starting point is 02:22:56 that's right a more civilized age at gmail.com and I'll just say this I can totally buy the Disoko Road out Order 66 and all the Rise of the Empire shit by like hanging out, vibing, chilling She lived a lightsaber at that point. She was in a Jedi
Starting point is 02:23:12 why would Order 66 good for her? Yeah she was like She was teaching, like, primary school. Yeah, we know that she had an experience. We've seen her teach. She has the, she had the recommendation letter for Mandelor. Oh, that's true. You know?
Starting point is 02:23:28 I don't know, but they're calling Satine for that referral. I don't know. It starts all picking up the phone on that. Oh, Snoopy too also couldn't give her reference. No, but there's some low level person she got lunch with at that school. You know, corkey's around Corky's Let's be real, you know there's no chance
Starting point is 02:23:49 The late Republican early empire Doesn't have a teaser shortage Oh, it's bad She can just show up And be like, she just show up Yeah, I have my university Which university, don't worry It was a religious institution
Starting point is 02:24:01 Don't worry about it It's not a big deal I studied on Corrosol? I said, yep Oh, you're from Corrason Yeah, sounds good You'll be subbing for this entire semester Good luck
Starting point is 02:24:11 Good luck, have fun Do I get a budget? No. How do I decorate? But you do get a VCR and a stack of movies. That's right. All right. Back next time with a more civilized age.
Starting point is 02:24:26 And we will see what's happening with that siege level. I don't know. We're going to be. Weean. ...heavened. ...toe... ...and... ...and...
Starting point is 02:24:53 ...the...

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