Blank Check with Griffin & David - Best of the Attack of the Podcast

Episode Date: January 9, 2017

Presenting a best of episode with all the favorite moments from our mini series on Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

Hello, welcome to Blank Check. I'm producer Ben, and today is our second installment of Best of Moments from our days as a Star Wars prequels podcast. You might notice I sound a little under the weather, but don't worry, I'm fine. As always, I need to remind our listeners that while we are in fact a no-bits podcast, no-bits, pro-bits, the running bit was that Griff and David were only aware of the first two Star Wars prequels, The Phantom Menace, and now this time around, The Attack of the Clones. Please enjoy the best of the Attack of the Podcast.

Right, and we spent 10 episodes talking about George Lucas' film, The Phantom Menace. Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace. We thought it was a one and done. Yeah, we thought it was the only film in this series. We knew he had grand ambitions for a saga. We thought they didn't work. But old Georgie Porgy pulled a fast one on us. Yeah, we dug it up. That crazy son of a bitch did it. Ep 2. He pulled it off.

Attack the clones. It makes sense because Episode 1 made about a billion dollars. That was the weird thing in our logic, was we knew that Episode 1 was, at at the time of its release the third highest grossing film of all time. But we just could not think of that sequel. Yeah. Anyway, it's here now. We both had seen it. We totally forgot about it.

Right. I don't know if that logically makes any sense. But here we are. Episode two. We're cracking into it. And, of course, we know that's the last one. We thought it was a one and done. We thought it was a Jupiter ascending, if you will.

Yeah. But it wasn't. Now we realize- A rocketeer. Yeah. Now it's like an amazing Spider-Man 2. They got two films into what was supposed to be a much larger saga. There were a lot of threads that weren't resolved.

Oh, boy. But now we have the second film and we get to look at where we thought it was going. A lot of threads not resolved from this film. So, first and foremost, this is a sequel. Yeah. It's a honking sequel. To one movie. Okay.

Yes. A sequel to the one film. I think we've established that. Which is called The Phantom Menace. Senator Amidala. Oh, wow. The former Queen of Naboo. Wow. The former Queen of Naboo is returning to the Galactic Senate to vote on the critical issue of creating an army of the Republic in capital letters.

That's a big deal because she hates the Senate. To assist the overwhelmed Jedi. I mean, I love this. I like it. I don't know if love. We were talking before and I was like, oh yeah, it's better. But there is a lot of talk of Senate votes. I don't know.

It's better than Trade Ro, there is a lot of talk of like Senate votes. I don't know. It's better than trade routes. 100%. I don't know if it's like Stockholm Syndrome, if I'm just so happy to see another face for the first time in a while. Yes, right. It's just new plot. New plot. I got rock hard at that crawl. I did. Was it at Army of the Republic in capital letters? Every part of it. I just like

that we're getting so much information. Yeah. Okay, turmoil. Great. We know that. Ooh. All these different planets have left. Yeah. Civil War. Yeah. Okay, turmoil. Great, we know that. Ooh, all these different planets have left. Yeah, Civil War. Right, the power, you know, there used to be this united universe, and now it's all split apart and adrift. It's moving on elements we know from The Phantom Menace. Yes. The Senate was all fucked up in The Phantom Menace.

Right. The Lorem was a weak chancellor. Yeah. The cracks were showing, and now they have like, you know, they've come to form. One of my many problems with the Phantom Menace is that it was really taking baby steps towards something. Sure.

It felt like he had a longer story he wanted to tell, and he was moving very slowly towards it. Very slowly. Not much happens. No, at all. This crawl is immediately sort of like... It's a good point. Getting the action I wish had happened within Phantom Menace out of the way. Phantom Menace is one planet is having one dispute with the Trade Federation. Attack of the Clones is the entire galaxy is on the brink of war.

Right. The Galactic Senate, apparently, I guess it seems like the Republic doesn't have an army. Yeah. Which was never addressed in the pilot. It makes sense. There's no army. The Separatists have the battle droids. The Jedis keep the peace,

but apart from that, maybe people have their own armies. I don't know. So this is a Republic army might be created. And if there's more discord throughout the universe, the Jedis aren't going to be able to...

There's only so much they can do. They can maintain the peace when there's not that much to maintain. When things are pretty civil. But I like this too. We said, oh, the Jedi Council, they're so smug. They're so calm. They're so judgmental.

I like this immediately taking them out of their comfort zone. They're stretched too thin. You know? I do. Already it sounds like they're addressing a lot of our complaints about the first movie. Yeah, because in the first movie the Jedi just walk in and they're like, we're handling this. Right. Don't worry about it.

This will be easy. Right. Negotiations were short. No staid, like, fucking, like, discourse about, you know. No tea services. Right. Right. This is like.

Oh, there's no TC-14, though, is there? Yeah. All right. I know. I know. I know. Yeah, it's okay. I know.

Well, I mean, we actually didn't talk about it, but TC-14 almost certainly dies at the end of Phantom Menace when her ownership is blown up. David, I really don't want to talk about it. I'm amazed we never talked about that. Yeah, for a very, very good reason. I never thought about it. She's dead, probably. Yeah.

The same reason I know my grandma isn't dead because I never had to see her dead body. All right. They can tell me whatever they want, but I didn't look inside the box, so I know she's still alive and just isn't calling me and hasn't for the last 15 years. Is that worse that she doesn't like you anymore?

I don't know. She's 98 years old. She can do whatever she wants. Now, this film came out three years after The Phantom Menace. So, you know, Portman is kind of being aged up. Yes. I think she's actually about her actual age now. Maybe she's playing a little

older than she actually is. Was she playing younger in the first movie? I think she was. Because I think in the first movie she was supposed to be like 14 and the actors were probably more like 16, 17. But Allie Portman's a tiny woman and she looks like a little girl. Yeah, it works. She doesn't feel as old in this movie as I think her character's supposed to be.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Here's a point I want to get to right off the bat. Yeah. I don't know if it's just because it's fucking in the news, it's topical, it's been on mind, I've been really obsessively following this story. What story? Especially in this scene where she talks to Palpatine, but also throughout the entire film, is there not like a weird Rachel Dolezal thing going on

with Padme in this movie? No, what are you talking about? What do you mean? I don't want to talk about Rachel Dolezal. The scene with Palpatine, she's got this weird permed hair and she's very much dressed

like an African dignitary. It's just on your mind. Is it? I need to rewatch it. I remember what you're talking about. She has like a weird hairstyle. I also feel like she's weirdly bronzed in this movie.

I think that they just were completely out of ideas with the makeup and the hair. They ran through all their good ideas in Phantom House. They were like,

Jesus, a whole other movie of costumes and shit and now she's a senator so it can't be quite as ostentatious. Her style is terrible in this movie.

Yeah, it is. It's bad. The only time she looks good is at the end when she's in just the white jumpsuit. But it felt Yeah, it is. It's bad. The only time she looks good is at the end when she's in just the white jumpsuit. But it felt to me. She looks her best.

It felt very inspired by African. No, it didn't. It's not. Well, oh, maybe. I'd have to rewatch it. You mean generally inspired by African clothing. And her hair also looks kind of weird. I don't know.

I don't want to talk about Rachel Dawson. And here's another theory I had, okay? I feel like the... I'm going to still talk about this for a second. I feel like the skin coloration of the actors is a little weird in this movie. Really? Yeah. I feel like the skin tones are unnatural in this film.

What? Part of this has to do with, and we're going to devote an entire episode to this, this was the first major studio film shot on video as opposed to film. On digital video. Yeah. Not on VHS, which would have been great. Which would have been great. It was shot on. Shot opposed to film. On digital video. Yeah. Not on VHS, which would have been great. Which would have been great. It was shot on...

Shot and delivered, right? Yes. Delivered as a hard drive to a movie theater. What was at the time the highest available resolution for video and now is a very low resolution. Right. And the film does not look incredibly good for that reason. It doesn't look great. At times it looks okay, but it doesn't look great.

I would argue the entirely digital shots look great. And anytime there's a human element, it looks a little... That's fair. Yeah. Yes. But I think lighting a digital video was a new thing to them. So you're saying like the makeup's just off. Applying makeup.

I think the makeup is off. And I think the other element is episode one shot in UK. Yeah. Well, this one's shot in the UK too. I believe this one was shot in Australia. Sure, but really? I'm going to look that up. You can correct me on this.

I am almost certain this film was shot in Australia. The entire movie? I believe this entire film was shot in green screens in Australia. You're right. Thank you. Oh, my God. At Fox Studios in Sydney. Yep.

Pickup shots at Ealing in Britain, but mostly. No, no, no, no. You're right. And then some Tunisia, obviously, that's Tatooine, and some Plaza de España in Seville. I assume that's some of the Naboo stuff. Yes. But yeah. So my point is Natalie Portman is a very, very fair-skinned lady.

She, much like me, has transparent Jew flesh. I guess so, but you're saying she was just spending some time at the beach. In the sun. It's a hot country. There is one scene in the motion picture Draft Day. It's my first scene in the movie where I, the weekend before, had gone to a theme park.

Right. You're right. You do look kind of tanned in Draft Day. Yep. Especially, yeah, well, I'm thinking of that scene. It's my first scene in the film. Yeah, I know, I know. In the film. I had gone to a theme park the day before with my buddy Tim Simons, who has,

of Veep fame, been in talks to be on this podcast. He needs to be on it. We need to get him on. Jesus, Tim. Tim, please. Does he listen? I don't know,

but he wanted to be on it. I really want him to listen to it. I want Tim Simons to hear my voice. Tim, you were great in Veep this season. If you're listening to this, please tweet at Tim and tell him to. Timothy C. Simons, is it C? Yeah, Timothy C. Simons to hear my voice. Tim, you were great in Veep this season. If you're listening to this, please tweet at Tim and tell him to. Timothy C. Simons.

Is it C? Yeah, Timothy C. Simons. Please tweet at him and tell him to be on this podcast. God, that'd be great. It'd be great. He's great. He's one of the greats. He is one of the greats.

I love him. There's a great theme park in Ohio. It's like the best theme park in America. What's it called? Cedar Rapids. Oh, okay. I've heard of that place. Cedar Falls. Yeah, Cedar Rapids is a, okay. I've heard of that place. Cedar Falls.

Yeah, Cedar Rapids is a movie. Yeah. They have a ride based on the movie. Oh, sounds great. No, it's called Cedar Falls. So you spend time in a hot tub, in a swimming pool, in a hotel swimming pool with a tapas and hay. Yes, exactly. We're way off track. We went on all these roller coasters for a day. Got really sunburned.

The next day we were filming my first scene the movie yeah you shoot things out of order right and they were like you don't look the same this whole movie takes place on one day on the titular draft day right we've shot the scenes that take place 30 minutes after this and your skin is an entirely different color because i don't tan i burn you just burn so they had to try to put pale makeup over my sunburn. And I look, as my sister put it, in my first scene in the movie, look, and I quote my sister, very Hispanic. You're a little Puerto Rican boy.

I look like a little Puerto Rican boy. I look like Elian Gonzalez. And then it goes away. But for the first scene, I look very doll-like and weird. And I think the combination of shooting on video, and that wasn't a tested thing, and you light things differently on video, and makeup plays differently. We spent a lot of time on this. I get it.

Their skin's a little tanned. And I think combined with the hair and the outfits. Let us never speak of this again. Padme looks like Rachel Dolezal. If you have an opinion, tweet at us. Hashtag Padme Dolezal. Hashtag AskRachel. That's the hashtag.

AskRachel? That's the funny hashtag on Twitter where you want to make fun of her. We don't know. We're using our own hashtag. It's hashtag Padme Dolezal and tweet yes or no. Hashtag Padme Dolezal. You're a monster. Jar Jar is so happy to see his old friends.

Me's the Jar Jar. If it's possible, Jar Jar even comes off more stupid in this film than the last one. He has less to do but his dialogue now that he's in an official position. We should address the fact that it's pretty obvious George Lucas realized, or realized that people didn't like Jar Jar because he is in like three scenes. And there's a moment.

It's so contrasted with The Phantom Menace where Jar Jar is in scenes he shouldn't be in, and in this scene Jar Jar is in no. He just has this section of the plot he's only there when he needs to a tiny tiny section

of the plot there was a moment when he walks past the camera and gives this like smirk he does that's like fuck you it's like Jar Jar

saying fuck you to the audience like I'm still here so yeah he's there and you're right he does seem more annoying it's because he like people take him seriously

and has not aged a bit in 10 years well we don't know how the gungans age i'm not saying physically i'm saying mentally okay that's true we all get wiser with age how is he a senator right he's a senator he seems dumber than he did before it's true and it's like you know i don't believe in like you know a cultural homogenization but i do think if you're a senator learn how to fucking proper syntax, Jar Jar.

You know? Whatever. We've talked so much about the Gungans. Okay, so he's excited to see them and Paday walks in and doesn't really react. He's like, nice to see you, thank you for coming. Yeah, she doesn't even seem to acknowledge them as her friends. Because she's too busy being worried that someone's going to catch her for being white.

You want to buy some death sticks? Now we're seeing like the dregs in Coruscant. A little bit. A little bit. I like the slums of Coruscant. Yeah. We get more of that. Yeah.

We'll get more of that in a second. It's sort of like, I feel like it's a little like Tokyo inspired. Sure. A lot of bright colors and lights. Hong Kong. Dark. Density. Density.

Very mechanical. Tall towers. Anyway, she is given this tube, like you say. Whatever he says to her. He goes, fucking, you know what to do with this. Yeah, exactly. I know what to do with this. And she pilots a little drone over to Amidala's bedroom.

She loads this little tube into the drone. And it drops two poisonous worms. Yeah. It's gross slugs. And we find out, right, did you say this already, that Anakin had to turn off the camera because Padme didn't like him watching her? Oh, right.

That was the thing. So R2's in there. R2's back, by the way. R2's back. R2's back. The hyperdrive repairing droid we all know and love. He's back as her senator droid. I don't know what his job is.

I'm surprised of all the characters to bring back, he's a weird one. Not that interesting a character in the first movie, but here he is. He's better in this one, actually. He has like 18 times more things to do in this one. It is crazy how much R2 does. He's maybe the third lead of this film. Anyway. So they put R2 in as a room guard.

Do you remember as a kid you'd have those room guards? Yeah, no, exactly. Those electronic room guards where it was like all it could sense is if something walked by it would make a noise. He's not that good. No. So that's all he can do. If something already is walking by him. Let's say Padme's already picking up a creepy like fuckboy vibe from Anakin.

She's like, don't fucking watch me. Yeah, right. Because she wants to like masturbate in peace. That's the thing. His job is watch after me. But she's like, don't watch me like that. Yeah, right. Take it easy, buddy.

I'm doing what you told me to do. Excuse me, princess. I can tell how you're fucking watching me. You're watching me in a gross, sexual way. Don't do it. Anyway, the worms come in. They almost get her. It's a nice little scene.

R2 alarm goes off. No, I think the Jedi's just sense it. R2's scanning. He's scanning, but the Jedi's just, Obi-Wan and Anakin talking about the shit that Obi-Wan just took. They flip it and they cut up the doors. I sense it too, and then they run in there and Anakin chops the little worms in half.

I actually like that. It's very cool because he does it very cleanly, but it's right by her neck. So then they look and they're like, where are these things coming from? They see the drone outside the window. Obi-Wan goes like, I'm on it. Jumps through the window and grabs it.

It's pretty cool. It's pretty badass. It is pretty cool. And so now Obi-Wan is like flying through the dregs of Coruscant. Through the space traffic, yeah. Like the lower level. I guess so. We're not on the floor yet.

We're in the, you know, he's in the air because it's flying around. Okay, if we go like Coruscant since it's all one city, Uptown, Downtown, Midtown wouldn't be relative. Yeah, it's like sky high. You know, I get you. So Uptown, Downtown, Midtown wouldn't be relative. Yeah, it's like sky-high. It's height. You know, I get you. So Uptown would be like the Jedi Council, the Senate. These tall buildings that are very clean and sort of silvery. We're going down and it's like, you know, murky

colors with neon lights. Yeah, it's kind of Blade Runner-y with all the neon lights and stuff like that. We're in Midtown, so we're like right above the Downtown buildings, I would say. Except Blade Runner, obviously, is a masterpiece of design, and this is completely half-assed and doesn't look that good. Yeah, but I like that we're getting a different

kind of energy. I do, too, because Anakin hotwires, I think, a little car. Oh, a speeder. Does he just steal it? I wasn't clear if that's theirs or if he just nicks it. No, he nicks it. It's a speeder. Yeah. And Anakin knows it's a speeder because he took the test and it's different than a spaceship.

Yeah, ship, speeder. Yeah. We've talked about it. Oh, I know what you're talking about. So he steals the speeder and they're in pursuit. And I would say this is a successful part of the film. I would too. It could be a lot better, but it works pretty well. well like there's some banter there's a good we're invested in who the characters are it's new it looks different from you know you're still like

you're saying we're seeing carl rassan uh it's happening in you know the surface so there's cars flying everywhere it's like a totally different environment and there are a lot of character beats within it i mean like obi-wan is holding onto this drone flying through. Eventually he ends up in the speeder with Anakin, and it becomes a running bit of, like, how dangerous a driver Anakin is. He's crazy, and he does all kinds of wacky stunts, and he's always losing his lightsaber.

I wouldn't say it's funny, but I would say it is attempting to be funny in a way I appreciate. It is okay. It's much better than the elevator. I agree. It's like a shitty rush hour ripoff where it's like, man, what have I told you about? I don't love the delivery of I hate when he does that when Anakin jumps out of the car to land on her

space car. Zam Wessel. That's her name, right? Yes. But, you know, I appreciate it. That's the thing to aim for. I like the direction they're going into. Here's the big point, though. They've just left Padme by herself. That is true. Their one job was watch after Padme. Is there any protector there?

Oh, R2-D2, who fucking failed before. Jar Jar? Jar Jar's out. He's not in her bedroom. It's true. Why? Right now she's defenseless. Why doesn't another assassin, the silver guy, why doesn't he just show up and just fucking shoot her dead right there and then? Also, why doesn't, like, Obi-Wan

jump on the drone and Anakin go, well, I'll stay here. Well, Anakin's impulsive, though. I mean, that's part of it, right? I know. He does a lot of impulsive things. He flies through some power couplings, and Obi-Wan complains about that. He loses his lightsaber. They get electrocuted.

And then they land at a bar, which is a good scene-ish. Once again, a very different environment than we've seen in Phantom Menace. Ben doesn't like it. They land at a bar. Ben hates this good scene. It's, once again, a very different environment than we've seen in Phantom Menace. Ben doesn't like it. They land at a bar. Ben hates this movie. Ben hates this podcast. They land at a bar.

No, I don't hate this podcast. But you do hate this movie. I can now grab Ben that she has been worst. Ben, okay, of the three movies we've discussed on this podcast, all three of which you hate,

how would you rank The Judge, Phantom Menace, and Attack of the Clones? Oh, that's so tough. Well, we're just getting into it, so I'll say Attack is like I can bear. It's fresh. Yeah, it's fresh.

It's still got some intrigue in it. I haven't had to listen to like nine more episodes yet. And then I'll go Judge next. You hate Phantom Menace more than The Judge? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I definitely hate The Judge the most. Me too.

Yeah. No question. I mean, I didn't watch the whole movie. I think I definitely hate the judge the most me too yeah no question I mean I didn't watch the whole movie I think I like Phantom the best uh I like attack right now all right well let's see anyway I just want to get to I like that scene where they go to the bar and mouse from the Matrix yeah says do you

want some dead sticks one of my favorite characters in the film is that, is that fucking guy? Evan Sleazebagano is his name. That's his name? So his name is Evan. I'm sorry, it's Evano. So it's not a human name. They added an O at the end, so it sounds different.

Oh, sure. Evano. Because he's got hair or ears or something or antenna. Sleazebagano. Fun sidebar. A couple months ago, I was talking to my agents who are responsible for trying to make sure my career exists. Sure. Do they listen to the podcast?

No. This is the very point I'm building up to right now. Go ahead. And I was saying, I want to do a podcast. I'm trying to figure out what to make a podcast about. And they were like, well, the thing you're best at is talking about movies. But I feel like it's dangerous for you to do a podcast about movies because you'll end up publicly going on the record speaking about a lot of things you don't like when you might then have to get jobs from those people. Sure.

That's a good point. I'm probably ruining my career. Whatever. Trevorrow's not even making Dress to Park 5. Yeah, it's great. I don't care about speaking shit about Colin Trevorrow, the man who directed the biggest opening weekend of all time. No, it's the second biggest.

No, in the final numbers, it now is a bigger opening weekend. It beat Avengers? Yeah, it's the number one highest grossing film. That's a bummer, because I like that the Avengers was on top. Yeah, me too. That's a nice movie. Jurassic World's a piece of shit, and I hope Colin Trevorrow doesn't hire me. I just said that.

Should I? No, keep that in. Okay. I'm going to stand by this. Who could you have played in Jurassic World's a piece of shit, and I hope Colin Trevor doesn't hire me. I just said that. Should I? No, keep that in. Okay. Who could you have played in Jurassic World? I guess the Jake Johnson part. But Jake Johnson actually did a great job. He's the one good character in that film. We can't talk about Jurassic World anymore.

I don't want to dignify it with the attention. It's like the Rachel Dolezal of movies. All it wants is our attention for acting out. Stop giving it attention. And her. Okay, we're not going to talk about them. She's a great lady. So stop giving it attention. And her.

Okay, we're not going to talk about them. She's a great lady. Well, so we're kind of wrapping up on this opening sequence, which I think is what we're discussing. Evan Sleazebag. We're talking about subtext. So I was saying the subtext in Jurassic World is kind of. In Jurassic World? I'm saying the subtext in Jurassic World is kind of anti-feminist, right? Oh, sure.

If only subtly. Right. Intended or no. There it is. And I think George is doing an interestingly similar thing here in this scene. Okay? So we're watching the movie and we're going, well, it's a movie made by a man, but it's not all biographical and he's not on screen.

I don't know how he feels about everything. For example, I don't know how George Lucas feels about cigarettes as a concept. Sure. I guess so. They never come up. Okay. Then a character walks up. You want to buy some Netflix?

He's got a gross voice. Yep. He talks like Watto. A little bit. His voice is clearly modulated and posed. Yeah, yeah, there's something there. He looks unhealthy. Yeah.

I'll say. He's got like rings around his eyes. Right, and he's in a sleazy bar. He's in a sleazy bar. Yeah. They don't say this on screen, but his name is Evan Sleazebagano. Right. And he says, hey, do you want to buy some Death Sticks?

And Obi-Wan literally brainwashes him. Yeah, says like, those are not good for you. You don't want to buy me, sell me Death Sticks. And he's like, I don't want to sell you Death Sticks. He's like, you want to go and make something of your life. He says those will harm you. He says those are not good for you. And he goes, they're not good for me.

He says something that's like, you shouldn't smoke those. Those are bad for you. So call me crazy. I think George Lucas doesn't like cigarettes. Okay. I don't like cigarettes either. I'm with you, George. No, but I'm saying I think maybe death sticks are meant to represent cigarettes.

Yeah, okay. Where are you going with this? I'm saying this is an interesting subtextual thing going on here. It's not subtextual. It's very subtle. It's very subtle. But here's this character. His name's Evan Sleazebag. So we're supposed to here. It's not subtextual. It's very subtle. It's very subtle. What are you talking about? But here's this character. His name's Evan Sleazebag. All right, I've had enough of this. So we're supposed to think that he's a sleazebag.

He offers death sticks. They look like cigarettes. I think the death sticks are supposed to be like drugs. But sure, I'm with you. He's a sleazebag. Wikipedia character spotlight. I got his first name wrong. His name is Elan Sleazebagano.

Great. Elan Sleazebagano. He's a male balisar death stick dealer in the Planet Coruscant during the secessionist moment. Hmm. Who's the actor's name? He was Mouse in The Matrix. Matt Doran.

Yeah. He never had a career, but he did have that one. So good in these two movies. Sure. My favorite character in each film, maybe. I like him in The Matrix. He's not my favorite character. Alain Sleazebagano was on Coruscant, the capital of the Galactic Republic, during the secessionist

movement shortly before the ballot. This doesn't tell you anything. All right. Who cares? Like I said, Wikipedia is not good for Attack of the Clones lose Bagano's on Coruscant, the capital of the Galactic Republic, during the secessionist movement shortly before the ballot. This doesn't tell you anything. All right, who cares? Like I said, Wikipedia is not good for Attack of the Clones. Yeah, this one's really... What is your point? You had a point you were building to, I feel like. Maybe?

That I think George Lucas is anti-cigarette. No, not that point. The first 20 minutes of the noir movie... No, my point is, that's why, once again, we're making our first episode the minutes of the noir movie well i'm saying no my point is that's why once again we're making our first episode the beginning of the film right because we want to look at what the film sets up and whether or not the film plays off of that builds off of that and and plays out what is established in the in the first chunk sure uh my point i'm building up to is i'm setting the stage for a fucking great 10 episode run

of Attack of the Podcast. What will happen next? What's going to happen next? We've seen the whole thing. We know, but what's going to happen next? Will Obi-Wan go to a diner? Oh, God. Time can only tell.

Will Anakin ride a headless blob rhino? I don't know how to describe it. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe? Maybe. You know, because as we've acknowledged, like, ever since we remembered that this movie existed,

like, our memories have unclouded a little bit, and we've remembered that we actually saw it in theaters a bunch, and, like, we're fully aware of its existence. Yeah, it's all coming back to us now. Yeah. Attack of the Clones made $302 million at the box office. Oh, I'm saying for Phantom Menace.

I know, Phantom Menace made $431 million. You were correct. Okay, so I was right on there. And Attack of the Clones was how much? $300? $300 million, $302. Okay, so $300 right in the nugget, but we're talking... But it made $650 worldwide.

This is before the international market blew up. I love that we're starting out with such boring nitty-gritty. Phantom Menace made a billion dollars worldwide. But that's also including the 3D re-release. Fine. But there's a steep drop off between the two. Yeah. A little bit of just, I think, maybe excitement being let out of the balloon.

Yeah. And title being Attack of the Clones. And it wasn't a good promotional campaign. No, it's not. It was not an, you were just not as, there was nothing to grab onto, like what he can't fall in love. Oh, let me buy my ticket now. And also, that first movie was not good, and people didn't want to see the second movie.

Ben reminds us. Controversial opinion from producer Ben, aka the Ben Ducer, aka Purdueer Ben, aka the Haas, aka Hello Fennel, aka the Poet Laureate, who scooped David. I don't know if you know this. I didn't. Today when we are recording this episode, which you are not here for at least five days because we record them about a week in advance, is Ben's birthday. Wait, today's Ben's birthday?

Today's Ben's birthday. Oh, happy birthday, Ben. Thanks, guys. Aw, how old are you? 30. Woo! Nail net. Yeah.

Yep. 30 years old. So you are, what's today's? Okay. Wait, I'm trying to figure out what your zodiac is. I'm a Cancer. You're a Cancer. Yep.

Classic. I'm pretty emotional today, too, so I'm living up to it. Great. How do you feel about spending your birthday talking about Attack of the Clones? It's good. It's a good distraction. Yeah. That's right. That's what all distraction. Yeah. That's right.

This is for all of us. No, I was looking forward to today. Yeah. That's good. I'm excited to get to relive Attack of the Clones. Once more. Once again. For the second time out of ten.

So this is going to be a clones-based episode. We're going to dig into the clones. But housekeeping, it's Ben's birthday. Check. Everyone send him a fucking happy birthday message a week from now when you hear this podcast. Send him a belated- Hashtag happy birthday fennel. Yes.

Yeah, great. Please bake him a fennel cake. Not a funnel cake, though. Not a funnel cake. No. It could be a fennel cake in the shape of a funnel. That's fine. But it has to be.

But it must be made of fennel. Yes. Now, just so I'm clear, mystical fighting order, right? Mm-hmm. Jedis. Yeah. They put this one guy on the case.

One guy. Okay, he goes to a forensics expert, let's say. Sure. His buddy at a 50s diner. Right. Okay, and now he's going to the archives. Mm-hmm. Cool, all right.

Armed with the knowledge that this is from the planet Kamino. Great, all right. I just wanted to make sure that-hmm. Cool. All right. Armed with the knowledge that this is from the planet Kamino. Great. Yeah. All right. I just wanted to make sure that- That's the thread so far. I mean,

when you put it like that, Ben, it sounds great. Yeah. It sounds, though, like a ridiculous detective movie. It does.

Yeah, it does. It's so cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's the basics of it. You know, there's not a lot of intricacy to it. It's like,

they get the assassin, the assassin dies, the dart, where does this point to? Kamino. All right. You know, they dies. The dart. Where does this point to? Kamino. All right. They're moving pretty quickly. Up until this point, you're like, maybe he's going to have to keep on searching.

And we're going to see every time we cut back to Obi-Wan, he's in a different place talking to a different person. Right. Meeting all different, you know. No. But I like the direction it's going into up until this point. Goes to the library. Jocasta Nu. Jocasta Nu.

Good old Jocasta Nu wearing a kimono. She is the Jedi librarian. And she's got like chopsticks in her hair. She's got chopsticks in her hair. She's a real fuddy-duddy. Fun fact about Jocasta New. Nope. Or any of those. I got one for you. Little merchandise spotlight.

Jocasta New was made into an action figure only a couple years ago after rampant fan demand. She was, no joke, the most demanded, unmade Attack of the Clones character. Why? I don't know, but fans are going, they were just kept on sending emails going, make us Jocasta New. And they were like, it was 13 years ago, get over it.

She's also so annoying. Yeah. She, to me, represents everything that sucks about the Jedi, which is Obi-Wan is like, Kamino is missing from our Jedi archives. This planet should be here, and it's not here. And she, rather than say, wow, that's weird, she's like, if it's not in the archives, it doesn't exist. She's throwing a lot of shade.

She can't accept that the integrity of her system could have been breached so instead a whole planet must not exist but she also says it with like a kind of mean girl like well if it's not in here then it doesn't exist because i do my job correctly obi-wan should be like yo there's been a breach like you should be fired because he goes to yoda and yoda runs the question by a bunch of six-year-olds and the six-year-olds are like, someone deleted it. Like the six-year-olds can figure it out. Yeah, he's like, if there's a planet that's not in the library, how can it exist? And a six-year-old's like, well, someone took it out of the library.

By the way, one of the most wrenchingly awkward, like it takes forever, and Yoda's being so sweet and sickly. Master Yoda, someone Someone deleted from the Jedi archive. I love those kids. I love those little Jedi kids. This is, I think there's more tension between us this time. You're a little more on the side of Attack of the Clone Wars. I'm like a little pissed off

at it. You're definitely a little pissed at it. I was so pumped for it and then it was a really annoying disappointment. I'm charmed by so much of it. I get that. I'm charmed by so much of it. I get that. Yeah. I am too.

They tell him it's not in there, right? Yeah, they tell him it's not in there, yes. How does he find it then? I already forget how he then finds it. I guess he just goes there. Yeah, there's no real explanation. Because he knows where it's supposed to be. Yeah. Oh, right, right.

The question wasn't he was trying to find the location. He was trying to find information so he didn't have to take a whole fucking trip to get there. He was trying to see like, hey, is there a number I can call? Is there like an email address? And they were like, nope, you just got to go. An email address. Dexter's told you it's in the outer rim. Just keep on driving.

He says it's here. It's next to the, what's it called? The maze. Next to the old prospector mine. Yeah, the Rishi maze, which is a galaxy within a galaxy. I have no idea what it is. It's a couple parsecs away from there. He says that, yeah.

And so Obi-Wan is like, yoink, there's nothing here. I guess someone hacked our archives. No one deals with that information, by the way. This should be monumental. Because the way she's acting is like, thatink, there's nothing here. I guess someone hacked our archives. No one deals with that information, by the way. This should be monumental, because the way she's acting is like, that would be impossible. Wow. Maybe there's a mole in the Jedi organization, guys. Entire planet not there, not possible. The planet

doesn't exist. Yoda shares this information with some six-year-olds and no one else. It doesn't spin. Yoda has this real fear of shit leaking this whole movie, so he's like, I'm only talking about this with whoever's in this room right now But with them I'll talk about it I'll talk about it openly but then never tell anyone else you fucking six year olds Now a lot of the planets we've seen in this Phantom Menace universe are themed

Oh we got a desert planet Coruscant's a planet where the entire planet is a city That is true Naboo is more foresty Yeah Naboo is perhaps the most diverse-looking planet. Yeah. It's kind of earthy, kind of a nice earth. You're right.

The others are all just one thing. Desert. City. This is the water planet. This is water. This whole planet is pretty much water. They don't say it, but you see it, and it's really overcast. Yeah.

It's, like, dark as night. It's stormy. Yeah. It's like dark as night. It's stormy. Yeah. It's raining really hard. It's how you know it's a weather planet because it's a plant where it never stops raining apparently. And the whole thing is covered in water. And all the buildings are like Jetsons buildings. Yes.

Like they're like on sticks elevated above the water. And they're sort of like saucer shaped. Yeah. Like they have that kind of 50s, 60s sort of world of the future designed to them. Right. Right. They look like the CN Tower in Toronto. Yeah.

And there are, this seems to be a planet. Yeah. It's just like oceans, giant whales, and then these very elegant little buildings. Yeah. So he jumps inside. Mm-hmm. And they're like. Just to say, it's on that noir thread of like

you know how it's always like raining in noir movies oh yeah right so right he goes to a planet where it's always raining except then he goes inside

like an iPod basically well this is where the whole set looks like an iPod the mystery thing falls apart at this very moment it's the worst because it feels like oh it's rain

he's going to review this person they're going to lead him to another person this is where it falls apart the whole movie I would argue falls apart at this moment he does no work after this point.

Everything I'm charmed by in this movie happens before this very point. And from then on out, I'm frustrated with this film. Yeah. There's still a lot I like. Overall, I'm not crazy about it. But the movie falls apart. He walks in to, I guess, just like the front entrance of the planet. It's the visitor center.

That's what I assumed. Is this the whole planet? Like, oh, yay, welcome to the entry desk for Camino the Planet. Where do you get these clones from? Who is the original? They go, you know, the man we cloned him from, da-da-da-da. And he goes, wait, I'm sorry, back up. Who did you clone these people from?

Who is the origin? You could pick anyone in the world. Right. So you go, who's the best fighter? Who's the greatest soldier of all time? And also, do you have to just have one guy? You can't have kind of a multitude? Is the idea that it has to be just one guy over and over again?

I don't think so. Wouldn't it be so much easier just be like, if you can modify the Gen X that much, maybe it's like at this point it's on autopilot. It's the presets and now it's just like, we're going to keep on churning out. We got the one DNA sample. We're going to keep on churning it out. He goes, who's this guy? And they go, oh, right. It's some bounty hunter.

It's some crook. Some low-level sleazebag. It's so crazy. But Sifo-DS insisted. Isn't that the idea? Isn't it said like Sifo-DS was like, Jango Fett, that's your guy. Why? I have no idea it said like Sifo-Dyas was like, Django Fett, that's your guy. Right. Why?

I have no idea. Yeah. Well, they say Sifo-Dyas brought him to it, said this is the guy. And they say, you know, in addition to being compensated very well, like they point out that he's being compensated very well. Right. He had only one other demand. He wants one clone for himself but unaltered yes no

adjustments made that he can raise yeah he wants to raise himself as a boy i kind of like that idea yeah if it was explored right which it is not word explored it would be cool but right like the idea must be like here's someone who obviously can't enter a romantic partnership yeah doesn't know want to have a kid but what if he just had himself? This is kind of maybe the Yaddle of the movie. I'm not saying that character is the Yaddle but I'm saying

this son whose name is Boba Fett? He also has a little New Zealand accent. Who plays him? That's kind of like that's maybe a movie I would watch is a guy raising a clone of himself on this weird planet. Because he lives there.

Yeah. They go, can I meet this guy? And they go, oh, yeah, sure. He's got a room here. So they're like walking past all these clones that look like him and they bring him in and it's just a back quarters. And this dude's now being paid so well. He's got a tiny room.

It's really small. And he's still sort of just like, they go like, hey, where have you been? He's like, around. It's like, wait, you're still a bounty hunter? Like you've been paid so well. Yeah. Why are you still a bounty hunter? Get out of the game.

I mean, Midnight Run is all about a guy who doesn't want to be a bounty hunter anymore. And we know, by the way, at this point that this is the guy who killed Sam Wessel, right? We find out very quickly. I'm pretty sure we get it. We see him. He's a human being. Because we've heard his voice talking to Sam. I mean, it's, you know, muffled.

The moment that connects the dots is we see him. He's in just sort of like his classic fatigues. And Obi-Wan starts asking him questions, and he whispers something to his son, Booba Fett, in some alien language. Yeah. And Booba Fett doodled-fully. Booba Fett. Boba? Okay.

It's a new character. I'm not familiar with him. He doodled-fully runs down the hallway and hits a button, closing a closet. And we see that the thing on the other end of the closet door that has been closed is the armor. The silver and blue armor. So then we're like, okay. And then

again in this noir fashion but without any of the actual grist, like Obi-Wan and Jango have this kind of innuendo filled conversation where it's like you ever been to Coruscant? He's like maybe. A couple of times. Recently? Fairly. How was it?

Oh he goes there for some business. He goes was it successful? And he goes fairly. Fairly successful. And like by the way no it wasn't. No. It was horrible. It was a huge bust. He blew it. Yeah he did a terrible job. Anyway. Maybe retire. I mean not to harp on Midnight, which I think is just like a platonic ideal.

It's a great movie. It's like a perfect film. Fantastic movie. But the crux of that film is, oh man, being a bounty hunter sucks. It's a terrible job. We all understand this is a terrible job. All De Niro wants to do is get that one big job. Right.

That one big payout that allows him to start a restaurant. That's what he's always dreamed of. He wants to be Dexter Jester, to speak in terms that Attack of the Cloners will understand. Right. Our attack heads. The cloners? The cloniacs. He is a Jango Fett who wishes he could become a Dexter Jester.

And the second he gets that payout, it's like, that's what he's going to do. He's going to get out of the game. Right. Jango Fett has hit pay dirt. But he's not giving up the old life. No. But why? And he's got a tiny, shitty room.

He could get a nicer apartment. We don't know anything about this character. It's never explored. This guy kind of seems like a piece of shit, and I don't understand why they cloned him. Yeah. And he's, like, physically fit. Right. But also not the best human specimen in the world.

I mean, that's how he's being presented to us, though. I think that's the idea. It's like, here's Jango Fett. Yeah. He knows what he's doing. He'll work. But even like, they talk about how like Mace Windu is really powerful. In this movie, it's kind of set up, that's why, that's Mace Windu's place within the Jedi hierarchy,

is that he's the most powerful force wise. They say that a couple of times. So like Yoda's the wisest. Mace Windu's the most powerful. Right. He's like the best fighter. Right. Yeah.

So if the Jedis were actually the ones who asked for this army, they'd be like, oh, just get Mace Windu. That'd be pretty cool. Let's have a bunch of. An army of Samuel L. Jackson's. Right. And they all have the force. That sounds great. But you're forgetting. Oh, I'm not forgetting. This was done in secret. That's why. Jackson's. Right, and they all have the Force. That sounds great. But you're forgetting.

Oh, I'm not forgetting. This was done in secret. That's why I said if. Right. If. Right. So they're like, Sifo-Dyas, 10 years ago, Jedi Master.

He has this tense conversation with Jango. He meets Boba, and he goes back to the Jedi Council, and they're like, we got no idea what the fuck he's talking about. And they're like, is there any chance Sifo-Dyas did this 10 years ago? And they're like, no. Because, oh, he's talking them through like hologram.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's still on the planet. He's like, uh, uh, uh. It's like a cold shivering. It's like, just go back indoors. Like, they've got a ton of space there. Find a bathroom. I don't know.

Do anything. Right. But he says he's like, any chance? And they're like, no. The timeline you're presenting, I think Sifo-Dyas died right before that. Right. Oh, oh, and he says to Jango, he's like, so what's the deal with Sifo-Dyas? And Jango's like, Sifo, who is?

Yeah, he's like, a guy called Tyrannus. Yeah. That's who set me up with this gig. He's on like the moons of Boogan or something. He says some silly nonsense. Fucking bullshit. Garbage. Right, he goes, a man named Tyrannus

from the moons of Bogan. And he's like, what? So he goes to that and he's like, Tyrannus, Sephidias, any of this that make any sense to you? And they're like,

absolutely not. And instead of digging further into the mystery war, he fights Jango Fett. Right, he's like wanting to leave the planet and then Jango Fett comes out in his armor now

and starts shooting at him constantly. Kind of a cool scene, I guess. Yeah, it's a rain battle. You've never really seen Jedi versus non-Jedi, who's not just a stupid battle trooper. Yeah, it is so bogged down by shitty CGI rain. CGI is really terrible. It's clear that the only thing that's real is the floor that they're standing on.

And then the entire background of the planet CGI, the rain is CGI, they're wet. It all like, it doesn't have a lot of weight to it. But the actual fight itself, I guess, is well choreographed. It's pretty good. Jango's cool. He's got a rocket pack. Jango's pretty cool. He's a cool guy. And he's got these like kind of

Wild West ray guns, you know, that he like kind of... He's got two blaster side holsters and he flips them off. They look real tight. Tight's my word of the day. But yeah, it stops being easy to follow. And when he comes to

the Jedi Council with like the biggest questions yet, they're like, well, we don't know what to tell you. That sounds crazy. We definitely didn't. Yeah, they're like, this is nuts.

A clone army. And we paid for it? Wow. Well, none of us approved that, this is nuts. A clone army. And we paid for it? Wow. Well, none of us approved that, so. Yeah. And then. And then they're like, Tyrant? And they're like, yeah, don't know who he is.

And then, I mean. Just come back home. You got to do your laundry. And we'll get into this more later, but then this just sets up the end of the movie where it's kind of like, they approve an army? And then it's like, well, it's right over here yeah and everyone no one apparently asked the question like excuse me who are these people and where did they come from and what is this yeah and if you take off their helmet they all have the exact same face and they all like ship off into these giant ships that are i guess already

existing and like it's like, I mean, I understand that Palpatine's supposed to be sort of pulling one over on the galaxy, but was no one picking up the receipts and being like, where did all of this shit come from? Well, this is the craziest thing to me, too. I don't understand. Where did these people

come from? Did Sifo-Dyas pay up front? Quote-unquote, Sifo-Dyas. He must have. The Kamino ones aren't like, excuse me. You were 50% your deposit, but we're going to need the other 50%. Who the fuck is Saifo-Diaz? On delivery. Who was this guy? I mean, that's the thing.

What a dumb name. The movie is presenting questions, and we're getting invested in trying to find out the answers. They are not answered. Right. So it's like, was Saifo-DDyas an alias that a bad guy was using? We know he was a real guy, but was someone pretending to be him? Sifo-Dyas, let's read about this.

Male human Jedi Master. Last decade to the Republic. So he's an old guard kind of guy. Apparently he did it. This is Wikipedia. They're saying he did it. So was he kind of in cahoots with the Sith? Was he just like a real

military aficionado? You know what? I'm just going to buy an army case they ever did. Yeah, he was convinced to do it by Dooku. And it does seem like and we'll get to Dooku later obviously. But it does feel like he was manipulated. A young Jedi getting swayed by the allure.

Yeah, of an older Jedi saying, like, hey, things are bad. Like, we might need an army. The Jedi are getting weak. And he's like, you know what? You're right. I should do this. Presumably Dooku gave him the money. I mean, it doesn't seem like Jedis are independently wealthy.

What's his name? This is all in the Expanded Universe, by the way. Again, this is never discussed in the films. Hago Damask, a.k.a. Darth Plagueis, who is Darth Sidious' former master, he provides the funds. But Sifidious doesn't know that he's a Sith, I guess. Does he come from a wealthy family? Yeah, he's like a businessman. He invented a good app? Yeah, he's like a businessman. Yeah.

He invented a good app? What did he... How did he get... He's a businessman. He has a company called Damask Holdings. I cannot tabulate how much. Again, none of this is in the movie. Yeah. But here's like... Look, I don't need them to give me all of this, but I also... A little more.

A little more. Well, I need to get some impression of who Sifo-Dyas was as a guy. Maybe Dooku could later say like, ah, Sifo-Dyas was just a pawn like I manipulated him into buying that army. Or even like he was killed ten years earlier. Right. You know, Jedis don't seem to get killed that often.

I guess not. They're pretty peaceful. I mean, we saw Qui-Gon die, but it's like extreme circumstances. I would love it if they were like, yeah, Sephoteus got killed. Weird circumstances. Also, he was acting really weird the last couple months of his life. Like not, you know, even if it was that ham-fisted, if it was just kind of like setting up like, oh, that guy was, something weird was going on there. Also, aren't they mind reading Jedis?

This is what I always circle back to. I get that Jedis could maybe, might be harder to read another Jedi, right? Because they also have... So that's the thing. When Obi-Wan's doing that fucking detective conversation, like playing coy with Jango, he also could just be asking him, like, hey, some weather we got here, huh?

And then just reading his mind. That's a good point. You know what I'm saying? I totally forgot about that. He could just go like, so you see any good plays or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then just meanwhile

be going like, This guy is Jango Fett. This guy is Jango. This is the assassin. This is Jango Fett. Why don't they read fucking Zam Wessel's mind where they're like,

who sent you? Yeah. And she's like, I can't tell you. They're like, well, too late. We just fucked it out of your brain.

Now you're dead and I can't read your mind. Anyway. To get too scared off by your lizard face. This movie's insane. It's really insane. This is an insane movie.

This is the most insane plot concept in the film. There are probably more insane things that happen but the idea that there's just a planet that makes clones and did it in secret and provided... That is the craziest thing. That is the biggest leap of logic the film makes and

I would say if it's a mile wide, the leap you have to make, it makes it like 10 feet across and then just falls into the abyss. That's being very generous. Exactly. Ben, final thoughts. It's your birthday. Oh, man.

Well, kids, try to enjoy your 20s because it's all downhill from here. I've been told 30 is better than ever. Oh, okay. How have the last 16 hours of your life been? Um, I don't know, okay. Yeah. You seem good. I'm fine, yeah.

I know you're feeling like the existential dread, but you also, like, it all feels like it's going alright. No, yeah, things are good. Things are good. You're fucking producing Attack of the Podcast. That's true. That is true. David and Griffin. You know what? Griffin and david present i keep putting my name first i always actually put your name first too when i describe it to people you're right yeah i should be looking up i mean i'm producing this great star wars podcast so and you love star wars i it's great so good two

of your favorite movies yeah i love them yep yeah it's so good but final thoughts uh i just yeah just did not deliver to not deliver on this if they're gonna go for the detective thing come on like yeah go for it they they do not it's an investigation where no nothing's really answered yes yeah they give us bigger questions and then they just go like well i guess we can never find out right that. That's it. We should get to the topic of the week. Okay. Right. So the topic is, we're trying to figure out what the fuck this character arc is.

I guess it's an Anakin episode, but specifically not the romance, but the character. The anger. The anger. The angst. Teen angst. Anakin's anger. With Anakin Skywalker. Also known as trouble on Tatooine.

A lot of trouble on Tatooine. What the fuck? Okay, so let's just put this in context for a little bit, okay? The first Star Wars movie. The Phantom Menace. Phantom Menace. We're introduced to young Anakin. Yeah, he's a cherub.

He's a cherub. He's got big chubby cheeks. And he's got a rosy smile and he loves saying yippee. Yeah, and he always is looking on the bright side of life, which is helpful for him because he's in a pretty dire life situation. Mm-hmm. You know? Like, you're a slave to a spare part salesman?

Build a robot. You know? Yeah. You know, not much to do on Tatooine except for race pod racing. Do pod racing? Do some pod racing. Do some pod racing. Hey, you know.

Is it a deadly sport? Who cares? You'll be fine. Someone did do a great photo shoot, a slideshow of Adam Sandler on the red carpet at his premieres with the leading ladies in his movies. And in the red carpets, isn't he always wearing basically

like a New York Jets jersey or whatever? He is like the most dressed down guy in the universe. He's wearing like a Kmart t-shirt. Right, right. Shorts. Sneakers that are literally covered in shit. Baggy cargo shorts as well.

Right. And then the women who have played his wives or girlfriends in the last eight movies. Salma Hayek. Who's played his romantic interest? Jessica Biel. Kate Beckinsale.

Oh, my God. Katie Holmes. It's crazy. Adam Sandler. Yeah. Who's the love interest in Don't Miss With a Zohan? Emanuel Shikri. There you go.

Yeah. Was she like half his age? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Brooklyn Decker. Right. Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman. And who's in Just Go With It? And Brooklyn Decker. And Brooklyn Decker. Yeah. Yeah.cker. Right. Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman.

Who's in Just Go With It? And Brooklyn Decker. And Brooklyn Decker. Right, right, right. Let's do a Sandler episode sometime. The best Sandler movie is Zohan. You think period? Yeah.

Over Billy Madison? Yeah. I would put those two neck and neck. I think, but even forgetting the original, like Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, wedding singer where he's establishing his brand. Those three are really good. neck and neck. I think, but even forgetting the original, like Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Wedding Singer, where he's like,

you know, establishing his brand. Those three are really good. I think Zohan is the most audacious film he's made for getting funny people. Guys, you overlooked Click.

Click is weird. Ben loves Click. You love Click? Love it. Do you like it when he gets all old because he fast forwarded through life?

I didn't see that coming. Yeah. That's great. Twist! I didn't see that coming. Yeah. That's great. Twist. You didn't know that Ben loves Click? No. You haven't been listening to Click and Click? Ah, Click and Click.

Ben's secret podcast. He's in episode 30. Yeah. There's just so much you could say about Click. Yeah, like the scene where Terry Crews lip syncs to a song and then Adam Sandler mutes him. He mutes him. Because he's got a remote control that controls life. It's weird. He misses

the dragon tail's ears. Anyway, let's get back onto, I don't even know how we got onto this. We're talking about... What, he rewinds? He goes back in time. No, I know. He does have a remote control. And he also got the remote control of the beyond section of Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Let's not forget that.

But I think, yeah, it's not just that he's angry. It's that his angst is represented in this way that is hard to engage with. He's a little shit? Is that what you're saying? He's a little shit. He's got this, like, crappy Bronx accent thing that he's doing. Oh, fuck. Oh, God.

I hate being a Jedi. I love Padme. We're talking about a character who we know was a slave who was taken from his poor mother. Yeah. And then his mentor was killed, and he was thrust into this terrible... We should be on his side, is what I'm saying. And immediately we're like, oh, God. Obi-Wan, will you give this kid a spanking or something?

What's the matter with this guy? We do not like him. But part of it is- It's a failure. It's the fundamental failure of the film. You don't like, you don't sympathize with Anakin Skywalker. Because he's- Because he sucks.

He's sullen the whole movie. Yeah. He's just a sullen brat. You don't see what the appeal is. Yeah, there's- To Padme or to anyone, really. Yeah. And when we say this episode's devoted to the arc of Anakin Yeah, there's... To Padme or to anyone, really. Yeah. And when we say, like,

you know, this episode's devoted to the arc of Anakin Skywalker, it's really an arc in relation to the first movie. He doesn't change that much within this one film. No, it's just that

he's different compared to Phantom Menace. Right, he's kind of unhappy with everything that happens. Yeah. How old is he supposed to be? Like, 18? Now, this is the big question.

Yeah. Like, watching the movie, when it first came out, I was younger than him. Sure. And I looked at him and I was like this is like a fucking adult. This is what I have to look forward to. And now I watch the movie and he's like a little boy.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course. In a way that makes me not relate to him but like empathize with him a little bit where I'm like well everyone's awful when they're a teenager. I guess I get that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, sure. Like, it's not a likable character and it's a poor choice for how to frame your protagonist. Go ahead.

But I do watch it and I'm just like, oh, this is a bad phase. Like, it's like those three uncomfortable years in boyhood where you're like, this kid's really tough to watch. But here's the thing. Why is he talking about it? Like, no one talks about their problems like that when they're a 17-year-old filled with angst. Oh, the hallmark of 17-year-olds filled with angst is that they're incapable of talking about it. They cannot communicate their feelings. They can't communicate anything.

And the first thing he's basically saying to Obi-Wan, who's basically his surrogate father, and he's like, Jesus, Padme won't even look at me like a man. And it's like, he would never say that to him. That is all buried deep down, those sorts of anxieties and neuroses. Here's a question for you. Ugh, this movie. The fact that that's the opening conversation, and that he keeps on bringing it up. Oh man, Padme, I can't wait to see her again.

And then after he sees her, oh man, Padme didn't even look at me. Oh, Wild Master, I do believe she looked at you. Yeah, but not the way I wanted her to look at me. Do you think that for the last 10 years... He's just been jerking it. And won't stop talking about it to Obi-Wan. Yeah, and Obi-Wan's like, Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.

You spent one week with her. This is what I don't get. And I think I asked this already. She's five years older than you. I think I asked this already. Why couldn't they just see her once in a while? Yeah. They both live on Coruscant.

Just visit. I know that the whole planet is a city, as Ben is gesturing. Yeah. The whole planet, let's remember, is a city. Ben gave the classic, the whole planet's a city gesture. Whole planet's a city. You know the gesture. I'm sure you can all imagine it.

So maybe traffic. It's like, oh, I'd love to see her, but she lives on the western hemisphere. We're over here on the Eastern Hemisphere. You know, who knows? What a weekend trip. I don't know. And I know the Jedi training. You know, you probably have to go off to the training planet or whatever to do your training.

I don't know how the Jedi is trained there. All we know is like Yoda teaches you when you're five. And then by the time you're 18, you're a real pain in the ass with a lightsaber. Oh, yeah. And in Tatooooine he does meet wada oh boy i'm so excited should we talk about this now it's probably the best time to talk about it yeah yeah so i i just want to point out this is the least sticky least memorable movie in the world and we already can't remember like how you cannot remember so yeah they go to tatooine

they go to tatooine and they land in mas aspa i guess right and it's like oh remember this and he go right and he goes to find Watto. And it's kind of a good idea in the movie, actually. Yeah. Return to the scene of the first film, which we remember, but, like, everything's a little different, and Anakin is no longer, like, the helpless slave. Like, he's...

He's a powerful Jedi. Powerful Jedi. He's a Padawan, but... Yeah, whatever. He's got a fucking lightsaber. And he goes to see Watto. Watto looks the same, except for a hat. He's a Padawan, but a princess, whatever. Yeah, whatever. He's got a fucking lightsaber. And he goes to see Watto. Watto looks the same except for a hat. He's got an unbelievable hat. He's got a, it's kind of like a World War I metal helmet-y kind of thing, but it's very flat. Yeah.

With a little indentation for his tiny little bulbous head. I feel like maybe his vest has more pockets in it. But he's pretty much rocking the same thing, but with this little sun hat, which is like, without time, you should, I mean, two points. One is that hat probably provides some necessary shade from the unrelenting sunlight of the dual suns of Tatooine. The binary suns. Second point, if you're going to wear any hat to protect you from the sun, why pick one made of metal?

That thing's going to be scalding hot. It's going to get real hot. Scalding hot. He put it on once, and now he can't take it off because it's seared to his flesh. It's just melted to his flesh, yes. It's like Dr. Doom's mask. He put it on to cover up one little scar

and then melted his entire face, and now he's fine. That is, by the way, it is the weirdest thing about Dr. Doom's origin story, that it's like, yeah, he just put that mask on a little too fast. Oh, no, I love it. He's a genius. No, I know, I get that it's like yeah he just he just put that mask on a little too fast oh no I love it he's a genius no I know I get that it's about

his impatience and his and also his vanity his extreme vanity he had one scar which he felt so self conscious about he went make me a mask

and they were like okay your mask is done and he went okay give it to me and he had he just put it on and his whole face fell to him

so in the new movie is it like he goes with them is that the idea to the which is off of Ultimate Fantastic Four. Yeah, which I don't like. But he doesn't have the... I mean, I think he becomes a sort of cyber...

Yeah, Doctor Doom's a tough character to do in the modern film world. Tough, tough character to do. I think I know how to do it. Do you know I spent most of my high school... Yes, I do know. I wrote my college admissions essay on... About the Fantastic Four. Yeah. And about the way you would do it. There wrote my college admissions essay on- About the Fantastic Four. Yeah.

And about like the way you would do it. There's nothing I would want to do more in the world. Than like a 60s Fantastic Four movie. Let me say it. The second thing I want to do most in the world is make a Fantastic Four movie. Sure. The way I think it needs to be made. The number one thing I want to do in the world is fuck TC-14.

So, they're in Tatooine. They see Watto. My favorite character. Yeah. And they say, what happened to Shmi? Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're missing. You're jumping way ahead.

All right, fine. Way ahead. I think this is- Beat by beat. Hit by hit. No, but David, this is my favorite character. We've been building up to this point. All right, Wado.

What does he do? I don't remember. Well, I think we got to acknowledge the bat. The fire in his eyes is- It's true. He looks real eyes is gone. It's true. He looks real sad. Yeah, it's true. His beard's grown out.

He's sitting outside like he's not even in his shop, right? He's sort of at a stall. He's like a vendor. Yeah, it doesn't look good. No, he looks bad. Most of us, it looks a little run down. Even though it's already looked pretty run down. Yeah.

It looks like it's on harder times maybe. Yeah, and he just looks like he's selling some pencils in a cup or something. Yeah. He's got more stubble than even usual. And he takes a second to recognize Anakin. Oh, more than a second.

Yeah. He's like, yeah, this man. He's not even like selling it as hard as he used to. Yeah. And they're like,

hi, do you know... Shmi Skywalker? And he's like, yeah, Shmi, I used to be a slave of mine. I don't have it. Now, I think he says that he sold her to another, to the Lars family. Yes, he sold her to the Lars family.

It's not like he freed her. Oh, he sold her. It's just that she then, like, one of the Lars family fell for her and they freed her and they got married. No, I think that happened later. I think the whole idea is that, like. All Wada did was sell her. Yeah. I don't think he sold her because he knew

she was in love no no that's what i'm saying money he sold her and then at the lars homestead right uh owen which one is it no the clegg lars clegg lars right fell and owen's their kid or yeah yeah and baru's his girlfriend uh oh yeah no no owen's like his kid from a previous marriage there's a lot of like complex family shit. Joel Edgerton plays- The great Joel Edgerton. Owen, which is crazy. Yeah. Wait, but I want to hit on this Watto-

It's such a tiny- And another Australian actor. Watto does not even recognize Anakin. No. No. I mean, he has grown and changed into a different person. Right. Completely different acting.

So, you know. Okay, we have a guest this week. What? Yeah, Rachel Dolezal. Oh, boy. We previewed it last week. We did. We talked about it a lot.

Half right. Her name is Rachel. That's true. Rachel Lang. Hi, Rachel. Hello. I'm Rachel. Our good friend.

Our former trivia teammate. Yep. After weeks of putting it off, this is the romance episode. We're getting into the romance, which is perhaps the quote unquote emotional core of the film. I guess so. Is it? Well, it's supposed to be. It's like, it's this like huge thing that had not even been, there's no, well, I guess

there's a little bit laid out in the first movie, but the second movie. Are you an angel? Right. The second movie, it's like this, it's like this is the central conflict of the movie. Right. The second movie, it's like this is the central conflict of the movie. Right. Anakin's inner war between being a Jedi and being in love. Yeah. Now, we have danced around the subject because we didn't want to blow the load.

We knew we were going to talk about this at an episode length. This plot line is not very effective for either of us. No. And was not when we saw the film. You, Rachel. We were gross teenage boys. We were gross teenage boys. We boys we're like yeah i was 13 years old yep when i saw this movie four times in theaters 2002 yeah uh and i thought it was the most beautiful love story i had ever seen ever and i think i still thought that until about the year 2007.

Was there a rewatch at that point? Or did you just... Oh, I had seen it a lot since then. And me and Rachel, before the part, we're talking about John Williams' love theme and how much you cared about that. I think that really contributed to my misconception of... It's not a misconception. It's just it was your conception.

My incorrect opinion of how beautiful this love story is. There's a whole featurette on the special features about love. I don't know if you guys watched it. I'm pretty sure I watched it at some point. Maybe not recently. I watched it at 8 a.m. this morning. Yeah. It was great.

So Across the Stars is the main track. Yes. Across the Stars, parentheses, love theme. Uh-huh. You had sort of an intense fandom specifically for that track. Yes. I went to see John Williams conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. When you were about how old were you?

I think probably 14. I think he came by the next year. Right. It was a year your love for their love was still lingering. Absolutely. Right. It was a year, your love for, their love was still lingering. Absolutely. I'm sure I watched the film before I went to see the music played live

just to get a taste of like the recorded track so I could compare it with the live orchestrations. And they did not disappoint. I cried. I absolutely sobbed and cried. I wept.

I'll add that I saw this, I mean, I was in a full audience, but no one in my family would come with me. So I was there alone. Wow. At age 40. Well, I guess, yeah, that's old enough. I was very cultured.

It is, what was I going to say? I wanted to ask, so if this was the transcendent romance for you in 2002, what was it topping? Did you feel that way about Titanic or ever after? I'm trying to think about the romantic the big romantic movies of our youth. Was this the first one where you felt that strongly about a love in

film, in cinema? I would absolutely say that it was. You never felt this strongly? I loved Titanic. And it's one of the I think it's the second VHS I ever bought. The first is Miss Congeniality. Sure. And, you know, I loved it, thought it was great.

Was barely allowed to watch it because there were boobies in it. And there's one thing that my parents don't like, boobies. Yeah. So. Attack of the Clones could have done with some more boobies. I think so. It does have that midriff bearing section. So artfully cut off.

And I was going to say, in the arena at Genosis, the pillars look a lot like vaginas. Well, even the... Actually, I was noticing this too. The whole platform that they're on is covered in vaginal imagery. Thank you. Okay, Ben was shaking his head. You have noticed this. They're vaginas.

They're vaginas. I asked my girlfriend. They are vaginas. We are big vagina experts. We know what they look like. Those are vaginas. That's two women watching the movie together,

both of whom have vaginas, confirming that I am not a dirty-minded boy, that I am on the money, Ben. I say as I point at his face, Ben. You haven't introduced Ben, by the way. Ladies and gentlemen, producer Ben, a.k.a. Purdueer Ben, a.k.a.

the Ben-ducer, a.k.a. the poet laureate, a.k.a. the Haas, a.k.a. Mr. Positive himself. Hello, Fennel. Hello, Fennel. Hello, Fennel. Yeah, I guess I missed the vagina imagery.

I did, but I wasn't, I wouldn't, I just need to remind myself what it looks like. I can't remember what you guys had talked about. What a vagina looks like? You forgot what a vagina looks like? Yeah, one of those things again. They're like, they look like, it's like a part of a human body that looks like the pillars in the arena of genosis. Yeah, that'd be good.

Yeah. Okay. But made of flesh and not stone. Yeah, it's not ringing any bells, but anyway. Okay. Well, I'll Wikipedia later. We'll Google it, you and I, David, later when we're done. In this small booth that we're in right now.

There's no windows. You and I. Close the door. There's some detailed points that we skimmed over here. So you went to the concert by yourself. Yes. I did. And I remember that I was crying, and then I. And then I like a lot, a lot like tears, like many tears, like my shirt got a little wet, you know. And I was like, Oh, God, I don't remember what I was wearing. But I know that it was like something that a sad suburban girl who's pretty fat and near Pittsburgh would wear because they thought it was a nice dress up outfit to wear to a concert.

And then I made my dad a pretty cheap guy and I begged and I begged and I begged to get the extra like $50 thing where you got to meet and greet John Williams. And he did. But he didn't come with you.

No, no, no. That would have been another like $70. That's crazy. So I went and I stood just like shaking in line. I was like mothers introduced their like trumpet playing sons to John Williams. And it was amazing. But I felt I was like, oh, my God, I don't play an instrument. I don't belong here. This is awful.

And then I finally got next in line and I got a big sweaty hug from John Williams. Conducting is hard work. Yeah, post-conducting. So he worked up this. That's a real, there's a lot of vigor. He was drenched in sweat. And I don't remember what I said, but he signed my copy of the CD. Of the Attack of the Clones.

I had the one that had Yoda with the little lightning force ball that he's collected. And I still have that. That's signed by J.W. Yes. Okay, they make it through the crazy droid factory maze. Right. There's all that. But that's not romance.

We'll get to all that later. No, no, no. But here's the. They make out during the factory. So then they're captured. They're captured by the bug people. Of course, of course. And now the two of them are in this like chariot. They're being prepared for. They're the bug people. Of course, of course. And now the two of them are in this chariot.

They're being prepared for whatever, the pit. Yeah. Remember, there's this scene where they're talking to each other. And she's like, Anakin, if I ain't before. They think they're going to die. If this happens, I just want you to know that I love you. He's beautiful. He doesn't reply with, like, I love you too.

I thought we agreed that we couldn't be in love. And she said, we live a lie. That would mean living a lie. And she said, the secret would destroy our lives. And she says, I actually like this line. You like, anything would be better after the line he delivers. No, I think this one line's cute. I think this one line gets to, to like feeling like an actual young romance.

Shut up, dickwad. She goes, I thought we agreed we weren't going to fall in love because of this and that. And the secret would do this and would eat us up and destroy our lives. Just hating Christensen's delivery is worse than Griffin like verbatim kind of going like, yadda yadda yadda yadda. Yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda. Destroy our lives. The point is he ends with, and it would destroy our lives.

And then she sort of like looks out towards like the door of the arena. She goes, I think our lives are about to be destroyed ends with and it would destroy our lives. And then she sort of looks out towards the door of the arena and she goes, I think our lives are about to be destroyed. That is not a good line. I can't believe we wasted all this time on that. It's not good. I like it. It's like kind of, yeah, we know. That's why she's saying it. I got nothing to lose. A monster's about to eat me.

And then she's like, but I do love you. I think Portman actually kind of does a good job. I think she does a great job in this scene. She actually captures the emotion of like a doomed love. The music plays. They kiss as the doors open and they're wheeled out to be executed. In a very public and graphic manner. In a weird way.

In a very weird way. Yeah. And it also doesn't help that Newt Gunray is up there and he's like, is she going to die in front of me? Yeah! Oh, right, because it's very, very passively, like, offhandedly mentioned that, oh, I realize that Nuke Gunray is the one

who was trying to kill Pat. I guess so. Is he the only one? Yeah, it's mentioned in one sentence. That one hologram that gets interrupted by the Destroyer Droid has, like, 17 plot points mentioned very casually. It's like, I got here,

Jango Fett, he's here on Geonosis, Count Dooku's here, he's been establishing a droid army that Newt Gunray's going to use to unite the four federations

to fight against the Republic who now have the clone army. By the way, Newt Gunray's the one who is trying to kill Oh no, a droid! Rachel. Yes. Bill LaSalle. Yes. Yes or no. Yes, maybe. who is trying to kill oh no a droid Rachel yes yes

yes or no yes maybe how does the love plot of this film work for you today were there any

nostalgic pangs remembering what it felt like or did it all just lay cold like a bunch of dead Gungans? I think, I mean, definitely leaning toward dead, cold Gungans, for sure. Yeah.

Yeah, the only, like, twinges of, like, nostalgia came from the music and maybe from this, like you're saying, the death, the execution love confession. I was like, okay, maybe. okay maybe and then you know the rest of the movie happens and it's all still kind of bad and because the stakes are actually high in that moment it's like oh they actually might die them confessing their love means something and they're not just creating artificial blocks right i mean every scene of them before that talking about love could you could just take the dialogue from one and plop it onto any of the other ones.

And it would be not different. Like them and the refugee cruiser thing. And them at the lake. You could switch any of those around, basically. And it would be the same thing. It definitely feels like a movie made by someone who hates love. Absolutely. Absolutely. George Lucas met his wife

at a business conference. His current wife. Because he was married in the 70s or 80s. And his wife left him for a man who was installing stained glass windows in their house. I did not know that. Stained glass windows. Really George Lucas. An artist like Paolo. Paolo!

His wife was his editor on his first couple movies. Uh-huh. THX and the like. And then he didn't work for a while. A lot of people theorize that she was kind of like the missing element. That she was maybe the

humanity to his work. I see. Because he was not with his current wife when Attack of the Clones is being made, right? No. He meets her later. Yeah. I don't think they met until 2003 or something like that. Ah, all right. So maybe, yeah, they were having a conference about Attack of the Clones probably.

Yeah. That makes sense. He was a man who lived in a castle by himself, adopted like three children. Filled with stained glass. Yeah. And was just like, I don't need love. I can raise children on my own. I make art.

I'm fine. And then now it's like, oh, George, you back yourself in the corner. You got to make a movie about love. And he's like, oh, fuck. What does love sound like? I talk about sand. I wonder if it was like there was four pages of sand talk and Stoppard was like, can we lose all of this?

And Lucas was like, no way. And he was like, all right, I'm going to do what I can here. What were you going to say, Lyle? Well, I was going to say, I read that she is the one who instated the two-term limit on being a queen of Nibiru. Yeah. Wow. She was just too precocious for her own good, really.

She's demoted herself. She should have been dictator for life. She should have. As Anakin would have preferred. Oh, really. She's demoted herself. She should have been dictator for life. She should have. As Anakin would have preferred. Oh, yes. He likes dictators. Yeah. He likes to dick her taters.

Nope. Nope. No? Nope. No, definitely not? Nope. No? And we have a very special guest with us today.

He is a comedian slash filmmaker slash writer slash actor slash blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ladies and gentlemen, Morgan Evans. Hello. Hey, Morgan. How's it going? Good. Is this podcast as long as the movie? Longer.

How long is the, two and 20? Two and 20? Did you watch, you had to watch it? I watched it last night, yeah. How was it? I'd seen it before. But had you seen it since it came out? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I've seen, I. But had you seen it since it came out? Yes.

Okay. Yeah. I've seen, like, I've watched all six a few times. Okay. But. I don't know what that means. It's very confusing. Yeah.

I've watched all two Star Wars movies. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've watched all six movies that have ever been made. So it was Attack of the Clones, Phantom Menace, The Judge, and Star Tours. Yeah. And, yeah, no, I would say that it's not good.

Yeah, I agree with you. Okay, Bug Planet. Bug Planet, it's where all the separatists are chilling, right? It's like this is where they're plotting. This mysterious Count Dooku. Here's a new plot thread. He's apparently

an ex-Jedi. By the way, that's a choice. We're allowed to plot thread. He's apparently an ex-Jedi. Yeah. Right. By the way. That's a choice. We're allowed to do that? He studied under Yoda. Yeah. Studied under Yoda. How much discussion there is of Count Dooku before he shows up?

There's like maybe a couple lines. I feel like they call him the mysterious Count Dooku multiple times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's just mysterious. That's all we know about him. Right. And he is in the opening scroll.

Right. They say he's broken off these planets. Right. Myster he is in the opening scroll. Right. They say he's broken off these planets. Right. The mysterious Count Dooku. By the way, if you're selling a screenplay and you open it up and the first thing that happens is a title that takes up three pages of backstory that's not in the film, I don't think you could get it made unless you were George Lucas. That's the whole fucking podcast.

Unless you sold them. It's things where people could do whatever the fuck they wanted. We never talked. Did he sell it? Is it the same. It's things where people could do whatever the fuck they wanted. We never talked, did he sell it, is it the same as Phantom Menace where he like pre-sold the merchandise rights and

that's how he funded it? Was it the same deal? I think this might have, I don't know if there was, no, no, no, he definitely self-financed it. I don't know if there

was as rich a toy deal in advance. Like Phantom Menace was specifically like for that movie. Yeah. It might have been money left over.

But it was self-financed Let's just talk about it Count Dooku, he's talked about in The Crawl There's the scene where Jocasta new finger blasts him But other than that Recounts him finger blasting her No, she finger blasts him Okay, fine

They cut that in the middle of the movie Yeah, it was weird Where she just finger blasts his penis hole Are you talking about finger blasts? Is that when the middle of the movie. Yeah, it was weird. Yeah. Where she just finger blasts his penis hole. Are you talking about finger blasts? Is that when the lightning comes? Is that when you use the force and there's lightning? Is that finger blasting? Yeah, exactly.

Oh, that's great. Oh, great. Yeah, she finger blasts into his penis hole. She shoots lightning up his pee hole. Griffin, please. Help us. My favorite line happens in the droid assembly line which is C-3PO walks in and he goes

machines making machines like now I've seen everything you know like you haven't they make machines make machines now it's true it's not really science fiction yeah that happened like as soon as Ford came around you have to remember this was

a long time ago it's true in a You have to remember, this was a long time ago. It's true. In a Galaxy of Far Far Away. This movie was a long time ago. My favorite line is when C-3PO just says, I'm so confused. Yeah. When he's got his head on a row of things. What about when his head's being dragged and he goes, oh, what a drag.

Yeah, I wrote that down. I don't want to forget it at all. Guys, there is so much. We will get to the bizarre inclusion of, yeah, that like 10 minutes of C-3PO. So much comedy in this movie. I honestly think it's for kids.

Like, I think there's so much heavy talk about shit. Like, I mean, like, Phantom Menace has it like all the way through Jar Jar Jar, you know, like, whereas this

has not had it, so yeah, let's give him a concentrated dose. Up until this point, the film has been very mature. Well, like, in the A.O. Scott review of it,

he was saying that you get this distinct feeling that, like, will this be on the test? You know, like, at the beginning of the movie, it's like, well, the moon of Naboo,

and you're like, what the fuck? Like, is that important? Like, you guys have been talking for 15 minutes about something, and I have no idea what's going on, and then so I think

you need C-3PO being like, I'm so confused to be like okay someone gets it. Someone gets it by not getting it. Yeah exactly. And also third film you'd be setting up you'd be closing out it's a trilogy you only make three films. Three is

enough. Three is the perfect number it's a magic number. And there's a story they're building too you know there's some sort of arc to all of this I don't know what it is. Right but you assume in a third film he would have made it all clear. Hindsight's 20-20. Absolutely. The third film definitely would have wrapped everything up really satisfyingly with no trouble at all.

We would have understood why they spent so much time on Booba Fat. Things like that. All these weird little side tracks that don't go anywhere yeah yeah um can we get back to the main plot okay so obi-wan is in the yeah right in the forest thing and dooku who like just talk about mr x right like you're thinking the test cypher ds has been mentioned so much like if you watch this movie you go cypher ds is the villain right

like they said he's dead it turns out he's not really still don't know who that is we don't know no effort to explain what they're talking about and also they give him the most like Sifo-Dyas is the villain. Right. Like, they said he's dead. It turns out he's not really dead. I still don't know who that is. We don't know. No one knows who Sifo-Dyas is. The film makes no effort to explain what they're talking about. And also, they give him the most, like, confusing name where you're like, Sifo-Dyas. It's his name, Sifo-Dyas. But he's like the Kaiser Soze. I thought it was like a part they needed. They need us.

We need a Sifo-Dyas for the show. Yeah. Anyway, you're right. They keep talking about this guy who never shows up. Right. Sendoku is like, well, they talk about him a few times, but in very vague terms, he used to be a Jedi. Now he's the Count. Now he's doing good stuff.

Right. I thought it was like a lifelong commitment. I thought it's like once you give your life to the church, then you're in it for good. Apparently, you can just retire if you get a better job offer. Well, they recruit you when you're a baby. They do. They raise you. They tell you you can't fuck.

That's true. And then if you're like 65. You didn't find a way to fuck, let's be honest. Oh, Dooku fucks. Dooku fucks, yeah. But did they kick him out? Did he retire? Did he find a hot piece he wanted to jump on?

Do you think he fucks bug people? Is that why he's there? Possibly. He definitely fucked Jakostan. Because we know that. Yeah, we know that. We know that. We know that for 100% certainty.

But now he's on a planet with bug people who all seem to be male. Not to stereotype, but none of these bug people seem to identify as female. True. But wait, beyond that point, he didn't really get it. Well, he did kind of get a new job, but he's the leader of all this.

He's like the separatist king. Yeah. Now he's on a planet with bug people in an arena made out of vaginas. Sure. Made out of openings. Yeah. And then there's the bug people, there's the trade federal, what are they, you know, the Nemoidians.

Nemoidians, yeah. They're still around. Yeah. They're hanging out with him a lot. They're like close buddies. There's like a green robot guy who like- Watt Tambor. Yeah, who has like-

Brother of Jeffrey Tambor. And he's like unified many people, right? This is the idea. Right, and they're looking at this killer ship. And they want to get this, what did you call it? This is the most dense shit I've ever heard. It's the densest movie of all time.

We talk about this movie so in such detail, it's ridiculous. The film barely tells us anything. You watched it last night. Yeah, I've seen it a bunch of times, but I still never know to call them gnomodians. Is that something you Google? No, we've been doing this for months now. We've been doing this for a long time now.

That's the thing. And even every week we have to correct what we said the last week because it turns out we already got things wrong. It's so hard to keep it straight. We will watch the film. It's like Scientology. Yeah. Tons of new verbs and nouns and stuff you have to know.

Morgan's getting really into Scientology. For our listeners at home. Ah, Morgan, move to LA. Morgan's moving to LA. He thinks he's into Scientology at a safe distance. He thinks he's just interested. They call me every day. Yeah.

You're about to get totally absorbed by this. This podcast is going to be the last recording of you as a free man. Yeah, they're going to sue us and make us scrub all of this. Look, guys, all I'm saying is that Scientology isn't that bad. I mean, it's just basically like, you know, just feeling good about yourself, and then everything works out okay, right? Isn't that all Scientology is?

Morgan, your girlfriend is an actress, and your girlfriend Robin and I were on the same shoot together like two months ago. And we talked about you the entire time because both of us were concerned that you were going to get lost to Scientology. We were like, do we have a responsibility to stop this from happening? Sorry, I didn't mean to bring up Scientology. This is a huge tangent.

But I did take five hours of diabetic classes for fun. Because you were like, I'm just interested. I was going clear with Neil Casey and I walked out and I was like, am I the only one who came out of that going like this? I want to do this. And he was like, yeah.

You're the only one. You're the only one who went, this sounds good. I think Tom Cruise came out of that being like, I don't know if this is a good idea. Tom Cruise is now allegedly leaving Scientology because of the effect of Going Clear. And you saw the movie and were like, I got to look into this stuff.

Yeah, I heard it was over. I'll admit yeah I heard it was over I'll admit I am the person who saw Super Size Me and like left that thinking like McDonald's I could really

like right now eat some McDonald's it's so good but that's the difference McDonald's is objectively the best food but like in that movie you like he eats

remember he eats the Big Mac or the Happy Meal or whatever and then he like throws up outside of the car it made me hungry

yeah I was like yeah I'd eat that throw up those fries uh producer Ben final thoughts rose up outside of the car. It made me hungry. Yeah, I was like, yeah. I'd eat that throw up. That was a surprise. Producer Ben, final thoughts? How are those tits you were looking at earlier? Yeah, at one point in the podcast,

I noticed a bunch of tits. That was a pop-up, but I was... Did you click the link for that pop-up? No, I did not. How do you get a porn pop-up these days? Well, when you search... That is very true, when you search on random Star Wars websites trying to look up

some APO jokes. Well, that's kids on there. So they might... Pop-ups are for kids. Pop-ups are for kids. They're like Jar Jar. Yep. Me saying that scene now.

Final thoughts. Bug Planet's kind of cool. I don't know. So you kind of like this part of the movie. Yeah, it was all right. Ben confessed to me before we started recording that he barely remembers the movie at this point of cool. I don't know. So you kind of like this part of the movie. Yeah, it was all right. Ben confessed to me before we started recording that he barely remembers the movie at this point. Yeah, I don't know.

It's slippery. As we've said, it's a slippery fucking movie. It's like F5, and I'm really just checking out. It's okay. There's only five more of these to go. We're at the halfway mark. Right. And then we're going to do one last Google search to make sure there's no other Star Wars movies.

Ben is taking a knife and slitting his wrist the long ways. Ben is flashing back to some Dianetics that he had earlier. Yep. Past lives and all that. All right. Well, that's it for me. And our question that we've been... Now we're on to Bum, Bum, Bum, Bum Performance Review Part 2.

Boom! The Star Wars movies, the Phantom Menace movies, they're constantly attacked for having shitty performances. And we're going to keep track, as we did last time. Right, so we're going to have two columns. Good and bad. Good and bad. I'll keep a tally.

Oh, you're going to keep a tally, great. So we're going to try to make a definitive assessment about whether or not the acting in the movie is bad. Because I don't like general statements like, oh, all the acting is bad. You know? Yeah, but do you remember last time that we came close? We came really close. We have to be a little harsher this time. Yeah, we gotta be a little harsh because we were saying like, oh yeah

that guy who has one line on dialogue, he did fine. Great. And the acting in that movie is bad. It is. We can't be this. We were really worried at the end. We were like, ooh, this is like 15 to 17. Yeah. We have to move on to Hating Christians. Bad performance. Plays the Anakin Skywalker in the film. It's a bad performance. It's a terrible performance.

It's a terrible performance. It's the most ruinous performance in the film. In Phantom, who would you give that award to? Would it be Ahmed Best or would it be Jake Lloyd? I would say Jake Lloyd. Oh, interesting. So Anakin's really the millstone in these movies. Yeah, I really think this character is badly written.

It's terribly written. It's like they. And he's essentially trying to justify some huge payoff. Yeah. But it's so baffling because he's mostly just kind of a boring

annoying little tool. He's also massively different between the two films. Yeah. It's very true. It's essentially two separate characters both

of whom suck in writing and performance. And both of whom the movie is obsessed with and you're not totally sure why. Yeah. You're like this is a

crazy universe. Are we missing something? I don totally sure why. You're like, this is a crazy universe. Are we missing something? I don't fucking care. We're definitely missing something. Yeah. Oh, my God. With both of these movies. Yeah.

Specifically to that character. I also think it's weird that these movies are so much about how powerful he is and we don't see that many examples. Do you know what I'm saying? You see, oh, he's good at flying a speeder. You know, the pod racer. Yeah. Yeah, but you're not seeing, oh, he's a Jedi who's really getting a grasp on these things. It's a bad performance.

It's a bad performance. We talk about it every episode. We don't need to talk about it anymore. Next, Christopher Lee as Count Dooku slash Darth Tyrannus. I mean, this is a great performance. It's the best performance

in the film by far. It is. There's one candidate I'd maybe throw a bump. We'll get to that one. But I think this is the part like last time I was like maybe a little too effusive about Ian McDermott.

I was gonna say. I mean McDermott has less to do in it. I still maybe vote that McDermott's the best performer just because this character's so good. I think Christopher Lee is handed the same platter of shit that everyone else gets in this movie. Really really bad. Like it's like okay you need to walk into the room

and just deliver reams of exposition. Yeah. In front of a green screen. In front of a green screen. Right. And he's just like, yeah, watch me nail it. You have to first appear 20 minutes before the end of a two and a half hour long movie. You've been talked about the whole movie.

Yeah. You walk into a room and you just start spouting exposition. Yeah. To a suspended, non-interested, non-responsive character who's just like, you know. He's a class act. It is masterful. It's masterful. And then you're going to fight a cartoon green like old man and you're going to make that

work too. And it's like good footwork, good form. I like that he's sort of doing more classical sort of like, because his lightsaber is shaped differently. We haven't talked about his curved lightsaber. He's got this curved lightsaber. It's the same, though, because the blade is the same. Oh, no question. But the form of how he holds it, it changes the way he fights.

Design standpoint, it makes no sense whatsoever. But whereas all the other lightsabers, it tends to be a two-handed kind of like classic sword fighting, this kind of thing. This is more like fencing. Like he's sticking the one arm-handed kind of like classic sword fighting. Yeah, sure, right, right. This kind of thing. This is more like fencing. Like he's sticking the one arm out and kind of doing that. And maybe that's to compensate for his lack of mobility. He's an older man, but it works.

It gives him more power and it actually makes him more terrifying because he's just so controlled and so old school. It's a great fucking performance. I mean, he's like turning like... It's water into wine. It's water into wine. It's water into wine. It's poop into wine. It's a great fucking performance. I mean, he's like turning like, it's water into wine. It's water into wine. It's poop into wine. He's turning diarrhea into poop wine.

Next, Frank Oz's Yoda. I mean, once again, what the fuck is this character? Why is Frank Oz playing this character? Oh, God. Frank Oz, famed puppeteer, a great filmmaker in his own right. Yeah, he's okay. As a filmmaker or puppeteer? Filmmaker. Great puppeteer. He's gonna be for them as a puppeteer, a great filmmaker in his own right. Yeah, he's okay. As a filmmaker or puppeteer? Filmmaker. Great puppeteer. He's gonna be for them as a puppeteer.

He's pretty famous. Yeah. He's made like four movies I love. Well, he made the Muppet movies. But he also made Bowfinger. Yeah, those are great. And he made The Engine in the Cupboard, which I think is pretty good. That's a movie I think is incredibly

solid, but I'm saying you look at the Muppet's Take Manhattan. Yeah, and he made What About in the Cupboard, which I think is pretty good. That's a movie I think is incredibly solid. But I'm saying you look at The Muppets Take Manhattan. Yeah, and he made What About Bob, which is interesting. I forgot about that. Muppets Take Manhattan, Little Shop of Horrors, and Bowfinger are maybe three of my 50 favorite movies ever. Fair enough. What about In-N-Out? In-N-Out is another solid one for me. Solid.

I like In-N-Out. I like What About Bob a lot. I like Indian in the Cupboard. It's just that after Bowfinger, he made The score, Stepford Wives, Death at a Funeral. He made three turds. Yeah, well, I mean, people fall off. Yeah, it's just interesting. It's crazy that he made the score.

Remember when the score came out and everyone was like, this is it. You got Brando. Then you got Brando's heir, De Niro. Then you got De Niro's heir, Edward Norton. He was unquestionably the heir apparent at that point. And I like Edward Norton and I'm always interested in what he has to do, but he is not De Niro's heir, Edward Norton. He was unquestionably the heir apparent at that point. And I like Edward Norton, and I'm always interested in what he has to do, but he is not De Niro's heir. That is not a mantle he has claimed.

That was a weird horse to bet on. And also, that movie is horseshit. It is so bad. I was telling someone, this is just a podcast and all of us telling stories about other movies and other directors. This is what Performer Interview is. I was telling my friend Sarah a story the other day that I think is incredible. So Brando hated Frank Oz. Interesting.

And didn't he do it with his pants off or something? Yes, this is the story. This is the story. So Brando, from day one, agreed to do the movie. He was probably paid $5 million. And this is his last movie, right? I think. God, was it his very last screen performance?

It might have been. I think it's his last. I thought it was the Island. No, that was before. Island of Dr. Tomorrow was before. That movie is out of its mind. He was supposed to do Scary Movie 2 right after this. They were going to pay him like $7 million to be the opening scene of Scary Movie 2,

and he showed up on set with a respirator tank and could barely breathe and was like, I'm ready. The score is his last movie. The score is his last film. The score is his last movie. Jesus Christ. Okay. So that's Marlon Brando's- Unless you count Superman Returns. He's great in that. He is. score is his last movie. The score is his last film. Jesus Christ. Okay. So that's Marlon Brando's-

Unless you count Superman Returns. He's great in that. He's a posthumous- He is. He is great in that. He agrees to do the film. They pay him a lot of money. He shows up on the first day.

Frank Oz gives him a note. He goes, I'm not fucking listening to you. You're Miss Piggy. It's funny that he knows that. He knows it. You know, living on his weird tropical island with all his creepy lady servants or whatever, but he's like, no, I know this guy's Miss Piggy. Yeah, so anytime...

Why did he agree to do the movie? Anytime, exactly. Anytime Frank Oz is like, okay, so for this one I think we're going to do, I start off with a wide, and he's like, no, you're Miss Piggy. We're not doing a wide shot. So two incredible things happen one is that for the entire duration of the shoot of the score robert de niro is every day wearing a microscopic earpiece and frank os whispers into robert de niro's ear what he needs

as a director and then he just goes for it hey uh marlon can i throw something out at you he's a catcher and he's like, maybe try doing this this time. And Fredo's like, oh, yeah, sounds like a great idea. My impressions are on fleek this episode. They're great. And so, like, Robert De Niro surrogate directed. Right. De Niro's a great director, by the way.

Yeah. Good Shepherd is a fucking masterpiece. But he didn't pretend like he was the director. He just went like, hey. Yeah, no, he's just like, hey. A little peer-to-peer advice. Not only is he a great director, he is a fucking masterpiece. But he didn't pretend like he was the director. He just went like, hey. Yeah, no, he's just like, hey. A little peer-to-peer advice. Not only is he a great director, he's a great actor. So he's acting like he's not a director.

That's the thing. I mean, that's the incredible performance. I'd love to watch that performance. Do you know who should have gotten an Oscar for the score? For the behind-the-scenes footage of the score. Best behind-the-scenes performance. One of the Oscars did that every year. Be great.

Best bullshit from an actor pretending to like someone. And then, yeah, the story you were building up to is there was one shot where, there was one scene where Brando believed it should be played entirely in a close-up. Right. He was like, this is my emotional beat. I want it entirely in a close-up and nothing else with no edits and no coverage. Yeah. And Frank Oz was like, I want a wide to, like, get us into the scene.

And Brando was like, nope, only close-up. Right. And Frank Oz was like, I need a wide. And Brando the scene. And Brando was like, nope, only close up. And Frank Oz was like, I need a wide. And Brando was like, okay, let me go back to my trailer and change. What he did is brilliant. And he must have been 80 years old at this point. Yes. Yes. He can barely walk.

Right. He looks like Jabba the Hutt, noted Gorg spitter from The Phantom Menace. He does. He looks terrible. Yes. He comes out on set just with no pants and no underwear. No pants. Yeah.

He's just wearing a shirt, and then his dick and balls are hanging out. I mean, maybe. I imagine they're obscured by his massive gut. His dick and balls are in the wind. They're in there somewhere. His ass is hanging out. They are hitting fresh air. Whether or not they're visible depends on where you're standing in relation to his tummy.

But his dick and balls are out. And he goes, okay, I'm ready for that wide shot. And they just can't do it because the wide shot... Did no one say like, oh, could you put your pants on though? We need your pants to be on for this scene.

They did and he went, no, no, I'm ready to shoot. I'm good to go. Anyway, Frank Oz gets his thumbs down? Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. I already know that.

I couldn't even direct Brando. It couldn't even reign in Brando. Tamura Morrison as Jango Fett. The great Tamura Morrison, a New Zealand actor. He's a Maori. This is a really tough one.

I think he's okay. Yeah. In his one scene with the helmet off, he projects a little bit of menace. The scene in his quarters when he's talking to Obi-Wan. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, there's some interesting tension there. That feels like a real scene of two actors acting against each other. Yes.

Unlike all the other scenes. A little bit. But it's a little touch of like, oh right, that's why it's good to have actors in movies because you get tension, you get energy from the interplay of the two of them.

Right. There's like an actual back and forth there that's kind of interesting. Kind of interesting. Can we say he's good? Most of the movie he's

wearing a fucking helmet. I don't. I mean even the sidelines, it's mostly a physical performance. It's like one. He's alright. He's alright. physical performance. It's like one. He's all right.

He's all right. I think good is strong. All right. I think bad is strong, too. That's the problem. Let's give him a thumbs up. You going to give me a thumbs down? I'm going to give you a thumbs down because I want Ben to pick on this one.

Break this tie. This is tough. Right? Because he's not bad and he's not good. Right. He really is down the middle. He's got moments of both. I'm trying to think. When he, leading up to his death,

is there any kind of interaction between him and his son? Oh, absolutely not. He's standing at the little box with Dooku, and he's like, go out there, get him, puts his helmet on, goes, gets his head sliced off. Yeah. For how much they make a point of being like, Jango Fett had only one request,

it's to raise a clone as his own, you never really see any emotional bond between the two of them. Yeah, and I feel like it doesn't get resolved at all. There's no kind of real showing of that relationship, father-son or whatever the fuck it is. Does he just want this kid so he can train him?

Does he actually care about him? Is he lonely? That one scene that is kind of good in how he plays off of Ewan McGregor, he's giving nothing off the kid. He's just going like, Jango, hit that door. Yeah. Very, very, very restrained. It's all internal.

Gotta give us something. But he's a bad guy, right? He's a bad guy. He's a bad guy, and he is kind of menacing, like you said. Kind of. In a phantomy way. If you compare him to the performance of Christopher Lee, who's like a great bad guy.

Oh, Ben, I think is raising... He's got it. All right, give him a no. I'm going to give him a no. He never really feels like a threat. That's fair. I think that's very fair. Sorry, Tamara, you're great in other movies.

Once More Warriors is a great movie. It's almost a good performance, but we just fall on bad, and a lot of it was, once again, the hand you were dealt. George Lucas is dealing out poo-poo cards. That is very true. You got the ace of poops, my friend. Jimmy Smits. Okay.

Senator Baylor. Okay. We have not talked about this before. No, we haven't talked about this at all. What a weird one. So Jimmy Smits at this point is coming right off of NYPD Blue. And LA Law. You're talking about 10, 15 years as one of America's top TV

hunks. He's got Emmys, he's got Golden Globes. He had just left NYPD Blue before coming on this. So at this point, we're like, this is one of the steadiest presences of the small screen. Yeah, we love him. He was on fucking Miami Vice, too, right? No, no, L.A. Law. Wasn't he on Miami Vice for a couple episodes?

I know he wasn't a regular on L.A. Law. I am not a fucking plebeian. No, he was a regular on L.A. Law. I know he was a regular on L.A. Law. I know he wasn't a regular on Miami Vice for a couple episodes? I know he was no regular on L.A. Law. I am not a fucking plebeian. No, he was a regular on L.A. Law. I know he was a regular on L.A. Law. I know he wasn't a regular on Miami Vice. I think he had an arc. You fucking dunce. He's in Brothers Keeper, which is the greatest. Only the one episode, but he's in that episode.

Of Miami Vice. Yeah. So I nailed it. It looks like it's his first credit, too, which is crazy. So that's why I remembered. It was a good episode. It's the pilot. Right. Very quickly, I don't want to interject,

but you guys realize that you just set up someone by being like, just coming off of NYPD Blue. Who knows this stuff? You two are ridiculous. This is a big show. Alright, alright. NYPD Blue, people loved it. People loved it. L.A. Lock, he was a hunk du jour.

He jumps straight onto another hit, steers it into the golden land of Hitsville. Sure, he replaced David Caruso. Let's, you know, so, you know, NYPD Blue has one big season with David Caruso. Caruso's a big star. He jumps ship. Goes to be in movies.

Don't fucking scoff at us. This is an important narrative. He's in Jade. You guys are great together. NYPD blows up. Everyone's like, it's all thanks to that Caruso. He's in jade. You guys are great together. NYPD blows up. Everyone's like, it's all thanks to that Caruso. Caruso! Caruso's got it.

Your next big star. Caruso's like, I'm too big for this town. I'm going to Hollywood. So in comes Smith. And Caruso leaves. Everyone goes, ah, fucking, you can't do blue without Caruso. You might as well call it NYPD Carew. You might as well. People thought the Carew. You might as well.

People thought the show was dead. NYPD Red, because of his hair. NYPD Caruso. No, it's crazy. And they bring in Smiths. What does Smiths do? It takes it to the next level. My point is, they handed him Smiths is a man

who has been handed a deck of shitty cards before, and he's fucking won. He swept the table. Guy knows how to play a game. Fucking good movies, too. He was in, what, American Me? Great movie. That is a great movie.

That's a great movie. My Family? Yeah. That's a good movie. Yeah, there's this major movement of Latino dramas, like independent Latino dramas in the 90s and 80s. And he's starring in a lot of them, doing really good work in important films.

They're changing a national conversation. You fucking idiot, Ben. How is he in Star Wars Episode II? Not good. Attack of the Clones? Oh, whoa. What? What's buried down there right at the bottom?

Right at the bottom. Security guard in Babe Pig in the City. What? What's buried down there right at the bottom? Right at the bottom, security guard in Babe Pig in the City. What? Another Australian film. Yeah. I love this guy. I gotta say now. All right. Thumbs up.

Good job, Anthony. I think I got great voice, mostly delivering exposition, but with a really interesting rhythm. Yeah. I like it. But then how do you feel about Rena Owen as Llama Sue? Like it too. Now. I like it. But then how do you feel about Rina Owen as Lama Sue? Like it too. Now.

I like these Kamonians. Yeah. Kaminoans. I might be a little swayed by I like their design so much and I think they're

She's a New Zealand actress Rina Owen. I think they're the one example of CGI effects in the movie that totally hold up. I think especially in close-ups they look really great.

They hold up. The backgrounds don't but they hold up. I think the in close-ups, they look really great. They hold up. The backgrounds don't, but they hold up. I think the acting work on those characters is really strong and subtle, and I think the detail work on the actual models

is really, really good. Reina Owen, also in Once Were Warriors. I believe she's the female lead of Once Were Warriors. Interesting. She's great. Reteamed at Tamara Morrison.

Here's something I want to tell you. Yeah. She is one of six actors in the world to have worked with both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Because she is an AI. Playing? Let's find out.

I watched AI like a week ago. One of my favorite movies ever made. Great movie. Seriously, the best. She plays a ticket taker. I don't want to. Well, that's cool for her, though. I'm sorry that didn't blow you more. Well, that's cool for her, though. I'm sorry that didn't blow you more.

No, it's cool for her. Next performance. I would like to know who the other five are, though. I'd have to think about that. Harrison Ford. No, yeah, he's in American Graffiti. Right, he's in American Graffiti, and he's in the Indiana Jones films. I pulled myself out of that deal, Smith.

Anyway. A real indie style. Alethea McGrath as Madame Jocasta New. Alethea McGrath. Well, okay, so this is tough. I think she's good. I mean, I think she's great if we assume she's playing what we have put on this character. Yeah, right.

But she's playing a desperate, desperate attempt to keep secret the fact that she had an affair with Count Dooku. That she feels protective of him and his information because she thinks what they had was love. And for him, it was just another side piece, you know? I think that's an interesting performance that she's playing there. Otherwise, you could say that maybe she's aloof. She's kind of annoying. She's fine. Let's give her a thumbs up.

I give her a thumbs up. Wait a second. How many thumbs up do we have? So far, we are at 12 thumbs up and 14 thumbs down. Let's give her a thumbs down. I'm worried about this. I'm getting worried. It's getting too close.

I thought we were being so negative this one. How did this get close again? Yeah, but then we gave both of the Kamidoans thumbs up. Yeah, that's, I mean, those are thumbs up. We should have been saving up for those two. I'm excited for this one. Okay. Susie Porter as WA7.

Do you know who WA7 is? Flo? Exactly. There she is. The waitress from Dexter's thingy. His restaurant. What's there to discuss? It's a thumbs up.

Yeah. Yeah, it's not a Mac thumbs up. It's a thumbs up and two dicks up. I'm rock as a board. Rock as a board. Rock as a board. I'm rock as a board. Rock as a board. Rock as a board. I'm rock as a board, man. She also played a character called Hermione Bagua.

In this movie? In this movie, who is another waitress at Dexter's. Oh, yes. The human waitress in the background. So she's both characters. So she's playing all the waitresses. So let's give her two thumbs up. One thumb up is enough.

For a grand total of four thumbs. Anyway, then we have Matt Doran as Elon Sleazebagano. Oh, I mean. Another Australian actor best known for another film, his performance in another film, also

shot in Sydney. Mouse in The Matrix. Yeah, I mean, I love this guy. I always think about, wonder what happened to him. I mean, he made such a big impression on me. He seems to mostly make Australian things. He's not done much. He's in a lot of shorts these days. It's not, you know, it kind of fell off.

I mean, dude fucking kills it in this. I'd say it's probably my favorite supporting performance of 2002. I think this is so bizarre, but okay. It's not. Should've won an Oscar. It's got fucking razor-sharp comic timing. You see an entire arc of a man having to question all his life choices up until then. He's got 40 seconds to see a man

reassessing everything he's ever done, ever been. He's a sleazebaggin', though, David. He never had a chance. Yeah, he gets a thumbs up. Let's move on. You're at now 14 thumbs up, and 20 thumbs down.

Well, we're almost over. Okay. Alex Knoll is J.K. Pertola. Do you know who that is? No. It's the four-year-old initiate who knows where the fucking system is. Oh, yes. You're giving him a thumbs up?

Yeah, kid's great. All right. He's got the goods. What's he been up to since then? Alex Knoll, what's he been up to? Let's see. He's not in any other films ever made. Okay. Well, one and done. Sometimes.

Phoebe Yamikati as Mary Amethyst, another of the initiates. A four-year-old human Jedi initiate. She's a little Asian girl. I don't remember her in this film at all. She sounds cute. Give her a thumbs up. She's very cute. Yeah, it's adorable. And finally, Kenny Baker as R2-D2. I mean, once again, how do we even rank this, right?

I don't know. He's the last credited performer. What do you do? I don't know how much of that was CGI. He's in there. Oh, he's in there. What, he's flying? Yeah, he can fly it.

He can fly it. He installed the jack-in-the-box. Kenny Baker can fly? How do you fucking know? He's in there. He's in there. We know it. Oh, no.

We know he's in there. I say it's another, I say, well, we gave him a too-close-to-call last time. What did we do? We ranked him neither good nor bad. He was the one. Yeah, he gets a question mark.

He gets a question mark. I want to point out that Liam Neeson is uncredited as Qui-Gon Jinn archive sound. Is there even an archive sound? Is that something that Yoda hears maybe? Yeah, I forget what the moment was. I looked this up. There's some scene where you can hear Qui-Gon's echo underneath another piece of dialogue.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're very vague. Anyway. Yeah, I give him a thumbs down for that one. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're very vague.

Anyway. Yeah, I give him a thumbs down for that one. He should have looked at his contract and made sure that they weren't allowed to fucking reuse his dialogue in other movies. Okay, so what's our final tally? Okay. So, final tally is 15 thumbs up. Okay. 20 thumbs down and one question mark for Kenny Baker. I'm more comfortable with that. I still think we gave too many thumbs up. Okay. 20 thumbs down and one question mark for Kenny Baker.

I'm more comfortable with that. I still think we gave too many thumbs up. So who did we give thumbs up to? Kit Fisto. All of the Trial Jedi. Both Kimonians. Ewan McGregor. Chris Finley. Ian McDonnell.

Ian McDonnell as the bar patron. We gave thumbs up to the whole cast of Dexter's Diner. Joel Schumacher. So good. I loved it when he told you. He's a nice guy. He also gave Jack Thompson underrated performance.

Oh, right. I forgot we gave him that award. And Ian McGregor got possibly most improved. Clegg Lars. Right, okay, so most improved. Let's go to a couple other superlatives. Most improved is Ewan McGregor. Jack Thompson wins underrated.

I'd say Dexter Jetser's MVP. Yeah, all right. He's the most memorable. Oh, so you're saying he's an MMP? I'm so hot and tired. This episode might be our longest ever episode. That's not true. Well, the commentary is longer.

We'll cut some stuff out. No, we won't. No, no, no. Add stuff in. Add stuff in. Yeah, Ben, if you could add some stuff in. If you can cut in more of the erotic fan fiction. I could do that, yeah. From that episode? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could do that.

Maybe some Michael Jackson music. Would love that. Can you end this episode with Don't Stop Till You Get Enough? Yeah, play it six times. It'll work. Just back to back to back. And if they sue us,

tell them they can take all their complaints right to the UCB, right to the top. To my boss. Yeah, all the way to Besser. To the big four. Yeah, tell them to knock on Amy Poehler's door yeah um

well can Amy Poehler be a guest on this show definitely we'll get her on next week I'll email her see if she's interested what is she

amy at ucb.com or something like that it's actually amy dot Poehler Poehler at gmail that is

RIP Harris Whittles that is one of Harris Whittles is one of my favorite tweets of his, which was just like, here's a little scoop. Everyone you like, their email address is just

theirnameatgmail.com. Anytime I've ever gotten an acting job where I'm like a tiny part in a thing with big ass actors and there's a mass email, I'm like, oh, literally everyone's email is like tom.cruiseatgmail.com. Everyone.

You could guess any celebrity's email. Now, whether they'll reply to you, that's another story. Well, they're busy. They're very busy people. They're very busy people. Yes. You want to know the dumbest thing about this move my parents are making? Go ahead.

And how much stress and anxiety it's cost me and how little sleep I'm getting and all this stuff? Yeah, sure. Literally moving five blocks away. Right. They're moving within a neighborhood, basically. Yeah. And my dad, like, we went and got dinner the other night, like, in the quote unquote new neighborhood.

Right. And he's like, what do you think of the new neighborhood? Pretty hip, huh? Five blocks. But it's not a new neighborhood, is it? No, they're moving. They're literally. They're moving, like, within the village.

They're moving, like, four avenues over. Yeah. All right. Well, new neighborhood. Hey, man, if you live one place for, I don't know, how long have you lived in that place? My dad's lived there for probably about 35 years. You know? Anything's a change.

Yeah, I agree. But that speaks more to the fact that my father never went beyond a five block radius. He's a parochial man. Yeah. Is what you're saying. He works two blocks away from where he's lived for the last 35 years. Sure. It sounds like a good life.

He has only two places where he eats. Really? Yeah. So I could go find your dad if I went to wherever. Well, he used to always go to Grey's Papaya on 8th and 6th. I know, on 8th and 6th. Yeah, and it's gone now. Got demolished by a liquateria.

Wait, your dad has been eating Grey's Papaya hot dogs as a meal for decades? Yeah. Those things are not exactly... If I eat three of those, it's an emergency. Did I mention my father's dead? That he died 25 years ago. So when you say he's moving a few avenues over, you mean a few avenues into heaven. He's a ghost dad. Yeah.

Let's not talk about ghost dads. He's a ghost dad directed by Sidney Poitier. No, no. Yeah. My father, he would only eat Grey's Pie. He'd get the Recession special

which was the two dogs in a jar. Two dogs in a soda or whatever. Right. Or a papaya. By the way, this is a podcast

about Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones, the sequel to The Phantom Menace. He would get the Recession. For our first time listeners in case you're just

tuning in. Yeah, this is... This isn't Talking Dad. This is Attack of the Podcast. Please go ahead. Griffin and Dave present Attack of the Podcast, where we talk about the second and final Star Wars film. Now, my dad... Let me just...

No. Well, let me finish up my dad, and then we'll all have time to talk about dads. We got an hour ahead of us. I have another thing I want to talk about. We all got time to talk about our dads. He would order the Recession special, and then the Atkins craze hit, and my father was like, I do have a bit of a belly. I should probably lose some weight.

Okay. So then he did what he called the modified Atkins. All right. Which was he got the recession special, but without buns. So he would just eat a Graze Papaya wiener. He would just eat two wieners. That's gross. Yeah.

And also, how do you even like, how are you handling, it's a hot tube of meat. Yeah, they would just throw it at him. They'd throw it into his mouth. I love Grace Papaya. It's the best. It still exists on 72nd and Broadway. That's the only other true, pure Grace Papaya. It's important to note.

There's Papaya Dog. I'm fine with the other papayas. They're just not as good. It's not the same thing. You know, but if I want a cheap-ass meal at, like, 11 at night or whatever in Manhattan, then yeah. But there's, like, the papaya dog on like what is it, like 6th Avenue

and like, it's right next to the IFC. That's correct. Like near Waverly. And that one is fine, but they also sell fucking like Philly cheesesteaks and chicken fingers and all these things. Yeah, it's horse shit. You should just have hot dogs. Well that's something Grace Papaya just fucking knew. It's like six fruit drinks.

Yeah. Hot dog. That's it. Well the weird thing about Grace Papaya is they're like, we're gonna be a hot dog place and what do people like with hot dogs Grace Papaya just fucking knew. It's like six fruit drinks. Yeah. Hot dog. The weird thing about Grace Papaya is they're like, we're going to be a hot dog place. And what do people like with hot dogs? Papaya juice. Exotic fruit drinks. It really does feel like it's like someone's like, I'm going to open a bagel store. And like, what do people like with bagels? Papaya juice.

It doesn't match with anything. But they just decided, you know what? They're going to have the fucking papaya juice. I think the point you're making here is papaya juice doesn't go all of anything. It doesn't really go. It's just weird. It's a weird juice. Both movies hinge on this moment

where Palpatine gets someone to do something for him. So in the first movie, Padme, vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum. And for some reason, even though there are a million senators in this tube hall that they live in filled with little flying platforms,

no one has the guts to do it, but Padme does it. And then the second movie, same thing. I wish someone would vote for an army of the Republic. Jar Jar Binks. Okay, so in this system, do you just need one vote to get something passed? You need one vote to propose it, I guess. That's what I'm asking. Right. It seems silly that

it's not come up before. And like the Jar Jar Binks thing, is it like, because Jar Jar's not proposing it, is it like, oh, they were deadlocked tie, they need one additional vote out of 50 million votes. It's a dead tie right now. 25 million

yay, 25 million nay. Here's some backstory on the Galactic Senate. Please. The Galactic Constitution invested it with the power to regulate trade, maintain maps of hyperspace routes, and had a supreme chancellor. So this is all just about fucking trade and trade routes. Originally, if you have a planet, you just get to be in it. Okay. And then I think it seems like it changes.

I don't know. This is like so long. See, this is what's, this is, I'm already, I'm starting to have like a panic attack about this. Can you click on Galactic Constitution? Because I think this is just a fucking rabbit hole we're going to keep on going down. It is linked to. This is what I don't understand. So originally it used to be any planet gets represented.

That makes sense. The Constitution was written in 25,000 BBY. So we're talking about 25,000 years before this movie. Born before Yoda, yeah. By a member of House Organa, which is Jimmy Smits' house. So that's how long Jimmy Smits' family's been around, 25,000 years. Okay. It's the same Constitution, although it has been modified.

And it creates a Senate and a Supreme Court. It's just a ripoff of our system. But is it like the UN? Is it like NATO? No, it's like the American government. And each planet essentially functions as a state? Yeah, exactly. You nailed it.

How meaningless do you feel if you're an entire planet, an entire world? Imagine if there were 50 million states. Yeah, exactly. You nailed it. How meaningless do you feel if you're an entire planet, an entire world? Imagine if there were 50 million states. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And each state was that large and had the... Like, think about... Okay, so the one planet of Naboo, which functions as a state...

Little planet. Right. We see how different the fucking goongans live from how the humans live. True. Not to mention all the wacky, spooky sea creatures. And you're telling me one person gets a vote to represent all of them. When the Goongans don't even seem to fucking respect.

It's only at the end of Phantom Manus that they're like, okay, Padme, we can work together. This is all very fair. It's all very true. So the Galactic Senate has 2,000 congresspeople, Jesus Christ. AKA senators, representing sectors, systems, individual planets, corporations, and guilds. Imagine being someone who's assigned to speak for an entire system of planets.

Some are elected directly. Some are appointed by a planet's ruler. Some are a planet's ruler. And they are the only ones with voting power. How does a... I don't know. You could join or be a signatory to someone who had joined. But is it like the UN?

Is it like NATO? I mean, it's like... You asked that already. You asked that five seconds ago. Because I don't understand this. I think it's like our government. But here's the thing. So you're telling me whoever the chancellor is

is allowed to tell every single fucking planet what to do? No, because the chancellor's like the president right all right well all right right the president of of the galaxy yeah of the universe yeah maybe well of the republic of the organization that is helping to yeah Yeah. The Senate is led by a Supreme Chancellor. So it's kind of like a speaker, you know? Right. So maybe he's almost more of a prime minister than a president. Kind of, exactly, yeah. Okay, but...

He's elected by the representatives of the Senate. He could serve two four-year terms before having to retire. But their main function is just to figure out fucking trade routes. Here's an interesting thing. Yeah. All of the chancellors elected between 1400 BBY and 1000 BBY. Again, Attack of the Clones takes place in like 30 BBY. Yeah, that sounds about right.

All the chancellors elected in that period, in this 400-year period, were Jedi. Oh, shit. But then that was broken by some other guy. This is all a thousand years before the movie. It doesn't matter. They were Jedi. They used to be Jedi. They trained Jedi to be keepers of the peace.

They would be good at that. Anyway, apparently the Supreme Chancellor is not an important position until Palpatine takes it over. Before then it is kind of like a functionary trying to corral all these people. Palpatine's the one who kind of turns it into a dictatorship. Yeah. I just feel like I fucking give up.

I have a surprise. We're going to get back to talking about politics in 45 minutes. But I have a surprise. You have a surprise? Wait, I actually am unprepared for whatever he's going to do. Yeah, I was debating whether or not to do this, but I think we've hit a point where we've got to do it. What?

We've been talking about what a difficult kid I was. Oh, wait. Do you have, like, a picture? No. You know, I've been going through my parents' shit. Oh, right. I forgot. That's a treasure trove.

Yeah, and I found something. Back in Blackface. Or can you minstrel show me? I don't think you said that before. I forgot that part. Can you minstrel show me how to't think you said that before can you minstrel show me how to get to racism street by Griffin Newman this is

the essay I mean for people who might not know this is the essay you wrote what year do you know what year this probably would have been 2004 and it's about Hollywood's history of minstrelry minstrelry yes it was me trying to solve the racial ills of the world.

You were trying to solve it. What class did you write this for? History. American history. I think it was American history. And what was the assignment? Write about something. Write about something.

Griffin went to a hippie school. Yeah, I just remember that the fact that I chose this topic was very odd and surprising and off-base. They did not expect you to do that? No, because I don't think... You got a good... Yeah. Griffin, I very much enjoyed reading this paper.

I know. You made a fine, impassioned... Struggling here, sorry. Case against the strife of some black entertainment. He writes black entertainment in quotes. In quotes. As if it's a myth. And your use of Amos and Andy is very effective.

I did a lot of research. You do a good job of describing the origins of minstrel shows and what they represented. What you needed to develop more was the time between minstrelry and the time of Amos and Andy. Uninteresting to me.

What did the what did the four white men do? I don't know what that means. I think they were a group. What sort of shows became popular? How did minstrel shows become so acceptable that between that you could end up with Amos and Andy? And you pass over the jazz singer

in Birth of a Nation too quickly, Griffin. Those are seminal moments in film, both for how they looked, messages they portrayed, and how obviously they sounded. And obviously how they sounded. That's what he's saying. Obviously how they sounded. Right.

You can establish a timeline rope. But he did enjoy the views. You don't get a grade. This is St. Anne's. They don't give you grades. They don't give you grades. Oh, my God. Fuck.

He went to the same school my girlfriend went to. They write like an essay. Let me see if I can find the section on Beauty Shop. Beauty Shop's a crazy great movie.

I hate it. I know, it's so good. This is the kind of school though where they like hug you to get a grade or something. It's like a hippie

Brooklyn rich kid private school. You write like essays instead. Jesus Christ. It was founded with the purpose of like being a nice alternative school for like you know kids who maybe think differently or whatever. But then like it's a private

school in Brooklyn. I think just a lot of rich people sent their kids there. Okay so you want to hear some really misguided disgusting things I said. I just want to read some excerpts. Jesus Christ. Everyone's going to read some excerpts. Jesus Christ. Everyone's going to stop listening to this show. Everyone's already stopped.

How many minutes have we been recording? How many years? 40. Okay. For a show that's not allowed to be replayed on television, the quote-unquote racist characters of Amos and Andy. So I'm calling it to question whether or not they're racist, which is not my place to do.

True. Use better grammar, but the characters in films like Soul Plane are smarter. Griffin, this is terrible territory that you're in. This is awful territory. You should really be clear about this. Yeah. Griffin of today. You are telling people how to talk, essentially.

Yeah. Smarter than characters in films like Guess guess who so you just want to be like contrarian about like hey man amos and andy that was well-written entertainment compared to this nonsense yeah i think that was my big point was i thought like as a comedy writer amos and andy had good jokes i'm taking this away no i because i got to read this one other sentence i know you are smarter than characters in films like Guess Who? And will accomplish more than characters in films like My Baby's Daddy. So I was like looking at a film like My Baby's Daddy, which if you don't remember was like

the urban remake of Three Men and a Baby. Yeah. Or wasn't. It was three men who have children out of wedlock and then have to deal with being single fathers. It was Anthony Anderson, Eddie Griffin, andael imperioli were the three men and i was passing judgment on what those characters would go on to accomplish in their lives after the film right above all though amos and andy was a well-written humorous show what the fuck are you talking about i have no

idea i don't understand how did i get a good... This is the most offensive thing ever. Well, this is the horrible privilege that you are invested with. You could write this nonsense and no one would slap you down. We can ask how we live in a society where children are getting abortions at age 13 and then nominated these songs for Nickelodeon Kid Choice Awards, a show whose winners are chosen by the children of the world, but the nominees are selected by committees of the world. The children of the world?

What am I saying? David, by the way, you went to school in England, right? I went to school in England. Yeah, I went to school in North Jersey. Crazy. No, it was like, my grade was basically just, they would just stamp like, you're not going to go anywhere in life. That was like the grade and the notes I got.

It was just a grade, it was a letter grade or a grade out of 10. It was pretty simple. You know? They gave me a grade. It was a letter grade or a grade out of 10. It was pretty simple. You know? They gave me a grade. They graded my work. Like if you did okay, you wouldn't get punched in the arm. No.

You know. Just be like, good job. Eight out of 10. That sounds nice. Whatever. Normal. Here's the exact sentence I was looking for

and I'm going to throw this away because I can't fucking. Please. I need to look at it but you are not allowed to have it. I'm going to be murdered the second after I read this sentence out loud. You wrote pimp and hoe on page six.

Yeah. Go ahead. I also write unintelligent, overly sassy, sluttish women on page four. Got him. Here's the sentence. Ready for me to be murdered? Please just get this out of the way. Guys, just watch the door because someone's going to walk in and stab me.

Go ahead. This is our fan fiction episode where I'm actually just like, oh my god. This is the sentence. What is it? Say the sentence. It's so clean. The spinoff Beauty Shop, however, is far more racist than Amos and Andy ever was. Now, let's talk about Beauty Shop for a second, which I think is a tremendous movie.

I haven't seen it since then, but clearly it made me very angry at the time. Beauty Shop is a- Once again, not my place to my place to fucking no no you don't know what you're talking decree no I had no idea what I was talking I thought I was gonna fucking solve I think you're you're kind of like a Richard Cohen in the Washington Post just to bring it to mention like an old white op-ed writer who's sort of like doesn't understand what he's seeing in culture these days and it's like these movies seem to denigrate people, they seem to, women seem to not have it, and like, I don't understand, this is terrible like, not understanding, like, culture

reflects all kinds of things that are going on in society, rather than lecturing, or, you know uh, whatever, you know, like and also, you're not allowed to tell people how to talk Agreed, 100%, agreed If I've learned anything in the

last 12 years of my life, it's like, what should you be talking about? Fucking attack the clums. That's a thing you can be an authority on. Anyway, I love Beauty Shop. I saw it in theaters. I reviewed it for my college newspaper, and I said, I think I said it was fine. I don't know if I gave it

a rave. You didn't write an 8-page paper about how it was worse than it was made? I think I gave it like three out of five and said like it's a good time. It's a little silly. I regret literally everything right now. I regret writing this paper. You regret your father's sperm entering your mother's ova.

Forming a zygote. Yeah. Ben's giving me a weird look. I regret everything. I didn't have sex education at my school What was your school? Did you just go to school in like some alley? Where they like threw bricks at you? There were lessons written on the bricks

It was like kinda like you know there was like a highway and then you'd go down the embankment and it was like kind of a ditch Yeah Anyway Beauty Shop and it was like kind of a ditch. Uh-huh. Yeah. Anyway, Beauty Shop, spin-off of Barbershop 2.

Which I love the two Barbershop movies. Which it had kind of, Barbershop 2 had this sort of backdoor appearance by Queen Latifah with the idea that she would go make her own movie, right? She's not really a big part of it. No, they established that she's an ex of Ice Cube's character.

Yeah, and she does hair. And then in Beauty Shop, she has moved to, I believe it's Atlanta. And she talks about like, oh, Miss Chicago, but great to be here in Atlanta. And it's mostly about she gets this old busted beauty shop and fixes it up with the help of Alfre Woodard. Academy Award nominee. Yep. And as another beauty shop employee and some other

stylists uh she's got a daughter i think she has like a kid i think it's a daughter yeah a cute kid uh she used to work for an austrian mean hairdresser man played by kevin bacon who she has abandoned called like george or something i forget what his name like jorge i don't know it's very weird it's. He's just like an evil white European. He has this sort of amorphous accent. And Jaiman Honsu plays a very... Academy Award nominee. Two time.

Plays a very handsome African, I think he's Nigerian immigrant who's an electrician and fixes up the place with her and then they fall in love. Yeah. It's great. It's great. It's great. Everyone was freaking out about Andy McDowell in Magic Mike XXL. Yeah.

Her little appearance playing this kind of older southern lady who's sort of- She does the same thing in- She does the exact same thing in Beauty Shop, which was nine years previous. Alicia Silverstone is also in it as sort of a dumb white lady who says things like, for your FYI. Yeah, that's probably what I was offended by, as a dumb white lady myself. Ben, you... I think it's a fun movie. It's very formless, which I

kind of like. It's really just about someone starting a business, and then like, she successfully starts the business. Ben, you smoke. Do you have a lighter on your person? Yeah. When we're done with this episode, I'd like to go outside and burn this paper. No, it's great. You can't burn it. I'm... God. Don't do it. Don't do it. Look, it's great. You can't burn it. I'm, oh, God.

Don't do it. Don't do it. Look, it's part of your history. Yeah. As shameful as it is. This was like my minstrel show. All right, just stop talking. That was like the dark part of my history, the worst level of race relations, where I

felt like I had the authority to write a paper on minstrel shows. It's crazy that you wrote that. How old were you? 15. Yeah. It's nuts. It's nuts. It's nuts. It's crazy that you wrote that How old were you? 15 It's nuts It's nuts It's nuts It's nuts

Anyway Star Wars Zach McClellan says very confusing politics Are they the UN? Are they NATO? What are they? I don't know It's not fair Welcome welcome welcome one and all To Griffin and David present Attack of the Podcast Hi Griffin

Hi David How are you doing? I'm doing all right. How are you? Well, I was on vacation last week, and I screwed up our recording schedule, and we missed a week, and I feel bad about it. It actually worked out great because I needed that extra day to do more community service to offset the negative energy I put into the world with our last episode.

Our last episode? Donating all my time and money. Our last episode was really embarrassing. But it was actually really fun to listen back to. JD... JD... Our guest is here. We'll introduce him later.

Multi-hyphenate JD Amato. We haven't introduced him yet. We haven't introduced him. But explain to JD. You know in the Jinx how it doesn't make... Have you seen the Jinx? I've seen the Jinx, yeah. So you know how it makes no jinx how it doesn't make you have you seen the jank i've seen the jinx yeah so you know it makes no sense that he stole that sandwich and you're like this guy's on the run everyone's looking for him yeah he has 35 000 in a bag or whatever in his car he doesn't need it

why did he steal this sandwich and it's like some part of him was like it was a cry for help like he wanted to be caught right i don't want to talk about this fucking movie anymore. I am so tired of this fucking movie. And I spent the last two weeks analyzing why in our last episode I read large sections, too many sections. Ben had to cut some out of a history paper I wrote in 10th grade called Back in Blackface or Can You Minstrel Show Me How to Get to Racism Street? Which was me trying to tackle the entire issue of representation of african-americans in the media uh in in only the most inappropriate way possible and in only the way that a young white male could yep um the weirdest thing is

that he's still talking about this when he really should let it i'm explaining to jd but okay i i don't want to talk about this anymore. I was trying to, you know, we're happy to have you here. We're happy to talk about it. For once, I will say, and this will tie into everything we're talking about today, I do find myself relating to Georgie Porgy Lucas more in the wake of that paper. Oh, I see. Because it's the same thing where I thought I was really doing good and taking a good stand.

And this week, we're talking about Attack of the Clones, the second Phantom Menace movie from a filmmaking standpoint. Sure. J.D. Amato, who we haven't introduced yet.

No, we haven't introduced him. Maybe like 20 minutes from now. 20 minutes from now. Sure. Is among many things one of the finest young filmmakers of his generation.

Thank you. Well, I know I have not been introduced yet, but I will say this is not my thank you to you guys. I'll do that once you introduce me. But thank you for having me on the podcast. Yeah. I'm excited to talk about this movie. Of course.

One of the strangest sequels in film history. No question. No question. You get a shot. You make a first movie. It does really well, but everyone hates it. Yeah. And somehow you pull it out of the hat.

You get a second one and this is what he does with it and there's a lot of criticism out there of this movie in some way even more than with the Phantom Menace the original Phantom Menace I think Phantom Menace got more criticism for its characters

or specific wrongs such as Jar Jar or whatever whereas this movie was more criticized as a film. Yes, I agree with that. No one really liked it as a piece of cinema at all. But we watched Improbation for this week. Collectively watched a bunch of different documentaries and feature ads and behind-the-scenes things.

Which we probably should have watched to begin with, honestly, because it really colored in a lot of the things we've sort of been speculating on for weeks now. Well, here's a quick side rant. Go ahead. About the Blu-ray extras? This fucking Blu-ray is infuriating. I don't know. I don't even know what to say. I used to have this on DVD, this movie. And then DVD

it was like, play movie, commentaries, extras, and the extras, you got your deleted scenes, you got your featurettes, you got your trailers, and your interviews. So wait, what's the Blu-ray that you guys have? It's this. It's the complete saga on Blu-ray. So it's the two Star Wars movies. So it's got episodes one

and two. And then it's got like seven bonus content. It's got other discs. So many discs. You haven't looked into any of those discs. No, no, no. Not at all. There's the one disc I looked at that had the special features for Attack of the Clones. Yeah. That's the only thing relevant right now. But it's like literally two movies, seven discs of special features. And on the disc, yeah, it's all these and there's all these like it's like literally two movies, seven discs of special features. And on the disc. I assume.

Yeah, it's all these. And there's all these like paintings of like later, you know, these expanded universe characters. These fucking like trading card characters that none of us give a shit about. And, but, so on the Blu-ray. George created a lot of fake characters just for merchandise that don't appear in either of the movies. It's very strange. Han Solo, all these dumb fucking. Anyway. JD. Yes. You had these dumb fucking... Anyway. JD.

Yes. You had never seen the movie before. I have never seen this movie before. You watched it today. You had seen Phantom Menace once as a child. I had seen Phantom Menace once. I think I saw Phantom Menace a couple times. Oh, sure.

Really, it didn't do it for me. Yeah, you were bummed out by it. I was bummed out by it. I, at the time, thought it was the best one yet. And by best one yet, I mean, of course, the best movie ever made. You were bummed out by it. I was bummed out by it. I at the time thought it was the best one yet. And by best one yet I mean of course the best movie ever made.

Right. That's what he means. And I don't know why what they were based on but I felt like I went into it having expectations that this was going

to be a great movie. Right. And it did not fulfill the expectations that I had set up. Yeah. You know apropos of nothing. Uh huh.

But because of that I was too saddened to watch this next one mm-hmm to the point that I wanted to live instead in a world where I hadn't seen it because so you're saying we have shattered your world we shattered well making you appear on this like 15 years yeah you had a while I wanted to live in a world where I hadn't seen it because that way it could have been good. I wanted it to be a mystery box

that I could always go, I haven't seen it so it could actually be good. Schrodinger's cat sort of thing. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Until Observed, I had no idea if it would ignite a nuclear explosion that would destroy me or keep us all safe. I have a similar thing.

I'm like a pop culture completist where even if I dislike something, if I like a part of it, I want to have the full breadth of knowledge. Yeah. But RoboCop, which is one of my five favorite movies of all time, I have purposefully avoided everything else related to RoboCop. Me neither. I've never seen the sequels. I didn't see the remake. I saw the remake, which is stupid on my part. Some people were like, eh, the remake's not bad.

But yeah, I mean, I just had no interest. But Robocop 1 has such a beautiful ending. It's the most perfectly ended film. There's no reason to make a sequel to this movie. Right, that I just don't want to see the second movie where at the start he's got the helmet back on again. He's talking like Robocop and he's lost his humanity

and he has to go through the same fucking scene again. But you did watch every episode of the TV show and wrote and directed every single episode and played every part, right? I didn't watch them. I did write, direct, and play. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think I've seen a couple episodes. But I don't like to watch my own work. No. Okay, so now your world is shattered and you now live in a world where this exists. Yes. We're about seven minutes before we introduce you, by the way.

I'm keeping an eye on the clock. Copy that. The box is open. Yeah. So you've seen Attack of the Clones. I've seen it. You had 15 years to theorize what a sequel to The Phantom Menace would entail. And we have been trying to ask, like, is this a good sequel to The Phantom Menace?

It's been one of our core questions. Is it a good movie? That's not even the question. How does it work as a sequel? I just watched it. Yeah. And I don't understand what happened in it. It makes no sense.

Oh. That happens. During the movie, that's a problem. I don't understand what's happening. We're in week eight, and we still don't understand what happened in it. It makes no sense. Oh, that happens. During the movie, that's a problem. I don't understand what's happening. We're in week eight, and we still don't understand what's happening in half the movie. But not in a way, well, here's the thing, is that there's films where I don't know what's happening, where it feels like- You're not supposed to know.

Let me back up to this and say this, that this film is an achievement in several ways this is an impressive film okay okay special effects wise where they're at they did some things that were extremely ambitious and for what they had at their fingertips what they created is an amazing feat of filmmaking but to me and that is not to say this is an objective truth it didn't it didn't satisfy what i wanted from it and what i will say is that i didn't quite understand what's going on not because things were purposely being kept from me in a way that um was uh made me imagine and then get frustrated by it it was i was so inundated with information about what was going on that I couldn't keep track of it.

And it became just this complete sort of like a mess of trade federation understandings and who's this person, why is this happening? And I think it also didn't help because a lot of the technological, um, a lot of the things that made the film so hard to create technologically also made the film hard for the performers in it. And I think as a viewer, you rely on the performers

to let you know how you should be feeling. And when the performers don't know how they should be feeling, then as an audience you don't know how you should be feeling, and then you've lost all guideposts for what's going on. So when a piece of information is said and no one really reacts to it, nor do I, and then

it doesn't register as important. Yes, I think that's an incredible point. You're making a case for it as an aggressively surreal film. You're making a case for it as a film that abandons any of the established ways of having an audience enjoy a movie. Audience empathy

is like that. You're very right. Important things are said and characters react with blank faces. I think all these actors are trying to make declarations of love. Things like that. I think all these actors are trying to make deliberate, specific acting choices at every moment. that. I think all these actors are trying to make deliberate, specific

acting choices at every moment. I don't think anyone's asleep at the wheel. I think they're just genuinely so confused about what's going on around them and what they're supposed to be playing that the confusion reads more than their acting choices. This is the weirdest scene. This is the testicle creatures. I've been sort of

cycling around and it's the testicle creatures. Exactly. There's a fucking thing on the Blu-ray where the guy and it's the testicle creatures, exactly. There's a fucking thing on the Blu-ray where the guy talks about designing the testicle creatures and how he had the design and then he couldn't figure out the anatomy of how the musculature would work and he worked on it for months! Why would he do that? Because!

Why didn't George Lucas say, you know what, these actually look really weird, let's do something else? Because he had thousands of people working on the movie and he went, your job's just to design a testicle. So, yeah, but we should talk about it. J.D. is right. This movie is doing a lot of things that movies hadn't done before.

It was a filmmaking revolution in a lot of ways. It was and they're trying to do something that to this day would be difficult to achieve if they tried to make a film this ambitious from a CGI standpoint. It would be difficult. The inception of this film

was probably 20 years ago now, was when they started planning to make this film. And the amount that technology has changed in computer graphics and 3D rendering and stuff like that has been leaps and bounds

over the past five years, let alone where it was 20 years ago when they started sort of coming up with the plan for how they're going to do this. So the fact that they achieved some things they achieved is really impressive, but it does not stand the test of time. And also, I don't think stood the test of time at the moment because they were doing things that they wanted to do things that they did not have the technology to achieve yet. And they did the best they could possibly do under the circumstances. And it was really impressive because these were the best of the best of the best working on it.

But they just did not have the tools they needed to achieve the things that they're trying to do. So I'm going to dial this back a little bit. Sure. So I'll say this first is that as someone who tries to make stuff professionally, I try not to criticize other people's things too much. Yes. Just because... Griffin also should do that, but doesn't. I should.

As someone who wants to work in Hollywood and form connections with people who make movies, he is doing an abominable job of networking. My agents told me not to do this because I just badmouth people every week and I'm just not going to get hired ever again. And so one of the things that I try not to do is I try not to endow characteristics onto directors or creators. Sure.

When I criticize or look at the things that they create. You just look at the product. Well, look at the product. I think as if you're going to criticize something, you have to look. How do R2 and C3PO end up anywhere? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You have to look at something as basically a primary source, right?

This was created. And my first instinct is always you have to say this is how the person intended to make it. That should be your first instinct. I agree. This is how they intended to make it. Does that seem weird to you? Well, don't try to guess at why. That's what they intended.

Exactly. That's what they intended. Well, don't try to guess at why. That's what they intended. Exactly. That's what they intended. One of my least favorite things in criticism is when someone goes, this director is an idiot.

They didn't even think of how to do da-da-da-da-da. Because instead of looking at the film as a primary source, it's crafting your own narrative for what the director is doing, which then gets you down the road of you're just self-justifying for whatever things you see in that. Which, mind you, there are tons of terrible movies made by very intelligent people with the best intentions, and there are a bunch of incredible movies that were mistakes where people ended up doing things wrong, and the final product is brilliant in a way that it can only work when divorced from what their intentions were.

Exactly. And so then I think the second part of things, if I look at something and it feels really off or I really don't like it, And I have trouble believing that this was the intention of the creator. Then the next step is I look at the process. Yes. And try to see what happened in the process and the actual story of making this that could have led to this version of things. So in looking at this film, I think there's a lot to speak of.

Because also, let's keep in mind, George Lucas, what are the things that you guys know George Lucas from? He made American Graffiti. He made THX 1138. He took a long break. He might have made one or two other movies in the 70s. He produced Raiders of the Lost Ark. He produced Legend.

Is it Legend or Willow? Willow. Legend is Ridley Scott. Legend is Ridley Scott. Legend is Ridley Scott and it's amazing and I could do a whole podcast about Legend.

Oh that's interesting because I sometimes see people go crazy for Willow. I love Willow. You know Legend I was just reading about Tom Cruise

and like how that was his like escape from Top Gun and from fame because that movie took a long time to make. And he was like in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah and he just like secluded himself. That was before Top Gun, though. Well, I think it was... No, wait, was it? I'm looking it up. I believe... Maybe it was after Risky Business.

I think it was right after Risky Business. Yes, because Legend, he was, I think, 21 years old. That's crazy. It was right after Risky Business. Mia Serra was 16. Tim Curry is incredible. Love Legend. And the original film they set to make out in Legend

is an incredible film, and what the studio did to it made it into not a good film. We can get into all that stuff. The soundtrack, oh my God. You can also listen to 12 Hour Day. There's a lot of you explaining.

Yes. You gotta come back and do Legend sometime. Oh my gosh. That's the kind of movies we're interested in where a lot of creative capital is being put on the line.

Yeah. When someone has free reign to make something. I mean, that's because that's what these movies are. These are self-financed. We should do a podcast called We Are Legend,

where we talk about legend. That's a really good title. But then can we also talk about I Am Legend? Because I think that movie's brilliant, too. Yeah, I think that's an interesting... Except it has a horrible ending. Wait, what? The Francis Lawrence movie, I Am Legend.

Have you ever seen I Am Legend? What movie? I Am Legend. What is that? You don't know that one? What is... I Am Legend. I Am Legend, yeah. I've never heard of this. Wait, really? Yeah. With Will Smith? what is that you don't know that one what is I I am legend I am legend yeah

I've never heard of this wait really yeah with Will Smith Will Smith I can't tell if he's doing a bit right now I can't tell

I can't tell JD's kind of sort of like we don't do bits on this show tough guy to read that's the thing we don't do bits on it

this is just serious this show is straight raw from the heart no I'm sorry guys I apologize I was doing a bit where I acted like I didn't know

a movie existed oh I see yeah see no we wouldn't do that. I wouldn't get that. Yeah, sorry. We try to work with our full intelligence, our full reference base. Remember the Shrek monologue in I Am Legend?

Yeah. When he just recites the scene from Shrek. Yeah, it's crazy. Okay, JD, that's funny, but please don't do that anymore on our show. Yeah, sorry. We don't appreciate that. Yeah, sorry. I won't do a bit where I act like a movie.

And you know what I really hate is those kind of like meta bits where you're like doing a bit about another bit. That's insufferable. That's like, that's why people hate modern comedy. Yeah. And like bits about bits about bits. Jesus Christ. It's just like the fucking levels to it.

And the worst thing is when white guys have some fucking podcast where they just like talk about movies all day. I know. You know what else? I hate it when like white 15 year olds think they can fix the racism of the world in a history paper. That's my least favorite thing in the world. Those people should actively be put to death.

The government should send out agents hunting for them. They should have been put to death at 15, but if they're still alive right now, maybe let them go. I think you can't forgive. Maybe they're going to see their other ways. Fun fact, whenever Griffin goes to the bathroom, he just mutters to himself that he solved racism.

I don't believe what I'm hearing. But we have a special guest. Continuing our streak I realized something. Every guest we've had on this season

is someone who was Who played trivia with us. Who played trivia with us. Is that true because we have Morgan we have Rachel I'm forgetting someone. JD.

JD, yeah. Yeah. And now Chase Mitchell. Chase Mitchell. Hello. Chase Mitchell, who's a writer for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. That's right. Television program.

He's a much more qualified person than either of us. He's got a gig. He's in our shitty little booth. There's no need to qualify what he does. I sit in this booth all day, David. Yeah, of course, but you're at least salaried. Anyway, hi, Chase.

Hey, how's it going? Thanks for having me in this tiny room. Oh, thanks for being here, Chase. Now, we have a lot to talk about with you. You're essentially closing this out. This is our last formal discussion about this movie. So what's left? What are the scraps that are left for us to talk about

fucking expanded universe bro oh man because we've torn this movie apart we've ripped it in half we've checked under the couch cushions

I never want to speak of this movie again I hate it so much I know I was so to think I was so pumped for this movie when we started it because I was so sick

of Phantom Menace I really soured on this one the first four weeks of this podcast I was defending this movie you were you used because I was so sick of Phantom Menace that I really soured on this one. The first four weeks of this podcast, I was defending this movie. You were. You used to be way more positive about it. That's a valiant defense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What were you saying? I don't even know what you're saying. He likes the first 20 minutes. Sorry. I don't even at this point. Right. At this point, I don't want to look at the first 20 minutes ever again.

I don't want to smell the first 20 minutes. Have you guys been watching it every week before you talk about it? Most weeks. Sometimes we just watch the parts that are relevant to what we're talking about. So we did like a romance episode and we did like a romance cut where we just watched. That was one of the great love stories of our time, I think. Yeah, that was

what we were positing. I was going to say it sounded like you correct yourself. I was going to say it's one of the greatest love stories of our taint. In addition to being one of the love stories of our time, it's one of the greatest love stories of our taint. In addition to being one of the love stories of our time, it's one of the great love stories of our communal taint. Yeah, it's really something. I don't know. It's rare to see such a compelling romance based entirely on sand feeling rough.

Skin feeling smooth. Yeah. Rolling around in a meadow. Yep. And other things that happened. You basically covered their whole romance. That's 90% of it. Not kissing.

There's a lot of not kissing. And a confessed slaughter of many women and children. That's what really seals the deal. It was not a deal breaker for her. No, it's a lot of oh and a confessed slaughter of many women and children that's what really seals the deal it was not a deal breaker no it's a deal maker yeah it was kind of a turn on she goes right for him

after that yeah up until that point she was like we can't we have to show discretion and then

two scenes later she's like I don't fucking care I love you yeah she's like I'll take you in this moisture robot moisture bath room that we're

in right now. Yeah riding a reek What is that? The reek is the giant the red horned. Okay the really uncompelling CGI creature that they. Oh in the final battle scene. Yes. Right with the yeah. You don't

find the CGI compelling in these films? Oh man it's just so not one frame of it stands up. Um, yeah, it's, it, it looks worse than the fully CG, uh,

Clone Wars series that they, that they did later on. I don't know about that one. Or do, have you heard of that one? No, I don't know. What are you,

there's a, that's that. I thought we were talking about expanded universe I don't know. What are you? There's a. That's that. I thought we were talking about Expanded Universe. That's true. We are talking about the Expanded Universe. Yeah, we're talking about Expanded Universe. We're talking about fan fiction. We're talking about deleted scenes.

The parameters of this podcast are very blurry. I never actually saw what you're talking about. Like, literally, I never actually saw it. Is it good? No. I mean, it was like to say, like Like literally, I never actually saw it. Is it good? No. I mean, it was like to say like, oh, who wants to dive back in for, you know, 11 more hours of what we just saw was bad. Well, that's what people have been doing every week on this podcast.

Yeah. 11 more hours. I just described what you guys have been doing. Who wants to dive back in? Our lives. You're describing our futile lives. I'm so glad that with tomorrow

with next week's episode it's finally over the long nightmare and then we just nothing more we'll find a new movie and a new franchise a one off

because here's the thing Chase as you know I'm sure right now you're racking your brain thinking of other movies you've seen and going was that part of the Phantom Menace franchise

like wondering if other things are sequels nope as far as we know there were two there were two. There were two movies, okay? No, no, but my point here is,

look, I didn't know that there was a Clone Wars animated series. That makes sense to me because obviously the third movie would have been the Clone Wars. Yeah, sure. All logical storytelling. Yeah, we've done that.

We've talked. Yeah, it should be the Clone Wars. Yeah. So if he didn't get to make the movie, I guess he... Yeah, maybe he does a little TV show. So many ideas, he does them as a TV show, follows it up, we'll have to look into that. Yeah, it should be the Clone Wars. So if he didn't get to make the movie, I guess he does a little TV show. So many ideas, he does them as a TV show, follows it up, we'll have to look into that.

Yeah, well, Jar Jar, he hasn't proposed it. He just functions as the absentee vote, right? I guess so. I thought he was the actual, like, proponent of the bill. Like, it's called, like, the Binks bill. The Binks crime bill. But he doesn't, like, make a speech.

That's what's disappointing, is that, like, Palpatine justine just goes like Jar Jar, of course, really into this bill. And Jar Jar just kind of like nods behind Palpatine. Like you want to see Jar Jar have his like Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What would that sound like? I think Jar Jar kind of like slowly scoots up in his like flying Santa pie. Yeah.

And he loosens the tie and he goes, Misa not a fancy goon again. Misa lives underwater my whole life. All Misa know is, it's a scary world out there. Much a doo-doo one can step in. If you don't have a friend you send real big doo-doo.

What better friend is there than a clone? And what good is one clone without an army behind him? And the music swallows. And he goes, I know what you said, thank you. I checked, like like my work like you know like while that was happening although the first line was really

funny it almost kind of sounded like a rap like you should do a Jar Jar rap he definitely should not do that yeah you're already in too much hot water come on Ben's indicating that I look over at his screen.

I'm going to move my head slowly over to my screen to see what he's talking about. You guys were talking about The Phantom Menace earlier on in the episode. And it brought back some memories of that movie. Remember the guy with the double lightsaber? Darth Maul. Yeah. What happened to that guy? We thought he was going to come back As a clone in this movie He did

We really did So I just I was like searching on the internet Dude There's a There's a third movie What? A third

What? A Darth Maul movie I'm looking at it right now What? Revenge of the Sith Came out in 2005 How much Star Wars?

How much do you think people can put up with us at this point that we're doing this again? Episode 3 Revenge. Wait, wait. There's a third movie? Revenge of the Sith? What? How can people take it seriously? That's a typo.

Oh, you think it's just two? I mean, it's Wikipedia. I'm not wearing my glasses. I can't see how many numerals there are. I don't know. I'm seeing three I's. There's three I's. Chase, have you heard of this movie,

episode three, Revenge of the Sith? No, and I refuse to acknowledge its existence. That's a wise move. For you, this film is Expanded Universe, episode three.

Click over there. Click on that one. Yeah, click. No, no, that's the one on the Wikipedia. Oh, sure, the IMDb. Who directed it? 2005.

It's George Lucas. George Lucas? Rated and directed by George Lucas. He fucking did it? Starring Hayden Christensen, George Lucas? Written and directed by George Lucas. He fucking did it? Starring Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, and Ewan McGregor. It's the same actors too, again. Those guys.

He fucking pulled it off. He did a full trilogy. Wow. He fully realized the ambition of this story. Wow. That's so crazy. Three movies. What everyone aims to do.

Three movies to cover one story. There's more Jimmy Smits. What? There's more Samuel L. Jackson. Smiths is fifth bill. No, he's sixth bill. I can't believe it. The Star Wars trilogy. Oh my god. This is incredible.

Crazy Bastard did it ten years ago. I thought we were gonna have to move on to PaulaCast. To PaulaCast? Our podcast about Paula, Robin Thicke's follow-up album to Blurred Lines. We are going to do that. Don't worry about it.

And Paula Poundstone. And Paula Poundstone. We might have to do Revenge of the Podcast. Oh, we're going to. We're going to do Revenge of the Podcast. How do you think this one's going to be? Oh, I, you know, I just am sure this is where he figured it all out. And he ties everything together.

The clones are going to make sense now. Yeah, now they're going to attack, finally. Yeah. On the poster, there's like a guy with like a black helmet. Must be a new character. Yeah, I've never seen that before. Okay, well well as always please remember to rate review and subscribe uh to close this out here is a super cut of our favorite

moments with dexter jetster okay so we get to this diner dexter jetster it resembles a sort of 50s americana iconography that we know. Then the next thing we see is the waitress. Uh, honey, sit where you'd like. She says honey, which is a kind of like, you know, colloquialism that we haven't heard. That's true. That's true. Everyone talks so formally in these films. Right.

But it's so jarring. Yeah, okay, so she's got the accent. We're going to spend 20, 40 minutes on this fucking diner scene before we get to the fucking clone. This might just be a diner episode. Ah, diner. It's a space movie, and we're in a 50s diner. Okay, I want to talk about that. She's a short order cook.

What is going on? Dexter Jester perhaps created a 50s culture. Yeah, right. He established it. In fact, what we identify as being the 50s culture was a throwback to what Dexter had done a long time ago in A Galaxy Far, Far Away. And she goes, Dex, sweetie, someone here to see you. He turns around. We see him. He's got the greasy shirt, big belly, mustache, wide smile. We're like, okay, here we go.

And then his voice comes out, and I cannot—I've now watched the movie maybe five times. I cannot place his accent. Who is the actor? I looked him up. He's like an Australian character actor. He hasn't done a lot. The voice is great.

I mean, he's got an amazing, like, robust. Great? It's okay. I'm not saying it's, well, once again, save it for the performance review. But I'm just saying that he does have this booming, powerful voice. Like, there's a lot of personality there. Ronald Falk. That's his name.

Oh, boy, Ronald Falk. God, fuck you so hard. He's like, oh, this dart, you know, it comes from a cammonia. Ronald Falk. That's his name. Oh, boy, Ronald Falk. I'd fuck you so hard. He's like, oh, this dart, you know, it comes from a camonium. Camino. Okay. Camino. Well, splitting hairs. Splitting mustache hairs. The whole planet does one thing. All it does is clone.

And he describes it as being, like, way off the map. Way off the map. Beyond the outer rim. Yeah. And, like, yeah, really, really, really secretive. Oh, this is a big detail he says he knows about it because he found it in his prospecting days he was a prospector okay oh dexter jetster he should get a spin-off for a tv show or a talk show well i mean he'd give a he'd do a great talk show but i i know i was gonna say why not do a fucking dexter jetster sitcom

in the traditional like Alice? God, let's just talk about Dexter Jetster again for a whole episode. No, no more mention of Dexter Jetster ever again. Okay. That's not true. We're definitely going to talk about it again. You kind of have a Dexter Jetster mustache right now. Because your mustache is quite thick.

Yeah. And sort of distractingly prominent as a result because it's thicker than the rest of your face hair. Well, and Dexter Jetster has that too, where he's got stubble on the rest, but the mustache is grown up. What is that? He's got a caterpillar on his fucking lips. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man, Dexter Jetster.

Oh, we talked a lot about the 50s Diner. I heard it. You were listening to that episode. We're going to do two more episodes just on the Dung. I swear to God. Ron Falk is Dexter Jesko. Oh, yeah. I mean, yes.

David. Yeah. Ben. Well, yeah. Of course. I know. This is a great performance. All right.

We talked about him for 45 minutes. We couldn't even figure out his voice. I mean, he's the one guy who seems to be doing a post-melting pot galaxy in which every culture is mashed together. He seems to have all. This is the best. This is the best which every culture is mashed together. He seems to have all... This is the best. This is the best. But this is my point. And then someone like Dexter Jetzer,

you know I love him. I think he looks like a PlayStation 1 cutscene. He does, he does. Dexter Jetzer does not lose it. Who is Dexter Jetzer? The Diner Runner. Yeah. I like the design of him a lot,

but the animation itself is just like... Ben liked that. It looks like a fucking PlayStation 1 game. Now, I don't know if you remember, Chase Dexter is the owner of Diner. Oh, how could I forget? Griffin's favorite character. Dex is a great pal of mine,

and we get along splendidly when I visit his restaurant. Of course, it's usually when the man I love, Quinlan Voss, has to go to Dex for information on his ridiculous quest to find this mysterious guy called a Sith Lord. But it's great to see Dex and his diner nevertheless. Perhaps what I like even more about Dex's diner, though, this is chapter three of it.

I skipped the first two because the first two aren't good. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. So to sum up, Dex has got great food and drink, too. And sometimes... You can talk about the food. ...likes to snitch... Is this a Yelp review?

It has a beautiful decor colored in the same color... What? This is boring as shit. Fine. You want me to pump it up? Yeah. Do you want me to pump it up? Yes.

I'm so glad there's no Dex-like sex fiction now. I thought that's what we were building. Me, too. I thought we were building that. I'll read a different story. He doesn't have forearms. I'll go to a different story. He's got a lot of stories.

It works very late nights. I got different... You guys think this is boring? I was trying to fucking go highbrow.